Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs (10 page)

The next course was brought in. Mindful of the etiquette Evelyn had drummed into us as teenagers, I turned to the archdeacon. His card said, The Venerable James Cogan. He was
a man of about fifty with a thick head of iron-grey hair. He was wearing clerical black and his shoulders were sprinkled with dandruff, which drifted down like snow whenever he shook his head for emphasis. I would have pitied this affliction had I not taken an immediate dislike to him. Having piled his plate with roast potatoes he ate quickly, almost gobbling as he told me about his unrivalled collection of incunabula. I had no idea what an incunabulum was but he never gave me a chance to ask. At last I tumbled to the fact that they were old books. I cheered up. Here was a perfect opportunity to display my newly acquired learning.

‘Does
The
Pilgrim’s
Progress count as incunabula?’ I managed to slip in as he shovelled down a grouse breast.

‘Oh, no.’ Another shower of dandruff. ‘Bunyan wrote
The
Pilgrim’s Progress
in … ah-hem …1700 so it is much too late—’

‘Actually,’ I interrupted with a swiftness born of certainty, ‘the first part was written between 1667 and 1672.’ Archdeacon Cogan seemed to flinch. Remembering that I had rushed the gate with the historian, I decided to take a chattier line, so as not to startle him with my unexpected erudition. ‘I didn’t quite understand what Bunyan meant when he said it was abominable to make religion a stalking horse. What is a stalking horse, exactly?’

The archdeacon dabbed his greasy lips with his napkin and bared his teeth in a smile that was so devoid of warmth it was like the opening of a tomb. ‘It is … ah-hem … a device by which one may conceal one’s true intention. By hiding behind his horse, a hunter may deceive his quarry.’

‘Mm. I think Talkative’s so much more interesting than Faithful, don’t you?’ The archdeacon looked dazed so I went on quickly. ‘Faithful’s rather a dreary, preachy sort of character.’

The archdeacon prodded at the skeleton of his grouse and frowned. ‘It has been some years since I last read the work.’

‘I didn’t like the bit about the robin and the spider at all,’ I
continued. ‘Everyone knows that robins don’t have a sense of right and wrong and cheerfully eat anything they can get.’

He shot me a doubtful look, as though he suspected that I was completely off my head. The pudding was brought in so he gave his attention to Evelyn. Though it was my go for Sir Ibbertson Darkly, he went on talking to his other neighbour, so I concentrated instead on enjoying the Charlotte Malakoff. After the last delicious mouthful I found I was still between two backs, so I examined the portraits of Kingsley’s ancestors and tried to look as though I was enjoying myself. Where had I gone wrong, I wondered? Usually I had so little to say on any subject other than ballet that I was reduced to inane interjections like ‘really?’ ‘gosh!’ and ‘I’d never thought of
that
.’ Could it be, I asked myself, that men liked to do all the talking themselves? Could it be that they were simply not interested in anyone else’s opinions?

Evelyn’s vigilant eye had seen that I was neglected.

‘Marigold’s career has been of the greatest interest to me,’ she said to the table in general. ‘It was my idea that she and Isobel should attend dancing classes. Marigold showed talent from the first. Isobel was also exceptionally graceful but she grew too tall.’

‘I was crap, Mummy,’ said her daughter. Evelyn closed her eyes briefly as though she felt the first pang of a headache. ‘Really. I couldn’t do a
tendu
to save my life.’

She sent me a look of smiling complicity across the table.

‘Those are very pretty pearls, Marigold.’ Evelyn seemed determined to shower me with approval.

‘Thank you. I bought them in a junk shop for fifty pee—’

‘Wearing them next to the skin,’ Evelyn interrupted, ‘is the only way to keep them glowing. The warmth, you know.’

‘Apparently the same’s true of ivory,’ said Isobel. ‘The only trouble is, when it gets warm it gives off a smell like semen. Rather embarrassing, mustn’t it be, to find yourself stinking like a tart?’

A perceptible shudder ran round the table. Duncan laughed nervously, then, seeing Evelyn’s face, broke off in mid-chuckle. Evelyn looked at Mustard Crepe and nodded, the signal for the women to depart.

