The Valley of Bones (20 page)

By then, it was time for luncheon. I
found myself sitting next to Flavia Wisebite. She had a quiet, rather sad
manner, suggesting one of those reserved, well behaved, fairly peevish women,
usually of determined character, often to be found as wives, or ex-wives, of
notably dissipated men like Flitton or Wisebite. Their peevishness appears to
derive not so much from a husband’s ill behaviour, as to be a trait natural to them,
which attracts men of that kind. Such was mere conjecture, since I knew little
or nothing of Flavia’s private life, except that Stringham had more than once
implied that his sister’s matrimonial troubles were largely of her own
choosing. In that she would have been, after all, not unlike himself. I asked
for news of her brother.

‘Charles?’ she said. ‘He’s in a branch
of the army called the RAOC – Royal Army Ordnance Corps. I expect you know
about it. According to Charles, they look after clothes and boots and blankets,
all that sort of thing. Is it true?’

‘Perfectly true. What rank?’

‘Private.’

‘I see.’

‘And likely to remain so, he says.’

‘He’s – all right now?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said ‘Hardly touches a
drop. In fact, so cured he can even drink a glass of beer from time to time.
That’s a great step. I always said it was just nerves, not real addiction.’

Familiar herself with alcoholics, she
took her brother’s former state in a very matter-of-fact way; also his
circumstances in the army, which did not sound very enviable. Stringham as a
private in the RAOC required an effort of imagination even to picture.

‘How does Charles like it?’

‘Not much.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘He says it’s rather hell, in fact,
but he was bent on getting into something. For some reason, the RAOC were the
only people who seemed to want him. I think Charles is having a more
uncomfortable time than Robert. You rather enjoy the I. Corps, don’t you, dear?’

‘Enjoy is rather a strong word,’ said
Robert. ‘Things might be worse at Mytchett. I always like prying into other people’s
business, and that’s what Field Security is for.’

Flavia Wisebite’s manner towards
Robert was almost maternal. She was nearer in age to Robert than to Umfraville,
but gave the impression, although so different an example of it, of belonging
much more to Umfraville’s generation. Both she and Umfraville might be said to
represent forms of revolt, and nothing dates people more than the standards
from which they have chosen to react. Robert and Flavia’s love affair, if love
affair it were, took a very different shape from Frederica’s and Umfraville’s.
Robert and Flavia gave no impression that, for the moment at least, they were
having the time of their lives. On the contrary, they seemed very subdued. By
producing Flavia at his sister’s house, Robert was at last to some extent
showing his hand, emotionally speaking, something he had never done before.
Perhaps he was in love. The pressures of war were forcing action on everyone.
Were his efforts to get to France part of this will to action, or an attempt to
escape? The last might also be true. The telephone bell rang as we were rising
from table. Frederica went to answer it. She returned to the room.

‘It’s for you, Priscilla.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Nick’s friend, Mr Stevens.’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Priscilla. ‘About
the brooch.’

She went rather pink.

‘Priscilla’s made a hit,’ said
Umfraville.

I asked Flavia whether she ever saw
her mother’s former secretary, Miss Weedon, who had married my parents’ old
acquaintance, General Conyers.

‘Oh, Tuffy,’ she said. ‘She used to be
my governess, you know. Yes, I visited her only the other day. It is all going
very well. The General read aloud to us an article he had written about
heightened bi-sexuality in relation to early religiosity. He is now
much more interested in psychoanalysis than in
his ’cello
playing.’

‘What does he think about the war?’

‘He believed a German offensive would
start any moment then, probably in several places at once.’

‘In fact this Norwegian and Danish
business was the beginning.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘It doesn’t sound as if things are
going too well,’ Umfraville said, ‘I think we’ve taken some knocks.’

Priscilla returned.

‘It was about the brooch,’ she said. ‘Mr
Stevens can’t do it himself, as one of the stones has come out, but he has
arranged for someone he knows to mend it. He just wanted to warn me that he
wouldn’t have it for me when he came to pick up Nick in the car.’

‘I said he was a very polite young
man,’ remarked Frederica, giving her sister rather a cold look.

