‘And you’re sure it didn’t say which hotel? I could so easily go up to London …’
‘Quite sure,’ said Jane, firmly and untruthfully. Clare would want no visit from her aunt.
‘If she knew I was here, she’d come back at once,’ said Miss Carrington.
Jane looked at her curiously. Did she really not know that Clare detested her? And was her affection for Clare genuine or did she merely hanker for someone who had waited on her? Whatever the reason, she constantly spoke of Clare, whereas she seldom so much as mentioned Drew or Merry.
This was certainly fortunate as regards Merry. According to Richard, his aunt had unquestionably accepted his statement that the child was staying with relations on their mother’s side of the family. ‘All she said was, “Really? I never knew them.” And then she went on bemoaning that Clare wasn’t here. She’s aged a lot, Jane, in the five years since she lived with us; that’s really why I had to let her stay. Well, she’s a poor exchange for Clare.’
She was indeed, thought Jane, handing her a second cup of tea. But one was glad the girl had escaped and was doing well, according to Miss Gifford, much liked by the old gentleman and his nurse. Drew, too, seemed to have found the right job. If only Merry would write! She had now been gone thirteen days and Jane was beginning to feel the maids had been right in wishing to inform the police.
She had felt it especially this afternoon, when two girls who were exact contemporaries of Merry’s had sat in her office waiting to see Miss Willy. They had seemed such children: one would hardly have trusted them to be on their own in London even for a day, let alone all these nights. After seeing the head mistress they had barely restrained their giggles until out in the passage and running full tilt to … their ponies or the playing fields or the swimming pool, and then to a very good tea. Their day’s work was over except for an hour’s ‘prep’ in the evening. What would Merry be doing in the evening?
‘Don’t you see the resemblance yourself?’
‘The direct question broke Jane’s thoughts; she found she had no idea what Miss Carrington had been talking about. But the quiet, plaintive voice continued and supplied a clue. ‘Before my hair went white it was the same pale gold as Clare’s and our eyes are just the same shade of blue.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Jane heartily. Miss Carrington’s eyes were now a very faded blue but there was, if one allowed for over fifty years difference in age, some faint resemblance between her and her great-niece. Their expressions, however, were very different. Clare’s, when – as at most times – it lacked animation, was merely listless. Miss Carrington invariably looked peevishly discontented.
‘And even now, our figures are similar.’
This was sheer nonsense. Clare’s figure, on a miniature scale, was exquisite. Miss Carrington was now flat-chested and round-shouldered. But Jane hoped her smile would pass for agreement as she said: ‘You must have been an unusually pretty girl.’
‘Well, I always say “See Clare and you see me as I was”,’ said Miss Carrington, complacently.
A gruff bark outside announced that Burly and the maids were returning from the Swan.
‘I’ll just have a word with them,’ said Jane, anxious to escape.
“They’ve become very slack. They need a tight rein. You should have known this household when I ran it.’
Jane couldn’t resist saying, ‘It was beautifully run when I first came here when there was money to run it.’
‘If so, that was due to the way I trained Clare. Well, I shall take a nap before dinner – not that it’ll deserve that name.’
And she won’t be paying for it or raising a hand to get it, thought Jane, carrying the tea-tray to the kitchen. One tried to be pleasant to the old girl but really …!
Cook, Edith and Burly had just come in. Burly showed more pleasure on sighting his basket than the maids did on sighting their kitchen. They looked tired.
‘Any news?’ they both asked together.
What they hoped for most was news of Merry but information about Drew or Clare would be welcomed. Jane had nothing to offer. They nodded resignedly and began preparations for the evening meal while Jane washed up the tea things.
‘Miss C. her usual bright self?’ Cook inquired.
‘Yes, she seems quite well.’ Jane always felt guilty when she discussed the old lady with the maids but could seldom resist it. ‘She’s been telling me how fond of Clare she is.’
Edith laughed satirically. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘When she nearly worried the life out of the poor child,’ said Cook.
‘Just how?’
