After Clare

by Marjorie Eccles

  If she lifted the frame from the wall and turned it over Emily knew she would see, written on the back in their mother’s extravagantly looped handwriting, ‘My dearest girls: Clare and Emily.’

  She stood rooted to the spot, unable to take her eyes from the image of Clare, the evening sun making a nimbus of light around her, surrounding her with mystery. Clare looked fairy-like – even fragile sometimes, but those who knew her had been all too aware of that core of something dark and inflexible running through her, like a vein of iron through marble.

  ‘What happened, Clare?’ she whispered at last. ‘What happened?’

  But Clare was not there to answer. There were only shadows, the curtain swaying gently in the breeze, the reflection of the room in the big glass, and the mute drawing of the two little girls as they had been then, half a century ago.

  Four

  ‘Yes, it’s all going to go splendidly on the day, I’m sure, but arranging a wedding is simply too exhausting,’ remarked the mother of the bride-to-be at the Steadings dinner table that evening. ‘So enervating. So much to do.’

  ‘Is that why you’re looking so pale?’ Dirk asked her in an urgent undertone. ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘Of course not. It must be the hot weather,’ Stella replied, flashing him a social smile that held a warning. ‘Perhaps we might have the window open wider, Benson?’ As the manservant attended to it, Stella cast a glance towards her husband, but Gerald, genial as always, was being the attentive host, keeping an eye on the guests’ wine glasses, ensuring they were filled, whilst politely trying to make headway with Marta Heeren.

  Marta, never much of a conversationalist at the best of times, was feeling more than usually dumbstruck under the eyes of Lavinia, Hugh’s late wife, a stately beauty with magnificent Edwardian shoulders and a pearl choker round her neck, who seemed to be looking down her patrician nose at Marta from her portrait on the wall, demoralizing her further every time she looked up. I am fifty-four years old, an old maid, she thought, and though I am only one spinster among countless numbers nowadays, it does not make me feel any better, nor any more attractive. I am becoming stout. Neither do I know how to dress.

  Her maroon cloqué, though nodding vaguely to fashion, had somehow missed the mark, and compared with the matriarch in the portrait, and with Stella, thin and chic as always, not to mention her daughter, Dee, she knew only too well how frumpy she looked. Even Lady Fitzallan – perhaps especially Emily Fitzallan, in her sixties, put her in the shade. Although more than her clothes, it was something else that made people light up when Emily was around. Marta had never been like that, or perhaps once, when she had been in love. Long, long ago, when a young itinerant man on his way to nowhere, playing the fiddle to earn his bread as he did so, had been brought to the house to tune the piano. When he had finished, he had taken her out into the garden, across the stepping stones and into the buttercup field . . .

  She barely allowed the memory to enter her mind nowadays, and tried to think of some sparkling witticism to engage Gerald’s attention, but he and Hamish had begun an amiable debate on the relative merits of single malt and blended Scotch whisky. Marta silently polished off her mutton and accepted more potatoes.

  Steadings was a relatively modern house compared with Leysmorton. It was only a hundred or so years old, and Stella, its present chatelaine now that Hugh had turned it over to Gerald, had been allowed to bring it up-to-date. She had rid the house of its red plush and mahogany, the pampas grass and palms of the last decades, and introduced modern wallpapers and white paint – except for the dining room, where Hugh had requested that nothing be changed. In here remained the chairs designed for weighty Georgian gentlemen, a seven-foot-long sideboard and a table which would, its leaves extended, seat thirty or more. Markhams long dead eyed each other across the walls, as they had over sumptuous meals taken here for generations.

  This meal, however, was simple compared to those interminable, gargantuan, pre-war feasts, merely a memory now. But there were still candles on the table, pretty flowers, a manservant to wait on the guests, an attentive host and excellent wine.

