Stephen was now standing over a pile of lemon-coloured honeysuckle that was interweaved with a purple clematis. He poked his stick into the mass of bloom, and at once intense waves of scent rose to her window. He was fishing out a green rubber ball, which had a glossy look: it had not been lying there long. He threw the ball hard, for at least fifty yards, onto a lawn at the side of the house.
‘Good throw,’ she remarked to his head. He said, without looking up, ‘I knew you were there, Sarah.’ Then he did look up and gave her a warm and even tender smile. He waved a hand at her and went into the house.
She was feeling angry with herself—foolish. She had been watching this man, inside his own real life, for well over an hour. This was Stephen, this the reality of Stephen. Sarah told herself, repeated it, to make herself take it in, that Stephen the man of the theatre and Julie’s besotted lover was only one aspect of Stephen. Suddenly Sarah was wondering about that black-browed red-faced man now cantering away with Elizabeth a long way off across the fields—what did he say, he and his sort, about Stephen and this hobby of his, the theatre? For after all, Stephen’s visits to France, and attending rehearsals in London, and arranging the Entertainments, probably had not taken up so much time. His real life was here, on this estate.
About fifteen years ago, a conversation on these lines must have taken place in all the houses near this one:
‘Elizabeth’s done it. Queen’s Gift will be all right.’
‘Good for her. He’s got money, then?’
‘Yes, plenty. Stephen Ellington-Smith.’
‘Gloucestershire? The Gloucestershire Ellington-Smiths aren’t too well off.’
‘No, Somerset. It’s a branch of the Gloucestershire lot.’
‘Oh, I know him, then. He was at school with my cousin.’
‘Anyway, it’s wonderful. Awful if she’d lost Queen’s Gift.’
So they must all back Stephen, stand by him, even if they think him eccentric. But after all, the arts were fashionable, and Queen’s Gift was not the only country house round about that went in for summer festivals. Was there anyone among the people he must call his friends with whom he talked about his secret miseries? Probably he wouldn’t dare, for if his confidante (bound to be a woman) was indiscreet, then he would be seen as mad, barking, round the bend, loco. Well, he was. But it was easy for her now to turn that life of his around slightly, as one turns an object to catch a different light, and all she could see was the life of a country gentleman, and Julie just a little dark blot on a sunny scene of trees and fields safely enclosing this ancient house. Just as her own life, Sarah’s, which she had seen for years as a competent progression, with proportion in all its parts, could be turned around to be seen as a stoic one, ending now in old age with an ache and a hunger for love—but that is not how it would look to her, she knew, quite soon. Within weeks, probably, her present state would seem like a temporary fever. And—but this was the point: her concern for Stephen was like a kind of illness. Anxiety invaded her at the thought of him. Just as it did when she considered Joyce. What was the matter with her, Sarah? Why did she seek burdens?
Meanwhile there was breakfast, in last night’s supper room. Mary Ford was there. So was Roy. Two large, competent, healthy people placidly consuming sensible breakfasts. The other person there was Andrew. He had no right to be there at all. Had he spent the night somewhere in the grounds? Perhaps sitting on a bench somewhere, mooning—yes, Sarah actually almost used that word—at the house where his love—herself—was lodged. He was not eating. A cup of black coffee stood in front of him. His face was as pale as a face can be that is surfaced with a tan. He stared long and deliberately at Sarah, with enough irony to shrivel her. If he was hating her, with all the fury of a despised lover, then she watched in herself that primitive reaction (had she felt it since she was pubescent?), the outraged amour propre expressed by How dare he? How old is the girl who feels this mixture of indignation and contempt because of the impertinence of an old man (probably thirty years old) who dares to think himself good enough for her? Thirteen? She poured herself coffee, her back turned, trying to recover some sense of the appropriate, let alone some humour, and heard a door slam. When she turned he had gone. She looked deliberately at Mary and Roy to see if they wanted to comment, but neither looked at her.
Then Mary said, ‘I think I’ll go and see if I can get some pictures. The light is good now.’ And Roy said, ‘Sarah, I’m going to have to take some leave. I’m due two weeks. This divorce thing is doing me in.’ With this, he left.
Sarah told herself that what this good friend of hers was going through was every bit as bad as anything she was feeling, but it was no good.
