Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  The undergardeners brought in great piles of evergreens, holly, ilex, yew. The Christmas tree was arranged downstairs. The whole look of the house changed. Sarah told her that if she went out to the hives at midnight, just before it became Christmas, she would hear all the bees humming.

  Christmas was wonderful. And she was invited to a party two days after.

  ‘Whoever is Laurence Wethered?’ her mother asked, turning the large floppy invitation over. It was very beautiful, and had a picture of fairies dressed in gossamer garments just entering a wood, watched by elves and gnomes, all drawn in pale browns and greens, rather spiky. A witch lurked amongst the trees.

  Laurence’s house was very untidy. Lying about the hall were tennis racquets, croquet mallets and other summery objects. Mrs Laurence herself – Edwina thought of her as Mrs Laurence – was huge. And made to look more so by her great peacock-blue flowing gown with bits of gold on its wide loose sleeves – how different from Aunt Josephine who was all boned in, right up to the chin. Perhaps Mrs Laurence had no bones at all, so loose and plump and soft did she look: crowned by curly greasy yellow hair and a face of shiny red and gold.

  She beamed on Edwina. ‘You little darling.’ Violet appeared from nowhere. ‘All you lovely little things!’ She put an arm round Edwina. She smelt exciting, strong, heady. Laurence stood there suddenly. He looked tidier, more solemn than ever. ‘My little wooden soldier,’ said his mother, patting but not looking at him. Then she said:

  ‘Laurence’s Daddy is not even attempting to compose this afternoon. He will come in and play the piano for you all later. Now he is in his study with the ‘cello…’ And sure enough, a little way away, the ‘cello could be heard. Oh, oh, thought Edwina, what a wonderful world, what a wonderful life. May this afternoon never end.

  And for a time it seemed as if it wouldn’t. It spun on and on delightfully. In the corner of the room was an enormous bran pie – just to look at it was good, to imagine plunging one’s hand into the warm soft dark: to choose, to reject, to choose again…

  All the dancing class was there. Mrs Laurence was overwhelmed by Violet’s beauty. Lifting her chin, examining her face: ‘You lovely little thing! I could paint you I could – ’

  They played Musical Chairs in the great dark-walled room with its exciting eastern drapes and its weird smell as of some exotic fruit. Ned said (she was surprised that, quicksilver, he wasn’t still in): ‘The girls pushed of course.’ Edwina had not dared to push. Mrs Laurence didn’t seem to notice things like that so that there was a lot of cheating. Then one of the older daughters came down to help-fair and large like her mother, but newer and not so shiny. ‘We can’t have this,’ she said, going over to one small boy who, pushed by Muriel, had burst into tears. Laurence was still in. There were three chairs left now. Ned said: ‘I say, don’t you think it’ll be rather bad form if Laurence wins?’ His eyes darting about, he told her what he’d got for Christmas. His great-uncle, who was a major-general, had come and played – or rather fought with him, massed his lead troops for battle, showed him all about strategy. ‘Strategy,’ Ned said, ‘is how you work out beforehand what the other chaps are going to do, then you do it first – ’

  They were surprised by the end of the game. Laurence had won. ‘But that wasn’t right,’ the daughter said.

  His mother said: ‘Let the little man win, Ginny.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Ginny, in a loud stage whisper, ‘Mummy, he can’t, he mayn’t.’ She announced: ‘We’re going to do that last bit again.’

  ‘No, really,’ said the boy who’d lost. Laurence made no effort this time, strolling only. The other boy, who was called Hal, sat down easily and was declared the winner.

  There were three more games before tea. She was so happy she couldn’t believe it.

  Tea was a splendid affair. She couldn’t take her eyes off the walls. They were decorated with panels which looked very much like the invitation, except that instead of fairies there were young men and swooning women. They all had very long bodies and looked as if they might snap in two if a storm got up.

  Oh, it was lovely to be greedy. She put the almond paste from her cake on the side of her plate to enjoy at the last. Then she turned away for a moment, looked back – and it had disappeared. It was after that things began to go wrong. She knew who’d taken it – the fat boy on her left, who said he lived in York. ‘My father’s a doctor,’ he’d said proudly. Now he was half smiling, smirking triumph at her. She didn’t want anything else to eat. A minute later she felt a sudden urgent need to go to the lavatory. She had to climb down, with everybody looking, and go over and ask Ginny, who took her down a corridor to a door with a curtain over it. When Edwina went through this and tried the inner door, it was locked. She rattled it

  That will do,’ said a deep voice.

