The Shadow of the Lynx (31 page)

Lizzie clicked her tongue.

“I know.” She turned to my mother.

“Shall I settle you for the night?”

My mother nodded so I kissed her good night and went out.

As I shut the door I heard her say eagerly and with the rare excited note in her voice: “When I saw that young man this afternoon, it took me back years. You remember how he used to sit on the lawn with his sketching pad …”

I went to my room. Lizzie would have been here at the time, I thought.

She would have seen it all.

Poor Mamma! How dreadful to live one’s life in discontent, constantly dreaming of what might have been.

I found it difficult to sleep. The afternoon visitors had affected me as they had my mother.

The memory of that visit stayed with me for days afterwards. I should have liked to discuss it with Lucie but I felt that what my mother had told me had been in confidence. There was a painting of her which had been done about two years after the abortive elopement and she certainly appeared very beautiful. I looked at it differently now and saw the haunting sadness in her eyes. I thought of Grandfather Dorian, whom I vaguely remembered as a great power in the house, whose gruff commands used to send shivers of alarm down my young spine. I could imagine how stem he would have been with his own daughter. He approved of Papa-as a husband, of course. Papa had been a titled gentleman of some means and highly suitable; he would have been gentle and submissive and have agreed to take up residence at Whiteladies. He had had a house nearby and an estate in Somerset which had come into his family’s possession in 1749 when they had sprung into prominence through their loyalty to the Hanoverian cause. After that they had begun to build their fortune. We

used to visit Somerset sometimes twice a year, but Papa had sold the estate two years ago as he had his other house. It was expensive to run them and we needed the money, he said. I wondered how poor Mamma had felt when she knew she was to be married. But she must have known she had lost her Charles for ever. I wondered, too, whether she had made any pretence of loving Papa.

I was in the garden picking flowers for the vases when Dr. Hunter came out of the house. I called to him and he stood smiling at me.

“You have just been to see Mamma?” I asked. He said that he had, and I went on; “I’d like to talk to you about her. Don’t let her see us, though. She may look out from the window. She would immediately imagine that we were discussing some terrible new disease she had contracted.”

“Why not show me the roses?” he suggested.

“A good idea, but better still, come into the pond garden. We’ll be really out of sight there.”

The pond garden was surrounded by a pleasant alley which, in summer, made a luxuriantly green arch. I loved the pond garden; it seemed shut away from the rest of the house. I was sure that Mamma and her artist lover had sat there by the water making their plans, feeling shut away from the world. The flowers used to be much more colourful when I was a child. We had more people working in the garden then, and gardeners would change overnight the spring tints for the rich shades of summer.

I remember particularly vivid blue delphiniums and the heavy scent of pinks and carnations-and later the bronze and purples of chrysanthemums and the unmistakable odour of the dying year. But now, because it was late summer, the flowers were plentiful. There was a white statue in the pond and waxen-petalled lilies floated on the water. This garden had been copied. Papa told me, two hundred years ago from that one in Hampton Court where it was said Henry VIII had walked with Anne Boleyn.

“How ill is my mother?” I asked the doctor.

“Her illness is within herself,” he answered.

“You mean imaginary?”

“Well, she does have her headaches. She does suffer from lassitude and vague pains.”

“You mean there is nothing really wrong with her.”

“Nothing organically wrong.”

“So her illness is in her mind and she could be better to200

morrow if she wanted to. “

“It’s not as simple as that. This is a genuine state of sickness.”

“Something happened recently. Some people came and reminded her of the past. She seemed almost young again.”

He nodded.

“She needs an interest in life. She needs to think of something other than herself, past excitements and present boredoms.

That’s all. “

“What can she be interested in, I wonder?”

“Perhaps when you marry and have grandchildren she will be so enchanted with them that she will find a new interest in life.

Interest! That’s what she wants. “

“I have no intention of marrying for a long time. Is she to wait for a cure until then?”

He laughed.

