Past Caring (59 page)

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drew her out on the subject of her family. We stood in the churchyard, at a respectful distance, conversing politely like two long-time
acquaintances who had never even approached intimacy. It was, I
suppose, the only way to bear all the strains of recollection. But, beyond the civilities, I was searching and scouring her life, above all
her family, for some hint, some pointer, to what the truth would do
to her.

It was with slight shock that I came to realize from her answers
that she had retained her faith in life intact. She was, as she had a
right to be, a contented lady. She was careful to avoid any direct
mention of the Suffragette movement or our engagement, indeed
anything of life before she had married, but her passing references
to the place of women in society, the experience of raising a family
and the pleasing quandary of being the wife of a successful man ,
suggested that the attainment of wealth and comfort had not
blunted her perception.

We walked round the village, then , at my request, back to
Quarterleigh. Elizabeth’s ready agreement confirmed that she was
alone there. As she escorted me round the house and garden—all
tastefully faithful to the home I would have expected her to have
chosen—I could not rid myself of the nagging thought: is this where
we would have lived, you and I, had matters fallen out otherwise? Is
this how it would have been for us, had we grown old together? It
was impossible to say.

Among the
objets d’art,
there was a cabinet bearing gilt-framed photographs. There was one of a toddler and a baby, playing together, whom I took for Elizabeth’s grandchildren , one also of
her and Couch with Henry standing between them, wearing academic dress and looking a good deal younger than the man I had
met. Elizabeth noticed me looking at it.

“That was taken at my son’s graduation—in 1939,” she said.

“I’ve met Henry.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop
myself. I had not intended to speak of it as I felt certain that Henry
would not.

“Of course. The last time we met.” I was saved. She thought I
was referring to seeing Henry as a baby on Hampstead Heath in
1919. The misunderstanding was a kindness.

“Do you think that he takes after his father?” It was the nearest
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that I had come to a direct reference to Couch and, even then , camouflaged another question which could not be put: do you realize
that theirs is the shabby strain onto which your nobility has been
grafted?

“I think so. The resemblance has always pleased me.” There
could no longer be any doubt. Elizabeth’s faith was not merely intact, it was great enough to obscure the failings of her husband and
son. Perhaps, having been—as she saw it—betrayed by me, she
could not bear to think another man could so deceive her. In that
case, my revelation would have the force of a cataclysm and the
only service I could pay her was to stave off that cataclysm, at least
whilst it was still possible to do so. Couch had been right, damn his
soul. How could I break the heart of the woman I loved, simply to
save my name?

“Tell me,” she continued, “how did you travel to Miston?” We
both seemed pleased to revert to more prosaic stuff.

“I walked from the railway station at Singleton.”

“That’s a long way, Edwin. Surely you’ll allow me to drive you
back?”

“That would be very kind.” She had served notice that my visit
should end before it pained her. She could not have known how right
she was. So I left Quarterleigh, without a backward glance, almost,
indeed, with relief.

The journey to Singleton gave me insufficient time to collect my
thoughts, to search for a fitting way to part, this time for good.

Though I had resolved to hold my tongue as to the truth, I wanted
her to know just a little of why I had come.

“The reason I came,” I said as we drove through Singleton ,

“was to see if I still loved you.” Then , before she could forestall me:

“And the curse of it is that I do.” My curse, though she could not
know it, was her salvation. Only my love for her saved her from the
truth. My sacrifice for her sake was to let her believe the worst of
me. However corrupt I knew Henry and his father to be, their disgrace was not worth Elizabeth’s desolation.

We halted at the railway station , but Elizabeth remained silent,
as if unnerved by my declaration. I sought to reassure her. “Don’t
worry,” I said. “I’ll go quietly.”

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“Edwin , I’m sorry.” Her hint of forgiveness hurt me more than
ever now that I knew there was nothing to forgive.

“There’s no need. It wasn’t your fault.” It was the briefest, truest
statement I could make.

“That’s all I can find to say of our past.” In her oblique, knowing reference to Hardy’s poem, she echoed, acutely and unknowingly, all the anguish of my forbearance.

“Then let that be all.” I could not stay longer without saying
more. So I stepped from the car and walked over to the booking office. On the threshold, I turned to doff my hat before going in
through the door and losing sight of her.

I lingered in my hotel whilst the days ticked away towards May
7th—by when Henry had warned me to be on my way—and, beyond that, May 20th: the expiry of Sellick’s detention. One thing
was certain: I could not go back to Madeira. If I remained in
England, I could avoid Sellick and, if I left London , Henry to boot.

Barrowteign drew me, as if it were, after all, time to go home, time
for an old man to come to his close. If I stayed there and said nothing, who would find me or want to find me? Mine was, as experience
revealed, a pious hope.

