The Light Heart (32 page)

“To do what?” said Charles exasperatingly, his eyes on her face.

“To find out what he’s up to—for Bracken.”

“If he is up to something, Bracken is the last man I want to tell,” said Charles.

“Because he’s the Press? But so am I.”

“Then I won’t help you a bit,” said Charles.

“But
why?
” she demanded.

“Now, look here, my dear, I don’t say there’s anything in all this,” said Charles, very matter-of-fact. “But if there is—and you can shake Germans out of your pockets when you go to bed at night nowadays—if the blighter was sent here to Nosy Parker round amongst his wife’s connections and take
advantage
of their hospitality, it is very important that he shouldn’t be frightened off. Not yet, anyway. So just pretend not to notice anything, whatever happens, and don’t go about warning people, will you!”

“But—”

“Please don’t mention this to another soul. Promise?”

“But, Charles—”

“There’s a man at the Home Office—I’ll tip him off if you like.”

“What good will that do?”

“They’ll watch him. In a quiet way. If they think best.”

“But if he hears people saying the kind of thing you’ve been saying about—about aeroplanes, and things—”

“Oh, he’ll hear a lot of that, I expect.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if he didn’t?”

“We might even hear something back,” Charles suggested. “If the conversation were steered the right way, I mean. If he were encouraged to bait his trap.”

Phoebe’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh, Charles—
espionage!
”

“Shut up, will you, and don’t talk nonsense!” said Charles crossly. “They’ll probably laugh at me at the Home Office, but I’ll give them the chance. Don’t go and spoil it all by wagging your tongue, now!”

Phoebe promised, and soon Charles paid the bill and they left the Ritz, and he put her in a taxi for South Audley Street. She looked back and saw him turn away unhurriedly down Piccadilly. He had never batted an eye, of course. But there had been just that one electric instant when she had felt his riveted attention before he said, “Was it sudden?” And after that, his
excessive
stupidity….

As the cab crept through the traffic towards Berkeley Square, Phoebe gazed blindly out of the window, wrapped in
speculation
—just what did Charles
do
at the War Office? A further query, still dim, still hardly articulated, was being born at the back of her consciousness—by her novelist’s imagination out of her feminine intuition, as the stud-book would say—Suppose Conny was a secret agent—suppose Charles was his opposite number….

B
Y EIGHT
o’clock on the morning of Coronation Day Phoebe had taken her place with Archie and Virginia in the stands which rose in Parliament Square facing the Abbey. Edward and Winifred had gone to their seats in the transepts even earlier, robed in crimson velvet and ermine and carrying their coronets. Conrad and Rosalind would arrive in the First Procession, which consisted of Royal guests and their suites.

It was the leaden sort of June day which England sometimes inflicts on a hardened population, and a cold wind fluttered the flags on the roof tops and tossed the garlands between the white Venetian masts along the route. Scarlet-coated soldiers were already lining the streets, with a good-humoured crowd
packed behind them. There was a spatter of rain around nine o’clock, and then the sun looked out—but it had gone away again before the three-minute gun sounded in the distance. Virginia hugged the upstanding chinchilla collar of her coat closer and shivered, and Phoebe was glad of the long fox stole and muff which she had decided at the last minute to wear over a cloth suit instead of the thin embroidered linen she had intended.

As Big Ben struck the half hour they heard the first gun of the salute, which meant that Rosalind was leaving Buckingham Palace in a State coach with her husband, following the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany. Phoebe’s mind went back to the other Coronation, before any of this had happened and the world was young. Charles was the one in the Procession that time—and Rosalind had been with the rest of them at the window in St. James’s Street—they had argued about which Guardsman was Charles, but Rosalind knew without his being pointed out to her—today Charles was sitting beside Selma Gluckston in the stands the other side of Admiralty Arch, Oliver was with Maia in the same stands, and Rosalind was a foreign Royalty. Only Archie and Virginia and herself were the same, and Phoebe’s eyes rested on her companions fondly, as the guns boomed. Virginia turned, and read her thoughts. “Last time we had her safe with us,” she said.

