by Mary Wesley
‘Dying,’ said Henry.
‘So you have reached that point?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘It’s slow work, though.’
‘Clio and Hilaria stressed that I was on no account to make you laugh as it might hasten your demise.’ Calypso leaned back in her chair, smiling.
Henry said, ‘The dear girls,’ grinning.
Calypso too said, ‘The dear girls,’ and they sat for a moment sharing their age and considering the young. Then she said, ‘When Hector died, we were cheated. He dropped, there one minute, gone the next. I had no chance to ask what it is like. What is it like, Henry?’
‘Exhausting.’
‘Keeping their spirits up?’
‘That’s about it, and it is a bore not being able to breathe. Laughter, of course, is lethal. But I am not beefing. I only wish they did not all take it so seriously.’ Then, seeing that Calypso looked distressed, he said, ‘Tell me about Hector’s wood; are the cherry trees in flower, and the bluebells?’
She said, ‘Yes, they are, and for such a young wood, only forty-five years, it’s wonderful. I wish Hector could see it now; he put his heart into that wood.’
‘What was left over from you.’
Calypso said, ‘M-m-m. This will please you, Henry. There are nightingales this year.’
Henry said, ‘Wonderful.’
She said, ‘Hilaria’s child tells me you listen to the birds. Cotteshaw birds were always in a class of their own.’
Henry said, ‘The dawn chorus rewards me for the nights.’
‘Which are long?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you have owls?’
‘There is no mad joy in a hoot,’ he said.
‘As you know, and I know, the “mad joy” is a furious “keep off my patch”—Oh! Now I have made you laugh!’ Calypso waited for Henry to stop wheezing. ‘What do you think about in the long night watches?’ she asked.
Henry turned towards her. ‘I think of friends, friends like you. I think with gratitude of the girls’ generosity. They used to come at weekends with their men. It was like old times with Barbara and James, Antonia and Matthew and their babies. I have rather lost the taste, the habit, what is the word, for that lot, but now Clio and Hilaria have left their men to fend for themselves in London and here they are, looking after me. It’s good of them.’
Calypso said, ‘They love you, and modern husbands have been taught to cope.’
‘Hilaria isn’t actually married,’ said Henry.
Calypso said, ‘It’s the new mode. There’s some sort of cachet in not being married to your child’s father.’
‘Not as new as all that!’ Henry, catching Calypso’s eye, tried not to laugh.
She exclaimed, ‘Don’t laugh! I refuse to be responsible to Clio. Oh, do try not to! What else do you consider during those lonely hours?’ she asked.
‘I consider my little clowns. Get them to show you their costumes—’
‘They have. How clever of the Jonathans! Such a good idea.’
‘Apt?’
‘Well, original. I take it, this was prior to the interdiction on laughter?’
‘Yes.’ She had not changed, he thought, watching her. She had not been sentimental as a girl; she was even less so now.
She said, ‘I hope you do not waste what time is left on regrets.’
I regret never telling her that I was in love with her, he thought. Would it be in order to tell her now? ‘I regret that I was something of a moral coward,’ he said. ‘I regret that very much.’
‘It was not noticeable,’ said Calypso cheerfully. ‘You always, from what I saw of you, appeared rather brave. A bit on the rash side. Hector said you were flawed. I supposed it was your joie de vivre overcoming various hindrances and obstacles.’
Henry smiled. ‘You were ever discreet. I could confess my regretful flaws to you if you’d listen.’
‘Don’t!’ exclaimed Calypso, flushing. ‘You are taking advantage of your death-bed. A confession made to anyone other than a priest would be a selfish indulgence.’
Henry said, ‘I got a rise out of you, didn’t I? You’ve gone quite pink.’ Then he sighed and looked past her and out to the view of the garden and, in the distance, the sheep. She was right. Barbara had long since blocked anything that might harm James, and Antonia was strong. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I dare say you know it all, anyway.’
Relieved, Calypso said, ‘That’s possible.’
Clio, coming upstairs with the intention of a tactful hint that Henry’s visitor had stayed long enough, was surprised by a burst of laughter.
