Statues in a Garden

by Isabel Colegate

  ‘Oh a bank, you mean, something like that?’

  ‘Well – that sort of thing. But it’s all in the air, you understand I mean, as regards my part in it, if any I’m just turning it over in my mind.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You mean you would resign your commission. Well, if you really think it would be a wise thing to do. Have you talked to Aylmer about it?’

  ‘No. I thought I would wait until I had something rather more definite to suggest.’

  ‘As long as you don’t do anything rash, without consulting him. But tell me more about this friend.’

  ‘I’d like to but I think it will have to wait, because there’s the first bell. Perhaps tomorrow? But will you not mention it to Aylmer just yet? Would you mind?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind. Thank you, Beatrice. But don’t forget that his advice can be valuable.’ The maid left the room, but Cynthia stayed sitting in front of the mirror for a moment. ‘He is very experienced, you know I think he would be able to help you.’

  ‘I know.’ He seemed to have lost interest in the subject, to be looking round the room at her things, her furniture, her Chinese silk wrap at the end of her bed, in search of something else to talk about.

  She still gazed at her reflection in the mirror, serious.

  He looked at it too. ‘Oh Cynthia, you are very beautiful I wish I were your son.’

  Her eyes opened wide.

  ‘But you are.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I should feel safer if I were.’

  ‘Safer?’ She bent her head, fastening a bracelet on her wrist. ‘You are safe.’ She turned to look at him, the mirror behind her. ‘Don’t be so self doubting. Of course you are safe. We are all safe – as safe as anyone can be who has got to die some day – and we can surely hope, if we have not lost touch with God, to be safe even then. Philip, you haven’t done anything wrong, have you?’

  ‘Anything wrong?’ He looked surprised, then amused. ‘Nothing against the law.’

  ‘Because you know we are here to help you. You wouldn’t conceal anything like that from us, would you?’

  He shook his head hopelessly. ‘No, no.’

  She persevered. ‘I thought it might be that something was making you feel guilty. Because if you have nothing to be ashamed of, you see, it seems to me that nothing should be holding you back from – well, from doing anything you likez. From taking, in all confidence, what is offered by life. We have such luck. We are born in a lucky age for people of our class. We have such opportunities to be happy and to do good. If we remember our responsibilities and can keep our self respect, what is there to spoil life?’ She wanted to communicate her own confidence.

  ‘Is this what Aylmer tells you?’

  ‘Of course. It is what he believes.’

  ‘But, Cynthia, you don’t know what it’s all about, you don’t know what life is like. No, I mean you are what Aylmer has made you. You’re different really, you don’t know how different you are.’

  She was very reasonable. ‘Even if I am as Aylmer made me, I nevertheless am what Aylmer has made me. Everybody is made into something one way or another, and women of course by their husbands. Why not?’ She smiled at him.

  ‘But.’ He turned away. ‘Oh well.’ He turned back, smiled, took her hand and looked at it. ‘Who will make me then?’

  She said seriously, ‘I expect you will have to make your self.’

  ‘Why are your hands so white?’

  ‘Beatrice makes some stuff with lemon juice in it which she puts on them. Philip, are you? I wish I knew what really was bothering you.’

  ‘I am not bothered, I am not bothered. I want to hurt your hand.’

  She laid her other hand gently on the back of his. ‘No, no I believe that’s all you want, to hurt me. That’s why you’re saying this, whatever it is you are saying. Oh Philip, you are very trying. Now we’re late. Come along.’ She put her hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll behave very well for the rest of the evening.’

  Harbingers of violence in the violet dusk, Miss Ada Thompson and Miss Clara Pease Henneky lurked in the bushes by the drive. Gazing at the softly golden house, they relished the thought of the fright they would give it. They did not know that they were not alone, that the rabbit was wandering down the hillside behind them to be slaughtered by the fox, that the blackbird’s unwinking eye was not a foot from their felt hats as she sat on her five warm eggs, that the blunt headed owl was above them on moth soft wings, night hunting too. But perhaps they felt it, because they trembled and breathed faster, in their hats and skirts become elemental.

