A Winter's Child (41 page)

‘Were you fond of him?'

Rather desperately she wanted him to be fond of somebody.

‘No. Not at all. I worked for him. I made sure he paid me.' He smiled again. ‘I was the poor little orphan, you see, sent to work in the mill while “the others” stayed at home eating strawberries and cream. And now I have the house and the mill and all the money – and the woman I want. Do I have her?'

‘Yes, you do.'

‘Then let me take you out to lunch, since Mrs Mayhew has worked such wonders with your coat and shoes.'

She was happy now.

And afterwards, no matter how carefully she looked for it, she could never quite place the exact moment that she lost him.

The drive across the Pennines to the moorland heights of Lancashire was pleasant enough. The inn, set in apparent and very lofty isolation, although it was reasonably accessible from several large towns, was famous both for its wine cellar and its history, and every bit as luxurious in its dark oak and tobacco-brown leather fashion as she had expected. Bandits and smugglers had done dark deeds here in bygone days. A highwayman of great local repute had been shot from his saddle in the stableyard. There had been elopements or abductions, according to taste, of high-born women and the last act of a tragic love-story played out in the barn when a local Romeo and a Juliet from the Colne Valley had chosen to die in each other's arms. There had been the whispering of conspirators, Cavaliers and Roundheads, hiding from one another, both finding friends among the hard-headed, fiercely independent moorlanders. There had been supporters of catholic royalty hiding, in protestant England, from the protestant English, since the landlord of the day had been willing to give shelter to anybody of any persuasion who could pay his price. There were ghosts, of course: young Juliet in a white nightgown wringing her hands, a murdered man – a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie it was said – looking for revenge on Christmas or on Midsummer's Eve, no one was absolutely certain. But on most days of the week the present landlord – aware of the commercial value of ghosts and legends – was pleased to serve ample luncheons of roast beef or game or venison in season in a low-beamed room full of horse brasses and weaponry, pikes and muskets and broadswords in gleaming, good-as-new condition, the food so exquisite and the light so dim that it had become fashionable and convenient for gentlemen who could afford it to lunch here with women who were not their wives.

Therefore, since many people would prefer not to be seen at the Gamecock, it was considered good taste, good manners not to look. Yet as they walked into the bar a woman, emerging from shadow across the room, called out ‘Benedict – how very nice.'

Was it then?

She was tall, not young to Claire even though she knew better than to underrate the charm of mature women like this one who, accustomed to the command of large households and the spending of a husband's income, were imperious, elegant, superbly dressed.

‘Edwina,' he said,
what
a surprise.' And he went over to greet her, holding her in a familiar embrace. Not passionate of course. Claire noted that. But Edwina Challoner who was thirty-nine and exceedingly well-married, did not expect passion from a man she had known for ten years, during which he had been her lover for several short, highly civilized periods, each one of them beginning most agreeably and ending entirely without rancour. If, indeed, they could be said to have ended, for on no occasion had either one of them felt deeply enough or found it in any way necessary to speak the dramatic words ‘We must part'. Other things had simply and quite naturally intervened. Social obligations. Business commitments. The claims of family and one's other friends. She had spent last winter in Egypt, for instance, on account of her husband's bronchitis and had certainly not expected a man like Benedict Swanfield to be available when she returned. She was, at present, rather heavily committed herself. Yet, just the same, she was rather more than surprised to see him in the company of a girl like Claire. A ‘flapper' no less, in Edwina Challoner's view, with her short hair, her legs crossed high as she sat down calmly on a bar stool showing her knees and lighting her own cigarette: thin as a stick, or slender as a reed, of course, should one wish to be charitable, a temptation to which Edwina Challoner, when it came to ‘flappers', did not succumb. And although she did not want Benedict herself – not just now – the sight of this far too obviously
modern
girl, smoking her cigarette with the matter-of-fact enjoyment of a man, obscurely worried her. All Edwina Challoner's
affaires
had been with men like Benedict Swanfield; wealthy, influential, hot-blooded, cold-hearted, discreet. All his
affaires,
she'd assumed, since several of them involved her own acquaintances, had been with women like herself. And, with the approach of her fortieth birthday, she could only view with alarm any indication that the tastes of one of her ‘circle'might be veering in this odd direction.

