i 69ef9ff463a71164 (9 page)

The expression on the young man's face did not alter, so there was no means of knowing whether he was vexed or pleased, and when he spoke he looked neither at Aggie nor at Grace.

"If you'll come round this way," he said.

After saying goodbye to Mrs. Maclntyre they both followed him round the side of the house. Grace, going first, looked at his back. It was very slim, especially around the hips, and his walk was slow as if he had all the time in the world at his disposal . yet he had come through the door of the house quickly enough. He must have been rowing with his father; it couldn't possibly have been his mother, her glance was too soft on him. He was very like his mother; he had the same eyes, round and brown, almost black, but his hair wasn't as dark as hers.

"Are you all right. Aunt Aggie?" She turned now to where Aggie was picking her way carefully down the steep, rock-strewn path, and Aggie replied, "Yes, I'm all right, as long as it doesn't get any worse."

"Your mother said this path leads to the back of our house. Does it go down through the wood?" She was speaking to his back.

"Aye ... yes."

As she slithered over the rough ground she remarked, "I wouldn't want to take this short cut often," and she laughed to soften any suggestion of criticism.

"It isn't usually as bad as this. The rain's loosened the rocks. My mother didn't think when she suggested it. I'm sorry." He had stopped and was now looking beyond her towards Aggie.

"Oh, I don't mind." Aggie's voice was reassuring.

"As long as it shortens the journey I'll put up with it."

"Well, it does that."

As they went on again Grace thought. He's got a nice voice. Unlike his face and disposition there was nothing surly about it. It was a warm sort of voice, with the Scottish 'burr' thick on it. He might have lived in Northumberland for years but he hadn't lost the Scottish twang. She felt she wanted to listen to it, but his economical use of words offered little opportunity.

At one part the path crossed directly over a stretch of stone road, and she remarked, "This looks a good road, where does it lead to?"

"The quarry."

"Oh, I didn't know there was a quarry about here." She looked at his averted face.

"It's not worked now." His tone did not seem to invite further enquiry and she did not press the matter further.

A few minutes later they entered the wood and when they came to where three paths met in a small clearing he spoke without turning, saying,

"We fork left."

Ten minutes later they emerged quite abruptly from a narrow path between the brambles into a field not more than twenty feet wide, and there, bordering its other side, was the hedge of Willow Lea.

"Well I never!" With this mundane exclamation Grace looked around her.

"So we've arrived," commented Aggie dryly a moment later.

"And thank you very much." She nodded at their escort. But after gazing towards the high hedge she looked up at him again and demanded,

"But can you tell us how we're going to get over that?" She pointed across the field.

"Oh, there's a gate farther up, at the far end. Aunt Aggie," Grace put in.

"It's locked, but if I shout I'll make Ben hear the greenhouses are just to the right of it." She turned now and looked at the straight countenance of the young farm-worker, and, smiling, she said, "Thank you very much for bringing us and for showing me the path. I often go into the wood, but I've always had to get in by the main road."

He nodded as he looked at her but made no comment. Then, touching his cap, he said briefly, "Good-day."

It was meant for both of them, and Aggie said, "Goodbye and thanks,"

but Grace found herself answering him with his own words.

"Good-day," she said.

As they moved along the field towards the gate, arm in arm, Aggie commented with a chuckle, "By, he was

pleasant, wasn't he? I've laughed me head off. " And Grace, quoting Mrs. Blenkinsop, stated authoritatively, " Oh, it's likely just his way, all Scots are dour. "

That Aunt Aggie's visit had been a great success was borne out as she stood in the bedroom adjusting her smart toque hat in the mirror. As she did this she looked to where Grace was standing behind her, then with lowered eyes she said, "I'm glad to see you happy, child ... and I suppose this is the time I should admit to being wrong, eh?"

"Oh, Aunt Aggie!" Grace pulled her round from the mirror and Aggie protested, "Now look what you're doing, mind my hat ... this bit of nonsense cost me a pretty penny, let me tell you."

"Oh, Aunt Aggie!"

