Circles of Time (17 page)

The earl drummed his fingers on his knee. “Not on your behalf, William. Not on
your
behalf, I assure you. I wish to soften the blow to your mother as much as possible.”

“You underestimate her, Father. She's a strong woman.”

“Perhaps. But she's felt enough pain over the past few years.”

“So have I.”

The earl glanced at him sharply and then looked back at his knee and his restless fingers. The car stopped and Banes got out. The ornamental iron gates that had been shipped from Milan to replace the old were swung back. The Pryory could be seen in the distance, the chimneys rising above evergreens, gaunt birch, and oak. Lighted windows twinkled in the dusk.

The earl cleared his throat. “It's stopped raining. Are you up to a walk?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure you can manage?”

“Quite sure.”

They got out of the car and stepped to one side as Banes drove away, tires spraying gravel and muddy water.

“I should have this road tarred over, I suppose, but I like the gravel. I can remember the sound carriage wheels made on it.”

They started walking toward the house, darkening fields stretching away on both sides of the road. A few shaggy-coated sheep gazed at them from a willow copse.

“It's precisely one mile from the house to the gate,” William said. “Digby, the Manderson twins, Tom Baynard, and I paced it off one summer, then ran it—one of the grooms timing us with a watch. I forget what my time was, but I won by a long shot, although Digby pressed me hard for a while. They're all dead now. Half the boys I knew at school are dead. I've thought a lot about the dead the past few years.”

“Yes,” the earl murmured.

“I felt almost ashamed to be alive. Charlie was dead in a way, wasn't he? I mean as far as all your hopes for him were concerned. Not even
hopes
, actually—certainties. I just wasn't up to the task, Father. I couldn't become something I'm not.”

“I know that now.”

“Do you? I hope so. There have been times when I've wished Charlie had done a proper job of it and put that bullet in my head. He'd rescued me from the trenches, but I was never quite sure what I'd been rescued
for.
Just to live? That didn't seem reason enough. But it is, you know. I don't have to be important or do something grand in order to justify my existence to either you or the dead.”

“What is it that you want?”

“I want to be happy.”

“Is that so impossible to attain?”

“No. I've given it quite a bit of thought. Just a few thousand pounds—and your blessing. Your blessing more than anything. Your cutting away the knot that bound me to Charles.”

The earl stopped walking and faced his son. “Tell me.”

“That land up in Derbyshire. I could build a little house on it, and stables.”

“And?”

“And buy a couple of good broodmares at Tattersall's, and choose the proper stud—you could help me there … decent lines … fine heart. I could do something like that, Father. On my own. Doing something with my hands. I could build up a racing stable. I might not be able to ride well anymore, but I damn well know I could train.”

They stood facing each other in the darkness and they could hear the oak trees creaking in the wind.

“Nothing very grand about that, is there, Willie?”

“No, sir. Just mud and manure.”

“Well, now—well …” He reached out and patted his son clumsily on the shoulder. “Perhaps—well, dash it all—the Greville silks at Ascot one day.”

William smiled. “No, sir. The Biscuit Tin silks—the Biscuit Tin.”

T
HERE WERE TIMES
when she felt sure he remembered; times when he would stand for long moments staring at the limbs of a tree, or a section of the old stone wall at the bottom of the kitchen gardens. He had climbed the tree often as a boy, and had taught William to climb it. And she could recall going with him to the old wall and picking gooseberries while he probed between the dark, mossy stones for fragments of musket balls.

“They call it the Battle of Abingdon, but it wasn't a proper sort of battle, Alex, just a skirmish really, but the king's troops fired a prodigious number of shots, most of which hanged into our wall.”

She could almost hear his voice as he told her that bit of history. She had been eight or nine, Charles about fourteen. Did he remember as well? Was that why he always paused so long by the wall as they took their morning walk?

“What are you looking at?”

“The wall,” he said.

“It's centuries old.”

“Oh, yes, I'm sure it must be.”

“A company of Roundhead infantry were trapped nearby during the Civil Wars. The summer of sixteen forty-two, I believe it was. Cavalier cavalry jumped them while they were picking apples. They fought so bravely that Prince Rupert had their dead buried with full military honors. Their graves are supposed to be in the orchard somewhere.”

She knew where because he had pointed out the spot years ago—a long, low grassy mound between rows of plum trees. She had been unable to eat a greengage from the orchard for months after that.

“There are dead Roundheads in it … ! Dead Roundheads … !”

Mama had been very cross with Charles for showing her the graves. Did he remember?

“Graves?”

“Yes, but I'm not sure where. Perhaps you could show me.”

He looked at her blankly and walked on, hands clasped behind his back. A cloudless December morning. Cold and crisp with a whisper of frost on the grass.

There was no point in pressing him. Dr. Ford had explained the fruitlessness of that approach in dealing with amnesia. Everything that Dr. Ford had said on the subject had seemed composed of negatives: Don't do this or that—that won't work and neither will the other. But in fairness to the man, there was little that anyone knew about the malady. It came, sometimes it went, but usually it remained forever.

She sighed, turned up the collar of her fur coat, and walked after her brother. The Irish setters that had been sitting at her feet bounded ahead with little whimpers of pleasure.

Mr. Lassiter, Charles's “servant,” came from the house to meet them as they walked back through the Italian gardens. He was a burly, middle-aged man who had been in the RAMC for two decades and then a therapist at Guy's Hospital in London.

“How'd it go today, Mrs. Mackendric?”

“About the same as usual, John. Many long pauses and apparent reflections.”

“That's to be expected. They remember images, you see, but they can't place them.”

“I hope there's coffee made,” Charles said, smiling at them. “And some really hot toast.”

