The Marlows Read online

  She came to a halt. The village street was deserted. Not a soul to be seen and all the shops shut with only a few lights showing in upper windows, except for the tavern on the other side of the green where the windows shone brightly and the noise of drunken singing could be clearly heard. There was a good bass voice, somewhat slurred by alcohol, leading the other singers and in full command of the notes of the bawdy song. She had never heard that voice sing such a song before, but she knew to whom it belonged.

  Numbness took hold of her. Not anger or outrage, but a state of disbelief without feeling. Almost mechanically she stepped from the street onto the grass and it clung damply to her skirt hems as she moved in a direct line across it until she stood in the rectangular pattern of light thrown down onto the forecourt by the window of the taproom directly in front of her. It was too high to see in, even if the lower panes had not been made up of coarse, green bottle glass, but any last doubts she might have been harbouring about the identity of the singer were completely dispelled.

  Without hesitation, although it was a place for men and none but the coarsest of womenfolk would ever enter it, she went up the steps and through into the crowded taproom, which was lit by lamps in brackets on the walls, the atmosphere so thick with tobacco smoke that for a few moments it was difficult for her to get her bearings. At first nobody noticed her, all attention focused on Oliver Marlow, who was lolling against the bar conducting the singing with one hand and holding a tankard of ale in the other. The raucous chorus came at her like thunder from all sides, assailing her ears.

  She had time to study the scene. Her father’s face was crimson with heat and alcohol, sweat trickling down his face, his hat stuck on the back of his tawny head, spilt ale staining his waistcoat. He appeared to have struck up a singing acquaintanceship with a well-dressed, black-haired stranger in a tall stovepipe hat, whose broad back was toward her, an arm resting on the bar with long fingers curled about the handle of a pewter mug, his voice deep and strong. Had her father not been in his cups and the scene a quiet parlour instead of a common taproom, their singing together would have made pleasant listening. As it was, she could only stare across at them with the numbness within her being taken over and consumed by a white-hot temper at a pitch she had never known she possessed, a violent trembling seizing her limbs and churning her stomach.

  Gradually the company was becoming aware of an alien presence and voices fell silent around her, one man and then another sensing that something was wrong and turning his head with a start of recognition toward her. Only those pressed close about the bar took longer to notice the change in atmosphere. Among the first of them was the stranger, whose gaze suddenly riveted onto her reflection in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. He saw a white-faced girl with eyes tearing and ablaze, standing like a black-gowned Fury from some Greek tragedy, with a mass of shining, spun-gold hair in glorious disarray.

  Between the opaque letters on the mirror, which made up the name of some brewer’s ale, their eyes met and it was as though she had found a target at which to direct all blame for the agonizing situation that had been created. No local man would have drawn her father into the tavern, for all knew of the tragedy that had taken place, or — when he was drunk enough — tossed him the song that he must have taken up with gusto, forgetting he was in mourning, oblivious to everything but the flowing ale and the noisy carousal centred around him. The stranger had been responsible! She hated the tanned, hawk-like face held reflected there in a glow of lamplight, his hard stare unwavering. She thought his handsome features ruthless and saturnine. The narrow, brush-lashed black eyes were flint-bright under thick brows, the nose forceful, the jaw square and obdurate, and the firm lips were slightly parted as though briefly he held his breath in a kind of wondering surprise, showing teeth that were strong and white.

  All this she had noticed in a matter of seconds. Then abruptly his reflected face swung away from the mirror and he had turned to rest both elbows on the bar behind him, looking directly at her. At the same time the last of the singing fell silent, except for the voice of Oliver Marlow, which faltered and faded as he came to the realization that all was not as it should be.

  “Whassar m’tter?” he demanded pugnaciously with the unpredictable swing of an alcoholic mood. “Why area’ you blood’ well singin’? Whas’us happened to your blood’ throats? Too blood’ dry, eh?” He reeled about to crash a clenched fist on the bar, bawling out his order to the landlord. “Drinks all round! D’you hear me? Fill ‘em up, I say!”

  The landlord, whose wary gaze was also fixed on Tansy, made no move, except to continue wiping the same little patch of the bar surface in front of him where some ale had been spilt, waiting to see what she would say or do. With the exception of those who were shuffling back to leave a clear path between father and daughter, all present were still, watching with the landlord to see what would happen. Oliver fumbled in his pocket and brought out a handful of change which he slammed down on the bar, and some of the coins rolled and fell with a chink into the sawdust on the floor. Only then did he see her there on the far side of the taproom. His mouth fell open as though he could not gather his befuddled thoughts into an understanding of why she had appeared, and he wiped a trickle of saliva from his chin with the back of his hand. But gradually comprehension dawned enough to bring horror blended with rage that she should have come into such a place and be present amid such foulmouthed company. His face congested, his colour deepening almost to purple.

  “Get out!” he thundered at her, giving himself with one hand a thrust away from the bar, and he stood with feet set apart, reeling slightly, with his head lowered as he glared at her from under his bushy brows.

