Lamb in Love (23 page)

Mr. Perry had not addressed her remark directly. “Maybe
these
are worth something,” he'd said, stooping and tracing his finger over the scene of a waterfall painted on one of the sloping vases. “I'll call Sotheby's, I guess. Get someone to come and take a look at them. But I guess they wouldn't have left them if they'd been worth anything. Still, you'd think—I mean, some of these must have been around a couple of centuries ago. Or something like that.” He squinted, frowned. “It's kind of criminal, just leaving them here like this. Who was it, do you think? It's strange—they've been untouched all these years?”

He had put his hands on his hips, squinted again at the dusty panes overhead, the litter of broken branches from the oak trees lying black against the glass. And Vida had gazed at the little bonsai trees, gray and withered, and had felt a sort of guilty conspiracy, as if by coming across this scene, so terrible and sad, like unearthing old bones in a potter's field, she bore some responsibility
for what had happened.

Mr. Perry had turned after a moment and ushered her out. “Let's just leave it for now,” he'd said. “I'll make a couple of calls about it.” But he never had. Vida didn't even know whether he'd ever gone back in there. She herself had been back only once, when it was discovered that squirrels were nesting in the house. She had let a pair of old men with traps back there, stopping, herself, at the door.

“There's this,” she'd said, wrenching the door open for them. “But I don't suppose they'd be in
there
.”

And later, when the men were leaving, one of them had said to her, “That's a queer little place, that greenhouse. What do you call those things?”

Vida had startled. She'd forgotten the trees. “Bonsai,” she'd said, and had felt guilty all over again.

“Well, they're all dead, you know,” the man had said implacably. “Oh,” he'd added. “I took care of a pair of blackbirds in there for you. No charge for that. They were dead, too.” He laughed. “I don't charge for the dead ones. Tell him he needs to have the roof mended, though.” He tipped his hat. “I'll be back for the traps.”

Now the image of the silent, tortured trees reared up in Vida's mind; she shrank before the memory of them. Oh, he
can't
be in there.
Please.

But he was.

He was seated on the lowest of the étagères, wedged between two vases like an unmoving shelf of rock. His hands were folded carefully in his lap; his eyes were wide open. His hair stood on end, tufted and torn looking. His nightshirt was wrenched about him, as if he'd tried to free himself from it. He was gray in the moonlight, as gray as the landscape of tiny gray trees, the faded porcelains, the shelves' chalky paint chipped upon the floor.

Vida fought the impulse to retch at the sight of him, a boy grown suddenly old, a man aged before his time, changed overnight into a ghost, colorless and ancient and webbed with dust. As she knelt before him and took his hands gently into her own, she felt her own tears fall on her hands like something sharp, diamonds or crystals.

H
E ROSE WITHOUT
protest, allowed her to take his hand. She led him upstairs. They left behind them as they passed through the house a trail of white footprints, growing fainter as the dust and paint chips wore off onto the carpets. At his bedside, her hands trembling, she stripped him of his soaked nightshirt, exchanged it for a fresh one hung inside his wardrobe, fitted the buttons carefully, her lips moving soundlessly, a soundless comfort. When she pressed him to the pillows, he closed his eyes at last, reached for her, and caught a measure of her dressing gown in his hand. She lay down beside him, fitted her knees up against his own. She wept into his back.

She dreamed that night of Corfu, of her uncle Laurence standing on the sand by the sea, waving a red handkerchief toward her, his mouth moving. She was on a rock, and in the wake of a passing boat spread the extravagant silken robe, waterfalls and peacocks, sunset and sunrise both. She had leaned down to disturb the surface of the water, and then, in her dream, Manford had become a dolphin, a porpoise with Manford's aggrieved expression, his swollen brow. She had knelt at the shore, but he could not come to land to meet her.

N
OW, IN CHURCH
this morning, holding Manford's fingers between her own, she regrets her sharp tone. “Listen to the music,” she whispers, stroking his hand. He quiets, sits heavily
against her, his eyelids drooping. She must dispatch this business with Mr. Niven, she thinks resolutely, if in fact it
is
him. One firm word from her—uttered privately, of course—and it will be over.

