She tried to understand herself and her interest in both Jack Moth and his father, but came to no conclusion except that she must simply have a penchant for tall, broad men – much in the way that she had a penchant for common oysters: my salivary glands respond to sight and thought of the shellfish, other of my glands respond to this particular type of man.
Today she was to spend many hours in the company of both men.
Jack Moth and the groom were to leave for the church from the army officers’ club at which they had stopped overnight in the company of several of Major Blood’s fellow officers, who were to form an arch of ceremonial swords for the man and wife.
George Moth waited alone in the morning room of Windsor Villa with a glass of whisky in one hand and cigar in the other. He was in formal dress which is best suited to men with long legs and broad shoulders. His tailed, cutaway coat was hanging on a chair. When Otis Hewetson came in he rose, hastily put on his coat, and bent briefly at the waist in a bow. ‘Charming, most charming.’
‘Charming’ was an acceptable compliment, but George Moth would have liked to have used a much stronger language such as communicated his true emotions. That time when he had incautiously kissed her he had let his moment of arousal get a little out of hand. What had stimulated him was that, although she had only been a girl, she had not been afraid of him. Until then, only Anne, of all the many women he had encountered in his life, had felt sufficiently unintimidated by him to stand up to him.
‘Esther is ready,’ said Otis. ‘She thinks I should leave now, she will be down in about fifteen minutes. She wished to be on her own and would like you to go up to her when it is time.’
‘You should not leave for another ten minutes. Will you sit down?’ With a questioning expression, he indicated a tantalus.
‘Thank you, no, but I should like a little white wine with mineral water.’
He smiled and jammed his cigar between his teeth. He quizzed the bottles. ‘Malvern, Perrier or Nocera Umbra?’
‘The Malvern, please.’
He handed her the prettily cut crystal glass. ‘Nice, safe little drink.’
She glanced at him, indicating that she knew he was making an allusion to the last drink she had accepted from him. She accepted the glass and took a drink from it. ‘Thank you, that is beautifully chilled.’
‘I dare say you think that I should apologize for my behaviour at the time of the white port?’
‘After almost three years? I believe that I should have insisted before now had I expected that. I was full of myself and college and was probably very pert at the time.’
Yes… full of herself, and so much like Anne at twenty.
‘That’s as well, for an apology suggests regret, and I have no regrets.’ He looked her up and down. Nothing else about her was at all like Anne. The mature Otis was tall, full-figured and brilliantly coloured in cheeks, lips, and eyes. The bridal attendant’s dress was of a deep rose shade, and feminine in silhouette, the gathered skirt being hitched at the sides so that glimpsed inches of her calves were revealed as she moved. He thought: She must certainly outshine her mother these days. Again he felt desire rise in him. God forgive me, she’s twenty-five years younger than I am. She is Esther’s age.
‘The shade of that dress suits you very well. You have flair. Few women with your hair colour would have chosen to wear dark pink. You really are an extraordinarily disturbing young woman.’
He watched her response carefully. An experienced interrogator and decipherer of clues, he read no signs that she was troubled, rather, she was intrigued and not displeased.
She said, ‘“Young Woman” used in that tone smacks very much of my mother when she intends “Young Hussy”.’
‘I think that your mother does not know you very well if she refers to you in such terms. I never intended “hussy” – it is a word that indicates a want of intelligence, an attribute I know that you do not lack.’
Raising her eyebrows in acknowledgement, she looked pointedly at the clock.
George Moth knew that almost everybody would be assembled at the church by now, but he wanted to indulge himself for just a few more minutes. Where’s the harm? Esther will not be the first bride to arrive late.
‘It is still too early. You should not leave until eleven fifteen. The church is not far.’ Lifting the lids of two boxes of cigarettes he offered them, saying, ‘“Hibiscus” and Virginia. Do you use them?’
‘No.’
‘I am glad to hear it.’
She gave him a purse-lipped, wry smile. ‘I prefer a cigar…’
Is she trying to crack the whip at me, put me in my place?
‘…but on my allowance I can afford only Vevey Sans.’
George Moth wrinkled his nose.
‘We are not all detective-inspectors who can smoke Mil Maravillas.’
If she was trying to pull him down a peg, George Moth knew that she had the ability to do so with style, for there were few women who would know that the ‘Aguila de Oro’ band he had removed from his cigar indicated that – at £25 a hundred – it was one of the most expensive cigars money could buy. There were even fewer women who could detect it only from its fragrance.
‘High days and holidays – my only indulgence.’ He indicated a brass-bound wooden humidor. ‘You are welcome…’
She laughed and waved her refusal of his offer. ‘I thought that you did not approve of a woman who uses tobacco.’
‘I may approve of the woman and not her use of tobacco.’
‘I should have liked to try one of your Mil Maravillas but I really must leave now; my mama taught me that it is not polite to keep people waiting.’
He bowed to the inevitable. ‘The fault is mine.’
