Lamb in Love (42 page)

If she leaves them, they will mourn her as though she were dead.

She ascends the winding steps of the grotto, unaware of Norris's presence where he crouches beneath her in the recess of the stairs, the relief of a giant shell framing his averted face. She steps to the fountain's edge, presents her palms to the delicate spray from the fountain, feels the delicious chill of it run over her body. She had thought, once, that she wanted nothing between her and the world, that moon waiting overhead. But she knows now that she is already of this world, one miraculous invention rising up out of the sea and shot through with the perfect magic of being alive.

H
E WAITS UNTIL
she has gone, until she has run lightly down the steps of the grotto and across the lawn and up toward the house, behind the row of Mercuries, their feet raised as if to ascend into the heavens. He sees the door close behind her, a mirror shutting in a wall.

He steps soundlessly from the grotto then, reaches up and closes his hand around the thorny cane of a rose, snaps it off, and brings the beautiful flower close to his face.

He does not know what will happen now when he returns to the house. He does not know what will happen when he rings the bell at the door, presents her with the rose, gives her the letter from Laurence, and makes his confessions. He looks at his pocket watch, tilting the face under the moon to catch the light. It is almost one in the morning, he sees. But it can't wait. He can't wait anymore.

“I'
VE BROUGHT YOU
,” he says abruptly when she opens the door, “your mail.”

She cannot understand any more of what he is saying at first, for he speaks so low and so quickly.

“This is not how I imagined it,” he is saying frantically, standing at the door under the light. “Coming to this. I had thought better of myself, you see.”

And all she can think of, looking out at him, is the time, all the time that's passed—the
years
they've known each other.

But his face is so—so sorrowful! This is not what she expects. She had thought, when she opened the door to find him standing there at this peculiar hour, that it was as if he had read her mind. Then—why does he look so miserable? She tries to smile at him.

“Mr. Lamb,” she begins, holding the rose he has given her.

“I know it's horrible of me. I know it's late. I'm sorry about that,” he says. “But I had to see you. Please.”

She leads him to the sitting room off the kitchen.

“Please sit down,” he says, and she finds a chair. But she can hardly bear it, the look on his face. He hangs his head.

This is all about the gardener, she thinks wildly. It's all about Jeremy. He thinks I'm in love with Jeremy! “Mr. Lamb!” she begins desperately. “Mr. Lamb!”

But he sighs so deeply she cannot go on; she feels suddenly mortified, as though she does not understand anything at all.

He presses his hands to his eyes. “I've done a terrible thing,” he says. “I've broken a sacred trust.”

A deep silence falls between them. Vida feels as though hands were closing around her throat, squeezing the breath from her. It is as she suspected; it has been a joke, a prank. An awful, awful prank. She starts to stand up unsteadily; the room tilts. Her eyes fill with tears.

And then he puts an aerogramme on the table. “You mustn't think I've a habit of doing this,” he says in a dull voice. “This is the first time. And the last, I assure you. I shan't have another opportunity.” He pushes the paper toward her and looks away.

She looks at it, dazed.

“It's for you,” he says fiercely then. “I've read your mail.”

Read her mail? She does not understand, but he waves a hand at her. “Read it,” he says. Bewildered, she takes the letter over to her desk and sits down. And then, after just a few lines, she starts to laugh.

But when she hears the legs of his chair scrape against the floor, she turns around. “Oh, no, Mr. Lamb!” she cries. “No! I wasn't laughing at you.”

And isn't he, she thinks now, seeing him standing there, so fierce and so righteous and so brave, everything in the world worth loving? Isn't he the most wonderful man you ever knew? There's not another one like him, not in the whole world.

She crosses the room to stand near him, to stand facing him. She sees his face fall with emotion.

“I had my reasons,” he says. “They were very good reasons. The best. I want you to know that.”

“But I already do!” she says. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”

And she steps up close to him then, so close she can feel his
heart beating against her own, just like that day at St. Alphage when he asked her to dinner.

He is warm, and she can feel the heat coming from him. It is what she thought she would feel in Corfu, everything so strange and unfamiliar yet exactly as she'd pictured it in her mind's eye. Exactly as she'd imagined it, the horizon perfectly and gloriously endless, and yet everything still yet to happen.

“Mr. Lamb,” she says, and bends her forehead to his lips. “Mr. Lamb.”

T
HE NEXT
S
ATURDAY
afternoon, the Saturday of the talent show, Vida ushers Manford up to his bedroom, catches him by the shoulder, and steadies him in front of her. “Manford, do stand still.” She fetches him a clean shirt from the wardrobe, helps him into it. She fits a tie round his neck, adjusts the lengths before her, winds a quick knot, and pushes it up neatly into his collar. She takes a pace back from him.

“There,” she says in satisfaction. “You look very handsome indeed. You'll cut a very impressive figure.” She turns to the bed, smooths the coverlet. Stepping to the window, she pulls aside the curtain, looks out into the garden. Jeremy is there, kneeling in one of the far beds under the sun's last rays. She sniffs. Making up for lost time, she thinks.

She turns back to Manford, who stands with his big hands upon his tie, gazing down at it where it flows over his shirt.

“Don't be fussing with your tie now, or I'll have to do it again,” she says, taking his hands in hers and holding them tightly. She looks into his eyes.

“Come on,” she says, letting his hands drop at last. “I'll make us tea while we wait for Mr. Lamb.”

In the kitchen she lights the burner under the kettle, then slices
an apple for Manford and sets it on a plate before him. “Cheese and a biscuit, too?” she asks. “You'll want something in your stomach against the excitement.”

