The Lorimer Legacy

by Anne Melville

  The unhappiness of her thwarted ambition was increased by guilt. Every day which passed made her more ashamed of the fact that she had not yet written to Margaret. The realization that she had left a loving home to no advantage was part of the reason for her reluctance. It would be humiliating to admit that her unwise behaviour had brought her no nearer to fulfilling any of her ambitions. Margaret would summon her home and scold her for her impetuosity, and there would never be a second chance to escape. Even to explain how meaningless she found life at Elm Lodge would be hurtful. Alexa found one excuse after another to justify her silence: Margaret would believe her still to be at Brinsley House, and so would not be anxious yet; a letter would be more reassuring when there was something definite to say in it; it would reach England more swiftly and safely if she waited to put it into Lord Glanville’s own hands. So every day she postponed what she knew to be her duty.

  When she was in danger it was Lord Glanville who came to her rescue. Now, as her boredom increased, it was his wife who helped her. The musical life of the spa was vigorous, for many famous musicians had made their homes there. Even after the season had ended there were regular tea-time and evening concerts. In addition to this, the Haus des Kurgastes invited its residents to provide their own less formal entertainment as though they were in their own drawing rooms. Lady Glanville arranged that Alexa should be invited to sing after dinner one evening.

  After the little concert was ended, Alexa returned to the side of her patroness and found her talking to a stout lady with a strong face and vigorous manner. Her name, Eva Becattini, was familiar – until her retirement she had been one of the best-known dramatic sopranos in Europe. Alexa hardly dared to breathe as she waited to hear whether she would be dismissed with a polite compliment or whether her singing had inspired anything more enthusiastic. But La Becattini – her fame was such that she was always spoken of in this way – appeared to be arguing too busily with Lady Glanville even to notice Alexa’s arrival.

  ‘My voice has gone, completely gone!’ she was protesting.

  ‘But not your experience. If you could only set her on the right road. She gives her time to me and I have no means of helping her. I can ask only as a favour. But you would find her responsive.’

  La Becattini turned to stare at Alexa as though noticing her for the first time. ‘What languages?’ she asked.

  ‘I speak Italian, diva,’ said Alexa. ‘I have learned French in the schoolroom, enough to study a role although not to converse fluently. And I am learning German here.’

  ‘You are too slight for Wagner,’ said La Becattini dismissively. ‘His work demands a stronger constitution. But of course German would be necessary if you were to sing in Dresden or Vienna. Well, I could give you some exercises. Teach you a role, perhaps, if you are quick and promise not to bore me. There will be no society to amuse me here until July. You can call in the mornings if you wish. I am at home to my friends at noon. You should come at ten.’

  She nodded brusquely at Lady Glanville, recognizing that no great thanks were due for an invitation designed so much more for Alexa’s advantage than her own, and strode away. Alexa took the seat she had left and squeezed Lady Glanville’s hands between her own. Her eyes were bright with happiness.

  ‘Dear Lady Glanville, why should you do so much for me?’ she asked.

  Tired though she was, Lady Glanville laughed with an affectionate amusement.

  ‘Boredom is a disease that the thermal waters cannot cure,’ she said. ‘You are bored because you dream of excitement without knowing how to attain it. La Becattini is bored because she remembers excitements she will never be able to repeat. And I am afraid that unless I can provide you with occupation you will return to England and leave me to be bored with my own company. But now, I hope, we shall all be happy. Will you help me to bed, Alexa? It’s been a long day, and I am tired.’

  Together, and very slowly, they went up the marble stairs to Lady Glanville’s suite. Often at such times Alexa was overwhelmed with pity for a woman who was not yet forty years old but who would soon need to be pushed in a chair from one place to another. It had already become obvious that Baden-Baden could offer no treatment to cure Lady Glanville’s condition, although the heat of mud or water made her limbs less painful while they were immersed.

  Lord Glanville returned to Baden-Baden. The lack of improvement in his wife’s condition caused him to frown anxiously and ask quiet questions of the maid; but in Lady Glanville’s presence he was as cheerful and as kind as ever. She had little news of her own to give him, but was enthusiastic about Alexa’s progress, and the information appeared to give her husband pleasure.

  ‘I’m glad that the hopes my brother raised are not after all to be disappointed,’ he said, as they sat together in the Gasteshaus one evening after Lady Glanville had retired to bed. ‘When you are rich and famous, I hope you will lend your name to my campaign.’

  ‘I shall do anything I can to repay you and Lady Glanville, whether I become successful or not,’ Alexa promised. ‘But what is your campaign, my lord?’

  ‘I believe that women should have the same right as men to vote in Parliamentary elections,’ he told her. ‘Do you agree with that?’

  He was smiling as he asked the question, perhaps taking her answer for granted. But Alexa, applying the theory to herself, frowned doubtfully.

  ‘I know nothing about politics: nothing at all,’ she said. ‘How could my vote be of value when it would be so uninformed? And most women, surely, are in the same position as myself.’