THIRTY-FIVE
THE JONATHANS COULD NOT keep away from Cotteshaw. After visiting Henry, they shuffled down to flop into armchairs in the drawing room, where Hilaria brought them coffee.
‘We are a nuisance,’ they told one another, watching her go, straight-backed in trim jeans and T-shirt, glossy shoulder-length brown hair held back by an Alice band. ‘They are so efficient, those two. Will the little girls be the same in their thirties?’
‘They are the same model, Hilaria and Clio. I can’t tell one from t’other. Their kids will be the same.’
‘Only because they dress alike do they look alike. That one is bossy,’ said John, watching Hilaria’s disappearing back.
‘Less bossy than Clio. Antonia was tougher than Barbara. It’s inherited,’ said Jonathan. ‘Are you afraid of them?’ he asked slyly.
‘It is their youth which alarms me.’
In their anguish the old men did what Clio and Hilaria told them, resentfully, for they had known them from birth, played with them as they now played with their daughters, Eliza and Katie, spoiling them by giving them presents.
‘They make themselves useful.’ Hilaria excused the Jonathans to Clio, who had let slip a remark in the nature of ‘Taken root again’ or ‘Have they no home?’, which meant no more than that she was as tired and unhappy as was Hilaria. ‘They answer the telephone; they keep the children quiet when it rains. I have asked them to keep a list of callers, so that we know—They are miserable, Clio,’ she said.
‘I know.’ Clio tucked her T-shirt into her jeans. ‘I am miserable, too.’ (And all the more miserable because I wish this was over. I wish Henry could die; this inching progress is nerve-wracking.) ‘I am impatient,’ she said. ‘I snap at the children.’
‘They grow bored,’ said Hilaria. ‘The novelty has gone. We have told them their singing and dancing is now too much for Henry. He is too weak. They find it hard to keep quiet in his room; the novelty of lying at his feet has worn off. They are less faithful than the Humbles and Cringes were, less patient as he wheezes and dozes and struggles for breath, drowning in his phlegm.’
Clio said, ‘Oh God, Hilaria, must you be so explicit?’ and took a deep breath. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘sorry. Of course they must stay. It’s good that the very old and the very young can be together. They understand each other.’ She looked out at the clouds scudding across the sky, presaging rain. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘we should let our men come. What do you think? They could take the children on, relieve the Jonathans, do their parental duty.’
Hilaria thought of Eliza’s father with a fierce longing which matched, she knew, Clio’s need for her husband, but she said, ‘Not yet. The Js are doing a great job with the children. It helps them endure this terrible waiting.’
‘What about us?’ snapped Clio. ‘Do we not need—help, too?’
Hilaria said, ‘You and I have got to manage. If we let the men come, they won’t cope with the little girls. They will say, Leave them with the Js. They will gobble us up. You know they will.’
‘Nothing I’d like better,’ retorted Clio, ‘than to be gobbled up by my husband.’
‘They will be wishing Henry to get on with it, to get it over, so that they can take us home. I wish his suffering over but I will not have him hurried,’ said Hilaria.
‘Nor do I wish that,’ said Clio. ‘Dear God, no.’
‘I couldn’t, if they came—’ Hilaria began to speak but stopped short. I could not go to bed with my lover without wanting to make love, she thought. I could not enjoy love, knowing that Henry was in his room along the passage, dying. ‘Oh, Clio!’ she said. ‘I—’
And Clio said, ‘I know, I know, me too. We’ll wait,’ and put her arms round Hilaria and hugged her.
In the drawing room the Jonathans sat with the telephone between them, taking turns to answer.
‘No,’ they said to Barbara, to James, to Antonia. ‘No change. A bit weaker. Yes, your love? Of course we will give it to him. Yes, the children are well. They are being very good. The young mothers have put us in charge, it gets us out of their hair. Yes, they watch TV, they play in the garden. We try to keep them amused when it rains—’
‘We should have used the answerphone,’ said John. ‘We say the same every day. There it goes again. Your turn.’
‘No, no change,’ said Jonathan. ‘A bit weaker, perhaps. Give him your love? Of course I will. Yes, do, ring tomorrow. Yes. That was Matthew. He said he’s getting twitchy.’
