Diamonds & Deceit (16 page)

The wind rushed into Rose’s face, her veil fluttering with light and speed. The duke drove fast but well, steering the motorcar through the London streets. The sun turned the Thames to diamonds and glittered across the windows of the grand houses.

“Where are we going?” Rose called over the noise of the engine.

“Away from here.” He grinned. “I promise you one thing, and that’s better pictures than the Royal Academy.”

He pressed the accelerator and excitement fizzed inside Rose like the bubbles in champagne. Before them were the open road and the fields. She knew she should be sensible, should make him take them back to London and safety. But was it really safety? How safe was a prison? Do I want a life like Ada’s, she wondered, in which even my heart is not my own?

She clutched the edge of her seat, listening as he half spoke, half shouted, over the noise of the engine, gesturing out at the crowds that hurried home among the grand houses.

“See there—a city of seven million people. A few hundred of them act as if the rest didn’t exist. They’re like dreamers, wandering around in their own airy delusions. They don’t even see themselves, let alone the rest of the world. Sleepwalkers, that’s what I call them.”

“Or castaways, that’s how I feel,” she replied. “Walking round the edge of my tiny island, looking out on the flat unchanging sea.”

“Why don’t you build a boat and sail away?”

“I try, but as soon as I’ve got a few planks together my maid interrupts to talk about dresses, or the butler announces luncheon, or Lady Such-and-Such arrives and I have to make polite conversation with her.”

“A busy desert island.”

She laughed. “Yes, and a most fashionably decorated one, with all the modern conveniences. And it’s got its own tides, you know. As soon as you set out they drag you away, to dress fittings, shopping expeditions, balls, parties, Saturday-to-Mondays.…”

“Hateful, isn’t it?” He flashed her a knowing glance. “It’s a merry-go-round, and all the horses are the same, and the music never changes.… I dance with the same girls every season and all of them I’ve known from the nursery, and all of them are so perfectly predictable. Debutantes pressed out of the same mold, and not one of them has a laugh that’s real. That’s why I went away, to shake myself free.”

“And did you find freedom?”

Alexander was quiet for a moment, running a hand along the smooth leather of the motorcar gear. “Can you feel it? The speed, the power? Nothing can hold us back, we can’t be trapped by the confines of our parents’ generation. Tell me, how can you ride a motorcar, feel that powerful heart beating, how can you feel London shudder and breathe with the rhythm of the trains hurtling through it, the very air split and conquered by aeroplanes, how can you feel all that, and be content to be led into dinner at a sedate pace in precise order of precedence? How can you dream beside the river as if nothing had changed, as if everything were going to go on forever and ever and ever the same?”

Rose found herself breathless. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

“We are changing and we can’t stop ourselves. We’re going somewhere, Rose, all of us, and I want to know where. The future has to be better than the past, hasn’t it?” He looked at her, and suddenly said: “I am so glad we’re on the same journey, Rose.”

She laughed in confusion, startled by his sudden, almost drunken happiness.

“You’ve no idea what a breath of fresh air you are.” His gaze traveled over her. “I have never met a woman like you before.”

Rose smiled, and felt her face warm. To hide her confusion she looked out at the streets. They were leaving the houses behind as fields unfolded like green banners, the hedges dazzling her eyes with the sunlight gleaming from their green leaves.

“But where are we really going?”

“Cornwall.”

“Cornwall?”

“Mont Pleasance. It’s as close to the wilderness as we can get in a day. We spent every winter there, when the cold of the Highlands became too much to bear. The second duke built it for his bride.” He added, with the irony she had come to associate with him, “So there has been at least one happy marriage in my family, it seems.”

Rose was sure she should ask more questions. Cornwall seemed a long way away, a place she had only heard of in legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. Surely she should be protesting, she should be afraid, conscious of the danger to her reputation. But somehow she did not want to. She didn’t feel afraid, she realized to her surprise. She didn’t feel anxious. Being here, with Alexander, now, felt right. More right than anything had in a long time.

