The Summer House Party

by Caro Fraser

  ‘Damnation, Sonia, what d’you mean by sending maids down to my studio? I have expressly forbidden anyone to come there!’

  ‘Henry, I simply cannot cope on my own with Avril! She’s taken a whole box of soapflakes from the wash-house and emptied it into the fountain and the pond! It’s made the most frightful mess! I tell you, it’s too bad of you to take Madeleine away for hours on end when I need her here. I insist that you send her back up to the house. I need her!’

  ‘You insist?’ roared Haddon. ‘I don’t damn well care what you need or don’t need! My work is more important than any damn duck pond or your inability to look after your own offspring! I am painting, woman! I am working! The girl stays there with me! Do you understand? And if you, or Dilys, or any other member of this benighted household so much as sets foot inside the door of my studio again today or any other day, then all hell will break loose! Is that clear?’ And with that he turned and went out.

  He went back through the rain to his studio, closed the big wooden door and paused for a moment to let his temper cool. He brushed the raindrops from his forehead, shook out the wet ends of his trouser legs, and strode around for a few moments, gathering his thoughts and some paint rags.

  Madeleine was sitting waiting, holding her ribbon in her lap, watching the torrents of rain on the window. She moved roughly into position, but deliberately not quite correctly. Haddon moved forward to adjust the set of her shoulders, gently turning her torso into its pose. With his fingers he held her face, tilting her chin and arranging her hair over one shoulder. His touch was firm and delightful to Madeleine. She felt the familiar fire glowing in her loins, and spreading through all her limbs. She had a sudden, urgent longing for him to do more, touch her everywhere.

  ‘Now, the dress – yes, let’s see, the dress…’

  Haddon tugged the bodice a little lower and, as he unfastened the buttons and adjusted the strap to its customary position on her shoulder, became aware of the girl’s gaze fixed upon his face, inches away. Her lips were parted, and he felt the blood surge in his veins in sudden response. A moment passed, and he did nothing. Then, with his eyes still locked on hers, he traced his fingers experimentally downwards. Apart from a light shiver, she did not move, let alone resist. The rain drummed fiercely upon the roof of the barn. He slid his fingers inside the bodice of her dress and found the fullness of her breast. He was ready at any moment to be repulsed, but her gaze remained ardently fastened on his.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, she leaned forward and kissed him. He drew back, startled, but Madeleine, emboldened by what she had learned from Charles Asher yesterday, and filled with a new sense of her own power, found his mouth again. As they kissed, he cupped and fondled her breast, now fiercely aroused, and unfastened the remaining buttons of her dress with his other hand. His mind faltered at that moment – what if they were discovered? He thought of the scene which had just occurred at the house. No one would come down here now. They would not dare to. His conscience was too blurred by desire to feel any scruples. The girl was offering herself to him. He bent his head to kiss her breast.

  Madeleine closed her eyes, a gasping moan escaping her, and grasped his shoulders. In that moment she had no idea whether she had meant to let things come this far. Instinct told her she should stop him, but the sensations flooding her body were too strong. The moment which had been interrupted in the woods the day before, the intense pleasure she knew awaited her, would be fulfilled now. It was what she wanted. Henry Haddon was what she wanted, the object of her love. She had never known that desire could be so powerful.

  Haddon lifted her skirt, his mind ablaze, all thought or sense driven from it, and tugged her pants down. As he pushed himself into her, she gave a wincing cry, and her eyes flew open. For a moment he expected her to thrust him away and run screaming from the barn. But she merely paused for a moment, drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, and arched her back. He pushed into her further, over and over, with a deep, gentle rhythm. She let her head fall back, her hands still on his broad shoulders.

  At last Haddon shuddered to his climax and withdrew. He bowed his head, panting. Madeleine didn’t move. He picked up a paint rag to wipe himself, then pulled his trousers together. She put out a hand to him, but Haddon drew himself upright, suddenly aware, now that his lust was spent, of the folly of what he had just done. He felt a huge misgiving. He had seduced plenty of young women in his time, but this girl was under Sonia’s nominal protection. She was not much more than a child.

