Distant Choices (48 page)

Not long.

For Matthew's sake the funeral would certainly be well-attended, the opportunity taken by all decent-minded men and women to close ranks around the bereaved husband – as Maud was not slow to point out – although the dead woman's daughter, having first talked too wildly and then gone into a sulk and refused to talk at all, had not yet had the grace to visit her mother's coffin, now on display, just as it ought to be – in spite of everything – in the South parlour at High Grange.

Maud herself had seen to the funeral arrangements, the flowers and candles, the black armbands for the servants, black borders on Matthew's notepaper, even though – of course – no one really supposed him to be precisely heart-broken. Such was not her brother Matthew's way in any case, and one could hardly be accused of telling secrets if one said that this second marriage of his, a mistake to begin with, had grown steadily worse. The truth was – and Maud Stangway had never been shy of the truth – he would be better off without her. A fact of which he was himself quite sufficiently aware, needing little more to set him right again than what Maud firmly called a ‘return to normality'; the house looking as it used to look, running as it used to run; everything back again in its old good order. Including all the glass and china and the good lacquer furniture his late wife had smuggled out and hidden in the house she'd made him buy for her in Lydwick Park. Maud had already made her arrangements to deal with that.

And although Letty, of course, would miss her at the vicarage, everyone was called on from time to time to make some little sacrifice or other, and it was Matthew now who must be considered. Letty understood that. Everybody understood it. Except Evangeline's daughter, need it be said, who – with her mother still lying in the South parlour between Maud's flowers and candles – had announced, very curtly, that the question of who was to help Letty at the vicarage was of no concern – and no interest either, by the sound of it – to her.

Oriel saw Matthew Stangway only once before the funeral, in her own home where Quentin, at her request, had accompanied him on a mission merely of good manners, it seemed to her, rather than any of the things which a bereaved and so scandalously betrayed husband might have felt the need to express.

She gave him tea. He drank it, answering each one of her polite formulas with another to match, saying what anyone who might have been eavesdropping would have expected to hear. She knew perfectly well that he was her father. So, she supposed, did Quentin. But it was far too late for that.

‘I presume,' he said on leaving, ‘that you will wish to
attend
– is that the word? – your mother before the funeral. To sit with her, as Maud is doing?'

‘No, thank you. I would rather not.'

‘As you wish – naturally. There will be some small, legal matters, of course, which you might prefer Quentin to explain to you.'

Thinking of the blue velvet bag, she smiled.

‘Yes. I am sure that would be best.'

‘Very well. Is there anything I can do for you?'

‘No, thank you.'

He went away.

‘Is there anything
I
can do?' asked Quentin.

‘I don't think so.'

‘Are you telling me to go away and leave you to suffer in peace?'

She smiled at him, rather palely. ‘I am really quite all right, Quentin, you know.'

‘Are you? You look very much to me like a woman at bay. A lovely lady fox – yes? – with the hounds not far off.'

She smiled again. ‘Well – yes. Perhaps. But there is nothing very new to me, you know, Quentin, in that.'

Yet, for the whole of her remembered life, she had courted the favour of those ‘hounds'with all the care and delicacy of one who does not think herself quite worthy, earning her place among them often very tediously, in strict obedience to the rules these ‘respectable people'had made to suit themselves, putting their interests always before her own, since they had the rights of birth and wedlock, the whole weight of traditional morality on their side, and she did not. As a child she had felt the need to be better-behaved than other children – who had mothers
and
fathers – in order to be considered half as good. As she grew older she had modelled herself, with great determination, on Society's view of a perfect woman, a perfect wife, a perfect mother, choosing perfection because it did not seem to her that she, with her far from perfect background, could afford anything less.

Yet now, when the dreaded blow had fallen, when she, who had so feared scandal found herself at its very centre, she could not manage – and she
had
tried – to care so much as a fig for it.

Only for Evangeline.

