But Miriam herself, even in defeat, had retained too much cleverness to greet Claire with reproaches, as Dorothy might have done, knowing full well that an instant tirade of ‘So you’ve condescended to come and see me have you? High time. How is it you haven’t come before?’ would not produce the desired effect. Satisfying, perhaps, to one’s understandably hurt feelings. But not wise. Therefore, she smiled and said in a small breathless voice which was now, indeed, all she could manage, ‘My dear – I am so glad to see you.’ She meant it. She had never felt so desperate in her life.
Illness had changed her. Claire had expected that. But it did not lessen the shock of finding Miriam so small and so old, just a child’s frail body dressed up in a dowager’s lace peignoir, sizes too large, the wedding ring of an eighteen-year-old bride slipping loose on a finger as brittle as a dried-out twig, a face emptied of its vivacity, drained of all its tea-rose softness and colour, a mind which had concentrated all its artful scheming into the one frantic effort to get well enough and strong enough to scheme again.
‘Pretty Mimi’no more.
Claire sat beside her and held her hand, aware, once again, of the changes in the room around her, Miriam’s drawing room, the warmly beating heart of her house, in spiritual dust-covers now, the air chill with disuse, vases once vibrant with every season’s flowers empty and slightly askew, ornaments not quite in their accustomed places, some of them no longer there at all, several pictures hanging at an awkward angle and left there by a maid whose job it was to dust, not to set the family portraits straight.
Claire, knowing how this must irritate Miriam, got up and straightened them.
‘Thank you, dear. How kind. I am quite helpless as you see.’
But relatively serene until Eunice came into the room, or a caricature of her, Eunice who had never fitted easily into her clothes now looking as if they were pinned on her and more than likely to come apart at their seams, Eunice who had always been flustered bringing with her now such a seaweed trail of clinging, crawling anxiety – of frenzied search and frantic hurry, of turning out drawers, rooting through cupboards like a burrowing rabbit – that Claire’s own nerves were at once affected by the strain.
So were Miriam’s.
‘There you are, mother.’
Miriam shuddered and closed her eyes.
‘Eunice – how are you?’ Claire did not know what else to say.
‘Extremely busy.’
‘Oh-good.’
‘Yes, there is so much to do.’
And she began to wander around the room, moving ornaments a fraction this way or that, looking under the cushions, twitching the curtains, suddenly pouncing on a pile of newspapers she had in fact brought into the room herself and taking them to the window-seat where she proceeded to hold each one up to the light, checking the contents of one page against another with enormous concentration. What was she looking for? Reasons? A purpose? Forgiveness? And she would need a great deal of that.
No one had ever paid any special attention to Eunice but now she filled the room, overpowering it with the rustling of newsprint, the acrid weight of her sickness, a quicksand into which Claire’s sound mind and Miriam’s failing nerve were slowly absorbed, smothered, sucked in.
Miriam’s hand descended on Claire’s arm, her mouth approaching Claire’s ear so that she was suddenly surrounded by Miriam’s ageing, medicated breath.
‘She follows me everywhere,’ hissed Miriam, a prisoner whispering hoarse complaints behind her gaoler’s back. ‘And she follows Benedict too. She’s always waiting in the hall to pounce on him, or else she’s hovering outside my bedroom door – I can hear her there, breathing and creaking the boards, even when I’ve told Nurse not to let her in. Elvira Redfearn thinks she ought to go away somewhere for a while – you know. But then – what am I to do with those boys? It’s too much for me, Claire. And they get on Benedict’s nerves so much and he lets it show, which makes her cry – and cry – you wouldn’t believe how much. My goodness. And Nola still bringing those odd people to the kitchen door, so that the servants are always leaving, or threatening to leave which is just as bad. And I can’t interview staff any more. Benedict managed about the butler, but it takes a mistress to choose maids, if you see what I mean – and I’m not up to it. The house is going to rack and ruin. I lie in bed listening to it happen. Is it any wonder that I’m not getting on as fast as I should?’
Noise erupted through the hall, heavily shod feet scarring the precious parquet, a sound of scuffling and giggling, a shout of warning, ‘Look out, Simon’and then a sizeable crash of china: a guilty silence.
Miriam closed her eyes again and shuddered.
‘Eunice –,’ she said feebly.
But Eunice, her own mind intent on the perusal of last week’s newspapers, paid no heed.
‘Eunice – the boys.’
What boys? She raised blank, lack-lustre eyes. She had spent years of her life, the greater part of it, caring for them, planning for them, defending them. But it had been Justin who had handed her Toby’s letter. Justin and Simon together who had made it clear to her that they expected their own lives to go happily on and hadn’t seen the need – as she had – to give up their summer holiday. Even the little boys had been difficult about not going to Grange-over-Sands. She knew they were, all four of them, quite ready to forget Toby. In which case, why shouldn’t she forget them?
Let Benedict handle them.
Let him handle Nola too who, just then, came tearing up the drive in her car, her arrival heralded by the coughing and sneezing of her engine and a great slamming of doors as she Sew through the house, tweed-suited and purposeful. ‘Miriam,’ she shouted, appearing briefly in the doorway, ‘there’s broken glass all over the hall. One of those little monsters again.’
