A Winter's Child

by Brenda Jagger

  Claire moved to Mannheim Crescent as soon as Edward’s sulk was over, taking nothing but her clothes, Paul’s letters, the volume of Rupert Brooke Jeremy had given her, no other memorabilia of the past, no bits and pieces of a suburban girlhood, no bric-a-brac to relieve the spotless anonymity of the flat. She desired, merely, to be quiet. To be, not physically perhaps, but emotionally alone. Yet she quickly gave in to Dorothy’s slightly hysterical insistence on accompanying her, that first morning, to ‘settle her in’ and agreed without much resistance to meet her the following Wednesday – and every Wednesday thereafter – in Feathers’Teashop where, at their window table, the section of Faxby which mattered to Edward might see them sipping their tea in perfect harmony, an exercise invariably rounded off by a stroll around Taylor & Timms, a great deal of pausing and smiling and ‘I am sure you will remember my daughter – Mrs Jeremy Swanfield …’

  ‘Lord,’ said Nola, walking into the flat an hour after Dorothy had left it, her fox tails draped high around her neck, a jockey cap in orange and gold striped silk perched low on her forehead, ‘That mantelshelf looks damnably clinical. But no matter. It so happens that I have just acquired a friend – a sculptor – who does wonderful modern pieces. Highly significant. “Grief”, he’s working on at the moment and “Jealousy” – the darker emotions. Positively unknown, of course, which is criminal, and yet – well, it’s so important, you know, and so exciting to be in at the beginning. I’ll take you to see him. Not cheap. Not now, at any rate, since I pointed out to him what he’s worth. But what an investment. You won’t regret it.’

  ‘I’ll give you some charcoal sketches,’ offered Euan Ash. “Perseverance Street on a wet Saturday night” – how about that for significance?’

  ‘Mother says,’ beamed Polly Swanfield, turning up on that first crowded afternoon and posing gracefully in the kitchen doorway where Euan Ash could see her, ‘that it’s the little things which make a home, and since we’ve got masses of things both great and small in the china cupboards at High Meadows, she says when you come to dinner on Sunday you’re to take your pick. She’s sending the car for you, by the way, at six o’clock.’

  And so, to avoid the deluge of unwanted gifts, the intrusion of other people’s tastes and fancies, she spent a morning in the dilapidated arcade which housed Faxby’s few and far-from-prosperous art dealers and antique shops, emerging with a collection of pure white figurines, nymphs of classical antiquity mass-produced, she rather imagined, in Birmingham, and several prints vaguely reminiscent of Renoir or Monet, sunlight dancing on pale green water; cornfields rippled by blue air; girls in white dresses lounging beneath striped umbrellas; a Parisian street leafy and dusty with high summer.

  ‘Junk,’ declared Nola, who understood art that season only in terms of odd gyrations of metal and stone. ‘And cheap junk, too, I’m glad to say, which means you’ll have some money left to spend on art, dear child – quality. I’m arranging an exhibition for my sculptor friend in June and I shall expect you to be generous. The boy is brilliant, that’s all – totally original. I’m moving him into a studio not far from here so you’ll be bound to meet him. In fact, I’ll bring him over to show you, one afternoon next week. Tuesday? Good. About three. And need I add that Polly would be decidedly in the way?’

  Yet Polly, to whom Mannheim Crescent seemed a place of wicked Bohemian excitements, was not easily to be discouraged, the more so since she came as the emissary of Miriam’s generosity, the Swanfield chauffeur depositing her at Claire’s door at least twice weekly, bearing some large, solid, expensive gift, each one intended – Claire realized – to anchor her ever more firmly to Faxby.

  ‘Mother thought you might need cheering up.’ And Polly, with the exuberance of a Christmas tree fairy, would produce a fur rug, an exquisite Chinese screen which was ‘just dying of loneliness in the attic’, a bedroom chair, a quilted counterpane.

  ‘Mother thought you’d need some cups and saucers.’ And into the hall came a packing case, decorated with yards of blue satin ribbon containing a Crown Derby dinner service, which ‘absolutely nobody wanted’, and a tea and dessert service in dainty flowered Minton.

  ‘How can I ever use all these?’

