A contented appearance is a dangerous disguise if it conceals any secret longing for change. William observed his sister closely from the moment she arrived at Brinsley House, not long after Captain Richards had left. If Margaret had known what depended on her behaviour that day she might have sighed and languished. But she did not know, and so she arrived with a smile on her face and a brisk eagerness to help with the party.
It was easy for William to avoid any mention of the letter in his pocket until he had time to collect his thoughts on the subject. Margaret could have no possible reason to mention out of the blue a name which had not been spoken in Brinsley House for three years. In any case, the birthday excitement meant that she was in as much hurry to visit Beatrice as Beatrice was to see her. The little girl’s previous disappointment at Ralph’s empty-handed arrival was quite forgotten in the pleasure of discovering a rosy-cheeked Dutch doll inside the box which Margaret was carrying.
Already the other young guests and their nursemaids were beginning to arrive. Their white flounced muslin dresses and pale blue sashes fluttered over the lawns as though a swarm of butterflies had suddenly descended. It was a pretty sight - although William frowned to see that Arthur, who was nearly four and should have known better, had stained his satin suit with green by sliding down one of the grassy banks. His over-excitement showed itself in noise and naughtiness. He chased the girls, jumping to tug at their hair ribbons, until Margaret calmed him with the responsibility of forming the first bridge for a game of Oranges and Lemons. Matthew, by contrast, stood aloof, knowing himself too old for a gathering of such little girls, and yet accepting some of the responsibilities of a host. He was quick to help anyone who tripped and fell, but between such duties returned to stand, straight-backed and solemn, at the head of the stone steps.
William noted his elder son’s grave courtesy with a pride which expanded to take in the whole occasion. Who could have imagined, four years earlier, that the children of the best families in Bristol would ever play in the gardens of Brinsley House as his guests? The achievement was as satisfactory as it had been swift. He nodded to himself in self-approval as he stood at the library window. Then he returned his thoughts to the question of Margaret and the letter.
There was no opportunity to talk to her during the afternoon. When it was time for the party tea, she stood watchfully in the background to make sure that no shy guest found herself neglected and no spilt jelly led to tears. Afterwards, in the great drawing room, she sat beside Beatrice as the conjuror produced doves from his hat and yards of coloured silk handkerchiefs from his sleeve. It was not until later that evening, when the party was over and the Lorimer children had been taken upstairs, that William had the opportunity to test her attitude. The four adults were sitting together in the family drawing room as he asked her first about the progress of her training.
She smiled with pleasure at his show of interest.
‘I have had more examinations to pass this summer,’ she said. ‘But they were not as important as last year’s First M.B. Most important of all will be the Second M.B. If I feel myself to be sufficiently prepared, I shall sit for that in July next year.’
‘What does the Second M.B. comprise?’ asked Ralph, still near enough to a life of examinations to be interested in his sister’s.
‘Everything you can imagine. Pathology, surgery, midwifery, medicine and forensic medicine. Even toxicology. As well as the written papers, there is a viva voce on each, and practical sessions of dissection and analysis. I am frightened already by the thought of it all.’ But she was smiling as she spoke, so that William, watching her closely, could detect her excitement at the challenge of the course.
‘So for this coming year you will still be studying?’ he checked.
‘Yes, but in a different way from before. Although we must still attend lectures, most of our time now is spent in hospitals, seeing as wide a variety of cases as we can. My midwifery practical experience is already complete. Since June I have delivered sixty-five babies. My new work, starting next Monday, will be at the Hospital for Sick Children in East London, as clerk to the house-physician. I look forward to this very much. For three years I have been dissecting dead bodies. To care for patients who may be helped to recovery should be a most rewarding task.’
William found it difficult to conceal his distaste for the information she gave in such a casual manner. The cutting up of dead bodies could not in any circumstances be described as a suitable occupation for a woman. Yet he was a man who respected success in any field and he had made his own enquiries. He knew, for example, that the examinations which punctuated the studies of any medical student were stringent. To pass each of them at the first attempt, as Margaret had done so far, was an achievement not to be despised. In any case, he was not one to waste time regretting decisions which had been made and put into effect long ago. All that concerned him now was whether Margaret herself was happy in her work.
There could be no doubt about the answer. Her smile, at once confident and excited, might have softened the heart of a warmer man. In William’s case it served only to confirm his opinion that since his sister appeared to have fashioned a life so congenial to herself, she should be allowed to continue in it without interruption. While he pondered the matter, Ralph took up the questioning.
‘Do you intend to specialize after you qualify?’ he asked.
‘Either in paediatrics or obstetrics,’ Margaret told him. ‘I haven’t yet decided which. Each has the advantage that at least amongst the patients there is little prejudice against women, and that would not be true if I went into general practice.’
‘Do Miss Morton’s interests lie in the same sphere as yours?’ asked Ralph, with a casual air.
‘No, Lydia has her own enthusiasms,’ said Margaret. ‘If her choice were free, I believe that she would go to India as a medical missionary. She has been influenced by some of our fellow-students who have returned from that part of the world especially in order to increase their usefulness by medical training. But Mr Morton is in poor health, and Mrs Morton becomes upset at the possibility of her daughter going so far away. So Lydia intends instead to specialize in public health. There is a great deal to be learned, and much that is already known has yet to be applied. Even in hospitals, the older doctors and nurses have been very slow to understand the need for sterilization or even cleanliness. I am appalled every day by what I see. We are all told to be tactful, for the sake of the other women who will follow us, but sometimes it is very hard to keep silent.’
