The train rattled its way across the flat Lincolnshire countryside, and with every click of the wheels Edward urged it on. If death was waiting, let it wait a little longer.
With a heavy heart he alighted at the halt and began the long walk into the village. Fields which were bleached and fallow on his first visit now whispered with verdant life. A tiny breeze rippled across fields of waving wheat, relieving in some small measure the unremitting heat of the sun. As he approached the imposing main gateway to the Hall, Edward saw a pony trap emerge, two ladies in floating pastel finery seated in the back.
With a feeling of dismay he watched their parasols bobbing all the way down the road into the village; as he passed the church his suspicions were confirmed: the same trap and its driver stood beneath trees on the vicarage drive. For a moment he almost walked on; then, with a deep breath, turned in at the gate, glad of the drive’s cool green shade after the hot June sun.
To his relief, as the door opened there was no sign of the ladies; with a warning glance the housekeeper greeted him quietly, took his small suitcase and showed him into the study.
‘We have visitors,’ Mrs Pepperdine said with an apologetic smile. ‘The Squire’s wife and daughter. If you’d rather not meet them, Mr Elliott, just stay here. They won’t disturb you, and I doubt they’ll stay very long.’
Edward thanked her and asked about his father. As he had suspected, it was his heart; for some time the old man had been subject to small attacks, but this latest one, she told him gravely, had been very serious. The Vicar’s doctor, she said, had confined him to bed, and for once he was pleased to stay there.
Left alone, Edward browsed amongst his father’s books, picked one at random, a treatise on Romanesque styles, and sat down to read; but the words jazzed before his eyes and he laid it down again, leaning his head against the chair’s smooth leather wing. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and in those beams a million dust-motes moved in slow pavanes. A clock ticked in the silence, and above his head somewhere a floorboard creaked. In this room he was always reminded of that first visit, in the autumn of the year Louisa went to Ireland. The trees outside in full summer leaf had been yellowing then, especially the beeches; he remembered watching the leaves fall, one by one. Recalling his heart’s sadness then, he found it echoed now.
He and his father had talked for what seemed like minutes, but must have been hours; and afterwards, sitting in silence, divided only by a beam of sunlight, Edward had been struck by the separate facets of one character as reflected in different eyes. Who ever knew one person entirely? he wondered, thinking of all the people in his life, the praise and blame, sins and virtues. His mother, Mary Elliott, Louisa and her sisters, Robert Duncannon, his own father...
He heard the ladies leaving. The polite murmur of voices as they were shown to the door reached his ears, but not their words. Edward imagined them composing their faces, their gestures, and inner tension mounted. When they had gone, Mrs Pepperdine came in and offered him tea, but little comfort. The nurse had said her patient was exhausted, and must rest for a while.
At seven, just before dinner, Edward was finally allowed upstairs. He stood for a moment on the broad landing, bracing himself. The housekeeper knocked and went in first; stood back with a smile and let him pass. In that pleasant, comfortable room, shining with late evening sun, his father lay in bed, well-propped by pillows, alert and smiling despite his obvious frailty. Relief washed through Edward’s veins, taking fear and tension with it; his whole body felt ridiculously soft and pliable as he crossed the room.
‘Good to see you, my boy,’ the old man whispered; and as Edward bent to take his hand, he saw the brightness of unshed tears. ‘Silly woman shouldn’t have sent for you — long journey for nothing – but I’m glad you’re here.’
‘I’m glad to be here,’ Edward replied. ‘It’s been too long. I should have come before. I wish you’d let me know you weren’t well.’
Very slowly, the old man shook his head. ‘I was all right, then suddenly…’ his hand dropped to the bed. ‘They say I haven’t to talk, so make yourself comfortable and tell me all your news.’
