Memories of the Storm (17 page)

'You don't get rid of me that easily, darling. I'm
staying with you. When I go I'm taking you with
me.'

And Michael's heart sinks: he knows that he is
caught in a trap – a trap of his own making but,
nevertheless, a trap.

It is not just selfishness on her part, Eleanor tells
herself, it is simply that she is trying to protect
them all. The truth is that Michael can't stay at
Bridge House indefinitely as some kind of sickbed
attendant, and sooner or later Hester must decide
what exactly is going to happen to Edward. If it
were left to Eleanor herself she would simply put
him in hospital – or the madhouse – because, let's
be honest, the poor old boy is as mad as a hatter.
Madder, because he's dangerous too. And surely
they can see that it's asking for trouble to have him
around with Lucy. Anything might happen. Oh, it's
all very well for Hes and Mike to say that he takes
no notice of the child and that she is actually very
good with him but they must be able to grasp that
he's about as volatile as a keg of gunpowder in a
match factory. Much better to get Lucy away with
Aunt Mary, even if she's as old as God and hasn't
been anywhere since the war started. At least the
kid will be safe with her and Mike can get down to
Chichester quite easily from London. After all, what
else is he going to do with her? She's four years old
and it won't be long before she should go to school,
and he can't expect poor Hester to take her on.
Certainly not now she's got Edward to worry about.
No, the right thing is for the two of them to go to
London, Lucy to Aunt Mary, and then Hes will
realize that she simply can't manage and she'll be
sensible and let Edward go into some kind of
mental hospital. Then they can all get on with their
lives again. And of
course
it's tragic about poor old
Edward, of
course
it is, but that's the way war works.
Some people die and other lives are ruined. It's
ghastly, but it doesn't mean that everyone has to
suffer because they feel guilty that they've survived.
That's simply stupid. It's criminal, in fact, to
throw away lives unnecessarily. An utterly pointless
sacrifice.

And if Hester and Michael really think that they
can sacrifice her along with themselves then they'll
have to think again. In fact, rather than behaving in
this hole-and-corner way, thinks Eleanor, perhaps
the time is coming to force the pace: to push
Edward nearer to the edge; oh, not too far, the
poor sweetie, but just far enough to make certain
that the decision is taken and they can all get on
with their lives.

* * *

Edward and Hester sit together beside the fire. A
volume of John Clare's poetry is open on Edward's
knee from which he reads aloud. He stops at
regular intervals so as to continue a conversation
they are having about the past, interrupting the
reading each time a new memory occurs to him.
Outside, the rising wind soughs through the trees
and whips the river into a foaming brown tide,
which races beneath the old bridge and slaps
against the stone piers as it passes.

Hidden behind the long sofa, Lucy plays with her
doll and Rabbit: they are having a tea-party. She
has saved a chocolate biscuit – a very great treat –
and has broken it into small pieces. The teapot is
full of milk, which she pours very carefully into
the tiny plastic cups. She has begged the milk
from Hester and, as she shares out the biscuit, she
wonders if Edward steals food because it is part of
the game he plays. She's seen him slip a bread roll
from his plate into his pocket when he thinks
nobody is looking and take another one to eat there
and then, or it might be an apple and, once, an egg
from the bowl on the dresser in the kitchen. She's
watched him in Hester's kitchen garden – which
they still refer to as the meadow because that's what
it was before the war – kneeling beside the rows of
vegetables and uprooting a carrot or a parsnip. He
brushes the earth from it and puts it inside his
jacket, glancing quickly over his shoulder to see if
anyone is watching.

He is reading again now and Lucy sits quite still
to listen because she loves Edward's voice and the
words fascinate her. This is someone talking quietly
to a friend as they walk along together, just as she
and Jack used to, and she holds her breath as
she waits to hear what they might discover.

'Up this green woodland-ride let's softly rove

And list the nightingale – she dwells just here.

Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap for fear

The noise might drive her from her home
of love,

For here I've heard her many a merry year –

At morn, at eve, nay, all the livelong day,

As though she lived on song . . .

'Do you remember, Hes, when Mother read
Hendy's report about nightingales over Bossington
way and we went out one evening to hear them?'
His voice is pitched very low and Lucy has to strain
to hear him.

Hester chuckles. 'I was allowed to go as a treat,
though Nanny said I was too young to be up late.
Mother insisted. "She might never hear one again,"
she said.'

