The king extinguished his cigarette. Philip stood up but a look from the King prompted him to sit down again as Joan, finding some sudden volume, finished her litany at something of a shout.
“And penises, sir,” she announced definitively and audibly enough for all to hear. “Is there any man here who could describe what it feels like to be missing a penis? Anyone know any penis-free bodies? Anyone ever actually seen a penis blown off?”
With each taboo-laden repetition, the assembled company winced, until Joan appeared to run out of breath and, closing her eyes, lay back, her face as white as her chair. The butler, well trained in unforeseen situations, lifted the claret jug and embarked on another round. For several minutes the only sound in the pale blue dining room was the splash of wine filling the empty glasses. Even Wallis had lost her social savoir faire, and remained sitting in her chair, a look of horror on her face.
“Tell Miss Thomas to bring the car round immediately. Explain that Lady Joan and I are leaving at once,” Philip whispered into the butler’s ear as the crystal decanter reached him. With his wife lying half-slumped opposite him, he drained his full glass in one. Everyone began to move from the table. Evangeline saw Wallis jump to her feet and, taking the king’s arm, guide him into the passage, away from the shocked silence that had filled the space left by Joan’s outburst, and out through the heavy, bronze front door towards the waiting lift. The other guests were ushered discreetly into the drawing room by Ernest where they remained talking in whispers among themselves, the ladies helping themselves from a tray laid with tiny glasses of a substance resembling mouthwash, the men accepting Ernest’s offer of balloon-shaped glasses of brandy. None of them saw Joan’s bundled-up figure being helped out of Wallis’s flat, Philip holding one of her arms and May the other.
While Wallis was showing the king out into the night, into the care of his waiting detective, Evangeline appeared more distressed than anyone else. She looked around for Wallis’s dog to derive some physical reassurance from stroking its warm wiry body but could not see the animal anywhere. All at once she realised she and Julian had been left quite alone together in the dining room. It was too good to be true. Torn for just a moment between retaining her dignity for her godmother’s sake on the one hand, and her own romantic interests on the other, she chose the latter and with a delayed, though long-planned answering wink, whispered, “What a shame poor Joan chose that moment for her little outburst. I had heard there was to be a splendid Grand Marnier bombe glacée for dessert and now we will have to miss it.”
Realising her misjudgement instantly, Evangeline lifted her hand to her head, inadvertently dislodging her carefully positioned wig. Screaming inwardly at herself for her clumsiness, she stood helpless as, with a look of disgust on his handsome face, Julian quietly took the coat and hat being held out to him by the butler, and walked out of the front door without a backwards glance.
CHAPTER TEN
One early spring evening, just as dusk was beginning to fall, an unfamiliar car came slowly down the Cuckmere drive and parked in front of the house. A tall figure in a dark suit emerged from the backseat, was greeted by Lady Joan, and marched into the stone hall as if he was leading a platoon of soldiers behind him.
May was on her way to the study to catch up on the large pile of correspondence. She had been so busy recently with the chauffeuring side of her work and was worrying about the backlog of papers that were piling up on her desk. She stood to one side as the visitor followed Lady Joan through the hall. May noticed his snappy black moustache and his neatly slicked-back hair, and then the man turned his head and looked directly at her. For a second his eyes connected so deeply with her own that she felt an intense physical jolt before he looked away and was hurried upstairs by Lady Joan. Sir Philip followed the pair climbing the stone stairs two at a time and closed the door behind him while May went into the study, disturbed by the unexpected encounter.
Back in January at May’s interview, Sir Philip had made clear that her job depended on keeping certain things to herself and not sharing confidences with the other staff, either in London or at Cuckmere. In theory, the rule applied to all Sir Philip’s employees, but May was aware of its flouting by the others on a daily basis. In the Cuckmere kitchen fierce differences of opinion were voiced about employers, weekend guests and other members of staff. “Pantry football” was how Lady Joan referred to the clatter of pans and raised voices that sometimes broke through the barrier of the baize door. It was clear that from the clandestine manner in which the dark-haired man had been brought into the house, Sir Philip and Lady Joan were going to some trouble to stop his presence being discussed downstairs.
