A Fragile Peace

by A Fragile Peace (retail) (epub)

  She almost got away with it. Her father watched, wordless, as she deposited the bottle on the hall table and reached composedly for her mackintosh, which was thrown over a chair nearby. Scarlet-faced Ray stumbled down the last few stairs and, woodenly, helped her into it. Her hand was almost on the doorlatch before her father spoke.

  ‘Just one moment, young lady.’ He imbued each word with a kind of violence that made Ray physically flinch.

  Allie stilled but did not turn. Ray glanced over his shoulder at the older man like a hunted animal, ugly colour still staining his face.

  ‘I think it not unreasonable to ask for an explanation?’ Robert’s eyes, blazing with growing anger, moved from one to the other.

  Allie opened the door. ‘Not now, Dad. Later. I’ll explain later. When I get back. This has nothing to do with Ray.’

  ‘Hasn’t it, by God? Well, young lady, I’m afraid I beg to differ! I think it has everything to do with Ray. Well, young man?’

  ‘Mr Jordan, I—’

  ‘Leave it, Ray, I said. It has nothing to do with you. It’s between my father and myself. I’ll talk to him later. Now – are you coming?’

  ‘You’re going nowhere – nowhere, do you hear? – until I have been given some explanation as to what’s been going on behind my back in my own house! I come home to find you upstairs, in an empty house, alone with – this—’ he jerked a contemptuous head in Ray’s direction ‘—and a whisky bottle – and you think you can just walk away? Oh, no—’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she snapped. ‘That’s exactly what I think. It’s exactly what I’m going to do! Any explanation that’s due can wait for privacy. I’m not standing here being bawled at in front of Ray—’

  ‘I would have thought that under the circumstances that’s entirely appropriate, since I have every intention of…bawling, as you so elegantly put it, at him too!’

  She lifted her head and looked at him with an expression that for all his justifiable rage struck him to the soul. ‘Be careful,’ she said.

  He stared at her. She turned, and stepped into the rain. ‘Come on, Ray.’

  Ray was looking in distress at Robert. ‘Mr Jordan – I’m sorry – I —’

  ‘Ray!’

  ‘— it isn’t what you think. Honestly it isn’t.’ The words were miserably unconvincing.

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Ray, for God’s sake, if you’re coming, come. Or I’ll go without you.’ The cool, wet air had hit Allie hard after the whisky she had drunk. As she marched towards the MG the world tilted a little, queasily. ‘Ray!’ She waited a moment. ‘I mean it! I’ll go without you!’ She could see the keys hanging on the dashboard. She had only the vaguest notion of how to drive the thing, culled from just two hilariously half-hearted driving lessons on this very drive. She opened the driver’s door.

  Ray took a step towards Robert. ‘Please, Mr Jordan, listen to me. Don’t be mad with Allie, please don’t—’ He turned in astonishment as the car engine roared into life. ‘Allie!’ He rushed through the open door. ‘Allie! Don’t be an idiot! Come back—'

  With an over-revved snarl the small, bright car leapt past him, spraying wet gravel, and took the first curve of the drive with two wheels on the grass. It narrowly missed the huge oak and shot towards the open gates.

  ‘Allie!’

  Her drink-bemused mind a suddenly terrified blank, Allie hauled on the steering wheel. The car skidded, tyres shrieking, the front wing clipped the heavy iron gates hard and the vehicle shot out into the lane, missing by a hair’s-breadth the small figure who had been cycling past, head down against the rain. Allie had a brief, horrifying glimpse of a lifted, shocked little face, saw the child wobble and fall inches from the car wheels, before the MG skidded sideways and ran with a bone-cracking thump into a tree by the side of the road.

  ‘Oh, my God! Allie!’

  Robert and Ray were sprinting down the drive. The little girl, thankfully unhurt so far as Robert could see, had scrambled to her feet, sobbing, and was trying to haul her bicycle upright.

  ‘See to the child,’ Robert shouted, and rushed to where Allie was slumped over the car’s steering wheel, her face bloody. As her father wrenched open the car door, she lifted her head, her face distraught.

