Shooting Butterflies (24 page)

‘I knew it. I just knew it. So what's wrong? I mean, there's obviously something wrong.'

‘Of course there's something wrong.' Grace sat up in bed and turned the light on. ‘How can you even ask if there's anything wrong?'

‘So something
is
wrong.'

‘What's wrong is that I feel too angry and frustrated and meanspirited to have an orgasm. I can lie back and let you get on with it, but that's about as far as it goes.'

‘You really are a disagreeable woman. And coarse.'

‘Now I
really
feel in the mood.'

‘Bitch.'

‘Don't ever talk to me like that.'

‘Oh, just belt up.'

‘Andrew …'

‘What?'

‘Stop bullying Rory.'

‘The boy needs a firm hand. It's ridiculous the way Leonora spoils him.'

‘I dread to think what kind of father you'd make.'

‘Luckily, we're not likely to find out now, are we?'

‘Luckily?' A smarter man than Andrew, or, Grace thought, one who gave a damn, might have taken heed of her tone of voice and stopped there.

‘Anyway, who are you to talk? What kind of mother would you be?' Andrew's open boyish face had turned pinched and mean-looking. ‘I've seen sides of you that make me think it wasn't such a bad thing after all, you losing those babies, not if they were going to take after you.'

His fist in her face would have hurt less.

Robina was thrilled when Grace asked if she could take some
shots of the family and Hillside House for her contribution to the auction. ‘I haven't quite worked out how I'm going to do it, but I'm thinking of something along the lines of a series of family life shots, 1950s-style possibly.'

‘Of course you can. Any time. Just let me know. I want to make sure my flowers are at their best. Though I say it myself, not many homes could sport such an abundance of home-grown flowers at this time of year. And as I always say, flowers make a home.'

‘Oh, that was
you
, was it?'

Grace Shield's contribution to the auction at Lady Katherine Ellen School for the Right to Play consisted of a photographic collage, mostly in black and white but for the rainbow. There was Andrew, straight and handsome, a captain at the helm of his good ship, his eyes fixed on the horizon as Grace swam helpless before the bow. He was there too, staring, a puzzled look on his face, at the broken bits of Grace that had toppled from a marble pillar in Robina's conservatory. Timothy sat serene in his favourite armchair by the fireplace,
The Times
crossword on his knee, while the flames spread from the hearth to the curtains and his house burnt down around him. Kate walked through the fields in a white veil that covered her from head to foot (Kate had been a willing participant but no one ever knew). Finally there was Robina, a light round her magpie's-nest hair, stepping across the river towards the rainbow on the horizon, the heads of them all – Timothy, Andrew, Leonora, Rory, Kate and Grace – neatly laid out as stepping-stones.

Andrew said, ‘This is the end.'

‘Good,' said Grace, although her last night in the cottage in the small Devon town she cried most of the night and then some more when she collected the mail before leaving and saw the letters still addressing a lost partnership. Andrew and Grace Abbot. Mr and Mrs Andrew Abbot. Mrs Andrew Abbot.

As Angelica had said when she saw the collage, ‘Good, you're getting your edge back.'

In spite of this, Grace's contribution did not sell at the Lady Katherine Ellen School auction.

It was Elliot Hummel who made Georgie the carved wooden horse. He drove all the way from London with it strapped to the roof of his motor car, thereby earning my eternal friendship. I am a good friend. So is Arthur; it's just that sometimes he forgets people. When Elliot falls on hard times and has to sell the car, making it difficult for him to visit, Arthur is sorry but what can he do? ‘People have to live their own lives.' He says that a lot: people have to live their own lives. Of course they do, we all do, but you can dip into each other's now and then, can you not? ‘People don't like charity,' he says. ‘You really don't understand, do you? You have no idea how the artistic mind works. With you it's all the material – a new toy for Georgie, next week's menu, logs for the fire, the latest creation by Madame Schiaparelli; you can't help it. Some of us, people like Elliot, live for the spirit. He doesn't want your hampers.'