Edward had not been to Lincolnshire for almost a year. Although he regretted it, Mary Elliott’s illness and subsequent upheavals had led him to cancel one visit and postpone another. But now, with the business very much at the forefront of his mind, he talked enthusiastically for several minutes, extolling Dick’s virtues and outlining plans for the future. While he was explaining Louisa’s part in helping out, the nurse came in on a sharply efficient rustle of starched apron and head-dress, and announced firmly that visiting time was over for the day.
Vulnerable in his nightshirt, George Gregory raised his eyes to Heaven and submitted to her ministrations. As she began plumping the pillows and tucking in a stray inch of sheet, Edward smilingly left the room.
Next morning, however, with a fire brightly blazing and sherry to fortify them, they had a much longer conversation. It was still rather one-sided, as his father was not supposed to tire himself, but he wanted to know about Louisa and the children, and Edward was eager to describe their progress over the preceding months. Quite naturally, he concentrated on the positive aspects of their life: the cottage, its garden, his contentment; but in a momentary lapse he mentioned Robert, suddenly realizing that the matter of his return was not one he had cared to mention in his letters.
‘I’m not at all sure we made the right decisions — and the matter of the children worries me very much.’
Edward rose and went to the window, gazing out over lawns and flowerbeds towards the beech-woods beyond. ‘You said in one of your letters that the move from Gillygate would be good for Louisa – and you were right. At the time I could only see the financial sense of it – and I must confess I thought her insistence on a garden was something of a whim. I was wrong, though: it’s been the saving of her. She’s quite her old self again.’
But Edward was silent for such a length of time after that, so locked in contemplation, that his father said: ‘What is it that’s bothering you? You mentioned the children just now...’
‘Yes,’ Edward sighed, knowing they were a subject he had long needed to discuss. The matter of the deception, which had been so easily slipped into, and the problems Edward foresaw as a result, still nagged at a corner of his mind. To discuss it with Louisa was difficult, and, with anyone other than his father, downright impossible.
‘Whenever I try to talk it over with her, all she will say is that their situation is not the same as mine was — and I accept that. I was fostered out, and my mother never found it convenient to acknowledge me as her son until I was an adult. Even then,’ he added bitterly, ‘her will managed to make it very ambiguous indeed!’ He broke off. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be saying this to you – ‘
‘Who else would you say it to? Go on.’
‘What I mean is this — I feel very strongly that Louisa’s children should know who their rightful father is. Louisa’s parents were not married either, but she knew her father, and what’s more, knew that he was her father. She doesn’t seem to understand the importance of that. Of course our situation is complicated by the fact of my presence in the house — by the fact that I love them dearly, and wish to God that Robert Duncannon would just – ‘
‘What? Die?’
‘No — no, I don’t wish him dead. I just wish he could relinquish his hold on Louisa. I wish,’ he added miserably, ‘that she didn’t still love him.’
George Gregory smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t see the logic there. What makes you think she still loves him?’
‘Oh, lots of little things — things she says and does — seeing them together.’ With a certain dry amusement, Edward embarked upon the story of his proposal. It embarrassed him, but only in the telling did he feel his father would understand.
For a long time, the old man said nothing. Then, musing aloud on the problem, he remarked on the strangeness of women. ‘They can be very oblique, yo
u know. It’s their vulnerability, I suppose — makes them tell you only what they think you want to hear. Yet they imagine you should understand the rest,’ he chuckled, ‘and are offended when you don’t.
‘But I’ve heard some rum stories in my time,’ he went on. ‘Confessions from women of all ranks which would turn your hair. They will reveal to a clergyman not only their souls, but sometimes the most intimate details of their lives – desires and aspirations they wouldn’t dream of admitting to their husbands.
‘In effect, Edward,’ he added weightily, ‘that’s what you are. Without the benefit of a conjugal relationship, you stand – far more so than Robert — in the place of a husband, and as father to her children.’
‘But if that’s so, why wouldn’t she —?’ He frowned in perplexity. ‘You see, we’ve always been close, and...’
