Summertime Read online

  ‘What about your nephew, Piers Montague? What about him?’

  Laura looked sad. ‘Yes, that would have been quite the thing, I would have said. They would have been so suited, I agree. Except, no, I am afraid not.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  Laura shook her head, her expression even sadder. ‘Oh, no, I am afraid not. You see, my nephew is – ahem – a, er, a confirmed bachelor and always has been, if you understand me? We always knew, everyone in the family knew, he was born that way. Nothing to be done. But he is very charming.’

  There was a long silence while the import of Laura’s words sank into Lola’s head. She knew exactly what the euphemism ‘confirmed bachelor’ implied in pleasant society. It meant that the man mentioned could never possibly find himself attracted to the opposite sex.

  ‘Piers is very attractive, I grant you,’ Laura went on, and a sweet, proud look came into her eyes. ‘He is very tall and handsome, but he just does not like the opposite sex in that way. He likes older ladies, which is probably why he comes to stay with me from time to time, but he has never been known to take out a young lady whilst here, I am afraid.’

  ‘But you were talking about sending me down to decorate his house, weren’t you? I remember you said that I could help him with his farmhouse, or some such, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I thought you could, but the reason I did not get back in touch with you was because – well, apparently he has a little friend who is going to do it for him, now, someone he has known for quite a long time, I believe. So really there was no need to worry you, was there?’

  Laura managed to look innocent and vague at the same time. For some reason that Lola could not understand, she blew on the tops of her lace-mittened fingers.

  ‘Just give me your nephew’s address, Laura, and I will sort out the rest.’

  ‘There is no real point in giving you his address, I mean Piers’s address in Somerset, Lola dear, because I happen to know from a friend – whom I cannot of course name – that she has in fact gone north. Mrs James has gone north. She wanted to get on with some painting, and my friend was taking her to his studio there, to paint the Yorkshire Dales, I think he said. At any rate, she is definitely not in Somerset.’

  ‘The Yorkshire Dales, you say.’ Lola stared at Laura Montague. She was too much the innocent old lady for her liking. She was too cute for words, what with her old-fashioned, pre-war black silk frock and her black lace Whistler’s Mother type mittens, and her immaculate white hair. ‘How do you know, from this friend,’ she asked, suddenly suspicious. ‘How do you know that Trilby has gone north?’

  ‘Because,’ Laura told her, sweetly anxious to help, ‘he is a neighbour of her parents, also a painter. I bought something from him only the other day. You know Chelsea, ten painters to every yard!’ She gave a light laugh, one mittened hand going up to her mouth as she did so.

  Lola stood up, her face flushed from the heat of the old lady’s fire. ‘So where is this place, this place where your friend has a studio, in the north, where is it?’

  Laura told her, and then, having done so, she said, ‘You’ll never find it, though. I went last summer and it was impossible to find. It is one of those addresses that, quite frankly, no-one can find, a post office conundrum. You know, like saying you live in say Leeds, when in fact you are four miles to the north. Besides which, my friend has gone there with her, so really, you can appreciate, it might well be impossible for you to find the place. And, too, it might be a waste of time. Trilby might have left once you get there.’

  By now Lola could have screamed, what with the heat of the room and the overwhelming, almost patronising patience of the old woman, but instead of screaming she said, ‘If you could just give me the address I am sure I will find it.’

  ‘Of course. I should be delighted.’

  Lola almost ran out to her car again. Her heart was singing at the idea of catching up with Trilby, and probably exactly within the twenty-four hours that Micklethwaite had so sadistically set. She felt clever beyond words, and, not only that, but oddly excited. She liked a drama, and she imagined that whatever else the next twenty-four hours would bring it would certainly bring that.

  The face was appearing, slowly, a ferret, and looking like a ferret, but with David Micklethwaite’s character. Next to him appeared another animal, a field mouse, looking oddly like Trilby herself, and beside her a dapper-looking hare with more than a passing resemblance to Piers. And then the telephone rang, and, as if she was in a train arriving at a station she did not recognise, Trilby realised what it was almost too late. It was the phone, and it was ringing. Reluctantly she picked it up, coming to her senses, taking in the newly painted sitting room in which she sat, with its bright rugs and books, and the small fire burning in the grate because the farmhouse rooms were still damp, even in summer, and Piers liked to light the fire for her.

