by Connie Monk
‘She’s a very smart sort of person; she won’t make a mess or hurt anything, I’m sure. Just think how good it’ll be for Dad to have someone nice close by. Where is he? I must go and tell him the good news.’
‘No, don’t do that. I’ve been trying to persuade him he ought to buy the house back and get a manager here. As it is, even with the two chaps who work here, he is always tied to the place. A break away might cheer him up. Leave it with me, Bella. He doesn’t seem against the idea so I’ll try and persuade him to talk to the agent who’s dealing with the sale. If this woman has already put down a deposit it might be possible to pay her out. He can’t be tied here by himself in the house, not in his depressed state, and it would be good for him to have a manager living there again.’
She could see the logic in having a manager once again, but it was such a shame when she had got on so well with the nice woman she’d met. But if that’s what Leo wanted then she wouldn’t say anything to his father. Watching him checking the engine, she thought, as she had a thousand times, how much she loved him, and she sent up a silent thank you for the way her life had worked out. Thinking back to her birthday on New Year’s Eve – such a perfect evening, dinner at the sort of hotel she’d never been to before, wine, champagne … perhaps she’d even been a little bit tiddly but she had been walking on air when he’d taken her back to his flat. Together they’d stood at the open window and let in the year that was to see her life change. When he’d kissed her she’d felt weak with love and longing. And in the first hour of 1957 she had become truly his.
Her hero had been proved not to have feet of clay, for three weeks later when she had told him she was worried because she was a week late he’d wasted no time in getting a licence so that they could be married immediately. No three weeks to wait while the banns were read, simply a visit to the local registry office where an office clerk and a cleaner came in to act as witnesses. Any dreams she had had of a white wedding melted, but no bride could have been happier or more proud. The following day they had driven to Lexleigh and he had introduced her to his parents. Such darlings, both of them; so lovely, in fact, that she had forgotten what Leo had said about not saying anything straight away about the baby and before she could stop herself she had told them everything. Dear Mum, she had been so excited. How dreadfully sad it was that she wouldn’t be there to be a granny.
Louisa had arrived at the house seeing it through the eyes of someone sizing it up for sale. But she looked at her surroundings differently now. This would be her home, her very own home. It wasn’t something rented, it was hers. If she wanted to paint the ceilings midnight blue dotted with golden stars no one could prevent her doing so – not that she did want to.
Now that her letter of resignation was in the post she set about waking her home from its slumbers. She found the mains water tap under the sink in the kitchen and turned it on; next came the electricity, and by the end of the afternoon in the dusk of March she’d flooded the place with light. But even on a day of such importance she was ever practical and, having gone from room to room switching on the lights, she made a second trip upstairs to turn them off. One thing lacking was warmth, but at any rate in the sitting room that was soon rectified by the electric fire standing in the grate, attempting to give the impression it was heated by burning coal. With the immersion heater preparing the water for a bath, she unpacked her shopping and made herself an uninspiring meal of tinned soup followed by scrambled eggs on toast.
By that time the last of daylight had gone and when she went to close the curtains, the new moon was riding high. She switched out the light to better see the sky. She was a practical woman who’d never let herself waste time daydreaming, but gazing out across the overgrown garden to the farmland beyond, raising her glance to the crescent moon and the first hint of a few stars in the darkening sky, she felt that this must surely be an omen.
Later, she stepped into the steaming bath, the room filled with the perfume of Violet’s expensive bath salts – something Louisa never used at home, but they expressed as clearly as anything the step she was taking from her old life to her new. Another thing completely out of character was for her to lie in the bath while the water cooled and the steam condensed and trickled down the tiled walls. She wouldn’t do it again, she told herself. After she let the water away she would open the window wide, but just for the moment she was enveloped in luxury that had never been part of her life.
