‘It is awful, isn’t it?’ said Cordelia with the conscious merit of one in possession of a decent name.
It is all very well for Shakespeare to say, ‘What’s in a name? that which we call a rose’, et cetera. The answer is, quite a lot actually. William is a neutral, classless name. If Shakespeare had been obliged to go about introducing himself by a name that had people smirking and sniggering and had he been called Desperate Moaner by his classmates, he would have taken a very different attitude. When you think of someone, you create a sort of collage of the dominant characteristics of their face and figure, along with the background you most associate them with, and jumbled up in the picture is their name. In fact you can’t think of them without it.
‘My first name’s Scarlett,’ said Annabel.
‘Really?’ Cordelia was impressed. ‘After Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind? I love that bit when Clark Gable picks her up and gallops off upstairs with her to – you know, violent her. Imagine if he’d tripped at the top!’
‘She’s fibbing again,’ said Jonno. ‘Come to think of it, if Annabel’s first name really was Scarlett that would make her initials SAP. Rather suitable.’
Annabel brow blackened. She pushed back her chair and ran from the room.
‘That gel has the manners of a Red Indian.’ Miss Tipple was working her way enthusiastically through the pudding like a nesting vole, only occasionally coming up for air.
I wondered if Sir Oswald would be offended by this criticism of his daughter but he continued to look at Cordelia with a soppy smile on his face and to clasp his spoon convulsively.
‘Your name must really be Archibald.’ Cordelia addressed Archie. ‘Luckily you aren’t. Bald, I mean.’
‘No,’ said Archie in a superior way, drooping his silvered eyelids. ‘Actually it’s Archduke.’
‘Within the case the thing lay with one metal finger outstretched like a finger-post to hell,’ I wrote. ‘A sickly phosphorescent light emanated from its rust and slime-clad shell, with an odour of corruption, like something that has been too long underwater. But worse was the reek of malevolence, detectable neither by the ocular nor the olfactory senses but by the impressibility of the mind. The propensity for wickedness, which is within all of us, leaped up like a flame in a draught in response to the evil that seethed within the loathed object. Even as I looked at it I felt my spirit grow meaner and falser and harder in sympathy.’ Too much D. H. Lawrence? I wondered. Perhaps leaping flames sounded rather sexual. I crossed it out, chucked another log on the fire in the Little Parlour where I was working, and laboured on, while outside the wind groaned in sympathy with my efforts.
Two hours later I had completed another paragraph. My head was reeling with polysyllables and even my elbows were inky. But I was convinced that I had the bones of a really good spine-chilling article. Now that I had begun to describe the arm dragging itself inch by inch by its fingertips along the gallery I was starting at every movement of logs in the grate. Twice I had glanced rapidly over my shoulder, once to discover Dirk scratching his ear and the second time to see Mrs Whale standing in the doorway.
‘Sorry to disturb you, miss.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I lied.
‘There’s only two hours till dinner. I’ve the books to dust, the clocks to wind, and the sheets to iron. I’ll not get the vegetables cleaned for Mr Archie unless I leave one of them jobs over. What’ll it be?’
‘Better leave the books.’ I said absently, my mind still resonating with ghastly happenings.
‘Sir Oswald is very particular about the books being speckless.’
‘All right, don’t iron the sheets. There’s no one new coming to stay.’
‘Lady Pye likes the beds ready and aired at all times, just in case.’
‘Well, leave the clocks then.’ I almost shouted, then remembered her sad life and managed not to.
‘As you please. Only then some of them’ll stop and being that old they don’t always start up smooth. You have to take them slow through the quarter chimes –’
I threw down my pen. ‘I’ll dust the books.’
I was crossing the hall, composing a complicated sentence about the horror of being woken by the insistent tapping of a prosthetic forefinger on one’s bedpost, when the doorbell clanged on its wire and made me skip with fright. I opened the front door a fraction and looked cautiously out into the freezing dark.
‘Harriet! Darling!’
One of the two people who stood on the doorstep flung her arms round my neck. It was Portia.
