Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  ‘He specially sang that one for me, you know,’ Cora said proudly, behind Edwina on the stairs. ‘Little lovin’ Sugar Babe…’

  ‘If you can tell someone is singing the music in his mind – then that is good.’ Franz jumps down from the stool. It is time for tea. ‘I wonder always – Rubenstein’s face. The expression, very intense. Cristina, what do you think, did you not think that always?’ He claps his little hands. ‘Good, Edwina. So good.’ Then after tea: ‘We take it very calmly, I think. when you are seventeen, eighteen – a year abroad. Salzburg, Vienna – I arrange something.’

  And Uncle Frederick, he would be there behind her. He would support her. She dreaded often the thought of telling Father and Mother, that after school she just might not after all do the Usual. (And that other sickening fear that she might be Called – just as boys were called to be Fishers of Men. Only that thought reminded her of Ben. Guiltily, remorsefully, angrily, she remembered that she didn’t want to think of him again, ever.)

  Already it was June. About the coming summer holiday in Bay she felt a great tiredness. The tiredness turned into a case of mumps: Fanny and Edwina, victims within a few days of each other, lay in bed side by side in the Infirmary. There was toast to eat, but it hurt too much when she tried to chew. She found herself crying.

  ‘Trust Mother Infirmarian,’ said Fanny. ‘It’ll be ship’s biscuits for supper. You wait.’ Outside the sun shone but they could only think of their swollen pain. One good thing though – Fanny seemed to want to be friends again. Just recently her moodiness had given way to a combination of the old teasing Fanny and a new calm, sometimes silent one given to occasional secret beatific smiles.

  ‘You look absolutely assy,’ she told Edwina as they sat up in bed drinking soup. ‘So fat in the face. Would you like to know something, by the way? I think I ought to tell you. I’m probably going to be a nun. It came to me, it was after Communion one day, that I have a vocation.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ Edwina said with joy in her heart. That they should both be chosen was unbelievable, impossible.

  ‘I think I’ll make rather a nice nun,’ Fanny said. ‘I shan’t enter here of course. But it’ll sort out all that messy business about my parents, and not knowing them at all. And not belonging…’

  Mother had arranged it all. She had been in touch with Marmee and taken her advice: Uncle Frederick and Aunt Adelina would be ten days at the Hall; then rooms with service had been booked in Bay, with a week first at the Victoria Hotel. They would be there all July and most of August.

  Aunt Josephine wrote that Aunt Adelina had brought: ‘A lot of hat-boxes, and a new maid who is Scotch, I believe.’ Edwina pined in the Infirmary. In the afternoons she and Fanny were allowed to walk up and down Montmartre in the June sunshine. It was a wonderful summer. Out in the bay the sun, shot silver, danced on the waves.

  Then, surprise: she had been meant to go home now – as was Fanny – but instead she was to go over to Bay immediately, to stay there the whole of Uncle Frederick’s holiday. Fanny was invited to come over whenever she liked.

  Forget about Ben and be happy. The day before she left she saw the cobles out at sea. I was silly, she thought. Babyish too, asking to be friends like that. Perhaps she could avoid him, perhaps Fanny would not be there too much. I shall be very dignified, she thought, and behave like a lady. I shall be a summer visitor.

  The rooms they had taken had a piano. It would be all happiness and beauty. Fanny said excitedly that she would sketch, do watercolours. She and Aunt Adelina would set up their easels amongst the scaurs at low tide, or up on the cliff. It was to be hoped that Aunt Adelina would not sing in the evenings, squawking horribly so that people passing their rooms might hear and laugh.

  But that first evening, eating together in the dining-room of the Victoria, even Aunt Adelina’s presence, too elaborately dressed, too heavily scented, couldn’t spoil the joy of reunion with Uncle Frederick. Just to look at him and to think that they would be together for weeks and weeks. She would play the piano for him as’ soon as they moved into the rooms.

  They would go over to Scarborough, just the two of them, to visit Franz.

  Aunt Adelina drank her soup delicately, putting the spoon down frequently and pausing. She was thinner this year and paler too but with the same hectic red spots high on her cheeks. She gazed round the dining-room, not paying much attention to Uncle Frederick or Edwina. Edwina was wearing her best dress, of white broderie anglaise, with a blue sash. She had wanted to wear one of the two frocks Aunt Adelina had brought as a present but she had been told, a trifle sharply, that they were for daytime. ‘They are nothing.’ (Delicate, fine, lace and embroidered insertions, a Claudine collar, care and expense written all over them, they were – nothing.) ‘You shall wear them every day.’

