The Flight of the Maidens

by Jane Gardam

  ‘Hetty? It’s Una. Yes. I’m at someone’s house. A mansion. She’s gone off in her car and she’s coming to wherever you are to fetch you away.’

  ‘Una, how on earth—?’

  ‘Hetty. This old woman here, she’s going to drive you to Carlisle tonight. O.K.? Could you sit down somewhere? All right? Please hold on to something, right? There’s been a telegram, sent to Mrs. Betty Banks, and I turned up there . . . Yes, I know. By accident. A telegram had just arrived for you from your Pa to say your mother’s ill in hospital.

  ‘Hetty? Hetty, listen. Ray says they can get you home tonight as there’s a night train to Darlington, but a stopping train, so it’ll be slow. Miss Fletcher’s going to meet you somewhere. O.K.? I’ve rung her. The old—the lady here is going to ring her too, when she gets to you, wherever you are. All you have to do now is sit down and wait.’

  ‘Una.’

  ‘Hetty.’

  ‘Oh, Una!’

  ‘I’ll be home tomorrow night. I’ll see you then. I’ll come straight round. O.K.? Listen—’

  ‘Una. Oh, God. God, God. Oh!’

  ‘Listen. It’s not your fault, O.K.?’

  ‘I didn’t say. I didn’t write. Oh, I wrote a terrible—’

  ‘Stop it. Think of your mother. She taught you to say prayers. Goodbye, Het.’

  ‘Una. Thanks. Oh, Una.’

  ‘Ray? Where are you?’

  Una looked about the unlikely, shadowed room. Tall windows against the black night. A little light gleaming here and there on a huge chandelier above, on wine glasses and decanters, the faded silks on chairs and sofas, a swag of shabby tartan.

  ‘It’s Anna Karenina. It is old, old Russia. Wherever are we now? Ray?’

  She found him in one of the rooms that led out from this one, where a small fire was burning in a massive grate. He was deep in conversation with an old gentleman, and they were both drinking whisky.

  ‘Oh, good. There you are,’ said the old boy. ‘So very sorry to hear about your friend, Hester. I remember her from last week. Knows a lot about cattle. Lives with the Satterleys. Well, Ursula’s gone, but I hope you’re both staying the night with us? Dinner is about ready, I think. I’m afraid it’s in the kitchen, to save fuel, but there’s someone to see to it, and to your bed. I heard Ursula putting you in Lady Anne Clifford’s bed.’

  ‘I hope she won’t mind.’

  ‘No, no. She’s not been here since 1616.’

  Over grouse hash he listened with interest to Ray on the subject of the possible decimation of the railways and agreed that this would be suicide.

  ‘After victory in war,’ said Ray, ‘a country is often tempted to suicide. Historically speaking.’

  His lordship said that that was very true.

  ‘I’ve met you both before,’ he said, ‘haven’t I? Wasn’t I at your wedding?’

  28

  After Una’s message, Hetty put down the rattly black daffodil of a receiver in the hall of the horrible castle. She sat down on a gawky armless leatherette chair. She sat there straight, and for a long time.

  Patsie came out of Nanny’s room and called down: ‘Hi? Hetty? Are you there? Sorry I got your name wrong. I’d forgotten.’

  Her head over the banister disappeared and Hetty sat on. She thought, I’d better ring Miss Fletcher, but Una had remembered that and done so. Ursula would ring Miss Fletcher again when she arrived. Anyway, there was really nothing to be said.

  She heard footsteps coming through the porch and into the hall. They were Rupert’s.

  ‘Hetty? Is that you, sitting all alone there? You’re unhappy. What is it? Hetty?’

  He got down on his haunches and his eyes were level with hers. She noticed the insecurity of him behind the blasé face. She noticed that this was the only moment since she had met him that he might not be trying to be loved.

  ‘We shouldn’t have invited you. It was Patsie’s idea. I never would have done so . . . unless I could have had you to myself.’

  She looked at him and thought, He says nothing. He is nothing at all.

  ‘You think I’m nothing at all.’

  ‘I fell in love with you as soon as I saw you,’ she said. ‘There’s something—maybe you’re very bad. Or very good. I don’t know. Are you dying? They all go on about you doing things for the last time.’

