Love, Again

'I had nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements.'

He did not believe her. Rightly, for if she had said to Elizabeth… Still smiling, his arms folded on the back of the seat, those pale blue eyes of his hard, he said, 'Why not, Sarah Durham? Just tell me why not. You're a fool.' He gave that short laugh that is earned by wilful stupidity. Then he removed his folded arms from the seat, regarded her steadily, not smiling, and disappeared. She saw him walk past the window of the coach as it set off. He turned to give her a look that shortened her breath. Well, yes, she probably was crazy, at that.

Sarah never took sleeping pills, or sedatives, did not drink to achieve sleep or numbness. Tonight she wished she did. Stood at the window of her room knowing that Henry was three doors away and might, if he wished, come to her room. But he would not, because he had made sure he would be drunk. And if his wife had not announced she was arriving and bringing his child? An interesting question, which she did not feel equipped to answer. She stood by the window and watched the moonlight carve black shadows on the lawn. In the hollow of her shoulder, above her left breast, was centred an ache, an emptiness. A head was lying there, and she shut her eyes and put a hand over the place. Grey light was filling the bushes, and the birds had awakened, when at last she slept a little. Ghostly lips kissed hers. A ghost's arms held her. When she woke and went to the window it was still early, though sunlight lay everywhere. The astonishing summer was continuing, as if this were not England.

Two men appeared beyond a low hedge that interrupted, with a stile, a path leading to a field where horses stood absorbing the sun. They were large, slow-moving men, who stopped to admire or evaluate the horses. The scene could easily have a frame around it, to join others of the same kind hanging on the walls of this house. They went strolling around and among the horses, stopped to talk, strolled on, patted one horse, slapped the rump of another, went over to a hedge to look at something or other, came back. This went on for a good half hour, while the sunlight strengthened and the roses in the bed below Sarah's window glowed more confidently with every minute. Now the men were coming towards the house. They halted to examine the trunk of a beech, walked around it, advanced again, bent over a bush that, from the look of it, was growing in the wrong place, straightened, and stood facing each other, talking. This conversation too lasted for some minutes. Again they came on, towards the stile, and halted. Behind them a woman came out of the trees, carrying a saddle, going towards the horses. It was Elizabeth, her red head scarf like a tiny sail against all the green. Her voice rang out: 'Beauty, Beauty, Beauty… ' A tall black mare raised its head, whinnied, and stepped towards her to take titbits from her hand. Her hand was gentling its ears. The men had swung around at the sound of her voice, and now turned again, still talking. First one, then the other, stepped over the stile. They were walking with a steady assurance on this earth they owned, or ordered. One of the men was Stephen. They both wore earth-coloured clothes, and their trousers were pushed into their boots. They carried… what were they? Sticks? No, Stephen had a stick, the other man a riding switch. They stopped, conferred, and went off to one side, into a little apple orchard. There they walked about, studying the trees and at one point apparently disagreeing about one of them, for first Stephen doubtfully shook a branch, and then the other man pointed with his whip approving, or so it looked, at a satisfactory amount of apples. From the field behind them came Elizabeth's ringing voice: she was shouting endearments at her horse, which did not feel like being saddled. It was backing and even rearing, the black glossy mane flinging about like the fringe on a dancer's shawl.

Now Stephen's face was in focus. The men were about fifty yards away. He looked ordinary and even cheerful, certainly good-humoured. The other's face was large and red, emphasized with black brows. Not a face she wanted to be any closer to than she was. He had a lowering defensive stare and shot out gloomy looks to either side of him, as if enemies might be lurking among the trees.

The men stood facing each other again, on a gravel path. The voices rose and fell, but she could not hear the words. They gave an appearance of holding their ground against each other. Elizabeth had got on the horse and was cantering around the field, encouraging and calming the beast, and this sounded almost like a song, or a chant. 'There, there you are, there Beauty, now Beauty, there's my girl Beauty, there's a good girl, there's Beauty, now come on, calm down, gently there Beauty.'

