Sin

by Josephine Hart

  “Elizabeth?” He turned to her. Still in black. Nearly four years later.

  “I feel that whatever the Board decides should be agreed by us. I’ve never made a contribution to Alpha. ”

  “Your grandfather created the company. It wouldn’t exist at all were it not for him,” my mother interjected.

  “Neither would we for that matter,” I replied.

  “Ruth.” My father spoke. Almost sadly. “You know, my dear … though I’m pleased you had the idea of a publishing division, it wouldn’t have sat well with the magazines. I’m certain the Board would have opposed it.”

  It was finally agreed that the chairman of Derwent’s would come to Lexington for lunch the following Sunday. In order to meet the family. The future of Alpha could be discussed in congenial surroundings.

  “It’s all agreed then?” My father looked at each of us in turn. We nodded our consent.

  I shivered suddenly. Perhaps the veil the angel wove had fluttered?

  THIRTEEN

  * * *

  Wooden doors open from the main hall in Lexington into a large, high-ceilinged drawing room with an enormous French stone fireplace.

  On either side of the fireplace two Aubusson-covered sofas face each other—in military precision as though standing guard over the low, almost black-green marble table. At each end of the room, two sets of wooden double doors can be glimpsed behind two exactly matching arrangements of tall-stemmed red roses standing on round tables covered in tapestry. A number of black high-backed chairs with studded arms defy anyone to sit on them.

  Dark hangings on each side of the fireplace reflect, in their greenness, the distant view past the courtyard down to the park and the almost hidden lake. The walls between the French windows are bare except for the outer folds of heavy green velvet curtains. It is an austere, dark room.

  A small sitting room-library opens off the north end of the main room. It is used for cards, chess and reading.

  The dining room, with its long, dark mahogany table, silver candlesticks and one huge religious painting, is a room which could easily have been a chapel.

  All the rooms are a study in darkness. Though the French windows imply a welcome, somehow the light stays politely away.

  It was through these rooms that Sir Charles Harding followed my father into our lives.

  He was a man in his late forties, of considerable height with a large, almost primitive face. He did not smile as I offered my hand to be most briefly held in his.

  He turned towards Elizabeth. She was dressed, as always, in black. Did she understand how the contrast dramatised her paleness? That it gave her a power she did not have? No, such instincts were not Elizabeth’s. They were mine. The unmade-up face and the severity of her hairstyle gave her the appearance of a nun. I saw the barest flicker of surprise as he looked at her.

  My mother, who had been checking final arrangements for lunch, arrived. She received a bow from him and a polite acknowledgement of her outstretched hand.

  Sir Charles Harding complimented her on the beauty of the roses. My mother glowed at this tribute to her secret passion.

  Just as they seemed to delineate certain parameters of the room, the roses also seemed to structure my mother’s week. Each Monday and Thursday they were ritualistically placed by her into their dark green porcelain prison. Parkdirektor Riggers—perpetual flowering—and as masculine in the tall erectness of their habit as they were in their name.

  In a small room off the kitchen, canvas gloved, twice a week she picked, from her surgical array of instruments, secateurs that sharply cut to exact predetermined length each helpless victim, as it lay on its shiny chrome operating table. Then she took a small, sharp, dagger-like knife and neatly made a half-inch wound at the base of each green stem.

  In her soft cashmere sweaters and her sensible skirts—sometimes still in her Panama hat—she should have presented to a loving daughter a vision of matronly serenity, engaged in that most soothing of activities, flower arranging.

  Now, the ever perfect hostess, she led us all through to lunch.

  “I can assure you all,” said Sir Charles, seated on my mother’s right, “that I’ve no intention of pursuing this bid if it’s unacceptable to you.” He paused. “It is not my way.” His voice was strange—its intonation slightly clipped and abrupt.

  “Of course, Sir Charles,” said my father. “We appreciate you saying that. But we have considered the matter, we’re content with the decision we made last week.”

