This was no time for saying “I told you so!” though Arnold could not help remembering the many times when he had told her so: had warned her of the harm she might be doing to her aged protegé by her headlong encouragement of his every whim. “Don’t you realise you’re endangering his very life?” he recalled saying to her on one of these occasions.
“So what?” she’d retorted. “If he dies of having fun, of enjoying himself, of doing his own thing, isn’t that better than ending up in a geriatric ward with tubes sticking out of him while they cut off one leg after another? Isn’t it?”
Of course it is, she was right, as anyone would agree. On the other hand she was wrong (as anyone would also agree) in what she was actually doing.
What was the right thing to say, now it was all over, now it had all happened? He sensed that on this occasion, of genuine grief and shock, he probably wouldn’t get jumped on every time he spoke. She would listen. He actually had it in his power to console her in some degree. Console her for the loss of her baby, and for the simultaneous loss of the ancient scholar who had so mysteriously become so close a friend. Often, Arnold had asked himself how much she really cared about the old man, and how much she simply wanted to put everyone else in the wrong, to show up the experts as a bunch of fools. A bit of both, perhaps; but her grief for him now was genuine enough, and seemed bound up inextricably with the grief for her lost baby.
“He loved me,” she told Arnold after Mildred had gone downstairs to seek a cup of tea, “a wonderful magic kind of love with no sex in it at all. I was the Queen, you see, he worshipped and adored me just for that, not for being pretty or clever or sexy or anything. I’ve never been loved like that before, and I never will be again, because it just doesn’t happen nowadays. Nowadays, love without sex is kind of kinky, but it wasn’t then. I’ve had something that no one else of my generation has ever had, or ever will.”
She paused, her eyes bright with tears; then continued:
“The most wonderful moment of all was when he learned that I was pregnant. I didn’t tell him, I’d have been kind of embarrassed, but I suppose he must have heard me telling Joyce about it – anyway, he was quite beside himself with joy, he was convinced that I was carrying the heir to the throne, and it made me the most important person on earth. I’ll never be as important as that again – ever. And don’t give me all that stuff about it not being real, because it was real. Our feelings were real, his and mine. You weren’t the one who was feeling them, so you can’t understand.”
She was dead right, he couldn’t. But again he kept silent, waiting, and she continued – dreamily, now, perhaps because the sedative they’d given her was beginning to take effect:
“Sometimes he thought I’d already had the baby, sometimes not. His spirit was so agile, you know, in the Time dimension, he could slide effortlessly in this direction or in that, and always be at ease in the bit of time he found himself in. That’s why you called him mad. People who can establish a creative, on-going relationship with Time – soothsayers and prophets and so on – always seem mad to those who can’t.
“And now he’s gone … and my baby’s gone. They’ve gone together. Perhaps that’s good? Perhaps it’s right that they should have gone that way …?”
Perhaps it was; but it did not prevent Flora collapsing now into bitter and heartfelt tears.
*
Presently Mildred came back, and it was Arnold’s turn to go down to the canteen. Mildred’s brief and joyous sortie into grandmotherhood, with all its hopes and dreams, was at an end, and the disappointment rendered her almost as tearful as her daughter. Miraculously, for the first time in years, the two of them were in each other’s arms, mourning their loss together.
Until that is, Sister came by to check Flora’s temperature chart, and cast a resigned and experienced eye over the little scene.
“Now, come along, Mrs Walters,” she admonished. “We mustn’t upset our patient, must we?” and then, more kindly, as Mildred scrambled to her feet, she added in a lower voice: “Now, don’t worry, Mrs Walters. They’re always a bit weepy on the second day. She’ll be just fine by the end of the week, you see.”
And indeed this proved to be the case. With the end of the week there arrived, quite unexpectedly, the errant Trev, unnaturally washed and brushed, wearing a suit, and correspondingly ill at ease. He introduced himself to Arnold and Mildred as “Trevor”, making it sound like a stage-name so unfamiliar was it on his lips. He even addressed Arnold as “Sir”.