Isobel took my elbow as I made my way slowly into the hall. ‘You poor darling. Not only crippled but bored stiff. Such is the price paid by Mummy’s darlings.’

‘I’m really too impoverished and obscure to qualify,’ I said, and instantly regretted it because it seemed so insulting to Evelyn.

‘You’re an artist and they’re allowed to be poor. I can assure you Mummy definitely sees you as a trophy.’ Isobel changed the subject. ‘What are your plans?’

‘I’m going to stay here until the cast comes off. Another five weeks. What about you?’

‘Oh, I’m here for the duration. There are tremendous ructions afoot. I can’t wait to tell you my news. You’ll never believe it but I’m going to—’

‘Isobel, come and take round the coffee cups.’ There was a sharpness in Evelyn’s tone as she swept past us on her way to the drawing room.

‘I’ll just go and say hello to Mrs Capstick.’

‘All right. Don’t be long. You must save me from the old cats.’

I limped in the direction of the kitchen. Mrs Capstick was sitting in her chair by the Aga, her legs stretched out, her work done. The two girls who were giggling over the washing up stared at me in surprise when I kissed her.

‘How are you, my pet?’ She smiled up at me. ‘I knew you’d trouble yourself to come and say how do. You always was a dear girl. You’re too thin. Don’t they feed you properly?’

‘Nobody cooks like you. Dinner was wonderful. Particularly the Charlotte Malakoff.’

‘I had to hunt through my old books to find the recipe. Madam says it’s too fattening but Miss Isobel begged her. All them layers of butter and cream and sugar … whip … whip … whip … my poor arm … excuse me, dear.’ She took a swig
from the dark brown bottle that stood on the warming plate of the Aga. ‘It’s my stomach as does play up so.’

Mrs Capstick’s stomach was like Nelson’s eye patch, a popular fiction. Everyone knew she had been addicted for years to Collis Browne’s Mixture. Her lids drooped.

‘It was so kind of you to make it for me.’

‘Bless you, my love, I enjoyed doing it. You can have too much fruit salad … not like the old days when you children was little … plenty of good food … the sort Mr Preston likes … steak and kidney pudding and steamed treacle sponge. Now it’s all consommé and grilled … chops …’

Her eyes closed. I would have tiptoed away but it was impossible in my condition. I clomped back to the drawing room. There was no sign of Isobel. I took up my former position on the stool by the fire and spent twenty minutes watching my goose pimples subside while pretending to listen with interest as Evelyn and the two older women discussed the inconveniences of living in large old houses, as though they might for a single moment contemplate living in anything else.

‘Hello, Marigold.’ Rafe and the other men had come into the drawing room. I was gratified to see that he made a beeline for me. ‘What’s it like to be back in the fold?’

He gave me his teasing smile again, which was magnetic enough to bring back a few goose pimples. I wondered which fold he meant – the inner circle blessed by Evelyn’s approval or Northumberland generally? Or perhaps the bosom of my own family?

Before I could answer, Kingsley had wandered over. ‘Hello, young lady. You look chilly. Rafe, put another log on the fire. We can’t have Miss … er … Miss … feeling cold.’

‘This is Marigold, Father. You remember. Dr Savage’s daughter.’

‘Savage.’ Kingsley looked puzzled. Then his face brightened. ‘Ah yes. Consulted him last week about my … my … that thing that begins with a P. Daughter. Yes, now I remember. Sweet little thing. Went off to be a singer. How are you, my dear?’

‘Very well, thank you, sir.’

‘Good, good. Delighted to see you.’ He patted me quite hard on the head and wandered away again.

‘Move up.’ Rafe sat down beside me. ‘You see how it is with my father. But he seems reasonably happy. Do you think anyone will notice if I take my shoes off and thaw out my feet? You won’t mind, will you? Socks clean on this evening.’

‘Of course I don’t mind.’

