Heart of War (33 page)

Florinda walked out of the dark beside the band and stepped up onto the stage. The bandleader looked at her, gave a beat and the band began to play softly a sentimental ballad from
The Merry Widow:

There once was a Vilia, A witch of the wood
,

A hunter beheld her alone as she stood
,

The spell of her beauty upon him was laid;

He'd look'd for the magical maid!

Gradually the clink of glasses died, the rustling increased and then faded as men and women sat down on the dance floor, holding hands, and were still.

She sings well, Betty thought; and she's beautiful, breathtakingly lovely, the lights glowing in the auburn hair piled on her head, and held by a diamond tiara … the dress black silk, very plain, no ornament but a diamond brooch at
the neck of the dress, black silk stockings, diamanté shoes with high heels, ‘princess' heels they called them … every inch a marchioness: Fletcher's sister.

The song ended and Florinda curtsied slowly to waves of applause. She sang
Four Indian Love Lyrics
then, and finally,
Keep the home fires burning
. Then curtsying again, she walked back into the darkness. Betty jumped to her feet, muttered, ‘Wait here, Ginger,' and followed. She found Florinda leaning against the wall in the farthest dark corner, and said, ‘Lady Jarrow … I'm Betty Merritt.'

‘I know.' She seemed tired.

Betty said, ‘Can you tell me where Fletcher is?'

Florinda's voice was suddenly hard – ‘No.'

Betty said, ‘I … I just hope he's all right. I can't bear to think of him lying out in the woods in the rain and cold, especially now that winter's coming.'

The Marchioness leaned forward, and said, ‘Oh! So that's it!'

Betty said, ‘We spent a lot of time together, when he was in the barracks. Then he deserted and I haven't heard a word.'

‘Perhaps he wants to get rid of you,' Florinda said.

‘I don't think so,' Betty said unhappily, ‘but I wish he would write.'

‘Perhaps he doesn't have any paper or a pencil,' Florinda said. ‘Listen, Miss Merritt, I don't know where he is at all, but I think Grandpa could find him, if he wanted to. Go and see him.'

‘Thank you,' Betty said, and turned away. She rejoined Ginger and said, ‘Let's go home now. The smoke's suffocating me in here.' They went out. Thank God, it wasn't raining. Ginger's car was parked in Piccadilly and soon they were crossing the river and heading out through darkened streets towards Hedlington. After a long silence Ginger burst out, stammering – ‘I love you, B-B-Betty. I-I-I've been wanting to tell you for m-m-months.'

Oh dear, she thought. She put out a hand, resting it lightly on his arm. She said, ‘You are very, very sweet to say so, Ginger. I think you're the nicest man alive, and …'

‘W-w-will you …'

She interrupted, ‘Don't say anything more. Please.'

They crept on through the blackout, their car lights no
more than dim blue ghosts in the black, damp night. At last he dropped her in front of No. 104 Station Road, where she had the ground floor flat of three rooms, including a large kitchen. Before getting out of the car she turned to Ginger and said, ‘Thanks – for everything. See you at the factory. Go on now … please!'

She jumped down and watched as the tail light faded. Then she hurried up the steps to her front door and fumbled in her bag for her key. A figure stepped out of the dark to her right, came up the steps, and muttered – ‘Betty.'

She gasped, ‘Oh! … Fletcher! What are you doing here? Are you all right? The police are after you. There was a notice in the papers the other day.' She stared, and saw that he had a beard.

‘I'm all right. Lend me five pounds.'

‘Of course.' She searched hurriedly in her bag, took out all the notes and silver, not counting, and pressed them into his hands. He said, ‘Thanks, Betty. I'll pay you back some day.'

She peered at him, trying to see his face. Did he have lice, or fleas? He did not smell dirty or feral, not at all like an unwashed male … only a little earthy, but that was right, for him.

She said, ‘What are you going to do? You can't spend the rest of your life in the woods.'

‘I'm thinking,' he said, ‘about me, and the poetry, and the war. And about you.'

She waited for him to say something more, but he did not, so at last she said, ‘Well … I miss you. Always will … Come back soon … and good luck.'

She felt him take her hand, raise it, and kiss the palm. Then he said, ‘I'll tell you soon's I've made up my mind.'