‘So you see, what with that beastly man threatening to press charges against Suke, it seemed best to avoid London for a bit and stop off here for a few days until tempers have cooled. I did ring a few days ago to ask if we could. I’m surprised Lady Pye didn’t say anything. She sounded an absolute poppet. I hope you don’t mind us muscling in on your scene?’
Portia and I were in my bedroom changing for dinner. Suke had declined to change, contending that the convention of putting on evening dress had been formulated with the sole purpose of exciting men to sexual congress later on and that therefore we should refuse to comply with it. I had pleaded rules of the house and received a scathing look. Portia and Suke had been wearing identical baggy boiler suits when they arrived, woven from something I think is called jute – anyway the colour of old sacks, no doubt from Suke’s own loom. The excitement factor was certainly not evident. I was thankful that Portia had not followed Suke’s lead and shaved off her hair. Suke’s naked, veined head had a fierce, sculpted beauty like a statue of The Warrior in marble.
I remembered the note about porter and soup for Thursday dinner. ‘Maggie hasn’t been well. And no, of course I don’t mind. I’m thrilled to see you. But what did Suke do exactly?’
‘It was during the Authors’ Convention in Edinburgh. This man, a writer called Buck Blister, gave a talk about how all good thriller writers are men because female writers are incapable of understanding the amoral hero who only cares about winning the game. Women want to make him into a sort of Lassie, saving the weak and innocent and reforming everyone, with good finally triumphing. Whereas the proper hero mooches off alone at the end, even dirtier and more disorganised, having lost the woman he loved and quarrelled irreconcilably with his head of section, despising everyone except possibly Vladimir who he’s just blasted to atoms.’
‘Well, come to think of it, are there any good female thriller writers? I can think of masses of good detective writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham and –’
Portia, who was brushing her hair, stopped to look at me in the mirror. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let Suke hear you say that! When Buck got to the end of his talk she climbed on to the platform and hit him with the microphone until blood ran. He had to have stitches.’
‘That was a bit rough wasn’t it?’
‘He asked for it.’ Portia did not meet my eye. ‘It was then I discovered that I’m not made for militancy. I actually felt sorry for him. Wasn’t it wet of me?’
‘Not at all! Any decent person would –’ I hesitated – ‘except Suke, of course, because she’s so dedicated. But anyway if you don’t like seeing people thrashed then that’s how you feel and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.’
‘Ah, but that’s easier said than done, isn’t it? Having the courage of your own convictions, I mean. You’re usually the one bleating about that.’ She smoothed down her dress – my dress actually. As Cordelia was already in my black, I had lent Portia my blue silk cloqué dress and my godmother’s garnets. ‘How do I look?’
‘Terrific.’ I did not exaggerate. Her lashes were the longest in the family and she had darkened them with mascara, which made her eyes look even bigger.
I put on a wool dress that was a becoming shade of blackcurrant. As Archie had chosen it I was confident that it suited me. Not that I minded about being outshone. I was entirely used to it. Actually I was proud of my sisters as we stood in the drawing room before dinner. It wa
s just a pity the audience was so small. Only Miss Tipple and Annabel were there before us. I hoped Jonno was not in his room, getting drunk. When Sir Oswald came rolling in he was clearly much struck by Portia.
‘So!’ He nuzzled the back of her hand. ‘Is there no end to this family of ravishing young creatures?’
‘My sister Ophelia is generally considered to be the beauty,’ said Portia, sounding rather Jane Austen-ish. ‘It’s so kind of you to have us at the last minute.’
Sir Oswald looked interested. ‘Is Ophelia older or younger than you, my dear?’ He pinched her bare arm in a friendly way, which made Portia jump.
‘Older. My friend Suke’s with me. Lady Pye said we might come. We really are grateful.’
‘You need not thank me, my dear Miss Ping. The vitality of youth casts a vernal garland over these ancient walls –’ His flowery prose suffered a check when Suke came in. ‘Ah, here is your young friend.’ His eyes ran over her gleaming cranium and the shapeless suit, and his face fell. ‘Well, well.’
