by Kate Charles
‘Of course, whenever you like,’ he replied.
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘Let me see. Today is Thursday. Could you come next Wednesday? That’s the Feast of the Assumption, so we’ll have to make it lunch – if we’re going to Mass in the evening, there will be no tea for us that day.’
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he said, taking the hint and rising. ‘And now I think I had better leave you, Lady Constance. You’re looking a bit tired.’
‘Please forgive me, Mr Middleton-Brown, but I am suddenly quite weary.’ She put her hand to her head. ‘And a bit dizzy.’ She rang for the maid as he bent over her with concern. ‘No, young man, it’s nothing for you to worry about. Molly, would you please see Mr Middleton-Brown out, and then help me upstairs?’
As she opened the door for him, Molly hesitated for a moment; David sensed that she had something to say. ‘What is it, Molly?’
‘I wouldn’t normally say anything, sir, but . . .’ The girl spoke in a troubled whisper.
‘Yes?’
‘Lady Constance, sir. She’s not been herself lately. She’s really not well.’
‘She is an old lady, Molly.’
‘But she accused me of pinching her cameo brooch, sir. And I never.’
‘You’re sure, Molly?’
The girl was indignant. ‘Course I’m sure. She’d just put it in the wrong drawer, was all. She found it the next day.’
David smiled and patted her arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, Molly. Old people often forget things. My mother was the same way. Lady Constance knows you wouldn’t take her brooch . . .’
‘Thank you, sir. But . . . I just thought as you ought to know, that’s all. Her ladyship sets a lot of store in you. If you could kind of keep an eye on her, like . . .’
‘Yes, I’ll do that. I’m very fond of Lady Constance, Molly. Thank you for telling me.’ He didn’t mean it as empty reassurance; he was genuinely concerned about Lady Constance’s health.
But as David reached the end of the street, he was already thinking ahead to the evening, and Lucy.
CHAPTER 31
For he maketh the storm to cease: so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad, because they are at rest: and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
Psalm 107.29–30
In his favourite armchair in Lucy’s sitting room, David was relaxed but by no means sleepy. The concert had been excellent, and the late supper at a cosy French restaurant, accompanied by a bottle of champagne, had been delicious. Now he swirled the brandy around in his glass, and inhaled its aroma with sensuous pleasure. He glanced idly around the now familiar room, realising in a strange detached way that it was only a week since he’d first sat there, stroking Sophie.
Lucy was smiling at him from her chair. She was looking especially beautiful tonight, he thought. She was wearing black; it was the first time he’d seen her in a dark colour, and he found that the contrast with her fair colouring only emphasised her loveliness. Tonight had been the first time, too, that he’d been conscious of being seen with her. Though they hadn’t seen anyone that they knew, he had been aware that other people were looking at her, admiring her, and he’d been proud to be with her.
Sophie, who had been sleeping elsewhere in the house, materialised silently and jumped on his lap. She arched her back luxuriously, kneaded his trouser-leg with her paws, and curled up in a small orange ball, purring loudly. He automatically put a hand on her silky fur.
Lucy, too, was relaxed, after the music and after the champagne. He has nice hands, she thought, watching him stroke Sophie. Not for the first time, she noticed that his fingernails were chewed down to the quick. ‘You ought not to bite your nails,’ she said without thinking.
He was not offended. ‘You sound like my mother,’ he replied good-humouredly.
She stretched and pushed back her hair. ‘You never talk very much about your mother,’ she said. ‘Tell me about her. What was she like?’
He thought for a long time before answering. ‘It’s difficult to say. A very strong personality. Domineering, I suppose you’d say. She always ran my father’s life, poor man.’
‘And your life? Did she run it, too?’
‘Well, she tried. I was a great disappointment to her. I was never as rich or successful as she wanted me to be.’ He paused for a moment, looking into space and reflecting. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? She always said that she wanted me to have a backbone, to be independent, but of course all she really wanted to do was control me, mould me in her image. She said that she wanted grandchildren, but she wouldn’t have known what to do if I’d married and moved away from her. And she always said that I was a failure, and should be making more money, but whenever I talked about selling the house and moving . . .’
