Wine of Honour

by Barbara Beauchamp

  “Surely you could make use of these opportunities,” Lady Gurney continued hopefully.

  Her husband, who had made use of too many financial opportunities during the past forty years, replied:

  “Can’t afford to. Too risky. Everything that isn’t Government-controlled is risky these days, blast it. That’s what your precious Labour Government has done for us!”

  “James, you know I canvassed for the new Conservative candidate even though I didn’t know him.” She flushed with indignation.

  “Then I suppose your children put this government in. Someone did,” he growled back at her.

  “That’s most unfair of you. They’re your children just as much as mine and you know Daphne couldn’t vote because of being Polish by marriage, and the boys were away. I’m quite certain Peter wouldn’t vote for Labour.”

  They glowered at each other across the tea table, neither able to understand why they were squabbling. Then Laura said:

  “Don’t let’s get angry, dear.”

  “I’m not angry,” he answered gruffly and began to fill his pipe from his worn tobacco pouch.

  Lady Gurney looked wistfully round her drawing room.

  “I hate to think of strangers in this place, James. Prying into all the rooms and cupboards; using all our lovely things and perhaps damaging the furniture and carpets. I suppose we shall be able to lock some things away?”

  He looked at her in silence for a second and then his glance dropped and he went on fumbling with his pipe. He felt at that moment like a criminal.

  “I don’t think you understand, dear,” he said gently, “it’s not a case of letting the Manor. We’ll have to sell.”

  “Sell? But we can’t sell our home, James. What about the children? What about the boys when they want somewhere to come with their friends?” Her voice had scrambled up to the high notes again.

  “The boys are men,” he said dryly, “and in any case they’re never here together. We’ll naturally take a place where Daphne and Ian can be with us.”

  “But where can we live?” Lady Gurney wailed.

  “That’s something we’ll have to discuss, my dear. I don’t imagine either of us want to move out of Kirton at our ages. We have our friends here; we don’t want to uproot too much.”

  “Leave Kirton? James, we can’t leave Kirton!”

  “That’s just what I’m saying, my dear. So we’ll have to find some small place in the village. I saw O’Rourke in Dimstone yesterday and he told me he would soon have another of those cottages near the Watsons’ for sale.”

  “A cottage?” Lady Gurney sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, my dear, if it’s going for a reasonable price. O’Rourke will do his best for us; I’ve told him he can handle the sale of the Manor.”

  “But we couldn’t get into a cottage, James. Where would the servants sleep?”

  “Other people manage with a daily woman,” he replied quietly.

  “Oh, James. Is it as bad as all that?” She felt utterly crushed. To have to live in the village would be bad enough; to be crowded in on either side by neighbours, to lose the space and privacy of the Manor with its gardens and tennis court and wide fields; but to have to put up with a daily woman would be worse. No daily woman knew how to clean silver. This was going to alter the very structure of their lives. Lady Gurney felt too old and tired to start again, to plan and carry out a new routine for living. And then another dreadful thought occurred to her.

  “James, the furniture?” In panic her glance swept round the drawing room, noting the gracious proportions of the china cabinet and the grand piano, the bookcases and the writing table; and as she looked it seemed that their gleaming surfaces expanded joyously, exalting in the spacious beauty of the panelled room.

  “Yes, we’ll have to sell most of it,” he was following her glance, “thank goodness prices are still high for genuine antiques; we’ll be able to save something that way.”

  “You talk as if we were ruined, James.”

  “Not ruined,” he replied testily—she made it sound as though he’d been speculating—“but our circumstances are changed. After all, the boys are grown up now and on their own. In any case they’ve never contributed anything towards the upkeep of the home,” he added dryly.

  “Contributed? My dear James, we’re not working-class even if we do have to go and live in a cottage.”

