The Cruellest Month

by Hazel Holt

  ‘The use of words,’ Fitz announced, ‘or, indeed, the non-use of words, as Bill has said, as a means of expressing, or not expressing, thoughts or emotions is, after all, one of man’s main achievements, one, I need hardly add, that separates us from the lower animals.’

  We considered this in silence for a moment and then Bill said, ‘The number of words, however, does not necessarily relate to the clarity of expression. Think of Henry James.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I broke in. ‘Like when he described a black dog as “something dark, something canine”!’

  ‘That seems perfectly reasonable to me,’ Fitz said, ‘admirably lucid.’

  ‘Surely that’s not the first word one thinks of in relation to James – after all he, himself, refers to his “sub-aqueous prose”.’

  ‘It is the thought behind the prose that is lucid, my dear Chloe,’ Fitz explained patiently, ‘not necessarily the words themselves.’

  Elaine brought in a splendid rib of beef which Fitz carved expertly. I watched him carefully. When I carve, however much I study the little diagrams in the cookery books, the joint always seems to fall apart and I end up with a few ragged slices and lots of little bits.

  The meal progressed on its stately way and the conversation became more intellectually strenuous. I felt I had become rather out of practice. Dinner-party chat (one cannot really dignify it by the name of conversation) in Taviscombe mostly consists of gossip, frequently expressed worries about our children and speculation as to why petrol should cost so much more in our part of the West Country than it does anywhere else. Not much to exercise what now passes for my mind. I began to feel rather tired and was quite glad, after the meal was over, to sink into a peaceful silence while Fitz embarked on the ritual of making Turkish coffee. Actually it always seems to me an awful lot of fuss about nothing, since what you end up with is, in my opinion, nothing more or less than lukewarm mud. Still, I hoped its excessive strongness would help to keep me awake. I suppose it’s a sign of advancing age, but I do find it difficult to keep my eyelids from drooping after a heavy meal in the evening. Finally the contents of the curiously shaped brass coffee jug were pronounced ready to drink and conversation could become more general. I started to tell Elaine how much I had always admired her book illustrations.

  ‘I bought all your editions for Michael when he was a child. He still loves them, especially your Arabian Nights.’

  She blushed, unexpectedly, with pleasure.

  ‘Perhaps you might like to have a look at my Round Table ones?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Oh yes, please, that would be marvellous!’

  She got to her feet and I willingly abandoned my cup of Turkish mud and followed her up the splendid staircase, whose walls were hung with large oil paintings after the school of Alma Tadema, to her studio at the front of the house.

  It was a large room, finely proportioned and with a high, noble ceiling, decorated with intricate plasterwork which featured heads of cherubs picked out in gold. The whole walls were hung with a profusion of pictures, mostly the framed originals of Elaine’s illustrations. I recognised Michael’s favourite – ‘The Djinn’, all sinuous coils, emerging from a jewel-encrusted bottle. There was a background of columns and rich hangings, and, through an archway, a glimpse of a magically beautiful garden. I remembered how, as a small child, he had been torn between fear at the idea of the Djinn and delight in the beauty of the picture. The strength of Elaine’s illustrations was that she never sentimentalised her subject – the fear was always there as well as the beauty. In spite of her surroundings, her Arthurian studies owed nothing to Burne-Jones. She had evolved a new technique with light and heavy ink lines defining the delicate water-colour figures, so that the character of each person came startlingly to life.

  ‘How do you like my Merlin?’ she asked, turning an easel towards me.

  A magnificent figure in heavy robes was standing in one of Fitz’s most characteristic poses – his head thrown back, so that the thick hair was shaken off the brow and the right hand raised in benediction. The expression was one I had often seen, an expression that conveyed a supreme confidence in his own values and opinions – Fitz the infallible.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sure that Merlin was exactly like Fitz!’ I exclaimed. ‘How clever of you!’

  She smiled and showed me some of the other studies. Arthur and Guinevere, although delightfully done, some-how didn’t have the life and vitality of Merlin, rather as though she had been bored by them.

