Difficult Husbands

by Mary de Laszlo

  4

  An Unexpected Legacy

  Lorna was tortured with hideous dreams of Stephen brandishing a baby, demanding that she look after it. She woke with a start, her body fizzing with anxiety. Unconsciously, she thrust out her arm to touch him for reassurance, but his side of the bed was empty, as it had been for months. Whenever would she get used to it.

  What if Stephen and that girl did have a baby together? It was shocking, disgusting even, and she lay there, ridged in her tangled sheets, her mind fighting to dismiss this new nightmare.

  It was Flora who was having the baby, not Stephen, who was now almost sixty-six but possibly could still father a child? What if he wanted one to show off to his OAP contemporaries that he was still potent? Or that girl wanted one to secure him and his money? Foolishly, she’d not thought of this scenario, assuming that Stephen was not virile enough to make babies. Certainly, thinking of his last attempts to make love to her, he was not, but perhaps Viagra and this girl had turned him into a stud again.

  The thought that Stephen could make love to other women, but not to her, brought a rush of tears. She must not allow him to dominate her life like this. All her energies were needed to keep going; to earn more money and be there for the children, and now Flora had added to her problems by getting pregnant! And worse, with someone else’s husband.

  She switched on Radio Four, welcoming the familiar voices of the presenters while she picked at breakfast; numerous cups of freshly ground coffee, toast and a rather dry orange. She ate it while she wiped round the granite surfaces in the kitchen, at first mechanically, then with more energy, whirling the cloth back and forth as if she were a dervish dancing into exhaustion. She stopped, feeling slightly foolish as if she was being watched, but her blood was singing, and she felt better for it.

  She’d go into the cake shop in Wandsworth today. She didn’t need to, as Martha’s sister Jenny was working there now, but she wanted to be among people, throwing gossip about like bread to ducks, shunting her own anxieties aside.

  ‘Cake Box’ was a sliver of a shop off the common which sold decorative and delicious cupcakes for all occasions. The cakes could be boxed up, decorated as the client wanted, or bought singly as a small, pretty treat to lighten someone’s day. The business was plodding along in these dire times; it badly needed some sort of publicity that wasn’t too expensive.

  Flora was coming home this weekend, Lorna had mixed feelings, longing to see her and hold her close yet full of anxiety over how to deal with this problem. It upset her that the coming child would cause so much heartache instead of joy.

  She’d told Marcus about the baby when he rang her later that evening. He hadn’t been fazed by the news. No doubt he assumed, as with their guinea pigs and hamsters, that she’d take over when they grew tired of their responsibilities. She could almost hear Marcus saying to Flora, ‘A baby will give Mum’s life some meaning, now that Dad’s gone.’

  She’d been happily down that road with Stephen. Did she want it all again, full-time for all those years? No, she did not, and not in this way. Besides, and the thought was scary, in the unlikely event that she might find love again she was just about capable of having another baby herself. This made her laugh, trust her to overreact! Scarily, though, it was possible for three new babies to be born in this mixed-up family – but that really would be going over the top.

  The telephone rang, scattering her thoughts.

  ‘Is that Mrs Sanderson?’ The female voice at the other end was hesitant.

  ‘Yes, speaking.’

  ‘It’s Clara, Mr Barne’s housekeeper. I’m afraid I have some bad news. H- he’s very ill, sinking fast … he … I think you ought to come … if you can.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ her mind fought to absorb this. ‘I’m so sorry Clara, yes…I will…. I’ll leave at once.’ This was yet another shock, but not altogether unexpected. Fergus Barnes was her godfather; he’d been unwell for a long time since a hunting accident. Adultery, an impending birth and now an approaching death; all crucial events of life; all assaulting her at once, she thought.

  Fergus had been a recluse these last years, waiting impatiently for death. He’d instructed his solicitor on his funeral plans some years before and, until recently, he’d enjoyed taking them out and re-arranging the hymns and readings.

