Sensible Life (31 page)

Hubert stood and pulled out a chair for her. “Would you like breakfast? The coffee and rolls are good.”

“Please.” She sat, she smiled. She looked all right.

Hubert ordered coffee and rolls. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I hope you are. I saw you go into the chemist; not ill, I trust?”

“No.” She transferred her smile to the waiter as he set coffee, milk pots and rolls before her. “Perhaps Madame would prefer croissants?”

“No, thank you.” She was happy with rolls. She bit her tongue, amused at being called Madame. Hubert, still wary, watched her eat. Nothing wrong with her appetite.

Forgetting the crumbs the cock pigeons now chased the females, hurrying after them through the maze of tables and chairs. The females rose in negative flutters to avoid their attentions.

Flora drank her coffee and ate her rolls. “Was what we did last night exactly what married people do?” She looked away from him down the street, to where an old lady walked slowly so that her Pomeranian dog could stop, sniff and lift its leg without an indecent hurrying jerk to its lead. It was similar in appearance to Irena Tarasova’s Prince Igor, though a different colour. “D’you remember Madame Tarasova’s Pom,” she said, “long ago?”

“That little pest, yes. Well, in answer to your question—” Hubert felt himself begin to perspire—“in a manner of speaking, yes. Though from what I gather—” Flora turned attentively towards him, eyes large and dark—“there was a don at Oxford who was forever saying ‘in a manner of speaking’, it sounds so pompous. Well, yes, married people do it and—er—um—lovers. People who love one another or—” Hubert hesitated and came to a halt.

“Do you want to marry me?”

“No! Yes, I mean, oh, er—” Sweat prickled his armpits and his groin.

“Because I don’t,” said Flora.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t want to marry you. I can’t, actually.” Impossible to tell him that there was Cosmo and had been, still was Felix, although Felix seemed to have attached himself elsewhere, married. “I can’t,” she repeated apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

Feeling a huge lift of relief, but at the same time outrage, Hubert said huffily, “Why the hell not?”

“I am too greedy.”

“But last night you—”

“Oh, it was lovely,” said Flora. “Marvellous.”

“Then why—”

“You said married people do it, and lovers, and people who love one another. Well, they aren’t all married, so—”

“So you—”

“Yes.”

“But suppose you have a baby; you might easily have a baby,” he said, anxious now that she should want to marry him, to tie her down, bind her to him with legal cords for ever.

“I am not going to have a baby,” Flora flushed. “That’s why I went to the chemist just now to buy—well, I’ve got the curse,” Flora said, embarrassed. “It happens.”

Hubert said, “Oh, darling,” and took her hand. “Are you all right?”

Flora said, “Of course I’m all right.” (A bit sore, but she wouldn’t mention that.)

From the doorway of the café the waiter looked back into the dark interior where the patronne sat at her desk. The patronne jerked her chin upwards in a sardonic gesture. She had seen it all before, heard the whoop.

Flora said a little touchily, “I may know nothing about nightclubs but I have learned a little basic biology.”

Hubert said, “Oh dear, fate intervening. Giving us time to be sensible.”

Flora, mistrusting the word, asked, “How do we set about that?”

A
NGUS LEIGH, HAVING HAD
his hair cut at Trumpers, walked briskly through the parks on his way to his club in Pall Mall. He would glance through the papers, drink a glass of sherry and lunch solo. With luck he would not run into a club bore and be compelled into politeness. But, turning into Pall Mall after passing St. James’s Palace, he sighted Freddy Ward and Ian MacNeice heading in the same direction. He slowed to let them get ahead and diverged into Hardys where, browsing through its delights, he wrestled with his conscience. Dear old Freddy and Ian were not yet bores but on their way to becoming so; they would expect him to be sociable, would—“I don’t really need these, I tie my own,” he said to the shopman as he chose flies. “And that lure, I haven’t seen one of those. No, no, I can’t buy another reel, can I? I have so many—well, yes, perhaps as you say. Yes, my son fishes and my son-in-law; it will be interesting to hear what they think of—Yes, if you would post them for me. Thank you, good day.” Stepping into the frosty street his inner ear heard not the shopman’s goodbye but Milly: “Not more fishing stuff. Really, darling! Never been able to pass that shop, have you? The house is cluttered with tackle,” and so on and so on. “And so on and so on,” he said out loud, almost bumping into a girl on the pavement.

“General Leigh,” said Flora. “Hello.”

