‘Yes, yes.’ Joe nodded slowly. ‘She took a taxi.’ He looked at the telegram again. ‘Uncle T worried. L.’ He knew who L. was. And it wouldn’t be Uncle Turnbull who was worried; no doubt he had gone to the uncle’s and found she wasn’t there…
When he raised his eyes and met David’s questioning stare, he shook his head and said, ‘No, no; she definitely took a taxi.’ He now turned swiftly towards Martin. ‘Did you see your mother get into the taxi?’
‘No, Father.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘When…well, I told you, when she was going back towards the house dressed for out.’
‘Dear God!’ Joe turned his head to the side and looked down towards the floor. What if she hadn’t got into the taxi and gone into the house again! They had only looked for two people, his father and Mary. Ella had escaped, for it was her day off.
‘Whose taxi would it be? Fowler’s?’
Joe lifted his head and looked at David, who nodded at once, saying, ‘Either him or Rowland’s, whichever was available. Well, we’d better get on to them and see. You can ring from the call box at the junction.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Joe now looked at Betty. She was standing with her fingers across her lips. He did not speak to her but they exchanged a look, and then he went out, followed by David.
In answer to Joe’s enquiries, Fowler’s said they’d had no call from Mrs Remington. But Rowland’s said they’d had a call, but the driver hadn’t been able to get an answer and then the siren had gone and he thought it better to make tracks for home.
‘So he didn’t pick up Mrs Remington?’ Joe cast a glance back to where David was standing holding open the door, and when the answer came, ‘No; I’ve told you,’ he slowly replaced the receiver. And stepping out of the box he gripped a handful of his hair as he said, ‘She must be in there.’
Three hours later they brought her out. She must have been in the hall when the bomb struck. But for the dust that covered her she appeared to be unharmed. She still had her handbag over one arm and her hands were encased in grey silk gloves. A beam lay across her legs but the upper part of her body had been protected by the section of the stairs that had acted as a lean-to over her, and this had prevented the masonry from crushing her altogether. It was strange that a matter of a few yards away Mary’s body had been unmercifully blasted, yet Elaine looked apparently untouched…
The following day when Joe stood by the coffin in the chapel of rest and looked down on the face that had once enthralled him, he was glad that her beauty hadn’t been marred; she would have hated that. All his thoughts concerning her now were guilt-ridden, and he resented this feeling, yet could do nothing about it. And he said so as he and Betty walked away from the undertaker’s chapel.
‘If I had divorced her I’d have gone on loathing her and felt justified inside, for, one way and another, she had led me a hell of a life; but here I am all the time asking myself, was I to blame in the first place for bringing her here, which to her was a foreign environment. I’m even viewing her killing of the child now as compassionate; I’m seeing her action from Father’s point of view. And although I know that she would likely be here now if she hadn’t tried to take Martin from me, I can’t help but see her point of view. It’s unreasonable, it’s hypocritical, for death doesn’t wipe away people’s meanness, cruelty or physical torture, and I know this, yet here I am swamped with remorse.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ replied Betty. ‘She was my sister; I knew her longer than you did, Joe. From when she could first walk she showed selfish traits. As a child, everything had to go her way or else life for those around her became trying, to say the least; and even then, she could make you feel that you were in the wrong. She made use of me all my life, and there were times out of number when she was cruel to me, mentally cruel. The scars of a physical beating heal but never those of the mind. There were times when I hated her, and now I’ve got to confess that there was no time when I ever loved her. Other women couldn’t love her, either: she was a threat to them, and she enjoyed hurting them through their men. Yet, knowing all this I, like you, am consumed at this moment with guilt, more so because of my deception this last year. Until now I had thought I wasn’t doing anybody any harm, that she didn’t want you and I did. Now I don’t know what to think.’
At this point Joe caught hold of her arm and pulled it tightly against his side as he said, ‘That’s one thing you need have no regrets about. And we have to face up to the fact that we’re in an emotional stage; but it will pass, please God. Dr Pearce said something to me this morning to that effect. He knew the situation between us, has done for years. “You’re going to feel hellish about this,” he said. “For weeks it will appear as though she was an angel; but then reality will take over again.”’
‘He said that?’
