Windfallen (18 page)

“You’re a great fan of Paris, aren’t you, Celia?” George, seated stretched out in the rocking chair, was grinning at her.

“What?”

“You’re a great fan of Paris. Paris, France, that is.”

He knows, thought Lottie. He knew all along.

“Yes. Yes, Paris—” said Celia, coloring.

“Wonderful to travel in one’s youth.” George lit up another cigarette and exhaled lazily. “Not many young people seem to get the advantages.”

He was doing it deliberately. Lottie watched Celia begin to stammer a response and, unable to bear her discomfort, leaped in.

“Guy here has done more traveling than anyone I know, haven’t you, Guy? He’s told us he’s lived absolutely everywhere. The Caribbean, Guatemala, Honduras. Places I’d never even heard of. It’s all been terribly exciting, listening to him. He conjures up such wonderful pictures . . . the people and everything. The places . . .” Lottie, aware that she was gabbling, had begun to falter.

“Yes. Yes he does,” said Celia gratefully. “Lots and I have been simply spellbound. And Mummy and Daddy. I think he must have given the entire family the travel bug.”

“And you, Mrs. Armand,” said Dee Dee. “You have a slight accent. Where’s it from?”

The door that had been slamming upstairs suddenly became unquestionably louder, so that Lottie jumped. As the party looked up, Frances stood in the doorway of the drawing room. She was wearing a long velvet coat and a striped scarf, and her face was as white as the walls.

She stood very still for a moment, as if she had not expected the room to be populated. Then she turned to face Adeline, and it was to her that she spoke.

“Do excuse me,” she said. “I was just leaving.”

“Frances—” Adeline rose and reached out a hand. “Please—”

“Don’t. Just don’t. George, would you be kind enough to drive me to the station?”

George stubbed out his cigarette and pushed himself out of the chair. “Whatever you say, dearest. . . .”

“Sit down, George.”

It was Adeline. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she bade him down again in a manner that was almost imperious.

“Adeline—”

“Frances, you cannot leave like this.”

Frances bit her lip. She was clutching her tote so tightly that all the blood had drained from her knuckles. “George, please—”

The room had fallen silent.

George, his customary smirk temporarily wiped from his face, looked at each of the women and then at Julian. He shrugged and then slowly rose to stand.

Lottie suddenly became aware of the people around them. Mrs. Holden and Dee Dee, seated next to each other and holding fast to their cups of tea, were both transfixed, so much so that Mrs. Holden wasn’t even
trying
to pretend not to listen. Mr. Bancroft, who was frowning slightly, was swiftly set upon by Julian, who, with an exclamation that he “particularly wanted him to see something in the study,” bore him away from the scene. Celia and Guy sat by the door, their gestures and blank faces unconsciously mirroring each other. Only Stephen seemed truly oblivious, still reading his newspaper. It was, Lottie noticed, almost a week out of date.

“Please come, George. I would like to catch the quarter past, if possible.”

Adeline’s voice rose to an uncomfortable pitch. “No! Frances, you cannot leave like this! This is ridiculous! Ridiculous!”

“Oh, ridiculous, is it? Everything is ridiculous to you, Adeline. Everything that is honest and real. It is ridiculous because it makes you uncomfortable.”

“That is not true!”

“You are pitiful, you know? You think you are brave and original. But you are just an artifice. An artifice created from flesh.” Frances was wrestling against tears, her long features screwed up in childlike frustration.

“Well.” Mrs. Holden had stood up to leave. “I think we should perhaps—” She glanced around, realizing that the only route out of the room was blocked by George and the two women. “It seems we—”

“I have told you a thousand times, Frances . . . you ask too much. . . . I cannot. . .” Adeline’s voice began to break.

George, standing between the two women, lowered his head.

“No. I know you cannot. And that is why I am leaving.” Frances turned, and Adeline reached after her, her face twisted in anguish. George caught her as she missed and placed an arm around her. It was impossible to tell whether it was comforting or restraining.

“I am sorry, Frances!” Adeline shouted after her. “I am truly
sorry! Please
. . .”

Lottie felt her stomach clench. The world felt out of control, as if all its natural limits had been dissolved. The door, still banging irregularly, seemed to grow in volume, until all she could hear was Adeline’s irregular breaths and the bang, crash of wood against frame.

Suddenly Guy was standing in the middle of the room.

