Authors: Priscilla Masters
There were four of these, each one stuffed full of stalls. There was only one way to assimilate everything and that was to walk up and down, quickly, stopping at each stall for a few minutes to see what was on offer.
I found a pair of bow puttees, some copper lustre jugs – just right to hang on a Welsh dresser I had in the shop. I found an Obadiah Sherratt figure of Christ in the
Garden of Gethsemane and countless other pieces. Every time I walked the corridors of antiques fairs I always wondered whether my jug would turn up today, here. Scanning the room I saw two or three policemen also treading the walkways. They were also on the lookout for stolen goods and, at a bet, they would find some.
My jug?
Maybe.
I used up all my cash and suddenly the early start caught up with me. I felt shattered. I made my way to the coffee stall and to my delight found David there. He greeted me with kisses on both cheeks. Obviously the awkwardness was completely over. ‘Susie,’ he said. ‘What a treat. How’s married life?’
Only a month ago I would have said, a dream. Now I was more circumspect.
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘We’re settling down.’
He gave me a sharp look. ‘Starting to find out what sort of a man you’ve married?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just rumours.’
‘What rumours?’
‘They’re probably not true.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Susie,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’ve heard he’s made some dirty business dealings – that’s all.’
I was silent. As with the jug there was always that sniff of scandal around the Oliver name. The uneasiness, that small hint that something was wrong.
We chatted easily for a while, drinking coffee and gossiping and then I sensed a change in him. ‘How is your husband?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’ I was wary now. ‘He’s away on business for the weekend.’
He grabbed my hand. ‘I never thought you would sell your soul…’ he said.
I stared at him. ‘David,’ I said, ‘what are you on about?’
‘…for a house, wealth, social position.’
I took my hand away. ‘Is that what you think?’
He said nothing.
‘Because you’ve got it wrong, you know. I didn’t marry Richard because of the house or wealth or social position.’
He simply raised his eyebrows and I felt angry.
‘I married him because I love him,’ I said.
‘I loved you once, Susie.’
The dismay I felt cancelled out all the pleasure I’d experienced at seeing him again. He’d spoilt it now. I felt I’d had to defend my marriage and at the same time I’d lost a friend. I stood up.
‘I’m going home,’ I said and knew I had alienated him. Probably for ever.
I loaded up my pieces and drove home.
But in spite of my successful buying, David had cast a sour note over my day. I felt tired and, for the first time since I’d lived in Hall o’th’Wood, a little depressed as I let myself in through the front door and walked into the hall.
I was aware of all the eyes of the Oliver clan watching me from the gallery. I walked along until I reached the eighteenth century portrait of Richard’s namesake and studied his face. I had always felt there was something wasted and dissolute about the arrogant features. Deny it as I might I could see some of my husband there. In the straight, angry gaze of the grey eyes. There was something direct and clear – and uncompromising. The question was what had Rychard Oliver done in the eighteenth century that had led the potter to portray not only the house but also a set of gallows? What part had Matthew played in the story and what had Rebekah, his sister, been to the master of the house? I felt a sudden lust to see the jug again and wished I had been able to keep it and find out its history. Rightly or wrongly I believed that to know its story would be to know something of my own.
I moved away from the portrait and reflected then that Richard, my husband, should sit for one of these portraits. I would suggest it to him.
Maria had lit a fire in the library and set out the Sunday papers. The room was cosy and warm and I alternatively dozed and read. At five she brought me a meal on a tray, thin slices of beef and vegetables, and I sat back in the leather library chair and ate it before turning again to the news of the day: Arab terrorists in Jordan, complaints about the noise of Concorde, Mary Wilson’s poems. I fell asleep.
I was wakened by the telephone ringing. No one was answering it. Maria would be having a late siesta, a habit
she had never quite dropped. I picked it up.
‘Susie.’
It was Richard. ‘Susie.’ There was something urgent in his voice which should have alerted me.
‘Richard?’
He asked me what I had been doing and I told him without telling him anything about bumping into David. I described some of the pieces I had bought and realised he wasn’t really listening but distracted. ‘And now I have a fit of the lazies,’ I said, smiling to myself as though he would be able to see it. ‘You’ll be ashamed of me. I started to read the papers and dropped asleep in the chair.’
