So Long At the Fair (50 page)

She said nothing.

‘You love him, don’t you?’ he said.

‘Please, Louis.’

‘Tell me. Then I’ll know what it is I have to fight. You love him, don’t you? Tell me the truth.’

She did not answer, and he released her, letting his hands fall to his sides. ‘Go on, then. You’re so anxious to get away. Go on to your celibate bed. Get out of my sight before I do something I might regret.’

Summoning all her dignity, she turned and moved towards the door. As she reached it his voice came:

‘I don’t think I can fight it, Abbie. Sometimes I don’t even feel that he’s real. Sometimes I feel you’re obsessed not with him but with a ghost. And how can I fight that?’

Over the days following, Abbie did her best to avoid Louis. Her feelings were an uncomfortable mixture of resentment, bitterness and guilt, and she despaired of the situation ever improving. She toyed briefly with the idea of going away – of just taking Oliver and leaving – but stopped short of any serious consideration of the act. For one thing she had no idea where she could go. And even if there were a ready refuge she could not remain there. For how would she support Oliver and herself? Besides, her own desires apart, such a course would be too cruel. Oliver and Louis loved one another deeply and she could not in all conscience separate them.

Then, several weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon in late June, matters came to a head.

Oliver, in the care of Maria, had gone out for a walk in the sun. Abbie had just seen them off and was sitting in her room, reading. There came a tap on her door and when she called out Louis entered.

‘Abbie,’ he said immediately, ‘we have to talk.’

‘Oh, Louis, must we?’ she said. ‘This is all so upsetting and –’

‘You think I enjoy it?’

‘No, of course not.’ She closed her book and put it on the table at her side.

Louis said, ‘You don’t think I’ve been happy these past weeks, months, do you? I assure you I have not.’

‘I don’t imagine you have been.’

‘Not for a moment. And neither have you.’ He moved to the bed and sat down. ‘We’ve got to be adult about this. We can’t just keep running away from the situation.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘We have to try to reach some sort of understanding. For Ollie’s sake if for nothing else. Don’t you agree?’

‘Of course.’

‘Who knows, we might even be able to find some degree of contentment if we try hard enough. It can’t be worse than this. The silences between us; the cool politeness when we’re together. Wouldn’t you like things to be easier?’

‘It goes without saying.’

He gave a little nod. ‘Then just tell me something. Tell me what it is you want.’

‘What do I want?’

‘Tell me. Because I don’t know. I’m not being melodramatic. I’m just trying to find out what we should do – what’s best for the three of us.’

‘Oh, Louis,’ she said, ‘do you think this is getting us anywhere? It’s not only me. It’s obvious that the whole thing has turned out to be a bitter disappointment to you. Perhaps the simple truth is that we’re just . . . not right for one another. Perhaps you expected too much.’

He frowned. ‘I? Expected too much? Abbie, with the love I felt for you I –’

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘you speak of the love you
felt
for me. You speak of your love for me in the past tense.’

‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘what do you expect from me? Do you want to reject me and still have me protest undying devotion? You can’t have it all ways.’ When she said nothing he added, ‘It wasn’t always like this. Before we were married we were such good friends. And with our marriage I had such high hopes – particularly when Oliver came.’ He paused. ‘Most people would think we’ve got everything we need to make us happy. But for you it’s not enough, is it?’

She remained silent.

‘You must get rid of this obsession, Abbie,’ he said.

‘What obsession is this?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. What are you going to do, spend the rest of your life hankering after something that’s never going to be yours? Because Gilmore will never be yours. Never. You don’t think he’s going to give up his wife and child, do you? Give up everything in order to set up house with you – in a state of unmarried bliss?’

‘Don’t be tasteless,’ she said. ‘It’s not becoming.’

‘Abbie, for your own sake you must give it up. It’s a wild-goose chase. And if you’re not careful it will destroy you – and you’d better watch out that it doesn’t destroy others as well.’

‘I thought you said just now you didn’t want to be melodramatic.’

‘I’m not. But what’s left of our marriage? Tell me. We can’t keep avoiding things just because they’re not pretty to look at. I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know what to do for the best any more. I only know this is no good for either one of us or for Ollie. If we go on like this we’ll end up hating one another. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to save our marriage. To that end, for what it’s worth, I forgive you. And I –’

Her voice heavy with irony, she said, ‘Oh, that’s most kind of you. How magnanimous you are.’

