by Rosie Thomas
The room that Mrs Pugh showed Helen into was high and awash with elegant pale shades of blue and pink. There was a little chaise longue upholstered in blue watered silk at the foot of the wide, heavy bed. Even Helen could see that the furniture was Chippendale, but it was well used, with none of the stiff formality of museum pieces. There was a faint but pervasive smell of lavender.
‘Would you like me to send someone to unpack for you?’ asked Mrs Pugh.
‘No. No, thank you, really,’ said Helen, backing defensively towards her case. No tissue paper, she thought. No monograms, and no expensive labels either.
‘Right you are. I’ve put you next door to your friend, the other young lady. You’ll be wanting a good gossip, I expect.’
Helen throught fleetingly that Pansy would indeed be a welcome sight in this intimidating house.
‘I expect Mr Hart will come and show you the way down for lunch. If you need anything, just ask me or Mr Maitland.’
When she was alone, Helen smoothed her clothes and combed out her black hair. She could think of nothing else to do to make herself ready so she wandered to and fro, touching the cotton wool and cologne laid out on the dressing table, feeling like an intruder in the dignified room.
On the table beside the bed Vogue and Country Life lay with a copy of the day’s Times and a crystal glass and decanter. Helen picked up the newspaper and began to stare unseeingly at it. This is Oliver’s home, she kept thinking. All this – those gates, and the house practically filling the horizon, the servants and pictures and beautiful things – this is ordinary life for him. How could I ever have imagined …
Restlessly she stood up and went to stare out of the window. Parkland, landscaped in the grand style, rolled away from her. There was no other building to be seen. Just grass, and ancient trees, and in the foreground terraces dropping to the geometry of formal gardens.
She turned away in relief when she heard Tom at the door.
‘Ready to come on parade?’ he asked.
‘Don’t make me any more nervous than I am already,’ she begged. ‘Who’s going to be there?’ Helen noticed that he had toned down the slight eccentricity of his clothes for Montcalm. He was wearing a grey vicuña sweater now over a cream shirt, much more Princeton than Broadway.
‘Oh, very much a family party,’ he teased her. ‘Just you, and me, and her ladyship. Everyone else has gone hunting. The really big meet of the year is held here, tomorrow, before the New Year’s Eve ball. But I suppose they want to keep their eye in, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do on horseback.’ Tom had led them a different way from her room. Now he paused with his hand on her arm.
‘Hold on to your hat,’ he whispered, then steered her forward. ‘Just look at this.’
Helen gasped.
They had come to the centre of the house.
Above them was the bell of a great dome, slotted with light from the windows beneath the cupola. Helen tilted back her head to look at the painting. There were billowing clouds edged with silver, blue-robed attendants lifting a canopy over a chariot and a massive golden figure poised with sun and moon in either hand. Fat, pink putti and garlands of flowers tumbled from the central group to the edges of the dome. It was magnificent; flord and full-blown and unforgettable. Underneath it even the huge gilt and crystal chandelier, the shallow sweep of the great staircase and the tall portraits in curlicued gilt frames seemed understated.
‘I’ve been considering getting one done at home,’ Tom murmured. ‘What do you think?’
‘Perhaps in the guest bathroom?’ Helen giggled.
But awed in spite of themselves they were still gazing upwards when they came to the head of the stairs.
The hallway beneath echoed forbiddingly. The floor was tiled in an elaborate mosaic, and huge oriental jars stood guard on either side of closed double doors. At the main door a hooded porter’s chair reminded Helen that a footman would have waited in this draughty space to see the last members of the household safely inside. Discreetly hidden beside the chair she saw a rank of little posts, and lengths of coiled red rope.
‘Nobody really lives here,’ Tom said, following her eyes. ‘It’s sad, in a way, isn’t it? The wing we’ve just come from is the private one.’
‘Oliver told me that they retreated there,’ Helen remembered. ‘Like survivors in a sinking ship.’
‘Some ship,’ he said quietly, ‘but survivors must be right. How else could a single family keep going from strength to strength for so many hundreds of years?’
