Good Behaviour (17 page)

‘Killing the kitchen maid,’ she answered. Then, meeting his look: ‘Was there anything you wanted, sir?’

‘Give Tommy a bottle of Guinness when you see him. He’s had a bit of a doings with Mr Hubert’s horse.’

‘Is it pamper that little sauceboat?’

‘Lucky he’s not hurt.’ Papa spoke reprovingly. ‘And that goes for Miss Aroon too – come along, sweetie.’ Rose was excluded.
She had her place.

In the diningroom, quiet and orderly and sombre between breakfast and lunchtime, its silver shining down again into all the
polished wood, Papa dived into the sideboard and brought out the meek sherry decanter with its silver label neatly hanging.
He thought for a minute, and shook his head. ‘Better idea. Port and brandy.’ He sat down to pour out the drinks; on his legs
he was a bit off balance. I sat down too and watched him pour the glasses, just not full. His hands were shaking. All on my
account? Or on account of Hubert’s horse? We drank together.

‘And if I may say so, here’s to you, darling girl, and bloody well you rode him.’ It was nothing so vulgar as a toast, but
I felt lauded and elated. We drank, and we looked at each other in confidence. Were we being rather naughty, rather in secret?
Papa filled his glass again, and put another drop into mine, which was still three-quarters full. It was a show of affection
and concern.

Presently Mummie came in. She stood a moment in the doorway while the dogs flew across the room to Papa. ‘
Well
,’ she said, ‘rather early for it?’ It was more of an acceptance than a question.

‘Not a bit.’ Papa was restored now. There was no shake in
his hands as he measured out a glass for her. She sat down on his right hand and looked at him, deeply amused. A whole relationship
was in her eyes. It expelled me from any secrecy with Papa.

‘I think I’ll go and change,’ I said.

‘Yes, you must be hot – you
were
a funny sight – scampering round that field.’

I stood for a moment waiting for Papa to say a word in my praise or favour. I stood there stupidly, betrayed in his silence.
I saw her looking up at him, with something else to say. I saw her hand folded mouselike on the table’s edge. It was the paw
of a small animal. He gave it a look that as much as covered it with his own hand. I turned away, my loneliness walking with
me, taller than my own height as a shadow is tall – and irremediable as my height was.

Back in my bedroom I knew myself suffered and accepted among my own possessions and habits. Here I was isolated from denial
or dismissal. Possibility was actual. After all there they were, Richard’s presents, undeniable – the scent, the bath essence,
the bird’s-eye scarf. Soon it would be cold enough to wear the Jaeger coat. And what did they tell me? All these expensive
objects told me plainly that I was loved although still untouched by that thing men do. Untouched, because no doubt he had
held me too dear. Out of the charged memories of disappointment, I flowered to myself, a desired, a forbidden, an enchanted
creature. I took the cold scent bottle between my hands and kissed it.

The moment went past, and I still faced the afternoon. While I reconsidered the long hours to come, the scent bottle warmed
in my hands.

At luncheon Papa decided for me. He said: ‘Got to go to the Wine Cellars. And the car’s not her burning best either. Care
to come along in case she stops with me? We’ll get her sharpened up while we’re busy in the Cellars.’

‘So long as we don’t have to go to tea with the Crowhurst girls.’

The girls lived near the Wine Cellars and he had often been known to call in and bask for an hour in their acidulated adoration.
I can only suppose the girls and their lives were like a comic strip to Papa. He followed their activities, some of them rather
shady; it was a game, laughing at their contrivances. Their bitter, nipped tongues kept him guessing at what they might say
next. He liked to nose out their small scandalous escapades – nothing like love affairs, poor things, of course not, more
likely a sharpish bit of horse dealing. One of their pleasures was not telling. It put an edge on everything they did or said.
Poor unhappy things. Much as I pitied and faintly despised them, they had the knack of making me feel
I was lolling helplessly through an objectless, boring life. I never wanted to see them, or listen to them, or even to eat
any of the delightful food they produced from air, or sea, or garden.

