A Winter's Child (15 page)

Outside the air was cool, the earth damp and heavy, the tree trunks green with venerable antiquity, the clamourings of street and town, of Royalties and the emotional demands and posturings of others, dispersed, reduced, forgotten in this enclosed wilderness which even Kit Hardie had not tried to discipline.

‘I find this very charming,' he said, and she glanced up at him, surprised that he should think so, oddly pleased that he did.

‘So do I.' And they walked on a little way in silence, savouring an attraction that was, as yet, wholly physical – since he was an intensely physical man and her emotions were too scarred to be easily hazarded again – but which, far from alarming her, seemed to wrap itself around her like a warm blanket, softening the needle-sharp memories aroused by Euan Ash, protecting her from the groping tentacles of Swanfields and Lyalls which, if she could not keep her own annoying conscience under control would stifle her for their own purposes, their own convenience, with no conception of hers.

Kit Hardie, at thirty-six, was older than the other men she had known, infinitely steadier; self-seeking, she had no doubt, even coarse at times perhaps beneath his easy, polished charm. But assured, decided, strong. And how fascinating it might be if only for a little while – to be younger and frailer, to be swept along, controlled, sheltered. How restful. How
easy.

‘Nola will have told you,' he said, ‘that I was in service at High Meadows.'

‘What a dreary expression – in service. It doesn't suit you.'

‘No. It didn't. This suits me better. Will you take the flat?'

‘Oh, I think – perhaps.'

The blue eyes twinkled down at her, the sensual, yet humorous mouth curved into a smile which could only encourage her own.

‘That's not an answer. Shall we try again? Will you take the flat?'

‘Yes – I might.'

‘Claire …?'

It was the first time he had used her name.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I will.'

It was beyond the comprehension of Dorothy Lyall why anyone, who had been given ample opportunity to do otherwise, should deliberately choose to live in Mannheim Crescent, the self-same landscape, dingy, difficult, humiliating, of her own first marriage, from which only the intervention of Edward had saved her.

But Claire's behaviour came as no surprise to Edward himself. Had Dorothy never noticed, he feebly enquired, the traces of instability in her daughter? An inheritance from the paternal side, no doubt, but which
he
– who had taken her into his home in good faith – was now being asked to bear. Was it really to be wondered at, that the whole sorry business was making him ill? In the grip of a particularly violent stomach cramp – and who knew what
that
might lead to? – he retired to his study, drew down the blinds, closed his eyes, and sank, a wronged and disillusioned man, into a chair.

Dorothy, her own stomach knotted with the panic he could so easily inspire, marched into Claire's bedroom and shrieked at her the old accusation, ‘Are you trying to ruin my marriage?' And when Claire took the precaution of locking the door, she lay in wait for her on the stairs, wringing her hands and asking, ‘Why are you doing this? Why?'

But in the end the only question which needed to be answered was ‘What will the Swanfields say?' And only when it transpired that their favour was not, after all, to be withdrawn, did Edward discover the greatness of heart to forgive his wife her daughter's trespasses and allow her to be at peace again.

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.'