The Marrying Game (50 page)

Mrs Cutting was fond of Rufa. Her affection for the Man had shrivelled when he talked his firstborn out of university. Since then, she had regularly employed Rufa to cook for her dinner parties, and she had unsettled all the girls by turning up at her wedding.

‘Yes, I suppose there is a resemblance,’ Rose said thoughtfully. It had not struck her before – until now, she had thought of Selena as an elongated version of herself and Lydia. But there was a definite echo of Rufa in the set of her head, and the coltishness of her long limbs. ‘She has the same inbuilt ability to do things properly – I may as well tell you, that fire hasn’t been lit since the Relief of Mafeking, and she didn’t even use firelighters.’

‘How is Rufa?’ Mrs Cutting asked pleasantly.

‘Fine!’ Rose declared, with a shade too much enthusiasm.

‘It must be lovely for you, having her settled nearby.’

‘Oh, yes. Lovely!’

‘What’s she doing with herself these days? Will she carry on with the cooking?’

‘She – she’s still trying to decide,’ Rose improvised. She had not seen Rufa for ages. She did not telephone above twice a week, and her calls were vague and hurried. What was she doing with herself? What, indeed? Rose could hardly tell her daughter’s old headmistress that she strongly suspected Rufa of having a rip-roaring affair with her husband’s nephew by marriage.

Mrs Cutting said, ‘Rufa was the one I worried about most when your husband died. They were extraordinarily close, weren’t they? I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to cope with the shock.’

You were right there, Rose thought; you know her better than I do; she had me fooled for months.

‘But she seems to have pulled herself through it really well,’ Mrs Cutting went on. ‘I’ve never seen such a stunning bride – and I’ve seen a good few brides, as you can imagine. I have to be quite selective about invitations, or I’d never have a single free Saturday in the summer months. But Rufa’s wedding was a special symbol of renewal. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’

Outside the window, beyond the padded folds of Indian silk, they heard the sound of wheels crunching the gravel. Rose wriggled off the unfamiliar sofa to look out into the deepening dusk. ‘Rufa’s car,’ she said happily. ‘Now you can ask her yourself.’

It was not Rufa. If Mrs Cutting had not been reflected in the windowpane, Rose would have shrieked aloud. Edward. What was Edward doing here, when everyone assumed he was still in The Hague? And why was he alone? There was not enough light to see the expression on his face, but Rose read tension and anger into every line of him. As she told Lydia and Selena afterwards, ‘The bottom fell right out of my stomach – I knew something was wrong.’

She heard him thumping on the heavy door. She heard Lydia, in the kitchen, calling, ‘I’ll get it.’

And, far too soon, Edward was in the room with them. He was sharp and clean and rigid, in his dark suit and regimental tie.

Mainly for the benefit of Mrs Cutting, Rose kissed his cheek. ‘Edward, how terrific to see you – when did you get home? You know Theresa Cutting, I’m sure.’

Edward’s dark grey eyes had a dangerous glitter. He did not acknowledge Mrs Cutting: a very bad sign in such a punctilious man.

‘I think you know why I’m here,’ he said. ‘I want to speak to Rufa.’

‘To Rufa?’ Mindful of Mrs Cutting, Rose struggled to sound breezy. ‘She’s not here, I’m afraid. Wasn’t she in, when you got home?’

Edward said, ‘Please don’t lie to me, Rose.’

‘Why would I be lying? I haven’t seen her for weeks. Do sit down.’

He did not sit down. He did not move from the doorway. He fixed Rose with his furious eyes. ‘I arrived back at the farm about half an hour ago,’ he said. ‘There was a note on the kitchen table. Rufa’s left me.’

‘What?’ This time, Rose did shriek aloud. ‘Oh God,
no
! Oh God, that idiotic girl!’

Mrs Cutting, her face a mask of discretion, quickly stood up. ‘I must be off. So nice to see you.’ She hurried out, without shaking hands or looking back.

‘I saw it coming,’ Rose groaned. ‘Why didn’t I say something to her? Darling, I’m desperately sorry. All I can say in her defence is that she’s probably lost her mind.’ She kept her eyes on the rug, unable to look at him. ‘What did the note say?’

‘Basically, that she was leaving me. And that she was sorry. I think I’m at least entitled to an explanation. Where is she?’

Rose scrabbled in the pocket of her trousers for cigarettes and matches. She lit one, throwing the spent match angrily into the fire. ‘For the last time, Rufa is not here.’

‘You know where she is,’ Edward said.

