Mary was inordinately proud of him and never stopped talking about how well he was doing; but Jack’s primary emotion on the subject seemed closer to distaste. Tom found this, as he said to Angela, hurtful. Angela, surprisingly sensitive over such matters, kissed him and told him Jack was probably just jealous, which Tom conceded. But he would still have greatly preferred his father to speak as proudly of him as he did of his brothers, Colin and Arthur, who were both apprenticed to local builders.
Chapter 3
1938
‘Michael’s asked if he can bring someone called Edward Welles down this weekend.’ Lady Southcott smiled at Diana across the breakfast table. ‘He’s a new friend from the medical school at Barts. I don’t know anything more about him, except that we are to call him Ned and his father’s a famous surgeon. But I’m sure he’s very nice – Michael’s friends always are.’
This was a bit of a sweeping statement, Diana thought, and quite untrue. Some of them were ghastly, loud, blustering and overconfident, but anything would be better than the stultifying boredom of another weekend alone with her parents.
Michael had finished his three years at Oxford and gained an Upper Second in his first MB; he was now at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London to do his clinical training. He loved it and was extremely happy.
Diana envied him desperately. She was finding the autumn and the ending of the season very dull and disappointing after a whirlwind summer; and until the winter party season began, almost every invitation seemed to be to an engagement party, some for girls in her year. Diana found these hugely irritating; it wasn’t that she actually wanted to be engaged (and indeed was quite vocal on the subject) but she liked to shine, and seeing diamond rings flashing on the fingers of other girls, while her own left hand remained indisputably bare, clearly made this difficult.
‘Well – let’s hope,’ was all she said now.
‘Darling, don’t be negative,’ Caroline said. ‘Now, I had thought we could do a dinner party, but Michael said they’d rather keep it just family. He and Ned have had a very heavy few weeks and they don’t even want to go hunting; Ned’s not a horseman apparently. So it’ll just be the five of us for dinner on Saturday. Unless you want to invite a girlfriend, darling. Suki, perhaps – we still owe her for her cocktail party.’
Diana didn’t. If Ned Welles was even half attractive, the thought of anyone amongst her girlfriends vying for his attention was not a happy one. On the other hand, she didn’t want him to think she had nothing else to do for a whole weekend.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘No, she’d be bored. She’s a party girl and this is family, you said so yourself.’
Caroline looked at her with a sweet expression. ‘Well, I realise it would make the weekend a bit man-heavy, but what about inviting Johnathan Gunning? He’s such a sweet man, and you get on rather well. He’s a bit stuck in London at weekends, with his people living up in Yorkshire. He told me last time I saw him how much he loved hunting.’
‘I thought Ned didn’t want to hunt,’ said Diana.
‘Darling, Ned is Michael’s friend and responsibility, not yours, so you could give Johnathan a day’s hunting.’
She looked at Diana hopefully. Johnathan Gunning’s family was not only rich but titled. He was the third son of Sir Hilary Gunning, Bart, and thus an Hon. The extra h in his name was a family idiosyncrasy and Diana rather liked it; you couldn’t hear it, of course, but written down, especially with the Hon. in front, it made it look rather special. He had grown up in considerable grandeur in the family seat, Guildford Park in Yorkshire, and was training to be a stockbroker in his uncle’s office.
Although he wasn’t exactly handsome, he was very nice looking, with light brown hair and dark eyes, and more of a chin than so many of his compatriots. He was charming, if in a slightly quiet way. He lived in a flat in Knightsbridge belonging to his mother, where Diana had been to a couple of dinner parties. The flat was quite grand in an old-fashioned way, and it seemed to her to symbolise unimaginable grown-upness and independence.