  ‘Where is Lancelot?’ I asked. ‘Have you done him yet?’

  ‘He’s in my bedroom. I always put pictures I’m not quite sure about where I can see them first thing, when I wake up. I find that helps me to decide what is wrong with them.’

  ‘May I see?’

  She opened a door that led out of the studio and put on the light. My first reaction was pleasure that Elaine slept in a four-poster bed, just like the princesses in her fairy tales. My second reaction was amazement, for on a table beside the four-poster bed was a framed photograph of a young man. It was the same photograph that I had seen beside Gwen Richmond’s bed. I gave an involuntary cry of astonishment and went to look at it more closely. Elaine looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘What an amazingly beautiful young man.’ I said. ‘Who is he?’

  She picked up the photograph and cradled it in her hands.

  ‘That was Lance,’ she said, ‘my younger brother. You see, I have used him for his namesake – that is why I wanted the picture to be absolutely right.’

  The picture on an easel at the foot of the bed was larger than the other studies, not so much an illustration, more a portrait. It was a full-length study of a young man in armour leaning against a may tree in full bloom. His sword and helmet were on the ground, intertwined with briar roses and convolvulus, which had magically sprung up to cover them. His face was raised to look at the flowers above his head and wore such an expression of sadness and despair that I felt I could hardly bear to look at it.

  ‘Oh, Elaine.’ I said inadequately.

  Rupert had told me that Fitz and Elaine had worshipped their younger brother. Elaine’s gift for painting and Fitz’s scholarly achievements were both remarkable but Lance had really been the golden boy of that talented family. He had written a novel that was widely acclaimed for both its style and originality, a study of Shelley, still considered a classic, and a play that held the promise of great things to come. He had died abroad, a few years after the end of the war and, Rupert said, they had never really got over the tragedy. Looking at the picture I realised that Elaine’s grief at his death was undiminished by time. At least she was able to express her sorrow through her painting; it must have been much harder for Fitz. I had never once heard him refer to his brother.

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask Elaine about Lance and his connection with Gwen Richmond but, with this moment of emotion hanging in the air between us, it would have been crass to do so. I said hesitantly, ‘You still miss him very much?’

  ‘There isn’t a moment in the day when he isn’t in my thoughts.’

  ‘And Pitz?’

  ‘Arthur thinks his own thoughts.’

  She stood aside to let me through the door and put out the light carefully, as if extinguishing a flame in front of a shrine.

  As I came down the stairs I felt I had been in another world and it seemed astonishing to find Fitz and Bill Howard still drinking coffee and discussing George Eliot. Soon after, I made my excuses and went away, feeling that the evening had been almost too eventful.

  Chapter Nine

  Although the following morning was bright and sunny I no longer felt the same euphoria I had known the day before as I walked through the Parks. The flowers and the blossom on the trees seemed almost unbearably beautiful – Housman not Browning, I felt, fitted my mood today. Or Eliot. April is indeed the cruellest month, mixing memory not with desire exactly, but with a kind of indefinable yearning, the restlessness that had led me
into foolish thoughts about Bill Howard. Spring is for the young, I told myself sternly, it is the youth of the year. Middle age is autumnal, with the sere and yellow leaf, not the delicate green of unfolding buds, and this feeling of being poised on the edge of some great adventure is unsuitable and unbecoming and will only end in tears.

  I settled down to work and managed to lose myself, as mercifully I can, in another, more sober world, not surfacing until nearly half past one. I knew that all the pubs and most of the cafés would be very crowded, so I made my way to a small vegetarian restaurant so tucked away down a side street that only its regular customers know of its existence. Harriet (a born-again Vegan) had discovered it and I’d been there several times with Betty. I noticed gratefully that they’d relaxed their original strict principles because there was a cheese topping on the very good ratatouille.

  I opened my book and had just started to eat, when a voice behind me said, ‘Isn’t this a coincidence – I’ve just been posting a parcel to you!’

