The Dream House

by Rachel Hore

  The next week was a whirlwind of activity. Agnes’s father was so delighted to see his wife returned to full health and vivacity he couldn’t refuse her anything, even suggesting that Agnes’s Aunt Florence be called upon to help with launching Agnes into society. Before long, Agnes found herself installed in her own little room in Queen’s Square with a growing wardrobe of exquisite costumes suitable for every possible occasion: cocktails at the Ritz, dinners, dances, luncheons with girlfriends and shopping in Harrod’s. Her favourites were a green silk dress with cap sleeves, a pretty sequinned pattern across the front and matching satin shoes, and a beige pleated coat trimmed with fur. How they were all being paid for, Agnes had no idea – it seemed impolite to ask, though she noted how quickly Vanessa’s plea to live somewhere ‘more fashionable’ was dropped from family conversation. And one by one, invitations addressed to Miss Agnes Melton in black copperplate italics from people Agnes had never heard of started to tumble onto the mat.

  Agnes watched in amazement as a new Vanessa emerged, as if from a chrysalis of illness. It was as though, in Suffolk, they had seen the black-and-white version, and that here, now, was Vanessa in glorious colour, dashing around, gossiping on the telephone, ordering the cook about, reducing Jeanette, the new French maid, to tears with her long lists of errands. Her little black address book was full, it seemed, of friends and family, who were delighted to hear she was back in Town. Agnes had been led to believe that Vanessa had had a sheltered upbringing, but she seemed to have an astonishing ready-made network of society matrons, happy to add Agnes and even Raven to their invitation lists. She no longer seemed like an elder sister.

  Agnes enjoyed her days exploring London. She went shopping with Vanessa in Oxford Street, marching past the sparkling new shopfronts of Regent Street to gawp at London’s first traffic lights in Piccadilly. Sometimes Mr Melton would take her to the Victoria & Albert museum or Raven would escort her to a gallery. Mr Armstrong was as good as his word and spent a day showing her the docks and warehouses, and then they made their way down the Isle of Dogs and walked under the river to Greenwich to see the Observatory. He wore a black armband these days, as his wife had sadly passed away the previous autumn. Once, Agnes went to visit Aunt Florence, Lucy and the boys. Florence was pregnant with her fourth child, but soon after Agnes’s visit she suffered a miscarriage and decided to retire to the country for a rest, so Vanessa was left in sole charge of entertaining Agnes.

  It was the luncheon parties Agnes liked least. ‘You must meet some other girls,’ Vanessa insisted, and promptly invited half a dozen young women to luncheon one Tuesday.

  As she stood in the drawing room surrounded by six pretty girls, all strangers to her but friends or at least acquaintances to one another, Agnes felt like quietly slipping out to her bedroom; surely none of them would notice. The truth was, she was shy with other girls. She couldn’t think of any contribution to make to the small talk, the arch, heartless comments about awful boys and messed-up dance cards, of country-house parties and hunt balls. How had she ended up on the edge of this strange new world? The other girls clearly thought her a little boring and seemed embarrassed if she talked about a book she had read or the latest exhibition at the Academy. And they all seemed to have been to school or finishing school with one another and knew the same network of families. Only the desire not to disappoint her stepmother made Agnes endure the hellish ritual of ‘Do you know So-and-so?’ and ‘Are you invited to Such-and-such?’ over clear soup, little cutlets in white paper frills, and pink jelly with blobs of cream on top.

  The dances were a little better, not least because she responded well to male company and loved dancing, but there was always that stomach-churning moment at the start when, self-conscious in green silk-satin or pink taffeta and too much make-up, she was stuck tongue-tied, alone with her chaperone, waiting for some man, any man, to come and mark her card.

  In fact, as it proved, she was rarely short of partners. Her gold-brown hair and blue eyes were considered à la mode and the liveliness and intelligence of her expression made people look at her twice. But, innocent as she was, even she wondered how many a matron of noble lineage would be happy to see her darling scion link up with a bluestocking girl of no connections and modest wealth, and was not surprised that her list of faithful suitors was consequently short.

