Men On White Horses Read online

  Pamela Haines

  Men on White Horses

  Contents

  Part One 1907

  Part Two 1911

  Part Three 1920

  Part One

  1907

  Florence

  Monday 28th September 1907.

  St Cyprian!

  Helen dearest,

  So long since I wrote. Such a lazy brother (but what a charming one too!) Now I write to propose myself for a visit, at last. If I am welcome. I imagine however – and now be honest – that the Yorkshire breezes blow a little more gently when you know I’m coming, and that we shall have some time together.

  And time together we must have. I have some very important news. I could almost say I’m crossing over to tell you since I don’t think I could put it in a letter (are you not absolutely dying of curiosity?) It will amaze you, you will say ‘never!’ You will say ‘but Frederick darling, you can’t!’

  Enough of not telling you. I want to see your face when – I want to see your face anyway. It’s been nearly eighteen months and I did vow (you made me promise when you married into the frozen North) that I’d bring you the warm wine of the South every single year.

  Shall we promise now this time, not to quarrel? Why do we, when we want so much to be with each other? And yet, every time. Basta, I think.

  As to what you mentioned. Yes, money has been a worry. And no, you are not to slip me a little bag of sovereigns. Too often have I – Do you realize that it’s fifteen years already since you were relieved of worry?

  Autumn again soon. Wild boar with chocolate sauce and pine-nuts. Do you remember how you used to eat as a girl? And now – Whereas I who picked at my food then… Just lately I have been eating very well. A week in Rome, guests of the nobility – cousins of a friend of mine. The Antici-Montani. Quite remarkable what inbreeding can do. He (the Marchese) is just a poor thing. She is magnificent. The son and heir and his wife nonentities. The grandchildren, with one sad exception, very pleasant – but what happens next? Will they marry ‘in’ again? I may add en passant that they are Blacks of course. ‘Dyed in the ink’ – as they say here. The ultimate too, a Pope in the family; rather far back but undeniably there.

  Sunset nearly and only ? more days until I see you. I shall let you know. Sunset, and before Matteo closes the shutters, the Apennines – indigo, and the city itself below, fading a pale rose colour. Why wonder that watercolours are such a snare, such a temptation?

  How is Edwina, my godchild (I love that word)? And Philip, head-in-air Philip? And little Cora? And of course your Tom, your lord and master (surely you have found some method of getting your own way?)

  Until when? Your brother (tuo fratellino who loves you), Frederick.

  The wind whipping the leaves, sending piles of them scurrying. Excited. That’s the way everything is, she thought. It’s not just me who’s excited because he’s coming. The sky is too. The weather.

  Great gusts, bending branches of the rowan trees, leaves flurrying. She could see them from the window seat on the landing, looking out on to the garden and the park. Craning to the side a bit, she could just see the coach house and some of the stables. But she couldn’t see the road he would come along.

  The motor had gone to York to meet him, and Mother had gone with it because Uncle Frederick was her brother, her younger brother. He called her Helen. Mother and Helen were two people really. One was gay and a bit like a child and liked having her own way. The other looked pinched and fretful, walking about with her shoulders rounded, talking a lot to Aunt Josephine. Aunt Josephine was Father’s sister. She and Mother whispered together at the foot of the stairs. Once when Edwina had been in the drawing-room (and shouldn’t have been), hiding behind the curtains because she’d been at the piano :

  ‘I feel it here,’ Helen said, her mother said. ‘Just here. Under my heart really. I’m so afraid of – heart trouble.’

  ‘Indigestion. It comes there, I know. But it’s indigestion only.? Aunt Josephine coughed. ‘How is the other trouble? It’s not from that?’

  Perhaps Helen-Mother shook her head because there’d been nothing more to hear. They’d gone off, and she hadn’t been caught.

  What hope had she now of not being discovered – curled up like this on a window-seat? She thought, I could steal out to the stables, then I’ve a better chance of seeing the motor arrive. I could go and see Arthur, I could say, ‘I wanted to see my pony, I wanted to see Macouba.’ She could tell him, ‘Uncle Frederick’s coming today…’

  ‘Edwina, Edwina!’

