Brides of Aberdar (18 page)

The lovely land was spread out below them, a patchwork of fields, feather-stitched within their neat green hedges, dotted with farms and cottages and little clumps of trees. The countryman in him could not help reflecting that the two estates marching together, divided only by the little river, would add up to a delectable piece of property; nor was there any thought in his mind of the huge increase in value that would accrue. On the other hand… He forced himself to speak warmly to her through his chill fears. ‘It would be a happy—alliance—for you, Christine. So close to home.’ A new hope arose in him. ‘You need never leave the Manor.’ Would the old house relent if she made no move to leave it? He knew that past history would prove to him that such a hope was in vain, but it remained something to cling to. ‘You’ve loved him always, haven’t you? Since you were a little girl, playing in the woods across the Dar…’

‘Oh, Hil—suppose I should lose him! Lyneth says—’

‘What does Lyneth say?’ he asked sharply.

‘She says that he said the same to
her
, last night—that he could dance with her for ever.’

Now indeed his heart began to shake. Was trouble building up already for this, the more vulnerable of his two pretty darlings? ‘Young men say such things lightly. It’s just a regulation compliment, I daresay. What is more important is what he said about his father. And you know what a tease Lyneth is.’

‘She wouldn’t tease me about such a thing as this. She knows how much I love him; I could never love anyone else. And you know she has always loved Arthur—well, sort of loved him. He adores
her
.’

Her cousin. Not that, not that! ‘I don’t think that’s very serious, Christine. A boy and girl infatuation.’

‘Are Lawrence and me a boy and girl infatuation? I don’t think
I
am.’

‘Ah, no, my ever-serious Christine! When you love, where you love—that’s all too likely to be for ever. But Lyneth—she’ll dance her way through the next year or two till she makes up her mind between a dozen adorers. I don’t think she’s ready yet to dance with any one person “for ever”.’

She walked close to him down the leafy lane, clinging to his arm, her silky head touching his shoulder. ‘But if he should be one of the adorers! I think that Lawrence is a for-ever person too. He said that when we were little girls we were so much alike that he never quite knew which he loved the best,
I
knew,’ she said wistfully. ‘I knew when I was six years old, I can remember always loving Lawrence. But Lyn—supposing when she
is
ready to dance with one person “for ever”, it’s Lawrence.’

‘Lyn has her own way too much,’ said Hil. ‘They all spoil her and you spoil her too, Christine, always giving way to her—’

She interrupted, she said quickly: ‘I wouldn’t give way about Lawrence. I wouldn’t let her take Lawrence away from me, even if she begged me to let him go; not if he loved me. Other things don’t matter, she wants things so
much
when she wants them. I don’t want things like Lyn does, I don’t really care about a wreath of roses or a wreath of feather-flowers; or this dress or the other one—why shouldn’t she have what she wants so much more than I want it? But with Lawrence—that’s different. I wouldn’t give way about that, that’s something I do care about. Only… Suppose she
really
wanted him. And suppose he wanted her!’

She had said that she would fight and she fought. But what weapons were available between two devoted sisters, intent upon gaining the love of the same young man? ‘Oh, Christine, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, dearest, I know that you love him, but what can I do? If he loves
me
…’

‘You want him because I want him, Lyn. You’ve always wanted anything I had and now with Lawrence, it’s the same all over again. But this time, I can’t, I won’t let him go.’

‘But, darling, we can’t order him to love you!’

‘He does love me, he’s always loved me. At our coming-out ball—’

Hil spoke seriously to Lyn; unwisely, for the message went straight back to Tetty. ‘
You
don’t think, Tetty, that I’ve fallen in love with Lawrence because Christine wants him?’

‘Are you two girls mad? There’s a dozen already at your feet; Lawrence Jones is not the only young man in the world. You, you foolish child, think what you could yet become—a great lady, a very marchioness, and these things aren’t to be despised, Lyneth. Why should you tie yourself down to a boy you’ve known all your life, and to Plas Dar just across the river, no change, no excitement?—when you might go out into the great world. Let Christine have Lawrence. No, since you ask me, I’m
not
sure that you don’t want Lawrence only because you don’t want Christine to win him over you—?’

‘That’s what Hil says.’