It was all very sudden. Surely he could have phoned, Arnold reflected? Still, the boy did seem to be genuinely concerned. He had at least bothered to come all this way, and had contrived to dress up in what for him must have been fancy-dress in order – presumably – to make a favourable impression on these two specimens of the dreaded species “parents”. By the time the somewhat stilted introductions were over, and the young man had been despatched to seek Flora in her room, Arnold found himself gravely doubting Flora’s throwaway assertion that the baby wasn’t Trevor’s at all; and – even less plausibly in Arnold’s view – that her lover would actually welcome the notion that the baby wasn’t his? Had she just been showing-off, trying to shock her staid and not-with-it father?
He would never know. And, anyway, there wasn’t any baby now; and when the couple re-appeared, with arms round each other, it was clear that something or other had been sorted out between them, to the satisfaction of both.
But what? For the first time in weeks, Arnold faced head-on the problem which had floated through his mind, on and off, ever since Flora had shown herself so efficient at running the Tea Room. One day, she would leave. Well, of course she would; and what concerned and caring father could possibly hope otherwise? That an attractive and intelligent twenty-year-old girl should be content to stay in a pin-money job like this for ever was ludicrous. It would be a wicked waste of her abilities, and no concerned and caring father could possibly wish for such an outcome.
All the same, this new development did put him in a dilemma. The problem was no longer vaguely located somewhere in the future, it was here and now. Any day now Flora and her newly-attentive boyfriend would be announcing their departure – back to the squat, maybe, or maybe some place else – and he would have to cope with the Tea Room on his own, including the vagaries of Pauline and Tracey.
Various options flitted through his mind during the uneasy days before Flora’s inevitable departure. The option he toyed with to begin with was the possibility that he might ask Joyce to marry him and thus to take over an appropriate share of the married couple that he was supposed to be. Now that her father was dead and she was a free agent – maybe feeling lonely? – she might be quite pleased to go along with such a proposal. No harm in trying, anyway. The worst that could happen was that she might say, “No”.
But wait: the worst that could happen, he suddenly and disconcertingly realised, was that she might say, “Yes”. The way his heart sank at the prospect was quite disconcerting, and he tried to puzzle out why this should be. There were, of course, all the doubts and uncertainties that anyone might feel at such a plunge into the unknown; but over and above all this was the realisation of how sorely he would miss those regular little trips to the kiosk for his elevenses. Walking along the main avenue in a state of pleasant anticipation, on grey misty mornings and on sunny mornings filled with birdsong, under the canopy of great trees – this was part of the structure of his life by now. Why should he sacrifice so reliable and constant a source of happiness for the sake of so hazardous and time-consuming an enterprise as marriage?
Besides, he would have to divorce Mildred first, and think what a performance that would be! Lawyers – tears – furniture – letters: going on and on, for months and months, if his friends’ divorces were anything to go by … No.
Well, how about the only remaining option – that of begging Mildred to come back to him? That would save divorcing her, certainly; and of course it might work this time, if
they both tried, really hard. But once again his heart sank at the prospect. All that trying, and then at the end of it just being married to Mildred all over again? The prospect was daunting. Still, the possibility was there, it couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. On and off he turned it over in his mind, sometimes optimistically; more often with a deepening sense of gloom.
Actually, he could have saved himself all this agonising, for as it turned out there was no chance at all of Mildred agreeing to any such project. She had other fish to fry, as Joyce might have said. Did say, in fact, when she finally heard the news, but by then (as she went on to remark) the die was cast.
Meantime, there was Sir Humphrey’s funeral to be got through; and after the other mourners had left (not many, for Sir Humphrey had outlived every one of his contemporaries; and even his students, who had once sat in lecture-halls hanging on the great man’s every word, were many of them finding travel difficult by now, what with their arthritis and their heart-problems and their cataract operations) after it was all over, Arnold, Joyce and Flora repaired to Joyce’s cottage to revive their flagging spirits and chilled limbs with hot coffee. It had been cold around the grave-side, with a north-east wind blowing little gusts of rain and wet, yellow leaves across the upturned earth.