  She shan’t spoil my happiness, Edwina thought. She smiled at Uncle Frederick. He smiled back. He was looking idly too round the dining-room: ‘Quite a mixed bag, if I may use a shooting term.’ Aunt Adelina smiled at him almost as if he were a child, approvingly.

  ‘German there, I think,’ he said, raising an eyebrow, then saying something quickly in Italian. Edwina realized he meant the group at the next table but one: a very small, very fat man with a wife who was bigger but just as fat, two blonde children who appeared to be twins and a young girl, their nurse. The man’s voice carried: He was complaining. ‘In my country,’ Edwina heard him say to the waitress. ‘In my country…’ His soup was left untouched. Now he was protesting about the meat: he made signs to show he could not cut the beef. Edwina, sore still about the jaws, could manage hers, chewing it easily.

  Aunt Adelina tapped her hand. She was not to stare. But she herself continued to look surreptitiously. So did the two middle-aged ladies at the next table. One of them whispered to the other at each new piece of bad manners. Uncle Frederick said: ‘I think really this should be ignored. Edwina – when are we to meet Fanny?’ Edwina, eating strawberries and cream now (even the German family had not spurned these), talked happily.

  Her room, which looked out to sea, was large and comfortable. Before she settled she opened the curtains and then the window just a little. All these years of sleeping near the sea and yet so far from it: here she felt it was in the very room. when she woke in the middle-of the night, moonlight was streaming across her face. She leaned out. The moon, a great orb, seemed to rest on the dark sea. Everywhere still. She thought, down in the village Ben is asleep. For a few seconds she fancied that she could hear him breathing, breathed with him. And then she remembered.

  That first morning was for exploring. She and Uncle Frederick were the first in the dining-room. Afterwards they went for a walk – Aunt Adelina would not be up till eleven. As they came down New Street, appetizing smells wafted from the baker’s on their left. Some children carrying buckets hurried past. It was then that she saw, coming in their direction, head bent in concentration, clutching a large tin: Jack. She called out to him.

  ‘Where’s Fanny then?’ he said at once, looking straight at Edwina. He hadn’t noticed Uncle Frederick or he was shy. But Uncle Frederick was looking at him: ‘What’s that you have there?’ inclining his head, smiling interest. Jack took the cover off the tin. ‘Our dinner,’ he said proudly. Onion, carrot, stewing steak, liver, potatoes ranged round, and down one side a suet roll. ‘I’m going up bakehouse wi’ it.’

  ‘And how much will that cost you?’

  ‘A penny.’ She was surprised how he’d grown this last year: just twelve and taller than her. You could see he was Fanny’s cousin: although his eyes were larger and longer-lashed, they were set in the same way. He asked again, ‘when’s our Fanny coming?’

  ‘We must let you go,’ Uncle Frederick said. Then as Jack walked carefully off, ‘He’s very beautiful.’ A funny word to use, Edwina thought. She put her arm through his: ‘So much to show you, darling Uncle Frederick.’ And as they reached the Dock: ‘If you like drinking, do you know that from the Wayfoot you can see f
ive pubs?’ She added importantly : ‘And there’s some more you can’t see –’ The tide was up. People stood around. She looked to see if anyone had noticed her Uncle Frederick – how beautiful he was.

  The German family weren’t in the dining-room at midday but the two elderly ladies were. One of them smiled and bowed. Then on their way out, they stopped by the table.

  ‘Excuse me. Excuse me, but I couldn’t help hearing you address each other in Italian. My sister and I – is the little girl Italian? We are so interested.’

  ‘Interested,’ said her sister in a loud, definite voice.

  ‘I expect you have noticed, in fact I know you have-the quite appalling behaviour of a certain person. Our German cousins indeed.’ She lowered her voice: ‘We had wondered – a little word with the manager?’

  Aunt Adelina made soothing noises. There is such a one in every hotel…’

  ‘Our first visit here and he bids fair to spoil it utterly.’ Edwina watched her, fascinated: she had a face like a tortoise, springing up from her neck as she spoke. Her sister was smaller and less wrinkled, more moist. Both had very tightly curled iron-grey hair which bobbed about as they talked. ‘To get away, you see, has been such a triumph (“Triumph,” echoed her sister). We are half Yorkshire, you see, on the paternal side, and were determined to visit the North. Mother is eighty-four and not at all accustomed to our going away. But we were adamant on this occasion. Off on our own, we said, to walk. We love walking (“Walking,” came the echo). Our Father worked in the City and how he walked. Every day from Hornsey, wet or fine…’

  Edwina’s pudding was growing cold.

