The Song of Hartgrove Hall

by Natasha Solomons

In the evening Jack and I walk through the orchards. Tiny green apples are forming on the trees, and as I peer closer I notice something lodged in the hollow of a trunk. Reaching up, I retrieve a piece of toast. How on earth did it get there? Glancing around the other trees, I spot that each one has a piece of burned toast in the same place.

  ‘George,’ says Jack. ‘George does it.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘He read it in some old farming almanac. Apparently in the Middle Ages they put toast in the trees to scare away fairies. And I’ve not seen any, so I suppose that makes it a triumph.’

  Beneath the easy smile, Jack looks troubled. I’ve been too preoccupied with my own discomfort to notice his.

  ‘The house isn’t in tip-top condition,’ I say at last.

  ‘It’s ghastly. If it weren’t for Edie we’d have gone under ages ago. And you of course,’ he adds politely. ‘I’m afraid after you left things went from pretty bad to absolutely rotten.’

  ‘I’m not sure that they would have been any better if I’d stayed. I wasn’t much help.’

  ‘That’s true.’ He grins, and he’s the old Jack once more. ‘At least the General’s stopped threatening to blow the place up. I expect he thinks that if he just waits a bit, it will simply fall down and he can save the expense of demolition. In any case, we can’t go on as we are. Even with the money from you and Edie, it’s not enough.’

  We’ve reached the edge of the orchard where the grass grows thickly, a deep glossy green as it slopes down to the lake. On its smooth surface a swan drifts, its neck a white question mark. I sit on the edge of the bank. Jack settles beside me, picking at a blade of grass.

  ‘George is determined not to use anything modern. None of the chemical fertilisers that would make things so much damned easier. If it were up to him, we’d be using bloody horses instead of a tractor. He just says that he wants to listen to the land and do what it’s telling him. But it’s sure as hell not saying anything to me.’ He’s nearly shouting and looks close to tears. ‘You have to talk to him, Fox. George is going to ruin us all. That means something to me, even if it doesn’t to you.’

  ‘Of course it bloody does,’ I say, cross.

  ‘Then you’ll make him see sense,’ says Jack, lying back and closing his eyes, his face serene now that he’s safely passed the buck.

  ‘It’s all part of the great dance,’ George explains slowly for the third time. ‘You’re recreating Jerusalem through English music and I’m rebuilding it with the earth herself.’

  ‘And cow muck.’

  ‘Which is very beneficial to the soil. Like music.’

  George is nothing if not committed. He wassails the apple trees, wards off pests with toast and would perform rain dances if the dampness of the climate didn’t render it unnecessary. We’re sitting on the loggia, waiting for Chivers to call us in for dinner. I’m already buttoned into my dinner jacket, while George fidgets in a tweed jacket that is evidently too small. He looks like a farmer dressed for a wedding.

  ‘But George, old thing, you’re not making any money.’

  ‘You’re as bad as Jack. He thinks this is nothing but muck and mysticism.’

  That seems to me a pretty tidy way of putting it.

  ‘I don’t think that at all. I’m not Jack,’ I say, trying to placate him.

  I listen for a while as George rumbles on about the building of a rural Jerusalem under Hartgrove barrow through ancient farming methods and how we must merge the rhythms of the Church year with those of the pagan festivals.

  ‘I’m not sure the vicar will really embrace fertility rituals on Sunday mornings,’ I say at last.

  ‘I know. He’s being thoroughly unpleasant about the whole thing.’

  To my amazement, I gather that George has already asked poor Reverend Lobb about it. I wonder whether George hasn’t gone a little dotty, but on the other hand he appears to be in obscenely good health: tanned from a life outdoors, his brown hair bleached gold by the sun. If only the house and estate looked half as well. George sighs and closes his eyes against the glare of the evening sun.

  ‘You told me a few years ago about the importance of songs,’ he says. ‘You were right, you know. Only it’s not just folk song but folklore too. It’s all there. People simply don’t listen any more.’ He turns to me, his face glowing from the sun’s rays but also lit by his inner fervour. ‘You could help. You could write music. For the harvest. For the planting. Workers are more productive if they sing. But it’s more than that. The music is a gift for the land itself.’

