From a View to a Death, page 16
‘Affable is the soundest hound in the pack. I might almost say the only sound hound in the pack. Anyway, the incident has some importance as creating a precedent, so I hope you will impress Whatshername with the gravity of her attempted act.’
‘Oh, Lord. Affable is a hound, is he? I’m awfully sorry, Father. I’ll tell her. She’s terribly fond of animals and she probably thought that he looked under-nourished.’
‘Perhaps she did,’ Mr. Passenger said. ‘In future I hope she will not be betrayed into a similar indiscretion.’
He turned his horse’s head in the direction of the hounds but before he could get away he was buttonholed by Major Fosdick, who had arrived by this time at close range and who said:
‘Thinking of drawing Lambert’s Holt today, Master?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Passenger, ‘I’m not,’ and nearly riding down the Major he moved off in the direction of the First Whip, followed by Mary.
‘Is Bianca going out today?’ Joanna said.
She felt she must talk to prevent herself from thinking that Zouch was coming so soon again.
Betty said: ‘No. She’s got stomach-ache. She is always having it. I think she must have inherited it from me.’
‘Well,’ said Jasper, ‘I expect I ought to be barging along now. See you at tea tomorrow, Joanna. Goodbye, Betty. I wonder what sort of a run we are going to have?’
The hunt had begun to move off and the hounds were now flickering and undulating down the slope, followed by Mr. Passenger, with Major Fosdick, not to be put off so easily, a good second. They went through the gate and out on to the road. The rest of the hunt followed, roughly speaking in financial order, and a desultory cavalcade of children of varying ages, some of them mere infants, fought a sort of rearguard action, dressed in jockey-caps and perched on saddles of every conceivable shape, some the basket howdahs of donkeys on the beach, others of Spanish or Moorish pattern, recalling Mexico or the armies of the East. Among these walked or rode grooms, anxious men, trying to make the best of things. The horses clattered along the road and turned the corner so that after a few minutes all of them were out of sight behind the trees, except for one very pathetic child of indeterminate sex, who, suddenly taken ill, had wisely decided to turn back with its keeper.
‘Let’s go across the road and up the hill,’ said Betty. ‘We shall probably be able to see them all from there.’
They went over the turf, now all cut up by the hoofs of the horses, the damp earth giving out a hissing sound round them while they walked through the gate and climbed through the brambles of the hedge. As the branches flew forward the leaves spattered their faces with drops of water. They began to plod up the hill. Others were doing the same because from the top it possible to see for some miles between a cleft in the hills along which, more often than not, the local foxes would take flight.
‘Wonderful thing for the figure, this,’ said Betty as they reached the crest and stood above the fields.
Joanna looked towards the country below them, divided into squares of green and brown by the hedges and an occasional stone wall. In the break between the high ground the sky above the horizon was marked with strips of light where the sun was drawing water. These broad rays stretched up to the gap in the clouds, which parted to receive them in the neat formality of a canvas background, an Assumption scene or baroque ceiling. The wind had got up a bit and was beginning to blow the trees about.
She saw the hunt bunched up by a covert at the foot of one of the downs, a favourite place of Mr. Passenger’s, but more from obstinacy, because it was the sort of place where a fox ought to be, than because experience had shown it to be the sort of place where a fox was. Hounds began to draw. On the outskirts of the field, someone, perhaps Torquil—it was too far to see for certain—was having trouble with his horse. He was riding it round, bumpily, in circles, trying to quiet the animal. The rest of them stood about in little scarlet and black groups, looking like cavalry pickets. There was a pause during which the pack seemed to have disappeared permanently among the trees and then, jerkily on the air, Betty and Joanna heard the horn. Betty said:
‘Why, they’ve actually found something in there.’
