A Winter's Child (68 page)

She went off to change and Euan stood for a long moment staring at the door. And then, turning to Kit a thin face emptied of everything but weariness, the effort – not always worth the trouble to him – of just keeping going, he said, his voice as light and mocking as he could make it: not a great deal, ‘I suppose I can rely on you, Major –
sir
– to look after her?'

‘I reckon you can.' Kit's voice was rough, his throat dry, anger in him and a wry affection it exasperated him to feel. Pity. An urge to shout ‘For God's sake pull yourself together, lad'while knowing far too well – remembering those corpse-littered trenches, the fair face of the pilgrim – why he couldn't.

‘Will you marry her, Kit?'

‘Yes. If I can.'

‘Oh, you'll manage it, old chap – if you set your mind to it. You'll get there. You always do.'

‘It won't be for want of trying.'

‘That's right. So – carry on. I won't say goodbye to her. Cowardly of me, I suppose, but one may as well stay in character to the end. And there are some injuries one just doesn't inflict on oneself.'

Shrugging on his trenchcoat, hoisting his kit-bag on his shoulder, he went to the back door, poised to make his escape across the kitchen yard, and then, hesitating, smiled with such natural sweetness, such pain, that Kit – remembering the pilgrim again – was forced to look away.

‘I love her you know. Pretty badly. Too much to risk it. So I won't be back. That's – that's the best thing I can do for her. The only thing, really. Tell her – Christ, tell her I'm going home.'

‘Are you?'

‘Well – south, anyway.'

‘Damn fool. Have you any money?'

Kit had money to give, food and shelter and warm fires, and he could not have expressed how deeply it grieved him that Euan would accept none of these things.

‘I'm all right, Kit.'

‘No lad – far from it.'

‘Well then – so long as
she's
all right. And there's a better chance of it with me out of the way.'

He held out a hand, thin and cold against Kit's square brown palm, and clasping it for a moment, still struggling with the tightness in his throat, Kit suddenly threw an arm around him and hugged him in a hard, speaking embrace.

‘Bloody idiot. You know where I am if you need –'

‘Thanks, Kit. She'll be fine with you. Better than with the other bloke. Do you know about him?'

‘Yes. I know.'

‘So – put your mind to her, Kit – there's a good fellow. That steady mind of yours and those sound nerves. She needs that.'

‘So do you.'

‘I daresay. But it's not likely to happen. Just tell her – well – thanks Kit.'

And sketching his mocking military salute he was off across the backyard, balancing the half-empty kit-bag easily on his shoulder, whistling a ribald soldier's song.

‘Good luck,' said Kit through an aching throat, speaking to empty air. And then, his own feet on firm ground, he closed the door, swallowed hard, took Miriam Swanfield's flowered cups and saucers from their shelf and put the kettle on.

‘Has he gone?' She looked pale, on the threshold of tears,
anxious
– pitifully so – but not surprised. ‘Yes. It seemed best.' She nodded. Bit her lip.

‘Oh well –' And he not only desired to comfort her but knew how it could best be done.

‘He said not to follow him, Claire. He also said goodbye and all that. It looked to me as if he didn't mean to come back. If it hurts you, I'm sorry. I've put the kettle on. Drinking tea doesn't solve any problems but it gives you something to do with your hands.'

She sat down at the table, her hands clasped in front of her, worrying already about his homecoming and how long he would be likely to endure it; how long it might take him to get home at all.

‘Thanks, Kit.'

‘Don't mention it. I keep on telling you I'm a decent sort of chap.'

‘Yes – you are.'

He went on talking, telling her easy, uncomplicated, amusing things about the Crown, the Kellers, Faxby's mayoral family, the new blonde Arnold Crozier had discovered selling newspapers behind a station bookstall and who was reputedly costing him more than his Rolls Royce to maintain.

‘Here – drink your tea. And talking of flappers, I suppose you've heard the Swanfield wedding is off? For the time being at any rate. Poor Roger Timms. Appendicitis, they're saying. A bad attack. A big operation. They say he'll be laid up for some time. So Polly's on the loose again.'