  3

  Lord Tamworth, taking Cynthia in to dinner, said, ‘How charming it always looks in here. And how often I have argued back and forth across this table.’

  ‘You’re so sweet the way you don’t mind being plunged into a noisy family party. But tonight we are going to be very quiet and restrained.’

  ‘Are we? Oh dear.’

  ‘Yes, because it’s such a lovely evening I think we could have a little of that window open, Bartlett. I don’t think it will blow out the candles. To think it is only May.’

  ‘I fear it can’t last, as early as this, and we shall have ram. Is your tennis court in use yet?’

  ‘Yes. We must play tomorrow.’

  ‘Aylmer’s too good for me. I think I shall stick to croquet.’

  ‘He’s out of practice. He’s played hardly at all this year Really he does more bicycling than tennis for exercise.’

  ‘Ah, la bicyclette. I must tell you an amusing story about a “biking” episode. It happened when we were staying with –’

  Lady Tamworth at the other end of the table. ‘Of course it is said of him that he is a careerist, but I can never understand why that should be supposed to be shocking in a politician. What else could he be?’

  Aylmer. ‘Ah now, that is a bait to which I shall have to rise. He could be many other things. Let’s agree first on what we mean by a careerist.’

  Margaret James to Philip. ‘Have you been to the Academy yet?’

  ‘No. Have you?’

  ‘I went to the Private View on Friday. I thought it was not so good this year as last.’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘Didn’t you think last year’s was good then?’

  ‘I didn’t see it.’

  ‘You don’t much care for Art?’

  ‘I care very much.’

  ‘Ah then, I know, you are advanced. You like Kokoschka and that sort of thing, don’t you? There, you are amazed that I’ve heard of him. As a matter of fact I don’t know anything about his pictures I just keep his name at the back of my mind to confound people with. Never mind, let us compromise with the Russian Ballet. I am sure we can agree on that, can’t we?’

  ‘Of course. It’s marvellous.’

  ‘Isn’t it? And isn’t Nijinsky frightfully fascinating? And wasn’t the decor for Scheherazade simply the most divine thing in the world?’

  Violet to Edmund. ‘And how are they, the friends, let loose at last on the world? Or are they still sheltered, still pretending to be at Cambridge?’

  ‘Only when we are alone. Only then do we dare to expose our unshakeable sense of our own superiority. The rest of the time we pretend to think we are just like anyone else.’

  ‘I heard that Francis Maude had gone to South Africa. I am afraid you will sustain other losses.’

  ‘I hope they won’t be real losses. Maude is a good correspondent. Charles is going back to Cambridge, to King’s, to be a don.’

  ‘Father will be sorry. He was the one he most hoped would go into politics.’

  ‘He may not have become irretrievably academic. But I think he will stay there. He cares too much for the pursuit of the realities in his own subject, and for his relationships with his friends, to have time for politics. They are getting more and more demanding, you know. Manners, by the way, was quite bouleversé when I told him of your engagement. I suppose you had bee
n leading him up the garden path.’

  ‘Not in the least I only met him once or twice. I did think him very amusing. But he spits. I would never lead up the garden path a man who spits.’

  ‘Really? He spits? By accident, you mean, or design?’

  ‘Oh, accident, I suppose I mean, when he speaks I don’t mean what you might call a therapeutical spit.’

  ‘Look out, or you’ll start spitting yourself. Hasn’t Wilfred cured you of the giggling habit yet?’

  ‘No, but he’s tried. He thinks I’m flippant. Through being fashionable, he says.’

  ‘He’s quite right, too. No, no, all right, I know it isn’t in the least true of you, and anyway it’s fun to do a little of it, but I’m glad in a way that you and Wilfred, when you marry, won’t be too much in the thick of things. It’s hard to limit, that’s the trouble. Someone like your admirer. Manners I mean – if one spends all one’s time in dancing and gambling and mad parties there’s no time for anything else – and yet, once one starts getting asked of course it’s fun and one doesn’t refuse. Now you’re going to say I’m being pompous, but really one does have to try and strike the balance – so much to do and so little time, and all that.’

  ‘Not so little time, poor old thing, is there? Or do you mean, so little time before your Bar Finals?’