The walks depressed her, but she did her best to hide her feelings. There was no point in expressing her pessimism to her mother and father, who saw “signs” of recovery in almost everything Charles did. They were in the breakfast room when she came in, her face still flushed from the cold, and pressing questions on her before she even had a chance to sit down and have a cup of tea. It was the same every morning.

“But what exactly did he say when you passed Leith Woods?”

“Nothing, Mama.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Something obscure about Thomas Gray—and a comment about the ravens wheeling above Burgate House.”

“What sort of comment?” the earl asked. “When I went for a walk with him the other afternoon he said something, but I couldn't hear what.”

“It was probably nothing pertinent,” Alexandra said. “The birds, more than likely. They seem to fascinate him.”

Hanna dabbed at her scrambled eggs. “That sounds encouraging to me.”

Alexandra said nothing. It was childlike of Charles, his fascination with creatures—the ravens, the hares and rabbits, the sheep and cattle in the fields. Childish and terribly sad. She poured a cup of tea and changed the subject.

“I got a letter from Winifred. She doubts if she can come down over New Year's. The baby has colic.”

Hanna sighed. “Poor Winifred. She did so want a boy.”

“Poor Fenton, you mean,” the earl said. “Three girls!”

Hanna gave him a stiff look. “I can't work up any sympathy over Fenton. I think it's terrible that he has a new baby and hasn't even seen it.”

The earl looked at her blankly. “How the devil could he? One can hardly commute from Mesopotamia.”

“He doesn't have to be there, does he!”

“Doesn't he? Why ever not? It's his job, isn't it? He's a soldier.” He wiped his lips on a napkin and stood up. “Must be off. I want to talk to the vicar about the Christmas fete.”

“Who's playing Father Christmas?” Alexandra asked.

“I am, blast it. We all voted for Crispin—publican at the Star and Hounds, jolly round fat chap—but he had to go and break his arm, damn fool. Can't be helped, but I'm hardly the type.”

“I'm sure Colin will see past your woolly beard.”

“Do you think so? Well, he's a smart little tyke. He'll take it in stride.”

Hanna smiled slightly as she watched him leave the room. “An odd man your father. He's really pleased as punch at being asked to dress up as Santa Claus, but red-hot irons couldn't draw
that
from him.”

“It's going to be a good Christmas for a change. We've all had enough bad ones, God knows.”

Hanna gazed abstractedly toward the windows. “So much yet to do. The guest list to complete … a thousand things to plan.”

“Is Martin coming down?”

“He wasn't sure. Your father talked to him on the phone. He may have to go to Petrograd, of all places. I hope he doesn't. I've invited a girl I would like him to meet.”

“Oh, Mama, please leave poor Martin alone. He's quite capable of finding his own women.”

“Women?” she said with a frown. “I'm not
finding him women
—a
girl
, a very sweet and charming girl.”

Alexandra looked skeptical. “Have you met her?”

“No, not exactly. She's a niece of Angela's. The girl is very clever, Angela told me. Writes poetry and little articles for the Sussex
Weekly Herald.
They'd have a lot in common, I'm sure.”

“I'm sure. Fellow journalist. How old is this gem?”

Hanna fussed with the teapot. “Oh, late twentyish.”

“Or early thirtyish? Really, Mama.”

“I don't care what you say, Alex. There's no harm in trying.”

“Heaven forbid. It might be the love match of the century.” She reached across the table and touched her mother's hand. “You were born to be a matchmaker and your intentions are always good, but don't try to involve Martin in romantic weekends—not in this house anyway. I'm sure it must always remind him of Ivy.”

“Perhaps you're right, dear. Besides, to be truthful, I usually take what Angela tells me with a grain of salt. I'm sure her niece is long in the tooth and heavy in the hips. I can't go back on the invitation at this late date, though, can I? Perhaps I can pair her off with Major Aterbury. I'm not that sure he was such a good choice anyway.”

Alexandra looked quizzical. “Good choice for what?”

“Oh,” Hanna replied vaguely, “bridge fours, I suppose.”

Solutions to vexing problems always came to Hanna out of the blue, usually when she least expected to find one. She had despaired of finding a solution for the problem of Alex and baby Colin. That problem had, to a certain extent, taken care of itself. But still a shadow remained. Her affair with Dr. Mackendric, the marriage certificate issued only days before the certificate of birth, still cast its pall. Anthony's attitude toward her had changed for the better since Charles had come home, and he seemed to be genuinely fond of the baby in spite of himself, and yet she knew it still rankled him—as it rankled her. It was a loose end that needed tying up. But how?

And then she thought of the solution. It had come to her in, of all places, the Abingdon cinema palace, seated in the row of plush seats at the back of the darkened house, watching D. W. Griffith's heart-stopping production of
Way Down East.
Alexandra had been seated next to her, and she had groped almost blindly for her daughter's hand as she watched that poor child on the screen flounder across that raging, ice-choked river. Oh, the cruelty of it all! She had begun to cry, her sobs of pity mingled with all the other sobs and cries that swept the audience. And then it came like a vision. Clear. Correct. Almost absurdly simple. Find Alex a husband.

She had gone through the process of trying to find a husband for her daughter once before. The circumstances had been as different as the times—the London social season of 1914. And finding a husband for an eighteen-year-old virgin was not quite the same thing as finding one for a twenty-five-year-old widow—with a sixteen-month-old son. Any number of potential swains had been unearthed by Hanna in that long-ago summer, and only Alex's fickleness had stood between her and a wedding, or at least an engagement. There had been one young man that Alex had liked well enough to consider marrying, but then she had gone off to France in 1915 as a Red Cross aide and fate had brought Mackendric into her life and all thoughts of Carveth Saunders, Bart., had been driven from her mind forever.