Men On White Horses Page 3

  ‘Oh,’ said Edwina, in a little voice. She wanted suddenly to run indoors. But she stood instead squarely, feet planted outwards in the way Mother didn’t like and had asked the dancing mistress to do something about. ‘Who to, if I may ask?’ (She had heard grown-ups say that: ‘if I may ask?’) ‘A lady?’

  Her father gave a snort, turned his head away, then blew his nose loudly. Uncle Frederick said easily, ‘Yes, Edwina, a lady. Except that actually she’s a baronessa. She has a title, you see, and is Italian.’

  ‘What more natural,’ said her mother acidly, ‘when you live in Italy. Although there are English people in Florence –’

  ‘Really?’ Uncle Frederick said. ‘I was scarcely aware. An English colony. I’m only part of it, after all –’

  ‘It’s only too obvious you’re part of it,’ she said shortly, walking in ahead of him, ignoring Edwina.

  ‘What’s her name?’ Edwina asked. ‘This Italian lady’s name?’

  ‘Adelina,’ he said, turning to go in. He said it as if it were music. ‘Adelina.’

  She was about to lose him. She knew right down inside, in the part which would turn to water, sending her running fast to the lavatory, thinking all of me’s coming out. Indeed she had already lost him because he must even now be thinking more of this Italian lady than of her. When they married she would belong to him. My wife, he would say. When he travelled or got his luggage together or made a list of what he had, he could put: a wife.

  No one mentioned it. It was as if the topic were either not very important or perhaps so important that you didn’t talk about it at all. She sat next to Aunt Josephine, who’d been out visiting sick people all afternoon.

  ‘I saw Arthur’s little girl.’ She handed Edwina a skein of embroidery cotton: ‘You do this for me, child.’ Then: ‘She seemed very unwell. She has whooping-cough. The older ones are recovering but hers is distressing to see – racking her whole frame.’

  The room seemed lonely, although they were all there in it. The piano beckoned. She thought: if they went to sleep like in the story of Sleeping Beauty, all sitting about just as they are, I’d go over and sit down and music would flow out of me. I would bang and thump and then stroke the notes, then dance on them. Then just touch like feathers, ripple like water does, then bump bump, little knocks. Then my hands spread wide, as wide as they’d go, great thick sounds, telling myself what I was feeling, that I was happy yet unhappy, that I was me. I would wake the dead, I have such strength in my fingers. She felt thumb and forefinger pressing the skein of cotton, as if she would rub it away.

  ‘Careful,’ Aunt Josephine said. ‘You’re not untangling that at all. You’re not helping.’

  Uncle Frederick must have felt bad, though. He must have felt the need to say something, because he came up before dinner, sat on the end of her bed.

  She was tired, so tired. ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘Yes.’ He leaned forward.

  She hissed into his ear, angry, suddenly so angry she could have killed him: ‘I thought you were going to marry me.’ She had only just thought of it, what was wrong. She wailed her whisper: ‘I thought you were going to marry me…’

  Uncle Frederick was to go to church with them. He was carrying a leather-bound book. Mother carried always a book called The Garden of the Soul.

  Edwina imagined it to be full of plants, imagined a soul, something like a heart, but sprouting from it a profusion of lovely flowers – pansies, lilies, carnations.

  They went in the motor, Uncle Frederick sitting opposite Mother, and Edwina beside her. Mother looked pretty today but fractious, tired. She was wearing a new hat with a purple satin lining, the brim turned up at one side, with a lot of ostrich plumes. Her coat was furry inside and with a big fur collar. Uncle Frederick had fur on his collar too.

  ‘Can I see your book?’ She took her hands out of her muff.

  ‘Careful, little one. It’s very old. A Missal.’

  ‘Frederick, show me,’ Mother said prettily, reaching out for it first.

  ‘Adelina’s engagement present. I mean to be very much holier. It’s a family heirloom. They have so many, though, that it’s not as épatant as you might think –’

  Mother had taken it and was examining it carefully. The pages were thin and looked uncomfortable to read. There were two languages in two columns – she couldn’t make out either. Their markers weren’t the usual simple silk but dyed an elaborate pattern and plaited thickly.

