Sensible Life

When Hubert woke he would find her note on the kitchen table. He would go to the village to buy food, carry on to the town, exploring his new neighbourhood, and do his telephoning from there. She had written: “I am going for a walk. Flora.” He would expect her back. She had not said: “I need to think, to work things out, to decide.” But finding herself alone on the beach she had known that that was what she was trying to do.

  She watched a flight of herring gulls winging out to sea in the winter dawn and listened to their lonely cry. At the water’s edge she wrapped her coat tightly round her, turned up the collar and let her eye follow a pair of cormorants scurrying close above the water towards a horizon just catching the pink of dawn. It was cold. A ship steamed along the line between sea and sky, heading perhaps to the subcontinent of India. “Where shall I decide to go?” she said out loud. “I cannot stay here.”

  Pacing at the water’s edge she reviewed the past days at Pengappah, very different from the heady weeks in France when, listening to Hubert, she had known that their thoughts and emotions blended as at night her body fused with his. Arrived at Pengappah, she had stood aside and watched as Hubert discovered the reality of his inheritance. She had seen him compare the substance with some imaginary dream. Ready for disappointment, he had prowled suspiciously at first, ready to rebuff; grown enthusiastic he had fallen headlong for the place’s charm. Excluded by his concentration, and not unwilling to be so, she had watched him with increasing detachment, a detachment of which he was unaware. They had explored Pengappah minutely, walked the boundaries, talked to the old couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis in the village, who had worked for Cousin Thing. “Old Mr. Wyndeatt-Whyte was a proper gentleman,” they said. “A proper gentleman was Mr. Hubert.” They sized Hubert up, visibly wondering whether the new, the young Mr. Wyndeatt-Whyte would do, if not at once, eventually.

  Hubert had not been ingratiating and this they appreciated. They agreed to do a bit in the house, light the occasional fire to stave off the damp, keep the garden tidy as they had for Cousin Thing. Cousin Thing, it transpired, had only visited occasionally of late years, preferring to lodge in his club at Bath. “He didn’t like things moved, come in good weather for a change to look at his books, collect the post if there was any, just postcards as a rule and not many of they.”

  Hubert, avoiding this conversational lure, had stuck to the point. He told them that he would come when he could. He had to earn his living; his work would take him abroad. The Jarvises had said, “Ah,” and “Yes,” and “That so?” and Hubert had said that he would like his friends to come even when he could not; that they would ask the Jarvises for the key. He did not like to think of the house empty, but giving joy to his friends. His cousin Miss Trevelyan, for instance, would be there a lot. They had nodded, looking Flora over, wondering how much she was part of the package.

  Certainly, Flora thought, as she gave an involuntary hop of freedom, Hubert did not wonder. He behaved as though she were the package, taking her for granted as he was beginning to take his property, sure that she would fall in with his plans. He would this morning telephone the solicitor, arrange for money to be paid to the old couple and follow his conversation with a letter of confirmation. He had a strong businesslike streak, Flora thought, as she doubled up with mirth; he was businesslike in the way he made love, when it was the right time, when it suited him. Not that it was not wonderful, of course.

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” she shouted up at the sky and broke into a run to reach the rocks at the foot of the cliff. Would Cousin Thing have approved of Hubert? Had Cousin Thing enjoyed the message in Russian? Should Hubert not be ashamed of those silly postcards sent over the years to tease? Above all, should Hubert be so sure she would return from her walk?

  Flora clambered round the rocks to the headland and up the cliff, pulling herself up with arms and legs which winced from the strain, flopping down to rest in a sheltered hollow, catching her breath. I am weak from sitting about in cafés, she thought, and love-making. Would love-making with Felix or Cosmo be the same or better?

  Able to think freely, for she and Hubert had not explored here—had not ventured so far, the discovery was hers alone, the privacy absolute—she pulled her coat round her, lay back on the short grass and closed her eyes. Listening to the murmur of the sea, she imagined herself in Felix’s arms, or Cosmo’s, making love out-of-doors instead of in a bed with Hubert, with one’s legs getting tangled, as they sometimes did, in the sheets.

