She smiled across the table at her god-daughter, who grinned back at her.
'I'm almost tempted,' Clio said.
Hester laughed derisively. 'You'd die of boredom in a week. If Lizzie hadn't wanted help you'd have been biting the carpet long since. You need someone to organize.'
Clio made a face. 'I could organize you.'
'No you couldn't,' replied Hester calmly. 'Not now that I can walk and drive again. You know how irritating I am to live with.'
'Well, of course I know that. I can't imagine how Frank copes with you. I suppose it's because you're both so detached and self-contained—' She broke off, thinking of Jonah, and Hester raised her eyebrows interrogatively. 'Jonah said that about you. That you were as detached and serene as a nun.' Clio hesitated. 'I said you'd nearly been one. What happened, Hes? Why didn't you take the veil or whatever you call it?'
There was a short silence.
'I couldn't deal with community life,' said Hester at last. 'I was too arrogant: too self-willed. I had wonderful ideas for reform and the sisters seemed so obdurate and unwilling to contemplate change.' She smiled briefly at a memory. Blaise had once sent her a picture postcard of a flock of sheep, standing immovably in the middle of a moorland road, staring rather balefully towards the camera. On the back he'd written: 'Community life?' He'd understood her difficulties though he'd been sad that she hadn't persisted. 'It's not easy, you know, to surrender yourself wholeheartedly and generously. Whether the relationship is with God or with another person, there's a great deal of giving-up of self involved in it. I couldn't do it.'
'Not for anybody?'
Hester glanced at her, a sharp bright look: 'Are we playing "Truth"?' she asked lightly. 'You didn't warn me first, you know.'
Clio flushed. 'Sorry. It's just interesting to me, especially at the moment, when you talked about surrendering yourself.'
Hester's gaze softened. 'I might have managed it once. But in the end it wasn't required of me. Now let me ask you a question. If Peter were to leave the agency would you be content to continue to work there?'
Clio stared at her, the colour in her cheeks fading as she contemplated her answer. 'No,' she said slowly. 'I don't think so. I'd almost decided to leave when Peter arrived. I felt I'd done it all, if you know what I mean. I wanted something fresh. But then Peter needed help to settle in and it was exciting somehow, showing him the ropes, and then . . . well, so then I stayed,' she finished rather lamely.
'So if he were to go?'
'But why should he go? Or are you asking if I'd go with him?'
She looked confused, as if Hester were posing a difficult question – or even setting some kind of trap – and Hester shook her head.
'There's no hidden agenda here. I simply ask whether you stay for Peter or for the job itself, that's all.'
The telephone bell saved Clio from finding an answer and she jumped up quickly.
'Hello. Oh, hi. How are you? We're fine. Yes, honestly, she's doing really well. Hang on a minute. Hester's right here. It's Amy,' she said, and saw Hester's look of surprise as she took the phone to speak to Patricia's granddaughter.
Carrying her mug to the window, half listening to Hester, Clio stared out into the garden. Away from London, at a distance from her job and from Peter, she was beginning to see just how precarious their relationship was and she was dismayed. No longer mesmerized by the radar-like beam of his personality, she was able to question her feelings for him – or was she simply overreacting because she was hurt by his rather curt cancellation of the trip to Bridge House?
Sipping at her drink, listening to Hester's side of the conversation, Clio was unexpectedly subject to a violent stab of envy for Amy. This was foolish, she told herself. After all, she had no desire to be married to a naval officer, who spent a great deal of time at sea, or to be left at regular intervals with the care of three boisterous children.
Yet Clio knew very well that Amy wouldn't have changed a single thing in her life. She didn't even mind Alan's absences. She'd inherited the family trait of detachment and admitted to being grateful for some space to herself. Amy and Alan had a kind of knockabout, laidback attitude to themselves and their children, supported as they were by a sprawling network of relations.
Clio doubted that she would cope so well in Amy's position – and had said so.
