‘She doesn’t care about me, Sylvester, I’ve known that for a long time now. She only thought she did in the beginning because I was a bit like Alistair.’
‘Aren’t you still “a bit like Alistair”?’
‘Not sufficiently like or unlike him for it to work.’
Sylvester said nothing more and Blake tried to dismiss the conversation from his mind as he had dismissed her and Western Isle from his life but it wasn’t that easy. He told himself that it was a waste of time. He concentrated on work and being with Sylvester and Anthony but there soon came a Saturday afternoon when Sylvester had taken the child to the park and he was not at work and suddenly he couldn’t bear the silence any longer, and he shouted to Hetty that he was going out and left.
It seemed like such a long way, longer than ever before, the car didn’t eat up the miles it just slowly chewed them no matter how fast he went and it was turning into a nasty day. Rain threw itself at the windscreen. The wipers made their little humming sound. He reasoned that she was still at Western Isle so he didn’t stop when he reached Grayswell but when he got to the entrance a big For Sale sign swayed in the wind and he stayed there for a minute or so before turning the car in at the drive and it was worse than before. It was worse than he had anticipated. Nothing had been planted, the fields were full of weeds. He stopped the car in the big yard and got out. The lawn in front of the house was knee-high and even longer in the orchard. The animals had gone, the barns and byres were empty, some of the windows of the house were open. Its dark windows were covered in cobwebs and ivy had almost covered some of the upstairs windows at either end. There were no doves in the dovecots. There was no sign of any kind of life except for the cherry trees swaying in the garden. They were covered in pale pink blossom and every time the wind blew it rained pink on the lawns. The wind was the only sound, no lambs crying in the fields, not even a farmcat or a bird. The paint was peeling off the front door and the window ledges and rain had turned the windows grey with dirt. Somewhere in the big yard a half-door swung open and shut and Blake’s memory provided him with Alistair Vane as a big, dark, good-natured lad saying to Blake’s tormentor, ‘Leave him alone, Tommy, he’s only a boy.’
* * *
Blake drove to Grayswell and Tommy came out of the byre, saying without rancour, ‘What the hell do you want?’
‘Is Annie here?’
‘No. Nice car. You always have such nice cars, you lucky bugger.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Why, what’s it to you?’
‘Just answer the question, Tommy, for once.’
‘Old man Vane died. Did you know? Heart-attack the doctor said. Couldn’t stand losing Alistair.’
‘And Mrs Vane?’
‘Annie took her in. ‘Course she’ll have some money when the farm sells. She’ll be able to buy herself a nice little house in the village.’
‘It was her home.’
‘Not much good with nobody to run it and no money to run it with—’
‘Charles Vane had money.’
‘Not the last few years. He was never a good farmer, you know, as my father says. Made a lot of bad choices. His father was, apparently. He couldn’t hold things together, that’s what he needed Alistair for. It would have been all right if Alistair had been alive. That’s what my father says anyway.’
‘Where’s Annie?’
‘She has a house in Stanhope. Nice little place,’ Tommy said.
The house, as Blake shortly discovered, was down a tiny side street with no view. He banged on the door and Annie opened it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘look what the cat brought in,’ but she let him in.
Blake hadn’t realised that he was used to luxury. The tiny house was a shock. It was very dark inside because there were houses all around it. A cheerful fire burned in the sitting-room but there was no carpet, just a rug in front of the fire and net at the window for some kind of privacy from the people walking past. The chairs looked cheap. Annie offered to make some tea. He followed her into the kitchen but it was so small, there was barely enough room for two people and he could see the outside lavatory and the coalhouse through the net at the window and the tin bath hanging up in the yard. The kettle was on over the fire and she busied herself with cups and saucers and milk and sugar, saying without turning to look at him, ‘Did you know that Alistair’s father had died?’
‘I went to Grayswell. Tommy told me.’
‘I have Mrs Vane here. She’s gone to Madge’s for her Sunday dinner and taken Susan. I’m working Sundays you see over at the pub. I’ve just finished.’
‘And Western Isle is for sale?’
‘Yes, it’s for sale. I just hope somebody buys it soon and we can move into a house big enough to swing a cat.’
‘Tommy says he had a heart attack.’
‘Do you care what he died of?’ Annie said, suddenly quiet.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Then don’t ask.’
‘Annie—’
She turned around then.
‘It finished him off when Alistair died and you damned well know it,’ she said.
