by Anna Gilbert
One morning in the week before Easter, gloom at the breakfast table was alleviated by the arrival of the weekly Elmdon Gazette. They had given up the luxury of a daily paper but it was necessary to keep abreast of local functions.
‘Mr Rilston has died.’ Two whole columns were devoted to the passing of one of the county’s most distinguished gentlemen. ‘How sad! We met him and Mrs Rilston, you remember, at the Humberts. Did you see him that time you called at Bainrigg with Miles?’
‘No. Only Mrs Rilston.’
‘Speaking of the Humberts, I suppose Alex will be home at Easter.’
‘Yes. Tomorrow or the next day.’
‘He’ll be sure to call. Do try to meet him somewhere else.’ Marian’s glance expressed dissatisfaction with the room.
‘He doesn’t notice.’
‘No, of course not. He is so devoted. I wonder.…’
Her wonder took a different direction as days passed without a sign or word from Alex. She had never been sure of Linden’s feelings for him, or of Linden’s feelings about anything. Close though they were, Linden had never been confidential. Naturally she understood the absolute necessity of making a good marriage for both her own sake and her mother’s. Marian’s experience had made her anxious that Linden should be spared the deprivations life had thrust upon her mother. But with the passage of time, hope of a good marriage might degenerate into a clutch at any marriage at all. Alex Humbert’s father was a man of means; Alex himself had prospects – long-term prospects. The rather dreadful Godfrey Barford could, as a husband, keep both Linden and her mother in comfort, at least his father could. In spite of herself Marian could not repress a shudder.
But Miles Rilston, heir to the entire Rilston estate, would have much to offer and – her eyes turned to the morning paper – had it now. Linden knew him, had actually visited at Bainrigg. Would it be suitable to write a letter of condolence to Mrs Rilston on the sad loss of her husband?
‘I don’t think so,’ Linden said. ‘We aren’t on such close terms.’
‘But we have met. If I could happen to meet her again – by chance.…’
‘She goes out very little, and especially now, I suppose.’
Nevertheless Linden’s concentration on whatever it was that occupied her at her desk in the window at Embletons’ was not so profound as to prevent her from noticing passers-by. There was no mistaking the Rilstons’ Daimler with Chapman at the wheel. A fortnight passed.
‘It’s usually a Wednesday,’ she told her mother. ‘Miss Leonard at the office knows the chauffeur. Mrs Rilston comes to the hairdresser and the bank and to visit an old servant in hospital. She has coffee at Pikes.’
The following Wednesday morning, Mrs Rilston was at her usual table when a newcomer approaching the one next to it appeared to hesitate. She was a thin woman in her forties, wearing a well-cut and well-worn grey costume, a plain felt hat and amber beads.
‘Good morning. Mrs Rilston, I believe. You won’t remember me. I’m Marian Grey. We met at the Humberts years ago.’
‘I do remember. Won’t you join me?’
To the accompaniment of a piano, violin and viola, they became acquainted. The two had much in common: an ignorance of everyday working life, a dependence on men, a limited range of ideas. Both were widows, both lonely.
‘I’m sorry that I can’t invite you to our rooms,’ Marian said. ‘We do no entertaining.’
‘I do understand,’ said Mrs Rilston who would not have gone however warmly urged. ‘You must come to Bainrigg.’
The visits, at first occasional, became frequent. On Wednesdays when she had finished all that she had to do in town, Mrs Rilston would bring her home to lunch. While she rested, Marian dozed over The Lady or The Tatler – or strolled in the garden until it was time for afternoon tea. In the well-padded armchair which became hers, she lost the fretfulness that sometimes marred her not unpleasing features. Being the younger of the two she unconsciously assumed the vivacity of a younger sister and sometimes gave the conversation a lighter turn. But her prowess as a listener was unsurpassed. Mrs Rilston often spoke of being hard-up, of the need to economize and to cut down on servants, of the drop in railway shares. But the richness of the furnishings, the gleam of mahogany and walnut, the thick pile of the carpets, the solidly built house and its surrounding acres made talk of poverty merely theoretical. She also spoke a good deal about Miles. It was some time before Marian identified him as the elder Miles, her son. Of the younger, less was said. Sometimes it was difficult to disentangle the two.
