‘You’re probably better equipped to do it than he would be even if he were here.’
‘Maybe so. But it’s hard, all the same, to have to devote every waking thought to Castlemere and know that sooner or later I shall have to tear myself away for a second time.’
‘What about Julia?’ asked Trish.
‘What about her?’
‘Well, if she’s going to become the chatelaine, couldn’t she –?’
‘I did have a word with her about that,’ confessed Rupert. ‘At the party we had to celebrate winning the seat. She put forward what seems a very balanced point of view. She’s longing for Miles to come home, and she still regards herself as engaged to him. But they haven’t seen each other for five years. He might not be interested in her any more. “I don’t want him to marry me merely because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do,” she said. I admire her for that. But it means that she’s not prepared to jump the gun in any way. So, for the moment at least, it’s down to yours truly.’
Throwing off his sombre mood, he flung an arm round her shoulders and hugged her affectionately, grinning in the way she remembered from the old days, before the war. ‘With a little help from my friends!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can’t tell you how marvellous it is to see you, and looking so happy and pretty. In the desert, you know, I used to conjure up my own mirages, remembering people as I used to see them and trying to imagine what they might be doing at that particular moment.’
‘Was I on the cast list?’ she asked, happily anticipating the answer.
‘Starring role. Except that I didn’t manage to grow you up quite enough in the imagining bits. It’s good to discover that not all the surprises are rotten ones. Well, Mother will have luncheon waiting for us in the dower house at one. Before that, I want your advice on what to do about redecoration.’
‘I don’t know anything about decorations.’
‘Yes, you do. Those marvellous rooms you’ve done in Greystones. Not,’ he added hastily, ‘that I quite see the drawing room at Castlemere painted in black and white with red spots. But you have an eye. Don’t deny it.’
Shaking her head to disclaim any expertise, Trish allowed herself to be led through a series of stately rooms. She did her best to close her eyes to the discoloured patches on the walls which could be covered once again with the paintings now stored, and to the tatty light shades, ludicrously small, which would be replaced by the original chandeliers. But it was easy to sympathize with Rupert’s depression at the sight of scratched parquet floors and lines of dirt or grease to show where school furniture had been standing against the walls.
At Castlemere even the bedrooms were larger and grander than most people’s drawings rooms, but many of them were now scarred by blackened dents – caused, no doubt, by iron bedheads banging against the wall during one of the jolly pillow fights for which Trish herself had once pined.
‘I see what you mean,’ she said when the tour was over. They were both silent as they returned to the phaeton for the drive across the park.
‘And you see,’ sighed Rupert, ‘there are two separate problems and each of them is a killer. Money, first. No one ever believes that a family like ours could be strapped for ready cash and yes, before the war we did manage to cover running expenses out of rents. But there was never much in hand for extraordinary expenditure like this, and now we’re faced with the death duties too.’
‘And the other?’
‘The other problem is that even if we could afford to buy, the goods aren’t there to be bought. I mean to say, if I have to hand over sixteen coupons to buy myself a new suit, what would they expect for hundreds of yards of silk to hang on the ballroom wall?’
Trish resisted the temptation to inform him that furnishing fabrics were unrationed, for he was quite right in principle. Shops stocked only with utility fabrics and wallpapers would certainly not be able to offer expensive imported silks.
‘Come on, Patricia. I need your advice.’
‘I don’t see that you can do more than draw up a list of priorities,’ she said. ‘If the death duties have got to be paid, and if the damage to the foundations could have worse effects if it’s left untreated, presumably those must come at the top of the list. The entertaining rooms ought to be restored eventually to their original state; and since that’s impossible now, they’ll have to come at the bottom. That will put them on Miles’s and Julia’s list of problems.’
‘But I ought to do something practical. Or at least have firm proposals to make. At the moment I don’t feel that the house belongs to us at all. It’s as though the invaders have destroyed the – oh, I don’t know what the right word is: the atmosphere, the ambience. I need to make some gesture to show that Castlemere is ours again.’
‘I’d start with the bedrooms,’ said Trish. ‘They’ve been altered from the original state already, haven’t they?’
‘True. My grandmother gave them a great doing-over to make them suitable for Edwardian house parties.’
‘So it wouldn’t do any harm to redecorate them unambitiously now. You could always put them back to the eighteenth century later on. If I were you –’ she spoke with the confidence of someone who had acted as Terry’s assistant while he worked at Greystones – ‘I should strip, make good and paint. Pale country colours. Because probably there isn’t the right sort of wallpaper around, and paint is cheaper, as well as being easier to cover later, and flat colours look better for hanging pictures on.’
‘Just what I needed!’ exclaimed Rupert, squeezing her shoulders for a second time. ‘Someone decisive. We’ll go back this afternoon and look at them again. And you can tell me what colours would be best.’