The fox had a good start, with the hounds some way behind and the rest of the hunt nowhere. Torquil—it was now clear that it was Torquil—led the field, because his mare with remarkable intuition had decided to run away with him at the precise moment of the find. The enormous bay charged the first fence, a low one, loosely built up, and went pounding on, taking it easy over some broken ground, the rest of them catching him up one by one. It was evident that the mare intended to negotiate the next hedge, which was considerably higher and had no gaps in it, by the method which had proved so successful at the previous one. Torquil himself seemed prepared for something of the sort and when the mare changed her mind and jumped, he went into the air, swayed violently, and he could be seen trotting across the next field, still mounted, but in a position that would have enabled him to pick up a handkerchief from the ground if there had been one there and he had been so minded. Betty said:
‘That was Torquil, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why does he do it?’
‘It is really very unwise of him.’
Betty said: ‘Oh, I do hope he doesn’t get hurt. You know you mustn’t tell anybody, but we’re engaged. I thought it would do him so much good. I do hope nothing awful has happened to him.’
‘You are engaged to Torquil?’ said Joanna. For the moment she forgot entirely about her own unhappiness at the surprise of this news.
‘Yes, but you really mustn’t tell anyone. Of course it isn’t in a way frightfully serious, but at times I get so bored living here. And then he is so sweet. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’
‘No,’ said Joanna. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
She thought it the most astonishing news she had ever heard in her life. And yet, ridiculous as it was, it seemed good news in contrast with the things that had happened to herself.
The hunt was getting scattered now. They saw Jasper come up, long after everyone else, clear the hedge at great speed, and canter on. He passed his brother, who had by this time re-established himself to some extent but continued only to trot. Jasper turned to shout something back at Torquil and rode on. A short way ahead Mary was trying to close a gate with her crop. Major Fosdick, who must have had views of his own on a short cut, was trotting along the road among the second horsemen. A few minutes later there was a check at the top of the hill.
‘Heavens,’ said Betty, ‘what a temper father must be in by this time.’
‘Yes,’ said Joanna.
She was still watching the hunt, but she had begun to think of other things. The check was proving to be a long one and gradually the stragglers found their way back to the main body of the field. The hunt was too far off now to be able to distinguish individuals. Suddenly the sun came out from behind the cloud-banks and covered all one side of the hill-slopes with dull light. It would be just the day, thought Joanna, to be conducting a successful love-affair. Screening the match from the wind with her hands, Betty lit another cigarette. A long way away a man, who might have been Captain McGurk, standing on a stone wall by the road, began holloaing and waving his arms.
Some weeks later, in the hall at Passenger, Zouch stepped out of his overcoat, a new one in loud but neat checks, and let it fall into Marshall’s arms. He rubbed his hands together and turned half round so that he might judge from out of the corner of his eye what effect the loss of his beard would have on the butler. But Marshall kept his eyes fixed demurely on the ground.
‘How are you, Marshall?’
‘Not too bad, sir. Thank you very much, sir.’
‘Cold weather.’
‘It is, sir.’
‘I suppose we must expect some cold weather now. Seasonable.’
‘That’s it, sir. All right so long as it’s dry.’
‘Then it’s all right when it’s dry.’
‘Yes, sir. Nice, cold, bright, dry, winter weather.’
Marshall clenched his already tightly compressed lips at the thought of these almost ideal climatic conditions, and, glancing up from the floor for a second, gave out a glassy look. Then he turned and walked quickly up the hall as if he were trying to get away from Zouch in a hurry. Zouch pursued him, also at a smart pace, and entered the drawing-room at Marshall’s heels, nearly colliding with his back as the butler stopped dead and announced:
‘Mr. Zouch.’
As he went over the threshold, for an interminable second, one of those shapeless entities torn out of the abyss of time, it struck Zouch how different his feelings had been on an earlier visit to this house. He rarely indulged in introspection, which he disapproved of from all points of view, but for once he allowed himself to dwell for this uncircumscribed period on the change that had taken place in himself. And it was not only his feelings. His whole body had altered so that it was as if he had stepped out of a shell or been born again. The house remained the same. The robust smell persisted. To him it was still a mausoleum comparatively comfortably furnished. But his own status in it was immeasurably altered. Already he was more than a guest. There would soon be a reserved place for him, he thought to himself with jocularity, in one of this catacomb’s sarcophagi.
