Dubious Legacy (30 page)

So it was his own daughter Susie, nicknamed Sewage, with her innate bossiness, her passion for interference, her talent for knowing best, who had irreparably destroyed the happily-balanced set-up at Cotteshaw, not James.

Driving up the motorway to his father-in-law Lowther of Lowther’s Steel’s funeral, Matthew Stephenson made a mental apology to his friend James Martineau and, unable to stop himself, laughed out loud.

S
USIE STEPHENSON’S INTIMACY WITH
Henry’s wife was short-lived but intense. It was in the summer of 1970, when she was fourteen, that she began visiting Margaret. Up to then she had, like the other children, kept out of Margaret’s way, only meeting her on the rare occasions she put in a disruptive and surprise appearance downstairs. These occasions usually brought some unfortunate consequence; there was general relief when she went back to bed.

Susie had had a fight with her sister Clio and Hilaria who had, she thought, selfishly monopolized the ponies. A third animal was
hors de combat,
lame. Henry, who happened to be passing, hearing the shrill argument, had called out, ‘For Christ’s sake, shut up, girls,’ and, ‘You should be a little less selfish with the younger ones, Suez,’ an accusation Susie took to be profoundly unjust, for Clio and Hilaria went to day school and were able to ride in term-time, which she was not.

Furious, and to demonstrate her thoughtful and caring nature, Susie had then volunteered to carry Margaret’s lunch tray up and spare Trask, who had been about to do it, the trouble. Trask’s legs in his old age were giving him rheumatic gyp.

Arriving outside Margaret’s door, Susie knocked and was told to come in. She did so, feeling a twinge of apprehension, but buoyed by her annoyance with Henry.

Margaret, pale and beautiful, looked Susie up and down. ‘You are the one they call Sewage.’ Her eyes flicked from Susie’s head to her feet. ‘Far too pretty to be Antonia Stephenson’s daughter.’

The room was now pale blue, matching its occupant’s eyes. Susie, expecting angry red and stripes, was both taken aback by the decor and disgusted by Margaret’s use of her nickname. Yet, flattered by the compliment, she said, ‘Oh, er—mm,’ and blushed as she placed the tray across Margaret’s knees.

‘Good legs and breasts,’ said Margaret, and began picking at her lunch. ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Try and amuse me. Your hair’s not bad, too long of course. I gather it’s the mode.’

Susie flicked the said hair over her shoulder and sat on the edge of a sofa, mute.

‘Why do you dress in butter muslin?’ asked Margaret, snapping at a chicken bone held in her fingers. ‘Your clothes are terrible. I have seen you from my window. Are you supposed to be a “Flower Child”?’ she asked contemptuously.

‘No!’ Hastily Susie denied her up-to-date ethnic attire. ‘It’s this or jeans,’ she said, sliding the onus elsewhere. ‘My mother—’ She was tempted to say Antonia tried to dress her otherwise, but refrained.

‘So you do not go to these festivals I hear about? King Arthur’s Hump?’ Margaret chewed the chicken.

‘Glastonbury? No.’ Susie shook her head. Matthew had put his foot down. (‘Certainly not—no daughter of mine—far too young.’) ‘No.’ Susie denied her interest in pop festivals.

Margaret sipped her glass of wine. ‘See what you can find in those cupboards,’ she said. ‘Go on, help yourself.’

Willingly Susie explored the cupboards. Within minutes she was trying on Margaret’s clothes.

The seduction, beginning with the lending of clothes, progressed naturally to question and answer. Where had this lovely dress come from? And this? And this? Susie was not a shy girl.

Margaret answered, ‘Egypt.’

‘Egypt?’

‘I lived in Egypt. I was married there.’

‘To Henry?’

‘To someone else first. A monster.’

‘Tell me.’ Like the other children, Susie was only vaguely aware of Margaret’s antecedents. Margaret told.

Susie’s parents had been anxious to spare her young sensitivity, so the saga was fresh to her ear. She listened, goggling, to the allegations of mental and physical cruelty. The drugs, the sodomy and rape. But she was a sensible girl and when the same barbs were directed towards Henry she became less credulous, doubtful even. If she had not been angry with Henry she would not have believed any of it; as it was, she decided that there was something wrong. Henry had been neglectful, did not understand Margaret. Not a girl to let matters rest, influenced by her intellectual and breezy school, Susie suggested reasonably enough that some of Margaret’s malaise might be due to boredom. If this were the case she, Susie, would volunteer to help.

