The Lorimer Legacy Read online

  ANNE MELVILLE

  The Lorimer Legacy

  Contents

  Part I Alexa in England

  Part II Alexa Abroad

  Part III Margaret in Jamaica

  Part IV San Francisco

  Part V Kate in England

  Part VI Alexa at Blaize

  PART I

  Alexa in England

  1

  A young woman whose greatest problem is that of filling her time ought to consider herself fortunate. Alexa Lorimer knew this well enough, but as she embarked yet again on an exercise which she had practised a dozen times that day already, she found it difficult to control her vexation. She had gone to the trouble of preparing a surprise to enliven the afternoon. But Margaret Scott, her guardian, hurrying off from Elm Lodge to inspect some village baby which had developed a rash, had not even noticed. Now the rest of the day stretched emptily ahead, offering no excitements. Alexa was bored.

  Her hands slammed down on the keyboard of the grand piano and the discord of her ill-temper reverberated through the drawing room. She had been practising for over an hour, but to what purpose? What good did it do to improve her breath control, to extend the range of her voice, to increase its flexibility, to perfect the purity of its tone, when her guardian forbade the career on which her heart was set?

  Indulging her discontent, Alexa jumped up from the piano stool and wandered round the room, fingering its ornaments, until the sight of her own reflection in the mirror above the fireplace reminded her of a second grievance. She was eighteen years old but still expected to wear boots and black woollen stockings beneath ankle-length dresses, which were suitable only for the schoolroom. Her hair fell to her waist because no one had recognized that it was time for her to put it up. What could she do to make someone realize that time was passing, that her life was slipping by?

  For it was 1895 now – a year in which Alexa Lorimer found herself poised in the limbo between childhood and womanhood. Just as some children never quite grow up, so some adults seem never to have been children. At this turning point of age, Alexa achieved the feat of combining these characteristics. The childish style of dress was forced on her, but her immaturity displayed itself in more than appearance. As a small child she had felt a continuing need to give and to receive demonstrative affection, and she had not yet grown out of this longing. Every day she assured Margaret of her love and waited for a kiss or embrace in return. She craved for praise like a little girl and was hurt by criticism, even by silence. Her good looks, her needlework, her painting, her music – all were continually placed on show and must continually be applauded.

  Yet there was a sense in which she had never had a childhood. Orphaned when she was nine years old, Alexa vividly remembered those earlier years with her dying mother: years of cold and hunger, of lies to landladies and stealthy removals from one shabby set of lodgings to another in the middle of the night. As for her father, if he had ever dandled her on his lap, she did not remember it. Indeed, even his name was unknown to her. She had been given the surname Lorimer because at the time of her adoption that had been her guardian’s name. Margaret Scott had been born a Lorimer, a member of the great Bristol family of merchant princes. Her marriage to Charles Scott had taken place only some years after she had accepted the responsibility for Alexa’s upbringing, rescuing from the workhouse a child without family or friends to care for her.

  It was the nightmare of the years of poverty which made Alexa determined to become rich. Almost from babyhood she had known that she was beautiful. Her oval face, framed by the long blonde hair which glinted with red in the sunlight, would have inspired a Renaissance artist to paint her as a goddess. She was a natural actress too. Her expressive vivacity and the flash of her green eyes, though disturbing the classical beauty which her face displayed in repose, had the power to catch and hold attention. But Alexa’s greatest asset was her singing voice; her goal, an operatic career. That was why she practised so conscientiously every day, and that was what she dreamed about every night. Yet how could the ambition be realized? In many pleading talks with her guardian she had been told time and time again that there was no form of theatrical entertainment in which a young woman could appear without irreparable damage to the most precious of her possessions: her reputation.

