He fell silent a moment and stood studying her face in the moonlight, upraised to him, gravely intent, almost, as the face of a young novice considering the taking of awesome vows.
‘You have thought about getting married, haven’t you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said, and there was no coquetry in her voice, only the quiet simplicity of total truth. ‘I’ve thought often of being totally devoted to a career. You see, I’ve always thought of love as being something of an enslavement ... my father so adored my mother that no one else ever really existed for him, and when my mother died he was never truly alive any more. It was like seeing a man with his soul torn out’ Heron gave a shudder and her grey eyes had a look of horror in them. ‘I’ve been inclined to avoid men, because of that. I’ve been afraid of stirring similar emotions in a man—I realize, now I’m grown up, the care my mother took never to hurt this incredible image my father had of her. She could never have known the sheer release of losing her temper with him, of hurling a vase at his head, or telling him to go to the devil. Always she nursed and nourished his idea that she was truly angelic and above all temper, all sin, all human weakness. I—I couldn’t endure such a life—I’m not like Ruth in that respect.’
Heron broke off and let her eyes search the face of Edwin Trequair. ‘You said you loved my mother—are you asking me to marry you so you can put me in her place—because I look a little like her?’
‘My child,’ he said dryly, ‘how on earth do I make an angel out of a little spitfire? You have not inherited your mother’s capacity for self-sacrifice ... you’re the flame that burns, not the flame that smoulders. You’re a dangerous young minx in some respects, but I think I can manage you. In any case I want to take you out of that dry old law office before it quenches the fire in you. I want you to enjoy the things I can give you—you see, Heron, I am one of the nouveau riche who has set out to acquire for himself the most attractive girl he can find. I neither apologize for this, nor feel the smallest sense of shame. I want your beauty and your youth about my house, and as we both know in advance that we’re self-willed and hot-tempered people, then we shan’t expect each other to be a model of immaculate behaviour. You’re welcome to hurl vases when you feel the need, so long as you keep your hands off the genuine Ming in my bedroom.’
It was the way he said ‘my bedroom’ which gave Heron the courage to look at this marriage as a possibility. Oh, how heavenly to escape from the daily routine of buses to work, snatched lunches, reams of overtime, dreary city rain, and those long and empty Saturday evenings—imposed upon herself by her fear of falling in love and being ruled by that love.
She saw Edwin’s face by moonlight, the lean features hard and detailed and not in any way softened by speeches of love. She saw the scar that added a sinister effect to his face; she knew him to be sardonic and therefore complicated, a man made up of dark memories, of sins and shadows, and the unsparing will to make wealth for himself. He had been almost fearfully frank with her ... and he offered to share with her his Castle, something out of a child’s drawing of Camelot, an odd and fantastic mixture of turrets and gables, gateways and walks, and rambling hedges of wild hydrangea.
It was as if he held out a toy which her hand itched to accept.
‘Do you like castles?’ he asked suddenly, a dark wizard reading her mind.
‘Oh, they’re rather old hat,’ she said, determined not to fall under the spell of the Glass Castle.
‘And do you think I’m old hat?’ A rather unkind laughter gleamed in his eyes as he flicked them over her face. ‘Are you thinking that all would be well if you could take the Castle without having to take the master?’
‘You have a directness which stings,’ she protested. ‘You make me sound a little mercenary.’
‘We’re all mercenary, in big or small doses. We all want certain things from life ... if it’s a career you want, then say so. If it’s a castle overlooking the wanton tumble and sparkle of the sea, then take it.’
‘Won’t you give me time to think about it?’ she asked, pulling away from him and walking to the verge of the cliff, jutting above the sea ... above her beloved Jocelyn’s Beach.
