The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  The subject changed after that, the interest turning to other events that had taken place in the village, while Judy began to clear away the dishes. As she carried them through to the kitchen – Gwen having taken the day off to visit an ailing relative about whose illness Loopy actually had severe doubts – Judy once again found herself thinking about Waldo Astley. From the fleeting moment that she had met him he hadn’t seemed to be the church type, and yet there he’d been in the next door pew, looking round at everyone – and through Judy as if they had never met, which of course they had, if only by way of an accident. Tall, handsome, with a magnetic presence and style which made the rest of the male population of Bexham look drab and ordinary, what was he doing in a small Sussex seaside village? Why had he seen fit to visit Bexham of all places?

  ‘A dollar for them—’

  Loopy’s voice behind her made Judy turn quickly, knocking a precious glass fruit bowl to the floor, where it shattered.

  ‘Oh God—’ Judy exclaimed, and her eyes flew to Loopy’s face, knowing that the men would have been sure to overhear.

  ‘What’s happened now?’ Walter stood in the door, frowning. ‘Oh, not Mother’s precious fruit bowl. Did you do that?’ He looked from the broken glass everywhere to Judy and back again.

  ‘No, I did, Walter,’ Loopy drawled, smiling. ‘And the fruit bowl is mine to drop as it happens, so go back to your brandy, and leave me to clear up.’

  Both women waited for Walter to leave, which he seemed to do almost reluctantly, as if he suspected some sort of feminine cover-up yet dared not say anything.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Loopy,’ Judy whispered, once he’d gone. ‘So, so sorry!’ She covered her mouth with one hand, tears hovering in her eyes.

  ‘Couldn’t matter less, sweetie. Really!’ Loopy grabbed a dustpan and brush. ‘It’s people not things that matter, the war taught us that, if nothing else. Let’s get cracking – although that’s not quite the right phrase, is it?’ She laughed. ‘What I mean is let’s clear it up, and then have ourselves a coffee and a cigarette, and forget all about the damn thing.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ Judy got down on her hands and knees and began carefully to pick up the larger broken pieces.

  ‘What were you thinking about when you dropped it?’

  ‘Nothing really.’ Judy looked briefly at her mother-in-law. It was a strange fact that she found it easier to talk to Loopy than she did to her own mother or father.

  ‘Ah yes, nothing – I often think of nothing, and for some reason straight away after I have thought of nothing – a painting results.’

  Loopy finished her brushing up, and sat back preparing to talk, but Judy got quickly to her feet, turning away and tipping the broken glass she had collected into the pail below the sink. She kept her head averted, not wanting Loopy to see the mixture of emotions on her face. Behind her, Loopy stood, her own head on one side, and went on as if Judy had replied to her, which of course she hadn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really mustn’t be so facetious. Hugh’s forever telling me it’s my most dreadful habit – it’s just that I sense you’re not quite yourself.’

  ‘I’m quite happy,’ Judy said quietly, staring out of the window over the sink at the wintry landscape beyond, knowing that the very opposite was true.

  ‘Good. Well, as long as nothing’s the matter.’

  Judy turned round of a sudden. ‘Except, you know, the fact that I can’t seem to have a baby. I don’t know why but – you know. It’s just – it’s just not happening, Loopy. And the less it happens, the less it seems likely to happen, and I think it’s getting Walter down.’

  Loopy said nothing but taking the filled kettle she put it on the gas hob, lighting it with her cigarette lighter before pulling out two chairs at the kitchen table.

  ‘OK – so let’s have a cup of what passes as coffee nowadays, and a smoke.’ She patted a chair for Judy as she sat herself down. ‘First things first. Do you want to have babies?’

  As Judy looked surprised, Loopy poured the coffee and added some dried milk, before lighting another cigarette.

  ‘Don’t look shocked. Women don’t always want to have babies, just because they marry. I know I didn’t long to have them first off. It’s not such a natural state after all. I believe when horses have their first foal they’re completely amazed, no idea where it’s come from. However, when I did, I was really pleased, even with John, even with the first, which is always the most difficult one to adjust to. Being a mother doesn’t arrive with a rush, it comes along bit by bit, rather like being in love. Not many people realise that they’ve been smitten by love, until they start to hear singing when there’s no-one there, and all sorts of other sensations.’

