I know that you have had grievous troubles of your own. That you have confided in me gives me hope that I have at least earned your trust.
Perceptive as you are, however, I don’t think you will guess what I’m about to have the effrontery to ask, so I must be frank.
Christina – would you consider letting our friendship evolve into a closer kind of loving companionship? To avoid possible misunderstanding, I had better put it even more plainly – will you marry me? Would you do me the very great honour of being my wife?
There. Now I have shocked even myself by putting my request so bluntly. Besides, I am well aware that there are two excellent reasons why not, without even considering my less than pleasing appearance.
Firstly, you are already married.
Secondly, I know that you are in love with Mark.
I would never have imagined myself proposing to a married woman – what a thing to do! – but I am well aware that your marriage to Dick is over in all but name, and that you will soon embark on divorce proceedings. The second point is more compelling. Mark is my good friend, and I am betraying his trust by so much as thinking of you in this way. However, the law does not permit you to marry Will’s brother, and you have told me that for the sake of the children you will not compromise respectability by living with him unmarried.
So you are in love with Mark, and I, dearest Christina, am deeply in love with you. You see how I cannot prevent myself from repeating your name, whispering it aloud as I write. Christina. Such a lovely word to say, to write, and for me it encapsulates all that is you, your lightness and beauty, your seriousness and grace. Christina.
What, then, can I offer you that you might possibly value? You are not in need of a home, or of financial security. Loving companionship, however, after your losses – that, maybe, is something you do need, and would value. Devotion, loyalty and love would be abundantly yours; I would be the best stepfather I possibly could to Tom and Isobel, and would regard it as an honour and a privilege to take that role in their lives. If, however, your affections remain strongly with Mark, marriage to me would give you respectability in the eyes of the world, and protect the children from scandal. In return – all I ask, Christina, is for you to share your time with me.
If your answer to this preposterous suggestion is a definite No, I will quite understand, and will never mention this again. On the other hand, if you are willing at least to consider
The letter ended there, in mid-sentence.
Unfinished.
Unsigned.
Grace turned over the page in case there was more: but nothing.
Fergus couldn’t have sent it. If he had, why would it be stored in his box of papers?
Had Christina ever known that he loved her?
Grace re-read Fergus’s words, not sure she had fully understood. Aware of Roger quietly watching her, she stood and went over to him, holding out the letter with the feeling that the lost words were still waiting to be said.
‘He didn’t finish it? Never sent it?’
‘No. He must have lost his nerve, or something happened to stop him. Or maybe he was writing it mainly for himself. It’s possible, I suppose, that this was only a first draft, and he did copy out and send it, but I don’t think so.’
‘Dick – that must be short for Richard? And – she did marry Mark! We know that.’
‘Yes. The law was changed later that year – 1921 – so that a woman could marry her dead husband’s brother. So many women lost their husbands in the war that it can’t have been unusual. And that must have put an end to his hopes.’
Grace hesitated. ‘But – have I got this wrong, or is he actually saying here’ – she glanced down at the neat, controlled handwriting – ‘that Christina could have both of them? Marry him, but still be with Mark?’
‘I think that is what he’s saying, yes. What an offer! Generous, selfless, desperate – depends how you look at it.’ Roger’s mouth twisted and for a moment he seemed to be blinking back tears. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, that instead of sending the letter he told her how he felt, in person. But I don’t think so, to judge from this other message.’ He went to the folder on the bench and took out a greetings card with a faded flower design on the front. ‘Read this. It’s from Christina to him, later that year, just after she married Mark.’
The writing inside was larger and more feminine than Fergus’s, with loops and flourishes, and Grace felt a little faint at the thought that she was looking at Christina’s handwriting, at a message Christina must have considered and paused over and finally signed, with flamboyant strokes of her pen.
My dearest Fergus,
Just a quick note to thank you for being best man at our wedding. You know Mark never thinks of thanking anyone, but he told me you were the very BEST best man he could have had. Wasn’t it fun? I so enjoyed our elegant day, and hope you did too. I know all the local farmers and hunt people are being sniffy, and talking behind our backs about the scandal of me getting married for a third time, and to my brother-in-law. It was lucky the church wouldn’t have us, so we could do the deed in Chelmsford, out of their sight. I certainly don’t plan to do it again – three weddings is more than enough for anyone! Now all I want to do is live happily with Mark and the children – and you, our dear friend, close by.
With my fondest wishes,
Christina
PS Here’s a pressed flower from the bunch I carried. It’s the nearest thing to throwing the whole bouquet at you – to give you a little push, dearest Fergus, to propose to your nice Miss Portman. I am looking forward to another special day, and to seeing you comfortably settled. It can be Mark’s turn to be best man for you. We will see you both here for dinner next Thursday evening.
Grace read this twice, stroked her fingertips over Christina’s signature, then looked at Roger.
‘No, she can’t have known, can she?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Miss Portman? Was she …’
‘Yes. She and Fergus did get married. Helen Portman was my great-grandmother.’