Manford lifts a slice of apple gingerly, glances up at her as he takes a tiny, delicate bite.

“Oh, well done, Manford. That was lovely,” she says warmly. “Your manners are really lovely now. Fit for the queen—” But quite suddenly she cannot continue. She tries to recover herself, comes and kneels beside him. “You'll remember—” she begins urgently. Manford, munching stolidly, looks at her. She closes her eyes. Of course you will, she thinks. I mustn't be silly.

The bell rings and Vida jumps. “Oh, there's Mr. Lamb!” she cries, winding her hands. “He's early! But he'll have tea with us, perhaps. You don't need to go just yet.”

Norris is standing on the stoop in his suit, a plug of violets in his lapel, his hair combed back from his forehead. He looks elegant, and Vida is touched at how handsome he is.

Norris holds in his hand a bottle of champagne, which he thrusts toward her now. “For cracking against the rail,” he says.

She takes the bottle from him, holds it close to her breast, her eyes as wide as if she'd slept for days and were now drinking in the light.

He clears his throat. “Well? All ready, is he?”

“Yes, but I thought—” She hesitates. Oh, it is too soon! “Come in and have a cup of tea first, will you? You don't need to go just yet, do you?”

Norris extracts his watch, inspects it with a show of purposefulness. “The vicar wants all the performers there early, for a run-through,” he says. “But we've time, I think.”

She leads him back through the house, into the kitchen. Manford looks up and smiles at Norris, who places a hand on his
shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “He's not nervous, is he?” he asks Vida.

“I don't think so,” she says. “I don't know as he understands.”

She puts the tea on the table, draws out a chair, and sits down. “Manford,” she says, looking at him and leaning forward. “You know what tonight is, don't you? You're to go with Mr. Lamb to the church for the talent show. You'll do your shadows there? I'll follow behind and watch from the audience? And then—”

Manford takes up another slice of cheese. Vida looks over at Mr. Lamb. He makes a motion with his hand as if to say, That's enough for now.

She offers Norris a cup of tea.

“Well,” he says after a moment, clearing his throat. “Here we are.”

“Yes.” She looks down into her cup.

“All set then, are you?”

She nods.

“Remembered everything?”

She nods again, starts to say something, but he interrupts her.

“I'd mind the water, if I were you,” he says, looking away from her. “You can't be too careful about foreign water.”

“No.”

“I've got us two chops, for after the show,” he says brightly then. “He likes a good chop?”

“Oh, yes. Yes. That was kind.”

She looks up to meet his eyes. She does not want to go now; she does not want to be parted from him, from either of them.

“It's only a look-see,” she hears him say then, gently. “Just to have a look. But you must at least see it, Vida. You can't just turn away from an opportunity like that. You've got to—”

“Yes, I know,” she says, cutting him off. She does know. She knows he's right—of course, it's what she always thought she
wanted. It will be a holiday! But now—well, when Mr. Lamb proposed it that night a week ago, she'd been so touched, almost speechless. And all week he'd been making the arrangements for her, cabling Mr. Perry and explaining it all for her, arranging about the boat, writing Laurence, as if he were an expert traveler! As if he couldn't wait for her to be gone!

Now here it is, the eve of her departure. She will take the train to London this very night! And she doesn't feel sure of anything now. “You're sure you'll be—” she begins.

“Absolutely. In any eventuality. I've said so, haven't I?”

“Yes. But I can't—”

She sees him bite his lip.

His voice cracks. “Should be lovely, this time of year.”

She bows her head over her cup.

T
HOUGH HE HAS
not admitted it to himself, Norris fears this may be the last time he sees her. He'd told her that night, when it came to him, how she must go, how she could at least just go and have a holiday. You've never had a holiday, Vida, he'd said. You really must go and stay awhile with him.

And he understands how he's needed here, now, and what he needs, as well. He understands that he can look after Manford as well as anyone besides Vida.

You
must
go, he'd told her. You absolutely must. But he had not appreciated his own vehemence, not until later, when he understood that if she came back, then it would be for certain. Then she would have no doubts.

There's not a minute to spare, he'd told her, and it had felt that urgent. After all this time being so indecisive, he found he could push her away with more force than he'd ever been capable of using to draw her near.

But he had reached out and taken her hands.

It will be everything you've always dreamed of, he'd said. And he had shut his eyes and known it to be true, that he could make her this gift, this most important gift. Not just of a holiday, a trip to Corfu. But this chance to choose for herself her own destiny.

But perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps she would never come back. After all, what does he know about the world? It's all in small pictures, what he knows—his little stamps. He could look at them for hours, but they aren't the same as the real thing.

He could look at her for hours, too. He has so many pictures of her in his head.

S
HE WETS HER
fingers and smooths Manford's hair, but he twitches away from her.

How like a boy, she thinks as he slips from her hands.

“Never mind,” says Mr. Lamb hurriedly, drawing Manford away.

She sees that he wants to be gone. “I've a comb with me,” he says. “We'll touch him up right before.”

She waits, puts her hand to her neck, an odd pain there. “Norris—” she says. “Norris—”

But he turns to her then, puts a finger to his lips. “Wish us luck,” he whispers.

And then they are gone.

“Good luck!” she cries after them. “Manford! Be watching for me, Manford!”

She sees them pass through the gate. They go down the lane together, Manford's heavy frame cumbersome beside Mr. Lamb's narrow one, the two side by side in their unfamiliar suits. At the bench, she sees Manford reach for Mr. Lamb's arm, sees Mr. Lamb take Manford's hand and tuck it under his elbow.