Abdication: A Novel (26 page)

W
ord of his wife’s sudden illness had reached Sir Philip in London and he was already waiting with the family doctor and another gentleman on the doorstep as May pulled up the car outside Hamilton Terrace. Lady Joan had not stirred throughout the journey, and even Miss Nettlefold, shifting constantly in the rather cramped conditions of the front seat, had spent much of the time in silence. Every so often she had looked backwards through the open dividing screen just in case Lady Joan had recovered consciousness.

An hour later Sir Philip came to find May in the kitchen. He looked exhausted.

“My dear, I am most grateful to you. Miss Nettlefold has told me how efficiently you have dealt with things this afternoon. I am afraid Lady Joan has suffered a stroke. Mr. Hunt, the consultant, thinks her recent anxiety about Rupert and his politics might have contributed to this. Her nerves have been terribly weak for years I am afraid.” Sir Philip sounded unlike his usual reserved self. He seemed to want to tell May every detail of his wife’s condition, as if to reassure himself that everything was being done to help her.

“I know John Hunt through the old boys’ network at Balliol. He’s already a distinguished man of medicine, even though he must still only be in his early thirties. He is just about to move to the neurological
clinic at St. Bartholomew’s and we have had several talks over the years about Joan. You know, the way she is about her younger sister’s death?”

May nodded.

“Well, John understands that Joan is still unable to recover from the tragedy. He is one of those few people really interested in that sort of psychological condition. It
is
such a relief he could come at such short notice and see her. Oh, forgive me May, I am going on a bit aren’t I?” He buried his head in his hands. “As if the loss of her sister has not brought her enough suffering already. And now this,” he half whispered to himself.

The following day a still unconscious Lady Joan, accompanied by a uniformed nurse, was driven down to Cuckmere Park in an ambulance. If she was to stand any chance of recovery, Hunt considered absolute inactivity and peace to be an essential ingredient for healing. The nurse was to take up permanent residence and would attend to all of Lady Joan’s basic medical needs, Sir Philip explained, unless his wife’s condition showed no sign of improvement, in which case she would have to be admitted to hospital for closer monitoring.

During the next few days the rest of the staff at Cuckmere vacillated between subdued discussion about people they knew who had been struck down with something similar, and the good news at least that the date for the coronation had been confirmed for next May, less than a year away. In the kitchen Mr. Hooch held his cup of elevenses coffee in hands ingrained with engine oil and grease and shook his head slowly from side to side. His pessimism at the prognosis for the much-loved mistress of the house was all too evident in his face. Cooky advised everyone to try and look on the bright side. She was certain that her ladyship would be fully recovered in time for the big coronation celebrations in St. John’s Wood next summer. Cooky would probably be asked to help London Cook with the preparations.

“I will agree for her ladyship’s sake but only if London Cook can manage to keep her temper under control for two whole days,” she said, pursing her lips in and out in quick little movements. “I remember my mother telling me about the red and blue jellies she made for the old king’s coronation street party in Battersea in 1911. God bless his soul.”

And Cooky picked up the corner of her apron and wiped a tear from her eye, a gesture which May considered a trifle theatrical given that it was now six months since George V’s death and May had heard the story at least half a dozen times before.

Getting up from the kitchen table, she excused herself and went outside into the garden. At last a pattern of sunshine had established itself, bringing with each successive morning long stretches of warmth that allowed sweaters to remain in drawers unmissed for days on end. At the far end of the lawn, near the large fig tree, Vera was busy tying up the trailing ends of a purple clematis that were tumbling over a wicker archway. She raised a hand to May in greeting. Severely dressed in her habitual dungarees and fearsome beneath her distinctive earth-smeared cheekbones, Vera’s magic fingers brought the chalky flowerbeds of Cuckmere to life.

