Windfallen

  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.

  LOTTIE 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.

  SHE WAS UPSTAIRS SAFELY RUNNING FREDDIE 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.

  "I think I'm probably the last to see it." He was agitated, cast exasperated looks at the backs of the two children. "But she's right, isn't she?"

  Lottie ceased to feel hot, could no longer feel the tremor in her hands. She breathed out, a long, shaking breath. Then she smiled, a slow, sweet smile, allowing herself for the first time the luxury of looking at him without fear of what he might see.

  "Tell me she's right, Lottie." His voice, a whisper, sounded curiously apologetic.

  Lottie passed Frederick a clean flannel. Tried to convey a world in the slightest of glances. "I saw it long before the picture," she said.

  SEVEN

  There was, if Mrs. Holden said so herself, a definite glow to her cheeks that morning. She might even, she thought, leaning forward as she applied a little mascara (but not too much; it was the Sunday service), allow a suggestion that she looked just a little younger than usual. Her brow looked a bit less crumpled; there were perhaps fewer anxiety lines around the eyes. This rejuvenation was partly, it had to be said, due to the success of the Bancrofts' visit. Despite that mortifying argument between the actress and her friend, Dee Dee (extraordinary names these Americans gave themselves) had thought it all highly amusing, as if it were some touristic attraction they had laid on especially for the Bancrofts' visit. Guy Senior had professed himself more than pleased by those paintings he had bought from Mr. Armand. They should prove a nice little investment, he said after supper, as he packed them carefully into the car. He had decided he quite liked all that modern stuff. Privately, Mrs. Holden would have died rather than have any of those on her drawing room wall; they looked like something Mr. Beans had brought up. But Dee Dee had simply grinned at her in an "all girls together" kind of way and said, "Whatever keeps you happy, Guyhoney" . . . and then they had gone, with promises of more fruit and further visits before the wedding itself.

  And there was Celia; she seemed somewhat less up and down than she had been of late. She was making a bit more of an effort with herself. Mrs. Holden had wondered (aloud) whether Celia had neglected Guy a little; perhaps got a bit carried away with the wedding and forgotten about the groom (she had suffered the tiniest pang of guilt that she might have been a contributing factor; one couldn't help getting terribly involved in planning a wedding). But Guy had been more solicitous to her daughter, and Celia, in return, was patently doing her very best to look gorgeous and be flirtatious and interesting. Mrs. Holden, just to be on the safe side, had given Celia some women's magazines that stressed the importance of remaining interesting to your husband. That and other things, which Mrs. Holden still felt rather uncomfortable discussing with her daughter.

  Mrs. Holden felt better equipped than normal to dish out marital advice at the moment, as for the past few days Henry Holden had been quite uncharacteristically nice to his wife. He had come home from work on time two days running, had somehow managed not to be called out on any late-night visits. He had offered to take the whole family out to lunch at the Riviera, as an apology for not having been present for most of the Bancrofts' visit. Most important, the previous night (here she felt herself pink slightly) he had even made a visit into her bed, the first time he'd done so since Celia returned from London, some six weeks previously. He wasn't one of those romantic types, Henry. But it was lovely to get the attention.

  Mrs. Holden glanced backward at the pair of single divans, their unruffled candlewick spreads casting discreet canopies over the night's secrets. Dearest Henry. And now that horrid redheaded girl was gone.

  Almost unconsciously she put down her lipstick and just lightly tapped the walnut veneer surface of her dressing table. Yes, things were going very nicely at the moment.

  UPSTAIRS LOTTIE LAY ON HER OWN SINGLE BED LISTENING to Celia and the children downstairs gathering coats in preparation for the walk to church. In Freddie's case this involved several exclamations and muttered threats, followed by loud protestations of innocence and an eventual slamming of doors. Finally, accompanied by the exasperated cries of his mother, the closing of the front door signified that, apart from Lottie, the house was finally empty.

  She lay very still, listening to it stir, hearing the underlying noises more often drowned out by the shrieking of children: the tick of the clock in the hall, the gentle intestinal rumble and hiss of the hot-water system, the distant clunk of car doors shut outside. She lay feeling these noises seep into her overheated head and wished that she could enjoy this all-too-rare moment of solitude.

