The Lorimer Line (47 page)

‘Of course I recognized you,' said Charles softly. ‘But I was too much of a coward to ask a busybody directly whether you were still Dr Lorimer or whether you had become Mrs Smith or Mrs Jones. Margaret! My dear Margaret! Do you find the atmosphere here oppressive, I wonder? Perhaps we might inspect the gardens.'

She left the hall on his arm, feeling as though she were walking a foot above the ground. She was well aware that their departure would set malicious tongues wagging, but she was reckless with the excitement of being close to him again. Her whole body was tingling with exhilaration and relief at the magical transition from despair to hope.

Neither of them made any pretence of admiring the gardens. Instead, Charles led her to a wooden seat beneath a cedar tree. They did not speak at once. The tension which had built up in Margaret's mind during the morning of unhappiness and the shock of actually seeing Charles again had slipped away with the touch of his hand. She
could afford to take things slowly now. Whatever words they might use would be irrelevant: their true communication was through their fingertips. It was as though their hearts were beating in unison. To prolong the preliminaries with superficial conversation would almost be a pleasure, so sure was she that they would arrive together at a happy conclusion.

Perhaps Charles shared the same feeling, for - without relaxing his grip on her hand - he allowed himself to be apparently distracted by the sight of Alexa. She appeared in the doorway just as Charles and Margaret had sat down; but when she saw the two of them together she stood still for a moment as though posing, and then returned inside.

‘I noticed you were talking earlier to that beautiful young girl,' said Charles. ‘I was curious, in fact. She reminded me of yourself in a way I could not quite define.'

‘The appearance of a beautiful young girl has little in common with mine,' laughed Margaret.

‘Nonsense. Your eyes very much resemble each other's, for one thing. And although the child's hair is so much fairer than your own, it is tinged with red, is it not, and has the same texture.'

‘She is my ward,' Alexa,' said Margaret. ‘Her parents both died before she was ten years old, and she has lived with me ever since.'

‘That is a very generous act on your part.'

‘Her mother was a patient of mine. When she died, Alexa was quite alone in the world. As you have remarked, she is very beautiful. It was unthinkable to condemn her to the drab life of an orphanage, even such a happy one as this. I have always enjoyed young company. To have a child in my care has given me great pleasure '

The explanation for Alexa's situation was one which Margaret had repeated many times, and in her happiness and excitement she did not pause to wonder now whether Charles deserved a more accurate version. For the time
being she was not concerned with Alexa's circumstances; only with her own.

‘I was sorry to hear of your father's death,' she said.

‘You have learned of that already?' He was startled.

‘It was my impression that I was one of the last to hear.'

‘I had quite forgotten the speed at which gossip travels in Bristol,' he confessed. This was a piece of news which I particularly wished to give you myself. I arrived here only yesterday, and used the politeness of announcing the information to my father's old patients as my excuse.'

‘Did you need an excuse?'

‘I came to find out about you,' he said simply. To discover whether you were working, whether you were married, whether you were happy.'

‘And what have you learnt, Charles?'

The answers to my first two questions. The third I must ask more directly.' His eyes searched hers. ‘Are you happy, Margaret?' he asked.

She did not answer at once. So often in the past she had invented this meeting in waking dreams. Now that it had happened in reality, she still hardly dared to believe it. She forced herself to meet his look, as she had done earlier in the hall. Less intensely than in those first few seconds, she studied his appearance.

In seven years he had ceased to be a young man. She knew his age. He was forty now, and looked older. His clothes were creased and shabby. The soft features of his face were lined with years of worry. His fair hair had faded into a paleness which was not yet quite grey. He was still a big man, and strong; but he was tired, and crumpled like his clothes - a man in need of care and comfort. She had thought that she could never love him more than- she did on the night of their parting, all those years ago, but the depth of her feelings now proved her wrong.

‘I am happy to see you again,' she said. ‘Very, very happy.'

Charles gripped both her hands with his own. ‘I had no
right to expect anything - anything at all,' he said, his face glowing. ‘I sacrificed my own happiness - and yours as well, I know - for the sake of an old man who for years had not even been able to recognize me as his son.'

‘You deserve respect for being so dutiful,' Margaret told him. Now that the time of waiting was over, she could even forgive the demands which had been made on him.

‘I am ashamed to admit that I had hoped also for his gratitude. But of course he could not know what I had sacrificed for his sake. He expected more and more, thinking of it as his by right. Well, now that is over. I bring you an invitation to visit my aunt.'

‘I have never met your aunt. Why should she wish to see me?' Margaret's voice was teasing. She would do anything that Charles suggested.

‘She lives near me and invites you at my request. She is very old and will hardly be able to offer much entertainment. But I am anxious for you to see at first hand the village in which I have made my home, to experience the slow pace of its life.'

‘You went there for your father's sake, did you not? Do you intend to remain there?'

Charles nodded. ‘What skill I had as a surgeon is gone. I am too old to work up a new practice for nothing, and too poor to buy one, but in a village where I know everyone I can be of use. I must recognize, though, that such a community would not have much in the way of excitement or employment to offer my wife.' He looked into her eyes again. ‘The only question I truly want to ask you is whether you will marry me,' he said. ‘But I cannot ask it until you know what the answer would involve. My way of life may prove to be too dull for you.'

Margaret could truthfully have assured him that she asked nothing better than to live with him wherever he chose. But the pleasure of postponing for as long as possible the moment when everything between them would be settled made her tease him for a second time.

‘It's rash of you to move so fast with a woman you have not seen for seven years,' she said.

‘I have respect for my own good judgement,' he replied. The loving happiness of his smile suggested that he had seen in her eyes the answer to the question which he had not directly asked. ‘I decided long ago that I should never want to marry anyone but you, and I feel confident that the qualities I admired are still there. You never doubted, surely, that I would come to find you again as soon as I could.'

