The Shadow of the Lynx (32 page)

So now Franklyn was thinking of Whiteladies; he was concerned because Papa’s indigence might make it impossible for him to keep up the house until he, Franklyn, took over.

I remember that when I had told Papa that there was worm in the beams of one of the turret chambers, he had shrugged it aside, and I knew that the matter should have been dealt with. There were several floorboards which were in urgent need of repair and had been neglected for months. My father shut his eyes to these things and now I was picturing ourselves living on at Whiteladies with the place gradually becoming uninhabitable. I could imagine my father shut up in his room refusing to listen while the house slowly crumbled away.

I said: “What can I do about this?”

“Try to bring in a little economy. If you get a chance talk to your father. Things are not what they were twenty years ago. Taxation has increased; the cost of living has followed;

it is a changing world, and we have to adjust ourselves to it. “

“I doubt that I can do very much. If Papa won’t listen to you, he won’t to me.”

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“If you tell him you are a little anxious …”

“But he won’t do anything. He just shuts himself into his study and dozes over his manuscript.”

There! I had said it. I had let out the secret of Papa’s work. But perhaps it was not really a secret and Franklyn knew as well as I did.

What I had done was mention what politeness and convention ruled as unmentionable.

“I’ll speak to Lucie,” I said.

“I daresay she would know how to institute economies far better than

I.

”

“That’s an excellent idea,” agreed Franklyn. Then having done his duty, which I was sure he always would, he changed the subject and we talked of village affairs until I heard Lucie coming back with the dogcart.

After that night when she had confided in me. Mamma grew more peevish than ever. She spent a great deal of time in her room; trays were-sent up at meal-times and I knew that she did justice to the food because I saw Lizzie bringing them away empty several times.

Lizzie was in her confidence and sometimes when I visited her last thing at night, she would seem almost eager to be rid of me and before I was out of the room she would start talking to Lizzie.

“You remember that day when Mr. Herrick and I were in the garden …” or “There was that occasion when Papa asked him to join us for dinner. We were a man short and he was so distinguished….” I imagined she bored poor Lizzie with her reminiscences of the past. But perhaps Lizzie could be more understanding that I since she had seen this superior gentleman who had been transported ignobly to Australia.

Poor Papa! She was so impatient with him. She seemed to have taken a great dislike to him; she was irritable and scarcely took the trouble to answer him civilly. So we were all glad when she decided to stay in her room for meals. It was a situation which I found both distressing and embarrassing. I wished that these people had never come. Once again I was grateful for Lucie’s presence for she seemed to know exactly what to do. When Mamma had been very slighting to my father, Lucie would make some comment about his work and he would forget the insult for the compliment. It was such a pity because if ever a man knew how to be happy, that man was my father, with his talent for shrugging aside what was unpleasant. He kept away from my

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mother as much as possible and Lucie went more frequently to his study, so I daresay the book really was making progress.

Lucie was so devoted to us that our family affairs were hers and while she tried to give my father importance she also sympathized with my mother. I think that, next to Lizzie, she was confided in more than any of us. But it was becoming a somewhat uneasy household.

One day, having been to Dr. Hunter’s to get my mother’s medicine, Lucie came back looking flushed and disturbed. She took the medicine to my mother’s room and when she came out I called her into mine.

“Come in and have a chat,” I said.

“Mamma has been in a terrible mood today.”

Lucie frowned.

“I know. I wish those people hadn’t come.”

“It seems so odd. People call like that, strangers, and things change.”

“It had begun before really,” said Lucie.

“But these people reminded your mother of the past.”

“How I wish she could see this superior being now. I daresay he is old and grey and no longer looks so handsome. Poor Papa, I’m sorry for him.”

“Yes,” said Lucie.

“It’s so easy to make him happy and such a pity that he can’t be.” Then she blurted out: “Minta, Dr. Hunter has asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, Lucie, congratulations.”

“Thanks, but I haven’t decided.”

