It Ends with Revelations (12 page)

‘What a beautiful old house,’ said Jill. Well, it
was
beautiful, but she could no more imagine living in it than in the Tower of London.

‘It ought to be repainted,’ said Thornton, ‘but it’s hard to get the colour that pink has weathered to. This grass needs cutting.’

‘Must be quite a job.’ The house was surrounded by a large expanse of grass, broken only by the gravel drive. She could see no flowers at all. Beyond the grass rose the surrounding hedge – she guessed it to be well over twelve feet high – and beyond the hedge was the surrounding wood.

‘My wife had an almost pathological dislike of flowers – well, quite pathological, really. She said they made claims
on her, always wanting to be watered, or pruned, or arranged or something. So after she decided to live here she had all the flower beds turfed. Not that she was any too keen on grass. She once said concrete would have been less trouble.’

He got out of the car and helped Jill out, then unlocked the door of the house.

The wide hall smelt damp. She avoided commenting on this by so much as a sniff but Thornton himself drew her attention to it, adding, ‘You can get rid of that by having the central heating on for a couple of days. It’s very efficient. We usually kept some of it on right through the summer.’

‘Miles would love this old furniture,’ said Jill. But would he? It might be valuable but it was extremely heavy; Jacobean, she thought. And there was a great
leather-bound
chest which somehow suggested to her that it was housing a corpse.

Thornton opened a door: more heavy furniture, a refectory table, leather-backed chairs, a large oak dresser. ‘We seldom had meals in here. There’s a pleasant little breakfast room which I used when I could get down for weekends. The nicest room’s at the back, used to be the drawing room. Sylvia turned it into a bed-sitting room.’ He showed Jill in.

It had possibly been a pleasant, if conventional, drawing room; the flowered carpet, gilt-framed water colours and satin-wood furniture had a touch of Edwardian charm. But as a bed-sitting room it was dreadful. The late Mrs Thornton
had merely plonked a four-poster bed and a huge Victorian wardrobe into it.

‘Those ought to have been moved,’ said Thornton.

‘It’s a very fine bed,’ said Jill, looking at it in horror.

‘By the way, my wife didn’t die here. She needed day and night nurses and someone to wait on the nurses, and it couldn’t be managed here. And in the end, I doubt if she minded where she was.’

He opened the French window, outside which was only grass, bordered by the towering hedge which gave no access to the wood – or the world – beyond. Jill pictured his wife taking exercise here as if in a prison yard. ‘Poor woman,’ she murmured; it was a comment both on his speech and her own thoughts. She then felt impelled to say cheerfully, ‘Well, I’m sure this could be a delightful room.’

He smiled and said, ‘It must be embarrassing to be shown over a house by its owner. I assure you there’s no need to be polite but you’ll probably go on feeling you ought to be. So how would it be if I left you on your own? I have to see the woman who’s supposed to keep an eye on the place and I’d like to get it over. Then we can have tea. I shan’t be gone more than twenty minutes. All right?’

She agreed thankfully, adding, ‘One can take in a house’s possibilities better when one’s on one’s own.’

‘And its impossibilities. Don’t worry, my dear. Just pretend you’re going round the Chamber of Horrors.’

‘No, really –’

He cut her short. ‘We’ll talk when I get back. Don’t
worry
.’

He gave her a parting smile of such intimacy that she felt
he must know all that was going on in her mind. She stood in the hall until she heard the car being driven away, then mentally shook herself. It was absurd to feel … whatever she did feel … excitement, apprehension, almost panic – what utter nonsense! He did
not
know what was going on in her mind, not even the portion of the turmoil which was connected with the house. Oh, he might suspect she didn’t like it but what did that matter? She only had to say it was too big, a little lonely; there was no need to go on being insincerely polite, and perhaps she could find things she could praise with sincerity. Anyway, she must explore. And there was no point in harrowing herself by thinking about his wife’s miseries. But what about
his
miseries? Well, he’d survived. Concentrate on that.