Sir Philip’s reading glasses and the newspaper lay in a deck chair that had been placed against the shady curve of the long flint wall. The green and white patterned chair, with its own little fringed canopy, had been Sir Philip’s gift to his pregnant wife during the summer their son was born and the sag of the fabric on the seat showed the evidence of much use. The garden looked like the juxtaposed brushstrokes of an impressionist’s canvas, with the flowers packed so closely together in the earth that it was impossible to distinguish where one bloom ended and the other began. Roses flung themselves over flint walls and the pink and red hollyhocks had beaten all their previous records in height, their delicate pink flowers scaling the top wire of
the tennis court. At the other end of the lawn, Vera put the ball of string and pruning sheers into her pocket and sat down on a bench beneath the fig tree. It was too early for the tree to produce any fruit but the large leaves provided the dappling shade that was welcome on such a hot day.

Whenever May had some time to herself she would sit by the door of the ancient dovecot and listen to the velvety crooning that came from inside. The inner walls of the squat stone building were slatted with hundreds of deep square shelves, a stone-built library filled not with books but with doves, each one snug in the individual slots in which they and their antecedents had nested for several centuries. May looked around this lovely place, absorbing the beauty of it. In April, the thick yew hedges had been clipped back to the cleanest and smoothest of profiles but the new growth was already beginning to blur the crisp lines. Petals borne on the occasional breath of a breeze drifted across the lawn from the rose garden and floated into May’s lap. The air was so still that she could only tell the direction of the wind by training her gaze on a landmark, a chimney, or a tree and watching a cloud make its snail-slow progress across the sky towards that fixed point. That day the sun was so bright that May found it impossible to read her book even when she scrunched up her eyes to see the words on the page. She went inside the house.

As usual Lady Joan was on her own, apart from the nurse who sat saying nothing in a corner of the room. Miss Nettlefold had admitted to May that the sight of her godmother, so indisposed and helpless, had upset her dreadfully and, concerned she might make a scene at the bedside, Evangeline thought it wiser to stay away.

The two Blunt children rarely came upstairs to their mother’s once-pretty bedroom that was now filled with medical equipment. In fact, Rupert and Bettina rarely came at all to Cuckmere during those summer months. Bettina explained to her father that she was in the middle
of her busy London season and Rupert, having recently finished his exams, was giving himself an extended and well-earned period of celebration with his friends. Despite the intense demands of his work in London, Sir Philip tried to be near his wife as often as possible and May found herself driving him up and down to the city four or five times a week.

On the day Lady Joan had returned home in the ambulance, May offered to take her turn sitting beside her. Sir Philip had agreed at once.

“My wife is very fond of you, my dear,” Sir Philip said, “and when she wakes I know she will be grateful to find you nearby.”

Taking up her position at the head of the bed, May would try to ignore the smells of stale decay, medicinal chemicals, and the uneven sounds that came from beneath the oxygen mask. There was no knowing if Lady Joan would ever wake. There had been talk of her having an operation involving an electric current being passed through her brain but Sir Philip could not bring himself to subject his wife to such a frightful invasion. The only confirmation of life came from the intermittent misting up of Lady Joan’s oxygen mask and the flickering butterfly hover that stirred beneath Lady Joan’s cream nightdress. May had once leant over to interrupt the path of a ladybird that was in danger of becoming trapped under the mask as it tracked its way across the invalid’s pale cheek. Feeling her gaze becoming intrusive May had stood up. Such contemplation should be reserved exclusively for the absorption either of a daughter, or a lover.

May had heard nothing from Julian since they had parted at the underground station nearly a month ago. She missed their conversations. Julian was so easy to talk to. He made her think and he made her laugh. What’s more, he listened to her, one of the most important points on her mother’s list of qualities to look for in a man. Above all, she could not stop thinking about the taste of his kiss. And those thoughts had
led to others that had never before entered her head. Part of her felt she should put a stop to anything further developing between them. She was aware of the professional barriers, even though Sir Philip had not cautioned her in any way. And there was something else that deterred her. While she did not like the idea of either of them deceiving Miss Bellowes, she was conscious of her own new physical longing. The truth was she did not trust herself.

