A Fugue in Time

by Rumer Godden

  The Danes are proud of their glass, cut glass and plain heavy crystal; Selina buys a cocktail set in nineteen twenty-three, a set with red and black cocks on the glasses: Grizel equips the kitchen with Pyrex; but the Eye has a goblet with a George II florin embedded in a bubble in its base and Griselda has a precious set of Waterford given her for her wedding by Roly’s godfather, whom afterwards they call Uncle Bunny.

  Griselda’s wedding linen far outlasts Griselda. Grizel cuts some of her ample double sheets into sheets for single beds and has the monogram unpicked and embroidered in again; the sheets are as good as new. Two huge presses on the second floor hold the linen that Griselda’s mother thinks necessary for Griselda on her marriage; this is both added to and slightly denuded with the years; there are sheets and cot sheets, pillowcases, hemstitched and embroidered and edged with Limerick lace; there are sizes and sizes of bath towels and hand towels, and face towels with embroidered edges; there are huge damask tablecloths and large starched napkins to match; fragile tea-cloths, and there are Grizel’s lace dinner mats with the petit-point centres; there are blankets stored away for the summer and dusters in dozens that the maids have to hem.

  The Eye has a safe in his study for papers and another in his dressing-room where he keeps Griselda’s jewellery. Griselda’s jewels are good but not notable, but when Grizel inherits Lark’s things sometimes the Laudi emeralds are there. There are the rubies the Eye gives Griselda: his own ruby-and-diamond dress stud; Griselda’s sapphire engagement ring; the diamond brooch he gives her when Pelham is born and the brooches that follow, one for each child with each one’s birthday stone; there are seven brooches: the twins share and after Rollo Griselda does not need a brooch. There are the pearls that Rollo gave Lark. There is also, at times, with her other jewellery, Grizel’s engagement ring, a cameo, of a cherub with pink wings.

  On Griselda’s left hand as she lifts the strainer is a wide plain gold band; on Grizel’s left little finger that afternoon was a signet ring, the bird with a sheaf of wheat in its beak engraved on onyx, and the fire was reflected in it too. The glow had the effect of linking Pax and Grizel together; it warmed their cheeks and hands and shut them away in a circle by themselves, away from the shadowy depths of the staircase and the cold light beyond the window where the snowflakes fell. It gave them, at the tea-table, a feeling of intimacy.

  But I don’t want to be intimate with Pax, objected Grizel, and as if she were divided into two halves, one sterner than the other, she found herself asking herself, Then why did you ask him to tea?

  On the evening of that first day Pax had written Grizel a long apology. You needn’t have answered it, she told herself. If you wanted to be quit of him that was a crazy thing to do. And you went and had lunch with him next day and then you went and saw him in hospital. But I had to do that, argued the mild Grizel, that was common humanity. But not every day, snapped the other.

  Pax was talking, ‘… And so they built me two fingers,’ he was saying quite unaware and peacefully, ‘out of a little piece of my thigh. McCullough says they will look quite normal when it has all grown in. The man in the next bed to me had new lids to his eyes. They graft the skin on. Sometimes you give yours for someone else.’

  ‘If I had to be done,’ said Grizel, ‘I should prefer it to be my own thigh.’

  Pax laughed. ‘Oh Grizel! What a funny little self-contained creature you are.’

  ‘I was,’ said Grizel slowly. But now I am not, and I wish, I wish, I were, she cried silently and she said aloud before she could check herself: ‘I sometimes wonder if I contained anything else but self.’

  Pax looked at her in surprise and she stood up and pushed back her chair and went to the window. He did not move. He asked gently from the firelight, ‘What is wrong Grizel?’

  She said after a moment, ‘Pax, when you told me that they said they thought you would be all right, you meant all right for flying, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pax.

  ‘I have seen planes all my life,’ said Grizel to the snow. ‘Seen them and travelled in them. I remember in New York looking up from our balcony at night and seeing them go over with their lights. On a clear night it looked as if the stars were loose. But of course you don’t have lights.’

  ‘No, we don’t have any lights.’

  ‘Are you ever frightened Pax?’

