The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton (21 page)

He got out of bed and gazed out at a monochrome landscape of white grass and grey trees. The moonlight transformed the garden. The curves of the maze cast shadows which made it look much more substantial, as if he was looking into the future. For him, Lydia’s dream, William’s vision and David’s labour had created something magical.

Behind the darkness of the shrubs around the lake, the barer ground rose to the south. Even standing at the window, he felt sweat on the back of his neck. He was wide awake now and thought that, as sleep seemed impossible, he would go outside and walk in the strangely altered landscape. He pulled on his trousers and yesterday’s shirt, and, carrying his shoes, opened his door. He went downstairs, stepping as near the wall as possible so that the treads would not creak.

In the hall he found the front door unlocked. Julian had claimed he always locked the door at night but clearly this was not the case. Laurence put the key in his pocket just in case Julian should come down later and secure it while he was outside. He was relieved the door opened smoothly and he stepped barefoot on to the terrace. Stopping to put his shoes on, he set out across the lawn. He had thoughts of walking right out towards Silbury Hill, driven by a feeling, which he knew Patrick would regard as fanciful nonsense, that to see it in a nocturnal landscape would be to feel closer to the unknown men who created it. It would also be extraordinary to be there in the moonlight. He made his way slowly down towards the dark mass of foliage surrounding the lake.

He was quite close when he heard a splash and then a stifled giggle. He stopped and then went forward again without thinking, amused that others had had the same idea, but something made him pause and move more slowly. He was deep in the shadow of the evergreens when the lake came in view. Now he could see a figure in the water; a man he thought.

‘‘Come on,’ the man said—it was Patrick, ‘better to jump than walk in through the mud.’

He took one more step and saw the whiteness of a woman, naked, on the edge of the black water. She raised herself on her toes, her arms thrust back as if to dive, then stepped back and laughed.

‘If I jump I’ll wake the whole house up,’ she said in a loud whisper. It was Eleanor.

Just as he recognised her, she sat down on the water’s edge and slipped in. She gasped, then struck out smoothly towards Patrick. When she reached him, he drew her to him and kissed her, one hand cradling her head. She put her arms around his neck, then let go and floated backwards with her legs hooked around his waist.

‘What a night,’ he heard her say. ‘I could float here for ever, looking at the stars.’

As Laurence turned to retreat as quickly as he could, he must have trodden on a twig. Whether or not they heard it, something alerted the swimmers. Eleanor broke free and swam to the side. Both fell silent.

Laurence’s heart was pounding, his legs suddenly clumsy, and he felt like a voyeur, however inadvertent his interruption. He knew he could not return the way he’d come because he’d be in plain view, although, looking up, he saw cloud had now covered the moon and the night was much darker than when he had set out.

Once he heard them relax their vigilance and talk again, he followed the ha-ha to just below the generator shed, came up behind it and went round the far side of the church. At this point his only option was to walk along the terrace and enter by the main door. He looked back across the grass but nothing moved, although a breeze had got up and the leaves were rustling. Somewhere a window banged.

Up on the downs a single flash of light caught his attention but when it was repeated he realised it was lightning—the storm was approaching. He had no idea whether Patrick and Eleanor were below him still at the lake or had already returned to the house, but he put the key back and left the door unlocked. He crept upstairs and was overwhelmed with relief when he shut the door of his room.

His mind was teeming with questions. How long had this been going on? What was going on? What had he actually seen? Had they seen him?

As the thunder grumbled some way away, he replayed the scene again and again in his head. Above all, he felt a terrible sadness for William.

Chapter Eleven

When he first opened his eyes, freezing cold and lying uncovered, the grey light made him think that it was only dawn but in fact it was nine. He surfaced from sleep vaguely aware of noise. Outside trees roared in the rain and the gutters were already gurgling with more water than they could cope with. The long spell of dry weather had finally broken. He jumped up to close the windows but the billowing curtains were already wet. Outside the ground was so hard that rainwater lay on the grass in shallow pools.

Laurence felt tired and ill at ease. Although relieved that by the time he got up nobody else seemed to be about, he couldn’t bring himself to drop in and see William as he usually did.