He unlaced one speckless patent leather shoe and held his foot, clad in a black silk sock, before the blaze. The foot was large, as befitted a tall man, with straight toes. He had straight, strong fingers, too, with square, well-kept nails and no doubt a straight mind, open and honourable. It might have been all the wine I had drunk but the idea of a man who was chock-full of moral fibre and who would always get you out of a hole was fast growing on me. He was neither exotic nor a dancer, but he had a polished assurance that was headily romantic. The moment I thought this I told myself not to be a fool.

‘Ah, Rafe. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’ Sir Ibbertson had come up behind us. He inserted his bulk between us and the fire. Rafe was obliged to stand up. He kicked his shoe under the stool.

‘You’ve been in Northern Ireland, your mother tells me. What’s the answer in the case of these wretched IRA hunger-strikers? The lowest form of emotional blackmail, not to put too fine a point on it!’

Rafe smiled politely. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, sir. It would be more than my life is worth to talk politics in Evelyn’s drawing room. It’s one of her cardinal rules.’

‘What?’ Sir Ibbertson looked round and saw that his hostess was busy handing the chocolates to the archdeacon. ‘Oh, never mind that. She can’t hear us. What’s the government thinking of, letting these men make martyrs of themselves, that’s what I want to know?’

Rafe stopped smiling. ‘I suppose they don’t have any choice in the matter.’

‘Nonsense. They could get them into hospital and force-feed them.’

‘I believe there’s a law against that. Anyway, it really isn’t something I’m qualified to give an opinion about.’

‘But you spent time there. You know how those bog-trotters think.’

‘The British army are the last people the Irish are going to confide in. It’s a very difficult situation with a long, complicated history. Best left to politicians.’ He turned to me. ‘Can I get you some more coffee?’

The amateur historian seemed to be prompted by an imp of Satan. ‘If we all took that attitude, we’d end up illiterate zanies. I consider it the duty of educated men to inform themselves on the subjects of the day and to have an opinion. What about our soldiers who’ve been blown up – murdered – in Northern Ireland?’

I heard a faint rattling. Rafe’s hand – the one that held the coffee cup – was trembling. He put up the other hand to still it. ‘Unless you’ve lived there for several years – I don’t mean as a soldier but among the people – your opinion isn’t worth having.’

All this time I had been trying to think of a way to stop Sir Ibbertson from goading Rafe. Now, seeing that Rafe’s face was ashen and his eyes were glistening, I said, ‘We took
La
Sylphide
to Dublin once. Such a lovely city … all those beautiful eighteenth-century houses … I wish you’d tell me more about Hadrian’s Wall.’

Sir Ibbertson, red in the face now and more like a boiled prawn than ever, ignored me and addressed Rafe in an offended tone. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you—’

‘Fine!’ Rafe almost shouted, and I saw that Evelyn’s guests were looking in our direction.

At that moment Isobel rushed between us and put her arm
through Rafe’s. ‘Silence, please!’ she called. ‘I have an important announcement to make.’ She laughed, rather uneasily I thought. ‘You’re all extraordinarily privileged to be the first to know. Mummy, Daddy, Everyone! … I’m engaged to be married.’

‘That was a dreadful evening.’

Rafe drove slowly, carefully, using the gears to brake on the steep bits. I sneaked a glance at his profile and saw he was smiling. From the back seat came excited barks. Rafe’s dog, Buster, having been shut up in the boot room all evening was thrilled to be allowed to accompany us on our midnight journey.

‘Not for me. I enjoyed seeing you all again. And the food was lovely. Except I feel so guilty that you’ve had to turn out so late and in this awful weather.’

Snow was blowing into the windscreen, making it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.

‘Shut up, Buster! I told you. It’s a pleasure. I like driving. I like driving with you.’

‘Thank you.’ I held my breath as we came to the hairpin bend but Rafe took us safely round it. ‘I can’t think why Dimpsie hasn’t answered the telephone,’ I said for the thousandth time.

