Men On White Horses

by Pamela Haines

  A waiter paused, hovered. Fanny waved him away. She leaned forward again, closer now to Edwina.

  ‘I keep saying the name over to myself-even out loud sometimes. Frances Antici-Montani. The Marchesa Antici-Montani. Francesca Antici-Montani… Isn’t it all too unspeakably, impossibly grand?’

  Valet ancora virtus. The family motto – engraved, painted, scored, scratched : here, there, everywhere : the gallery, the ballroom, inside the lid of a huge chest… ‘Virtue serves as an anchor.’ The Illingworths had not had to live up to any such precepts.

  They seemed to her now, viewed from abroad, to have been someone else’s family. She thought, I know more now about the Antici-Montani than of them. But if I had been born sooner, if Grandma Illingworth had lived longer, wouldn’t I most certainly have sat with her as I sit now today with the old Marchesa. (Would it not have been me reading Wuthering Heights?)

  ‘We go together next week, Edwina. You and I. Stefano also. I forget which is the piece, but they, all of this family, they think they are very good in acting. It is not so.’

  The long satin curtains had not been fully drawn back – the room was darker than usual. The rings on the old Marchesa’s fingers glowed dully. ‘No person in this circle is good in acting just now. The last was the Principessa Paterno. She was most excellent in Gli Inamorati of Goldoni-the Duse has admired her… This matter some days ago of Eugenio, it is not good. I apologize. It is certain it does not happen again… Now we speak of what you wear. I shall present you naturally to the Duchessa’s mother…’

  They drank marsala. She didn’t like it, although each time when she smelled it, she thought that she would. Later she was to play for the old Marchesa. Chopin. For half an hour before luncheon.

  ‘Frederick, I hear from him now that he is safely at home. I don’t think it is completely a surprise – what I shall speak of. Frederick then, has said something, perhaps?’ The words at first flowed. Then they studded, jabbed : ‘… if you can consider to make Italy your home… the bride of Stefano … for the family it is very good and you certainly, you shall be fortunate, and I think perhaps content … if you agree I speak to Stefano-he knows what is in my mind. He will wish to speak to you himself, it is enough to say to me now that you – ’

  ‘But I can’t – he can’t – ’

  ‘Ma che cos’è? What is this?’

  They’re in love-he means to tell you, I’m sure. It’s Fanny he wants to marry, not me.’

  ‘Macchè – wants to marry! This is nonsense. You speak nonsense. Stefano … this is only a game.’ She leaned forward, her face near Edwina’s : ‘He is naughty boy. You cannot think he means something – he plays only. I see from the first that he is interested. As it might be in-some dancer, some actress. You understand? I speak frankly of her. It is not serious. This is coup de tete only. Nothing more – ’

  ‘I rather thought it was.’

  ‘To her-who knows? But he – how can you think this? He is méchant only. And so weak. That you will have to understand. Also to forgive…’

  She rearranged her skirt. She wore today oyster pleated silk. Her bracelets ran along the fabric. ‘But I speak. We make an end to it all. Now – you pass me, please, that box which is on the table. This veil is point d’Alençon. Open it out, please. You see – such beauty! It is worn by me, of course. Also, naturally, by Angela. It is for you – Yes, you exclaim, you are right to be astonished, that your hands go up. You suit it very well, I am certain …’

  She took one of Edwina’s hands in hers. ‘Show me. They are very strong.’ She paused. Her bent fingers stroked Edwina’s knuckles. ‘ Mah!’ Then, as if to someone else, ‘Yes, you, Edwina, you are very strong…’

  Babington’s English Tea-Rooms. ‘Are you sure this is all right?’ Laurence asked.

  ‘Perfectly. They’re very easy these days. The motor at my disposal-I’m in any case on my way to see Fanny, in Via Margutta. She’s asked to see me – but I’d been going anyway – ’

  How to say to Fanny that what had happened was not at her bidding? How to face her? (‘All is arranged now, I speak with Stefano and at once there has been end. Now he shall say to you…’) Where to begin to explain? And how to try now to give Fanny what she wanted?

  ‘Anyone passing who might peer through the windows. It’s hardly though, as if we shall be seen by le tout Rome – ’

  ‘Dora,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, Dora,’ he said. ‘But how can I mock Dora when she has brought us together?’

  ‘Laurence, it was all so wonderful. If you’d known how angry I was. For you – ’

  ‘But it’s ended well. Two childhood friends, reminiscing over the teacups.’

