The Touch (59 page)

“No, my jade kitten. No one noticed but me.”

“Then my secret’s safe.”

“As safe as if I didn’t know it. How long, Lee? How long?”

“Since I was seventeen, I think, though it took time for it to sink in.”

“That’s why you’ve never married, why you don’t stay here for very long, why you ran away.” Ruby’s cheeks glistened with tears. “Oh, Lee, what a bitch!”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he said dryly, fishing for his handkerchief. “Here.”

“Then why did you come home now?”

“To see her again.”

“Hoping that it had gone?”

“Oh, no, I knew it hadn’t gone. It rules me.”

“Alexander’s wife…But how detached you are. When I said he might divorce her, you didn’t seize on that, you demolished my argument instead.” She shivered, though the air was summer warm. “You’ll never be free of her, will you?”

“Never. She means more to me than my life does.”

She turned to him and flung her arms around him. “Oh, Lee! My jade kitten! I wish there was something I could do!”

“There isn’t, Mum, and you must promise me not to try.”

“I promise,” she whispered into his waistcoat, then gave a throaty chuckle. “There’ll be rouge all over you, cuddling me. That will lead to gossip in the laundry.”

He hugged her closer. “My dearest mother, it’s no wonder that Alexander loves you. You’re like a rubber ball—always able to bounce back. Truly, I’ll be all right.”

“But are you going to stay this time, or run?”

“I’m staying. Alexander needs me, I knew how badly when I saw Papa. He’s abdicated from all save his Chinese identity. No matter how much I love Elizabeth, I can’t desert Alexander. I owe everything I am to you and to him,” Lee said, then smiled. “Fancy Elizabeth smoking!”

“She needs the whatever-it-is in tobacco, but cheroots are a bit too strong. Alexander has her cigarettes made at Jackson’s in London. It’s very hard for her. All she has is Dolly.”

“A nice child, Mum?”

“Very sweet, and with just enough intelligence. Dolly won’t be a Nell, she’ll be more like the Dewy girls. Smart, vivacious, pretty, educated to a level appropriate for a female of her rank. So she’ll marry some eligible young man Alexander will heartily approve of, and perhaps give him some male heirs at last.”

THE SIGHT of Lee after so many years came as a profound shock to Elizabeth, who hadn’t dreamed that he was back. Admittedly her husband had been in a jaunty mood when he arrived, but she put that down to a successful trip away, to some alluring new venture germinating in his fertile brain. A part of her was curious as to what he was up to now, but she didn’t ask him when he breezed in. He sought his bathroom to remove the travel stains, then lay down for a nap before he changed into evening dress for dinner. While he was thus occupied she gave Dolly her supper, bathed her, put her into her nightgown, and read her a bedtime story. Dolly loved stories, and promised to be a reader.

She was such a dear little girl, exactly right for Elizabeth—not terrifyingly clever like Nell, nor backward like Anna. Her hair had indeed darkened to a streaky pale brown, but it had kept its ringlets, and her big aquamarine eyes were windows on to a tranquil soul. She had dimples in her cheeks that turned into adorable tiny pits when she smiled, which was often. A kitten had come as an experiment to see how she would treat it; when Suzie (actually a neutered male) proved a success, it was joined by Bunty, a neutered male dog of small size, floppy-eared and yearning to please. They went to bed with Dolly every night, snuggled one on either side of her—not a sight that impressed Nell, who talked of ringworm and roundworm, fleas and ticks. To which Elizabeth replied that the animals were bathed regularly, so when these afflictions appeared she’d start to worry, and she hoped that when Nell had children of her own they wouldn’t be smothered under a blanket of hygiene.

Caring for Dolly had melted Elizabeth a little; she just couldn’t maintain that rigid self-control when faced with all the dramas of a basically happy child’s life, from grazes and cuts to the death of a pet canary. Sometimes she had to laugh, sometimes she had to hide tears. Dolly was maternal heaven.

She didn’t appear to remember Anna at all, called Elizabeth “Mummy” and Alexander “Daddy” unself-consciously, though Elizabeth suspected that somewhere inside her mind hid memories of those days with Anna, for occasionally she betrayed knowledge of Peony that definitely went far back into Anna’s time.

