“Have a cigarette? You don’t smoke. You must be tired. You’ve been traveling all day. And with a little boy, too. And I know how active Thomas can be.”
Victoria realized that Mrs. Archer was just about as nervous as she was, and her manner was so different from the antagonistic reception that Victoria had anticipated that she felt totally confused.
She said, “He was good. He’s always good. He’s been good all the time we were away.”
“It was you who wrote that kind letter, wasn’t it? You’re Victoria?”
“Yes.”
“It was sweet of you. Very thoughtful.”
“Oliver was furious.”
“I wanted to apologize about that. I would never have tried to ring you or get in touch, but my husband read the letter, and he was so incensed by the whole business, that I could do nothing to stop him telephoning Benchoile and having it out with Oliver. Nothing. It isn’t very often,” she added, her sweet face concerned, “that I don’t get my own way, but there was nothing I could do to stop Edward making that call.”
“It didn’t matter.”
“I hope not. You see, Edward never liked Oliver, even when he was married to Jeannette. But he is very fond of Thomas. And when Oliver just walked into our house, out of the blue, and stole Thomas, you can imagine the scenes. It had Helga in hysterics, poor girl, as though it could possibly have been her fault. And Edward saying he was going to put the police onto Oliver, and all the time I had no idea where the little boy was. It was a nightmare.”
“I do understand.”
“Yes. I believe you do.” Mrs. Archer cleared her throat. “Your … your friend, Mr. Dunbeath. He rang me up yesterday to say you were bringing Thomas back. He told me, too, that Oliver has gone to America.”
“Yes.”
“Something about a play?”
Victoria said, “Yes,” again.
“Do you suppose he’ll come back to this country?”
“Yes, I suppose he will. Sometime or other. But I don’t think he’ll ever bother with Thomas again. I don’t mean that he wasn’t fond of him, and very good to him, but being a father isn’t exactly Oliver’s scene.”
Their eyes met. Victoria smiled. Mrs. Archer said, very gently, “Nor being a husband, my dear.”
“No, I suppose not. I really wouldn’t know.”
“He’s a destroyer,” said Mrs. Archer.
Perhaps no other person could have told her. She knew it was true. She knew something else as well. “He hasn’t destroyed me,” she told Mrs. Archer.
The men returned, Mr. Archer bearing a tray with glasses and bottles, and John following with a soda syphon. The conversation turned to day-to-day matters. The weather in Scotland, the weather in Hampshire, the state of the stock market, the variable fluctuation of both dollar and pound. John, without waiting for her to ask for one, quietly handed Victoria a whisky and water. This small service filled her with gratitude. She seemed to spend her time being grateful to him for one reason or other. It occurred to her then that his perception was remarkable, all the more so because he seemed to achieve it with so little fuss. He was, perhaps, the kindest person she had ever known. She had never even heard him say an unkind thing about any person, except to call Oliver Dobbs a son of a bitch, and he hadn’t done that until Oliver had taken himself off to America, and there was no point in prevaricating any longer.
Now, she watched him, deep in conversation with the Archers. She saw his heavy, serious face, which could light up so unexpectedly in a smile. The dark, close-cut hair, the intensely dark eyes. He had been traveling all day with a small child, and yet he gave no sign of the sort of exhaustion that Victoria felt. He appeared as fresh and alert as the moment they had set out from Benchoile, and it was this resilience that she so envied and admired, because she knew that it was lacking in herself.
She thought, nothing defeats him. His disastrous marriage had left behind no apparent trace of bitterness. Things will always go right for him, because he likes people, but mostly because people like him.
Even over the telephone, it seemed, this genuine benevolence came through, for how else had he contrived, in the short space of the trunk call he had put through to Mrs. Archer yesterday morning, to make everything all right for Victoria, to somehow condone the circumstances of Thomas’s abduction, and to pave the way for Mrs. Archer’s reunion with Thomas.
