The Courtyard

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Good God, Gussie!’ Elizabeth was staring at her in horror.

  ‘I know.’ Gussie shook her head. ‘She’s lost everything, of course. She’s living in the Lodge so I can keep an eye on her. She’s a very dear friend.’

  ‘But can’t the man be traced?’ demanded Elizabeth, her mind still on the practicalities of the case. ‘Surely something can be done? Was there no site, after all, or what?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The site was over at Dartmouth. Apparently a very desirable one but the man, whoever he was, was so much in debt that he used John’s money to sort himself out. The site went to auction and there was nothing left for John. It seems that the man has gone abroad somewhere.’

  ‘The site was at Dartmouth?’ repeated Elizabeth.

  ‘That’s right. I expect John heard of it through the estate agents’ grapevine unless it was while he was down here for Christmas. It might have been advertised in the local paper. Do sit down. I’ll go and call Gillian. She’ll be so pleased to see you.’

  She left Elizabeth in the library and disappeared. Elizabeth remained deep in thought and when Gillian appeared she studied her carefully. She’d lost weight and all the old gloss had gone. Elizabeth extended her cheek for the usual greeting and took Gillian’s hands. Gussie had tactfully left them alone, muttering about tea.

  ‘I’m glad that you had the sense to come home,’ she said. She gave the hands a squeeze and let them go. ‘I’ve got hopes that you might have grown up after all.’

  ‘About time, wasn’t it?’ Gillian’s tone was almost bitter. ‘It’s taken long enough.’

  ‘What went wrong? Did what’s-his-name beat you? Sam something, was it?’ She broke off abruptly as Gillian gave a gasp of real fear, her eyes on the door.

  ‘Don’t! Please don’t tell anyone his name, Elizabeth. Please! I can’t say why, but please don’t!’

  She was quite frantic and Elizabeth held up her hands placatingly and shook her head.

  ‘OK, OK. Don’t worry.’ She paused but decided to test her theory a little further. ‘Oh, by the way. What happened about that site in Dartmouth you were trying to sell me? Did you find an investor?’

  Gillian was on her feet. ‘Oh God, Elizabeth! Please don’t mention that! Not to anyone! It was all a mistake. Oh God!’

  She looked so anguished, so frightened, that Elizabeth got up and took her by the shoulders.

  ‘Come on, Gillian. Pull yourself together! I shan’t say a word to anyone, I promise.’

  Gillian stared into her eyes and Elizabeth saw that she was close to tears. She nodded reassuringly, gave her a little shake and pushed her down into a chair just as Gussie arrived with the tea tray. During tea, Elizabeth wondered if her guess could possibly be right and decided that the sooner she spoke to Gillian in private the better. She sipped her tea and made conversation and wondered how long it might be before such a load of guilt might drive someone out of his or her mind.

  IT WAS GUY WHO made Nell think seriously about getting a job. Physically, she was much stronger and she’d already come to the decision that she must try to find work of some kind. Although she had a degree in Fine Arts, she’d married before putting her knowledge into practice and now she wondered whether to try for a refresher course, if such a thing were possible. She spent long hours thinking about this and getting books from the library in Totnes when she went in with Phoebe to the Friday market. It was Guy, however, who brought her down to earth and pointed out that, in the present economic climate, she’d be lucky to get any sort of job at all. It didn’t take Nell long to find out that he was absolutely right. She had no computer skills and no selling experience and she began to feel frightened again.

  ‘I’ll never find a job,’ she said to Guy, one evening at the pub. ‘I plucked up courage and asked about a sales assistant’s job at a shop in Totnes today. The woman told me that I was too old.’

  She stared at him in alarm and Guy, who couldn’t think of age in connection with Nell, sensed her fear and came to a decision.

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to hear it. I need someone to help me in the office but I didn’t like to ask you. I know it’s not the sort of thing you’re looking for as a career but, for the time being, it might help both of us.’

  Nell was looking at him in surprise. ‘But how could I help?’ she asked. ‘I can only type with one finger and computers terrify me. What sort of help?’

