Consider the Lily (49 page)

‘Flora! You have rotten timing.’ Unsmiling, Robin lifted the bag, and she saw then how badly she had hurt him.

‘Please.’

He shrugged. There was iodine on his finger and the leather patch on his elbow was torn. ‘All right.’

Flora busied herself with straining the rest of the soup. Then, knowing she was being presumptuous, she laid the table for Ned, and covered the bread with a clean rag. She put on the kettle and made a pot of tea.

Upstairs, Robin moved around the bedroom and conducted a conversation with Ellen, which was sufficiently muffled by the floor to be unintelligible. Eventually, a squeak of shoe leather told her he was coming down. She poured tea into a mug and shoved it at him across the table.

‘She’s not dying?’

‘God forbid,’ he said. ‘But she’s got an infection in the knee, and I’m arranging for her to go into Fleet hospital.’

Flora thumped down into the chair. ‘Have the Sheppeys paid their insurance, do you think, Robin? Ellen’s operation must have taken up a lot of their funds.’

Robin sat down in Ned’s wooden carver chair and cradled his mug. ‘A good question. I don’t know Ned’s position.’

Flora spread her hands on the scrubbed table where they appeared obscenely full of life. ‘If Ned has run out, I’ll pay for Ellen to go to hospital,’ she said.

‘That would be seen as charity,’ said Robin, retrieving the teapot from her and helping himself to a second mug.

‘But it is.’ Flora had grown tense with the excitement of the idea. She leant over and poured some milk into his tea. ‘Look, we’re told every week in church to have charity.’

‘Shush.’ Robin jerked his head towards the ceiling. ‘You don’t want Ellen to hear. Think about it, Flora. Every time anyone else falls sick in the village it will be remembered you helped the Sheppeys. Are you prepared for that kind of finger-pointing?’

The tea had burnt her tongue. Robin was not being helpful, nor did he look in the sort of mood to be talked to. Her charity was found wanting. Disappointment and anti-climax brought Flora close to losing her temper.

‘Heavens above, Robin.’ She leapt to her feet with a scrape of chair. ‘I made an offer in good faith and you are niggling because... well, because.’ She seized her coat from the peg behind the door and thrust her arms into the sleeves. ‘Nobody has to know if the money comes from me. Pretend there’s a fund in the hospital or something.’ She tied up the coat belt in as contained a manner as she could muster, and ruined the effect by jamming her beret down on her head. ‘I’m very, very sorry for what has gone wrong between us, but I don’t think you should let Ellen suffer for it.’

‘You don’t have much money yourself, Flora.’

She went very cold. ‘No, I don’t, Robin. But enough.’

She was tempted to up-end the dregs in the teapot into his mug, but thought better of it. Instead, she opened the door and let loose her parting shot. ‘By the way, your jacket is ripped at the elbow. Perhaps Anna Tillyard could mend it for you.’

Robin swivelled his arm to have a look. ‘I’ll ask her,’ he said, white with anger. ‘Thank you.’

‘Goodbye, then.’

Flora trudged down the path and along the track, hoping, hoping, that she would hear him call. There was silence.

Minerva hugged the ground by her heels, criss-crossing in front of Flora until she snapped at the dog to get out of the way. The rain that had threatened in the west all afternoon now chose to fall. It seeped under her coat collar and damped her wayward hair. Like yellow seaweed, Flora reflected, and just as attractive.

Futility and disappointment washed her, and she struggled to beat them back. Nineteen was not so old to begin again, was not so awful, hardly unusual. After all, she had constructed a very good case for
not
marrying him.

Point one. Marrying Robin would create an awful, gut-churning rumpus in the family. Point two. Flora herself was not at all sure if it was the right thing to do. Point three. She and Robin unquestionably annoyed each other sometimes and it would only get worse.

It was all for the best.

Relieved, stiffened by a dose of martyrdom (obedient daughter), Flora plodded on through the wind and rain. She did not hear the car draw up beside her.

‘Get in.’

At the sight of Robin, warm, dry and holding the advantages, Flora’s emotions did an abrupt volte-face. ‘No,’ she said furiously, and splashed on.

Robin raised his eyebrows heavenwards and steered the car alongside the stubborn figure half shrouded by the dark. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he called through the rolled-down window.

Flora snapped back, ‘I will be silly if I want to.’

