Voices In Summer Page 9

  Walking towards her car, she prayed for the heat wave to continue. Alec and Laura were arriving this evening in time for dinner, which was the reason Eve could not linger on the beach. They were driving down from London, and tomorrow morning, at some ungodly hour, Alec was leaving again, to make the unimaginably long drive to Scotland and his salmon fishing. Laura would stay at Tremenheere for the next ten days or so, and then Alec would return to take her back to London.

  Alec, Eve knew. Pale and stony-faced, still pole-axed by his newly broken marriage, he had come to their wedding, and she had always loved him for this. Since then, slightly less shattered, he had come, once or twice, to stay with Gerald and Eve. But Laura was a stranger. Laura had been ill, in hospital. Laura was coming to Tremenheere to recover.

  Which made it even more necessary for the weather to go on being conveniently perfect. Laura would have breakfast in bed and lie, peacefully, in the garden with no person to bother her. She would rest and recover. When she was stronger, perhaps, she, Eve, would bring her here, and they would bask on the beach and swim together.

  It made everything so much easier if the weather was good. Living here, in the farthest corner of Cornwall, Eve and Gerald were inundated each summer with visitors: relations, friends from London, young families unable to afford the hideous cost of hotels. They always had a good time because Eve made sure that they did, but sometimes even she became disheartened by constant rain and unseasonable winds, and although she knew perfectly well that it wasn’t, she could never quite get rid of the idea that it was all her fault.

  These reflections got her into her car, which was boiling hot, despite the fact that she had parked it in the meagre shade of a hawthorn bush. Still bundled in her towel robe, and with the air from the open window cold on her damp hair, she started for home. Up the hill from the cove and onto the main road. Through a village and along by the edge of the sea. The road crossed the railway by means of a bridge and then ran, parallel to the railway lines, towards the town.

  In the old days, Gerald had once told her, before the war, here had been only agricultural land, small farms and hidden villages with tiny square-towered churches. The churches still stood, but the fields where the broccoli and the early potatoes had grown were now lost to development and progress. Holiday homes and blocks of flats, petrol stations and supermarkets, lined the road.

  There was the heliport that served the Scilly Islands and then the big gates of a mansion house that was now a hotel. Once there had been trees beyond the gates, but these had been cut down and space made for a glittering blue swimming pool.

  Between this hotel and the start of the town, a road turned up to the right, signposted to Penvarloe. Into this road Eve turned, away from the stream of traffic. The road narrowed to a lane, high hedged, winding up onto the hill. At once she was back in rural, unspoiled countryside. Small fields, stone-walled, where herds of Guernseys grazed. Deep valleys, dark with thickets of wood. After a mile or so, the road curved steeply and the village of Penvarloe lay ahead, low cottages clinging to the edge of the street. She passed the pub—where tables stood out on the cobbled forecourt—and the tenth-century church, embedded, like some prehistoric rock, surrounded by yews and ancient, leaning gravestones.

  The village post office was also the general store and sold vegetables, fizzy drinks, and deep-frozen goodies for the holiday trade. Its open door (for it did not close until seven o’clock in the evening) was flanked with crates of fruit, and as Eve approached, a slender woman, with a mop of curling grey hair, emerged through this door. She wore sunglasses and a pale blue, sleeveless dress and carried a wicker basket of shopping. Eve tooted her horn, and the woman saw her and waved, and Eve slowed the car and drew up at the side of the road.

  ‘Silvia.’

  Silvia Marten crossed the pavement and came over to talk, stooping, supported by a hand on the roof of the car. From a distance, despite the grey hair, her appearance was incredibly youthful, so that close up, the lined weather-beaten skin, the sharp angle of her jawbone, the sagging flesh beneath her chin, were somehow shocking. She set down her basket and pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, and Eve stared up into those amazing eyes, neither yellow nor green, very wide, very open, and fringed with thickly mascaraed lashes. Her eyeshadow was a pale translucent green and her eyebrows immaculately shaped and plucked.

  ‘Hello, Eve.’ Her voice was deep and husky. ‘Have you been swimming?’

