‘Why did you quarrel with them?’ she repeated.
‘They quarrelled with Gerald,’ I replied. ‘It all happened long before I met him.’ I said it in a final sort of way, hoping she would take the hint and abandon the subject.
‘Didn’t your husband tell you what happened?’ she asked.
That made me angry—perhaps she intended it should. ‘Of course he told me!’ I exclaimed. ‘It would have been very funny if he hadn’t; Gerald and I shared everything. His parents wanted him to stay at home and look after the estate (it’s a big estate with several farms so it would have been a whole-time job) but Gerald wasn’t interested in farming. He was interested in languages and archaeology and had taken an Honours degree at Oxford. He went to Rome and while he was there he met an Italian girl and married her.’
‘That was the quarrel?’
‘Yes, his parents were furious with him—but it wasn’t fair, was it? It’s very wrong to try to arrange other people’s lives.’
‘But surely if he was Sir Mortimer’s heir——’
‘He wasn’t!’ I cried. ‘That was just the point. Gerald’s elder brother, Henry, is Sir Mortimer’s heir. If anybody had to stay at home and look after the property it should have been Henry, because of course when Sir Mortimer dies it will belong to him.’
‘He’s a barrister,’ said Zilla.
‘Do you mean you know him?’ I asked in surprise.
She nodded. ‘He’s a friend of my friends, the Carews. I met him several years ago when I was staying with the Carews at their flat in London. He seemed a pleasant person and he’s supposed to be very clever. I wonder what he’ll do when his father dies.’
‘What do you mean, Zilla?’
‘I mean he wouldn’t want to give up his practice as a rising barrister and bury himself at Limbourne. Has he got a son?’
‘Yes, his son is called Mortimer. It’s a family name.’
‘Tell me more about them.’
I didn’t want to talk about the Wentworths but I saw I should get no peace until I had told Zilla all I knew—which was not very much, really. The break between Gerald and his family had been complete so any information about his relations had come to us in bits and pieces from outside sources.
‘Gerald’s father is a widower,’ I said. ‘Lady Wentworth died years ago—before I met Gerald. The family consists of Henry and Florence and Peter. Henry and Florence are a good deal older than Gerald. Peter is younger. I believe Peter Wentworth is in the army—but I’m not sure.’
‘Is Florence married?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t seem very interested in them, Kit. Why don’t you make up the quarrel? They’re nice people and they could be very useful to you.’
‘How could I make it up? They were horrid to Gerald—they were most unfair. Surely you see that.’
‘Unfair?’
‘Yes, I’ve told you. They wanted Gerald to look after the estate, but it wouldn’t have been a career. When Sir Mortimer died Gerald would have had to hand over the whole thing to Henry—and what would he have done then? Gerald wanted a career of his own, for which he was qualified. He didn’t want to keep the place warm for Henry and then find himself high and dry.’
Zilla nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see what you mean. It was rather unfair—but all the same I’m not surprised that the Wentworths were angry with their son for marrying an Italian girl without their consent. The Wentworths are an old family and very proud of their lineage. Couldn’t Gerald have explained it to them and smoothed it over?’
‘He tried to—they returned his letters unopened.’
‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Zilla, opening her eyes very wide. ‘That was pretty steep.’
‘They simply cast him off. They were all against him. They made it perfectly clear that they didn’t want to have anything more to do with him.’
‘Was he upset about it?’
‘I think he was, at first, but afterwards he just accepted it and didn’t bother any more about them. Gerald lived in Rome for a time and then came back to Oxford with his little son.’
‘What was she like?’ asked Zilla.
I looked at her in surprise. ‘Do you mean Violetta? I never saw her; she died when Simon was born . . . but she was very young and very, very beautiful. Gerald had a painting of her. I’ll show it to you some day if you’re interested.’
‘It must have been rather uncomfortable for you, wasn’t it?’ asked Zilla with a curious sidelong glance.
‘Oh, I wasn’t a bit jealous—if that’s what you mean,’ I replied.