Not until they reached the shelter of Joyce’s small home did conversation begin to flow at all freely. Anecdotes, reminiscences and tentative plans for the future were bandied back and forth, in the course of which Flora revealed her intention of leaving Emmerton Hall at the end of next week. She would, she said, be joining up with Trev again. Not at the squat, though, they were through with all that. They were both going to get proper jobs, and move into a place of their own. Arnold, listening, could only pray that all this might come about, and that what Flora meant by a “proper” job might bear some faint resemblance to what her father might have conceived as a suitable career for his daughter.
Joyce, at the moment, had no plans. She realised, of course, that from now on she would be free, but she didn’t know yet what freedom tasted like and so was understandably wary. Also, she was deeply grieved by the loss of her father, burdensome and exhausting though the care of him had been during these last years. But she, of course, remembered him also as he was in his prime, and her tears fell fast. Soon Flora too was weeping. As often happens in the aftermath of a tragedy, the survivors find themselves reflecting sadly on how different the outcome might have been if only they, the near and dear ones, had behaved quite otherwise than they did while their loved one was alive.
“If only I’d watched over him better, if only I’d never taken my eyes off him!” sobbed Joyce; and: “If only everyone hadn’t watched over him all the time, if only he’d been left free to do his own thing!” sobbed Flora; and neither of them seemed to be noticing the contradiction. Which was just as well; it would have been a pity to start an argument at a time like this. Such a futile argument, too.
A second argument was only barely averted. It concerned the manner of Sir Humphrey’s death; Flora, predictably, having claimed that he had died a hero’s death, fighting for his Queen. Arnold had had to exert all his self-control to refrain from pointing out that he hadn’t died fighting at all, let alone for any Queen: he had merely been deluding himself.
And yet (Arnold reflected later) haven’t countless heroes throughout history died likewise in pursuance of a delusion? The early Christian martyrs? Antigone? Joan-of-Arc? Were their deaths any the less heroic, or less significant, for this reason? Nobody has the answer.
*
The day came, early in the following week, when Flora was finally leaving Emmerton Hall. The newly-reconstituted Trevor would be calling for her soon after lunch in a borrowed car, and Arnold sat with his daughter among her miscellaneous belongings, rammed into cardboard boxes and back-pack, waiting for the sound of wheels on gravel. The Tea Room, right now, was the least of his concerns. After all, the season was just about over. From the end of October, the place would be closed, and the problem of the Teas in abeyance. No, what was oppressing his spirit now was the realisation that in spite of their abrasive relationship and the endless arguments – perhaps even because of them? – he was going to miss his daughter to a quite surprising degree. And the saddest part was that, in spite of the long hours they had inevitably spent in one another’s company, there was still no real understanding between them. Her way of looking at the world was still as incomprehensible and as irritating to him as it had ever been – and his, presumably, to her.
It was some minutes since either of them had spoken, except for brief and practical exchanges such as “Have you seen my Marty Flanagan tape?” and “Don’t you want to take your plastic egg-timer?” But now, during the uneasy last minutes, Flora suddenly looked up.
“You know something. Dad? I’ve liked being here!” There was a note of wonder in her voice, as if this fact had only just dawned on her: and then she added: “I might come back in the spring. For weekends, anyway. It depends.” And then, after yet another pause, “I might be pregnant again by then, who knows?” And she gave a little laugh, but a gentle, affectionate one this time, not at all like the hard, mocking one to which she so often treated him.
The surge of car-wheels on gravel brought further confidences to an end, and a few minutes later Arnold was standing at the main gates of the Estate watching the battered old Ford gathering speed towards the main road, carrying his only daughter towards – what? Happiness? Disaster? Poverty? Riches? A broken heart? A stable ongoing love affair?
“It depends,” she’d said; and “I might be pregnant again by then.”
Anything might happen to her. Anything.
*
Had it always been like this for parents, watching a beloved child plunging headlong into the precarious, unpredictable world, apparently without a thought for its dangers, and without the smallest sense of needing any guidance through the uncharted maze of the future? Or was it that much worse for parents of today, because they can do nothing? Having surrendered all authority, having allowed “duty” to become a dirty word, and having given up every right to coerce, to command, or even to advise, they are left like Cassandra, aware of all the potential disasters that may lie ahead, yet without the power to warn.
