Three Sons (Timeless Classics Collection) Page 3

II

  IN ENGLAND

  James Hinde was twenty-seven, which seemed to be a great age to Carolyn. He also had come to Ross-on-Wye to forget. James was well off. His mother had died soon after his birth, and his father had brought him up more as a younger brother than as a son.

  James had been through an expensive prep., Eton, and Trinity Hall, maturing to the Inner Temple. James was of a placid nature, an easy going boy, whose scholarly career had delighted his father. What the old man did not realise was that James submerged all his natural instincts and reactions in the world of books, because his shyness and reserve cut him off from taking the first few hurdles which would have to be passed before he could ever discover his real self.

  James lived in a womanless world, drawing all that he needed in the form of satisfaction from his books. At Eton he was known as a ‘swot’; although he had occasional ‘blinds’ at the Hall, on the whole he led the kind of life that his tutor appraised but could not bring himself to admire.

  James took chambers in the Middle Temple and he did quite well. It was strange that a man who could not face emotional crisis in his own life, could deal with them in court day by day, and suffer no disturbance from the contact.

  James had had a deep affection for his father, and in this affection he had blinded himself to the fact that the old man would die before him. It is strange how few can apply the routine laws of living to their own lives, James Hinde was one of these. Last spring old Mr. Hinde had asked his son to meet him in London and they lunched together at the Ritz. Mr. Hinde was not quite himself. Unbeknownst to his son he had come up to see a specialist, who had verified the truth of his own suspicions. His life was a matter of months.

  ‘But surely something can be done?’ demanded James in bewilderment. The crisis was too big for him.

  When finally he knew that nothing could be done, he spent those months at the big old house at Dedbury in Hertfordshire. Together the two men made plans for an alpine garden, working on it, old Mr. Hinde knowing that he would never live to see it finished. All the time James was haunted by the horror that must come at the last; he was sick with cowardice that he would not know how to face it, but as with so many things that one dreads in living, nothing of that kind came to pass.

  One summer’s evening, he saw his father sitting asleep in the garden chair, and thought how sadly old and haggard he looked. He went across to him with the rooks so busily noisy in the rookery, and the Jersey cows on the little piece of park land, thrusting their pale brown snouts through the fence questing better grass. When James got to his father’s side he was confronted with a void. His father was not there at all. Only the body in which he had served a lifetime lay in the chair where he had suffered a seizure and had died before he even knew that it had happened.

  Automatically James went through the gloomy ritual of death, which has never really helped anyone, and for a short while he lingered in the house with its echo of a voice that he would never hear again, and a step stilled to him. He struggled with himself, his nerves frayed, and the more he chafed against the disease which he thought was moral cowardice, the more it tormented him.

  Finally the doctor persuaded him to take a holiday, ostensibly to fish, and he had come to Ross. James was tall, with dark hair of a thin, fine texture, easily ruffled, a full lower lip, and dark eyes which never told what he was thinking. He was afraid of himself; he had always set a wall around himself and nobody had ever penetrated within.

  Because fishing was an isolationist occupation, he accepted it, but although he thought he wanted to be alone, it was the aching loneliness of his heart that hurt most of all. When he saw Carolyn he realised that she was escaping too, and being so young (she was little more than a schoolgirl) it was very easy to overcome his natural hesitancy. They started to talk that evening in the garden and when they went indoors Carolyn introduced him to her mother.

  Before the morrow Mrs. Spinx had discovered that James was affluent, that he was also a descendant from an ancient barony of which she knew. Naturally she was encouraging. Carolyn was horrified by her mother’s attitude, but she liked going out with James in his car, and James liked having her with him. He had a series of pictures of her imprinted on his mind; Carolyn standing in the ruins of Chepstow with her hair blown about her face and her blue linen frock. Under the big walnut tree; or at Tintern Abbey. Leaning on a crumbling wall, talking like a child, a gay happy child, forgetful of all else.

  ‘I ought to have brought a sketch book with me.’

  ‘You sketch?’