‘She nagged – and she never praised.’
‘It was the same with us,’ said Edith. ‘But we weren’t as sensitive as Miss Clare was. She was only sixteen then. Mind you, there weren’t any scenes. It was just pin-pricks, perpetual pin-pricks.’
And perpetual pin-pricks, Jane reflected, could amount to torture.
The telephone rang. Cook hastily answered it at the kitchen extension, hoping, Jane guessed, it would be Merry.
‘It’s for you, miss. A lady.’
Probably Miss Willy, always liable to ring up with some query. Jane said she would go into the study.
She settled herself at Rupert Carrington’s desk and lifted the receiver. A click as the kitchen receiver was replaced followed her first ‘hello’. ‘Then, over a very bad line, she heard an irate voice so inaudible that it was a full minute before she realized she was listening to Miss Gifford, telephoning from London and accusing her of a breach of faith.
‘But I did not tell Clare the old man was once a king,’ said Jane indignantly. ‘I didn’t mention it to anyone.’
“Then how does Clare know?’
‘She doesn’t.’
‘But she does. Mr Rowley says so. He came to see me this morning and was most annoyed. I can’t think what my dear mother would have said. All these years we’ve been sending people to the old gentleman! And now he’s dead.’
‘Since this morning?’
‘No, no—’
Jane eventually gathered that there were two Mr Rowleys, one dead and one annoyed. And the latter appeared to think Clare was ‘a little adventuress’.
‘Then he’s a fathead,’ said Jane.
‘A what?’
‘Oh, never mind. If the old man’s dead I suppose Clare’s lost her job?’
‘Well, she was engaged for a month and she’s to stay on for the present. And I’m not quite happy about that. Mr Charles Rowley’s rather a man-about-town, if you know what I mean.’
‘A man without what?’
‘Not without about.’
‘About what?’
‘Town – oh, never mind. It’s just that one girl I sent had an unfortunate experience with him – though she didn’t, in the end. And it was all her own fault – I mean, that she nearly had it, not that she didn’t. She was most disappointed.’ A spinsterish giggle came over the crackiing line.
Constance Gifford’s ageing, thought Jane and then said slowly and loudly: ‘Well, if this man’s annoyed with Clare and thinks she’s an adventuress he’s hardly likely to—’
Miss Gifford interrupted. ‘Oh, it was me he was annoyed with. He seemed still to like Clare. And he didn’t actually call her an adventuress. I think his phrase was “a bit of a minx”. And I thought that might make him all the more inclined … Still, I daresay it’s all right. He’s not staying at the hotel now and the nurse is. I’ll write and tell him Clare couldn’t have known – or shall I leave well alone? If it is well. I’m sure he wouldn’t force his attentions on her. And she wouldn’t encourage him, would she? After all, he’s almost middle-aged and really rather an ugly man, though with a good deal of charm. If you could …’
The high, breathy voice continued amid crackles. Jane was advised to write Clare a word of warning but on no account to say it emanated from Miss Gifford. ‘It might get back to Mr Charles Rowley, and after all these years …’ Miss Gifford
’s mother was then mentioned again and there followed a history of the Gifford Emplacement Agency since its foundation in 1892. ‘So you’ll leave me out of it, won’t you? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ said Jane. “This call must be costing you a lot.’
‘Oh, heavens, yes. Well, goodbye then. I’m sorry I misjudged you but it’s really very puzzling—’
‘Goodbye,’ said Jane firmly, hanging up. Damn the woman, how could one warn Clare without saying where the warning came from? And anyway, it was all nonsense. Clare would never encourage an elderly, ugly man-about-town – of all the ridiculous phrases! Still, perhaps one should just mention it to Richard, though what he could do about it Jane couldn’t imagine.
She went into the hall meaning to go and see him in his music room. But he had already come in and was standing by the fire beside a slim, dark, rather beautiful young woman with large appealing eyes. She wore a simple but very elegant black dress and carried a fur coat.
