The Wind Off the Sea

by Charlotte Bingham

  Fortunately Loopy too was unwilling to risk drinking anything but lime juice. Being the only ones therefore in the room who were destined to stay temperate, they were able to observe the growing mayhem caused by the Rob Roys from the sidelines, as guest after guest succumbed to the potency of Richards’s particular mix.

  ‘No need to pile any more logs on the fire, Judy darling.’ Loopy laughed, holding up her glass in front of her face to stop anyone seeing her giggling. ‘We can warm ourselves by the gentlemen’s complexions. My heavens, do look at dear Hughie! He’s so lit up, if we put a bit of tinsel on him he could stand in for a Christmas tree!’

  ‘Am I standing behind the only two guests who elected not just to be sensible, but to remain as much?’ a voice drawled immediately behind them both. ‘Or perhaps you ladies had prior warning?’

  Waldo had taken them by stealth, easing his way so quietly into their company that they had no idea how long he had been standing behind them. Realising this, Loopy caught her breath, trying desperately to remember whether or not either of them had been indiscreet, while Judy, without quite understanding why, immediately decided that she had never before seen or met Waldo Astley in any way socially.

  ‘I have to confess Meggie did mark my card about the Rob Roys,’ Judy replied. ‘This is my mother-in-law Mrs Tate.’

  ‘Waldo Astley. How do you do?’

  ‘I gather you all but ran my daughter-in-law over, Mr Astley.’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. Even more unfortunately she refused all succour and walked off with her dog, leaving me not only in her debt for ever, but with a lasting admiration for true British grit.’

  Loopy laughed, and Judy too smiled, but when she tried to continue the conversation she found herself for once hopelessly tongue-tied in front of Waldo, and ended up feeling only deeply grateful for the company of her spirited mother-in-law.

  ‘So, Mr Astley,’ Loopy was saying. ‘And what brings you to England? And most particularly to these parts? Were you stationed here during the war?’

  ‘Alas, no, Mrs Tate. No – no I wasn’t stationed here, nor indeed anywhere in fact during the late, great military debate. Having volunteered the day after the Japanese paid us a surprise visit, I discovered to my fury that I was found unfit for military service.’

  ‘How galling.’

  ‘Yes, it was. But I got my revenge on the military medical boards. Joined up with the American war film unit. Moral – if you’re not allowed to shoot, you can at least shoot those who are shooting, and it’s just as satisfyingly dangerous, believe me.’ He gave them both an enchantingly warm smile.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Tate. Did you have a good war?’

  ‘No, terrible, like everyone in Bexham, but please don’t imagine that we spent our time knitting socks for soldiers because we did our bit, believe me.’

  ‘Naturally. Why would I believe any different?’

  ‘Take my daughter-in-law – Judy here – she fought fires, helped with ambulance work; there was nothing to which she didn’t turn a hand.’

  Loopy’s sudden and somewhat gauche attempt to include Judy in the conversation only caused her daughter-in-law to change her mind about remaining abstemious, and she quickly exchanged her empty lime juice glass for a cocktail from the tray of freshly made drinks that Richards was calmly distributing; managing as he did so to look about as innocent as Nell Gwyn and her tray of oranges.

  ‘So, you had an active role in battle proceedings, Mrs Tate Junior?’ Waldo asked, with an exaggeratedly straight face.

  ‘No – no, I wasn’t in the armed services, or anything.’

  ‘She was in the WVS. Women’s Voluntary Service, a service without which I truly think Britain would have been defeated.’

  ‘I was in the WVS,’ Judy agreed, a little too late. ‘Yes. The Women’s Voluntary Service …’ she went on, sparely, unable to look at Waldo, feeling on tenterhooks lest he mention the fact that he had stood outside the Tates’ house mischievously raising his hat to her. She didn’t want Loopy suspecting her of flirting with him she loved Loopy too much for that.

  ‘Was there a Men’s Voluntary Service? If so, I think I would have joined it at once.’ Waldo looked from Loopy to Judy and back again.

  ‘Will you excuse me?’ Judy said, of a sudden, with a small glance at Loopy, unable to bear her own inner tension any more. ‘I really should circulate.’