  When she woke a breeze had sprung up and she was cut off by the tide. She had to climb a long way along the cliff to get back through fields to the woods round Pengappah. Ragingly hungry, she let herself in by the kitchen door. Hubert’s shopping was on the table; she helped herself to bread and cheese, found pickles, spread butter, poured a glass of milk.

  Reflected through the door into the sitting-room, in the glass of a print of Napoleon pacing the deck of the Bellerophon hanging on the kitchen wall, she saw Hubert and Cosmo sprawling in armchairs by the fire, a bottle of whisky on the floor between them.

  Munching her bread and cheese, Flora leaned against the wall and listened. Hubert said, “When I telephoned the clerk told me he was dead, killed himself. It was weird.”

  Cosmo said, “Yes, you told me.”

  Hubert said, “You see when he said he would kill himself, I wasn’t really listening. One doesn’t expect solicitors to be suicidal.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, you don’t. All I wanted was to get back to Flora and bring her down here.”

  “In my car.”

  “In your car. I feel awful now. He must have loved his wife; she’d left him, you see.”

  “So you said. Several times.”

  “Would I kill myself if Flora left me?”

  “Probably not. It would be different if she left me.”

  “You haven’t got her. I have.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “The clerk said somebody would attend to my letter. I’ve decided to leave Flora here, see that she has enough money and so on, so that she’ll be all right.”

  “Does she know?”

  “I’ll tell her. Does what I say, does Flora.”

  Flora stopped munching, swallowed, drank some milk.

  Hubert said, “Any whisky left? Lucky I bought a bottle too. Jolly, jolly decent of you to bring a bottle, by the way. Did I thank you? This one is nearly defunct.”

  Hubert’s reflection poured whisky. Cosmo said, “At least you got a ghostly welcome from Cousin Thing. He seems to have enjoyed your messages, keeping them stuck up, especially Flora’s. You never guessed she cheated, did you? D’you think Thing left it, her message, as a sort of something for you?”

  Hubert said, “You’ll have to make yourself clearer than that when you’re p—practising at the bar. Less obtuse.”

  “Oh, ironic are we now? I wonder where she is?”

  “Went for a walk, ’nother drink?”

  “When I first found her she came walking out of the sea—lovely.”

  “Ah me. The Birth of Venus! Ever tell you how I lusted after the Venus?”

  “Botticelli?”

  “I lusted and lusted. Lovely, lovely seaweedy hair, standing in a cockleshell, her hand modestly sheltering her pussy.”

  “Flora was too young—rather skinny, snappy too, I remember—but too young to have a pussy.”

  “She has now, dark brown, nearly black, wonderful.”

  “Swine,” said Cosmo amiably. “Is she as good as Joyce? As keen? Extraordinary orange colour Joyce’s bush—is she—”

  Flora wondered whether to swallow her bread and cheese or throw up. Her cheeks burned. Felix would never discuss her like this.

  Hubert’s reflection, careful not to spill, poured whisky, added water, said, “Be careful what you say. You are speaking of my future wife.”

  Cosmo laughed. “Mine, more likely. Don’t be so bloody cocksure,”

  Hubert exclaimed, “I am not cocksure. I force myself to be
sure. Every day and in every way I try to be surer.” His voice was a lament.

  Cosmo consoled, “When we were young and virgin we wondered what girls would be like. Do you suppose girls wonder?”

  “Your sister Mabs did,” said Hubert sharply.

  “Mabs?”

  “Fiddled with my flies when we were dancing.”

  “Our Flora was never like that,” said Cosmo.

  “My Flora.”

  “Ours. To my mind Flora is still as free as the Venus, free to choose. Tell you what I think, I think she fancies Felix. How does that suppo—supposition strike you?”

  “Bosh shot, old friend; it would waste her lovely energies. I have it from Joyce that Felix had a walk out with her brother.”

  “The queer as a coot, pretty boy who was at school with us?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “But Felix is married and has a baby. Lucky escape for Mabs if you’re right. Makes one think. No, Flora wouldn’t—no, hang on, idiotic as it may seem, if you’re right about Felix being bisexual, anything can go. There may be something between my Pa and Flora; my mother’s nose is rarely off beam.”

