The Peacock Spring (11 page)

‘I learn more by listening to you,’ said Una. ‘Alix, read that Charles d’Orléans poem about the spring.’

‘
Le temps a laissié son manteau
,’ read Alix,

The cadences brought into the Delhi drawing room all the freshness of France in spring and Una sat entranced. If only we could keep to things, she thought, things, not people; those words have
lived for almost six centuries, while people come and go, and if only we could be big . . . Then, ‘Leave off thinking,’ said Una to Una. ‘Give yourself up. Listen,’ and,
‘Alix, read it again,’ she begged aloud.

and ‘
Le temps a laissié son manteau
’ finished Edward’s voice in the doorway.

He had not warned them, nor ordered Chinaberry to meet him but, arriving on a late flight, had quietly taken a taxi from the airport. As he waited in the doorway until the poem
was finished, no scene could have been more after his own heart: Alix reading, with Hal hanging adoringly over the back of her chair, Una close beside her, all three in complete accord. Then, at
his voice, ‘Edward!’ The girls almost tumbled over their feet to meet him; the book fell forgotten. ‘Edward! But why didn’t you let us know? Why didn’t you tell
us?’

‘I wanted to take you by surprise.’

‘Or see how we were doing?’ What Alix really meant was, ‘See how I was doing,’ and Una paused. Alix’s eyes were bright with temper. Why?

‘Edward, you must have some dinner,’ but this offer was brushed aside. ‘I had it on the flight.’ He and Alix were looking over Una and Hal’s heads at one another
and, ‘Come along, Hal,’ said Una, her voice tight. ‘Edward’s tired. You and I had better go to bed.’

Alix waited till they had gone then let it break. ‘You trusted me.’ He had not heard her voice as high. Then, as if panic had struck her, she stopped and, ‘You trusted me with
them,’ said Alix. ‘Edward, I should like to give that trust back to you as the complete and shining thing it was.’

‘What
are
you talking about?’ asked Edward.

‘Never mind,’ and she was back in her accusation. ‘You said this was to surprise us. Wasn’t it rather to catch us unawares so that you could see how things were with Hal
and Una – particularly Una?’

‘Alix! I never dreamed . . .’

‘And what did you see? What did you see?’ she taunted.

‘You,’ said Edward.

Alix had been beautiful, her head bent over the book, light falling over his favourite mulberry, gold-shot dress; she looked more beautiful now. ‘Upbraiding me,’ said Edward and,
‘Hasn’t it gone well?’ he challenged her.

‘Very well.’

‘Haven’t they both been happy? Interested? They look new girls.’

‘You do trust me then?’

‘The only thought I had,’ said Edward, ‘was that I couldn’t kiss you there and then. When is this going to end?’ he groaned.

‘We must be patient.’

‘Patient! When you are so close . . . when I must look at you and only look. Be so near and not touch you. Oh Alix! Alix!’

‘We didn’t ask Edward about a horse for Alix.’ Hal, in her pyjamas, had come into Una’s room.

‘We can’t ask him now.’ Una was terse.

‘Why not?’

‘He’s tired.’ She could not be more explicit than that.

‘He didn’t look a bit tired. He looked excited. Come on.’

‘Hal, come back. Come back,’ but Hal had gone. Una had to go after her.

The servants were in their own quarters so that Hal had not stopped to put on her dressing gown and slippers, nor had Una, and, in pyjamas and bare feet, they made no sound on the verandah.
‘I expect she’s telling him all about us,’ Hal whispered. ‘Hope to goodness she’s tactful about Vikram,’ but there was no sound of voices from the drawing room.
They looked in at the open doorway and stopped.

Hal gave a gasp. Una clapped a hand over Hal’s mouth and silently as two white shadows they raced down the verandah to Una’s room. ‘I don’t think we were meant to see
that,’ quavered Hal.

‘I didn’t know they ever lived in,’ said Hal.

‘Who?’

‘Love women.’

She and Una had separated the night before without another word and Una still felt she could not speak. At breakfast Hal had looked from Edward to Alix, Alix to Edward until Edward had asked,
‘What is the matter, Hal? Haven’t you seen us before?’ at which Hal went scarlet, Una white. ‘If they had had any sense they would have guessed we had seen them,’ Hal
said afterwards, but Edward was too jovial to notice, while about Alix there was a quiet arrogance; it showed in the way she spoke to Dino, told Hal to sit up. ‘You are too old to
fidget.’ Now Una was changing for dinner and Hal had come into her room.