  Thoroughly discomforted by the magnetic Mr Astley, Judy made for the door, and fighting her way through the noisy scrum of people who were now crowding the drawing room she escaped to the hall. Walter was meant to be arriving soon. He was coming down on a later train. She wished that he was there, if only to remind her that she had a husband, that she was a married woman.

  ‘I do hope I haven’t upset your daughter-in-law.’ Waldo nodded after the departing Judy. ‘She seems more than a little tense, and now – shall we say – she is past tense.’

  ‘That’s just Judy,’ Loopy replied, shrugging her shoulders and accepting a light for her fresh cigarette from Waldo’s gold Zippo. ‘Or rather that is just Judy at the moment. She’s a little bit on edge. Can’t settle to anything, and little wonder after what she has been through. She has not had an easy time of it. Tell me, Mr Astley – I shouldn’t have to ask a fellow American, I know, but where exactly are you from?’

  ‘Why, Mrs Tate, should you have to ask?’ Waldo drawled, and Loopy smiled at the exaggerated Southern accent that he had of a sudden assumed. ‘I was born in West Virginia, but I have homes in New York and San Francisco; and we still have property in the South.’

  ‘A man of substance. I’m impressed.’

  ‘A man of straw, my dear Mrs Tate. A Jack of a lot of trades and a master of not many. And how do you spend your time?’

  ‘I have a husband, and a family, Mr Astley. That sort of thing takes up a lot of a person’s time.’

  ‘Something tells me there’s more to you than just a diligent wife and mother. Your children are obviously grown up – and your husband works?’

  ‘My husband works. At least when I last looked at him he was still working. In London.’

  Waldo smiled, and as he did so Loopy could not help realising that she had become fascinated by his looks, in a perfectly painterly way, of course. The dark eyes, the nose with its slightly ski shape, so unusual in a man, the curved lips, and sculpted chin. He was not beautiful so much as arresting. ‘What does Mr Tate work at then, Mrs Tate?’

  ‘Government work,’ Loopy replied. ‘But if I say another word I shall be dragged off and imprisoned in the Tower of London.’

  ‘If you were, you would only adorn that ancient institution with your elegance and your art.’

  ‘My art?’ Loopy said in very real surprise. ‘What art?’

  ‘You paint, don’t you?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Loopy blew out a long stream of smoke, and for a second she watched it, rather than looking at Mr Astley.

  ‘Instinct, masculine intuition, if there is such a thing,’ he replied, then lifted one of Loopy’s elegant hands. ‘As well as a distinct trace of cerulean blue on your left hand.’

  ‘Not just instinctive but a detective, too!’ Loopy laughed. ‘You should work for my husband. He needs to recruit people with sharp eyes, and ears.’

  ‘What do you paint? No, sorry – I’ll rephrase that. How do you paint? I’ll rephrase that too, before you say badly. In what style do you paint?’

  ‘I don’t really know, Mr Astley. Perhaps being such a man of the world you could tell me?’

  ‘I’d need to see your paintings to do that.’

  ‘I’d need to invite you for you to do that.’

  ‘So? When may I see them?’

  ‘Don’t count on it, Mr Astley.’

  ‘You’d rather not invite me?’

  ‘I’ve never invited anyone to see my paintings. Only my family—’ She stopped, realising it wasn’t true. She had long ago given up even talking abou
t her painting with her family.

  ‘And what do your family say?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ Loopy smiled and looked for somewhere to get rid of her cigarette. Waldo searched and found her an ashtray. ‘I’m hogging you, Mr Astley. You must circulate, most especially since I take it you’re a bachelor?’ Loopy turned to go, but Waldo stopped her.

  ‘Yes, I am a bachelor, but don’t worry – I like being hogged, Mrs Tate.’

  ‘I really think I should introduce you to some more Bexhamites.’

  ‘Sounds like some sort of particularly fierce Biblical tribe.’

  ‘You are sailing closer to the wind than you think, Mr Astley. I’m afraid some of the things the Bexhamites do are positively Biblical. Now come along, I’m going to make sure you talk to your hostess. Have you made her acquaintance yet?’

  Waldo looked round to where he could see the ever elegant and seemingly always poised Meggie talking easily to a group of men.

