‘Oh, I am sorry! But you must believe me! He was there. I saw him!’
‘You had a bad dream, that’s all. But I’m not complaining.’
‘I was awake,’ I said, perhaps a little sulkily.
‘All right, I believe you.’ It was perfectly obvious that he did not. ‘OK, there’s nothing to worry about. I looked everywhere, even under the bed. Cordelia’s safe. Anyway she’s got that hulking great dog in with her. Now, dear … lovely … Harriet.’ He stroked my hair, then kissed me, first on the forehead and then on the lips. ‘Let’s forget all about him, shall we, and think about something more interesting?’
‘Ah. Oh! But this isn’t – You think I made it all up just to get into your room!’ I struggled free and looked at him with reproachful eyes.
‘Let’s say it does look a little that way.’ He pushed my head back gently so he could kiss my throat. ‘But quite why you needed an excuse … I’ve been trying everything I know for days to get you in here. It needed only the lightest tap on my door.’
‘Really, truthfully!’ I clutched defensively at my nightdress, which he was unbuttoning. ‘I did see him. I did!’
‘All right, you saw him.’ He pushed my hands away. ‘Oh, what delicious little breasts you have. Exquisite. I hate making love to a Madonna.’
‘I swear to you I thought this was Freddie’s room.’
‘Harriet. Enough.’ He stopped suddenly and looked at me searchingly. ‘You’re not a virgin, are you?’
‘Certainly not!’ Then honesty compelled me to say, ‘But I’m not very experienced. My first lover doesn’t really count as the whole thing was a dreadful mistake and my second –’ I paused. Suddenly Dodge’s enthusiastic puppy-like burrowings seemed friendly and safe.
‘Only two! These days you probably qualify for the Sunday School Chastity Prize. That’s perfect. We don’t want to make a mess on someone else’s sheets. You needn’t worry about lack of technique. It’s enough that you want me to make love to you.’
‘But I wouldn’t dream of trying to seduce you with a trick –’
‘Why not? Anyway,’ he let the eiderdown drop, ‘you can see I’m willing.’
I could. He slid his hand through the opening in my nightdress and started to caress my breasts and waist with deft fingers as though he were modelling the perfect woman out of clay. My body responded immediately. I felt my skin contract and grow hot, as the blood rushed faster through my veins. Adrenalin sent tremors of excitement through every organ, not least my heart, which beat as though trying to attract the attention of Rupert and Archie next door. Extraordinary sensations shot up and down my thighs. I was unable to resist when he laid me on the bed, for my muscles were quivering like those poor darling frogs’ legs when the biology mistress passed a current through them in the lab at school.
‘Oh, Harriet! Harriet, my darling!’ he murmured into my ear as he lay beside me and pressed the length of his body against mine. ‘Who will not change a raven for a dove?’
A piece of my mind – for, of course, though it felt entirely physical and involuntary, it was my mind that was largely responsible for these startling manifestations of passion – broke away from the rest and began an independent survey. Even while I ached to feel his body in mine, I was also thinking that this was not a good idea. His frequent use of my name was like the tugging of a thread that connected me to conscience and probity. Of course he did not know that quotations from Shakespeare were evocative of childhood and lisping innocence, of boiled eggs and soldiers, teddy bears and milky drinks, of young Harriet Byng in all her ambition, folly and ineptitude.
I struggled to resolve the dichotomy, to anaesthetise my mind was what my physical self stridently demanded, and it was cheered to the echo by the things he was doing with the tip of his tongue. One last fleeting thought hardened into an idea and hovered like a bird of prey above my scurrying emotions. If I, presumably, was the dove, who then was the raven? But now, as he brought matters to a head and I at once capitulated, it was too late to enquire.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Only the children and Rupert and Archie were in the dining room when I went down for breakfast.
Max had woken me at ten to six and we had said goodbye with kisses and hasty avowals of affection. He had been preoccupied with the business of chucking his things into a suitcase and I was entirely sympathetic as I have always hated packing. Cordelia was still asleep when I got back to my room. I waited until dawn before opening the closet door. I saw my own face, pale beneath hair tangled by lovemaking. Tentatively I put out my hand to touch the mirror. It was cold and solid.