“We will do our best. She’ll continue with her pills and medicines and find some relief from them.”

“But if she is not physically ill does she need medicine?”

“They are placebos. They help her because she believes in them. I’m sure that is how we have to treat her.”

“What a difficult task—to attempt to cure someone of something that doesn’t exist!”

“But you are mistaken. This illness does exist. It is real. This is what I used to attempt to argue out with my predecessor. He believed that an illness was only an illness if it gave an outward and visible sign of being one. Don’t worry. Miss Minta. We have your mother’s ease well in hand. Miss Mapyan is very helpful, isn’t she?”

“Lucie is wonderful.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling ia such a way that he betrayed his feelings for Lucie.

“Have you explained this to her … my mother’s condition, I mean?”

“She is fully aware of it. In fact she guessed it. We were speaking of it only the other day when she came over for your mother’s medicine.”

“The placebo?” I said.

“Yes, the placebo.”

“And how is Mrs. Devlin these days ” As usual. She was a little florid of complexion with a slight pinkness at the tip of the nose when I returned home from visiting yesterday. “

“One day she may take a little too much.”

“One day! I suspect it happens most evenings. Well, we should count our blessings, we are told; and apart from one

lailing she is a treasure. Lntil 1 can mae uincr arrangemeni& I must not be too critical. “

“Oh,” I said, ‘you are thinking of making other arrangements? “

“Nothing definite … as yet.” He looked a little embarrassed and I realized I had been too inquisitive. But I was sure he was referring to Lucie.

We went back to the house and I stood talking to him while he got into his barouche and drove away.

I went to Lucie’s room. It was always so neat and tidy; she handled the furniture as though it were sacred, which amused me. This was the room which she had been given on her first visit Whiteladies and she loved it. Its ceiling was lofty and the family coat of arms was engraved on it; the hanging chandelier was small but beautifully cut;

it jingled slightly like temple bells; there was a large window with a window seat padded in mulberry velvet and mulberry-coloured rugs on the floor. The bed had a canopy. It really was charming, I suppose, but we had several similar rooms in Whiteladies and it hadn’t struck me that there was anything special about this one until I noticed Lucie’s loving care of it.

“I’ve just been talking to the doctor, Lucie,” I said.

She was sitting at the dressing-table and, looking down, she began moving the toilet articles there. I sat down on the chair with the carved back and the rail on which one could put one’s feet. I studied her. She was by no means flamboyantly attractive; it was only that innate elegance which lifted her from the ordinary. Her face was too pale, her features too insignificant for beauty.

“He seems a little … unsettled in his domestic arrangements.”

“It’s that housekeeper of his.”

“We ought to persuade him to get another. You never know what she might do. She might get to his drug cabinet and help herself to something poisonous.”

“She’s not interested in drugs. It’s the wine cellar she cares about.”

“But in a mood of drunken exuberance …* ” Hers are stupors, I believe. “

“But a doctor’s housekeeper should be abstemious.”

“Everyone should be abstemious,” said Lucie gravely.

“I do like Dr. Hunter,” I commented.

“I’d like to see him

with a wife to help him along. Don’t you think that’s what he needs?

”

“Most professional men need a wife to help them along,” replied Lucie noncommittally.

I laughed.

“There’s a lot of the schoolmistress about you still, Lucie,” I said.

“Sometimes I could imagine you in class. Talking of marrying, if you ever decide to, I hope you won’t go too far away from us.”

But Lucie was not to be drawn.

It was a sunny afternoon. The house seemed quiet. My mother was resting; my father was, too, I suspected, although he was in his study. Lucie had driven the dogcart over to the doctor’s to collect my mother’s medicine; so I brought my embroidery out on to the lawn and sat under the oak tree, thinking as I often did of that day when the scarf had blown over the wall.

Franklyn called. He came over the lawn as he had on that other day and settled into the chair beside me.

“So you’re all alone,” he said.

