They went on, through Haslemere and Farnham and Guildford, and they came into London by way of Hammersmith and down the King’s Road and turned into Oakley Street, blissfully familiar, with the Albert Bridge at the end of it, and the gulls, and the salty, muddy smell of the river, and the sound of tugs hooting.
“It’s here.”
He parked the M.G. and turned off the engine, and sat regarding, with some awe, the tall face of the dignified old terrace house.
“Is this it?”
“Yes. I know the railings need painting, but we haven’t had time. And of course it’s miles too big, but we don’t live in it all. Come on, I’ll show you.”
She gathered up her bag and her coat, and she helped him put up the hood in case it should rain. With this accomplished, he collected his grip, and stood there, filled with pleasant anticipation, waiting for Penelope to go up the impressive pillared steps to the great front door, take out a key and let him in, and felt slightly let down when, instead, she led the way down the pavement, opened the wrought-iron gate, and ran down the area steps to the basement. He followed, closing the gate behind them, and saw that it was not a depressing area, but rather a cheerful one, with whitewashed walls and a scarlet dustbin, and a number of earthenware tubs which, in summer, no doubt, would burgeon with geraniums and honeysuckle and pelargoniums.
The door, like the dustbin, was scarlet. He waited while she unlocked this and then, cautiously, followed her indoors, to find himself in a light and airy kitchen unlike any he had ever seen before. Not that he had seen many. His mother never went into her kitchen except to tell Lily, the cook-general, how many people were coming to lunch the next day. Because she had to spend no time in her kitchen, and certainly never worked there, its décor was of no importance to her, and Ambrose remembered it as an uninviting, inconvenient place of much gloom, painted bottle-green and smelling of the sodden wooden draining board. When she wasn’t carrying coal, preparing meals, dusting furniture, or waiting at table, Lily occupied a bedroom off this kitchen, which was furnished with an iron bedstead and a yellow varnished chest of drawers. She had to hang her clothes on a hook at the back of the door, and when she wanted to have a bath she had to have it in the middle of the afternoon when nobody else needed the bathroom, and before she changed into her best uniform of black dress and muslin apron. At the outbreak of war, Lily had shaken the life out of Mrs. Keeling by giving in her notice and going off to make munitions. Mrs. Keeling could find no one to take her place, and Lily’s defection was one of the reasons she had chucked in the sponge and retired to sit the war out in darkest Devon.
But this kitchen. He put down his grip and gazed about him. Saw the long, scrubbed table, the motley variety of chairs, the pine dresser laden with painted pottery plates and jugs and bowls. Copper saucepans, beautifully arranged by size, hung from a beam over the stove, along with bunches of herbs and dried garden flowers. There were a basket chair, a shining white refrigerator, and a deep white china sink beneath the window, so that any person impelled to do the washing-up could amuse himself at the same time by watching people’s feet go by on the pavement. The floor was flagged and scattered with rush-mats, and the smell was of garlic and herbs, like a French country épicerie.
He could hardly believe his eyes. “Is this your kitchen?”
“It’s our everything room. We live down here.”
He realized then that the basement took up the entire depth of the house, for at the far end, French windows gave out onto the green of a garden. It was divided, however, into two separate apartments by means of a wide curved archway, hung with heavy curtains in a design that Ambrose did not recognize as the work of William Morris. “Of course,” Penelope went on, dumping her coat and her bag on the kitchen table, “when the house was built, all this space was simply a warren of pantries and store-rooms, but Papa’s father opened them all up and made what he called a garden room. But we use it as a sitting room. Come and see.” He set down his grip, took off his hat, and followed her.
Passing beneath the archway, he saw the open fireplace, set with bright Italian tiles, the upright piano, the old-fashioned gramophone. Large, well-worn sofas and chairs stood about, loose-covered in a variety of faded cretonnes, draped in silken shawls, scattered with handsome tapestry cushions. The walls were whitewashed, a backcloth for books, ornaments, photographs … the memorabilia, he guessed, of years. The space left over by these was filled by pictures, so vibrant with sundrenched colour that Ambrose could almost feel the heat beating back from those flag-stoned terraces, those simmering, black-shadowed gardens.