  Lottie had been ill for almost a week; she could time it exactly, to the day after the Great Admission, or the Last Day She Had Seen Him (these both being of such momentousness that they required capital letters). The night after Guy had revealed his own feelings for her, she had lain awake through the small hours, burning and feverish, her limbs twitching and restless. At first she had thought that her delirious, chaotic thoughts were due to her own terrible guilt. But in the morning, examining her throat, Dr. Holden had put it less biblically down to a virus and prescribed a week's bed rest and as many fluids as she could manage.

  Celia, while sympathetic, had moved out and into Sylvia's room immediately ("Sorry, Lots, but there's no way I'm getting ill with the whole wedding thing to sort out"), and Lottie had been left alone, with only Virginia's regular (and, it had to be said, rather bad-tempered) trays of soup and juice and Freddie's occasional checks "to see if she was dead yet."

  At times Lottie had wished she were dead. She'd heard herself murmuring at night, terrified in her delirium that she would give herself away. She could not bear the fact that, with her having finally echoed her own feelings, Guy was now as effectively banished from her as if she'd been Rapunzel in a tower with a new haircut. For while normally they might find a dozen reasons to bump into each other around the house or out walking the dog, there was no earthly reason that a young man--a young man engaged to the young lady of the house--should be seen to enter her bedroom.

  After two days, unable to bear his absence any longer, she had made herself go downstairs for water, just to catch a glimpse of him. But she had almost collapsed in the corridor, and Mrs. Holden and Virginia, with much grunting and scolding, had carried her back up, one of her pale arms slung weakly over each of their shoulders. She had only a split second in which to catch his eye but knew from even that brief look that there was an understanding between them, and that had fueled her faith for another long day and night.

  She had felt his presence; he'd brought South African grapes for her, their sweet, taut skins bursting with flavor. He'd sent up Spanish lemons to add to boiled water and honey to help her throat, bruised, fleshy figs to persuade her to eat. Mrs. Holden had remarked in admiring tones the generosity of his family (and no doubt kept a few for herself).

  But it w
as not enough. And like someone dying of thirst and offered a thimbleful of water, Lottie soon decided that these small tastes of him had made things worse. For now she tortured herself, imagining him, in her absence, rediscovering the many fragrant charms of Celia. How could he not, when Celia spent her whole time thinking up ways of winning him over? "What do you think of this dress, Lots?" she would say, parading a new frock up and down the bedroom. "Think it makes my bust look bigger?" And Lottie would smile weakly and excuse herself on the grounds that she thought she might need some sleep.

  The door downstairs opened again. Lottie lay awake listening to the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.

  Mrs. Holden stood at the door.

  "Lottie dear, I forgot to tell you--I've left some sandwiches for you in the fridge, as we'll probably go straight from church to the hotel for lunch. You've got egg and cress, and a couple of ham, and there's a jug of lemon barley. Henry says you should try to drink it all today; you're still not drinking enough."

  Lottie nodded slowly and mustered a grateful smile.

  Mrs. Holden pulled on her gloves, looking past Lottie at the bed, as if considering something. Then, unsolicited, she walked briskly over and pulled the blankets across, folding them tightly under the mattress. That done, she reached up and felt Lottie's head.

  "You're still a little warm," she said, shaking her head. "You poor old thing. You've really had a rough time of it this week, haven't you?"

  Lottie had not often heard that softness in her voice. When Mrs. Holden, having smoothed back Lottie's unwashed hair, squeezed her hand, Lottie found herself squeezing it back in return.

  "Will you be all right by yourself?"

  "Fine, thank you," croaked Lottie. "Think I'll probably sleep."

  "Good idea." Mrs. Holden turned to leave the room, smoothing her own hair as she did so. "I imagine we'll be back by around two. We'll eat early because of the children. Goodness knows how Freddie is going to behave himself seated at a nice restaurant. I should imagine I'll be hanging my head in shame before the dessert trolley makes it around." She paused, checked inside her handbag. "There's two aspirin on the side. Now, don't forget what Henry said, dear. Keep your fluids up."

  Lottie nodded, already feeling the pull of sleep.