Consider the Lily (27 page)

But I love May — the month that ends the winter gestation, the curtain raiser to the seductions of June. In the evenings the light stretches, long, white and tender, across fields stippled by new growth up to Barley Pound and the ancient Harroway. Apple and pear blossom drift in the air.

It is the cue for the clematis to rocket onto centre stage, and I have asked for a white one to be trained across the kitchen garden wall in memory of Ned Sheppey. Strong, tough and reliable, it suits his memory I think. In my cottage garden a blue
macropetala
snakes up into the
Prunus autumnalis,
and the ‘Countess of Lovelace’, my favourite, is preparing for her double act in powder blue, first in spring as an Edwardian gaiety girl, and then for her return performance in the autumn with a single blossom. Meanwhile, my greedy, scrambling
armandii
caps its evergreen foliage with clusters of creamy, almond-scented flowers.

Every garden should have its aromatic corners and, up at the big house, we have taken trouble to position scented plants for each season. For May, capricious May, I chose the viburnum. Not the most common variety, but the busty
juddii.
The effect is startling
and
it is resistant to greenfly. I sited it by the path so that on their way to the walled garden visitors walk into its sweetness.

Then there is the wisteria walk on the west wall of the new stables. Mother often sat there, and in the evenings Thomas and I wander up from the cottage and walk between the twisted stems. Damp flowers brush at our heads and light filters through like a quattrocento painting. The scent overwhelms us.

Each year I have learnt more: a new fact, some shift in perspective, in design or colour blocking. Never cease learning, Mother told me. Never hesitate to open another door. The garden is deeper, much deeper, than what the eye merely sees, and teaches us truths through the senses. Like water running through time and place, it never changes and yet never ceases to do so.

Truth is buried under many layers and perhaps never can be seen as the whole. But pick up the shards lying in the earth, piece them together and something emerges.

The bedroom was warm and quiet. Matty remained on the bed where Kit had sat her down. Her Viyella nightdress had been laid out, and there would be a hot-water bottle between the sheets. She looked forward to climbing under the eiderdown and going to sleep. Again, she touched her breast and when it responded with a satisfactory spongy soreness she gave a sigh of relief.

‘There’s no mistake?’ Kit ripped off his tie and draped it round his neck. His hair fell over his forehead and, in his characteristic way, he pushed it back. As always, Matty had no idea what he was feeling but, at least, her news had broken the silence.

‘I don’t think so.’ Being questioned raised doubts in Matty’s mind and she sifted rapidly through the facts. Twenty-eight days late. Nausea. Sore breasts. A dislike of perfume... A conviction planted in the back of her mind.

‘Have you been to the doctor?’

‘No. But I’m almost sure.’

‘That’s very good news, Matty. When?’

She told him and Kit snapped his fingers, one, two; a trick of his. She knew then that he was pleased. Some of the hurt she was feeling relaxed its hold. She smoothed her gloves over her knees and hugged his pleasure to herself. Then she looked up. ‘Do you mind?’

‘
Mind!
’ Troubled by her question, Kit sat down beside Matty and took one of her hands. ‘You do ask me funny things sometimes, Matty. And you listen to the answer with those big eyes trained on me as if I was an oracle.’

‘I ask because I wish to find out,’ said Matty. ‘You see, I don’t really know you, and you are hard to understand.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Kit, propping himself on his elbows. ‘I don’t sound very appealing or approachable. I’ll have to try, Matty, shan’t I?’

She swallowed. ‘Only if you want to.’

Her answer appeared to annoy Kit and he got up from the bed and returned to the fireplace. Matty wished she had been as determined as Daisy was. ‘Yes, you damn well
should
try,’ Daisy would have said. ‘I demand it.’

She changed the subject and, with her instinct for rubbing salt into her own wounds, asked, ‘How was Daisy?’

Kit looked uncomfortable, miserable and angry all at the same time. ‘Daisy is very well,’ he replied, choosing the most neutral reply he could think of.

You
can
demand, said Emma Goldman in Matty’s head. Go on, Matty.

Fuelled by an unfamiliar mixture of nausea, elation and fatigue, she said, ‘Kit I must ask you... please... in future not to make your feelings so plain. In public at least. It makes it very difficult for me.’

‘Matty...’

‘Everyone noticed.’ Matty paused and, thinking that as she had got this far she had better continue, added, ‘I minded very much.’