  ‘… We have quite forgotten to introduce ourselves-The Misses Hodgson. Mabel and Victoria. Of course we had to stay here – the name. Such a coincidence.’

  ‘I think,’ Aunt Adelina said, ‘there are many hotels named from your old queen.’ Mabel nodded. Fortunately the conversation, if it could be called that, was running down. Later Aunt Adelina grumbled: ‘We are not fortunate. These people shall attach themselves, Frederick. How to avoid?’

  About three o’clock they walked out together, to go to the beach. Aunt Adelina, carrying a frilly parasol and dressed in lilac with an underskirt which allowed only small steps, was looked at by everybody. Edwina thought, I don’t mind. She isn’t any real relation. But going slowly down the steps – what she hadn’t expected: excitement, terror, delight – the thought that perhaps she might see Ben. Afraid that she might. Afraid that she mightn’t.

  Matussi’s ice-cream cart was down on the beach. ‘Hokey pokey – no?’ Aunt Adelina said, pursing her lips. ‘You know, Edwina, how they arrive at this? First it is ecco un poco when they try to sell. “Here is a little”. Then it changes, because you English hear “hokey pokey”.’ She shook open her parasol. ‘So pretty. Like hanky panky. You like hanky panky, Edwina?’

  Fanny would come at the end of the week: ‘I am saying the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception every day now, if we share a room in the new place we could say it together…’

  Perhaps she was eager for Fanny to come. Perhaps she wasn’t? On the Friday morning Aunt Adelina, who wanted some biscuits to keep in her bedroom, sent her out shopping. Crawford, the maid, had left the day before to stay with her family in Aberdeen. Edwina went into Storm’s, the grocers. Several people were waiting. Being served was the German from the Victoria, Herr Brefeld. He was saying indignantly as she came in: ‘But that you must have – you look for it.’ He pushed his hands out in an impatient gesture. The boy behind the counter looked bewildered and flustered. ‘We don’t – what’s it for then?’

  Herr Brefeld made an exasperated clucking sound. ‘To push, to push on the bread – Verstehen?’ The boy had coloured and looked desperate. Herr Brefeld turned round as if to seek support. ‘What do I do?’ His gaze rested on Edwina, recognizing her. ‘Well, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She supposed what he wanted to be some sort of paste or spread. She said wildly: ‘Perhaps the carter will get it for you, from Whitby – ’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said self-importantly. ‘Who is this Carter, Herr Carter?’ He said to Edwina, ‘Please to arrange and send to the hotel.’ when she didn’t answer at once, he repeated, ‘Arrange, please!’

  Edwina said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then suddenly found herself crying. She felt, from behind, an arm go round her shoulders, clasping her roughly, letting her go again. She moved and recognized Ben’s mother. ‘Never mind. Don’t you mind –’

  There was a chorus of ‘It’s a shame – I never…’ Mutterings. Herr Brefeld stalked out: ‘Good day!’ Edwina was served next. She asked for the biscuits in a shaky voice. She smiled at Ben’s mother as she went out. She would have liked to say something.

  In the afternoon Aunt Adelina sat on the cliff top, her easel set up, Uncle Frederick on a folding stool beside her. Edwina, restless, didn’t want to stay with them. She walked slowly down the hill, looking at her feet most of the time. She was wearing one of the new dresses, at Aunt Adelina’s insistence. Although it was cool and comfortable it made her self-conscious. No one else passing was so delicate and frilly.

  Down in the Dock several fishermen were standing together, attending to lobster pots. One of them, bent over, in salt-stiffened cap, was Ben. At once she blushed: the colour creeping hotly from her belly to her face, to the roots of her hair. He hadn’t seen her. To go, or to stay? Then he turned. He too coloured. She saw it flood his face. He didn’t speak, just stood still.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said, ‘and don’t say my face is fat. It’s the mumps. Fanny and me, we both – I’m still swollen.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said awkwardly, ‘well, it is.’

  She rattled on nervously: ‘Don’t you like my dress? My aunt brought me two like this from Italy. I’m to be here probably nearly eight weeks.’

