Oxford Blood (17 page)

Jemima shook Lady St Ives' extended hand which bore a number of splendid but slightly dulled diamond rings. (Was it
nouveau riche,
she wondered, to have one's jewellery cleaned? Jemima neither possessed a lot of precious jewellery nor coveted it - except perhaps the odd emerald; so far the offer of an odd emerald had not come her way.) Lady St Ives wore a handsome diamond brooch pinned to her flowered dress, as well as three rows of pearls; the brooch was similarly dulled. The pearls looked superb.

'We're all so excited, Miss Shore,' Lady St Ives echoed her husband's words. 'And Binyon has been polishing the silver as he only does when the Queen comes.'

'Rather more so!' exclaimed Lord St Ives gaily. 'He's been practically polishing us.'

Jemima saw an opportunity to get at least one mystery solved: 'Yes, do explain to me about Binyon.'

'Oh we thought you might know him' - surprise from Lady St Ives. 'From the telly—'

'Nonsense, my dear, she's much too grand.'

'Yes, but he's Binyon.' Lady Ives turned to Jemima, quite eagerly: 'Binyon, the singing butler.'

'Oh
singing,
you said singing. Singing, not swinging.' Puzzlement from Lady St Ives.

'I don't think Binyon swings. What would he swing from? But he has a very nice voice. Rather like John McCormack, we always think.'

Jemima was distinctly relieved to find that Binyon, jeans or no jeans, was no new breed of butler, but had simply entered an amateur talent competition on television. He had won a series of rounds culminating in an exciting final in which Binyon the Singing Butler had defeated Mirabel O'Shea the Crooning Cook.

'At least, that's how the papers described it,' confessed Lady St Ives. 'But Mirabel O'Shea, while being an absolute darling, all twenty stone of her, we loved her, Binyon invited her down here afterwards with her children, there wasn't a father, all the same she wasn't exactly what you'd call a cook. She'd been frying bacon and eggs in a motorway cafe, you see.'

'Nonsense, my dear, move with the times! That's exactly what you'd call a cook these days.' Lady St Ives did not answer her husband but instead displayed to Jemima an enormous and very ugly television set, facing her chair, to which they had all been glued during Binyon's weeks of fame. Above it hung an exquisite double portrait of a mother and child, the mother with a mass of powdered curling hair, the baby with its fat white arms thrown upwards; once again Jemima had seen so many reproductions of the picture that she found the sight of the original, sited so cosily above the television set, slightly disconcerting. The label read: 'Frances Sophia, Marchioness of St Ives and the Honble Ivo Charles Iverstone'.

Lord St Ives followed the direction of her gaze. 'Sir Joshua. We think ours is better than the one in the National Gallery. So did K. Clark, I'm glad to say.'

'It's ravishing.
Site's
ravishing.'

'Oh, Frances Sophia. I'm afraid she was no better than she should be -you remember Greville's phrase.'

'Of course. And the baby is delicious,' replied Jemima firmly, who had never read Greville, but did not intend to be wrong-footed, at least not on that score, by her host.

'The baby - Ivo Charles - he grew up to be the corrupt MP, I fear. And a terrible gambler. Fox's friend.'

'We used to think Saffron looked rather like him as a baby,' volunteered Lady St Ives. There was a small quite unmistakable pause: Jemima was quite sure about it. Then Lord St Ives gave a light laugh.

'I do hope the resemblance is not carried through. As far as I am aware, gambling at least is not among my son's vices.'

'But he used to love playing
Vingt et Un
as a child, when we all went to Bembridge.' What further reminiscences Lady St Ives might have produced of Saffron's childhood - the topic was after all not absolutely without interest - was not to be known, since the subject himself now arrived in the library.

