“I am not a very happy woman. For years I have brooded. All those years my husband was with her. She was everything that I was not, the sort of person a man can be at peace with … happy with … the sort who doesn’t make demands. I realize now that was something I was doing constantly … trying to make people what they were not … to fit in with what I wanted them to be. I sought the wrong things in life. When we were in that dark hole, I saw things which I had never seen before. It was as though a light had been thrown on the past, and I began to ask myself how much of what had happened had been due to myself. If I had been different … loving … lighthearted … not setting such store by material things … perhaps it would have been different. I saw clearly your care for Gertie … your love for your mother. I began to see that I had made misjudgements, set too much store on the less important aspects of life. I saw how foolish I had been to dislike you because you were your mother’s daughter … because you had not such a grand pedigree as I have. Noelle, I shall be grateful to you always. I shall be happy to continue our friendship through our lives, and I hope you will never go away from this house.”
I could not stop myself. I put my arms round her and, for a few moments, we clung together.
I said: “I am so happy. I have never felt such happiness since I lost my mother.”
Shock
Roderick and I were in a state of bliss. It was so wonderful to bask in the approval of Lady Constance. In spite of her exhaustion—which was great—she looked younger and took a great interest in our plans. I had never seen her so animated before. The change had been so sudden and there were times when I expected her to revert to the old Lady Constance, when I would see a trace of that icy aloof manner towards the servants, but even with them her manner had softened.
I was sure they were aware of it.
She was always warm and friendly towards me. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the change would last, but I was beginning to accept it and I was sure she herself only had to look back to that time we had spent together, so highly charged with emotion … to realize how happy she could be in her newfound understanding of others … and herself.
I went over to see Fiona, taking a different route because the path was now fenced off and men were working on it.
Fiona greeted me warmly.
“My dear Noelle, what a dreadful thing! I am so relieved and delighted that you are all right. I blame myself in a way. I knew she was getting more and more strange. I didn’t want people to know. I thought I could manage her.”
“You must not talk like that. Of course you did your best. I had no idea that she was so ill.”
“She was the victim of obsessions. I should have been more alert. It did not occur to me that it was she who had set fire to the cottage, though I had had hints …”
“Whatever made her do it?”
“Let’s have a cup of coffee. Then we can talk.”
“I’d enjoy that.”
She went into the little kitchen.
“How are you getting on with the repairs upstairs?” I called.
“It’s coming back to normal. It is good to see you here. Thank goodness Kitty saw what she did.”
“Gertie’s a kind girl. It was so good of her to befriend Kitty in the first place.”
“I am glad Kitty is up at Leverson. It’s better for her there. You see, she had some notion that my grandmother had saved her. After all, she did take her in when the poor girl must have been rather desperate. Kitty felt she had to serve her without question. It will be healthier for her up at the Manor.”
“And Gertie will keep an eye on her.”
She came in with the coffee.
“Now,” she said, “we can talk. Yes, my grandmother wanted me to marry Roderick. That was at the root of the trouble.”
“Oh,” I said.
She smiled. “I heard,” she went on, “about you two. Congratulations! I saw it coming, of course, but the marvellous thing is that Lady Constance is pleased about it.”
“How news travels!”
“I was saying my grandmother had obsessions and this was one of them. She thought if she made the cottage uninhabitable, I should have to go to work in a room in the Manor, which would bring me into closer contact with Roderick. Hence the fire. Then she saw an obstacle in you. She quite rightly saw how things were between you and Roderick.”
“How did she know that?”
Fiona looked at me with an indulgent smile. “It was rather obvious, you know.”
“She saw us so rarely together.”
“Once was enough. And she wanted to remove you from the scene.”
“She did warn me that danger was threatening me here.”
“Yes, she wanted you to go away.”
“I see now.”
“And then, when you wouldn’t, she looked for opportunities.”
“She was taking a chance. Someone else could have fallen into the trap … and Lady Constance did before me.”
“She was not really thinking as normal people think. She was ready to take the chance to remove you … and, you see … from her point of view … it worked.”
“Her mind must be very distorted.”
“Poor Granny. She became very strange once before. That was after the death of my mother. She had a stay in hospital then … but she recovered and I went to her, and caring for me seemed to help her. Of course, she always believed in her special powers and such things, but that did not intrude too much on normal life at that time. She gave me the utmost care. It was when I was growing up and became interested in archaeology that it started up again. She was obsessed by my future. She wanted a grand marriage for me and Roderick was the one she chose. She had discovered that I was corresponding with a student whom I met when I was with Sir Harry Harcourt. He’s studying archaeology. We got to know each other and have kept in touch. It’s a … very firm friendship.”
“I’m glad.”
She flushed slightly. “So you see, my grandmother’s dreams are all her own.”
“Poor lady. Does she know what has happened?”
“I don’t think so. When I last saw her, she was talking about my mother as though she had recently died. So I could see she was back all those years.”
“I hope she will be all right.”
“I think she will be in that hospital for some time.”
“And you are managing all right without Kitty?”
“Oh yes. Mrs. Heather comes in and cleans up the house. She cooks me a meal every evening, as she says so that I can have something good inside me at least once a day. So, you see, I am managing very well. In fact, it is a relief to know my grandmother is having the best possible care.”
“It was a terrible experience,” I said, “both for me and for Lady Constance. But in some ways it seems to have straightened out a lot of difficulties.”
There was a knock on the door. Fiona opened it and one of the workmen stood there.
“There’s something down there, miss,” he said. “You know … where the path gave in. It’s stone or something.”
I said excitedly: “It must be the ledge on which we landed.”
“We dug down a bit, miss,” went on the man. “Looks like some sort of Roman stuff.”
That was the beginning. Excavations had been going on for some days and there was great jubilation when it was discovered that the stone ledge onto which Lady Constance and I had fallen was part of the floor of what could be a temple.
The existence of this could possibly have been the reason why our fall had not been deep and had made our rescue easier than it might have been. In fact, it may well have saved our lives.
Fiona and Roderick were in a state of great excitement. I shared this to some extent. It added a new zest to the days, and I would go down to the site with Roderick to watch. Several people from the archaeological world had come down to inspect the find and now some work was being done on it. The assumption was that the temple was an extension of the villa, and this might give rise to further interesting revelations. Each day something new came to light. Part of a statue had been found before what was an altar. And there were traces of a trident, and part of what could be a dolphin. The new discovery was known as the temple of Neptune.