‘Would you mind?’ She nodded at the cigar he was smoking and, without waiting for his permission, took it from his fingers. As he would have himself, she rolled it between her fingers, feeling the condition of the leaf, smelt it gently, then placed her lips around it and, with her head tilted back and half-closed eyes, drew in a mouthful of the aromatic smoke, holding it in her open mouth before expelling it gently.
George Moth had been enjoying cigars for twenty years, yet in all that time he had never known that there could be such sensuality associated with the intake of a mouthful of smoke. He could not take his eyes off the moist, red circle of her lips as it contracted about the cigar and relaxed as she blew a ring. Before it dispersed, he reached for it and caught it between a finger and thumb, not taking his eyes from hers as he did so.
When Anne Moth had carpeted Windsor Villa, she had chosen expensive, close-tufted Wilton which entirely deadened any footfall.
Esther, framed in the doorway, said steadily, ‘Is it not time that you were at the church, Otis?’
1914
Major and Mrs Blood, in Southsea for its romantic associations, had taken a suite overlooking the sea in a modern hotel.
‘I’m sorry it is cut short, my darling girl.’ Bindon Blood stretched across the table and kissed his pretty wife on her temple.
Bindon and Esther were taking tea al fresco on the balcony of their suite under a green-lined canvas awning. A constant stream of people, soaking up ozone and sun, walked the promenade below. In other circumstances, Esther Blood could not have brought herself to encircle her bridegroom’s neck in full view of anyone who chanced to look up, but this place had, for her, taken on the feeling that it was enchanted, and so rendered them invisible to any inquisitive stare. If she had had any self-doubts as to her motives in marrying the man who had courted her faithfully until she had agreed, those doubts were now settled.
Poor Otis, she believes that she has the best prize in her books and discussions.
The wedding night which, had she taken notice of her mother’s closest friend she might have expected to be rather less than romantic, had instead been a glorious revelation, nothing akin to the biological account in a textbook, nor the imagined ‘tupping’ that she and Otis had once giggled ab
out. Perhaps it was that she could still remember overhearing her mother telling that friend, ‘Had you responded to Theo, instead of rejecting him, then your wedding night might have been as satisfactory as my own. After all, it is the most natural event in the world, is it not?’
Esther too had found that the act which her ma’s poor friend had found to be so peculiar was entirely natural and satisfactory and wonderful. Bindon was gentle and understanding, and as practised in love as one would expect a soldier to be – even though she did not want to know how that came about – and Esther was unafraid and responsive.
The consequence of so satisfactory a wedding night was that they had spent much of their time in Southsea repeating the experience. If Eros had scored a gold on Bindon Blood three years previously, he now released a full quiver of darts at Esther and scored with them all.
Each time the handsome soldier looked at his wife’s daintiness and fragility, he wanted to carry her back yet again into their rooms. I am so lucky! he told himself a hundred times.
‘Darling Ess, I can hardly bear going back to barracks. The thought of the company of the fellows… I want to be with you. I want it to be the two of us, alone in a house of our own, the key turned in the lock…’ He pulled her down on to his knee and kissed her gently. Until now, although he had never realized it, he had been a lonely man, as he had been a lonely child in his solitary-living grandfather’s house. Lonely in the midst of battalions of men, lonely in the mess, even lonely saluting an acknowledgement at the end of a solo played in public.
‘I really can’t see why the army should need a band playing in a war.’
He hugged her for her naïvety and felt himself becoming aroused at the softness and lightness of her body.
How can I go to fight a war just now?
‘I am not only a bandsman. Bandsmen are trained soldiers first and musicians second. I know how to handle firearms almost as well as I do a musical instrument.’
He felt her stiffen slightly beneath his caresses. She slipped away from him and went to lean over the balcony railings. Watching her, he again wondered whether he could ask her to come to live in this town. Until now, until he had experienced these almost overwhelming surges of passion for her, he had said that he would be happy to live in Windsor Villa. True, he did love London. Compared to the dull gentility of Southsea, and the routine of the barracks, London was a continuous adventure. But he no longer wanted that adventure, he wanted his wife close at hand. When he was in barracks he wanted to know that when he came off duty her soft comfort was awaiting him.
He went and stood beside her. The tide was receding. He liked to watch these waters which were unique with their twice-daily surge that came swirling in between the one stony beach here and another on the Isle of Wight four miles across the water. He encircled her with his arm, wondering whether she would think him lustful if he let her know that he wanted her now, only hours after an episode at lunchtime. Her very fragility and paleness made him a beast in comparison.
But by tomorrow, or the next day, who knew what orders he would be obeying, for which part of the country he might be en route?
He peered over the railings upon which were supported boxes of lushly blooming geraniums, the odour of which the two of them would probably remember with affection for the rest of their lives. ‘What’s new in the state of Denmark?’
‘Could you bear having Kitt live with us?’
‘Why do you ask? I thought that was the plan, that that was the reason for us living in your father’s house… so that you could continue to mother Kitt.’
‘I mean bring Kitt down here. Rent a house in one of those pretty little lanes…’
‘Darling Ess! Do you think it possible? I thought it essential that Kitt is not disturbed until he reaches school age.’