The braided trumpeters came into view, followed by the Life Guards on their black chargers. Then came the Guards’ band, with its flourishing drummers, and the glittering string of State coaches, each with white-breeched, scarlet-coated postillions and footmen, the horses pacing proudly—Phoebe’s eyes filled with quick, childish tears—it was so solemn, and yet so gay, and so beautiful—and they were all so much older and wiser and sadder than they had been when King Edward was crowned…. The coach which was said to contain the Prince and Princess Conrad zu Polkwitz-Heidersdorf passed in a gilded blur.

The Second Procession brought the Royal Family in State
landaus, and the Princes and Princesses of the Blood Royal—smiling, fairhaired children in gala robes and ermine. The crowd cheered and waved and wept with affection and sentiment.

Then after another dull, chilly wait, and with a detachment of the Blues
en
cuirassier
to lead it, came the King’s Procession—more State coaches followed by the gorgeous East Indian Orderly Officers, mounted, the aides-de-camp and the
Commanders
-in-Chief and the Field Marshals with their crimson batons, the equerries and the escorts of Colonial and Indian cavalry—and finally the Royal coach itself drawn by eight cream-coloured Hanoverian horses with braided manes and purple trappings—Lord Kitchener rode just behind it and
beside
the Royal Standard and was loudly cheered—then more equerries and more cavalry….

Phoebe stood spellbound and choking till the soldiers lining the curbs fell out and the stands twinkled and shifted with movement as people rose to stretch and search out sandwiches and chocolate to make the best of a two-hour wait. Archie produced a flask of brandy like a conjuror. They thanked him devoutly and Phoebe began to scribble notes on a pad on her knee for Bracken.

Later, in a mighty anti-climax, she pieced together from Winifred and Rosalind the scene inside the Abbey—how a shaft of sunlight shone through the clerestory and touched the gold plate on the altar—how the peeresses’ gallery had glowed and glittered with crimson velvet and jewels and ermine and tiaras—how the unseen choir-boys’ voices soared—how the Regalia was brought to the High Altar in solemn procession and then carried to meet the King at the West Door—the spine-tingling fanfare of trumpets heralding the Royal entrance—the King’s grave dignity and the Queen’s grace and beauty, and the touching moment when the young Prince approached his father and knelt to recite the oath in a voice still treble….
I,
Edward,
Prince
of
Wales,
do
become
your
liege
man
of
life
and
limb
and
of
earthly
worship;
and
faith
and
truth
I
will
bear
unto
you,
to
live
and
die
… and the thoughts of all who heard him
went back affectionately to his grandfather, and ahead
prayerfully
, for this was the future Edward VIII … and the King, visibly moved, set a fatherly hand beneath his son’s chin when he received the kiss of fealty on his cheek….

Once the Coronation story was finished and filed by cable and Bracken’s enthusiastic acceptance came back, Phoebe’s thoughts began to dwell anxiously on the night of the ball in St. James’s Square, where she and Oliver would meet again, as old friends, with half their world looking on. By lunch time of the day itself she had stage-fright in the last degree and could not eat. Oliver and Maia were staying with Clare in Belgrave Square, and so without being obvious there was no opportunity to level off the worst of it by catching a glimpse of him before the ball began.

Phoebe dressed that evening in a state of grim calm, fumbling at things with cold fingers, furious and frantic with her own insurgent nervous system over which her will power had no control. Like Virginia, she had never suffered from the shyness so many girls must somehow live through and conquer, and to-night was worse than any début, and she did not know what to make of herself as she stood shaking in front of a long mirror in her room waiting for the motor to be announced.

