Читать книгу Glittering Images - Susan Howatch - Страница 45

This time I did not have the advantage of surprise and she had her defences firmly in place. As I pulled her towards me she said: ‘No!’ in a voice which precluded argument and shoved me aside as she scrambled to her feet.

I caught up with her halfway across the Ring but before I could speak she swung to face me and demanded, ‘What exactly are you up to? You take me for a drive so that you can get to know me better and yet all you do is ask questions about the Bishop!’

‘But I do know you better now! I know you smoke cigarettes in your bedroom, think romance is the invention of the Devil and have a profound admiration for that formidable lady, the late Mrs Jardine!’

‘I wish I’d never told you about her!’ said Lyle furiously. ‘It’s obvious you think she had some sort of obscene passion for her stepson –’

‘Wouldn’t “romantic affection” be a more accurate description?’

‘It was not a romance!’

‘Not in a tawdry conventional sense, no. But she sacrificed her life for his, didn’t she, and isn’t that really the unsurpassable romantic gesture? Dickens certainly thought so when he wrote A Tale of Two Cities but no one’s yet accused Sydney Carton of an obscene passion for Charles Darnay.’

‘I thought Carton sacrificed himself for Lucy’s sake, not just for Darnay’s. Maybe you should start rereading Dickens!’

‘Maybe you should start redefining romance. Cigarette?’

‘Thanks. I feel I need one after that exchange.’

When our cigarettes were alight we wandered on across the ridge. The Ring disappeared behind us as the track led over the brow of the hill, and in the distance we could see my car, crouched like a black beetle beside the dusty ribbon of the road.

‘I did admire old Mrs J.,’ said Lyle, ‘because I knew what hell she’d been through for the Bishop, but I have to admit she could be an awful old battle-axe. During her two visits to Radbury she reduced Carrie to pulp, and what was worse she used to enjoy it. Poor Carrie!’

‘You’re very fond of Mrs Jardine, aren’t you?’

‘She’s the sort of mother I always wanted. My own mother was an invalid – she had a weak heart – and it made her very querulous and self-absorbed.’

‘And your father?’

‘He was a soldier, one of the clever ones, very quick and bright and tough. He was killed in the War, of course, like all the best soldiers, and when my mother died in sympathy I went to Norfolk to live with my great-uncle. He was an ancient vicar who took me in out of Christian charity because no one else wanted me.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Twelve. It was 1914. You were wondering about my present age, weren’t you?’

‘Now that I know you’re thirty-five allow me to tell you that I’m thirty-seven. How did you find Norfolk?’

‘Dreadfully dull. I ended up writing my great-uncle’s sermons just to stave off the boredom.’

‘You don’t write Dr Jardine’s sermons, do you, by any chance?’

She laughed. ‘Not yet!’

We strolled on down the track. ‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘you’ve been described to me as the real power at the palace. How would the Jardines get on if you left?’

‘Oh, but I’m not leaving,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know?’

‘How lucky for the Jardines! But where does that leave you?’

‘Exactly where I want to be – looking after my adopted mother and running the palace for the Bishop. I’m not interested in doing anything else.’

‘No, obviously there’s no time for other interests,’ I said. ‘Keeping that marriage glued together must be a very all-consuming occupation.’

She stopped dead. I stopped too, and as we faced each other I knew I had caught her off her guard.

‘Don’t misunderstand,’ I said swiftly. ‘I’m not calling you a liar. Earlier you made it plain that the marriage, despite its surface irritations, was a happy one involving that well-known phenomenon the attraction of opposites, and I see no reason to disbelieve that. Lady Starmouth also told me she thought the marriage was a success. But its success depends on you, doesn’t it? If you weren’t there to do all the things Mrs Jardine can’t do, the marriage would go to pieces along with Mrs Jardine – just as it did at Radbury before you arrived with your jar of glue to stick the pieces together again. Well, it’s always gratifying to one’s self-esteem to feel that one’s indispensable, but do you really think that once the Jardines are dead and you’re on your own at last you won’t look back and regret a lifetime of missed opportunities? Or are you simply going to say, as old Mrs Jardine said at the end of her life, “It was worth it all for Adam”?’

She was so pale that for the first time I noticed the faint freckles across her cheekbones. It was impossible not to conclude that I had shot an arrow into the dark and scored a bull’s eye, but all she said in the end was a stony, ‘I don’t call him Adam.’

‘Well, I should hope you don’t call him Alex either,’ I said, ‘or my imagination would really run riot. I’ve noticed he calls you Lyle whenever he isn’t referring to you as Miss Christie and I suppose it’s natural enough after ten years that he should follow his wife’s example in treating you as a highly favoured employee, but I’d certainly raise an eyebrow if you started calling him by his Christian name.’

‘Oh, shut up! You’ve made quite enough snide remarks for one afternoon!’

‘I thought I was making some intelligent observations in an attempt to solve the mystery!’

‘What mystery?’

‘The mystery you present to any man who admires you, the mystery of why you’re content to go through life as a mere companion –’

‘I’m beginning to think you’re the real mystery here, Charles Ashworth, with your interest in the Bishop and your Don Juan manners and the wife you won’t talk about and the past you gloss over so smoothly! Why are you going through this elaborate charade of making torrid passes at me?’

‘It’s no charade. I knew as soon as we met yesterday that I was deeply attracted to you –’

‘That’s the most unreal opening a sentence could have! You know nothing about me! You’re obviously deep in a romantic fantasy!’

‘Why don’t you tell me about this broken engagement of yours which has given you such a horror of romance?’

‘I’m telling you nothing more!’ She was taut with anger. ‘Take me home at once, please – I find this entire conversation deeply offensive!’

We walked on in silence, she hurrying as fast as she could without breaking into a run, I lengthening my stride to keep pace with her. At the car I said, ‘I’m extremely sorry if I’ve given you offence but please believe me when I say my admiration for you is genuine.’

‘I don’t want your admiration.’ Wrenching open the door she collapsed in a heap on the passenger seat; evidently I had shocked her to the core.