Presence of Mind (18 page)

‘He's hardly mad, Stella,' I said mildly.

‘Sorry – how tactless can one be! It was really meant as a back-handed compliment, meaning that he probably
is
a genius.' Her eyes went to
Eternal Spring.
‘Just look at that! It's positively brimming over with atmosphere.' But had Lance painted it? As my mind registered the subliminal question I was appalled at the perfidy of it. After all, his whole reputation stemmed from that painting. Yet I knew Max Forrest didn't believe that he was the artist. My faith in Max's judgment, so essential to my peace of mind over Briony's recovery, pulled me in half with regard to Lance.

‘I presume you're coming to the W.I. this afternoon?'

‘Sorry, what did you say?'

‘The Women's Institute. Someone speaking on second marriages, I think.'

‘Is it today? I'd forgotten all about it.'

‘Do come. After all, you're quite an authority on the subject!'

‘The trouble is that we're expecting a friend of Lance's this evening and I'm not sure what time he's arriving. We're waiting for a phone call.'

“We usually finish by about five anyway.'

It would certainly fill in the afternoon for me. Never had I been so conscious of the amount of time requiring to be ‘filled in' until this last fortnight. Never before, perhaps, had I been so reluctant to be left alone with my thoughts.

‘All right, Stella, I'll come. Two o'clock at the church hall.' Gordon telephoned at lunch time. He was catching an earlier train than we'd anticipated, but Lance wouldn't hear of my cancelling the arrangement with Stella. ‘A few minutes won't make any difference. No doubt we'll have plenty to talk about after all these years!'

Pale yesterday, he was now almost feverish with excitement. I looked at him with a sinking heart, unable to believe that yet another association with the past would, at the present time, be anything other than disastrous. Had Gordon MacIntyre also known Jamie ‘in another existence'? It seemed very likely.

The church hall that afternoon was a hive of gossiping, laughing women. Stella had kept me a seat between herself and Cynthia. Jan Staveley was two rows in front and Paula Forrest at the back with a woman I didn't know. I wondered briefly if Max had mentioned our visit but decided that it was unlikely. In any case, she merely raised her hand and smiled in greeting.

Notices were given out and minutes of the last meeting read. Had it really been only a month ago? I remembered almost with nostalgia the slides we had been shown of Israel. How unsuspecting I had been then of the troubles that lay ahead!

Maud Whittaker was taking the chair on this occasion and I tried hard to concentrate on what she was saying. ‘We're very fortunate to have with us Mrs Leslie Tavistock, better known to us all, I'm sure, by her stage name of Penelope Styles. She's going to talk to us on the thorny subject of second marriages, with particular emphasis on those in the entertainment world. So, ladies, may I ask you to welcome Penelope Styles.'

We all clapped dutifully. I reflected with some acidity that our speaker had possibly mistaken our humble platform for a proper stage. Certainly her make-up, exquisite as it was, would have been more suitable behind the floodlights than in a church hall on a summer afternoon. I listened imperturbably to her opening remarks, unfairly prepared to be critical of any ideas she might have on marriage or anything else. As Maud had indicated, the talk was mainly slanted from the theatrical angle and could therefore have had little relevance for the worthy matrons who formed her audience. However, they were patently enthralled.

‘For instance, it can be more than a little disconcerting,' Miss Styles gushed, ‘to find that your brand new husband is required in his latest play to make passionate love to a beautiful woman possibly several years your junior!'

‘Personally,' murmured Cynthia's sardonic voice in my ear, ‘it would be a relief to know Edgar was capable of it!' I smiled obediently but my heart gave its usual painful little tug.

‘And of course,' our speaker was continuing, ‘it works both ways. It's hard to remain aloof towards an attractive man who clasps you in his arms twice nightly for a run of three months or so! Another problem, of course, is children. Many a second marriage has come unstuck because of a child's hostility to a new husband, while he on the other hand is very often jealous of the child.'

‘That's never been one of your problems, has it darling?' came Cynthia's honied tones. ‘Quite the reverse, in fact!'

