Wild Strawberries: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  They went out by a side door into the garden and David led the way round the house, down to the garden wall. The summer-house struck him as a good place for a picnic, and he made his way towards it.

  ‘Blast those gardeners,’ he said amiably, ‘they’ve taken all the chairs away for the dance. You’ll have to sit on the steps, Mary. Here, you can have my handkerchief to sit on.

  He spread his handkerchief on the brick steps and Mary sat down. Both young people fell on the food with a hearty appetite.

  ‘Of course I would break the top off the cork,’ said David, after wrestling with it in vain, ‘and my knife has only got one of those things to get the stones out of horses’ hoofs or stick pigs with. Well, I am not the first gentleman that has knocked the top off a bottle. Hold the glasses ready so that I won’t waste it. Oh, drat that moon; why does it have to go in just when I want some light?’

  With considerable skill he knocked the head off the bottle and filled the glasses.

  ‘I shall only give you one glass,’ he said. ‘You are not one of the hard-headed sort.’

  At this instance of his solicitude, Mary nearly fainted. The supper was proceeding charmingly when Mary suddenly gave a small shriek and asked David the time.

  ‘What on earth does time matter? My dear Mary, this is a dance, not an Institution.’

  ‘Well, certainly time doesn’t matter much to you when you keep a person waiting for a dance and a half,’ said Mary, pot-valiant with her one glass of champagne, and a victim to her sex’s peculiar passion for provoking unnecessary quarrels.

  ‘Oh, come, Mary, you didn’t mind that, did you? It was only the twins, and you have no idea how funny they are.’

  ‘Well, I did mind. And please tell me the time.’

  The minster clock is just going to strike twelve and yonder is the moon. But why this insistence?’

  ‘Oh, David, I’m sorry, but I must go. I have got to be in the ballroom before twelve.’

  ‘Curious Cinderella complex you have. What can be so important?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, David. Something frightfully important that I promised Martin.’

  ‘Martin? My dear girl, you are mad. Either these dances are mine, or they are not. Of course if you want to punish me by cutting the rest of my dances—’ said David, assuming a beaten air. He got up and leaned over the river wall.

  ‘Oh, no, David, it isn’t that. But Martin and Jean-Claude will be so disappointed.’

  ‘Jean-Claude too,’ said David in a sepulchral voice, without turning round. ‘Am I to be slighted for a spotted Frenchman, a plum-pudding dog?’

  ‘No, no, not slighted. David, let me go. I’ll be back in a few moments.’

  ‘I am not keeping you,’ said David.

  The stable clock sounded twelve.

  ‘Oh, I am too late,’ cried Mary.

  ‘Splendid. Now you can stay here and be sensible. Or if you really want to go, do go. It doesn’t matter about me.’

  ‘But it does, David. It matters about you more than anything in the world.’

  ‘Say that again,’ said David, turning round with much interest. ‘Do I really count? Wasn’t it just a pretext to leave me, because I bore or annoy you?’

  ‘How can you say that,’ cried Mary, on the brink of tears, ‘when you know—’ She stopped.

  ‘What do I know?’ asked David, putting both his hands on her shoulders. ‘You precious goose, what do I know?’

  He drew Mary to him and, with the ease born of long practice, settled her head comfortably under his chin. Mary, drowning in the bliss of feeling David’s shirt front against her cheek, said nothing, thankful, so far as her scattered senses allowed her to think at all, that she had not actually made the unmaidenly remark which was on her lips.

  The stage was set. The moon came out from behind the clouds and shone on beloved and lover. John, pacing back along the grass by the wall, saw his brother and his crystal-voiced love, and turned back under the dark trees.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said David, releasing Mary, ‘and very nice too, Miss Preston. And now do you want to know the time?’

  ‘No. It’s too late and anyway it doesn’t matter. Oh, David, did you see—’

  ‘I saw the lovely top of your head. Now, we’d better collect the remains, or Brown will think burglars have been carousing here. Come on, Mary.’

  Mary, her head swimming, helped David to gather up the scraps of their supper, which they carried back to the house.

  ‘Lovely dances they were,’ said David. ‘Have you lots of partners now?’ He looked at her programme. ‘Heaps. That’s right. So have I. And after that wigging you gave me, I’m not going to cut any more dances.’

