Letter To My Love

by Elizabeth Cadell

  There was a pause; food was laid before them, wine was brought and tested and approved.

  “Eat,” he advised. “It’s all good, and you’ll need your strength.” He looked keenly at her, his fork suspended. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “what I thought was a lack of passion was only a lack of pity.”

  “If you have to pity your husband, what does that make him?”

  Richard frowned.

  “You paid for a lion, didn’t you?” he said. “And you couldn’t, you wouldn’t believe they’d sold you a rabbit. Roar, damn you, roar, you said to him. And so I sit here with you, enjoying your beauty, while he pines for you, waits for you in his airless little flat. You wanted your lion to go down to his home when his mother died, and deal adequately with the mess she left. You wouldn’t help him because you were afraid that people would think you were the pushing type. Why, instead of thinking about yourself, didn’t you go down with him and—just for a start—send for a taxi and get rid of my sister?”

  “Several taxis.”

  “Quite so. Grant knew how deeply dug in she was; you didn’t. He knew something else that you didn’t know: that Lotty doesn’t do anything until she has to; he knew that getting her out would mean more or less dynamiting her out. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to do it. He’s fond of Lotty—as far as anybody can be fond of someone who lives in a separate world. I only saw her come down to earth once, and that was when she fell in love. He died, and she went away again and stayed away.”

  “Was that letter from him?” she asked. “The one she lost.”

  “It was.”

  “Is it so important—an old love-letter?”

  “This one was-is.”

  “You lied about it, didn’t you?”

  He hesitated.

  “Are you side-tracking?” he asked.

  “Not really. Everything you’ve been saying suggests that you think that you and I could have formed a sort of help-Grant club all on our own. If you begin by lying, by being proved a liar…”

  “Go on,” he urged gently. “Go on and say it. People who tell lies are what you’ve just called them—liars. The word’s ugly, the deed’s ugly, but if it’s a fact you’re faced with, you’ve got to call it what it is. You’ve been afraid, right from the start, of calling Grant weak. You’ve made excuses for his hesitations, not out of pity, but because you were afraid of the word vacillating. Why? Grant’s not weaker than a million good husbands and fathers. He’s not weak physically or intellectually or even morally, except in the sword-and-spear, bow-and-arrow, bluster-and-bravado department. Are you in love with him, Grant, or with someone you saw on television riding a great, big horse who looked just like him? Is weakness a drawback? If you married me, instead of the weak and gentle Grant, could you really stand up to it? Could you? I’m strong in the way you want Grant to be strong, and from the moment I saw you sitting up in bed, all ruffles and lace and white throat and other things we needn’t go into, I fell crazily and very strongly in love with you. Married to a man like me, could you stand up to having that maddening, cool marble surface peeled off, chipped off, night after beautiful night? Burnt off? No, marble wouldn’t burn. But then, is it marble? Grant must be wondering at this moment. Claire — dear, beautiful, utterly misguided Claire—will you go to him? Will you take him in your smooth arms and let his poor tired, aching head rest on your compassionate breast and give him strength, if you have any strength? Will you? Will you put him out of his misery and marry him and love and cherish him and also lift all his loads on to your shapely shoulders? Will you?”

  There was a long, unbroken silence. The waiter brought fruit, coffee, a bill; mechanically, Richard placed money on the plate. It was taken away and they were left with their eyes on one another, still silent.

  “Say something,” he said abruptly at last.

  “Tell me something,” she countered. “Why should a woman leave a sheltered home, and peace and safety, unless she can be assured of getting, not giving, support and protection? You talk about strength; you explained that Grant had to learn how to be strong. Perhaps I have to learn, too. You’ve seen the problem from his point of view; now look at mine. I met and loved Grant. I don’t, didn’t mind whether he was unduly strong or not, because most ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, have more or less ordinary problems to confront. Barring accidents, barring tragedy, they can get along. But I found that Grant’s problems weren’t ordinary ones. I found that his mother was violent and revengeful, the house he loved so much was full of secrets. There was a mystery—a letter. You called that a side-track, but it was filling Grant’s mind, and Mrs. Peel’s. You were asked about it; you’ve just admitted lying.”