A cold dinner for three had been left in the dining room, rendering redundant the need for any serving staff. The following morning May was standing in the hall, her hand absentmindedly stroking the glossy head of one of the golden Labradors when the door to the kitchen opened and Mrs. Cage emerged carrying a tray laid for breakfast with a tiny glass vase of miniature narcissi sitting on one corner of the white cloth. The housekeeper, dressed in her usual long black woollen costume, her hair tied back in her neat grey ponytail, was concentrating so hard on balancing the tray that she did not notice May watching her. The job of carrying breakfast upstairs to a guest was always reserved for one of the daily ladies and it was surprising to see Mrs. Cage taking on such a lowly duty. May might have thought no more of it if she had not looked at her watch half an hour later and realised she had forgotten to ask Mr. Hooch to fill the car with petrol in readiness for Sir Philip’s journey to London the next day. She nearly collided with Mrs. Cage who had just reached the bottom of the stairs and was breaking into a sort of run, a red flush filling her cheeks. But Mrs. Cage was in no mood to pause to chat and hurried out of sight through the door to the kitchen.
May went straight to the garage where she found Mr. Hooch smoking a Woodbine, an angry expression on his face.
“Don’t know what they’re doing inviting a man like that to this house,” he muttered when he saw May. “I know Sir Philip says Sir Oswald Mosley is helping him with important constitutional matters, but I don’t care if he’s come about the bleeding Saviour himself, pardon my directness.”
May had never seen Mr. Hooch either so animated or so agitated.
“Who is Sir Oswald Mosley?” May asked.
“Who is Oswald Mosley?” spluttered Mr. Hooch. “Oswald Mosley is the man in charge of the British fascists, that’s who. And a Jew-hater to boot. If we left things up to him, we’d have Hitler himself over here running the country. And then where would we be? If it wasn’t for Sir Philip and his reputation, I would have been tempted to put some of my supply of rat poison in the tank when his driver came to the pump for a fill-up. I mean, I ask you, what did we all go through for four and a half bloody years, if now we’re entertaining one of them to tea as if he were my aunt Molly.”
May did not press Mr. Hooch any further. She stopped herself from making any remarks about the dangerous attractiveness of the recent house guest. Nor did she say anything about the housekeeper’s furtive behaviour. She trusted Sir Philip implicitly and was sure he would not invite someone with those sorts of views into the house unless he had a good reason. But she was puzzled by Mrs. Cage. What could she have been doing upstairs for so long alone with the head of the British fascists? Much as she liked Mrs. Cage (who had never asked May to use her first name) at times she could not fathom her. May was trying to put her finger on this troubling feeling as she left Mr. Hooch and went to her room in Mrs. Cage’s house to pick up a sweater before resuming the afternoon’s work.
Just inside the small hallway, and almost hidden under the stairwell, was a small open door. May had never noticed it before and was about to look inside when Florence appeared, sliding down the banister, throwing her arms wide and shouting dramatically, “Save me, save me,” as she flung her arms round May’s neck.
Releasing herself from the embrace, Florence slammed the open cup
board door shut with one hand while grabbing May’s with the other.
“Shall we go down to the lake?” she asked, pulling May towards the front door.
“I wish I could, Florence, but I must get back to work,” she said.
Neither of them mentioned the cupboard.
The following Saturday afternoon May was alone in the study at Cuckmere catching up on the filing. She had no time to answer a knock on the door before Mr. Julian came straight in. He appeared unusually nervous, clearing his throat, as he came straight over to her desk. He was standing so close to May that she could smell the smoke from a recently extinguished cigarette clinging to his blue suit jacket.
