The Black Opal (36 page)

I looked at him steadily and said: “You had better say exactly what you mean.”

“I want to marry you.”

I felt a lifting of my spirits. I had not felt like this since that terrible night when they had put me in the lifeboat, leaving Toby behind. I knew that part of me wanted this and that I felt for Lucian what I would never feel for James or Lawrence. I liked them both very much, of course. 1 enjoyed their society, but my feelings for Lucian were different. There was an excitement for me in his company. With James or Lawrence I knew exactly what to expect, but there was something in Lucian which mystified me. I felt there was something secret he was keeping from me.

It was because of this that I hesitated and he was immediately aware of my hesitation.

“You don’t like the idea?” he said.

“No, no, no. It is not that I am not very fond of you, Lucian.”

“That sounds like the classic refusal.

“I am very fond of you, but…” Carmel, tell me quickly. There is a “but” , isn’t there? “

“I will say what I intended. I am very fond of you, but…”

“Ah,” he said.

“There it comes.”

“It is just that I am unsure. So much has happened. I do care for you very much. You were the hero of my childhood. You must understand. I hope we shall continue to see each other as we have been doing. They have been very happy times for me, but we have to know more of each other. You see, it was for me a very particular childhood friendship, but we have both changed since then. So much has happened to us … both. Important things. They have had their effect on us.

That is what I mean. I do care for you, but there are times when I feel I do not know you as I should someone with whom I propose to spend my whole life. “

“You are thinking of my marriage.”

“I think that might have something to do with it.”

“I will tell you exactly what happened. I can understand your feelings, of course. It is the whole set-up in the house, isn’t it?

The wife who died so soon after the marriage, the child, that old ghoul of a nurse. I will tell you everything. I intended to. In fact, I have come near doing so on several occasions, but I am afraid that, like most people, if something is unpleasant, I try to forget it and deceive myself into thinking that it is all past and forgotten. It happened quickly. There was a sort of gathering . those of us who had been at university together. It was a grand weekend party. There were several girls with us. Laura was one of them.

“I had met her once or twice before. She was very young and pretty, in a rather artless way which had an appeal. We had all drunk more than we should. I suppose I felt I must be like the rest… sophisticated, worldly. You know what young men are like. I make no excuses for myself. 1

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must be like the rest. Later, one realizes that in one foolish moment things can happen which will affect one’s whole life. Let me hasten over that act of folly. Some time after, she came to me in great distress. She was pregnant. Wha’t was she to do? She said her father would never forgive her. He had given her a London season in the hope that she would make a good marriage. There was only one course open to her. She was going to kill herself. “

I looked at him in horror and he went on: “I did not know then that that was the way she talked. I believed her. She was so small and helpless.” He looked at me steadily.

“Imagine what it would be like to be responsible for some one’s death. It would be something you would have to live with for the rest of your life. How would you feel about that, Carmel?”

“It would be unendurable.”

“It did occur to me that I might not be responsible. In fact, I had a very strong conviction that that might be the case. But she was so certain, so determined that if I did not marry her there was only the one course open to her. I could not have that on my conscience as well as …”

“So you married her.”

He nodded.

“It was a speedy wedding. Her father was agreeable. He said that he had the brass and all Laura needed was a good handle to her name. He would have liked a grand wedding, but he had to be contented with what we could have in such circumstances. Well, the rest was inevitable. I suppose I discovered that the child could not have been mine, and that she had tricked me into marrying her. Her father would never have allowed her to marry her lover so she had chosen me to help her out of her dilemma. There was only one good piece of luck in the affair. The child was a girl. I should have felt very guilty about foisting someone else’s bastard on the family.”

“Lucian, I am so sorry for you. You must have suffered a good deal.”

“You can imagine it, can’t you, Carmel? The wretchedness, the frustration. And she brought Jemima Cray with her, that woman who had been her nurse and, as some nurses do, stayed with her to be her constant companion and confidante. She knew of Laura’s secret liaison with the father of the child. He was some distant connection of hers, I discovered. She had hoped Laura’s father would relent when he knew there was to be a child, but he had done no such thing. He wanted to be rid of the child and he would have had it adopted as soon as it was born and the matter kept a secret. Then Laura saw the chance … and, like a fool, I was duped. The father was agreeable that she should marry me and all would be forgiven.

“I don’t suppose it is the first time this sort of thing has happened.

It is in a way funny, like a comedy in which I play the part of the fool who is easily taken in. “

“And it was only after you married that you discovered all this.”

“Yes. She was going to pass off the child as prematurely born, but I learned the truth. I will tell you how. Laura developed a terrible fear of childbirth. I think her conscience may have troubled her. When people have wronged someone, they often hate them for reminding them, by their very presence, of their own perfidy. At least, I think that was how it may have been with Laura. She was unbalanced and this fear became an obsession. She was convinced she was going to die. Sometimes she would be overcome by hysteria. It was in one of these moods that she admitted to me that I was not the father of her child, that I had been completely taken in. How clever she had been to plan it, and how foolish I had been. Although by that time I had begun to guess something of this, I was deeply shocked. 1 hated her and 1 told her so. Jemima, of course, was close at hand, ear at keyhole. Laura shouted, ” I shall die. I know 1 shall die. ” And I said, ” Well, that will be a good solution to the affair. ” Jemima hated me. I am sure she believed

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that if I had not married her, Laura’s father might have relented and she would have been allowed to marry this connection of hers. I am sure she had set her heart on that. She hinted that I had made Laura bear this child, knowing that she was not strong enough to have children, and it was all for the sake of the family. It was absolute nonsense and she knew it. She even hinted that I was responsible for Laura’s death. “

I said: “There is one thing you should do without delay, and that is get rid of Jemima.”

