“Yes.” Felix was amused. “I can see the scene. Do you believe my mother was being truthful or did she only wish to épater?”
“If Mrs. Leigh had irritated her she might have been truthful. Who knows? She would not have expected to be believed. On the other hand it is well known that extremely masculine men breed only daughters; your mother may have acted for the best, after bearing five girls. I have heard that in Holy Russia this was often done.”
Felix was intrigued. “Did the husbands connive at these surrogate fathers?”
“Probably.”
“My mother is a woman of courage; I wish I could believe I had inherited it.”
“You have, my dear.” She was serious.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I—”
“It was after Mrs. Leigh’s gaffe that your mother suggested—it sounded quite a strong suggestion—that Mrs. Leigh should invite Flora to stay.”
“Aha.”
“I had this from Mabs and Tashie; they were delighted, because they’d guessed Mrs. Leigh was consoling herself with the thought that the girl would have grown fat and spotty, as most English schoolgirls do. No threat to Cosmo.”
“She was neither fat nor spotty when I took her out to lunch, but the waif-like appeal was drowned in mucus.”
“You are disgusting. You must go now, I have to work out the measurements for some new clients; fat schoolgirls who have turned into Grenadiers. Look at this, nearly six feet tall, and this one has hips which are forty-eight inches and a bust of thirty-two.” Irena tapped a looseleaf notebook. “So unfashionable.”
“You should have come to Holland, where everything bulges in proportion. But you must know that, you work for my sisters.”
“In a year or two I shall be British. The Home Office moves like a snail, but the idea of British citizenship gives me patience.”
“All bureaucracies do. It’s getting late, Irena, why don’t you leave your work and come out to dinner? We could go on talking about Dinard and the girls, if you must. Come on, join us.”
“Thank you. I do not care for dinner a trois.”
“He would not mind,” said Felix.
“No?”
“Well, perhaps.” Felix hesitated. “Do come, we could talk about me. I came to see you to talk about myself. And you too, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And we have wasted the afternoon talking about girls of no particular—”
“A particular trio.”
Felix, hesitating, said: “Ah.”
“Go away, Felix, I must work. I have to contrive a dress for a Miss Hippisley-Smith who has a thirty-one-inch bust and forty-six-inch hips. She wants it for a ball, this poor unbalanced girl. Go away, you distract me. She is coming tomorrow for a fitting and I have not even started.”
“Irena. I ask for help, please.”
“Yes?” Was that fear in his voice?
Standing with his back to the light, Felix raised his hands distractedly, dropped them, shouted very loud: “I like girls, too.”
Quickly, she said: “I know you do.” Then, catching his eye, she burst out laughing as she remembered an afternoon five years before, their shoes ranged side by side on the floor of the room above the boucherie chevaline in the Rue de Tours in Dinard. “She was so innocent,” she said, chuckling, “and you so clever. Now, off you go, you have kept him waiting long enough. Any longer and he will turn sour.”
“All right.” Calm again, Felix shrugged into his coat, bent to kiss first one cheek then the other. “So I am to sort out my ambivalence on my own?”
“Teach yourself to be ambidextrous.” She edged him towards the door. “How well we foreigners speak English.” She gave him a little push, using the tips of her fingers, and waited to hear his steps diminish and the street door slam.
TWENTY-TWO
“I SUGGEST WE HAVE swum far enough.” Cosmo turned towards his friend. “Ready to give in?”
“I certainly am.” Hubert followed Cosmo towards the bank. “Do you do this often?”
“I’ve never swum so far up river.” Cosmo pulled himself out of the water and collapsed, panting, on the grass. “I wanted to see,” he gasped, “how far we’d have to swim before you gave in. Then my legs gave out; they are trembling.”
“Mine, too.” Hubert stretched out beside his friend. “My heart, my heart goes bang, bang, bang. Oh, lovely England, hot sun, sweet fresh water, it’s surprisingly warm by the way, soft grass, the sound of grasshoppers—paradise.”
“It doesn’t happen often.”