  She couldn’t escape. Even if she pretended not to hear her name, others would. It was Tuesday, her afternoon for French with Miss Norris in the schoolroom. Nurse might be on the prowl, although Sarah the nursemaid was taking Cora for a walk and Aunt Josephine was resting. Father was away till the evening.

  ‘Edwina!’

  Caught. Now to sit with that terrible schoolroom clock. It went: not tick tock, but tick tick tick tick.

  Miss Norris spoke French in a funny voice, quite different from the one she used for geography. She wasn’t a person really, a human being. To begin with she was cold, so cold that she must surely be cold inside too. She had fat fingers, red with cracked chilblains. Her hands hadn’t gone down even in the summer. The cracks had just healed but the fingers were still fat. The rest of her was spiky. Her hair was spiky too and mousey. When she bent over you could see her skin through it; corridors, little partings.

  ‘Je m’appelle Edwina – please, Edwina. J’ai huit ans. Répétez après moi –’

  It was her nose was the worst. It seemed to have been twisted into a hook with a twiddly bit at the top. It couldn’t have been a very good nose because she got colds so often. But it was the drip at the end which was really the worst. It hung, unbelievably, then just when Edwina was sure it would fall… It was like watching icicles on the wall in winter.

  ‘After me, please. J’ai huit ans –’

  ‘You’re more than that. You said once – you’re thirtyeight.’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent. There is never any need to be personal, Edwina. Even the youngest child in France –’ she sniffed loudly. The drop went upwards – ‘half your age, can manage these phrases.’

  I’m too little to learn French, she thought. I heard Aunt Josephine say that. Philip doesn’t have to go through all this – it’s different for boys. They’ve sent him away to school. I wish I had his pocket telescope. It cost a whole half-guinea. I could see three miles with it, I could see him coming.

  ‘Encore une fois. Je m’appelle–’

  Tick tick tick tick. So many yawns, so many years between each tick.

  ‘How long till four o’clock?’

  ‘Another half-hour.’

  Another half-hour.

  ‘Don’t you think it would be rather nice if you could say a few little sentences to your uncle? Bonjour, mon oncle. Je –’

  ‘He speaks Italian. He lives in Italy –’

  ‘All educated Italians speak French perfectly. It’s a well-known fact.’ She rubbed at her swollen forefinger. ‘Well-known.’

  But what’s that noise outside the window? It’s the motor, chuffing round to the front entrance. She shouldn’t have let me sit where I can see out with only a little twisting. ‘Miss Norris, he’s here, he’s here – Uncle Frederick is here!’

  Nothing to stop her now, running, running down the narrow stairs from the schoolroom, along the twisty uneven corridors, across to the wide landing. There you can see down into the hall of the Hall. The bell’s gone, there are servants there already. Aunt Josephine has opened her door, is coming slowly out. But I am flying, frock flying, pinny flying, hair flying, down, down the stairs.

  ‘Edwina,
Weenie, darling –’ I’m the first person he sees as the door is opened. He’s wearing a cape coat and he smells wonderful, of different cigarette smoke, of some special scent. His face is all lovely shapes and shadows and lines and folds.

  Mother is there. ‘Be careful.’ Sharply, ‘She’s heavy, Frederick.’ Uncle Frederick, letting her go a little: You look wonderful, Weenie. So big!’ Turning his head: ‘Just those two suitcases. Not the gun.’ Then still holding her, hand round her waist. ‘Ah, Josephine. How good to see you, Josephine.’

  ‘I have French, I had French today. Uncle Frederick, je m’appelle Edwina. J’ai huit ans…’

  ‘We’ve had such a summer,’ Aunt Josephine said, a sandwich in her hand. ‘Rain, cold. Hardly more than half a dozen good days. If you’d seen the Bank Holiday outing for the villagers –’

  ‘Frederick wouldn’t know,’ said Mother. The sun shines on him every day.’

  Edwina tried to sit up straight but it was uncomfortable. She felt she could see him better if she poked her head a little. Just to be here in the drawing-room with him a full hour before she usually came down (and without Cora now), that was treat enough.

  ‘Frederick has some news for us,’ Mother said. ‘But he won’t tell.’

  Tomorrow, I promise.’