“Let’s step outside for a moment. Has anyone seen the mural? It’s finished, apparently. I’d love to see it finished. Mother? Will you have a look with me? Mrs. Holden?”

Dee Dee jumped to her feet, placing a hand on Mrs. Holden’s shoulder. “That’s a wonderful idea, darling. What a very good idea. I’m sure we’d love to see the mural, wouldn’t we, Susan?”

“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Holden gratefully. “The mural.”

Lottie and Celia brought up the rear, the shock of the previous scene briefly reuniting them. Unable to speak, they raised eyebrows at each other and shook their heads, their hair starfishing as they stepped outside into the high winds.

“What
was
that?” whispered Celia, leaning right into Lottie to ensure that she was heard.

“No idea,” said Lottie.

“Goodness only knows what Guy’s parents must have thought. I can’t believe it, Lots. Two grown women wailing away in broad daylight.”

Lottie felt suddenly chilled. Down below them the sea whipped and frothed in a furious frenzy, the mild breezes of summer seemingly forgotten within hours. There would be a storm tonight, without question.

“We should go,” said Lottie, feeling the first spit of rain on her face. But Celia didn’t seem to hear. She was walking over to where Guy was standing with the two women, gazing at Frances’s handiwork. They were staring intently at a central figure, exclaiming in lowered voices.

Oh, God, it’s Julian, Lottie thought suddenly. She’ll have done something awful to him.

But it was not Julian they were staring at.

“How fascinating,” said Dee Dee, shouting slightly to be heard above the wind. “It’s definitely her. You can see from the hair.”

“What? Who?” said Celia, pulling her skirt around her legs.

“It’s Laodamia. Laodamia. Oh, you know me and my Greek myths, Guy. We don’t get a lot of good literature out where we are,” she explained to Mrs. Holden. “So I got kind of interested in the Greeks. Amazing stories, they have.”

“Yes. Yes, we have studied a little Homer at our salon,” said Mrs. Holden.

“The painter. He’s done her as—”

“She, Mother. It was done by the woman who—the one who’s leaving.”

“Ah. Well. Kind of odd, then. But she’s painted Mrs. Armand as one of the women of Troy. Laodamia was obsessed with a wax image of her missing husband—what was his name? Ah, yes, that was it—Protesilaus. Look, see, she’s done his image here.”

Lottie stared. In the painting, Adeline’s face, apparently oblivious to the people around her, gazed at the crude wax dummy, enraptured.

“Not bad, Mrs. Bancroft. Not bad at all. Not the most obvious of references, I would have thought.” George had appeared behind them, a refreshed glass of wine in one hand, his hair blowing upright, as if in shock. “Adeline as Laodamia indeed.
‘Crede mihi, plus est, quam quod videatur, imago
.’” He paused, possibly for effect. “‘
Believe me, the image is more than it may seem
.’”

“But Mrs. Armand’s husband is here. . . .” Mrs. Holden squinted at the paint, pulling her handbag ever closer to her. “Julian Armand is here.” She turned to face Dee Dee.

George looked at the image and turned away. “They are married, yes,” he said, and wandered back inside, swaying slightly as he went.

Dee Dee raised an eyebrow at Mrs. Holden. “Guy Junior did warn us about these artistic types. . . .” She peered back through the terrace doors, holding a hand to her hair as if it might fly away. “Do you think it’s safe for us to go back in now?”

They turned to leave. Celia, who had come out in the thinnest of cardigans, was hugging her arms and stamping impatiently by the door. “This rain is cold. Really cold. And I haven’t brought a coat.”

“None of us has, dear. Come on, Dee Dee. Let’s see what they’ve done with your husband.”

Only Lottie stood still, staring at the mural, hiding the sudden trembling of her hands by ramming them deep into her pockets.

Guy stood several feet away. As she tore her eyes away from the images, she realized from the angle at which he was standing that he must have seen it, too. On the far left, slightly set apart from the fourteen or so other characters, perhaps a little unfinished in terms of brushstroke and tone. A girl in a long emerald dress, with rosebuds in her hair. She was leaning in, her expression full of secrets, accepting an apple from a man with the sun on his back.

Lottie looked at the image and then back at Guy.

At the sudden lack of color in his face.