  ‘Well,’ said Polly who rarely thought of uses, ‘I expect you’ll break a few. So now, since I have the car, just put on your hat and we’ll go and watch the cricket on Faxby Green – or, rather more to the point, we’ll let a certain fast bowler watch me.’

  ‘How very generous of the Swanfields,’ enthused Dorothy, gazing at the Crown Derby with relief. ‘Edward will be so pleased.’

  And it became difficult, therefore – because of Edward and Dorothy and because Miriam, after all, was Jeremy’s mother-to refuse the bounty of the Swanfield fruit trees and green – houses, despatched in overflowing baskets as each luscious fruit or exotic bloom came into season; even more difficult to reject the almost apologetic little notes from Miriam which accompanied them, inviting her to tea, to eat strawberries and cream on the lawn, to play croquet or tennis, to ‘help me revive my poor little waltzing parties where you used to dance with Jeremy’.

  She had never waltzed at High Meadows, but she did so now with the very young men and somewhat neutered older ones Miriam considered suitable for Polly, making the easy, friendly, quite meaningless conversation with which she often defended herself, while Polly, in one of her own creations of gold-spangled orange satin, sulked by the piano, dissatisfied even with her own appearance, longing, now, for a dress that was no more than a slip of black net covered with jet beads like Claire’s; for bobbed hair; a cigarette in an ivory holder; a negro jazz band from America; a lean, hard, wicked man to teach her the foxtrot and the tango.

  ‘Claire, dear,’ murmured Miriam, ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you about Polly? Not here, dear – no, no, later and strictly between ourselves. She keeps asking me, you see, about her hair and her skirts – wanting to shorten both I’m afraid – quite drastically, and I am not at all sure how far one may decently go. So, if you could spare me a little half-hour, dear? Thursday, perhaps? At two o’clock? Or better still, come to lunch. I will send the car.’

  The car was sent, Polly continuing to sulk, Miriam to take the false and deliberately flustered view, ‘My dear, if you are so set on cutting your hair then I suppose I must be resigned to it. But what will Benedict say?’

  ‘I don’t care.’ But, caring or not, she certainly lacked the courage – as Miriam well knew – to take a pair of scissors to her golden head without her brother Benedict’s consent, a state of affairs to which Claire, when it had called her at least half a dozen times more to High Meadows, attempted to put an end by tapping on Benedict’s study door one morning and asking him.

  ‘It seems that Polly wants to cut her hair.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘Oh –’ She had not in the least expected this. ‘Do you really? Then what do you think?’

  ‘Am I obliged to think about it?’

  ‘I suppose not. But she is getting quite agitated and – really – she just wants your opinion.’

  ‘I wonder,’ he said curtly, ‘why she should think me in any way qualified to give it.’

  Had he consented? Had he refused? Had he simply expressed a lack of interest so total that Polly might feel free to cut off her head, let alone her hair, so long as she did not annoy him with it? Claire, watching his blank dark eyes as they glanced at the clock, had not the least notion. But her own time was running short that morning, a Wednesday with Dorothy expecting her at Feathers, Nola requiring her help that afternoon to move her sculptor into his studio, Polly and Miriam waiting for her now in Polly’s bedroom, the petty, time-greedy manoeuvrings of domestic life, the velvety, quite sticky chains which must be broken, so that she said quite sharply for her, ‘You wouldn’t mind then?’

  ‘What wouldn’t I mind?’

  ‘If Polly cuts her hair.’

  He smiled, not, she thought, particularly pleasantly.


  ‘On an issue of such enormous importance perhaps she should do as her mother thinks best.’

  ‘He says you can,’ reported Claire falsely to an overwrought Polly.

  ‘Did he really?’ mused Miriam, knowing, or perhaps just hoping that he had said no such thing.

  ‘Yes he did.’ Claire smiled, sweet, candid, looking as innocent, in her falsehood, as Miriam.

  But the matter did not rest there, Polly’s demand to be taken at once to a beauty parlour arousing a protest in Miriam that was as thoroughly overpowering as a barrier of eiderdown. A beauty parlour! Oh dear, no. My goodness. Neither Miriam nor her acquaintances had ever visited or ever intended to visit such an establishment, being perfectly agreed that, like certain other imports from America – the drinking of cocktails for instance and the use of lipstick – they ought not to be encouraged in good English society. Ladies had maids to do their hair. And if – as Polly insisted – no one at High Meadows was skilled in the entirely new art of cutting women’s hair then Miriam really did not know how they were to manage.