  ‘That’ll be grand then, won’t it?’

  A silence fell. She said suddenly: ‘I’d better be getting back.’ One of the men, older than her father and very grizzled, was looking at her curiously, as if about to laugh. She blushed again. Now she was angry. ‘I have to go.’

  She ran off very quickly. She didn’t look to see if he was looking. Her heart drummed. She felt sick. Oh Fanny, come and join us, soon.

  when the gong went for a meal there was an immediate exodus from all the hotel rooms. Soon everyone could be seen assembled on the two balustrades, Herr Brefeld pushing to be first down. The staff had begun to try avoiding him: their waitress could be seen bracing herself before coming over. ‘Prussian,’ Uncle Frederick commented. ‘Beating the French has done them no good.’

  He and Aunt Adelina read the newspapers, their faces composed in a solemn expression they wore no other time. They remarked about the trouble in Ireland. Aunt Adelina asked what it was all about and Uncle Frederick, explaining rather vaguely, said he hoped it wouldn’t lead to civil war. Aunt Adelina shivered and agreed. ‘All so unpleasing…’

  Sooner or later, Edwina realized, she would have to be at least once alone with her. Their last day at the hotel: ‘Come,’ Aunt Adelina said in the afternoon, ‘We go up. She comes and sees me, Frederick. It is too hot to be the artist today.’ As they walked up together Edwina found it in her to admire the pale linen skirt with its row of buttons running diagonally across. She thought: after all she is kind to Uncle Frederick.

  There were two wicker chairs, one with a footrest: Aunt Adelina took this. Edwina had not yet been in her room, one of the best in the hotel (she and Uncle Frederick slept separately. ‘Your aunt is such a light sleeper, Edwina’), and she had a good look round now, eyeing with mild curiosity the row of medicine bottles.

  ‘Sit down, Edwina. We talk. It is so long-you remember we speak together my first visit to England? We arranged then you shall visit Italy. We said fourteen years and now it is we who come here instead. But next year – if all is going well. There is trouble in Europe, yes, but it will go– You come then, next summer. No?’

  ‘Yes.’

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nbsp; Aunt Adelina looked at her intently, head on one side. ‘So big, and before you were a little girl. I don’t think you grow tall but you are – come direi? – quite already the woman. You like to be a woman, Edwina?’

  (Oh let me out of here. Let me open a window and make the sea blow away the scent, the smell.)

  ‘I can’t choose, can I? I mean, I am a girl.’

  ‘I say “woman”, Edwina. Your mother, sometimes I think she is not so pleased to be woman.’ She shook her head impatiently: ‘But that is not what I mean, I don’t explain well. Edwina, you like to eat a fruit? Please – in that basket there. You are friends with your mother?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ (And if I am to take sides, then I’m on her side, when I am with you.)

  ‘She is not happy, Edwina. She and Frederick – when they are children, so uncertain. I make good care of Frederick, he is happy now. There is no thing he want. I give it all. But your mother –’ She closed her eyes. ‘She has now this problem, Edwina. You know what is this little trouble?’

  Edwina, biting into a plum, felt the juice run cool down her chin. ‘She isn’t strong. Like you –’

  ‘Yes, she is strong, Edwina. But she is eager to drink. Sometimes, very much – then it is bad because she say things. She does what she doesn’t mean… I have told Frederick: “Speak of this to her. It is only kind – ” But for that he is obstinate. I tell you this Edwina only that you know, that you may be a good daughter.’

  Edwina didn’t answer. She looked instead out of the window. On the horizon, the calm line of the sea, a ship was becoming lost to view. Outside in the corridor some children ran by. One shouted, ‘I’ll tell on you –’

  ‘Where is their nurse?’ Aunt Adelina said primly. She sat up very straight: ‘But why do we talk of these sad affairs? These bad affairs. Instead I show you some beautiful shoes they make for me at home in Florence. My feet, you see, are difficult – so high.’ She swung her leg down: ‘Look away please, Edwina.’ A few moments later a silk stocking and a garter were laid across the bed end and she held up a bare foot, small and white, for Edwina’s inspection: arching it, making patterns with her toes, twisting and turning the fine-boned ankle. ‘I am fortunate, don’t you think? Peccato that he is always hidden. Yours – are they pretty, Edwina? You don’t answer – You are not upset about your mother, yes?’ She stretched her fingers out delicately. ‘We look at some clothes together. Before Frederick knocks at the door. Yes?’