  “Concerning the name?”

  “Yes.”

  “As I said to your Board,” Sir Charles continued, “that’s not a problem. Nor will it ever be. We can make it a fundamental issue in the drawing up of the Heads of Agreement. I understand family attachments to business. Buddenbrooks is one of my favourite books.”

  “Ah. Yes. Mann,” my father replied. The tone of his voice was ambiguous. It was not possible to establish what he thought of Buddenbrooks, or whether his attitude to it was influenced by some anti-German prejudice he’d never voiced before.

  “I prefer The Magic Mountain,” my father continued—although not with much enthusiasm.

  “This conversation is tremendously literary, Sir Charles,” I said. “But surely, however, your understanding of our proprietorial feelings for Alpha is based on the fact that your own family name has continued. And flourished. To the extent that you’re now buying us out. Perhaps that’s a more profound cause for understanding than even the most intimate reading of Thomas Mann.”

  “You are right.”

  The abruptness of the reply made his agreement almost a rejection. He turned towards Elizabeth. Sister Elizabeth. The tragic widow, infinitely more interesting than Ruth. By the very fact of her grief, and the way she bore it.

  “Madame Baathus?”

  “Elizabeth, please.”

  “Thank you. Elizabeth.” His voice almost gave an extra e to her name.

  And a strong lilt to the Beth. The name became music. Whereas mine was a short, sharp beat on the air.

  Elizabeth spoke quietly. As always.

  “I’m happy that the name will continue. Our grandparents would have wanted that. Father tells us the management believes that your company is the right one for them.”

  “A sort of marriage, perhaps?” I interjected. I wanted to break their … communion.

  “Yes.” Sir Charles was a man of few words.

  “With a dominant partner of course.” I pressed him.

  “Of course.”

  “Is that your philosophy of business, and marriage?

  “It is, Mrs. Garton.”

  “Oh, Ruth, please.”

  “Thank you … Ruth.”

  Ruth. Quick beat. Harsh.

  “We’re discussing worldly matters, and in worldly matters I like to dominate.” Sir Charles smiled. Slightly.

  “That’s not a fashionable view,” I replied.

  “Indeed not. Marriage, however, is not only a worldly place. Women rule its real kingdom.”

  “Go on,” my father said.

  “It’s my assessment that sometimes women misunderstand. They throw it all away. They’re the centre of life. They hold its core. Yet they battle to be on the periphery of the world.”

  “And if, in time, they dominate the world?” I asked, smiling.

  “Ah, well, they’ll find it a very empty prize.”

  “‘Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?’” I quoted.

  He looked puzzled.

  “It’s Thackeray,” I said.

  “ Vanity Fair, I assume?”

  “Yes, Sir Charles.” I was not certain who had won the point.

  “A more cynical voice than Mann. Thackeray appeals to you more, I feel.”

  Damn. “And how does Lady Harding feel about her place in the world and life?”

  “Lady Harding is dead.”

  Elizabeth turned slightly towards him. I watched their eyes meet. The banality of the power of
pain was clear to me again.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “Ruth couldn’t possibly have known. I’m sure Sir Charles understands that.”

  Thank you, Elizabeth. Silently.

  “Of course. There’s no need to apologise.”

  “Sir Charles, you want us, as a family, to sell all our shares. Not just the proportion which would give you control.”

  My father was anxious, as always, to get back onto a less dangerous topic than men, women, life and death. The worldly world was a place he could manage.

  The discussion continued—discreet, polite and very firm on Sir Charles’s part.

  Dominick arrived for tea. And to collect me. We had arranged to attend a concert with his parents, who were on a short visit to London.

  “I must leave the arena then, Sir Charles.” We shook hands.

  “You’ve already made your position clear, Ruth. As I would guess you normally do.”

  I smiled briefly, and left. I had spoken of an arena other than that of business. Could he guess?