‘I needed to do more than doubt it,' Margaret said. ‘I had to try to convince myself that I would never see you again. I could not have endured to spend so many years in a day-to-day hope that might never be fulfilled. Although sometimes, I must admit - ‘ She flushed at the memory of the day-dreams in which she had so often indulged, and did not complete the confession. ‘As time passed, it seemed more likely that I was telling myself the truth. I thought that when you were free to make your own life you would want a complete family of your own - you would choose a younger woman for your wife. After so many years of being a loyal son, you deserve to be a beloved father.'

‘It's true that I would like to have children; but I want them to be yours.'

‘I am thirty-five,' she reminded him.

‘That is not too old, if one has courage, as you have. When I came into that hall half an hour ago and saw you standing there with Alexa, I thought to myself that if you were to have a daughter that is exactly what she would look like.'

Margaret felt a sudden stab of alarm. ‘I hope you didn't think …'

‘Oh no, no. Of course not. It is just that your children would be beautiful in the same way.'

‘I am responsible for Alexa,' Margaret said - apprehensive even as she spoke lest this should prove at the last moment to be a stumbling block.

‘So much the better, for we shall then have a ready-made family.' Charles could not have expected such an imposition when he set out for Bristol, but he accepted it without hesitation. ‘She will be company for you when I am away from home, and I shall learn to love her because you love her and I love you.'

Reassured for herself, it nevertheless occurred to Margaret to wonder whether an arrangement which promised so much fulfilment to her would be equally welcomed by a town child who was on the verge of becoming a young woman and whose pleasure lay in displaying her clothes and talents before as varied an audience as possible. But the prospect of happiness had slipped through Margaret's fingers too often already. This time she was determined to hold it fast. She smiled into Charles's eyes, and his fingers tightened round hers as he smiled back. She was conscious of him leaning forward towards her.

‘The whole of Bristol is watching us,' she reminded him.

‘Good. Then if I kiss you now, we shall each equally have compromised each other. Society will practically force us to marry. You will have no escape.'

‘I am not looking for an escape,' said Margaret softly. But she allowed him, nevertheless, to lead her through the garden to a less public place. And as he kissed her at last, she felt that she was indeed escaping: from strain and loneliness into a prospect of perfect happiness.

A bachelor who takes pride in making his home fit for a new wife is often disconcerted by the energy which she displays in altering it. Charles Scott did not make that mistake. The house to which he brought Margaret after their marriage in the August of 1893 was a substantial stone building, separated from the cluster of village cottages
by an avenue of ancient elms which bordered the manorial park. But over the past seven years Charles's housekeeper had been fully occupied in caring for the elder Dr Scott, and careless in supervising the maids. The house had become shabby, even dirty in places, losing much of the dignity which its fine proportions deserved.

The arrival of a new mistress and her maid changed the atmosphere overnight and the house within a few weeks. While Betty scrubbed and swept, Margaret set to work with her needle, sewing chintzes and cottons for curtains and covers. Charles watched her with affectionate pride. He had married a professional woman, used to earning her own living, and one who had been brought up to depend entirely on servants to run the house. He was amused as well as admiring to see how quickly marriage converted her into a home-maker, proud of her achievements as one room after another fell beneath her attack and became clean and bright.

When all of them were ready except for the bedrooms which would not be needed until guests arrived, William's wedding present was delivered: a grand piano. Charles knew that William had been surprised by his sister's engagement, but not disapproving. Fifteen years earlier a match with the son of the family physician would not have aroused any pleasure at all within the Lorimer family. William, however, had clearly given up hope that his sister would ever marry and was glad to be proved wrong. Better even a doctor's wife than a spinster! He had not liked to see her working for money, especially near his own doorstep, and Charles suspected - though no one had ever said so - that he had no great affection for Alexa and was glad to be rid of her.

At any rate, William had accepted the announcement with as much show of enthusiasm as he ever permitted himself on any subject. Margaret had been married from Brinsley House, and William had shown himself eager to donate the most generous of wedding gifts. Charles was
impressed with the elegance which the piano imparted to the drawing room, a large room which still lacked sufficient furniture. Margaret was happy to remember and play the simple pieces which she had not practised since her father's death. But it was Alexa - Alexa who in the beginning had been at a loss to know how to occupy herself in the unfamiliar country surroundings - whose life was changed by its arrival. She spent hours each day at the keyboard. Sometimes she played for the sake of playing, but more often she accompanied herself as she sang.

Charles remarked on her talent to Margaret.

‘Her mother was a music teacher,' Margaret told him. ‘Alexa must have sat through many lessons while she was a child, and I paid for her to have her own at Brinsley House. She will have to earn her living when she is older, and I imagine that to be a music teacher herself would be a congenial occupation.'

‘I think Alexa's face may prove to be fortune enough for her,' said Charles. ‘But certainly she should not neglect her gift.'

He was delighted that everything had fallen so smoothly into place. He had accepted Alexa into his home because the woman he loved could not desert her, but there had certainly been moments before the wedding when he had doubts on this score. In the event, however, the girl had proved less frivolous than her liking for pretty dresses and elaborate hair arrangements suggested. Her nature was affectionate, and she helped Margaret without complaint in whatever had to be done. Only at visiting aged and poorly villagers did she draw the line, wrinkling her nose fastidiously at the smell and dirt.

Charles was equally delighted at Margaret's wholehearted acceptance of domestic life. One thing alone was needed to make his happiness perfect, and he did not have long to wait for that. Almost before he had dared to start hoping, Margaret was able to announce that at the end of May the next year he could expect to become a father.