A Harp in Lowndes Square

by Rachel Ferguson

‘Oh, Cosmo –’

  ‘I caught an echo of all that with you, quite apart from the fact that I love you in other ways as well. And then I found that I needed more than that from you, my child. I wanted your love, certainly, always, but I wanted to annex the discriminating side of it as well; it was a combination I don’t remember to have met before. In my experience, young women are either glamoured children,like your Pinner girls, or definitely women and all that involves, of blasé demands on one, material and emotional. And when you came here – well, I admit the racket was difficult to stand, but you did turn rather efficient on me, didn’t you?’

  I tossed him over the letter. ‘Oh very, Cosmo, very, and shall again. Just run your eye over that.’

  He did more; he read it twice, from end to end.

  ‘You oughtn’t to have shown me this, ought you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And seeing the gist of it, I shouldn’t have read it.’

  ‘Probably not. We’re both cads together, a comfortable couple.’

  ‘Are you fond of this “Claude”?’

  ‘Enormously.’

  ‘Love him?’

  ‘I could almost go so far. Yes.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Two or three years older than me.’

  ‘Gentleman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Private means?’

  ‘Yes. Entirely suitable all round, so I’ll take that out of your mouth; also intensely amusing and completely reliable.’

  ‘You’ve refused him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I give you one guess.’

  ‘When?’

  I smiled at him. ‘After you and I had had a set-to in the garden.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Nothing much, as usual. You’d asked me if I could never take you seriously, or words to that effect.’

  ‘Oh, that … you’re going to marry Claude, Vere.’

  ‘Not a hope, my dear. Think it over. You see, I’m not the only pebble on the beach, from your point of view. Given my opportunities there would be hundreds of Veres refusing hundreds of Claudes, only you don’t happen to meet ’em.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned.’

  But he wasn’t. Cad though I’d been, I had brought him the mental security he needed. If he was wrong to take comfort in it I neither know nor care, and I’d do it again to get the same result.

  IV

  But there was still laughter. There was a sequel to the Claude letter over which I chuckle to this day.

  The Furnivals gave a party and until a quarter of the evening was over I didn’t see Cosmo’s game. It must have been a week or so after the revival of the costume play was withdrawn and Enid sent out the invitations when he was only rehearsing for the next, or he could not have appeared until midnight. She took me to her own dressmaker, a well-known theatrical one, and insisted on giving me my frock. I didn’t like that much, but certainly could never have afforded it myself. ‘Cosmo will want you to look your prettiest.’

  Well, of course if he was treating one as so much dressing of the stage, all right; left to my own devices and finances I supposed I ran the risk of ‘putting his eye out’. Mystified a little and not quite happy over the bill, I let them rave. Cosmo himself came to the last trying-on and walked all round us both and was so taken for granted by Angele and her fitters and pin-bearers that I supposed they’d been all through that before over productions. My dress was a wispish affair in waterlily green-white and Cosmo said it was exactly right for me and for my hair and made me have a square neck when I wanted a round one. He was satisfied, but I thought there was a substratum of depression in his face and manner when I came downstairs in it.…

  ‘You’re going to have some devastatingly pretty girls to contend with,’ Enid said, ‘but I don’t think you need worry.’

  ‘Only I shan’t contend, Enid. I’m like America, too proud to fight. And too old.’

  ‘Old? My dear! You look about twenty-one, doesn’t she, Val?’ and Cosmo assented, and didn’t, I fancied, seem to enjoy the admission. She was looking down at us both from the first landing in a flutter of that cyclamen pink which has a tinge of blue in it. ‘And thank God poor Enid’s got some flames coming. To-night, Val my love, we will test the damage wrought by matrimony. I feel ready for the lot of ’em!’ and she burst into a schoolgirl’s giggle.

  ‘So long as you don’t go too far,’ said Cosmo, ‘they’re a respectable crew.’

