Love Always

by Harriet Evans

  He was touched. ‘Why don’t you tell them?’

  Cecily shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, it’s good for me to toughen up, I’m sure. I just – I wish I didn’t feel things so much. All the time.’

  ‘Such as?’

  She stared at him. ‘I – I can’t say.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, Guy, I wish I could. To you of all people, I wish I could. But I can’t.’

  ‘It’s a good thing, feeling too much, Cecily,’ he said. ‘It means you care . . .’ He touched her bare arm and was surprised when she jumped. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ she said. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, and raised her eyes to his, slowly.

  ‘God . . .’ Guy heard himself saying. ‘You really are beautiful, Cecily.’

  They stared at each other, blankly, for a moment. He held out his hand – she held hers out too. For a split second their fingers touched, and then she stepped away, hastily, and Guy was left standing by the window, watching her as she picked her way towards her mother. Something strange, fundamental, was shifting within him. He called to her, in a low voice, ‘Cecily—’

  But she ignored him.

  He did not take his eyes off her until they were called in to dinner.

  Louisa linked her arm through Frank’s as they walked towards the dining room.

  ‘I do hope Daddy isn’t too boring,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘He can be rather . . . old-fashioned. He’s furious about the Profumo affair, I don’t quite know why. He tends to expound, once he’s had a glass of wine. It’s rather mortifying.’

  ‘Oh, I’m used to it.’ Frank yawned, and nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Awfully tired. Don’t mind me, Louisa. Not on very good form tonight.’

  Louisa squeezed his arm in jokey exasperation. ‘How can you be tired? You had a nap this afternoon while we were all swimming and picking blackberries, didn’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the problem,’ Frank said. ‘Oh, too much sleep, I suppose. It’s – I’m much better now, promise.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Are you . . . all right, darling?’

  ‘I am.’ Frank squeezed her arm back. ‘Been on rather subdued form, I’m sorry. I am very all right.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Listen, I’ve been rather a brute this holiday, I know. Trying to persuade you to do something you don’t want to. Will you come for a walk with me, after supper? Steal away when the grown-ups have gone to bed?’

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘There’s something we need to talk about,’ he said. He took her hand and squeezed it tight and Louisa smiled, her eyes filling with tears.

  There came voices from next door and suddenly her expression changed.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Louisa said. ‘I think I was right.’

  ‘About what?’ Frank sounded alarmed. ‘Right about Daddy.’

  ‘Absolute rubbish,’ John James was saying, as they sat down. ‘I tell you, the woman is a common prostitute, nothing more. The men she was associating with. Black men, in Notting Hill. That Edgecombe fellow, turning up and shooting people. Those are the people Mr Powell is talking about and I for one can’t blame him. What are we coming to? It’s all very well, and yes, people must be allowed to come into the country, but when they set up enclaves like this . . .’ He waved his wine glass in the air. ‘Whole system starts to go to pot.’

  ‘What system?’ Miranda was sitting opposite him, in between Guy and Cecily. She was examining her dirty fingernails. She barely raised her voice; it was the disdain in her tone that was most surprising of all. ‘The system of white men oppressing everyone else for hundreds of years? Or the system of raping countries and people so you can make money?’

  All of a sudden, the atmosphere in the room was electric. ‘Miranda –’ Frances said, in a warning tone. ‘There’s coronation chicken and salad,’ Mary said in a bright voice. ‘If that’s all—’

  The others were all sitting still. No one got up. John said, ‘Young lady, you are confusing the argument. It’s a question of how our own great country has been polluted, is being polluted, with the question of immigration, with this lax – lax behaviour in public life . . .’ He trailed off, cleared his throat, and then said, ‘With all respect, I don’t think you know what you are talking about.’

  ‘Of course I don’t,’ Miranda said scornfully. ‘I’m just a girl, what would I know? After all, girls are pretty stupid, aren’t they?’

  ‘Miranda –’ Cecily hissed desperately, next to her. Her uncle was watching her, imperturbable, one eyebrow slightly raised, cold grey eyes in a thin, sculptured face.

