Take No Farewell - Retail (12 page)

The night was as perfect as the day: stars scattered like dusted silver across the sky; the heady scent of jasmine wafting up from the garden; and an owl hooting somewhere beyond the orchard. I stood near the brightly lit windows and gazed in at the banquet. Consuela’s table was closer to me now than when I had been in the same room. Victor was beside her, conversing intently with Mr Tuder Hereford. Consuela herself was exchanging pleasantries with a lady I took to be Mrs Tuder Hereford. It was clear to me from Consuela’s strained and absent expression that she wished devoutly to be elsewhere, that her role as Victor’s obedient and courteous wife was one she could not sustain much longer. She looked unbearably beautiful, irresistibly desirable. And she was relying on me. She was trusting me absolutely. In that instant – but only for that instant – I determined that she should not trust in vain.

‘What are you going to do, Staddon?’

It was Turnbull’s voice, raised hardly above a whisper. When I swung round, I found he was standing disconcertingly close to me, grinning in that cocksure way of his that defied one to accuse him of sneering. ‘I … beg your pardon?’

‘Confoundedly stuffy in there, wasn’t it? Don’t blame you for seeking a breath of air. Sorry if I startled you.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I was simply wondering. With Clouds Frome finished, what will you do next?’

‘Accept another commission, Major. I am offered them from time to time, you know.’

‘I’m sure you are. Still, it’s an uncertain occupation, isn’t it? Architecture.’

‘No less certain than most.’

‘Reliant on reputation, I should have thought. Word of mouth. What gets round about a fellow. That sort of thing.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘Still, with all you’ve done here, I don’t suppose you’ll go short of work. Grape?’ He held out his hand, from which dangled a small bunch of red grapes.

‘No thank you.’

He picked one for himself, popped it into his mouth and nodded towards the window. ‘Been enjoying yourself this evening?’

‘How could I not? The hospitality’s been lavish.’

‘Victor hasn’t stinted us, certainly. And even Consuela seems in a generous mood.’ He spat some pips into the shrubbery and grinned more broadly still. ‘At least as far as
décolletage
is concerned.’

Turnbull was trying to goad me. That much was clear. But on whose behalf? His own – or Victor’s? Until I knew, it was vital I should not let myself be riled. ‘Your remark seems in poor taste to me, Major.’

‘Really? You ought to loosen your stays, Staddon. Or perhaps you’d like to loosen somebody else’s.’

I took a deep breath. ‘At the moment, I think I’d just like to go indoors.’

‘Dark skin. Yielding flesh.’ His eyes had not left mine for an instant. In them all the warmth of his tone was absent, all the breadth of his smile squeezed to nothing. ‘Damn fine, these grapes. Are you sure you won’t have one?’

He held out his hand, stretching it deliberately across my route to the French windows. He was daring me to brush past him, tempting me to give way to petulance and so reveal that his darts had found their mark. ‘Quite sure,’ I said, as levelly as I could. ‘Keep them for yourself. And mind you don’t choke on the pips.’

The grin vanished. The arm withdrew. He said nothing, but I was sure he watched me, all the way, as I walked back into the house.

Saturday, I had been informed, was to witness a cricket match in Mordiford between the village side and the Caswell & Co. works team. The match had been arranged at Victor’s instigation as part of the Clouds Frome celebrations. As the only sportsman of the family, he was to captain Caswell & Co. Mortimer and the ladies would watch safely from the boundary’s edge. Victor had also supplied a trophy for the winners – a silver cider-costrel – which he hoped would be annually contested. All in all, he seemed to be doing his level best to transform himself into the most traditional and generous of rural landowners.

The heat wave was unbroken and the match was due to start at eleven o’clock. I breakfasted late, with Turnbull, Hermione and Marjorie. Victor was already at the ground, whilst Consuela was reported to be keeping to her bed with a headache. In the circumstances, I could offer no plausible objection to accompanying them all into the village straight afterwards. As we were leaving, Lizzie managed to pass me a note from her mistress, which I buried deep in a pocket pending an opportunity to study it without interruption.

