by Unknown
While I was in Biarritz, there was only one occasion when I talked to Paul on his own. It was the day before I was due to leave. Sir Keith was at the golf course, while Bella had taken Rowena to experience the delights of thalasso-therapy, the latest beauty treatment with which she hoped to stave off middle age. We’d agreed to meet them afterwards for tea. Leaving the villa with plenty of time to spare, we strolled down the beaches—emptied by grey skies and a keen wind—to the old fishing port, then climbed by zig-zag paths up through the tamarisk trees to the Pointe Atalaye. At its summit, we leant against some railings and looked back along the sweep of the bay to the lighthouse and the nestling roof of L’Hivernance. And Paul suddenly answered a question I’d not had the courage to ask.
“I know about the suicide attempt, Robin. You don’t have to avoid the subject for my benefit.”
“Good. I’m glad. That you know, I mean.”
“She told me right at the start. She’s still not ready to tell her father, but . . . we’ll get there in the end.”
“I’m sure you will. You seem to be just what she needs.”
“Glad you think so. It makes it easier for me to mention something that’s been on my mind.”
“Oh yes?”
“Well, Sarah and Rowena have both told me how kind you’ve been to them since their mother’s death. How generous with your time and attention.” It was a curious choice of phrase. He kept his eyes trained on the distant lighthouse as he continued. “Sarah and I saw quite a lot of one another at Cambridge. I feel I know her almost as well as Rowena. I even met their mother once. And the infamous Oscar Bantock.”
“Really?”
“Sarah took me to an exhibition of his work in Cambridge. Pretty crappy stuff.” He chuckled. “I think I may have let Bantock realize what my opinion was. I expect I was a bit drunk. Tongue ran away with me. I’ve learned to control it better since. Anyway, Louise Paxton was there. I exchanged a few words with her. Nothing more. Like you, I suppose.” Now he did look at me. “Just a fleeting encounter. But enough to be able to imagine what losing her must have meant to her daughters.”
“They’ve suffered, no question.”
“But Sarah’s ridden it out. And, with my help, Rowena will too.”
“Good.” I smiled to cover my puzzlement. He was making some kind of point. But I couldn’t grasp what it was. “I hope you’re right.”
“Oh, I am. I’m sure of it. Surer than I’ve ever been of anything. Rowena and I are made for each other. Which means . . .” He smiled. “What I’m saying, Robin, is that you can stop worrying about her. She’s got me to look after her now.” And she doesn’t need you any more, his dazzling smile declared. “You’ve been a real help to her. And to Sarah. But from here on . . . Well, you can let me handle things.” I was being warned off. Politely but firmly told to keep my distance. He obviously didn’t see me as a rival for Rowena’s affections. Then what did he see me as? Somebody who knew a little too much for comfort? Somebody who might possibly know more than he did? Was that what he feared? Or did he just want rid of me for Rowena’s sake? There was nothing in his expression or tone of voice even to hint at the answer. Candour and concealment were in him almost the same thing.
I smiled back and made a calculated attempt to catch him off guard. “Tell me, Paul— Does Rowena still believe her mother went back to England that last time purely in order to buy one of Bantock’s paintings?”
The question was as much a test of Sarah as of Paul. I needed to know whether she trusted him as completely as he’d implied. His response was swift. But it didn’t quite dispel the doubt. “She believes it. And I think it’s best she should. Don’t you?”
He had me where he wanted me. The only slight advantage I could deny him was the pleasure of hearing my explicit agreement. I glanced at my watch and nodded down towards the Hôtel du Palais, a mansarded monument to Second Empire opulence that dominated the shoreline—and was the chosen venue for our tea party. “I think we ought to start back,” I said, grinning at him. “Don’t you?”
Tea amid the chandeliered splendour of the Hôtel du Palais—the Ritz-sur-mer, as Bella called it—was superficially a delightful experience. For Bella it was an opportunity to show off her possessions before an appreciative audience of après-midi society. Her jewellery. Her suntan. Her shapely thighs. Her pretty stepdaughter. And her stepdaughter’s handsome fiancé. Paul and Rowena played their parts so well that my own mood made no impact. When Bella did notice my lack of contribution to the sparkling banter, she attributed it to depression at the thought of returning to England. And I let her think she was right.
