In This Quiet Earth (Part Three of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  There was no doubt that Owen looked very good in evening dress, she thought, gazing at him critically: crisp white shirt, black studs down the front, winged collar, neatly tied bow-tie.

  It was not that he looked distinguished. He could have passed as the maître d’hôtel, or some hotel functionary with his waxed moustaches and the carefully combed strands of hair plastered across his bald pate. He looked like someone in trade rather than a member of the professional or leisured classes; but at her age she couldn’t be too choosy, and there was no doubt he had the money. He didn’t spend it like water, but you could tell it was there. He was sybaritic rather than cultured and didn’t like art galleries, historic monuments or churches, but then neither did she.

  That much she had discovered in the course of her continental sojourn. They were two of a kind. They liked travel and the things that money could bring including good food, good wine and the comforts of first class hotels. They liked spectacular sights like the Alps, deep gorges and the broad sweep of the bay at Cannes. Things you could gaze at, admire, and then pass on.

  Owen escorted her through the lobby of the hotel which was thronged with people on their way in to dine or emerging from the dining room. Except for new arrivals checking in at the desk they were mostly in evening dress either going perhaps to the opera, a music hall or to some nightclub for drinking and dancing. Or, perhaps, some too were out for a stroll and a coffee and brandy at one of the boulevard cafés.

  They reached the impressive carriage entrance to the hotel in the Rue Scribe where vehicles of all descriptions were jostling for position, either entering or leaving. The doorman asked if he should call them a cab, but Owen shook his head.

  “Warm enough, my dear?” He looked solicitously at her.

  “Plenty warm enough,” Agnes said pulling her stole around her shoulders. In fact she was a little chilly, but instinct told her that Owen had something to say and she didn’t want to do anything to interrupt the moment.

  Some moments, once interrupted, never occurred again.

  He took her arm and they strolled along the brightly lit Avenue de l’Opéra, bustling with the flotsam and jetsam of humanity. There were couples like themselves clearly bent on pleasure, dressed for the opera or the theatre, the men with starched white fronts, the women with ornate coiffures, fur stoles draped over couture evening dresses. Horse-drawn carriages still fought with automobiles along the busy street. A drunk waved a bottle at them through the window of a cab, until an unseen companion drew him back out of sight.

  Vendors of all kinds ran among them hawking their wares: papers; elaborately packaged bonbons tied with bright ribbon; cheap souvenirs of Paris; glittering Eiffel Towers and models of Notre Dame. On a street corner an accordionist played listlessly while a tired little monkey on a string perched on his shoulder rubbed its eyes. A lone singer, not young, warbled a current popular number holding out a plate to all those who passed, her eyes desperate.

  Ladies of the night walked by, their bright, darting eyes ever alert for clients and, when successful, they separated wordlessly from their female companion, linked arms with their customer and disappeared into the warren of small streets that ran through Paris like little capillaries joining up the main arteries.

  They passed the garden of the Tuileries and strolled along the quay in the dark shadow of the Louvre until they reached the Pont Neuf. In front of them rose the massively forbidding Conciergerie, the tall spire of the exquisite Sainte Chapelle.

  They crossed to the middle of the bridge and gazed across at the Île de la Cité, and then down into the river twinkling with the lights of passing boats.

  The diamonds of the ring which Owen held towards her with his fingers sparkled in the romantic glow cast by the street lamps, and Agnes caught her breath as he held out his hand for hers and gently, carefully, ran the ring along her finger.

  “Yes,” she breathed, “yes.”

  Then, drawing close to her, he took her in his arms and sealed their troth with a practised kiss. No blushing teenager could have wished for a more romantic proposal.

  Chapter Five

  Lally Martyn, Carson’s aunt by marriage, had always been a great favourite of his. She was an astonishingly beautiful woman who in her youth had been a dancer. She had captivated his Uncle Prosper, his mother’s brother, then a wealthy man about town, who had first made her his mistress then married her. For a while they had been very happy even though Prosper was twenty years her senior and now in his eighties. The marriage however had been marred for Prosper by the couples’ inability to conceive a child, for which Lally had seemed to want to compensate by adopting unwanted orphans.