Saffron was dressed in white cotton trousers, rather tattered, and ending as though more by chance than design at the knee, and a scarlet vest. He was browner than Jemima remembered and, she had to admit looked remarkably handsome. He also had an air of health. It was difficult to believe that he had so recently been in hospital; in fact with his tanned skin, thick black hair, considerably longer, flopping over his face, and his slanting black eyes, he looked more like a gipsy than ever; a stage gipsy from a musical comedy perhaps.

Tiggie on the other hand, in baggy khaki shorts and a mud-coloured shirt, looked for the first time drab, not a word which Jemima would ever have thought to apply to her in London. Compared to Saffron, she had the air of a hen bird: she had had her hair cut very short and her skin remained pale. The only sparkling thing about Tiggie on this occasion was the conspicuous ring on her finger. Diamonds, yes, and emeralds, or rather one great big emerald. This ring really did gleam and was either brand new or had been recently cleaned. But the nails on the small pale hand which bore the weighty ring were dirty. Jemima was surprised; she had the impression that the fairy creature she had first encountered at Megalith had been immaculately clean beneath her bizarre get-up.

Saffron gave his mother a light peck on her papery cheek; then he gave Jemima a kiss on both cheeks, followed by a hug. He was hot and sweaty like a young horse which had just run a successful race.

'Tennis, darling?' enquired Lady St Ives, with a doting look, as though to explain this condition and at the same time boast of it.

'Fanny and I have just beaten Jack and Cousin Andrew.'

'Andrew must have hated that!' pronounced Lord St Ives with much satisfaction. 'He used to be frightfully good. Didn't he play in doubles at Wimbledon, my dear?' Lady St Ives looked rather vague as if the subject of anyone else's tennis other than that of her son's did not interest her.

'I don't think Jack liked it very much either,' said Saffron. 'He always used to beat me. But Fanny's terrific. Serving like Martina Navrati-what-not. Tremendous at net too.'

'Oh darling, do you think you should - your head—'

'Oh Ma!'

'What about you, Antigone?' Lord St Ives asked kindly. Jemima noticed he exhibited the same courtesy to the young as to the old, and was especially gallant to his future daughter-in-law.

Saffron answered for her. 'Tiggie doesn't play.' Tiggie cast down her eyes, so that the long lashes which Cass had admired fluttered on her pale cheeks. 'I hate games,' she said in a voice which was scarcely above a whisper.

Saffron took her hand and held it. The pair of them were standing directly beneath
The Strawberry Children
- subtitled:
The Honble Miss Iverstone and her brother with a basket of fruit.
Then he dropped the hand and turned to Jemima.

'Well, I love games. There's going to be a return match. Come and watch. Cheer me on. You're on my side, you know you are.' Saffron's bold black eyes challenged Jemima: there was something febrile about him today, as new and marked as Tiggie's passivity. It was a sexual statement.

'My dear boy, I'm certainly on your side.' Lord St Ives put his arm around his son's shoulders. Jemima wondered if he had perhaps known what Saffron was up to, and decided that he probably had: not much passed by Lord St Ives. Seeing them side by side for the first time, 'father' and 'son', she was struck by the similarity of their stance; Saffron had evidently copied his father's bearing, even some of his mannerisms, from childhood. Although physically they could hardly have been less alike, the one so dark, the other so typically English, Jemima ruminated on the interesting resemblances which 'nurture' not 'nature' was able to bring about. She had known other adopted children, come to think of it, who had grown to resemble their 'parents' so strongly, that people sometimes refused to believe in the truth of their adoption.

'You're avenging all the times Andrew used to beat me,' said Lord St Ives.

'Quite apart from Jack beating me,' replied Saffron. 'All the cousins are terrifically athletic; or anyway they try very hard. To make up.' Saffron sounded quite complacent.

'To make up for what?' Jemima asked innocently, although she knew the answer; but she felt an urge to prick the complacency, a radical urge which she instantly regretted when Lord St Ives, who had not held Russians in play for nothing, picked up cudgels. Or rather, he appeared to gaze at the cudgels beneath his nose and find them instantly delightful.

