After Clare (15 page)

‘They don't always come first,' he went on petulantly, but then, seeing the hurt on her face, he pulled her into his arms, said he was sorry. He covered her face with kisses, patted her hair and then, since his father was sleeping, took himself off to the British Club where he had been accepted as a temporary member and where he could play polo to work off his frustrations. Emily was left alone so much that she thought about contacting Mrs Maybury, but when she had mentioned this Paddy had not been pleased, reminding her they would not be here long enough to form friendships.

There was no mention of any proposed move to the tea plantation – though of course there was no question of moving out of the hotel until Daniel was much better. The fever kept returning, intermittently, while outside, the rains which had begun in earnest, crashed down, making rivers of the roads and flooding great areas of the city. The humidity pressed down unbearably, like a lid. Emily had a headache that threatened to become permanent.

Day after day she sat in the hotel, rereading the books she had brought with her, writing her diary and yet more letters home, wondering how long they, too, would remain unanswered. And as she listened to the rain drumming on the roof, she tried to tell herself that it was worry over his father that was causing the change in Paddy.

When the longed-for letter eventually came, it wasn't from Clare, nor from Anthony. It was addressed to her in Hugh Markham's firm, clear handwriting. For a moment, she stared at it and then put it into her pocket, unopened. It was nearing sunset, when the world would be blotted out in an instant, but there was still light and a temporary respite in the rain. She took the letter out to read alone in a tiny, shady courtyard at the back of the hotel, where she would not be interrupted.

She turned the thick envelope over.
Hugh?
She slid her thumb under the flap and opened it.

The blood drained from her face as her eyes jumped from one phrase to another. Then she read it again, forcing herself to read more slowly. She knew now why it was Hugh who had written this.

The rapid darkness descended and still she sat on the edge of the pool in the centre of the courtyard. A bat, black and silent, swooped before her face, followed by another, huge by comparison with the pipistrelles that used to make their home in the Hecate tree, yet she didn't flinch. Night time had brought no amelioration of the steamy heat, and the little courtyard felt like the inside of a cauldron. The ceaseless noise of India went on around her. A sweeper somewhere outside the hotel cleared the paths with a scratchy broom, scritch, scritch. A Hecate tree so laden with purple blossoms that you could not see its leaves shaded the courtyard. Hecate? Of course not, how foolish. It was a jacaranda, so overwhelmingly laden with purple blossom that it looked artificial, unreal. It was not the Hecate tree. The garden out here wasn't Leysmorton. There were red and white lotus blossoms and water lilies, richly fragrant and with waxy petals and wide green leaves almost covering the surface of the little pool, but here in this hotel courtyard there were no roses.

Clare, Hugh wrote, had disappeared from Leysmorton, simply disappeared into thin air. She had left the house, saying only that she was going for a walk, and hadn't been seen since. Emily was grateful that Hugh had not attempted to hide anything, but had simply stated the facts. Clare had gone, two days after Emily and Paddy sailed, without a word, taking nothing with her and leaving no clue as to when she would be back, if ever. There had been no quarrel, nothing to indicate that she had ever intended to do this. The police had been informed. A search had been made, the river dragged. There one moment, gone the next, as if someone had cast a spell over her and magicked her away, just as Miss Jennett had been magicked away.

Aunt Lottie had insisted Emily should not be worried with this temporary aberration of Clare's, for after all, she would have to come home sooner or later, or at least let them know where she was. But as time went by, when it became evident she was not going to come back, or not very soon, Anthony had asked Hugh to write. He was too upset to put pen to paper himself, too distraught; it would have been an impossible letter for him to write.

‘I must go home.'

Paddy stared at her disbelievingly.

‘
What?
Are you mad? All those weeks at sea? By which time your thoughtless sister will most probably have returned. Even supposing you could do anything to find her if she hasn't.'

