Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  He took her hand between his, laying them on the counterpane, caressing, rubbing it.

  ‘Your news, what were you talking about downstairs?’

  ‘Tomorrow, little curious one.’ His voice had a laugh in it. He stroked her hand. ‘You haven’t told me your news –’

  There’s nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ He was feeling the tips of her fingers.

  ‘I –’ she began and swallowed. Then in a rush: ‘When I go to the piano, when I sit down at it, I go mad, I go wild excited, I can’t explain. My hands, they run away with me. I can feel all sorts of things –’ She rushed on: ‘I don’t sing properly, you see. It’s a nosy sort of voice and then the tune isn’t right, I can hear I’m not right. So she says I’m not musical…’

  That dance we did together last time – remember?’ He spoke in a hushed voice as if it had been their secret. ‘You can dance –’

  ‘I’m not good. Cora’s better already. And then I have to go to this dreadful dancing class –’

  ‘Tell.’ When she’d finished, pressing each of her nails as he spoke: ‘What exactly happens at the piano?’

  ‘It’s as if it calls me or my fingers want – sometimes I go and make a noise on it.’

  Tomorrow,’ he said then. ‘You can show me.’ He released her hand, laying it on the counterpane.

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me more about the sea? About Italy?’ (Stay with me, stay with me, don’t say ‘I’m going’.)

  ‘I must go. Tomorrow –’

  She lay back hopeless, the visit already over. It could not be that he would go out of the door. He leaned over and kissed her. She reached out to try and hug him but she wasn’t quick enough.

  ‘Escaped, I escaped,’ he whispered. ‘Kisses. Good night. Good night.’

  Then she heard (but didn’t see, couldn’t bear to open her eyes) him tiptoe out.

  She thought she must have been asleep for a while. There was a glow still from the fire. The flickering nightlight made funny shadows, almost frightening. From the nursery came the rattling of cups. A light shone under the door.

  She propped herself up on one elbow. Cora, on her back, was making whimpering, snoring sounds.

  ‘He’ll make the mistress more difficult. After he’s left, we’ll be for it –’

  Nurse’s voice. Her sister must have come up to see her. She was housekeeper to two old ladies in the village. Edwina didn’t like her. She was all the bad things about Nurse and none of the good. Worse altogether than Miss Norris who was – well, not bad, just ugly and that she couldn’t help.

  ‘Coming all the way from Italy – he’s not Italian then? They’ve neither of them the blood, as you might say.’

  ‘You might say indeed. He has very foreign ways. I thought he was going to kiss my hand.’

  A chair was scraped back. ‘little Miss Hoity Toity – she’ll be pleased?’ Nurse’s sister had a softer voice; you had to strain to hear it, but it hadn’t any kindness in it. When people talked about the milk of human kindness, she imagined it running, sweet and strong, with honey perhaps. Nurse’s sister didn’t have it.

  ‘Oh, there was no doing anything with her today. But the Master, he’s not always so pleased. After all, it’s the sister he married. I note he took good care to be away today –’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Your own nursery, you should know when your voice carries. Miss Cora – you’ve got an easy one there…’

  Talking about me like that, Edwina thought. Silly old cows. The voices went on. They were talking now about their brother who was a sailor. He was with his ship in the East. ‘He said…’ ‘Never!’ exclaimed Nurse. Their voices became hushed.

  Edwina grew more restless. Suddenly she slipped her feet on to the thick wool rug, then creeping, holding her breath, she crossed the cold linoleum. Perhaps she was going to sneeze – then (thank you, God) she was past the door. Past the baize door too, down the staircase along the corridors, out on to the big landing. It was brightly lit, too brightly lit. She could hear the piano in the drawing-room. Her mother, stumbling over something with lots of soft notes.

  There was a small velvet chair just under the main stairs. She’d be safe if no servants came by. Silence. Then she could hear murmuring voices. She wondered if her father was in there. She felt nervous, then cold, shivered, hugged her cotton nightie to her. The piano again. Little trills – and then, oh but then, Uncle Frederick singing. Not in French, but not Italian either; the sounds were wrong for that.

  ‘Dein,’ he sang, on a high note, the word again and again. ‘Dein ist mein Herz!’(’What time do we dine?’ the grownups said.) The sounds rolled over her. It was the sea again. Sometimes the piano galloped: horses now, being ridden over the wild sea.

