Winter Solstice (2 page)

Elfrida said gin and tonic, and watched while Gloria Blundell went to pour her one from the well-provided table at the far end of the room. She then replenished her own glass, with a generous hand for the Scotch.

Returning, “There. Hope it’s strong enough. You like ice? Now, sit down, be comfortable, tell me about your little cottage.”

“Well… it’s little.”

Gloria laughed.

“Poulton’s Row, isn’t it? They were built as railway cottages. Are you frightfully cramped?”

“Not really. I haven’t got much furniture, and Horace and I don’t take up much room. Horace is my dog. A mongrel. Not beautiful.”

“I have two Pekes, which are. But they bite guests, so they’re shut in the kitchen with Mrs. Muswell. And what made you come to Dibton?”

“I saw the cottage advertised in The Sunday Times. There was a photo. It looked rather dear. And not too expensive.”

“I shall have to come and see it. Haven’t been inside one of those little houses since I was a child and used to visit the widow of some old station porter. And what do you do?”

“Sorry?”

“Garden? Play golf? Good works?”

Elfrida hedged slightly. She knew a forceful woman when she met one.

“I’m trying to get the garden straight, but it’s mostly shifting rubbish so far.”

“Do you ride?”

“I’ve never ridden a horse in my life.”

“Well, that’s straightforward anyway. I used to ride when my sons were boys, but that’s a long time ago. Francesca’s got a little pony, but I’m afraid she’s not all that keen.”

“You have sons as well?”

“Oh, yes. Grown up now and both married.”

“But… ?”

“I was married before, you see. Oscar’s my second husband.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. My son Giles works in Bristol and Crawford has a job in the City. Computers or something, totally beyond me. Of course, we had known Oscar for years. Saint Biddulph’s, Raleigh Square, was our church. He played divinely at my husband’s funeral. When we married, everybody was astonished. That old bachelor, they said. Do you have any idea what you’re taking on?

It was all marvellously intriguing.

“Has Oscar always been a musician?” Elfrida asked.

“Always. He was educated at Westminster Abbey Choir School, and then went on to teach music at Glastonbury College. He was choirmaster and organist there for a number of years. And then he retired from teaching, moved to London, got the post at Saint Biddulph’s. I think he’d have continued there until they carried him out feet-first, but then my uncle died and fate decreed otherwise.”

Elfrida felt a little sorry for Oscar.

“Did he mind saying goodbye to London?”

“It was a bit like pulling an old tree up by the roots. But for Francesca’s sake, he put a brave face on it. And here he has his music room and his books and scores, and does a little private coaching just to keep his hand in. Music is his life. He loves it when there’s an emergency and he can play for morning service in the Dibton church. And, of course, he’s always sneaking over to have a little quiet practice all on his own.” Behind Gloria, quietly, the door from the hall had opened. Talking away, she was unaware of this, but, realizing that Elfrida’s attention had strayed, turned in her chair to peer over her shoulder.

“Oh, there you are, old boy. We were just talking about you.”

All at once, and all together, the other guests arrived, letting themselves in and filling the house with the sound of their voices. The Blundells went out to welcome them, and for a moment Elfrida was alone. She thought it would be rather nice to go home now and have a solitary evening mulling over all she had learned, but of course this was not to be. Almost before she could put the shameful thought out of her mind, her hosts were back, their guests surged into the room, and the dinner party was on its way.

It was a formal evening, lavish and traditional, with excellent food and a great deal of splendid wine. They ate smoked salmon and a beautifully presented crown of lamb, and there were three puddings, and bowls of thick cream, and then a creamy blue-veined Stilton. When the port was handed around, Elfrida noticed with some amusement that the ladies did not leave the room, but stayed with the men, and although she was now on to copious glasses of water, which she poured for herself from a cut-glass jug, she saw that the other women enjoyed their port, and Gloria, perhaps, most of all.

She wondered if Gloria, sitting in state at the head of the table, had slightly overdone her alcoholic intake, and if, when the time came for them to leave the table, she would heave herself to her feet and fall flat on her face. But Gloria was made of tougher stuff, and when Mrs. Muswell put her head round the door to say that coffee was all ready in the drawing-room, she led the way with a steady step, out of the dinning-room and across the hall.