She put her mouth close to his ear, looking over his shoulder at Claire who was very deliberately not looking at her. ‘Darling,' she murmured, ‘quite a poppet, of course. But really – one might almost call it corruption of our tiny tots.'

He laughed, his arm still casually around Edwina's shoulders, a laugh which, had Claire been able to hear it, she would not have recognized.

‘My sister-in-law, darling.'

Edwina laughed too, leaning against him.

‘Benedict! You wicked creature. Your brother's wife. How very – well – how Biblical.'

‘Among other things. You must meet her.' And he spoke the words as if they – or some possibility they contained – had just occurred to him. ‘Yes, Edwina. It might – interest her – to see me in another light. It might even do her good. Come and meet her.'

‘Benedict dear,' she said, knowing him as well as anybody, ‘what
are
you up to?' And then, because whatever it was, it was hardly likely to hurt her, she brushed her cheek against his and smiled. ‘I'm just dying to, darling. But before I do you must meet
my
friend. You don't know Lois Chiltern do you?'

‘I don't think so.' But his greeting for the woman who now held out a large, well-manicured hand to him, puzzled the by no means insensitive Edwina. Not warm precisely but oddly satisfied, rather as if this friend of hers, this beautifully plucked and painted but otherwise quite unremarkable Lois Chiltern might be the very thing he needed.

And so, when he returned to Claire a few moments later there were two women beside him, Edwina very dark, Lois very blonde, with nothing more than that – Claire at once decided – to tell them apart, the same long athletic limbs used to walking their dogs and riding to hounds, the same loud, toneless voices which they used to effect when opening their local flower show, the same diamonds on strong fingers, the same unshakeable self-confidence. They were groomed to the shining perfection of race-horses, had wonderful clothes, Edwina a dark mink, Lois a pale one, which they wore casually, arrogantly, around broad shoulders decorated with diamond brooches like military medals.

‘Shall we have lunch together?' suggested Benedict.

‘Lovely idea,' in chorus. And Claire, sliding down from her bar stool, displaying her legs – all she had to display – instead of diamonds smothered her disappointment with a smile.

Did she lose him then? Or was that the first moment of suspicion and unease, a warning that this sense of alienation, of being totally among strangers, would not only continue but increase.

In the dining room they out-manoeuvred her, or thought they had, although she knew that if Benedict had wanted to sit beside her he would quite simply have done so. But instead he allowed Edwina to take his arm and lead him to the table, Lois close behind, and sat down between them not even glancing at Claire as she sat in the remaining chair, placed somewhat awkwardly for conversation. Not that she could have taken any part in it, in any case, since it was a deliberate – entirely deliberate, she felt – recital of the dinner parties and bridge parties, the amorous in-fighting, the marital deceptions of a series of men and women Claire did not know and did not care to know, which lasted through the soup, the turbot, the roast duck, terminating with the pears in red wine when Benedict, turning quietly but very definitely towards Lois, made some remark or other in a low tone to which she replied with an excited chuckle, a satisfied intake of breath. And thereafter, through the cheese, the coffee and brandy, he talked to Lois, her blonde head close to his, her pale fur still thrown negligently around her shoulders, her large, light blue eyes watching his mouth and not listening to a word since she knew, from long experience, what he was really asking and had already decided on her answer.

Claire knew it too. Yet, in that critical, hostile company she could not afford to
feel
anything about it. At all costs she must remain smiling and calm, must let nothing show. Yes. He was hurting her, punishing her, and in a quite masterly fashion, with a kind of deadly brilliance which took the breath from her body like a foul, physical blow. And the only defence she could think of was to pretend not to notice, to go on smiling until her cheeks ached, to go on producing some trite little remark every time Edwina took pity on her and asked for one.

