‘No, it is very becoming!’ declared Marianne, standing back to survey the complete picture. ‘You make so little of yourself, Charlotte, but look at you now!’
Indeed, the vivid colour brought out the warmth of her hair - which was dressed with its usual severity-and of her lively brown eyes. I looked at her with affectionate amusement, and then at the other two. What a companionable group we made, I was thinking-and, with a pang of regret, that there would be few more such evenings, that my days here were numbered. My painting commission was over before it was properly begun, and Mr Robert Farrow would now be in a position to decide whether or not my employment as tutor should continue. I would be very surprised indeed if he thought it worthwhile to pay me to spend most of my time in idleness, with only the daily interruption of a drawing lesson. As soon as he reached that conclusion, Mr Jessop would pay me what I was owed, and I should have no reason to remain here.
I knew that my ill-judged proposal to Juliana had stemmed as much from my attachment to Fourwinds as from my misplaced sense of duty. If she had accepted, I should now - I knew it - have felt uneasily confined and compromised; but as she had not, I felt spurned, even bereft. It was not Juliana I had lost, but all three of my companions; for, on this peculiar evening, I felt that I loved them all equally, and should miss them most sorely. I should soon be gone from here, with only my memories, and my sketches and incomplete paintings which no one would want, to remind me of Fourwinds.
‘Well,’ said Marianne, after the coffee was served, ‘none of us has spoken of what must be foremost in all our minds. What next?’
She looked at me, then at Charlotte, but it was Juliana who answered. ‘What is the matter with us?’
‘The matter?’ Marianne repeated. ‘What do you mean? Don’t we have enough to perturb us?’
‘I mean, what is the matter with us?’ Juliana repeated. ‘We are waiting to carry out our duties. We are waiting for Uncle Robert, and Mr Jessop, to tell us how we are to live our lives, and how to manage our money, and how to keep this house in perfect order for Thomas - for the next generation of Farrows. We are to be custodians - caretakers. That is what our father has decreed: that is what, as dutiful daughters, we are required to do.’
‘Have you something else in mind, Juliana?’ Charlotte enquired.
‘I have.’ Juliana faced us resolutely. ‘Thomas is my father’s son - his heir - but he is also my son. Surely I am entitled to express some opinion about his upbringing? I want Thomas with me. I want to see him grow up. Yes, it will bring shame upon me, but I care nothing for that. It is not my shame, but my father’s - we know that, even if no one else does.’
Marianne turned on Charlotte. ‘Juley is right! But we must live elsewhere - we must leave Fourwinds and make a life of our own. Of course Juliana must have Tommy, but she cannot bring him here - cannot continue sleeping in the very room where—’
‘Yes. I understand,’ Charlotte said. She looked from Marianne to Juliana, then at me. ‘There is something I have not yet told you - any of you.’ We all gazed at her expectantly. ‘I have inherited a house,’ she told us, looking at each of us again, with a kind of defiance. ‘A house in Eastbourne. It would not suit us to live there—’
‘Charlotte!’ exclaimed Marianne.
Charlotte held up a hand to silence her. ‘But I could sell it, for a considerable sum, I am informed. We could use the proceeds to buy ourselves a house elsewhere - a house in a country village, maybe, where no one will know us. Then Fourwinds could be let, until such time as Thomas is old enough to make a decision about its future - for it must still be his, according to the terms of the Will.’
‘I knew you had not told me everything!’ I reproached her.
‘Oh, Charlotte!’ said Juliana. ‘Why have you not told us this before?’
Marianne, though, was too caught up in this new idea to wait for explanations: she sat forward, clapping her hands. ‘A house of our own! How delightful! We could live there all alone, the three of us - four of us, with Thomas. No one will disturb us - we can keep chickens, and maybe a cow, and beehives, and you can have Queen Bess, Juley - what could be nicer? We will be completely happy. And do let’s live near the sea, Charlotte - I should love to live by the sea—’
I turned to the window. I should be best occupied packing my bags without delay, and making my arrangements.