  ‘I hope my particular fright won’t happen to me,’ he said. ‘Possibly it may not. Probably it will. One day I may be sent out over Italy.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Grizel turned round to him.

  ‘I have,’ said Pax and he went on steadily, looking at her. ‘I have thought of Italy more lately; almost continually. I wonder if it is that, that has brought Lark so vividly to my mind.’

  Don’t talk about Lark now, Grizel wanted to say jealously, when you … when I …

  ‘Laudi and Lark,’ he went on. ‘I don’t think I have ever thought of them as vividly and realistically as I do now.’ He looked at his hands, linked together in the firelight that lit the edges of them and made them look sensitive and thin. ‘It is so vivid that I have wondered if anything could have happened. We arranged, if anything did, that I could be reached through Switzerland where my cousin, Arno, is working in the Red Cross, but of course news would take ages to come. I think of her so much,’ said Pax. ‘Before, I thought of her as a child thinks of a grown-up person, as we are apt to think of people we have known all our life; now I think of her as a man of a woman.’ Grizel had another pang of jealousy and this time it was so sharp that it hurt her, and then Pax said, ‘I think of her, and the thought is bound up in you.’

  ‘In me?’

  ‘Yes. You,’ said Pax, looking at his hands.

  ‘Pax,’ Grizel had turned back quickly to the window, but she did not see the snow now, her eyes were fixed, deep with thought. ‘Pax, after the flying, after the excitement and the power, does anything seem real or desirable any more to you?’

  She did not have to wait for his answer; it was immediate and quite certain. ‘Real? Desirable?’ said Pax. ‘The earth? I think it is.’ He gave the four little words their full exact weight. ‘More than ever,’ said Pax, ‘do I realize and desire,’ and then he said, ‘Grizel …’

  The dressing-room door opened and Rolls came out, brushed and combed and washed, his coat changed, a fresh handkerchief in his pocket. He looked perfectly cheerful and unperturbed.

  ‘Here is Uncle Rolls,’ said Grizel quickly. ‘We must ask him to have some tea. It is our last day here you know and he must feel it terribly.’

  ‘He doesn’t look very disturbed,’ said Pax.

  ‘Well he ought to be,’ snapped Grizel, and she called, ‘Uncle Rolls, come and have some tea.’

  Rolls looked from one of them to the other. Grizel thought he was going to refuse and she went to him and took his arm. ‘I haven’t seen you for days,’ she said. ‘Come and have tea with us. You remember Pax, Pilot Officer Masterson? He came to see us because of Lark.’

  ‘Lark?’ She thought a beam of light, a spark quivered in his eyes and she went on insistently. ‘The Marchesa Zacca del Laudi. Pax is her nephew and he is the Marchese now. You remember him Uncle Rolls.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Rolls considering her. ‘But why are you so excited? I hear you Grizel.’

  ‘Have you done your packing?’ asked Grizel leading him to the table.

  ‘No,’ said Rolls shortly.

  Grizel poured out his tea, and filled Pax’s cup. ‘Pax,’ she said, ‘you talk so much about her, tell me what she is like.’

  There was something intrusive and clamorous in her words. Pax looked across at Rolls and Rolls looked at Pax. There was a sympathy between them from which Grizel was shut out. ‘Tell her,’ said Rolls. ‘Grizel, you asked me to tea and now you don’t give me any tea.’

  Grizel hastily passed him his cup and poured out another for herself. Her hand was shaking.

  ‘You would think she was a very tall old lad
y,’ said Pax to her, watching her gently with his eyes that looked small and bright. He put out a hand and pulled her down in her chair. ‘Sit still Grizel.’ He said: ‘She is tall and – upright; yes, that is the word for her. Though she is old her figure is young, but her left hand has a perpetual little shake. She is vain and she tries to hide it by using a stick, a carved ebony stick, and she always holds it in that hand.’ Rolls smiled. Grizel, watching him minutely, saw that smile.

  ‘Her hair is white and she wears it high with combs,’ Pax went on, ‘and she wears earrings. She likes long earrings and she has exquisite filigree ones and they emphasize her eyes and the bones of her face. I told you she was vain.’ Grizel saw Rolls, still with that smile, nod his head.