They gathered around the fire, but Elfrida, lifting her cup of coffee from the tray, saw through the uncurtained window a sky of deep sapphire blue. Although the spring day had been fitful, with showers and glimpses of sunshine, while they sat over dinner the clouds had dispersed, and a first star hung in the heavens over the top of a distant budding beech. There was a window-seat and she went to sit on it, cradling the cup and saucer in her hands and watching the stars.

Presently she was joined by Oscar.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

She turned to look up at him. So busy had he been through dinner, pouring wine, clearing plates, handing around the delectable puddings, that she had scarcely addressed him all evening.

“Of course. Such a lovely evening. And your daffodils will very soon be in bud.”

“You like gardens?”

“I’ve not had much experience. But this one looks particularly inviting.”

“Would you like to take a little stroll and be shown around? It’s still not dark.”

She glanced at the others, settled down in the deep chairs around the fire and in full flood of conversation.

“Yes, I would like that, but wouldn’t it be rude?”

“Not at all.” He took her cup from her hand and carried it back to the tray. He set it down.

“Elfrida and I are going to have a stroll around the garden.”

“At this hour?” Gloria was astounded.

“It’s dark and it’s cold.”

“Not so dark. We’ll be ten minutes.”

“Right, but make sure the poor girl’s got a coat. It’s chilly and damp … don’t let him keep you too long, my dear….”

“I won’t….”

The others went back to their discussion, which was about the iniquitous price of private education. Elfrida and Oscar went out through the door. He closed it quietly behind him and then lifted from a chair a thick leather coat lined in sheepskin.

“It’s Gloria’s … you can borrow it,” and he draped it gently over Elfrida’s shoulders. Then he opened the half-glassed front door, and they stepped outside into the chill and purity of the spring evening. Shrubs and borders loomed in the dusk, and underfoot the grass was wet with dew.

They walked. At the far end of the lawn was a brick wall, fronted by borders and broken by an archway with an imposing wroughtiron gate. He opened this and they went through and were in a spacious walled garden, neatly divided into geometrical shapes by hedges of box. One quarter was a rose garden, the bushes pruned and richly composted. Clearly, when summer came, mere would be something of a display.

Faced with professionalism, she felt inadequate.

“Is this all your work?”

“No. I plan, but I employ labourers.”

“I’m not much good at flower names. I’ve never had a proper garden.”

“My mother was never lost for names. If someone asked her the name of a flower, and she had no idea what it was, she simply said, with much authority, Inapoticum Forgetanamia. It nearly always worked.”

“I must remember that.”

Side by side, they strolled down the wide gravel led pathway. He said, “I hope you didn’t feel too distanced at dinner. I’m afraid we’re something of a parochial lot.”

“Not at all. I enjoyed every moment. I like to listen.”

“Country life. It teems with intrigue.”

“Do you miss London?”

“From time to time, enormously. Concerts and the opera. My church. Saint Biddulph’s.”

“Are you a religious person?” Elfrida asked impulsively, and then wished that she hadn’t. Too soon for such a personal question. But he remained unfazed.

“I don’t know. But I have spent the whole of my life steeped in the sacred music, the lithurgies and magnificats of the Anglican Church. And I would find it uncomfortable to live in a world where I had no person to thank.”

“For blessings, you mean?”

“Just so.”

“I understand, but even so I’m not a bit religious. I only went to church that Sunday because I was feeling a bit isolated and I needed the company of other people. I didn’t expect the lovely music. And I’d never heard that setting of the Te Deum before.”

“The organ is a new one. Paid for by countless Bring and Buy sales of work.”

They trod in silence for a moment. Then Elfrida said, “Do you count that as a blessing? The new organ, I mean.”

He laughed.

“You are like a little dog, worrying a bone. Yes, of course I do.”

“What else?”