At a quarter to twelve, when Spendlove was staggering into the hall under a weight of coats and the other guests were delivering polite speeches of appreciation and gratitude, I had refused all offers of lifts, explaining that my mother was waiting up with the express intention of acting as chauffeur. I had dialled our number several times and let it ring what seemed like ages.
Evelyn and Kingsley went to bed, leaving Isobel, Rafe and me in the drawing room. There was plenty to talk about and the time went swiftly enough between fruitless telephone calls, but I was uncomfortably aware that they must be longing for me to go. At last, when Isobel yawned with a sort of groaning sound, I capitulated and Rafe went to bring his car round from the stableyard to the front door.

‘Oh, Isobel.’ I had put my arms round her neck and hugged her. ‘It’s been so lovely to see you again and I hope – I’m
sure
you’re going to be wonderfully happy.’

‘Of course I shall. Goodnight, darling. Promise you’ll come and meet Conrad as soon as he arrives?’

‘The minute I’m asked.’

‘It was a memorable evening, wasn’t it?’ I said to Rafe as we reached the bottom of the valley and started to climb the other side. ‘We shall none of us forget it.’

Evelyn, of course, had been the person most affected by Isobel’s bombshell. When Isobel had announced her engagement I had looked immediately at Evelyn’s face and seen it blanche. Several seconds of silence followed Isobel’s announcement, before the archdeacon said, ‘Well, well, Isobel. You have … ah-hem … surprised us.’

‘Certainly,’ said Mustard Crepe, who I had by then identified as the archdeacon’s wife. ‘Evelyn, my dear, how inscrutable you’ve been.’ This was generous, as it was obvious that Evelyn had been as surprised as the rest of us. ‘May we ask, who is the fortunate young man?’

I have never met anyone who did smiling rage as well as Evelyn. Her diamonds were flashing on her chest as she breathed fast. ‘I assure you, Fanny, I am as much in the dark as any of you. I suppose it must be Harry Cunningham … a charming boy, devoted to Isobel … Kingsley and Harry’s father were at school together—’

‘Quite wrong, Mummy.’ Isobel’s face was lit by excitement. ‘His name is Conrad Lerner.’

‘Conrad … Lerner.’ Evelyn mouthed the syllables as though she was eating bitter almonds.

‘Will someone explain what’s going on?’ Kingsley asked plaintively.

‘Isobel is telling us about the young man to whom she has become engaged.’ The archdeacon’s wife took charge of the situation as smoothly as though this was a meeting of the Mother’s Union which threatened to get out of hand. Her tone was emphatic, almost severe. ‘We are all delighted, naturally, but there seems to be some mystery.’

‘No mystery at all,’ said Isobel. ‘Conrad’s just the sort of man any girl might want to marry. He’s very clever and very nice and very, very rich.’

‘Conrad.’ Kingsley wrinkled his face in perplexity. ‘Conrad.’ He looked helpless. ‘Do I know him?’

‘No, Daddy. I met him in London three months ago. At a party. We spent a brilliant week together. We had the most enormous fun. Then he went back to Germany. We kept in touch, of course. A few days ago he rang up, asking me to marry him. I said yes. So now you know all about it.’ She looked triumphant but I saw that she was tense, anticipating attack from all sides.

‘But Isobel,’ Evelyn’s voice had more than a tinge of anger to it now. ‘Who exactly is this man? Who are his family? What is he doing in Germany if he has engaged himself to you?’

‘Goodness! So many questions!’ Isobel walked over to the drinks tray and poured herself a large brandy. ‘He’s in Germany because that’s where he lives when he isn’t in London or New York. He
is
German, you see. As to his family, I don’t believe he has any.’

‘But Isobel, my dear.’ The Archdeacon’s wife had taken over again seeing that Evelyn was having difficulty in ordering her thoughts. ‘Was that quite wise? To engage yourself to man without family, of whom you and your parents know nothing?’

‘Of course he must have
some
family,’ put in Sir Ibbertson. ‘Everyone has, be they never so humble.’

‘What I meant was, they’re all dead. His grandparents and all the rest of that generation died in concentration camps. And his mother and father were killed in a plane crash when he was eight. He was brought up by his uncle Charles who was the only relation he had left. He died last year so Conrad truly hasn’t any family. Sad, isn’t it?’ Isobel did not look in the least sorry, only defiant.

