‘She looks awfully under the weather this morning. I think if I lived here all the year round, with the wind howling every second, my imagination would run away with me too. It’s surpassingly beautiful. But it’s not restful. There’s something in the air that makes everything seem slightly distorted – perhaps intense is the word I’m looking for. Even my dreams are more vivid. And last night I really did believe I’d seen a ghost.’ I told Freddie the story of the Lady of the Moat and described the woman I had seen. I tried to make it entertaining so Freddie wouldn’t suppose I was completely unhinged and to my gratification she laughed until tears came into her eyes.
‘Oh dear,’ she said, at last, ‘I do see how you thought – I’m so sorry to have frightened you. I’m afraid it was me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What a pity! I had no idea you were behind me.’
‘You mean you were in the Long Gallery?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. So I decided to have another look at Sir Oswald’s chin. I didn’t mean to do any actual painting but I was suddenly inspired and the next thing, the stable clock was striking half-past one. I wasn’t tired but I knew I ought to get some sleep. So I decided to have a quick bath to relax.’
‘But I was in the bathroom.’
‘Well, don’t tell anyone but I’ve taken to bathing in the sink in the linen room. It fills up so much faster. And the linen room’s so deliciously warm. Anyway, there’s always someone else in the bathroom. I fetched my nightdress and towel but I forgot my slippers. So I had to walk back with bare feet. I ought to have dried them but I was in a hurry to get to bed. There’s your Lady of the Moat.’
‘But the mobcap!’
‘I found an old rubber shower-cap on the back of the door so I borrowed it to save having to dry my hair.’
‘The scream – the puddle of water!’
‘I filled a hot-water bottle from the tap. But I hadn’t pushed the cork in far enough. I was suddenly drenched in nearly boiling water.’
‘But …’ I was deeply disappointed to have my first supernatural experience exploded, ‘how could you walk past the colonel without him seeing you? And why go downstairs?’
‘I’d left my evening bag in the drawing-room. I’m fond of it and I didn’t want D – any of the dogs to get hold of it. The colonel was sound asleep, his chin propped on the butt of his gun. Absolutely out for the count. When I came back upstairs he was lolling in his chair, with his head back, making a noise like water going down a plughole. Someone had tucked an eiderdown round him – Maggie, probably.’
‘Well, damn! I really thought … Botheration! I’ll have to cheat and pretend you haven’t told me all that. In the interests of stimulating my readers’ adrenalin flow and keeping my job, I’m becoming an out-and-out liar.’
‘You’ll be a journalist yet.’
Lunch – several raised veal and ham pies, a goose pâté, potato bread, a truckle of Lancashire cheese, fruitcake and a quince tart – was already on the table when we got in. Maggie explained that because of energetic nature of the afternoon’s entertainment she had thought a light snack would be best. And there would be a large tea to accompany the opening of the presents under the tree afterwards. Apparently, down in the village by the mill the river had frozen to a depth that made it safe for skating. Cordelia’s eyes were huge with excitement throughout lunch. She had fallen in love at an early age with Noel Streatfeild’s novel White Boots. I could see she was planning to cut a dash before a marvelling world, as the beautiful, talented, tempestuous Lalla Moore.
The ice-bitten river was steel grey with a frothy surface of bubbles, twigs and leaves of various shades of brown, frozen into abstract compositions. The mill-pond had been very full before the freeze and made a perfect skating rink. The whole village had turned out to enjoy the fun. The few who possessed proper skates did figures of eight and spins in the middle where the ice was smoother. At the edge children made slides, towed one another along, pushed each other over and screamed with pleasure. The more daring launched themselves from the top of the hill on tin trays. Babies swaddled to the eyes were pulled up and down on homemade toboggans. Grandmothers and grandfathers sat on the wall that overlooked the mill-race, gossiping about the times when they had been young and foolhardy. It was exactly like those ice scenes that Dutch painters used to be so fond of.
Being strangers and also guests from the big house, our arrival caused something of a stir. I could see that we added fuel to the gossip. There were eight of us in the party. Archie had retired to his room, saying that he had a horror of his fingers being amputated by a passing blade. Mrs Mordaker volunteered to take Dirk for a walk. Vere and the colonel were both somewhere in the hills, stalking blue-footed falcons. Jonno had not come down from his room. Everyone else was too unfit, or in Maggie’s case, too busy.