“The more wonderful when it does.” Hubert closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the country. “That was quite a test,” he murmured, “the current is deceptive.”
“It’s the depth of the river: going back, the current will carry us down.”
“That will be nice.” Hubert listened to the hum of insects, a woodpecker tapping somewhere near, and stretched his legs. “We must not forget to collect our bathers as we go. Mustn’t shock your mother’s house party.”
“That would never do.” Eyes shut against the sun, Cosmo yawned and ran his hand down his naked body, wiping away surplus water. “This is the only way to swim.” They had shed their swimming trunks further downstream.
“It’s nice to be on our own for a bit. Your future brother-in-law rather holds forth.”
“Um, yes, he’ll meet his match in Mabs.”
“Do you like him?”
“He’s what one has been brought up to expect.”
Hubert said: “Ah,” keeping his eyes closed; then, “Is she in love with Nigel?”
“I suppose so. Why? Doesn’t she seem to be?”
“Well—not quite enough.”
“Oh?”
“I may be wrong, of course.”
“I hope you are, Blanco.”
“Do call me Hubert.”
“What d’you mean by ‘not quite enough’, Hubert?” Cosmo raised himself on his elbow. “I’ve always been led to believe that l’appétit vient en mangeant, or words to that effect. What d’you mean?” He stared down at his friend.
“She’s such a sexy little thing.”
“And Nigel isn’t?”
“Keeps it pretty dark if he is.”
“What makes you think Mabs—”
“I’ve danced with her.”
“So have I.”
“You’re her brother.”
“Of course I am, and she’s known you such a long time you’re a sort of surrogate. What’s this about, Hubert?” Cosmo stared curiously at Hubert. “What’s this element of doubt?”
Hubert, pretending to be asleep, let his head fall away from his friend, kept his eyes closed and decided it would do harm if he told Cosmo that, dancing with him the night before, she had let her hand stray with inquisitive fingers across his flies; that she had been knowingly amused when he slapped the hand away. He turned on his side. Cosmo contemplated Hubert’s back, watched a horsefly settle, waited for it to bite, then smacked hard: “Killed it.”
“Bugger you!” Hubert rolled over towards him.
“It bit you. I have your blood on my hand, blood and squashed fly.” He wiped his hand on the grass. “What’s this doubt?”
Hubert, eyes open now, said, “This isn’t quite such a paradise after all.” Then, “I’ve danced with Tashie too; she hasn’t quite the sexy rhythm of your sister.” He said this hoping Cosmo, who had a nicer nature than his, would not observe his guile. He sat up, hugging his knees, contemplating the view. “Nice cows,” he said, watching two stately ruminants sashay through the long grass across the river and sway lazily down to drink.
“I think Tash is pretty good. Light on her feet.” Cosmo, too, watched the cows’ ponderous progress. “I think both Nigel and Henry are lucky,” he said.
“So do I,” agreed Hubert. “Nice chaps both, good prospects, good jobs, houses in the country to inherit, plenty of money, suitable.” He made the word sound ludicrous and Cosmo laughed with him alb
eit reluctantly, feeling that he was in some way betraying someone or something.
“In half a minute you will be onto Cousin Thing and Pengappah Abbey.”
“I don’t believe it’s an abbey,” said Hubert, pretending to rise to the bait. “At most a manor, more likely a plain house, don’t you think?” he joked, not wishing to suggest that his friend’s sister might be marrying for money or be putting Nigel’s worldly goods before love. “Should we not go back?” he said. “Were not Mabs and Tashie meeting Flora at the station? Why didn’t they let us go?”
“They wanted to be the first to see what she’s like.” Cosmo stressed words in the manner of his sister and her friend’s affectation. “Whether she will be worth taking up.”
It was Hubert’s turn to be surprised: “Oh?”
“That’s how people are,” said Cosmo, “even Mabs and Tash.”
Particularly Mabs and Tash, thought Hubert.