"Don't keep saying " Oh, Aunt Aggie! " and don't think that I'm going to join Susie and Ralph and start dribbling over him, that I'll never do."

"That'll come, there's plenty of time yet."

Aggie gave her a sharp push and sent her laughing on to the landing, crying, "Donald! Donald! She's braying me!" and Donald, from where he was waiting in the hall, shouted back, "Well, it's about time somebody did, for I've got to confess I'm not up to it."

The atmosphere was homely and happy, and surrounded by it they waved Aggie and her car off down the drive, then turned and went into the house arm-in-arm.

This, Grace felt, had been the happiest day other life, even happier than her wedding day. If she remembered the incident concerning Miss Shawcross she looked upon it now as one of the pin-pricks that parsons'

wives are called upon to endure. There was always at least one Miss Shawcross in every parish.

Even when at ten o'clock Donald said he couldn't come upstairs just yet as he had some writing to do, which would take about an hour, her happiness still remained at an even keel. She spent rather longer than usual getting prepared for bed, then sat propped up reading.

She stopped reading before eleven, and when at half- past there was still no sound of movement from the room below, her legs jerked themselves down the bed and she turned on to her stomach.

At twelve o'clock she was tossing and turning from side to side in an effort to stop herself from going down to the study. He did not like that, she knew he did not like that.

When later, after what seemed like an eternity but was not more than twenty minutes, she heard him coming up the stairs and creeping quietly into the room, she was lying on her side, her face buried half in the pillow and half under the bedclothes. And when she felt him standing at the bedside looking down at her she made no movement. He had hoped to find her asleep; he was finding her asleep.

She pulled in the muscles of her stomach, screwed her eyes tight and bit her tongue . she still hadn't cried.

The musical evening took place at the end of January. Miss Shawcross started it off with a song. It was as well, Grace thought, that she was accompanying herself, for certainly nobody else could have followed her rendering of "The Barcarolle'. Yet she was clapped roundly when she finished. She was followed by Miss Parley playing the 'cello.

Miss Parley looked bored. Next Mr. Blenkinsop was widely acclaimed with his violin solo;

the comic sketches of Mr. Thompson, the schoolmaster, brought forth laughter and a great deal of guffawing, but Grace did not consider he was funny at all, for he exaggerated the Geordie dialect beyond all recognition. Her own proposal to do a Tyneside sketch had been quickly squashed by Donald, and she had been given to understand once again that one did that kind of thing in private, not in public, and especially did this apply if you were the vicar's wife. He had chosen the pieces that she should play, they were "Mazurka in A Minor' by Chopin and " Serenade' by Schubert.

Her playing was received well but not enthusiastically. But later, when the concert was over, being brought to an end by yet another song from Miss Shawcross, she was congratulated by young Dr. Cooper and his wife.

"Look in some night," he said, 'and give us a treat. " And his wife had added, " Yes, do come. I've been wanting to ask you for ages, but you're so busy I didn't like to bother you. "

Grace knew that this was a gentle dig at their, or at least Donald's, connection with the Parleys and the hunting Tooles, but she liked the doctor, and his wife too, and she promised to make a date on which to visit them.

Of the others only Bertrand Parley told her that he had enjoyed her playing, and as he stood at the schoolroom door he held her hand just a fraction too long and his eyes seemed to boggle more than usual as he looked at her.

"You know, I think you should have made the piano your profession ...

but you got married instead, eh?"

There was a look in his eyes that caused her to turn away with a mumbled "Excuse me' under the pretence that someone was claiming her attention. She didn't like Bertrand Parley. She didn't like any of the Parleys, for that matter. She had the idea, and correctly, that they imagined they were the lords of creation, at least in this part of the world, and acted accordingly. Being solicitors who represented most of the inhabitants of the village and surrounding country helped the illusion.

She found Donald in the vestry with Miss Shawcross. Donald had his back to her and Kate was standing in front of him. It was impossible not to notice the expression on her face the only description Grace could give to herself was that it looked alight her lips were parted, her eyes were shining, and in this moment she did not appear as Grace usually saw her, a plain, heavy-faced woman. She looked even beautiful.

