by Anne Weale
Instead, she said, 'In that case, one would think they would have taken particular care to protect Emily from being left in your charge.'
He shrugged. 'Emily, being a girl, was of little consequence in their scheme of things. The Lancasters have always been strongly sexist in outlook. The portrait of Maria proves that. She was a woman of achievements, but did they give her a place of honour? Certainly not. She was relegated to the Yellow Bedroom. You see, she hadn't fulfilled either of the functions for which your sex was created. She hadn't given a man pleasure in bed, and she hadn't given birth to sons.'
Summer knew it was foolish to flush after he said 'pleasure in bed'. At her age most girls had experienced that pleasure many times, sometimes with a variety of partners. She not only hadn't experienced it, she had seldom heard it discussed.
The circumstances of her life—no television, school-friends who were serious rather than frivolous, no money to buy magazines which dealt with feminist issues and sexual relationships and, perhaps the most important factor, her own appearance—had kept her as far behind the times as someone of her mother's generation.
Since her aunt's death she had bought a book about sex which had enlarged her theoretical knowledge. But her experience was as limited as that of one of Jane Austen's heroines. She had never been embraced or kissed except in her imagination.
Hoping he hadn't noticed her heightened colour, she said, 'How did you come by your more enlightened views?'
'What makes you think I am more enlightened?'
'Aren't you?'
'Not much. I'll allow women equality of opportunity, if that's what they want. But as far as I'm personally concerned, they have only one useful function—the first of the two I just mentioned. The second doesn't interest me, and for all my other needs from cooking to conversation I would always choose a man in preference to one of your sex. That isn't to say I've never had a good meal cooked by a woman, or an interesting conversation with a woman. But the best meals I've eaten have been prepared by chefs, and the memorable conversations have been with men.'
As a put-down it was masterly. It made her furious, yet she couldn't see how to rebut it.
'If your views have become widely known, I daresay the women who could give you memorable conversation try to avoid you,' she answered, striving to match the blandness of his tone.
'No man with my income is ever avoided by women, no matter what his views,' he said dryly. 'If a man has money and power, he can be the biggest bastard ever born; there'll always be plenty of women prepared to overlook his defects.'
His cynicism chilled and repelled her. She couldn't bear to think of Emily's most sensitive years being spent under the aegis of someone who saw women in those terms.
She said, with a sparkle in her eyes, 'Are you a bastard, Mr Gardiner?'
For a long tense moment his eyes narrowed almost to slits, making her wish she had kept her mouth shut and ignored his jibes about her sex. She felt he was going to annihilate her, and she realised precisely what it would mean if he ever chose to stop her from staying on with Emily. Which he could, if she riled him enough. He might claim to like plain speaking, but—
'James,' he reminded her quietly. 'We agreed to dispense with formality. And to answer your question—no, I don't think you'll find me an objectionable person to deal with. As long as you're always frank with me, and you don't waste my time arguing about decisions which I've already thought through and have no intention of changing. On those terms, we should get along splendidly.'
With these last words he rose, placed his empty glass on the ledge along the top of the ugly ceramic-tiled fireplace, and moved to pick up his coat.
'You've forgotten the whisky,' she said, as he went towards the door.
'I'll leave it here. We may have other things to discuss over a dram. Goodnight, Summer.'
She had not heard his car drawing up outside the cottage but she heard it moving off. When the sound of the engine had died away down the road, she decided to try a drop more of the whisky.
He had also neglected to take the portrait miniature of Lady Maria. It was still on the low table beside her chair. She fetched Miss Ewing's magnifying glass in order to study the painting in all its exquisitely fine detail.
Thinking about the woman who had kindled his interest in the tiny pictures, she wondered what kind of youth he had been to arouse her interest in him.
Probably nearly as tall as he was now, and almost as powerfully built. But without the hard, ruthless look which, except when he smiled or laughed, characterised his dark face and made it difficult for her to trust him.
Who had formed his derogatory view of women? Not that first one, the painter of miniatures. His expression when he spoke of her had suggested that he remembered her with affection.
Did he have the portrait she had painted of him, or had she kept it? A memento of an amorous friendship between a gifted older woman and a virile youth on the brink of manhood.
It was said to be the kind of apprenticeship every man needed if he were to become an accomplished lover. She had learned that from reading French novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But how could any man be a good lover if, at heart, he despised his bed-fellow, feeling lust for her body but only disdain for her mind?
Surely making love to perfection was not just a matter of technique; the skilful performance of the actions described in the manual. There had to be affection... poetry... tenderness.
When she was undressing for bed, she was surprised and puzzled to find a dark mark on her arm, above the elbow. Then she realised it was a bruise caused when James had grabbed her in the street, forcing her to a standstill after she had asked if his friends indulged in marijuana and orgies.
She had always bruised easily and his fingers had been painfully strong. It annoyed her to have the mark of them there, like a brand. His brother would never have dreamt of gripping her arm in that rough way. But then, to be fair, she would never have suggested that Lord Edgedale might be mixed up with those kind of people.
