Tom said he was very sorry, but could find nothing else to offer by way of sympathy; he was almost relieved when the journey was over and he was back on the road. He had got very cold, sitting on the tractor; at least when he was walking, he got warmer – apart from his feet. He had his stoutest boots on, but they had begun to leak miles back; freezing wet feet didn’t make the walking any easier. He reached the cottage at three, opened the door and found himself confronted by a roomful of people – Arthur, Jess his eldest sister, two of her younger children, a couple of neighbours and, coming down the little staircase, Colin.
‘Oh,’ said Jess, rushing across the room and hugging him. ‘Oh, Tom, how good to see you. How wonderful of you to get here – we didn’t think it possible. ‘
‘Hello, Tom. It can’t have been an easy journey,’ said Colin.
‘Not exactly, but I’m here. How – how is he? I’m not too late … ?’
‘No, he’s putting up a fight.’ It was Jess, white with exhaustion. ‘The doctor says he really should be in hospital. But he won’t go and anyway, how would we get him there? Oh, Tom, go up and see Mother quickly, she’ll be so pleased to see you.’
Mary was; she stared at him in silence for a long moment as if he was an apparition. Then her exhausted face relaxed, smiled even, and she stood up and went into his arms.
‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Thank God. Thank you, Tom, for coming. I didn’t think you would, the snow’s so bad …’
‘Well, of course I came,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner – you should have told us before.’
‘He’s gone down quite quickly,’ she said. ‘He’s got very frail recently, had funny pains in his chest, and I wouldn’t wonder if there wasn’t something else as well, but he refused to have any tests, said they were a waste of money. Got the cough that turned to bronchitis, and now – this.’
She turned to Jack, lying on the bed. He was breathing with horrible difficulty, coughing hideously in spasms; but he saw Tom and his face, like Mary’s, softened into a smile. He clasped his hand and said, between coughing spasms, ‘Hello, Tom. Good to see you.’
‘He should be in hospital,’ said Mary. ‘But he refuses. Says people die in hospital and if he does go, he wants it to be from his own bed.’
Jack’s wish was granted, three days later, during which time the snow fell relentlessly, a quiet and peaceful backdrop to the seemingly endless struggle within. Tom was in the room, holding one of his hands, when the moment came, Mary holding the other, both willing the end to come, Colin and Jess at the end of his bed; the others were all downstairs, for there was no room for more. The sudden silence and stillness in the room was a bittersweet relief; his suffering had been horrible to see. The doctor, exhausted himself and generous with his time and indeed his treatment, had done his best, administering what little he had of the only drug that might help, sulphonamide. His stock was small – Jack was not the only pneumonia patient in the village – and he made his decision, as supplies dwindled, that a small boy of four should take priority. Mercifully, the Knelston family did not know this.
Tom had stayed on; in any case, the return journey was by now impossible. He grieved and fretted that Laura could not be with him, or indeed even know what was happening – he’d thought of telephoning the school but the telephone lines were all down; he was truly marooned.
The funeral was bleak and dreadful, although the church was almost full which helped a little; Jack had been popular in the village and many came to bid him farewell. The vicar preached a good sermon, saying how Jack had enriched many lives, both in his work ‘so vital to the life of the community’ and his other occupations: ‘his work for the trades union movement, his lifelong membership of his beloved Labour Party; and perhaps most important of all, his devotion to his wife and family’. Mary sat ramrod straight, silent and dry-eyed, right to the very end, when the organist played ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended’ and then she dropped her face into her hands and wept for a long time.
The coffin was left to rest alongside several others under a hastily erected wooden cover, for it was impossible to dig graves in the frozen ground. Tom stayed behind as the others left, Jess and Colin helping the exhausted Mary back to the cottage. He stood staring at the coffin, remembering his father and their difficult relationship.
