Winterwood (5 page)

“My arrangements have been made for traveling back to England, so I am quite unable to accommodate you,” she said. “I’m afraid this whole thing is my fault. I shouldn’t have spoken to Flora in the Piazza. I had no idea she would imagine herself so attached to me. But she will get over it. Now if you will excuse me, I have a great deal to do. I make an early start in the morning.”

She turned and went quickly before anyone could speak. She would not weaken for the woman on the couch, whom she already unreasonably disliked, but Daniel Meryon had only to say, “Do this for me,” or the crazy spoiled forlorn little creature, Flora, to catch her hand, and she would not have been so sure of herself.

She heard Flora’s wail, “Miss
Hurst!”
and Charlotte’s “Daniel, what a preposterous young woman!” and young Edward’s sudden derisive hoot, “Flora’s a crybaby!”

It wasn’t she who was preposterous, but they.

Nevertheless, it had been she who had deliberately sought Flora’s acquaintance on the chance of her father appearing. And he had appeared, and for a little while it had been irresistible to plunge into a forbidden excitement.

Where was her recklessness now?

She knew only that she would find it intolerable to be ordered about by a woman like Charlotte Meryon. She knew that type, self-indulgent, vain, clinging, and unfairly using her frailty as a weapon. If it were frailty. One couldn’t deny her loveliness. That black hair and white face and those great colorless eyes had an almost eerie beauty. Daniel must want to indulge her whims as much as he did Flora’s. Lavinia already knew it would be unbearable for her to watch that. She couldn’t assent to this impulsive scheme.

But, had it been cruel to deny Flora? She was shockingly spoiled, to be sure, but she was also struggling with a certain amount of gallantry with her illness which, unlike her mother’s, was genuine. She had a sharp, alert mind that it would be a challenge to guide.

You
guiding an innocent child’s mind!
You!

“Didn’t you like them?” Cousin Marion asked sharply. “Please don’t be difficult now and refuse this opportunity. You might remember you’re in no position to pick and choose.”

“I haven’t seen the Monks yet,” Lavinia answered. “It was a mistake.”

“A mistake? How could it be? Then who did you see?”

“Some strangers. I wasn’t the kind of person they were looking for. I told you, it was a mistake.”

Later she did see the Monks, a thin old paper-faced couple, absurdly alike. She agreed to be ready to leave with them at seven o’clock sharp in the morning. She was wryly pleased with herself that for once in her life she was doing the sensible and conventional thing, and for the rest of the day was utterly miserable. Only Cousin Marion’s everlastingly complaining voice saying that she might at least make herself agreeable on her last evening induced her to put on the dowdy blue silk and accompany her cousin down to dinner that evening.

She prayed that the Meryons would not be dining at the same time. Another onslaught from Flora would be too much.

Cousin Marion, as usual, thought the waiters were too slow, the food foreign and indigestible, the room too hot. In the middle of her stream of complaints she suddenly demanded, “Who are you looking at?”

They had come in—Charlotte and Daniel, and Edward, dressed in a smart dark blue velvet suit. There was no sign of Flora.

Neither Charlotte nor Edward noticed her, but Daniel did. Across the room he paused to give her a slight bow, and then went on. She noticed that when they were seated he had his back to her.

And that was the last she would see of Daniel Meryon, a pair of broad shoulders, and that square powerful head turned away from her and attentively toward his lovely wife.

But where was Flora? Ill? Crying in her room? Having a tantrum?

“Lavinia, I was speaking to you. Who are those people? Have you acquaintances here you didn’t tell me about?”

“They’re only people I spoke to in passing. They have an invalid daughter. I felt sorry for her.”

Cousin Marion’s gimlet eyes bored into her. But she read nothing in Lavinia’s face, for she said disappointedly, “I can’t admire this freedom you have with complete strangers. Your own nature is your worst enemy. Do, pray, try not to give Mr. and Mrs. Monk any nasty shocks, or
I
shall be held responsible.”

“I’ll never see them again,” Lavinia murmured.

“Who? The Monks? That’s not the point. You should try to be remembered pleasantly.”

