The Sweet Dove Died (15 page)

One would hardly want to be like the people who fill the emptiness of their lives with an animal, Leonora thought, going back into the house.

XXIII

Ned was bored. It had been amusing to see if he could get James away from Leonora – though the issue had never been in doubt, for when had he ever failed in such an enterprise? – but now that he had succeeded, what was he going to
do
about him? Jimmie was a sweet boy, but as time went on the innocence and naivety which had first attracted Ned became tedious, even pitiful, and they seemed to have less and less in common. Jimmie was not very intelligent, had little sense of humour and was always ‘around’ in a way that began to be irritating.

One evening they were at the theatre and in the interval James went to the bar to get drinks. Waiting for him, Ned’s glance moved over the crowd, finally lighting on a dark young man standing alone, also waiting to be brought a drink. Their eyes met, they moved towards each other, they made an assignation for the next day, and that was that. It had been a simple romantic encounter just as Ned’s meeting with James in the Spanish post office had been. From then on Ned had been forced to practise little deceptions on James – not always answering the telephone, sometimes assuming a foreign accent or disguising his voice in other ways. It was surprising how easily Jimmie could be taken in, but

Ned was coming to the conclusion that maybe he was rather stupid altogether. For instance, dropping Leonora so
completely
– Ned hadn’t really meant it to happen like
that.
Women friends must sometimes be gently but firmly pushed out of the way when necessary, but it must be done skilfully.

‘My dear Jimmie,’ he said, when they were together one evening, ‘you don’t mean to tell me that you don’t call her
ever?’

‘You said it was the best thing,’ said James resentfully, ‘and the last time we met was so embarrassing, we didn’t seem to have anything to say to each other. Of course I’ve seen her with Humphrey occasionally, but I haven’t been in touch with her since Christmas.’

‘Not since
Christmas
? Oh, Jimmie, what have you
done
! Leonora was so
devoted
to you, and you talk about
me
being cruel!’

‘Well,
she
hasn’t tried to get in touch with
me
said James, on the defensive, ‘and my uncle sees her quite often. He’d tell me if she wasn’t well or anything.’

‘And then what would you do?’

‘I don’t know. The situation’s unlikely to arise, anyway.’

‘I think you should do
something
about it.’ Ned’s blue eyes were serious and concerned. ‘It just isn’t
like
you, Jimmie, to be unkind.’

‘Well, what do you suggest?’

Ned hesitated, then looked at his watch. ‘Jimmie, I can’t suggest
anything
right now because I’m expecting this friend of my mother’s that I told you about.’

‘All right, then, I’ll go. Shall we have lunch tomorrow as usual?’

‘I’m not
quite
sure about lunch – I’ll call you.’

‘I suppose you’ve got to take her to see the Tower of London,’ said James, with an attempt at sarcasm.

Ned laughed. ‘The Wallace Collection, more likely,’ he said. ‘My mother’s friends are
vurry
cultured ladies.’

As James got out of the lift a dark young man was waiting to get into it. Their fingers touched for a moment as they politely handed each other in and out of the gates.

James got into his car and drove away, feeling obscurely worried. When he got home he poured himself a drink and sat looking around him. The rooms in his new flat were larger than in his old one and displayed his furniture and objects to better advantage, yet he did not really like it. The evening stretched before him and he had nothing arranged, having assumed that he would be spending it with Ned.

‘We don’t seem to see much of Miss Eyre these days,’ said Miss Caton regretfully. ‘Now that the weather’s so nice, really quite like spring this morning, perhaps she’ll pay us a visit.’

‘Yes, Miss Caton, she very well may,’ said Humphrey smoothly.

James, who was studying a catalogue and marking items to view, said nothing. He had given some thought to what Ned had said about getting in touch with Leonora but found himself incapable of taking any action. One morning not so long ago he had seen her in Bond Street, but luckily – that was how it now seemed – he had been able to turn into a side street before coming face to face with her. He could have sworn that she hadn’t seen him but of course he couldn’t be absolutely sure and for some hours after the incident he had been haunted by doubt. It wasn’t that he didn’t
want
to see her, but the idea of such a meeting was somehow shameful as well as embarrassing – he wouldn’t have known what to say.

‘That little Rockingham basket,’ Miss Caton continued, ‘I know Miss Eyre would like that. Very much her style, I thought when I saw it. She’s always so smart,’ she added, ‘so beautifully dressed.’ Miss Caton had a plain woman’s unselfish interest in the clothes of somebody more elegant. She did wonder what Miss Eyre had bought this spring, what her ‘colour scheme’ would be. ‘You’d think she’d be married, somebody like that,’ she went on boldly, for she did not usually talk in this way to Humphrey or James and she realised they might think she was taking a liberty in seeming to comment on Leonora.