I put on the black skating boots I had chosen from the selection that had been brought into the hall at Pye Place. Annabel had her own pretty white ones and Cordelia and Georgia had argued about who should have the only other white pair but after an acrimonious session of trying-on, like the last act of Cinderella, they proved too small for Georgia. Cordelia and I had spent many afternoons at the indoor rink on Queensway. We were able to go forward and backwards without falling over and revolve slowly on the spot but such things as toe-loops and axels were beyond our skills. Rupert and Max were competent skaters but Freddie, Georgia and Emilio were novices. I linked arms with Freddie and we skated slowly up and down until she began to get the hang of it.
‘This is such fun,’ she kept saying, even when a group of children banged into us and nearly knocked us down. ‘I love doing physical things – perhaps because I so rarely do. I feel drunk with excitement.’ After half an hour she bravely set out on her own. Her red hair flew out beneath her green woollen hat and on her generally pale cheeks were spots of colour. She circled round and round the pond, concentrating, in her own world.
Georgia clung to Max, squealing every time anyone went near them. She might have got on better if, instead of gazing into his eyes the whole time, she had watched her feet. Rupert tried to teach Emilio but as soon as the latter was hauled up he fell down again immediately, with cries of ‘Madre de Dios!’ and ‘Oop-la!’. He was good-natured and seemed not to mind the yells of laughter from the crowd that gathered to watch. ‘We have not thees ice in Colombia,’ he wheezed after the breath had been knocked out of him several times. When Emilio retired to sit on the bank, surrounded by a group of giggling girls, Rupert skated round fast on his own. Annabel, who watched him like a sheepdog alert for commands, followed, her thin legs flying out sideways in her effort to keep up with him. Cordelia soon gathered a group of adolescent boys who stumbled clumsily in her wake as though they were bear-cubs and she was smeared with honey.
I wanted to explore the river. Beyond the pond it ran between steep banks, from which drooped snow-burdened trees shedding flakes that drifted languidly in front of my face. It was delightful to be alone in this exquisite landscape. The Queensway rink had echoed with raucous music and shrieking voices. The silence of the countryside made this an incomparable experience.
The village was soon out of sight. Sudden prospects opened in the gaps between trees and rocks to reveal a sky slowly draining of blue. The horizon appeared as a smudged zigzag of ash and iron between the folds of the hills. Frozen reeds stood like glassy palisades. I imagined myself as an Anglo-Saxon or an Icenian skating down this river on slivers of bone, relishing this moment of freedom and solitude, snatched from a brief, barbarous, scavenging existence. Yet the poetry would perhaps be more thrilling because of that.
I heard the scrape of skates on ice behind me, like a knife being sharpened. An arm encircled my waist. I put my left hand in his. Together we skated faster, skimming over the ice, slicing through blue shadows, like birds piercing a cloud-patched sky. As in a dream, we swooped over the ground, the speed far surpassing the energy expended. Without effort we cut long curves in the ice, o
n, on, as though we were approaching some long-desired destination. I half-expected to rise above the ground, to fly, to cut the white bowl of the sky with giant arabesques. The boundless journey, the futility of thought, filled me with delight.
Now the banks became cliffs, the river more twisting, the landscape dramatic. A tree, snapped at its roots, lay in our path, its head buried in ice. We glided in a circle and stopped. Max put both arms round me. The whiteness of the light combined with the coldness of the wind made my eyes water and I closed them. Max rubbed away a tear with his finger. ‘Darling. Darling Harriet.’
The sound of my name woke me from the dream. I was unable to forestall an abrupt and unwelcome return of self-consciousness. It shattered the idyll. I almost rebelled as I felt his lips touch mine but cowardice made me compliant. My, but he was a good kisser! And on skates too. The minute I thought this, I wanted to laugh. But at the same time the very idea of laughing when someone was trying to kiss me filled me with something like panic. Who could blame him for being angry? My family were right when they accused me of being too eager to please. I returned his kiss with passion to suppress the horrible laughter.
