The Peacock Summer

by Hannah Richell

  A breeze catches the curtains, billowing them out towards the bed before they fall still. ‘Albie?’

  ‘Oh, no, not yet . . . but I’m sure he’ll visit soon. Look, I’ve brought some things down from your bedroom.’ Maggie indicates a small collection of items on the table beside the bed: a snakeskin vanity case, a bottle of perfume, a favourite pewter jug holding pink roses, and a set of engraved silver hairbrushes. ‘If there’s anything else you’d like, just let me know.’ Another burst of the blackbird’s evensong filters through the open doors. ‘You’re probably tired.’

  Lillian is tired. The light, the perfume of the roses mingling with the scent of the cut grass, the sound of the bird trilling in the tree all stir something inside her.

  ‘Gran? Are you OK?’

  She feels her granddaughter’s hand cover her own but Lillian doesn’t answer.

  ‘We’ll soon have you back on your feet.’

  And there it goes, her mind turning back on itself, finding the fragment of a memory and drawing it up into the light.

  Chapter 7

  Lillian is upstairs hunting for a missing white glove when the car horn blares loudly. She rummages through a drawer of undergarments and finds it at last in a tangle of silk stockings. Snatching up her handbag and a pair of sunglasses, she runs from the room, down the curved staircase and out into the brilliant summer’s day.

  Charles is standing with the artist, their backs to the house as they admire Charles’s latest acquisition: a sleek blue Aston Martin, roof down, its walnut dash and tan leather interior gleaming in the sunshine. ‘Isn’t she something?’ she hears Charles say. ‘Just off the production line.’

  Jack circles the car and emits a low whistle. ‘She’s a beauty.’

  ‘Hop in. If Lillian hurries up we’ll have time to take her for a little spin, though you might have to fold yourself like a paper crane to fit in the bucket seat.’

  ‘Hello,’ Lillian says, addressing both men as she draws closer, pulling on the errant glove and lowering her cat’s-eye sunglasses. She notices Jack, like Charles, is dressed in cricket whites, though his appear a little too big around the waist, borrowed, perhaps, from Charles or Bentham. ‘Sorry to keep you both.’

  ‘Hello.’ Jack smiles and gives her a polite nod before sliding into the back of the car.

  ‘About time,’ tuts Charles. He slams the passenger door behind Lillian then walks round to the driver’s seat. ‘I knew your visit to Helena would make us late.’

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ she says lightly. ‘No Albie today?’

  ‘No. The blasted boy refused. Said it was “boring”.’ Charles shakes his head with obvious exasperation. ‘I had a good mind to force him anyway . . . but he must have sensed my mood because he’s gone AWOL. Probably drifting about the woods as usual, grubbing around for his useless treasures.’

  ‘I see Charles has roped you into the game?’ she asks, shifting slightly in her seat to try to look at Jack, a clumsy deflection from Charles’s irritable rant.

  ‘Yes.’ Jack gives her a rueful smile. ‘I told him I was no good at cricket but he simply wouldn’t take no for an answer. That’s something I’m starting to learn about your husband,’ he adds.

  Charles revs the engine and they speed down the driveway, leaving Cloudesley and a spray of gravel in their wake, careening around the curved drive. Sunlight strobes through the overhanging trees. The breeze tugs at Lillian’s loose hair. At this rate they’ll be at the village green in no time, she thinks, hopefully with Charles’s bad mood left at the house; but no sooner has she had this thought than Charles is slamming on the brakes, sending all three of them lurching forwards and Jack’s knees ramming into the back of Lillian’s seat. ‘Damn!’ Charles thumps the steering wheel with his fist.

  Standing ahead of them and blocking the exit through the wrought-iron gates is a peacock, its long tail feathers trailing across the dusty gravel. The bird is positioned side-on, staring at them with one haughty eye. Lillian senses Jack craning forward between the seats, angling for a better look. Charles edges the car a little closer, revving the engine, but the peacock holds its ground. It doesn’t even flinch.

  Lillian sees Charles considering the grass verges to either side but it’s obvious to all of them that they are too high for the low chassis of the Aston Martin. ‘Chop chop!’ he yells, leaning heavily on the horn, but the bird simply tilts its head and gives them a nonchalant glare. ‘Come on, you overblown turkey, get out of the way.’