  “Haven’t you ever told a lie? If you haven’t, you’ve missed a lot. Lies are stimulating things; when you tell them, you don’t know whether you’ve pulled it off, or whether you haven’t; whether they’ve been swallowed and you’re safe, or not swallowed, leaving you with one more sin added to your original one. You ought to try it—on your own father, perhaps. ‘Where have you been, daughter?’ ‘Nowhere, father.’ ‘Not out to lunch with a man who told you he loved you?’ ‘No, father.’ ”

  “Why did you lie?”

  “Because the letter wasn’t your business, or Mrs. Peel’s business, or even my business. It was purely Lotty’s business. But you overheard our conversation, or part of it, and you saw me looking for the letter, and ever since then you’ve marked me down as a villain, and you’ve been going round like that silly little Jane Austen heroine who’d been reading heady melodrama and saw villains every way she looked. What am I to do with you?”

  “You could take me home.”

  He took her home, and Mrs Marston, coming in from the garden, met them on the drive.

  “It wasn’t,” Richard told her, “a success.”

  “I didn’t think it would be,” she said with composure. “If you had stopped to ask my advice, I would have told you that Claire is in many ways like her father, and has a way of pretending that troublesome things aren’t there. I find it very restful. Will you stay to tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve got some things to do—one of them being to visit a place you know well—the hospital at Gisborough.”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “You know somebody there?” Mrs. Marston asked.

  “My old nurse. My sister’s old nurse. Name of Corinne Remington—half French, like myself. I wondered why I hadn’t heard from her for so long, but I assumed my sister was in touch. When Claire asked about an old lady in hospital, I didn’t realize, until I talked to Lotty, that it might be Corinne. I looked her up — she lives in a village called Hurston—and found she’d had a stroke and been taken to Gisborough. Is it unethical to tell me how she is?”

  “She’s much better.”

  “Good. I’m looking in this evening.”

  When he had driven away, Claire turned to her stepmother.

  “Why didn’t you tell him he wouldn’t get in?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Did you expect me to?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Mrs. Marston replied. “But in your place, I would have said something, and I would have said it before now.”

  “To warn him?”

  “No. To find out the truth. He looked for a letter, and there’s one at the hospital. If he’s a liar and a frightener of a defenceless old woman, you ought to know before you go out to a friendly lunch with him.”

  They turned and walked to the house together.

  “Do you,” Claire asked, “like him?”

  “Like? Liking him is easy; he’s got all the charm in the world. But…”

  “But you wouldn’t trust him?”

  The answer was long in coming, and Claire became aware that a great deal hung upon it. When it came, it was not a direct answer.

  “If I were you,” her stepmother said quietly, “I would keep away from him.”

  Chapter 7

  Keeping away w
as advice which Claire felt would have been more usefully addressed to Richard Tennant, for before the next morning was half spent, his car entered the drive and came to rest behind the large hired Daimler in which Netta and Ettie had arrived for a day’s visit to their brother. Claire, engaged in getting the two old ladies out of the car and up the steps, found him taking one on each arm and making slow but stately progress towards the drawing-room, Ettie clearly enjoying making her entry on a strong young man’s arm.

  “Did I,” she asked him, "know your grandfather?”

  “I hope you knew both of them,” Richard said. “One was French and the other was English.”

  “Dear me; wasn’t that rather confusing?”

  “Not very. One just had to remember which language one had to speak, that was all.”

  “I was always very good at languages,” Ettie told him, on their arrival in the drawing-room. “I think I should have taken them up.”

  The sisters were placed in comfortable chairs; wine and biscuits were brought in and Richard served the old ladies as though they belonged to him.

  “This is very pleasant indeed,” Ettie said. “And so nice for poor Claire to be taken out of herself.”

