He frowned but moved in step with me. ‘To where?’
‘To a bridge between spiritual planes,’ I said cryptically, leading him to the point of the pier where it crossed from beach to sea. I looked down and stood on the line that my gaze assured me was the meeting point of land and water. A place of magic, if one subscribed to the ethereal world. I watched Jove look down, smile and follow suit, adopting a similar stance with his toes facing mine. ‘Now, in this spot of great power, I shall make a pledge to you.’
He said nothing but I sensed the tension held in his chest, making the space feel small in his body as it pushed against his ribs in anticipation.
‘I have a condition.’ I waited for an objection but it didn’t come. His silence nearly threw me but I was on my path now; I was saying yes to marriage, about to throw my father into a situation that would tear at his emotions, because while I was giving him what he most wanted, I was also, in the same breath, going to give him what he least wanted. I was already convinced he wouldn’t know whether to celebrate or argue with me.
And so suddenly my future, my happiness, my desire to live my life on my terms rested on the decision of a man. Perhaps one day I’d look back at this and consider it amusing that the very reliance on men that the modern woman in me demanded I cast aside was to be my crutch in this most important of moments.
‘Jove, my condition is that I be allowed to travel to India – to Calcutta – and to help in a hospital, so that I don’t feel my study and life’s work to date or the legacy of my parents has been wasted.’
He didn’t speak immediately but held me prisoner in his stare. Finally he blinked. ‘Will you be working in the area of medicine forbidden by your parents?’
I took a breath. ‘It is not my intention to deliberately flout my parents’ desires. I will not search out wards or patients with TB but I have no doubt – in all honesty – that I will meet people suffering from the disease and I will not turn away from them if I can help.’
He nodded. ‘I suspect that is a conversation, then, that you must face with your father. I just want you home safe and walking down a church aisle with me.’ He smiled softly.
‘You’d let me go?’ I murmured in disbelief.
‘It is not for me to “let you go”, Isla. It is for you to decide to go in spite of all the best advice. I shall not make it any harder for you to follow your heart, because if it leads you back to me, then my heart is full and who am I to deny you the same?’
Every ounce of me poured into the beaming smile I gave him. ‘Then, yes, I shall marry you, Jovian Mandeville.’
He stopped me leaning in to hug him, gently lifting a palm and lowering it quickly so it didn’t appear domineering. ‘I, too, have a condition.’
‘Oh, yes?’
He nodded. ‘Mmm, and it is that we set a time limit on your absence.’
I didn’t see this coming but at the same time it didn’t strike me as unreasonable, given the generosity of his stance. I frankly couldn’t imagine another suitor who would allow me such scope and freedom on the back of a marriage proposal. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Go whenever you can but be home by the fall of the first leaf,’ he said with finality. We were stuck in our fairytales. ‘I shall give you until September. If it takes you several months to organise your affairs, that is not my concern, but I’m guessing that you can probably be on a ship to India faster than I can take off my hat and gloves.’ He smiled fondly. ‘Your stumbling block is not me, Isla, it’s your father. Now that I’ve found you and fallen in love with you in a single morning, you have my unhappy blessing to ruthlessly leave me.’ He paused. ‘But I shall now make plans for an early winter wedding in 1933. We are agreeing that you shall return in September next year and that we shall become man and wife in November 1933 . . . a white wedding all round, perhaps. Do we kiss and seal the deal on that?’
Not quite a year, but long enough. It felt like a lifetime as much as a lifeline being fed out in front of me. Mild-mannered, marvellous Mandeville – I couldn’t help the alliteration or the admiration for the man I would be calling my husband in a year’s time.
He undid the box again and held it towards me. ‘May I put this on your finger?’
I nodded, tearing up, surprised by the emotion I was suddenly feeling. ‘I would be honoured to wear your ring, Jove.’
‘Isla,’ he said, just once, his voice choked, and we took a step into an embrace, straddling worlds, sealing a promise with a fleeting, gentle kiss.
