by Paul Kelly
***
My honeymoon was the happiest time of my life. Each day was a new day and each night, a new night of love. I remember praying for Jeremy and Aunt Martha at the tomb of St. Peter, the first pope and peculiarly enough, I remembered Monty there too. Not with regret of course. No, never that... but not with bitterness either. I thought of him with pity and wondered if he could see me then and would he have envied what I had... and what he had never been able to give me. Darius was not a wealthy man as Monty was, but love is not bought with the coin, except with the coin of the heart.
***
We would spend our evenings visiting the various bistros and tavernas, often taking in a variety show given by the locals. It was interesting to see how they dressed on these occasions of entertainment and even their style of dancing was characteristic of the people they were. I thought the Italian people to be very passionate about their customs and their country, but I also found them to be very kind and simple in their ways, which attracted me greatly. Needless to say, Darius loved the music of the bars and of the street musicians. It delighted me to see him clap his way through the evening with such joy and happiness in his face. I wished then we could have made that honeymoon last for ever, just to see that face; that joy... that exuberance that seemed almost to border into ecstasy as I denied the sight of pain that I could see occasionally in his tender eyes. Could life offer such happiness without a price? I asked myself …
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Frampton had telephoned me at our hotel in Rome with an urgent message, (for my ears only) I had ordered a brand new grand piano nearly three weeks before we left England and it had been delivered to Rowan Trees that morning. I had been planning to get this for Darius for his birthday on December 21st and the manager of the shop where I made the purchase apologised profoundly to Frampton for the delay in delivering in time for the special event.
The piano hadn’t arrived at the shop until the evening before he phoned and he had promised to make a delivery by 9.30 the following morning. That was January 3rd 1962 and Darius was all of thirty-three years of age.
***
We returned to England and to Rowan Trees with a great reception from the ever- faithful Frampton. That was on January 12th 1962.and Darius was ecstatic when he played his new piano for the first time and the sound was wonderful as it filled the whole house with its rich, resonant tones. Poor Darius would never see it... and it was White... uniquely white I thought and when I described it to him in minute detail, he was thrilled. The only sad thing I found, was the first piece of music he played on it was Chopin’s Polonaise in ‘A’ flat... followed, peculiarly enough by the Adagio …Albinoni’s in ‘G’ minor... and I remembered Jeremy, with great sadness and appreciation. He would have loved to hear Darius play. In August 14th of that same year, old dear little daughter, Fleur was born. We called her Fleur, because Darius and I both loved flowers. We had them in every room at Rowan Trees. Fleur was a beautiful baby weighing only six pounds and we were so happy … happy beyond words. I now had a part of Darius that would never be taken away from me. She was mine... she was ours... and we were all together. Words could not describe the joy in Darius’ face as he held her in his arms for the first time. He would count her tiny fingers and her toes, making sure they were all there and he would run his sensitive fingers across her tiny face and head, with such pride. He wrote a piece of music, especially for Fleur when she was only two weeks old, which some years later sold for quite a considerable amount of money.
Life at Rowan Trees became full of music and laughter and of course... a few little baby tears and eighteen months after the birth of Fleur, I had Rosie. She was as dark as Fleur was fair and Darius called them the Black & White whisky girls... but I never could understand how he thought of that as he never touched whisky in all the time I had known him. Rosie was Darius’s choice of name for our second little girl, because again she was called after a flower and he particularly loved roses.
Frampton was Godmother to both our children and we later ‘adopted’ a dog,which was a cross between a spaniel and a labrador. The little fellow had the most comical face and always appeared to be laughing. He had been thrown out of a litter when he was a puppy, wrapped in a canvas bag, laden with stones and chucked into the river. Had I not been standing nearby that morning with the children in the pram... and goodness knows why I was even near the river, in the first place, he would have surely drowned. I saw this wriggling bundle floating along beside me and I fished it out and when I discovered what was in the bag, I took him home, thinking he might be good company for the girls. I liked the little chap straight away and wanted to call him Jeremy... need you ask why … but I changed my mind fairly rapidly when I found he was very fond of cream buns and was constantly doing ‘naughty things’ to other doggies... not necessarily bitches either... so I called him ‘Fotheringay’... but I never told anyone why... The children grew up to love him and he was their ever-faithful companion. He loved posing for his photograph and was a very willing model in our biology classes... in the conservatory....
***
By this time I had given up my job as Health Visitor in the district, to spend my time entirely looking after the children... our wonderful daughters and of course... walking the beast …Frampton taught me a lot in that time; how to make cakes, for example, because I wanted to be as competent as she was in that art. I never did reach the proficiency of my dear companion, but I was a lot better than I thought I ever would be. I learned how to ice and decorate my ‘creations’ and became quite an artist in my own little way. I did a lot of knitting too and I reminded myself of Aunt Martha as she turned the heels in her socks. so meticulously and conscientiously, with her tongue lolling all around her mouth, quite oblivious to anything or anyone around her. The one thing I never mastered was sewing. I had no patience with the needle and could never get the damned sewing machine to work.
