The Song of Hartgrove Hall (36 page)

‘It's all part of the great dance,' George explains slowly for the third time. ‘You're recreating Jerusalem through English music and I'm rebuilding it with the earth herself.'

‘And cow muck.'

‘Which is very beneficial to the soil. Like music.'

George is nothing if not committed. He wassails the apple trees, wards off pests with toast and would perform rain dances if the dampness of the climate didn't render it unnecessary. We're sitting on the loggia, waiting for Chivers to call us in for dinner. I'm already buttoned into my dinner jacket, while George fidgets in a tweed jacket that is evidently too small. He looks like a farmer dressed for a wedding.

‘But George, old thing, you're not making any money.'

‘You're as bad as Jack. He thinks this is nothing but muck and mysticism.'

That seems to me a pretty tidy way of putting it.

‘I don't think that at all. I'm not Jack,' I say, trying to placate him.

I listen for a while as George rumbles on about the building of a rural Jerusalem under Hartgrove barrow through ancient farming methods and how we must merge the rhythms of the Church year with those of the pagan festivals.

‘I'm not sure the vicar will really embrace fertility rituals on Sunday mornings,' I say at last.

‘I know. He's being thoroughly unpleasant about the whole thing.'

To my amazement, I gather that George has already asked poor Reverend Lobb about it. I wonder whether George hasn't gone a little dotty, but on the other hand he appears to be in obscenely good health: tanned from a life outdoors, his brown hair bleached gold by the sun. If only the house and estate looked half as well. George sighs and closes his eyes against the glare of the evening sun.

‘You told me a few years ago about the importance of songs,' he says. ‘You were right, you know. Only it's not just folk song but folklore too. It's all there. People simply don't listen any more.' He turns to me, his face glowing from the sun's rays but also lit by his inner fervour. ‘You could help. You could write music. For the harvest. For the planting. Workers are more productive if they sing. But it's more than that. The music is a gift for the land itself.'

‘I know, George. I wrote it a ruddy symphony.'

He grins and stretches his huge arms, cracking the joints, and peers up at the sky where the first early bats, emerging from the eaves, are whizzing in rapid circles.

‘You see, then? You know I'm not a crank, Fox. I've not lost my marbles. Jack thinks I'm a hopeless eccentric.'

‘Actually he called you much worse.'

George chuckles. To my relief he has not lost his sense of humour.

‘I hear all the chit-chat from Westminster – the country's near bankrupt and hungry. We need higher caloric yields and so on but I don't like their methods, Fox. I don't want to get rid of labourers and increase mechanisation. If we replace farmhands with machines, what will disappear is our countrymen. I believe Englishmen are also a crop worth producing and protecting.'

As he speaks, his voice trembles with the passion of the convert and, while I'm embarrassed by it, I can't help admiring him.

‘I'm supposed to talk you out of it.'

‘I know.'

The light sets fire to a pack of running clouds, scarlet as the hunt as they chase along the ridge, and turns the whitewashed cottages pink. I hear the distant bleating of the sheep, and watch the flock of late lambs dash across the fields, twisting and jumping together at the sheer joy of a summer's evening. I accept that I didn't leave Hartgrove only because of Edie, but also because I wanted a different life. A life of music. But now that I'm here, listening to the wind shake the larches and watching the weather form above the hill, I know that I don't want to leave ever again.

Dinner is an uneasy, subdued affair. The General has not lost his talent for dampening the mood of any party – although this time he cannot be held entirely responsible. Edie's gaiety is too much, too forced, while I'm distracted and dispirited. We sit in our dinner suits, the girls in their smart frocks, and sip wine while Chivers spoons out Irish stew and greens, his hands trembling from the effort as we all watch. Even the candlelight can't disguise the state of the dining room. The paper is peeling off the walls and the
smell of mould is overpowering. I feel as if I'm in a lousy and unfunny play.

Afterwards, I escape for a walk. In the gathering dark, I hasten up the hill towards Ringmoor. The effort makes me perspire and I rather regret not having changed out of my dinner suit. I perch on a stile and inhale lungfuls of cool fresh air, knowing that I really ought to go and rescue Sal. I've an idea forming. I can't tell whether it's perfectly ridiculous or jolly clever. I need to talk it over with Edie. I find more and more that I don't know quite what I think until I've said it aloud to her. I hasten back to the house, in the hope of finding her, only to be met by Sal.

‘They've gone to bed. Everyone's tired, I think.'

