Fortune Is a Woman Page 3

  Looking back on the moment, it does seem to me that I got a feeling of the importance of what I did next. I could turn and go out to my Riley and drive away, and that would be the end. Or I could walk up to the greenhouse, and after that it would be too late. There’d be a sort of expenditure of action that wasn’t recoverable.

  I went up to the greenhouse.

  She was picking tomatoes. The plants were nearly done and looked shrivelled and a bit spotty; but there was still a fair crop. On a bench were some plant pots, and a fern standing in water. For a few seconds she didn’t see me, and I looked at her.

  Although the recognition had been instant there were many differences. She’d fined off to slimness; narrow waisted, dark lashed; her hair was shorter and done differently, was slightly ruffled and shining. I hadn’t ever known before what colour her eyes were.

  She turned quickly and saw me. She looked faintly surprised, the way I suppose most people would look if they found a chance caller wandering where he’d no business to be.

  ‘‘Are you looking for my husband?’’

  ‘‘No … I saw you in here. I came to pay an old debt.”

  ‘‘A debt? To me?’’

  ‘‘Yes.” I put my hand in my pocket and took out a half crown. She looked at it but didn’t make any move to take it.

  ‘‘I don’t know what you mean.”

  I said: ‘‘ Before you were married your name was Darnley, wasn’t it? Sarah Darnley?’’

  That evidently decided her she hadn’t got a lunatic to deal with.

  ‘‘I’m sorry—I don’t remember you. What did you say your name was?’’

  ‘‘You never knew it.” I put the half crown on the wooden bench. ‘‘You gave me this in ’39. Or one like it. D’you remember a puncture on a lonely road?’’

  Her eyes were slightly less dark than her hair and lashes, intelligent and warm, but a bit secret as if she’d learned to play it that way.

  ‘‘… I do remember one that happened to me; but I don’t think …” She hesitated. ‘‘You aren’t … Heavens, yes.”

  We stared at each other for a second. Water from a tap in the corner was dripping as regularly as a metronome.

  I said: ‘‘ Did you ever find the bracelet?’’

  She must have been remembering.

  ‘‘… I can’t tell you how sorry we were about that—afterwards—when it was too late. It was found—the bracelet was found near where I’d had the puncture.” She was still holding her basket and she put two more tomatoes in it before lowering it on to the bench in front of her. ‘‘The thing must have dropped off when I was struggling with the wheel before you came. The clasp was always a bit unreliable.”

  ‘‘So are tramps,’’ I said.

  She flushed. ‘‘I’m very sorry. I wasn’t to know—we weren’t to know that you were not just an ordinary man of the road.”

  ‘‘But I was.”

  ‘‘You couldn’t have been, or you wouldn’t be so much changed.”

  I said: ‘‘The war came. I got pitched into things. It could have happened just the same to anyone.”

  ‘‘But I thought …” She stopped herself there. ‘‘Anyway …”

  I waited for her to go on. But she didn’t. I stared at the half crown. I think maybe it brought me luck. Perhaps now it’ll do the same for you.”

  ‘‘What makes you think I need it?’’

  ‘‘Don’t we all? Anyway, thanks for the loan.” I turned to go, but at the door she said:

  ‘‘Wait.”

  I stopped. She said: ‘‘ I—don’t know your name.”

  ‘‘Oliver Branwell.”

  Her eyes went quietly over me.

  ‘‘I’m very sorry you were put in that position over the bracelet. I’ve said so.”

  ‘‘Forget it.”

  ‘‘Then will you forget this money too? You must see.…”

  She picked up the coin and held it out to me. Her fingers were stained with handling the tomato plants.

  ‘‘No,’’ I smiled briefly. ‘‘I don’t see. It’s yours now, Mrs. Moreton. I like to pay my debts.”

  The next week I went down again, to see the local builder and get the thing settled up.