But wait. Supposing he, a typically helpless modern parent, suddenly found himself magically endowed with all those Victorian powers to command, to coerce and to advise, how exactly would he use them? What would he order Flora to do right now? He shuddered to think of it. The responsibility, the awful burden of having to be right, would crush him into the ground.
No, it wouldn’t be easier. It would merely be hard in a different way. Perhaps there isn’t an easy way? Why should there be? When you bring a child into the world, no one offers you a money-back guarantee of satisfaction. You just have to be lucky. You knew that all along.
Oh, well. He must go and give the flat a good clean-up, Flora’s hasty and impulsive preparations for departure having left everything in chaos. But at least she had called him “Dad” during those final minutes. And had said that she’d “liked being here”. Warmed through and through by these final exchanges, he turned and set off across the courtyard, where the October sunshine still lay along the South Wall, and the stones were still warm to the touch; and where the waters of the fountain were astir with dancing streaks of light.
*
Anything might happen to Flora. Yes, indeed. But so might anything happen to him. Meantime, here he was, today, in the place he loved, and doing the job he loved. Luck had been with him, beyond his wildest expectation.
He stood for a moment, taking it all in: the battlements of the East Wing silhouetted against the shining blue … the mullioned windows … the ancient cobbles beneath his feet: and once again the magic of the place engulfed him. Problems in the Tea Room? Harder problems than these had been tackled within these walls. The power and endurance of centuries were embedded in these stones, and he was partaking of them, just by living here. Ye
s, living here. The miracle had come about. He was here, in Emmerton Hall, it was his home. Going under this ancient Tudor arch, under the Tudor lions, he was going home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gordon pulled out yet another bundle of yellowing papers from Sir Humphrey’s desk, and untied the knotted string with which it was secured. It was good of Sir Humphrey’s daughter, Joyce, to be letting him have this total access to her deceased father’s papers – indeed, it was ironic in a way, because she seemed to feel that he was doing her a favour by taking over the sorting of this daunting quantity of material, the scholarly relics of so long and assiduously productive a life. A titanic task it was indeed going to be – and of course Joyce didn’t know that he had any personal motive for undertaking it. She didn’t realise – and he hadn’t chosen to enlighten her – that he, Gordon, was the very same person who, some while ago, had been urgently, vehemently requesting, by letter and by telephone, just this sort of access; which she, at that time, had just as vehemently denied him. “When my father has passed on, it will be a different matter,” she’d said, “but while he’s still with us, I cannot possibly give permission for this sort of thing; and that’s the end of the matter.”
And so, infuriatingly, it had proved to be. Gordon had had to grit his teeth and endure the sight of his own long-ago thesis printed almost word-for-word in a prestigious Ameirican historical journal, under Sir Humphrey’s name. Causing quite a gratifying stir, too, in the academic world. Lively controversy had been aroused by this startling assemblage of hitherto unregarded evidence to the effect that the ill-starred Mary Tudor, the “Bloody Mary” of the history books, might indeed have borne a son, whose existence was instantly and frantically suppressed by the burgeoning Protestant forces who feared above all things a Catholic succession to the throne. With bitterness and frustration, Gordon looked back across the decades to the passionate and committed student he had once been. He remembered still the mounting excitement with which he had worked on this B. Litt. thesis, piecing together obscure and little-known scraps of evidence from contemporary records which, taken together, had seemed to him to provide a substantial measure of credibility to this maverick hypothesis of his concerning Queen Mary’s allegedly non-existent baby. In particular, he recalled the heady triumph with which he had deciphered some ancient records of the small village of Hedlington, and which turned out to include a brief reference to a certain Susan Snape, the childless wife of a poor corn-chandler, who had suddenly given birth to a baby boy “a great miracle, she beforehand having been in no wise great with child.” The date was right: the sudden change of fortune for this hitherto impoverished family was notably consistent with the possibility of bribery from high places.
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