‘There you are, Father.’ Rafe was leaning over us from behind the sofa. ‘Lord Dunderave wants to know if you’d like to take a rod in Scotland this August.’
‘Good God, no!’ Kingsley looked horrified. ‘Can’t stand the man. Tell him no, my boy.’
‘That won’t do, Father,’ Rafe’s voice was firm. ‘You must tell him yourself.’
‘Can’t think why Evelyn’s always inviting him,’ Kingsley protested as his son helped him up. ‘He’s bad-tempered and a rotten shot.’ Grumbling he walked off.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rafe said as he drove me home an hour later. ‘Sexual disinhibition is a classic symptom of dementia, according to the specialist. Buster, be quiet! This morning I caught him trying to goose Mrs Capstick. She’s very loyal and said she quite understood that the master wasn’t himself. I hope you aren’t too shocked.’
‘Not at all. He’s never been anything but very kind to me.’
‘Bless you for that. If it gets any worse I suppose we’ll have to keep him within bounds somehow. Shut up, Buster! But you don’t want to hear all my family problems. I hope you didn’t have too bad a time with Ronald at dinner. He’s a bit of an ass.’
‘I expect he thought I was completely deranged.’
Buster was yelping directly into my right ear, making my head swim. I slipped my arm between the front seats and groped around in the back to stroke him. I found his paw. The minute I took hold of it he stopped barking so I hung on.
‘You and Fritz were getting on like a house on fire.’
‘He’s a darling. I did think Conrad was rather exciting, didn’t you?’
‘Exciting? That wouldn’t be the adjective I’d choose. After you women left the table he hardly said a word. I suppose to be fair, none of us had much to say. Dunderave and Crimple-Pratt started a row about the Common Market which set Father off about the Germans so I had to pretend we’d run out of port.’
We both laughed. The post mortems in the car going home were almost the most enjoyable parts of Shottestone dinners.
‘I could see you were having great success with Bunty.’
‘We were talking about horses.’
‘She looked as though she was enjoying herself.’
‘I hope so. But I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea. Don’t think me conceited – the thing is, Marigold, you’re so sweet and easy to talk to and I mustn’t abuse that – but my mother’s been trying to throw us, Bunty and me, together with marriage in mind. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous? Of course it’s impossible.’
‘Is it? Actually I think she’s unusually honest and nice.’
‘Do you? Well … yes, I suppose she is. But what man marries for niceness? She has as much sex appeal as dear old Nanny Sparkles.’ Nanny Sparkles had looked after two generations of Preston children and now lay beneath the snow in Gaythwaite churchyard. ‘I simply couldn’t go through with it.’
I was puzzled by the despondency of his tone. ‘Do many men marry to please their parents these days?’
‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Evelyn would want you to be happy.’
‘Yes. But she’s convinced she knows better than I do what would make me happy.’ The fierceness with which he said this surprised me. ‘Bunty’ll inherit a large estate. And Evelyn would be able to keep her under her thumb. She’d never be a threat to my mother’s supremacy.’
‘To be fair,’ I said, ‘I expect all mothers want their children to marry the sort of people who’ll fit in easily with their own circle. All mothers except mine, that is. Dimpsie would adore it if I married a flamenco dancer or the ringmaster of a travelling circus. That’s because she doesn’t have a social position to maintain. And she’s a romantic.’
‘I hope you won’t.’
‘Probably not. It would be so difficult to juggle careers – and I hate animals being kept in cages and made to perform.’
‘If you were married, would it be absolutely necessary for you to go on dancing?’
‘Oh yes. I’m horribly ambitious, you know.’
‘Is it quite impossible that you might ever love someone enough to give it up so you could be with them? I don’t know much about ballet but I suppose it involves hours of practice and world tours and so on. If – I admit it’s unlikely – your fancy happened to light on some poor fool who was obliged to live in the remoter regions of … let’s say, for argument’s sake, Northumberland, where his family had lived for generations – let’s imagine that because he’s the only son he feels it’s his duty to carry on the tradition – in those most improbable circumstances, might you contemplate sacrificing your career in order to rusticate in the wilderness with him?’