‘Annie—’
‘He fell all the way down the stairs, you remember those beautiful wooden stairs at Western Isle that had been there for hundreds of years? He fell all the way down them, Blake, and when he got to the bottom he was dead, or maybe even before. Are you satisfied?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right,’ and she turned back and scalded the tea. She stood over the tea tray with the big brown teapot on it and she said, ‘Did you go to the house?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was what you wanted, wasn’t it? You wanted to see Western Isle like it is now, you wished it. Or maybe you even wish somebody had burned it down—’
‘I don’t wish that—’
‘Don’t you? You just wanted to watch it drop to pieces. You wanted everybody to be sorry. Well, there you have it. Everybody is and shall I tell you something else? I do wish I’d married you, I do wish it because I wouldn’t have ended up in this pitiable bloody awful little house all by my bloody self!’
‘I’m only rich because I married Irene.’
‘You always say that,’ Annie declared, frowning at him. ‘I don’t think it’s true. You couldn’t do the kind of job you do unless you were cleverer than other people. Somebody told me you own it now. Isn’t that true?’
‘Sylvester made me a partner, yes.’
‘He would hardly have done that if he’d thought you couldn’t manage.’
‘All right then, except for one thing. You never cared for me like you cared for Alistair. Isn’t that the truth?’
‘Yes, it’s the truth. I know you didn’t believe it at the time and that it was partly because of you that I fell in love with him but I could never have loved you like I loved him.’
‘How are you managing without him?’ Blake managed after a little pause.
‘I’m not,’ Annie said. ‘People don’t understand, they think you get better after a while but it isn’t true.’
‘I know.’
‘Of course you do. I’m sorry that you know. Do you still want some tea or are you going to storm out?’
‘I never storm out.’
‘You do it all the time,’ Annie said.
She carried the tray through into the other room and put it down on a tiny table beside the fire. It was warm close to the fire but a draught howled in from the outside door. She handed him a cup and saucer. It was not a big cup of tea but it looked to Blake the size of a duck pond. He sat down on the edge of the sofa and it nearly tipped up and spilled his tea.
‘You have to sit way back,’ Annie explained.
Sitting back was not much better because the cushions displaced themselves and left him sitting on the springs.
‘It wasn’t a good buy,’ she explained. ‘I bought it for the colour. It’s too short at the back as well. It gives you neck ache after a while and you can’t lie down on it unless you’re Susan’s size because it’s too short.’
‘The perfect sofa,’ Blake said, battling with his tea.
‘Settee.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a settee. Only rich people say sofa.’
‘I wouldn’t have said it was either.’
She smiled at him and drank her tea and put down her cup and saucer on the tray again and then she said, ‘What did you come for?’
‘I just came to see how you were.’
‘You know what they say.’
‘What?’
‘You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy. I saw Paul Monmouth again recently. He took me out for dinner. It was the worst evening of my life. He told me all about his shops, I mean all about them. Do you talk to that blonde woman about your shipyards?’
‘I only have one.’ Blake drank his tea and left.
* * *
That night he sat by the fire with Sylvester and told him what Annie had said about loving Alistair and about the farm.
‘You should buy it,’ Sylvester said.
‘What would I do with a farm?’
‘It’s not what you would do with it, I think you’re meant to buy it. If you don’t then it goes the wrong way somehow and you’ve let everybody down, including your fair Annie.’
‘She’s not mine, she never was.’
‘If you bought Western Isle you could put things right there. You could let the land, wouldn’t Tommy want it and wouldn’t it bring you closer? And we could go there at weekends—’
‘It’s not a cottage and I don’t have much time at weekends.’
‘I think if you let somebody else buy it you’ll be sorry later,’ Sylvester said.
Blake didn’t answer.
‘Won’t you be sorry later?’
‘I wanted not to have ties there, I wanted not to go back but casually, occasionally, I wanted to forget it all. I was happy with Irene, I thought it was all finished. Annie doesn’t love me and I don’t think I love her any more. I just want to stay out.’
‘And can you?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
Thirty three
Blake bought Western Isle and very cheaply. Annie was furious. At least Mrs Vane then had enough money to buy a house in Stanhope. She didn’t ask Annie to go there to live with her and Annie wished that she had. It was such a nice house, detached stone with gardens all around and enough room at the back for a garage and to keep hens. The garden was pretty with trees and roses and a lawn. It would have been just the place for Susan to grow up. Sometimes when she went to bed at night now she imagined herself living in the tiny house down the back street for the rest of her life. She wanted another job but work was difficult to find so she went on working at midday at the pub, struggling to keep everything going. Her parents tried to help but Annie’s pride would let her take nothing from them. Hardest of anything, she was invited to the Hall to see how Madge and Frank were. All the farms had been sold off. Frank had given up working at the grammar school and they were quite prosperous. They gave dances there and Madge showed Annie the dresses she bought for these but Annie was never invited because it was only couples. On these evenings she sat at home and imagined what it was like to be a guest, to be invited to dinner at a house where there was a ballroom, to have company and good food and laughter, to dance with your husband and to be the other half of him, to plan for the future. When Susan was in bed she sat by the fire in the tiny house and tried hard not to think how happy she and Alistair had been.
