Blott On The Landscape (14 page)

Blott walked down the hill from Wilfrid’s Castle. For a week he had been avoiding the Royal George in Guildstead Carbonell and Mrs Wynn’s favours. He had taken to going over to a small pub on the lane leading from the church to the Ottertown Road. It wasn’t up to the standard of the Royal George, merely a room with benches round the walls and a barrel of Handyman beer in one corner, but its dismal atmosphere suited Blott’s mood. By the time he had silently consumed eight pints he was ready for bed. He wobbled up the hill past the church and stood gazing down at the Hall in amazement. The great ballroom lights were on. Blott couldn’t remember when he had last seen them on, certainly not since Lady Maud’s marriage. They cast yellow rectangles on to the lawn, and the conservatory which opened out of the ballroom glowed green with ferns and palms. He stumbled down the path and across the bridge into the pinetum. Here it was pitch-dark but Blott knew his way instinctively. He came out at the gate and crossed the lawn to the terrace. Music, old-fashioned music, floated out towards him. Blott went round the corner and peered through the window.

Inside Lady Maud was dancing. Or learning to dance. Or teaching someone to dance. Blott found difficulty in making up his mind. Under the great chandeliers she moved with a tender gracelessness that took his breath away. Up and down, round and about, in great sweeps and double turns she went, the floor moving visibly beneath her, and in her arms she held a small thin man with an expression of intense concentration on his face. Blott recognized him. He was the man from the Ministry who had stayed to lunch the previous week. Blott hadn’t liked the look of him then and he liked it even less now. And Sir Giles was away. Sick with disgust Blott blundered off the flower bed and away from the window. He had half a mind to go in and say what he thought. It wouldn’t do any good. He walked unsteadily round the front of the house. There was a car standing there. He peered at it. The man’s car. Serve him right if he had to walk home, the bastard. Blott knelt by the front tyre and undid the valve. Then he went round to the boot and let the air out of the spare tyre. That would teach the swine to come messing about with other people’s wives. Blott staggered off down the drive to the Lodge and climbed into bed. Through the circular window he could see the lights of the Hall. They were still on when he fell asleep and through the night air there came the faint sound of trombones.

What drinks, dinner and Lady Maud’s assiduous coquetry had done for Dundridge, dancing had undone. In particular her interpretation of the hesitation waltz – Dundridge considered the probability of a slipped disc – while her tango had threatened hernia. All his attempts to get her to do something a little less complicated had been ignored.

“You’re doing splendidly,” she said treading on his toes. “All you need is a little practice.”

“What about something modern?” said Dundridge.

“Modern dancing is so unromantic,” said Maud, changing the record to a quickstep. “There’s no intimacy in it.”

Intimacy was not what Dundridge had in mind. “I think I’ll sit this one out,” he said limping to a chair. But Lady Maud wouldn’t hear of it. She whirled him on to the floor and strode off through a series of half-turns clasping him to her bosom with a grip that brooked no argument. When the record stopped Dundridge put his foot down politely.

“I really think it is time I was off,” he said.

“What? So early? Just one more teeny weeny glass of champers,” said Lady Maud, relapsing rather prematurely into the language of the nursery.

“Oh all right,” said Dundridge choosing the devil of drink to the deep blue sea of the dance floor. They took their glasses through to the conservatory and stood for a moment among the ferns.

“What a wonderful night. Let’s go out on the terrace,” said Lady Maud and took his arm. They leant on the stone balustrade and looked into the darkness of the pinetum.

“All we need now is a lovers’ moon,” Lady Maud murmured and turned to face him. Dundridge looked up into the night sky. It was long past his bedtime and besides not even the champagne could disguise the fact that he was in an ambiguous situation. He had had enough of ambiguous situations lately to last him a lifetime and he certainly didn’t relish the thought of Sir Giles returning home unexpectedly to find him on the terrace drinking champagne with his wife at one o’clock in the morning.

“It looks as if it’s going to rain,” he said to change the topic from lovers’ moons.

“Silly boy,” cooed Lady Maud. “It’s a lovely starlit night.”

“Yes. Well, I really do think I must be getting along,” Dundridge insisted. “It’s been a lovely evening.”

“Oh well if you must go …” They went indoors again.

“Just one more glass …?” Lady Maud said but Dundridge shook his head and limped on down the passage.

“You must look me up again,” said Lady Maud as he climbed into his car. “The sooner the better. It’s been ages since I had so much fun.” She waved goodbye and Dundridge drove off down the drive. He didn’t get very far. There was something dreadfully wrong with the steering. The car seemed to veer to the left all the time and there was a thumping sound. Dundridge stopped and got out and went round to the front.