He did not immediately reply. She thought of his home, his wife, his enormously comfortable and lavish house. His music room, his friends, his obvious financial security. She thought it would be interesting to know how Oscar had come to marry Gloria. Had he, after years of bachelor dom small boys, meagre salaries, and dusty academic rooms, seen, looming in the future, the emptiness of an elderly bachelor’s old age, and taken the easy way out? The wealthy, forceful widow, the capable hostess, good friend, competent mother. Or perhaps it was she who had done the stalking, and she who had made the decision. Perhaps they had simply fallen madly in love. Whatever, it seemed to work.

The silence lay between them. She said, “Don’t tell me if you’d rather not.”

“I was simply trying to decide how to explain. I married late in life and Gloria already had boys by her previous marriage. For some reason it never occurred to me that I should have a child of my own. When Francesca was born, I was amazed, not simply that she was there, a tiny human being, but so beautiful. And familiar. As though I had known her always. A miracle. Now she is twelve and I am still astounded by my good fortune.”

“Is she here at home?”

“No, at a weekly boarding-school. Tomorrow evening, I fetch her for the weekend.”

“I would like to meet her.”

“You shall. I like to think that you’ll be charmed by her. When Gloria inherited this pile of a house, I kicked against leaving London. But for Francesca I went with the tide and complied. Here, she has space and freedom. Trees, the smell of grass. Room to grow. Room for the rabbits and the guinea pigs and the pony.”

“For me,” said Elfrida, “the best is bird-song in the morning and big skies.”

“You too, I believe, have also fled from London?”

“Yes. It was time.”

“A wrench?”

“In a way. I’d lived there all my life. From the moment I left school and left home. I was at RADA. I was on the stage, you see. Much to my parents’ disapproval. But I didn’t mind about disapproval. I never have, really.”

“An actress. I should have known.”

“And a singer, too. And a dancer. Revues and big American musicals. I was the one at the back of the chorus line because I was so dreadfully tall. And then years of fortnightly Rep, and then bit parts on television. Nothing very illustrious.”

“Do you still work?”

“Heavens, no. I gave it up years ago. I married an actor, which was the most dreadful mistake for every sort of reason. And then he went off to America and was never seen again, so I kept myself by doing any sort of job that came my way, and then I got married again. But that wasn’t much use either. I don’t think I was ever a very good picker.”

“Was number-two husband an actor as well?” His voice was amused, which was exactly the way Elfrida wanted it to be. She seldom talked about her husbands, and the only way to make disasters bearable was to laugh about them.

“Oh, no, he was in business. Terribly expensive vinyl flooring. One would have thought I would have been marvellously secure and safe, but he had that disagreeable Victorian conviction that if a man feeds and houses his wife, and doles out some sort of a housekeeping allowance, then he has kept his share of the marital bargain.”

“Well,” said Oscar, “and why not? An old-established tradition, going back for centuries. Only then it was called slavery.”

“How nice that you understand. Turning sixty was one of the best days of my life, because I got my old age pension book, and knew that I could walk down to the nearest post office and be given money, cash in hand, for doing nothing. I’d never in my life been given something for nothing. It was like a whole new world.”

“Did you have children?”

“No. Never children.”

“You still haven’t explained why you moved to this particular village.”

“A need to move on.”

“A big step.”

It was nearly dark now. Turning, Elfrida looked back towards the house, and saw, through the lacework of the wroughtiron gate, the glow of the drawing-room windows. Somebody had drawn the curtains. She said, “I haven’t talked about it. I haven’t told anybody.”

“You don’t need to tell me.”

“Perhaps I’ve talked too much already. Perhaps I drank too much wine at dinner.”

“I don’t think so.”

“There was this man. So special, so loving, funny, and perfect. Another actor, but successful and famous this time and I won’t say his name. Brilliant. We lived together for three years in his little house in Barnes, and then he got Parkinson’s disease and it took him another two years to die.

It was his house. I had to leave. A week after his funeral I saw an advertisement for the cottage in Poulton’s Row. In The Sunday Times. And the next week I bought it. I have very little money, but it wasn’t too expensive. I brought my dear dog, Horace, with me for company, and I have my old age pension, and I have a little job making cushions for a rather snob interior designer in London. It’s not very arduous and it keeps me busy and my head above water. I always liked to sew, and it’s good to work with lovely, expensive materials, and each project is different.” It all sounded very trivial.