  ‘Yes, I went to Gwenvoe. I’ve been busy all day and I simply had to have a cool-off.’

  ‘How energetic you are. Didn’t Gerald want to come with you?’

  ‘He’s been cutting the grass, I think.’

  ‘Are you going to be in this evening? I’ve got some chrysanthemum cuttings I promised him, and I’ve run out of space in my greenhouse. Thought I might bring them up, take a drink off you.’

  ‘Oh, how sweet of you. Of course.’ Then she hesitated. ‘The only thing is, Alec and Laura are arriving sometime.…’

  ‘Alec? Alec Haverstock…?’ she smiled suddenly, and her smile was disarming as a small boy’s grin, transforming her expression, dissolving the tautness of her features. ‘Is he coming to stay?’

  ‘Not to stay. Just for a night. Laura’s staying on for a bit, though. She’s been in hospital; come for a rest cure. Of course’—she slapped the flat of her hand against the driving wheel—‘I always forget you’ve known Alec for so long.’

  ‘We used to play on the beach centuries ago. Well … I … won’t come this evening. Another time.’

  ‘No.’ Eve could not bear to disappoint Silvia, to imagine her returning to her empty house, to spend the rest of this lovely day on her own. ‘Come. Come anyway. Gerald would love to see you. If you ask him he’ll make us some Pimms.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’

  Eve nodded.

  ‘Heaven, then; love to come.’ She picked up her basket again. ‘I’ll just take this home and collect the cuttings. Be about half an hour.’

  They parted, Silvia walking up the street in the direction of her little house, Eve to pass her and drive on, through the length of the village and a hundred yards or so beyond the last cottage. Now, she was running alongside the garden of Tremenheere. There was a stone wall, and thick clumps of rhododendrons beyond. The gates stood open, and the drive curved around a stand of azaleas and stopped in a sweep of gravel below the front door. This was framed in honeysuckle, and as Eve got out of the car, she could smell its heavy fragrance, drowsy and sweet in the warmth of the breezeless evening.

  She went, not indoors, but in search of Gerald, through the escallonia archway that led into the garden. She saw the sweep of the lawn, newly cut, neatly striped into two shades of green. She saw her husband on the flagged terrace, supine in a long chair, with his old sailing hat on his head, a gin and tonic conveniently to hand, and the Times on his lap.

  The sight of him was, as always, eminently satisfying. One of the best things about Gerald was that he never pottered. Some husbands Eve knew pottered the day away, always apparently on the go, but never actually achieving anything. Gerald was always either intensely busy or intensely idle. He had spent the day cutting the grass; now he was going to be lazy for an hour or two.

  Her white coat caught his eye. He looked up and saw her, laid down the newspaper, took off his spectacles.

  ‘Hello, my darling.’ She reached his side, put her hands on the arms of his chair, leaned down to kiss him. ‘Did you have a lovely swim?’

  ‘Quite delicious.’

  ‘Sit down and tell me about it.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got to go and pick raspberries.’

  ‘Stay for a second.’

  She sat at his feet, cross-legged. Scented thyme grew between the cracks of the flagstones, and she pulled up a tiny sprig and crushed it between her fingers, releasing the herby, aromatic smell.

  She said, ‘I’ve just seen Silvia. She’s coming round for a drink. She’s got some chrysanthemum cut
tings for you. I said you’d maybe make us some Pimms.’

  ‘Can’t she come another evening? Alec and Laura will probably arrive while she’s here.’

  ‘I think she’d like to see Alec. They said they wouldn’t be here until dinnertime. Perhaps—’ She had been going to suggest that they should invite Silvia to stay for dinner, but Gerald interrupted her.

  ‘You’re not to ask her to stay for dinner.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Laura won’t feel like meeting new people, not just yet. Not after two days in hospital and a long drive on a hot day.’

  ‘But it’s so embarrassing when people come for a drink and then one has to bundle them off home because it’s time to start eating the soup. It seems so inhospitable.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know how to be inhospitable. And with a bit of luck, Silvia will have gone before they arrive.’