  A woman’s voice greeted her, and Trilby’s face brightened. Finally she said, ‘Yes, thank you, thank you so much. No, I understand. Yes, that would be lovely.’

  She replaced the telephone, and then stared at it, wondering why on earth she had said yes to the unknown voice at the other end. She had been too deep in her drawing, in another world, and now someone who had announced herself as an old friend of Piers was coming round.

  Trilby stood up and went to the old mirror hanging on the wall by the fireside and stared at herself. Would anyone who had ever known her know her now, she wondered? Even with her red hair, and her light tan, would they know this Trilby, in her cheap cotton dress and sandalled feet, as the old Trilby James who wore real women’s clothes and attended dinner parties every evening, and went to the opera and played obedient hostess to her husband, who was a powerful man of whom it was said that he could, if he wished, help to bring down governments?

  Trilby leaned closer to the mirror. Her own answer to her image had to be no; she herself would not know her new self. But really it had nothing to do with the clothes, or the hair colour, but everything to do with being rounded and happy, with not living in fear of Lewis. Everything perhaps to do with being in the country – enjoying the freedom, the lack of restraint, the sense of being able to be herself, not someone that someone else wanted her to be: ‘Mrs Lewis James’ in tailored suits and dresses, in high-heeled shoes and stockings that needed straight seams and nails that must always be varnished.

  But now there was to be a visitor, and what was worrying was that, now that Trilby had remembered what she had said, she seemed to know who Trilby was, and wanted to come round as a result. To put her off could have roused suspicions, but on the other hand, now that she was coming to the farm, she might become too curious. Trilby turned from the mirror. Whatever happened she must act normally. She would say she was just staying with Piers, for a few days, until she had finished some sketching, that kind of thing.

  It seemed that only a few minutes had passed when there was a ring of the old iron bell outside the front door. Mabel answered it, and Trilby heard her say, ‘Well, I’ll have to go and ask Miss Ardisonne.’

  Mabel now stood at the sitting room door, her innocent presence as reassuring as a plateful of home-made scones. ‘There’s Mrs Marston, an old friend of Mr Piers, at the front door, says she’s come to see you, and she rang a few minutes ago. Says I told her to call, although I can’t remember any such conversation, really I can’t,’ she added.

  ‘Thank you, Mabel, yes, show her in.’

  ‘Ah, there you are.’ The visitor was a large woman in an over-bright mackintosh and matching hat. She cut a colourful figure in the newly decorated sitting room, which Trilby and Piers had painted over a number of happy evenings. As soon as she saw her visitor Trilby smiled. It was difficult not to, for everything about the woman spoke of jollity and good nature. Not just her bright clothes, but the correspondingly bright expression in her eyes, and the bright lipstick that matched her hat and seemed to be spread across the white surface of her face like jam on top of a rice pudding. ‘S
o you’re Miss Ardisonne, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Where’s Piers, the old devil?’

  ‘Out in the fields. He will be home at six, or near enough. Not so long now, if you want to stay and see him?’

  ‘Not a bit, I have no intention of staying and seeing him, by no means. No, my dear, I came to see you. I had such a need to see a civilised face. Really, I did. My name is Mary Louise – always known as Marilu. But, you know, you can call me what you like. Goodness, it is good to see someone vaguely civilised. I heard about you from Mabel in the village shop, so I plucked up the courage to come up to the farm and introduce myself. You don’t mind, do you, Miss Ardisonne?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t mind. It’s very nice.’

  ‘Hallo.’ They shook hands briefly and Trilby smiled. ‘I like to think that I like country life, but moving here – Somerset, it is in the depths of beyond, isn’t it? I mean to say, if you’re not a cow, if you’ll forgive the expression, or an excuse me sheep, if you’re not an excuse me hen or a duck, you might as well just hang up your hat around these parts, that is how interested Somerset is in people. If they can’t shear it, or kill it, if they can’t wring its neck, smoke it, or ride it, they simply don’t want to know. Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Of course not, please. Do sit down.’