The rest of the weekend passed with
the appalling rapidity of wartime leave, melting away so quickly that one
seemed scarcely to have arrived before it was time to go. Dinner was a trifle
gloomy on that account, conversation fragmentary, for the most part about the
news that evening.

‘I wonder whether this heavy bombing
is a prelude to a move in France,’ said Robert. ‘What do you think, Dicky?’

‘That will be the next thing.’

Towards the end of the meal, the
telephone bell sounded.

‘Do answer it, Nick,’ said Frederica. ‘You’re
nearest the door.’

She spoke from the kitchen, where she
was making coffee. The telephone was installed in a lobby off the hall. I went
out to it. A man’s voice asked if he were speaking to Frederica’s number.

‘Yes.’

‘Is Lance-Corporal Tolland there?’

‘Who is speaking?’

He named some army unit. As I returned
to the dining-room, a knocking came from the front door. I told Robert he was
wanted on the telephone.

‘Shall I answer the door, Frederica?’

‘It’s probably the vicar about a light
showing,’ she said. ‘He’s an air-raid warden and frightfully fussy. Bring him
in, if it is. He might like a cup of coffee.’

However, a tall naval officer was on
the step when I opened the door. He had just driven up in a car.

‘This is Lady Frederica Budd’s house?’

‘Yes.’

‘I must apologize for calling at this
hour of the night, but I believe my step-daughter, Mrs Wisebite, is staying
here.’

‘She is.’

‘There are some rather urgent business
matters to talk over with her. I heard she was here for a day or two, and
thought Lady Frederica would not mind if I dropped in for a moment. I am
stationed in the neighbourhood – at her brother, Lord Warminster’s house, as a
matter of fact.’

‘Come in. You’re Commander Foxe, aren’t
you. I’m Nicholas Jenkins. We’ve met once or twice in the past.’

‘Good God, of course we have,’ said
Buster. ‘This is your sister-in-law’s house?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were a friend of Charles’s, weren’t
you. This is splendid.’

Commander Foxe did not sound as if he
thought finding me at Frederica’s was as splendid as all that, even though he
seemed relieved that his arrival would be cushioned by an introduction. Another
sponsor would certainly be preferable, since any old friend of Stringham’s was
bound to have heard many stories to his own discredit. However, Buster, although he had that
chronic air some men possess of appearing to consider
all other men potential rivals, put a reasonably good face on
it. For my own part, I suddenly thought of what Dicky
Umfraville had told me. He would hardly welcome this arrival. There was nothing
to be done about that.
I
took Buster along to the sitting-room, where the rest
of
the party were now sitting. Buster had evidently planned
a
fairly dramatic entry.

‘I really must apologize, Lady
Frederica—’ he began to say, as he came through the door.

Following him into the
room, I saw at once something disagreeable
had happened. Robert appeared to be the centre of attention. He
had evidently just announced news consequent on his telephone call. Everyone
looked disturbed. Flavia Wisebite seemed near tears. When she saw Commander
Foxe, her distress turned to furious annoyance.

‘Buster,’ she said sharply, ‘where on
earth have you come from?*

She sounded very cross, so cross that
for a moment she forgot how upset she was. Commander Foxe must have grasped
that his arrival was not altogether welcome at the moment. He was plainly taken
aback by that. Smiling uneasily, he glanced round the room, as if to recover
himself by finding some friendly face. His eyes rested first on Dicky
Umfraville. Umfraville held out his hand.

‘Hullo, Buster,’ he said, ‘a long time
since we met.’

When people really hate one another,
the tension within them can sometimes make itself felt throughout a room, like
atmospheric waves, first hot, then cold, wafted backwards and forwards, as if
in an invisible process of air conditioning, creating a pervasive physical
disturbance. Buster Foxe and Dicky Umfraville, between them, brought about that
state. Their really overpowering mutual detestation dominated for a moment all
other local agitations. The fact that neither party was going to come out in
the open at this stage made the currents of nervous electricity generated by
suppressed emotion even more powerful. At the same time, to anyone who did not
know what horrors linked them together, they might have appeared a pair of old
friends, met after an age apart. Their distinct, though imprecise, physical
similarity increased this last impression. Before Buster could do more than
make a gesture of acknowledgment in Umfraville’s direction, Frederica came
forward. Buster began once more to apologize, to explain he wanted only a brief
word with Flavia, then be gone. Frederica listened to him.

