Facing the Light (33 page)

Then there were all sorts of clumsy introductions, with Leonora saying how pleased she was to meet him and Hugh likewise and lying through his teeth and muttering about having meant to ask Rilla to take him up to
Willow Court because he was such an admirer of Ethan Walsh's etc. etc. till Rilla was dizzy. Then Hugh went off in one direction and Leonora and Rilla in another and she hadn't even had her meringue.

Typically, Leonora said nothing about Hugh till they were at home. Rilla didn't know what to do. Would it look better if she said something? Or should she just shut up and let Leonora wonder? She decided to leave it till suppertime and see what happened and, sure enough, she'd hardly taken one bite of her cold salmon salad when Leonora said, ‘He's rather good-looking, isn't he, that chap who's taken the Albertons' cottage. I've forgotten his name.'

‘Hugh Kenworthy,' said Rilla, thinking
liar! You've just done that to hear how I say his name
. She went on eating the salmon in a wonderfully nonchalant manner, awarding herself top marks for good acting.

Leonora went on, ‘D'you know him very well? You've not mentioned him, have you?'

‘No,' said Rilla. ‘I don't know him terribly well. He's a potter. He chatted to me about the pictures in the shop, and I've had coffee with him a couple of times, that's all.'

Leonora said nothing, but looked at her daughter searchingly for a moment. She's putting two and two together, Rilla thought. All those hours and hours that I've been out of the house. Can she guess? I mustn't look nervous. I must change the subject.

‘You ought to ask him to come up here sometime,' Leonora said. ‘Why don't you invite him for lunch next Sunday? Gwen and James might be coming up then, I think, and you could all have a game of tennis or something.'

‘Right,' said Rilla. ‘I will. That's a good idea, only I don't know if he plays tennis or not. I'll ask though.'

The rest of the meal passed without incident, and when it was over Rilla went to her room. Jeffrey, one of what
she still thought of as the new cats, the ones who'd replaced their beloved Cinders, was asleep on the velvet-covered chair. He was a handsome tabby, and his companion and brother, George, was black all over. George was an outdoors sort of cat who never came upstairs at all. Rilla stood at the window and looked at the lake, silver in the early evening sunlight. She imagined herself and Hugh walking beside it, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes, picturing his mouth and how it tasted on her mouth. Turning from the window, she fell forward on to the bed and pressed herself into the counterpane, fancying his body was between hers and the silky fabric, almost conjuring it up, so fervently was she wishing it.

*

‘It was vile! You were vile! I've never hated a day more in my life. Why did you have to …' Rilla was screaming at Hugh. Part of her mind registered the fact that this was their very first row, but that didn't matter. She was so angry that even her love couldn't stop her.

‘Stop it, Rilla!' Hugh was trying his hardest to be soothing. It was making things worse. ‘You're blowing this up out of all proportion. What actually are you so het up about?'

‘You don't know? You're seriously telling me you don't know?' They were still in the lounge of the cottage. Normally, the moment she came through the door, they started kissing and were halfway upstairs before a word had been said, but not this time. ‘I can't see straight. I don't know what to think. I can't believe you didn't realize.'

‘Didn't realize
what
exactly?' said Hugh. He was sounding bored. How dare he sound bored?

‘You didn't realize when you were swarming all around my mother and sister that you were hurting me? You didn't even look at me the entire day. We could have
been strangers, just people who mean nothing to one another. I couldn't bear it. How you kept talking and talking to Mummy as though she was the most fascinating person in the whole world and I was nothing. You even disappeared with her for hours. What were you doing? How d'you think I felt? You didn't say a single word to me from the minute you arrived till when you left. I had to go through a whole day with you and not even touch you once …' Words failed Rilla and she burst into tears.

‘Come here,' Hugh said, and gathered her into his arms. ‘You are a silly thing, Rilla darling. Did you really want everyone to know what I feel for you? Did you? Don't you think your mother might be a little – what shall we say? – upset to discover what her little girl had been up to while she wasn't looking? Your mother very kindly took me up to see Ethan Walsh's Studio because I'd expressed an interest in the man. That's all.'

