We That Are Left (54 page)

He stared at her. There was a pain in his breastbone, as though someone had split it with a knife, but it was a good pain, a strong pain, and when he swallowed, the muscles of his throat and his oesophagus contracted, compressing the
wild horrors of the night until they were nothing but a sharp black stone inside him. Joachim Grunewald was his father. He had chosen. It was nobody's business but his own.

‘You're shaking,' she said, smiling awkwardly, and he realised that he was. ‘I don't suppose a marriage proposal is the best cure for a hangover.'

‘I don't know.'

Her smile spread, pushing up into her cheeks, creasing the corners of her eyes. ‘So what do you say? Will you let me marry you after all?'

Tears prickled his eyes. He blinked them back. ‘Only if you promise never to tell anyone,' he said and she laughed and he seized the silk counterpane that covered the bed and flung it back so that it fell over the chaise. Then he held out his arms.

‘Come here,' he said and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him, and all that mattered was her mouth and her tongue and the warmth of her against him, the softness of her.

He had never loved her so much or so completely. She was his, to have and to hold, for ever and ever. He closed his eyes as she wound her fingers in his hair, mashing his face against hers, her tongue urgent, her teeth catching his lips. When she turned her head, her tongue tracing his ear, his jawbone, the side of his neck, he touched her cheek, guiding her mouth back to his, but she slid downwards out of his embrace, her fingers tugging at the buttons of his pyjama jacket, her tongue circling his nipples, tracing the raised curve of his ribcage.

‘Come back here,' he murmured, but she shook her head, her nose brushing his skin as she moved down to kiss his stomach, her hand sliding into the vent of his pyjamas, and suddenly all the words were blown away in an explosion of sensation, his nerves like branches bursting into flower as she took him in her mouth and he cried out, raising himself from the pillow to gape at her as she looked up at him, his cock in her mouth, her mouth full of his cock, and he could not stop
it, could not stop the rush that gathered in his stomach and roared through his pelvis, the glorious irresistible surge of it as it swept through him, the hot white blast of pure pleasure. He jerked, electrified, and was still. She smiled up at him. Her chin was smeared with his semen. She touched it, smoothing it away with her fingers, then raised them to her mouth and suddenly the nausea engulfed him, the spike pushing up into his throat, choking him, and he twisted away, his knees curling up towards his chest as he vomited yellow bile in a splattering stream onto the bedside rug.

He told her it was the whisky. Perhaps it was. She was kind. She wiped up the worst of it and brought him more water and told him to stay in bed.

‘You can't just walk out of here in your nightgown,' he said. ‘What if someone sees you?'

‘I'm not as stupid as I look.' She gestured at a pile of clothes on the tapestry chair by the door. ‘I thought ahead.'

‘You knew I'd let you stay.'

‘I hoped.' She smiled, then wrinkled her nose wryly. ‘Of course, if I'd known about the whisky . . .'

When she was dressed she sat down next to him on the side of the bed and stroked his shoulder. ‘Sleep. I'll have Doris bring you an aspirin.'

He caught her hand. ‘I'm sorry. I never meant . . .'

‘I know.' She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘I'll see you later.'

‘Wait.' Pushing back the blankets he got out of bed and went to the chest of drawers. He took out the silk pouch. ‘We can't wear them, I know, but I wanted you to have this.' He shook out the rings and held the smaller one out to Phyllis. ‘One each.'

She hesitated. Then she took it, turning it in her fingers. ‘They belonged to my parents,' he said.

‘What does it say inside?'

‘Du allein
. You alone.'

‘You alone.' She looked at the ring and then at him. He smiled and, taking the ring from her, he slid it onto the third finger of her left hand. She looked at it and picked up the other ring.

‘Here,' she said and he held out his hand so that she could put it on. The ring was too big. She smiled, entwining her fingers with his. He squeezed, then pressed her hand to his lips. Her skin smelled of him. He closed his eyes.

He had chosen. There was no going back now.