“Are those pictures by your father?”
“No. We’ve only got three of his paintings, and those are all in Cornwall. He has arthritis in his hands, you see. Hasn’t worked for years. These ones were all done by his great friend, Charles Rainier. They worked together in Paris, before the last war, and they’ve been friends ever since. The Rainiers live in the most heavenly house, right down in the South of France. We used to go and stay with them, quite often … we used to drive there, in the car … look…” She took a photograph from the shelf and held it out for him to see. “Here we all are, en route.…”
He saw the usual little family group, carefully posed, Penelope with pigtails and a skimpy cotton dress. And her parents, he supposed, and some female relation. But what really caught his attention was the car.
“That’s an old four-and-a-half-litre Bentley!” And he could not keep the awe from his voice.
“I know. Papa adores it. Just like Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows. When he drives it, he takes off his black hat and puts on a leather motoring helmet, and he refuses to put up the hood, and if it rains we all get drenched.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Heavens, yes. He’d never get rid of it.”
She went to replace the photograph, and Ambrose’s eyes, instinctively, were drawn back to Charles Rainier’s seductive pictures. He could not think of anything more glamorous than driving, in carefree, pre-war, days, to the south of France in a 4½-litre Bentley, headed for a world of nailing sunshine, resin-scented pines, al fresco meals, and swimming in the Mediterranean. He thought of wine, drunk beneath a trellis of vines. Of long, lazy siestas, with shutters closed for coolness, and love in the afternoon and grape-sweet kisses.
“Ambrose.”
Jarred from his day-dream, he looked at her. In innocence, she smiled, pulled off her uniform hat, threw it down on a chair, and, still lost in and bemused by his own fantasy, he imagined her taking everything else off as well—then he could make love to her, right here and now, on one of those large and inviting sofas.
He took a step towards her, but it was already too late, for she had turned from him and gone to struggle with the latch of the French windows. The spell was broken. Cold air flooded into the room, and he sighed, dutifully following her on into the frosty London day, in order to be shown the garden.
“You must come and look … it’s huge, because ages ago, the people who lived next door sold Papa’s father their bit of garden. I’m sorry for the people who live there now, they’ve only got a horrid little yard. And the wall at the bottom of the garden is very old, Tudor, I think; I suppose this must once have been a Royal orchard or a pleasure garden or something.”
It was indeed an extremely large garden, with grass and borders and flower-beds and a sagging pergola.
“What’s the shed?” he asked.
“It’s not a shed. It’s my father’s London studio. But I can’t show it to you because I haven’t got the key. Anyway, it’s just full of canvases and paint, garden furniture and camp-beds. He’s a terrible hoarder. We all are. We none of us throw anything away. Every time we come to London, Papa says he’s going to clear out the studio, but he never does. It’s a sort of nostalgia, I suppose. Or sheer laziness.” She shivered. “Cold, isn’t it? Let’s go back in, and I’ll show you the rest.”
Wordlessly, he followed her, his expression of polite interest
giving no hint of his racing mind, which was working busily as an adding machine, calculating assets. For, despite the well-worn shabbiness and unconventional arrangement of this old London house, he found himself deeply impressed by its size and grandeur, and decided that it was infinitely preferable to his mother’s perfectly appointed flat.
As well, he was mulling over the other scraps of information which Penelope had dropped, so lightly, as though they were of no importance, about her family and their marvellously romantic and Bohemian lifestyle. His own, by comparison, seemed inordinately dull and stereotyped. Brought up in London, yearly holidays at Torquay or Frinton, school, and then the Navy. Which, up to now, had simply been an extension of school, with a bit of drill thrown in. He hadn’t even been to sea yet, and wouldn’t be sent until he’d finished his courses.