  One constant was Andrew FitzClement, a lanky youth of Anglo-Irish extraction with sandy hair and an earnest face, who made a point of dancing with her at least twice at each party. He would chatter about his time at Oxford and how he would like to stay in London and make his way as a photographer rather than go back to administer the family estate outside Cork. He seemed lonely and probably sensed a fellow soul in torment in Agnes, but he was irritatingly self-absorbed and she failed to summon up any more feeling than gratitude to him for his attentions and refused all his invitations for dinner or the theatre.

  Then there was the silent and intense Michael Clayton, saturnine son of a retired diplomat, himself starting out in the Foreign Office. He was a natural dancer, and drew her effortlessly round the floor in foxtrot or waltz under the sparkling chandeliers until, flushed and breathless, she would collapse into a chair laughing.

  One hot moonless night he led her out into the dark garden in the middle of Eaton Square. He lit a cigarette, the glowing point throwing into relief his clever-looking face, and asked her, ‘So, do you know these people well, the Fox-Chomleys?’ Mrs Fox-Chomley was their hostess this evening, a statuesque woman in her late forties who looked as though she’d be as adept at leading a cavalry regiment into battle as she clearly was at organizing this coming-out ball for her youngest daughter, Elspeth.

  ‘She’s some distant cousin of my stepmother’s,’ said Agnes, crushing leaves from a bush so that a sharp smell of privet mingled with the stink of smoke.

  ‘I was engaged to the elder sister,’ Michael said in a bitter tone. ‘Amelia. But she’s marrying some blighter she met at a soup kitchen, can you believe it?’ His laugh was harsh, mirthless. ‘She’s not as pretty as you,’ he said, more gently and, tossing down his cigarette, he put out his hand to stroke her hair.

  But Agnes tensed up, then panicked, as he pulled her face to his and his hard tongue invaded her mouth. She shoved him away. ‘I don’t even know you,’ she gasped, ‘and I won’t be second best, I’m sorry,’ and she ran back inside to bright lights and safety.

  So the days and nights slipped past in a muddled dream – but what of Raven?

  Raven Melton often declined invitations to the balls and chaperoned parties though sometimes he accompanied Vanessa since Gerald disliked late nights and rich food. Raven had other fish to fry. For a start he was locked in combat with his father. Since the legal profession was obviously of no interest to his son, Gerald Melton had spent many evenings closeted with him, pacing up and down, discussing the possibilities of the future. Finally, it was agreed, with significant reluctance on Raven’s part, that they would accept William Armstrong’s kind offer of a place as a commodities broker. It would be a starting position, of course, but if Raven showed an aptitude for the work and applied himself, there would be opportunities for advancement.

  ‘Three months,’ the young man muttered. ‘I’ll give it three months.’

  ‘Six,’ demanded his father. ‘You’ve got to give it a proper chance. And if you want to leave then, you’d better come up with some respectable plans.’

  So Raven walked out into Queen’s Square every weekday morning now, with bowler hat and umbrella, off, as he put it bitterly to his sister, ‘to count beans’.

  Agnes was momentarily puzzled, as she thought William Armstrong invested in tea and spices, but she conjured up a picture of Raven literally upending sacks of pulses on the floor and measuring them into piles . . .

  Predictably, he hated it. ‘He says I’m surly,’ Raven spat, when Armstrong’s deputy, Ivan Plater, gave him warning one day. ‘I’m not surly, I just ignore him, vulgar man.’

  Th
e second time, a couple of weeks later, Mr Plater complained to his boss and Raven was summoned before Armstrong. One more ‘incident’ and Raven would be dismissed.

  In the meantime, Raven was out every night. Sometimes, Freddy or Roddy came up from Cambridge and they dined at some hostess’s mansion before going to a dance. More often he met a growing circle of other friends, writers, artists, musicians and poets – unknown for the most part – at clubs and parties from which he only returned in the small hours, sometimes meeting Agnes on the stairs, brother and sister like bleary-eyed ships in the night. Occasionally, if Gerald was out, and Agnes was taken care of, Vanessa would accompany Raven on these bohemian outings. In the mornings he would be roused by the maid to stumble off late, pale and irritable, to his office in the City while Agnes was allowed her beauty sleep.

  Then, one Wednesday afternoon in mid-June, Agnes was resting in the flat alone – Vanessa had gone out to luncheon – when she woke suddenly, aware of Jeanette answering the door. It was Raven.