  Hours later, Dominick lay on me. And whispered love again. And again. Perhaps the music in his own head made him deaf to my silence.

  FOURTEEN

  * * *

  “Ruth.” A downbeat. On the phone, a week later.

  “I feel I may have been rather abrupt when we met last Sunday. Perhaps you and Dominick …” Wait for it, Ruth. “And your sister, Elizabeth, would care to have dinner with me next Thursday.”

  “You’ve asked Elizabeth?”

  “No.”

  I waited. Always wisest. He was uncertain of himself. No doubt an unusual experience for him. He came, perhaps knowingly, into the trap.

  “I felt it … inappropriate … after all she is …

  “A widow.”

  “Yes.”

  “A grieving widow.”

  “Indeed. Indeed. I could see that.”

  “You’re not suggesting, Sir Charles, that I should ask Elizabeth on your behalf?”

  “Of course not. Oh dear, I’ve embarrassed you. I’m so sorry. The entire undertaking was … ill-conceived.”

  “Undertaking! Hardly an undertaking, Sir Charles. Simply an invitation. I must speak to Dominick, but I see no reason why not.”

  “Oh, good.” The relief in his voice was … noted by me. “Elizabeth I’ll leave to you,” I said.

  “Absolutely,” he replied.

  “Till Thursday then.”

  “Till then.”

  Dominick, as always, was easy to persuade. Oh, kind face, brilliant mind. Oh, beautiful straw-coloured hair. Young man’s body, why did you do this to yourself? Why didn’t you send for your own lover? Why did you let me do these things to you? Where did you learn to betray yourself? Who taught you? Me. I suppose it was me.

  We drove towards a small restaurant in Mayfair—an unsurprising choice and therefore in its way a soothing one. I gazed at the creamy silk reflection of myself in the car’s side mirror. I could safely assume that Elizabeth would be in black. I felt that Charles Harding’s memory of his first dinner with Elizabeth should contain in its shadows my ivory-clothed figure. I thought how important it was to dress the part. Even when forced to wait in the wings.

  Sir Charles was there before us. Elizabeth, by accident of course, was late. We sipped our drinks. And I felt him absorb my beauty with some interest, as we waited for the arrival of the one for whom the dinner really was intended. Grave, stark and with a graceful, understated apology, Elizabeth sat down.

  Sir Charles had manoeuvred himself into our lives. I guessed that he rarely wasted time. And that the dinner would be the first of many.

  I sat beside him. Elizabeth and Dominick sat opposite. Dominick, trapped, and Elizabeth less free than she knew. Elizabeth, believing herself to be part of a family outing, relaxed enough over dinner to entrance Charles Harding. I listened as she answered his delicately phrased enquiries.

  “Yes, I’ve kept my studio. I go there to paint. Every day. Dominick once explained to me in mathematical terms the beauty of its proportions. But I love it for its light, all of which comes through the skylight. So I’m undistracted by windows onto gardens, or onto other houses. It’s perhaps unkind of me to say so, but I find solitude even more important now.”

  “Why unkind?”

  “Oh, because everyone—my parents, Dominick, Ruth in particular—has been so very supportive and good to me. And, of course, my darling son, Stephen, who has tried so hard to comfort me. It seems wrong … unfeeling … in the face of all this love to say that I need to be alone.”

  “And your paintings? What are you painting now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? But I thought you said you went there to paint.”

  “Yes. That’s true. I go there to paint. But I do not.”

  I didn’t know this. Will I ever know you, Elizabeth?

  “Why not?” Sir Charles asked.

  “I don’t know. But I know it’s right that I should go there every day. And one day it will be the right day.”

  Sir Charles cleared his throat. Touched, no doubt.

  “So what do you do there?”

  “I sit and wait.”

  “For inspiration?” I asked. This really had gone on long enough.

  “I wait for the thing that is right for me to paint.”

