by Angela Arney
But although she tried convincing herself that it was these differences which mattered, Liana never succeeded in fooling that deep inner self of the subconscious, that part within her which always saw the truth, no matter how unpalatable, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it. If she had been religious, she would perhaps have called it her soul but she was not religious and because of that did her best to deny its existence. Even so, she knew those superficial matters were not the reasons for the coolness that existed between herself and her daughter. It was not as if Eleanora did not need a confidante or warm, loving approval; she did, like any adolescent girl. But Liana knew she could not be the one to give it, was incapable of giving it, and the reason was that Eleanora looked more and more like Raul with every passing day.
Her dark, henna-red hair was now waist length, a riot of waves and curls, and her black eyes sparkled wickedly in the beauty of her face. Every feature was Raul’s – the wide, smiling mouth, firm jawline and sensuously full lips.
When she looked at her, the ghost of Raul looked back through Eleanora’s eyes and Liana’s heart tightened with pain every time. Even now, nearly sixteen years later, she still wanted to weep when she thought of her lost love. She had thought, even prayed a little sometimes to a God she did not believe in, that the passing of time would make the controlling of her emotion easier. But it had not. Her eyes still blurred with unshed tears, her heart still felt leaden. Why was it that Raul was dead to the whole world but so very much alive to her? As alive and vibrant as he had been the last day she had seen him. She knew the answer. It looked her in the face every time she looked at her. It was Eleanora.
Oh, Eleanora, if only you knew, if only I could tell you why I look away from you, why I keep my own daughter at arm’s length. It is because I am afraid that if I look too long and too hard my heart will break. We should have been so close, you and I, but the shadow of Raul drives a wedge between us, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I do love you, I do want to be close, but the monumental wilderness which is my consuming love for Raul, your true father, encircles and encloses me every day. He holds my heart fast, even from the grave.
The words she longed to say remained unspoken, and Liana looked at Eleanora helplessly.
‘Bloody boarding school! Why can’t I be a day girl?’
‘Don’t swear,’ said Liana almost automatically. She was always saying ‘Don’t swear,’ and Eleanora was always swearing. ‘Girls of your class always go to boarding school. You know Daddy agrees with me. It is supposed to be turning you into a young lady.’
‘If I didn’t go to that bloody school, I could have gone to the Hunt Ball.’ Eleanora sighed dramatically. ‘First time it’s ever been held at Broadacres, and where was I? At that bloody school, stuck in there with a lot of silly little bitches, that’s where.’
‘Eleanora!’ Liana lost her patience. ‘Even if you had been here, you wouldn’t have gone. You are too young for Hunt Balls. You will stay at that school until you are eighteen, and then we shall see.’
‘Then I shall be an opera singer.’
Liana looked up, startled. ‘An opera singer! This is a new idea! I thought you were only interested in horses.’
‘Nothing new about it. You know I like music,’ said Eleanora airily. ‘And I can play the piano well enough. Apart from singing, that is all I need to get into the Guildhall School of Music.’
She was indeed a very accomplished pianist although she never bothered to practise much because music always came so easily to her. ‘You can play the piano, yes,’ agreed Liana, ‘but I’ve never heard you sing. I didn’t know you were even interested in singing.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Mummy.’ Liana mentally winced. Eleanora blurted out the truth, and it hurt. ‘Peter says I’ve got a very good voice. He’s got lots of opera records and he knows. Miss Harris, the music teacher at school, says so, too. She’s going to arrange for me to have special singing lessons with a teacher from London.’
‘I see. Well, I’ve no objection to the extra lessons if you’re willing to work, and I’m sure your father will be pleased. But surely that is all the more reason for staying at school?’
‘Yes, but I could be a day girl, not a boarder,’ said Eleanora, returning to her original theme. Liana failed to recognize the familiar streak of determination, the same steeliness of resolve that she herself possessed.
‘You will be a boarder,’ said Liana firmly, determined not to give in.
‘You never went to boarding school.’
‘My life was quite different from yours.’
