The Case of William Smith

Chapter Twenty-six

Katharine was in the hall again. She dropped her fur coat on a black and gold lacquer chair under the portrait of great-great-uncle Ambrose Talbot in the uniform he had worn at Waterloo – tight white breeches, scarlet coat, high stock, and a fair, almost girlish face – not quite eighteen when the picture was painted, after Napoleon had gone to St. Helena and his shadow had passed from the world. The Cedar House had belonged to Talbots ever since William Talbot built it for a country lodging nearly four hundred years ago. It took its name from the great cedar he had planted at the end of the lawn, and from the panelling which kept moth away and to this day diffused its own faint sweetness everywhere.

William’s grandmother was the last of the long Talbot line. He himself had the name of its founder. He was William Talbot Eversley. The house, and its portraits, and its memories were his. There were a lot of portraits, a lot of memories – a judge in scarlet robe and a portentous Georgian wig – an admiral with a pig-tail and a brown crumpled face, holding a spy-glass in his hand and looking out of the picture with William’s eyes. The girl in the pink dress of the middle eighteenth century was Amanda Talbot who made a romantic runaway marriage with a black-browed Highland Jacobite and lived with him in exile after the ’45. She had lovely, arch eyes and a sweet smiling mouth. Her portrait hung above the fireplace. A log fire burned there. Katharine stood by it and waited. The door was latched but not locked. Presently it would swing in. It was all very quiet, very familiar – the stairway going up on the other side of the hall, the door to the dining-room just beyond the stair foot. On the other side, behind the wall with the chimney-breast, the drawing-room, where the panelling had been painted ivory-white and the china which Gran used to show them when they were children was ranged against it in cabinets of Amanda’s date.

Katharine’s heart beat fast, then quieted. There was nothing to be troubled about. William was coming home.

When the door opened she went to meet him. He took her in his arms and held her without speaking. It was one of those moments for which there are no words. When at last he lifted his head and spoke, it was like coming out of a dream. Something slipped away from them to join the other memories of the house. He said her name, and then,

‘This was the place to come to. It always did feel like coming home.’ With his arm still round her, he looked across her shoulder to the glowing bed of the fire where the logs were heaped, one a shell, red-hot, another black against tongues of flame from below. His voice broke on a half laugh as he said,

‘That looks good. But what a climate! Nobody would think it was July!’

July – and they had driven here through the winter dusk. Half-past five o’clock, and outside the January night had closed down. Katharine drew away lest he should feel that she was shaking. She waited with caught breath for what he would say next. It came in his most cheerful voice.

‘Gosh – I’m hungry! I hope Perky’s got something for us. It’s not too late, is it?’ He turned his wrist, glanced at the watch on it, and exclaimed, ‘What time is it? This thing’s stopped at twenty to six. It must be all of ten o’clock.’

‘Why?’

‘Pitch-dark outside. We must have made very bad time.’

The fair brows drew together in a puzzled frown, then relaxed.

‘It doesn’t matter as long as we are here. Go and see what Perky can do about it. I’ll just take our cases upstairs and get a wash.’

Katharine went through to the kitchen and found Mrs. Perkins filling a kettle and weeping into the sink.

‘Perky, listen – you mustn’t cry.’

‘Oh, Miss Kathy my dear, it’s because I’m so glad.’

She set the kettle down and put out both her hands. Katharine took them and held them hard.

‘Perky – listen.’ I told you he didn’t remember anything before ’42. Well, he does now. It’s the last few years that have gone. At least I think they have – I don’t know. But he thinks it’s July. He thinks we’ve just been married. He thinks we’ve come here for our honeymoon, and he thinks it’s ten o’clock at night because it’s dark outside. Perky, you’ve got to help.’

Mrs. Perkins gazed at her.

‘What can I do, my dear?’

Katharine’s voice trembled into laughter.

‘He says he’s hungry. He wants to know what you can give us for supper.’

The rosy face cleared.

‘Then you’d best let me be getting on with it. There’s soup all ready to hot up, and a nice pie. Would he like it cold, or shall I put it in the oven?’

‘We’ll ask him.’

‘And a chocolate shape I made – the way you’ve always like it, Miss Kathy.’

‘Lovely!’

