Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  Cold winter, cold spring. Ned killed at Arras in April. Death was a familiar now. Mother, scarcely recovered, lapsed back again. It became obvious to all that she was drinking. Although not well enough to do any real work she would make sudden appearances, dressed, composed, apparently normal. This would last for several days, after which she would take to her room again. The officers still came weekly, their visits often coinciding neatly with one of her good days.

  1917 turned into 1918. Spring, summer.

  She had always known it, when the letter came from Fanny. The sun was shining on to the corner of the table where she read it. Outside it was hot, had been hot for nearly a week, but all that day she felt cold: a deep stone cold. Nothing could warm her.

  She would have liked to go over to Bay. That she could comfort his mother she was certain. They would mourn as a community and she envied them that. Here she could say nothing, show nothing.

  She could not play the Variations, ‘Ben’s Air’. Deathly cold, she could not play at all. And yet, as the days and then the weeks passed and it became autumn, what surprised her most was that she no longer believed in his death. He was, simply, not dead.

  The action of a German submarine. ‘All hands lost.’ ‘Lost at sea,’ as Fanny had said so often, so proudly, of her father. But those last weeks of September she would stop suddenly, standing quite still wherever she was, as sure of his presence as if she could see him in the flesh. It was so precious to her, this sense, so against all reason, that she clung to it desperately as if she herself were drowning. It consoled her when Mother was difficult – and how much patience was needed there. It consoled her when she woke, at first to desolation, then (so sure did she feel that he was not truly dead) to a kind of peace.

  ‘I can’t remember why I sent for you –’

  In the room the usual smell. A blend of her scent, Turkish cigarettes, and drink.

  Edwina said: ‘I’m only just back actually, It was very busy this afternoon.’

  Mother was half sitting, half lying, in a wraparound peignoir, heavily embroidered. A glass in her hand, held carelessly: ‘How boring you must find it all! Do you find it boring? I expect you wish you were doing some real War Work. Dressing up in a smock and breeches like – Fanny, is it? Or nursing-if you’d been older you could have nursed. You could still, of course. You could have gone to France. I’m not surprised Tom forbade any such goings-on – You’re so headstrong, you’re not safe. I know Frederick thinks he can control you, but even he…’

  ‘whenever has Uncle Frederick ever had anything to complain about?’

  ‘Don’t get so agitated. It’s so unattractive. And sit down.’ She reached for the box of cigarettes. ‘That time at Robin Hood’s Bay, I thought he said something. I don’t recall It could have been Adelina complained.’

  Edwina said, stung, ‘She’s dead, so she can’t defend me or deny it, can she?’

  ‘Oh yes-she’s dead. Like that marriage.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘That was dead.’

  Silence. ‘What do you mean?’ Edwina asked, her voice wary.

  ‘Mean by what? What did I say?’ Sipping, and puffing, throwing back her head. ‘How could any marriage with Frederick be anything?’ she said.

  Edwina said angrily: ‘I think he’s wonderful. He’s –’ Her voice tailed away. She was near to tears already.

  ‘Pass me the water, would you?’ Mother was pouring from the decanter. ‘No, leave it. Those hands – that dreadful eczema. And don’t watch me like that. It is none of your business what I need – how much –’

  ‘If you don’t want me for anything, I think I’ll go –’

  ‘Don’t be so priggish. Don’t be so difficult. Surely, surely you can find a few moments to sit with a war widow – Yes, Tom lost his life as much through the war as if he had gone to France – ‘ She tossed her head. ‘What exactly is it you have to do? If it’s to play the piano… I’ve upset you about Frederick, haven’t I? Edwina. Really. You must have realized that my Frederick, my lovely Frederick, was not quite like the others.’

  A little cold nugget in her heart, in her stomach.

  ‘No, I expect you wouldn’t. These things are not much discussed at the convent. They weren’t at mine.’ She fixed her gaze on her feet, her embroidered slippers. ‘You know that some men are more interested in – other men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or in some cases, little boys. Little boys can be more to their taste-the little Italian ones, I believe, are very obliging. You understand my drift? Is your pure little mind opening like some seashell?’ She put down her glass, lay back to finish her cigarette. ‘It’s not very important – He was always, is, very discreet. There’s never been a hint-And money, you understand, he had to have money. She thought the world of him. And she didn’t want – the other thing. I know that. The whole arrangement suited…’ She swallowed hard then suddenly, her voice thick, as if blocked: ‘What we had together, Adelina couldn’t have known that. Couldn’t. Just as a child like you can’t. Can’t know – can you? Can you?’ She turned to face Edwina.