‘And I thought it might be Vikram,’ said Una bitterly.

‘It probably is,’ said Hal, ‘as well. Men need women. Sushila and I were talking about it the other day; her father has dozens.’

‘Hal! You don’t
know
. . .’

‘Sushila should. Una, you’re so innocent!’ Hal was bouncing up and down on the bed. ‘All the same, I think we should keep Alix. At least she is interesting and fun.
Suppose she had been some prissy old governess. Why, we might have found a Crackers!’

‘Don’t!’ Una cried out as if Hal had said something unbearable. For her it had been a tragic day.

As she had guessed, on Edward’s coming back, the schoolroom table had been made ready on the verandah. ‘It will be pleasant to work out here,’ said Alix, and it had certainly
begun pleasantly. Una had been glad to feel her books, her work-tools, under her hands again; then, ‘Where are your exercise books from Cerne?’ asked Alix.

‘We didn’t do exercises exactly – not in the senior school. We made notes and did our studies on file papers like these.’

‘Oh!’ Alix had looked swiftly through them and as swiftly closed them. ‘Very impressive, Una,’ she said, ‘but we shall have to do things my way.’ Una was
silent and, ‘No two teachers are alike, are they?’ Alix had asked. Una had not answered but her hands under the table had been pressed tightly together.

‘Were you praying?’ asked Hal.

‘It wasn’t much use if I was.’

Today we did dictée
. In her diary, Hal noted down everything Alix ordained.
We did arithmetic revision
.

‘But that’s Hal’s book,’ Una had said when Alix gave her the exercise.

‘Una, I find you conceited.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be so cocky,’ Hal told her afterwards. ‘You made plenty of mistakes in your
dictée
.’

‘Because she went too fast. She wanted me to make mistakes.’ Una had to write them out ten times. ‘Like a baby,’ she said, writhing. As the week went on, her dismay
deepened.

Alix read us Appreciation of Mozart
. Una guessed it was from one of her old papers at the conservatoire. ‘Well – if it was?’
We did Indian history from the book
Crackers gave Una, dreadfully boring, but then we went into the kitchen to Christopher who taught us to make prawn koftas. Yum! Yum! We did English Essay and World Literature
.

There had almost been open trouble over the world literature. ‘I have a beautiful book,’ Alix had said. ‘It opens with the first books in the world, scratchings on rocks, or
clay tablets, then on papyrus, up to the present day.’

‘Does it include the Indian epics?’ Una was interested.

‘It may include them but it is more important to read what the world has written. I collected this outline in magazine numbers,’ Alix said proudly.

‘
Magazine
?’ Crackers’s ‘Don’t be a schoolgirl snob’ echoed in Una’s ears. But . . . but . . . she thought.

‘What is the matter, Una?’

‘For literature one needs
books
.’

‘Isn’t this a book?’

‘Of course it is,’ said Hal. ‘The pictures are splendid.’

‘Thank you, Hal.’

Hal, nowadays, was no help to Una; from that moment on the verandah, when she had seen them, for Hal, Edward and Alix had a rosy aureole of romance. ‘Alix really is lovely,’ she said
to Una. ‘Have you seen her with her hair down?’

‘I expect I will,’ said Una wearily.

We went riding, chronicled Hal.
Snowball bucked me off but Alix did not mind. Alix took us to polo. Alix is teaching me Funiculi Funicula on the mandolin. Alix
. . .
Alix
. . .

The lessons suited Hal exactly, especially the singing and cooking with Christopher. ‘He says I’m a natural cook.’

‘A natural greedy,’ but Una hardly had the heart to tease and she knew Hal was not listening.

‘My koftas turned out perfectly this time,’ she said. ‘When I marry Vikram he will be surprised.’

‘Don’t be silly. You won’t marry Vikram or he you,’ but things Hal said had a way of coming true and Una would not be surprised.

We did
dictée
.
Dictée
seemed to be Alix’s refuge.
Today we looked at photographs of books written on papyrus and of The Book of the Dead
. . .

‘It sounds interesting,’ said Lady Srinevesan after one of her cross-examinations of Una.

‘It is, but . . .’ and Una was inspired to say, ‘It’s all sugar biscuits and I need bones. Bones!’ said Una desperately.

‘Her French isn’t sugar.’