Trish shook her head. ‘Julia will want to choose for herself,’ she said. ‘And your mother would like to be consulted, I’m sure. But actually I think you need professional advice. For an ordinary sort of house someone like me can play about and learn from mistakes. But everything here is on such a large scale that you can’t afford to waste time on second thoughts. You ought to look for someone who knows exactly how to make a room look smaller or larger or lower or higher, and what goes with what. Besides …’
‘Besides what?’
‘Well, you know me, always wanting to change things.’
‘You mean you’d want to burn all the Louis Quinze furniture and fill the drawing room with Bauhaus designs!’
‘Not that, of course. I wasn’t talking about the grand rooms. I do recognize that a house like this has always got to look like a house like this. But even with the bedrooms, looking at them through Miles’s and Julia’s eyes would be a big effort for me. Whereas people who do it for a living presumably start by finding out just what their clients want and then providing it.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ agreed Rupert. ‘But if I find someone like that, I’d still appreciate it if you’d come round with me and him. Or her.’
‘As someone else – like you – who’s never going to live in the finished result?’
‘You’ve hit it. To remind me that there’s a life outside Castlemere. The world of the second son.’
His arm was still round her shoulders and now he turned her to face him, holding her close as his mouth widened in a warm smile and his eyes danced with the light-heartedness which she remembered from before the war. Trish found herself stirred by his closeness and pleased at the invitation. Often during the past few weeks she had regretted not helping Rupert in his election campaign. Now he was offering a second opportunity of working companionship.
She smiled agreement. ‘Though I’ll be in London during term time,’ she reminded him.
‘So shall I, Monday to Friday. And hoping to find someone there to be frivolous with. All those years in the army, looking forward to a bit of carefree social life, and now I’m up to the neck with family business here and the affairs of the nation in Westminster. What I need more than anything else is an art student who’ll invite me to Bohemian parties and let me take her out for the o
dd meal in return. It’s well known that all art students live on the edge of starvation. Are you on?’
Pulling her even more closely towards him, he kissed her lightly on the lips. Often in the past he had kissed her cheek or forehead, but this was the first real kiss.
It was over in a second, before she had time to put her arms around him and tell him that she loved him. Perhaps it was part of being frivolous that he should pretend a kiss to be only a careless gesture, of no significance. She must show herself to be a sophisticated adult, a London art student, by accepting it as lightly as it was offered.
‘I’m on,’ she agreed.
Chapter Six
Trish had left her bicycle at Oxford station. As a rule she found the four-mile ride back to Greystones steep and tiring, but today the pedals seemed to turn without effort. She was strong and confident and unusually conscious of the whole of her body, instead of just the artist’s eye that observed and the hand that drew. She was in love.
Gordon had not yet left England, but she had forgotten him already. Forgotten, too, was the schoolgirl crush which she had had on Rupert for almost as long as she could remember. She had thought she loved him before; but now, overwhelmed by the true emotion, she recognized her years of childish adoration for what they were. Her real love for him dated from today.
It was because Rupert’s attitude towards her had changed that she could recognize the change in herself. He was seeing her now as an adult, an equal partner. Before too long he might begin to think of her as a lover. Had they been strangers, he would have kissed her more passionately today. It was because he was already accustomed to hug her affectionately that such a small change as a kiss on the lips instead of the cheek or forehead was really an important gesture. For almost the whole of her life she had been waiting for the moment when Rupert would love her, and at last it had arrived.
She did her best to conceal the nature of her happiness as she made her way to the studio, intending only to put her head round the door to announce her return. But Grace, standing at her work bench, demanded to be told the day’s news and – always sensitive to other people’s emotions – seemed to guess at once that the day had held some special significance.
‘How’s Rupert?’ she asked. ‘And Castlemere?’
‘Castlemere’s awful.’ Trish described its neglected and depressing condition. ‘I suppose it will start to look better when all the pictures and furniture are back in place. But Rupert’s terribly worried about money. For death duties and repairs and redecoration, everything.’
‘And how is Rupert apart from that?’ Grace had not seen him during his brief Sunday visit.
‘Oh, fine. Not as jokey as he used to be before the war. More serious. But probably that’s only because of all these responsibilities. Once Miles gets home …’
‘He – Rupert, I mean – must be at least thirty now,’ said Grace. ‘And whether or not he managed to enjoy being in the army, he must have the feeling of having lost six years out of his life – of having to start again, in a sense, at a rather more advanced age than usual. It’s understandable that he should be serious.’
‘Yes.’ Trish searched for a question which would change the subject. Only when she heard herself speak the words did she realize how much she was giving away.
‘Why did you leave it so late to get married, Grace?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it’s not unusual for men to wait till they’re thirty, but for a woman … Was it all because of the first war?’
‘No. From choice.’ Grace turned back to work as she talked, cutting and bending thick wire to form an armature. ‘I had the chance to marry – I was engaged – when I was your sort of age. But I ran away. For all the wrong reasons, at the time. But, as things turned out, with the right result. If I’d had the sense to sit down when I was nineteen and work out how I wanted to spend my life, I might well have come up with exactly what I’ve got. As it is, things have fallen into my lap. I’ve been lucky. Not something one can count on. Nobody ever takes advice on this sort of thing, so I’ve never bothered to give it. But I do feel quite strongly that it’s important for anyone of your age to start off by settling what she wants to do with her life before even considering who she wants to do it with.’
