The Fox's Walk (24 page)

Returning from my walk a little early, I entered the house through the kitchen, confirmed to my satisfaction that Maggie had gone all out to please Uncle William, and ran up the back stairs. In my room, I carefully brushed my hair, changed my dress, and composed myself to appear demure and innocent while avoiding the dangerously similar expression that suggested deep stupidity.

Ready for tea, I quietly closed the door of my room behind me. Although it was only midafternoon on an April day, the corridor was almost dark; a monkey puzzle, planted too close to the house, reduced the light that filtered through the opaque window and its stained-glass border. A gloomy halflight that came from the hall windows below guided me to the landing at the top of the stairs.

I didn't at first see Sonia looking over the banisters. She was still and her shawls blended into the sepia light. They covered more of her than they usually did and, were it not for a patch of flimsy lace and silk at her ankle and her bare feet on the thin landing carpet, I would not have guessed that she had come straight from her bed. I assumed she had got up when she heard the noisy masculine arrival of Uncle William. The hall was now silent, so I knew Uncle William must have gone into the drawing room. Sonia was looking straight ahead, her expression thoughtful; in front of her there was nothing but a large painting of a battle at sea. Since the picture had not been deemed good enough for the hall and was only just visible through the gloom, I supposed her thoughts to be elsewhere.

It had been instilled in me soon after my arrival at Ballydavid that, although I was expected to be quiet, I was not to approach an adult so silently that I might give her a fright—the maids had described in graphic detail what the consequences would certainly be—so I cleared my throat as I stepped off the carpet onto the wooden floor. I wasn't sure she had heard me, but I suspected it would take more than my unanticipated presence to give Sonia a heart attack. I stood beside her, looking down the shadowy and empty staircase.

“That is your uncle—Uncle William?” she said presently.

“I expect so. They went into the drawing room?”

“Your Aunt Katie was married to his father? And he lives alone?”

There was a brief confusion caused by my having considered Uncle William not to live alone since his house was heavily staffed. But it didn't matter since Sonia had already seen Ballinamona Park and only wanted to confirm that there was no Mrs. Martyn in the wings. A few more questions followed along the lines of how much land was attached to Ballinamona. I think now she would have asked me how much money Uncle William had if she had imagined I could have known the answer. But there were also questions that baffled me: Where had he gone to school? What was the name of his dog? His favorite horse? I wondered if I should warn her to be careful of splinters from the uncarpeted floor.

Although I did not consider any time spent with Sonia wasted, I also did not want to miss too much of what was passing between the old ladies and Uncle William. When I came into the drawing room Uncle William was laughing.

“Adventuress?” He didn't hear me quietly opening the door behind him. “An adventuress and clairvoyant at Ballydavid? A fortune teller! What would Uncle Percival have said?”

My entrance, of course, put a close to that topic of conversation, but I thought the old ladies welcomed the interruption; they knew very well just what Uncle Percival would have said.

Uncle William had brought me presents, a small, ornately packed box of chocolates and a wooden puzzle. The chocolates would, I knew, be rationed—one after lunch each day—and I made no attempt to open them. But the puzzle, interesting enough in its own way, was of immediate use. I could take it a little away from the adults and play with it as soon as I had finished my tea.

Gradually, after a tea that relaxed and lowered guards, conversation drifted back to the subject of Sonia. I thought that Uncle William had probably heard the story of the cigarette case before and had not been quite as impressed as we all had been. Now the additional lunchtime predictions were recounted to add credibility; I was interested to see how firmly and loyally Grandmother and Aunt Katie were lined up behind their resident clairvoyant.

But Uncle William refused to take any of it seriously. He tended to amuse himself by teasing the old ladies when he came to visit. I think that in a general way they enjoyed his gentle banter; it was a different form of attention and it made them feel young.

“Big earrings?” he asked. “Crystal ball? You cross her palm with silver?”

