I laid down the brush and comb. “Joss, we mustn’t keep him waiting.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Please.”
I realized then that this was the first time I had ever had to ask him to help me.
* * *
I followed him downstairs, down the hall and past the sitting-room, to a door which stood at the end of the passage. Joss opened it and put his head around.
He said, “Good morning.”
“Who’s that? Joss? Come along in…” The voice was higher pitched than I had imagined, more like the voice of a much younger man.
“I’ve brought someone to see you…”
He opened the door wide, and put his arms behind me to propel me gently forward into the room. It was a small room, with french windows leading out on to a paved terrace and a secret garden, warm with trapped sunshine, and enclosed by dense hedges and escallonia.
I saw the fire flickering in the grate; the panelled walls covered either with pictures or books; the model, on the mantelpiece, of an old-fashioned naval cruiser. There were photographs in silver frames, a table littered with papers and magazines, and a blue and white Chinese bowl filled with daffodils.
As I entered, he was already heaving himself—with the aid of a stick—out of a red leather armchair, which stood half turned towards the warmth of the fire. I was amazed that Joss did nothing to help him, and I began to say, “Oh, please don’t bother…” but by then he was on his feet and erect, and a pair of blue eyes surveyed me calmly from beneath jutting brows and bristling white eyebrows.
I realized then that I had steeled myself to finding him pathetic in some way, old, infirm, perhaps a little shaky. But Grenville Bayliss, at eighty, was formidable. Very tall, very upright, starched and barbered, smelling faintly of Bay Rum, he was a credit to his servant Pettifer. He wore a dark blue blazer, of Naval cut, neatly creased grey flannels, and velvet slippers with his initials embroidered in gold. He was also very tanned, his bald head brown as a chestnut beneath the thinning strands of white hair, and I imagined him spending much time in that little sunny secret garden, reading his morning paper, enjoying a pipe, watching the gulls and the white clouds scudding across the sky.
We looked at each other. I wished that he would say something but he simply looked. I hoped that he liked what he saw, and was glad I had taken the time to brush my hair. And then he said, “I’ve never been in this situation before. I’m not quite sure how we’re meant to greet each other.”
I said, “I could give you a kiss.”
“Why don’t you do that?”
So I did, stepping forward and raising my face, and he stooped slightly and my lips touched the smooth clean skin of his cheek.
“Now,” he said, “why don’t we sit down? Joss, come and sit down.”
But Joss excused himself, said that if he didn’t start work soon then he would have done nothing all day. But he stayed long enough to help the old man back into his chair, and pour us both a glass of sherry from the decanter on the side table, and then he said, “I’ll leave you. You’ll have a lot to talk about,” and with a cheerful wave of his hand, slipped away. The door closed quietly behind him.
Grenville said, “I believe you know him quite well.”
I pulled up a stool so that I could sit and face him. “Not really. But he’s been very kind, and…” I tried to think of the right word. “Convenient. I mean, he always seems to be there when people need him.”
“And never when they don’t?” I was not sure if I could entirely agree with this. “He’s a clever boy, too. Doing up all my furniture.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Good craftsman. Lovely hands.” He laid down his sherry glass, and once more I was subjected to that piercing blue stare. “Your mother died.”
“Yes.”
“Had a letter from this Pedersen fellow. He said it was leukaemia.”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet him?”
I told him about going to Ibiza and the night I had spent with Otto and my mother.
“He was a decent chap, then? Good to her?”
“Yes. He was immensely kind. And he adored her.”
“Glad she ended up with somebody decent. Most of the chaps she picked on were just a lot of bounders.”
I smiled at the old-fashioned word. I thought of the sheep-farmer, and the American in his Brooks Brothers shirts, and wondered how they would have liked being called bounders. They probably wouldn’t even have known what it meant.
I said, “I think she sometimes got a little carried away.”
A gleam of humour showed in his eyes. “You seem to have adopted a fairly worldly attitude?”
“Yes. I did. Long ago.”
“She was a maddening woman. But she’d been the most enchanting little girl it was possible to imagine. I painted her often. I’ve still got one or two canvases of Lisa as a child. I’ll have to get Pettifer to look them out, show them to you. And then she grew up and everything changed. Roger, my son, was killed in the war, and Lisa was always at loggerheads with her mother, rushing off in her little car, never coming home at night. Finally she fell in love with this actor fellow, and that was it.”
“She really was in love with him.”
“In love.” He sounded disgusted. “That’s an overrated expression. There’s a lot more to life than just being in love.”
“Yes, but you have to find that out for yourself.”
He looked amused. “Have you found it out?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“You’re mature for twenty-one. And I like your hair. You don’t look like Lisa. You don’t look like your father either. You look like yourself.” He reached for his sherry glass, raised it carefully to his mouth, took a sip, and then replaced the glass on the table by his chair. In such cautious actions did he betray his age and his infirmity.
He said, “She should have come back to Boscarva. At any time we would have welcomed her. Come to that, why didn’t you come?”
“I didn’t know about Boscarva. I didn’t know about you until the night before she died.”