  The first was Roger who had been taken from a poor home in Kentish Town. He had been educated and groomed until he became a successful businessman and married a very beautiful woman called Emma. Carson had fallen in love with Emma, and their affair continued until the war in which Roger had been killed, during the third battle of Ypres, in 1917.

  The second orphan was Alexander who had been left on Lally’s doorstep in London in the year 1910. Her adoption of this foundling caused much friction between her and Prosper, and from then on they led increasingly separate lives, Lally at the house in Dorset and Prosper at the London house in Montague Square.

  It was very sad that such a love match should end this way, but there was no doubt that Prosper had been jealous and also found his wife’s predilection for orphan boys hard to understand.

  Carson had always considered Uncle Prosper stern, a strict disciplinarian who had little time for him when young. However, everyone loved Aunt Lally who was understanding, kind and gentle. Though now in her sixties, she still retained her beauty, her elegance, the graceful figure of a dancer. Her life had been completely shattered by Roger’s death and a melancholy had possessed her that was not there before.

  In the year since he’d been back, Carson had frequently been over to see Aunt Lally, to try to comfort her about Roger’s death. He was very fond of Alexander and, although her name was seldom mentioned, he always nursed the hope that one day he might see Emma again.

  Carson considered himself fortunate that, in his aunts Eliza and Lally, he had two women whom he not only loved but upon whom he depended as replacements for the mother he had lost when he was a young man.

  Lally lived in the house that Ryder Yetman had built for Julius Heering in 1894. It was a very beautiful house on which no expense had been spared and had incorporated in it all the most modern devices of the time. After Ryder’s death in an accident on the estate, Julius felt unable to live in the magnificent house which he had sold to his friend and business partner Prosper, who was a Dorset man.

  It was in a cottage on the estate that Carson had lived for a while after Agnes married his father, and it was a place for which he felt deep affection. It was also there that he had fallen in love with Emma.

  Carson rode through the gates of the house and, as he alighted from his horse the front door opened and Alexander, closely followed by Lally, sped out and hurled himself into Carson’s outstretched arms.

  He was now ten, a sturdy lad too tall to throw up in the air as Carson used to when he was a baby, but Carson hugged him for a brief moment and then, Alexander’s hand in his, he leaned forward to greet Lally, who gave him one of her soft, perfumed kisses. Always exquisitely turned out she could have stepped straight from a Mayfair drawing room. She kept her hair in the old-fashioned style she had worn before the war, swept up from the nape of her neck with bouncy little curls on top. She made no concessions to age and was as blonde as she had been as a girl. That and her cornflower blue eyes made her seem much younger than her sixty-one years.

  A groom appeared to take Carson’s horse, and the three of them then walked into the house, Alexander’s hand still in Carson’s, Lally’s arm through his.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure, Carson?” Lally enquired as they reached the drawing room, whose French windows were open to reveal an acre of rolling
lawn leading down to a lake.

  “I thought it was a long time since I was here,” Carson replied. “I should have rung.”

  “Not at all. I’m very glad you came. It is a long time since we saw you and we miss you, don’t we Alexander?”

  Alexander, his face still red with pleasure, grunted. He not only loved Carson; he hero-worshipped him and, as he grew bigger, he had followed all his exploits in the war with maps and charts as the British forces either advanced or retreated in the course of those four terrible years.

  “And how’s school?” Carson asked looking fondly down at him. Alexander shrugged.

  “No scholar I’m afraid,” Lally said, regret in her voice. “But he excels at sport. Like you.”

  Alexander blushed anew.

  “It’s great about the sport.” Carson got out a cigarette and lit it. “But you mustn’t neglect the studies. It’s very important in life, Alex, to have some scholarship. I would not have had quite such a misspent youth if I’d had more learning. We can’t all be saved by war.”