Owing to the engine noise and the rain, Robin missed that remark. He was tired, hungry, fed up and lonely. ‘For God’s sake,’ he shouted, ‘will you stop. I spend my life talking to you through car windows.’ No answer. Robin tried again. ‘Flora,’ he yelled. ‘Be sensible. Listen to me. Let’s not waste our lives.’

At that she stopped. ‘Is that Labour government policy?’

‘For pity’s sake.’ Robin ground the car to a halt and scrabbled out of the bucket seat. Then he grabbed Flora. Blazing with anger she resisted. ‘Flora, you idiot, beloved, idiotic Flora.’ Robin pulled her against him, so roughly she gasped. ‘Listen to me, you stupid girl. I love you. You love me.’

She threw up a hand to ward him off, and he seized it in one of his own. ‘Say yes,’ he ordered, turning it palm upwards. ‘Say yes and damn the rest.’ He bent and kissed the soft dampened area where her artery ran close to the surface. It pulsed under his lips.

She gazed down at the bent head now slicked with rain, felt his lips possess her flesh. Inside her chest, her heart began its now familiar banging and bouncing. Robin kissed her again, and raised his head and looked at her, an eyebrow raised and mouth pulled into his tired, sweet smile.

Points one, two and three were buried so hastily that it was indecent. Incoherent with relief, Flora turned her face to Robin’s, and clung to the damp tweed of his jacket. Robin kissed the tip of Flora’s aristocratic nose before he kissed the lips underneath. Rain slid down their cheeks.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said between the kisses, her tears mixed up in the rain. ‘Oh, yes, Robin.’

Both of them talked at once.

‘You never came back,’ she said. ‘Not once.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Robin took a strand of her hair between his fingers. ‘You hurt me so badly.’

‘I know,’ said Flora. ‘I shan’t forgive myself.’

‘I warn you,’ Robin took a step back, placed his hands on her shoulders, ‘it’s on my terms. You will come to me, into my life, to live and work as I do. I shall not try to ape yours—’

‘I wish you’d stop talking,’ said Flora, ‘and kiss me again.’ Later, she asked him, ‘What made you change your mind and come after me?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

She pressed her body against his and felt the warmth of his blood and bone through the slick of rain on her skin, and wanted to absorb all of him into her. ‘Yes, I do.’ He nuzzled her neck. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

He said quickly, ‘The thought of Anna Tillyard doing my mending,’ and stopped Flora’s cry with his mouth.

*

How curious
[Matty wrote to Susan the following morning in her private sitting room]
. How intriguing. Why on earth would Daisy wish to spend a year in France? It is not like her to miss the Season. Perhaps she will come over from time to time? Has Tim Coats left the scene?...
Yes. I am much, much better, feeling cheerful, and occupying myself with drawing up plans for renovating the main garden next year. Kit has agreed.
Now that I am so much better, he’s decided to go on the trip to Iraq with Max Longborough in the New Year. He didn’t feel he should go, but I persuaded him it would be good to get away for a bit. I shall have plenty to do...

Letters to Number 5, Upper Brook Street were always a chore – and recently a bore. She knew they were stilted and, equally, that they were thrown into the wastepaper basket at the first opportunity.

Matty glanced at the drawings of the main garden littered over the writing desk. She planned to plant a wisteria tunnel and twine a white variety into the mauve...

‘Anyway, I hope you are well, Aunt Susan,’ she finished, and scrawled her signature as it had occurred to her that she had forgotten to talk to Ned about planting the primulas in the pleached lime walk.

A bellow sounded along the corridor. Matty dropped her pen.

The cry came again. This time she got to her feet and went to investigate. Kit came bounding up the stairs.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

A door flung open and Robbie appeared from Rupert’s bedroom holding Flora by the wrist. ‘Do something,’ she said to Kit. ‘She’s a wicked, wicked girl.’

‘Robbie, let go of Flora.’ Kit shook his sister loose. ‘Tell me what’s happened. Quick.’

Flora was defiant. ‘It’s no use bullying me,’ she announced. ‘I am going to marry Robin Lofts.’

Kit relaxed temporarily. ‘Is that all? I thought something awful had happened. Father, I take it, is signalling his disapproval?’ Kit ran his hand through his hair. ‘Seriously, Flora, before I go into battle, are you quite, quite sure?’

Quick as a flash, Flora rounded on him. ‘You said you’d back me. Remember?’

He pressed her arm. ‘Of course. I did and I will.’