And at that name, once again the old iron perversity clamped down upon them all. ‘—though of course, my child, you can’t help it if it’s you that Lawrence prefers. He is not just a bone for two sisters to be quarrelling over, and if you truly love him, Lyneth—’

‘Tetty, you can’t believe how much I adore him! Only it’s so terrible if Christine loves him too.’

‘Well, neither of you can go and propose to Lawrence! It’s simply a matter of his declaring to one or other of you. Or to neither of you!’

‘Oh, Tetty, I shall die if he doesn’t!’

But Christine also must ‘die if he didn’t’—did, in fact, every day die a little in her heart as his easy, young-man’s love allowed itself to be gradually divided between two identically pretty and charming girls, ever more away from the gentle, unassuming one with her almost overt acknowledgement of her love, to the laughing, teasing, only too possibly unattainable, deliciously unpredictable twin. And on their eighteenth birthday…

Not a great ball this time, as at their coming-out: just a small party for friends from the closer neighbourhood, but with the ballroom opened for dancing and the air of excitement pervading all the day, that Tante Louise well knew how to whip up: Madame dearly loved to exercise her talents in contributing to an ‘occasion’. And no question now as to which sister should wear this dress or that, this head-dress or that, this or that pair of slippers. Lyneth having made her one great claim, no longer argued over the petty ones: nor need she, since Christine, listless, uncaring, expressed no choice, accepted what was with genuine love and caring pressed upon her. ‘
You
have the pink dress, darling, it will give you some colour, light up your face; you’re so pale, darling, you’re sure you’re not unwell?’ Nevertheless, Lyn went no more to visit Hil these days, who would have given a stern answer to her anxieties about her sister, which she did not dare to provoke.

Dressing for the party seated before her mirror, Lyneth in all her radiant loveliness, soft fair hair curling deliciously, blue eyes bright with the innocent delight of a young girl at the height of her triumphs. Christine came through to her there. ‘Oh, darling, you’re dressed already? You look lovely, I knew the pink dress would suit you…’

They had separate rooms now, in the main part of the house, decorated with all the ex-Parisienne’s taste and charm. Christine sat down on a small gilded chair beside the dressing-table with its curlicued mirror, its pretty china boxes and pots, the pearl-backed brushes and combs.

‘Lyneth—will Lawrence propose to you tonight?’

‘Propose? Darling, how do I know? Perhaps he’ll propose to
you
!’

‘If he proposed to you—will you accept him?’

She turned away from the mirror, faced her sister directly, her hands clasped in the lap of the billowing white dress. She said simply: ‘I know you love him, Christine—but so do I.’

‘Do you love him truly, Lyn? Do you love him like I do? I’ve loved him all my life, I don’t know any other love, I could never know any other…’ She put her hand to her heart in a movement almost of fierceness. ‘My loving him is—a sort of part of me, if I lose him I think all this—all this part of me will almost literally die. There’s no other life for me, nothing else to care for or care about—I might as well be dead.’

‘Oh, Christine—oh, darling!’

‘So I have to know, Lyn. If he loves you, if you love him—well, I must die; my heart must die. I only ask you, now Lyneth at this last hour—’

‘I do love him, darling, how can I help myself?’

‘But do you really, Lyn? Is it real? Is it my sort of love, the killing love, the hopeless, helpless for ever and ever love? If it is… I only ask you to
know
that, to be absolutely sure of it, both of you, not to go into this lightly, just for the—the happiness and excitement of it. Please be terribly sure… Please, Lyneth, please!’

‘Oh, Christine—if you could know!’

She put her hand to her heart again. ‘Do you ask me if
I
know?’ And a terrible shudder went through her. A sunny evening, after a long warm day, but—‘Lyneth,’ she said, ‘the cold is here. It’s dangerous, it’s warning us. The hands are here, it seems as though they are closing around my heart…’

‘Oh, Christine—darling—don’t frighten me! I—yes, the cold is here and the hands, like icicles. But…Well, we’ve always felt them, Christine, the cold hands reaching out towards us, and it never seems to have meant anything—I mean no warning, nothing has happened.’

‘I think they have been warning us always, always,’ said Christine. ‘About tonight.’

Lawrence stood before Lady Hilbourne, humbly. ‘My lady—I thought that I should speak to you first. You know that I want to ask Lyneth to marry me.’