On May 7th, I took the train to Exeter and lodged for a few
nights at The Royal Clarence, hard by the cathedral, fearing to
complete the last leg of the journey until I had put my affairs in order. To this end, I visited the family solicitor, old Petherton—who
still handled my business—and drafted a new will, as I had long intended, settling the whole of my estate upon Ambrose. Petherton ,
good fellow that he was, told me of the circumstances obtaining at
Barrowteign following the National Trust takeover and implied
that Ambrose might well have need of a bequest.

A week after my arrival in Exeter—a week of solitary tramps
down the Exe estuary, soulful walks round the precincts of the
cathedral, and many an hour of solitary concentration as I commenced this addition to my memoir—Petherton sent a message to
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me at The Clarence. His office had, it seemed, received a telephone
call from somebody describing himself as “Mr. Henry Couchman’s
private secretary,” enquiring as to my whereabouts. He had been
deflected by Petherton’s legendary discretion , but the significance
for me was that Couchman was on my trail.

Accordingly, that afternoon , I booked out of the hotel and
caught a train to Dewford. Even though I had been close at hand for
a week, I had not alerted Ambrose to my presence, so, when I
glimpsed Lodge Cottage from the train as we rattled over the crossing, I could only imagine what a surprise it would be for him.

My impression , when I presented myself at the door of his cottage
that damp evening, was that Ambrose was mightily pleased to see
me, which made, for me, a happy break with the pattern of my return to England. We had not seen each other since 1945—when he
had stayed with me in Madeira after being demobilized—and
there was plenty for him to tell me of the years between: years of the
National Trust takeover of Barrowteign and of his growing disenchantment with England.

Even Ambrose, it transpired, had grown old, and a touch cur-mudgeonly, in his cottaged seclusion. Once used to the ministrations
of servants and batmen , he had allowed his domestic arrangements
to slide into shoddiness, whilst perversely keeping an immaculate
garden. He openly confessed to spending a large proportion of his
time at The Greengage in the village and was bemused by my reluctance to accompany him there. I could not help that, deeming it
unduly risky to show myself freely about the place.

I told Ambrose nothing of my recent activities. I claimed that I
had come straight from London and he said that I was welcome to
remain indefinitely. He meant it, for, ironically, Lodge Cottage was
all that remained of the Straffords’ ancestral home. Ambrose railed
at the “wreckers” now installed at Barrowteign and, certainly, the
house was in some chaos, but I had no doubt that it was purely temporary and found the changes more tolerable than he did. To me, in
my present mind, a termination of Barrowteign’s use as a family
home seemed all too appropriate.

Over the days that followed, between his infusions at The

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Greengage and his energetic gardening, Ambrose sought to draw
me into an explanation of my departure from Madeira, but I could
not afford to indulge his curiosity. Instead, I kept myself to myself,
wrote up this account, took a few strolls after dark and endeavoured
to keep Ambrose from becoming bored with my company whilst
not telling him too much. He agreed to say nothing in the village of
my presence and I had to rely upon him not forgetting himself in
his cups.

Self-imposed confinement in Lodge Cottage cast shadows of
gloom across an already cheerless outlook. The work in progress at
Barrowteign was one such shadow, though it afflicted Ambrose
more than me. Our location , hard by the railway crossing where his
parents had been killed, was another. I wondered, of an evening,
when Ambrose had departed to The Greengage, whether that very
proximity drove him to drink, drove him just as it drew me with its
recollections and associations, its fusion of memory and place.

When

, on moonlit nights, I looked at the outlined bulk of
Barrowteign above us, solidly unaltered but yet so changed within ,
when I heard the owls hoot in the chestnut trees and let my mind
play with the inky blackness that lay between the milky splashes of
lunar light down the lane, then I fell prey to thoughts of natural
term and fitting ends. At times such as those, I heard a singing in the
rails on the crossing just before the last down train rounded the
curve from Exeter and I reflected, as I had often done, how much
happier might everyone have been had it been I, not my brother,
killed on that crossing forty years before. Ambrose would have had
a father and Barrowteign a master, Sellick would have had no clue
to follow and Henry Couchman nothing to fear.

Ten days elapsed. Then my delusion of secrecy and security at
Lodge Cottage was exposed for what it was. During one of
Ambrose’s lunchtime absences, I had a caller. I might have lain low
had he not caught my eye, watching as I was from the kitchen window as he made his way over the crossing. It was Sir Gerald
Couchman , an incongruous figure in his city clothes, on foot and far
from home. I went outside to meet him, feeling oddly reluctant to
have him indoors. He stood on the path through the garden , a man
in conflict, his breath shortened by the walk from the car, poised uncertainly between ways of approaching me.

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“What do you want?” I said.

“A word . . . to the wise,” he panted. “Can I come in?”

“I’d rather stay in the open. How did you find me?”

“Where else would you be? Whatever Henry thought, I didn’t
believe you’d scuttle back to Madeira, not after your visit to
Elizabeth.”

“She told you then?”

“Of course. There are . . .” He broke off with a smile. “Do you
know, I was about to say there are no secrets between us.”