A Dark and Distant Shore (71 page)

Tiredly, he said to Theo on one occasion, ‘The moment I have things straight, I’m going to suggest she goes away somewhere for a change and a rest. She must know she needs it!’ And Theo replied, his slanting brows raised, ‘You can try. But my own view is that she’s clinging to the foundry as if it were her only anchor.’

At home in the evenings, conversation was difficult. Normally, they would have talked about work most of the time. Shona was used to it by now. But for Elinor’s sake they made an effort, and she, unbelievably bored, starved for companionship, responded with some of the sparkle that had made Gideon love her.

And then, about ten days after they arrived, Gideon came running down late to dinner and exclaimed, dropping a kiss on her forehead, ‘That’s a very fetching shawl, love! I haven’t seen it before, have I?’

‘I don’t recall, honey. I bought it when you were in Boston.’

Gideon pulled out his chair, and prayed. He had told Theo, briefly, of his meeting with Perry Randall, and they had agreed that Vilia shouldn’t know. So they had kept it from Drew and Shona, too, who would have seen no reason not to talk about it. But he hadn’t been long enough married to think of warning Elinor.

His prayer went unanswered. Shona, on a faint shriek, exclaimed, ‘Oh,
Gideon!
Does that mean you saw my father? Why didn’t you tell me?’

He made something of a business of settling, and unfolding his napkin. ‘There has been so much else to talk about, and you must admit I gave you the fullest report of my meetings with him in Baltimore. Yes, I saw him again, and yes, he was well, though I thought he looked tired. I suppose that, like me, he found himself with a lot to catch up with after being away. Drew, you can serve me some of that soup. It smells good and I’m famished.’

Before Shona could say anything more, Theo intervened suavely, ‘I can’t think it was very chivalrous of you to leave your bride alone in New York, Gideon. Or were the shops of Broadway tempting enough to make up for his absence?’ He looked at Elinor, and smiled in the way that women always responded to.

She smiled back, the dimples in her cheeks looking like fingerprints in cream. ‘They were just darling, and Gideon had said I might spoil myself, so I did – didn’t I, honey? I didn’t miss him one little bit. And when he came back, he’d arranged with Miz Randall for Tully to come as my maid, so it all worked out just beautifully.’

The silence was total. Gideon, grateful that the last mouthful of soup had slipped past his epiglottis just in time to prevent him from choking on it, waited fatalistically. Theo raised his brows exaggeratedly at him, as if to say he’d done his best.

Faintly, Shona repeated, ‘Miz Randall?’ and then, on a higher note,
‘Mrs
Randall? Gideon, you don’t mean my father has
married
again?’

‘Er – as a matter of fact – yes. Quite recently.’

‘But what on earth is she
like
?
Heavens, Gideon, why didn’t you tell us
at once
?

He slithered past it. ‘Very pleasant, very quiet and restrained. I only met her once. I don’t know what else to say about her.’

Shona, exasperated, exclaimed, ‘Men! What does she
look
like?’

‘Brown-haired, slightly plump, refined rather than pretty. I suppose she must be in her mid-twenties.’

‘Is he
happy
?
’

‘Really, Shona! How should I know? They seemed...’

Vilia’s voice broke in. ‘Drew, I wish you would remove the soup plates, McKirdy seems to have disappeared and it’s Sorley’s evening off. Elinor will think this is a very peculiar household, where we all sit round with empty plates in front of us. Gideon may carve the beef, and you, Theo, pray do something about that chicken instead of letting it sit there congealing before you. Elinor, will you have beef or chicken? Our beef is really very good here. I imagine you may not be accustomed to beef. Cattle don’t thrive in a hot climate, do they? I suppose our food must seem very dull to you, but with so many people to cook for Mrs McKirdy hasn’t time for elegant sauces and all the little extras that I am sure you must be used to. Do you have potatoes in Charleston? Oh, and I have been meaning to say to you that fruit is something we rarely see here except in summer. But there is a delicious apple pie to follow. Mrs McKirdy is very good at that, isn’t she, Shona? Drew, do get up and see if the horseradish sauce is over on the sideboard. We can’t eat beef without that. Have you ever tasted horseradish sauce, Elinor? Isn’t it there, Drew? How vexing. No, you serve the girls with vegetables, and I will go and see what has happened to it.’

Drew, dutifully spooning potatoes and carrots and cabbage greens onto a protesting Elinor’s plate, grinned at her. ‘I hope Gideon has told you mama isn’t always like this? Don’t let it bother you. He hasn’t really brought you back to a madhouse!’

