‘I really must apologize, Lady Frederica—’ he began to say, as he came through the door.
Following him into the room, I saw at once something disagreeable had happened. Robert appeared to be the centre of attention. He had evidently just announced news consequent on his telephone call. Everyone looked disturbed. Flavia Wisebite seemed near tears. When she saw Commander Foxe, her distress turned to furious annoyance.
‘Buster,’ she said sharply, ‘where on earth have you come from?*
She sounded very cross, so cross that for a moment she forgot how upset she was. Commander Foxe must have grasped that his arrival was not altogether welcome at the moment. He was plainly taken aback by that. Smiling uneasily, he glanced round the room, as if to recover himself by finding some friendly face. His eyes rested first on Dicky Umfraville. Umfraville held out his hand.
‘Hullo, Buster,’ he said, ‘a long time since we met.’
When people really hate one another, the tension within them can sometimes make itself felt throughout a room, like atmospheric waves, first hot, then cold, wafted backwards and forwards, as if in an invisible process of air conditioning, creating a pervasive physical disturbance. Buster Foxe and Dicky Umfraville, between them, brought about that state. Their really overpowering mutual detestation dominated for a moment all other local agitations. The fact that neither party was going to come out in the open at this stage made the currents of nervous electricity generated by suppressed emotion even more powerful. At the same time, to anyone who did not know what horrors linked them together, they might have appeared a pair of old friends, met after an age apart. Their distinct, though imprecise, physical similarity increased this last impression. Before Buster could do more than make a gesture of acknowledgment in Umfraville’s direction, Frederica came forward. Buster began once more to apologize, to explain he wanted only a brief word with Flavia, then be gone. Frederica listened to him.
‘We’re all in rather a stew here at the moment,’ she said. ‘My brother Robert has just heard his leave is cancelled. He has to go back as soon as possible.’
Buster was obviously put out at finding himself in the disadvantageous position of having to listen to someone else’s troubles, when he had come with the express object of stating his own. It had to be admitted he looked immensely distinguished, more so even than Umfraville. I had never before seen Commander Foxe in naval uniform. It suited him. His iron-grey hair, of which he still possessed plenty, was kept short on a head almost preternaturally small, as Umfraville had pointed out. Good looks, formerly of a near film-star quality, had settled down in middle-age to an appearance at once solid and forcible, a bust of the better type of Roman senator. A DSC was among his medal ribbons. I thought of Umfraville’s lament that the heroes of yesterday are the maquereaux of tomorrow. Something had undoubtedly vexed Commander Foxe a great deal. He attempted, without much success, to assume a sympathetic expression about the subject of Robert’s leave cancellation. Clearly ignorant of any connexion between Flavia and Robert, he was at a loss to understand why Flavia was so disturbed. After her first outburst, she had forgotten about Buster again, and was gazing at Robert, her eyes full of tears.
‘Surely you can take a train tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to leave tonight, darling. What trains are there, Frederica?’
‘Not very good ones,’ said Frederica. ‘But they’ll get you there sooner or later. Why don’t you do that, Robert?’
‘Aren’t you taking the army too seriously, Robert?’ said Umfraville. ‘Having just sent you on leave, they can’t expect you to go back at a moment’s notice. Your unit doesn’t know Nick is going back by car tonight. Even if you are a bit late, there’s nothing the authorities can do to you, if they countermand their own orders in this way.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Robert.
This was the only time I had ever seen Robert fairly near to what might be called a state of excitement. He was knocking his closed fists together gently.
‘If I don’t get back before tomorrow night,’ he said, ‘I may miss the overseas draft. My name is only included in the list on sufferance anyway. If they’ve got an excuse, they’ll remove it. That was the Orderly Room Sergeant on the line. He’s rather a friend of mine, and was giving me warning about that. Of course he couldn’t say it straight out, but he made his meaning quite clear to me. There are rows of other corporals they can send, if a party has been ordered to move forthwith. That’s what it looks like. Besides, I don’t want to have to make all my arrangements about packing and so on at the very last moment. That was why I thought your friend Stevens might be able to fit me into his car, Nick. You could then disgorge me somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mytchett. I could walk the last lap, if you landed me reasonably near.’