  ‘Women have ceased to concern themselves with political affairs simply because they are not allowed to put any opinions to practical effect and are hardly encouraged to express them even in conversation. A woman can feel definite views on those spheres of life in which she is allowed responsibility. Once she is allowed to influence government in her choices, she will for the first time take pains to understand what the choices are.’

  ‘It sounds to me, my lord, as though you are more concerned to change the nature of women than of Parliament.’

  He gave a laugh more carefree than she had ever heard from him before.

  ‘Perhaps you are right – and the subtlety with which you analyse my motives suggests that you are fit to have the vote without any change being necessary. I think it wrong that half our nation should be encouraged to be feather-headed by the lack of consideration given to their views. And this state of affairs seems to me particularly unfortunate when the care of our children is so largely entrusted to these same silly women. My opinion is that women are as capable of acting responsibly as men are. But they are unlikely to display their abilities while they are more apt to be criticized than praised for initiative. The meetings which are held in my London home are attended by women, and I can find no fault with either their reasoning power or their determination.’

  Alexa puzzled over the problem. She still did not completely understand why Lord Glanville should have chosen the right to vote as the main point of his campaign.

  ‘Will it not be difficult to change a state of affairs which has remained undisturbed for so long?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Very difficult indeed,’ he agreed. ‘But you are not quite right in suggesting that nothing has changed. For many years in our country the right to vote has depended on the possession of property. Property was owned mainly by men, and thereofre it was to men that the vote was given. But recently there has been a movement to extend voting rights, separating them from the ownership of property – but still confined only to men. And so, you see, the principle has changed. Where once the franchise excluded those who did not own property, now it excludes those who are not men. You understand the difference?’

  Alexa understood, but was less sure that she thought it important. She was flattered, however, that a nobleman like Lord Glanville should try to convince her. He was not only an aristocrat, but almost old enough to be her father, yet he was willing to converse with her as though she w
ere a friend instead of a mere dependant. As though he sensed her lack of interest, he changed the subject.

  ‘I must return to England within a day or two,’ he said. ‘The Parliamentary session has already begun, and I should be in London. But Lady Glanville must remain here. The cold and damp of an English winter can do her no good. Are you happy to stay here with her?’

  ‘Oh yes, my lord!’ For a moment she was alarmed lest he intended to take her away from Baden-Baden and La Becattini; but it seemed that he was merely reassuring himself, for he nodded to accept her contentment.

  ‘And you have been in communication with your connections in England since your arrival here?’

  This time Alexa was more reluctant to answer. He interpreted her silence correctly.

  ‘I know you felt that you had been ill-used,’ he said. ‘Nevertheless, it’s necessary for me to consider my own part in the affair. You are not yet twenty-one. I ought to have your guardian’s approval of your presence here. I wrote to Mr Lorimer, as you know, but he has not favoured me with the courtesy of an answer. It’s hardly likely that he will accuse me of abducting you, but I think, all the same, that you should write a letter of reassurance. I could post it in England after my return. I have no wish to interfere in your affairs. But if you were suddenly to disappear from my care, I know what distress I should feel. I hardly like to be responsible for the same unhappiness in anyone else.’

  He had looked at her with the same grave kindness at the time of their first meeting. Alexa remembered: she had not understood his expression then and she did not now. But she recognized the validity of what he said, and was ashamed that she had delayed. The next day she wrote to Margaret.

  Long as the letter was, it did not contain the whole truth about her disappearance. She described where she was, and who had befriended her. She explained her ambitions and the progress she was making in her efforts to achieve them. With affection and sincerity she apologized for the distress which she knew she must have caused. But nowhere in the letter did she mention the name of William Lorimer.

  It was a complicated mixture of feelings which held her back. There had quite certainly been a time, as she ran from the Honourable Duncan Glanville in her bedroom at Glanville House, when she had believed that William Lorimer had deliberately sent her to her ruin. Now that she was not only out of danger but was enjoying the very privileges which William had promised her, although from another source, she did not feel quite the same certainty. It was possible that his offer of help had been genuine, although misplaced. Because Alexa had never liked him she found it easiest to suspend judgement – she had no need to be grateful, and therefore had resolved never to see him again.

  But such a course was not something to be inflicted on Margaret, who was his sister. Alexa realized that if she were to tell even part of the truth, she was liable to cause trouble. It would certainly upset Margaret if she were to believe that her brother had deliberately entrusted Alexa to a scoundrel – but she would be equally unhappy to learn that it was William who had advised Alexa to abandon the dullness of a country life and devote herself to a career of which Margaret was known to disapprove, without even pausing to discuss her plans. To precipitate a family quarrel would be unkind. A widow with a small son needed all the support that the other members of her family could give her. Treading a delicate path between tact and truth, Alexa left unsaid whatever could cause ill-feeling. When she handed her letter to Lord Glanville on the day of his return to England, her conscience was at peace for the first time in weeks.

  2

  The best antidote to the reproach of failure is hard work. On a wintry Sunday afternoon Margaret was sitting close to the fire, trying to keep her anxieties about Alexa under control by studying some figures which she had collected over the past two years. The subject was not a romantic one. She was considering how many schoolchildren in her area had been discovered to have hair infested with lice, how many days’ schooling they had missed, and how soon and how often the infestation had recurred, in the hope that the pattern of the problem would suggest some means of eliminating it. When Betty announced a caller, Margaret was at first a little irritated by the interruption. Then she read the name on his card. It was Lord Glanville.