  She remained motionless and silent. Wanting to hit him for the insult inflicted on her mother’s memory. Wanting to scream. Wanting to beat with her fists at his drink-sodden face. Seeing that she showed no signs of obeying him, Oliver reached out before anyone realized what he was doing, snatched up the nearest object that came to hand, which was an emptied glass on the bar, and hurled it toward her with all his strength, so that it smashed into a thousand sparkling shards at her feet.

  “Get out, I tell you!” he roared louder than before. “Go home!”

  She bit deep into her lower lip, bringing the salty taste of blood into her mouth, and her eyes narrowed on the pain of what he had said in his drunken stupor. Then she spoke at last and her words came like a whiplash at him.

  “We have no home! And you have no respect for the dead, Oliver Marlow! You shame my mother’s memory!”

  Whirling about, she turned her straight and furious back on him and the whole company to rush from the taproom, letting the door slam shut behind her. Down the steps she darted, grasping the iron balustrade, and her hand slid down, following the curve at the end of it to bring her round into the shadow of the steps. There she leaned her forehead against the cold bricks of the building and rested both palms against the rough surface on either side of her face.

  She was shaking so much that her teeth were chattering. And she was remembering. Scraps of the past, momentary impressions that had registered more deeply than she had known, snatches of conversation overheard without interest, but now having a new significance, all jumbled together like a new dissected picture puzzle that her father had brought home once for Judith and the game had been to put all the pieces together again.

  She was putting everything together! No wonder his homecomings had been received so phlegmatically by her mother. There had been no joy in those occasions for her. She had known that he cared nothing for her, nothing for any of them. He had tossed his gifts about, showing off like some returning hero, basking in the adulation of his offspring, and staying only for as long as it suited him before going on his selfish way again. Tansy mocked herself for ever having thought her parents’ runaway marriage romantic. He had won her mother with his glib tongue and false affability, but the times when he had been at his wife’s side in days of trouble could be count
ed on the fingers of one hand, and then her concern had always been for him, for his feelings, for his well-being.

  Overhead the door of the tavern opened as someone came out, releasing a rumble of talk, subdued now with no more singing, before it closed again. Footsteps began to lurch along down the flight to the forecourt. She clenched her hands and turned in the dark shadows as her father took the final step, paused as though to steady himself, and then staggered away out of her range of vision. Above her a man spoke.

  “Go after him, Tansy.”

  She looked up sharply. The stranger stood there under the lintel, lighting a cigar with a lucifer, which flared and spluttered, marking pearly planes of his face before he blew it out. He must have accompanied Oliver out into the open air and remained to make sure he did not fall and crack his addled skull. She considered it small atonement for having got him in drink in the first place. He spoke to her again on a note of authority, which riled her anew.

  “I’ve been told you’re his daughter. Follow him. He needs your care.”

  “My care?” she echoed explosively. She stamped to the foot of the flight and faced him furiously. “Who are you to give orders to me?”

  She had not meant her words to convey a literal meaning, intending them only as an exclamation of contempt, but he answered her, coming leisurely down toward her.

  “Forgive me. I should have presented myself before addressing you.” There was the faintest edge to his voice as though he were unaccustomed to anyone adopting an imperious attitude toward him and it was not to his liking. “My name is Dominic

  Reade. I had a matter to discuss with Mr. Marlow and we were to meet by appointment tomorrow. Hence my decision to arrive today and stay overnight. I need hardly say that in view of what has occurred in his absence — and I offer you my most sincere condolences — I’m departing now and another meeting can be arranged at some future date. He knows my address and where to get in touch with me.”

  “Surely it is a little late for such finer feelings, Mr. Reader

  His cigar stopped short on its way to his mouth. “I’m not sure that I understand you, ma’am.”

  She jerked her chin. “You had been informed of the circumstances and yet you encouraged my father in his outrageous disregard of everything but his own selfish desire to drown his sorrows in ale. In public and with the greatest vulgarity.”

  His eyes had steel in them behind the drifting curl of cigar smoke. “I have never seen a man more broken by grief,” he stated without expression, his face immobile. “The Oliver Marlow who was your father — and with whom I’ve been acquainted over the past five years — has gone. You will find you have someone on your hands whom you have never known before.”

  For a moment fear stabbed at her, but in the same instant she dismissed it. However many faults her father had he was too resilient a man to be cut down by a misfortune that she coldly believed to be no worse to him than others he had suffered in his time. When he had recovered from the effects of his debauch he would be the same as before. Only she would be different. The blinding trappings of childish adoration had been ripped from her eyes. She felt suffocated with humiliation.

  “You’re wrong,” she retorted. “Utterly mistaken in every way. I know. That’s why I’ll not go following after him. I should say things to him better left unsaid. Let him vomit where he will and not look to me to hold his head as doubtless my mother would have done.”

  Unexpectedly the man reached out and grabbed her by the arm, his grip almost bruising her. “Have you no pity in that bigoted little heart of yours? No compassion? For all your womanly appearance are you still so immature that you only see life in the starkness of black and white without its endless shadings of grays? Do as I bid you and go after that unfortunate man. Then, when we meet, I’ll be sure of finding that you are truly possessed of the warm and loving nature that your looks proclaim you to have.”

