The Touch (34 page)

“The pity of your going to school in England, Lee,” Ruby was saying, “is that you have no friends your own age in Kinross, so I’m afraid your eighteenth birthday party will consist of boring old women like Elizabeth and me. We could always invite the C of E minister, and of course the mayor will come—he’s Sung.”

“I really don’t need a birthday party, Mum.”

“No one needs a birthday party, but that doesn’t alter the fact that you’re going to have one.” Ruby looked impish. “A pity you didn’t bring your bird of paradise with you.”

Elizabeth looked puzzled. “Bird of paradise?”

“Nell, don’t fiddle with your food. Push off outside.”

Nell went, casting Ruby a look of burning reproach.

“A bird of paradise,” said Lee as soon as Nell disappeared, “is a lady of more allure than virtue. I have one in England.”

“My! You Costevans start early!” said Elizabeth bitingly.

“At least we Costevans aren’t dried up!” Lee snapped.

Elizabeth rose to her feet with a face like flint. “I must go home.” And out she marched, calling for Jade.

Lee stared at his mother, one brow raised. “I finally got a reaction out of Madame Glacier,” he said, still looking annoyed.

“It was my fault, I shouldn’t have brought the subject up. Oh, Lee, I wasn’t cut out to associate with proper people!” Ruby cried. “All I want is to liven up that poor, squeezed-up girl’s hideously monotonous life! Usually she finds my vulgarity highly amusing, even when I shock her. But apparently not today.”

“I’m the difference, Mum. For some reason Elizabeth doesn’t like me.” He hunched his shoulders. “Still, I wasn’t going to let her get away with that slur on you. Evidently no one’s taught her that if you give it, you’d better be prepared to take it too.”

“Oh, Lee, I so hoped you and she would get along!” Ruby’s hands clutched at his arm. “I think we ought to apologize.”

His eyes went frighteningly icy. “I’d sooner die!” he said savagely, got to his feet and stalked out.

Ruby sat amid the ruins of the first course, elbows on the table, her face between her hands, and scowled at her plate. No birthday party, so much was sure.

Changed into dungarees and an old shirt, Lee went down to the locomotive shed, deserted on a Sunday, and found one of the iron horses partially dismantled. He could see what the trouble was, and worked off his spleen by fixing it. Only hours later did he realize that he hadn’t exploded his dynamite. Now that Elizabeth had broken off even diplomatic relations with the awful Costevans, how was he going to achieve Alexander’s ends?

THERE WAS not much to choose between Elizabeth’s degree of offended anger, and Nell’s. The family went back to Kinross House in a thunderous silence broken only by Anna, who kept saying that arrogant stripling’s name over and over, “Lee! Lee!” until Nell, less inhibited than her mother, finally shouted at Anna to shut up. A phrase the child recognized because of its emotional load; she began to howl instead.

Well, I asked for it, Elizabeth fulminated, mixing with that lot down at the Kinross Hotel. Ruby is enough in and of herself, I don’t need another smutty clown in her precious son. All that education, all that upper-crust manner, and the best he can do is insult me. I suppose he’s aware that Alexander and I don’t sleep together, but how dare he imply that I’m dried up? Finished, on the shelf, no wife anymore—him and his birds of paradise!

She was still stewing when Nell asked in a small voice, “Am I conceited, Mum?”

“Yes! Abominably so! You’re a bigger braggart than your father, and God knows he’s conceited enough for a hundred!”

More howls; Nell ran ahead, stormed up the stairs to her room and slammed its door in Butterfly Wing’s face. Which left Elizabeth, freed from Jade and Anna, to go to her own rooms and weep. When the tears ceased to flow, there he was back in her mind, standing on the rock above The Pool. He has ruined it for me, she thought miserably. I can never go back there again.

That night two lights burned, one in Ruby’s bedroom at the hotel, one in Elizabeth’s bedroom at the house; both women paced up and down, up and down, sleep impossible. Tired out from his labors, Lee slept as if dead, no dreams of Elizabeth to plague him. His path was already chosen: from now until his return to England, he wouldn’t go near Alexander’s wife for any reason.

Further to this, in the morning he kissed his mother goodbye and set off on horseback for Dunleigh and the Dewys, who were dying to meet him. Ruby elected to follow in a carriage; she would celebrate his birthday at Dunleigh. Henrietta was just a trifle older than Lee and had met no one who tempted her. Who knows? asked Ruby of herself. They might take to each other. I don’t think the Dewys would object.