  A few weeks earlier the name would have meant nothing to her. But when she had written to remind Alexa that she must not outstay her welcome at Brinsley House, William had been forced to reveal that her ward had left the country and – with a nearer approach to apology than was usual to him – had admitted his own part in Alexa’s plan to escape from a country life which she found too dull. The meeting had ended in a quarrel. Seeking to excuse himself, William had hinted that the introduction he had given to Alexa, intended to keep her from home only for twenty-four hours, had been to a gentleman of the utmost respectability. If she had abandoned this arrangement in favour of an expedition to the Continent in the company of an aristocrat whose motives could only be guessed at, that was not William’s responsibility. Margaret in return had suggested that he would never have allowed his own daughter to make even such a brief visit without a chaperone, and that she herself ought to have been informed immediately of Alexa’s disappearance. They had parted in anger – but Margaret had at least been given the name of the nobleman and two addresses in England.

  They had proved to be of little use. The housekeeper at Blaize, Lord Glanville’s country house, and his secretary in the Park Lane town house, had given the same answers. Lord Glanville was visiting Germany and Austria and letters were not being forwarded: but he was not expected to be abroad for very long. All Margaret could do was to write again, asking that he should get in touch with her when he returned; and then wait. Now, it seemed, the waiting was over.

  The papers slid unnoticed off her lap as she stood up, and her head swam with an inexplicable dizziness. Was it the heat of the fire, or had she so often feared disaster on Alexa’s behalf that now she could only expect bad news?

  ‘Is he alone?’ she whispered, but knew the answer before she asked the question. If Alexa had accompanied him, she would already have burst into the room without any formality of announcement.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Show him in, Betty.’ She held out her hand as he came into the room. ‘Lord Glanville.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you to receive me.’ He hesitated for a moment, looking around as though he had expected to see someone else present. ‘I had thought to find Dr Scott here.’

  ‘I am Dr Scott.’

  For a second longer he stared in surprise, and then burst into full-throated laughter which came unexpectedly from a man so intellectual in appearance. ‘My dear Dr Scott!’ He bent over her hand. ‘I beg your forgiveness. In London I devote a large part of my time to considering how the cause of women’s rights may best be advanced, and yet when I meet a woman who has achieved success by her own efforts, I fail to recognize her. I am deeply ashamed. Allow me to say at once how much I admire those women like yourself who have carved careers for themselves in spite of the disapproval of society.’

  His laughter had given Margaret a moment to study his appearance. He was a tall, thin man – a year or two older than herself, she guessed. Perhaps it was only because she already knew his name that she found his long nose and face gave him an aristocratic expression; but without any other clues she felt immediately sure that he was intelligent, serious and kind. Her own quick summing-up amused her – and saddened her at the same time, for it was a reminder of how rarely nowadays she met new acquaintances with whom she could feel such an instant sympathy. But the conviction that she was right in her assessment had an immediate effect on her state of mind. This was a good man. Alexa, if she had been in his care, would have come to no harm.

  The conclusion was irrational but overwhelming. All Margaret’s unhappiness fell from her like a dirty shift. She was not now even in any hurry to hear his news, so sure was she that it would prove reassuring.

  ‘I see that you’re not wholly
converted to your own cause, my lord,’ she said, smiling. ‘Obviously you don’t think that men and women should be treated equally. You would never dare to unloose such a flood of flattery on a man. Well, that makes it easier for me to confess that I have a thoroughly female curiosity. You have news for me, I trust.’

  ‘I have a letter,’ said Lord Glanville. ‘I have just returned from Germany and was asked to carry the message to England and to post it here. But my curiosity is even greater than yours. I was anxious to meet the person to whom it was addressed – yourself.’

  ‘Is it from Alexa? How is she?’

  ‘In good health and good spirits,’ said Lord Glanville. ‘I can give you a full report of her, and you will not hear anything to dismay you. But I know nothing of her relationship with you, if there is one, or of her home circumstances.’

  ‘She is my ward,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Not Mr Lorimer’s?’

  ‘No. Mine. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother when she was nine. She lived with me from that time until she disappeared – disappeared without a word. I love her as my own daughter. I have been half out of my mind with worry. At first I didn’t know at all where she was; and even when I discovered that she was travelling in your company there was no one to tell me under what arrangement she had left the country. And yet’ – it was difficult to conceal a trace of resentment – ‘you have known where she was all this time.’

  ‘I have known where she was, certainly. She has been travelling as a member of my household and then living in Baden-Baden as a companion to my wife. What I have not known was that she had any connections in England other than Mr Lorimer, and he and Alexa showed no wish to correspond with each other. I had no reason to disbelieve my original impression that she was, apart from him, alone in the world. But as the time of my return to England approached, I realized that there was something else she wanted to tell me. She admitted at last that there was someone whom she loved dearly and who must have been hurt by her departure.’