‘She was most insistent that you came too,’ said Dimpsie as we turned into the drive that led to Shottestone. ‘Perhaps she’s having a drinks party and needs help with the canapés.’
I wondered whether to tell her about Rafe and me. All night, whether waking or dreaming, my brain had struggled to find the right words to explain why I could not marry him. Each time, the expression of pain and disappointment I imagined on his noble, dear – supremely noble, infinitely dear – face nearly killed me. At dawn I had cried hot tears of misery into Siggy’s comforting flank. Evelyn might scorn my inferior pedigree all she liked. The angry speech she was no doubt preparing this very moment worried me hardly at all. Of course she would accuse me of ingratitude, duplicity and presumption, but I would be able to set her mind at rest on that score. However much she was hating me now, she could not hate me more than I did myself.
‘I’m afraid it’s going to be something rather unpleasant,’ I said, feeling that perhaps I ought to prepare her. ‘Yesterday Rafe and I … look out!’
There was a delay while Dimpsie apologized to the gardener whose wheelbarrow she had run into, then we were on our way up to the front door and there was no time for explanations. The strange noise coming from the front of the car turned out to be half a rake that had wedged itself under our bumper.
‘Good morning, Mrs Savage.’ Spendlove opened the car door on Dimpsie’s side. ‘A very good morning, isn’t it? I might venture to say the best I’ve seen for a good many years. How are you, Miss Marigold?’ He scampered round to my side. ‘A happy day indeed.’
I smiled weakly.
‘Madam is in the drawing room.’ Spendlove winked hard at me. ‘With Mr Preston and Mr Rafe.’ He skipped across the hall, flung open the door and trumpeted our names as though we were persons of consequence.
‘Marigold!’ Evelyn came to greet me arms held wide. ‘Darling! We’re so thrilled!’ She enfolded me in her scented embrace. I wondered if fatigue and anxiety were making me hallucinate. ‘Kingsley and I have always been so proud of you and now you are to be one of us.’
Rafe went to kiss Dimpsie. ‘I hope you approve of me as your son-in-law.’ It was clear that he expected an answer in the affirmative, but this was reasonable. After all, I was the daughter of an impoverished philanderer and he was a member of one of the oldest families in the county and heir to a large estate.
Dimpsie looked at me. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You haven’t told your mother?’ Evelyn patted my cheek. Though her usual immaculate self, I noticed she had dark circles under her eyes as though she too had slept badly. ‘Naughty girl. But perhaps you wanted to be sure that Kingsley and I approved before getting up Dimpsie’s hopes? In which case that was very wise of you, my dear, and proof, if we needed any, that you have grown into a thoroughly sensible and intelligent young woman.’
‘You mean you don’t mind?’ I had counted on Evelyn as my greatest, though unwitting, ally.
‘Well, darling, though I must admit at first I was inclined … we had expected that Rafe would choose someone of his own—’
‘Mother!’ Rafe’s voice was peremptory.
‘Oh, surely we know each other well enough to be frank?’ Evelyn took my hand and looked into my face almost pleadingly. ‘Haven’t I always treated you like my own daughter? But the mistress of Shottestone must have certain … qualities.’ She made a jerking movement with her chin and neck like a snake attempting to swallow its victim whole. ‘Which I’m certain you possess, my darling. You are an exceptionally graceful and lovely young woman, and not without erudition. And anything lacking, I can teach you myself,’ she added, rather spoiling the compliment.
‘This is all nonsense,’ said Rafe almost roughly. ‘Good heavens, this isn’t Chatsworth. It’s hardly more than a glorified farm. If Marigold doesn’t mind the considerable inconveniences of living here – inadequate central heating and a fitful hot water supply just for starters – I shall think myself extremely fortunate.’
‘You will inherit my collection of first-period Worcester,’ Evelyn said, with some emotion.
‘Oh … thank you.’ I was desperately trying to remember some of the sentences I had composed during the long reaches of the night which would make clear the absolute impossibility of combining marriage and my career. I was distracted by Dimpsie, who broke into violent sobbing.
