She had used the word quite unconsciously. Us, she had said. She had gone to the Riviera and had made Greta arrange things so as to see the house I had described, because she wanted to visualize more clearly the house that we would, in the dream world wed built ourselves, have built for us by Rudolf Santonix.
Im glad you felt like that about it, I said.
She said: What have you been doing?
Just my dull job, I said, and Ive been to a race meeting and I put some money on an outsider. Thirty to one. I put every penny I had on it and it won by a length. Who says my luck isnt in?
Im glad you won, said Ellie, but she said it without excitement, because putting all you had in the world on an outsider and the outsider winning didnt mean anything to Ellies world. Not the kind of thing it meant in mine.
And I went to see my mother, I added.
Youve never spoken much of your mother.
Why should I? I said.
Arent you fond of her?
I considered. I dont know, I said. Sometimes I dont think I am. After all, one grows up and outgrows parents. Mothers and fathers.
I think you do care about her, said Ellie. You wouldnt be so uncertain when you talk about her otherwise.
Im afraid of her in a way, I said. She knows me too well. She knows the worst of me, I mean.
Somebody has to, said Ellie.
What do you mean?
Theres a saying by some great writer or other that no man is a hero to his valet[28]. Perhaps everyone ought to have a valet. It must be so hard otherwise, always living up to peoples good opinion of one.
Well, you certainly have ideas, Ellie, I said. I took her hand. Do you know all about me? I said.
I think so, said Ellie. She said it quite calmly and simply.
I never told you much.
You mean you never told me anything at all, you always clammed up. Thats different. But I know quite well what you are like, you yourself.
I wonder if you do, I said. I went on, It sounds rather silly saying I love you. It seems too late for that, doesnt it? I mean, youve known about it a long time, practically from the beginning, havent you?
Yes, said Ellie, and you knew, too, didnt you, about me?
The thing is, I said, what are we going to do about it? Its not going to be easy, Ellie. You know pretty well what I am, what Ive done, the sort of life Ive led. I went back to see my mother and the grim, respectable little street she lives in. Its not the same world as yours, Ellie. I dont know that we can ever make them meet.
You could take me to see your mother.
Yes, I could, I said, but Id rather not. I expect that sounds very harsh to you, perhaps cruel, but you see weve got to lead a queer life together, you and I. Its not going to be the life that youve led and its not going to be the life that Ive led either. Its got to be a new life where we have a sort of meeting ground between my poverty and ignorance and your money and culture and social knowledge. My friends will think youre stuck up and your friends will think Im socially unpresentable. So what are we going to do?
Ill tell you, said Ellie, exactly what were going to do. Were going to live on Gipsys Acre in a house a dream house that your friend Santonix will build for us. Thats what were going to do. She added, Well get married first. Thats what you mean, isnt it?
Yes, I said, thats what I mean. If youre sure its all right with you.
Its quite easy, said Ellie, we can get married next week. Im of age, you see. I can do what I like now. That makes all the difference. I think perhaps youre right about relations. I shant tell my people and you wont tell your mother, not until its all over and then they can throw fits and it wont matter.
Thats wonderful, I said, wonderful, Ellie. But theres one thing. I hate telling you about it. We cant live at Gipsys Acre, Ellie. Wherever we build our house it cant be there because its sold.
I know its sold, said Ellie. She was laughing. You dont understand, Mike. Im the person whos bought it.
Chapter 8
I sat there, on the grass by the stream among the water flowers with the little paths and the stepping stones all round us. А good many other people were sitting round about us, but we didnt notice them or even see they were there, because we were like all the others. Young couples, talking about their future. I stared at her and stared at her. I just couldnt speak.
Mike, she said. Theres something, something Ive got to tell you. Something about me, I mean.
You dont need to, I said, no need to tell me anything.
Yes, but I must. I ought to have told you long ago but I didnt want to because because I thought it might drive you away. But it explains in a way, about Gipsys Acre.
You bought it? I said. But how did you buy it?