‘Many women remain unmarried,’ said Humphrey, ‘there’s nothing surprising about it. Being unmarried has its own status – why, you yourself,’ he added with absent-minded gallantry, and then stopped in dismay at what he had said. But Miss Caton thought too little of herself to rise to the implied compliment and the moment passed off without embarrassment. Humphrey promised that he would bring Leonora to the shop one day to see their new acquisitions and Miss Caton appeared satisfied.

Humphrey and James were going together that afternoon to view the lots James had been marking in the catalogue. James would indicate what he thought might be worth bidding for and how much it would be prudent to go up to, while Humphrey would tell him why he disagreed with him. It was a game they both enjoyed but James seemed listless and preoccupied this afternoon.

‘Isn’t that where your American friend lives?’ Humphrey asked as the dome of Brompton Oratory came into view.

‘Yes, we’re just passing the block,’ said James looking away from it. Lately he had found himself wondering what Ned might be doing at a given time, when before he had always known.

‘I suppose he’ll be going back to America soon?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Leonora finds him quite delightful – she’s often said so.’

‘Older women do seem to like Ned.’

‘There’s nothing so surprising about that. After all, Leonora was – is – very fond of
you.’

They walked on in silence for a time. Humphrey felt that he ought to say something to James about Leonora but he could not decide what words to use. At the back of his mind he was conscious of a feeling of resentment towards his nephew. When Phoebe had first appeared on the scene Humphrey had hoped that Leonora might turn to him; when Phoebe had been succeeded by Ned he had been certain that she would. But the reverse had happened and now even the pleasant earlier relationship he had enjoyed with Leonora was in danger of being spoilt. Humphrey now felt that he was in some way responsible for James’s behaviour and an element of guilt had crept in so that his presents to Leonora were becoming more expensive and the bunches of flowers more lavish, as if to atone for something that wasn’t even his fault.

‘What happened, exactly?’ he said at last. ‘What went wrong between you and Leonora?’

James looked at his uncle in surprise. Surely he must know the answer to that question? If he didn’t there was no basis for discussion. He shrugged his shoulders as if to dismiss the subject and they went into the sale room.

XXIV

Leonora loved May – it was almost her favourite month, with tulips and irises in her patio and glimpses of lilac and laburnum over distant garden walls. This year she followed her usual custom of buying new clothes and changing her sophisticated winter scent for the lighter fragrance of lily-of-the-valley. Although it seemed as if a part of her had died in the hard cruel winter which had taken James from her, the spring had revived her in some way so that she felt almost as she had when a girl in that generation which had grown up in the late thirties, still expecting and seeking – though rarely finding – the phenomenon of ‘romantic love’. In those days she had gone about in eager anticipation of such an experience but when she seemed to be on the threshold of it she had always drawn back; something had invariably been not quite right. Now, of course, one did not expect anything like that, or indeed anything at all, but on a fine evening she would sometimes go into one of the rooms at the top of the house and look out along the road.

One evening she was standing in the room which had the bars on the window – those bars she and James had joked about so light-heartedly when he had first moved in – when she saw a young man walking along towards the house. James had never come to see her on foot and it saddened her to realise that she didn’t even know what his new car – bought that spring, as Humphrey had told her – looked like.

Leonora’s long sight was excellent and she had recognised the young man long before he reached the house. It was Ned. She was dismayed at the effect that seeing him had on her – everything came back to her in a rush. For a moment she thought of pretending not to be in, but then her natural courage took possession of her. Ned was still an enemy to be fought. She went into her bedroom and did what was necessary to her appearance, then sat down and waited.

Ned had imagined himself walking along this tree-lined road in the early evening sunshine, bringing Leonora what she could only regard as good news. He had wondered what flowers he should take and had in the end decided on a simple tribute of lilies-of-the-valley, seeing the simplicity of the flowers reflected in himself, almost as if he, still a boy in his mother’s New England garden, had picked them with his own hands.

‘Why,
Ned
…’ Leonora’s surprise sounded almost genuine, but Ned also had excellent long sight and he had seen her in the distance looking out as he approached the house.

‘Leonora, my dear …’ Their cheeks touched briefly and for a moment her lily-of-the-valley mingled with his Mitsouko.

‘Obviously these are
your
flowers,’ he said, thrusting the bunch towards her with a shy gesture, almost like a child presenting a bouquet to a royal personage. ‘But I suppose your garden’s full of them – I might have thought of that.’

