by Jane Bailey
‘I’m not snuggled up to anyone.’
‘Oh yes you are. You couldn’t be closer. Don’t tell me you don’t remember him? Arthur Fielding?’
I felt a wave of horror but quickly realized he had read the names printed underneath in the caption. ‘Ah yes, Arthur. So you spotted your old friend, Pippa, too?’
‘Funnily enough, I didn’t recognize her at first. She’s looking a bit glum, isn’t she? But yes, I can see it’s her all right. Fancy you two meeting up like that. It was such a huge story at the time, that ship going down. Gosh, you’ve been through the wars, haven’t you? I know you told me about it and everything, but it really brought it home to me, seeing that picture.’
‘So, have you seen anything of Pippa, lately?’
‘No, I told you – our paths hardly cross any more. I only used to see her if I went up to town, really. Though I did go to a couple of house parties at her place, ages ago.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Hickleton. Here in Gloucestershire. Ashleycroft Hall. Place is falling apart a bit now, not surprisingly.’
‘Poor Pippa. So she’s not much of a prospect for anyone, then?’
‘Not on the material side, anyway.’
I tried to sound as casual as I could, desperate not to let this topic peter out before I had learnt something new. ‘She’s a very attractive woman, though. I should think most men would be happy to marry someone like her.’
He laughed with a slight sneer. ‘Most men of my class, Dora, are looking for one of three things: money, if the family pile is falling apart, or a family pile, if they didn’t inherit one.’
‘And the third thing?’
‘Oh, well, if they’ve plenty of money and no need of property, then they’ll go for the looks alone. But of course they’ll want a woman who’s unsullied.’
‘Unsullied? You mean . . . ?’
‘A beautiful virgin. If a man wants heirs he wants them to be half decent to look at and his without a shadow of doubt.’
Now he had my interest. I lowered my voice. ‘You mean you think Pippa’s not . . . unsullied?’
He threw back his head and chuckled. ‘Pippa? Philippa Barrington-Hobb? And my Aunt Nelly!’ I was confused, and I must have shown it. ‘Dear Dora, I don’t want to besmirch the name of a gal I’ve known for years, and Lord knows she could do with a spot of luck, but I wouldn’t put money on it.’
I was suddenly struck by a vile thought. ‘My God, Ralph, you haven’t slept with her, have you?’
‘Me?’ He smiled benignly. ‘No, I’m looking for a virginal, salt-of-the-earth sort of girl. The sort who values honesty and loyalty. The sort I can trust.’
I could see he was flattered by my concern, so I tried to appear a little less bothered about him and more bothered about Pippa. ‘So no one’s interested in her, then, poor thing?’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about Pippa, young Dora. She can take care of herself. She knows a trick or two.’
And then Irish coffee arrived and he changed the subject, and I was left with the horrible thought that Pippa knew a trick or two. I was desperate to know what her tricks consisted of. But Ralph knew a trick or two himself.
‘Tell me about your boyfriend.’
‘I’d rather not.’
He looked me in the eyes. ‘I respect that. I respect your loyalty to him.’ Then he took a sip of coffee and was silent for a while. ‘He’s a lucky man,’ he said at last. ‘He knows what matters in life. Not wealth and flighty girls but good, strong values. That’s what I’m looking for too. These are the values I treasure most: loyalty and honesty.’
When he walked me home, I still half expected to see Arthur jump out of the flower beds, but he did not. Ralph gave me another of his respectful but tender goodbyes, and I was left to lie alone, tormented by his slight kisses and by his thinly veiled promises of loyalty. What if Arthur never came back? What if he had misunderstood my closing the door on him as a gesture of finality and not, as it was, of injury? What if he fell in love with the woman who had murdered his own brother? It was unthinkable. But I couldn’t tell him now. I couldn’t say what she’d done now, not now that I knew about their betrayal. He would just think I was being spiteful. There was only one thing I could do. I could warn her. I could tell her that I knew what she’d done, and that I remembered everything. Tomorrow I could check up on the place name Ralph had mentioned. Hickleton or Hickleford or something. In Gloucestershire. Ashleycroft Hall, Hickleton. I thrashed about under the covers, unable to get comfortable and unable to find sleep. When it eventually found me, I was rudely awoken by Edith’s alarm clock, set for her God-awful early church communion, and I was dreaming about Pippa. She was standing in the bedroom wearing a top hat and a purple cloak. When I asked her what she was doing, she smiled slyly, produced a rabbit from under my pillow, and said she was just teaching me a few tricks.