  ‘I’m only afraid they mayn’t want me to. I adore going almost too far. One foot over the edge. So much more thrilling than both. Heavenly! Come on!’ In the hall glass she surveyed herself from head to foot. ‘Yes, we still light up well, and I’m always so thankful I haven’t got a Land of Hope and Glory bust, like contraltos.’

  ‘“Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set”,’ I suggested.

  ‘Cat,’ and we three took each other’s arms and went into the drawing-room.

  It didn’t take me long to discover that here was a party which would send aunt Sophia into the seventh heaven, although she would not have been so happy over the women, who seemed to be all well under thirty and all beauties into the bargain, for the men outnumbered the women by quite two to one. It took me a little longer to see that they were all middle-aged and attractive. Forty-five to sixty seemed to predominate, and most of the professions and arts had at least one representative. It took me a good while longer to realize that apart from introducing them all, Cosmo was neglecting me.

  Later, everyone danced, and Cosmo and I had The Choristers together; waltzing is waltzing with him, I found, and during it he gave me exactly three words. ‘You dance well.’

  ‘Am I in disgrace, Cosmo? Oh well, you’ll have to sit out with me anyway! And we’ll have one again later, won’t we?’

  The music had stopped and I made for two chairs. He saw me into mine and took the other.

  ‘I’m so very sorry but I’m quite full up,’ he said.

  It was like a slap in the face, but at least I met it without blinking. ‘Of course, you must be.’

  He took my programme. ‘In any case you’re full up too.’

  ‘Ever heard of crossing out names, Cosmo?’

  ‘I don’t like it. Besides, that’s an exceptionally interesting man you’re booked to. Foreign Office. And so’s the next … but you know his name from the posters, besides being the best looking man in the room.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve got two others who run him pretty close in the decorative department.’

  ‘Good. Who?’

  ‘Sir Timothy and Mr. – can’t remember his name. Man with a mouth.’

  ‘Oh, Standish. Yes. He’s got me whacked all to pieces.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. His chin isn’t so long,’ I agreed pleasantly.

  ‘That’s it! I’d always wondered what it was,’ mused Cosmo. ‘Oh well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ and he left me as soon as he decently could and I saw him one-stepping with a golden head that had me whacked all to pieces.

  I wanted, badly, to cut a dance and go away to think all this over; I was in one of my moods in which the craving to leave gaiety, if only for ten minutes, becomes a part of my nature, but I fought it off and plunged into what I hoped was a flirtation with the next man in. He met me more than half-way and in a naïvely flattered manner which disarmed me so completely that I began to be quite fond of him! At least once I thought I saw Cosmo watching me from the door, and on his face there was a look I couldn’t read.

  He was pleased. And he didn’t like it.

  I ran into Enid in an interval. She was, I found, one of those hostesses who even in the middle of a party is as avid for personal conversation as she is in off-moments at home. It is an attribute which I find singularly endearing, and oh how rare! I firmly believe that if at that moment I had said to her, ‘What are we having for lunch to-morrow?’ she would not only tell me, but would develop several reasons why other dishes w
ere impracticable.

  ‘Darling, don’t dance too much if you’re tired. You’re a tiny bit white. Come and have some rouge. You’re being a success, you know, but I’ll tell you all about that to-morrow … oh what a night! My old flame – the worst one, I mean – is being so chaste. It’s awful. But I live in hopes. I can see he’s dying to kiss me and I’ll make him before I’ve done. And it wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘I put my shirt on you, Enid. If I were a man I’d elope with you.’

  ‘You angel!’

  ‘By the way, the women here are all rather young, aren’t they?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘What I mean is, there don’t seem to be very many wife-looking people about.’

  Enid Furnival looked at me uncertainly, thumbnail between her teeth, her head tilted like an enquiring thrush on a lawn. Well, I – I don’t believe there are, now you mention it. Wives do cumber the earth rather, don’t they? It’s more fun for me without ’em.’