‘Yes,’ said Kit. ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’

Matty pressed on. ‘I know what you feel about Daisy. Of course I do, although we haven’t discussed it. But please. Not in public.’

The effect was curiously dignified.

‘You should get to bed,’ Kit said quickly to cover his feelings. ‘I shouldn’t be keeping you up. Shall I ring for Ivy?’

‘No, please don’t, it’s far too late for her.’

‘Are you sure?’ Kit paused, and then asked, ‘Can I help?’

Matty stood up. ‘Could you undo my buttons, please?’

Kit was no good at buttons and it was a minute or two before the dress slid over Matty’s shoulders. Pleased by the intimacy, she savoured the touch of Kit’s fingers on her back.

‘Tired?’ she asked, feeling the skin under her own eyes stretch with fatigue.

‘Nicely so,’ lied Kit, and brushed his finger over the place where Matty’s skin thinned over her collarbone. He bent over and kissed her cheek. ‘Bed. At once.’

‘Kit.’

‘Yes,’ he said from the doorway.

She turned and with a slight shock he saw that under her silk chemise her breasts looked swollen and her soft, barely pink, nipples were darker and more prominent. Kit swallowed. ‘Yes?’ he repeated.

‘Nothing,’ said Matty. She watched the door close behind him and listened as he walked down the corridor. Presently, she heard him moving around the drawing room, and knew he would be pacing up and down between the windows, hands in his pockets.

Soothed by his goodnight kiss, she pulled up the bedclothes and fell asleep thinking that, perhaps, the things she dreaded were not as bad as she thought.

But when she woke next morning Matty was conscious at once that things weren’t fine. Something felt wrong: an acid aftertaste, an unease. Back in place was Matty’s demon, and she remembered how close Kit and Daisy had danced together and the way her husband’s hand had hugged the curve of Daisy’s hip.

The pillow had slipped to one side and Matty turned over and tried to doze. An image of the younger Kit as she had seen him in the old photographs – scrubbed and hair slicked back – drifted across her mind. It was followed by a sulky Polly. One by one, they emerged out of the leather box: Flora, in riding habit and top hat standing in front of her pony... Rupert, in uniform staring into the distance, Sam Browne belt shining in the studio light... Hesther standing beside her brother, posed by the photographer with a rose in her hand, Edwin in uniform. They were smiling at each other, and it was obvious that they were not interested in the business of being photographed. Matty stared at Hesther. Upswept hair and a square jaw that should have indicated strength and yet Matty knew it did not. The slight downturn of the mouth repeated in Polly, its hint of pain and loss not properly assimilated or mourned. The outlines of the face dissolved, Hesther disappeared and Matty was left feeling cold and sick.

Mother, she wanted to say, searching for Jocasta among the debris thrown up by sleep but, safe on the other side of death, Jocasta eluded her. Then Matty woke up properly and knew with absolute certainty that Hesther’s absence was more important than her presence. More important than anything.

She sat up in bed, reached for the telephone, cranked the handle and asked the operator for the Chudleigh residence.

‘Why Gunter’s?’ asked Daisy.

Wearing a pink and white dress from Mainbocher and an Agnes hat, Matty slipped into her chair. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s the sort of place to meet your future mother-in-law.’

‘It’s lovely,’ said Matty, and glanced round. The tables were occupied by bachelor uncles treating their nephews and nieces to the famous ice creams, ladies up for the day from the country and a budding romance or two at corner tables. ‘Very elegant.’

‘If you like that sort of thing.’ Daisy brushed her fringe back under her hat, not a designer creation but worn with chic. Under it her face looked unhappy, tired and, for Daisy, beaten. ‘I ordered China tea, scones and cream cakes,’ she said.

All morning Matty had told herself to remain calm so she was annoyed to see that her hands were clenched on the tablecloth. A change in a woman’s soul, is it not, Emma? she asked her spiritual mentor. And, now, the tiger principle: I have to be the snarling mother tiger who defends her cub with teeth and claws. Matty pictured the dot seeking life in the dark, thudding spaces of her body, and imagined curving her hand around it and protecting it as tenderly as she could.

‘You have got to go away,’ she told Daisy, transferring her tell-tale hands to her lap. ‘Go away somewhere so we don’t run into one another or, rather, you don’t run into Kit.’

Daisy blew out a plume of smoke and tapped her cigarette case. ‘I’ve said this before,’ she said, ‘but I had no idea how hard you were.’

