Marling Hall

by Angela Thirkell

  Mr Marling said in a loud voice that here we were at Christmas Eve again, which was so unanswerable that all conversation died and the announcement of dinner was a great relief.

  Captain Barclay found himself very comfortably placed between Miss Bunting and Lucy, both of whom were staunch friends if a little alarming. He also had the great pleasure of seeing Lettice across the table in animated conversation with David and feeling that his house was indeed built on sand.

  ‘Isn’t it sickening,’ said Lucy, hardly troubling to lower her powerful voice, ‘Bunny’s put me next to Oliver and of course he’ll talk to Frances all the time about poetry and things and I wanted to ask him if I could use his car tomorrow because I don’t want to waste my petrol taking people to church, so I’ll have to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Captain Barclay, returning with a jump from his own meditations, ‘do let’s talk.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ said Lucy. ‘You must have been thinking.’

  The amount of scorn she put into this simple statement roused Captain Barclay’s sense of politeness.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Lucy,’ he said. ‘I was thinking, and I’ll tell you what – I mean I’ll tell you what I was thinking about. I thought how nice it would be if one could suddenly make one’s arms very long and stretch them out under the table and catch someone’s feet that one don’t like and pull him off his chair right under the table and kick him.’

  As he said this his usually pleasant face assumed a perfectly ferocious air. So conscious was he of the glance of dislike which he had thrown towards David that he wished he had not spoken, but Lucy took it as a very good joke and laughed so much that she choked and begged Captain Barclay between her chokes to hit her on the back, which he obligingly did. Lucy then told him what, in various senses of that phrase, she would like to do to people she didn’t like, and so enthralling was the subject that Captain Barclay quite forgot his troubles for the moment, and Lettice, casting a slanting look across the table, thought that if Lucy and he were made to be happy together she might as well have a little happiness herself and threw herself conversationally into David’s arms more than ever.

  Miss Bunting, having seen that Captain Barclay and Lucy were happily settled, was able to devote her whole attention to Bill Marling who to her represented the norm; that is he had been properly brought up by a nannie, had been to the right prep school, the right public school, was in the right regiment, was the husband of a very suitable wife and the father of very suitable children, to whose dullness she was disposed to turn a lenient eye, and would come in for the right kind of property which he would run, if Fate allowed it, in the right way. The conversation was almost entirely about the children, and Mrs Marling from her son’s other side was drawn into it, so that Mr Harvey with his neighbour Lettice monopolised by David found himself deserted. This he did not mind, for he was in the throes of poetry and having learnt as a civil servant to do his literary work in office hours found but little difficulty in continuing it in society. One or two phrases in Jehan le Capet’s Belphégor were still worrying him and as he ate his turkey he was able to consider several variants, each of which seemed to him more satisfactory than the last. He had been looking forward to the dinner party for some time, not from any particular love for the Marlings, though he liked Oliver well enough and admired Lettice as a woman, though as an intelligence one had to admit that she simply did not exist, but because his sister had been so very testy and uppish of late that any change from her society was welcome. In vain did he remind himself that he was a Government official of proved capacity, due for recognition in the Honours List before long, a poet recognised by the people who read his poetry, that Tape and Sealing Wax and Regional Commissioners were engaged in a titanic struggle for his services; the fact remained that Frances not only looked upon him as a younger brother, which indeed he was, but would treat him as such. And considering that he was a Principal while she was simply a temporary clerk for the duration, and a woman at that, he could sometimes hardly bear it. There was the Board of Tape and Sealing Wax in London (for with its dignified conservative tradition it had been last in the race for Blackpool, Harrogate, Malvern and other health resorts and had been obliged to stay in town as nothing short of a mammoth hotel would hold it) clamouring for his special knowledge; there was Peter clamouring for them to come and share his flat; and just because Frances thought of marrying Oliver Marling he had to put the Board and Peter off day by day with excuses. If this went on much longer both would lose interest and he and Frances would be landed in Barsetshire for the rest of the war. And there was the ever-present and ever-growing irritation of Mrs Smith, who far from bringing the hen back had managed to get another of the Red House hens to keep it company till its convalescence was complete, which would be – or so Hilda said – when she had got the whole lot. Hilda too was getting tired of Geoffrey and was too apt to remember that she had been his under-nurse, though very unfairly she did not so often remember that she had also been under-nurse to Frances. Flown by turkey and some very good burgundy he invented a scene in which he told Frances and Hilda exactly what he thought of them, defied Mrs Smith and went up to London alone to live in Peter’s flat and reknit the threads of Bloomsbury life. If Frances wanted to marry Oliver, let her, though it seemed hard on Oliver.

