Winterwood (13 page)

Lavinia’s pen dropped from her hand there, and she stared into space. Charlotte was not the only one who was afraid. Lavinia knew that Jonathon Peate would come to Winterwood. Although she had tried not to think about his threat, it was always at the back of her mind. She didn’t know his purpose. She was sure it was not good. But each day was making her more anxious that no one should discover her secret. The scene with Charlotte, for some reason, had intensified her anxiety. Fear was catching.

But perhaps she, like Charlotte, was suffering only from the weariness and strain of the long journey.

She lay down on the sofa at the foot of the bed, and before she knew it was sound asleep. She was wakened by the sound of voices quarreling.

She sprang up and opened her door to find Eliza, who had been given the permanent duties of nurse because the old lady had taken a fancy to her, hurrying along the passage to Lady Tameson.

“Miss Hurst, did you give Miss Flora permission to go in to my lady? I left her having a nice nap, and here I find her sitting up playing cards. Did you ever! Listen!”

Flora’s voice, high and shrill, was the loudest, but Lady Tameson was far from inaudible.

“You cheated, Great-aunt Tameson! I saw you! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“I did nothing of the kind, you unpleasant child. My king has taken your queen.”

“But you took it from the wrong pack. I saw you cheating. I refuse to play with you any more.”

“Then good riddance. I’ll be glad if you’ll leave me in peace.”

Lavinia hurried into the bedroom to find Flora with her wheelchair drawn close to the bed, Lady Tameson sitting bolt upright, and cards all over the counterpane.

“Flora, what is this? You’re supposed to be resting.”

Two pairs of guilty eyes turned. Flora began to giggle, and Lady Tameson drew in her mouth, although her hand crept across the counterpane toward Flora’s.

“Save your breath scolding her, Miss Hurst. I invited her in. But I regret it now. She has been rude and objectionable.”

“Miss Hurst, Great-aunt Tameson cheated. I saw her quite distinctly. She’s old enough to know better.”

Lady Tameson’s mouth tightened into a nutcracker shape. Her black eyes snapped.

“I won the game. My king took your queen. If you’re going to play games with me, you’ll find that I usually win.”

“I’d rather lose than cheat,” Flora shouted, her face scarlet. “I wonder you dare to, since you’re going to die so soon. What will you say to God?”

It was unfortunate that Charlotte, better for her rest, was just coming downstairs with Edward. Edward raced forward, his face bright with anticipation of trouble.

“What is it, Flora? Have you been rude to Great-aunt Tameson?”

“No, I have not. Telling the truth isn’t being rude.”

“Flora!” Charlotte’s voice was tight with anger. “Go to your room. Miss Hurst, this is exactly what I was warning you about. If you can’t keep Flora in order you are no better than the others. I can’t have my aunt upset by all this noise.”

Lady Tameson sat up straighter.

“I’m not upset, Charlotte. I was merely explaining to my great-niece that when I play games I usually win.” Her eyes glinted strangely. Charlotte saw the look, but before she could say anything, Flora persisted, “She wanted to play, Mamma. The doctor said she was to be made happy.”

“Flora, you would oblige me by not answering back. Go to your room immediately. And although you say you’re not upset, Aunt Tameson, you look very flushed. I think you should rest quietly. If you’re feeling dull, Edward will show you how nicely he can read and write. Teddy darling, I want you to fetch your new reading and writing books and your pencils.”

Edward pouted, caught his mother’s eye, and muttered, “Yes, Mamma.”

As he followed Flora out, Flora turned to him contemptuously. “Are you going to suck up to her? I thought you hated her.”

“Mamma says I have to.”

“Why are you wearing your velvet suit? It makes you look like a little angel.” Flora’s voice was sharply sarcastic. “Are you supposed to make Great-aunt Tameson think you’re her little Tom?”

Edward’s anxiety was greater at that moment than his sense of injury.

“I don’t want to read to her. She’s too old. I don’t like old ladies.”

Flora was merciless. “Are you afraid she’ll die while you’re there? She might, too. I bet you wouldn’t get her her medicine in time. I bet you’d just scream for Mamma.”

Charlotte came out of Lady Tameson’s room.

