by Parks, Adele
‘No, I can’t imagine they are, but I think the plan is to build a snowman.’
Arnie paused. She assumed he was pondering whether he could get involved in that activity; she’d already considered as much and decided he could. ‘How does it look out there?’ he asked.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she sighed. ‘Clean and peaceful. It’s laid rather well. It is inches deep.’
‘Still falling?’
‘On and off, but no, not this exact moment.’ He looked hungry for more, and she feared her answers were lacking. They didn’t convey the splendid surprise that snow always was. She tried harder. ‘I always think snow is rather bold and yet egalitarian.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, it transforms everything into one. Stone, brick, path, grass, field, roof all become one thing: whiteness. It unapologetically transforms everything that’s ordinary and known into something delicious and pure. It’s a child’s world when it looks this way. Almost comic. Roofs and treetops become marshmallow mounds, everything serious is temporarily obliterated by soft, fluffy pillows; the churches and school halls, the gutters and banks – they all disappear briefly. I always think of snow as impish and implausible.’
‘What does it look like right now?’
‘For the first time today there’s a hint of blue sky, and it’s enough to allow a bright streak of winter sunshine to slither down from the heavens.’
‘Will it melt?’
‘Not yet, but there are scattered diamonds all over the fields; glinting and winking magically, mischievously.’ She turned to him and shot out an honest thought. ‘You must miss it.’
‘Yes, I do.’
Beatrice rushed to the window and opened it, allowing a cold but appealing blast of fresh air to ambush the over-hot drawing room. The laughter and squeals of the other young guests, playing at a distance, seized the room. He raised his head a fraction, like an animal sniffing the air. Bravely Beatrice advanced towards him and tugged at the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Come on, everyone is having so much fun.’
The building of the snowman was a success. Beatrice did wish she had a pretty sealskin cloche hat, just like Ava, but she didn’t care quite as much as she might have done before. Nor did she panic when the snow began to fall in damp eddies and flurries, causing her hair to frizz tightly around her head. For once it didn’t matter how she looked. Arnie called to her two or three times, as he and the other chaps gamely rolled the huge ball that was to make the snowman’s body. Everyone was tottering and groping their way through the snow; Arnie didn’t stand out. Bea helped the women roll the head and sought out the branches for its arms with a cheerful girl named Lucy, and whilst she had no idea where either Sarah or Lydia was – her usual social props – she felt very much a part of everything.
Afterwards, when the air started to turn chilly and stark, everyone dashed to the dining room, where they were served soup and venison pie. It was a casual lunch, but there was still a seating plan. Lady Pondson-Callow had decided the youngsters were bubbling to the point where they might just erupt, something her daughter was waiting for but she dreaded, and so she dispersed the younger guests across the tables, mixing their playful ways with more staid manners. Bea was disappointed to find herself sitting on a table with the Duchess of Feversham, the very woman who the night before she’d been so thrilled to talk about and could not have imagined talking to. Now, she just wanted to stay close by Arnie’s side. She endured the endless rise and plunge of soup spoons, the clink of silver on china, the discreet slurps and the polite enquiries after her health, but all the time she wondered who was he talking to and whether they’d help him find the salt on the lavishly decorated, rather too crowded, table.
Lady Pondson-Callow’s plan worked. After lunch the atmosphere altered considerably as the youngsters – having endured Edwardian manners and conversations, which always induced resentment and boredom – felt swiftly deflated and suddenly cross with the snow; it had been a jolly diversion this morning, but now the cold, soggy afternoon was swiftly losing its light and it simply seemed inconvenient. People wanted to go home and get on with their own business, but if they had to stay then they expected diversion. No one could ride or hunt or walk; it was agreed that summer was more fun. The more slothful retired to bed, vowing only to rise for dinner and music. Lady Pondson-Callow had insisted that the gramophone must not be brought into action nor the rugs rolled up until at least tea time; she was determined that standards were to be maintained, even in inclement weather. The more serious-minded settled into the afternoon with books borrowed from Ava’s father’s impressive library, and many of the men took themselves off into the billiards room, where they planned to drink and smoke the afternoon away.
