Too Close to the Sun (57 page)

‘Is that all you’re going to have?’ he said.

‘I’m not that hungry.’

‘It’s not enough to keep a sparrow alive. I hope you’re not
sickening for something.’ He drank from his coffee cup and took a drag from his cigarette, then added, ‘I didn’t have much appetite myself this morning. That’s what comes of having that extra whisky.’ He smiled, but it was an awkward smile, without any real humour. ‘That extra one will always do it, you can be sure.’ He got up and poured himself more coffee. ‘It certainly gives a chap a devil of a thirst.’

His tone was light, and intentionally so, Grace thought. He was trying to go on as if nothing had happened between them, as if the dreadful things had not been said; trying to put on an appearance of normality. He did not even comment on her own taciturnity, which he could not but be aware of. She would not, could not join him in the charade and be party to the deception. She concentrated on her coffee.

‘I don’t think I told you,’ he said, folding the newspaper and setting it aside, ‘but I shall be off to Italy again in a few days. And soon I shall be going there for the last time. Now I’ve made my decision to sell up I want to get it done. And thank God – I shan’t have that damned business hanging round my neck for too much longer.’

‘It’ll be a weight off your mind, then, if you find it so onerous,’ Grace said stiffly.

She wondered if this – his intention to sell the soap factory – was what he had meant by having something to talk to her about. She could not think that it was.

‘And perhaps when that’s gone,’ he said, ‘and there’s a few less calls on my time – maybe we can have a little more time for ourselves.’

Grace said nothing.

‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’ he said. ‘We could go to Italy purely for pleasure. Wouldn’t you like that? I could take you to France. I’ll take you to Paris. And Brazil. Have you ever thought you might like to see Brazil? We’ll go to Rio. I know it well. You’ll find it’s like a different world.’

It was all empty talk, she knew. They would go nowhere. Perhaps Corster, perhaps Redbury or Bath. But as for those other places, no. She would never see them. All his money, all his dreams, were set in this house. To perfect his possession – that was his one driving thought. He would never be satisfied with it until it was finished. Perhaps only then would he feel it was completely his own.

And how did he feel about her? He loved her, she thought, but he had also made it clear that, in his eyes, she was another of his possessions.

She nibbled at the toast and sipped the coffee. She could not bring herself to look at him across the table, though she could often feel his burning glance upon her bent head. After a time, when at last she found it unbearable to sit there with him, she murmured an excuse, got up from the table and left the room.

In her sewing room she slowly paced to and fro, from the fireplace to the window and back again. She could not relax over the breakfast table with Edward. She doubted that she could ever relax with him again. As she arrived at the window for the second time she glanced down and saw Rhind enter the yard, leading the horse and carriage, ready to take his master to the station. Quickly she averted her glance and turned back to pace again. Then, moments later she heard approaching footsteps on the landing and the door opened and Edward appeared in the doorway.

‘I thought I’d find you here,’ he said, and came into the room and closed the door behind him.

He moved across the carpet and came to halt in front of Grace where she had stopped beside her sewing table.

‘Why did you leave?’ he said.

‘Edward, please – I didn’t feel well.’

‘You didn’t feel well – you’ve only just got up.’

‘I’m not sleeping. I told you that.’

He stood in silence, as if weighing the situation, or thinking of words to say. Then he said, ‘Listen – about last night …’

Grace said nothing, but hearing the words looked down at her hand at it lighted on the tabletop, her finger moving to skim its polished surface.

‘I was drunk,’ he said. ‘There, I’ve admitted it.’ A smile again, like the one he had given downstairs. ‘And how often will you find a husband admit to such a thing? Not in a month of Sundays, I should think. But it’s true. I had too much whisky, and it’s the devil’s own brew, it is. You wouldn’t know it, but it makes a man say all kinds of crazy things. Things that are just made up out of the air, for no reason at all that anyone could fathom.’

Grace remained looking down, watching as her finger traced a slow little circular pattern on the oak. She could not look him in the face. At some other time were she to avoid his glance like this, she could well imagine him saying,
Look at me. Please look at me when I’m speaking to you
. But at this moment she believed that he as well as she preferred to avoid direct eye contact.