‘Hardly. They'll watch her.'

‘I dare say. Now come on, Claire – drink your tea.'

‘Do you think he'll be – all right? Euan I mean?'

‘I shouldn't think so.'

Sitting down beside her he put one large square capable hand over both hers – a small, but in its way complete, possession.

‘Probably not. But there's nothing you can do for him, Claire.'

‘Oh – I know that.'

‘And since we're on the subject – why don't you move over to the hotel now that he's gone? Better for everybody I'd say.'

‘Would you, Kit?'

‘I would.'

‘I'll think about it …'

The pressure of his hand increased slightly.

‘I want you there, you know.'

‘Yes.'

She looked up and warmly, quizzically, he smiled at her ‘I told you one day I might stop feeling like the son of a cook.'

‘And have you?'

‘No. I've done better than that. I've learned to be proud of it.'

That Roger Timms had almost lost his life was not disputed. The attack had been ferocious, the operation highly dangerous – his mother believed she would never get over it – while his own recovery to good health continued sure, perhaps, but slow.

Too slow for Miriam.

‘Perhaps we could have the wedding just before Christmas?' she suggested hopefully, wanting Polly off her hands by then.

Edith Timms did not think so.

‘Roger is far more delicate than he looks.'

But to Polly, as she sat by his bedside on what should have been her wedding day, he looked like nothing so much as a slightly perspiring whale washed ashore in red and blue striped pyjamas and amiably gasping for air: lacking the sense, she thought, to know that he was choking to death. Glancing at her watch – an engagement present from Roger in platinum and diamonds – she realized two things, that, had it not been for the intervention of his appendix, he would have become her legal husband ten minutes ago, and that apart from the time spent in his car, when he was either driving or trying to kiss her and unfasten her blouse, she had never been alone with him.

And at no point, either during those clumsy, easily called-to-order attempts on her virtue, or among the crowded excitements of cocktail bars, nightclubs, houseparties, had they ever had a conversation.

‘How are you feeling now, Roger?'

‘Oh – getting along nicely.'

He said the same thing to her every day.

‘I've brought you some chocolates.'

What else could she bring him? What else would interest him or please him?

‘You could give me a kiss, Polly.'

She smiled. And shivered. Had he become her husband, ten minutes ago, she would have been obliged to give him much more than that.

She went home and stared at her wedding dress, hanging in splendid isolation in a special wardrobe. It was her own design, the most wonderful Faxby had ever seen, except, of course, that no one, not even the maids at High Meadows, not even the bridesmaids, had seen it yet in case its impact should be spoiled by gossip. She had given hours of thought to each floating panel, some of them stiff with seed pearls, others gauzy, diaphanous, taking wing on the slightest breeze so that she would appear to be moving in the centre of a jewelled cloud.

The bride of the season. The most beautiful bride of any season drifting down a red carpeted aisle, mighty organs playing, to a bridegroom she knew to be Roger, had to be Roger podgy, amiable, slow – but who, in her mind's eye, so easily became the hard, lithe young warrior who had not even cared whether or not he broke her heart.

Had he done so? There had seemed no point in thinking about it. He had left Faxby shortly after her mother's party. She had got engaged to Roger. Today she would have married him. It had all been arranged. No doubt it would be arranged again.

But in the meantime there was Roger's convalescence to be got through, the tedious business of sitting at his bedside trying to think of something to say, trying not to look at him too often since the sight of his plump body in those loosely-fitting pyjamas made her think of herself in bed beside him, having made her promises to honour and obey.

And she did not like it.

She arrived a little late the following afternoon, later still the day after.

‘My dear.' Edith Timms immediately took her to task for it. ‘Roger has been fretting for you.'

She had seen in Edith Timms the mother she believed she had wanted. But she was Roger's mother, after all.

‘Roger darling – here is Polly for you. I feel sure she won't keep you waiting again.'

Here is Polly for you. Once she had given him a pony, a Persian kitten, a bicycle, a motor car. Now – prettily wrapped in her best silk nightie – here is Polly.