Flora let out a gasp of relief and smiled at her brother through her fright.

‘Help,’ she said. ‘I feel rather sick. Can you deal with Robbie?’

Kit looked to his wife for help. ‘Matty, take Flora, would you?’

Matty led Flora away and Flora explained that she was not going to change her mind, so Matty was not to try to make her. No, she wouldn’t, Matty said. Why should she?

Robbie blocked the door into Rupert’s bedroom. ‘How
dare
she do this? You go and tell him you’re not going to allow it,’ she said.

Kit removed her hand. ‘Robbie, I’m sorry to say this, but whom my sister chooses to marry is no concern of yours.’

Robbie gasped and jerked back her head. The movement exposed her thick white throat and emphasized her waist and breasts. In the half light of the landing, her body turned fluid, almost seductive, and for the first time Kit registered Robbie as a woman.

‘It’s Flora’s business,’ he repeated. ‘Not yours.’

Her reply startled Kit so thoroughly that he was silenced. ‘Oh, yes, it is,’ she said. A flush spread over the white skin, red ink through water. ‘Your father is very upset. He told her he would forbid it and Flora said she didn’t care what he thought. Her life was hers to do with as she wished. Then, he said, she wouldn’t get her bit of the money, and Flora said it was hardly anything, anyway, because he had lost it all. She stood there, by the bed, like a big cat, blazing away.’

‘Robbie?’

When he was tiny, Robbie had rocked Kit on her lap, held his hand, spoon-fed him rice pudding so he would grow. She had listened to a child’s litanies, and applied sticking plaster to cut knees and bruised spirits. She had written to him at school, chastized him in the holidays and sat by his bed after Hesther died.

For old times’ sake, he spoke gently. ‘I think you forget yourself.’

‘Your mother, your silly, helpless, wicked mother, left you to me to bring up,’ said Robbie. ‘And I have done what she asked, though I didn’t ask for it and I didn’t do it for her.’ Robbie inflected her years of loving Rupert hopelessly into the
her.
‘You can’t cut me out now, Mr Kit.’

Kit was about to reply when a snorting, animal sound which none of them had ever heard before came from the bedroom. It was followed by a second.

Robbie’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, my Lord,’ she said, and the red drained from her neck.

They pushed their way into the bedroom.

Thomas and I met two years after my mother’s death. I was travelling in Italy and bidden to dinner with a well-known figure in the art world. Thomas sat opposite and looked at me through the candles and I knew at once that he would fill the gap in my life. After that dinner, he telephoned. He was writing a book on English interior decoration through the ages and he wanted to look at Hinton Dysart. The rest, as they say, is history.

He brought with him a knowledge of porphyry stone and blue john, marble, ormolu and giltwood. He knew about glazed tiles, and stained-glass windows, about painters, furniture and the things that belong in great houses. It was Thomas who persuaded me to hand it over. ‘It won’t survive otherwise, my dear,’ he said, over and over again. ‘I’ve seen it all too often.’ When I protested he said, ‘You are the last of the line: be practical. What will happen when you die?’ And so it was, on 7 November 1980, that I gave the house away to the Trust. There was a small crowd of well-wishers from the village, a formal handing-over ceremony when I surrendered the key and then it was down the drive to Dippenhall Street where we had chosen to live.

Some things are too difficult to speak about, almost to write about. This is one of them. It might have been different if Polly’s son had lived, or Flora had had sons. But it wasn’t so and, as Thomas said, one has to be practical. I accept the necessity now as I was persuaded to accept it then, and out of that decision I have made my life.

I left the house surrounded by dying embers of the autumn plants; withering rose hips, the brittle remains of the autumn crocuses, whirling seeds, and the dark, shadowy blocks of the yew and the evergreens. My children...

But at night I return to the silent rooms and beautiful garden, to join the ghosts from the past.

Rupert survived the stroke brought on by the shock of Flora’s news, but it left him speechless and paralysed down the right side. After consultations with Dr Williams, who had replaced Robin, and a specialist from Harley Street, it was agreed that it would be best to leave him at home since it was unlikely that treatment in hospital would improve his condition. It was the signal for Robbie to redouble her efforts and she placed herself on duty round the clock. Miss Binns was also summoned back to ordeal by terror under Robbie’s jurisdiction.

Throughout the next difficult weeks when Rupert, at last, appeared stable and relatively comfortable, Robbie did not address one word to Flora and ignored her when she met her in the passage.