Sensible Life (4 page)

Vita Trevelyan spoke again: “Well—that’s about it, I think—we are sorry, of course—we shall see you at dinner? I must go and unpack.”

“If Madame will excuse me, I have a headache.”

“Very well.” The door opened, closed, footsteps died away down the passage; Blanco pulled his vest over his head.

In the next room Mademoiselle said, “Salope,” very loudly.

Cosmo reached for a pencil and wrote “salope” in his notebook.

“One can guess what it means,” whispered Blanco. “Oh, look.”

Flora was running across the garden, her feet crunching on the gravel. She looked very small, dwarfed by a vast bunch of narcissus.

“That’s the child who takes Madame Tarasova’s beastly Pom out when I have my piano lesson,” whispered Blanco.

“I’ve seen her before, weeks ago on a beach up the coast with another dog, a great big thing. She nearly drowned,” whispered Cosmo. “Listen.”

They heard the garden door snap open, feet race up the stairs and along the passage. The door of the next room was pushed open. “I got these, aren’t they wonderful?” said a joyous voice. “I bought the whole bucketful.” Then, “What’s the matter?”

“Your mother has dismissed me. I am to leave tomorrow. I am an unnecessary expense,” said Mademoiselle.

“Oh,” said the child. “Oh—”

Cosmo and Blanco shrank back into their room as the windows next door were pushed wide. They saw Flora come out onto the balcony, open her arms and let a cascade of narcissi fall into the garden.

There was an air of anticipation in the hotel dining-room. The centre table, usually heaped with hors d’oeuvres, cheese and fruits, was laid for seven people. English families coming into the room took covert note. The table was laid with an abundance of knives and forks, scintillating glass, superlatively white napery. The adolescent English who were beginning to know each other raised their eyebrows, exchanging questioning looks.

“That will be for the Dutch family,” said a widowed mother of three. “There are five daughters, I hear. What a—”

“She’s a baroness, the mother, sounds like—”

“Then all the girls will be baronesses, too. That’s how it goes with continental families.”

“Rather diminishes the éclat,” said the widow.

“But there are seven places—” counted her friend.

“Perhaps six daughters, not five?” suggested the widow.

“Don’t speak so loud, mother,” whispered the widow’s daughter, catching Cosmo’s eye.

Cosmo looked away; the girl had white eyelashes, buck teeth and was only fourteen.

“Don’t be ridiculous, the seventh place will be for her husband, the father of—”

“The baron.”

“What? Oh, I see. Yes, of course, the baron.”

Cosmo and Blanco ate their dinner with circumspection while keeping an eye on the door. They listened with a polite ear to Angus Leigh explaining the state of the British nation to his wife. Cosmo was used to his father’s opinions and knew exactly what he thought of Mr. Baldwin; he secretly hoped his father would irritate Blanco sufficiently for Blanco to contradict him and say something daring. Champion Ramsay MacDonald, for instance. But Blanco kept mum, mollified by Mrs. Leigh’s efforts to call him Hubert every now and again, or Bluebird or Blinko; her mind, he knew, was wandering towards the shops where she would presently take his sister Mabs if, that was, Mabs would condescend to provincial shops after the delights of Paris.

Both boys wore suits for dinner and had slicked back their hair. From time to time they caught the eye of some junior member of another English family, winked and looked away. Later in the evening they would congregate in the lounge or in the shadows of the hotel garden where in the dusk they would fix up fours for tennis, or suggest expeditions to Dinan or Mont St. Michel, where there was a restaurant famous for its omelettes, and the tide came in faster than a galloping horse. Cosmo was not particularly interested in all this, having been in Dinard for two months with his mother while recuperating from his knee injury. Half-listening to his father, letting his eye stray surreptitiously round the room, he dreamed of five exquisite Dutch girls: they would have long legs and wear flimsy dresses so that he could see through to their mysterious breasts. His mother was saying: “No, Angus darling, I can’t bear it. If you go home, I want to go with you, I don’t want to be left here on my own.” Her voice bordered on the tremulous. “What should I do?”

“Do a bit more shopping. Trip up to Paris. Take Mabs out from her school.” Angus munched his steak. He liked women to fuss; he knew his wife was doing it to please him. He swallowed some wine. “Stock up with shoes while you are about it. If I go, I go alone. The situation hasn’t arisen yet.”