  ‘Did I hit her?’

  ‘No. Allie—’

  ‘Thank God. Oh, thank God…’ She lifted a hand to her tousled hair, apparently unaware of the blood that streaked from her gashed lip. ‘Thank God,’ she said again.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ She was fighting tears.

  ‘You’re bleeding. I’ll get an ambulance—’

  ‘No! I’m all right,’ she said again. ‘I hit my mouth, that’s all. Nothing else hurts.’ Very slowly she swung her legs out of the car and stood up shakily.

  ‘Steady.’ Worriedly, her father lent her his arm, handed her a handkerchief to staunch the blood from her mouth.

  ‘I could have killed her,’ she said, her trembling voice very low. ‘I could have killed her!’

  The little girl, still sniffing, was crossing the road towards them, Ray’s arm awkwardly about her. Allie dropped to her knees, took the child’s hand into her own. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  The girl sniffed again, mournfully. ‘My bike’s broke.’

  ‘We’ll buy you another. I promise. The best one we can find.’ The child brightened considerably. ‘But are you absolutely certain that you aren’t hurt?’

  The wet head nodded.

  ‘Allie,’ Robert said, ‘for heaven’s sake, you need to see a doctor. Get inside out of this rain…’

  Allie shook her head. ‘I keep telling you: I’m all right.’ She was shaking like a leaf. With a determined effort, she calmed herself, addressed herself again to the little girl. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Annie. Annie Beston.’

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘Allie!’

  Allie ignored her father’s plea, and knelt in the rain beside the child she knew she might have killed.

  The girl nodded a small head in the direction of the village. ‘Next to the church.’

  ‘Would you like my father to drive you home in his car?’

  Wet eyes glistened. ‘Cor! Yes, please!’

  ‘He’ll explain to your parents that what happened wasn’t your fault. And give them some money to buy a new bicycle.’ She glanced at her father. He nodded. ‘Will that be all right?’ she asked gently.

  The child nodded. Ray stood awkwardly, watching. Allie’s trembling had become so violent that she could no longer hide or control it. Tears of shock slid unnoticed down her face. Very unsteadily she stood up, did not take her father’s proffered hand. She turned to Ray, gestured at the car. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the damage, of course…’

  Robert had had enough. ‘Allie, I insist that you get in out of this rain. Don’t you know that the shock could kill you? You’re soaked to the skin. Go and get changed. Bathe your mouth. I’ll see to things here.’

  She hesitated, then on a long, shaking breath nodded. Before she turned away, she laid a wet, trembling hand on the child’s head for a moment, as if to reassure herself, then turned and plodded away from them across the road and up the drive towards Ashdown.

  * * *

  Two hours later, with young Annie safely delivered to her parents, the car towed to a garage for repair and Ray, to his relief, stowed unceremoniously into the local taxi and sent homeward, she faced her father knowing that the time for evasion was long past.

  ‘I know,’ she said, dully, ‘about you and Celia. I know. Didn’t you guess? Sometimes I couldn’t believe that you didn’t know – couldn’t feel – the awful things that were going on inside me…’

  It caught him unprepared: whatever he had expected, it had not been this. She saw it in the sudden hunch of his shoulders, the look on his face. She almost felt sorry for him. There was a long silence. In the darkening room the heavy curtains stirred in the draught.


  ‘How long…’ Robert spoke with some difficulty ‘… how long have you known?’

  She was thankful at least that he had not tried to deny it. ‘Since Libby’s twenty-first. I was in the conservatory, trying to get away from Arthur Millson…’ It seemed a century ago. ‘When you came in, I thought it was him, and I hid. By the time I realized – it was too late…’ Her voice faded. Her mouth was sore and swollen, her lower lip cut. She felt miserably weak and shaken, could not eradicate from her mind the small, white face of the child that she might have killed.

  Her father stood, thinking back, then he turned his head, the movement one of sharp pain. ‘Oh, my poor girl. My poor Allie.’