Georgia entered the dining room as I was beginning my bacon and eggs. She looked very smart. Her head was wrapped in a turban of lime-green crêpe and she wore matching harem trousers. Her fingernails had been painted gold.
‘Where’s the kedgeree?’ She looked accusingly round the table. When no one confessed to having it she took a spoonful of mushrooms and a slice of toast and ate them with an air of martyrdom.
‘It’s like the Ten Little Niggers, isn’t it?’ said Cordelia. ‘People are disappearing fast. I don’t care about the Mordakers but I wish Max hadn’t gone.’
‘Naturally we shall miss him,’ said Archie, ‘but those of us who have a tenuous relationship with sleep will find comfort in the cessation of traffic up and down the gallery all night long.’
The hypocrisy of it! I looked up, intending to brazen it out. But Archie was looking at Georgia. She lifted her eyebrows until they disappeared under the turban and smirked with an affectation of insouciance. An unpleasant idea lodged itself like a dart in my brain.
‘What do you mean?’ Annabel and Cordelia spoke in unison. I should have liked to know, myself.
‘Three may keep a secret,’ Archie leaned forward confidentially. The two girls looked excited. ‘But only if two of them are dead.’
While the girls groaned I happened to catch Rupert’s eye. He was looking at me over a copy of The Economist with that speculative gaze with which I was now familiar. Thankfully his sightline was interrupted by a dish of kedgeree carried by Mrs Whale.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ she said when Georgia complained that it had come too late. ‘Lady Pye’s in bed and I’ve everything to do on my own. What with Sir Oswald’s tray having to be punctual I couldn’t get round to the kedgeree before.’
‘Perhaps if you’d begun earlier –’ began Georgia.
‘What’s the matter with Lady Pye?’ asked Rupert.
‘She’s sick. I can’t say what with. She won’t have the doctor. I’ve Sir Oswald’s tray to fetch, the drawing room to dust, the breakfast to wash up and the beds to make so I’ll get on now, unless there’s anything else you was wanting.’
‘Has that wretched tin arm turned up yet?’ Rupert changed the conversation abruptly.
‘No, sir,’ Mrs Whale looked immediately uneasy.
‘Have you had a good look for it?’
‘No. Begging your pardon, sir, but I dursen’t.’
‘You don’t believe all that nonsense, surely?’
‘No, sir. Only at night, when the wind’s moaning and the house is creaking like a ship at sea …’
She left the sentence unfinished. It was obvious that she did believe it and I, for one, did not blame her.
‘I think it might be a good idea to inform the police,’ said Rupert surprisingly. ‘Find me the number of the local station, would you, Mrs Whale?’
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but Lady Pye won’t like it. She’ll think it’s disrespectful to the – to Sir Oswald’s ancestors. Come to that, Sir Oswald won’t like it neither.’
‘I’ll take the responsibility.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She went away, her expression gloomy.
‘Surely the police won’t take it seriously?’ I said.
‘It falls into the same category as obscene telephone calls and poison-pen letters. An attempt to disturb the balance of someone’s mind. I think they’ll take it very serious
ly.’
‘If she’s ill Maggie won’t be able to finish my dress before I have to go back to school.’ Scowling, Annabel used the blade of her knife as a catapult to flip toast crusts on to the deck of the silver ship.
‘Ow!’ said Georgia as a piece of toast hit her face. ‘Must you behave like a child of the gutter?’
‘Must you be so ugly?’ returned Annabel immediately.
‘You foul little kid!’ Georgia’s aniseed-ball eyes narrowed with dislike. ‘Someone ought to knock some decent manners into you!’
Rupert put down his cup and lowered his magazine. ‘Annabel! Apologise. Now!’
‘Shan’t.’ Annabel pushed out her lower lip and went very red. Slowly Rupert started to get up from his chair. ‘All right! I’m sorry! So there!’ she shouted. I wondered what she had imagined he was going to do. I had never been remotely tempted to discipline Cordelia with a display of power, knowing she would instantly call my bluff. She was watching the interchange with keen interest.
