Chapter 22
At five o’clock the next day, Clementine and Alfie were waiting in the First Class lounge at Paddington. She’d travelled up Second Class, for she thought it was a terrible waste of money to go First, but he’d bought their tickets home.
‘Darlings!’ The two of them turned to see Elizabeth bearing down on them, a wide smile on her face.
She was in a cream bouclé suit, carrying a clutch of shopping bags in her leather-gloved hands.
‘I wondered if you might be on this train. I only decided to come up at the last minute. There were a few things I needed. And I wanted to look for something to wear to the Snow Ball. Part of me thinks I should wear one of my old dresses – I have so many from over the years. But it’s nice to have something new, don’t you think? ’
Her voice was too bright, her information too detailed, for Clementine to believe her.
Her shopping bags must be a deliberate distraction, no doubt hastily grabbed before or after a tryst with Jasper, for she had the aura of a woman who has spent the day with her lover. There was something wild in her eyes.
‘Hello, Mum. Come and join us. Shall I get us all a drink before the train leaves? We’ve got just enough time.’ Alfie looked delighted to see his mother. He reached out to take the shopping bags off her.
‘Perhaps a small gin and tonic.’ Elizabeth patted her hair once her hands were free, as if checking that it didn’t look as if she’d tumbled out of bed.
‘Just an orange juice for me,’ said Clementine.
She was half looking to see if Stella and Ted were anywhere.
It was hard to believe it was only yesterday she’d spotted them on the train and become aware of their existence.
There was no sign of them. Suddenly she felt exhausted by all the secrets she was carrying.
She longed for her little bedroom at Foxwood, then remembered that she and Alfie would be back in their room now she had the all-clear from Dr Shaw.
The thought cheered her, and she thought about waking up in his arms tomorrow, the familiar scent of woodsmoke that was beginning to define Foxwood for her drifting in through the window.
There’d be bacon and eggs for breakfast.
The journey back to Breverton couldn’t go quickly enough.
Once they were on the train, Elizabeth sank into the corner of the carriage and closed her eyes. The afternoon had turned into rather an ordeal, and she was utterly drained.
Jasper had lunch laid out beautifully on a little table in the flat. Ripples of smoked salmon, pale pink on green china, and triangles of buttered bread. Then poulet anglais, plump breasts of chicken smothered in a creamy sauce. He had a girl somewhere who came in to cook for him.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have come, but it would have been rather cruel, to have phoned him in extremis and then cancelled.
They’d had a strained hour together, when she’d told him how her family had to come first now, what with Clementine and Alfie coming to Foxwood and the miscarriage, and he had cried, which was absolutely awful.
‘I’m not sure you realise what you mean to me,’ he told her, and she had no idea what to say to console him.
And it was odd, for when she looked at him, she didn’t feel a fraction of the attraction that had been so unmanageable for so many years.
Once, she’d had an endless compulsion to feed the monster inside her, the lust, that deadliest of sins, the one that could destroy everything she held dear.
No matter what she’d done to try and quieten its siren call, it had shouted louder than either her conscience or her common sense.
For years, she’d had two trains of thought in her head all the time.
Whatever was going on, on the surface, and Jasper Jasper Jasper underneath, with a running commentary of either things that had happened with him or things that might happen, a cocktail of memory and fantasy.
It was like being possessed. She had always thought of herself as sensible, and strong willed, but he’d reduced her to rubble inside.
Yet to the casual observer, she was a sophisticated woman in control of her life.
She’d excused her behaviour to herself because of Edwin. But she realised now that was despicable, to somehow blame the death of her son for her weakness. There were plenty of bereaved mothers who behaved with decorum and didn’t leap into bed with their dead son’s best friend.
But it was done. Once and for all. She’d escaped as quickly as she could, bitterly regretting going to see him at all, and had met Alexandra in Liberty. Alexandra had looked at her suspiciously.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You seem agitata.’
‘Oh, fine,’ said Elizabeth, picking up a snow globe with a fox inside. ‘There’s just not all that much time to organise the ball, that’s all. I’m out of practice.’
‘You could do it in your sleep.’
Elizabeth brandished the snow globe. ‘I’m going to get this for the mantelpiece.’
Now, she sighed as she looked at all the shopping bags in the luggage rack. She’d spent far too much money, trying to bury her guilt about Jasper.
‘Mum?’ Alfie was looking at her, concerned.
‘Sorry. I was just thinking about what we need to get in for the weekend …’ She trailed off. It was exhausting, trying to be normal. She took in a deep breath to try to calm her racing mind.
She looked at her daughter-in-law, her long lashes resting on smooth, pink cheeks as she slept, and her mouth curled into a smile.