  She heard him asking for Vanessa, then he walked into Agnes’s room without knocking and threw himself into an easy chair.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m never going back. And Father can put up with it.’

  ‘What’s happened? What have you done?’

  ‘I punched Plater, the bully.’ He explained that in the last few weeks Mr Plater had taken delight in goading him, showing him up in front of the other men. Finally, today, Raven had had enough.

  ‘Oh, Raven. Father will be absolutely furious. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Get a job on a paper. Write. Live in a garret, I don’t know.’ He got up and paced around the room in great agitation. ‘Anything that isn’t beastly, hideous business.’ He dragged both hands through his luxuriant black hair. His eyes were sharp points of black light. Agnes was startled by his deep anger, his energy.

  He tapped his fingers impatiently on the chest of drawers. ‘What are you doing now? This evening, I mean.’

  ‘Well, nothing really. There’s a dance at the Cowan-Wilkeses, but I told Vanessa I had a headache.’

  ‘Do you? Have a headache, I mean? Come out with me. Now. I can’t stay here waiting for Father to get home.’ He opened her wardrobe and started pulling out dresses. ‘Here, get this on.’ A frilly georgette frock in pale green with gold and white trimming landed on her bed. ‘And a coat – it’s raining out. I’ll see you in a moment.’ And he left her, sitting up in the bed, while he went to get changed himself.

  ‘Raven, where are we going?’ Agnes wailed, adjusting her hat and struggling to keep up with Raven’s long strides as he pulled her towards Southampton Row. Queen’s Square had turned to shiny slate in the rain and the air smelled of lead. ‘My stockings are getting splashed.’

  ‘Here!’ he shouted, waving his umbrella at a cab, and instructed the driver to go to Green’s, in Cork Street. ‘It’s a viewing,’ he said to Agnes. ‘A sculptor I’ve met – his first exhibition. I told him I’d try and go. Interesting stuff, I think you’ll find.’

  Raven was unusually talkative on the journey down to Green Park, mentioning this painter or that poet he hoped would be there, and saying that it was time Agnes saw a bit of life that wasn’t one of those ‘stuffy dances’ where you couldn’t get much to drink and had to be polite to boring women.

  People seemed to be queuing to get into Green’s when they arrived but it turned out the sculptor, a small thin man with a beard, dressed formally in a black suit, was insisting on the courtesy of greeting anyone who came through the door. After passing over her coat to an attendant and enduring with surprise the sculptor’s garlicky breath, only thinly disguised by peppermint, as he kissed her cheeks, Agnes was propelled forward by the pressure of those in the queue behind. She and Raven entered the crowd like swimmers, making their way past vast hewn blocks of stone like icebergs, to the far end of the room where there were fewer people and where the smaller pieces were displayed. Raven introduced Agnes to a stout fiftyish lady dressed all in purple, a Mrs Proudhart, then waved at someone across the room and disappeared back into the throng.

  ‘What do you think of my nephew’s work, Miss Melton?’ Mrs Proudhart’s voice quavered with emotion as she gestured to her right towards several blobs of bronze welded together like a clump of toadstools. She fixed Agnes with an intense gaze. ‘Is he not a genius?’

  ‘His work is certainly very . . . challenging,’ said Agnes, hoping she was saying the right thing. She had been profoundly moved by some of the works of Henry Moore she had seen, but in truth, these strange objects aroused in her only a faint repulsion. She was more attracted by a sudden glimpse of some framed drawings on the far wall.

  Fortunately the lady nodded vigorously. ‘It is time,’ she intoned. ‘No more statues of generals on horseback. This is the new age. We must feel our way forward.’ And she stroked the sculpture lovingly as though fondling poisonous toadstools was a perfectly normal thing to enjoy.

  Fortunately they were interrupted by the arrival of a balding man in white tie and tails. He was in a somewhat agitated state.

  ‘Allow me to present my husband,’ murmured Mrs Proudhart. He nodded briefly at Agnes.

  ‘We must be away now, Martha. We’ll be late for the Bleesdales,’ he barked.

  Agnes took the interruption as an opportunity to get a closer look at the drawings. They were mainly charcoal sketches, studies of female forms in various poses. There was something poignant, exhilarating about them and they appeared to have been drawn effortlessly by someone utterly sure of their craft. Each was initialled in a bold hand H.F. She stood back and looked for a notice of the name. Ah, there it was: Harry Foster.

