"Olivia wanted to come and see you."
"Poor Olivia! How is she?"
"Very much the same as ever."
"She was never attractive, poor child. I used to wonder how I had given birth to her. Of course she takes after her father."
"Oh no! Olivia is a wonderful person."
"That was what was said of her father."
I found it hard to remain silent. I was beginning to sum up the situation. I was seeing my mother as I had never seen her before. In my childhood she had been one of the goddesses who populated my world. Now I had cast aside my illusions. I looked life straight in the face and I was feeling more and more depressed every moment.
Everton came up after a while because she thought my mother would be tired. She showed me to my room. It was rather lofty and the walls were white: windows opened onto a wrought-iron balcony. I went to this and gasped at the beauty of the scenery. In the early evening light the distant mountains looked as though they had been tinted blue. Flowers grew in abundance—rich purple, red and blue. Their scent filled the air.
I thought it was beautiful and I imagined my mother and Captain Carmichael coming here to live out an idyllic dream—and finding the reality not quite what they had hoped for.
Their love had not lasted. It was an old story. But at least, he had given up all for her, even though he did regret it afterwards and went away.
As for her, there was no doubt of her regrets.
I unpacked my bags and hung up my clothes. I changed and went down to dinner.
My mother had risen for this and she wore a pink silk dressing-gown over her night attire. She looked very romantic with her chestnut hair loose. It hadn't quite the same highlights as it had had once and I wondered practically whether Everton had difficulty in obtaining the necessary lotions here.
There was a courtyard attached to the house. It was beautiful, with clumps of bougainvillea growing from the walls. There was a table here and I saw that generally meals were eaten out of doors.
It could have been enchanting, but my mother did not see it so. All she saw was the social gaiety of a life she had lost and to which she longed to return.
When I went to bed that night I felt lost and depressed.
I thought longingly of Tressidor Manor and how different it would have been if I had accepted Cousin Mary's invitation.
It is amazing how quickly one can settle into a new way of life. I found my surroundings so beautiful, so peaceful that they gave a certain balm to my wounded spirit. I could sit in the garden and read; I could sew a little, for Everton was continually at work on my mother's clothes and glad of a helping hand. I could meditate on life and think at least nature was beautiful. I wished that Olivia had come with me. It would have been pleasant to talk to her. But I could not imagine myself telling her what Rosie had told me. After all, he had been her father. Nor could I talk to her of Jeremy Brandon. I never wanted to think of him again. All the same we could have been together, and Olivia was one of the few people for whom I had much regard these days. I had become cynical.
My mother noticed it. "You've grown up a lot, Caroline," she said to me one evening as we dined in the courtyard. "You're attractive in an unusual way. It's those green eyes. They never used to be so green. They look as if they see into the dark."
"They see into people's dark secrets perhaps."
She shrugged her shoulders. She never wanted to probe into people's thoughts; she was completely absorbed in her own.
"Well," she said, "you should have emeralds . . . earrings, pendants . . . They would bring out the green. And you should wear a lot of green. Everton was saying that she would like to dress you. You do well to dress your hair high on your head like that. It's right for your high forehead. Everton said she wouldn't have guessed high foreheads could be so attractive. It makes you look older, but it gives you something. You're not pretty but you look . . . interesting."
"Thanks," I said. "I'm glad I'm not quite insignificant."
"You never were that. Unlike poor Olivia. So the child has not yet had a proposal. I wonder if she ever will. And you . . . you were spoken for without coming out!"
"My expected inheritance was spoken for, Mama, not me."
She nodded. "Well, you can't blame these impecunious young men. We all have to live."
"I would rather live on my own efforts if I were a young man," I said.
"But you are not, and in some ways you are very unworldly. It is a mercy you have that small income, but it is a pittance really. Robert Tressidor was a very mean man."
Oddly enough I went in to defend him. "He has made you an allowance."
"Another pittance! It could have been so much more and would have made no difference to him whatsoever. He was so afraid that Jock would benefit from his money so he gave me just enough to keep me on survival level . . . and he only did that because he wanted to keep up his image as a good man."
"It's all long ago. It's lovely here. Let's forget about it."
"It's so dull," she moaned and lapsed into melancholy, contemplating the lost social whirl.
Sometimes Jacques the gardener would take his trap into the little town and I would go with him. I would wander round while he did what business he had to, and I would meet him at a specified time where he had left the trap. I enjoyed going into the little shops and chatting with the people; there was the inevitable cafe with the tables outside and I could sit there among the pots of flowering shrubs and drink a cup of coffee or an aperitif.
I often thought how much I could have enjoyed this in the days before what I called my awakening.
I had become clear-sighted. I saw my mother as she really was—a selfish woman who took refuge in imaginary illness to relieve the boredom which came from a shallow mind.
I wondered how much she had cared for Jock Carmichael. I wished I could have known him better, for I felt we might have meant something to each other. I could well understand his regrets, his need to get away. He had at least given up his career for the sake of love—the reverse really of Jeremy Brandon.
