Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘I’ll be goin’ then.’ Jode bobbed his head, knocking it against the brass lantern that hung from the ceiling, making the light swing wildly. ‘See ye tomorrow, Dimpsie.’

  I became aware that the hall’s atmosphere was filled with a pulsing excitement created by somersaulting pheromones. The face of the moon on the longcase clock seemed to take on a prurient smirk.

  ‘If you’re sure that’s convenient.’

  ‘Aye. Ten o’clock.’

  ‘He’s taking me to see this couple he knows who are weavers and use only vegetable dyes,’ she explained after he’d gone with a crashing of the front door that made the house shake. ‘I thought they sounded like possible candidates for the craft shop. It’s so kind of him to take the trouble. It’s not as though there’s anything in it for him.’

  ‘Terribly kind. Will you fasten my necklace for me?’ I leaned towards the hall mirror while Dimpsie fastened a little collar of diamonds and sapphires round my throat.

  Evelyn had given them to me the day before. When I had protested that she had already given me far too much she said, ‘Don’t be silly, Marigold. These belong to the family not me. You’ll have to hand them on to your son’s wife in due course. Anyway, I prefer the pearls. Much more flattering for older skin.’ She had turned to stare at herself in the morning room looking glass. ‘I’m fifty-seven, but I think I could pass for fifty in a dim light, don’t you?’ Another question with only one answer.

  ‘Fifty, if a day.’

  Evelyn had frowned.

  ‘Or forty-five really … thirty-nine? … You don’t think Isobel will want the sapphires?’

  Evelyn had given a chilly little laugh. ‘Conrad will be able to buy her ten necklaces like these.’

  I was sorry to observe an increasing coldness between Isobel and her mother. Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that Evelyn seemed daily to be investing more enthusiasm into Rafe’s and my engagement.

  Now Dimpsie kissed me. ‘I’m so proud of you, darling. Oh dear! I can still smell chip fat.’

  ‘Blast! I’ve shampooed my hair until I’m almost bald.’

  Not possessing any scent myself, Dimpsie fetched hers, called El Souk. It was quite overpowering and made me think of the stuff you put down the lav, a disguising sort of smell, but it had to be an improvement on the chip pan. I dabbed it lavishly on every available centimetre of flesh. Then, while Dimpsie cleaned the earth from her fingernails, I combed the twigs from the back of her hair. When we were as lovely to behold as Nature and our wardrobes allowed, we got into her Mini and set off.

  ‘I hope we aren’t late,’ I said as we looked for a space to park, the drive being lined with large and expensive motors.

  Dimpsie scrunched into reverse. ‘How far am I from the car behind? … oh, bugger! Never mind, that’s what bumpers are for.’

  We tottered up to the house, leaning forward on heels that felt like stilts, our carefully arranged hair standing up like sails in the stiff breeze. Spendlove helped me out of my … Bobbie’s coat.

  ‘Happy days, Miss Marigold,’ he whispered and winked. This was a tiny comfort.

  Evelyn came into the hall, looking striking in dark grey. The Preston pearls, three magnificent strands with an enormous side clasp of cabochon rubies and emeralds, were her only ornament. ‘Marigold! Darling! There you are! And dear Dimpsie.’ She embraced us both.

  When we walked into the drawing room, the swell of well-bred voices subsided momentarily as guests craned their necks to examine the outsider who had crept past the favourites to steal the matrimonial jackpot from under their noses. It was a little like making one’s first entrance. I drew myself up as tall as I could and assumed my Odile smile, brilliant but with a hint of something snaky in it, just in case there were those present who had come to find fault.

  ‘You look lovely, darling.’ Evelyn took my arm. ‘Rafe was quite right to trust to your good taste.’

  I did not like to be told quite so plainly that my appearance had been a matter for discussion between them.

  ‘Marigold.’ The archdeacon loomed up, looking flakier than ever, like a monument under snow. ‘My felicitations. I think as an old friend I may claim the privilege.’

  He saluted my cheek with cold lips. Two meetings, during both of which he had been peevish and ungracious, hardly constituted a friendship of any kind, but as Odile I was prepared to be false and hypocritical. When Lady Pruefoy pressed her white moustache to my face I did not flinch.