  “Why not continue with the …” I remembered Hubert’s phrase … “Enchantment?”

  “Because that would imply that Hubert’s death had not changed me.”

  We were all silent.

  “I must stop now. I’ve spoken more about me than is …”

  “Than is your wont.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, here’s to waiting … for what is right.” Sir Charles raised his glass. I watched him drink her in. And I looked at Dominick, who innocently raised his glass to me and clearly didn’t taste the pain.

  FIFTEEN

  * * *

  “Tell me about Charles Harding.” Helen and I were having lunch.

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t you know he’s trying to buy Alpha?”

  “Does that matter to you? You’ve never expressed an interest in the company before.”

  “Let’s just say I’m a hidden sort of person.” I laughed.

  “I don’t really know him all that well.”

  “You know him better than I do. So give me some idea.”

  “Well, he’s feared.”

  “By whom?”

  “In publishing, of course. And in the City.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s very brilliant, intellectually. First from Oxford. And he’s supposed to be a ruthless businessman.”

  “Is he?”

  “No, not really. He’s just successful beyond the laws of probability.”

  “God! Spare me the mathematical phrases.”

  “I’m not in Dominick’s league.”

  “Helen, when I see you gazing out at me from the TV, analysing this or that company’s results, I cannot help remembering the schoolgirl who traded her math prep for whatever perfume or lipstick she lusted after.”

  “Never yours, darling. You were always too pristine for such adolescent decorations.”

  “And anyway, Helen, I preferred to do my own prep. ”

  “As now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re doing prep on Charles Harding.”

  “Well, as I said, he may be about to take us over.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Helen was as close to the concept of a friend as I ever had. Which was why I was particularly guarded around her. She had red, wavy hair and sharp, grey-green eyes. When she widened them during an interview, they made her most lethal questions sound benign. She had a certain female power much admired by women in my time. And used the gifts of nature to enhance a considerable intelligence—for the simple purpose of undermining powerful men. She was excellent at her job, fielded lust with some malice and succumbed, I guessed,
with little pleasure. Our relationship had an element of mutual admiration and competition.

  “Did you know his wife?”

  “Felicity? Not really. I met her on just a few occasions, when she was being the token wife. Which she always did well, incidentally. She died four yearsago.”

  “How did she die?”

  “There was a long illness. A weak heart, I think. Though the end was very sudden.”

  “Children?”

  “One. Grown up. I think he lives in America. It was a long marriage. There was never any scandal, that I heard of. Charles Harding is not one for the gossip columnists. Far too clever for that. Of course, there could be some secret. … But”—she paused— “on the surface it looks, my dear, as though what you see is what you get. Tycoon. Widowed. …”

  I knew Helen well enough to have noted the pause and the equivocating words ….

  “On the surface? What do you mean?”

  She sat back in her chair and looked at me, a kind of question in her eyes.

  She sighed. “Can I trust you, Ruth? This really is utterly confidential.” I nodded. She paused and began to speak quietly.

  “In the year before Felicity died—she had, remember, been ill for some time—he had a short affair with a young woman. She was … insanely … in love. It was all extraordinarily intense, I gather, Very sexual, I would imagine. Anyway, he tried to end it. And she … killed herself. I knew her parents. It was all hushed up. Her father’s a Queen’s Counsel. Has enormous influence.”

  “And Charles Harding?”

  “Well, he was—he was utterly devastated. Blamed himself entirely. Felicity died shortly afterwards. It was a double blow. To a man who I’d guess had felt himself capable of handling anything and anyone. I imagine he still feels very guilty.”

  Now I understood Elizabeth’s attraction for him; she would be the perfect balm for a guilty soul. But what of the other side of Charles Harding? The “intensely sexual”? Was that for Elizabeth, too?

  “Well, perhaps he’ll meet a good woman.” I smiled at Helen. I wanted to break the air of increasing intimacy between us. She took the bait. And became the public Helen.