‘Oh yes,’ said Charlotte to Marianne, with a laugh in her voice - something I had seldom heard till now - ‘and I suppose you will soon be thinking of cheese-making and maypole dancing, to complete this bucolic picture?’
‘But,’ Juliana said, ‘there is someone we must not forget.’
We all looked at her.
‘Who?’ said Marianne.
‘Samuel, of course!’ replied her sister, turning to me, with a slight flush crimsoning her cheeks. ‘You may prefer to make other plans, Samuel - but maybe you would consider throwing in your lot with ours?’
Marianne’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I am sorry! How could I not think of you, after all you have done for us? Do say yes, Samuel. How delightful! And you two - does this mean…?’
I stared at Juliana in confusion, wondering whether she had reconsidered my offer; but she gave me the smallest of smiles, and replied to her sister, ‘No, I wish to make one thing clear. There is to be no question of marriage between Samuel and me - for I was aware of Papa’s connivings, as I think we all were. Everyone must understand that. We must be free to choose our own ways in life.’
Charlotte regarded me thoughtfully, and I wondered if she guessed what had taken place.
‘Oh well, if you refuse outright, Samuel will be free to marry someone else,’ Marianne said. ‘Do say yes, Samuel - do say you will come with us! You could not leave us now, could you?’
‘No,’ I said, laughing. ‘I don’t believe I could.’
‘What fun!’ Marianne gave a little clap of her hands. ‘How unconventional we shall be - three young ladies, one young man and one little boy, and none of us married! What will the world think of us?’
‘We need not concern ourselves with that,’ said Juliana. ‘We shall be together, and away from here, and that is all I care about.’
‘Samuel is an artist. That will explain it,’ Marianne said gaily. ‘Artists are allowed to break with convention.’
‘Charlotte? We are racing ahead, too fast - what do you think of all this?’ I gave her a searching look; she caught my expression, and read the question it conveyed.
‘Well, there is a great deal to discuss and decide,’ she said, with deliberate slowness. ‘And of course we will need to discuss this with Uncle Robert, who may have objections. But I think Juliana is quite right. We must find our own direction. We have been controlled for too long by our father.’
I looked at her; saw that she had conquered the indecision that had overcome her earlier; saw that her scarlet blouse was a fanfare heralding change.
‘Our father?’ said Marianne, into the baffled pause that followed.
Withdrawing, leaving them to the exclamations, the reproaches and the wondering that followed Charlotte’s revelation, I stepped out into the dusk.
I looked up at the sky, at the first emerging stars. As my eyes adjusted, I saw more and more of them -tiny and faint, they appeared, yet astronomers tell us that each one is a separate sun like our own. How unimportant we humans are, how minuscule, when set against the vast, incomprehensible scale of the cosmos! And yet how strong the pulse of our little lives, how vitally experienced, how sharp the pangs of joy and of anguish! How constantly we revolve around one another, held in our orbits like planets round a sun; how dizzily we would spin off into space if these holds were loosened.
By the cedar, I turned back to face the house. There it stood, in its solidity and grace; welcoming, in spite of all that had taken place there; so rooted, so perfectly proportioned, that it seemed a part of the landscape. In years to come, nothing would remain of the fears, the secrets, the torment of the lives l
ived here; visitors would see only the grace of design, the skill of craftsmanship, the beauty of materials, how perfectly right and harmonious the house was in every detail.
Why could Mr Farrow not have been content with this: his vision, his creation, his gift to the future?
Epilogue
Leavings
1920
Samuel Godwin
Watercolours and Oil Painting
Private View
The evening is over. Waiters collect glasses, bottles and ashtrays; the gallery owner and I retreat to his office for a final drink together.
‘Well, I think we can call it a success!’ He sinks back into a padded chair. ‘Three good sales, and that American friend of mine is keen to give you a big commission. And I could sell The Wild Girl ten times over, if you’d only agree. You could name your price.’
I avoid his glance. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘She’s not for sale. You know that. I shan’t change my mind, so there’s no point in discussing it.’
