The Golden Cup
Page 20
Aunt Julia came up to Paradise after tea, as she sometimes does, to help to bath the children and put them to bed. I left her reading a story to them and slipped away up the lane to post the letter at the box up on the Polzeath road. I was afraid I might lose my nerve if I didn’t send it straight away.
It was a cold, sweet evening with a new moon already setting away in the west. Honesty was flowering in the lane, sheltering with ragged robin and campion beneath the bare thorny hedges, and the rough wild cliff-top land was criss-crossed with great banks of yellow-flowered gorse and the foamy-white blossom of the blackthorn. Oh, the peace of it all. The sea leaned gently against the sheer, steep cliffs and the hoarse croaking of a raven drifted up from the valley near the Saint’s Well.
I stood beside the post box for a good five minutes holding the letter in my pocket. I prayed then, Vivi. I prayed for guidance and wisdom so as to do the right thing for all of us, and all the time I was held by a kind of peacefulness. The walk and the silence and the beauty had made me calm and just then I wanted nothing more than to stay here, safe from the torment of passion and the agonies of love. That sense of peace remained with me all the way home.
Aunt Julia finishes Bruno’s story, hears his prayers and then tucks him firmly into bed.
‘Goodnight, dear boy,’ she says. ‘Sweet dreams,’ and hurries downstairs.
James is reading peacefully in the drawing-room but he looks up as she comes in and sets his book aside: her expression indicates that all is not well. Julia closes the door firmly but quietly and sits down on the sofa.
‘I’m worried about Honor.’ She comes straight to the point. ‘She seems rather distrait and ever since Easter I can’t help wondering whether she’s fallen in love with Simon. What do you think?’
This is very straight talking, even for Julia, and James crosses his legs whilst he decides how to answer her. It is quite true that during the Easter weekend he began to notice that Honor and Simon were sharply aware of one another, and when his letter arrived earlier in the week James was unable to ignore her reaction to it.
‘A bread-and-butter from Simon,’ she’d said lightly – but he’d seen how her hands trembled and noticed her distraction with the children.
He feels such compassion for her, imagining how wretched she must feel to be torn between several loyalties. James suspects that Honor believes that Hubert’s children should grow up here at St Meriadoc and he wonders how Simon would approach the tricky situation of assimilating himself into this place where he’d been a guest and, even more difficult, taking over his old friend’s family. It would be a daunting prospect even for someone as confident as Simon.
He stirs, aware of Julia’s eyes fixed upon him.
‘I think it is a possibility,’ he begins cautiously. ‘But even if she has I don’t see what we can do about it. I think we should trust her.’
‘It would be quite wrong for Bruno to be uprooted again,’ Julia says strongly. ‘He is just beginning to recover from his father’s death and I think it would be disastrous for him to adapt all over again to a new father and away from his family. Emma’s too young to be a real problem, but even she is settling so happily here.’
‘But what can I do about it?’ asks James helplessly. ‘I can’t forbid them to fall in love.’
Julia puts up her chin – he is reminded of Margaret – and stares him squarely in the eye.
‘It might be necessary to tell her that you can’t afford any muddle when it comes to the children’s inheritance.’
He looks at her, dismayed. ‘I’ve already explained to her that, should she marry again, the estate will be held in trust for Bruno and Emma. She said that she had no intention of marrying again and I believed her. I told you about it.’
‘So you did.’ Julia frowns. ‘Even so, watching them over Easter I would have said that there was something between them that went beyond friendship. She’s been preoccupied and jumpy all week, and this evening she’s been in another world entirely. Don’t think I’m criticizing her, James. Simon is a charming, attractive man and she’s young – don’t imagine I don’t sympathize! – but she needs to see the whole situation clearly. She’s such a warm-hearted girl and I don’t want her swept off her feet.’
‘You think that this might be a reaction to Hubert’s death?’
Julia is silent for a moment. ‘It might be,’ she says at last. ‘I remember how I felt when Hugh was killed. It would have been heaven, occasionally, to put the burden onto a strong man’s shoulders and leave it all to him. Luckily for me, I had you and Margaret to turn to before I could do anything foolish. Honor is younger than I was and, I suspect, much more susceptible. I don’t want her to make a mistake.’
James looks at her curiously. ‘Don’t you like Simon?’
‘Oh, he’s a nice enough fellow. She could go further and fare worse but I don’t want her rushed into anything. Simon is behaving very well, very properly, but you just look at that jaw of his! He’s a man who gets what he wants and, at this moment, he wants Honor.’
‘You sound very certain.’
‘I was fairly certain that Simon was in love with her but now I think that Honor is beginning to feel that way towards him too. To begin with I thought that it was too soon, and that her love for Hubert would protect her, but I wonder if there’s an element of falling in love on the rebound here. Responding to Simon takes her mind off her grief. It gives her something exciting to think about. Totally understandable, in my opinion.’
‘Yet you still feel it would be wrong for her.’
‘It might be wrong for her,’ Julia corrects him. ‘She needs time and I have this feeling that once Simon sees his advantage he’ll push it.’