Next, wrapped in a bathrobe which she found hanging on the back of the door, she went into Violet’s bedroom and with no feeling of guilt opened the drawers, telling herself there must be warm pyjamas in there somewhere. But there were no such things. Never had she handled such exquisite underwear: French knickers, cami-knickers, bras, slips, dozens of pairs of silk or nylon stockings, some a shade Louisa thought of as natural, but some black just as some of the suspender belts and bras were black. It was all a mystery to Louisa, who had always dressed as smartly as finances allowed, but never possessed garments like the ones she was discovering as she went from drawer to drawer. This was the first night of the rest of her life and it should be celebrated by wearing something utterly different from anything she had bought herself. ‘All that I possess I leave to my niece, Louisa Ann Harding.’ The words echoed, adding to the feeling of unreality. On a hook on the back of the bedroom door was a black silk negligee, so she selected a black nightgown of silk so fine that as she dropped it over her head the material seemed to caress her skin. It was a shame to cover it with the negligee, but the chill of the evening demanded it and, anyway, she thought as she slipped her arms into the sleeves and tied the sash around her slim waist, it had been hers, she must have worn it and now it’s mine. Perhaps Violet had been a model, or an actress. But even if she’d been born an afterthought in the family she could no longer have been young. Whatever high-salaried work she had had, surely when she got home she would have wanted something casual and comfortable. I wish I’d known you, Violet; not just as a memory through the eyes of a small child, but known you and talked to you – laughed with you like we did that afternoon.
It was evident that comfort had been a priority in the house, for even in the sitting room with its mock coals, as in each room in the house, there was an electric radiator. So before Louisa went downstairs she turned on the one in the bedroom, imagining the comfort Violet must have been used to. Often enough, Louisa spent her Saturday evenings in front of the electric fire in her apartment in Reading, sometimes watching her newly acquired television but more often reading. So what would she do with the rest of this evening? There was plenty of reading material in the bookcase, but her mind was much too active to want to lose herself in a world of fiction. With a slight feeling of guilt she opened the bureau. It seemed wrong to be looking through her aunt’s personal papers, as if she were prying into her secret life. Ought she to take the bank statements to the solicitor? Would he need them for probate? This was her first experience of dealing with death. Glancing at the figures she was amazed, but more than amazed she was puzzled. Her own salary was good and she had a professional qualification, but her own account never showed figures like these. With the reading lamp shining down on the open bureau she drew up a chair and was about to immerse herself in what she was discovering when she heard something that brought her to her feet, seemingly frozen to the spot.
Someone had opened the front door. Her usually sensible mind flew in all directions. Could it be the police? She had no right to be here – the house wasn’t hers until the solicitor had settled Violet’s affairs. No, don’t panic, the police wouldn’t have a key; it must be someone from one of the cottages across the lane, someone who kept an eye on the place if it was left empty. Louisa forced herself to stand very straight as the sitting-room door was thrown open and at the same time, before he’d even entered the room, the intruder yelled, ‘What in Christ’s name do you think you’re doing? Close that bur—’ The sentence hung in the air, half finished. ‘Oh, God! Vi.’ In a hushed tone full of fear
, ‘Vi.’
Instinctively Louisa pulled herself very straight, holding his gaze defiantly. ‘I might ask you the same question. Who are you and how is it you have a key to the house?’ Her tone was frigid, yet even as she spoke she believed she knew the answer. There was something in the slump of his shoulders and the way his hand shook as he pushed his fingers through his iron-grey hair that hinted to her that he had been closer to her aunt than a mere neighbour. ‘You must surely know that my aunt isn’t here. There was an accident—’
‘Your aunt? You’re Louisa? Looking at you I can see her, a lifetime ago. Of course I had a key.’ He met her gaze, and seemed to be weighing up the situation. ‘No word from any of her family for more than a quarter of a century, and now I suppose you’re one of the vultures.’
‘Of course I’m not. If you and Aunt Violet were friends, were close, she would be disgusted with such a remark. I know there was a family rift; what it was about I’ve no idea and I didn’t want to know. I hadn’t heard of her since I was four years old, not until I found I was her heir.’