  As before, Tracey Moreton let me in; and she didn’t seem to be anywhere about. We talked business for a time. There was one further complication, in that the sticky smoke from the jambs had, in his opinion, damaged the polish on certain pieces of furniture in the hall, and he wanted these put right. One Queen Anne walnut cabinet he said he had only just paid £60 to have restored. It seemed a reasonable enough attitude, but it meant further delay before a settlement was agreed.

  After we’d done all we could Moreton offered me a cigarette—not from his own case but from an antique carved satinwood box—and said in his indifferent way:

  ‘‘I believe you’d met my wife once before.”

  I hadn’t expected her to bother to tell him.

  ‘‘Yes. She didn’t remember me.”

  ‘‘It’s not surprising, is it? Were you actually—on the road, when she met you before?’’

  ‘‘It wasn’t just a stunt with a genteel background, if that’s what you mean.”

  He rubbed his middle finger along the line of his moustache. ‘‘War’s a crucible, isn’t it? Everything gets thrown into the pot. Some come out finer tempered. Others have been badly handled and flawed. Were you in the Rifle Brigade?’’

  ‘‘No, the K.R.R.C.”

  ‘‘I know a man called Brigadier Waterton. And a Major Morris-Scott.”

  ‘‘I’ve seen Brigadier Waterton; I never met him. My O.C. was Lieutenant-Colonel Eden.”

  ‘‘Eden … I rather think my brother knows him. Wasn’t he at Charterhouse?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ I said dryly.

  ‘‘No.” He coughed as we went towards the door. ‘‘I’ve not been in circulation since the war. Exposure brought on asthma. Can’t shake the damned thing off. My grandfather had it. Come and lunch with us sometime.”

  I couldn’t have been more surprised. Before I could think it out my voice said: ‘‘Thanks. I’d like to.”

  We were at the door, and his eyes travelled incuriously over my face.

  ‘‘Sunday?’’

  ‘‘Thank you very much.”

  I’d left my car outside again, and I walked down the drive among the holly bushes, which were speckled with red berries this year. There was a gardener brushing up leaves, and he nodded and touched his hat. Over in the fields a cow was lowing, and the autumn sun cast long shadows from the trees. What must it be like, I thought, to be born in a place like this? In spite of his off-hand manner he was likeable—and he seemed to like me. The invitation to lunch could only have come from our being in the Middle East together—unless his wife had suggested it.…

  As I got to my car I heard another car somewhere and could tell from the high-pitched hum—I knew before it came in sight round the bend.

  She slowed up to turn in through the gatehouse, and I put my hand up to stop her. She was driving a Bentley, pre-war but still sleek. She was wearing no hat, but a loose grey coat with the collar high about her neck like a ruff. She’d a disconcerting face—one of those that are never quite the same two days together; one of those in which the mood seems to transcend the features. There was a cocker spaniel in the car beside her.

  I said: ‘‘Good morning. No punctures to-day?’’

  ‘‘No.” She smiled, but her voice was cool, not specially friendly. ‘‘Are you just arriving?’’

  ‘‘Leaving. I stopped you to apologize.”

  ‘‘What for?’’

  ‘‘Bothering to pay off old debts on my last visit.”

  ‘‘You’d a perfect right to.”

  ‘‘It’s an arguable point. But don’t let’s argue it. The grievance wasn’t all I remembered.”

  ‘‘I’m glad.”

  ‘‘Did you get into trouble that evening for encouraging a dangerous character?’
’

  She smiled. ‘‘More or less. As it happens—this is the bracelet.”

  She’d pulled her coat sleeve back. I stared at the thing on her wrist.

  ‘‘It’s very lovely.”

  Perhaps something in my voice gave away more than it should. She slowly pulled her sleeve back over her wrist. At her movement the spaniel put its forepaws on her knee and wagged its tail. Its bloodshot eyes were mournful and friendly.

  I said: ‘‘May I ask you a question?’’

  ‘‘Of course.”

  ‘‘Do you always drive so fast?’’

  She gave a soft laugh. ‘‘I’m often in a hurry. I left some things in the oven to-day.”

  I stepped back. ‘‘ You’re losing time on me. I hope to see you on Sunday, thank you very much.”