Then he slipped down the steps, and vanished into the dark of the town.

Florinda Foudray, Marchioness of Jarrow, sang once more, at about two o'clock, at the Cat & Mouse. The house applauded, but she returned in a strange mood to the table where her escort, Billy Bidford, waited for her.

He said, ‘You were marvellous, Florinda!'

‘I wasn't,' she said curtly. ‘Not even as good as the first show – they're drunker, that's all.' She emptied her glass
and the waiter stationed behind their table came forward at once, bottle swathed, uncorked, and ready. Billy Bidford was a millionaire motor car racer, polo player, and flyer when not serving his country as a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve; and the Marchioness, though usually very pleasant to the staff where she sang, could lose her temper without apparent cause.

She said, ‘I'm sick of this place. Let's get something to eat.'

Billy stood up at once, after leaving some Treasury notes on the table, and gave her his arm. At once half a dozen other young men round the room rose to their feet. A young captain of Seaforth Highlanders said, ‘Excuse me, your Ladyship … I was hoping to have the honour of a dance with you.'

‘I'm sorry,' Florinda said briefly. ‘I'm tired.' She looked again at the Highlander's face, and put her hand on his sleeve. ‘Tomorrow night, but earlier.'

‘Thank you, ma'am,' the Highlander said. ‘I will be on my way back to France by then.'

Poor devils. She was too tired to give any of them anything of what they needed, not even vivacity, a woman's pertness. She put up her arms, placed them round the Highlander's neck and kissed him with open mouth on his lips. She whispered, ‘Good luck … and thank you.'

Then she walked quickly out of the club, Billy following, neither speaking, down Albemarle Street, across Piccadilly and into the Ritz. Half an hour later they were sharing a supper of devilled bones and Black Velvet. Billy was her beau of the moment – one of them – but not possessive. She wasn't ready to accept that from any man yet – certainly not from the sodden, old fumbler who was her husband. She had given him every opportunity to consummate the marriage – helped him as much as any woman could; nothing happened. The peer's penis remained despondently limp. Poor old bugger.

When they had eaten, it was three o'clock. Bidford kept a room in the Ritz, year in and year out, and had done since he was at Eton. He said, ‘Shall we retire, madam?'

She looked across the table at him – curly dark hair, amused blue eyes, the pea jacket with the wavy gold stripes fitting him like a glove. She considered his suggestion. She
was a great lover. She knew that, and it irked her, because she wanted to be a great artiste, and after all the acting and singing lessons she was what she had been in the beginning – a talented amateur. So what was her role in life to be? A cunt for hungry, fearful men facing death, for old men trying to re-create the amorous fury of their youth, a lovely female object for the taste of such as Billy and Cantley?

‘All right,' she said.

But a waiter came to them, bent over the table and whispered, ‘M'lady, telephone, for you … in the night porter's office.'

She said, ‘I'll be back in a mo',' and followed the waiter out and down the marble halls.

The night porter handed her the telephone and left the little cubbyhole. She put the earpiece to her ear and spoke into the mouthpiece – ‘The Marchioness of Jarrow speaking.'

‘M'lady …' she recognized the butler's voice. ‘M'lady …' the old voice cracked – ‘His Lordship is dead … I was taking him up another bottle of whisky an hour ago and found him … sprawled across the floor. Doctor Pickett came at once, but he was dead … They told me at the Cat & Mouse you'd probably be at the Ritz …'

‘Thank you, Medley,' she said. ‘I'll come at once.'

She must get her jewels and bank books out of the Berkeley Square house before the new Marquess could come up to London. They were hers, freely given by her husband; but his son – a haughty man of forty or so, devoted to fox hunting in Leicestershire, hated and despised her as a whore after the old man's money. Well, she thought, as she walked back to the supper room, I'm not a whore, and I wasn't after his money, only trying to get to where I think I belong in this world.

At the table she said briefly, ‘He's dead, Billy. Get me a taxi, please.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘Why be?' They were walking back down the hall. ‘He's given me over a million, and a lot of jewels – about another half million … I've had my eye on a nice flat in Half Moon Street for some time. I'll call you at the Admiralty as soon as I get settled in. Or will you be back at Dover with your M.T.B.s?'