  I just looked at her. This wasn’t being Enid, the warm and kind and gay. I said, ‘And Cosmo: it’s more fun for him, too?’

  ‘Well, these things always are, aren’t they? Jealous husbands …’

  ‘Then, these men have left their wives at home?’

  ‘What? No! Most of ’em haven’t got any. We know lashings of bachelors. You do like them?’

  ‘I adore them all. Honestly, Enid, I’ve never seen such a pleasant assortment.’

  And I left her and thought a bit more, and shivered with silent laughter all by myself, and then went back to my man with the mouth.

  V

  And there was the day that my mother first met the Furnivals. She had come from Hampshire for a day and a night, to shop and investigate the situation at the Campden Hill house; James brought her to the Furnivals, for I was staying with them, and in the middle of her first words with Enid I was suddenly overcome by the ‘tongue warranted to blast the barnacles off a battleship’, and glanced at mother and saw a reminiscent barnacle look in her eye as well, and gave it up and left them together, and went into the study and sorted up Cosmo’s bills and watched them all from the window. Presently Cosmo joined them and that left Enid free for James and they vanished round a corner.

  Cosmo strode over to mother and smiled down at her, and loomed over her and gleamed at her through his eyeglass, and she looked up at him with a child’s gaze of delighted remembrance and recognition and her face grew pink. How the late-Victorian contrives to go on doing it I can’t imagine. Cosmo has never made me blush yet.

  I ejaculated ‘Hah!’ and he looked up and saw me. He shouted ‘Come out’.

  ‘No, my dear, I should strike too modern a note; you’ve gone all Sweet Lavender and I’m more on the Frederick Lonsdale side this morning. And you must settle that tailor’s bill. It’s twenty-nine pounds six and eight.’

  And Cosmo and Anne disappeared round the other corner!

  Later, I said to Enid ‘This is all very “teaching”, my sweet life, but what does one do when jealous of one’s own mother? Wouldn’t Freud love it? He’d call me something damaging ending in “’phobe”.’ She screwed her eyes in delighted anticipation of laughter.

  ‘Oh! what has he been doing now? Do tell!’

  ‘My dear, vamping my mother. Item: one exit round shrubbery, so far. But – she’s very like me, and nearer his age.’

  ‘This is one of life’s nasty corners, but I dare say things haven’t gone too far. Your mother looks so good, doesn’t she?’ soothed Cosmo’s wife.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  I

  I was with Enid during the whole of the week before Cosmo died. He said himself, ‘It’s always better to leave the stage before it leaves you, and the wrench of leaving Enid and you I can’t realize at all, so let’s talk about other things. There are several matters I want settled.’ And, on and off, in those six days we talked, he and I.

  ‘First of all, I’ve left you five hundred. I’m not going to urge you to be careful with it because I know you’re incapable of being anything else, and in the second I’d rather think you were having a good time with it. Don’t interrupt! It’s not left you in my will because, amusing as the idea may sound, there might be talk. Enid will see to that.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’m sorry. I couldn’t quite stand that, you know.’ And, amazingly, he gave in. Also, I told him that since Lady Vallant’s death I was receiving a generous allowance from my mother – naturally my grandmother had not left me a direct penny. Then, there was my work. And he closed his eyes and opened them on the abrupt nod I knew so well, and let it go.

  ‘Then – what?’

  ‘I think, unless it’s valuable, of course, the quizzing-glass you used in the costume play.’ He was pleased, I could see.

  ‘Why d’you want it?’

  ‘Perhaps I shall see your audiences through it, Cosmo. Have you used it a lot?’

  He smiled at me. ‘About six hundred times, not counting the revival.’

  ‘Good. And I’m going to be Ikey, my dear: I want the script of Gladstone, and your own separate part with your insets (and lor! how you messed up my good typing!).’

  ‘They’re yours, but if anyone should ever want to revive it you’ll have to allow my executors to make a copy.’

