Statues in a Garden

by Isabel Colegate

  She turned on him quickly and put both hands on his arm. ‘You will catch it.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘Philip, you must – I insist that you see a doctor. You may have got it already I beg you, Philip.’

  ‘Of course I haven’t got consumption. I don’t suppose she has either. I was exaggerating. She has a slight cough.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘Please don’t go on seeing her. Please get another one.’

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Mistress.’

  ‘How broad-minded of you.’

  ‘Philip, seriously.’

  He put his hand on her cheek. ‘I should never find one as beautiful as Cindy.’

  ‘Is she very beautiful?’

  ‘Very,’ he said, holding her face in his hand.

  She looked into his eyes, ‘Philip, if you love her.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said, his lips on her cheek.

  She turned away, slowly. Then she said, quite coldly, ‘You are surely old enough to stop pretending to be Byron or somebody.’

  He did not answer. She walked across to the other side of the room, fiddled with a newspaper.

  ‘Who are you pretending to be?’ he asked.

  ‘I am tired of your sort of conversation,’ she answered distantly.

  He sighed. ‘Well, I must go. I sold your shares in Cape Enterprises by the way.’

  ‘Sold them? But we’d only just bought them.’

  ‘You made a small profit on the deal. But they have started to go down now.’

  ‘Why?’

  He spoke in a brisk, matter of fact voice, being embarrassed. ‘I discovered, while running through his papers one day when he was out, what I think may be a possible connection between Horgan himself and Cape Enterprises. And I suspect, because such is my nasty nature, that he spread the rumour about the firm’s discovering gold in order to boost the shares so that he can unload his own shares before the whole thing crashes.’

  ‘I never heard of anything so immoral. You can’t mean to say that that’s the sort of thing that goes on on the Stock Exchange?’

  ‘Not at all. Horgan is something of an exception.’

  ‘Have you sold Aylmer’s shares, and Edmund’s?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But they may lose a lot of money. Surely you should sell them?’

  ‘I should, yes,’ Philip admitted. ‘The truth is, Horgan won’t allow me to. He has told Smith not to accept any more selling orders in Cape Enterprises from me.’

  ‘He’s admitted it then, admitted his part in it?’

  ‘We didn’t discuss it. He issued this command and told me that he would let me know as soon as I could dispose of those shares in which I was interested. He said he would see that my family lost as little as possible, if anything. I think it will be all right. He used Aylmer’s name among others to promote activity in the shares It’s not in his interest to let him suffer. As soon as he’s unloaded his own – and I suspect he’s been doing so quietly for some time – he’ll let me sell Aylmer’s and Edmund’s. They may lose a little, but it won’t be anything to worry about.’

  ‘Of course it will be something to worry about. They are not rich, you know.’

  ‘I’ll make it up to Aylmer as soon as I can if he does lose. Horgan is letting me in on a property company he’s starting. That’s to be a sort of reward for not making too many difficulties about this little business. And if there’s anything in that, which there should be, I’ll be able to make it up to Aylmer and Edmund. It’s going to be rather awkward with one or two other people – I rather spread the thing around, I’m afraid. Still, it’s my own fault I ought to have seen what he was up to before.’

  ‘Don’t you bear any resentment?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. He made a mistake a long time ago in getting involved in the thing and now he’s only trying to get out of it without losing his investment. Of course it’s reprehensible, but what is one to do about it? It’s all being done as quietly and discreetly as possible – he has not let the shares get too high – I think he will get away with it. And because I have helped him, though unwittingly, I shall be at an advantage.’

  ‘What about your own shares?’

  ‘I sold them with yours.’

  ‘I can’t understand why you couldn’t sell Aylmer’s and Edmund’s at the same time.’

  ‘I was going to, only he stopped me, as I told you.’

  ‘It makes me feel like your accomplice.’

  He said nothing, and she went on, ‘Why shouldn’t I tell Aylmer to sell his shares, immediately, through another stock broker?’

