'Hester's quite right. We must get away,' Eleanor says urgently. 'If he sees either of us again he might go right over the top. Surely you can see that? Get those clothes off; you're soaked. I've laid some things on your bed. Go on, Mike. For God's sake, hurry.'
She goes with him, offering him a towel after he's dragged off his shirt and then watching in silence while he pulls on warm, dry clothes. All his movements are invested with a violent haste and his face is white with shock.
'You realize, don't you, that you must never breathe a word of this to Lucy?' she asks grimly, as if implying that it is Michael who is to blame but that she is prepared to forgive him as long as he does as he is told. 'Not a word. We must get her away before something worse happens. She's all ready.'
'What did you tell her?' he asks anxiously.
'Oh, just that you have to get back to London urgently and that you want her with you from now on. She understands that so don't confuse her.'
He shakes his head obediently – the last thing he wants to do is upset Lucy – and they go out together. He hurries downstairs with the suitcases and some clothes and medication for Edward, whilst Eleanor goes to fetch Lucy.
'Come on,' she says. 'Daddy's waiting for us.'
Lucy follows her out on to the landing and down the stairs, shivering and frightened, though she is still hoping that Eleanor is wrong and that her father will come and tell her that this has all been some kind of nightmare. The moment she sees his strained, tense face, however, and his crushed almost subservient attitude, her heart beats fast with a different kind of fear. Her adored father looks beaten and frightened, and now she believes everything that Eleanor has said. She allows herself to be rushed out into the dark, wild night and packed into the car with the luggage. They drive out over the little bridge, and away towards London, and it is much later that she remembers that Hester has not come to say goodbye to her.
It is much later that Hester remembers that she has not said goodbye to Lucy. Her overwhelming instinct has been to get Eleanor and Michael away before any more damage is done and, though it will be a shock to Lucy, at least she will be out of harm's way. Hester cannot think beyond this yet. She has given Edward the sedative that Michael has passed in through the half-open door, along with some dry clothes, and he is now asleep where she first put him, in the chair beside the kitchen range. She sits at the kitchen table watching him. The river has washed away all the blood from his nose, though his face and arms are badly scratched, and he looks white and exhausted. No doubt the bruising will show up later. At least nothing is broken. He was too weak to fight Michael, as they half carried and half dragged him across the lawn to the house, but he screamed violent imprecations and struggled all the way.
As soon as the sedative began to take effect, Hester was able to get him into his dry clothes, and now he sleeps heavily whilst she watches him anxiously. Fear and horror keep her upright at the table, her hands in a continual wringing motion, whilst her brain begins to circle in one desperate groove of thought: what shall I do, oh, what shall I do? How will he be when he wakes?
When she knows that he is deeply asleep, she stands up and pushes the kettle onto the range. She has already made them some tea, though Edward resisted it to begin with, and now she goes through the familiar, comforting routine again. When she sits down she begins to think about her family, how it has been depleted in such a short time – even Michael is lost to her now – and she feels as if she has been utterly abandoned. She remembers those happy holidays when her mother and father were still alive, and the boys playing their silly practical jokes, and her heart aches with loneliness.
Help me! she cries to them silently. Help me! and tears rise in her eyes and run down the back of her throat. She drinks her tea, swallowing it down with her tears, and presently, overcome with fatigue, she puts her head down on her folded arms and sleeps. It might be a minute later, or an hour, when she hears the telephone ringing. Glancing anxiously at Edward she sees that the bell does not disturb his drug-induced sleep and she slips out into the hall, keeping her voice low as she speaks into the receiver.
'Is that you, Hester? It's Blaise. How are you? You sound very faint.'
'Blaise.' She can barely speak his name, so relieved is she to hear him. 'Blaise, where are you?'
'I'm in London. Did you get my letter? I was sent out to Germany from Bletchley Park and then on to America but it's over at last. I'm a free man, Hester. I didn't pick up your last letter until I got back here yesterday. What's been happening down there? How's Edward?'
Quite suddenly she begins to cry, gripping the receiver, trying to explain whilst gulping down the tears, and Blaise is asking questions, his voice very different now, sharp and quick.