  Charles edges the car closer still, hoping to intimidate the bird into moving but it remains rooted to the spot until, with a small shiver, it counters by lifting its tail feathers and spreading them into a spectacular fan.

  Lillian has grown used to seeing the birds around the estate, but the sight of its flamboyant feathers shimmering in the dappled sunlight cannot fail to amaze her still. Even Charles is silenced momentarily by the display, admitting defeat with a long, low sigh and switching off the car engine.

  ‘So beautiful,’ murmurs Jack from the back seat.

  Lillian glances in the wing-mirror and finds her gaze locking with the artist’s. She looks away, her eyes returning to the bird. ‘And so stubborn,’ she says. ‘You watch. That peacock won’t be going anywhere; not until it’s good and ready.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ says Charles drily, ‘for your dazzling ornithological knowledge.’

  He leans out of the car and flaps ineffectually at the creature but Lillian is right: the peacock isn’t budging. A battle of pride, she thinks with a wry smile. ‘How are you settling in, Mr Fincher?’ Lillian asks, forcing herself to resist another glance in the wing-mirror. ‘I hope you have everything you need?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Your staff have been very accommodating.’

  ‘Good. You’re very welcome to dine with us in the evenings, if you’d prefer?’

  ‘I’ve been keeping rather irregular hours. I think it best I eat in the kitchen; and Mrs Hill has been very helpful, sending food up to my room on occasion.’

  ‘Well tonight we insist,’ says Charles. ‘It will be a chance to celebrate victory against our arch cricketing foes.’ Charles leans on the horn again, but the peacock remains exactly where it is. ‘Assuming we ever make it to the blasted game.’

  ‘Cigarette?’ asks Jack, offering a slim case, first to Lillian who declines, then to Charles. ‘Here,’ he says, offering Charles his lighter.

  ‘Very nice,’ says Charles, studying the inscription engraved on the silver Zippo. ‘Boldness be my friend.’ He hands it back to Jack.

  ‘A gift from my father,’ says Jack. ‘It’s a quote from Shakespeare. My old man wasn’t too keen on my pursuit of a career in art; he hoped I’d follow him into the cabinet-making business. Still, once he’d accepted my mind was made up, he gave me this.’ Jack turns the lighter over in the palm of his hand. ‘I think it was his way of telling me he accepted my decision. He told me if I was going to throw my life away on art, I should do it properly. Be bold. No half measures.’

  Charles nods. ‘Quite right. One never gets anywhere in life without taking a few risks.’ He turns and studies Jack, a light smile playing on his lips. ‘Seems to be paying off for you.’

  Jack shrugs. ‘I’ve been lucky.’

  Charles scoffs. ‘Hardly luck. Talent, I call it. Dare I ask how my room is coming along?’

  ‘It’s early days,’ Jack says, casually deflecting Charles’s enquiry.

  Lillian removes her sunglasses and ties her scarf over her hair before ducking down to check her reflection. She feels a small electric current pass through her as her eyes meet Jack’s again in the wing-mirror. He throws her a small smile before averting his gaze.

  ‘He’s certainly rather pleased with himself, isn’t he?’ says Jack, after another moment’s silence, nodding his head at the peacock.

  ‘Oh yes, a terrible show-off.’ Charles takes a considered drag on his cigarette. ‘But then you would be, wouldn’t you,’ he adds, ‘looking lik
e that.’

  Lillian is reminded of something. ‘Who was it who said, “the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance”?’

  ‘I think that was Ruskin,’ says Jack.

  ‘Ha!’ laughs Charles. ‘There’s truth in that. Could have included women too.’ Charles laughs loudly at his own joke.

  ‘Only if you’re to assume a woman’s sole purpose in life is to look good,’ counters Lillian.

  ‘Well of course . . . there’s looking good . . . and there’s child-bearing,’ adds Charles, still looking ahead at the bird.

  Lillian grips the bag in her lap a little more tightly.

  If the artist seated behind them is aware of the tension, he deflects artfully. ‘I think Ruskin misses the point,’ he says. ‘Beauty is never useless. It has purpose. Look at us, sitting here. We’ve ceased all other activity just to pause for a moment and wonder at the sight of this bird. The extraordinary jolts us from the mundane and makes us feel something. It reminds us we’re alive.’

