Charlotte was bewildered by their request to be present while they discussed Laurence’s future. All she could manage was a rather embarrassed comment. ‘Oh, I see.’
‘I think perhaps you do not,’ Laurence told her quietly. ‘We are describing this badly because we are allowing our emotions to colour our words.’ The look he gave his wife was so full of adoration, Charlotte felt even more uncomfortable. ‘Thank you for your flattering résumé of my career, darling, but we should set this problem before your sister in a more concise manner.’
‘Problem?’ echoed Charlotte.
Laurence led his wife to a settee where they sat together, a darkly attractive man in his mid-thirties, and a woman in black moiré and emeralds whose beauty was enhanced by her husband’s love for her. Charlotte now perceived the exact depth of passion between them, and envied her sister as she never had before.
‘A post has fallen vacant in South America,’ Laurence said. ‘It is a particularly sensitive period out there, so the man who fills it must be experienced and familiar with the political complexities of the many countries comprising that continent. I know South America. I speak fluent Spanish as well as the languages of other major nations with interests there. I am the ideal man for the post, and I very much wish to accept it — not only for myself but for my family. They deserve the best in life I can give them.’
Margaret took her husband’s hand, saying, ‘Laurence would have accepted immediately, but for Kate. We asked Sir Peter this afternoon for his verdict on her condition. He told us he was not ready to give one but, on hearing our reasons, offered an opinion. It is this: tearing a child from her roots at an age when she has been able to build an understanding of everything around her, yet is not old enough to accept the need to change what she knows and trusts, can sometimes produce in that child fear that she will never find roots again. All our travelling has fed that fear, and the severity of the fever she suffered may also suggest to Kate that pain is an integral part of her new life.’
‘How can he possibly know all that?’ demanded Charlotte. ‘Has Kate spoken to him?’
Laurence shook his head. ‘He is a clever man and his opinion makes good sense. Would you not agree?’
‘I … no, not entirely. Only Kate can tell us what ails her, and this man does not know her as we do.’
‘But he knows his profession, Lottie,’ said Margaret on a sigh. ‘We believe he is right.’
Laurence continued. ‘Taking Kate to South America would not only be inadvisable, it could worsen her condition. We cannot take that risk.’
‘Tim would benefit from all Laurence could give him by accepting the post, however,’ said Margaret. ‘There is an excellent European school he could attend until going up to Oxford, and the experience he would gain as the son of a high-ranking diplomat would be invaluable to his chosen career.’ She glanced swiftly at the man beside her, then turned back to Charlotte with a smile. ‘I have the very best of reasons for wishing to stay with Laurence. I am to have a child at the end of the year.’
These confidences were too much for Charlotte. Another child — half-Italian, and so soon! Were they telling her they were bound for South America, or not? What of Kate? Laurence had admitted it might be dangerous to take her there, yet they both appeared to be expressing their eagerness to go. As she tried to assemble her wits, Margaret came across to sink before the chair and take her hands.
‘Dear Lottie, what we wish to ask is whether you would consider looking after Kate at Knightshill until she has recovered and is old enough to join us.’
Charlotte’s confused thoughts suddenly fell into place to produce the most wonderful pattern. Here was the absorbing occupation she had been seeking; the purpose to her life. She would have a child to rear; a sweet, loving companion who was dependent on her. Loneliness would be at an end. Bringing up Kate would turn the empty hours into ones of delight. Knightshill would again ring with laughter. There would be snowmen, daisy chains and summer picnics. A lump gathered in her throat as she gazed back at her sister.
‘Nothing would make me happier. Nothing. To the devil with Grandfather! You have all defied him. Now it is my turn. Kate will recover in familiar surroundings, I know she will.’ She began to laugh with delight. ‘She will be the first of the Ashleighs to come home. The rest of you will follow, in time.’