Eunice, who had just decided she did not like her sons, now burst into tears.
‘Control yourself,’ said Nola who, compassion being a tool of her new trade, had none to spare. ‘Think it over carefully, Eunice, and you’ll see, dear, that although you may be crying because you have lost your shoes – as it were – there are a great many, all around you, who have lost their feet.’
Nola smiled briskly, her bearing erect, soldierly almost now that the stalwart Miss Pickles was due for retirement, leaving a place in All Saints’Passage which would have to be officially filled. Nola wanted that place and in her efforts to obtain it seemed to think it necessary – as Miss Drew had playfully pointed out – not only to apply for Miss Pickles’job but to become Miss Pickles.
‘That’s the spirit, Eunice.’
Eunice continued to cry, rather more loudly, dropping her newspapers all over the window-seat and knocking over a plant-pot.
‘Would you tell Nurse,’ murmured Miriam, ‘that I would like to go back to my room.’
Claire spent a mournful half-hour upstairs with Miriam as she was tucked into bed by a nurse who treated her like a child and, therefore, wished her simply to ‘eat up her supper’, ‘take her nice medicine’, ‘have a little sleep’, ‘be good and quiet.‘
‘I do believe we’ve tired ourselves out,’ said Nurse, smiling knowingly at Claire in a manner which told her that, in Nurse’s opinion, she was entirely to blame for it.
‘Just a moment,’ she said, indicating by her coolness that she would leave when she was ready. Although it did not take her long to ascertain that while Miriam herself would be overjoyed to see Polly again, it seemed hardly fair to Eunice. Hardly safe either, with Polly, regrettably, in her condition and Eunice, even more regrettably, in hers. Perhaps when she was better she could go herself to Bradford or Manchester or wherever it was that Polly was living and pay a visit. How terrible that she didn’t even know her own daughter’s address. Her favourite daughter too.
‘I shall be better soon, you know.’ But it was a question, addressed with the shyness of a little girl to anyone who might be kind enough to answer.
‘Of course we shall,’ said Nurse.
&nb
sp; When Claire reached the hall again the floor was still dangerous with broken glass, the butler waiting not to direct its disposal but to remind her of her appointment with Benedict.
‘This way, madam.’
‘Shouldn’t somebody clear up that mess?’
‘Certainly, madam.’
He opened the study door, the barricade she thought between Benedict and the sick chaos prowling so insidiously outside, and ushered her in.
He was at his desk, a chair placed ready for her on the other side, an expanse of massive oak and gold-tooled red leather, of folders and official-looking documents, cut glass inkstands and heavy silver cigar-boxes, keeping them well apart; the room around them, into which no one ever came without Benedict’s express permission or at his command, remaining unchanged. An oasis. A stockade with the warring natives gathering all around it. How long before they broke down the door?
She shivered.
Noticing it, he gave her a brief smile, not asking the reason, looking self-contained as he always had, busy, a pen in his hand, the limit of his patience not far away. Rather older.
‘I came with a message from Polly.’ Someone had to begin. Somewhere.
‘Yes. Arnold Crozier wrote to me. I suppose I shall have to see him. How is Polly?’
Startled, she realized she had not expected him to ask.
‘Sad and scared. And very guilty. But I think she’ll be all right in the end. She is terribly pleased about the baby. And don’t say she thinks it’s just a doll to play with.’
He put down his pen and looked at her.
‘I don’t, think I was going to say that.’
And the tug of his mind on hers, the reaching forward of his hands which never moved from the desk top but, nevertheless, reached out, the pull, the affinity, the gravitation was – unfair.
It should not be happening now. Not after so long. She didn’t want to believe it. And didn’t like it. Neither did he. Therefore, say what had to be said quickly. And go.
‘I expect Crozier wants me to pay out her legacies in full.’
‘He said something about settling it on the baby.’
‘Yes. Understandable, when one takes into consideration that it may not be his.’
‘Can you afford to take so much out of the business?’
‘One looks for ways and means. That’s what I’ve just been doing. Moving figures from one column to another. Fortunately – like Arnold Crozier – I’m good at that.’
‘Are things difficult?’
‘At the Mills? As well as can be expected. Better than some. Don’t worry. The legacies are safe. Speaking of which it occurs to me you might be needing your own.’
‘Why should you think so?’
He smiled quickly, wryly.
‘To invest in a lakeside hotel perhaps.’
‘Oh. You know about that?’ she said, although there was no reason why he shouldn’t.
‘Elvira Redfearn knows about it, and draws certain conclusions. And since Elvira is always right –’
He opened a drawer, took out a document, and picked up his pen.
‘This is the authorization to release your capital. I have only to sign it.’
‘Thank you.’
He signed, handed the document to her, she looked at it for a moment and then put it down, neatly, on the desk.
‘Would you invest it for me please, Benedict?’
‘In what?’
‘In Swanfield Mills.’
He looked down quickly, so that she could see nothing of him but the dark, bent head, the rapid clenching of a lean, darktextured hand.