‘I wouldn't care if people knew about us!' Rilla said. ‘I'd shout it out if I could. I'd
love
it. I'd tell Mrs Pritchard. Everyone. I'm not ashamed. Not a bit.'

‘I know, I know,' he murmured, kissing her on the lips, on the neck, touching her breasts, distracting her from her anger, making it impossible for her to think straight any longer. ‘I know you're not ashamed. Still, it's better not to rock the boat, don't you think? Aren't things good? Isn't this good?'

Rilla said nothing. She felt the fury slide away from her. Her body wouldn't let her keep it in mind any longer. Never mind, she thought. He was pretending to be nice to them. He loves me. I can feel that he does, oh he does, he does, he really does and I'm going to faint because I love him so much.

*

‘Rilla, dear,' said Leonora. ‘I think we should talk.'

Rilla was so surprised to hear her mother say this,
actually
ask
to speak to her, that she stopped on her way to the door. Could someone have had an accident? She was going to see Hugh but still, maybe there was an emergency.

‘Of course, Mummy, is anything wrong?'

‘No, not in the way you mean. But come to the conservatory just for a few minutes.'

Rilla felt a little frightened as she sat down. All around her chair there were enormous pots and vases from which her mother's jungle plants overflowed and clambered, spreading their green leaves over the glass walls. What did Leonora want from her? It couldn't (could it?) be something to do with Hugh? No, surely not. One of the best things that had happened this summer was how well Hugh fitted into life at Willow Court.

Since his first visit, he'd come up often. Partly Rilla was pleased, because it meant that she, too, just like Gwen, had a boyfriend, even though hers wasn't recognized by everyone as being officially with her. The disadvantage of having him constantly at Willow Court was that they had less time alone together. Less time for sex, Rilla said to herself, although there was the night they went to the gazebo after swimming in the lake and stayed there till the dawn came up. She sometimes wondered whether it was normal to want sex so much. There was no one she could really ask, except Hugh, who always laughed at her and said something silly, like
you couldn't possibly be too eager for my liking
or something. Nothing that told her whether it was normal. She never asked about other girlfriends he'd had before he met her because she didn't want to hear about those. He hadn't said anything about marriage. In fact, he hadn't even said he loved her, which worried her sometimes although she'd heard that some men just didn't like saying the words, whatever their feelings might be. Rilla knew from her careful reading of magazines that weddings were not a subject to be
broached lightly and so she never said anything either, but of course she'd already arranged the furnishings of their house down to the last detail, in her imagination.

‘It's about Hugh, I'm afraid,' Leonora said.

‘What's wrong? Is he all right? Has he had an accident?'

‘No, no, darling. Nothing like that at all. Please sit down again.' Rilla had jumped out of her seat. She sat down and stared at her mother.

‘What's the matter with Hugh?' she said.

‘I'm going to ask you something, Rilla, which I wouldn't normally ask but please don't think I'm interfering. I just have to know, in the circumstances. Have you slept with him?'

Rilla blushed and knew that the blush had given her away. I'm not ashamed, she told herself. There's nothing to be ashamed about. She looked up at Leonora and said, as bravely as she could, ‘Yes, yes I have.' She waited for lightning to flash, some sort of cataclysm to match the enormity of the news, but Leonora only sighed.

‘Oh, dear,' she said. ‘I thought so. This is going to be hard for you to understand, darling, but I'm afraid all that's over now.'

‘What's over? I don't understand. How can it be over? I was on my way to see him. What? How?'

‘He won't be there. He's gone back to London. He won't be coming down here again.'

A pounding started behind Rilla's eyes.
Don't lose control. Keep calm
 … she told herself, over and over again. When she spoke, her voice came out in a strangled squeak that she hated, but it was such an effort holding on to herself, not crying. She said, ‘Mummy, if you're going to say hurtful things, you have to explain. You can't just sit there and announce that he's not coming back. He wouldn't leave me. He loves me. I know he does. We love each other.'

