by Maggie Ford
All she wanted now was to relax, slow down, although she knew that the moment they reached home, Theo would cash in on his fame and hardly give her any breathing space. Her only compensation was that he might still be too busy to find time to arrange their wedding just yet. She found herself hoping so. These past months she had grown closer to Martin, running to him when the pace got too much for her. Theo, seemingly tireless, expected everyone else to be the same. It was Martin who calmed her and introduced those few moments of sanity into the hectic life at which Theo expected her to excel.
She was making the most of this voyage home to be totally lazy, so long as Theo didn’t get too obsessed with working on yet more ideas. If only the voyage could go on for ever, she thought as she lounged under a parasol on the promenade deck of the Victoriana and watched the distant flat cloud that was the coast of Ireland grow steadily clearer. If only the ship could be taken up into the heavens to drift for ever in the same mist that seemed to be covering that shadowy coast. It was what lay in store for her once they got to England that was lowering her spirits.
Once home there would no longer be hotel rooms, except when on tour or a need to stay overnight in London. While abroad, Theodore had arranged to have the house he owned in Surrey restored. In fact he had telegrammed home to commission builders, decorators, gardeners, so that it would be ready for when he came home, his initial idea of renting a luxury apartment for him and Emma put aside.
‘I sincerely hope it is all finished by then,’ he’d said as word of delays came in reply to his many telegrams. That he was now setting his heart on living in the place had been all due to her, trying to be prudent.
She had no fancy to live out in Surrey. For one thing, she would be a long way from her mother; for another, when Theo had taken her to see the house before leaving for America, she had shuddered at the mausoleum it appeared to be with its peeling wallpaper, faded curtains at dusty windows, bare floorboards, forlorn furniture and overgrown gardens, but she’d made the mistake of smiling, for his benefit, and saying it could be lovely once done up. He interpreted her smile as one of enthusiasm.
Emma sighed as she watched a bevy of white gulls wheeling overhead against the blue September sky still warm from summer. Yesterday she had asked if she would be having her own bedroom at The Manse, as his house was called. She’d seen him frown then heard his answer, ‘By the end of summer you shall be my wife.’ But he had consented to her having a room of her own though she knew he’d be more in hers than his own.
Emma adjusted her parasol to her other shoulder as the Victoriana swung a little to starboard, and narrowed her hazel eyes at the faint blue haze of land, her mind wandering to other things. She was eager to get home but it brought problems that she’d been able to put behind her so far: there were times when she’d noticed Martin looking at her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. She found herself needing to keep him at arm’s length. If Theo got a hint of even these mild attentions, it could become difficult. She liked Martin very much, even found him attractive, but it was Theo who could turn her to jelly when he came to her room at night. The last thing she wanted to do was to jeopardise that. But it was too lovely a day to be thinking, the sea as calm as a millpond, the Victoriana’s fast-moving bows making a rhythmic hiss. Mixed with the ocean’s briny taint came the aroma of coffee and lunch from the first-class dining room.
She was beginning to feel hungry. The sea air promoted a good appetite. Already those who had been sharing the promenade deck with her were vacating deckchairs one by one, lethargic conversation now broken by animated chatter.
Still a little reluctant to leave her small haven of peace, Emma finished the last cool dregs of lemonade in her glass and got up to follow the others.
Halfway down the companionway from the first-class games deck, Martin paused as he saw Emily come into view. Theo insisted on calling her Amelia but it was Emily she’d been christened. She seemed more like an Emily, a lovely name for a lovely girl and just as down to earth. She walked slowly as if in a world of her own. She looked so relaxed. She’d not looked like that for ages, but here she wasn’t being so harassed by Theo. Theo could harass anyone. Martin smiled tightly. Theo had interrupted him from an enjoyable game of deck quoits to go and look for her and inform her that it was time for lunch. She didn’t need telling, the gong having announced it moments later.
Why did she put up with Theo? But he knew why – for the same reason he did, to trade in an otherwise dreary life for the excitement offered by the stage. In his case it had been a wish to quit a dull future in an office in his family’s business, for her, a chance to escape a life of unending grind and poverty. Her chance had come from colliding with him in a winter fog, then helping a sick man back to his shabby home. His had come from a huge charity garden fête on a warm, sunny summer day when Theo’s wife had smiled at him and he had smiled back.
Before he knew it, she had glided across the lawn towards him. Falling into conversation with him, she’d told him she was married to a professional conjuror. He was invited to see them perform at a local theatre and he had gone backstage afterwards. Theo had enraptured him with small sleight of hand tricks and he had slowly become involved until, seeing his worth, Theo, who had at that time been well into enjoying his success, had suggested he join him. It had been an exciting time, until things had gone awry, which he preferred now to forget.
He had gone back to his family, determined to face up to the reality of life, and fortunately his father was a forgiving man and had been glad to see him come to his senses. But dull routine brought back yearnings for the limelight and he’d disappointed his father yet again. But in tracing Theo, he’d found Emily, and Emily was beginning to attract his gaze at every turn.