Beatrice was pleased that Arnie didn’t take that option but instead chose to sit with the remaining women and one or two of the older men and listen to those who were able to play the piano. Bea was one of the first to be persuaded. She knew she was a good musician – she practised diligently and had a good ear – but she was also polite enough to realise that after three songs she should give up her chair and allow others to showcase their skills. She sat down next to Arnie without considering that she ought to appear less keen.
‘Bravo, you play well.’ His words sat on her shoulders like a rich theatre cape; luxuriant and transforming.
At four o’clock the snow started to fall again. It came down determined and dense, settling silently layer upon layer, crushing any hopes that the guests might be able to depart early the following morning.
‘I don’t think anyone is going anywhere for at least another twenty-four hours,’ commented Harry Fine.
‘You are all most welcome,’ stated Sir Peter, and the speed with which he was filling up sherry and port glasses underlined his sincerity. His wife looked more concerned; she wanted to question both the judgement and the propriety of pouring drinks all afternoon. But in the end, all she did was ring for tea.
‘I can’t think why anyone would want to leave,’ commented Arnie as he bit into a generously buttered crumpet. The tea and the implied compliment warmed Beatrice in her gut. A smudge of butter glistened on his moustache. She had an urge to dab it away with her napkin. With her lips. She was having the most romantic weekend of her life.
19
LYDIA KNEW SHE was behaving shockingly, with no discretion or consideration, but she was helpless. He was superb. It was frighteningly uncertain, yet unequivocally clear. They stayed out all morning and did not return to the house even for lunch. Lady Pondson-Callow’s carefully calligraphed name plates advertised their absence. They were both missed and instantly linked. Eyebrows shot up to hairlines, communicating everything.
The Duchess of Feversham, a notorious scandalmonger, always desperate to divert the spotlight from her own misdemeanours, was unable to resist drawing attention to Lydia’s non-appearance. ‘Won’t she be very hungry?’ she asked mischievously.
Mr Lytton sniggered. ‘Perhaps she’s getting her fill elsewhere.’ None of it was new; the crude guffaws and spiteful insinuations were commonplace. People had long since become bored of Lydia’s goodness; it reflected badly on them. The hint of a flirtation was naturally going to be greeted with extreme joy.
Lydia knew there would be talk, but she didn’t care. Let them talk.
They walked for miles. Through the forest of gnarled trees, colourless and spiky. Lydia’s fur coat became heavy with the weight of melted snowflakes. In the distant fields the animals searched for warmth; the sheep in one field huddled together, the horses in the other hugged the wall. First and most ferociously Lydia’s nose began to sting with the shock of the extreme cold, then her ears and lips stung too. Her feet became numb in the thick white carpet, but she didn’t care. She didn’t complain. She was afraid that if she hinted at any discomfort, she’d not only sound spoilt but he might insist they returned to the house, out of consideration. She couldn’t go back there. Outside, alone amongst the silent flurries, they existed. The
y were something. She believed they understood one another and were connected; although nothing overt had been said, she felt it. He must have thought of her over the last nine days. It was impossible to imagine that something as momentous could flow just one way. It would be as wild as suggesting a river could be turned around, dragged from the sea, pushed back through plains and forests, up mountainsides. It was unnatural. She couldn’t believe that of the world.
Yet she also felt that somehow they would not be able to hold on to their precious connection under other people’s gazes and comments. Whatever this was, it was too new, too rare to be exposed. It would be threatened. Perhaps ruined. They needed to be alone to solidify. They were so different from one another. He was slippery, a practised womaniser; a war hero to boot. She was no more reliable. Married and terrified.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked. His voice cut through the clear, cold day. They’d walked in silence for about a mile.