‘I don’t get you,’ said Trish.
Grace put down the wire cutter and studied the skeleton she had made with a critical eye for a moment. Then she gave Trish her full attention.
‘Right, let’s get personal, then. You’re a very attractive girl, and any moment now you’re going to be loose in London and under siege from any number of young men. If you very sensibly recognize, as you did with Gordon, that love without marriage holds pitfalls, sooner or later the idea of love inside marriage is going to seem extremely tempting. All I’d say is, don’t let yourself drift into marriage just because you see everyone else of your age doing it, without first stopping to think whether a particular marriage would suit you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, if all you want is to sit at home and bring up babies, then falling in love is as good a start as any other. But you may feel that you’ve got more in you than that – and a good many husbands actively dislike the idea that their wives should work. That means that if you’ve set your heart on having your own career, you must either decide not to marry or else look for a husband who’ll back you in whatever you want to do. And whose way of life is compatible with it. Marry a farmer, and you’ll be expected to work as a farmer’s wife. You can’t expect to combine that with managing a bank, say.’
Trish laughed at the idea of herself as a bank manager, but she saw what Grace meant.
‘You’re saying that I ought to marry a way of life rather than a man.’
‘I didn’t mean it to sound as cold as that. Just to be aware what way of life goes with the man, and see whether you’ll be happy with it.’
‘Suppose I just want to paint. Well, I do. I could do that with anyone.’
‘Then you need to consider your own character. As a rich man’s wife you might use financial security to achieve exactly what you wanted without needing to please the market; or you might lose incentive and just produce the occasional watercolour to give to your mother-in-law. Marry a poor man and you could find yourself either spurred on or commercialized by the need to sell your work – or forced to give up in order to earn a living some other way.’
‘How very complicated you make it sound!’
‘Well, it’s a big thing, Trish. An important time of your life, with choices to be made which may have consequences far beyond what you realize at the time. Some girls have neither talent nor ambition. It may not matter what they do. And some girls – like me in my twenties – have such a strong sense of vocation, whatever it’s for, that the idea of marriage is always going to take second place. All I’m saying is that it’s just as important to know yourself as it is to know a man you might fall in love with.’
‘You make it sound as though it’s possible to stop yourself –’
Grace interrupted her. ‘Of course it is, if you put the brake on early enough. You found that out for yourself, with Gordon. You didn’t want to spend the rest of your life on a vineyard in Australia and so you let him go.’
Trish was silent for a moment. Had it been her decision or Gordon’s that their brief romance should never be anything more than that? It was true, though, that the parting had not broken her heart.
‘So you thought all this out, years ago, and decided that you’d rather be a sculptor than an ordinary wife.’
‘No. I told you, I was lucky. I’m trying to persuade you to be more sensible than I ever was. And I’m sure you will be. But you know, these films you enjoy so much in the cinema. So often they seem to finish with a man and a woman getting married, as though that were the end of something, when really it’s only the beginning. You’ve had a childhood life here at Greystones and that’s coming to an end, one way or another, whatever you decide to do in the future. You have a period of
freedom ahead. On the day you get married you’ll start a new way of life, from which it will be extremely difficult to escape and which it may not be easy to change. So it’s important not to make a mistake.’
‘Noted.’
Grace laughed, but then raised her eyes to look steadily into Trish’s.
‘I like Rupert enormously,’ she said, with a directness which made Trish flush. ‘Nothing I’ve just said was intended as any sort of warning in that direction. Although –’ As though surprised by her own thoughts she bit her lip and began once more to work on the armature, pressing clay around the wire. ‘Although there is one big difference between you. You’re a creator, I think, like me – and at the same time, wicked girl, a destroyer of creations. Always looking for something new. Rupert is a preserver. He’s in love with Castlemere. Something you should never forget.’
‘Castlemere isn’t his home any more.’ Trish made no attempt to contradict her stepmother’s assumptions. ‘It’s like you said earlier, he’s got to start from scratch now, making a new life. So anyone he marries will have a hand in the making.’
‘Yes. Well.’ Grace smiled at her affectionately. ‘Thank you for listening so patiently and letting me perform my stepmaternal duty. I was sure even before I started that I could rely on you to be sensible.’
Trish grinned back. ‘Trush Trist,’ she said.
Chapter Seven
The view of Castlemere in winter was even more beautiful than in summer. Snow smoothed the gentle contours of the park, outlined the bare branches of the chestnut avenue and clung to the northern side of each pencil-sharp turret roof.
‘It’s ridiculous!’ exclaimed Trish, who had been invited over for the day as soon as the Christmas vacation began. ‘A French chateau in the middle of England. The idea that any ordinary person should actually live in it –’
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