With her Anglepoise lamp tilted to shine directly onto her papers, she looked up, seeing bright spots dancing in front of her, the light momentarily dazzling her. Mr. Julian had a favour to ask. He began with a confession: he had not yet learned to drive although he had promised himself that after his final exams he would take lessons.
“The thing is, you see, I want to travel around a few of the towns up in the north of the country. I keep reading about these places where so many people are out of work, especially in the mining areas, and I want to see those towns for myself, stop where I want to, look about a bit, not be dependent on taxis or train times, you know?”
May moved the lamp to one side.
Mr. Julian continued. “Quite a few of my friends at Oxford have already been up there to take a look. Not Rupert’s crowd, obviously, but some of the others in my politics year. What I am trying to say is that I am beginning to feel like such a hypocrite. I mean, I keep talking about how awful it must be up there but actually I don’t really know what I am talking about.” The favour was turning into a ramble. “It might sound odd but I am frightened that when I leave Oxford this term, my time won’t be mine anymore. I can see just as many obligations as opportunities, exciting but limiting. Maybe Philip, if he did not need you one day …?”
Mr. Julian paused.
May said nothing. He was leaning on his right hand on the desk. His second and third fingers were stained slightly yellow by tobacco. May stared at them.
“The thing is, perhaps I could see if Charlotte could come too? You could both chaperone me if …” he trailed off.
“Shall I see if Sir Philip can spare me during the Easter recess, Mr. Julian?’ May interrupted.
“Oh would you? Would you really?” he replied, pulling a packet of Woodbines out of his pocket and spilling the contents on the floor. “Oh and please don’t use the ‘Mr.’ bit. I’m Julian. Just Julian.”
Without waiting to hear her answer he bent down, gathered up the cigarettes, stuffed them in his pocket and walked out of the room. May could just hear his tuneless humming as he reached the garden door at the end of the corridor.
Hard as she tried, May found herself incapable of returning to work after her spontaneous suggestion to Julian. What had she been thinking of? Her concentration was all over the place. The beautiful spring weather shone through the window and, getting up from her desk, she went to find Florence. They had taken to spending time together whenever May was not working and Florence was home from school. On the first of these expeditions May had agreed to be introduced to the legendary Mrs. Jenkins, despite Mrs. Cage’s warning about the unpredictability of such a meeting. Florence had dragged a reluctant May through the post office door and up to the counter.
“This is my friend May. Don’t you think she’s beautiful, Mrs. Jenkins? My mother says all the men are cracky about her.”
“And I am not surprised to hear it,” Mrs. Jenkins replied, a severe but harmless-looking middle-aged woman, her hair caught back in a net. She was giving May a thorough once-over from her position behind the counter.
“She’s gorgeous, Florence darling. Mind you, she’s as dark as a cup of over-stewed tea. And that awful chopped-off hairstyle. She isn’t one of those frightful lesbians is she?”
A gleaming bicycle had appeared on Florence’s tenth birthday, a present from Lady Joan, accompanied by a very serviceable secondhand version for May. After twenty minutes of wobbles with May running behind, her hand on the seat to steady the machine, and Florence’s occasional violent kick of frustration at the spinning spokes as the machine fell to the ground beneath her, Florence had found her natural balance. As May left the study to go and find Florence, the sun falling in pools on the stone floor of the great hall, she knew that if there had ever been a day for bicycling this was the one.
