“It’s unfair.”
“I know. Life is unfair. I can’t help it. I’m ashamed it ever happened. I don’t want her and I don’t want the child.”
“All you wanted was what she could bring you.” It was the familiar theme. I had harped on it so many times before. I said: “I’m sorry, but it is cruel to a little child who is in no way to blame for what his parents are.”
“You’re right,” he said. “If only you were here … how much happier we should all be.”
He meant if only I were the mistress of this house and mother of his children. It could not be. The house itself prevented that. Time and weather had taken its toll and the house had cried out for the Arkwright fortune—and so the present situation had been created.
“I must go,” I said. “I see that. Soon I must go.”
“It has been wonderful to have you here,” Paul told me. “Even in these circumstances.”
I only repeated that I must go.
I often wondered of how much Cousin Mary was aware as she lay in her bed. She slept for the greater part of the time, but when she was awake I contrived to sit by her bed.
“I shan’t be like this forever,” she said to me.
“No, Cousin Mary,” I replied. But I wondered.
We seemed to be settling into a routine. I walked a little in the gardens. Paul used to watch for me, I believe, for he often came out to join me. We would walk among the flower-beds.
He said: “What is going to be the end of all this?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see into the future.”
“Sometimes we can make the future.”
“What could we do?”
“Find some means …”
“I used to think I should go away … but now I know I must stay with Cousin Mary as long as she needs me.”
“You must never go away from me.”
I said: “There is nothing we can do.”
“There is always a way,” he said.
“If only one could find it.”
“We could find it together.”
Once I thought I saw Gwennie at a window watching us and later that day when I passed through the gallery she was there. She was standing beside one of the pictures. It was a Landower ancestor who bore a resemblance to Paul.
“Interesting, these pictures,” she said. “Fancy them being painted all those years ago. Clever, these painters. They bring out the character. I reckon some of them got up to something in their time.”
I did not answer but gazed at the picture.
A look of cupidity came into her eyes. She said: “I’d like to find out. I reckon there’d be some tales. But most of them are dead and gone … I’d rather know what goes on among the living. I reckon there’d be some revealing, don’t you?”
I said coolly: “I daresay you have some records of what happened in the family.”
“Oh, it’s not the dead ones I’m so interested in.”
There was a gleam in her eyes now. What was she hinting? I had heard that she was insatiably curious about the affairs of her servants. How much more so would she be concerning her own husband!
I must get away from Landower.
Cousin Mary seemed to sense my feeling.
“I want to go back,” she said.
“I know,” I answered. “I’ll speak to the doctor.”
“I’ll speak to him now,” said Cousin Mary.
She did, and as a result he had a conference with Paul and me.
“I think she had better be moved,” said the doctor. “It’s a bit tricky, but she is fretting for her home and I think she should be at peace with herself.”
Paul protested. He wanted us to remain in the house. He insisted that it would be highly dangerous to move her.
The doctor however said: “There is nothing to be done for her. We can at least give her peace of mind. That will be best for her.”
So it was arranged.
They put her on a stretcher which seemed to be the best way of carrying her and they took her back to Tressidor.
Cousin’s Mary’s condition improved a little. She could not move from her bed but she was becoming more like her lively self. Whatever had happened to her body had not impaired her brain.
I was constantly with her. The days were taken up with work and I was glad of this because I did not want time to think of the future. I knew she would never walk again and I wondered what effect that would have eventually even on her spirits. In spite of myself I was getting more and more involved with Paul. He called often to ask after Cousin Mary and he always contrived to be alone with me.
I was glad to see Jago. He supplied the right sort of balm which I needed. He could never be morbid and it was good to be able to laugh now and then.
When I asked him about the machinery he said: “It’s all in the melting pot. But I have my hopes. You’ll hear in due course.”
I didn’t believe him, but before long he was away again, looking mysterious, and even more pleased with himself than he usually was.
Spring had come. Olivia wrote often and I still detected a note of something like wistfulness in what she wrote, and occasionally I fancied I caught a whiff of fear. If I could have left Cousin Mary, I should have gone to her.
April was a lovely month, I always thought—particularly in Lancarron. There was a great deal of rain, showers which would be followed by brilliant sunshine, and I liked to walk in the gardens after the rain had stopped. I rode often and sometimes walked. I went past fields of corn where the speedwells grew a vivid blue and in the lanes where the horse-chestnuts were in flower. Another year had gone. It was nearly six since that Jubilee which had been so fateful for me. I was now twenty. Most young women were married at my age.
It was a thought which must have occurred to Cousin Mary for as I sat by her bed she said: “I should like to see you married, Caroline.”
“Oh, Cousin Mary. I thought you extolled the joys of single blessedness.”
“It can be blessed of course, but it is, I suppose, an alternative.”
“You’re weakening. You really think marriage is the ideal state?”
“I suppose I do.”
“For example, take my mother and your cousin. Think of Paul and Gwennie Landower … and perhaps my sister Olivia and Jeremy. What an ideal state they have worked themselves into!”
“They’re exceptions.”
“Are they? They are the people I know best.”
“It does work sometimes. It would … with sensible people.”
“You think I would be sensible.”
“Yes, I think you would.”
“I’m not sure of that at all. I nearly married Jeremy Brandon, being completely deluded into thinking I was what he wanted. It never occurred to me that I was an investment. What a lucky escape! And that was entirely due to my good fortune rather than any good sense I possessed.”
“You wouldn’t make the same mistake again.”
“People are notoriously foolish in these matters.”
“I wish things could have been different here.”
“What do you mean? You have done so much for me.”
“Nonsense! I’ve had you here because I wanted you to be here. Look at me now … a burden to you.”
“Don’t dare say such a thing! It is ridiculous and quite untrue.”
“Just at the moment perhaps you feel like that. But how long am I going on like this, eh? You don’t know. It could be for years. I don’t want to tie you to an invalid.”
“I am here because I want to be here.”
“I wish the right man would come along.”
“I wouldn’t have believed that of you, Cousin Mary. Are you still thinking of shining knights on chargers? I’m happy here. I love the work I am doing. I feel … useful. You’ve done everything for me, Cousin Mary. Now no more of this talk, please.”