Dubious Legacy (7 page)

‘I haven’t given you one yet.’

‘Are you suggesting I—’

‘I don’t know, darling. I don’t know Henry all that well. I’ve stayed a couple of weekends; I’ve met his wife once. I don’t believe she is ill. The only thing I happen to know is that Ebro does all the redecorating; he is training to be an interior decorator.’

‘In London?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘So that wasn’t a lie.’

‘Half.’

‘Oh.’ Antonia was thoughtful.

‘I suggest,’ said Matthew, ‘that if you girls are all that interested, you ask Henry for the truth of it.’

‘Maybe I will,’ said Antonia.

Matthew wished he had not made this suggestion. ‘Can we get back to you and me?’ he asked. ‘When shall we marry? Where shall we spend our honeymoon? Where shall we live? How many children shall we have—?’

‘Steady on,’ said Antonia. ‘Let’s start with the engagement ring. I like rubies.’

‘And you are virtuous,’ Matthew ventured.

‘Of course I am.’ Antonia hugged him. ‘Darling, darling Matthew.’ There’s a trousseau to choose, she thought. A house to find. What fun! I can stop going to my office and all that rush in the mornings and the horrible journey home on the tube. ‘I shall try and make you happy,’ she said.

‘That will be no problem,’ said Matthew. ‘I am happy now. It will only get more so.’

J
AMES MARTINEAU HAD ENJOYED
his supper. Pilar was a good cook. Eating the roast duck, he compared the meal with previous meals at Cotteshaw, each in its way excellent. As he ate the duck and watched Barbara, he remembered the weekend a year ago when he had brought Valerie with him. There had still been some small possibility that she would stop messing about and make up her mind.

Valerie had stopped messing about and she had made up her mind. Putting paid to any residue of hope he might have had, she had married a man richer, more intelligent and better-looking than himself. Savouring the peas, James remembered Valerie: he had been so very much in love!

During that weekend Valerie had chatted and joked, made herself interesting, drawn Henry out. Yet Valerie had not been invited upstairs to meet Margaret. Remembering Valerie, and the awful pain of disappointment, James determined, as he ate his pudding, never again to allow himself to be so vulnerable. Spooning fruit into his mouth, he watched Henry watching the girls and the girls’ responsive glances, and Matthew watching Antonia. Helping himself to more cream, James tried to remember what exactly he had said to Barbara when they stopped on their way to Cotteshaw. Had he or had he not committed himself? Certainly Barbara had said neither yes nor no. The episode had been on a jokey plane. Remembering this, James thought that he need not necessarily follow it up, and that anyway Barbara was, and would always be, second best.

When supper was over Matthew and Antonia had strolled out into the garden, while Barbara helped Pilar clear the table. Ebro went to fetch Margaret’s tray. Henry suggested, ‘Like a walk? Come on, Barbara—and James.’

Pilar said, ‘You go, Barbara, it’s a lovely night, I finish this easy.’

Barbara said, ‘Right then, thank you,’ and put down the glass cloth and the plate she had been drying. ‘Come on, James.’

Henry led them across the lawn through a gate to a path which ran across a hayfield. His dogs padded ahead, snuffling the night smells. Halfway across the field, Henry said, ‘I must see to something in the wood. I’ll catch you up,’ and disappeared with his dogs into the half-dark. James and Barbara followed the footpath; haycocks, ghostly in the moonlight, stretched in geometric rows to the hedges.

‘James?’ Barbara slid her hand into his.

‘Yes?’ He held her hand, thrusting his thumb against her palm, as he used to do with Valerie. Barbara had a narrower hand than Valerie.

‘Did you mean what you said this afternoon?’ Barbara flinched closer to James as a hunting bat whispered and dived after moths.

‘When I suggested that we get married?’ James did not look at her. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘If you still mean it, I’d like to.’

‘Of course I mean it,’ James answered violently. Why did she say ‘like to’, not ‘love to’?

They stopped walking and stood facing each other. James took Barbara’s other hand and held both against his chest. ‘Sealed with a kiss?’ he suggested, and bent to kiss her.

Returning the kiss, Barbara was surprised by an incomprehensible sense of loss and disillusion which she quickly dismissed. ‘It’s such a wonderful night,’ she said, kissing him again. ‘A full midsummer moon.’

‘Full moon tomorrow,’ James corrected her, ‘for the dinner party.’

She said, ‘Ah yes, the dinner party.’

Presently they sat leaning against a haycock and listened to the night sounds. A tawny owl in the wood, a fieldmouse rustling in the hay, the loud cack-cack of a disturbed pheasant, sheep munching in the next field. James thought, I’ve done it now, let myself in for it. Then he thought, She will never be able to hurt me as Valerie did, I shall be far more comfortable with Barbara. Smiling to himself, he murmured, ‘The doctrine of second best.’