There was never any explanation as to why Margaret accepted Susie’s offer. Others, the Jonathans for instance, had cajoled Margaret into leaving her room without success. Henry had long since given up trying. Susie, of all people, should have known better; her trouble was that she thought she did.

The weather was warm. Susie and Margaret toured the garden. Susie taught Margaret croquet, watched at a distance by Hilaria and Clio, who giggled.

Pilar said, ‘It won’t last. She will go back to bed, she always does,’ and brought Margaret’s meals to the summer-house. Margaret returned to her room for dinner, but continued to rise every morning after breakfast. Susie felt that her sympathy and understanding were having an effect.

The days grew hot. Clio and Hilaria spent all day by the lake, in and out of the water like frogs. From the croquet lawn Susie could see them leaping, watch the splashes. ‘Margaret,’ she said, for success made her bold, ‘why don’t we swim? You have a bikini, I’ve seen it.’

‘My skin does not like the sun, I do not swim well,’ Margaret quibbled.

Susie pressed her to try. The lake was alluring, but she would not abandon her charge. She grew insistent.

That night at supper she announced that she was going to teach Margaret to swim properly; it was a shame that nobody ever had.

Henry said, ‘I would rather you didn’t, Suez.’

Perhaps, he thought later, Susie would not have persisted if he had not called her Suez? If he had not been so busy on the farm. Not been preoccupied with his decision to sell the poor old Bentley to pay off the bank, a wrench he had delayed for too long. If her parents had been there, which they were not, and nor were Hilaria’s. If he had not had a stinking summer cold which made his head feel stuffed with soggy cotton wool. If he had not been so sure Margaret would return to her room as she always had before, for she had never shown the slightest interest in swimming. If he had not, when Susie said, ‘I understand Margaret, Henry. She is
quite
different with me to the rest of you. I can help her,’ in that superior tone of voice, shouted at her, called her a silly interfering little bitch or words to that effect.

She had tossed her long hair, so like her mother Antonia’s. She had flared up. ‘You don’t know how to treat her, Henry, you simply don’t know. Leave us alone.’

If Clio and Hilaria had not laughed.

Neither Clio nor Hilaria had a stitch on the next day, fooling in and out of the lake.

Margaret, allowing herself to be led to the far side, out of earshot if not sight, by Susie carrying their bathing things, a rug to lie on and a parasol to protect their skin from the sun, remarked that that was how the wretched Fellaheen behaved in the Nile, a pretty disgusting sight.

‘I shall speak to my mother,’ said Susie, disparaging her sibling. (She would remember saying this with discomfort years later.)

Margaret said, ‘You do that,’ and settled on the rug which her acolyte spread for her.

Solicitously Susie smoothed suncream onto Margaret’s shoulders, back and upper arms before rubbing a little onto her own shins. ‘Shall we swim?’ she said.

‘You swim,’ Margaret said, ‘if that’s what you want.’

‘Oh no.’ Susie lay back beside her, then, as Margaret did not relax, she sat up. And so they sat.

Unable after a while to endure the spectacle of her sister and Hilaria disporting themselves, Susie again suggested they swim.

Margaret said, ‘You swim, show me whether you can.’ So Susie swam, showing off the crawl Henry had taught her, how she swam on her back, duck-dived and swam under water. Returning to the bank, she said, ‘It is so lovely, Margaret, do come in. I will swim beside you. You can trust me. If you feel in the least uneasy, just grab hold of me.’

‘We did not see her go in.’

‘We were getting dressed.’

‘I had one leg in my jeans—’

‘My head was covered by my T-shirt—I was not looking.’ Hilaria and Clio wept inconsolably; they had been too petrified to scream.

Henry was out of breath when he reached the lake and Margaret, panicking, had dragged Susie under; when he got them out Susie was unconscious and Margaret dead.

All this Matthew remembered as he drove up the motorway.

A
NTONIA STEPHENSON PICKED UP
Barbara Martineau from her house in the street equidistant from the Brompton and King’s Roads in which she and James had lived all their married lives.

‘I can’t imagine you living in any other street,’ she said, kissing her friend as she got into the car.

‘And I, just as I get used to you living in Kew, have to readjust to an address in Bayswater, Hampstead, Barnes or Westminster,’ said Barbara amiably.

‘Matthew accumulated a tidy bit of capital,’ said Antonia. ‘It was worth the nuisance. You and James should have done what we did, bought low and sold high, hard work but profitable.’

‘James would not bother,’ said Barbara. ‘The only move he ever wanted was to our cottage. Moving is not his style.’