Helen looked up at the family portraits that lined the stairs. There, in one face or another, were Oliver’s medieval-knight features. Hands, clasped on the pommel of a sword, or a bridle, were Oliver’s too.
Helen’s mouth set in a firm line.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Take me to her ladyship before I lose my nerve completely.’
At the door of the countess’s drawing room, there was an impressive figure in a black coat.
‘Good morning, sir. Welcome to Montcalm, Miss Brown. Her ladyship will be pleased if you will join her.’
Helen saw that Tom’s expression was unchanged, but she thought that the humorous lines at the side of his mouth had deepened.
Maitland showed them into the room.
The long, dove-grey drawing room was dotted with comfortable sofas. There were bowls of hothouse flowers on fragile inlaid tables and a great many photographs in silver frames. Most of them, Helen saw, were of horses and dogs. Over the fireplace was a fine painting of a horse that she suspected must be a Stubbs. The windows with their heavy swags of curtains looked out over the frosty park.
The Countess of Montcalm was sitting beside the fire with an open book on her lap. She was quietly dressed in grey country tweeds, but her face was immaculately made up. She had fair hair, greying now, pale blue eyes and a small, firm mouth. Helen thought that she looked like a rare china doll, the showpiece of some collection.
The countess looked sharply at her, then shook her hand so perfunctorily that their fingers barely touched. Helen recognised at once that their hostess was completely uninterested in her. It was, in a way, a relief. She subsided into a corner of one of the sofas and let Tom make the running.
‘Shall I fix you another of my martinis, Lady Montcalm?’
‘Definitely not, Tom. Do you know, I had to go and lie down after yesterday lunchtime? I’ll have just the smallest sherry. Would you be an angel, to save bringing Maitland back again?’
She spoke with the upper-class inflection of the thirties debutante. Tom moved efficiently at the laden silver tray on one of the tables. As he handed Helen her drink, there was the faintest trace of a wink.
‘I’m sorry we are such a small party,’ Lady Montcalm said to Helen as they moved into the dining room. ‘My elder son won’t be back until tomorrow night, and Oliver insists on hunting at every opportunity.’ She sighed faintly. ‘But he’s been so impossible this Christmas that it’s a relief to see him doing something with enthusiasm.’
Tom’s black eyebrows drew together in a frown.
After the formal little lunch, Tom and Helen gratefully put on their coats and escaped for a walk across the park. They set out at a diagonal from the house, the short grass crunching with half-melted ice beneath their feet. ‘What did she mean,’ Helen asked at last, ‘about Oliver being impossible?’
Tom stopped. They both turned round to look at the fantastic façade of Montcalm. Blank windows stared impenetrably back at them.
‘I think he hates it,’ Tom said. ‘You know what Oliver’s like. He’s almost obsessive about being free to do what he likes. That’s hardly possible here. He’s expected to behave in a certain way by everyone from his old man to Maitland’s underlings. As far as I can tell, he just about manages to contain his boredom and irritation by anaesthetising himself with whisky. And worse. The only time he smiles is when he’s been snorting coke.’
They started walking again, by unspoken agreement making for a belt
of trees that would take them out of sight of the house.
‘I think that’s why he’s so insistent on you and me, and Pansy, being here. Friends from his own world only emphasise how stuck he is in it.’
Helen thought for a moment. ‘He told me once that as he’s the younger son he doesn’t have to concern himself much with all this.’
The wave of her hand took it all in, the house and the park and the estate stretching as far as they could see.
‘No,’ Tom said slowly. ‘Perhaps that’s a pity. He’s quite powerful, isn’t he? With all his natural advantages he’d have made a good heir. I haven’t met the older brother. But have you noticed, nearly all the photographs are of Oliver? Even though there’s some dog or horse in the foreground as well?’ Helen had noticed, and it had struck her as odd.
‘So even though he’s impossible, he’s still the favourite?’
‘I should guess so.’
‘That must make it harder still for him,’ said Helen, very quietly.
They looked at each other for a moment, thinking about him.
‘Yes.’