  ‘Rather like art,’ says Lillian, after a moment.

  Jack meets her gaze in the wing-mirror and nods. ‘Yes. Art. Music. Love.’

  Lillian drops her gaze, unexpected heat flooding her cheeks.

  ‘This bloody bird is certainly making me feel something,’ says Charles. ‘And I don’t mind telling you it’s not generous. Anyway,’ he adds with a snort, ‘the difference is that unlike lilies – or peacocks, or indeed women – art doesn’t age. It’s static. A fine painting remains beautiful for all time. Which means that great art holds its value – indeed often growing more valuable over time. Which is why I choose to collect it, of course.

  ‘A living creature, by comparison, cannot stay beautiful forever. Unless you can find a way to preserve it.’ He gives a low laugh. ‘Do you hear that, old boy?’ he asks, addressing the peacock. ‘If you don’t move soon I think a little early “preservation” might be in order for you. I know a very good taxidermist,’ he adds, turning to Jack with a wink.

  Charles sends a final stream of smoke into the air and flicks his cigarette butt at the bird, only just missing. To the relief of them all, the peacock gives a last tilt of its head and struts slowly up onto the grass verge. ‘Much obliged,’ shouts Charles, doffing an invisible cap as it disappears into the undergrowth.

  Unimpeded, they turn through the gates, heading out along the crest of Cloud Hill, Charles driving fast, accelerating around corners and putting his foot to the floor on open stretches of road, the church nothing more than a honey-coloured blur as they whizz past. Lillian grips the door handle and tries to focus on the road ahead as it dips down into the dell and on towards the village.

  ‘Lillian hates it when I drive fast,’ Charles shouts over his shoulder to Jack in the back seat. ‘Though I often remind her that it’s thanks to my love of speed that she met me in the first place.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘It was a collision of hearts, wasn’t it, darling? Story for another day, old boy,’ shouts Charles over his shoulder.

  Instead of heading straight to the match, Charles takes them on a whistle-stop tour of the village, pointing out local landmarks to Jack as they go, shouting snippets of information at the back seat, his words whipping away on the breeze. ‘. . . I tell you, there’s nowhere better than the Chilterns in the summer . . . they say Oliver Cromwell hid in that house there . . . his initials scratched onto a glass window pane . . . famous soprano lives up that lane . . . the most enormous bosom . . . like the figurehead of a ship . . . that hill is the best place for winter sledging . . . come back and visit us in the snow!’

  Charles is so determined to show off the village that by the time they arrive at the green, most of the players and spectators have already assembled, dotted in their cricket whites on the immaculate snooker baize pitch. ‘They won’t start without us,’ says Charles, ever confident. ‘Besides, I’m flavour of the month for finding a stand-in for Cartwright and his twisted ankle. Come on, Fincher, I’ll introduce you to the other chaps.’

  Lillian removes her headscarf and tucks it into her handbag, watching from beside the car as the two men walk into the fray, Charles, with his broad shoulders and thickening waist striding confidently in his cricket whites, next to the slimmer, rangier Jack.

  A collision of hearts. Charles’s words from the car come back to her.

  The first time she’d met Charles, he’d been dressed in cricket whites. She had been cycling back to Lucinda’s house after tea with a friend when he’d come careening around a sharp bend in his gleaming sports car, taking the turn far too late, forcing her up onto the verge, sending the bike sprawling out from underneath her and her flying straight into the hedgerow.

  The car had screeched to a halt. ‘I say,’ Charles had shouted back at her, ‘are you all right?’ He’d got out of the car and approached the verge where she stood trembling as she dusted off her skirt. ‘You really shouldn’t be riding in the middle of the road like that. I could have killed you!’

  She’d known who he was straight away, though she’d never met him face to face. Mr Oberon, owner of the manor house on the outskirts of the village. He’d been away fighting in the war when she’d first arrived in the village and had attended school lessons up at the house.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m fine,’ she’d told him, looking down at her ripped stockings and the nasty graze on her shin.

