Rosie Thomas 3-Book Collection

by Rosie Thomas

  ‘Helen. I want to announce our engagement.’

  From his pocket he produced a carefully folded piece of paper and showed it to her.

  ‘In The Times and the Telegraph and so forth. This is the proper form of words. If you don’t have any objection to the convention, of course.’

  So he was giving her the chance to object to the way it was being said, but not to the announcement itself. Tenacious Darcy, under the diffident exterior.

  The engagement is announced between John William Aubrey Frederick Mere, Viscount Darcy of Mere House, Mere, Glos., and Helen Jane, only daughter of …

  She looked up into the stubborn light in his eyes.

  ‘Why now, Darcy?’

  Honest as always, he made no evasion. ‘It’s Mama. If she won’t believe that I’m going to marry you, then I’m going to have to force her by making the rest of her world acknowledge it.’ He lifted the square of paper. ‘This is the first step.’

  It makes no difference, Helen thought. She was suddenly too weary to do battle. The fact of our engagement exists simply between Darcy and me, just as it has done ever since Venice. It doesn’t make any difference when a whole lot of people neither of us care about read it over their breakfast coffee.

  The Countess of Montcalm’s china-doll face floated into her mind’s eye, wearing its complacent smile.

  Not good enough for your son? Helen asked. You aren’t intelligent enough to see it, but I’m good enough for him in every single way except the one that really matters. I can only try to love him, but I’ll be doing it better than you.

  Helen rested her head against Darcy’s chest and closed her eyes. She nodded her head once.

  ‘I’ll ring the papers, then,’ he persevered.

  ‘Yes. If you think it will make any difference.’

  He kissed her, finding the corner of her mouth and then following the outline with his tongue. ‘Soon,’ he said. ‘I love you. Go and do your exams. Good luck, although you don’t need it.’

  Helen watched him go with the old mixture of anxiety and tenderness.

  One more day.

  On the last evening, Tom made a slow detour through the narrow streets towards Christ Church. It was Midsummer’s Eve, and the thick stone walls seemed saturated with light and warmth. He circled through New College, walking even more slowly where clouds of scent drifted from the great herbaceous borders. On the still air the chock of a croquet mallet and ball followed by a burst of cheering carried across open lawns. Snatches of music from open windows were amplified and then swallowed up by the dense green of top-heavy trees. Tom stopped in the twilit silence of the cloister, his white shirt spectral in the dimness. He leaned against one of the low, ancient arches to watch the shadows deepen on the square of turf within, but his inner eye saw nothing. His mind was elsewhere; working, wondering. At length he jerked away from the pitted warmth of the stone and began to walk with new determination. The light in the curve of the High was too bright and dusty, and the traffic too insistent. He ducked quickly across it and the urban noise was swallowed at once by the little cobbled alleyways beyond. He looked up once at the slit of blue sky overhead and smiled briefly. It brought back a sudden memory of New York. Mid-town Manhattan in the summer heat, he thought, couldn’t be farther from the cluster of Oxford around its jewelled lawns and the ring of cool, lush water meadows that shielded it.

  But the year in Oxford was ending, and he was ready to go home. He had done everything that he had come to do, but now there was one more thing that had begun to matter more than anything else. One more thing, and without it it wouldn’t matter where he was or what he was doing.

  Helen.

  Fragile, tough-minded, cool and passionate. Helen. He wanted her more than anything else. More than all Greg Hart’s theatres, more than successes and acclaim and the artistic power that had always seemed so seductive. Without Helen he didn’t want any of it, and Tom’s strength had always been in knowing exactly what he wanted.

  The certainty had been growing in him since New Year’s Eve. It was then that he had first seen, behind the smouldering anger in Helen’s eyes, a strength that fascinated him far more than Pansy’s practised appeal. Slowly his interest in Pansy had slipped away as he watched Helen. His friendship and concern for her had deepened into something far more important as the weeks passed. At first he had waited, biding his time coolly until Oliver’s potent spell was exorcised and New Year’s Eve was forgotten, but almost at once it had seemed to be too late.

  Darcy had intervened.

