Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (18 page)

‘Oh, it’s you.’ He opened the door. ‘I was expecting someone else. Hello, Rafe. Hurry up, Marigold. It’s bloody perishing out here.’ He took hold of my arm.

‘Hello, sir. How are you?’

‘Fine. Don’t bother to get out. I’ll get the crutches.’

I only had time to express the briefest of thanks before I was bundled indoors. Two minutes later I heard the sound of another car. I looked out of the drawing-room window. Something large like a Range Rover skidded to a halt. My father got in. The interior light came on for a few seconds, long enough to show me the sharp, rather exaggerated features of Marcia Dane.

‘So he’s gone away for ten days.’ Evelyn’s tone was exasperated. ‘And I don’t believe Isobel has any idea where. Germany, Timbuktu, the North Pole. Isobel and Rafe have gone to Edinburgh to visit friends. Her idea. I think she didn’t want to seem to be hanging forlornly about waiting for her fiancé to drop in when he felt like it. It’s very strange behaviour for a newly engaged man. When I agreed to marry Kingsley he sent me flowers every single day and wanted to take me out to dinner every evening. He almost wept if I said I was busy. And what about the ring? He hasn’t given her so much as a rhinestone.’

We were in the sitting room at home. It was a measure of Evelyn’s unease that she had driven over to see Dimpsie instead of summoning her to Shottestone. I knew she found the decoration at Dumbola Lodge unsettling. She had waited until my mother’s back was turned before flipping over the sofa cushion to see if the other side was cleaner. So Rafe was in Edinburgh. I need not hang about the hall, listening for the telephone. After our last conversation, which I had mulled over endlessly whenever I had leisure, I had expected that he would ring.

‘Perhaps Conrad’s gone to get her one,’ I suggested. I had offered to leave Evelyn and Dimpsie to a tête-à-tête, but Evelyn had said she would value my opinion. ‘Perhaps at this moment
he’s deep in a mine in South Africa watching eagerly as men stripped to the waist with sweat running like water down their backs are carefully chipping an enormous sparkling diamond from the bare rock by the light of flaming torches.’

‘Sometimes, Marigold, I think you allow your imagination too free a rein,’ said Evelyn reprovingly. ‘For one thing, if Conrad wanted to buy diamonds he could go to a shop in Bond Street. And for another, diamonds in their natural state look like lumps of cloudy glass. It’s the cutting that makes them sparkle.’

‘How disappointing! I always imagined them shining in the darkness like fragments of ice. Shall I get a knife?’

Evelyn had brought us one of Mrs Capstick’s delicious seed cakes. A cynic might think this mere self-interest, ensuring something to eat that had been cooked in a clean kitchen, but she had also brought us some rose-pink rhubarb forced under big pots in her garden and some tobacco brown eggs from her hens, from which she could not expect any personal benefit. Generosity was one of her most attractive qualities.

‘I’ll go.’ Dimpsie stood up. ‘It takes you so long with your poor leg.’

Evelyn’s eyes rested briefly on the string sculpture from the craft shop, which hung on the wall above the bookcase. She averted her eyes from the carving of an African warrior with spear and protruding navel and fixed them on me.

‘Your mother’s not looking well. Her complexion’s grey and her eyes are bloodshot. Is she drinking again?’

I knew I could trust Evelyn. ‘I’m afraid so. At least a bottle of wine a night. And I keep finding glasses of what looks like water hidden behind vases and things. Only it smells like gin.’

Evelyn made a sound like
hrrr
. ‘I hoped your being here might help. The thing is, it’s a ghastly situation for her. I don’t know how much you know – I don’t want to upset you, darling—’

‘If you mean, do I know that my father has other women, yes, I do.’

‘Oh, Marigold!’ Evelyn looked at me with compassion. ‘How horrid for you!’

‘I suppose I’ve always known but I didn’t want to think about it. Now I can’t avoid seeing what’s going on. Vanessa Trumball came to the surgery today.’

‘Beastly woman!’ Evelyn put her cup on its saucer quite violently. ‘Mrs Capstick tells me – not that I allow the servants to gossip, of course, but apparently it’s all over the town – that her husband left her because of her relationship with your father. The Trumball woman clearly has no idea how to conduct herself. All men stray but if they’re discreet it hardly matters. No, the problem is that your poor mother minds so much. Well, sooner or later Mrs Trumball will find that life beyond the pale has its disadvantages. I hear the Red Cross have voted her off the committee. Not that that’s altogether a misfortune. If I have to go to one more grisly coffee morning and drink Nescafé and eat buns like cement I shall commit adultery myself.’ She smiled to show she wasn’t serious and leaned forward to place her hand on my knee. ‘Never mind, darling. Vanessa Trumball will live to regret her unscrupulous behaviour. From all I hear, your father is incapable of being faithful even to his paramours.’

