Sensible Life

by Mary Wesley

  “It’s my dress,” said Joyce. “Tash stripped her knickers off; you should have seen Hubert and Cosmo’s faces. The line of the knickers showing through made the dress look common.”

  “C-c-common.” Felicity tried not to laugh. “Shall I keep the roads of Germany for another time? They have military potential.”

  “What we require at this moment is some form of suppressant,” said Angus. “I think my daughter is about to bolt.”

  “He’s given to horsey turns of phrase,” said Joyce, who seemed to be enjoying herself. “He’s right, though, the old darling. Hark, I hear a warning note.”

  “Your speech impediment—” Angus strove to ignore an eruption farther down the table. Then: “Oh I say!” He gave up polite conversation to glare down the table at his daughter. “What?” Felicity watched with interest. In a novel, she thought, trouble would have been brewing for a long time; was it possible Flora was responsible? Were those velvety brown eyes the cause of Mabs’ raised voice? “What’s going on?” Angus asked loudly.

  Mabs shouted: “I’m breaking off my engagement, Father, that’s what’s going on.”

  (Quiet country atmosphere, my foot, thought Felicity.)

  “During dinner?” enquired Angus, forking soufflé into his mouth.

  “For ever,” shouted Mabs.

  “Don’t shout, darling. We are not deaf,” said Milly.

  “Why?” asked Angus, as the parlourmaid removed his plate.

  (I couldn’t possibly write it down as it’s happening, thought Felicity.)

  “He’s boring, I can’t stand his clothes, he drinks, he gambles, I can’t stand his conversation, he doesn’t wash, he smells of old sweat and number two.”

  “Steady on, old girl,” said Nigel.

  “And I can’t stand the thought of going to bed with him. He’s got short legs.”

  “A long whatsit,” countered Nigel, beginning to bristle. “You wait and see.”

  “Oh dear,” said Milly. “Stop it, Mabs, this isn’t—”

  “And he’s not ‘my dear,’ nor will he ever be.” Mabs in spate seemed unable to stop. “You stopped me getting off with Felix, you—”

  “Felix got off with my brother and his girlfriend.” Joyce, elbows on the table, leaned towards Mabs. “Felix likes everything and everyone. He’s the greatest all-rounder of all time.”

  “What are you talking about?” exclaimed Milly. “Joyce, please!”

  “You only want me to marry Nigel because he’s got money, makes money and is inheriting a house; all you think of is class and security.”

  “Not all that again,” said Cosmo.

  “Give me back the ring then,” said Nigel. “I’ll give it to Flora. Flora will marry me like a shot, won’t you, Flora?”

  “No, I won’t,” said Flora.

  “Flora’s too young for you,” shouted Cosmo. “Anyway, she belongs to Blanco and me.”

  “You keep out of this,” shrieked Mabs. “Flora is too good for you, she’ll go far.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt that,” said Angus under his breath.

  “She’s much too good, just look at her, lovely, demure, virgin—” Tashie was not to be left out.

  “I’d hardly say—” began Henry.

  “Who asked you to say anything,” snarled Nigel. “This is between my fiancée and myself.”

  “I’m not your fiancée—I’ve broken—”

  “Mabs, darling, please—” said Milly.

  “Shall I ask cook to delay the duck, madam?” asked the butler at Milly’s elbow.

  “Yes, no, no.”

  Angus stood up. “Shut up and get out, all of you. I will not have this behaviour at my dinner table.”

  “You often do,” said Joyce pertly.

  (That’s interesting, thought Felicity.)

  “Out,” said Angus.

  “I don’t know what all this is in aid of. Do you want to break our engagement, Tashie?” Henry tried to lower the temperature. “Be a la mode?” he asked conversationally.

  “This is not a joke.” Tashie’s voice rose several decibels. “Henry, you mustn’t joke.”

  “Will you get out?” Angus roared. “I mean it. All of you. Not you, Miss Green.”

  “Felicity. Do call me Felicity.”

  “All right, Felicity, you stay and don’t you go, Flora, you haven’t done anything. And you, Henry, stay to keep me company.”

  “Sir,” said Henry, looking unhappily at Tashie.

  “Stay,” said Angus. Henry stayed.

  Mabs, Tashie, Cosmo and Hubert pushed back their chairs and trooped out. Nigel gulped the last of his wine and followed them.