Papa, I knew, felt very differently about their ways of overriding poverty, rejecting its limitations. He was fascinated by
all they had taught themselves about horses, and never tired of analysing the curious theories they accepted from that wild
tinker fellow they employed as a part-time groom. He could charm warts, or go up to any horse, where another dare not lay
his hand. Besides being so knowledgeable on horses and horse lore, they knew the cures for all the diseases from which dogs
could suffer. They despised vets. Even when one of their viperous miniature dachshunds was in hideous whelping difficulties,
they used their own clever fingers, and an hour after achieving a safe delivery for their darling they would be sitting on
a sofa at their petit-point, their hands as elegantly and carefully employed as those of any ancestress. They were very well
born and never forgot it.

Today I could sense Papa making his way wordlessly towards a cup of tea with Nod and Blink; it was a delayed action. At the
garage he ordered work on the car which must take hours to accomplish. At the Wine Cellars we stayed a long time ordering
good things in the dark drift of smells in the grocery department. After that came the real matter of the visit, wines and
their years and qualities, their prices unimportant when compared with the delights Papa was accumulating.

When, at half past four, I heard him ask for a bottle of Gordon’s gin, a bottle of Noilly Prat, ‘and, of course, a lemon,’
I knew we were bound for tea with the Crowhurst
girls, bringing a little present with us. ‘Calling for this lot later,’ he indicated his purchases.

The elder of the two gentlemanly old gnomes who owned the Wine Cellars was ushering us out. ‘And if it would be convenient,
Major,’ he said, laughing a little, ‘we were wondering could you let us have something on account.’

‘Of course, of course – what a terrible pair you are. Why haven’t you sent it in long ago?’

‘We did, Major. Excuse us, but we have it furnished a few little times now.’ It was an extreme apology and he accepted it,
royally.

‘That’s right.’ He hobbled away, very lame, still talking. ‘Times are awful, always are awful, send it in again
at once
,do you hear me? Don’t delay, never delay, and I’ll let you have a cheque by return of post.’

Out in the sunny street he was soon walking more soundly, heading for the Crowhursts without any unnecessary explanations
to me. I went along beside him, the gin under one arm, the vermouth under the other, the lemon in my handbag.

‘Can you manage, darling, bless you? Poor things, they do need it so.’ He put me on his own level, while they sank to the
position of being simply pitiable.

I was less able to pity them as we clicked open the neat iron gate, painted by themselves, and walked towards the house, past
groupings of electric blue hydrangeas. ‘How do they do it?’ Papa paused to admire. ‘And they won’t tell a soul.’ His admiration
of the cruel electric blue and the girls’ secrecy was equal. Round the corner of the little Regency house, a blazing autumn
border caught his eye. ‘Good girls, good girls,’ he murmured, ‘redhot pokers – my favourites.’

Blink opened their door to us. She was close-lipped and
elegant and nearly thirty. I thought the twins hopelessly aged. ‘How awfully kind,’ she said to Papa, taking the gin away
from me. Then: ‘Oh, Aroon,’ as if she only now saw I was there.

The hall, where we delayed, was that of a small country gentleman. Leather-covered sticks and hunting whips lay on an oak
chest. A series of good prints hung on the walls. A water dish marked
DOG
and a trug of clean garden tools and powerful secateurs
stood together in a corner.

In the drawingroom, where dachshunds lay like a nest of serpents in a round, well-cushioned basket, tea was laid for four.
The position of the teatray commanded a splendid view of the blazing border, where huge, meaty dahlias (fit flesh for cannibals
I always think) were divided, and given added value, by fish-shaped drifts of Michaelmas daisies, and grey-blue pools of agapanthus
lilies. Blink looked away from her border with affected indifference, giving Papa time to admire and wonder at its perfection.
Presently Nod (Papa’s favourite one) came in with a trayful of beautiful food.

‘We heard you were in the Wine Cellars,’ she said unaffectedly, ‘so we hoped you would come to tea.’

‘You made all these sandwiches just on the chance?’ Papa said gratefully. ‘Just for us? Good girls.’

‘Well, Blink and I could have finished them for dinner –’ they never talked about supper – ‘the more we eat, the thinner we
grow.’ She looked at me as if she were going to apologise for an unfortunate remark, and under her veiled glance I felt my
bosoms and bottom swelling up through my head. I was so conscious of their size and presence they could have toppled me off
my legs.

We had China tea out of thin, shallow cups, and I found the fish pâté sandwiches irresistible. The dachshunds crawled
out of their basket to join in the pickings, and one of them almost took my hand off when I gave her a tiny piece of buttered
scone.