I grew hot suddenly and my heart drummed so violently that my ears squeaked. Rafe’s choice of words was light-hearted but his voice was serious. The porch light of Dumbola Lodge appeared up ahead and at the same moment the wheels started to spin on the icebound drive. I felt us slide backwards, felt the car tumble down, down, down into the black foaming waters below … we stopped. I opened my eyes and took my gloved fist, the one not holding Buster’s paw, out of my mouth. We had pulled up beside the front door.
‘Sorry, did that frighten you? I had to let the car roll back a bit to get the tyres to grip.’
I hoped I had not actually screamed. Before I could begin to repair my dignity, the front door opened to reveal my father, muffled in overcoat and scarf, standing in a segment of light. He inched his way over the frozen ground and came to peer into the car.
‘Oh, it’s you.’ He opened the door. ‘I was expecting someone else. Hello, Rafe. Hurry up, Marigold. It’s bloody perishing out here.’ He took hold of my arm.
‘Hello, sir. How are you?’
‘Fine. Don’t bother to get out. I’ll get the crutches.’
I only had time to express the briefest of thanks before I was bundled indoors. Two minutes later I heard the sound of another car. I looked out of the drawing-room window. Something large like a Range Rover skidded to a halt. My father got in. The interior light came on for a few seconds, long enough to show me the sharp, rather exaggerated features of Marcia Dane.
16
‘So he’s gone away for ten days.’ Evelyn’s tone was exasperated. ‘And I don’t believe Isobel has any idea where. Germany, Timbuktu, the North Pole. Isobel and Rafe have gone to Edinburgh to visit friends. Her idea. I think she didn’t want to seem to be hanging forlornly about waiting for her fiancé to drop in when he felt like it. It’s very strange behaviour for a newly engaged man. When I agreed to marry Kingsley he sent me flowers every single day and wanted to take me out to dinner every evening. He almost wept if I said I was busy. And what about the ring? He hasn’t given her so much as a rhinestone.’
We were in the sitting room at home. It was a measure of Evelyn’s unease that she had driven over to see Dimpsie instead of summoning her to Shottestone. I knew she found the decoration at Dumbola Lodge unsettling. She had waited until my mother’s back was turned before flipping over the sofa cushion to see if the other side was cleaner. So Rafe was in Edinburgh. I need not hang about the hall, listening for the telephone. After our last conversation, which I had mulled over endlessly whenever I had leisure, I had expected that he would ring.
‘Perhaps Conrad’s gone to get her one,’ I suggested. I had offered to leave Evelyn and Dimpsie to a tête-à-tête, but Evelyn had said she would value my opinion. ‘Perhaps at this moment he’s deep in a mine in South Africa watching eagerly as men stripped to the waist with sweat running like water down their backs are carefully chipping an enormous sparkling diamond from the bare rock by the light of flaming torches.’
‘Sometimes, Marigold, I think you allow your imagination too free a rein,’ said Evelyn reprovingly. ‘For one thing, if Conrad wanted to buy diamonds he could go to a shop in Bond Street. And for another, diamonds in their natural state look like lumps of cloudy glass. It’s the cutting that makes them sparkle.’
<
br /> ‘How disappointing! I always imagined them shining in the darkness like fragments of ice. Shall I get a knife?’
Evelyn had brought us one of Mrs Capstick’s delicious seed cakes. A cynic might think this mere self-interest, ensuring something to eat that had been cooked in a clean kitchen, but she had also brought us some rose-pink rhubarb forced under big pots in her garden and some tobacco brown eggs from her hens, from which she could not expect any personal benefit. Generosity was one of her most attractive qualities.
‘I’ll go.’ Dimpsie stood up. ‘It takes you so long with your poor leg.’
Evelyn’s eyes rested briefly on the string sculpture from the craft shop, which hung on the wall above the bookcase. She averted her eyes from the carving of an African warrior with spear and protruding navel and fixed them on me.
