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

by Nicola Thorne

  He put his arm round her waist, drew her down, kissing her fondly. Then he lowered his hand and gave her soft, rounded buttock a squeeze, remembering the pleasures of the night before.

  Still in good humour she tapped him playfully on the wrist, kissed him on the cheek again and told him to behave himself. With a broad wink she left the room and walked round to the front of the house where her chauffeur was standing by the car.

  Lally, liking Agnes more than the rest of the family did, greeted her with affection and asked after Owen.

  “I wanted him to accompany me, but he’s so lazy,” Agnes complained. “I left him smoking and reading the paper and, doubtless, after my back was turned he’ll help himself to a large whisky. But,” she put a hand on Lally’s arm and gazed excitedly at her, “I have got wonderful news.”

  “Oh, do tell.” Lally led her into the drawing room where a sherry decanter and two glasses stood awaiting them on the table, together with a plate of dry biscuits. The French windows leading into the garden were open and from the orchard beyond came the gentle sound of cooing pigeons. Lally poured them each a sherry, asked after Carson, Mr Parterre and the rest of the family and then sat opposite her guest, looking at her with an air of anticipation.

  “And now do tell me your news.”

  “We are to buy the London house!”

  “The London house?” Lally, in the act of raising her glass to her lips, appeared not to understand.

  “Chesterfield Street. The Woodville house. Owen wants to give it to me as a present so that we have our own establishment.”

  “Oh that is marvellous news.” Lally raised her glass triumphantly towards Agnes.

  “You know it has been a wonderful year since I met Owen. For all his faults he is generous and kind. We toured the continent and stayed at all the best hotels, ate in the finest restaurants. But one gets so weary of travel and longs for a place of one’s own.” Agnes leaned confidentially towards her friend and spoke in a lowered voice as if afraid someone would hear. “It is no secret, my dear Lally, that Carson and I do not see eye to eye. It was a mistake to spend so much time at Pelham’s Oak, but Owen is so happy there and one must give in in small ways don’t you agree?”

  “Oh I do,” Lally answered, sighing.

  “Anyway the upshot is that Owen insists we have our own home, and tonight I am going to talk to Carson about it.”

  Lally rose and crossing the room stooped to embrace Agnes. “I’m so happy for you, my dear. What a treasure Owen is.Now finish your sherry and let’s go into lunch. It’s just the two of us. Alexander is at school.”

  “He will soon be off to boarding school,” Agnes said as they walked together arm in arm towards the dining room.

  “I dread it, but hopefully it will be one of the good schools in Dorset – Sherborne is a possibility – where my dearest darling won’t be too far from home.” Taking her seat at table Lally looked across at Agnes with an expression of sadness. “You have no idea how precious he is to me. Now with darling Roger no more, and Prosper always up in London I feel Alexander is all I have. You are singularly fortunate in your marriage dear Agnes. Believe me.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Agnes said. “Don’t I bless the day Owen and I met?”

  When Agnes got back to Pelham’s Oak later in the afternoon after an agreeable visit to Lally during which they gossiped, inspected the garden and all the new clothes Lally had recently bought during a visit to London, Carson had already returned and she immediately sought him out. She found him in his study sorting through the day’s post. When he saw her he stood up and politely indicated the seat opposite.

  “I have to apologise for my behaviour yesterday,” Agnes came quickly to the point. “I became rather hysterical; but the fact that you did not believe me about the theft of my jewels ...”

  “My dear Aunt Agnes, I did not disbelieve you. I simply wanted proof. In fact Maudie was so upset she has returned to her family.”

  “Ah!” Agnes exclaimed with a glint in her eyes. “There you have the proof.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of her guilt.”

  “Not at all. Really, Aunt, if this is to begin all over again ...” Carson rose from his desk and walked determinedly towards the door.

  “Please, Carson,” Agnes held out a hand. “Don’t go. I want to talk to you.”

  “Then you must not provoke me, Aunt.”