‘Perhaps you could speak to her,’ James ventures. ‘Surely this sort of thing is better from another woman?’
She shakes her head. ‘We’re not on those terms. And Mousie is too young. Despite her natural friendliness Honor still keeps herself a little distant from us. Fair enough, I’m not a one for messy emotions all over the place either. That’s why you should approach it from the point of view of the will.’
‘I don’t know how I should start,’ says James wretchedly. ‘Good grief, Julia! What could I say? I’m not her father.’
‘You are the children’s grandfather,’ she says – but she can see his dilemma. ‘We need something which will make her review the situation carefully. She needs something with which to protect herself if Simon pushes too hard.’
Julia pauses, raising her hand warningly, and presently Honor comes in through the hall. She smiles at them almost dreamily as if possessed of a great inner contentment.
‘Whoever called this place “Paradise” is right,’ she says. ‘It’s the most beautiful place in the world. I can’t get over how lucky I am to be here.’ Her smile becomes more practical and she looks with great affection upon the older pair. ‘I’m going to get the supper.’
They remain silent, until they can hear movement in the kitchen, and then James raises an eyebrow questioningly and Julia shrugs.
‘Perhaps,’ he suggests gently, ‘she has something with which to protect herself after all.’
12th April
He came to Paradise yesterday whilst the family was at church. I met him at the top of our valley by the Saint’s Well. He telephoned, Vivi. I had a feeling that he wouldn’t just accept the letter and after a day or two I began to feel edgy. The sense of peace wore off and I felt tense and expectant. It would have been simpler if he weren’t attached so firmly to the family by other relationships but as it is he can’t simply fade out of all our lives. I began to wonder how he would handle it and from there it was a short step to a kind of expectation: imagining how it would be when I saw him next. My peace was shattered and my nerves were stretched. Each time the telephone rang I jumped and trembled – and then, at last, it was Simon.
‘I’m coming down,’ he said at once. ‘I’d like to see you on your own, Mutt. Don’t argue about it, pl
ease. Just give me this one chance. I have an idea …’
His idea was that I should miss Matins, giving a headache as an excuse, and meet him high up in the valley. He could leave the car up on the Polzeath road and walk down the track.
‘I’ll see you by the well just after eleven,’ he said, and simply hung up.
I see now that it would have been wiser simply to explain to James that Simon had proposed and I had refused but I complicated matters further by going along with Simon’s plan. As soon as they’d set out for church I slipped away. All the way along the valley I was thinking about that picnic where it had first started, this thing between us, with Mousie playing with Emma in the stream whilst Rafe and Bruno were building the dam. I remembered the hot sun and the lark singing, high up above in the still air …
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup …
He was waiting for me. It was a chill, dank morning, no larks singing, and he stood with his hands thrust down into the pockets of his British Warm. He was nervous, of course, defensive, but his posture was aggressive and that helped me. Acknowledging my own weaknesses I’d put on Honor’s tweed coat and skirt and sensible walking shoes and, as usual, some essence of her rubbed off on me. It enabled me to keep my shoulders back and my chin up. This time I wasn’t listening to sentimental dance music and painting eggs: this time I was prepared.
I knew just how Honor would have behaved, in the unlikely event that she would ever have got herself into such a situation in the first place. She would have been firm and kind and rather sweet; not that brutal, straight-from-the-shoulder treatment which you used to deal out to your poor swains, Vivi, but just as effective. From the beginning there was an unreality about the whole meeting and I suddenly saw that he’d been wrong in insisting on it. Somehow his instinct had utterly failed him. He would have been much wiser to allow a little time to elapse and then turn up again for one of those jolly weekends, bringing little presents for the children and reminiscing with James over a glass of whisky. A kind of rapport would have gently established itself between us. We might have gone sailing or taken a walk, and then the old magic would have crept in and undermined me again.
There was no magic by the Saint’s Well that morning: only the clear, cold sound of the water and the sharp, strong scent of the ramsons. He watched me walking up our valley, his head lowered slightly, his face expressionless. I didn’t change the rhythm of my pace when I saw him but I made my expression friendly, even affectionate. I think he’d counted on my previous reaction and when he didn’t get it my coolness unnerved him even more and I saw his shoulders hunch beneath the camel coat.
I felt quite strong and in control of myself although I was praying ‘Help me! Help me!’ beneath my breath, whether to the saint or to God I still don’t know. The help I was already getting from Simon’s unwelcoming stance was reinforced by the way he began by calling me Honor. Nothing could have recalled me more firmly to what I was trying to achieve. It reminded me of the children and my responsibility towards them, of dear old James and the family, and even of Honor and Hubert themselves. Again his instinct failed him: the familiar, friendly nickname ‘Mutt’, which he’d used until now, would have softened me: called my true, weaker self into being. Her name, which he repeated almost nervously at regular intervals, was like a shield thrust into my hands and, as my courage grew, a verse from one of the psalms repeated itself in my head.
‘He shall defend thee under His wings, and thou shalt be safe under His feathers: His faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler.’
