I charge you, on your honour as a scholar and a gentleman, do not let him know of this letter. Burn it if you must. But keep it hidden.
I remain, etc., Jas. Fraser, Esq.
.
I looked at the paper for a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to read it again so I stared at the blotchy, spidery signature. It was like Fraser himself: it hinted at the ruins of something better.
The edge of a shadow that fell across the table darkened and sharpened, and when I looked up I saw that the sun had burnt off the clouds. From outside there was the clack of a croquet mallet on a ball, and Edie’s voice raised in protest, strident, but seeming to come from a long way away.
It was malicious, that was all: a childish, contemptible attempt to get at Jack through me. The sheer melodrama of the language told me as much. Dangerous? Venomous? It was so ridiculous I propped my chin in my hands and laughed. A subtler, more intelligent man might have done a better job. It was unpleasant, of course – childish and manipulative – and upsetting, my laughter notwithstanding. But I had seen Fraser with my own eyes, and knew him to be untrustworthy; and it would have been naive, I thought, to be surprised that Jack had enemies. All great men did.
Most people see only the greatness . . .
How could Fraser think that I would take his letter seriously? What kind of man did he think I was – what kind of man was he? I could only suppose that he was desperate, throwing aside all concerns of decency and self-respect. I looked again at the messy, rather pathetic signature, and wanted to pity him. It was terrible, that a man could end up like that.
But I couldn’t pity him. I remembered the way he’d met my eyes: as if he pitied me.
And for a moment my certainty was shaken. It was as if the room around me – the table, the chair I was sitting on, even the garden outside – trembled. Suppose the world I thought was solid was – not. Just suppose . . .
I folded the letter into two, and then into four, and shoved it deep into my pocket. I should tell Jack as soon as I saw him. Fraser was right: he would laugh. And that would make everything all right.
I had been halfway through a slice of bread and marmalade, but when I caught sight of it on the table it looked odd and alien, emphatically not the kind of thing I wanted to put in my mouth. I stood up, pushing my chair back, and went to find Jack.
.
But when I went outside Edie and Anthony were quarrelling, and Jack was nowhere to be seen. I hovered, impatient, while Anthony swung his croquet mallet carelessly, practising shots, and Edie stood with her hands on her hips, glaring. She was in the middle of a tirade – a long, fluent dissection of Anthony’s manners, politics, appearance and parentage – that would have been amusing under different circumstances. Anthony glanced up and gave me a complicit smile that must have been calculated to infuriate her. He said, ‘Edie, darling, is it my fault if you want to be something completely different from what le bon Dieu had in mind for you?’
‘Oh, you smug little – jumped-up little – you’re simply insufferable. I suppose it’s positively unthinkable that there’s anything wrong with you. Well, let me tell you –’
‘Let you? If only,’ Anthony murmured, flicking me another look.
I said, ‘Have you seen Jack?’
Edie said, ‘You’re a fool and a blackguard and a snob.’ She turned to me. ‘Yes – well, that is, no, he went into Falconhurst with Philip, to see him on to the train. He’ll be back presently.’
‘Oh.’ I could feel the letter in my pocket, digging stiff edges of paper into me.
Edie watched me, brushing the tangle of reddish hair away from her face. ‘I say, is everything quite all right?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you.’
‘Jolly good.’ She turned back to Anthony, but the pause seemed to have taken the wind out of her sails. She opened her mouth, waited for a few seconds, as if for inspiration, and then closed it again.
Anthony said, ‘Run away, Gardner. Edie and I are having a heart-to-heart.’
‘So I heard.’ I kicked a loose piece of stone that was on the terrace and it skittered and rebounded off the wall of the house. If Jack wasn’t here, there was no use hanging around; I might as well find a book to read, or go for a bathe by myself, or . . . But I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do.
Edie’s gaze had followed the stone as it ricocheted off the wall, and now she caught my eye. ‘Ignore him, Oliver. Let’s get a drink.’ She walked past me, grasping my upper arm. I felt the dampness of her hand through the fabric of my shirt. ‘Stir your stumps. It’s terribly rude to keep a lady waiting.’
Anthony said, ‘For God’s sake, woman, it’s hardly ten o’clock.’ But by the time he’d finished his sentence we were inside, and Edie was making her way towards the decanter and soda siphon that were kept on a tray in the little sitting room. She poured two drinks, one much heavier on the soda than the other, and passed me the stronger one. I took it gratefully, and drank half of it in a gulp.
She sipped her own drink, watching me with her eyes narrowed. She said, ‘All right, then, Oliver, what’s up?’
‘Nothing. Why should there be?’
She tilted her head towards my half-emptied glass with silent eloquence.
I felt my cheeks prickle as I flushed. I said, ‘Very well, then. It’s nothing, really, but I –’ I stopped.
Edie held my look, her face unchanging.
‘Edie, when you – the day I arrived, you met me at the station, and you warned me. About Jack. You said I should go home.’
‘Oh.’ She put her drink on the sideboard and strode back to the door, standing looking over the lawn with her hands in her pockets. Her hair was tousled and had lost its wave; from behind she looked like a boy.
