“I’ll ask Professor White for her address.”
Anne rubbed her hands together. “Good. That’s settled, then. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Such as?”
“Boys. I mean, men, I suppose.”
Bella laughed. “There’s not much to be said about them, you know.”
Anne affected a disappointed expression. “I think you’re right. I’ve been hoping that I’d discover that men were infinitely fascinating, but the truth is, they’re not.”
“Oh well, let’s talk about them anyway.”
“Faute de mieux,” said Anne. “In the absence of anything better.”
“Faute de mieux,” echoed Bella.
2
Richard Writes
S he had seen Richard three or four times since they had both been back in Scotland. Heather had found her way back from Ceylon on a troopship returning from India in 1943, her husband having stayed in Ceylon. She had visited Bella at her aunt’s house, a month or two after her arrival in Scotland, bringing Richard with her. He was fourteen then; she had been taller than he was when they had last seen one another – now the growth spurt that comes upon teenage boys had reversed that, and she found herself looking up into hazel eyes that she had not really noticed before. She thought he was beautiful, which was something that she had not imagined she would ever think of a boy – but he was. He was tall, and lithe, and he smiled at her gently. “I’m really sorry about your mum and dad,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She looked away, but thanked him.
“The Japs,” he said, and shook his head.
“Yes,” she said. She did not know what she could add, and so she asked him about his school, and he told her that it was in the hills of Perthshire and they had a pipe band and he played rugby. At weekends the boys were encouraged to hike in the hills. He often called in with a friend at a nearby farm and helped the farmer with the sheep. It was more fun than walking, he said, and the farmer’s wife gave them homemade ginger beer and carrot cake. They had a housemaster known as Toffee Martin who collected stamps and produced Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. The headmaster was called the Warden, although the boys called him the Warder, because some people said there was not much difference between a boarding school and a prison. He did not think that, though, and he was happy there. Was she happy where she was?
She told him that she was. Her form teacher was kind to her, especially after what had happened, and the work was not at all hard. She was ahead of the other girls in mathematics and history, and even further ahead when it came to geography. Miss White had drilled her thoroughly in rivers of the world, but had also included hills and some plains. She knew all about contour lines, which some of the other girls had yet to grasp. “Some of them are really stupid,” she said. And he, nodding in agreement, had said, “And some boys at my school are pretty dim too. Not all of them – just some.”
She saw him again two years later, when Heather had invited her and her aunt to have tea with her in Jenners, the large department store on Princes Street. Richard had been allowed to join them in Edinburgh, and they talked to one another while the adults chatted. The following year, she met him at a dance held at the school. A busload of boys from his school had been brought down to dance with the girls under the watchful eyes of the teachers. They had danced every dance together – they were mostly Scottish reels – and at the end of each set he had held her hand slightly longer than strictly necessary. She had blushed, and hoped that her hand did not feel clammy to him. No boy would like a clammy girl, she felt.
He wrote to her very occasionally – usually just a postcard, on which a few not very informative sentences would be scrawled. His handwriting was untidy, but that, she thought, was because he was a boy. That was how they wrote, she believed.
In his final year of boarding school he sent a postcard that showed a picture of Crieff Hydropathic Institution, a large spa-like hotel. His father had returned from Ceylon for good, he told her, and they were having a family holiday at the Hydro. He was doing some clay-pigeon shooting and riding. His father went for long walks and drank whisky with various “moustachioed characters in their bedrooms, as they have to smuggle the whisky past the hotel authorities in cabin trunks” while his mother, who liked swimming, was doing fifty lengths a day. “She’s in the pool for hours,” he said, and then he went on to write, “and the smell of chlorine wafts after her in the corridors. I try to disown her, at least until she has showered and washed it off. I have applied to study medicine at Edinburgh University. It has a very famous medical school, as I think you know. I can’t wait to go there.”
She did not hear from him again until the day after her conversation with Anne in the tearoom, when a letter arrived. It had been addressed to her care of her aunt, who had sent in on to St Andrews.
“I’m sorry to have been out of touch,” he wrote. “You know how it is. But I’ve been thinking about you – I promise! Not all the time, but at least sometimes . . . I’m in my second year of medicine. I think I told you that was what I wanted to do – well, now I’m doing it. The first year was biochemistry, physiology and anatomy. Anatomy is when you decide whether you’ve made the right decision or whether medicine’s not for you. There was a chap at my table – six of us work on each cadaver (as we call the body) – and he passed out twice. Stone cold. He couldn’t take it, and he went off to study chemistry. I didn’t mind it too much – in fact, it’s quite interesting. Except for the smell of formaldehyde. I don’t like that.
“I play rugby. I’m not all that good, but I’ve scraped into the University Second XV, and we’re coming to play in St Andrews next month – on the first Saturday. If you get this letter on time, can we meet afterwards? Some of us are going to be staying over until Sunday, and I thought you might like to come to a party. There’s always a party afterwards. You could bring a friend if you like (a girl, please!)”