“But, Lucie, it would be an ideal marriage.”

“How can you know?”

I laughed.

“You sound just like Franklyn. I think you will make a wonderful doctor’s wife. He’ll be able to get rid of that drunken Devlin and you will look after him perfectly. I do hope he realizes how lucky he is.”

“But I told you I haven’t decided yet.”

“You will.”

“You sound as though you’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

“How can you say that when you know that one of the reasons why I’m so pleased is that it will keep you near us.”

“But I shan’t be at Whiteladies.”

“I believe it’s the house you like, Lucie, better than us. It was the same with …” No, I was going to forget that insignificant incident. But he had been abnormally interested in the house. I could understand it, in a way, because he had lived all his life in Australia and Whiteladies must have been

one of the first ancient mansions he had ever seen. But Lucie was as obsessed as he was.

“Well,” I finished, ‘you won’t be far away. “

“He’s very ambitious. I doubt that he will settle to be a country doctor all his life. He plans to go to London to specialze and set up his plate in Harley or Wimpole Street.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. Even so, you will make a wonderful doctor’s wife, Lucie, and since he is so ambitious you are just the wife for him. I hate the thought of your going, but London is not so far. We could meet often.”

“You make it all sound so simple.”

“Well, I daresay it will be, and in any case he may decide to spend the rest of his life here. What would he specialize in?”

“He’s interested in cases like your mothers’.”

“You mean people who are not really ill to begin with but imagine themselves into illness.”

“Diseases of the mind,” said Lucie.

“I shall be desolate if you go, but at the same time I think you should.”

“My dear Minta, you have to let me manage my own affairs, you know. I haven’t decided yet.”

I was surprised, realizing there was a great deal about Lucie that I didn’t understand. I had imagined her to be calm and precise, choosing the sensible way; but perhaps after all she was romantic. It was clear that she was not passionately in love with Dr. Hunter; but she must realize what a wonderful chance it would be for her to marry him.

It was a misty November day; there was not a breath of wind and everything was depressingly damp. There were countless spiders’ webs draped over the bushes, glistening with tiny globules of moisture and everything seemed unusually silent. The mist penetrated the house. It was like a vague presence. All the morning Lucie had been working about the house;

it was wonderful the way she superintended everything. The servants did not mind, except perhaps Mrs. Glee who vaguely suspected that she was taking over some of her duties. Lucie would go down to the kitchen and order the meals after having submitted suggestions to Mamma through Lizzie. Mamma never looked at them but Lucie insisted on their being shown to her. Lucie was a wonderful housekeeper and should have been running a house of her own.

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I spent most of the morning in the flower-room. There was not much left in the garden besides chrysanthemums, asters, dahlias and Michaelmas daisies. As I arranged them I was thinking how dull life was here, doing the same things almost at the same time every day. I sniffed the subtle autumnal smell these flowers have and I saw myself through the years ahead arranging the flowers—primroses, daffodils, and the spring sunshine-coloured flowers down to the holly and mistletoe of December—always here in the flower-room which had once been a nun’s cell with its stone floor and small high window in the wall with the three bars across it. And I longed for life to change.

Afterwards I remembered the fervour of my longing and thought how strange it was that on that day life should change so drastically.

Looking into the starry faces of the daisies, I saw his face, the green eyes, the arrogant features. It was absurd to go on remembering a stranger whom I had met by chance and very likely would never see again.

One of the maids came in to carry the flowers away and put them in the places I had chosen. It was an hour before luncheon would be served, normally I should have taken a walk round the garden but it was such a damp and dismal morning. So I stayed in my room and my thoughts went back and back again to the incident of the girl with the scarf, and I thought of Mamma who in this house had been toved and had loved, and consequently must have been quite unlike the woman she was today. I wondered if I should grow old and peevish, looking back resentfully because life had passed me by.