Lucy said gently, ‘It sounds like you have a lot of unresolved feelings. Your life with her must have been very difficult.’
He’d never talked about these things with anyone before. Suddenly he was telling her everything: about the constant belittlement, the sense of failing to live up to expectations, about the petty-minded morality and ugly middle-class values and all the resultant guilt, about the anti-intellectual snobbery that he’d battled against to go to university and educate himself. His mother had been extremely pretentious in her own way, but had always dismissed his more cultured tastes as ‘just showing off’. And his church-going she had found effeminate and unnecessary. ‘You can be just as good a Christian in your own home as you can in a church full of hypocrites,’ she’d often said.
‘I loved my mother, but I never liked her,’ he blurted out at the end, and as he said it he knew it was true. He felt cleansed, freed by the admission and the realisation.
Lucy had said very little, but somehow she’d been with him through every step of his confession. Suddenly, fancifully, he imagined that Lucy was like a deep pool of tranquil water, hidden in some leafy glade. He could cast his problems, like stones, into her calm depths, leaving not even a ripple on the serene surface.
‘But you never talk about yourself,’ he said. ‘I want to know everything about you.’
‘What do you want to know?’ she asked calmly.
He was emboldened by the rapport that had grown so naturally and so warmly between them. ‘Emily said that you’d been married. Tell me about that. Who was he? What happened?’
Perhaps it was the champagne that made her unusually candid, or perhaps it was the incredible feeling of affinity between them. She looked into space thoughtfully, winding a strand of hair around her finger. ‘His name was Geoffrey. It seems like such a long time ago. I was very young – only eighteen.’ Lucy tossed her hair back. ‘As you know, my father is a Vicar in a rural parish, in Shropshire. I was the only girl in the family, with three brothers, and I was very protected. You can imagine.’ She smiled. ‘All those wholesome country values. My experience of life was quite limited. But I always wanted to be an artist. When I was eighteen, I left home and went to art college. I met Geoffrey there. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever known – certainly nothing like my family. We had nothing in common except art, but that didn’t matter to me. He was brilliant, and I was dazzled by him. We married very quickly, and of course it was a disaster. It only lasted a few months. I haven’t heard from him in years.’ She added frankly, ‘It almost seems like something that happened to someone else, maybe in a book that I read a long time ago.’
It was David’s turn for silence. After a few minutes he said, ‘And after that? A beautiful woman like you, surely . . . Have there been other men?’ He marvelled at his own daring, and thought perhaps he’d gone too far. He wasn’t even sure why he was asking: was it only simple curiosity?
But she, too, was finding release in honesty. ‘A few,’ she said. ‘There was one, quite a while ago now. He ran an art gallery, and I met him when he had an exhibition of my works. We lived together for over a year.’
‘What happened?’ he asked when she paused for
a sip of brandy.
‘He left me for another artist. A man,’ she finished candidly. ‘I was pretty devastated. It was worse than the divorce. We’d been together a lot longer than I’d been married to Geoffrey, and – well, I don’t know. It didn’t do much for my self-esteem.’
He stared at her, stricken, but she just shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. But it put me off men for quite a while – it was years before I got involved with anyone after that. Then a couple of years ago I met this chap.’ She laughed ruefully. ‘Believe it or not, I met him queuing for the Proms. I used to see him most nights in the queue, and we’d often have a chat, or sometimes a drink in the interval. One night I invited him back to the house for a drink after the concert. They’d played the Dvořák Cello Concerto,’ she explained, as if excusing herself. ‘We were both pretty emotional after that. He . . . well, I let him stay the night.’ She stopped, then went on matter-of-factly, ‘I was lonely. It had been a long time. It just happened.’ Her face was in shadow as she paused again. ‘Anyway, after that, we saw a lot of each other. We both enjoyed music, and we got on very well. It looked as though there might be a future in it. I even took him round to the vicarage for dinner once. After the Last Night of the Proms, he told me that he had a wife in Manchester. I never saw him again.’ Lucy smiled, without self-pity or bitterness. ‘And there you have it. The story of my love life. Oh, I’ve been out with other men, of course,’ she added. ‘But those were the ones that mattered – the ones I cared about.’