  Mary Louise sank down into one of Piers’s old leather armchairs and lit an untipped cigarette with a slim gold lighter with the expertise of a woman who had been waiting to smoke for at least ten long minutes. She exhaled thankfully, and at the same time carefully removed a piece of tobacco from the tip of her tongue.

  ‘I hate to think of you having to go through what I have had to go through these last ten years, my dear.’

  Trilby looked interested by this statement, but not startled. ‘Has it been very tough?’

  ‘Tough. My dear, can you imagine? Not a shop that sells anything except lisle stockings, not a hairdresser that knows how to cut anything except the Windsor Bob, and worst of all nothing to eat but game or rabbit, game or rabbit, or just for a change venison, venison or – venison! Really, I promise you, if my husband can’t shoot it personally, he won’t eat it, I swear. He needs to have seen it die and hung it himself in his very own game larder before a morsel will pass his lips.’

  She paused, breathing out smoke smoothly and without any outward emotion, only the tight grip on her cigarette hinting at inward feelings, feelings that Trilby could only guess at.

  ‘Not that I don’t love Charlie, because of course I do, but he is only happy when he is up to his thighs in squelch, or sitting on a horse which is also up to its thighs in squelch, and really when you have been born within a quarter of a mile of Woollands and Harvey Nichols, not to mention Harrods and Peter Jones, when you have been born with the heavenly sound of tissue paper ringing in your ears, and the smell of Chanel Number Five floating in your nostrils, when you have been used to not walking more than ten yards to take a taxi, or twenty yards to spend money, when you have been used to silk underwear, and silk stockings, and flowers that are arranged for you, life in Somerset is about as appealing as a long spell in hospital.’

  ‘Oh dear, and it seems so lovely, I mean to me, I’m only here on a visit. Oh dear, how horrid that you hate it so. Oh dear.’

  ‘Oh dear indeedy, my dear. Oh dear, fourteen hundred times over. Yes, you may well say oh dear! Of course, it is all my fault. I am entirely to blame. Because although I love Charlie, I am about as suitable as a wife for him as Mrs Simpson was for the Duke of Windsor. I can’t ride, and I hate horses, except to look at from a reasonable distance when they can look very pretty and decorative. I loathe shooting, I would far rather shoot myself than some poor bird that can hardly fly and half the time is too fat to take off. No, I am a personal disaster, which is why I am here, really, because I was really rather hoping that you might be too?’

  Trilby, aware that she had not offered her visitor any refreshment, went quickly to the drinks tray and poured her a small glass of sherry, it being after five thirty, which she judged to be not too early for a small something, but not late enough for a gin or a whisky.

  ‘Let’s say “Cheers”, shall we?’

  ‘Why not?’ They both laughed.

  ‘I have no idea why it is vulgar to say “Cheers”, or “Bottoms up” for that matter,’ Mary Louise confided. ‘Such a cheerful custom, it always seems to me.’

  Seeing that they were still out on the table Trilby quickly collected up her drawings and put them away, placing them in a magazine rack to the side of the fire. Mary Louise watched her, making no comment, only smiling at her.

  ‘So, you are here for rest, and holiday, and that sort of thing?’

  ‘That sort of thing.’ They both smiled once more at each other, slightly at a loss.

  ‘Would you like to come over and see Charlie and myself? We should love it. And I promise you not to give you game. In fact I will cook you something from my Constance Spry book, or similar, something special, not game, not venison, I promise! Saturday night? This Saturday?’

  Trilby nodded and smiled, but as she did so she had a sinking feeling that Mary Louise might be on to her, that she might know who she really was. ‘Of course. I should love it.’

  Later, Piers made light of her anxieties. He came in from the fields with all the bonny outdoor look of a man who has been toiling all day in a good and hearty fashion and cannot wait to have a beer and eat a good dinner.

  ‘Of course we will go.’

