Dorothy Eden (23 page)

“There’s no need to sound so hard, Hetty dear.”

“I’m sorry. It was very distressing. But I can’t cry about it.”

“But what made you so late home?” Julia asked. “Surely it didn’t take you this long to see the girl?”

“No. We went on the river. It seemed a nice way to spend the rest of the day.” Hetty looked steadily at Julia. “You’ve all been telling me I should go to London and see things. I didn’t invite Lionel to come but he did anyway, and I enjoyed it. He did, too, until he got a bit overdone. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to bed.”

She woke to daylight and Freddie’s face at her pillow.

“Hetty, Mother’s pretty angry with you.”

“I know.”

“For making Daddy sick again.”

“How is Daddy?”

“He’s had his medicine and he’s asleep. I’m not to disturb him.”

“So you’re disturbing me instead.”

“I thought we might play Hector and Achilles and Helen.”

“Helen?”

“Helen of Troy. Daddy was telling me about her. He said you would make a good Helen.”

“I think sometimes we might play another game,” Hetty said uneasily. “Your mother’s perfectly right, the
Iliad
is much too advanced for a five-year-old. We’ll all be living in a fantasy world.”

“What’s that?”

“A world of dreams that is sometimes rather nicer than the real world.”

She thought of Kitty beside Lionel’s sickbed. Beneath her rumpled and careless appearance, Kitty was a strong-minded woman who would fight for what was hers.

“Life isn’t all romance and heroes,” she said to the earnest little face beside her. “It’s much more often simply doing what you’re told and obeying rules. Not so much fun, really. But safer.”

“How dull,” said Freddie precociously.

She sat in Jacobina’s garden every afternoon while the summer deepened and the colours in her needlework were the colours about her, the fresh green of the grass, the coral and cream of the roses, the rich blue sky. She knew that she was trying to perpetuate the scene in every way possible, supposing it should not last for her.

At last Lionel was permitted outdoors again and he found her there. He looked skeletally thin and pale, but the quick delight was in his eyes.

“Hetty, why didn’t you come and visit the invalid? Relieve his tedium?”

“I don’t think Kitty would have approved. I’m still in her bad books.”

“Nonsense. She doesn’t hold grudges. And I apologised for my thoughtlessness. Not abjectly, but just humbly enough. And one thing that has pleased her is that this relapse makes it less likely I’ll pass my next medical board. It looks as if my soldiering days may be over. Are you pleased, too, Hetty? What’s the matter? You look so serious.”

Hetty took a letter from her pocket and handed it to him.

“Hugo,” she said. “This arrived today.”

“What does he say?”

“He’s got some leave at last. He’ll be home for our party. Isn’t that good luck? He must have pulled a string or two. I begged him to if he could.”

“Hetty, you sound just like a hostess.”

“How does that sound?”

“Brittle. Efficient. Not my companion on the river at all.”

“That was another day,” she said. Her voice was even. She must never let him or anyone know that she was quaking inside with nervousness. She expected to find Hugo changed. That was inevitable after his long ordeal in a nightmare world. But how changed would he find her? And did her determination to make their marriage a success remain as total as it had been? Was she thinking of the way out, the simple admission that the records in the parish register were a forgery?

Never.

Never, never.

The thing was to avoid Lionel’s company as much as possible. That perceptive face that made her heart turn over with delight could be her undoing.

B
ANDS OF SUNLIGHT STRETCHING
across the lawn had the yellowness of sunset. The day had been exceptionally hot, the garden floating in a heat haze that made it seem like a mirage. Was everything a mirage, and had it been so all the time? Tiredness and anxiety were making Hetty’s mind woolly and confused. She rose from her vigil at the window. She must go upstairs and get ready for the party. People would soon be arriving, and although no one now felt in the mood for a party, it was too late to cancel it.

All yesterday and again today had been a time of impossible tension. Hugo hadn’t specified the time of his arrival but from his letter Hetty had assumed it would be some time on Friday, later perhaps rather than earlier. She had stayed up until after midnight, waiting. Now it was Saturday evening and he still had not arrived, neither had there been any news of any kind.