The worst of it was that Dolly couldn’t go to school in the town. Did she, some spiteful or thoughtless child would be sure to tell her about her real mother and debatable father. So for the moment Elizabeth tutored her. Next year, when she turned seven, she would have to have a governess. No matter what our children have been like, Elizabeth reflected, we have never been able to send them to an ordinary school, which is a tragedy. Even Dolly has the Kinross taint: too different to blend in.

Telling the child of her real parents haunted Elizabeth, who tormented herself with questions no one could really answer—not Ruby, and certainly not Alexander. What was the right age for such a hideous shock? Did one do it before puberty, or after? Common sense said that no matter what age was chosen, Dolly would be scarred. That was all right, but what if she warped rather than scarred? And how do you tell a sweet, harmless girl that her mother was mentally retarded and the victim of a monstrous man who fathered her? That her mother’s nursemaid murdered him in the most horrific way, then was hanged for it? Many a night saw Elizabeth’s pillow wet with tears as she chewed and fretted over when, where, how she could ever tell Dolly what Dolly had to know before the cruel world got in first. All she could do was to love the child, build a foundation of security and unconditional love that would serve as a support against the awful day. And Alexander, grant him that, had been equally caring, far more patient and forthcoming than he had been with his own daughters, even Nell. Nell…A lonely young woman, hard, tough, sometimes ruthless. No place for boyfriends in that life! When she wasn’t slaving over her medical textbooks or enduring the sarcasm of her teachers, she was supervising Anna’s imprisonment. Elizabeth suffered for her, yet was aware that Nell would despise her for suffering. To be an Alexander was one thing, but to be him in a female guise was quite another. Oh, Nell, choose some personal happiness before it’s too late!

As for Anna—that was unbearable. When Nell had banned her from visiting the house in Glebe Point Road, Elizabeth had fought back fiercely, only to come up against all of Alexander’s steel. A losing battle, just as her life with Alexander had been a losing battle. But to lose it was made infinitely worse by the knowledge that, underneath, she was pathetically grateful to be banned. Oh, the relief of not having to see what Anna had become! Yet the grief of admitting that she, Elizabeth, was never strong enough.

SO ELIZABETH went downstairs ahead of Alexander to make sure that his instructions about the table seating had been followed. If they were dining alone or only Ruby was joining them, they did not bother to dress, but Constance was here, and Sung was coming plus one other as well as Ruby; Elizabeth had dressed. Rather indifferently; there were plenty of new costumes in soft pastels in her wardrobes, but out came the dark blue crepe, out came the sapphires and diamonds.

One of the latest innovations in the house was an electric buzzer that sounded when the cable car reached the top; usually Alexander answered it by going to the door to wait, but tonight he still hadn’t come down when the buzzer sounded. Elizabeth went to stand watching Sung and Ruby coming up the steps, someone behind them. Then suddenly the mystery guest was in front of them, eyes fixed on her—blindly? Lee. At times like this—but had there ever been a time like this?—Elizabeth’s long, self-imposed training in outward composure clamped down, put a polite smile on her face, kept her backbone straight. But it was the thinnest of veneers; beneath it the emotion expanded like the huge billow of dust that followed a blast in the limestone quarry, and with the same sense of utter upheaval. She knew that if she moved she would rock on her heels, that her legs would fail her, so she stood absolutely still while she said something inane to welcome him, saw him pass on to greet Alexander, coming down the stairs, stayed on that same spot to exchange pleasantries with Sung and Ruby, let them go past her. Only then, as they clustered around her husband, did she try to move. One foot forward, then the other; her legs worked, she could continue.

And thank God for Alexander, who had placed her on the same side as Lee, but not next to him; she concentrated upon Ruby, opposite her and bubbling over with joy at Lee’s return. All Elizabeth had to do was interpolate an occasional yes or no or mmm. That generous soul Constance Dewy apparently felt the same way, for she too let Ruby rattle on.

While Ruby rattled on and Constance listened eagerly, Elizabeth tried to come to terms with the realization that she was totally, desperately in love with Lee Costevan. In her private thoughts she had always deemed what she felt for him as an attraction, something that didn’t really matter. Everyone experienced attractions from time to time, why shouldn’t she? But the moment she saw him after seven years of not seeing him, Elizabeth understood herself at last. Lee was the man she would have chosen of her own free will to marry, the only man. Yet had she not married Alexander, she would never have met Lee at all. Oh, life is cruel! Lee is the one man, the only man.

