Hester's Story (53 page)

‘I want to say something to you,’ she whispered. ‘I have wanted to say it for many years. This. All of it is yours. All my jewels. You remember them, I think. I have left them to you and also the house. What will you do with such a house? It is not my business. But Wychwood is yours.’

Hester couldn’t move her hand from Madame Olga’s grip, so the tears ran down her face unchecked and she barely noticed. She heard what the old lady was saying and part of her took it in. Madame Olga was leaving everything she owned to Hester, and at this very moment, she didn’t care two figs for any of it. She couldn’t bear the way Madame Olga’s voice was leaving her. The power of her lungs, which was almost as great as the power of her will, had gone, and now only a thin, thin breath of air was left to carry what she still wanted to tell Hester.

Hester knelt down beside the bed and thanked her.

‘I love you, Madame,’ she whispered, her mouth close to Madame Olga’s ear, but it was hard to see whether she was aware of the words. In the end, a nurse came to tell Hester it was time to leave. She said, ‘Come again tomorrow, dear. Madame Rakovska needs her rest now.’

Hester was already by the door when she heard a sound, a hoarse cry that was a version of her name, ‘Hester. Hester, come to me.’

She went back to the bed. Madame Olga was struggling to sit up and Hester put an arm around her to help her. She could feel every bone in Madame’s back through her nightdress, and thought that if she moved too quickly, the old woman might break into a
million separate fragments. Madame was struggling to speak. ‘You forgive me, yes? Say this. Say you forgive me. I beg of you. Please.’

‘Forgive you? There’s nothing to forgive, Madame. You’ve been like a mother to me. You’ve done everything for me. Please don’t say such things.’

‘Say it,’ she insisted. ‘Say you forgive me. I beg. Please, I am dying, darling child. Let me know this before I go. Please. Say it.’

Hester didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘I forgive you. Of course I do. But there’s nothing to forgive.’

She closed her eyes and smiled as Hester laid her gently down again. She looked as though she was dreaming of good things. Madame Olga died that night and Hester never saw her again. From time to time, in the years following her death, Hester would wonder what she’d meant. Why was she asking for my forgiveness? What could she possibly think she’d done?

On the morning following her visit, Hester answered the telephone and a voice on the other end, a voice she didn’t know, told her the bad news. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I will have to ring Piers at once, she thought. The funeral. We must arrange the funeral. Her hand was trembling uncontrollably as she dialled his number, but the tears remained unshed for many hours. It was only when she was quite alone, in her bed that night, that Hester allowed herself to weep. I will never, she thought, stop missing Madame Olga. Never.

*

Wychwood House was looking particularly grim and grey when Hester and Edmund went to look round it. They walked through the rooms, where dust sheets covered every piece of furniture. The carpets were
threadbare, the curtains eaten by moths and heavy with the dirt of years. Madame Olga had brought very little with her to London, so the cavernous wardrobes were full of her dresses and coats. The bright scarves and shawls she always wore were in two drawers of the chest in her bedroom, and in another were albums and boxes bursting with photographs of dancers and other vanished friends from the days when snapshots were small, black and white and indistinct.

‘Look at all this stuff,’ Hester told Edmund, faint with the thought that she’d have to clear it up; deal with everything.

‘We’ll cope with it,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve already spoken to various chaps who’re going to come and clear the house. Auctioneers in Keighley. You never know, some of the furniture might fetch a bob or two. Don’t forget that this isn’t what she’s left you. Not really. Not these old clothes and things. You have to look at the house as full of possibilities. Potential, the estate agents would say.’

‘But potential for what? It looks like the House of Usher to me. How can I possibly live in it?’

‘Well, not in its present condition, of course you can’t. But if it’s done up. Decorated, and that wilderness outside cleared and made into a garden …’

They went for a walk that afternoon, over the moors. The sun had come out for what Edmund called ‘a special guest appearance’ before night fell. The sky was streaked with purple and rose pink and orange as it made its way down behind the slope of a hill to the west. They talked about Wychwood House.

‘I’d like to do something spectacular,’ Hester said. ‘Something unexpected. I’d like Wychwood to be known for ballet in the way that Glyndebourne is known for opera. A festival. I wish I could do that, but you’d need a theatre, wouldn’t you? And no one
would dream of putting a theatre in the middle of nowhere.’