‘Yes, people say insane things when they have the drink in them,’ Edward said. ‘Like me last night. And I wanted to tell you – I said some crazy things, didn’t I? I can hardly believe some of the things I said to you. Well, it’s not so much what I said, but more what you might have inferred from what I said. That you might have gone off with the wrong idea or something. I think perhaps you did – which is why this morning you won’t say boo to a goose.’

Flicking a glance at him, she saw that he spoke with a faint earnest smile on his face, a smile that begged for belief and understanding. She had never seen him look like this before.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ he said after a moment.

‘Yes.’

‘And have you nothing to say?’

‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

He seemed momentarily at a loss at this. ‘I’m not asking you to say anything.’

Her sewing basket was on the table, and beside it a little flannel shirt that she had been making. She picked up the shirt and said, ‘I’m making this for Mrs Castle’s little boy. I should have had it done by now. I said it would be. Poor things, they have so little.’

‘Damn the shirt,’ he hissed, and wrenched it from her hands and threw it down on the table. ‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you.’

She raised her glance, and he looked directly into her eyes. Putting his hands flat upon the table he leaned towards her, putting his face close to her own. ‘I’m through with playing these blasted games with you, madam,’ he said. ‘I’ve tried to meet you halfway, but you’ll have none of it. So, you can think what the bloody hell you like, and the devil with you. There’s no way you can hurt me, anyway. You’re my wife, and you’ll stay my wife.’ He was shaking in his fury, she could see, his lips were pale, drawn back over his teeth. She found herself shrinking from him, drawing back slightly, her heart pounding against her ribs.

‘Yes, you’re going to stay my wife,’ he said. ‘What is mine I keep. I’ve told you that. There’s no man who will divide me from what’s mine. D’you hear? What’s mine is mine – to keep. Until such time as I have no use for it.’ He paused, licked his dry lips. ‘Just remember that. You’re my wife – and in case you choose to believe in some half-cocked story you’ve dreamed up, remind yourself that wives can’t speak out against their husbands. And in case you’re in any doubt there, I’m talking specifically about a court of law. And let me tell you something else: If you were foolish enough to speak out against me, there’s nothing anyone could prove. Nothing. Do I make myself clear? I’m not an idiot, so don’t
underestimate me. You hear me? So I suggest you make the best of what you’ve got. Yes! Make the best of what you’ve got and stop hankering after your fine Mr Fairman. Just count yourself lucky.’

‘Lucky!’ she murmured on a little sob, unable to stop herself.

‘Yes, lucky!’ he said bitterly. ‘You
had
nothing, and you
were
nothing, and I took you and gave you everything. Your brother too. Where would he be if it were not for me? I gave the two of you a fine house to live in – how else would you ever get to be mistress of a place like this? – and you had a husband who loved you. And who still would love you if only he could see a glimmer of hope. But there’s not, is there? I can see you’ll never change.’

He straightened. ‘I’m leaving now for the mill. When I come back this evening I want to see some changes around here. For I’ll tell you something, I’m not prepared for things to go on as they are.’

When Edward had left, leaving the door open behind him, Grace got up and closed it, then moved back into the room and sank into a chair. And there she sat while the minutes ticked by, and ticked by into an hour, and still she did not move.

She remained there in the silence of the room; there was no sound at all coming to her from the house, no sound coming up from the stable yard. Billy would have gone to school ages ago. She missed him. At times such as this she would have liked to have him close by, comforted by his common sense and his optimistic outlook. This, though, she had to handle on her own. This was not something she could bring Billy into.

At one point she picked up the little shirt that Edward had so angrily dashed down, and thought for a moment that she might work on it, and try to finish it for the Castle
boy, but she could not bring herself to so much as thread a needle, and she set it down. It could wait for another time.

She must do something, however, and at last, without purpose, she got up and left the room.