She found a room which was a cross between a study and an office, a well-equipped kitchen, reasonably cheerful, and leading off it, the little breakfast room. At the end of a passage a door opened into the older part of the house, which appeared to be used only for storage purposes. It had a dungeon-like atmosphere. She came back hastily to the lived-in rooms – an absurd description for them now. Then she went upstairs and into five bedrooms, one of them minus its fourposter and wardrobe. In all of them the old furniture was good, but most later additions and all decorations – which looked as if they belonged to the days of his wife’s parents – were in bad, charmless taste. How could the man who now lived in the admirably furnished Westminster house have stood this place even for weekends? Well, compared with the horror
of spending weekends with a dipsomaniac wife,
surroundings
could hardly have been important.

There was an attic storey reached by a narrow staircase, at the top of which she stood and took in that one long, raftered room ran the full length of the house. She saw some broken furniture, a few pieces of old luggage, and a pile of photographs, their silver frames now black, She examined some of the photographs and came across a wedding group in which Thornton was the bridegroom. As a young man, and obviously a very young man, he had been debonair, conventionally good-looking, and slightly reminiscent of a
jeune premier
about to break into a song and dance. His bride looked innocuous, just a slim, fair girl, resembling Robin but less pretty and with a weak chin. There was a striking old woman in a particularly graceful hat – Thornton’s grandmother, Jill felt sure, recognizing a masterpiece from the Spa Street milliner. The only other person whose identity seemed guessable was an elderly man who suggested an actor playing a tipsy part in an old film: the bride’s father, perhaps, as the girls had said her alcoholism was inherited. Poor girls, terrified of what might be their own inheritance.

Well, she’d done her duty by the house. She gave a last look at the boyish face in the photograph, then went
downstairs
and out into the front garden. She would, on his return, again praise the beauty of the facade. There was nothing else she could, with even a show of sincerity, praise.

The sky was now heavily overcast yet, looking back from the gate, she saw the rose-painted house as if in the light of
a lurid sunset. The illusion lasted for only an instant – the sun would not set for hours. The house was lit by its own perpetual sunset. She imagined describing this to Miles. Then she heard Thornton’s car returning and found herself revisited by panic.

It must have shown in her face; for Thornton on getting out of the car at once said, ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

She said faintly, ‘Nothing. Nothing whatever.’

‘But there is. You’re trembling.’ He put his hand on her arm to steady her. ‘Is it the house? Were you frightened to be alone there?’

The house had depressed her but not frightened her. Indeed, concentrating on it had driven off the panic now returned. But she said at once, ‘Yes, it was the house,’ and went on trembling.

‘I was a fool to leave you there. You’d better sit down – in the car, if you’re frightened of the house.’

‘No, I shan’t mind it now.’ She detached herself from his grip and walked towards the house.

‘What you need’s a drink – and there’s no drink here these days unless it exudes from the walls.’

‘Tea will be better.’ She sat down in the hall.

‘I’m afraid the tea’s chocolate. The girls said you liked it. And they don’t think tea’s good out of a thermos.’

‘Chocolate will be wonderful – really. I’m all right now.’ It was true; anyway, she had stopped shaking. And it was certainly better to have found out what was the matter with her; she had done so when he gripped her arm. Now she could concentrate on not letting
him
find out.

‘I’ll get the picnic case. Will you mind being alone here for a couple of minutes?’

‘Not in the least. I brought some marrons glacés. They’re in the glove compartment.’

She watched him as he hurried out to the car. Of course, it was all very dreadful but no one but herself was going to know about it – and if one felt marvelous, well, one did, and that was that. One felt all the more marvellous because one had forgotten how marvellous feeling marvellous was. She wanted to laugh aloud but that would hardly be suitable for a woman supposed to have been terrified by a haunted house. She composed her features as Thornton came back with the picnic case.

He said, ‘Where shall we have it? The little breakfast room, I think.’

‘Why not the kitchen?’ It had seemed to her the one cheerful room.

‘All right. But we can’t boil a kettle or anything. We always cooked by the Aga stove.’

‘We don’t want to boil a kettle or anything. Come on. I liked the kitchen.’

‘It’s the one room that had to be done up regularly. Otherwise we couldn’t have kept any help. Sylvia never went near it. She liked rooms to remain unchanged; it became a sort of mania with her. Any sort of change frightened her. Did you really feel that she haunts this house?’

‘Sort of,’ she said, untruthfully.

‘She’d be a most unwilling ghost. And I’m afraid the
poor dear will be furious if she finds she has an immortal soul. She once said she’d like to rub herself out, not only from existing but also from having existed. She had the most absolute will to oblivion.’

