Summer in February (22 page)

Gilbert looked at his fork.

‘Hammer?’ Florence asked. ‘And tongs?’

Alfred stared at Gilbert. Gilbert stared at the table.

‘Don’t have to spell it out for you, Ev, do I, point being, my biologist brother-in-law has been rogering Dolly for months,
and those who don’t believe it only have to ask Laura, she should know, and I can’t say I blame him, either, can you?’

‘We will not involve Gilbert in this!’

Gilbert fervently hoped she would not now ask Alfred
what rogering or hammer and tongs meant. Florence’s fingers twisted the wedding ring on her finger.

‘And no,’ Florence continued in a firm, even voice, ‘I won’t be asking Laura or anyone else because I don’t believe you.’

‘Suit yourself, my love,’ he said standing up. ‘Anyway, I know what I think and I know what Ev thinks, and we think it’s long
past time for the men to have a drink.’

‘But isn’t this a temperance hotel?’

‘That’s what you were hoping, my dear, but it isn’t … not since we arrived!’

He strode out to find Mrs Jory. Florence waited for his feet to die away then swiftly closed the door.

‘Will he succeed?’ she asked.

‘I expect so. Have you settled in?’

‘It’s a great comfort for me to have you there.’

‘There?’

‘Next door along.’

‘Oh … oh yes. Good.’

He smiled nervously at her. They nodded to each other.

‘Florence … You look well. Very well.’

‘Better than you expected?’

Gilbert swallowed.

‘Yes … much. But you must … you must—’

‘Gilbert,’ she cut in with slow emphasis, placing her hand on his, ‘do not ask what happened.’

‘I won’t. I wasn’t going to … not for one moment.’

‘Ever!’

‘But Laura and I, we can’t understand … when so many people love you, how—when you have so much ahead of—’

‘
Promise
me.’

He looked at her, searching her face.

‘I promise. If you promise never to do it again.’

‘I promise.’

She smiled as if to close the chapter, but left her hand on his.

‘And I am sorry,’ she said, ‘about the walk in London. Very sorry.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I should have been stronger. I knew it at the time.’

‘You had no choice.’

‘I had a choice … and I made the wrong one.’

‘Did you?’

‘And you had a choice. But you didn’t feel strongly enough.’

‘How can you say that?’

She shook her head.

‘You didn’t … not strongly enough.’

They both listened for his returning footsteps. They did not come. Gilbert spoke next.

‘But you had made your decision.’

‘And I will keep my side of the bargain. That is what I must do. And now we must talk of something else.’

She withdrew her hand. There was a silence.

‘Will you return to Newlyn for your classes?’

‘No … I shall paint wherever I can.’

‘I have found a place for you …’

‘A place! For me!’

‘I’ll take you there whenever you wish.’

‘How far? Oh do tell me.’

‘It’s not far, but you could easily miss it, it’s sheltered from the wind … I think you’ll like it. I’ve had the men working
on it.’

‘What a fool I am!’

She closed her eyes, then opened them as if she had, in that few seconds, taken stock.

‘Thank you. Thank you. I’ll keep going.’

‘I hope it’s a spot you can work in, the hut.’

‘And we’ll see a good deal of each other, Gilbert, won’t we?’

‘It will be difficult not to.’

His words came out stiffly. She did not deny their force. Instead she started to reach her hand across the table, then stopped.
He saw her wedding ring.

‘And … another favour. What Alfred said about Joey … it’s not true, it can’t be … I want you to know that.’

‘Does it matter … does it matter so much?’

‘Matter?’ She withdrew her hand to her lap just before the door opened.

‘Told you,’ Alfred said in his spry way, ‘not a problem, bottles coming, bottles plural, Mrs J. said it was the least she
could do in the circumstances. “This calls for a celebration,” she said, how about that, Ev?’

‘Indeed it does.’

‘And the soup’s tomato.’

When Mr and Mrs Munnings retired to their rooms Gilbert bade them goodnight but he did not follow them up the staircase. Instead
he walked slowly up the steep lane, hands on hips, breathing in the night air and the scent of dog roses. He passed the low
walls of the unfinished house on the cliff, then cut across through the bracken and fern to the clifftop.