He stood watching her pass below him. She looked stunning in a pale blue summer dress, its hemline fluttering like tiny wavelets about her feet in the breeze from the ship’s progress, the smile hovering on her lips as though from amusing thoughts. Pert lips, they were, with a hint of stubbornness about them. Everything about her was stunning, from the luxurious auburn hair to the way she carried herself, and that mischievous sideways flick of the hazel eyes towards a person, enough to make the heart almost collapse. How could she love someone like Theo? Obsessed only with himself and his work, Theo didn’t appreciate how tired she sometimes looked.
When he mentioned it once, Theo’s reply had been, ‘When she and I are married, we shall honeymoon in the south of France where she will be able to rest to her heart’s content and return refreshed.’
Martin doubted it.
He let her go on some way ahead before continuing on down the companionway to follow at a distance amid others moving in the same direction.
Theodore was already at their table when Emma reached it. He didn’t rise for her or even smile. ‘You are late,’ was all he said.
‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘Martin’s not here either.’
A waiter drew out her chair for her. She inclined her head to him and sat down while the waiter flapped her napkin open and placed it across her lap. She smiled up at him, but addressed Theo.
‘They’ve not started to serve yet. People are still coming in.’
‘Nevertheless, it is courtesy to be on time, Amelia.’
‘If I’d been any earlier I’d have been sitting here on my own!’ she snapped as Martin arrived. He looked from one to the other but said nothing as he sat down while their waiter did the honours with the napkin.
Theo didn’t acknowledge him, irked by her sharp rejoinder. Her lips were compressed, a strained atmosphere was already making its presence felt. She’d been so content out there on the deck. Why did Theo have to go and spoil it – and without reason? Unless he thought she should have been with him.
The soup course being consumed in silence, Emma stared about the spacious dining room with its lofty, domed, gilt and plaster ceiling and its chandeliers; the tall, draped windows were elegant and the expensive pictures around the silk-p
apered walls were in the art nouveau style. In one corner a grand piano was being discreetly played. All around came the soft buzz of conversation interspersed by the clink of cutlery against crockery, while the gentle thrum of a transatlantic liner’s engines as it ploughed effortlessly and steadily through calm waters went unnoticed by the chattering passengers after days at sea.
Their plates being taken away, she turned her gaze on Theo. There was a distant look in his eyes. Probably dwelling on some new illusion, or was he sulking? Theo was very good at sulking – he did it thunderously. She looked away.
‘Did you hear what I said, Theo?’ Martin was saying, as if from a distance.
Theodore came to himself with a start, the sounds around him leaping back into his hearing – of dishes being collected following the first course, uneaten food scraped on to used plates, subdued chatter, a voice or two lifted a little above the rest, a laugh here and there breaking the smooth flow of conversation.
He had been miles away. This morning Amelia had excused herself from his company, saying she needed a few moments to herself on deck to read and doze. He had indulged her, but had been lost without her. By lunchtime he’d been on edge, had found Martin and because he was on edge had curtly told him to go and find her, damned if he would demean himself by looking for her.
Martin had gone off at his bidding and he too had made to depart but noticed that Martin had paused at the top of the companionway and was gazing at something below him as if mesmerised. In curiosity he leaned over the rail, looking in the direction of Martin’s gaze, and there was Amelia below them, walking slowly. He had switched his eyes back to Martin. The young man appeared fascinated and Theo had felt the rancour rise up in him. Had he been right all along about Martin?
Brooding now as they ate, he’d glanced at the sea through the large dining hall windows and an entirely random memory had crept up on him uninvited, probably from the sight of that smooth blueness.
It had been smooth and blue that day. He’d been nineteen, only just becoming wrapped up in his new interest in magic. It was distancing him from his college companions and many of them had noticed. He was in fact standing on the cliff top with one of them, Delham, aware of his nineteen-year-old companion’s slow taunting tones. ‘You’re all puff and wind, old man. You’ve not the first idea how to hypnotise a chap.’
He’d made the mistake of saying he could hypnotise anyone. Studying it, he’d found it easy to do and had afforded several willing victims a bit of fun. Delham, though, was a know-all and sneeringly refused to take part. But now he had him alone and he would show him.
Already, with his parents in India, his father expecting him to follow him into the diplomatic corps, he had ideas of his own. He had found his niche. He would take command of people’s minds, hold an audience in his hand by the power of his will. He would perfect a mind-reading act, and with magic would hold them spellbound, and even more with hypnotism. People would stand in awe of him instead of ridiculing him as Delham did. He would start with Delham, his main tormentor, while they were alone. He would frighten the living daylights out of him. Delham would never again dare scoff. If it didn’t work he didn’t want witnesses to laugh at him. But it would work. He had absolute faith in his powers and would make this idiot smirk on the other side of his face.
It was a bright, balmy day, a breeze ruffling the clifftop grasses, the blue of the English Channel some five hundred feet below the chalk cliffs of Eastbourne’s Beachy Head. He and a few companions were there on holiday, and it was the high summer of 1886.
‘You think I can’t?’ he queried at Delham’s sniggering challenge. ‘I will prove I can. And if you dare to laugh I will really put you under never to come out of it.’