  So deep were Alexa’s love and admiration for Margaret that she tried to accept what she was told. But nothing could put an end to her obsession with a future in which she would be famous. Nothing could stop her fretting against the dullness of her life in the country, where the greatest excitement of a new day was that Margaret’s little son, Robert, might cut a new tooth. The very thought of doing anything to offend or upset her guardian brought tears to her eyes, and yet her ambitions urged her to escape. If only she could see how to take the first step! When, oh when, was something going to happen?

  As though to answer the question, Margaret Scott came into the drawing room at that moment, a small, neat woman whose bright auburn hair had only recently begun to lose a little of its youthful sheen. She had become a medical student at a time when great determination was needed to overcome the opposition of the medical profession, society in general and her own family in particular to the idea of a woman qualifying as a doctor, and the steadiness of character which had sustained her at that time still showed itself in the calm good sense with which she organized the household at Elm Lodge. Years of earning her own living before her marriage and since her widowhood had made her firm and efficient, but the businesslike side of her nature was never allowed to obscure the warmth of her love for her son and her ward. The smile on her face now was that of a woman with a treat to announce, and she did not look about her before speaking.

  ‘I have just heard from Bristol. Matthew is coming to stay.’

  Alexa’s impulsive nature made her as easily excited as depressed. Gloom was banished in an instant as she clapped her hands with pleasure. ‘But you invited Beatrice and Arthur as well, surely?’ she exclaimed.

  Margaret laughed as she sat down. ‘Beatrice is out in society now. It seems from her mother’s letter that her chances of finding a husband are not rated very high. Anyway, there is to be no question of taking time off from the search to bury herself in the country. And Arthur, it appears, has asked if he may leave school and join Matthew in their father’s business. So both the boys now have little holiday time and must plan carefully how to spend it to advantage. I am quoting their mother’s own words. Sophie has never troubled to waste time in being tactful.’

  ‘But Matthew, you said –?’

  ‘Matthew would like to come by himself. His letter arrived by the same post as his mother’s. He was not told of the invitation until after it had been refused on his behalf, and I detect a note of indignation in his hope that it is not too late for him to accept. Matthew and I have always been particularly fond of each other. We needn’t tell the others, but I shall be glad to have him here without them.’

  Alexa made no comment, but her eyes sparkled. She too liked Matthew the best of all Margaret’s nephews and nieces. He was someone to whom she would be able to talk about her ambitions, someone whose support might be enlisted.

  Alexa had been adopted by Margaret nine years before. After barely supporting herself as a doctor, Margaret had returned with her ward to live in her childhood home, Brinsley House, which stood high above Bristol and the gorge of the Avon, a monument to the wealth of the Lorimer dynasty. Alexa knew that the move had been made so that she herself should enjoy comfort and young company. The house belonged to Margaret’s elder brother, William Lorimer, whose ownership of the Lorimer shipping company had made him as prosperous as any other in the long line of slave-trading sea captains, merchants and bankers from whom he w
as descended. William had never made any pretence of liking Alexa. But he had always disapproved of his sister’s determination to qualify for a profession and earn her own living. His position as head of the Lorimer family made it necessary in his eyes that as an unmarried femaie Margaret should become part of his household. By allowing her young ward to share the schoolroom of his own children, he had been able to force on his sister a situation more easily approved by Bristol society. So for several years – until Margaret married Dr Charles Scott and moved to Elm Lodge – Alexa had lived in the great mansion which the Lorimer family had built a century earlier, and had developed with the three children of the household a relationship almost as close as that of siblings.

  Like true brothers and sisters, they had had their likes and dislikes amongst each other. Beatrice, sharp-featured and sharp-mannered, had never accepted the intruder, although they were close in age. Alexa for her part tried to make friends, but was defeated by argument and sarcasm. Beatrice was clever, and took pleasure in leading Alexa’s quick but less logical mind up knotted by-ways before laughing at her for a fool.