Yet she feels, instead of relief, a thick fury. Something has come and gone, leaving her the same as before.

Well, what had she hoped for? Stupid woman, she thinks with vehemence. Stupid woman.

When they rise for the final hymn, Manford pulls his hand away from hers and begins to clap, not quite in time with the music. Vida stops him. He has been a nuisance this morning; she hopes no one has minded. She does like to bring him to church, believing at some level that God notices Manford particularly, is especially tender with this damaged lamb, that He likes having him under His roof.

On the way out, though, Manford crouches suddenly like a baboon and makes a face at a small girl in a pretty blue dress, her yellow hair done up fussily with ribbon. Though Vida understands Manford's gesture is playful, the child shrinks from him, pressing back against her father's knee. The man grimaces at Vida, who catches Manford hurriedly under the arm and pushes him forward. “Sorry,” she says, but cannot spare more this morning.

When they arrive at the door, the vicar takes her hand gently in his, reaching for Manford with the other. Vida looks with relief at the square of light from the opened door, the disappearing heads of people as they pass down the path ahead of her. The vicar is kind, but all she wants, right then, is to be out in the air, away from people, away from the Nivens, and walking home with Manford.

The vicar detains her, however. “God bless you both,” he says, smiling. Vida smiles back, but she is busy keeping a wary eye out
for Mr. Niven. And meanwhile she sees that Manford's attention has been caught at that moment by Mr. Lamb, who is standing a few feet away energetically pumping Dr. Faber's hand and saying something in an excited tone about the organ. Vida sees Manford withdraw from the vicar's grasp and go to stand up close beside Mr. Lamb. She attempts to disengage herself from the vicar as well, but he is asking about the book circle. He murmurs inquiries; she glances away from Manford, tries to attend to the conversation. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she sees in horror that Manford has thrust his hand inside Mr. Lamb's coat pocket.

The smile fades from Mr. Lamb's face and he stands frozen, stiff as a rake, Manford fishing in his pocket. Dr. Faber has turned around, recalled to someone by a tap on his shoulder, and as Vida breaks away from the vicar at last and hurries up to disengage Manford's arm, Mr. Lamb flushes a deep, mortifying shade of red.

“He thinks—” he says to her, low and urgent, worried, “he thinks I've a sweet in my pocket. I haven't any—
today,
” he adds incomprehensibly.

“Manford!” Vida says, tugging on his arm. “Do leave go Mr. Lamb's pocket!” She looks up at Norris. “I'm terribly sorry,” she says, struggling with Manford and feeling horribly flustered. “I can't think why he would do such a thing!”

Norris clears his throat with difficulty, glancing down at Manford's hand as if it were a small animal with a sharp bite. “Well, perhaps—” he says, trying delicately to twist his jacket away from Manford's grasp, “perhaps he's hungry? It was rather a long—or rather, it
is
nearly time for lunch!” He says this last quite brightly, as if glad to have an explanation.

Vida succeeds in removing Manford's hand, but they have moved down the path by now, jostled together, carried along by
the press of people behind them.

“I am so terribly sorry,” she begins again, reaching up to adjust her hat, a small, deep purple cloche that belonged to her mother and that has fallen forward on her forehead. She can feel a trickle of sweat proceed down between her breasts. She is forced to take another step closer to Mr. Lamb as a group of people come up behind her, laughing and chattering.

“Pardon me,” she says.

And then she looks up into Mr. Lamb's face.

It is quite close to her, for though she has stepped toward him, he has not moved away so as to make room for her and Manford. She can smell some odor on him, tooth powder, mixed with the strong tannin of tea, she thinks, and—how odd—vetiver! She'd smelled it in the post office the other day, too, she realizes, when he was so dressed up for that funeral. And now his eyes—she notices how they look down into her own at that moment—how blue they are.

“I can't think—” she begins faintly, but a wild feeling has come over her; she wants to run away!

He interrupts her. “I have given him a peppermint, once before,” he says quickly, staring into her face, his tone apologetic and serious, as for a confession. “And a lozenge. Orange, I think it was. Or, no. Butterscotch.” He pauses. “My God. I hope I didn't do wrong.”