  “All right, I won’t.” She watched as he resumed his seat again and then sat forward in her chair.

  “Owen wishes to make me a present of the Chesterfield Street house. Provided the price is right we are prepared to make you an offer for it.”

  Carson leaned back and crossed his legs, a smile flitting slowly across his face.

  “Why, that is an excellent suggestion, Aunt.”

  “Providing the price is right, I said.”

  “Of course. That goes without saying.”

  “You are agreeable?”

  “Perfectly agreeable.” Carson rose and, crossing the room, reached for her hands and clasped them between his. “I have no wish to fall out with you, Aunt, but you have told me in the past it is difficult for us to live in the same house for too long. I agree.”

  “We are too alike,” Agnes said.

  “Well,” Carson studied the floor, “I’m not sure about that. However don’t let’s argue. Shall I go and find Owen and see if we can come to an agreement now? I shan’t haggle about the price. I think we can agree on an independent assessment.” He glanced back before leaving the room. “We’ll have a bottle of champagne with our dinner to celebrate.”

  Agnes smilingly inclined her head and watched Carson leave the room.

  She sat back in her chair conscious of a feeling of extraordinary peace and happiness. She was, she decided, lucky in life. Invariably she got what she wanted. Despite her many vicissitudes she usually came up smiling. She had had good times and bad times, some very bad.

  She had started with little in life: the frustrated, dissatisfied daughter of a provincial builder in a small provincial town that no one outside Dorset had ever heard of.

  She had fallen in love with a married man who had left her pregnant. She had had a daughter she didn’t want whom she had abandoned. There was some guilt about that, but only for a time and not much. She had crossed to America and become a prostitute, pure and simple; but, by dint of hard work and not a little cunning, she had ended up running her own establishments. There had been no railroad millionaire. Mr Wendell Gregg had been invented to imbue her with some respectability as a married woman when she returned to her native land. Most of the money she had saved and secured from her investments had been used to entrap Sir Guy into marrying her; the rest she had frittered away, extravagance and a liking for the good things in life being among her besetting sins.

  But now at last she had her just rewards, something that she had worked for all her life and which she richly deserved. A second husband who, although insipid, was both titled and rich. But what did insipidity matter in a man with these attributes? Besides, no two strong people could live together. An insipid man and a woman with her character and personality were well matched. The main thing was that he adored her and would give her everything she desired.

  She sat back with a sigh, aroused from her pleasant reverie by the re-entry of Carson alone.

  “Where’s Owen?” she enquired.

  Carson threw up his hands. “I can’t find him anywhere, Aunt. It appears he might have gone out. If so he has not returned as far as I can ascertain.”

  “What do you mean ‘it appears he might have gone out’?”

  “Arthur thought he saw him drive off.”

  “But I had the car.”

  “Arthur thought it might have been a cab. He said he wasn’t paying much attention.”

  “What nonsense!” Agnes rose and stalked over to the door. “He’ll probably be asleep. Really that man is so lazy.”

  “I looked in your bedroom, Aunt ...�
� Carson began, but she paid no heed to him and he could hear her high heels tapping smartly along the corridor.

  Carson returned to his desk and went on with his paperwork putting letters on one side and bills, too many of them, on the other. There was no doubt the money from the sale of the Chesterfield Street house would be useful. He would expedite this as quickly as he could. It was true he might have got a higher price on the open market but, after all, Aunt Agnes was family and maybe she had a point in saying that, though not strictly blood relations, they had a lot in common: a stubborn streak, an overhasty temper.

  Time passed and he looked at his watch. Agnes had been gone over half an hour. Doubtless searching the house. It was dark by now and he began to think it odd that if Owen had gone he hadn’t left some message.

  Carson got up and, going over to the door, opened it and stood in the hall listening. The house was very still. The servants would be getting dinner. Jean was undoubtedly in his room or still somewhere at work. Where was Aunt Agnes? And where was Owen? Carson crossed the hall and began to mount the broad staircase that led to the upper floors. The staircase was one of the features of the house, as it branched off on either side towards the first floor, the intention of the original architect being to construct a grand entrance to the imposing drawing room with its double doors.