Yes. Behind her cool eyes, her cool voice making the polite remarks she had always made to those she called her friends, giving the polite instructions – never commands – she had always given to her servants, she could hear distinctly a new voice quite ready to admit, if only to herself, the many things Evangeline had been. Many things to which ugly names could easily be given, especially by those to whom security seemed as natural as drawing breath. But there had been no security, at any time in her life, for Evangeline. None whatsoever. And it seemed now, to Oriel, that her mother had shown the same skill and shrewdness, the same hard-headed, hard-working, gritty determination merely to keep a roof over her head as Garron had employed in the pursuit of his vast rewards and powers. The same personal risk, day in day out, as he took, in order to gain for herself no more than the privileges which other women were able to take for granted. A home of her own and no problems about paying the bills. A ‘place'in society for herself and one for her daughter who had been spared the life of mistress, kept woman, whore, only because her mother had been all these things for her.

A whore? Very well, if it made the Mertons feel better to say so. A mistress? Certainly. But since lovers came in pairs this new voice in Oriel saw no reason why her mother should take all the blame for that. A kept woman? Very obviously, since how – this new, sharp voice enquired? – could any woman of these so-called upper classes possibly keep herself unless, failing the requisite supply of male relations willing to keep her, she chose to settle for the genteel drudgery of a governess or a paid companion? A wife? Never entirely, having lived far too long, before her marriage, in a world where men were not only the prey but the enemy. Nevertheless – always a mother.

She went several times before the funeral to stand outside the house in Lydwick Park – all locked and shuttered now – which Evangeline had worked so hard to make Matthew buy, knowing full well that should anyone see her there it would be rumoured, and probably reported to Maud, that she had been assessing the property with a view to somehow getting it for herself. An intention she knew Maud would believe since there had already been some talk, between her and Letty, of what an excellent home it would make for the ever-growing family of Letty's daughter, Maud's favourite niece, Constantia.

Oriel had no idea what Matthew intended to do with her mother's house, and did not care. If it came to her, then Garron, she supposed, would either sell it or keep it – as seemed best for
him
– as a possible wedding-present for Elspeth who, at almost sixteen, had marriage very much in mind. It was not the house itself which drew her and kept her standing there in the sharp, January wind, but her mother's light, by no means extinguished voice reminding her of vigorous scheming, vigorous living, vigorous satisfaction, not only in the house itself, but in every item of purloined furniture it contained.

‘Look, Oriel my darling, I have got this wondrous pair of vases – Sèvres don't you see, and quite, quite valuable. Yes, I know they have been in the South parlour at High Grange for a generation or two, but never mind that. They were broken, my dear, quite shattered – such a dreadful accident – when the mirror above the mantelshelf became unhinged and fell on top of them. I picked up the pieces myself – so as not to upset the parlourmaid – and buried them deep in the dustbin. In secret, of course. How's that? Maud does not believe me, needless to say. Nor Letty, who says her late mother once promised them to her. And she was not terribly pleased when I said that if she'd ever managed to get them to the vicarage they'd have been smashed to smithereens long ago. Well – here they are now, my love. All mine. I'm just on my way to pop them in my private Lydwick Park treasure chest.'

The light voice echoed in Oriel's head each time she entered the empty garden and stood by the locked door. Who had the key? Matthew, she supposed. Or Maud, who would be here, soon enough, to pack up the Sèvres vases, the Chinese cloisonné, the Crown Derby, and take it all back to High Grange, congratulating herself, no doubt, on having turned out to be more eternal than Evangeline.

Who would have thought it? Certainly not Evangeline herself who had handled Maud and all the other Stangways with such expert calculation, and – as it had turned out – to no avail. They were all back now in their rightful places, like the Sèvres vases, pretending that Evangeline had never moved them an inch. But it seemed to Oriel, on those bleak pilgrimages, that for her no ‘rightful place' existed. Without Evangeline she was, quite simply, alone, with nothing to truly call her own but a few hundred pounds in a blue velvet bag and a terrifying compassion, a burning fury at the waste of the woman who had given them to her.

