A Hint of Witchcraft (33 page)

‘Yes. He has a grandfather in Berwick, but people have two grandfathers.'

‘His mother's father!'

‘He fell out with his daughter when she married. No one knows why. Nothing unusual about that: he fell out with everybody. That's why I'm glad I went to the funeral: considering how well known he was, there weren't many people there. Quinian of course, and Andrews. Laverborne was otherwise engaged, needless to say. It was a surprise to see the Pelmans. We left the cemetery together. Pelman had to go to a case but Lance told me all about it. There had been no contact between his father and grandfather since his mother's funeral, but Lance has been looking after him during his illness. He's coming this evening, by the way.'

The tea was refreshing. He wondered as she refilled his cup why Margot should be so pleased that Bedlow was Lance's grandfather. She seemed quite captivated by the idea – and how like her mother she was. Sarah's eyes had lit up in the same way when he first told her that he loved her. Mother and daughter had the same capacity for unalloyed happiness. It was a long time since he had seen Margot smiling to herself. The months of sunshine with Jane Bondless had done her good.

His own mood was pensive. The funeral had marked the end of an epoch. His contests with Bedlow had been fought with vigour. The antagonists had come from opposite corners of the ring with the glint of battle in their eyes, equal in determination and with the same inability to deal the knock-out blow. Remembering their set-to about the chimney, he saw it in a new light. Bedlow's offensive remarks about ‘your lad' were those of a grandfather whose own lad's picture had not appeared in the newspaper. He was entitled to feel annoyed. Well, he was gone; and he himself was tired, his confidence shaken. Sarah would have understood.

‘I'll go up and change,' he said, ‘and perhaps have forty winks.'

He had scarcely gone when she heard the car and rushed to the window. Almost at once Lance was in the room. In all the years as they grew up together they had never been alone in this special kind of way, so that she saw him afresh as if for the first time – yet with the familiarity of all that was dear in their shared lives. He was a distinguished-looking man – Jane was right – with an air of summing up situations and knowing how to deal with them, especially this one.

‘Lance! I'm so glad … but sorry to hear about your grandfather.'

‘I can see how sorry you are. You're positively beaming.' He came nearer. ‘Thank God you haven't changed. You always did blurt things out and then wish you hadn't. Let me look at you.' He took her hands and drew her closer, well pleased with what he saw.

‘You've been a long time in coming to look at me.… I was rather hurt. But I didn't know about your grandfather's illness – or even about your grandfather. Father thought you might be in love with a girl in Elmdon when you spent so much time there. Oh, I'm sorry!' Dreadful thought: the existence of an ailing grandfather need not preclude that of an attractive girl.

‘Are there any girls in Elmdon?' His voice was tender. He drew her closer still and stroked her hair. ‘Dearest Meg.' He gently touched her cheek. ‘You must know, there's no one but you.'

‘I didn't know. How could I?'

‘You've had long enough to find out. I've loved you since you were six – or earlier – since long before I knew the meaning of the word.'

‘You never said.…'

‘I'm saying it now. I've always loved you. The condition is serious, incurable, life-long, terminal.'

‘It's such a comfort to be loved by a doctor. In that grisly kind of way.'

‘Being without you is certainly like an illness. This last year has been the worst I've lived through, though the year before that was pretty bad.'

‘I'm glad you didn't bring this up when I was six. I wouldn't have felt so marvellously happy now if I'd known for years.' To be held close in his arms was like the homecoming after a difficult journey. ‘I've been rather slow in realizing how much I need you, now more than ever.'

‘You've got over Miles?'

‘It was a sad dream.' She moved away. ‘A strange sad interval, never quite real. It could never have been like this. But how blessed I've been. Both of you so good.'

‘It seemed only too real to me.' He joined her on the window-seat. ‘He had all the qualities I haven't got. Most important, charm. Miles had it, and Alex. You'd better face up to it: I have no charm.'

‘You don't need it, whatever it is.' He seemed to her almost – in fact, quite perfect. She must have been blind all these years. ‘What is it exactly?'

