Lord of the Far Island (10 page)

erhaps you think we are too young,I said.

was seventeen when I married. It was a good match. We were so poor. Trentham was falling to pieces. Josiah has done so much for it. I used to shiver in my bedroom. So cold in the winter. Now we are in this house in the winter and we go there in the summer.

So pleasant; and of course the servants we had our faithful ones. Poor souls, they rarely were paid. So good; and the roof was a constant anxiety. They were always talking of the fabric of the building. Such a strange term! And then there was Josiah. Of course it was not a family like oursbut so rich. He was ten years older than I. You wouldn believe it, would you? The Carringtons wear well. It all that energy. They are always doing something that vital to something, some country, some business and of course to themselves. It keeps them alert and to be alert is to be young, they say. I was never very alert, but I did marry Josiah and that was the end of Trentham troubles. I haven heard the fabric mentioned for years. Josiah people builders and suchlike take care of that. As soon as the fabric does what it shouldn, it is rectified. Everything changed on the day I married Josiah. My parents were delighted with the match, and Rollo was born a year after our marriage. Perhaps this time next year, dear.

do hope I going to produce these babies,I said.

ou will, because youe in love. I believe that very important. Philip adores you. He always did. He was always talking about you, you know.

thought it would be Esmeralda.

ell, to tell the truth, my dear, so did I. You see, your cousin was certain of it but, as Josiah said, you are more vital and amusing and truthfully, my dear, much more good-looking and we are delighted that Philip and you chose each other.

I took her hand and kissed it suddenly. I was growing very fond of her.

ou are a dear girl. How I wish Rollo could have found someone like you. Ah, Rollo !

ou are not. happy about him?I prompted.

y dear, how could I be n the circumstances? He is his father all over again. He is going to be a power in the City and of course with everything he touches. He needs a wife beside him though. Oh dear, it so unfortunate. But of course we mustn talk of it. It makes us all so unhappy and this should be a happy time. Tell me, have you and Philip decided on a date yet?

hilip thinks the end of June.

hat a lovely month for a marriage. Josiah and I were married in June. Such a charming ceremony at Trentham church of course. You should be married there but perhaps London will be more convenient. What does the place matter when two people are in love? London will certainly be more convenient because your cousin will want you to have a grand wedding, I sure.

don know. I have no income of my own, you know, Lady Emily.

o much the better,she said. had none. All I brought was the house with its dilapidated fabric. I think it as well. A husband likes to be the sole provider, you know.

So we talked and the affection between us deepened. I think Philip was her favorite although she was proud of Rollo. Rollo was too clever for her, she confided in me. He takes after his father. He and Josiah got on like a house on fire.

Philip used to come and sprawl in a chair and look from one of us to the other. I could see he was delighted with the friendship between us.

One day he took me down to the mews to show me a new horse he had acquired.

I immediately noticed one of the grooms because I had seen him somewhere before. Philip introduced me and chatted with him in the easy way he had and which I was sure endeared him to everyone.

his is Hawley,he said. e hasn been with us very long.

Hawley said: ood afternoon, Miss Kellaway,and I continued to be puzzled.

When we left the mews I said to Philip, e seen him before. I wonder where.

t may have been at someone house. I forget where he was before he came to us, though he not really a stableman. He just wanted any job that was going, I think my father said, and as he seemed a good man and there was this vacancy at the mews he took him I think wel have the house in Finlay Square. It the best wee seen. You must admit it.

like to look at it again, Philip.

h come, Ellen, if we don decide soon someone else might snap it up. Where are we going to live when wee married if we haven a house? Wel have to be in my father house for a while as it is, because I doubt everything will be ready by June.

I felt a little shiver of apprehension then. June. It was so near and I was very uneasy.

When I went to bed that night I remembered the man face and where I had seen him before.

It was in the Park. He was the man I had thought was watching us.