Over the past few months she had seen and envied and admired the love and the physical affection between Nat and Sarah, whose baby was due in October. Memories of her revulsion at Duncan’s touch had slowly begun to fade and alone in her bed at night she had begun to experiment with new feelings that were emerging with a not unpleasant regularity. Running her fingers up the long line from her ankle to her slim waist, she would linger for as long as her instinctive modesty would allow her at the dark hair-sown softness between her legs. She tried to imagine what that sort of caress might feel like if it came from the hand of another. Sometimes she succeeded in giving her body up to the deep-sourced pulse that began as a faraway tremor, and then enveloped her entire body, clearing her mind of everything except an unprecedented and sublimely delicious sensation.

Julian did not find out about Joan’s stroke until well after it had happened and was furious with Rupert for not telling him. He travelled down straightaway to Cuckmere, arriving one scorching hot day from London by train. His visit had coincided with one of Miss Nettlefold’s rare appearances but she had already exhausted her tolerance for a distressing bedside vigil and had gone to take some air before returning to London.

Julian went straight to Joan’s bedroom, while in the kitchen his arrival dominated lunchtime conversation. The staff was delighted. The notion that over the past few years Lady Joan had become more attached to her son’s undergraduate friend than she was to her own son
had not gone unnoticed; nor was it possible to ignore the closeness that seemed to be developing between him and May, although each member of staff had their own reasons for keeping that particular observation to themselves. Cooky believed that it was bad luck to encourage a romance before it had even begun. Mr. Hooch did not want to see any harm coming to the young woman for whom his protective affection was beginning to feel paternalistic. And Mrs. Cage did not want to find herself in a position where she had to remind May that she was an employee in the house. Best to leave any suspicions well alone and they might simply disappear.

An hour after his arrival, Julian left the sickroom and went into the study. Sir Philip was in London and May was sitting at her desk alone.

“I hoped you would be in here,” Julian said, slowly scrunching up the pale blue cap in his hand into a ball. He looked nervous and flushed.

May stood up so quickly at the sound of his voice that she dropped her pen and stumbled over the wastepaper basket at her feet.

“Oh look at me, all fingers and thumbs. I didn’t know you were here. Have you come to see Joan?”

“Yes. That bastard Rupert hadn’t even told me about her illness. I was horrified by the news.”

“I knew you would be, which is why I didn’t tell you myself. I didn’t want to upset you in the middle of your exams.”

“Oh May, it isn’t you I blame,” Julian said, coming closer.

“Oh well, that
is
a relief.” She stood awkwardly next to her desk, not sure whether to sit down again or to remain facing Julian, inhaling his distinctive smoky smell.

“I hope you aren’t going back to London straightaway? Must you? Please stay on a bit?” It was now May’s turn to look flustered.

“I should probably leave,” he replied slowly. “I promised my mother I would go and see her this afternoon. But I want to see you. I have missed you.”

May tried to keep her voice from betraying her excitement.
Did he really say what I think he said?
she wondered to herself, suddenly alarmed that if she didn’t keep him there now, she had no idea when she would next see him.

“Actually, I was just going for a swim,” she said as calmly and nonchalantly as possible. “Would you like to come with me? You could take my bike. I can borrow Florence’s. She’s still at school.”

“Yes, yes, I think I would love that,” Julian replied.

Together they pedalled out of the drive, down the lane, through the village and into the open country, taking the path that led towards the river’s meanders. Whole families of rabbits lifted their heads from their steady consumption of clumps of clover and ran for refuge in the tunnels that honeycombed the surrounding fields. A herd of brown and white cows were chewing rhythmically on the grass verges and walking towards them was the unmistakable bulk of Miss Evangeline Nettlefold. A huge smile broke out on her face as she recognised the figure in the cap.