  ‘I always knew how it would be,’ she lied without a blush. ‘I saw at once how taken with her he was,’ she assured a woman at her elbow, who kissed both my ears, though as far as I knew we were complete strangers.

  There was much more of this sort of thing. Bunty came to murmur congratulations. She dabbed vaguely at my face with a smiling mouth but her eyes said she was in pain. Rafe, on the other side of the room, was enduring congratulatory embraces with a magnificent suavity. He looked as Alexander must have done after he’d given the Persians what-for: relaxed, charming and unassailable. As soon as he saw me he came over. He pecked my cheek decorously but his eyes were admiring. ‘Beautiful dress, darling. I knew you’d come up trumps.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Hello, Bunty.’

  He gave her a perfunctory kiss. Bunty went red, except for the tip of her nose which remained white. I was sorry to be the inadvertent cause of her distress. She gave him a look blent of longing and sorrow and walked quickly away. Rafe made a face at me, as if to say that some people were rather hard going. It was clear to me that he had not the least idea of the love raging in Bunty’s breast. ‘This is pretty good hell, darling, but it can’t last more than a couple of hours. You really are looking the tops.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said again.

  A superior-looking woman slid between us. ‘How do you do?’ She looked at me with implacable eyes. ‘You must be Marigold. I’m Miranda Delaware. Hello, sweetie.’ She kissed Rafe, leaving a lipstick mark on his chin. She presented me with her shoulder. ‘Rafe, darling, I’ve got the Battersbys staying next weekend. They’re bringing his sister. You remember Ingrid? Tall and blonde and terrifyingly intelligent. Don’t pretend you don’t.’ She tapped his arm reprovingly and looked provocatively up at him through black spiky eyelashes. ‘You danced with her all evening. Anyway, I’m a man short for Sunday lunch. Would you be an angel and come?’ She glanced at me. ‘You needn’t worry, my dear. Ingrid’s not the sort of woman men want to marry. Far too much competition for them, poor vain things. They always choose girls who’ll worship them with doglike devotion. And then they wonder why they’re bored.’ She gave a laugh that was not so much silvery as pinchbeck.

  ‘Actually, I think men find bitchy, competitive women fairly boring,’ I said coldly

  ‘Marigold, you haven’t met the Stitchcourts yet.’ Rafe took hold of my elbow and led me away, leaving Miranda Delaware, I hoped, with her composure a little ruffled. ‘That was unnecessarily sharp, darling,’ he said when we were out of earshot.

  ‘I don’t think it was. She meant me to understand that she thought I wasn’t good enough for you.’

  ‘No, no. She was just tactless, that’s all.’

  ‘Besides, it’s rude to ask someone to lunch in front of someone else you haven’t asked.’

  ‘Yes, very. And I shan’t accept. But it would have been better to ignore it.’

  ‘Not for me it wouldn’t. Why should she have all the fun?’

  ‘All right, don’t look so fierce. People are wondering what’s the matter.’ He smiled, whether for my benefit or to convince onlookers that we were not quarrelling I didn’t know. ‘Who’d have guessed you had such a temper, darling? I suppose it’s your red hair.’ He pinched my cheek. ‘It’s very sexy. I can’t wait to get you on my own.’

  I could not exactly put my finger on why his remark about the colour of my hair made me feel even crosser. Possibly because it seemed to suggest that I was being irrational. But I owed it to Rafe
and Evelyn not to spoil the party, so I answered Mrs Stitchcourt’s probing questions with smiling sweetness and listened to Mr Stitchcourt’s description of a horse he owned two legs of and the races it had nearly won with an expression of pleased interest.

  I was glad to see Duncan Vardy, the Old Norse expert, approaching, his large teeth gleaming, his spotted tie twisted under his ear.

  ‘Heigh-ho, Marigold! Splendid news about your engagement.’

  ‘Thank you. How are the Nornor?’

  He looked pleased that I’d remembered. ‘The book’s getting on quite nicely. I’m writing about Aegir, the Norse god of the sea. He lived on the floor of the ocean with his wife and nine daughters, the billow maidens. Naturally fire was impracticable, so his house was lit by heaps of gold.’