He was in many ways a considerable catch and at nearly twenty-four the right age for her. The catching was a distinct possibility and her mother was very excited by the idea. He clearly liked Diana and as well as the dinner parties had escorted her both to Ladies’ Day at Ascot and to Goodwood, and to the theatre a couple of times. The only thing was, she found him rather dull. He was certainly very clever – he had a First in Classics – and he loved going to the theatre – the proper theatre, not musicals, but Shakespeare and Restoration comedy (which had seemed extremely unamusing to her); he also liked to talk about politics and the situation in Europe. Of course, that was extremely important and worrying (her father never stopped talking about it either) but again not exactly fun over dinner.
So, with the season over, they had rather drifted apart; Johnathan worked very hard in London, she was very much back in the country, and there were few opportunities for them to meet. Maybe this weekend would be a chance to make quite sure it wasn’t worth trying. Hunting would be fun, and with him sitting next to her at dinner Ned Welles was more likely to find her attractive and interesting.
‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you ring him up, see if he’s free? Only do make clear it’s for the hunting, won’t you? I don’t want him to think I’m chasing him.’
‘Darling, of course I will. Now dinner – pheasant do you think, or some good old-fashioned beef?’
Diana hardly heard her mother chattering on. She was worrying now that she had done the wrong thing, encouraging Johnathan, muddying the possible waters with Ned Welles. Oh, for goodness’ sake, she thought, he was probably short, with pimples. She decided to go for a ride. It wasn’t quite raining and it would pass the morning.
It was pathetic to be leading the life of little more than a child when she was nearly eighteen, she thought, turning her horse towards the Downs. She occasionally thought about getting a job in London, but then what on earth could she do? She had no skills or qualifications. It was how things were, so it wasn’t her fault. You had to wait until you were married and then you were busy, running a house and entertaining and having babies. Maybe when she saw Johnathan this weekend she would find him more, well, more what she wanted. But … she just didn’t find him attractive. There was no spark there, he just wasn’t sexy. She had been kissed enough by sexy boys to know what that felt like. Being kissed by Johnathan was perfectly pleasant, but it didn’t create that hot churning feeling inside her that some of the other boys’ kisses did. She had a fairly clear idea of what sex might be like, and a few of her more daring girlfriends had actually Done It – Suki Riley-Smith amongst them, which was another reason for not letting her near Ned Welles at dinner – and reported varying degrees of satisfaction, ranging from ‘rather thrilling’ to ‘absolutely amazing, impossible to imagine’.
Diana, however, had no intention of sampling the pleasures; she adhered to the old-fashioned view, heavily stressed by her mother, that your virginity was something best saved for your future husband, and if it wasn’t, you risked losing respect and gaining an unsavoury reputation.
As she rode back, still with a sense of restless depression about herself and her situation, she passed the cottage where she had had the encounter with Tom Knelston as he dug out his parents’ drain. The meeting came back to her with great clarity. Now he was really attractive, absurdly good-looking with his dark auburn hair and wonderful green eyes, and quite – well, very – sexy, his eyes moving over her, half in appreciation, half in a sort of mocking disapproval. His whole demeanour, in fact, had disturbed her even then, when she was sixteen. He was a year younger, or so Michael told her; he had played in the village cricket match against him for the last two years, and pronounced him a bloody good player for a village boy. She had seen him occasionally at church, cycling through the village on his way to school, occasionally helping his father deliver the post at Christmas, growing ever taller and more handsome.
She was sure Tom Knelston had quite a lot of experience of Doing It.
Tom, greatly to his regret, still had no experience whatsoever of Doing It; Angela was determined to preserve her virginity at all costs, and if those costs included losing Tom, then that was a small price to pay.
Tom knew this; and he was sufficiently fond of Angela to put up with it. She was slowly allowing a slackening of her rules, and he was now permitted to stroke and even fondle her breasts to his heart’s content, given the opportunity, but the moment his hands drifted downwards she emitted a stern reprimand. It was all very frustrating; she was so pretty and so sweet to him, and always looked extremely nice. She had very little money for clothes, but she was clever at sewing, and made most of her dresses out of discounted materials from Parsons, using the free patterns that came with Woman’s Own or My Weekly, her favourite magazines. By the summer of their courtship, in 1938, they managed to save up enough money to buy bicycles, second-hand but beautifully restored by Angela’s father. They set off every Sunday, unless it was absolutely pouring with rain, with picnics laden into their bicycle baskets: sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, slices of delicious cake baked by Angela herself and cold lemonade in the Thermos flask (or tea for the chillier days). Looking back from much later in his life, Tom remembered those days, pedalling through the countryside, challenging Angela to races, picnicking in fields and woods and arriving home sated with fresh air and sunshine, as some of the happiest in his life.