'I'm just doing what I like best,' Amy had responded. 'I couldn't do what you do. Good grief! I wouldn't last five minutes. I know I don't have any brothers or sisters but our house was always full of children. I can't count my cousins, there's so many of them. I was brainwashed from an early age. Not like you, Clio. You're so clear-sighted and focused.'
It was true that her own experience had been very different. Hester's company and influence had given Clio, an only child of peripatetic parents, a sense of self-worth that derived from being independent. Hester had shown her god-daughter that self-esteem was grounded in confidence and encouraged Clio's capabilities in the hope that she would not have to depend on other people's approval to make her feel valuable.
So far Hester's influence had borne good fruit but now Clio wondered if she had become too dependent on Peter, despite the fact that she knew just how peripheral she was to his life. She remembered her disappointment when he'd misread her invitation to Bridge House – and the short, sharp words with which he'd cancelled the visit. Yet his letter had been so full of need and love. Clio was filled with confusion and longing: she must see him again before she could come to any sensible conclusions. She would text him to confirm that she was coming back and await his reaction.
Putting her mug down on the table, leaving Hester to her conversation with Amy, Clio went to find her mobile phone.
Later that evening, after supper, the telephone rang again. This time it was Jonah.
'Just to say thanks again,' he said, 'and wondering if Hester has a few days free any time this month. How are you? Shall I see you too if I come down?'
'I'm going back to London this weekend,' she told him brightly, hoping perversely that he would be disappointed.
'Great,' he said cheerfully. 'Then I'll take you up on that suggestion you made. Is Hester there or are you her social secretary at the moment?'
Clio laughed. 'I can hear it in your voice,' she told him. 'You're convinced that there's a story here, aren't you?'
'Something like that,' he admitted, 'but it's a bit more personal this time.'
'Hang on,' said Clio. 'I'll get Hes and check her diary.'
There was a brief consultation and then Hester took the telephone.
'Hello, Jonah. Have you spoken to Lucy?'
'I have. She says OK.'
'Are you both quite sure?'
'She was a bit shocked at first but she has agreed. I think it's time; she does too. I asked if she'd like to phone you but she says, "Not yet".'
'Very well. This weekend might be difficult. Perhaps the next one?'
'That would be terrific. I could come down on Friday and stay until Tuesday if that's not too long? The thing is, I'm not driving just at present. Will that make difficulties? I can get a taxi out to you, can't I?'
'I shall be able to pick you up from the station,' Hester said. 'I can drive quite well again now.'
'That would be very kind. I'll check train times and phone again. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.'
'So am I,' said Hester. 'Goodbye, Jonah.'
'What was that about driving?' asked Clio suspiciously.
'He isn't, at present.'
'Why not?'
'I didn't ask,' replied Hester serenely. 'It didn't seem relevant.'
Clio snorted. 'Drinking or speeding,' she pronounced. 'Will you be OK?'
'I doubt that I shall be in any danger with Jonah, especially when it comes to speeding or drinking. I'm sure I shall be quite safe.'
'You know what I mean,' said Clio crossly – and went to stack the dishwasher. She was surprised to find that she felt rather put out, as if she were be
ing excluded from something rather special.
CHAPTER NINE
In the little cottage in Litten Terrace, Jerry was preparing to walk into the town to fetch the newspaper. This period of the morning was the best time of the day for him, when he might manage some gardening or letter-writing and, if he were lucky, enjoy a brief respite from pain and the self-defeating weariness that dogged him, sapping his courage. The familiar route to the newsagents – crossing the recreation ground, passing through the park that lay beneath the city walls – generally raised his spirits. This morning he hesitated, watching Lucy who was sitting at the table jotting down an address.
Ever since Jonah's telephone call she'd been slightly distracted and he feared that she might be concealing something. He struggled with a growing anxiety that she was beginning to feel the need to shield him. Jerry stiffened at the thought of it: every instinct fought against such a humiliating prospect. He who had always been the strong one, the protector, was now in a position of weakness and he was finding the process of coming to terms with it very difficult.
He pulled on his jacket, picked up his stick with a hand that was beginning to claw because of the pain in its joints, watching her preoccupied face out of the corner of his eye.
