The Gazebo

FOURTEEN

ALL THE EVENTS of that evening were to be gone over with a microscope. The slightest word, the most unconsidered action, the time at which Nicholas Carey had left the Harrisons’ house, the time at which he returned to it, the time at which young Mr Burford rang up Miss Cotton from the call-box at the corner of Lowton Street, the time that Miss Cotton left her cottage in Deepcut Lane, the time that it would take her to arrive at that point on Hill Rise where it skirted the back garden of No. 2 Belview Road, the movements of Mrs Traill who had been baby-sitting for Mr and Mrs Nokes at 28 Hill Rise – all these were to be worked out and compared. All that was spoken and overheard, all that the people concerned had seen or done, was to have a bright and terrifying searchlight turned upon it. But from Althea, letting herself out softly by the back door and leaving it ajar so that there should be no click of the latch to betray her, these things were hidden. It was not the thought of the future that came to her as she went softly up the garden in the kindly dark. It was the past which came back with every step she took. This meeting might be any one of the many meetings which she and Nicky had snatched five, six, seven years ago. Her foot trod the same paved pathway. The same scent came up from the thyme which she bruised as she went. There was night-scented stock in the right-hand border. It liked the place and seeded there, to come up every year and fill the dark with fragrance.

There were three steps up to the gazebo. She took them. Someone stirred in the black shadowy place and she was in Nicky’s arms.

Mrs Graham was not asleep. She hadn’t intended to go to sleep. She was much too angry to feel sleepy. But she had been clever – she hadn’t let Althea see that she was angry. When she was a girl she had had quite a taste for private theatricals. They were enjoyable, and everyone said she ought to go on the stage. She had even toyed with the idea herself, but she had got married instead. She felt a good deal of complacency in thinking that she could still act well enough to prevent Althea knowing how angry she had been. And still was. She wasn’t in her bath when the telephone bell rang. She was still in her dressing-gown, and she had slipped across to her bedroom and lifted the receiver just as Althea lifted the one in the room below. If you used both hands and moved the receiver very gently, the other person who was telephoning would have no idea that you were listening in. She heard everything that Nicholas and Althea said, and she laid her plans accordingly. She would have her bath and she would have her Ovaltine, and she would say how sleepy she was, and she would beg Althea not to make any noise. She wasn’t afraid of going to sleep – she was much too excited and angry for that. She would just stay propped up amongst her pillows and wait until it was half past ten.

She must have dozed a little, because she was suddenly aware of the wall-clock striking in the hall below. There was a stroke that had waked her, and a second which came as she listened for it. She glanced sideways at the table by her bed and saw that the luminous hands on the small ornamental clock were pointing to half past ten. She counted up to twenty before she got out of bed and felt her way to the door. There was always a light on the landing. She couldn’t sleep with one in her room, but she liked to feel that it was just outside the door. Standing there listening, she was aware of the silence and emptiness of the house. Thea had already gone to her meeting with Nicholas Carey. She had gone out, leaving the house unlocked and her invalid mother alone in it. A drenching wave of self-pity broke over Winifred Graham. Anything may happen to a woman alone in a house with an open door – anything may happen to an invalid in a delicate state of health. Thea didn’t care what happened to her. All she cared for was slipping out to meet her lover like any girl who has not been brought up to behave herself. It was not only callous and heartless, but exceedingly ill-bred.

She went back into her room, turned on the bedside light, and dressed as she had planned to do. Stockings and outdoor shoes – gardens are always damp at night. A pair of warm knickers pulled right up over her filmy nightdress, a fleecy vest, a cardigan which buttoned up to the neck, a skirt and a long black coat. She tied a chiffon square over her head and wound a fleecy woollen scarf about her throat. Then she went into the bathroom without putting on the light, drew back the curtains, and looked out of the window. The bathroom was at the back of the house. If they had a light in the gazebo, she would be able to see it from here. Her eyes searched the shadowy darkness. There wasn’t any light. She listened with all her ears, but there wasn’t any sound. Everything in the garden was dim and quiet under the arch of a windless sky.

She went down the stairs and through the house without putting on any of the lights. The backdoor was ajar. Her anger flamed afresh, her self-pity deepened. It was wicked of Thea – wicked, wicked, wicked.

Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. Once she was clear of the house she could see well enough. She passed between the two cut hollies, each screening a dustbin, and made her way as Althea had done along the paved walk and up the slope to the gazebo. It was not until she came to the foot of the steps that the murmur of voices reached her. That was really all it was – a murmur. The sound had no words for her. If words there were, they passed from lip to ear, or between lips that met. She was filled with an anger which stopped her breath. She had to gasp for it, stumbling up the steps of the gazebo, catching at the jamb of the door.

It stood open. The sound of those stumbling feet and that catching breath came into the dream in which Althea and Nicholas stood and startled them apart.

‘Mother!’

‘Mrs Graham!’

Winifred Graham found breath for her anger. Her voice came high and shrill.

‘How dare you, Nicholas Carey – how dare you!’

‘Mother – please! You’ll make yourself ill!’

‘You wouldn’t care if I died! You wouldn’t care if you killed me! You only think about yourself!’

Nicholas said in a controlled voice,

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Graham, but you wouldn’t let me come to the house, and I had to see Allie. I’ll go away now and come back and talk to you tomorrow.’

She was clutching at Althea and sobbing.

‘No – no – you mustn’t come – I won’t see you! Send him away, Thea! I can’t stand it – he’ll kill me! Send him away!’

Althea was having to hold her up. She said,

‘Yes, he’ll go. Nicky, you’d better. It’s no good trying to talk to her now, but I think you’ll have to help me get her back to the house.’

Nicholas took a step towards them and Mrs Graham cried out,

‘No – no! Don’t dare to touch me! Don’t dare!’

Althea spoke only just above her breath.

‘You’d better go – I’ll manage. Mother, you really will make yourself ill. If you won’t let Nicholas help you, just lean on me and come back to the house. You don’t want to stay here, do you? Let me get you to bed and make you comfortable.’ Nicholas stood where he was. If she wouldn’t let him help her she wouldn’t, and that was that. It wasn’t the slightest use talking to her. It never had been, and it never would be. The only argument to be used against her was the argument of the accomplished fact. Once Althea was his wife she would have to give in. And they were to be married tomorrow. There was a cold fury in his heart as he wondered just what chance there was of that plan being carried out. Mrs Graham would certainly not stick at making herself ill if that was the only way she could keep them apart. Well, if she could fight, he could fight too. He wasn’t going to stand for it – not a second time. Not, as he had said when they had met in Sophy’s little room, not if he had to smash everything in sight! Not if he had to snatch Althea away by force! At this moment he felt capable of anything. He felt as if he could pick her up in his arms and walk away with her over the rim of the world. He was hers, and she was his, and nobody was going to part them again.