  A wondrous raspberry pavlova appeared, crisp, light, fluffy and topped with whipped cream. ‘Delicious. But I really must pass on this,’ Emily murmured. The mutton, though tender, had been filling. The asparagus soup had been enriched with cream. But it was not that which made it impossible to eat any more, rather the inappropriate, disconcerting recollection which had come to her suddenly, out of the blue, of the hollow-cheeked, one-armed ex-serviceman selling bootlaces who had accosted her in London. She had bought half a dozen pairs of laces she didn’t need, and in addition had pressed a pound note into his hand. He had looked at her with contempt, as if he might have thrown it back, but he had taken it.

  She pushed the unsettling memory away and watched the ruin of the culinary work of art as it went round the table. ‘I see the war hasn’t deprived you of a splendid cook, Hugh.’

  ‘Oh, Stella’s very particular about the food she serves.’

  ‘To other people, perhaps? Her little dog seems to be getting more of her dinner than she is.’

  ‘Nasty, spoilt little brute. Chu Chin Chow! Ought not to be allowed at table.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Emily was not enamoured of the pop-eyed, snuffly little Peke either. ‘But he seems content to stay out of the way—’

  ‘Lose the use of his legs, he will, one day – if he hasn’t already – forever on her lap or tucked under her arm.’

  Emily laughed and turned to her other neighbour, that nice child, Rosie.

  Rosie was saying, ‘I don’t suppose I should have had any of this, either, but raspberries are absolutely my favourite thing. My mother says I’ll get fat, which is true because I do like food, and it would be just another burden.’

  Another burden? At her age? Emily hid her smile. Rosie was still at the age when such things mattered tremendously, when one is often at a loose end with life, uncertain of oneself and what to do about one’s future. She appeared to be convinced at the moment that she was neither clever nor pretty, and Emily suspected neither her mother nor her sister made much effort to disabuse her of this. From what she had seen of Rosie so far, however, she believed that she might be too much of a Markham to allow it to develop into an inferiority complex.

  Dee was a little minx, just now concealing her boredom and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, blonde and petite in her pale, modestly-cut frock, appropriate for a bride-to-be, with no pre-wedding nerves, or any that showed. Her fiancé couldn’t take his eyes off her. Hamish Erskine was a tall, raw-boned Scot with ginger hair and eyebrows, a big nose. Unprepossessing looks, but an amiable disposition – money, too, which must have been an added attraction.

  The conversation had returned inevitably to the wedding – there was less than a week now before the great day – and if they could possibly hope for a continuation of this marvellous summer weather. Rosie, who was trying not to dwell on primrose crêpe-de-Chine, jumped as her father said across the table, ‘Never mind, you’ll be next, Rosie-posy.’

  ‘Dad!’ He seemed to have forgotten that his childhood name for her was absolutely forbidden, but she forgave him. ‘No one will ever want to marry me. I shall probably end up learning shorthand and typewriting and become a lady stenographer.’ Everyone laughed, the conversation moved on, but Rosie hadn’t sounded as though she was entirely joking.

  Dear me! thought Emily. ‘Well, Rosie, before you submit your fate to that, maybe you’d like to help me with an idea I have had about my garden.’

  ‘Your garden? That sounds like a jolly idea,’ Rosie replied, instantly thinking of spades and forks and all that surplus energy she seemed to have been given and didn’t know what to do with. ‘But why me? What I know about gardening could be written on a penny stamp. Tom Hayter would be scandalized if I offered to do anything more than dead-head the flowers – and then only under his supervision.’

  Emily smiled, recalling t
he fearful symmetry of Hayter’s borders here at Steadings. ‘All gardeners become frightfully proprietary, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Have you decided to stay at Leysmorton then, Lady Fitzallan?’ Rosie asked, looking as though the thought pleased her. ‘They said you’d only be here for the wedding.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll stay a little longer.’

  ‘Well, of course I’d be glad to help you, though I can’t see what use I can be.’

  ‘We all have to learn, and I’m sure you’re a young woman with ideas,’ Emily said, thinking of the project she had in mind. ‘Come over, when all the dust has settled after the wedding – you mustn’t spoil your hands for that – and we’ll sort something out.’