He said, ‘I wish it was so – but I have several more months to do in that damned rabbit warren.'

Then they were at the door, and the night porter had hailed a taxicab. Florinda climbed in, waving goodbye to Billy Bidford. Alexander William Templeton Eastman Foudray, 4th Marquess of Jarrow, was dead; so she was no longer the Marchioness, but the Dowager Marchioness, or, in the more common modern usage, Florinda, Marchioness of Jarrow.

Susan Rowland sat at the table in the nursery – it had been a spare bedroom until they had adopted Sally and Tim – one of the children on each side of her. Sally held the book and read slowly.

‘He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair already betrayed
… what's that, Mummy?'

‘Betray …' Susan searched for the right words. ‘Here it means, “show” … He might have written,
Their hair already showed the reddish hue
… Go on.'

‘Reddish hue inherited from their mother, the she-wolf
… that means their dad was a dog and fucked a wolf?'

‘Sally! I've told you over and over you must not use that word … or the others. Yes, her father married a she-wolf. You remember that … Go on.'

‘While he alone, in this particular, took after his father. He was the one little grey cub of the litter
.'

Susan suspected that neither Sally nor Tim knew what a litter was, but their attention was wandering. They didn't like to have to work at things. Sally read on, stumbling –
‘He had bred true to the straight wolf-stock
–
in fact, he had bred true, physically, to old One Eye himself, with but a single exception and that was that he had two eyes to his father's one
.

‘The grey cub's eyes had not been open long, yet
…'

‘Pay attention, Tim. You're supposed to be reading along with Sally, but to yourself … Take over now.'

Tim read better than his sister though often mispronouncing words – ‘
Already he could see with steady clearness. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his sisters very well
… ha ha!' Tim burst out giggling,
‘He tasted his sister.
I wouldn't like to taste Sally! I'd rather taste another slice of bread and dripping, ha ha!'

‘Don't be silly! Go on.'

The hands of the nursery clock crept round. They must have their full half hour. None of her friends or Richard's relatives could understand why she had not hired a nanny or governess to teach the children. But she had been taught that parents raise their children themselves, instead of handing them over to hirelings. And she must teach these orphans something that wasn't in books: pride in themselves. It was no use trying to make them forget their earlier circumstances. They knew what whores were, and they knew their mother had been one. They understood that they had had different fathers. They had come from a world warm but dirty, cosy but careless, sinful but forgiving. Here, they were going to be ladies and gentlemen, following a code that must not be broken.

‘After that he recoiled from hurt because he knew that it hurt
.'

She looked at the clock. ‘That's enough, Tim … Run out and play now.' They jumped up, nearly upsetting the table, and tore out of the room and down the stairs, whooping and yelling. She winced, then smiled. That noise, this excitement of children, was why she had adopted them, after all …

She walked slowly along to the main bedroom and into the bathroom, and stared at herself in the mirror. Forty-one, and now, at last, after eighteen years of marriage, and the adoption of two children – pregnant. Two periods missed, some episodes of what must have been morning sickness. She must go and see Dr Kimball. And she must tell Richard. She dreaded the moment.

She unfastened her stays, kicked off her shoes, and lay down on the bed … just a few minutes, before Sally and Tim came in again …

She awoke to a banging on the door and the high excited squeak of Peggy the younger housemaid, ‘Oh, Mrs Rowland, come quick!'

She rolled to her feet and into her shoes, struggling with her stays, calling, ‘Come in! What's happened? Is it the children?'

‘Yes, m'm … I mean, no, m'm.' Susan smelled smoke, and heard distant shouts.

‘Farmer Handle's haystack's on fire, m'm, and they did it. Sally and Tim!'

‘Oh dear!' Susan exclaimed. This was really awful, with what she already had to tell Richard. Farmer Handle's farm lay two hundred yards up the lane, his fields abutting Hill House at the back and on one side. She ran fast toward the towering smoke and the columns of yellow and red flame. She arrived panting and out of breath as Stella Merritt galloped into the farmyard, astride a big bay, swung to the ground, stared a moment at the stack and called, ‘Mr Handle, you'd better get a hose onto the barn there, or that might catch.'