‘What did you mean?’
‘What I said,’ she said shortly. ‘Look at Anthony playing croquet by himself. He’s so desperate to win.’
‘All right, but why?’
‘No reason.’
‘Edie, please.’
She glanced over her shoulder and paused, heaving a deep breath. ‘I thought – I thought you’d be unhappy here. With Anthony making remarks about your – your father’s profession, and –’
‘It was Jack you were warning me about.’
‘Nonsense. You can’t be remembering it properly. You told me your father was a clerk in a factory, and I looked at you and thought you hadn’t a chance, Anthony would tear you to pieces, like one of Actaeon’s hounds. Was it Actaeon? Do you know? Never mind, I’ll ask Jack, when he gets back. He loves being asked questions when he knows the answers, he might have been the Delphic oracle in a previous incarnation. It’s funny, Anthony isn’t a bit like that, he only likes questions to which he doesn’t know the –’
‘You told me Jack would be a very bad replacement for my father.’
‘Did I? How terribly tactless.’
I pressed my hand against my pocket until the letter dug its little claws into me. ‘Edie. Please tell me. What did you mean?’
‘I –’ She took another deep breath and sat down, reaching for her drink. It glowed amber in the sunlight from the window, and she stared into it as if it held a secret. She said, very slowly, ‘If you don’t know by now, then I was wrong.’
‘I want you to tell me.’
Her eyes slid to my face and away again. She opened her mouth, and I noticed how neat her teeth were, how white and straight, like an animal’s.
I heard a noise from the doorway behind me. Jack’s voice said, ‘Good Lord, is it time for whisky already? Just as well Philip’s gone or he’d be horribly shocked.’
Edie stood up smoothly. ‘Anthony and I had a bust-up, and Oliver has been too, too sweet. He’s even drinking just to keep me company – imagine. You do have an eye for charming young men, don’t you?’
&n
bsp; Jack shot a glance at me, his mouth curved at one corner. ‘I dare say,’ he said. ‘Gardner, will you come outside for a moment? I want to tell you something.’
I glanced at Edie. Her face was closed, her brows drawn together. I felt a rush of disappointment – or was it relief? – that Jack had interrupted her just as she was about to tell me . . . but it wasn’t serious. I would have to ask her again; sooner or later she’d tell me whatever she had been about to say.
I drank the rest of my whisky and soda and followed Jack out on to the terrace.
.
.
IV
.
.
We walked across the grass, past Anthony’s solitary game of croquet, towards the little copse of trees on the far side of the lawn. I glanced at Jack, but he was looking at the ground, his mouth in a half-smile. He had a pensive, absorbed air, as if he were alone.
After a while he seemed to remember that I was there. He looked at me and his half-smile turned into a grin. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I’m in a brown study. Did you sleep well?’
It seemed so long since I had got up that it took me a moment to understand what he meant. Then, looking at his face, I was sure that he knew I’d had a nightmare. I’d been relieved that I hadn’t shouted out when I awoke: but perhaps I had, without hearing my own voice. From the glint in his eyes, it appeared that I had. I said, ‘Yes, thank you. Very well indeed.’
‘I’m glad.’ He knew I was lying, but there was nothing in his voice but amusement.
We carried on walking. I could feel the sweat starting out on my skin as the sunshine slid over me. I wondered if it would soak through my clothes, and cupped my hand over my pocket protectively. I was going to burn Fraser’s letter, but in the meantime, I wanted to keep it intact, legible. I already had parts of it by heart.
Martin is evil. That is the best word, and the only one.
I said, ‘Jack –’
He tilted his head back into the sunlight, closing his eyes. He said, ‘Do you think this is beautiful? Do you think Tyme’s End is beautiful?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You’ve been happy here?’
‘Yes. You know I have. Jack –’
‘Good. One day it’ll be yours. I went to my solicitor this morning to change my will.’
I shook my head, laughing, momentarily distracted from what I had wanted to say. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘in that case I shall have to start considering what bits of furniture I shall want to keep when I move in.’
‘It may not be for years. And only if you outlive me, of course. But I have a feeling about you. I rather think you will.’
‘I should hope so. You’ve got twenty years’ head start. You could be my father. It’s only fair that you should cop it before I do.’
‘You ungrateful cub,’ he said, punching me lightly. ‘Aren’t you even going to thank me?’
‘For what?’
‘For leaving you Tyme’s End. And my not inconsiderable fortune, naturally. Although,’ he added, ‘by then I suppose it might be more inconsiderable.’
‘All right. Thanks. Jack, this morning I –’
He started to laugh, turning on his heel to face me, as if he wanted to see me properly. ‘My God, Gardner, you’re a cool customer, aren’t you?’
‘What?’ I stood still and shoved my hands into my pockets, wishing he’d stop laughing and listen to me. ‘Jack, I –’
‘I had no idea you were such a serene young devil. Happens to you every day, does it, someone offering you riches beyond the dreams of avarice?’
‘No, of course not, I simply –’ I stopped, staring at him. ‘You’re not – Jack, you’re not serious?’