  ‘No, I can’t guess,’ said Mother excitedly, as if she’d been asked to. ‘Tell, do tell.’ She made a little latticework of her fingers, peeping through them coyly. ‘You’ve taken up singing professionally? No? You’re going to be singinmaster to some ancient Florentine family?’ She clasped her hands together, put her head on one side.

  He seemed to be enjoying the game. ‘No, no.’ His voice which often had an odd squeak to it, rose: ‘But you’re surprisingly – You’re not hot but you’re not cold.’

  Aunt Josephine said suddenly: ‘You’re teasing Helen, Frederick.’ She looked at him disapprovingly, a scone in her hand. ‘It doesn’t do to get her overexcited.’

  Aunt Josephine ate a lot. She had moved on to plum cake now. Edwina for excitement could scarcely eat anything.

  ‘The sea,’ she burst out. ‘The sea, tell me about the sea.’

  Mother raised her eyebrows. Aunt Josephine saved her by saying: ‘The crossing, Frederick. I’ve been appalled by the weather lately. The high winds.’

  The sea,’ Edwina persisted, knowing she was doing wrong, willing his attention, ‘what was it like? Was it angry?’

  ‘Little Edwina,’ he said, ‘it was all tossedy about. If you can imagine. Great white horses. I only went up on deck so that I could tell you about it.’

  His hair was a funny colour. The same really as Mother’s. Not brown, not gold, white, grey, but an odd colour like polished pewter. Philip had it too. Nothing like her own thick black, with its fearsome straightness, its will of its own, springing back, full of tangles (’cotters’ Sarah called them, tugging with the horn comb), not like Cora’s tumbling light brown curls with their little bits of gold.

  They had stopped talking about the sea. She was happy really just to watch. Mother had rung for more hot water. She let her gaze go round the room. The piano. It was something called a Bechstein. Mother’s wedding present from Father. ‘Do you play?’ she’d heard someone ask once. ‘Very little now,’ Mother had said, twisting her rings, pushing the sparkling diamonds up and down. (Father had bought them for her. He was older than Mother so he had a lot more money. He had found her many years ago without enough to eat, in a foreign country, and he had put her on the back of his white horse and ridden with her back to England. These days he rode a horse called Kendal Brown.)

  But now surely it was Edwina’s piano? It was she who loved it. She’d found it, stroked the keys, struck them – what joy that first day when they’d sprung into life. Looking over now at the piano, silent, she could feel right down inside the terror of delight it had given her. It had come from her fingers, no, from inside her, no, from inside the machine, the wooden frame. It stood open, you could look in; when she struck a hammer went up and down, velvet, furrycovered. And yet, the sound came from her.

  A lump of cake with a cherry in it fell on to the strap of her patent leather shoe. She wondered if she could rescue it without anyone noticing.

  ‘… and in those circles you move in, this encyclical – you think that’s the end of Modernism?’

  ‘I heard only something about Tyrell. Excommunication.’

  That seems a bit excessive –’

  ‘Oh, I have no patience with that kind of thing. Jesuits are always one extreme or the other. If you remember, in France –’

  Aunt Josephine: ‘I’m sure I don’t know what it’s about… I can’t feel at home with Romanism – it’s one subject Helen and I don’t discuss.’ She crumbled sandcake between her fingers. ‘Why we can’t all worship together…’

  Tea was all cleared away. She had picked up the cherry without anyone noticing, but she had had to eat it. And just at that moment Cora and Nurse had arrived.

  ‘Oh, but how she’s grown – Helen, you should have told me. No longer a baby, a little girl! Come here, Cora –’

  Nurse let go of Cora’s hand and she ran forward, all simpering. Her ringlets bobbed as she moved. Edwina thought that just a little bit ago her mouth would have had treacle on it, running down the chin. They’d have given her treacle with nursery tea to make up for not coming down.

  But horrors, Cora was going to sing. Rolling her eyes up: ‘ “When Nurse has tucked the bedclothes in And stumped across the floor, She says that not a single soul must come in through the door.” ’ She held her hands in front of her, swayed on her toes: ‘ “There’s someone comes to see us then who Nursie says is dead, Dad used to call her “darlin’ heart” but Muvver was her name…” ’ It went on and on, rather fast without much stopping for breath.