“It was as though she’d put the past out of her life. And when her mother died and I wrote to tell her, she never even replied.”
“We were in New York that Christmas. She didn’t get your letter till months later. And then it seemed too late to write. And she was so bad at writing letters.”
“You’re standing up for her. You don’t resent the fact that she kept you from this place? You could have been brought up here. This could have been your home.”
“She was my mother. That was the important thing.”
“You seem to be arguing with me. Nobody argues with me nowadays. Not even Pettifer. It gets very dull.” Once more I was fixed with that blue stare. “Have you met Pettifer? He and I were in the Navy together about a century ago. And Mollie and Eliot? Have you met them?”
“Yes.”
“They shouldn’t be living here at all, of course, but the doctor insisted. Doesn’t make that much difference to me, but it’s hard luck on poor Pettifer. And Mollie’s got a niece here as well, dreadful child with sagging breasts. Have you seen her?”
I managed not to giggle. “Yes, for a moment.”
“A moment would be too long. And Boscarva. What do you think of Boscarva?”
“I love it. What I’ve seen of it, I love.”
“The town’s creeping out over the hill. There was a farm at the top, belonged to an old lady called Mrs Gregory. But this builder fellow talked her into selling up to him and now they’ve bulldozed the fields flat as a pancake and they’re putting up houses nineteen to the dozen.”
“I know. I saw them.”
“Well, they can’t come any further, because the farm at the back of this place and the fields on either side of the lane belong to me. Bought them when I bought Boscarva, back in 1922. Wouldn’t like to tell
you how little it cost me. But a bit of land around you gives you a feeling of security. Remember that.”
“I will.”
He frowned. “What’s your name again? I’ve forgotten it already.”
“Rebecca.”
“Rebecca. And what are you going to call me?”
“I don’t know. What do you want me to call you?”
“Eliot calls me Grenville. You call me Grenville too. It sounds more friendly.”
“All right.”
We drank our sherry, smiling, content with each other. Then, from the back of the house, came the sound of a gong being rung. Grenville put down his glass and got painfully to his feet, and I went to open the door for him. Together, we went down the passage towards the dining room and family lunch.
7
Exhaustion hit me at the end of that long, eventful day, and unfortunately in the middle of dinner. Luncheon had been a sustaining, homely meal, eaten at a round table set in the bay window of the big dining room. This had been laid with a simple checked cloth, and everyday china and glass, but dinner was a different affair altogether.
The long, polished table in the middle of the room was set for the five of us, with fine linen mats, and old silver and glass sparkling in the candlelight.
Everybody, it seemed, was expected to change in honour of this apparently nightly ritual. Mollie came downstairs in a brocade housecoat the colour of sapphires, which emphasized the brightness of her eyes. Grenville wore a faded velvet dinnerjacket and Eliot a pale flannel suit in which he looked as elegant as a greyhound. Even Andrea, probably under much protest, had put on a different pair of trousers and a blouse of broderie anglaise which looked as though it could have done with a press, or a wash, or maybe both. Her lank hair was tied back with a scrap of velvet ribbon, the expression on her face continued to be one of resentful boredom.
Not in the habit of attending formal dinner parties, I had nevertheless packed a garment which would obviously have to appear every evening as long as I stayed in this house, for I had no other. It was a caftan of soft brown jersey wool, with silver embroidery at the neck and the wrists of the flowing sleeves. With it, I wore my silver bracelets and a pair of hoop ear-rings which my mother had given me for my twenty-first birthday. Their weight, on this occasion, gave me odd comfort and confidence, two things which I badly needed.
I did not want to have dinner with my newly acquired family. I did not want to have to make conversation, to listen, to be intelligent and charming. I wanted to go to bed and be brought something undemanding, like Bovril or a boiled egg. I wanted to be alone.
But there was soup and duckling, and red wine, dispensed by Eliot. The duckling was rich and the room very warm. As the meal slowly progressed I felt more and more strange, disembodied, light-headed. I tried to concentrate on the flames of the candles in front of me, but as I stared at them they separated and repeated themselves, and the voices around me became blurred and unintelligible, like the hum of conversation heard from a distant room. Instinctively, I pushed my plate away from me, knocked over the wineglass, and watched, in hopeless horror, as the red wine spread amongst the shattered splinters of glass.
In a way the accident was a blessing, for they all stopped talking and looked at me. I must have gone quite pale, for Eliot was on his feet in an instant and at my side …
“Are you all right?”
I said, “No, I don’t think I am. I’m sorry…”
“Oh, my dear.” Mollie flung aside her napkin and pushed back her chair. From across the table Andrea eyed me with chill interest.
“The glass … I’m so sorry…”
From the head of the table Grenville spoke. “It doesn’t matter about the glass. Leave the glass. The girl’s exhausted. Mollie, take her up and put her to bed.”
I tried to protest, but not very hard. Eliot drew back my chair and helped me to my feet, his hands firm beneath my elbows. Mollie had gone to open the door, and cooler air moved in from the hall—already I felt better, as though, perhaps, after all I was not going to faint.