  Madeleine plucked her underpants from the floor and put them on. She glanced at Haddon, understanding a little of what he was feeling. She stood up and put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Don’t be angry with yourself. I wanted it. I wanted it more than anything.’ Her voice was low and soft, and he turned to glance at her. God, she was lovely. She drew close to him, reached up and kissed him lightly. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to look at her, studying her expression, marvelling at the confidence, the trust of her smile as she added, ‘I love you.’

  He let out a ragged sigh. ‘No, you don’t love me.’

  She kissed him again. ‘I shall be here tomorrow. I shall be here as often as you want me.’ With that, she left the studio.

  *

  In the hayloft, Avril kept very still. She had been still throughout it all. She had watched Papa undo Madeleine’s buttons and kiss her, and then watched Papa crouching over her with his trousers unfastened, doing that pushing thing. She was completely puzzled by all she had seen, and scared, though she didn’t know why. What she wanted most to do was to go down and cuddle Papa. He looked sad sitting in his chair. She wanted to sit on the ground next to him with her arm around his leg, the way she had at the picnic. But something told her Papa wouldn’t want her there, not the way he had yesterday. Then it had been just her and Papa at the top of the hill, with all the fields and trees below them, Papa drawing and humming, and she sitting next to him, feeling safe and special. Why didn’t he want her here? Why did he let Madeleine come here, and do those things with her? She didn’t want Madeleine here in the barn. She didn’t want Madeleine and Papa to be alone and playing games like the one she had just seen. Her throat went tight, and she wanted to cry, but she dared not make a sound.

  After a few moments Haddon rose from his chair. He ranged around the studio, moving things in a distracted fashion, then gave up and went to the house. There he changed out of his wet clothes and went to his study, where he remained for the rest of the day.

  Long after her father had left the studio Avril stayed crouched in the hayloft, the matted straw prickling her knees. She dared not go back to the house, too frightened by what she had just seen. She cried for a while, listening to the sound of her own whimpers and licking the salty snot from her upper lip. The rain was still coming down, drumming hard on the roof just above her head. She lay down on the straw and tried to think, but she didn’t like the dark pictures in her head. She sat up, wondering what she should do. Then she realised that they would be looking for her, and they might come here and find her. And she knew, above all things, how angry Papa would be if he found out she had been hiding here all this time. So she got up, carefully brushing the little sticks of straw from her dress, and went down the ladder. She approached the canvas standing on the easel and stared at the portrait of Madeleine. It was so lovely, so sad and beautiful, that it made her want to touch it. In the painting Madeleine looked like she had a secret, like she had thoughts in her head which no one else could know, while she waited for the person she knew would never come.

  Avril stood for a few moments, staring at the picture. Then she went to the barn door and peeped out to make sure there was no one about, and ran to the house, almost longing for the normality of people scolding her, hungry for her lunch.

  *

  By the end of the afternoon the storm had eased. The grey clouds began to drift away to reveal a blue, watery sky, and the earth was scented with rain. Only a few scummy bubbles n
ow floated on the surface of the duck pond.

  Avril and Madeleine had spent the rainy hours of the afternoon in the nursery playing board games and drawing. Madeleine’s thoughts of what had happened in the barn ebbed and flowed, dwindling in the absorption of play, then suddenly flooding back to shock her with violent sensuality. She wanted to be on her own, to lie on her bed and close her eyes and replay it all, the gathering pleasure after the first shock of pain had subsided, the sweetness of being desired, the fact of Henry Haddon making love to her. But Avril’s chatter and demands kept her from herself. She longed for it to be night, when she could lie alone and relive the moment of possession.

  The atmosphere in the house had a strangely fractured air. Sonia was conscious of it well before dinner. She went to her husband’s study to speak to him about the leak in the summerhouse. Haddon was at his desk, bent over some books. After his failure to appear at lunch she was half afraid she might find him as ill-tempered as he had been that morning. Instead, he seemed distracted and inattentive.

