A Hint of Witchcraft (19 page)

‘I'll be all right.'

‘Don't do anything silly – like getting married – or anything.'

‘I'll try not to.'

The guard blew his whistle. Their hands parted. For some bonds the word love is not enough. Such bonds are unchosen, unacknowledged like air and water, and unbreakable.

‘Be there when I come back.'

She walked a few steps with him as the train moved. He watched her until it reached the end of the platform, forgetful of the life ahead, thinking with unexpected pain of the life he was leaving.

As Margot left the platform, the sparse gathering of people on the concourse parted to make way for a man rushing at furious speed towards the barrier.

‘Lance!'

‘Damn. I've missed him. Just didn't make it.'

‘You came all this way.…'

They stood for a moment in gloomy silence. He had travelled overnight from Glasgow; he was red-eyed, unshaven, dishevelled, hungry. She saw that he was also terribly disappointed.

‘Come on. I'll take you home.' They both said it almost in a breath and laughed. He took her arm.

‘When blokes go to Africa, it takes hold of them. They never settle anywhere else.'

‘Perhaps Alex won't settle even in Africa.'

‘That's a thought.' He fell asleep in the taxi and had to be roused when it stopped at the front door.

Sarah was lying on her bed, still dressed, her face puffed from weeping, her hair loose. Margot brought a bowl of water, a towel, comb and mirror.

‘It doesn't matter about my hair.' Sarah closed her eyes and continued to pray without hope that she would live to see her son again.

CHAPTER XIV

Marian Grey enjoyed her visits to Bainrigg House. Her social life was limited. She could not go on accepting invitations from the few old friends in Elmdon who had kept in touch without returning their hospitality. To invite them to no 5 Gordon Street was simply impossible.

The seven years she had spent in those dreary rented rooms had been a test of endurance: a period of exile from the world she had once, too briefly, known. It was unreasonable perhaps (she was not a reasonable woman) to feel that Justin had let her down: not by being killed in battle, that was an eventuality he could not avoid and as an officer could be said to have sought, but in not having left her well provided for. The discomforts and limitations of Gordon Street were such as one never got used to: the musty furnishings, the smoking fires, the flaked enamel of the bath, the chipped handbasin, the view of a narrow street and the constant racket of carts and cars. In Gordon Street she was not herself.

The Marian Grey she felt herself to be emerged like Athene fully armed from the brow of Zeus when she stepped out of the Rilstons' car at Bainrigg, Chapman holding open the door – and remained as actively alive as she was capable of being until he helped her out again on the return to no 5 – to the red and blue glass fanlight and the bird-cage in the window.

In the sitting-room at Bainrigg, long windows opened on smooth lawns. Beyond a cedar's trailing boughs there were no more than glimpses of commonplace fields and mercifully distant wild country. When, as occasionally happened, conversation lapsed, one rediscovered the silence of the room, of the house, of the whole domain; a well-bred expensive silence scarcely broken by a soft-footed maid bringing coffee – or tea – or a glass of wine, until the two low-pitched voices resumed their unforceful and purposeless interchanges; purposeless, that is, on the part of Mrs Rilston.

The friendship, recently begun, had grown rapidly, encouraged by a number of ill-assorted circumstances. The most pressing included the alarming accumulation at no 5 of unpaid bills and the refusal of Wares, the principal store in Elmdon, to give further credit, and the death of a capricious relative who had been generous in passing on expensive clothes but had left everything to a nephew in Tasmania.

One morning in the week before Easter, gloom at the breakfast table was alleviated by the arrival of the weekly
Elmdon Gazette.
They had given up the luxury of a daily paper but it was necessary to keep abreast of local functions.

‘Mr Rilston has died.' Two whole columns were devoted to the passing of one of the county's most distinguished gentlemen. ‘How sad! We met him and Mrs Rilston, you remember, at the Humberts. Did you see him that time you called at Bainrigg with Miles?'

‘No. Only Mrs Rilston.'

‘Speaking of the Humberts, I suppose Alex will be home at Easter.'

‘Yes. Tomorrow or the next day.'