  ‘I don’t think,’ said Pamela, ‘this is appropriate.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Louisa, have you been keeping up with your tennis? Frank,’ she said, ‘do you know that Louisa’s tennis instructor says she’s—’

  ‘No,’ Miranda’s voice cut through, biting and clear. ‘Girls aren’t nearly as clever as boys, of course not. They’re born with fewer brain cells, did you know that? They can’t drive properly or do science or maths, you know? All they’re really good for is . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ John looked disdainfully at his niece. ‘Do enlighten me, Miranda.’

  ‘Fucking and cooking,’ Miranda said, standing up and throwing her napkin on her heaped plate, which Mary had just set down. Louisa gasped, and Guy screwed his napkin into his fist. ‘That’s all we’re good for, wouldn’t you say?’ She stopped and looked round then, as if realising there was no turning back, she took a deep breath and ploughed recklessly on. ‘Even someone like me, though, that’s the question? Me, and my sister, and my brother, and my dad, do you really want us, polluting the country?’

  ‘Miranda!’ her mother hissed furiously. ‘Miranda, apologise to your uncle!’

  ‘Oh, don’t you dare talk to me,’ Miranda told Frances, her eyes blazing. ‘You of all people, don’t you dare! You’re the biggest hypocrite of them all, telling me what’s best for me, how worthless I am!’ Frances looked as though she’d just been slapped. ‘Yes, we’re in such an honest country too, aren’t we?’ Miranda’s voice shook. ‘Not hypocritical at all, oh, no. Definitely worth preserving the old way of life. Essential.’ Her face was pale; her eyes were huge. ‘I wish Archie were here. He’d say it better. Oh, hang it all.’

  She took Cecily’s hand in hers and gripped it. Cecily wriggled away, embarrassed. She could not bear to look up at her sister, as if she were a leper on the street.

  Into the stunned silence a voice spoke from the end of the table.

  ‘No, Cecily, take your sister’s hand,’ Arvind said. ‘Well said, Miranda,’ he told his eldest daughter. ‘Very well said. You don’t need to swear, but you are absolutely right in everything else you say.’

  Miranda looked from him to her mother, who was looking down at her plate, not meeting anyone’s eye, and then back again at her father, smiling very faintly at him, almost in shock.

  ‘Well –’ Pamela began. ‘I must say—’

  Frances put her hand over her sister’s. ‘No, Pamela,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t.’ She seemed to be wrestling with something inside herself. ‘This is all wrong,’ she said. She tried to catch Miranda’s eye, but Miranda stared straight ahead.

  ‘Let us eat,’ Arvind said, lifting to his mouth a huge serving spoon that had ended up on his plate. His authority was, as ever, absolute. ‘We will not discuss the polluting of this great nation in my house. We will give thanks for it instead. Enjoy your coronation chicken curry.’ His expression was grave, but his eyes twinkled.

  They ate without noise, in the airless room.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It came to an end for them not long afterwards. The following day, Saturday, was hot and muggy, and over the next few days the winds seemed to drop as the temperature increased.

  The atmosphere had changed inside Summercove, too, since Archie was caught peeking, since Miranda’s blow-up with her uncle. The cousins eyed each other with greater suspicion; they fell into their own
ranks, only Jeremy on the sidelines. Louisa barely spoke to Miranda or Archie, and was extravagant in her affection for the Bowler Hat, who was himself perfunctory in the repaying of it. Miranda and Archie were together even more. They would barely speak to Cecily, whom they considered to be some kind of pariah. And Cecily – Cecily changed, suddenly, almost overnight. Something had got to her. Whatever it was, she wasn’t the same in the days that followed.

  On the Tuesday morning, four days after the James’s arrival, the thermometer in the kitchen read 91 degrees, and Mary said it was the hottest she’d known it. At the breakfast table John did what he’d done since he’d arrived, taking first the Express and then The Times and reading them in silence, digesting every last dirty detail of Stephen Ward’s death three days previously and his upcoming funeral, while the others waited, resentfully, for their chance to read, eventually giving up and going outside to sit in the relative cool of the morning shade.

