‘Barbarian!’ she said, but she followed his example and took a crisp chop in her fingers and ate the succulent meat off the rib. The fingers were then cleaned in the lemon-water provided in little bowls, a sip of wine was taken, and another of the tasty chops was disposed of.
‘Are you enjoying your dinner?’ Deep in the indigo eyes looking across at her there seemed to burn the tip of a flame, a reflection from the candles burning on the table. ‘You look a little like a cat who has been licking butter and anchovy.’
‘I must say that you dine in very oriental splendour.’ She met his eyes and couldn’t quite decide if that flicker of a flame was reflected from the candles. ‘It’s all very different from the Wimpy Bar where I usually take my meals.’
‘I thought it might be. Eat another chop.’
‘I couldn’t! I’m stuffed like a Strasbourg goose as it is!’
‘Be that as it may, you must eat some of Vanda’s sweet.’
‘Must I? How accustomed you are to giving orders, and how you like them to be obeyed.’
‘Do you think me a fearful autocrat?’ There was in his look a disturbing intensity, and that tiny flame seemed to leap higher in the depths of his eyes.
‘You’re certainly ruthless,’ she said. ‘To have attained all this you must be something of a pirate in a perfectly tailored suit, using the rapier of your wit to get the better of other people.’
‘Do you consider that I’m getting the better of you, Heron?’
‘I—I believe you’re trying to. I believe you have some motive in bringing me here—’ And there she broke off, for though she had the nerve to call him a ruthless man she couldn’t bring herself to put into words her suspicion that he wanted a relationship with her. He had spoken about loneliness the last time they had met, and she felt certain that he was not a man to live entirely alone ... there had been women in his life before.
‘Yes,’ he said coolly. ‘I have my motive in bringing you here, but we won’t speak of that just yet.’ He rang the little brass bell and this time when Chandra entered, a long-bodied dog with soulful eyes and a moist nose came in with him.
‘This is Zeps,’ said Edwin. ‘Short for Zeppelin, as you can see. He has come to make your acquaintance and to see if we’ve left him a few spare-ribs.’
Heron, who had a great weakness for dogs, especially the amusing sort, was ready at once to make friends with Zeps, who responded to her overtures by licking her fingers and cocking an enquiring eye at Edwin.
‘Yes, you walking sausage, we’ve left you some dinner, but you’re to have it in the kitchen where you can’t spoil my Kashan rug.’ Zeps barked in response, kissed Heron’s hand and trotted after Chandra and the remaining chops. Heron shot a smile at Edwin.
‘I didn’t know you were a dog-lover, and I certainly wouldn’t associate someone your height with that sort of pet.’
‘I found him down on the beach about a month ago. Someone had tied a stone to him and tried to drown him, but the tide had brought him in and there he was struggling like a stranded fish and half-dead. I brought him home, fed him brandy and milk, and made him mine. We do look rather an odd couple when we go walking, but he’s a quaint little chap and we get on.’
‘How ghastly cruel some people can be.’ Heron shuddered. ‘Poor Zeps! He must have wondered what he’d done to deserve such wicked treatment—I mean, from whoever tried to drown him!’
‘He’s happy now, Heron, and that’s what matters. Right now he’s crunching cold spare-ribs and thinking himself in heaven.’
Heron gazed at Edwin in a kind of wonder. ‘You’re an astonishing man. I think I’ve fathomed you, and the next moment I realize that I haven’t even stuck a pin in the surface of your personality.’
‘Believe me, child, you’ve stuck in several pins, and I’m not so leather-skinned that I haven’t felt them. You have the nerve of the Celt, the impudence of the modern miss, and the appetite of a young sailor. You, too, are an astonishing creature.’
She smiled and glanced up from her strawberry dessert, which was utterly delicious. ‘You shouldn’t entice me with such fare, for it’s usually the skinny types who can eat like sailors. It’s also the air off Jocelyn’s Beach. I can smell it through the windows, a mixture of salt, seaweed, and cockleshells.’
‘Then you’ve enjoyed coming here? It hasn’t been too much of a disappointment that I failed to get seats for the play?’