19
ARTHUR
Yes. I took directions from the pub to Ashleycroft Hall. It was a ten-minute walk down a country lane with hedgerows so high that the house took me by surprise. It stood back from the road some fifty yards, a greying Cotswold-stone building with the pale yellow it had once been visible here and there beneath the budding creeper. It was a symmetrical building with grouped tall chimneys, crenellated parapets, and stone mullions and transoms at the panelled windows. I would later discover that it dated back to the fifteenth century and was built by a prosperous wool merchant. But then, on that long-ago spring afternoon, it merely looked daunting.
The door was answered by Pippa, looking relaxed and kittenish in short slacks and a soft pullover. Her hair was tied up with some chiffon in a petite ponytail. I had never seen her look so casual, and it thrilled me.
‘Let me show you to your room, sir,’ she said mischievously, and I followed her up a grand staircase that split off in two directions. She took me to the left, and we entered a modestly decorated guest room with a view to a fine lawn at the back of the house.
‘Crumbs, this place is huge,’ I said foolishly. I’d managed to buy a bunch of roses for her mother near the bus station, and I was still holding them. I put them on the bed awkwardly while she took my coat.
‘Come on, let me show you the rest of the house.’
‘Hadn’t we better say hello to your parents first?’
‘Oh, Arthur! You are a sweetie!’
She took me by the hand and pulled me off to visit the many rooms. There was the library, filled with musty books that looked ancient. ‘Daddy likes dark red books best, so the brown ones are over in that corner. It’s all colour coordinated. He’s never read any of them.’
‘Oh. I imagined him to be an educated man.’
‘Lord, no. More of a Neanderthal.’
‘A Neanderthal?’
‘Well, a bit of a monkey, anyway.’
I didn’t pursue this, as I was being invited to take in the drawing room, with its heavy dark furniture and sunlit shards of dust motes so thick they looked solid. The chairs were elaborate and hard, and I tried to picture her monkey father sitting here and smoking a pipe. Where was he? Presumably in another room. We visited the grand hall, the kitchen, the pantry, the dining room and the orangery. I could hardly take my eyes off the dark wisps of velvety hair on her neck and the floating of the chiffon as she moved her head. All the rooms smelt faintly of damp and polish, apart from the kitchen, which had the sweet aroma of slightly rotting food. I felt like a small boy who had been invited to play at a friend’s house and who didn’t understand the rules of another family.
‘This is Mummy’s favourite room,’ she told me as she slumped into a wicker chair in the orangery. From giant green pots on the tiled floor, great palms and rubber plants emerged, and strange hothouse plants I had never seen sent huge luxuriant stems in a tangle across the glass ceiling. It was warm and humid in there, and I was surprised by the room’s lush, jungly tang.
‘It’s lovely. Where is your mother?’
‘Oh, Mummy’s away
for the weekend. She’s gone to town.’
I was a little put out by this. Was she playing games with me? I had understood that she wanted me to meet her parents, but perhaps I had been wrong.
‘What about your father? Where’s he?’
‘Oh he’s . . . he’s away.’
So she had merely invited me here to tantalize me. I felt suddenly exasperated with her.
‘So you’re here alone?’
‘Yes! Isn’t it wonderful?’
Well, of course it was wonderful. A beautiful woman and a house in the country all to ourselves – what man could resist? But if I had managed to repress my sense of guilt for the time being, I was now hampered by a feeling of hurt. It took me by surprise, like so many of the emotions that Pippa aroused in me. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, where I tried to take stock. I had to get back to Dora. I wanted her arms around me, her softness, her gentleness, her certainty. I wanted to retrieve all her love and respect. Pippa’s tricky behaviour made me feel stupid and furious and weak. And excited. When I returned to the orangery she had brought a tray of tea and fruit and placed it on a low table between the opposite chairs. She sat in one of them, facing me, naked to the waist.