  Duncan was a true enthusiast and I liked listening to him. I drank another glass of champagne and felt cheerful again. When Isobel came over to us, I kissed her and said she looked like a magical creature of the forest. Her elfin haircut and her clinging leopard-print dress, with one long sleeve and one bare shoulder that reminded me of Tarzan, prompted the remark.

  ‘Really?’ she said coolly. ‘You look like a cross between Lady Di and a governess. Exactly what Mummy likes. How quickly you’re learning your part.’

  Before I could decide how to respond, Duncan said with a nervous titter, ‘You both look ravissantes. I’ll get you some more champagne.’ He snatched my glass from my hand, though it was nowhere near empty, and scuttled off, the coward.

  I decided to pretend unconcern. ‘Where’s Conrad?’

  Isobel scowled. ‘He sent Fritz with a message to say he might not be able to come. Apparently he’s got an unexpected visitor. I told Fritz to tell him he must or I’d never forgive him and to bring the visitor if he couldn’t get rid of him. Can you imagine how everyone’ll be whispering behind their hands if he doesn’t show up?’

  ‘They might think – quite reasonably – he’d had to go back to Germany. Or London or somewhere.’

  ‘That just shows how little you understand them.’ Isobel’s tone was scathing. ‘I despise them all and they know it so they’ll be delighted to see me humiliated.’

  Isobel glared about her with an expression of detestation before glancing towards the hall. Her profile, that of a vengeful goddess, melted swiftly into beaming satisfaction. ‘There he is!’

  I caught a glimpse of Conrad’s dark head before Isobel, hurrying to meet him, blocked my view.

  ‘Well, Marigold!’ The archdeacon appeared at my elbow. ‘You have been fortunate indeed to capture the heart of so estimable a young man.’ He cracked a grisly smile. ‘Privilege, of course, brings obligations. My advice to you,’ the archdeacon lowered his chin to look up the more impressively from beneath thick, scurfy eyebrows, ‘is to lay aside your books and apply yourself to the study of how best you may use your new privileges in the service of those less fortunately circumstanced.’

  Conrad had entered the drawing room with Isobel. He turned to speak to the man beside him. When I saw who it was, everything seemed to dim and grow bright in waves. I wondered if I could be hallucinating.

  ‘Humility,’ droned the archdeacon, ‘is a rare virtue. Knowledge puffeth up, as the Good Book says, but charity edifieth.’

  With his inimical eyes and hooked nose, Sebastian Lenoir resembled a particularly bad-tempered bird of prey. He stared about him unsmiling until his gaze rested on me. He began to walk towards me with his customary panther-like lope, looking straight ahead, as though Evelyn’s guests were so much litter beneath his feet.

  Rafe was talking to Ronald Dunderave. I signalled desperation with every feature. My face must have been eloquent for he began to make his way to my side of the room. But Sebastian was there before him. Before I had an inkling of what he meant to do, Sebastian gripped me tightly, forcing me onto my toes, and kissed me long and hard on the lips. Everyone within eyeshot looked astonished by such behaviour at a country cocktail party. I was equally startled. He had never done such a thing before. In the old days he generally greeted me by pointing a finger towards a chair while he finished whatever he was doing.

  ‘Good evening.’ Rafe’s expression and bearing were indicative of grave affront. ‘I’m Rafe Preston. I don’t think we’ve met.’

  Sebastian took out his handkerchief and wiped my lipstick from his mouth. ‘I’m Sebastian Lenoir. I apologize for gate-crashing, but I hope my connection with Marigold will excuse it.’ Blank looks all round. Sebastian smiled like the splintering of a glaze of ice on a pond. ‘Perhaps she hasn’t told you that we are engaged to be married.’

  27

  At half-past seven the following morning I came panting into the clearing. Conrad was looking up through a pair of binoculars. He was wearing a brown velvet jacket with discreet black frogging round the buttons. Something about his appearance, his finely trimmed moustache and beard, his elegant profile like a Byzantine painting, made me think of the eponymous cad of Eugene Onegin, who callously rejects a young girl’s passion for him. I had twice danced the role of Tatiana.

  ‘Oh … thank goodness!’ I said between gasps. ‘Please, Conrad … you must help me. Where is he?’