We barely heard the distant but clearly delighted applause of the pier staff or the slow, crunching draw of the surf over shingle to the irresistible pull of its tide.
5
We pulled up nearby one of London’s grand neo-gothic buildings along the Embankment in Whitehall Place. My father’s interest in architecture had taught me this long, magisterial building was constructed by Archer & Green with links to the Royal Horseguards and was used by our Ministry of Defence during the Great War. It always looked to me like a grand French chateau and formed one of our landmark sights on the city skyline.
‘You don’t mind?’ Jove checked again.
‘I promise you I’m capable of travelling alone in this motor car with William —’ I nodded towards our driver ‘— all the way to Kensington for the next fifteen minutes,’ I added, making it sound like an interminable trek. ‘So this is where your club is?’
He nodded. ‘The National Liberal Club. I’m also a member of your father’s.’
‘Club man, eh?’
‘With a difference. This one is about liberalism in everything, from politics to art.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it. How about women and the club?’
‘Welcomed happily as members . . . always have been – that’s one of the key reasons I joined it.’
I was delighted at this news. ‘You are a surprise, Jove. Well, it’s a splendid setting and I can see how easy it is for you to skip across to the House of Parliament . . . or even to the Palace if you get knighted.’
He made a scoffing sound. ‘Lady Isla Mandeville has quite a ring to it, though.’ He grinned. ‘May I come over later and see your father?’
I nodded. ‘I think you should. Why don’t you join us for dinner? We can celebrate.’
Jove leaned back into the car, took my hand and laid a soft kiss on my newly bejewelled finger. ‘I still can’t let myself believe you said yes.’
‘Neither can I, but I will never change my mind about you.’
His expression lost its lightness, his brow knitted itself into a frown and he stared at the ring, as though he couldn’t risk looking me in the eye for fear of seeing a lie. ‘Promise?’
Realising he still felt insecure about today, I made sure my grave tone reflected the enormity of the decision I’d reached and the pledge I’d made. ‘Look at me, Jove.’ He lifted his gaze. ‘I will keep my promise to return by September and in November we shall be married.’
‘You don’t want one of those fabulously large society weddings, do you?’
‘If you’d agree to elope I would run away with you at the end of next year, but we both know that’s not fair to family and friends. Nevertheless, the smaller the better for me.’ The relief that slackened his expression made me smile. ‘I’ll put together a list of people who matter in my life and they’re all I’ll need. We can talk more tonight.’
This time he leaned further in and risked an affectionate touch to my lips but I pulled him closer and kissed him harder. I could swear I felt him tremble. My own delight at this sense of romance swirling into my life meant I forgot that William was trying not to look in his mirror at us, and frankly all other sounds disappeared. Suddenly the horns of traffic, the clank and rumble of carriages, voices of drivers and barrowmen muted while the new world of Isla and Jove built itself around us.
‘See you at seven.’ I touched his cheek.
‘I shan’t need my car. I could float over.’ He unselfconsciously blew me a small kiss
as he allowed William to close the door. ‘Back to Kensington,’ he said to the man. ‘Slowly, William. You have my most precious cargo inside.’
‘Yes, sir,’ William replied, and I caught the wink and understood these two were likely friends.
I lifted a hand to wave goodbye as we eased back into traffic. Thin sunlight fired flaring sparkles in the diamonds that now encrusted my ring finger. I couldn’t fault Jove’s taste; the central stone had to be tipping the scales at three carats. It was cut in the European style to show off its seemingly endless facets, which caught the light and split it into rainbow colours across the ceiling of the car. I decided as I looked down at the ring that its shape was akin to the planet Saturn, the large orb at its centre flattening out with smaller diamonds and oblong bevel-cut sapphires so brilliant they echoed the gassy rings of the planet. It was a stunning piece that flashed and caught my attention no matter how hard I tried to look away. And for someone who set little store by possessions – or so I thought until this moment – I realised I was helplessly smug at the glittering pile on my hand that proclaimed me as belonging to Mr Jovian Mandeville.
