Sensible Life (20 page)

By day the party played tennis, swam in the river, rode or walked in the hills. If it rained they lolled in the library, playing cards and backgammon. Flora watched and listened, for she was unused to life other than that of school. It was vital, she felt, that she too learned to be as buoyant, confident and gregarious as the Coppermalt young and the friends who came to play tennis or dine and dance.

Particularly she watched Mabs and Tashie with Henry and Nigel; these two surely knew how to manage being in love? Tashie and Henry sat next to each other at meals, and frequently held hands; they disappeared for hours at a time to reappear sleepy and flushed, Henry with ruffled hair, Tashie with smeared lipstick. When they danced Henry held her close, pressing his chin on the top of her head. If they sat on a sofa, they sat close together; often they shared an armchair.

While Mabs and Nigel did this, too, Mabs could turn suddenly aloof, contradictory and sharp, complaining when they danced that Nigel trod on her toes, that she would sooner dance with Hubert, one of the other men or Wellington, her father’s labrador. “If Wellington were human, I would marry him,” she said. “He is perfection.” And Nigel, patient: “You love dogs because they do not answer back.” Then he would look unhappy, watching Mabs pull Wellington up onto the sofa to sprawl, leaving room for no one else.

Then Mabs would spring up, fling her arms round Nigel, hug and kiss him in front of everybody so that he looked a fool and pushed her off, and Mabs, angry, would flounce away to vanish for hours without even Wellington for company.

One afternoon Flora overheard two guests who, coming to play tennis, had witnessed some such scene; they were coming out of the downstairs lavatory and did not notice her on the stair. One said to the other, “What Mabs needs is a jolly good rogering,” and the other said, “One wonders whether old Nigel is capable of delivery,” and as they walked away the first man said, “I would be more than willing to take old Nig’s place, she’s so—” and the second, interrupting, agreed. “Ah, yes, isn’t she?”

Mystified, Flora looked up “roger” in the dictionary and read: (1) copulation and (2) “message received,” and was none the wiser.

One lazy afternoon they congregated in Mabs’ room, where she and Tashie were discussing their trousseaux with repetitive intensity as they studied the autumn issue of
Vogue
and fingered swatches of materials sent up by Madame Tarasova. Mabs’ and Tashie’s enthusiasm for clothes continually amazed Flora. They displayed the same affection towards dresses and frocks that they showed towards her, the same love that they lavished on their family, friends and household dogs. As they continued to lend her their frocks, so they included her in their chat.

Cosmo and Hubert came to sprawl on the floor or loll on the bed and teased the girls. “What part does Henry play in all this?” asked Hubert.

“And what does Nigel wear?” enquired Cosmo.

“Henry wears the trousers,” Hubert answered him and said, “Oh?” in mock surprise when Mabs snapped, “Nigel will wear the clothes I choose for him. He has no dress sense; I shall make him change his tailor.”

“Does he know?” whispered Cosmo, awed.

“He soon will,” Hubert whispered back mockingly.

But Mabs, refusing to rise, said, “Look, Flora, you’d look lovely in this,” showing her a design. “Or this. You’ve a lovely figure; you could get away with it. You could be a mannequin, then there would be no need for you to go to India.”

The prospect of India had come up when Flora, asked about life at school, had made them laugh at a description of her fellow pupils happily anticipating rejoining their parents at the age of seventeen or eighteen in Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Poona or Peshawar. There they would watch polo, dance at Vice-regal balls and the club and meet their future husbands—who would be in the Army, the Indian Army, the Police, or the Political Service—marry and live happily ever after in large bungalows with hordes of servants. They would spend the hot weather in the hills or Kashmir. It was Hubert who referred to the girls as the Fishing Fleet.

“Every October a fleet of nubile girls charged with sexual abandon are loaded into P & O liners to traverse the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Arrived in Bombay they entrain and travel up the far-flung Raj to be snapped up by sex-starved subalterns, District Commissioners and Political Officers. That is what happens, that is how the Empire is perpetuated, pristine virgins fed into its maw to breed more.”

“Hubert, don’t pun,” they cried.

“Aren’t you looking forward to it, Flora?” Hubert teased her, and when Flora shook her head, “She is not looking forward to it, she will sneeze in their faces,” (I think I hate him) “refuse her contribution to the perpetuation of the Raj, wear defiant red knickers to shock the memsahibs, sneeze defiance of the norm, betray the Empire, go on strike, sneeze, sneeze, what a good wheeze.” (I do not like him at all.)

