Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  Tea. That was an ordeal. Aunt Adelina’s English was good really, but she didn’t speak much, although she was very animated when she did so.

  Often, very often she stole a look, a stare almost at Edwina. Uncle Frederick said: ‘Still no Helen. Perhaps – after the meal – we should go up ?’

  Aunt Josephine said, ‘I wouldn’t think that at all advisable – ’

  ‘Her health is not good?’ Aunt Adelina said. ‘Is still not good?’ She glanced over at Uncle Frederick. Edwina thought: It’s something about her eyes. But then just when she’d pinned it on the eyes, she realized it was the nose, the just-so arrogance of it. Then, no – it was the mouth.

  She couldn’t like her. She knew for absolutely certain that she didn’t, never could, never would. There was about her that something – quite different from Miss Batterhurst or Miss Norris or Madame Lambert, people she felt ‘humpy’ about. This was real dislike. ‘I dislike her,’ she said to herself.

  And still Mother didn’t appear. Although Cora had been brought down now, all simpers and ringlets.

  ‘I should like to see this fine Philip,’ Aunt Adelina said. ‘I should like to see this fine young man.’ But he was away with a schoolfriend, and his birthday present, a gleaming new Rudge-Whitworth bicycle.

  ‘How was the sea?’ Edwina asked. ‘Uncle Frederick, how was the sea?’

  ‘Manners, Edwina!’ said Aunt Josephine.

  ‘The sea, my little one. The sea.’ She thought he was with her, that he understood, but he added only, playfully: ‘What of the sea ? What about it ?’

  There was a pause. Then: ‘Oh, that sea!’ Aunt Adelina exclaimed. ‘I can’t support it. The rocking –’

  ‘But it was like a mill pond,’ Uncle Frederick said. ‘I imagine she’s thinking of the hotel, Josephine. That felt, in those gales, that felt as if it were rocking – ’

  ‘Weather really is the most unreliable thing,’ said Aunt Josephine. ‘It can’t be trusted in the northern hemisphere.’

  ‘Absurd,’ Aunt Adelina said, but she pronounced it without the ‘b’, ‘assurd, Frederick. That boat never remained still…’ She had Cora on her knee and didn’t seem to mind when she stroked and pulled at the silk net panels of her teagown. ‘But see how pretty she is, Frederick!’ Now she said suddenly: ‘We shall have the presents, I think? We can’t wait more, Frederick, for your lovely sister.’

  And what presents… The best were the Easter eggs. Cora had a huge sailor one which stood up and inside had six floating toys for her bath. Philip’s, they said, was a soldier egg with a regiment and cannon inside. (Too babyish, Edwina thought.) She had a doll inside hers: the most lovely doll, completely dressed down to the last detail – primrose yellow, silk, lace, appliqué, underskirts almost as beautiful as the frock. Even a tiny parasol. She wanted at once to love it. (But who was it from? Which of them had given it her?)

  The drawing-room door opened suddenly as if angrily pushed. Mother stood in the doorway. Swayed in the doorway, it seemed.

  ‘My sister!’ she exclaimed loudly. ‘How delightful…’ Aunt Josephine had already got up stiffly, but quickly. ‘Helen, you’ve woken too suddenly.’ She put her hand on her arm.

  Mother shook her off. ‘Allow me.’ Her voice didn’t sound right. It was louder, much louder than usual but not so clear. She stood still for another swaying few seconds then came over to Aunt Adelina. ‘My dear. Welcome.’ She held her tight – too tight, because Aunt Adelina shook her head, tried to move back.

  Uncle Frederick said: ‘Don’t I get noticed? Your own brother?’ He said it uneasily, with a little laugh almost.

  She stared hard at him for a moment, then: ‘But of course, darling,’ putting her hands on his shoulders, turning a cheek to be kissed. ‘And now can I see all the lovely presents ? Lovely presents – ’

  She enthused over them all. How she enthused! They were each – and most especially hers, too charming, too sweet, too deliciously pretty… Only Adelina could have chosen them. ‘Frederick hasn’t the taste. He never had. And of course, I may add, he isn’t accustomed to spending money…’

  Aunt Adelina looked surprised. She had an expression almost of pain. She put her hand to her throat, then she opened and closed her eyes several times. Mother was making a fuss now of Cora. Aunt Adelina, with a visible effort, remarked: ‘I have been saying – how pretty, how sweet…’

  ‘Isn’t she? Can we hope, you and Frederick – perhaps those curls – they’re our family by the way, our mother – perhaps we shall see them again? Shall we, do you think, Frederick?’