But Penelope was cosmopolitan. She had lived in Paris; her family owned not only this London house, but one in Cornwall. He considered the place in Cornwall. He had lately read Daphne du Maimer’s Rebecca, and imagined just such a house as Manderley; something vaguely Elizabethan, perhaps, with a driveway a mile long, lined with hydrangeas. And her father was a famous artist, and her mother was French, and she appeared to think nothing of driving to the south of France, to stay with friends, in a 4½-litre Bentley. The 4½-litre Bentley filled him with envy as nothing else could do. He had always longed for just such a car, a status symbol that would turn heads proclaiming wealth and masculinity, with just a touch of eccentricity thrown in for added flavour.
Now, reflecting on all this, and anxious to find out more, he went behind her, indoors, across the basement, and up a dark and narrow stairway. Through another door, and they were in the main hall of the house, spacious and elegant, with a beautiful fanlight over the front door, and a wide, shallow-stepped stairway curving to the next floor. Stunned by such unexpected grandeur, he gazed about him.
“I’m afraid it’s very shabby,” she admitted, sounding apologetic. Ambrose did not think it was shabby in the least. “And that horrible great faded patch on the wallpaper is where The Shell Seekers used to hang. It’s Papa’s favourite picture, and he didn’t want it bombed, so Sophie and I had it crated and carted away to Cornwall. The house doesn’t seem quite the same without it.”
Ambrose moved towards the stair, anxious to ascend and see more, but “This is as far as we go,” Penelope told him. She opened a door. “This is my parents’ bedroom. It used to be the dining room, I think, and it looks over the garden. It’s lovely in the mornings, because it gets all the sun. And this is my room, facing out over the street. And the bathroom. And this is where my mother keeps her Hoover. And that’s it.”
The tour of inspection was over. Ambrose returned to the foot of the staircase, and stood there, looking upwards.
“Who lives in the rest of the house?”
“Lots of people. The Hardcastles, and then the Cliffords, and then the Friedmanns in the attics.”
“Lodgers,” said Ambrose. The word stuck in his throat, because it was a word that his mother had always uttered with the greatest disdain.
“Yes, I suppose they are. It’s lovely. It’s like having friends around all the time. And that reminds me, because I must go and tell Elizabeth Clifford we’re here. I tried to ring her, but the number was engaged, and then I forgot to try again.”
“Are you going to tell her I’m here too?”
“Of course. Coming with me? She’s a darling, you’ll love her.”
“No. I think not.”
“In that case, why don’t you go back to the kitchen and put a kettle on the stove and we can have a cup of tea or something. I’ll see if I can borrow a bit of cake or something off Elizabeth, and then after tea we’ll have to go out and buy ourselves eggs and bread and stuff; otherwise we shan’t have anything to eat for breakfast.”
She sounded like a little girl playing Wendy Houses.
“All right.”
“Shan’t be a moment.”
She left him, running up the staircase on her long legs, and Ambrose stood there in the hall and watched her go. He chewed his lip. Usually so sure of himself, he was filled by unfamiliar uncertainty, and the uneasy suspicion that, by coming here, to Penelope’s house, he had somehow lost control of the situation. This was disturbing, because it had never happened before, and he had a horrid premonition that her extraordinary mixture of naïvety and sophistication could well have the same effect on him as a tremendously strong dry martini, leaving him both legless and incapable.
The big stove in the kitchen was unlit, but there was an electric kettle, so he filled that and switched it on. The darkness of the February afternoon had closed in, and the big shadowy room felt cold, but the fireplace in the sitting room was laid with sticks and paper, so he lit it with his lighter and watched the sticks catch, and then added some coal from a copper bucket and a log or two. By the time Penelope came running down the stairs it was burning well and the kettle sang.
“Oh, clever man, you’ve lit the fire. That always makes everything much more cheerful. There wasn’t any cake, but I borrowed a bit of bread and some margarine. Something’s missing, though.” She stood frowning, trying to puzzle this out, and then realized what it was. “The clock. Of course, it hasn’t been wound. Wind the clock, Ambrose. It’s got such a comforting tick-tock.”
The clock was an old-fashioned one, high on the wall. He pulled up a chair and stood on it, opened the glass, set the hands, and wound the big key. While he was thus occupied, Penelope opened cupboards, took out cups and saucers, found a teapot.
“Did you see your friend?” With the clock going, he climbed down from the chair.