  ‘The rain has come through and quite soaked the chairs,’ Sonia told him. ‘I propose asking Lobb to move all the furniture until we can get the roof seen to, but that will mean storing it in the barn.’

  ‘Roof? What roof?’

  ‘The summerhouse,’ said Sonia impatiently. ‘It’s leaking. We should have had it looked at months ago. I want to know if you’d mind having the furniture put in the studio to dry out. There really is nowhere else but I know how you hate having your workplace disturbed.’

  He nodded. ‘Very well. Put the furniture in the studio.’

  Sonia, turning to go, hesitated. ‘Are you quite well, Henry?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘I think it’s time you dressed for dinner. We’ll be having drinks in half an hour.’ She paused. ‘By the way, I hope you won’t need Madeleine for much longer – I’m finding Avril such a handful.’

  ‘No,’ said Haddon, after a moment. ‘I don’t need her now. The thing is finished.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Sonia, and left the room.

  Haddon went to his dressing room. He meant what he’d just said. What had happened this morning was, even by his standards, beyond the pale. He had seduced parlourmaids in the past and thought little of it, but Madeleine – she might be a mere nanny, but she was in the house under his wife’s protection, and wasn’t much more than a girl. Yet such a girl! He recalled her face in those moments in the barn, the look in her eyes. The longer she remained, the greater the possibility that something further could occur. He didn’t trust himself. Such temptation was more than he could stand. She would have to go, he decided, as he fastened his collar studs. He would speak to Sonia tonight.

  The younger guests were moody and quiet as they assembled for drinks in the drawing room. Dan had spent much of the afternoon playing chess with Charles, which was regarded by Paul, in his determination to cast Charles in the role of blackguard, as a form of personal disloyalty. His manner this evening towards both men was chilly. The girls, too, were quiet, sitting in murmuring conversation by the window with their drinks, waiting for something – they knew not what – to happen.

  Haddon, on coming in to the drawing room, was relieved to see that Madeleine wasn’t there. He poured himself a whisky and soda, intending to conduct himself robustly and cheerfully, but almost immediately a mild enquiry by Dan as to the progress of his painting drew his nerves to the surface, and he made some sharp response which provoked an uneasy silence in the company.

  Diana went to replenish her drink for the third time. She felt it might be an evening for getting a little tipsy, the atmosphere being so vile. That was the trouble with house parties; they so often went sour in the last couple of days.

  As everyone took their seats at the dinner table, Sonia noticed that Madeleine’s place was empty.

  ‘I wonder where she can have got to?’ she murmured. ‘I’d best go and see. Please, everyone, do begin.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t care for the company this evening,’ remarked Paul, ‘after all that’s happened.’ He glanced meaningfully at Charles.

  A few moments later Sonia returned to the dining room. ‘She doesn’t want to come down to dinner.’

  ‘Is she unwell?’ asked Meg, who was thinking what all the younger guests were thinking – that things might really have gone too far yesterday, further than anyone had realised.

  ‘She’s fine – she’s playing snakes and ladders with Avril.’

  Haddon, who a few seconds ago had had a ghastly vision of a regretful, distraught Madeleine making a weeping confession to his wife, relaxed.

  Diana, who had drained a glass of wine directly on sitting down, decided she would not be bored this evening, and threw in a conversational squib.

  ‘So, tell us, Charles, when do you plan to travel to Spain?’

  ‘To Spain?’ asked Sonia in surprise.

  ‘To fight against the Republicans – it is the Republicans, isn’t it, Charles?’

  Paul laughed. ‘I hardly think he’s going to be fighting on the side of Franco. I hope he’s got that much clear, at any rate.’

  Diana shrugged. ‘There’s so much about it in the papers, how can I be expected to follow it all?’

  ‘Spoken like a true female,’ observed her brother. ‘Nonetheless, you might trouble yourself to understand some of it, if you’re going to talk about it at the dinner table. There’s a wealth of information available that even you could understand.’

  ‘So much is written about foreign affairs these days,’ sighed Sonia, ‘that one feels not so much enlightened as in a perpetual state of crisis.’ She glanced at Charles. ‘But now, tell me, Charles, is this true? Do you really propose to travel to Spain to fight? I can hardly believe it.’

