Margaret Baumann - Design for Loving (1970)

by Margaret Baumann

  Adam seemed put out when Hazel Ormerod failed to turn up at his Music Appreciation class that week. And of course Ruby stayed away, too, being but a shadow and echo of her friend.

  'What has got into those two?' Adam demanded as he and Sharon walked down between the rhododendron shrubberies after the class. 'Not that silly business of the humming?'

  At the last class meeting before Christmas they had tried out an old madrigal which had a humming background. Misunderstanding the note on the music sheet, Hazel and Ruby had come out with 'Closed lips!' at the tops of their young voices and had been thoroughly teased by the others. Sharon couldn't help smiling as she thought of it now.

  'The girl has a voice,' said Adam. 'I'd like Mr. Longford to hear it and advise her about singing lessons.' He frowned. 'I only wish she hadn't that screeching laugh. It goes right through me like some of the noises I have to hear every day at the wire works!'

  'She isn't laughing much just now. She's fretting for that French boy,' said Sharon, whose own feelings towards Luc Priolly were far from cordial at the moment.

  'She's wasting her time,' said Adam in disgust. 'A bright girl like that. You know, I'm surprised she's only a copyist.'

  Sharon blinked a little. 'I expect she did well in art at school and her work is quick and neat, though she'll never make a designer. There isn't an original idea in her head! But bright - yes. She's doing a spot of French with Miss Frith, so that she can surprise Luc.' She chuckled. 'Or that was supposed to be the idea. Actually she's bringing Miss Frith's slang up to date. The other day I heard her call Bernard a chameau.' Mentally she sketched Bernard's face with the pendulous lower lip and superior expression. 'And he is like a camel, but in French it's a rude word!'

  Adam looked shocked. 'That lad was a bad influence. We'll have to jerk Hazel out of it. How would she react if we suggested taking her to see the Royal Ballet film?'

  Sharon thought Hazel would love it, and she was right. The outing was such a success that they followed it up the next week with Olivier's Othello, which had been round the world and back again before it reached Roxley. When the show ended and they came out, blinking like owls, into the well-lit High Street, the magic was still with them. Hazel had wept for the dead Desdemona and she was so shaken by Iago's sinister ploys that she clutched Sharon's arm fearfully. They had to see her all the way home.

  The three of them set off at a brisk walk and Sharon was reminded of school holidays when she and Adam had blued all their pocket money on a visit to the opera or to hear some famous orchestra, walking home on air, with a lifetime of art and music stretching gloriously ahead. Now they were walking home for Hazel's sake. It was clear and still. Moonlight touched the gaunt grey fells and glittered on their snowy caps, and Sharon quoted: 'Like an army defeated, the snow has retreated.'

  Hazel's voice took it up: 'And now doth fare ill, on the top of the bare hill.'

  How about that then? said Adam's triumphant glance over the girl's head.

  'Without poetry,' said Sharon, whatever should we do, lying for hours and hours in the dark on sleepless nights?'

  'Count sheep,' said Hazel. She began to giggle. 'That's the only poetry I know, and I know it by heart, on account of I once had to write it out twelve times as a punishment.'

  'As a punishment!' said Sharon faintly.

  'For drawing specs and a fancy moustache on Wordsworth's picture in the book,' said Hazel. She went off into a fit of giggles, then stopped suddenly. 'Gosh, it seems all wrong to be laughing with that poor lady lying dead.'

  Adam's teeth were gritted hard. They had exerted themselves to make Hazel acquainted with the finer things of life, but her laugh defeated them. Even with Shakespeare treading on their heels, as it were, they could hardly throw Lear's Cordelia at her. 'Her voice is ever soft and low, an excellent thing in woman.' It would only give offence. It would be worse, far worse, than 'Closed lips!' Perhaps Hazel's laugh was something Hazel's friends must learn to live with.

  At her door, she thanked them shyly. 'It was smashing. No, I mean for-mi-dable.' She gave a little shrill squeak. 'But Luc wouldn't half tick me off for playing gooseberry!'

  And she ran into the house, screeching with mirth.

  February brought not rain but a spell of cool, brilliant weather. The rooks were building and there was a tumult of excitement among the smaller birds. Sharon woke every morning to the jewel song of the chaffinch outside her window, the sawing of the great tit, while a thrush in the pear-tree added embellishments to its first fluting call. There were snowdrops under the garden wall, and at the abbey the smooth turf between the ruins was sprinkled with crocuses. She stood in the porch with Canon Wismer enjoying them one evening. She had brought her finished designs for the chancel carpet to show him. In a few days' time it would be on the loom.

