The Heiresses (26 page)

“And has he never been wrong before?”

Another odd look and then Edwin tilted his head back and roared with laughter. “You don’t know who my uncle is, do you?”

Thalia hadn’t informed her, but Edwin’s uncle was obviously someone of the utmost importance to the country. Most likely the prime minister, or similar. “No,” Clio said. “I don’t. I’m not sure what Thalia has told you, but until a short while ago, I lived in a small village, in a small cottage. Everything about me was small and unworldly. So, no, I don’t know who your uncle is.”

Edwin shrugged. “Quite right. And why should you, because it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“It seems to matter here—a great deal. But, my argument still stands. Even if your uncle, whoever he is, is right and there was to be another war, what are you going to do in the meantime? Sit about and wait for it? It could be five, ten, or even twenty years. Even if you knew for sure that you would be hit by a motor bus ten years from now, isn’t it better to die fulfilled? To die knowing you are doing what you are meant to do?”

“Sometimes, Clio, I get the feeling you’d like to drive that motor bus right over the top of me,” Edwin said as he laughed.

“Well, sometimes I would!” Clio huffed, then couldn’t help but laugh as well. “You’re awfully annoying, you know.”

“That”—Edwin pointed his pencil at her—“is exactly what Mama says. I’m sure the two of you would get along very well indeed. Now, sit still and be quiet for a moment or two. If you can bear it.”

Clio did as she was told, but had to try very hard not to smile during the next few minutes, as Edwin sketched away.

“There, what do you think?” Edwin passed over the sketchbook when he was done. “It’s only a very quick one, but there’s something about you I’ve wanted to capture since our very first meeting. I don’t think I’ve got it, though. I must try again sometime if you’ll permit me.”

Clio took the sketchbook from Edwin and studied it closely. “It’s awfully good.” She took in the simple, elegant lines. “I’m not surprised your mother is cross with you. It is, perhaps, a little flattering, though…”

Edwin pointed his pencil at her again now. “Aha! That’s it. That’s it, exactly. You honestly don’t realize, do you?”

Clio frowned. “Realize what?”

“I’m sure, between the three of you, you assume Thalia is the beautiful one.”

“Thalia
is
the beautiful one. The newspapers don’t compare her to Botticelli’s Venus for nothing.”

“Yes, and that’s the problem. She knows it.”

Despite her mixed feelings for Thalia, Clio felt the need to defend her sister. “That isn’t very nice.”

“And neither is Thalia, but it’s what I love best about her.”

Clio sat back in her seat and thought about all of this for a moment. To be honest, she was having difficulty keeping up with the exchange. What, exactly, was Edwin saying? “You really are awfully confusing,” she ended up replying. “I can’t tell whether I’ve just been complimented, or insulted. Oh, do stop it.” She reached over and gave Edwin a friendly push as he grinned that infuriating grin once more.

He caught her hand and held it for a moment longer than necessary. “The thing is, Clio, I’m afraid I can’t when I’m with you.”

*   *   *

“I suppose we should head back.” Edwin checked the time on his watch and then began to turn the boat around. “John and I have promised Mama we’ll be back for luncheon. Just in time for another scolding, I’m sure. She does love to scold in front of my friends in the hope that they’ll convince me to do as she says.”

“About your art, you mean?” Clio asked.

“Actually, no. This month the scold concerns Kenya.”

“Kenya?” Clio sat up slightly, thinking of her mother and also of Nicholas. “What about it?”

“Oh, a cousin of mine has recently started a farm there—tea, I believe. He’s doing rather well, apparently.”

Clio nodded. “I know someone there who farms coffee. Does your mother want you to go and help your cousin?”

“Something like that,” Edwin said with a sigh. “At this point I don’t think my mother or my father would mind where I went. Kenya, or some other end of the earth. Anywhere would suit. It’s only Venetia calming them both down that still sees me here.”

“Well, you can hardly blame your parents, can you?” Clio scoffed. “They can’t want you to be a truncheon thief forever.”

“But I’m very good at it,” Edwin exclaimed. “I’ve not once been caught. I really rather think they ought to be proud of me. It’s quite the achievement, you know.”