  It then continued as a single staircase to the second floor where the main bedrooms were. The servants’ quarters in the attic were reached by a separate staircase at the back of the house.

  Carson arrived at the second floor and passed by his bedroom, Jean’s bedroom, two that were unoccupied – they had been his parents’ adjoining bedrooms – until he came to Aunt Agnes’s room. The door was closed. When he had been looking for Owen it had been partly open enabling him to glance inside. He stood outside the door and tapped lightly on it. There was no answer.

  “Aunt Agnes?” he called, softly tapping again.

  Still no answer. Feeling uneasy, rather like a thief, he slowly turned the handle and pushed open the door.

  Aunt Agnes was lying face downwards across the bed which occupied the centre of the room. It was an imposing four-poster which had formed part of his mother’s not inconsiderable dowry from Holland.

  Filled with alarm, Carson swiftly crossed the room until he stood hovering by the side of the bed.

  “Aunt Agnes?” he whispered again and then stooped to touch her on the shoulder which suddenly gave a great heave. Bending to look at her face he saw it was stained with tears, her eyes staring in front of her, as though she’d had a stroke or, perhaps, some form of seizure.

  Thoroughly alarmed he sat beside her and took her hand. It felt cold but alive and he started to rub it briskly.

  “Aunt Agnes what has happened? Has Owen gone?”

  She nodded, gripping the heavy brocade counterpane with twitching fingers. Then she raised one hand and flapped it towards the dressing room.

  “Gone,” she murmured, still in a trance-like state. “Gone. Packed his things, his clothes, taken every scrap of my jewellery. Everything. Cleaned us out. If you’ve got any family silver left, Carson, you’d better go down and count it.”

  Then she closed her eyes and her shoulders shook with great, heart-rending sobs.

  Chapter Nine

  Walking back from the Fenice in the cool of the night with a gentle autumnal breeze blowing in from the Adriatic, Venice was a romantic place, the narrow streets and alleyways softly illuminated by lamps glowing from the walls of the buildings – the houses, shops and palaces – of that ancient and venerable city. Here and there was the glimpse of water and, still, at this late hour, gondolas gliding along propelled by huge poles that sought purchase with the mud of the lagoon.

  Connie had gone to dinner and the opera with Francesca and Guido Valenti and Paolo Colomb-Paravacini, now strolling by her side, who was increasingly her constant companion. It had been a delightful evening in the company of interesting and intelligent people. Good conversation at dinner and then the stimulation of the opera, Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, played out in the magnificent setting of one of Italy’s, indeed the world’s, finest opera houses. Having parted from the Valentis Paolo was now escorting her home.

  Paolo Colomb-Paravacini was a scion of one of Venice’s oldest noble families, his palazzo occupying a commanding position on the Grand Canal. He was an art lover, an expert on the eighteenth century Venetian painter Tiepolo, but eclectic enough in his tastes to embrace the Post-Impressionists whose art had scandalised London at exhibitions held there before the war. He was a widower, about fifty, who had been introduced to Connie by the Valentis not long after the death of his wife during the war.

  He had two children; a son of fifteen who was at boarding school in England, and a daughter of nineteen who was studying art in Rome. He was a delightful, cultured man and made no secret of his interest in Connie.

  Connie was flattered by Paolo’s attention because the fact that any man admired her slightly amazed her. As she had told Carson, whatever exterior changes may have occurred, inside she was the same person she had been when her guardian attempted to thrust a shy young woman into marriage with a man who did not love her and who bitterly hurt her in the process, contributing thus to a mammoth loss of self-confidence.

  Connie frequently recalled that time when, tongue-tied, unsuitably dressed in an unbecoming pink frock which was far too young for her, Carson’s father had given a dinner party for the newly-engaged couple only to announce that he was to be married again himself. It was then that her massively egocentric, larger-than-life half-sister Agnes, whom she had not seen since she was a child, reappeared on the scene.