Ten minutes later, McKirdy appeared to say that Mistress Lauriston was rather tired tonight, and perhaps they would forgive her if she didn’t rejoin them.

The worst thing about it all, Gideon slowly came to realize, was that Vilia now began to make Elinor the focus of her misery, like some Roman emperor executing the messenger who brought bad tidings. He didn’t notice it at first. All he noticed was that, when one of the servants dropped a knife, or Drew gave his customary ear-splitting cough before speaking, Vilia had to hold herself tight to prevent herself from screaming. And then he saw that, with Elinor, she was holding herself in all the time. Soon, everyone became over-sensitive to Elinor’s mannerisms, her indolence, her increasing petulance, and above all, her drawl. Theo said to him one day, ‘Your wife is a charming girl, dear boy – don’t think I don’t mean it. But can’t you, for God’s sake, persuade her to keep quiet when Vilia’s there? Dear Elinor’s drawl is driving her to distraction. Indeed, if Elinor goes boring on much longer about Maa and Paa, and Gidyun-honey, and Chalst’n and wo-ohn’ do this, or cain’t do thaat, there’s going to be an eruption. And if mama bursts out and screams at your petted little Southern belle – dammit, Gideon, don’t try to deny she’s spoilt! – you’ll have even more trouble on your hands than you have already.’

But the trouble, when it came, took a different form. Returning home one evening in May, Gideon found his wife face down on her bed, wearing nothing but her shift and with her hair in a mad tangle over her shoulders, screaming and kicking like a frustrated two-year-old. Miss Tully, standing by the bedside, had a resigned expression on her face and a comb and hairbrush in her hands.

‘What’s the matter?’ Gideon exclaimed, crossing the floor in two strides, and Miss Tully said with a sigh, ‘Madam is a little upset, sir. Would you wish me to leave you with her? I will do her hair later.’

Gideon laid his hands on Elinor’s shoulders and leaned over, burying his mouth in the nape of her neck. But all she did was screech more loudly. She was in a very juvenile tantrum, and it wasn’t easy to take her seriously. He waited, but it showed no sign of diminishing, so he said eventually, ‘Hush! You’ll make yourself ill. What’s the matter? Tell me.’

The face that turned towards his was scarlet with fury, and there was something very like hysteria in her voice. ‘It’s all your fault! I hate you! I hate you! I want to die! I’m going to have a baby. It’s all your fault!’

The first thought that sprang irrepressibly to his mind was, ‘Well, there’s something in that, as the actress said to the bishop!’ And then he was ashamed and delighted, both at the same time. Pulling her upright, he cradled her against his shoulder, brushing the red-brown hair gently back from her damp forehead. ‘It’s the most wonderful news I’ve ever heard. Why so upset, my darling! I’m so happy I can’t believe it!’

‘Well, I’m not,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t want it. I’m frightened. I don’t want to have a baby in this horrid house where no one likes me!
I
can’t bear it.
I want to go home. I want my Ma.
Oh, I’m so miserable!’

Gideon’s amusement vanished, and he felt only compassion for her. She was so young and helpless – like a bright, tropical flower, he thought, wilting at the first cool kiss of a northern breeze. All the conventional words of comfort sprang to his lips, about how wrong she was, and how much everyone loved her under their reserved British exteriors, and how kind Vilia would be as soon as she knew about the baby, almost like Elinor’s own mother.

None of it was true. Gideon knew that even if Vilia had been her normal self she wouldn’t have warmed to Elinor; neither would Theo or Drew. With hurtful clarity, he recognized what an intruder she must seem to them – spoilt, demanding, immature, sparkling at them over the dinner table every evening when they were all too tired even to be entertained. But she needed an audience so badly, and Gideon, however loving, wasn’t enough.

He wondered suddenly how it had happened that, for all of them, Marchfield had stopped being a home and become an extension of the foundry. It hadn’t been like that once. He could remember when none of them had been expected to turn up for dinner unless they wanted to. Neither Vilia nor Mrs McKirdy, God bless her, had complained if one of the boys chose to make do with just a sandwich and a glass of wine in the library. The turning point, he supposed, had been when Shona had come, and he and Theo had felt it was only proper to present themselves dutifully at table. Afterwards, the custom established, it wasn’t easy to break, and after the first few awkwardly courteous weeks when they had struggled to talk of anything and everything, the conversation had gravitated inevitably towards the foundry. Shona didn’t seem to mind, and it was better than sitting silent or forcing their minds into the small talk that didn’t come easily to their tongues. The result was that, now, none of them could forget the foundry until they were shut away in the privacy of their own rooms. It couldn’t possibly be good for them.

