“You could. I couldn’t. You’ve forgotten,” she reminded him coldly, “that I’m staying with my aunts.”
This time, her tone penetrated his consciousness and he looked across at her with an uneasy frown.
“What’s the matter? You sound . . . you don’t sound very pleased.”
“About meeting Richard? Or at the thought that between Friday and Monday, he’s going to clear up all your problems?”
“Look, Claire, if you’ll just wait and—”
“If you use the word wait again,” she told him in an even tone, “I’ll get up and go home. Without you. I’ve waited for more than three months. I’ve waited for you to get over your mother’s death, and your mother’s Will, and I’ve waited for you to stop brooding and I’ve waited for you to turn back into the kind of man you were before your mother died. I’ve waited for you to stop worrying about your own problems and to start worrying about mine. The only thing, the only person I ever thought would hold up our wedding was my father; at first, it didn’t look as if I would be able to leave him. But my stepmother appeared, and I was free, and if anybody had told me that months later I’d still be waiting to get married without being able to explain exactly to anybody why I wasn’t already married, I would have thought they were crazy. And if anybody had told me that what I was really waiting for was my fiancé’s stepbrother, I would have thought they were even crazier. Waiting for you to make up your mind was one thing. Waiting for you while you’re waiting for Richard Tennant to make up your mind for you is another. You can go down to Spenders on Friday and you can get there in time for lunch and you can tell me, when you come back, exactly what Richard Tennant has decided—for you and for me. I’ve waited so long that I can wait for that too.”
She stopped. She felt very much better—and, suddenly, very hungry. She gave her undivided attention to her food, pleased at the thought that she had put Grant off his.
“There’s no need to go off the handle,” he said at last.
“That’s what you think,” Claire told him. “All that time, while I was waiting for you to make up your mind, it never once occurred to me that you mightn’t have a mind of your own to make up. What did you do before Richard Tennant came into your life?”
“You don’t understand. I—”
“You asked him to come to England once before, and he didn’t come because it probably didn’t suit him to come. Now he can fit you in between sessions with his London branch.”
“Is there any harm in wanting advice from someone you like, someone who knows the . . . the set-up, who knows me, who knows the house, who knows Mrs. Peel; who’s Lolly's brother?”
“Yes, there is—if you can’t get on without their advice. The truth is that you don’t want him to advise you; you want him to take the whole thing out of your hands and hand it back again nicely wrapped up. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I want him to…to pull things together.”
The simple confession disarmed her. It was the truth, and he was prepared to voice it. Suddenly, her anger left her. She had tried to help him, but she was in one way a stranger—she knew little of his home, of his background, of his relations. He had wanted to take the problem to somebody who would understand more about it than she could.
And abusing him, she realized, would get neither of them anywhere. If he needed a support, the best thing she could do was to prop him up against one. If he couldn’t find his way out of this impasse without guidance from Richard Tennant, the best thing for everybody would be to get the two of them together with as little delay as possible. If Richard Tennant could fix the date of her wedding, let him fix it.
Grant was watching her, his face drawn with anxiety.
“I know it means taking you away from your aunts—but it’s only for a week-end. Please Claire. Friday to Monday. Will you come?”
There was a pause before she spoke.
“Yes, I’ll come,” she said, and did not ask whether three days would be enough for Richard Tennant to pull things together.
Chapter 2
Netta was not pleased to hear that her niece intended to rob her of three days out of a ten-day visit, but as it seemed to mark a further stage in the preparations for the wedding, she could not make too many protests. Ettie was not greatly affected by three days more or less; she loved her niece, but she was living in a happy land in which all her old friends made frequent appearances and took her back to the days when she was young and carefree.
The weather was so perfect that Grant rang up on Friday morning to suggest changing their plan of getting to Spenders in time for lunch; this was picnic weather.
“A picnic!” said Ettie joyfully when Claire asked for sandwiches. “How we used to love picnics!”
“Just a few sandwiches,” said Claire. “Ham, perhaps.”
“Not sandwiches,” Netta ruled. “We never took sandwiches. The best thing is a cold chicken pie.”
“There won’t be time—”
“I shall go and help in the kitchen,” Netta said. “Some sausage rolls, too. And you must take some hard-boiled eggs.”
“And some salt,” said Ettie. “That little shop a few doors away sells delicious chicken patties; I shall go now and get some.”
“You’ll need cheese,” Netta said. “Get some Gorgonzola, Ettie, while you’re out. And don’t attempt to carry the things back by yourself; bring the little boy.”
“You’re very kind,” Claire said, “but honestly, all we need is—”
“If they’ve got any freshly-made liver pâte,” Netta called after Ettie, “buy some—but not if it’s yesterday’s.”
In the kitchen, baskets were filled with Ettie’s purchases, and with the cook’s contributions. There was also a mixed salad, biscuits, large slices of fruit cake, a bottle of wine and a flask of hot coffee.