Even afterward in the drawing room, when Lee elected to sit removed from everyone, the turmoil inside her did not let her see anything in him that might lead her to hope—oh, what was she thinking, hope? Thank God he was indifferent! In that lay her salvation. If he had loved her back, it would have been the end of many worlds. Though why did Ruby play Chopin, and only his yearning, exquisitely sad pieces at that? With a feeling and a dexterity her arthritic hands should not have allowed her. Every note fell through Elizabeth as if she had been made of cloud—or water. Water. I met my fate at The Pool, and for fifteen years I haven’t known it. Next year I will be forty, and he is still a young man who lives to seek adventure in distant lands. Alexander has dragged him back to take the place of the sons I didn’t have, and his sense of duty has forced him to obey. For though he feels nothing for me, I can tell that he isn’t happy to be here.

When he looked at Ruby, which he did for long periods, she could look at him with the delicate clarity that admitting her love had given her. But there was no one to see how she looked at him; her chair did not permit the others to see her face. Once she had called him a golden serpent to Alexander, but now she understood all the nuances in that metaphor, and why she had chosen it. It wasn’t accurate, it sprang from her own suppressed feelings and had nothing to do with what he really was. He was the personification of sun and wind and rain, the elements that made life possible. The odd thing was that he reminded her of Alexander: the colossal masculinity that knew no self-doubts, the keen and technical brain, the restlessness, the radiated power. Yet the one she couldn’t bear to touch her, the other she hungered to have touch her. The greatest difference between them was her love, withheld from the one entitled to it, given to the other without hope of its ever being returned.

She didn’t sleep that night, and at dawn crept into Dolly’s room with a soft “Ssssh!” to the animals, which stirred when Dolly didn’t. Peony slept elsewhere these days, worked reasonable hours and had plenty of days off. Drawing up a chair, Elizabeth sat beside the little bed to watch the day steal across that sweetly sleeping face, and resolved that this was one child who would never go through what Nell or Anna had. Therefore no breaking the news of her parentage to her before maturity. Dolly would enjoy an idyllic childhood of laughter, ponies, the gentle lessons that produced good manners and thoughtfulness—no bogeys, no old men to terrify her, no thankless toil. Just hugs and kisses.

Only then, watching that sweetly sleeping face, did Elizabeth finally come to understand what her own childhood had done to her, and admit how right Alexander’s judgment of Dr. Murray had been. I will teach her about God, but He will not be Dr. Murray’s god. Nor will I ever permit some dreadful picture of satanic evil to color her life. And suddenly I see that something as trivial as a picture on a wall can do as much damage to a young life as the truth about Dolly’s parentage. We shouldn’t need to be frightened into being good little children, we should be led to goodness by parents who mean so much to us that we cannot bear to disappoint them. God is too intangible for a child to comprehend; the onus rests on parents to make themselves people their children love and value above all else. So I will not spoil Dolly, or give in to her in everything, but when I stand firm against her, I will do so in a way she respects. Oh, my father and his stick! His contempt for women. His selfishness. He sold me for a small fortune, not a farthing of which he ever spent. Mary had his measure. When Alastair inherited the money, Mary spent it on a few frivolities and many important things. All her children were educated on it, the boys to university standard, the girls sufficiently well to be schoolteachers or nurses. She was a good mother, and Alastair a good father. What harm is there in jam on the table for every meal?

I should have refused to be sold, though it was Alexander’s fault too, for offering to buy me. All my father wanted was the money, but what exactly did Alexander want? Oh, so long ago! I have been married to him for twenty-two years, and still I don’t know. A chaste wife, certainly. Children, especially sons, yes. To cock a snook at my father and Dr. Murray—that too. But what else? Did he think that duty would lead to love? Did he think himself capable of turning duty into love? But he wasn’t willing to cast every particle of bread he had on the waters of our marriage; he kept Ruby’s loaf on the shore just in case. That poor woman, so terribly in love with him, so unsuitable as a wife. And he took what she said about never wanting to marry anyone as the truth because it was what he wanted to hear. Fool! I know that had he asked her, she would have said yes, yes, yes! And they would have loved each other madly, probably had half a dozen sons. But he didn’t see the queenly chatelaine inside the shady lady until it was too late. Ruby, Ruby, he ruined you too.