A Future Arrived

by Phillip Rock

  “Would you like to take a copy?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Albert said. “I know most of them.”

  “Surely not. The book hasn’t been released yet.”

  “In Spain. Hogarth was in Barcelona last year … briefly. He used to recite his new poems in the bar of the Hotel Florida.” He leaned forward to take a closer look at the portrait. “John painted that in nineteen thirty. Unbelievable how much a man can change in so short a time. Debauchery plain and simple. Too much whisky and too many girls.”

  She forced a smile. “Are you one of the Quakers from the Friends for Peace?”

  “Good Lord, no. I’ve nothing against debauchery as long as it doesn’t lead to dissipation. My name’s Thaxton, by the way … A. E. Thaxton.”

  “Jennifer Wood-Lacy.”

  He gave her a thoughtful stare. “Yes. You’re the general’s older daughter … one of a perfectly matched set. We’ve met before.”

  “Have we? I’m sure you must be mistaken.”

  “Right here. About eight or nine years ago. I’m not sure which one you are. One smiled and danced. The other did neither.”

  “I’m probably the latter.”

  “You don’t look at all like young Kate.”

  “She takes after Mother. Victoria and I are in Father’s mold.”

  “Daughters of The Hawk.”

  “In looks only.” She found his eyes to be hypnotizing and glanced away. “When did you meet Kate?”

  “The other day … at Charles and Marian’s. Marian told me that she knows as much about biology as their regular teacher.”

  “She’s the brains of the family.” She fussed with the books. “Are you a relative of Marian?”

  “No. I’m Martin Rilke’s brother-in-law.”

  “Of course.” She gave him a quick glance of recognition. “I remember you now. You wore a school blazer with a large crest embroidered on the pocket. You danced with my sister and she had a crush on you.”

  “Did she? Outgrew it by now, I suppose.”

  “Knowing Vicky that would be hard to tell. Are you staying here?”

  “Resting up. I’ll be leaving soon.” He picked up a book and leafed idly through it. “Nicely printed. Do you work for Calthorpe’s?”

  “Not really. I do odd jobs for NMWI. Arnold Calthorpe is chairman of the U.K. chapters … cochairman actually with the bishop of Guildvale.”

  “No More War International,” he murmured, turning the book in his hands. “Hogarth is keen on it. Quite pointless, actually.”

  She stiffened. “I’d hardly call it that.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t. My own personal observation. It might make some sense if Hitler became a member. Otherwise …” he placed the book back on the table “… it’s a movement of futility. As hollow and meaningless as Hogarth’s poems.”

  She drew in her breath sharply. “What a rude and cynical remark.”

  “Rude, perhaps … but nothing I wouldn’t say to Hogarth’s face—and have. I told him in Barcelona that what he is writing is claptrap. Spain as metaphor … all those allusions to bleeding crosses and dying bulls.”

  “I found his poems to be very poignant.”

  “I suppose they are in a maudlin kind of way. They confirm one’s belief in the tragedy of war. But the significance of what’s happening in Spain goes much deeper than that. The bombing of Guernica shocked the world, and rightly so, but one squadron of Hurricanes could have prevented that particular tragedy. What’s truly shocking is that England never sent modern fighter planes to the Loyalists, they sent Hogarth Wells instead.”

  “You really dislike the man, don’t you?”

  “Good heavens, no. I love and admire him. I was one of his students for three years at London University. But he was a different poet in those days. He wrote about what he knew and understood so well. The forgotten Englishman … the bloke on the dole. Compare In Nottingham Town to that Spanish fantasy and you’ll see what I mean.” He took her arm in a gentle grip. “Look here, I don’t know about you, but a terrace swarming with bishops and other ecclesiastics fills me with terror. Would you like to go for a walk in the garden?”

  She wasn’t sure whether she would or not. The amethyst eyes sparkled. His fingers were cool against the smooth skin of her arm. “All right.”

  They avoided the terrace by going through the conservatory with its black-and-white tiled floor and potted palms and then out through a glass door into the gardens.

