We came out of the room and Amelia shut the door.
“He’s feeble today,” said Aubrey.
“I know. But he did want to meet Susanna.” Aubrey said he would take me for a walk round the gardens and show me the stables.
Amelia left us and we went out.
During the next days I became familiar with Minster St. Clare and its occupants. I felt I knew Aubrey better than I had before. People often seem different against the background of their homes. I was amazed at his enthusiasm for the Minster. In India he had seemed something of a nomad, the man of the world, perhaps a little cynical. Now he was almost like a different person. Certain traits which I had not seen before were revealed to me. His passionate love of the house which seemed to have developed because it would shortly be his and very soon, I could not help thinking, for his brother was undoubtedly very ill indeed. There was his love of horses. He delighted in the stables; he proudly drew my attention to the fine points of the horses. There was a recklessness about him which was apparent when he drove his carriage. He loved to control the magnificent greys and would have them galloping at a tremendous speed so that when I drove with him I was almost thrown out of the carriage the faster he went, the better he liked it. I thought it was a little dangerous and told him so.
“Not with me,” he said proudly.
“I am in complete control.” It seemed to me that he loved danger for its own sake, and if he had not been such a superb horseman I should have feared for him. He was rather naively conceited about his prowess with the horses and that made him seem more vulnerable than before. I found that lovable.
When I rose each day I would go to the window and look out on the drive and I would say to myself: This great house will be my home.
Shall I be happy here?
I was excited by the place. Every day new aspects were revealed; yet there was something about it which was a little repellent. I supposed that was the case with most old houses. The past was too close; it was as though it had been imprisoned within those walls and it continually intruded on the present. But I was too fanciful. I wished that my father had come with me. He would have laughed at my fancies.
Amelia it was easy to think of her as Amelia for she had been so warm and friendly had shown me the house, the various bedrooms, the solarium with its settees, chairs and long mirrors, its windows, its alcoves, in one of which was an ancient spinning-wheel. She had conducted me to the long gallery with its portraits and even to the kitchens where I was introduced to the cook whom I did not forget to congratulate on her culinary excellence and the kitchen court with its pots and querns which were still used for grinding grain and pease.
Each day I seemed to become more friendly with Amelia. There was a sadness about her which made me want to comfort her. She loved her husband; their life together had clearly been a happy one and now she was about to lose it. She was very interested in the house; she showed me certain improvements she had made; she told me how the roof had had to be renovated and how difficult it had been to find weatherproof medieval tiles; she showed me the furnishings she had chosen for some of the bedrooms because the original ones were too threadbare to be kept any longer. She loved the house and she was going to lose not only her husband but her home as well. But, I thought, perhaps she will stay here. After all, big families did go on living in the ancestral home; and she had been mistress of this one so it would always be her home.
But I wondered. It was too indelicate a matter to speak of. Nor did I broach it with Aubrey. It was one of those situations which must be sorted out naturally.
Aubrey and I rode round the estate. I was a little fearful that I might prove inadequate on horseback; but he was most assiduous in his care for me. He constantly restrained himself and when we galloped he kept his eyes on me so that I felt I was being looked after. But when I rode with him in his carriage, he was very reckless so eager was he to show me his skill; and he certainly had that The horses responded to his lightest touch. I was falling more and more in love.
I loved him the more for his vanity and his obsessive love of the no use I felt now, as I had not before, that he needed me to care for him; and that was very gratifying.
There were one or two dinner-parties very small affairs because, as Aubrey said, there could be little entertaining at the Minster now that Stephen was so ill just a few neighbours to meet me and some close friends of the family. I did meet Amelia’s parents, Sir Henry and Lady Carberry, who were travelling back to their home in London after staying with friends in the country. They had just called for luncheon. I found them charming and they had a young woman with them who was introduced as the Honourable Henrietta Marlington. She was the daughter of some very old friends of theirs who had been staying with the people they had visited and was being taken to London to stay with them for a short while. I was struck with her; she was extraordinarily attractive and she owed this to her vitality even more than to her good looks, which were considerable. She talked a great deal about the season and amused us with her descriptions of being presented to the Queen at the Royal Drawing Room and the solemnity of waiting in the queue with her train over her left arm until the magic moment when she entered, her train spread out in glory behind her. The Queen had given her a piercing look, she said, and extended her hand to be kissed, as though she were weighing her up and finding her wanting.
“She is very perceptive, they say,” she added.
Amelia’s parents were obviously very fond of Henrietta and I could understand that. I was sorry their visit was so short.
I enjoyed my sessions alone with Amelia, which were quite frequent because Aubrey had so much to learn about the estate, having been abroad for so long, and he often spent the greater part of the morning with the estate manager.
One day Amelia talked to me more intimately than ever before, She said: “I don’t know how I shall live without Stephen.”
“Perhaps,” I said rather falsely, for I knew this could not be, ‘he will recover. “
“No,” she replied sadly. It is impossible. Right up to a month ago I went on hoping that he might get well. There were times when he was almost his old self. But really he was gradually getting worse. He has always talked to me a good deal about the estate. It is only recently that he realized it would pass to Aubrey, who has never till now shown much interest in it. “
“He certainly has a great deal now.”
“Yes, he’s changed. I suppose it is because he knows it can’t be long before it is his. We ; .. Stephen and I … always thought that there could be children.”
We were silent for a few moments and then she burst out:
“Oh, Susanna, I can’t tell you how much I have longed for children.
Stephen did too. It was the one thing in which I failed him. “
“You can’t blame yourself for fate.”
“I would have done anything. I had three miscarriages.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“The first … I think was my own fault. In four months I should have had my child. I went riding and lost it. I was so fond of riding. We all were … Stephen, Aubrey and myself. We rode everywhere. It was folly. That was the first. And sometimes when that sort of thing starts it goes on.”
“How very sad.”
“I was so careful the next time. But after two months I had lost the child. I went to three the next time.”
“That must have been terrible.”
“A great disappointment to us both and I think particularly to me. I felt so strongly that I had failed Stephen. He desperately wanted a child … a boy whom he could train to look after things here.”
“I do understand.”
“Oh well… that’s life, I suppose.”