  She ran off and hid in the hall behind a coat stand, squeezing her legs together. And trying not to think of the cracker cake she would be missing. There was the sound of flushing, a tap running, and then out came a very large Norfolk-jacketed man with a drooping reddish moustache and red face. He walked away with his head bent forward in the direction of the back of the house.

  She ran in – but already it was too late. She’d forgotten the silk party knickers with their button fastenings on either side. She got one lot undone and then – out it came. A sudden warm torrent. There was no stopping it; she watched horrified, unable even to raise herself on to the big wooden throne, a great pool round her.

  What shall I do? Her feet were all right, just a little damp on her socks, but that part, the part Nurse always spoke ill of, was very wet: between her legs, misery. And the floor! There was a little towel hanging on a hook nearby. Bending down, she rubbed very hard to mop it all up. Then she stuffed the wet and smelly warm towel behind the pipes. She washed her hands thoroughly, like she’d been told to, and went out.

  But it was all spoilt. When, not too long after, the famous Marius Wethered, Laurence’s wonderful father, came in – and yes, he was seen to be the same man who’d kept her waiting – she could enjoy none of it.

  He looked stern, a little mournful, walking as she’d seen him walk away from the lavatory. Mrs Laurence said: ‘All these little people, Marius, have been asking for you to play.’ She whispered something to him. He smiled, a visible effort, and then as if one smile bred another – just like Nurse said – he gave them all a talk, smiling away.

  ‘Primrose, my wife, has been telling you I write music. Well – I don’t.’ Pause. ‘Some wonderful little beings – I call them Mannikins – do it for me. They come to me and they say, “Here, listen to this!” Then they play it in my ears, sometimes on my hands, and I go to the piano and hey presto, there it is! Sometimes they’re happy tunes, sometimes sad. Often they’re music to go with the lovely drawings that Primrose, Mrs Wethered does… Let me play you a little… Here’s a dance that the lovely ladies of the Court do, while they’re waiting for the knights to assemble for the jousting…’

  It went on a long time. She wanted to think it wonderful but somehow it wasn’t, although parts of it were sweetly pretty. She could have danced to it if she hadn’t a wet bottom. The children all sat round politely, full of food and drink.

  ‘Do any of you little ones want to play the piano for Daddy? Then you can say you’ve played before a great composer – ’

  Clare walked up. Edwina was full of anger and shame. When she heard Clare tinkle, she thought, if that’s all you have to do…

  She had looked forward so to the bran pie, but that too was spoilt. When it came to her turn she could think only of wet: it was as if she could see a creeping dark patch coming off her hands. The fat boy waited behind her. After a while – perhaps he felt guilty because he’d stolen her icing: ‘You smell,’ he said, in a loud whisper, coming up close and hissing in her ear. ‘You smell…’

  Mother’s riding clothes came all the way from London. Today she was in dark green, her breeches covered almost by her safety skirt and
the long coat over it all. Her face was very set, her head a little on one side. Aunt Josephine, worried-looking, stood beside her, as if to protect her. ‘This icy weather, Helen…’

  Father said angrily: The going may be rough. What is this nonsense?’

  ‘Nonsense to you all. I’m going on French Garotte, quite the gentlest – I wish I had as soft a mouth.’ She glimpsed Edwina on the stairs. ‘What are you doing here?’

  It was a beautiful day. Only a little mist, a winter sun across the hoar-rimmed ploughed fields. She watched them go off to the meet. Father was on Brown Rappee; Philip, very smart and superior, riding Comore. Soon she would go herself. ‘Out of my way, ma’am,’ he’d said, passing her on the stairs. He had little time for her these days.

  She kept thinking all day about something happening to her father. She thought of him usually as so definite, always there. An oak tree. The worry stayed with her. She couldn’t say anything to Arthur when he took her out in the afternoon – Cora in the basket saddle – because she was shy with him still. Offering them Cora. It would come over her suddenly, a blush inside, a blush outside. He’d never mentioned it. He’d been if anything nicer to her than ever.