But it was Alexander and Sophia all over again. Henrietta was enormously attracted to Lee, who didn’t even notice her.

“Oh, what is it with children?” Ruby demanded of Constance.

“In a nutshell, that they are not us, Ruby. However, it is not Henrietta and Lee bothering you, so what is it?”

“Lee and Elizabeth have decided to dislike each other.”

“Hmmm” was Constance’s comment on that piece of news.

She set out to fish with the most subtle of baits in Lee’s waters, and by dint of roundabout questions and the interpretation of roundabout answers soon learned that he liked Elizabeth far too much. Therefore, deduced Constance, it was equally possible that Elizabeth liked Lee far too much. As they were both honorable people, they had—entirely unconsciously, Constance was sure—manufactured a quarrel that would keep them apart. You’re luckier than you know, Alexander, she thought.

SO LEE’S two and a half months at home were spent elsewhere than in Kinross. With an ecstatic Ruby in tow, he oscillated between Dunleigh and Sydney—parties, the theater, operas, balls, receptions, flocks of young women eager to have him stay in Sydney, or invite him to Daddy’s property in the country. Using his mother as his chaperone, he threw himself into gaiety and nonsense without, it seemed to her, a care in the world. Any of half a dozen girls dreamed that it was she he was interested in, but he was too clever to be trapped. With young men he wasn’t nearly as popular until one, just a little the worse for drink, invited him outside to take the hiding of his life. Lee went, and demonstrated that Proctor’s might have been a toffee-nosed school for swells, but its pupils were adept at defending themselves with their fists. Not that Lee confined his tactics to his fists when his opponent played dirty; he had learned a few tricks from the Chinese as well. After that, he was considered a capital chap, pigtail and all. Rumor said that he was, besides, Alexander Kinross’s major heir in the absence of Kinross sons.

IT SEEMED to end so suddenly. One moment the weeks were crowded with social commitments, the next it was time for him to sail. That meant a return to Kinross couldn’t be avoided. And there was the matter of a charge of dynamite, still unexploded. In the end he decided to split its effect into two smaller blasts: tell his mother first, and then seek an interview with Elizabeth to tell her separately.

“Mum, I’m under orders from Alexander to deliver a message,” he said, drawing a breath. “Next February you’re to sail for England with Elizabeth, Nell and Anna.”

“Lee!”

“I know it’s a shock, but if you don’t go, Alexander won’t be pleased. He wants to show you Great Britain and Europe before he comes home.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” The delight faded from her face. “But what will Elizabeth say? Our friendship is quite ruined, Lee.”

“Nonsense! I’m the fly in Elizabeth’s ointment, not you, and I won’t be there. I’ll be up at Cambridge, far too busy to entertain Alexander’s entire ménage. Just you, Mum, whenever you can find the time to visit me.”

“Does Elizabeth know yet?”

“No, I’m off to tell her now.” He looked wry. “And mend my fences if I can. Once she realizes that she won’t see anything of me, I’m sure she’ll be entranced at the idea.”

He went to see her clad in old working clothes, stood in the portico with his battered hat in his hand and asked Mrs. Surtees if Mrs. Kinross could spare a moment to see him in the garden. The housekeeper stared at him oddly, but nodded and trotted away; he retreated to the rose beds, each plant pruned and bare.

“Roses do well at this altitude—it’s cooler,” he said when Elizabeth appeared looking wary.

“Yes. They’ll bud soon. Spring comes early in Australia.”

“A very short winter compared to Scottish Kinross.”

“I’d rather say, no winter at all.”

This is not good, he thought, despairing; we can’t spend the time talking about the seasons. So he smiled at her, well aware of the effect his smile had on females of all ages. To find that all it did to Elizabeth was poker her up even more. Lord, how did one reach her?

“How are you?” he asked.

“Very well. Kinross has seen little of you and Ruby.”

“Selfish of me to steal my mother from you, but she needed a respite from the same old round.”

“I daresay we all do.”

“Including you?”

“I daresay.”

He took the plunge. “Then I come bearing good tidings. A message from Alexander, actually. Next February he wants you, Nell, Anna and my mother to sail for England. A respite.”

This time the creature looked out of her eyes in a panic so great that he fancied she mentally blundered into one wall, then another, caroming off them without caring how badly she injured herself. But when he moved to support her, she backed away as if he intended to murder her.