And then William came in, kissed Mrs. Perkins as Katharine had done, and sat on the corner of the kitchen table as he had been scolded for doing as long as Katharine could remember. He laughed and said,

‘Horrid weather you’ve conjured up for us. I couldn’t see my hand before my face coming over the road, and Katharine couldn’t see her wedding ring. Has she shown it to you? She’s frightfully proud of being a married woman.’ He took her left hand and held it up. ‘Looks good, doesn’t it? Sounds good too – Mrs. William Eversley! And, Perky darling, it’s not a bit romantic, but we’re simply starving. I can’t think why we took so long to get here. STARVED TO DEATH ON HIS WEDDING DAY is going to be my epitaph if I don’t get something to eat pretty soon.’

Mrs. Perkins rallied nobly.

‘Then you’ll have to get out of my kitchen, Mr. William and off of that table, or you won’t get nothing.’

It was the strangest evening. They went into the drawing-room, and William made love to her as the young William of years ago had done when life was the gayest, most carefree adventure in the world. And then suddenly in the middle of it all he fell silent, looked puzzled, and walked away from her down to the far end of the room where faded sea-green curtains screened the door into the garden and the casement windows on either side of it. He parted them and stood there looking out. What Katharine got was the impression that night looked in. It was certain that he could see nothing, unless it were the picture stamped indelibly upon mind and memory through all his growing years. Standing behind him, Katharine could see it too – the small formal terrace with its stone jars which in July would be brimming over with bloom, then the lavender hedge, the two tall myrtle-bushes, the even, velvety lawn, and the great cedar tree. As she touched him, he turned abruptly and said,

‘It’s all right, isn’t it – the cedar wasn’t blitzed?’

She was almost too startled to answer, but she managed to keep her voice level.

‘No, it’s all right. You’ll see it tomorrow.’

The puzzled look was intensified.

‘See what?’

‘The cedar. You asked if it was all right.’

‘Did I? Why shouldn’t it be?’ He went over to one of the china-cabinets and stood there. ‘Remember how Gran taught us to feel the glaze? You know, it’s an awfully odd thing – I can remember with the tips of my fingers just the difference between those plates and these cups. She wouldn’t ever let us touch them unless she was there. Funny to think how many people have touched them since they were made, and now they’re ours.’

When Mrs. Perkins summoned them to the dining-room it all seemed stranger still. Gran watched them from her picture on the chimney-breast. Amory’s masterpiece – Gran at ninety, with a lace scarf over the white curls she had been so proud of, a lace shawl over her blue dress, her face still vividly alive, her eyes still blue. She sat in her big chair and watched the room. To Katharine her look said, ‘You needn’t think you’ll ever get rid of me. I love you all too much.’ She watched them now.

All through the meal William talked eagerly, cheerfully, about what they would do in the garden.

‘I saw a place where they have rows of white lilies growing in front of a dark hedge – it looked pretty good. I thought we might try it down at the bottom against the arbor vitae. What do you think? I’m rather keen on lilies. There’s a good apricot-coloured sort too – they grow it a lot in the north – I’d like to have some of those. It’s a pity it’s too far for me to go up and down every day, but we could do weekends in the summer. I’d like to play about with the garden. I’ve got an idea for a pool – water-lilies and things. Wait till we’ve finished, and I’ll do a sketch for you.’ He looked at her suddenly and laughed. ‘It’s going to be fun, isn’t it?’

When he talked like that he might have been William Smith, or he might have been William Eversley, or a third William walking the debatable ground between the other two. She encouraged him to go on talking about the garden.

Afterwards, in the drawing-room, she played to him. When they went upstairs together he said the strangest thing of all. They had reached the last step, when he halted and stood there looking round him. The arm about her shoulders dropped to his side, the fair brows drew together. He said,

‘I had an awfully funny dream about this place. I can’t remember what it was.’

‘I shouldn’t try.’

He nodded, came up on to the landing, and turned again. His eye went from the eagle on the right-hand newel-post to the man on the left.

‘It was something about the Evangelists,’ he said slowly. ‘Something – about – ’ he gave a sudden laugh – ‘I know – I dreamt the man was Mr. Tattlecombe! Barmy – wasn’t it?’

Katharine said, ‘Quite.’

Still laughing, he put his arm round her and they kissed, and went on together into the room which was theirs, a long room over the drawing-room with windows looking down the garden to the cedar tree. It didn’t matter any longer which of the Williams he was, or which way the pendulum of his memory swung. He was the William who loved her and whom she loved. He was the William who had always loved her and would love her always.