At her entry Donald stopped talking and turned towards her, saying,

"Well, that's over. And what a success. I was just congratulating Miss Shawcross on her wonderful performance."

Kate Shawcross had neither moved nor taken her eyes from the vicar, but now her head drooped in a girlish fashion that brought her, at least in Grace's eyes, back into focus, for the coy action made her look silly.

She still did not look at Grace as she flustered, saying, "Now I must see to the clearing of the room." It could have been that Grace had never entered the vestry, at least for her.

It was on the point of Grace's tongue to make some cutting remark, some slighting, scathing remark on the foolishness of the woman, but, remembering Aggie's warning, she forced herself to remain silent.

Donald seemed in high good humour, and as they were walking up the hill towards home, her arm tucked into his, he suddenly remarked, "And it was a success without the aid of the bagpipes."

She turned and looked at him in the dark. Andrew Maclntyre had refused his invitation to play the bagpipes at the concert. She did not know what had transpired between them, but she knew that the refusal had annoyed Donald. Yet this had happened weeks ago, and now Donald was speaking of it as if it had occurred only today. She knew that his mind at this moment was filled, to the exclusion of everything else, with the fact that someone had refused an appeal of his. The tone of his voice when he spoke of Andrew Maclntyre was the same as he used when speaking of Ben.

She was silent for the rest of the way home because she was sad. She had been sad since the concert ended, for not once had he mentioned her playing. And now the sadness was intensified because it was being fed by a disturbing thought; Donald was being vindictive. Lesser men could be vindictive, but he wasn't in the category of lesser men; and, moreover, he was a vicar, and even ordinary men of the Church should be above vindictiveness.

Strangely, it was on this night that she first cried, not because Donald had once again evaded loving her and was now gently snoring, but because she had a feeling that she couldn't sort out. It was as if she had lost something.

It was in the spring of 1937, when Grace had been married ten months, that Uncle Ralph spoke to Aunt Susie, and Aunt Susie thought they had better consult Aunt Aggie and see what she had to say about the matter.

So they got together and talked about the subject nearest to their hearts. The matter was so serious that they did not start on their high tea before they took it up. Uncle Ralph came straight to the point as he stuck his thumb down into the broad bowl of his pipe, saying, "Well, Aggie, let's have your opinion of her."

"What do you want me to say?"

Both Ralph and Susie looked at her and Ralph said, "We want to know what you think'; and Susie put in, " Is she pregnant, Aggie? "

"Not that I know of." Aggie turned her gaze on them both.

"She talks to you, Aggie," said Susie, her lips a little prim now.

"She's always talked to you more than to me, or even to her own mother.

Linda used to say that."

"She may talk to me," said Aggie, 'but she tells me nothing that she doesn't tell everybody she meets, and that is that she has the most wonderful husband in the world. "

"Well, I just don't know what to make of her." Ralph lit his pipe for the third time.

"She's jittery, Aggie;

she's not the girl she was last this time, and she's as thin as a rake.

"

"Have you thought of speaking to him?" asked Susie.

"What!" Aggie rounded on her sister-in-law.

"You mean me to talk to him and ask him what's wrong with his wife?"

Susie had risen to her feet, and her head was up and her chest was up and her chin out as she said in a tone that could only be termed hurry,

"Well, you needn't bawl

at me, Aggie; it was only a suggestion. Why' she looked at her husband 'you would think I had asked her to commit a crime. "

She turned her back on Aggie, and Aggie said, "Oh, don't take it like that, Susie; it was never meant like that. But it was the suggestion that I should talk to him. Why, I could no more do that than I could fly across the Tyne. You might as well know that I don't like him any more than I did afore she married him. I thought I might, but no. I put on a front for her now, and on the surface everything looks all right, but I've never liked the fellow, and I never will and that's the truth of it. But I don't want to be prejudiced. He seems to think the world of her and she of him. Nevertheless, now that we are on the subject, I can tell you that I feel, and I've felt it for months ...