by Caro Fraser
That, thought Meg, was about as useful as saying that breakfast would take care of itself. However, Mrs Runcie didn’t seem particularly put out by the uncertainty over numbers.
‘We can make dinner on Friday stretch, if needs be,’ she said. ‘And by Saturday we’ll know how many we are. I’ll look out some nice recipes. And Maud will put her shoulder to the wheel, won’t you, Maud?’ Maud nodded nervously. ‘We’ll be fine, madam, never you worry.’
Meg was not entirely reassured. She knew that Mrs Runcie was prone to overestimating her own capabilities and was quite liable to succumb to mild hysteria over a collapsed sponge or a curdled sauce. And Maud’s talent didn’t extend much beyond peeling vegetables and washing pots. Still, barring disasters, they would probably get by.
*
Half an hour before the other guests were due to arrive for dinner, Meg, Paul, Roddy, Guy Hitchens and his fiancée Amy were assembled in the drawing room for cocktails.
‘I can’t think what’s keeping Di,’ Paul murmured to Meg. ‘She said she was getting a late-afternoon train. She should have been here ages ago. As for Dan – well, he’s a law unto himself.’
‘We can’t wait dinner. Cook will have a fit. She’s making a cheese soufflé as a first course.’ Why, oh why, thought Meg, had she not scotched that idea? How ridiculous, on an evening when people might arrive late or piecemeal, to be having soufflé.
Shortly after eight, when there was still no sign of Dan or Diana, Meg went to the kitchen.
‘Mrs Runcie, some of the guests are late. I’ve no idea when they’ll get here. Will the soufflé keep?’
Mrs Runcie’s pink cheeks grew even pinker. ‘No, madam. A soufflé does not keep. If it doesn’t come to the table in five minutes, I can’t answer for the consequences.’
Meg swithered. It seemed rude to start dinner without Dan and Diana – but it was rude of them not to turn up on time. And then there was the matter of the soufflé. ‘Very well, Mrs Runcie, we shall have dinner now.’
The soufflé was a success, and was followed by lamb cutlets and fondant potatoes and vegetables. One of the housemaids, Gwen, was waiting at table, and doing so with great proficiency. Apart from the vacant places at the table, Meg felt things were going not badly.
‘You’re so lucky to have a good cook,’ said Amy, a willowy girl with an eager manner. Meg guessed she had only come out this season. ‘I’ve heard servants are a veritable minefield. Frankly, the idea of running a household terrifies me. I only hope I can do as well as you when I’m married.’
Paul directed a gratified smile at his wife.
‘I’m very much a beginner,’ said Meg, ‘but thank you. When are you and Guy—’
Her words were interrupted by three extremely loud horn blasts and the sound of car tyres slewing on the gravel outside. Paul put down his knife and fork.
‘Our late arrivals, I presume.’ He got up and left the room.
Meg carried on chatting to her guests, but with one ear on the commotion and conversation in the hallway. A moment later Paul returned to the dining room, looking a little grim, followed by Diana, Dan and Eve Meyerson. Diana, still in coat and hat, swooped on Meg with an apologetic kiss, managing to knock cutlery to the floor in the process. Meg could smell gin on her breath.
‘Darling Meg, I’m so sorry we’re late! Utterly unforgivable, but entirely Dan’s fault. He offered me a lift, you see, and when I went to meet him he was drinking with all these people, and it took me simply ages to drag him away.’ Diana caught sight of Gwen hovering uncertainly with the serving dishes. ‘Oh, cutlets, how heavenly. I’m simply ravenous. Let me take my coat off.’ She turned to Amy. ‘Oh, how do you do? I don’t think we’ve met…’
Meg watched Diana carefully, trying to assess how drunk she was. After introductions had been made, Dan said to Meg, ‘Diana is completely right – it’s my fault we’re late. I’m afraid we got caught up in a farewell drinks party for one of my colleagues, and I hadn’t realised how long the drive from London would take.’ He had evidently had a few drinks, but didn’t seem to be too much the worse for wear.
‘That’s quite all right,’ replied Meg. ‘I’m just glad you’re here in one piece. There’s still plenty of food.’