Tom shook his head, then took hold of Helen’s arm. ‘Let’s go back. Maitland wheels in the most wonderful tea tray round about now. I do feel sorry for Oliver, but life isn’t all bad around here.’
Lady Montcalm was back in her place beside the fire, but she had exchanged her book for petit point.
Maitland brought in the tea at once, and Tom cheerfully lifted the covers off the silver dishes to exclaim over the array of muffins and hot scones and rich fruit cake.
‘I love tea. So civilised.’
As he spoke there was a sudden murmur of voices outside and the door opened. The first person to come in was Lord Montcalm. Not a big man, he held himself so straight and his head of fine silvery hair so erect that he looked inches taller than his real height. He was followed by two middle-aged men and then, a little behind, by Oliver. All four of them had taken off their boots but they still wore their white breeches, stocks and waistcoats.
Helen’s gaze went to Oliver at once. He was flushed from fresh air and exercise, and his hair was tumbled after pulling off his riding hat. There was dried mud on his white breeches and his stock had come untied to leave his throat bare. He looked handsomer than ever. Helen felt her fingers clasped so tightly round the fragile cup that she was holding that she quickly put it down.
‘Hello, Helen,’ he said, as if he had seen her that morning. ‘Did you get here safely?’ Then, casually, he bent to kiss the top of her head. ‘Pansy’s not here yet? I thought she would be.’
‘How d’you do?’ said Lord Montcalm, and his friends shook her hand too. Then they turned their attention at once to the tea tray.
‘Tea, Oliver?’ asked Lady Montcalm.
‘No, thanks. I’m going to have Scotch.’ He poured a large measure into a tumbler and took a long swallow.
‘Is that appropriate, at four in the afternoon?’ His mother’s voice was very cool.
‘Appropriate at any time of day, as far as I am concerned.’ Equally coolly, Oliver went across to one of the windows and held back the heavy curtains so that his view was unimpeded. The exhilaration of the day’s sport had faded from his face, to be replaced with irritation.
But a moment later he said, ‘Here she is,’ and there was so much enthusiasm in his face that they all looked round.
A curve of the main driveway was visible from the window and they saw the white Corniche drifting towards them.
Oliver was on his way out of the room at once. Helen and Tom put down their plates and followed him. Pansy, as always, would have a warm reception.
In the shadow of the great main doors, Masefield Warren’s chauffeur walked round to open the door of the Rolls. Pansy was out of the car before he could reach it. She ran up the sweep of steps to meet them, then flung back her head to look up at the façade.
‘Nolly, it’s bigger than Buckingham Palace.’
‘Considerably bigger, bloody mausoleum.’
Pansy was laughing and kissing them all.
‘Masefield was so pleased that I was mixing in the right company at last that he sent me in his car. Will somebody look after Hobbs?’
‘Of course,’ Oliver said. ‘Maitland will see to it.’
Helen breathed in Pansy’s familiar summer-garden scent and felt the soft fur of her white coat brush her cheek as they kissed each other. Very deliberately, she made herself smile. They’re made for each other, she repeated to herself. Maitland … Hobbs …
For a moment, Helen’s smile was genuine.
It was obvious from the moment of her arrival that Pansy would be a big success at Montcalm. When she walked into the drawing room, she was met by the same little silence that greeted her everywhere. Then Lord Montcalm took both her hands in his and led her across to be introduced to her hostess. Lady Montcalm made room for her beside her on the sofa and Lord Montcalm’s friends elbowed each other over the tea things for the privilege of handing her her cup. Oliver’s eyes followed her movements with a kind of bemused pride. And in Tom’s face, just for an instant, there was a flash of pure jealousy that was replaced almost at once by his habitual air of ironic detachment.
Helen sat quietly in her corner, not minding being overlooked in this company where she felt unable to think of the right things to say.
Pansy was perfectly poised. She was telling them about her Christmas in Masefield’s entourage at Gstaad. Even Lady Montcalm’s china face split into a smile.