‘God! You really are a siren.’ Max held me tightly. ‘Damn it, we’re miles from anything like shelter. But I must have you, snow or not.’ He pulled off his gloves, flung them down on the ice and began to unbutton my coat. This was tricky and we began to slide around. ‘Stand still! Oh, Christ! This is bloody ridiculous.’ Then he pushed me abruptly away and I had to twirl my arms to stop myself falling over.
‘Hey!’ I said, indignantly.
Then I saw Rupert skating towards us, hands behind his back, looking about him in a leisurely way.
‘There you are,’ he called. ‘I thought I’d better come and warn you. There’s a weir somewhere along this stretch. Apparently there have been several people drowned over the years.’ He looked at me and I thought I saw amusement – or was it contempt? – in his eyes. ‘They ought to put up a sign: “Deep Water”. Or perhaps “Thin Ice”.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘There was a telephone call for you.’ Maggie gave Max a piece of paper as we were blown in through the front door. ‘She said it was urgent and you’re to ring back today.’
I thought at once of Caroline. The telephone was in the inner hall where it was impossible to have a private conversation. I hurried to change my shoes but my fingers were numbed and slow. On my way to the drawing room I heard him say, ‘Yes, of course, I see that, but it isn’t exactly convenient … How long? … Well, I can’t refuse, really, can I?’ Then he laughed and said, ‘That definitely sounds more like a threat than a promise.’ I moved out of earshot.
I was disconcerted to find that as soon as Max’s attention was turned elsewhere I longed for it to be given to me. But the minute it was, I became uneasy. On the walk back to the house Georgia had drawn his arm through hers and made him walk a little behind the rest of us. Oh, shameful vanity! I had felt certain he would have preferred to walk with me. All the time I was talking to Emilio – who seemed not to notice his fiancée’s defection – I wondered what it would be like to make love with Max. Now, when he was talking to his wife, I felt the keen edge of jealousy. I was careful not to look at him when he came into the drawing room.
‘Hello, darling.’ Freddie’s face lit as Vere came in after him. ‘We’ve had such a lovely time. Skating in a frozen landscape. It was incredibly beautiful.’
Vere kissed his wife and held her hand between both of his as he murmured in a low voice, ‘Darling, should you have? You know you must be careful.’
She smiled. ‘I’m tougher than you think.’
‘All the same …’ He left the rest unspoken.
‘Did you have a good walk?’
‘I found the remains of last year’s nest.’
‘Excellent.’
Freddie went away with his wet coat that he’d forgotten to take off. His eyes followed her to the door. It was a simple exchange, composed, tranquil, almost prosaic, yet the dullest student of human behaviour could not have failed to see how much love there was in it. I thought of the dynamic relationship my parents enjoyed and wondered if their flamboyant coquetry, played out before all the world, was a distracting cover to hide an emptiness within. The moment I thought this I felt as though I had carelessly injured something infinitely precious and the little beast residing in my digestive system gave me a particularly savage nip.
When the colonel returned a few minutes later, he was grim-faced and out of sorts. His hair clung damply to his reddened forehead and his hands were purple with cold. Ignoring his wife’s words of greeting, he threw himself into a chair with a grunt of displeasure.
Archie was instantly alert. ‘You’re looking a little flushed, Colonel. I hope you haven’t been overdoing it.’
Mrs Mordaker stood up. ‘I’ll just go and get your pills, Hereward. You’d better have a cup of tea straight away.’
‘Don’t fuss, woman.’ The colonel’s ungraciousness was remarkable but his wife seemed not to notice it.
‘And did you see the blue-footed ones?’ asked Archie, warming to his task of making the colonel lose his temper.
‘No, I did not! If you ask me they don’t exist!’
‘Now, Colonel dear, there’s no need to be cross.’ Archie depressed his chin and looked reprovingly at him over his half-moon spectacles. ‘It’s unkind of you to give Vere the lie just because he’s a more accomplished ornithologist.’
‘Accomplished, my – Hrrr! I say there’s no such thing! If there were I’d have seen ’em.’ The rage in his voice woke Dirk, who began to howl.