  ‘He doesn’t want me to worry you, Lorna, and he left his solicitor a list of people to contact when he went, but if you could come I think he’d like it … There’s no one else left he cares for now.’

  ‘I should be with you in just over an hour, Clara. It is a shock, it’s hard for you, you’ve been with him so long.’ She suspected Clara was in love with Fergus; she had looked after him devotedly since his accident some years before.

  Clara’s voice was thick with tears; ‘I can’t expect him to go on as he is, with no real quality of life, especially for someone who was so active.’

  Lorna was seized now with purpose, overshadowing her other anxieties. She scurried round finding her bag and getting her coat, taking a map in case a road was blocked or something and she had to take a different route to the one she was used to. She hadn’t been to Ravenscourt, Fergus’s house in Sussex, for ages, as he’d hidden himself away refusing to see anyone.

  Fergus had been her father’s best friend. They’d got up to all sorts of escapades together at university. Dad eventually settled down to marriage – though her mother always kept a wary eye on him – while Fergus continued to party, having a highly chequered love life. He’d married twice; neither marriage worked, owing to his numerous infidelities.

  ‘I thought it exceedingly bad manners to refuse a pretty girl,’ he told her when she’d met him for lunch at the Ritz to celebrate her engagement to Stephen. ‘Trouble is, it upset my wives; they didn’t realise it meant little in the scale of my love for them. So, my dear, take some god-fatherly advice: love is all, lust just a passing whim, and an affair is usually no more important than indulging in too much chocolate or booze.’

  The traffic was bad; Lorna crawled through Roehampton to the A3. She felt very close to Fergus, as if he were hovering just out of sight. She remembered that lunch at the Ritz, and how she’d giggled at his remark, thinking it sophisticated. She’d been in love; so sure that Stephen, who adored her, would never stray. She’d dismissed Fergus’s advice with the arrogance of youth.

  Ravenscourt was the perfect house for a recluse. It was hidden in a dip in the Sussex countryside, at the end of a long drive lined with old, knarled oak trees, known as ‘Sussex weeds’ as they were so prolific in the county. The house could only be seen from the air and even then in the summer it was difficult to see it through the trees.

  When he’d bought Ravenscourt, over forty years ago, Fergus was very rich. His family were well-known biscuit makers. Fergus sold his shares in the company, and lived cheerfully and disgracefully on the income, until his accident confined him to a wheelchair. She’d often visited him, sometimes taking the children. Marcus would charge him round the garden in his wheelchair, pretending it was a chariot, which Fergus thought highly entertaining, urging him on ever faster. But over these last years, as his body slowly shut down, he refused to see anyone but Clara, his housekeeper.

  Ravenscourt had been such a sumptuous house. Originally Georgian, it had been re-vamped, especially inside, into a mainly Victorian concoction. As Fergus’s fortune had dwindled with his life in the fast lane, furniture and pictures were sold to pay bills and after his accident, the house fell into disrepair. Lorna hadn’t seen him for over three years. She’d telephoned him and tried to insist that she come and visit, but he’d told her, often through Clara, that he was too old and decrepit and he didn’t want her to see him like this.

  ‘He’s a vain man and used to women throwing themselves at him and now all that’s gone he wants to hide away. You must respect that,’ Clara explained to her. So Lorna contented herself with writing to him, sending him books and music CDs she hoped would amuse him.

>   As Lorna turned through the gates leading to the house, she was overcome by grief. It was dreadful to think of Fergus living out his last years alone and disabled here, and yet he’d led a riotous life, some might say a selfish life, and his end was only what he’d brought upon himself. Clara had faithfully cared for him, so he’d not been left alone.

  The house had an imposing porch flanked by four pillars, and long, lean windows running each side. It was half smothered by creepers and some of the windows were blanketed by ivy that had thrust through the more exotic climbers that used to clothe the outside with such charm. Lorna wondered if the tenacious grip of the ivy held up the house, eating into the ancient brickwork while holding it together with its little sucker feet.