'I'll come down,' he says at last. 'Don't worry, Hes. I know someone who'll lend me a car. This is an emergency. I'll be with you as soon as I can.'
She goes back to the kitchen, her legs shaking, and sits down again. Edward is mumbling and stirring in his sleep but she no longer feels fearful: Blaise is coming.
When she first sees him she feels a sense of shock. He seems smaller than the tall young man she remembers: the older cousin, the one who kept the boys in order and had long discussions with her father. Yet his presence is much more commanding and, quite suddenly, she feels weak with reaction. She puts her arms round Blaise, burying her face in his Aran jersey, which smells of cigarettes and coffee, and she inhales luxuriously because this reminds her of her father.
Blaise holds her tightly murmuring, 'Poor little Hes. Poor darling,' and gives her plenty of time to recover herself. She smiles up at him and suddenly realizes that it is not he who has shrunk but she who has grown. Just for a moment she is struck by the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the dark slategrey colour of his eyes, and her heart gives an odd lurch.
'How is he?' Blaise is asking. 'I couldn't quite grasp what you were saying. Did Michael and Edward really fight? It seems so unlikely.'
He follows her into the kitchen where Edward sleeps, still asking questions, but when he sets eyes upon the recumbent figure his expression changes into a kind of compassionate horror.
'Poor old boy,' he says at last. 'Poor old Edward. Just for a moment I thought it was your father lying there, Hes. Though he never was so thin.'
He crouches beside the chair and takes the limp hand in his but Edward barely stirs and presently Blaise stands up again and looks at Hester. Now he studies her properly, smiling.
'You've grown up,' he says, as if making a discovery. 'How odd for us to be meeting again like this after all this time. I'm so sorry that you've had such a terrible war.'
'Everyone has,' she says, taking refuge from her confused emotions by beginning to make more tea.
'Oh, I've done well enough,' he answers lightly, 'hidden away in my cell at Bletchley Park. I haven't had a bad war.'
She glances at him quickly, detecting an almost bitter tone in his voice, but he smiles again: a smile of sheer affection and pleasure.
'I can't tell you how good it is to be here again, Hes, even in these circumstances. It's like a homecoming.'
They sit down at the table, the pot of tea between them, and Hester wonders how to explain exactly what has happened and where she should start. Blaise senses her difficulty and begins to ask questions that gradually lead her from the point when her mother died to the fight between Michael and Edward. Slowly, filling in the details as she goes, Hester tells him the whole story.
And when Edward wakes and sees Blaise sitting at the table he is at first puzzled and then delighted. He struggles to his feet, casting off his blanket, and the two men embrace each other whilst Hester looks on in relief and delight. After a while Edward frowns, clearly beginning to remember the events of the previous evening, and she waits, holding her breath. When he asks where Michael is, it is Blaise who answers him.
'He's gone, old chap,' he tells him calmly but very firmly. 'They've all gone. It's just you and me and Hester now. I've decided to tak
e a very long sabbatical while I decide what I'm going to do now the war is over and Hester has agreed to let me stay. We're going to get you fit and well again.'
Blaise stands above him, smiling down at him, and it is as if he is imposing some sort of discipline on Edward whilst offering him a challenge: this is a new life, he seems to be saying, take it or leave it. And suddenly Edward nods his head, as if he is accepting the new order and is prepared to make the best of it.
So it is that Hester does not discover the Midsummer Cushion until the morning, when she goes upstairs to wash and put on clean clothes. She crosses the floor, murmuring, 'Oh, no. Oh no,' as if some new terrible calamity has taken place, and carefully picks the tapestry out of the wreckage of smashed glass to see if it is much damaged. The frame is broken, the wood splintered and, turning it, she notices that the frayed string has worn right through and snapped in two. She can see that the tapestry has not always been kept behind glass and away from sunlight, and that it is worn in places and rather faded. She shakes the canvas loose, folds it very gently in a scarf and puts it away in a drawer.