‘Please,’ he said, frowning, ‘– let me finish. I was going to say that just because you’ve been at fault doesn’t make it right for me to transgress also. And I have been at fault too. I can’t pretend otherwise.’

‘I’m glad you admit it.’

He shook his head. ‘This isn’t easy, you know. If we are to salvage anything then I think we have to start with forgiveness of past wrongs. Don’t you think so?’

She gave a grudging nod of acquiescence. ‘Yes.’

Looking at her steadily he said, ‘I might as well tell you, Abbie, that I would never give Oliver up.’

She bridled. ‘Why should you? Why do you say that? Have I ever asked you to consider such a thing?’

‘No – but I want to put my cards on the table . . . so you’ll have less chance of misunderstanding me.’

‘I think I understand you well enough,’ she said.

‘I wonder.’ He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘Anyway – think about things. Perhaps you need a little time.’

‘Time?’

‘Yes, without me being around. I thought it might not be a bad thing if you and Oliver took a little vacation.’

‘Oh? Where?’

‘That’s up to you. Wherever you want to go. Perhaps to the coast. Maybe Brighton or Southend. Go to a hotel somewhere for a month or so, or rent a house. It’s up to you. He’s keen to go, you said so.’

‘If I do go away how do you think it will help us?’

‘Well – at least you’ll have time to think things over. And I think you need that.’

‘What are you hoping will come out of it, my going away? That I’ll be like St Paul on the road to Damascus? There’ll be some great revelation and I’ll suddenly come to my senses?’

‘I’m trying to help us, Abbie,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’d like to try and save our marriage before it’s too late. But if you’ve got different ideas . . .’ There was anger now in his face. ‘I’m trying to offer a solution to a very real problem. But perhaps I’m just wasting my energy; perhaps I’m simply flogging a dead horse.’ Turning, he stalked out of the room.

That night Abbie, wearing her dressing gown over her nightdress, sat in the drawing-room, a tray of tea beside her. It was almost two o’clock. The house was very quiet. The servants had gone to bed long ago. Feeling restless, she had been unable to sleep and in the end had come downstairs. She was waiting now for Louis’s return. Just before eight he had been summoned by a local midwife to the bedside of an expectant mother, the young wife of a farmhand.

Since their talk that afternoon Abbie had thought a great deal about the situation between Louis and herself, and she realized that he had been right in so many of the things he had said. Why, then, had she been so disagreeable in her response? No wonder he had stormed out of the room. There was an old saying that guilt turned to hostility. Is that what had happened with her? Had the hostility she had shown been born out of her sense of guilt? Whatever it was or whatever its cause, it had solved nothing – that much she was sure of. Left alone to think things over, she had come to realize that much of what he had said made sense. They had to make an effort now or their marriage would soon be beyond saving.

She had been sitting there for close on an hour when there came the faint sound of the carriage on the drive. A little while later she heard the front door opening and closing. There were footsteps in the hall, then the drawing-room door opened and Louis, his coat over his arm, looked in. He seemed surprised to see her still up.

‘I saw a crack of light under the door,’ he said. ‘I thought the maid had left one of the lamps burning.’

‘No,’ Abbie said, ‘I couldn’t sleep so I came back downstairs.’

He nodded, stood there for a moment, then said, ‘Well – I’m very tired. I’m going to bed. Goodnight now.’

As he started to back out into the hall Abbie spoke his name. He came to a stop. ‘Yes?’

‘Would you like some tea?’ she said. She was very much aware of the awkwardness between them.

He hesitated for a second, then said, ‘Thank you.’ Closing the door behind him, he put down his coat, crossed to the fireside chair facing her own and sat down.

‘Have you eaten anything?’ she asked.

‘I’m not hungry. The tea will be fine.’

In the kitchen she made fresh tea and, back in the drawing room, set it down on the small table beside the fire. Glancing at Louis as she straightened she saw that he had fallen asleep. She sat in her own chair and looked at him. She noticed the dark circles under his eyes, a deep crease between his eyebrows, and lines running from the outer edges of his nostrils down beside his slightly open mouth. Hands resting on the chair arm, his fingers twitched spasmodically a couple of times. He looked utterly exhausted. Loath to wake him, she poured herself a cup of tea and sipped at it, watching him. A few moments later he opened his eyes.

