Dorothy Eden (20 page)

But even that she could not do wholeheartedly, for she was suddenly overcome by a feeling that someone was watching her. Turning her head sharply she saw a young woman in the opposite pew. She must have been there when Hetty went in, for her prayer, or meditation, had ended. She had been staring at Hetty, surely, for as soon as she caught Hetty’s look she sprang up and slipped quietly out. She was wearing a fine black veil over her head and face, but even so Hetty knew with shocked certainty that she was Clemency. The dark head, the neat profile, the slim waist, the dancing step.

For a moment Hetty thought she would faint, her skin cold, her heart thumping like a beaten drum.

Then, galvanised into action, she rushed out of the dim church into the sunlight. There was nobody in sight. She dashed across the graveyard, recklessly treading on graves. In the distance, too far off to be identifiable, there was a woman with a shopping basket. That couldn’t be Clemency. She would never come back to haunt with a shopping basket! Indeed, she had never carried a shopping basket in her life. Anyway, the woman was turning into Mrs Bryce’s teashop, probably for something as mundane as a cup of tea and a bun.

Hetty sighed bewilderedly, knowing she must have suffered another hallucination, another trick played by her stretched nerves.

She could hear voices from beyond the yew walk, the vicar’s and the clear low tones of a woman. They were emerging from the shadow and coming towards her. The woman, bare-headed, was Julia who immediately affected great surprise.

“Hetty! I didn’t expect to see you here. The vicar and I were discussing the garden fête for the Belgian refugees. Lady Flora is to open it.”

“We hope you will be able to attend, Lady Hazzard,” the vicar said unctuously.

“Why, of course—”

“You’re looking strange, Hetty. Are you ill?”

“No, I’m quite well.” In desperation Hetty added, “Did you see anyone come out of the church just now?”

“No. No one. Did you, vicar?”

“I saw you, Lady Hazzard.”

“There was a woman praying. She—” Hetty bit her tongue. She had been going to say, “She looked like me.”

“People do come in to pray,” the vicar said, smiling gently. “I imagine you have been doing the same thing. For your husband, of course.”

Across the short expanse of sunlit turf Hetty met Julia’s gaze, so bland and calm, yet completely cold, completely unsympathetic, and again with that underlying look of puzzled suspicion. Had it been Julia in the church? She could have snatched off a black veil and put it in her pocket. She would never say so. She would enjoy bewildering Hetty further.

But if Clemency were really wandering through the village, Julia’s enmity, in comparison to this threat, was insignificant.

“I’m going home,” she said wearily. “It’s past lunchtime. Kitty and Lionel should be back.”

“Wait a moment. I’ll walk with you. Good morning, vicar, and thank you. I have all the information Lady Flora needs.”

“Wait.” Now the vicar was detaining them, his elderly face suddenly enlightened. “I think, Lady Hazzard, the woman you saw would be Jane Smith. She slips in and out of the church since her fiancé was killed on the Marne.”

“She did wear a black veil,” Hetty said in relief.

A lock of the vicar’s sparse grey hair lifted in the wind. Something autumnal came into the late spring morning. “So sad. So many young women looking like elderly widows.”

“But where did she disappear to?” Julia murmured as they walked away. “Into thin air? Anyway, what I don’t understand, Hetty, is why you should have been in a state about seeing another woman in the church.”

“I wasn’t in a state.”

“You were. White as a ghost.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Hetty rudely. Leave me, she added silently. Stop watching me. Get out of my sight. I would be so happy never never to see you again.

But she’s part of your destiny, said a voice, very coolly and soberly and so distinctly that it was amazing Julia didn’t seem to hear it. And then it added: she never will leave you until that’s resolved.

It was the second time that someone had uncannily spoken to her out of mid-air.

Lionel and Kitty were home, and what was more Lionel had come down to luncheon. No more solitary confinement for him, he said. He was to have nourishing food and stimulating companionship until his next medical board in two months. His lungs were affected, Kitty explained, as if such a calamity were a benediction. With rest they would improve, but it was unlikely he would be fit for active service again.

“We’ll get you well, darling, but not that well,” Kitty said cheerfully. “Isn’t it bliss to have a man in the house again? But you can’t sit around idly, Lionel. What will you do? Work on your book?”

Lionel’s dark eyes sought Hetty’s across the table.