‘Actually, I think she’s regretting it already. This morning I could see she’d been crying and her hair was standing up at the back as though she hadn’t brushed it since getting out of bed. She’s been ringing the surgery at least five times a day all week. My father told me on no account to put her through. I tried to stop her going into the consulting room but she dashed in while he had Mrs Wiggins on the examination couch with her skirt round her waist.’

‘You don’t mean—?’ Evelyn looked shocked.

‘Oh no, not Mrs Wiggins. She must be at least a hundred and ten. She’s got a prolapsed womb. There was quite a scene and Tom took hold of her shoulders – Vanessa Trumball’s, I mean – and marched her out through the waiting room and pushed her into the street. He told her if she didn’t leave him
alone he’d get an injunction to prevent her coming to the surgery. The other patients were utterly thrilled, watching all this with eyes out on stalks like a row of snails.’

‘So he’s finished with her? Well, that’s something to be thankful for. Perhaps your poor mother will feel a little happier.’

‘I don’t think so. Not long after Vanessa Trumball had been thrown out on her ear, Marcia Dane rang.’

‘Marcia Dane? The woman who’s just moved into the Old Rectory? All teeth and eyes? I met her at the Harvey-Somerton’s lunch the other day. She smiled like a crocodile at every man in the room and smoked between courses.’

‘That’s her.’

‘Perhaps she’s got gynaecological problems too?’

I shook my head. ‘Tom told me to take her off his list yesterday. Nurse Bunker and Nurse Keppel were there and they started tittering and winking at each other, only they daren’t say anything in front of me. Of course he’d be struck off for having an affair with one of his patients.’

‘I see.’ Evelyn looked worried and I knew what she was thinking. Marcia Dane was an altogether different proposition from Vanessa Trumball. Marcia Dane had striking looks, money and pizzazz. It was not easy to imagine her being chucked out onto the pavement.

‘Well, we must hope
she
gets bored with
him
. What a nuisance men are … we were just saying, Dimpsie,’ she added quickly as my mother, looking flushed and smelling strongly of alcohol, returned with the knife for the cake, ‘what a bother men are. However, before he left, Mr Lerner did condescend to accept an invitation to lunch next week. Marigold, you’ll come and make up the numbers, won’t you? I’ve asked Dame Gloria Beauwhistle, the composer. I haven’t met her myself but she’s bound to inject a little fizz. She had such a success last year with that opera – what was it called? Something medieval.
The
Knight of the Holy
something … an odd name … something to do with kitchens.’

‘
The Holy Colander
?
’ I suggested.

Evelyn did not have a sense of humour. ‘No, no, that’s not it.’ She pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘
The Knight of the
Burning Pestle
. I didn’t see it myself – I don’t care much for anything later than the First Viennese School – but it had wonderful reviews. Her family have lived in Northumberland for generations and she’s just bought back her ancestral home in the village of Coldthorpe. I received a charming letter of acceptance from Dame Gloria and I’ve asked Sybil Hinchingbrook as well. People seem to think quite a lot of Sybil’s flower paintings. To me they seem perfectly insipid but possibly I’m missing something.’ It was apparent that she did not really believe this. ‘She’s bringing her brother, Basil. He’s a very successful publisher. Sybil says he’s been staying with her for two weeks, recovering from a particularly exhausting book fair. After two weeks of Sybil’s conversation he must be nearly dead with ennui. I wonder,’ she added musingly, ‘if he might do for Isobel. Sybil did mention that he wasn’t married.’

‘What about Ronald?’ I asked

‘Oh, he won’t do at
all
,’ Evelyn said impatiently, as though I was making a preposterous suggestion. ‘He’s far too stupid and besides his father is such an un
p
leas
ant man. He complained that the beef we had at dinner the other night was overcooked. It was as rare as it could possibly be without actually oozing blood.’

‘Is Basil good looking?’ I asked.

‘I’ve never set eyes on the man. Why?’

‘I was just wondering what he might offer that would make Isobel prefer him to Conrad.’

‘For a start he’s English. They’d have a common culture.’

‘I’m not sure that Conrad’s differentness isn’t a major part of his attraction.’