‘We’re all in rather a stew here at
the moment,’ she said. ‘My brother Robert has just heard his leave is
cancelled. He has to go back as soon as possible.’

Buster was obviously put out at
finding himself in the disadvantageous position of having to listen to someone
else’s troubles, when he had come with the express object of stating his own.
It had to be admitted he looked immensely distinguished, more so even than
Umfraville. I had never before seen Commander Foxe in naval uniform. It suited
him. His iron-grey hair, of which he still possessed plenty, was kept short on
a head almost preternaturally small, as Umfraville had pointed out. Good looks,
formerly of a near film-star quality, had settled down in middle-age to an
appearance at once solid and forcible, a bust of the better type of Roman
senator. A DSC was among his medal ribbons. I thought of Umfraville’s lament
that the heroes of yesterday are the
maquereaux
of
tomorrow. Something had undoubtedly vexed Commander Foxe a great deal. He
attempted, without much success, to assume a sympathetic expression about the
subject of Robert’s leave cancellation. Clearly ignorant of any connexion
between Flavia and Robert, he was at a loss to understand why Flavia was so disturbed.
After her first outburst, she had forgotten about Buster again, and was gazing
at Robert, her eyes full of tears.

‘Surely you can take a train tomorrow,’
she said. ‘You don’t have to leave tonight, darling. What trains are there, Frederica?’

‘Not very good ones,’ said Frederica. ‘But
they’ll get you there sooner or later. Why don’t you do that, Robert?’

‘Aren’t you taking the army too
seriously, Robert?’ said Umfraville. ‘Having just
sent you on leave, they can’t expect you to go back at a moment’s notice. Your
unit doesn’t know Nick is going back by car tonight. Even if you are a bit
late, there’s nothing the authorities can do to you,
if
they countermand their own orders in this way.’

‘That’s not the point,’ said Robert.

This was the only time I had ever seen
Robert fairly near to what might be called a state of excitement. He was
knocking his closed fists together gently.

‘If I don’t get back before tomorrow
night,’ he said, ‘I may miss the overseas draft. My name is only included in
the list on sufferance anyway. If they’ve got an excuse, they’ll remove it.
That was the Orderly Room Sergeant on the line. He’s rather a friend of mine,
and was giving me warning about that. Of course he couldn’t say it straight
out, but he made his meaning quite clear to me. There are rows of other
corporals they can send, if a party has been ordered to move forthwith. That’s
what it looks like. Besides, I don’t want to have to make all my arrangements
about packing and so on at the very last moment. That was why I thought your
friend Stevens might be able to fit me into his car, Nick. You could then
disgorge me somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mytchett. I could walk the last
lap, if you landed me reasonably near.’

‘It won’t be very comfortable in the
car, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t come with us.’

‘When is Stevens arriving?’

‘Any time now.’

‘I’ll go and get my things ready,’
said Robert.

He went off upstairs. Flavia began to
dab her eyes with a rolled-up handkerchief. Buster must have remembered he had
met Priscilla before – at the party his wife had given for Moreland’s symphony
– and he filled in the time during this discussion about Robert’s affairs by
talking to her. That was also perhaps a method of avoiding Dicky Umfraville’s
eye. Buster was accompanying this conversation with a great display of
middle-aged masculine charm. From time to time, he glanced in Flavia’s
direction to see if she were sufficiently calm to be tackled about whatever he
hoped to speak. Now, Flavia, making an effort to recover herself, moved towards
Buster of her own volition.

‘What’s happened?’ she said. ‘I was
going to ring you up, but I’ve been dreadfully entangled with other things.
Besides, I’ve only just arrived here. Now all this has upset everything.’

If Buster did not already know about
Robert, that was not very enlightening, but he was probably sharp enough to
have grasped the situation by this time.