'We all went in the end, except Nanny. Father
piled us all into the car and we took Thermos flasks
and rugs. I remember that it was jolly cold. It must
have been the Easter holidays.'

'I don't think I minded too much about the
nightingale. I just loved the idea of an expedition
over the moor instead of going to bed.'

'We heard them in the end, in an orchard near
Bossington. Magical.

'And where those crimping fern-leaves ramp
among

The hazel's under-boughs, I've nestled down

And watched her while she sung, and her renown

Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird

Should have no better dress than russet
brown . . .'

Lucy listens with delight. The phrases conjure
up images of the wood in the summer; the path
winding beside the murmuring river and the
trees ringing with the sound of birdsong. Perhaps
Edward has a secret house in the woods and an
imaginary friend with whom he shares the roll and
the egg. She and Jack have played games like that,
taking food wrapped in a cotton handkerchief to
eat later in the hollow of a big tree all hidden by its
low, sweeping branches.

'The mind plays tricks,' Edward is saying. 'Poor
old John Clare went mad, didn't he? Didn't
know who he was in the end, poor devil. Do you
remember that Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, "O
the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall"? I
know what he means now. That's the frightening
part about it all. You never know when you might
suddenly be standing on the edge of one of those
cliffs. Yet I can remember the nightingales.'

'Well, that's the important thing, isn't it? You
have to hold on to that and wait for the other thing
to pass.'

'And Eleanor? Is she prepared to wait too while
we all play the pretending game?'

Behind the sofa Lucy is riveted with surprise: so
the grown-ups know that Edward is playing games.
They know how he steals food and about the other
Edward that he plays at being and they don't really
mind. In fact they are playing the game with him.

'It's just that the doctor fears that any emotional
confrontation might be damaging,' Hester is saying
gently. 'Do you remember what he said?'

'Oh, I remember. But, my God, Hes, can you
imagine what a tremendous release it would be to
make love to my wife. Can you possibly imagine the
relief it would be just to do it? Oh, don't worry. I'm
not likely to, not the way she looks at me. The sight
of me disgusts her and I don't blame her . . . She
and Michael seem to be very close.'

'We're all very close. The war has seen to that,
and having Lucy with us has made Michael more
like a brother than a friend. Go on with the poem,
Edward.'

There is a little silence but when he begins to
read his voice is calm again and Lucy relaxes. For
one moment, when he talked about Eleanor, she'd
feared that the other Edward might emerge.

'How curious is the nest: no other bird

Uses such loose materials or weaves

Its dwelling in such spots – dead oaken leaves

Are placed without and velvet moss within

And little scraps of grass and, scant and spare,

What scarcely seem materials, down and hair . . .'

Lucy can picture the nest. She and Jack found one
once, so tiny it was, so beautifully made, and Jack
climbed a tree and put the nest carefully in a fork in
one of the branches but low down so they could see
it from the ground. They waited and waited but no
bird ever came to lay its eggs in it.

'What sillies you are,' Nanny said later, when she
heard about the nest. 'The babies are all grown up
now and flown away, that's why the nest was on the
ground. It's not needed any more.'

'Deep adown

The nest is made, a hermit's mossy cell.
Snug lie her curious eggs in number five
Of deadened green or rather olive-brown,
And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well.
So here we'll leave them, still unknown to wrong,
As the old woodland's legacy of song.'

The chocolate biscuit and the milk are all finished
up but Lucy continues to sit, cross-legged, waiting.
Some instinct warns her that it would be unwise to
show herself. Luckily, Hester is stirring, talking
about preparing dinner, and presently she gets up
and goes out, leaving the door open. Carefully and
very slowly, Lucy edges her way out from behind
the sofa, leaving the tea-set but carrying her dolly
and Rabbit.

A tiny sound alerts Edward to her presence and
he looks round quickly. Lucy stands stiffly, clasping
the doll and the rabbit to her chest, waiting for
some kind of angry reaction from him. He stares at
her and, to her surprise, she sees that his eyes are
full of tears. They make his eyes shine in the
firelight and one rolls down his sunken cheek. Lucy
swallows, controlling her desire to run. The tears
make her think of Jack, of Robin, of the frustrations
and misunderstandings of the children's world and,
instead, she holds out the doll to him.