Barbara, with her head on his shoulder, said, ‘What?’

James said, ‘Nothing, Barbara, nothing.’

She said, ‘So you love me?’

James said, ‘Of course I do.’

‘Desperately?’

James said, ‘That word would apply,’ and kissed the top of her head.

Barbara said, ‘Our marriage will not be like Henry’s.’

James said, ‘I should damn well hope not. What did you think of her—Margaret?’

‘Strange.’ Barbara laughed uneasily. ‘Very odd. She told us that Henry pestered her and pestered her to marry him, he would not take No. Would you have taken No?’

James said, ‘Of course not.’

‘I am not convinced,’ Barbara wheedled.

‘Then be convinced. I am,’ James said, lying. ‘Totally,’ he said, compounding his untruth.

‘To spend your life in bed! It
is
peculiar. Does she never get up? I am thinking of Margaret,’ said Barbara.

‘She must, if only to go to the loo or have a bath.’ They giggled, leaning against the haycock and each other.

‘Hullo, you two.’ Henry reappeared from behind them, walking softly. One of his dogs panted in Barbara’s face and tried to lick her. Pushing the dog away, Barbara said, ‘Get off, you smell,’ and, ‘Oh Henry, hullo. We are going to get married; James would not take No.’

Henry said, ‘Felicitations. I hope you will be very happy. May I join you or would you rather be alone?’

Barbara said, ‘Of course, sit with us. It’s lovely here in the sweet-smelling hay by the light of the moon. We have the rest of our lives to be alone.’

As Henry lowered himself to sit with them, James thought bitterly of Valerie and wished her dead, but since he was essentially a kind man he immediately rescinded this wish. Taking Barbara’s hand, he kissed her palm and folded her fingers over it. ‘Barbara—’

Barbara said, ‘M-m-m, that’s nice, who taught you to do that?’ and when James failed to answer she turned to Henry. ‘Did you propose to Margaret by moonlight?’

Henry said, ‘No. It was in Egypt.’

‘But the same moon—’

‘So?’

‘The moon is even larger in Egypt, I’ve read. Did you ask—’

‘In a bar, I think. Yes, it was in a bar.’

‘Often?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I mean, how often did you propose? James asked me several times.’

‘Just the once,’ Henry answered shortly.

Barbara said, ‘Oh,’ and after a pause, ‘Did you have a wonderful wedding?’

‘A civil ceremony.’

‘Don’t let her bother you,’ said James.

‘Pester was the word Margaret used,’ said Barbara. ‘She said you absolutely pestered her to marry you.’

Henry said, ‘I think I’ll go in. My arse is getting damp and I have a lot to do tomorrow.’ He jumped upright from his sitting position and, when Barbara held up her hand to him, pulled her to her feet and smacked her bottom. ‘That’s for nosiness.’

James, younger but less spry, scrambling to his feet felt excluded. To rectify this feeling he put his arm around Barbara as they walked back to the house. There they found Matthew and Antonia on the terrace, arms entwined. Antonia called out as they crossed the lawn, ‘I allowed Matthew to talk me into marriage under a lilac bush. I shall for ever associate its intoxicating scent with—’

‘Happiness?’ suggested Henry. Then, ‘Well now, isn’t that nice? Two future tangles. This merits a bottle of champagne,’ and he went away into the house to fetch it.

Antonia murmured, or it might have been Barbara, or again in later years, when memories played false, one or other thought Matthew or James had remarked, ‘Some people’s idea of wit is a trifle warped.’ What they all remembered was the harsh screech of the cockatoo perched in the vine, and Henry calling up, ‘Come down, my pretty,’ as he set the bottle and the glasses on a table. Then he stretched his arm up for the bird to sidle on to his wrist.

Antonia had asked, ‘Where did you find him?’ and Henry, stroking the bird’s yellow crest, had said, ‘Caged in a pet shop. I cannot endure the thought of imprisonment for wild creatures.’ And he had added, ‘Or for any live creature.’

Then Antonia and Barbara had exchanged a disbelieving look which was noted by the men, Henry in particular, and Henry, opening the champagne with a soft pop, had murmured as he filled the glasses, ‘You are thinking of my caged wife,’ and chuckled. The cockatoo screeched again and climbed up his arm to sit on his shoulder.

Sipping her champagne, Barbara said, ‘And is she not caged? Don’t you keep her prisoner?’