  ‘Oh yes, I want babies, of course I do.’ Judy could hardly keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘Of course I want to have babies.’

  Loopy smiled wryly and tapped the end of her cigarette on the edge of her saucer, dislodging a long length of ash.

  ‘Well, I don’t know that there’s any of course about it; until you actually have a child, children are just a notion really. You like playing with other people’s children, you enjoy cooing into other people’s prams, but when you have one yourself it goes from being a pretty indulgence to being a major reality, believe me. Like you, I had a sort of sense of duty. My mother-in-law – oh, and my mother – were forever telling me that my responsibility – once I was married, I mean – that my responsibility was to give my husband a whole clutch of children, and of course by that they really meant sons. And you know what? For a long time I thought really? Why? I know this isn’t exactly orthodox, in fact it’s kind of heretical, particularly in England at the moment. So that is why I asked you – do you really want a baby?’

  ‘Well, of course.’ Of a sudden Judy sounded a lot less sure, because she knew Hugh and Loopy had already suspected that she and Walter might not actually want children.

  Of a sudden, out of the blue, Judy remembered the moment in her mother’s conservatory when she and Walter had just made love for the first time. War had broken out, at least that was how she remembered it, and they thought they might never have another chance.

  ‘It’s none of my business really,’ Loopy was saying. ‘I am sorry – I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just the latent grandmother in me popping out. I’m afraid I just can’t wait to have a clutch of smalls round the place, taking them sailing and swimming, and all that, and then promptly and happily handing them back to you at the end of a long and tiring day.’

  ‘It’s only natural.’ Judy’s face grew sad. ‘Only natural for us all to want another generation.’

  Seeing Judy’s vulnerable expression, how she looked away into the middle distance, and hearing the tiny sigh she gave that was hardly a sigh at all, Loopy quickly advised her to go easy on herself, adding that she was sure if Judy did so, it would happen.

  ‘Believe me, honey – just take it easy, and it’ll be. It’ll happen. And as far as I’m concerned, we haven’t spoken.’

  Loopy gave Judy her most enchanting smile, and they finished their coffee, stubbed out their cigarettes and walked back to the dining room where Walter and his father were drinking smuggled brandy and smoking contraband cigars that Hugh had bought from a contact in the Three Tuns. Loopy surveyed the scene before her, and smiled.

  ‘Well, well, it seems that the shortages have turned us all into law breakers.’

  Refusing her father-in-law’s offer of a brandy, Judy wandered over to the sitting room window, gazing out at the overcast day, and thinking over her talk with Loopy. As she listened in a desultory way to the general conversation, she saw a man stop at the gate that led into the lane and stand looking directly into the house, hands sunk deep in the pockets of his long black overcoat, a large black hat pulled down over his eyes. She knew at once who it must be, and putting a hand to her mouth she found herself catching her breath, trying not to laugh at his impudence as he doffed his large hat, his head t
o one side, smiling at her, before turning and continuing on his way.

  For a good half-minute more Judy continued to stare out of the window to where the man had stood, then she turned and carefully sitting down put one of her hands over Walter’s, as if to remind herself of how married to him she was.

  ‘And what have you two been talking about? Hair styles and beauty tips as usual, I suppose?’ Hugh asked Loopy.

  ‘That’s right, just hair and beauty, and fashion, and all that. Nothing else interests us women actually, Hugh.’

  Loopy caught her daughter-in-law’s eye with one of her most falsely innocent looks, widening her own dramatically in order to make Judy smile.

  As the family round her continued to talk, Judy could not stop her eyes straying once more to the window. How had Waldo Astley found the Tates’ house? And more than that, why had he risked doing something so outrageous? After all, it might not have been Judy who had gone to the window. It might have been Loopy, or even Walter. Was he mad, or was he something worse – enchanting?