My hands tightened on my bag but I made no reply. Quite the reverse. Did she mean that in my position she would be jealous of Briony?
Was
I, in some horrible perverted way, jealous of my husband's love for my daughter? Always before I had been able to brush the thought away as preposterous. Now, with the terrifying implications of the dormant Ailsa Cameron, things were no longer so clear cut.

I had lost the thread of the talk and didn't bother to pick it up again. My own worries crowded to the forefront of my mind, jostling for position until it seemed my head would burst Lance and Briony. Lance and Briony. When I am dead and opened, I thought morbidly, paraphrasing Mary Tudor, you will find Lance and Briony lying in my heart.

Question time, and relatively little connection with the actual talk. The questions were mostly eager enquiries as to which of a host of well-known names Miss Styles knew personally. Only half listening, I was left with the impression that she knew them all. I found I was watching the time again, a habit with me these days. Would Briony be safely home from school yet? Had Gordon MacIntyre arrived?

The meeting broke up, I made my excuses and hurried to the car. I should have left a little earlier; the roads were clogged now with homeward-bound traffic. Fretting and fuming I was imprisoned behind a huge farm tractor and in the twisting lanes there was no hope of overtaking. When eventually I turned in the gateway of the Lodge I saw Lance's car at the door. He must already have collected Gordon.

I hurried into the house and, guided by voices, out on to the terrace. Gordon MacIntyre turned at my approach, smiling and holding out his hand. As Lance had predicted, I liked him at once. He was tall and broad, a heavily made man with craggy features, thick sandy hair and steady grey eyes. His huge hand enveloped mine like a friendly paw as he cut short my apologies for not being home when he arrived.

‘Gordon's brought a positive wealth of Scottish goodies,' Lance said with a smile. ‘Shortbread, oatcakes – not to mention a magnificent bottle of whisky!'

‘Not at all,' he replied in response to my thanks, ‘I only hope my coming hasn't been too much of an inconvenience, but old Lance here wouldn't take no for an answer.' He threw him an affectionate glance. ‘It's a bonny place you have here.'

‘Yes, we're very fond of it.' Alarm bells clanged suddenly in my head as I looked around. ‘Where's Briony?' I said quickly. ‘She –'

‘It's all right,' Lance broke in, ‘she phoned Mrs Rose to say she'd be a little late. She was going back to the Pomfretts' to borrow something from Lindsay.'

‘Oh.' I forced my heartbeats to slow down and turned back to our guest. ‘As a matter of fact, I don't think she knows you're coming. She was in bed when you phoned on Sunday and things were so chaotic yesterday I didn't get round to mentioning it.'

‘Let's hope she survives the shock!' he said with a grin, and though I smiled I silently echoed his words with deadly seriousness.

‘Have you a family, Mr MacIntyre?'

‘Gordon, please! Aye, I've two sons and a daughter. The elder boy is eighteen, just a little older than your lassie, I gather, and the other two slightly younger.'

Half my attention was straining for the sounds of Briony's return and at that moment they came. The front door burst open and her voice called, ‘Hello?'

‘Out on the terrace!' I called back.

She came swinging blithely through the sitting-room and stopped dead on the threshold of the french windows as she caught sight of Gordon.

‘Mac!' she exclaimed under her breath.

I registered Lance's indrawn breath and Gordon's startled surprise. I said rapidly, ‘Darling, this is an old friend of Daddy's, Mr MacIntyre. I forgot to tell you he was coming. He phoned one night when you were in bed.' I took a deep breath. ‘Our daughter, Briony.'

Slowly Gordon held out his hand, his eyes still raking over the girl's face. Equally slowly she put her own into it. To my fevered imagination it almost seemed that I could see the twin halves of her struggling on her face for supremacy. She said, in a halting, staccato voice, ‘How's Elspeth?'

‘Fine. She Gordon broke off abruptly, staring at her in increasing perplexity.

Lance said through white lips, “You can see how much I've been talking about you! The whole family feel as if they know you!'

I said raggedly, ‘I suppose you've some revision to do as usual?'

‘Yes.' She tore her bemused eyes away from Gordon. ‘If you'll excuse me I think I'll go and get straight on with it.'

She turned and left us and Gordon shakily wiped his hand across his face. ‘Ye gods, Lance, that gave me quite a turn. She has a great look of Ailsa, hasn't she?'