We were going to a musical evening at the Carringtons Lady Emily had engaged a famous Italian pianist who would entertain us. Cousin Agatha was delighted to be going. alf London will be there,she said. t least anybody who is anybody will be.

suppose,I retorted, verybody is somebody, and I doubt whether even Lady Emily drawing room would accommodate more than seventy people in comfort.

I could never resist the temptation to be what she would have called ertin the old days. I shouldn have been human if I could have resisted exploiting my situation a little. It was amusing how my stature grew daily, particularly since I had been such a frequent visitor to the house in Park Lane. In fact, my visits were quite informal.

This state of affairs I knew was a complete mystery to Cousin Agatha. Rose reported to me that she had heard her say to Cousin William Loring that I seemed to have bewitched not only Philiphich was understandable, for he was but a callow boybut Lady Emily and Mr. Carrington too. Of course Lady Emily had always been oddly vague and Mr. Carrington was so immersed in affairs.

Tilly was sewing all day long and far into the night making garments for both me and Esmeralda, because there was no doubt that Esmeralda was going to profit from the situation. I was determined that she should. I would give parties for her, I promised myself, and I would select the right sort of husbandomeone kind and gentle and undemanding.

I said to her once: ll this fuss should really be for you.And she retorted: ow thankful I am that it is not. I couldn do it half as well as you do. Mr. Carrington frightens me. He so clever, isn he? And I can never follow what Lady Emily saying.

It was a relief to know she was not heartbroken.

I talked to her of the fun we should have in the country. She should come and stay and we have pleasant parties. We ride together just as we used to when we were children.

She said: so glad it happened the way it has, Ellen. That Mrs. Oman Lemming is a dreadful person. Bessie told me that she is quite beastly to the servants there and particularly the governess. She can wait to get away.

hat a miraculous escape I had!I cried. hanks to Philip.

Somewhere at the back of my mind was the knowledge that I was trying to reassure myself. In the beginning it had all seemed so wonderful but now it occurred to me that everything had worked out too easily and that in itself was vaguely disturbing.

A few days later the Carringtons gave the musical soiree. I stood with Philip and people kept coming up to congratulate us. There was a photographer for the press. uch a bore,said Philip, ut they catch my mother and she doesn like to refuse them.

The recital was one of Chopin pieces beautifully rendered by the Italian pianist. Dreamy, romantic, then militant and stirring.

ee negotiating prices about the house,Philip told me. hey take their time, I can tell you. Lawyers and things. Rollo most interested in concluding it all as soon as possible.

I nodded, scarcely listening.

el go on the Continent. What do you think of Venice? Rome perhaps? Will you like that, Ellen?

I said I thought it would be lovely.

erhaps the house will be ready by the time we come back. Rollo taking over arrangements for it now he in London for a spell. My father hasn time. They seem to think I not capable of doing it, and theye probably right.

t good of Rollo.

h, he likes doing that sort of thing.

The recital was over and there was a buffet supper to follow. Everyone was discussing the music, and Philip, having caught sight of an old friend, went over to have a word with him, leaving me temporarily alone.

A voice behind me said: e been wanting to meet you all the evening.

I turned sharply and looked up at one of the tallest men I have ever seen. I knew at once that I had not met him before at any of the Carrington gatherings because if I had I could not have forgotten him. It was not only his unusual height and broad shoulders, but there was something else about himn aura of power. His eyes were dark, deep-set, heavy-lidded, but very bright and expressive, though what they expressed it was not easy to decide. His nose was longish and arrogant-looking; his mouth could be either cruel or gentle, I was not sure which. All I can say is that even in those first moments I thought his was one of the most interesting faces I had ever seen.

haven met you before,I said.

arrived just before the recital started. I have seen your picture in the papers. May I say that none of them does you justice.

hat kind of you rather than truthful,I replied. hey are most flattering.

h, I see you are modest as well as attractive. It a nice combination but a rare one.

re you a friend of the family?

connection.

hope you enjoyed the recital.

am enjoying it very much, thank you. Have you a date for the wedding yet?

ot exactly. It to be in June. The actual day is not decided.

shall be there. I determined to be at your wedding.

ady Emily is giving my cousin a list.