‘Very well.’ He holds out his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I was expecting to see your wife this evening. Was she unable to come?’
‘She will, another day. She’s bringing the twins up, some time next week. It’ll be less crowded then, less overwhelming for the girls.’
‘Fine. I shall be pleased to see them. All well, I hope?’ He refills my glass, then pauses. ‘And your son…?’
I nod. ‘Much the same.’
‘Sad. Sad,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Only, what? Twenty-five or so?’
‘Twenty-three,’ I say, automatically. ‘He’s with Marianne this week. I’ll bring him home when all this is over.’
‘Good, good.’ But the conversation has faltered into awkwardness; he attempts briskness, changing the subject. ‘Well! We must get together again soon. You’ll be busy, but let me know when you’re free. Come to dinner - I’ll invite Walter Hickman, too, if we can fit it in before he goes back to Texas…’
Weariness tugs at me. This has become the world I inhabit, but I feel sickened by it; by all of it. By the fawning clients, their acquisitiveness, their flocking like vultures to what they assume to be valuable, their lack of real appreciation, the critics who can inflate a reputation overnight and burst it just as quickly. In my war sketches and paintings, especially the line drawings, I found honesty; I found simplicity and truth. What, now, shall I do with that? How can I go back to carrying out commissions for wealthy patrons?
And I know that I have painted my last painting. Given my last exhibition. There is no more left in me; or, at least, what is left in me is not this.
I will soon be back at Fourwinds, where it all began.
This time, I travel down from London by car. I have not been here for many months. Staverton, like every town in England, shows the neglect of four years of war, and the loss of many of its menfolk. I notice several shops that have closed down, or changed hands; a brand-new war memorial stands in the market square. Beyond the town, hedges are untrimmed, ditches clogged, gates sag unrepaired. The trees are already well into their autumn flush; rooks and wood-pigeons peck over the harvested land. Who has done the harvesting? Old men and boys, it must have been - for so many of the young men are now dead in France or Belgium, and listed on the new memorial. I have seen for myself. I have seen the plain wooden crosses stacked up in readiness before a battle. I have seen the stragglers return, and I have seen how many failed to return.
Tom - Tommy! I murmur his name aloud. That simple affectionate shortening has come to stand for the ordinary soldier, the volunteer, the average young man sent willingly or unwillingly to his fate. And therefore I must suppose it fitting that our own Tommy, like so many, is lost to us, as surely as if he lay in an unknown grave in the Picardy chalklands.
At the copse of trees by the rise in the lane, I turn left for Fourwinds. Tyres crunch chalk stones; as I drive slowly, mindful of bumps and ruts, I cannot help but recall, as I always do, the first time I came here, all those years ago: as a young and impressionable man, walking towards the house and the people who would figure so largely in my life. So long ago, it seems now - before the war. People speak of before the war as if it belonged in a different world; and so it did.
The car swings through the high iron gates, and the house comes into view. As always, it works its spell on me. The ache of joy and loss, deep in my chest, almost stops me from breathing.
I park the car alongside two others; slowly I get out, and stand looking at the porch, the Gothic arch, the steps up, a rambling rose which bears scarlet hips. And above, the North Wind, calm and imperturbable, in its endless surveillance of the winds that blow over the house and fall and rise again. Fourwinds stands squarely in its landscape, mellowed now, and a home once more: home to Marianne and, officially, to Thomas, who owns it.
Here she is: Marianne, running down the porch steps. ‘Sam! You’re early!’
‘Not very. Am I?’
‘Then I’m late!’ We embrace warmly; it is more than two months since we have met. I am allowed this.
‘How is Charlotte? And the twins?’ asks Marianne. ‘And how are you?’
‘All very well, thank you. And you? There is no need to ask - you are glowing.’ I hold her at arm’s length. Her beauty hurts me as much as it ever did; I am dazzled by her, as I have been since our first meeting. She is almost forty, but still full of girlish energy. Her hair, which to my regret she has cropped short in the modern fashion, is wound round with an Indian scarf; she wears a long, loose, printed garment with a paint-spattered apron over it; on her feet, workmanlike boots.