‘If I allow you time to think, then I give you time in which to find obstacles insurmountable to marrying a man twice your age, whom you don’t love. My way through life has been to seal a bargain on the spot, with none of the dilly-dallying which comes in the night, when we he sleepless, with an imp of doubt and judgment jigging about in the mind. You work for a barrister, so you know already that there are several sides to any question, and that white can be made to look grey, if it so suits the argument. I’m no handsome knight in shining armour, but I have my own code of integrity. I shall be good to you, Heron, and far less demanding than a bossy female barrister, who’s set on robbing you of your youth before you’ve fully enjoyed it.’
‘I enjoy the work,’ she said. ‘I become quite involved in some of Miss Carnaby’s cases. She’s very clever, you know, and has suggested that I train to be a barrister—’
‘You, Heron?’ He didn’t laugh, or mock, or speak scornfully—there was, instead, almost a note of pain in his voice. ‘Child, I think of you as an ocean girl, as if the waves gave birth to you and made you so fresh and shining. I don’t think you should rub shoulders with the sins of life. I don’t believe that you truly want a close association with them—you aren’t tough enough not to be hurt and worried by the scrapes people get themselves into.’
‘I’m not soft,’ she protested. ‘I’m not a child—’
‘But you love all this—this lovely innocence of sea and sand and scattered rock.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, and again he found the weak place in the fine mesh of her armour against men. The wind blew her hair about her face, and her lips were stung red against the whiteness of her skin. Her eyes were filled with the light of moon and stars, high up here on the cliffs at the end of Edwin’s garden. ‘You’re determined to tempt me, aren’t you?’
‘Like the serpent in the garden?’ he asked whimsically. Don’t you think I make a very good Adam?’
‘You’re laughing at me without even smiling,’ she chided him. ‘You’re far too worldly and full of knowledge to be like Adam.’
‘Is it my worldliness from which you shy?’
She glanced at him and smiled slightly. ‘You have a certain jaded attraction and you know it, Edwin. Why do you ask me to marry you when you’ve only asked others to be your mistress?’
‘Don’t say it as if I’ve played around like Lothario,’ he said wryly. ‘I begin to think that it’s time you left that law office before you become cynical and lose that look of wonder in your eyes, which is either an illusion or has something to do with the shape of them. Well, what’s your answer, Heron?’
‘Won’t you give me more time?’ she pleaded. ‘A proposal is too big a question for a simple answer.’
‘Time is also an illusion, if you did but know it.’ He gazed at the curving moon, bright as an ornament against the deep purple sky, a scimitar to cut the heart with its beauty. ‘ “Thou double of my soul, pale ghost,” ’ he murmured. ‘Heron, you’re young enough to act on impulse—’
‘I can’t be impulsive about a big step like marriage, Edwin. Edwin. You’re being unfair—’
‘I’m merely taking advantage of that moon up there, and the romance of the sea down below. I thought they might soften the blow.’ He laughed softly. ‘Strange to think that had I asked you to be my mistress you would have been less—surprised. Heron, it’s unfair of you to suppose I’d treat your innocence so lightly. Don’t you know that pure innocence has become more rare than the blue-heart diamond? More shining and more to be desired than a diamond.’
She tensed when he spoke of desire, and she didn’t dare to look at him in case she glimpsed desire in his indigo eyes. Her heart beat fast as she realized that everything had to be paid for, one way or another, and if she accepted the Glass Castle as her home, then she accept
ed Edwin Trequair as her lover.
Heron thought of his hands, so lean and decisive. She thought of his lips, so firmly chiselled. She thought of how much he knew, and how little she really knew of him.
‘In just a few short weeks these cliffs will be covered with flowers,’ he said. ‘The sun-rose, the daisy bush, lavender and barberiae. A curtain of colour, wild scents spilled in the sunshine. The sea will turn blue, and in the city the air will grow thick as the days grow warm. Civilization! Pollution of the air and the soul. Cars like mobile couches, pills for every emergency, and women knocking back Scotch in public bars! It’s a pretty picture, if you like surrealism.’
‘Don’t!’ she exclaimed. ‘You have a ruthless way of putting things, and it isn’t quite as bad as that. You see it like that because you’ve been away so long.’