  Arthur, the youngest of the three, was clever as well, with his father’s quick wits and eye for a profit. He could see how to make money in any situation, and only Alexa’s lack of pocket money when she was younger had prevented her either losing it to him or else, according to Arthur’s mood, seeing it invested in some scheme which would double her fortune. They were friendly enough, but Arthur was too young for a real intimacy.

  Alexa’s relationship with Matthew, the eldest of the trio, was of a different kind. It was his overt admiration of her looks which was no doubt responsible for some of Beatrice’s jealousy. Three years Alexa’s senior, he had protected her when she arrived at Brinsley House, fending off Arthur’s boisterousness and Beatrice’s unkind criticisms. Both as a boy and as a young man he was reserved, even silent – kinder, though far less clever, than his quick-thinking brother and sister. Alexa recognized the affection which he never put into words, and was always happy in his company. The prospect now that she would be left to entertain him during his visit while Margaret worked gave her nothing but joy.

  When Margaret turned to leave the drawing room, Alexa held her breath. Surely the surprise she had arranged would be noticed at last.

  Yesterday the end wall of the room had been empty, but on it today hung a picture in a heavy black frame. It was the portrait of an old man. His thick hair and beard were completely white – although his bushy eyebrows, surprisingly, were as red as Margaret’s hair. There was vigour in the firm features, and his eyes stared sternly out of the canvas, confident and commanding. Alexa found his expression tantalizing, for there was a hint of kindness mixed with the severity. She waited with interest to discover what Margaret would say – an interest which quickly turned to alarm. For when she caught sight of the picture, Margaret seemed to be not so much surprised-as-shocked. She stared at it for a long time before turning slowly back to face Alexa.

  ‘How did this get here?’

  ‘I found it in the boxroom with all those old pieces of furniture. I was helping Betty to look for a chair to put in Robert’s bedroom, and there it was, propped against the wall and covered with dust. It seemed a pity to let such a handsome picture become dirty. I thought perhaps you had forgotten it was there, so I asked Parker to hang it this morning, as a surprise for you. Who is he?’

  Margaret sat down. She was white-faced, and for a moment it appeared that she did not wish to reply. And yet the answer, when it came, was not one which should have caused any hesitation. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is John Junius Lorimer. My father.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you hang the picture before? I should have thought –’

  ‘Because it would have offended Charles to see the portrait here,’ Margaret said.

  It was Alexà’s private opinion that husbands should not be allowed to have everything their own way, especially when they happened to be dead. But she realized how tactless it would be to say so. ‘Tell me about him,’ she begged instead. ‘You never talk about your parents. What was your father like?’

  ‘He was an autocrat,’ said Margaret. ‘Rich and respected. He was chairman of Lorimer’s Bank until it collapsed at the end of his life. He ruled it as though he were God, and his family was given much the same treatment. The portrait gives a good indication of that, I think. But he was generous as well. That may not be so easy to recognize from the painting.’

  ‘Did you inherit anything from him?’

  ‘My red hair,’ said Margaret lightly. ‘And I didn’t think much of the inheritance when I was young, I can tell you.’

  ‘But nothing else? If he was as important as that, surely he left you some kind of legacy. Some money, or some of his things?’

  There was a sudden coolness, a barrier between them. If Alexa had not known that her guardian was always completely honest in everything she did and said, she would have suspected that Margaret was about to tell a lie. But that was only the most fleeting of impressions. The answer itself came with a definiteness which could only be sincere.

  ‘No,’ Margaret told her. ‘I loved my father very much, and he loved me; but he left me no legacy at all.’

  2

  A question asked in innocence takes on an unintended significance in the mind of someone who is reluctant to answer it. Margaret found Alexa’s interest in legacies disturbing, for her thoughts went at once to the black leather case which she had concealed in an unused attic. Had the child been ferreting about in the cupboards under the eaves as well as in the little boxroom? Was she hoping by her enquiry to elicit an official confirmation of something which she had already discovered for herself? But Alexa’s continuing questions suggested that she had accepted the answer at its face value. Margaret had been careful to tell no actual lie. It was perfectly true that she had inherited nothing from her father.