‘
Please
don’t feed the brutes,’ Nod said gently. Then with chill command: ‘Basket, girls, to your basket.’ They slunk away, remorseful
and vindictive. ‘The postman won’t come here any more,’ she told Papa with great amusement. ‘They’ve bitten him twice now
and one bite festered. Blink’s making a letter-box for the gate.’

‘Big enough to take garden catalogues and the
Times
.’ Blink spoke seriously of her project. ‘They gave me a lovely old brass slit or slot at the post office, and I picked up
a beautiful piece of teak on the beach – just the thing.’

‘You’ll make a job of it,’ Papa said, approvingly. ‘You should use copper nails.’

Now and then they spoke to me politely and handed me plates of food or filled up my tiny cup. But I knew their joint unjealous
interest focused entirely on Papa. Tea over, Papa provided us each with a cigarette from his never-empty case. ‘I knew I meant
to ask you something,’ he said to Nod. ‘How’s Fred Astaire’s leg?’

‘I’m afraid he’s finished,’ she said.

‘Oh, that’s a great pity. Best hunter in the country. Shall I go and put my hand on it?’. There was nothing he liked more
than fiddling round lame horses. Now there would be an hour of suggestion and counter-suggestion. When I got up to follow
them out of the room Blink spoke unhurriedly from behind the teatray.

‘You’ve seen darling Fred often enough, dear fellow, wouldn’t you rather look at Heidi’s puppies? They’re very sweet.’

‘Shouldn’t we call Papa?’ I said, after a lingering examination of Heidi’s litter. ‘The garage will be shut soon.’

‘Oh yes, if you must. Nod’s so upset about Fred Astaire, let’s give them a few minutes while I get hold of some glasses.’

Blink took another ten minutes to find and polish the right glasses, and the only knife suitable for paring zest from a lemon.
In the drawingroom, where we carried the tray of drinks, she said: ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we cleared away tea? Could
you feed Heidi while I tidy it up?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘you feed Heidi, let me do this.’

‘You can’t really be afraid of her; she’s so gentle.’ She left me blushing with rage as I piled up the doll-size cups and
plates.

‘Oh,’ Nod said, coming in with Papa, ‘that awful Blink – she always finds someone else to do her work.’ She spoke with indulgent
approval.

‘You want to watch it,’ Papa said. ‘Aroon’s champion cup smasher.’ Nod took the tray from me immediately and carried it away.
‘I don’t know about you, sweetheart,’ Papa said, when she had gone, ‘but I need a drink. Martinis for us all – sort of – no
ice.’ When the girls came back he was paring lemon peel. ‘Perfect blade,’ he said, ‘worth anything.’ He pinched the peel into
their glasses and handed them with grave concern that the drinks should be absolutely as they liked them. They might have
been glamorous women. He was far too kind, I thought. After two powerful martinis Papa roused himself out of a pleasant lull
to say to Blink: ‘I haven’t seen your letter-box yet, have I?’

‘Oh,
Papa
.’ Kindness was one thing, but this was silly. ‘The garage will be shut. We can’t walk home.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘of course not. The old leg, you know.
Look – you nip down to the garage, child, and bring the car up here, if you’ll be so sweet. I’ll be waiting at the gate.’
‘I’ll be waiting at the gate’ – the words had a dying fall, a promise to me alone, the chosen companion.

At the garage, the owner was ready to tell me that nothing whatever had been done about the car. It was more than one afternoon’s
work and an expensive job. Would the Major call at his convenience to discuss it, and would I remind him about the account?

‘The Major will call on his way home,’ I said. ‘Will you be here?’

‘I will, if there’s any chance he’ll call.’ He sounded as though he doubted the likelihood. I felt he ought to have said ‘the
Major,’ not ‘he.’

Of course there was no one waiting at the gate. I had hardly expected it. Papa wasn’t in the drawingroom either. Nod was snuggled
down on the sofa with five dachshunds and her petit-point. She glanced up as I came in. ‘I expect they’ll be here soon,’ she
said, settling down again.

Presently they came, walking slowly together over the perfect grass, almost more brilliant than the awful border around which
it curved, neat and level as water. Papa stopped and stooped (always a job for him) to pick something out of the grass. ‘Look
what I’ve found,’ he said when they came in, as unhurriedly as though it had been three o’clock. ‘Plantain in the lawn. It’s
disgraceful. I am shocked.’