The Unicorn (15 page)

The dead birds dripped blood. Effingham shook himself and was about to announce that he was going on, when over Pip’s shoulder he became aware of a scene which was coming into focus on the hillside below the bog. A man and a girl were coming along the path from Gaze; and a moment later he had recognized the man as Denis Nolan.

Pip and Alice stopped chattering. “That’s Miss Taylor with Denis,’ said Alice. ‘I suppose I’d better ask her over to lunch or something, yes.’

Pip hailed them. ‘Good morning, Denis!’

‘Good morning, sir.’

Pip seemed to have a positive fondness for Denis. Effingham was thinking, if a man had attacked
my
sister, when he began to notice the girl.

Pretty she was not exactly, but she had a strong interesting face, with a long dog-like nose and smallish lively brown eyes and a compressed aggressive mouth. She was very present in her face, which was poised and grave as she looked at Effingham.

Alice said, ‘Mr Cooper. My brother. Miss Taylor.’

‘Hello.’

‘You’re new to this part of the world?’ said Effingham.

‘Yes. I’m rather overwhelmed by it. I hadn’t expected such an extreme landscape. It takes getting used to. Sublime rather than beautiful, isn’t it?’ She had a pleasant precise voice.

Effingham was amused by her little desire to please him. He made some more conventional remarks and Alice joined in. By the end of these exchanges he had clearly apprehended Miss Taylor, for all her shy absurd self-consciousness, as a being of his own kind: a clever girl, a junior version of Elizabeth.

A sudden diversion was created. Tadg, who had been exploring farther down the stream, had found Denis, who was standing a little apart from the group. The dog went mad. He rushed upon Denis with strangled excited barks and waddled round him, his tail wagging his whole body.

‘Tadg adores Denis,’ said Alice. ‘He never forgets him. Denis trained Tadg when he was a puppy, when Denis was over with us.’

Denis was immediately absorbed into greeting Tadg. He sat down on the grass and let the dog climb on to him and lick his face. Effingham found this degree of informality thoroughly disrespectful. He glanced at the two women and saw that they were both watching the little scene with soft amused faces. He coughed disapprovingly. ‘I must be getting along.’

‘You’re going to Gaze?’ said Miss Taylor. ‘I think Mrs Crean-Smith is expecting you.’ She could not conceal her expression of interest as she looked at Effingham.

Effingham had a moment’s uneasiness. The girl was not a nonentity, she might be something to be reckoned with. But he could not see this pleasant young creature as an enemy. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

Pip, who had been talking to Denis about Tadg’s prowess earlier that morning, joined them. This is where I turn back. I’ve been up since five. It’s nice to have met you. Miss Taylor. I believe you are coming to see us at Riders?’

‘I’d love to.’

‘We must fix it, yes,’ said Alice vaguely.

Miss Taylor was staring at Pip’s glossy-feathered trophies. ‘Poor birds!’

‘Are you a vegetarian?’ said Alice.

Effingham looked quickly at the girl. The malice in the remark had not escaped her, nor, it was immediately clear to him, was she ignorant of its cause. Someone must have talked to her about poor Alice. He felt both annoyed with his old friend and anxious to protect her.

Miss Taylor flushed slightly and smiled. ‘No, indeed! I don’t practise what I seem to preach. One is so spoilt in a town. I’m sure I would be a vegetarian if 1 had to kill the creatures myself.’

‘Good morning all!’

The loud voice just behind him made Effingham jump. They all turned.

Gerald Scottow and Jamesie Evercreech had approached from lower down the valley and come right up to the absorbed little group, their footsteps covered by the sound of the falling stream.

‘Good morning,’ they said, Alice stiffly, Effingham politely, Pip jauntily, Denis not at all, and Miss Taylor with a just perceptible emotion of some kind. Effingham noticed the emotion and glanced quickly at Scottow. Then he saw Jamesie winking at Miss Taylor. There doubtless was her informant concerning the condition of Alice. Effingham bristled with dislikes.

Scottow and Jamesie were also both armed with shotguns and two pairs of brown furry ears protruded from Jamesie’s game bag. Two of the mad hares would caper no more.

‘Well, well,’ said Scottow, ‘how nice to meet you all together. We aren’t usually so lucky. Mr Cooper, coming to see us, I trust? Good! We’ve missed you, you know. You’ve been neglecting us. Had a good morning, Mr Lejour? I see you have two of Mrs Crean-Smith’s fine birds there.’

Pip smiled. He turned towards Denis, and Denis, as at a prearranged signal, stood before him. He handed over the pheasants, and then began to walk away without haste in the direction of Riders. The little incident had the slow ease of a well-rehearsed ceremony, or something out of a ballet.

Scottow looked after him with a face of comical distress. ‘Oh, Miss Lejour, I hope I haven’t offended your brother. I was only jesting. Do tell him I was only jesting.’

‘I must be getting along,’ said Effingham again. The presence of the guns disturbed him. The encounter had seemed like the shadow of a real battle with real blood flowing.

Denis had already set off with the pheasants in the direction of Gaze. Miss Taylor was visibly hesitating.