  ‘Partly that. In fact I’m thinking of taking a week or two off while you’re all up in London and coming down here to bury myself in my books.’

  ‘That’s just because you love it so much here, nothing to do with work. Besides you’ll get no peace from Kitty.’

  ‘The new governess will keep her occupied. I like her, don’t you? Miss Benedict, I mean.’

  ‘Awfully. I wonder why she’s a governess. Is there some sad story, do you think?’

  ‘How romantic you are. What sort of story do you think – a wicked stepmother?’

  ‘A cad. A monstrous cad who let her down.’

  A fish soufflé, the palest gold, intricately decorated with prawns and parsley. Lady Tamworth protested, ‘It’s too pretty to break into,’ but broke into it none the less.

  Wilfred Moreton was sitting on old Mrs Weston’s deaf side, so their conversation was slightly disjointed.

  ‘I used to know someone who lived in Radnorshire, must be a neighbour of yours. A general, fought in the Crimea, made a frightful fool of himself, I believe.’

  ‘I can’t think of any generals in our immediate neighbourhood.’

  ‘That will be him, yes. Terrible old bore, isn’t he? It was his wife I used to like. Carmelita she was called. Made her own divided skirts long before they came into fashion. Can’t think why she married him I suppose she thought it would be a life of adventure.’

  ‘Ah well, they say a soldier’s life.’

  ‘Aren’t they? Absolute frights, as often as not. Though it’s very detached of you to say so since you are just about to make our poor Violet one.’

  ‘Make her a—? Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes, I see. A soldier’s wife. Yes, rather.’

  ‘Or don’t you see her in that light?’

  ‘I certainly do. Not that that’s the reason – well, I mean – I know she will make a perfect soldier’s wife but that’s just my jolly luck. I should have asked her to marry me if she had been the least likely to be so of any woman in the world.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. Because you wouldn’t have fallen in love with her.’

  ‘I most certainly should.’

  ‘No, you would not have been drawn to her had she not been cut out to be a soldier’s wife. Love is much more a question of convenience than you think.’

  ‘Not at all. I won’t be shaken in my faith in love.’

  ‘Nor will I It’s the only faith I have. But I don’t look on it in quite your light. But tell me – I hear you are a great sports man?’

  Cynthia laughed at a scandal from Lord Tamworth.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you, I thought you knew,’ he said in mock embarrassment. ‘I should never have told you, had I not thought you suspected.’

  ‘Nonsense. It wouldn’t have been nearly such fun for you if I had.’

  ‘But I am not as a rule a faiseur d’embarras, now am I? Am I not the soul of discretion, of propriety, of decorum?’

  ‘But of course!’ And Philip asked me for something and I did not know what it was he was asking for and so I could not give it to him. But I would give him anything. ‘Is he looking well, do you think, or rather pale?’

  ‘Who is this? Oh, your nephew. He looks well enough to me.’ Why do so many voices become reserved at Philip’s name? ‘Bit of a gambler, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not excessively, I believe.’

  ‘I hear good things of Edmund on many sides. I think he’s going to carry on his father’s work, you know – he’s really sound, I believe. It’s a great thing when they turn out like that.’

  ‘I know. Oh, I know.’

  Philip. Now she is suddenly clouded, her eyes down, frowning slightly. Is it something I said before dinner? Good I wanted to cloud her. But not to make her lower her eyes. Why hasn’t he noticed, why does he never notice her moods, why does he treat her like a mirror, a pretty little mirror, when she could burn him to a cinder if once she would show him her own image instead of his? Oh yes, Miss James, yes, I will play. What do you like to play? Charades? I will take you out to tea at Rumpelmeyer’s. But I am quite ineligible, you know. My father had very little to leave me, and though my kind uncle provides for me, he has a son younger than I am, who will inherit everything. I wonder if you do know. Perhaps you do. Perhaps you think it is safe to flirt with me, to show me how light and frivolous you are, because I am a detrimental and do not matter. How little she knows. How little she knows how little I matter. Oh lovely violence, make some move!

  Mrs Weston, putting on her stern old lady’s voice. ‘Brooding, brooding? How is your reading?’