“Damn,” said Dundridge feeling the flat tyre. He went to the boot and got the jack out. By the time he had jacked the car up and taken the left front wheel off, the lights in the Hall had gone out. He fetched the spare wheel from the boot and bolted it into place. He let the jack down and stowed it away. Then he got back into the car and started the engine and drove off. There was a thumping noise and the car pulled to the left. Dundridge stopped with a curse.

“I must have put the flat tyre on again,” he muttered and got out the jack.

In the Hall Lady Maud switched off the ballroom lights sadly. She had enjoyed the evening and was sorry it had ended so tamely. There had been a moment earlier in the evening when she had thought Dundridge was going to prove amenable to her few charms.

“Men,” she said contemptuously as she undressed and stood looking at herself dispassionately in the mirror. She was not, and she was the first to admit it, a beautiful woman by contemporary standards of beauty but then she didn’t pay much heed to contemporary standards of any sort. The world she lived for had admired substantial things, large women, heavy furniture, healthy appetites and strong feelings. She had no time for the present with its talk of sex, its girlish men and boyish women, and its reducing diets. She longed to be swept off her feet by a strong man who knew the value of bed, board and babies. She wasn’t going to find him in Dundridge. “Silly little goose doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she said, and climbed into bed.

Outside the silly little goose knew only too well what he was missing. An inflated tyre. He had changed the wheel again and had let down the jack only to find that his spare tyre had been flat after all. He got back into the car and tried to think what to do. Nearby something moved heavily through the grass and a night bird called. Dundridge shut the door. He couldn’t sit there all night. He got out of the car and trudged back up the drive to the house and rang the doorbell.

Upstairs Lady Maud climbed out of bed and turned on the light. So the silly little goose had come back after all. He had caught her unprepared. She grabbed a lipstick and daubed her lips hastily, powdered her face and put a dollop of Chanel behind each ear. Finally she changed out of her pyjamas and slid into a see-through nightdress and went downstairs and opened the door.

“I’m sorry to bother you like this but I’m afraid I’ve had a puncture,” said Dundridge nervously. Lady Maud smiled knowingly.

“A puncture?”

“Yes, two as a matter of fact.”

“Two punctures?”

“Yes. Two,” said Dundridge conscious that there was something rather improbable about having two punctures at the same time.

“You had better come in,” said Lady Maud eagerly. Dundridge hesitated.

“If I could just use the phone to call a garage …”

But Lady Maud wouldn’t hear of it. “Of course you can’t,” she said, “it’s far too late for anyone to come out now.” She took his arm and led him into the house and closed the door.

“I’m terribly sorry to be such a nuisance,” said Dundridge but Lady Maud shushed him.

“What a silly boy you are,” she cooed. “Now come upstairs and we’ll see about a bed.”

“Oh really …” Dundridge began but it was no good. She turned and led the way, a perfumed spinnaker, up the marble staircase. Dundridge followed miserably.

“You can have this room,” she said as they stood on the landing and she switched on the light. “Now you go down to the bathroom and have a wash and I’ll make the bed up.”

“The bathroom?” said Dundridge gazing at her astonished. In the dim light of the hall Lady Maud had been a mere if substantial shape but now he could see the full extent of her abundant charms. Her face was extraordinary too. Lady Maud smiled, a crimson gash with teeth. And the perfume!

“It’s down the corridor on the left.”

Dundridge stumbled down the corridor and tried several doors before he found the bathroom. He went inside and locked the door. When he came out he found the corridor in darkness. He groped his way back to the landing and tried to remember which room she had given him. Finally he found one that was open. It was dark inside. Dundridge felt for the switch but it wasn’t where he had expected.

“Is there anyone there?” he whispered but there was no reply. “This must be the room,” he muttered and closed the door. He edged across the room and felt the end of the bed. A faint light came from the window. Dundridge undressed and noticed that Lady Maud’s perfume still lingered heavily on the air. He went across to the window and opened it and then, moving carefully so as not to stub his toes, he went back and got into bed. As he did so he knew there was something terribly wrong. A blast of Chanel No. 5 issued from the bedclothes overpoweringly. So did Lady Maud. Her arms closed round him and with a husky, “Oh you wicked boy,” her mouth descended on his. The next moment Dundridge was engulfed. Things seemed to fold round him, huge hot terrible things, legs, arms, breasts, lips, noses, thighs, bearing him up, entwining him, and bearing him down again in a frenzy of importunate flesh. He floundered frantically while the waves of Lady Maud’s mistaken response broke over him. Only his mind remained untrammelled, his mind and his inhibitions. As he writhed in her arms his thoughts raced to a number of ghastly conclusions. He had chosen the wrong room; she was in love with him; he was in bed with a nymphomaniac; she was providing her husband with grounds for divorce; she was seducing him. There was no question about the last. She was seducing him. Her hands left him in no doubt about that, particularly her left hand. And Dundridge, accustomed to the wholly abstract stimulus of his composite woman, found the inexperience of a real woman – and Lady Maud was both real and inexperienced – hard to put up with.

