Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

“Yes, I did. It seems the best thing to me. Don’t you want that?”

“William, William, but I can’t cook.”

“You’ll learn.”

“And I feel sorry for rabbits.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“And foxes.”

“You’ll certainly have to get over that.”

“And I’m not posh.”

“Good.”

“Oh, William, I’d love to marry you. Love, love, love it.”

“Me too.” He looked at her and grinned suddenly. “Really love it. Now, if we could just… ah, I think… yes, someone’s coming through the shed. Um, ah, hallo, Mother.”

Mrs. Grainger, clad in Barbour and headscarf and heavy green wellies, looked at Abi-at her naked lower half, her tousled hair, her smudged eye makeup, her high-heeled, shitty boots.

“Yes, hallo, William,” she said.

“Mother, I have some really exciting news. Abi has agreed to marry me.”

This is what happiness looks and sounds like, Mary thought, smiling at Russell: a warm room, thick curtains closed against the cold night, a big jug of winter jasmine on the mantelpiece, a log fire, a concert (Haydn) on the wireless-now, Mary, not wireless, but Russell’s state-of-the-art sound system; not that it mattered, the music was lovely anyway-new silks for a new tapestry spread out on her sewing table, Russell contentedly sipping at his bourbon and leafing through travel brochures, planning a trip to Italy for them in the spring. And by the hearth, slumbering sweetly, curled up with one another, the latest additions to their household: two Persian blue kittens.

How lucky she was, how lucky they both were, to have found so much so late, and not to have been disappointed by it in any respect.

“You obviously did so well today, Sparrow. I wish I’d come now, I’d have been so proud of you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, there was nothing to be proud of…”

“Oh now, you say that, but Georgia told me how you recited that nursery rhyme to the judge-”

“The coroner.”

“Pardon me, the coroner.”

“And what on earth was Georgia telling you that for?”

“She said you’d told her I was tired, and she was worried about me. Really, Sparrow, people will think I’m an invalid or an old man if you keep talking like that.”

“How could anyone think you were an old man,” said Mary, walking over to him and kissing the top of his head, “when you look so extremely youthful and handsome? Anyway, I didn’t recite it exactly…”

“She said you did.”

“Well, maybe I did. Anyway, it caught his fancy and he quoted it in his summing up at the end. Which was very nice. And I said how anxious I had been about holding up the young man-the bridegroom, you know-and the coroner said-such a courteous, kind man-that I should have no concerns about it, that it would have made no difference. I still think perhaps it might, but… he was so very good at his job, Russell; everyone left looking happier, even the poor families of those who died.”

“Good. And Georgia was happier at the end of it?”

“So much happier. He was very gentle with her.”

“Good. Well, he sounds like a fine chap.”

“He is a fine chap.”

“Well done anyway. Oh, my Sparrow. You don’t have any regrets, do you?”

“Regrets?” she said, surprised at the question. “Of course not. Unless it is that we weren’t together sooner. But then, we couldn’t have been, could we?”

“Not playing it your way, no. If it had been down to me, we’d have had sixty years together now, instead of six months.”

“I know, I know. But… we did the right thing.”

She sat smiling into the fire, remembering. She had been seventeen at the beginning of the war, Donald nineteen; she had loved him so much, and if anyone had told her she would fall in love with someone else, she would not have believed them; she would have said her heart was far too occupied, her future too settled. But Russell had been irresistible. She told him so now.

“I wasn’t, though, Sparrow, was I? You resisted me very well.”

“I know. But it was more… as you know, keeping faith with Donald. I suppose I might have changed my mind at one stage. But then, you know…”

“I know. The letters.”

The many letters from Donald, in a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy, all telling her that it was only knowing she was there, waiting for him, that was keeping him going at all.

“Yes. I couldn’t have failed him, Russell, could I?”

“I don’t believe you could. Being you.”

“And I was happy, and so indeed were you. And we have each other now. It’s been so perfectly lovely, these past months. At long, long last. Worth waiting for.”

“Worth it indeed… Now, Mary, do you think Rome and then Florence or the other way round? Remember we’ll have just spent a month in New York; I’ll have been working, so we’ll need a proper break. Maybe we should take a villa in the Tuscan hills and base ourselves there and then we can travel at our leisure; we could hire a driver… or we could take the train between the two; that sounds a lovely journey.”

“I think either would be very nice. You do have to do this month in New York, do you, working so hard? I’m sure Morton could manage with your being there for a shorter time…”

“Mary, we have a very big shareholders’ meeting at the beginning of April; it’s essential I’m there, and we have to prepare for that.”

“Yes, but Russell, dear, perhaps you don’t. You’ve been tired lately, even living down here and-”

“That’s purely because I had a touch of flu. I’m never tired normally, as you very well know.”

“Of course not, dear. Well… I think the villa sounds a wonderful idea. Although…”

“Yes?” Russell smiled at her. “I’m getting to know your ‘althoughs.’”

“Well, you know, we could just stay here. Spring in England is so very lovely, and I can’t imagine anything nicer than sitting in the garden and going for walks and just… well… just sharing all of it with you, hearing the birds-they sing so beautifully in the spring-oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think there’s a thrush nesting in the apple tree; I’ve been watching it, either Mr. or Mrs. Thrush, I’m never sure which, flying in and out, in and out with twigs… We’ll have to watch our wicked kittens; we don’t want any tragedies… And then we can see the bulbs come up-we don’t know what will grow where; it will be so exciting-and then there’ll be the blossoms on the trees in the orchard, and… But of course, if you’ve set your heart on Italy…”

“I think I have, dearest Sparrow. We have plenty of years to enjoy the English spring, and I do so want to see Italy with you. I…”

Mary was bending over her silks now, sorting out the blues and the greens; she was not looking at Russell, so she did not see his face suddenly change, did not see him momentarily thump at his chest, nor the fright in his eyes; nor did she notice that he was slowly slumping down in his chair; all she was aware of was an odd sound, halfway between a whimper and a gasp, and by the time she did look up, he was losing consciousness fast and she was never to know whether he heard her as she cradled his head in her arms and whispered again and again how much she loved him.

It had been a stroke, they said: a massive haemorrhage in his brain. If he had recovered, he would have been paralysed, probably unable to speak. Or to smile, Mary thought-there would have been no more of that wonderful, quick, loving smile; or indeed of anything else that made him Russell: not just the brilliant blue eyes, the thick white hair, the beautifully kept hands, the proudly erect back; but the fast, almost urgent walk, the swift turn of his head, the way he sat lost to the world, visibly devouring books, the absurdly careful way he folded things-his table napkin, his scarf, the Wall Street Journal… how often had she teased him about that-the way he laughed, slowly at first, almost reluctantly, then throwing his head back and giving himself up to jokes, to amusement, to fun.