  “How do you mean ‘saved by war’?” Sounding puzzled, Alexander looked up at him.

  “Well, in the war I found myself as a person, as a man. I can’t quite explain but ...” Carson paused, seeking the right words, rubbed his cheek and then he looked up as the door silently swung open and a beautiful young woman, dressed entirely in black, stood there gazing solemnly at him.

  “Emma!” Carson gasped. “Aunt Lally you didn’t say ...”

  “You didn’t give me the opportunity.” Lally laughed awkwardly. “You were too busy talking about your misspent youth.”

  “Oh that,” Carson laughed dismissively and crossed the room towards Emma. She politely and with formality held out her hand.

  “How do you do, Carson?”

  “How do you do, Emma?” He gravely took her hand, as if she were a perfect stranger. “How long have you been here?”

  “A week,” Emma said with composure and, letting go his hand, walked into the room.

  “A week!”

  “I must order tea.” Lally, clearly flustered, signalled to Alexander who seemed unsure what to do.

  “Oh do let me come with you, Mother.” Emma hurried over to her but Lally held up her hand.

  “No, dear, there is nothing for you to do. You stay here and talk to Carson.” She put a hand on Alexander’s shoulder.

  “Darling, would you go and get chairs so that we can have tea in the garden? It’s such a lovely day.” Alexander sped off to do as he was told.

  After Lally and Alexander had gone Carson and Emma stood looking at each other. He felt very awkward but thought she seemed perfectly composed, detached.

  “So,” Carson nonchalantly relit his cigarette, “you have been here a week.”

  “Yes, and I may stay another.” Sounding offhand she walked over to the open French windows. “It really is very beautiful down here.”

  “Are you still living with your parents?” Carson walked slowly after her admiring the curve of her back, her beautiful legs encased in black silk stockings. Even the cut of her mourning dress was fashionable. Like her mother-in-law, her hair was very fair but her colour was natural and softly waved in a fashionable bob. One of the most glorious features of Emma was her skin which was practically translucent, and her deep, almost violet, blue eyes.

  “Yes.” She turned and gazed at him. “Daddy has been very ill.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And Mummy was very shocked at Roger’s death. We all were. Terribly.”

  “Yes.” Carson bowed his head. “It was very bad luck.” No one quite knew how he’d died except that it was near the Bremen Redoubt on or about August 1. “I’m very sorry.” Raising his head he was shocked to see on Emma’s face an expression of such hostility that one might have thought he, personally, was responsible for Roger’s death.

  “Emma ...” he gestured helplessly. “I still love you.”

  “Don’t even speak of it,” she snapped turning her back on him. “With Roger dead.”

  “But it wasn’t my fault and ... Emma you didn’t love him, you know you didn’t. You told me you didn’t. You loved me. Why pretend it wasn’t the case just because now Roger’s dead?”

  “How can you!” Emma rounded on him, her face contorted with anger. “How dare you speak like that!”

  “Because it’s true. You can’t change the past. I’m very sorry that Roger’s dead. Frankly it was the last thing I expected. I always thought he would survive. I don’t know why, but I did.”

  “I suppose you thought that if he died I would fall into your arms,” Emma said contemptuously.

  “I thought no such thing. That’s a dreadful thing to say. All I did say is that whether Roger had lived or died you and I might have had a future together after the war.”

  “Well, we haven’t,” she said.

  She then became extremely agitated and began wringing her hands, pacing backwards and forwards, her tone of voice hysterical as she burst out: “Carson you have no idea how guilty, how dreadful, I feel about Roger. It was a terrible thing to do to deceive him the way we did ...”

  “But Emma you had been married nearly two years and you were still a virgin. When you and I became lovers you were bitter and frustrated. You said it was awful to be with a man who could never love you as a woman ...”