*
Vere sat beneath a shady tree with a sketch-pad on his knee, his hands idle. It was September and excessively hot on the island. He was lodging in a crumbling establishment run by a Greek who rated food above decor. It was idyllic — overgrown gardens wonderfully perfumed during indigo nights scattered with stars, old stone columns hung with flowering vines, spartan airy rooms which seemed to sleep along with their occupants during the heavy afternoons and, best of all, a sweeping view of the sea.
When the sun went down the courtyard filled with those seeking a first-rate meal, a bottle of wine and good conversation. Vere had made friends with many local people. Artists were welcomed on this isle of vistas and valleys. The penniless ones paid for their food and lodging with small samples of their work. Wealthy ones were expected to show appreciation by bestowing gifts of theirs. Vere had done so willingly. The watercolours and pen-drawings he had done since arriving here were skilled, but none had truly satisfied him.
During his six-month search for culture, he had worked unceasingly. The Mediterranean countries contained some of the most beautiful aspects an artist could desire, with colours found only in lands washed by sea and sun. Vere had developed his talent considerably by attempting every form of art without considering the commercial aspect, or confining himself to the skills he preferred. He intended this period to be one of experiment in which to discover his strengths and weaknesses. Yet, despite freedom to devote himself to something he had been obliged to suppress in the past, despite inspiration gained from studying many of the greatest works of art in the world, despite his itinerant life, the restlessness he had known on returning to Knightshill had not been banished. The first few months had subdued it, but it was returning to full strength. Seductive nights had him lying awake seeking reasons. Somnolent sun-drenched days brought indolence. He had become a lotus-eater without understanding why.
Sitting beneath the tree on that day at the end of September he felt no inclination to work. The malaise was starting to worry him so he attempted to analyse it. He certainly had no desire to go home to the company of a possessive sister, and an old man who saw just one virtue in his heir: the ability to produce another. There had been ample opportunity during his travels to enter into the kind of liaison easily begun, and just as easily discontinued. Why no woman had captured his interest for long he could not tell. Perhaps his lethargy extended to sexual desire. He was in an artists’ paradise, yet neither man nor painter was fulfilled.
Dropping his sketch-pad at his feet, Vere frowned at the sparkling blue water stretching away to a misty horizon. What was wrong? For some minutes he stared across the Mediterranean wondering if he had lost his muse along with his zest for life. Then, as the horizon started to shimmer like a mirage before his eyes, he suddenly saw the answer. He was here to paint the exotic wild beauty of these lands but was more and more often facing the sea instead, watching that distant horizon. He got up slowly and walked to the edge of the dusty rise which hung out over crystal-clear depths hugging the shore. A boat could take him across to Alexandria and the Nile. A train could get him to Cairo. He would be there within a week.
Dreaminess vanished beneath a charge of excitement. The desert was calling him. It had been calling for six months and it was not until now that he had recognized its voice. Only when he was again gazing across the enduring sands would he find release from this yearning, and rediscover his true talent.
He made the crossing to Alexandria the following evening and, when the ship drew alongside the shore of that vast continent, he owned to himself that it was not only the desert singing a siren song. Memories of Floria Pallini still
lingered in his heart. Leaning on the rail to gaze at the lights of Alexandria, he allowed those memories full rein as he recalled her large amber eyes gazing at him with compassion, and her soft caressing voice saying, ‘I will silence the cry in your heart.’ She had tried too well, and he had come near to loving her before he left Cairo to march to Omdurman.
Floria had drifted into the life of a courtesan after her husband disappeared during a desert expedition when she was only eighteen. As the years passed she had earned acceptance from the wealthy and distinguished, her villa becoming the venue for elaborate parties which all but the sticklers for propriety had attended. It was not her legion of lovers who had stood between Floria and Vere, however; it had been the fact that she had given her heart to another Ashleigh. His brother Vorne’s ghost, which had also captivated Annabel Bourneville, continued to possess the devotion of the second woman Vere had cared for.
