I shall know when I look at her, Acland told himself. So he crossed the hall and entered the drawing room. Constance’s face told him nothing; her manner told him nothing. She was neither quieter nor more animated than usual. She took tea with his family. She sat there in a chair to the left of the fire, sipping tea, her small feet extended toward the warmth of the flames.
She had, it seemed, just presented her christening present, and Jane—disguising the dislike Acland knew she would have for such an object—rose to show it to him as he entered. An extravagant, costly, pagan-looking bracelet: a snake, with a jeweled head, designed to coil about the arm. Constance, negligent about this present, said she had not wanted to provide the usual predictable christening trinkets. This present was one Victoria could wear when she was older; it looked best on bare skin. Constance smiled. A pretty thing, she thought; she had bought it on impulse, the previous day, in Bond Street.
Nothing happened. Acland found this unnerving. His head began to ache. When he went to dress for dinner the pain worsened. He had suffered migraine attacks since the war (and was to continue to suffer them, throughout my Winterscombe childhood). Usually, the only cure for these attacks was silence and a darkened room—but that evening such cures were out of the question.
A special dinner had been planned in celebration of the christening—just a family dinner, but one he knew was important to his wife.
Acland took codeine to dull the edge of the pain. Looking toward light sources, he found them rimmed with black, a blackness that nauseated him, that probed some space behind the eyes, was an affliction to the retina.
At seven-thirty he went downstairs. All the household was assembled except Constance. Constance was to come down late; while the rest of the group drank glasses of sherry downstairs, Constance paced about her room. She turned back and forth before her mirror; she reassured herself of her own beauty. Glittery: as perfect as ice; her hair electric with purpose, her fingers like daggers.
Constance was planning her little scene. Should she say this first, or that? Should she just punish Acland for being ordinary—or should she punish them all, one after another? All of them, she decided.
She sent a mind-message to Montague, who was—she saw now—
not
ordinary; her husband, who would approve of what she was doing.
We are alike,
she said to him:
We know how to hate; if it came to it, we would both have the courage to leap into the chasm. Watch me pull the temple down, Montague,
she said—
watch. I know you will find it amusing.
I shall wear your diamonds, for you,
Constance said—and she strung them around her neck, a chain of water. She turned her throat, this way, then that; she watched lightning spring out from their facets.
Time to go. Her skin was white. Her dress was black. Her lips were red.
I can kill,
said her will; and then it said:
I can do anything.
She turned out the lights, one by one. Even the darkness was not frightening. Then, taking the stairs slowly, admiring, as she went, the trimness of her tiny feet, the fit of her satin shoes, the buckles like prisms, she went down.
Hurt them,
said Constance to herself. And, since she was a child in this respect as well as others, since she was never to understand that to punish others is a poor way to ensure the punishment of the self, her will gathered strength.
She entered the drawing room with confidence, as she always did when she was undivided in her purpose. She looked from face to face, and then—just as she had planned—she set about procuring her own banishment. Acland may have been the instrument for that exile, but I have no doubt that it was Constance who acted judge and jury. In ensuring that she became an outcast, she was passing sentence on herself.
Imagine it: it was an old-fashioned, a very formal dining room at Winterscombe. Reduced circumstances, yes, but the old rules still prevailing. A polished table, too large for seven people, and the numbers odd—a fact that was indisguisable. William, assisted by one of the elderly maids, was serving. He would have poured the claret (and it would have been a fine one) as he always did, with an air of reverence. The four men, in dinner jackets; the three women, in evening dress. Candlelight; a fire; heavy silver, well polished; over-ornate crested dinner service, four hundred individual pieces, once a source of pride to my grandfather Denton. A well-cooked plain meal—an English meal; the cook distrusts what she calls fancy dishes. No herbs here; not a whisper of garlic. The fillets of sole come curled up like small white fists; their only adornment, lemon. The roast is saddle of mutton—it is excellent, but will remain untasted. The puddings—a nod to Freddie here—are the kind Englishmen claim to prefer: nursery puddings; starchy, heavy, and reassuring. They would not be eaten either, for it was when the saddle of mutton had been brought out, and Acland—as was customary—had crossed to the sideboard to carve, that Constance began. It was Winnie, poor Winnie, who gave her her cue.