‘But circumstances have changed – drastically. Her reasons may be far less obvious than they appear. Perhaps she feels that she’s accepted too much from you; perhaps she needed time to give you something in return. Something free and without obligation on either side — her time and caring.’ Pausing while that point went home, the old man sipped carefully at a fresh glass of sherry. ‘A question of too much, too soon. And she was still grieving then. You must understand,’ he added gently, ‘that the healing of the mind, unlike the body, can take a long, long time.’
Responding to the wisdom of personal experience, Edward nodded, for a moment lost in contemplation of his father’s words. ‘Yes, I can see that. She’s much better — much calmer — than she was at the beginning of the year.’
‘A word of warning, however,’ the old man said, more gently still. ‘While I think I appreciate the reasons behind that rather peculiar proposal of yours, might I suggest you don’t repeat it?’
Surprised, Edward scrutinised his father’s face, finding concern tempered by a small spark of amusement. He frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, my boy, think about it. If a proposal of marriage, with all it entails, is the highest compliment a woman can receive, your suggestion could be regarded as something of an insult. I’ll give you my name, but not myself. Hmm?
‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t,’ he added kindly, overriding Edward’s protests, ‘but it may have been received like that, despite your altruistic motives. And another thing,’ he added seriously, ‘if the marriage was to have been performed in church, it would certainly be an insult to the sacrament.’
‘I doubt it would have been,’ Edward murmured, feeling reproved.
‘I know you love Louisa,’ the old man said softly, ‘and I can’t help wondering – don’t you want to marry her?’
The unexpected question caught him on the raw. It was something Edward had often asked himself, and never yet had he come up with a satisfactory answer. It was bound so much in what he imagined Louisa felt for him, and in her relationship with Robert Duncannon. Thrusting his hands deep in his trouser pockets, he strode about the room; twice he opened his mouth to speak, and twice thought better of it.
‘I don’t want to change things,’ he said at last, knowing it was near enough the truth. ‘I don’t want to upset the balance of what we have already. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been, with my own home and family, and my own business. Louisa and I make good, affectionate companions – were it not for the children, I’d be content to leave it that way.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure!’ he retorted; but a second later he was shaking his head, resuming his seat in an attitude of despair. ‘No,’ he admitted, covering his face, ‘I’m not sure.’
Not sure of Louisa, not sure of himself; and the path they trod was so precarious, their steps so uncertain, any resting-place seemed preferable to the dizzy pinnacle he occasionally glimpsed ahead; to the agonizing depths he knew lay below. Nor was he sure whether his desire to consolidate their present position was a symptom of age or a facet of his own cautious nature. Every time he thought about those hard-won gains, however, he was less and less inclined to risk them.
Expressing those thoughts, he heard his father sigh. ‘You speak as though life were a static thing,’ George Gregory said. ‘As though an idyllic moment could be preserved, like a specimen in a bell-jar. It can’t. Specimens are dead; the very essence of life is that it moves and changes. Children grow up, situations alter, people die.’
‘But I’m afraid of losing what happiness we have! When I look back, when I see how barren my life was before, I know I can’t go back to that.’
With all the patience of age, the older man shook his head. ‘So you would clutch what you have and smother it?’
‘No!’
‘Then move forward – have faith. Let the Holy Spirit guide you, as you were guided once before, when you first came here. The Devil doesn’t have things all his own way,’ he added gently. A moment later, with a whimsical smile, he said: ‘And sometimes, Edward, through the heat of all we desire for ourselves, the still small voice does speak... if only we have the ear to listen.’
Recognizing the words of a familiar hymn, Edward smiled and felt his tension dissipate. ‘It doesn’t always say what we want to hear, though, does it?’ he asked ruefully.
‘Have faith,’ George Gregory said again, ‘have patience. You gave me a new lease of life — but I have a feeling it’s running out at last. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not afraid. And I do believe that lease was only intended to cover the period when you needed me most.’
A cold chill touched Edward’s heart. ‘Please, Father, don’t say that.’
