The India Fan (21 page)

es, I suppose so.

ell, Lady Harriet is in London with her daughter. We shall have to make the request to Sir Fabian.

should hardly think that was necessary.

ut he should be asked.

t would be different if Lady Harriet were there. She is a stickler for convention.

think it would be wise to ask Sir Fabian just as a gesture. Perhaps you would go and get his formal consent.

f you are passing it would only be a matter of looking in.

ell, I have to go and see Mrs. Brines today. She has been confined to her bed for several weeks and is asking to see me. Also I have a good deal to sort out so if you could see your way

There was no reason why I should not do it, except that I felt uneasy about approaching Fabian. But I could not refuse without explaining, so I thought I would go over, quickly make the request and get it over.

Sir Fabian was at home, I was told. I asked if they would tell him that I had merely come to ask his permission for the fete to be held in the grounds if the weather was fine and in the hall if it was wet. I would not take up much of his time.

I was hoping the maid would come back and say that permission was granted so that I could be on my way. Instead she came back with the news that Sir Fabian was in his study and would be pleased to see me there.

I was ushered across the great hall to the staircase. His study was on the second floor.

He rose as I entered and came towards me, smiling. He took both my hands.

iss Delany! How nice to see you. Youe come about the fete, they tell me.

The maid went out, shutting the door, and that feeling of mingling excitement and apprehension was with me.

o please sit down.

shan stop,I said. t a formality really. Lady Harriet usually grants permission for the grounds to be used, and if it is wet, the hall.

h, my mother always deals with that sort of thing, doesn she?

here is nothing to be dealt with really. Framling has always been used for the fete. I just want to get formal permission, so I will say hank youand oodbye.

ut you haven got my permission yet.

t is really taken for granted.

othing should ever be taken for granted. I should like to discuss this with you.

ut there is nothing to discuss. It is the same every year. So I may take it as granted ?

He had risen and I immediately did the same. He came close to me.

ell me,he said, hy are you afraid of me?

fraid? Of you?

He nodded. ou look like a frightened fawn who has heard the approach of a tiger.

do not feel in the least like a frightened fawn. Nor do you strike me as being tigerish.

hen a bird of prey perhaps a rapacious eagle, ready to swoop on a helpless creature. You know, you should not be frightened of me, for I am very fond of you and the more I see you the fonder I grow.

hat is good of you,I said coolly. ut I must go.

t is not good of me. It is an involuntary emotion and one for which I cannot personally take credit.

I laughed with an attempt at lightness.

ell,I said, take it we can go ahead with plans for the fete.

He put his hands on my shoulders and drew me towards him.

ir Fabian?I said in surprise, drawing back.

ou know how I feel about you,he said. sn it obvious?

have no idea.

ren you curious to know?

t is not really of great interest to me.

ou don give that impression.

hen I am sorry if I misled you.

ou haven misled me in the least, for I know a good deal about you, my dear Drusilla. After all, we have been acquainted all our lives.

n spite of that I would say we hardly know each other.

hen we must remedy that.

He drew me towards him with a strength I could not resist and kissed me on the lips.

I flushed and encouraged the anger that arose in me. I said, ow dare you!

He smiled mockingly. ecause I am a very daring person.

hen please keep your daring displays for others.

ut I want to show them to you. I want us to be good friends. I am sure that could be very pleasant for both of us.

t would not be so for me.

promise you it will.

do not believe in your promises. Goodbye.

ot yet,he said, taking my arm and holding it fast. think you like me just a little.

hen that assumption must be due to your good opinion of yourself.

erhaps,he said. ut you are not indifferent to my undeniable charm.

do not wish to be treated in this flippant manner.

am not in the least flippant. I am in deadly earnest. I am very fond of you, Drusilla. You have always interested me. You are different so serious so dedicated to learning. You make me feel humble and that is such a new experience with me that I find it exciting. It is growing more and more impossible for me to hide my feelings.

oodbye,I said. shall tell the church committee that permission has been granted in the usual way.

tay a while,he pleaded.

do not wish to. I will not be treated like this.

our maidenly modesty is most affecting.He paused and raised his eyebrows. ut

I felt myself flushing. I read the suggestions in his eyes.

I wrenched myself free and walked to the door, but he was there before me, standing with his back to it, mocking me.

could detain you,he said.

ou could do no such thing.

hy not? This is my house. You came here willingly. Why should I not keep you here? Who would stop me?

ou seem to think you are living in the Middle Ages. Is this some idea of droit de seigneur?

hat an excellent notion! Why not?

ou had better step out of the past, Sir Fabian. You and your family may have the idea that we in this place are your serfs, but that is not the case and if you attempt to detain me as you suggest I shall I shall

ring in the law?he asked. ould that be wise? They probe, you know.

hat do you mean?

He looked at me slyly and I knew he had been planning something like this. He had only been waiting for the opportunity and I, foolishly, had given it to him. He thought he had discovered a secret in my past and he was going to use it against me. I wanted to shout at him, leur is not my child. She is your sister.I almost did; but even at such a time I could not bring myself to break my promise to Lavinia.

He was so gratified at my discomfiture that he released his hold. I dashed past him out of the room and hurried down the staircase into the hall and out of the house. I did not stop running until I reached my room at the top of the rectory. I flung myself on the bed. My heart was beating furiously. I was very deeply disturbed.

I was so angry. I hated him. It was a sort of blackmail: I have discovered your secret. As you are the sort of girl who can have a love affair before you are out of the schoolroom, why are you so outraged when I make certain suggestions to you? It was too humiliating.