She stares at the splintered glass and quite suddenly sits down on the edge of her bed and bursts into tears. It is as if the Midsummer Cushion is a symbol of everything she has known and loved: her happy family life is smashed to pieces, broken and spoiled. The bright future she once envisaged amongst her own people is destroyed. As she weeps she thinks suddenly of Lucy and wonders how she will cope with the new rupture in her small life; and she is glad that Lucy has not witnessed the breaking of the Midsummer Cushion. She loved it so much it would have upset her terribly.
Presently the storm of weeping passes and she feels indescribably tired but calm. She tells herself that this reaction is simply shock and her heavy heart lifts at the thought of Blaise, sitting downstairs with Edward. Quickly she strips off her damp, muddy clothes, pours water from the big flowered ewer into its matching bowl and sluices it over her face. As soon as they've had some breakfast she will bring up the dustpan and sweep up the glass – and one day, she promises herself, she will reframe the Midsummer Cushion. Meanwhile she is not alone. Blaise has come home.
The next few months are the happiest of Hester's life. With Blaise, Edward is rarely wild or uncontrolled, and slowly she learns to relax. Edward grows a little stronger and on fine winter days they are able to take short walks on the hills and by the river. The fight and his struggle in the water has had its effect on his weakened frame, though: Edward suffers from an increased shortness of breath and a nagging little cough. Without the irritant of Eleanor's presence he becomes calmer; the need to be watchful and alert is no longer necessary.
He finds that he can tell Blaise a little about the camp but he knows that Blaise will never be able to understand the truth of it. Only those who have suffered the isolation of being utterly abandoned, locked in a bitter minute-to-minute struggle for basic survival, humiliated and degraded at every opportunity, could ever really understand. Even Blaise, who has a great capacity for entering into someone else's suffering, can only partly connect here.
'When the Americans rescued us,' Edward says, 'they were so appalled by what they found that they wanted to wreak terrible retribution. They couldn't understand that, after three years of being subjected to the most brutal violence and callous, inhuman indifference, we were far beyond the ordinary, honest, straightforward hatred that can find relief in simple revenge. Our hatred was woven into the very stuff of ourselves; it was pure, and theirs seemed childish by comparison.'
Blaise listens, and sometimes Edward finds relief in talking, but generally he is content in letting the past be. He cannot forget, never that, but he can concentrate on other things. It is the same with Eleanor's defection: he is coming to terms with it in his own way. He and Blaise have talked about Michael, Blaise carefully explaining Michael's particular loss and loneliness without condoning his behaviour, and Edward is slowly attempting to exonerate his old friend. He cannot blot him out of his memory, Michael is too bound up in his whole past and in his happiest memories, so Edward must somehow learn to contain him without descending into madness at the thought of that final betrayal.
He can accept that Eleanor would have been the moving spirit in the affair – he remembers her ways of old – and he knows that their marriage would never have worked; yet this knowledge brings a different kind of despair. It seems odd, now, that she'd remained such a powerful force through those endless years in prison; something for which to survive. He'd lived for her – and when he'd got home he'd seen at once that she no longer wanted him; that he horrified and disgusted her.
Now he has nothing, he sometimes tells himself drearily. As soon as he thinks this, however, he reminds himself that it isn't true. He has Hester and Blaise, and the three of them are creating a small, safe world at Bridge House whilst the winter slowly passes.
Just before Christmas, Patricia and Nanny and the boys come for the day bringing presents. Patricia is shocked by Edward's appearance; so shocked that Hester realizes how hardened she has become to it. Patricia can barely keep the tears from brimming over each time she looks at her brother; Nanny is seized with rage at the treatment he has suffered and both of them are furious with Eleanor and Michael. Hester finds it difficult to deal with their reactions. She has managed to set aside these tragedies, to accept them as far as she is able, and she fears that their distress will simply upset Edward.
Blaise shields Edward from their shock and pity, joking with Nanny, sympathizing with Patricia in private, and playing with the boys. Watching him, Hester knows that she is in love with him and a tiny part of her is glad now that she was able to connect with Eleanor, however briefly or inadequately. She has begun to feel the terrible pangs of love: 'More like fangs,' she tells herself rather painfully, trying to laugh, wondering if there is any chance that he might feel the same way about her. Proximity has brought them close but he still behaves like the older cousin, or a very close, beloved friend, and there is nothing romantic in his approach to her.