‘I don’t see why not. You could build it down there, in that dip behind the house. I can see it now. A small theatre, of course, about two hundred seats. But very beautiful. And we must call it something romantic. The Alhambra.’

‘No, that sounds like a music hall. What about the Princess?’

‘Princess? No, that’s terrible. Why that?’

‘After Princess Margaret, I thought. She loves the ballet. Perhaps she could be a patron of the festival?’

‘Well, perhaps she could, but the name is still awful. I’ve got it!’

‘Tell me,’ said Hester. ‘Though I reserve the right to hate it.’

Edmund stood quite still and announced the name in a ringing voice that seemed to fill the whole landscape on this still afternoon. ‘The Arcadia Theatre.’

Hester said nothing for a moment, and he went on. ‘The classical paradise.
Et in Arcadia ego
 … I, too, have been in Paradise.’

‘It’s lovely, Edmund. How clever you are! Thank you. It couldn’t possibly be anything else. But that means it’s got to be traditional. Not modern. It has to fit in with the house and the surroundings. Are people really going to come all the way up here?’

‘They will if the ballet’s good enough. And it will be. With you in charge, of course it will. You could have a competition every year, choose your choreographer that way. Then let whoever it is choose what he wants to do. Or she wants to do, I suppose, though I don’t think there are that many women choreographers.’

‘Brilliant, Edmund!’ said Hester and hugged him. ‘But you’ll have to help me.’

‘Don’t I always?’ Edmund smiled at her.

‘You do. Always.’

*

The Wychwood Festival was launched in 1976 and the first night of the ballet was the sixth of January. The invited audience of critics and ballet lovers from all over the country sat in the beautiful interior of the Arcadia Theatre and watched a production of
Rosemary for Remembrance
, a piece based on
Hamlet
, seen from Ophelia’s point of view. The applause at the end of the evening went on for nearly ten minutes. Edmund timed it on his watch.

At the end of the party after the first night, Hester and Edmund went upstairs together.

‘It’s going to be the best ballet festival ever, Hester,’ Edmund said, putting his arm around her waist. ‘I’m so proud to be part of it, through you.’

They were standing at the top of the staircase and he pulled her to him.

‘You smell so lovely,’ he said and buried his face in Hester’s hair. He stepped away and touched her cheek.

‘Good night, darling girl.’ He turned and walked quickly towards his room. She was left there, not knowing what to do. She went to her bedroom and sat at the dressing-table. The chain, the gold chain that she always wore, caught the light, and Hester examined the face that she saw reflected in the mirror. I’m not a girl any longer, she thought. I must stop myself from thinking about love and kisses like a green young thing. I’m a business woman now. A festival director. I’m going to be good at it, too. Tears came into Hester’s eyes as she thought of how much Madame Olga would have enjoyed tonight. How happy she would have been in the foyer of the theatre, trailing one of her more magnificent scarves and with her
hands weighed down by silver rings studded with pieces of amber the size of small onions. She would have been proud of me, Hester thought. The ballets will be wonderful and people will come and see them from all over the world. They’ll come to the Arcadia Theatre. Hester Fielding’s theatre. My theatre.

6 January 1987

Alison sat on one of the hard chairs in the dining room and watched George giving instructions to the catering staff, who’d arrived that morning. They’d come so early that breakfast wasn’t even properly over, and now there was already a table set up all along one side of the room, with white tablecloths laid over it.

George was hurrying towards her. ‘Hello, Alison! You don’t look very happy, I must say. Whatever’s wrong?’

Alison tried to smile. She wasn’t going to moan about her dad. He wasn’t going to phone, and that was that and she ought to get over it. She should’ve been used to being let down by now.

‘I’m okay. I’m just at a bit of a loose end. The decorations are up and Ruby doesn’t need me till this afternoon and I’m not sure what to do. I might go for a walk. The sun looks quite warm from in here.’

‘Don’t you believe it. You’ll need to wrap up if you don’t want to freeze your proverbials off.’ He looked around him and was about to go back to the caterers when he turned back to speak to Alison. ‘I won’t have time probably to say this later, but what you’ve done with these ribbons and shoes is inspired. In all my days with the Wychwood Festival, we’ve never had decorations like these. Never. You’re obviously going to be an extraordinary set designer. Extraordinary.’