‘And your daughter?’ Mrs Rilston said. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘Well.…’ To her surprise Marian could find nothing to say. Linden, the central interest in her life, was difficult if not impossible to talk about. What could one say? ‘She has a little job at Embletons’, the solicitors … She has friends…’ Actually Linden had no girlfriends unless one counted Margot Humbert.
The two ladies liked to talk about the Humberts and their extraordinary decision to rent Langland Hall. Mrs Rilston had not mastered particulars of the agreement between landlord and tenant but she knew that it was unusual. She did not know that Edward’s friends, Quinian and Andrews, had described it as an invitation to disaster, nor did Edward, but Marian had heard enough to justify her remark that there was something a little – well – unreliable about the Humberts.
‘Not Sarah. We knew each other as girls. But her husband seems to change course rather frequently and Alex may take after him.’
Alex’s silence had persisted. It was now June. He had not written, and if he had been at home, he had made no attempt to see Linden.
‘He has behaved oddly.’ Marian did not mind writing off Alex as unreliable (one did rather wonder about his politics) and discourteous. If his father took risks, Linden had perhaps escaped the fate of marrying into a financially embarrassed family. ‘But Linden is too level-headed to have become seriously involved with him. It was no more than a youthful flirtation.’
‘A charming girl, I remember. She must come to tea one day.’
By the time the ladies met again Mrs Rilston had heard from her housekeeper that Mr Alex had gone all of a sudden to Kenya. His mother was terribly upset and her health had taken a turn for the worse. Everyone had thought he would settle down in Elmdon where a position was being held for him.
Marian breathed a sigh of relief. So far as she knew there was no money to be made in Africa unless it was in South Africa. Moreover, Kenya was known to be the region to which ne’er-do-well young men were sent and not heard of for years. Linden, so level-headed in not having become seriously involved, was surely too level-headed to grieve the loss of so imprudent a young man. His absence simplified things. Certainly Linden showed none of the symptoms of a broken heart. With a tiny inward shrinking, Marian admitted to herself that Linden had shown little sign of having a heart in the metaphorical sense.
Such feeling as Linden experienced in this situation could be described as resentment. Her confidence was a trifle shaken by Alex’s desertion. It could scarcely be due to jealousy of Godfrey. With Alex, jealousy would have worked the other way: he would have stayed to fight, not run away. What had happened to change him so unaccountably? Meanwhile she watched her mother’s successful infiltration into Bainrigg House with approval.
Miles also approved. A congenial woman friend was good for his grandmother. So far as he knew she had no other and even now she was too much alone. He had not gone back to Oxford for the summer term: there were too many things to see to at Bainrigg and also at the Rilston properties in Lancashire. It would have been possible to fulfil the minimum number of weeks to permit him to take finals but not to reach a standard that would satisfy him. There was no hurry. If he felt inclined he could return next year with a freer mind – but that would depend on Margot.
He felt his grandfather’s death keenly: he had loved and relied on the old man and was not ready to take his place. For the past two or three years he had been happy in
the knowledge that still greater happiness might be in store for him and not too far ahead. That he had not told Margot that he loved her had been a bitter disappointment. An aura of perfection clung to that lost meeting and no similar opportunity had arisen nor had he had the confidence to make one. He had seen Margot three or four times but never alone. Her father and brother had both come with offers of help and sympathy in April. He was astonished by the news that Alex had since gone abroad. The friendship with the Humberts and the hope that Margot returned his love had sustained him in the harassing weeks between Easter and midsummer. By the beginning of July the more pressing problems had been dealt with. One more trip to Lancashire would be his last for some time. He planned to spend the rest of the summer at home and to take the first opportunity of seeking out Margot.