“Hello, my dear! Well met,” said Angus in delighted recognition. “You are just what I need. Can you help me? Have you half an hour?”

“Both,” said Flora.

“I have bought a lot of expensive unnecessaries; to balance, I must buy something for Milly. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Flora, “I do.”

“Splendid girl. Where should I go?”

“Floris?”

“Oho!”

“Or Fortnum’s?”

“Or Fortnum’s? Why not?”

“Chocolates?”

“Indeed yes.” Angus tucked Flora’s hand in his arm. “Off we go.”

“I say, isn’t that Angus,” said Ian MacNeice, looking out of the club window, “with a girl?”

“So it is,” said Freddy Ward. “His daughter?”

“Doesn’t look like his daughter. His daughter is fair.”

“Out of sight now,” said Freddy Ward.

“Are you lunching with anyone?” asked Angus, as they emerged from Fortnum’s into Jermyn Street.

“No.”

“Will you lunch with me? Could you bear it?”

Flora said, “Yes, please.”

“Perhaps we had better visit Floris too,” said Angus. “Then we could lunch at Quaglinos. Do you know it?”

“No.”

“Come, then, tell me what to buy her at Floris. Then with conscience doubly clear I shall enjoy your company the more.” Flora laughed.

She thinks I am quite a dog, thought Angus, watching Flora choose bath oils for Milly; she’s grown up, lost none of that charm. I wonder what she is up to these days. What was it she had that one liked? Reserve? Secrecy? One wondered even then, and so I think did the boys, fools if they didn’t. “Great piece of luck running into you,” he said, as they settled at a table in Quaglinos. “I had intended lunching alone at my club where the food is rather dreary; I would have taken you there if it had been passable, but it isn’t.” (With old Ian and Freddy peering at us, coming up to be introduced? God, no.) “Now, what shall we eat?”

Flora ordered oysters and sole with wine sauce. Angus also chose oysters but opted for sole plain grilled, studied the wine list and ordered. While they waited Angus chatted, giving her news of Milly; of Mabs and Nigel, living in London now, as no doubt she knew; the dogs, poor little Bootsie still alive but incredibly ancient—“snaps at everybody”; the horses; Cosmo reading for the bar. The garden had had a good year; a new young gardener seemed keen. Tiresome loss of the butler, Gage, infected, one surmised, by Bolshie ideas encouraged by Hubert. Did she remember Hubert Wyndeatt-Whyte? Flora nodded. Such a loss, such a good butler. Milly insisted it was better now to make do with a parlourmaid since the fellow was irreplaceable, worked somewhere in London to be near Molly. Did she remember Molly, nice girl, under-housemaid? Well, she was with Tashie and Henry now, remember them? Flora said she did.

The oysters arrived. Angus watched her eat and drink her wine. “So what are you doing with yourself these days?” He gulped an oyster.

“I am being sensible,” said Flora.

“Sensible?” He was stumped.

“Yes.”

“I thought,” said Angus, remembering, “you were to join your parents in India. They are well, I hope?” What had he heard sieved through via Mabs to Milly? Something about rabies?

Flora said, “They were well when last heard of.”

“So you are off to India?”

“I decided not. It wasn’t sensible.” Flora watched the waiter refill her glass. Beside her Angus whooshed breath through his moustache. “They don’t like me,” she said, “I have always known that. I am an impediment; they are wrapped up in each other. They left me in a deadly school for seven years. The only time I left it was when your wife invited me to Coppermalt. But now I am grown up. They sent me a list of clothes to have made which they would pay for, and a ticket for Bombay. Their plan was obvious: I would get married and be off their hands. I had known this, I suppose, but it became clearer on the ship.” Flora reached for her glass and gulped wine. “I am talking too much, boring you.”

Angus said, “Go on.”

“To be fair,” said Flora, “I don’t like them.” Angus raised startled eyebrows. “So I got off the ship.”

Angus said, “Good God! Where?”

“Marseilles.”

Imagination racing, Angus said, “When was this? What have you been doing since?”

Flora grinned. “October. I’ve been catching up. Growing up,” she said sedately.

She seemed pleased about that. Angus blew out his moustache. “What did your parents say?”

“I haven’t heard. I wrote, but I had no address to give them. They will get the trunk. I only took what I needed, this suit for instance. It’s nice, isn’t it?”

Was she mocking him, imitating Mabs when talking of clothes? It’s nearly Christmas, Angus thought. What the devil has she been up to since October? “What did you tell them?” he said.