“And you are to go when you are seventeen?” asked Cosmo seriously.

“Yes.”

“Oh,” then, “Really?” and “Must you?” they asked.

“When I am seventeen,” said Flora flatly, “they will send me money to kit myself out.”

“We will help you choose your dresses!” interrupted Tashie.

Flora went on, “And a ticket to Bombay where I shall be met by my father’s bearer and travel by train to wherever they are at that time.”

“And then?” Cosmo frowned.

“Then she meets all these marriageable chaps. I hear there is a huge choice,” said Hubert.

“How come you are so well informed?”

“My step-father was an Empire Builder in Singapore. It’s the same system.”

“And you don’t like him,” said Mabs.

“Nor does Flora like her parents.”

“That is neither here nor there,” said Flora. Her quiet voice caused a temporary silence in which Tashie sighed, murmuring, “A pity about the clothes.”

It was Hubert who, having teased, now eased by suggesting a “Save Flora from the maw of the Raj” campaign. Flora must get herself a job, he said, then she would not have to go to India.

“We girls are not brought up to do jobs,” said Tashie.

“We are brought up to marry.”

“So one observes,” said Cosmo.

“Come the revolution both sexes will work and marriage will lapse,” said Hubert.

Cosmo said: “Oh, Blanco, you haven’t rolled out the revolution for weeks.”

“Under your roof I am tender towards your papa’s feelings.”

“Not noticeably so—”

“Your revolution will not come in time to save Flora,” said Mabs.

“She could find a job as a housemaid, sneeze away the dust,” said Hubert, staring at Flora. “Become a serf until it starts.”

“Pig,” said Flora, wishing that she had sneezed worse, more messily. “Swine.”

At this point Milly Leigh came into the room. “Really, my dears! All cooped up with the windows closed! It’s a beautiful day. Why aren’t you all out of doors getting some exercise?” She stepped across the tangle of young people on the floor, half-slipped on the shiny cover of
Vogue,
recovered her balance and threw the window open. “There!”

“How I deplore this upperclass mania for fresh air,” Hubert muttered, uncoiling his legs.

“Come on, let’s catch the evening rise on the river,” said Cosmo. “See you later, girls.”

“I am sure Nigel and Henry would love a game of tennis,” said Milly, fixing Mabs with her clear eye as she left the room.

“We might just as well be in India,” exclaimed Mabs.

Tashie gave her a slantwise look and said, “Come on, come on—try.”

“You two go. I think I shall take the dogs for a walk,” said Mabs.

Flora lay awake a long time that night and was heavily asleep when Mabs woke her in the early morning.

“Will you come with me for a ride? I can’t sleep.”

They crept out of the sleeping house, caught and saddled their horses and jogged up to the high grass moorland along the Roman Wall. Flora listened as she rode to the bits jingling, the creak of leather, the brush-brush of the horses’ hooves through the grass, the croak of a carrion crow in the valley. As the sun rose and the wind stroking the yellow grasses dropped, they reined in their horses, let them crop the turf and sat watching the view.

“One morning just like this,” Mabs said, “I brought Felix up here. He looks right on a horse. He liked the view, he said. He thought it was fine. I think he said historic. But he said he liked Holland better, that he liked looking at views by himself. He was awfully courteous, I think would be the right word, but he liked flat country best. Then I knew. Of course Mother was relieved; very pleased, really. I thought I’d tell you. Life at Coppermalt isn’t all love, kindness, affection and generosity.” Mabs picked up her reins, pulled her horse’s head up and said, “Shall we canter up to the top?”

Watching her canter away Flora felt absolute fury. How could Mabs, who had everything, lay claim to Felix? It was immaterial that he had rejected her; she had possessed him in thought, wanted to marry him. Choking with rage Flora kicked her horse into a canter. The horse, infected by her passion, put its head down, humped its back and performed a series of bucks. Flora survived the first two but fell off at the third. The horse, running loose, stopped beside Mabs, who had reached the top of the hill; she caught its dangling reins.

“Why did you let go of the reins? What did you do to upset him? He’s as quiet as a mouse.” Mabs shouted. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Flora called back.

Mabs led the animal back to her; Flora remounted. “He’s normally so docile,” said Mabs, puzzled.