She leads me upstairs, eager and happy, but I find that I can't make love to her, knowing that Edie is so close. It's remarkable how treachery has its own standards. Sal is so horribly kind about my inadequacy that I lie awake for hours in the dark, listening to the rattle of the death-watch beetle and the hum of my own conscience.

It's Edie who finds me, late the following afternoon. She's wearing a fetching yellow cotton dress. I'm startled by how young she looks. I'm alone on the loggia, trying to look through the accounts.

‘Come for a walk,' she says.

We fall into step but keep a respectable distance between us until we're out of sight of the house, then I feel her small fingers slip into my palm.

‘This is horrid, darling,' she says, ‘simply horrid.'

I nod because she's right, it is, but there's another part of me that's fearfully glad to be home. The last few years have been a self-inflicted exile and along with the guilt – whose
perpetual grinding in the background, like chronic pain, I'm now accustomed to – there is also relief. Greedily, I inhale the scent of damp grass and honeysuckle.

‘I telephoned Marcus and the Winter Gardens' roof is in a desperate state. The orchestra's presently homeless,' I tell her.

‘Oh dear, I am sorry. Thank goodness you're all still on tour.'

‘Yes. But afterwards. What do you think about the orchestra coming here? Everywhere I go, I hear about Glyndebourne. They make a heap of money. I think we should put on a music festival at Hartgrove Hall.'

‘Wouldn't it be terribly expensive?'

‘Don't see why. We'd need to tidy up the great hall a bit, but you know how wonderful the acoustics are in there. The orchestra is used to seedy digs as it is.'

‘Darling, I think it's a splendid idea.'

She kisses me, delighted, and I'm suddenly excited at the prospect. We chatter for an hour about the possibilities. It strikes me that Edie understands the Hartgrove finances far better than anyone else.

‘Do you still have that friend at the Bolshoi?' I ask.

‘Yes. Why?'

‘Well, I wondered whether they'd consider doing a few performances here as well. It would be a super thing for the orchestra. Marcus is a horror, but he's brought the orchestra on wonderfully. Do you think the Bolshoi might do it?'

‘They might. Yes. I'm sure they would. You'd put the orchestra in the minstrels' gallery, I suppose?'

We've been walking for nearly two hours and now we turn towards the house, but before we reach the garden Edie pulls me back.

‘Not yet. I'm not ready to put my face on yet. It's such a relief not to pretend.'

We sit in the shade of an ancient chestnut, her head on my shoulder, neither of us talking. We do not kiss nor make love.
We want to be with one another for the pleasure of conversation and of silence. We commit our greatest betrayal: not sex but intimacy.

The drive to the station is ghastly. Sal's eyes are so swollen from crying that she looks as if she's been beaten.

‘Is it her? Is it Edie?'

‘No.'

For once, I'm lying out of kindness. Knowing that I betrayed her won't help.

‘You simply “can't marry me”.'

‘No.'

‘I don't understand.'

I'm not surprised. I'm desperate to confess and unburden myself, but I recognise that any confession would only be a further act of selfishness. I might feel relieved, but Sal undoubtedly would not.

‘How can you simply stop loving somebody?' she asks, reaching for her handkerchief. She gives her eyes another dab.

‘I'm sorry.'

My apologies only infuriate her. I give her ten pounds – slipping it into her handbag when she's not looking – and put her on the train. I drive back to the Hall, and as I climb out of the car my legs are shaking.

Edie corners me in the drawing room before dinner.

‘What did you do?' she asks, her face pale.

‘I broke it off with Sal. I can't lie any more.'

‘You're not going to tell Jack?'

She's so white that I'm frightened for a moment she might faint. I pour her a gin and press it into her hand.

‘I am tired of lying, Edie. I love you. I want only you.'

‘I can't tell Jack,' she says, quietly. ‘I simply can't.'

I sit down on the edge of an easy chair with my head in my hands. I notice on the floor by my foot a tear of butterfly wing, like a tiny scrap of patterned wallpaper.

‘Idiotically I'd hoped you'd be inspired by my resolve.'

‘It's not the same. You weren't married to Sal.'

God knows what the consequences would be of telling Jack but it has to be better than this. The guilt has become an earworm, a tedious tune that I simply can't stop humming. I suppose I never shall.

‘I'm sorry,' she says. ‘I'm a coward. I can't do it. I don't want to hurt him, Harry.'

‘Stop it.'

I can't bear it when she talks like this. I'm silent for a minute, thinking. Finally, I look up at her and reach for her hand.