  ‘I don’t know what I can know. Please –’ The room had grown very warm. There was the smell of flowers, a hothouse scent.

  ‘What we had together. Nothing before or since. If you’ve been nearly to Paradise and then seen the gates shut-my God.’ She poured another drink recklessly, slopping some round the glass. ‘You see, I still call upon my God. Don’t stare–’ She took some of the drink hastily. ‘The sort of childhood we had… what do you expect, never knowing one day to the next… always worrying about money. Dreading Father’s face – there were a few years when I was at the convent, but then –’ Her voice had a croak in it now. Edwina thought of taking the drink away from her, even made a move as if to do so, and then thought, what is the use?

  ‘Together, you see, we were always together. After the convent. We were alone so much, needed each other so much. How can you imagine? Frederick and I, it was more than brother and sister. We knew about each other. Everything. What he felt I felt, what I felt… Those long tedious days in hotel suites all over Europe – Bruges, Montreux, Nice out of season, Köln. Was it any wonder?’ She said bitterly, very, very angrily: ‘You know what goes on between – you know what a man and woman do? Someone’s told you?’

  ‘Yes–of course.’

  She lifted her glass. ‘I didn’t know. We didn’t. Not then. We found out together. Or almost.’ Edwina didn’t recognize her voice. ‘Unfinished, of course. Unfinished. Not quite – like everything Frederick does. A failure – no, a dilettante – even at that. So nearly, the act so nearly accomplished. And then we took fright. Nice people don’t do that sort of thing, after all. Do you hear that, Edwina?’ Edwina nodded dully. ‘I might have had a child. Who knows? If he’d…’ Her face had become very ugly, her mouth with its pretty teeth almost square: ‘And then he dared to marry. Little boys I don’t mind. But other women – when I first heard I was so angry. And I could hurt him, I was able to hurt him. “Perhaps you should finish that which you began?” I said to him. We were in the motor going to church. “Perhaps you should finish that which you began?” He didn’t like that. He understood me –’

  ‘I’m going to go,’ Edwina said.

  Take that look off your face, you convent prude. One day maybe you’ll suffer. Take that look off –’

  Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice. Standing there, half in, half out of the room, rooted. Waves rose and crashed in her head. Great white horses rushed into the harbour, against the sea-wall. She knew for certain, finally, irrevocably, that Ben was dead.

  Part Three

  1920

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Fanny, clutching the edge of the cupboard as the train swayed. She sat down on Edwma’s bed. Behind the drawn blinds the French countryside passed them by. Edwina couldn’t believe it either.

  The furious excitement had begun that morning at Victoria. The first of April, at eleven o’clock. (Or had i
t really begun yesterday in York, the three of them boarding the London train, their tickets booked through to Venice?) An over-stimulated Fanny had spent most of the smooth Channel crossing being thoroughly sick. Sitting on deck wrapped up, she was brought champagne laced with cayenne – a remedy Uncle Frederick swore by. His father had given it him always, in the worst of gales: The better the champagne, the quicker the cure.’ It made Fanny cough horribly.

  But once on dry land she was herself again. Or what remained of the self Edwina had known. She was the same and yet not the same. That she had become beautiful, a beauty, was certain. Far from coarsening her, outdoor work had tempered her. Her eyes shone brilliantly against the unladylike tan of her skin. Where in the last year at the convent she’d been lanky, almost gawky, she was rounded, even graceful. But it was her hair that was still her greatest glory.

  The first thing Edwina noticed about her when they met up again: that it hadn’t been bobbed. ‘I was the only one but I was absolutely determined. Sometimes though – at five in the morning with your fingers all iced up and the pins not wanting to go in…’ She talked a lot about the farm work, the land. Nothing at all about being a nun.