“Let’s go back.” Cosmo stood and dived into the river. The cows, standing hock deep in mud, jostled in alarm. Cosmo shook the water from his hair and trod water until Hubert joined him. “You may not realise it,” he said, as they let the current sweep them downstream, “but both Mabs and Tashie have been brought up to make suitable friends; they wouldn’t know what to do with an unsuitable one, and that particularly goes for marriageable men.”
“Is that so?” Hubert drifted beside his friend, and as he drifted, remembering the straying fingers of the night before, he thought that he could guess the role in store for the “unsuitable.” “Do you suppose they have slept with Nigel and Henry? Tried it out?”
“Oh, no, no. They wouldn’t know how to set about it, not those two.”
“Really?”
“I mean they are quite interested, or I take it they are, but they are like us, Hubert. Virginal.”
“I seem to remember you full of passionate zest in our spotty teens—”
“Of course. Dead keen. Still am, but who does one start with? I simply can’t fancy what’s offered so far.”
“No hurry,” said Hubert. “Oxford inclines to chastity regarding girls. The inclination seems to carry on from school, stick to what you know-boys.”
“That’s no help. I don’t like boys.”
“Me neither,” said Hubert. “Time enough. I say, didn’t we leave our bathers behind that rock?” Paddling towards the shore, Hubert regretted an exploratory plunge into sex recently made. It had been an expensive experiment; he had learned nothing he was not already aware of, and lost something he could not retrieve. Watching Cosmo climb nimbly up the bank, he felt envious of his friend’s inexperience. “I should have thought,” he said, “that by now you would know all about it.”
“All about what?” Cosmos was searching for the bathing trunks. “Here they are.”
“Girls, women. You used to say you couldn’t wait.” Hubert pulled on the trunks Cosmo handed him.
“The trouble is, girls can,” said Cosmo. “The girls who attract me are great little waiters. Kisses, yes, but anything more there’s nothing doing, the shop’s shut.”
“Suitable girls,” murmured Hubert. Then, remembering Mabs, “Do you really believe—”
“Listen.” Cosmo held up his hand. Round the bend in the river there was the sound of splashing, girls’ voices, a man’s laugh. Cosmo hitched on his trunks. “Let’s creep up on them.” He slipped back into the water and Hubert followed; keeping close to the bank they swam to the bend. In a large pool Mabs and Tashie swam. Mabs wore a red bathing dress, Tashie a blue; both wore white rubber caps. They were encouraging Nigel and Henry with cheerful cries. On the opposite bank Nigel and Henry debated whether it would be possible to climb along the overhanging branch of a beech tree and dive.
“Easy if they knew their way.” Cosmo trod water. “Ah, Henry’s found the way up.” They watched the two men climb the tree and set off hesitantly along the branch. Nigel, the least agile, wobbled and dived clumsily into the pool; Henry followed with a neat dive.
“Spectacular,” shouted Mabs. “Do it again!”
Hubert gripped Cosmo’s arm and pointed.
Above them on the bank Flora was undressing. “Come on, Flora, it’s wonderful,” shouted Mabs. “Do hurry.”
Flora had taken off her frock and stood with her back to Cosmo and Hubert, dressed only in knickers. She held the end of a large towel with her teeth. Protecting her body from view of the bathers, she stepped out of her knickers and stood screened by the towel. She pulled on her bathing suit; she did this slowly as she watched the capering bathers, then let the towel drop, tied her hair back, took three steps towards the water and dived.
Cosmo and Hubert let out their breath. “We’d better wait a minute,” said Cosmo, “she might guess we’d seen her.” Hubert, clinging to the river bank, nodded.
TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS RELATIVELY EASY for Flora, sitting at the bottom of the Leighs’ dining-table, to keep quiet, eat what was offered, and deduce by watching her neighbours the correct order of knives and forks. She was relieved to find that it differed little from recollections of her parents’ dining table in India.
Sitting between Nigel and Henry, who either talked to each other across her or to Mabs and Tashie on their other sides, she was saved by their absence of manners from the necessity of speech. She hoped to get through the meal without spilling food on the dress Mabs had lent her, or catching the eye of Cosmo or Hubert, who sat across the table. She was content to stay quiet and assimilate the pleasurable shocks her system had received since Mabs and Tashie had pounced on her at the station.