  'A lovely piece of work, my dear. I congratulate you.'

  She had waited till after evensong. During the week the service was said and not sung, and quite often Canon Wismer and the curate had it all to themselves. But today there had been two old ladies in the front pew and Adam had turned up to fit in some organ practice. Now the curate had hurried off home and the canon stood beside Sharon. A fiery sunset drew splendour from the ancient red stone as he went back over all those centuries of glory and decay since the monks first cleared a site for their abbey close to the river bank: a piece of land granted by a great baron for the glory of God out of his hunting reserve. The canon sighed. 'Men grow forgetful. But not entirely. It rejoices my heart to see new beauty added in our time to the abbey treasure.'

  Behind them, Stainer's Sevenfold Amen rolled and echoed round the empty abbey and Sharon thought how fitting. Did Adam intend it so or was it just a happy chance ?

  They discussed the dedication of the carpet and how soon a date could be fixed. Unlike his curate, who was a family man, the canon seemed in no hurry to leave. But the sunset was losing its passionate flush and with a mighty cawing the rooks were settling for the night. Sharon hardly dared to hint that she was ravenously hungry and this was the 'quiet' evening when she washed her hair and then sat cross-legged by the fire while it dried, preparing her classwork. She longed for an interruption and it came most unexpectedly. An enormous American car drew up near the abbey gate and two people got out.

  The woman was young, fair-haired. She wore a fur coat and matching hat and Sharon had an impression of slender elegance. Everything about her companion was more than life-size. He was a big man to start with and the short leather coat trimmed and lined with sheepskin made him look like a bear. He wore a peaked driving cap and was all slung about with gear: binoculars, two cameras. He came striding up the path, the girl following more slowly.

  'So late in the day,' sighed the canon. But he stepped forward and greeted them pleasantly. 'If you're wanting photographs, I'm afraid the light has gone.'

  'Thought we'd just make it.' Heavy features, a go- getting chin, a resonant Canadian voice. Someone to be reckoned with. 'Wasted time looking for a gas station. And then, when we'd gassed up, we kind of lost ourselves on these by-roads of yours.'

  'Too bad! But you found us in the end and I'll be delighted to show you round the abbey.'

  'That's uncommonly kind of you, sir, but I guess we'll have to pass it up. As a matter of fact, I don't reckon to fit in much sightseeing. I'm here on business - my first trip over. We had a couple of days in London. Now I have to meet up with my associates in Newcastle,. and then on into Scotland. We were making good time up the motorway when my little lady spotted this place marked on the map and it seemed worth a detour of fifty miles to fulfil a lifetime's ambition.'

  The canon smiled. 'Ah, you have roots in Roxley.'

  'Not a bit of it. Never heard of the place before. But when this trip was set up I confessed to Jenny that all my life I'd wanted to see a ruin. A genuine ruin.'

  'A ruin!' echoed the canon. Sharon, standing quietly by with the precious design rolled up under her arm, would dearly have loved to sketch his face.
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  'Yes, sir. To be honest with you, I had a castle in mind.

  'Oh, sure, we have the Casa Loma. 'See Canada's castle'. Perched up there above Toronto. Victorian Gothic. I'll never forget Jenny's face when she saw it all lit up and folks pouring out at nine in the evening. I guess she thought they'd been having a ball, but it was just another sale of antiques and just the right place for it. That's something again. We have our streamlined all-electric Canadian homes - eighteen power points in my wife's kitchen, believe it or not - but junk we don't have, so we buy.' He shook with laughter. 'Maybe it's a sort of homesickness. After two years, Jenny still clings to her English ways. But our kids will be one hundred per cent Canadian. Yes, sir!'

  Sharon saw the girl's gesture of shrinking and felt sorry for her. She said impulsively: 'You've come so far and it's a pity to see nothing. In an hour's time, when it's quite dark, the west front will be floodlit. I can't think of anything more beautiful.'

  'Is that so?' Impressed, he let his glance roam over the ruined archway, the broken walls, the fragments of the ancient night-stair, all retreating into dusk and into the past. 'And the tower now. That's quite something. Pretty old, I guess? And a mighty fine view from the top. How about it, Jenny?'