Food was served to the new arrivals, and the meal resumed, enlivened now by Diana’s tipsy high spirits. Meg watched Eve and Dan discreetly. She told herself she was glad to see Dan so evidently happy with someone. It would make it easier to get their friendship back on to a sensible footing. She couldn’t help thinking how well he was looking – she always forgot, until she saw him, how vividly handsome he was.
When the meal was over, Paul gave Meg a glance. Taking her cue, Meg rose and caught the eye of first Amy, then Eve. ‘Ladies, shall we go through to the drawing room and leave the men to their brandy and cigars?’
Diana, who was now more than a little drunk, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks lightly flushed, laughed and exclaimed, ‘Oh, must we have all that tosh? Nobody does it in London now. It’s so… so…’ Diana waved her glass, ‘divisive! Don’t you think? It’s much chummier if everyone stays together. I was dining with the Goodmans just last week, and the ladies all stayed put. I’m sure Roddy agrees with me – don’t you, Roddy?’
Appealed to in this way, Roddy had no choice but to reply gallantly, ‘If it means not being deprived of your company, of course I do.’
Paul began to speak. ‘I think—’
Diana shushed him. ‘No, dearest brother, Roddy agrees. And we girls are perfectly comfy where we are – aren’t we?’ Diana smiled round at the other women.
Amy gave an uncertain little laugh and glanced at Guy. Eve raised her eyebrows and said in a comically husky voice, ‘Well, if we’re to stay put with you chaps, I for one insist on a brandy and a cigar.’ She sounded so droll and sharp that everyone laughed; then she added in her ordinary voice, giving Paul a sweet smile, ‘But only if my host will allow it.’
Taking his cue, Paul smiled in return and inclined his head in a little mock bow. ‘How can I refuse such a charming request? So be it. For tonight, the ladies shall be honorary gentlemen. Brandy and cigars for all.’
Meg sat down, relieved that the situation had been rescued – Paul was such a stickler for convention – but slightly bewildered by the realisation that she would have been incapable of doing what Eve had done. But of course, Eve was always cool and quick-witted. No wonder Dan liked her. By the looks of things, more than liked her. She sat for a wistful moment, then, recalling her duties as a hostess, rang for coffee while Paul attended to drinks.
*
Later that night, when everyone had gone to bed, Meg lay awake, Paul asleep next to her. The dinner party had gone well, by and large – everyone seemed to have fun, which was the main thing. Diana and Dan and Eve arriving late had seemed to help, in an odd way, relaxing the sense of formality which had pervaded the meal till then. That was probably the result of her trying too hard. She so wanted to do everything properly, to make Paul proud of her. She lay thinking about her guests, hoping they were comfortable, trying to envisage how the day would unfold tomorrow. At least the weather forecast was reasonable. She listened to the house in darkness giving its usual settling creaks and sighs, and found herself thinking that one of those sounds might be Dan treading softly in the direction of Eve’s bedroom. The recollection of the night he had come to her room at Woodbourne House rushed upon her before she could stop it. She shut her eyes and gripped the bed sheet tight, willing it away. Her mind ranged furiously in search of some other image, some favourite thing, and she concentrated hard on thinking about Grisette, about cantering her through the autumn woods, and succeeded in thrusting the memory back, back into the depths of her mind. She rolled over and pushed herself into the warmth of Paul’s back. He woke, and groggily reached out a hand to cover one of hers, nothing more. After a moment she moved away, turned over, and closed her eyes.
7
‘KENTLEIGH HAS FIVE guns as well as our seve
n, so we’ll be a decent-sized party,’ said Paul, as everyone assembled in the hallway the following morning. He glanced at Meg. ‘Darling, are those shoes entirely suitable? Some of the drives are a very long walk, and it’s been raining a fair bit recently. I suggest you find some stout boots.’
Meg went to hunt out something sturdier, and when she returned, Paul was fretting over the time. ‘It simply isn’t done to keep one’s host waiting. Come on, let’s all get a move on.’
Chastened yet again, Meg was in a mild sulk as they got into the cars to drive to Alderworth Hall, where the Kentleighs lived. Her mood was not improved when Paul murmured to her in what he thought was a consolatory way, ‘Don’t feel bad, chump. You just need a bit of training. What we need is to get you some shooting lessons and the right equipment. Today you can watch and learn.’
