All this secrecy was only necessary in case Archie and her grandfather remained obdurate. She hoped she could change their minds, but it was impossible to be sure. For this reason, she hardly hesitated for a moment when Archie asked her – in the most casual of manners – when young Hardie proposed to set out on this jaunt of his. If she was indeed to be forbidden to marry Gordon, a close watch would probably be kept on her for the day or two preceding his departure. Truthfulness would be unwise – yet she was almost shocked by the facility with which the lie tripped off her tongue.
‘On October the second,’ she answered. It would not do for her answer to appear as offhand as the question, for then Archie would never believe her. ‘And I do ask you again, Archie, before it’s too late, to give me whatever this stupid permission is that’s needed so that I can join him. It means so much to me, and so little to you. It will break my heart to think of him sailing out of Southampton without me.’ The scrap of paper which she kept in a locket round her neck assured her that Gordon would be leaving the Royal Albert Dock in London by the P & O ship Parramatta on October 14th. If on the much earlier date she had mentioned she was to display an appearance of melancholy, this would surely put to rest any suspicions of an elopement.
The thought of an elopement was a recent one; previously she had assumed that such events took place only in novels. But she was not used to having her wishes thwarted, and a stubbornness of character which she had not known herself to possess made her determined to get her own way. Having not yet come out into society, she had no conception of how it might feel to be refused acceptance by that society. By the time the long expedition ended she would have passed her twenty-first birthday and would return from China as a married woman. What could be more respectable than that? Naturally she had complete trust in her fiancé as an honourable man.
It was worrying, nevertheless, that she received no answer to the letter in which she reported her family’s opposition to him. Was he discouraged? Did he assume that under pressure she would change her mind? Lucy continued to write every day, and for the time being repeated her belief that her grandfather would eventually be persuaded to give consent. But time was passing. She continued to plead with the marquess and to make her quiet preparations, but her anxiety grew.
It was not until nearly the end of September that a letter was brought to her as she sat down to breakfast one morning. Recognizing Gordon’s handwriting, she glanced to see whether her grandfather was watching her; but he, at the far end of the table, seemed absorbed in his copy of The Times. Lucy opened the letter and began to read.
‘My dear Miss Yates.’ The very opening came as an unwelcome surprise, for he had previously addressed her as ‘My dearest Lucy’. But there was a further shock to come, when she read, ‘I have been distressed to hear nothing from you since you wrote to report your brother’s opposition to our marriage. But through my disappointment I have to recognize that you show good sense in accepting the verdict of your family, because it would distress me even more if I were to find myself responsible for you severing relations with your grandfather and brother.
‘My love for you is unchanged. My heart will be yours for the rest of my life, and I shall make it my first business when I return to England to assure myself that you are happy. But that return will not be for three years. A young lady as beautiful as yourself will be courted during that long period by many suitors, better connected than myself and able to count on your grandfather’s approval. I could not expect – and would not wish – you to turn your back on them in favour of a man who can offer you nothing but three years of neglect. And so I write now to release you from any promises by which you may have felt bound.’
There were a few other phrases at the end of the letter, wishing her well, but Lucy was too upset to read them. How could he give her up so easily? How could he accuse her of losing hope when she had written every day – sometimes twice a day – to assure him that she would get her way in the end? A possible answer to the second question presented itself to her mind almost at once, and this might provide an answer to the first. Blinking back her tears, she addressed the far end of the table.
‘Granda!’
The wall of newspaper was lowered. ‘Yes, m’dear?’
Without warning Lucy found herself unable to speak. Was it because she did not want her grandfather to hear her voice quavering with unhappiness? Whatever the reason, her silence succeeded in imposing itself on the marquess as a question.
‘The young man shows good sense, Lucy,’ he said. ‘He’s taken his time to come round to it, but what he says in the end is right. Three years is too long to mope along on your own. You’ll soon forget him. So cheer up.’
Lucy’s blue eyes opened wide and she slowly rose to her feet. There was no quavering in her voice now as she spoke. ‘How do you know what he says?’ she demanded. ‘Did you read the letter? You had no right even to open it. It was addressed to me. And have there been other letters that I’ve not even been allowed to see? You let this one through, I suppose, because it said what you wanted it to say, but what about all the others? And my letters to him – what happened to them? I might have sent Marie out to post them quietly in the village, but I didn’t think that you would stoop to stealing them and … and …’ Lucy could control her tears no longer, but by now they were tears of indignation as well as of unhappiness.
‘It’s for your own good, Lucy,’ said the marquess, a trace of uneasiness in his voice. ‘You’re only a child. You haven’t the judgement –’
‘If you treat me as a child, how can I be anything else? You had no right… no right… you’ve ruined my life.’ She ran towards him, angry and appealing at the same time. ‘Granda, it might still not be too late. Let me see him – let me explain.’
‘Don’t be a little fool, Lucy. It’s all for the best.’
Lucy stamped her foot in a show of petulance. But she was acting. Her anger was genuine enough, but already a plan of action had flown ready-made into her mind. She no longer cared about behaving deceitfully, because she had been deceived herself. It was necessary that the whole household should know that she was upset, and in a decline.