  “It’s good to meet old friends after so many years,” he said.

  “Is that what we are?” she laughed. “We were barely introduced.”

  “A minor point. I saw you arrive in your little green runabout. I was having a cup of tea on the terrace with some monkish fellow in a serge suit and I thought to myself, I wish a girl like that was a good friend of mine … and lo and behold she is … or will be, I trust.”

  “A charming sentiment. And you just happened to find yourself in the ballroom to meet me.”

  “Not exactly. I wandered about looking for you.”

  “You seem to be a man who goes after what he wants.”

  “The mark of a good reporter—and I am a good reporter.”

  “I know. I’ve read your articles in the Post—including the one you did on my father in Egypt.”

  “Ah, yes … that was a long time back. When I was on my way home from Ethiopia. Were you in Cairo then?”

  “No. He was only there for a short time … maneuvers of some sort. We were in India.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Two years.”

  “Like it?”

  “Some aspects … not others.” She plucked at a full-blown rose and tossed the heavy, waxen petals in her palm. “When one is so much a part of the raj one sees India from rather an unreal perspective. All pomp and palaces … the lancers riding ahead of Father’s motorcar. That type of thing. I wandered around a bit with some Indian friends from the University of Delhi and glimpsed the other side.”

  “How long have you been a pacifist?”

  “I’m not sure I am one … at least not with the dedication and commitment of most people in the movement. I’m not evangelical about it, Mr. Thaxton, but I do have my firm beliefs.”

  “Albert,” he said. “Albert Edward. My close friends call me Thax.”

  “Albert, then. I believe in nonviolence and that war of any kind is an obscenity.”

  “That’s true, it is—but then, so are concentration camps in Brighton and firing squads in Trafalgar Square.”

  “I’ve heard that retort many times. I don’t believe it could happen.”

  “That’s what the Czechs believe.”

  “There is a … moral force sweeping the world that’s just as powerful as guns, perhaps more so.”

  “Well, moral shields are all right in their way, so long as one keeps a sword in the other hand.”

  “Now you’re being cynical again. I had a glimpse of the power of moral force and it quite altered my life.”

  “On the road to Damascus?”

  She flushed and let the petals fall from her hand. “On the road to Lahore as a matter of fact. Gandhi and his followers on a pilgrimage to Amritsar. Trouble was expected and there were troops and armored cars all along the route. Nothing happened, just an overwhelming radiance of love and peace.”

  “Your naïvetè is touching.”

  She stopped walking and turned to face him, her body stiff, color spots of anger on her cheeks. “You have a talent for irritating people.”

  “So I’ve been told. I’m sorry, I’m not scoffing at your beliefs. They’re noble and civilized, in a world that is rapidly becoming neither. At least we British have learned to be somewhat tolerant. Our General Dyer massacred Hindus at Amritsar in nineteen and now we let the Mahatma march past our armored cars and place flowers on the machine guns. If he did the same in Germany he’d be shot out of hand, and his followers right along with him. So much for moral shie
lds where the Nazis are concerned.”

  She began to turn away. “It’s been nice meeting you—again. I enjoyed our little talk, but I must get back.”

  “I’ll go with you. Perhaps I can give you a hand.”

  “I doubt it,” she said, walking toward the house. “I have to get dressed.”

  “I’ll see you at the party then. Perhaps you’ll save me a dance or two.”

  “I doubt that also, Mr. Thaxton. I never did learn how.”

  He watched her go, kicking idly at the blossoms she had strewn across the path. They had not, he thought ruefully, hit it off too well.

  JAPANESE LANTERNS HUNG the length of the terrace and swayed gently in the warm evening wind. The hundred or more guests drifted from the terrace where drinks were being served to the ballroom with its tables loaded with countless delicacies. A string quartet played softly in one corner while a swing orchestra from London waited in the wings.