  Flora stopped masticating, took a step forward and stared in at the young men. They did not see her.

  Cosmo carried on. “Convoluted my thoughts may be, but I get there in the end.” He appeared to think he had scored a point.

  Hubert said, “Rubbish,” and lay back, stretching his legs towards the fire. For a while neither spoke. Hubert’s glass rested empty on his chest; Cosmo let his drop to the floor. Presently, rallying thought from far away, he said: “It wasn’t a cockleshell the Venus was standing in, it was a scallop.”

  Hubert said, “Of course, how silly of me. It was a scallop.”

  Having worked things out, decided, Flora finished her bread and cheese, drank her milk and ate a banana. She had stopped shaking.

  Hubert and Cosmo were asleep when she passed them on her way to the stairs, asleep when she came down carrying her suitcase.

  She had not, when she dreamed of lying in their marble arms, known what they would be like live, human and drunk. Hubert had given excitement and passion. The tenderness she had experienced with her imaginary trio was still there, but Hubert no longer fitted. Could she possibly feel it now for Cosmo? They looked very young and innocent as they slept; they did not wake when she stood beside them looking down. They would probably think, if they noticed when they woke, that the spots on the floor were whisky, not tears.

  They did not hear the door when she closed it.

  FORTY-FIVE

  “A LETTER FOR YOU.” Denys, sorting through his mail, handed Vita an envelope.

  Vita said, “Oh, thanks. This looks like an answer from the Leigh woman.”

  Denys watched her tear the envelope open. “Well?” he said. “What does she say?”

  Vita glanced up. “I feel so silly at having written; we don’t really know her. I just felt I had to do something.”

  “You should cultivate the art of inactivity. Remember the adage about sleeping dogs. Read it out.”

  Vita raid: “‘Dear Mrs. Trevelyan, Thank you for your letter written in December; what a long time letters take from India.’—Of course they take a long time! Must she be so discursive? ‘I fear we have no real news of your girl. She has not been to visit us,’—I don’t suppose she was invited, they probably found her plain and dull that time—‘but my husband remembers that when he was in London before Christmas he ran into her by chance in the street. He says she seemed well and in good spirits.’—Oh, so she’s got back to London. ‘She volunteered no address. At that time, of course, we had no idea that she had left the ship en route to Bombay or that you did not know her whereabouts. The encounter was casual. My husband got the impression she was doing a sensible job of some kind. I am sorry that is all I can tell you, I am sure that by now she will have got in touch with you and explained why she did not join you in India. I am sorry to be of so little use. The young can be so thoughtless, can they not? Yours sincerely, Milly Leigh.’ I wish I had not written to her,” Vita said angrily. “It makes me look an utter fool.”

  “What you do look,” said Denys, “is radiant. Is that one of the new frocks?”

  “Yes.” Vita smothered a laugh. “I am getting a lot of pleasure from them.”

  “Why don’t we leave things as they are, then?” Denys leaned forward and stroked her cheek.

  “If only we could.” Vita looked away.

  “We have no choice to do anything else.” Denys watched her. “You did not write to any other person apart, of course, from the school?”

  “Who would I write to?” Vita was glad she had not written to the Russian dressmaker; those sort of people gossiped. She looked down at the letter in her lap and the large handwriting of a confident woman, black ink on blue linen paper, the discreet but definite letterhead: Coppermalt House, near Hexham, telephone Coppermalt Halt 25. What had been in Mrs. Leigh’s mind when she wrote it? “What about missing persons or the police,” she murmured, “or the Salvation Army?”

  “What about them?” Denys slit open an official-looking envelope. Vita wished he would not use the butter knife. “Aha,” said Denys, pleased. “Confirmation of my new posting. It is to be Delhi.”

  “Delhi?” Vita was delighted. “Oh good.”

  “You will like that?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s wonderful, and what a step up for you. I am more than ready to move on, but—” her voice drooped, “what about—”

  “She is not my child, is she?” Denys’s voice was level, his pale eyes holding hers cold.