She ignored that ‘thoughtless', but her spirit did indeed quail at the thought of another journey like the last, all those endless weeks – which hadn't seemed endless then, but fascinating and coloured with new experiences, exhilarating perhaps because she and Paddy were together, and in love? – only to find, when she reached England, that Clare had returned, with some simple explanation . . . That at least made sense, even though this situation didn't seem to have much to do with common sense.

She felt torn between two loyalties. She was a newly married woman in love with a husband who had already frightened her by showing himself capable of petty jealousies and sulks when it came to her family. On the other hand, her beloved father was coping with this situation alone.

‘I
must
go, Paddy! Don't you understand? My father – he's alone, he needs me—'

‘But
I
shall be alone if you go – and I am your husband, may I remind you. And
my
father needs me. Needs us both. You have other duties now, Emily, in case it has escaped your notice.'

The coldness in his voice was something she had never heard before and hoped not to hear again. I have been married barely a month and already I am quarrelling with my husband, she thought desolately.

‘I
must
go home, for a while at least. I
will
.'

‘And how do you propose to do this?'

A silence thick as dust lay on the room.

She stared, not understanding what he meant at first. Then she did. She could not travel without money, and when she married she had given up all rights to any money of her own. That was what the law said. It had been one of the reasons Clare had cited for never getting married. Emily was virtually penniless.

Wild thoughts raced through her mind. She would find the money for her fare home from somewhere. Borrow it – but from whom?

‘What kind of wife wants to leave her husband after a few weeks?' Paddy demanded, grasping her wrist so that she winced and pulled away. Then just as suddenly as his rage had come on, it left him as he saw he had really hurt her. ‘Oh, God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just that things seem so bad here, and without you . . .' His eyes suddenly filled with tears, a lake of blue. ‘Don't leave me, Emily! I don't deserve you, but I don't know what I'd do if you ever left me. I'll make it up to you for everything!'

She stayed silent for a long time. This was the man to whom she had made her vows before God. The man she was still determined to love. At last she said evenly, ‘No, I shall never leave you, Paddy. Forget I ever spoke about going home. Things will be better when we get to the hills, to the plantation, where it's cooler.'

He looked at her for a moment without saying anything, and then he said, ‘There is no tea plantation. My father lost it months ago.'

He had grasped her wrist so hard she had the bruises for weeks. He never touched her so roughly again, but ever afterwards, when the same sort of situation occurred – as it did, throughout their marriage – she looked at her wrist and remembered the livid bruises and knew that had been the time when she had put Emily Vavasour behind her forever.

Life with Paddy was not all sunshine, but you could not live with someone for nearly forty years without making the best of it.

Not for the first time, Poppy and Xanthe Tripp were crossing swords over Poppy's proposals for the refurbishment of the library at Leysmorton. Mrs Tripp had ideas for a quick makeover that would bring everything up to the minute, banish the dreary, ponderous furniture of previous decades – too yesterday, my dear! – and replace it with contemporary pieces with sleek, uncluttered lines.

But even Poppy, modern as her own inclinations were, could see what a huge mistake that would be. She could appreciate that replicating the library's original, very expensive fabrics and wallpapers
would mean going far beyond their usual reach, and that employing traditional craftsmen would be costly also, but the results would not jar the sense of what was right for a venerable old house, and for this Poppy was prepared to dig in her heels. Such schemes as Mrs Tripp envisaged were not even to be contemplated. More to the point, Emily was their customer, she pointed out, and would never agree. They would lose the order altogether – and the possibility of further recommendations – if they were not careful. She picked up the proposals, so scornfully dismissed by Mrs Tripp, which she had put together following her first visit to Leysmorton. ‘Just take another
peep
, Xanthe . . .'

‘We've already discussed ideas for these new chair covers, Marta and I,' Emily had said, generously including Marta in the decisions. ‘But we can't make up our minds. We don't want to make the rest of the room look sorry for itself.'

‘That can happen,' Poppy smiled. Quickly taking advantage, she added, ‘So why not do it all
,
then? We – my partner and I – could see to it for you.'

