We had been civil to one another for so many years and cried on each other’s shoulders when there had been no other, and I could not bear any bad feeling between us. To forgive him would be the Christian thing to do and I needed his comfort, but the words stuck in my throat.
Then I heard a rustle as Sir Howard lowered his newspaper. ‘I’m sorry, Agnes,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘I did not mean to upset you.’ I noticed that he did not apologise for his words.
‘Well, I don’t think we will ever agree about Sam,’ I said, ‘but we cannot fall out over it, because after all we only have each other.’ I was shocked at how sentimental my words sounded but he seemed not to hear them.
‘And here!’ he cried, the newspaper rustling with the stab of his finger. ‘It says “Denman must be caught to justify his actions to Sir Howard and the mother of Iris’s servant – two parents brought together by grief.”’ He shook his head as in disbelief. ‘“Brought together” – well, it sounds quite sordid! What exactly do they mean by that?’
‘I suppose it just means the public events that we have attended together,’ I said. ‘The inquests and the meetings with the police and reporters, and then there have been the functions in the village – the fetes and the residents’ meetings. We would always go to them together as we each had no one else to accompany us.’ I only repeated the facts as we both knew them, but I marvelled at how he could not see what the reporters did. Then I added cautiously, ‘It would not be unreasonable for anyone to think that there was more between us.’
‘Oh.’ But he said nothing more, his eyes still skimming the lines of newsprint. I could not read his reaction to what I had said but I was glad that it had not been one of outrage and then, at last, he put the newspaper down on the desk and looked up.
I felt encouraged. ‘Do you remember, Howard,’ I began falteringly, ‘how things used to be? How the two of us used to be in happier times? I mean those days that Nell and I would visit here and the girls would keep each other company and we would break from our discussions about religious education and talk about the trials of raising daughters – of stockings, pocket money, cheap novels, May Day costumes and nightgowns – things that seem so trivial now.’
‘Yes, Agnes,’ he said, his eyes locking on mine. ‘Of course I do.’
‘I think that we both recognised then, what we have in common,’ I continued. ‘You see, you and I have a certain standing in this village. We have both long been widowed, and I think that bringing our girls together made us both stronger. We should not ever fight because we are better together than we are apart.’ It was a speech that I had thought over in my head for some time and I tried to keep my voice light but he had taken off his spectacles and was looking right at me and I heard the words catch as I spoke them.
The room had fallen silent and I realised that I could no longer hear the distant hum of the vacuum cleaner, nor the clatter of buckets.
‘That is true,’ said Sir Howard at last but his eyes narrowed a little as if something confused him.
I took a quick breath. ‘We have a shared past,’ I said, ‘not all of it good, but there are things that bind us together now, and I believe that we could have a future together.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I’ve lost you there.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘for a start we both spend our time rattling around our empty houses, but I have skills that I could bring to Haughten Hall – I could keep the library and tend the garden – and I would be happy to do so.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I have a housekeeper for that sort of thing, and Dora has always been loyal and—’
‘For company, then,’ I said. ‘For we need not share a romantic love. We can put all the newspapers and the police behind us, and as for the villagers, they could not gossip about us if we were together in the eyes of God. It seems quite obvious to me, Howard, is it not to you?’ I crossed over to the desk and put my hand on his, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips. ‘Howard,’ I said, ‘if we were to marry, we could—’
But he drew his hand away from mine and stood up quickly. ‘I am sorry, Agnes,’ he said stiffly, and then left the room, the door banging behind him.
I went slowly back to the window seat and sat down, my body numb and my hands shaking. I realised that I was alone now. There was Roy, of course, but his manner towards me had changed since the old film had been discovered and now I saw not the man but the uniform. Howard was the only one who had shared my grief but now I felt that my last connection to the past had gone, for I could not show my face at Haughten Hall again.
I turned my head to the window once more. Far in the distance, past the stables and the sunken fence, the worn grass track and the clumps of gorse and bracken, a plume of black smoke rose from the fir trees that surrounded Waldley Court. I remembered then what Sir Howard had said about the sentiments he shared with the villagers, and about how they would take action to ensure that Sam got his comeuppance and could not return.
I remembered Sam’s home, or what had remained of it after the police had visited – the old straw mattress that I had propped against the wall to dry, and the stepladder that I had used to air his muddied blanket. Now when I thought of them, I saw only a mass of flames and cinder, charred beams crashing down on the tack room, and circling sparks. I imagined a band of ruffians with flaming torches, lighting anything that would burn – men from the village who had colluded with Sir Howard, were acting out his orders, or were even in his pay. Then I thought of the milk can I had found, the lone vest hung up to dry, and Sam’s boots, clean and placed at the end of his bed as if waiting to be put on – the few things Sam had owned, his most personal possessions, had become ashes. As I watched the distant plume of smoke, I saw what Sir Howard Caldwell was capable of – he would not marry me, he would not love me, but now I realised that he had neither love nor compassion for anyone but ghosts.
16
I saw nothing of Nell for a whole week. Her chair remained empty, day in day out, with not even a shadow upon her dull green shawl, a movement glimpsed from the corner of my eye, or a reflection in the windowpane. I thought that she must be avoiding me because she knew that I was looking for her.
I spent most of my time in the sitting room waiting for her to appear as I busied myself with the jobs I had thought important – rereading some of Thomas’s old theology books, polishing the brass and finishing off some quilting – a pastime that Nell and I had often enjoyed together. I hoped, in vain, that the sight of the colourful fabrics would cause her to appear again.
I had thought myself busy, with some or other of these important jobs always waiting, but after a few days I realised how futile my achievements were and how little they mattered. After all, there was no one to see what I had done and no one to impress, not now that Howard had rejected me.
When the doorbell finally put an end to the silence, my first hope was for Howard with a change of heart and a bouquet of flowers, but then I remembered that he had never once called on me at Oak Cottage, and that now I really did not want him to anyway. I still hurried to the door though, as I was lonely without Nell’s company and I would have been content with a call from the curate, the woman from the historical society or even the postman.