‘Didn’t you just tell us,’ Archie demanded of Vere, ‘that you saw a flock of them this very afternoon?’
Vere raised his eyebrows and looked amused, which was probably more galling to the Colonel’s pride than anything. I think he meant to be pacific, though.
‘How dare you?’ The colonel stood up suddenly and advanced a step towards Archie, fists clenched. ‘I’ve had as much of you as I can stand. Men like you are an aberration. You ought to be locked up where your filthy practices can do no harm …’ He paused to swat the air as he struggled for words.
‘My filthy practices?’ Archie did a wonderful imitation of bewilderment. ‘What do you mean, dear boy?’
The colonel turned such a livid shade of mauve that I was really frightened he might have a heart attack.
‘What’s all the noise about?’ asked Rupert, coming in then. ‘Shut up, Dirk! Mordaker, have you taken leave of your senses? I can hear you shouting halfway up the stairs. You’re frightening the children.’
I was certain that Annabel and Cordelia were enjoying the drama but the contempt in Rupert’s voice was salutary. The colonel was the sort of man who divided people into those who were ‘gentlemen’ and those who were not, and he knew he was behaving badly. He stood clapping his hands feebly against his sides, looking a little ashamed. Awful though he was, I felt sorry for him.
‘Here we are, dear.’ Mrs Mordaker came in with the box of pills. ‘Maggie’s bringing the tea. Come and get warm.’ The colonel seemed to deflate. Without protest he lowered himself stiffly on to the sofa, took the glass of water and swallowed the pill obediently. She gave his shoulder a little proprietorial pat. I saw then that she really did care about him. When she sat down beside him he gave her a grimace that might possibly have been an expression of gratitude, and made no demur when she tweaked his tie straight. A little later he allowed his hand to rest briefly on her knee. There are many kinds of love, I realised.
‘Can we open our presents?’ asked Cordelia when Maggie came in, bearing a loaded tray. ‘You did say tea. We’re simply dying to.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Annabel. ‘I don’t suppose I shall like mine anyway.’
Georgia, who had timed her arrival in the drawing room to coincide with Max’s, whispered something to him about ‘brats’.
‘In my day children knew how to be grateful,’ sai
d Mrs Mordaker, unwisely.
‘Gratitude isn’t something you can know,’ said Annabel instantly. ‘You either feel it or you don’t. I don’t, particularly.’
‘Please, Lady Pye,’ Cordelia smiled winningly at Maggie. ‘May we open them now?’
‘Ravishing!’ Sir Oswald opened his eyes and fixed them on Cordelia. She was looking particularly lovely in a dress of pumpkin-coloured silk made by my mother’s dressmaker. ‘Go on, my dear, and let’s see what Father Christmas has been good enough to bring.’
Annabel ran into the hall and brought back an armful of parcels from beneath the tree, which she began to rip open. Cordelia brought in presents for the rest of us which she handed round with a pretty enthusiasm. I hoped she was unaware how effectively her own behaviour exposed Annabel’s lack of decorum.
‘A book!’ Annabel threw it to one side. ‘Boring! Books shouldn’t be allowed at Christmas. A photograph frame! What am I supposed to do with that!’
Maggie looked defeated. I felt complete sympathy. Annabel needed a firm hand but Maggie’s temperament was too compliant. And, naturally, she was reluctant to alienate her stepdaughter. Sir Oswald seemed quite uninterested in the child. I felt sorry for Annabel but there was a savagery about her moods that made me feel positively jaded.
‘Annabel! Come outside.’ Rupert, who had been sitting with a book open on his knee, hardly seeming to listen, got up suddenly.
‘What? No! I’m opening my presents!’
‘Now!’ If Rupert had spoken to me in such a tone, jaded or not, I should have gone like a shot.
Annabel went slowly out.
‘Oh, Lady Pye!’ Cordelia, consummate actress that she was, looked at Maggie with shining eyes. ‘A Christmas Carol! It’s such a lovely story and now I’ve got my very own copy! I shall always treasure it!’ She ran over to Maggie and kissed her cheek. ‘It’s so very kind of you.’
Clouds among the Stars Page 41