I would take strolls through the beautiful countryside. Often I walked the one and a half miles into the town. The shopkeepers began to know me and I found the recognition pleasant. They would call to me; they found it interesting to chat to me. My knowledge of French being fairly good, I could still amuse them with my occasional misuse of their language. I grew to know many of them. There was the woman who sold her vegetables on a stall every Wednesday when she came in from a village four miles away; girls at the cafe; the boulanger who raked the long crusty loaves out of the oven in his shop and served them hot to his waiting customers; the modiste who aped her Paris counterpart by showing only one hat in her window; the couturiere who crammed hers full of her creations; and even the man in the quincaillerie where I once went with the domestique to buy a saucepan.
Living in a small house brought us closer together and I became on more intimate terms with the servants there than I ever had been in London—with the exception of Rosie, of course. I could imagine the disapproval which would have been expressed by Mrs. Winch or Wilkinson if I had sat in the kitchen having long chats with the servants as I did with Marie, the domestique, or in the garden with Jacques.
But I felt these people were my friends and I wanted to learn as much about them as I could.
Marie had been "crossed in love" and I shared her chagrin. He had been a bold and dashing soldier who had stayed in the town for a few months with his regiment. He had promised to marry her and then he had gone away and left her. After she had talked to me about him she would be heard singing a melancholy dirge:
"Ou t'en vas-tu, soldat de France, Tout equipe, pret au combat? Plein de courage et d'esperance, Ou t'en vas-tu, petit soldat?"
She forgot him after a while and treated us to other melodies like "Au Claire de la Lune" and "Il Pleut Bergere," for she was not melancholy by nature.
I was not sure when this romance had flourished, for she was a
t this time near the end of her thirties, I imagined, and she was far from prepossessing, with a faint moustache and several missing teeth. But she was a conscientious worker, good-hearted and very sentimental. I grew fond of her.
I also had a certain friendship with Jacques. He was a widower of three years' standing; he had six children, several of whom contributed to his support. Most of them lived nearby. He was now courting a widow who was something of a catch because she had inherited ten hectares of very good arable land, left her by her late husband.
I asked every time I saw him how his courtship was progressing. He would always pause and consider, shaking his head. "Widows, Mademoiselle," he would say, "are very funny creatures. You never know how to take a widow."
"I am sure you are right, Jacques," I said.
They were pleased that I was there. Neither my mother nor Everton had ever taken an interest in them—except to give orders. When I spoke to my mother of Marie's faithless lover and Jacques' widow she had no notion of what I was talking about and when I explained she said: "You are quaint, Caroline. Of what interest can all that possibly be to you?"
I said: "They are people, Mama. They have their lives just as we have. In London the servants were so much apart. In a small household like this we are closer. It is good in a way. It makes us aware of them ... as people."
It was an unfortunate remark.
"Ah, London," she sighed. "How different."
And then she was sunk in melancholy, remembering.
I soon became acquainted with some of our neighbours. I visited the flower growers and saw how they distilled their essences and heard how they sold them to the parfumeurs all over France. It was very interesting. They had acres and acres on which they grew their flowers and I was amazed to discover how many were needed to produce one small flagon of perfume.
The scent of the jasmine was exquisite. They told me they gathered it in July and August but there was a second flowering in October, which was when the flowers were really at their best.
The roses, from which they made attar of roses, were wonderful.
The Claremonts employed several people from the town who came riding in on their bicycles in the early morning. I often saw them going home after the day's work.
I soon made the acquaintance of the Dubussons. I found them charming. It was true that their chateau was somewhat dilapidated. There were chickens in one of the courtyards and it really was more like a farmhouse than a castle. True, it had the usual pepper-pot towers, which gave it an air of dignity, and the Dubussons were as proud of their home as the Landowers and Tressidors were of theirs.
I would sit in the big salon drinking wine with Monsieur and Madame Dubusson, and they would tell me how times had changed since the days of their grandeur. Their son and his wife were with them and they were very hard-working. Sometimes the family visited us and we were invited to the chateau. Then my mother would wear one of her exquisite gowns; Everton would spend a long time doing her hair and they would try to pretend it was like one of the old engagements which my mother had had in such abundance in the old days.
The Dubussons kept an excellent table, and Monsieur Dubusson liked a game of cards. We played a sort of whist. Monsieur Dubusson enjoyed a game of piquet—and so did my mother—but as only two could play at that, it was not one of the games which took place in the evening. Often I went over to see them in the afternoon and he and I would play piquet together, or a little chess, which he liked better. I had learned the rudiments of the game when I was at school in France and he liked to instruct me.
But although I could find plenty to occupy me, I was beginning to feel somewhat restless. I was thinking more and more of Cornwall and I wondered a great deal about the Landowers and how they liked living in their comparatively humble farmhouse. I wrote to Cousin Mary and told her that I should love to come and see her one day.