  ‘Den Morgenwinden möcht’ ich’s hauchen ein,

  Ich mocht’ es säuseln durch den regen Hain…’

  (I’m not interested in a calm sea. I’m not.)

  ‘Ihr Wogen, könnt ihr nichts als Räder treiben?

  Dein ist mein. Herz und soll es ewig bleiben!’

  Uncle Frederick was riding. Nothing but nothing could be more beautiful, more exciting. She was unable to bear it. His voice was the wind whipping up the sea, then he was fighting it, was riding it again. All those white horses galloping…

  The song was over. Another, give us another. More, Uncle Frederick, please, more –

  ‘Edwina!’

  Oh, who but Aunt Josephine, seeming to appear from nowhere but really coming out of the drawing-room, padding towards her, embroidery in hand.

  ‘Whatever are you doing downstairs?’

  But then Father was there too. He didn’t seem too cross, just disapproving, the sort of voice, of face, that meant a little thunder now but all over soon. It could even be he was a little amused because he called out when he’d lifted her up, holding her carelessly, a bit as if she were one of his dogs: ‘Helen – come and see what I’ve found. Look at this scallywag –’ He hadn’t been in the drawing-room; he’d come out of the library probably.

  Aunt Josephine tut-tutted behind them. ‘Nurse has her sister with her. It makes her careless.’

  Mother said: ‘Nurse can’t be everywhere. It’s very wilful of Edwina.’ She looked far away, as if she’d been snatched from a dream. Then she seemed to gather herself and said in a little, cold voice, ‘Children can be such a nuisance. Frederick, you have no idea.’

  ‘And never shall have?’ He didn’t look at her, leaning back, an elbow on the piano.

  She wriggled out of her father’s arms. ‘Slippery,’ he said, ‘slippery as a little fish.’ He was very strong. Beside him everyone in the house, except perhaps Aunt Josephine, looked small. His red face and grizzled head with its tight curls. She saw him always as a great oak tree. However much Mother might order the servants about, it was always Father who decided what might be and what might not: ‘Father says no’, and that would be that.

  She met Uncle Frederick’s eyes. He looked as if he’d been watching her a while. They had a hooded look. The room smelled warm, a smell of wine, some flowers from the hot–house.

  ‘She must go back.’ There was a silence. Suddenly the mantle of Cora descended on her. ‘Nunky take Edwina up,’ she said. ‘Me tired. Weenie won’t go up if Nunky don’t take her.’ She put a finger in her mouth, rolled her eyes round. ‘Feel icky,’ she said. ‘Very icky.’

  ‘She must go up immediately.’ Father said it sternly this time. She thought he was coming to do it. ‘Nunky take Edwina,’ she said, beginning to cry, the tears coming easily, her finger back in her mouth.

  Mother said, ‘Frederick – your back,’ as he gathered Edwina up in one, bending awkwardly to do so.

  The light was still on in the nursery. If Nurse had gone to bed she’d have looked in, noticed her missing. When he’d laid her in the bed, tucked her up, he leaned over, his cheek against hers. She could smell drink again, sweet, winey, rich – she thought too she could smell the music; it was as if he were still singin
g.

  ‘Good night, little silly…’

  Afterwards she could hardly remember his going. Her head sinking down into the little pillow, the room whirling round, such tiredness, dizziness almost. ‘I do feel sick,’ she thought triumphantly; and a moment later was asleep.

  It was Saturday and she didn’t have any lessons. Out of the window she could just see the Spanish chestnut; everything beyond was covered in mist. Nurse said, ‘The peacocks were up to their worst this morning. Given me a nasty head they have.’ She was short-tempered with Cora, dressing her roughly, forcing her stiff little resisting arm into the holland overall. ‘Your breakfast’s up already. I don’t know what we’ve all been doing… Miss Edwina – you think better than well of yourself, I dare say, but I know –’

  Plainly Nurse didn’t know – about last night. Waking early, she’d heard the songs still in her heart, knew suddenly, lying there, that she could have played the piano for him. And – then, excitement draining away, she remembered: those black squiggles, those curly tails. When she’d mentioned them to Nurse once, ‘Difficult,’ Nurse had said, ‘they’re very difficult. You have to have special lessons for that. It’s not like reading a book, you know.’