He found himself shaking hands with Mrs. Passenger, who received him more vaguely than ever before. When Zouch had worn a beard she had known that he was one of two possible men, but now that he was clean-shaved the choice was infinitely wider and, after her greeting, she added:
‘I saw your sister in Bond Street when I was in London last week but she did not see me.’
Zouch was startled for the moment because his sister had married a surgeon who lived in Tasmania, but he recovered himself almost at once and made an appropriate noise in his throat, implying that her appearance in Bond Street was no surprise to him. He moved on to Mary and squeezed her hand. She seemed delighted to see him again. When he had done shaking hands with her he went over to Betty, who said:
‘Well, it’s a colossal improvement. Simply colossal.’
‘You prefer it?’
‘Every time.’
‘So do I,’ said Mary, ‘but I was too polite to say so at once.’
Secretly she had hoped that no one would mention the disappearance of his beard so that she could discuss it with him when they were alone together. It was just like Betty to treat it as a joke. She herself thought it a great change for the better. It made Zouch look younger and at the same time cleaner. Some of her doubts about him—because she had developed a great many doubts when he had left the house—were set at rest. Things were going to be all right after all, she felt. They had written to each other regularly all the time that he had been away but both found difficulty in expressing themselves on paper, so that Mary had often begun to wonder whether she had done a very silly thing. She saw that, even if this was so, she could not break with him at once on account of saving her own face with her parents and her sister, and she had been worried on this account, but Zouch looked so improved and successful as he came into the room that the interest she had felt in him a few months earlier was greatly increased. Once more she began to visualise herself in the rather romantic position of a fashionable painter’s wife.
‘How’s business?’ said Betty.
‘Brisk,’ Zouch said.
This was true. His luck was on the turn again and he had been working hard all the time since he had last been at Passenger and had managed to earn a respectable amount during that period, some of his sitters having actually paid him on the nail. He saw that Betty was displeased about his engagement. Mrs. Passenger, on the other hand, was unchanged in her attitude, and appeared to be unaware or entirely forgetful of it.
‘I’ve been painting the Lazaruses,’ he said, ‘and Anne Kettleby, whom you introduced me to at the pageant.’
‘How awful it all was,’ said Mary. ‘You were too noble to take part in it as you did. I really don’t know how we all stood it.’
‘How is everyone in the neighbourhood? The Fosdicks?’
Betty said: ‘Everyone’s grand. We saw them all at the opening meet the other day. Joanna Brandon was there too, looking quite ravishing. She has definitely got better-looking since the summer. I told her you were coming here again and that she must come here and meet you.’
‘Oh, yes, I should like to see her again,’ said Zouch, a little dubiously. He made up his mind that if he ever got married to Mary he would insist that Betty saw as little of her sister as possible. She was an unpleasant woman and a dangerous influence. He hoped that Mary would not unexpectedly develop similar traits. Betty said:
‘And, talking of hunting, I hear you are going to come out.’
‘Mary tells me that your father is going to be kind enough to mount me.’
Betty said: ‘Oh, it isn’t kindness with father. It’s cruelty. Absolutely pathological, I can assure you.’
Zouch laughed heartily, thinking that what Betty said was all too true.
‘I haven’t been on a horse for eighteen months,’ he said conversationally, and without any reference to actual fact.
Betty said: “I haven’t for eighteen years and it will be eighteen centuries before I do again.’
‘But, dear,’ said Mrs. Passenger mildly, ‘you used to like your pony so much when you were a child.’
‘I know,’ said Betty, ‘I know. But look how I’ve ended up. I’m a warning to all girls who like animals.’