  There were speeches by the bishop of Guildvale and a former cabinet minister now devoting his life to international pacifism. Hogarth Wells, a rotund, sad-eyed little man in a crumpled corduroy suit, recited his poems in melodious Welsh tones. Albert Thaxton gave a firsthand description of the plight of orphans in Madrid and Barcelona, Seville and Bilbao. The head of the British Red Cross made his appeal for funds to help their Committee for Spanish Relief. It was all very apolitical and impeccably humanitarian and checks or pledges came from a broad spectrum of people with diverse views—“Spain” meaning all things to all men. When the talks were over and the amount of money raised had been announced by Lady Stanmore in a short speech of gratitude, the orchestra took its place on the stand and swung into a spirited medley of Benny Goodman tunes.

  “Stompin’ at the Savoy” made discussion and autographing next to impossible, and so Jennifer asked two footmen to carry the table of books into the conservatory. She stayed there with Hogarth Wells and Calthorpe until the last slim volume of verse had been signed and handed out to admirers, mostly elderly women who seemed to find the cherubic-faced man more interesting than his current poetry. At last the table was cleared and Wells, badly in need of at least a double whisky, fled to the terrace and the makeshift bar set up under the Japanese lanterns.

  “You look charming tonight, Jenny,” Calthorpe remarked, smiling at her as he smoothed a cigar between his fingers. “Hie thee to a ballroom and dazzle the swains.”

  “Well, I’ll go to the ballroom at least.”

  She didn’t feel dazzling. Her cocktail dress of pale mauve silk, made for her in New Delhi two years before, was decidedly out of date—a “colonial” dress, Vicky called it—and her hair had reverted willfully to its usual windblown state. Not that anyone would notice or care, she was thinking as she pushed her way through the crowded room. The orchestra was now playing the score from Roberta, with just about everyone hurrying in to dance to “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” She spotted Victoria dancing with Gerald—just like them to arrive after all the speeches—and Colin, looking stiff and uncomfortable in a tuxedo, dancing with Kate. Kate looked beautiful and grown-up in a chic gown that revealed her blossoming figure to perfection.

  “What do you think of your sister?” Marian asked, coming up to her by the buffet table.

  “Which one?”

  “Kate, of course. I made the dress for her.”

  “You should make one for me. Where’s Charles?”

  She made a wry face and helped herself to a chilled lobster claw. “Staying as far away from the dance floor as possible. Talking politics with Martin and Jacob Golden.” She poked at the cracked lobster claw with a thin silver fork. “Good heavens. There must be a quarter pound of meat in this. Have you eaten? You look harassed.”

  “I haven’t eaten, and yes, I am feeling harassed … from keeping Hogarth Wells away from the drink all evening. Thank God his little turn is over.”

  “Dreadful poetry.”

  “Did you think so?”

  “Lord, yes. Impassioned but shallow. Not the Hogarth Wells of a few years back.”

  “Someone else was saying the same thing.”

  “He was right. A pity.”

  She had known that in her heart when Arnold Calthorpe had given her the galleys to read. She might have agreed with A. E. Thaxton if he hadn’t been so curt and abrasive in his criticism. He had simply rubbed her the wrong way.

  “Let me fix you a plate,” Marian said.

  Jennifer glanced at the table—oysters, lobster, and scampi, beef, ham, roast partridge, and plovers’ eggs. She felt queasy. Too many people … too much noise. “I … I think I’ll get a breath of air first—and something with gin in it.”

  He came up to her on the terrace as she stood against the balustrade, sipping at a gin and french and staring moodily at the moon-flooded lawns beyond.

  “Mind if I join you?” Albert asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Everything went quite well, I thought. I want you to know that I congratulated Hogarth for a fine reading. There’s a good deal of the actor in him and he carried it off nicely.”

  “I’m sure he was grateful.”

  “He seemed to be.” He leaned back against the carved stone. “Is it true that you don’t know how to dance?”

  “A girl can’t be eighteen and living in a military cantonment in India and not know how to dance. The junior officers wouldn’t permit it. One thing they do very well in the British army is foxtrot.”