It had been a real grief in Tom’s life, his father’s awkward love for him; the clear joy of his welcome as Tom arrived in the cottage at his sickbed was perhaps the clearest manifestation of that love Tom had ever known. That night, when Tom settled for what seemed like the hundredth time under a thin blanket on the couch, he thought he had never been so utterly wretched, not even in the field hospital in the desert; and never had he felt so robbed of anything that might feel hopeful and good to him. Two days after the funeral, he went for a walk; he was desperate to be out of the sad, shocked house, and so bored, devoid as he was of any books or proper conversation. He took the East Hilton road. Alternately finding himself slipping and sliding along the compacted snow, and plunged into drifts, he suddenly fell hard and found it almost impossible to get up again; but he found a post to cling to and hauled himself upright, and then realised two things: that his weak ankle was excruciatingly painful, and that the post was part of the Manor House fence. As he stood there, shocked and close to tears, so dreadful did everything seem to him, he heard a shout from the house.
‘You all right?’ Sir Gerald, standing in the open doorway.
‘Yes – yes, I think so, thanks. I just fell—’
‘I saw. Stay there, I’ll come and help you, dug out the drive this morning myself.’
‘No, no, I’m all right,’ said Tom but his entire demeanour was so exhausted and broken that Sir Gerald, having reached him, said, ‘You look all in. Tom, isn’t it, Tom Knelston? Sorry to hear about your father. Look, you come inside, have a rest and something to drink. Lean on my arm …’
So surprised was Tom to find the bluff Sir Gerald capable of sympathy and generosity, and so exhausted and filled with pain, that he said only, ‘That would be very kind, thank you.’ He took the proffered arm and somehow, every step on his right leg an agony, managed to get to the house.
The first thing he noticed, as he limped into the hall, was that it was warm: that seemed to him so extraordinary that he thought he must be imagining it; the second that in the doorway to one of the rooms, a roaring fire behind her, and walls literally lined with books, stood Diana Southcott, rather pale to be sure, and perhaps rather less slender, but still immensely beautiful, and smiling at him with nothing but welcome and concern.
‘Tom,’ she said. ‘What have you done? Here, come and sit down by the fire, you look terrible.’
She held out her hand. Simultaneously Sir Gerald released his hold on Tom’s arm, and standing became completely impossible. He crumpled and fell onto the hard, stone floor of the hall, a howl of pain escaping him.
‘Oh, God,’ said Sir Gerald. ‘Poor fellow. Caroline, Caroline! Call Rawlings in, he’s chopping wood, I think. Diana, don’t you try and do anything, for God’s sake. Ah, Rawlings, help me get Mr Knelston up, and Caroline, you might ring Dr Parker – oh, no, I suppose the bloody telephone’s still out of order. Rawlings, get down to Dr Parker’s house in a minute and ask him to come as soon as he can.’
Rawlings and Sir Gerald half carried him into the room where Diana stood and they lowered him into a chair by the fire; he apologised repeatedly about his boots and the state of his trousers, while wincing as he struggled to find a remotely comfortable position and gazing hungrily, almost desperately, at the books, having had nothing to read, he felt, for weeks.
‘Here – drink this –’ Sir Gerald held out a glass which was half filled with what Tom could smell was brandy; he drank it slowly, the warm seeping into him, easing what seemed to be almost terminal cold, as well as his pain.
‘Your poor thing,’ Diana said, surveying him from the other side of the fire where she settled herself, sympathy in
her dark eyes. ‘It obviously hurts like hell. Never mind, hopefully Rawlings can get Dr Parker to come soon. And – and we were sorry about your father, he was such a –’ she paused, clearly struggling to find an appropriate phrase – ‘such a kind man. He was always so nice to me and my brothers when we were little and it was our birthdays or something, and he had lots of cards and parcels – always said he hoped we’d have a nice day.’
This was a shock to Tom, who would have expected his father to take exception to a surfeit of gifts and goodies arriving at the Manor House. It clearly showed in his face.
‘You look surprised,’ said Diana.
‘Well – I am a bit.’
‘That’s fathers for you. Daddy was so strict with us, wasn’t he, Mummy?’ She looked up at her mother who had come into the room, carrying a baby.