‘Jane, this is Violet Vernon,’ said Richard. “This is Jane Minton, Violet, who’s been so good to us.’
Violet Vemon smiled sweetly. ‘He’s told me so much about you.’
Jane thought the voice charming but found the accent over-refined, suggestive of Mayfair and high society. She shook hands while Richard amplified his introduction.
‘Violet’s a friend of my father’s.’
‘Well, ectually, we were engaged,’ said Violet.
‘What a difficult time this must be for you,’ said Jane, sympathetically. A memory was stirring of an overheard snatch of conversation …
‘She’s coming to stay with us.’ Richard avoided Jane’s eyes.
‘Ah, how nice!’ said Jane, intending it to sound as if she meant it. The memory was now fully awake. She had stood by her bedroom door and heard Richard, below, say: ‘Father didn’t even say goodbye to her.’ Clare had said: ‘Oh, poor Violet!’ Then there had been something about the rent of a flat …
So this was ‘poor Violet’.
BOOK FIVE
Richard
1
A Tall, Red-haired Young Woman …
He closed the door of his music room and flung himself down on the divan. Just how long would it be before he went raving mad? An idiotic question, of course, as madness implied escape and he felt quite sure that, in no form, would escape come his way. His father had escaped. Merry, Drew and Clare had escaped. But he, Richard, was obviously doomed, as Jane so often and so cheerfully put it, to ‘hold the fort’; the fort being a large and now very uncomfortable house which, it seemed, he had to maintain chiefly as a roof for five women.
Jane, Cook and Edith were contributing generously towards expenses. But their contributions did not enable him to settle outstanding bills, some of which could hardly remain outstanding much longer if the house was to be kept open. Then there were the bills looming ahead: rent, rates, electricity, telephone – the list was interminable. And already he had doled out half the money his father had left, just in order to ‘keep the flag flying’ – Jane again; recently she had taken to bucking him up with a fine line in military metaphors.
Aunt Winifred paid not one penny and had this morning borrowed a pound. According to her, she had been mainly dependent on her now non-existent allowance; and the rent paid to her for her house had already been spent. He doubted if all this was true but was inclined to think she believed it was, just as she now believed she and Clare had been devoted to each other. During his great-aunt’s regime at Dome House he had several times stood up to her. But how could one stand up to this frail, slightly dotty old woman? She was now, he felt, more wispish than waspish.
Violet, of course, was a guest. She had offered to pay, saying she still had some money, but he had waved the suggestion aside. It was now just a week since she had arrived – without warning; he had answered the front-door bell to find her standing outside with two suitcases. She had said: ‘Oh, Richard, I just had to see you!’ Then he had taken her to his music room and listened to her story. She had felt so lost, so lonely, and something had gone wrong about the rent of her flat. Yes, she had thought it was paid, that day he had so kindly come to see her. He asked how much she needed. But she had let the flat go; it was a furnished flat, so expensive, she’d just have to take a room somewhere. And the idea had come to her that she might find one near Rupert’s family so that if there should be any news of him … And anyway, she’d so much wanted to see Richard again. She’d felt that there was … well, ectually, a sort of sympathy between them.
Richard had felt this too, from their first meeting. Back in the summer he had gone up to London for a concert at the Albert Hall, taken a walk in Hyde Park and run into his father and Violet. She had suggested they should all have a drink at her flat. There was evidence there – possessions strewn about – that his father was staying at the flat; and afterwards his manner, when speaking of Violet as a charming woman he had known for a couple of years, made it clear that she was more than a casual friend – so clear, in fact, that Richard had not hesitated to call on her after his father’s flight, to see if she needed help. And her behaviour then had confirmed all he had thought.
But now he was not so sure. Once invited to stay at Dome House she had turned into his father’s fiancée and she sometimes gave the impression of having been a perfectly respectable fiancée. Also she’d recently, though very vaguely, mentioned her investments. Richard began to wonder if his father had been supporting her. She was certainly most unlike his own idea of a ‘kept woman’. True, it had been implicitly accepted by them both that his father had paid her rent, but might not a man offer a little linancial aid to his perfectly respectable fiancée? And anyway, did her exact status matter?