“Then you shall pay for your desertion with dresses and hats. I will betray you with enormous bills for fripperies.”

“That’s about it.” Angus beamed, pouting out his fine moustache. “How are you off for gloves?”

At the table in the alcove behind them Denys and Vita Trevelyan ate in silence. Between them, staring at her plate, sat Flora.

Still the centre table remained unoccupied.

Denys Trevelyan was peeling an apple. Angus Leigh helped himself to wine. Cosmo dreamed.

Then the dining-room door swung open and the manager bowed in Baroness Habening, followed by Elizabeth, Anne, Marie, Dottie, and Dolly. All round the dining-room people noted their entrance.

“What a swiz,” muttered Cosmo. “Not one of them is nubile.”

“The three youngest are wearing wedding rings,” said Blanco, who had observant eyes.

“They are not even remotely pretty,” whispered Cosmo.

“Homely,” said Blanco. “Home sweet homely.”

“They’ll never leave home looking like that.”

“What are you two whispering about, Cosmo?” said his mother. “Manners, darling.”

“Nothing, Ma. Sorry, Ma.”

“The Welsh miners are the worst of the lot,” said Angus Leigh, whose mind was on the troubles in England, “but the northern lot may get stroppy. It’s that lot I expect to—”

“There’s a great deal to be said for the miners. I think their case is—” Had Blanco gone too far? Cosmo wondered. What would the rest of the holidays be like?

But his father had not heard Blanco. He too had seen the newcomers, who were setting their ample bottoms on the spindly restaurant chairs. “I
say
,” he exclaimed, “if that isn’t my old friend Rosa. Darling, come over and meet Rosa. You must remember how often I’ve told you about Rosa and Jef Habening. Used to shoot wild boar with him, remember? And duck. Friends of my youth—” Angus put his napkin down and stood up.

“All those girls,” said Mrs. Leigh.

“She didn’t have them in those days; I’m talking about the Dark Ages. There may have been one or two, but well out of the way, in their cradles. Come along, you must—” Angus led his wife across the room to the centre table. “Rosa? Remember me?”

“Angus!” The baroness threw up her hands. “Angus, of course—” There were exclamations, introductions, hand-shakings, standings-up, sittings-down.

“Look at the shape of them,” whispered Cosmo. “Huge. What a crashing disappointment. I had pinned my—”

But Blanco was listening to what was being said at the table in the alcove. They heard, “—so greasy it can’t have been washed since I left you with her. Filthy nails and chipped. When did you last have a bath? She hasn’t even seen that you wear clean clothes. Your vest is grey, it’s disgusting and you’ve got blackheads. Look, Denys, she’s got blackheads.”

“Send her to the hairdresser.” Denys Trevelyan spoke remotely. “Have some of it off. I don’t care for pigtails.”

“She’s too young to go to the hairdresser, Denys.”

“Do whatever you think best. Why don’t you answer your mother, Flora?”

“I think I will go to bed.” Flora stood up. “Goodnight,” she said steadily. “Goodnight.” She began to edge away.

“Flora,” Vita snapped, “sit down. Come back.”

“Oh, let her go,” said Denys as the child moved past the Leighs’ table. “It’s not your fault, darling.” He put his hand over his wife’s. “I wonder if we can find a couple to make up a four for bridge. I daresay the governess was pretty slack.” He squeezed his wife’s hand.

Watching Flora cross the room, Blanco and Cosmo saw her run smack into a man hurrying into the restaurant. He steadied the child, putting both hands on her shoulders, then stood aside to open the door for her.

“She didn’t see him, she was crying,” said Cosmo. “I shall ask Father to get our table moved,” he said without lowering his voice.

“I think I shall give up bridge,” said Blanco. “Look, your pa’s waving at us to join them.”

“That will be the baron. Her son, of course.” The widow with the buck-toothed daughter leaned towards a neighbouring table. “Isn’t he good-looking? And so young.”

“Angus, introduce me,” said the baroness.

“My son Cosmo, his friend Hubert Wyndeatt-Whyte who is with us for the holidays, a bit of a bolshie. And let me get this right: Elizabeth, Anne, Marie, Dottie and Dolly.”

“And my son Felix,” said Rosa, holding the young man who had bumped into Flora by the sleeve. “What kept you, Felix? We had given you up.”