Having made the trip, he came home earlier than expected. Things had gone well. He felt more cheerful and at ease than he had done since his grandfather’s death. The day had been warm and he had enjoyed the drive with the hood of his car down. Coming back to Bainrigg had sometimes been an ordeal when he was a schoolboy, but now it was a genuine homecoming. Everything he loved was here in this quiet place where his forefathers had lived and died, where he would spend the rest of his life.
It was early evening when he turned into the by-road leading to Bainrigg – and cool under the wayside trees. From time to time he caught sight of the house: a window glittered in low sunlight; smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. Half an hour to the usual time for dining. Time to bath and change. He was hungry. Tomorrow.…
Mrs Beale, the housekeeper, had heard the car and was in the hall to greet him.
‘It’s good to see you, sir. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.’
He heard voices in the sitting-room.
‘Visitors?’
‘Only Mrs Grey – and Miss Grey.’ They had come to tea and been persuaded to stay to dinner. ‘I dare say madam would have let them go if she had known you were coming.’
He didn’t mind. Company would ease the monotony, not to say the slightly depressing business of sharing the long table with his grandmother. He must rearrange things now that he was to be more at home. The small sitting-room could be converted for use as a dining-room when there were just the two of them. And later, when Margot joined them.…
It was of Margot that he was thinking as he went downstairs – when was he not thinking of her? – and it was as friends of Margot that he thought of the Greys. He had barely remembered Mrs Grey. He had met Linden at the Humberts several times: had danced with her two or three times and had found himself entertaining her to lunch here one day last summer. He knew that Alex was in love with her. Odd that he should have gone off to Africa.
The ladies were speaking of the Humberts as he went into the room. He heard the name – was aware that the voices were subdued – sensed bad news even before his grandmother spoke.
‘There you are, dear. We have just heard such very sad news from Langland Hall. Sit down, dear. I know it will upset you. Mrs Humbert has died. Late last night.’
‘A very dear friend. We were at school together. However will he manage without her?’
‘The removal must have been too much for her. I understand she had been ill ever since they left Monk’s Dene.’
He heard the voices, reverent, concerned, vibrant with interest, with only one thought in mind: he must go to Margot at once – as soon as he could get away, but he was drawn in the wake of the ladies to the dining-room. He had already kept them waiting. He was genuinely shaken by the news. Mrs Humbert, still youthful, had seemed to him all that a mother should be: kind, loving with a quiet humour – all qualities she had passed on to Margot. Would her mother’s death delay his plan to propose, marry her if she would have him and bring her as soon as possible to Bainrigg, or – anxiety gave way to a thrill of excitement – would the prospect of an early marriage be all the more acceptable? Not immediate, naturally, but in a few months. She could not be left on her own at the Hall, some arrangement would have to be made. How soon would it be decent to speak to her father?
At dinner nothing else was talked of. Absently he was aware of their voices – sympathetic, speculative, mournfully absorbed and passionless. Two voices. Linden, never talkative, dined like him in silence. He had never heard her say anything of interest. He knew the sound of her voice but could attach to it no memory of anything she had ever said.
But when Linden did choose to speak, she did so effectively.
‘A very sweet-natured girl, I remember.’ Mrs Rilston was speaking of Margot whom she had seen once, years ago.
‘Margot is sweet to everyone,’ Linden said. ‘She will make a wonderful doctor’s wife. Lance Pelman is a very lucky man.’
She smiled, a charming smile suitably modified in the circumstances by sadness.
* * *
For a few minutes he must actually have lost consciousness and revived to find the scene unchanged: china, fruit, flowers were as they had been before the anguish seized him. He was troubled by a loss of direction: an explosion had shattered his entire being and yet he was still aware that in the distance people were talking about the disaster with quiet interest, with kindness, as if the subject were a pleasant one.
‘Is it an engagement?’
‘I don’t think so. Not yet. He’s not in a position.… An attachment. They have always been close from childhood … so much at ease together.… I felt it from the first.’