‘You fell asleep,’ she said. ‘You must be terribly tired.’

‘I am, rather.’

‘I’ll pour your tea.’ She poured him a cup and passed it to him. He drank from it, then placed it beside him. ‘You were gone so long,’ she said. ‘Did everything go all right at the Tippets’? Was it a boy or a girl?’

He shook his head then bent forward, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘A boy. But I lost them both – mother and son.’

‘Oh, Louis . . .’ When he raised his head she saw the shine of tears in his eyes. ‘Louis,’ she said. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

He nodded and wiped his eyes. ‘Twenty-three years old and looking as if she’d find childbirth the easiest thing in the world. But nothing went right. She was in so much pain, too. And there was nothing I could do. She struggled for all those hours – and after all that fighting she just . . . slipped away.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve seen my share of death over the years, but there are some things that one just doesn’t seem able to get used to. Her husband, poor man, he’s inconsolable. And there’s nothing to be done.’

They sat in silence for some while, then he said wearily, ‘You say you couldn’t sleep?’

‘Yes, but – also I wanted to talk to you.’

‘Oh?’ he said carefully. ‘What about?’

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’ She shook her head. ‘I got so – tense this afternoon when you tried to talk. That’s the way I am so much of the time lately. And it’s not your fault – and I’m sorry.’ She looked down into her cup. ‘I want what you want, Louis. I’d like things to be better between us – if they can be.’

‘They can be,’ he said, ‘if we both want it badly enough.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She paused. ‘And as you suggested, I think it would be a good idea for me to go away for a while. I think I’d like to do that. Ollie and I, we could go to the coast for a few weeks. As you said, it will give us – you and me – an opportunity to think things over.’

‘Yes.’

‘So – I’ll make arrangements, shall I?’

‘Very good.’

‘And when I come back I’ll –’

‘Please.’ He raised a hand. ‘Don’t make me any promises. Just see how things go. For the moment let’s not ask more than that.’

Chapter Thirty-One

The July sun was very warm. Before lunch Abbie, Oliver and Maria had gone bathing in the sea. Now, however, the tide was ebbing, so while Abbie rested in the shade of a large beach umbrella Oliver and Maria – obeying instructions to keep always within Abbie’s sight – had gone exploring further along the beach. Every now and again Abbie would glance up from her book to check on the safety of the pair. After a time she saw them turn and start back along the beach towards her. As they drew nearer Oliver raised his arm and waved. Abbie waved back, observing with an inward groan that he had pulled out the front of his shirt before him and was carrying something in it. More seashells.

‘Look, Mama, look!’ Oliver called a minute later as he came across the sand towards her. ‘We found lots more shells.’

‘Yes,’ Abbie replied, ‘so I see.’

As she put her book to one side Oliver knelt beside her and spilled a cascade of shells onto the rug.

‘Oh, my! They’re beautiful,’ Abbie said, flicking a little smile at Maria as she sat down nearby.

‘They’re for Daddy.’

‘But you’ve already got so many for him at the hotel.’

‘But he’ll like them,’ Oliver protested.

‘Oh, I’m sure he will. He’ll love them.’

‘He can’t get any for himself, can he?’

‘No – that’s true.’

‘I mean, he’s had to stay behind and work.’

‘I know. Well, he’s going to be very pleased, I’m sure.’

Oliver gathered up the shells and put them into an old straw basket. Then, his task finished, he brushed the sand from his hands. ‘Maria and I are thirsty, Mama,’ he said.

‘Really? In that case you’d better have some lemonade.’ From a makeshift picnic basket Abbie took a bottle of lemonade and poured some into two beakers, handing one to Oliver and the other to Maria. She watched Oliver as he drank. The vacation, she thought, had been such a good thing. They had been in Weston-super-Mare for over two weeks now, and so far everything had worked out well; the hotel was comfortable and the weather had been good to them, for the most part sunny and warm – a condition that was reflected in their glowing cheeks and tanned limbs. In such fine weather they had been able to come to the beach to bathe and relax nearly every day, and – a thrilling development – under Abbie’s tuition Oliver, after less than a week, had learned to swim. From this point on there had been no holding the child; he wanted to be in the water at every opportunity available.