Georgia threw down her napkin and stood up. Her cheek glistened with a smear of butter. ‘You could be an exhibit in the Chamber of Horrors,’ was her departing shot.
Rupert looked at Annabel. ‘You’re old enough to understand that you don’t insult guests. Your behaviour to Georgia was gauche and unattractive. But worse is your grossly selfish attitude to Maggie. That really is ugly.’ He returned to his reading.
Annabel gave a brave see-if-I-care smile and went on flicking toast, with greater accuracy. But after a while she began to sniff and a tear ran down her cheek. Poor little thing, I thought. She really does love him.
‘Il faut détourner la conversation,’ muttered Cordelia to me. It was what Ma always said when her guests became quarrelsome, as though they didn’t all understand French perfectly well. I tried to think of something pacific to say.
‘If you’re going to sniff in that disgusting way,’ said Rupert, without looking up, ‘would you mind doing it elsewhere?’
Annabel burst into tears.
‘I bet Max looks amazing in tights,’ said Cordelia in her most grown-up voice.
‘I prefer a little more beef and thewiness,’ Archie responded in a tone of seriousness. ‘The modern man is so girlishly skinny, as though at that moment prised from the rack. Also Max is just a little too clever. I like men to be blundering dolts as Nature intended. I speak romantically, of course. When it comes to conversation a sharp wit is agreeable.’
Annabel continued to weep, her head pressed into the circle of her arms. I felt sorry for her. She was still a child, with passionate feelings she could not control, and who lacked proper guidance. She had fastened her affections on a man who was indifferent to women – and certainly to little girls – who was impatient, unsympathetic and emotionally inaccessible. Just as I was wondering how best to comfort her, Rupert closed The Economist with a sigh and said, ‘Annabel, stop that hideous grizzling this instant before I lose my temper.’
I was shocked by such harshness. Had he quite forgotten what hell it is to be young? Annabel let out a low wail and then suppressed her weeping to hiccups.
‘Good.’ Rupert looked at her with cold detachment. ‘If you want to stay with us in London you’ll have to acquire a few civilised habits. I won’t have scenes at breakfast. Nor at any other time, preferably. But first thing in the morning it’s insupportable.’
‘Will you really let me come?’ Annabel lifted red eyes that were amazed.
‘If you show me you can control yourself and not be a repulsive brat, you can spend the last night of the Easter holidays with us and I’ll take you back to school myself the next day. But I shall want a good report from Maggie.’
Annabel’s face was transformed from woe to delight. ‘Could we go to the Motor Show?’
‘Archie will take you. He likes cars. But only if you conduct yourself properly.’
‘Oh, Rupert, I’ll do anything you want. Anything!’ She went to stand by his chair and put her small hand on his arm. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’
‘All right. We’ll see.’
‘What shall I do to start?’
‘You must give Maggie all the help you can. And be polite and respectful to her.’
‘I will, I promise! But can’t I do something now to show you how good I can be?’
Rupert sighed again. ‘I don’t want a slave, just someone who’s bearable to have around.’ Annabel looked disappointed. ‘Oh, all right. You can clean my car.’
Annabel shot off. Rupert tackled the buttery marks on his sleeve with his napkin.
‘What diplomacy,’ said Archie. ‘I pray she doesn’t get gravel in the sponge. But must we really have that little pest to stay? Annabel and the Motor Show! My God, I’d rather beat hemp.’ Then he waggled his eyebrows at me apologetically as he remembered that my father was at this moment doing the twentieth-century equivalent.
‘Not diplomacy,’ said Rupert. ‘Out-and-out bribery. I’m afraid we must. Now I’d better make some telephone calls.’
‘He’s going to regret taking that ghastly child on.’ Archie helped himself to another cup of coffee. ‘But lame ducks swim after Rupert as gulls follow the plough.’ He smiled as though at a fond memory.
‘I think the Byngs may well qualify as the most troublesome hangers-on,’ I said. We were alone, Cordelia and Rupert having left the room. ‘Archie, what did you mean about Max and noises in the gallery at night?’