  As Lorna pulled up outside the house, crunching on the gravel, Clara darted from a side door to greet her. She was a slim, tidy woman, her eyes and nose swollen with weeping. She was dressed in grey with a dark purple scarf tucked in at her neck. Her short, grey hair was so neat it could have been sprayed on her head. Poor Clara, thought Lorna, but it pleased her that the old roué, ill and decrepit though he was, was loved to the end.

  ‘The doctor is here. I thought it best and Fergus doesn’t seem to mind … he’s peaceful now, drifting a bit.’ She wiped away a tear. ‘I told him you’re on your way.’

  Lorna pulled out her handkerchief, a large Irish linen one of Stephen’s that she used for funerals. She mopped at her eyes, remembering her father’s death. Clara patted her arm in comfort and led the way to Fergus’s bedroom, which, since his accident, was on the ground floor.

  For a moment she hovered on the threshold, dreading seeing him so near the end. A young man sitting on a chair beside the bed got up when she came in and smiled at her.

  ‘He’s very peaceful,’ he said quietly. ‘Come closer so he knows you are here.’

  Lorna crept forward, afraid of what she would see. The room was still, as if time was suspended. She reached the bed and forced herself to look down at Fergus. He looked so old, knarled like an ancient tree. She took his hand and bent down to be close to him.

  ‘Fergus, it’s Lorna, come to see you.’

  For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her. His breathing was harsh and laboured. He opened his eyes. ‘Lorna,’ he said, trying to focus on her face as if to be certain it was her. ‘Ravenscourt …’ His voice faltered as if it was too much effort to speak. ‘Ravenscourt,’ he repeated, ‘is for you.’

  ‘What, Fergus? What do you mean?’ she leant closer to him, kneeling down on the floor, He closed his eyes and though she waited with him for over an hour, he did not speak again, and slipped away from them with barely a sound.

  ‘I shouldn’t be sad,’ Clara said later, as they sat in the kitchen over a cup of coffee and a plate of cheese sandwiches. ‘He’ll be glad he’s gone; he was always grumbling about how he was left on this earth too long in his state.’

  ‘A recluse was the last thing you’d imagine him becoming. I always felt that he needed people around him to play to all the time,’ Lorna said. Her mind kept running snippets of times spent with him like trailers of past films. He used to come and stay with her parents, with whatever wife or girlfriend was in residence at the time. He brought with him such an air of carnival that when he left, the house, which buzzed with plenty of family life of its own, seemed lacking in excitement.

  Her father died before Fergus became a recluse, for he would have visited him; crashed through whatever barriers Fergus put up. But now they were all gone. She did so hope they had met up again in some carefree paradise.

  Clara busied herself making more coffee, pouring boiling water over the grounds from an ancient kettle into an equally ancient coffee percolator that gurgled and spluttered while it burped up the grounds.

  ‘The indignities of old age infuriated him. It was cruel of fate to leave him so and he didn’t want anyone he loved to see him that way. Oh, he’ll be glad he’s gone at last,’ Clara repeated, blowing her nose fiercely.

  The doctor made the arrangements for Fergus to be taken away by the undertakers. As they tearfully watched him go, Lorna remembered his last words, ‘Ravenscourt is for you,’ had she heard him right? If so it was a monumental bequest.

  She tried to dismiss her last sight of him, remembering instead how vital he’d been, charging through life, grabbing it up in handfuls like a spoilt child. He had been so full of charm and generosity that he was always forgiven. Though would he have amused her if she were his wife, or even his daughter? Her own husband had behaved badly, and it had broken her heart.

  ‘He’s left you the house,’ Clara said. ‘You realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t really take it in but I thought that’s what he said. …’ Lorna glanced round the huge, bleak kitchen with the tall, narrow cupboards, the cream paint worn off around some of the door handles after years of use, revealing the pine beneath.

  She could see how much the house had deteriorated since she was last here. It was rackety and enormous; even now the wind was shaking it as if picking it up in a huge hand, making the windows rattle. It would need a fortune spent on it just to make it comfortable, let alone wind and water proof.

