For a few days we expected my father to die, but he rallied.
Miss Bell told us that his health had been much impaired and that he would never be the same again but, as sometimes happened in these cases, a recovery could be made.
And it was. In a month’s time he could leave his bed and walk about with the aid of a stick, though he dragged one leg a little.
After the first shock had subsided I began to realize that Miss Bell’s involvement with the nurses meant that I had more freedom. I made the most of it.
Olivia and I were allowed to go out together and we enjoyed escaping from continual supervision. Jeremy Brandon had been considered by my aunt Imogen, and as his family connections, although not brilliant, were passable, and Olivia had been “out” for some time and had so far failed to capture a rich prize, he was acceptable.
He was allowed to take us to tea at the Langham Hotel, which was a great occasion.
We rode with him in the Park, too. I was allowed to accompany them and was amused to think of myself as a chaperone.
But Olivia, of course, was not long deluded. She knew that she was not the one in whom he was interested. It was a fact which even he could not hide; and finally I confessed to her that I had met him at the masked ball and that he was that Rupert of the Rhine who had sent the roses, which in fact were meant for me.
Now that the secret was out we could talk about the ball, and we did over tea.
“Your sister was such a plausible Cleopatra,” he said to Olivia. “Really to talk to her was like being transported back to ancient Egypt.”
“What exaggeration!” I cried.
“Oh, it was so indeed. I was looking over my shoulder all the time expecting Mark Antony or Julius Caesar to put in an appearance. There was an air of mystery about Cleopatra. I could not place her at all. I knew most of the girls in the circle. I was so surprised. I got the truth out of Moira Massingham. That was after the unmasking, when Cleopatra, the Cinderella of the ball, had disappeared. I recognized the snake necklace. I knew it was Moira’s. She told me the whole story.”
“It gave us many a qualm, didn’t it, Olivia?”
She agreed that it did.
“Olivia was wonderful.”
He smiled at Olivia. “I can well believe that.”
She flushed and cast down her eyes. I felt sorry for Olivia who, I was sure, had first thought he came to see her.
Sometimes with Jeremy as our escort we left the dignified streets and went into the byways. I loved the bustle of the little streets where you could sometimes see children hopping over chalk marks on the pavements, chanting as they did so. I loved the hurdy-gurdies playing the popular tunes, and I liked the pavement artists whom we would stop to admire. Jeremy would sometimes talk to the artist and always dropped some coins into his upturned cap. The wider streets always seemed to be congested with landaus and broughams and hansom cabs.
We went shopping for ribbons and such articles, at Jay’s in Regent Street mostly, and every day we saw Jeremy Brandon.
I was intoxicated by this newly found freedom which my father’s illness had brought me.
One day—it was almost a month after my father’s stroke—Jeremy drew me a little aside and whispered: “Why can I never see you alone?”
“It is just not allowed,” I said.
“Surely we can arrange it.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh come, when you consider all the effort which went into fixing the Cleopatra episode, what insurmountable difficulties could a meeting on our own present?”
“I’ll see if I can slip out alone tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “Be at the end of the street at half-past two.”
Olivia, who had been a few paces behind us, caught up then. He squeezed my hand surreptitiously.
I believed that he was in love with me. He gave me every indication that this was so. As for myself, I was only too ready to follow him in this exciting adventure. I was a romantic. I had lived so much in a fantasy world, which I suppose young people do, especially when there is not a great deal of affection in their lives. I had Olivia, it was true, and I knew that she was a staunch friend as well as a sister. But who else was there? My mother had gone off with her lover and had not even written to her daughters; it was hard to imagine my father fond of anything but virtue; Miss Bell was a good friend and I knew had some affection for Olivia and me, but her governess-like attitude made her aloof. I dreamed of a reconciliation between my parents, of my father’s suddenly experiencing a complete change in his character like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. My mother, on her return, in my dreams, became the mother I had always wanted—loving, protective, but at the same time a confidante to whom one could talk of one’s adventures, who would help and advise. Up to this time the centre of my dreams had been Paul Landower. Why I should have made such a figure of him I was not entirely sure. But there was logic in my dreaming. I hardly knew him. It was his brother who had been my friend. But Jago was not of the stuff heroes were made. He was just a boy—rather like myself when it came to making wild plans. There was nothing remote or romantic about him. And it was romance I was looking for. Romance was mysterious, exciting, the dream in which a girl like myself could indulge, setting the stage for all sorts of happenings—all, alas, the figments of her overworked and event-starved imagination.
Thus I had set up Paul Landower as the archetypal hero. He had the right appearance. He was not too good-looking; he was essentially masculine and strong. I used the word rugged in my imagination. He was the scion of a noble family forced into a difficult situation by the profligacy of his forefathers. He had a touch of melancholy—so becoming in a hero. He had great problems and my favourite dream was that I helped him solve them; I was responsible for bringing back the mansion which was about to pass out of his hands. I did it in various ways and one was that I discovered some healing herb which cured Gwennie Arkwright—for in this version she had suffered greatly from her fall from the minstrels’ gallery—and Mr. Arkwright was so grateful that he presented me with Landower Hall, which he had bought. I promptly handed it back to Paul.
“I shall be grateful to you for the rest of our lives,” he said. “And there is only one thing which will make this gift acceptable. You must share it with me.” So we married and lived happily ever after and had ten children, six of them sons, and Landower was saved forever.
That was my favourite and wildest dream; and there had been many more.
I was longing to be in love, for I was sure that was the happiest state in the world. I had seen what it meant when we had been in Captain Carmichael’s chambers at the time of the Jubilee. That was what I thought of as Guilty Love. Mine would be noble and all would be wonderful.
Paul Landower’s appearance had changed a little. He had become darker, more mysterious, more melancholy; and it was the right sort of melancholy which only I could disperse.
Sometimes I came out of my dream world and laughed at myself. Then I said: ‘If you saw the real Paul now, you probably wouldn’t recognize him as yours!’
However that was over now—ever since Jeremy Brandon had danced with me at the masked ball. I had a real figure to put in place of my dream one.
So I proceeded to rush, with habitual impetuosity, into love.
When I met Jeremy at the end of the street he said he wanted to talk to me seriously, and he was rather silent as we made our way to Kensington Gardens. We sat on one of the seats which surrounded the court in which stands the Albert Memorial, that dedication to her sainted husband by our grieving Queen—the symbol of faithful and devoted conjugal bliss.