One thing, she thought, I haven’t had time to start taking him for granted. Before she knew what was happening, they would be saying good-bye. He would drive her to London, and leave her at the door of Pendleton Mews. There wouldn’t even be the excuse of carrying luggage to invite him in and up the stairs, because she had no luggage to carry. They would just say good-bye. Perhaps he would kiss her. He would say, “Take care now.”
That would be the end. John Dunbeath would walk away from her, and be instantly absorbed back into that busy, important life about which Victoria knew nothing. She remembered the anonymous girlfriend who had not been able to come to the Fairburns’ party with him. Probably the first thing John would do when he returned to the peaceful familiarity of his own flat would be to dial her number and tell her he was safely back in London. “How about dinner tomorrow night?” he would say, “And I’ll give you all my news then.” And her voice would float back at him over the line, “Darling, how heavenly.” Victoria imagined her a little like Imogen Fairburn, beautiful, sophisticated, and knowing everybody.
“We really mustn’t keep you.” John’s drink was finished. He stood up. “You’ll be wanting to go and talk to Thomas before he goes to bed.”
The Archers, too, rose to their feet. Victoria jerked back to reality, began to struggle up out of the deep sofa, but John took her empty glass from her, gave her his hand, and helped her.
“I feel,” said Mrs. Archer, “that we should offer you something to eat.”
“No, we really must get back to London. It’s been a long day.”
They all went out into the hall. Mrs. Archer said to Victoria, “Do you want to say good-bye to Thomas before you go?” But she said, “No.” And then, because this sounded a little abrupt, she explained. “I mean, it wouldn’t do any good, upsetting him again. Not that I think he would be upset, he’s obviously so glad to be home, but … well, I’d rather just go, I think.”
“I believe,” said Mrs. Archer, “that you’ve become quite fond of Thomas.”
“Yes.” They were all looking at her. She wondered if she was going to start blushing. “Yes, I suppose…”
“Come along,” said John, putting an end to all this by opening the front door. Victoria said good-bye, and was surprised when Mrs. Archer leaned forward to kiss her.
“You’ve looked after him so beautifully. I can’t thank you enough. He looks rosy and well, and I’m sure the little experience has done him no harm at all.”
“I hope not.”
“Perhaps one weekend, when the weather is better, you’d like to come down one Sunday and see him. We could have lunch. You could take him for a walk.” She looked at John, including him in this invitation. “You too, Mr. Dunbeath.”
“That’s very kind,” said John.
* * *
“You’re very quiet.”
“I’m trying not to cry again.”
“You know I don’t mind if you do cry.”
“In that case, I probably won’t. Isn’t it extraordinary if you know you can cry, and nobody is going to become upset or embarrassed about it, then you stop wanting to.”
“Did you want to cry about anything in particular?”
“Thomas, I suppose. Thomas in particular.”
“Thomas is fine. Thomas is nothing to cry about, except that you’re going to miss him. Thomas has got a great home, and he’s surrounded by people who love him. And what did you think of that welcome he gave his grandmother?”
“I nearly cried then.”
“I have to admit to a lump in my throat myself. But you can see him anytime you w
ant. Mrs. Archer liked you. It isn’t good-bye to Thomas. You’ve got a standing invitation to go and see him.”
“They were nice, weren’t they?”
“Did you think they wouldn’t be?”
“I don’t know what I thought.” She remembered something. “I didn’t say anything to Mrs. Archer about the fire.”
“I told Mr. Archer while we were in the dining room getting the glasses out of a cupboard. At least, I told him what had happened. I didn’t enlarge too much on the possibility of Thomas being frizzled to a cinder.”
“Oh, don’t.”
“I have to say things like that every now and then to lay my own private specter of what might have happened.”
“But it didn’t happen.”
“No. It didn’t happen.”
They fell silent. The car nosed its way back along the narrow country road. A soft persistent rain blurred everything like mist. The windscreen wipers swung to and fro.
