Mrs Charles had left a cold supper in the library and then, no doubt on the instructions of her master, had retired for the night. I saw a bottle of wine in ice, thin curls of smoked salmon and roast beef, dusty purple grapes, rum truffles in silver dishes, fluted crystal, all elegantly displayed on a tray by the fire.
‘Supper. How nice.’ Was that my voice?
Deftly he filled two glasses, held one out to me, champagne of course. What else?
‘Do we have something to celebrate?’
‘I’m not sure yet. I hope so.’
‘Max – what have you done?’
He tasted his wine reflectively, slowly, and then, smiling not at me but rather as if something about me amused him, he said quite pleasantly, ‘I am afraid Olivia that you will have to be generous.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Yes. What do I mean?’ He sounded as if he knew his meaning exactly and to the letter. ‘That he has a wife now as you have a husband. A wife who needs him rather more than you do – and who has not the faintest notion of his entanglement.’
For some reason he did not continue, the final word half muffled as he lit a cigar; but I heard it and abandoning all pretences of cleverness and sophistication, appalled suddenly at the games we had been playing, the time wasted, I said very low, clenching my jaw on every word to stop my teeth – so distressingly – from chattering, ‘Max – there’s never been an entanglement – nothing of the kind – ever.’
‘Why?’
‘Max …?’
‘Don’t distress yourself, Olivia. I feel very certain that you have done nothing to which I could realistically object, for the very good reason that Amyas will have been too decent and too honourable to persuade you. He has been ever thus.’
‘Yes. I know. But that was not my only reason.’
He smiled. ‘Well – never mind. It’s all over now in any case. He married Alys yesterday morning and if you couldn’t hurt me by running away with him when he was single, I’m quite certain you wouldn’t want to hurt Alys now. I knew, of course, all along of his tender feelings for you. I didn’t mind – didn’t even give it much thought for quite a while. You were something he wanted and that I had. We were both used to that.’
He was speaking bitterly but quite gently. He was not angry with me, did not want to hurt me. I was not sure what he wanted.
‘Will you please tell me what you have done.’ And my voice was a strained, uncertain whisper. For I was not sure what I wanted either.
‘Yes. Of course I will.’
He refilled his glass and mine and we exchanged smiles, rather politely as strangers do when they are not certain of each other, just curious and perhaps a little hopeful.
‘I have done the best I could for her – and for Amyas. Technically there was no skill to it. I merely strolled over to Clarrow Bottom and told him the facts. He saw at once that a husband was needed and as soon as the coast was clear he came riding over here to lay his gallant heart at her feet.’
‘Max!’
‘Flippancy, my pet, has often been my salvation. I cannot be serious in any other way. And so a marriage was arranged.’
‘What kind of a marriage?’
‘Oh – a real one. I believe we may safely assume that much. When she made her vows she intended to keep them. And he will be very good to her. It is not ideal, I grant you. But what is? She will be far better off with him than with her mother. And good God – anything must suit him better than the unhealthy life he has been leading with Maria Long.’
‘Exactly. Maria Long. Just how do we expect Alys to live comfortably with her?’
‘You underestimate me, Olivia. I don’t expect it.’
‘But what can you do about it?’
‘What I have already done. Money – Olivia. It rarely fails to do the trick.’
‘She wouldn’t leave Amyas for money.’
‘Wrong, my pet. What it invariably comes down to – and Maria Long was no different – is how much. It has been her ambition to own a small seaside hotel. And ambitions of that kind can only be fulfilled by money. Her brother, who is also my brother, will be led to believe that she has accepted a position as manageress. Not so. But he will be far too relieved at her departure, I imagine, to make close enquiries. And then, there is the little matter of her husband. A brute, of course. Maria Long has two secrets, her relationship to Amyas and the whereabouts of her husband, who has been looking for her for years. I know both those secrets. It is a very pretty little hotel.’
Yes, of course, if Max had chosen it, then it would be just right, small enough to be managed by Maria herself and a maid or two, big enough to make a profit, conveniently situated to parks and shops and to the sea, its structures sound, its decorative condition excellent. Max would have made no mistakes. I would have made none either.
He had been generous and ruthless at the same time. He had been efficient and calculating as always. Had he also been kind? Had he possibly felt guilt, or remorse? Max? I wondered.
‘And have you done all this for Amyas or for Alys?’
‘Because it had to be done. They will both benefit. And while I don’t entirely see her as a farmer’s wife, it is a haven from the storm at least, and he will value her for what she is. I am sure of that.’
