“But that first evening, you yourself deliberately raised the subject of Australia... you said your uncle had told you about my year in Sydney, and I took it you meant that you knew all about my meeting Carol out there and getting married...” He broke off, looking totally bewildered.
There was a great rushing sound in my ears, making me feel dizzy. I heard myself say in a voice that seemed infinitely distant, “I knew about Australia, Ben, because you told me yourself that you were going to go. It was on our very last evening together ...”
Silence hung between us. Then, “But why didn’t you say that, Tess, instead of ... ?”
“Would you expect me to have done that,” I retorted, “when you had so obviously forgotten what happened between us … what we said to one another that night?”
Ben glanced down at his feet, contrite and embarrassed. Then he came suddenly alive, reaching out for me so that I had to take a hasty step back to evade him.
“Tess, I’m sorry ... about everything. But you must have realised that Carol and I are through.”
“For how long?” I asked sarcastically. “You separated a couple of times before and got together again.”
“Not this time. We’re getting a divorce.”
“Ben,” I said wearily, “please don’t give me that line. You just wanted me for a casual affair, didn’t you, until you’d patched things up again with your wife?”
He took a quick, scornful breath. “Is that why I came rushing across continents to Prague, in blind panic ... just for a girl to sleep with a few times?” Do you think I’m that hard up?”
“Why, then?” I asked, my voice trembling.
His dark eyes were fiery with anger, and he threw the words out like an attack. “Because I love you, okay?”
I said in a hushed whisper, “But... but your wife?”
“Carol and I are finished,” he insisted. “Yes, we’ve tried to patch things up once or twice ... no man likes having to admit that he’s made a godawful mess of his life, but now our marriage is definitely over. Divorce proceedings were already in hand, Tess, before you arrived back in Brighton.”
“I see.”
Joy is a fragile thing, I discovered, more vulnerable than the most delicate piece of porcelain. Ben and I, all at once brought to closeness, became paradoxically two strangers. Politely fencing strangers, afraid of wounding one another’s feelings. Our love was overlaid with too much horror, too many misunderstandings, for any swift and sudden coming together.
I scratched up a meal for us out of oddments, and soon afterwards Ben made a move to leave. Saying goodnight, he held me a moment and pressed his lips to my forehead. I felt his kiss, felt the warmth of him, yet there was a barrier between us.
He looked down at me and smiled, a tender, understanding smile. “We’ve touched bottom, Tess darling. From now on we’ll be climbing all the way. Believe that.”
Later, a lot later, Gervaise came round to call. He had been discharged from hospital three days ago, he explained, and he had spotted my lighted window while out for his late-night stroll. I put the kettle on for coffee, glad of an excuse to postpone going to bed a while longer.
The plasters were off Gervaise’s face now, but he somehow looked different. The healing skin, tightening over his scars, had taken away the old perpetual smile.
“Et maintenant, ma chère?” he asked, when I had sketched in sufficient for him to understand the events in Prague. “I trust that we shall not be losing you ... that you will feel able to remain here.”
“Yes, I’ll be staying, Gervaise.”
His smile was back, a flash of genuine pleasure. He said tentatively, “And Ben?”
I hesitated a moment, then said, “It wasn’t his fault, Gervaise. He thought that I knew he was married. He’s getting a divorce, you see.”
“I am so very happy for you, my dear Tess.”
I found that, where I was still tongue-tied with the man I loved, I could talk to a friend. This helped to release some of the blocked-in tensions. Midnight passed, the Lanes became silent, and we still continued talking. Gervaise enquired about the two genuine Romanov cabarets, where they were now, and I told him—presumably still at Kelmscott Manor.
“And what will become of them? To whom do they truly belong?”
“Ben says that’s not our problem, thank heaven. Other people can sort out the whole ghastly mess.”
“Will you be given the chance to see them, do you suppose?”
“Maybe,” I shivered. “I’m not sure that I really want to.”
Gervaise showed no sign of wishing to hurry away, recognising my need, I think. He began to reminisce about my uncle, and I liked that. A long-running French bracket clock in the shop was striking two A.M. when I finally saw Gervaise out. In the doorway he held my face in both hands and kissed me lightly on the brow.
“It is good now, I think,” he said, and that seemed to cover everything.
Next morning there were two letters for me. The one from my mother was a reply to the airletter I’d written home three days after my arrival in Brighton. Mine had been a masterpiece of subtlety. I’d casually mentioned meeting Ben Wyland again and that we’d had a dinner date. Then I reported that running the Emporium looked like being great fun, and I’d given no hint of the looming shadows. I was glad to receive my mother’s chatty letter, but it seemed totally outrun by events, nothing remotely to do with my life as it was now.
I already knew from the handwriting that the other letter was from Pearl. I had kept pushing away the problem of what to do about her, but I’d have to face up to it now, I guessed. Then, as I slit open the thick azure envelope with Uncle Maynard’s ivory-handled paper knife, I found that miraculously my problem had been resolved.
Pearl wrote that she and Charles had made a sudden decision to visit his son in Australia ... something they’d long had in mind, and they were setting out in a few days’ time. It would be an extended stay, and they’d probably take in New Zealand, too. She hoped that I would forgive her for not calling in to see me, but I’d understand how busy she was with all her preparations.
This was a diplomatic retreat, I read between the lines. I sighed with relief, thankful that it would be a long while before I’d see Pearl again.
It was past time for Vera Catchpole to arrive, and I realised that she wouldn’t know I was back until I told her so. On an impulse, I decided to delay opening the shop for an hour while I slipped round to Vera’s house and did some shopping at the same time.
“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she greeted me, a cheerful smile on her bland round face. “I was worried about you, dearie, I don’t mind admitting. What’s been happening, then?”
“It’s a long story, Vera, let’s save it for later, shall we? Right now I just want to get stuck into some work.”
“Best thing, that’s what I always say. Okay, then, Tess, I’ll be round first thing tomorrow, same as usual.”
Ben arrived just before six. Upstairs, he put his arms around me and studied my face gravely. “How’re things, darling?”
“Okay.” I considered a moment. “Better than okay.”
“What do you want to do this evening? Where shall we eat?”
“Let’s decide later,” I said, “First, I’d like to walk.”
“Walk where?”
“Just walk.”
So we went down to the seafront, where the promenade was still wet underfoot from the rain that had lingered into the afternoon. Above us the sky was darkly overcast, but away on the horizon the clouds were breaking apart and the westering sun sent shafts of amber-gold across the grey water. The air was soft and mild, with a light breeze carrying the smell of the sea.
I suppose other people must have been around on that balmy evening, other couples must have been strolling hand-in-hand, but I was not aware of any of them.
Copyright © 1979 by Erica Quest/Nancy Buckingham
Originally published by Doubleday/Crime Club [ISBN 038515479X]
Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency
Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
Electronic sales: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
The October Cabaret Page 22