Through lawyers, she said, the usual way. Its a perfectly good investment, you know. The land will appreciate[29]. My lawyers were quite happy about it.
It was odd suddenly to hear Ellie, the gentle and timid Ellie, speaking with such knowledge and confidence of the business world of buying and selling.
You bought it for us?
Yes. I went to a lawyer of my own, not the family one. I told him what I wanted to do, I got him to look into it, I got everything set up and in train.[30] There were two other people after it but they were not really desperate and they wouldnt go very high. The important thing was that the whole thing had to be set up and arranged ready for me to sign as soon as I came of age. Its signed and finished.
But you must have made some deposit or something beforehand. Had you enough money to do that?
No, said Ellie, no, I hadnt control of much money beforehand, but of course there are people who will advance you money. And if you go to a new firm of legal advisers, they will want you to go on employing them for business deals once youve come into what money youre going to have so theyre willing to take the risk that you might drop down dead before your birthday comes.
You sound so businesslike, I said, you take my breath away!
Never mind business, said Ellie, Ive got to get back to what Im telling you. In a way Ive told it you already, but I dont suppose really you realize it.
I dont want to know, I said. My voice rose, I was almost shouting. Dont tell me anything. I dont want to know anything about what youve done or who youve been fond of or what has happened to you.
Its nothing of that kind, she said. I didnt realize that that was what you were fearing it might be. No, theres nothing of that kind. No sex secrets. Theres nobody but you. The thing is that Im well Im rich.
I know that, I said, youve told me already.
Yes, said Ellie with a faint smile, and you said to me, poor little rich girl. But in a way its more than that. My grandfather, you see, was enormously rich. Oil. Mostly oil. And other things. The wives he paid alimony to are dead, there was only my father and myself left because his two other sons were killed. One in Korea and one in a car accident. And so it was all left in a great big huge trust and when my father died suddenly, it all came to me. My father had made provision for my stepmother before, so she didnt get anything more. It was all mine. Im actually one of the richest women in America, Mike.
Good Lord, I said. I didnt know Yes, youre right, I didnt know it was like that.
I didnt want you to know. I didnt want to tell you. That was why I was afraid when I said my name Fenella Goodman. We spell it G-u-t-e-m-a-n, and I thought you might know the name of Guteman so I slurred over it and made it into Goodman.
Yes, I said, Ive seen the name Guteman vaguely. But I dont think Id have recognized it even then. Lots of people are called names rather like that.
Thats why, she said, Ive been so hedged around all the time and fenced in, and imprisoned. Ive had detectives guarding me and young men being vetted before theyre allowed even to speak to me. Whenever Ive made a friend theyve had to be quite sure it wasnt an unsuitable one. You dont know what a terrible, terrible prisoners life it is! But now thats all over, and if you dont mind
Of course I dont mind, I said, we shall have lots of fun. In fact, I said, you couldnt be too rich a girl for me!
We both laughed. She said: What I like about you is that you can be natural about things.[31]
Besides, I said, I expect you pay a lot of tax on it, dont you? Thats one of the few nice things about being like me. Any money I make goes into my pocket and nobody can take it away from me.
Well have our house, said Ellie, our house on Gipsys Acre. Just for a moment she gave a sudden little shiver.
Youre not cold, darling, I said. I looked up at the sunshine.
No, she said.
It was really very hot. Wed been basking. It might almost have been the South of France.
No, said Ellie, it was just that that woman, that gipsy that day.
Oh, dont think of her, I said, she was crazy anyway.
Do you think she really thinks theres a curse on the land?
I think gipsies are like that. You know always wanting to make a song and dance about some curse or something.
Do you know much about gipsies?
Absolutely nothing, I said truthfully. If you dont want Gipsys Acre, Ellie, well buy a house somewhere else. On the top of a mountain in Wales, on the coast of Spain or an Italian hillside, and Santonix can build us a house there just as well.
No, said Ellie, thats how I want it to be. Its where I first saw you walking up the road, coming round the corner very suddenly, and then you saw me and stopped and stared at me. Ill never forget that.