They would talk of Angela’s life at the store, or of Tom’s life at Pemberton’s, and when, if ever, he might become a fully fledged solicitor, but they also discussed – to Tom’s surprise that she should be interested, and even modestly well informed – the growing threat from Hitler’s Germany. It was not an unusual topic, of course; everyone was worried and aware of the dangers, although of differing opinions. Angela’s father was a great appeaser, claiming that there was some good in what Hitler said and was doing: ‘Say what you like, he’s turned that country round.’ Jack took the opposing view, reinforced by the appalling behaviour of the fascist Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts; Mary kept silent about her views, but she nursed a silent passion for the wildly romantic Duke of Windsor and he was clearly of a mind to go along with Hitler – and why not, if it meant there would be no war? With three sons under threat, war was to her a nightmare of dreadful proportions.
‘I suppose you’d have to go and fight if there was a war?’ Angela asked one day as they lay back in the long grass, and Tom said, yes, of course, any right-minded man would, and then found himself distracted, as he so often was, by more personal considerations. Angela had made herself one of the new divided short skirts for their cycling, finishing just above her knees and revealing more of her legs than he had ever dreamed he would be privy to. Tentatively he put out a hand and stroked one of her calves, then moved upward above her knee, expecting to be slapped down any moment. But she merely looked at him and laughed and said, ‘Oh, go on then,’ adding, ‘No higher than that, mind,’ as he reached mid-thigh. But that was enough happiness for now as he started to kiss her, and the war and Mr Hitler were of as little consequence as the skylarks flying high above them in the blue sky. Yes, it was the happiest time.
And then he met Laura.
‘Well,’ Caroline Southcott said happily, as they waved off first Michael and Ned and then Johnathan after a rather extended Sunday luncheon, ‘what a lovely two days. Ned is such a sweetie, and Johnathan is an absolute charmer. I like him so much and so does Daddy. They had the most wonderful conversation about Hitler and his goings-on after dinner last night.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Diana shortly. She had found the conversation hugely irritating as it consumed Johnathan’s attention for at least an hour. At first she had been quite pleased, thinking this was her chance to concentrate on Ned and indeed get him to concentrate on her. For Ned was quite something. Not short, not pimply, but tall, with dark floppy hair and what she could only describe as burning dark eyes, which he turned on her with great intensity as they were introduced. He was amusing too, and, she discovered after supper, a very good jazz pianist.
‘So,’ said Caroline. ‘Have you been exposed to patients already?’
‘Good Lord, no. Kept well away from them, poor souls,’ said Ned, laughing. ‘We’re taught entirely in the medical school. It’s just across Charterhouse Square from the hospital.’
‘I believe your father is a surgeon. Is his hospital Barts?’ said Johnathan, who had been very quiet until then; he had arrived much later than the others, only just in time for dinner.
‘No, no, thank God,’ said Ned, and although he laughed, Diana had a feeling he meant it. ‘He’s at St Peter’s Chelsea. Orthopaedics, real old sawbones he is. Literally. Sorry,’ he added, seeing Caroline’s face. ‘Not ideal dinner-table subject. Trouble with growing up in a medical household, you’re a bit insensitive. He’s terribly disappointed I’m not in a surgical firm—’
‘Firm?’
‘Yes, that’s how we’re divided up,’ said Michael. ‘Medical and surgical. Apprenticed to a team of doctors, headed by a consultant, whole thing called a firm. Of course, you do both in the end. We medical chaps are called clerks, the surgical students are dressers. As in dressing wounds. Oh, dear, perhaps we’d better change the subject.’