For his part in contributing to the household chores, Darius had been dabbling in the garden with Joseph, the twice-a-week gardener, since Ramsay had left us to marry a girl from the village...before he realized one day that he could do almost anything he wanted to do... and became quite an expert. He and Joseph built a very fine pergola from the conservatory to the rose garden and smothered it in rich pendulous racemes of blue, white and purple wisteria. It was quite a work of art and they built it whilst drinking gallons of Somerset cider. Then very adventurously, he hit upon the idea that he would like to build a pond... not just an ordinary pond, but one with a waterfall and a submersible pump to keep the water flowing clearly, whilst being circulated from one end of the pond to the other. They chose a site for this venture at the bottom of the garden, near the woods. I remember the calm and peaceful cooling sound of the rippling waterfall, in the long summer evenings when the water would trickle in carefree abandon, getting louder and louder in sound as it splashed merrily across the rocks of varying colours. Darius saw all this in his mind’s eye and described it to me in perfect detail. All I had to do was to approve the picture and he would nod with total contentment. The fact that he would never actually see the results of his labour; the beautiful, rich vibrant tints of colour were of little concern to him. He already had all that locked away in his mind and had resigned himself to the restrictions of his state, where he had created his own colour-world in his musical intelligence. I often think he got more satisfaction in that way than many another with perfect sight would have done. He certainly gave my world a wealth of charm from his wild and vivid descriptions of the things he wanted to do in our dream world of a garden at Rowan Trees and I would gaze at him with such pride and love and know that no way would he ever leave me to return to London now. Such a thought that once brought fear to my heart was nothing more than a stupid joke now … It took him nearly four months to build the pond and the pergola, combining his manual labours with his artistic and sensitive tuition in music. The results were staggering. I h
adn’t actually realized what was in his mind exactly... when he set out to work with Joseph until things were beginning to take shape and by this time, even Frampton had been bitten and infected with the ‘gardening bug’ and I had often seen her roll up her sleeves and get moving on the wheel barrow, shifting earth to the new rockery that she had taken upon herself to build. What an industry. We were like a gang or workmen... a colony of ants, working in relay, but we were all so happy and Rowan Trees was beginning to be transformed before our very eyes.
The children would play happily on the lawn as we worked. They would whoop for joy at the sound of the tadpole plopping into the still pond, ducking here and there as he did, to avoid the waterfall at the other end. Rosie was wide-eyed and mystified as her little head would fall about in her efforts to get everything she could in her tiny vision, but Fleur seemed to know everything that was going on around her and took it all in her stride, even shooing away the wasps with her bare hand from her little sister, when they flew around her head. She appeared to have no fear and I think she should have been a boy.
Darius had green fingers. Everything about the garden was beginning to come alive and even Joseph was surprised. The ribes and forsythia blossomed proudly at his touch and I would often see him close his eyes and hold the foliage close to his face to savour the perfume, which obviously gave him great delight. He simply loved the garden... next to his music of course and I was glad that Rowan Trees was ours because of the joy it gave him. It was a whole new world for him where he could capture every scene in full splendour and radiance in his mind. I used to think of it as an album where he would store all his magnificent pictures to look at when times were dull or when the weather would rob us of the scenery that afforded so much pleasure. He would often describe the pink flowers and the yellow forsythia to me as though he could see the colours himself and he could not only name the plant or flower, but the colour and texture also. I once saw him touch some lupines, tenderly with his fingers, stroking the petals gently and he was able to tell which were blue and which were red. I know that sounds like an exaggeration of the truth, but it wasn’t. He could actually do that. He commanded a mass glory, which he took under his wing and cherished it in mystery and in awe.
Frampton was always discreetly quiet about her own efforts on the rockery with her variegated heather and rock- plant designs in the steps between the glorious red-flame rhododendron bush and the pale, modest magnolia tree. She would smile at me and then touch her eyes as a sign for me to look at Darius... but he was invariably smiling all the while.
***
Pupils for the pianoforte lessons came and went in our world of beauty and music. Some just dropped out of the lessons, through lack of interest, usually because it was the idea of a parent and not the pupil that they should study piano, but there were others …though very few, who went on to higher things. Six of Darius’ pupils entered one or other of the colleges of music in London and two that I know of, went into the Guildhall. Darius also wrote music prodigiously and earned quite a sum of money in that way, which naturally made him feel good. He hated that I should pay any of the bills, but that was necessary at the beginning of our relationship. We both understood that, but he, with great reluctance. I sold my beloved ‘beetle’ and bought a land-rover since it was more convenient for Darius to stretch his long legs and of course, to transport the children whenever we took them with us to concerts and competitions, etc., It also served as a collection and delivery bus for the pupils who had no transport of their own.
Life was wonderful …truly wonderful, in every way as we dreamed it would be... until the day that Darius fell ill.