James had made as though to hush her, but Henry answered her seriously, ‘I cannot interfere with my wife’s liberty,’ and watched Barbara’s face. Then he said, ‘Shall we drink to you and James? And Antonia and Matthew? To your—er—collective liberties.’ When they had drunk the toast he had said, still amused but friendly, ‘I see you girls as the prototypes for post-war women.’

Matthew had said, ‘The war has been over for some years.’

Henry said, ‘True, but we are still finding our collective feet, don’t you agree?’ Then he said, ‘Time for bed, I think. Tomorrow will be a long day,’ and led the way into the house.

In the hall he had settled the cockatoo on its perch before bidding them good night. ‘I hope you all come again often,’ he said, ‘and when you have children that you will bring them too. This is a good place for children. Good night, all of you.’

Watching Antonia mount the stairs ahead of him, Matthew congratulated himself on a job well done, a sensible step. Beside him James suppressed a disconsolate pang, remembering the weekend he had brought Valerie, when he had shared her bed.

In the bathroom Antonia squeezed paste on to her toothbrush. ‘Antonia Stephenson,’ she said. ‘How does it sound to you?’

In the act of brushing her teeth, Barbara gargled inarticulately, rinsed and countered, ‘Barbara Martineau? I like both.’ She made room for Antonia at the basin.

Antonia brushed her teeth briskly then rinsed, rolling the water around before spitting. ‘Names matter,’ she said. ‘I feel sorry to give up Lowther but Stephenson will do, and your Martineau has a fine Huguenot ring.’

‘Tillotson,’ said Barbara.

‘What makes you say Tillotson?’ asked Antonia, startled.

Barbara picked up her hairbrush and began brushing her hair. ‘It is just that since we sat in that weird room listening to our hostess, I suppose she
is
our hostess, I can’t get her out of my mind.’ Barbara sat on the rim of the bath and stared at her friend. ‘I’m not a bit sleepy,’ she said. ‘Shall we discuss?’

They moved into Antonia’s room. Barbara sat on the end of the bed while Antonia got in and propped herself with pillows.

Antonia said, ‘It’s not so much her as him, Henry. Were you able to talk to James about him?’

‘We were too busy getting engaged,’ said Barbara.

Antonia said, ‘So were we.’

Barbara said, ‘Henry seemed to be there with us. He went off, leaving us alone, but when he came back it was as though he had been there all the time—’

‘In your thoughts,’ said Antonia.

‘Yes,’ said Barbara.

‘He was in mine too,’ Antonia admitted. ‘Why don’t you get in with me, it’s a double bed. You might catch a chill out there.’

Barbara said, ‘Thanks, I will,’ and joined Antonia in the bed.

Antonia said, ‘Did you tell James what she said about Henry?’

‘I told him that she told us he pestered her to marry him, and that I thought her very odd, but—’

‘Not about his being impotent?’ Antonia queried.

‘No.’

‘Not about him being homosexual?’

Barbara said, ‘No.’

‘Or only able to do it with
horses?
Antonia pressed her friend.

‘I was afraid James would laugh. It’s not the sort of thing I could tell James. We were getting engaged. James would be shocked. How could Henry—with a
horse?’

‘Work it out for yourself,’ said Antonia.

‘I’ve tried,’ said Barbara.
‘Did you
tell Matthew?’

‘Of course not,’ said Antonia. ‘So all the time James was proposing and you were accepting you were thinking of Henry Tillotson?’

‘Not all the time, of course not, but just a bit. You said you were thinking of him too.’

‘Well,’ said Antonia, ‘how could one
not?’
and she pushed a propping pillow aside and stretched her legs down the bed.

Barbara, taking the hint, got out of bed. ‘But you do love Matthew?’ she asked as she moved towards her own room.

‘Of course,’ said Antonia firmly. ‘Do you love James?’

‘Yes,’ said Barbara, ‘of course—er—desperately.’ She remembered James voicing this word in the hayfield.

‘So why are we discussing Henry?’ Antonia murmured, but not expecting an answer she called, ‘Good night.’

Barbara said, ‘Good night,’ and closed the communicating door.

W
HEN BARBARA WOKE SHE
heard sounds in the garden. It was very early. She went to the window and looked out. Her room was at the side of the house looking onto a lawn, which stretched down to a gate leading into a walled garden; craning her neck, she could see the tops of fruit trees and rows of vegetables. Flanking the lawn were clipped yew hedges and, along the hedges, borders of yellow tulips. There was activity on the lawn: Ebro and Trask were putting up trestle tables, directed by Pilar. ‘This way,’ said Pilar, and, ‘Is not straight. Is not in the middle. Yes, better so. Don’t make a noise,’ she said, gesturing up at the house. ‘The ladies a-sleeping.’