  She pressed her damaged lips together and kept her head averted. The intricate pattern of the lace tablecloth on the small table next to her chair repeated itself like an endless silken spider’s web across the polished wood. She lifted a finger and traced it, thread by thread. There was dried blood on the back of her hand. She heard her father move, heard the unsteady chink of glass on glass.

  ‘Here. Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.’ She saw his hand, and the white edge of his cuff, the cufflink shimmering dull gold against the dark stuff of his jacket as he put a large brandy glass on the table beside her. The liquid glinted, dark in the gathering shadows.

  ‘I don’t want it.’ It was pure perversity. She did want it. Badly.

  ‘Please, darling, drink it.’ The hand took the glass and pressed it into hers. She lifted it and sipped. The spirit burned her cut lip and brought tears to her eyes. She blinked.

  ‘I saw you again. A few months ago…just after Libby’s dinner party last year. In the park behind your office. You were taking a bit of a risk there, weren’t you?’ Her young voice was harsh.

  ‘God almighty.’ There was raw pain in the words. ‘Of all the times – Allie, Celia was trying to break it off that day, trying to make me send her away.’ There was a long, aching silence. ‘I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true. Why would I lie?’

  She lifted her shoulders. ‘To protect her. To protect your—’ Try as she might she could not bring herself to say the word that was in her mind.

  ‘Allie. Oh, Allie…’

  Suddenly and uncontrollably her broken lips began to tremble and scalding tears ran down her face. ‘I hate you both!’ It was the anguished cry of a child.

  He made a move towards her, his hand outstretched, but stopped the instant he saw her flinch from it. ‘Will you let me explain, try to explain?’

  She shrugged.

  In silence he walked to the window. The rain had stopped. In the evening garden, a blackbird sang, suddenly and piercingly sweet.

  ‘God knows that I didn’t want to fall in love with Celia, nor she with me. I truly believe that it’s brought neither of us anything but pain. It was something that happened, despite us both. I love – have always loved – your mother – oh, yes, Allie, I do.’ This in reply to the violent negative movement of the brown head. ‘I love her deeply. And Celia knows it.’

  ‘Then you don’t love Celia?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You can’t love two people at once! You can’t!’

  He turned and looked at her, levelly. ‘If that were true, life would be a lot easier, my dear, believe me. Who can ration love? Measure it, drop by drop, this for you and this for me, this for her and that for him? Who can say – you love this one, you may not love that one? It isn’t like that, my darling. Believe me. Does loving Richard prevent your loving Libby? Of course not. Do you love one friend to the exclusion of another? Of course not—’

  ‘But that’s different!’

  ‘How can you believe that? How can you believe that, of all the people in the world, you are destined to love only one? And why must it be that such a love is looked on as wicked, unholy? Why must you convince yourself that my loving Celia necessarily diminishes my love for your mother?’

  ‘Because,’ she said, very clearly, a year’s suffering behind her, ‘you don’t lie to and cheat Celia. You lie to and cheat Mother.’

  The words, as she had intended, hit him hard and hurtfully. He sat down, very suddenly, in the armchair by the window and bowed his face to his hands.

  ‘It’s wrong,’ she said remorselessly. ‘You know it. You both must know it, however prettily you try to dress it up. Justify it. How could you? How could you do it?’

  He did not reply. In the quiet she could hear his breathing. She stood up. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  That brought his head up sharply. ‘No. Wait. We can’t leave it like this.’

  ‘How else can we leave it?’

  His silence was a bottomless well of pain-filled indecision. He ran a distracted hand through his dark hair. ‘Allie.’ The word was an appeal. Her clenched expression rejected it entirely. At last he stood up, and when he spoke his voice was remarkably collected. ‘You’re right, of course. You and Celia both. We have to finish it.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Darling…’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Yes. All right. I’ll telephone her.’

  ‘Tell her why.’

  His face was shocked. ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘Tell her! I want her to know!’ The pent-up misery of months needed to inflict pain. ‘I want her to know. If you don’t tell her, I will.’

  He lifted helpless hands. ‘All right.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘I promise.’