It was a clear night, with a half-moon above the Lizard. He sat for a while on a rock, breathing deeply in and out, hoping
the air would refresh his fuddled mind. For a second a white band of surf below suddenly assumed the silhouette of a rearing
horse.

‘I am not sure,’ he said to the moon and the sea and his cigarette, ‘I am not at all sure how much I can take of this.’

Some days later, days in which Gilbert had found few chances to speak to Florence beyond the normal courtesies, days in which
he had glimpsed little more than her back going along the landing, Mrs Jory beckoned him on the stairs. Asking Gilbert if
he wouldn’t mind stepping into her room for a minute, she half closed the door and gave him the look of a woman who knew more
than she cared at the moment to communicate.

‘Wonderful to see, Captain Evans, isn’t it?’

‘What is, Mrs Jory?’

‘Mrs Munnings.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I’ve never seen a happier woman, not in all my days.’

‘Haven’t you?’

‘I have not, no, have you? It quite restores one’s faith, it does.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Gilbert said, at the beginning of a sidle towards the door.

Mrs Jory smiled and moved an ample upper arm into the opening he had spotted. In moments such as these Gilbert could see why
her husband called her ‘that there woman’.

‘When you see it, Captain Evans, you know it, believe me, sir, I’ve known the other side of the coin and this woman is close
to the man she loves. Close.’

Gilbert found nothing to say either way, which Mrs Jory took as middlingly normal for a man when such weighty issues were
under discussion. It could be taken as read from her eyes that this morning she herself had more than a few moments free and
she was more than happy and willing to elaborate, and elaborate she would.

‘And she’s eating so well, that’s always a good sign.’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh yes, that is a good sign, and it’s a privilege to spoil her, and why not, it’s not often one is in a position to look
after a lady of her … quality. You weren’t in last night but she enjoyed the roast pork, she did that, every mouthful, and
the crackling.’

‘And the crackling? Oh, that is jolly good.’

Mrs Jory raised an eyebrow to see if Gilbert’s last remark was in the appropriate spirit, decided it was, and went strongly
ahead.

‘It’s the second time Mr Munnings has asked for his pork and he fair wolfs it down, does it proper justice, and last night
she’s glowing next to him, it’s the Cornish air of course, because when they first arrived she looked a bit … London round
the cheeks, didn’t you think?’

For ‘London’ Mrs Jory always reserved an emphasis of special distaste.

‘I suppose she did a bit, yes.’

Though Mrs Jory preferred the curtains in the hotel pulled to protect the carpets from the strong Cornish light, she always
claimed, in her proprietorial way, that the Lamorna sun and the Lamorna air were bracingly good for one.

‘Mind you, when I did see what he’s got in their bedroom, well it wouldn’t be my—’

At this point, stopping as short as a runaway train could, Mrs Jory inwardly censored further detail, unaware that for the
first time in the conversation Gilbert’s attention was fully engaged, though he just managed to mask this.

‘What … what has he then, in … the bedroom?’

Mrs Jory closed her eyes and shook both her head and her forefinger.

‘No, it’s not for me to say, sir, I shouldn’t have spoken, to you it might seem quite … but there we are, there’s no accounting
for … we’re all quite different, but I know I’d be happier without it, and if you’ll excuse me, sir … oh, and will you be
in for supper tonight?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Oh. Oh. Very well.’

‘Nor tomorrow night. It’s one of those spells at Boskenna, we have them sometimes, working every hour that God gives us.’

‘There’s no cause for dissatisfaction I hope, sir.’

‘No, good heavens, no. You don’t happen to know if Mrs Munnings is in at the moment, do you?’

‘I really wouldn’t know, she has been going up to Mr Knight’s most mornings, he’s been doing her a fair bit, so she said.’

‘Has he?’

‘But I do know Mr Munnings is away.’

‘Away?’

This time his tone betrayed him.

‘Yes. Went off very early this morning. And without his breakfast.’

‘For the … day, d’you mean?’

‘Oh, no, sir … Didn’t know exactly when he’d be back,
he said. But,’ she smiled and closed her eyes and nodded, ‘I’d be surprised if it was long, wouldn’t you?’

