‘I’m sure Uncle Saul will hang out the flags,’ said Heron, with a touch of irony. ‘He has hopes of Sybil hooking a big fish, but I’m sure he never dreamed that Poor Orphan Heron would hook a tiger-shark with scales of gold.’
‘Don’t be cynical,’ Edwin reproved her, but with a dry note in his voice. ‘Is that how it appears to you, that you’ve landed a rich fish?’
‘That’s how it will appear to everyone,’ she said.
‘And do you mind so terribly? What other people surmise? What other people think of you?’
‘How can I mind when it’s the truth?’ She seemed to curl herself up in the sables as if to hide from the indisputable truth. ‘You’re buying—I’m selling.’
‘Stop chastising yourself with whips, Heron,’ he ordered. ‘I’m giving you back the sort of life you were born to—a house by the sea, which you can love and where you belong. Come, let’s face the fact that most women marry for a home and protector, for all their talk about being independent. Women, like roses, have deep roots and they need good solid clay in which to sink them. Don’t be ashamed of having accepted the home I’ve offered you. Don’t even be ashamed because you don’t feel a wild love and longing for me.’
‘You have a right to expect it—from a wife,’ she said, and her throat felt dry as she spoke, making her words sound husky.
‘We won’t speak of rights and expectations, not until we have to.’ As they halted beneath the jewel-bright glow of some traffic signals, he glanced at her. ‘The engagement ring has your approval?’
‘It’s beautiful, Edwin. Extravagant and unusual—’
‘I’m asking if you like it. I thought you might.
‘I do like it—’
‘But it makes you feel guilty?’
‘A little,’ she confessed. ‘It looks the sort of ring that was once given with great reverence and—and love to a woman.’
‘I daresay it was,’ he agreed, in a cool voice. ‘Blood-red rubies in the shape of a cross, enflamed by diamonds, in a ring of gold, flesh of the earth. But all that matters at this moment is that it appeals to you. Perhaps, Heron, the days of deep and passionate love are over. We may have drifted into a kind of limbo between heaven and hell, and must make what we can of what we reap in the way of happiness. Having returned to English pastures I’m reaping what I can—or pirating a bit of loveliness from under the noses of younger men.’
There was a brief silence, broken by his short and ironical laugh. ‘I’m quite shameless about it. I can give you more than a boy can, and you know it, and will have to endure the tide of a rich man’s young ruin!’
‘Edwin!’
‘Yes, my child?’
‘I—I think I shouldn’t marry you!’
‘You’ve given your word,’ he said crisply. ‘No one breaks their word to me, for I’m not one of your civilized young tennis players. You knew that the night we met at Memory. You knew it when you agreed to see me again. You knew it when you let me put that ring upon your finger.’
And as he said this, the car drew into the kerb in front of the small block of flats where she lived. She sat very still and felt him looking at her. It surely lay within her power to throw the ring back at him, yet her hands in her lap felt as powerless as weighted stones!
‘There is a mysterious, indefinable bond between certain people,’ he said quietly. ‘As if in another time, another place, they knew each other ... intensely. It may have been hate, or love, that formed the link between them, drawing them together again ... as we are drawn together. Don’t you feel this is so, Heron? That the Glass Castle was always there ... waiting for us?’
There had always been something about the Glass Castle which had fascinated her, and she had often thought how intriguing it would be to live always within sound of the sea. But she had never thought of being there with a man who had hacked his way through the jungles of big business and the jungles of faraway islands; dared his way through the drawing-rooms of society and through the marble halls of distant palaces. A man who could be ruthlessly honest, and outrageously subtle. Even a dinner date with him could be traumatic, and here she was contemplating life with him.
‘I’m really wondering if I’m quite your type,’ she said.
‘And what is my type?’ he asked, quite genially.
‘Sophisticated—travelled—possibly in her thirties and rather beautiful, with a flair for always saying the right thing.’
‘A woman of the world, eh?’
‘Yes. A woman sure of herself, and sure of you.’
‘You feel unsure of me, Heron?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re weary after that long drive. Come, let me see you to your door like the traditional courteous fiancé.’
‘Edwin—’
‘Come,’ he said again, and she was too weary, too unsure of what she truly wanted to argue any more. As she let herself out of the car, he came round to her side and took from her hand the key to her flat. When they reached the door he opened it for her and returned the key to her. ‘Go straight to bed and let yourself sleep,’ he said firmly. ‘No lying awake piling up doubts and questions. Sleep!’
‘I think I shall—’ She swayed a little on her feet, almost as if she were light-headed. ‘Goodnight, Edwin.’
‘Goodnight, child.’ He didn’t attempt to touch her, to kiss her, and a moment later he was gone out of sight down the stairs. She heard the front door of the building close and still she waited for the sound of the car driving away. A minute passed, and then another, as if he might be lighting a cheroot before starting the engine. At last came the sound of the Rapier driving off, breaking the silence of the night for a few seconds, and then giving back the silence.
It was very late, Heron realized, and feeling almost trancelike she closed and bolted her front door. A few minutes later she went to bed carrying a glass of water in one hand, and her shoes in the other.