Jessica wished Phyllis did not make Oscar so uncomfortable. Almost as soon as she had arrived he had withdrawn, retreating snail-like into his boyhood silence. At dinner Jessica had tried to bring him into the conversation, had asked lots of encouraging questions about his life at the University, but Oscar had answered in monosyllables. As for Phyllis she had been no help at all. Not for the first time Jessica had wondered if she had got it all wrong, if despite everything he was still the same infuriating weirdo he had always been, but she pushed the thought away. That kind of thinking could drive a person round the bend.

On her way to breakfast she put her head around her father's dressing-room door. When she saw Jessica the nurse smiled. Sir Aubrey, she said, had had a good night. The delirium had passed and his temperature was almost normal. Once the doctor had been, she hoped that he might be well enough to receive visitors.

Stupid with relief Jessica went to the Chinese room to tell Phyllis. There was no answer when she knocked so she nudged open the door. The curtains were still drawn but the bed was empty, the covers thrown back. Jessica went downstairs to the breakfast room.

‘Is my sister up?' she asked Doris but Doris only shook her head.

‘I've not seen her, miss.'

‘And Mr Greenwood?'

‘No, miss.'

She ate her breakfast alone. She wished the others would come down. It was not right, to have good news and no one to tell. She wondered if she should cable her mother. If Father was better there would be no need for her to come. To her surprise, that too felt like a relief.

Some time later the doctor came. Jessica waited while he went upstairs. Afterwards he kept an affronted distance, his hand clasped piously over his stomach as he reprised the nurse's diagnosis. Jessica nodded and wondered for the tenth time that morning where Phyllis was and why on earth she had bothered to come home.

‘So it wasn't pneumonia after all?' she asked.

The doctor stiffened. ‘But of course it was pneumonia. The excretions from the lungs were unmistakable. Your father has been very fortunate. He has recovered well. It is safe to say that the immediate danger is behind us.'

‘So I can see him?'

‘I don't suppose I could stop you if I tried.'

She laughed. ‘No, I don't suppose you could.'

When she pushed open the door her father was sitting up against a bank of pillows, his chin rimed with grey stubble. His good eye slid towards her. ‘Jes'ca,' he whispered. Her heart lifted.

‘Good morning, Father.' She smiled as she kissed his rough cheek. He smelled of laundry starch and old age. ‘The doctor says you're much better.'

He made a clumsy attempt at a nod.

‘Phyllis is here. She got back yesterday.' His eye swivelled sideways. Jessica shook her head. ‘Not here in this room. She'll come later. We're not allowed to wear you out. Doctor's orders.'

‘Osk. Wha' Osk?'

‘Oscar's here too. He came just as you asked. He's been here all the time.'

His good eye blinked. He said something she could not understand. She leaned closer as he tried again. It sounded like good boy. She wished he would rest. It was painful to see the effort it cost him to speak. In his scrawny neck the tendons stretched tight and white scum formed on the corners of his mouth.

‘I'm glad you asked him,' she said. ‘He says you've been writing to each other, that you've been playing the game with him, the photograph game. He's much better at it than me, it's shaming. He knows so much about the house. So many stories, you wouldn't believe. He's almost as dreary about it as you.' She smiled at her father. Tremblingly he raised his good hand towards her.

‘Jes'ca,' he said.

‘I'm right here, Father.'

‘Lisn me.' His hand fluttered. She took it. ‘I wan. Osk.'

‘You want to see him now? I'm not sure he's up yet.'

Her father tried to shake his head. ‘Gu boy. Alls gu boy.' Always a good boy. The words were raw, clumsily shaped, each one pushed laboriously from his tongue. She had to strain to make sense of them. She took a handkerchief from the bedside table and tried to wipe his lips but he turned his head away, his good hand batting the air. ‘Jus lisn.'

‘I'm listening. I'm sorry.'

Her father jerked forward, his hand reaching for hers. His grip was startlingly fierce and his bad eye gaped. ‘Gu husbn,' he said. ‘Gu f' you. F' Melv.'

Jessica did not answer. She stared down at his hand on hers. Good husband. She felt winded, numb with shock. She did not know why. It was not as though she had not thought the same thing herself. He squeezed her hand again. She stared at him stupidly.

‘Hap,' he said. She shook her head. ‘Hap,' he said again.