‘Madame Schiaparelli
is
an artist!' I tell him. ‘And I don't recall Elliot returning my hampers.' But later, alone in my bedroom, I stand for a long time in front of the glass. What had Arthur seen in this thin face with its long nose and sharp cheekbones? I have a good complexion, if you do not mind its pallor, and fine eyes, but I don't smile nearly enough and my hands and feet are large and bony; there is little that is graceful about the way I move. Gentlemen like softness; round cheeks and rounded shoulders and arms, soft little hands. I was clever when it came to studies, but that was not the kind of cleverness admired in a woman. So what had he seen in me that was enough to make him love and marry me, he who had women offering themselves like merchandise on a market
stall? At the time he came into my life I had been content. I had my friends, other young women like myself with little money and few admirers, happy to spend time on our studies and the occasional afternoon out by the river. I had no expectations to be loved. You don't when your parents leapt to their death, hand in hand from a high-backed bridge, with no thought for the child they left behind. But suddenly, there he was, this man made out of sunshine, an artist, a genius some say, who made me laugh and believe in him both at once. He wanted
me
. When he asked me to marry him I stopped breathing for a moment and in that moment the world stopped with me. I felt it: a collective holding of breath at the miracle of someone like me getting her heart's desire. ‘Yes,' I said, ‘oh yes.'

When we stood side by side in front of the altar in the small church, I thanked God for his goodness and assured him that I would not ask for more because at the age of twenty-one I had already had as much happiness as a woman could ask for in a lifetime.

But of course I became greedy. Maybe if you live in the shadows for long enough you manage to get by out of the sun, but once you have basked in its warmth you can no longer thrive without it, and there is never enough. But the more I crave his warmth, the less he gives. I ask myself over and over again what it was that he had loved and what had changed. Now I am more likely to draw a frown than a smile from his face and his caresses are portioned out as meanly as if he were the warden of an almshouse and I a beggar. But I cannot blame him. The more I aim to please him, the more I seem to drive him from me. He is an artist and I understand little of that world. When he finally allows me a glimpse of his work in progress I offer an opinion. ‘Whisper, dear,' I say, pointing at a stroke of carmine. ‘Whisper, don't shout.' Arthur, my beautiful husband, turns oh so slowly and looks at me as if I were the smallest creature imaginable. ‘Thank you, my dear, for that priceless piece of advice.' When speaking the word
priceless
the corners of his mouth turn upwards as if in a smile but his eyes are stones. ‘Coming as it does from such an acknowledged authority on the subject of fine art.'

I do not interfere again. I spend my energies on our child, and
on our home. My husband and I are like two pebbles washed up next to each other then edged apart, little by little, by the shifting sands.

I go downstairs to do the flowers and see that Jane has been there before me. She means to help, although I have told her many times that I enjoy this particular task. But you have to be careful because almost anything will make her tearful. What was I to do but give in? Jane is small but she forces her flowers and foliage into postures that nature never intended. Every time I pass one of her arrangements I feel for those tortured blooms and long to free them, but any interference might bring forth those tears. Jane calls herself insignificant but I have learnt that upsetting her causes a murmur of discontent that echoes through the household for days. Today, however, I cannot help myself but lift the stems from the vase and shake them loose before returning them, dripping but unrestrained, to the water.

Arthur finds me in the nursery, astride the dapple-grey rocking horse with the flowing silver mane. Georgie sits on my lap. The horse's name is Dobbin. ‘Have neither of you even the slightest imagination?' Arthur had exclaimed when told.

Georgie and I go for a ride every morning and we have just returned breathless from that day's journey. Arthur holds his arms out to our son but not long enough for Georgie to scramble down and enter the embrace. My husband is wearing a velvet jacket in burgundy and a bright yellow cravat and his mood is extravagant as he bends down and kisses me on the lips before ruffling his son's blond locks and calling him ‘a fine little fellow'. I shoot a glance towards the door, half expecting some visitor to be accompanying Arthur. His good moods mostly coincided with the presence of guests. He is a good host, making every guest feel as if the event was arranged just for his or her benefit. And how well he always speaks of me and our little son. Were it not for those happy boasts in front of strangers, I might never realise how highly he prized us.