  “Why should Claire,” inquired Netta sharply, “require taking out of herself?”

  “That horrid business,” Ettie replied, in an aside. “Did you,” she asked Claire, “ever discover what became of that young man?”

  “He’s in London and he and Claire are going to be married soon,” said Netta. “I wish you’d keep your wits about you, Ettie. Sometimes I think—”

  Nobody knew what she thought, for Mrs. Marston had risen and was waiting to conduct her to her brother’s room; Mr. Marston had lately begun to feel that he was unable to cope with both sisters simultaneously. Ettie watched them go with obvious relief, and then settled down for a chat.

  “You mustn’t misunderstand your aunt Netta,” she said to Claire. “It’s just that she’s beginning to mix up things. Especially when we’re in this house. My sister and I,” she informed Richard, “were born and brought up here.”

  “It’s a beautiful house,” he said.

  “Yes. And so prettily got up. My sister Netta, you know, was married from here, I can’t tell you exactly how many years ago. They made an extremely handsome couple—he was a soldier or a sailor, I forget which, and there were a great many guests, and two marquees, and I was one of the bridesmaids and we wore blue. I do hope Claire will have pretty bridesmaids—they do make a wedding, I always think. The presents were put into the dining-room and there was a policeman to see that nobody . . . well, touched them. They dressed him up to look like everybody else, and he pretended to be admiring the things. And Claire’s father was a little page.”

  “A page!” Richard echoed in pardonable surprise.

  “Yes; he was a good deal younger than we were. Netta was only nineteen; I was a year younger but Claire’s father — or perhaps, as he wasn’t her father then, I should say my brother—was only two, and looked like an angel. He was dressed as a soldier or a sailor, I forget which. And then Netta went off and everybody said I would be next, but I wasn’t; I stayed at home, like Claire, and then Netta’s husband died and she came back again. It was very convenient, because she was able, later on, to help me to look after my brother until he married.”

  “But he,” Richard prompted, “wouldn’t have married here.”

  “Oh dear me, no. His wife’s home was about fifteen miles away. Not as pretty a setting as Hallowes for a wedding. We drove over there with my brother and then they went on a honeymoon to Corsica—no, that was where Netta went. I think Claire’s father went somewhere quite near, on account of his health. Hasn’t Claire ever shown you old photographs of her parents?”

  “No.”

  “You must let him see them, Claire. He really was . . . well, you could really have called him a beautiful young man. Spiritual, they used to say. We were a very good-looking family, though perhaps it sounds vain to say so. I was always told that I had a great look of the Queen.”

  She paused, but nobody asked which Queen. “Some people,” she went on, “called me a flirt, but they were wrong. A flirt is a young woman who makes advances, and I never did anything of the sort. Perhaps Netta was right when she said I encouraged Captain Sayers, but then there was some excuse; he was not only exceedingly handsome and distinguished, but he was a hero.”

  “V.C.?” Richard suggested respectfully.

  “No, it wasn’t a war. He dashed out into the road and stopped an omnibus when the horses had bolted. I still have the newspaper account.”

  There was a pause; Ettie seemed to come back to the present, and remember that she was no longer young and flirtatious, and did not resemble the Queen.

  “I’ve talked far too much,” she said. "That’s something that happens to you when you grow old—you talk too much because the past seems so much nicer than the present. I wouldn’t care to be young today.”

  “Why not?” Richard asked.

  “Because it’s almost impossible to get across a road, for one thing. And at concerts, they play music one simply cannot understand. And painting isn’t an art any more; it’s a hobby. And if you haven’t grown up with an understanding of science, you can’t follow all the new wonders they keep discovering. When I was young and went to the circus, I used to see the men who were blown out of the cannon, but I didn’t dream that in my lifetime, they’d blow them right round the moon. But you,” she told them both, “quite rightly like things the way they are. Now run along and enjoy yourselves and don’t waste any more time indoors.”