  The duc de Guise must have tossed uneasily on his couch that night. Some spirit, hovering pallid over his slumbers, must have whispered to him, at that hour when faith and hope are lowest, that of the five loyal young hearts who had sworn to unsheathe the sword in his cause, but two remained faithful. Of the remaining three, two had been seduced by love, one by food. Let us hope that the majesty of France could make allowances for both.

  A little before midnight Martin and Jean-Claude met in the hall. But no other member of the devoted band was present at the assignation.

  ‘I can’t see Pierre anywhere,’ said Jean-Claude, ‘and I’ve looked everywhere for Ursule. I nearly got caught again by that terrible mégère your Aunt Bingham when I went into the supper-room, so I fled quickly. Where is Mary?’

  ‘I can’t find her,’ Martin said gloomily. ‘I could have sworn she wouldn’t let us down, but you can’t trust women. What shall we do?’

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Jean-Claude.

  Martin drew his watch from his waistcoat pocket and pressed the spring. In a delicate voice it sounded twelve times and then played two lines of ‘The Last Rose of Summer’.

  ‘Ventre saint gris!’ said Jean-Claude, who affected this Bourbon manner of speech when not in hearing of his parents. ‘Make it sound again.’

  Martin obligingly did so.

  ‘But really, what are we to do?’ he asked, putting the watch back into his pocket.

  ‘We shall make a demonstration alone,’ said Jean-Claude. ‘True courage rises higher in the face of misfortune. To a true Frenchman the hour of discouragement is also the hour of supreme effort. My ancestors, the de Florels—’

  ‘Oh, that’s enough gas about your old ancestors,’ said Martin. ‘Get the flag out.’

  ‘It will make a better effect if I unfurl it suddenly in the ballroom,’ objected Jean-Claude.

  ‘All right. Have it your own way. The dance is just over. Come on. I’ll say, “Vive le roi,” and then you wave the flag and say, “Vive le dauphin.”’

  The dance had, in fact, finished. The dancers were going in to supper or out into the garden as the two representatives of a lost cause advanced up the room. Halting before the sofa where his grandmother was sitting, Martin cried in a resolute voice, ‘Vive le roi.’

  ‘What, darling?’ said his grandmother.

  ‘Say your bit, can’t you,’ he hissed to Jean-Claude.

  ‘Je ne peux pas,’ said Jean-Claude. ‘Ce maudit drapeau – débarrasse-moi de ça, Martin.’

  ‘You great ass,’ said Martin, pulling at the end of the flag which was sticking out of Jean-Claude’s grey satin waistcoat. ‘Why didn’t you get it out in the hall, as I told you?’

  With considerable difficulty the two boys extricated the flag from its hiding-place.

  ‘Vive le dauphin,’ said Jean-Claude, waving it about in a half-hearted way.

  ‘What have you boys got?’ asked Lady Emily. ‘Come and sit here with me. What a charming flag. Is this the surprise?’

  Martin kicked Jean-Claude.

  ‘Well the surprise hasn’t quite come off, Gran,’ he said, ‘because the others were to be in it and they forgot. But Ursule made this flag – it’s the French royal standard.’

  ‘How beautifully she sews,’ said Lady Emily, examin
ing it. ‘It is a lovely piece of work. May I really keep it? I shall show it to Conque. You must tell Ursule how much I admire her skill. Have you boys had plenty of supper?’

  ‘Not yet, Gran.’

  ‘Then you can take me in and give me a little, and then I shall go to bed.’

  Martin helped his grandmother to rise and gave her his arm to the dining-room. Jean-Claude followed in sulky confusion, remonstrating with Martin under his breath.

  ‘You great ass,’ Martin whispered back, as they crossed the hall. ‘It was as much your fault as anybody’s,’ and he handed his grandmother into the dining-room.

  ‘Merde!’ said Jean-Claude, very loudly and defiantly, which was a mistake, for at that moment his mother, dressed for departure, came out of the ladies’ cloakroom and fell upon him.

  ‘Mais, voyons, Jean-Claude, c’est infâme ce que tu dis là. Où as-tu donc appris de telles saletés?’ she cried. ‘Come back with me at once and go straight to your bed. I am covered with confusion at your behaviour.’