‘Not for certain – she hasn’t told me a thing,’ Rose said. ‘I assume she’s wherever Tristan is.’ She glanced up at him, and realized she had shocked him profoundly. Incredibly, he had not even suspected – what the hell was the matter with the man?

‘Tristan?’

‘Look, I don’t know anything for certain. But I saw them together. It was pretty obvious.’

His voice was quiet, simmering with fury. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Well, let’s hope I’m wrong.’

‘But he’s a boy!’

‘He didn’t look like a boy to me.’ Rose’s tone sharpened. ‘He looked like a young man – a rather arrogant young man.’

‘All his fault, is it?’ Edward suddenly blazed. The roar
of
his voice made Rose stagger back defensively. ‘What about her? What about betraying me?’

‘You practically begged her to,’ Rose snapped back at him. ‘What did you expect, for God’s sake? You bugger off abroad, leaving her alone in the house with a gorgeous young man – what did you bloody well expect?’

‘I trusted her. The rest of you have the morals of alley cats, but I thought she was different. She’s the Man all over again – it’s coming back like a nightmare.’

‘It’s normal to fuck!’ Rose screamed, touched on her wound. ‘For everyone else in the world except you, it’s the most natural thing in the world! Oh, dear God –’ She pressed both palms into her cheeks, forcing herself to be calm. ‘Sorry. Sorry. This is stupid. Why am I shouting at you? It must be the monumental embarrassment.’

Edward was bewildered. ‘Why should you be embarrassed?’

‘Oh, come on. She’s chiselled a fortune out of you. Of course it’s her fault. And mine. I let her marry you, when I knew she was clinging on by her fingernails. Oh God, what a mess.’

His anger had retreated. The whole room tasted of his anguish. ‘I knew it too,’ he said. ‘She’s been having nightmares about Rufus. She rang me two days ago, crying and begging me to come home. I pulled every string to get away – and I was too late.’

‘The thing is, she does love you. She must have hated running off. She must have lost her mind.’ Rose took a step towards him, awkwardly touching his arm. ‘Come into the kitchen and have a drink.’

‘How obvious was it? Is the whole countryside laughing at me?’

‘Nobody’s laughing.’

‘Jesus, they’re all sorry for me.’ Edward winced, as if swallowing brambles. ‘Is there any whisky?’

‘Yes. I’ll pour you a huge one.’ She pushed him out of the drawing room – Rufa’s dream – thankfully closing the door behind them. The situation seemed just as ghastly in the kitchen, but easier to digest. Fortunately, the kitchen was empty. Lydia, lately developing a most un-Hastyish tact, had withdrawn upstairs to keep Selena and Linnet out of the way. The house reeked of crisis. Rose poured herself a large gin. She poured Edward a whisky so enormous that he smiled bleakly when she put it into his hand.

‘Medicine,’ he said.

‘It helps.’ Rose sat down at the table. Edward dropped into a chair opposite, dazed with shock. There was a silence that seemed to stretch on for ages.

Rose sighed heavily. ‘Edward, I’m sorry – but did you really not suspect something was going on with Tristan?’

‘No.’ He frowned. ‘That makes me a fool, I suppose. But I can’t get my head round it. Any other woman in the world – but not Rufa. Never Rufa.’

‘Why not? She’s only a woman, not an angel. Sleeping with a gorgeous young man who’s in your house is a very understandable, ordinary sort of crime.’

‘Hmm.’ He glanced up at her. ‘Is Tristan gorgeous? I can’t see past his youth. He’s a child to me.’

‘And you’re fond of him,’ Rose suggested sadly.

‘Yes. You remember how Alice adored him. He was only a little boy when she died.’

‘Our babies grow up,’ Rose said. ‘And then they show us everything we did wrong. I leaned too hard on Ru after the Man died – what with her reputation for being the sensible one. I somehow didn’t leave an opening for
her
to talk through. And she got into the habit of never being listened to properly. Except by you. Only by then it was too late, and she didn’t know how to scream for help.’

‘Is running off with Tristan her scream for help, then?’ Edward snapped.

His pain wrung the blood from Rose’s heart. She searched for words to cushion the truth. ‘It was more like a dreadful teenage infatuation. When I saw them together, she was acting as if she’d just discovered sex – perhaps,’ she hastened to add, ‘because she missed you.’

‘Crap,’ Edward said softly. ‘We’ve done it once, as I daresay she told you.’

‘She didn’t, but I had wondered,’ Rose admitted. There was no satisfaction in being right. ‘I couldn’t think of any other reason for her to betray you, practically on her honeymoon. What was the problem? I know it’s a rude question, but she can’t have turned you down – Ru’s the soul of duty.’