  The agony was over. Uncle Frederick asked if Edwina couldn’t do anything? ‘Can’t, won’t,’ said Aunt Josephine, but not unkindly, as if to show she knew Edwina had more sense than to make a fool of herself like that, with that song.

  ‘Isn’t she learning the piano?’ he said to Mother.

  Edwina was about to speak. ‘There’s hardly a hurry,’ Mother said. She yawned prettily; she had small, very sharp white teeth. ‘I mean to do something about it in the spring.’

  ‘Helen has been far from well,’ Aunt Josephine said.

  ‘Ah that,’ said Uncle Frederick, looking at something on his coat cuff.

  ‘Ah yes,’ Aunt Josephine said, pursing her lips, looking out across the darkening garden. Winter coming. Soon curtains would be drawn in the afternoons. ‘Ah yes. It will come on to rain, don’t you think?’

  ‘I want a room of my own. I want to sleep by myself.’ Sitting at the nursery table, in nightclothes now, eating bread and milk. Horrid, only just warm, with the milk tasting funny.

  ‘What’s that, what’s that? What did Miss Edwina say?’ Nurse asking Sarah. Sarah replacing the heavy iron fireguard, rearranging the towels, white, yellow marked, smelling scorched and a little soapy as they hung on the horse.

  ‘Philip does, Philip has one –’

  ‘That’s different,’ Nurse said briskly.

  ‘Why is it different?’

  ‘Time enough for that, time enough. You may not like sleeping alone. And what would little Cora do without you?’

  Nurse had two small lines engraved on her forehead, just above her nose. They were something to do with her headaches. The lines looked like two little slits: the ache got in through them. Her name was Kettlewell, Ada Kettlewell – she’d seen it written in a little red book with an elastic band which Nurse left lying about. Sarah was much more fun. She came from a village called Beckhole in Goathland, which was a land of goblins and fairies and hobs. Horses in their stables would often be found in the mornings sweating and shaking as if they’d been on a long journey, which they had, because a witch had ridden them all night. (It was easy to prevent this, though. You had just to hang up a horseshoe, open side down, and all woul
d be well.)

  ‘She’s to say her prayers, Sarah. See she doesn’t get in without.’

  ‘Mother’s coming up to hear them.’ Pause. ‘Uncle Frederick’s coming up –’

  ‘Nonsense, certainly that’s nonsense. If your uncle’s here, she won’t. Nor will he I dare say –’

  ‘He said…’

  ‘Come along then. Say what you have to say.’

  Nurse didn’t like it. Roman, she said, your prayers are Roman. Sarah told Edwina once, They’re not right, she says. Looking up to, making a fuss over a woman. God’s a man.’

  In Mother’s room there was a small praying place. A candle in a holder, a statue. Mother had let her light the candle once, When Edwina wanted a little sister. (Yes, she had really wanted a little sister. She had been that foolish.) Mother, with a face only half serious, had lit it, and then shown Edwina the beautiful lady. Beautiful with a delicate bloom on her cheeks, tendrils of dark hair, a dress with a pale blue girdle like the sky. ‘Our Lady,’ she was called. ‘Not your lady,’ she said to Nurse. ‘Mine. Mine and Mother’s.’

  ‘And Cora’s,’ said Nurse sharply. ‘And Cora’s, miss.’

  First the ‘Our Father’. Nurse knew that. Then:

  ‘Now go on and say it. Say the rest.’

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…

  On Sundays, Philip and Father and Aunt Josephine walked down the village to the Norman church up the steps. She and Mother went off in the dog cart – or in the motor in winter – to some friends’ house three miles away where there was a small chapel. There, a priest in a lacy robe spoke in Latin. Mother drank coffee afterwards and Edwina, warm sweet tea with a sponge finger to dip in it. Once near Christmas she had been offered a chestnut, all sugared, in paper.

  ‘And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God…’

  ‘Is that you, where are you, Little Bear? It’s your uncle, Ricky the Great.’

  He didn’t come near enough. She wanted to put a hand out but she was suddenly too shy. ‘Are you in a hurry, have you got time?’