  Still Tom had waited, leisurely in his confidence that they would be together in the end. As well as knowing what he wanted, Tom was secure in a long history of getting it. He cursed himself now for overconfidence. He had let Helen drift away to Venice, and she had come back engaged. And he knew that for Helen, a promise was not made to be broken. It was one of the reasons that he loved her now.

  And yet, he would have to try to make her do it. Have to, because he was irrevocably in love with her now. More, he was convinced that she loved him. The implications of that, for Darcy more than himself, darkened his face.

  Tom was at the gateway with its tangle of bicycles where he had led Helen to rescue Oliver, and the play. Beyond was Canterbury Quad, mellow and majestic. A stone urn filled with marigolds was a shock of colour, hummed over by bees. Soothed by the lazy buzz, Tom glanced up and saw that the curtains at Oliver’s tall windows were closed. At once his frown deepened and he was taking the stairs two at a time.

  ‘Oliver?’

  The outer door was open and the inner swung to his touch. Tom breathed in hard and then looked around. In the darkened room he saw Oliver’s blond head, and then the blue flicker of the television. Bogart’s profile filled the screen, then Oliver peered round at him.

  ‘Hart. Thanks for coming.’ He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Why doesn’t there seem to be anything to do but watch old movies? Where has everyone gone?’

  Tom moved to pull back the curtains and light flooded in.

  ‘You don’t have to do it in the dark.’

  ‘Suits my mood better these days. I’m glad you’re here. I was beginning to feel just a touch lonely.’ It was a rare admission for Oliver and they looked soberly at each other.

  ‘Done any work?’ Tom was direct.

  ‘None.’

  ‘And are you going to sit the papers?’

  Oliver shrugged elaborately. ‘It won’t make the smallest difference. So. What shall we do?’

  Tom had picked up the whisky bottle from the tray and he poured hefty measures into two glasses.

  ‘I think we should have a last evening.’

  Oliver stared with dislike at the whisky in his glass, then drained it in a single gulp.

  ‘Last?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tom turned abruptly to the window. ‘I don’t think anything is going to be the same, any more. Whichever way it goes.’

  Oliver put down his glass.

  ‘We’d better make it a good one, then.’ There was a flare of his old high spirits. ‘Lead on.’

  When Tom came to remember the evening he recalled Oliver at the dinner table, at his most charming and insistent that they should try another pudding and at least a bottle of Château Nairac to go with it. Afterwards he had led the way to Vincent’s, and been comically appalled to find it full of drunken revellers whose exams were already over.

  ‘Bad taste to flaunt it,’ he had muttered, and retreated to a darker and more exclusive club where he ordered port, plummy and satisfying and absurdly expensive, and then leaned back smiling behind a veil of cigar smoke.

  For the first time in months, Tom found him easy company. He remembered why he liked him so much. Even with the second bottle of port, when his eyes began to glaze and beads of sweat to show on his forehead, Oliver was still the witty aristocrat who had introduced Tom as a wary New Yorker to mysterious inner Oxford.

  Tom drank glass for glass with him, but he couldn’t achieve Oliver’s pra
ctised slide into abandonment. Recollection nagged at him, and the alcohol simply accumulated into a knotted headache. The port bottle was almost empty when Tom half reluctantly unfolded a newspaper cutting from his wallet. Suddenly he felt the need to talk to Oliver, but he felt as embarrassed as a teenager. Irritation throbbed with the headache and he pushed his glass aside.

  ‘Have you seen this?’

  Oliver glanced at it and saw the crest of The Times Court and Social page. He snorted with derision.

  ‘Of course not. Hardly required reading, is it?’

  ‘Look, damn you.’

  Oliver squinted past Tom’s finger at the first announcement in the list of Forthcoming Marriages.

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, it isn’t news. What’s the matter, for God’s sake?’ He looked across at Tom’s dark face and surprised comprehension slowly dawned. ‘Ah. Aha. How very un-Hart-like. How difficult for you, but you must admit, how funny too.’ Oliver leaned back against the velvet banquette and laughed aloud. Tom cut impatiently through the merriment.

  ‘Why now? Why announce it today? I thought they were waiting. I thought I still had time.’