  Philip ‘What’s wrong with brooding? And I have read nothing, except Bernhardi. I look at pictures instead.’

  ‘What an extraordinary choice. What can have led you to him? A cheap militarist, a common pamphleteer – what made you read him?’

  ‘Someone recommended it to me I can’t say I cared for it greatly, though of course blood and iron makes sense in international relations.’

  ‘Does it indeed! Bernhardi! Well! Nietzsche, if you like, though I’d rather read Hegel myself. Look here, perhaps I could recommend you one or two books which might interest you?’

  Candles. Rosewood. Silver. Pale tulips. Dear Violet, I would like to tell you, Edmund thought, about how touched I am by the thought of your marriage and how ardently I wish you to be happy, and how I wish that I too might find a companion with whom to begin a long to and fro of love. Wilfred’s an ass of course. Still, an honourable and loving ass. And dear Violet for all her charm is no brilliant intellect. I expect they will do very well. Oh God, let them do very well. ‘Oh no, you flatter me, Lady Tamworth. I spend my whole time at my studies.’

  ‘Edmund, what a barefaced lie. I hear of nothing but your conquests. Lady Curzon told me that pretty little Anna Forbes who was in her party the other night.’

  Now I have a moment’s peace, at the head of my table, thought Aylmer. Enid Tamworth is busy with Edmund, Margaret with Philip – they have talked a good deal this evening – perhaps if Philip were to marry and settle down? But he is hardly in a position to, and anyway she strikes me as rather a foolish little creature. He could do better I think. I am improving in one respect, that is that I am better able to pause and savour things instead of involving myself in them so blindly that it is only afterwards that I realize what in fact they were Cynthia said the other day she thought I was becoming too detached – over Ireland that was – but I detach myself in order to see. Amusing, old Tammy, he puts on such a performance all the time – yet it is all very agreeable – a lightweight, though, for all his good brain. She’d have made a good wife for a more outstanding man. They suit each other well enough, though. Two
letters, but I think I can do these tomorrow. Bed early perhaps. Thucydides I think. I made my position clear to Asquith on Thursday. It’s no use being blackmailed by Carson and his crew. But I shall not think about that tonight Edmund. Has he enough stamina? Have I? Oh yes, I am very steady these days. Pretty Violet. Cynthia will cry a great deal about the first wedding in the family. Wilfred’s an ass of course. But quite sound. I am not feeling sentimental this evening after all I thought for a moment I was. But no. Merely content I shall plead overwork, escape early, go to bed, read Thucydides.

  Violet and Lord Tamworth were talking about Venice, Aylmer lightly extolling to Miss James the virtues of Balzac. Plump poussins dressed up in watercress, silver lids removed to expose the mounds of baked mashed potato, Mrs Weston on Schopenhauer, Philip not listening, Wilfred, now more animated, telling Cynthia about the wing span of the albatross, Lady Tamworth giving a sparkling account of the late King’s death bed ‘and the minute she let her in – the Queen, I mean, let Mrs Keppel in – the minute, my dear, before she’d even shut the bedroom door.’ A crash. A splintering. A silence.

  ‘Sit down, Philip,’ said Aylmer quietly. ‘What is it, Bartlett?’

  The butler, moving aside the curtain, picked up the brick and brought it to Aylmer, holding it in front of him so that he could read the note which was fastened to it by an elastic band and which said, VOTES FOR WOMEN!

  A footman came in and spoke quietly to the butler, who passed on the message to Aylmer.

  ‘No, no, let them go,’ said Aylmer. ‘Tell James to escort them politely – politely – to the gate. He had better take Mrs Parsons with him as chaperon.’ Turning to Lady Tamworth, he said, ‘I’m so sorry I fear that must be an effect of my speech last week. You didn’t know you were coming to such a dangerous house.’

  Edmund said, ‘Father, I wonder whether someone ought just to have a look round outside – you know, in case?’

  ‘Yes Bartlett, ask them to inspect the stables and outbuildings and see they’re all right, would you?’

  Margaret James flushed suddenly. ‘Arson! How can they be so wicked?’