She wrote back and said that she would be there to watch the game – “I’m a bit hazy about the rules, but that doesn’t matter, I think” – and that she and her friend, Anne, would love to come to the party afterwards. He sent a postcard back, which said, “Great. Can’t wait. Love, R.” Love, R . . . She knew she should not read too much into that, but she did. Love, R.
The party went on past midnight. Richard was separated from the friends who had promised accommodation for the night, and Bella and Anne invited him back to the Hall, which he had to enter through a side window. He spent the night on a mattress of blankets on the floor of their room. Bella lay awake, aware of his presence just a few feet away; he had fallen asleep quickly, for he was tired after the game of rugby and the party that followed. She saw the moonlight upon him; he had gone off to sleep quickly; she saw the exposed shoulder and the hair that fell across his brow, and she felt an ache of wonder and possession, and a sense of privilege that this should happen to her, that he should come back into her life from a childhood that she had somehow put out of her mind because it had been so strange and had ended so sadly.
After that, they saw one another regularly. The years slipped by with the transience that years at university always have. His course was a demanding one, and he had to spend the university vacations working in hospitals in other parts of Scotland. Nothing was ever spelled out, but they both seemed to accept that whatever shape their future might have, they would spend it together. They became lovers, and he gave her a ring. He said, “I know this is old-fashioned, but I would prefer it that way.” And she kissed him, and slipped it on the finger on which an engagement ring should go, and said that she was old-fashioned too. Her aunt noticed the ring, and although Bella said nothing about it, she said, “That’s the right thing to do. Nobody disapproves – as long as there is a ring.”
He said, “I love you so much, Bella. I’ve loved you right from the beginning, you know – when we were children. Right from then.”
She said, “I know that,” although she had not really known. She had hoped that this would
be so, but she had not known.
She had never spoken to Professor White about Ceylon – she had felt awkward about it and feared that Miss White might have told him what had happened. If she had, then he might harbour a very low view of the people who had mistreated her so badly. So she remained silent through the four years of her university course.
At the graduation ceremony she felt the absence of her parents. Most of the other students had their parents there; she had her aunt and Richard. They sat in the hall, and as the academic procession entered – the professors in their colourful robes – everybody stood up and sang the ‘Gaudeamus’. She knew the words well, as the university choir often sang it, along with other songs from the Scottish Students’ Song Book: Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus: let us rejoice while we are young.
The university laid on a reception afterwards, and she found herself talking to Professor White. She introduced Richard, who was standing next to her, and Richard said, “We’ve known one another since we were very young, back in Ceylon.”
She drew in her breath and prepared to say something to take the conversation in a different direction. But the professor had raised an eyebrow. “Ceylon? You were in Ceylon, Bella? You never mentioned it.”
She mumbled something about not having thought anybody would be interested.
“A lovely country, I believe,” said Professor White. “My daughter was there for a short while. She spent more time in India, but she was in Ceylon just before the War. She was a governess.”
Now it was too late. Richard said, “But Bella had a governess, didn’t you, Bella? Miss . . .”
And then he remembered that she had said, “This is Professor White.”
Professor White was looking at her with intense interest. “You don’t mean that . . .”
She had no alternative. “I think it must have been your daughter. It never occurred to me.” This sounded lame – she could tell that even as she spoke, but he did not appear to notice.
“What an extraordinary coincidence.” He smiled broadly. “She loved her time there. But I believe she lost touch with the family – I suppose that means with you and your parents . . .”
She felt relieved. She loved her time there . . .
Richard explained. “I’m afraid that Bella’s parents lost their lives in the War.”
Professor White reached out and touched her forearm gently. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t aware.”
“That’s all right. I should have told you.”
Bella felt her heart beating hard within her. She gave her empty teacup to Richard and addressed Professor White. “How is she? Your daughter? Where . . .”
“She’s down in Suffolk,” Professor White said. “She married a race-horse trainer. They have a stables, or whatever you call it. He’s very successful.” He smiled in a self-deprecating way. “I don’t know a thing about racehorses, but I gather he’s one of the top people in the field. He takes horses from all over the place and trains them for the big races – Cheltenham, the Grand National – that sort of thing.”
Bella laughed. “Goodness.”
“Yes, I must say that it’s not what I had expected would happen to her, but there we are. Life has a way of taking unexpected directions.” He paused. “I’m sure she’d love to hear how you’re doing. Would you like her address?”
Bella nodded.
Professor White seemed pleased. “I’ll drop her a note and say that you might be getting in touch. I’m sure she’ll be pleased.”