It was true that I had never felt jealous of Violetta.
Perhaps I might have suffered a few qualms if it had not been for Antony Finch who was Gerald’s best friend. Shortly after Gerald and I had become engaged (I was still living in lodgings in Oxford and working in the library) Antony came in to see me one evening—and of course we talked about Gerald. I told Antony how happy I was and added that I wondered what Gerald had seen in me. Why had he chosen me? (It was the sort of thing any girl might say when she had just become engaged to the man she adored.)
‘What do you mean, Katherine?’ asked Antony.
‘I’m not beautiful—like Violetta.’
‘Violetta was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,’ declared Antony. ‘It was a joy to look at her—but she had a six-year-old brain.’
I looked at him in astonishment.
‘Yes, really, Katherine. She was like a child—and Gerald treated her as a dearly-loved child. Violetta adored him; they seemed happy together, but I was worried about the future. You see I know Gerald so well. He needs a wife who can be a companion to him; someone to share things with him—joys and sorrows and jokes and all the worries of everyday life. Violetta was a young man’s dream.’
I asked Antony to tell me more, not because I was inquisitive but because I felt that if I knew the whole story I should be able to understand Gerald better. I was so much younger than Gerald that sometimes I felt inadequate. When Antony saw that I was being quite sensible about it he told me of Gerald’s first meeting with Violetta.
At that time Antony had a junior lectureship at Oxford and during the summer vacation he went to stay with Gerald in Rome. He found Gerald unhappy and unsettled. He was enjoying Rome and had managed to get a very interesting post as secretary to an archaeologist, who was in charge of some excavations, but his family wanted him to return to Limbourne. His father had written several times to tell him that it was his duty to come home and help to manage the estate. Gerald wanted his friend’s advice—but Antony was doubtful what to say.
One Sunday the two went off together for one of their long expeditions into the country. They took a bus and then got out and walked for miles. Presently they came to a place amongst the hills where there were terraces of vines. They were walking fast and talking—as they always did—then suddenly Gerald stopped dead. He was gazing entranced, like a man who sees a vision.
There was a girl standing at a gate with a basket of grapes held by one hand against her hip. She was like a young goddess, beautiful and serene. Antony would have been content to look at her and take the picture away with him in his mind, but Gerald went forward and spoke to her. He spoke to her for some time and then she smiled and gave him a bunch of grapes from her basket and ran up the steep path as lightly and gracefully as a fawn.
Gerald said very little on the way home—except that her name was Violetta and her father was the owner of the small vineyard—and, as Antony was obliged to return to Oxford the following day, he heard no more about it. He was too busy to think about it much for there was always a lot of work at the beginning of the term, so he was astonished and dismayed when he received a letter from Gerald to say that he was going to marry Violetta. He had been to see her several times and had found she was as good as she was beautiful—who could say more? He had spoken to her father, they were to be married at once. It was a crazy letter, the letter of a young man who
had been completely bowled over by his first dream of love.
Antony told me a good deal more and I was grateful to him for opening my eyes. Now that I understood what had happened I found that I could understand Gerald better and, as time went on, there was much to substantiate Antony’s story. Gerald often spoke of Violetta, and in a perfectly natural way; spoke of her beauty and her sweetness and her pretty ways exactly as if she had been a child. He told me that he used to make little parcels—a cheap little brooch or a string of beads or perhaps a coloured handkerchief—and hide them in the flat. He smiled and added, ‘It was so amusing to see her delight when she found them.’ The best proof of all was Gerald’s astonishment when I asked him about his work and he discovered that I was able to take an intelligent interest in all he was doing. Very soon we became real companions, sharing joys and sorrows and jokes and the worries of everyday life—just as Antony had said.
In love like ours there was no room for jealousy.
Zilla had been silent for a few moments but now she said, ‘How funny that you weren’t jealous, Kit! Especially if she was so beautiful. Several of my friends have married widowers and there’s usually a sort of feeling——’
‘There wasn’t in our case. I was grateful to Violetta because she gave me Simon. I still feel grateful. He was a serious little boy, too old for his age and rather delicate, but he soon became stronger. We had fun together, Simon and I.’