  Without listening to his attempts at explanation she dragged him off and was still giving him what she called une verte semonce when Pierre got home.

  Rain was beginning to fall in heavy drops and the dancers were all coming in from the garden. Martin ate an enormous supper and danced with much enjoyment till the last guests had gone.

  ‘It’s been a ripping evening,’ he announced to such of his family as were still up. ‘The best birthday I’ve ever had. Thank you all most awfully for everything. You look rotten, Uncle John. Well, goodnight, everybody.’

  He reeled sleepily up to bed, and after gloating for a few moments on a motor cycle catalogue and making his repeater chime several times, he fell into a deep, blissful sleep.

  But alas for the lilies of France! In his Belgian château the duc de Guise moaned in his sleep. A dream, unnameable, chilling the blood of royalty, stood beside his couch, telling him in mournful accents that all was over. Of those two gallant young hearts, last hope of his cause on Albion’s shore, one had let the lilies fall and turned his thoughts to motor bicycles. The other, his own namesake, had been taken home in disgrace by his mother. The omen of the unbroken glass had been fulfilled. The tricolore still flew over the Elysée.

  14

  Gudgeon’s Hour

  The rain which had begun in the early hours of the morning continued steadily all night. The household at Rushwater woke to find the world shrouded in water, torrents pouring across the lawn, dripping from the eaves. The storm had brought no coolness to the air. Wet heat, added to the natural reaction from the night before, created an atmosphere of depression and lassitude. Martin, postponing the evil moment of getting up as long as possible, thought vaguely that he had nearly made a fool of himself last night and how jolly lucky it was on the whole that their plans had fallen through. It was all very well for French people to be royalists, but, hang it all, a man of seventeen couldn’t be expected to keep up that sort of thing. And there was a bicycle in that catalogue which looked like the bicycle of his dreams. He could easily pay the deposit now and trust to luck for the monthly payments. He then made his watch chime ten several times and got up.

  There was no one but John in the dining-room when he got downstairs. A disordered place at the table showed that Mr Leslie had breakfasted at his usual time and gone out. Martin began to tell his uncle about the glories of the bicycle, but Uncle John was for once quite unsympathetic and told his nephew not to gabble so much, as he had a headache. David strolled in presently with the news that all the ladies were having breakfast in bed.

  ‘Quite the most sensible thing to do too,’ he said. ‘I met trays of delicious food going up to them. Haddock? Oh, my God, no, not on a muggy morning like this.’

  He rang the bell.

  ‘Gudgeon, is there any cold ham? Bring it along, and tell Walter to pack my things. I may be going up to town this morning.’

  ‘Oh, David,’ said Martin, ‘you can’t go so soon.’

  ‘Sorry, Martin, but I’ve an idea about my novel and I want to see a man before he goes to America.’

  ‘But surely you aren’t going today?’ said John with such surprise in his voice that David stared at him.

  ‘Why not? I’ve heaps of things to do in town.’

  ‘But you can’t rush off like this,’ said John, almost angrily, as Gudgeon came in with the ham. ‘Oh, damn it, I can’t discuss things with half the world listening. David, I’ve got to see you before you go, so let me know before you leave. I’ll be in the library or the schoolroom.’

  He threw his table napkin on to the floor and went out of the room.

  ‘What’s bitten Uncle John?’ said Martin.

  ‘He does look upset,’ said David in real concern. ‘I haven’t seen him look so worked up for years. Well, thank goodness Dodo and the twins have gone and taken that toadstool Holt with them. Shirts and things all right, Martin?’

  ‘Yes, rather, David, they are stupendous.’

  ‘Oh, Martin, I rather want to see Joan before I go. Are you going down to the vicarage today?’

  ‘No, thank goodness. It’s a day off. But I can ring them up if you like.’

  ‘No, don’t bother. I’ll do something about it later. Perhaps I won’t go till the afternoon.’

  As he spoke, three mackintoshed figures passed along the terrace and knocked at the French window. Martin jumped up and opened it a little way.

  ‘I say, you’ll make the place in an awful mess if you come in this way,’ he remarked hospitably. ‘Better go round to the front door.’