  ‘‘Sunday?’’

  ‘‘Yes.… Your husband invited me then.”

  She pressed in the gear. ‘‘Oh, of course. I’d forgotten.”

  We separated and I watched her car disappear up the drive. I got in my own two-seater and drove away. She’d covered up, but I knew now that the invitation hadn’t come from her.

  Chapter Four

  It had been a good October, and Sunday was the best day of the month. I drove down through south London, through the endless deserts of brick.

  When you turned in at Lowis Manor you couldn’t help but reflect that there was enough space in this house for eight families if you took as a guide the space they were occupying thirty miles back. It straggled all over the place like a miniature town, with all its additions and afterthoughts. But, unlike any town, it was all good to look on. It squatted there in the sun with its timbered walls and its panes of leaded glass, its old bow windows supported on carved wooden brackets, and its clusters of slender chimneys.

  I took my car up the drive this time, and Elliott, the chap I’d seen brushing out a stable, opened the door. He was a man of about sixty in a collar too big for him and with a face shrivelled to match his neck. As I was looking at a small French picture in the living-room Tracey Moreton came in with an older woman.

  ‘‘Glad to see you, Branwell. Admiring my Watteau?’’ He stopped to get his breath. ‘‘May I introduce you to my mother. This is Major Branwell, Mother.”

  So he’d got to know that somewhere. Mrs. Moreton was tall and finely lined and rather papery; but all the same she gave you the impression of alertness and vigour. You felt she’d never be slow to make up her mind or doubtful once she’d made it up.

  ‘‘My son’s spoken of you, Major Branwell. I believe you were in North Africa together.”

  I said: ‘‘ Well, in the same area. But I’m afraid my army rank’s two years out of date.”

  ‘‘I don’t think that sort of thing is ever out of date,’’ she replied.

  At that moment Sarah came in, and there was the usual conversation while Moreton poured out the drinks. We had lunch in a long half-panelled room at the back of the house with a patterned plaster ceiling and an oval Chippendale table. A door behind a screen led into the kitchen, and the old man with the collar served the meal. They showed a polite interest in my job, and I tried to explain what an adjuster was, how, though he represented the insurance company, it was his duty to be completely fair and impartial to both parties in the settlement of a claim, especially so if the claimant did not employ an assessor to act for him. I’m still not too good at talking and eating at the same time—not easily, that is. Half way through the meal Tracey excused himself and, refusing Sarah’s offer to get him something, went out. There was a minute or two’s silence.

  ‘‘It’s been the same all this month,’’ Sarah said to Mrs. Moreton. ‘‘The adrenalin wears off quicker each time.”

  ‘‘Autumn has always been difficult. But I wish he wouldn’t give way so quickly now. Sometimes it used to pass off with the inhaler.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I suppose they thought I had to have it explained to me.

  Mrs. Moreton said: ‘‘ He was in the water nine hours. That began it. The long internment too had an effect—but not only on his health.…”

  ‘‘You’ve another son, Mrs. Moreton?’’

  She smiled at me. ‘‘Yes. The barrister. He served in the Guards, like his father before him. But he was luckier than his father.”

  I looked at her inquiringly.

  She said: ‘‘My husband lost a leg on the Somme.”

  The old chap came in and took Tracey’s plate away to keep it warm.

  Mrs. Moreton said: ‘‘I often think how much more fortunate I was than women who went before me. They could only stay at home. Inactivity is the worst thing—the corroding thing.…” For a second or so she looked pained and angry. ‘‘There was a Moreton at Crécy and two brothers at Blenheim. The head of the house was killed at Marston Moor.”

  ‘‘You’ve been a warlike family.”

  ‘‘In six hundred years? No.… There were long periods when whole generations.… They were content to live in peace here. This is our place. The wars have not been of our seeking. But when they came—we did our share …”

  I glanced at the room. ‘‘You had so much to fight for.”

  ‘‘Yes,’’ she said. ‘‘And so much to lose.”