“There’s been a terr -” he managed to squeak as Lady Maud surfaced for air, but a moment later her mouth closed over his, silencing his protest while threatening him with suffocation. It was this last that gave him the desperation he needed. With a truly Herculean revulsion Dundridge hurled himself and Lady Maud, still clinging limpetlike to him, out of the bed. With a crash the bedside table fell to the floor as Dundridge broke free and leapt to his feet. The next moment he was through the door and running down the corridor. Behind him Lady Maud staggered to the bed and pulled the light cord. Stunned by the vigour of his rejection and by the bedside table which had caught her on the side of the head, she lumbered into the corridor and turned on the light but there was no sign of Dundridge.

“There’s no need to be shy,” she called but there was no reply. She went into the next room and switched on the light. No Dundridge. The next room was empty too. She went from room to room switching on lights and calling his name, but Dundridge had vanished. Even the bathroom was unlocked and empty and she was just wondering where to look next when a sound from the landing drew her attention. She went back and switched on the hall light and caught him in the act of tiptoeing down the stairs. For an instant he stood there, a petrified satyr, and turned pathetic eyes towards her and then he was off down the stairs and across the marble floor, his slender legs and pale feet twinkling among the squares. Lady Maud leant over the balustrade and laughed. She was still laughing as she went down the staircase, laughing and holding on to the banister to keep herself from falling. Her laughter echoed in the emptiness of the hall and filtered down the corridors.

In the darkness by the kitchen Dundridge listened to it and shuddered. He had no idea where he was and there was a demented quality about that laughter that appalled him. He was just wondering what to do when, silhouetted against the hall light at the end of the passage he saw her bulky outline. She had stopped laughing and was peering into the gloom.

“It’s all right, you can come out now,” she called, but Dundridge knew better. He understood now why his car had two flat tyres, why he had been invited to the Hall when Sir Giles was away. Lady Maud was a raving nymphomaniac. He was alone in a huge house in the middle of the back of beyond with no clothes on, a disabled car and an enormously powerful and naked female lunatic. Nothing on God’s earth would induce him to come out now. As Lady Maud lumbered down the passage Dundridge turned and fled, collided with a table, lurched into some iron banisters and was off up the servants’ stairs. Behind him a light went on. As he reached the landing he glanced back and saw Lady Maud’s face staring up at him. One glance was enough to confirm his fears. The smudged lipstick, the patches of rouge, the disordered hair … mad as a hatter. Dundridge scampered down another corridor and behind him came the final proof of her madness.

“Tally ho,” shouted Lady Maud. “Gone away.” Dundridge went away as fast as he could.

In the Lodge, Blott woke up and stared out through the circular window. Dimly below the rim of the hills he could see the dark shape of the Hall and he was about to turn over and go back to sleep when a light came on in an upstairs room to be followed almost immediately by another and then a third. Blott sat up in bed and watched as one room after another lit up. He glanced at his clock and saw it was ten past two. He looked back towards the house and saw the stained glass roof-light above the hall glowing. He got up and opened the window and stared out and as he did so there came the faint sound of hysterical laughter. Or crying. Lady Maud. Blott pulled on a pair of trousers, put on his slippers, took his twelve-bore and ran downstairs. There was something terribly wrong up at the house. He ran up the drive, almost colliding in the darkness with Dundridge’s car. The bastard was still around. Probably chasing her from room to room. That would explain the lights going on and the hysterical laughter. He’d soon put a stop to that. Clutching his shotgun he went through the stable yard and in the kitchen door. The lights were on. Blott went across to the passage and listened. There was no sound now. He went down the passage to the hall and stood there. Must be upstairs. He was halfway up when Lady Maud emerged from a corridor on to the landing breathlessly. She ran across the landing to the top of the stairs and stood looking down at Blott naked as the day she was born. Blott gaped up at her open mouthed. There above him was the woman he loved. Clothed she had been splendid. Naked she was perfection. Her great breasts, her stomach, her magnificent thighs, she was everything Blott had ever dreamed of and, to make matters even better, she was clearly in distress. Tear-stains ran down her daubed cheeks. His moment of heroism on her behalf had arrived.