She relaxed into the leather seat. The countryside blurred past, sun and golden fields mingled with the constant roar of the engine. A weight of worry seemed to melt away like an iceberg vanishing. The sound of the engine was lulling her, and Alexander’s presence was warm and reassuring by her side. She slipped into a dream, a dream in which she was at the prow of a boat, rushing forward through a dark sea, onward to an unknown destination. But she did not feel afraid, because Alexander was right beside her.

The silence woke her. She gasped in sudden fright. “Where are we?”

“It’s all right.” Alexander’s voice steadied her. “We’ve arrived.”

Rose struggled to sit up. The wind had half destroyed her hat, and her hair was tangled beneath it.

“Oh dear,” she murmured as she tried to rescue her hat. Then she saw where they were, and all thoughts of her appearance vanished.

They were on a rocky rise above woodland, and below her she could see the stark, rugged shape of a castle. It perched upon the rock like a sea eagle. A winding path led down to it. And behind it, glittering, moving, constantly dancing…

“Is that the sea?” she asked.

He looked at her in surprise. “You’ve never seen the sea before?”

“No. Somerton is not near the coast.” It was enormous, she thought, huger than she had ever dreamed. The pictures at Somerton did not do it justice.

“I suppose not. Well, what do you think of it?”

“I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She added, “And listen—listen to it!” She smiled in wonder and delight as she realized the constant rushing and roaring was the sound of all the waves breaking upon the beach. As if that sound had opened her ears to others, she realized that she could hear through it the gentle rustle of grass, the sweet and shrill birdsong. Above the sea, gulls circled, crying like children. And behind it all, like the white canvas of a painting, was silence.

“What a beautiful place,” she exclaimed. “And oh—what is the castle?”

“That’s Mont Pleasance,” Alexander said. “We can only reach it by foot from here. It was built to be secluded—apart from the world.”

Rose gazed at it. The castle was beautiful, as beautiful as Somerton, but utterly different. There was nothing elegant about it, nothing tame. It had the beauty of an uncut diamond.

“I forget that there is so much for you to discover,” he said. He smiled down at her. “I’m glad that you first saw the sea with me.”

“
Because
of you,” she replied. “It’s a beautiful gift. Thank you.” His eyes glittered as he gazed back at her. “You are so lucky to have this as your home.”

A shadow seemed to cross his face. “Let’s go,” he said. He climbed out of the motorcar and came round to help her down.

She glanced at him as they walked down the winding path toward the castle. Alexander had not sounded proud of his home. He gave no sign of pleasure in being there as they walked under the stone arch, into the embrace of the courtyard.

Closer up, Rose could see that the castle was falling into decay. The clustered turrets were entwined with ivy. She could hear the crashing of the waves below. Espaliered fruit trees that had once grown against the sunny walls had been allowed to run wild and she caught the smell of apples crushed into the grass. “Is there no one else here? No servants?” The castle felt so far away from everywhere else. It was almost as if the outside world had vanished.

Before Alexander could answer, a man came out of the front door. Rose just had time to see he was bearded and dressed in a smock-like garment splashed with an eye-watering combination of paints, before he waved and shouted in a French accent. “Alex! At last. You must tell me if this orange is too clean.”

“Your colors are never clean,” Alexander retorted with a grin. He took Rose’s hand and led her across the courtyard. Feeling both terrified and elated, Rose followed Alexander and the Frenchman inside. She gasped and stood still, gazing around her in amazement.

A great wooden staircase swept up in two flights to a landing above, and on the walls hung vivid, powerful abstract canvases. The heads of boar and stag hung crazily among them in a strange clash of ancient and modern. On the walls hung swords arrayed in fan shapes, and classical statues lined the hallway, intermingled with extraordinary metal objects that seemed ripped from the heart of a steamship or an aeroplane. With the sunlight coming through the stained-glass window above the stairs and glowing from the wooden banister, it all combined to make the most original impression that Rose had ever seen. It was like looking into a different universe. And then one of the statues, dressed in a Grecian tunic, turned and stepped down from her pedestal.