The fields around Cuckmere Park were bisected at many points by the meanders of a small river that led out to the open sea at Cuckmere Haven. One morning May and Florence had biked up onto the small rise above the house to see the winding river from above, finding themselves eyeball-to-eyeball with the thrice life-size figure of a white horse sketched into the chalky hillside. Florence’s new proficiency on wheels had coincided with the transformation of the rolling fields into a giant nursery. On this sunny spring day May and Florence went up onto the Downs to see the new lambs, the wool of their lithe week-old bodies like peaks of whipped egg white. Their drowsy mothers with their grey matted coats, the colour of the chalky flints that dotted the landscape around them, chewed rhythmically as beside them their lambs leapt into the air on all four legs. Florence imitated the young animals, jumping up and down on the spot like an escaped spring from a mattress. Sometimes they would tire of bouncing off the earthy mole-made hillocks and come to nuzzle at the ever ready source of milk, their catkin tails waggling as they drank. Occasionally they would lie down on the warm earth, exhausted by their own energy, kneeling first, before tucking their forelegs neatly beneath their chests. The new mothers would stand shielding the whip of the wind from the young bodies, and every so often would gently touch their mouths to their offspring in a grassy kiss. On the periphery of the fields, at the foot of the newly green hedgerows lurked a kindergarten of young rabbits. Sentimentality was rationed and discouraged up here as May and Florence both knew that these young innocents would eventually end up in the large copper cooking pots of the Cuckmere kitchen. But May found a beauty and a peace in this place that excelled even the memories of the sandy, wave-lapped expanses on which she had walked as a child.
A few days later May was once again working in the study. She had changed her mind entirely about agreeing to drive Julian up north. Even though she had originally gone along with his proposal, she now felt the idea to have been quite mad, partly because of the alarming prospect of spending time alone with someone so clever and so, well, so different. She had a further reservation. She belonged to a different class of society and her experience of life in England had already taught her that different classes, like different nationalities, did not mix. If she was to keep her job, she should also know her place.
May pulled the typewriter nearer. There was an urgent letter to Sir Oswald Mosley to complete, suggesting a second overnight visit. The trust between May and her boss grew daily and confidential papers passed through her typewriter often without explanation.
“I was happy to discover during our enjoyable conversation recently here at Cuckmere that political differences can be laid aside most willingly when matters affecting the constitutional roots of our nation are concerned,” Sir Philip had dictated.
Next there was a pressing call to be made to the editor of The Daily Telegraph, offering him a choice of dates to discuss what Sir Philip referred to as “the American problem.” May lifted the unwieldy mouthpiece, and was about to ask the exchange operator to put her through when the instrument rang.
“Is that May?” a familiar voice asked. “Oh, May. It is you. Can I come down and see you? Straight away? I have been given leave for the afternoon.”
Her brother Sam spoke with practical urgency. A mist of unreality descended as May was about to ask him why he wanted to come and yet realised she did not want to know. Not yet.
“I will take the train from Portsmouth and be with you in two hours.” And then, just before she repla
ced the earpiece back on its cradle, she heard his half whisper, “I love you.”
May sat at her small desk in the corner of Sir Philip’s study uncertain what to do next. She examined her hands. As usual, her fingers were covered in the inky film that rubbed off from the carbon paper. She had to use a scrubbing brush to get them properly clean. Today the sight of the smudgy ink stains did not trouble her. They felt like part of a normal working day. But still she sat, unable to get on with her work. The telephone call to the editor and the letter to Mosley would have to wait. The pile of correspondence that she had been about to reply to on Sir Philip’s behalf was in front of her, skewered through the middle on the dangerous-looking letter spike on the desk. The letters were a humdrum collection, typical of the Cuckmere post during the Easter parliamentary recess: early requests to attend two summer fetes in nearby villages, the weekly cigar bill. But there were also two envelopes marked “Strictly Private,” which she should put on Sir Philip’s desk but she could not bring herself to move.
At least two weeks had elapsed since May had received the letter from her mother in which she expressed her contentment at the news that May and Sam had both settled into their new life.
“I have always felt sure that Nat would look after you with the loving care that my sister would have given you both,” Edith had written, sounding reassured about the welfare of her children.
May began thinking about the last time she had looked closely at her mother’s face. She had been surprised to see a network of tiny lines running around her mouth and chin, which, when Edith concentrated or smiled, puckered into a crisscross pattern like a honeycomb. How could May not have noticed that her mother was growing older? Another existence away on the day of her departure from Barbados, as the Caribbean sun shone down on the Bridgetown quayside, May and her mother had tried to ignore the distant shouts.
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