  ‘Very little, and only for fun. I can’t do it really.’

  ‘What else do you do?’

  ‘Nothing much. I’m in the process of being “finished”, if you know what that means. I’m coming out at Christmas.’

  ‘Being finished sounds dull to me, but coming out worse. I don’t dance, or care for cards or any of the fashionable things; I’m not a very sociable kind of a fellow.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I fish, I drive the car, and I’m enormously interested in gardening. We made quite a good alpine garden at home.’

  ‘We?’

  He did not know why he told her, but standing here in Chepstow leaning on the old wall, with the Wye Valley beneath them curling away towards Tintern, it seemed to be easy. ‘My father died recently. I can’t get used to the fact that he isn’t here any more.’

  ‘You were very fond of him?’

  ‘Yes, he was all that I had.’

  She thought pathetically that she hadn’t that much, and stupidly, rather blunderingly, began telling him about herself. The fête and Arthur Hardy. Her dreadful disloyalty to her mother, ultimately the disloyalty to the man himself.

  He said, ‘I don’t think it was really disloyal. It has certainly left you with the same feeling of emptiness that I have myself, only yours will come right, mine won’t.’

  ‘You poor thing!’ she said.

  They toured about in the car along the wild roads of Wales, with the mountains sloping to the very edges and the black-faced sheep grazing. The rowans were out flashing scarlet on the trees, and now Carolyn chattered easily to him and made a friend of him. Couldn’t they dig up some of the mountain plants, and take them back to his alpine garden? Or ferns? What about ferns?

  ‘Ferns are very difficult to transplant,’ he said, ‘they die. Besides, I’m staying on for another week, we could never hope to keep them alive all that time.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you’re staying. I rather dreaded being here alone after you’d gone. It would have been so lonely.’

  In the back of the car Mrs. Spinx nodded to herself. James would be a delightful son-in-law to have; there was a chance that the barony might come to him ultimately; she had traced it carefully and, barring a nephew called Desmond and born distressingly recently, James would have succeeded. After all, she kept on telling herself, child life is precarious, and you never know about it; any epidemic of measles might carry little Desmond off, and at any time. So she was encouraging.

  James’s placidity was stirred by the fact that he was falling in love and knew it. At twenty-eight a man cannot bury his heart in a grave and set a wreath of rosemary atop it; he has to go on living.

  They went to Lynmouth one day, alone because Mrs. Spinx had threatened lumbago again, which made her nervous. They sat on the sand watching a steamer that had stopped to put down passengers, sending them ashore in a little boat. The boat rose and fell in the long ruffles that the sea wore about her shore, for it was a choppy day. The people dropped miserably on to the beach, too far gone to appreciate the fact that their trials were over. James looked at Carolyn.

  ‘I never know why sea sickness is so funny, but it is. Poor dears, they’ve had a shocking trip!’

  ‘Supposing they died?’

  ‘They won’t. They’re getting better every moment they are off the sea.’

  ‘I’ll never go on the sea if that is what happens to you.’

  ‘You can�
��t tell. It doesn’t happen to everyone; you might be lucky.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to risk it,’ and she laughed.

  ‘One day perhaps you’ll risk it with me?’

  She looked at him not realising what he meant, but he was staring at her earnestly and she would never forget the look in his eyes against a background of thatched cottage and fuchsia hedge. The fuchsia flowers of dark purple and cerise edged with white, were fantastic in shape and size. They gave the moment a sense of unreality. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.

  ‘I’d always thought of Venice for a honeymoon, had you?’ and, as she did not speak, ‘Carol, do you still care so much for Arthur whatever-his-name-was, that you cannot think of me?’ and then more tenderly, ‘Darling little kid, you don’t mean that it’s no? Carolyn, I don’t think that I could bear that.’

  ‘It isn’t no.’ She would never be able to explain, because she would hate to tell him why she could not say yes with her whole heart. She loved James’s companionship, the sharing of views on life, sitting here together on this beach; he was kind to talk to, nice to be with, but she was not in love with him.

  ‘You darling.’