  ‘I’ll go to a common barber,’ snarled Polly, mutinous, tearful.

  ‘Clare …!’ murmured Miriam feebly, closing her eyes. And, within moments, Claire found herself behind the Swanfield chauffeur on her way to town, returning with the obliging giri who cut her own hair, and then sat in exhausted frustration in Polly’s bedroom while the deed was done, Miriam shedding sentimentai tears at the loss of each long golden tress, Polly herself, who had expected her hair to lie flat and heavy and straight like Claire’s, bursting into tears and hurling her hairbrush across the room in rage and panic when it became apparent that her own head would be a mass of curls.

  ‘What have you done to me? What have you made me do?’

  ‘What you asked for,’ said Miriam, producing her smelling bottle.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Claire, quickly ushering the startled hairdresser from the room.

  ‘I’ll just never dare go out again, that’s all,’ sobbed Polly. ‘Never. I might just as well go and put my head in the gas oven right now – much the best place for it.’

  ‘Good Heavens,’ said Eunice Hartwell, coming unexpectedly through the door, her own long, pale hair uncoiling itself in wispy strands from an uncertain bun. ‘Polly – what have you done?’

  ‘Get out,’ shrieked Polly, throwing yet another hairbrush across the floor at her sister. ‘Don’t look at me. I’ve made myself plain, that’s all – like you.’

  But, having contemplated those riotous golden curls for an hour or so from every angle, it occurred to her that their distinctly boyish look really did – as Claire had suggested – accentuate the undoubtedly feminine charm of the face and figure beneath, creating – on the whole – an impression that was piquant, original, above all modern.

  ‘I know women who spend a fortune having their hair curled trying to look like that,’ said Claire, not from motives of kindness but simply to get away.

  ‘It’s very smart,’ said Eunice doubtfully. ‘Even too smart, I’d say.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ breathed Miriam. ‘I do hope no one could mistake her for a – what is that word they use – flapper?’

  And thus encouraged, since to be called a flapper had long been the subject of her most cherished dreams, Polly fell promptly and head-over-heels in love with her new appearance, parading it for the rest of the day before an admiring chorus made up of housemaids, the garden boy and Eunice’s obliging husband Toby who, very kindly, went through the performance of failing to recognize her. ‘Who is that stunning girl? It can’t be Poliy.’

  ‘The very same,’ she told him, sketching her little dancing curtsey, her elation lasting until she came face to face with Benedict who effectively, if perhaps unintentionally, quenched her ardour by the simple fact of not appearing to notice it.

  ‘Benedict – I have cut my hair.’

  ‘Ah – then I assume that is why you have missed your piano lesson yet again?’

  ‘Oh, Lord-that!‘

  ‘Yes, Polly. That. I have just come across Miss Peterson leaving by the back gate – having spent an hour waiting for you in the drawing room – and have sent her home in the car. And I am sorry to have to say to you once again, Polly, that if you feel obliged to cancel a lesson then it seems no more than common politeness to let your teacher know. I am surprised you should allow this to keep on happening, Miriam. The woman comes all the way from the other side of town by tram and, apart from her inconvenience, it seems nonsensical to keep on paying her for lessons Polly does not have.’

  ‘Oh Benedict, dear,’ smiled Miriam, ‘If you have sent Miss Peterson to Faxby in the car, how is Claire to get there? Poor Claire – you will just have to put up with us an hour longer.’

  And when the car returned, Miriam placed her gently inside it with a bouquet of freesias, a covered basket containing cinnamon buns and a large chocolate cake, and the information that she would see her on Sunday.

  ‘Sunday?’

  ‘Why yes, dear. We always dine together, absolutely all of us, on Sundays. And now that you’ve settled in you must be with us too. Family day, my husband always called it, and no leave of absence, no excuses. Such a positive man, my Aaron. They can eat where they like, he used to say, Monday to Saturday, when they’re old enough. But one night a week they’ll come home and eat at my table – since I pay their bills. Which was his way, of saying, of course, how much it meant to him to see us united in affection – everyone – all together. My husband set great store by tradition – a nuisance sometimes, I do agree. But Benedict is so like him. And, as the new head of the family, he does insist upon it.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Yes dear.’