I don’t envy her for what she’s got, Helen thought. Not the Rolls, or the furs, or her lovely face. Or even Oliver, really, however much I still long for him myself. But I am jealous of her for what she is. She’s so natural, and funny, and warm, that it’s impossible not to like her. She just goes on being herself. She’d be just as much at home in our front room at home with Mum and Graham, and they’d like her just as much as these people do.
That’s what makes me jealous of her. Why can’t I be like that? What makes me sit here, stupid and silent and resentful?
Then Tom strolled over to her and took her cup out of her hand.
‘You look kind of sour,’ he murmured. ‘Is anything wrong, apart from the obvious?’
Helen flushed uncomfortably.
‘Nothing at all,’ she told him with defiance.
For the rest of the day Helen felt more as if she was walking through a film of a country house party than real life.
The guests soon drifted away from the fireside to change for dinner. Helen, in her plain knitted dress, came down with Pansy who was wearing a black velvet St Laurent smoking jacket. She had brushed her silver-gilt hair flat to her head so that she looked like a wicked boy. The eyes of the three older men fastened on her greedily as soon as she walked in.
Oliver and Tom lounged on either side of the fire, utterly unlike in spite of the uniform of their dinner jackets. Tom was very dark and sleek and correct, while Oliver’s black tie was askew and his blond hair remained uncombed. He was on his third whisky and his face was slightly reddened, but it was obvious that he was in a good humour. He kissed Pansy, and his hand slid down her velvet back. One of the middle-aged men cleared his throat very faintly.
At dinner Helen counted fewer people at table than servants to wait on them. Oliver kept signalling to Maitland to fill his glass. His father frowned at him and he stared challengingly back.
Without Pansy’s sparkle, the conversation would have been hard work. Lord and Lady Montcalm were not animated talkers.
At the end of the meal, Lady Montcalm looked from Pansy to Helen and raised her eyebrows. Obediently they stood up and followed her. Before the door closed, Helen heard Lord Montcalm say, ‘Care for a rubber, George? Which of you boys will make up a four?’
Oliver said sharply, ‘I hate bridge. And Tom, like a sensible man, doesn’t play. We’re going to the billiard room.’
The door clicked shut and the women made their way back to the drawing room.
&nb
sp; Lady Montcalm drank her coffee with an air of weariness and then stood up with a little sigh.
‘Will you forgive me if I desert you both? It’s our biggest day of the year tomorrow, with the Meet and the Ball in the evening. It means a very great deal of work, so I must allow myself the luxury of an early night.’
‘Of course,’ they murmured.
As soon as they were alone, they grinned at each other in relief. Pansy threw herself back against the cushions and waved her arms.
‘Phooeee, talk about stiff. No wonder Nolly hates it, poor love. It was like having dinner in a fishtank, wasn’t it? All those people standing against the wall with their hands folded, waiting for you to put down your fork.’
Helen laughed.
‘D’you think they eat like that when there’s just the two of them?’
‘But of course. One has to keep going somehow, doing what’s expected of one.’ She had caught Lady Montcalm’s vowels to perfection.
Oliver put his head round the door.
‘All clear?’ he said. ‘Right. Off duty time.’ He was carrying an empty glass and he picked up a brandy bottle from the drinks tray and swung it by the neck.
The billiard room was in darkness except for the long light over the smooth green cloth. It was warm, but it smelt of dust and disuse. Helen smiled to herself, imagining how the room must have been when it was full of over-fed Edwardian gentlemen, puffing on cigars and placing bets with each other. She wandered down the length of the table, running her finger along the polished mahogany and thinking how pretty the rolling, clicking coloured balls looked against the green.
The billiard room felt a long way from the rest of the house, and so somehow safe.
Tom had taken off his jacket and was meditatively chalking his cue between shots. Oliver poured brandy and balanced his glass on the corner of the table.
‘Do you play, Pansy?’ He held out a cue.
Pansy slipped off her velvet jacket at once and took the cue from him. Frowning, she walked around the table and then her face cleared as she saw her shot. She leaned forward and her fingers expertly formed a bridge for the cue. The polished wood snaked to and fro once or twice as she measured the shot. Then click, the balls ricocheted and scattered. The pink rolled and plopped softly into a pocket.