‘Marigold! You and Rafe! Oh, I can’t … believe it! Just when I thought … I had nothing left to live for. Oh, this is too wonderful …’
Evelyn put her arms round my mother and guided her to a sofa. Kingsley flapped his arms and grimaced in alarm as Dimpsie howled like a baby.
‘Your mother’s been under enormous strain,’ Rafe said in a low voice to me. ‘This is all about your father really, isn’t it?’
I nodded, grateful for his understanding. Honestly, the man was making it more impossible every minute. He was a saint, an angel, a pattern of perfection.
‘Someone ring the bell for Spendlove,’ said Evelyn when she had succeeded in stemming the flow of Dimpsie’s tears. ‘We must celebrate.’
He must have been hovering outside the door, for he appeared in seconds with the customary champagne. My stomach, queasy with exhaustion and distress, revolted at the sight of it. ‘Mrs Capstick says she couldn’t be more pleased, not if someone had given her ten thousand pounds,’ whispered Spendlove as he handed me my glass. ‘I left her in the kitchen with her apron at her eyes.’
‘To Rafe and Marigold.’ Evelyn lifted her glass, smiling bravely.
‘To Rafe and Marigold,’ echoed Dimpsie, her face shining with happiness.
‘To Rafe and … ah,’ Kingsley looked perplexed.
I seemed to be standing at a crossroads. In my imagination I looked one way, saw myself married to Rafe and living at Shottestone. I saw a boy who looked like Rafe, fair and straight-backed and clear-eyed, and a pale little girl with red hair and a tendency to let her powers of invention carry her away. I saw myself coming downstairs, having kissed them a tender goodnight, and going into the drawing room – perhaps a little shabbier now but more lovely than ever – for a glass of sherry before dinner. I saw Evelyn, older and rather frail but her wits still sharp, smile at me over her bulb catalogues as she planned the spring borders. I saw Rafe reading aloud to us something from the newspaper that had amused him. I saw him happy in all his occupations with farm and estate, his demons banished, tolerant of his wife’s inability to make anything but a muddle of Red Cross committee meetings … the vision became a little blurred. But the scene changed and I saw myself walking across the valley to our old house where Dimpsie still lived, busy and cheerful, a much-loved mother and grandmother. I saw her before an easel in the drawing room which had been converted into a studio, painting with a passion. I saw her come to greet me, her face alight with inspiration.
I looked down another road. I saw myself standing in the wings beside Miko Lubikoff, waiting for my entrance. Fate had been kind to me. I had recovered my former strength, avoided further serious injury, and the critics had been on my side. I had worked and starved and suffered, narrowing my sights to the one great goal. I had had more than my share of luck and was invited all over the world to dance in the most coveted roles. For ten or perhaps fifteen years this life would be mine, before I grew too old and had to resign myself to teaching girls whose eyes were fastened on the same prize. But I so ardently desired that it should be mine, at least for a time! Then I saw in my mind’s eye my mother, a wretched slattern, lying on the sofa in the dirty, echoing house, a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. I saw Rafe racked by headaches, suffering the torment of rejection, perhaps in his dejection marrying some hard-faced, cold-hearted, socially ambitious debutante who did not love him.
I looked down the third road and saw myself dancing in the corps de ballet of third-or fourth-rate companies, in daily agony with my intractable foot, disappointed and bitter, all my dreams destroyed. Nights spent in cheap lodging houses, saving c
oins for the meter, boiling up sausage rings for sustenance, exchanging my body for more infrequent roles. I saw Dimpsie lying on the sofa with an empty bottle of pills in her hand and a note propped up on the chimneypiece …
‘I’m so proud, darling.’ Rafe kissed my brow tenderly.
I tried to smile. ‘You’re all very kind. I don’t think I deserve it.’
I drank a little of the champagne, which tasted like poison, and winked back a tear. I drank a little more and vowed that not a soul in the world should ever guess that there had been sacrifice. What was more, I would teach myself that no sacrifice had been made until I had learned the lesson thoroughly by heart.