‘It doesn’t sound like you.’ His voice was abrupt, strained.
‘How is your business trip?’
‘Good.’ Suddenly he sounded excited. ‘Actually, Susie, I think I can say very good. Darling, I believe I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.’
What tunnel? The tunnel you have been fumbling along alone, and in the dark
?
‘Are you going to tell me any more?’
‘No need for you to know, my darling.’ It felt like the pat on the head you give a child. ‘Except that everything – everything,’ he repeated,’ is fine.’
I wanted to believe him. It is one of my faults that I believe what I want to believe, sometimes ignoring facts to the contrary, facts which may be staring me in the face. As a child I had the superstition that if I told myself enough times that something was right it would be so. I
did this when my parents had died but I could not have repeated it enough times. How many more?
Underneath that choice veneer Richard was presenting to me I was perfectly aware that everything was not fine.
‘I am so looking forward to coming home,’ he said next. ‘I shall tell Jenkins to put his foot on the accelerator.’
We both laughed. Jenkins’s slow and cautious driving was one of our shared amusements.
‘Wear your best dress, Susie, we have plenty to celebrate and tell Maria we are to have a special dinner tomorrow night. A very special dinner. Tell her to kill the fatted calf.’
‘I will.’
‘Have a good evening, my darling, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘What time?’
‘Tell Maria to have dinner ready for eight and to uncork the wine. I’ll be back before then. Susie,’ he added, ‘I love you so very much.’
I told him I loved him too and replaced the receiver with an uncomfortable feeling. Richard sounded almost drunk with excitement after his subdued behaviour since the beginning of the year. Something had been worrying my husband. And now? Whatever it was he was not going to share it with me. Perhaps in my heart of hearts I already knew that the clouds were gathering over our heads. Perhaps I even accepted it.
Wonderful times are not meant to last.
I did not go to Bottle Kiln on the Monday but spent the day catching up with paperwork and chores around the house, helping Maria wax the furniture and prepare the meal. We had always enjoyed working together in the kitchen though I knew Richard didn’t quite approve of this fraternisation with his housekeeper. But she cooked in the same way as did my aunt, with garlic and olive oil and tomatoes, chattering all the time and sipping the cooking wine. I felt comfortable with her. As she chattered and tossed the vegetables in the inevitable olive oil I ironed a few of Richard’s shirts and at six went upstairs to change.
My skin was still tanned from the holiday in Majorca so I creamed my legs and wore a pink dress with
high-heeled
sandals, took time and trouble over my make-up and hair. The dining room would be warm, with a log fire in the grate, and I wanted to feel close to Richard.
Skin to skin.
I hoped he would learn that I was a grown woman and that he would confide in me.
At a quarter past seven I heard the car rumble across the courtyard cobbles. I ran downstairs and out through the front door into the chilly night. Richard was just climbing out of the back seat and I flung my arms around him – terribly – abnormally – glad to see him, to hold him. ‘Richard,’ I said, breathing in the tang of his tobacco. He must have smoked a cigar in the car, something Jenkins disapproved of. ‘Richard. You’re back.’
He held me to him, speaking into my hair. ‘What a welcome,’ he said. ‘What a homecoming.’ He held me at arm’s length. ‘Better than a puppy,’ he said, laughing.
I spoke briefly to Jenkins and Richard dropped his arm around my shoulders and together we walked into the great hall. He looked at me fondly. ‘What have you been up to today?’
I related all the mundane things I had done – including the shirts. All six of them. He laughed and I knew he wasn’t really that interested.
Jenkins took his case upstairs and he followed him up. ‘I need a shower,’ he said. ‘Pour me a drink, my darling, and I’ll be right down.’