Curiously, I didn’t mind this notion; I always imagined I might resent any man who laid claim to me but suddenly it felt right to belong to the very first person I had fallen for romantically. My ardour for Jove in those early days of adolescence had felt all encompassing; I had been his prisoner – emotionally – for probably three years and then he’d left and I grew up. Even so, the rekindled feelings had caught fire quickly over the course of today and, frankly, if I had to marry, why shouldn’t it be to the man whom my romantic instincts had first woken up to?
I looked again at the ring. Despite all of its glamour, it didn’t feel heavy or awkward. It was easy to live with, as I suspect the man who gave it to me would be too. If early impressions were the most important, then he fitted around me lightly. I didn’t feel squeezed; there was nothing overbearing in his personality that I could pick up, and I knew my father trusted him implicitly, and would have already checked into any wrinkles of character or his past. No, given that there was a certain amount of pressure in both our lives to make a marriage decision, this really was a sound match; our families were close and I could see myself easily falling in love with Jove all over again . . . this time as the adult and on equal terms.
I mentally hugged myself as we skirted around Green Park, heading east down Constitution Hill, away from Buckingham Palace, and towards Hyde Park Corner.
I thought absently that this road took its name in the 1600s when King Charles II enjoyed his constitutional walks along it. More recently Sir Robert Peel, Britain’s prime minister, had been tossed from his horse on this wide road and had died from his injuries. And I would let Mr Archibald – my history teacher – down badly if I didn’t recall that there had been several assassination attempts on Queen Victoria along this path too. And here, right now, I was equating important historical events with my engagement. But this was a most important milestone for our family; my mother – if she were watching over me – would be smiling, nodding in that quiet manner of hers. And if she were alive, waiting for news behind the doors of our home, I think she might even give a soft squeal of delight. She was not prone to emotional outbursts but the promise of her only child and daughter’s marriage to a good man with a fine family history and no dark secrets was likely every mother’s sighing pleasure. Plus, she had always held a soft spot for Jove. I knew my father wouldn’t be able to keep himself from the cellar to drag out his finest French champagne and get it chilling, or open his very best claret to breathe, or both, to celebrate.
We passed the Palace on our left and before long turned into our square. I could see Nanny Rosie from No.8 with her three charges taking the air in the gardens, and old Mr Bodlington was strolling with Muscavado, his dark golden Labrador of equal vintage. And there was Dr Radcliffe, eminent surgeon, off for his late afternoon walk – I could set the time by the doctor’s ritual.
Home. Would I miss it when I travelled to India? Would I miss it when I left to live in the Cotswolds with Jove? Handy to know he had the place in Mayfair down the road but, even so, my life was about to change dramatically. But first, I had to deliver what would be unwelcome news to my father about Calcutta. It would be overshadowed, I hoped, by what would likely prompt deep happiness at the announcement of his daughter’s engagement.
_________
My father poked at the fire. I knew he was torn between disconsolation and jubilation; I was waiting for the latter to win out. So I remained silent in my armchair, coincidentally upholstered in a colour to match the olive that floated equally patiently in the martini I was supposed to be sipping. I admired this room for the umpteenth time as a way of remaining quiet. It had taken me two years of stealthy haranguing to get my father to agree to redecoration. Two Christmases ago our sitting room had been claustrophobic, albeit in a comfortable way, but it was nevertheless melancholy because it was decorated to my mother’s taste at the time of her marriage. It reflected her era of heavy furnishings, which included a fascination for the Orient, marble pedestals and silver on display. She possessed fine taste: I noted all her choices were made with an exquisite eye for bold detail but also, mercifully, some restraint in terms of volume. My broomstick of change was not just about dragging No.1 Kensington Gate into the era of style moderne but also sweeping away the overbearing sorrow that this room inflicted upon us. New beginnings, I’d said. Let’s make this room into a fresh space, I badgered my father, and finally won through with a budget and four burly men to carry away his wife’s treasures into storage in the cellar.