  Aunt Josephine said: ‘I think you should sit down, Helen dear. Helen hasn’t been well. It’s the wind – the east wind, I mean. She has trouble sleeping – ’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mother. ‘I sleep. How I sleep.’

  ‘Beata te,’ said Aunt Adelina, in a quiet voice.

  ‘You poor thing,’ Mother said. ‘How I pity people who can’t sleep.’ She raised her voice.

  But Aunt Adelina was getting up. Uncle Frederick at once leaped to her side – a little too late perhaps. ‘All right – all right?’

  ‘I think,’ she began, touching his arm. She looked across at Edwina, but their eyes didn’t meet. Then leaning back she fainted dead away.

  It was to be two weeks, the visit. She’d thought, oh what heaven, two whole weeks of him – but somehow it didn’t work like that. Firstly she had her lessons to do, just the same. Perhaps he could have sat with her, Miss Norris wouldn’t have minded. Sat there and read a book. Anything, just so that he was there. She ached for him. It was worse, because he was there somewhere, but not with her.

  He wasn’t with her because he was in the library with Aunt Adelina who lay on a sofa and ate little delicacies and sipped toast water and lemonade at all hours of the day. When it was fine enough she sat in the revolving wicker arbour outside. Mother, who would have sat in it perhaps, had taken almost completely to her bed. She got up once, to go with Uncle Frederick to York. Edwina saw them leaving. She was fussing over his appearance, standing back and looking at him, head on one side. Then: ‘What beautiful boots,’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘Oh my dear, aren’t they beautiful?’ It seemed to Edwina almost as if she were saying: ‘Aren’t you beautiful?’

  She came back laden with parcels – little presents for her and Cora, even something for Adelina. ‘Poor Adelina,’ she said in her ‘false’ voice. ‘She is seeing absolutely nothing of Yorkshire.’

  Aunt Josephine kept suggesting that Mother had overdone it. And probably she had, since, although in an odd pushy mood, she kept saying that really it had been rather a tedious day. They had had tea at Terry’s. She thought that she shouldn’t have drunk chocolate. ‘I’m always foolish in that respect. Frederick knows that…’ And it had been cold, in spite of the sun. She had counted on its being warm.

  Next day she was back in bed.

  ‘I don’t like my aunt,’ she told Arthur, urging Macouba on as they went up the winding road to the woods.

  ‘Nay, what’s that? She’s a good woman.’

  ‘No, my new aunt. The Italian one –’

  ‘Aye, well. It’s not all folks likes what’s new. You’ll take to her, soon enow.’

  ‘I don’t like her,’ she said obstinately. ‘She smells,’ she added, greatly daring.

  But he didn’t hear. Like the day she’d said: ‘How do you know, Arthur, that Macouba’s a boy pony?’ She’d had to ask five or six times, saying: ‘I did say, Arthur,’ before he answered. ‘Manes. Take a look at manes. Short is boy and long is girl.’

  ‘What about their tails though?’

  That’s different. Folks cut them. But manes – if it’s a boy, it won’t grow long.’ Then he added: ‘Best not to talk of it.’ Today she just let him not hear.

  ‘… I thought I didn’t much care for him, but I’ve even less time for her.’

  Titled though, isn’t she, and all?’

  ‘A tide indeed, you needn’t give much for their titles, they�
�re not worth the breath they’re spoken with. And the fuss she makes. Has everyone running. You should hear what they say downstairs. I hear it’s “I can’t drink this and I can’t drink that, and I always have milk boiled.” When you think of the fine milk we have here. Then the hothouse grapes weren’t sweet enough. Cook said she thought she was wanting invalid food, but the jellies – none of that. Lemon, always squeezed lemon, most unsuitable, I should say, and none to be had in the village.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘Not at all. Not at all. I feel certain about that. Not that I can judge but Cook says, not a question of it. Anaemic, she thinks. Old – fashioned green sickness…’

  ‘And her – how is she?’

  ‘Oh, her. I could say something about that. There’s been a little, you know – the day he arrived. It’s not often but it’s happened before – It’s not very nice and then she’s upset inside after.’