Both Grandmother and Aunt Katie laughed while protesting Sonia's authenticity. It seems possible now that Uncle William enjoyed these visits more than I imagined; it is unlikely he ever faced a less critical audience.

Soon Sonia joined us. I was more surprised than the others since I knew how quickly she must have dressed. We all looked at her with interest. Uncle William might have seen Sonia before but not in a place when he could observe her at his leisure or ask awkward questions. Grandmother's and Aunt Katies feelings were mixed: a balance of the curiosity they felt in her presence and a fear that Uncle William would make her appear ridiculous or discredit her.

Sonia had again dressed suitably for afternoon tea at Ballydavid without sacrificing that touch of the exotic that complemented her image. The two large suitcases with which she had arrived at Ballydavid contained all that remained of her worldly possessions. I was once in her room and saw how meager her wardrobe was. Lady Ottoline Morell, famous for her elegance and her beautiful clothes, achieved her distinctive look partly by the way her shawls were draped and expertly pinned by her maid. Sonia, poor and worn around the edges, took, with a fair degree of success, a similar approach to her dress. Her shabby skirts and frayed blouses were covered with layers of shawls; the ones she now wore might well have been those I had fifteen minutes before seen covering her nightdress as she stood barefoot on the landing.

Conventional introductions followed.

“Countess,” Uncle William murmured, taking her hand and bowing over it so low that he could have kissed it.

I could see, as could my visibly tense grandmother and great-aunt, that Uncle William was going to tease Sonia, while behaving in a manner upon which he could not be called.

Sonia, who knew as well as the rest of us what he was doing, smiled modestly and sat down beside me on the sofa. She made no attempt to instigate conversation. I couldn't help thinking she had come out of the introductory exchange rather better than Uncle William had.

“Aunt Katie tells me you are from Manchuria?” Uncle William called his stepmother “Aunt Katie,” perhaps further confusing for Sonia a family tree already accommodating remarriage and, in my case, the apparent loss of a generation on its lower branches.

“Yes,” Sonia said, her eyes lowered, her hands folded on her knees, her posture emphasizing her tall, slight figure. “I am.”

“Never been there myself,” Uncle William said. He paused and looked thoughtful as Grandmother gave Sonia a cup of tea. All eyes remained respectfully on him as he nodded slowly; it was as though a respectable career in the Indian Army was to be considered the equivalent of having discovered the source of the Nile.

“I hadn't been aware that Count and Countess were tides in Manchuria, too?”

Even I understood that he intended to expose Sonia to the old ladies. I don't think he intended to do so from malice, but only in order to protect them. And to have a little fun. Sonia raised her eyes until she was looking at him.

“My title is not a Manchurian one,” she said. “I was not a countess until I married.”

“I see. Your husband...?” Uncle William left the question open enough for Sonia to volunteer information about her husband's aristocratic antecedents, nationality, profession, or character—and whereabouts. Although I was as curious as I knew my grandmother and great-aunt to be, I—as I suspected they, too—would have been satisfied for that afternoon with the revelation that Sonia had, or at some time had had, a husband. In a relationship as fascinating and delicate as ours with Sonia, we, unlike Uncle William, felt each additional scrap of information should be mulled over and digested before the next question was asked.

I knew that Sonia was not only the source of fascinating and pleasurable stories and of exotic information, but of a view of the world I was unlikely to encounter elsewhere. But I also knew—perhaps because I had seen Mara display her whole bag of tricks too quickly—that Sonia intended to reveal only as much as was completely necessary in order to keep a roof over her head. I appreciated the artistry of her small, well-timed revelations.

“My husband was Polish; he's dead,” Sonia said quietly, and her eyes once again turned to her immobile hands. Despite the embarrassment of the moment, I found myself wondering whether the Count had been murdered. Possibly by Mara, I thought in a moment of wild confusion.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Unde William said, possibly including the nationality Sonia had gained by marriage in his condolence.