“A puncture, Mama.” Felix sat beside his mother. “Hello, hello, all my sisters.”

“What an astonishingly handsome young man,” said Milly Leigh as they moved away, “and what disastrously lumpy girls. It simply isn’t fair.”

D
ENYS CHANGED HIS MIND
about finding a four for bridge; catching Cosmo’s eye had given him a chill.

He walked with Vita’s hand tucked in his arm. From time to time he squeezed it. “What will you do with your time? Shall you be happy in this hotel? You will be bored, alone with the child.”

“Play bridge, tennis; write you long, long letters; swim.”

“In this climate? You’ll die of cold.”

“Overhaul my wardrobe so that when I join you in September you will think you have a new wife.”

“I want the one I have—preferably without clothes.”

“Not in this climate!” she teased, then, “Let’s turn in soon, shall we?”

“What about the child?” He was petulant.

“She’s probably helping Mademoiselle pack. I shall be all right, Denys. I’ll find someone to teach her maths; she’s learning the piano with Madame Tarasova. Maths aren’t that important, though, she will catch up when she gets to school. When I first brought her here, before you got home on leave, I heard of an Italian family who will be glad to chatter to her so that she doesn’t forget her Italian.”

“Darling.” Denys stared at the sea; they were walking along the road above the beach. “If she’s so occupied, what’s the point of you being here at all?”

“She’s only ten. She needs me.”

Denys snorted. “I need you.”

“Darling, we’ve been into all this. Everybody in India goes through it. They come home, spend time with their families and see to the children. We would be thought odd if I didn’t do this. What would people say at the Club?”

“But we have no families. I don’t care if I am thought odd. Is it odd to love one’s wife?”

“I know, I know. We can’t blame my mother for dying, and I love you too, darling, you know I do.”

“It’s the disappointment. She was prepared to take charge of the child. We could have spent my summer leave in Kashmir—” Denys was resentful.

Vita shivered in the April wind. “I am just as sad about it as you.”

“We should have had the child adopted.”

“Denys!”

“It’s not as though she were a son. I know you feel the same. Every time we have a chance to have fun together, she gets in the way. We could have stayed on in London but oh no, to save money, because of the child, we come to this tedious place. I hate France. I can’t stand the French.”

“Denys!”

“And I do not like this hotel. I could hear someone cleaning their teeth in the next room when I was changing for dinner, farting.”

“Denys!”

“I don’t like that family we were next to in the restaurant; one of those hulking boys stared at me most insolently.”

“You liked his father on the boat.”

“
You
liked his father on the boat.”

“Denys—”

“I shall ask tomorrow. There may be a flat we could rent. We’d have privacy.”

“A nice double bed in it, perhaps?”

“Good idea, you think?”

“Yes, I do. It might even be an economy. We could go to Kashmir for longer next summer, or up there to ski in the winter.”

“Next summer is a long way off.”

“Tonight isn’t. Let’s go back and go to bed.”

They turned about and walked up the hill. “I cannot believe any man loves his wife as I love you,” he said.

“Oh, Denys.”

“I do not mind being honest about it. Do you mind?”

“I love it.”

“Or saying what I think about the child.” He paced doggedly.

“It’s a bit unconventional.”

“She was shockingly impertinent at dinner.”

“But she never uttered a word.”

“That was it.”

They walked on, leaning into the slope. Vita said, “I know. Listen. If I can get someone to say they’ll keep an eye on her, we could spend the last weeks of your leave in London. I see now it was a rotten idea to come here.”

“But we have sacked the governess.”

“We don’t need a governess for such a short time, just someone who is in the hotel. And I can ask Madame Tarasova to do it too. We could pay her a little something. Leave our address, of course.”

“Could you arrange it? It would put my mind at rest with this tricky situation of the strike interfering with my voyage. It may well, if it spreads.”

“And we could see that show.” They had reached the hotel. “The one we couldn’t get tickets for.”

“That’s an idea. But if we move into a flat, what about the child?”

He never called her Flora.

“Leave her in the annexe until I come back? See. I think of everything. She’s perfectly all right there and we can have the flat to ourselves at night.”

They mounted the stairs to their room. Denys put his hand on his wife’s neck as she unlocked the door. Such white skin. In a flat, he thought, nobody would hear her cry out when they made love, there would be no inhibiting hotel walls.