The conversation continued for a little longer before Sophie showed her boredom with the subject by interrupting. William listened, and watched, and considered. After the others had retired for the night he sat for half an hour in the library, with the letter which had been on his mind all evening lying on the desk in front of him.
Margaret had not yet learned of Ralph’s decision to become a Baptist missionary, and knew nothing of the interview which had taken place between the two brothers earlier in the day. She would have thought it monstrously unfair if she had discovered that because William resented the waste of money on his brother’s Oxford education he was taking on himself the right to decide whether his sister’s training should or should not go for nothing in the same way - or that, because he was sensitive to a fall in social status through Ralph, he could hardly bear the thought of his sister allying herself to a fugitive from the law who could be described as ‘perhaps a respectable tradesman’.
William himself knew that it was unjust on his part to decide Margaret’s future without allowing her to express her own opinion, but he did not intend to let her argue the matter with him. Like his father, he believed himself entitled to keep all family decisions in his own hands, even when they concerned others more than himself.
He stared down at the desk, his fingers tapping. Although he was now considering whether or not to destroy the letter, the thought of opening and reading it never occurred to him. Such an action would be dishonourable, whereas the course he was debating with himself might be all for the best.
Perhaps one reason why he was not tempted to read the contents was his certainty that he could guess them accurately. With a warrant still out for his arrest, David Gregson would not have taken the risk of revealing where he was merely in order to continue a disagreement. A letter to Margaret could have only one purpose - to end the quarrel with which they must have parted. William could not know the details, but his sister’s distress at the time suggested that she had dismissed her lover in a way she later regretted.
It seemed safe to make the assumption that she was now being invited to travel to San Francisco, to marry a man who after so long would be almost a stranger. William knew well enough that young women found it difficult to reject any invitation of this kind, and felt it his responsibility to decide on Margaret’s behalf what was best for her. Four years earlier, such a marriage might have brought her happiness. But today?
In speaking of his vocation Ralph had claimed that Margaret would understand it because her own sense of vocation was strong. Even if he had not sensed that already, the evening’s conversation would have been enough to convince William of its truth. He would be doing his sister no kindness by unsettling her now. She had been happy in her training and she looked forward with satisfaction to a life which - whatever William himself might think - she believed would be of value both to herself and to society. At no time during the past four years had she shown any sign of regret for her broken engagement. Her present mood was, in a single word, serene.
How different it would be if she were suddenly to learn that a relationship which she had thought buried might still be revived. In the first place she would have all the emotional anxiety of deciding what her feelings were for a man she had not seen for so long. She herself had changed greatly during the past four years, and so certainly had David Gregson, but she would be expected to make a choice before seeing him again. In the second place, if she decided to go, she would feel guilt at the knowledge that she was wasting her training by abandoning it before the acquisition of the necessary practical experience. If, on the other hand, she resolved to stay, she would undoubtedly wonder from time to time whether she had made the right choice. The uncertainty could blight a life which otherwise would be contented.
There was one other point to be considered. If Margaret were to meet David Gregson again, the last months of Lorimer’s Bank before its failure would necessarily be discussed between them. What she did not know, and need not know, was that their father’s death had left a good many questions unanswered although the creditors had pressed as hard as they could. The plain fact was that John Junius’s fortune had diminished in the year before his death, but no one had been able to discover where the missing funds had gone.
The mystery of Georgiana’s rubies had never been adequately explained. During the course of the bankruptcy proceedings it was discovered that John Junius had quietly disposed of all the most valuable pieces of his collection of jade, replacing them with a few cheap carvings so that the gaps should not be conspicuous. He had claimed – or so Margaret reported at the time – that the most priceless carvings were stored for safe keeping in the vaults of Lorimer’s, but they had never been found and there was no record of their deposit. William had assumed at first that John Junius had sold them to raise the price of the rubies, but the later discovery that the jewellery itself was only paste had introduced a new puzzle.
It was a puzzle which nobody had solved, and one to which William gave a good deal of thought. To him it seemed clear that his father had made an attempt to rescue a large sum of money from the crash he foresaw, and that he had done so in order that the family should not be ruined. The real disaster was that he died without revealing to his elder son where the reserve was concealed. William felt sure that one day he would be able to work out the answer to this problem and discover a hidden fortune; but until that day came it was not in his interest that anyone else should remember the discrepancy which had been the subject of so much agitation at the time but which had now ceased to be newsworthy. David Gregson and Margaret, together talking over the events which had parted them, might inadvertently revive a controversy which was best forgotten.
So many thousand miles away, what harm could they do? William forced himself to recognize that this last objection to the renewing of old ties was not in Margaret’s true interest. The other arguments were a different matter. For some time longer he stared at the unopened letter in front of him. Then he made up his mind.
Margaret had made her own choice. She had been happy in her decision, and to be offered the same choice for a second time could only bring uncertainty. Whatever she decided to do, she would be unhappy about what she had to reject. To force her into such a situation would be unkind. The past, thought William to himself, is best left undisturbed.
His conscience did not disturb him at all. He had thought the matter through and was confident that the conclusion he reached as head of the family was in his sister’s best interest. And no one would ever know. He lit a spill from the lamp on his desk and applied it to the letter from San Francisco, holding a corner until the flame burned his finger and thumb. Then he dropped the charred sheet into the fireplace and stirred it with a poker into ash.