Clio ignored his flippant remarks. “I’d go to Kenya if I were given the chance. I’ve seen photographs. It looks amazingly beautiful.” Once again, she wondered if she should write that letter to Nicholas. Would it really be so terrible to marry someone you weren’t desperately in love with? Surely, with time, that sort of feeling passed anyway. Nicholas was, at least, a kind man. A good man. That was something, wasn’t it? And it would be the perfect solution to her mother’s health problems. Perhaps she would write that letter after all …

“You’d like to live there? In Kenya?”

It took Clio a few seconds to register that Edwin had asked her a question. “Oh,” she finally replied. “Goodness, yes.”

“And do what exactly?”

Clio had to admit she hadn’t thought this far. “Oh, well … I don’t really know.”

“You could be a missionary.” Edwin waggled his eyebrows at her.

Clio felt her cheeks become hot. “Why do you always think I’m something I’m not? You don’t know me at all. I’m not like that. Not like my father. I’m not that … good.”

“I think you are,” Edwin replied in his usual serene fashion, turning his face up to the sun for a moment.

Clio shook her head slightly. Unbelievable. Did the man never become agitated? “Believe me, I am not.”

“But aren’t you the doyenne of good works?” Edwin looked down at her once more. “Thalia was telling me about the volunteer work you did during the general strike. Thank goodness that finally ended last week. I thought it might go on forever.”

“The buses were on strike. I was simply helping to organize transportation for people to get to the hospital who needed to get there.”

“Which shows you
are
good. Meanwhile, the likes of Thalia and myself spent that time droning on about the traffic along the Embankment and how we were sure everyone was striking just to annoy us.”

“I can assure you they weren’t,” Clio said crossly. “And if you ever left the confines of Belgravia and Mayfair and actually spoke to any of these people, you might learn that for yourself. You know, this is what annoys me about all these parties and so on that you and Thalia go to. You all think life is such a game, a show put on for your own amusement.” She paused for a moment, trying to halt herself, but for some reason found she couldn’t and that once she had started, the words were unstoppable. “But you have no idea. You have no idea what it’s like to be poor, or ill, or unable to provide for your own children.” She found her eyes suddenly well up with tears as she remembered some of the workers she had spoken to who were on strike. Some of the things they had told her about their wages and conditions were appalling. Then there was her ill mother—for Edwin to actually have the opportunity to move to Kenya and not take it.… But her tears also sprang from a different place—Clio hated herself for lecturing Edwin on this beautiful, sunny day, in the middle of the lake in Hyde Park. There were moments in which you were meant to enjoy life. This was one of them. “I can’t believe I just said that, but I did. I did. And you made me say it. Oh, I wish I
was
in Kenya now, with my mother, I truly do. I hate this city.”

Edwin stared at her, unblinking. Staring back at him, Clio found she couldn’t read his expression at all.

“I’m sorry,” Clio began, glancing away, over the water, “I—”

But Edwin spoke over her. “Don’t you think I know that?” he said to her, suddenly leaning forward, causing the boat to rock. Clio grabbed at the sides of it, alarmed, but Edwin did not pause. “Don’t you think I open the newspaper and see myself pictured in a bib on page two, next to a story on striking miners on page three? Do you think I don’t realize it can’t go on? That such things can’t coexist? Perhaps my mother is right. I should go to Kenya.”

“Maybe you should.” Clio’s dark eyes challenged him.

“Maybe
you
should,” Edwin countered.

Clio’s gaze remained fixed to Edwin’s green eyes. Her thoughts turned to the letter that she would now surely write to Nicholas in Kenya. “When I find myself a willing husband,” she told Edwin, “trust me, it will be the very first thing I do.”

*   *   *

“What were you talking to Edwin about?” Thalia caught Clio’s arm the very moment the two gentlemen bid them good day back at Belgrave Square. Needless to say, it was not the most jovial of walks back to the town house. Haggis McTavish seemed the only happy member of the party, pleased with his time at the park in the sunshine.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Clio snapped. She was hot and cross, and simply couldn’t bear Thalia’s triumph at her arguing with Edwin right now. However, almost immediately she felt a stab of guilt for snapping when Thalia was, at least, finally speaking to her. “It wasn’t terrible,” she added with a sigh. “If you must know, we spoke about Kenya.”

“Kenya?” Thalia visibly recoiled. “Again?”

“What do you mean ‘again’?” Clio removed her hat and fanned herself with it. “As far as I can recall, I have mentioned it once before. Once!”