  ‘I know, George. I wrote it a ruddy symphony.’

  He grins and stretches his huge arms, cracking the joints, and peers up at the sky where the first early bats, emerging from the eaves, are whizzing in rapid circles.

  ‘You see, then? You know I’m not a crank, Fox. I’ve not lost my marbles. Jack thinks I’m a hopeless eccentric.’

  ‘Actually he called you much worse.’

  George chuckles. To my relief he has not lost his sense of humour.

  ‘I hear all the chit-chat from Westminster – the country’s near bankrupt and hungry. We need higher caloric yields and so on but I don’t like their methods, Fox. I don’t want to get rid of labourers and increase mechanisation. If we replace farmhands with machines, what will disappear is our countrymen. I believe Englishmen are also a crop worth producing and protecting.’

  As he speaks, his voice trembles with the passion of the convert and, while I’m embarrassed by it, I can’t help admiring him.

  ‘I’m supposed to talk you out of it.’

  ‘I know.’

  The light sets fire to a pack of running clouds, scarlet as the hunt as they chase along the ridge, and turns the whitewashed cottages pink. I hear the distant bleating of the sheep, and watch the flock of late lambs dash across the fields, twisting and jumping together at the sheer joy of a summer’s evening. I accept that I didn’t leave Hartgrove only because of Edie, but also because I wanted a different life. A life of music. But now that I’m here, listening to the wind shake the larches and watching the weather form above the hill, I know that I don’t want to leave ever again.

  Dinner is an uneasy, subdued affair. The General has not lost his talent for dampening the mood of any party – although this time he cannot be held entirely responsible. Edie’s gaiety is too much, too forced, while I’m distracted and dispirited. We sit in our dinner suits, the girls in their smart frocks, and sip wine while Chivers spoons out Irish stew and greens, his hands trembling from the effort as we all watch. Even the candlelight can’t disguise the state of the dining room. The paper is peeling off the walls and the smell of mould is overpowering. I feel as if I’m in a lousy and unfunny play.

  Afterwards, I escape for a walk. In the gathering dark, I hasten up the hill towards Ringmoor. The effort makes me perspire and I rather regret not having changed out of my dinner suit. I perch on a stile and inhale lungfuls of cool fresh air, knowing that I really ought to go and rescue Sal. I’ve an idea forming. I can’t tell whether it’s perfectly ridiculous or jolly clever. I need to talk it over with Edie. I find more and more that I don’t know quite what I think until I’ve said it aloud to her. I hasten back to the house, in the hope of finding her, only to be met by Sal.

  ‘They’ve gone to bed. Everyone’s tired, I think.’

  She leads me upstairs, eager and happy, but I find that I can’t make love to her, knowing that Edie is so close. It’s remarkable how treachery has its own standards. Sal is so horribly kind about my inadequacy that I lie awake for hours in the dark, listening to the rattle of the death-watch beetle and the hum of my own conscience.

  It’s Edie who finds me, late the following afternoon. She’s wearing a fetching yellow cotton dress. I’m startled by how young she looks. I’m alone on the loggia, trying to look through the accounts.

  ‘Come for
a walk,’ she says.

  We fall into step but keep a respectable distance between us until we’re out of sight of the house, then I feel her small fingers slip into my palm.

  ‘This is horrid, darling,’ she says, ‘simply horrid.’

  I nod because she’s right, it is, but there’s another part of me that’s fearfully glad to be home. The last few years have been a self-inflicted exile and along with the guilt – whose perpetual grinding in the background, like chronic pain, I’m now accustomed to – there is also relief. Greedily, I inhale the scent of damp grass and honeysuckle.

  ‘I telephoned Marcus and the Winter Gardens’ roof is in a desperate state. The orchestra’s presently homeless,’ I tell her.

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry. Thank goodness you’re all still on tour.’

  ‘Yes. But afterwards. What do you think about the orchestra coming here? Everywhere I go, I hear about Glyndebourne. They make a heap of money. I think we should put on a music festival at Hartgrove Hall.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be terribly expensive?’

  ‘Don’t see why. We’d need to tidy up the great hall a bit, but you know how wonderful the acoustics are in there. The orchestra is used to seedy digs as it is.’

