Snare of Serpents (14 page)

“Oh, he’d think anything I did was good.”

“That’s nice for you.”

“Indeed it is, and I intend to keep it so.”

M
ATTERS CAME TO A HEAD
soon after that when Alastair McCrae came to the house to see my father.

He was taken to the study and was there some time. He left without staying to lunch or seeing anyone else.

My father sent for me and when I arrived in his study he smiled at me benignly.

“Shut the door, Davina. I want to talk to you.”

I did so.

“Sit down.”

When I was seated he went to the fireplace and stood, his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels as though he were about to address a meeting.

He said: “I have some very good news for you. Alastair has been to see me. He has asked my permission to marry you.”

I stood up. “It’s impossible.”

“Impossible! What do you mean?”

“I’m engaged to someone else.”

“Engaged!” He was staring at me in horror, words on his lips which he was too shocked to utter. “Engaged,” he said at length, “to … to …”

“Yes,” I said. “James North.”

“That … that … student!”

“Yes,” I said. “You met him.”

“But … you are a fool …”

“Maybe.” I was feeling bold. I was not going to be intimidated. I loved Jamie. I was going to marry him. I was not going to allow my father to rule my life. How dared he, who had brought Zillah into the house … who had kept her here in
the pretence that she was a governess to me? I thought of her creeping into his bedroom. It gave me courage.

“You will forget this nonsense,” he said.

“It is not nonsense. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling as though speaking to someone up there. “My daughter is an idiot,” he said.

“No, Father. I am not. This is my life and I will live it as I want to. You have done what you want and I shall do the same.”

“Of all the ingratitude …”

“Gratitude for what?”

“All these years … I have looked after you … made your welfare my chief concern …”

“Your chief concern?” I said.

I thought he was going to strike me. He came towards me and then stopped abruptly.

“You’ve been meeting this young man?”

“Yes.”

“And what else?”

“We have discussed our future.”

“And what else?” he repeated.

I was suddenly angry. I said: “I don’t know what you are suggesting. James has always behaved to me with the utmost courtesy and in a gentlemanly fashion.”

He laughed derisively.

“You must not judge everyone by yourself, Father,” I said.

“What?”

“It is no use playing the virtuous citizen with me. I know you brought your mistress into this house. I know she visited your bedroom before you were married. As a matter of fact, I saw her going to your room.”

He stared at me, his face scarlet.

“You, you … brazen …”

I felt I was in command. I said: “Not I, Father. You are the brazen one. You are the one who poses as virtuous, self-righteous. You have your secrets, do you not? I think you should be the last one to criticise my behaviour and that of my fiance.”

He was aghast. I could see he was deeply embarrassed. I had unmasked him and he knew that I must have known this of him for some time.

His anger burst out suddenly. There was hatred in the look he gave me. I had cracked the veneer. I had exposed him as an ordinary sinful man; the aura he had always tried to create about himself had been destroyed by those few words of mine.

“You are an ungrateful girl,” he said. “You forget I am your father.”

“I find it impossible to do that. I am sorry I shall have to refuse Alastair’s offer, but I shall tell him that I am already engaged to Jamie.”

I opened the door and was about to go. He had lost control. He shouted: “Don’t let that student think he is going to live in luxury for the rest of his life. If you marry him, you’ll not get a penny of my money.”

I ran upstairs to my room and shut the door.

I
T WAS ABOUT AN HOUR LATER
when Zillah came to me. I was still in my room, shaken by the shock of the encounter and wondering what was going to happen next. I longed to see Jamie and tell him what had taken place between my father and me.

Zillah looked at me in horror.

“What have you done?” she asked. “Your father is raving against you. He says he’s going to cut you out of his will.”

“Alastair McCrae is coming to ask me to marry him. He has asked my father if he might and, of course, my father has said yes. He has already given him his blessing and was prepared to do the same to me. Then I told him I was engaged to Jamie.”

“Yes. I gathered that from him. Rather rash, wasn’t it?”

“What else could I have done?”

“Nothing, I suppose. But what are you going to do now?”

“I shall not marry Alastair McCrae just because my father says I must.”

“Of course you won’t. Oh, Davina, what a mess! You’ll have to talk this over with Jamie.”

“I shall send a note to his lodgings and ask him to see me tomorrow.”

“Give it to me and I’ll send one of the servants over with it.”

“Oh, thank you, Zillah.”

“Don’t fret. It will all come right.”

“I don’t think my father will ever forgive me.”

“He will. He’ll get used to it. These things happen in families.”

“Oh, thank you, Zillah.”

“You know I want to help, don’t you? Besides, I’m a little anxious about your father’s health. I know old Dorrington says there is nothing to worry about, but I don’t want him too upset.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Well, write that note and we’ll get you and Jamie together. See what he has to say. He might suggest a runaway match at Gretna Green.”

“Do you think he might?”

“It would be very romantic.”

“But where should we go? Where should we live?”

“They say love conquers all.”

“I feel I want to get away from my father, and I feel he’d want me to go.”

“What he wants is a nice rich marriage for you with a man of solid worth like Alastair McCrae. After all, that’s what all fathers would want for their daughters.”