‘Did you really try?’ She looked quickly at him, and away again, studying the golden dragon on the opposite wall.
‘Bribery and corruption might have done the trick,’ he said. ‘But I suddenly had the idea that you might enjoy an evening out of Town. When you’ve finally topped yourself up with strawberries, we’ll take a walk in the garden and you can intoxicate yourself with some more of that sea air. It is rather fine, eh? It’s strange about the smell, for it almost wafts me back to the Indies; it combines a certain salty tang with a suggestion of decadent shellfish, so strong at times that if I close my eyes I’m back on coral sand and the waves are rushing at the fanged breakwater enclosing the lagoon. I could almost believe that the night air will be spiced by the almost wicked scent of the Devil flowers, dark flames that light the dark green foliage of the forest trees.’
‘It sounds fabulous,’ she said, laying down her fork and spoon. ‘Do you miss it terribly, and will you return one day to your Devil flowers and your spice trees?’
‘Who can tell?’ He rose from his chair and the rather abrupt movement caused the candle flames to flutter back and forth, casting his tall, tall shadow up the wall, so that it mingled with the silken dragon. ‘Fate is an uncertain charmer and man is at her beck and call.’ He walked to a table and bent to a carved box, from which he took a dark cigar. He toyed with it in his fingers, so that the leaf covering crackled, and Heron noticed that he was staring at an ornament on the table ... a hand of jade, carved with magic symbols twining all over the palm and about the fingers.
‘Tell me, Heron,’ he spoke abruptly, ‘are you too modern a girl, or too conditioned by your line of work to believe in the machinations of destiny? Have you ever paused to consider the odd twists and turns that our lives take, and that it’s chance alone which leads us along a path to happiness or sorrow? It’s a deeply disturbing subject, of course, and still being very young you may have avoided it.’
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘I have thought about life and the tenuous dividing line between the search for happiness and the actual finding of it. People come into court who might never be there but for a quirk of fate—I think life is rather like a busy road. Some people obey all the rules of caution and never take a chance on getting from one side to the other. It’s all a matter of temperament—’
‘Are you of a cautious temperament?’ As he asked this question he applied a flame to his cigar and made a cloud of smoke about his face. ‘Do you never allow chance to beckon you across life’s uncertain road?’
‘Of course I do.’ Her fingers stroked the flowers at the base of the candle-holders. ‘Would I be here, right now, if I was totally cautious? You didn’t have to throw me over your shoulder, did you? I walked into your parlour.’
‘With reservations,’ he drawled. ‘Now will you walk in my garden? The moon is up and many of the paths have been cleared of the overgrown foliage—Miss Glass must have been terribly fond of hydrangeas, for they’re everywhere, gigantic things which were battening on the smaller plants. Some ruthless cutting revealed beds of Toby ruffs and leopard’s bane, not to mention monkshood—’ His eyes narrowed as Heron glanced up at him with wide grey eyes. ‘It’s an attractive plant, with those helmet-shaped flowers. Don’t you care for it?’
‘I—I like most flowers,’ she said at once. She couldn’t add that she associated the colour of his eyes with monkshood; they were exactly that deep indigo blue, shadowy, and somehow secretive.
‘Then come and see them by moonlight.’ He held out a hand to her and she couldn’t refuse to take it.
His fingers gripped and she was on her feet and they were walking together across the Kashan carpet, a lovely mingling of peach, royal blue and cream, woven together into graceful patterns. Thick, soft, stunningly beautiful ... the revelation of a man who had a great hunger for beauty around him, cancelling the memory, perhaps, of his early years in an austere environment.
When they stepped into the hall he asked her to wait a moment while he fetched her wrap, which Chandra had carried away from the drawing-room. She watched him cross the hall to a Buhl-fronted cupboard, treading lightly, a man who had often roamed through jungles and had learned to be wary of what prowled there. He opened the cupboard, but what he took from it didn’t have a shimmer of silver silk. He brought the wrap to Heron and enclosed her in an ankle-length wrap of glossy dark fur, so rich in lustre and yet so soft that Heron didn’t dare to look at him.