Yet Floria had loved Vere in her fashion. Her appreciation of his talent had opened the way to its present popularity. She had introduced him to Armand Lisère, who owned galleries in Alexandria and Cairo patronized by collectors of standing in the Middle East. Lisère had recognized Vere’s worth and had bought his set of sepia paintings of desert warfare with a request for more; so he was now the man to show selected canvases of Mediterranean scenes. From the gallery owner Vere would also learn of Floria’s present situation.
Guilt washed over Vere as he stood on that ship recalling another moored on the Nile ready to transport the European captives found in the dungeons of Omdurman by British officers. Roberto Pallini, captured thirteen years earlier like many of his fellow prisoners, had been suffering terrible deprivation chained to the walls of his cell while other men had been enjoying the generosity of his wife who had believed she was a widow. Vere had suffered the guilt of two Ashleighs on that score, and yet he could not forget the plight of poor Floria when her husband returned to learn of the life she had been leading.
Armand Lisère was not in Alexandria, so Vere purchased a small trunk in which to pack his heavier clothing and those items of his work he knew the man would not consider, then left it at the shipping office, to be transported to Knightshill via Southampton, before taking the train to Cairo. As it wended its way across terrain sectioned by the many tributaries at the mouth of the river Nile, Vere again smelt the undeniable whiff of the East, saw camels and palms and brown men navigating every kind of craft along the muddy waterways. He also renewed acquaintance with the multitude of rogues eager to sell anything from hair bracelets to bottles of Nile water, and he rejoiced in it all as memories flooded back.
On reaching Cairo he was not the innocent abroad that he had been last year, so he was soon in an open carriage with his baggage, being taken to the hotel in which he had spent his leave. He was welcomed there with the exaggerated pleasure of men of the East, and was conducted to a room with a view of the residential area in which Floria’s villa was situated. Standing by the window he longed to see her, hear her low laugh, touch her warm skin, and he knew she was not yet out of his heart.
But she was out of his reach. Armand Lisère revealed that Floria had departed before her husband arrived on the steamer from Omdurman. What Cairo society had been prepared to accept from a supposed widow, they condemned in a married woman. The villa had been so hurriedly vacated most of the treasures were there when Pallini arrived to hear the scandalous truth about someone he had last seen as his bride of eighteen. He had returned to Italy and died there several months later. Floria’s whereabouts were unknown, but those who retained their affection for her hoped she was queen of some distant appreciative court.
Ridiculously disappointed by news he should have expected, Vere felt little delight at the gallery owner’s immediate acceptance of a set of Italian twilight scenes in mauves and blues, another set painted in Sicily which evoked the barren landscape with remarkable economy of colour, and three pen-pictures of village life high in the hills. One canvas remained in Vere’s case: the portrait of a Neapolitan woman with dark fiery eyes and sensual curves who had posed for him in exchange for a mangy donkey he purchased for her from the market. Despite her peasant’s clothes, the woman too closely resembled Floria for Vere now to allow the picture to be exhibited in a city where she had been so well known.
Floria’s absence was not Vere’s only disappointment. Last year, Cairo had been home to many British regiments; cafes and markets had been filled with soldiers relaxing on leave or acclimatizing after arriving from England to reinforce the army which had already fought half-way to Omdurman. In the more elegant restaurants, the superior hotels, the clubs and banks, there had been affluent British officers whose voices rang with authority as they demanded the attention they regarded as their due. There was still a small British presence provided by officers of the Camel Corps and various other Egyptian regiments, but Cairo became an alien spot now the war was over. Even the desert seemed hostile when Vere stood gazing across the eternal sands trying to recapture what it had meant to him before. Where were the neat rows of tents, the compounds filled with camels and horses, the constant movement of men in khaki? There was nothing before him but miles of dun-coloured terrain baking beneath the sun, where the only sign of motion was the heat shimmering several feet above it. After two weeks in Cairo, Vere’s excitement was replaced by surprising and unexpected sensations of raw loneliness.
