“He got to know her right here, in the offices?”
“At first, yes, and then they began seeing each other casually, not even secretly, and Mr. Armiger was furious. There was a terrible scene, and he ordered Leslie not to see her again, and laid down the law flat about what his future was to be, toe the line or go. I don’t think he meant it then, he was only trying to bring Leslie to heel, but this was the real issue at last, and it broke all the rules. Leslie should have given in and promised to be a good boy. Instead, he went right out and took Jean dancing and got himself engaged to her on the spot.”
“Not the best possible prospect for a marriage,” suggested George, “if he walked into it simply as a way of rebelling against his father.”
“It wasn’t that,” she said, shaking her head decidedly. “All his father had done was make him realise what was at stake, how big it was and how very much he wanted it. And as soon as he recognised it he grabbed it, like a sensible boy, and hung on to it, too, though the repercussions were hair-raising. He walked right in here to his father’s office the next day, and stood in front of his desk, and just blurted out like a gunshot that he was engaged. Maybe that’s the only way he could get it out at all. Mr. Armiger really thought, you know, even then, that he could simply order him to break it off. When he found he couldn’t I expected a heart attack from pure shock. Leslie dug his heels in and said no, no, no, and went on saying no. He couldn’t believe it was happening to him. When he really grasped the idea, he threw them out, and that time he did mean it. All right, he said, if you want her, if she’s worth that to you, take her. Take her out of here now, this minute, and neither of you need ever come back. And Leslie said O.K., that suited him, and he went right downstairs and did just that, bundled Jean into her hat and coat and walked out with her. She stayed in her lodgings and he went to a hotel, and they spent the time while they waited to get married looking for somewhere to live. Leslie went to the house just once more, to collect his things, but as far as I know he never did see his father again. He couldn’t find anything better for them than furnished rooms, and when it came to getting a job, of course, he’d no qualifications and no training. The only thing he’d taken seriously at Oxford was his painting. He had to go to work more or less as a labourer. I’m afraid he’s collected all the arrears of discipline he missed in one dose,” she said ruefully. “If he comes through it intact you can say he’ll be able to cope with anything else life may throw at him.”
“Would he ever have relented?” asked George.
“Mr. Armiger? No, never. Crossing his will was an unforgivable blasphemy. I can imagine him as a senile old man in the nineties, perhaps, turning sentimental and wanting a reconciliation, but never while he had all his faculties.”
“Did anyone try to reason with him at the time?” She smiled at that, rightly interpreting it as meaning in effect: did you?
“Yes, Ray Shelley broke his head against it for weeks, and Kitty did her best, too. She was very upset, she felt almost responsible. As for me, I know a rock when I see one. I didn’t say a word. First because I knew it would be no good, and secondly because if by any chance he did have a sneaking wish to undo what he’d done, arguing with him would only have made him more mulish than ever.”
“Did you by any chance see the letter Leslie wrote to his father two months ago?” asked George.
The level dark eyes searched his face. “Did Leslie tell you about that?”
“No, his wife did. I haven’t yet seen Leslie.”
Quietly she said: “Yes, I saw it. It wasn’t at all an abject letter, in case you don’t know what was in it. Rather stiff-necked, if anything, though of course it was a kind of capitulation to write at all. They’d obviously only just settled for certain that Jean was going to have a baby, and the poor boy was feeling his responsibilities badly, and I suspect feeling very inadequate. He told his father the child was coming, and appealed to him to help them at least to a roof of their own, since he’d robbed them of the one they’d hoped to have. I don’t know if you know about that?”
“I know,” said George. “Go on.”
“Mr. Armiger made a very spiteful reply, acknowledging his son’s appeal like a business letter, and repeating that their relationship was at an end, and Leslie’s family responsibilities were now entirely his own affair. It was deliberately worded to leave no hope of a reconciliation, ever. He pretended he’d had no idea Leslie ever wanted the barn, but then he ended by saying that since he was interested in the place he was sending him a souvenir of its purchase, and it was the last present they need ever expect from him. As a would-be painter, he said, Leslie might find it an appropriate gift. It was the old sign, from the earlier days when the house used to be an inn.”
“The Joyful Woman,” said George.
“Was that its name? I didn’t know, but that accounts for it. I saw it when Mr. Armiger brought it in for the people downstairs to pack. It was a rather crude painting of a woman laughing, a half-length. They found it in the attics when the builders moved in on the house. It was on a thick wooden panel, very dirty and damaged, the usual kind of daub. One of the firm’s cars took it and dumped it at Leslie’s landlady’s house the day after the letter was written.”
Jean had said nothing about the gift, only about the curt and final letter. But there might be nothing particular in that omission, since the gift was merely meant to be insulting and to underline what the letter had to say. This is all you need expect from me, living or dead, and this is all you’ll ever own of The Joyful Woman. Make the best of it!
“Leslie didn’t write or telephone again?”
“Never again as far as I know. But I should know if he had.”
And all day, thought George, I’ve been writing off a certain possibility because I felt so sure that, firstly, if Leslie did go and ask for an interview Armiger wouldn’t grant it, and secondly, if by any chance he did choose to see him it certainly wouldn’t be to greet him with backslapping heartiness, champagne and a preview of his appalling ballroom. But maybe, after all, that was exactly the way he might receive him, rubbing salt into the wounds, goading him with the shoddy miracles money could perform. On a night when triumph and success were in the air maybe this was much more his mark, not direct anger but this oblique and barbaric cruelty. “He’ll be interested to see what can be done with a place like that, given plenty of money and enterprise, , , ” “He was fair hugging himself.”
“Miss Hamilton, have you got a reasonably recent photograph of Leslie?”
She gave him a long, thoughtful look, as though she was considering whether he could need such a thing for any good purpose, and whether, in any case, denial could serve to do anything but delay the inevitable. Then she got up without a word, and went behind the desk, and brought out from one of the drawers a half-plate portrait, which she held out to him with a slight, grim smile shadowing the corners of her mouth. It had at some time been framed, for George saw how the light had darkened the pale ground slightly, and left untouched a half-inch border