‘So he was best man at Christina’s wedding, when he’d wanted to marry her himself.’ Grace imagined Fergus standing next to Mark, smartly dressed and correct. Was he able to conceal his feelings behind his half-a-face, trying to be happy for his friends, but unable to stop thinking how things might have been? As before, thinking of Fergus and Christina and the tuggings of love and friendship and chance that had led to this present, she felt dizzy. And Christina’s note! Grace liked the way she sounded: bright, happy, sparky. As might be expected from someone who’d just got married. Almost she heard her, as if she’d sprung out of the photographs to speak quite loudly in Grace’s ear.
‘Was the flower still there?’ she asked, and Roger nodded.
‘Yes, but in faded bits that fell out when I opened the card. I couldn’t tell what sort of flower it was.’
Mum came back, saying that Sally was on her way to join them, and they all looked at the letter and card again, exclaiming and wondering.
‘What’s puzzling me,’ Roger said, indicating the card Grace was still holding, ‘is that Christina says children. And Fergus offers to be a stepfather to Tom. Tom and Isobel. I can’t make sense of that. Who’s Tom? I didn’t think Christina had another child until the birth of her and Mark’s son, in 1922. That was a year after their wedding.’
‘I wondered about that too,’ Grace’s mother said. ‘I’m sure Granny Izz didn’t have another brother. She never talked about a brother called Tom – only the younger one, Robert, her half-brother, who died in the Battle of Britain.’
‘So where did this Tom come from? And what happened to him?’
‘Maybe he was just staying here for some reason?’ Mum suggested. ‘A relative we don’t know about?’
‘Maybe. I’m almost certain he wasn’t born at Flambards, but I’ll have another look at the parish records and the census returns. A mystery!’ Roger rubbed his hands
together. ‘Something to keep me busy in my spare moments.’
It was the last night for this week’s guests, who began to assemble in the garden to take group pictures with their tutor. Roger was called on to take photographs, and while he was obligingly clicking away a succession of cameras people handed him, Sally arrived. She held a bottle of wine and looked a little self-conscious, wearing dressier clothes than usual – light trousers, a floaty top and jewellery. It seemed that the three of them – Mum, Roger and Sally – were making an occasion of the evening meal, to cheer Sally up. But when they’d done the ritual grown-up kissing, Roger said, ‘Have fun. See you tomorrow,’ and left.
‘He’s taking Adrian to eat at the pub,’ Mum told Grace. ‘It’s just us and Sally tonight.’
So, not a party, then – more like a two-pronged manoeuvre at sorting things out. Still full of her late lunch at Frankie and Benny’s, Grace excused herself. She’d only be in the way.
Having missed her ride today she cycled over to Marsh House to see if Jamie and Marcus were there, and to take Plum some apple pieces. Arriving, she was surprised to find Marcus and Charlie walking in from the paddock with Sirius between them. Marcus wore a helmet, and Sirius was saddled and bridled.
‘Have you been riding?’
Marcus grinned. ‘Yes. Charlie persuaded me.’
Grace felt a little put out, seeing him and Charlie together, and at ease in each other’s company.
‘He did well! A bit rough round the edges, but potentially very good,’ Charlie said. ‘Honestly, Marcus, you could really be a rider, if you wanted.’
‘It’s fun, now and then.’ Marcus gave a small shrug. ‘I don’t want to spend my whole life trotting round and round in circles, the way you horsey people do. It’s not for me.’
Plum, watching from the orchard gate, made the little nickering sound through her nostrils that was her greeting to Grace, who found it both touching and heartbreaking, knowing that she wouldn’t be around much longer. When she left, Plum’s future would be as uncertain as that of Flambards. Jamie had told her that his parents thought the pony should be sold to a good home where she’d be regularly ridden. He and Charlie both opposed that, and Grace’s daily riding had given Plum a reprieve, but when Grace was gone, what then?
As the pony crunched apple, wrinkling her nose into Grace’s palm, Grace felt ungenerously put out by Marcus’s success. She’d been the one receiving praise for taking to riding like a natural; now it seemed that Marcus could easily outclass her if he chose. Though she didn’t imagine he could enjoy being given orders by Charlie in instructor mode.
While Charlie fussed over Sirius, Marcus came over to lean on the fence next to Grace. At closer range she saw that the bruise on his cheek had turned multicoloured, blues and purples shading to yellow. She hadn’t spoken to him since their conversation in the drive.
‘Are you OK?’ It was the nearest she could manage to a direct question.
‘Yeah,’ he said, as if it didn’t much matter.
‘How long are you staying here?’ she asked, immediately realizing it was a question too far. Marcus didn’t answer, giving only a small shake of his head.
‘Are you coming in?’ Jamie was coming down through the garden, with Flash bounding ahead to hurl himself at Marcus. ‘Dad’s making pizza. Oh, hi, Grace. D’you want to come too?’
Grace said that she ought to start back. Dusk was beginning to settle hazily over the fields; darkness was coming earlier now, in the second half of August. She called goodbye to the boys and Charlie, turned on the front light of her bike, and rode away.