  He thought, she’s going to take this badly, and he wondered at his own calm acceptance of the situation. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter very much whether they lived in the Manor or in a cottage. Life would be much the same, only there’d be fewer responsibilities. Pity Agnes couldn’t see it that way too. Perhaps she would in time, when she became interested in the move and making a new place liveable. For himself, he wasn’t all that attached to his possessions; he’d never had the pleasure of choosing them in the first place, they’d come from his parents and aunts and uncles. Perhaps he would miss them, but he didn’t think so. He only wanted to live simply and not to be perpetually bothered by lack of money. He felt a little excited at the prospect of selling some of the stuff, getting a good price for it. And the Manor, too. O’Rourke had said there were one or two buyers for big houses still left, but that more probably it would be taken for a school or a nursing home or something like that.

  As if following his thoughts Lady Gurney said:

  “If we’re not here, I wonder who will be?” and there was a shrill bitterness in her voice.

  “Probably a school or something,” he said soothingly, “nobody wants a great place of their own these days.”

  “A school!” Already she seemed to hear the incessant voices of young people and the clump of shoes racing all over her home, but she felt less bitter at the idea of the Manor becoming an institution rather than someone else’s private residence.

  “I’m sorry my dear; I’m afraid it’s been rather a shock for you.” He got up and went round to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder.

  “Are we going to have any money left?” she asked anxiously. He felt irritated again; why must she be so intensely curious; but he answered quietly:

  “With the money from the Manor and the furniture and the capital we’ve got left we should be able to live quietly.”

  “We always have lived quietly.” She thought how unkind life was to do this to them now. All they’d gone through during the war to keep up the home for the children was for nothing. Somehow it would have been more bearable if it had happened during the war; to lose your home in peace-time was doubly cruel. She said, wistfully:

  “You won’t do it again, will you, James?”

  “Do what?” he sounded surprised.

  “I mean, dear, when we’ve moved out of the Manor, we won’t have to move out of anywhere else. You won’t let the money side get worse or anything. I’ll do it this time, but I couldn’t do it again.”

  “My dear Agnes,” he was annoyed now. “You talk as if I had squandered our money away.” He began to pace up and down the room and his voice grew louder. “I suppose you think I’ve given it away—thrown it away? You’ve forgotten, no doubt, that we’ve been through a war, and a depression, and another war? That we’ve brought up and educated three children at the most expensive schools and universities? That we’ve paid Peter’s debts for years and that we are now keeping Daphne and her child for nothing? You blame me for all this: you think I’m responsible for wars and depressions and Peter’s extravagance, for loss of capital and a lot of Red ruffians running this country today. I suppose it’s my fault that we . . .”

  The door opened suddenly and Ian tumbled into the room followed by Daphne.

  “Not in front of the children, James,” Lady Gurney hissed automatically, and noticed the effort he made to control himself.

  Daphne said:

  “Goodee, goodee, there’s still some tea.”

  “I thought you and Ian had gone to tea at the Townsends,” Lady Gurney replied, with an eye on her husband’s Adam’s appl
e which was wiggling inside his collar as he swallowed his anger.

  “We didn’t. Ian had tea in the kitchen with May.” Daphne picked up a rock cake and began to pick out the currants in it.

  “What were you doing, darling?” Lady Gurney noticed the flush on her daughter’s cheeks and the unusual brightness of her eyes.

  “Walking. Ian, don’t bother grand-dad; he doesn’t want you to ride on his knee.” But Sir James had picked up his grandson and began to play with him, making faces and blowing out his cheeks and giving him lumps of sugar dipped in cold tea.

  Lady Gurney said:

  “Don’t pick the currants out, Daphne. It’s a disgusting habit and Ian will copy you. Where were you walking?”

  “Oh, just walking.” Daphne poured herself a cup of tea and took a couple of sandwiches from the top of the cake tray.

  Lady Gurney was worried. Something had happened to Daphne recently. She was secretive and glowing and always going out without saying where she’d been, and then returning with a languorous far-away look about her. Ian was left to May and Cook. She watched the dark-eyed child as he laughed up at his grandfather; there was nothing about him that looked like a Gurney! He was foreign—almost a little Jewish looking—like his father had been. She didn’t want to think about Daphne’s husband, the stranger with the dark eyes who never seemed to understand the things she and James said to him. It had been a rushed wedding. Too rushed. She closed her mind on the incident. Ian had been a large and healthy baby, even if he looked lean and sallow now. Daphne, her beautiful Daphne, had drifted a long way, into another kind of world, when the war started. War had somehow split all the family up, snatching Brian—who was difficult always—and taking Peter and then Daphne.