  Vita felt the blood drain from her face. She felt sick and her mouth went dry.

  The bearer came to tell Denys his car was waiting to take him to his office.

  “So.” Denys stood up. “Let’s forget it, shall we? Providence appears to have intervened. You can wear those dresses with a clear conscience. They will come in useful in Delhi,” he said cheerfully.

  “But—” Vita’s hands shook as she gripped Milly’s letter.

  “This does not make the slightest difference to you and me,” said Denys. “Now I must go or I shall be late.” He bent to kiss her. “Don’t shrink from me. I did not, as you imagined, arrange a murder in Marseilles.” He kissed her again.

  Vita blurted: “Of course not. She has been seen in London.”

  Denys chuckled, then, “I want no more discussion,” he said, “ever. Understood?”

  Vita said, “Yes. If that’s what you want.”

  “See you this evening at the polo. You are coming to watch?”

  Vita said, “Of course I am.”

  PART FOUR

  FORTY-SIX

  FLORA MOVED ABOUT HER employer’s house checking a list. She liked the house; she had spent contented years working in it. She wondered whether she would ever work in it again. Robbed of its pictures, its silver and books, pale patches on the walls startled and empty bookshelves accused. The rooms had a forlorn appearance. The house was gutless, its innards removed to the country to grace other rooms and adorn walls of different proportions. She felt sorry for the house, as though it were sick and grieving for a civilised comfort disrupted by the war.

  But the house had escaped the bombs; its windows were intact, its walls unscathed. It was clean. Had she not, as she did periodically, spent several days sweeping, dusting, polishing? It smelt all right; it would, given the chance, revive. Should it survive unscathed, her employers could, if they wished, move back to London and restore it to life.

  Standing in the partially furnished drawing-room, watching a barrage balloon hoisting up into the evening sky from Thurloe Square, Flora speculated whether, should her employers return to London, she would come with them. She rather thought she would not. Her horizon had widened; she was no longer content with the view of a street bounded by a square garden.

  The list. She must pay attention. She checked, read: Newspaper cuttings in drawer sofa-table. Mr. Fellowes had been o
ne of a minority who had paid attention to dire warnings in the years leading up to the war. She opened the sofa-table drawer. It was a good table, she thought it deserved evacuation; Mrs. Fellowes thought otherwise. She gave the table a consolatory rub. The drawer yielded packets of elastic-banded newsprint which recalled the Reichstag fire, Mussolini’s bombast, the plight of the Jews, the Munich Crisis, the growing Nazi threat. Some of the articles were by Hubert; the name Wyndeatt-Whyte looked both strange and familiar. Hubert had foreseen the war reporting from Berlin, Spain and latterly Prague, a war of which Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes wished no part for they were Quakers and, anyway, even if they had wished, too old to fight.

  Hubert’s articles read dead sober, Flora thought, recollecting Hubert when last seen with a chuckle.

  The Munich Crisis had made up the Fellowes’ minds: they had moved to the country, bought a farm. “War brings starvation,” they said. “We will grow food.” And Flora, with an innate aversion to violence, had moved with them.

  As she packed the newspaper cuttings away she remembered her horror when war was declared; how shocked she had been by the aggression of people who hoped to take part and were anxious to join the fray.

  She ticked her list, read embroidery scissors. It was possible the scissors, errant for several years, had slipped down the side of the sofa. She removed the dust sheet and went to shake it from the balcony. Hearing the crack of cloth above him a man passing below looked up, startled.

  Flora, laughing, called out, “Sorry.” Then, “Felix?”

  And Felix, looking up, said, “Who?” in a guarded voice. Then, “It’s Flora. So you grew up.”

  Flora said, “Yes,” bunching the dust sheet against her chest.

  Felix said, “Shall you come down?”

  “Wait a minute, I will come down.” But she delayed, running her hand down the side of the sofa and finding the lost scissors, which pricked and drew blood. Replacing the dust sheet, she ran downstairs to open the door.

  Felix came in quickly and said, “Ah,” as she closed the door. He stood with his back to a patch on the wall where a regency mirror had hung.