  After a little, he said, ‘Those men you met at the party. I want you to keep up as many of them as you can. They’re all good sound sorts or I wouldn’t have picked ’em. They may be useful to you, you never know. There’s a surgeon and a judge and a banker – in fact most of the professions who can deal with life for one. They’re all old friends of mine and I’ve written to all of them about you. Don’t lose them. Enid’ll give you their addresses if the need should arise, but I rather fancy that at least two them may want, shall we say?, to cultivate a more social side. I won’t tell you which, because I know you, and don’t want to get their pitch queered in advance! You like them?’ He shot it at me.

  ‘Oh, I like them enormously, and they’re your friends, too.’

  ‘You’ll be safe and happy with either of the two I’m thinking of and safe with any of ’em.’

  I managed to say ‘That party … it was the only time I’ve ever really danced, Cosmo, and you gave me one waltz. …’

  He looked at me long, and I forgave him the blonde who’d whacked me all to pieces. His hand was in mine as he said ‘Now, you’re going to do something for me.’

  ‘At last.’

  ‘Look after Enid for me.’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘We both love her. I don’t know any other woman I’d trust her to.’

  I believe I laughed. ‘What’s left of me, Cosmo, is hers entirely.’ He was thinking, and his eyes never left my face. ‘It’s curious, and rather interesting, how when one knows for certain that one’s days are literally numbered, one gets a feeling of recklessness, and is able to ask questions which, if life were going on, would be almost impossible … a sense of boundless privilege, and rather to be guarded against; but I’m not high-minded enough to rise to that, personally.’ His hand tightened in mine. ‘I want to know.’

  ‘I’ll tell you anything on earth, Cosmo, if I know the answer.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for Enid, would you have married me?’

  ‘Aren’t you the damfool?’ I marvelled.

  ‘At the age I was when we first met?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With the risk of my career going downhill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And of my turning semi-invalid on you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

  ‘At your age. …’

  ‘Cosmo, I can’t go on saying yes all the afternoon, it makes me feel like the ceremony, except for the bridesmaids and the obey clause. I bar that.’

  ‘You would! … we have kept each other on the boil, haven’t we? …’

  II

  On another day he said, ‘And this Vallant business … there’s no more trouble in your mind there?’

&n
bsp; ‘It’s fading, chiefly I imagine because she’s dead and I’ve seen the new look on Anne’s face: I feel as if one had got just that much the better of Lady Vallant, a fresh start. And because of that I’m going to be able in time to feel that story is in the past, instead of only knowing it is.’

  ‘Ah, that’s good. And you can’t see the future at all?’

  ‘Never could.’ I bit back the inevitable accompanying comment just in time.

  ‘Well, the past’s pretty good … I wonder if we can all re-see it at will?’

  ‘I’ve always believed that’s possible, Cosmo. It probably needs practice, though.’

  ‘As you saw at Vallant House?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He was leaning back and his shadowed eyes were gleaming. ‘God, that would mean reliving all one’s best plays, hearing the entr’ actes one’s forgotten, and proposing to Enid and listening to the words one actually used, and waking up and meeting you asleep in the dressing-room. … Now tell me: do we go on from that point, saying new things to each other, comparing notes and so on?’

  ‘No, I don’t feel that. That sort of thing isn’t heaven Cosmo, it’s a law we know nothing about, but a law just the same and we must stick to the rules. That means that if we meet again, in episodes that actually were in our lives, the action would be as exact as a film you run through twice; down to the last detail and the smallest movement it’s the same film.’

  ‘It’s good enough for me.’

  ‘And me. Where one really scores is over things one had forgotten, and there the absolute-exactitude business is salvation. You’ll be able to propose to Enid again and again (and find out what it was you did say!) just as with any luck at all I shall be able to go on and on and on meeting you for the first time. And all the other things … And there’s one way in which you score all along the line, Cosmo.’

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘By dying, my dear. You can come back to us but we can’t go over to you, however tempted some of us may be to take that short cut to you.’

  ‘Never that, Vere darling.’