“I thanked them for my education, such as it is. I said that from now on I would earn my living, be off their hands, and not to worry.”

“Good God.” Angus found himself pleasurably outraged. “You’ve got a nerve,” he said.

“They won’t worry,” said Flora. “They will be pleased,” she said. “Pretty delighted.”

Angus repeated, “You’ve got a nerve.”

Flora said, “I hope I have.”

The waiter removed the plates of empty shells and brought Angus’ grilled sole and Flora’s with wine sauce. He watched her run her knife down the fish’s spine, fork a mouthful, smile at him sidelong and wipe her mouth with her napkin. Whatever I say, he thought, I must not say, “If you were my daughter,” but what would one have done if Mabs had ever really—? She was watching him. “It’s not as though this was about Mabs,” Flora said. “You Leighs love each other. There’s no love between me and my parents. You may remember them. Dinard? You didn’t like them, I noticed. Goodness! When my trunk reaches them, my mother will be thrilled by the new dresses; we are the same size. She told me what to buy. They will think of something plausible to explain my non-arrival.”

Angus said, “I’ve never heard anything like it, it’s outrageous.”

Flora said, “Oh, come on—” amused. “People have run away through history.”

“Boys,” said Angus, munching his sole. “You are a girl.”

“I admit that.”

“Girls cannot run away without—”

“Getting into trouble?”

“That’s it.”

Flora said, “There are things a girl can do between the extremes of marriage and prostitution.”

“I wasn’t thinking—”

“Yes, you were. Marseilles, malodorous place; no place for a young girl. That’s what you were thinking.”

Accepting her mockery, Angus said, “What shall you do? What are you doing at the moment?”

“I am staying with a friend.”

She had not said what friend, Angus thought, watching her fleet departure up Bury Street, and given no indication of an address. It had, as they ate their sole, become curiously impossible to question her; his curiosity had been ably deflected. While he longed to probe where had she been since jumping ship? Who with? Had she any money? Where was she living? Why was she so averse to marriage? In what way could she possibly earn her living? It was she who questioned him. What did he think of unemployment? The collapse of the League of Nations? The National Government? He had swallowed the bait, he thought ruefully, as he watched her retreating back. He had mounted his hobby horses, held forth at length as they finished their sole and worked their way through pudding, cheese and coffee. He enlarged on Ramsay MacDonald, shredded the National Government, lauded Winston Churchill’s scaremongering over disarmament, the rise of Hitler, the disgrace of universities stuffed with pacifists and Bolshies. She had let him run on. She read the newspapers and was well informed, a damn sight more interested and interesting than Mabs had been at seventeen or was now for that matter. She had encouraged, flattered, led him on. Clever little bitch, he thought, as she vanished round the corner, she made a monkey out of me.

Could he not have asked her to stay at Coppermalt? he wondered as he cut through King Street into St. James’s Square. Would Milly make her welcome? Ask a silly question, he thought, remembering the child tarted up in the black evening dress. One had wondered whether she was aware of the facts of life and got one’s head bitten off. She had thanked him charmingly for giving her lunch, letting him brush her cheek with his moustache. She called back over her shoulder as she sped off, “Who knows? I might become a housemaid,” making friendly fun.

Carrying his packets from Floris and Fortnum’s, Angus reached his club. In the hall he ran into Ian MacNeice and Freddy Ward on their way out. “Hello,” they said. “We saw you earlier with a pretty girl.”

Angus said, “Yes, a sensible creature, friend of the children’s.” He resisted saying she had helped him buy presents for Milly. Men like Ian and Freddy sprang to stupid conclusions.

H
UBERT LEFT FLEET STREET
walking on air and cut through Bouverie Street to the Temple. Early for his appointment with Cousin Thing’s solicitor, he assembled his thoughts as he strolled towards Tweezers Alley. In a week he would be in Germany, accredited correspondent to a reputable newspaper, commissioned initially to write three articles on the upsurge of Hitler. After which, who knows? The editor, who had interviewed him, had said, “We’ll see”; a different connotation to “Who knows?” But who cares? thought Hubert, buoyant; it’s a start. I can distil onto paper what I have expounded under the plane trees of Aix, in the Roman theatre at Orange and on the Pont d’Avignon. Flora, gallant little listener, had called it a crash course in international politics, and encouraged the indulgence. His ideas had clarified and grown more succinct as he lectured her.