  ‘Why? Oh, because of Mama, I suppose. She’s all agin’ it, you know. Darcy must think he’ll force her hand.’

  When Oliver’s laughter had evaporated, Tom leaned intently over the table. ‘Listen. I’m asking you, as my friend. And as his brother, and … Helen’s friend, too. Should I just wish them God speed and make a gentlemanly exit? Or should I do as every instinct suggests, and try to take her away from him?’

  Oliver narrowed his eyes and chewed thoughtfully on his cigar. ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken,’ he said smoothly, ‘that rather depends on Helen. Doesn’t it?’

  Through the smoke Tom looked back at him. ‘I think I know what Helen wants,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘And it isn’t Darcy.’

  There was a small silence. ‘In that case,’ Oliver answered, ‘what are you asking me for? If you’re not going to drink any more, I’ll finish the bottle.’

  Tom’s fingers grasped the neck of the decanter before he passed it over. ‘I’m not asking you. I’ve just realised. I’m telling you. And you won’t finish the bottle, because I’m going to.’

  Oliver yawned. ‘Anything you like. So long as you stop treating me like an agony auntie.’

  With the laughter, Tom saw that his way was clear. At once his headache lifted. For a single moment everything seemed simple, and he was filled with affection for Oliver, the dark club-room, and the whole world. He would be with Helen. He wouldn’t let her slip away, because he couldn’t.

  ‘Not time to go yet, is it?’ The warm fingers of drunken euphoria began to wrap themselves around him.

  ‘Definitely not.’

  Much later, they stumbled back to Christ Church together. There was a lightness between them which had been missing for months. Oliver seemed his old, reckless and cheerful self. If he can still be like this, Tom thought dimly, there can’t be so very much wrong with him.

  They clattered through the porter’s lodge together, elaborately signalling each other to silence and suppressing snorts of laughter like a pair of truant schoolboys.

  In the rooms overlooking Canterbury Quad, Tom lurched against the mantelpiece and then mumbled, ‘What a long way off North Oxford seems. Think I’ll just sleep on your couch here. Sleep, lovely sleep.’

  Oliver was leaning crookedly against the bedroom door. ‘Be my guest. See if you can drag me to the Schools by nine-thirty. What an extremely funny prospect.’

  Tom was already plunging into sleep when he heard Oliver talking as collectedly as if he was quite sober.

  ‘It wouldn’t have worked anyway, you know.’

  ‘Wha’?’

  ‘My brother. And Helen. I never thought they quite matched, although I don’t envy you the prospect of unmatching them with the full weight of the Court and Social behind them. Darcy’s too straight, and Helen’s too loyal. Mmmm, Helen. Sorry I missed my own chance. Story of my life.’

  ‘Oliver?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Go away.’

  The morning came. Helen watched the light intensifying at her windows and counted off the hours as they struck.

  Her mind was as clear as crystal now. The week lying ahead of her was the important thing. She wouldn’t sacrifice that to anyone. Not anyone. Helen and Chloe met on the gallery, dressed in the regulation subfusc costume for sitting University exams. Black stockings, black skirt and jacket, white shirt and black tie, worn with cap and gown.

  ‘This get-up,’ Chloe complained, ‘does nothing except make me feel rampantly sexy. How can I write exams?’ Chloe’s sheer black stockings were seamed, and her chic black velvet suit was braided and frogged. At the throat of her white frilled blouse was a black ribbon fastened with a cameo brooch.

  ‘Think of the poor man sitting next to you,’ Helen grinned. The severity of her own plain black and white showed off the pale cream of her skin, and the lights in her black hair. The billowing length of her scholar’s gown made her look slimmer still, flattering beside Chloe’s cut-off commoner’s version.

  ‘And this awful hat,’ Chloe moaned, pulling the black square down over one eye like a pirate. ‘Why can’t we have schoolmaster-sketch mortarboards like the men?’

  Along the gallery, Pansy flung her door open.

  ‘How elegant and serious you both look.’

  ‘Not like traffic wardens?’

  ‘Not one bit. Just terrifyingly clever. I’m so glad my dear little course doesn’t involve anything as serious as exams. Come on, I’m going to make you both some breakfast, poor lambs.’