‘I—I have my own cloak,’ she said. ‘I don’t have to wear another woman’s—’
‘This is yours.’ His teeth gripped the cigar, and his hands clenched her shoulders under the fur. ‘The sables were presented to me by a certain Singhalese gentleman who felt he owed me a debt of gratitude. I had the skins made up into a cloak for you, merely because I knew no other woman who could set them off so well with her white skin and hair like a flame. Now, child, having admitted that you believe in destiny, then accept that you were destined to be given sables at some time in your life.’
‘It isn’t destiny who is giving them to me,’ she gasped, shivering at the feel of the silk lining against her arms. ‘It’s you!’
‘It’s all very well to fear Greeks bringing gifts.’ He removed his cigar and came round to face her, his smile at its most sardonic. ‘I am a Cornishman, or so I believe, and if my physiognomy is anything to go by. Most of the Cornish are descended from the lords of Pendragon, so beware that I don’t let loose with some fire if you refuse my sables.’
‘They’re so—so—well, they aren’t meant for working girls.’ She argued disjointedly and tried to avoid his eyes, but that magnetic glint had come into his eyes and she found it impossible to avoid his gaze.
‘I’m not suggesting that you travel to work on the bus wearing them,’ he said dryly. ‘But they become you, and you’re bound to find occasions for looking extra glamorous. Come, shall we go into the garden?’
They walked in silence along a winding path among the trees and great clumps of clematis montana and honeysuckle; a path which led to wide, shallow steps leading upwards to a sweep of private headland above the sea. A curving blade of a moon cut the darkness of the sky and a silvery light trickled down on to the sea, which lay as quiet and wrinkled as a discarded cloak.
How delightful, thought Heron, to have the sea below the bottom of your garden. She glanced round and saw the turrets of the Glass Castle outlined against the sky, with stars playing hide and seek among the Gothic pinnacles and the indented balustrades.
‘It looks exactly like a child’s image of Camelot,’ she said with a smile. ‘What made you buy such a house?’
‘I thought I might find a girl who would enjoy living in it—with me,’ he said deliberately. ‘Do you think you would enjoy being mistress of the Glass Castle?’
She heard him clearly, for the night was so still ... Heron heard every word he said, but the one which seemed to reverberate in her mind was the word ‘mistress’. Her heart thumped; she had known all along that he would ask this of her, but all the same it came as a shock when actually expressed in words. So casually, almost as if he asked her if she would like to pluck flowers from his garden.
‘Is that why you brought me here tonight, to ask me—that?’
‘Well, don’t sound so insulted,’ he drawled. ‘In view of the fact that I’m what’s generally termed “a man of means” and a good catch, despite my face, then you wouldn’t be doing too badly. It would be an opportunity for you to live again by the sea.’
‘What, until you became bored by me, and threw me out as you’ve no doubt thrown out other women?’ Heron gave him a scornful look. ‘No, thank you! I don’t plan to become the discarded toy of a rich man!’
‘What the devil are you talking about?’ His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her moonlit face, framed pale and scornful against the high collar of the sable cloak.
‘I had a feeling that you were going to ask me to be your mistress, but the answer is no! Find some little fool, Edwin, to amuse you for a while—I’m not for sale!’
As her words rang out, his hands shot out and gripped hold of her. Quite roughly he shook her. ‘You little idiot,’ he snapped, ‘I’m asking you to marry me—to be my wife. I’m not suggesting that you allow me to toy around with you for a few weeks. I never thought for one moment that you were the kind of girl to carry on a liaison with any man. Heaven wept, do you imagine I gave you the sable because tonight I planned your downfall? Did you?’ Again he shook her so that her hair came loose from its pins and the lotus flower fell to the grass. It lay there glimmering until, in an excess of anger, Edwin kicked it to the edge of the cliff, where it clung a moment and then fell away into the darkness.
‘You—you didn’t have to do that,’ she said.