And then he looked up at her.
‘If I do that you could lose every penny.’
‘I don’t seem to care.’
‘Your friend Hardie might.’
She smiled at that. Very certain. ‘Kit doesn’t need it. He can manage. He’ll make a success of that hotel whatever happens.’
And she knew she was very proud of that.
‘He must be immensely gratified by your faith in him.’
She smiled again.
‘I don’t suppose it bothers him much either way. He has faith in himself, you see. Enough for two.’
‘Lucky man. Please take your money, Claire and –’
‘Go?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sold the farm, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’
‘And everything –?’
‘It seemed best.’
‘And now?’
‘What – now?’
‘What do you do now – I mean –?’
‘Nothing Claire.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘I go to the Mill. I do my day’s work.’
‘And then you come back here.’
She couldn’t bear it.
‘Of course.’
Night after night, sitting behind this desk, behind that door. No one should live like that. And who could live with him, who could penetrate his isolation if she did not? Who could repair the damage she had done him but herself!
‘I see Elvira sometimes.’
‘No you don’t. I heard her tell somebody she never sees you now. Benedict, it hasn’t worked has it? You said you’d be as you were before, and you’re not. Are you?’
‘No.’
‘It’s my fault.’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’
‘What can I do?’
Abruptly he swung his chair around so that he was sitting with his back to her, his voice coming to her like an echo from the far wall.
‘I’m sorry, Claire. I made the attempt. I contacted old acquaintances and found the exercise pointless.’
‘And with Nola?’
‘I failed – just that. Abysmally. And it should all have been so easy. God knows, it would have been a simple matter to turn Nola’s head. She’s always needed to devote herself to something or somebody, so why not me? She was ripe to fall at somebody’s feet. When I took her to Italy I intended to make sure it was mine. I couldn’t. It became a physical impossibility. And one cannot conceal reluctance of that sort from an experienced woman. That exercise turned out to be pointless too.’
‘And now?’
‘Unless you come back to me, Claire, I don’t think I shall see much point to anything again.’
‘Come back – how –?’ She heard her own voice faltering, her breath labouring with shock. She had never expected him to say this, had relied on him, she suddenly realized, not to. The blue chintz room. And nothing had altered. She loved him, she had harmed him, and there was still Nola, still Miriam who needed her now more than ever, still Christian and Conrad who did not care to acknowledge her at all, and to whom she could only be an intruder. And on the other side of the coin Kit – fresh air, smooth tranquil water. Life with a good friend who happened also to be one’s lover.
‘Come back and live with me, Claire – that’s all.’
‘Here?’ Dear God. How could she do that?
‘I need you. I have no faith in my self now. Once – yes. But it’s gone.’
‘I took it away?’
‘I believe so. I lost control because of you. You weakened me somehow.’
The ice had melted. She understood. She had endured vivid dreams in which she had seen it happen, grey water spilling out of him all over the dinner table while Miriam and Eunice and Polly went on with their chatter. And it had been her fault. If she had broken him, who else could mend him?
‘I can’t leave this house,’ he said. ‘You must see that. Not yet. Possibly not ever.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘And I can’t endure it, Claire – not alone. Really – I can’t.’
She saw that too.
‘I need you, Claire.’
Closing her eyes, fighting off a sudden vision of an uncomplicated, open-hearted sun glinting from a clear sky over Wansfell Water, she bowed her head.
‘Yes, Benedict.’
‘So you’ll come.’
&nb
sp; ‘I will.’ And it was spoken in the hushed, low, not altogether certain whisper of a marriage vow.
‘Here – to High Meadows?’
‘Yes.’
‘As my wife – giving up everything – and everybody. Except that you wouldn’t be my wife – not to start with – possibly never at all.’
‘Yes, Benedict.’
‘When Claire?’
It had to be now. That clear, lakeland sky had misted over. The sun had gone in. And she would have to make her arrangements quickly and surely before it came out again.
‘Today, Benedict.’
He swung his chair back to face her.
‘I believe you’d do it too.’
‘Of course – What!’
‘That’s all I needed,’ he said. ‘You’re free.’
He got up and took her by the shoulders, shaking her gently, his voice almost crooning to her like a lullaby.
‘Claire – Claire – do you think I could do this to you? Of course I couldn’t. It saddens me that you can think so poorly of me. I’ll handle my own casualties my darling, not inflict them on you. I’m all right.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Yes I am. I indulged myself just nowthat’sall. I asked you to do what I knew you’d find abhorrent, for my sake. I asked you to make a sacrifice. And you agreed to make it. Perhaps we both needed to know that you would. And that’s all. I shall always know you loved me enough to do it. You’ll always know that I loved you too much to let you. It’s been said now – and done – and now it’s over. We can give our minds to other things. You’re free of me. I’m free of you. I needed that very badly. Didn’t you?’
She did not believe him. Nor did she recognize in him, what she would have known at once, in another man, to be lightness of heart. In Benedict it had to be a cloak for something infinitely more complex. Something painful. Or sinister. Or dangerous.
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