The sense of unreality continued, rather as if we were actors in a play, and all the passion that had flamed between us in the kitchen at Easter was now quenched into a cool exchange. Something about me, perhaps to do with Honor’s clothes and the way I had slipped into her persona, had a paralysing effect on him. It made him believe the phrases I’d written in the letter and I saw his confidence waver and fade. He behaved as if a chasm lay at our feet and he spoke to me across it. He talked about the future he’d planned for us: he has been offered a research post at the Baker Medical Research Institute in Australia and he described a new life for us all, free from sad memories of the past. The more he spoke the deeper and wider the chasm grew until, confused and angry, he accepted defeat.
At the end the only thing I feared was physical contact – his kisses might slip beneath my guard – but yet again his instinct failed him and he merely turned away with a brief gesture of frustrated farewell and strode off towards the Polzeath road.
I can hardly remember getting back to Paradise but quite suddenly I felt weak, no longer upheld by that inner strength I’d had at the well, and I lay down upon my bed. The children found me there, bringing me flowers picked in the lane, and Emma scrambled up beside me and patted my face with her soft, pudgy hands, crooning a little song. Bruno stood stiffly beside the bed, his face taut with anxiety.
‘Are you really ill, Mutt?’ he asked.
I roused myself, wondering if he were remembering that tiresome influenza, and managed to smile at him reassuringly.
‘Just this wretched head,’ I said. ‘I’ve been reading too much again. Don’t worry, darling.’
And then Aunt Julia came in, bringing me a hot-water bottle and an aspirin, and shushing the children, and after that there was silence. It was then, with my shield lowered and my defences weak, I realized that I would never hear that goblin cry again, nor taste the sweet, delicious fruit, and I thought of poor Laura trudging home, creeping to bed and laying silent until Lizzie slept:
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.
I wept too, Vivi, cradling the hot, comforting bottle in my arms, with the sheet over my head so that nobody would hear me. I wept not only for myself and Simon but also for Hubert and Honor and Bruno and all that we’d lost. It wasn’t until later that I wondered if Bruno hadn’t been thinking about the influenza but of the hot, airless hotel room in Karachi and remembering how quickly he’d lost his parents and his sister. Perhaps he feared that I too might die. It was this thought that roused me out of my storm of self-pity.
I got up, washed my face, put on some make-up, brushed my hair and tied a scarf over it. It was a bright yellow and blue cotton and I found a navy-blue high-necked jersey that had once been Hubert’s and pulled it on with a grey flannel skirt.
When I opened the drawing-room door, Julia, James and Bruno were seated at the gate-leg table in the window playing Monopoly. They turned and their expressions – cheerful, welcoming, relieved – warmed my heart and gave me courage. Bruno scrambled down and came to me.
‘Are you better?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Quite better,’ I answered. ‘And when you’ve finished your game we’ll go for a walk over the cliffs to The Lookout to blow the last cobwebs away.’
I sat down on the sofa where Emma was curled, fast asleep, her smooth perfect limbs carelessly disposed, her tiny flushed face peaceful. Sitting there, watching her sleep, listening to the murmuring voices from the table, I made my commitment. The decision had been taken for good or ill, back there in India, and now I must live with it: no more goblin fruit – ‘honey to the throat but poison in the blood’ – but an acceptance of that decision once and for all. Can I stick to it?
All the morning, whilst he is in church and on the walk home, Bruno is worried about Mutt. She says that she has a headache but he senses something more, much worse, and he feels anxious. When they get back to Paradise and find her in bed he is filled with fear: the memories press in on him and he can recall how Father fell ill first, then baby Em, and then Mummie; lying amongst the damp, crumpled sheets too weak to comfort him. His throat seems to close up with tears and he knows that he simply couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to Mutt. He stands beside the bed, stiff with fright, his bunch of flowers wilting in his clenched hand.
Aunt Julia hurries him and Emma out of the bedroom, telling him that Mother needs to rest and he realizes that now he has almost accepted that Mutt is his mother and it is impossible to imagine life without her. He can barely swallow any lunch and afterwards Aunt Julia and Uncle James play Monopoly with him whilst Emma falls asleep on the sofa. Rafe has gone sailing and Mousie is on duty at the hospital but Bruno is quite content with these two old people, who talk quietly as they play, giving him the chance to think about Mutt.
And then suddenly she is there, opening the door and smiling at them, and his relief is so overwhelming that he can hardly speak.
‘Are you better?’ he cries, and she says that she is quite better and that when the game is over and Emma wakes up they’ll go over the cliffs to The Lookout.
He goes back to the game, reassured and quite cheerful now, and it is he who suddenly mentions Simon, asking when he will be visiting again. He is aware of Aunt Julia’s hand on his shoulder, gripping tightly whilst he makes his move, but he doesn’t think too much about it: all is well.
Julia watches Honor as she sits down beside the sleeping Emma. Her older, wiser eyes see the result of bitter weeping that the make-up and the gay headscarf cannot quite disguise and there is something in Honor’s down-turned face, as she looks at her sleeping child, that rends Julia’s heart. She tries to analyse the expression – renunciation? resolve? – and when Bruno asks his question so innocently she is filled with dread. Honor glances up quickly.