'Your name. Keeling. It rings a bell.' She shrugged, let loose his hand. 'No matter.' She smiled, and he realized that if she had never been beautiful, then she had once been possessed of a great physical attraction. 'How very nice of you to come and see us all.'
'I must wish you a happy birthday. We've a box of presents for you.'
'Bring them inside. I'll open them later.'
He returned to the car, opened the doors, calmed the dogs, retrieved the birthday box, closed the doors again. By the time he had achieved all this, Alexa and her grandmother had disappeared into the house, and Noel followed them into a small hallway, and so through to an airy sitting-room filled with light, and with a glassed door giving out onto the old lady's delectable garden.
'Put the box down there! I won't open them yet, because I want to hear all your news. Alexa, the coffee and the cups are in the kitchen. Would you fetch the tray in for me?' Alexa disappeared to do this. 'Now, Noel… I can't call you Mr. Keeling because nobody does these days, and you must call me Violet… where would you like to sit?'
But he did not want to sit. As always in new surroundings, he wanted to prowl, nose, get the feel of things. It was a charming room, with pale-yellow walls, bright rose-chintzed curtains, and cream carpets, fitted snug to the wainscot. Violet Aird had not lived here for many years, he knew, and there was a freshness and a lightness about everything, evidence of recent refurbishment; but her furniture, her pictures, her bibelots, her books, and her china had obviously all moved with her from some previous abode, presumably Balnaid. The chairs and sofa were loose- covered in coral linen, and an ebony cabinet, its doors standing open, was lined in that same coral, and contained a collection of Famille Rose porcelain. Everywhere he looked, Noel's eye fell upon a clutter of either enviable or practical objects, the squirrel hoard of an elderly lady, gathering about her, like a store of nuts, the comforting possessions of a lifetime. Here were hand-worked cushions, a wicker basket filled with logs, a brass fender, a pair of bellows, her sewing box, her little television set, stacks of magazines, bowls of pot-pourri. As well, every horizontal surface was cluttered with small and decorative objects. Enamel boxes, jugs of fresh flowers, a copper bowl filled with purple heather, silver-framed photographs, small arrangements of Dresden china.
She was watching him. He looked at her and smiled. He said, 'You follow the rules of William Morris.'
'And what do you mean by that?'
'You have nothing in your house that you don't know to be useful nor think to be beautiful.'
She was amused. 'Who taught you that?'
'My mother.'
'It's an outmoded concept.'
'But still viable.'
In her grate, she had lighted a little fire. On the mantelshelf were a pair of Staffordshire dogs, and over the mantelpiece…
He frowned, moving to inspect the picture more closely. It was an oil-painting of a child in a field of buttercups. The field was in shadow, but, beyond the field, the sun shone on rocks and sea and the distant figures of two older girls. The illusionary effect of light and colour had caught his attention, not simply because it hummed with warmth but because the technique, the factual rendering of the three-dimensional form, sprang at him with all the familiarity of a face remembered from childhood.
It had to be. Noel scarcely needed to read the signature to know who it was.
He said, in wonder, 'This is a Lawrence Stern.'
'How clever of you to know. I love it more than anything.'
He turned to face her. 'How did you come to possess it?'
'You seem astonished.'
'I am. There are so few about.'
'My husband gave it to me many years ago. He was in London. He saw it in the window of a gallery, and went in and bought it for me, not minding that he had to pay a great deal more than he could afford.'
Noel said, 'Lawrence Stern was my grandfather.'
She frowned. 'Your grandfather?'
'Yes. My mother's father.'
'Your mother's…?' She paused, still frowning, and then all at once smiled, the puzzlement gone, and her face filled with pleasure. 'So
'She died about four years ago.'
'I can't bear it. Such a lovely person. We only met once, but…'
They were interrupted by Alexa's reappearance from Violet's kitchen, bearing the tray with the coffee jug and cups and saucers upon it.
'Alexa, this is the most extraordinary thing! Just imagine, Noel isn't a stranger at all to me, because I once met his mother… and we made such friends. And I always hoped so much that we would meet again, but somehow we never did…'
S^s
This discovery, this revelation, the extraordinary small-world coincidence, claimed all attention. The picnic and the birthday were, for the moment, forgotten, and Alexa and Noel sat and drank scalding coffee and listened with fascination to Vi's story.
'It was all through Roger Wimbush, the portrait painter. When Geordie came back from the war, from prison camp, and went back to Relkirk to work, it was decided that, as chairman of the firm, he should have his portrait painted for posterity. And Roger Wimbush was given the commission. He came to Balnaid and stayed with us, and the portrait was accomplished in the conservatory, and duly hung, with some ceremony, in the Board Room at the office. As far as I know, it's still there. We made great friends, and when Geordie died, Roger wrote me such a dear letter, and sent me an invitation to the Portrait Painters' Exhibition at Burlington House. I didn't very often travel to London, but I felt the occasion deserved the long journey, so I went, and Roger met me there and showed me around. And all at once, he spied these two ladies. One was your mother, Noel, and the other, I think, an old aunt of hers whom she had brought to the exhibition as a little treat. A very old lady; tiny and wrinkled, but humming with vitality…'
'Great-Aunt Ethel,' said Noel, because it could have been no one else.
'That's it. Of course. Ethel Stern, and Lawrence Stern's sister.'
'She died some years ago, but while she was alive she afforded us all an enormous amount of amusement.'
'I can imagine it. Anyway, Roger and your mother were obviously old friends of long standing. I think she had taken him in as a lodger years before when he was a penniless young student, struggling to make his way. There was a great reunion between them, and then introductions, and I was told about the relationship with Lawrence Stem, and I was able to tell your mother about that picture. By now we were all on the best of terms, and we'd all seen all the portraits anyway, so we decided that we would have lunch together. I had a restaurant in mind, but your mother insisted that we all go back to her house and have lunch with her.'
'Oakley Street.'
'Absolutely. Oakley Street. We made noises about it being too much trouble, but she overrode all our objections, and the next thing we knew, all four of us were in a taxi and on our way to Chelsea. It was a beautiful day. I remember it so clearly. Very warm and sunny, and you know how pretty London can be on an early-summer day. And we had lunch in the garden, and the garden was big, and so leafy, and so sweet with the scent of lilac that it felt like being in another country, the south of France perhaps, or Paris, with the city sound of traffic muffled by trees, and everything spattered with sunlight and shadow. There was a terrace, nicely shaded, with a table and garden chairs, and we all sat and drank chilled wine, while your mother busied herself in that big basement kitchen, from time to time appearing to chat or pour more wine, or lay a cloth on the table, and set out the knives and forks.'
'What did you eat?' asked Alexa, fascinated by the picture that Vi drew for them.
'Let me see. I have to think. It was delicious, I remember that. It was exactly right, and delicious. Cold soup- gazpacho, I think- and crusty home-made bread. And a salad. And pate. And French cheese. And there was a bowl of peaches, which she had picked that morning from the tree that grew against the wall at the far end of the garden. We stayed all afternoon. We had no other engagement, or if we did, we forgot it. The hours just slid away,