There was a special atmosphere in the dining room that night. Maria had made a great effort. The meal was good, beef stroganoff with creamed potatoes and dishes of miniature vegetables. And she had had the sense to use fillet steak and not skimp on the quality of the meat, I noticed. Candles flickered down the polished length of the table and that was the only light – apart from the flames licking the logs in the hearth. The room was warm – stuffy almost. Intimate. We drank two bottles of wine which went to my head. Maria was watching me with an almost sentimental expression in her dark eyes. She produced the tarte aux pommes with a flourish and Richard dismissed her then drew me to him. ‘Sit nearer to me,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’
I was excited and a little drunk because I believed he was about to confide in me. But instead he asked me
questions about my business, about doing something illegal which would bring in a great deal of money. I related the story of the stolen goods. His eyes were shuttered then and I wondered whether the moment had passed but he spoke again about Hall o’th’Wood and what it meant to him. He followed that up with questions about what it meant to me and I enthused, as I always had, over the beauty and tradition of the place. He seized on the word ‘tradition’ and told me that when he had noted my enthusiasm for preserving the past, in the form of antiques, he had known I was the wife he had been waiting for. I was flattered and, as I said before, a little drunk. I felt that Richard was celebrating something but he was celebrating it alone because I did not know what it was. I could not share it.
We made love that night on the rug in front of the fire. I remember I was naked and Richard was above me. I recall seeing his face and our complete abandonment to pleasure. I believe it was in that moment that my child was conceived. Afterwards we tumbled into the four-poster bed and slept instantly.
I had thought I would sleep until morning but perhaps we had drunk too much wine for normal sleep. Or perhaps I was disturbed. I awoke at some time in the middle of the night and became aware of the footsteps pacing over my head.
In Elizabethan times, when Hall o’th’Wood was built, in inclement weather the ladies and children had taken their exercise in the long gallery on the top floor which
stretched the entire length of the house. It was a light room with windows facing all directions overlooking the Cheshire Plain. Oak floorboards and wainscoting were the only decoration, apart from four plush sofas which stood back against the walls, giving a clear run to the energetic. But the lack of carpeting meant that if anyone did walk the boards you could hear it. Every hollow footstep.
I am not a superstitious person but I wondered then if the dead could walk.
I stretched out my hand to rouse Richard and found that his side of the bed was empty. He had pulled the covers back over me so I would not feel the cold and wake. I sat up and reached for my dressing gown from the bottom of the bed.
I could hear footsteps echoing above me, walking the length of the room, pausing, turning and walking back again. I imagined I could hear long skirts rustling and children calling to each other.
Then I told myself not to be so silly. It must be Richard.
I tied the sash around my waist, pushed open the door that led to the twisted stairs up to the long gallery, and climbed. Though logic told me it would only be Richard, unable to sleep, my heart was pounding as I rounded the corner and raised my head to peer along the length of the room. There was enough moonlight to make out the entire length of the room, blue pools creating an unreal, almost frightening effect. I saw at once it was Richard
who was pacing up and down. But for a moment or two I wished it had been some ancient ghost. I watched him, unseen, for a few minutes, more frightened by what I saw than I would have been of a headless, medieval spectre or even Rebekah Grindall’s broken body. My husband looked old and shrunken. Already one of his ancestors. Frozen to the spot I stifled a scream because I had glimpsed my future. Then he turned his head in my direction and saw me watching him. ‘Hello, Suse,’ he said, in a voice which struggled to be normal. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’
‘Couldn’t you sleep, you mean?’ I walked towards him, desperate to recognise him again, to watch him become, once more, the man I loved. ‘Richard,’ I appealed. ‘What is going on?’
He didn’t speak at first. He said nothing while minutes stretched silently between us but stared at me as though, like me, he was seeing something not quite of our time and I became even more frightened. ‘What on earth is it?’
He walked right up to me, very slowly. I could pick out his features now in the moonlight. I don’t know why but I found his stare quite horrible. ‘Susie,’ he said with difficulty, gripping me by the shoulders. ‘You do know, don’t you, that you can’t inherit the house? When I die Hall o’th’Wood must go to Michael?’
I panicked then. ‘Are you ill?’
‘No. No.’ He spoke quickly. ‘I’m not ill at all but I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand anything. I love you more than I can ever say. I love you more than my
life. From the day I found you I have loved you more than anything in this universe but this is something different. Michael must inherit Hall o’th’Wood.’