Not surprisingly, for a little time the silence was broken only by a log dropping a few inches in the fireplace and some sparks falling on the metal tray beneath the grate. There was unanimous agreement, requiring not even a quick glance between the females in the room, that it was up to Uncle William to be the next to speak.

But before Uncle William was forced to retreat to a meaningless social banality, Bridie came in with a jug of hot water and the afternoon post. The passage of time makes necessary an explanation of the arrival of post on Sunday. In those days post, which was quick and reliable, arrived seven days a week.

Aunt Katie took the silver jug and added a little water to the teapot while Grandmother waved away the post. Bridie hesitated long enough to allow Grandmother to see that the top letter was from my mother.

Grandmother opened the letter as Aunt Katie refilled Uncle William's cup. My attention was entirely on the letter; the others, too, remained silent.

“Really, the most extraordinary thing,” Grandmother said after a little time, during which she read the letter and then parts of it a second time. “Mary says she's had a letter and a call from a young woman who appears to claim to be engaged to Hubert.” We all stared at Grandmother, but no one said anything. Even Sonia seemed fascinated. Aunt Katie, the incurable romantic, was the only one who showed any sign of enthusiasm; Grandmother clearly thought that this roundabout way of learning her widower son was contemplating remarriage was at least disrespectful if not disreputable; Uncle William tended to disapprove of most decisions made without his advice.

“Who is she?” Aunt Katie asked at last.

“She seems to come from a respectable family. Gwynne. From Suffolk. Her name's Rosamund.”

“I was at school with a Gwynne,” Uncle William said. “I wonder if it's the same family.”

“Mary says she doesn't much care for her. A rather bossy young woman.”

Aunt Katie sighed while Grandmother reread the letter.

“And it doesn't seem quite clear that they
are
engaged. No ring, no announcement in the
Times.
She was, apparently, not willing to say definitively that there was an a engagement—of course, Mary could hardly question her———”

I imagined my ineffectual mother, embarrassed, worried, her own disastrous lapse rendering her deeply conventional and reasonably sure she would be closely questioned by her mother and held responsible for the answers. No wonder she “didn't much care for” this new complication to her life.

“But she says Miss Gwynne gave the impression that she and Hubert would either be married on his next leave—well, that's four years away—or that she would travel out to Canton next year and they would marry there.”

“No word from Hugh himself?” Uncle William asked.

“You know how the post is. And yet this must have been going on for some time. They met when he was last on leave, but he didn't introduce her to any of the family or even mention her.”

Grandmother read the letter again, for the third time, while we watched, waiting for her to find an overlooked detail that would offer some explanation. Beside me, Sonia seemed to have turned to stone.

Grandmother looked up and shook her head.

“For all we know she's a madwoman and making this up. Or perhaps Hubert———”

Even I knew what she meant. Perhaps Uncle Hubert had led this unfortunate woman on and then gone back to China without proposing marriage, assuming his five years' absence would make clear his lack of intentions. Leaving his family—in this case my mother—to deal with any mess he had left behind.

“Mary says he brought a woman with him to visit once or twice. But not this one.”

“Definitely not?” Uncle William said, as though he thought my mother couldn't be trusted to tell the difference.

“Definitely not, quite a different situation. The woman was a refugee, not young, rather painted, Mary said. And she said Hubert had suggested she'd had rather a—an adventurous past.”

I glanced at Sonia. Her lips were pressed together; she did not seem to be breathing.

“I liked her very much. She was pretty and very nice,” I said, astonishing myself with my own daring. I could feel that something was happening that I should try to stop before any more damage was done.

Only Sonia seemed to hear me. Her hand crept out and touched mine.

“Better than that, anyway,” Uncle William said.

“I suppose so.” Grandmother sounded discouraged.

“What does she look like?” Aunt Katie asked. “Is she pretty?” “Plump. But pretty. Mary said she asked a lot of questions.” “And the adventuress? What happened to her?”

Uncle William's bluff, man-of-the-world tone and his evident amusement in the whole situation was now in one way or another painful to everyone else in the room, and Grandmother merely shrugged.