Julia had spent most of the twenty-four hours lurking compulsively near the telephone and Hetty had sat at the window of her drawing room, watching the long shady curve of the drive. Lady Flora had played the piano a great deal, the house echoing with the dreamy melancholy music. At meals, the only time when they were all together, everyone was taut and listening.

“Trust Hugo never to be definite with his plans,” Julia said in a sudden outburst. “You know that, Lady Flora. He’s always liable to change his mind.”

“You can’t change your mind about specific leave,” Kitty said. “Can you, Lionel?”

“I shouldn’t think so, unless there’s suddenly been a reason to cancel it.”

“What reason would that be?” Hetty asked tensely.

“Oh, an unexpected enemy attack, a shortage of officers, orders from headquarters. But I don’t suppose it’s any of those things. Hugo’s probably just had trouble getting transport down from the lines. The railway may have been shelled. He may have to wait until tomorrow.”

“If I know Hugo, he’d have taken a motor cycle. Or a horse,” Julia said, with a short unhappy laugh.

“It’s not much use conjecturing, is it?” said Lionel. “We’ll just have to wait.”

Lady Flora, who was looking alarmingly fragile, her eyes set in smoky blue hollows, said calmly, “I know he’ll arrive. I’m his mother. I sense these things.”

“Then look into a crystal ball and put us out of our suspense,” said Kitty flippantly. Hetty realised uneasily that Kitty had particularly wanted Hugo here for the party, if only to restore a little balance. It was altogether too much to expect Lionel to look after four women. Especially when one of them was Hetty, who was surely going to knock everyone’s eyes out with that gorgeous green silk dress that no one in this war-deprived country could match.

Hetty had thought she could never bring herself to wear the dress since it reminded her so sharply of Clemency and of the mystery of its arrival. She had thrust it out of sight in her wardrobe and tried to forget it.

However, she had realised that not to wear it on this first suitable occasion would arouse suspicions. Another subtle reason was that she could carry off her welcome to Hugo more convincingly if she felt like Clemency. Clemency was Hugo’s. Hetty was no longer sure whose she was, except that behind her eyelids, inside her skull, it was always Lionel’s face that appeared.

Effie, escaping from duties downstairs, had come to help her to dress. As she tugged at the tiny buttons down the back of the dress, Hetty heard Clemency’s scolding voice so clearly—“Brown, you’re clumsy, you’re pinching me”—that she drew in her breath in an audible gasp.

“Sorry, my lady, am I pulling too tight? The waist is just a fraction small. You must have put on a little weight.”

No, she hadn’t. She had always been an inch bigger round the waist than Clemency. But that was a fact that Miss Natalia at Lord and Taylor’s would not have had in her records.

“It does catch me a little, Effie. It’s so hot, I feel swollen with heat.”

“It’s thundery weather. There’ll probably be a storm later.”

“Not before midnight, I hope. We want to be in the garden.”

“Can’t tell, can you, my lady?”

“I wonder if we should go on with this party now that my husband hasn’t arrived.”

“You have to, don’t you, my lady?” Effie said sensibly. “People expect it of you to go on as usual in spite of the war. Sets an example, they say, though I don’t know who to.” Effie had a nice turn in irony. “Could it be the Germans? Anyway, his lordship’s bound to arrive before the night’s over. You cheer up. You look ever so lovely.”

“What’s Miss Julia wearing?”

“I don’t know, my lady. It won’t be anything new, I don’t expect. Do you think just a mite of rouge on your cheeks? You look a bit pale.”

“I’m scared.”

“About the master?”

“About everything.” She was clenching her hands. It was this damned dress filling her with apprehension. Would the nightmare that Clemency was watching her never grow less?

“I guess I’m just in a nervous mood,” she said.

“It’s the thundery weather, my lady. And the waiting.”

After Effie had gone she felt too nervous and restless to stay alone. She made her way downstairs, intending to look over the preparations as she had seen Mrs Jervis do a hundred times in New York.

She didn’t expect to come on Lionel and Kitty, and indeed backed out of the drawing room when she saw them. She sensed that they were having a private conversation, but as she turned to go she distinctly heard Kitty say, “You’re in love with her, aren’t you, Lionel?” and she stopped compulsively to listen.

“Yes, a little, I think,” he said, and a shiver of dismay and delight went through her. Of course it must be she to whom Kitty was referring.