  ‘You’re heartless, Gerald. Silvia’s lonely. She’s all alone. After all, it’s not very long since Tom died.’

  ‘He’s been dead for a year.’ Gerald never minced words nor talked in platitudes. ‘And I’m not heartless. I’m very fond of Silvia and I find her extremely decorative and amusing. But we all have our own lives to live. And I won’t have you exhausting yourself, looking after all your lame ducks at the same time. They must wait in a tidy queue and take their turn. And this evening it’s Laura’s turn.’

  ‘Gerald, I do hope she’s nice.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s charming.’

  ‘How can you be so sure? You couldn’t stand Erica. You said that she drove a wedge between Alec and his family.’

  ‘Never said that. Never met the woman. It was Brian who couldn’t stand her.’

  ‘But men who remarry nearly always follow a pattern. I mean, the second time around they often marry somebody the spitting image of the first wife.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s happened with Alec. Brian approves of this one.’

  ‘She’s terribly young. Only a bit older than Ivan.’

  ‘In that case, you will be able to look on her as a daughter.’

  ‘Yes.’ Eve thought about this, holding the sprig of thyme to her nose and looking at the garden.

  From the terrace and the house the newly cut lawn sloped away, flanked by glossy-leaved camellias, which in May were a riot of pink and white flowers. The prospect, carefully landscaped by some long-dead gardener, enclosed the distant view much as a frame surrounds a painting. She saw the bay, the wedge of blue sea, dotted with the white sails of small boats.

  Still worrying about Silvia she said, ‘If we asked Ivan as well he could make up an even number for dinner, and we would tell Silvia—’

  ‘No,’ said Gerald. He fixed Eve with a stern blue eye. ‘Absolutely no.’

  Eve capitulated. ‘All right.’ They smiled, understanding, in total accord.

  She was his first wife, and he was her second husband, but she loved him—although in a totally different sort of way—as much as she had loved Philip Ashby, Ivan’s father. Gerald now was sixty-six—balding, bespectacled, white-haired, but still as distinguished and attractive as he had been when Eve first met him, as her husband’s commanding officer, and quite the most eligible bachelor in the service. Active and energetic, he had retained his long-legged (all the Haverstocks had long legs), flat-stomached physique, and at parties was constantly surrounded by quite young ladies or cornered in sofas by elderly ones who remembered Gerald as a young man and had never ceased to be charmed by him. Eve didn’t mind all this in the slightest. On the contrary, it made her feel quite smug and proud, because at the end of the day, she was the female he searched for and claimed, and took home to Tremenheere.

  Gerald had put on his glasses and was once more immersed in the cricket scores. Eve got to her feet and left him there, going indoors.

  * * *

  The British Empire was built by naval officers with private fortunes. Although Gerald Haverstock was born a hundred years or so too late to take part in this enterprise, the principle of the old saying still applied. His success in the service was due, in the larger part, to his own courage, ability, and resource, but as well, he had the courage to take risks and to gamble on his career. He could do this because he could afford to. He loved the navy and was keenly ambitious, but promotion, although desirable, was never financially essential. As a commanding officer, faced with nerve-racking dilemmas involving the future safety of men, expensive equipment, and even international relations, he had never taken the easy, the timid, nor the obvious way out. This dashing behavior paid off and earned for Gerald a reputation for coolheaded nerve, which had stood him in good stead and finally earned his right to a flag officer’s ensign on the front of his large, black, official car.

  He had, of course, been lucky as well, and Tremenheere was part of his luck. It was bequeathed to him by an elderly godmother when he was only twenty-six. With the estate went a sizeable fortune, originally amassed by astute dealings with the Great Western Railway, and Gerald’s financial future was assured for the rest of his charmed life. It was thought then that he might leave the navy, settle in Cornwall, and take up the existence of a country squire, but he loved his job too much for this, and Tremenheere was left, until the day he retired, to run, more or less, on its own momentum.

  A local land agent took over the administration, a tenant was found for the home farm. At times, for long periods, the house was let. Between lets, a caretaker kept an eye on the place, and a full-time gardener tended the lawns and the flowerbeds and kept the two walled gardens neatly dug and filled with rows of vegetables.

