The Reckoning (42 page)

‘Oh Minnie!'

‘
You said you'd stay with me always. You remember,
before I got married? You said you'd stay with me.'

‘
Yes. I remember. But I never thought –' She stopped
abruptly.

Minnie struggled with the unaccustomed burden of
thought. 'I'll do anything you like – give you anything I've
got. I want you to be happy too. Only you mustn't leave me,
Polly! Please say you won't.’

Polly stared at her, frustrated, exasperated, and yet with
pity. Since Minnie was born, she had felt the burden of her on her soul. At first it had been with pleasure – Minnie as a baby
was her living doll, to be played with and dressed and carried
about. And when a little older, Minnie had trotted at her
heels, a faithful and adoring lieutenant, a flattering audience,
a staunch supporter.

Once she had enjoyed having someone for whom she was
always right; and it was not Minnie's fault if she now found it
irritating. She had accepted the adulation, and now she had
to pay the price. Minnie depended on her absolutely: it would
break her heart if Polly were to leave her.

‘
Of course I'll stay with you,' she said quietly. 'In any case,
where else could I go?’

That point seemed to comfort Minnie. 'Yes, that's right,' she said, her worried frown fading. 'You haven't anywhere
else to go now, except back to Mama, and she'll be going
away after Rosamund's wedding.’

Aunt Lucy would not have taken her back, in any case,
Polly knew: she had shrugged Polly off, with an allowance, to
be Flaminia's companion. Grandmama was long dead, and
Morland Place now belonged to Uncle James. She had no
home unless it was Stainton. Unless she followed her sister
Africa's example and went to live on board her father's ship
in St Helena, there was nowhere else in the world Polly could
go. She was trapped, trapped in this damp green monotonous
place until the moss grew over her, too, and obliterated her
like a tombstone in a churchyard.

‘
It will be nice to go to London again, won't it?' Minnie
said, wandering off down another avenue. ‘Rosamund's
wedding will be every bit as grand as mine was; and we'll see
Mama and Lord Theakston again, and Roland, and cousin
Marcus and Barbarina.’

This was a better line of thought. Polly was glad to encou
rage it. 'Have you decided whether or not to have a new gown
for the wedding?’

No, I haven't. I was thinking of wearing my pomona
green, because I've only worn it once, but Hill says that green is bad luck at weddings. But there's my rose-coloured poplin, which is nice, only it might be too heavy if the day should be
hot. What do you think?'

‘
I think you should have a new gown. You haven't
anything that's just right.'

‘
Do you think so? But a new gown, which I might not wear
again this year – perhaps it might be too extravagant?’

‘
You want to be fine, don't you? And there will always be opportunities to wear it.'

‘
Well, I'll ask Harvey when he comes what he thinks,'
Flaminia said inevitably. 'Harvey will know what to do.'
When he comes,
Polly thought.
If he comes.
She was not
even convinced in her own mind that he would appear to take
them to the wedding. She began to have the superstitious
dread that she would never leave this place again, that she
and Minnie would be left here to rot in solitude for ever.

*

But he came the next day, unexpectedly as always, arriving
just before the dressing-bell, which meant that dinner had to
be put back an hour to allow the cook to raise the meal Minnie had ordered onto a higher plane suitable for the
master of the house.

During that hour, Lord Harvey avoided the happy smiles
and clinging hands of his wife, seeming not even to hear her
tempting offer of a trip to the nursery to look at his daugh
ters, and shut himself in the library with a pile of corres
pondence and his valet, Benson, who acted upon occasion as
his secretary. When the dressing-bell sounded, he went
straight to his bedroom, and emerged only when it was time
to take his place at the dinner-table.

Minnie beamed at him from the foot of the table. She was
wearing a twilled silk gown of leaf-green – a colour she was
under the misapprehension was a favourite of her husband's – and her emeralds, which had been a wedding present from the old Marquess. Her hair was elaborately curled and deco
rated with jewels and feathers by her maid, Hill, who though
surly and sour was an excellent coiffeuse. With her plump, pale face and reddish hair Minnie would never be a beauty,
but her happiness at the moment gave her a glow which made
her almost pretty, had anyone been in a way to notice.

Between them, in solitary state on the long side of the
table, Polly sat in an evening gown of white jaconet shot with
silver, with a flounced hem and ruffled bodice and sleeves,
and her mother's pearls around her long white throat. With
her porcelain skin, glossy black hair and perfect features, she
looked like the effigy of a goddess, beautiful in an almost
inhuman way.