Archie looked pained. ‘My dear Harriet, if you want to persuade a man to give up a life of delicious self-indulgence, a bank balance in credit and his house just as he likes it to throw in his lot with you, you must learn not to take a chap up on casual remarks at breakfast.’
‘You’re prevaricating.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Please tell me.’
‘On your own head be it. But no sudden yells or shrieks, please. My eardrums have been delicate from infancy.’ I remained demurely composed. ‘Well. Several times during the last few nights when a full bladder has required me to risk frostbite, I happened to run into Miss Bisset going into or coming out of the bedroom of Max Frensham. In view of the risk he was running, I think the man is probably wildly oversexed, not to say satyric.’
‘What’s that?’ I felt rather sick.
‘Satyriasis, my innocent child, is a neurotic compulsion to have sexual intercourse as often as possible with as many women as possible. A masculine version of nymphomania and endemic among politicians. Fornicating with the Bisset was obviously inadvisable when a blindworm could have seen that Max’s chief object was to spin his wheels with you. Of course, it’s none of my business what you girls get up to but I hope he did not succeed.’ Archie stretched the points of his waistcoat over his embonpoint and looked at me over his half-spectacles with a magisterial gaze.
‘Certainly not!’ I snapped, stifling a strong desire to cry.
‘Oh dear! Just as I feared. Another notch on the Frensham bedpost. Harriet, do not attempt to follow your father on the stage. You’ll never get further than Fifi, the French maid.’
‘Are you sure it was Max’s room you saw her coming out of? I mean,’ I blushed, ‘it would be easy to mistake one door for another.’
‘A man of my years and experience makes it his business to know where guests at a house party are located,’ said Archie solemnly.
I put my head in my hands.
‘Oh now, don’t take on, there’s a good thing. The world won’t end because Harriet Byng has been to bed with a bounder.’
I was confused by the sudden transposition of ideas. Max was not, after all, an ardent lover aspiring to possess my heart, but a common philanderer. Georgia was not a pathetic coquette. She had known precisely what she wanted and had got it. I was the dupe. How could I have been such a conceited, gullible idiot? When I put this question to Archie, I could not prevent a choke in the voice and a wateriness of the eye. He screwed up his face in dismay and came round the table to sit beside me.
‘For one th
ing, Harriet, you’re unassuming and that’s very charming. You didn’t think about protecting yourself. No doubt he swore eternal love. Surely your mother must have told you what fibbers men are? Are you in love with him? The truth now. Remember you have the acting ability of a jar of jam.’
I thought hard. ‘No,’ I said at last. ‘I honestly think not. I found him very attractive but that was partly because I thought he was very attracted to me. I felt under some sort of obligation because he was so attentive. Crazy, I know.’
‘If only boys were so sweetly grateful. But of course he was attracted to you. What red-blooded heterosexual man wouldn’t be? I’ve no doubt he went to bed with Georgia because she was available. But anyone could see it was you who got his pistons pumping.’
I knew this was Archie being kind but none the less it did make me feel a little better.
‘She’s much more glamorous and fashionable than I am.’
‘Pish! I admit she has a certain crude panache. As she’s not actually good-looking, she has to knock our eyes out instead. Who’d notice a fat, plain man like me if I wore dull grey suits and behaved as other men?’ Archie stroked the lapel of his red-and-black striped blazer with complacency. ‘But you, Harriet, can afford to ignore the ploys of vulgar fashion. I don’t want to turn your head.’ I thought it was impossible that I should ever think well of myself again but as Archie was in full flow I did not interrupt him. ‘No, your modesty is one of the many attractive things about you, and in this world of Bissets, unusual. But you also have the great gift of physical beauty. You must understand, now and for ever, that style is the aim in view and that fashion is the antithesis of style. Fashion is imitation. You must discover what is the essence of Harriet and cultivate it. Be yourself one hundred per cent. Dress as you think, as you feel, as you speak.’ I sniffed noisily and tried to look as though I might possibly be the essential creature he described. Archie frowned. ‘Until you know who you are, you’d better let me continue to have the dressing of you. I can assure you, at this moment you are the distillation of subtle elegance.’
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