‘Not hard,’ Matty contradicted. ‘Never that.’

Tea arrived and it was a minute or two before the frilled waitress had arranged it to her liking on the table, which gave the two of them time to think. Daisy continued to smoke furiously. ‘If I do go away, Matty? What then?’

‘It gives Kit a chance to get over you.’ She paused. ‘All of us a chance, actually. You, Kit, me and the baby.’ She tried not to let her elation show too much, but failed.

‘Baby!’ Daisy poured some tea. ‘Well, that gives me no choice.’ She took a mouthful and scalded her lips. ‘I hate you, Matty,’ she said, eyes watering, in a light, conversational manner. ‘I hate you.’

‘Why have you always hated me?’

Daisy searched her memory. ‘I haven’t
always
hated you. But you irritated Marcus and me right from the first.’

‘But why? I don’t think I did anything.’

‘That’s the point. You never did anything. You were plonked like a cuckoo into our nest and everything changed because you were a moulting cuckoo, who was constantly ill. It drove Marcus and me mad having to tiptoe around. Your money was a problem too. Have you ever considered what it’s like to be on the receiving end of charity? Marcus and I were grateful for all the nice things that came our way as a result of the allowance paid by your trustees, but it also stuck in our throats.’ Daisy lit another cigarette. ‘To be fair, Matty, your money wasn’t your fault, I suppose, but you must see that it made it difficult. Perhaps if you had been a different sort of person then none of the generosity would have mattered. But you never showed emotion, except fright, and that egged Marcus and me on. You never stood up to us.’ She paused to tap ash into the cut-glass ashtray, and said, ‘You never showed any sign of affection.’

Matty had not seen it in that light before, and she was silent while she digested the implications along with Gunter’s scones. Inside she cried: You never showed me affection either.

‘Then,’ said Daisy, and her expression hardened, ‘you went and sold yourself to Kit. At first I wasn’t sure if it was to spite me, or a genuine desire to get him out of a rocky patch.’ She gazed down at her plate. ‘I still haven’t decided...’

‘Have a scone,’ said Matty.

Daisy peered at her cousin and, to Matty’s surprise, gave a snort of laughter. ‘I may hate you, Matty, but you are priceless sometimes. I have to hand it to you.’

Matty passed the plate. ‘You must go away for as long as possible,’ she reiterated while Daisy crumbled the scone on her plate. ‘Otherwise you won’t give yourself, or Kit, time to recover, and since we are bound to meet quite often, it would be the best thing.’

‘Goodness,’ said Daisy. ‘I think you’re developing a bite at last.’

‘Of course, Kit could divorce me and then it would be different.’

‘No, he wouldn’t do that,’ said Daisy, pushing away her plate. ‘Dysarts don’t get divorced. Anyway, he needs your money.’

‘Daisy. Please listen to me.’

‘The price?’ asked Daisy curiously. ‘Are you going to buy me off? You’re always buying things, Matty.’

‘There is no price,’ said Matty. ‘You just
have
to go.’

The clear eyes assessed Matty, and Daisy’s reddened lips closed tight against feelings that were out of place in Gunter’s. Not for anything would she show Matty how much she was hurting.

Light-headed at her daring, Matty drank her tea and waited. Daisy was seldom malicious and Matty was certain that, for all her passions, Daisy would arrive at the right conclusion. Opposite her, Daisy cupped her chin in her hands and gazed at her cigarette case, her hat brim dipping over her face. For the thousandth time, Matty was suborned by Daisy’s mysterious beauty and understood why Kit loved her.

‘I give you marks for trying, Matty,’ Daisy shovelled her things into her handbag and drew on her gloves, ‘and I’ll think about it.’

‘I’ll pay for tea,’ Matty said.

Daisy frowned and for a second her guard slipped. ‘How predictable,’ she said, wearily. ‘How very bloody like you. Nevertheless, just this once I’m going to pay.’ She signalled to the waitress and waited until she was presented with the bill in its leather folder. Matty pulled her gloves over the Dysart engagement ring – pigeon’s blood ruby, Burma, of the first water: she had mentally catalogued it when Kit presented it to her – and shrugged her jacket around her shoulders. Daisy retrieved her parcels.

‘I shall arrange to go away after Ascot because you have had the courage to ask, and because of the baby,’ she said. ‘Providing I can handle Mother.’