‘Do you play bridge, dear?'

‘Oh no. I couldn't sit still long enough.'

‘What a pity. Benedict plays superbly.'

What game was he playing now? Edwina felt inclined to ask herself that question too, wondering just what there might be in beautiful, brainless Lois to arouse the desire – and so
obvious
too – of a discerning man like Benedict, who was not in the habit of behaving so amorously; not in public, at any rate. And the answer came to her quite suddenly, as she was making up her mind between
Roquefort
and
Brie.
Nothing. It was not Lois at all. How could it be? There had been a dozen women like Lois in his life, white marble statues with wide blue eyes and not a great deal behind them, and watching as he went through the motions of losing his head over this one, she did not believe it.

‘Do you ride, dear?' she asked Claire, quite kindly.

‘A little – when I was at school.'

And watching him too, feeling with every humiliated inch of her own body the raw sensuality that was brewing, thickening, over-heating between him and this woman who seemed half-naked already in spirit, she went on smiling.

After all, in a dreadfully twisted and perverted fashion, he was giving her exactly what she had asked for. She had wanted to see him in different surroundings, to discover another facet of his nature. Very badly she had wanted that. But this calculated charmer, this out-and-out sensualist, this sophisticated, cold-blooded man who slept with these horsy women not in affection but as an exercise in sexual expertise, was a man she did not like. Did he know that? Fervently she hoped so.

The meal eventually would be over. That much was certain and she thanked God for it. It ended. They stood up to leave, Claire feeling small and shabby, wondering why she had ever imagined that her youth alone could really compete with all this well-groomed
hauteur
any more than her plain wool coat against Lois's mink.

‘I must start giving my bridge dinners again,' said Edwina. ‘I shall rely on you, Benedict. You'll just have to get into the habit of hopping over the Pennines again, as you used to. Charles will be so pleased.'

And kissing him with a calm, deliberate relish, she took Claire's arm and walked her briskly away, allowing Benedict all the time he needed to make his arrangements with Lois.

She got into the car and waited while he assisted them, one on each arm, across the frozen yard to their car, Lois looking undeniably magnificent wrapped like an empress in her pastel furs, what looked like several yards of blonde hair bound intricately around her head, a heavy, probably quite glorious bosom which Polly would have declared old-fashioned but which few men of Benedict's temperament would be likely to despise. Very far from that. And closing her eyes she began, with the strength and the cruelty of desperation, to shut off her sources of tenderness, pride, affection, caring, loving, suffering – particularly that one and the one before it – numbing them, squeezing them into a state of precarious non-being until – as soon as possible – she could be alone with them.

‘Benedict dear,' said Edwina, detaining him a moment once Lois was in the car, ‘I am not deceived you know.'

‘Are you not?'

‘Definitely not. You were very brutal with that poor girl, you know.'

‘Yes, Edwina. I know.'

‘You won't tell me why, of course?'

‘Darling – you must know me better than that.'

She smiled and slipped her arm through his, rather pleasurably aware of the two other women watching them through separate car windows, the suffering, oddly appealing girl who had been so publicly abandoned, and beautiful, bovine Lois who – Edwina felt sure of it – had been used.

‘All right then,' she told him, ‘let me guess. I think one can take it that our little Claire will never want to see you again?'

He smiled. With some difficulty, she thought.

‘More than that, Edwina. She ought to consider herself well rid of me. Wouldn't you?'

And realizing that he wanted to know she glanced at him keenly.

‘Good Heavens –
Benedict!
– can one believe it? I could see at once that she was fond of you and probably needed discouraging. Too young, of course, to take these things – well – as
reasonably
as we do.'

She paused a moment, frowning, working it out. ‘Well – what can that mean, Benedict? Unless it should be that you don't want to lose her at all. One quite sees, in that case, that you'd have to break it off in such a way that it couldn't be mended. No going back. Goodbye for ever. And the girl thinking you an absolute bastard into the bargain so she wouldn't cry too long. My dear – it looks to me as if you care about that girl.'