The Lorimer Line

by Anne Melville

  He must have made a special point of seeing the results of the examinations, for as soon as they were posted he came to call, carrying bouquets of congratulation for both Margaret and Lydia. He brought a friend with him. Henry Mason was another doctor, and before leaving he invited the two young women to spend the next Saturday at his parents’ house in Kew.

  ‘I must give you warning of the entertainment we propose,’ Henry said. ‘My sister and I have acquired bicycles and intend to learn how to ride them. You will understand that we need to have skilled medical help at hand to mend our broken bones. Charles and I will supply the same attentions to you if you are prepared to attempt the new art.’

  Margaret’s heart jumped with pleasure at the realization that Charles, because he could not invite her to his own house, must have arranged this instead. She accepted quickly, without giving Lydia time to express any doubts. But Lydia, in a carefree mood following four and a half years of hard study and a month of important examinations, expressed equal pleasure at the prospect.

  Saturday, when it came, was devoted to laughter and easy conversation. Margaret was relieved to find that the two bicycles were not penny-farthings, but the much lower safety models. Henry’s sister had already mastered the technique and gave a wobbly demonstration round and round the family’s large garden before falling off at the end of the ride. It was agreed that stopping was the most difficult part of bicycling. Two at a time they embarked on their first trial trips, with a good deal of mock alarm, while Mr and Mrs Mason watched in amusement from the drawing-room window.

  When it came to Margaret’s turn, it was Charles who brought the machine to her. He held it while she mounted, with one hand beneath the saddle and the other on the handlebars; but once she started to pedal, forcing him to run beside her, one of his hands moved up to her waist in order to steady her. Margaret found herself overwhelmed by his closeness. She could hardly bear her own happiness and pedalled faster and faster in her excitement. Unable to stop, she tried to turn as they approached the end of the lawn, but found herself leaning sideways. Charles’s other hand moved along the handlebar to cover her own hand and grip the brake, but it was too late to stop her falling. They toppled to the ground together, with the bicycle on top of them. Their friends were beside themselves with laughter in the distance, but for Margaret the world seemed to have gone suddenly quiet. She lay on the grass, not daring to look at Charles, and for a moment neither of them moved. Then he pushed the bicycle away with his foot and picked himself up before holding out his hands to raise her.

  ‘Not hurt?’ he asked.

  Too much in love with him to speak, Margaret shook her head. She staggered a little as he pulled her gently to her feet, and for a second he stood very close as he steadied her.

  ‘Oh, my dear!’ he said, and then shook his head, sighing in distress. Margaret had already hoped that he loved her as much as she loved him: now she knew that she was right. She realized at the same time that he must be aware of her own feelings. They were both very quiet as they wheeled the bicycle back towards the house.

  After this there was little incentive for Margaret to improve her performance. She claimed that her balance was poor and continued to demand support. It came each time from Charles. The recklessness with which they tacitly admitted their feelings to each other was eloquent to their friends as well. Lydia may have disapproved, but she made no attempt to interfere. After lunch, when they all chose to avoid further bruising and take a walk along the bank of the river, none of the other three appeared to notice as Margaret and Charles fell further and further behind.

  For a long time they still did not dare to speak to each other. It was Margaret in the end who broke both the silence and the resolve which she had made six months earlier.

  ‘Would it not be possible,’ she asked without preamble, ‘to persuade your father that I have suffered almost as much as he from the collapse of my father’s business? If he could see us as victims together, he might be less disposed to blame me for my father’s faults.’

  ‘I think you have profited by the collapse rather than suffered,’ said Charles. ‘Your present way of life would never have been open to you while your parents lived.’

  ‘But so far as money is concerned I have nothing.’

  ‘It would be difficult to persuade my father of that.’

  ‘Would he not believe my word?’

  ‘Were you present when your father died?’ asked Charles. It seemed an abrupt change of subject, and Margaret looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Yes. That is to say, at the actual moment of his death I was a little way away from him, hurrying to fetch help.’

  ‘Then you did not hear his last words?’

  ‘I was not aware that he had spoken any.’

  ‘You will remember that my father had been called to attend him. He was bending over Mr Lorimer and heard him call out in his last agony.’

  ‘What did my father say?’ Margaret prompted, when Charles seemed unable to continue.

  ‘“Who will care for my treasure?” He said it twice, and then he died. “Who will care for my treasure?” My father has never forgotten the words. He dreams of finding the treasure. In the middle of the night he goes out into my small garden and digs it up, because he is so sure that somewhere in the earth John Junius Lorimer hid his fortune away from his creditors.’

  ‘There is no fortune,’ Margaret assured him, troubled.

  ‘How can I persuade him of that? His belief has become irrational, but it must have some fact as its basis. I believe that your father did speak those words. He may have been irrational himself at the moment of death - he may have believed that he was still rich and must now by dying abandon his riches. I can explain the possibilities to myself, but not to my father. The obsession goes too deep. And even if you tried to explain your own position, he would point to that of your brother.’

  ‘Ralph?’