Did that matter? She supposed it did. For it was surprisingly painful to think how she had hurt and disillusioned Flora. She hoped the child wasn’t really ill.

At last the day was over. Cousin Marion was in bed, her light out; Gianetta had retired; and Lavinia was expected to have done the same.

But the moon was shining on the lagoon. The air was balmy. By leaning far out of her window she could just see the domes of the Basilica gleaming silver. To complete the magic, someone far out on the lagoon was singing an aria from
La Traviata.
It was unbearably beautiful, unbearably sentimental and sad. And Lavinia had an overpowering compulsion to stand on the side of the canal just once more, letting the moonlight and the calm wash all the bitter realities out of her mind.

She put a shawl over her head, covering the fair hair that betrayed her Englishness, and took the precaution of going down the backstairs. Wandering alone in Venice at night would be what Cousin Marion would term her final folly.

“Gondola, lady?” the smiling gondolier, his eyes gleaming in the flaring quayside light, asked.

She shook her head reluctantly. Besides, she doubted if she had the fare. Cousin Marion was not exactly generous with money.

Someone took her arm. A deep, familiar voice said, “Yes, gondolier, please. Take us as far as the Rialto. Step in, Miss Hurst”

She was caught off balance. That was her only possible reason for obeying. She had started so violently that if she hadn’t stepped into the gondola she believed she would have tumbled into the canal.

“Whatever do you think you’re doing?” she asked Daniel Meryon.

“Fulfilling your wishes, I believe. You were longing for a gondola ride by moonlight, weren’t you? And why not? It’s very romantic. One should never leave Venice without having done it”

“Mr. Meryon, of all the presumption! Are you trying to kidnap me?”

He laughed pleasantly. “You do have a tendency toward drama. If that were my intention, I would have instructed the gondolier to take us down the small back canals. Have you seen them? They’re very narrow and dark and quite sinister. There one can feel Venice’s cruel past very distinctly. Have you noticed it? The romance of all this, the moonlight, the decorative palaces, is only a veneer.”

Lavinia impatiently dismissed his conversational discourse.

“What about your wife? Flora?”

“My wife has retired with a headache. Flora, I hope, is asleep. The doctor gave her a sedative.”

“Why did she need it?” Lavinia asked in a hostile voice.

The gondolier had swung his boat round and out into the open stream. It rocked a little, and Daniel supported her as she inadvertently swayed against him.

“Let me answer that with another question. Why do you need to be persuaded to come back to Winterwood with us?”

“Persuaded! Whatever do you mean?”

“Because you do want to come, don’t you? I really can’t think why you feel it necessary to stand on your dignity like this.”

“Mr. Meryon—I simply don’t understand what you are talking about.”

“You were very kind to Flora.” He didn’t seem to have noticed her indignation. “I don’t think you did that casually. You may think her spoiled and unlikable, but you recognize her tragedy and her courage. She is a very lonely little girl. You noticed that. That’s why I think this isn’t just a matter of indulging her whims, but of you being the best possible influence for her.” After the briefest pause he added, “My wife agrees, though reluctantly. She thinks you rather too pretty, and wonders how you come to be in this position.”

“As for that—”

“No, don’t explain. I don’t particularly want to know. Flora and I accept you for what you are to us. Isn’t that enough for your sense of dignity?”

To her complete fury her voice trembled. “Your wife will scarcely accept that.”

“As Charlotte rather aptly put it, ‘beggars can’t be choosers.’ We really are in desperate straits for help. Oh, she will ask endless questions, of course. But aren’t you flattered that she should distrust you for being pretty?”

“Mr. Meryon—please believe me—I’m not suitable for this position. You know nothing about me. I’m not even honest.”

“You mean that business of borrowing your cousin’s jewelry. If I may be frank, she can scarcely do it justice herself.”

“You’re very rash to dismiss a thing like that so lightly.”

