'You bought it?' I said, 'but how did you buy it?'
'Through lawyers,' she said, 'the usual way. It's a perfectly good investment, you know. The land will appreciate. 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. There were two other people after it but they were not really desperate and they wouldn't 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. It's 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 hadn't 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 you've come into what money you're going to have so they're 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, 'I've got to get back to what I'm telling you. In a way I've told it you already, but I don't suppose really you realise it.'
'I don't want to know,' I said. My voice rose, I was almost shouting. 'Don't tell me anything. I don't want to know anything about what you've done or who you've been fond of or what has happened to you.'
'It's nothing of that kind,' she said. 'I didn't realise that that was what you were fearing it might be. No, there's nothing of that kind. No sex secrets. There's nobody but you. The thing is that I'm – well – I'm rich.'
'I know that,' I said, 'you've told me already.'
'Yes,' said Ellie with a faint smile, 'and you said to me, 'poor little rich girl'. But in a way it's 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 didn't get anything more. It was all mine. I'm – actually one of the richest women in America.'
'Good Lord,' I said. 'I didn't know. Yes, you're right, I didn't know it was like that.'
'I didn't want you to know. I didn't 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, 'I've seen the name of Guteman vaguely. But I don't think I'd have recognised it even then. Lots of people are called names rather like that.'
'That's why,' she said, 'I've been so hedged around all the time and fenced in, and imprisoned. I've had detectives guarding me and young men being vetted before they're allowed even to speak to me. Whenever I've made a friend they've had to be quite sure it wasn't an unsuitable one. You don't know what a terrible, terrible prisoner's life it is! But now that's all over, and if you don't mind -'
'Of course I don't mind,' I said, 'we shall have lots of fun. In fact,' I said, 'you couldn't 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.'
'Besides,' I said, 'I expect you pay a lot of tax on it, don't you? That's 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.'
'We'll have our house,' said Ellie, 'our house on Gipsy's Acre.' Just for a moment she gave a sudden little shiver.
'You're not cold, darling,' I said. I looked up at the sunshine.
'No,' she said.
It was really very hot. We'd 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 don't think of her,' I said, 'she was crazy anyway.'
'Do you think she really thinks there's 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 don't want Gipsy's Acre, Ellie, we'll 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, 'that's how I want it to be. It's 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. I'll never forget that.'
'Nor will I,' I said.
'So that's where it's going to be. And your friend Santonix will build it.'
'I hope he's still alive,' I said with an uneasy pang. 'He was a sick man.'
'Oh yes,' said Ellie, 'he's alive. I went to see him.'
'You went to see him?'
'Yes. When I was in the South of France. He was in a sanitorium there.'
'Every minute, Ellie, you seem to be more and more amazing. The things you do and manage.'
'He's 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 Gipsy's Acre and about the house. He told me then that we'd have to take a chance with him. He's 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 visualise it and get it all sketched out. He said he wouldn't mind really if he died before the house was finished, but I told him,' added Ellie, 'that he mustn't 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 you're goings Miss Guteman.' He said 'You'll be going always where you want to go and because it's your chosen way.'
''But Mike,' he said, 'might take the wrong road. He hasn't grown up enough yet to know where he's going.'
'I said,' said Ellie, 'he'll 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 I'm going,' I said. 'I'm going the way I want to go and we're going it together.'
'They've started pulling down the ruins of The Towers already,' said Ellie.
She began to talk practically.
'It's 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, 'it's a nice day of the week.'
'With nobody else there,' I said.
'Except Greta,' said Ellie.
'To hell with Greta,' I said, 'she's 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…
