by John Moore
Mr. Oxford’s discourse was interrupted by the pop of the cork coming out of the champagne. He continued:
“So this morning Timms and I return first thing to Mr. Handiman’s ironmongery. Timms counts out two hundred smackers; and once again Mr. Handiman’s eyes are moist with tears. Then he hands me this cup, and these five pound notes, and ‘Take that to the Red Lion,’ he says, ‘and fill it up with what’s proper.’ ‘Horse’s neck,’ says I, ‘or dog’s nose? ‘But he being teetotal don’t understand. It being so hot a day, I thought a dog’s nose would be too heavy; so horse’s neck it is.”
By now Florrie had filled the cup, and at Mr. Oxford’s request she took the first sip of it.
“Here’s to Mr. Handiman!” she said. “I still can’t get over him having a bet.”
“Ah, but it’s bred in the bone!” boomed Mr. Oxford. “Ingrained, as you might say, in the British Race! Tradition, that’s what it is! You can’t keep it down any more than you can keep rubbub down. Here, for instance, comes Sir Halmeric, who ’as ’ad a little flutter with me every week day, barring the war years, since he was sixteen.” Sir Almeric lounged up to the bar and leaned upon it, glancing curiously at Polly, who was wiping his mouth after taking a long swig from the cup. Mr. Oxford hastened to introduce him.
“Let me present you, sir, to Sir Halmeric Jukes, Bart., a representative of our ancient squirearchy!”
“Glad to meet you, Sir Jukes,” said Polly, extending his hand. “My name’s Polycarpos Gabrielides. Known as Polly.”
Sir Almeric took his hand lazily and stared hard at his big hat.
“Yeah. I guess we both go in for crazy headgear,” said Polly cheerfully. “Where d’you buy yours?” Sir Almeric was wearing his little tweed cap with the button on top of it. “I’ll maybe get one like it.”
“It is made specially for me,” drawled Sir Almeric, “by a man called Lock. If you really want to know,” he added nastily, “Mr. Pollywhatsit Gabrielides.” With that he turned his back on Polly and handed a betting-slip to Mr. Oxford. There was a short uncomfortable silence, which was broken by a faint scrabbling sound at the door behind the bar. At last the door opened, and Mr. Hawker appeared. It was apparent that the effects of the snakebite had not yet worn off. He came sidling in, not with his usual weasel-like air of questing furtiveness, but like a puppy that has made a mess. As Florrie had said, he was as shaky as an aspen; and his face was the colour of carbide which has been used. He carried two bottles of whisky, which he set down on the counter.
“Your Allocation,” he said to Florrie in a faint voice.
“Say, buddy,” grinned Polly, “you don’t look too good. Better take a pull at this.” He held out the silver cup, and Mr. Hawker retreated in terror before it. And then an extraordinary thing happened. Florrie put her arm about Mr. Hawker’s shoulder and impelled him forward. With her other hand she took the cup from Polly.
“Go on, dearie” she said, “a little drop of the hair of the dog wont do you any harm”
Stephen could scarcely believe his ears; Mr. Oxford stared at her in astonishment; even Sir Almeric had lifted his elbows off the counter. And then Florrie drew herself up and announced with dignity:
“Mr. Hawker and I, yon see, are shortly going to be married.”
Behind the enormous cup, which he now raised to his mouth with trembling hands, Mr. Hawker nodded. He tipped the cup, and his face disappeared behind it, until only the eyes with their rimless glasses like the goggle eyes of some deep-sea fish remained visible. Florrie said to Stephen in a compassionate whisper: “He wanted looking after, you see,” and there ran through his mind another couplet from the Wife of Bath:
Of remedies of love she knew parchance
For she coude of that art the olde dance.
And then Mr. Oxford loudly thumped upon the counter and called for the cup to be topped up with another bottle of champagne.
IV
In The cubicle at the end of the long dressing-tent, which was curtained off from the rest and labelled BEAUTY QUEENS, Virginia waited, while Edna, still in her brassière and knickers, fiddled with her make-up in front of the only mirror. Edna was always late for everything, whereas Virginia invariably saw to it that she was made-up, dressed, groomed and ready about half an hour before she was due to appear. She dreaded last-minute rushes; and she was quite content as a rule to sit about and close her eyes and dream her dreams.