  And she knew she had been delicately, almost caressingly reminded that Benedict was her paymaster too.

  She attended the garden party held for Miriam’s birthday in May, wearing a long, pale lilac garden party dress and a large hat with a floppy brim and a trailing, lilac chiffon scarf around the crown – an outfit of which even Edward approved – taking her turn at strolling around the garden arm in arm with Miriam who, in powder blue lace and pearls, was at her radiant best. The sun was shining, the massive hedge of rhododendrons had flowered overnight, in tribute to the occasion, with a glorious display of deep red, deep purple, lilac and white. The cherry orchard beyond it had been transformed, by the warm weather into a fragrant cloud of pink blossom. There were bluebells raising their delicate heads beneath the wide arms of the chestnut trees, girls in pale dresses gliding like swans across the lawn and young men – very young, most of them – in flannels and blazers and public school ties reminding Miriam so forcefully of Jeremy that she was obliged, for a vulnerable moment, to lean rather heavily on Claire’s arm, regaining her equilibrium only when the raucous presence of Eunice’s four sturdy sons and Benedict’s two physically more fragile but uncomfortably correct young gentlemen – home from school for ‘grandmamma’s party’ – brought to her notice the more awkward realities of boyhood.

  ‘Do go and play, children,’ she said quite nervously to Benedict’s serious, silent boys, a suggestion she had no need to make to her four Hartwell grandchildren who, from the moment of their arrival, had been knocking one another to the ground and scuffling like boisterous puppies, ruining, in the first five minutes, the expensive new shoes and jackets Eunice had bought – but probably not yet paid for – from Taylor & Timms.

  ‘Eunice dear, do you think – for just a little while – that they could be induced to keep their voices down?’

  ‘They’re only children, mother – boys, after all.’

  ‘Eunice dear – Justin is fifteen and Simon twelve – big boys, you know.’

  ‘Mother! They’re only having fun. It’s only natural.’ And Eunice flushed and glared hotly at Benedict’s two immaculate, almost motionless sons who did not seem natural to her in the least.

  There were little tables with organdie cloths set out on the lawn, beneath the trees, or simply dotted h
ere and there about the rose garden. There was champagne, a heart-shaped birthday cake iced in Miriam’s favourite sugar pink, cream ices, water ices, mountains of vivid confectionery, the string quartet from Feathers’Teashop playing in the trellised arbour by the goldfish pond. There were presents for Miriam, each one of her Hartwell grandchildren being dragged up to her in turn by Eunice, clutching a gift which Eunice had spent anxious weeks choosing, awkward hours packaging; Benedict’s children performing the same office as correctly as little soldiers on parade, bowing gracefully and presenting parcels which had been wrapped by Taylor & Timms at Nola’s laconic request, and which contained whatever the manager of that obliging store had thought appropriate. And – in accordance with Miriam and Aaron Swanfield’s time-honoured custom – there were also gifts for everyone else, the day ending with a vast treasure hunt all over the house and grounds, in pursuit of the brightly coloured little boxes of treasure which Miriam had carefully labelled and hidden away for every guest.

  ‘How exceedingly generous,’ said Edward Lyall in Miriam’s hearing, knowing there would be a box of cigars somewhere with his name on it.

  ‘What fun,’ said Nola sourly, having not the least intention of rummaging through redcurrant bushes or crawling underneath the dining room furniture for the sake of the silk scarf or the powder compact she would be likely to find.

  ‘What fun,’ said Polly, devoutly meaning it, being ready to scale Everest should there be the chance of a surprise parcel at the summit.

  ‘How lovely mother looks,’ said Eunice, needing an ally, since she would be unable to conceal from Benedict for much longer that her fifteen-year-old Justin had – fortunately without damage to himself – inflicted considerable and costly injury on a neighbour’s property while borrowing ‘naturally without permission’, Toby’s car. Nor would she be able to explain to him, since she did not fully understand it herself, why Toby had seen fit to exchange the only slightly scratched and almost brand new car for a much more expensive model.