  ‘You could,’ said Philip. ‘But Horgan would know it was my doing.’

  ‘What does that matter? Aylmer would have sold his shares.’

  ‘And I would have lost my job.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Why do you want to go on working for someone like that?’

  ‘I have no other way in there, as far as I know. And he is clever. On the sharp side of course, but he has ideas, he makes things happen And he needs someone like me. This thing means more to me than the amount of money Aylmer might lose means to Aylmer.’

  ‘Does it? Why?’

  ‘Because it’s my life. If Horgan takes me up in the way in which I think he might take me up, I stand to make a lot of money. Otherwise, I don’t.’

  ‘Is money all that matters then?’

  ‘It matters a great deal. It does to everyone. Some people are more honest than others about admitting how much it matters to them, that’s all.’

  ‘I suppose it is because you have never had very much, have felt you had less than Edmund. But you have never really had to worry about money, have you?’

  ‘I had less than anybody else in the smart regiment into which you put me.’

  ‘You asked to be put there.’

  ‘I know. That was unfair I don’t complain – how could I? – of the way I have been brought up. For heaven’s sake don’t take what I say as being that. But I want things, all sorts of things, and they can all be bought with money. Horgan could mean a lot for me. I’m not going to give him up because of this, leaving the possibilities unexplored.’

  ‘So you will not sell Aylmer’s shares until Horgan tells you you may. And Aylmer may lose a lot of money. But you will keep your job and your opportunity, which is not yet proven, of making the money you tell me can’t really matter for Aylmer. It sounds a little suspect.’

  He turned away from the window and sat down on the sofa, leaning back against the cushions and looking across to where she stood on the other side of the fireplace.

  ‘If it worries you,’ he said, ‘tell Aylmer to sell his shares. It doesn’t really matter to me all that much. Nothing really matters to me all that much.’

  His figure, lax now against the cushions, his eyes yellowish like a lion’s, not very large, rimmed with dark lashes, familiar, looking now without apparent subterfuge into hers, the white thin face, not happy but not, it seemed for once, concealing anything from her, he was so much more there and opposite her than anyone else could ever be she could either remember from when she had been standing close to him, or still smell, the smell of his skin, as known to her as his yellow eyes.

  ‘I don’t know whether you are changing me in some way,’ she said. ‘A little time ago I would have told Aylmer to sell his shares.’

  ‘Tell him now,’ he suggested mildly.

  She still looked at him.

  ‘I suppose ordinary questions of morality hardly enter into these money affairs?’ she asked humbly.

  ‘I suppose they hardly do,’ he said. ‘It is all so unreal, you see.’

  She moved round to sit in an armchair opposite him.

  ‘I shan’t say anything. I shall leave it all to you. But I wish you hadn’t told me. As I said, I don’t like the feeling of complicity.’
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  ‘I’m sorry. Try to forget it. It’s not of great importance.’

  They sat opposite each other without speaking, absorbed in a feeling of sadness.

  15

  Aylmer and Edmund walked beside the river, going home after visiting a tenant farmer down the valley. The flies were low over the water. Two or three blackbirds were singing in separate trees.

  ‘The river is full of fish this year,’ said Edmund.

  ‘I wish I could spend more time here,’ said Aylmer. ‘As it is, I shall have to go back to London as soon as the wedding’s over. There’s this conference at Buckingham Palace coming up and I want to do a lot of preparatory work on it.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re in on that. Do you think you’ll make them see sense?’

  ‘I don’t know. I find myself less and less willing to predict how other people will react to things. The more one understands the more complicated people’s motives appear. But I think something ought to come of it. Have you heard any more of the Tewkesbury affair?’

  ‘I think there is a reasonable chance that I could have the seat when Thompson retires, which he says will definitely be in not more than five years’ time. It would fit in very nicely for me as long as I’ve got through my Bar Finals all right. Then I can have a few years’ slogging at the Bar before I take on anything much politically.’