“Are you no longer painting me, darling?” she asked the Frenchman. “I must have a cigarette then.” She did not even glance at Rose. Neither she nor the artist took the slightest notice of Rose, and to Rose’s surprise this did not annoy her. In fact, it was welcome. No one was staring, no one was listening. Rose was simply accepted, as natural a presence as the light. The French artist and his model wandered away, chatting and sharing a cigarette. Alexander led Rose up the stairs. She glanced into room after room. In some, she saw easels set up. A gray-haired, bespectacled woman in canary-yellow stockings sat at a window and typed furiously without looking up. Rose heard an opera singer’s voice floating down like strands of gold from an upstairs window.

“I don’t understand.” Rose was breathless, both from the astonishing sights all around her and from trying to keep up with Alexander’s fast pace. “Who are those people? Do they live here?”

“They do, for as long as they wish to. They’re like me—they just want to paint, or sculpt, or write. And in Paris, they starve and live in hovels. I brought them all here, let them live as they want, work freely. I want the place to be somewhere that people can do something worth doing.”

Rose looked at him in disbelief. It was impossible to imagine Somerton thrown open in the same way. “But this is your home. You are very generous to open it up like this.”

“No, no,” he said wearily. “I have to let in the light somehow.”

She wanted to ask him what he meant, but he forestalled her, pushing open the great doors to a long gallery. It was still decorated in the heavy Victorian style, but the windows had been thrown open to the view of the sunlit sea. He led her down the room, past portrait after portrait.

“Are those the ancestors?” She looked up at the grim faces, from the days of armor, wigs, and ermine. The great swords that hung on the walls like guillotine blades seemed soft next to them.

“Yes. Cheerful lot, aren’t they?”

Rose followed Alexander down the echoing stone hall. The last portrait had been taken down and a bare space on the wall showed where it had hung. Rose looked curiously after him, but he didn’t pause, only strode on.

Room after room was filled with canvases, electric and powerful, propped here and there as if they had been done in a great hurry and forgotten about as soon as painted.

“It’s wonderful, it’s so wonderful,” Rose could do nothing but repeat the words. “I didn’t think a place like this existed.”

“I knew it didn’t. That’s why I created it.” He looked around him. “It’s the place I wanted it to be when I was growing up here. People like Vincent, and Marlene… They can work here.”

“It’s the most wonderful idea. I’ve never seen anything so perfect.” She realized how much she would love to live here, far away from London society, free as the seagulls.

Alexander turned a warm smile to her. “I’m glad you like it. I would want my wife to help me in this work.”

And he walked away. Rose stood, stunned. Was that a proposal? she asked herself. Unable to think of a response, she followed him.

I should challenge him, she thought, a little angry. But she hadn’t the courage to. She was afraid of breaking the fragile spell that seemed to allow them to be together. If she stopped and thought, she would remember how impossible it was for her to be here, what dreadful trouble she would be in if she was found out. She didn’t want to think of that. I have till midnight, she thought, and I am going to dance my heart out.

“Come, let’s look at the sea. It’s the best view in Cornwall.”

He caught her hand and ran with her along the hall, threw open a door, and they stepped out onto the battlements. The wind ruffled his curls as he turned to the sea. Rose, watching him, had a strange thrill of thinking that he might have been his ancestor from a hundred years before.

It was beautiful, the rocks and coves, the light glinting from the sea, the white sails of yachts on the horizon. Seagulls keening as they balanced on the wind. And the rocky maze of a garden, leading down to the sea. She breathed in the fresh, wild air. Still she rolled Alexander’s strange words over in her mind. A proposal? Or just a careless comment? Perhaps I simply imagined it, she thought. Or misheard. She groped for words, anything to break the silence.