  Pansy was yawning, white-blonde and tousled as she pulled her dressing gown around her, and her room was empty.

  ‘Stephen’s staying in College,’ she said evasively. Helen and Chloe raised their eyebrows at each other and changed the subject.

  At nine-fifteen exactly they were ready to leave the house. Rose shuffled out into the dim hall and planted a moist kiss on their cheeks.

  ‘Every year I see them going off, clutching their caps and nice new fountain pens and looking like they’re going to the guillotine, just like you two. And then a minute later it’s all over and it doesn’t seem to make a scrap of difference afterwards. Still, I’m no scholar. Make sure you do well, now. Keep up the good name of the house.’ She winked at them and went away, snuffling with laughter.

  Outside the streets were full of black and white figures, walking or bicycling, gown tabs fluttering.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Chloe said.

  Helen was walking briskly, but her face had gone dead white. At the steps of the Schools, they exchanged a last, apprehensive smile and then filed away across the echoing black and white tiles to their separate halls.

  Tom had to haul Oliver out of bed. As soon as he was conscious he looked blankly around him, and then his face contracted with the unpleasant recollection.

  ‘Oh, Christ.’

  Tom looked with sympathy and a stab of guilt at his grey face.

  ‘Sorry. Last night was mostly my fault. Here, black coffee.’

  Oliver’s black clouds seemed to have gathered even more thickly after the brief light of the evening. He watched in sardonic silence as Tom found him a dark grey suit with a Savile Row label, a white shirt and wing collar, and the dismembered butterfly of his white bow tie. He flung on the clothes without looking at them and then stood looking at the dark-clad groups crossing the Quad.

  ‘Neat, tidy little people,’ he murmured.

  ‘Gown? Mortarboard?’ Tom prompted. ‘It’s time to go.’

  Oliver rounded on him.

  ‘If you know so much about it, why don’t you sit the papers for me? I can get there by myself, Hart. I don’t need you to carry me.’

  ‘I’d like to come,’ Tom said quietly.

  At the steps he didn’t see Oliver go. Tom’s eyes were raking the muted crowds for Helen’s black gipsy hair. Twice he thought he glimpsed her, and then
the heads turned to disappoint him with the faces of strangers. He waited until the shrill bells were ringing and the last stragglers ran up the steps. Only when the heavy doors closed did he turn away. He knew where she was, and he would come back again.

  Inside Oliver stalked to his place, hating the smell of tension and the serious faces milling around him. He felt unspeakably isolated, and faintly dizzy with the meaninglessness of his presence here. On the rickety little desk in the middle of a long line of identical desks he read his name on a white label. There was a blank script, and a question paper carefully placed face down so that he couldn’t catch a glimpse of the questions until the decreed second. The futility of that brought a bitter smile.

  The quiet girl in the next seat glanced up and saw him. Lord Oliver Mortimore looking like an unshaven archangel, she thought, and sighed a little.

  ‘You may begin writing now. You have three hours in which to complete the paper.’

  The morning’s invigilator was an elderly professor whose mincing delivery Oliver had once enjoyed mimicking. Now he turned over the paper without glancing at him, and looked down the list of questions.

  Not one of them meant anything to him.

  Oliver unscrewed his pen and wrote in the space provided, Oliver Mortimore (Lord). His own name and the empty title mocked him. He stared down at the blank white space and the sick isolation was slowly submerged under a pulsing tide of regret, so powerful that he almost put up his arms to ward it off.

  It wasn’t the exams. His father had done just the same, and had been half applauded as an amusing tearaway. It went far deeper. Oliver felt that he was being sucked down into a sterile sea, and had been incapable of striking out against it. The wastefulness choked him.

  He pulled a piece of the carefully provided scrap paper towards him and wrote on it in thick, black letters, ‘Why am I screwing it up?’ Then, underneath, ‘No more.’

  Then Oliver put the cap back on his pen, crumpled up the paper, and walked out of the examination room. He ignored the smirking professor.

  The eyes of the quiet girl followed him with a mixture of guilty fascination and nervous awe.