  ‘Darling, I think it’s a splendid idea.’

  She kisses me, delighted, and I’m suddenly excited at the prospect. We chatter for an hour about the possibilities. It strikes me that Edie understands the Hartgrove finances far better than anyone else.

  ‘Do you still have that friend at the Bolshoi?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Well, I wondered whether they’d consider doing a few performances here as well. It would be a super thing for the orchestra. Marcus is a horror, but he’s brought the orchestra on wonderfully. Do you think the Bolshoi might do it?’

  ‘They might. Yes. I’m sure they would. You’d put the orchestra in the minstrels’ gallery, I suppose?’

  We’ve been walking for nearly two hours and now we turn towards the house, but before we reach the garden Edie pulls me back.

  ‘Not yet. I’m not ready to put my face on yet. It’s such a relief not to pretend.’

  We sit in the shade of an ancient chestnut, her head on my shoulder, neither of us talking. We do not kiss nor make love. We want to be with one another for the pleasure of conversation and of silence. We commit our greatest betrayal: not sex but intimacy.

  The drive to the station is ghastly. Sal’s eyes are so swollen from crying that she looks as if she’s been beaten.

  ‘Is it her? Is it Edie?’

  ‘No.’

  For once, I’m lying out of kindness. Knowing that I betrayed her won’t help.

  ‘You simply “can’t marry me”.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  I’m not surprised. I’m desperate to confess and unburden myself, but I recognise that any confession would only be a further act of selfishness. I might feel relieved, but Sal undoubtedly would not.

  ‘How can you simply stop loving somebody?’ she asks, reaching for her handkerchief. She gives her eyes another dab.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  My apologies only infuriate her. I give her ten pounds – slipping it into her handbag when she’s not looking – and put her on the train. I drive back to the Hall, and as I climb out of the car my legs are shaking.

  Edie corners me in the drawing room before dinner.

  ‘What did you do?’ she asks, her face pale.

  ‘I broke it off with Sal. I can’t lie any more.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell Jack?’

  She’s so white that I’m frightened for a moment she might faint. I pour her a gin and press it into her hand.

  ‘I am tired of lying, Edie. I love you. I want only you.’

  ‘I can’t tell Jack,’ she says, quietly. ‘I simply can’t.’

  I sit down on the edge of an easy chair with my head in my hands. I notice on the floor by my foot a tear of butterfly wing, like a tiny scrap of patterned wallpaper.

  ‘Idiotically I’d hoped you’d be inspired by my resolve.’

  ‘It’s not the same. You weren’t married to Sal.’

  God knows what the consequences would be of telling Jack but it has to be better than this. The guilt has become an earworm, a tedious tune that I simply can’t stop humming. I suppose I never shall.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m a coward. I can’t do it. I don’t want to hurt him, Harry.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  I can’t bear it when she talks like this. I’m silent for a minute, thinking. Finally, I look up at her and reach for her hand.

  ‘I shan’t say a word. I shall lie and accept the guilt and the cost of those lies as the cost of loving you.’

  Edie stares at me, her face still paper white. ‘Tell Jack – tell him I’m not feeling well.’ She turns and hurries from the room and I hear the sound of her footsteps running up the stairs.

  Ten minutes later, Jack and George appear from the garden.

  ‘Where’s Edie?’ asks Jack, pouring drinks.

  ‘She has a headache,’ I say. ‘I don’t think she’s coming down for dinner.’

  March 2003

  At half past six on Sunday evening, Lucy’s car appeared in the driveway. I watched from the kitchen window as both girls climbed out, Lucy wrapping her arms around Clara who was clearly crying. I hurried to the back door and ushered them into the kitchen. Clara sat down at the table, her head in her hands, and hiccuped with sobs so violent that I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say.

  ‘What is it, my darling? Is it Robin? Is he all right?’ I asked, panicked.

  ‘Robin’s fine,’ said Lucy.

  Clara looked up, her face streaked with tears. ‘You always think everything’s about him.’

  I waited quietly for her sobs to subside.

  ‘Ralph’s left me,’ she said at last.

  ‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Are you? You never liked him.’