  “Perhaps we could get on with our dinner,” said Angus, “while your daughter comes to her senses.”

  “Our daughter,” said Milly, exasperated, then, “What’s it like to have your first proposal?” she asked Flora.

  Flora put her napkin on the table and left the room. Henry got up and followed her.

  “Was that necessary?” Angus glared at his wife.

  “She started it,” said Milly, meeting his eye.

  “Duck, Miss?” said the butler, proffering the entrée dish.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ANGUS, MILLY, TASHIE, HENRY and Joyce came out to watch Gage stow suitcases in the boot of Felicity’s car. Mabs, Nigel, Cosmo and Hubert were noticeable by their absence. The family dogs grouped languidly around the front door, mouths slightly agape, benevolent tails wagging.

  “Please say goodbye to the others for me,” said Felicity, in the role of departing guest. “I am so sorry to miss them.”

  Milly stood beside her husband, legs slightly apart, like a boxer preparing to parry a blow. She held the dog Bootsie against her chest. “Of course I will,” she said. “I apologize for their lack of manners. They must still be snoring. It takes something they think really important to rouse them in the mornings.” Milly let her eye pass over Flora waiting quietly near Tashie and Joyce.

  Sensing the maggot jealousy Felicity turned to Angus. “I meant to explain, General Leigh. Those ideas about roads; none have been built yet. Hitler wrote this book, Mein Kampf. It’s all in that—”

  “I don’t read German.” Angus’ eyes rested appraisingly on Flora.

  “It is bound to be translated.” Felicity wished the butler would make haste with the luggage; he had earlier loftily refused her proffered tip. “It would be worth your while,” she said, wishing she had the nerve to add, “you old fool.” (Somebody might have told her not to tip the servants, that it was against house rules.)

  “Isn’t it time someone taught that child the facts of life?” Angus spoke thoughtfully.

  “I assumed, after last night’s exhibition, that she knew them,” Milly answered. “Or were you about to volunteer?” she gritted between her teeth. She had dressed, Felicity noted, in tweeds, as though in response to an unwelcome breeze, yet the day was warm. “When Miss Green has gone,” she said to the butler, “see that somebody wakes Mr. Cosmo and his friend.”

  The butler raised a shoulder and gave a half-nod towards Tashie and Joyce, who stood attentively smiling.

  “I can’t thank you enough for putting me up.” Felicity abandoned Mein Kampf and, hoping to speed departure, began shaking hands and moving towards her car. “It’s been lovely to break my journey, goodbye,” she said. “Goodbye, goodbye,” she said to Tashie, Joyce and Henry. “I have so enjoyed meeting you.”

  Flora extended her hand to Milly. “Thank you, Mrs. Leigh, for having me; it’s been a wonderful—”

  “You must come again, my dear. I’ll write.” Milly pecked towards Flora’s cheek. In her arms Bootsie growled.

  “I know you won’t,” Flora said quietly as she turned towards Angus. “Goodbye,” she said, “and thank you for your kindness.”

  “Won’t you give an old man a kiss?” Angus put an arm round Flora, drew her to him and kissed her. “Tell you what, when I’m down in London I’ll invite you to lunch at my club. How would that be?�
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  Flora did not answer and was immediately surrounded by Tashie, Joyce and Henry who hugged and kissed her as she walked towards the car, crying: “Goodbye, safe journey, write to us, see you soon, don’t forget,” so that the attendant dogs, infected by their enthusiasm, began barking hysterically.

  Flora did not look back as Felicity drove down the drive. She exposed only a slight profile under her school panama. In blouse and skirt, lisle stockings and clumpy shoes she looked a typical schoolgirl. Felicity wondered whether to break the silence enclosing them. “Mind the dog,” said Flora, looking out of the car window.

  “What dog?” Felicity braked nervously.

  “Bootsie, Mrs. Leigh’s treasure. She’s on your side now. She chases cars, does Bootsie.”

  “Damn.” Felicity, who disliked dogs, accelerated past the scuttling animal.

  “Missed her,” Flora sat back and crossed her legs. “Just.”

