The House of Hardie (24 page)

‘I didn't mean any of that,' interrupted Midge. ‘I was thinking of a time so soon after Mr Yates's visit.' She turned her head to look at him. ‘A year ago I was – to use your own phrase – head over heels in love with him.'

‘I don't care about that, as long as you aren't now.'

‘No, I'm not. That's what bothers me. Within such a short time, to meet somebody I once loved and realize that I don't even
like
him. As things are, there's no harm done. But suppose I'd
married
him a year ago?'

‘There are hundreds of answers to that,' said Will cheerfully, preparing to list them. ‘The fact that you didn't marry him shows that your father is quite right in thinking that you're sensible. When you do decide to take the plunge, it will be with the right chap. And then – to be particular for a moment – there's no doubt that Mr Yates is a good-looking fellow. Tall, handsome, all that sort of thing. I can see that a girl – even you – might get
swept off her feet without stopping to consider whether he might be a fool or a snob or an ugly customer beneath it all. But now look at me. No one's going to be swept off her feet by
my
face. And while Mr Yates is a rowing blue, I'm a cripple.'

‘Don't be silly, Will.' Midge had never called him by his Christian name before, but she used it in her thoughts because she had so often heard her father and brother discussing him. Only when she saw the pleasure in his eyes did she realize that she had spoken it.

‘Facts are facts,' said Will. ‘Anyone who marries me will be marrying a lame man. But that's part of what I'm trying to argue. Anything you could feel for me would have to be for what I am, not what I look like. I've no fortune which might make my freckles seem invisible or sleek down my hair. I've got nothing to offer at all, really. It's all a great impertinence even to think of it. But I can't
not
ask. Will you marry me? Not at once, if you don't want to. If you feel that you ought to keep on working for a year or two, to make all your studying worth while … I wouldn't mind how long I waited, as long as I could be sure in the end … I can't live without you, that's what it comes to. For the next year or two I'll be in Oxford and you'll come home from time to time, I suppose. But then Gordon will return and I may be sent back to London.' He stopped, and let out his breath in a great sigh. ‘Do please say you'll marry me.'

Midge stared at him with a troubled face. She liked Will. More than that, she admired him for what he had made of himself. He would be an easy man to love – but she didn't love him.

Everything was Archie's fault. Archie had taught her how it felt to be infatuated with the appearance of someone who was almost a stranger. Archie had given
her the passionate excitement of a love which had nothing to do with liking. Archie had left her with a guilty secret which would have to be explained to anyone who expected that he would be his wife's first lover. And Archie had taught her that love was transitory. Had he been the only one to grow cold, it would just have meant that Midge was not capable of holding a man's affections. But her own love had died as well, and she found that far more worrying.

So her doubts now had many facets. She lacked the courage to open her heart to Will and to see whether love might grow simply as a result of that decision. Even if it did, she lacked the certainty that it would last for ever. She lacked confidence that Will himself would continue to love her once he knew her better. And on top of all that, she was genuinely unsure whether she wanted to live the life of a married woman. If she was finding it hard to come to terms with the career which she had chosen and worked towards for so long, could she be happy with an alternative which she had not seriously considered?

In the end, it was her very tiredness which supplied her with the strength to make up her mind. She had decided to be a teacher, and she must master that task before even considering a way of escape from it. How could she explain that to Will without hurting him?

There was no need to. He read it in her eyes, which must have shown compassion rather than love.

‘Don't say it,' he begged. ‘Don't say anything at all. I can't live with No. I might just be able to stagger on with a silence. Hope you'll change your mind one day.'

‘It really
is
the wrong day,' Midge said. ‘Nothing to do with you personally at all. I'm sorry, Will.'

As she turned away, she heard with relief the sounds of her parents returning from church. The episode could
now be brought to a natural end by the need to tell them the news about Lucy Yates. But Will was standing between her and the door.

‘Won't you kiss me before you go?' he begged. ‘Just to show that you don't think I'm a monster.'

Midge had been trapped by kisses before. She shook her head and went quickly out of the room.

Thirteen years earlier, as a runaway schoolboy of fourteen, Gordon had been reduced to a state of shivering misery by the Bay of Biscay. He had hoped that his subsequent three years of voyaging in the South Seas might have cured him of seasickness for ever – or else, that a steamer might not be as violently buffeted as a sailing ship. But his hopes were disappointed. From the moment when the
Parramatta
rounded Cape Finisterre he was confined to his cabin. Only as the ship passed Cape St Vincent and headed towards Gibraltar did his appetite return. Either the sea was smoother now, or else he had at last found his sea legs.

He had not been the only sufferer, he discovered, when at last he presented himself at table again. The atmosphere in the saloon had changed markedly since the first day out. Those few passengers who had remained on their feet formed a select group, already friendly with each other. They welcomed the others back without at once admitting them to the new intimacy. At his own table, it seemed that only Lucy and Mr Elliott, the magistrate, had been unaffected by the rough sea. While only the two of them were appearing for meals, Mr Elliott had naturally enough changed his place in order to sit next to Lucy, and showed no intention of relinquishing it to Miss Fawcett again. Captain Hunter, recovering a day earlier than Gordon, had appropriated the seat on her other hand.

Staying where he had first been set, Gordon told
himself that to stare across at Lucy was the greatest privilege – but could not restrain a feeling of envy as he saw how earnestly Lucy discussed the problems of India with Mr Elliott and how lightly she accepted Captain Hunter's flirtatious compliments. Mr Crichton leaned across to solicit her participation in the deck sports to be arranged that day, now that the sea was calm enough, and she made her selection from the events with laughing good humour. When Miss Fawcett arrived, the last of them all, to take her place at breakfast, Lucy was full of sympathy for her seasickness. Only to Gordon did she seem to have nothing to say – and that must be because he could think of no subject on which to open a conversation. It was a disquieting thought that she had first been excited by his stories because he was a traveller whilst she was obliged to stay at home. Now that she too was travelling, seeking her experiences at first hand, perhaps she found him less interesting.