  ‘Quite a family,’ Mother said. ‘Quite a family.’ She turned some pages. ‘I don’t think Father had hoped as much as that for us.’

  ‘But you’ve done well enough –’ He fiddled with his gloves. ‘After all, what are we, were we, but adventurers?’

  ‘We still are,’ she said definitely, a little flatly. ‘You, certainly.’ She was still holding the Missal, turning the pages idly, almost a little roughly. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What I want to know is why?’

  ‘I’ve just told you –’

  ‘That’s not all about you. Adventurer. Yes. But the other – now you won’t be able to…’

  He looked suddenly white and angry. Edwina asked to see the Missal, but she didn’t want to look at it when she got it. Except that it smelled old and unusual, it was boring. ‘How do you use it?’ she asked.

  ‘I was a great success in Rome. I am approved of. One of the oldest families –’

  ‘Perhaps you should have aimed for Gladys Vanderbilt? Two million there. American Sphinx, indeed. And what’s he? Hungarian? A Count?’

  He said sharply: ‘I shall have to be content with what I have got, won’t I? Not exactly two million, but –’ He shrugged his shoulders, stared straight ahead of him. They seemed to be speaking as if they were alone, as if Edwina, all ears, had suddenly become invisible. ‘It’s not necessarily going to affect my private life. I can still – I’ve always been discreet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Would I have been accepted if otherwise?’

  ‘I don’t know how the minds of old Florentine families work.’ She leaned forward: ‘Perhaps with this fresh blood and after all this inter-marrying they’ll expect a beautiful child or two?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ His lips were pressed close together. ‘Ora, basta. No?’

  They were silent for a moment Then Mother burst out: ‘Going back twenty years – perhaps you should have completed that which you began?’

  ‘That which you began!’ he repeated mockingly. ‘You can say that here?’ He shifted awkwardly in his seat.

  ‘You think I’ve forgotten, don’t you? Don’t you?’

  ‘Bada, bada. La petite.’

  ‘As if any girl could forget –’

  ‘Cruelty and bad taste,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘You’re capable of both.’

  ‘Edwina,’ Mother said sharply, ‘you’ve had that Missal long enough.’

  They were nearly at the house where they went for Mass. It had a long winding drive, unlike the Hall which gave almost straight on to the village. As they were getting out of the motor Uncle Frederick mislaid a glove. He began to fuss: it was the same agitation she remembered before going shooting, so that he looked suddenly more like someone’s mother, or aunt

  ‘But where is it?’ he cried agitatedly. ‘I had it –’

  ‘Oh, come in without,’ Mother said easily. But he was still put out. Edwina felt it as they wound through the corridors to the chapel. Two small boys were preparing the altar, lighting candles. She angled to kneel between Uncle and Mother, but felt that she would rather have been beside just him. She grew restless and looked about her. Mother tapped her on the hand.

  Mass was mysterious. (Nurse said: Mumbo jumbo.) But she liked the sound. It was foreign and exciting. But it was safe too and familiar, because as Mother had explained once it had gone on for nearly two thousand years. Father and Philip, Aunt Josephine, the people who went up to the Norman church in the village, their ancestors had changed religion because it was too difficult to
be good; and they’d stolen the churches While they were about it. The people who owned this chapel, their great-great-great – even farther back – some of them had actually been killed for going on praying this way. The red light, with its warm glow, showed that Jesus, the real Jesus, was there: safe in the little house, the tabernacle.

  A glow like the light wrapped her round now. The warmth of the room, people breathing (the oxen’s breath warming the baby Jesus). She felt safe – not the terror with music, with her fingers, with her feelings for Uncle Frederick. This was the safe world. You had only to love Jesus, which was easy, and all would go well. For ever and ever, until you died. And then – heaven.

  So much on the table, so much shining silver, starched linen, green branches, hothouse plants. A special smell, of Sunday. Coming down to luncheon. Then upstairs to rest: until Grandma Illingworth’s visit at three-thirty.

  She came every Sunday. Straightaway after luncheon the whole house would seem to tauten. The nursery bell rang just before she was expected so that Edwina and Cora, tidied up again after their rests, could be downstairs in the drawing-room, waiting, tensed up like everyone else. The clock in the hall would strike the half-hour; the church clock, the little French clocks in the drawing-room, the clock on the stairs and – almost exactly after – the bell outside.