  As she moved along the group of drawings, studying each one, she became aware of a man glancing at her from where he stood at the edge of a laughing, gossiping group. She took care to give him no hint that she had seen him but, after a moment, he peeled himself off from his companions and wandered over to her, his hands in the pockets of his navy suit.

  ‘Something about these interests you in some way?’ he asked, slightly diffidently.

  Agnes turned and looked at him through lowered lashes. Gradually, her eyes widened and she met his gaze. His was an interesting face, not classically handsome, but his brown eyes were warm against his pale skin and his mouth turned up at the corners as though he were perpetually amused about something. She noticed the shadows under his eyes, the beginnings of crows’ feet at their corners, and a slight hollowness to his mobile face. She opened her mouth to speak, but he broke in first, offering her his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve startled you,’ he said. ‘Here, I’m Harry. Harry Foster. The artist, dontcha know.’ He waved at the array of pictures.

  Agnes gasped and blurted out her own name, looking from the drawings and back to Harry Foster. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I mean . . .’ She stopped. ‘They’re very good. You make it look so easy. Do they take you long to do?’

  He laughed. ‘Not at the rate per hour I have to pay the ladies to sit,’ he said. ‘Seriously, though. I make many sketches each time. Only one or two are usually any good. Or none, sometimes. I’m working on a bigger piece now. Oils. But it’s a long-term project so I have to keep doing these crowd-pleasers to pay the rent.’

  ‘I love them,’ she said firmly. ‘They’re so . . . I feel uplifted by them, free.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly, studying her.

  ‘This one here,’ Agnes said, indicating a nude, ‘the curve of her back is so beautiful. She’s like a lovely crouching animal.’ Although they were now studying the drawings, she was strongly aware of the warmth of Harry’s presence beside her, his faint scent of sandalwood and Russian cigarettes.

  ‘That’s just what I thought about her, too. She’s a shop girl, you know. I spotted her in a cinema queue. Agnes Melton,’ he said suddenly. ‘Say, are you Raven’s sister? He talks about a little sister, but I didn’t think he meant one that was all grown up.’ He looked her up and down
appreciatively and her face glowed with embarrassment. She knew her shingled hair made her look older than many girls of her age, and she was glad she’d taken the time to put on a little powder and lipstick for she didn’t like to admit to this man possibly ten years her senior that she was only seventeen.

  He offered her a cigarette from a silver case, which she took, although she rarely smoked, and while he was engaged in lighting it she noticed his graceful movements, his long slim fingers and, as he bent over the lighter, the springy chestnut hair that matched his eyes.

  ‘I’m glad you came over,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anyone here. And Raven’s just gone off somewhere or other. Do you know him well?’

  ‘No, hardly at all. He’s a friend of Tom’s. Tom knows everybody.’

  ‘And who is Tom?’

  ‘Chap over there with the snorty laugh. Works for the Sketch. Miss Melton, Agnes, I’m glad I had to rescue you,’ he said. ‘Though I never saw myself in the role of knight before,’ he added. ‘Can I fetch you a drink?’

  Agnes shook her head, not wanting to lose him for even a moment.

  ‘Do you know Mr Proudhart?’ she asked.

  ‘My fellow exhibitor? Only met him for the first time tonight. Don’t know why Raoul – know Raoul Green? runs this place – put us together really.’

  ‘I hate them,’ Agnes said in a low voice. ‘These . . . lumps,’ she said fiercely, nodding at the toadstools. ‘He has no soul.’

  ‘So you’re passionate about art, are you?’ Harry said, teasing, his eyes sparkling at her.

  ‘I don’t know anything really,’ she admitted, feeling her face grow warm. ‘I am rude, aren’t I? Sorry.’

  ‘Not at all. If he weren’t my fellow sufferer on this occasion, I might feel freer to hold an opinion myself. Doesn’t do to bite the hand that feeds me, though. Tell me, Agnes, if I may call you Agnes, what are you doing later, you and Raven?’

  ‘Me?’ Agnes was surprised. ‘I don’t know. Raven hasn’t said. Dinner somewhere, I expect, though we don’t have any invitation. Look, there he is!’ Raven was making his way towards them through the crowd, his eyes shining, his normally smooth hair ruffled.