  ‘It’s all very simple but time-consuming,’ he said, remaining purposely vague. ‘And as much as anything I need someone to mind the office. As you know, I often have to move boats to and fro or take clients out and that’s always when other customers turn up. I couldn’t pay much but it may just give you a chance to pick things up without someone breathing down your neck.’ He shrugged and took a swig from his glass. ‘Just a thought.’

  ‘Oh, Guy! It sounds exactly what I need. Do you really think I could cope?’

  ‘Of course you can cope! You’ll get the knack in no time. And you’ll be able to be flexible when the holidays come. Jack can come too if you like. He can help with the boats.’

  He looked away from the joy and excitement on Nell’s face lest he should forget himself and fling his arms round her and kiss her. He had no idea how he would squeeze enough money to pay her anything. All he knew was that, for her company, he would willingly go without himself if it came to it. The thought of having her with him on the drives to and from Dartmouth or coming and finding her in the office made him want to shout aloud. Instead, he downed his pint and bent to pat Bertie so that his face was hidden until he could control it. He was fastidious enough to imagine that any declaration of love would be quite abhorrent to Nell after her recent experiences. To press his needs upon her would be selfish whilst she was recovering from her loss and coming to terms with her situation. Also, being Guy, he was nervous of the strength of his feelings. Never had he felt so carried away by his emotions, so moved by beauty and distress, and instinctively he listened to the inner voice which urged caution. He didn’t know what he wanted. The thought of marriage frightened him to death and it was impossible to imagine having a casual affair with Nell. The sensible thing was to give it time and, meanwhile, the idea of a working relationship seemed ideal.

  When he left her at the Lodge, with a promise of picking her up in the morning for a trial run at the office, he felt exactly the same as when he’d been made Captain of the Rugby Fifteen at school. His jubilation was too great to be contained and he began to run, his arms outstretched, his face lifted to the stately beeches towering above him. Bertie ran with him, careering along, barking madly, and the two of them raced down the drive and into the Courtyard. Guy stopped at his front door, gasping for breath, feeling for keys, and quite light-headed with happiness. Little spurts of laughter escaped between the gasps.

  ‘Do share the joke.’ Phoebe’s voice speaking out of the semidarkness made him jump. ‘What on earth have you and Bertie been up to?’

  He saw her now, sitting on the bench in the corner, feet drawn up, the end of her cigarette glowing in the dusk. He gave up the search for his keys and, crossing the courtyard, sat down at the end of the seat.

  ‘You made me jump,’ he said. ‘What are you doing, sitting on your own in the dark?’

  ‘I’ve been watching the moon rise,’ she answered and, looking up, he saw the thin crescent moon lying on her back in the deep turquoise sky. ‘It’s nearly midsummer. The longest day. Don’t you think we should have a pool party? We can all swim at midnight. It’s quite warm enough.’

  ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ said Guy, who would have agreed to anything in his present mood. ‘Wonderful.’ He remembered Nell as he had seen her at that last party and his heart beat faster.

  ‘And will all your ladies be there?’

  ‘Ladies?’ repeated Guy, his mind still on Nell.

  Phoebe shook her head and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘“O heaven!”,’ she quoted sadly, ‘“were man but constant, h
e were perfect.” ’

  ‘If you mean Gemma and Sophie,’ said Guy, feeling a twinge of guilt, ‘they aren’t my ladies. I’ve known them both since they were in their prams. Anyway, Gemma’s got a boyfriend.’

  Phoebe made a face which was wasted on Guy since it was too dark for him to see it.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said irritatingly. ‘Well, I think everyone should be invited. It will do us all good. Outsiders? Or just Nethercombe and the Courtyard?’

  ‘Oh, not outsiders,’ said Guy at once with his usual insularity and natural caution. ‘Just us.’

  ‘Not Gemma or Sophie?’

  ‘Well, perhaps them,’ said Guy, remembering that they were both due home at any time and would certainly be over to see him. ‘They seem to belong somehow.’

  ‘Far too many women,’ said Phoebe regretfully. ‘I’ll have to get to work on Mr Jackson.’