Only to each other had they ever really belonged. And it was with her eyes on the barred door of the house her mother would never live in, that Oriel came to terms with her personal solitude. For who else, with any respect for reality, could she now call her own? Not Garron, whose need to possess his woman was certainly not followed by any corresponding need to be possessed. Not Elspeth and Morag for whom she had done no more, she knew, than carry out their father's instructions to polish and perfect them and who remained strictly his daughters, never hers. Not the boy Jamie with whom her relationship was easier but whose gaze was fixed firmly now – and quite properly – on the wide, exciting world outside his home. Only Kate, for a while, had aroused that special closeness, that sense – through thick and thin – of belonging; the affection which did not depend on her good behaviour, or Kate's, as it had never depended on Evangeline's, but was simply
there
.

No longer. And it was the emptiness, the sense of alienation from this world her mother – and Kate – no longer inhabited, which troubled her the most.

Garron would not be home for the funeral. In fact – very much as usual – she did not even know where Garron was, other than that it was somewhere in the Balkans. Slovakia? Herzegovina? Croatia? Rumania? Any, or each of them in turn. ‘
En route
‘, was the expression used by his various agents and offices who had all made cheerful attempts to contact him while warning her, just as cheerfully, that even if their messages arrived on the right day at the right hotel, he could hardly cover such distances and be back in England on time. Not for a funeral, at any rate, which rather fell into the category of things not to be delayed.

She did not think he would even try. Indeed, she was fairly certain that his agents knew exactly where to send their messages, allowing him the freedom to choose whether or not to receive them. And why, she reasoned quite calmly, would he feel inclined to put himself out for Evangeline who had never even pretended to like him? No, he would stay in Budapest or wherever he happened to be, returning home when he had done as much or more – never less – than he had intended, his baggage full of any luxuries for which Budapest, or any of its neighbours, might be famous, his concern for Evangeline extending no further than a walk to the office of Quentin Saint-Charles to find out if any of her property had escaped her husband's jurisdiction and, if so, to make sure his wife got her share of it.

Yet, on the morning of the funeral, she would have been glad of his presence, his tendency to dismiss the Stangways as feeble and irrelevant now that his riches outweighed theirs. He served to reduce them to far more manageable proportions in her eyes, his broad and, in Stangway opinion, overdressed figure beside her acting as a sure barrier against Letty, who was frankly alarmed by him, and even against Maud who, despite her assertions that one could always smell whisky on his breath, rarely came close enough to sample the odour herself.

But, predictably, he had not chosen to be found and, not wishing to inflict her private tragedy on Morag, who offered to accompany her, or on Elspeth who did not, she set out alone through a cold wind which seemed entirely appropriate. She looked very cold and self-contained herself, her mourning-veil drawn back over her hat – as Evangeline would have worn it – so that everyone could see her dry eyes, her faint, somewhat superior smile of greeting as she walked into High Grange's South parlour where, to the consternation of all present, she declined, most politely, to look at her mother.

Everyone else had done so, Maud positioning herself by the coffin where, at each new arrival, she removed a heart-shaped piece of white satin from Evangeline's face, allowing the newcomer to peep and murmur whatever seemed right to them – ‘How peaceful. Oh dear – how sad. What a pretty coffin – such a rich lining …' – before she neatly replaced it again.

Letty had already gazed at the dead features several times, feeling it her duty, for Matthew's sake, to set an example, followed – also for Matthew's sake – by a halting procession of ancient spinster great-aunts and second cousins always brought out of hibernation, it seemed, on such occasions. While the Saint-Charles'children had been lined up and obliged, even forced in one or two cases, to do the same. ‘One must try to forgive, you see – always – anything,' said Letty, once again in the hope of consoling dear Matthew, although she shot a vicious glance, nevertheless, at her son Quentin who happened to enter the room just then, his appearance reminding her that he had failed to visit her, as promised, the previous Sunday.