Fixing her eyes on the sparkle of her diamond ring, she smiled – and shivered.

Claire wrote to Miriam expressing regret at the postponement of the wedding and offering the information – of no particular interest to Miriam – that Dorothy was now comfortably installed in Faxby Park. She sent a basket of fruit to Roger Timms, a short note to Polly, and then, without a word to anyone but her mother, gave up her flat in Mannheim Crescent and moved to the staff wing of the Crown, a small bedroom and sitting room next to Mrs Tarrant's and directly below the very comfortable attic flat Kit had arranged for himself.

Dorothy, who still knew exactly what Edward would have thought about it, was not certain whether she approved or disapproved herself.

‘It means I'm always on the spot, which can be important. It means I don't have to think about cooking my own meals or lighting fires.'

It also meant she would be closer than ever to ‘that man'. ‘I don't sleep with him, mother,' she said bluntly.

‘Oh.' Dorothy looked surprised. ‘Do you think you will?' Had Dorothy really said that? Edward – poor old soul – would have been horrified.

‘I don't know, mother.' Claire was delighted. ‘Do you think I should?'

‘Just don't get pregnant,' said Dorothy, feeling oddly wise and rather peculiar but suddenly very sure of herself.
‘That's
what I think.'

Claire had no reason now to see the Swanfields. Only Toby still came to the Crown as he had always done for his leisurely luncheons, lingering until long past teatime, more often than not, over his Napoleon brandy, offering snippets of information which she received with a flickering smile, swiftly rekindled each time it went out. Polly, alas – clearly Toby thought it a pity – was still chained to her fiancé's bedside by command of their respective mothers. Eunice was busy with the children, fussing over Simon's examination results – or lack of them, that is – and positively fuming because Benedict seemed a lot less than keen to take Justin into the business. One quite saw her point of course. It was a family business and Justin, as Aaron Swanfield's eldest grandchild, had certain rights. So Eunice was insisting, at any rate, and certainly, if his Uncle Benedict refused to employ him, nobody else would. Eunice had even tried to call a board meeting to get Benedict overruled, but of course there'd been no chance of it. All she'd managed to do was upset herself and make things rather more awkward than usual for Toby at the office for a day or two. Benedict had even told him to keep his wife in order which was pretty rich, after all, coming from a man whose own wife spent her time traipsing around the town rescuing young girls from sin, with a bottle of gin inside her and another in her handbag. She'd have been drunk in charge a dozen times over by now if she hadn't been Mrs Benedict Swanfield. But Toby, of course, hadn't thought of that while Benedict was berating him and freely admitted he would have been too scared to say it even if he had.

Good Lord – was it really four o'clock? Toby shrugged frail shoulders and smiled. Not much point in going back to the office now, he supposed. Not much point in going home either, with Justin lounging about all over the place sulking because his mother couldn't get him a job as a managing director or a cabinet minister or something, and Simon bickering with Eunice because neither of them could work out how to do his sums, and the little boys making one hell of a racket now that Eunice had got rid of their nanny and decided to look after them herself. No – he wouldn't go home. Not yet. No point really, with Eunice so set on protecting him from the boys' bad behaviour that it was quite a strain pretending he didn't know all about it. Particularly these days when Justin – and Simon too he supposed – had gone a step further than pinching the loose change from his pockets and had started helping themselves to his silk shirts and ties and cravats which Eunice kept on frantically replacing. Poor Eunice. She'd do better to buy herself a new dress. But if he suggested it – well, he'd tried once or twice and she wouldn't have it. Wearing herself out of course. Wearing him out too if it came to that. Sometimes his heart bled for her. Not much use in that either. No, he wouldn't go home. He'd sit in the lounge for a while and glance at the newspapers, if that was all right? Quiet as a mouse he'd be. In nobody's way. And then, when MacAllister opened, he'd have a Martini or two in the cocktail bar, although even that didn't seem the same somehow – these days.

Claire realized that he meant ‘without Polly'.