  'No! No!' It wasn't a light protest. Her voice held a desperate, quivering terror.

  He wasn't pleased. 'Now look.' His voice was deliberate. 'This is something we have to face and conquer. I haven't got where I am by avoiding difficulties. I accept them as a challenge and with every victory over myself I'm a better integrated person.' He faced Canon Wismer. 'You'll agree with me, sir. Fear is our worst enemy. It goes on corroding and rotting away the inner man. I daresay this comes within your own religious experience. When that old devil fear sneaks up on you, what do you do? You don't run away. No, sir. You turn round and clobber him. But good. Now my wife has this silly fear of heights.' He gave the sudden hearty laugh. 'Believe it or not, that's how we met.'

  He planted his feet apart, enjoying himself, and Sharon saw again the girl's shrinking withdrawal.

  The big man said: 'It was early May. The growers had it plastered up in the subway and on the radio that this would be Peach Blossom Sunday and thousands of folks had a run out to Hamilton and thereabouts to see the orchards at their best. I made it Aunt Ada's birthday treat, finishing up with a peek at Niagara. And Jenny…' He stopped, smiling slyly. 'You tell it, girlie.'

  She began in a hurried, toneless voice as if reciting a lesson, and Sharon had the dreadful certainty that she had been put through this torture many times already.

  'Two women on the science staff at school took me in their car. We saw the peach blossom, acres and acres of it, and drove on to Niagara. The pictures hadn't prepared me for it. I went giddy with standing there, watching the green water slide over the precipice. And then there was this tower, the Skylon.' Her voice faltered. 'Five hundred and forty feet - the prototype of the Post Office Tower. My friends said how about it; but of course I couldn't, I just couldn't. Only somehow I got caught in the jam of people moving towards the lift. It's like an orange ladybird crawling up the outside of the tower in a groove of concrete. In the lift I felt sick with fear, nearly fainting.'

  'Go on.'

  Eyes lowered, she whispered: 'Then a man's arm came round me. He held me pressed against him so that I saw nothing and felt nothing. And then we were at the top and he was helping me out. I couldn't see my friends anywhere. Marty had this sweet old lady with him. They had a table reservation in the restaurant and invited me to join them. My legs were giving out. I didn't know how to refuse.'

  'Look, she was expecting the whole restaurant to go whizzing round like crazy. She was so darn scared she didn't even notice what we ate. Twenty good Canadian dollars that meal cost me - and worth maybe five. Boeuf Stroganoff with French fried and a glass of wine, and ice cream dolled up with half a peach. I tell you they charge the honeymoon couples one dollar for a souvenir menu. But I reckon I never laid out twenty dollars to better advantage. Before I delivered Jenny back at her apartment house in Toronto that night, I had the future all mapped out in my mind. Mind you, we had problems.' His eyes rested on her in a certain way. 'We licked them. But we still haven't licked this fear of heights. Maybe climbing the abbey tower will settle that, once and for all.'

  'There's a spiral stair, but the stones are crumbling,' said Canon Wismer unhappily. 'I'm afraid a great deal of money needs to be spent on the tower. We keep it locked. One would otherwise not sleep soundly in one's bed, especially since young people took to this caper of hauling flags up and down.' He gazed up at the bravely fluttering cross of Saint George. 'The verger has the key and he's already away home to his tea.'

  Adam had appeared in the porch, surplice over his arm, and stood listening, fascinated. The big Canadian looked him over.

  'Would this be the verger?'

  'Oh, dear me, no. This is Adam Kershaw, our deputy organist. He's a good friend of the abbey, like Miss Birch.'

  Eager to prove it, Adam offered to nip to the verger's house for the key. Sharon quickly said wouldn't it be more sensible to nip to the back table for a copy of Canon

  Wismer's booklet?

  The Canadian gave a shout of glee. 'Well now, a ruined abbey is something to boast about. But just wait till I tell the folks back home we were met by a salute of cannon.'

  A battering-ram of a man, thought Sharon, pounding away at you with words, with this total self-assurance; thrusting up through his fellows with rank vigour like giant hogweed among the modest water-avens of the riverside. To live with such a man…

  Adam went for the booklet. The other two men prowled among the ruins, where mossy fragments of walls eighteen inches high marked out, exactly as in the builder's plan, the cloister and the chapter house, the lay brothers' range and the abbot's lodging. The girl was left standing beside Sharon. She stroked the fur of one sleeve with a nervous, mechanical movement. Suddenly she said: 'What a fool you must think me. But I honestly have this awful thing about heights. I nearly died on the flight out to Canada, and again this time. But Marty…'

  'Don't. I understand.'