‘… a comfort to her now that her dear mother is gone.’
‘… a dreadful loss. She will be heart-broken.’
‘But in other respects she is so fortunate. I have envied her a little. What must it be like to have father, brother and sweetheart all doting on one and giving the security every woman needs?’
‘They may marry soon. It won’t be suitable now for him to be at the Hall as if it were his home.’
At first it was not the full realization of his loss that overpowered him, that would soon come and would never leave him, it was shame for his own dense stupidity that he found almost unbearable. To have blundered into a situation with such insensitivity was like staking a claim on territory in total ignorance of the landmarks, not knowing the language and incapable of reading the signposts. What had he been thinking of – a man who knew nothing whatever about women, who barely remembered his own mother, a man without friends, a clodhopper in human relationships? He had actually believed.… ‘She is sweet to everyone.’ He had had the presumption to imagine that the sweetness was for him alone.
Whereas from the beginning it had been little more than the kindness she felt due to a lonely stranger, a guest. She had found him stranded in the hall and had rescued him, talked about wireless sets and music – and years later had persuaded him to act as first-foot, still wanting to encourage him and draw him, an outsider, into the hospitable warmth offered to every visitor. He had seen it as a special quality in their relationship because it was the only one he had known. It was over. There would never be another. Loneliness was his lot. He saw himself deluded by hope: a traveller lured by a glimpse of ignis fatuus, then left to stumble on in the dark.
Thank God he had been saved from embarrassing her. In a frenzied moment he could almost have been grateful for his grandfather’s death: it had prevented him from rushing to take her in his arms as if confident that his embrace would be welcome, when all the time she belonged to someone else. He felt physically ill, robbed of all comfort. He could bear neither to remember the times they had spent together nor to face a future without hope. As for the present.…
‘Will you excuse me…?’ Pride came to his rescue. With an effort he got to his feet, murmuring something about having business to attend to.
‘He looks tired,’ Marian said with concern.
‘A long journey … tiresome business. He is so careful of every detail. Punctilious like his father.’
He caught the word as he closed the door. It was true that he had been punctilious
in not making love to Margot. That was the one unregrettable thing. What could have induced him to think that she cared for him? How presumptuous, arrogant, inept was it possible for a man to be? All the old diffidence she had helped him to overcome, all the old sense of being an outsider, revived with such force that he would gladly have died. Racked as he was by every disquieting thought a fertile mind could conceive, one thought escaped him: not for an instant did it occur to him that it might not be true.
The house was unbearable. He must have rushed out in desperation and found himself on Beggars Way without knowing how he had got there. As he passed the stone-pit he was for a moment soothed by the memory of Margot’s presence there, only to suffer the realization that they had lingered there for the last time. But he went on walking in the direction of Langland, instinct drawing him there because every other place now seemed to exclude him.
For once the quiet of the wood, the subtle changes of light and the cool fragrance of the air meant nothing to him. Instead he remembered their conversation about Lance. ‘I suppose that’s rather wonderful,’ she had said, speaking of his sense of purpose. Even then he had been blind to the implications. He remembered, too, that he had seen her in Lance’s car – and a particularly malicious quirk of memory brought back an incident when he had first seen them at the War Memorial. For some reason Margot was crying and Lance handed her a handkerchief. Neither had spoken, there was no need; they were so close.
Torn between the need to cut himself off from her forever and the longing to see her again, he walked with such speed that he was soon within sight of the priory. The rapid movement had had a stimulating effect. Was there any harm in telling her, now that it was too late, that he had loved her and had not known that it was Lance she loved? A faint hope stirred. Perhaps after all she would tell him that he had not been mistaken.…
From the gatehouse he looked down on the Hall. There were several cars. Distress had dulled his perceptions: he should have foreseen that there would be visitors. Alex and his father had been quick to come to him when his grandfather died. Ought he to pay his respects as friend and landlord and offer help?