Dr. Hunter called and was with Mamma for half an hour. Before he left he asked to see me and said he would like to have a little talk with Papa as well so we went up to Papa’s study and he and the doctor drank a glass of sherry while Dr. Hunter talked to us of Mamma.

“You must realize,” said Dr. Hunter, ‘that there is no reason at all why Lady Cardew should not lead a reasonably normal life. She is breathless, yes—because she is out of condition. She stays in her room nursing a non-existent heart trouble. I am of the opinion that we have all been pandering to her whims, and I think we should now try different tactics. “

As I was listening I was visualizing him in tastefully furnished rooms in Harley Street treating rich patients and going home to Lucie, who would entertain brilliant doctors and learn enough of her husband’s profession to join intelligently

in the very learned conversation. It pleased me to think of her as the school teacher she had been before I had discovered her. I wondered why she did not give Dr. Hunter his answer.

“We will try a little experiment,” he said.

“Not so much sympathy, please.”

Dr. Hunter went on to expound his theories. He was going to start a new line of healing. He grew very animated talking of the experiments he intended to make. I was sure we should lose him to Harley Street very soon—and Lucie too to some extent if she married him. If! But of course she would.

“Just a little gentle reproof,” he went on.

“Don’t be too harsh at first.”

Papa asked him to stay to luncheon but he was too busy. He finished his sherry and left us.

Mamma came down to luncheon in one of her more difficult moods.

“This weather brings on all my pains,” she grumbled. The damp seeps into my bones. You can’t imagine the pain. “

Papa, eager to put into practice the doctor’s suggestions replied: “We don’t need to employ our imaginations, my dear, because you have described it in such detail so often.”

Mamma was completely taken aback. That my usually tolerant and easygoing father should criticize her in such an unsympathetic manner was a great shock to her.

“So I am a nuisance, am I?” she demanded.

“My dear, you misconstrue.”

“It was what you implied. Oh, I know I am ill, and to those of you who have the great gift of good health, that makes me dull and useless.

How unkind you are! K only you knew how I suffer! I could almost wish that you were afflicted with one hundredth part of the pain that I feel—then you might have some understanding. But no, I wouldn’t wish that for anyone. What has my life been but one long bed of pain. Ever since you were born, Mima, I have suffered. “

“I’m sorry. Mamma, that I am responsible.”

“Now you are jeering at me. I never thought you would do that openly although I have long known that I was a burden and a nuisance to you.

Oh, if only my life had been different. If only I had had the good fortune . “

It was an old theme. My father had half risen in his chair, his face pink, his usually mild eyes clouded with distress. I knew that there must have been vague references over the

years to what mig tit have been it she had had the good fortune to marry the man of her choice instead of him.

My sympathies were entirely with him and I said: “Why, Mamma, you have had a very happy life with the best husband in the world.”

She silenced me, looking wildly about the room and staring beyond my father as though she saw something of which we were not aware. I know she was thinking of that man and it was almost as though he were in the room, he who had been taken away and shipped abroad as a thief, as though he were taunting her with what might have been if she had been bolder and insisted on marrying him.

“The best husband in the world!” she cried mockingly.

“What has he done to make him that? He sits in his study working … working, he says! Sleeping his life away! His book, his famous book! That is like him. He is nothing, nothing. And I might have had a very different life.”

Lucie said: “Lady Cardew, Dr. Hunter told me that you must not get over-excited. Will you allow me to take you to your room?”

The thought of herself as an invalid soothed her. She turned almost gratefully to Lucie who led her from the room.

Papa and I looked after her. I felt so sorry for him; he looked completely bewildered.

“I don’t think Dr. Hunter’s treatment worked,” I said.

“Never mind.

Papa. We did our best. “

It was an uneasy day. Several of the servants must have heard my mother’s outburst. My father seemed to have shrunk a little; there was something shame-faced about him. We had all suspected that he dozed at his desk and that most of the work had been done by Lucie; but it had never been said to his face before—and now that it had been, the fact had a significance it had never had before.