  ‘If I were the Master I’d hide the tantalus key –’

  ‘Total abstention, I’ve said before. It’s the only way. Thank God we were reared teetotal.’

  ‘Another child – that’s what’s needed, Ada. Give her something to think about…’

  She thought, I won’t say anything about the piano until he does. But he said nothing at all for nearly the whole of the first week. Then: ‘I nearly forgot – Helen tells me you are learning. Are we going to hear something?’ He seemed all interested, eager.

  For a moment she thought of spilling it all out: ‘Oh, but it’s hateful. Three months – whenever I want to play, she raps my knuckles. Perhaps playing’s wrong – because it isn’t work… My fingers and thumbs feel as if they’d been put into those prison things, the ones in Every Little Girl’s History…’

  Instead she said, ‘All right, thank you.’ And when he asked what she was doing, she said, ‘Two exercises by Gzerny.’ She was proud that she could pronounce it. Ghurney.

  He didn’t ask her to play.

  In the garden, pushing Victoria in her pram, she had to be careful to keep away from the wicker arbour – turned round always to face any sun there might be – because Aunt Adelina would perhaps be lying there, doing her embroider. It was very beautiful, Edwina had to admit that. The little round wooden frame, the linen held taut, the beautiful stitches: she loved best the one called spider.

  But one day, like in the fairy tales, she went too near the spider’s web.

  ‘Edwina!’ It was a gentle call, so she pretended not to hear. But then it came again, and silly her, she went nearer.

  ‘Come in a little moment, Edwina.’

  She left her doll outside. ‘I must put the hood up,’ she said slowly. ‘In case it rains –’

  ‘Come and sit beside me,’ Aunt Adelina said, patting a wicker chair. She was lying on the chaise – longue, her embroidery beside her. ‘You would like some lemonade? It’s so rinfreshing. Please, take yourself a glass.’

  Edwina drank. It smelled in the arbour. Now when Mother used it again it would have this smell. Old fruit, something in church, and then something sweet and wrong, bad.

  ‘I have been wanting a chat. I like that word. I have been wanting a chat, Edwina. You are my niece now and we have met each other hardly.’ Edwina hung her head. ‘We are both a little bored, no?’ When Edwina didn’t answer she went on: ‘It is boring, perhaps? Annoioso we say. It is like to “annoyed”, the sound, yes? I am annoyed. Frederick is out, they go to see friends. Friends of her. I am not strong enough. Josephine, your Aunt Josephine, she is out also.’

  Edwina, ill at ease, rubbed the toes of her boots together.

  Aunt Adelina said suddenly, crisply: ‘When you go in – so soon as you are in, will you tell them they are not bringing my tea outside?’ She leaned forward, touched Edwina’s hand. ‘Will you come and see me?’

  Edwina thought she meant at home, in Florence, in Italy, over the sea. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Then ask your nurse,’ Aunt Adelina said. ‘And please to come about five o’clock. Before I rest. It is just to knock at the door.’

  ‘Aunt Adelina told me to –’

  ‘I never,’ Nurse said. ‘That is likely.’

  But she gave in. Edwina wished she had not. Aunt Adelina was lying on a velvet sofa, cushions all round her. She was dressed in white, with a lot of heavy lace round the high neck. The sleeves had lots of little tucks. She was eating a sugary sweet from a beautiful box, all mauve quilted with paper lace. She clapped her hands like a child. ‘So you’ve come! Sit down –’ she patted a small chair near the sofa. ‘Please, eat one! You are allowed?’

  She wasn’t allowed. It was that perhaps Nurse had meant. But it was like somehow one of the fairy stories. The witch – was it Hansel and Gretel? – coming out of the little sweetmeat house. Tempting them. Now she had eaten, she would have to talk.

  ‘So,’ Aunt Adelina said, ‘they are not back yet. I am very lonely. Imagine, at home I have been used to four brothers, two sisters – I am the baby. Already my first brother has five little ones…’

  She talked on. Once she offered Edwina another sweet, then took one herself – they were a sort of jelly with nuts inside – wiping her fingers on a small handkerchief. Edwina licked hers. She realized she didn’t have to talk after all: only to listen. And then suddenly: ‘Do you like your mother, Edwina? She of course does not like me. Not at all. I do not, either, like her.’