  “That’s all in the past,” she said struggling to regain her composure. “Roger couldn’t help it, and it doesn’t make it any better for me. Before he went abroad he made up for it.”

  “Do you mean that before he went away ...” Carson drew in his breath. “Do you mean ...”

  “Before he went away we became lovers, and he loved me,” Emma said firmly. “It all came right, he was very tender with me and we looked forward to the future, to having children. And then ...” Suddenly she put her head in her hands and burst into tears. “I shall never, ever be able to live with the grief and despair I feel about Roger. The sense that I betrayed him. Why couldn’t it have been you who were killed, Carson, and Roger spared? I really feel now that I can’t stand the sight of you.”

  A few moments later when Lally reappeared she was surprised to see Emma on her own, apparently upset and drying her eyes.

  “Where’s Carson?” she enquired looking around.

  “He left.”

  “Oh! Is there something wrong?”

  “Don’t ask Mother, please don’t ask.” Emma blew her nose vigorously. “And please excuse me if I don’t come to tea. I have a headache.”

  “You’d better go and lie down, dear,” Lally said calmly. “I’ll come up later to see if you’re all right.” She put her arm round Alexander, disconsolate that Carson’s visit had been such a brief one. Then, her brow puckered, Lally watched her daughter-in-law as she left the room, aware of a deep sense of unease. She knew quite well that what had happened so long ago between Emma and Carson was partly her fault. They had met at her house and she had thrown them together because she knew that her son, whom she loved so much, could never be a proper husband to Emma.

  Once, in his misery and chagrin before he left for the front, Roger had confided to her that he was unable to love Emma because his sexual preference had always been for men. He had been bullied into marrying Emma by Prosper who, perhaps suspecting his inclinations, had hoped to change him. How Lally now wished she’d never thrown Carson and Emma in each other’s paths by feigning a cold which had kept her to her room. She had been sorry for her daughter-in-law, anguished on her account. How she wished she’d left well alone. But the follies of the past could never be undone, and that was her punishment.

  Carson felt a sense of despair as, yet again, he walked round Pelham’s Oak with Ivor the bailiff. It was true that Agnes’s debts had been settled by Julius, for which he was truly grateful, and he now owed no one anything. Even his father’s death duties had been paid. He had concentrated on getting the tenant farms in working order and making the most of the land to produce food and
provision that not only was sufficient for him and the staff at Pelham’s Oak, but a sizeable proportion of which went to market.

  Little, however, had been done to the house itself, and sometimes when he looked at it or wandered through its large, empty rooms, he wondered if he should after all not sell up and start life anew? Maybe go abroad and seek his fortune overseas where he would have enough money to buy a farm, or start some kind of business perhaps in Australia, South Africa or one of the other colonies? If only his cousin Laurence had not killed himself there would have been the Yetman building business to help him out, but that had been sold and broken up after Laurence’s death. If only he himself were equipped to do something useful he could at least make a start somewhere but, due to his misspent youth, he was good for nothing except soldiering, and the further away from the war he got the less the army seemed attractive. Also if he went away, far away, there would be no possibility of seeing Emma again, because the thought that when she visited Lally she was so near and yet so far away was a torment to him. Carson threw up his hands, his expression one of dejection.

  “I don’t know where to start, Ivor. Maybe ...”

  “I thought,” Ivor looking towards the house ran a hand over his cheek, “one way, Sir Carson, might be to close part of the house and do up the rest. Then when things change, or improve, for you financially, you can start on the other half. It would also mean, sir, that you would need fewer staff ...” Ivor paused and looked at him thoughtfully. “I hope I am not speaking out of turn, Sir Carson.”

  “Not at all.” Carson looked gratefully at the bailiff who had served his family so well for so many years. “It’s a very good idea.”

  “You wouldn’t let it go to ruin, of course. The fabric would remain intact, but it would spare the need to decorate and ... well, it is already too large a house for yourself and the small staff you have left, Sir Carson.”

  “I would hate to part with any of them.”