Vida stares at him. They are in such close proximity that she can detect a tiny, crescent-shaped scar above one of his eyebrows. Gave Manford a sweet? When? “No,” she begins, “but when—”

But Mr. Lamb smiles at her then, blinding. “Oh! I'm so
glad!
” he says, and puts a hand over his heart.

And then she gasps as he reaches for her, grasps her hand. “Would you—” He is so eager, so eager! And his words come in
a rush, come so fast that a bit of white spittle gathers at the corner of his mouth. Vida stares, astonished. He leans toward her, holding her hand, his face inclined down toward her mouth, so close that she can feel the brush of his jacket against her breast. “Would you care to have lunch with me?” Mr. Lamb is asking, and at first all she hears is a row of unintelligible sounds, as if she were underwater. She comes up for air—“Seeing as
he's
peckish already,” Mr. Lamb is saying, and now she can understand him, “and of course I have quite an appetite myself after that, and, I thought, perhaps, it might be nice to have
fish.
I so rarely have fish, unless there's an occasion. And this
is
an occasion, I think. I—”

Fish? Vida thinks.

“I haven't a car, but we could take the bus?” Mr. Lamb stops, his hand still holding her own. “He does ride the bus?” he asks, worried.

“Yes, of course,” Vida says. Why wouldn't he ride the bus? Of course he rides the bus. But—is he asking us to lunch? And then she thinks of the last time she ate a meal out, as if somehow this thought will help her understand what is happening now, at this moment.

Mr. Perry had been home at the time and had said jovially to her at breakfast that she ought to have a day out, an outing for herself. He'd even said he'd mind Manford; he was going round to have a word with Peter Shields about the cows and would take Manford along. Manford likes the cows but he won't walk over the cattle guard, Vida had told Mr. Perry; he's dreadfully afraid of the cattle guard. You'll have to go round the other way, drive up to the house. Yes, yes, he had said. Stop worrying!

So she'd had a hamburger at a pub in Winchester, had looked in the shops. She'd gone by the cathedral, too, to see about the
dig. A young, round-faced woman there had shown her a bit of a pot she'd found—it had a fragment of a drawing on it, faint and pink, like a fossil. “Isn't it grand?” the young woman had asked Vida, and Vida had found herself swelling with a near sob of appreciation for that chip of pottery, for the young woman, for the cathedral, for the whole sacred enterprise of the dig. She had had to look away from the girl, in fact, almost overcome.

The young woman had helped Vida step down a little ladder into the tiny, boxlike chamber in which she was working. It had been a kitchen, she'd said. Vida had stood there, breathing the ground, breathing the old, cold air. A chill of unmistakable, suffocating familiarity had risen up around her. She'd thought of the women who had worked in that place so many centuries before, how they might have looked, thick, olive-colored foreheads like Neanderthals, or tall and pale like Norse goddesses, and then she had known, as if the great book of her own life had opened and shown her, that she had been there before, had been someone with a different life, a heart engaged with things she could no longer imagine, though they had once been her own feelings.

She had looked back as she was leaving and had seen the city emerging in the shade of the cathedral wall, a lost, buried civilization, lines of string running every which way, little steps carved out of the dirt, deep down inside the pits. The young woman had raised a hand to her, waving good-bye, and Vida had reeled at the sense of her former self bidding her a hopeless farewell.

That was the last time she'd had lunch out.

“I'
VE A ROAST
in the oven,” she says at last to Mr. Lamb, because she cannot think what else to say, and because it is true.

“A roast—”

“I always put a roast in on Sunday. Before church.”

“Oh. Well, then—” He glances away, devastated.

“Perhaps—” She thinks of Mr. Lamb in the kitchen at Southend House, his shoes off, perhaps, his hair mussed. “Perhaps you would join us?” she says, surprising herself. “It's not
fish,
” she apologizes hurriedly.

He is so close to her. She thinks she sees his shirtfront move over his heart, thudding and thudding, as though he's run a race. She stops before she puts a hand there, to quiet it.

“I do
love—
” he says then, the breath leaving him, “I do
love
a good roast. How very kind. Yes, I should. Yes.” And he releases her hand.