The Gossamer Cord (36 page)

James Tregarland entered into the discussion as to what was to be done. A wheelchair must be acquired for Dermot and a room on the ground floor prepared. That was easy enough to arrange. Jack, from the stables, was a man to be trusted. He was strong, and if need be they could call in Seth, whose physical strength made up for what he lacked mentally.

The great task would be to keep Dermot cheerful. This following on the death of Dorabella had been too much for him. In fact, the fall was attributed to his grief.

Everyone was eager to do what they could for him. A beautiful ground floor room, its mullioned windows overlooking the sea, was made ready. He had his chair in which he could wheel himself about. He was often in pain and had strong pills to alleviate it. The doctor would come once a week unless called in between times; and everything that could be done would be.

No one could have had more care. There was a constant stream of visitors; we made sure that he was hardly ever alone. Jack was his devoted slave. He liked me to go to see him, and invariably he would talk of Dorabella—how wonderful she had been, how he had loved her from the moment he saw her. And then…he had lost her.

I had to keep him from talking too much about her.

He would sit in his chair, freshly shaved and washed, wearing a Paisley dressing gown, and I thought how changed he was from the young man who had sat outside the café with us—so bright, so merry, a young man in love with life and Dorabella. How sad it had turned out to be!

I used to talk to him about Tristan, telling him how he was growing, how bright he was, how he smiled at Nanny Crabtree and me…what a blessing he was.

He would nod and smile, but I knew his thoughts were with Dorabella.

The weeks began to pass. There was tension in the air. The great topic of conversation was again what was happening in Europe. There was a sense of uneasiness. People talked of the possibility of war.

Hitler was causing trouble again. Everywhere one went the subject was that of the Sudetenland areas and Czechoslovakia. Would Hitler invade? And if he did, what would England and France do? Would they stand aside again? Would they passively allow him to go in and get on with his demands for Lebensraum for the German nation?

His people were fanatically behind him.

So that uneasy summer began to pass.

I heard from Richard.

He wrote: “I cannot understand why you stay there. Are you never coming home? You seem to have this really rather mad obsession. The child has a perfectly good nurse. Your mother says she is utterly trustworthy. Why do
you
have to stay there?”

I could sense his impatience and veiled criticism. He thought I was foolish—or perhaps had some other reason for wishing to stay.

It was clear that we were breaking away from each other. I was sorry to have hurt him, but I knew now that I had been only momentarily attracted by him and my feelings were not really deep enough for a stronger relationship. Nor, I believed, were his.

I did go to see Mrs. Pardell again. She was quite welcoming in her rather grim way. She took me to her sitting room where I sat looking at the silver-framed picture of Annette.

“And how are things up there?” she asked.

“Sad,” I said.

“And there he is…well, it’s just retribution, I reckon. That’s what the Bible says. The Lord has seen fit to punish him for his misdeeds.”

“Oh, Mrs. Pardell, you must not judge him.”

She shook her head. “He killed my girl. I know he did. I’ve always known it. And your sister. There are men like that. I suppose he has the utmost comfort.”

“He is well looked after.”

“H’m. Well, serve him right, I say. Goodness knows who’d have been the next. Wife number three, I suppose.”

It was no use trying to reason with her. She had made up her mind to that. Dermot had murdered her daughter and my sister, and he had now what she called his “come-uppance.” She was not going to let her opinion be shifted.

After I left her, I felt vaguely depressed. Everything was so uncertain. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. There might be war. That was what was in everyone’s mind, and I suppose my problems were as nothing compared with the catastrophe that would be.

I often thought of Gretchen with Edward and their little girl. My mother wrote of them from time to time.

We are delighted and Edward is ecstatic. Gretchen is overjoyed about the child in spite of her worries. Alas, she gets more anxious about her parents every day. Your father thinks the situation is rather grim and he is very suspicious of what Hitler will do next if they let him get into Czechoslovakia. What a nuisance that man Hitler is! I wish they could get rid of him.

How are you getting on down there? I do think they are foolish to make all that fuss about Tristan’s staying there. After all, it is you and Nanny Crabtree who are looking after him.

I can’t see why you couldn’t come home…for a visit, anyway. You must come up for Christmas and bring Tristan and Nanny with you. I’m sure he’d be all right to travel now. He must be getting to be quite a person. I’d love to see him. Come for a long visit. Your father misses you…as I do.

How is Dermot? It was a terrible thing to happen. You say he gets about in a wheelchair. Well, that’s something, and I expect he will eventually improve. Poor boy. Let’s hope that one day they can do something for him.

Don’t forget, dear, we want you home…with Tristan. I think they will come round to letting us have him in due course.

I did not think they would, but perhaps in a few months I should be able to take the baby home for a visit.

I often took out the miniature of Dorabella. I would hold it in my hands and look back over the years. It was a foolish habit and could only plunge me into melancholy. Dorabella herself had once said that brooding on what couldn’t be changed was like taking your sorrows out to swim instead of drowning them. She had heard that somewhere and liked it.

If only she could come back to me.

Then it occurred to me that she had once said she would always have the miniature of me with her. She kept it in her room, the dressing room in that bedroom she had shared with Dermot.

The room was not occupied now that Dermot had one downstairs. I wanted to see the miniature. The pair should be side by side.

I went up to the room, with its four-poster bed, the large and heavily draped windows.

I had seen the miniature on a little table in the dressing room. It was not there now. I remembered that she had said she would put it away in a drawer because she did not want to be continually reminded of my desertion.

I had once seen her take it from a particular drawer. It would be there now, I guessed, because I had not been in the house when she had gone down to take that fatal bathe.

I opened the drawer. There were a few things in it—some gloves and handkerchiefs and a belt, but no miniature. I took out everything and felt round the inside of the drawer. Nothing.