  Daphne said:

  “What’s up? You’re like the mutes at a funeral.”

  Lady Gurney looked swiftly at her husband, but he hadn’t heard.

  “Nothing, Daphne. I don’t think Ian ought to have all those lumps of sugar, do you?”

  “I think you’ve been talking about Peter’s sin!” her daughter teased, ignoring the red herring.

  “Daphne, I wish you would not say things like that.”

  “Well it’s the only topic at every meal, mother.”

  Lady Gurney looked tearful.

  “When Ian’s grown up,” she said, “I think you’ll be less hard.”

  “Oh, rot.” But the glow had gone from Daphne’s eyes and her face was set and sullen again.

  “It isn’t rot, Daphne. Naturally I’m worried about Peter.”

  “I’m sorry I raised the subject. I was only joking.”

  “In my place, you’d be worried too. That dreadful woman.”

  “Angela’s all right.”

  “I don’t agree; and I wish you’d never brought her into our family.”

  Daphne took another rock cake and went on picking currants out of it.

  “I never introduced Angela to Peter. She was a friend of Helen Townsend and Michael Cross. In any case I’ve said I’m sorry to have brought the subject up. Let’s drop it.”

  “It’s so easy for you to talk like that. I am Peter’s mother.” Lady Gurney was pink with agitation. “I didn’t mind him taking her flat whilst she was still at Little Copse, but that she should allow him to remain there once she’d gone back to London . . . that I can’t forgive.”

  “Oh, God!”

  Sir James Gurney looked up at them.

  “I wish you wouldn’t swear, Daphne.”

  “Only at myself, father. I’ve just blundered. I forgot we were pledged as a family to defend Peter’s virginity.”

  “Not in front of Ian,” Lady Gurney pleaded.

  Daphne laughed.

  “I don’t think he’s reached the age of indiscretion yet!”

  “Daphne, please. . . .” Her mother’s voice was shrill.

  “All right, all right, but you started this. Just because I happen to joke, you both take me as dead serious.”

  “This is serious,” Sir James Gurney frowned at his daughter.

  “Don’t I realize it? My dears, of course it’s serious. The almighty Peter’s reputation is being compromised. His chances of marrying a nice heiress are being spoiled. Angela is a cad. Come on, Ian, time for bed.” She picked up her son and carried him shoulder high from the room.

  “Don’t be cross with her,” Sir James said softly. But his wife was crying.

  When Daphne came back she brought the afternoon’s post with her. Her father glanced at the envelopes and flung most of them aside.

  “One for you, Agnes. From Brian.”

  Lady Gurney opened it eagerly. Her children seldom bothered to write to her; of course Daphne couldn’t, she lived in the house, and Peter . . . well Peter was different and he was in difficulties. It was nice of Brian to write. She began to read, with pleasure.

  Daphne said:

  “What about some sherry, Father?”

  “Not a bad idea, my dear.” He went to the cocktail cabinet and brought out glasses and the decanter. “Only the dregs, I’m afraid. Can’t think how it goes so quickly.” He filled two glasses and handed one to Daphne.

  “Here’s to death!” She smiled at him.

  “Your good health, my dear.” It was rotten sherry—even the Cock and Pheasant had come down to the third rate. He twisted the stem of his glass, and with one eye closed viewed the tiny particles of sediment floating in the amber liquid.

  Lady Gurney gave a little cry of horror.

  “James . . . Daphne . . . !”

  Her husband and daughter turned to stare at her. She was wildly searching for something in the envelope of Brian’s letter and she brought out a small snapshot. Her hands trembled, she was white and drawn.

  “What’s the matter?” they asked together.

  “Brian’s married. Oh, this is too much on top of everything else!” She began to cry again.