In India she had kept out of her parents’ way and lived with the servants; her period with governesses in Italy and France had been dull; the last five years at school had been of stultifying mediocrity, spent with people she often actively disliked. She knew nothing of the outside world. The brief glimpse of family lives during the Easter holidays at Dinard had shrivelled into a dream. She was unprepared to meet the people she had dreamed of in the flesh, and astonished by the quality of love and good-humoured affection they seemed to feel for each other, and the manner in which they quite naturally appeared to include her.
Sipping her wine, she was careful not to look across the table and meet Cosmo or Hubert’s eye, fearing that if she did she might blush or look confused. Although she had been expecting to meet Cosmo and possibly Hubert, she had not bargained for their sudden appearance in the river. They had surprised her coming up from her second dive by grasping hold of her, having swum underwater round the bend, and bobbed up gripping her tightly between them. “Bags I” and “She’s mine!” Whether it was Cosmo who had said, “Bags I,” or Hubert who said, “She’s mine,” she did not know, but their hard bodies encasing hers in watery intimacy had been both frightening and exciting as her breasts and thighs bumped against them. Cosmo had kissed her mouth as she opened it to cry out and Hubert her throat, bumping it with his teeth. Flora hoped, as she ate her dinner, that they had not noticed that her immediate reaction had been to return the kisses. Instead she had vigorously kicked free.
Swimming to the bank, she had joined Mabs and Tashie to unpack the thermoses and sandwiches for the picnic. Eating her sandwiches and drinking her tea she had noted the change in Cosmo and Hubert. Just as Felix had seemed smaller when he took her out to lunch, so Cosmo and Hubert, changed from boys into men, had grown larger. Hubert’s nose was dominant; his eyebrows, nearly meeting above it, combined with his black eyes to give him an almost sinister air. Cosmo’s face had thinned, his fair hair coarsened; his chin was bristly when he kissed her and his mouth formed a tighter line when shut. They had not meant anything particular, she decided as she listened to the talk; their behaviour was commensurate with the general good-humoured atmosphere of this beautiful place.
From the moment Mabs and Tashie had hailed her at the station she had encountered friendliness. If the two girls had overwhelmed her by their kindness, so had meeting her hosts been a surprise. Milly, kissing her
, had exclaimed: “My dear, you’ve grown up pretty,” as though this gave her personal pleasure and put her in the charge of Molly, a smiling housemaid. Molly took her to her room, unpacked her suitcase, ran her bath when she returned from swimming, helped her into the dress she now wore, brushed her hair and sent her down to the drawing-room.
Angus, grown greyer, had come forward with apparent delight, pouting out his moustache, reminded her of her langoustes at the picnic, enquired after her parents and introduced her to fellow guests, none of whose names she now remembered except a very thin Miss Green. “And this is Miss Green.” Offered her sherry. She had refused the sherry but was put almost at ease, sufficiently so at least to watch the arrival of other guests, all of whom were greeted with great largeness of heart by Angus and Milly.
It was a big party: nine in the house, another eleven to dinner. “I expect you will enjoy playing Sardines or Murder after dinner; that’s what seems the mode at the moment,” said Milly. “Or perhaps they will want to dance. Angus doesn’t mind what they do as long as there isn’t too much noise. We keep the drawing-room out of bounds. If you want to escape you will know where to run to. You don’t look as though you will, though—”
She was not really talking to me, thought Flora. The butler was announcing dinner. She was looking over my head. She had never played Murder or Sardines, but she was ready to chance her arm; at school girls talked of these games. This was the first time she had been on a visit or stayed in a country house; the contrast with school and its inmates was intoxicating. She did not wish to miss a moment. Eating her dinner, she listened to the talk.
Mabs and Tashie’s contribution seemed to consist of amiably teasing Nigel and Henry. There was talk of farming further along the table, and discussion of a law case. A man said, “The report in The Times was excellent, I thought, absolutely fair. Does anyone know who wrote it? One should keep track of these journalists, one never knows—”