  Chapter Four

  Much to her delight Gloria now found herself at the hub of a flurry of social activity, for at her invitation, and following an uncomfortable night at the old inn, Waldo Astley had moved out of the Three Tuns and into her best guest room. Waldo’s quite obvious lack of interest in her as a woman while initially faintly irritating soon became entirely acceptable, particularly when Gloria discovered that his presence in her house gave her an ever-growing social importance, which she did all too soon.

  As in all small communities, much of the real life of Bexham was hidden from view, certainly from the view of the casual visitor who saw only what appeared to be a small and idyllic West Sussex fishing village. What no visitor could know was that it took at least half a decade before any of Old Bexham would ever accept any of New Bexham. The only people who invited anyone new were other new people, or the less desirable old residents who all had what Loopy always called a ‘known fault’, being either permanently drunk or agonisingly boring. However, thanks to the immediate impact that Waldo had on the village, Gloria found that doors that would otherwise have remained permanently shut were now being flung open to her. Social success was beckoning at an almost alarming rate. To start the ball rolling, Waldo and herself received an invitation for cocktails at Cucklington House.

  ‘This Miss Meggie Gore-Stewart,’ Waldo wondered after the invitation had been hand-delivered by Richards. ‘Tell me what you know about her. Besides the fact that I gather she’s blonde and beautiful, if a trifle snooty.’

  ‘I can only tell you what I know from Lionel, which is only what I have gathered at the bridge table—’

  ‘A propos of which, Mrs Morrison, a jump bid of Two No Trumps over an opener in a minor suit is a shut out bid – not an invitation to go three down doubled and vulnerable. If you get my drift.’

  ‘I thought we had agreed to play Strong No Trump, Mr Astley?’ Gloria looked suitably innocent, which of course when it came to bridge she was certainly not.

  ‘My dear Mrs Morrison, as you well know, that is not Strong No Trump. That is Enfeebled Thinking. And it will cost you dear – if you insist on playing so damnably, very dear indeed. Anyway, to get back to Miss Meggie Gore-Stewart, if you don’t mind. Someone told me she played the heroine during the oh-so-recent fracas commonly known as World War Two. Dropped behind enemy lines, it seems she covered herself in glory. Is this so?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Gloria half agreed, her interest straying as it always did when another woman was mentioned. ‘Although you know how it is, Mr Astley – once wars are over, it’s amazing the tales of bravery one suddenly hears.’

  ‘Do you have any specifically, that relate to yourself?’ Waldo asked, his eyebrows raised and knotting in expressive wonder. ‘Or did we stay at home by the fireside knitting socks and gloves for Our Boys Over There?’

  ‘My late husband was a war hero, I think.’ Gloria pulled a slightly comical face, which made Waldo laugh. ‘Anyway, he did die in the war. although some people say he was so incompetent his own men had to shoot him. You know – it was he or they, at least that is what they say. Although of course I don’t believe them, because I wasn’t there. I never do believe anything unless I see it with my very own eyes.’

  ‘I doubt there were many fatalities who died a coward’s death, do you know that? To my way of thinking anyone who joins up voluntarily deserves a chest full of medals. However, to get back to the subject in question, I caught a glimpse of a young woman who might have been Miss Gore-Stewart after that lamentable church service on Sunday. Isn’t she tall and blonde with a somewhat disdainful stare? Is she resident here? Or does she just have estates here?’

  ‘I don’t know that much about her nowadays, alas, Mr Astley. Just that her grandmother left her Cucklington House, but as to whether or not she is going to live there permanently, I couldn’t tell you. She has only just returned from America, that I do know. I also know she is unmarried, and living alone at the house.’

  ‘I spied the house the other day on my rambles. It is a rather fine piece of Queen Anne architecture, quite different from the rest of Elizabethan Bexham.’

  ‘It was kept only as a holiday house by the late Mrs Gore-Stewart, at least to begin with, but when her little granddaughter’s health was not good she brought her down here for long summers to build up her strength.’

  ‘We must find out what might be her intentions for the house. We wouldn’t want a place like that to fall into the hands of some dreadful parvenu, like myself, now would we?’