Such an opportunity did not arise until the match had started. It was played on a pleasantly situated ground fringed by elms, with a pink and white marquee hired by Victor serving as a pavilion. Victor won the toss and elected to bat. The Mordiford team looked as muscular and inexpert as might have been expected, but the Caswells appeared to find the contest enthralling, with Hermione shrieking
out
advice and encouragement to the batsmen. Turnbull slumped into a deck-chair, pulled his hat over his face and lapsed into a torpor for which I was grateful. It left me free to find a chair on the least populated side of the ground and open Consuela’s note.

Querido Geoffrey
, it read.
I have pleaded a headache to avoid attending the cricket match. Everyone else will be there, as well as most of the staff. Victor has recruited nearly all of them to play, cheer or serve lunch. I am sure nobody would notice if you slipped away. We must talk and make our plans. Do not fail me. Your loving Consuela
.

She was right, of course. We had to talk and the cricket match gave us the best chance of doing so we were likely to have. Strangely, however, I felt reluctant to do as she suggested. It was not that I dreaded telling her why her hopes of escape were to be dashed. Rather I suspected that, when it came to the point, I simply would not be able to tell her. This, more than anything, made me cling to delay like a drowning man to a raft.

Caswell & Co. lost a wicket, which brought Victor to the crease. For a man who had allegedly not held a bat in years he made a remarkably fluent start, playing a succession of flourishing drives. He cut an irritatingly handsome figure in his sparkling whites and striped cap and I found myself resenting the applause he attracted. I had just begun to hope that the fastest of the Mordiford bowlers might dig one in short at him when I caught sight of young Spencer Caswell shuffling towards me round the boundary. He was smartly turned out in knickerbocker suit and straw boater, but wore an expression of studied moroseness.

When he saw me, he stopped and stared for an instant, then said, ‘Hello,’ in a tone that seemed to blend equal measures of suspicion and indifference.

‘Hello, young fellow. Are you enjoying the cricket?’

He glanced round at the game, watched Victor call his partner for a sharp single, then said, ‘No.’

‘But why not? Your uncle’s doing so well.’

‘They’re letting him. Anyway, cricket’s just a waste of time.’ As I absorbed the lack of boyishness in these remarks, it occurred to me that I had never seen Spencer larking about or laughing, never behaving as children were supposed to. There was something disturbingly mature, almost cynical, about his character. That and his blank, set face, from which a pair of small piercing eyes stared out, seeming hardly ever to blink, created an impression of cold, hard aloofness.

‘They tell me you’re going to Harrow next year.’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘Well, they’ll expect you to play cricket there. And Lord knows what other sports besides.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Tell me that when you’re lying under a scrum on the rugger pitch one freezing winter’s afternoon.’

But my light-heartedness was wasted on him. A smile did not even flicker about his pinched little mouth. ‘I shan’t care whatever they do to me. If anybody hurts me, I’ll pay them back.’

‘Will you, though?’

‘Oh, yes. When I’m a man, I’ll pay back everybody who ever hurt me.’

With that, he walked behind my chair and headed on round the boundary. I felt no inclination to call him back, was glad indeed to have to say no more to him. As I looked back at the cricket, a mighty shout went up against Victor for lbw. It was rejected. And the umpire who rejected it was none other, I realized, than Banyard, the Clouds Frome gardener. Perhaps Spencer was right after all.

I showed myself briefly in the marquee for lunch – cold chicken and yet more champagne, Victor toasting his undefeated half-century – then slipped away, hoping to discover on the solitary walk back to Clouds Frome enough resolution to show Consuela the honesty that was the least she deserved of me.

The house was enveloped in a silence that the heat seemed
to
render absolute. Almost everybody was engaged in some capacity at the match and I was confident of finding Consuela alone. There would never be, I knew, a better time to tell her what I had decided.

She was not in any of the reception rooms and there was no sign of her in the garden. Nor was there anybody to ask where she was. Danby, Gleasure and the maids were all catering for the lunching cricketers. Cook was probably on the premises, but I had no wish to disturb her. As for Lizzie, she seemed to have vanished.