  ‘No,’ Waldo said thoughtfully. ‘No, I haven’t made Miss Gore-Stewart’s acquaintance yet. Mrs Morrison brought me here, so I fear I am a bit of an intruder.’

  ‘Come along then, and I’ll introduce you.’

  With a light hold of his arm Loopy steered Waldo skilfully through the throng until they were part of Meggie’s court.

  ‘I hope you’re enjoying yourself, Mr Astley,’ Meggie said as they shook hands. ‘That you’re meeting enough people.’

  ‘I never really enjoy myself at cocktail parties, Miss Gore-Stewart,’ Waldo replied with a smile. ‘A roomful of people standing and shouting at each other while getting progressively drunk is not my idea of Nirvana.’

  ‘You could always have stayed at home, Mr Astley.’

  ‘I could, Miss Gore-Stewart, except by staying at home one never gets out and meets anybody. That is very much the point, I find. I mean, look at me tonight. I have already met Mrs Tate and her charming daughter-in-law, Judy, and now I am enjoying the pleasure of meeting you.’

  Meggie smiled at him vaguely, as always entirely resistant to his, or any other man’s, charm. She turned to the man on her left.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Laurence Nicholson, who is a collector of fine art. And Jeremy Wilson-Bennett, one of our most noted local scribes. Mr Waldo Astley.’

  As the three shook hands or nodded an acknowledgement, Meggie gave another polite smile and eased herself away from the group.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said, and left them to it, safe in the knowledge that she had landed her guest with two of the most professional local bores. Laurence Nicholson never listened to a word anyone else had to say, and Jeremy Wilson-Bennett was the author of some particularly long biographies of local personalities, which he published privately but spoke about publicly and at length.

  ‘Was that altogether fair?’ Loopy wondered, following Meggie across the room having observed what she had done.

  ‘Perfectly fair. Mr Astley’s far too charming for his own good,’ Meggie replied. ‘And cocky with it.’

  ‘No-one, surely, no-one in the whole world deserves to be landed with those two collapsing tents, Meggie darling. But no-one.’

  ‘It’ll test his social skills, Loopy.’ Meggie stopped, looking around. ‘I don’t see Judy – she surely hasn’t gone home? Hardly – because there’s Walter just arrived.’

  ‘She hasn’t gone home, of course not. She excused herself a few moments ago – probably went to powder her nose.’

  Loopy was watching Walter who was standing apart from everyone else, talking intently to a diminutive and attractive-looking brunette whom Loopy couldn’t quite place. Seeing her look, Meggie supplied the necessary information.

  ‘Fiona Carrington’s first public appearance since she lost her husband in France. Day before they entered Paris.’

  ‘Poor kid. What terrible luck.’

  ‘Worse than terrible. They’d only got married two months before, on his last leave.’

  ‘She looks very young. Can’t be more than twenty.’

  ‘About that, I should think. Why don’t you go and interrupt them?’ Meggie asked, half hooding her large eyes with her hand as if she was at sea. ‘I meant talk to them, rather, while I go in search of your errant daughter-in-law.’

  Loopy needed no second invitation to introduce herself to Fiona Carrington who seemed almost pathetically grateful, while Meggie went upstairs in search of Judy. Seeing one of the guest bedroom doors wide open, she found her friend sitting in the freezing spare room absentmindedly brushing her hair in front of a dressing mirror.

  ‘What on earth are you trying to do, Judy?’ she asked mock crossly. ‘Catch frostbite?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Judy said, quickly turning round. ‘In fact this lovely cool room is just what I needed. It’s terribly hot down there.’

  ‘Can’t say I noticed.’

  ‘It is actually. I nearly fainted.’

  ‘Too many of Richards’s specials, probably,’ Meggie said, sitting down at the dressing table and checking her appearance. ‘Or else there is a little visitor on the way. Feeling faint can be a true sign of—’

  ‘I had literally half a glass of Rob Roy, Meggie, truly, that’s all. I couldn’t have managed any more.’

  ‘Very wise. Richards’s made them far too strong, bless him. Still, it’s made the party go with a swing and it’s going to be quite fascinating to see who leaves with whom – and indeed if they notice. Come on – we don’t want to miss anything.’