  ‘Of course you’ve got through them. It sounds an excellent plan. I can’t tell you how much I look forward to having you in the House. Whether or not we shall still be in power by that time remains to be seen – not that I myself wouldn’t welcome a spell of Opposition, for purely selfish reasons.’

  ‘It will be fine to have you to show me my way about. Oh look, a kingfisher, did you see?’

  ‘I missed it. Where?’

  They waited on the bank for the kingfisher.

  Edmund had meant to say something, however tentatively, about Alice, but, knowing his father to be overworked, he felt unable to break into his present contentment, and so he said nothing for the time being.

  The wedding was on 7th July – a Tuesday – and for several days before that the house was full of bridesmaids and relations. The Moretons were staying, a dull but well intentioned pair – she was a knowledgeable gardener Wilfred himself was staying near by with his best man, one of the Geralds. The other people in the house were mainly bridesmaids. Violet had decided to have twelve. Ida was among them, glowing in her golden way with vicarious happiness, and Margaret, and Cicely, and all the rest of them.

  Violet herself was rather fussed. It had been a fairly short engagement and she had to have everything ready to leave for India almost as soon as they got back from their honeymoon.

  Cynthia was calm. She had all the preparations for the wedding perfectly under control, and since she had an exceedingly efficient staff she had nothing particularly exacting to do herself. She had enough energy to have undertaken a great deal more, had it been required. In the heat everyone else was easily tired, wanted only to sit in the shade, but she, though she did sit in the shade, could have done anything. Her white beauty, which might have seemed something to be shaded, with affinities rather with the moon, on the contrary thrived and gleamed in the hot sun.

  On the Sunday evening before the wedding Philip, who was staying there for the week end, took her for a walk and told her that he was afraid Aylmer and Edmund might lose more than he had originally feared over the Cape Enterprises affair.

  ‘I’m counting on being able to sell their shares pretty soon. But Horgan told me last week that he didn’t think I should be able to do it until the end of next week. And they’re going down all the time, though no one seems quite to have caught on to what’s happening yet. I’m going back to London tomorrow and I shall try my best, but if I don’t succeed perhaps you ought to warn Aylmer and get him to sell them through someone else.’

  ‘Has he never asked you about them?’

  ‘No. It’s not the sort of thing that interests him. Or Edmund either.’

  ‘Do sell them as soon as you can.’

  ‘You don’t think you ought to tell him?’

  ‘No. Not now.’

  He had known she would say that. But he had not known she would say it so decisively.

  ‘I am sorry to have made you my accomplice.’

  ‘I am not sorry,’ she said. ‘But next time, let us be accomplices in something better.’

  He stopped, sat on a low stone wall – they were walking down towards the wood – and said, ‘I think you may be right, I think I am changing you.’

  But she had forgotten what she had said a few days before. ‘What do you mean, changing?’

  ‘Are you coming over to my side?’

  ‘As opposed to who else’s side?’

  ‘Aylmer’s.’

  She did not seem shocked, though she said, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Don’t be mysterious. Come on, I want to walk a long way this evening.’ She held out her hand.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  But she had taken his hand and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘I know, I know, I love you too. Come on, I want to walk miles and miles. With no metaphysical conversations on the way. Just nature study, and a few appropriate platitudes.’

  It was at the end of that day that Ellen the kitchenmaid slipped down the stairs in her bare feet, carrying her shoes, climbed out of the kitchen window, the bolts of the door being too noisy, and found Ralph Moberley waiting for her in the stable yard. He had been talking about how warm the nights were and how he had been for a walk late and seen badgers playing, and she had said, ‘That’s a thing I’d like to see,’ and he had said, ‘You should go one night.’

  ‘I think I’d be frightened,’ she had said.

  ‘I’ll take you. I’ll show you where I saw them, the next fine night.’

  ‘Mrs Mount would never let me.’