  ‘Everyone has their ideas for me. You’re not a Catholic?’

  ‘Oh, good heavens, no!’

  He looked disdainful. As they often look, Catholics, she thought. Elite, patronising, only a little sorry that I’ll fry. And suddenly she thought of the rolling, thundering, fearless Anglican vicar at home. I wasn’t fair to the vicar, she thought. I was jealous.

  She said, ‘Rupert. There was something wonderful about you when I first saw you, something better than body or soul. Spirit.’

  ‘What d’you say?’ He was looking profoundly uncomfortable. ‘Let’s not get too intense.’

  ‘Spirit. I think we have the same sort of spirit, Rupert.’

  He looked very uneasy indeed.

  ‘Some sort of thing sort of floated between us,’ she said. ‘But I think I was mistaken. Maybe you are not really wanting women at all. You’re just wanting to be . . . sort of amazing in some way. Like going into a monastery and all that stuff.’

  Now he looked very angry.

  ‘Maybe you’re just wanting your childhood back. And the wondrous Fergus.’

  ‘You’re out of your depth,’ he said, and stood up and walked across the dirty flagstones of the hall and with his back to her examined the vast, dead fireplace. He said, ‘D’you know what happened to Fergus?’

  ‘How could I?’

  ‘He was my rear gunner and we were shot up together over Holland.’

  ‘Weren’t you captured?’

  ‘No. We got home. Just. I got her down on the edge of Lincolnshire. We kept her flying by hypnosis or something, with the tail shot to bits.’

  ‘But you got Fergus out. I’d guessed that’s why you were a hero and got decorated.’

  ‘Nobody got Fergus out, he wasn’t there. Well, they hosed out what was left of him. It was two years ago.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry to upset you,’ he said, looking at her face.

  She seemed hardly to have heard.

  A door opened and shut. Feet pattered. Mabel stood on the landing.

  ‘Rupert, Patsie wants you. Nanny wants fish and chips for supper and someone has to go and get them from the shop and there’s a flick on at the Empire, it’s good. It starts at eight. Hetty can’t go because Ursula is coming to get her.’

  ‘Ursula’s coming? Here?’

  ‘Yes. She’s taking Hester away, and I’m going too.’

  ‘Tonight? Nobody told me this.’

  Mabel stood staring and Rupert looked down at Hester. ‘Going? We’ve upset you. I’d better see Patsie about all this,’ and he went to look for her.

  Nearly an hour passed, but still Hester did not move. The nanny came down the stairs hanging on to the fat banister.

  ‘God love us, look at you sitting in the dark. Are they gone for fish and chips? There’s not a whiff of them. Now then, will you be playing Racing Demon, later on?’

  Hetty sat. Time crawled. At length Mabel came downstairs in a coat. She stood beside Hetty and said, ‘I’m coming with you and Ursula. Rupert’s up with Patsie. She’s always been weird about Rupert. They’re both in bed, I think. Hester? Why’re you sitting there? Sometimes I actually think that she hates Rupert. Hetty? What’s happened? I’m coming with you, whatever it is. Whatever it is, I’m coming with you.’

  ‘I heard a car,’ said Hetty.

  Ursula came through the door in a minute, in mid-sentence.

  ‘. . . taken into hospital. Must just check which one, with Fletcher. We must get along quickly, dear, if we are going
to catch the train from Carlisle.’

  ‘I’m going with her.’

  ‘Yes, dear. Why not? I think that would be a good idea.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Hetty, standing up. ‘I’m perfectly able to manage alone.’ She let her gaze wander about over Ursula, Mabel and the grotesque nanny grinning on the stairs. She saw herself as a full-scale person. In control. ‘I shall deal with this myself perfectly well,’ she said.

  But, ‘Now, come along, my dear,’ said Ursula. ‘Leave everything: we’ll see to any luggage. Take a coat off the peg; the trains will be unheated. We must get a move on. I have rung Fletcher and she will be there at Middlesbrough, I think.’

  Rupert and Patsie were nowhere to be seen as she put on her coat.

  ‘Granny? Can I drive?’

  ‘No, dear, not tonight. If we were caught it would make us late, though I know you drive faster than I do.’