But to-night it was different, because she was aware that if she shut her eyes and tried to perform her private conjuring trick with the whirling lights and the names in technicolor there would be nothing there. In the car on the way back from the film-test she had tried it; and instead of the flickering credit titles there was a frightening vacancy, her secret cinema screen was blank and empty, the words “Starring Virginia Vance” failed to appear. Virginia Vance was dead. The kindly apologetic man in the studio had killed her with the single word “but.” “You photograph awfully well, but…” Virginia hadn’t really listened any more; but she remembered him saying something about “There’s a lot of money in modelling nowadays,” and adding, in a half-jocular embarrassed tone, “and as a matter of fact, there’s quite a career, I believe, for Beauty Queens.” Virginia hadn’t got much imagination, but she knew what he meant, and the pages of a sort of mental photograph album flicked over in her brain, Miss Brighton 1951, Miss Holiday Camp, a strictly regulation bathing-dress lettered BUTLIN BELLE 1952; and then you faded out, though you still got a free perm for a year or two; and in the end you married the sort of man who marries Beauty Queens.
Virginia Vance was dead; and that being so, it seemed strange that Virginia Smith should continue to exist, should make-up her face, do her hair, get ready to parade across the arena and sit at the Mayor’s right hand at the opening performance. For without Vance, Smith was nothing. Smith, had been Vance, night and day, for two years. If the guy-ropes of this tent were cut away, thought Virginia, it would surely tumble down upon our heads. Yet without visible support Virginia Smith carried on.
She glanced at Edna, half in and half out of her dress, wriggling it down over her wide hips in a casual and uncaring way and not bothering, not thinking about her body, as Virginia would have done, who even before a girl was self-conscious and shy. Perhaps that was what they called “having personality,” “being yourself.” The film-man had said very kindly: “It isn’t a question of good looks, exactly; it’s a question of being able to project yourself beyond that photograph, beyond the screen.” Perhaps that was what Edna could do, for Virginia felt quite certain in her mind that Edna’s test had been successful. Yet she hadn’t asked Edna; nor had Edna asked her. A queer sort of mutual courtesy had prevented them. Virginia wondered if she would hate Edna, if Edna had been offered a trial; and was rather surprised to discover that in the void and vacuum of her existence there was no room for hate. Only, she thought, it might be a little bit easier to bear if Edna also had failed.
As she did her hair, Edna was thinking: She’s much better-looking than I am, and much more refined. It was my voice that did it, I bet, though he didn’t exactly say so. But she speaks ever so lady-like. I do hope she got it, because she wants it so much. It would have been a lark if I’d been chosen, but I only went in for a lark anyhow, so who cares? I wish I could ask her, but I don’t like to in case she was turned down. Then she might cry. And we’ve got to be in our seats in ten minutes.
It’ll be fun, she thought, telling Lance all about it, in our secret hiding-place up on the hill, after the show.
The call-boy flapped with his fists on the curtain of the cubicle.
“Beauty Queens!” he called. “Five minutes to go!”
Edna gave her hair a last casual dab with the brush.
“Come along, ducks,” she said, “and be nice to the Mayor. I wonder who’ll be on the other side of us. I hope it isn’t that Councillor Noakes; him and his fiddling!”
Virginia got up slowly. She was so tall and dignified, and she moved so beau
tifully, that Edna felt quite sure the film-man must have chosen her. “Oh, you look lovely!” she said spontaneously; and then Virginia turned towards her and made a queer little gesture, half-grateful, half-despairing, which told her better than words that Virginia had failed. It told her so much that she didn’t need to ask for confirmation. She just put her arm round Virginia’s waist, and said:
“Me too.”
“You too?” Virginia almost whispered.
“I’ve got a common voice, ducks. Can’t help it. Anyhow, it was only for a lark. But you—oh, Virginia, you speaks so nice, I’m that sorry!”
Virginia discovered somewhere a small, still, secret reservoir of courage and said quite calmly:
“Ay don’t maind.”
