The irony of the situation was his own hopelessness. No sooner, it seemed, had he come to terms with his memories of Northern Ireland than he was fated to be burdened by this new horror. The sight of Pandora, like a sodden doll, washed up beneath the sluicegates. Her face bloodless, her wet hair wound, like silken cords, around her neck. Her white arms, thin and bleached as drifting twigs, the skirts of her dress tangled in a flotsam of broken branches and broken reeds.
How great it would be if the impossible were rendered possible, and he could blank the image from his mind's eye for ever.
He sighed, and drew her letter towards him. The thick blue paper embossed with the Croy address, and Pandora's scrawly handwriting, unformed as a child's. A ghost of a smile touched his lips, because he remembered how she had never bothered to learn to do anything properly, and at the end of the day, she still could scarcely write.
Friday evening.
My darling Archie. I once went to a funeral and a man got up and read something so nice, about dead people having just slipped away into the next room, and not being miserable nor sorry, but going on laughing at the same old jokes. If, by chance, you give me a lovely Christian funeral (and who knows, you may be so cross, you'll just toss me onto Isobel's compost heap), then it would be nice if somebody coud read that about me.
He laid the letter down, and gazed unseeing, over his spectacles, at the opposite wall. The strange thing was that he knew exactly the passage that Pandora referred to. He knew it because he had read it aloud in church during the course of his own father's funeral service. (But Pandora did not know that, because Pandora had not been there.) And moreover, wishing to be word-perfect and not make a hash of his emotional duty, he had privately rehearsed the reading a number of times, and ended up knowing it by heart.
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.
Ai! is well.
But then old Lord Balmerino had not taken his own life.
Archie, I have been very practical and sensible and made a will, and left all my worldly goods to you. Perhaps you should get in touch with my New York lawyer. He is called Ryan Tyndall and you'll find his address and telephone number in my address book. (He's terribly nice.) I know I've seemed to spend money like water, but there ought to be lots left in the Bank, as well as various Stocks and Bonds and even a little California Real Estate. And of course, the house in Majorca. You can do what you want with this, sell it or keep it. (Lovely hols, for you and Isobel) but whatever you do, just be sure that dear Seraphina and Mario are all right.
I like to think that you will use some of this money to turn the stables or the barn into a workshop, start manufacturing your clever iittle wooden people, and sell them all over the world at a socking profit. I know you can do it. It just needs a bit of get-up-and-go. And if the business side of it seems a bit daunting, I am sure that Edmund would help and advise.
Darling, I'm so dreadfully sorry about all this. It's just that everything's suddenly become so complicated and such an effort and 1 haven't the energy to fight any longer. 1 was never much use at being steadfast and brave.
It's been a funny old life.
I adore you both and I leave you my love.
Pandora.
I am sure that Edmund would help and advise. Back to Edmund.
He thought of the other letter, safe in the drawer of this desk. He found the key, and unlocked the drawer, and took out that letter. The airmail envelope, creased and dog-eared, addressed to himself in Berlin; the postmark 1967.
He withdrew the two flimsy sheets, scrawled with the same immature handwriting. Unfolded them.
My darling Archie. It was such a lovely wedding and I hope you and Isobel are happy, had a lovely honeymoon and are happy in Berlin, but oh, I miss you so much. Everything is horrible, because everybody I love has gone away. I have got nobody to talk to. I can't talk to Mamma and Pa because it's about Edmund. This doesn't surprise you, does it, because you must have known. I don't know how I never knew it, but I must have loved him for ever, because when I saw him again, the few days before the wedding, I suddenly realized that there never had been, nor could be, anyone else, ever again. And the ghastly, tragic, unbearable thing is that he's married somebody else. But we love each other. I can write it in big letters. WE LOVE EACH OTHER. But I'm not allowed to tell anybody because of him being married to Caroline and having the baby and everything. He has gone back to her, but he doesn't love her, Archie. He loves me, and I am without him, stuck here, and I need you so badly and you're in Berlin. He said that he would write but he's been gone for a month and I haven't heard a word, and I can't bear it and I don't know what to do. I know it's wrong to break up a marriage, but I'm not doing that, because I had Edmund long before she did. I know you can't do anything to help but I just had to tell someone. I never knew Croy could be so lonely and I'm horrible to Mamma and Pa, and I can't help it. I can't stay here for ever, I think I shall go mad. There's only you I can tell. With lots of love and tears, Pandora.
Before he had always found the adolescent despair immeasurably poignant. Now, in the light of the morning's tragedy, it took on an even graver significance. He covered his eyes with his hand. Behind him, the door opened. "Archie."
It was Isobel. "I've brought you some coffee." He did not turn. She reached over his shoulder and laid the steaming, fragrant cup on the desk in front of him, and then put her arms around his neck, and stooped to press her warm cheek against his own.
"Why are you taking so long? What are you doing?" "Just reading.He laid the letter down.
She hesitated and then said, "That's the letter Pandora sent you just after we were married." "Yes."
"I didn't know you'd kept it. Why did you, Archie?" "I didn't have the heart to tear it up and throw it away." "So sad. Poor little girl. Have you telephoned Edmund yet?" "No. Not yet."
"You don't know what to say, do you?" "I don't know what to think."
"Perhaps she was still in love with him. Perhaps that's why she came home. And then she saw him again, with Virginia and Alexa and Henry, and she realized it was hopeless."
She was voicing his own fears, his own unspoken dreads. He could not have spoken them, and hearing Isobel say the words aloud, bringing their shared suspicions out into the open, filled him with loving gratitude for her fearless good sense. Because now they could talk about it.
"Yes," he admitted. "That's what I'm afraid of."
"She was such a little sorceress. Always enchanting. Generous and funny. But you know, Archie, she could be ruthless. If she wanted something, she could be ruthless to get it. If she set her heart on something, other people didn't matter."