Mrs. Passenger sighed, but it was evident that she agreed to some extent with what her daughter had said.
‘How is Bianca?’ asked Zouch.
‘She’s very well. I told her you were coming here again and she was delighted. She said you could do another picture of her.’
‘I shall look forward to it.’
He wished that they would all go away and leave him alone with Mary, whom he had thought about a great deal and was by now really very fond of. He often contemplated the life that they would lead together. He had decided that there was going to be an unpretentious exclusiveness about it. It would be in a world from which people like Betty would be, by their very nature, shut out.
‘How do you do?’ said Mr. Passenger.
He had come into the room without Zouch noticing his entrance and now he stood above Zouch’s chair looking at him.
‘How do you do?’ he said again, and held out his hand. He succeeded in getting a great deal of what he felt about Zouch into his voice.
‘Did you have a good journey down?’ he said, and taking the newspaper from where it was lying on the floor beside Betty he sat down in the corner of the room and began to read it. Mrs. Passenger said:
‘What was the result of your talk with Major Fosdick, Vernon?’
From behind the newspaper Mr. Passenger said:
‘What results could there be? Results can only come when two sane persons discuss a subject. I might as well try to convince an ape that he was wrong as talk to that old imbecile. Nothing that I could ever say could possibly have any effect on him. He shoots all my game, his wife is for ever bothering me about the thousand and one committees that she sits on, his eldest son does nothing but ride on my hounds, and as for that boy Torquil ’
Mr. Passenger stopped for a moment and put down his paper, trying to find words strong enough to express his opinion of Torquil Fosdick. Mrs. Passenger folded up the piece of work she had in her hand and looked across, a little hopelessly, at her husband. Then she rose and went out of the room. Betty said:
‘Now, father, you mustn’t say anything against Torquil. I like him very much.’
‘You like him?’
‘Of course I do.’
Mr. Passenger said: ‘He’s the worst of the lot.’
‘He isn’t.’
‘He’s the limit.’
‘What do you mean, the limit, father?’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’
Betty said: ‘Well, if you think that, it won’t please you to hear that he and I are engaged.’
‘Betty!’ Mary said, and even Zouch was outraged by this piece of news.
‘Oh?’ said Mr. Passenger. ‘You’re engaged, are you?’
‘Yes,’ said Betty, ‘we’re engaged.’
She stretched out her legs in front of her and leaned back in her chair. She was evidently enjoying the situation. Mary said:
‘But when did this happen? You never said anything about it.’
‘A month or two ago.’
Mr. Passenger took the newspaper and shook it straight at each end. Then he folded it in two and again in four and continued to fold it until it was a small bulky packet. He put this under his arm and walked out of the room. Before he reached the door he said:
‘It is unbelievable.’
No one else said anything at all.
Major and Mrs. Fosdick were sitting in the drawing-room after lunch and Mrs. Fosdick was reading the Morning Post. The sky outside the window was grey. After a time Mrs. Fosdick laboriously tore a piece out of the middle of the front page of the paper and handed it to her husband, who received the fragment cautiously.
‘What is it, Veronica?’
‘Do you think, George, there would be room in the house for a German boy?’
‘A German boy? In the house? What house? I never know what you are talking about, Veronica.’
‘In our house. Our home. Widemeadows.’
Major Fosdick moved round the armchair he was sitting in, so that he could face his wife.
‘Now why should you think we should want a German boy? As it is I find it far too expensive having that old beast coming to look at the garden three times a week. Not that he ever does a stroke of work. What would the boy do? Why a German? Sometimes, Veronica, I really wonder whether you are all there.’
Major Fosdick, in his irritation, crumpled up the piece of paper his wife had given him and threw it on the floor.
‘Not as a servant, George. A guest. AP.G. It told you all about him on the piece of paper I gave you. He wants to come and live in an English family. Au pair, you know. I was thinking of Torquil. If he knew German it might help him to get a job. He would go and live with the German boy’s family.’