Grant carried everything to the car without comment, merely exchanging with Claire an indulgent lift of the eyebrows. As they said good-bye to the two old ladies, the sun disappeared; they drove away to a roll of thunder and ate their lunch shut inside the car while torrents of rain streamed down the windows.
“Why did you let them prepare all this stuff just for two people?” Grant asked.
“It isn’t a case of letting or not letting. If they get an idea that something’s the right thing to do, they do it. This is what they always took on picnics, so this is what we take on picnics.”
“I see. What was Aunt Netta’s husband like?”
“As far as I can gather, he was handsome, rich, and did everything Netta told him to do. The perfect husband—for Netta.”
He laughed, and the sound, nowadays, was so rare that she looked at him in surprise.
“So you can,” she said.
“Can what?”
“Laugh.”
He arrested her hand on its way with some food to her lips, and leaned over to kiss her.
“I’ll make it up to you one day,” he promised.
“One day won’t be enough. You owe me three good months. Was this picnic,” she asked, at another peal of thunder, “your idea?”
“Richard said it would rain. I rang his hotel before I left—he’d just arrived. He sent you his love. You’ll like him, Claire.”
She could not deny that he had a tonic effect on Grant. It would not greatly matter, she thought, whether she liked or disliked him; if she didn’t, she would remind herself that tonics sometimes contained a proportion of poison.
“Why are you so sure I’ll like him?” she asked. “Your mother didn’t.”
“No,” he admitted, “she didn’t. There was war between them from the very beginning.”
“Why?”
“They got on one another’s nerves, I suppose. Or perhaps he was at the wrong age when my mother married his father. He was doing a short spell at the London branch of his firm and my mother asked him to treat Spenders as his home. So he did. He didn’t live there, as I did; he lived in London, but he had a room at home and he used to
come down for week-ends—and every time he came down, he brought a girl. A different girl each time. My mother was…well, she was a bit of a Puritan. Strait-laced, if you like. What with the girls, and Richard’s insistence on saying embarrassing things out loud….”
He paused, staring out at the rain and recalling the past.
“Go on,” she prompted.
“Things went wrong from the word Go. He didn’t know his way round the house, and he barged into my mother’s room by mistake and found her a bit airily attired. It didn’t make it any better to stop to explain, as he did, that she wasn’t showing anything he hadn’t seen before.”
He smiled. “What with one thing and another, things were too lively.”
“What about Lotty?”
“That was quite different. From the beginning, my mother took to her. So much so, that she went to work trying to marry us off. But the thing didn’t, as it were, take, and so she did her best to marry off Lotty and my cousin Geoffrey Summerhill. His parents were dead, and he’d spent more time with us than with anyone else, and my mother thought the world of him; as well as being her nephew, he was her godson.”
“And that did take?”
“Not at first. Then Lotty’s father died, and Lotty went over to stay for a time with Richard, who’d gone back to Paris. I don’t think she would ever have come back if Geoff hadn’t gone over there to see her, and persuaded her to marry him. They were married in Paris, but they didn’t tell my mother anything about it until they came home a couple of months later. I expected her to be angry, but she wasn’t. They agreed to live with her, and they were there when Geoff died—but by that time, Paul was born and my mother wouldn’t dream of letting him out of her sight.”
“Could Lotty have afforded to go away? I mean, did she have enough to live on?”
“Yes. Geoff left her a sizeable income.” He hesitated. “Not enough, of course, to live as comfortably as she does at Spenders. Besides which it was pretty certain that my mother would take care of all Paul’s expenses if she stayed on. So she stayed on.”
“And on and on. If Richard goes back to live in France, will she go with him?”
“I don’t know. I think she’d like to go back—but with Lotty, you’re never sure. She doesn’t say much. In a way, it’s a pity I didn’t take you down to Spenders with me that last week-end. I wish I had.”
“I couldn’t have gone,” Claire pointed out. “The whole idea was for you to go down and break the news of our engagement to your mother.”
“Richard came over to meet you. But you weren’t there, and he walked straight into a big row with my mother, and left the house and went over to Switzerland. And … ”
“And the next day, your mother died. Do you ever wonder if the row that Richard had with her had anything to do with her change of Will?”
“The row was routine. He didn’t tell me what it was about, but they couldn’t meet without clashing.”
“Did your news upset her?”
“No. It made her very happy. She wanted me to marry.”
The rain had stopped. A gleam of sunshine appeared, and Claire began to pack the remains of the food into the baskets. By the time she had finished, warmth was flooding the car. She leaned back and basked in it, and spoke lazily to Grant.
“Did you want your mother to marry Lotty and Richard’s father?”
“I didn’t know much about it until it was almost a fact—although they met through me.”
“When, and where?”
“Surely I’ve told you before?”
“No. You may have thought you’d told me—but getting anything out of you takes time and trouble. You’re not,” she informed him, “by any stretch of the imagination a raconteur. When and where did your mother meet Richard and Lotty’s father?”
“In France. I was over there with a group of chaps from Oxford; we were doing a tour of Roman France. Richard and Lotty were driving round Roman France too. We more or less did it together—the fellows I was with, after one look, all fell madly in love with Lotty. I don’t know why I didn’t; I think I was going through a studious phase.”