  ‘Was it because he was angry about your wanting to be a doctor?’ Alexa pressed. ‘Did he divide everything between his sons? Or did he believe in leaving everything to the eldest?’

  ‘I never dared so much as hint to my father that I wanted to take a medical training,’ Margaret confessed. ‘That came later, after he was dead. No; there was no quarrel. It was just that by the time he died he had nothing to leave. He lost all his fortune in the last months of his life, when the bank crashed. My brother Ralph is just as poor as I am. And if William is rich, it is because he had already taken over the family shipping line before the crash, and he has inherited the Lorimer talent for business. The most enduring legacy in any family is that of character.’

  ‘How can you say that!’ Alexa demanded. ‘Your two brothers are quite different from each other. And you are different again.’

  Margaret recognized that it must seem so to Alexa. For one thing, the physical differences were so pronounced, especially between her two brothers. William had always been small and sharp-featured, and he had inherited his mother’s brown hair. Ralph, on the other hand, tall, broad-shouldered and blond, had been as handsome as a young god before he left England. If he was sallowed and desiccated now, that was the result of years of exposure to a tropical sun. It seemed worth while to explain, though, how in one way they were the same.

  ‘William and Ralph are both very hard-working,’ she told her ward. ‘Able men, and ambitious too, in their different ways. William has put all his energies into running a business, and he has been wonderfully successful. Being well established before our father died, he was very quick at that time to seize every opportunity to increase his fortune. Ralph was only a schoolboy then, when Lorimer’s Bank collapsed. He saw the crash as a judgement on the family for the years of slave-trading which brought us our wealth. That was why, as soon as he was old enough, he chose to go out to Jamaica as a missionary. But as far as I can tell from his letters and Lydia’s, he seems to have taken charge of a congregation which was debilitated and unemployed and achieved a miracle by turning his parish into a thriving agricul
tural community. I hardly understand how he has done it, but clearly he must be as good a manager as William. What they each inherited was an insistence on being at the head of their own affairs, and a determination to succeed. My father had both these qualities to a very marked degree.’

  ‘And you?’ asked Alexa. ‘What about you?’

  ‘If I seem less successful, you must remember that I started from a lower level of expectation. I was brought up as a rich man’s daughter, with everything provided for me. And might have expected to marry young and simply to move from one gentleman’s care to another. To carry me through a medical training I needed the same will to succeed that I have just been describing in William and Ralph – and I had to face much more opposition than they did. I confess that I have been less ambitious since I qualified, but I still share my brothers’ liking for independence. To manage my own household seems as much of a triumph to me as the running of a plantation is to Ralph, or of a shipping line to William. So you see, we all enjoy a fair inheritance.’

  ‘I wish I could have shared it,’ said Alexa. There was a touch of envy in her voice. For a moment Margaret hesitated, wondering whether to take this opportunity of telling Alexa something about her own parentage. But it was not a subject to be approached without preparation. The turn of the conversation had taken her by surprise and she had not had time to think what she might want to say and how it would be best to say it. She stood up and looked her father in the eye again.

  ‘You were right, Alexa, to think that John Junius Lorimer should not be condemned to cobwebs for ever,’ she said. ‘I hope that as you practise you will find him an appreciative audience.’

  Even as the door closed behind her, she heard the sound of the piano begin again. It seemed a good moment to dispel any remaining suspicions about Alexa’s explorations. She hurried to the top of the house. The attics there were designed to accommodate a far larger domestic staff than Margaret could afford to maintain, and in one of the unused rooms was concealed the only treasure which Elm Lodge contained. It might have been wiser to entrust it to the strongroom of a bank, but Margaret had good reason to be suspicious of banks, and she had no fear of burglars. All the villagers knew that their doctor often had as much trouble as themselves in finding one penny to rub against another.