“But if the daughter loved someone else …”

“Well, write that letter to Jamie. Tell him what’s happened, and if he suggests Gretna Green, I’ll do all I can to help you get there.”

“Thank you, Zillah. I am so glad you’re here.”

“So you said, dear, and so I am glad I’m here. You want someone to look after you.”

I wrote the letter and it was despatched for me.

T
HE NEXT DAY
Jamie was waiting for me at the seat in the gardens.

When I told him what had happened he was aghast.

“So this man is coming to ask you to marry him and he has your father’s approval?”

“I shall explain to him at once that I am engaged to you.”

“And your father?”

“I don’t know what he’ll do. He might turn me out of the house. He says he will cut me out of his will if I marry you.”

“Good heavens! What a terrible thing to do!”

“He means it. He will never forgive me for what I said to him … even if I agreed to marry Alastair McCrae. Jamie, what are we going to do?”

“I can’t see what we can do.”

“Zillah said we might run away and get married at Gretna Green.”

“Where would we go? You couldn’t live in my lodgings. I’ve yet to go through those two years before I can take my exams. How could we live?”

“I don’t know. I suppose some people manage.”

“You’ve always lived in comfort. You don’t know what it would be like.”

“Perhaps your people would help.”

“They are desperately poor, Davina. They couldn’t help in that way.”

“Well, what are we going to do?”

“I can’t see what we can do.”

I was dismayed. I had thought he would be so delighted that I had admitted to my father that we were engaged and that I had stated so firmly that I would not marry anyone but him. It seemed that romance was crumbling before the mediocre problem of how we were going to live.

“There is only one thing to do,” he said gloomily at length. “We can’t afford to marry. We’ve got to wait until I’m through. I’m taking help from my family now. I can’t ask them to keep a wife as well.”

“I can see that I shall be a burden.”

“Of course you won’t. But you see it simply isn’t possible yet.”

I was deflated. I realised I had been rash.

“What can I do then? I’ve told him now.”

“You’ll have to hold him off for a while. Wait until we can work something out.”

“Zillah said she would help. I think she thought you would suggest our running away together.”

“It’s not practical, Davina. I wish it were. Oh, why did this have to happen now?”

“Things don’t happen when we want them to. How can I go back and refuse Alastair McCrae? My father is furious. He has decided that I shall marry him.”

“Surely he’ll allow you to have some say in the matter.”

“My father never allows anyone—except Zillah—to have any say in any matter. His word is law and he expects everyone to accept that.”

“We must think of something, Davina.”

“But what?”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said: “It’s distasteful, and I hesitate to say it, but … I think you will have to play this fellow along.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, tell him that you can’t give him an answer. You have to think about it. It’s so unexpected and all that. Ask him to give you time to think. It will be giving us time really. I’ll see what can be managed. Who knows, there might be something. We might live in rooms … find something cheap until I’m through. I don’t know whether it’s possible. I’d have to have time to work things out … I need time …”

“You think that you could work something out so that we could be married?”

“I can talk it over with my family. They might come up with something. But I must have time.”

“We
must
work something out, Jamie.”

“What sort of man is this Alastair McCrae?”

“He’s a very good man, I am sure. He’s pleasant. I quite like him. He’s very courteous and gentlemanly. I think it would be possible … as you say, to hold him off. I don’t like doing it. It seems dishonest because I know I’m not going to marry him … and to pretend I might.”

“I know, I know. But so much depends on this. I’ll soon get us out of it. We’ll be married … but in my position … I have to give a lot of thought to it.”

“Of course. I wish Alastair McCrae would find someone else. I wish he would fall hopelessly in love with someone and forget all about me.”

“We can always hope,” said Jamie.

Z
ILLAH WANTED TO KNOW
what had been said. I told her.

“He’s hardly the reckless knight, is he?” she said. “I thought he’d dash you off to Gretna Green right away.”

“It wouldn’t make sense, Zillah. Where should we live?”

“He has lodgings in the town, hasn’t he?”

“There’s only room for one.”

“Love knows no boundaries, as well as laughing at locksmiths.”

“Oh, Zillah, you must see his point of view.”

“Of course I do. He’s right to be practical. But I thought he might have been carried away by the romance of it.”

“I am sure
you
would always be most practical.”

“In such circumstances?” she said, as though questioning herself.

“In all circumstances,” I insisted, and I told her what Jamie had said about not giving Alastair McCrae a positive answer.

“It’s a wise plan,” she said. “Alastair will understand. He’ll say he’ll wait. Your father will be mildly placated. He’ll think you’re coming to heel and want to save your pride by taking a little time over it. I’ll drop a little whisper of this into his ear. And in the meantime we’ll go on as normal, hoping something will turn up.”

“I suppose I shall have to see what I can do,” I said.

“You will,” she told me.

And when the time came I did.

Alastair was charming, and I hated deceiving him. He proposed marriage in a dignified manner.

He began by saying: “I have been a widower for over six years, Davina, and never thought to marry again, but when I saw you at Gleeson, I said to myself, ‘It is time I took another wife.’ And I knew that there she was. Will you marry me?”