Wandering moodily along the banks of the Nile, where urchins’ and pedlars’ pleas fell on his deaf ears, Vere decided that trying to relive the most momentous year in his life was futile. Perhaps Sir Gilliard had been right to insist that he marry and start a family. He was twenty-seven. It was his duty as heir to a large estate to ensure the continuation of the line. A wife and children would make Knightshill a happy and lively place again; they might ease his restlessness so that he would again be content there. But he would not marry without love.
‘By God, it can’t be!’ exclaimed a voice from a passing carriage. ‘The pre-Raphaelite with a sword, or I’m damned forever!’
That last sentence brought Vere from introspection and he swung round. The carriage had halted and its passenger was leaping from it with disbelief written all over his broad sun-browned face. Vere took several giant strides to seize his outstretched hand with matching disbelief.
‘Ross! This is incredible. What are you doing in Cairo?’
‘Acting on Her Majesty’s service, of course,’ came the laughing reply. ‘Have you forgotten that we went to Fashoda with Kitchener after you left Omdurman? When we settled that affair, I was asked to stay on for another year attached to Headquarters. What is more to the point is what you are doing here when your regiment is barracked in Lincolnshire.’
The pleasure of this encounter with a friend who had shared those times he had been trying to recapture brought a return of hope. ‘The pre-Raphaelite hung up his sword in January. I’m on a tour of the Mediterranean as an artist, seeking to further my career,’ Vere told him heartily.
Ross gave his inimitable grin. ‘The Mediterranean? You’re a trifle off course, aren’t you?’
‘Oh … yes. Yes, I am.’ Vere laughed. ‘You have no idea how good it is to see you. Let’s lunch together and exchange news.’
Ross indicated the carriage. ‘I was on my way to lunch when I spotted you.’
The day immediately turned brighter for Vere. Cairo was now welcoming and familiar. Ross Majors had befriended him on his arrival in Egypt and tried to save him from the certain humiliation awaiting any artist who attempted to become an instant warrior. They had fought their way to Omdurman together, and parted regretfully when their regiments went their separate ways a year ago.
‘So you decided the army was not for this particular Ashleigh after all,’ said Ross, leaning back against the squabs as the carriage headed for the bustle of central Cairo. ‘A wise decision, although you were growing into the role very well.’
‘A compliment, coming from you,’ Vere replied. ‘I returned to England thin
king I could take up life where I had left it, as a prosperous landowner.’
‘And?’
‘I kept hearing phantom bugles across my meadows, and saw the Nile instead of waving wheat when the moon shone down on it. If I’m honest, I must admit I also imagined camp fires amid a bivouac when I gazed into the valley where the lights of the village were twinkling.’
‘So you embarked on a tour of the Mediterranean as an excuse to come back, hoping to find it just as it was?’
‘Dear God, you’ve grown amazingly perceptive since we last met! I wasn’t aware of that myself until several weeks ago!’
Ross grinned. ‘My powers of perception gained me this post at Headquarters. It also gained me promotion.’
‘Captain Majors? Congratulations.’
‘I may have to call a halt now. Major Majors might cause difficulties, don’t you think?’
‘I have never known you to worry about making difficulties. You damn well enjoy the occupation.’ Laughing and reminiscing the pair arrived at their destination, and made their way through to the airy restaurant where Ross had arranged to meet up with some of his fellow-officers. Vere was accorded a warm welcome when Ross explained that his companion had also participated in the Sudanese campaign, and the inevitable question regarding his name was asked.
‘Yes, Vorne Ashleigh was my brother,’ he said as lightly as he could, then hastened to explain that he had left the army in order to pursue his career as an artist. He had no wish to discuss a hero he knew to have feet of clay. His table companions then recalled the pictures he had done of the war for The Illustrated Magazine, and the awkward moment passed.
An hour flew as they spoke of last year’s campaign, followed by the show of strength at Fashoda to prevent the French gaining territory along the banks of the Nile. With brandy and cigars on the table before them, the senior man present predicted war in South Africa very soon. Opinions were divided on whether or not a mere show of strength there would deter the Boers, as it had the French.
A Distant Hero Page 7