  ‘Her eyes are startling,’ said Pax. ‘They always were?’ he asked Rolls.

  ‘They were startling memorable eyes,’ said Rolls.

  ‘I think they are even more noticeable now that her hair is white,’ said Pax. ‘They are beautiful eyes,’ he said to Grizel. ‘They are blue, not true blue like yours, but half violet.’

  ‘Are mine true blue?’ asked Grizel, but Pax was still telling of Lark.

  ‘She is quite all right, quite safe,’ said Pax to Rolls. ‘She is down at Laudi. She would have Ranulph with her. Ranulph is our St Bernard dog. She will see hardly anyone but Leonarda, Leonarda is her old maid, and Battiste Volpi. Battiste Volpi is the head gardener and he is devoted to her. She liked to be there alone in the garden. It is a green garden,’ he explained to Grizel. ‘It has a famous grove of willow trees, and it has a river and old marbles. She grew flowers there. She liked flowers more than people I often thought.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Rolls disagreeably. ‘I haven’t had time for flowers.’

  Grizel looked at him in astonishment but Pax went on, ‘Of course, I haven’t seen her for two years.’

  ‘I don’t need to see her,’ said Rolls and it sounded to Grizel as if he crowed over Pax, and looking at him she thought suddenly of the first day when he had touched her, turned up her chin to see her face and she remembered the warmth of his touch. Uncle Rolls, you are jealous! she said to herself and he looked up and met her look.

  ‘Why don’t you have a romance of your own?’ he suggested kindly.

  Grizel was immediately confused and half angry. ‘I am – busy,’ she said gruffly.

  ‘You must be,’ said Rolls gravely. ‘She is the youngest officer in the whole corps,’ he told Pax and his voice was half derisive and half proud. ‘In my day you worked ten years and not ten minutes before you got promotion but, well – I expect they are proud of you,’ he bantered Grizel.

  ‘They are not,’ cried Grizel hotly.

  ‘What? Don’t they like you, hey?’

  ‘They call me “the Great Dane”,’ said Grizel.

  ‘So they did me,’ said Rolls chuckling. ‘So they did me.’

  ‘Pax, you ought to go,’ said Grizel. ‘Your appointment is at five.’

  ‘Yes, I shall have to,’ said Pax looking at his watch. ‘I have to see my beauty doctor, sir, and get to Wimpole Street.’ He looked at Grizel. ‘Come with me?’

  ‘No,’ said Grizel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pax, getting up.

  She hesitated and then stood up too. Rolls’s eyes were surveying them both. His eyes, she thought, looked extraordinarily tired. They seemed sunk in shadows.

  ‘Proutie says you have been sitting up all night,’ she said. ‘While I have been on this late duty, you have been up all night. You shouldn’t do it, Uncle Rolls.’

  His eyes at once lost their dreaminess, they were no longer sunk; they glared. ‘There is one rule in this house Grizel and you are going to keep it,’ said Rolls glaring down at her, ‘or even for this remaining night you can go. I don’t wish to be disturbed, and I shall not be disturbed. Do you understand? You can sleep at the hotel.’

  ‘This is my night off,’ said Grizel looking straight back at him, ‘but I shan’t sleep at the hotel.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be best,’ said Pax, ‘if you came out dancing with me?’

  ‘No,’ said Grizel.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pax.

  Rolls smiled. ‘I think that is a good idea,’ he said. ‘It will get you out of the way. But won’t you come and dine here with us first?’ he asked Pax. ‘It is the last time I can ask you. Dine with me, but after dinner you must go out together and leave me in peace.’

  ‘But won’t you come?’ asked Pax.

  ‘Good God my God no!’ said Rolls. ‘I want to be left alone. The condition is that I am left alone.’

  ‘I shall come back then, after the doctor,’ said Pax. ‘Thank you, sir. I shall have to ring up first. About eight? Come along Grizel.’ He took her elbow to turn her to the stairs.

  ‘Don’t pull me about. I can go alone,’ snapped Grizel but Pax took no notice. He led her to the top of the stairs.

  ‘Get your coat,’ he said. ‘Be quick,’ and Grizel went quietly into Selina’s room. Rolls watched them; he watched Grizel come out with her coat and stand waiting for Pax; together they ran down the stairs. Rolls crossed the landing and went to the window and watched them go away down the Place.