As Paul had predicted, the first drive was a long way away, and it seemed to Meg extremely dull sport to have to tramp so far in the freezing cold just to blast off a shotgun at a few clumsy birds. The beaters drove the birds from cover, and the pheasants, in their panicky, ungainly flight, hurled themselves over and over at a fence, before finding their level and rising in flight. The stuttering crash of the guns was deafening. She watched in pity as the birds dropped from the sky. It seemed too easy, more a massacre than sport.
On the walk to the next drive Dan noticed Meg looking cold and miserable as she trudged along. She’d hardly spoken to him since he’d got here. Probably to do with the argument they’d had outside the pub in Chidding last summer. He saw her fall behind the others as she tried to bring to heel Paul’s new young retriever, who still couldn’t quite resist the scent of a rabbit, and slowed his pace to fall into step beside her.
‘Hello, there. I haven’t had the chance to talk to you properly yet.’ He was glad of an excuse to be within touching distance of her. He marvelled at the translucence of her skin, the dark, wayward softness of her hair.
She smiled. ‘No, it’s been awfully busy. This is the first kind of thing Paul and I have hosted.’ Meg’s gaze slid sideways to Dan’s fingers flexing nervously on the stock of his shotgun.
‘Actually, I want to apologise for the way I behaved last time we met. I had no business saying what I did.’
‘Please don’t worry – I’d entirely forgotten about it.’ They walked on in silence. Meg fought to find some impersonal, commonplace remark, and remembered something. ‘By the way, I meant to ask – do you remember someone called Arthur Bettany from your schooldays?’
Mildly surprised by the change of tack, Dan replied, ‘Yes, we were in the same form.’
‘What sort of a boy was he?’
‘Ridiculously clever. Somewhat arrogant. He got a scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge. Good bat, too.’ Hardly fair to mention his effeminacy, Dan thought; he’d been a schoolboy, and people changed. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason. His named cropped up. I just wondered.’
They had reached the next drive, and the guns were lining up. ‘Well, I’d better go and join the others. See you later.’
‘Yes. See you later.’
And they parted, both feeling faintly unhappy, neither quite sure why.
*
So far the day had been unsatisfactory for Diana. She was peeved to find that Roddy was so intent on the day’s sport that he wasn’t paying her as much attention as their last encounter had suggested he might. In fact, his attentiveness merely extended to bringing down any bird she missed – which she did rather often, thanks to her hangover.
‘I say,’ she said crossly, ‘must you keep wiping my eye?’
Roddy just laughed and carried on bagging whatever came within range of his gun.
‘Ass!’ muttered Diana to herself, though she was unable to resist a lingering glance at the muscled thighs stretching the tweed of his plus fours as he bent to retrieve his cartridges, which wasn’t lost on Eve.
‘He’s quite an eyeful, isn’t he?’ she murmured.
‘Roddy’s the only reason I’m here,’ confided Diana, as they waited for the beaters to raise more birds. ‘I loathe shooting, but I’m hoping this weekend will provide some rather more interesting sport.’ She glanced at Eve. ‘How are things with Dan?’
Eve sighed. ‘I’m a glutton for punishment. I know perfectly well he doesn’t care as much about me as I do about him.’ She hesitated, then decided to confide. ‘A few weeks ago when he was drunk he told me that he’s harbouring an unrequited passion for some married woman. He won’t say who she is. A glamorous, rich beauty, no doubt. So there’s room for me in his bed, but not his heart.’
‘Hmm. With Dan, it’s probably more a case of wanting what he can’t have, rather than really being in love.’
‘Perhaps that’s my problem. Maybe I should play harder to get.’
‘My dear, you can’t afford to get too soppy about Dan. He really isn’t the faithful type. Anyway, I remember last summer you said you weren’t interested in anything more than a fling.’
‘It’s become a bit more than that – for me, at least.’
‘That’s too bad. No cure for love, I’m afraid.’ She gave Roddy another glance. ‘I have no intention getting bogged down in all that emotional stuff. I simply take my fun where I find it.’