‘Louisa,’ he said softly, lowering himself into an armchair by the hearth. ‘She never forgot you. I remember when she came back from holding out an olive branch to your parents – dear God, how she cried.’ He closed his eyes as if speaking about it had transported him back. ‘But she told me about you; I remember her exact words. She said, “If only we could have had a child, that’s what she would have been like. If only … if only.” But we both knew that for us a life together was impossible. I had a wife and sons – a God-fearing, truly good woman and dear sons who needed a father. Why am I telling you all this?’ He seemed to be looking right through her.
‘Because no one has ever told me anything, and we owe it to her that I understand.’ Louisa needed to hear more.
‘Your parents – and the rest of her family – wouldn’t try to understand. To them there could be no excuse for love except within marriage. It was marriage that was important, not love, not a meeting of spirits.’
‘Go on,’ she prompted softly, sitting on the arm of his chair.
‘So we took what we could.’ There was a long pause and when he spoke again he might have been speaking his thoughts aloud as he looked back through the years. ‘I remember teaching her to ride. She was a natural. Natural, yes, that’s what she was, in every way. She held nothing back. She cared not a jot for what people thought of her. The hours, the days we spent together were the only thing that mattered to me – to either of us. There’s a family business the other side of Birmingham; I invented calls of duty taking me away for days at a time so that we could be together. She was living in Birmingham in the beginning. That’s where we met. Day or night, we found joy in each other.’ As he talked he lay back in the chair with his eyes closed. Emotion got the better of him; she saw his mouth quiver and his voice was tight as he went on. ‘She was my life. From the first day we met, we knew that …’ His battle was lost, his words died. Louisa found herself putting her arm around his shaking shoulders as he wept. For him the relief of releasing so much bottled-up misery was enormous. After a minute or two he became calmer and went on: ‘Alice was a good woman.’ (Alice? She must be his wife, Louisa concluded, but she didn’t interrupt him to ask.) ‘She could have kept the farm; it was hers more than mine. She was the worker, not me. I never gave a damn about it after I met Violet. She was all I wanted, all I could ever want. It was the same for her.’
For a moment or two neither spoke; the only sound in the room was of his occasional muffled gulps as he gradually regained control.
‘But you kept faith with your marriage?’ Louisa prompted after a moment.
‘Kept faith? When affection turns to resentment? Is that keeping faith? I tried to believe Alice didn’t know what had happened, why it was that Violet moved into this house. She used to come to the farm sometimes and I tried to pretend everyone saw her as a family friend. Alice never accused me. I thought she was too wrapped up in the farm to even notice. I had that stable block built on the far side of the land here and bought Tilda for her, a gentle creature. Alice made believe she thought it was a good idea when I said I was bringing Brutus down from the farm, said the space would be useful for equipment that got left outside. I didn’t care what they did with the space; I didn’t care about anything on the farm. I taught Violet to ride, and it was her suggestion that Leo had a pony.’ Leo? Wasn’t that what the pretty girl had called her husband? So the farm her visitor talked about must be the one the house backed on to. It all began to fall into place in Louisa’s mind. He was talking again: ‘The three of us used to spend hours riding together – as if we were a family. But of course there was gossip. My comings and goings were noted by the people in the cottages opposite. Word got around. That was evident from the way the women cold-shouldered Violet. Yet Alice said nothing. I believed – I made myself believe – that she accepted her as a neighbour and friend. I was a fool, a coward and a fool. I tried to give the impression Violet was no more to me than any other woman. May God forgive me. She didn’t care about the gossip; she had the courage of a lion.’ Still he lay back in the chair with his eyes closed. Louisa felt he’d forgotten she was there and was talking to himself. Another silence, then: ‘Now that she’s gone, both of them gone, I can see what I should have done. Perhaps not while the boys were still too young to understand. I should have broken my vows and taken her away, my blessed Violet. Married or not, we would have been proud to be seen as living together. And Alice? Would she have been any more hurt than she was? For years she ran the home, she oversaw what crops were grown. I let her get on with it. For all the use I was I might as well not have been there, and all the time she must have known I didn’t love her. I loved Violet – and so I shall till the day I die. It killed Alice; it was what caused her death as surely as that fast car caused Violet’s. That night when we heard about Violet’s accident the whole lie we’d lived blew up in our faces. Nothing can ever wipe out the things we said; I had to hurt her, as if that would take away the hell of losing Violet. I came over here; all I wanted was to find something of Violet’s spirit here where we had known real – real – joy. Hours later when I got home I found Alice dead on the bedroom floor. A stroke, that’s what the doctor said. But the doctor hadn’t been there to know what had gone before. All her venom was aimed at Violet, but it was me she should have hated.’