  Rosie met the glance of her grandfather, following all this with amused interest, and realized she was not expected to refuse. Lady F was used to people obeying her. But Rosie liked her, she had nothing else to do, and it might be fun.

  Across the hothouse peaches Stella sipped her wine and toyed with a few grapes. Nervy, brittle as glass, thin as a stick in a midnight blue, bias-cut dress against which glowed a modern – and no doubt expensive – jewelled and enamelled dress clip in peacock colours. She had seemed somewhat subdued all evening, very pale, perhaps as exhausted by the wedding preparations as she claimed. Emily’s glance had rested from time to time on her and on Dirk, seated next to her and not wearing his glasses, and registered how carefully, excessively polite they were to each other, repeatedly meeting each other’s glances and then looking quickly away. So that’s the way of it. Another complication. An explanation, perhaps, of Dirk’s apparent reluctance to return to live at Leysmorton. Dangerous proximity?

  If she did decide to take up permanent residence at Leysmorton again – and Emily had begun to acknowledge that the idea had been getting under her skin ever since she entered its gates; she had found herself lovingly stroking certain pieces of furniture and assessing where refurbishment was needed, and eyeing parts of the garden with speculation – if she came back to live here she could see difficulties springing up before her like daisies in a lawn. Unthinkable to ask Dirk and his sister to leave, but it might turn out equally unthinkable to live with either.

  Five

  ‘Oh my dear, isn’t she simply too lovely for words?’

  ‘One would expect nothing less of Diana – or indeed of Stella.’

  The great-aunts, Hugh’s sisters, nodded in agreement as the organ music swelled and Dee made the entrance she had planned, walking down the aisle on the arm of her father and receiving the gratifying response she had confidently assumed. A collective gasp of admiration spread through the assembled congregation and handkerchiefs went to eye corners at this vision of virginal loveliness – at the bridesmaids behind her, a shimmering column of gold, at the six-year-old flower girl looking so sweet, and the young page, very manly in his miniature Highland dress.

  ‘So like dear Lavinia – such a pity she isn’t here to see.’

  ‘Let us not get carried away, Jane, we all have to go sometime. Think of the fortune this Scotchman is heir to,’ stage-whispered Aunt Dorothy, Lady Dedington. ‘Whisky, of course, but one can’t be too particular nowadays—’

  ‘A castle in Inverness! Such a romance!’ breathed Aunt Jane, who had once nearly kicked over the traces and married a curate.

  ‘Shhhh!’

  The aunts subsided.

  The congregation, still war-weary, had embraced this non-austerity wedding with open arms and dressed to the nines. Stella, slender within the cleverly cut folds of heavy, Hindu brown slub silk, with a Reboux hat from Paris swathed in modish veiling, her long blonde summer fur dripping luxuriously over one shoulder, outshone them all. But who could also help noticing the black-haired girl with the Cleopatra fringe in that daring tangerine and black frock, accompanied by the stocky young man who looked as though he wished he wasn’t there? As for me, I’m in company with the dowagers now, thought Emily, in her dove grey silk. She could afford the irony: the outfit was, after all, Paquin, and her diamond earrings, though small, were of the first water.

  The bridal procession reached Hamish and his best man at the altar and he stepped forward to meet Dee, his ears bright red, nervous but suitably impressive in the Erskine tartan, his black jacket with silver buttons and his war medals, and a skean-dhu stuck into the top of his stocking. Having relinquished Dee’s train, Rosie relieved the littlest bridesmaid of the burden of her flower basket and held the two children’s hands so that neither would become restless. Emily made a note to tell her how charming she looked, how pretty her red-gold hair, and to find a way of commenting discreetly that two of the other bridesmaids were only slightly less tall than she was. The best man produced the ring on time, Miss Pilgrim managed ‘The voice that breathed o’er Eden’ very well, considering the organ needed new stops.

