A Winter's Child (67 page)

She smiled at him kindly, knowing as he did not, that there was worse to come.

‘I would need, of course, to consult the family.'

She nodded. ‘And I would need their agreement before allowing my mother to move an inch.'

‘Yes – quite so. And – if there should be any other matters arising?'

‘Well yes, Mr Duckworth. You don't really expect to get away so easily as that do you? My mother would like a small modern house in one of the new estates near Faxby Park. You might have seen them, very light and bright, two reception rooms and a kitchen downstairs, two bedrooms, boxroom and bathroom above, no attics or cellars, just enough garden to grow a few flowers and keep a cat. Ideal for a lady living alone. She could manage easily with a gardener twice a week and a daily woman to clean and cook. Most economical.'

Mr Duckworth closed his eyes as if in prayer, searching his soul, it seemed, while she, still floating on the bliss of no longer being afraid of Edward, calmly lit a cigarette.

‘My dear young lady,' he said at last, clearly hoping for a miracle, ‘those houses you speak of are
for sale.'

‘Yes. I know.'

‘Whereas the family, I believe, had rather visualized …'

‘Yes. I know that, too. A furnished room and a shared kitchen and bathroom in a lodging-house. I live in such a place myself. At twenty-five it can be amusing. At forty-five, or fifty-five, it must be very sad. I don't intend to let my mother find out.'

He closed his eyes again, hands clasped together in the pose of spiritual devotion, feeling, since there was to be no miracle, that a loophole would do. Predictably, since he was a man well-versed in the arts of evasion, one occurred to him. Not foolproof, of course, but possibly enough to save him from Richmal Lyall's wrath. Emerging from meditation, he smiled.

‘You mean, I take it, that a house should be purchased by the Lyall estate and maintained for your mother's use during her lifetime? That
is
what you mean, dear lady? Yes? Isn't it? And then re-a bsorbed into the estate after her death? Do you know, I believe something might possibly be achieved in that direction. Not Faxby Park, perhaps, but something – quite suitable.'

‘Smaller, you mean, and cheaper? A back-to-back mill cottage with an outside toilet down a passage? What a pity they have no rooms to rent at the workhouse.'

‘Mrs Swanfield – really – there is nothing to be gained, you know, in these domestic disputes, from bitterness.'

She stubbed out her cigarette, offending Mr Duckworth mightily since he did not care to see women smoking in the first place and could not abide the sight of a dirty ashtray.

‘Probably not. So I'll state my case, shall I? My mother does not intend to be greedy. She does feel, however, that adequate recompense should be made to her for the eighteen years she endured with Mr Lyall. A house in Faxby Park, furnished to suit her requirements, and an allowance, as we discussed, should just about cover it. The new house and contents, of course, to be her property absolutely and entirely.'

‘Yes,' said Mr Duckworth, ‘I was afraid that was what you meant. Miss Richmal Lyall will never agree to it and she will never allow Mr Henry or Mr Charles to agree either. It would mean money permanently leaving the estate. What reason could I possibly put forward to get her to consent?'

‘That, otherwise, my mother will remain at Upper Heaton. I may even join her there. Nothing in Edward's will forbids it. And since my friends are mainly war veterans who drink and smoke a great deal and get up to all sorts of pranks, there might not be too much left in the china cupboard, after twenty years or so, for Mr Henry.'

Mr Duckworth swallowed hard. ‘That could almost be a threat, my dear young lady.'

‘A promise, Mr Duckworth. Make sure Miss Lyall understands it.'

‘Yes, indeed. But she is a stubborn woman, my dear, and perhaps not always a wise one. Where a matter of principle is concerned she will rather tend to soldier on regardless. And, of course, in this case she not only believes herself to be in the right but is fairly certain of being able to wear your mother down. I think she probably can.'

Claire thought so too. She also thought, had been thinking all along, how swiftly and surely Benedict would have dealt with this situation, how rapidly, after ten minutes exposure to his abrasive presence, even Miss Richmal Lyall's resolution would have crumbled away. Could she bring herself now to use the threat of him? Could she even manage to speak his name?