“Children! Do what I told you to at once.” It seemed that she was even angry with her beloved Edward. “Miss Hurst, I cannot have these children constantly quarreling. They must be kept apart until Edward’s tutor arrives. I suggest you take Flora out for some air in the garden before the sun goes. Teddy, I told you to fetch your books.” Her voice softened. “Don’t be alarmed, my pet. Mamma will stay with you.”

The sun had almost gone. It hung, a red ball, beyond the woods, and there was mist in the air. Joseph had to help Lavinia with Flora’s chair down the steps of the terrace where the two sphinxes, accustomed to desert vistas, looked over English lawns and fountains with round, surprised eyes. Flora meant no time to be wasted on dull lawns and gravel walks. She ordered Lavinia to take her through an opening in the privet hedge, across the archery lawn, past the slope that led down to the shrubbery and the ornamental lake, across the walled kitchen garden with its herbs and strawberry beds, its raspberry canes and espaliered peach and apricot trees, and through a door in the brick wall to the little blue garden.

It was an enchanting place. Butterflies drifted about the blue and purple michaelmas daisies; there were late sweet peas, heliotrope and blue phlox. Earlier in the year, Flora said, there was lobelia, gentians, and morning glory. She eagerly wheeled her chair down the uneven paving stones to where the morning glory vine had climbed all over the stone infant’s head on its slender plinth. Leaves lay across the rounded brow and the broken nose. Moss had filled the eyes. There was a crack in the stone that distorted the smiling mouth.

Lavinia pulled the vines away and began to scrape the moss out of the eyes. Flora watched her silently. When she had finished and the round-cheeked face was clean and curiously naked, Flora sighed.

“I always used to do that, but I can’t now, and I wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch it. It’s my baby.”

“It’s a charming garden,” Lavinia said.

“My grandmother made it. She put the baby here, too. It was before Papa was born, and she thought a lot about babies. She used to sit here and long for one of her own. And then when Papa was born she died.”

“How sad.”

“It’s not sad in this garden,” Flora denied vigorously. “No one is allowed to come here without my permission. If you sit under the fig tree over there no one can see you from the house. It’s the best place in Winterwood to be private.” Suddenly she added, “You may come here, Miss Hurst, when you want to be private. Only remember to shut the door in the wall so that Edward can’t get in.”

“Poor Edward.”

“He’s not poor at all. He’s sucking up to Great-aunt Tameson. I expect he wants one of her diamond brooches to give to his future wife. Though I can’t imagine who would marry him. Will you sit under the fig tree and long for a baby, Miss Hurst?”

Flora’s rapid change of subject took Lavinia unawares. For once she couldn’t quickly compose her face. She had been thinking of Daniel’s mother sitting idly in the sun, her face peaceful and content, as she dreamed of the birth of her baby. A stone one, charming as it was, had not needed to suffice for her.

It wasn’t true that this garden wasn’t sad. It was unbearably sad.

“You are too young to talk about things like that, Flora. Let us go in. It’s getting chilly.”

Flora permitted herself to be wheeled away without protest. But it was too much to hope that she had given up the subject.

Upstairs she said, “What will you wear to dinner tonight, Miss Hurst?”

“My blue silk, I expect.”

“Is that your only good dress?”

“If you don’t count this brown one I have on.”

“Would you like a pink one, like the one you said I could have?”

“Naturally, but I can hardly ask your Mamma for one for myself as well, can I?”

“You looked beautiful at the opera. Papa said so.” Flora was thoughtful. Suddenly she said, “Don’t be sad, Miss Hurst.

“Sad?”

“About not getting a baby. Your face was sad.”

“You imagine things,” Lavinia said roughly. “And don’t despise my blue silk too much. It’s very suitable.”

The change in Charlotte at dinner was remarkable. It was because Daniel had brought her a gift, a little Italian greyhound bitch with a red leather collar. He had been calling on the new people at Croft House. It appeared that they bred this fanciful kind of dog.

Charlotte was enchanted with it. She gathered the slim shivering little creature into her arms and said that she would call it Sylvie.

“Thank you, my love,” she whispered. She was wearing a red dress, and now that pleasure had brought some color to her cheeks she looked astonishingly lovely. Lavinia, who had come on the tender little scene in the drawing room, for the bell had rung for dinner some minutes before, thought—he loves her.

The greyhound was a charming toy, and Charlotte insisted on having it at her feet during dinner. Her headache had quite disappeared, she said, and she had become very gay.