‘Change, Edward, nothing stays the same.’ Leaning across to his son, the old man touched his arm. ‘Your life,’ he said intently, ‘has many years to run. Don’t waste those years.’
Despite his father’s acceptance of approaching death, during the days of Edward’s visit his improvement was marked enough to earn even the nurse’s grudging approval. As his own anxiety began to subside, Edward convinced himself that the old man had had no more than a bad scare, that he was destined to survive a few more years: he could not abide the thought of losing such friendship.
With hours of unaccustomed leisure at his disposal, he took to strolling each afternoon across the fields and through the beech-woods, in a green dappled silence where nothing much stirred bar the leaves and an occasional muted flutter of wings. He used the time for thought and reflection, realizing for the first time in months how busy he had been, how taken up with immediate practical problems in York. Beneath all that activity, the fears and apprehensions revealed to his father had been buried, surfacing in dreams and nightmares, making his heart race uncomfortably for the most trivial of reasons. He had even been unaware of how tired he was; yet, strangely, with the cessation of effort fatigue descended like a lead weight, leaving him curiously joyless, incapable of summoning more than flat relief at his father’s evident recovery.
He walked and read and slept, astonishingly well and without disturbing dreams. By the end of the week he was sufficiently recovered in spirit to be slightly amused at the reversal in roles: he had come to cheer and comfort his ailing parent, and ended by being comforted himself.
On the Saturday afternoon as he prepared to leave, Edward was conscious of grave unease. With the aid of a stick, the frail old man managed the few yards to Edward’s bedroom, sitting in a wicker chair while his son completed his packing. He was fully-dressed for the first time, looking almost his old self in dog-collar and clerical black, but Edward could not rid himself of the feeling that he might be seeing his father for the last time. It made his promises to return soon sound hollow and insincere, at least to himself. He found himself repeating them several times.
‘Now I’ve got Dick, it won’t be as difficult,’ he said yet again. ‘I should be able to get down one Saturday for an overnight stay at least. Just as soon as we’ve got the business sorted out. It shouldn’t take long.’
‘Don’t worry, I shall be all right. I’m glad we had these few days �
�� it’s done us both a power of good. I’ll be up and about in no time.’
The words were said, Edward felt, to ease the parting. The hands round his were papery and cold, the smile forced, the light grey eyes suspiciously bright. For a moment the chill and empty years of childhood engulfed Edward like a tidal wave; he embraced his father awkwardly, hurt by the frailty of age.
‘Take good care of him,’ he murmured gruffly to Mrs Pepperdine as she saw him to the door. ‘And please…’ He could not complete the sentence, but she nodded sadly. He sensed that even her optimism was slipping, that she too had seen the shadows gathering round his father.
As he walked down the drive, Edward was already plotting ways and means of returning, and soon. But on his way to the train he found himself noting each bend in the road, every twisted tree, all the small features of that undramatic landscape, as though he might not see them again. He thought of death and funerals, wondering whether it would be politic to attend his father’s when the time came. The family would all be there, and his identity would fall into question, causing ripples of unrest if not a downright furore. He shivered away from it.
When he arrived home it was almost dark, night clouds gathering early with a suggestion of rain. Along the river the air was moist already, and the unaccustomed chill struck through to his bones. Through the undrawn parlour curtains he saw a lamp was lit, and, pushing the gate open with its familiar, uncured squeak, he saw Louisa jump up with a wave and a welcoming smile; she was at the door before he reached it.
Over a pot of tea in the parlour, she chatted eagerly about the week’s achievements and minor hitches; then, sensing his tiredness, suddenly broke off. She would explain in detail the next day, she said, when he was rested.
He appreciated her sensitivity. Although he was relieved to be home, there was no joy in it. The fatigue which had dogged him all week seemed denser than ever, blunting everything except the desire to get to bed and sleep. It was an effort to smile, an even greater one to speak. He managed to say his father was much better, then relapsed into silence, his gaze blankly surveying an abandoned pile of sewing on the opposite chair.
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