  ‘No. Your elder brother. He lives in Brinsley House, I understand, as your father did before him. His shipping company has survived the misfortunes from which almost every other business in Bristol suffered. He does not live in the style of a man who has been ruined.’

  ‘My sister-in-law had money of her own,’ said Margaret. ‘It came to her on her father’s death, after the crash, and was not affected by the legal proceedings.’ She spoke as confidently as she could in her anxiety to persuade Charles, but an uneasiness stirred in her mind. She knew that William had been saved from the distresses of the other shareholders in Lorimer’s Bank by the accident of selling his own holding shortly before the collapse. She knew also that the insurance money paid for the Georgiana had enabled him to buy the family home at a distress price. But she too had been surprised at the speed with which he had managed to re-establish the name of Lorimer amongst that part of the Bristol community which respected a man according to the degree of his wealth and trading power.

  They had been walking only slowly, but now Charles came to a complete halt and looked earnestly down at her.

  ‘You must understand that I am not speaking on my own account,’ he said. ‘To me, you are yourself and I - I value you only as yourself. You cannot have been to blame in any way for the past. I am answering your question only because you asked it, trying to make you realize what my father thinks, not what I think myself. He was upset when he lost all his money, as any man might be. It was when he heard those dying words of your father’s that he became deranged. I came to Bristol at that time, to comfort my mother and to do what I could to calm him. I know that what fed his madness was the business of the rubies.’

  ‘The rubies?’ Margaret was genuinely puzzled.

  ‘The rubies which your mother wore to a ball in Bristol shortly before her death. They were thought to be worth a fortune, but after your father died were found to be worthless. It was not possible for me or for anyone else to persuade my father that the Lorimers had no secret fortune when it seemed - to others beside himself - that not everything ha
d been satisfactorily explained. This makes no difference to my own feelings for you, but it will come between my father and any member of your family as long as he lives. There is no chance at all that I can persuade him to change his view. I even think it would be better if you and I did not discuss the past.’

  Margaret still hesitated for a moment, but Charles’s opinion was so definite that she did not feel able to argue: nor did she wish to spoil a day which had been full of happiness. That evening, however, she wrote to William.

  Charles had mentioned the rubies in particular, and Margaret remembered now that she too had been puzzled at the time by the discovery that the jewels deposited in the bank were imitations. There was that other matter, as well, which she had not mentioned to Charles. She had asked her father on one occasion what had happened to the jade animals which she so much liked, and which were reputed to be of great value, and he had answered that these too were held by the bank for safe keeping. It occurred to her now that no one had made any mention of the jade collection when the value of John Junius’s assets were under public scrutiny. She asked William about both these mysteries and waited anxiously for an answer.

  His letter, when it came, did little to reassure her. He wrote with unusual frankness, telling her that their father had sold the most valuable pieces of jade in a manner which could only be described as surreptitious; the replacements which he had purchased to fill the gaps in his cabinets were of little value.

  ‘My own view,’ William continued, ‘is that the money raised from the sale of the jade was used to purchase the stones - the genuine stones - for the present of jewellery which he gave to our mother. I then think — although it can only be a guess on my part - that after he had ordered Parker to set the real stones, he had a copy made at some establishment outside Bristol where he was not well known. We know that the copy was deposited in the bank. Perhaps we shall never learn what happened to the real jewels. My personal opinion is that they must exist, but have been hidden and are unlikely to be recovered, unless by chance. I need hardly tell you that this surmise is for your own eyes only. It would be most unwise to discuss the matter with anyone else at all. You should destroy this letter.’

  Margaret stared at it unhappily. She found it a terrible thing that William should be accusing their father of what seemed to be a deliberate deception. If his theory was a true one, it would add substance to the ravings of Charles’s father: certainly, it could not be used to challenge his suspicions. She sighed to herself once more as she tore the letter up. It seemed that she had no choice but to accept Charles’s opinion. The subject was indeed one which should not be discussed between them again. Her friendship with Charles must remain one which forgot the past and did not allow any hope for the future.

  6

  News of a stranger’s death can be curiously cheering to those who survive, but not when it is the wrong stranger. It was Charles Scott’s mother, not his father, who broke her hip in a fall shortly before Christmas in 1885: she died of pneumonia three weeks later. By that time Margaret was twenty-eight years old: a professional woman. She had passed her M.D. examination with honour and now had a good appointment as resident obstetrician at the Lying-In Hospital for Women. The hospital supplied her with accommodation, but she still contributed to the rent of Lydia’s apartments and used them when she was off duty.

  Deliberately she organized her work so that there should not be much time to think about her private life, although her friendship with Charles had deepened as the years passed. They were both members of a committee whose purpose was to improve the health of London schoolchildren. It pressed for regular medical inspections in the schools and raised money to send poor children from the city slums to the country or seaside for a week’s holiday. Margaret was whole-heartedly in sympathy with the committee’s aims, but valued its meetings additionally for the assurance they gave her that she would see Charles at least once a month.

  Mrs Scott’s accident, however, interrupted the pattern of the time they spent together. Charles wrote often to Margaret - first during his mother’s illness and then at her death. Later there were letters of a different kind, apologizing for the fact that he could not leave his father for more than the hours of hospital duty. Margaret studied the words anxiously, wondering whether he was preparing her for the news that he would not be able to see her again.