I heard the news from Mrs. Janson. Lavinia and Lady Harriet had come home.

Lavinia sent a message over. ou must come at once. I want to talk to you. Meet me in the garden where we can get right away from people.

I sensed an urgency in her message. She would not be so anxious to see me if she did not want something from me. Perhaps, I told myself, it was merely because she wanted to boast of her successes in London. But had her season been so successful? There was no news of an engagement to a duke or a marquess. I was sure Lady Harriet would aim for the highest stakes.

I was chary of going to Framling after that encounter with Fabian, and I was therefore glad that she suggested a meeting in the garden.

She was waiting for me. There was a change in her, or perhaps I had forgotten how beautiful she was. Her skin was milk-white; her catlike eyes with the dark lashes were arresting, but it was her magnificent hair that was her crowning glory. She wore it high on her head and little tendrils escaped from the mass on her forehead and in the nape of her neck. She was wearing a green gown which was most becoming to her colouring. She was, in fact, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

h, hello, Drusilla,she said. e got so much to tell you.

ou have had a successful season?

She grimaced. ne or two proposals, but no one Mama thought good enough.

ady Harriet would set high standards. None but the highest in the land for her beautiful daughter. Did you see the Queen?

hen I was presented, and once at the opera and once at a ball for charity. She danced with Albert. Drusilla, that fire

ou mean at The Firs?

was so relieved.

avinia! A lot of people died!

hose people well, life wasn much for them, was it?

hey might have thought so, and there were people there who were going to have babies, as you were. I met the mother of one of them when I went down.

ou went there?

wanted to see what had happened. Polly came with me.

ll those demands for payment

ell, it was what you owed. What would you have done without her?

know but it cost a lot and / had to find the money.

t was your affair.

know, I know. But it Janine.

anine? I gathered she wasn there on the night of the fire.

wish she had been.

h Lavinia!

ou haven heard what I going to tell you. It Janine I worried about. I have seen her.

o she is all right?

t far from all right. There was I thinking I was free of all that and then Janine turns up.

id she come to see you?

he certainly did. There were pieces in the paper about the debutantes and I was mentioned. They called me he beautiful Miss Framling.Every time they mentioned me they called me that. She must have seen it. Oh, Drusilla it was awful.

ow? What do you mean?

he asked for money.

hy?

ecause she says she is very poor and Ie got to help her or else

h no!

ut yes. She said if I didn, she would put a piece in the paper about Fleur.

he couldn.

he could. I never liked her.

he got you out of your trouble.

he just took us to that dreadful place that awful aunt of hers who kept demanding money.

ou can do what you did and get away without paying for it.

know. Well, Janine is living in London. She got some miserable place. It all she can afford. She said how lucky I was and she wanted me to give her fifty pounds, and then she would say nothing of what she knew about me.

t blackmail.

f course it blackmail. You are not supposed to submit to that sort of thing, but what could I do? Mama would have been furious.

daresay she would have known how to deal with Janine.

knew how to deal with her. I had to give her fifty pounds to keep her quiet. I did and I haven heard any more of her.

t is terrible to think of Janine stooping to that.

t was awful. I had to pretend I was going to the dressmaker and I went to this place where she lives. It in a little house in a place called Fiddler Green. It in a row of little houses. She got rooms there. She says it all she can afford. She said she wouldn have asked if she hadn been desperate. You see, the fire burned down the house that belonged to her aunt and all the contents of the place, too. Her aunt hadn insured the place. She had only just succeeded in buying the house and all she had was tied up in it so there was nothing much for Janine. She said fifty pounds would set her on her feet. I found it hard to get the money together, but I did. And that the end of it.

hope so,I said.

f course it will be.

lackmailers have a habit of coming back and asking for more.

shan give her any more.

ou should never have given her anything in the first place. What you should have done was confessed to your mother. It is always unwise to submit to blackmail. Ie heard that said many times.

y people who are not being blackmailed, I suppose.

erhaps.

ell, it was worth it to me to shut her up. She said she was going to marry that Hon. whatever his name was and she would have been set up for life, for he was quite rich. But he died in the fire. It was just good luck for Janine that she was away that night.

I was thoughtful. avinia,I said, ou will have to confess.

onfess? Why ever should I?

ecause it got to come out. There Fleur.

he all right. She happy with those two nice old women.

or the moment. But she will have to be educated. Polly and Eff will have to be paid for keeping her. Why don you tell your mother?

ell my mother! I don think you know my mother.

assure you that everyone around here knows Lady Harriet very well.

just can think what she would do.

he would be horrified, but she would certainly do something, and something has to be done.

could never tell her.

our brother has seen Fleur.

hat?

went to London and he was on the train. He saw where I was staying. He came there one day when I was taking Fleur out in her pram.

She had turned pale.

e was suspicious,I said. want you to tell him the truth, because he suspects the baby is mine.

She tried to disguise the look of relief that came onto her face.

I went on, ou must tell him. He can go on with this half-truth.

oudidn tell him!

f course not. But I do object to his sly references, and I think you ought to tell him the truth right away.

couldn possibly tell him.

hy not? I don suppose he has led a blameless life.

t all right for men. It is girls who have to be so pure.

bviously there are some who are not. I don suppose you are the only one who has indulged in premarital adventures.

h, Drusilla, I do rely on you.

ar too much. I am not going to be insulted by your brother.

e wouldn insult you.

e would and he has and I want him to know the truth.

Il think about it.

f you don tell him, I might be tempted to.

h, Drusilla first Janine and now you

his is quite different. I not blackmailing you. I am merely asking you to tell the truth.