That of course was impossible but it sobered the other one as, fixing him with a steady gaze, he lifted his hands to shoulder height, palms facing his subject in a slow, mesmeric gesture. Delham’s expression growing blank, eyes following the movements, he succumbed easier than expected, but it was not the time to be amazed or pleased with his own powers. The know-all would receive the biggest scare of his life on waking up to find himself gazing down at the sea with a single step between him and the pebble beach hundreds of feet below.
In sonorous tones he told Delham that he had a sudden fancy to walk back into Eastbourne; that he would turn and walk along the paved road leading him there; that on hearing a single, sharp handclap he would change his mind and wake up. He was planning to allow Delham to walk only a few steps along the cliff edge before waking him but decided to let him go a yard or so more, savouring the moment when his victim would come to with a start, realising where he was. He was in control, and as expected, Delham came to a halt to the sound of the single hand-clap, his body stiffening as he looked down. There came a gasp of terror. His body teetered, bent forward from the waist. There was a sharp cry, then a shriek as he plunged.
Theo could still see those arms waving helplessly, hear the protracted scream, see the body slowly turning over and over, the terrified scream cut short as the body crashed on to a chalk promontory, to bounce, limp, off other outcrops.
He had never used hypnotism again. But that moment in his youth came back to him on odd occasions and to plague his dreams from time to time, a sensation of being transfixed in disbelief as though it were he who had been hypnotised, he who was falling …
‘Theo, did you hear what I said?’ came Martin’s voice.
Theodore recovered himself and turned towards the voice. ‘I am sorry, Martin, what did you say?’ he asked in as steady a tone as he could muster.
‘I asked if you wanted more wine. Your glass is empty.’
He didn’t recall drinking the first glass but it didn’t matter. He nodded and glanced at Amelia, more to take his mind off his previous thoughts. She looked stunning and his heart raced at the sight of her.
‘You look very pretty, my dear,’ he told her amiably as the fish he had ordered was placed before him. ‘So I shall forgive you for being late.’
She did not smile at his forced little joke and he couldn’t blame her. He must remember not to be too hard with her. Were she to know that he’d been directly responsible for another man’s death, virtually murder, she would never smile at him again.
He felt he could be forgiven for the argument that had led to Eleanor’s death. But Delham’s? He did regret his part in that death but the man had been an insufferable fellow and he couldn’t summon up any great sorrow for him. He hadn’t forced Eleanor to do what she did in the way he’d compelled Delham. For all his jealousies, he had loved her deeply. But now he loved Amelia. As for Martin, he like any man would find her captivating. It didn’t mean he was about to snatch her away. And after the last time, innocent or guilty, Martin must have learned his lesson. All the same, though he had vowed to lay the past aside, he would watch Martin more closely from now on. Just in case.
Thinking this, he nodded his assent to his wine glass being refilled. At the same time, to prove his ownership of Amelia, he reached out and laid a hand on her arm, gratified to see her smile at last.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Those Theo had engaged to restore his old home during his absence had done wonders to it.
As the carriage bearing him, Emma and Martin turned into the short, newly laid drive between late flowering shrubbery with not a weed in sight, it presented an impressive spectacle. It wasn’t exceptionally large but it was still grand and all spruced up, so different from when Emma had last seen it. Even so, she experienced a sinking feeling. It still retained that remote look.
It was obvious that Theo was rightly pleased with the results. As they alighted from the carriage and went on through the door between a pair of now scrubbed, and shining white, fluted stone columns supporting the old portico, and into a wide, somewhat echoing hall, he positively strutted.
‘I will show you your room, Amelia, my dear,’ he said, conducting her up the wide, central staircase. ‘It will be yours should you ever w
ish to be alone.’
It was a pointed remark but she smiled with assumed gratitude. There was a bedroom she was expected to share with him but which he would use should she prefer not to at other times, though it was expected that he would come to her if so inclined.
Martin had been given a room further along, separated from them by two others and a bathroom, making it obvious that he was to be segregated from Emma and Theo.
Emma stared in amazement as she stepped through the door to what was to be her private bedroom, her little haven of escape, as Theo put it. With the woodwork all of rosewood, the decor in pale lavender, it was the loveliest room Emma had ever seen. She almost burst out, ‘Is this all mine?’ but quickly curbed any show of exuberance because fundamentally the house, for all its impressive beauty, still held some indefinable something that made her shiver. He might take it as a wish to live there permanently.
She moved across the room to the bay window that overlooked the gardens, now with restocked rose beds, well-cut lawns and a wealth of what in spring would be small flowering trees. The house stood on high ground, allowing her to see for miles, the whole vista framed by slender Surrey pines. Theo had told her what they were, as she, having lived her whole life in London, was unable to tell one tree from another.
‘We will be staying here this week,’ he announced. ‘You will be able to rest here before we go back to London.’
Emma accepted that with as much good grace as she could muster, grateful that even he couldn’t justify rushing from Surrey to London and back between shows, as they were already engaged to appear at the Pavilion at Piccadilly Circus. It was a great relief to know. To a London girl, the open countryside had a strange, uneasy affect on her, as if all that vastness might reach out and engulf her, body and soul. She needed the hubbub of London as a fish needed water.