He nodded: ‘Yes, he did. I didn’t take much heed of it at the time, but now I feel he was speaking from experience. He said it happens frequently with women who have looked after parents, given their life to them, then when the old people die they are eaten up with remorse and guilt for the thoughts they have harboured against them. He said it’s a most natural reaction.’
‘I only hope so.’
They were walking by the river now and, gazing down at the path, he said quietly, ‘You told me that you promised to stay with the old lady. Does that still hold good?’
It was some seconds before she answered, ‘Yes, Joe; I’m afraid it must. She…she welcomed me with open arms when, under the circumstances, she could have shown me the door, being of a generation that didn’t hold with looseness.’
‘Looseness!’ His look was accusing.
‘Yes, that’s what she could have termed it, looseness, although she didn’t. I promised to stay with her until she dies. And…and what I’m about to tell you now makes no difference, but I just want you to know how she considers me: she made a will, you know, some months ago, leaving me the cottage and’—her voice dropped to a whisper—‘the bulk of her money, which is a considerable amount.’
When he made no comment she turned and looked at him, and he said, slowly, ‘I’m glad for you.’
‘Oh, Joe! I’m in a cleft stick, but…but you can get me out of it.’
‘I don’t see how.’
They walked on, and it was some seconds before she said, ‘I was on the phone to her this morning. She…she wants you and Martin to come there, too, and to make it your home.’
He stopped dead and confronted her.
‘Live out there with her? Oh’—he tossed his head—‘she wouldn’t tolerate that; and I don’t know whether I could, either.’
‘She would not only tolerate it, she would love it. I understand her, and I’m telling you, Joe, she would love to have you in the house. And Martin too.’
‘But what about my work?’
‘You didn’t want to manage Baxter’s place anyway, did you? And the town’s quite near, you’d find something else; in fact, as things are you’re likely to get something more important that managing a box factory.’
They walked on again, and then he said quietly, ‘I’d have to see, Betty. I’d have to see about that. At the moment I only know one thing: I love you and I need you. Oh, how I need you. And I want to marry you.’
Five
The sun was glinting on the river. Martin was sitting on the river bank, his feet dangling an inch above the water, and glancing to the side of him where Betty lay resting on her elbow in the grass, he said, ‘Would it be possible to have a sculler on here, Aunty Bett?’
‘A sculler? I don’t see why not, though I don’t know how far you could go without bumping into a rock. Still, this part’s clear.’
‘I like it here, Aunty Bett.’ The boy’s voice was quiet.
‘I’m glad of that, Martin.’
‘I miss Grandpa, Aunty Bett.’
‘I do, too, Martin.’
‘And…I’ve been lonely since Elizabeth was evacuated. It was o
nly last week, but it seems years ago.’
‘She’ll write.’
‘It won’t be the same.’
‘Do you like Lady Mary?’
‘Oh yes.’ The boy laughed now. ‘I think she’s fun. She punched me in the chest this morning and told me I’d have to take boxing lessons.’
‘Boxing lessons!’ Betty laughed. ‘Why boxing lessons?’
‘She said because she always admired boxers.’
Their laughter joined now, and Betty turned her head to see the lady in question sitting in her chair, with Joe to the side of her, and she sent up a silent prayer that Lady Mary’s acidity would be watered down this afternoon.