Aware that she offered a gentler, more predictable life, Taffy quickly transferred his affections to his new mistress, and
the little dog accompanied Florence and Gilbert on their walks. While Alfred was away (and he was away much longer than Mrs
Jory expected) the three of them were often to be seen, with Taffy in the lead, going through the wood to the waterfall, then
crossing the road and up Rocky Lane, and weaving around the Merry Maidens, the prehistoric circle of stones; they were spotted
together sitting at a discreet distance with their backs against a stone arch, then at the Neolithic burial chamber, then
sitting on a stunted, gnarled oak, split with age; some evenings they roamed through the heather or waist-deep in ferns throwing
sticks for Taffy to bring back.

The walk Florence most wanted to do with Gilbert was all the way to Mousehole, but crossing the rutted farmyard at Kemyel
Gilbert suddenly stopped her. Oblivious of their presence, a man with two buckets of pigs’ food swinging from a yoke across
his shoulders splashed the rough path close to Florence’s shoes.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gilbert said.

‘It’s not your fault … he didn’t see us.’

‘Do you want to go on?’

‘To Mousehole? Of course I do.’

‘We have to go very close to the cliff face, it’s quite dangerous.’

‘Good!’

‘You like danger, don’t you?’

‘I always feel very safe with you.’

It took them an hour along the coastal path, an hour spent watching their feet and watching the sun and watching the
clouds slide across the headland, an hour watching small boats below and the birds skate and strut. They rested for a while
at the coastguard lookout, with rabbits hopping in the heather below, and steamers spouting black smoke on the horizon. In
the midday heat they heard the tiny snaps of gorse beans, and for long periods they did not speak. They enjoyed this silent
companionship, as if there was an underground river they were both instinctively following. Gilbert, though, preferred to
keep moving. Simply moving took some of the churning from his body. Because Alfred was away she spent most afternoons painting
in his studio by the mill, after mornings sitting for Harold Knight.

‘Your but will be ready tomorrow, you’ll have a place all of your own.’

‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow! Why didn’t you
tell
me!’

‘I wanted it to be right for you first.’

‘You secretive thing!’

‘I’ll tell you where it is, exactly, and we can meet there if you like. Around four?’

‘Tomorrow at four, I’ll be there.’

He made her repeat his instructions and she walked on, as close to skipping as he’d seen her. Because she was Mrs Munnings
and everyone in the district knew she was Mrs Munnings, Gilbert made sure he kept his proper distance from her as they went
along, except when she crossed stiles or stepped over stones in a stream. If she needed his help then, or to open a broken
gate or gingerly to negotiate a sloshy path (or to avoid splashing pigswill) he took her hand, her long fingers firmly pressing
his. On one occasion she kept hold of his hand, long after it was needed, and sat on a fallen tree with her shoulder hard
against his. The tree sloped down in his direction. She did not adjust her position. The sinews in his neck were taut. He
wanted to tell her he loved her, but he could not. He must be content with
discontent. He told himself the best apples were always out of reach. He had never known such painful pleasure, such deep-reaching
feeling, as he felt on those afternoons. That may sound as if Gilbert’s spectrum of pleasure had been narrow but to have known
a large number of women was, he suspected, no guarantee of finding what he found on that fallen tree, perched on the edge
of a remote, poor farm.

Their silence was broken at last by the sight of a pack of hounds running past the far side of a distant field, followed by
some hard-riding huntsmen strung out in a long, tired line.

‘Are those,’ she said, standing up, and pressing down her skirt, ‘the hounds Alfred rides with?’

He leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

‘That’s the Western all right. No one else hunts this district.’

‘Shall we go on?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Perhaps we should go back?’

They looked ahead and they looked back and they looked at each other, and they did not know which to do.

Tap tap tapping on the high high road. Just before tea time, singing at the very top of his voice:

Alfred returned triumphant and happy. Panama hat tilted, face tanned like a gypsy, he let his assertive sound echo briefly
down the wooded valley, and over the flat water lily leaves, and then he cleared his throat and recited
his new one on Titian. The new one on Titian he’d picked up only the other night while passing through Plymouth, and he liked
it enough to repeat it aloud to all and sundry or, as in this case, to the privet fence and to the gooseberry bushes and to
the currant bushes on the edge of Lamorna:

The village, while not hearing every precise artistic detail, certainly heard his coming. His trap was full of new paintings,
carefully strapped down and covered with tarpaulin. The village heard him bursting into song and cursing the flies, flying
down the slope and rounding the steep curves, forcing a black Minorcan cockerel to scurry to safety.