  Two miles down the valley Cosmo and Hubert barred the way. Felicity stopped abruptly. They opened the car door and pulled Flora out and, holding her between them, kissed and caressed her, nuzzled her neck, stroked her hair, tipped the panama onto the road. Felicity watched, astonished. Flora freed herself, bent to retrieve her hat and scrambled back into the car, shutting the door. She was very pale. She waved a hand, indicating that Felicity should drive on.

  Looking back in the mirror, Felicity Green saw Cosmo and Hubert watching until a bend in the road hid them from sight. Yet, rounding the bend, her novelist’s imagination registered Cosmo striking Hubert violently in the face. Beside her Flora, face hidden by the panama, sat in silence.

  After a while Felicity let out her breath and said: “Well!”

  Flora did not respond.

  Felicity wished her passenger would say something, do something; weep, for instance? As the miles flew past she started to feel angry. “I did not notice Mabs and Nigel troubling to see you off,” she observed. “Or shall we find them, too, lying in wait to give me a coronary?” She spoke spitefully. Flora had been imposed on her; with the girl beside her she could not possibly compose her chapter.

  “They are too busy,” Flora sounded jubilant, not weepy. She slapped her knees as an old man might, tipped up the brim of her hat and laughed a long chuckling laugh. “Nigel said to look in The Times in nine months’ time.” Her laughter escaped in little gusts and rushes. “They are all right,” she said, “all right!”

  Felicity said, “Oh,” and “I see,” glancing sideways at Flora. She desperately wanted to ask what had happened after the row at dinner. The house had been strangely quiet. She had played three-handed bridge with Angus and Milly; it was still quiet when they had gone to bed. The young people had disappeared. Looking at the upturned brim of Flora’s panama she decided not to ask.

  Then, puzzled as to why she would not ask—Flora was after all only a child—she was faced with the uneasy answer: the girl was not a child. There was no question of it in the way Cosmo and Hubert behaved, murmuring endearments, holding her intimately. Words she used sparingly or not at all in her novels filtered into her reluctant mind: lust, passion, loins? She felt a pang of retrospective sympathy for Milly, found herself flushing. The previous evening Flora had looked shockingly innocent in the black dress; now in the unbecoming school uniform she was sensual and desirable. The blow she had seen Cosmo deal Hubert was not imaginary. Felicity Green, who prided herself on her breadth of mind, was shocked.

  PART THREE

  THIRTY-TWO

  “YOU ARE EARLY!” SAID the receptionist.

  “I don’t mind waiting.” Flora shuffled through a pile of magazines to find The Tatler. “If I am cluttering up your waiting-room, I’ll wait in the hall.”

  The receptionist was new. Her predecessor would have known that she came early, that sometimes she lingered in the waiting-room after her appointment; that she came every holiday before the start of term.

  Flora sat with her back to the window beyond which a melancholy sea ground shingle against the wall of the promenade. Opposite her an old gentleman sat reading The Field. “When you have finished with that,” Flora said, “might I have a look?”

  “Have it now,” said the old man. “There is an excellent article on wild geese.”

  “I am not so much interested in wild geese as in tame humans,” Flora murmured. “Please don’t hurry,” she said. “I’ll skip through this first.” She raised The Tatler for him to see.

  “You can have The Sketch if you like,” said a grey-haired matron. “I can’t concentrate. I have an abscess.” She handed the magazine to Flora. The receptionist called her name and she hurried away. Flora laid The Sketch on her knee, ignoring a hungry look from a woman waiting with a fidgety child. The old man stopped reading The Field and took note of Flora. About seventeen, he surmised, still at school, vide the uniform, good legs, beautiful skin. Figure? Impossible to gauge under those garments. Nothing wrong with her teeth. He eased his denture with his tongue where it pressed on his gums. Lovely hair and eyes. Strange the way she flicked through the magazine. “I hope you find what you are looking for.” He was unable to control his curiosity.

  “Sometimes I do, usually I don’t.” She looked up briefly.

  Could those eyelashes be real?

  The receptionist called his name; he got stiffly to his feet and handed Flora The Field which, thanking him, she laid on top of The Sketch in her lap. The woman with the child hissed, “Really!” It was possible Flora did not hear; she finished riffling through The Tatler and put it back on the centre table. The woman compressed her lips and resisted picking it up. Flora started on The Sketch.