  ‘I must be homesick, a bit,’ she said, ‘or I wouldn’t be so happy, just sitting here.’

  ‘It’s not English – quite. The management, of course, yes. I should point out – try not to look now-Miss Babington’s partner. She was a Miss Cargill, but married her drawing master and became the Countess da Pozzo.’

  ‘Where do you learn – ’

  ‘Information supplied by Dora. The clientele too is not quite right. And the potted palms. It tries too strenuously – We deceive ourselves, I think.’

  ‘Tell me about your War-if you want to. (You heard about Ned?) And Oxford-my brother never finished…’

  The tea-shop was quite crowded now at nearly five o’clock. There was a babble of Italian and English. Two customers were talking to the Countess da Pozzo. She and Laurence ate scones in happy companionship. The tea was very strong. She said : ‘I don’t need all this food – we eat enormously in the middle of the day, and again at eight.’

  ‘Muffins,’ he said, ‘I don’t feel like muffins. But plum cake. I shall succumb to plum cake.’

  ‘Laurence – you are just as I remember.’

  ‘I think I have grown a little – ’

  ‘I’ll allow that, you didn’t tower above me so in those days. But decided, you were so decided. That’s what I remember, what hasn’t changed. “I shall be a diplomat.” ‘

  ‘Weren’t your plans to be a concert pianist just as definite? A snippet of information – Dora tells me you are going to Paris.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She felt suddenly confused. She had coloured. ‘I should tell you, I suppose – ’

  ‘But – ’ She said then about Stefano.

  ‘My God,’ he said.

  ‘You seem awfully surprised. Wouldn’t I be suitable?’

  He considered. ‘I don’t see why not,’ very seriously, thoughtfully. ‘But that is not perhaps the point.’

  She sipped her tea. ‘It doesn’t matter about the point. Because I don’t think I can go through with it.’

  ‘No?’

  Whatever had she been thinking? Now, when her mind had become suddenly so clear. And I am not anyway, she thought, I am not what the old Marchesa thinks. Certainly, surely she expects for her grandson, a virgin. What would she say if I told my story? The walk to Bay. The long walk back – the man who saw me as I went up Albion Street (who perhaps told Ben’s mother?), the long walk along the cliff path, sore, frightened, forced continually to squat amongst the undergrowth. Shakily tired, coming at last into the early morning garden. Rounding the corner, meeting Mother Bede …

  ‘I had these thoughts. I had been looking for a sacrifice, I think. All-so ridiculous. I mean, I was quite clear-eyed about how it would be-it would be unlikely for instance that he would be faithful to me …’

  Laurence said yes, that would be very unlikely.

  ‘I suppose I would have been able to play, even give small concerts – when there was time. Talented amateur actors, I understand, aren’t frustrated in that set. But what small change…’ She crumbled the cake on her plate. ‘I liked him-like him. That alone made it not impossible. I would have tried – very hard. Making someone happy. Having children. And then what I would have received back. He wouldn’t be faithful – but he would be loyal. To be protected and cared for… Perhaps I don’t mean tha
t so much as the warmth. Human warmth. Someone– ’ because she had just thought of it, she said, ‘someone to snuggle up to, in bed at night – ’

  ‘You set great store by that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply.

  ‘I wish I did. I can understand the – man-woman bit,’ he said. ‘But between times, I don’t want to touch, be touched.’ He said it in that same tone of voice which had said all those years ago, ‘My mamma doesn’t wear corsets. She thinks they’re bad…’ He said now, ‘Some people, I think, are just made that way.’

  ‘Laurence, I understand.’ She felt that she had known him all the years in between.

  ‘There’s the question of Fanny too …’

  When she’d done, he said gravely, pouring himself out more tea, not waiting for her to do it, ‘Exclamation mark, I think. What shall you do?’

  ‘Tell her everything, how I feel. Even if it can’t put things right. I’d like – Fanny looks so sure, you know, so strong, but she needs me to protect her – ’

  He said, ‘Your mind then, you’ve changed it definitely?’

  ‘It’s-almost certain. Yes.’ She paused. ‘False, it was all false really. I thought yesterday – you know that shop just here in the Piazza di Spagna, where they sell artificial pearls? I watched the woman in there. She just sits all day, dipping the matrix in some liquid to coat it. Very slow and laborious. But her definite work, what she should be doing. And the pearls are false…’

  ‘But people buy them?’