*
2
By this time it was nearly five o’clock and I was longing for tea. I had been talking too much about my own affairs and I was wondering how to change the subject when the door of the veranda opened and a woman came down the steps carrying a large tray. She was a comfortable-looking woman, short and fat with neatly braided hair.
‘Did you get my stamps, Ellen?’ asked Zilla.
‘Yes, Miss Maclaren, I put them on your desk, and I got some tomatoes for the salad and some cooking apples. They didn’t have cheese biscuits.’
‘They never have anything I want,’ said Zilla crossly, ‘I particularly wanted the biscuits because Mr. and Mrs. Carew are coming for drinks.’
‘Does that mean dinner will be late, Miss Maclaren?’
‘Probably,’ replied Zilla in a casual tone of voice. ‘You can’t serve dinner until they’ve gone, can you?’
‘Well, I better not make the soufflé then,’ murmured Ellen under her breath.
While they were talking Ellen had arranged the tea on a round wooden table and was now returning to the house. Her wide hips waggled as she walked.
‘Look at her!’ exclaimed Zilla. ‘Isn’t she a sight? I got her a very nice grey dress but she won’t wear it—just those flowered overalls which make her look like a tub. I don’t know what my mother would have said if she had seen Ellen!’
‘I think she looks comfortable. You’re lucky to have her. You must be very happy here, Zilla.’
‘Happy!’ she exclaimed. ‘What’s happiness? It isn’t just having a roof over your head and enough to eat.’
‘It would be to thousands and thousands of people.’
‘Well, it isn’t to me. This place is a backwater; I’m stagnating here. There’s nothing to do and nobody interesting to talk to. I want Alec to sell this house.’
‘But, Zilla, I thought you said he worked in an office in Edinburgh.’
‘He doesn’t need to work at all. We have quite enough money to buy a flat in London. He could retire quite easily and we could enjoy ourselves; we could travel about and see the world; we could go to New Zealand and stay with our cousins there . . . but Alec won’t hear of it. Men are frightfully selfish, aren’t they? When I think of what a good time we could have if only Alec would listen to me and be sensible it makes me boil with rage. I feel tempted to spread my wings and live my own life but Alec won’t hear of it. He needs me to look after him.’
‘Perhaps he will marry,’ I suggested. ‘Then you would be free to do as you liked, wouldn’t you?’
Zilla laughed. ‘You don’t know Alec; he’s thirty-six and he hasn’t looked at a girl in all his life. I’ve trotted out several suitable damsels but there was nothing doing. He isn’t particularly attractive, but if I were not here some designing woman might get hold of him and marry him for his money. Men are so helpless, aren’t they?’
I was silent because I did not agree and because I was upset at the way she had spoken of her brother.
Fortunately she seemed to take my agreement for granted. ‘This place gets me down,’ she continued. ‘I’m never well in Edinburgh; I feel quite different when I get away. It’s so bad for me to have nothing to do.’
‘But there are lots of things you could do!’
‘You mean social work? I tried various things but I got bored—and the other women didn’t understand me at all. You can’t tie yourself down, can you? I mean if you’re asked out to lunch or to a party you can’t refuse because you’re expected to turn up at a dreary meeting. There were days when I just felt I couldn’t bear it. My nerves are so sensitive that I get upset very easily. Sometimes I feel I could stand on a chair and scream. I don’t suppose you’ve ever felt like that.’
I had felt like that quite often. I had felt like that when a fall of soot came down the chimney and the whole room (including the chair-covers which had just come back from the cleaners) was smeared with a layer of oily soot. I had felt like that when the twins had measles and Den’s temperature soared to 105 degrees, and the woman, who had come to help me, dropped a tray and broke three plates, and the electric cooker went wrong and a patch of damp appeared on the ceiling of my bedroom. It had all happened on the same day and it was just too much. . . . But I had never felt like that because I hadn’t enough to do.
