The Lorimer Legacy (20 page)

‘I can understand that,' said Margaret.

‘It was a worrying time. I longed to comfort her, but she couldn't accept comfort. For eighteen months, or even longer, the situation between us was a difficult one.
And then, about a year ago, the school was opened in Hope Valley. The first teacher who came was a woman. A very beautiful woman – well, you've seen her. She's still here. Chelsea Mattison.'

Margaret nodded. In a community where many of the women grew fat when their youth was over, she must have noticed the teacher's slim grace as well as her intelligent eyes.

‘I'd known her when she was a girl. In fact, she was the one –' Ralph paused. Many years had passed since Chelsea, then only sixteen, had offered herself to him at a time when illness had left him too weak to resist. He had discussed his problems with Margaret at the time, but could not remember how far he had gone into details. He decided not to be specific now. Chelsea had been discreet about the consequence of that night, moving away from the valley for the birth of her baby and returning only when the boy was old enough to live with his grandfather. Even Duke himself did not know who his father was. ‘She was a clever girl. I provided the means for her to be educated. That made it difficult for me to refuse her the position when she wished to return. She was grateful, and like so many of the women here, she had few inhibitions about the way in which she could demonstrate her gratitude. The temptation put in my way was very great.'

‘You resisted, though?'

‘Yes,' said Ralph. ‘But at a price. I needed Lydia's support. She gave me everything I asked for, but I asked too much. Or gave too much. Because of course I hoped that she too could be helped to forget her loss.' Ralph remembered that time in silence for a moment. Sometimes during these past weeks he had wondered whether it would have done less harm if he had followed the instincts which had so much shamed him at the time, and
had looked for comfort in Chelsea's bed instead of his wife's. But of course his conscience would not have allowed him to take that path. ‘Lydia's age and the state of her health deceived us both into thinking that the danger of another pregnancy was past.'

‘What about her health now?' asked Margaret. ‘And the children! Are you satisfied that it's safe to stay here?'

Ralph shook his head helplessly. ‘How can we know what is safe?' he asked. ‘This is our home. We've made our lives here, and there's nothing waiting for us anywhere else. Lydia, like yourself, needs to feel that her time is usefully employed, and her work here is of inestimable value. As for the danger of fever –' It was difficult for Ralph to speak without emotion about the killing disease which had struck so cruelly into his family. But he forced himself to tell her the facts as scientifically as he could.

‘You in England probably learned before us of Major Ross's discovery that malaria is carried by mosquitoes,' he said. ‘It came to Lydia's attention through a medical journal only about three years ago. I had suffered several times from malaria, and she determined that there should be no more attacks in Hope Valley.' He was able to smile as he remembered the efficiency and energy with which she had conducted her campaign. ‘She set all the children to work, making them report every place in which mosquitoes could breed. Some places we covered and some we drained. She showed the children pictures and specimens of the mosquito and its larvae, so that they could recognize their enemy, and as she set about the work of eradicating it from the valley she discovered that there were two distinct varieties breeding here. We cleared both of them out together, of course, and encouraged other villages nearer to the big swamps to do the same. Since that time we have had no case in our community of
either malaria or yellow fever, and Lydia has become convinced that if one type of mosquito spread the malaria, the other may well in the past have been responsible for the epidemics of fever. She is still vigilant, but we have lost our old fears of another attack. In other respects, the climate is a healthy one.'

‘I find it very hot,' said Margaret.

‘But we now find England too cold.' He looked up as Lydia, walking slowly, came along the path to join them. ‘I've been telling Margaret of your campaign against stagnant water.'

‘So you've persuaded her, I hope, to visit us again in a more leisurely way – to enjoy a holiday instead of allowing herself to be overworked. Will you promise to come back, Margaret? Now that Robert has gone away to school, and with Alexa so independent, you will have much greater freedom. It's because of Alexa that I came out to find you. A letter has just arrived from her.'