‘Yes, I know. You lived in a castle in Italy and were taught by an English governess. Daddy told me. What was it like? Why don’t we go to your castle? I’m the only girl at school with an Italian mother and I can’t tell them anything about you, because you never tell me anything.’
‘There’s nothing much to tell,’ said Liana curtly.
‘But I want to know.’
‘And I don’t want to talk about it.’ Her voice was far harsher than she had intended, for Eleanora’s words tore open the old wounds and there was no way she could explain. She looked up at her daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added on a softer note, ‘but I really can’t talk about it.’
As her mother looked up, Eleanora glimpsed something that caught at her throat. The serene, impassive mask slipped, just for a second, but it was enough to momentarily halt her in her tracks and stop her impetuous chatter. It stopped her saying that she was planning to persuade her father to take her to Italy the following summer so that she could see for herself the place where her mother had once lived. Instead, she looked down quickly and said, ‘Then it’s all right about the singing lessons?’
‘Yes, it’s all right,’ said Liana, glad to get back on to safe territory.
*
In view of her mother’s very obvious antipathy towards Italy, Eleanora modified her demands and asked to be taken to Europe the following summer, carefully omitting any mention of Italy. However, she met with considerable resistance on that front also, but stubbornly persisted. That Nicholas eventually agreed to Eleanora’s insistent demands was due in no small part to Donald and Dorothy Ramsay. Donald, partly retired now, had taken on an energetic young doctor to assist him in the practice. It gave him more time for riding and so he saw much more of Margaret. When not out hunting, they often rode miles together. Donald always enjoyed Margaret’s company; with her he could talk horses. ‘Galloping over the downs like a pair of elderly lunatics,’ said Dorothy good-humouredly.
It was from Margaret that Donald Ramsay learned that Nicholas’s desire for another child was becoming an unhealthy obsession – so much so that he and Liana were increasingly quarrelling concerning her refusal to be examined by a doctor. At Margaret’s suggestion he persuaded Nicholas to have a sperm count. Personally, although he was careful to keep this to himself, he hoped the result would be low. Then the matter would be settled once and for all, and Nicholas could stop blaming Liana.
When the result did come, it was perfectly normal. ‘Damn,’ he said coming into the kitchen and waving the pathology slip at Dorothy. ‘Nicholas could father a dozen or more children.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ replied Dorothy. She was bottling raspberries and had two enormous pans stacked with Kilner jars filled with the luscious red fruit. ‘You know, last year I had another two jars of raspberries. It’s too bad. Those pesky blackbirds have beaten me to it this year. That cat Eleanora gave me is not doing his job.’ The cat in question lay flat on his back on the window sill, exposing an enormous ginger underbelly to the sun. His four paws drooped inwards in blissful relaxation. Originally a half-wild ginger tom from Broadacres, he had very quickly decided that life with the Ramsays was much better and now spent most of his time sleeping or eating.
‘You feed him too much,’ grumbled Donald. ‘Why should he bother to catch birds? What shall I do about this?’ He waved the pathology slip again.
> ‘Why, tell Nicholas of course,’ said Dorothy tartly. ‘As his doctor you will have to tell him. Here, sit down and top and tail these gooseberries; they have to be bottled next.’ She thrust a pair of kitchen scissors into his hands.
Donald sat down and began to snip half-heartedly at the prickly gooseberries. ‘This means, of course, that there is something wrong with Liana.’
‘So?’
‘Nicholas will try to pressure her into seeing a gynaecologist.’
‘And you must stop him,’ said Dorothy firmly.
Donald sighed. ‘I’m in an impossible position. I know Nicholas desperately wants more children before it is too late, and yet I don’t want to push Liana into something she doesn’t want. On the other hand, as a doctor, I know the reason for her not conceiving might be some very small thing, something that could easily be put right. Perhaps I should speak to Liana privately before I tell Nicholas the results, try and persuade her to go for an examination of her own accord.’
‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Dorothy sat down abruptly at the kitchen table and put her raspberry-stained hands over his. ‘You might be a doctor but you are also a man, and as a man, you have no idea of how women feel about these things. We are happily married but we have no children. The worst time in my life, and the time when at one point I seriously considered leaving you, was when I was being investigated for infertility.’
Donald started in surprise. ‘But you never mentioned it.’
‘You never asked me! But I’ll tell you now. I found it undignified and humiliating to be pushed and pulled about and peered into as if I were a carcass on the butcher’s slab.’ She held up her hand to stop Donald who was about to protest. ‘Yes, I know you doctors don’t think of us as women when you are examining us – that is the way you are trained. But many doctors – especially, in my experience, the specialists – are inclined to forget we are human beings as well! And on top of that, having to take my temperature for weeks on end, then having to make love to order when the temperature was right in the vain hope of conceiving.’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘I sometimes wonder how I retained my sanity.’
Donald gazed at her, his jaw dropping open in astonishment. This was a Dorothy he had never seen before. ‘I never guessed,’ he muttered.
He looked so shamefaced that Dorothy relented and gently patted his hand. ‘That’s all behind us now. But back to Liana. In spite of all her energy, strength and resolve, I still have the feeling that it only needs some trigger to break her. There is something about her, as if something haunts her. God knows what happened to her before she came here. So for her sake, don’t force her to go through what I went through; it could destroy her. Nicholas has one child, a daughter he adores. He should be grateful for that. Make him see that another child isn’t so important, but retaining the love of his wife is.’
Donald ached with pain for his wife. All these years she had borne this and not told him. ‘I’ll persuade Nicholas to let sleeping dogs lie,’ he said. And he did.
At first Nicholas was reluctant to accept the advice but when Donald told him how Dorothy had reacted and he understood the very real possibility of losing Liana’s love he changed his mind. He could live without another child but he knew he could not live without Liana.
‘Take a holiday,’ Donald said. ‘Take Liana somewhere nice.’
Nicholas pulled a wry face. ‘You should know I can never prise Liana away from Broadacres; she sticks to the place faster than a limpet. She never wants to travel, and anyway, the gardens are being opened to the public for the first time this year. She’ll be buzzing around like a bluebottle, making certain that everything is perfect.’
Donald smiled. ‘Yes, I know about the gardens. Margaret has cut down on her riding in order to supervise the renaissance of the knot garden. Whenever I ring her, all she can talk about is the problem she is having with her linear patterns of box and teucrium! I haven’t the faintest idea of what she is talking about.’
‘Then you see my problem,’ said Nicholas.
Donald agreed. ‘Leave Liana at Broadacres. I know you are right about her never wanting to leave it.’ He paused, remembering the time he had brought the war-weary Liana to Broadacres that August evening. ‘I wish you could have been there then,’ he said, ‘the first time Liana saw the house. I’ll never forget her expression. She fell in love with it there and then, and has never stopped loving it since.’ He turned his attention back to Nicholas. ‘But you need a holiday. So, if you can’t take your wife, take that daughter of yours. I have heard rumours she wants to tour Europe.’ He raised his eyebrows and Nicholas grinned.
It was common knowledge that Eleanora was boring the Pragnells, Meg and Bruno, the Ramsays, Margaret, in fact anyone who would listen to her, with her plans for the summer of 1960. She had the route all mapped out: through France to Belgium, to Luxemburg, on to Germany and Switzerland and back. Italy was never mentioned, but like mother like daughter, she had made up her mind. Her resolve to get her own way was absolute. Once on European soil the route could be changed and Italy would be on the agenda.
*
‘You don’t mind, darling?’ Nicholas buried his face in the warm hollow of Liana’s shoulder.