  It was Molly Richmond. She put her tray down and distributed various dishes around the table.

  ‘How nice to see you,’ I said. And, indeed, it really did seem like a heaven-sent opportunity to ask some of the questions that were churning round in my mind.

  ‘I found Gwen’s diary,’ she said, breaking up bits of bread and stirring them round in her soup. ‘I thought there were two of them but I could only find one. Still it should give you some idea of what it was like to live in the countryside in wartime.’

  We talked a little about the war and then, when there was a pause in the conversation, I said, ‘I had dinner with the Fitzgeralds last night, I believe your sister knew them.’

  She stared at me, her face looking particularly large and round across the small table.

  ‘The Fitzgeralds? Elaine and Arthur?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am very surprised that Gwen’s name was mentioned in that household,’ she said. Her voice was hard and cold.

  ‘I think I may have mentioned her,’ I said vaguely. ‘Do you know them too?’

  ‘Elaine Fitzgerald was my dearest friend. She was also my teacher. Everything I know about painting I have learnt from her.’

  ‘You say was,’ I ventured.

  ‘How could I bring myself to face her after the terrible thing that Gwen did to them both.’

  There was a moment’s silence. I longed to ask the question, but somehow I couldn’t.

  Then Molly said, ‘She killed their brother Lance, who was, as you may know, the light of their lives.’

  ‘Killed?’

  ‘As good as. Oh, she didn’t stab him with a knife, or poison him or push him over a cliff. She loved him, I believe, in her own peculiar way. But Gwen was, nevertheless, the cause of his death.’

  She was sitting quite still, her hands resting on the edge of the table. She began to push some spilt breadcrumbs around with the tip of one finger.

  ‘How did it happen?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ she said. ‘I first got to know Elaine Fitzgerald in the last months of the war. She was doing Red Cross work and came to the hospital in Banbury on a course. We found we had a lot in common – though she was older than me. She was already a well-known illustrator and I was still upset at not having been allowed to study art in London – just knowing her was very thrilling for me. She offered to give me lessons, so, whenever I could, I got the bus to Oxford and spent marvellous hours in that studio of hers. The journeys were difficult and tiring (especially when I’d just been on night duty) but they seemed like expeditions into a different world. It was the happiest time of my life. Her brother Arthur was away doing some sort of hush-hush work and Lance was in the Air Force. I saw them from time to time, and they were agreeable to me as Elaine’s friend, but I hardly noticed them. All I thought about was Elaine and the work and the atmosphere in that wonderful house.’

  ‘It is still almost unchanged.’ I said, then stopped, afraid to break the thread of her narrative. She hardly seemed aware that I had spoken.

  ‘One of the best things for me was being important to someone. At home it was always Gwen who came first, and with other people she was the popular one. That house was a special place for me, where I could be myself – where my gifts, small as they were, were appreciated and encouraged.

  ‘When Gwen was demobbed she came home for a while. And, of course, as soon as she discovered about my friendship with the Fitzgeralds she wanted to barge in there too. I held out as long as I could, but she could be very persistent, so I asked Elaine if I might bring her with me one day. Gwen could be very charming when she chose. She was lively and intelligent and good company – all the things I was not. Arthur was home by then and he and Elaine took to Gwen and encouraged her to visit them often. I was still working at the hospital so I couldn’t get away every week, and Gwen took to going to see them on her own. Before I knew what had happened she was practically part of the household in a way I had never been. Oh, Elaine and I still painted together – but the old atmosphere was gone.’

  She broke off and gave me a brief smile.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You’re a good listener! I’ve been bottling it up all these years, and now I’ve started I don’t think I can stop. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, of course not. Please go on.’