  Without removing the binoculars from his eyes, Conrad took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me. This was the third time in six days that we had encountered one another by accident in the woods. Conrad was interested in a nest of pink-legged bustards and I enjoyed the dramatic scenic accompaniment to a really stiff climb that the hill below Hindleep House afforded.

  ‘He has just brought back a mouse. Or a vole, perhaps.’

  ‘What? Oh, I’m talking about Sebastian of course!’

  ‘He is tearing it to small pieces for the young.’ He lowered the binoculars to look at me and turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘Not an attractive sight.’ I wondered if it was the magnified view of dismemberment or my disreputable leotard and laddered tights that repelled him. ‘As for Sebastian, he is asleep on a sofa beside the fire which I have refreshed this morning for his benefit.’

  ‘But why is he here?’ Conrad averted his gaze as I mopped the perspiration that ran in rivulets down my face and made my eyes sting. ‘Do you have any idea how long he’s staying?’

  ‘He informed me last night that he was thinking of remaining in Northumberland for several days, perhaps even a week.’

  I uttered a faint shriek. ‘Oh God! This is terrible!’ In my agony of mind I hopped from foot to foot. ‘Will he stay at Hindleep?’

  ‘I imagine that the sofa and our primitive bathroom will drive him to seek refuge in a hotel. I hope so. While I have respect for Sebastian, he is not one of my particular friends.’

  ‘How do you know each other?’

  ‘He was acquainted with my uncle Charles. Sebastian probably knows everyone who is responsible for distributing a charitable trust.’

  ‘A charitable trust?’ I echoed stupidly. ‘What’s that exactly?’

  He took back his handkerchief, found a dry section and began to polish the lenses of his binoculars. ‘My great-great-grandfather made a fortune building railways in the Balkans. Thanks to careful management, it has survived two world wars and innumerable smaller skirmishes, though frequently its trustees did not. I inherited, on the death of my uncle, the task of investing the capital and distributing the interest to artistic and educational projects as I think fit. Sebastian has more than once invited me to put money into the Lenoir Ballet Company.’

  ‘But you never said! I had no idea you’d even heard of the company.’

  ‘As I decline to sponsor not only the LBC but all ballet companies, I preferred to keep that knowledge to myself. People are apt to resent those who do not admit the paramount importance of their special cause. It is better to keep business and pleasure as separate as one can.’

  ‘Why don’t you give money to ballet? Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I do like it.’ Conrad paused. ‘But there are other areas of the arts that are not so w
ell funded.’

  ‘But really the LBC has the most awful struggle to keep going …’ I realized I was about to become one of those persons Conrad had just complained of, convinced that my own particular passion was the most deserving of support. ‘Well, of course it’s none of my business who you give money to.’

  ‘Whom, surely?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The dative case. To whom I give money.’

  ‘Oh, well … perhaps. Do you know, Conrad, I think you’re the most puzzling man I ever met.’

  He drew his eyebrows together but said nothing. You might have thought him effeminate with his clothes and his hair and his dandified air – except for his eyes. There was no feminine softness or sympathy in them. Always they were challenging, often with that spark of amusement that might even have been derision, as though he thought us all hypocrites, liars and idiots. And no matter how heated the emotional temperature, he remained serene, as though he felt himself to be beyond the fitfulness of fortune. He was secretive, even guarded … my mind was temporarily diverted from my anxiety about Sebastian to the question I had been burning to ask him since our first meeting.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what you were doing on that train. I haven’t mentioned it to a soul. But why didn’t you want anyone to know that you’d already been two weeks in Northumberland before coming to dinner at Shottestone that first time?’

  ‘That was unfortunate. Not only the same train but the same carriage. The chances were a million – several millions – to one. It almost makes me inclined to believe in Duncan Vardy’s Nornor: troublesome creatures meddling in our lives and rendering us all absurd. They are more famously known as die Walküre or the Valkyries – demi-goddesses with shockingly vindictive tempers.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Wagner.’ I was delighted to be able to display a crumb of knowledge. When talking to Conrad I was often conscious of my appalling ignorance. I reflected, happily, that Rafe never made me feel my lack of education, which must be a good thing. ‘But when Duncan was talking about them I imagined them as old black crones, not blonde maidens in helmets.’