‘It won’t be very comfortable in the car, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t come with us.’
‘When is Stevens arriving?’
‘Any time now.’
‘I’ll go and get my things ready,’ said Robert.
He went off upstairs. Flavia began to dab her eyes with a rolled-up handkerchief. Buster must have remembered he had met Priscilla before – at the party his wife had given for Moreland’s symphony – and he filled in the time during this discussion about Robert’s affairs by talking to her. That was also perhaps a method of avoiding Dicky Umfraville’s eye. Buster was accompanying this conversation with a great display of middle-aged masculine charm. From time to time, he glanced in Flavia’s direction to see if she were sufficiently calm to be tackled about whatever he hoped to speak. Now, Flavia, making an effort to recover herself, moved towards Buster of her own volition.
‘What’s happened?’ she said. ‘I was going to ring you up, but I’ve been dreadfully entangled with other things. Besides, I’ve only just arrived here. Now all this has upset everything.’
If Buster did not already know about Robert, that was not very enlightening, but he was probably sharp enough to have grasped the situation by this time.
‘It’s about your mother,’ he said. ‘It’s all damned awkward. I thought the sooner you knew the better. There was a lot of difficulty in getting hold of your address. When I found by a lucky chance you were in the neighbourhood of Thrubworth, I decided to try and see you, in case I lost the opportunity for months.’
‘But what is it?’
‘Your mother is behaving in a very extraordinary way. There are serious money difficulties for one thing. They may affect you and Charles. Your settlements, I mean.’
‘She’s always quite reckless about money. You must have learnt that by now.’
‘She has been unwise about all kind of matters. I had no idea what was going on.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘That’s one of the points. She has closed both houses and gone to live in a workman’s cottage to be near Norman.’
‘Norman Chandler?’
‘Of course.’
‘But I thought Norman had joined the army.’
‘He has. He has been sent to a camp in Essex. That’s why your mother has gone there. What’s more, she wants to divorce me.’
This news certainly surprised Flavia a lot.
‘But—’
‘I’ve nowhere to go,’ said Buster, speaking with great bitterness. ‘When I was last in London, I had to stay at my club. Now this news about a divorce is sprung on me. Your mother went off without a word. All kinds of arrangements have to be made about things. It is too bad.’
‘But does she want to marry Norman?’
‘How do I know what she wants to do?’ said Buster. ‘I’m the last person she ever considered. I think Norman, too, has behaved very badly to allow her to act in this way. I always liked Norman. I did not in the least mind his being what he is. I often told him so. I thought we were friends. Many men in my position would have objected to having someone like Norman about the house, doing the flowers and dancing attendance upon their wife. Norman pleased your mother. That was enoug
h for me. What thanks do I get for being so tolerant? Your mother goes off to Essex with Norman, taking the keys with her, so that I can’t even get at my own suits and shirts. On top of all that, I’m told I’m going to be divorced.’
At that point there was another loud knock on the front door. This must be Stevens. I went to let him in. Umfraville followed me into the hall.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘tell me quickly what’s happened to Buster to upset him so.’
‘Mrs Foxe had a friend called Norman Chandler – a little dancer she adored, who was always about her house. He was quite a good actor too. It looks as if she has got fed up at last and kicked Buster out.’
‘Buster is going to get me into this secret set-up at Thrubworth. I’ve decided that.’
‘How’s it going to be managed?’
‘I once took a monkey off Buster at poker. Apart from his other misdemeanours, I’ve never seen my money. I know where I can make things unpleasant, if Buster doesn’t jump to it and get me fixed up. Boffles Stringham once said: “Mark my words, Dicky, the day will come when Amy will have to get rid of that damned polo-playing sailor.” That day has come. There are some other reckonings for Buster to pay too.’