“No, she wasn’t in, but I went on up and found Lalla Friedmann. I’m quite glad I saw her, because I was a bit worried about them. They’re refugees, you see, a young Jewish couple from Munich, and they’ve had the most ghastly time. The last time I saw Willi, I thought perhaps he was going to have a breakdown.” She thought of telling Ambrose that it was because of Willi that she had joined the Wrens, and then decided against it. She wasn’t sure that he would understand. “Anyway, she says he’s much better, and he’s got a new job and she’s going to have a baby. She’s such a nice person. She teaches music, so she must be frightfully clever. Do you mind having your tea without milk?”
After tea, they walked up to the King’s Road, found a grocer’s and did a little shopping, and then they returned to Oakley Street. It was nearly dark, so they pulled all the black-out curtains, and she made up the beds with clean sheets while he sat and watched her.
“You can sleep in my room, and I’ll sleep in my parents’ bed. Would you like to have a bath before you change? There’s always heaps of hot water. Or would you like a drink?”
Ambrose said yes on both counts, so they went back downstairs and she opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Gordon’s and a bottle of Dewar’s and a bottle of something strange and unlabelled that smelt of almonds.
“Who does all this belong to?” he asked.
“Papa.”
“Won’t he mind if I drink it?”
She gazed at him in astonishment. “But that’s what it’s there for. To give to friends.”
This was new ground once more. His mother doled out sherry in tiny glasses, but if he wanted gin, he had to produce it for himself. He did not, however, make any remark, but simply poured himself a hefty Scotch and, carrying this in one hand and his grip in the other, made his way upstairs, to the bedroom allocated to him. It felt strange, taking off his clothes in such alien, feminine surroundings, and as he undressed he prowled a bit, like a cat making itself at home: looking at pictures, sitting on the bed, inspecting the titles of the books on the bookshelf. He expected Georgette Heyer and Ethel M. Dell, but found instead Virginia Woolf and Rebecca West. Not only a Bohemian but an intellectual as well. This made him feel sophisticated. Wearing his Noel Coward dressing gown and carrying his bath towel, his wash-bag, and the whisky, he made his way down the hall. In the
cramped bathroom he shaved, and then ran a bath and soaked for a bit. The bath was far too short for his long legs, but the water was boiling. Back in the bedroom, he dressed again, embellishing his uniform with a starched shirt, a black satin tie from Gieves, and his best black half-wellington boots, polished up with a handkerchief. He brushed his hair, turning his head this way and that in order to admire his profile, and then, content, picked up the empty tumbler and went down the stairs.
Penelope had disappeared, presumably to hunt through her mother’s wardrobe for something to wear. He hoped that she would not shame him. By firelight, the sitting room looked satisfactorily romantic. He poured himself another Scotch and looked through the piles of gramophone records. Most of them were classics, but he found Cole Porter sandwiched between Beethoven and Mahler. He put the record on the old gramophone, wound up the handle.
You’re the top,
You’re the Coliseum,
You’re the top,
You’re the Louvre Museum.
He began to dance, eyes half closed, holding an imaginary girl in his arms. Perhaps after the theatre and a spot of supper, they would go on to a night-club. The Embassy or the Bag of Nails. If he ran out of money, they’d probably take a cheque. With a bit of luck, it wouldn’t bounce.
“Ambrose.”
He hadn’t heard her coming. Slightly embarrassed at being caught out in his little pantomime, he turned. She came across the room towards him, shy of her appearance, anxious for his approval, waiting for him to make some comment. But Ambrose found himself, for once, without words, for, in the soft light of lamp and fire, she was very beautiful. The dress she had finally unearthed had perhaps been fashionable five years ago. It was made of creamy chiffon, splashed with crimson and scarlet flowers, and the flowing skirt fitted over her slender hips and then flared out into folds. The bodice had little buttons down the front, and there was a sort of cape, in layers, which moved as she moved, fluttering like butterfly wings. Her hair she had swept up, revealing the long and perfect line of neck and shoulder, and as well a remarkable pair of dangling silver-and-coral earrings. She had put on some coral lipstick and smelt delicious.
The Shell Seekers Page 25