‘He foresees having to interrupt his holiday and flying home from Greece for the funeral and oh, the expense of flying back.’ The old man blew out his moustache, white now but still luxuriant, and laughed.
‘He wouldn’t like that,’ said his stout friend, smiling. ‘Do you suppose he intends trying to buy Cotteshaw for his grandson Guy?’
‘Perhaps he assumes Henry has left it to Susie?’ The question of who would inherit Cotteshaw was a secret Henry had not divulged to either old friend.
‘Henry is not all that keen on Susie or Guy, and he never had Matthew’s predilection for primogeniture,’ said Jonathan. ‘Your turn,’ he said as the telephone rang.
‘No,’ said John. ‘No, no change. A little weaker, possibly. Oh no! No need to interrupt your trip—’ (‘She’s in the States with her husband,’ he whispered.) ‘No, there would be no point. What could you do? No. He sleeps most of the time. Yes. Yes. Of course, your love and Guy’s. Is he with you? I thought it was term-time. Oh, I see, he would send his love if he thought of it! OK. Love by proxy it is.’ Replacing the receiver, he said, ‘That was Sewage. Huh!’
‘You hung up on her.’ His old friend chuckled.
‘One has to do something,’ John muttered, ‘or bust. I think I shall explode if Henry has left the place to Susie.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said his lover. ‘He will have left it to the clowns, Eliza and Katie.’
‘Wouldn’t that create a terrific—’ The old man’s eyes lit in pleasurable anticipation.
‘Why not? He won’t be here. Oh, curse it, there it goes again!’
John lifted the receiver (the States again; must be the cheap rate or something). ‘Who?’ he shouted. ‘Who? Basil? Heavens! We imagined you dead. You just heard? Met Susie? That figures. Yes. No. Not yet, no. No, I cannot tell you what day. Yes, of course I will give him your message. No! Not love, that’s too much. How can you love him when you only met him once? No, I cannot allow that, sorry. Goodbye! That was Basil, the brother-in-law,’ he said, ‘He asked what day the funeral is, wants to send flowers.’
‘You can love after only one meeting,’ said the other man, his voice trembling. ‘You should not have been so rough with him.’
‘I feel rough,’ he said. ‘Very rough indeed.’ He caught hold of his moustache with both hands and tugged at it. ‘He has not communicated for about twenty years; why butt in now?’
‘Because Henry is dying,’ said the older man. ‘He probably thinks it’s the right thing to do.’
They slumped mournfully in their chairs, eyeing the telephone with mistrust. Then, ‘Here comes the rain,’ the older man said. ‘How shall we entertain the little girls? Come on, buck up, think of something.’
‘Take the phone off the hook, for starters—Oh, I know. Let’s show them all the albums, old photographs. Henry’s family and all of us. They are over there in the bookshelf. I need a drink; you fetch the whisky, I’ll find the albums. The little girls will love to see what we all looked like. They may even,’ he said as he shambled across the room, ‘come to realize that we were young once, improbable though it may seem.’
In the kitchen Hilaria and Clio stripped wet clothes off their children, rubbed their hair dry and urged them into dry jeans and warm sweaters. ‘Go to the Jonathans,’ they said. ‘You can ring Daddy tonight. Here, take some bread and honey with you. Be careful not to make the furniture sticky. No, you can’t ring Daddy now, he won’t be in. No, you can’t see Henry, the nurse is with him. Go to the old Jonathans. Yes, yes, you can see Henry for a minute before you go to bed.’
‘Is Henry dying?’ the children asked.
‘Yes,’ said Clio, who believed in the minimum of lies.
In his office in the City, Hilaria’s lover Patrick picked up the telephone and put in a call to Clio’s husband Richard. He said, ‘I am fed up with this situation, Richard. I shall go down to Cotteshaw tonight. Are you game to come with me?’
Richard replied that he was indeed game; he would be glad to keep Patrick company.
‘In spite of what Hilaria says, I have a feeling that I am needed,’ said Patrick.
‘Clio tells me not to come,’ said Richard, ‘but her voice betrays her need.’
‘It is not only Clio’s and Hilaria’s need,’ said Patrick. ‘Willy-nilly it becomes ours, too.’