Heron’s emotions were in such a turmoil that her mind and body needed to escape into the velvety limbo of deepest sleep ... hours later the front door chimes awakened her out of the dreamless depths, to find sunlight in her bedroom and the hands of the bedside clock at ten-fifteen. She gave a gasp of dismay, for she never slept this late, not even at weekends.
She slipped quickly out of bed, pushed her feet into her mules, and her arms into her robe, and hastened to open the front door, feeling tousled and guilty.
‘We-ll,’ said Sybil, stepping into the hall. ‘I thought I was the sybaritic member of the clan. When did you take to lolling in bed at all hours of the morning?’
‘Never, if I can avoid it. I was out late last night and overslept by more than two hours, which is most annoying. Sybil, be a pet and make some coffee and toast while I shower the sleep out of my eyes.’
‘Where were you last night, to have landed yourself in this overslept state?’ Carrying a scarlet overnight case, Sybil followed Heron into the lounge, where she took a quick look round, as if searching for signs of a man. ‘Don’t tell me you had a heavy date?’
‘I don’t intend to tell you anything—until I’m dressed and have a cup of coffee in my hands.’
‘Meanie.’ Sybil glanced at the bedroom door, which stood ajar. ‘May I take my case in?’
‘Of course, dear, but do mind the men all over the rugs.’
‘I never—well, I mean, I know you, Heron. I know you haven’t gone all permissive and swinging—or have you?’ Sybil swept suspicious eyes up and down Heron’s slim figure in a leaf-green robe without any frills. ‘There’s something—something different about you. A sort of emotional voltage, or am I letting my imagination run riot?’
‘You merely believe, my dear, that because you were named Sybil you are one.’ Yet all the same Heron felt shaken that she emanated a tension which made itself felt, and with a wave of her hand she disappeared into the small bathroom, where she lost no time diving under the cool sting of the shower. She wanted to feel fresh of mind as well as
body, for today was going to be very demanding. Today she faced the world as the fiancée of Edwin Trequair ... the young ruin of a rich man, as he had called her.
She was in her bedroom dressing when Sybil appeared to say that coffee was ready and the toast was about to pop. ‘You’ve a lovely figure, Heron,’ she commented. ‘Why didn’t you go in for modelling? It’s awfully lucrative, and you meet very influential people.’
‘To be a model a girl has to be as confident and vain as a cat,’ said Heron. ‘Slinking about in high fashion wouldn’t appeal to me.’ She zipped the waist of her skirt, and started to button the cuffs of her blouse—
‘What a darling little box!’ Sybil took it off the bedside table and the next moment had opened it. She stared at the ring inside, and then gave Heron a long stare. ‘Yours?’
‘Yes.’ Heron kept her gaze on the buttons she was fastening, bracing herself for the inevitable question.
‘It looks fearfully expensive, so you couldn’t have bought it yourself.’
‘No.’ Heron bent to the vanity-table in order to take a handkerchief from one of the drawers.
‘Then who—who on earth is giving you presents like this?’
‘A man.’ With an assumption of casualness Heron tucked a stray hair into her chignon.
‘A man?’
‘Um, one of those human beings on long legs, who shave in the morning, build bridges or drive trains for a living, and like pepper on their potatoes.’ Suddenly it was fun to tease Sybil, to banter about a subject Heron didn’t dare to take seriously ... not yet ... not before she had seen Edwin again and assessed how dangerous he might be if she took away his new toy ... herself.
‘You mean—?’ Sybil looked dumbfounded. ‘You can’t mean—’
‘Yes, a real live man, who rather feels that he’d like to marry me. We’ll be seeing him for lunch at the Ritz, when you can approve or disapprove of him. But right now I’m ravenous for breakfast, so hand me my spoils and we’ll go and eat—’
‘You’re being awfully flippant about all this,’ Sybil reproved her. ‘It isn’t like you—’
‘And why not?’ argued Heron, making for the breakfast-nook in her small kitchen. ‘Am I always so prim and serious about everything? What a prig I must be if it’s true.’
‘No—what I mean is—you have a kind of natural reserve and coolness and don’t usually make light of serious subjects.’ Sybil sat down facing Heron, and of the two girls it was she who looked serious in that moment. ‘It must have happened all of a sudden, because you never mentioned a man when I phoned to say I was coming to stay for the weekend. I mean, a man intent on marrying a girl usually wants her to himself.’
‘This particular man is the sophisticated type.’
Heron added soft brown sugar to her coffee and stirred it, and again there was an imp of mischief in her eyes. She had always felt more mature than Sybil, who had never suffered the traumatic experience of losing both parents, and right now Heron felt as if she teased a pretty sixteen-year-old instead of someone who was only a few months younger than herself. ‘We’re to lunch with him so you can look him over and pronounce for the family. I should warn you that he isn’t in the first flush of youth, though well preserved by any standards.’
‘Heron!’ A spoon clattered from Sybil’s hand and splashed coffee on the tablecloth. ‘You aren’t thinking of marrying some old man you’ve met at the law courts? Darling, that would be too much! You—you’d be an old man’s pet!’