‘Your mother’s not looking well. Her complexion’s grey and her eyes are bloodshot. Is she drinking again?’
I knew I could trust Evelyn. ‘I’m afraid so. At least a bottle of wine a night. And I keep finding glasses of what looks like water hidden behind vases and things. Only it smells like gin.’
Evelyn made a sound like hrrr. ‘I hoped your being here might help. The thing is, it’s a ghastly situation for her. I don’t know how much you know – I don’t want to upset you, darling—’
‘If you mean, do I know that my father has other women, yes, I do.’
‘Oh, Marigold!’ Evelyn looked at me with compassion. ‘How horrid for you!’
‘I suppose I’ve always known but I didn’t want to think about it. Now I can’t avoid seeing what’s going on. Vanessa Trumball came to the surgery today.’
‘Beastly woman!’ Evelyn put her cup on its saucer quite violently. ‘Mrs Capstick tells me – not that I allow the servants to gossip, of course, but apparently it’s all over the town – that her husband left her because of her relationship with your father. The Trumball woman clearly has no idea how to conduct herself. All men stray but if they’re discreet it hardly matters. No, the problem is that your poor mother minds so much. Well, sooner or later Mrs Trumball will find that life beyond the pale has its disadvantages. I hear the Red Cross have voted her off the committee. Not that that’s altogether a misfortune. If I have to go to one more grisly coffee morning and drink Nescafé and eat buns like cement I shall commit adultery myself.’ She smiled to show she wasn’t serious and leaned forward to place her hand on my knee. ‘Never mind, darling. Vanessa Trumball will live to regret her unscrupulous behaviour. From all I hear, your father is incapable of being faithful even to his paramours.’
‘Actually, I think she’s regretting it already. This morning I could see she’d been crying and her hair was standing up at the back as though she hadn’t brushed it since getting out of bed. She’s been ringing the surgery at least five times a day all week. My father told me on no account to put her through. I tried to stop her going into the consulting room but she dashed in while he had Mrs Wiggins on the examination couch with her skirt round her waist.’
‘You don’t mean—?’ Evelyn looked shocked.
‘Oh no, not Mrs Wiggins. She must be at least a hundred and ten. She’s got a prolapsed womb. There was quite a scene and Tom took hold of her shoulders – Vanessa Trumball’s, I mean – and marched her out through the waiting room and pushed her into the street. He told her if she didn’t leave him alone he’d get an injunction to prevent her coming to the surgery. The other patients were utterly thrilled, watching all this with eyes out on stalks like a row of snails.’
‘So he’s finished with her? Well, that’s something to be thankful for. Perhaps your poor mother will feel a little happier.’
‘I don’t think so. Not long after Vanessa Trumball had been thrown out on her ear, Marcia Dane rang.’
‘Marcia Dane? The woman who’s just moved into the Old Rectory? All teeth and eyes? I met her at the Harvey-Somerton’s lunch the other day. She smiled like a crocodile at every man in the room and smoked between courses.’
‘That’s her.’
‘Perhaps she’s got gynaecological problems too?’
I shook my head. ‘Tom told me to take her off his list yesterday. Nurse Bunker and Nurse Keppel were there and they started tittering and winking at each other, only they daren’t say anything in front of me. Of course he’d be struck off for having an affair with one of his patients.’
‘I see.’ Evelyn looked worried and I knew what she was thinking. Marcia Dane was an altogether different proposition from Vanessa Trumball. Marcia Dane had striking looks, money and pizzazz. It was not easy to imagine her being chucked out onto the pavement.
‘Well, we must hope she gets bored with him. What a nuisance men are … we were just saying, Dimpsie,’ she added quickly as my mother, looking flushed and smelling strongly of alcohol, returned with the knife for the cake, ‘what a bother men are. However, before he left, Mr Lerner did condescend to accept an invitation to lunch next week. Marigold, you’ll come and make up the numbers, won’t you? I’ve asked Dame Gloria Beauwhistle, the composer. I haven’t met her myself but she’s bound to inject a little fizz. She had such a success last year with that opera – what was it called? Something medieval. The Knight of the Holy something … an odd name … something to do with kitchens.’