‘Certainly I’m serious.’
‘You’re going to leave Tyme’s End to me?’
‘Didn’t I just say so?’
‘But – you mean it?’
‘I mean it.’ He smiled into my eyes. ‘I think you’ll be happy here.’
‘I can’t. I can’t let you. What about – you must have family, or –’
‘No. My brother was shot as a deserter.’
I swallowed. ‘I didn’t know.’
He shrugged. ‘Of course not. Why should you? Oh, don’t worry about that, for heaven’s sake. It was a long time ago. What I mean is, you’re the right man for Tyme’s End. There’s no one else. I want you to have it.’
‘I –’ I turned and looked back at the house. The ivy riffled and shimmered in the breeze, and the light glinted on the windowpanes. I thought that I couldn’t imagine being the master of Tyme’s End, but the thrill of possession rose in my insides, like the fizz of champagne. Mine . . . I cleared my throat. ‘But you hardly know me. What about your other friends?’
‘I don’t think any of them are as . . . suitable.’
‘I can’t accept it. I won’t.’
Jack gave me a long look, then turned aside, smiling. ‘When I’m dead you can refuse it, if you want.’
‘It’s not – please understand, I simply can’t –’
‘Then don’t.’ He was still smiling, as if he knew something I didn’t. ‘It’s all right, Gardner. No one can make you take it.’
I struggled for words, torn between desire and duty and a kind of slippery unease that I couldn’t quite put a name to.
I said, in a rush, ‘You’re not my father, Jack.’
For a few seconds I thought he hadn’t heard. His gaze came back to my face and searched my eyes like a scholar looking up an entry in an index. Then he said, quietly, ‘No, Gardner, I’m not. Your father was a clerk in a factory. Your father was an unremarkable, anonymous soldier who left you nothing but your good looks and a sense of inferiority. More to the point, your father is dead.’
I felt the air in my lungs thicken, as if it were suddenly liquid and not gas.
‘What I am offering you is far beyond what your father could have offered you. I will be much, much more important to you than your father was.’ He leant towards me, putting one hand on the side of my neck. ‘Don’t compare me to him again.’
I tried to hold his stare, but I couldn’t. I glanced down at the grass, glowing green at my feet, and remembered the beetle he had torn apart. It should have made me want to pull away from him, but it didn’t. I said, ‘All right.’
‘Good boy.’
He squeezed my neck and dropped his hand. Then we started to walk again. I could hear the rattling of river-water running over stones; it seemed implausibly loud, like a theatrical effect. The sunlight shone through the trees, emerald and gold.
I turned away and started to go back towards the house. Jack said, ‘Oliver?’ but I didn’t reply. Although he started to say something else, I didn’t look back, and he didn’t follow me as I walked away.
.
I cannot put into words what I fear for you, if Martin begins to exert an undue influence upon you. Perhaps nothing more than disillusionment, perhaps something worse. When I knew him well he was dangerous . . .
.
I despised myself for reading the letter again, but it was irresistible, like picking at a scab. I couldn’t leave it alone. I sat on my bed and spread the pages out on the nightstand, staring at the words as though I could make them unravel.
After a while I got my diary out, and sat with my fountain pen in my hand, trying to think of something to write. But nothing came. I shut my eyes and scrawled on the paper – meaningless shapes at first, and then, as words formed in my head, I found my hand starting to move in unconscious obedience. When I opened my eyes the page was covered with loops and waves, like a child’s idea of the sea. A few words were just legible, although perhaps only because I already knew what they said. Jack, Tyme’s End. So happy here. Not my father. And then, suddenly clearer, as
if something had been guiding my hand, dangerous.
I read the word over and over until my heart seemed to beat in time to the syllables. I turned the pages back so that I wouldn’t have to see it, and found myself looking at the entry I had written yesterday. It spoke to me in a dreamy, breathless voice: of a lazy day in the sun, bathing and three-man cricket, and the blue evening sky as I sat by the window in the drawing room to write. It made me feel weary and old.
There was a knock on my door. I ran my hand across my eyes, took a deep breath, and said, ‘Come in.’
It was Edie. I’d looked for her earlier, after I’d left Jack on the lawn, but she’d been nowhere to be found. She had an odd, strained look on her face, and her eyes and nose were pink, as if she were hay- feverish. She said, ‘I’m not intruding, am I?’
‘No.’
‘Jolly good.’ She came in and closed the door behind her, leaning back against it as though someone might try to break it down at any moment. She held out her hand and I saw an envelope in it. ‘You left this downstairs. Anthony started to read it aloud before I realised what it was. He’s such a cad – I’m furious with him.’
My mother’s letter. I took it, imagining snippets of it in Anthony’s drawling public-school accent – or, worse, his imitation of mine. Dearest Oliver . . . I must say I find the new vicar the tiniest bit unsavoury . . . I miss you, my darling, and it does seem rather hard that I might not see you before you go up again to Cambridge . . . And would Jack have laughed when he heard it? I wasn’t sure. I said, ‘Thank you.’
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