‘Please tell Miss Lyall,' she said, ‘that I shall expect an answer by tomorrow morning. Should she find herself unwilling to meet my mother's terms then I shall simply place the matter in the hands of my brother-in-law, Mr Swanfield. You are acquainted with him, I suppose? Good. Then you are in a position to explain to Miss Lyall just what her chances are of wearing
him
down.'

‘We'll never get away with it,' said Dorothy, utterly horrified. ‘She'll never consent. I'll have to stay in this mausoleum for the rest of my life.'

She wanted nothing better now, although she still did not like to admit it, than to put Upper Heaton behind her. She had never, in her whole life,
chosen
a house to live in. There had been her childhood home, the lodgings she had shared with Claire's father, other people's houses in which she had been an uneasy visitor, including Edward's. Faxby Park would be a dream come true. And, therefore, impossible.

‘She'll never consent. And if she did, how do you know I could get a house in Faxby Park? They could all be taken.'

‘Let's go and see.'

‘No.' Dorothy was shocked. ‘That's tempting fate.'

They went, finding the only house Dorothy had ever wanted until they found one she preferred next door to it, a plain, clean box with two bay windows, two small square rooms behind them, a bathroom with blue tiles, a handkerchief of a garden back and front. And then, around the corner, its twin sister except that the bathroom had a painted panel of tiny blue fishes and there was a large elm tree in the garden.

‘Which one do you want?'

‘This one.' Dorothy had never been so happy.

‘We'll take it.'

‘We can't.'

‘Why not? We'll call round and see Mr Duckworth on our way back and make the arrangements.'

He received them almost at once, looking increasingly small and bored.

‘You are very prompt,' he said.

‘Are we?'

‘Indeed.' He had despatched a note by messenger to Upper Heaton only an hour ago but did not wish to go into that. ‘Yes, very prompt, although the Lyalls, as you will readily concede, have not been tardy. Now then – all that remains to be settled,' so far as I can see, is the matter of the furnishings. Your daughter, Mrs Lyall, specified that the house be furnished to suit your requirements. Miss Lyall and her brother found this wording somewhat vague – not that anyone suspects you, dear lady, of extravagance. It is simply that Miss Lyall would feel happier if one could fix a certain sum –? She suggests that you might make a list of what is needed, room by room …'

‘Oh yes – I will,' said Dorothy.

‘No list,' said Claire, knowing that Dorothy would not list half the things she wanted and would not dare to buy anything she had forgotten to put down. ‘I think my mother can get everything she wants from Taylor & Timms and there would be no difficulty in arranging for their bills to be sent to you.'

Mr Duckworth, who had been expecting this, sadly nodded his head.

She had dinner with Kit that night served in his office on a trolley, fillets of sole from Amandine's fishmonger poached in
Chablis,
a plump duckling in a sauce of oranges and lemons, an apricot
soufflé,
and then, the feast over, the hotel all around them starting to fill up with diners and revellers who would soon claim his attention, he said ‘Look – I'd better show you this.' And opening a desk drawer he took out a telegram. It had not recently been delivered she could see that. It had been opened, crumpled, whatever evil news it contained had been dealt with by now, could not – or could it? – affect her. Yet, nevertheless, her stomach lurched and, through the glow of not fearing Edward which freed her from fearing anyone else, she turned pale.

‘Don't get alarmed. This came for Euan, the day of your stepfathers funeral I think. The dancing teacher took it in and then gave it to Adela Adair to give to me. I can't make anything of it and I don't know where he is, in any case – do you?'

She held out her hand, adjusted her eyes, and read ‘Regret to inform you Captain Roderick Manners passed away this morning. Please communicate.'

‘Oh-Christ,' she said.

About a week later, very early in the morning, she heard movement in the kitchen and found Euan there as if he had never been away, up-ending a whisky bottle to pour the last few-drops into his tea,

‘There was a telegram,' she said.

‘Yes. Yes, I know.'

‘You got up to Edinburgh then?'