What smiles she could spare from her husband, Minnie
directed towards Polly. 'Doesn't she look beautiful, Harvey?'
she said at last. 'I think Polly is the most beautiful person I've
ever seen.’

Harvey looked up from his plate, and turned his gaze
slowly to the right. 'Yes,' he said. 'I believe you're right.’

Minnie beamed at having her opinion agreed with. 'I take
pleasure in looking at her, always.’

Polly's eyes of sudden blue were fixed on him, shining and
opaque as sapphires, so intensely blue it was hard to believe
they had anything to do with the action of seeing. They
seemed to exist for no purpose other than their blueness.

‘
It's so nice to have you here,' Minnie said next. 'The two
people I love best in the world here together – and the dear
babies, of course. It's so pleasant to have one's family around
one, don't you think? Will you be staying long? Perhaps you
could stay until we all go to London.'

‘
Go to London?' Harvey said vaguely. His eyes were fixed
on Polly, as though mesmerised by her beauty, and he seemed
hardly to have heard Minnie's prattle. 'Who's going to
London?'

‘
For Rosamund's wedding,' Minnie said, her pleasure
clouded by no apprehension. 'We're all invited. It's to be in the Abbey, don't you remember? Just like ours was, only in
June, which is a better month for a wedding, really, for
everyone will still be in Town.'

‘
Rosamund's wedding?' Harvey said, turning to her at last.
‘Oh, yes, I suppose so.'

‘
It would be very nice,' Minnie went on, with hope undi
minished by experience, ‘if you would stay until then. It's so
long since you had a good, long stay. We could invite the
Longcrofts to dine with us,' she added enticingly, 'and then
you could have a hand of whist afterwards.’

He frowned. 'Oh, no, no, I can't stay. I shall only be here a
day or two at the most. I have pressing business to attend to.’

Disappointment clouded Minnie's eyes, but she said
meekly, 'Of course. I understand. Your business must come
first.'

‘
Indeed it must,' he said with an attempt at heartiness, 'or
how shall I pay for your expensive tastes?'

‘
Oh dear, I'm sure I didn't mean to be expensive. Have I
been more so than usual? I'm sure I don't recollect ordering
anything out of the ordinary.'

‘
I was joking you, Flaminia,' Harvey said quickly. 'Don't
upset yourself.'

‘
Well, you shall see my account books after dinner, and
then you can tell me if there's anything I should not have
ordered. I don't wish to be a drain on you.'

‘
I was only funning,' Harvey said again, and then, seeing
Minnie's anxious-to-please, uncomprehending expression, he
said, 'I shall look at your books with pleasure, my dear, if I
have time, and I'm sure I'll find everything in order.’

Minnie beamed again. 'I hope so. And I needn't have a new
gown, you know – my poplin will do very well,' she said, to
her husband's mystification; and then she asked him if the
dinner was to his taste, and so the conversation ground on as
the meal was consumed.

Afterwards, Minnie and Polly withdrew to the drawing-
room, leaving Harvey at the cleared table in possession of the
port and humidor. He didn't normally stay long if there was
no company, only long enough to smoke a cigar; then he
would come to the drawing-room and ask Polly to play and
sing to him, or engage her in a game of picquet or chess.
Minnie would sit happily with her sewing, lifting her head
between stitches to look at them contentedly, or offer some
remark about the twins' progress or the next day's
programme.

Tonight, however, he did not come. After some time, Polly
stood up and excused herself. 'I shall go and get myself a book
to read,' she said in automatic explanation. Minnie always
wanted to know where she was if she left the room even for an
instant.

The book-room was at the other end of the house from the
drawing-room, and the way to it was along a dark, panelled
passage, hazardous with the antlers of stuffed deer's heads
and ancient pikes and halberds nailed up for decoration. The gloomy glint of glazed eyes followed her, watching from the
petrified forest of branched horn as she stepped silently along
the drugget. The door to the dining-room was partly open,
letting a sliver of light and the smell of cigar-smoke into the
passage. Polly walked past it without glancing in, pausing
only at the branch of the passage to pick up a candle before
passing on and entering the book-room.

It was cold in there, and as in any room in that house when
the fire was out, it smelled of dampness, a mushroomy smell
of disuse and mouldering books. She lit enough of the candles
in the wall-sconces to see her way, and then carried her
candle over to the first of the bookcases which lined the walls
and held it up to illuminate the gilded bindings. She passed
her eyes along the rows without being able even to take in the
titles, far less choose something to read: her mind was far
away, her senses attuned to another part of the house.