She held out a peach in her hand. ‘I thought you’d like some refreshment.’
I went over to her and kissed her breasts. Then, in the exotic foliage of the jungle around us, I urgently removed her slacks. She lay back and let me explore her under the leathery leaves of the indoor plants until she was so soft and wet it was too much for me. There was no resistance left to draw on.
That was Pippa, you see. She seemed to be a man’s dream: wild, beautiful and unpredictable. It was that unpredictability that knocked you off guard, that facility for ambush that swung it for her every time. And the irony is that, with hindsight, she is probably one of the most predictable women I have ever met.
That evening we ate in the kitchen by the warm range. She lit candles, and we shared a cold game pie and a bottle of red wine from the cellar.
‘What do you think, then? Do you like my house?’ She waved her wine glass at the room.
‘It’s a very fine house.’
She looked steadily at me and said, ‘It’ll be mine when Daddy dies.’
‘Well, let’s hope that’s not for a long time.’
She laughed a little. ‘I should think it could be any time. He drinks like a fish. Or at least he did the last time I saw him.’
‘Haven’t you seen him for a while, then?’
‘Not since a few months before you first met me, actually.’ She looked down at her plate and frowned. ‘That’s why I was packed off on The City of India, you see. Daddy did a runner, and Mummy needed a bit of time to . . . get herself organized.’
‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t know. You must’ve been feeling—’
‘Really, it’s okay.’
I admired her pluckiness, remembering that train journey and her mother coming on board to see her off. How lonely she must have felt. We were all being sent away for our own safety, and Philip and I had wanted to go. She had been dispatched not so much because of German bombing but because her presence was an added problem. I watched her face as she said it was okay. It was clear that she still carried the hurt behind the clipped response.
She looked over at me breezily. ‘Tell me, Arthur, where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’
I found I was keen to tell her about my promotion. ‘Well, there are a lot of big developments in aerospace at the moment. I’m the youngest and most qualified engineer they have, and I’ve been given shares in the company. That little house in Bristol is just a beginning. In a few years’ time I’ll be able to move on to something far bigger.’
She studied my face thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure you will.’
I wondered then if she was thinking of Ashleycroft Hall. Despite the disappointment of her parents’ absence, I wondered if she might be considering me as a prospect after all. Did I spare a thought for Dora at that moment? I can’t remember. I can still hear my eagerness to impress Pippa, even as I was breaking Dora’s heart.
What happened next, of course, changed everything.
FLOTSAM
20
DORA
It must have been when I was looking for a map to show me where Pippa lived that I had the oddest experience. I was in an unusual little bookshop that smelt of mildew and fresh coffee. There were shelves of second-hand books with faded spines and displays of brand-new books with glossy jackets; there were rows with quirky handwritten labels pasted on to the ends: ‘Birds and the Like’, ‘Good Reads (if you share my tastes)’, ‘Scary Novels’ and so forth. I found the map I was looking for in ‘Local Interest’, and I had just pinpointed Hickleton when I heard a voice behind me.
‘Dora? Dora!’
I turned, and at first I couldn’t see the person who had addressed me, as they had circled around to my other shoulder.
‘I thought it was you! You’ll have to forgive me for not coming to see you, but I only arrived yesterday and I’m heading off today. How lovely to see you!’ Daphne Prendergast gave my arm a squeeze.
‘Daphne! I didn’t expect to see you here!’
‘I popped down to see my uncle who’s not well, and we’re just trying to find him a present to cheer him up. That’s my cousin, Hazel, over by “Green Fingers”. He likes gardening, Uncle Albert.’
‘Well,’ I said, folding the map quickly and replacing it on the shelf, ‘I’m glad to have bumped into you. I wanted to congratulate you on your engagement, but I’m afraid I haven’t got round to writing to you yet. Congratulations! I’m looking forward to it!’