  ‘No. And I like him even less now. He’s an execrable man. I’m terribly sorry.’

  She looked so desperate, so unhappy, that I felt something crack in my chest. I’d never wanted her to marry that beastly, smug man. His interest in music was mercurial, a sinister failing in a person. I rummaged through the cupboards and poured three very stiff gin and tonics.

  ‘Where are the children?’ I asked.

  ‘Staying with a friend,’ said Clara. ‘We haven’t told them anything yet. I don’t even know what it is that I am going to tell them. I need some time to think.’

  Her eyes were puffy from crying and she wiped them with a scrap of hankie.

  ‘He’s sleeping with someone else. Says he’s in love with her and wants a divorce. Never meant it to happen. He’s so fucking sorry—’

  Here she started to sob again. Lucy rubbed her back and pressed the gin and tonic upon her.

  ‘Oh Clara,’ I said, sitting down in the chair beside hers and clasping her hand. ‘You’ll be all right. You really will. We’re here to help you. Anything you need. Money. Lawyers.’

  ‘An assassin,’ said Lucy grimly. Evidently, now at least, she disliked Ralph as much as I.

  Clara didn’t seem to hear. ‘An affair. With some woman in Accounting. It’s humiliating. It’s such a bloody cliché.’

  I wished Edie were here. The longing was so fervent it was like a physical pain. Edie would have known what to do. She would have gathered Clara to her, taken her weeping daughter into bed with her, as she did when the girls were small and sick with a fever. Edie sang away all their sorrows, easing them into sleep. With a grimace, I accepted that, even if Edie had been here, this was a sorrow that could not be sung away.

  Clara rubbed her eyes, making them redder still. She’d cried so mu
ch that her eyelids looked bruised and her skin had a waxy translucence.

  ‘Things haven’t been right between us for – oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘We barely see each other. He’s always working and I spend half my life driving Robin to piano lessons in London. And some time while I was stuck in traffic on the A303, Ralph was talking about sales invoices and year-end returns and falling in love with a woman called Angela.’

  ‘It’s not Robin’s fault,’ I said.

  ‘No, of course it isn’t,’ snapped Clara. ‘Ralph and I drifted apart, so far apart that there was space for bloody Angela in Accounting to squeeze into the gap between us.’ She sighed and rubbed her forehead, a tiny crease appearing, a perfect copy of her mother’s. ‘I knew things weren’t right but somehow I was always too tired or busy to do anything about it.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Lucy firmly. ‘You’re making it sound as if it’s your fault and it isn’t.’

  Clara nodded and swallowed, holding back the tears. She slid her empty glass across the table. ‘I want Mum,’ she said and began to cry again.

  I found the pain of seeing her visceral unhappiness quite unbearable. One thinks it must become easier as one’s small, pigtailed daughters grow into self-reliant women with families and smart careers, but it doesn’t. Not a bit. I reached out to pat her hand and then withdrew, unable to offer any solace.

  ‘I’ll run you a bath,’ I said at last. ‘I always ran your mother a bath when she was upset. Gin and a hot bath make everything a bit better, she always said.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ said Lucy. ‘And I’ll come and chat to you while you soak, Clara darling.’

  I left the two of them colluding earnestly in the kitchen and went to draw a bath upstairs. I sat on the edge of the tub – chosen of course by Edie – a cast-iron, clawfoot design, positioned so as to have a splendid view of Hartgrove Hill and the copse. It was dark and a yellow slice of moon dangled low above the ridge.

  I thought of Sal, for the first time in many years. Was I a better man than Ralph? I usually tried hard not to think about Sal. I had behaved too badly. That period of my life had exposed the very worst of me and, as an ordinary coward, I preferred not to dwell on such things. I secreted Sal deep down inside my conscience and did my best to forget about her. I’d never told Clara or Lucy about her. There had never been occasion to. For the first time in decades, I was stricken about the affair – if I ever confided in them, could they forgive me? It didn’t matter, I told myself. There would never be a reason to tell them. And yet, as an owl hooted at the back of the hill and the water thundered against the side of the bath, I knew that it did matter. I didn’t merely want their love, I wanted their absolution.