"You know how I feel about you," he said. "Isn't it obvious?"
"I have no idea."
"Aren't you curious to know?"
"It is not really of great interest to me."
"You don't give that impression."
"Then I am sorry if I misled you."
"You haven't misled me in the least, for I know a good deal about you, my dear Drusilla. After all, we have been acquainted all our lives."
"In spite of that I would say we hardly know each other."
"Then we must remedy that."
He drew me towards him with a strength I could not resist and kissed me on the lips.
I flushed and encouraged the anger that arose in me. I said, "How dare you!"
He smiled mockingly. "Because I am a very daring person."
"Then please keep your daring displays for others."
"But I want to show them to you. I want us to be good friends. I am sure that could be very pleasant for both of us."
"It would not be so for me."
"I promise you it will."
"I do not believe in your promises. Goodbye."
"Not yet," he said, taking my arm and holding it fast. "I think you like me just a little."
"Then that assumption must be due to your good opinion of yourself."
"Perhaps," he said. "But you are not indifferent to my undeniable charm."
"I do not wish to be treated in this flippant manner."
"I am not in the least flippant. I am in deadly earnest. I am very fond of you, Drusilla. You have always interested me. You are different ... so serious ... so dedicated to learning. You make me feel humble and that is such a new experience with me that I find it exciting. It is growing more and more impossible for me to hide my feelings."
"Goodbye," I said. "I shall tell the church committee that permission has been granted in the usual way."
"Stay a while," he pleaded.
"I do not wish to. I will not be treated like this."
"Your maidenly modesty is most affecting." He paused and raised his eyebrows. "But ..."
I felt myself flushing. I read the suggestions in his eyes.
I wrenched myself free and walked to the door, but he was there before me, standing with his back to it, mocking me.
"I could detain you," he said.
"You could do no such thing."
"Why not? This is my house. You came here willingly. Why should I not keep you here? Who would stop me?"
"You seem to think you are living in the Middle Ages. Is this some idea of droit de seigneur?"
"What an excellent notion! Why not?"
"You had better step out of the past, Sir Fabian. You and your family may have the idea that we in this place are your serfs, but that is not the case and if you attempt to detain me as you suggest I shall ... I shall ..."
"Bring in the law?" he asked. "Would that be wise? They probe, you know."
"What do you mean?"
He looked at me slyly and I knew he had been planning something like this. He had only been waiting for the opportunity and I, foolishly, had given it to him. He thought he had discovered a secret in my past and he was going to use it against me. I wanted to shout at him, "Fleur is not my child. She is your sister's." I almost did; but even at such a time I could not bring myself to break my promise to Lavinia.
He was so gratified at my discomfiture that he released his hold. I dashed past him out of the room and hurried down the staircase into the hall and out of the house. I did not stop running until I reached my room at the top of the rectory. I flung myself on the bed. My heart was beating furiously. I was very deeply disturbed.
I was so angry. I hated him. It was a sort of blackmaiclass="underline" I have discovered your secret. As you are the sort of girl who can have a love affair before you are out of the schoolroom, why are you so outraged when I make certain suggestions to you? It was too humiliating.
I heard the news from Mrs. Janson. Lavinia and Lady Harriet had come home.
Lavinia sent a message over. "You must come at once. I want to talk to you. Meet me in the garden where we can get right away from people."
I sensed an urgency in her message. She would not be so anxious to see me if she did not want something from me. Perhaps, I told myself, it was merely because she wanted to boast of her successes in London. But had her season been so successful? There was no news of an engagement to a duke or a marquess. I was sure Lady Harriet would aim for the highest stakes.
I was chary of going to Framling after that encounter with Fabian, and I was therefore glad that she suggested a meeting in the garden.
She was waiting for me. There was a change in her, or perhaps I had forgotten how beautiful she was. Her skin was milk-white; her catlike eyes with the dark lashes were arresting, but it was her magnificent hair that was her crowning glory. She wore it high on her head and little tendrils escaped from the mass on her forehead and in the nape of her neck. She was wearing a green gown which was most becoming to her colouring. She was, in fact, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
"Oh, hello, Drusilla," she said. "I've got so much to tell you."
"You have had a successful season?"
She grimaced. "One or two proposals, but no one Mama thought good enough."
"Lady Harriet would set high standards. None but the highest in the land for her beautiful daughter. Did you see the Queen?"
"When I was presented, and once at the opera and once at a ball for charity. She danced with Albert. Drusilla, that fire ..."
"You mean at The Firs?"
"I was so relieved."
"Lavinia! A lot of people died!"
"Those people ... well, life wasn't much for them, was it?"
"They might have thought so, and there were people there who were going to have babies, as you were. I met the mother of one of them when I went down."
"You went there?"
"I wanted to see what had happened. Polly came with me."
"All those demands for payment ..."
"Well, it was what you owed. What would you have done without her?"
"I know ... but it cost a lot and / had to find the money."
"It was your affair."
"I know, I know. But it's Janine."
"Janine? I gathered she wasn't there on the night of the fire."
"I wish she had been."
"Oh ... Lavinia!"
"You haven't heard what I'm going to tell you. It's Janine I'm worried about. I have seen her."
"So she is all right?"
"It's far from all right. There was I thinking I was free of all that and then Janine turns up."
"Did she come to see you?"
"She certainly did. There were pieces in the paper about the debutantes and I was mentioned. They called me 'the beautiful Miss Framling.' Every time they mentioned me they called me that. She must have seen it. Oh, Drusilla ... it was awful."
"How? What do you mean?"
"She's asked for money."
"Why?"
"Because she says she is very poor and I've got to help her or else ..."
"Oh no!"
"But yes. She said if I didn't, she would put a piece in the paper about Fleur."
"She couldn't."
"She could. I never liked her."
"She got you out of your trouble."
"She just took us to that dreadful place ... that awful aunt of hers who kept demanding money."
"You can't do what you did and get away without paying for it."
"I know. Well, Janine is living in London. She's got some miserable place. It's all she can afford. She said how lucky I was and she wanted me to give her fifty pounds, and then she would say nothing of what she knew about me."
"It's blackmail."
"Of course it's blackmail. You are not supposed to submit to that sort of thing, but what could I do? Mama would have been furious."
"I daresay she would have known how to deal with Janine."