‘He'll be sure to call. Do try to meet him somewhere else.' Marian's glance expressed dissatisfaction with the room.

‘He doesn't notice.'

‘No, of course not. He is so devoted. I wonder.…'

Her wonder took a different direction as days passed without a sign or word from Alex. She had never been sure of Linden's feelings for him, or of Linden's feelings about anything. Close though they were, Linden had never been confidential. Naturally she understood the absolute necessity of making a good marriage for both her own sake and her mother's. Marian's experience had made her anxious that Linden should be spared the deprivations life had thrust upon her mother. But with the passage of time, hope of a good marriage might degenerate into a clutch at any marriage at all. Alex Humbert's father was a man of means; Alex himself had prospects – long-term prospects. The rather dreadful Godfrey Barford could, as a husband, keep both Linden and her mother in comfort, at least his father could. In spite of herself Marian could not repress a shudder.

But Miles Rilston, heir to the entire Rilston estate, would have much to offer and – her eyes turned to the morning paper – had it now. Linden knew him, had actually visited at Bainrigg. Would it be suitable to write a letter of condolence to Mrs Rilston on the sad loss of her husband?

‘I don't think so,' Linden said. ‘We aren't on such close terms.'

‘But we have met. If I could happen to meet her again – by chance.…'

‘She goes out very little, and especially now, I suppose.'

Nevertheless Linden's concentration on whatever it was that occupied her at her desk in the window at Embletons' was not so profound as to prevent her from noticing passers-by. There was no mistaking the Rilstons' Daimler with Chapman at the wheel. A fortnight passed.

‘It's usually a Wednesday,' she told her mother. ‘Miss Leonard at the office knows the chauffeur. Mrs Rilston comes to the hairdresser and the bank and to visit an old servant in hospital. She has coffee at Pikes.'

The following Wednesday morning, Mrs Rilston was at her usual table when a newcomer approaching the one next to it appeared to hesitate. She was a thin woman in her forties, wearing a well-cut and well-worn grey costume, a plain felt hat and amber beads.

‘Good morning. Mrs Rilston, I believe. You won't remember me. I'm Marian Grey. We met at the Humberts years ago.'

‘I do remember. Won't you join me?'

To the accompaniment of a piano, violin and viola, they became acquainted. The two had much in common: an ignorance of everyday working life, a dependence on men, a limited range of ideas. Both were widows, both lonely.

‘I'm sorry that I can't invite you to our rooms,' Marian said. ‘We do no entertaining.'

‘I do understand,' said Mrs Rilston who would not have gone however warmly urged. ‘You must come to Bainrigg.'

The visits, at first occasional, became frequent. On Wednesdays when she had finished all that she had to do in town, Mrs Rilston would bring her home to lunch. While she rested, Marian dozed over
The Lady
or
The Tatler
– or strolled in the garden until it was time for afternoon tea. In the well-padded armchair which became hers, she lost the fretfulness that sometimes marred her not unpleasing features. Being the younger of the two she unconsciously assumed the vivacity of a younger sister and sometimes gave the conversation a lighter turn. But her prowess as a listener was unsurpassed. Mrs Rilston often spoke of being hard-up, of the need to economize and to cut down on servants, of the drop in railway shares. But the richness of the furnishings, the gleam of mahogany and walnut, the thick pile of the carpets, the solidly built house and its surrounding acres made talk of poverty merely theoretical. She also spoke a good deal about Miles. It was some time before Marian identified him as the elder Miles, her son. Of the younger, less was said. Sometimes it was difficult to disentangle the two.

‘And your daughter?' Mrs Rilston said. ‘Tell me about her.'

‘Well.…' To her surprise Marian could find nothing to say. Linden, the central interest in her life, was difficult if not impossible to talk about. What could one say? ‘She has a little job at Embletons', the solicitors … She has friends…' Actually Linden had no girlfriends unless one counted Margot Humbert.

The two ladies liked to talk about the Humberts and their extraordinary decision to rent Langland Hall. Mrs Rilston had not mastered particulars of the agreement between landlord and tenant but she knew that it was unusual. She did not know that Edward's friends, Quinian and Andrews, had described it as an invitation to disaster, nor did Edward, but Marian had heard enough to justify her remark that there was something a little – well – unreliable about the Humberts.