Evelyn closed her eyes.

‘Very sad,’ said a girl who had been standing on the outskirts of the group. Her hair was cropped into a short back and sides, like a schoolboy’s, and she wore an unbecoming brown dress with a halter neck that emphasized the squareness of her shoulders. All I knew of her so far was that her name was Bunty Lumbe. ‘He must be a very interesting person.’

I liked her for this attempt to lighten the encircling gloom of disapproval, but Isobel rounded on her.

‘Interesting? I hate that sort of morbid curiosity that finds people interesting just because they’ve had awful things happen to them.’

Bunty looked alarmed. ‘I didn’t mean … all I meant was … I don’t think I’ve ever met a German.’

‘Never been able to take to them, you know, not since the last shemozzle.’ Kingsley had been something, a major perhaps or a colonel, in the last war. ‘Lost a lot of damned fine men. But I suppose the same’s true for them.’

‘Conrad is a Jew, Daddy.’ Isobel’s tone was one of exaggerated patience. ‘His people were on the side you were fighting for.’

‘Does he speak English?’ asked the archdeacon.

‘A smattering. I shall learn Yiddish.
Oy, oy! Nach a mool!
’ She grinned.

The archdeacon and his wife exchanged glances of absolute horror and everyone else looked grave, as though Isobel had said she was going to have to live in a ghetto and eat rats.

‘What am I thinking of?’ Evelyn roused herself as if from a
trance. She assumed an air of grim resolution. ‘Ring for Spendlove someone. We must have some champagne. A toast to Isobel and –’ she gritted her teeth – ‘Conrad.’

‘I do admire your mother,’ I said to Rafe as we approached the bottom of our drive. ‘Don’t slow down for the bend if you can help it. If there’s ice you have to take it at a run or you can’t get all the way up the drive.’ I shut my eyes and held on to the door handle in case we went over the edge into the river. I had read somewhere recently that, contrary to received opinion, you must get out as fast as you can and not wait for the car to fill with water. Would my cast weigh me down like divers’ leaded boots? Don’t scream … go on talking … pretend it’s all right … pretend you aren’t going to die … ‘It must have been a tremendous shock for her – not having met this man – having it sprung on her in front of all those people.’ I felt the wheels spinning, imagined us sliding sideways down … down … ‘I expect they’ll like him very much,’ I heard my voice rise to a squeak, ‘… once they get to know him.’

‘It’s all right. Just a little skid. We’re quite safe. And it seems to have silenced Buster.’

Buster had his paws on the back of my seat and was panting down my neck. The warmth of his breath was comforting.

‘Of course you don’t mean that,’ Rafe continued. ‘About my parents liking Conrad. Xenophobia is canon law at Shottestone. I begged her to wait until we’d all met him before agreeing to marry him, but you know how impulsive she is. She said she was the one who was going to live with him and it didn’t matter what the rest of us thought. Which is nonsense, of course. One can hardly avoid seeing a great deal of one’s in-laws.’

It seemed Rafe was the only person Isobel had discussed her engagement with. This did not surprise me. She had always set great store by her brother’s opinion. Worshipping at the same altar ought to have brought us closer together as children, but I think in those days she had resented me as a coreligionist in case I drew Rafe’s attention away from her. Not that I ever did.

‘It will be nice for Isobel to have a lot of money.’

‘You shock me, Marigold! What a mercenary pair you are!’

After everyone else had gone home, Isobel had dwelt for some time on the considerable riches of her betrothed.

I hastened to explain myself. ‘I didn’t mean it was the most important thing. I’d marry a shepherd with nothing but a dog and a crook and a hut on the moors if I loved him. But as I haven’t met Conrad, I don’t yet know what else there is to like about him.’

‘Here we are.’ Rafe pulled up outside Dumbola Lodge. ‘Love is a state of madness. If money comes into it I doubt if there’s much passion.’