David gripped Sophie so hard with his fingers that she gave an angry yelp, jumped up, and with an annoyed lash of her tail, disappeared. He was overwhelmed by a jumble of emotions. First of all, he was incensed on her behalf at the treatment she’d received from these men – it just wasn’t acceptable to use people like that, and especially someone as vulnerable as Lucy. And he felt her pain keenly, empathetically. Though it was all in the past, there were clearly lasting scars: how she must have suffered. Finally, he realised with surprise, there was a large element of jealousy in his reaction. He was improbably jealous of those men she’d spent time with, had cared about, had . . . slept with. He didn’t want to think about it.
After what must have seemed like a very long silence, he simply said, ‘Thank you for telling me. Can I have another drink?’
The atmosphere eased. They had more brandy, and talked about inconsequential matters, and later she put on some music and they simply sat and listened.
Sophie had forgiven him and returned to his lap, and David was completely at peace. His body melted into the chair; he felt that he never wanted to leave that chair again. It was at that moment that the idea entered his mind for the first time: why should he leave? Why couldn’t this go on for ever? Why shouldn’t he . . . marry Lucy?
Marry Lucy. It pounded in his brain, in time with the music. He couldn’t think properly – not now. Not with the music, and the brandy, and this room, and Lucy so near. Marry Lucy. He’d think about it tomorrow. And now . . . if he didn’t leave now, he never would. He put Sophie off his lap and stood up. ‘It’s very late. I must go.’
He lingered by the door, not really wanting to leave, knowing he must. ‘In the morning I’m going away for a few days,’ he told her. ‘Business. But I’ll be back as soon as I can. And then . . . well, I think there are some things we need to talk about.’
She stood close to him, not touching him but smiling into his eyes and willing him to make love to her. Almost without volition, he entwined his fingers in her hair, and brushed her soft, fragrant cheek with his lips. ‘Good night, my lovely Lucy,’ he murmured. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 32
I am weary of crying; my throat is dry: my sight faileth me for waiting so long upon my God.
Psalm 69.3
In the middle of a lovely dream, Emily turned over and reached for Gabriel. He wasn’t there; she awoke with a start and all the pain flooded back. The vividness of her dream made the reality even harder to bear. She was not in her own comfortable bed, with her husband curled up warm beside her; she was alone in a hard, narrow bed. And this was not their spacious room, with the wallpaper they’d chosen together, and their lovely antique furniture: this was a small cell, whitewashed and sparsely furnished. Her eyes focused on the plain wooden crucifix on the opposite wall. It was her fourth morning waking in this bed.
She’d spent much of the last three days here in this room, on her knees in front of the crucifix, lying on the bed thinking, or sitting in the hard chair writing: writing to Lucy, writing to the children, writing endless letters to Gabriel and tearing them up. But now she felt that she needed to escape from the confines of this room, the room that had seemed such a welcome refuge a few days ago. She pulled on her jeans and shirt and slipped down the hall quietly to the chapel.
The chapel was as unadorned as her little room, with its white walls and its large, stark crucifix. But somehow its simple piety, so different from the gilded gothic splendour of St Anne’s, was just what she needed at this moment. It was empty when she entered; she knelt near the back and poured out her heart in prayer. After a while the tears started to flow, and though she tried to choke them back at first, she was soon overwhelmed with misery. I should go back to my room, she thought, and rose to go. Her eyes blinded, she almost ran into a nun who was just coming in.
‘My dear,’ said the nun with concern. ‘Are you all right?’
Emily blinked, and recognised the sweet-faced sister who had been so kind to her on her arrival. ‘If you ever need to talk . . .’ the nun had said that day. Suddenly it seemed the only thing to do. ‘Oh, Sister.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Sister Mary Grace, isn’t it? I’d really like to talk to you. But if you’re busy . . . maybe later . . .’
‘There’s nothing more important right now,’ the sister said firmly, putting her arm around Emily and leading her to a small private room, furnished with only two chairs. ‘Now, my dear. What is it that makes you so sad?’ she began, proffering a clean white handkerchief.