“Not yet. First, Hetty and I are going to begin a search for those plans we were talking of. We’ll start rebuilding Loburn this summer.”

“Loburn, Lionel dear, is your brother’s,” Lady Flora pointed out. “And Hetty, as his wife, has authority, Mother dear. Didn’t Hugo give you
carte blanche,
Hetty?”

“Yes, he did.” She was suddenly so shiningly happy that the uncanny events of the morning might never have happened.

The woman in the church had been that sad young woman, Jane Smith. Not Clemency come to warn her that, having succeeded in marrying Hugo, she must not now fall in love with his brother.

Soon it was full summer and Lionel was much stronger. It wasn’t that Hetty intentionally sought his company, nor that he sought hers. It was simply that they were thrown together by similar interests, and the absence of other people. Kitty’s hospital work absorbed so much of her time, and she was a compulsive gardener. Lionel no longer needed nursing so she must get on with these important occupations. Besides, she said, pushing up her tumbling hair in her familiar gesture, she wasn’t a clinging wife. Lionel would hate it if she were. So how fortunate it was that he had Hetty to share his passion for the reconstruction of the house. Surprising, too, that little rich New Yorker being so involved in an old house. It had turned out to be her natural gift. But she would be less involved when Hugo came home. If Hugo came home …

Lady Flora’s health was deteriorating, and she spent most of each day in her room, or playing the piano. The marvellously pure notes sounded through the summer dusk, and would be for ever bound up in Hetty’s memories of Loburn that summer. Only Julia, if anyone, knew what was going on in Lady Flora’s head. But Julia’s time was spent more and more with the horses, obsessively grooming them and exercising them, in case Hugo suddenly arrived. Hetty didn’t mind this any more. Indeed, she scarcely thought about it. Everyone in this house seemed to have an obsession, and she not the least. Being with Lionel in the library, reading old documents in faded handwriting, discovering fascinating pieces of family history, sometimes not speaking for hours but always knowing he was there, as absorbed as she was, gave her complete contentment.

Lionel said that he had never had time to do these things before. In an unexpected way the war had its advantages. And Freddie, at the precocious age of five, had got to know the
Iliad,
as had Hetty. Hetty had a bent for literature. Had she known? He had supposed the life of a rich young socialite in New York wouldn’t have given her either the time or the inclination to be academic.

“My mother would have fainted with horror,” Hetty said, thinking of Millicent Jervis, strong-minded, bossy, ambitious. “I think perhaps not my father. But he died when I was very young. Oh, I did learn to read and write,” she added, straightfaced. “And I have a very good imagination.”

She remembered the young woman in the church, the voice issuing from the bandaged head in the hospital, the vague rustlings and sighings coming from the wardrobe at night. “Too good,” she said wryly. “Better even than Freddie’s.”

“I have nightmares, too,” said Lionel, guessing her thoughts.

But yours aren’t from guilt, Hetty wanted to say. Those nightmares are the worst kind. They sit on your shoulders for hours afterwards, like black hard-eyed birds.

However, since Lionel’s return the bad nights had been less frequent, and she had moments of such pure happiness that she felt it shining out of her. Happiness that permitted no thought of past or future, and which was completely impossible to conceal, were anyone watching her.

Lionel was watching one day. He said, “I think we ought to have a party. How long is it since there was a party at Loburn? Not since the war began.”

“Without Hugo?” Hetty said uncertainly.

“It would be splendid if he could get leave, but I doubt if a party would be considered sufficient grounds. No harm in writing and mentioning it, though. He must be due for leave. He might be able to wangle something. He’s a good manipulator, old Hugo. Gets what he wants. Let’s plan a party, Hetty.”

“You plan it. You and Kitty. I don’t know people. But yes—” she knew her eyes were showing her pleasure—“it would be fun.”

“But you always refused to go to London, Hetty,” Kitty said. “That’s where you’d meet people. Here, we’ll be down to the war rejects and the walking wounded, such as my own dear husband. Why are you suddenly so keen on it?”

“I don’t know. It’s mid-summer. The long evenings are so beautiful. And who knows, Hugo might get some leave. Loburn
en fête
might just pull him home.”