L
OTTIE HAD RACED HOME AHEAD OF THE OTHERS, OSTENSIBLY
to help Virginia get the food ready, but in fact because she had been overcome by an unstoppable urge to escape. She could no longer force polite conversation, could no longer look at Celia while shielding the raw envy in her eyes, could no longer be near him. Hear him. See him. She had run all the way home, her chest tearing, the air ripping at her lungs, her breath filling her ears; oblivious to the cold and the wind and the wet on her face and the fact that her plait had come out and her hair had snarled into salted strings.

It cannot be borne, she told herself. It just cannot be borne.

S
HE WAS UPSTAIRS SAFELY RUNNING
F
REDDIE AND
Sylvia’s bath when she heard them come in. She heard Virginia, who had been pleased to be relieved of this particular duty, taking coats, and Mrs. Holden exclaiming that she had never been so embarrassed in all her life. Dee Dee was laughing; they had apparently bonded over the strangeness of Arcadia’s inhabitants. As the steam rose from the bath, filling the room, Lottie dropped her head into her hands. She felt feverish, her throat dry. Perhaps I am dying, she thought melodramatically. Perhaps dying would be easier than this.

“Can I bring my cow into the bath?”

Freddie appeared at the bathroom door, already naked and clutching a farmyard toy. His arms were streaked with dirt and dried blood from the dead fox.

Lottie nodded. She was too tired to fight.

“I need a wee-wee. Sylvia says she’s not having a bath tonight.”

“Yes she is,” said Lottie wearily.
“Sylvia, get in here please.”

“I can’t reach my flannel. Will you reach me the flannel?”

She would have to leave. She had always known she couldn’t stay here forever, but Guy’s presence had brought an urgency to it. For there was no way she could stay here once they were married; they would visit incessantly, and it was too great a cruelty to have to watch them together. As it was, she was going to have to find an extremely good reason to avoid the wedding.

Oh, God, the wedding.

“I need a clean flannel. This one smells.”

“Oh, Freddie . . .”

“It does. Smell. Ow. That water’s too hot. Look, my cow’s dead now. You made the water too hot, and now my cow’s dead.”

“Sylvia.”
Lottie began to run cold water into the bath.

“Can I wash my own hair? Virginia lets me wash my own hair.”

“No she doesn’t.
Sylvia!
”

“Do I look pretty?” Sylvia had been in Mrs. Holden’s makeup bag. Her cheeks were heavily rouged, as if she were recovering from some medieval illness, while two blocks of blue shimmer cascaded down over her eyes.

“Oh, my goodness! Your mother is going to tan you. You get that off this instant.”

Sylvia folded her arms. “But I like it.”

“Do you want your mother to lock you in your room tomorrow? Because I promise you, Sylvia, if she gets one look at you, that’s what she’s going to do.”

Lottie was having trouble keeping her temper. Sylvia’s face contorted, and she lifted one lipsticked hand to her face. “But I want—”

“Can I come in?”

Lottie, who was wresting Sylvia’s shoes off, looked up and felt her face prickle. He was standing there, stooped slightly in the doorway, half hesitant, as if he weren’t sure whether to approach. Above the steam and soap, she could smell the clean, cold salt air on him.

“I killed a bear today, Guy. Look! Look at all the blood!”

“Lottie, I—I needed to see you.”

“I wrestled it with my bare hands. I was protecting my cow, you see. Have you seen my cow?”

“Guy, do you think I look pretty?”

Lottie didn’t dare move. If she did, she thought she might crack and splinter, and all the bits would crumble into nothing.

She was so hot.

“It’s Frances,” he said, and her heart, which had briefly allowed itself to quiver, sank. He had come to inform her of some domestic row downstairs. Perhaps he was going to pick Frances up from the station. Perhaps Mr. Bancroft was going to buy some of Frances’s work. She looked down at her hands, which were almost imperceptibly trembling. “Oh,” she said.

“I’ve got lipstick on. Look! Guy, look!”

“Yes,” he said distractedly. “Great cow, Freddie. Really great.”

He seemed unwilling to walk into the room. Looked up at the ceiling and down, as if struggling with something. There was a long pause, during which Sylvia, unnoticed, wiped the makeup from her face with Mrs. Holden’s good flannel.

“Oh, this is impossible. Look, I wanted to tell you . . .” He rubbed at his hair. “That she got it right. On the picture. The mural, I mean.”

Lottie looked up at him.

“Frances saw it. She saw it before I did.”

“Saw what?” Freddie had dropped his cow out of the bath and was bending perilously over the side.