For a long time there were workmen at Western Isle. Blake was never there. Annie would have known if he had been, she saw her mother every week and nothing escaped Rose’s eyes.
‘I don’t know why he bought it,’ Rose said sniffily. ‘Did you know that he has Alistair’s pictures up in the house?’
‘What pictures?’
‘Albert Morley went there the other day and he says in the sitting-room there are paintings and drawings of Western Isle with Alistair’s name on them.’
That weekend Blake came to the farm, Annie knew within hours. On the Saturday afternoon she left Susan with her mother and walked up to Western Isle. A big man opened the door. Annie didn’t know what to say. She had expected Blake.
‘I’m Annie Vane. I came to see Blake.’
‘Do come in, my dear. I’m Sylvester Richmond and you are more than welcome.’
Annie didn’t know how to refuse the invitation and as he took her straight into the sitting-room she could soon see for herself some of the drawings and paintings which Mrs Vane said she had taken with her to the new house because Annie had no room in her small home.
‘David isn’t here, I’m afraid, but you will have some tea.’ He didn’t wait for her to say either she would or she wouldn’t but shouted amiably along the hall, ‘Hetty, bring some tea for the lass, will you?’
As he spoke a small boy came through the hall and into the room and Annie got a shock. He looked so much like Alistair.
‘Yes,’ Sylvester said, ‘my daughter had the most wonderful coloured hair—’
‘I remember.’
‘You met? And of course David has fair hair. So what do we get? A gypsy.’
‘A Vane,’ Annie said clearly.
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘That’s what the Vanes look like. This was their home.’
A middle-aged woman came in shortly with a tea-tray but Annie refused.
‘I came for the paintings,’ she said.
‘What paintings?’
‘Those. My husband painted them. They got left here by mistake when we moved out.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course.’
There was the sound of the outside door. Sylvester looked relieved and as Blake came into the room, said helpfully, ‘We have company. Mrs Vane has come to tea.’
‘Hello, Annie.’
‘Hello. I came for the paintings.’
‘What paintings?’
‘The ones which Alistair did. They were left in the attic by mistake.’
‘I assumed they went with the house. Don’t you want them to stay here?’
‘They’re mine.’
‘I’ll have them sent down to you.’
‘I’d rather take them now if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not. Do you have a car?’
‘No.’ Annie hadn’t thought about that or she could have borrowed one from Grayswell. She hadn’t thought Blake would give in without a fight.
He proceeded to take down the paintings for her. They were scattered through the house. Annie got to see each room and she couldn’t help thinking how pleased Alistair would have been with what had been done. It was all so tasteful, expensive but comfortable and it became clear to her long before the last picture was removed that each one had been carefully chosen for where it went, that Western Isle was a fitting setting for Alistair’s work.
Blake handled the pictures like they were babies and he and Sylvester tore up cardboard boxes and wrapped and taped them so that they could not be damaged. While this was going on Annie sat very properly by the fire, wanting the tea which Hetty offered but afraid of her shaking hands. She began to wish heartily that she had not come, that she had not demanded the paintings of Blake. She had nowhere to put them. They loaded them into the car and drove to Grayswell to collect Susan.
He didn’t go into the house with her though she asked him and all the way to Stanhope nobody said a word. He carried them into the house one by one and stacked them by the wall in her tiny sitting-room.
‘I thought his mother had them in her new house.’
‘I thought you were going to live there.’
‘She decided she’d rather be by herself.’
‘That’s it then. That’s all of them. I have to get back.’
Annie saw him out of the house, thanked him, let him get halfway to the car and then she ran after him, got hold of his sleeve and said shakily, ‘I want you to take them back.’
‘Take them back? Annie, I’ve just spent the better part of two hours getting them here.’
‘I didn’t understand—’
‘There’s nothing to understand. Naturally, anything that was Alistair’s belongs to you. I didn’t think at the time.’
‘But they should be there. He painted Western Isle because he loved it so much.’
‘He painted very well,’ Blake said.
‘Yes, I know. You made such a good job of putting them in the right places and . . . I want you to take them back.’
‘I don’t think I should.’
‘Please.’
‘All right but there’s a condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You have to come and help me.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘You have to, otherwise I won’t take them.’
If Sylvester Richmond thought it strange they should bring the paintings back and unpack them and put them up on the walls so that everything was as it had been earlier in the day he was much too polite to say so and afterwards he insisted on introducing Annie to a particular dry white wine which he said he was inordinately fond of and after that it was time for dinner. After two glasses of wine Annie forgot about having the shakes and was even hungry. Full of dinner, Susan nodded off in the car on the way home and Blake carried her in and up the stairs to bed. She didn’t wake up properly even when Annie undressed her. Blake kissed her and tucked her in and they went back downstairs.