  “Married?” Sir James asked incredulously.

  “How clever of him,” Daphne said and felt the panic which persistently rose in her at a family crisis subsiding flatly. Who the devil had Brian married? He’d been leching after Helen Townsend; she’d seen that even though Brian had snapped her head off the only time she mentioned it to him. But it was obvious to Daphne. That’s why he’d left home so soon after he was demobilized. Now he was married. Life suddenly became interesting and rather amusing.

  Lady Gurney was wiping her eyes.

  “Why didn’t he tell us? Why should he keep it hidden from his family . . . his mother? I don’t understand. . . . I don’t see why all my children have got to behave in this hole and corner manner.”

  Daphne suppressed a ribald wisecrack and said instead:

  “I take umbrage at that, Mother. Tell us more.”

  “You’re as bad as the boys, Daphne. Always creeping out and never saying where you’ve been. You and Peter, and now Brian. . . .” She blew her nose, moistly.

  “Who has Brian married?” her husband asked patiently.

  Lady Gurney who had been hugging letter, envelope and snapshot tightly in the folds of her blouse, relaxed a little.

  “A girl called Serena. Serena Hughes.” She gulped and unfolded Brian’s letter again. “Hughes. We don’t know any Hughes, do we, James?”

  “I don’t think so, dear. May I see the letter?”

  She handed it across to him, still tearful. Daphne said:

  “Read it aloud, Father.”

  He skipped the opening sentences and then began:

  “. . . by the way, Mother, I got married last Thursday. Her name is Serena née Hughes, and I think you’ll approve. I imagine you must have been very like her yourself when you were her age—that is nineteen—”

  “Baby snatching,” Daphne interrupted.

  “He only says that to appease me,” Lady Gurney said sadly.

  Sir James went on reading:

  “. . . Sorry to spring it on you in this way, but although Serena and I have been good friends for a long time, we onl
y made up our minds last week. With my great experience of your enchanting sex, Mother, I suggested orange blossom and bridesmaids, but Serena, who is not only modern, but practical, decided against that sort of a wedding. She said it was too difficult with clothing coupons. Well, after that there didn’t seem much object in waiting so we got married that day. You would have been amused at the performance. We’d already wasted a great deal of time over lunch but I found a taxi driver who became co-operative when we explained the circumstances and we drove round London collecting things like wedding rings and special licences. We also bought a hat for Serena because she wasn’t wearing one that day. As Dick Cobb would say, it was a smashing hat. And a wicked price, but worth it! The taxi driver whose name was Tom Bowling—believe it or not—acted as witness and we collected a small-sized Yank outside the registry office as the second witness. The rest of the day was spent advising Serena’s friends of her change of address and we are now honeymooning in my bed-sitting-room. If you know of a flat to let within hiking distance of Soho Square, let me know. As soon as I can get a week off from the office, I shall bring my bride home. You will like her, I know. We are happy. . . .”

  Sir James Gurney handed back the letter without speaking. He pursed his lips until his mouth looked like the cobbled darn in a worn sock. His wife wailed:

  “He doesn’t say a word about her parents. We don’t even know who her people are, James.”

  Daphne said:

  “Is that a photograph, Mother?” She was feeling subtly jealous of her brother. It was so easy to be a man and just go off after lunch and get married. Women were always tied by emotions or responsibility. Except of course very young women like Serena. It was dreadful to be old and tied and dependent on your parents. She longed to be free to follow an impulse as Brian had done. She felt certain it was an impulse; that Helen Townsend business had been the real thing, she was sure.

  Lady Gurney glanced at the snapshot and handed it to Daphne. Sir James looked at it over her shoulder. Daphne felt a sudden choking feeling in her throat and the tears were stinging her eyes. Tears of jealousy and frustration because the young girl on horseback was so young, so keenly alive and beautiful. She seemed to be part of something Daphne had almost forgotten and the memory was nearly unbearable. Looking at Serena’s photograph, Daphne wanted to feel the roundness of Ian in her arms, the fumbling of his arms around her neck. She forced her mind back to the room and her parents again.