by Lucy Gordon
He tried to be logical. It was unreasonable to miss her so badly, except of course for estate matters where her presence would have been useful. But there were no estate matters in the middle of the night, and then the loss of her was a grinding misery that went on and on without relief.
It would have been convenient to have her around for the lunch that he held annually for his tenants and their families. He flinched at the thought of the curious eyes, the unspoken questions.
They all trooped in, Ned Race and Clarrie, his wife, Jack Tompkins and his Freda, Lillian, who rented a farm on her own account and took orders from no man, Peter and Elsie Somers and their daughter Helena, Sadie of the wools, and a dozen more. Meryl’s absence provoked a response that troubled Jarvis, but not in the way he’d expected.
‘New York, eh?’ Sadie exclaimed and looked around at the other women. They nodded. ‘She’s selling our stuff. She said she would.’
Jarvis was silent, heartsick. How could he tell these decent, kindly people that she’d betrayed them?
But Sarah would tell them. She and Ferdy were always invited, and over lunch she made herself busy. Jarvis couldn’t hear her words, but he could see the bewildered expressions of the others.
He functioned on automatic and managed somehow. Afterwards they all retired to the library for coffee, and a dispute flared up between Lillian and one of the men farmers about a news item she’d picked up that morning. Lillian was bolshie enough for ten and she went at it hammer and tongs, to everyone’s entertainment.
‘Must we argue now?’ Jarvis asked at last. ‘I think Lillian’s right, but it’ll be on the news tonight.’
‘It’ll be on the teletext right now,’ Lillian said firmly.
‘All right, if it’ll satisfy you. Ferdy, you’re nearest the set.’
Ferdy switched the television on and channel-hopped. Suddenly he stopped as though frozen, and said in a strange voice, ‘Isn’t that Meryl?’
Everyone looked at the screen where Meryl could clearly be viewed sashaying along a catwalk, clad in a knitted garment that brought yells of recognition.
‘We did that!’ The women spoke with one triumphant voice.
‘Mr Steen said design something wild and crazy for him,’ Sadie said. ‘I went as mad as I dared but he said “more”. So I made it madder and madder, and by the time he was satisfied it took three women to knit it and sew it together.’
Ferdy had turned up the sound and they listened, enthralled, to the announcer.
‘…Benedict Steen’s collection having its first showing in New York. There on the catwalk is his backer, Meryl Winters, now Lady Larne, modelling one of the revolutionary fashion knits from the Larne estate…’
‘Fancy that,’ Freda muttered. ‘We’re revolutionary.’
Ned Race tried to mutter something disparaging, but he was drowned out by every woman present.
‘She said she’d show our stuff in New York,’ Clarrie carolled. ‘You-’ she pointed an accusing finger at her husband ‘-you said she couldn’t do it.’
‘Lady Larne is a woman of her word,’ Ferdy observed, eyeing Jarvis steadily.
Jarvis didn’t see him. He was beyond speech or movement, his gaze fixed on his wife almost dancing elegantly along the catwalk, her smile brilliant.
Now she was talking to the presenter, pointing out details of the glorious creation she wore.
‘That’s us she’s talking about,’ Clarrie breathed. ‘Our knits. We’re high fashion!’
Ned Race, staging a rearguard action, muttered something and Clarrie turned on him.
‘You shut up, you old fool. With the orders I’m getting there’s enough to mend the pig barn and pay off the bank. So you can stir yourself and do some work for a change.’
Ned cast her a hunted look, but relapsed into silence.
Meryl had vanished from the screen, and the camera wandered over the crowd while the presenter continued in voiceover.
‘After this the collection will go to Paris, Milan, Rome, London-an extended trip that for Benedict Steen will also be a second honeymoon with his wife Amanda, with whom he’s recently been reconciled. Meryl, there’s a rumour that you played Cupid. Is it true?’
Meryl’s voiceover: ‘I did my bit, because if ever two people belong together Benedict and Amanda do. But they love each other, so this was always inevitable.’