Despite the clothes and lack of hair, Suke had plenty of self-possession. She shook hands with Sir Oswald and thanked him for his hospitality in a manner that was not without charm. She had something of Joan of Arc about her, combined with the Boy David. She was tall and slender, her nose was sharp, her mouth firm, her chin decided. She stood with her feet apart and her hands clasped behind her back and her straight gaze told you there could be no compromise. I saw then what had made Portia fall in love with her. You knew at once that she would always tell you the truth, regardless of its palatability, or convenience to herself. She was strong in a way I deeply admired. I hovered nearby in case Sir Oswald should make a tactless remark and provoke Suke to hit him. I checked around for instruments to hand and while Suke was being introduced to Miss Tipple I hid the poker behind the sofa.
‘Not Miss Ernestine Tipple!’ cried Suke. ‘The author of The Fox and the Goose – an Analysis of Modern Marriage?’
Miss Tipple bowed her head in acknowledgement.
‘But that’s extraordinary. It’s practically been my bible. I’ve read everything you’ve ever written.’
Miss Tipple opened eyes colourless with age and fastened them hopefully on Suke’s face. ‘Even The Speckled Band – my work on venereal disease in women? For some reason that did not sell particularly well.’
‘I found it very moving. A work of scholarship, I should say.’
‘You appear to be a very intelligent young woman.’ Miss Tipple uncurled until her spine was almost straight. ‘I should like your opinion of my work in progress entitled History of the Union of Female Franchise. I have been many years already in its composition and I fear the end is not yet in sight. My eyes are troublesome and arthritis in my hand makes it difficult to hold a pen.’
‘I should be honoured.’ Suke stood with head flung back. I could not decide whether she most resembled Sir Lancelot or Robin Hood at that moment. She should have had a silver lance or a quiver of arrows.
‘Marvellous, isn’t she?’ said Portia, to me in an undertone while Suke was offering her services as Miss Tipple’s amanuensis.
‘Marvellous. But I shouldn’t like to get on her wrong side.’
‘No.’ Portia looked thoughtful. ‘When she’s disappointed in you that’s almost worse than when she’s angry. Like a bucket of freezing water. I’m afraid I haven’t quite measured up.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m much too frivolous. I can’t be intense for more than two minutes together. And I don’t really give a damn about things like being considered a sex object. Actually I quite like it. And I like men – though natch some are pigs. Also I do enjoy a good joke occasionally.’
I understood from this that Portia’s Schwarm for Suke was largely over. I hoped there would not be trouble.
‘Portia!’ Archie, who had just that moment come in to the drawing room, embraced her warmly. ‘Too heavenly to see you. Harriet told me you were here. Luckily we’re having gannat de chou-fleur which can be made to stretch. I need a drink.’ He helped himself to champagne from the drinks tray nearby. ‘I have wrestled with that beastly stove for two hours. Now I know how Hercules felt when he succeeded in slaying the Nemean Lion. Oo-hoo!’ He executed a grand battement on seeing Suke. ‘My dear,’ he said in a whisper to me, ‘I feel quite faint. I can see the blood vessels throbbing on her skull. Horrid, horrid, horrid! Please make sure we are at opposite ends of the table or I shan’t be able to eat a thing!’
I was about to reassure him when Portia clutched my arm. ‘Harriet! You mean thing, keeping him to yourself!’
She was staring in the direction of the door. There stood Phoebus Apollo, as though he had stepped through the frame of the portrait on the stairs, changed into black tie and come down to dinner. His ear-length wavy hair was the colour of butter and his clean-shaven, chiselled features would have driven Narcissus mad with envy.
‘Greek god or what!’ she breathed.
‘Greek god,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’
Jonno, transformed almost out of recognition by the removal of his beard and ponytail, glanced about the room. He saw me and grinned self-consciously.
‘He’s coming over.’ Portia turned to face me. ‘Please don’t tell me he’s queer. I couldn’t bear it!’
‘Ssh! He’ll hear you. Not as far as I know. Hello, Jonno.’ I signalled approval of his changed appearance with my eyes. ‘Portia, this is Jonno Pye. Jonno, my sister Portia.’