She sat erect and grim in her customary chair, the straight-backed chair with its delicate scrollwork, upholstered in a brocade, striped with pale flowers. The last chance: here positively here and now was the last chance to do what was right, to put her arms around her two beloved children and fight for them against the chill forces that threatened their future. But was it not those same forces that held her back? Echoes of a dream forgotten, thrummed in her mind. She said uncertainly: ‘Well, but Lawrence…’

‘As their guardian. Her family have known our family for generations. I’m the only child, I have—enough—to offer her, Lady Hilbourne; and my parents—’

‘Your parents it appears have not thought fit to consult the young lady’s former governess in the matter.’

‘Oh, Lady Hilbourne, it isn’t that. I’m sure that my parents—well, I think they haven’t spoken yet because they thought that Christine—’ He said rather miserably: ‘For such a long time it was Christine and me—Lyneth with her cousin Arthur, and Christine with me. I think they’re afraid that Christine may still—’

The last chance: the final moment. But she felt the cold, like an icicle thrust into her heart, she heard in her ears the young voices, ‘Hil says… Hil thinks…’ and she found her own voice saying: ‘They think that because Christine may have failed to grow out of these childish loves, you and Lyneth are to sacrifice your own happiness? They are not the only ones to have expressed such an opinion.’ A moment of terrifying silence and she said: ‘I do not agree with them.’

‘Well, but… It seems presumptuous to say so, but if Christine—well, if she still cares for me… I can’t bear to hurt her. My mother says—she said, “You will break the child’s heart.” ’

‘A girl’s heart does not break as easily as that,’ she said, whose own young heart had broken so many years ago and turned to a block of ice. ‘And there is still Lyneth? If she loves you—and you seem very rich in feminine adorers, dear boy!—why must it be she who breaks her heart?’ Her fingers were clawed so that the blunt, polished nails made little arcs in the palms of her hands, but she said, lightly shrugging: ‘Christine has as many admirers as Lyneth. She will soon find someone else.’

‘If
you
believe that—who know them so well…’ He said joyfully: ‘Then you think I may propose to Lyneth tonight?’

‘You have my blessing at least,’ said her ladyship; and knew that any blessing of hers must be a dark and misshapen benefit indeed.

Christine came to her as she still sat there, brooding; and at once her mood changed. ‘Oh, my child, how ill, how pale you look!’ Wrong, it had been wrong, wicked and wrong, to break this gentle creature on the wheel of her own despairs. But… Something urged me on, she thought: how can I fight against the unseen? And after all, could she help it if the foolish boy could not keep himself true to his own true original love? Did
I
encourage him to change? Is it for me to say who shall love whom, how am
I
to control their hearts? And for a moment her own bitter heart went back to the days of her own true love: where now was the tenderness of those long ago days? All gone, she thought: all gone in an hour… And she heard in her mind the snap! with which the pencil had broken across in his two hands and she had known her fate and turned her heart to stone. And yet… Had that hour not also been somehow preordained? Dimly, dimly, once again her mind remembered, the dream returned, a phrase only half-forgotten…

‘Never again…’

Christine in the cloud of pale silk, crouching at her feet, gripping her hands, ‘Oh, Tetty—I’m frightened. I… Some guests have come but I…’

She rose, startled, to her feet. ‘Guests arrived already?’

‘In the hall. Some people… But I didn’t know… Tetty, I don’t know who they are. A woman, very beautiful and a tall young man. They… He… He looked at me so strangely, Tetty, he stared and stared at me, his eyes… They said nothing, she took him by the arm and moved away with him, almost pulled him away as though she were angry with him. But he turned his head and looked back at me, and, oh Tetty!—his eyes…’

She lifted the trembling girl to her feet. ‘Come, Christine, what nonsense is this? You are hysterical. Some people? What people? You know everyone invited here tonight.’

‘Yes, and I—I think after all I do know these people, I’ve seen them before. But long ago…’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘Long ago. Long ago, when I was a child. He—I remember that he looked frightened: that time that I saw him, I thought that he looked frightened. And, Tetty, I don’t know what to do, I don’t understand it—he looked frightened again tonight.’

And not the only heart that was filled with fear. ‘Dear God! Well—! You are ill, Christine, we must say that you are ill, go to your room and lie down; only, dearest, they will say that it’s because of—Lyneth…’