As she had remarked to Virginia, a woman’s whole outline had changed since Oliver saw her last. They had worn
pompadours
then. Now her chestnut hair was parted and dipped on her broad brow, with the ends wrapped widely around her head and held in place apparently only by a large jewelled pin either side. Her gown was of champagne-coloured charmeuse, veiled to the knees with a chiffon tunic embroidered in
gold sequins and cut in long points at the sides weighted with heavy gold tassels. The skirt fell from so high a waistline, and the square-cut neckline was so low that the bodice was largely a golden girdle and the sleeves were mere chiffon incidents without even a sprinkling of sequins to give them substance. Her eyes were dark with excitement, her cheeks were hot, and her mouth, with its full lower lip, was brightened with
carmine
.
He might get a surprise when he saw her—but he could hardly be disappointed.

She wondered if her heart would come up through the roof of her mouth at sight of him, and how she could ever surrender to him so clammy a hand. I
will
not
behave like this, she told herself futilely, I’m as wobbly as though I was coming down with something—maybe it’s influenza and not Oliver at all. Things would have been bad enough to-night if he had had a normally happy marriage with a chance to become
philosophical
over what had seemed so tragic to them both nearly ten years ago. But it was impossible in the circumstances to tell oneself firmly that that was all over and done with. Maia had not taken the one road to make him forget his lost love—to lull him with kindness and affection and tact into comfortable domestic habit. Maia’s fantastic behaviour had left ample room in his life for the cherishing of an old ideal. And Maia’s watchful presence would make every word and glance between them a hazard.

It has been said that in order to appreciate a woman’s beauty you must behold her descending a staircase, and that is how Oliver’s eager gaze first found Phoebe at Winifred’s ball. She came down slowly, seeming very much at her ease, and
chatting
to Virginia at her side, who was wearing Nile green with a short tunic edged with marabou, and a green bandeau in her dark hair. A waltz was being played in the ballroom beyond, and above the laughter and music you could hear the lisp of dancing feet.

Oliver stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up and waiting for them to discover him, which did not happen till they were almost on top of him. Virginia saw his face as Phoebe’s glance met his, and she told Archie later that she nearly burst into tears on the spot, so defenceless it looked, so young and shining with perilous happiness. But there wasn’t time to cry, said Virginia, because she was so busy looking for Maia to head her off, and finally discovered her dancing with Charles, and asked herself rhetorically what they would ever
do without him, and how on earth he had contrived to hoick Maia out on to the dance floor at exactly the right moment.

Silently Oliver held out his white-gloved right hand to Phoebe, and silently she laid hers in it. She came down the last step and stood level with him, looking up, her hand still in his. Composure had descended suddenly upon her, and she was thinking very clearly, she was sure, and her heart wasn’t beating too fast any more, and her knees weren’t shaking, and there was nothing to be nervous about at all, for Oliver was not disappointed and he had not changed…. The only trouble was that she had completely, between one breath and the next, forgotten Maia.

“I have been trying all day to think what I would say to you now,” Oliver said.

“That will do as well as anything,” she smiled.

“Not very brilliant, was it! But you always did take my breath away. When did I waltz with you last? Don’t tell me. It was only a week ago.”

Still composed, with the perfect equilibrium of the butler who has just finished off the champagne in the pantry, Phoebe crossed the open space between them and the dance floor and went into his arms.

“It’s a new tune, though,” she said dreamily.
“The
Merry
Widow.
Did you see it?”

“Three times. Have you seen the one at Daly’s now?”

“
The
Count
of
Luxembourg.
No, not yet.”

“Let’s go,” said Oliver. “I’ll make up a party. You must see Lily Elsie in the staircase waltz.”

Maia returned to Phoebe’s consciousness like an avenging goddess in a blaze of thunder and lightning, and she missed a step. What
had
they done? Where
was
Maia?

“Sorry,” said Oliver, taking the blame for the break in their rhythm.

“My fault,” said Phoebe. “I—just woke up.”

He gave her a slanting look full of comprehension and said, “You’ve changed your hair.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Very much. But I have to readjust my ideas.” He studied it intimately as they danced. “How do you make it stay up?”

“Will power,” said Phoebe, and they laughed foolishly, like children on a lark. With Oliver you were always wittier than you had ever suspected. Oliver still had something inside him that lifted and lilted like the violins….