  ‘Then Lance came home from the Air Force and I saw at once what Gwen was up to. As soon as she saw him she wanted him. He really was the most beautiful young man – when he was in a room you couldn’t look at anyone else. He was brilliant, too, really creative and with a fine mind, and with it all he was shy and modest. He’d had a great success with his novel – everyone said he was the most original writer of his generation. Gwen loved all that, of course – she adored fame and success. Lance, bless him’ – her face softened into a smile – ‘said he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, he’d just written a book the way he felt like writing it. He had a very sweet nature – he was always so kind and friendly to me ... Anyway, it was obvious to me that Gwen intended to marry him. But she knew how possessive Elaine and Arthur were. Lance was the most important thing in both their lives. Everything they did was related to him. During the war they’d suffered agonies, being parted from him and worrying about his safety and now that he was back home they lived in a sort of glow. Yes,’ she said as I looked surprised, ‘Arthur as well as Elaine. In some ways he was more obsessed than she was. He was rather different in those days – witty, of course, but a kinder wit and a more generous spirit.

  ‘This all went on for some time – over a year. Gwen was clever. She never betrayed any partiality for Lance – she devoted as much time as ever to Elaine and Arthur, so that they came to think of her as the daughter of the house. They had no idea of her feelings for Lance – she would soon have been turned away if they’d had any inkling.

  ‘Gwen decided that her best chance was to get Lance away from Oxford, away from their influence and protection. She had heard about one of the first archaeological expeditions going into Greece. I don’t know if you know what Greece was like in those days. There had been a lot of unrest, partisans fighting and so forth, and it was only just possible to get back into the country. She had a lot of contacts still from her Oxford days and managed to wangle two places for them on the expedition – she was a good classical scholar and he was to write an account of the trip. She was very persuasive and he was wildly excited at the idea of this new and thrilling adventure. I think he was in love with her – though it may just have been that he was overwhelmed by her personality and thought he was. The end result was the same – she seemed to have cast a spell over him and he followed wherever she led. Gwen knew that Elaine and Arthur would be horrified if they thought that Lance was going into Greece at that time – it was still quite dangerous – so she persuaded him to keep the whole thing secret. She didn’t tell Mother and me anything either, of course. Just that she was going to London to visit friends, and that
’s what Lance told the Fitzgeralds. The first thing they knew about it was a postcard from Lance, posted in Rome, to say that they were on their way to Greece.’

  ‘What a cruel thing to do!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. The fact that Lance had kept the whole thing a secret hurt them dreadfully. They sent for me and I was horrified. It was the first I knew about it – Gwen hadn’t even bothered to send a postcard to Mother and me. They realised then what sort of person Gwen was and how strong a hold she had over Lance. They blamed me...’

  Her voice trembled and she was almost in tears.

  ‘But that was so unfair!’ I cried.

  ‘Whoever said life was fair?’ she said bitterly. ‘After a few weeks Mother had a letter from Gwen saying that they were going to investigate a site near Bassae in the Peloponnese. She sounded very pleased with herself, very full of how exciting the work was, how brilliant Lance’s book would be. We heard nothing for some time, then I had a letter from Elaine to say that Lance was dead.’

  ‘How terrible – how did he die?’

  ‘It was typhoid. Conditions in those remote parts were very primitive just then, so soon after the war. The water supply was contaminated. Several of the expedition died…’

  ‘And Gwen?’

  ‘Oh, Gwen survived. She was a great survivor. She didn’t come back to England though. I think I told you she got a job with the British Council and lived abroad’,

  ‘And you never heard from Elaine again?’

  ‘Never. It was as though I no longer existed for her. I don’t think anything much existed for her then, apart from her memories of Lance and her painting.’

  I thought of Elaine as I had first known her several years after the tragedy. It was true, now I came to think of it, that she hadn’t seemed to live in the real world. She only saw Fitz’s circle in relation to her pictures – as models or as an audience.

  ‘And Fitz? What about him?’

  ‘I never saw him, of course, but I knew people who knew him – Mother and I had moved to Great Tew by then and I had friends in Oxford – and they said that he had become very sharp and malicious. I think that whereas Elaine had withdrawn into a world of memories and grieving, Arthur’s grief was constantly fuelled by anger and bitterness.’