‘Us.’ She cursed herself for her indiscretion. It was a ridiculous, ill-considered answer. It showed her hand.
‘There’s an “us”, is there?’ He seemed amused. She didn’t nod but glanced at him and he held her gaze. ‘Are there children, Lid?’
This was more than a polite, conventional enquiry. He wanted to know where she stood, what he was dealing with. He was assessing the complications and the potential disruption and distractions; she understood as much. She shook her head and looked away. ‘No, no children. We’ve tried. We want them. I can’t have any.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, it’s sad.’
He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. Her skin blistered under his touch. The gesture was tender and yet rallying at the same time. She wondered how many soldiers he’d comforted with the same action.
‘It is very sad. You see, I rather think that without a baby, I don’t amount to much at all.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘It’s my job. I’m supposed to provide an heir.’ She didn’t know what made her confess this. She’d never stated the facts quite so baldly to anyone, not to Sarah or Ava. But then she didn’t have to; they understood how it worked in her world. Edgar might not.
‘You seem quite substantial enough to me as you are.’
His words soothed, a dock leaf applied to a nettle sting.
Last night they had flirted relentlessly. Today, things were different between them: initially austere and stark, she now sensed a softening. What they had was certainly more formal, and yet it seemed more sincere; these were not two things that necessarily went hand in hand. Lydia pondered as to why there was a change between them. Was it a deepening or a distancing? She felt icy panic at the thought of distance. Perhaps the change of mood could be put down to nothing more than the lack of intoxicating champagne, or maybe it was the fact that they were outside, surrounded by nature’s frosting rather than tiaras and cigar smoke. She considered the fact that he was aware that last night the intensity of their flirtation had filled her with guilt and fear and made her flee. He did not want her to flee again? The possibility that he wanted her near him thrilled her. Assured her. Whatever the reason for the shift between them, he saw to it that she felt safe rather than threatened. Excited rather than afraid.
They followed usual conventions, inasmuch as they scurried around for people they had in common. They found names they both recognised and then exchanged stories about the company they kept. They swapped views on films they’d seen at the cinema, plays they’d watched at the theatre and art that hung in London’s galleries. They found that they had both enjoyed a recent exhibition of Federico Barocci’s work and a Cubist exhibition showing the work of Picasso and Georges Braque. He saw more value in the Dada non-artists than she did. She knew little about them, but what she did know enabled her to dismiss their work as inferior to Leonardo da Vinci, who the Dada movement mocked. He seemed indifferent to whether she agreed or disagreed with his opinions, whereas she longed for their thoughts to fall into line.
He told her how he had been picked up by her set; whose house he had dined at, whose deer and pheasant he had shot. Every time he mentioned a woman’s name, she wondered what the exact nature of the relationship was. She frantically assessed the probability of the woman succumbing to his charms. She considered the woman’s beauty, history and marital harmony; she agonised over whether he might have … would have wanted to … After all, he was a self-confessed ladies’ man. What did that mean, exactly? Oh God, she knew what it meant. Thoughts of who he’d had assaulted her tranquillity. Was he linked to anyone now? How did those sorts of things begin?
And end?
Certainly, she knew that people had affairs – she was not an idiot – but as it had never been a route she’d wanted to pursue herself, she’d never thought about the detail. Now she wondered who made the first move, and how. Did the woman have to give some sort of signal? How did one know if a move had been made? It would be too awful if there was some sort of code and she failed to see the hint. She wanted him. Quite simply that. He had long, dark lashes that curled like a woman’s ought to. Lydia had heard women admire such lashes before, but personally she’d never thought much of them on a man. She’d thought they were effete. They seemed so greedy and unnecessary, but since the war she thought that men were entitled to everything. To jobs, to long eyelashes, to her body. The thought made her gasp. She wasn’t sure where it had come from. Where it was going.