Another knock came on the door. Umfraville went back to the sitting-room. I admitted Stevens.
‘I’m a bit late,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to bustle back.’
‘There’s rather a commotion going on here. My brother-in-law, Robert Tolland, has just had his leave cancelled. He wants to get back to Mytchett tonight. Will it be all right if he comes with us? We pass near his unit and can drop him on the way.’
‘Of course. If he doesn’t mind having his balls crushed in the back of the car. Is he ready?’
‘He’s just gone off to pack. Then there’s a naval officer making a scene with his step-daughter.’
‘Bring ‘em all on,’ said Stevens. ‘We oughtn’t to delay too long. I’d just like to have word with that lady about her brooch.’
We went into the sitting-room. By that time things had quietened down. Buster, especially, had recovered his poise. He was now talking to Frederica, having presumably settled with Flavia whatever he had hoped to arrange. Flavia and Robert had retired to a sofa and were embracing. Stevens said a word of greeting to Frederica, then made at once for Priscilla. Frederica turned again to Buster.
‘I’m glad to hear Erry is behaving himself,’ she said.
‘I agree we were all prepared to find your brother rather difficult,’ said Buster, ‘but on the contrary – anyway so far as I am personally concerned – he has done everything in his power to make my life agreeable. He has, if I may say so, the charm of all your family, though in a different manner to the rest of you.’
Umfraville interrupted them.
‘Come and talk shop with me for a moment, Buster,’ he said.
They went into a corner of the room together. Isobel and I went into another one. It was clearly time to get under way. If we did not set out without further delay, we should not be back by the required hour. Then Isobel went rather white.
‘Look here,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry to have to call attention to myself at this moment, but I’m feeling awfully funny. I think perhaps I’d better go to my room – and Frederica or someone can ring up the doctor.’
That was the final touch. In a state of the utmost confusion and disquiet we left them at last, arriving in Aldershot just in time, having dropped Robert on the way.
‘Not feeling much like going on the square tomorrow, are you?’ said Stevens. ‘Still it was the hell of a good weekend’s leave. I had one of the local girls under a hedge.’
4
When, during those rare, intoxicating moments of solitude, I used to sit in a window seat at Castlemallock, reading Esmond, or watching the sun go down over the immense brick rampart of the walled garden, the Byronic associations of the place made me think of Don Juan:
I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,
And that’s the reason I’m so melancholy …
The long gallery at Castlemallock, uncarpeted, empty of furniture except for a few trestle tables and wooden chairs, had these built-in seats all along one side. Here one could be alone during the intervals between arrival and departure of Anti-Gas students, when Kedward and I would be Duty Officer on alternate days. That meant little more than remaining within the precincts of the castle in the evening, parading ‘details’ – usually a couple of hundred men – at Retreat, sleeping at night by the telephone. We were Gwatkin’s only subalterns now, for this was the period of experiment, later abandoned as unsatisfactory, when one platoon in each company was led by a warrant-officer. If an Anti-Gas course were in progress, we slept alternate nights in the Company Office, in case there was a call from Battalion. I often undertook Kedward’s tour of duty, as he liked to ‘improve his eye’, when training was over for the day, by exploring the neighbouring country with a view to marking down suitable sites for machine-gun nests and anti-tank emplacements. Lying in the window-seat, I would think how it felt to be a father, of the times during the latter part of the Aldershot course when I had been able to see Isobel and the child. She and the baby, a boy, were ‘doing well’, but there had been difficulty in visiting them, Stevens’s car by then no longer available. Stevens, as Brent prophesied, had been ‘Returned to Unit’.
‘I shan’t be seeing you lads after tomorrow,’ he said one afternoon.
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve been RTU-ed.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘I cut one of those bloody lectures and got caught.’
‘Sorry about this.’
‘I don’t give a damn,’ he said. ‘All I want is to get abroad. This may start me on the move. I’ll bring it off sooner or later. Look here, give me your sister-in-law’s address, so I can keep in touch with her about that brooch.’