  ‘I hardly ever see him,’ said Guy, glancing at the dark windows of the smallest cottage. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘OK.’ Guy could imagine the shrug. ‘Very cosy and very married. Drives down on Monday and back on Fridays and spends most evenings with some friends in South Brent. I expect wifie’s arranged it to keep him on the straight and narrow. I met her once when they were moving him in and told her I’d look after him.’

  Guy gave a snort of laughter and Phoebe thought how nice he was once he unbent a little and relaxed.

  ‘No wonder he rushes into Brent,’ he said. ‘He must be frightened out of his wits!’

  ‘And just for that, you rude boy,’ remarked Phoebe, uncurling her legs and standing up, ‘you can supply the nightcap. And I’m not talking about cocoa!’

  Twenty-five

  SOMEHOW, THE IDEA OF a Midsummer’s Eve party seized the imagination of everyone at Nethercombe and the place began to hum with activity. It was to be, in some way, a celebration; of life, of survival, of love. Each of them could find something to be grateful for and this became, naturally and unconsciously, the spirit of the party.

  Joan and Bill Beresford arrived for a fortnight’s holiday and were immediately swept up in the excitement. Bill went with Mr Ridley to spruce up the summerhouse and reinstate the lights while Joan, who was a notable cook, offered to help Mrs Ridley with the responsibility of feeding the guests. Gussie and Gillian sorted out all the old plates and glasses that wouldn’t be missed if there were breakages and counted knives and forks and Phoebe went round collecting contributions to help towards the wine.

  ‘You can’t imagine the relief on Mr Jackson’s face,’ she told Sophie and Gemma, who had come over early on the afternoon of the party to help, ‘when he realised that it was a Saturday and he wouldn’t be here. He looked positively frightened at the mere idea.’

  ‘I expect he was imagining Bacchanalian revels,’ said Gemma, nudging Sophie. ‘What fun!’

  ‘Oh, I do hope so,’ said Phoebe promptly. ‘I can just imagine Mr Ridley with vine leaves in his hair.’

  They burst into fits of giggles and Guy, coming through the archway, eyed them suspiciously.

  ‘I thought that you were taking chairs up to the pool,’ he said.

  ‘And so we are,’ said Gemma. ‘Come on, Sophie. Two for you and two for me.’

  They set off up the drive, a folding chair in either hand, grinning at Guy as they went by and he grinned back, feeling the comfortable, warm affection for the pair of them that was something quite apart from his passion for Nell. With a wisdom guided by his natural oyster-like reticence, rather than by any conscious reasoning, Guy had hardly talked about Nell to the girls. He’d given them a brief outline of the tragedy so that there should be no embarrassing blunders and told them casually that she was helping him out a couple of days a week at the office and left it at that. Guy was playing his cards very close to his chest and he had no intention of arousing any suspicions if he could possibly help it.

  When they arrived at the pool the girls saw Nell for the first time. Her hair was braided down her back and her feet were bare. She wore a long green cotton dress and was tying balloons to the branches of the rhododendron bushes. It gave the place a party feel and Gemma exclaimed with pleasure.

  ‘What a clever idea! They’ll look so pretty when the fairy lights are on.’

  Nell turned and smiled at them. ‘Hi. You must be Guy’s friends. He told me that you were coming. I’m Nell Woodward from the Lodge.’

  They introduced themselves and Gemma offered to help with the balloons while Sophie set out the chairs. Gillian arrived with a hamper full of plates and glasses, Mr Ridley began to set up the barbecue and Guy and Henry appeared, carrying between them a trestle table for the food. For a while the place was a scene of intense and good-humoured activity and then slowly it began to empty. The girls went down to Phoebe’s to change, Gussie swept the Beresfords up to the house for a cup of tea and Henry and Gillian strolled off into the beech walk, arm in arm. Mr Ridley picked up his tools and bits of wire and, with a smiling nod to Guy and Nell, disappeared through the gate. Guy glanced at Nell and was quite suddenly and unreasonably overcome by shyness. She never looked quite real to him, not of this earth. He thought of her as a girl in a fairy story who might vanish at a touch. She was standing staring out over the pool and the roofs beyond and her thoughts were far away.