‘I don't understand.'

His mouth worked, his tongue pushing up against the roof of his mouth. ‘Happy,' he pushed out. ‘Osk.'

‘You want Oscar to be happy?'

He frowned, frustration tugging at his forehead. ‘You,' he said and perhaps it was an easier word to say because he said it very clearly. He closed his eyes. His breathing was laboured.

‘Father?'

At the door the nurse cleared her throat politely. ‘Miss Melville? I don't mean to impose but the Patient is still very weak. If we might let him rest?'

‘Father?' She patted his hand but he did not open his eyes. Reluctantly Jessica nodded at the nurse.

She went back downstairs. In the Great Hall a fire was blazing. She went into the dining room but there was no one there and on the table the breakfast china was untouched. Jessica felt a stab of resentment. Phyllis had no right to vanish so blithely when for all she knew Father had died in the night. Last night's show of conscience in the bathroom had been just that, a show. Phyllis was good at that. She managed it so that everyone always thought of her as the good one, the considerate one, but the truth was she never considered anyone but herself. She was just clever enough to do it quietly and with a concerned expression. Even her nursing had been an excuse to run away from Ellinghurst and Eleanor. She had been running ever since. As for Oscar it was the first time since his arrival he had not been up before Jessica. She thought of the window seat behind the shutters in the library where he used to hide and wondered how long Phyllis meant to stay.

There was a bowl of winter camellias on the table in the middle of the Great Hall, their white heads beginning to droop. Jessica fingered a bloom and several petals dropped onto the polished wood, their waxy tongues tipped with brown. She held them in her cupped hand.
Will you, Jessica Margaret Crompton Melville, take this man to be your awfully wedded husband?

‘Good morning.'

Phyllis stood in the doorway to the servants' corridor. Jessica dropped the petals. ‘Is it? Still morning, I mean?'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘Where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere.'

‘Actually I was talking to Dr Wilcox. He says Father is much better.'

‘Better? You think paralysed for life is better?'

‘According to Dr Wilcox his temperature is almost normal. That's something to be grateful for, surely?'

‘He can't move and he can barely get a word out. Just how grateful do you expect him to be?' Phyllis's bewildered expression only angered Jessica more. ‘You know what, Phyllis, everything's fine. I'm sorry it was a wasted journey but you're off the hook. You can go back to your tombs with a clear conscience.'

‘Why are you being like this?'

‘Like what, exactly?'

‘Like this. So angry with me.'

‘I'm not angry with you. Why would I be angry with you?'

‘I don't know. Because I wasn't here. Because you think you had to do this all by yourself.'

‘Because I
think
I had to? I did have to do it all by myself, Phyllis, just like I've been doing for years. You left, remember? You left and never came back.'

‘Nobody made you stay.'

Jessica was silent. She crossed her arms. ‘Have you seen Oscar this morning?'

‘I don't think he's up. Doris said something about him having been sick in the night.'

‘Sick?'

‘That's what she said. She said she took him an aspirin.'

Jessica frowned. ‘Do you think I should telephone Dr Wilcox? I mean, what if it's the flu or something? We can't risk exposing Father to infection, not when he's already so weak.'

‘I wouldn't worry. It's probably just a hangover or something.'

‘From one glass of wine?'

‘Some people have no head for alcohol.'

Jessica fiddled with the camellias, pretending to arrange them. More petals fell onto the table. She did not pick them up. ‘He loves this house, you know.'

‘Oscar or Dr Wilcox?'

‘When I told him it might have to be sold I thought he might cry.'

‘Perhaps there was something in his eye.'

Jessica told her about the photograph game. ‘He knew them all. Many more than I did.'

‘Yes, well. He's that kind of person, isn't he? He notices things.'

‘He notices the things he cares about. Otherwise he's completely oblivious.'

There was a silence. ‘Have you had breakfast?' Jessica asked.

Phyllis shook her head. ‘I'm not hungry.'

‘You should let Doris know. Especially if Oscar's not coming down. She's left everything out.' She drew a shape around the petals on the table with her fingertip. ‘He's changed, you know. Oscar. He's different.'