As I passed Grenville, I said, “I’m sorry,” for the third time; “forgive me. Good night.” I bent and kissed him, and left them all. Mollie closed the door behind us and came upstairs with me. She helped me undress and get into bed, and I was asleep before she had even turned off the light.
* * *
I slept for fourteen hours, waking at ten o’clock. I had not slept so late for years, and beyond my window the sky was blue and the cold bright northern light reflected from the sloping white-painted walls of my room. I got up, pulled on a dressing-gown and went and had a bath. Dressed, I felt wonderful, apart from the sinking sensation of shame at my behaviour the night before. I hoped they had not all thought that I was drunk.
Downstairs, I finally ran Mollie to earth in a little pantry, arranging a great mass of purple and pink polyanthus in a flowered bowl.
“How did you sleep?” she asked at once.
“Like the dead. I’m sorry about last night…”
“My dear, you were tired out. I’m sorry I didn’t realize before. You’ll want some breakfast.”
“Just coffee.”
She took me into the kitchen and heated coffee while I made some toast. “Where is everybody?” I asked.
“Eliot’s at the garage, of course, and Pettifer’s taken the car to Fourbourne to do some shopping for Grenville.”
“What can I do? There must be something I can do to help.”
“Well…” she debated. I looked at her. This morning she wore a cashmere sweater the colour of caramel and a slender tweed skirt. Immaculately made up, with every strand of hair in place, she seemed almost inhumanly neat. “You could go and fetch the fish for me in Porthkerris. The fishmonger rang up to say he’d got some halibut and I thought we’d have it for dinner. I could lend you my little car. Do you drive?”
“Yes, but couldn’t I walk down? I like walking and it’s such a lovely morning.”
“Of course, if you want to. You could take the short cut over the fields and along the cliff. I know—” she appeared to be suddenly struck by inspiration—“take Andrea with you, and then she can show you the way, and show you where the fish shop is. Besides, she never takes any exercise if she can possibly help it and a walk would do her good.” She made Andrea sound like a lazy dog. I did not particularly relish the idea of Andrea’s company for the entire morning but I was sympathetic to Mollie, being encumbered by this unengaging girl, so I said that I would do as she suggested, and when I had finished my breakfast went in search of Andrea whom Mollie had last seen out on the terrace.
I found her bundled in a rug, lying on a long cane chair in a patch of sunshine, and peevishly regarding the view, like a seasick passenger on a liner.
“Will you walk down to Porthkerris with me?” I asked her.
She fixed me with her protuberant stare. “Why?”
“Because Mollie’s asked me to go and pick up some fish and I don’t know where the shop is. Besides, it’s a lovely morning, and she thought we might go down to the cliffs.”
She considered my suggestion, said, “All right,” uncoiled herself from the rug and stood up. She wore the same dirty jeans as yesterday and a vast black and white sweater which reached below her narrow hips. We went back to the kitchen to fetch a basket and then set out, by way of the terrace and the sloping garden, down in the direction of the sea.
At the bottom of the garden, stone steps led up and over the wall, and Andrea went ahead of me, but I paused because I wanted to inspect the studio from this new angle. It was, as Joss had said, locked and shuttered, and somehow desolate, and the great window on the north wall had been closed off by tightly-drawn curtains so that not a chink presented itself to any inquisitive passer-by.
Andrea stood on the top of the wall, her gaze following mine.
“He never paints now,” she told me.
“I know.”
“I can’t think why. There’s nothing wrong with
him.” She jumped, hair flying, down off the wall, and totally disappeared. I took a last look at the studio and then followed her and we took a trodden path that led down through small, irregular fields, and came out at last, through the hazard of some waist-high gorse bushes, to a stile, and so on to the cliff path.
This was obviously a favourite walk with visitors to Porthkerris, for there were seats set in sheltered view points, and litter bins for rubbish, and notices warning people not to go too near the edge of the cliff which was likely to collapse.
Andrea instantly went to the very edge and peered over. Gulls wheeled and screamed all around her, the wind tore at her hair and the baggy sweater, and from far below came the distant thunder of surf on rocks. She flung her arms wide and teetered slightly as though about to fall over the edge, but when she saw that I didn’t care whether she committed suicide or not, she returned to the path, and in single file we walked on, Andrea in front.
The cliff curved and the town came into view in front of us, the low grey houses nestled around the sweep of the bay and climbing the steep hill to the moor behind. We went through a gate, and were now on to a proper road, and so able to walk side by side.
Andrea became conversational.
“Your mother’s just died, hasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Aunt Mollie was telling me about her. She said she was a tart.”
Painfully, I remained serene. It would have been instant victory for Andrea if I had been anything else.
“She didn’t really know her. They hadn’t seen each other for years.”
“Was she a tart?”
“No.”
“Mollie said she lived with men.”
I realized then that Andrea was not merely trying to needle me, she was genuinely curious, and there was envy there as well.
I said, “She was very gay and very loving and very beautiful.”
She accepted this. “Where do you live?”
“In London. I’ve got a little flat.”
“Do you live alone, or with somebody?”