‘Damn her French.’ Lady Srinevesan was caught unawares by Una’s passion, but, ‘There is nothing,’ Mrs Carrington could have told her, ‘more likely to be
furious than a young thing frustrated.’ ‘If it wasn’t for Alix’s French,’ Una yearned to say, ‘Edward wouldn’t have been taken in’ – or would
he?

We did needlework
, wrote faithful Hal. ‘I’m not asking you to make buttonholes or do darning,’ said Alix.

‘They would at least be useful,’ muttered Una. Alix had bought embroidery frames and found tapestry designs. ‘The chair seat is for Una to make and Hal, this little stool cover
is for you.’ Alix spread out the silks. ‘Well?’

‘I like the colours,’ said Una, ‘but . . .’

‘I don’t want any “buts”.’ Alix was crisp. ‘Put the canvas in your frames and start.’ ‘I’m afraid Una objects,’ she told Edward that
night.

‘Nonsense. Girls ought to learn to sew.’

‘It isn’t sewing,’ said Una. ‘Edward, do I have to do it?’

‘You will do as Alix tells you.’

‘But Dads . . .’ That private name was only used in moments of real appeal. ‘This is fancy work and there are so many serious subjects I ought to be doing in the
time.’

‘But are you the best judge?’ He came and sat beside her and gently put back her hair.

‘Mrs Carrington said it.’ Una was dogged.

‘Mrs Carrington has one person’s point of view. There are others.’ He kept his patience. ‘Una, I do know how hard it is to change methods and schools . . .’

‘You don’t. You didn’t have to. You went straight on. Dads, at Cerne . . .’ She knew she was estranging him again; he had seen Alix’s gesture of despair when she
heard the name Cerne and, ‘At Cerne it seems they have made you into an ambitious little prig,’ he said.

Tears pricked Una’s eyes but she held them back. ‘If you can be ambitious, why can’t I?’ but, before she could speak, ‘I am not going to have this, Una.
Understand?’ said Edward. ‘Understand?’

Una was beginning to understand – only too well.

Today we did Appreciation of Bach – I don’t appreciate him
, wrote Hal.
Una had
dictée
. I found the same
dictée
in an old book of Alix’s
labelled Sainte Marie High School for Girls, Pondicherry. She has been using her old books for us.

Alix had not been pleased. ‘You two ought to have been detectives,’ she said.

‘You left them in the table drawer,’ Una pointed out. ‘Besides, they hardly apply to us.’

‘Why not?’ Alix’s colour had come up; her voice had risen too.

Una did not answer.

‘Why not? Una, I want to know.’

‘They are old-fashioned – and limited, if you want to know.’ Una said it deliberately.

‘
Limited
?’

‘Yes. If we had stayed at Cerne,’ Una went on, ‘I should have sat my Additional Mathematics at the end of this year. Here, in two weeks, we haven’t done one hour, not one
hour, of maths.’

‘Indeed we have,’ said Alix. ‘Haven’t we been revising your arithmetic . . .?’

‘Decimals, fractions, percentages. I did those when I was nine. I need
mathematics
, Alix, pure and applied.’

‘Pure and applied . . .’ Alix’s voice rose higher and, below the verandah, a dark head with a red cloth tied round it looked up from the flowerbed.

‘Pure and applied mathematics and Latin as well as your French. There are examinations, Alix.’

‘Examinations are not the be-all and end of everything.’

‘No, but they may be the beginning. I want to go to university . . .’

‘Want, always want,’ said Alix. ‘What
you
want, Una, regardless of anyone else. Couldn’t you think of Edward? Of Hal? Of me?’

‘Don’t you want things – all of you? Of course you do.’ Una still spoke quietly, but her eyes were dangerously green. ‘Anything else is cant.’

‘Una, you had better stop. Stop now,’ Hal whispered urgently.

‘I can’t stop,’ but Una found that, oddly, she was out of breath.

Ravi waited with interest. There was something in the way this foreign little creature stood up to the Mem that found a fellowship in him – he had not forgotten Alix’s ferocity with
the durzi and, ‘That girl is brave,’ he told Hem afterwards.

Then Alix spoke, not with the force she had used on the durzi, but as if Una were an animal that might bite. ‘Una, I – I sympathize . . . and I will see what I can do, if you will
settle for a little interlude of . . . less ambition.’

‘Una, please,’ begged Hal.

Una did not know where she found the necessary hardness but, ‘I haven’t time for interludes,’ she said. ‘Mrs Carrington would tell you . . .’