  They had got in touch again late in 1919, and met at Christmas, when Edwina had gone over to Whitby for a week. It was the first time she had left home for over a year; the first time she’d been away from the nightmare of Mother. Aunt Josephine, helping her, the two of them nurses, no longer called it Mother’s ‘trouble’. As firmly, desperately, they withheld from her what she now could not live without, Mother abused them, made mischief between them, cajoled them. And in the end was cured. Again and again Edwina thanked God that she had told her nothing. (If she had had that weapon. If she had had the name of Ben.)

  For the moment anyway, free of the compulsion to drink, Mother had bought a new little bay. She was to hack it through the late summer, hunt it this winter. The season she would spend with Cora in London. She paid Edwina as little attention as possible.

  Fanny burst with convent news: ‘Cynthia-Scholastica actually got married, you know. I think to Willie. And you know about Clare becoming a nun? And then Meresia married the Hon. somebody – he survived the War, but he’s only got one arm. Vita actually got out to France nursing. And Babs…’ So it went on. It seemed to Edwina another world. ‘… and of course I wore my smock and breeches, to shock Mother Anselm …’

  It had been Uncle Frederick’s idea, the visit to Italy. He had written early in the New Year saying that it had been one of Adelina’s last wishes that her promise to Edwina should be kept.

  She had not wanted to go, because she had not wanted to go anywhere. But it had seemed churlish to refuse; and it meant escape from Mother. Then had come the proposal to take Fanny too. It had come in a roundabout way when Uncle Frederick was already over in England and the plans half made. But she had encouraged it, had thought: If I can’t enjoy it, someone shall. And Fanny had not waited one minute to say yes.

  They were to be away eight weeks. The first ten days were to be spent in Venice, then on to Florence to Uncle Frederick’s home. The remaining weeks they would stay in Rome with the Antici-Montani.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Fanny said again. ‘When I get back home – it’ll be so flat. You’ve got the autumn to look forward to, you assy thing – ’

  It was Aunt Josephine who had made that possible. Who had suddenly offered the money, the support; had taken her side against Mother, had gone with her to see Franz. In the autumn, she would probably study in Paris. The piano. Something would really happen. She had to believe that by then she would come to life again. (Was not the sudden lift of the heart this morning – the castle and cliffs of Dover, the first scents, sights, sounds of France – was not that proof it was perhaps possible?)

  ‘You can’t imagine what a hard life … I only want to live an easy one now. My hands quite spoilt… There were good bits – like I liked haymaking. But all those petty rules – ’ She pulled her kimono tight round her: ‘Uncle Frederick looks as if he feels the cold. He looks chilled all through. Beaten down. I’m very sensitive to how he feels, even though I’m not in love with him any more – I think uncles are pointless. By the way,’ she said, sticking her feet out in their fluffy mules, ‘by the way, I’m not going to be a nun after all.’

  Edwina lay back in bed. ‘I didn’t think – ’

  ‘I must have been mad. No, my dear, men are the thing. I think I shall probably marry someone rather rich. Remember how I used to say? Remember?’

  She talked on. Outside in the darkness trees, fields, farmsteads flashed by. Edwina wanted suddenly to sleep. The day’s tiredness accumulated as if she had been hit.

  ‘Just look,’ Fanny said, ‘this dear little place to put a pocket watch. Don’t you love it all? A bedroom on a train – ’

  Ben and his birthday watch (‘Will it spoil in salt water?’).

  It was midnight almost. Fanny left. There was just the sound of pucketing wheels. Her bed seemed to rock. Out in the corridor a man was talking to the guard. Sleepier than she realized she half listened, ‘… je pense que… non, monsieur… on approche Dijon…’ There was one more stop in the night. She half woke, then knew nothing at all till Fanny shook her. She had not expected to be so drugged.

  ‘We’re in Switzerland!’ Lifting the blinds they watched together the morning sun sparkling on the blue lake: Vevey, Montreux. (‘That’s Byron’s Chillon.’) Just before Sierre, washed and dressed, they met Uncle Frederick for breakfast.

  Fanny was full of excitement. The hot croissants, the chocolate, the black cherry jam. ‘And butter,’ she kept saying, ‘all this butter.’ A cup of chocolate held to her lips, ‘What do you do all day now?’ she asked Uncle Frederick. ‘What do you do with your time?’

  ‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘Good works. There’s a lot needed. War wreaks havoc – children especially. I sing still – I read. I go out. People I knew before. My wife’s friends – ’

  ‘And your wife’s money,’ Fanny said. Edwina blushed. She couldn’t believe in Fanny’s behaviour.

  Uncle Frederick had coloured. ‘And my wife’s money,’ he said. ‘Have you tried rosehip jam–this jam?’ he pushed the dish towards her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Fanny said. ‘As a matter of fact I was only joking.’ There was silence. Edwina looked out of the window, then glanced back at Uncle Frederick’s face. It betrayed nothing. She thought, probably I have loved him all along.

  The train drew into Brig. Domodossola, Pallanza-fondo Toce, Baveno, Stresa, Arona: Fanny read out all the names. At Milan she wound down the window and they both leaned out: a train full of soldiers waited on the opposite platform. A handcart with drinks came by and the soldiers hung out: ‘Cabù!’ Two of them caught sight of the girls and called something, pointing. Fanny through cupped hands called back: ‘We’re nice girls, you understand, nice…’ and laughed. Edwina said, ‘You’re behaving all the time as if you wanted to show Mother Anselm something.’

  Fanny grew worse. During luncheon, she announced: ‘I want a Fortuny dress, Uncle Frederick. While we’re in Venice.’

  ‘Oh yes – ’ looking up from his salad – ‘yes?’

  ‘Will ten pounds be enough? I’ve been saving and saving.’

  Uncle Frederick smiled. For some reason Edwina thought he was going to turn to her: ‘And what is your heart’s desire?’ But he only said, to Fanny: ‘I dare say we can arrange something.’ It was like him to have heard of a dress designer, for one not to have to explain.

  Venice. By the stone pier blue-bloused men worked boathooks. But a private gondola, black, smart, plush came to meet them. ‘I do feel a snob? Fanny said. ‘Oh, isn’t this the cat’s whiskers– ’

  Such beauty. There had not been sunshine before Milan, but weather which anywhere else would have meant grey indifference, here made a misty watercolour. Coming out into the Grand Canal, she thought, it is like no other place. A barge passed by, a fluffy white dog in the prow, head held erect as if he were
the figurehead.

  The palace was by the water’s edge. Aunt Adelina’s friends, whose home it was, were away. Edwina’s bedroom was large and chill and high-ceilinged, with three beds, all of them made up. She chose the largest. They were to rest till dinnertime. Fanny came in, to say that her room wasn’t so big. ‘It’s very grand but not so grand as yours.’ She tried the light, it was dimming already in the room. ‘No, there’s a message-the electricity isn’t working. They haven’t had it long. Candles are coming.’ They came a few minutes later, an enormous candelabra, branching everywhere, then two more by the bed, one near the wash-basin, all greens and gold. Fanny left and she slept, as one drugged.

  At dinner, she felt sick, a nagging pain round her temples. Uncle Frederick remarked that she was very silent. ‘Indeed, you’re a very quiet Edwina altogether, these days.’

  ‘The War has tired me.’

  ‘It has tired us all,’ he said.

  The headache was still there when she woke, only now it was worse. Her window gave out on to the water, a small bridge. Before she was properly roused she heard the faint splash of oars, footsteps ringing. Looking out, she saw rubbish floating by-torn paper, a bottle, cabbage stalks, some food she couldn’t recognize. As she walked back across the chill floor, a mouse scurried past, disappearing near the faded wall hangings.

  Yesterday was another world: today was sunshine, flamboyant jewel colours, sudden spring warmth. In St Mark’s Square, below the gold of the Lions, the burnished prancing Horses, grey pigeons clustered thickly. It was to be a day of sightseeing – not too serious, since they had a week. The air is champagne,’ Fanny declared. She was more eager than ever today. ‘Don’t forget my Fortuny frock, Uncle Frederick.’ He told her that she had made a tongue-twister. ‘Fanny’s Fortuny frock …’

  They were to go up the reconstructed Bell Tower before midday. He said that before the old one crumbled, when it was thought to be really in danger, the bands had not been allowed to play, the midday cannon to fire.