  But everyone came back safely. It had been a good day. Father, his back to the fire, gave an account to Aunt Josephine. ‘… wind in the west, good for scent… We found in Wilson Wood. A big dog fox… headed him back up Bowdin Gill… crossed the full length of Rilsdale West Moor. Over an hour’s run – hounds killed him at the low end of Lumb Moor…’

  Mother looked tired but happy. Her skin glowed. ‘I was right to go,’ she said. ‘I feel wonderful, wonderfully fit.’ When Cora was reciting she was very animated and clapped longer than usual. Philip looking this way and that, fidgeted. ‘Don’t’ Aunt Josephine said irritably.

  A good happy healthy winter’s day, in the New Year of 1908.

  She heard a bell ringing in the middle of the night. Then doors banging in the distance; other doors outside. She was wide awake now. She wanted to creep out and discover what was happening, but something made her afraid and instead she lay absolutely still, tense, her fingers like claws.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said to Sarah first thing in the morning, ‘tell me What’s happened? ’

  ‘She’s just a bit poorly – ’

  It was Mother she should have worried about. Mother might die, and never know that Edwina loved her.

  Two days later: her first piano lesson. She was to go to a Miss Batterhurst, who’d been recommended by Lady Warren whose daughters had learned from her twelve or thirteen years ago. Mother had said: ‘She was quite good in her day or so I’m told. She studied for a time in Germany – ’ Now she lived with her sister, a three-mile drive away. Edwina disliked her at first sight. Her house smelled of mothballs.

  ‘I am rather tired today,’ Miss Batterhurst said, getting slowly out of her chair. She had a very white face, the blood had all run away from it and gone to her hands instead, which were very red. She was hunched when she sat down and even more when she stood up. ‘You cannot imagine how fatiguing – ’ she gave a small, half-finished yawn, red hand held to mouth, then raising her voice a little, called imperiously: ‘Millicent!’

  ‘My sister,’ she explained. ‘She doesn’t have enough to do.’ There was a rustling from behind the brown heavy curtains at the far end of the room – Edwina had thought they were another set of windows. A small frail woman shuffled out. She wore a widow’s cap on her scanty white hair and black rosettes on her slippers.

  Sitting down in a comfortable chair alongside the piano, Miss Batterhurst said: ‘Ring for a drink, if you please.’

  Her sister pulled the bell rope. ‘What sort?’ she asked in a quavery voice.

  ‘I haven’t introduced you,’ Miss Batterhurst said, more as a statement than an apology. Then: ‘She will have some cocoa. For me, the usual.’

  The cocoa was very gritty, skin formed rapidly while she was trying to drink it and she could feel a moustache on her upper lip. The usual’ turned out to be a yellow milky drink in a thick glass. ‘Your nog,’ Millicent said, taking it from the maid and bringing it over.

  ‘Now we can begin,’ Miss Batterhurst said.

  Edwina had thought she would be allowed just to sit down and make that wonderful wonderful noise, and that then she would be shown at once – but at once – how to read what was written on the music sheet, there up on the stand. But it was not so. Miss Batterhurst, yawning still (she seemed to have caught it from herself, so that each yawn led to yet another) held a little ivory stick rather languidly above Edwina’s fingers. She showed her that she must use all five fingers: ‘thus’ – forwards and back, up and down, up and down, hand held just right. It was easy, and quite without point. But it was as if Miss Batterhurst’s fingers itched to use the little stick. At the end of the lesson suddenly, she leaned over and rapped her.

  ‘I hear you’re meant to be quite talented. We all have to begin the same,’ she said wearily. ‘And we all end the same, I sometimes think.’

  Edwina wanted to cry with the disappointment. She rubbed her knuckles angrily, but Miss Batterhurst didn’t notice.

  ‘Millicent!’ she called. ‘Ring for her to be shown out – if you please.’

  ‘She’s lost it, of course.’

  ‘No question. The Master – if looks could… He was quite sharpish with me even, he should have stopped her, no doubt of it.’