Leonora shook her head.

‘He's been taking advantage of you, Rilla. There's no easy way to say this, but he's … he's dishonest. He's not what he appears to be. Truly. For one thing, how old did he tell you he was?'

‘I know how old he is. He's twenty-seven. And you can't say a word either because that's how much older Daddy was than you.'

‘Hugh is thirty-four. He looks younger, that's true, but he really is.'

‘That's not true. How do you know, anyway? Did he tell you? How d'you know he's not lying to
you
, about being older? Not that it matters. I'd love him anyway.'

‘It was a remark he made about remembering a street party at the end of the war. You probably didn't even notice him saying it, but I did. I realized at once that he must be at least thirty-two. And then I made a few enquiries, of friends in London. He's thirty-four, Rilla, but that's not all. Are you ready for this?'

‘Ready for what? I don't care what you've dug up. Is he a white slaver? A drug dealer? I love him anyway. We'll run away if everyone is going to be horrible about it. We'll go where no one will ever find us.'

‘Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. Just the rather banal fact that he's already married. He has two children, one of them a girl, only three years younger than you are.'

Rilla felt as though a stone had fallen on her and crushed her so that all the breath left her body. She opened her mouth to speak, and couldn't. She tried again.

‘Is … do they … I mean, maybe they're separated. That must be it. That must be why he comes to the cottage. To get away from her. They must be thinking of divorce. I'll talk to him. I'll ask him what's happening. He'll tell me the truth. He has to. He won't need to hide anything from me any more. He loves me.'

‘That may be true. He may love you, Rilla, but it makes no difference. And of course he didn't tell you. Why should he? He was having a wonderful time with you, why should he spoil it? But he spoke to me, when I asked him to tell me the truth.'

‘What did he say? Tell me every single word he said. Every word, mind. Please, Mummy, tell me everything. When did you speak to him? Where?'

‘Here. The day before yesterday when he came for lunch. While you were out in the Quiet Garden talking to Gwen and James, I think.'

It was true. There was an hour – was it as long as that? – when she was not with Hugh. Gwen and James said that perhaps he was having another cup of coffee with Leonora, and actually remarked on how well he got on with her. Rilla closed her eyes. All the time that she was lying on the grass and looking up into the leaves of the magnolia, he had been telling Leonora all these hideous things. It was unbearable. Rilla felt pain all over her body as though someone had beaten her. It's never going to end, she thought. I'm going to hurt for ever. Always. I'll never stop hurting. She breathed deeply and looked at her mother.

‘Please tell me everything,' she said. ‘Every word.'

‘He confessed to me that he was older, just as I'd suspected. He admitted that he should have had more sense than to fall under the spell of a young girl, but that he couldn't help himself. He said he was … susceptible. Susceptible to the charms of young girls. He seemed to know that this was not something to be proud of. He looked down a lot while he spoke to me, Rilla. I asked him about his wife. She knows nothing, it seems, of the detail of what he gets up to when he's not with her. They have one of those … what do you call them? Open marriages. He is a devoted father. His cottage here, well, that was for his pottery. That was what he told his wife.
He begged me. Begged me to say nothing to her about you. Not because you were his mistress, you understand, because those are a constant in his life, but simply because you are so much younger than – and these are his words –
his usual lovers
. He is frank about those, if about nothing else. I told him that he must leave the cottage and he agreed. He left yesterday, I believe. He undertook never to get in touch with you, and you must never contact him again, Rilla. It's best that way, really it is. He assured me that you wouldn't become pregnant, because he's had a vasectomy. For which we must be deeply grateful.'

Rilla didn't say a single word. She got up from her chair and left the conservatory without really knowing where she was going. A whiteness filled her field of vision and her heart … what was happening to that? It felt as though someone, something, was squeezing it and she could imagine it, just behind her ribcage, throbbing and bloody and being torn apart, nothing more than offal, and not the source of all emotions after all. She stumbled upstairs and went straight to the nursery.