  From these pleasant musings he was roused by the sound of voices raised in argument, one of the voices, inevitably, being Lucy’s. The theme under discussion was Who are our Allies with divagations into the question of Who is at War with Whom, and as no one had any accurate knowledge on the subject there was a wide field for surmise. Mr Marling took the view that if that feller in India with spectacles and all his ribs stickin’ out had been shot out of hand we’d be able to get somewhere. Natives were England’s curse, he said. Look at the world now with natives loose all over the place makin’ a mess of everything. On being pressed for his definition of natives he said, ‘Well, foreigners then,’ which raised a storm of protest from his younger hearers.

  ‘But Pater,’ said Mrs Bill, Pater being a name to which Mr Marling took peculiar exception though he had never quite liked to tell his daughter-in-law so to her face, and if he had she would only have thought it was one of Pater’s funny old ways and gone on using it, ‘Hitler’s a foreigner, but you can’t exactly call him a native.’

  Lucy said stoutly that he was and Mrs Bill laughed, because Lucy was always so amusing.

  ‘Now, what about the Chinese,’ said David, leaping into the fray. ‘They are undoubtedly natives, but one would hardly call them foreigners. I think to be a foreigner one has to be a European.’

  Mr Marling said things had come to a pretty pass if we had to have natives for allies.

  Several members of the party endeavoured to explain to him what he really meant, but were all bellowed down by Lucy.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Lucy looking round with the air of a distinguished but autocratic lecturer till every one was hypnotised by her gaze and by the noise she made, ‘when we went to tea at the Deanery, Mrs Morland said a very good thing and I’ve thought about it several times. She said the Russians weren’t exactly our allies, except that us both being attacked by Hitler made us have to pull together, because they certainly wouldn’t have done anything for us if Hitler had left them alone. And I think the Chinese are the same. I mean they can’t exactly call us allies, because we didn’t do anything for them till the Japs started fighting us, so we are the kind of allies to them that the Russians are to us.’

  She looked proudly round and ate some more turkey.

  ‘A very well-reasoned and cogent argument,’ said David.

  ‘Rot,’ said Lucy.

  ‘— which leads us,’ David went on, ‘to a consideration of the following thesis: if the Russians are to us as we are to the Chinese, what are the Chinese to the Russians?’

  ‘They aren’t anything,’ said Lucy, who was much enjoying this intellectual conversation, ‘because neith
er of them have done anything for each other.’

  ‘According to the arguments we have just heard,’ said Oliver, ‘there are no such things as allies.’

  Miss Harvey said with the easy condescension of a university woman that David’s thesis was reducible to a very simple arithmetical formula: as x is to y, so y is to z. This would give the value of z as y2 divided by x. She then paused.

  ‘Then,’ said David, looking with earnest interest at Miss Harvey, ‘the English squared divided by the Russians equal the Chinese.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Miss Harvey, flushing and looking, for a lady at a dinner party, almost cross. ‘I merely wished to demonstrate the absurdity of trying to reduce human relationships, or rather international relationships from which the human element can never be absent, to any definite terms.’

  ‘And so you did,’ said Mr Harvey in a very unbrotherly way.

  If the Harveys had been at home Miss Harvey would have said, ‘Don’t be a fool, Geoffrey,’ but being among friends she contented herself with a swift look of dislike at her brother which she quickly converted into a look of exquisite tolerance for Oliver, whose eyes were hurting so much that he did not fully appreciate it.

  Mrs Bill said it seemed so dreadful about the Americans.

  ‘Well, well, blood is thicker than water,’ said Mr Marling. ‘Lots of fellers married American girls when I was a young man.’

  Everyone then told everyone else about the girls, or men, they had known who married American men, or girls.

  ‘What I mean is,’ said Mrs Bill, who had great powers of sticking to her point however pointless, ‘that the Americans being English originally makes one feel particularly sorry for them, especially at Christmas, because the Japanese are simply idolaters.’

  Captain Barclay said he felt much sorrier for us.

  ‘But after all,’ said Mrs Bill, cheering up, ‘we are all like one big nation now.’

  ‘President Roosevelt and ministers of state defend us!’ said David. ‘Not now, not ever, Mrs Bill. But truly allies, I think, because we have done something for each other and I hope we’ll do some more. If Miss Harvey could give us the formula —?’ He looked at Miss Harvey who had quite recovered her temper and shook her head laughing.

  ‘Oh! W, X, Y, Z,

  It has just come into my head,’

  said Oliver thoughtfully, ‘that much as I may dislike my cousin David at times —’

  David blew him a kiss.

  ‘— if anyone tried to annoy him I should be glad to give that person a whack in the eye.’

  Several voices, headed by Lucy’s, gave their opinions on Anglo-American relations.

  As soon as a lull occurred Miss Bunting, who with Mrs Marling and Bill had remained a silent audience of the debate, cleared her throat.