*
The atmosphere at dinner that night was relaxed and convivial after the day’s shooting, and Mrs Runcie’s food was excellent. One of Paul’s current projects was the stocking of his new cellar, where he had already laid down some excellent vintages, and the wine was first-rate and plentiful. Meg surveyed the table as her guests sat over coffee and liqueurs, the low light sparkling on the wedding-present crystal and Minton porcelain, and felt supremely happy and secure. The weekend had given her a new confidence. There would be many more successful weekend parties such as this. She would learn to shoot, become a good enough horsewoman to join the hunt, be everything Paul wanted her to be. She looked across at Paul, and they exchanged smiles.
Roddy, who had been conversing with Paul, suddenly turned and spoke across the table to Dan. ‘What do you think, Dan? You’re well up on politics these days. Paul reckons that Mosley’s support is growing in London.’
‘Well, it’s true the BUF is trying to move back to mainstream politics,’ replied Dan, after a moment’s thought, ‘but you can’t ignore the fact that it’s essentially an anti-Semitic movement. You only have to look at what happened at Cable Street to see that the British people won’t stand for that.’
‘Really?’ said Guy, as he passed the port. ‘In the local elections last spring Mosley got over twenty-three per cent of the vote in Limehouse.’ The general chatter round the dinner table subsided in deference to a serious subject. ‘And only heads of household were allowed to vote – the dads and granddads, so to speak – so who knows how much higher the figure would have been if his younger supporters had had their say?’
‘The real point,’ said Paul, lighting a cigar, ‘is that, like it or not, we have a Jewish problem. It’s the failure to face up to it that’s the cause of all the trouble in Germany. Perhaps if it had been openly addressed and debated, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now. Look at the numbers of Jewish refugees flooding into this country.’
‘They’re an industrious lot, at any rate,’ observed Roddy, taking the port from Guy. ‘The entire Leipzig fur trade seems to have transferred itself to London. That can’t be bad for business.’
Dan glanced at Eve, wishing he could think of a way to stop what he thought might be coming next.
‘I’m not saying some of them can’t be useful. The important thing to ensure is that we take only those refugees who can contribute something to the country, the cream of the milk so to speak,’ said Paul. ‘I was speaking to a friend in the Foreign Office just last week, and he agrees an open-door policy is out of the question. We can’t just let a wave of foreign Jewish rabble swarm in.’
Eve, who had been listening quietly up to this point, suddenly looked up, her dark
eyes intent. ‘A swarm of rabble? Each one is a human being, just like you. I think the attitude of the government is deplorable. I’d go so far as to describe it as anti-Semitic. Too many people think, oh, how much can Hitler do to the Jews with the eyes of the world looking on? But we know what’s happening to Jews there.’ She looked round the table. ‘We all do. It’s just not something that civilised people in English dining rooms wish to talk about – why discuss the German boycott of Jewish businesses or the Nuremberg laws when you can talk about pheasant-shooting or vintage wines?’
‘My dear Eve,’ said Paul, ‘I feel as sorry for them as the next person, but we cannot simply open the floodgates and allow anyone and everyone on to these shores—’
Eve put down her napkin and stood up. She turned to Meg. ‘I’m sorry. I’m spoiling your dinner party, but I think I should go to bed.’
A more accomplished hostess might have defused the situation somehow, but Meg was too dismayed to know what to say.
‘I say,’ stammered Roddy, ‘I’m sure Paul didn’t mean anything, you know.’
‘No, honestly – I’m tired.’ She tried to smile. ‘Please excuse me. Meg, that was a wonderful dinner. I shall see you all in the morning.’
There was a pained silence after she had left the room.
‘Oh well, it just goes to show the old adage is right,’ murmured Guy. ‘No politics or religion at the dinner table.’
‘Perhaps you didn’t realise that Eve herself is Jewish,’ said Dan. He glanced at Paul. ‘I thought you might have picked that up from her surname.’
‘Good Lord, I had no idea. I say—’
Dan rose from his chair. ‘I’ll just go and see that she’s all right.’
When Dan had left, Diana got to her feet and announced that she intended to have an early night, too. Her glance met Roddy’s briefly.
‘I think I might do the same,’ said Amy.
Meg rang for Enid to clear the table.
‘If the ladies are retiring, how about we three have a game of billiards?’ said Paul, swallowing the remains of his port.