Victoria broke the silence at last. “I suppose,” she said, “I could cry for Benchoile.”
“What a girl you are for thinking of things to cry about.”
“It’s just that I so hated leaving it.”
John made no comment on this. The car traveled on, swiftly, down the winding road, but they passed the sign of an approaching lay-by, and he began to slow down. Moments later they came to the lay-by itself, and here John drew off the road, pulled on the handbrake and turned off the engine.
The windscreen wipers ceased their demented dance. There was only the whisper of the rain, the ticking of the dashboard clock.
Victoria looked at him. “What are we stopping for?”
He switched on the interior light and turned towards her. “It’s all right,” he reassured her. “I am not about to ravish you. It’s just that I want to talk to you. Ask you some questions. And I want to see your face when you answer them. You see, before we go a step further, I have to be totally and absolutely certain about Oliver Dobbs.”
“I thought you never wanted his name mentioned again.”
“I didn’t. This is the last time.”
“Mrs. Archer was talking about him. She was very wise. I didn’t realize that she would be such a wise person. She said that Oliver was a destroyer.”
“What did you say to that?”
“I said that he hadn’t destroyed me.”
“Is that the truth?”
She hesitated for an instant before replying. Then “Yes,” she said. She looked at John and smiled, and it felt as though his heart was turning over. “It is the truth. Perhaps I’ve always known it was the truth, but I wouldn’t admit it, even to myself. I suppose everybody has to have one great traumatic love affair in his life, and Oliver was mine.”
“What about when he comes back from America?”
“Somehow, I don’t think he’ll ever come back…” She thought about this, and then went on, in tones of the greatest conviction, “And even if he did, I wouldn’t want to see him.”
“Because he hurt you, or because you’ve stopped loving him?”
“I think I stopped loving him when we were at Benchoile. I can’t tell you the exact moment. It just happened gradually. Now…” She made a vague gesture with her hands. “I don’t think I even like him any more.”
“That makes two of us,” said John. “And with Oliver Dobbs disposed of, we can now go on to talk of other things. Just before I stopped the car, you said that you supposed that if you needed something to cry about, you could cry about Benchoile. And I think that this is as good a time as any to tell you that you don’t have to. You’ll be able to go back there, any time, and see them all, because I’m not going to sell it. At least not just yet.”
“But … you said…”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh…” She looked as though she were going to burst into tears, but she didn’t do this. She said “Oh, John,” and then she began to laugh, and finally she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
He was immensely gratified, but as well taken totally unawares by her spontaneous delight. He had known that she would be pleased, but scarcely expected this throttling embrace.
“Hey, you’ll strangle me!” But she took no heed.
“You’re not going to sell it! Oh, you marvelous man! You’re going to keep Benchoile.”
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. She felt small-boned and fragile, and her fair hair was soft against his cheek, and she rattled on, excited as a child. “You said it wasn’t viable, it wasn’t practical.” She drew away from him but he still kept his arms about her. “Without your Uncle Jock to run the place, you said that Benchoile would fall to pieces.”
“Like I said, I changed my mind. I’m going to hang on to it, anyway for a year, till we see how things work out.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, a man still confused by the reasons for his sudden volte-face. “Perhaps it was the fire. Perhaps a man doesn’t realize how much something means to him until he’s in danger of losing it. That night, I had visions of the whole place going up. You weren’t there, but it was only by the grace of God that the big house wasn’t burnt to the ground with everything else. Late that night, I went out into the garden, and just stood there, and looked at it. And it was still standing, with the hills behind it, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for anything in all my life.”
“But who’s going to run it?”
“Roddy and Davey Guthrie between them, and we’re going to get another man in to help.”
“Roddy?”