‘I’m sorry about today,’ Annie said.
‘Don’t you like to see me at Western Isle?’
‘Of course I do. It’s what I wanted all along. I wanted you to have it, it’s your inheritance. Anthony looks like the Vanes.’
‘Yes I know. Like Alistair.’
‘I didn’t say that. He was a shock when I saw him. Alistair would have liked what you’ve done with Western Isle. He had taste.’
‘Thanks. Goodnight, Annie.’
‘Goodnight.’
* * *
When Hetty came into Stanhope to do some shopping the following Saturday morning she brought Annie a spice cake which she had made at home during the week. Annie gave her tea.
‘Mr Richmond’s having a dinner party next week,’ Hetty said, ‘he wants you to come.’
‘I can’t do that. I haven’t anybody to bring me.’
‘He’ll send the car for you.’
‘No, I meant I haven’t an escort.’
‘Oh, Mr Richmond’s dinner parties aren’t like that,’ Hetty said scornfully, ‘he only invites people he likes.’
‘Will you be there?’
‘I should hope so. I have it to make.’
‘I could come and help you.’
‘Could you? That would be a boon.’
When Hetty had gone it occurred to Annie that Sylvester Richmond was a clever man and had got exactly what he wanted – or was she sure what he had wanted?
The other people there were obviously houseguests, Annie thought, when she arrived the following afternoon to find two other women helping Hetty in the kitchen. Sylvester was not there but came in later with two men, introducing them. They were all about his age and they went down to the cellar and came back with several different bottles of wine all of which were opened and tasted and everyone’s opinion, hers included, was asked so that by the time the dinner was almost ready everyone was laughing and she felt as if she had known them all for months.
‘Where’s David?’ she asked. It seemed so disrespectful to call Blake anything else here in this house where his father-in-law and everyone else referred to him as David.
‘He had to go to work. He shouldn’t be long. He promised he would be back for the meal.’
That was when Annie realised that she had been asked to partner Blake because the others were so much older. She and Hetty were upstairs getting changed when Blake came home. She helped Hetty put Anthony to bed and they went downstairs.
After Blake said hello the first thing he said was, ‘Didn’t you bring Susan?’
‘I took her to my mother’s.’
‘I told Hetty to ask you to bring her.’
‘She must have forgotten.’
Blake went up to change and when he came back down they had dinner and Annie only wished that Madge could have seen her, wearing her only good dress and being among the kind of people she had always wanted to be among. They talked about books and paintings and they congratulated her on Alistair’s work, saying how much Sylvester loved them and how good they were. The women were intelligent enough to ask her about Alistair and to say how sorry they were and that next time she must bring Susan. Annie soon felt a warm glow which had nothing to do with the wine. She nearly accepted the invitation to stay the night. Blake took her home and as he drove the car slowly down the narrow roads Annie remembered driving like this with Alistair, stopping and admiring the views and being glad she was here. She had rarely felt like that lately. She felt as though she wanted to get away. It was the first time in her life that she had wanted to leave and it was a strange sensation.
When Blake stopped the car she thanked him, hesitating.
‘I don’t know what to call you now.’
‘You can go on calling me Blake if you want to. Everybody does around here.’
‘But the people tonight didn’t and Sylvester never does.’
‘My friends call me Davy. At one time Irene was the only person who called me Davy.’
‘Your grandmother used to.’
‘How do you know that? I didn’t tell you.’
‘No, you didn’t tell me.’
‘So how do you know?’
‘It was just – it was just sort of a guess.’
‘No, it wasn’t. It’s too accurate. Tell me.’
‘I heard her.’
‘You heard her call my name?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘The first night that we spent at Sunniside after our wedding.’
Blake said nothing.
‘I’m sorry, Blake, I didn’t—’
‘You went on living at Sunniside thinking there was a ghost?’
‘It wasn’t a ghost and I loved the farm. We were very happy there in spite of . . .’
‘In spite of what?’
‘All the heartache and all the hardship that had gone on. There’s always a bit of people left in the houses where they have lived. What’s wrong with that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Susan was born there.’
‘I’d forgotten about that. It’s strange to think of Alistair at Sunniside and me at Western Isle.’
‘I like to see Anthony there.’
‘Of course you do. He’s more of a Vane than the Vanes.’
Annie laughed.
‘You’re pleased about it, aren’t you?’ Blake said.
‘Not pleased exactly. The children could be taken for brother and sister. Thank you for the evening.’
‘Bring Susan next time,’ Blake said as Annie got out of the car.