“Now you’re fantasising. Things like that don’t happen. Well, I suppose we could have some of the doctors and nurses from the hospital, and anyone who’s home on leave. Lady Flora will have a list of old pals, and Julia could ask her hunting friends. One or two retired colonels
et cetera.
I still can’t understand why Lionel’s going along with this idea, though. He never liked parties much, and especially not the hunt ball variety.”

“He’s got things to forget, too,” Hetty murmured. “Music and dancing—it’s one way, isn’t it?”

“Like taking an anaesthetic,” said Kitty. “Well, all right. Lady Flora will enjoy it. And Julia who dances like a dream. I suppose I can doll myself up. But I shan’t get a new dress. Shall you?”

“Maybe,” said Hetty dreamily. She had never been to a party in her life. Kitty wouldn’t believe her if she told her that.

“Yes, I will get a new dress,” she said decisively. “Something rather crazy and wonderful. I just feel in the mood.”

Kitty gave her a long look.

“Then you’d better pray that Hugo gets home.”

“Hetty! Hetty!” Julia called a few days later. “The postman’s just been and your dress has arrived. Can I come in?” But she was already in the library where Lionel and Hetty were attempting to decipher a particularly fragile old document, the faded writing like the veining of an autumn leaf. She had a long box in her hands.

“Isn’t it exciting? Lord and Taylor, Fifth Avenue. You never told us you’d sent to New York for something. Is it particularly special?”

“How odd,” said Hetty. The all too familiar dryness was in her mouth again. “I didn’t send for anything.”

“Then your family must have sent it to you.”

“I haven’t got a family, except Uncle Jonas, and the day he bends his stuffy financial brain to choosing women’s clothes—” she was chattering, and Lionel was watching with a questioning lift of his brows—“will be a surprising one,” she finished lamely.

“Why don’t you open it?” Lionel said. “Let us see the famous Wall Street brain’s choice.”

“Yes, open it,” begged Julia. “Do let us see.”

What did she expect to be in the long dressmaker’s box? A doll? A dead doll? They all helped to demolish the wrapping paper until the white cardboard box tied with blue satin ribbon was exposed. A letter was attached. Ridiculously, Hetty’s hands were shaking as she tore it open. It was typed neatly on Lord and Taylor notepaper, and read:

Dear Madam,

In response to your request we have had made a replica of the green moiré silk gown you lost at the time of the sinking of the
Lusitania,
and which you said had been an especial favourite. Miss Natalia, who always made your garments and has retained the pattern and your size, assures us it is an exact copy. We now have pleasure in despatching it to you, hoping that it arrives safely and gives you much pleasure. As you requested, we have sent the bill to your uncle, Mr Jonas Middleton.

We beg to remain,

Your obedient servants,

Lord and Taylor

Hetty tentatively lifted the tissue paper.

“It’s—my green silk,” she whispered. She made an enormous effort to speak naturally. “The dress I wore for the last ball on board ship.” She couldn’t control a deep shudder. “It’s kind of uncanny.”

“Do take it out of the box and let us see it,” begged Julia. “Shall I?” Her inquisitive fingers couldn’t keep away from the dress. “It’s a little crushed, I’m afraid, but Effie can attend to that. She irons and goffers terribly well.”

So do I, Hetty thought, irony taking over from her black sense of nightmare. I know every gather, every fold of this dress. If it is the same one. And it is, she thought dazedly, as Julia shook out the shimmering silk. Miss Natalia wouldn’t make a mistake. She was a very clever dressmaker. If she hadn’t been, Clemency would never have continued going to her.

“Oh, it’s gorgeous!” Julia breathed. “Isn’t it, Kitty?”

“I thought Hetty had stopped being interested in clothes,” Kitty said. She was looking at Hetty in a puzzled way. “Does a man in the house have anything to do with this rejuvenation?”

Hetty flushed angrily. How could she explain that the dress arriving had nothing to do with her? Who had ordered it? That was the terrifying question. She shuddered again, overcome with morbidity. The dress spread out over a chair was like Clemency rising triumphantly from the waves.

“Oh, Kitty, you know me better than that,” she protested. “Yes, I did intend to get something a little crazy for the party, but I haven’t done that yet. I truly know nothing about this.” She fingered the silk distastefully. “It must have been the idea of one of my friends, Adele, or Betty or Lucy or—” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “They had all seen my trousseau and knew this was my favourite dress.”