“Daniel, let’s have some amusements. We mustn’t let the house get gloomy because of Aunt Tameson. Already the children have been feeling it. Isn’t that so, Miss Hurst? Flora has been particularly difficult. Though I must say my darling Teddy, when I finally persuaded him to, got his copybook and showed Aunt Tameson how well he could write. He was perfectly sweet with her, and was very amused when he found her writing very bad and shaky and his so much better. I hope, when Mr. Mallinson comes, her signature won’t be quite so undecipherable.”

“Witnesses will take care of that,” Daniel said. “I’d suggest responsible people like Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and Miss Hurst. Then, if affidavits are required later, they can make them.”

“Of course,” Charlotte said in a relieved voice. “You understand everything.”

“You’re quite certain that this is your aunt’s wish?”

“But naturally. It’s on her mind every minute. She won’t be happy until it’s done. She said this in Venice, darling.”

Daniel was aware of the nervous edge coming back in his wife’s voice and said quickly, “Then the sooner the better.”

Charlotte gave a little sigh. “Yes. I’ve written to Mr. Mallinson suggesting Saturday. He may care to stay overnight. Tomorrow, if she is well enough, my aunt insists on going to see little Tom’s grave. The doctor said she should take airings, but I trust she won’t always show a preference for the churchyard. Let us talk of something more cheerful.”

“Then I have the very thing,” said Daniel. “The mailbag arrived just before dinner. It contained an invitation to a weekend at Windsor Castle at the end of the month, to attend a ball, and races at Ascot.”

Charlotte clapped her hands.

“Oh, how jolly!” Then her face fell. “But I can scarcely leave my aunt.”

“Nonsense! With a house full of servants!”

“Yes, but supposing—” she hesitated, and finished with words Lavinia was sure she hadn’t been about to say, “supposing she asks for me.”

“Personally,” said old Sir Timothy, who had been paying absorbed attention to his food, “I find the Queen a monstrously dull creature thinking about nothing but filling the nurseries, and that German husband.”

“Nevertheless this is a command,” Daniel said. “Unless we are virtually at Lady Tameson’s deathbed, we must go. So make your arrangements, my love.”

Charlotte fed a tidbit to the little greyhound under the table. She said, “I shall need a new dress,” and looked happy. Her eyes, with their curious drowned look, were shining. The harpy of the luncheon table had vanished to give place to this childlike creature. Was this mood completely here, or was she acting one more part? The devoted mother (to Edward only), the dutiful niece, the petulant invalid, the wild-eyed creature torn by temper and anger, and now the child-wife, although she must be quite thirty years or more.

What was she as a lover, Lavinia wondered. How would she be in the bedroom tonight with her new pet betokening her husband’s affection, and the promise of a visit to Windsor Castle? What warmth and excitement did she bring to love?

It was difficult to push those painful thoughts out of her mind and listen to Sir Timothy, who had reverted to the interesting subject of Lady Tameson.

“I must say, Charlotte, I found your aunt extraordinarily chipper, considering what old Munro says. But it’s a pity she’s lost her red hair. The only thing I recognized about her was that abominable violet scent she always used.”

“It’s a long time since you last saw her, Uncle Timothy,” Charlotte said. “And anyway you see so badly now.”

“I’m well aware of that. Don’t suppose she thought I’d improved, either. I asked her a few things about Willie Peate. I’m glad to say she hasn’t forgotten him, in spite of this Count she married. She said she would always remember him with tenderness. He was the father of her child, and, of course, one of the country’s heroes. Sometimes one wonders if anyone remembers the heroes of Waterloo except the Duke himself, and he was always a cold fish, anyway. Though they said he had tears in his eyes when he looked across those fields of slaughtered. Daniel, I laid down this claret the year after Waterloo. It’s done nicely, don’t you agree?”

“Splendidly, Uncle Timothy. I’ve just ordered a consignment from the Château Margaux vineyards.”

“Fine. Simon will thank you for that one day. It’s a pity one’s lifespan is so short I’d like to see that mature.”

“I expect the ancestor who planted the Lebanon cedar would have liked to see it grow to its present size, too. We must take the appreciation of these things on trust.”

“Well, I’ll never cease objecting to dying,” Sir Timothy said obstinately. “I’ll wager that old woman upstairs feels the same.”