  Gloria wondered for a brief moment quite what her house guest’s exact definition of some dreadful parvenu might be, before happily concluding that since he had seen fit to make fun of himself, he could not possibly mean that Gloria was one too.

  ‘And by the by,’ Waldo added. ‘Don’t you think it’s time we got all American and called each other by our first names? Rather than keep abiding by this somewhat antiquated British formality? I’d certainly be more comfortable.’

  ‘Of course.’ Gloria smiled in return. ‘I think I should be considerably more comfortable, too.’

  After which Waldo seated himself happily at her boudoir grand piano and proceeded to play a selection of Rodgers and Hart, while she settled herself down by the fire to read Fowler on Bridge, paying particular attention to the chapter on The Proper Bidding and Responses in No Trump Contracts.

  There was plenty to drink at Cucklington House that Friday, thanks to the fact that Richards was now on the wagon. Determined as he was on becoming the next owner of the Three Tuns and having already tendered an offer that he had been officially informed by the agent was actually being seriously considered, Richards took advantage of the present incumbent’s book of contacts and arranged delivery of several cases of under-the-counter contraband liquor to the back door of Cucklington House during the dead hours of the night.

  Meggie was too delighted with both Richards’s enterprise and his sobriety to quibble with the exorbitant price she had to pay for the smuggled booze, not to mention food. Richards had contacts on the coast that were open to none but himself. He took a special pride in keeping their whereabouts from everyone, murmuring only laces for my lady, brandy for the parson at regular intervals as if to remind everyone, himself included, that smuggling had always gone on, and that being so it was almost a duty to the past to keep up the national pastime.

  ‘I shall just have to cut back on my dress allowance,’ Meggie told Judy who, on arriving half an hour early as requested had been taken to see the amount of drink that was set out in the kitchen preparatory to the cocktail party.

  ‘What dress allowance, Meggie?’

  Since Meggie was wearing a pre-war cocktail two piece composed of a white crêpe jacket embroidered with gold beads worn over a black crêpe skirt, and Judy was wearing an equally venerable black cocktail dress of ridged satin with ruffles at the throat and rhinestone decorations instead of front buttons – reluctantly
loaned to her by her mother – neither of them could be said to be looking exactly up to the minute. Unsurprisingly Christian Dior had not yet made his mark on Bexham, where the New Look in any case would have been considered not just shocking, but wasteful, disrespectful, and what’s more – unpatriotic.

  ‘Let’s just put it this way – I was thinking of giving myself a small dress allowance, but I have now been forced to put that to one side. Anyway – it’s all in a good cause. The Let’s Cheer Up Bexham Cause – never seen so many glum faces. And now that the thaw has started and spring isn’t that far away, it’s high time for a bit of fun, don’t-cher-know.’

  ‘Do you honestly think Richards is going to be up to it?’ Judy whispered as she and Meggie made their way back to the drawing room, leaving Richards resplendent in his white tie and tails to mix the drinks.

  ‘It’s a kind of do or die stroke, I suppose.’ Meggie sighed lightly. ‘Either he does or he dies. I think he gave himself such a fright he has to reform; he was reduced to a mumbling jelly, if indeed jellies do mumble. He knows how close he sailed to the wind, and its three sheets. And if he doesn’t make it, we can be assured of quite a swan song.’

  Judy lit both their cigarettes, and gave Meggie a mock serious look as she handed her one.

  ‘What’s the poison you’re going to be giving them then, old thing?’

  ‘Something called Rob Roys.’ Meggie nodded towards the table where the glasses were set out, a gleam in her eye. ‘That is one of the really great advantages of having a drinking butler. They know how to hit the spot. Apparently, made correctly, Rob Roys taste quite innocent, and induce people to behave quite dreadfully. So, heigh-ho the cocktail hour, and let’s see who ends up in the estuary!’

  It was only when the Reverend Anderson started telling Judy risqué stories that he had learned as an army chaplain that the full strength of Richards’s concoction became apparent. Judy, not willing to risk even one cocktail, could only feel sorry for the loquacious cleric, hoping, for his sake, that when he woke up the following morning he would not – as can happen – remember a thing.