  And in she came. She was a ship, a galleon, in full sail. Her skirts always inches wider round than anyone else’s. Her hair always at the same height and always – brown-grey, not white at all – tightly knotted as if she were angry with it. Then that funny face, almost in a way like Punch (you could see in Father, in Aunt Josephine, how the mould had been used again, but softened). And oddest of all: when she smiled, when she spoke, the most wonderful, awful thing would happen to the bottom half of her face. She seemed to chomp. It would widen – Edwina would watch, always marvelling that it could go on widening so far and not split.

  Sailing on, into the drawing-room, to her chair. Hers when she’d lived at the Hall, it had arms and a high back and was faded purple satin. As always she was followed by Miss Kinross, her companion, on tiptoe, apologetic almost for being there (although she’d have needed to apologize even more if for any reason she’d dared not to be). She carried Grandma’s cushion, Grandma’s crochet, and her smelling salts, and also one or two mysterious bottles in a large bag. A red liquid and a pink liquid.

  Grandma sat down. And this was the funniest thing – it was as if, like in the fairy tales, everyone was altered just by her coming in. By her waving her magic wand. She, Edwina, so often pushed about, told where to go and What not to do, would feel suddenly important, all right. Father, Aunt Josephine, Mother, became, as she looked at them, half their real size.

  Last of all, Harry the footman brought in Bath Bun. He was an aged pug dog and was placed on Grandma’s lap, on a special crochet mat. His head slightly up, he looked round him, watching. Edwina thought he often gave looks of scorn to save Grandma’s energy.

  ‘Frederick,’ she announced. ‘I see we have Frederick amongst us.’

  ‘Present,’ Uncle Frederick said merrily. He wasn’t, never seemed afraid of her.

  ‘And what have you got to tell me, Frederick? News from the Court, news from sunny climes?’ She chomped While she waited for his reply. Then: ‘Quite a snap,’ she commented, passing on, leaving Adelina behind.

  They all had to speak up for themselves: that was the routine. Cora was, if not exempt, not taken very seriously. Soon she would be. Philip when he was there would go white with worry and forced attention. Giving an account of yourself, it was called.

  Father was spoken to sometimes as if he were a little boy. ‘Tom,’ she said today, ‘I’ve spoken to Holmes, I’ll thank you not to suggest that he holds back on the east copse – I was very displeased when I heard. That’s not the way to make the most of the estate.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll see to that, Mama.’

  ‘Edwina will tell me the capital of France –’

  It came out quick, cheeky. She felt pleased. The sun shone.

  ‘The capital of Italy.’ Easy.

  ‘The capital of Spain –’ Oh dear, not easy at all. She’d heard of it, but… She opened and shut her mouth like a fish. Uncle Frederick, sitting next to her, leaned over as if to tie his shoe lace, banged against her, breathing ‘Madrid’, turning it into a cough.

  ‘Come on,’ said Grandma, twisting Bath Bun’s ear, so badly that he began to shake it.

  ‘Madrid,’ shouted Edwina, ‘Madrid, Madrid.’

  ‘Child, I’m not deaf. Done well though. Please to be a little quicker next time. Helen, how is her French? I would like to hear that some German was being thought of, I have a great respect for the Germans – their ambitions, their capacity for hard work. I should like Philip to visit there. A spell at Heidelberg perhaps, Tom?’

  ‘We could see,’ Father said a little uneasily, crossing and uncrossing his legs. ‘He’s after all only thirteen.’

  ‘A tour of the whole Continent,’. Uncle Frederick said. ‘The Grand Tour is probably still the best. So much culture – even if it isn’t taken in, isn’t followed through, some always remains. Even for women,’ he added, glancing over at Mother, who wasn’t looking at him.

  ‘Bother culture,’ said Grandma, prodding Bath Bun absentmindedly. ‘Surely it is nearly tea-time?’