“And then?”
“Well, that was about all. We all finished up in Paris. I’d persuaded my mother to come over and meet me there, she hated travelling, but she came. Richard’s father came up from Poitiers, where they lived, and we all saw a good bit of one another. We weren’t at the same hotel, but we were together most of the time. Then we separated, and the next thing wasn’t until a couple of months later, when my mother told me that Lotty and Richard Tennant’s father was in England, and she’d asked him down to Spenders. It was all very friendly, but it never occurred to me that they’d marry. I suppose it should have done; she wasn’t young, and neither was he, but they were both very good-looking. So that was that. He only lived about a year after they were married.”
“Did you like him?”
“Yes. Everybody got on well—except Richard and my mother. And Corinne and my mother.”
“Corinne?”
“She was an old nurse of Richard and Lotty’s—like them, half French. She was about sixty, but she’d had a hard life and looked much more. She and my mother fell out over Lotty. My mother wanted Lotty to marry Geoff Summerhill and stay in England; Corinne wanted Lotty to go back to France. Soon after Lotty’s father died, my mother got rid of Corinne. Without her, and without Richard, things were peaceful. This will be the first time Richard has ever been at Spenders without my mother.”
“Does Mrs. Peel like him?”
He hesitated.
“It’s hard to say. She never liked having him in the house, because she knew it meant trouble. I suppose you’ve got to remember that my mother wasn’t easy to live with at any time. She had a very violent temper. But I think you and she would have got on well together. Or perhaps not. Because she loved Spenders and you . . . you didn’t like the house much, did you?”
There were times, she decided, when honesty was not good policy.
“I went to a funeral,” she reminded him. “It was snowing. It was foggy.”
“Yes. But I suppose when you compare it with your house it might give an impression of being . . . rather sombre.”
Claire thought it safer not to pursue the subject. The house at Hallowes stood on a headland and commanded a sweeping view of the sea. Tall trees and a high wall broke the force of the winds from the north, but on the other three sides the wide windows of the house looked out on to water. Beyond the wide terraces and flagged paths was the cliff edge, and below it, a jungle of rock and boulder that tumbled to a golden circle of sand and ringed it round protectively. Access to the little beach from neighbouring bays was difficult and dangerous, so that the Marstons enjoyed the rare privilege of a private beach, or at least a bathing-place free from intrusion. In summer, the lap of water, the gentle rise and splash and seethe among the rocks was like a melody repeated with infinite variations; in winter, the house, solid and secure, met and withstood the rush of winds and remained undisturbed by the roar and fury of the sea. Edwin Marston, averse if not allergic to disturbances within the house, had from babyhood been lulled to sleep by savage storms which would have shattered less accustomed ears.
Inside the house, the walls, the carpets and curtains reflected the light and spaciousness that surrounded it. Nothing in its airy beauty could be compared with the squat, shut-in building at Spenders, but Claire was prepared to believe that being born and brought up in a place might blind one to its shortcomings; there were people—and the late Mrs. Tennant would probably have been numbered among them—who thought that the house at Hallowes was far too exposed, too unsheltered, fit only for coastguards or seamen.
When, during the afternoon, they arrived at Spenders, Claire thought that the house had lost none of its unwelcoming look. The trees round it had turned from brown to green, but their freshness did not extend to the drab building. Spring was to be seen, however, in Mrs. Peel’s manner and appearance as she hurried out
to greet them. Seen last by Claire in heavy black, today she wore a brown tweed skirt, a shapeless red woollen sweater and a small straw hat with an upturned brim that recalled one of Nelson’s sailors. The mixture of the likeable and the ludicrous, which had struck Claire at their first meeting, was now more than confirmed: the huge, barrel-like body was set on a pair of thin, spindly legs; her skirt was tight-fitting, her bosom bobbing and unconfined. She had a large, red, coarse face that could have belonged to a Hogarth figure, but under the ridiculous hat, her sparse grey hair was gathered into a tight, neat, austere bun. Kind blue eyes peered out of the rolls of flesh and fixed themselves on Claire.
“Well, well, well, this is a pleasure!” Her voice was brisk and pleasant. “Come along in, my dears. No; perhaps you’d better take the car round to the garage first, Grant.”
He put the suitcases in the hall and bent to kiss her cheek.
“How about meeting Richard at the station?” he asked.
“Richard’s driving; he’s hired a car. He rang Lotty up at midday and said he’d be here about six.”
“Where’s Lotty?”
“Out with the dogs. Ronnie Pierce has a pup of sorts he wants to give Paul; she went over to look at it. ‘That’ll make five’, I said to her, but you never know whether she’s listening or not. ‘Pierre’s a gardener, not a menagerie keeper,’ I said. While you’re down at the garage, Grant, have a word with him. It’s been a long time. Oh”—she halted him as he was about to drive away—“I’ve changed the rooms round; I thought it best.”
Letter To My Love Page 3