The two men now took off fast into a wood and there walked around a very old oak that had a branch propped on a stick, stopped, and walked around the other way. They were disagreeing. A peaceable argument lasted for quite a time, and then they returned to the path. Now Sarah could see that the black-browed man's face was red because it was meshed with fine lines, his nose had the lumpy glare of a drinker's nose, and he seemed swollen with unhealthy blood. They stood talking. Nothing could seem more amiable than this long, leisurely chat. At last the riding whip lifted in a careless goodbye, the man nodded at Stephen, and he strode off back towards Elizabeth. At the hedge he stopped, bent to look at something on the sunny grass, and stamped once, twice, swivelling his heel on whatever it was, to make sure it was well and truly ground out of life. Then he went on, head lowered, riding crop at the ready. He vaulted heavily over the stile. Elizabeth was crooning at her horse and patting it to keep it patient. The man picked up a saddle from where he had left it in the grass to talk to Stephen, flung it on a brown horse, fastened it, climbed heavily on it, and then he and Elizabeth turned their horses' heads towards a far hedge. Stephen stood alone on the gravel path and gazed over the hedge at the scene of his wife and the neighbour talking as they rode slowly off together.

Stephen was now standing over a pile of lemon-coloured honeysuckle that was interweaved with a purple clematis. He poked his stick into the mass of bloom, and at once intense waves of scent rose to her window. He was fishing out a green rubber ball, which had a glossy look: it had not been lying there long. He threw the ball hard, for at least fifty yards, onto a lawn at the side of the house.

'Good throw,' she remarked to his head. He said, without looking up, 'I knew you were there, Sarah.' Then he did look up and gave her a warm and even tender smile. He waved a hand at her and went into the house.

She was feeling angry with herself- foolish. She had been watching this man, inside his own real life, for well over an hour. This was Stephen, this the reality of Stephen. Sarah told herself, repeated it, to make herself take it in, that Stephen the man of the theatre and Julie's besotted lover was only one aspect of Stephen. Suddenly Sarah was wondering about that black-browed red-faced man now cantering away with Elizabeth a long way off across the fields — what did he say, he and his sort, about Stephen and this hobby of his, the theatre? For after all, Stephen's visits to France, and attending rehearsals in London, and arranging the Entertainments, probably had not taken up so much time. His real life was here, on this estate.

About fifteen years ago, a conversation on these lines must have taken place in all the houses near this one:

'Elizabeth's done it. Queen's Gift will be all right.'

'Good for her. He's got money, then?'

'Yes, plenty. Stephen Ellington-Smith.'

'Gloucestershire? The Gloucestershire Ellington-Smiths aren't too well off.'

'No, Somerset. It's a branch of the Gloucestershire lot.'

'Oh, I know him, then. He was at school with my cousin.'

'Anyway, it's wonderful. Awful if she'd lost Queen's Gift.'

So they must all back Stephen, stand by him, even if they. think him eccentric. But after all, the arts were fashionable, and Queen's Gift was not the only country house round about that went in for summer festivals. Was there anyone among the people he must call his friends with whom he talked about his secret miseries? Probably he wouldn't dare, for if his confidante (bound to be a woman) was indiscreet, then he would be seen as mad, barking, round the bend, loco. Well, he was. But it was easy for her now to turn that life of his around slightly, as one turns an object to catch a different light, and all she could see was the life of a country gentleman, and Julie just a little dark blot on a sunny scene of trees and fields safely enclosing this ancient house. Just as her own life, Sarah's, which she had seen for years as a competent progression, with proportion in all its parts, could be turned around to be seen as a stoic one, ending now in old age with an ache and a hunger for love — but that is not how it would look to her, she knew, quite soon. Within weeks, probably, her present state would seem like a temporary fever. And — but this was the point: her concern for Stephen was like a kind of illness. Anxiety invaded her at the thought of him. Just as it did when she considered Joyce. What was the matter with her, Sarah? Why did she seek burdens?

Meanwhile there was breakfast, in last night's supper room. Mary Ford was there. So was Roy. Two large, com- petent, healthy people placidly consuming sensible breakfasts. The other person there was Andrew. He had no right to be there at all. Had he spent the night somewhere in the grounds? Perhaps sitting on a bench somewhere, mooning — yes, Sarah actually almost used that word — at the house where his love —