‘Not at all – I haven’t got any and I do love them so. They’ll go beautifully in this.’ Leonora began arranging the flowers in a Victorian glass vase painted with sprays of forget-me-nots.

‘I feel somehow that James gave you that,’ said Ned gently.

Leonora did not answer, but busied herself with offering and pouring out drinks.

‘It’s partly about Jimmie that I’ve come to see you.’

‘Oh?’ Leonora had not yet asked herself
why
Ned had come; of course it could hardly
not
be connected with James in some way.

‘You’ve changed the arrangement of this room, haven’t you, Leonora? I like it. And you’re wearing a
very
becoming new gown that I don’t think I’ve seen before.’ Ned’s eyes lingered, appraising and pricing everything about her as they had on his first visit.

‘What were you going to say about James?’ Leonora asked when she could bear the scrutiny no longer.

‘Oh, Jimmie …’ Ned seemed vague. ‘Perhaps you’ll understand when I tell you that I’ve come to say goodbye.’

‘You’re going back to America?’

‘Yes, my mother hasn’t been too well and I really think I ought to be with her.’

Ned sat primly looking down into his glass, clasped firmly in his little hands, waiting for Leonora’s reaction. His life in London had lately become so complicated – for the encounter with the young man in the theatre bar had been the first of several – that flight seemed the only possible solution. Various people, of whom James was the most important, would thus be detached at one blow, for none was in a position to follow him or even to question that his mother needed him.

‘She’s seriously ill, then?’ Leonora asked.

Ned’s fractional hesitation, no more than the smallest part of a split second, gave her the answer. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said formally, ‘but I hope your stay in London has been rewarding – I mean, that you’ve managed to do all your research on …’ The memory of the afternoon at Keats’s house came back to her and she stopped. ‘James will miss you,’ she said at last.

‘Leonora, he
won’t.’
Ned bent forward towards her and made as if to take her hands, but she evaded him. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I had simply no idea … I was
appalled
to know that he hadn’t been seeing you at all.’

Leonora was stunned for a moment. ‘But surely you must have known?’

‘I swear I
didn’t.
I never dreamed Jimmie could be so …’ Ned seemed at a loss for words and Leonora did not help him. ‘But don’t you see,
now,
when I’m gone, it can all be the same again. Believe me, Leonora, if I’d ever
dreamed
… When Jimmie
told
me, I couldn’t sleep nights for thinking what you must have suffered.’

Leonora did not comment.

‘I know Jimmie loves this room,’ Ned went on, looking around him. ‘All your lovely things … he’s missed you so much and I expect you’ve missed him too.’

Leonora tried to say something but no words came. It needed all her strength and self-control to hold back her tears.

Ned was watching her with dispassionate interest, wondering if she would let go and preparing to soothe her if she did. Tears, thought by some to be a woman’s most powerful weapon, did not of course move him, but he was good at comforting weeping women. There had been quite a number of them in his life, from his mother to older women and young girls who had been foolish enough to expect more than he was prepared to give. He had seen with distaste many a red face working and blotched with tears, rather as Leonora had seen Meg weeping for Colin. Older women especially were most unwise to cry, it was ruination to their appearance.

Yet Leonora appeared to deal with the situation as elegantly as she did everything else. If he had hoped to see her crumble he was disappointed. Could it be that she didn’t still care for Jimmie after all?

‘My dear, you needn’t mind me,’ he said almost kindly. ‘We may never meet again. I just want to think of you and Jimmie happy together in your
wonderful
friendship.’ He felt generous and good as he said this, and now he really did want it. But his glass was empty; he wished Leonora would refill it and thank him for giving James back to her, but she did neither. Her silence was disconcerting. ‘You must
forgive
him,’ he went on. That was what women should do and even did, in his experience; they overlooked things, they took people back, above all they forgave.

‘But James hasn’t asked me to forgive him.’

‘He hasn’t?’ Really, Jimmie might have made things a little easier for him. ‘I expect he will, though, and you mustn’t be too hard on him. If he came to you on his bended knees, surely you’d forgive him?’

Leonora said nothing.

‘You mean he could come to the door and you wouldn’t open it – you’d let him go away? Like that scene at the end of
Washington Square
? Leonora, I’m sure you read Henry James, he’s so very much
your
kind of novelist.’

‘Of course one has read James.’ Leonora tucked the embroidered handkerchief she had been clutching into her sleeve and stood up. ‘Goodbye, Ned. I hope you’ll find your mother much better when you get home.’