Watching him, Louisa knew he was haunted by the horror of his memories. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened on that fateful night, but she had no doubt the ghosts gave him no peace. An hour or so ago, she’d known nothing of his existence, except what the pretty girl had said that afternoon. But clearly the pretty girl knew only half the story.
He opened his tear-reddened eyes. ‘There’s drink in that cupboard,’ he told her. ‘Let me pour us something.’
Five minutes later they were sitting facing each other across the hearth, she with a cigarette and he puffing a pipe.
‘You’ve done a lot for me this evening,’ she said, speaking quietly as if she were simply voicing the thought that had just come to her. ‘I wanted to remember her, to feel I knew her. There’s no logic’ – and this from Louisa, for whom logic had been her guiding star – ‘it’s as if the magic of those few hours when I was with her had been waiting to be nudged back to life. How could I have stopped remembering?’
Ignoring the question, or perhaps he hadn’t been listening, he said, ‘When you turned round from the bureau it was as if the years between hadn’t happened. You are so like she was when we were both young.’ Then, going back to what he had been saying earlier, ‘It was she who persuaded me – begged me, in fact – not to leave Alice and the boys. She said it would come between us, that my conscience would plague me and that she couldn’t bear the thought of me losing my sons. Was she right? I swear it would never have come between us, but it would have cast a cloud. That’s why she came to live here. I’d been going up to the works as often as I could – not that I did anything
useful there and neither was I interested. A few stolen days, perhaps once a month. We wanted more than that. So I gave her this house and she used to visit the farm. How sordid it sounds. But it wasn’t, I swear it wasn’t. What we found was something rare. After more than thirty years it was as complete, as right as it had been in the beginning.’
When he finally left to walk back to the farm he hesitated for a moment by the front door.
‘If I’ve helped you remember her, you have helped me to find comfort in the memory. I came because I saw lights on here. I thought … Don’t know what I thought. Then I met you and you have given me – peace? Acceptance? No, it’s not that easy. But this evening I have come nearer to Violet than I’ve been able to over these last weeks. Seeing you here, so like her and in memory so dear to her – the child we could never have – has brought a kind of comfort.’ Then in a more hopeful tone: ‘I shan’t listen to Leo and his suggestion that I get a manager and make my home with them. I shall stay at the farm. I’ve a couple of good men working there; the place doesn’t need a manager. I don’t do much, haven’t for years. That pretty child is having a baby – no doubt she told you –’ He said it affectionately and with the closest thing to a smile that Louisa had seen.
‘She certainly did. A sweet girl.’
‘Pure gold. But such a child.’ The note of hope was lost. ‘Alice was pure gold, although she never had the looks of beautiful Bella. But looks aren’t the most important thing. Leo is so much older than her. He has a good brain but a restless spirit. It worries me. It’s not goodness that holds a man, nor yet beauty; it’s something that defies description.’
‘She adores him.’
‘No doubt about that. Please God he doesn’t meet someone who is more than a pretty face and a sweet nature – that and the mother of his child.’
‘You don’t mean that. Would you have been happier had you not met Violet?’