‘Yes, I did, Heron.’ His voice grated. ‘It was the flower or you. You, with your damned puritanical opinion of me. Who are you to judge a man? You’re just a slip of a girl who hasn’t yet begun to live. A mollycoddled, white-skinned little virgin with a sharp little tongue. I ought to bundle you in the car and drive you home right now—’
‘Then why don’t you?’ She trembled in his grip, and even thought she might weep. Anger with him had given her strength, but now she was a victim of his scorn ... his lashing scorn with a string of truth to it. ‘I have to get home—it’s getting late.’
‘Indeed it is, Heron, and I have to know your answer to my proposal. Will you marry me?’
A long time ago Heron had felt her breath taken away when she had plunged head first into lake water ... tonight, far above the sea, she felt it happen again. All she could do was to look at Edwin Trequair and feel the shock-wave of his proposal pass right over her. The red hair fell forward over her white brow, like a flame about to engulf her eyes.
‘I—I never expected this,’ she said at last, when her breath returned and she could speak.
‘I am now fully aware of what you did expect,’ he drawled. ‘My child, as if I’d set you up at Jocelyn’s Beach as my mistress. As if I’d be that heartless!’
‘I—I never think of you as a man with a very soft heart,’ she said. ‘Somehow it never occurred to me that you—you would want a wife.’
‘And why not?’ He quirked an eyebrow, not playfully, but no longer with dark sarcasm. ‘A house such as the Glass Castle is far too big for one man and his few servants. An apartment in London would have been far more convenient, if I intended to carry on a bachelor existence. As soon as I found this house for sale, I knew the reason why I decided to buy it. Neither my house nor my proposal comes under the heading of the caprice of a lonely man. You see, Heron, I never act on impulse. I learned out in the Indies that the impulsive man is asking to be eaten by the tiger.’
‘Then your proposal to me is all part of a plan,’ she said, gazing up at him with gravely enquiring eyes, wide and translucent in the moonlight. ‘You returned to England with the idea of settling down with a wife? You met me and decided that I would do.’
‘If you prefer to put it in those prosaic terms, Heron, then I’ll admit that you are almost correct in your assumption that when I met you—again—I decided that I would like to marry you. You are by no means the ideal woman, no more than I am the ideal man, but I have an idea we’ll suit each other. We each have something to give which the other person needs. I can offer you more than Prince Charming with his glass slipper. I can give you a Glass Castle in which to live.’
‘But I may be impossible to live with,’ she said. ‘We aren’t in love, are we?’
‘No,’ he agreed calmly, ‘but you may be i
mpossible to live without.’
‘Were you in love with my mother?’
‘I loved her,’ he said, and not a flicker of surprise at the question showed in his eyes. ‘Your mother was an angel.’
‘But I am not?’
‘‘—you’re less than an angel, and a little more of a witch.’
‘Hardly to be recommended as a wife.’
‘Hardly, but all the same I am recommending that you say yes to me.’
‘‘You must be very brave, Edwin.’
‘I’m certainly not a defeatist.’
‘I should have to be even braver to say yes—to you.’ She tried to smile, but felt the nervous tightening of her lips. She knew that the romantic mystery of this house had always appealed to her; she knew that of all the things he could offer as a bribe, the Glass Castle was the most potent. It was such a house as she could never have—without marriage to a man of his means. It had enchanted her as a child ... but now she was a woman and could not expect Edwin to treat her as a child.
‘I offer you a kind of freedom—not love’s intolerance,’ he said. ‘I invite you back to Jocelyn’s Beach, away from the city crowds, from the battle of being a breadwinner. Summer and winter you can enjoy the sea, and we both know that you love the sea.’
‘Most men proposing marriage expect love for themselves. I—I’m not in love with you, Edwin, so it’s no use pretending—’
‘It’s what I like about you, Heron, the fact that you don’t pretend, or act out emotions which you don’t feel. Honesty, self-realization, is a good basis on which to build a marriage. It cuts out all that self-deluding nonsense of two people who claim to be wildly in love with each other, only to find a couple of weeks after the ceremony that all they really felt was a physical hunger, satisfied during the honeymoon, with nothing left over to nourish the real fact of living together.’
The Glass Castle Page 9