‘And believe me, it’s more primitive than a jungle because it’s less natural. People are casting off their inhibitions like so many skins, and soon they’ll be down to the bare bone and all dreams will have turned their faces to the wall. An innocent heart can’t survive in that maelstrom.’
‘You—you frighten me.’ Heron clutched the sable cloak around her and she felt a rush of coldness through her body. She thought of the men whom she met in the course of her work, who took it for granted that a girl with her own apartment was a girl with permissive notions. Even David Wildwine, whom she liked more than most, wanted an affair with her. Only Edwin ... only he had said: ‘Will you marry me?’
Suddenly the Glass Castle took on the aspect of a sanctuary, and Edwin took on the armour of a protector. There was nothing possessive in his manner, all he wanted was an attractive wife, someone to make his house more like a home; someone to keep him company and to care a little for him.
Heron didn’t want to think about desire, but all at once she wanted a reassurance that she mattered to him as a person and not just as a reflection of Ruth ... whom he had admittedly loved.
‘I—I couldn’t marry you,’ she said, ‘if you see me only as the daughter of Ruth. I’m a person in my own right. I am Heron Brooks.’
‘Of course you are.’ He turned fully to look at her. ‘You are Heron, and you remind me of lotus pools and flowering willow, slim bamboos and a kite sailing lost through a pale sky edged with flame. In all honesty Ruth would want me to rescue you from London, but because I can’t take you as my ward I must take you as my wife. Will you, Heron, take me as a husband?’
He stood there, rapier supple in his dark smooth jacket and narrow dark trousers that added to his height. One hand was lightly at rest in his jacket pocket, and Heron saw egoism combined with a charm both ruthless and strangely poetic. The moment of truth was still hers ... if she said no to him she wouldn’t deeply wound him. If she said yes ... Heron took a deep breath, as if about to plunge into the sea below the cliffs.
‘I’ll marry you, Edwin,’ she said. ‘I—I don’t really know why you want me, for girls are five a penny these days.’
‘And that’s why I want you.’ There was a brisk, almost businesslike tone to his voice, as if she had just agreed to do some typing for him. And then he drew his hand from his pocket and something glittered in the moonlight. He held out his hand and resting on his palm was a tiny jewelled box. ‘Faberge made the box many years ago, when the courts of Russia were places of great glamour. Take the box, Heron. Open it and tell me if you like what it contains.’
Heron gazed at the small gold box, set with gems, but she just couldn’t bring herself to accept it. Instinct told her that it contained a ring ... to set the seal on their marriage bargain.
‘Shall I open it?’ he asked her.
‘Please—’ Heron was indescribably nervous, for having said yes to him, she gave him every right to place upon her hand the ring that would signify their engagement to the world at large, and because he was a wealthy man, his engagement would be bound to make news. There was always eyebrow-raising and speculation when a worldly man of means decided to marry a girl so much younger, and so much poorer than he!
He lifted the little hinged lid and there on velvet lay his ring. It was even more beautiful than Heron had expected, and as unconventional as Edwin himself ... a Gothic band of gold set with a cross of rubies and diamonds.
‘Hold out your hand,’ he said. ‘Let us see if it fits you.’
He was so matter-of-fact about the procedure that he enabled Heron to accept the ring on her left hand with comparative composure. The gold band slid along the slim length of her third finger, passed over the knuckle without effort, and settled superbly in place. ‘Oh!’ She caught her breath. ‘It does fit!’
‘Do you like the ring, Heron?’
‘Yes—but it looks fearfully expensive!’
‘I’d hardly give you brass from Woolworths set with red glass,’ he drawled. ‘Do I get a kiss in return? In days gone by it did belong to a Russian duchess.’
‘Sables—rubies,’ she murmured. ‘It’s all rather crazy!’
‘Lift up your face,’ he commanded.