Philip was looking across at me. llen,he said, e better go and speak to old Sir Bevis over there.

My companion bowed and turned away.

ld Bevis is getting peevish,said Philip. e always does if we don make a fuss of him. Who was that, by the way, the tall fellow you were talking to?

don know. He said he was a connection of yours.

Philip shrugged his shoulders. ust be one of my father or Rollo business friends. He looked it, I must say.

id you think so? I thought he looked the outdoor type.

robably been pulling financial wires in the Middle East. They do, you know. What I meant was there was that look of power about him. They all have it. I don know how I shall get on because in me it conspicuous by its absence.

erhaps they weren born with it and it something you develop,I comforted. t comes with experience.

on you believe it. These people were born wizards. Still, Ie done better than they have in one way. Ie got you.

h, Philip, you say the nicest things. You make me feel more precious than a fortune, and that love is more important than the Stock Market.

or a moderately intelligent young woman you are surprisingly foolish at times if you needed contact with the financial jugglers of the Carrington circle to bring that to your notice.

We talked to old Sir Bevis, who congratulated Philip on our coming marriage, but I could see that I was the one he was really congratulating. Like a lot of people, he just could not understand why the Carringtons were accepting a girl without money. The logical explanation seemed to be that they were so rich that another fortune wouldn make much difference.

When we had left Sir Bevis I noticed the man Hawley, whom I had seen in the Park and later in the Carrington stables.

Philip noticed my interest in him and laughed.

h, your man of the Park. Old Hawley. He been pressed into service in the house. He seems to have a talent for most things. He valeting now.

or whom?I asked.

or us all really. My father valet left recently and it seems Hawley knew the job. He valets for us all, as we have always shared. My father and Rollo are away so much that there is not much for a valet to do.

suppose youl go away a great deal when youe older, and I shall see the world with you.

hat how it will be,he answered; and I thought then how lucky I was. It was this sudden turnabout provided by the Carringtons and banishing the specter of poverty forever which had set my mind nagging over the suspicion that it was all too good to be true. It was all very well for people to say that the love of money was the root of all evil, but I had to admit that it would certainly be good to have enough so that I need not worry about the future any more.

During the rest of the evening I looked for the tall man who had spoken to me but I couldn see him. I was sure that if he had been present it would not have been difficult to spot him, for he was not the sort who could be lost in a crowd. I wished I had had the presence of mind to ask his name.

t seems,said Esmeralda, hat one of the Carrington servants is courting Bessie.

eally?I replied. ell, I suppose she quite attractive.

here Rose and her coachman and now Bessie and Hawley.

id you say Hawley?

es, I sure that was the name. There seem to be several bonds between us and the Carringtons.

sn that what your mother always wanted?I asked, and I was thinking: Hawley! The man in the Park, the valet who looks after them all. Philip might laugh at me because of my interest in him, but ever since I had fancied he had watched us, I had been aware of him.

The time was passing and we were halfway through May. The horse chestnuts in the Park were proudly displaying their candles, ready to burst into beautiful flower, and I should have been joyous, but I would often wake in the mornings and it was as though I were emerging from an uneasy world of dreams which left nothing coherent behind but a vague sense of uneasiness.

The Carrington offer for the house in Finlay Square had been accepted and the contracts were in the process of being drawn up. We still had a key apiece, Philip and I. I didn want to give mine up because I still had the urge to go there, and I did so now and then, trying to reconcile myself to the place. I would stand in the rooms and try to discover what it was I disliked about it.

Once when I was coming out I met Bessie. It was her half day off and she must have been walking near the square. She knew I went there because she had been talking with me when I took the key out of the drawer.