  Experiences such as Connie had had needed to be lived down, and she had done her best to suppress them with the help of Francesca Valenti, who had brought out the best in her and shown what money could do to accomplish such change. One could buy beautifully styled garments that improved one’s image, one’s own self-esteem; employ hairdressers and beauticians who exploited one’s natural assets, changed the colour of one’s hair, creating a new style, and exploited the potentials of one’s complexion by enhancing one’s natural colouring.

  To change her appearance, even in a subtle way, had made her feel good. Gradually she came to realise that she was also a natural conversationalist, able now to converse easily with people who understood about art and music and literature and all the things she had fed upon secretly for so long.

  Ever since the debacle of her abortive engagement Connie had always accepted that she would be a spinster like Miss Fairchild, that no man would desire her and she would never marry.

  Now everything was different. Paolo had for a long time been quietly courting her – at least Francesca had assured her his intentions were honourable – and a situation had arisen between her and her former fiancé that, to say the least, was interesting, but from which she had fled.

  Yes, she had fled from Carson, too nervous, too much in dread of history repeating itself in that cruel way of long ago.

  They crossed a bridge across the Rio de San Luca, passed the Campo Manin and the church of San Luca, and came again to the Grand Canal and the palazzo which contained Connie’s apartment.

  They stopped in front of the heavy door and Connie produced her key.

  “I shan’t ask you in,” she said glancing apologetically at him, “it’s terribly late.”

  “There was something I wanted to ask you,” Paolo replied.

  “Could it wait?”

  “Well, I’d rather it didn’t wait too long. Maybe we could lunch tomorrow?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “I’ll pick you up. About one?”

  “Come in and have a drink beforehand.”

  “That would be lovely. Say twelve-thirty then?” He leaned towards her and lightly kissed her cheek. A hand fluttered near her breast but did not touch it.

  “I’m terribly fond of you, Constance,” he murmured in her ear brushing it with his mouth.
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  She knew he was restraining himself and had been for some time. But maybe tomorrow everything would be different.

  They broke away and, without another word, Connie turned and went into the apartment shutting and bolting the door behind her. Inside a solitary lamp glowed in the hall. Lights still burned in the drawing room overlooking the canal. She felt strangely ill at ease, restless, and, removing her coat, putting down her bag and gloves, she went over to the window. She stood there for a long time looking over the shining waters of the canal to the palazzi on the other side, some in darkness, some with lights still blazing.

  She employed two indoor servants, a husband and wife, who shared the housework and chores with another daily maid who did most of the cleaning. It was already a large place, five bedrooms, and if she bought the whole palazzo, which the Valentis still wished her to do, it would be huge. What, in fact, would she do in it or with it? Once again the thought of what Paolo might want to ask her made her decide that it was best to hear what he had to say. His own palazzo was huge, one of the great palazzi of Venice, and if she became his wife, the Contessa Colomb-Paravacini, what need would she have of two palaces?

  The Contessa Colomb-Paravacini. It seemed quite awesome even to contemplate it.

  And yet ... there was that word he had used ... fond. Paolo had said he was terribly fond of her. Carson had said the same. But what did ‘fond’ mean? Did it mean sex, passion, or did it mean what she sometimes suspected it to mean, just friendship, a deep abiding friendship which was also a kind of love, but not the kind she wanted. She wanted the other sort. The sort that bowled a girl off her feet and when, eight years before, that had happened to her she knew just what it meant and what it felt like.

  Only the feeling, the passion, had not been reciprocated and had ended for her in humiliation and tears.

  Connie turned away from the window, closed the shutter and put out the lights in the room, a long beautiful room that had been furnished with antiques by the previous owners who had fallen on bad times. At a time when she and Victoria did not know what to do with their money all theirs had gone, and they had been forced to sell everything and retire to a small apartment near the Arsenal, leaving all their beautiful things behind.