‘That’s just it,’ Edward said. ‘I couldn’t do anything when I even suspected she was acting out of duty.’

She nodded sympathetically. ‘Rather a turn-off. I had wondered how you’d get over that one. A vainer man than you would have managed to convince himself she was begging for it.’

He smiled grimly. ‘Was that a compliment, Rose? Steady on.’

She smiled back. ‘I meant it. You’re a boundlessly good man; one of the best I ever met. You’re also incredibly good-looking. Any woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to sleep with you. It doesn’t seem fair that you should be rendered impotent by your inbuilt decency.’

‘I am not impotent – bloody hell.’ He was not annoyed now. He was even slightly amused by her tactlessness.

‘Well, I’m sorry. But as far as I know, you haven’t so much as shared a flannel with anyone since Alice died. It did cross my mind that you couldn’t do it.’

Edward drained his glass. ‘I don’t know why on earth I want to tell you this, but I have had sex since Alice died. Of course I have. Not on my home turf – mainly because Rufus would have taken it as competition.’

‘Definitely,’ Rose agreed. ‘You’d have been crazy to tell him. There could only be one lion in this jungle.’

‘And it would have been – well – awkward.’

Rose said, ‘My God, don’t tell me you took up with Prudence again! Please don’t!’

He winced angrily. ‘Yes, all right. I have been having a sort of relationship with Prudence.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘I didn’t think it was particularly serious between us. We saw each other when she was between marriages.’

‘Did you tell Rufa?’

‘I told her we’d had an affair after Alice died.’ He was defensive.

‘That was years ago,’ Rose said. ‘What about the sequel?’

‘Look, it really wasn’t serious – certainly not on my side. Pru never wanted me hanging around all the time. And she rather went off me when I left the army.’

Rose was white with anger. ‘No wonder the old bitch wouldn’t come to the wedding. I suppose you went to Paris to break the news?’

‘Yes,’ Edward said warily, startled to find himself knocked off the moral high ground.

‘And she was furious with you, wasn’t she? And she cried and screamed and accused you of betrayal.’

‘Yes.’ Edward let out a heavy sigh. ‘I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. But I was, Rose – please believe that. I honestly thought it had been over for months. I thought Pru had given me my marching orders just before Rufus died. I wasn’t prepared to be treated as if I’d broken some kind of understanding.’

‘Oh, come on, look at it from her point of view,’ Rose said. ‘Dear, reliable old Edward, always good for dinner and a screw, turns out to be just like all the others – he buggers off with someone twenty years younger.’

There was a silence.

Edward said, ‘You think I’m an idiot.’

‘No, I just think you’re a typical man. Or you would have told poor Ru the whole story.’

‘I didn’t think there was anything to tell.’

Rose exhaled gustily. ‘So you invited the bloody woman to her house.’

‘Pru invited herself. I couldn’t think of a reason to refuse. I assumed, because I was finally married –’

‘Well, I bet Rufa found out,’ Rose said. ‘She might be barmy, but she’s not stupid. Think how it must have looked to her. She fails to have sex on her honeymoon, then her husband invites his old squeeze to stay.’

Edward winced again. ‘But it wasn’t like that! I might have fallen in love with Prudence when we first got it together after Alice died. But that didn’t work out, and the next time was completely different. Pru made it quite clear that she only wanted a shoulder to cry on – someone who understood her – I’m sure she’d never have told Rufa.’

‘I’m not,’ Rose said, with a surge of bitterness. ‘I
remember
what she was like when she dropped you for the Man – she couldn’t stop rubbing my nose in it. It was the only time we ever rowed over one of his lovers.’ She regretted saying all this when she saw the agony rake across his face. Pain upon pain. She lit another cigarette, tears trembling in her eyes. ‘I don’t understand you, Edward. I don’t understand why you keep coming back for more. First the Man runs off with Prudence, and then his daughter runs off with her son. This family has completely screwed you – I don’t know why you don’t get a sledgehammer and smash this whole house down. You’d be completely within your rights.’

He understood that she was serious, and answered her seriously. ‘I think it must be because I love you all so much.’

‘Because you love Rufa.’ Rose sniffed. She dug in her sleeve for a hard piece of old tissue.

‘All of you. You’ve been a family to me – everyone needs some very annoying relations. Let’s say I liked being annoyed. It stopped me dying of loneliness.’ He had never made such an admission to Rose. Suddenly made awkward by the intimacy, he stood up. ‘May I have some more? I’ll pay you back.’