Not for a moment did she consider that there was any wish on Gordon’s part to break their engagement. The interception of her letters had misled him into thinking her unkind, but she felt sure that his true feelings, like hers, were unchanged. So when she returned to her room there was no fear in her mind about the step she proposed to take.
‘Listen carefully, Marie,’ she said to her maid. ‘For the next four days his lordship and my brother, if they enquire, are to be told that I’m confined to my room by nervous prostration. I don’t wish to see a doctor. The cure for my condition is in my grandfather’s hands, and if the opportunity arises you may indicate that I said so. Certainly you may say that I can’t stop crying. I’ll have all my meals sent up to my room, although I shall return most of them uneaten. On the fifth day – that will be October the third, will it not? – I shall appear again at meals. But I shan’t need your help with my dress or hair for a few days, since I shall take no interest in my appearance. Instead, I shall require you to run some errands for me secretly.’
She set to work to write them down. Marie – who was as English as Lucy herself, adopting a French name only as a professional requirement – read through the list doubtfully.
‘I shall lose my place,’ she said when she had taken it all in.
‘There will be no place for a lady’s maid at Castlemere whether you help me or not,’ Lucy said briskly. ‘I shall send a letter of high recommendation to the agency, telling them that you are at liberty only because I am about to travel abroad. And the sum you need to buy my passage will take only a part of what the pawnbroker should allow you. I shall be able to make you a present. To compensate you for any delay in finding a new position. And as a reward for your discretion. Now, let us go through this list together and see that you understand all you are to do.’
Part Three
The Great Adventure
Chapter One
The Royal Albert Dock was crowded with passengers and their friends and relations when Lucy arrived there early on the morning of 14 October, although the Parramatta would not sail until noon. Confused by all the bustle, she wished that her maid was at hand to help her find her cabin and settle in. But Marie’s part of the plan kept her at Castlemere, to report that her mistress was confined to bed with a feverish chill. Archie by now was back at Oxford, and by great good fortune the marquess was spending a week in London, believing the crisis affecting his granddaughter to have passed. After three days Marie was due to rush downstairs to report that Lucy’s bed had not been slept in on Saturday night. Her acting performance was unlikely to save her from dismissal but might, if luck went their way, lay a false trail towards a ship of another line, scheduled to sail out of Southampton on that day.
Before anything else, it was necessary to make sure that Mr Gordon Hardie had taken up his passage on the Parramatta. How ridiculous it would be if, while Lucy was running away from England for love of Gordon, Gordon should decide to remain in England for love of Lucy! But all was well. Not only had Mr Hardie already embarked; he had been allotted his seat at table. Lucy, glancing at the lists in an apparently casual manner, requested that the name of Miss Young should be written in for the same table.
She had decided to travel under an assumed name in case the marquess, anticipating some such escapade, should have written to the shipping lines asking to be informed if any Miss Yates tried to book a passage. But as every stage of embarkation passed smoothly, she was able to feel with relief that she had been successful in deceiving her grandfather.
Marie, too, had done well in her allotted tasks. The most important of these were to pawn Lucy’s jewellery, book her passage and make the arrangements for her journey to London; but she had also smuggled clothes and other personal belongings out of Castlemere, packed them, and arranged for their delivery to the ship. Lucy checked that one of her trunks was in the baggage room and a second one – not wanted on the voyage – was in the hold. Her cabin trunk was already occupying most of the floor space of the tiny room – only six feet square – which would be her home as far as Bombay: a home to be shared with a stranger who seemed already to have claimed the top berth. At any other time Lucy would have been dismayed by the cramped conditions. But today she was too excited and too nervous to bother about such details.
With no one to see her off, she began to explore the ship while most of the other passengers were on deck. The cabin offered only a small collapsible washbasin, so it was a relief to discover a row of marble and mahogany bathrooms. Mahogany was again in evidence in the saloon, a large and imposing room, ornate with carvings and columns and panelling, and with a wide gallery at one end, furnished as a music room. There was a smoking room, from which Lucy retreated hastily, supposing it to be for gentlemen only; a card room; a small lending library and writing room; and a ladies’ saloon, already occupied by so many children and nursemaids that it seemed likely to prove the noisiest part of the ship.
That thought was interrupted by a greater noise: first a clanking, then a shuddering and creaking, followed by the steady thumping of the engines. It proved after all impossible to stay below deck at the moment of departure.
Most of the other passengers were waving to their friends on the dock. Lucy did not trouble to look down. Instead, searching the line of passengers with her eyes, she picked out the back of Gordon’s head as he leaned over the rail. Her body flooded with love for him, so that for a moment she was unable to move. But what a risk she was taking – and without the approval or even the knowledge of the man she loved. If she had miscalculated, she was ruined indeed.
For almost an hour, as the Parramatta moved into the estuary of the Thames, she remained on deck. Returning eventually to the cabin, she found her travelling companion lying on the top berth, weeping noisily. The sobbing stopped as Lucy closed the door, as though it had been an indulgence to be allowed only until this moment.