  A radiant Dee emerged into the sunshine half an hour later as Mrs Hamish Erskine.

  It had rained the day before and the weather had turned cooler, but it was bright enough to hold the reception in the immaculate garden at Steadings, where the striking-looking pair whom Emily – and everyone else – had remarked on in church introduced themselves to her. So this was Poppy Drummond and her brother Valentine, the little boy to whom she had sent occasional presents on Paddy’s behalf, and who had sent such stiff, polite little letters back. He seemed awkward, perhaps moody, unlike his sister, who smiled and talked a lot and had a tinkling laugh. She is too determined to please, thought Emily, alerted, which I shouldn’t think is her usual style. She was rather relieved when, after a while, with a look from under her eyelids at her brother, the girl left them and drifted off to be immediately surrounded by several young men.

  Valentine turned out not to be moody at all, simply harassed by the formal wedding clothes which seemed not to fit him too well, and slightly constrained, for some reason, in the presence of his sister. After she left, he smiled at Emily, found her a seat on the terrace, brought her strawberries, and then relaxed and began to talk naturally, encouraged by her interest. She drew him out and learned that he had survived the war, and was not long down from Oxford. Relaxing even more, he confessed when she asked what he was doing now, that he had written a novel, which to tell the truth had been rejected by the Markham Press, then immediately looked annoyed with himself for having said so much.

  ‘Sorry, you don’t want to hear about that. I’ve drunk too much of this stuff,’ he said, setting down his champagne glass on the stone balustrade. He looked hot and tugged at his tie. ‘What I’d give for a beer!’ His eyes followed Rosie as she once more took charge of the page and the little bridesmaid, who were rushing about, hot and overexcited, too full of ice-cream, and changed the subject. ‘I say, she’s a topping sort of girl, Rosie, isn’t she? Oh Lord, look out, here’s her father.’ He looked wildly around, but Gerald was intercepted by a great-aunt. ‘Lucky escape.’

  ‘From Gerald? Why should you want to avoid Gerald?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t, not really. Well, yes, of course, my book. I’m a fool, I shouldn’t have said anything about that – told you I’d had too much bubbly.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure he won’t embarrass you by mentioning it in front of other people.’

  ‘Might be better if he did, perhaps – talk about it, I mean. To me, anyway. I’d like to know where I’ve gone wrong, and all that. Where I go from here.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a word with Dirk?’

  ‘Stronglove?’ His glance followed Emily’s, to where Dirk was basking in the admiration of two of his lady readers. ‘Oh, mine’s not his sort of book at all.’

  ‘Nevertheless, he must know a thing or two, to be as successful as he is.’

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ he replied uncertainly. His eyes strayed again to Rosie, who caught his eye, smiled, blushed and looked away.

  This young man interested Emily. ‘Come down and stay with me. I should like to get to know you better – on my own as well as Paddy’s behalf. Next week?’ she said impulsivel
y, as Poppy rejoined them. And then, in what was fast becoming a constant reminder, she thought: I’m only a guest, I shouldn’t be issuing invitations . . .

  ‘Stay with you? Oh, er, thanks, I don’t know,’ Val murmured in some confusion, but Poppy had overheard and had no such inhibitions, seeing herself included in the invitation.

  ‘Why, how kind! We’d love to, Lady Fitzallan!’ Her face fell. ‘At least, Val can – I’m afraid I shall be too busy. I’m a business girl, you know.’ She explained the interior decorating business, which was, however, struggling, she admitted with a deprecatory little laugh. Though to tell the truth, she was getting sick of it, a bit sick of London, too. She thought she wouldn’t mind living in the country. Val listened without expression, Emily with amusement at the thought of this little London sophisticate turning into a country mouse.

  ‘All right, coming, Archie!’ Poppy called to the best man, who was beckoning, holding out a glass he had procured for her. ‘Do excuse me.’ She flashed a smile and wandered away again.