They arranged to drive down that night in Patrick’s car.
In the drawing room Katie and Eliza laughed themselves into fits. The photographs were a great success. They crouched on the floor, surrounded by albums and loose photographs of bygone times. Chiefly they were fascinated by the women’s clothes, their hair piled up and later shingled or bobbed and their jewellery. ‘Who is this?’ they asked the Jonathans. ‘Look at her hat!’
‘That’s my mother,’ said John. ‘She was French, a governess.’
‘Not when that was taken,’ said his friend. ‘When that was taken she was expecting you.’
‘Such funny clothes!’ The little girls giggled.
‘She had style,’ said the old man, ‘style.’
The little girls felt rebuked.
Outside the windows it grew dark. Jonathan drew the curtains against the persistent rain tapping on the panes. ‘Filthy evening.’ He helped himself to whisky and resumed his armchair. His lover made a thumbs-up sign; the children were absorbed, they could drink their whisky in peace.
At their feet the children discovered Ebro as a baby, Pilar as a young woman, a young Trask and pictures of an adolescent Henry, grouped sometimes with his parents, sometimes alone with early versions of Hector and Lysander. There were loose photographs pushed higgledy-piggledy into albums which they brought to the old men for identification.
Margaret, strange and beautiful, had to be explained; they had been unaware that Henry had once had a wife. They were not as much interested as they had been in snaps of Henry’s mother with friends in intriguing clothes and strange hats. They riffled through the snapshots until they found photographs of their own mothers, holding themselves as infants in christening robes grouped in a church porch. ‘Look, look,’ they squeaked, ‘that’s me and Grandpa and Grandma. That’s us as babies, do look.’
‘I took that photograph,’ said the older man. ‘I remember it well. It’s good of your mums and dads. Why don’t you try and put all these loose photographs in order?’ That will keep them busy, he thought, and got up to go to the lavatory.
On his way back he stood in the hall and listened, cocking his head to hear sounds from upstairs. All was quiet, he thought. Time for another drink, then surely it’s time for the kids to go to bed. They are beginning to squabble.
In the drawing room there was dissension as Eliza and Katie fought over a studio portrait of a young woman. His lover, who had dozed in his chair, woke with a jerk as Eliza, who had gained possession, pushed the photograph under his nose. ‘It’s my mummy, isn’t it?’ she s
queaked, as he blearily put on his glasses. ‘Katie says it’s hers.’
Katie snatched at the photograph and, holding it out of Eliza’s reach, thrust it at John, crying, ‘You tell her, John. That’s my mother, it’s my mother, not hers, tell Eliza.’
The old man took the photograph from the child and turned it over. He said, ‘This was taken in 1930, darling, before your mothers were thought of. That’s Henry’s mother.’ Then, as his eyes met his lover’s over the children’s heads, he said, clearing his throat, ‘Of course, there’s a look—’
Some time in the early hours the rain stopped. Henry stirred and tried to say something.
Hilaria held a feeding cup to his lips. He sipped and whispered, ‘Air.’
Clio went to the window, pulled back the curtains and opened it wide. Together Hilaria and Clio heaved the old man up, plumped his pillows and laid him gently back.
In chairs once occupied by generations of dogs, Clio’s and Hilaria’s daughters who, creeping in in the night, had not been turned away, slept.
Henry whispered, ‘Don’t wake them.’
The young women stood on either side of the bed and held Henry’s cold hands as they grew colder.
Presently Henry said quite clearly, ‘Is it light?’
Hilaria said, ‘Nearly.’
A blackbird began to sing in the garden, but Henry Tillotson had died a moment before.
About the Author
Mary Wesley (1912—2002) was an English novelist. After she published her first novel at age seventy, her books sold more than three million copies, many of them becoming bestsellers. Her beloved books include Jumping the Queue, The Camomile Lawn, Harnessing Peacocks, The Vacillations of Poppy Carew, Not That Sort of Girl, Second Fiddle, A Sensible Life, A Dubious Legacy, An Imaginative Experience, and Part of the Furniture, as well as a memoir, Part of the Scenery.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.