  Claire hesitated. Something told her that if she did not go out, it would be extremely difficult to make Richard go away. He had assumed a bland, one-of-the-family manner which had clearly been accepted by Netta and Ettie. There was nothing to choose between giving in to high-handed behaviour, and passing yet another long, slow day with her father and her aunts, leaving them together for not too long, arranging their afternoon and amusing them through the interminable interval between tea and an early dinner.

  “Come out and lunch with me,” she heard Richard saying.

  “Yes, go, Claire. Your aunt Netta and I will be perfectly happy talking to your father. Run along.”

  Claire went, but only in search of her stepmother. She waylaid her on her way back from Mr. Marston’s room, and put the problem before her.

  “He wants me to go out to lunch. If I don’t go, it won’t be easy to get rid of him.”

  “I can see that. But if you’d like me to—”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because coming up to look for you just now, I had a rather peculiar feeling of . . . freedom. Ever since my mother died, I’ve had to stay in and look after visitors—especially Netta and Ettie. But now—there’s you. I don’t have to stay here; I can go out and leave everything—and that includes Father—to you. I’m free.” She held out a ringless hand. “See? Even free, for today, from Grant. I’m not trying to say that I’ve been tied unwillingly to anything—but I have been tied, and today I’m not. It’s a good feeling. I don’t only feel free, I feel rather reckless. I don’t know very much about Richard, but where’s the harm in going out with him? Should I go?”

  Her stepmother’s eyes took in a good deal that Claire had no idea was open to the keen, professional scrutiny.

  “Why not?” she said at last. “You haven’t any more heavy duties as a daughter, and you haven’t yet assumed the duties of a wife; I’d rather you went out feeling free than feeling reckless, but there is nothing to keep you at home today.”

  Claire went out to the car with Richard, and he drove for a time in silence; they were going towards the coast, but she did not know where, and decided not to ask.

  “Your aunts,” he said at last, “are rather other-worldly.”

  “Only one.”

  “Did you grow up with the ghosts?”

  “No. They’ve been appearing qu
ite recently, since Aunt Ettie’s memory began to get shaky. It isn’t often she can create the atmosphere she created just now, because Netta pulls her up.”

  “Pulls her back. I wonder whether I’ll sound three hundred years old when I tell my grandchildren little titbits of my life history? I suppose so. Will I ask them quaveringly to drive more carefully—in their space ships? Did the oncoming generation always leave the last one so far behind? Will we—you and I—appear as unreal as Ettie when we’re her age?”

  “We shall know—when we’re her age. I’m glad you liked her.”

  “Liked? I could sit at her feet, listening, all day.” He glanced at her. “Your aunts and your father . . . make it easier to understand you. They account for your air. Did you know that you had an air?”

  “I’d hate to think I had.”

  “I don’t mean a proud air. Just an air; just a slight don’t-touch look. Tell me,” he invited, “about your life.”

  “You didn’t come down today to hear about my life.”

  “No, but what I’ve got to say can wait. When I arrived at your house, it seemed urgent and almost desperate; perhaps Ettie put it into better perspective. You were born—?”

  “At Hallowes.”

  “Well, go on.”

  “A governess until I was eight.”

  “They still exist?”

  “This one did. I called her Miss Wood, but I gathered, I don’t quite know how, that she had been married and that it had been a mistake. Then she went away and I went to school. And then Aunt Ettie took me abroad; it was the last time she ever travelled far, and she looked as though she wouldn’t survive the Channel crossing, but we were away for eight months and it was wonderful. Except in the evening, when she used to discourage strangers from joining us.”

  “Don’t tell me you encouraged strangers?”

  “I longed to encourage some of them. We used to dine out on the most heavenly terraces—not actually in Rome or Paris or Florence or Venice, but little places, little quiet, safe, well-recommended places just outside. After dinner, there might be music or even dancing, but at that stage, Aunt Ettie had to go to bed.”