  ‘People buy them,’ she said. She looked at her plate. She had crumbled the moist cake to nothing. Laurence saw it and smiled.

  ‘Let me order you some more.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, thank you.’ She asked him then more about Mesopotamia, his wounds, wartime and post-wartime Oxford. She said, ‘I think you’re going to be very successful. Our ambassador in-Pekin? Perhaps Ruritania?’

  ‘Perhaps Ruritania,’ he said, smiling.

  She saw that it was time to go. She said, ‘I think we should meet again. I don’t know how long now I’ll stay in Rome.’

  ‘You mean if you decide against? As you will … A pity.’ he said solemnly. ‘I would have liked to come to your At Homes – ’

  ‘I should always have asked you.’

  They stood outside the tea-rooms. The sun beat down on the awnings. Coming out she was at first dazzled.

  ‘What a duffer I was at dancing.’ he said.

  ‘I used to want to be your partner.’

  ‘Actually.’ he said, ‘I am very good now. I have considerable confidence.’

  A mushroom-seller, smoking a long pipe, sat amongst his baskets and buckets. Laurence said, ‘Let me walk you up to the studio– ’

  ‘It’s nothing. Via Margutta only.’

  ‘I should like to – ’ He pressed, she refused. It was only five minutes away.

  ‘I shall be in touch,’ he said then, watching her as she walked off across the square.

  The door of the house was open. As she drew near, Fanny came out. There seemed no sign of anyone else about.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ she said dully. She was wearing a long loose jacket with deep pockets. She had her hands behind her back. Her face was very white, strained. Her short hair pulled back from her forehead.

  ‘Fanny – ’

  ‘If I can’t have him-you shan’t have him either!’

  Fanny’s hand coming out suddenly. Sweep of arm, something flung. As the liquid shot out, Edwina’s hands flew to her face.

  ‘And when Sergeant Death …’

  Night merged into day. Behind the bandages was another world. The Venetian blinds were raised, were lowered. But which was which? Her hands lay outside the bedcovers – the sheet was smooth. Her fingers, stroking, felt something raised, a much-washed darn.

  Her hands had flown to her face. But they had not flown fast enough and now, this sticky world of blurred pain and darkness. She had heard herself cry and thought it someone else. A croaking sound, which in time would go, would become normal-for although her hands had not been quick enough, she had not opened her mouth. L’acido giallo had not hurt the vocal cords.

  ‘And you will see,’ they told her. ‘Only not so well.’ The world would not stay dark, as now.

  She worried about Fanny. Asked about her daily. ‘Is Fanny all right? What will happen to Fanny?’ The police it must have been, that second day – and Uncle Frederick the interpreter. Where had Fanny obtained the vitriol, what had she said, was there anything they ought to know?

  Why be more sorry for Fanny than for herself? Worms of fire crawling over her face, eating the flesh. And what to do with the burst of anger that came in great waves – a sea of anger. (Are we also bound to love our enemies? We are also bound to love our enemies; not only by forgiving them from our hearts but also by wishing them well and praying for them.)

  Uncle Frederick came and sat with her every day. He held her hand. She was in the Anglo-American Hospital. Soon she would be able to have more visitors. But Mother-she had told Mother, Cora, they were not to come to Italy. Uncle Frederick, by her bedside, explained to her that the real Edwina was still there, under the scars. That life would go on, not perhaps ‘as if’, but almost ‘as if’. She would not be beautiful (had she ever been?), but nor on the other hand would she cause people to stare or be embarrassed. For those who had not known her before, to strangers, the public perhaps, she would not be a sight.

  Put out a hand and touch Ben. As certainly here as in those cold summer days of his death. I don’t touch him, only because he must be left in peace. She thought : if I had taken after all the wrong turning I so nearly chose, he would not have been a vengeful ghost.

  (How are we to love one another? We are to love one another…) Brahms in the taverns, the servant girls on his knees. I sat on Ben’s knee.

  Her hands lay very still on the covers. She placed one over the other. life ran through them.

  Other senses sharpened. Touch. Hearing. She could hear – so well. Breakers against the sea-wall. Music (and what else was she for?) washing over her – waves.

  It is in my hands, she thought.

  This electronic edition published in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Pamela Haines 1978

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  ISBN: 9781448205097

  eISBN: 9781448204656

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