Her reply was enthusiastic. When was I coming?
I had been three months with my mother. Autumn had come, and I was thinking more and more longingly of Cornwall. I wrote to Cousin Mary and told her that I would come at the beginning of October.
I was quite surprised when I told my mother what I had done.
"Going away from me!" she cried. "Caroline, I shall miss you."
"Oh, Mama," I protested. "You'll get along very well without me."
"You like it, do you, with Cousin Mary? I always heard she was something of an ogre."
"She can be a little gruff, but when you get to know her you understand the sort of person she is. I grew very fond of her."
"Robert disliked her intensely."
"That was because she had the house . . . her rightful property."
"It has been so wonderful for me to have you here."
I said nothing, and when I looked up I saw the tears were falling down her cheeks.
Everton said to me: "Your mother will miss you. She has been so much better since you came."
"Was she very bad before?"
"She has cheered up wonderfully."
"She is not really ill, Everton."
"There is a sickness of the mind, Miss Caroline. She pines for the life she has left, and I am afraid she will always do so."
"But was she really contented when she was there?"
"She loved that life ... all the people ... all the admiration. It was everything to her."
"But she left it."
"For the Captain. It was a great mistake. But she would never have gone if she had not been forced to do so."
The old guilt I had felt came surging back. I was the one who had carelessly betrayed her. If I had not met Robert Tressidor on the stairs and blurted out that I had seen the runaway horse, she might still have been in London, a rich woman. Captain Carmichael might not have died, but could be pursuing his career in the Army.
But I said: "But there is nothing I can do, Everton. I can only remind her of the past."
"She has been better since you came," persisted Everton.
She, like my mother, was trying to persuade me not to go.
My mother said: "I tell Everton that young people must live their own lives. One cannot expect sacrifices from the young. That is what I tell her."
But they expected me to stay and I began to ask myself whether it was not my duty to do so.
In the quiet of my bedroom I admonished myself. Be sensible. You can do nothing here. The only good that can be done must come from herself. If she will stop yearning for the glitter of society, if she will interest herself in the life around her, she could be as well as she ever was.
No, I would not be foolish. Cousin Mary was expecting me to go to Cornwall—and I was going.
I had written several times to Olivia. I wrote in detail of the people around me. Her letters were affectionate and she expressed an eagerness to know of my experiences.
She was amused by Marie and Jacques, and loved hearing of the Dubussons and the perfume makers.
I told her that I was going to Cornwall to see Cousin Mary and that on my return from France I should have to stay in London. Perhaps I could be with her for a few days then.
That brought back a delighted reply. She longed to see me.
As the day for my departure grew nearer the air of melancholy in the house increased. My mother spent more time in bed and I often came upon her shedding tears. I felt very uncomfortable.
My bags were packed. I had said goodbye to the Claremonts and the Dubussons. In two days' time I should be on my way.
I promised my mother that I would come back to see her before long.
It was the evening of that day. I had been for a walk into the town and taken a last farewell of all my friends and had walked back to the house. I was washing and changing for dinner when Marie came bursting into my room.
"It is Madame," she cried. "She is very ill. Mademoiselle Everton says will you go to her at once."
I hurried to my mother's bedroom. She was lying back in bed, her eyes tightly closed, her face colourle
ss. I had never seen her look like that before.
"Everton," I said, "what is it?"
She said to Marie: "Ask Jacques to go at once for the doctor."
We sat by her bed. My mother opened her eyes and was aware of me. "Caroline," she said weakly, "so you are still here. Thank God."
"Yes, I'm here, Mama. Of course I'm here."
"Don't . . . leave me."
Everton was watching me intently and my mother closed her eyes.
"How long has she been like this?" I whispered.
"I came up to help her dress for dinner. I found her lying there
"What can it be?"
"I wish the doctor would hurry," said Everton.
It was not long before I heard the sound of his carriage wheels on the road.
He came in—a little man, very much the country doctor. I had met him once at the Dubussons'.
He took my mother's pulse, examined her and shook his head gravely.
"Perhaps she has had a shock?" he suggested. He looked so knowledgeable on such a brief examination that I began to suspect his efficiency.
Both Everton and I followed him out of the room.
He said: "She needs rest . . . and peace. She must have no stress, you understand? You are sure she has not had a shock?"
"Well," said Everton, "she was upset because Miss Tressidor was leaving us."
"Ah," said the doctor wisely. "That is so, eh?"
"I came on a visit," I said, "and that visit is coming to an end."
He nodded gravely. "She needs care," he said. "I shall come tomorrow."
We escorted him to his carriage.
Everton looked at me expectantly.
"Could you not stay a little longer . . . until she recovers?"
I did not answer.
I went back to my mother's room. She lay there pale and wan, but she was aware of me.
"Caroline," she said weakly. "I'm here, Mama." "Stay . . . stay with me."