Nor will I, I said.
So thats where its going to be. And your friend Santonix will build it.
I hope hes still alive, I said with an uneasy pang. He was a sick man.
Oh yes, said Ellie, hes alive. I went to see him.
You went to see him?
Yes. When I was in the South of France. He was in a sanatorium there.
Every minute, Ellie, you seem to be more and more amazing. The things you do and manage.
Hes rather a wonderful person I think, said Ellie, but rather frightening.
Did he frighten you?
Yes, he frightened me very much for some reason.
Did you talk to him about us?
Yes. Oh yes, I told him all about us and about Gipsys Acre and about the house. He told me then that wed have to take a chance with him. Hes a very ill man. He said he thought he still had the life left in him to go and see the site, to draw the plans, to visualize it and get it all sketched out. He said he wouldnt mind really if he died before the house was finished, but I told him, added Ellie, that he mustnt die before the house was finished because I wanted him to see us live in it.
What did he say to that?
He asked me if I knew what I was doing marrying you, and I said of course I did.
And then?
He said he wondered if you knew what you were doing. I know all right, I said.
He said You will always know where youre going, Miss Guteman. He said Youll be going always where you want to go and because its your chosen way.
But Mike, he said, might take the wrong road. He hasnt grown up enough yet to know where hes going.
I said, said Ellie, Hell be quite safe with me.
She had superb self-confidence. I was angry though at what Santonix had said. He was like my mother. She always seemed to know more about me than I knew myself.
I know where Im going, I said. Im going the way I want to go and were going it together.
Theyve started pulling down the ruins of The Towers already, said Ellie.
She began to talk practically.
Its to be a rush-job as soon as the plans are finished. We must hurry. Santonix said so. Shall we be married next Tuesday? said Ellie. Its a nice day of the week.
With nobody else there, I said.
Except Greta, said Ellie.
To hell with Greta, I said, shes not coming to our wedding. You and I and nobody else. We can pull the necessary witnesses out of the street.
I really think, looking back, that that was the happiest day of my life
Book II
Chapter 9
So that was that, and Ellie and I got married. It sounds abrupt just putting it like that, but you see it was really just the way things happened. We decided to be married and we got married.
It was part of the whole thing not just an end to a romantic novel or a fairy story. And so they got married and lived happily ever afterwards. You cant, after all, make a big drama out of living happily ever afterwards. We were married and we were both happy and it was really quite a time before anyone got on to us and began to make the usual difficulties and commotions and wed made up our minds to those.
The whole thing was really extraordinarily simple. In her desire for freedom Ellie had covered her tracks very cleverly up to now. The useful Greta had taken all the necessary steps, and was always on guard behind her. And I had realized fairly soon on that there was nobody really whose business it was to care terribly about Ellie and what she was doing. She had a stepmother who was engrossed[32] in her own social life and love affairs. If Ellie didnt wish to accompany her to any particular spot on the globe there was no need for Ellie to do so. Shed had all the proper governesses and ladies maids and scholastic advantages and if she wanted to go to Europe, why not? If she chose to have her twenty-first birthday in London, again why not? Now that she had come into her vast fortune she had the whip hand of her family in so far as spending her money went. If shed wanted a villa on the Riviera or a castle on the Costa Brava or a yacht or any of those things, she had only to mention the fact and someone among the retinues that surround millionaires would put everything in hand immediately.
Greta, I gather, was regarded by her family as an admirable stooge. Competent, able to make all arrangements with the utmost efficiency, subservient no doubt and charming to the stepmother, the uncle and a few odd cousins who seemed to be knocking about. Ellie had no fewer than three lawyers at her command, from what she let fall every now and then. She was surrounded by a vast financial network of bankers and lawyers and the administrators of trust funds. It was a world that I just got glimpses of every now and then, mostly from things that Ellie let fall carelessly in the course of conversation. It didnt occur to her, naturally, that I wouldnt know about all those things. She had been brought up in the midst of them and she naturally concluded that the whole world knew what they were and how they worked and all the rest of it.