'Thank God you've got Blaise,' Patricia says to her as they prepare the lunch together. 'But how will you manage when he's gone? Rob says that you must both come to us. It would be a squeeze but we'd cope somehow. We could sell this house and buy a bigger one. Oh, Hester, the poor darling. Isn't it terrible?' and she begins to weep again whilst Hester pats her on the back and mutters helplessly.
'Where did Lucy go?' Jack asks Hester when they are alone. He has been told that he mustn't mention her or Michael or Eleanor in front of Edward, and that she won't be coming back.
'She's with her father,' Hester tells him, 'in London,' and then wonders if this is true.
'I've got a Christmas card for her,' says Jack. 'Only Mummy doesn't know where to send it. Will you send it for me?'
'I'll try,' promises Hester. 'I don't quite know where they are living just at the moment but I'll find out if I can. Do you want to leave it with me?'
'As long as you send it,' says Jack belligerently. He misses Lucy and is genuinely upset that he doesn't know where she is. 'I promised I'd come back to see her, you see. I promised. Her doll's pram is still in the shed.'
'Oh, darling, I know it is. It wouldn't go in the car, you see. I promise I'll find out where she is,' Hester tells him, giving him a hug. She puts the card on the dresser and the next day she puts it into a larger envelope, along with her own cards and a letter to Lucy and another to Michael, which ends 'Please let me know how you all are', and posts it to Michael's London address having printed 'PLEASE FORWARD' on the envelope.
A few days after the visit she receives a brief note from Eleanor; it has no address.
Dear Hes,
I have some bad news. Mike was killed last week, blown up by one of those bloody UXBs. I can hardly take it in and I feel in some way we've been punished for what we did to Edward. Anyway, I thought you ought to know. Lucy has been with Mike's old aunt down in Chichester ever since we left you and as far as I know she's fine. Mike's
CO went down to see them, which was very decent of him. I didn't think they'd appreciate a visit from me!!!
My news is that I'm off to America with a girl I was at school with. Her father is an American, mother English, and she's decided to go home for a while. I'm going with her as a kind of paid companion, anything to get away from this dreary country. My parents have rather written me off, they can't really cope with me at all, but you could reach me through them if you need to. I hope Edward has recovered and I'm sorry, Hes, I really am. I don't suppose you'll want to hear from me again so I suppose I ought to tell you that I tell everyone that I'm a war widow. I move in different circles since Edward and I were together so it answers all the problems. Leila and her brother are being very kind and I'm looking forward to a new life 'Stateside'.
Good luck, Hes,
Eleanor
Hester's first thought is for Lucy: now she has lost everything. She wonders what she can do – if anything – and decides that it might unsettle Lucy if she should write to her. Perhaps she is trying to forget the unhappy memories that can only be revived if she, Hester, should get in touch again. Perhaps she should wait and see if Lucy responds in some way to the letter and the Christmas cards; no doubt her Aunt Mary will help her to decide what she should do. Poor, poor little Lucy, how she must miss her father.
Hester sits for some time in silence, mourning Michael and regretting him, and thinking of Eleanor with a kind of admiration. She can't help wondering how much Leila's brother is involved in the move to America. When Blaise finds her still sitting holding the letter, he sits down beside her and takes her hand.
'The thing is,' she tells him, turning the letter over and over, 'I have the feeling that we lost Michael on that awful evening. He looked . . .' She hesitates, searching for a word. 'He looked utterly wretched, rather like Edward looked when he first came home. As if he was in some foreign place where nobody understood him any longer and where he'd utterly lost his bearings. Edward was astounded by the amount of food we had, even though we're still rationed, and the fact that he had clean clothes and sheets. Things like that. Those three years in the camp had completely disorientated him. Well, Michael looked like that on the last night. I shall never forget the way he went rushing out over the bridge to get help and, when we brought him back, it was as if something had broken.'
Memories Of The Storm Page 18