‘Not Sarah. We knew each other as girls. But her husband seems to change course rather frequently and Alex may take after him.'

Alex's silence had persisted. It was now June. He had not written, and if he had been at home, he had made no attempt to see Linden.

‘He has behaved oddly.' Marian did not mind writing off Alex as unreliable (one did rather wonder about his politics) and discourteous. If his father took risks, Linden had perhaps escaped the fate of marrying into a financially embarrassed family. ‘But Linden is too level-headed to have become seriously involved with him. It was no more than a youthful flirtation.'

‘A charming girl, I remember. She must come to tea one day.'

By the time the ladies met again Mrs Rilston had heard from her housekeeper that Mr Alex had gone all of a sudden to Kenya. His mother was terribly upset and her health had taken a turn for the worse. Everyone had thought he would settle down in Elmdon where a position was being held for him.

Marian breathed a sigh of relief. So far as she knew there was no money to be made in Africa unless it was in South Africa. Moreover, Kenya was known to be the region to which ne'er-do-well young men were sent and not heard of for years. Linden, so level-headed in not having become seriously involved, was surely too level-headed to grieve the loss of so imprudent a young man. His absence simplified things. Certainly Linden showed none of the symptoms of a broken heart. With a tiny inward shrinking, Marian admitted to herself that Linden had shown little sign of having a heart in the metaphorical sense.

Such feeling as Linden experienced in this situation could be described as resentment. Her confidence was a trifle shaken by Alex's desertion. It could scarcely be due to jealousy of Godfrey. With Alex, jealousy would have worked the other way: he would have stayed to fight, not run away. What had happened to change him so unaccountably? Meanwhile she watched her mother's successful infiltration into Bainrigg House with approval.

Miles also approved. A congenial woman friend was good for his grandmother. So far as he knew she had no other and even now she was too much alone. He had not gone back to Oxford for the summer term: there were too many things to see to at Bainrigg and also at the Rilston properties in Lancashire. It would have been possible to fulfil the minimum number of weeks to permit him to take finals but not to reach a standard that would satisfy him. There was no hurry. If he felt inclined he could return next year with a freer mind – but that would depend on Margot.

He felt his grandfather's death keenly: he had loved and relied on the old man and was not ready to take his place. For the past two or three years he had been happy in the knowledge that still greater happiness might be in store for him and not too far ahead. That he had not told Margot that he loved her had been a bitter disappointment. An aura of perfection clung to that lost meeting and no similar opportunity had arisen nor had he had the confidence to make one. He had seen Margot three or four times but never alone. Her father and brother had both come with offers of help and sympathy in April. He was astonished by the news that Alex had since gone abroad. The friendship with the Humberts and the hope that Margot returned his love had sustained him in the harassing weeks between Easter and midsummer. By the beginning of July the more pressing problems had been dealt with. One more trip to Lancashire would be his last for some time. He planned to spend the rest of the summer at home and to take the first opportunity of seeking out Margot.

Having made the trip, he came home earlier than expected. Things had gone well. He felt more cheerful and at ease than he had done since his grandfather's death. The day had been warm and he had enjoyed the drive with the hood of his car down. Coming back to Bainrigg had sometimes been an ordeal when he was a schoolboy, but now it was a genuine homecoming. Everything he loved was here in this quiet place where his forefathers had lived and died, where he would spend the rest of his life.

It was early evening when he turned into the by-road leading to Bainrigg – and cool under the wayside trees. From time to time he caught sight of the house: a window glittered in low sunlight; smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. Half an hour to the usual time for dining. Time to bath and change. He was hungry. Tomorrow.…

Mrs Beale, the housekeeper, had heard the car and was in the hall to greet him.

‘It's good to see you, sir. We weren't expecting you until tomorrow.'

He heard voices in the sitting-room.

‘Visitors?'

‘Only Mrs Grey – and Miss Grey.' They had come to tea and been persuaded to stay to dinner. ‘I dare say madam would have let them go if she had known you were coming.'