  Fergus had given Clara a cottage in the grounds, but when he’d become too infirm, she’d moved into a room off the kitchen to be near him. He’d turned a sitting room on the ground floor into his bedroom. The large dining room and the drawing room were icy, the radiators having rusted up long ago. The vast fireplaces probably hadn’t been swept for years. The two floors above had been left to their own devices. They contained bedrooms and a few cold and damp bathrooms and attics, and were probably home by now to bats, mice, moths and goodness knows what else.

  ‘You’re the closest to him left,’ Clara explained quietly, ‘Ralph, his only child, died childless, as you know and he hated his other relatives. They all live abroad anyway. He adored your father and often spoke of him and thought you very like him. He said you could come here with your children for a bit of country air.’

  ‘But my children are grown up and at university.’ Fergus must have imagined that they were still small children, bursting with energy that would profit from dashing about in acres of land.

  Clara poured out more coffee. ‘Anyway it’s yours, though perhaps it is rather a white elephant. Sad though it is to say, it probably needs pulling down and starting again. I’ll be happy to retire to my cosy cottage. I’m going to be a granny soon. Gina is having a baby in the spring.’

  ‘Oh, congratulations, that will be nice for you.’ Gina was married and she and her husband had saved for five years before they’d thought of having children. Now one was on the way and it was something for Clara to look forward to, unlike her situation with Flora’s baby, whose birth was surely going to cause painful complications, adding to her concern for its wellbeing.

  Any minute Clara would ask after her children. Lorna dreaded having to admit that she too would soon be a granny, but to an illegitimate child whose father was married to somebody else.

  To her relief, Clara seemed more preoccupied with Fergus and Ravenscourt. She went through his deteriorating health before progressing back to the house. ‘It’s been neglected for too long. The wiring and plumbing should have been seen to years ago. He meant well to leave it to you, but he didn’t realise how much needs to be done to it. ’

  ‘I can’t remember if I told you I’m divorced.’ Lorna hated telling people. She cringed at the words of horror and comfort that sometimes gushed from them, or the more prurient questions about the cause of it.

  Clara was shocked, for she’d liked Stephen the few times she’d met him. The news now conjured up memories of when she had been deserted by Gina’s father. She described this in morbid detail and it was quite some time before Lorna could steer her back to discussing the house.

  It was sad going about the bleak rooms. The damp cold pervaded everywhere, clinging like a mist, the larger rooms echoing with neglect. Once, long ago, there had bee
n herds of staff to care for it, and many guests with their sparkling wit, flirtations and gossip; vibrant life that coursed like blood through the house. All was gone and nature had taken over, rotting the beams and staining the fine plaster work. Dust to dust. Lorna was glad to return to the warm kitchen, shabby though it was.

  She trailed back on the motorway towards London cocooned in her small metal box. It was dark now, the wind whipping the trees into a frenzy, like huge brooms brushing the sky. A stream of headlights dazzled her coming the other way. Her mind was spinning with this new surprise of owning Ravenscourt.

  She was hit with a nerve-wracking thought; could Stephen demand a share in it? He was so different now to the man she’d known and trusted that she had no idea how this unexpected legacy would affect him. She didn’t dare even discuss it with him; not knowing what his reaction would be. Fergus had left her his beloved Ravenscourt, with the best intentions. She’d do all she could for it. Even if she had to sell it, as was likely, she would not have its fate compromised by the man who no longer loved her.

  5

  Dreading Christmas

  Gloria wiped her eyes on a piece of kitchen towel and forced herself to re-check her pile of cashmeres for the Fair she was going to in the morning. She used to love Christmas, look forward to it like a child even though it was such hard work. She’d enjoyed the ritual of it. She made the cake and the pudding in September, feeding them with brandy as though they were alive; pets to be nurtured. But these last couple of years it had been a minefield, spent wondering what state Adrian would be in. Now, what she had dreaded had happened. Her boy, her beloved only child, had just telephoned her from Bristol where he was supposed to be studying and told her that he may not be coming home for Christmas this year.