‘Are you unwell?’ asked Lucy.
A plump, middle-aged woman, whose hair and eyes and clothes all seemed to have been bleached to a watery paleness, gave one last sniff and climbed carefully down from the berth.
‘Just said goodbye to my children,’ she told Lucy. ‘Three years since I saw them last. Three years before I’ll see them again. When I came home in June, they didn’t know me. It’s hard to realize that in a month or two they’ll have forgotten me again. The stranger who came to visit.’ She began to cry again. ‘My four darlings!’
‘Why must you leave them, Mrs –?’ asked Lucy.
‘My name’s Mrs Stewart.’ More firmly than before, she pulled herself together and made a good attempt at a smile. ‘You’re Miss Young. I saw your name on the cabin list. Going out to get married, I wouldn’t be surprised, a lovely girl like you. This is something you don’t think about when you promise to leave your country and your friends and family behind you to start a new life with your husband. India kills children. For their own sakes, they have to come home. And then where does your duty lie? With the children, or with your husband? Some choose one and some the other. Whichever way you do it, you think you’ve made a mistake.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘Time for tiffin.’
‘Tiffin?’
‘A light luncheon. We dine in the evening. Food every few minutes, you’ll find, on these ships. Stops you getting bored. Makes you fat instead. Like to come with me?’
Lucy shook her head. She was frightened, she realized. Frightened of the first encounter with Gordon. In that moment of surprise, before he could bring his feelings under control, would she see delight in his eyes – or horror? ‘I made a good breakfast,’ she said. ‘I’m not hungry yet. Thank you very much.’
‘Well, then. I’ve left you those two drawers. For the rest, we have to use our trunks as wardrobes. When I come back, we’ll walk together for a little if you like. If you’re travelling alone, you may like to have someone my age to keep an eye on you. Not that I’d interfere, I don’t mean. But you know what they say – that every voyage to India ends in at least one marriage. Something to do with the sun and the moon and all being cooped up together and needing a bit of excitement. If you’ve got a beau waiting for you in India, you won’t be interested in a shipboard romance – but you might find yourself slipping into one all the same, and be glad of someone to check it. I shan’t meddle unless you ask. But we shall get to know each other pretty well, I don’t doubt, before we’re through.’
Lucy was tempted to say at once that she was not proposing to stay in India, but merely to change ships at Bombay for the second part of her voyage to Shanghai. But she was not used to such a blunt style of speech from strangers and was disposed to be cautious until she knew Mrs Stewart better. She had expected to keep herself to herself, but clearly this would not be possible. Her fellow-passengers would be talkative and curious; she must think of some story to explain why she was making the voyage.
Considering this, and approaching the moment when she must come face to face with Gordon, her nervousness increased. There was no room in the cabin for two people at once, unless they were lying on their berths, so Lucy not only agreed that she and Mrs Stewart should take daily turns to be the first to dress for the evening meal, but offered to have the later turn on this first evening. As a result, most of the other passengers had already taken their places for dinner
when she hesitantly approached her table.
‘Ah! Our elusive tablemate!’ The florid gentleman who rose to greet her obviously saw himself as the life and soul of the party. ‘We all speculated throughout tiffin as to who would occupy the vacant place, but none of us could have imagined such a vision of delight. Allow me to introduce you to Miss Fawcett, Mr Hardie, Captain Hunter, Mr Elliott. And myself, of course. George Crichton, at your service.’
Lucy was standing almost immediately behind Gordon as these introductions took place. She smiled and nodded mechanically, but her eyes were fixed on the back of his head. He turned in his seat and began to rise as his name was spoken. Then, seeing her for the first time, his movement was arrested, as though he were suddenly paralysed in an uncomfortably bent and twisted position.
‘I am Lucy Young,’ said Lucy clearly. She held out her hand first to Gordon, because he was the nearest, but allowed him to touch her fingers only briefly before moving round the circle. ‘Mr Hardie. Miss Fawcett. Captain. Mr Elliott. Mr Crichton.’ The need to be polite in a social situation brought confidence flooding back to overcome her fear of what Gordon might be thinking. She took her seat opposite him and looked straight across the table.
How good-looking he was! Not handsome in the ordinary, smooth way in which the young captain to whom she had just been introduced was handsome. But his features were so strong and interesting, and his eyes so fiercely dark. Although she had made it clear that she was to be greeted as a stranger, she searched those eyes now for signs of welcome.
She could read nothing in them but incredulity. Through the whole of the first three courses he did not speak at all, as though the one question which he must not ask in company blocked him from attempting any other remark. His silence was not noticed in the general chatter as, within the first half-hour, Lucy learned that young Captain Hunter was on his way to rejoin his regiment in Peshawar, that Mr Crichton managed a tea plantation in Ceylon, that Mr Elliott served as a magistrate in Madras, and that Miss Fawcett was a missionary, returning to China.
The House of Hardie Page 16