Henry arrived. He looked quite awful, which Sarah felt served him right. He scattered a dozen corn flakes into a bowl and sat opposite her. They sat looking at each other. There is a stage in love when the two stare in incredulity: how is it that this quite ordinary person is causing me so much suffering?
‘All right,’ said Henry, in reply to a thousand silent accusations from the rhetorics of love (which there is no need to list since no one has not used them), the first of which is always the incredulous: But if you love me, how can you be so unkind? ‘All right, I got drunk and it didn’t help. I clapped on those headphones you despise and put the music on so loud I couldn’t think, and when I woke this morning it was blasting into my ears. Well, all right’—for she was laughing at him—‘I did get through the night.’
‘Are you expecting me to congratulate you?’
‘You might as well.’
He even seemed to be waiting for her to do this, but she had to shut her eyes, for the lower half of her body had dissolved into a warm pond. He was asking, ‘Are you coming to Stratford today? Did you know we are all going to Stratford?’
‘No, I’m not coming with you to Stratford.’
‘Sarah,’ came the low reproach, for he was unable to prevent it, and then, already in parody, ‘You aren’t, you aren’t coming with me to Stratford?’
‘No; nor, it seems, anywhere else,’ she said, while tears made the room and Henry’s face swim in a watery kaleidoscope.
‘Sarah!’ He leaped up, as if to go to the sideboard, and actually did whirl around towards it, but turned back and stood behind his chair in a posture of wild accusation, but whether of her or himself she could not have said. Then he visibly took command of himself, actually got to the sideboard, poured coffee, which he drank there and then, a consoling or a narcotic draught, came back, sat down. All she could see was two wounded, accusing eyes. She blinked, and the shining white cloth, the silver, and Henry’s face dissolved and reassembled.
‘It’s messy,’ said Henry suddenly.
This was so absolutely in line with the culture clash that she began to laugh. It seemed to her so funny that she was thinking, Oh, God, if only I could share it with someone—who? Stephen? She said, ‘You mean, I’m in one room dreaming of you—if I can put it like that—and you’re in another room dreaming of me. But that’s not messy?’
He laughed, but he didn’t want to.
‘Well,’ she said, her voice back under control, ‘if anyone had told me when I was young that when I was—I’m not going to say old—that I would be reasoning with a young man in love with me…I suppose I may say you’re in love with me without straining the truth?’
‘I suppose you could, at that. And I’m not so young, Sarah. I’ll be middle-aged soon. I notice that the young girls these days, they don’t see me. It happened quite recently. I tell you, that was a bad day for me, when I first realized.’
‘Reasoning with him into sleeping with me, I think I would have slit my throat. But to put it another way—it’s amazing how often this one comes in useful—“We know what we are but we know not what we may be.” And thank God we don’t.’
‘Shakespeare, I have no doubt.’
Susan appeared from the garden. ‘The coach is here for Stratford,’ she said, obviously disappointed about som
ething, which could only be that Stephen wasn’t there.
Henry got up, saying, ‘This deprived American has never actually seen Romeo and Juliet.’
‘A pity it isn’t A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ said Sarah.
‘A quip that’s wasted on me. I haven’t seen that either.’
Susan was shocked by the anger in this exchange: she looked from one to the other with the timid smile of a peacemaker who doesn’t much hope. ‘Aren’t you coming, Sarah?’
‘No.’
‘No, she isn’t,’ said Henry, and accused her with his eyes. ‘Enjoy yourself,’ he said bitterly.
Sarah borrowed Mary’s car and drove to the Cotswolds to see her mother. This was an impulse. It had occurred to her that she sat for hours brooding about the puppet strings and their manipulators, but after all, there was nothing to stop her asking her mother. Why had she not done this before? This is what she was asking herself as she drove, for the idea had seized her with all the force and persuasiveness of novelty. It was absurd she had not thought to ask. Now she would say to her, Why am I like this? and her mother would say, Oh, I was wondering when you’d ask. But as she contemplated the forthcoming scene, doubt had to set in. Her relations with her mother were good. Cool, but good. Affectionate? Well, yes. Sarah visited her three or four times a year and telephoned her sometimes to find out how she did. She did very well, being alert, active and independent. She had lived in the little village for as long as Sarah had in her flat. Briony and Nell liked her, and might drive up to visit her. The one person she wanted to see—Hal—did not visit her. It occurred to Sarah that she could not ask, ‘Why is my brother, your son, such a deplorable human being?’ Her mother still adored him. She boasted often about the famous Dr Millgreen, but made polite enquiries about Sarah’s work.