“I suppose I just don’t understand what is so awfully fascinating about the place.” Thalia removed her own hat in a much more reserved fashion and then proceeded to inspect it, plucking off a wayward thread. “I mean, what is so wonderful about Kenya? What is the appeal?” She glanced up at Clio. “Really, I’d like to know.”

Clio sucked in her breath. Really, Thalia was insufferable. Fine, then. She wanted to know? Well, Clio would tell her. “You really cannot think of anyone but yourself, can you? You can’t for a moment put aside your own feelings and even guess at why I might want to go somewhere like Kenya. I mean, apart from Kenya being perfect for my mother’s health, which I have already told you.”

In front of her, Thalia stared at her blankly. “You have more than one reason? I’m astounded.”

Clio shook her head at her sister’s arrogance. And Thalia wondered why she had hidden the memorial portrait from her! “Look at me.” Clio ran a hand up and down her body now. “Look at me! Do you think, with my coloring, with my looks, that I belonged in a small English village? Do you? Don’t you think people whispered about me, talked about me behind my back, treated me differently, gossiped about my situation? I didn’t belong there and I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged anywhere in my entire life, Thalia. Don’t you think the appeal of somewhere like Kenya might be the fact that I could belong there, in a place where no English person really belongs?”

Thalia let her hat drop by her side now and took a step forward. “Belonging! Don’t talk to me about belonging. At least you had two parents who doted on you.”

“And I thank God every day for that.” Clio’s voice rose with frustration. “I know you did not have that and I am sorry for it, but I cannot change the past, Thalia, I cannot. None of us can. Don’t blame me for something I had no part in and could not control.”

But Thalia simply shook her head. “The problem with you, Clio, is that you have no idea. You imagine I simply quarreled now and again with my uncle and aunt. That we had minor disagreements. That I wasn’t allowed a new dress or a holiday abroad.”

“I never said…,” Clio began.

Thalia’s expression hardened as she continued. “If I told you the things that went on in that house—what I had endured—part of you would shrivel and die, Clio, knowing that such things happen.”

Clio refused to back down. “You think I am so sheltered. That I know nothing of life. That I’ve been kept like a lapdog my entire life—fed and patted and cosseted. It isn’t true. It’s only what you would like to imagine. Things happen in villages. My father had to intervene in many situations. If you would only try to talk to me, Thalia, you would see that. I want to help you. I know I can, if only you’ll let me.”

Thalia’s eyes did not waver from Clio’s in the silence that followed. Watching her, there was a moment—a fleeting moment—where Clio imagined that she saw her sister’s expression soften and hoped her hard exterior might crack. That she would finally catch even a glimpse of what was underneath that hard shell. But then, just as quickly as it had appeared, that softness retreated once more and Thalia turned away. As she went, she uttered a final few words. “Go on, then. Run off to Kenya to marry your boring little coffee farmer. I’ll be the first one to take my place at the dock to wave you good-bye.”

*   *   *

“You look lovely, Ro,” Clio said, exiting her bedroom at the same time as her sister.

“That’s sweet of you.” Ro looked down, taking in her new dress of apple-green silk crepe that Hestia had bought her for the occasion. It was simple, with its straight, slim bodice and hips and swirl of soft material around the knees, but also pretty with its single rows of tiny silver beads and diamantés. The problem was that Hestia had picked it out herself and now that Ro had put it on, she saw that it was not the best choice of color for someone so fair. Flustered, she lifted a hand to smooth her hair, not having had much time to ready herself for the party. She had spent almost the entire day in the attic once more, combing the place from top to bottom. She had found nothing. With Vincent’s imminent arrival, she felt the need even more keenly to find something, anything, to change the girls’ situation. There had to be something else, something she was missing … It was driving her mad.

“Ro? Are you all right?” Clio stepped forward, placing her hand on her arm.

“Sorry.” Ro exhaled. “I’m just rather distracted. As I said before, I found nothing of consequence in our mother’s belongings. Nothing at all.”

“I know you’re disappointed,” Clio said to comfort her, “but I’m sure something will…”

The pair stopped to look as Thalia exited her bedroom into the hall, almost tripping over Haggis McTavish who had bounded out into the hallway with her. Her eyes flicked from one of them to the other. “Like it?”