  She gasped at his audacity and tore her arm from his grasp, stumbling back a pace. “There’ll be no next meeting, sir. Nor for my father either if it lies in my power to prevent it. You’ve done enough harm already, corrupting him into a drunken debauch that will be ever to his disgrace. I hope never, never to set eyes on you again!”

  Abruptly and defiantly she spun away from him with a snarl of petticoats into the direction directly opposite to that which Oliver had followed, and taking to her heels she ran as fast as she could from those tavern steps. In confusion and anger and misery she half-expected the obnoxious Dominic Reade to give chase and haul her back to follow his instructions. But the night remained silent except for the clatter of her own heels on the cobbles. She did not stop until she reached the gates of the house where her night duties at the old woman’s bedside awaited her. The gates clanged behind her when she flew up the path and thumped hard on the knocker to be admitted without delay.

  She did not sleep at all that night, although the querulous old woman in the bed gave her no trouble, apart from upbraiding her for being late, and slumbered peacefully with her usual snorts and snores. Tansy rose time and time again from the couch where normally she slept quite well, and she paced the room, pausing only when she came to the window. There she looked out at the starlit night and wondered where Oliver Marlow was spending it, chiding herself for not having fetched Roger to attend to him. Was he sprawled in a gutter or lying face downward on the green? Had Dominic Reade gone after him and — like the Good Samaritan — seen him into lodgings at the tavern?

  She wished she knew. In vain she tried to convince herself that she did not care where he was, but the longing to know his whereabouts became intense as the night wore on, and fear for his safety grew in her as it occurred to her that he might have fallen and hit his head or suffered some other harm. Suppose he had blundered into the duckpond and gone under the dark water with a splash that nobody had heard!

  Never before had she welcomed the first signs of dawn with such thankfulness. Hoping that her charge would not hear the church clock strike and know the right time, she fetched water and soap and clout to bathe the wrinkled face and aged limbs, her own toilette long since completed. It was with relief that she finally snatched up her shawl and swung it about her shoulders as she left the sleeping household, which would soon hear the rapping of the old woman’s stick upon the wall when breakfast failed to arrive at the hour she would imagine it to be.

  The village was bathed in the pinkish light of sunrise, the shadows long, the air crisp and autumnal. When she crossed the green her skirt hems created a swath of deeper colour when the dew was swept aside. Oliver was nowhere to be seen. Somebody was astir in the tavern and she tapped the glass panel of the entrance door. When the bolts were flicked back and the chains unfastened, a shake of the head from the yawning landlord was all the answer she was given after asking if her father was staying there.

  Her search went on while the sky grew brighter overhead. She looked down every alley, turned into all the lanes and footpaths, peered into ditches, under hedges, and went right round the duckpond. Finally she found his hat lying just inside the churchyard gate. Slowly she bent and picked it up, knowing now where she would find him. The hat was damp with dew and she smoothed the ruffled nap with gentle strokes of her fingertips as she turned in the direction of her mother’s grave.

  Coming round the side of the church she looked toward it and thought for a moment with a lurch of despair that he had already left again. Then a terrible cry broke from her and she threw herself into a run. He was lying face downward across the grave, quite motionless. When she reached him and fell to her knees to turn him over she saw that she was too late. A seizure of the heart had taken him from her, the tears he had been shedding still wet on his lashes. By the headstone lay a bunch of ferns, berries, and other autumn foliage, all of the varieties that Ruth had loved best, and it must have taken him all night to gather them.

  2

  Tansy saw Dominic Reade at the funeral. When she moved away from the graveside with Nina on one
side of her, a weeping but head-high Judith on the other, an arm through Roger’s, she noticed him with a heavily veiled woman on the outskirts of the silent crowd of mourners and sympathizers who had gathered there. Bareheaded, he bowed to her, but although she acknowledged his courtesy with a slight dip of her head she could not bear to look at him, for she blamed him for everything. Had her father not been drawn into drink by him, he would not have gone blundering about throughout the night, falling and grazing himself on sharp stones and against rough tree trunks, the evidence of which had been borne out by the ripped state of his clothing and his poor, gashed hands, but would have taken sensible shelter under a neighbour’s roof, getting the rest and sleep he needed after such a great shock, and the seizure of the heart could have been averted. He would have been alive today, sharing this quiet noontide with his children, and knowing that she loved him more than ever with no last angry words lying between them. She knew now she had shrieked at him in the pub out of her own fear, her own panic-stricken realization that he was never going to face up to the responsibilities that his wife had borne for him and they were to fall on her youthful, unprepared shoulders. Some part of her had known that for the first time she was seeing the man he had always been within that bright shell of flamboyancy and bumptiousness and the cock-o’-the-walk air that he had always presented so blatantly to the world. Intuitively, Judith had been aware of his true nature and turned instinctively to the stronger of her two foster parents, loving him but finding the security she sought in Ruth, which had made her utter those enigmatic words at his home-coming, their meaning now all too clear. Ruth Marlow had known and understood the true Oliver with all his weaknesses and had loved him in spite of them in her own quiet, undemonstrative way, she alone his support and his anchorage. With her going he had become a lost soul.