‘So – you are quite a magician, Max, aren’t you – or a puppeteer.’
‘I did no more, Olivia, than put the thought into their minds. They are old friends. And you know her views on friendship. When the news gets out no one will be surprised about it.’
‘Her mother will be much relieved.’
‘I rather thought she might. And you, Olivia? What do you feel?’
Many things. And then suddenly breaking through them one stark and terrible memory. We had laid him in Clarrow earth where he had not wished to be. Robin. Had we done the same to Alys?
I shuddered and he said quickly, ‘What is it?’
‘Oh Lord – all she wanted was to fly away. And all the time there was this dreadful thing lurking in her future, laughing at her – knowing that no matter how hard she struggled she’d end up in the same trap.’
I shuddered once again. ‘How sad.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Indeed. But I can’t see Amyas trying to cage her. Far from it. He is a man enough – my brother – to appreciate a woman who is a woman, not a domestic mouse. He’s not so small that he needs a devoted slave to make him feel bigger. And she’ll broaden the dimensions of his life quite remarkably, I’d say. They’ll be all right.’
I sat down on the couch, leaned back and closed my eyes, needing just a moment of quiet to sort through so many shades of reaction and impression, to place in some kind of order the questions I ought to ask, the things I should know: to track down, if I could, that one elusive idea – suspicion – misunderstanding perhaps, which had continued to elude me.
I had never fallen in love with Amyas, I understood that. I had, instead, responded so profoundly to his feeling for me, had valued it – and him – so immensely that, in other circumstances, I could have mirrored it and been content with it all my days. He had simply wished to offer me the knowledge that I was loved, and that in itself had overwhelmed me.
Yet how ironic – how appropriate perhaps – that the one man who had loved me first and foremost and for so long, the only man in my life who had loved no one else before me or at the same time, should now be married to Alys. Had I paid my debt?
‘Olivia,’ Max said, sitting down beside me, not touching me but the odour of his cigar, the musky fragrance of his cologne a definite physical contact nonetheless. ‘We could leave it there, my pet – just raise our glasses and wish them well and then go to Monte Carlo or Cannes or anywhere else you fancy in the morning. Perhaps we should leave it there.’
‘No.’ I had not realized I felt so strongly about it until I heard the decided note in my voice.
‘Are you sure? What more can I tell you? What more do you really want to hear?’
‘I don’t know, Max – I don’t know – just talk.’
There was something to be resolved. I could not name it or define it but too many times now we had turned away from it, left it hovering uneasily, not altogether out of sight.
‘Just talk.’ And if he went on long enough surely I would pick up, here and there, sufficient words and phrases to remind me of what it was I really had to know.
‘I’ll tell you about Amyas if you like.’
‘Yes. That will do. Are you nervous Max –? That is your third cigar.’
‘I am on uncertain ground, I think. I prefer a cool atmosphere. And when it comes to personal difficulties – with women that is – it suits me far better if they can be resolved by a visit to a good jeweller’s shop. My mother taught me that. You may have noticed that although the house she lives in belongs to me, I am not welcome in it unless I appear with a jewel case in my hand.’
‘Yes. I had noticed. And once she has her magnifying glass trained on whatever you have brought her, then she has not the least interest in whether you stay or go.’
He smiled. ‘Quite. Which means, of course, that I grew up believing all women to be like that – rather to your advantage, I would have thought, my pet. Amyas never wanted presents. There was a time when I tried hard to give him – well, the little luxuries I value so much myself, I suppose, and he turned me down.’
‘He said you always took – and won.’
‘Oh – he has said the same to me, but in the early days he would have given me the shirt from his back and gone naked himself whereas I, you see, would have managed to lay my hands on two shirts, one way or another – brand-new – best quality – one each. Or perhaps three shirts – two for me and one for him. That is the difference between us.’
And now I was the one who smiled.
‘Did Amyas look after you when you first came here?’
‘He certainly tried. I was an urchin from a foreign gutter. The only English I knew I’d picked up from my father, racing cant and curses mostly, which endeared me to no one. Amyas and I were thrown together because we were nearly the same age. We stayed together because it suited us. When we found out we were brothers I thought it was my turn to start protecting him, since I was the legitimate son of the house with the balance tipped my way. I raised hell when I heard I was going to Hexingham and Amyas to some mediocre place in Bradeswick. Amyas saw the Squire’s point of view, and that was the first time we quarrelled. I still think I could have worn the Squire down and got him to send us both to Hexingham if Amyas had been ready to co-operate. But he thought we should be grateful to the Squire and not cause him pain.’