  'It's wonderful that you, a complete stranger…' Her voice trailed off.

  Sharon thought: Marty. Jenny. They had (to be the ones. But by what fantastic coincidence were they here?

  'What else is there worth seeing in Roxley?' the girl asked, too casually. 'Isn't there a college?'

  'If you mean the Institute…'

  But of course she meant the Institute. And of course it wasn't coincidence. It was design. She knew through her friends that Neil Haslam had thrown up his post and taken on a far tougher assignment, the headship at Roxley. All the way up from London she must have been praying they'd pass near enough to make a stop feasible. She might have no hope of seeing Neil. It might, in fact, be the last thing in the world she desired. But at least she would take away with her the image of this place. Sharon knew it as certainly as if it had happened to herself.

  Marty and the canon loomed up out of the dusk.

  'Gee, girlie, I hate to miss out on those snaps. What do you say we stop over and set it up for tomorrow?' He looked from the canon to Sharon. 'There wouldn't by any chance be a motel in these parts? No, I guess not. You folks are way behind the times when it comes to overnight accommodation for the traveller. Remember Mary Gassio's place, Jenny, where we stopped over in the fall? Up there in the north beyond Sudbury, our uranium city, with the nearest town, Sainte Marie, two hundred miles away. Thirty-seven bedrooms, each with bath and shower, and a banqueting hall for three hundred. Yes, sir, bang in the middle of nowhere. Five walk- in freezers that woman has and she never runs out of supplies. She can count on a recommendation from Martin Banstead Hyde any time.'

  The canon gave a little cough. 'I fear we're rather uncivilized, but I'd be delighted to offer hospitality if you don't mind taking pot luck with a bachelor in Lent.'

  'We wouldn't dream of putting you to such trouble,' said Martin Banstead Hyde hast
ily.

  'I don't blame you,' said the canon in obvious relief. 'As young What's-his-name says in She Stoops, "I detest your three chairs and a bolster!" '

  'How about our old world inn, the Raven?' said Adam.

  Not the Raven, Sharon prayed. That could only lead to disaster.

  But Adam, who found the whole affair diverting, went on with gusto: 'You'll see from the booklet that it was originally a guest house set up by Abbot Geoffrey when he got a bit bogged down with non-paying guests at the abbey. There was some fishy business.' He gave the canon an apologetic look. 'A troublesome guest was murdered and Abbot Geoffrey's ghost, wringing his hands, is supposed to haunt the place on moonlit nights. If you're lucky, you might get the four-poster bed.'

  'Hear that, Jenny? Wouldn't the four-poster bed just lay out Aunt Ada cold? Well now, this is quite an adventure. If you'll kindly direct us…'

  Sharon said it was on her way. Adam and the canon went off together and as the Pontiac slid into motion with a throaty growl of power, Sharon glimpsed the Cragills watching the scene, enthralled, their faces pressed like twin moons to an upstairs window. Certainly Roxley was haunted!

  The car, which Martin Hyde considered 'good and homely', had been hired in London. By the time Sharon had been told that the one he had left behind was the very newest Pontiac Parisienne which 'just had an edge' on other models, they were at the Raven. They drew up, after some manoeuvring, in the limited parking space between a little coppice and the river, and the Canadian strode off purposefully to inquire about bed and board. Sharon got out of the car and the other girl followed.

  'Such a brief acquaintance,' said Jennifer Hyde with her shy, diffident smile, 'but I shall remember yo,u. You've been so kind.'

  Is kindness all that scarce these days? thought Sharon, clutching her rolled-up sketch tightly. I shall remember this meeting, too. She treated Neil Haslam abominably. Why should I feel any heartache for her?

  And then it happened. Another car drew in beside them. Neil Haslam got out with his briefcase and a load of loose papers. He reached into the car for his coat and slung it over his shoulder; he locked the car. He was so deep in frowning thoughts that he might have passed by without even seeing them, if the girl hadn't given an involuntary little cry. He glanced round. It was the beautiful fur coat he noticed first, then her face. His own went very white. He said in a groping, unsteady voice: 'Jennifer…'