Antonia said, ‘Nor it is,’ neutrally. To her mind James lacked gumption. Then she said, ‘Actually, since Father left me some lolly, I don’t suppose we shall move house again. It is quite exhausting. And how,’ she asked, ‘is your menopause? Still sticking to Morning Glory? Susie says you should switch to HRT.’

‘Morning Glory suits me,’ answered Barbara. ‘When Susie’s hormones go astray, let her try HRT. Meanwhile—’

Antonia laughed. ‘You should not let Susie get up your nose. I don’t.’

Barbara, laughing too, said, ‘I don’t, much,’ and, changing the subject, ‘What are you bringing Henry?’ They were on their way to Cotteshaw.

‘Caviar.’

‘Gosh.’

‘He once brought caviar for Margaret, do you remember? Only the dogs profited.’

Barbara said, ‘I do remember. My offering is humbler, Gentleman’s Relish.’

‘Most suitable,’ said Antonia, and drove in silence until they had passed Chiswick and were heading down the M4. Then she said, ‘What’s the latest news? Is he better or worse?’

‘It’s always worse with emphysema,’ said her friend, ‘progressively.’

‘Alas, that’s true,’ Antonia agreed. ‘Such a shame, he never smoked. It seems unfair.’

Barbara thought it would be unkind to remind her friend that Henry only developed emphysema after the double bronchial pneumonia he had caught from fishing two people out of the lake when suffering from a fearsome summer cold, so she said no more.

Presently Antonia, laughing, said, ‘Gentleman’s Relish; would you describe Henry as a gentleman?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Barbara.
‘Sans peur
—’

‘And no reproaches?’ quizzed Antonia.

‘What would Henry have to reproach himself with?’ asked Barbara.

‘What indeed!’ said her friend with ironic lack of conviction.

‘Oh, come on!’ exclaimed Barbara hotly. ‘Think of all the things Henry has not done and weigh them against what he has.’

‘I agree,’ said Antonia equably, ‘The scales whizz up in favour. It was naughty of old Calypso to say he had pushed Margaret under when she was in difficulties.’

‘She did
not
say that!’ exclaimed Barbara. ‘What Calypso said—I was there so I know I’ve got it right—was that if it had been
her
she would not have pulled Margaret out. You must try to be exact. It’s all at least twenty years ago, anyway.’

‘You sound like your solicitor husband,’ said Antonia, grinning. ‘My version makes the better saga, but all right, I will try and remember.’ She glanced slyly at her friend. Amazing how Barbara kept her figure, she thought enviously; from a distance she looked like a girl and the white threads in her dark hair suited her. I am glad, though, thought Antonia, that my hair is fair and white doesn’t show. Glad, too, that a little extra weight suits me. I am not nearly as lined as she is. ‘Did you ever sleep with Henry?’ she asked idly.

‘Sleep with Henry?’ Barbara sounded astonished. ‘Goodness, no! Did you? Why?’

‘I just wondered.’ Antonia ignored the question.

‘He had call-girls, don’t you remember? He told me—must have been on his trips to London—and “other women”—I am sure there wasn’t anyone in the village. Of course, he may have been pulling my leg.’

‘He wasn’t. I slept with him.’ Antonia watched the road ahead. There is something about conversation in cars, she thought, which leads to indiscretion. Perhaps it is because one doesn’t see the other person, doesn’t look them in the eye? ‘I slept with Henry,’ she repeated, ‘from time to time. It was most agreeable.’

Barbara said, ‘Gosh! Matthew?’

‘Matthew strayed, too, but not with Henry. Are you positive you didn’t sleep with Henry?’ Antonia probed.

‘Of course I did not.’ Barbara sounded shocked.

Noting the use of two words, ‘did not’, as opposed to the less emphatic ‘didn’t’, Antonia was certain that Barbara had slept with Henry at least once, but was for reasons best known to herself intent on forgetting it. She would, anyway, being Barbara, have called the act ‘making love’, so out of affection for her old friend she refrained from saying, Ho, out loud, but thought it nevertheless. But when Barbara, unable to leave well alone, said, ‘You
are
peculiar, Antonia. What an extraordinary suggestion,’ Antonia could not resist teasing. ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, ‘no need to be so prissy. Surely we all had our flings. Look at you and James.’

‘James?’ Barbara bristled.

‘Yes, James and that woman.’

‘What woman?’

‘The one who made the bed squeak. That woman. Valerie Something. I saw her the other day, you should see what she’s done to her hair—’