  ‘I’m not in love with you, you know. I don’t want to cheat. I know it all sounds very silly, but what I feel for you isn’t what I felt for Arthur.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want it to be; that didn’t last. Most of us have gone through the calf love stage, you know.’

  ‘I don’t want to be misleading; oh James, I do so want to play fair, I could be awfully happy with you, but not in love.’

  ‘Don’t you think that perhaps love is rather like Santa Claus, a romantic myth enlarged upon by poets and novelists? Just solidly caring for one another is different. I believe with all my heart that we could be very very happy.’

  He kissed her then, not impulsively as Arthur Hardy had done, but tenderly. She saw that the tide had turned, and was now coming up the beach towards where they sat. The seasick people had pulled themselves together, and getting up, had dispersed into Lynmouth.

  ‘Do you think your mother will be furious? You’re very young to be married.’

  ‘I really don’t care if Mother is furious. I’ve had enough of Mother and of Miss Bradshaw too. And of home, and having to do this and that just when she wants it, and always being given curtain lectures. You won’t order me about.’

  ‘Does anyone order his wife about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d have said perhaps they did.’

  ‘Well, my little kid, I shan’t! I don’t believe that I have ever been really happy till this moment. It’s great!’ He bunched her arm inside his. ‘You’ll have to help me break it to your mother, you know, she’s a bit frightening. I anticipate difficulties.’

  Carolyn was thinking of the other night when Mrs. Spinx had insisted on weighing up how much James’s income ought to be. ‘I don’t,’ she said emphatically.

  As Carolyn had foreseen, there were no difficulties.

  James sent to Asprey’s for a solitaire, a huge glittering diamond with shoulders of small emeralds, of which Mrs. Spinx approved. She had now abandoned Harry Bourne and Sir Rodney Stein, and had let them drift out of her life. It is true that a title would have been enchanting, and if only that horrid little Desmond could be dismissed, the barony might be James’s, but she did not discuss that.

  She and Carolyn spent a week-end at James’s home at Dedbury. As the car passed through the little town of Benfield, the girl peered eagerly out of it. It was a typical Hertfordshire town, with clustering, congested streets over which old houses leaned. There was a square battlemented church tower out of which a single spire rose, and as they sped up the hill, the little newer houses, horrible memorials to Queen Victoria and King Edward the Seventh, stood sprawling on the outskirts towards Dedbury village.

  Dedbury lay at the end of a narrow lane, between fields of corn on either side and a little wood early gold. The elm trees formed green cloisters which led to the Anchor Inn, with James’s house behind it. The high old wall hid it from the road, and they left the car in the barn which served as a garage.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘oh my dear, I do so hope that you are going to like it.’

  The garden rose up the side of a hill to a close shrubbery, which completely hid the house from them, for the main entrance was across the park land, hardly ever used these days because of the necessity for keeping the cows in. A Gloire de Dijon rose sprawled unpruned in a maze of apricot blossom over the barn; a tattered honeysuckle clung to a wire arch dispersing its abundant fragrance. The box hedges were newly clipped, and boundaried the beds where delphiniums grew in hedges of shaded blue background, swaying with the claret and yellow hollyhocks. It was a profuse garden with almost too much loveliness. At this time of year the Worcester Pearmains glowed scarlet in the little pear-shaped apple trees, and as they went up the path, Carolyn saw for the first time the eighteenth century house, white with frequent windows, and the leaded fanlight over the door. This stood open to receive her.

  ‘I pray you like it,’ he said again with desperate earnestness.

  ‘Of course I’m going to like it. It’s beautiful. You mustn’t fuss so, you’re as bad as Mother.’

  She saw that the furniture was old, mellow and glowing. A Queen Anne dresser with curved cabrio legs stood against the white painted wall of the hall, and on it the reflected gleam of Sheffield plate sconces, and the fragrance from a huge bowl of dark red roses. She saw on the stairs the full length portrait of James’s mother, who had come here as a young girl herself, with his eyes, the same thin fine hair, and the slender hands. Here she had lived her short life and had died. Here Carolyn would live and love, and age and die too! Only somehow in the teens, age and the weariness of body coming with it seem to be too far off to visualise.