Chapter Thirty
I sensed there was something wrong immediately and I panicked. I lost control of everything and I didn’t even know what day of the week it was. I know that sounds like a dramatic exaggeration, especially as I had been a nurse for so many years of my life and had dealt with emergencies of all sorts and tragic circumstances in many of my theatre cases... but this was different. This was Darius... this was my life.
I had always felt that I had been blessed with too much happiness ever since I married Darius, but blindly, I put this from my mind and convinced myself that as long as I took good care of him... we would go on being happy together, forever ...even if I saw Cardinal Gillespie shaking his sagacious head in the background of my illusion. He was used to suffering, I supposed... after all he was a priest. a follower of Christ and had to take up his cross daily and follow... and get on with it... but his vocation wasn’t mine. I didn’t want to hear about sacrifices or suffering or tolerance of what other people did in the tragedies of their lives. I know I was selfish, but I had no remorse for feeling as I did, after all, I had suffered enough with the last marriage to a monster that only knew hate and never love.
I only wanted Darius to be well, even if I had already accepted that he would never see again. I wanted him to be there with me and even if it meant he would never walk again; never touch my hand; never again love me in the ecstasy of our unique bond of ‘oneness’… I wanted him to be with me... at any cost and at any price. I would have done anything for him to restore his health, so that he would smile again. He was my husband, my friend; my lover... and I was his slave. I would have given him anything, even my own life, if that was what was called for. I wanted Darius Crane to be with me forever and I even dreamed that when our time came to die... we would go together. I know that sounds terrible... yes, even selfish when you consider our two beautiful children, but I had chosen Darius as my love, whereas the children were the results of that love... I had no choice in what they would look like or anything at all about their characters. Darius was my first and true love and everything and everyone else, came second and the faces of the children paled when I thought of a life without their father.
I had spoken to Doctor Boylan, when I had my suspicions that everything was not just as it should be and I could tell by the reticence in his answer that he wasn’t telling me everything. I was a nurse, damn it! ! I had every right to know, so why the hell didn’t he talk to me in the language that we were both trained to understand if he could not talk to me as a woman in love. Sadly, I later found out that he too had grown very fond of Darius and didn’t want to face the truth any more than I did ...that Darius was indeed very ill
I wished then as I wish now, that people were not so bloody loyal....
***
The piano playing gradually became softer and softer and sometimes notes were missing and flat. I cried when I sat in the drawing room and considered what had once been, when the music filled the house with its beautiful, melodious sound. How the pupils would sing as they played and how I would see Darius smile with sheer contentment... but now... he would frown, when he thought I wasn’t around to see and wince as he screwed up his eyes, raising his head as if to view the ceiling might alleviate the pain... but he was unable to view and his pain continued.
I would sit quietly in tears until the lesson was finished and I would then be able to drive the pupils home.
It was the day he fell that alarmed me more than anything else. I heard him play the piano softly, pensively... It was the allegro and there were no children to teach. Darius played as he often did, when he was alone. I’m sure it gave him a feeling of fulfilment and of love, where perhaps he would have been inadequate with words. I would watch him sway with the passion of the moment, or sit back quietly in my chair with my eyes closed to enjoy the beauty of his art, without interruption. It was on such an occasion as this, when suddenly there was a loud bang and then everything went quiet. I opened my eyes and rushed towards him but he had fallen with his head down across the keys. I screamed for Frampton and she helped me to get him to the settee where I could see immediately that he was flushed and obviously had a temperature. Frampton was marvellous on that occasion as indeed she was on every occasion of emergency and I can only repeat that again and again.
I don’t know what I would have done without her. She was unflappable and more in control than I was, but I managed to get a cold compress to his head and kept rubbing his hands as Frampton telephoned for Doctor Boylan. It was fortunate for me that there were no students that morning and Darius had only just come in from the garden a few moments before. He often liked to play after a spate of gardening. Somehow, he complimented one craft with the other and as I have already said, these were the two ‘crafts’ in which he excelled.
Doctor Boylan arrived very soon after the phone call and arranged for Darius to be admitted to the Cottage Hospital. The diagnosis was considered to be pleurisy, but I had seen cases of pleurisy before... many, many times and none of the cases I had seen showed the symptoms that I saw in my husband. I approached Doctor Boylan about my doubts, but he only squeezed my hand and told me that everything would be alright and that time would heal... as it always did, but I was restless and agitated. On the one hand, I didn’t believe what Doctor Boylan had told me and on the other hand... I didn’t want to hear anything worse as I went home that night and tried to sleep, but that was a luxury that was deprived of me. I thought over the years that Darius and I had been together and I cried all the while... not with sadness of our short time together but with the deepest regret of the years I had wasted in being separated from him, simply because of my pride. I was full of fear and I didn’t know why I had such convictions that something was seriously wrong and hated myself for not understanding what that something was, but like everyone who has ever really loved... and I mean the love that excludes Everything but the Beloved, I wanted reassurance that it would all be well in the end, if only I was patient enough.