‘Yes, he was. But he never could refuse you anything, really. Specially you. Now Diana, Jamie needs feeding – shall I take the bottle upstairs? Or will you feed him in the kitchen?’’
‘No,’ said Diana firmly with an expression that was more of the kind that Tom remembered. ‘No, bring it in here, please. I’m sure Mr Knelston won’t mind. That’s all right, isn’t it, Tom, if I give the baby his bottle here?’
‘Yes – yes, of course,’ said Tom, and then, seeing that Lady Southcott was not entirely happy with this idea, added, ‘but if you’d rather I – I left …’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t leave,’ said Diana. ‘You can’t move. No, I’ll feed the baby here. Thank you, Mummy, so much.’
Lady Southcott handed her the baby and Diana took Jamie and settled him with his bottle with a skill that for some reason surprised Tom; Lady Southcott left again, clearly not entirely happy with the situation.
‘So sweet isn’t he?’ Diana said. ‘I can’t believe he’s mine.’
‘How – how old is he?’ said Tom. All he could see was the top of a head and a tiny hand that had been waving about in its hunger and now entirely relaxed.
‘Ten days. He really is heaven, so good. So sad that Johnathan – that’s my husband – hasn’t seen him, and can’t for ages yet, probably. He’s in Yorkshire, where we live. It’s terribly different from here. It’s so cold, freezing cold, even in the summer sometimes, and people say the scenery’s lovely, and I suppose it is, but it’s awfully wild and bleak. And pretty remote really, where we live. Miles from the nearest town, which is Harrogate, and that’s a bit of a dump.’
‘And what does your husband do?’ asked Tom curiously. It didn’t sound the sort of place he would have expected Diana to have chosen to live.
‘Oh, he runs the estate,’ said Diana. ‘He and his mother. His father’s really not up to much these days – the war took its toll, their eldest son was killed. So Johnathan gave up his job in London, and went up there. And of course I went with him.’ She sighed almost imperceptibly and looked down at the baby, who was now sleeping peacefully, the bottle drained. ‘We’ll go back when the snow has gone, won’t we, Jamie? But not till then.’
‘Do you like it up there? Living in that wild place?’ asked Tom, and he knew the question was not one he should have asked. She met his eyes with her great dark ones and for a moment he thought she was going to berate him, but she said, ‘No, actually. Since you ask – and you are not to tell anyone, of course – I hate it. Absolutely hate it.’
It was an extraordinary confidence to exchange with someone she scarcely knew, who was moreover her social inferior, and it was years before Tom understood why she had done it. It was to create an intimacy, a bond between them, that she should entrust him with this confidence, knowing that he would keep it for her; and also that she was so clearly anxious that he should know she hated it, that she was not happy with her new life.
He sat there, taking it all in, and taking her in too, so very beautiful, still pale and clearly tired by the birth of her son, but softened too, less arrogant, her figure slightly more rounded, her arms holding the baby so surprisingly gentle and confident, where he would not have expected her to be either. And then she smiled, and said, ‘It’s very nice to be able to talk to you, Tom. How are you feeling now? Oh look, Mummy’s brought your tea and some for me, too. Come and join us, Mummy, why don’t you?’ showing Tom that the intimate part of their conversation was over, and that she trusted him entirely not to reveal any of it.
Lady Southcott said she would, adding that Rawlings had returned and Dr Parker would be up shortly.
‘I believe you are married, Mr Knelston? To a schoolteacher, I think your mother said.’ Tom said yes, he was, and began to talk about Laura, and that made him miss her so much that combined with his pain and the brandy he found himself close to tears.
Dr Parker fortunately arrived, examined the ankle, and said it wasn’t broken, just very badly sprained. He would strap it up and Tom must rest it for at least a week.
‘Only I can see that might be difficult in the cottage – you haven’t got a proper bed, have you? I remember when I called …’
Tom said one of his sisters would be able to offer him a room, and that he hadn’t left before because of wanting to be with his mother; and that one of his brothers-in-law and one of his brothers should between them be able to get him home, while wondering precisely how, until Lady Southcott said that their wood cart would make a splendid stretcher on wheels if Tom wouldn’t mind. And would he like Rawlings to go down to their respective cottages to summon them?