Winnie, loyal and devoted to Wexton, had been reading his latest collection of poems. It was dedicated to my parents—a fact Winnie mentioned in passing. Constance’s mouth tightened.
Winnie explained, at some length, that she and Cootie (detained in London on regimental matters) liked to read these poems aloud to each other, often over cocoa at bedtime. One in particular was their favorite: a love sonnet. Winnie, oblivious to Wexton’s embarrassment, went so far as to quote, from memory, certain lines.
She misinterpreted them, in a sense. Winnie was, and is, an innocent in many ways. To her, the poem was about love—it must therefore be about the kind of love Winnie understood, the kind of love she felt for her husband.
When she had finished her quotation, there was a small silence. Steenie, who had not yet had time to become properly drunk but who was heading that way fast, gave Wexton a surreptitious wink. Jane, who found the words moving, glanced toward Acland. Constance leaned forward.
“Of course,” she said in a clear voice, “you do know, Winnie, that the poem was written to a man?”
Winnie, in the act of raising her wineglass to her lips, almost dropped it. She blinked. She stared at Wexton in consternation. Her neck, then her cheeks, blushed crimson.
“He is describing lovemaking, of course,” Constance continued, into absolute silence, her voice thoughtful. “Lovemaking between two men. The kind Wexton prefers. The kind Steenie prefers too. Did you know, Winnie, that Steenie and Wexton used to be lovers?” She frowned. “I forget. Were you sixteen then, Steenie, or seventeen? Under-age, certainly.”
There was a crash. The elderly maid, less imperturbable than William, had dropped a large vegetable dish. Its silver lid clattered across the floor. Roast potatoes spilled out, then slithered. The maid knelt down, then attempted to pick them up.
“Homosexuals,” Constance continued musingly. “I never use the term
queers
myself. Nor
pansies.
I think those words stupid, and rude—don’t you, Winnie? People use them—”
Acland stopped carving. He laid down the knife. He gave a small sign—and at that sign both servants departed. Over the sound of their footsteps Constance continued.
“People use them—terms like that—because they find sexual inversion frightening. Some people would say shameful—but I don’t believe that. No. Fear is involved, I feel sure. People like Steenie and Wexton remind us that there are no rules—for love or for sex. People will try to pretend that there are—which seems to me so very tiresome! You, Winnie, for instance, how would you define normal love? As heterosexual? And what about normal sex? As married? As occurring once a week? As employing the missionary position? How I wish your husband, Cootie, were here! Then he could tell us what he thought. I mean, when it comes to fucking, are his views conservative or liberal? Could they be radical? Now, there’s a thought! When it comes to fucking, is the absent colonel a radical? And if so …”
Winnie’s chair scraped back. She was quivering from head to foot. Her mouth opened, then closed.
Acland said, with some force, “Constance. Stop this.”
Constance turned upon him a wide-eyed gaze.
“Acland, please—this is interesting. I make my case for the deregulation of sex. And love—come to that. But the two do become so inextricably entangled, don’t you find? Which doesn’t help for clarity of viewpoint. People will get so hot under the collar! I cannot think why.
Sodomy
now—let’s consider that. We all know sodomy is something homosexuals practice—”
“Biblical!” cried Steenie, rising dramatically to his feet. “Are we going to be biblical, because if we are—”
“But after all,” Constance went on, “sodomy is not a practice confined to homosexuals. Heterosexuals, the most muscular Christians, they have been known to indulge in it too. So, is it a perversion? If so, why? Winnie, what would your attitude be? Would Cootie consider it a perversion, do you think? Does he have a view on—let me see—masturbation? On oral sex? On fornication? Personally, I’ve always taken the view that if it’s pleasurable, it’s permitted—and if it isn’t permitted, it’s all the more fun. But then I never set myself up as a moralist. Oh dear.” Constance gave a small sigh. “I feel sure that if Cootie were here, he could set me straight. Then I should understand at last—why one practice was more permissible than another…. Do you know, I think I have a
language
difficulty? Do you find that, Winnie? I cannot
quite
understand why we make lust a sin, and love a virtue, when love causes so much trouble in this troublesome world. But then, for that matter, I have
never
understood why laborious Latin terms are more acceptable than native ones. Would anyone truly prefer to say ‘penis’ when they could say—”
“Never!”
said Winnie, finding her voice at last.
“—And then
fuck.