22
‘You’re being admirably restrained, darling.’ Rafe slowed as we approached another stiff climb. ‘But you’re squeaking at every bend. It’s rather sweet, like a nestling cheeping. I can stand a little more volume if it helps.’
We were on the road to Hindleep. Conrad and Isobel had returned from London that morning and had asked us to tea. We were to take Isobel back to Shottestone afterwards.
I was trying as hard as I knew how to distract myself from visions of annihilation. Most of the snow had disappeared in the last few days and the countryside was blindingly green, pulsating with unfurling buds and leaves, nest-building and egg-laying and all those spring-like things.
‘Do you think Isobel will be pleased?’ I asked. ‘About us, I mean?’
‘You asked me that before. Of course she’ll be delighted. It was she who suggested it in the first place. Not that I hadn’t thought of it for myself, of course,’ he added quickly. ‘What I meant was, Isobel was the first to put it into words.’
This was reassuring. When I wasn’t worrying about Dimpsie, money, Siggy (who was showing signs of cabin fever) and measuring up to being Rafe’s wife and eventually mistress of Shottestone, I worried that Isobel would resent me sharing the limelight with her as a newly-engaged-and-about-to-be-married person. I twisted the ring on my finger. It had belonged to Rafe’s grandmother and, since her death, had been kept in the bank until he should select a bride. It was dazzlingly beautiful and the most – in fact the only – valuable present I had ever been given, but it was much too big. We were to take it to a jeweller’s in Newcastle next week to have it made smaller; meanwhile Rafe said he liked to see me wearing it. To stop it sliding off, I wore an old ring of my own next to it. The little circle of peridots I had paid a pound for at a jumble sale looked ridiculous beside the enormous square-cut diamond, which constantly slid round into the palm of my hand.
‘All the same,’ said Rafe, ‘I think I’d like to tell her myself, if you don’t mind. When there aren’t hordes of people around.’
‘Oh yes. Whatever you want.’ I fell silent for a while, musing. Then I said, ‘It’s none of my business, I know, but don’t you think it’s a bit odd that Isobel never stays with Conrad at Hindleep? Presumably Evelyn wouldn’t mind as she doesn’t object to them going off to London together.’
‘Isobel may be pretty much a free spirit – in fact she’s a little hooligan sometimes – but she knows better than to make tongues wag.’
‘You mean she isn’t going to spend the night with Conrad because of what people might say?’ I could not keep the amazement out of my voice.
‘Darling, you’ve forgotten what it’s like in the country. Everyone knows everyone else’s business, and what they don’t know they make up.’
‘I can well believe it, but I don’t see why that should make one behave any differently.’
‘Ah well, but you see being a member of an important family – I only mean important in this part of Northumberland, don’t think I’ve got delusions of grandeur – one has an obligation to observe the conventions.’
‘Oh.’
‘People look up to us and in a sort of way, by example, you know, we set standards of behaviour.’
I knew instantly that I could never be a beacon of good conduct, even had I been going to marry the prince of Wales.
‘That’s why, darling, I’d like you to put in an appearance at church on Sunday. It’ll look better if you’ve already been a few times before the banns are read.’
This was said in the lightest possible tone, to which only the most unreasonable person could object.
‘But I’ve never ever been to a church service, not even as a child. Tom’s a staunch atheist and he wouldn’t let Dimpsie take us, though she sort of believes.’
‘Never mind. The rector won’t quibble about marrying you, however lately you’ve joined his flock. You’ll be a brand snatched from the burning. Anyway, he’s much too frightened of Evelyn. You were christened, I suppose.’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well, I expect he’ll insist on that.’
‘But I’m not a practising Christian. I mean, I do believe in God and I pray quite often – mostly, I admit, when I want something – but I don’t think I believe in vestments and wafers and prayer books and Sabbath observances. I thought we were going to be married in a register office.’
Rafe sighed. ‘It’s what we’d both have liked, I know. But Evelyn won’t hear of it. She says it would look as though we were ashamed of you. Which,’ he turned his head to look at me, ‘we most emphatically are not.’
‘Mind that tree!’
‘Certainly I’ll mind it. I’ve no intention of killing you, or myself either.’ He sounded annoyed and I forgave him completely because it is infuriating to be nagged when you know you are doing something perfectly competently.
