A Dark and Distant Shore (90 page)

Afterwards, Lord Cardigan, who had taken part in the charge, had ridden back with a few superficial wounds to his yacht in Balaclava harbour, partaken of dinner and a bottle of champagne and gone to bed. His superior officer and brother-in-law, Lord Lucan, had had a flaming row with the commander-in-chief, and then retired to brood in his tent. In the meantime, the dead and wounded were carried back from the silent valley under a flag of truce, while the farriers roamed the field and dispatched the survivors of the five hundred horses that had fallen in the charge. Gideon didn’t think he would ever forget the flat, melancholy, repetitive crack of their pistols.

It had been a good shooting season at Kinveil, too.

Desperate to sleep, but knowing that he wouldn’t, Gideon looked for the letters he had received from home that morning and only glanced at. It was a long time since he had received news from home. He had been with the allied armies for months now, first at Gallipoli, and then at Varna, and for the last six weeks in the Crimea. But the army authorities abominated newspaper correspondents – largely because of Billy Russell’s searing reports in
The Times
– and treated them with rather less consideration than they afforded the TGs, the ‘Travelling Gentlemen’ or tourists who turned up in a thin but inquisitive stream, hoping to fit a battle in between the Parthenon and Schönbrunn. It was a continuing headache trying to get one’s stories out, and incoming mail had to take its chances. The only advantage was that Billy couldn’t be pestered by Delane, nor Gideon by Fanshawe. Editors had to take it or leave it.

His fingers clumsy with cold, he drew the lamp towards him and trimmed its wick, and then turned it down a fraction. Already, it was difficult to find oil for it. He turned up the collar of his greatcoat and began to draw on his thick woollen gloves, but stripped them off again when he found they were still damp with caked mud. Then, shoulders hunched and hands sunk in his pockets, he gave his attention to the letter from Vilia.

Fifty brace of partridge to date, and two hundred of grouse, as well as a few Black Game and ptarmigan. And already we have a larderful of venison. A good shooting season, in fact, although some of our guests go stalking with a paintbrush rather than a rifle. Their style, however, is not that of Mr Landseer. Dear me, no, although I would be at a loss to tell you why. I fancy it may be because people actually pay
money
to buy his paintings, which means he cannot be a true artist.

How clever of you to guess that I am talking of Guy Savarin and his friends! We have always had rather small parties for the shooting, but I decided that this year something must be done. Even on the Black Sea you must be aware that your daughter and Juliana will be making their come-out in the spring, so that it now becomes urgent for them to learn how to be at ease with strangers. Sometimes I despair! While I have succeeded in teaching Lizzie how to appear remote and mysterious, instead of stupidly shy – my dear, how did you and Elinor contrive to produce such a retiring child? – I am still quite defeated by Juliana, who is thrown into the most complete state of nerves by people she doesn’t know. It seemed to me that Guy, who has been in London for some months now – an ardent disciple of Rossetti and Holman Hunt and their ‘brotherhood’ – might be the answer. He is, after all, family, and the girls met him once three years ago, if you remember.

Gideon remembered very well. That gruesome family party during the Exhibition when Vilia and Theo had been doing their best, with considerable success, to give Magnus a dislike of his potential heir, and Gideon himself had been too merry to do anything about it. Not that he’d have done much sober, either. He had always made it a principle not to interfere in what didn’t concern him. He frowned tiredly, wondering what Vilia’s real reason for inviting Guy to Kinveil had been.

It has not, alas, proved to be one of my happier inspirations. Magnus likes Guy no more than he did before, and certainly his somewhat fulsome attention to the girls might be described as ill-judged. However, I hope they are learning something from the experience.

Your brother, I may add, has done nothing to assist harmony in the home! Guy brought with him two friends, one who claims to be an artist and the other an art critic. When Lavinia arrived – she was in London for her first Season this year – it transpired that she was not only acquainted with the critic but madly in love with him. Unfortunately, Theo has struck up a close friendship with the young man, and they have become practically inseparable, which annoys Lavinia intensely. Theo, when I remonstrate with him, does no more than smile in that maddening way of his and say that Lavinia must learn that the world has not been created for her sole convenience. Heigh ho!