I wondered if Rafe was speaking from experience. He was thirty-two. Naturally there must have been attachments. I felt something wet and hot in my ear. It was a long tongue.

Rafe turned to reprove Buster. ‘Bad boy! Down, sir.’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘He mustn’t be allowed to lick people’s faces. What bothers me,’ he went on, ‘is that this fellow means nothing more than an escape route to Isobel. It’s hardly a sound basis for marriage.’

I was flattered that he should take me so thoroughly into his confidence. During all those years that he had been a fixed star in my imagination, he could only have thought of me as a silly little girl. If he had thought of me at all. ‘What’s she escaping from?’

Rafe was silent for a time. ‘From home …’ He spoke with an air of reluctance as though the words were being forced out of him. ‘From Evelyn …’

‘But surely that wouldn’t need something so drastic as marriage? She could go back to London. She had a job, didn’t she?’

‘Yes. But she wasn’t happy.’ He turned off the engine. ‘I don’t know why I’m boring you with my family’s concerns when you ought to be tucked up in bed. Come on, I’ll help you in. And perhaps we’d better clear up the mystery of the telephone that didn’t ring in the night-time.’

‘There’s only one in the house, in my father’s study. He sleeps there when he’s on call. The ring’s always switched to low so you can’t hear it from anywhere else except the drawing room if both the doors are open.’

‘That’s very considerate of him.’ Rafe got out of the car and leaned into the back for my crutches. Buster gave me a farewell lick.

The truth was, this arrangement was entirely in my father’s own interest. Even when he was not on duty, patients tended to ring him in the small hours of the morning to say that they had felt a slight twinge on bending over to pick the milk bottle from the doorstep that morning and might it be a heart attack? Or the cough which they had had for several weeks might be cancer and ought they to have an emergency chest X-ray? It was perfectly reasonable not to want to be dragged from sleep in order to prescribe aspirin for someone with thumb-ache, but the telephone had always been the cause of much vexation in our household. When my father was at home he guarded the privacy of his study with ferocity, as though it contained a treasure chest and he was the dog with eyes as big as millwheels, so we could only use the telephone when he was out.

We tiptoed into the hall. At least Rafe did, and I swung my leg and crutches with careful deliberation. A soft light shone through the open drawing room. We went in. A table lamp illumined the sorry scene. My mother was stretched out on the sofa, her neck crumpled against one arm of it, her bare feet projecting over the other. A glass and a bottle stood on the table beside her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing slowly and heavily.

‘I’d better wake her,’ I said. ‘She’ll get terrible cramp with her head at that angle.’ I shook her gently, then quite roughly, but she pushed away my hand and muttered something incomprehensible. ‘I’m afraid she’s had a very tiring day. I’d better put some blankets over her. She’ll be cold when the fire goes out.’

‘Tell me where they’re kept. I’ll fetch them.’

I gave him directions to the airing cupboard. While Rafe was upstairs I tried to move Dimpsie on to her side in case she was sick and choked on her own vomit, as I’d heard people sometimes did. But she was too heavy. When Rafe returned he had a go, but she lashed out at him with her fists so we tucked the bedclothes round her, turned out the light and crept back into the hall.

In the gloom I could see not much more than the whites of his eyes.

‘Thank you so much for bringing me home.’

‘I told you, I liked doing it. Come and see us again soon.’ He paused and smiled, his teeth shining in the dim light. ‘Give my love to Dimpsie,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m very fond of her, you know. A sympathetic soul.’

‘Thank you. I will. Good night.’

I offered him my cheek. He gripped my shoulder in a friendly, man-to-man sort of way and left.

‘Of course Conrad isn’t a bit the sort of person Mummy wants me to marry,’ said Isobel.

Two days had passed since the dinner party. We were in the morning room at Shottestone but it was afternoon. The morning room was charming, with walls of green silk, curtains patterned with honeysuckle and plenty of books. A large desk where Evelyn did her accounts and telephoning stood in the window, and in front of it was the sofa on which Isobel and I were sprawling. On our plates were crumbs of Mrs Capstick’s orange cake, just as good as I had remembered it.