‘Max – you were jealous.’
‘I often am, my pet. It is the Spaniard in me. I conceal it admirably.’
‘Yes. You do.’
‘Amyas never understood it. He went on being reasonable and decent and grateful. Not I. He wouldn’t believe me when I said the Squire was using him. That upset me and so I made Hexingham suffer for it. But when the Squire finally struck my name from the family Bible and turned me off his land I thought Amyas would come with me. He ought to have come with me. I am still of the same opinion. But your mother was getting up to her high jinks then, your father was going into a decline. The Squire needed Amyas. So did I. The Squire won.’
‘And since then you’ve made a point of needing no one.’
‘I imagine that may have had something to do with it. I could have made his fortune, Olivia. What did the Squire ever give him but hard work and indifference? Even when things were going well in Africa and he had absolutely everything to gain by coming out to join me he wouldn’t do it. Your mother had gone. Your father was a sick man. He couldn’t desert his post. The Squire needed him. All right – yes – self-interest played a part. In a business like mine I need a man I can trust and Amyas would have been a godsend to me. But if he had trusted me – as he certainly didn’t– he’d have been a rich man now. That’s what I wanted him to be. I couldn’t convince him. I persevered and we quarrelled rather badly. When I came back here during the war we quarrelled again, because my reappearance was displeasing to the Squire. Amyas was still the Squire’s man. My affluence meant nothing to him. All he wanted me to do was leave the Squire in peace. Naturally, I did not. I let Amyas know exactly what I intended to do with our ancestral home and lands. He did not like it. I also mentioned – rather crudely I expect – that I’d find it no hardship to include you in the transaction if I could. He liked that even less. He had been looking at you too. I looked again. And whatever my shortcomings, you must admit that I’ve been looking ever since. The sad thing is, of course, that I would still have been ready to employ him and put a good living his way. I had a dozen profitable little schemes in mind just for him when I came back from Africa and could have thought up a dozen more. He wouldn’t listen. In the end all I’ve been able to do for him is buy his sister an hotel.’
‘And give him Alys.’
‘Olivia – surely I have talked enough?’
He got up to pour more wine and, as he gave me my glass, I shook my head, ‘No – no. You talk so well Max. Please go on.’
‘Do you know what you want me to say?’
‘No.’ But the question was there, hovering on the brink of conscious thought almost – not quite – and then abruptly, ‘Yes, Max, talk about Alys.’
‘Yes.’ And then, taking a long time I thought to light a cigar, fussing needlessly with a match, he said without any expression whatsoever, ‘Is it wise?’
‘I don’t know. It seems – relevant.’
‘What shall I tell you?’
‘Max I don’t know. You asked her to marry you once, didn’t you?’
He shrugged, looking relieved I thought – oddly so – and smiled. ‘Ah well, yes I did, but I rather doubt that I expected to be taken seriously.’
‘And if you had been?’
‘Olivia – it was always my intention to marry you.’
‘For the Manor.’
‘If we are to begin an investigation of motives, my pet, then what were yours?’
‘Money.’
‘Thank you, Olivia.’
‘For my honesty, I suppose? I am honest Max – more often than not. I have been a good wife, too – well haven’t I? I have been faithful and agreeable and I have had plenty of opportunities to go astray, believe me, with some of your friends. I have done nothing worse than annoy you sometimes with my relations. And last week when you went to London so mysteriously and I thought you might be bankrupt I spent a whole morning working out how much I could raise on my jewels and my little bits and pieces in the Gatehouse, to help you. So it can’t really be for money any longer, can it?’
‘Darling – I don’t quite know what to say to that.’
‘Something romantic I should have thought. But don’t bother. I don’t think I’m quite finished yet.’
‘Olivia – do have some supper, darling. You must have eaten next to nothing today.’
‘No thank you. It is good to starve a little sometimes. It sharpens the wits.’
‘You are in a very strange humour.’
‘Yes. I am.’
He turned his face slightly, rather more into the lamplight, and I saw – as one never expected to see in him – an air of tension and fatigue, an impression that his handsome, clever head could ache just like mine; just like anyone’s. How old was he? Over forty certainly, and still playing whist until four in the morning far too often and getting up at seven to live up to his reputation as a superb, still lethally accurate gun. I saw now that he was tired. Perhaps he too had not eaten very much today.
‘You have some supper, Max.’
I got up, brisk and purposeful and domestic – good Heavens! – and filled his plate, choosing the very best, looking after him; supplying the bread and salt, the nourishment, obeying the urge to feed, to shelter, to keep warm which is to be found, to some degree, in every woman.
