The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [103]
I held out the fountain pen. He took it, his fingers touching mine needlessly, lingering a moment. Last summer I’d have revelled, but now I flinched: when Mr Keiller touched me, my mind had lurched sickeningly to Mr Cromley. He hadn’t been seen in Avebury since the end of last year, thank God.
Mr Keiller let go my hand. ‘Poor little Heartbreaker. How are you going to manage now your Brushwood Boy is leaving?’
‘Leaving? Who?’ It didn’t sink in immediate.
‘Your young man.’ Mr Keiller’s face furrowed. ‘Good Lord, I’m sorry. I assumed you knew Davey’s enlisting with the RAE He came to me for a reference last week.’
‘I didn’t know,’ I said. ‘But Davey and I…’ I wasn’t sure how to finish.
‘Is that what this is all about? A lovers’ tiff? I am sorry–I’ve made it worse, haven’t I?’ His rueful grin made my stomach muscles twist. I was glad it hadn’t been him, in the house by the cemetery, but then again, part of me wished it had.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No reason he should tell me. It’s…been that way between us for a while.’
‘Well, fair enough.’ Mr Keiller was embarrassed. ‘I thought…Davey’s a handsome young fellow and he said to me a while back…but you are young for an understanding, I suppose.’
‘There’s going to be a war, Mr Keiller,’ I said. ‘Nobody’s too young for anything.’ He was looking at me, puzzled. I didn’t know what I was trying to tell him either. Everything seemed so mixed up now: Davey going, the place I’d been born rubble. The Blackshirts had been marching for peace, or so they claimed, in London, someone had carved MOSLEY WILL WIN in the side of Silbury Hill, and it seemed to me there were no certainties left in the world. Not even love, whatever that was. People said Mr Keiller and Miss Chapman–I couldn’t think of her as Mrs Keiller–were already arguing almost every night.
‘Don’t be too quick to grow up, Heartbreaker,’ he said.
They’d married in the autumn, as soon as the dig was over. No fuss, no grand wedding. I’d always thought her a bit of a ragbag, preferring comfortable clothes to fashionable, but when she came back to Avebury after their November honeymoon in Paris, she was as smart as silk drawers, in a toque hat and fur coat. The gossip was that Mr Keiller made her sign an agreement before they married to say she wouldn’t use her allowance to buy furs and jewellery without his consent. I don’t think he trusted wives, and we all understood that, in spite of her father being the major-general, the new Mrs K wasn’t out of the very top drawer.
The smile was triumphant, when she arrived back at the Manor with varnish on her nails instead of paint under them. The eyes were scared.
‘She’s a clever woman, or he wouldn’t have married her,’ said Mr Cromley, half under his breath, standing behind me at the 1938 MIAR end-of-season party. ‘But I reckon it’s only just dawned on her what she’s taking on. Wouldn’t you say so, Piggott?’
He’d done it deliberate, come up behind me unexpected when the toasts were due, so it would look odd if I walked away. This was the first time I’d seen him for weeks, because he’d vanished from Avebury only days after the ritual in Swindon, well before the season was finished, and I’d prayed he wouldn’t come back for the party. My skin crawled to have him so near.
We were supposed to be celebrating but no one seemed very cheerful. There was little huddles and whispers about how the marmalade money was finally running out.
‘None of our concern what happens in that marriage,’ said Mr Piggott, tartly. Mr Cromley’s remark might have been designed to catch him on the raw, because Stu Pig’d recently married too, and he didn’t look like my idea of a radiant husband. His wife Peggy was over the other side of the room, and there was an atmosphere between them. ‘You planning on coming back for the dig next year?’
‘Bet you ten bob there won’t be a dig next year,’ said Mr Cromley. ‘Even if she doesn’t bleed him dry. Word to the wise. Don’t wait to be conscripted. Grab yourself a commission before the balloon goes up. That’s what I’m doing.’
‘Easy for those with