‘I’m sure you were a great help to him, Lady Sybil, an asset,’ said Enid Sherrill. She turned to Claire and offered a prim smile. ‘Though we all know you were his muse, Mrs Carson.’ She cast an odd, knowing, unsettling look to Quentin and announced that they should leave now.
‘We should too,’ said Claire. ‘Could your driver take us back to Oxford now?’
‘You should spend one more night,’ Sybil protested. ‘The children can go riding in the morning. We have ponies.’
‘Thank you, no. Ah, here are the children.’ She smiled to see them accompanied by Sir Sanford Dane. ‘Go get your things. We’re leaving.’
‘No need,’ said Sir Sanford, a manly hand on Michael’s shoulder. ‘The servants will bring them down.’
‘Can you say goodbye to Mr Castle?’ Claire asked the children. ‘This is Mr Castle’s father, and this is Miss Sherrill. Can you say goodbye to them? Please.’ Her last word tattered into shreds of desperation as she met their stubborn faces. ‘Please.’ The girls finally did as she asked. Michael hung back, grim and defiant. ‘Don’t disappoint me, Michael.’
Albert, the ever-cordial, stepped forward and forced the issue for young Michael. Albert patted his shoulder, called him a fine young man just like his father. Michael was forced to shake hands. And on that insincere note, Albert, Quentin and Miss Sherrill went outside where their car was waiting, already warmed up.
‘I’ll drive,’ said Quentin.
‘Can you drive?’ asked Albert and Miss Sherrill together.
‘I learned in California.’
Albert was only too happy to cede the wheel. Miss Sherrill got in the back seat and fell asleep immediately, as did Albert in the front. While Albert’s snores were punctuated with farts, Quentin drove, eyes alight, the joy he felt all but parting the darkness falling before him. He was loved. He loved and was loved. Love and death. That’s all there is. One’s guaranteed. One you must risk.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE
Margaret flung open the door, and stood framed by the light, her lips pursed, her arms crossed over her dressing gown, watching as Quentin helped his father stagger out of the Morris. Margaret expressed some surprise that Quentin could drive even before she chastised Albert for his drinking, and wrapped her arm round his shoulders, and helped him up the steps. Her back to them, she said that given the hour, Quentin should take Miss Sherrill home and return the Morris on Sunday when he and Florence and Rosamund came for lunch.
He wanted to cry out, The planets have dropped out of their orbits! He wanted to announce that he would not lead fat Rosamund up the steps on Sunday, not extol the cabbage soup! Never again! Given what he now knew, of discovery, of returning and rejoicing in love, he was, for the first time in his life, a whole man. A whole man could not live a half life. In fact he might have said all this, but Margaret closed the door. Quentin returned to the Morris.
Miss Sherrill, fully alert, had moved to the passenger seat beside him. ‘We’ve suffered two calamities in a month,’ she said as soon as he had put it in reverse and backed out of the drive. ‘McVicar’s heirs will almost certainly leave us.’
‘How do you know that? He only died … what? A month ago?’
‘It does not look good for us. The family will fight it out in the courts, and it will take a long time, but it really doesn’t matter who wins. They are all rather sour on your father of late.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d rather not go into it.’ Miss Sherrill was silent, as though she had an elaborate menu in her hand and could not choose. Finally she said, ‘Francis Carson will be a lucrative client especially for the next few years. The posthumous novel will help. What is it called again?’
‘An Inconvenient Wife,’ he offered, thinking that the title described Florence.
‘Well, good or bad, it will get attention and it will sell. We cannot lose him.’
‘Mrs Carson won’t be leaving us.’
‘Are you resting on the laurels you brought home from California?’ she said, the sharp rasp of sarcasm grating on his ears.
‘I wasn’t altogether successful,’ he admitted, ‘but I did bring him home.’
‘Well, his wife is your client now, and his work will be your responsibility. Albert feels the loss, you know.’ The motor, and the unspoken, hummed between them. ‘Your father is a good man, but he can be very foolish. I should certainly hope you will not be making his same mistakes.’
‘What sort of mistakes?’
‘Louisa Partridge, for one.’