V
Robin, Who rather fancied himself on horseback, was riding round the Performers’ Enclosure, which lay between the dressing-tents and the main arena, where the British Legion band was just beginning to play the overture. It would be at least an hour before he led his Lancastrians out to battle, and Sir Almeric, in command of the Yorkists, had not yet changed out of his yellow polo jumper into his suit of mail. He was watching a groom saddling up his splendid grey when Robin rode up to him. He drawled: “What does it feel like on that old camel?” For he despised all riding-school hacks, and Robin’s was a tall raw-boned chestnut with a slight wheeze and the marks of firing on both its forelegs: the sort of beast which appears in the sale catalogue as:
Chestnut mare, aged, with all faults
and which neither vendor nor purchaser asks the vet to examine.
“Oh, she’s not so bad,” said Robin, who resented Sir Almeric’s air of superiority. “I shouldn’t mind a day’s hunting on her, anyhow.”
Sir Almeric laughed.
“My dear fellow, you’d never get farther than the first fence.”
“Rot,” said Robin. “Look at her quarters. She’d jump a house.” Less than a fortnight ago Sir Almeric had called him “a bloody poacher” and he was still smarting under this perfectly just accusation. “It isn’t everybody,” he said, “who can afford to swank about at a Pageant on a five-hundred-guinea ’chaser.”
Sir Almeric regarded him with lazy insolence.
“I’ll bet you five to one in pounds,” he said, “that your fleabitten old crock won’t lepp the post and rails round this enclosure; if you’ve got the guts to try.”
At this opportune moment Mr. Oxford and Timms appeared, in the guise of Odo and Dodo, and leading a donkey. They were due to go on in five minutes; and it was clear that Mr. Oxford had been fortifying himself against this ordeal with whisky.
“Fife to one bar none!” he cried thickly. “Fife to one bar none.”
“I’m betting him,” said Sir Almeric, “that his seventeen hands of knacker’s meat won’t jump those rails.”
“That’s England!” said Mr. Oxford obscurely. “’Earts of hoak! Good old England. Good old tradition. Good old instink to have a little flutter. Like rubbub it comes up. Never let it be said that Oxford hangs back. Some says good old Oxford, some says beggar old Oxford; but all says Oxford is a sport. I’ll double it. I’ll offer him tens. Ten smackers to one he doesn’t jump the rails!”
Robin hadn’t bargained for this. He glanced at the rails and noticed that they were four feet high, and extremely solid. But Mr. Oxford was shouting “Ten to one the chestnut!” and a crowd of performers was beginning to collect round him; there was no escape now from the foolish adventure, so he kicked his old mare in the ribs and trotted back to a position from which he could get a clear run at the fence. As he turned towards it he noticed Edna and Virginia making their way through the crush towards the entrance to the arena, and waved to them, thinking how lovely they looked and how well they wore the dresses he had designed for them. They waved back, and then stopped beside the fence to watch him as he cantered up to it.
“Ten to one bar none!” bawled Mr. Oxford, as the chestnut gathered itself for the jump.
Robin felt her shoulders rising beneath him, he felt the heave and lift of her quarters and he thought, “She’s done it. We’re over. Hurray!” But he hadn’t reckoned with the slippery take-off, for the ground was baked on the surface and still sodden underneath from last week’s flood. The mare seemed for a fraction of a second to twist in the air, and he was aware of the whistle in her wind as she strained to clear the rails. Then he heard the crash as she hit them sideways, and while he still somersaulted on the ground he saw the glint of the sunset on her shoes as she rolled over on top of him.
Kneeling beside Robin, Virginia said coolly:
“Fetch an ambulance man, somebody. He’s broken his arm.”
She looked up at the crowd pressing round her, and there was Sir Almeric fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe Robin’s bloody face; and Mr. Oxford with his mouth wide open; and Timms shuffling helplessly from one foot to another; and a Norman knight, who represented Robert Fitzhamon, leaning on his battleaxe. None of them seemed to be capable of doing anything except Sir Almeric, who gave her his handkerchief, thus acknowledging that she was in charge, and his groom, who had caught the chestnut and was entirely preoccupied with feeling its legs one by one; for he held the stableyard view that horses were more important than people.