Where was the miniature, then? Perhaps in another drawer? There were three others. I searched them all, but the miniature was not there.

Puzzled, I looked round the room. I went into the bedroom. In the wardrobe there was a shelf and another drawer. But the picture was not there, either.

I wondered where it could be.

The uneasy weeks were passing quickly. There were long summer days when I met Jowan, perhaps three or four times a week. I met a number of the farmers on his estate; he was always busy and would invite me to accompany him on the calls he was making.

I was getting to know his grandmother. There was a very strong bond between them; she doted on him and I liked his attitude toward her which gave an impression of light-hearted affection, but I sensed it went deep.

Those meetings with him were the highlights of those long summer days. There was an aura of unreality about everything…my life…the world itself. There were war clouds on the horizon, and I often felt that I was seeing the end of an era. I was drifting along without the ability to exert my will. It was as though everything was being decided for me.

I continued to be baffled by the disappearance of the miniature. I mentioned it to Matilda.

“I’ve looked in the dressing room and bedroom. That was where she kept it. I can’t think of anywhere else she might have put it.”

“I expect she put it away somewhere.”

“I wonder where? You know I have one of her and they are a pair of frames so would look well together.”

“She was very fond of it. It’ll turn up one day, no doubt.”

Once when I was sitting with Dermot I asked him if he knew where the miniature was.

“It’s in the dressing room, I think,” he said. “She kept it in a drawer there and took it out when you were there. She didn’t want to look at it often when you weren’t there. She said you were a beast to stay away and she was hurt by your desertion. She didn’t want to think of you. You know what she was like.”

“Yes. She said that to me.”

“It will be somewhere about.”

He was sad and I wished I had not raised the subject because it had set him thinking of her afresh. Not that she was ever far from his thoughts.

“They were beautiful, those miniatures,” he mused. “The painter had caught the likeness of you both. It was just like her, wasn’t it?”

I said: “Yes, Dermot.”

“She had something on her mind…at the end. It used to worry me.”

“What was that?”

“I didn’t know. I just had the feeling that things weren’t right somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes…she was too merry…a little…well, not spontaneous, but as though she were pretending everything was all right, as though she were planning something. She had some secret. I think she didn’t like it much here. It was too dull for her. Sometimes, I used to think…”

“What did you think?” I asked sharply.

“I wondered if she were planning…to leave me.”

“No.”

“It was just a fancy.”

“That could have been so. She was happy. She had always been the restless sort. She would have told me if anything were wrong.”

“Would, she?”

“She always did.”

“But you weren’t here.”

“No, but she would have written. She used to talk to me…always. I was her confidante from the time we were two years old. If she had a problem she always brought it to me to solve.”

“I just had this impression. It worried me.”

“No, Dermot, everything was all right.”

A tortured look came onto his face and once more I blamed myself for bringing up the subject of the miniature.

“She was everything, Violetta,” he said. “You understand.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Life without her is empty.”

“Dermot, do you ever have a feeling that she is not dead?”

“What?”

“They haven’t found her body, have they?”

“They wouldn’t. She’s out there…lying at the bottom of the sea. I can’t bear to think of her. She was so full of life. That’s why I felt she wouldn’t stay here. She always wanted to have the best in life. She reveled in living. She was able to enjoy it so much…when she had what she wanted. I was worried about her. I thought she would leave me…and she did.”

“Not of her own free will,” I said.

We were doing no good to each other, Dermot and I.

I thought of something else to talk about. The political situation. That was not going to cheer him, though I imagined at that moment he felt as indifferent as I did about the troubles of Europe. I talked about the farm I had visited with Jowan the day before. He pretended to listen, but I knew his thoughts were in the past with Dorabella.

It was September. My mother wrote complaining that she had not seen me for so long. “It is like the old days when you were away at school, but this is even longer than a term. Your father and I are coming down to see you and we are going to try and persuade them to let you and Tristan come to us for Christmas.”

They arrived in mid-September. Matilda made them very welcome. It was wonderful to see them. I heard that Hildegarde was the perfect child and that my mother went to London often to see them and they came to Caddington.

“We all miss you so much, Violetta,” my mother told me. “It’s such a pity that you are shut away down here, particularly as…”

I knew she meant that they had lost Dorabella, too.

Gordon took my father off to see something of the estate and it was a pleasant visit; but Matilda made it clear to my parents that old Mr. Tregarland was very loath to let Tristan go away just yet.

“He is afraid something might happen to him,” she explained. “You see, there has been this terrible accident to Dermot following close on the other tragedy. You understand what I mean. You know that you are welcome here at any time. You must come to us for Christmas.”

My mother said they would be delighted to do that.

“We must see Violetta and our little grandson,” she added.

Concern about the world situation increased during that September.

I said to Jowan, when he and I were riding together, that I was weary of the names of Adolf Hitler and the Sudetenland.

“That is how we all feel,” he replied. “But the situation is grave. War could break out at any time.”

“There are many people who think we ought to keep out of trouble.”

“You will always have the ostrich types who think that if they bury their heads in the sand and do not look, the trouble will go away.”

“Do you think there is going to be war?”

“It is difficult to see how it can be avoided.”

This matter was constantly discussed over meals. Gordon and my father could not stop talking about it. James Tregarland listened intently and now and then offered an opinion. He had changed since Dermot’s accident. That old, rather cynical amused expression had gone. He seemed older, more serious. He must care for Dermot in his way. He rarely saw Tristan. I supposed babies had little interest for him. He sometimes asked me about him, because I suppose he knew that I, with Nanny Crabtree, was with the baby more than anyone else. He had done this since the time Tristan had come near to having pneumonia.