The other two exchanged a look of alarm, obviously recalling reports they'd heard of the mirrors, lacquer and chrome in the London house Poppy and Xanthe had furnished for the newly-weds, Dee and Hamish. Poppy caught the look and smiled. ‘Nothing drastic. I know you only wanted new covers – but maybe some fresh paint, and wallpaper?'

Emily was taken with the idea. ‘You're right. Perhaps a little reupholstery, too.' The whole house was scuffed and fraying at the edges and, to be fair, that wasn't entirely due to its wartime occupation – probably hardly at all, in fact. Leysmorton had never been a grand house, just a family home, where familiarity had rendered its increasing wear and tear invisible to the inhabitants. It was obviously time to address the overdue problem. ‘What do you think, Marta?'

‘It will mean an upheaval. Dirk brings his work in here.' That was true. He came to work sometimes on the table by one of the big, low windows that overlooked the terrace and let in floods of light. ‘He likes to look out over the garden.'

Emily sat on the edge of the sofa, her spine straight and her silver-streaked dark hair nicely cut, her country clothes impeccable, her feet shod in expensive leather. Poppy thought that if the reports of her rackety life had been true, it had left no traces on her composed face, or in her manner. ‘But Dirk has a perfectly adequate study,' she was reminding Marta gently.

Marta lowered her eyes. ‘Well of course, it's up to you.'

Poppy wondered why Emily didn't shake this irritating woman. But that was none of her business, so she jumped up to make a quick, darting tour of the room, assessing its potential. Fine old furniture, thankfully none of it the impossibly ponderous and overelaborate pieces of some earlier decades. Nothing here that a repolish wouldn't put new life into. She came to a halt at the portrait over the mantel that dominated the room: a woman, Lady Fitzallan's mother, without doubt – the same intelligent brown eyes, the thick dark hair, the curve of the lips – wearing something rose-coloured, and a rope of pearls. Her eyes narrowed as she looked from it to the lovely old Aubusson carpet. ‘Nothing too feminine, not in this room, but not too masculine either. Some dark green, and some light, and maybe ruby or crimson. Light paint. How does that strike you?'

After a few moments' thought, Emily had smiled and said, ‘Oh, yes, I think so. When can you start?'

And at that, Poppy, acknowledging that she might actually enjoy the prospect of planning something so different from their usual commissions, had allowed herself to think about commissioning the whole house.

She had said nothing of that idea to Xanthe on her return to London. Not yet . . .

‘“This shop exists to promote modernism”,' Xanthe reminded her sharply now, quoting from the advertising brochure they had put out when they started. ‘Everyone has had enough of living in the past—'

‘Not everyone. You and I, perhaps,' Poppy said, trying to be kind to Xanthe, who was forty-two if she was a day. ‘But we do need clients of an older generation as well, if we're to keep going.' She flicked through the pages of her notebook to hide her irritation. Increasingly, she faced the sad truth that their small business venture was in crisis, and their relationship was not standing up to it. They were pulling in different directions.

She tried again. ‘You haven't seen Leysmorton. It's a
centuries
' old house and the library is simply
beautiful
. It's ludicrous to think of—' She stopped herself, then added, making it worse, ‘It's a question of taste.'

Her partner's pale, powdered cheeks took on a spot of colour. Her thin red mouth set into an even thinner line. The shop bell tinkled. She took a deep breath, smoothed down her skirt and her frown, pinned on a smile and went forward.

As the customer approached, Mrs Tripp's smile slipped. It wasn't unusual in these straitened times for men to be wearing clothes that had seen better days: pre-war Savile Row suits and Lobb handmade boots that still said quality in every stitch, however well worn they were. But this man's navy blue serge suit had never seen Savile Row and said nothing except travelling salesman, or even – her heart plunged – debt-collector, a dun, one of those who had plagued her ex-husband throughout the exhausting, debt-ridden existence she had shared with him.

She gave him a frosty good morning and was not reassured when he showed her his warrant card and asked for her partner. Dripping icicles, she spoke over her shoulder. ‘Miss Drummond. You have a visitor.'