I need hardly say that we follow your reports in the
Times-Graphic
with the closest attention. Your Mr Fanshawe always displays them very prominently, which must afford you the greatest satisfaction. Write to us when you can, my dear. Magnus sends you his regards.

Gideon had learned a good deal about the world since that day in Mrs Berkley’s brothel so long ago, but Theo had guarded his privacy well, and, watching him when there were pretty women around, Gideon had persuaded himself that even if he continued to crave excitement, Theo’s tastes were still what society called ‘normal’. But tonight, depressed to his boots, he was incapable of turning a blind eye. Deep down, he had known for years. He only prayed that Theo, whose vanity should have been enough to save him from really serious involvement, hadn’t succumbed at last. So stupid, so dangerous. So unlike Theo to be careless. Damn him, he was forty years old and ought to know better. For the first time, Gideon wondered how much Vilia knew, but it took only a moment’s reflection to convince him that, however puzzled she might be by Theo’s continuing bachelorhood, she couldn’t have any idea of the truth. There was a universal male conspiracy to protect well-bred women from that kind of knowledge, and although Theo was closer to Vilia than anyone, Gideon didn’t think that even he would break the great unwritten law. Especially when to do so would be to reveal that he had needs, which in Theo’s book would be tantamount to admitting weakness. His attitude even to Gideon had been subtly different ever since the day of Mrs Berkley’s brothel; and that same day had seen a change in his relationship with Sorley. It was clear that he had hated Sorley knowing what he was up to, though he showed it only occasionally in references to ‘old family retainers; such a tiresome breed!’

Gideon sighed and turned to the other letters, one from Theo himself and one from Juliana. He didn’t know whether he wanted to read Theo’s. On the other hand, at least it was legible, which was more than could be said for Juliana’s dramatic scrawl.

In fact, Theo’s was no more than a note, enclosing a string of questions Jermyn wanted answered. There was no shadow of doubt that Jermyn was a born engineer, with a swift and penetrating vision and a mind as precise as one of Joseph Whitworth’s machine tools, and he was still devouringly interested in guns. Gideon was in the enviable position of being able to watch artillery in action, Jermyn said, and would oblige his nephew very much by taking particular note of how different guns functioned under the conditions for which they were intended. ‘The heat of battle must undoubtedly produce effects that are not apparent on Ordnance Factory test ranges. It is also my impression that the army is seriously hampered by the smallness of its field guns. I imagine that if an eighteen-pounder – what we now regard essentially as a siege gun – could be designed on more manoeuvrable lines, it would be of inestimable benefit on the field of battle. I do hope you can investigate these matters for me. Mama sends you her love, as do Father and Peregrine James, who has now quite made up his mind to a career in the law. Father is exceedingly disappointed that he is not coming in to the foundry, but you know what an obstinate little devil he is!’

Impossible, after the day just gone, to think of field guns purely as pieces of engineering. Gideon stared sightlessly at Jermyn’s letter for a long time before he laid it aside. All Theo’s covering note had said was, ‘Jermyn asks me to forward this to you. Kinveil is looking particularly handsome this autumn – as is our respected mama – and the guest list is a cut above the usual. Quite entertaining, on the whole. Take care of yourself, dear boy.’

Juliana’s letter was worse almost than Jermyn’s. Gideon was very fond of her, for she was a taking little thing, and he couldn’t imagine any red-blooded male capable of withstanding her pretty face and confiding ways. But she was such a child still, despite her seventeen years, her letters so girlishly irrelevant to everything outside her own experience. Half-way through reading he stopped and pulled on an extra pair of socks and found some dry gloves, and then, pouring himself some more brandy and hanging the lamp from a hook in the tent pole above his bed, lay down and forced himself to finish it.

Dearest Gideon – Vilia says she is too busy to write to you at any length, and that Lizzie would be bound to leave a great many things out, so I have been given the task of sending you all the gossip.

It must be dreadful in the Crimea! I read your article about the battle of the Alma and really felt quite sick. What a pity Jermyn can’t be with you. I am sure he would be in his element with great big guns booming all over the place! Are you
really
keeping up the family chronicle even there? Vilia says you are, but I should think it must be awfully difficult.