‘You mean dissimilarity, darling. Differentness is extremely ugly … I’m surprised with all this reading you do … however, I see your point.’ She frowned. ‘Then we must hope that his
casual attitude towards her – neglect would not be an exaggeration – may be enough to wean her from such vitiated tastes.’

‘Marigold liked Conrad,’ Dimpsie put in. She was sipping tea thirstily and had a job to find the saucer when she wanted to put down her cup.

‘Marigold is young and impressionable,’ said Evelyn tartly. ‘Mr Lerner talks well and knows how to make himself agreeable.’

I remembered that Evelyn had softened towards him after that dinner and had as good as defended him to Lady Pruefoy.

‘Surely that’s very much in his favour?’ protested Dimpsie. ‘You make it sound as though he’s an impostor.’

‘Perhaps he is. I know nothing about him. That’s the trouble. Who are his parents? His grandparents? No,’ she sat up straighter and smoothed the wrinkles from her dove-coloured cashmere cardigan in a decisive gesture, ‘he may be well educated and
sortable
, which I admit is a relief after everything Isobel told me, but he is in every other way unsuitable. Marriage is not about falling in love with a handsome face and a beguiling manner. It requires a sound footing, a strong sense of commitment, the same values, a common purpose. Sexual attraction is of minimal importance.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Dimpsie. ‘Anyway you could have all those things – commitment and values and whatnot –
and
he could be handsome and interesting into the bargain. And you might want to go to bed with him.’

Evelyn grimaced. ‘Isn’t that asking for the moon? One must be practical, above all, when it comes to marriage. It lasts for such a very long time.’

‘It seems to me,’ Dimpsie’s speech was slurred, ‘that you’re judging others by your own experience. Just because
you
didn’t fancy Kingsley doesn’t mean that sex isn’t important.’ No doubt drink was responsible for this unusually blunt speaking. ‘I married Tom because I thought he was the most desirable creature I’d ever set eyes on.’

There was a pause. I could see that Evelyn was struggling to
swallow the little sting in Dimpsie’s accusation. And there was so much Evelyn might legitimately say in refutation. Dimpsie’s disastrous marriage was a perfect illustration of the folly of marrying for love. Resentment warred with good nature and good nature won. ‘Well, darling, we must each follow our own inclinations. What on earth is
that
?
’

She had spotted something lying on the desk that was round and flesh-coloured with what looked like a raspberry stuck on top.

‘It’s a paperweight,’ explained Dimpsie, ‘shaped like a breast. It’s been in the shop for several years but no one’s shown the least interest in buying it so I’ve brought it home. I think it’s rather witty, actually.’

‘Do you?’ Evelyn looked at it again. A dribble of red paint from the nipple had run into the pink part, which was beginning to flake. Her eyebrows went up. ‘How extra
ord
inary.’

My father did not come home that night and was half an hour late for surgery the next day. Despite murmurs of unrest in the waiting room he hummed as he took off his coat, flexed his arms above his head and came over to the desk to look at the list of appointments. He seemed perfectly unconscious of my presence, as though occupying another, far happier planet. I thought of my mother that morning, uncharacteristically silent as she had driven me into the town. After I’d got out, when she thought I wasn’t looking, she had leaned her head on the steering wheel. I had never hated him so much.

The patients whizzed in and out. Tom was evidently in a decisive mood. By half-past eleven only Mrs Mansard was left in the waiting room and I began to look forward to an early lunch with Dimpsie at the Singing Swan. As I started to put away the files, I wondered if it might be possible over beans on toast to breach the silence on the subject of my father’s love affairs. Sex affairs would be a better description, I thought angrily. I heard the front door bang and the next moment the
waiting room was taken up by a giant of a man accompanied by a young woman.

‘Where’s t’e doctor?’ he demanded, bringing an enormous fist down on the appointments book. ‘We must see him right away. Me girl’s in trouble.’

I was about to ask if it was an emergency when she let out a low groan rising to a scream like a factory siren and sank to the floor. I picked up the telephone to ask my father to come quickly but he must have heard her yell for he was kneeling beside her before I had time to press the intercom button.

‘Marigold, ring for an ambulance,’ he said after a cursory glance.

He and the giant lifted the girl between them and carried her into the consulting room.

Emergency services said they would send a helicopter as the road from Carlisle was blocked with drifting snow. Tom appeared in his shirtsleeves in the doorway. ‘You’d better come in, Marigold. I may need help.’

I hopped in, wondering what use I could possibly be to anyone in my hobbled state. The girl was lying on the examination couch, her knees apart, grimacing and screeching.