  Arvind had taken to having his breakfast in his study, these last few mornings. Guy had got up early, gone for a long walk, the Bowler Hat said. No one had seen him. The others drifted outside, one by one, hoping for some relief from the heat.

  Pamela passed her napkin delicately over her upper lip. ‘It is extremely close, isn’t it?’ she said to Frances. ‘Too close. I should have thought the breeze from the sea would provide a little relief, but no.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Frances said. She was drumming her fingers anxiously on the table; there were dark circles under her eyes. ‘Perhaps the cloud will burn off later, you know. It’s still early.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Pamela. ‘It’s getting to be unbearable,’ she said, standing up. She nodded at her sister as she left the room.

  ‘I agree,’ Frances said mirthlessly. She turned to Cecily, who was sitting further down the table by herself. ‘Cec, darling, will you be ready to start at ten?’

  Cecily was picking at her placemat. She looked up. ‘Oh,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘Of course, Mummy.’

  ‘You look rather pale, darling. Are you all right?’

  ‘Ye-yes.’ Cecily stared back down at the bowl. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t sleep very well, that’s all. Our room’s awfully hot.’

  ‘I know, I must do something about it. I’m sorry, darling. The studio will be baking too, I’m afraid. We could do it in the evening, when it’s cooler. Why don’t you and Guy go for a swim again?’

  ‘No. Not Guy.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Guy?’ Frances stared at her daughter. ‘Cec darling, what on earth’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with Guy,’ Cecily said. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s just get it over with.’

  She looked so wan and sorry for herself that Frances leaned forward and put her hands together. ‘Darling, are you sure you’re all right?’

  Cecily looked intently at her mother. ‘Mummy . . .’ she said after a pause. ‘You would love me no matter what I did, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would,’ Frances said. ‘And Miranda, and Archie. You’d still love us, even if we did something terrible.’ She glanced down, picking strips of raffia off her mat. ‘That’s the way it works, isn’t it? We have to love each other no matter what?’

  Frances paused. ‘What’s going on, Cecily?’

  Cecily said, ‘Not sure.’ She looked wildly around the room. ‘I’m not sure any more. Everything’s changed.’

  Frances turned towards the open door. There was no one there. Out in the garden, Jeremy and Louisa were lying on the grass, The Times spread out like a huge, sand and black coloured towel, in front of them. They were reading intently.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she said again. ‘Cecily?’

  Cecily got up. She took a deep breath. ‘Nothing, Mummy. I’m just being silly. Look, can I go and brush my teeth and my hair? And write my diary up before that? I’ll only be a few minutes.’

  ‘Of course,’ Frances said. ‘I’ll go and set everything up.’ She took something out of the pocket of her embroidered top. It was the ring Arvind had given her, the ring his father had sent over from Lahore after he’d proposed. Cecily loved it. It was her favourite thing, and Frances had even let her take it to school last year. She had her wearing it on a chain around her neck in the painting she was working on. ‘Here, have this.’

  Cecily stared at it blankly. ‘What, put it on now, instead of later?’

  ‘No,’ Frances said. ‘I want you to have it to keep. From me. Because . . . because I want you to.’

  ‘But it’s yours.’

  ‘Now it’s yours,’ Frances said. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Why?’ Cecily said. ‘You love it, don’t you? You’ve always said you did.’ Cecily stared at the ring, lying flat on her small palm. ‘Yes. But why do you want me to have it now?’

  ‘I just do,’ Frances said. Her voice was thin. ‘I like the idea of you having something of mine, darling, some jewellery to wear of your own from me. Like a talisman.’ She smiled. ‘Why, you’re practically a woman these days, it’s time we thought about this kind of thing.’

  Cecily didn’t even smile. She just said, ‘Thank you.’ Frances didn’t know what to do next. She came round to her and kissed her daughter’s silky head. ‘I’ll see you soon, my darling.’ She added, ‘It’s going to be fine, honestly.’

  Cecily paused at the door. ‘Is it?’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t know that it is.’