Still without purpose, she moved along the landing and there opened the door to the studio. Mrs Spencer’s studio. For she could never see it as anything other. Now in the open doorway she stood and looked into the room. It had hardly changed since the last time Mrs Spencer had worked in it. And Grace’s portrait was still there. She picked it up and placed it on the easel and stood back and looked at it. It was very lifelike, she thought, and what a pity it was that Mrs Spencer had never got around to finishing it.

She wandered around the room while the memories came back. She saw herself again as she had stood there on that day over three years ago, when she and Billy had come to deliver the framed canvases. She could see herself in her linen dress with the flowers on it; see Billy once again, rushing towards the panic-stricken bird. That was such a happier time, a time before the world had changed for them both.

She turned, made her way to the door and back out onto the landing.

She was halfway down the stairs leading to the hall when there came a ring at the doorbell. She got to the hall just as Effie came from the rear of the house and moved towards the door. Out of curiosity, Grace lingered while the maid opened the door and spoke to the man who stood on the front step. She heard the stranger ask whether Mr Spencer was in, and the maid replied that he was not. At this Grace stepped forward.

‘I’m Mrs Spencer,’ she told the man. ‘Can I help you at all?’ She turned then and nodded to the maid, saying, ‘It’s all right, Effie,’ and the maid went away.

Tipping his bowler hat to her, the caller told Grace that his
name was Connors, that he was from the Apex Insurance Company, and that he was there to see Mr Spencer on the matter of a policy he was taking out. ‘I could have written to him on the matter,’ the man said, ‘but I found myself in the area, so decided to call in person.’ He was a tall man, with a thin face, and dressed against the cold day in a dark brown wool coat with an astrakhan collar. He carried a briefcase which he held up as he spoke, and tapped it, adding, ‘It’s a document I’ve brought that needs his attention. But if he’s not here I’ll make an appointment and come back another day. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

‘No, wait, please,’ Grace said. ‘If you tell me what it is you want, I might be able to save you another journey. You say it’s about a particular policy.’

‘Yes, a life insurance policy.’

‘And what about it?’

The man hesitated as if uncertain whether to continue, to divulge information. Grace said, ‘I’m Mrs Spencer; I’m sure I can help you.’

‘Yes, perhaps you can, ma’am.’ The man nodded, resigned. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr Spencer’s very recently started to take out a life insurance policy on a member of his family. You do know about it, ma’am?’ The latter was half-question, half-statement.

‘Yes, of course,’ Grace heard herself say, ‘ – he’s mentioned it,’ and then, ‘But please, come into the hall.’

The man entered, taking off his hat as he came.

‘That’s it,’ Grace said as she closed the front door, ‘come in out of that cold wind.’ She turned and gestured to the sofa. ‘Please, sit down.’

‘Now,’ Grace said, sitting beside the man, ‘you said my husband has started to take out a life insurance policy. What do you mean, he’s
started
to take it out?’

‘Only that it can’t go through just yet, ma’am, as there’s a little information required about the insured.’

‘Oh, I see, then tell me what you want to know and I’ll be happy to help you, if I can.’

‘I’m sure you can, ma’am. It’s just the matter of the date of birth of the insured.’

‘What date did he give you?’

‘He gave the day and the month, but no year.’

Throughout the brief exchange Grace had felt her heartbeat increasing. Thoughts were flying through her brain with such swiftness that she could scarcely examine them. Edward had insured her life. But of course. Of course. It made sense. And he would have insured the first Mrs Spencer too.

‘The year,’ she heard herself saying, ‘well, I was born in 1867.’

‘No, ma’am, not you,’ he said. ‘It’s Master William Barratt Harper.’

When the man had gone, back out into the chill November day, Grace had stayed trembling in the hall. She had not given him the information he required. On hearing that it was Billy who was the subject of the policy, she had said to the man, ‘Oh, but you must come back and see my husband. He will deal with it himself.’ And the man had looked at her bewildered, puzzled at her behaviour after her former cooperation. But still he had gone, putting his hat back on his head, giving it a pat and stepping out again into the wind. Very well, he had said, he would write and make an appointment with her husband.

With the door closed behind the man, Grace had stood there, unable to think of what to do. It was Billy’s life that was at risk. As she raised her fingers to her cheek she saw that her hand was shaking.