After only a few yards Flash overtook her, leaping ahead, turning to look at her smiley-faced, eager for a run. She stopped, for a moment thinking that Marcus must be coming too – perhaps he wanted to tell her something. Then she heard a shout and a whistle from behind, and saw him standing by the gate. It was only Flash being exuberant, running off. Marcus had been saying that Flash was less obedient than he used to be, needing more regular training. The dog ignored his calls at first, leaping around Grace; then, in response to a more emphatic shout, gave in and ran to him. Marcus waved and turned back towards the house, and Grace continued alone.
She’d had the feeling, back there by the paddock before Jamie came out, that he’d wanted to say something, but if he had, he could have come after Flash now. Conflicting feelings tugged at her, filling her with a confused yearning. Marcus often made her feel like this. It was his way of sometimes talking to her quite seriously, more often closing up, unreachable, but obviously troubled.
Her thoughts returned to Fergus, writing his long-ago letter in the house behind her. She imagined him gazing out of the window, perhaps into the first dusk of the new year, while he composed his words so carefully. The flower Christina had saved had crumbled into dust, but the lane between Flambards and Marsh House, running smoothly between high hedges, felt charged with new meaning. Something hummed and crackled between the two places, connecting the lives lived there, both now and in the past.
She liked to find patterns; they seemed to give her a place, making sense of things that might otherwise feel random. This lane, with its gateways and hedges and heavy-leaved trees, and the signposted T-junction half a mile on, must have been as familiar to Fergus as it was becoming now to her. She pictured him in an early open-topped motor car (she was vague about the details, but imagined it huge, with great shining flanks, and Fergus behind the wheel in goggles and a cap) setting out for Flambards to see Christina; his heart full of the things he would never dare say.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kicks
‘I want to see the manager. Roger Clark. Is he here?’
‘No, it’s his day off. There’s someone in the office, though.’ Grace pointed the way.
The newcomer frowned. She was an oldish woman, slim, silver-haired, with eyes that looked swimmy behind the lenses of her glasses; she wore red jeans and a red cardigan over a red-and-white striped shirt. Trotting behind her was a miniature dachshund, with legs that looked too short to make much progress.
‘No, it’s Roger Clark I want to see. The one that was talking on the wireless.’
‘Shall I ask him to phone you when he’s back?’
‘Oh, all right then.’ The woman sounded mildly put out. She scooped up the little dog and put it into her handbag, where it seemed quite happy, gazing around with big, soulful eyes. It wore a shiny collar with a bow, the same bright red as its owner’s clothes. Grace wondered if it had a selection of collars to coordinate with various outfits, or if both dog and woman always wore red.
She led the way to the office, where Irina was tidying up. The decorators were in the house, finishing off the painting of the flat that would soon be Roger’s, but otherwise not much was happening. The weekend’s course had been cancelled through lack of numbers (a downward dip of the teetering balance that was Flambards’ future) and no new guests were arriving till Monday.
‘Tell your dad my mother used to work here,’ the woman said, as they paused at the front steps.
Grace stared at her, not immediately understanding. ‘No, Roger’s not my dad! My mum works in the office, but she’s not here either.’
‘Righty ho. Can you tell him, my name’s Duncan, Mrs Marion Duncan, and my mother’s Mrs Wright, Jenny Wright. I thought he might like to know about my mum’s time here, as he’s interested in the goings-on back in the old days.’
‘He definitely would,’ Grace agreed.
Wright? That was the name of Christina’s second husband, Richard, and Grace remembered that there were lots of them in the churchyard. Roger had said that Adrian was descended from the Wrights, and that meant so was Marcus. Maybe this woman was a relation of theirs?
They went into the office, where Irina greeted the visitor most charmingly, exclaimed over the pretty dachshund and wrote down the name and phone number on a note for Roger.
Mrs Duncan left, her little dog trotting briskly by her side, and Grace followed her o
utside. She was at a loose end today, and thought she might as well head down to the lake to see if Jamie was there.
Her mother had gone out, saying she’d be back late afternoon. Grace assumed that she was going somewhere with Sally, though she hadn’t said. They seemed to be good friends now; Mum would surely keep in touch with Sally after the move back to London.
‘It’s great that you get on so well with the boys,’ Mum had said, more than once. Yes, Grace did: with both of them together and more particularly with each of them separately. Well, most of the time. But everything was beginning to feel fragile and temporary. The links to Marcus and Jamie, so important now, would surely fade without daily contact – another loss, to add to the absence of Marie-Louise. She couldn’t imagine the boys bothering to keep in touch when she’d gone. Already she felt wistful at the thought of leaving them: wistful and lonely.
Hesitating on the porch steps, she realized that the house was empty today apart from the decorators. No guests were staying, Pam had the weekend off and only Irina was around. Inside, sunlight slanted into the hall; the carpeted sweep of staircase beckoned her.
She couldn’t resist. Surely no one would mind if she explored a bit? Quietly she went back inside, and up.
From the upstairs landing, a corridor stretched left and right, with doors to the bedrooms all open. At the farthest end a second, smaller staircase led up to the flat that would soon be Roger’s. Grace rather envied him that, fond though she was of the Hayloft. But one of these bedrooms must have been Christina’s.
The Key to Flambards Page 16