  ‘They’re off shooting, I hear,’ Nurse said now. ‘I hope they can see something in this mist.’

  ‘Bang, bang,’ Cora said. She pranced across the room, pulling her ringlets in their curl papers away from Nurse. ‘ “There was a little man and he had a little gun and his bullets were made of lead lead lead he went to the brook and shot a little duck right through the middle of the head head head”.’

  ‘Stop it now,’ Nurse snapped, ‘stop it now.’ She turned on Sarah: ‘You’ve taken the button hook. Look for the button hook immediately.’

  ‘Head head head,’ chanted Cora.

  ‘I’ll give you head,’ Nurse said shortly, banging the brush against Cora’s head. Cora wailed. ‘Ssh now. Nursey never meant it – Miss Edwina, stop staring – Nursey, come to Nursey. It’s her poor old head. Those peacocks…’

  Gathered together for the shoot, they managed to look like the big print hanging on the stairs. It was from many years ago. The park was the same but the trees in the garden looked younger, stiffer too, as if they’d been stuck into the ground just for the occasion. Figures stood around with guns slung. Peacocks walked with tails up. It was the same place. She often used to think that: it’s the same place. And the people in the drawing, perhaps they were the family? Illingworth. Her name, until she married, then it’d be lost, nothing to do with her any more. All along the dining-room walls were pictures of people who looked, if you stared hard enough, in some way like the family now. There was even a child just like Cora. Strange to see Aunt Josephine’s head, Father’s high cheekbones, his heavy shoulders. And all wearing such old clothes, like something out of a history book.

  Of course Uncle Frederick was going shooting too. He looked beautiful but not quite right somehow. Fussed: he looked as Nurse sometimes did when she was fussed, but he wasn’t impatient, irritable as she’d have been. He looked just a bit desperate; even – a little silly. He was in the wrong place. He should be over the sea in Italy where life was exciting, an adventure – even if the people were cruel to little songbirds. Only, sudden thought, what was the difference, big birds, little birds? They were all off now on to the moors to shoot birds that today were going about quite happily, that had got up in the morning to tread delicately about the heather or to swoop upwards on the wing, so beautiful, right across the skyline. The beaters had come – they’d be beating them out so that they had to fly up, had to be there for the guns.

  She ran forward suddenly. ‘Don’t shoot anything.’ She clung to him. ‘Promise me you won’t kill anything –’ Uncle Frederick looked embarrassed, she thought he was going to shake her off. His mouth had dropped a little.

  Her father said stoutly: ‘Get back, please. Go on – there’s a good girl.’

  ‘He usually misses,’ said her mother, laughing. She didn’t seem angry but looked gay and happy. ‘Don’t you, darling?’

  ‘The truth,’ Uncle Frederick said, ‘she speaks the truth. There are things I do better.’

  The motor had been brought round. They were all getting in, arranging themselves. She wanted them suddenly to be all gone. The mist had cleared, the sun was coming up, it was going to be a beautiful, beautiful day.

  ‘My uncle’s here,’ she told Arthur. ‘He’s staying.’ She pulled at the end of her riding crop. ‘Well, aren’t you interested?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘aye.’ But she knew that he wasn’t. He went on saddling Macouba, adjusting the girth with care. She’d come out early, before he was ready, so eager was she to be off.

  ‘Which way shall we go? I choose where we go today…’

  As they set out, ‘I saw they was off shooting,’ he said. ‘Pass a few years and you’ll be along.’ He reined in Otterburn, who was always mettlesome in the mornings.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She loved Arthur, liked just to watch him. He didn’t have a beard like most of the gardeners, didn’t even have a moustache. It was a long sharp face and the skin always looked dark, shadowy; his hair very black and usually greasy. Whatever mood you had, he’d always treat you the same – slow and rather fond. She knew he was fond of her so she wanted him to like Uncle Frederick, and also to care about music, about sounds. And he did. He’d stop suddenly when they were going, say, through the woods. ‘Hear that? That’s a yellow’ammer.’ Or: ‘Reckon you could hear beck already – if you’re quiet like.’