“I am a docile girl.” Flora patted the animal’s neck.

“Don’t make me laugh,” said Mabs. “We all suspect you are a sleeping volcano.”

Flora smiled. “I landed on my bottom; your jodhpurs are stained with grass.” (She is so kind, she even lends me riding clothes; it makes my jealousy worse.) “Will it wash off?”

“Of course.”

They jogged slowly down the hill.

“Did Felix ride this horse?”

“Yes. He didn’t get bucked off.”

(So he had sat astride this horse, in this saddle.)

“Did you want to marry him?”

Mabs stared ahead: “Yes, I did. You wouldn’t know, you were so small when we all met in France; you wouldn’t have noticed but Tashie and I adored him. We did everything to attract his attention.” (Those silly hats!) “Then later, when he came to England, he took me out a few times. He was friends with Cosmo, too. Then Tash met Henry and fell in love and forgot about him; I met Nigel and he fell for me. I still fancied Felix but I knew, as you know when you are grown up, that there was no future in it and my parents weren’t keen so I got engaged to Nigel. That’s about it.”

Flora said: “I see,” keeping to herself the years she had lain in Felix’s arms—Cosmo’s and Hubert’s too, of course. Never in a million years could she possibly speak of them to Mabs. Her jealous rage subsided; she stroked the horse’s neck. He relaxed between her knees. “Are you glad now?” she asked.

“I suppose so. Parents know best.”

(Parents? What did parents know of love?) “So you are happy?” she said.

“Mostly.” Mabs’ reply was ambiguous. “We’d better trot on,” she said, “or we’ll be late for breakfast.” Presently she said, “The thing is both Nigel and I like hilly country. We have that in common.”

Flora cherished to herself that what she had in common with Mabs was that she too had been rejected by Felix.

A
NGUS ENJOYED VISITING HIS
wife after breakfast. Seeing her propped by pillows, breakfast tray across her knees, shoulders covered by a white shawl, satin nightdress revealing the swell of breasts grown plump in middle age, spectacles perched on shiny nose, one hand holding her coffee cup, the other
The Times
newspaper, filled him with affection and pride. She would look up as he came into the room and say, as though he had not left their bed barely an hour before, “How are you? Had a good breakfast?”

And he, pouting out his moustache, would bend to kiss her, saying, “Aah, that’s nice, very nice,” kissing each smooth cheek in turn, inhaling her womanly smell before settling in the chintz-covered chair by the bed, asking, “And how is Bootsie?” in a growly voice. Bootsie, a quasi-Cairn terrier of doubtful temper devoted solely to Milly, would at the sound of his voice scrunch herself into a tighter ball at Milly’s feet, growling through clenched teeth while Milly, smiling at her husband, asked: “Any news?” and “What are your plans for today?”

“I shall take Nigel and Henry out with a gun, see what we can bring back for the pot.”

“Not Cosmo or Hubert?”

“They seem to have gone off shooting. They fish. Can lack of interest in shooting be something to do with Hubert’s political views? He’s practically a pacifist. He tells me Oxford is boiling with lefties; I presume he is one.”

“He only tells you that to tease. His politics should not prevent him shooting.”

“He bothers me. He niggles on about the unemployed and says the streets of London are full of down-and-out miners.”

“So they are.”

“Milly.”

“They are, darling. I’ve seen them, you’ve seen them. I know how you admire the miners. What’s your worry? Are you afraid he will make Cosmo join the Labour Party?”

“God forbid.”

“Cosmo is not going to turn red, darling, he isn’t interested. I am more worried about him than you are.”

“What’s he done? Got into debt? Being dunned?”

“It’s not money, it’s Flora Trevelyan. I see him watching her.”

“She’s a child.”

“Not any more. He watched her when we were in Dinard and he watches her now.”

“She was a child then.”

“I know.”

“You invited her to stay.”

“I was tricked by Rosa.”

“Ah, Rosa, m-m-m. We haven’t seen that son of hers lately.”

“You frightened him off.”

“Not I. If you’d been watching, you’d have seen that
he
turned Mabs down. Cosmo tells me that he invited him up this summer but he said he was too busy. A pity. I’d have liked him to come.”

“You can’t have it both ways. You were terrified he’d encourage Mabs.” Milly sighed. “Anyway, it’s all right now, she’s got Nigel.”