Gone was the fleck wallpaper and brocade curtains, the massive sofas and her beloved Persian carpets. I began by painting the room in a colour that resembled a pale mushroom newly emerging from the earth; the symbolism was purely accidental but the hue of rich cream with just a vague whisper of pinkish warmth was not. The painter and decorators called it ‘Ivory cherub’ and I loved it on first sight on our walls. It remained softly bright with daylight flooding through our tall windows, but by the evening’s glow and as lamps or firelight came on it slipped into a warm, blushing richness against the pastel-coloured Aubusson rug. New indoor ferns introduced a fresh, rather than gloomy, green. Neat bookshelves added to coves, occasional and much smaller, finer-made furniture promoted space and allowed a sense of light in. My father said I’d littered the room with lamps and in some respect he was right; on petite French oak sideboards sat electric candelabras held up by figures fashioned in bronze with shell-coloured silk lampshades. I’d finally settled on achieving a vaguely French look to the room, with practical yet elegant side tables within easy reach of the sofas and armchairs, either of pearwood or mahogany, another with a marble surface and a tray-like rim of laced iron, bronze in colour. All my mother’s decorative paraphernalia was boxed in storage, save the silver-framed photographs of the family and some of my father’s favourite portraits that I had rehoused in gilded settings. It had become a feminine room, but my father had not seemed to mind. I suspect he privately celebrated the relief of change and the release from our former sorrow when he entered. Our last two Christmases in here had been far more lighthearted, with lights winking from our fir tree that took up residence by the main window overlooking the park.
The carriage clock chimed eight times. I knew it to be a couple of minutes fast, which meant Jove would be here any moment. My father knew it too.
I looked up at his sigh. ‘Isla, you’ve managed to make me the happiest father alive and yet the most traumatised in two sentences.’
I gave him a sad smile to say I understood. ‘Can you not focus on the first sentence? Papa, I not only approve of your choice of husband but I believe Jove and I are sufficiently well matched that we shall find love and happiness together. Isn’t that everything you and Mama could possibly have hoped for?’
He moved from the fireplace in a couple of steps to sit beside me on the sofa, leaning towards me with an ear
nest expression. No, it was more than that – it was a look of genuine fear. I sat upright, refusing to be intimidated by his concern. I knew my decision to travel would bring only worry to my father but I assured myself that if I showed only confidence, maybe I could soothe him into trusting my calm determination.
‘Papa, I must do this, or I will live with interminable regret. Don’t you see, this is my way of setting things right with the world . . . my world? Don’t punish me for hearing the calling that both of you also did. She became sick because of her work in India. It wasn’t just the disease, though; we both know it was the conditions and the lack of knowledge of the times. Allow me to take revenge against this killer, to find peace in my heart. India needs more skilled doctors. If we can teach its new clinicians about the doctors who live and work there permanently. I’m asking you to let me go for not even a year – seven or eight months at best – so I don’t waste the training and knowledge and all my study into tropical medicine. Please, Papa. Imagine trying to tell Mama she couldn’t come with you all those years ago.’ I was playing on his guilt and sorrow, but the sentiment was no lie.
He dropped his head with defeat.
‘Papa? If we succumb to fear, how can we call ourselves doctors?’
‘You could die. And then I’ve lost you both. And Jove has no wife and then I might as well die too!’
‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ I said, clasping his hands. ‘I could die tomorrow for any number of unforeseen reasons, from fever to a motor accident, but I have no intention of dying in India when I have you and Jove to come home to. I am choosing to answer my calling to work in Calcutta but I promise you my genuine mission is to help teach a new batch of midwives who can make such a difference to the mortality rates. The position is specific. I can make a difference. It’s why we take up our oath.’
‘No TB wards?’ he qualified.
It felt like the sun was rising in my chest . . . I could feel hope like a lightening horizon beginning to show itself. ‘I will not be officially working the TB wards. I will work with pregnant women and mothers with new babies.’ I wasn’t being clever in my choice of words; I just wanted to ensure I couldn’t be trapped in a lie. I had no intention of seeking out tuberculosis patients but I couldn’t predict if I’d come into contact with some.
The Tea Gardens Page 7