  ‘Nell?’ he said at last and she turned a look of such brooding despair on him that he recoiled from it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head as if to dispel the memories of that other party when she’d arrived from Porlock Weir, pregnant and alone. ‘What did you say? I was miles away.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ The look had unnerved him. ‘I’m going to take Bertie for a walk.’

  He left the invitation unspoken and she made no attempt to acknowledge it.

  ‘That’s a good idea. It’ll be cooler for him now. See you later then.’ She slipped her feet into espadrilles and, smiling vaguely at him, drifted through the gate and away into the shadows. Guy watched her go with confused feelings of longing and fear. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his shorts and stared down into the blue water of the pool.

  ‘Hi.’ Gemma stood beside him, young and pretty in her blue denim miniskirt and her thin flowered shirt.

  ‘Hi.’ He tried to sound sociable. ‘I thought you were at Phoebe’s getting changed.’

  ‘Sophie’s taken first bath and I wondered whether I might have a quick swim.’

  ‘Good idea.’ The words were an effort but somehow her presence had a soothing effect.

  ‘Don’t think I will.’ She seemed to think about it and shook her head. ‘No. Hey!’ She looked up at him. ‘What about giving Bertie a walk? You’ve had him shut in all day in case he tripped someone up or got in the way. Shall we give him a run in the woods?’

  ‘That’s just what I was going to do, actually. You’ve very welcome to come along. I thought you’d want to be getting all done up or whatever.’

  She grinned sideways at him, the old provocative grin.

  ‘Plenty of time. It doesn’t take that long, you know, to make myself presentable.’

  He knew she was teasing him and suddenly his spirits lifted. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, pretending to consider her as they went out through the gate. ‘All those lines and wrinkles …’

  She punched him on the arm, dodged as he feinted a blow at her and set off at a jog trot down the drive.

  NELL WANDERED ALONG THE avenue, gazing up at the great chestnut trees and the ancient oaks whose leaves made a canopy through which the sunlight could barely penetrate. It was unnerving how swiftly these reminders of the past could engulf her, toppling her from the delicate balance of acceptance and determination, rendering her both breathless with terror at the prospect of loneliness and poverty and despairing at the knowledge of all that she had lost. Scents, music, tastes, a chance remark, all these things had the power to swing her back in time, robbing her of her contentment and destroying her hard-won peace. She’d remembered herself at that other party, sitting
in the summerhouse and looking at the moon, battling with the misery of losing her precious cottage at Porlock Weir and terrified at the knowledge of the new life under her heart.

  Nell crossed her arms over her breast as though she would crush the intolerable ache. Would she ever be free of it all? She willed her mantra to the forefront of her mind: Jack, her friends, the cottage, Nethercombe. Somehow, it seemed almost wicked to be ungrateful when she still had such blessings. Many, many others in this terrible time had lost so much more.

  But I am not being ungrateful, she thought suddenly, staring up into the great noble arches of wood and leaf. I am mourning. I am mourning John and the baby and my home. I have lost all of them and surely I am allowed to mourn without feeling guilty?

  The great dim spaces had a cathedral-like quality and Nell felt a measure of a quietening calm stealing back into her mind and heart. She dreaded this party as she had dreaded the other but she knew that she must go. That much at least she owed to these kind friends who cared so deeply about her.

  SOPHIE LAY IN THE bath and thought about Guy. She had built up such a romantic picture through the term that the reality was bound to be a little disappointing. Even so … Sophie languidly soaped her leg and remembered what Gemma had said at the beginning; something about falling in love at least once a week until she’d started to mature a bit. Sophie, convinced that her love would last for ever, felt certain that she was different. But now she was beginning to wonder if Gemma might not have had a point. Several young men had swum into her ken during this last term and she was beginning to see that it would be foolish to tie oneself down too soon.

  She’d enjoyed the Easter holidays, ‘making Guy human’ as Gemma had put it, and, no doubt, there would be lots more fun this holiday. Still … Sophie lay back in the hot scented water. Perhaps Gemma was right. What was she always saying? ‘If there’s anything better, than one man, it’s two men. Ad infinitum.’ She giggled and, reaching for her towel, stood up and started to dry herself. She was looking forward to the party.