‘How should I know? Charm is indescribable.'

‘If you did know, you'd take it up seriously and make a thorough study of it. I wouldn't see you for months, perhaps years. I couldn't bear it. As a matter of fact' – she became serious herself – ‘being charmed and spellbound can actually happen to people, not only in fairy tales.'

‘You've experienced it?'

‘I'll tell you sometime. I have so much to tell you.'

There would be plenty of time. She was no longer restless. Her love, the natural flowering of an early affection into delight in his tenderness, his kiss, his understanding, had already distanced the distress of recent years. They went out into the garden. All very well to be wary of witchcraft but the evening was enchanted; in its softened light the Hall resumed its rightful air of picturesque antiquity. The garden was flower-scented. The whole world had changed.

‘I've waited for this so long,' he said. ‘I couldn't tell you sooner, that you're all the world to me, I mean. When your family came to Monk's Dene it was as if a new life began. I can just about remember how my father and I grubbed along before that. Your people were so good to me that I was always scared stiff of doing anything to upset them. It would have been overstepping the mark to try to monopolize their daughter. But it was tough – having to watch you fall in love with someone else.'

‘I promise never to do it again.'

Would she have been so happy now in Lance's arms, so deeply content, if she had not known the anguish of the earlier love? There seemed nothing more to wish for in the present hour, their first together, as the flush of sunset faded and the harvest moon appeared. They talked, were silent, talked again.

‘Tell me about your unknown grandfather.'

‘It was an odd business. I soon cottoned on to the fact that he was the enemy in your father's battles with the company. I couldn't remember ever having seen him so it was easy to keep quiet about him. No need to warn my father to do the same: he never mentioned him.'

‘But you became friends?'

‘He suddenly surfaced at the time of Katie's death. He'd read about it in the
Gazette
and seen my name – and came up with the offer to pay all my medical fees, board and lodgings. Naturally I went to see him. We got on rather well. My mother was barely mentioned. Heaven knows what had gone wrong. I think he felt more than he was capable of expressing. Communication was one of the things he hadn't learned.'

In the old man's last days they had become closer.

‘I have something to confess,' Lance said. ‘But first, can you give me your solemn word that you love me for my own sake and
for no other reason?
'

‘No matter what the confession is about?'

‘That's the whole point. No matter what.'

‘It's a fearful risk but you have my solemn word.'

‘It's embarrassing. I haven't yet got used to the idea. The fact is – I'm going to be alarmingly rich. The old man has left me everything: stocks and shares, investments in coal, iron, steel, railways, shipping, rows of houses. I may be exaggerating but there's an awful lot of it. You're laughing at me but it's been a shock, I can tell you.'

‘Never mind.' Margot kissed him again. ‘It's a disability you can't help. We must put up with it. For some women your wealth might even make up for your lack of charm.'

‘You're taking it well – and it certainly will transform the practice. We'll be able to take on an assistant – and a dispenser – and make life easier for the district nurse. And that's just a start. I've been lucky,' he added solemnly. ‘If my grandfather had died sooner I might have attracted the attention of Linden. Even now I don't feel safe.'

But the Greys, he thought, had left Gordon Street and possibly the district. The only intruder was Edward who came quietly down the path to the alcove in the balustrade where they sat.

‘When I see a man with his arm round my only daughter, I am bound to ask his intentions.' Lance blushed and got to his feet. Margot drew her father to the empty place: his voice had been husky. ‘Your mother would have been overjoyed. It was her dearest wish, years and years ago. You were like a son to her, Lance, and to me.' He cleared his throat. ‘And even if I'd known who your grandfather was, it wouldn't have made a ha'porth of difference. If you stick to your guns as well as he did, you'll not do too badly. At any rate, I'm glad you've both come to your senses at last.'

‘I came to mine when I heard that all the bairns in Clint Lane rush out to meet him. There must be some reason, I thought. Something I've overlooked.'