It mattered extremely. Because Violet had already made it clear to Richard that she was falling for him; and though he trusted he had not made it clear to Violet, he was undoubtedly falling for her. The idea of falling for one’s father’s ex-girl friend was distasteful, whereas falling for one’s father’s respectable fiancée was merely dishonourable and far preferable. Hence he favoured a respectable Violet.
Not that he’d yet decided how far he would let himself fall. He was careful not to meet her half-way – quarter-way, rather, that being all she’d left room for. But he did freely admit to himself that having her around made life more interesting. And she pulled her weight in the house, helping him to make beds, cook, wash up; whenever he had a job to do she was ready to join him. Also she did quite a lot for Aunt Winifred and got on well with her. This morning, the two of them had gone to have their hair washed and set. Jane, before going to Miss Willy, had driven them the necessary ten miles and he was to bring them back in time for lunch. That gave him … he reckoned he had two clear hours before he need start. Should he attempt to work?
He had absolutely no urge to. It might come if he forced himself to begin, but he felt incapable of forcing himself. Should he play the piano? But he played it so badly – and no other instrument any better. Drew had once said: ‘You criticize yourself out of existence, Richard. Be more tender to your imperfections.’ But could one lower one’s standards deliberately? And Richard disliked the word ‘tender’, equating it with sentimentality – anyway, as regards himself. Drew could be tender without being sentimental; some astringent quality in his nature stopped the rot.
He had heard from Drew that morning. He took the letter from his pocket and re-read it. Well, Drew certainly seemed dug in at Whitesea. He’d now won the confidence of Miss Whitecliff’s solicitor. Her niece, described as a trying girl, had come and gone without upsetting the ménage. Miss Whitecliff and her two ancient maids were lambs. (Ghastly old crones, Richard felt sure.) Life at White Turrets was getting more and more comfortable …
Yet Drew was unable to work on his novel, missed the family, longed for news: ‘I wrote to Clare but she hasn’t answered. It’s hard to imagine her on her own in London. You don’t think she’ll get run over or kidnapped? Such a di
thery girl, and her kind of prettiness seems to demand a top-hatted, black-moustached villain. As for Merry, I wake in the night and worry about her. If I’d got this job before she bolted I could have asked her to stay …’
Richard, too, worried about Merry, but not about Clare. They knew where Clare was – in the lap of luxury, incidentally, though it seemed unlikely she’d be there much longer. Jane had come to him with some fantastic story about … well, it sounded rather like Drew’s top-hatted villain, but Jane herself had thought it was nonsense. Anyway, he’d at once written to Clare, saying how sorry he was that her old gentleman had died, suggesting she might come home for a few days when she was free, assuring her that Aunt Winifred was no longer a serious menace, and positively begging for even a postcard from her. Well, if she didn’t want to write, that was that. She was twenty-one and not too much of a dithery girl to have pulled down a job. No, he wasn’t worried about Clare.
But Merry! Had he and Drew been wrong in not notifying the police? In two days she would have been gone three weeks – a child of fourteen! Surely she could have sent one line of news? Just the words ‘All’s well’ would have reassured him. But perhaps all wasn’t well. Oh God, worrying would get him nowhere … and he was frittering away his rare two hours of peace.
He would play his gramophone – a Beethoven quartet: the 9th, the Third Rasoumovsky, a particular favourite of his. Not as great as the Last Quartets, but he did not this morning feel entitled to any of the Last Quartets; he was not sufficiently in a state of grace. Perhaps he didn’t even deserve the 9th … but he found the record and put it on; then opened the door and looked down at the wreckage of the autumn garden. It needed to be decently put to bed for the winter but they had been without a gardener since the late summer and could not now consider employing one. He must do some tidying up; perhaps Violet would help him, though he doubted if she had any shoes with heels less than three inches high. Anyway, he wasn’t going to think of Violet now or of anyone or anything else except the music.