She woke up with a headache, which was something which had never happened to her before. She came to the conclusion it must be caused by the whisky. She ought to have chased the alcohol with a glass or two of water.
As her bicycle was still at the Castle, she had to walk there. By the time she arrived the exercise and fresh air had cleared the headache and she felt equal to the demands of the day. She had also come to a decision about the cottage. She was going to burn her boats and sell it.
The days which followed were very busy ones. Suddenly the house was full of experts making inventories. There were two or three people from Christie's fine art department making lists of the paintings; someone else valuing porcelain and china; a representative from Maggs, the London antiquarian booksellers, was at work in the library, selecting the most valuable works; and elsewhere experts on silver, furniture, clocks and Oriental rugs all making their separate assessments of the Castle s treasures.
James himself was in charge of the list of things which were not to be sold but retained, in storage, for the day when Emily was ready to furnish her own house.
One day Summer had an opportunity to speak to Conway alone. Inevitably the elderly butler was one of the busiest members of the household, and she had almost despaired of a chance to consult him in private, without fear of interruption.
When the opportunity did arise, she almost had second thoughts about tackling him on a matter which he might regard as a gross breach of propriety.
'Mr Conway, I can't help being worried about this tremendous disturbance in Lady Emily's life,' she began. 'First the loss of her parents, then of her grandfather, then all this upheaval and, next week, a long tiring journey to a completely strange environment. It would put a great strain on an adult, let alone a rather delicate child of her age.'
The butler regarded her with his grave stare for some moments.
'I understand your concern, Miss Roberts, but I think your presence th
roughout this calamitous period in Cranmere's history has been Lady Emily's bulwark, if I may say so.'
Lurking under her outward seriousness, Summer had a sense of humour which often bubbled to the surface when she and Emily were alone. There had been little to make her laugh since James's arrival at the Castle, and her size was not usually a matter which she found amusing, although she had sometimes forced herself to make jokes about it at school and at Oxford.
'Perhaps not the kindest choice of metaphor, Mr Conway, but I'm glad you think so and I hope you're right,' she said, with a twinkle in her eye.
It was the first time she had ever seen Conway's dignity disturbed. For a moment he actually looked abashed.
She laughed. 'I was only joking—and what I want to ask you is anything but a joking matter,' she went on, her expression becoming serious. 'In fact I'm very hesitant to consult you about it, in case you misunderstand my motives. It's not a matter of idle curiosity on my part—please believe that. But everything has happened so rapidly, and now we're about to fly to America under the aegis of someone who is virtually a stranger to us. You knew his Lordship as a boy, Mr Conway. What sort of boy was he? And why was he sent packing?'
He said nothing for so long that she thought he might be intending to remain silent until she muttered an apology for her breach of decorum and fled.
But at last, to her relief, he said, 'Lord James, as he was at that time, was never sent packing, Miss Roberts. He ran away. He and his late Lordship had never seen eye to eye; nor was Lord James on close terms with his brother, Lord Edgedale.'
'Was he fond of his mother?'
Again the butler pondered the question for some time.
At length, he said, 'Lady Cranmere was very beautiful and very gracious in her manner to everyone, high and low alike. When she first came here as a bride—we had a much larger staff and I was then the senior footman—everyone was charmed by her. The year before, the newspapers had called her the Debutante of the Year. However, as time went on, she became... less animated. Perhaps the fact that his Lordship was twenty years her senior had the effect of subduing her youthful high spirits. In those days his late Lordship was Master of the Cranmere Hunt, and they entertained a great deal. Lady Cranmere's social duties made it difficult for her to spend as much time with her sons as perhaps she could have wished. It was thought by the female staff, and from my own observations I have to agree, that both Lord and Lady Cranmere had a marked preference for their elder son.'
'Why was that, d'you think?' Summer asked. Another long pause. She sensed he was choosing his words with great care.
'Lord James was a very mischievous child, always into some scrape or other,' he said eventually. 'Lord Edgedale was of a more law-abiding disposition. He liked riding and hunting which naturally found favour with his father. Lord James was an excellent shot from an early age, but he once made his father very angry by saying that he would prefer to run with the fox rather than hunt with the pack. The activities of the anti-blood-sports factions used to enrage his late Lordship. To have his younger son taking their part was more than he could stand.'
'His Lordship told me himself that he used to go poaching with an old man called Barty Hicks. But were any of his youthful misdeeds of a more serious nature, Mr Conway?'
'Not to my knowledge, Miss Roberts.'
Was he telling her the truth? She was, after all, an outsider, whereas he was part of the household, part of the family. She remembered the nom-de-plume used by the author of the Chevalier Bayard's biography. Le Loyal Serviteur. The Loyal Servant. Conway was an equally loyal servant of the Cranmeres'. Would he, like Bayard's servant, tend to gloss over the defects of members of the family he had served all his life?
She decided to press him. 'He never smoked pot, or... or misbehaved with the local girls?'
'No, no, I'm certain he never had anything to do with drugs, even the so-called soft drugs,' the butler answered firmly.
'There were young men of good family who were implicated in the drug scandals at certain public schools at that period.'