  Charles nodded. ‘I regard it as my intellectual and moral responsibility.’

  Paul gave a snort of derision, and Charles eyed him coldly.

  ‘Responsibility!’ exclaimed Elizabeth Cunliffe. ‘What about responsibility to your poor mother?’

  Sonia shook her head. ‘I think all wars are very wrong. I agree with Mr Huxley on that.’

  ‘Huxley may be a pacifist,’ replied Charles, ‘but he recognises the threat of totalitarianism. As do I. It’s because I can identify very closely with the persecuted and oppressed that I want to do my part. The struggle belongs not just to Spain – it’s worldwide.’

  ‘You mean you’d like to see the Left gaining control of Spain – and of the whole world eventually. That’s the Communist agenda, isn’t it?’ asked Paul. ‘Overthrow the forces of law and order and impose the rule of the mob.’

  ‘Naturally, Latimer, you’re afraid of anything which might threaten your privileged way of life,’ retorted Charles. ‘Perhaps you haven’t the humanity to see that the war in Spain is about more than mere politics. It’s about morality and social justice. Possibly those are concepts you don’t readily understand.’

  Haddon intervened to deflect the growing hostility. ‘A righteous war? Is that what you imagine it to be? If so, you’re sadly mistaken, my young friend. All wars are wicked, and a righteous war is only one degree less wicked. Take my advice and stay at home.’

  ‘If Charles wishes to go to Spain and get himself shot, then let him,’ observed Paul calmly. ‘The fewer Communists the better, I say.’

  ‘Paul, don’t be so foul!’ said Diana. ‘I think going off to fight is a noble and rather romantic thing to do.’

  ‘You would.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ said Meg. ‘I think it’s beastly. I can’t think why anyone would want to be a soldier, whatever the cause. Not if they could be a writer.’

  ‘Or a poet,’ added Sonia who, in her position as hostess, felt that it might be diplomatic to switch to a more innocuous subject. She turned to Gerald Cunliffe. ‘Did you read, Gerald, about that speech which Baldwin gave last month in Cambridge, calling on the universities to produce more poets?’

  Cunl
iffe dabbed his mouth with his napkin. ‘I did. Though why on earth anyone would want to be a poet nowadays, I can’t think. It hardly pays enough to keep a man in tobacco.’

  The conversation moved into calmer waters, but a certain tension remained. A pity, thought Sonia, on everyone’s last night, but probably the house party had gone on long enough. She had found the last few days, what with Madeleine spirited away to the studio for hours on end, extremely trying. It was a relief to know that wretched portrait was finished.

  After a couple of rubbers of bridge the Haddons and the Cunliffes decided to go to bed, as the Cunliffes were catching an early train the next morning. They left the girls listening to the wireless, and Dan, Charles and Paul engaged in a somewhat moody game of cards, which Dan had suggested in a half-hearted attempt to cure the bad atmosphere.

  As Sonia sat at her dressing table, her hair unpinned, taking off her jewellery, her husband came and stood behind her. She smiled at his reflection in the mirror, and he picked up one of Sonia’s brushes and began to brush her hair with long, slow strokes. It was something he hadn’t done in a long time.

  ‘I want to talk to you about that girl,’ said Haddon.

  Sonia paused in the act of removing an earring. ‘Which girl?’

  ‘The Fenton girl. Madeleine.’

  ‘Now, Henry, don’t ask me for more of her time. I need her here at the house. Besides, you said you were finished with her.’

  Haddon said nothing for a few seconds, continuing to brush her hair. ‘I don’t think she should go on living here.’

  Sonia’s eyes widened. ‘What can you mean, Henry?’

  Haddon laid down the brush and turned away. ‘What I say. She should go.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be absurd. I promised Olive I would look after her.’ She paused, then turned to gaze anxiously at her husband. ‘Why? Has she done something? Is there something I should know?’

  ‘Of course not. But I think it’s about time Avril had a proper governess.’