He said as much to Shona next day, and she, sounding less like Drew’s mouthpiece than usual, replied, ‘You’re right. We do live too much in one another’s pockets, but Vilia was such a tower of strength to me at first that I wouldn’t have known what to do without her. I think that, after the baby comes, Drew and I might find a little house of our own. But don’t take Elinor away now, Gideon. However unhappy she may think herself, she needs us, and she isn’t very well equipped to manage for herself. In a year or two things will be different.’ Reflectively, she added, ‘I think it might be good for Vilia, too, to call her house her own again. But in the meantime, I am
sure
Vilia will become accustomed to Elinor, and then everything will be all right!’

Gideon gave her a hug. ‘How do you stay so sane in this ridiculous place?’

There was a shy little twinkle in her eyes. ‘Because I love you all so dearly, that’s how!’

Vilia didn’t become accustomed to Elinor. Night after night she sat, hands clasped together, bone white on bone, until no matter how hard they tried to ignore it everyone knew she couldn’t stand it for much longer. Then she would rise and excuse herself, and no one would see her again until next morning when, with lagging steps, she would go out to the carriage that took her to the foundry.

With anyone else, the tension would have snapped and there would have been a majestic row, which would have done everyone a great deal of good, Gideon thought. But for as long as her sons could remember, Vilia had held the most inflexible views on courtesy and self-control. It had seemed to them, sometimes, as if good manners were the be-all and end-all of existence. Drew had complained once, when he was about five, ‘I don’t see why I should be polite to everybody when I don’t
feel
polite!’ and Vilia had told him, ‘Apart from anything else, my dear, courtesy greases the wheels of social intercourse; self-control helps to preserve your self-respect.’ It had all been rather beyond Drew at the time, but Gideon, growing up, had found it persuasive. Now, however, her nerves strained to the uttermost, Vilia was unable to see that her own hard-held control was more painful to all of them than the wildest kind of screaming match would have been.

Gideon worried about her a good deal, but there seemed nothing anyone could do. Talking to her was useless. Her only response was to smile absently and say, ‘Yes, my dear, I am sure you’re right.’ Drew, typically, left his worrying to Shona, and all Theo would say was, ‘Leave her alone, Gideon. All the tragedies of her life have caught up with her at once – and there have probably been far more tragedies than we know of. But she’s strong, deep down, and she’ll realize in time that she can’t go throwing fits every time Drew and Shona have another child. Let’s hope this one’s all right, too. Leave her to herself, and she’ll pull out of it.’

For once, Theo was wrong. Even after Lavinia was born, a lovely baby, Vilia didn’t pull out of it. Instead, three weeks later, she suddenly became worse. Her last reserves of energy deserted her, and she was no longer able even to drag herself to the foundry. She spent more and more of each day in her bedchamber, and after a while gave up joining the others for dinner. It was as if facing the world was more, now, than she could manage.

Gideon and Theo couldn’t understand it at all.

Magnus Telfer was extremely embarrassed to receive Vilia’s letter and wondered if there were any possible way of leaving it to Henry Phillpotts to answer. That was what secretaries were for, dammit.

Magnus couldn’t imagine Vilia tired and unwell, far less admitting to it. He had always found her vitality, her cleverness, her strength of will, rather overpowering. While freely conceding that she was a brave little woman, he liked females to be gentler and more submissive. He sighed sentimentally. Lucy had been such a perfect wife to him, except in one way, and he had never had any difficulty in satisfying his physical needs elsewhere. He’d thought, sometimes, what an admirable arrangement it was, giving him the benefit of variety and relieving him completely of the bedchamber disputes that, according to all his friends, were the bane of married life. He and Lucy had never quarrelled in all the twenty-nine years they had been together. The only thing he had ever regretted was that they hadn’t had more children, and even that hadn’t troubled him until Luke died. It wasn’t that he specially wanted children; he didn’t. He had no idea how to deal with them when they were young, and when they grew older they made demands. But as things stood the Telfer money and estates would go to Edward Blair, and Magnus didn’t like Edward much. He had been feeling lonely, too, these last years. Although there was a rather dashing high-flyer who was pleased to see him once every week or two, that kind of thing did nothing to dispel the emptiness at St James’s Square, or at the neat little house he had bought on the sea front at Brighton.