With an effort, Emily controlled her tears. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and looked gratefully at the nun. Sister Mary Grace was of an indeterminate age – she could have been anything from thirty to sixty – with smooth, unlined olive-toned skin, compassionate eyes, and a kind smiling mouth. Emily felt that nothing she could say would shock or upset this calm, gentle woman. ‘Sister, I’ve made such a mess of my life, and I don’t know what to do.’
‘Why don’t you tell me. Start at the beginning, if you like.’
The beginning. When was that? Ten years ago? Or longer?
‘My husband is . . . well . . . I don’t know if I should . . .’ She hesitated.
‘Nothing you say to me will go any farther than this room, my dear. You don’t have to be afraid to tell me anything.’
‘My husband is a priest.’ The nun nodded encouragingly. ‘We’ve been married for nearly ten years. I love him very much. I’ve always thought he was everything a priest should be, and everything a husband should be.’
‘Then you’ve been very fortunate.’
‘Yes, but now I’ve found out that I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did. From the very beginning. He lied . . . no, he didn’t lie to me. He just didn’t tell me the truth.’ Her mouth twisted at the fine distinction. ‘I was very foolish. I took him at face value, because I loved him and because I wanted him to be the man I thought he was.’
‘That’s only natural.’
‘But he never was what I thought he was. That’s what hurts me so much – realising that for ten years, I never really knew him.’ She sat silently for a moment, searching for the courage to tell the story. ‘My husband was thirty when I met him. A bachelor. I did think it a little unusual that a man of that age . . . well, I asked him if he’d ever thought of marrying before. He said that he hadn’t – that there had never been another woman in his life before he met me. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think that I was as unique and special for h
im as he was for me.’
‘And it wasn’t true?’
‘Oh, that part of it was true, I think. As far as it went. But I didn’t ask the other question, because it never occurred to me, and he didn’t tell me.’ The sister waited; finally Emily went on. ‘He didn’t tell me that he had been in love before – with a man.’ There, it was out. Still the sister said nothing. ‘I know a lot of gay people; some of them are good friends of mine. I don’t have a problem with it at all, in theory. But . . . he didn’t tell me. And I don’t really know how I would have handled it if he had. He never gave me a chance to try to understand, to come to terms with it. I loved him very much – I don’t think it would have made a difference. But I don’t know. My marriage: it’s been very happy. But has it been based on a lie? Has he really ever loved me at all?’ The last terrible question came out on a sob.
‘Have you asked your husband that question?’
Emily looked at her, horrified. ‘Oh, I couldn’t! Not yet, anyway. I don’t know if I could bear it . . .’ She wept.
The sister squeezed Emily’s hand until she regained control and was able to go on.
‘My dear, have you been wrestling with this by yourself all this week? Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’
‘I just couldn’t. I was in shock. I had to try to sort it out, to make sense of what’s happened and my feelings about it.’
‘What you haven’t told me is how you found out about this. Did your husband tell you?’
‘No, that’s what makes it worse. He’s in some kind of trouble – I know it. But he wouldn’t tell me, so it must have something to do with all this. He’s been distracted and upset for weeks, and still I haven’t understood. I’ve been so stupid, so insensitive to him.’
‘How did you find out?’ Sister Mary Grace repeated patiently.
‘Finally, I just . . . guessed, I suppose. The other man. The one my husband . . . loved. I think my husband is being blackmailed about their affair. I’m not explaining this very well,’ she apologised. ‘The other man came for a visit about a fortnight ago. I’d never met him. I’d heard his name, as an old friend of my husband, that was all. I didn’t suspect – why would I? He’s a nice man, David. I like him very much. But then he and my husband – they had a row about something. I overheard a bit, just enough to make me think about it. I asked my husband. He wouldn’t tell me anything. I think that’s when I knew, suddenly. It was just an intuition. I had to be sure. So I asked David. He was honest with me, admitted they’d been . . . lovers. I don’t blame David,’ she burst out. ‘I don’t blame him for loving Gabriel. Why shouldn’t he love him? And he’s been hurt too, poor David. I don’t blame Gabriel for loving him. But why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he tell me?’