Bella looked at Richard. He had detected something in her manner that was a warning, but he was not sure what it was. It had been a long time ago. There had been some row or other about Miss White, but he could not remember what it was. But Bella did: she remembered that he had urged her to do something to get rid of Miss White – that was how she remembered it. He was party to what happened, even if he seemed unaware of his complicity. And now he had brought up the whole issue by blurting out to Professor White that they had known one another since Ceylon and that she had had a governess. This was his fault.
He said to her, “I can tell that you’re cross with me.”
She turned away. She did not want to spoil the day of her graduation with a row, and so she said, “I’m not cross with you. Just leave it.”
But he was persistent. “How was I to know that you didn’t want him to know about . . . about everything – Ceylon, Miss White, all that? How was I to know?”
She bit her lip and struggled to contain her feelings, which were ones of resentment and anger. He was right: he was not to have known, but that did not make it any easier for her.
“I don’t think we should discuss it,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“You don’t have to be in touch with her,” he said. “She won’t necessarily be expecting it, even if he tells her that you’ll be writing to her. People promise to do things they never do. Nobody expects much from other people.”
She looked into his eyes. “I have to. I should have done it a long time ago. I have to apologise for what I did. Properly. As an adult.”
He found it hard to understand. “We all do stupid things. We don’t have to carry them with us for the rest of our lives.”
“We don’t have to, but we do. There’s a difference.”
He met her gaze with a challenge of his own. “Do you really think that? Do you really think that we have to go over the past and sort out all the things that have happened – all the things that we’ve done that maybe we shouldn’t have done, or that we’ve done badly?”
“I think we do. Yes.”
“Well . . .” He shrugged. He could not imagine what it would be like to have the entire weight of history on one’s shoulders.
“I know it may be hard,” she said. “But we have to do it.”
“And what else do you think you need to apologise for?”
She thought for a few moments before she responded. “For the whole thing? The whole British Empire? Sometimes I think that we’ll need to say sorry about that sometime. India, for instance. And other things. Taking people’s countries away from them.”
He stared at her. “But that was just the way it was.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it right.”
“There’s nothing right about the way the world is,” he said. “The world is all about power and control and money. That’s the way it is. And whether or not anybody has to say sorry depends on how they behaved while all that was happening around them.”
“I don’t think we should argue,” she said.
“I wasn’t arguing. I was just saying.”
She looked at her hands. “If I went down to see her, would you come with me?”
“To see Miss White? Down in . . . where did he say?”
“Suffolk.”
“Yes, down there – you want to go and see her?”
“I do.”
“If she asks you?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll write to her and ask whether we can come and see her. How long would it take to drive down?”
He had a car of which he was inordinately proud. “In my car . . . eight hours? Maybe less. It depends on the roads.”
“We could find a hotel near her place – wherever that is. Could you take a few days?”
He was in his final year now, and he still had a couple of examinations to sit. “After my exams, yes. I’ll have three weeks before I start my first house job at the Infirmary.”
“Shall we do it, then?”
“Yes. If you think it’ll help.”
“I don’t know whether it’ll help, but I feel I have to do it.”
“Then you should.”
The crisis had passed. He bent forward and kissed her. “I am so proud of you,” he said.
“For doing this? For going to see Miss White?”
He laughed. “No, for getting a degree in English.” And then added, “But also for that. For being brave and knowing what the right thing is to do.”
“If it is the right thing,” she said. “Which it may not be.”
“What counts is wanting to do what you think is the right thing.”
“Perhaps,” she said, and then added, “Perhaps not.”
She looked at her watch. They were to meet her aunt at a nearby hotel, where the three of them would have a celebratory meal together. She said, “You know those two old dolls I keep in my room? You know the ones?”
“Li what’s-his-name and his friend, Po . . .”
“Li Po and Po Chü-i. Yes, them.”
“I like the way women keep their old friends – their teddy bears, their dolls and so on.”
“They’ve been with me all my life. I could hardly get rid of them. Anyway, I think I’ll take them down to Suffolk with us when we go. She’ll remember them, I think. It would be nice to show them to her – to remind her.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “There’s enough room in the car for four.”
3
Forgiveness by the East River
T he house stood away from a cluster of trees, oaks by the size of them, and it had the feel of a house that had been there as long as the land itself, as rocky protuberances sometimes seem to be – punctuation marks to the landscape’s own story, rather than impositions.
Richard slowed the car as they drew off the road and started along the undulating driveway. “What a place,” he muttered.
It took Bella a few moments to respond. “Who would have imagined it? Miss White, of all people, ending up in a place like this.”
“Ordinary people can live in very grand houses,” said Richard.
“That must be the stable-yard,” said Bella, pointing to a low cluster of buildings some distance from the main house.
“Looks like it,” said Richard.
And as he spoke, a line of half a dozen horses appeared from round the corner of one of the buildings, each ridden by a crouched figure, slightly humped, in the way of jockeys, rocking in harmony with the horse’s gait.
“Exercise,” said Richard. “They take them for a gallop every morning.”
The Pavilion in the Clouds Page 19