  “I wish the same could be said of me. However, I would like to have one dance with you … while they’re playing something reasonably slow.”

  She set her glass down on the stone rail. “All right.”

  The orchestra was playing “Lovely to Look At” and they slipped easily into the swirl of dancers, Albert holding her with unself-conscious familiarity.

  “You dance very well,” she said after a few moments.

  “Thank you. A bit heavy footed.”

  “Not at all. You can have more than one dance if you’d like.”

  “I would, very much, but I have to get packed. I’m leaving in half an hour.”

  “Leaving? Now?” She felt an odd sense of disappointment.

  “Yes. I’m driving back to London with Mr. Golden. He’s sending me to Prague.”

  “When?”

  “I fly out tomorrow morning … from Croydon. Martin’s going as well, with his radio team. So this is our last dance, I’m sorry to say.” The music ended, but he continued to hold her in his arms. “May I call you when I get back?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I have no idea when that will be.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m in the directory.”

  “Good.” He kissed her on the cheek and then he was gone.

  Victoria hurried over to her through the crowd. “Who was that utterly devastating man?”

  “Thaxton,” she said quietly.

  “A sexton? In the church?”

  “Albert Thaxton. Martin Rilke’s brother-in-law.”

  “Oh, I say. You must introduce me.”

  “He’s just leaving. Besides, you’ve already met. Years ago. You had a crush on him.”

  “Did I? I can easily believe it. We must have him up for dinner one night.”

  “We? When Gerry’s out of town, I suppose.”

  “Now, darling. Dear Uncle Martin’s relative. Practically one of the family.”

  DODDS, THE STANMORES’ butler since Mr. Coatsworth had retired in 1925, brought up her coffee in the morning.

  “I took the liberty, Miss Jennifer.”

  She sat up in bed and reached for her robe. “And very good of you to do so, Dodds. How do I rate such an honor?”

  “By special request of Mr. Albert.”

  “He’s still here?”

  “Left last night with Mr. Rilke and some other gentlemen.” He placed a wicker bedtray beside her. A single rose, still damp with dew, stood in a slender crystal vase beside the coffee pot. “He asked me to cut a rose for you
this morning. A task, by the way, I have not done since the twenties. Young men were more, shall we say, gallant in those days.”

  “How lovely,” she murmured.

  “He left the choice of bloom to me. I selected a Royal Darlington … what won the silver cup at the Holmwood flower show last summer.” He drew an envelope from his pocket and placed it against the stem glass. “And he asked me to give you this.”

  She opened the envelope after the butler had left the room. The note inside was simple, scrawled in haste. “For the twin who dances, but still does not smile. Can I possibly change that?”

  She held the note for a time and then folded it and leaned back against the pillows, smiling.

  8

  DEREK RAMSAY TURNED his motorbike off the Abingdon road and into the driveway leading to Burgate House School, the dusty sidecar, containing a leather suitcase and a golf bag, rattling and swaying as he made the sharp turn.

  He had first entered this long, gravel drive at the age of twelve, walking then, a chubby, round-faced boy in short pants and blazer running away from Archdean School for Boys in anger, humiliation, and pain. The sight of the Gothic building at the end of the drive had drained his courage and he had hurried into the orchard flanking one side of the driveway to hide and to wait amid the leafy gloom of the trees.

  The orchard was still there, and the buildings rising above the trees, but any resemblance to that small, frightened boy was long past. He was twenty now, a man of average height with a large chest and broad shoulders. His nose, broken by a cricket ball when he was sixteen, imparted to his gently handsome face a pugnacity at variance with his character. A leather flying helmet covered his thick, wavy hair, the streaked goggles obscuring his merry brown eyes. He wore white flannels and a baggy cricket sweater with the crest of Pembroke College, Cambridge, embroidered on it. He smiled when he saw the buildings. His old school that had once been both sanctuary and home and, for the past two summers, where he had worked as a counselor.