  A year ago her finger, sliding on the pages of a similar magazine, had evoked the memory of cool skin on Cosmo’s inner arm and, her mind leaping, she remembered too the salty taste of Hubert’s eyelids when they kissed on that last night at Coppermalt.

  Banished by Angus from the dinner table, they had run from the house across the lawn. At the haha she had taken off her shoes to tread barefoot on the soft grass, reaching the river between Cosmo and Hubert, where Mabs, a little apart, was clinched in bitter argument with Nigel. Then Henry, loping along with Tashie and Joyce, brought champagne. They had raided the cellar; Gage, the butler, had connived. Hubert had laughed and said, “He is a closet socialist.” Tracing her finger across the slippery page, Flora remembered that it was Joyce who suggested they should swim while the champagne cooled at the edge of the pool.

  “I shall swim in my knickers and bra,” Joyce said. “I’ve done it with my Irish cousins, it’s perfectly decent.” She had taken off her dress and slip and hung them on the branch of a tree.

  Tashie followed suit, and Mabs, whose argument had ground to a halt, undressed also, while the men divested themselves of dinner jackets, trousers and stiff shirts, hanging them among the dresses and slips in the moonlight until the tree became host to a band of ghostly dancers.

  “And Flora? What about Flora?”

  “Flora, you must swim.”

  “Come on, Flora, try,” said Tashie.

  “She can’t,” said Mabs. “She has nothing on underneath.”

  “It’s dark,” said Joyce (which was partly true).

  Then Hubert and Cosmo took the hem of the black dress and peeled it up over her head. “Now you look decent,” they said. “Positively respectable. Infinitely more decent than dressed.”

  Joyce said, “If that’s how things are, I’ll keep my knickers dry,” and she hung her panties and bra on the tree and dived into the river, but not before it was noted that the hair of her head was no more orange than that between her legs. The others also draped their underclothes among the branches. Swimming naked in the peaty water, she had learned the feel of Cosmo’s skin and Hubert’s eyelids, cool in the water, cool as marble. Sitting in the dentist’s waiting-room, Flora remembered. It was later on the riverbank, drinking champagne, wrapped in Hubert’s dinner jacket, that Hubert leaned across her to speak to Cosmo: “This is becoming serious. I
don’t want to fight, but I’ll take you on at any game you like—” and Cosmo, also leaning across her, “I thought you only gambled for money, not—” their faces practically touching. Then Hubert, fumbling in the pocket of his coat as though it hung on a hanger and not across Flora’s shoulders, found dice and said harshly, nastily, “Winner takes all.”

  And she, alarmed, had leaned away from them, supporting herself on her hands while they stared at each other across her body. She said, “No. No. You must not,” her voice sharp with a sense of loss. She remembered in the dentist’s waiting-room her frisson of fear.

  Mabs had called to them, “What’s going on? Listen, all of you, Nigel and I have made it up!” She sounded so happy, Flora remembered.

  Nigel had popped another bottle and there had been a sense of relief and jollity which spread to Cosmo and Hubert, who renewed their discussion but on a jokey, amiable plane.

  “I saw her first, she was on a beach in France with a dog,” claimed Cosmo. “So she’s mine.”

  Wrapped in Hubert’s jacket, Flora murmured, “His name was Tonton.” She had had to move her legs, for there was a thistle in the grass. She remembered the thistle.

  Hubert countered: “I stopped her drowning. Technically she belongs to me, like salvage.”

  “Make up your mind who you belong to.” Which of them had said that? They were both a little drunk (and I suppose I was too).

  They had flanked her on that summer night, naked but not marble. She had answered lightly, to hide a confusion of feelings, that she could not, would not, decide and they, sensing her discomfort, had said: “Very well, we will share,” and “She is too young to decide,” “Too young,” teasing her gently now, without passion. She had been happy lying between them on the river bank while Cosmo kissed her mouth and, nuzzling open the jacket, her breasts. Then Hubert, kissing her roughly, had pressed his hand over her pubic hair, muttering, “I need to do that,” so that her sense of happiness was superseded by something startling and pleasurable.

  Then Mabs, interrupting, her arms round Nigel, stood above them. “You’ll catch your deaths of cold, you licentious creatures.” And Nigel said, “We are off to do a little premarital fornicating in bed. Not for us the great outdoors. Mabs has forgiven my short legs.”