Tom waited patiently while help was organised, and he watched Diana as she chatted and laughed and winded the baby; Diana with her gleaming dark beauty, and her slightly low-pitched voice with its perfectly honed, clipped accent and her perfect legs, those at least unsullied by childbearing, crossing and uncrossing themselves as she shifted in her chair to re-settle the baby. And seeing, and not being able to help noticing, that those eyes, those incredible dark eyes, quite often and unmistakably met his very directly, in a sort of openness that he did not even dare to reflect upon, while being aware that Lady Southcott’s presence was very strong and her eyes on her daughter very intent. Then he took a deep breath, literally, and said he did hope they would not consider he was asking too much of them, but might it be possible to borrow a book? He had nothing to read and there was nothing in his parents’ house or his sisters’ of any interest to him whatsoever, and the days were going to be very long, and Diana said of course he must borrow a book, more than one, and what sort of book would he like to read, fiction or biography or what, and what were his interests, and he said politics, particularly, but really anything, anything at all.
‘Politics!’ said Lady Southcott, and her voice was much cooler than it had been before. Tom wondered if he had gone too far, asking to borrow a book. ‘How interesting. What do you think of this dreadful new Labour government, poor Mr Churchill being thrown out after he saved the country, almost single-handed at one point.’
Tom sat silent, flushed, partly by emotion, partly by the fire and the brandy, wondering desperately whether he should lie and betray his principles or speak the truth and quite probably find himself thrown out in the snow. Diana jumped up, placing the baby in his grandmother’s arms, and said, going over to the bookshelves further down the room, ‘Have you ever read any Trollope? I haven’t, of course –’ she gave him a slightly shamefaced smile – ‘but Johnathan absolutely loves them, the Palliser novels. They’re just the thing for you and we have a complete set, so take the first two, and then come and change them for the next two if you finish them; just think of us as a library.’
Tom, touched and surprised beyond anything that she should read his needs so well, took the two books she handed him and gazed at them, at the treasure they represented, and thanked her.
Lady Southcott said, rather briskly, that she thought the baby’s nappy needed changing, and gave him firmly to Diana. Diana, with an odd look at her mother, said yes, of course, and if the rescue party came for Tom before she came back, she had been so delighted to meet him again, and wis
hed him a swift recovery. Then she was gone and the room died a little – some of its charm, some of its beauty, faded – and the boys arrived to take him to Jess’s house, bearing a waterproof horse blanket to cover Tom and protect him from the snow which was falling relentlessly once again.
‘Nice young man,’ Caroline Southcott said, as Diana walked into the small morning room where she was embroidering some rompers for the baby. ‘Rather more socially – what shall I say – confident than I would have expected.’
‘Mummy, you are such a snob!’ said Diana. ‘Why shouldn’t he be? He’s working for a solicitor, his wife’s a teacher, and the war has done away with all that, anyway. I thought he was very interesting.’
‘Yes, I could tell that,’ said Caroline slightly tartly. ‘A little too interesting, Diana, if you don’t mind my saying so. I hope you won’t be going to visit him or anything silly like that.’
‘Of course I won’t,’ said Diana irritably. ‘Although I don’t see why you should consider it silly.’
‘Well, actually, I’m not sure that I believe you,’ said Caroline. ‘Diana, please don’t, if you have any sense. Johnathan wouldn’t like it, and I could see you were unsettling Tom Knelston as well. Now, would you like an omelette for your supper? We have plenty of eggs at least—’
‘I’m very tired of omelettes,’ said Diana, standing up, her face cold. ‘I’ll just have a sandwich in my room, and go to bed early – I’m awfully tired. Send Nurse Blake up when she gets here, please, to take Jamie. And don’t make judgements about what Johnathan would and wouldn’t like, Mummy. I know him a little better than you do. Goodnight.’
A Question of Trust Page 12