Scottow said pleasantly, ‘Well, Jamesie and I must continue our slaughtering activities. I can see Miss Taylor doesn’t like this bit - but she won’t refuse the jugged hare, I’ll be bound 1 Come along, Jamesie.’

The big square figure and the slighter boy went on up the hill and began to cross the stream, their military silhouettes emerging now against the blue sky. The other three began to walk on in the direction of the castle.

The incident and the sense of shared but ineffable knowledge drew them for a moment together in a complicity of silence. Effingham walked between the two women. Miss Taylor glanced at her companions and then looked ahead frowning. Apprehending that determined frown out of the corner of his eye, Effingham reflected that this uncorrupted young woman was indeed a new feature in the situation and might conceivably prove an active one. It was disconcerting, as was too his spontaneous vision of her as uncorrupted. Were the rest of them corrupted, then?

To distract himself, Effingham began to question Miss Taylor about what she had been doing before she came to Gaze, and about her university career and the time she had spent in Paris. He talked to her with a great naturalness, as if she were a young student, and he again a don, and he noticed now her increasing ease with him. The aggressive self-conscious air had gone. Alice was conspicuously silent. They reached the castle gates.

‘I hear Mr Lejour is a Greek scholar,’ Miss Taylor was saying, to bring Alice into the conversation. T do wish I knew Greek. I managed to learn German by myself, but I’ve never quite had the guts to tackle Greek.’

‘I’ll teach you Greek,’ said Effingham.

Alice made a slight movement, throwing her head back. God, what a fool I am, thought Effingham. It was too late to recall the words. Miss Taylor was blushing. She looked at Alice, who was looking away, and then at Effingham. In a second a great deal of communication passed between them. Oh, I am a very great fool, thought Effingham. ‘If you’d like to, that is,’ he said hurriedly, to efface the sharpness of the impression. ‘I could give you a couple of lessons maybe just to start you off.’

Miss Taylor said, ‘How kind of you. I’ll see if I have time, shall I?’

She’s quick, he thought.

‘Where’s Tadg?’ said Alice. ‘He didn’t go back with Pip. I thought he was with us.’

‘Is that the dog?’ said Miss Taylor. ‘He went in with Denis just now.’

‘Oh, damn!’ said Alice. ‘Now I’ll have to go in and fetch him. Once he’s with Denis he’ll never come back of his own accord.’

‘Shall I get him?’ said Miss Taylor.

‘No, no. He wouldn’t come with you anyway. Let’s walk on together, shall we, at a brisk pace? We’ll leave Effie to dream along, behind. He doesn’t want
us.’
Alice took the girl’s arm and urged her ahead.

Effingham watched them draw away. The image of Hannah grew in front of him like a great placid golden idol, the two small hurrying figures in the foreground.

He held her in his arms. Effingham in these moments experienced a joy so intense that he could not imagine how he could ever have gone away; or rather he could not imagine that he had ever gone away, lifted, shot into a blinding timeless beatitude. She was the only one, the great phoenix, his truth, his home, his
He felt a thrilling humble gratitude to her for being the cause of so great a love.

‘Oh Lord, Effie, I have missed you. Bless you for coming back.’

‘You should be cursing me for going away. I don’t look after you properly.’

There now. You look after me beautifully. No, don’t go down on the floor. Kiss me, Effie.’

He led her to the sofa and they sat down holding hands. Effingham looked about the room. Everything was blessedly the same: the whiskey bottles, the mess of papers, the little sleepy fire, the pampas grass and the honesty a little flimsier than last time. He returned his gaze to Hannah.

‘Are you all right? Nothing awful’s happened? Nothing you couldn’t mention in a letter?’

‘No, I’m fine. Everything’s as usual.’

‘Not everything. There’s that girl, Miss Taylor.’

‘Oh yes, Marian. But that’s a good thing. I did tell you, didn’t I. I’m so happy to have her. I wake up every morning knowing there’s something nice, and it’s her.’

‘And now me too! I’m jealous.’

‘And now you too, dear. Have some whiskey, Effingham, and give me some. I just want to sit and feel pleased to see you.’

Effingham went to the whiskey. He was touched by what she’d said about the girl. But how long would she be allowed to keep the girl? How long indeed would the girl want to stay in this quiet little madhouse? Hannah was so evidently pleased to see him. But would he not soon go away again, would he not this time next month be sitting in an expensive restaurant listening to Elizabeth’s jokes about
la princesse lointaine?

He began to pour out the whiskey. The smell of that particular brand of whiskey, familiar and disturbing, seized him by the throat. Some half-remembered accumulation of passionate experience, suddenly present, packed together mysteriously as in a dream, nearly choked him and he stopped pouring. Everything was the same. Yet what was he doing here, why was he lending himself to this macabre pageant at all?

He returned to stand in front of Hannah, who was looking up at him. Her crest of reddish-golden hair was combed straight back over her head to reveal the big pale brow. She became, it seemed to him, lovelier each year. But certainly no younger. Something was written on that brow, something about suffering: only he could not read the characters. Her uncannily tranquil golden-brown eyes regarded him with concern. It sometimes seemed to him that she behaved to him with the exaggerated quietness of a psychiatrist dealing with a patient. Yet was
she
not the patient? Which of them was sick in mind? He put his hand to his head.