  ‘Arthur, would you like not to work?’ They were halfway down the village, turning by the little bridge. A cart laden with bracken blocked their path. She wondered what it was like to drive a cart, to work all the time. She would never have to work. Mother had said so.

  ‘You mean – be badly?’

  ‘No, I mean – to do what you want, all day.’

  ‘Aye, well, I don’t know.’ He leaned forward: ‘That stirrup of yours. I’ll just –’ He smiled slowly. ‘Folk that works are folk that works.’

  They rode into the woods. ‘I’d like to work,’ she announced.

  ‘Happen you will then,’ he said, going a little ahead of her, to pull back some branches, so low-hanging that they might have trapped her. The story of William Rufus, in the big book in the library: the drawing which had haunted her for nights – She rode on to safety.

  ‘How’s your littlest girl? Emily, how’s Emily?’

  Emily had been born the day before Cora. Edwina had disgraced herself when they’d brought her the great news (’the stork has brought you a very own dear little sister’), saying coldly: ‘Arthur has one in his house too. She arrived first, and they’ve got six others…’

  ‘Up now with Macouba’s head,’ Arthur said, coming alongside. ‘She’s right badly is Emily.’ His mouth closed in a funny way.

  ‘Does she have a cold, I’ve just had a cold. Lots of yellow stuff came out – I had to have a clean handkerchief five times.’

  It’s t’kink cough. She were at it all last night, sick and all. They sick up with it.’

  Otterburn, chafing, reared a little then broke into a slow canter. Arthur was taking him out for Mother. All her horses, Father’s too, were named after snuffs.

  ‘When Cora gets Macouba, can I ride Dry Toast?’ she called, trotting hard after him.

  It was a long afternoon waiting for them to come back. She did some colouring for a little, then grew restless. There were some copies of the Catholic Fireside Mother had bought her. She flipped through the pages. The children’s section always annoyed her. A Mother Salome from St Mary’s Convent in Cambridge wrote it and the words were all hyphenated, often in the most surprising places. She stared a long time at ‘dis-tress-ed’.

  Through the bars of the nursery window she could see one of the trees bending in the breeze; green-brown leaves grew thickly still at top and bottom, but the centre was bare. A leaf would swirl upwards, hang in the air, fly, th
en sink slowly to the ground. She imagined them all lying deep, stacked.

  ‘I want to go out with my hoop.’

  ‘But it will soon be tea, it’s tea soon.’

  ‘I want –’

  ‘All right,’ Nurse said grudgingly.

  She wanted really to take her hoop out into the village, running where the carts and carriages, the odd motor came along, where the stream babbled the length of the main street. The village children played by it, even in it: she was only allowed to look at it formally, walking at Their pace.

  Out in the garden she bowled along for a while, flexing her gloved fingers, then she pulled off her tam-o’-shanter, hanging it on the branch of a tree, and began to run. She could feel the darkening sharp afternoon cold on her cheekbones. She shook her hair, tossed her head. It made her feel better. I’m me, she thought. Whatever happens, I’m me. Her hoop bowled over the damp crushed leaves. Looking up she could see the tracery of the elms, dotted with rooks’ nests. She changed direction, hitting the hoop harder and harder, making time go faster till Uncle Frederick came back. Then oh joy, she was just near when she saw, heard, them coming. Flushed, happy, running to meet them – and they looked pleased too: except Mother, being helped out, she didn’t look so pleased. Her father, red-faced, contented, walking in that way she knew meant the day had gone well – lots of fresh air, a good luncheon, a good bag, and now a good appetite again.

  Mother said at once, ‘Where’s your hat, naughty girl?’

  Uncle Frederick said, ‘Nice thick hair, keeps out the cold.’ He reached out and touched it. She threw herself into his arms, burying her head in the tweedy coat which smelled like and yet unlike him.

  ‘Steady,’ said her mother sharply as she nestled, burrowed. She added with a little sniff: ‘You won’t be able to do that soon. You haven’t heard the news –’

  ‘Why won’t I?’ she asked, coming out, reaching down for her hoop, searching for the stick. ‘Why not? I shall if I want – so there.’ She said it defiantly, thinking she was being criticized, expecting to be scolded.

  Her mother said, more sharply this time, with a little toss of her head, ‘Frederick – your uncle – is going to be married.’