Portia turned her head over her shoulder to look at him. It was a beguiling glance, demure beneath those fabulous eyelashes, like a shy woodland creature of leafy shadows and sparkling glades. Jonno sucked in his breath as though he had been winded.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
They stared at each other. Jonno’s cheeks, pale from the beard, gave a twitch or two as he clenched his jaw. His lips, beautifully moulded, parted with surprise as he gazed at Portia’s lovely face.
‘Portia’s just come down from Scotland,’ I said. ‘From an authors’ convention. With her friend Suke.’
‘How – fascinating. Was it – snowing?’
‘Snowing?’
‘In Scotland.’
‘Oh. No. Yes, I mean. Sleet. A blizzard actually.’
‘How – wonderful.’
I left them still staring at each other with rapt expressions and went to rearrange the table plan. It seemed only kind to sit Portia and Jonno next to each other but, for different reasons, he, Portia, Sir Oswald and Archie all had to be as far from Suke as possible. After ten minutes of juggling place cards I was ready to blow my brains out.
I resigned myself to an evening of dullness. Suke and Miss Tipple, at my end of the table, spoke exclusively to each other about the great work. Annabel’s only contribution to the conversation was to say several times that she had a great secret that would make us all sorry. She refused to be drawn further on this. Cordelia tossed me the occasional conversational crumb. I busied myself fetchign and carrying and composing sentences of my article. My consolation was that I need no longer hold myself responsible for Jonno’s rehabilitation.
I was standing before the sink, rinsing a glass, when a hand reached over my shoulder and attempted to extract the mop from my fingers.
‘I’ll do that.’
I held on to it. ‘It’s very kind of you but I’ve got into the rhythm.’ I smiled up at Suke but she gave me a look that seemed to assess and find me wanting.
‘I like to do my equal share.’ Her grip on the mop tightened so I let go rather than have an undignified contest.
‘This is Mrs Whale,’ I said as she came into the kitchen with the drying-up cloths. ‘This is er … Miss …’
‘My name’s Suke.’ She shook Mrs Whale’s hand firmly. ‘How do you do?’
Mrs Whale’s eye ran over Suke’s naked head and boiler suit. ‘Very well, thank you, miss.’
‘You mustn’t call me that. I’m Suke to everyone. Social status has no place i
n sisterhood. I was indignant and ashamed that you served us at dinner, without sitting down to eat with us. Caste systems are symptomatic of a degenerate society.’
Mrs Whale looked as taken aback as I felt embarrassed. She picked up the glass Suke had put on the rack to dry, still dripping suds. ‘Lady Pye likes her glasses rinsed in clean hot water, miss.’
‘They’re not Lady Pye’s glasses. They belong to everyone. Property is theft.’
Mrs Whale drew her eyebrows together. ‘I can assure you, miss, these glasses weren’t stolen.’
‘Oh, yes, they were. Stolen from the masses whose breath was choked out of them, grubbing up coal to keep the Lady Pyes of this world warm in their fine houses.’ This had a familiar sound. Suke threw back her head and her pointed nose cleaved the air as she nodded to give her words emphasis. ‘Stolen from those who laboured long hours in the field to put bread on her porcelain plate, from the women who got up in the freezing dawn to bring hot water and light the fires so that Lady Pye and her sort could lie in bed till noon –’
‘But Lady Pye gets up to light the fires herself. At a quarter to six!’
‘Well, in that case … good.’ Suke was only momentarily deflected. ‘But ask yourself, what has that obese creature gorging himself on brandy and chocolates in the drawing room – and lasciviously ogling an innocent, defenceless child into the bargain – ever done that we women should find ourselves drudging at his pleasure?’ Suke seemed to have got Sir Oswald’s measure straightaway. Perhaps not Cordelia’s, though. Suke’s voice had a penetrating quality that made my head ring. ‘What has he done to benefit his fellow men? Answer me that!’
‘If you don’t mind, miss, I’ll have that glass before it cools or it’ll smear.’
I left them to it and joined the others in the drawing room. Archie laughed when I told him about the argument in the kitchen.
‘The thing is, Suke’s absolutely right,’ I said. ‘Every word she says is true and I respect her for speaking out when the rest of us pretend it isn’t happening because it’s easier that way. Suke made me feel ashamed. Why shouldn’t Mrs Whale sit at the dining table with us?’
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