His high spirits got the best of him, and he laughed out loud, assuring her he was not having an affair with Mrs Partridge.
‘Think this quite funny, do you? It would be a dangerous error for you to take up with Mrs Carson. There, I’ve said it.’ She folded her gloved hands over her handbag.
Quentin strangled the high-spirited laughter that begged to erupt. He pretended instead to burp, then retorted, ‘I’m not taking up with her, as you so genteelly put it, but what makes you think that I would?’
‘She’s vulnerable now. If it was hard for her when he was alive – and I’ve certainly heard enough Francis Carson stories to assume that life with him was hard – it will be twice as difficult now that he’s gone. She has no one but that surly boy. She’s in need. I gather from watching her today she detests most of her husband’s friends. Who can blame her? They’re all wastrels. She was the one carrying all the responsibility, not just for the children, but for Carson, getting him to write at all these past few years. All that genius and he threw it away on drink, on women, on any sort of excuse that would keep him from working. The stupid sod. Oh, and that Sybil Dane is good for nothing except feathering her own silly nest. Hmmph.’ Enid had absorbed this exact expression from Albert. ‘Carson was a gifted fool. Charming, I suppose, but he squandered his gifts in his all too brief life.’
‘You sound as though you pitied him.’
‘Today, I actually did. There, in the church. He might have written books better than Some of These Days. It was a fine novel, but not superlative. He might have grown with maturity. He might have done something quite extraordinary had he lived. Now he will never write anything again, his wife’s alone and his children are without a father.’
‘She’s not alone. She has the firm. Our firm. We can extend her some extra courtesies.’
‘Whatever you are about with her, please do not call it courtesy. You are not gifted, but you are not a total fool either, so let us be plain.’
‘Thank you, Miss Sherrill,’ he replied, downshifting, ‘your estimates of my abilities are so appreciated.’
‘Don’t patronize me, Quentin. I was working for this firm when you were a mewling babe. This firm is my life, the reputation we have built, and I shall not be made to look after you as I have looked after your father for nearly thirty years, this scrape and that, this forgotten bit of business, and that, this detail overlooked and that. Why do you think we’re losing McVicar?’
He did not want to hear the stories behind that statement. He took the offensive. ‘Are you saying that the success of Castle Literary is entirely due to you?’
‘Not entirely. But the longevity of many of our relationships, yes. It’s simply not possible for Albert, for anyone, to dally with people’s affections and their work, and then to walk away with impunity.’
‘I’m not my father. I do not dally with affections, and I’m grateful for all you’ve done for the firm.’
‘Oh, shut up, will you? Anyone could see you are in love with her. You’re mad for her, and she is mad for you.’
‘Anyone?’
‘All right, not anyone. I could. It can’t last, Quentin. It won’t, and the firm will suffer. Our reputation will suffer. You personally will suffer, and I do not speak of your marriage to Florence. I’m not about to lecture you on sin. I do not care a fig for sin. Whatever you may do with your personal life – including that woman in California, a pretty bit of business,
that! Imagine every postal clerk between here and there knowing …’
‘Knowing what?’
‘Never mind. I care nothing for any of that. The firm—’ She took a deep emphatic breath ‘—the firm is my responsibility. Your recklessness will cost us Carson’s estate.’
Quentin was rather pleased to be thought reckless, but he suppressed a smile. ‘I assure you, Claire, Mrs Carson, won’t leave us.’
‘Won’t leave you, you mean.’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.’
‘She could be using you.’
‘What for?’
‘To forward Carson’s posthumous career, and ensure her own well-being. Her children’s well-being.’
‘She is not using me.’
‘The boy detests you,’ Enid observed. ‘The girls are flibbertigibbets, probably like their father, but the boy is not, and he detests you. He is important to his mother, and she to him. He will be more important as he grows older, and you will find him resistant to your charm. If you had charm, which you do not.’
Quentin thought of the look on Michael’s face as he had walked up the aisle. ‘He’ll get over it. He’s angry now. He’s lost his father.’
‘He lost his father a long time ago. Carson hadn’t even been home in almost a year. That boy has only had his mother, and he’s desperate for her attention.’
‘He’s desperate to be thought the man of the house.’