Alfred held the reins high. He peered over the hedges, hedges sprinkled high with fine white dust. He was excited, with a
thrill of expectancy in his sharp eyes. He had not been at his best, he knew that, but now he would put things right with
Blote, put those early weeks of marriage behind him. The last few miles he had been thinking a good deal of his Shrimp and
of the dark-haired Hampshire gypsies and of his paintable girl. Painting had its sorrows, he knew that, as did life, but now,
now for the joys. He felt his face. His skin was fresh and smooth. His eyes were clear. From now on she would be happy, and
he would make her so. It might all have been his fault, but the present state of affairs could not continue, that much was
obvious. He checked the knot in his bow tie to see if it was just so. It was, and his blood was full of crescendoes. He waved
to the men sitting
outside The Wink and he passed the mill pond and turned into his clearing.

Whoa!

On the back, as well as his paintings, he carried a basket-covered stone jar of ale and a cold rabbit pie embedded in sparkling
jelly. Just thinking of it made his juices run. And had not Melbourne Art Gallery just offered him five hundred guineas for
one painting? ‘FIVE HUNDRED!’ he shouted to the studio. That made the juices run, too.

FIVE HUNDRED.

Florence stiffened. By the time she heard the hooves and the wheels bumping over the rutted lane she knew it was far too late
to leave. She felt a flush of panic on her throat but there was no hope now that she could lock the studio and be gone through
the trees without being seen. The only way out was the way he would come in. She must simply continue with her painting. She
heard his feet banging up the stairs, heard his sound of bemusement at finding the door open. Heard him stop.

‘Oh!’ he said, ‘Oh ho.’

He could not believe his luck.

‘Well, well, well.’

She turned slowly but did not stand to greet him.

‘I wasn’t expecting you. I’m sorry.’

‘My fault,’ he beamed, ‘my fault. I should have written, my dear, but then I’m never that sure.’

‘I hope you don’t mind, Alfred.’

He stepped inside the doorway and put down the jar and the pie on the table. He beamed at her.

‘Mind? Mind? Why should I? What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.’

The aptness of that stole up on him. Sometimes he surprised himself with his aptness.

‘You did say I might use your place. It’s the last time I will, I promise.’

‘You can use it whenever you like. You know that.’

‘No, this will be the last time.’

He walked towards her, his riding boots clipping the boards as he came. There was no escape.

‘You look well, very well. Better than I have ever seen you.’

‘Thank you, Alfred. I feel it.’

‘Very well indeed … you really do.’

He grinned at her. She looked back at her painting. He took up a position close behind her. His breathing told her he was
studying the canvas, studying her painting. She knew the sound of his nostrils so well.

‘Where is this?’

‘It’s the farm … over at Kemyel. Towards Mousehole. Do you know it?’

‘You’ve been over there? Good … good. And I like it. Fine stuff. Bolder. Yes!’

‘Is it?’

‘
Much
bolder. And I like the fallen tree … the way it lies. A good setting.’

‘I am glad you like it.’

‘I do. I do like it, Blote. I like it very much.’

He put his hands on her shoulders. Then on her neck. She felt small and she shrank. She swallowed and closed her eyes. He
stroked her neck. She stood up, slightly dazed and moved away. He took her shoulders and turned her round to face him.

‘I’ll have to be careful,’ he said, smiling at her.

‘Why?’

‘Your painting. It’s good. It’s very good. I’ll have to watch you, won’t I?’

‘Will you?’

He undid the top button of her dress, his fingers jabbing her neck. She shrugged him off. He pushed her arms roughly and undid
more of her buttons in one pull.

‘Let’s see you,’ he said. ‘Let’s see the beautiful Blote. You’re … better than any painting.’

Florence sidestepped a little towards the front door but he was on her with another light, playful laugh.