‘They also rush out to meet the refuse cart and the fresh-herring woman,' Lance reminded her.

No plans could be made until Alex came home. Both were content to prolong the serenely happy days of their engagement until the spring. Margot became a familiar passenger in the doctor's car and claimed that there were some children who rushed out to see the lady whom the doctor was going to marry. In more than one stricken household she made herself useful by nursing the baby or minding the toddlers while Lance saw the invalid. On one special occasion she took charge of four while their mother was delivered of twins. When she was called in and saw Lance triumphant with a baby in each arm, it seemed to her so touching that she burst into tears.

‘I'm getting soft,' she said, ‘like Ewan.'

‘And for once I'm not in a position to give you a handkerchief.'

On the way home they talked as usual about their own future home. Several houses in the district might be suitable or could be adapted to their needs, money (it had become a refrain) being no object. The most desirable was tacitly eliminated. Only much later when they had found the house they wanted, did Lance mention that Bainrigg House would make an ideal convalescent home for miners and their families.

‘I think the old man would be pleased to be remembered in that way. Towards the end he talked about his earlier days as a trapper in the pit at the age of seven, a frightened child sitting hour after hour in the dark. His job was to open and close the trapdoor to control the current of air in order to sweep off gas from the coal face. From then on he never stopped working until almost the end. He can't have spent more than a pittance on himself and never forgot the early hardships.'

It was agreed that he would have approved of a Bedlow Convalescent Home.

Meanwhile they continued house-hunting with enthusiasm gradually yielding to despair and as months passed, to panic.

The Cedars, a well-built Edwardian house on the Elmdon road faced the wrong way. Kitchen premises were flooded with afternoon sunshine while the living-rooms languished in shade. A converted inn between Ashlaw and Fellside was suitably situated. Originally a cruck house, it had a wealth of oak beams and stone corbels but no electricity, and septic tanks were anathema to Lance, while to Margot, still smarting from the early days at Langland, the prospect of reconstruction and extension was a fearsome one. A villa for sale in Ashlaw, a blatantly new structure of red brick, was unappealing and deserved to be pulled down for defacing the village.

‘It isn't going to be easy.' Lance stated the obvious. ‘Perhaps we should build.'

‘It will take ages.'

A highly desirable site could be purchased on farmland and near the church. They would have to make up their minds quickly as the farmer was anxious to sell. But they hesitated. Despite her reluctance to repeat the Langland ordeal, Margot would have preferred an old house to one visibly taking shape and offering daily opportunities to regret wrong decisions.

‘In a few months,' Lance said, ‘we shall be married and homeless. And on no account—'

‘… Will we seek or accept accommodation at Langland Hall.' It was not the first time he had said it and Margot's endorsement was heartfelt.

But when winter set in with heavy rain and early snowfall, every house looked drab and uninviting except – perversely – the Hall with its splendid fires, thick carpets and heavy curtains. The search must be postponed to the spring.

*   *   *

The mayor's charity ball in November was as glittering an occasion as Elmdon could produce. It was held in the banqueting hall of the castle and as Alex liked to say, all Elmdon's youth and chivalry were generally there. He would miss it this year and so avoid an encounter he would not have enjoyed.

Margot had given thought to her dress. Evening gowns were long again. From her experience in Cannes she had learned the effectiveness of simplicity and her unadorned midnight blue had a slim and youthful elegance. She and Lance had no sooner sat down at one of the small tables encircling the dance floor than Lance was drawn into a group of medical men and she was left alone, free for a few minutes to look round for old friends.

The announcement of Mr and Mrs Barford riveted her attention on the couple who were shaking hands with the mayor and mayoress. As if by fateful magnetism they were drawn to her side of the hall and to a table just beyond hers. Impossible to avoid a greeting.

‘Linden!'

‘Margot!'

Each achieved the feminine feat of taking in the other's appearance at a glance; nor did Margot fail also to take in that of Mr Barford, a highly polished and well-groomed young man with dark hair and with a tendency to look round the room and especially at the dancers in an exploratory way.