  Hetty never even looked up the stairs to see if Rupert might be there.

  Ursula put her foot down to the ground in the little car. The Roman road north to Carlisle was silky and moonlit, quite empty. Above them were the wandering stars. At one point Mabel in the back leaned forward and half-strangled Hetty, arms tight around her neck.

  ‘Get off!’

  ‘Yes, do let Hetty alone, Mabel.’

  ‘Granny, can I go on the train with her? I could stay with Miss Fletcher.’

  ‘Yes, dear, if you like. I’d feel happier if Hetty had someone with her.’

  ‘Thank you. I prefer to be by myself.’ (How they presume, these people. How they command!)

  But it was now Carlisle, and Ursula was buying two tickets, one single, one return.

  ‘I do not want her,’ said Hetty to Ursula. ‘Can’t you understand that I want to be by myself? Thank you very much, but I must be by myself.’

  ‘No, dear,’ said Ursula. ‘I do not understand. Not at present. You must just this once be guided by an elder. Now, ring me up from Fletcher’s, Mabel. Be a good child.’

  ‘I always bloody am,’ said Mabel.

  In the cold night train Mabel slung herself into an empty carriage across from Hetty, who had retreated into a figure of wood, her face turned to the window, regarding the night. Mabel fiddled with the ashtray on the side of the carriage. You could tip it over and tip it back. Old cigarette ashes tumbled out. She did it again and again. She began to work on the leathery window-blind next. She pulled it tight to the bottom, level with the big brass press-stud that might secure it, then let it go, to watch it fly up again to the top of the window with a malicious snap.

  ‘Will you stop it?’ Hester yelled, soon.

  ‘O.K. Is your mother very ill?’

  Hester tried to hit her, and saw that Mabel’s dark eyes were not only miserable, but innocent.

  ‘I don’t remember much about my father,’ said Mabel. ‘I expect my parents are pretty well certainly gone now for good.

  ‘I only asked,’ she added.

  Hetty watched her and thought, How plain she is. ‘I don’t know, Mabel. I think so. I think she’s very ill. From what my friend said, my mother’s very ill.’ Listening to her own words she accepted them.

  ‘Was it Mrs. Satterley sent Ursula to find you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think so, maybe.’

  ‘Because, if she did, I think your mother probably is very ill. Mrs. Satterley has a sort of gift for spotting things. I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘Thanks, Mabel.’

  ‘Hetty?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could I ask you something?’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘D’you remember the book?’

  ‘Book?’

  ‘The one on the table? In the lane? The day you came to Mrs. Satterley’s? The Perfumed Garden, by someone called Burton. You threw it down and ran away. Did it make you feel, you know, sort of awful?’

  ‘Mabel,’ said Hetty, ‘how d’you know I saw it?’

  ‘I was watching you through the hedge. I saw you walk all round the table and put your bag down and pick up the book at the place where I’d just been reading about that sexy stuff and you looked so scared and your mouth fell open and I couldn’t decide whether you were a grown-up or, you know, a little girl.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Let’s not talk rubbish just now, please.’

  ‘I was just sort of taking your mind off . . . ’

  Disdain registered on Hetty’s white, withheld face.

  ‘Hetty?’ Mabel’s flat eyes yearned at her. ‘Hetty, do you think we have to learn about all that?’

  The train rocked, clattered, clanked, steamed along in the dark.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hetty, ‘I do. But don’t fuss. You’re only eleven.’

  ‘Thanks, Hetty.’

  ‘Mabel,’ she said later, ‘I thought it must be Patsie’s book. Where did you find it?’

  ‘Oh, Rupert, of course. He’s got lots of stuff like that, most not even funny. I thought The Perfumed Garden was rather funny sometimes. I kept going back over bits of it. It’s rather fascinating. I told Ursula about it.’

  ‘You told Ursula!’

  ‘Yes. She just went on picking flowers. She said that Rupert isn’t quite like other people because of the war.’