I told him where everyone was.

He made one or two comments about the estate and some of the tenant farmers; this was one of his favourite subjects. He made it his business to know the details of their family life and I had heard that his tenants had nothing to fear from their landlord. He liked to talk to me about these affairs-perhaps because he shared the general view that one day they would be my affairs too, for the wife of a landlord like Franklyn would have her duties to the estate. Franklyn was such a good man, but so predictable. One knew without asking what his views would be on almost any subject one could think of.

I felt a mischievous desire to shock him, so I talked of the matter which was uppermost in my mind—that of Lucie and her relationship with Dr. Hunter.

“Lucie has gone over to Dr. Hunter’s to get Mamma’s medicine,” I said.

“She enjoys riding over. I daresay she contemplates with pleasure the day when she will be mistress of the house.”

“So they are engaged to be married?” asked Franklyn.

“Nothing has been said, but …”

“Then how can you be sure?”

“But isn’t it obvious?”

“You mean that there is an attachment? I should say there is the possibility of an engagement, but how can one be sure until it is an actuality?”

Dear Franklynl He talked like a chairman addressing a board meeting.

That was how his mind worked—precise, completely logical. He had a set of conventions and he would adhere to them rigidly.

But, Franklyn, it will be absolutely ideal. “

“Superficially considered, yes. But one cannot really say that a marriage is ideal until there has been at least a year’s trial.”

“Still, I think we should be delighted if Dr. Hunter were to ask Lucie’s hand in marriage and she were to accept him. I should like to see Lucie happily settled. After all, Dr. Hunter is so eligible and there is no one else in the district who is suitable to be Lucie’s husband, so it will have to be Dr. Hunter. She would have a calming influence on disturbed patients who arrive at the surgery, and she could probably learn to mix medicines. She is very clever.”

“I am sure you are right and it would be an admirable arrangement.

There is something I have wanted to say to you for a long time, Araminta. “

He used my full name when he was being solemn so I knew that an important matter was about to be discussed. Is he going to propose? I asked myself. This talk of Lucie’s marriage has put ours into his head. I was wrong. Franklyn would never propose marriage on the spur of the moment. If and when he came to ask me, he would come with the appropriate ceremony, having asked Papa’s permission first.

“Yes, Franklyn,” I said, with a faint note of alarm in my voice, for I could not rid myself of the thought that he was working towards a proposal which I should be expected to accept—and I didn’t want to.

His next words brought relief.

“I have tried to talk to your father but he is not anxious to hear. I could not, of course, talk to your mother. I think that there may well be cause for anxiety concerning your family’s financial affairs.”

You mean we are short of money? “

He hesitated. Then he said: T am convinced that your father’s affairs are in an uneasy condition. I believe that it is a matter which should not be ignored. “

“Franklyn, will you tell me exactly what you mean?”

“I am a land-owner,” he said, ‘not a financier. But one does

not have to be that to understand what is going on in the markets.

Your father and my father have been friends for years. They had the same man of business, similar investments. The bulk of my possessions are in land, but this is not the case with your father. He has Whiteladies and I am afraid little else. He sold the Somerset property some years ago and the money raised was invested—not wisely, I fear.

Your father is not exactly a man of business. “

“Do you mean that we have become poor, Franklyn?”

“Hardly that. But I think you should curb any extravagance in the household. I am warning you because your parents don’t seem to understand the necessity not to spend beyond their income. Forgive my candid talk, but I am a little worried. I should not like to see Whiteladies fall into disrepair.”

I felt depressed. So my father was worried about money, or at least he ought to be. He wouldn’t be, of course. He would forget what was unpleasant; as for Mamma, she would be completely vague if I broached the subject to her. And Franklyn? What was the motive behind his warning? If he married me he would come to live at Whiteladies as Papa had come. If the house could not be passed down through the male line it would have to be through the female. Mamma had inherited; so would I. The family name might have to change but the blood link was there.