She had already come to love Clementine, she realised.
Her kindness, her sense of fun, her sense of family – even though she didn’t have Arbutus blood she felt like one of them. Like the daughter she’d never had.
Elizabeth sat up sharply. How could she have such a thought?
She had a daughter! But Diana made such heavy weather of everything.
What was wrong with her? she wondered. Diana hadn’t been tricky as a child.
She’d been quite a sunny little thing. Pony-mad, of course, as she still was – well, horse-mad now – which had made her easy to manage, because Elizabeth could plonk her on the back of Magic and lead her round, or when she got bigger they would go out on a hack together.
They’d been quite close, then. And now, she didn’t really have any idea what made Diana tick, how she felt about the important things in life.
Like children. Elizabeth never dared broach the subject of when Diana and Rory might start a family.
That was wrong, surely? She was her mother.
They should be able to talk about these things, but honestly she wouldn’t know where to begin.
She could just imagine Diana’s hostile glare if she brought the subject up.
Where had she gone wrong?
Diana had been just nineteen when Edwin died.
His death had hit her terribly hard, but they’d all been so wrapped up in their own grief perhaps she hadn’t had as much attention as she’d needed.
She’d been left to get on with it. And once she’d married Rory, Elizabeth felt a kind of relief that Diana’s happiness was someone else’s responsibility.
But Rory didn’t seem to be the answer. Over the past few years, Diana had become more and more confrontational, and there was a bitterness that hadn’t been there when she was younger.
She’d try to get to the bottom of it when she got back.
It would be a delicate operation. Diana didn’t respond well to interference.
But it was her duty as a mother to make sure her child was happy.
She shouldn’t have let things slip so far, but it had crept up on her, the realisation that something must be wrong.
On and on the train sped through towns and villages that were settling down for the night, the street lamps and house lights sprinkling themselves across the countryside.
She thought of Michael, who’d be waiting for them on the platform at Breverton in his camel-hair coat, the car outside the ticket office with the engine running so the heater would stay on to keep them all warm.
She’d neglected him too, even if he didn’t realise it.
She must make life less about her own licentious needs, and more about everyone she loved.
An hour later, as Michael turned into the drive, the two stone foxes gazed down at her with disdain, and the house stood there, honeyed and judgemental, almost daring her to cross the threshold.
She stiffened, confused and unsure. It’s not that easy, she heard a voice say.
You can re-invent yourself as the perfect wife and mother overnight and turn your back on what you were. An adulteress.
She told herself not to listen. It was her mind playing tricks. The house couldn’t possibly have any idea what she’d done. It was her conscience speaking. But the voice was right – she shouldn’t forget what she had done.
But why not? It wasn’t as if it was something she’d set out to do.
She had been mad with grief. That awful pain, that was there every morning when she woke up and never left her all day.
Even when she was asleep, she dreamt of Edwin.
He was always just out of reach, her beautiful boy.
No mother should ever have to suffer the loss of a child.
It was unbearable. She could feel it now, a grinding ache, somewhere between her heart and her womb, that never dulled. You simply got used to it.
And she’d been so tired. Not put-your-feet-up-with-a-magazine-or-have-an-early-night kind of tired, but deep-down exhaustion from trying to put on a brave face, to smile and pretend that she was coping, keeping her upper lip as stiff as she could while looking after everyone else and making sure they were coping with that awful, awful loss.
It was her role and her duty, as a wife and a mother, but it took every last drop of energy from her until she felt there was nothing left but a heap of dried-out bones and skin.
She could put on a pretty frock and a painted smile and everyone thought ‘How marvellous Elizabeth is’, but inside, she was as dead as Edwin.
Had it been so very wrong, to do something that took the pain away?
Perhaps. Only she couldn’t go back and change the past. What was done was done.
All she could do now was try to make the future better.
But was her conscience really not going to allow her to feel renewed?
Would it swipe at her every time she felt a sense of achievement?
Would it whisper in her ear and remind her she was a traitor?
She felt her eyes fill with tears, and her throat tighten, and the ache throb, throb, throb.
No, she thought. She wasn’t going to let her conscience destroy her spirit.
For Michael. For Alfie and Clementine and the baby she was certain would be here before long.
Even for Diana, who she knew deep down needed her, even if she pretended she didn’t.
Being consumed with guilt served no purpose.
She could acknowledge she’d done wrong, but she wasn’t going to let regret eat away at her.
She would pour her love and her energy into her marriage, into Foxwood, into her children …
Atonement was going to be a long and lonely path, but she was determined not to be cowed.
She breathed in until she regained her composure, blinking away the tears and putting on her best smile as the car zoomed in through the gates, cutting through the pale chippings on the drive with a defiant flourish.