‘You'll want to read it now,' said Ralph. He could see the eagerness in his sister's eyes, but his true reason for suggesting that they should all sit down for a few moments was to allow his wife to rest. He chatted with Lydia as Margaret tore the letter open and began to read it.

Everywhere in the orange grove there was noise. Birds shrieked and chattered, cicadas and tree frogs shrilled out their incessant high-pitched notes, water tumbled along the irrigation channels and, from a neighbouring field in which yams were growing, a group of workers sang as they hoed. But around the three Europeans there was a sudden electric silence, charged by the intensity of Margaret's reaction to what she was reading.

‘There's no bad news, I hope?' Ralph asked.

Margaret put the letter into her pocket. When she looked up to answer, her eyes were both anxious and angry.

‘There's news to disturb me,' she said. ‘If you feel well enough now, Lydia, I would like to go home. I have written often enough to Alexa in these past years, hoping that she would return to England. Now it appears that she plans to do so, and I must be there when she arrives.'

‘Of course,' agreed Lydia. ‘But I would have expected you to look forward to that only with happiness.'

‘Although she doesn't go into detail, I suspect that she is looking forward to more than merely a season at Covent Garden. It seems that she has met Matthew in Paris. And he also is proposing to return to London.'

‘I remember that they were great friends as children in the schoolroom,' commented Ralph. So much of his life had been spent abroad that he could not pretend to know either of the young people well. He had the feeling now that he was being in some way obtuse, for it was certainly not apparent to him why it should so clearly be costing his sister an effort to control her feelings.

‘If I read between the lines, I have to wonder whether they are planning to be more than friends. Alexa has been able to explain to me now what neither she nor I were ever properly able to understand before – why William, who disliked her, should have taken active steps to start her on a career. He realized, it seems, as I did not, that during her stay at Bristol ten years ago Alexa and Matthew fell in love with each other. Everything he did was designed to make sure that they should not meet again. Alexa writes in great resentment about his behaviour to her. But I have other grounds for anger. William never told me what the situation was.'

‘Would that have made so much difference?'

‘I haven't been open with Alexa,' Margaret said. ‘She doesn't know who her father was. I intended to tell her the truth on her twenty-first birthday.'

‘I see. And you didn't do so?'

‘She was abroad by then, and to make a bald announcement by letter –' Margaret checked her excuses and shook her head. ‘No,' she said. ‘I didn't do so. I'm very much to blame. But if William had given me even the slightest hint –'

It had taken even Ralph several minutes to understand what it was that was causing Margaret so much anguish. Lydia, whose weakness made her less quick-witted than usual and who was in any case less familiar with the history of the Lorimer family, made no pretence of being anything but puzzled.

‘Why do you feel guilty about it? What is the problem?' she asked.

‘If Matthew and Alexa have met again, isn't it all too likely that they may have fallen in love again? And as far as they themselves know, there need be no impediment to their happiness. What I shall have to tell Alexa now, and what I ought to have told her long ago, is that she is Matthew's aunt. They will never be able to marry.'

To travel from one country to another may be tiring, but when the same journey crosses the frontier of a new sort of life, it increases in excitement at every moment. By the time Alexa arrived in London she had forgotten the tedium of the hours which had passed since she left Naples and her eyes shone with the delight of seeing Margaret again after such a long separation.

Before they could do more than embrace and stammer their first greetings, the luggage must be carried in. Alexa had brought back to England everything she owned. She was not accustomed to travel with all her possessions at
once and was amused by Betty's wide-eyed astonishment as valises, hat-boxes, jewel cases and portmanteaux were carried upstairs.

Her maid could look after the unpacking. Alexa herself followed Margaret straight into the drawing room, and for an hour or more kisses and compliments were interspersed with jumbled items of news drawn from the past ten years.

Gradually Alexa felt herself becoming calmer. She was able to accept a drink of tea, to sit and smile.

‘What are your plans?' Margaret asked her. ‘Is this only a brief visit, or do you intend to return permanently to England?'

