Sara Craven - Temple Of The Moon

Her father’s death had occurred when she was halfway through a photographic course at art college, and she had immediately offered to abandon the course and get a job to help out financially, but Aunt Molly had been adamant in her refusal. Gabrielle might well be glad of some qualifications one day, she had insisted, although she had no means of knowing how right she would be.

Gabrielle had been at the end of her course when she met James. She had seen his lecture on ancient Aztec civilisations advertised at the local adult education centre and had recognised in the Dr James Warner with the impressive string of letters after his name the Jimmy Warner who had been at university with her father and worked with him on digs in their younger days.

When the lecture was over, she nerved herself to approach him and explain who she was. James Warner was a slightly built man, with severely cut greying hair and a trim beard, and in her wildest dreams Gabrielle could not envisage anyone, even her extrovert father, calling him ‘Jimmy’, but he had greeted her with every appearance of delight and asked her to stay on and have coffee with him.

Her initial reservations had soon been swept away by his evident affection for her father and distress at the news of his death.

‘I was abroad, of course, when it happened,’ he told her. ‘By the time I heard about it, I felt it was too late even to write and offer my condolences. I had no idea Charles had a daughter, either.’

He drove her back to her digs after the lecture and said they must keep in touch, but it was a vague remark and Gabrielle did not really expect to hear from him again, although she thought regretfully that she would have liked more time with him to give her a chance to ask more things about ancient Mexico that did not come within the normal scope of a lecture.

But to her surprise, she did hear from him again, and quickly. He wrote to her, and followed this up with a telephone call and flowers. He had several speaking engagements in the neighbourhood and invited Gabrielle to go to these as his guest. It was useless to pretend she was not flattered by his attentions and in many ways she felt as safe with James as she had with her father, although the two men were not a bit alike and she knew it.

At first she told herself that James’ kindness to her was prompted solely by the fact that she was her father’s daughter, but as time went by, she began to realise this was not the whole truth. His wooing might have begun cautiously, but soon there was no doubt of his intentions. James wanted to marry her. He told her so one evening when they were dining together before going to the theatre. He spoke frankly on the considerable difference in their ages and on his previous marriage which had ended in divorce some years previously.

‘My former wife could not accept the demands that my work made on my time,’ he said. ‘She had no interest in my researches and hated travelling. Whereas you, my dear Gabrielle, share my fascination with the Maya. You could be a great help to me—even an inspiration.’

If Gabrielle hesitated at all, it was only momentarily, and if an inner voice warned her to make sure she was attracted by the man and not merely by the life he could offer her, she hushed it. She had been oddly touched too by James’ old-fashioned ideas of courtship and his evident respect for her innocence. She had been disturbed by the permissive behaviour that seemed to be the pattern at the college she had attended and her determination to stay apart from it had resulted in her being called a prig, and even more unkindly a professional virgin by some of the other students. The labels had stuck and in spite of the attractions of her dark copper hair and green eyes, fringed by long lashes, she had spent a rather lonely existence during her student years.

Even when they were engaged, James made no attempt to push their relationship to a more intimate level, and she was grateful to him for this. The only souring of her happiness came with Aunt Molly’s overt disapproval.

‘Are you quite sure what you’re doing, child?’ she had said abruptly one day, watching Gabrielle packing some of the books she had decided to take with her to her new home. ‘He’s a middle-aged man, and set in his ways, and you’re so young … Sometimes I feel so worried.’

Gabrielle sat back on her heels and looked at her aunt wide-eyed. ‘But, Aunt Molly, surely you’ve known James for years.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve known him all right,’ her aunt reorted rather grimly. ‘And that just increases my misgivings. Even your father used to say there was a side to James that no one would ever know, and that it was probably just as well. Oh, it’s not just the fact that he’s so much older than you, although that does disturb me too. I just wish you’d wait for a while—get to know each other a little more.’

‘Oh, Aunt Molly!’ Gabrielle curbed her exasperation. ‘Haven’t you said time and time again that no one really knows anyone until they have to live with them?’

‘Yes, I have,’ her aunt returned. ‘And if that was all you and James wanted to do, I’d feel much happier about the whole thing.’

‘I’m shocked,’ Gabrielle said with an attempt at lightness. ‘But seriously, can you imagine James agreeing to anything as—swinging as a trial marriage?’

They laughed together, but their amusement was forced and Gabrielle was relieved when the conversation turned to another, less personal subject. Aunt Molly was a dear, but her views of marriage were as old-fashioned in their way as James’. She believed in romance, and that love would win the day, whereas Gabrielle was convinced that marriage was a relationship demanding toleration and hard work on both sides if it was to succeed. She had been prepared to work at her marriage. What she had failed to do was ask herself if James was prepared to do the same.

Gabrielle gave a little sigh and signalled to a passing waiter. ‘ Quisiera una horchata, por favor ,’ she said haltingly, indicating the few drops of the pale almond and rice drink remaining in her glass so that there would be no misunderstanding.

This was not how she had imagined her introduction to Mexico would be, sitting alone in a hotel foyer. She had thought James would be with her, advising her on what to order, encouraging her to use her Spanish, so painfully acquired in the comparatively brief period before she set out on her journey. But James had not even been there to meet her at the airport. Again, she had tried to make excuses for him, blaming the unreliability of the postal system, but at the same time something told her that even if one of her letters had in fact gone astray, it was unlikely that two would have done so.

She had tried very hard with the second letter. There was no note of triumph in her announcement that Vision had decided to send her to the Yucatan to accompany the expedition of which James was a member. She had acknowledged that she was going against his expressed wishes, first in accepting full-time employment, and again in following him to Mexico, but she had begged him to understand that she needed more from life than to spend every day sitting in that immaculate flat, watching the housekeeper Mrs Hutchinson tending the pottery and figurines so strikingly displayed in showcases and alcoves. Gabrielle had not visited James’ home before their wedding, but when they returned there after the honeymoon. she was immediately conscious of a feeling of oppression. It was all so beautiful and tasteful—and slightly unreal. She had imagined she would be able to stamp something of her own personality on their home, but it had soon been made clear to her that there was no room for the sort of improvement that she visualised. Her tentative suggestion that the living room furniture could be re-grouped to provide a more homely effect had been greeted by James with a kind of horrified amusement. Gabrielle sometimes felt like a ghost. If she was merely sitting in a chair reading, and left the room momentarily, she found the cushions had been plumped up in her absence. Not even her own bedroom seemed to belong to her.