Edward leans forward to take it and his face is
gentle again. He sits the doll on the cushion beside
him, smoothing her skirts and settling her carefully,
and then stretches a hand to Lucy. She goes to
him, scrambling up beside him, and they sit close
together, sharing a wordless kind of loving.

What shall we do? Hester asks herself. Oh, what
shall we do?

As she heats up the vegetable soup she wonders
how long they can go from day to day simply
postponing the moment of decision. Do they
really believe that one morning Edward will wake,
revitalized, normal, as he was four years before, and
that, by some miracle, Eleanor will fall in love with
him all over again?

The point is, thinks Hester, that I have to believe
it – for what else is there to do? A tiny part of her
mind tells her that Michael should take Eleanor
and Lucy and go back to London; that Edward
would soon come to terms with Eleanor's defection
and that he would be more stable once Eleanor was
out of the way. This might be so but has she,
Hester, the courage to manage Edward, to have
sole care of him? Nanny has offered to come back if
she can be of any assistance – and that might
be an option. Nevertheless, there are times when
Michael's strength has been necessary to subdue
Edward and Hester's heart quakes at the prospect
of being alone with him, even with Nanny to assist.

Opening the oven door to check the rabbit
stew, she thinks of the frightening episode that
happened on the first day that Edward insisted on
getting up in time for breakfast downstairs.

'I think he's beginning to get restless at being
treated as an invalid,' Michael had said. 'It's best to
let him, Hes.'

When he'd arrived in the dining-room he'd been
carrying an old coffee tin. The lettering had
been completely rubbed away and it was dented
and shiny with constant handling. Edward placed
it beside his plate and, sitting down, carefully
repositioned his knife and fork, putting them
together beside the tin. They have grown used to
this behaviour. Each lunchtime – the only meal
Edward has so far shared with them all – he tends
to collect his cutlery together and becomes
distressed if any of it is removed during lunch.
They've discovered that it's best to leave everything
he uses at his place and then it is cleared only after
he has left the room.

On this occasion, Hester had simply picked up
the tin so that she could put his coffee cup beside
his plate but his reaction had been instantaneous.
He'd leaped up with a scream of rage, his chair
flung backwards, and he'd seized Hester's wrist in
one hand and wrenched the coffee tin from
her with the other whilst desperate words bubbled
unintelligibly from his lips. It was Michael who had
come to her rescue, forcibly unlocking Edward's
fingers, wrestling him away and back into his chair
where he'd held him down whilst Edward wept
uncontrollably and clutched his tin. Eleanor had
simply fled the room whilst Lucy had disappeared
under the table, waiting for the storm to pass.

Now, as Hester puts out some apples into a bowl,
she wonders what other unconsidered action might
bring down Edward's wrath upon her. How would
she manage without Michael? She suspects that she
simply doesn't have the will or the energy to make
a decision; they will go on, from day to day, hoping
for a miracle.

As it happens, the decision is taken out of her
hands. Because it is not her nature to be either
devious or self-seeking it does not occur to Hester
that Eleanor has decided to pre-empt the situation.
Their relationship is better than it has ever been
but Eleanor does not confide her idea to Hester.
She is careful to put her new plan into action only
when Hester is nowhere to be seen and, if possible,
when Michael hasn't seen Edward nearby or doesn't
know he's within earshot. She begins so cautiously,
so cleverly, that even Michael doesn't realize that
she is deliberately inflaming Edward into some
kind of response.

In his hypersensitive condition tiny things alert
him only too readily: Eleanor's hand lingering
overlong on Michael's shoulder when she leans
across him to place something on the table; a quick
reach up on tiptoe to whisper something private in
his ear; a reluctance to leave a stolen embrace. Her
quick ears and sharpened awareness seem to judge
exactly when Edward will appear so that he sees just
enough to arouse his emotions. After three weeks of
anxious care, Michael's antennae are blunted and
he is beginning to flag in his watchfulness. He
cannot understand why Edward is less open with
him; he seems silent and surly and Michael is at
a loss as to what to do. Because they have all
witnessed Edward's sudden, uncontrollable rages
Michael never guesses for a moment that Eleanor
might be actually hoping to precipitate Edward into
an action that will force a decision.

