“I suppose so. It wasn’t really important in any case.”
“I should like to show you my house. It is small by the standards of your family home. My brother used it as a pied á terre, and as he was a confirmed bachelor I suppose it sufficed.”
He took my arm and I felt as though I danced along those streets. The house was in a quiet little cul de sac. There was a row of Georgian houses with a garden opposite.
“It’s charming,” I said.
“Yes. My brother had elegant tastes and liked to indulge in the comforts of life.”
“Who looks after the house for you? Have you servants?”
“There is a basement in which live Mr. and Mrs. Evers. They as they say ‘do’ for me. It’s an excellent arrangement. Everything is looked after. Mrs. Evers is a good cook and their great virtue is that they don’t intrude. My brother taught them that. They appear like Aladdin’s genie when called on. Otherwise they remain tucked away with their lamp, which is of course in their basement apartment.”
“How fortunate you are. I often think we are plagued by our servants. They note everything we do, embellish it, garnish it and serve it up as salacious titbits.”
“I am free of such observation. It can be very comforting.”
He opened the door with a key and we stepped into the hall. There was a grandfather clock and an oak chest on which stood a big brass bowl, very highly polished. The silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock. I thought to myself: I ought not to have come.
He turned and faced me.
“It is a wonderful moment for me,” he said, “to have you here … in this house.”
“I’m longing to see it.”
“Here is the dining room and the kitchen, and on the next floor a drawing room and study, on the next two bedrooms. It is quite small, you see, but enough for my needs.”
“And you have the estate in Cornwall. I take it you will be living there most of the time.”
He took me up to the drawing room. It had big windows, reaching from floor to ceiling. The apple green drapes were trimmed with gold braid and the furnishings were a deeper shade of green. The furniture was elegant in the extreme.
“Let me take your cloak,” he said, and did so, throwing it over the back of a chair. We stood facing each other and suddenly he put his arms round me and kissed me.
For a moment I did not resist. I had forgotten everything in the acute pleasure such as I had never experienced before.
Then I withdrew myself trying to give the impression that what had passed between us was nothing more than a friendly greeting. It was a poor pretence.
He said: “It is no use trying to pretend this does not exist, is it?”
“What?” I retorted sharply.
“This—between us—you and me. It’s there, isn’t it? Wasn’t it there right from the beginning? You were only a child but I knew. Of course it seemed ridiculous then. You a little girl… Myself a man who had abandoned everything to go off with the gypsies. I can’t tell you how I regretted that when I saw you. Do you remember?”
“Well… vaguely. You were sitting under a tree wearing an orange shirt. You had a guitar. Do you still play it?”
“Now and then. I was playing a part, playing at being a gypsy.”
“You had gold rings in your ears.”
“Yes. I worked hard at it. When I saw you I thought I had never seen anyone quite like you.”
“I certainly had never seen anyone like you. But then I knew little of gypsies.”
“I thought: I shouldn’t be meeting her like this. It should be at a ball and she should be older. She should be seventeen, her first ball, and she should have the first dance with me. I realized then what I had done by throwing away my old way of life, my background, everything … just for a whim.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true, I swear.”
“But you did not go back to your home.”
“You know the pride of the young. They take a step and refuse to see that it is folly. I was determined to go on with what I had begun, but I never forgot you. And then … there I was in danger of losing my life and you came to save it. Doesn’t that show that you and I were meant to be a great deal to each other?”
“I don’t know about such things. Perhaps I don’t believe that anything is meant. Things are what we make them.”
He said slowly: “I am not going to let you go now I have found you.”
“I daresay you will visit us. You are Tamarisk’s father. You will want to see her and she will probably want to see you.”
“I was not thinking of that. I love you. I always have. I used to think of you on that fearful ship and later in my hut. I used to come out at night and look at the stars overhead. I used to imagine that you, too, would be looking at the stars and they would be different from the ones I saw. We were on opposite sides of the world. We should be together always.”
“I think I should go,” I said. “Show me the house quickly and I will get on with my shopping.”
He rose, took my hands, and pulled me up beside him. For a moment we stood very close. I felt an extraordinary lassitude creeping over me. I was unsure what it meant except that it was a warning. I ought to get out of this house as quickly as possible.
We mounted the stairs, he leading the way.
“Small, as I told you,” he was saying. “But compact.”
We had reached a landing and he threw open a door. There was a large bedroom with a four-poster bed. The curtains were of green velvet; they matched the drapes at the window and there were touches of green in the carpet.
“Your brother was very fond of green,” I said.
“His favourite colour obviously. Do you like it?”
“Enchanting. It’s so fresh.”
He shut the door and I said: “Show me the next room. Then I must go.”
He put his arms round me and pulled me down to sit on the bed. “What are you doing with your life?” he said.
I laughed on a rather high note. “I believe,” I answered, “that I am doing what most people do with their lives. I am living it.”
“You are living in a half world, Jessica. You have shut yourself away from reality.”
“My life is real enough.”
“You are merely existing. Why did you do it?”
I turned rather angrily to him. “I had to do it. Why did you leave your home and become a gypsy? Why did you kill a man for the sake of a girl and almost lose your life for it?”
“Why do we do these things? But having done them should we suffer for them for ever?”
“You won’t. You have cast your misfortunes aside admirably. I shall never forget how you looked at the Inskips’ ball. No one would have guessed.”
“One doesn’t have to live for ever with one’s mistakes. You cannot shut yourself away. You can’t just wither away in that place.”
“I’m not withering away. I am living a very useful life.”
“Now that I have found you, you don’t imagine that I am going to let you go.”
I was shaken. I wanted to hear him say that. I should have gone then … but I could not. More than anything I wanted to stay.
I replied: “I have made my bed, as they say, and I must lie on it.”
He shook his head. “You and I will find happiness together.”
“How can that be?”
He drew me to him and kissed me over and over again.
No, said my conscience. But something else said: Stay. Why shouldn’t you? What harm is it doing?
Harm! But I was married to Edward.
Edward would not know.
That was the danger signal. I was actually telling myself that Edward need never know. I felt quite depraved and with it a sensation of great excitement. I knew in that moment that I was going to succumb to temptation.
He went on kissing me.
“It had to be,” he said.
I made no effort to break away.
“Please, Jessica,” he said, “I have dreamed of this for so many years. It has sustained me … brought me through. One day I shall find her, I told myself. And now I have, I shall never let you go.”