'Why, to make up for being dreadfully poor of course, whereas we are dreadfully rich!' he exclaimed, with his usual zest. 'It
is
unfair. Don't you think so, Miss Shore? Of course you do. That we should have all this—' he gave a wide gesture embracing not only the Reynolds, the Lawrence, and several thousand books in their majestic bindings, but also Binyon who had at that moment entered and was standing, still clad in his eponymous
T
-shirt, at the door. 'I expect you want me to feel guilty. Oh Miss Shore, I do, I do.'

'Ivo, why are you being so silly?' Lady St Ives suddenly enquired. 'You know you don't feel guilty at all. The hereditary system is absolutely indefensible, except that it happens to work brilliantly. I've heard you say it countless times.'

'Oh my dear, don't give me away,' said Lord St Ives tenderly. 'I only say that in the House of Lords; you've been listening to my speeches which I really don't advise. Nobody listens to my speeches in the House of Lords.'

Lady St Ives continued to look gently reproachful.

'Besides, I think Miss Shore is referring to primogeniture, aren't you, Miss Shore? Why should I sit in glory here at Saffron Ivy while for example poor Cousin Andrew pigs it in Henley?'

'I did ask a question,' said Jemima sweetly. 'But I don't think it was exactly that one.'

'But Ivo, Daphne and Andrew don't live
in
Henley, no one lives
in
Henley—' began Lady St Ives.

'Facon de parler,
my
dear, facon de parler.
I have to admit that one good defence of the hereditary system does seem to me the fact that I live here and Cousin Andrew doesn't. But then I'm prejudiced. Now what about that tennis?'

'The players are on the court, my lord.' It was the solemn voice of Binyon, once again sounding, if not looking, like the butler of Jemima's dreams. 'Mr Valliera is playing with Miss Fanny in place of Lord Saffron.'

'No he bloody isn't!' exclaimed Saffron. And so they all went and watched the tennis, leaving Jemima with various images in her mind, some of them concerning Saffron, some Tiggie, some both; and some thoughts about Lord St Ives and the hereditary system. She did not think that Lord St Ives had been altogether joking when he defended his inheritance on the grounds that he was worthy of it, whereas his cousin was not. That substitution all those years ago
...
she had expected to find it quite implausible in the face of Lord St Ives' famous courtesy and 'parfait' manners, in the words of Jack. But Jack was right: there was something quite steely there underneath it all.

The last thing she had learned concerned the passionate affection which was borne towards Saffron by his parents - not only Lady St Ives, but Lord St Ives as well. There was something quite naked about the devotion he had momentarily exhibited when he put his arm around Saffron's shoulders. Jemima dreaded to think what would happen to this elderly couple if anything happened to him. And this time she was not pondering on the fate of the Iverstone inheritance.

14

Tennis is About Winning

It came as relief after these subterranean fears, to watch the open rivalries of the tennis court. When the St Ives party arrived, Proffy and Eugenia Jones were sitting
in
two ancient deck chairs beside it. Their heads were close together.

Jemima had the impression that some rather earnest colloquy had been interrupted, certainly not of an amorous nature and probably not connected with the tennis match either. Both stood up as Lady St Ives, walking with difficulty, arrived. Eugenia Jones looked extraordinarily melancholy and, unlike Lady St Ives, in no way conveyed that kind of indulgent affection towards Tiggie which might have been expected on such a celebratory occasion. More than ever she seemed dependent on the ebullience of Proffy who gave the air of cosseting her, as a bear might protect some smaller breed of animal. This kind of possessiveness in public away from home was no doubt intended to make up for his defection to the side of Eleanor in marriage.

On this occasion Eugenia simply ignored Tiggie and walked in the direction of St Ives as though to speak to him. In a neat manoeuvre, Proffy somehow managed to outflank her:

'A word—' he began.

'Later, later. After tennis. I know words. They lengthen into sentences. To say nothing of speeches. Then we shan't get any tennis.'