In a sense, I suppose she was. But it wasn’t the prospect of leaving behind the charms of Biarritz that weighed me down. It was the knowledge that Paul’s marriage to Rowena really would raise the drawbridge between us. Between me and the only other person who’d met Louise Paxton on the day of her death—and glimpsed the indecipherable truth. It shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did. It shouldn’t have mattered at all. But still, two years on, I couldn’t forget. I didn’t want Rowena to either. I didn’t want Paul Bryant to make her happy at the expense of her mother’s memory. But I knew he meant to. And I was very much afraid he would succeed.
Rowena Paxton and Paul Bryant were married at St. Kenelm’s Church, Sapperton, on Saturday the twelfth of September, 1992—a gorgeous late summer’s day of mellow sunlight and motionless air.
As I drove up across the Berkshire Downs and the Vale of the White Horse that morning, I could already picture the scene awaiting me: the Cotswold stone; the stained glass; the lace ruffs of the choristers; the silk dresses of the ladies; the grey top hats of the gentlemen; and the deep black shadows cast by ancient yews across the gravestones. The blessings of nature and the contrivances of man would weave their familiar spell and for a single afternoon we’d believe we really were witnessing the perfect union of two lives.
The reality was almost exactly that. Sapperton lay deep in Ideal Home country: a neat little village of restored cottages and secluded residences perched on the eastern slopes of the Golden Valley. The cars were parked two- or three-deep along the lane leading to the church. Inside, family and friends were massed in their finery. I caught a glimpse of Bella at the front before being relegated to a distant pew. From there I was happy to spectate anonymously as the bride made her entrance on her father’s arm. Rowena’s delicate features were transformed into fairy-tale beauty by a narrow-bodiced wedding dress. While Paul, slim and elegant in his morning coat, resembled her saviour prince as closely as anyone could demand. Sir Keith swelled with paternal pride as he led his daughter up the aisle, Sarah and two other bridesmaids following with the page-boys. The priest welcomed us with a nicely judged reference to the bride’s mother. Paul and Rowena recited their lines without a stumble. The marriage was pronounced. Prayers were said. Hymns were sung. Eyes were dabbed and throats cleared. And I saw such unalloyed happiness in Rowena’s expression that I rebuked myself for doubting this would turn out to be the best thing she’d ever done. Clearly, she was confident it would. So who was I to quibble?
The Old Parsonage stood so close to the church that the bride and groom’s conveyance there by pony and trap was the shortest of superfluous trots. It was a handsomely gabled house made to seem larger than it was by its lofty setting above the valley. The terraced garden led the eye towards the winding course of the river below and the wooded slopes on its other side: a ruckled blanket of green up which a tide of shadow slowly climbed as the afternoon advanced.
A marquee had been set up at the top of the garden, adjoining the house. Here, as a string quartet played and waitresses dispensed champagne with limitless generosity, I did my best to amuse the guests I shared a table with: the couple who lived next door and their daughter; an old medical colleague of Sir Keith’s; and a cousin of Paul’s who seemed to know him about as well as I did. “Smart and close, our Paul,” he remarked with a frown. “Always has been.”
I exchanged a few words and a kiss with Rowena, a handshake and garbled best wishes with Paul. I suppose I didn’t expect more. My invitation was something of a farewell gesture. I knew that and so did they. My connection with Bella meant there’d probably be the odd fleeting encounter over the years. But nothing more. Paul had become the master of Rowena’s destiny. And I didn’t feature in his plans at all.
This awareness stayed with me throughout the day. It was there when I followed the usher across the church. When I applauded the speeches and toasted the happy couple’s future. When I stood in the crowded lane and cheered them off. And it would still be there, I knew, when I made my solitary journey home. For them, this was a glorious beginning. For me, a solemn end.