He went off before she had time to answer, which
was probably a good thing, because she’d never have been able to tell him how thrilled she was at his words. Now she began to wonder how she was going to fill the afternoon.

‘Alison?’ Hester was standing in the doorway, and beckoning to her. Alison stood up at once. What on earth could she possibly want?

‘There’s someone on the telephone for you. Take it in the Office.’

Alison stared stupidly at Hester for a few seconds before coming to her senses. ‘Is it my dad? Did he say?’

‘Patrick Drake, yes. Go on, off you go. I’ll follow you later. You’ll want to speak to him on your own.’

‘Thank you!’ said Alison, and flew along the corridor and into the Office. The telephone handset was lying on the desk and she seized it as though it were about to disappear if she didn’t hurry.

‘Dad? It’s me. Alison. Is that you?’

‘Yes, my darling, how are you? Did you get my present? I sent it to your London address. Did it come in time for Christmas?’

‘No, I thought you’d forgotten all about me.’

‘As if I would! I phoned you on Christmas Eve, remember?’

‘I know. It’s okay.’ She hadn’t enjoyed
that
phone call one little bit. It was supposed to be to her, but most of the time, Dad and Claudia were moaning at one another down the line. She’d only had a few minutes right at the end of the conversation.

‘I’d have phoned you there before now, too, only things have been frantic. No excuse, I know, but still. Did you get my letter? I sent that to Wychwood.’

‘Yes. Yes I did. Thanks.’ She didn’t tell him about Claudia giving it to her so late.

She sank down on to the chair by the desk and
started to talk. Hearing her dad’s voice was amazing, wonderful, the best thing she could think of to happen.

‘Are you here? In England? Am I going to see you?’

‘I’m still in America. But you’d love it here, Alison. You have to come over. Can you do that? Can you come here for your next holiday? I didn’t get it together before Christmas, but can we make a date for Easter?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Alison’s head was filled with a vision of herself stepping off a plane in America. Her father hugging her. ‘I’ll ask Mum. I’m sure it’ll be okay.’ She wanted to ask all sorts of questions, the main one being, how long for? How long could she stay with him?

‘A couple of weeks? Would Claudia object to losing you for so long? It’s ages since we saw you. I miss you, my darling.’

‘I miss you, too,’ said Alison, and she didn’t add that it would be easy to keep in touch, if he really wanted to. ‘And I’m sure Claudia won’t mind if I’m with you.’

She didn’t say,
she’ll be glad to see the back of me
, but she knew that Claudia would be thrilled to bits. The irritation her mother always felt towards Patrick would be gone in a minute when she realised that he was going to take Alison off her hands for the whole, the entire Easter holidays. She settled down in Hester’s chair and listened to her dad telling her what he’d been doing over Christmas, and apologising yet again for not having phoned before.

When she put the handset down, she felt a little sad. She couldn’t help it. The phone call was over now, and there was nothing more to look forward to for the moment. Tears came to her eyes and she blinked them away. Easter. Think of that. He’s going to send me a ticket for the Easter holiday. The time’ll go quickly.
It’s not true that he doesn’t love me. He does. He loves me a lot. It’s not his fault he’s not here.

Alison looked up as someone knocked at the door.

‘Come in,’ she called.

‘It’s me.’ Hester was carrying a long cardboard box under one arm. ‘Have you finished your phone call?’

‘Yes, it was brilliant. Thanks so much for letting me use your phone.’

‘You’re more than welcome. And I’m glad you’re still here. I saw the decorations yesterday and wanted to tell you then how thrilled I was, but I thought I’d wait till we had a chance to talk. I
love
what you’ve done, Alison. It’s completely beautiful.’

‘Thank you. I loved doing it. Really. I was dreading coming here, but it’s been brilliant.’ Alison smiled and looked at her feet. ‘I’d better go now, I suppose.’

‘I’ve brought you something, a thank you present.’ Hester put the box she’d been carrying on the desk and opened the lid. ‘I hope you don’t think it’s too babyish, but it’s of great sentimental value to me. It’s a doll. My doll, from when I was a little girl. Her name’s Antoinette. She’s rather old and tatty, but I did have her cleaned about five years ago, and she’s lived in this box since then, so she ought to be quite presentable.’