‘The Holy Colander?’ I suggested.
Evelyn did not have a sense of humour. ‘No, no, that’s not it.’ She pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle. I didn’t see it myself – I don’t care much for anything later than the First Viennese School – but it had wonderful reviews. Her family have lived in Northumberland for generations and she’s just bought back her ancestral home in the village of Coldthorpe. I received a charming letter of acceptance from Dame Gloria and I’ve asked Sybil Hinchingbrook as well. People seem to think quite a lot of Sybil’s flower paintings. To me they seem perfectly insipid but possibly I’m missing something.’ It was apparent that she did not really believe this. ‘She’s bringing her brother, Basil. He’s a very successful publisher. Sybil says he’s been staying with her for two weeks, recovering from a particularly exhausting book fair. After two weeks of Sybil’s conversation he must be nearly dead with ennui. I wonder,’ she added musingly, ‘if he might do for Isobel. Sybil did mention that he wasn’t married.’
‘What about Ronald?’ I asked
‘Oh, he won’t do at all,’ Evelyn said impatiently, as though I was making a preposterous suggestion. ‘He’s far too stupid and besides his father is such an unpleasant man. He complained that the beef we had at dinner the other night was overcooked. It was as rare as it could possibly be without actually oozing blood.’
‘Is Basil good looking?’ I asked.
‘I’ve never set eyes on the man. Why?’
‘I was just wondering what he might offer that would make Isobel prefer him to Conrad.’
‘For a start he’s English. They’d have a common culture.’
‘I’m not sure that Conrad’s differentness isn’t a major part of his attraction.’
‘You mean dissimilarity, darling. Differentness is extremely ugly … I’m surprised with all this reading you do … however, I see your point.’ She frowned. ‘Then we must hope that his casual attitude towards her – neglect would not be an exaggeration – may be enough to wean her from such vitiated tastes.’
‘Marigold liked Conrad,’ Dimpsie put in. She was sipping tea thirstily and had a job to find the saucer when she wanted to put down her cup.
‘Marigold is young and impressionable,’ said Evelyn tartly. ‘Mr Lerner talks well and knows how to make himself agreeable.’
I remembered that Evelyn had softened towards him after that dinner and had as good as defended him to Lady Pruefoy.
‘Surely that’s very much in his favour?’ protested Dimpsie. ‘You make it sound as though he’s an impostor.’
‘Perhaps he is. I know nothing about him. That’s the trouble. Who are his parents? His grandparents? No,’ she
sat up straighter and smoothed the wrinkles from her dove-coloured cashmere cardigan in a decisive gesture, ‘he may be well educated and sortable, which I admit is a relief after everything Isobel told me, but he is in every other way unsuitable. Marriage is not about falling in love with a handsome face and a beguiling manner. It requires a sound footing, a strong sense of commitment, the same values, a common purpose. Sexual attraction is of minimal importance.’
‘I don’t agree,’ said Dimpsie. ‘Anyway you could have all those things – commitment and values and whatnot – and he could be handsome and interesting into the bargain. And you might want to go to bed with him.’
Evelyn grimaced. ‘Isn’t that asking for the moon? One must be practical, above all, when it comes to marriage. It lasts for such a very long time.’
‘It seems to me,’ Dimpsie’s speech was slurred, ‘that you’re judging others by your own experience. Just because you didn’t fancy Kingsley doesn’t mean that sex isn’t important.’ No doubt drink was responsible for this unusually blunt speaking. ‘I married Tom because I thought he was the most desirable creature I’d ever set eyes on.’
There was a pause. I could see that Evelyn was struggling to swallow the little sting in Dimpsie’s accusation. And there was so much Evelyn might legitimately say in refutation. Dimpsie’s disastrous marriage was a perfect illustration of the folly of marrying for love. Resentment warred with good nature and good nature won. ‘Well, darling, we must each follow our own inclinations. What on earth is that?’
Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs Page 19