Now Benedict was centre screen, his arm around a young woman, his adoring eyes on her. And there was Meryl beside them, laughing and calling to Benedict, ‘Kiss her-go on, kiss her-’ and leading the applause when he did.
Jarvis didn’t know how he got through the rest of the afternoon. Somehow he made the right responses, smiled without knowing why, and fended off questions. In his head he could hear Meryl’s voice,
I haven’t played you false, and one day you’ll know that. But don’t bother trying to tell me.
He came out of his unhappy reverie to discover that Ferdy was talking to him.
‘Sarah suddenly decided that she wanted to leave,’ he said in a voice that gave nothing away. ‘She’s gone ahead to the boat and asked me to say goodbye to you.’
‘I understand,’ said Jarvis, who was beginning to understand a lot of things.
At last it was mercifully over and he could be alone with his thoughts. But they were ugly and bitter and left him nowhere to hide.
He escaped to his room, but found a noise coming from the connecting passage. There he found a workman making measurements.
‘Central heating,’ the young man explained.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘It’s a bit narrow in here for a radiator,’ Fred observed.
‘You could cut a bit out of this inner wall,’ Jarvis said, trying to make himself interested. ‘It must be feet thick, so there’ll be no problem.’
The next day the workman started drilling, and almost at once he knew that the stone wall wasn’t feet thick. No more than ten inches, he estimated from the sound. He kept going and soon emerged on the other side. Then he drilled again until he was able to move one large stone right out. He held up his flashlight and peered in. What he saw made him freeze for a long, shocked moment before hurrying away to find his foreman.
CHAPTER TWELVE
S O OFTEN in dreams Meryl had opened her door to find Jarvis standing there that when the unfamiliar knock had come she’d gone flying to the door, pulling it open without using the security speaker, ready to say it was all a mistake, that if he was sorry, so was she.
But outside there had been only a stranger, surrounded by boxes and trunks. Jarvis had sent all her possessions from Larne. She never opened her door spontaneously again.
She had slammed the phone down on him in a moment of anger, but, despite her misery, after that one moment of hope she had no regrets. There was no way back. She’d played and lost, and nothing but grief could come of clinging to false dreams.
As day had followed dreary, desperate day, she’d worked at being strong-minded. She was now in the position she’d plotted and schemed for, her money in her own hands, a husband who’d vanished back whence he came, and the world before her. This was what she’d wanted. She told herself that.
Plus she’d made life better for people she cared about. But it seemed she hadn’t made it better for Jarvis. She might have drawn him out to share the sunshine with her, but she hadn’t. He would grow older, and then old, just as he was. He would marry Sarah. At that thought she’d almost jumped on the first plane back to him, but she had forced herself to do nothing. He’d chosen his path. He didn’t want her.
And at that thought she too had managed to harden her heart a little. It seemed he couldn’t learn from her, but she had learned wariness from him.
Benedict’s show had been a riotous success. Soon it would be time to take it to Paris, and Meryl decided to go, too. It was a while since she’d seen Paris. She resisted the thought that she needed something to do.
She was awoken early one morning by the doorbell ringing ha
rd and continuously. Pulling on a wrap, she approached cautiously and switched on the speaker.
‘Who is it?’
‘Jarvis.’
She couldn’t move. Wild thoughts raced through her head, but then he said quietly, ‘Please, Meryl, let me in.’ And she opened it at once.
He looked so ill, she thought. So changed.
His pallor had a grey tinge and he looked drained by weariness and strain, but that wasn’t the change. What really altered him was the hesitancy in his eyes, as though all his confidence had fled.
She stood back for him to pass her, trying not to feel anything. Jarvis was right about that. It was better to stay safe. But she couldn’t stop her heart aching for him.
He seemed to be having trouble speaking. Whatever he wanted to say, it wasn’t easy. But when had he ever found anything easy?