  The train was certainly a stopping train. It stopped and it stopped. Again and again. You’d never have thought there could be so many stations on one line. You could have walked between them as fast. Once, they had to get out and change and sit at Newcastle station on a long bench. One old man in a ticket kiosk nodded over a newspaper. Much later, Hetty found that they were on another train, rocking steadily, remorselessly, along towards Middlesbrough, and there on the platform stood Hilda and Dorothy in full Red Cross regalia. Hilda wore the ribbon of the Legion d’honneur from the 1916 French trenches. Oh, I must tell Mum, thought Hetty before the gulf swept her away.

  Away in the sweeter air of Betty Forest someone from the kitchen was leading Una and Ray to their bedroom along stone passages, up and down staircases, into the old part of the Hall, which was Tudor with low-beamed ceilings, oak floors, portraits on wood, heavy oak furniture.

  ‘Lady Anne’s room’s the warmest,’ said the servant. ‘There’s bottles in, too, and the incubators make a difference.’ She was carrying a candle that blew in the wind down the icy eighteenth-century corridors and when they came to the Tudor bedroom she set it down. ‘There’s no electrics in the old wing, on account of the risk of fire. The incubators is paraffin, but don’t let them upset you: there’s scarcely a fume.’

  From a contraption in a corner came the sharp picnic smell of a paraffin stove, and a dim glow.

  ‘What does she mean, incubator?’ Ray asked Una. ‘What are they incubating? Smallpox?’

  ‘I don’t know. It smells more dangerous than electric light.’

  They looked quickly at the bed on which Lady Anne had lain in 1616. It had four fat carved posts and a canopy, and hanging down its back a tapestry embroidered with coats of arms and mottoes. Any bed cover had been removed and the bed stood high, narrow and puffed-up, like rising bread. It was rather a short bed.

  ‘I expect she was quite small,’ said Una. ‘They were then.’

  ‘We’re quite small,’ said Ray.

  They stood looking gravely at the bed. Then they began to unpack their night things from their saddle-bags. The bathroom was about a mile away. They’d been shown it on the way. They were alone in this silent, dreaming part of the old house. They put on their pyjamas and did up the buttons and climbed into the bed respectfully, one from either side. The feather mattress sank slowly down beneath them. There was a very hard bolster for their heads.

  ‘There’s a rock down here,’ said Una.

  ‘There’s another my side.’ They filched up two mighty stone hot-water bottles from
near their feet and examined them. ‘They’re like beer kegs,’ said Ray. ‘Hot beer. Will they explode, eh? I’m dropping mine out; I’m risking nothing.’

  ‘I’ll hold on to mine,’ she said, ‘till I warm up.’

  Over against the noble fireplace there was a plopping and singing from the stove, a rustling and a tiny tapping.

  ‘Some might say ghosts,’ said Una.

  They lay side by side in the filmy dark. Soon Una let the stone keg crash down on the floor and cast herself all at once upon Ray’s Viyella chest.

  ‘Oh Ray, oh Ray!’

  He began to feel for the buttons on her pyjamas.

  ‘Oh, Ray, no! Not yet. I can’t stop thinking of Hetty’s mother,’ and she buried her face in him and took him in her arms. At once he wrapped his own round her. Slowly they grew warm together.

  Much much later he said, ‘You can’t live anyone else’s life for them. I’ve told you before. We’re living ours now. There’s a time and place.’

  Again, long after, she said, almost asleep, ‘Yes. It’s you and me.’

  In the morning she found herself with one arm stretched up high above her head stroking the carved bedpost, her fingertips tracing feathers and beaks and feet of little birds; leaves and grapes and tendrils of a smooth old crafted vine. She thought, Other fingers have done this.

  And this too, she thought, turning yet again towards Ray, tracing now with her fingers the line of his cheekbone, his ears, and his mouth, which soon she began to kiss once more.

  When the sun eventually reached the lattice window of the Lady Anne, she at last got up, went across to it, opened it and hung out into the shining autumn morning. Ursula’s vegetable garden sparkled with dew. A rabbit was calmly at work on the cabbages. Red berries were thick on the rowans.

  ‘It could be dew or it could even be frost,’ she said. ‘It’s a marvellous sharp cold smell. The sun’s brilliant. You can’t tell from in here.’ She looked back at Ray on the bed and they smiled at each other.

  ‘Can you remember yesterday?’ he asked.