Chapter Thirty-Nine
The day is overcast but Margot still enjoys looking over Mosman Bay.
The colours are more muted – the leaves on the trees are a duller green, the water doesn’t sparkle – and it doesn’t matter.
This is still the place where she’d rather spend her days.
Even as she knows that’s not realistic. Change has come to the house, in the form of poverty and Lavinia’s infirmity, and as much as Margot has been clutching on to all she knows, she’s begun to accept that if she’s to feel less wretched about it, she has to try to take charge of the change rather than letting it happen to her.
For she can’t ignore the fact that change is everywhere. Mosman Bay changes all day, each day – the direction of the wind, for example. The boats that move in and out. The people walking to and from the wharf. There are no two hours the same, let alone two days. Everything is change.
‘You do realise,’ Lavinia says as they eat their breakfast tea and toast on the verandah, ‘that your gentleman caller has plans for you.’
‘Hm?’ Margot says with her mouth full of toast. One minute they’re discussing what’s on at the Opera House and the next Lavinia is talking about Stephen.
‘I believe he has intentions.’ Lavinia raises her eyebrows.
‘Intentions?’
The eyebrows stay up.
‘Oh,’ Margot says, blushing. ‘No, that can’t be right. He still misses his wife.’
‘A person can miss someone who has gone and find room in his – or her – heart for another.’
This is delivered so obliquely that Margot isn’t sure that Stephen is the subject.
‘Who do you miss?’ she says, being bold.
‘Me?’ Lavinia takes a sip of tea, and so does Margot, deciding to let the moment marinate.
‘You weren’t just talking about Stephen, were you?’ she says eventually.
Lavinia sighs and looks out at the bay. ‘No. But it’s long in the past.’
Margot has never known her aunt to have a love interest. She can’t recall her parents ever talking about it.
‘I’d like to know,’ she says.
‘I prefer not to revisit the past,’ Lavinia says. ‘There’s no point in it.’
Margot isn’t going to push. Even though the conversation is a diversion from the subject that really dominates the household: their funds running out. The cash made from the sale of the furniture has only lasted so long.
Despite that, Margot has invited Stephen to dinner this evening, as she feels the need to offer him some of the same kindness he has shown her. With her limited budget she’s going to do the best she can.
Not long after the table is set and everything is ready – and Lavinia’s vowed she wishes to remain in her room and not disturb them – Margot hears Stephen’s knock on the door and her heart beats faster in a way she has only read about in books.
He greets her with a kiss on one cheek and holds out a bottle of wine, which seems extravagant for the simple meal she has made, of coq au vin and some vegetables.
‘Delicious,’ he pronounces after only one bite.
Margot is sure he’s lying, but she’s thrilled nonetheless.
‘Has Lavinia had some of this for her dinner?’ he asks.
‘I offered.’ Margot shrugs. ‘She wanted cheese on toast.’
He looks surprised. ‘I see. Well, she’s missing out.’
They eat in silence for a minute or so as Margot thinks about what is really on her mind: perhaps the biggest change she could make.
‘I would like to ask your opinion about something,’ she says, and he looks pleased.
‘Yes?’
‘I think I need to sell the house.’ She says it quickly, almost as if she wants him to misunderstand.
His brows knit. ‘For what reason?’
‘Lavinia’s accident made me realise she won’t be able to manage the stairs to the street for much longer.’
And we need the money. She doesn’t have to tell him that, though, since he’s probably guessed given the sale of the furniture.
‘Could you make some modifications to the stairs instead?’ he suggests, and she thinks that perhaps he actually doesn’t understand that she needs funds.
‘No,’ she says. She picks up her glass of wine and takes a sip. It is time to be honest with him, she supposes. He has shown himself to be trustworthy.
‘I can’t afford to make changes to the house,’ she continues. ‘I can’t afford …’
This is where her dignity rears its head and makes her want to obfuscate. She can’t bear to admit that she lives in penury. That she’s wasted everything her parents left her, other than the house, because she was too foolish to realise that it wouldn’t last forever.
Stephen reaches across the table and takes her hand. ‘I understand,’ he says.
Tears prick at her eyes and she doesn’t want to let them spill, but spill they do.
He takes her other hand. ‘Dear Margot, I feel you have struggled alone long enough.’
She nods, more tears spill, and he squeezes her hands.
‘Will you let me help you?’ he asks softly.
‘You already have!’ Her cheeks are wet now.
‘There’s no limit on it,’ he says. ‘I want to look after you.’
‘I still don’t understand why.’ Her voice catches.
‘When a man feels deeply for a woman, he wants to take care of her. It’s a natural instinct.
I don’t want to keep mentioning my wife but I …
’ He squeezes Margot’s hands again. ‘I knew that I wanted to marry her when I found myself wanting to take care of her. To make sure that she was happy and secure. I couldn’t explain it.
’ He stares into her eyes. ‘I just knew.’
She tries to understand what he is saying, and thinks that somewhere in it he’s telling her that he thinks of her the way he thought of his late wife. Which is both exhilarating and confusing, because Margot has never thought of herself as the sort of woman a man could be serious about.
‘And I just know about you, Margot.’
His eyes are so kind, she thinks. Big, deep, warm. Reassuring. Who knows what he sees in her eyes, but he’s still staring into them so it can’t be too awful.
‘So may I look after you?’ he murmurs.
She nods her assent, unable to speak in that moment. Even though he has been looking after her in so many ways, this feels like the biggest way. The most significant way.
Margot is not religious, although she has prayed from time to time.
When she was a child she would ask God to bring her brothers back to life, so her father didn’t need to be so sad any more.
When she was a teenager she tried to bargain with God to make her mother happier.
And when Lavinia was taken to hospital after her fall, she prayed again, in a manner of speaking.
The last of these prayers is the only one that worked.
It has not once occurred to her to pray for herself.
She’s never asked for a lightning bolt of love to strike her, for example.
So she does not know how to explain to herself that it has.
That this man in front of her is offering her such tenderness.
Such care. There are no words she can utter which can encompass that.
Stephen smiles and releases her hands.
‘Then please leave it with me,’ he says. ‘And let’s continue to eat this delicious meal.’
They talk lightly after that, and without pause until he leaves, kissing her on the cheek, staring into her eyes, promising he will call in the morning. She knows he will. He is a man of his word.
After she has cleaned up in the kitchen she slowly pushes open the door to the dining room and sees Lavinia sitting up in bed, reading a book.
‘You had a nice night,’ Lavinia states, smiling.
‘A wonderful night,’ Margot affirms.
‘I’m so glad.’
They smile at each other.
‘I do believe,’ Lavinia says, ‘that everything will be all right.’
Margot takes a breath and considers this. Then she feels it, in her chest: the absence of fear. It’s been years since she’s been able to let it go. Fear of the wider world, fear of her inner world. Fear of never being enough and having enough.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I believe it too.’
She blows Lavinia a kiss and pulls the door to, before she makes her way up to her bed, to sleep, to dream.