‘Was she quite sane?’

‘Probably not, towards the end. But she was always too sane for any escape into insanity, and too sane for one to feel one could justifiably force anything on her, such as
so-called
cures or psychiatric treatment. But we won’t go on talking about her. I’ll take your sympathy for granted, if I may – both for her and myself.’ He was unpacking the picnic case. ‘I think those dear girls have over-estimated our appetites.’

‘Oh, I can eat quite a lot,’ said Jill cheerfully.

‘You’re really feeling better? It never occurred to me that the house could have any effect on you, beyond boredom. I’d have said it was too utterly dreary to awake your imagination.’

She’d better get this said: ‘Did you really think Miles and I would want to stay here?’

‘Not for a moment.’ He had spread out the tea, opened a thermos, and was now pouring out chocolate.

‘Then why did you bring me here?’

‘I fancy you know the answer to that one. But you’re entitled to get it in plain English. I wanted a few hours alone with you.’

‘But you invited Miles too.’

‘Having chosen an afternoon when I knew he couldn’t come. Anyway, I had an idea that Miles, out of the
kindness of his heart, would let you come alone. Jill, I know about Miles.’

She considered looking blank and saying, ‘Know what?’ but decided it would be futile, the kind of dialogue that always put Miles off a play. She substituted, ‘I suppose quite a lot of people do.’

‘In theatrical circles, perhaps, but it’s not at all obvious. I was astonished when the girls told me.’

‘
The girls
?’

‘Kit, actually. She’s known about homosexuality since she was ten years old when she asked what crime Oscar Wilde committed. My grandmother, who had met and liked Wilde, obliged with a straightforward answer couched in such a way that Kit accepted homosexuality as being neither right nor wrong, despicable nor pitiable, but simply existent. She wasn’t particularly interested; unlike many children, she’s never had much sexual curiosity. But a couple of years ago, when Julian was involved in a school scandal, she said to me, “I feel guilty at being so ignorant,” and promptly read the subject up. She now knows more about it than I do. Here, do eat something.’

She found herself quite willing to. But before embarking on a sandwich she said, ‘Are you telling me she actually spotted Miles?’

‘Far from it. She thought him – to use her own words – “tremendously male”. But she happened to write a postcard to Julian telling him she’d met you both and she got back a letter saying “Don’t get too worked up about your gorgeous Miles Quentin because my information is
that he’s a homosexual.” I’m taking it you’d like the plain truth about this, Jill.’

‘Of course.’ It now seemed perfectly natural to be sitting here eating cucumber sandwiches (so suitable, in view of the mention of Wilde) in this matter-of-fact way. ‘Julian’s one, too, is he?’ Her tone would have been much the same if she’d been enquiring if he was a Boy Scout.

‘Now there you have me,’ said Thornton. ‘He was acquitted at school – in my opinion, unjustifiably, but I don’t think he’s actually opted yet. Still, my general impression is that he will be.’

‘Don’t you mind?’

‘Well, naturally I’d prefer him to be normal but one can’t coerce normality. And I’d rather he was a happy homosexual than an unhappy heterosexual. Anyway, I shan’t have any say in the matter. At the moment, I’m furious with him. We had one hell of a row before he blithely skipped off abroad. He treated Miles disgracefully. Did Miles tell you?’

‘He said Julian – well, made overtures. I can assure you they were discouraged.’

‘My dear son didn’t report that – he’s probably too conceited to have noticed it. I ought, in justice, to say that he was well-intentioned as well as curious. He said he wanted – well, to investigate the whole situation, before backing up his sisters. I’m afraid it’s been quite a conspiracy. Are you angry? Have some more chocolate.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I mean, yes, more chocolate. I don’t seem to be angry – except a bit with Julian on Miles’s
account. But I don’t understand, really I don’t, Geoffrey. Is that what you’re called? Not Geoff, or anything?’

‘Geoffrey is fine.’ He handed the chocolate. ‘Let me tell you what my daughters did towards the end of our week at the hotel. They came to me together and, with intense gravity, Kit informed me that they were quite sure you and I
liked
each other – she used the word my grandmother would have used even to describe what Tristram and Iseult felt for each other – and they had, that morning, had the information about Miles, so I could with a clear conscience take you away from him.’