Pure Juliet by Stella Gibbons

Author:Stella Gibbons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House UK

17

‘Grandmamma,’ in a half whisper, ‘ask Edward to drive. Please.’

‘Oh dear – must I? You know he hates driving and that makes him nervous, and if there’s anything that does frighten me—’

‘Please. I – want a word with Frank. He and I will walk.’

Mrs Massey, glancing down to ascertain that her ample grey folds were in order, noticed that Clemence’s hands were clenched at her sides. Most unusual. Poor child.

‘Very well, dear,’ she said and advanced upon Dr Masters. ‘Clem doesn’t feel quite up to the mark. So will you be a dear, Edward . . . ?’

Dr Masters, no better pleased than she, made himself be a dear, and off the pair went.

‘Frank, walk me home, will you? I feel a bit – I don’t know – queasy, and I need exercise.’

‘Of course. I thought you sounded on edge. Need an arm or anything?’

She shook her head, not looking at him.

‘Right. I won’t be a minute. Must just speak to the servants.’

She stood, waiting: as she had waited since she was fourteen. Addy’s death, unloved, unmated, childless, had been the last straw. Must she, Clemence Massey, that nice woman who’s been with Dr Masters for years, die some fifty years on, perhaps, in the same way? And the long rays of evening sunlight, and all the brilliant, throbbing spring life around her, even the scent of hawthorn, increased her pain. She had no idea what she was going to do or say. But say or do something she must.

In ten minutes they were walking down the drive.

‘Don’t let’s hurry, shall we?’ she said, as Frank shut the little door after them, having smilingly waved back Antonio, who had accompanied them, beaming. ‘It’s such a – lovely evening.’ She gulped.

‘Clem, dear, what is the matter? Has the funeral upset you?’ Frank looked concernedly into her face, unbecomingly flushed.

‘Of course it has,’ she almost burst out. ‘Someone dying like that – poor Addy – with no one to love her – or – anything.’

He was silent for a moment, surprised and a little embarrassed. Then he said: ‘Does that matter so much? I don’t think – that side of life – troubled her much. She had all the money and comfort she wanted – friends, travel (when she was younger). I shouldn’t have said she was that kind of woman.’

‘What kind of woman?’ It was a snap, and an angry one, and she turned to glare – yes, it was a glare – at him.

‘Well, the kind to whom love and marriage mean a great deal.’

‘Oh Frank! They meant everything, poor, poor Addy. And all women are that kind of woman. If they aren’t, they aren’t women,’ she ended rather wildly.

‘There are so many different kinds of love, Clem.’

‘Addy didn’t have any kind of love. She made me think of a – a flowering branch that’s never lost its petals or formed any fruit. Wasted.’

‘Well, that’s enlarging the question considerably, to say her life was wasted. I like your comparison with the branch.

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