When I tapped on the door of the master bedroom, it occurred to me that I had never been inside since it had been furnished. It enjoyed the finest prospect of any room in the house, with its broad bay-window looking out over garden and orchard. The ceiling was high and the fireplace vast. My intention had been for the design to combine privacy with pride, the intimacy of the bedchamber with the grandeur of possession. Many times since I had regretted devising the effect, regretted and resented all that it implied about Victor’s ownership of his wife as well as his house.

‘Who’s there?’ Consuela answered the knock softly, as if from a great distance.

‘It’s me.’

‘Come in.’

The bedroom itself was empty, a vacant arena of granular, suspended sunlight. The door to Consuela’s dressing-room stood open and I could see her beyond it, sitting by a mirror, brushing her long dark hair. She had just dried it, I thought, for it glistened damply as the brush swept through its strands. She wore a silk
peignoir
of some shade between pink and peach. It shimmered faintly as she turned to look at me.

‘I’d hoped you would come sooner.’

‘It wasn’t easy to leave unobserved.’ I moved into the centre of the room, feeling the hint of a breeze from the open windows to my right, letting my vision absorb the details of the furnishings: the wedding photograph on the mantelpiece,
the
jaguar-skin hearth-rug, the wide and canopied double bed. ‘Are we alone?’

‘Quite.’ She set down the brush, rose from her seat and stepped into the room. ‘I sent Lizzie to see her family. They have much to discuss.’

‘Of course.’

‘As do we.’ She walked straight up to me and we embraced. It seemed so natural, so obvious, to find her in my arms, her lips brushing against mine, her body soft and inviting beneath the
peignoir
. ‘You have heard Victor is to lunch with the Kaiser’s brother on Tuesday?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is my opportunity to escape.’ She kissed me and drew still closer. The sun was hot on my back, Consuela’s flesh cool to my touch. In her the anticipation of liberty had stoked a reckless passion. In me something I would like to pretend was not mere lust unveiled its temptation. ‘We shall be free, Geoffrey, free to live as we please.’

I should not have done it, should not have enacted that worst of all lies, there and then, in the bedroom I had designed for her husband. But I did. It was too easy, too potent, too delicious not to. Her pliant limbs wrapped about me. Her fluttering, clutching excitement. Her every secret mine. And the sheer carnal pleasure of violation. Her body, her trust and her marriage. All were abused, all deceived, by our frantic coupling across the canopied bed at Clouds Frome that breathless afternoon thirteen long years ago.

‘In three days’ time,’ Consuela murmured as we lay together in a languor of physical contentment, ‘we will not have to steal moments like this. We will be together – and at peace.’

It was too late to tell her now, far too late to do anything other than sustain the pretence. ‘How do you propose to leave here?’ I asked.

‘By train. You should return to London on Monday, as Victor expects. On Tuesday he has his luncheon party with Prince Henry at the Mitre Hotel. I shall wait until he sets off
for
Hereford in the car, then I shall ask Danby to call a cab. I shall say I have suddenly remembered an appointment in Hereford. But I shall ask the driver to take me straight to the station, where I shall board the one o’clock train to London. It’s due at Paddington just before six. Will you be there to meet me?’

‘Yes.’ I inclined my head to look at her, smiled and kissed her lightly on the nose. ‘I’ll be there.’ The lie burned within me as I spoke it, but my talent for deception was intact. In Consuela’s eyes as she gazed at me there was not the least shadow of a doubt.

Some minutes passed. I think we may have slept a little. At all events, I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Consuela had slipped from the bed and was walking across the room towards the half-curtained windows. More beautiful naked than in the most flattering finery, she seemed to me then sublimely desirable. I could still, I knew, honour the promises I had made to her. I could still elect to stand by her. And so long as she was near me, as long as I could feast my eyes upon her, I could still pretend that I would.

She shook her head and the black tresses of her hair slid across her shoulders. A shaft of sunlight caught the curve of her breast and stomach, caught and crystallized every pleasure I had ever taken from her.

She glanced back at me and, seeing that I was looking at her, smiled. ‘The English are famed for their sense of irony.
Ironia
. I never understood it till now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This house, Geoffrey. Clouds Frome. You built it. And I live in it. But after Tuesday neither of us will ever be able to come here again.’

‘Will you miss it?’

‘I don’t think so. Will you?’