As for himself, Michael is slowly coming to understand
that there can be no future for him with
Eleanor. To his shame and confusion he sees that
he has added what he knew and loved of Susan to
what he feels physically for Eleanor and in these few
weeks constantly in her company he sees that he
has been a fool. Eleanor is no Susan and he realizes
now that they have little in common. She is not
particularly interested in Lucy, except as a means to
his own heart, and he is filled with a kind of
paralysing horror at the thought of spending the
rest of his life with her. He is also terrified at the
prospect of telling her this – and, anyway, how is he
simply to take Lucy and go back to London, leaving
Hester with Edward? He knows now that there is no
question of Eleanor remaining with her husband.

Although he is not aware of it, Eleanor picks up
all the signs of his growing dilatoriness and is even
more determined to make a push for her own
future.

Events come to a head one stormy evening as
she sits with Michael in the drawing-room. All day
the rain has fallen in drenching sheets of water,
teeming down the windows, streaming from the
moors and fields into the rapidly rising river. Now,
shortly before dinner, the downpour has ceased
although the wind is rising. It rattles at the windows
and echoes in the chimneys.

Eleanor has seen Edward go out onto the terrace
a few moments before Michael comes in: the
French doors are closed but the curtains are pulled
back. Now, so concentrated is she on the darkness
beyond the firelight that she doesn't notice Lucy
slip into the room whilst she is pleading with
Michael, persuading him to make the break. They
sit close together, their knees touching and she
takes his cold, unwilling hands in her own.

'I can't just walk out on Hester,' Michael is
saying, in a low, desperate whisper. 'You must see
that. And, anyway . . .'

His voice dies away but Eleanor is alarmed at the
'And, anyway', all her senses are alerted and she is
determined not to allow any kind of doubt in his
love for her to be voiced. She speaks urgently, her
voice hard.

'It's because of Lucy, isn't it? If it weren't for her
we could get away. You're a fool, Michael. Something
terrible is going to happen and it will be
because of Lucy.'

At this moment Eleanor sees what she has been
waiting for: a flicker of white in the darkness on the
terrace. Edward has returned and is outside the
window, peering into the room. She puts her hands
on Michael's shoulders and kisses him passionately
on the mouth and, in the same second, Hester
comes in and switches on the light just as Edward
bursts through the French doors pursued by the
clamouring noise of water.

Even in the face of his fury, Eleanor clings for as
long as she can to Michael; she has staked everything
on this throw and she is going to make the
most of it. Edward seizes her by the shoulder, his
fingers cruel and hard, and she cries out with the
pain of it, and then Michael is grappling with him,
dragging him away, aided by Hester, who is crying
out, 'Oh, don't, Edward, please don't,' and hanging
on to his jacket. Eleanor begins to scream, though
she finds the violence of the scene faintly exciting,
and the two men struggle together, crashing into
the furniture and grunting with exertion.

They are near to the open French doors when
Edward flings Michael off and turns again on
Eleanor. This time she is truly frightened and,
when he takes her by the throat, she realizes just
what a risk she has taken. Edward might look feeble
and old but there is the strength of the madman in
his fingers. Michael rushes him, catching him off
balance and punches him violently in the face. The
blow completely unbalances Edward, who staggers
back at a run, releasing Eleanor and stumbling on
to the terrace. He falls, collapsing half over the low
wall and then disappears into the swollen, tumbling
water below.

Hester is there, almost as he falls, though
Eleanor seizes her by the shoulders as if to restrain
her physically from following him into the water.
Below them Edward is struggling, trying to cling to
the overhanging branches of a hazel tree, before
being swept away by the current.

It is Michael, dazed, blood oozing from his
mouth, who cries out in despair. He yells as if for
help and goes racing along the terrace and out on
to the bridge still calling just as the rain begins to
fall again in torrents.

'Michael, wait,' shouts Hester. 'Wait. There's no
point . . .' She goes after him, knowing he can't
hear her above the river and the wind, and seizes
him by the arm. 'Michael, wait. There's no point
going along the road. Nobody will come that way at
this time of night. And Edward will be carried
downstream. Come and help me look for him.'

He suffers himself to be led back and Eleanor
hurries to him, putting an arm about his shoulders
and taking him inside, but now it is Hester who
takes control.

'Go and wake Lucy,' she says almost angrily to
Eleanor. 'Pack her things and Michael's. You must
go now, all of you. Whatever happens you must get
away. We can't risk another confrontation. Come
with me, Michael.'