  This three-month period during which they did not meet seemed more like three years to Margaret. Her loneliness reminded her how much she relied for happiness on the hope of catching at least a glimpse of him. When at last a letter arrived to propose a meeting, her relief and excitement were tinged with fear.

  His invitation was for an evening together. It was tacitly agreed between them that when Charles visited her in the apartments which she shared with Lydia, her friend should always be present. But in the freer atmosphere of the capital city there seemed no objection - now that Margaret was no longer a young girl - to theatre visits and even dinners in public restaurants without a chaperone. It was an invitation of this sort which Charles now offered in February of 1886.

  She was unprepared for the change in his appearance since their last meeting. His eyes were black with tiredness, as though he had not slept for nights, and his forehead was lined with strain. Assuming that all his obvious unhappi-ness was caused by the death of his mother, she repeated the condolences which she had already written. This must have revealed to Charles that he was not appearing as the most stimulating of companions, for he made an attempt at cheerfulness, although his gaiety was forced. Margaret responded to it, accepting his suggestion that after dinner they should go to a music hall instead of a play.

  The atmosphere inside the music hall made cheerfulness compulsory. The vulgarity of the comedians and the earthy energy of the dancers did not allow for half measures: the audience was forced willy-nilly into disapproval or delight. Margaret became aware that her companion was gradually relaxing in her company. Whatever had been troubling him seemed for the moment to be forgotten. He clapped as vigorously as she at the jugglers. With just as much amusement he laughed at the clowning of the gentleman whose baggy trousers threatened to engulf him as he balanced a bowler hat by its brim on his forehead, his nose, or his toe.

  As this act ended the accompanying band changed the style of its music from a brisk brassiness to a plaintive whisper of strings. The chattering audience was hushed into silence by the appearance of the next performer - a little girl, only eight or nine years old. She was dressed in rags, in imitation of an adult style; but the beauty of her face and the shine of the strawberry blonde hair which contrasted so astonishingly with the drab grey of her long skirt and shawl, robbed the whole theatre of its breath. There was no sound from the audience as she began to sing, as though it were assumed that her voice would be as small as her body. But her sweet, pure tones projected to the back of the theatre as professionally as those of her predecessors on the stage.

  Her song was sentimental, even maudlin. ‘I have to be a mother to my father,’ she carolled, acting out the words of each verse in a childish way which contrasted strongly with the maturity of her voice. Margaret found her own attention gripped more closely than the act itself could justify. The child’s face was familiar, although she could not remember where she had seen it before. The recognition carried with it an association of unhappiness. Margaret puzzled over this without being able to take her eyes off the agile, graceful figure.

  ‘I have to be a mother to my father,’ sang the child for the last time, “cos my mother went to heaven long ago.’ She curtsied and smiled and ran off to the heaviest applause of the evening. Margaret opened her programme and looked inside.

  The name told her all she needed to know. ‘Alexa, child of song.’ Margaret remembered the imperceptible cough from a baby’s cradle. ‘Her name is Alexandra, but I call her Alexa,’ Luisa had said. And on the day before John Junius Lorimer fell to his death, Margaret had seen that baby again, a little older, sucking her
thumb shyly in a corner, but already beautiful. Luisa was a teacher of music and would certainly have trained her own child. There could be no doubt that this was the very same girl.

  Margaret sat through the last comedy act of the show and the final chorus without giving them any of her attention. She wanted to ask Charles whether he would take her backstage to find Alexa and her mother, who must surely be caring for the child. But first she would need to explain how she had come to recognize Alexa. That meant referring to her life in Bristol, which by mutual agreement had become a subject not to be discussed.

  The rule would have to be broken. Alexa, after all, had nothing to do with the Lorimer family. It would be possible to speak of her without referring to any of the forbidden subjects. They rose to their feet, still clapping the exuberant last chorus.

  ‘I recognized one of the performers as someone I know,’ Margaret said. ‘I would very much like to speak to her. Will you escort me?’

  He hesitated, and she realized with a shock that he was going to refuse. Perhaps that was because he did not consider music-hall performers to be proper companions for her. About to reveal to him the age of her acquaintance, she was checked by the expression which clouded his face. Whatever had troubled him when they first met that evening had returned to make him even more unhappy than before.

  ‘Not now, if you will excuse me,’ he said. ‘I hardly feel fit company for comedians. There is something I have to say to you, and I have postponed saying it long enough. It cannot wait any longer.’

  He offered her his arm and she took it doubtfully. The programme at the music hall changed each week. By the time she could return, Alexa might have moved on. Margaret was reluctant to miss the opportunity; but she could feel the intensity of Charles’s concentration on whatever it was he wanted to say. Suppose that should prove to be what she most hoped to hear. His mother’s death must have changed his circumstances. Perhaps he was going to tell her that his father’s condition now necessitated treatment in some kind of private asylum, setting Charles himself free to live his own life. Because of his unhappy look, she had not allowed herself to consider such a possibility before but now she found it difficult to control a surge of hope.