It was too soon for Alexa to answer that question fully, but in one respect she could be specific. ‘I have agreed to sing at Covent Garden during the first half of the season,' she said. ‘After Christmas, nothing is decided. I was invited to return to Naples, but I've turned that down. And only the day before I left there I received an invitation to sing with Caruso in San Francisco next spring. I shall reject that offer as well. How can anyone seriously expect me to travel halfway across the world, away from all my friends, beyond the bounds of civilization?'

‘A city which has an opera house can't be wholly uncivilized,' laughed Margaret. ‘But for my own sake I'm glad that you don't propose to go so far away. Speaking of your friends, Alexa, I told Lord Glanville that you planned to return. He has arranged a ball for you at Blaize. I am to tell you that he is sure you will be the star of the winter season; he intends to presume on his acquaintance by being the first to present you to society.'

‘He's very kind, considering how long it is since we last saw each other, and under what unfavourable circumstances.'

‘What were they?'

‘He called on me one evening after a performance – an evening on which I was previously engaged to dine with another gentleman. I owe Lord Glanville so much that I ought to have freed myself for his company. But I was taken by surprise, and the two men had quarrelled once before – well, I mismanaged the occasion. It's generous of him to forgive me. You've continued your own acquaintance with him, then, since he found your hospital post for you?'

‘We see a good deal of each other when he is in England,' Margaret said. ‘We are friends, in fact.' The tone of her voice as she spoke of him intrigued Alexa, and she would have pressed for further details, but Margaret was still speaking. ‘And have you maintained your relationship with the Duke of Caversham?'

Alexa was tempted to be annoyed. She could never have expected Margaret to approve, but she had hoped that the news would not have reached her. Certainly she herself had never mentioned the duke's name in any of her letters. ‘You know about that, then?' she said.

‘It's no great secret, is it?'

‘Are you shocked?'

‘I was when I first heard. Shocked but perhaps not surprised.'

‘I remember, you always regarded the theatre as a cradle of sin. Well, all that is over now. I gave Caversham his
congé
in the spring, and he announced his engagement while you were in Jamaica. His debts were pressing, because the estate is entailed and he had mortgaged its revenues for many years ahead. His mother succeeded in finding an heiress from Boston whose parents were prepared to pay handsomely for the pleasure of seeing their daughter a duchess. She's said to be a young lady with a mind of her own, and scornful of some of our European
customs. It's thought that – at least for a little while – she may expect fidelity in exchange for her fortune. She's welcome to him as far as I'm concerned. I can promise you, my heart is far from being broken.'

Had she chosen to do so, she could have taken the opportunity then to tell Margaret her news. But the happiness she felt in her love for Matthew made her hug the secret to herself a little longer. He would come soon to see her, she was sure, and they would make their announcement together.

The maid who had come with her from Italy appeared in the doorway and began to murmur questions in her own language.

‘Will you excuse me for a few moments?' Alexa asked. ‘There are one or two decisions to be made. Which jewels should go to the bank: that sort of thing. And I ought to change my dress. The journey has left me dirty.'

‘Of course,' said Margaret. ‘You must be very tired. But Alexa, when you are refreshed, and before you go out or make any arrangements, will you allow me time for a serious discussion?'

‘That sounds most forbidding.'

‘I don't intend it to. But you already know that I have something which should have been handed to you on your twenty-first birthday. And there is an explanation which must go with it.'

‘I shall be back very soon.' Alexa embraced her guardian again and ran lightly up the stairs. She threw off her travelling clothes and wrapped herself in a light robe of smocked silk as she supervised the stowing-away of her possessions. At one moment, while she was speaking to the maid, she heard the ring of the front door bell, but took no notice. Margaret's callers were no concern of hers. It must have been twenty minutes later that she glanced out of the window and was startled by the sight
of a young man in the street below, walking away from the house with a reluctant lack of speed.