And undoubtedly it was, but questionably, for she was saying now, ‘If I’d had a daughter I’d have wished her to be like Betty: plain, so that she wouldn’t have outshone me even in middle age, and sensible, no damn nonsense. But, of course, she wouldn’t have been: she’d have been beautiful and selfish and spoilt and I would be sitting here now bemoaning her neglect of me, and she’d be waiting for me to die in order to get my money. Oh! Oh! don’t look so disapproving, for the world is full of mercenary people, and what we won’t own up to is they are part of ourselves, our offspring.’ She became still for a moment, plucking at a lace ruffle on the front of her gown, then she smoothed the long skirt down over her knees before she went on, ‘It would appear that there is going to be a tug-of-war between us, Mr Remington, and I’m sure neither you nor I want that. Yet you are bent on marrying Betty and making her your wife, and rightly so, yes, rightly so, because she is carrying your child. For myself, I want her, at least partly, for a number of selfish reasons; I want her company, but more so I…I don’t want to die alone. However, there is another side to it: I want to give her security; I want to see her with a place of her own. And mind’—she now wagged her finger at him—‘I saw to this before I had any real suspicion of what was between you both, because I didn’t want her to go on being a slave to stuffy old women. I’m not a stuffy old woman. No, I’m not. So what are we going to do about it…? No, wait; I haven’t finished yet.’ She now pressed her buttocks back on the wicker chair, straightened her back, turned her head away from his and looked down towards the river bank to where Betty and Martin were sitting, and she said quietly, ‘It would give me the greatest pleasure to have you live in this house, permanently, because a home is not really a home unless there’s a man at the head of it…When I lost my third husband I began to wander from hotel room to hotel room, and when I finally settled in this cottage, with the hope that it would be an inducement to Betty to join me, I pictured our life going along happily together. And undoubtedly it would have done, but without the zest that the presence of a male gives to a house. It is the male that makes the family in more ways than one, and so, Mr Remington, if you would care to come and be the head of this house I would welcome you, for then in my dotage I could imagine that I have not only a daughter but a son, and…and grandchildren.’
A short period of time followed before she turned and looked at him; and now, his face breaking into a slow smile, he said gently, ‘What can I say but thank you, Lady Mary?’
‘Well, that’s settled then. Huh! Huh! After all the worry, fuss and bother it’s as simple as that. Well! well!’ Her voice rose. ‘So what you sitting there for, with Betty worrying her guts out? Get yourself away!’
As he rose to his feet he nipped at his lip, but his eyes were bright as he looked down on her, until she said, ‘I understand you have a coloured half-brother. Well, he’ll be welcome here too. I don’t believe in the sins of the father, et cetera.’
His face was straight but his eyes held a tender light as he again said, ‘Thank you,’ then added, ‘so very much, and I hope you will live to…to find me a good son.’
She made no reply, only champed her lips until he was walking away, when she stopped him with her strident call: ‘Is there any chance of your getting any petrol on the side? I like a trip out now and then!’
He turned fully round to face her, and as his body shook with laughter her own face crinkled and, her mouth wide, she cried, ‘Well, they’re all at it, so why not us? See about it!’
Betty was waiting for him; and Martin, too, was on his feet, and he put his arms around them both and hugged them to him, and Betty asked softly, ‘It’s all right?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s all right, except that…that I’m expected to join the black market. There’s a price to be paid for everything.’
Joe now pushed Martin gently from him, saying, ‘Go up and sit with Lady Mary,’ and when the boy ran off he took Betty’s hand and led her along the river bank until they were hidden from the house by a group of trees; and there, taking her in his arms, he held her tightly and, looking into her eyes, he said softly, ‘It’s all too good to be true. At the moment I can’t see an obstacle on the horizon; but if one should appear in the future, and I’m serious about this, promise me one thing.’
‘Anything. Anything, Joe.’
‘Promise me you’ll never lock your door on me.’
‘Oh! Joe. Joe.’
‘Stop laughing.’
‘I can’t. Don’t lock my door on you…oh! Joe.’
As her laughter died away she saw revealed in his face, perhaps for the first time, the true depth of his feeling for her. And there rose in her a new estimation of herself: she had the power of someone who was beloved. An ingredient of love is the fear of loss, and it was this fear that was making her man say, don’t lock your door on me. She was now a woman who had the power to lock her door on a man…if she wanted to…
Men were strange. Life was strange, for she felt in this moment she was holding both Mike and him to her. Both had suffered from women locking their doors on them, and in Joe’s case it must have been a threat to his manhood, a blow to his ego. But the very fact that he had now voiced his fear made her feel…what? Desirable?
Yes, desirable.
She put her mouth on his and held him tightly until lack of breath and the uncomfortable mound of her abdomen made her draw away.
And now, holding each other at arms’ length, they both laughed; and when their laughter grew louder, Martin and Lady Mary looked at each other. Then the boy impulsively caught the old lady’s hand and as she wagged it their laughter joined, but was quickly smothered, as if they were sharing a secret joke.
The End
Justice is a Woman Page 28