‘My point. He’s a grim, determined child.’
‘Claire says Michael reminds her of her dour old Grandmother Dunstan.’
‘I care nothing for Mrs Carson’s relatives. You are jeopardizing my life’s work, Quentin! You are treading a dangerous path, young man.’
‘A footpath to folly?’ he asked lightly, suppressing a smile.
‘Are you really so stupid as to think this is funny? Our reputation is at stake. Will you heed me on this?’
‘Miss Sherrill, I am not a schoolboy to be lectured. I know you think I do not deserve to be a partner in this firm, but I assure you I am. I work hard. I am not bedding the clients, using or being used by them. Please say no more on this. Which is your address?’ He ground the gears to downshift as he dawdled along her street.
‘Will you heed me on this?’ she insisted.
‘Miss Sherrill, I value your judgement, and experience, but my heart is my own.’
‘You personally will suffer for this. It cannot bode well. I have been in this business for nearly thirty years and I have seen it all.’
‘Enid, you are a gallant woman in a man’s profession. I salute you.’ And he did, with something of cheery bravado that Robert might have done.
‘Here is my flat. Don’t get out. I’m perfectly capable of walking myself to my door.’ She took her small suitcase from the back seat and without another word, left him.
He drove all over Bloomsbury. Never having had a car, Quentin had never considered the complications, frustrations of where to park the damn thing. This late at night every possible kerbside slot filled. He was tempted to drive back to his parents’ place, leave the Morris in their drive and stay the night there, but the thought of the St Ives watercolours, of having to sleep in Robert’s shrine of a room, of breathing the dust-choked air of a long, stale marriage, a dismal yoke of years and custom, was too terrible. And his own stale marriage? Quentin would step from that as one would peel off filthy clothes and stand naked, clean in a summer rain. He would undo the past. He had married Florence in a surfeit of ignorance. What was it Louisa had said of marrying Herbert Partridge? I didn’t love him, but I didn’t not love him. I was married off before I had any idea what the world might hold. The same was true for him. He and Florence knew nothing of life or love when they wed. They had simply fallen into what was expected of them, and called it love. His marriage to Florence was a mere legal fiction. Adultery? Quentin did not feel remorse. On the contrary, he felt clean and alive and refreshed. Not simply as he had à la his petite affaire de corps with Gigi, but a positive burst of gratitude and plentitude and beauty engulfed him. In that transfiguring light, all else paled. Oh, to be given this experience now! He was still young. It wasn’t too late for him. His marriage to Florence was an obstacle, an impediment. Nothing more. Divorce would be temporarily unpleasant. Fine. Whatever it cost, he would pay. Whatever he had to give up, so be it. ‘If this be folly, then fate lead on!’ he cried, quoting someone or another, ecstatic to see another car pulling out so he could have the parking place. However, squeezing the Morris in was more difficult than he’d imagined, and took a long time. Gigi had taught him many things, but not how to park on a crowded London street.
His brief, lovely romp with Gigi had awakened in him desire, as one might feel hunger or thirst. Claire did not sate his desire; she fanned it. With Claire desire seemed to Quentin suddenly limitless and profound. If it hadn’t been for Gigi, he might never have had the courage for Claire. Gigi did not love him. Claire did. Claire returned his love. I love you, Quentin. We have, we love each other. ‘We have each other, Claire,’ he whispered as he finally forced the car awkwardly into the space.