  She’s not sure if it was the ensuing silence or the sight of the blood welling on her leg, but suddenly the man’s bluster had faded. ‘I say, you are all right, aren’t you?’

  ‘I – I think so.’ It was then that she’d seen the small, white face peering at her from the back window of the car. A little boy of no more than three or four. She’d remembered Lucinda talking about the tragedy the previous winter – the beautiful wife who’d died of pneumonia – leaving Charles Oberon a widower and a young boy motherless.

  ‘Terribly sorry,’ the man had said, seeming to soften. ‘We’ve been celebrating our cricket win. I didn’t see you coming. My fault entirely.’

  ‘Hello,’ she’d said, noticing the little boy sliding out of the car, sidling up to his father. He’d been staring, transfixed, at the blood trickling down her leg. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘it’s just a graze. Nothing to worry about.’ She’d knelt down and smiled. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Albie.’

  ‘What a lovely name.’

  ‘It’s short for Albert.’ The boy had peered at her before ducking back behind his father, holding on to his legs and making the man stumble.

  ‘Don’t cling to me like that, boy! Didn’t you hear her? She said she’s fine.’ He’d looked at her a little oddly. ‘You are fine, aren’t you? You’re not just saying that?’

  ‘I am,’ she’d said firmly, although she could still feel her knees trembling beneath her tweed skirt.

  ‘Is your bicycle all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He’d looked at it uncertainly. ‘That front wheel doesn’t look too tip-top. Shall I take a look at it for you?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘At least let me give you a lift? Where are you headed?’

  ‘Lucinda Daunt’s house, in Chestnut Lane.’

  ‘Lucinda Daunt? I didn’t know the old dear was still alive! Are you a relation?’

  ‘No. She’s my guardian . . . has been ever since the war.’ There had been no need to explain any further. The circumstances of the London orphans and evacuees arriving in Cloud Green were well known in the village. Lillian and Helena had been two of the luckier ones, finding a comfortable home with the kindly Lucinda Daunt and an arrangement they’d muddled through with long after the war had ended. Lillian had counted her lucky stars that they had been homed with such a kindly soul, given their situation.

  Charles Oberon had nodded. ‘Well, it’s not far. I might be able to fit the bicycle in.’ He’d looked at the twisted metal frame dubiously.

 
; ‘Please, don’t worry. I’m sure it’s best I get straight back in the saddle. Isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘Well, yes, although I think they mean horses. Still, if you’re sure . . . ?’

  She had nodded and waited for them to drive away, with the last thing she’d seen of them being the little boy’s pale, heart-shaped face gazing at her through the rear windscreen as they’d rounded the corner.

  Still shaken, she’d picked up her bike and hobbled back to Lucinda’s house, where she had recalled the encounter over dinner later that evening, turning it into a comedic episode and making light of her bruised legs and ruined bicycle.

  ‘Well, well. Charles Oberon,’ Lucinda had said, studying her thoughtfully through half-moon spectacles over her plate of ham and boiled potatoes. ‘They say he’s a man with a keen eye for beauty. Something of a collector. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pops up in your life again someday, young lady.’

  Lillian had laughed. ‘I hardly think so. A man like Charles Oberon moves in very different circles.’

  But Lucinda had merely tilted her head and raised her wine glass to her lips. ‘We’ll see.’

  Charles Oberon’s apology had arrived two days later in the shape of a shiny red bicycle with a woven-straw basket attached to the front, within which had sat a hand-written invitation to afternoon tea at Cloudesley.

  Lucinda’s crab-apple cheeks had turned quite pink with the excitement of it. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘It all seems a little . . . unnecessary,’ she’d said, looking down at the letter. ‘It was an accident.’ She’d read through the invitation once more. ‘Mr Oberon has suggested you might like to accompany me.’

  This had seemed to please Lucinda no end. ‘Of course. It would be only right and proper. We must reply right away.’

  ‘But what about Helena? I can’t leave her here.’

  ‘Rubbish! I’ll ask Mrs Brown next door to come and sit with her. Trust me,’ she’d said, suddenly serious, ‘this is important, Lillian. Do you hear me? This is life knocking at your door. Throw it open, young lady. You don’t want to end up an elderly spinster like me. Don’t sit here mouldering . . . no one for company but your poor, sweet sister.’