  She preceded him into the hall and began to mount the stairs in silence, but stopped as he called her name. He was standing beneath her, looking up, one hand on the telephone. ‘Allie – have you mentioned – this – to anyone?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Not a soul.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Her composure deserted her. She turned and fled from him, tears streaming down her face. As she opened the bedroom door to the shaming sight of her own rumpled bed, she heard his voice, very calm, as he asked for the Hintons’ number.

  Chapter Seven

  It fell to Allie to tell first her father and then the rest of the family of Celia Hinton’s sudden decision to accept an offer of employment from a friend of her father’s who lived in New York. She told Robert as he drove her home. He did not speak for a long while. As the big car nosed its way through the city traffic, she stole a look at him. His face was like stone.

  ‘For good?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Sir Brian says no, but Celia says yes.’

  He turned his head sharply. ‘You spoke to her?’

  ‘Of course not. Sir Brian told me. You haven’t heard from her?’

  He shook his head. There was another long silence. They rolled to a smooth halt at a red traffic light. ‘It’s for the best,’ he said, and despite herself the sadness in his voice turned in his daughter like a knife. For the past few days, to her own surprise, she had found it progressively harder to sustain her righteous anger at her father and Celia. The wound that had festered for so long, in being laid open, was healing itself. Celia’s going was a strangely painful balm; though for herself she felt nothing but relief, she knew, though she fought the knowledge, how hard it must be for her father. And for Celia.

  Libby did not take the news so calmly.

  ‘What? Next week? But she can’t – she can’t! It’s only three weeks to the wedding. What can she be thinking of? She’s to be the other maid of honour – it’ll be totally wrong without her! Oh, she wouldn’t be so beastly! There’s some mistake. I’ve planned it all – she knows I have – three pairs of bridesmaids and two maids of honour. Without Celia, Allie’s odd…’

  ‘Thank you,’ Allie said mildly.

  ‘But what’s got into her, for heaven’s sake? Has she gone crazy? She’s never mentioned anything like this to me.’ Libby jumped up. ‘I’m going to speak to her. There’s got to be some mistake. I just don’t believe it…’ She rushed into the hall, s
till talking.

  ‘I must say it seems a little extraordinary.’ Myra had been reading. She marked her place with a long, slender finger and looked up. ‘A little sudden?’

  ‘Apparently the job depends upon her getting to New York as soon as possible. She sails from Southampton next week. The Mauritania, I think.’ Allie avoided her father’s eyes. In the hall, Libby’s voice lifted, arguing excitably.

  ‘But, Cele, it’s absolutely odious of you to leave me in the lurch like this – oh, I know it isn’t you I’m marrying, but – yes, I know but, well – couldn’t it wait? It’s only three weeks – the dresses are made and everything and – oh, , Celia, it just won’t be the same without you – what? – well, yes, I can see that, I suppose, but – oh, I just knew that something would happen to spoil it all – well, of course it will…’ She sounded on the verge of stormy tears.

  ‘Does Elizabeth never think of anything but her own convenience?’ asked her father, an unusual edge of irritation to his voice.

  ‘Rarely, dear.’ Peaceably, Myra went back to her book.

  A few moments later, a downcast Libby rejoined them. ‘It’s no good. She says she can’t possibly put it off. She’s written me a letter, explaining and apologizing. It’s in the post. Oh, damn!’ She threw herself with disconsolate grace into an armchair. ‘I can’t think of anyone that her dress will fit. She’s so slim—’

  ‘Oh, honestly, Libby!’

  Libby took no heed of her sister’s involuntary exclamation. She brightened a little. ‘One thing though. It’ll be very exciting seeing her off.’

  Robert frowned. ‘Seeing her off?’

  ‘Well, of course. I said we’d all go – well, of course we must.’

  The silence that greeted this attracted Myra’s attention as the words had not. ‘What was that, dear?’

  ‘I told Celia we’d all put in an appearance to see her off. From Southampton. I mean – we can’t let her go away for ever, just like that, without giving her a send-off, can we? It’d be too bad. If Daddy can’t get the day off, then we three can go by train—’