After breakfast he sat in the library reading a book on Wiltshire hill forts. It was too wet to leave the house although at least he had the arrangement with David later. He had his torch with him, knowing he would need it in the church. Water had seeped under the library windows and somebody had laid down rolled-up cloths to soak it up. He dreaded seeing Eleanor or Patrick. It was inevitable, sooner or later, but he wanted it to be in a room where any embarrassment would be diluted by the presence of others. When the door opened his heart sank, but it was only Frances.

‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘No.’ He stood up. ‘Of course not.’

‘You look pretty glum.’

He forced a smile.

‘You were out last night,’ she said.

He was about to deny it when she added, ‘I saw you from my window. Don’t look so surprised. I saw you. You weren’t the only one unable to sleep.’

‘No,’ he said, more firmly than he intended.

She looked at him intently. ‘Ah,’ she said. The single syllable was heavy with meaning and as she held his eyes he realised she already knew about Eleanor.

He said, ‘It’s none of my business,’ and looked away.

‘It obviously feels like your business. You’re horrified. It’s written all over your face.’

‘I can’t understand how they could be so indifferent to William. So cruel.’ As he said it he realised how desperately he felt this. ‘And are you angrier with Eleanor or Patrick?’

‘It’s not a competition,’ he said. ‘Here we are, with tragedy unfolding all around us and there they are, frolicking about without a care in the world.’ He knew what he was saying was ugly and unfair.

‘Don’t you think that’s part of it?’ she said. ‘To escape all that?’

‘I don’t know.’

He felt wretched, not least because part of his response when he saw Eleanor at the lake edge, passionately embracing Patrick, was envy.

‘You’re probably right,’ he said less angrily, ‘but William will never have that choice.’

When she didn’t answer but just kept looking at him, with more understanding than he deserved, he said, ‘I’m not naive, and I know relationships are infinitely more complicated than they seem to onlookers, God knows I should, but they didn’t even seem to like each other much.’

He knew he was being disingenuous but he was also annoyed. Were the uncomfortable dinners that had been forced upon them by the couple sniping at each other just a charade?

‘To start with, Eleanor was jealous, I think,’ Frances said, and it was obvious she had known of this relationship for a while.

‘Who on earth of?’

‘Patrick,’ she said. ‘He represented freedom. Eleanor isn’t like most women who live in the wider world through their husbands. You should have seen her before the war. She came to Girton all on her own, with just a trunk and a few books, in a trap from the station. She was extraordinary at Cambridge—even though we couldn’t get our degrees; even though the male undergraduates thought we were there for their amusement and nearly all the professors despised us. She was very young to be by herself but her mother was never very interested in her. She lived in Switzerland, I think, with Eleanor’s stepfather.’

Laurence thought how little he had really known Eleanor. Since he had first met her, three years ago, he’d seen her as an ideal of a free-thinking independent woman, someone quite different from his dead wife, Louise, and the girls he had known before the war, whereas growing into adulthood without a proper home, without belonging, was something he and Eleanor shared.

‘She fought as a suffragist,’ Frances said, ‘and she went to France as a nurse, as you know. She gave up a life she loved, didn’t complete her degree. She made these decisions all by herself. She was never a follower. And now ... what? She’s still a nurse. That old life’s been taken away. So
she
doesn’t get many choices either.’

‘But I thought she was happy.’ He corrected himself, ‘Or content at least.’

‘She was. She probably still is. She loves William and adores Nicholas,’ Frances said, almost pleading with him.

‘And does she love or adore Patrick?’

For the first time Frances looked irritated. ‘I would have expected better of you, Laurence.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m being a prig. The truth is that I’m just desperate for William. And as for Patrick Easton—’

‘I suppose most men we knew fought, then they returned to their old lives, or they died, or, like William, they came back scarred, but Patrick was different,’ Frances said. ‘He couldn’t fight, not because he didn’t want to, but because they wouldn’t have him. But unfairly that means he’s had an interesting life.’