‘Yes, I think we had,’ said Caroline, laughing. ‘Johnathan, how is the City these days?’
And they were off. Diana almost pleaded a headache, but didn’t want to appear feeble – although she did leave the table first, saying she wanted an early night, with a day’s hunting ahead.
‘I don’t know who’s enjoyed it more, us or them,’ said Jonathan. They were leaning on the gate of the paddock, watching their weary horses cropping at the grass.
‘I’m glad we could offer you such a good day,’ said Diana. ‘Perfect weather. The horses love it, being part of a herd, and—’
‘And we love it for the same reason.’
‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I quite want to be part of that herd. They’re a bit …’
‘What? Two-dimensional?’
‘Well, yes. I suppose so. Present company excepted, of course,’ she added quickly.
‘Of course. But I don’t think you’re right, actually,’ he said slowly. ‘My parents both adore it, but they’re two very different people; my father is far more thoughtful than my mother, intellectual I suppose you would say.’
‘Like you,’ she said, smiling at him.
‘Oh, he makes me look a complete philistine.’
‘Good heavens. And your mother?’
‘She is a complete philistine,’ he said, laughing. ‘But fearless – no fence could daunt her. Whereas he’s actually almost sick with fear the morning before a day out. But once out there, he’s perfectly happy. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Says he becomes someone else.’
‘That’s brave, still to do it when you’re terrified. I’m more like your mother, I just love it, don’t think about the consequences.’
Johnathan looked at Diana and smiled. ‘Good,’ he said. It was an odd response. She felt she had learned more about him in that one conversation than during the whole summer: and liked him better too.
He still wasn’t exciting though. She sat between him and Ned at dinner, but it was difficult not to concentrate entirely on Ned. If she was honest, she didn’t seem to be entirely captivating him. He chatted away, easily and amusingly enough, but seemed to be as interested in her mother and Michael as he was in her. She was an accomplished flirt, and used to getting any man she fancied, but it wasn’t working with Ned. It irritated her, and she turned back to Johnathan, but he was already engrossed in another deep conversation with her father about Europe and the likelihood of war.
After dinner, Michael said he and Ned were going to have a game of billiards. They invited her to join them, and she accepted but she was off form – usually she was rather good – and she became so irritated with herself that she said s
he was going to find Johnathan and left them to it. Johnathan was by this time sitting with her mother, listening to the radiogram. Caroline had bought a new recording of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, eight records dropping painfully slowly, one by one, onto the turntable, and as they were only halfway through, Diana had a long wait, flicking through the pages of Vogue and Tatler to relieve the boredom. When the music was finally over, she suggested a game of gin rummy, hoping it would liven things up, but Johnathan said he was hopeless at card games and actually pretty tired after the hunting and would they forgive him if he went to bed.
At this point, Michael and Ned reappeared and said they were going to have a quick nightcap. Ned smiled at Diana and said perhaps they could play billiards again some time, he could see she was actually jolly good. ‘You looked pretty happy on that horse of yours as well this morning. Do you enjoy hunting?’
‘Yes, I love it,’ said Diana and was about to launch into a description of the day, but then remembered her mother saying there was nothing more boring to non-hunting people than hearing it discussed and so she asked instead if Ned ever hunted.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t. I actually think it’s rather cruel.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, yes. You must be able to see that, however much you enjoy it.’
‘I – I never really thought about it,’ she said, truthfully. And indeed, she had not; from her very first day out when she was blooded as quite a small girl, aged nine or ten, she had loved it, the speed, the challenge of keeping up with the field, the adrenalin rush of facing the fences and the gates, the increasing excitement. She’d never questioned the rectitude of the thinking behind it.
‘It keeps down foxes,’ she added, rather feebly, ‘and they are the most cruel, awful animals.’
‘But I have heard some hunts actually import foxes into an area, so there are more to chase. That doesn’t exactly meet the claim about keeping them down, does it?’
A Question of Trust Page 3