She laughs. ‘I was working. I’ll show you, in a bit. Tommy’s things are packed and ready - he’s down by the stables. Shall we go and find him? Or have coffee first?’
‘Oh, Tom first. I’ve missed him.’
From the morning room I hear voices, male and female, in conversation; a gramophone plays jazz piano.
‘Just a few artist friends,’ Marianne says, glancing over her shoulder. ‘You’ll meet them at lunch.’
We take the dusty track that leads down to the stables. There are pigeons on the tiled roof; the trees are turning, green-gold in the soft light; the paddock where Guardsman and Queen Bess used to graze is now occupied by a retired riding horse, the stout cob that pulls the chaise, and a donkey. There, by the railings, Tom sits in the grass, hunched and absorbed, his back to us. The pose, the intent interest in something on the ground, are childlike, but I am looking at a grown man. The maidservant who accompanies him is seated on a stool beneath a tree, her sewing on her lap. She is a good girl called Enid, who looks after Tom whenever he is here, and knows his ways.
‘He spends hours down here with the horses and the donkey,’ Marianne tells me. ‘He takes great delight in feeding them and grooming them, talking to them in his funny way.’
‘Hello, Tommy!’ I call out loudly, so as not to startle him with an unexpected approach.
Slowly, laboriously, he pushed himself to his feet. He comes towards me with arms held out, a beaming smile on his face; he makes incoherent sounds of pleasure as I clasp him to me.
‘How are you, Tom? Enjoying this lovely day?’ I say, though he cannot answer. I greet Enid, too, and ask how she is; but at once Tom is impatient, grasping my hand and pulling me towards the place where he was sitting, by the rails. He has a wooden pastry-board there, and some pieces of clay; he has been making models. In case I don’t understand, he points in great excitement to the animals before us, the ponies and the donkey, then to the shaped clay on the board, and I see that he has fashioned all three. I admire them, although I cannot tell, in truth, which end of each figure is head, and which is tail.
‘Gideon showed him how to do that,’ Marianne explains. ‘It was a clever idea. It gives him such pleasure.’
‘Gideon has been here?’
She smiles. ‘Last week. He called in on his way back from your exhibition. He was very complimentary - he especially liked the pen drawings.’
I nod, for Gideon has told me this himself. I think of him in the Mayfair gallery - how he stood, how he looked and looked with complete attentiveness, how calmness pooled around him. Turning back to Tom, I try to understand the sounds he makes; I listen keenly. The doctors have said that speech may return, or it may not. He spent many months in specialist hospitals, until I became quite uneasy at the range of treatments that were being tried on him. We, his family, agreed that we should prefer to have him with us: mainly with Charlotte and myself in Alfriston, where Juliana visits frequently; sometimes here at Fourwinds, his rightful home. We do our best to keep him comfortable and amused. He seems content, even happy, apart from on the isolated occasions when he cries and whimpers and cannot be consoled. His condition has come to be known as shell-shock, and we can only be thankful that it has not afflicted him with the perpetual agitation or even terror that I have seen in others. Tom’s shell-shock seems to have had the effect of obliterating all memory of trauma. In the face that looks eagerly into mine, I see a child’s lack of self-awareness or guile, and beneath that - slipped out of focus - the features of the handsome, alert young man he used to be.
He rescued two men injured in a trench raid, bringing them back to relative safety when a shell barrage opened up. He showed no regard for his personal safety, the citation said. He showed immense coolness under fire. I think of this often.
Marianne steps close to him, taking his arm. ‘Will you come indoors with us, Tommy?’ she asks, speaking slowly and clearly, as we all do when addressing Tom. He watches her mouth, following closely, with deliberate nods of his head; he shapes his lips in imitation of hers. She repeats the question; he seems to understand, but makes a sound of protest and pulls away. He wants to carry on with his modelling.
‘I’ll stay with him here, Miss Farrow, and bring him up in time for lunch,’ says the girl.
We tell Tom that we will see him in half an hour, and walk back up towards the house.
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