The last hope I'd been clinging to wilted and died. Ailsa. The final, unwanted proof.

‘Has she?' Lance's voice was jerky. ‘I can't say I've noticed.'

‘Lord yes, it's almost uncanny. And yet – on reflection I suppose she doesn't really look like her.'

I said – because it would have seemed odd not to — ‘Who's Ailsa?' and noted Gordon's quick embarrassment.

‘Oh – eh – just someone we both knew at art school.'

I had been right, then. I felt him take my arm. ‘I say, are you all right, Mrs – Ann?'

‘Yes thank you. I've been at a meeting all afternoon and it was – rather stuffy.' A blatant lie; there had been a fiendish draught blowing through the hall.

‘Sit down anyway on this wee bench.' He guided me to it and there was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

In desperation I broke it by asking, ‘You're on business in London, I believe? Are you an artist too?'

‘Of a kind.' He made an effort to be natural. ‘Actually I'm a consultant designer. I'm down to arrange an exhibition of our work. We represent quite a few nationally known firms.'

‘I see,' I said mechanically. ‘It must be very interesting. I glanced anxiously at Lance, who was staring unseeingly across the garden. ‘If you'll excuse me I'll just go and see how the dinner preparations are progressing.'

Once inside the house I sped up to Briony's room. She was sitting at the dressing-table with her head buried in her arms. At the sound of my approach she lifted it and turned blankly to face me. ‘I knew him,' she said dully.

‘Darling, you can't really – you probably subconsciously remembered –'

‘I tell you I knew him, and Elspeth too. Don't ask me how.'

‘Well, don't worry about it.' I almost laughed hysterically at the inane advice. ‘Write it down in the diary, as Dr Forrest asked you.'

Mac, she had called him. The name sounded vaguely familiar. A scene clicked into place of the three of us sitting at dinner at the Lanark Hotel and Briony's puzzled query, ‘Didn't we come here once with Mac?' No doubt they had.

I said gently, ‘Can you face joining us for dinner?'

‘I'll have to, won't I? I can't just give in to it. Mother, am I going mad? Please tell me. I'd rather know.'

I caught hold of her protectively, pressing her head against my breast. ‘No, darling, of course you're not. Dr Forrest told us there's a lot more of this illness about than people realise.'

‘But this is the opposite of amnesia. Now I'm actually
remembering
things I shouldn't be able to. Sometimes they come into my head quite spontaneously and seem familiar, as though I've heard or said them before. It often happens when I'm looking at Daddy's picture.' Like thinking it was the best thing she had done? Perhaps that was when the initial seeds had been sown of my doubts about it being Lance's work.

‘What other things have you remembered?' I told myself that it was important to be calm and clinical in order to report accurately to Max later.

‘It's hard to say. Sentences flash through my head like a nagging kind of memory and when I reach for them they've gone. But I do seem to recall the words, “Promise not to say anything.” And a bit later, “I can't take back a present, can I?” ' She looked up at me frowningly. ‘Isn't it ridiculous? None of it makes sense.'

‘Dr Forrest may be able to interpret it for us. Write it in your diary now, before you forget, and we can tell him about it on Thursday. I'd better go and see how Mrs Rose is getting on with dinner. Come down when you're ready darling, and just be-normal.'

She gave a twisted little smile. ‘Easier said than done, when I'm not.'

Mrs Rose of course had everything under control. There was nothing more to keep me from rejoining the men. They had moved into the sitting-room and I saw regretfully that their initial ease of manner had not been recaptured. Poor Gordon, this could hardly be as he'd imagined the long-awaited reunion. On my arrival talk became general and somehow or other we kept the conversational ball in play. Pat – pat – over to you – like a verbal tennis match.

Gordon said, ‘I've never been in Suffolk before. Is it my imagination or are there really more twelfth-century houses to the square mile than there are anywhere else?'

‘We're certainly very conscious of our history down here,' I agreed. ‘The whole area was a thriving wool centre when the Flemish weavers came over. And did you know it was at Bury that the bishops swore on the High Altar to force King John to sign the Magna Carta? The town's motto is “Shrine of a king, cradle of the law.” '