Nothing terribly important has happened, as a matter of fact. You know that Ian Barber married Isa Blair last year, and that her father didn’t approve at first because they were cousins. And Vilia said, nonsense, they were only step-cousins and no two young people could be better suited. Lizzie and I had great difficulty in smothering our giggles, because we knew what Vilia meant by
that.
But fortunately Edward thought she was paying them a compliment, so all was well. Anyway, they had a baby a few months ago, a daughter called – guess what! – Harriet, who is known as Etta to distinguish her from her grandmother.

Gaby Savarin was also married recently. Vilia was quite taken aback to discover that she knew the young man, and that he wasn’t young at all. Her eyes went that funny absent way they do sometimes, and then she said, ‘Marcabrun? Gracious, I met him in Paris in the ’30s, and it
must
be the same man. What age is Gaby – twenty-four, twenty-five? Then he’s a good twenty years older than she is. However, it sometimes works very well for a girl to marry a man considerably her senior.’ Theo was there, and he said, ‘If that is to my address, Vilia dear, I should forget it. My interest is not what it was.’ She looked awfully angry, but you know Theo. He just smiled. I have no idea what he meant, but perhaps you do.

Gideon didn’t, as it happened. He could only assume that Vilia thought she had found some suitable wife for Theo, and that he was resisting. Because of the art critic? He flicked his eyes down the page, full of conscientious detail about the estate, and Glenbraddan, and Petronella Barber’s visit to America to study the woman suffrage movement that had grown out of some meeting at Seneca Falls. Peter Barber, it seemed, was suffering painful illness and bearing it – as Juliana remarked unfeelingly – with the stoicism to be expected of a philosopher. Ian was girding his loins preparatory to embarking on a political campaign of the greatest social consequence; Juliana had to confess, regretfully, that she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

At last she had arrived at the Kinveil guest list. Even through his depression, Gideon was grateful not to be there. Such a collection of drearily respectable people, all distinguished in one way or another, and scarcely one of them under fifty. He was distantly acquainted with most of them. The art critic’s name, it appeared, was Dominic Harvey.

Lavinia had a very successful Season, but disappointed all the older members of the family by refusing several very flattering offers because she has given her heart to Mr Harvey. Lavinia says he will become very famous and distinguished some day. It is just that, now, he is forced to make his own way and cannot contemplate making an offer for her because he is quite unable to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed. She says she will wait for him – forever, if need be. I think it is truly romantic. If only I were sure that Mr Harvey is quite as much in love with her as she is with him! He does seem to neglect her, rather, and is forever out on the hill with Theo, who likes him very much. Indeed, he says he is surprised to find Lavinia has such good taste. Only funning, you understand! But Lavinia is upset, and it
is
trying, because it makes the numbers uneven. As well as Mr Harvey, you see, Guy brought up a very nice man called John Gaunt, one of these modern artists whose work does not immediately strike one as
very good,
but I’m sure it is really. He’s very big and comforting, and I’m not at all nervous of him any more. The thing is that Guy and Mr Harvey and Mr Gaunt
should
act as escorts to Lavinia, Lizzie and me, but of course with Mr Harvey always disappearing with Theo, we are left with one gentleman short.

Strictly between ourselves, I think that Vilia’s plans have gone awry. I am almost sure that she hoped Guy and I would become attached, which would have been very convenient in some ways. It would have saved me from facing the Season without having a single gentleman I know to turn to – an ordeal I positively
dread.
But it is
your daughter
who has captured Guy’s heart. I think perhaps I should tell you that he has captured hers, too. You don’t mind, do you? He is excessively handsome, you know, and so clever that Lizzie and I are perfectly in awe of him. He is trying to elevate our minds and souls so that we will understand true art, which I think shows great sensibility in him. Ian Barber says he has a sense of social purpose, which gives me a better opinion of Ian than I ever remember, considering he has no patience at all with artists.
Neither does Papa!
Indeed, I think if Guy and I had fallen in love, the family shotgun would have been unearthed from the closet and Guy dispatched back to London at the greatest possible speed! But in Lizzie’s case he doesn’t feel compelled to interfere, thank goodness. I’m just worried that Vilia might. Because Lizzie is really smitten! Anyway, I think she will probably write to you quite soon and tell you all about it. Much love from us both, dearest Gideon.