CHAPTER EIGHT

It was like falling into a void. Like drowning, over and over again. Then, after the black despair, came a fiery ache in her heart, which hurt when she moved. It was, she realized, anger. It was there last thing at night, when finally, briefly, she went to sleep, and back in the morning when, heavy-eyed, she woke up.

The anger was largely directed at herself. She was a fool. And Valentine was a fraud. He cared nothing for the masses, only himself. She never wanted to see him again. Let him rot along with all the other entitled, pretentious pseudo-socialists. So much for tearing down the citadels of the bourgeoisie. What he really wanted to do was tear off their knickers.

Her mother, to whom an edited version of events had been given, did not help. “I told you so,” Mrs. Crawford said, rubbing great handfuls of salt in Marion’s wounds. “I never trusted him.”

Her indignation was given added vehemence by the discovery of the job her daughter had turned down. She blamed Valentine for this too, and there was no reason not to let her.

Marion buried herself in her books, preparing for the new term. But it was hard to concentrate. Her mother’s criticisms and Valentine’s betrayal made Edinburgh a difficult place to live. Out in the city, every street reminded her of her shame and humiliation, while home, formerly a haven, was full of frozen silences and martyrish sighs. The portraits of the royal family did not help matters. They looked down from the walls with blue eyes full of rebuke. Her shattered spirits meant that visiting Annie, and Grassmarket, was out of the question. She simply did not have the strength.

The urge to escape, temporarily at least, grew within her. In her desperation, she was even thinking about Peter; perhaps his offer of marriage was still open. But, quite apart from the romantic aspects, was a boarding school in the Highlands really the answer?

The job with the Yorks, so easily refused, now seemed to have had distinct possibilities. She could have gone to London, at least for a while. And it would have been exactly the sort of job Miss Golspie had recommended at the beginning of the summer. You should teach the wealthy. Lady Rose had reiterated it. What greater honor or more important task than to be shaping the young minds of the next generation of imperial rulers?

A missed opportunity, then. But it was too late now. Someone else would have been appointed. As her mother never tired of saying, the whole world would want to look after the famous little princesses.

Marion was mulling miserably, once again, on these gloomy reflections when, to her utter amazement, Valentine appeared one afternoon, letting himself into their house as if nothing had happened. He had, through deliberate management or more likely good luck, chosen a time when her mother was out.

She was sitting with her teaching manuals at the little foldout table. The sitting room was too small to have one up all the time. When Valentine flopped down in Mrs. Crawford’s fireside armchair and lit a cigarette, she was too surprised to stop him. He regarded her with a wide, earnest gaze. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said.

The wild urge to laugh gripped her, mixed with a longing to hit him with a vase. “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?” she said, as calmly as she could. “I caught you with someone else.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t affect anything.”

She blinked, disbelieving. “Doesn’t affect anything?”

“It’s possible to love two people at the same time.”

“What!”

“I call it ‘rethinking conventional relationships.’” His smile was bright and eager. “A new way of loving, for the modern age.”

She felt her mouth fall open.

“I can love both of you,” he went on, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Why not?”

Marion was lost for words. Someone else, however, was anything but.

“Get out!” It was her mother who had spoken. Neither of them had heard her come in. Mrs. Crawford, radiating fury in the doorway, appeared like some vengeful creature from legend. She glared at Valentine with glittering eyes. “You’ve done enough damage,” she snarled.

Valentine did not need telling twice. He fled, taking his new ways of loving with him.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish!” Mrs. Crawford yelled after him, not caring, for once, what the neighbors might say. The door slammed. A picture slid sideways on the wall. It was one of the new ones, of the queen.

“This was on the mat. Must just have arrived in the post.” Her mother pushed something into her hand. “Looks important. Apart from the mud, that is. Your friend managed to stomp all over it as he came.”

“He’s not my friend.” She took the envelope crossly. As well as the advertised black boot-print, it bore an embossed coronet. Marion opened it and pulled out two thick, smooth pages covered in large, looping handwriting. The address was in embossed capitals: “The Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park.”

She read it, and her sense of unreality deepened. “It’s from the Duchess of York,” she said slowly.

Mrs. Crawford’s fury became violent excitement. “What does she want? What does it say?”

Why not come to us for a month, and see how you like us, and we like you? the duchess had written.

She was being given a second chance after all.