  They went over the house together, leaving Mrs. Spinx to her sherry in the drawing-room. One after another they examined the rooms, tall and flowing, with curved and gracious windows that rose from near the floor and almost met the ceiling.

  ‘Darling Carolyn, you do like it?’

  ‘I adore it.’

  ‘We’ll sell every bit of furniture and remould it closer to the heart’s desire.’

  ‘No, James, let’s keep it as it is, and just remould my own personal rooms nearer to the heart’s desire.

  ‘This shall be your special little room.’ He went to the window which looked on to a lawn from which the grass rose steeply, ragged at the edge where the beech wood met it, and trailed in outline along the horizon, a green tall fringe to the park. It was a lovely view and Carolyn knew that it would be with her all her life. She wanted to get away from the memories of the Lodge, the humiliation of having fallen in love with Arthur Hardy, an emotion which wasn’t real, but she supposed the world would not believe her. This place supplied something missing in her own life.

  ‘James, I do love you.’

  ‘I love you.’

  She said, ‘Sometimes you seem to me so much older than you really are; so much further away. Almost as though I could not reach you?’

  ‘Darling, I’m very near you really,’ and he laughed. ‘Naturally when people are engaged they are never so close as when married.’

  But she knew that she had been closer to Arthur Hardy; a high wall separated her from James, just like the tall one that shut the lovely profuse garden off from the road that ran between them and the Anchor Inn. ‘Arthur made me feel different,’ she said haltingly, a trifle afraid of making him jealous.

  ‘First love is different, but all the same second love is wiser.’

  ‘It wasn’t love really; I know that now. I don’t know exactly what it was, only that it wasn’t love.’

  He patted her shoulder and they went out to the alpine garden that he and his father had made. The gentians were flowing on it, the tiny cyclamens, and winter heaths. The winding path that led through it to the stone seat at the far end had, he remembered, been a path to Gethsemane. Again the rooks were cawing
in the trees of the park land, and keeping sentry-go over their nests, and again James recalled how pleasant it would have been to have had his father here to meet Carolyn, and how welcome he would have made her.

  ‘He and I made this together.’

  This very pathway had been not only the crazy paving, but the foundations of his life with an old sick man. In a way Carolyn was right; he could not come out from behind the wall. There was a barrier between them, but marriage would naturally put it right. In a sense he envied her in that she was not raddled by this strong affection for her parents, she had only Arthur to forget, and James knew quite well that Arthur Hardy hadn’t mattered really.

  ‘James dear, we have the future,’ she said. ‘I will make you forget all that sadness, once we are married everything will be so different, and such fun.’

  She had sat down on the seat with the gentians at her feet. Such lovely flowers, gentians, and he knew that she actually believed what she said. A vista of the future flashed before him, a marriage in the desert of the mind. In it lay all the experiences that hitherto he had missed in life, because he had been too much absorbed in study, in his profession, and later in the agony of this last summer with his father. Now he saw youth. It was the thing that he had never had.

  ‘Darling little kid. Of course we’re going to be happy.’

  ‘Of course. All the same I’m a bit worried about the very smart wedding that Mother wants. I don’t feel grown-up enough for a really smart wedding.’

  ‘But girls love a good wedding.’

  ‘Not this girl. I would have liked something very simple.’ She had a babyish terror that Arthur Hardy, hearing of it, might hang round the church, and the very thought was horrifying, though she dared not admit this to James.

  ‘Well, a good wedding is traditional,’ he said. He did not see how she could escape it.

  They walked back to the house together, with the rooks occupied in the tree tops, and the cows returning to the park land from milking.

  ‘It’s all lovely, and I’m very lucky,’ she said, ‘and I’m so grateful to you, James, so very grateful.’ Then suddenly, ‘And do you know, you’ve got a brick wall round your heart just like the one at the bottom of the garden? Did you know?’