When Sarah arrived, her mother was working in her garden. She was pleased enough to see her. Just as Sarah in her mid-sixties looked fifty on a good day, so did Kate Millgreen, over ninety, seem a lively seventy. They sat drinking tea in a room where every object spoke to Sarah about her childhood, but she could not attach memories to any of them, so thoroughly had she blocked it all off. Her mother believed Sarah had come to find out how she was holding out. Old people are afraid of their children, who will decide their fate for them, and so she was a little defensive, as she offered information about her neighbours and her garden, and said that luckily she suffered from nothing worse than mild rheumatism.
Now that Sarah was sitting there with this very old woman, who reminded her of the old woman on the bench that early morning in Belles Rivières, in her neat sprigged cotton dress and with her white hair in a bun, she was thinking, I want her to remember things that happened over sixty years ago.
She did attempt, ‘Tell me, I was wondering what kind of a child I was,’ but her mother was disconcerted. She sat there, holding her teacup and frowning and trying to remember. ‘You were a good little girl,’ she said at last. ‘Yes, I’m sure of that.’
‘And Hal?’ And as she asked, she thought, Why do I never think of my father? After all, I did have one.
‘He was ill a lot,’ said the old woman at last.
‘What was wrong with him?’
‘Oh—everything. He got everything when he was a child. Well, it’s such a long…I don’t remember now. He was threatened with TB at one point. A patch on the lung. He was in bed for…I think it was a year. That’s how they treated it then.’
‘And my father?’
Again her mother was surprised. She did not like the question. Her eyes, which were blue and direct, not used to evading anything, reproached Sarah. But she did try, with ‘Well, he did everything that was needed, you know.’
‘Was he a good father?’
‘Yes, I am sure he was.’
Sarah saw she was not going to get anywhere. When she left, she kissed her mother as usual and said, as she always did, that if things got too much for her, living by herself, she could always come and live with her in London, for there was plenty of room. And as usual, her mother said that she hoped she would drop dead before she needed to be looked after. Then she clearly felt this was too brusque, and added, ‘But thank you, Sarah. You always were very kind.’
I was? thought Sarah. Is that a clue? It sounds a bit suspect to me.
As she parked the car, she saw Stephen and the three boys walking away from the house. They carried spades, crowbars, a jump-drill. Elizabeth stood in a large vegetable garden with a young man who was presumably a gardener. He wore jeans and a red singlet. She was still in her riding clothes—green shirt, olive green breeches—and the red scarf confined her hair. Her pink cheeks flamed. She held one edge of a plant catalogue and the young man another. Both were alive with enjoyment of their task. Elizabeth invited Sarah to admire the garden, and she did. Then Sarah saw Stephen and the boys a good way off near a cottage or small house that had no roof. Presumably its forlorn look was temporary, for as Sarah came up, she saw Stephen was standing over a deep hole, levering with a crowbar at a stone that obstructed the insertion of a new gatepost. The three boys stood watching their father. The stone came loose, Stephen stood back, the younger boys lifted the stone out. On an indication from Stephen, the three politely greeted her. Over their sunny blond heads Stephen gave her a smile that said he was pleased she was there.
A large squat post lay on the grass, obviously salvaged. It was oak, weathered like elephant’s hide, and newly soaked in creosote. Now Stephen and the eldest boy, James, lifted it and slid it into the hole. All four gathered up the stones that had packed the bottom of the discarded post, which was splintering and rotten, and when the new post stood in a bed of stones, the boys took up spades and filled the hole and trampled the loose earth hard. The job was finished. James said to his father, ‘Mother said we must be home by twelve. She says we must do our homework.’
‘Off you go, then. Don’t forget the tools. Put them away properly.’
The three boys put the heavy tools over their shoulders and marched towards the house, knowing they were being watched. Stephen put the discarded post over his shoulder, balanced it with one hand, and they too walked towards the house.