After a brief stop at Gibraltar, it was not long before the
Parramatta
came within sight of Marseilles. Lucy retired to her cabin with a diplomatic headache, whilst Gordon, whose presence on the ship could not be concealed from anyone who studied the passenger list, leaned on the rail to watch the activity below. The boat train had already arrived from London, and the new passengers were waiting in a group. Neither the Marquess of Ross nor Archie was amongst them. Would Lucy, wondered Gordon, feel any regret that her family had, in the end, let her go? If that were the case, she threw it off as rapidly as her pretended headache when the engines once more began to throb and the screw to turn. It was more likely, he supposed, that she was triumphant at the success of her escape.

Certainly there was a new gaiety in her manner, as
though any uneasiness which she might have felt about her position had been thrown off. There could no longer be any danger in Gordon seeking her company, and this he did – but without great success. She was always, it seemed, engaged in one of the many activities organized by the entertainments committee – running egg-and-spoon races, playing deck quoits or softball cricket, singing and applauding in a concert, or chattering excitedly amongst the cluster of passengers who waited to discover the distance covered the previous day, and the winner of the sweep on it. In bad weather she joined in the tournaments of whist, euchre or cribbage – and when she declined to enter the chess competition, because she did not know the game, she immediately received half a dozen offers to teach her.

It was not surprising that Gordon found it so difficult to catch her alone. There were more than twice as many male passengers aboard the
Parramatta
as female – and, in addition, the ship's officers had time free for a good deal of socializing. Although Lucy was not the only unmarried woman aboard, she was undoubtedly the most beautiful. By the time the ship reached Suez, Captain Hunter, while continuing to flirt with her as though in fun, had become genuinely lovesick. Mr Elliott, whose character was more serious, affected to seek her out for the pleasure of her conversation; but his expression – when he was not in her immediate company but watching from a distance – revealed to Gordon that he too was enamoured of her.

These two gentlemen had enjoyed a start on the rest by virtue of sharing Lucy's table, but they were by no means alone in paying court to her. As well as her beauty, she had a touch of mystery to recommend her. Her story of relations to be visited in China could not be challenged,
but was unconvincing. It was now taken for granted that she was travelling under an assumed name. Only a member of the aristocracy, rumour suggested, would make such a journey unescorted, and her clothes – well made of expensive materials – supported the theory that she was an heiress, the daughter of some noble line. Gordon alone knew the truth of her situation, and he remained as silent on the subject as Lucy herself.

As the ship approached Port Said, it was met by the coaling barges and a flotilla of tiny boats from which goods of all kinds were held up for sale, whilst small boys dived for coins thrown into the water. Larger boats appeared, to carry any passengers who wished to go ashore, and with some anxiety Gordon noticed that Lucy appeared to be dressed for such an expedition. He hurried to her side, but was annoyed to find that Mr Elliott had reached her first and was instructing her in the principles of barter.

‘They would be astounded if you were to pay the price they first ask,' the magistrate explained. ‘They'll demand at least twice what the article is worth, and will be highly delighted if they are paid in the end a little more than half that sum. So you should counter by offering to pay a quarter of the first price. They won't think you mean – it's the way the game is played. They'll start to come down a little, and you can increase your offer a little.'

‘I shall watch you give a practical demonstration of your lecture,' said Lucy, laughing. ‘But I shan't attempt the procedure myself. Although I want to walk through the streets, I shall take no money with me.'

‘I've never met any young lady who, when it comes to the point, can resist the lure of shopping,' said Mr Elliott.

‘You've met one now. On the return voyage it may be
a different matter, but for the moment I hardly feel the need of a rug or an Arab headdress.'

‘May I also accompany you ashore, Miss Young?' asked Gordon. Until now he had refrained from intruding on her conversations with other passengers, but he was worried by the possibility that she might become lost and confused in this first experience of a foreign country.

‘A pleasure, Mr Hardie.' Lucy smiled, although Mr Elliott did not look so pleased. Within an hour the three of them were making their way through a maze of bazaar streets, preceded by a crowd of small boys who demanded baksheesh for showing them the way, and importuned by others who sat on the ground displaying amputated limbs.

‘I should after all have brought a few coins with me,' said Lucy; but the magistrate waved the beggars away.

‘Their parents maim them in the cradle, so that they may make a living in this way,' he said. ‘It's the same in India. I don't think it right to encourage the practice by giving to them.' He placed himself between Lucy and the beggars, and offered her his arm. There was only just room in the narrow streets for two together to pass the donkeys, laden with wide panniers on each side, which trotted up and down delivering goods. Gordon was forced to fall behind.

He watched the backs of his two companions with a growing feeling of irritation which he knew to be unreasonable. How elegant Lucy was! With her free hand she had lifted her skirts a little to keep them above the filth of the road; he could see her neat shoes, her slim ankles. She ought to have allowed Gordon himself to give her a first glimpse of a foreign country. Why was she walking with a stranger like this? She must have known that he regarded himself as responsible for her and was certain to offer himself as an escort. Why had she not waited?

It had never been Lucy's intention to make Gordon jealous. Her feeling for him was straightforward. She was in love with him. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, to be wherever he was. If there were any complications, they were all on his side.

When, at Castlemere, he asked her to marry him, she took it for granted that he equally was in love with her, and continued to believe so even after the arrival of the letter which freed her from her engagement. But their first conversation aboard the
Parramatta
had sown such doubts in her mind that it was for Gordon now, she felt, to convince her of his love if in fact he still felt it.