“She looks after the child.”

“Bridget is a normal little girl. You can’t let that woman bring her up.”

“The child would grieve if she went.”

I thought she might as no one in the house seemed to pay much attention to her apart from Jemima.

“You see, I am telling you all this because you thought I had changed.

Do you wonder? “

“No. Life leaves its mark. We all suffer in our different ways.”

“I can imagine what that shipwreck did to you … and losing your father.”

“It is something which I shall never forget.”

“As I this. Carmel, I have thought more often of it since you have been back. Life seemed to change when we lunched in the Bald-Faced Stag after all those years. I saw a way out… with you. I thought:

Len Cherry is an excellent manager. He could run this estate without me. I’d get a new and experienced man to help him. And I would get away from the place. In Cumberland there is a small estate which belongs to the family and I could enlarge that and start afresh. I’d like to put everything that happened behind me. “

“What of your mother? What would she think? What of Bridget?”

“My mother would come with us.”

“She would never leave the Grange.”

“I think she would understand.”

“It’s a wild dream, Lucian. You could never leave the Grange. Think of all the years your family has lived there. There must have been troubles before. People grow away from them. Your wife is dead. I know you were unhappy, but nothing can be changed. She deceived you and she was unhappy. You both were. If she had married her lover and lost her inheritance, she might have been happy. It was her decision not yours. You were the victim. You can’t run away. You would despise yourself if you did. Besides, it wouldn’t work. You should take an interest in the child. She has no mother. And where is her father? She will ask questions when she grows up. I know what it means to be without parents. I spent the early years of my life believing that I was not wanted. Don’t let that happen to Bridget. But I am convinced that Jemima Cray should go.”

“I see how you would take care of these things,” he said, looking at me appealingly. He had certainly changed from the invincible Lucian of my childhood, and that had been the one I had loved.

“Now you know it all, Carmel,” he said, “I hope you don’t despise me.”

“I could never do that.”

“And you don’t reject me altogether?”

“Of course I don’t.”

“Does that mean that there is hope for me?”

“It means that there is hope for us both.”

1 was deeply affected by Lucian’s confession.

He had seemed so vulnerable, sitting opposite me making his pitiable confession.

He had been foolish. Who had not been at such a time? I could see exactly how it had all happened, and how he despised himself for being so gullible and how it had

2. changed him from a young man of pride and confidence into a bitter one with little regard for himself.

The hero had feet of clay and, oddly enough, that increased my tenderness for him. I believed I could love the weak man perhaps even more than the all-conquering hero.

I wanted to see more of him. I would take him to Castle Folly. He should know Rosaleen and Harriman and they should know him.

I was sure Rosaleen had chosen him as the man I should marry. And myself ? I did love him. I had been convinced of that when he had told me frankly what had happened, and yet I still felt that there was something more I had to learn, that he was holding back even more than he told.

He had talked so earnestly, so sincerely. He had been weak, certainly, but his weakness had grown out of his compassion for Laura, and a desire to do what was right. He had not loved her, and I fancied that, from the first, there were doubts as to whether the child was his, but when she threatened to kill herself, he could not endure the possibility that he might be responsible for her death.

And now his life was in disorder and he was calling to me to help him.

There were moments when I contemplated going to him and saying, “Yes, Lucian, let us marry. Let us make the Grange a happy house, a home for Bridget, and send Jemima away.” And then I would hesitate. I did not know everything. Why did I have this strange feeling that he was not telling me all the truth?

Wait, said caution. And a few days after that meeting with Lucian, there came the letter.

The handwriting was faintly familiar, and it took me right back to the schoolroom at Commonwood House. I knew from whom it came. I took it to my room so that no one

should be there when I read it, and my hands were trembling when I slit the envelope.

Dear Carmel, I was deeply moved when I read your letter so much so that I could not reply for some time. That is why there is this delay. Of course I remember you. I wondered how you found me. But perhaps you will tell me that when we meet.

I was not sure at first whether I could do it. You see, I have tried hard to distance myself from what happened and your letter brought it all back. But do not think I was not deeply touched. I should very much like to see you. Perhaps we could meet somewhere quiet. just the two of us. I thought out-of- doors where we could be sure not to be disturbed.

I see that you are at an address in Kensington and I thought of the Gardens there. I am living in Kent and it is an easy journey by train to London. I could be there about ten o’clock next Wednesday. Suppose we meet at the Albert Memorial? Then we could find a seat and talk. If that is not convenient for you, we could choose another time.

Write to me at the above address.

Thank you, Carmel, for thinking of me.

Kitty. By the way, address me as Mrs. Craig.

I read and re-read the letter. Then I wrote to her. I should be at the Albert Memorial next Wednesday.

It was clear that Kitty was anxious that no one should know of this meeting. I could well understand her desire for absolute anonymity.

But I had to tell Dorothy. 1 owed it to her. Had she not been instrumental in making the connection, and I knew I could trust her completely.

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“How exciting!” she cried when I showed her the letter.

“I wish I could come with you.”

“That’s entirely out of the question,” I said at once.

“If she saw I was not alone, she might go away.”

Dorothy realized that.

“And she is Mrs. Craig,” she said.

“Could Jefferson Craig have married her? Good heavens! Who would have thought of that?”

We agreed to say nothing to Lawrence about it, and 1 was glad that she saw the necessity for that. I was also relieved that Gertie had not yet returned from her honeymoon. I knew she would have guessed something had happened and made an effort to learn what it was.

I was at the Albert Memorial at exactly ten o’clock. It was easy for me. I only had to walk there. She had not arrived, but I was not alarmed, for I knew she would find it difficult to judge exactly the time the journey would take. Eight minutes passed before I saw her hurrying to our rendezvous.