  ‘I think,’ she said, her voice and expression assuming the stern tenderness which was her attitude to her old pupils, ‘that although the English and the Americans have been parted for a great many years, for so long that they have forgotten on both sides what the quarrel was really about, we cannot quite forget that they were our children once. Children for whom one has cared deeply – I cannot of course speak of children of my own, but of the many who have been under my care – may do many things that wound or offend one and there are times when one may feel hurt and angry. But if any of those children get into trouble we forget all that is past in our wish to stand by them, and the more so if the trouble comes to them unprovoked, through treachery and brutality.’

  There was a moment’s silence and a slight embarrassment among the company.

  ‘Good old Bunny,’ said David, raising his glass and bowing to her. ‘And never shall I forget how you stood up for me when John came back for the holidays and said the pony that Uncle Giles – most meanly I must say – had given to us both was only mine on Tuesdays and Fridays, which were the days I went to the Vicarage for my Latin coaching. And just after I had thrown the schoolroom kettle-holder down the back stairs too. When I am married,’ he added, turning to Lettice, ‘Bunny will be an honoured pensioner at my board and tell my children what an angel their papa was. I do hope my wife will take it in good part.’

  Lettice said she was sure she would.

  The dessert, consisting chiefly of some ginger and some crystallised fruits mysteriously obtained by David and presented to his Cousin Amabel on the condition that she should ask no questions, having been rather greedily eaten, Mrs Marling, who knew that her husband would propose the king’s health if not checked, collected the ladies and went away. Not that she entertained any but the most loyal feelings for His Majesty, but America had been embarrassment enough for one evening.

  As Miss Harvey left Oliver’s side she managed to lay her hand for a moment on his coat sleeve and Oliver was annoyed to feel a slight thrill, although at the same time he wished to goodness that she wouldn’t touch him so much. Captain Barclay, standing aside to let Mrs Marling and Miss Bunting pass, saw David pick up Lettice’s bag from the floor and give it to her with what seemed to him quite exaggerated courtesy. Nor did he see any reason why David should remain standing for an instant and look down into his cousin’s eyes. But this was no reason why he should not talk shop to David over the port, and as always he felt the indefinable charm which consisted chiefly in being Davidish, and thought very generously that no one who competed with David would have very much chance.

  ‘Here, you, Carver,’ said Mr, Marling, suddenly interrupting himself in the middle of a discussion that he and Bill were having about the re-letting of a farm on the property, ‘you’re not having any port.’

  ‘Harvey, Papa dear, not Carver,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Same thing,’ said Mr Marling testily.

  ‘The bottle stands with you, Harvey,’ said David, suddenly becoming Peacockian in appreciation of his cousin William’s peculiarities. ‘Buzz it and let us have a catch. Come, I’ll strike up first.’

  ‘You’ll never get a glass of port like this again,’ said Mr Marling. ‘Last in the cellar.’

  Mr Harvey thanked his host very much and said he never took more than one glass of port because it didn’t suit him.

  As Mr Marling showed imminent signs of bursting with rage at the pseudo-Carver’s milksop spirit, Bill hastily intervened and said he had been round the cellar on Tuesday and there were a dozen in the bin next to the old cider cask.

  ‘A dozen, eh?’ said Mr Marling, determined to make the worst of it. ‘Well, they’ll see me out.’

  ‘Come, come, sir, we all hope to see you live to a green old age and drink confusion to Boney at your great-grandson’s christening,’ said David, to the intense delight of Bill and Oliver who relished their father’s oddities.

  Mr Marling, also softened by the Davidishness of David, smiled grimly and in an access of hospitality insisted on re-filling Mr Harvey’s glass himself.

  ‘It’s a pity I don’t know a catch,’ said David reflectively. ‘Something about a monk so grey and a damsel fair, And a trolling bowl to drown Old Care. Does that sound right?’

  ‘Quite authentic,’ said Mr Harvey, who could enter into a literary jest with any man in Illyria. He then drank all his port at a gulp, eyed narrowly and suspiciously by his host who could not abide to see a good wine so treated. Mr Marling, despairing of the rising generation, took them all to the large drawing-room. Here, in accordance with a long established custom at Christmas, he did violence to his feelings by staying with his family instead of going to write letters, though as he went to sleep almost at once he felt the violence the less.

  Lettice would have liked to talk to Captain Barclay, or if this were impossible, and indeed she hardly knew what she wanted to say to him except that whatever it was it could not be said before a roomful of people, then to David. He had been the most delightful dinner companion and when he had, as they got up after dinner, looked steadily into her eyes, she had taken up the challenge and looked back, and with the cruel, secret triumph that the nicest of w
omen can feel, had been certain that her gaze left him troubled. But it was Mr Harvey who approached her first and flinging his lock of hair off his forehead sat down near her. Lettice made the best of a bad job by enquiring after his translation of Belphégor and so by a natural transition, after Mr Harvey had talked about himself for nearly half an hour, to Mademoiselle Duchaux, asking how she was.