It was so very different from the flirtations she’d had before she married, because then the rules were quite clearly understood by everyone. Nice girls, like Lydia, might smile and pout but they were never allowed to be alone with a chap. Back then, the gentlemen hadn’t expected anything from her beyond the promise of the last dance, and she had never harboured any ideas about the sexual possibilities – delightful or erroneous – that a liaison might offer. Lydia’s sort had hardly known anything about all that. It was only once a girl married that things became clear. And now everything was muddy again, because what she felt for him wasn’t girlish excitement. Her years of experience as a married woman meant that her ambition for him had gone long past securing a waltz. She ached for him; low, low between her legs, and in her breasts. She wanted to taste him. Put her lips and tongue on his skin. A snowflake settled on his right eyebrow and she wanted to kiss it into oblivion.
Edgar appeared cautious. She watched for a signal, a sign that he knew how she felt and that he felt the same, but none came. She wanted to believe they had both accepted the inevitability that they would be together and it was simply a case of them each working out how it would be accomplished, but she couldn’t be sure. It was possible he was thinking about something totally different, someone totally different. The thought was horrifying. She wanted to throw off her clothes, there in the snowy forest, naked and ready for him, but it was a ludicrous thought. She’d catch pneumonia.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘I think we’ll pick up the path to the village soon.’
They did, and she was grateful. In the village they’d have a chance of finding food and warmth. They passed the church; the snow on the path leading to it had been churned by more determined worshippers than those to be found at Ava’s house party, although the gates were shut now, service over, hymn books closed. They passed the war memorial and paused out of habitual respect, then Edgar said, ‘Come on, don’t linger. I imagine you are hungry, aren’t you? You must have skipped breakfast and it’s almost midday.’
The post office was the only place that was open; Lydia wondered whether Lawrence might have tried to send a cable to Ava’s, whether he was expecting news from her. She shoved the thought from her head. She couldn’t think about Lawrence right now. He was not of this world. This unrecognisably white world, devoid of familiar landmarks or routes. She was free and separate in it.
‘Let’s go to the pub,’ Edgar suggested.
Lydia was taken aback. She’d never been in a pub before. She d
idn’t know anyone who had, other than the servants. ‘It’s shuttered,’ she pointed out, stalling.
‘We’ll get them to shift. Everyone needs the trade.’ He banged on the door and was proved right: after a few moments, a rotund and pink-faced landlord opened up. Lydia followed Edgar over the threshold, feeling daring and dangerous.
The pub had been standing for over three hundred years; the walls were wonky and the ceiling low. Edgar had to stoop or else he would have banged his head on the cracked and compacted oak beams, worn and tired with the weight of the roof. The landlord said that Lydia could sit in the snug and he’d bring them soup.
‘The fire is in the bar,’ pointed out Edgar quietly. ‘We’ll be in there.’
The landlord wasn’t pleased, but he didn’t say anything more, and he served them both cider when Edgar asked for it. There was something about Edgar that would not be argued with.
The bar smelt of damp dogs and earth. Two large mongrels monopolised the best spot in front of the big fire that was housed in a dirty brick chimneypiece. They were curled around the legs of a small round wooden table; two high-backed chairs, boasting worn leather cushions, waited for Lydia and Edgar to complete the country tableau. They sat down and watched the flames leap. One of the dogs whimpered in its sleep; the other sniffed Lydia’s legs. On the table there was a pewter candlestick, with just an inch-long stub of candle protruding. The landlord was not prepared to give them the benefit of warmth or light, but Edgar lit it. The right side of Lydia’s body felt numb with the cold, whilst the left side, closest to the fire, was scorched. She tingled all over. She kept on her coat but slipped off his gloves and balanced them on the ends of the handles of the fire irons, in order to dry them out. Her wedding ring spun loose on her cold finger. Neither of them seemed in much of a hurry to talk now. The silence between them was peculiarly rousing. They both knew that if they said any more, it had to be significant. It had to stir and move.