  Miss Stevenson, Ursule and Jean-Claude resumed their journey, and shortly appeared in the dining-room.

  ‘Come and have some breakfast,’ said Martin.

  ‘We had ours ages ago,’ said Miss Stevenson, sitting down.

  ‘Yes, please, Martin,’ said Ursule. ‘Haddock, how lovely. And hot scones.’

  She collected a substantial meal round her and sat down with a satisfied expression.

  ‘Can we talk alone?’ said Jean-Claude to Martin.

  ‘Well, yes, if you really want to,’ said Martin, not relishing the prospect of fresh royalist activities, or recriminations about last night’s unfortunate débâcle. ‘Come along to the schoolroom.’

  ‘Well, Joan,’ said David, ‘it was nice of you to come up this morning, or I’d have had to come down to you. I wanted to talk to you particularly.’

  ‘So did I, David.’

  ‘What about Ursule?’ asked David in a low voice.

  ‘Oh, she’s all right,’ said Miss Stevenson, gazing with some pride at her protégée’s appetite. ‘Besides, all I have to say is for anyone to hear. I don’t believe in concealments and secrecy. A girl should have the chance of knowing everything. An intelligent discussion of our present relationship will probably be of great value to Ursule.’

  David was not a little alarmed by this portentous opening. He found Joan extremely attractive, and what was more she might still be very useful, but the word relationship had a sinister sound.

  ‘Well, I wanted to talk to you, Joan, about this broadcasting work. I shall probably be dramatising my novel as a radio play, and I want to get into touch with the right people. I count on you to help me. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other this autumn I expect.’

  ‘If you approach me as a friend, David, I will do what I can. Officially, of course, my hands are tied. You let me down over the poetry reading, and I had a lot of trouble about it.’

  ‘Oh, I say, Joan, I’m frightfully sorry. I’d no idea,’ said David taking her hand. ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘Honey, please,’ said Ursule. David shoved it across to her with his disengaged hand.

  ‘It is curious,’ said Miss Stevenson, ‘how much pleasure one can get from a man holding one’s hand, or even putting his arm round one, when any further intimacy would be, frankly, repellent.’

  For perhaps the first time in his life David was entirely at a loss. Miss Stevenson made no effort to wit
hdraw her hand; he could not quite tell whether her remark was an invitation to him to put his arm round her waist; to remove his hand after what she had said would be almost discourteous. So he sat in some embarrassment. Joan certainly looked her best in the morning. Lots of girls looked washed out the morning after a dance, but Joan was fresh and neat in her silk frock, and if it were a question of putting one’s arm round people, why, it would be as much pleasure to him as it would be to her. So he did it.

  ‘Thank you, David,’ said Miss Stevenson, pleased but apparently unmoved. ‘You are really the perfect friend. I thought at one time that you might be more, but I decided against it. We are not the type for harmonious relationships. So it is hopeless for you to try.’

  ‘But I never asked you,’ expostulated David, in the voice of a cross child, and withdrew his arm from Miss Stevenson’s waist. ‘Really, Joan, you are preposterous.’

  ‘Not at all. Marriage may or may not have been in your mind, that is indifferent to me, but it was inevitable that you should ask me to live with you, so I am sparing you pain by telling you at once that I could never consider it. It would be a great mistake for both of us.’

  ‘But, good Lord, Joan, I don’t go about living with people.’

  ‘It is that or marriage for you,’ said Miss Stevenson, looking at him with scientific detachment. ‘However, that is nothing to do with me. Now we have settled that subject we will return to our own affairs. If you are really keen on radio plays, you had better go and see Lionel.’

  ‘Lionel Harvest?’

  ‘Precisely. Lionel is now in that department and will go far. As a matter of fact, I came to tell you that Lionel and I are going to enter into a companionate marriage.’

  ‘Can I have a peach?’ asked Ursule.

  ‘Help yourself, Ursule, they are on the sideboard,’ said Miss Stevenson kindly. ‘I know that my ideas are very old-fashioned in some ways, but I still cling to the belief that companionate marriage is in many ways the best solution of our problem. It will, of course, be a legal companionate marriage.’

  ‘Legal?’ said David, his world rocking about him. ‘I don’t understand.’