There followed a long silence. Go away, Hetty admonished herself. You’ll hear too much and regret it. But she stood rooted in her elegant green gown. A Clemency figure. Clemency would have listened and gleefully turned her gained knowledge to her advantage.

Then Kitty said in a rush, in a hopeful eager voice,

“You’ve been so ill, darling, you’re having hallucinations. I see this happening all the time with the men in the wards. We call their fantasies waking nightmares.”

“This is far from being a nightmare.”

“Whatever it is, you’ll wake up from it. You must. It would be all so impossible. So intolerable. That little cheat from New York.”

“Why is she a cheat?”

“Because she’s both bold and terror-stricken. Every now and then something scares her. We’ve all noticed. I didn’t at first, but now I do. Your mother and Julia always have.”

“Oh, come, Kitty. You have far too much common sense for this kind of nonsense. All that scares Hetty is whether she’s going to get her husband home safely or not. Poor girl, let’s be kind to her.”

“Don’t you spend too much time with her tonight,” said Kitty ominously. “You and her with your heads together in the library all day. I won’t stand for it, Lionel. It’s not fair.”

“Silly girl,” said his voice at its most tender. Hetty slipped away, determined to listen no more. The overheard conversation had done nothing to calm her agitation. Did Lady Flora and Kitty truly think she was a cheat? She had always known Julia’s feelings, but they had been induced by jealousy. Lady Flora perhaps had been prejudiced. She wouldn’t have wanted an American daughter-in-law. But Kitty had been open and friendly and kind. If she were to go over to the enemy there was no one here whom Hetty could trust. Anymore than they can trust you, said her inner voice. Except Lionel, of course.

And thinking of him sent the spontaneous delight coursing through her veins. Supposing, Hetty found herself thinking, Hugo didn’t come home tonight, supposing he never came home because he had been killed in France. Lionel would be the new owner of Loburn, and their collaboration over its restoration could grow closer and closer. Life could become intensely exciting.

She remembered Kitty saying once that they would be known as the Hazzard wives. But—sharing one husband? Never! Things would have to be better arranged than that.

The shock, when she came face to face with Clemency at the end of the dimly-lit hall, was appalling.

Her eyes flinched away, and so, surprisingly, did Clemency’s.

“Isn’t that dress a little tight for you, Hetty?”

Hetty spun round, pale and breathless, to face Julia who must have followed her across the hall. But hadn’t Julia seen Clemency?

Stupid, stupid, it was her own reflection in the long smoky mirror which had always been in that corner. She must have looked in it dozens of times. But never before when she had been wearing an arresting green silk dress that roused the sharpest memories of her late mistress.

“Just round the waist,” she admitted reluctantly. “I must have put on a little weight.”

“We hadn’t noticed it. Your other clothes aren’t too tight?”

“Then Miss Natalia has made a mistake in cutting.”

“I thought she was such a paragon.”

“Everyone can make a mistake some time.”

“Indeed,” Julia agreed. “Indeed.”

Hetty hated being caught by Julia in a vulnerable moment. The way that woman watched her was intolerable. Now even Kitty had begun to watch her and call her a cheat.

“This dress is uncomfortable, you’re perfectly right. I don’t think I will wear it after all.”

“Oh, do keep it on. After all your trouble in getting it sent from New York. All the same, Lady Flora and I were both a bit surprised when we saw it. We thought it rather flamboyant for someone as quiet as you. You are quiet, aren’t you? Or are you just pretending?”

“I didn’t send for the dress,” Hetty said angrily. “You know I didn’t.”

“Even so it was your taste. Once. Or was it? A pity the size isn’t quite right.”

Hetty turned away from the probing gaze. But that was a mistake, too, for she was confronted by the mirror and the startling image of Clemency again.

“Lucky you,” said Julia. “I haven’t had a new dress for over a year. My old white satin has to appear again.”

The white satin, whatever its age, made her look regal. She had piled her hair on top of her head so that she seemed inches taller. Her flat body was as straight and slender as a taper. It only needed her eyes to glow, as they undoubtedly would when Hugo arrived, for her to be astonishingly beautiful. But just at present the anxiety showed beneath the make-up. She was even more tense than Hetty, which no doubt accounted for her pin-pricking behaviour.