'You've been a bit quiet since Jonah phoned, Luce,' he said at last. 'Are you sure he's OK?'
'He's fine.' She put down her pen, turning to him quickly, reassuringly. 'Honestly. It's just that whilst he was down on Exmoor with Lizzie Blake he came across someone I knew in the war. Hester Mallory. I stayed with her family after Mummy died and before I came here to live with Aunt Mary. I was just amazed at the coincidence and I can't quite get it out of my mind, that's all. And just then I was thinking about Aunt Mary.' This wasn't strictly true but she had no wish to tell him about Jonah's proposed visit to Bridge House – not yet. 'Do you remember when you first met her, Jerry?'
'Of course I do.' He put his keys in his pocket and came back into the room. 'She was very kind to me.'
'And to me. I don't know what would have happened to me without Aunt Mary. You don't regret that we stayed with her? Lots of young men wouldn't have been able to cope with a crotchety, sick old woman in the first months of their marriage.'
'I think we all managed very well and, anyway, it would have been a pretty poor show to leave her alone after all those years she'd looked after you.'
Lucy smiled at him: Aunt Mary had approved of Jerry.
'He's tough,' she'd said. 'Don't underestimate him, Lucy, or mistake his kindness for weakness. He's a good man.'
'What are you smiling at?' Jerry asked.
'I was thinking about the Lambert Barnard paintings in the cathedral,' she said, lying to him for the second time. 'And the way we met.'
He laughed, forgetting his anxieties. 'Ah yes. Good old Barnard. All those Bishops of Chichester looking exactly alike.'
She got up suddenly and went to him, putting her arms around him and holding him tightly.
'I've had an idea,' she said, looking up at him. 'Why don't we go out this morning? In the car, I mean. We could go to Stansted House and give Tess a walk and then have coffee and one of those delicious caramel slices in the tearoom. Shall we? You always say that all your beastly drugs and tablets ruin your breakfast coffee. It's such a lovely morning and this weather can't last much longer.'
She spoke so pleadingly that he was touched. It didn't always occur to him to acknowledge the ways in which this wretched disease had closed down on their lives. Most of the time he was too busy struggling with his physical deterioration, the aftereffects of the drugs and the bouts of depression, which were so contrary to his natural disposition.
'Why not?' he said. 'I'll drive. I feel up to it this morning. We'll pick up a newspaper on the way.'
She didn't make a fuss or argue with him: asking him if he were sure it wouldn't tire him too much. She simply nodded, gave him a quick kiss and went away to call Tess in from the garden. Jerry took a deep breath, his spirits rising. All was well.
Sitting beside him as they drove out through Chichester, heading west, Lucy was still thinking about the Barnard paintings. She'd seized on them by chance, seeking to distract him from questions about Hester, and then found that the memory had been so fresh, so strong, that she'd been overwhelmed by her feelings. Suddenly it seemed to her that to spend the morning apart would be a terrible waste; that there might not be so many sunny mornings left to share. This was not a new idea. Ever since systemic lupus erythematosus and Hughes syndrome had been diagnosed, and they'd been made aware of the implications of the disease, they'd both bravely resolved to try to maintain a positive attitude.
This morning, looking at Jerry, she'd remembered the young, strong fellow she'd met in the cathedral quite by chance nearly forty years before. The memory, rather than saddening her, had filled her with an odd sense of revitalization: a strong feeling that nothing – not even this terrible disease – could destroy the true essence of those two people who had once gazed at the paintings together. As she looked sideways at him, at the tweed sleeve of his jacket, she recalled that this was the first thing she'd noticed about him: his tweed-covered arm holding the guidebook.