There was a certain bravado about all this. To get in the army’s black books is something always to be avoided; as a rule, no help to advancement in any direction. I gave Stevens the address of Frederica’s house, so that he could send Priscilla back her brooch. We said goodbye.
‘We’ll meet again.’
‘We will, indeed.’
The course ended without further incident of any note. On its last day, I had a word with Brent, before our ways, too, parted.
‘Pleased we ran into each other,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth, I was glad to spill all that stuff about the Duports for some reason. Don’t quite know why. You won’t breathe a word, will you?’
‘Of course not. Where are you off to now?’
‘The ITC – for a posting.’
I sailed back across the water. Return, like the war news, was cheerless. The Battalion had been re-deployed further south, in a new area nearer the border, where companies were on detachment. Gwatkin’s, as it turned out, was quartered at the Corps School of Chemical Warfare, the keeps, turrets and castellations of which also enclosed certain Ordnance stores of some importance, which came under Command. For these stores, Gwatkin’s company provided security guards, also furnishing men, if required, for Anti-Gas demonstrations. When the Battalion operated as a unit, we operated with the rest, otherwise lived a life apart, occupied with our own training or the occasional demands of the School.
Isobel wrote that her aunt, Molly Jeavons – as a rule far from an authority on such matters – had lent her a book about Castlemallock, its original owner, a Lord Chief Justice (whose earldom had been raised to a marquisate for supporting the Union) having been a distant connexion of the Ardglass family. His heir – better known as Hercules Mallock, friend of d’Orsay and Lady Blessington – had sold the place to a rich linen manufacturer, who had pulled down the palladian mansion and built this neo-gothic castle. The second Lord Castlemallock died unmarried, at a great age, in Lisbon, leaving little or nothing to the great-nephew who inherited the title, father or grandfather of the Castlemallock who had run away with Dicky Umfraville’s second wife. Like ot
her houses of similar size throughout this region, Castlemallock, too large and inconvenient, had lain untenanted for twenty or thirty years before its requisitioning. The book also quoted Byron’s letter (a fragment only, said to be of doubtful authenticity) written to Caroline Lamb who had visited the house when exiled from England by her family on his account. Isobel had copied this out for me:
‘... even though the diversions of Castlemallock may exceed those of Lismore, I perceive you are ignorant of one matter – that he to whose Labours you appear not insensible was once known to your humble servant by the chaste waters of the Cam. Moderate, therefore, your talent for novel writing, My dear Caro, or at least spare me an account of his protestations of affection & recollect that your host’s namesake preferred Hylas to the Nymphs. Learn, too, that the theme of assignations in romantick groves palls on a man with a cold & quinsy & a digestion that lately suffered the torment of supper at L d Sleaford’s…’
This glade in the park at Castlemallock was still known as ‘Lady Caro’s Dingle’, and thought of a Byronic interlude here certainly added charm to grounds not greatly altered at the time of the rebuilding of the house. An air of thwarted passion could be well imagined to haunt these grass-grown paths, weedy lawns and ornamental pools, where moss-covered fountains no longer played. However, such memories were not in themselves sufficient to make the place an acceptable billet. At Castlemallock I knew despair. The proliferating responsibilities of an infantry officer, simple in themselves, yet, if properly carried out, formidable in their minutiae, impose a strain in wartime even on those to whom they are a lifelong professional habit; the excruciating boredom of exclusively male society is particularly irksome in areas at once remote from war, yet oppressed by war conditions. Like a million others, I missed my wife, wearied of the officers and men round me, grew to loathe a post wanting even the consolation that one was required to be brave. Castlemallock lacked the warmth of a regiment, gave none of the sense of belonging to an army that exists in any properly commanded unit or formation. Here was only cursing, quarrelling, complaining, inglorious officers of the instructional and administrative staff, Other Ranks – except for Gwatkin’s company – of low medical category. Here, indeed, was the negation of Lyautey’s ideal, though food enough for the military resignation of Vigny.
The Valley of Bones Page 16