‘Would you like coffee?’
‘I have sent all the servants to bed, darling. How would we manage coffee?’
‘You have not married a king’s daughter, Max, you know – just Cinderella. It’s been a long time, I admit, but I do believe I can remember what one does about coffee. Shall I?’
‘No darling, because you would have to go into the kitchen, which would take all of fifteen minutes, and I really don’t want to spare you for so long.’
‘How very foolish.’
‘Yes, isn’t it. But exactly what I feel nevertheless.’
It was a very tender moment, fragile, built up of intangibles, nuances, as such moments are, no substance to it, nothing that I would be able to define or describe or hold on to when it was gone. I would never forget it.
I leaned forward and kissed him very carefully and gently, just my mouth on his, no other contact until he slid his arms around me and held me just as carefully, a slight tremor in him, a most decided one in me.
And then, still gently and slowly, I released myself and got up, for I had remembered now what it was I had to ask.
I took a few steps, up and down, hoping perhaps that I would forget, that it might suddenly seem unnecessary, unwise. But now, when I would have been glad to lose it, the question remained, so clear, so obvious that I realized I had known it all along. I had not wished to see. I did not wish to see it now. But there it was, filling my vision, and if I tried to suppress it, then it would surface again, for the rest of my life, at the very moments when it would be least welcome. It would turn sour inside me. It would fester. I must come to terms with it now or try to. For me it was the only way.
‘Max – there is something.’
‘Yes? Won’t it keep darling – until morning?’
I shook my head.
‘Max – about Alys …’
‘Oh Olivia – surely not.’
‘Max. Tell me. You were in London in March when she was attacked. You saw her the next day or even the same night. She was in a terrible state of shock. I understand all that. What happened then?’
I had never thought to see him turn pale but he did so now, only slightly, no more than could have been explained by the lateness of the hour, the fatigue of the day, but I saw it, and understood.
He got up too and standing very close to me, his eyes narrow and keen, his thoughts racing I knew, as mine were, he said tonelessly, ‘Nothing.’
‘Max.’
‘Olivia. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’
‘Max you are lying to me.’
‘Possibly I am. Possibly you should accept it.’
‘Max I can’t do that. You know I can’t. I have never left well alone in my whole life – if it is well – I’ll never give up now until I know the truth. I even wish I could. I can’t. If you won’t tell me, then sooner or later, I’ll ask Alys. You wouldn’t like me to do that?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I wouldn’t like it either. But liking or not liking wouldn’t stop me in the end. You must know that.’
‘Yes,’ he said, very quietly, ‘I am afraid I do.’
‘Max –?’
‘Very well.’
And he looked very tired.
‘You are a woman yourself and so you can imagine the horror of her condition. I went to see her, absolutely by chance, that same night, and I was appalled by it. When I arrived at her flat she could not tolerate me – a man – within a yard of her. And, rather worse than that, she could not tolerate herself. Her disgust with her own body was so profound that it would have been dangerous to leave her alone. By morning she was stable enough not to do away with herself but she was still in great need of distraction. Incredible as it may seem she had never been abroad and so I took her to Amsterdam. I was going there in any case, I admit, so it was easy enough to manage: and her pleasure in a foreign city was a delight to see. I gave her champagne suppers, flowers, all the little frivolities women put out of their minds when they become militant Suffragettes. I even offered her a diamond, which is what one offers in Amsterdam. She refused.’
‘And you made love to her.’
It was not a question but a sorrowful acknowledgment of something already known and understood. All I had to do now was discover whether or not I could bear it.
He leaned forward, staring into the hearth a moment, and I lowered my eyes, preferring not to look at him. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘of course I did. Olivia – she had to know the difference between what those brutes had done to her and what any normal, decent man would be likely to do. She had been physically raped. She had to be physically loved, and quickly – or it would have been too late. I did not intend it, in that I did not plan it, although I agree that it may have been inevitable. It was an extension of the concern I had for her and the trust which – believe it or not – she had in me. I make no excuses. I know, and she knows, that without it, she would have been ruined for any kind of loving relationship with a man. And therefore – whatever it is going to cost me now – how can I ever say to you that I am sorry?’
I shook my head. There was no need for apology. I understood. But, like Alys, my body could not function so reasonably. My mind accepted the justice, the irony. The intellect, I discovered, could be rational, compassionate, even calm, no matter what the pressure. My body had but one violent and unadulterated reaction. My body was jealous, and leaning back, closing my eyes, I suffered it grimly, held rigid by the shock, tears stinging my eyelids.
