Emma Page - A Fortnight by the Sea

‘They went to Malta at Easter,’ Pauline said. She kept up a regular correspondence with Marion, ruled in this as in many other things by the strongly conventional side of her nature which dictated that if you had a sister you wrote to that sister, whatever thoughts and feelings were sternly denied expression on the smooth-surfaced writing-paper. ‘I shouldn’t think they’d want to go abroad again for a holiday so soon.’ For the first ten or eleven years of her marriage Godfrey had held a commission in the Army and at least half of those years had been spent out of England. Pauline had never really taken to the life; she had longed for the English countryside, had wanted to bring her children up in their own land. She had felt no regrets when Godfrey had resigned his commission four years ago on the death of his father. She had returned to England with pleasure and had ever since retained a certain mild prejudice against foreign shores.

‘I’ll phone them this evening.’ She was now absolutely determined to bring Marion face to face with Godfrey. Some compulsion had gathered force inside her during the last year or two; it had reached a stage now where it could no longer be repressed. She would stand in the same room with the two of them, she would look from one face to the other. She must know. ‘And in any case,’ she added with a touch of censoriousness, ‘Marion really ought to pay more attention to Aunt Elinor. I dare say she’ll be left everything – or the best part of it anyway, she’s the eldest.’ Marion had always been Aunt Elinor’s favourite, she had been everyone’s favourite. ‘Not that there’ll be all that much to leave, but still, it doesn’t look good.’ She suddenly caught the tail-end of her own utterance and was taken aback for a moment at the hypocrisy and petty-mindedness showing through.

‘I must go,’ Godfrey said. ‘I don’t want to miss the doctor.’ He walked over to Pauline, slipped an arm briefly round her shoulders and brushed her cheek with his lips. ‘I’ll give Aunt Elinor your love.’

When the door had closed behind him, she crossed the room and stood in front of the screened fireplace, gazing with frowning concentration at her reflection in the oval mirror above the mantelshelf. A faintly-tanned, fine-boned face, blue-grey eyes, delicate brows; but what she saw was the haunting image of her adolescent self, blemished skin, difficult hair. Of course he didn’t love me, she thought with savage certainty. How could he have loved anyone after Marion? And least of all that pathetic, plain schoolgirl. She saw all at once with total clarity why he had married her. He had wanted a son to carry on the name, he couldn’t have Marion so he had made do with Marion’s sister. She felt a searing wave of self-disgust. She’d been so eager to say yes; such an ignorant, blind, foolish creature.

She turned abruptly from the glass and went to the window. Godfrey was walking with an easy pace across the flagged terrace. I’d say yes again, she realized with astonishment; knowing all I know now, with innocence and the first flush of youth behind me for ever, if that starburst instant were to spring into being a second time, if he were to take my hand out there in the garden as he took it before, if he were to ask me again to marry him, I would still say yes.

As he neared the edge of the terrace Godfrey halted and looked back at the house. Pauline instantly moved to the side of the window and continued to watch her husband without fear of being seen herself. She levelled a look of fierce concentration at his calm features. If only she could tell what went on in his mind – but his upbringing hadn’t taught him to express his thoughts openly, and his years in the Army had done nothing to counteract that early and decisive training.

His gaze travelled without haste over the whole frontage of the house, the elegant proportions, long windows, slender columns, mellow stone, glossy-leaved creepers. This place means more to him than anything else on earth, she thought suddenly, there is nothing he wouldn’t do to keep it . . . The notion sprang into her mind with startling force.

The creak and rattle of a wheelbarrow approached from the shrubbery. Godfrey abandoned his survey of the house and permitted his stance to take on a relaxed air.

‘Good morning, sir.’ Edgar Meacham appeared with his barrow through a gap in the lilacs. ‘It looks as if the fine weather’s going to hold.’

Godfrey glanced vaguely up at the soft blue sky delicately ribboned with white. ‘Yes, it would seem so.’ He walked across to where Meacham was stooping over a scatter of lopped boughs. The severed ends were reasonably neat, the depth of cutting back not too severe. He nodded in brisk encouragement. ‘You’re making a pretty fair job of it.’ His gaze rested on the pale green leaves. He scarcely ever looked anyone directly in the eyes; on the chance occasions when he did his glance had a lightly veiled quality.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Meacham gave Godfrey his habitual frank and open look; his voice held both pleasure and relief. His employer’s head turned suddenly and with a distinct suggestion of dismay at the sound of the front door opening, footsteps, voices issuing forth.

‘Ah! Mr Barratt! I was hoping to catch you—’ A large, imposing lady bore down on Godfrey. She was followed by her daughter, a nervous-looking young woman who seemed perpetually to be trying to obliterate herself from the landscape.

Meacham gathered up the wood, flicking a covert glance of amusement at Godfrey’s back as Barratt compelled himself to walk with an air of affability towards the pair of females. Shouldn’t have stopped to talk to me, Meacham said to himself, then he’d have been off down the drive, out of harm’s way, before they’d had a chance to catch sight of him. His sharp eyes had more than once observed Barratt’s little manœuvres to avoid confrontation with his guests, particularly with the bed-and-breakfasters who were the most mixed bag of all.

‘A charming house,’ the large lady said with massive patronage. ‘Such a stroke of luck to come upon it—’ The trouble is, Meacham thought, taking a pair of secateurs from his pocket and snipping a shoot, there isn’t really any type of guest he does genuinely welcome. The pretentious made Barratt squirm, the ill-bred made him shudder, and with civilized folk he was perhaps even less at ease, imagining how they might be pitying – or even despising – him for having to throw open his house in this manner.

He stood now listening to the oration of the majestic lady; his face wore a slight, interested smile. ‘I’m so glad we managed to make you comfortable,’ he said when she paused for breath. If he didn’t protect himself with those good manners, Meacham thought as he looked round for his garden broom, I dare say he’d run the risk of breaking out, letting fly perhaps with a really nasty show of temper, could even go berserk, that type. Meacham had seen a thing or two in his time. Watch out for the disciplined man when the discipline wears thin; he’d learned that lesson the hard way.

‘I do hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday,’ Godfrey said pleasantly, at the same time removing himself by another couple of paces from the two women in order not to have to shake hands at the moment of farewell. He looked down at his watch. ‘I must ask you to excuse me, I have an appointment.’

Meacham swept the débris into a heap, listening with keen interest to the final exchanges, observing with an appreciative movement of his head the skilful way in which Barratt avoided touching either lady by the hand. Not that any man in his senses would want to, Meacham thought as he transferred the heap to the barrow. He sent a shrewdly assessing glance after the two women who were now walking back to the house. Not much joy to be had there, not from either of them. The daughter he might perhaps, at a pinch, have gone as far in the old days as, well, running his eye over her, sizing her up, not likely to have gone any farther than that. But the old girl – he shook his head and allowed a soundless whistle to escape his lips – he’d have known better than to tangle with the likes of her, even for a single moment. Not even in his palmy days. He sent a smiling sigh towards the past. Not even in his prime.