‘Oh, you can come! Good, good! We thought we’d go with the Wayfarer’s for the venue, but I’ll write to you nearer the time.’ She looked genuinely thrilled to see me, and her unexpected presence made me both happy and slightly nervous. I felt I had been somehow caught off my guard, doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. She may have noticed my furtiveness, for she gave me a conspiratorial look. ‘And I hear congratulations might be in order for you too . . . ?’
I could feel the blood pounding in my head. I had to stay calm. What had Daphne heard? Stay calm. Look pleased. I did my best.
‘Who told you?’
‘Aha! Well, if you must know, I phoned Arthur’s mother. He told me in his last card he was hoping to move, and I only remembered it after I’d sent the note about our wedding. So I had his old home address and number and spoke to his mother, and she just happened to let slip that you’d been up there the weekend before and he’d asked her if he could borrow a ring so that he could propose to you. I expect he’s bought you the real thing by now!’
While she was speaking, I thrust my left hand into the pocket of my coat. ‘No . . . not yet.’ I tried to look as delighted as she did.
‘Well, I’m so pleased. And presumably you’re both coming, then? In September? There’ll be a proper invitation later.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said truthfully. ‘He said he was looking forward to it.’
‘Splendid! Only his poor mother was having kittens about him. Said she hadn’t heard a word from him since, and she was all of a doo-dah wondering what had happened. But she did say he’d been terribly busy with his work. An engineer now, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, yes he is. Oh, but Daphne, it’s such wonderful news about you and Mr Heggarty. Everyone will be so pleased. You deserve to be happy. Really you do. And when—’
Cousin Hazel came over with a paper bag and displayed her new purchase. I was introduced, and shortly afterwards they left the shop. I stayed on a while, as long as was necessary to look like a serious shopper, then I replaced a book on direction-finding by the stars and left, elated and tormented, with my new piece of knowledge.
I did contact Pippa. I wrote her a note: short and to the point. I wouldn’t be aware of the impact it had for quite some time. In fact, I’m not convinced I was ever truly sure about it until now. One thing is cert
ain, though, and that is that it did not have the effect I’d been expecting. But I’m rushing ahead of myself.
I didn’t hear anything from Pippa, and I was glad of it. I had had my say, and I knew it would have shaken her. I heard nothing from Arthur, and as the weeks passed I learnt the pain of losing someone who is still alive to love you if they wish. Had he chosen not to love me because he had fallen in love with someone else? Or had he never loved me enough to withstand other women? Had he simply fallen out of love with me? I longed for big gestures from him, like the waiting outside my door. But that had turned out to be a limp imitation of a grand gesture. I had to face it: his love was simply not robust enough to want to win me back. And then, of course, I wondered if it ever had been. I replayed endlessly the scenes of our courtship. I saw again his face light up as he stepped off the Joneses’ bus and looked at me standing there on the pavement; I saw him meet Our Mam and Our Dad, and I watched his face carefully this time for signs of disappointment, but there were none; I studied the tenderness in his eyes as he leant in to kiss me for the first time; I felt his passion as he laid me down on the mountain and as his heart galloped against my chest; and when I said I was saving myself for the man I married I detected no change in his interest but felt again the heady vibrating whisper in my ear: ‘Well, let’s hope he bears an uncanny resemblance to me.’
I lived again the long embrace of our time on Boat Nine; I smelt him over and over, the same notes I had inhaled years later, and I pined for the odour of him. I touched his face in a photograph his landlady had taken of us, and I kissed it foolishly, as if the silver nitrate surface could yield up the scent of him. I wondered if I could have done things differently. If I had slept with him, would we be planting spring flowers in our new garden now? Had he expected me to sleep with him when he invited me down that weekend? But no matter how often I revisited these scenes, there was nothing, not one thing, to suggest that he wasn’t happy about us – about me. Even his mother dropped heavy hints about forthcoming events and he hadn’t flinched. All of which left me with the conclusion that Pippa was a temptress beyond compare. That her box of tricks was so captivating that the most loving and loyal of men were prepared to risk everything to have more of her magic.