  ‘Come out quietly. She’ll never know.’

  So she crept out to join him, and they went across the stable yard, she rather giggly and excited, he rather moved by the sight of her bare feet, and all would have been well had not Beatrice, sleepless with one of her headaches, looked out and seen them go, and stored up the venom the sight released in her until it became too much for her to contain, and she spilt it.

  16

  Of course it was a perfect wedding. The sun shone, Violet looked sweet, we were all there and in our best.

  The reception was in the garden. ‘A perfect day,’ people said. ‘You couldn’t have hoped for a better. It all looks so beautiful. A dream wedding.’

  There is a photograph of all the bridesmaids walking across the lawn in a long straggling line, out of step. They are wearing heavy white satin dresses, tight about the ankles, so that it is not easy for them to walk Cicely is holding the skirt up with one hand so that a good deal of bony ankle shows above the black satin buckled shoe. In the other hand she carries, as they all do, an immense bunch of long stemmed lilies. No, Kitty is not carrying lilies because she had to hold Violet’s train, of course Kitty wears a shorter dress, but the same lace fichu round her shoulders and bosom, only hers ends in an artificial flower at the waist, theirs in high beaded waistbands. They are all wearing lace caps bound with a black velvet ribbon and bow, and upon the bow, perched like a feather, is a little bunch of orange blossom. Round their necks they wear a thin black velvet ribbon and a gold chain bearing an enamelled locket given to them by the bridegroom. Kitty’s hair is about her shoulders the others of course have theirs pinned up. They all wear long white gloves Kitty’s feet. look larger than any of the others.

  Then there is the guard of honour, from Wilfred’s regiment. There is a photograph of them with their helmets on so that you can only see the ends of their noses and their upper lips (the lower ones being concealed by the chin straps), and one with their helmets off. Then they have put them on again and are lined up behind the bridesmaids and the bridal pair for the complete group. In Violet’s album she has writte
n all their names in her neat small hand and later has added in brackets what became of them in the war, so that we read, ‘Tpr Towns end (wounded 1914), Farrier French, Tpr Moynihan (killed 1915), Cpl Potter, Farrier Newbolt (reported killed 1918),’ and so on Cpl Harper is very handsome. He apparently got through unscathed, but Cpl Major Thorp, who is nearly as good looking is ‘killed 1914’. As a matter of fact they are all rather handsome.

  There are so many people in the larger group that Violet has only had room to write their initials. Under her own image she has written ‘VMM’, the last letter heavily underlined. They are in the garden, posing in front of a yew hedge.

  Cynthia had her own way of dressing. She wore very few trimmings in that year of the beaded fringe, relying rather on line and her own superb carnage. But her hats were enormous.

  Here she is in the softest of grey chiffon, the skirt falling in fluted columns from the high waist, a high neck and long full sleeves, her hat a marvellous sweeping brim beneath a curling feather. She had quite a feeling for the dramatic. It was a good hat in which to look desolated by the loss of a daughter. But in this photograph she is not looking desolated (she did cry a little in the church), she is looking untroubled, talking to Lord Tamworth, who is exquisitely dressed himself from top hat to grey spats. He is leaning forward, smiling through his golden beard, telling her probably how beautiful she looks.

  ‘How beautiful you look.’

  ‘And so do you.’

  ‘Impossible to believe the mother of the bride could be a creature so radiantly young.’

  ‘Not when the bride herself looks sixteen. Do you think she will be all right, Tammy? Were we foolish to let her marry so young? She is only twenty.’

  ‘Of course she’ll be all right. The Moretons are a very nice family, and she’s got plenty of common sense, your Violet. That’s what’s needed in a marriage, common sense, a decent upbringing behind you, and good manners. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Now there’s a pretty pair, Ida and your Edmund. Are you doing any match making there?’

  ‘I hadn’t really thought. It would be nice, of course. She is so sweet. Oh Philip, there you are. How was it, do you think?’