  Meggie extended a hand to pull Judy up from the dressing table stool, but Judy hesitated.

  ‘Something wrong, darling? Somebody done or said something to upset you?’

  ‘Not really. No, no, of course not.’ Judy stood up and bent down in front of the looking glass on the dressing table to check her own looks, pushing her hair back, once more, with both hands.

  ‘Not really generally means yes.’

  ‘Not in this case, Meggie. Nobody did or said anything to upset me.’

  ‘Fine – then try this. Did someone upset you?’ Meggie started to walk out of the room, at the same time holding out her hand to Judy to follow her.

  ‘Nobody upset me either,’ Judy finally replied. ‘I just got very hot.’

  ‘And not a little bothered. It’s OK – I understand. Now, we must go down and rescue the elegant Mr Astley. I left him being bored to death with Laurence Nicholson and Bexham’s very own vanity author Jeremy Wilson-Bennett. He’d need to be a social Houdini to escape from their conversational clutches.’

  But on their return, far from finding Waldo stiff with boredom, Meggie and Judy saw him with a seemingly deeply interested expression surrounded by an animated group of people.

  ‘I’d say our Mr Astley is already really quite popular, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘So long as he doesn’t prove to be a show-off.’ Without giving him another look, Meggie took herself off to talk to some of her other guests.

  ‘John,’ she said mock sternly to Walter’s older brother who was standing with a nearly finished drink in his hand gazing without any interest whatsoever at a very dark eighteenth-century landscape that was badly in need of cleaning. ‘John Tate, I did not invite you here to stare at the paintings, particularly highly insignificant ones such as this one. I want you to come and meet a friend of mine who’s driven all the way from Arundel to meet the eligible young men of Bexham.’ She put her hand in John’s to lead him back into the fray, and at once felt his resistance.

  ‘Sorry, Meggie. I’m much too drunk.’ John sighed. ‘Don’t know what your man put in this concoction but it has rendered me near speechless and without the use of my legs. Hence my trying to make out this gloomy depiction by some obscure dauber.’

  ‘I want you to meet Angela Gower,’ Meggie insisted. ‘She’s pretty, grand, and rich. Just what the doc ordered in fact.’

  ‘I will meet her when I can see one of everything, rather than three. In fact, all things considered, I think I shall wobble off hom
e.’

  Meggie glanced at her friend, who was hovering in the background waiting to be introduced, but it was too late – John aimed a kiss at Meggie, and missed, before stumbling out of the nearest door, colliding with two equally tipsy guests and one very upright door post. Meggie watched him go with a sigh, knowing how much he had been in love with Judy during the war when Walter had gone missing, how desperate he had been to marry her, and how Judy had hardly seemed to notice him, longing only for Walter’s return, which somehow had made it much worse for John.

  The problem was not finding John a suitable partner but somehow convincing him to put what had happened behind him, in the past where it belonged. He could still hardly bear to look at Judy, let alone talk to her for any length of time without being reduced to a helpless silence. It sometimes seemed to everyone that Walter had married the only girl that John imagined he could love.

  ‘I really don’t know what we can do for him,’ Loopy confided to Meggie as they both watched his uneven progress out of the drawing room. ‘I keep introducing him to pretty, bright girls, and he keeps showing absolutely no interest whatsoever in them. If John wasn’t quite so resolutely the son of his father I might begin to suspect he’d turned into a wildflower.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Loopy,’ Meggie returned, at the same time shaking her head at Richards who had just appeared with yet another jugful of danger. ‘He might just decide to become a monk, but a wildflower? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘He’s going to have to find himself somebody.’

  ‘The right somebody though, not the wrong one.’

  As John stumbled out of Cucklington House he passed a young woman seated on a bench pushed up against the house. Seeing what a bad state he was in she found herself wondering fleetingly whether she should go to help him, but then she saw Hugh Tate’s car stop alongside where John was hanging on to a lamppost as if his life depended on it. A moment later John had been swallowed up into the dark comforts of the family car, which proceeded home at a slow if not quite steady pace. Getting to her feet she too made her way towards the road, intent on walking off the Rob Roys in her own good time.