They go together out through the house, running
along the lawn to the end of the garden where the
bank gives shallowly into the river and here they
find Edward, lying halfway up the bank, soaked and
exhausted. Even so, he rouses himself at the sight
of Michael, shouting feebly and fighting his
attempts to haul him out. Once they have dragged
him across the grass and it is clear that he can
stand, Hester gestures at Michael to let go of him.

'Go now,' she shouts at him, her words flung
away by the wind, hardly audible above the river's
tremendous voice. 'For God's sake. Just go now as
quick as you can,' and he hesitates only for a second
before hurrying into the house.

When Lucy hears Eleanor running up the stairs
she clenches herself even tighter into a ball beneath
the blankets. She is trembling with shock: first the
breaking of the Midsummer Cushion, the dried
flowers crumbling to dust, the glass splintering on
the floorboards; then the fight between her father
and Edward. Their hands, clutching and gripping,
seemed swollen with violence and the final blow
seemed all of a piece with the savage wildness of the
howling wind and the thunderous, surging water.
She seems to hear voices in her head: first Jack's
saying, 'If we touch it something really bad will
happen,' and then Eleanor's saying, 'Something
terrible will happen and it will be because of Lucy.'
She
has
touched the Midsummer Cushion, she
has broken it, and something very bad indeed has
happened. Yet, even now, she can't quite take it
all in. The events of the evening have been so
appalling that she wonders if she has been having a
nightmare: perhaps she will wake to find that it is
one of her bad dreams.

Eleanor is real enough, though. She bends over
the bed, speaking her name urgently, but Lucy
squeezes her eyes closed and holds herself rigid.

'Wake up, Lucy!' Eleanor says in a kind of furious
whisper. 'We've got to go to London. Get up. Be
quick.'

Lucy unrolls herself, still clutching the blanket up
to her chin, and stares up at her.

'I'm not going,' she says tremulously.

'Oh yes, you are,' says Eleanor, tugging the
blanket away, and when Lucy struggles and begins
to cry she takes her by the shoulders and her
fingers dig in so painfully that Lucy stops crying
and stares at her in amazement.

'We're going to London,' whispers Eleanor, her
face close to Lucy's, 'because your daddy has killed
Edward. They had a fight and he's killed him. Now
do you understand? If he stays here he'll be caught
and taken to prison. Now get up and get dressed
quickly and never say a word about this to anyone.
Not anyone, especially not your father. Do
you understand? Now where are your clothes? Put
on plenty of warm things. Is this your case? Be
quick.'

Too frightened to utter a word, Lucy begins to
dress, pulling on her knickers and liberty bodice
and her jersey while Eleanor opens the little
painted chest and folds Lucy's clothes with quick
movements. Lucy hurries to take her Little Grey
Rabbit books from the shelf lest they should
be forgotten and picks up Rabbit and her dolly,
hugging them to her chest, and all the time she is
shaking with fear. The terrible thing has happened
and it is all her fault.

'Wait there,' Eleanor says, again in that fierce
whisper and, shutting Lucy's door behind her, she
goes away across the landing whiles Lucy, sitting
obediently on the bed, still shivering with terror,
can hear her opening drawers and closing cupboards.

When she's packed as much as she can for herself
and Michael, Eleanor hears him coming up the
stairs. She hurries to meet him, putting her finger
to her lips and gesturing towards Lucy's door.

'He's OK,' he mutters. 'He and Hes are in the
kitchen getting him dried off. He's pretty bashed
about but he's OK, thank God. Hester needs some
dry clothes for him.'

'Hester's quite right. We must get away,' Eleanor
says urgently. 'If he sees either of us again he might
go right over the top. Surely you can see that? Get
those clothes off; you're soaked. I've laid some
things on your bed. Go
on
, Mike. For God's sake,
hurry
.'

She goes with him, offering him a towel after he's
dragged off his shirt and then watching in silence
while he pulls on warm, dry clothes. All his movements
are invested with a violent haste and his face
is white with shock.

'You realize, don't you, that you must never
breathe a word of this to Lucy?' she asks grimly, as
if implying that it is Michael who is to blame but
that she is prepared to forgive him as long as he
does as he is told. 'Not a word. We must get her
away before something worse happens. She's all
ready.'

'What did you tell her?' he asks anxiously.

'Oh, just that you have to get back to London
urgently and that you want her with you from
now on. She understands that so don't confuse
her.'