“It went well,” Bella said to me as they drove away, letting me see some of the relief she would have hidden from others. She’d done the bulk of the planning and, in a sense, this was as much a celebration of her marriage as Rowena’s. The first full-scale public occasion she’d presided over as Lady Paxton. Its success was a measure of her acceptance. And it had been a success. If anybody had compared her unfavourably with the first Lady Paxton, they’d done so in the privacy of their own thoughts. Bella was safely installed.
I’d always known she would be, of course. Her dress sense might occasionally betray her. Some, for instance, would have said she shouldn’t have been showing so much cleavage at her stepdaughter’s wedding. But that wouldn’t have included any of the male guests. Her joie de vivre was irrepressible. And so was her social ambition. The council-house girl had become what my mother had always said she wasn’t: a lady.
Sir Keith paid her a special tribute in his speech, describing her as “the woman who’s helped me and my daughters recover better than we ever thought we could from the loss we suffered two years ago.” He was equally fulsome in his praise of his new son-in-law. “Paul is a remarkable young man. As strong as he is sensitive. As honest as he is perceptive. Rowena has found herself a fine husband.” He meant it too. The conviction in his voice was unmistakable. Sir Keith Paxton was a man well pleased with the compensations life—and death—had handed him.
And who could blame him? He’d not been married to Bella long enough to see her crueller side. While Paul was the sort of son-in-law fathers dream of. I watched him charming the aunts and chucking the page-boys. I listened to his witty well-ordered speech. I studied him long and hard as he posed with his parents and sisters for yet another photograph. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant were a gauche good-hearted couple, overawed in the company of medical grandees and Cotswold weekenders. But their son wasn’t. Paul Bryant went in awe of nobody. Metropolitan Mutual employed him as a risk analyst and it was easy to see why. Because for him risk spelt no danger. He was in smooth and complete control of his life. And now of Rowena’s too.
The party slowly broke up after the bride and groom’s departure. Some guests left promptly. Others lingered, chatting over tea and coffee in the marquee or strolling in the garden. Bella circulated among them, making new acquaintances and sealing old ones, her energy apparently inexhaustible. Sir Keith too kept up the round, paying me little heed when I said goodbye. “Delighted you could come, Robin. Delighted. It’s been a splendid day, hasn’t it?” He didn’t stay to hear my answer. But he wouldn’t have been disappointed if he had.
I’d not spoken to Sarah all afternoon, so I went in search of her before leaving. A friend of hers I vaguely recognized said she was in the house. I traced her to a small room at the front fitted out as a study, about as far from the party as she could be. There was a woman with her. Tall, fair-haired and elegant, aged somewhere in her forties. I hadn’t noticed her at the top table or close to the centre of the celebrations. But she obviously knew Sarah well. They were talking softly as I entered, almost whispering. And, whatever they were saying, they stopped as soon as they saw me.
“Robin!” said Sarah, jumping up. “How lovely. I was hoping to see you before you left. I’m sorry to have neglected you. But it’s been so hectic.”
“Of course,” I said, smiling. “I quite understand.”
“You’ve been well looked after?”
“Absolutely. Couldn’t have been better.”
“Just what I was saying,” her companion remarked. “I’m Sophie Marsden, by the way.” She rose and stepped towards me, extending a kid-gloved hand.
“Robin Timariot.” I looked at her as we shook, my attention raised now I knew who she was. Louise Paxton’s friend. The one who’d shared her enthusiasm for Expressionist art. And who’d shared a few secrets along the way, perhaps? There was a similarity to Louise. Not in looks so much as manner. A hint of distance. An involuntary implication that much of her mind dwelt on subjects no-one else could understand. It was there in Sophie, albeit more faintly—more impermanently—than it had been in the woman I’d met on Hergest Ridge. But it was there. Like a palm-print. An impression. A dried flower preserved between the pages of a book. No scent. No sap. No life. But stronger than a memory. More than chance likeness or fading recollection. More than could ever be forgotten.
“Sarah’s told me about you, Mr. Timariot. What a help you’ve been to her and Rowena. And to Keith, of course. In introducing him to Bella.”
“Well, I . . .”
“Louise was a great believer in life, you know. In making the most of it. In casting off past sadnesses. She really would have been pleased at how things have turned out.”