‘My mother? Oh, thank you, I’m sure I will. And that reminds me, I suppose I’ll have to go to Liberty’s and get presents for my female relatives. What do you recommend? – lengths of dress material, I suppose, but I’ve always wanted to buy one of those leather hippopotami for a particularly
unfavourite
aunt …’ Ned prattled on in his usual style. ‘I’ve had a
wonderful
time in London, and it’s been
great,
meeting you, Leonora. I’m sure that in time you and Jimmie …’He looked out of the window, as if hoping to see James crawling painfully towards the house on his knees like some primitive Latin American Catholic pilgrim.

In the hall he glanced confidently at the place where James’s fruitwood mirror had hung, but the space was empty and he was denied the pleasure of seeing himself. He turned to Leonora and kissed her, then hur iod out of the house. A taxi appeared in the road and he got into it.

Leonora watched him go; she supposed she had acquitted herself quite well, perhaps she had even won a kind of victory, but it hardly seemed to matter now.

The evening sun showed up a few specks of dust on her china and glass objects, so she decided to wash them. It would give her something to do and the result would be satisfying. As she picked up a miniature jug decorated with flowers she noticed that a petal from one of the forget-me-nots was chipped off. How had she not seen this before? She could not bear to have anything not quite perfect in the room and she was just putting the jug away in a cupboard when the telephone rang.

It was Meg. She wondered if she could come round and see Leonora; she wanted to ask her something. Something that would be easier to discuss face to face than on the telephone.

One of the things James had taken from Leonora was the pleasure of being alone which she had enjoyed before she met him. Now she almost welcomed Liz’s interruptions or Meg’s cosy chats about Colin. She was conscious of sounding quite enthusiastic as she told Meg she would be glad to see her.

‘You’ve done something different to the room, haven’t you?’ said Meg as she came in. ‘Put the sofa in a different place, is that it?’

Leonora poured drinks and they sat down. As she took a sip of her gin she realised that she had already drunk a large one with Ned. She had needed it then; now it made her feel light-headed and unreal as if she were moving in a dream.

‘And how’s James?’ asked Meg chattily. ‘I was sure you’d be out with him, or he’d be here, when I rang. Is he away? Gone on one of his Continental jaunts to buy things for the shop?’

‘James is….’ Leonora began, but she found herself unable to go on. The tears she had held back from Ned now flowed and her body was racked with sobs in the most embarrassing way. Helpless as she was, she could still feel a sense of shame at what was happening to her. It seemed the final touch of irony that she should break down in front of Meg of all people. Fumbling for her handkerchief, she struggled to control herself, to produce some explanation for this most uncharacteristic behaviour, but Meg forestalled her with soothing words. She came over to the chair where Leonora was sitting and put her arms round her. Leonora, who found the contact distasteful, tried to shake her off but she was powerless and could not move.

‘My dear, I knew how it was,’ Meg murmured. ‘I guessed – about James. You put such a brave face on it at Christmas, but I knew. He’s gone, hasn’t he …?’

Leonora did not need to answer.

‘So like Colin,’ Meg went on. ‘I’ve been through it all so many times. But they always come back in the end, you’ll see.’

‘No …’ Leonora was surprised at her own vehemence. ‘It could never be the same again.’

‘That’s what you think at the time,’ said Meg, ‘but you’ll see – it’ll be all right. You mustn’t expect things to be perfect, Leonora, they never are.’

Leonora, now recovering her composure, was beginning to be conscious of how ridiculous Meg looked, kneeling there on the floor, even when she was voicing such noble and unselfish sentiments as the need to accept people as they are and to love them whatever they did.

‘What a lot of weeping seems to have gone on in this room,’ she said, with something of her usual cool amusement. ‘Is it the gin, or what? Let me refill your glass, Meg. I’m sure you need it.’

‘Well, just a very small one with plenty of tonic,’ said Meg, going back to her chair.

‘You came to ask me something,’ said Leonora, ‘what was it?’

‘Oh, yes. You know the flat at the top of your house – I was wondering if you’d got another tenant since … it became empty. Because Colin’s brother is looking for a place,
such
a nice young man, I’m sure you’d like him and he’d be a
model
tenant.’

‘Oh, Meg, I’m afraid it’s impossible,’ said Leonora in her sweetest tone. ‘I really don’t think I couH cope with a young
man.’

‘It might be an interest for you,’ Meg began, ‘I mean … Oh, Leonora, what is going to happen to James – and to you-haven’t you thought?’

‘I shall be quite all right, thank you, Meg, and as for James – who knows? He might even get married.’

‘You think so? I’m sure Colin would never
marry’
said Meg, with a faint air of superiority.