She sees him out of the corner of her eye, standing to one side and very slightly behind her. This morning she's come into the cathedral on a whim, seeking some kind of inner strength from that deep-down peacefulness that is the natural result of nine hundred years of prayer. It's not that caring for her frail aunt is particularly demanding, it's just that sometimes she feels very lonely in the little cottage in Litten Terrace and then she is overwhelmed by a need to be a part of the bustle and activity in the town. Once she's settled Aunt Mary with a book and a cup of coffee she has a little time to herself: to potter in the town, do some shopping and go to the library. Today she is drawn into the cathedral, wandering in the quiet aisles, pausing in the north transept to look at the sixteenth-century paintings of the Bishops of Chichester by Lambert Barnard. After a moment she becomes aware of someone nearby, holding a guidebook.
Glancing round she is struck by the expression on the young man's face. It is one of an almost comical dismay. He looks at her, ready to share his surprise.
'It's a bit odd, isn't it?' He's lowered his voice to a kind of respectful whisper. 'Have you noticed? All the faces are exactly the same!'
He nods towards the paintings, clearly baffled, and she can't help chuckling at his astonishment. He looks at her more closely, rather as if he has discovered something else of interest apart from the paintings.
'I'm new to all this,' he says, slightly on the defensive, brandishing his guidebook. 'I've just moved from Surrey. I work at the new college over in Westgate Fields, in the science department, and I'm finding my way around before term starts officially. Gerald Faringdon.' He holds out his hand, as if to show that he isn't trying to pick her up but is anxious to put this meeting on to a respectable level at once, and she takes it, liking his open, good-humoured face and broad shoulders.
'I'm Lucy Scott,' she says. 'I live with my aunt over the other side in Litten Terrace. How do you like Chichester?'
She's glad now that she decided to change into her new apple-green linen shift dress and the pretty sling-back shoes before she came out, her long thick brown hair brushed so that the ends flick up à la Jackie Kennedy. She'd been rather pleased with the overall effect and now, looking at him a little shyly, it is clear to her that he appreciates it too.
They stroll away together, talking casually, neither of them quite knowing how to make the next move. As they come out into the bright sunshine they each covertly take stock of the other. She likes the look of his crinkly reddish fair hair and bright blue eyes. He has a reassuringly kind smile but he is stocky and well-built – and there is a natural confidence in his straightforward gaze and the set of his shoulders that appeals to her.
He glances down West Street, towards Market Cross, jingling the coins in his pocket.
'I was planning to have some coffee
,' he says. 'Do you fancy a cup? I saw a rather jolly place on my way here. Just across the road down there. Very old, I gather. It's in my guidebook but I expect you could tell me all about it.'
So it is that they find themselves having coffee in the Dolphin and Anchor Hotel: the first of many meetings.
Now, she would have liked to touch his arm, cover his poor clawed hand on the wheel, but she restrained the impulse. Jerry had never been able to respond easily to impulsive, loving gestures; kind, yes, and always thoughtful for her security, he wasn't an emotional man. Affection, in his experience, was shown in deeds, not in flowery speeches and romantic gestures. Love was demonstrated by keeping the car properly serviced, bills being paid on time and sensible precautions taken for the future. In these ways he cared for her and protected her. There were moments of tenderness – generally after he'd had a pint or a gin and tonic when his self-control was relaxed a little – and he had an oddball sense of humour and a passion for modern jazz that had sustained a youthful liveliness. Lately, however, he'd begun to suspect unpremeditated acts of affection as manifestations of her pity and, as a result of the terrible thrice-daily cocktail of medication, he could be irritable and moody.
She wanted to say to him: 'We haven't really changed, not deep down inside, have we? We still carry with us those two people, the Jerry and Lucy who stood together in front of Barnard's paintings,' but she knew that he would not be able to confirm her instinct that the true essence of the human spirit is unchanged by age or suffering. He might remember the occasion with affection but he would feel uncomfortable if she were to press the subject further.
Instead she sat back in her seat, thinking now about Jonah.
'It was so strange,' he'd said. 'First, you mentioning Hester's name, then finding that Piers has known the family for ever, and then this girl Clio telling me that she's her god-daughter. It was just so bizarre that I felt that it was meant, if you know what I mean?'
His voice had been almost pleading, willing her to understand and not be cross, but she'd been surprised by an oddly peaceful sense of inevitability.
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