“I . . . I’m . . .” I groped for an adequate response. Part of me wanted to echo her sentiment. To draw a neat straight line with Louise Paxton on one side and me incontrovertibly on the other. But another part of me wanted to protest. To rage against a travesty I couldn’t define. To cross the neat straight line. “I’m so glad . . . to hear a friend of hers say so, Mrs. Marsden.”
“Actually, Robin,” said Sarah, “I was about to take Sophie to see Mummy’s grave. She’s not visited it since the funeral. Rowena’s asked me to put her bouquet on it along with mine. Would you like to come with us?”
“I’d be delighted,” I said. With sudden and utter sincerity.
The graveyard of St. Kenelm’s Church had been full for fifty years or more. Since then, burials had taken place in a small cemetery just outside the village. I drove Sarah and Sophie there at the start of my journey home. Though it was less than a mile from The Old Parsonage, we seemed to have been transported a vast distance from the gabbling gaiety of the wedding party. The cemetery was still and silent, its graves clustered around an avenue of yew trees at one end while the other end stood empty and overgrown, awaiting future use. I didn’t ask why Sir Keith hadn’t come. Why Rowena had felt unable to do this herself. Why Sarah had asked Sophie and me to go with her. Did she, I wondered, regard us as more likely to understand her feelings than her father? Were we the only two she could trust with a share of this experience?
We walked slowly and self-consciously along the gravel path, Sarah a few steps ahead, cradling the bouquets in her arms. She went straight to the grave and placed the flowers beneath the headstone. Sophie and I stood behind her and watched as she knelt beside it. Dew still clung to the grass in the shadow cast by the nearest yew. Its moisture was darkening the hem of her full-skirted dress, turning rose pink to blood red. There was meaning everywhere, if you cared to look. As I looked now, at the inscription on the headstone.
LOUISE JANE PAXTON
11 NOVEMBER 1945–17 JULY 1990
FIRST KNOWN WHEN LOST
The phrase was from a poem by Thomas. Only Sarah could have chosen it. Only she could have known what the choice meant. Though in that moment I seemed to as well.
We stayed a few minutes, no more. Then Sophie and I started diplomatically back towards the gate, while Sarah lingered by the grave. They meant to walk back to the house, so I’d soon be on my solitary way. There was much I wanted to ask Sophie, but there was too little time and no obvious pretext for extending it. Besides, my curiosity about her dead friend would have seemed odd, suspiciously inapp
ropriate. A few mumbled trifles were all that should have been expected of me.
“A peaceful spot,” I ventured, as we reached the gate and looked back at Sarah.
“Yes. I’m glad to have come back. You’ve not been here before?”
“No.”
“You didn’t come to the funeral, of course. But I thought perhaps afterwards . . .” She glanced round at me, her eyes narrowing beneath the brim of her hat. I sensed suspicion on some score I couldn’t fathom. I sensed there was a question she longed to ask me. But something held her back. “Sarah told me you manage a cricket-bat factory in Petersfield. Is that right?”
“Yes.” The point seemed deliberately banal, provoking me to respond in kind. “What about your husband, Mrs. Marsden? What line is he—”
“Agricultural machinery. But you don’t want to hear about that. Very boring.”
“No more so than the cricket-bat business, I’m sure.”
“Believe me, it is.” Abruptly, she changed the subject. “Have you heard from Henley Bantock, by the way?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Oscar Bantock’s nephew. He’s writing his uncle’s biography. Has written it, I suppose. It’s due out next spring. He came to see me a few months ago. I have two Bantocks on my drawing-room wall and he wanted to photograph them for the book. Wished I hadn’t agreed in the end. Appalling little creep.”
I smiled. “He is rather, isn’t he?”
“Oh, so you have met him?”
“Once, yes. But not about the book. There’s nothing I could have told him anyway.”
“No?”
“Of course not.” Her questions were becoming more and more baffling. I could have believed she was trying to provoke me into disclosing something, but for the fact that there was nothing to disclose. “I never knew Oscar Bantock.”
“No. But you knew his foremost patroness, didn’t you?”