  ‘She’s very wilful – ’

  ‘Very. And there’s one who’s inherited it…’

  ‘… She’s only to give him another boy and she’s done. It’s not much to ask.’

  ‘It’s not. Old Mrs Illingworth, she’s made it quite clear – one boy isn’t enough. Master Philip, a cricket ball could hit him tomorrow – And the sickness about! Two days and he could be dead. Bowel inflammation – there’s a possibility…’

  ‘Indeed – ’

  ‘If she’d just pull herself together… Of course there’ve been other misses – without benefit of hunting.’

  ‘Still, hunting – it’s asking, isn’t it?’

  She drove everyone wild. She knew it and could do nothing about it. It was as if she was compelled to ask again and again: ‘But what’s she look like? What’s her wedding dress like ? What’ll she wear on her feet ?’

  No one could tell her anything. Then at the end of February there was a photograph, sent to Mother. Tinted most delicately, it showed someone of such fragility, such a pale, fair person – that Edwina was more puzzled than ever. On that last visit she had heard Mother say to Uncle Frederick: ‘She’s Black, I suppose?’ And he’d answered, ‘Yes, a little. But not of course like her Roman cousins…’

  And now this picture. She took her puzzle to Aunt Josephine. Aunt Josephine didn’t laugh, but she smiled at Edwina. Blacks, and Whites, she told her, were just names – like Roundheads and Cavaliers. ‘And you’ve learned about those from Miss Norris. But, as to quite what these Blacks are – well, your uncle explained to me once but…’

  She seemed quite stuck – to get no further, but Mother coming in, overhearing, said: ‘Oh Blacks. It comes from when they made Rome capital of the new Italy – what, forty years ago, and the Pope who’d ruled Rome always was ousted and a king took over. Some of the old families sided with the Pope and some with the new King – they’re the Whites of course. Feelings run high. It splits Roman society right down the middle. I hope I have it right? Trust Frederick to get himself involved with some such nonsense.’ Then she lost interest. She said to Aunt Josephine, ‘She has some lovely clothes. Frederick has chosen many of them, I believe.’

  Perhaps Aunt Adelina was like a doll for Uncle Frederick, something for him to play with, cosset, dress up – as she dressed up her doll, Victoria? And like perhaps, that lovely cut-out paper doll she had seen once and coveted: that stood up in camisole and drawers, ready for you to press on to it any one of a dozen outfits a…

  They were to arrive in the afternoon, for tea. They had been a f
ew days in Paris, said Aunt Josephine, and would be very fatigued. She read out of the Morning Post that there had been heavy torrents, even snow.

  But today was bright, spring-like, April: racing clouds in a blue sky, light wind through the trees. She could see the arrival from the window, but not clearly. Excitement, emotion misted her sight. Uncle Frederick’s back was turned: he was helping her out of the motor. And yes, she was just like a doll, because small – smaller even than Edwina had imagined.

  ‘Come back, Miss Edwina!’

  As she flew down she knew she would fly as always into his arms. But then, there at the bottom of the stairs, amidst all the bustle – the new aunt, the little dark woman who must be her maid – she couldn’t do it, was able to do nothing but skulk, in that same place where she so often hid eavesdropping.

  He called her out. ‘Weenie. Little Bear…’

  She couldn’t answer, was suddenly too muddled for anything. Her thumb went to her mouth. Stuck there. She heard him say: ‘We’ll leave it now,’ and then a voice like a bell, talking to Aunt Josephine. Aunt Josephine explained: ‘Helen is resting.’

  Uncle said: ‘Adelina will have to lie down. She is really done up – the journey.’

  There was nothing for it but to come out and present herself. The doll had been dressed in a long fur coat, even more silky and beautiful than Mother’s, and a high-crowned deep red hat. ‘Ah, Frederick – carina,’ she said of Edwina. Edwina leaned forward, and it was then that she noticed a smell, a scent about the doll. She thought, I would remember that smell anywhere. She disliked it at once.

  The luggage was coming in: trunks, suitcases, boxes, hampers. Edwina had never seen so much. The maid was directing in sharp excitable English. A maroon-coloured hat-boxcovered with labels and drawings caught Edwina’s eye. The picture of a lake and the words ‘Grand Hotel, Brissago’ – she could read no more.