“Yes, Roddy. It was you who pointed out that Roddy is more informed and more interested in the land than any of us. He knows more about Benchoile than I could learn in a hundred years. The only reason that he’s never become more actively involved before is because he’s idle, and because there was always Jock there to do the thinking for him. I have a feeling that without Jock, and with a real job to do, Roddy has a good chance of laying off the booze and astonishing us all.”
“Where will he live?”
“In the big house with Ellen. You see, all my problems have been solved by one inspired decision. They’ll squabble like crazy, as they always have. But the big house is large enough to contain the two of them, without one murdering the other.” He thought about this. “At least,” he added, “I devoutly hope so.”
“You really think it will work?”
“I told you, I’m going to give it a year. But, yes, I think it will work. And what is more, my father thinks so too.”
“How do you know what your father thinks? He’s in Colorado.”
“I called him yesterday morning, we had a long talk about it all.”
Victoria could only marvel. “What a morning you had on the telephone!”
“I’m used to it. In my office I’m on the phone most of the day.”
“Even so,” said Victoria, “I’d never think of calling someone up in Colorado.”
“You should try it sometime.”
So, at least, for a little longer, Benchoile would go on. And perhaps John was right, and Roddy would take on a new lease on life. He was, after all, only sixty. Perhaps he would turn into a tremendously keen outdoorsman, felling trees and climbing hills, losing weight and generally becoming tanned and fit. The image was not particularly convincing, but there was no denying that it had distinct possibilities. And, living in the big house, perhaps he would be persuaded to enliven his social life a little. Throw small dinner parties, and have people to stay. Ellen would take the dust covers off the furniture in the drawing room, and rehang the curtains. Someone would light a fire in the fireplace, and people in evening dress would dispose themselves about the room while Roddy played the piano to them, and sang his old songs.
She said, “I know it will work. It has to work.”
“So. With Benchoile and Oliver Dobbs safely out of the way, we can now get on to much more important
things.”
“Like what?”
“Like you and me.” Victoria’s expression became wary, and before she could start protesting, he went firmly on. “I thought it might be an idea for us to start over, from the beginning. It seems to me that from the moment we first met, we set out on the wrong foot, and it’s only now, after all this time, and so much happening, that we’re finally fallen into step. And the first thing to be rectified is that I’ve never gotten around to taking you out for dinner. So I thought that when we get back to London, we might go out some place. If you want we can go straight there, and eat. Or you’d maybe want to wash up first and change your clothes, so I could take you to your flat, and then come around and pick you up later. Or we can both go straight to my flat and have a drink, and then go out to dinner from there. The permutations, as you will realize, are endless. The only constant is that I want to be with you. I don’t want to say good-bye. Does that make sense?”
“John, I don’t want you to be sorry for me. And you don’t have to go on being kind.”
“In fact,” he told her, “I’m not being kind. I’m being utterly selfish, because it’s what I want more than anything else in the world. I always knew I’d fall in love again one day. I didn’t think that it would happen just this way. I didn’t even think that it would happen so soon. But what I don’t want is for you to get tangled up in a new relationship until you’ve had time to take a deep breath and look around and generally get used to the idea.”
I don’t want to say good-bye.
She thought, if this were a movie, it’s where they’d start playing the really soupy theme music. Or there’d be an explosion of stars, or shots of sun shining down through branches laden with apple blossoms. None of these things was happening. There was just the car, and the darkness beyond, and the man, with whom already she seemed to have come so far.
She said, thoughtfully, “You know, I don’t think I ever met any person as nice as you.”
“Well, that’ll do for a start,” he told her. They watched each other, and she began to smile, and he took her face between his hands, and bent his dark head and kissed her smiling mouth. When he had finished kissing her, he put her gently from him, turned back to the driving wheel, switched on the ignition, started up the powerful engine. The car moved forward. Soon they came to the junction that marked the end of the quiet country road and the beginning of the motorway. The car came through a tunnel and then swept up the curved ramp. They waited to filter into the three-lane of cars which poured east.
Wild Mountain Thyme Page 27