But there is no one else in the room; even Nanny is elsewhere, talking to Cook about Georgie's lunch. ‘Your work must be going well.' I smile up at him. ‘It makes me so happy to see you in such good humour.'

That causes a frown. ‘Don't watch me like this, Louisa. It makes a chap nervous, always being watched and clucked over, his every mood and manner examined. Suffice yourself with the boy while he's too young to defend himself.'

I look away, out of the window, trying not to cry. There was no reason to; Arthur was just teasing.

‘I'm here to talk about little Jane. She is upset, you know.'

Slowly I turn and look at him, resting my chin lightly on my son's fair head. ‘Why is Jane upset?' I make it sound like a quiz. ‘Jane, Jane, Jane?' Georgie claps his chubby hands. ‘Jane is a little busy mouse scuttling around on her busy way.' At this Georgie squirms out from my embrace and down on the floor and makes to scuttle back and forth just like a mouse, his hands like whiskers beneath his tiny nose. These days there is nothing bruised about him; his eyes are shaped like mine, but the colour is all his own: a clear amber, an unusual shade of light bright golden-brown that I had last seen on a piece of the stone itself in the window of a jeweller's in London. And he has grown sturdy, my boy, with strong legs and chubby little arms – ‘like strings of sausage,' I said to Arthur the other day.

‘Where is the poetry?' Arthur had lamented, but he had been laughing in the old indulgent way. ‘Where is the beauty in that simile? Strings of sausage. I ask you.'

Now I pick my son up and kiss that whole plump arm from the wrist all the way to the shoulder, pretending to bite, sending him dizzy with giggles before letting him go.

But there is nothing indulgent about Arthur now. He is like an April day: sun one moment, dark clouds the next and you never know when to expect the change.

‘I tell you that Jane is upset and you seem to find it amusing. Sometimes I just don't understand you, Louisa. She's giving serious thought to moving away. She feels you disapprove of her, although God knows how anyone could disapprove of such a sweet little creature. She tells me you don't seem to trust her with the child. Why, Louisa, when playing with him gives her such pleasure? Why should you deny her that? A possessive mother is a very bad thing.'

‘
Child
, tell Papa your name.' I grab Georgie as he scuttles past, a mouse still.

‘And now she tells me you deliberately sabotaged her flower arrangement.'

‘I did not sabotage it; I released it.'

‘I must say you're in a very queer mood. Jane has made herself invaluable to me over the past few years. There is no one who understands the business side of my life as well as she. It started out as a kindness to her, employing her, but I don't mind admitting that now it is I who have cause to be grateful, as does Mama. She is
not
one of the servants, Louisa.'

‘Arthur, you know very well that I would never treat any of the
servants
with anything less than respect; I abhor rudeness to staff.'

The colour rises in Arthur's cheeks but he only says, ‘All she wishes is to be of use.'

‘And I'm sure you make great use of her, my dear. As for Georgie and I, I'm afraid we think her so tiny and quiet that mostly we can't seem to find her. But she knows everything that goes on in the house. Maybe that's how she can make herself useful, as a spy.'

Arthur's cheeks turn purple above his golden-orange beard. Golden-orange and purple; a successful combination in the garden but disastrous on the face.

‘And may I remind you that we have guests for luncheon. Sir Derek and Lady Glastonbury.'

‘And Viola, Viola is coming, is she not?'

‘Yes, yes, of course.'

Georgie is attempting to balance a bright yellow brick on top of his brick castle and topples the whole edifice. His eyes grow huge. His little mouth opens and he lets out a piercing howl. I kneel by him on the floor. ‘Don't cry. It was a good thing. Look, look, Georgie, the princess managed to escape. See,' I point at the rubble of bricks, ‘she's gone. By now she will be back home at the castle all safe with her mother the Queen and her father the King.'

Georgie stops crying and gets to his feet. ‘Where?' he asks, starting to look all around the nursery.

‘You know that Sir Derek's friendship is important to me.' Arthur squats down by our side, his tweeds straining round his
heavy thighs. Georgie wriggles free. ‘Louisa, why are you doing this to me? Why are you being difficult when I most need you? I need my sweet Louisa. Where has she gone?'