She turned, put her arms about his waist and pressed herself to him. ‘If he is with me, then it cannot be much of a disturbance. And think how he would thrive in this wonderful air. In any event, the disturbance to me, if I can only be with you when you have time to travel to London, is too dire to contemplate.’
This time it was the wife who led the husband back inside.
Part III
1914
Greywell Villa in Stormont Street, Clapham, was immaculately decorated without and within. Its interior was lofty and light from long windows which had pretty lace pulled into their corners and much of its furniture, which was of the same period as the house, was proudly stamped ‘Gillow’. Plainly Greywell was the home of a professional man who had secured a steady flow of fees over a long period. Its shrubberies burgeoned and its small lawns invited no boots to indent their surface. Controlled roses and clematis, pyracantha and vitis softened its red-brick walls, and the only way that herbaceous plants in the borders lost their heads was by dead-head pruners, as flowers for the house were delivered twice a week.
It was in Greywell, set in the desirable area of Lavender Hill, that Emily and Martin had spent more than twenty years of married life with few unpleasantnesses. Only two of real seriousness: the first was when Otis had got it into her head that she wished to go to college and read for a teaching degree; the second, also brought about by Otis of course, was when she had been to college and wished to put into practice what she had learned.
There were times when Emily Hewetson felt that the lot of a mother with a headstrong daughter who had an indulgent father was almost too much to bear.
‘Had I not been a good mother, Max, then her behaviour would at the least be understandable.’
‘Em, my dear, I think that you have done marvellously. It is probably in her nature, your excellent upbringing of Otis can have nothing to do with it.’
‘She has made some very peculiar acquaintances and picked up some strange notions since she was at Stockwell.’ Emily gazed disdainfully at her forkful of salad, ‘One thing I will say, I was against her going in the first place.’ No names no pack-drill, her expression said. ‘I do not know how Inspector Moth managed it, but his daughter was persuaded from taking up her college place… and now look at her, married to a most likeable army officer. A musician, too; such a civilized and sociable way of soldiering.’
‘You attended the wedding then?’
‘Extremely civil of the man. He had us seated with some of the Clermont members of the family. It was quite a small affair, but almost quality. Quite lavish – faultless in fact. I must admit that I was surprised at the taste shown. I should have wanted something a touch more striking in a gown for Otis, but she was a very dainty kind of a bride. Otis could carry off something far more elaborate. Quite expensive though.’
‘You enjoyed it then, Em?’
‘I did, I did. A strange mix of the simple and the lavish. I found it interesting; as I observed to Martin, quite as one might have expected from such a strange mix as the bride’s parents were. The groom had practically no one except his fellow officers.’
‘Another slice of beef, Hew?’ asked Martin Hewetson, keeping his head below the parapet.
‘Is that not absolutely typical of Martin? Here I am with my nerves in shreds for our daughter, and he continues slicing beef.’
‘We may as well be replete if we are to worry, my dear.’
Emily Hewetson chewed the tender fillet as though it was a poorly cooked servant’s cut.
‘You must not fret because the young Moth girl beat Otis down the aisle, Em.’
‘Oh Max, how you do reduce everything. I am not at all fretting that she reached the age of twenty and no young man has seriously courted her. I would not dare fret or I should be soon informed that we mothers turn romance into a marriage market. Market! What a term. I know that these are modern times and that young women are receiving education, and wish to spend more time outside the home than was thought proper in my young days, but the fact remains that marriage, home and family are central to a woman’s life. The fact also remains that all mothers feel more at ease in their minds when a daughter is settled.’
She had insisted that Martin bring Max home for lunch so that they might decide how best to tackle the problem of Otis’s latest decision. Emily had honestly believed that, once the Stockwell College business was over and it was out of Otis’s system and the girls dispersed, Otis would return home and settle down.
‘I really did expect that you would be more co-operative, Max. Martin has always been far too indulgent, and she has gone beyond an age when I can say anything that she will heed.’
‘Then you may be sure that she will take not the slightest notice of me, Em.’ Which was not strictly true for, of the three of them, it was to her Uncle Hewey’s views that Otis Hewetson was most likely to listen. Max Hewetson, however, involved as he might be in Greywell, did not wish to become embroiled in the discussion that had been going on in his brother’s household recently. ‘Might I have some more of that beef, Martin?’
Emily breathed in heavily, raising by two inches the flounces which emphasized her bosom.
The effect of this was lost in the rattle and rustle caused by Otis rushing into the dining-room and sitting at table still wearing her hat.
‘I am sorry to be late. But the buses are so full at present. There are soldiers everywhere.’
‘Otis, if you like to remove your hat before you eat, and not behave as though you were a visitor to your home, I should feel better able to digest my food.’ Had the men not been present, Emily might have suggested that her daughter might like to hold herself together with a proper corset, but she knew that that battle was as good as lost. She had the feeling too that this new battle, in which she had hoped to enlist the aid of Max, was about to be lost also.
‘No time, Ma. I have to go out again almost at once.’
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