She dabbed gently at Robin’s face with the handkerchief, while the crowd watched her.
“Bleeding something awful,” observed Mr. Oxford.
“Fair turns me up, it does,” said Timms.
But nobody offered to help her, and Virginia despised them, failing to realise that it was her own unexpected authority which caused them to hold back. Then two ambulance men arrived with a stretcher and knelt down beside her.
“Cor, look at ’is face!” exclaimed one of the ambulance men.
“Don’t be silly,” snapped Virginia. “That’s only nosebleed. But take care how you move him in case he’s concussed. And I think he’s broken his right arm just above the elbow.”
She helped them lift Robin on to the stretcher, and as she bent over him he opened his eyes. He stared at her for a moment in bewilderment and suddenly grinned. “Hello, Virgie.”
“Hello, Robin. They’re just going to take you to hospital.”
“What have I done?”
“Nothing much. You’ll soon be all right.”
“Funny girl,” said Robin dreamily. He shut his eyes again. “Funny girl. Remember that cat in the trap? Good at this sort of thing.” The ambulance men carried him away.
Virginia stood up, and as she did so Edna came out of the crowd towards her. “Oh, Virginia, your dress!” she cried. “Your beautiful dress!” And Virginia looked down and saw the red smears all over the front of the maize taffeta which Robin had designed for her that evening on the hill. Glancing up again, she stared with amazement at Edna’s face, which was so white in contrast with her lipstick and eyeblack that she looked like a clown. Virginia caught her as she swayed forward.
“I’m sorry, ducks,” breathed Edna. “I just can’t bear the sight of blood.”
“Sit down there with your head between your knees.” Standing behind Edna to prop her up, Virginia strove with a queer sense of triumph which she knew she ought not to be feeling. Edna’s frailty, which seemed to her so absurd, gave her a new self-confidence, an advantage over Edna which was momentary but complete; and because of this she experienced an unexpected tenderness towards her, a kind of affectionate and possessive pity, and as she leaned down and whispered, “You’ll be all right in a minute, dear,” she let her fingers run gently through Edna’s yellow hair.
“Better now,” said Edna. “Virginia, you were brave!”
“Stay where you are for a minute. They’re still playing the overture.” And as she listened to the band, wondering how much time there was to spare before the parade of the Beauty Queens, Virginia day-dreamed. For a fraction of a second she closed her eyes, and saw, not Virginia Vance in gorgeous technicolor, but a humbler though by no means unglamorous figure, whose ve
ry ordinary name was Nurse Smith.
VI
When Stephen was told of the accident he did not hesitate for a moment but asked Polly to take Robin’s part and lead the Lancastrians on to the field. He was a horseman, he was a soldier, he was the beloved of Dionysus; and Stephen still cherished the unreasonable faith that nothing could go wrong when Polly was there. Moreover, Polly had watched the Dress Rehearsal at Stephen’s side and therefore had a pretty good idea of what he was expected to do; and any mistakes he might make would probably pass unnoticed in the confusion of the battle.
But Faith was shocked at Stephen’s decision. “How do you know he can ride?” she objected.
Stephen smiled. “He was wonderful on a mule in Greece!” He didn’t tell her that Polly had spent two years of his youth as a cowboy in the West. Faith shook her head.
“Something awful is bound to happen,” she sighed.
“Why?”
“I can’t explain. He’s got a daemon, that man. He’s dangerous. You see.”
“Don’t flap,” said Stephen, who was secretly rather pleased to discover that he was quite calm whereas Faith was agitated; it was generally the other way round. “Go and find him in the dressing-tent, and run through his part with him and find him a horse from somewhere. I’ve got to stay up here and watch the show.”
So Faith met Polly as he came out of the tent, huge and heroic indeed in all the panoply of Prince Edward of Wales; she made him memorise a whole lot of last-minute instructions, and then took him into the paddock in search of the chestnut mare. When they found it, tethered to the railings, she ran her hand professionally down its fetlocks and declared that it was none the worse for its fall.