  Sometimes, home from abroad and with a long leave under his belt, Gerald stayed there himself, filling Tremenheere with family, nephews and nieces, and his own naval friends. Then the old house came to life again, ringing with voices and laughter. Cars stood parked by the front door, children played French cricket on the lawn, doors and windows stood open, enormous meals were partaken around the scrubbed kitchen table or, more formally, in the panelled, candlelit dining room.

  The house took all this unorthodox treatment in its stride. It remained, like an elderly sweet-tempered relation, undisturbed, unchanged: still filled with the old godmother’s furniture, the curtains she had chosen, the faded prints on the chairs, the Victorian furniture, the silver-framed photographs, the pictures, the china.

  Eve, brought here as Gerald’s bride six years ago, had made only a few changes. ‘It’s dreadfully shabby,’ Gerald had told her, ‘but you can do what you want with it. Do the whole place over if you want to.’ But she hadn’t wanted to, because Tremenheere, to her, seemed perfect. There was a peace about it, a tranquillity. She loved the ornate Victoriana, the low-lapped chairs, the brass bedsteads, the faded floral carpets. She was reluctant to replace even the curtains, and when one by one they finally shredded to pieces and fell apart, she spent days searching through pattern books from Liberty trying to find designs that would match, as closely as possible, the original chintzes.

  Now, she entered the house through the French windows that led from the terrace into the drawing room. After the brightness of the day outside, the interior seemed very cool and dim, and smelled of the sweet peas that, this morning, Eve had arranged in a great bowl and placed on the round marquetry table that stood in the middle of the room. Beyond the drawing room, a wide, oak floored passage led to the hall, and from this spacious entrance, a square wooden staircase with carved newels rose past a soaring window to the upper floor. Here were old portraits, a carved armoire that had once contained linen. The door to their bedroom stood open, and inside the room felt airy, the rose-trellised curtains stirring in the first breeze of the evening. Eve pulled off her towel robe and her bathing suit and went into the bathroom and took a shower, washing the salt out of her dried hair. Then she found clean clothes, a pair of pale pink jeans, a cream silk shirt. She combed her hair, which had once been blonde and was now nearly white, put on some lipstick, and sprayed herself with cologne.

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nbsp; She was now ready to pick raspberries. She left her room and went down the passage to the door that stood at the top of the back stairs leading to the kitchens. But, holding the door handle, she hesitated, changed her mind, and instead went on down the passage to where once had been the nursery wing, and where now May lived.

  She tapped on the door. ‘May?’

  No reply.

  ‘May?’ She opened the door and went inside. The room, which was at the back of the house, smelled stuffy and airless. The window had a charming view of the courtyard and the fields beyond, but was firmly shut. In old age May felt the cold and saw no point in suffering what she called howling draughts. As well as being stuffy, the room was crowded, not only with the original Tremenheere nursery furniture, but as well with May’s bits and pieces, which she had brought with her from Hampshire: her own chair, her varnished tea-trolley, a fireside rug, hectic with cabbage roses, which May’s sister had once hooked for her. The mantelpiece was crowded with china mementoes from forgotten seaside resorts, jostling for place with a plethora of framed snapshots, all of which depicted either Eve or her son Ivan as small children, because once, in the long distant past, May had been Eve’s nursery maid and had remained, willy-nilly, to become—in the not so distant past—Ivan’s nanny.

  A table stood in the middle of the room, where May sat to do the mending or eat her supper. Eve saw the scrapbook, scissors, the pot of paste. The scrapbook was a new ploy for May. She had bought it in Woolworth’s on one of her weekly outings to Truro, where she would lunch with an old friend and potter around the shops. It was a child’s scrapbook, with Mickey Mouse on the cover, and already beginning to bulge with cuttings. Eve hesitated, and then turned the pages. Pictures of the Princess of Wales, a sailing boat, a view of Brighton, an unknown baby in a pram—all clipped from newspapers or magazines, neatly arranged, but without any apparent reason or cohesions.