‘Yes. In time to bury him, which was something, I suppose. He hadn't really known what was going on around him for ages – so they made out. Said if I'd come sooner he wouldn't have recognized me – wouldn't have made any difference. That's what they said, at any rate.'

‘If that's what they said, Euan, then they'd mean it. It sounds very likely.'

He smiled. ‘Yes – well, never mind. There was just me at the funeral and a couple of nurses. All over in ten minutes. Odd really, when you think he was all set to be Prime Minister. He'd have made it too – or something like it.'

‘Yes.'

‘So here we are again, just came to get my canvases together. Care to give me a hand?'

They went into his cold, untidy room and worked for an hour, making small impression on the chaos of what had been his camping place, his bolt-hole, while she told him about Edward and her mother and waited until he could tell her about himself.

‘Did it help, Euan?'

‘Seeing him? Yes. He was dead, of course, so we didn't have to ask each other why. I didn't have to feel that he was blind either, or that he couldn't move, or that his brains had turned to scrambled eggs.
You
know – because one could hardly expect great things from a corpse. But it helped. Yes – stands to reason. All I've done these past two years is try to get there. Now I've been. I don't have to go again. So I can give my mind, such as it is, to something else.'

‘Painting?'

‘I doubt it. I might get too emotional about it – ambitious I mean – and I wouldn't like that. I don't want to want things. Nola, in the days when she wanted to make me famous, could never understand that. I expect you can. It's a form of cowardice, I readily admit. It comes from having wanted rather more than my share at one time. I might get over it.'

‘And in the meantime?'

‘I'm going home for a while. Not long. I couldn't promise that. But they haven't seen me since I got out of hospital myself at the end of the war and it's always been on the cards that I'd have to show my face. Now that I've been to Edinburgh I think I can.
Not
a totally joyous occasion, I hasten to assure you. They live pretty close together, my people and a whole batch of uncles and aunts and lesser connections. And all the young men got killed except me. So there's nobody left to be the next Master of Foxhounds and Chairman of the Bench of Justices and captain the local cricket team and marry the Squire's daughter …'

‘Except you. And you won't, will you?'

‘No, Claire. No chance. The line ends with me. I told you.'

Another death. She shivered and he took her hand, his face very pale, very tired, very still, the ordeal over and nothing, as yet, to occupy the void it had left behind in him.

‘There's a jolly old Manor House as well for me to inherit. I'd even like to live in it. I'm sure I never will.'

‘You have to do something with your life, Euan.'

‘Why? That's what they told us when we were young. And there aren't too many of us left now, you know, to tell them they were wrong. I'd like to marry you Claire, and make you the Lady of my Manor. But you'd want children and I couldn't – absolutely not. I've thought about it more than somewhat and-well – I couldn't that's all. And it wouldn't be fair to you. So I'll just keep on seducing the village maidens and – I love you, Claire.'

‘Thank you. I love you.'

But it was in the past. It had never happened and it had always been too late.

Quietly they began to organize his leaving.

‘Keep the canvases will you. Or let that bloke in Faxby Market sell them for you. They might raise a pound or two. Buy yourself something outrageous with it.'

‘Will you give me an address?'

He scribbled it down on a scrap of paper which, his angelic, wayward smile just breaking through, he stuffed down the front of her dress between her breasts.

‘I could be back, of course. Will you keep the room for the kitchen?'

She heard a step, the sound of the door opening, and without looking round she knew it was Kit who stood there.

‘Well, well,' he said, ‘the prodigal – or the bad penny –'

‘That's me, Major sir –
at
your service.'

‘I've just been through the vegetable market and I heard you'd been seen with your kit-bag on your shoulder – coming or going nobody could say.'

And Claire knew that beneath his easy cordiality he was alarmed. That he'd come to see her, not Euan; to make sure she hadn't suddenly taken it into her head to go off with him.

‘Bit of both, Major. Just arrived – just leaving.'

‘Want a lift to the station?'

Euan's smile suddenly broke free again, dazzling now, and as wanton as before, ‘No Kit, thanks awfully – but I'll walk down to the train with Claire. Come on, Claire-get your coat and hat.'