‘I am making sure they have all the physical skills I have,’ he said, as if she had criticized him.
‘You mean, in case they have to earn their livings as workmen?’
‘Who knows, these days?’
‘Who was that man you were talking to this morning?’
‘I was wondering what you’d made of him. Yes. Well. That’s Joshua. He’s our neighbour. He’s leased some of our fields. We were discussing renewing the lease for next year.’ A pause. ‘He was the chap Elizabeth wanted to marry.’ He gave her plenty of time to absorb the implications of this, and even shot her a glance or two, to watch her doing it. ‘It’s a pity. Elizabeth would have enjoyed being a marchioness. Lady Elizabeth. He’s extremely rich. Much richer than I am. And his marriage is not too successful, so he would have done better to take Elizabeth. As it has turned out.’
‘There’s no accounting for tastes.’
‘They have a lot in common. Race horses—that’s his line. And Elizabeth is good at horses. But she took me. If she’d got Joshua, then she’d have been absolutely in the right place.’ Now they were nearing the house. ‘Poor Elizabeth. How can I grudge her Norah? It wouldn’t be fair, she thinks, to have married me and then given short measure by taking on Joshua again. Though I’m sure he wouldn’t say no. But Norah—that’s within the limits of fair play.’ He stopped and lowered the post so one end rested on the ground, the other supported in a large strong hand which could easily have been a workman’s. His clothes were old and work-worn. He smelled of working sweat. He was looking judiciously at the house. ‘A nice house,’ he remarked.
‘No one could disagree.’
‘Do you think that girl sees me separately from the house?’
‘Do you mean, does Susan love you for yourself alone? Of course not.’
‘And
you?’
‘You forget I knew you long before I saw the house.’
They stood in a country silence. Birds. An insect or two. A jet droning far overhead. A tractor at work some fields away.
‘Did you know Susan is thinking of marrying me? What do you have to say about that?’
‘Oh—fantasies.’
‘But suppose I am thinking about marrying her?’ He hefted the post again, and they went to where wood was stacked, ready for the winter. He added the wormy old post to the pile and brushed his hands together. ‘Anyway, it’s ridiculous. I’m possessed by the ridiculous. At night I find myself waking up and laughing. Can you beat that, Sarah? Something’s going on….’ He stood facing her, his eyes holding hers. ‘Sarah, somewhere or other I’m burned out.’ She did not know what to say. ‘Finished,’ he said, turning away.
Unfortunately, when apparitions from the places behind the closed doors, truthful moments, arrive in ordinary life, they seem so at odds with probability they tend to be ignored. Bad taste. Exaggeration. Melodrama. They are, quite simply, of a different texture and cannot be accommodated. Besides, today he seemed as full of vitality and health as Elizabeth.
She walked into the little town, along shady country roads. She lunched alone in a hotel and thought what a pleasure it could be to do this, reminding herself there would come a time when she would again enjoy doing things by herself, not feeling that a part of her had been ripped off because Henry was not there. She walked around streets that seemed as if they had no one in them, because there was no chance of bumping into Henry. She was back at the house about tea time, and there were Elizabeth and Norah under a chestnut, with a well-laden tea table between them. They waved at her to join them. She did so, knowing that competent Elizabeth would see this as an opportunity to gain useful information. The two women were usually far from alike, for Norah was appealing and devoted, like an affectionate dog, and even when she wore a linen coat-dress, as she did now, her clothes seemed soft and maternal, yet when they turned their faces towards her, sharpened by anticipation, they seemed like sisters being offered a nice treat. Sarah accepted cups of tea and chattered about Belles Rivières, particularly about the handsome and dramatic Jean-Pierre, so French and so clever, and about minor rivalries in Belles Rivières’ town council over Julie Vairon. She described the three hotels, Les Collines Rouges, the house Julie had lived in, and the museum. She said that Cézanne had lived and worked not far away, and saw how the name pleased them, a signpost in unfamiliar territory. She talked about everything and everyone except Molly, though she knew Elizabeth was much too shrewd not to suspect something like Molly. She entertained them well, to their profit and to her own, because it was useful to have the emotional turmoil of Belles Rivières diminished to a few mostly humorous anecdotes.