The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy

Author:Margaret Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781448192038
Publisher: Random House

BOOK THREE

THE SILVER STY

13

Charles annoyed Robert by talking as though the worst part of the business was the bond which Florence had forcibly established between himself and Fulsome Felix.

‘Now I shall never be able to get rid of that fellow and his confounded cordiality,’ he complained. ‘My son-in-law, by your account, is an unprepossessing rascal. But Florence, not I, will have to suffer for that. As is perfectly proper. I could have endured him very well if he had been the son of another father. As it is, my daughter’s marriage will be the cause, I can foresee, of great personal inconvenience to me.’

Which Robert thought very flippant. Privately he regarded himself as the chief victim in the affair, for Florence and Lewis, having got themselves married with all possible speed, stayed behind in the Tyrol and left to him the appalling task of escorting the three children back to England.

The whole family had urged Charles to go out in person and forbid the banns. But he, knowing his daughter, refused to give himself so much useless trouble. He sent a few remonstrative telegrams, so wise and so witty that she quite disliked having to tear them up. And, for a long time, he unobtrusively held himself in readiness to rush off and fetch her home at an hour’s notice, should she summon him. But no message came. During the first month of her married life she wrote every week to say how happy she was; then, for a time, her letters came almost daily and he interviewed the idea of going to her without waiting for any direct appeal. But in the Autumn she seemed to settle down. She wrote less often and more tranquilly. Lewis, it seemed, was at work again on that Concerto which Sanger’s death had interrupted. They had migrated to a little fishing village on the Mediterranean where he could be quite quiet and finish his work in peace. Later, they were to return to England, move into the house which Florence had bought, and launch themselves upon musical society in London.

This house now filled up all her letters to her father. It was at Strand-on-the-Green, and had belonged to one of her many school friends. She had always thought it the most delightful house in the world, and, hearing that it was for sale, she wired to Charles to secure it for her. He bought it about three weeks after her marriage. She was quite sure that it would exactly accommodate herself and Lewis. It was easily accessible, and yet sufficiently out of urban distractions. When their position was quite assured they might live right out in the country, and people should come and stay with them, but at present it was advisable to be near the scene of action. It was a very old house, with a romantic history dating back to Charles II, and a walled garden with a mulberry tree. In this garden a large studio had been built, connected with

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