  When Tracey came back in five minutes he seemed a lot better, and after lunch he insisted on showing me the rest of the house. There was a 14th century hall built of stone, but this backed on to the stables and was no longer used. The present hall, he explained, had originally been the courtyard; and it was therefore a good bit more lofty than the other rooms. It had a high beamed roof which rose in an arch to two small windows; and a wide irregular staircase led up to a gallery with a heavily moulded handrail carried by squat twisted balusters. The lower windows had deep wooden window seats, and the light that came in was palely green because of the flowering shrubs outside.

  ‘‘In the old days people used to go out of doors to bed and cross the courtyard to eat their meals. But in the early 18th century that sort of tough living went out of fashion, and they enclosed it.”

  Half way up the stairs I stopped to look at another picture: it was of the Three Wise Men bringing their gifts at the Nativity. He stopped rather impatiently. ‘‘There are only half a dozen pictures in the house worth anything. My father thought nothing of that, but I’ve just had it restored. It’s by Filippino Lippi, about 1500. The one over there on the other side is an early Constable.”

  Upstairs was more of a warren than down. There were only a few obvious signs of neglect, stained ceilings or swollen doors; but he seemed to take a certain pleasure in pointing them out.

  ‘‘It’s a burden round my neck and I damn it daily. But if it came to the point I wouldn’t part with it. Not even now, when I can earn nothing for its upkeep.”

  ‘‘Before the war …?’’

  He made his usual face, as if he’d tasted something nasty. ‘‘Before the war I didn’t need to work—at least not in the way most people do: signing on each morning under a boss. During and since the war a grateful government has made it necessary. But now I can’t. Shall we go down?’’

  For all his casual and modest way, he walked with a sense of style, a slight arrogance. On a railway platform you wouldn’t possibly mistake him for a gentleman farmer, even though he dressed like one. Perhaps that was how it came after six hundred years of squirehood. Perhaps that was how it should be. I thought: poverty’s relative. He considers himself poor with three servants and a Bentley, because he can’t afford hunters and a flat in Town.

  While we were upstairs two visitors had come, and one of them was standing with his back to the fire drinking coffee. He was a big, handsome rather pop-eyed man of about thirty in a grey check suit and a thick yellow silk tie. The other was a dark pretty girl with a chiffon scarf round her long arching neck, and an attitude. The man was telling a story in a high tenor voice; he cocked an eye at us, but went on to the bitter end. Lady Caroline Stockholme, who apparently had the most appalling taste i
n loose covers, had either wilfully or accidentally misunderstood some advice on the matter given her by the speaker, with the result that she’d gone to the wrong shop and been bullied by some awful man into buying an entire new suite of furniture.

  Everybody laughed. The chap in the grey suit was killing himself to get in a postscript, but seeing me he put it off until after the introductions. His name was Clive Fisher and we shook hands and he grinned amiably enough as he plunged on with the story. The girl was his sister Ambrosine, and she inclined her head at me without putting any strain on herself.

  I said it was time I was going, but Tracey Moreton waved me to a seat.

  ‘‘Clive is the uncrowned Commissar of good taste in the county of Kent. Nothing ever really goes without his sanction. When my Lippi came back I knew that only his approval would make it possible for me to hang it again.”

  ‘‘Not merely my approval,’’ said Clive, who had been listening since his name was mentioned, and appeared to take Tracey’s remarks without batting an eyelid. ‘‘There are standards that anyone can apply. Any reasonable person that is. For instance, if one applies such standards to the El Greco which has been restored in the National Gallery—if one applies any standards at all—one knows that the iconoclasts who did it ought to be hanged in Trafalgar Square.”

  ‘‘It isn’t only the El Greco,’’ said Ambrosine languidly. ‘‘ They all look like picture postcards.”

  I listened to the discussion that raged over this, but didn’t join in. Culture, for what it was worth, was coming to me late and piecemeal. These people talked a language they’d known since they were kids. Tracey Moreton had an air of having been everywhere and done everything. Probably he had.