He was perhaps three quarters of a mile from his house, and the chilly walk through the night-time neighbourhood was odd. The occasional dog barked. A distant cat mewed briefly. Lights were off. Drapes firmly drawn. Milk bottles on the step. All the little lives tucked up within. He walked past them all, pitying them, pitying everyone from Mrs Rackwell to Linda St John. He pitied his father’s eternal philandering, and his mother’s stoic avoidance of the unpleasant. He pitied Enid Sherrill, whose love affair with an entity, a firm, would never pulsate under her dry, thin hand. He pitied plain Monica and prim Miss Marr, whose lips had probably never brushed another’s. He pitied fat Rosamund, who had not been fondled in thirty years. He pitied his own wife, who hadn’t the wit to live, or be, or even imagine beyond the small, pre-etched grooves of their life. He pitied everyone who did not know what he had known this day. He walked more quickly, breathing the damp cold, wishing like hell Robert were alive. Robert would have understood this feeling. He did not wish that Frank Carson were alive, but Frank too would understand because at last Quentin understood what Frank Carson knew. Quentin had always believed that writers like Carson and Lawrence dwelt in hyperbole. But it wasn’t. It was the truth. An act of love so elemental, so commonly human, could in fact be transcendent, could change a man or woman, could alter everything, and everyone. Two people stood, naked, hand in hand forever, and the rest of the world fell away. Quentin did not pretend to be Frank Carson – he was not, could not be a wild poetic presence – but thunder to Claire’s lightning? Yes! Quentin could be that. Frank Carson might have been the proverbial eagle. But Quentin Castle was no longer the mole living underground. At long last he had come up, come out, soared in the sunshine. Claire Carson was that reigning sun. ‘Claire Castle,’ he corrected himself. He would get a divorce, and marry her, and they would be inseparable. Grow old together. He laughed out loud, happy at the thought.
At his own house he was surprised to see the sitting-room light on. He did not call out, but removed his hat and coat, put down his small overnight case beside the umbrella stand, and opened the sitting-room door. Florence was asleep in the chair, a book in her lap. Her mouth was open and her hair in pin curls. He took the book from her hands. Some of These Days. He was touched; she usually read Barbara Cartland, and took no interest in his authors. He kissed her forehead fraternally.
She woke with a start and a smile. ‘Quentin, you’re very late. I worried. Your mother called some time ago. After you brought your father home.’
‘I had to take Miss Sherrill home, and then I couldn’t find a place to park the bloody car.’
Surprise lit her face. ‘I didn’t know you could drive.’
‘It’s not so very hard. A little dance you do with the clutch and the accelerator and the gearshift, that’s all. Let’s go to bed. Thank you for waiting up. It was kind of you.’ His pity for her made him gentle.
‘Well, don’t you want to tell me all about Woodlands? Your mother said—’
‘Tomorrow,’ he replied, offering her his hand. ‘Tomorrow.’
Not having slept well, Quentin was still up early the next morning. Earlier than usual. He got the milk, snatching the bottles from the pelting rain. He made a pot of tea, but he only scanned The Times in the most rudderless fashion, waiting to hear Effie at the back door. And soon enough, she came in, her tread heavy, her expression ever the same, slack jaw, resentful scowl tightening her brow. She brought with her the odour of wet cigarette smoke. Quentin felt sorry for her too; he was suffering a paroxysm of universal pity for the blighted and unloved, even those as blighted and unlovely as Effie.
‘I see you’re at it again, sir. You know Mrs Castle don’t like you in the kitchen.’
‘Effie.’ He rose, removed her coat and hat from the hooks, placed her hat on her head at a jaunty angle and gave her odorous coat a good shaking-out. ‘Today you are taking a holiday.’
‘A wot?’
‘Have you never heard of a holiday, Effie?’
‘Not on a Tuesday, I ain’t.’
He held her coat as though she were a duchess. ‘Well, this Wednesday, you have a holiday. We shan’t be needing your services today. You’re off. You’ll be paid, but you’re free.’
‘What does Mrs Castle think?’
‘That you deserve a paid holiday. Go do something daring, Effie. Go get into trouble.’
She stepped away from her own coat. ‘Are you making advances on me?’
‘I swear I’m not, but someone should. You’d be the better for it. Now, off you go.’ Quentin held the door for her. She backed towards it, and once through she said she’d be back tomorrow and there had better not be any funny stuff.
It won’t be funny, Quentin thought as he went upstairs. He bathed and shaved and dressed, and returned to the kitchen to make breakfast. He found Louisa’s bottle of olive oil high in the cupboard where he had stashed it. He poured some in the fry pan and lit the gas. A single, tired-looking onion lolled in a bowl, and he chopped that fine, and when the pan smoked, he put the onion in. The fragrance wafted upstairs, and soon Florence came down, her pin curls out, her hair tumbled about her pink face and a quizzical expression in her eyes.
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