‘You look as if you’ve had a bad journey,’ she said, giving him time. ‘I’ll get you some coffee.’
While the coffee perked she returned to her room and returned in trousers and sweater. She served the coffee on a low table by the couch and glanced around for him. He was looking at a niche where the bags he’d sent after her were standing. She’d dumped them there and never had the heart to touch them.
He turned to her and his look made her heart miss a beat. His eyes were defenceless, as never before.
‘I came to say I’m sorry.’
Throw yourself into his arms, said her heart. But-
No, said hard learned caution. Why this all of a sudden?
‘Why?’ Just the one word was all she could manage.
‘I learned the truth. Steen’s collection was on television, plus something about his wife, and how you brought them together.’
‘I see.’ The faint flickering hope died. Jarvis was a conscientious man where facts were concerned.
‘I should have trusted you. In my heart I always knew I could.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘You say that now when it’s easy-I’m sorry-’ he’d winced ‘-I didn’t mean that unkindly, it’s just that-’
‘I know. It’s easy when you have the facts. It’s when you don’t have them that you need blind faith and trust. And I didn’t come through for you, did I?’
‘Jarvis, please-it doesn’t matter. I’m glad you know the truth. It was nice of you to come all this way to tell me yourself.’
‘I had another reason. There’s something you have to know. It’ll be in the newspapers soon, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. You’re the only person who’ll really understand.’
She returned to the sofa and indicated for him to sit in a facing chair while she poured the coffee. ‘What’s happened?’
‘The workmen came across something in that passage that links your room to mine. You mentioned one day that it seemed oddly narrow, and you were right. There’s a false wall, with a tiny room behind it. You’ll scarcely believe what we found there.’
‘What?’
‘Marguerite.’
Meryl stared. ‘But-she ran away.’
‘That’s what we thought, because she vanished suddenly. So did the steward and her maid. But they were all there. They’ve been there for six hundred years. No-’ he said quickly when Meryl gave a little shudder, ‘oddly enough it wasn’t particularly unpleasant. After all this time they were little more than dust. The clothes lasted better. She was wearing the pearls she has on in her portrait.’
‘But how did it happen?’
‘It seems Giles wasn’t the grieving husband we all thought. He wanted her money all for himself, but he didn’t want to share with her. He murdered her, and the steward, and her maid, to make it look convincing. Then he walled them up, and spread the story of how she’d deserted him.
‘To make it convincing he put the Vendanne pearls in there as well, probably because it was the one place nobody could find them. He must have meant to retrieve them later, when the fuss had died down, but he died too soon and nobody knew they were there.’
‘Poor Marguerite,’ Meryl murmured.
‘Yes. Harry doesn’t think she was ever really in love with the steward at all. That was just a lie to explain her disappearance. She was probably faithful and devoted to her husband, but he just wanted to take, not give.’ There was a pause before Jarvis added, ‘I’m afraid that may be a characteristic of the Larnes.’
Meryl gave a wan smile. ‘That I should ever hear you being sentimental!’
‘It comes too close for comfort. I resented your generosity because I saw you as an interloper. I thought I was guarding my heritage from an invader, but actually I was just selfishly refusing to share. Everything you did, getting to know everyone, finding the outlet for the knitting, was all because you wanted to give and become part of us. And I rejected you because-’ he shuddered ‘-I think I was jealous. You took what I thought of as mine and made it yours, not with money, but by winning their love.’
‘You had nothing to be jealous of, Jarvis. I didn’t want to deprive you of anything. I fell in love with Larne from the first moment.’
‘Only with Larne?’
‘No,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I fell in love with you. But that’s old history now. I couldn’t really get through to you. We had our moments-’ she smiled as certain memories came back to her ‘-but you were always fighting me.’
‘I want to make amends.’
He spoke gently, and laid his hand on hers, almost pleading. But they weren’t the words she needed to hear.
‘Amends? That sounds like something out of the business relationship. Still, I guess that was all we really had, wasn’t it?’