The gondolier, rowing rhythmically, suddenly began to sing. He had a fine lyrical tenor voice. The lapping of the water against the boat was a gentle accompaniment. The lights from the shore were so much dimmer than the moonlight. They were bathed in luminous light; the water was velvet black, the ripples like the fin-silver of fishes. Daniel had made no answer to Lavinia’s last protest, as if suddenly he had become caught in the magic of the night. She knew that she had. She seemed to have sailed away from the past and the future, and was experiencing an extraordinary sense of release and freedom. She sensed that he was, too, although she could scarcely presume to divine his thoughts. It was a bit of moonlight madness to have the intuition that he, too, had been glad to momentarily shake off ties and troubles.

If the gondolier didn’t stop singing she would find herself agreeing to any proposal, no matter how fantastic.

“You have an extraordinarily innocent face,” Daniel said, and the spell was gone forever.

“What makes you say that?” she demanded suspiciously.

“Only because your cousin seems to have made you feel you have committed some black crime. I assure you Flora and I will be more tolerant when you are at Winterwood.”

She tried to revive her indignation. She was altogether too conscious of his arm against hers. Gondolas were not made for prim behavior. However had she allowed herself to get into this situation?

Because you wanted to, the voice in her head said. Be honest for once. He has spoken nothing but the truth. You do want to go to Winterwood; you do want to be persuaded; you did cultivate Flora’s acquaintance; you did deliberately go outdoors alone this evening. And you were utterly miserable at the thought of those dead-and-alive Monks with their parchment faces. Be honest!

But you know where this will lead you. You’ll fall in love with him and begin to hate Charlotte’s lovely face. Going to Winterwood will be deliberately impaling yourself on a stake, walking on nails …

But couldn’t there be some way out of the hurting?

If you made Flora happy, for instance, not because you like and admire her, but for his sake, because he cares. If you were able to help her to walk again, wouldn’t that recompense you for your own hurt? And wouldn’t Robin be happy to know you had such a good position?

Anyway, Daniel Meryon knows what he is doing. His eyes are wide open. He’s only flattering you because he wants his own way for Flora’s sake. He’s happily married. His wife is very beautiful. He’s adult and conventional and sophisticated. Those tender glances come easily to him. You must learn not to read anything into them. You must learn to control your destiny.

But, oh, to live again …

The song had ended. The dark curve of the Rialto bridge loomed ahead. The gondolier expertly swung the gondola around. They were headed back for San Marco. The world was returning.

“Very well,” Lavinia said in a low, determined voice. “I’ll come. If your wife will agree.”

“I
will agree, Miss Hurst.”

Then, with his unpredictable disturbing behavior, he lifted one of her hands and put his lips to it.

“The gondolier expects us to be a little romantic,” he said calmly. “Don’t let us disappoint him. Besides, that is only part of my gratitude.”

“Then pray don’t show the rest of it,” she said tartly.

He laughed with enjoyment. It was a pity it was too dark to see his face. She would like to have seen it when it was full of pleasure, no matter what the reason for the pleasure. She had a feeling it was not often like that. At least the dark safely permitted her a smile of sheer relief, and a growing delight. Practical considerations surged through her head. She would have some more precious days in Venice. She would insist on taking sole charge of Flora, and begin earnestly to like the child. The Monks would have to be told, of course. But their dull, petulant old faces had got past feeling much of either pleasure or disappointment. They would have to delay their journey for a day, and find some other companion much more suitable than herself. Which would be all to the good as, in the height of frustration and despair, she might have yielded to the temptation to push them off the appallingly slow train that bumped and rocked its way across Italy!

She suppressed a small gurgle of amusement, and her companion looked enquiringly at her.

“Would you have tipped me overboard, Mr. Meryon, if I hadn’t finally agreed to your request? Is that why you inveigled me into a gondola?”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t know who I am. You’re trusting your daughter to a complete stranger.”

“I know that you enjoy the opera; I know that you speak like a lady; I know that you have come to your present situation through bad fortune.”

“Bad fortune! Yes. How do you know that?”

“I expect your parents died and there was less money than you had anticipated. Probably your father was a spendthrift and left you forced to keep yourself. I only make a guess, but obviously you have been well-educated. And—forgive me for saying so—you must have found your cousin less than stimulating company.”

It was all so harmless, and so exactly what she had already planned to tell his wife.

“You are very perceptive, Mr. Meryon.”

“So is my wife.”