‘Sorry. Once when we were on tour in Austria our coach hit a truck on a road a bit like this but higher. We skidded right to the edge. The door jammed so we couldn’t get out until they’d fetched someone to unjam it.’ I felt myself growing hot and cold just talking about it. ‘I was sitting right at the back and the coach was nearly on its side, leaning over the valley—’
‘And you’ve been terrified of cars ever since. I wish you’d told me before.’ Rafe put his hand comfortingly on my knee. I would have preferred him to keep both hands on the wheel, but naturally I did not say so. ‘My poor darling! I’ll drive extra slowly and carefully now I know. What a lot we have to learn about each other. Won’t it be fun finding out?’
It occurred to me then that this – not knowing much about each other, I mean – was not only true but, these days, unusual. Though I had been acquainted with Rafe all my life, our relationship until these last six weeks had consisted of a few teasing remarks on his part and a corresponding number of blushes on mine. So why had we rushed into an engagement? There had been no contractual obligation to join two great estates or to prevent nations going to war. When Dimpsie and I had driven over to Shottestone at Evelyn’s behest, it had seemed to my exhausted, troubled mind that I had to choose between marrying Rafe or returning to London. It had not occurred to me then to plead for a postponement of the decision.
But there could be no going back now. Anyway, I had no desire to. I was marrying the person I loved best in the world and I was rejoicing in the luxury of having all to myself a man – and such a man! – who considered my wishes and was anxious for my comfort. I continually marvelled at my good fortune and vowed to deserve it. ‘Yes, won’t it?’
‘Oh, and while we’re on the subject, Evelyn thinks we’d better have the reception at Shottestone. Your house, though delightful in every way, would be much too small. I shouldn’t think Dimpsie’ll mind, will she?’
‘Not a bit. I expect she’ll be relieved, if anything. But it won’t be a very big wedding, will it?’
‘Evelyn’s basing her calculations on about three hundred and fifty guests.’
‘Three hundred and …’ Hearing the sudden anguish in my voice, Buster began to bark. ‘Shush, Buster!’ I tightened my grip on his paw. ‘Rafe! I don’t know three hundred people. At least not well enough to invite them to my wedding. There are sixty-five in the company, but they aren’t all close friends. I don’t suppose I know more than thirty people who wouldn’t
be surprised to be asked.’
‘It’s all right, darling.’ Rafe spoke soothingly. ‘Most of the guests will be friends of my parents, families we’ve always known. And our tenants, of course, but there won’t be room for them in the church. They’ll have to have the service relayed by loudspeakers to the village hall. You’ll be able to ask all of your friends, naturally, and Dimpsie all hers, but the majority will be the county bigwigs. It’ll be a terrible bore but they’ll expect to come.’
‘But my father won’t be able to afford it.’
‘No, my love, but there’s no need for you to worry. It’ll come out of the estate. It’s very often done when the bride’s family is not quite as well off as the groom’s.’
I realized he was trying to slide over the subject to save my feelings which was sweet of him. ‘You mean Kingsley’s going to pay?’
‘What does it matter who pays as long as we get married? You mustn’t mind. No one will know except your parents and mine.’
‘I don’t have any false pride about it, if that’s what you mean. I’ve always been too poor for that. But won’t it cost a ridiculous amount of money? They’ll all have to have something to eat and drink, I suppose.’
‘Don’t give it a thought. Evelyn’ll see to everything. She’ll consult Dimpsie, of course,’ he added.
I could imagine how much consulting would take place. Dimpsie would have as much idea about how to organize a county wedding as about how to construct an atom bomb.
‘Couldn’t we do what you said and just go and get married somewhere quiet and then tell everyone afterwards? It would save so much trouble and expense.’
‘Yes, but I said that before I’d really thought about it. Having talked it over with my mother, I can see that it would look as though there was something hole-in-corner … as though there was something not quite … comme il faut about our marriage. I’m so proud of you, darling. I want the world to see you walk up the aisle looking staggeringly beautiful.’
Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs Page 28