‘Olivia – for God’s sake!’
He sounded startled, considerably alarmed and still keeping my eyes tight shut I began to tell him, ‘It’s all right – it’s all right. Just give me a moment. I know I shouldn’t behave like this – I know.’
‘Can you say to me that I was wrong?’
‘No. I can’t.’
‘In my place would you not have done the same?’
‘Very likely I would. In fact – yes very likely.’
Of course I would. If any man I cared for had been in such dire need of anything my body could give, then I would have given it, without condescension or charity, but freely, frankly, not necessarily with a love that would have bound me to that man for longer than the need lasted, but with love nevertheless. I understood. Regrettably it made no difference to the turmoil I felt. That remained an entirely separate matter and jumping to my feet I made a dash for the door, wanting to take my tearful agony away from him until I could subdue it, hammer it if need be into reasonable proportions. But he caught me from behind and held me, my back pressed tight against his chest, until I was calm. And then, turning me in the circle of his arms he held me a while longer.
‘Dare I be flattered, Olivia? I hate to see you cry but if you are crying for me then I can only be grateful.’
We sat down again and in the great quietness that seemed to be spreading around us – the lull which comes when the subsiding tempest has swept the dead wood away, leaving intact only such things as are steadfast and resolute – I said to him without accusation, ‘You could be the father of her child.’
‘No,’ he said, just as steadily, although he knew what this could mean to me, ‘I think it unlikely. I took every care.’
‘But the possibility does exist.’
‘Yes – remotely – and it haunts me for your sake.’
It had haunted Alys too. Perhaps only a particle of doubt remained but because of that she had rejected any idea of abortion or adoption as she may not otherwise have done. Yes, it could be Max’s child. And I would have to watch it grow. Very well. I had prided myself all my life on my courage. We would see now what I was really made of. Like Max, I would not have endured prison and degradation as Alys had done. Could I endure this? Could I pass beyond the stage of mere endurance and emerge from it whole and sound and unfettered? I did not know.
‘What do you feel for Alys? Now, I mean.’
He took both my hands in his and leaned towards me, encircling me with his concentration, that intense quiet still building up around us so that our two bodies sitting close together hand in hand, knee pressed against knee, made up an island emerging from deep water; an oasis, perhaps, just appearing in a landscape of dry sand.
‘What I have always felt, Olivia. I have admired her purity and her bravery and valued them immensely. Just as I have always valued the same qualities in Amyas. I know my own limitations and I would never have sacrificed my own best interests for the sake of duty as Amyas has done. I was the legitimate son of the house and it was my place to stay here and help the Squire, to accept the responsibilities of my position. He was the by-blow who ought to have been free to go off and make his fortune as I did. I may have cursed him when he refused all those very advantageous offers I made him but by God I admired him too. I would never have had the sheer guts to get myself out of bed every morning, year in year out, with no time limit to it, no conditions, and waste myself – first for the Squire and then for Maria Long – because I believed it to be right. When I first met Alys I saw a very dainty little bird pecking a way out of its shell, and that aroused my curiosity. Later on I saw Amyas in her. If they succeed in recognizing themselves in each other then I shall not have done too badly for them I think after all. I want her to be happy, Olivia. That is what I feel about Alys. But with me. I would also like him to have some joy in life. It is high time. Olivia – what else?’
‘Corfu. You have a child there don’t you?’
He shook his head. ‘A child no longer. A young woman who was married last year – at great expense. She was born in the goldfields in difficult conditions. Her mother died a day later and I had no alternative but to foster her as best I could – a Greek family as it turned out who took her with them, quite soon after, to Corfu. The only part I have ever played in her upbringing has been to pay for it. She has become very much like her foster mother, placid and narrow-minded. We have nothing in common. So – that is what I have in my life, my pet, an avaricious mother, an indifferent daughter – do I have you, Olivia?’
‘Yes.’
‘Once again such instant surrender. I can hardly believe in it.’
Time. That was what I most needed. Not much, perhaps, but time to adjust not only to the obvious changes that were taking place around me, but to Max himself, time to see him not as the ruthless sophisticate I had first met in the foyer of the Station Hotel but as a man every bit as capable of giving, and suffering, and needing as I was myself, a man who had cared about his brother, who had loved a woman in the African goldfields and lost her, who had been disappointed in his child. Time to think of Max as a man who could be trusted. I had been wrong about so many things. I could be wrong again. How could I doubt it? But whatever should happen now, no matter what remnants of the past might remain to worry me, at least, and in full, I had paid my debt to Alys.