She did so, and his lips brushed wind-cool across her lips.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was the first time he had kissed her and for a shocking moment she was stunned by the intimacy of his lips on hers, but she didn’t jerk away from him, she stood very still and allowed her body to absorb the curious sensation that ran through her. Now and again a young man had managed to snatch a kiss from her, so clumsy and eager that he left her with the impression that it was something to avoid rather than to seek. But Edwin was neither clumsy, nor eager. His lips trailed hers with a cool deliberation, but they didn’t linger, they didn’t insist that she respond to him.
‘Do you have to go back to London tonight?’ he asked her. ‘Why not stay—?’
‘No!’ The word broke from her. ‘Is that why—?’
‘My dear Heron, do stop leaping to the conclusion that my motives with regard to you are always devious. My house is a big one and there are several spare bedrooms. I can offer you real Chinese pyjamas and a toothbrush, and in the morning you can go down to the beach for a swim. I swim in the early morning myself and find it most invigorating.’
‘I—I have to get back,’ she said, and she flushed like a schoolgirl, despite the ring he had placed on her hand which proclaimed her as the woman he wanted for his wife. ‘My cousin Sybil is spending the weekend with me. She’ll be arriving in the morning and I must be at the flat to receive her.’
‘Then so be it,’ he said at once. ‘There’ll be plenty of other mornings for you and me—you do realize, Heron, that I’m holding you to our engagement? I won’t allow you to change your mind about that so easily as I’ll permit you to leave tonight.’
At once she looked at him and there seemed to be an uncanny flicker of fire in his eyes, deep in the deep blue. Then as if he knew that she caught that look, he lowered his lashes and concealed it. Something stirred in Heron’s mind ... something she had recently read about the strange islands of the Indies, where the people spoke of certain men as having a ‘tiger in the soul’ which made men and women bow to their will.
They were both quiet driving back to London, and though Heron kept assuring herself that she wasn’t in the least afraid of him, there were sides to him that were secretive and strangely persuasive. She didn’t love him, yet she was going to marry him. He made no pretence of loving her, yet he had made up his mind that she belonged to him.
They sped along through the night, lit by those tall amber lamps that cast pool after pool of gold through which the wheels of the car thrust with a dark savagery. The shards of amber light leapt in and out of the dimness where Heron sat, the sable cloak wrapped about her slim body, hiding the nervous tremors that now and then ran through her. The amber shards alighted on her hand and the rubies glowed in dark contrast to the points of diamond-fire.
Heron wanted to look at it, to study the lovely strangeness of it there on her left hand, but Edwin sat beside her and she didn’t want him to imagine that she
was romantically intrigued by his ring. What intrigued her was that, unlike more conventional men, he didn’t whisk her off to a Bond Street jewellers and provide her with an enormous diamond solitaire, the usual label of ownership which a rich man hung on his bride-to-be.
No, almost as if he knew her as no man so recently met had the right to know her, he gave her exactly the sort of ring to stir her imagination. A ring with a history, whose design mingled the pagan Gothic with the cross of martyrdom.
They were nearing London when he suddenly spoke. ‘I shall book in at the Ritz for the night. Perhaps you and your cousin will have lunch with me tomorrow?’
‘I’m sure Sybil will enjoy that,’ said Heron. There was nothing else she could say, and she could only hope that Sybil wouldn’t run away with the idea that this was the love match of the year and pass some of her gay and meaning remarks.
‘The Ritz,’ said Edwin, ‘is one of the few remaining hotels in London where one can expect first-rate service in attractive surroundings. Will you meet me there, or shall I call for the two of you?’
‘We’ll meet you,’ she said. ‘Sybil will want to ransack the fashion shops, so it might be best if we make our way there in a cab.’
‘As you please. I shall be in the Palm Lounge about twelve-thirty and your cousin can get to know a little better the prospective new member of the family. It will be a brand-new feeling for me, as to an actual member of a family. I hope I shall prove acceptable.’
The Glass Castle Page 10