  ‘Rollo?’ It was a whisper.

  ‘Lark? We have been talking of you.’ He plunged into his objection. ‘You like that boy don’t you?’

  ‘And what about your little minx Grizel?’ said the cool musical voice that always seemed for Rolls to make everything clear. ‘You like her too.’

  ‘I didn’t at first, I do now. She seems necessary,’ said Rolls.

  ‘She is necessary,’ said the Marchesa regretfully.

  ‘You don’t like her Lark?’

  ‘She is a cold little fish. I hope she doesn’t hurt my Pax. She is a Dane. Her head is stronger than her heart.’

  ‘She is learning,’ said Rolls. ‘I don’t think you are quite fair.’ And he added, ‘She is a pretty thing. That makes it easy for me to like her.’

  ‘She isn’t half as pretty as I was at her age. I was a beauty. You should have seen me my first winter in Rome.’

  ‘I saw you,’ said Rolls. ‘Lark, those two, this afternoon …’

  ‘Don’t envy them,’ said the Marchesa quickly. ‘We mustn’t envy them. It isn’t safe.’

  ‘But they still have their chance. We might have been so happy.’

  ‘Hush,’ said the Marchesa. ‘What is the use of disturbing it? We are happy now.’

  ‘All the same, I wish, I wish it were you who were dining with me to-night, really, actually, and not those two.’ There was resentment in the way he continually said ‘Those two.’

  ‘My boy? Your girl? Don’t be angry with them. They continue us and so they are us Rolls. I shall be dining with you to-night. Shall it be summer or winter?’ asked the Marchesa. ‘Shall we be in the dining-room with the peacock curtains drawn, and the candlelight shining on the table and the silver and the portrait frames? With the clock ticking, and a fire? And the comfortable smell of wine and soup and bread, and I believe you have a pheasant Rolls? And nuts and figs and raisins, and coffee afterwards? Or shall it be summer? Have you noticed,’ she asked, ‘that it is always winter at the front of the house and summer in the garden? Shall it be summer and after dinner you can go out on the balcony and smoke your cigar? But have you a cigar?’

  ‘A private store – for occasions.’

  ‘This is an occasion. And I shall sing for you. Now I smell lime-flowers Rolls.’

  ‘Not lime-flowers, yellow roses,’ said Rolls.

  As Rolls stood there by the landing window, from far down below in the house there seemed to come the sound of singing; it sounded out into the garden and faintly up the stairs.

  Ah – ahahahahahah – ah

  Ah – ahahahahahah – ah …

  Up the scale and down the scale: –

  Ah – ahahahahahah – ah

  Ah – ahahahahahah – ah …

  In thirds: –

  Ah – ah

 
Ah – ah.

  And then rounding more clearly into a song: –

  O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

  And call the cattle home,

  And call the cattle home,

  Across the sands of Dee!

  The first song that was ever sung in the house is sung by the first underhousemaid while Griselda and the Eye are still on their honeymoon; her name is long ago forgotten but the song is there. The Eye is a Whig but his housemaid sings ‘Bonnets of Blue’ for the Tories. She has another song and that is called ‘Rosaleen, the Prairie Flower’: –

  On the distant pra – irie

  Tum ti tum, tum ti tum, tum tee tee …

  There is of course Mrs Crabbe’s song: –

  Chick chick chick chick chick chick

  Lay a little egg for me.

  There are songs in the drawing-room and kitchen and nursery; there are ballads and laments; so many of the songs are so mournful and so many of them are Scottish: –

  And he bowed doon his bonny head,

  And red, oh red, the blude ran doon.

  The children’s songs are sad too: dead children; dead kittens; dead birds; but as brisk as Mrs Crabbe is a certain nursery song that all the children like: –

  My mother told me

  I never should

  Play with the gypsies

  In the wood.

  And she told me

  If I did,

  She would rap my fingers

  With the teapot lid.

  ‘Your hair won’t curl,

  Your shoes won’t shine

  And I shall not consider you

  A little girl of mine.’

  There are war songs, of five wars: –