  ‘You don’t think she might . . .’

  He picked up Trilby’s unspoken suspicion and shook his head. ‘No, absolutely not. Charlie and Mary Louise never see anyone but themselves, they live in total seclusion – farm nearly eight hundred acres, and if you can’t shoot it or ride it, believe me, Charlie won’t be interested. And he only reads the Daily Telegraph.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Trilby said, for perhaps the tenth time, and then wondered fleetingly why it was that for some reason she felt as if the summer idyll, her undiluted happiness with Piers, was over.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Piers reassured her, ‘Charlie will love you.’

  Trilby wore a black silk dress embroidered with tiny white flowers around the bodice. It was strapless, showing off her fine, slim shoulders, and tightly waisted, showing off her fine, slim waist, and Piers, having chosen the dress, felt justifiably proud. He had still no idea why Trilby had seemed so upset the first time he had given her a dress, but whatever the reason she now seemed to have got over that particular emotional hurdle and stepped ahead of him out of the front door looking happy and relaxed.

  Of course, as he had predicted, Charlie fell in love with Trilby at first sight, and the evening was a great success. The food, cooked by Mary Louise, was delicious, sophisticated and of many courses accompanied by vintage wines. The house was undoubtedly very large. Tall and square, it was of seventeenth-century origin, and made to seem even larger by the fact that only four of them dined, waited on by an old lady who tended to present dishes at a frightening angle, and to whom Mary Louise spoke in low and conciliatory tones.

  ‘Been with us for more years than I care to think. There was a time when she ran the place, but now she just runs me.’

  Mary Louise had filled the four endless floors of Merrilands with furniture of all kinds, many large cabinets filled with old china, and vast flower arrangements, not to mention ornaments of every description. Indeed everywhere that Trilby looked she could see signs of her new friend’s struggle to make her house as feminine and welcoming as possible, but as she showed Trilby round she seemed to indicate that she felt she had lost the endless battle to make the place homely.

  ‘You know how it is.’ She smiled, a little helplessly, at Trilby. ‘With these places, the house usually wins. Are you thinking of staying on at Charlton?’

  Trilby smiled. ‘No. I can’t, not really. I shall have to go soon.’

  ‘Oh, that is a pity. It is such a lovely house,
and so easy to manage.’ She looked genuinely regretful. ‘I could do with a friend in the neighbourhood, too. I mean, not that Charlie is not a friend, but you know how it is with farmers, they are always outside. And I could see that you had already added the much needed feminine touch to the sitting room. I was hoping to help you with the rest of the house. Knowing what I know, it can be for ever before you find a decent curtain-maker or someone who will upholster a chair.’

  ‘No, I can’t stay. I love Somerset, but I have to go soon.’

  Trilby dropped her eyes. She knew that despite being deep in conversation with Charlie, Piers would have heard everything she had just said, as lovers always do, and that quite suddenly the party would not seem such fun any more.

  He said nothing on the way home, and neither did they sing, but both went to bed feeling more sober than they would have thought possible after such a convivial evening.

  ‘Harold is going to show me how to milk a herd of cows.’

  For once Trilby was awake at the same time as Piers, and, what was more, dressed.

  ‘Is there much point in learning how to milk a cow, if you are not going to stay on in Somerset?’ Piers looked across at her, the expression in his eyes and his tone of voice as flat as Trilby had ever known them.

  ‘Oh, I think so. After all you never know when you might need to milk a cow – terribly useful I should have thought.’

  ‘Be careful not to get leaned on, cows are great leaners.’

  But Trilby had not heard. She was already halfway down the stairs ahead of Piers, and whistling.

  Every morning when the milkman came by with his pony and cart, through the open windows giving on to the lane that ran by the old house she heard him whistling, perfectly in tune, every note reproduced as thrillingly as any bird. Sometimes it was ‘Foggy Day’, sometimes it was ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, at others ‘I’ll See You Again’. All the popular hits were aired at some time or another, except on Sundays, when, Piers had pointed out to her, in deference to its being the Lord’s day the milkman would only whistle a hymn.