He gave a disapproving sniff. 'Mrs Briars reads a daily newspaper which delights in regaling its readers with any breath of scandal involving the upper classes. I regret to say that several of Lord James's contemporaries were involved in that "scene" as the papers called it. But he had too much respect for his body to abuse it with drugs or any other forms of dissipation. Quite the reverse. He was interested in physical fitness. He had a trapeze fitted up in one of the attics and he used to spend hours exercising. When he disappeared, it was thought by some of the female staff that he might have joined a circus as an acrobat. It was not a theory to which I attached any credence, I may add.'
He gave her an oblique glance before adding, 'I feel sure that, however his Lordship has occupied himself in the interim, he has had no connection with a circus.'
She repressed a smile at the smoothness with which he suggested the quid pro quo.
'I understand he's one of the leaders of the computer revolution,' she told him. 'He owns a company which makes them. So you think Lady Emily's future is in good hands, Mr Conway?'
'Based on my knowledge of his Lordship's character up to the age of seventeen, I would say yes, Miss Roberts.'
'In spite of the crippling death duties, I'm sure he has the drive and energy to keep the Castle going if he wanted to,' she said regretfully. 'You must feel very sad to see it about to be stripped of all its treasures.'
'The end of an era is always an occasion for some sadness,' he agreed. 'But perhaps it has come as less of a shock to me and Mrs Briars and other long-serving members of the staff than to you, Miss Roberts. When Lady Edgedale was very ill giving birth to Lady Emily, and several years passed without the birth of other children, it was clear that the family was likely to die with Lord Edgedale.'
'You never expected Lord James to reappear?'
For an instant, before he looked away, there was an expression in his eyes which convinced her he was concealing something.
'No,' he said. 'No, we didn't. Would you excuse me, Miss Roberts?'
With a slight inclination of the head, he left her.
Forty-eight hours before their flight to Miami, James drove them to London.
With her suitcase beside her, Summer was waiting for them outside the front gate of the cottage when, punctually at nine, the car came into view. Emily was sitting in the back. Her face wasn't woebegone, nor were there any signs that she had shed tears on leaving her ancestral home, never to live there again.
'I didn't sleep a wink,' she announced, after saying good morning. 'I was too excited. Only two more ours and well be in London!'
Summer hadn't slept much either, but her excitement had been tinged with sadness for the death of the beautiful house she had grown to love.
When James had stowed her case in the boot—in a few days' time she would have to revert to thinking of it as the trunk, and the bonnet as the hood—he slid behind the wheel and re-fastened his safety-belt.
Since the last time she had been a passenger with him, the adjustment of the nearside belt had been altered, perhaps to secure Emily's slight form. As she fumbled to loosen the straps to enclose her much larger body, he leaned over to help her.
For a moment before she withdrew them, her pale hands were entangled with his strong brown ones. His were warm but hers were cold, a fact he remarked on as he dealt with the belt.
Mortifyingly conscious that he was loosening it to its fullest extent, she said, 'My hands usually are cold, even when the rest of me feels warm.'
'That's poor circulation,' he told her. The cure for it is regular exercise. In Florida you should try swimming laps every day, morning and evening, gradually increasing the number.'
'Yes, perhaps I will.'
It was a relief when he had finished adjusting the belt and sat back in his own seat.
On the way through town, he parked outside Mr Watts' office while she hurried inside and left her labelled keys at
the front desk. The cottage was to be sold furnished, there being very few possessions which she wanted to keep.
One or two things she was fond of were in her suitcase. Fitting them in had been no problem. She possessed few clothes suitable for a winter in Florida. Although he had told her there were sometimes 'killer frosts' which did much damage to the orange groves and subtropical shrubs, these were infrequent and short-lived. She would need a light coat for going out after dark, but by day the most she would require would be one warm sweater or cardigan. In general, she and his niece could expect to spend much of their time in bathing-suits and sun-dresses.
Like most overweight people, Summer had never been eager to strip off at the first sign of hot weather. Heatwaves were times of mental and physical discomfort for her. She disliked exposing her bulges to public view, and the insides of her thighs rubbed against each other and quickly became red and sore.
Large-size sun-dresses always had wide straps to conceal the straps of their wearers' no-nonsense bras. She knew that, as did most big women, she had nice shoulders. Yet she could never display them under ribbon ties and pretty halters because nobody made a strapless bra which worked, and wasn't torture to wear, for busts larger than thirty-eight inches. And she naturally couldn't go without a bra as girls with small breasts could.
If it hadn't been for her determination to lose weight, she wouldn't have been looking forward to the warmth awaiting them in Florida. However, already her clothes seemed fractionally looser. Not much, but a little; and she hoped it wouldn't be long before she could buy some new American clothes, a size smaller than last year's summer dresses.
They were travelling in the fast lane of the motorway when she realised that it had been some time since Emily had spoken. Twisting to peer over her shoulder, she found that her pupil was now curled in an embryo position on the back seat, catching up some lost sleep. 'Emily's dozing,' she murmured quietly. 'Were there tears when she said goodbye to Conway?'