‘No, I can see you’ve never felt like that. How lucky you are!’ said Zilla with a heavy sigh.
There was silence for a few moments while we drank our tea and ate delicious scones made by the unappreciated Ellen.
‘Well, that’s quite enough about my problems,’ said Zilla. ‘Tell me about yours.’
My problems wouldn’t have interested Zilla, nor anybody else for that matter. They were extremely dull. For instance I had just discovered to my dismay that Daisy had grown so enormously since last year that her summer frocks were far too small and no amount of letting out and letting down would make them wearable.
‘Haven’t you any problems, Kit?’ asked Zilla.
‘Lots of small ones,’ I told her. ‘For one thing I’m worried about the summer holidays. We usually go to lodgings in North Berwick for a fortnight in August, but this year the woman can’t have us. I’ve had a letter to say she’s ill. It’s a pity because the children enjoy the sands—but it can’t be helped. I shall just have to try and find somewhere else.’
‘You wouldn’t like a cottage in the Highlands, I suppose?’
‘I thought of that, but I’m afraid it would be too expensive.’
‘This one wouldn’t.’
‘Zilla! Do you mean you know of one that I could get at a reasonable rent?’
‘It’s mine,’ she said smiling. ‘It’s a primitive sort of place at the back of beyond; there’s nothing to do and nobody to talk to, but——’
‘Zilla, do you mean it?’
‘Of course I mean it. The cottage will be empty so you can have it for the whole of August if it’s any use to you.’
‘You could let it. I mean you could get quite a high rent for a cottage in the——’
‘Too much bother,’ said Zilla languidly. ‘I let it once to some friends of the Carews who wanted it for the shooting; the dogs slept on the beds and chairs and the sofa in the sitting-room—shooting dogs, Kit! The whole place smelt of animals. You haven’t got animals, have you?’
‘No,’ I said, laughing. ‘Only three children; they’re quite enough for one woman to look after.’
‘Well, there you are, Kit. If you want a primitive cottage at the back of beyond you can have Craig-an-Ron for August. You’ll f
ind it dull and the midges will be frightful.’
Neither dullness nor midges mattered to me if I could get a cottage for the holidays, a quiet country cottage where the children would have freedom to run about and enjoy themselves. It seemed too wonderful to be true. ‘Oh, Zilla, how kind of you!’ I exclaimed.
‘Well, don’t blame me if you’re bored to death,’ said Zilla.
‘Where is it, exactly? I mean how can we get there?’
‘It’s about six hours’ run in the car.’
‘Is there a train?’
‘There’s a train to Inverquill; that’s the nearest town. If you went by train you’d have to hire a car to take you to Loch Ron—the cottage is on the shore of the loch. I shouldn’t advise you to go by train.’ She smiled and added, ‘Now tell me about Sylvia. Have you kept in touch with her?’
I wanted to hear more about the cottage, but I didn’t like to press her for any further information. It was so kind of her to offer it to me that I felt obliged to do as she wanted. I banished the cottage from my mind and talked about Sylvia who had been at Dinwell with us but, alas, was not very bright.
*
3
It seemed strange that Zilla should be so anxious to talk about school—and school-friends. Our school-days had been so long ago that I scarcely ever thought about them. I had far too much to do and to think about in my present life to dwell upon the past.
Obviously Zilla was different. She was still talking about school and reminding me of things that had happened when a tall broad-shouldered man with dark hair came through the french window of the veranda and walked towards us across the lawn.
‘Here’s Alec,’ said Zilla. ‘What a nuisance! I shall have to make fresh tea. You know Alec, don’t you?’ She raised her voice and added, ‘Alec, you remember Kit.’
‘Yes. At least . . .’ he began, looking at me doubtfully.
‘Of course you don’t remember me,’ I said as I rose to shake hands with him. ‘It’s a hundred years ago—and even then you didn’t really see me. I saw you, of course, but that’s different.’
Katherine Wentworth (The Marriage of Katherine Book 1) Page 3