Liana thought for a moment. Did she mind? She knew Eleanora was wanting to go to Europe, the rumours had of course permeated to her ears. But Italy was not included on the itinerary, thank God. Although why she should want to deny her daughter sight of her own country she did not know. What was there to be afraid of? Eleanora would never know; nobody knew. It was time to stop being afraid of wispy shadows. In fact the time was long overdue, but still the dread remained. She felt the warmth of Nicholas’s arms around her, the strength of his long body lying alongside hers. He had been good to her, this man whom she had so coldly and deliberately chosen as the father for her daughter. It was ridiculous to feel jealous of the closeness of his relationship with Eleanora. It was not his fault she was unable to get close to her own daughter. I must be glad, she thought, glad that he wants to show Eleanora Europe, a place I never want to set foot in again as long as I live. I must be glad he is braver than me.
Not once had they ever talked about the war, since living in England, but Liana knew Nicholas had been exposed to horrifying things, too. There must be some places he did not want to see. The last few weeks of the war when he had been in Germany, he had once confessed to his mother, had been ‘hellish’. Now he was contemplating going back there on holiday – to the places he had once fought in, and all because Eleanora wanted to go.
‘Of course not,’ she said smiling up at him.
He kissed her gently, his tongue sliding into her mouth with easy familiarity. Liana gave herself up to the pleasure of his mouth on hers. These days she found herself wanting him. Wrapping her legs around him, she let him slide into her and involuntarily tightened her muscles, wanting to hold on to his organ, to prolong the slow, easy pleasure. It was at such moments that she thought she did love Nicholas. They gently rocked together towards a climax and she forgot everything else but her sensual need for Nicholas.
It was only afterwards she puzzled about it, about the growing conflict in her mind, the difficulty in separating Raul and Nicholas, the difficulty in setting out her emotions clearly. But always, something deep within her eventually forced her back to the same conclusion. What she felt for Nicholas was grateful affection and a kind of physical love. But true love, real love was what she felt for Raul. He was her man, the one and only love of her life. Nothing could, or ever would, change that.
*
‘Of course, if she could have got the Queen it would have been different!’ observed Eleanora with a touch of acerbity. She was referring to Liana’s decision to open the gardens of Broadacres herself rather than to import a celebrity.
‘Don’t turn into a bitch, my dear,’ reproved her grandmother. ‘That is something your mother has never been. She is above that. She is always the perfect wife and mother.’
&nbs
p; ‘Perfect everything,’ said Eleanora mutinously. Sometimes she had the strangest feeling of wanting to smash her mother’s perfection, smash it and find out what lay beneath. But, of course, that was impossible to explain to her grandmother who would not have had the faintest idea of what she was talking about. Anyway, she hated Margaret’s being cross or disapproving and, seeing the frown on her face now, reached over and kissed her. ‘Sorry, Gran,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling grumpy: all those exams and everything at school. I need a holiday.’
‘Only a few weeks and you will be having one,’ answered her grandmother, ‘so help your mother and be a good girl.’
Eleanora hugged herself with glee at the thought. Yes, only a couple of weeks. Soon she could start counting the days and then she would be off on the adventure of a lifetime. Yes, she could afford to be generous and help her mother. Besides, she loved Broadacres, too, and felt proud of the lovely grounds and gardens. In June everything was at its best, not only the formal gardens but the estate as well. The hedgerows buzzed with insects burrowing amidst the riot of wild flowers, and in the pastures sleek horses lazily flicked their tails while wading through a sea of yellow buttercups.
‘Nowhere in the world is more beautiful than southern England in early summer,’ said Liana in her opening speech. And for once, Eleanora agreed wholeheartedly with every word she said.
All the local dignitaries came to the opening, plus, of course, carefully selected people from the world of commerce and finance. Meg, Dolly and Mary Pragnell, plus helpers from the village, were rushing about serving strawberries and champagne under brightly coloured umbrellas in a spotless stable courtyard. Terracotta pots spilling over with miniature red roses completed the transformation of the yard. Opening day was an unqualified success, and now in July the paying visitors were increasing every day. Like everything else Liana organized, it was proving to be a money-spinner, everything running as smoothly as well-oiled clockwork. Margaret was pleased and proud, and thankful, too, because, apart from a weekly round with a pair of sharp secateurs, her contribution, the knot garden, looked after itself. The rest of the gardens were looked after by three expert gardeners assisted by local boys in their spare time.