Laurence tried not to feel resentful or to let vague thoughts that it wasn’t just the chance of seeing the world, of having some kind of option about which dangers might be worth pursuing, crystallise into speech. Patrick had had the advantage of escaping a world of lives either lost or ruined. But then he looked at her face and knew she thought these things too. After all, the evidence was right here on her sister’s estate.

He had never really dwelled on the limitations that William’s injuries placed on Eleanor. He had so wanted to believe that she was different and this meant she saw her situation as something positive. But he was being naive. Of course it was a compromise. She was still a relatively young woman, and perhaps that compromise had become an intolerable burden in the years since the war and her marriage.

‘I don’t think she wanted to be
with
a man like Patrick necessarily.’ Frances held his eye. ‘My guess is she wanted to
be him.
Just for a while, to be free, to explore, to feel, to...’ She paused. ‘To have an unknown future. Whereas you think it was simple desire.’

Laurence didn’t protest that he thought it was a great deal more than that, or that, in his experience, desire was seldom simple. Instead he said, ‘Patrick desires
her
, though, whatever she feels about him.’

Frances made a face, but she nodded agreement.

‘I don’t understand Patrick,’ he said.

‘Eleanor’s a beautiful woman and a spirited one.’

‘But there are plenty of women these days, God knows.’

‘She’s not like most women. She’s more like him. She’s curious about everything, and brave.’

‘She’s a wife and a mother.’

‘Patrick’s used to wanting things he can’t have,’ Frances said, simply.

‘Do you mean Easton?’

‘I think he wanted to be the oldest, yes, in a way that Julian didn’t. And instead he made himself the cleverest. And he couldn’t be the bravest because he couldn’t fight. Digby had it all and, until Kitty was born, Julian was his heir. Patrick was just the spare. But Patrick’s seen more of life, more of the world, than Julian ever will.’

She leaned forward. She spoke quietly but vehemently.

‘Easton Deadall is a prison. For Lydia, first of all because Digby possessed her, and now because she holds it for Kitty who, as we all know, has been dead for over ten years. For Julian, because he’s the heir apparent and because he’s got a thing about Lydia and he loves Easton. For me, because I don’t want to leave my sister who is not strong.’ Her face was bleak. ‘For William, because the only work he can get, let’s face it, is Easton. Don’t look like that, Laurence. I’m not being unkind, I’m being honest.’ She drew breath. ‘But Patrick is free. He can come and go as he pleases. Easton hasn’t trapped him yet. Everything lies ahead.’

‘Eleanor would never leave William.’

Laurence hoped it was true and hoped, too, that Nicholas would be part of the glue that held them together. But if Frances’s and Julian’s horizons did not stretch far, William’s were only as wide as Eleanor made possible.

‘The thing is,’ Frances added after a long silence, ‘Patrick has the makings of two people: a good man and a very selfish man, and one day he’ll have to make up his mind which he wants to be.

‘And you, too,’ she said, ‘only you have a different choice.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Your heart and thoughts are elsewhere, far, far away from Easton. Back in the past. But do you want to be the decent chap, always responding to the needs of others: the one who waits, who watches? Or do you want to make a life for yourself, take some chances?’

For a few seconds he couldn’t look at her. Had Eleanor told her about Mary or was she thinking of his dead wife? Whatever she knew, her assessment of his character was accurate and painful.

Just as he struggled to find the words to reply, the door opened and Julian came in with Scout at his heels. He looked tired and worried.

‘Lydia’s not quite the thing.’ He looked at Frances. ‘Could you come up and see her?’

He left at once, with Frances following. Laurence jumped to his feet, realising he was five minutes late to meet David. It had stopped raining but the front door was almost blown back on him as he opened it and he ran along the terrace, trying to avoid the deepest puddles.

The church was gloomy. Little light shone through the stained glass but it was peaceful and dry, except for wet footsteps down the aisle. David was sitting by the floor maze, leaning forward, his head bent. For a minute Laurence thought he was praying and waited; but some movement alerted David. He stood up fast and, just for a second, Laurence thought there was alarm in his eyes. But he realised it was just surprise; David evidently hadn’t heard the door open because of the downpour outside.