He winced. ‘I only meant that I wanted to put things right between us.’
‘But what is “right”, where we’re concerned? We were all wrong from the start.’
‘But it could be different now. Do you remember I once said I couldn’t feel really married to you while I had nothing to give? I told you we found the jewels. Their value is incredible. If I’d had them before-’
‘You wouldn’t have needed me,’ Meryl broke in wryly.
‘That’s not what I’m trying to say.’
‘If you’d had them before, we’d never have met.’
‘Somehow we’d have met. We were meant to, and with the value of those jewels I could have looked you in the eye from the start.’
She searched his face, trying to find in it something she desperately needed.
‘Oh, Jarvis,’ she said sadly at last. ‘If you’d ever really loved me, you could have looked me in the eye at any time, money or no money. OK, you’re rich now, and you think that makes a difference. Shall I tell you something about rich men that’ll surprise you? They’re ten a penny. I’ve hardly known any other kind, and I don’t give that for them!’ She snapped her fingers.
‘You were different. You were worth more as a man. You weren’t sleek and superficial like the others. I wanted to give to you, not to control you, but to do something for you and know I’d made a difference for good in your life. And if you’d loved me just a little, you’d have known how to take from me without your pride being offended, and that would have been all I asked. But because you didn’t have any money-’ she put a world of loathing and contempt into the word ‘-you couldn’t value yourself and you couldn’t value me. And now you’ve got a pile of cash and you think it makes everything all right?’
He rose quickly, slamming one fist into the other hand. ‘I can’t follow you when you talk like this. I just thought that the barriers were down between us at last.’
‘Oh, yes. Benedict was a barrier, and money was a barrier, and now they’re both down. I see that.’
‘And it’s not enough?’
‘Of course it’s not enough. I wanted you to love me enough to surmount the barriers. Having them come down isn’t the same.’
‘I don’t know how to tell you how much I love you,’ he stammered. ‘I thought you’d know.’
‘Some things have to be said.
But at the right time. For us the time will never be right.’
He took hold of her. ‘We can make it right,’ he said desperately, ‘if you’ll only come home with me.’
‘I can’t, it’s too late,’ she cried in anguish. ‘If you knew how much I wanted it to be my home, but you wouldn’t let me inside-not where it really matters.’
He groaned. ‘I know it’s my fault, but things have changed-’
‘Yes, things-not you. “Let invaders tremble.” You do make me tremble because I know I have to watch for the boiling oil.’ She touched his face. ‘It’ll always be there, in the back of my mind, if not yours. I’ll never be anything but an invader.’
‘I came to ask you for another chance,’ he said sombrely. ‘But how can I ask for your love? I haven’t done much to deserve it, have I?’
‘Jarvis, you don’t deserve love, or earn it. It just happens, and you have to learn how to take it.’
‘Come home and teach me,’ he pleaded.
She shook her head. ‘Once I thought I could, but that was in my arrogant days when I thought I could do anything, just because I was Meryl Winters. But you showed me that the money was all I had, and it wasn’t enough. Let’s do what you said, and leave it there. We were never meant to be.’
He had no way to persuade her. If she couldn’t find the words, how could he? He could only stand in silence as she slipped off his mother’s ring and handed it to him. After that there was nothing to do but leave.
For anything except designing Benedict was a disorganised man, and it took the combined efforts of his staff, his wife and Meryl to have everything ready for the departure to Paris a week later. Meryl was glad. It saved having to think.
They reached the airport in more than good time for the Paris flight. Meryl was surprised that Benedict and Amanda had insisted on setting out a clear hour before they needed to, but she went along with it. What did anything matter?
But when they’d stood in the check-in line for a few moments she suddenly said, ‘This is the wrong line. It’s not for Paris.’
‘This is the right line,’ Amanda insisted. ‘Your flight is leaving in an hour. Not Paris. Manchester, England. Nine p.m. Here’s your ticket.’