  There seemed no answer to that. For a while there was an awkward silence – but then as if she had never said it, getting up from the sofa, Aunt Adelina said: ‘You like clothes, no? I show you many?

  Hanging in the immense wardrobe, lying along the shelves, in the drawers underneath – dresses sparkling with gold and silver, furs, enormous hats with lace, with roses, feathers, ribbons, satin embroidered with pearls, frothy blouses, coats and boleros. Black, gold, cherry, turquoise, dove grey. Pleated silk skirts, dustcoats, a coarse fur jacket, a gauzy wool motoring scarf…

  ‘This – you like this? And this?’ As she lifted each garment she would fling it on the sofa, across a chair. ‘This coat is sable. These last days they have been hunting too many in Russia – the dogs make them climb into the trees and then the men, they have them down with big sticks… This blouse, the lace is called point Flandre, and this, point d’Angleterre. This is from Ireland… And this coat, guipure lace. You see my skirt is shorter than your mother’s – more the fashion… This to wear underneath, you call it cami – skirt…’

  It was too much. They lay scattered, abandoned, in great heaps. Edwina asked, should she put them back? But no, Aunt Adelina said. No, her maid would do it.

  The game was over. But just when Edwina thought she could go, Aunt Adelina, lacing her fingers together, asked: ‘Do you sing, or recite perhaps? Say something for me.’ She paused. ‘No, you are right not to. I shall rather see you do something with your body. You go to dancing class, no?’

  ‘Yes,’ Edwina said, thinking of Laurence, who had not asked her to his house again (and how could she ask him?)

  ‘Show me, please.’

  Edwina went through a few steps, in her stockinged feet. Slowly, clumsily. She lost her balance and had to clutch at the mantel. Then she stumbled, and a moment later fell.

  Aunt Adelina was laughing. ‘Can you sing? Perhaps at singing you are better?’

  Edwina hated her then, knew that she hated her. She thought of her playing the piano for Uncle Frederick (she hadn’t heard him sing this time, hadn’t hidden in the hall). She imagined her settling down on the stool – which wasn’t arranged for her but for Mother – taking off her rings, so large, violent-coloured, the colour of blood and dark green forests…

  ‘Look, we have nearly the same name. Edwina, Adelina. So pretty.’ She took hold of Edwina’s hand. It lay limply in her palm. ‘I like us – you and me – to be friends. I am used to nieces. I have many, already nine.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Edwina, then impulsively, ‘I’d like to see them.’ Wanting suddenly to meet an I
talian child, imagining it quite other.

  ‘Then you shall visit us.’

  ‘When?’

  Oh – when?’ She let go of Edwina’s hand. She looked suddenly bored. A yawn began but she stifled it. ‘When you are older.’ She looked around her. ‘When you are fourteen. Letà di Giulietta, no?’

  Later she said to Uncle Frederick: ‘She will visit us. It is arranged. When she is fourteen…’

  Such an itching of her hands. At first she felt it inside; an ache so that if she could only sit down at the piano, could only use them. These days it was as if Miss Batterhurst had tied them up, put them into splints as for thumb – sucking, finger – biting. One two three, up and down with the scales. She never bothered to practise. It was all so easy. When indeed she did go to the piano now she would just sit and stare – hearing all those beautiful sounds in her head, but afraid that if she tried nothing would happen. And yet one day quite suddenly Miss Batterhurst had said, ‘Really, Millicent, the child is quite remarkable.’ To Edwina: ‘If I weren’t so tired – I would speak, I think, to your mother –’

  Then the shutters had come down again.

  The ache in her hands passed off. Now it was only an itch. Not a pleasant tickling but an itch, hot, scratchy. She began to tear at each hand, right, left, right, up and down the palms. In the dark, half awake, she thought that they must be bleeding, so savagely had she scratched. When she fell asleep she must have still been tearing – growing frantic, thinking: Uncle Frederick goes tomorrow. Thinking: one last scratch, this will do it, this will stop it…

  ‘She has eczema,’ Nurse said. ‘What a horrid sight.’

  They put strong-smelling creosote on her hands. She had to take nux vomica and at night, quinine. Socks were put over her hands, tied at the wrists. In desperation she rubbed them together and ointment seeped through.

  She couldn’t go to piano lessons. When later in the summer she was well enough to return, she refused. Mother said: ‘I knew it was only a fancy. All that trouble.’