“No, no, no, no!” she cried, quiet screams.

Confused, at a loss, he stood staring at her as at a stranger. “Is it me?” he asked. “Is it me, Elizabeth? If it is, there’s no need for this. I won’t be with you, I’ll be up at Cambridge with my—with my bird of paradise. You’ll never see me, I swear it!” He wept the words, brokenhearted.

She had covered her face with her hands and spoke through them. “It has nothing to do with you. Nothing!”

Dashing his tears away, he took one step toward her, stopped. “If it isn’t me, then why? Why, Elizabeth?”

“There is no why.”

“That’s rubbish, of course there’s a why! Tell me, please.”

“You’re a boy. You’re nothing to me, nothing!” Down came the hands to reveal stony eyes. “There is no why that you could understand. Just tell Alexander that I can’t. I won’t, I won’t!”

“Come, sit down before you fall down.” Summoning up more courage than he ever knew he had, he took her shoulders between his hands and forced her to the grass—oh, she felt so thin, so frail! Curiously, she made no attempt to wrest herself away from his grasp, even leaned into it until he could smell her—jasmine and gardenia, but faint, not overpowering. His hands fell, he folded himself, cross-legged, near her but not too near.

“I know I’m only a boy. I know I’m nothing to you. But I’m old enough to have a man’s feelings. You have to tell me why—if you do, I can mend your fences as well as my own. Is it the children? The hardship of bringing them to a new place when Anna is such a trouble?” When she didn’t answer, he hurried on. “It will be easy, I promise. Alexander intends that five of the Wong sisters should go with you as well as Butterfly Wing. He’s reserved a whole deck of staterooms for you on the ship—you’ll travel in the lap of luxury. When you reach London, you’ll live in a huge house he’s rented on Park Lane right opposite the park gates. It has stables, riding hacks, carriages and horses, a resident staff from butler to skivvies. The lap of luxury!”

Still she said not a word, just stared at him as if at a stranger who wasn’t a stranger—how could that be?

“My mother, then? Is it my mother? I give you my word that Alexander won’t embarrass you with my mother. She’ll be your best friend to everyone you meet, traveling with you for company because of the children. It won’t be like Sydney, he’s sworn to be the soul of discretion. So if it’s my mother, don’t worry.”

Her face didn’t change as he ran down, desperate to find a magic fact that would persuade her to go.

“I don’t want to go!” she said between her teeth, for all the world as if she had read his mind.

“That’s silly. You need a holiday, Elizabeth. Imagine the people you’ll meet! The Queen is old and tired, but the Prince of Wales is very much the center of good society, and Alexander knows him quite well already.”

Silence. Lee ploughed on. “You’ll visit the Lake District, Cornwall and Dorset—Scotland and Kinross if you want. You’ll see Paris and Rome, Siena, Venice, Florence—castles in Spain and Saracen fortresses in the Balkans. Cruise the Greek islands, go to Capri and Sorrento. Malta. Egypt.”

Still she sat voiceless, staring at him in that odd way.

“If you won’t do it for Alexander,” he said, “then do it for my mother. Please, Elizabeth, please!”

“Oh,” she said wearily, “I know I have to go. It came as a shock, that’s all. If I didn’t go, it would only make matters much worse. After all, I can’t run away. I have two children. One of them would like living without me, but the other couldn’t. I have to please Alexander however I can.”

Was it that bad between her and Alexander? Of course he has my mother, whereas Elizabeth has nobody save her children.

“Is it that you don’t love him?” Lee asked.

“That is a part of it.”

“If you’re in need of a friend, I’m here.”

More quickly than an anemone, she withdrew; he could see the ice form in her eyes, on her face. So cold!

“Thank you,” she said colorlessly, “but I don’t need that.”

He got to his feet and extended his hands to her, but she ignored them, rose unassisted.

“I’ll be all right now,” she said.

“Does that mean I’m at least forgiven for my rudeness?”

The ice melted briefly; she smiled with genuine feeling that lit up her eyes. “I have nothing to forgive you for, Lee.”

“May I take you back to the house?”

“No, I’d rather be alone.”

And she turned and walked away.

I will carry that smile with me all of my days.

TO HIS MOTHER he simply said, “Elizabeth will sail with you in February. She wasn’t enthralled at the idea, but I gather that she’s happier when Alexander isn’t with her.”