‘No, a rich man’s young ruin,’ Heron said casually, watching the sunlight glint in the marmalade as she spread her toast with a liberal helping of the golden preserve. She bit into the tangy peel and the crisp bread while her cousin gazed at her with eyes both shocked and impressed. Sybil had been brought up to regard money as a requisite of great importance.
‘So he’s a rich old man?’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d never have believed it of you, Heron, to put wealth before love—somehow you’ve always struck me as being rather idealistic—but all the same I must admit that a fat bank account is sometimes better than a lean bridegroom.’
‘You are your father’s daughter,’ Heron said cynically. ‘So now you know that I have been proposed to by a wealthy old man you approve of me being his pet?’
‘I’m still a bit surprised, but money is so—so solid. Who is he, Heron? Someone in the city? A tycoon? You once said they were all fat and sixty.’
‘Yes, so I did.’ A tiny smile flickered on Heron’s lips. ‘The night of your birthday party. Funny, I almost couldn’t make it because Miss Carnaby wanted me to go to Bournemouth with her, and then she relented and took our other clerk instead.’
‘Anyway, marriage will get you away from that dry old office,’ said Sybil. ‘You’ll be able to travel, and being so young yourself, you’re bound to outlive your tycoon.’
‘What a mercenary outlook you have on marriage!’ Heron gave a slight laugh, but there was no real amusement in her eyes, or in her heart. It was appalling for both of them to be sitting here discussing marriage as if it were a commodity to be bought. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table and the sunlight burned and flickered in the gems of the ring she had allowed a man she didn’t love to place on her hand. Last night in his car she had wanted to remove it, but had not found the courage until she found herself alone. She had shut it away in the little Faberge box, and then when Sybil had found it she had put it on again in a mood of teasing defiance. Now it seemed to burn her hand as the gems were fired by the sun.
A burning cross to which she felt tied ... condemned to feel flames of passion with no love to make them endurable.
She jumped to her feet, as if about to flee away from her thoughts. ‘We’ll dump the breakfast things in the sink and go out to the shops. You came to Town on a buying spree, so let us be off.’
Sybil, who was never serious for very long, was quickly on her own feet and within fifteen minutes they were gone from the flat and on their way to the West End shops. These, the Mecca of most female visitors to London, kept Sybil so eagerly occupied that Heron was saved for a couple of hours from being bombarded with questions about her “elderly tycoon fiancé.”
‘What’s that little cat smile all about?’ Sybil demanded. The cab had swept into Piccadilly and they were almost at the Ritz.
‘Oh, I was just anticipating your reaction to my fiancé.’ It was the first time Heron had spoken the word aloud and it felt strange on her lips, and made her realize that if she didn’t soon put an end to the farce it would develop beyond her ability to escape from it. How ... why in heaven’s name had she allowed herself to become this involved when she had no serious intention of marrying Edwin?
How could she marry a man she didn’t love? How could she belong to him body and soul without the desire to do so?
She flashed a glance at his ring and again she seemed to see the flicker of those tiny flames deep in the eyes with which he had looked at her last night. Oh God, had she the courage to defy him ... to deny him?
The cab pulled into the kerb of the long arcade shading the entrance to the Ritz Grill and the Palm Court. Sybil emerged clutching her various packages and Heron followed, purse in hand to pay the driver. She could feel each separate thud of her heart, and no longer felt amused by the surprise to be sprung on her cousin. She turned to the swing doors of the Ritz, through which Sybil was already being swung, and suddenly it took all her courage to follow the blue-clad, fair-haired figure, who handed in her packages at the cloakroom and said eagerly to Heron that she couldn’t wait to meet ‘the boy-friend.’ She giggled and ran a comb through her bright hair, and when she turned around there was a look in her blue eyes which rather turned the joke on Heron, as if it seemed to Sybil that someone so cool and reserved would have a bother finding a youthful lover.
Together they mounted the steps to the Palm Court, treading silently on the deep-pile carpet with its pattern of huge, twining roses, which blended with the Regency style furnishing. Heron pray
ed inwardly that she looked composed, for each separate nerve in her slim body was aware of the tall figure in the dark suit who arose from one of the armchairs near a potted palm. He stood there, silently, as a waiter approached to ask the two girls if they had a host or were dining alone.
Heron said at once that their host had arrived and was waiting for them, and as she began to walk towards Edwin, Sybil chose to speak in a voice which carried above the muted conversation of the other people taking a drink before going into dine.
‘Darling, which one is he? Not the military type with the moustache, I hope?’
Heron was quite certain that Edwin caught the remark, and she could only hope that the military type did not.
‘Hullo, my dear!’ Edwin stepped forward and there in front of everyone he bent his dark head and brushed Heron’s cheek with his lips.
‘Oh—I hope we haven’t kept you waiting?’ Heron smiled nervously and avoided a direct meeting with his eyes. ‘You know Sybil, don’t you? She invited you to her birthday party a few weeks ago.’
‘Of course I know Sybil.’ His eyebrow and lip quirked as he gazed down into the blue eyes that were looking at him with the most utter astonishment.
‘You!’ she exclaimed, rather inelegantly. ‘You’re the one?’
The Glass Castle Page 11