  Tea was more relaxed. The worst was over. And she wouldn’t stay very long afterwards, just enough perhaps to play a game of cards with Edwina and Aunt Josephine. A more complicated version of ‘Snap’: ‘Snip, Snap, Snorum’, which she’d played as a girl.

  How she ate! At one time Edwina had thought, until Philip laughed her out of it, that all grandmothers ate like that. Up and down went the large jaws, on maids of honour, curd tarts, seed cakes, Battenberg. The chomping really came into its own, with of course lots of licking of her lips before and after. Often too she licked her fingers, afterwards wiping them on her big embroidered napkin.

  She pronounced on Votes for Women. Her remarks were addressed rather challengingly to Mother, although it was she who’d brought up the subject. It seemed to be something she didn’t approve of.

  Mother didn’t respond. Politics left her cold, she said. Perhaps Frederick had something to say, about the women of Italy? ‘You have a special knowledge after all.’

  Father said: ‘I heard this rather pleasant story about Asquith, opening some university buildings in Wales, I think. The students asked him: “Are you in favour of Suffrage?” His reply was: “That’s a subject I prefer to discuss when ladies are not present…” ’

  Bath Bun yapped. He sat on a small chair beside Grandma, a plain napkin fastened around his neck with a gold pin. Miss Kinross had to tie it on. She became very nervous while doing it, the more so because Grandma snapped and chomped at her: ‘Be careful of him. You’ll throttle him one of these days. He’s only restless because he’s hungry. Poor little currant bun…’ He drooled. He drooled a lot in fact – hence the napkin.

  ‘ “He is foolish who supposes

  Dogs are ill that have hot noses,” ‘ said Uncle Frederick.

  ‘What profundity,’ said Mother.

  ‘Landor’s, not mine – I was about to remark that Landor had a Pomeranian, a little yellow pom, who commented on everything. Who was asked to comment on everything. A wag of the tail though, not a yap. He inspired that rhyme. I couldn’t aspire of course to such profundity. I had the memory from a very dear old lady whose mind is quite crystal clear about Florence in the ‘forties – though not, alas, about Florence in the twentieth century…’

  Bath Bun yapped again. His opinion. Usually he had a saucer of tea about halfway through the meal, or when he began to look restless for it. Edwina thought he was rather horrible. She felt he was sneaky – that if he’d been in the room alone with her he’d take note of what she was doing and then tell the grown-ups. She thought suddenly of music. Of the piano. If that pug found me playing, she thought, then he would hurry off, his legs goin
g like a rocking horse, off to tell them all: ‘Come on. Edwina’s making a funny noise on that thing in the billiard-room. Come on. She’ll break it, for certain…’

  That was What she was frightened of later that evening, when it wasn’t quite time to go to bed, and Grandma had gone and the grown-ups were out of the way resting. She wanted, she told Nurse, to go and see Macouba. He hadn’t seemed quite right yesterday. ‘Just for a moment.’

  The billiard-room was cold. No fire had been lit. She thought that her fingers would be stiff. But when she’d turned the top back and dared to sit down on the little embroidered stool and spread her hands out, they started almost at once to burn.

  She came down on the notes – six, seven sounds all singing together, and always the next sounds there in her head – only just in front of her hands so that she plunged and swam and made a torrent, a tempest. Her hands fed her head, then her head seemed to feed her hands and although it was there in the rest of her body – the tingle the glow the wild happy unhappy excitement – really it was coming all of it from the tips of her fingers. And so when the first rush had died down she let them stroke the keys, just the tips, her hands as wide as they would go. They would never open wide enough to receive all that excitement, growing and growing till she burst again and it was through, the sound flooded.

  She never heard the door open. She screamed with terror as two hands came round her eyes. She should have recognized them though – she recognized afterwards, thinking about it, their smell: some kind of scent, something soapy, ferny, and soft.

  ‘Is that what you do in here?’ he asked. ‘Is that what you meant?’

  ‘You gave me a horrid fright,’ she said sulkily. ‘I’m not supposed to be here –’

  He put his arm round her. ‘That’s not really playing of course, not What they call playing. But immensely exciting. You’ll have to have lessons, Little Bear. If you want to do anything about all this, you’ll have to have lessons. Shall I perhaps arrange what I can before I go? Then by the time I come again…’