  Frances watched her daughter go. She didn’t know why, but she knew that Cecily had grown up in some way, that the lanky-legged teenager who ran ahead of the others down to the beach, chattering nine to the dozen, had gone for ever.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘What’s for lunch?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Louisa stretched out on the grass. ‘You’re so greedy, Jeremy. It’s too hot to think about that now.’ She turned on her side. ‘Do you know where Miranda and Archie went?’

  ‘Think they’ve gone off round the cliffs.’

  ‘They might bump into Guy,’ Louisa said. ‘Gosh, everyone’s in a bad mood today.’ She rolled her head from side to side. ‘I’m starting to look forward to leaving, you know. Like I’ll be glad to get away from here.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Jeremy said uneasily. ‘Don’t see why.’

  Louisa glared at him. ‘You’re the one who said you didn’t like it down here, before the Leightons arrived.’ She chewed a nail. ‘It’s – I don’t know. How’s it ever going to be right again after what Archie did?’ she said pragmatically. ‘I mean, he could go to prison. And Miranda – what she said to Daddy, I can’t believe she hasn’t been punished for it!’

  ‘I think Franty and Arvind aren’t such sticklers for dis cipline,’ Jeremy said diplomatically.

  ‘Well, and look where it’s got them,’ Louisa said tartly, but lowering her voice. She looked at her brother. ‘Don’t you think Miranda went too far? I mean, I think she was awful, and no one’s really done anything about it.’

  ‘Er –’ Jeremy said. ‘I think she was a bit rude. But – well, I think she meant, well, what she was saying. P’rhaps she didn’t quite say it right.’ He plucked at the lawn. ‘Dad’s a bit outmoded. He doesn’t understand the way things are these days. Or the way things are going, if that makes sense.’

  ‘I know,’ Louisa said. ‘I mean, we’ve got Indian cousins, we know what it’s like.’

  ‘Er –’ Jeremy said again. ‘I suppose so . . .’ He looked at his sister. ‘I’m just suspicious of Miranda’s motives, that’s all. Think she had a point to prove rather than moral outrage.’

  ‘Well, that’s Miranda, isn’t it?’ Louisa said lightly. She leaned her head back, face held up to the sky. ‘It’s so humid, I can’t even see the sun. She’s an awful drama queen. And she’s been so much worse, the last few days.’

  ‘It’s true.’ Jeremy rolled over. ‘It’s all rather . . .’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I’m a bit tired of her and Archie, to be perfectly honest. All that sneaking around together and whispering. O
dd behaviour. What Guy and Frank make of it all I don’t know. Old Frank’s a sound chap though,’ he added reassuringly.

  ‘Ye-es.’ Louisa spoke slowly. ‘Yes, he is.’

  She didn’t sound overwhelmingly sure and Jeremy was not the type to pry. He was silent, and a few seconds later Louisa said, ‘He’s asked me to marry him.’

  ‘My goodness!’ Jeremy said. He stood up. ‘Louisa, old girl, that’s wonderful news! Where is he?’ He looked around. ‘I say—!’

  Louisa sat up and pulled him back down. ‘Oh, sit down, Jeremy, you big fool! Shut up a second!’ She gripped his arm. ‘I said no.’

  ‘What?’ Jeremy’s mouth dropped open, and he appeared lost for the right thing to say. ‘You said no to Frank? Thought you were keen on him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Louisa said. ‘I was surprised, too. But—’ She rolled onto her stomach and stared at the grass. ‘I just don’t know if that’s what I want.’

  They were both silent for a moment. ‘Really?’ Jeremy said. ‘Old Frank?’

  ‘Frank, yes – well, no—’ Louisa shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He’s been different, these holidays, rather off. But I do think I love him, I suppose. Before they came here, I was so sure.’ She looked at Jeremy, her huge blue eyes wide open. ‘I thought we had an unspoken sort of agreement, that we were to be engaged, even if it wasn’t talked about. And now – I just don’t know any more.’

  ‘Why?’ Jeremy asked softly. ‘Something Miranda said, if you can believe that. About women, about us and what we can do with our lives. I – I do love Frank, but oh, Jeremy—’ She hit the ball of her palm against her forehead. ‘Can you possibly understand? I don’t know if you can, Jeremy. I think if I marry him, my life will be over.’