Quite apart from the fact that no other adequate verb exists, I find it a charming word—don’t you, Wexton? It has poetic virtues. It is onomatopoeic, to begin with, and—”
“Never!” cried Winnie again, with gusty force. “Never in all my life—to hear a woman speak in this way—to hear
anyone
speak in this way. Is this woman deranged? Is she
drunk
?”
Winnie was wearing a shawl. As she spoke she gathered this shawl about her shoulders, straightened her back, and fixed Constance with a gimlet eye. Constance considered her wineglass.
“No, Winnie. I’m not drunk. I don’t
think
I’m drunk. Actually, I never become drunk. I don’t think I’ve ever been drunk in the whole of my life—”
“Then this display is all the sadder,” replied Winnie with some venom. “I shall not listen to one more word of this—”
“Neither shall I,” interjected Freddie. He rose. He looked around the table, his face dazed with blind distress. “Acland, can’t you stop her? You know what she’s like. Once she starts—”
“Constance—”
“Acland, don’t be foolish. We are discussing language and morals. I am a woman. A rather small woman. What are you going to do, eject me?”
“Leave,”
replied Winnie smartly. “I for one intend to do just that. Freddie, if you would be so kind. I feel in need of a little fresh air.”
Winnie swept toward the door. Freddie hesitated. He looked back at Constance, as if about to risk one last plea. Evidently the expression in Constance’s eyes suggested this might be unwise; Freddie decided not to risk it. He headed for the door, offered Winnie his arm—a small gallantry that was later to be remembered, I think, in the years of Winnie’s widowhood. Winnie’s exit was regal; Freddie’s, less so. The door shut.
Steenie said, “I feel sick.” He slumped in his chair. He drank one glass of wine, then poured another. “Honestly, Connie—why do you do it?”
“Do what?” Constance looked from face to face, her expression innocent. “It was only a
discussion
.”
“A pretty one-sided discussion.” Wexton leaned forward. “In fact, I wouldn’t have said it was a discussion at all. You set out to hurt Winnie.”
“Well, perhaps I did.” Constance gave a small smile. “Just a little. She
is
the tiniest bit stupid, don’t you think? She made horrid faces at my hat, all morning….”
“Jesus Christ,” said Steenie.
“Besides, people like Winnie irritate me. You, too, Jane, if you will forgive my saying so. I hate moral codes that are self-limiting. Being blinkered is not moral—it’s cowardly, and more than a little self-deluding. And Winnie really was terribly stupid about your poem, Wexton. Confess—she made your toes curl the second she started to recite.”
“My toes curl when anyone recites my poems.”
“Do they really? How high-minded. But then you are high-minded, Wexton. An Olympian teddy bear. May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I admire your poems, you know. Even I can see they are good. But I
never
understood how you could dedicate such good poems to a man like Steenie. Or fall in love with him, come to that. Now, Steenie, don’t roll your eyes about and wave your hands—you know this is true. I love you dearly, and when you were younger and didn’t drink so much, you were terribly pretty. But I would never have thought Wexton was the kind of man to fall for a pretty face—”
“Don’t,”
said Steenie, both rolling his eyes and continuing to wave his hands. “Don’t start on me, Connie, because if you do—”
“Well, be honest, Steenie. You
are
a dabbler. One exhibition of paintings—and then look what happened. You weren’t faithful to Wexton for five seconds. The minute Boy shot himself, what did you do? You went running off to Conrad Vickers and leapt into bed.
And
you blamed Boy for your own unfaithfulness—which I must say I always thought a little cheap. But then
no one
told the truth about Boy’s death, including Boy. All these years we all still pretend it was the war, shell shock. It was nothing to do with the war. Boy killed himself because he liked little girls—”
“What did you say?”
“He liked little girls, Acland—surely you guessed? If you doubt me, ask Freddie. Freddie saw the photographs Boy took of me when I was a child. I’m afraid they were rather pornographic. What Freddie
doesn’t
know—none of you know—is that it wasn’t just photographs.” Constance paused. “May I use the word
fuck,
now Winnie’s left us? Boy liked to fuck little girls. Me, for instance. And there’s no point in looking at me like that, Acland—or you, Steenie. Facts are facts. If you think about it, Acland, you’ll know I’m right. Don’t you remember, that time you caught me coming out of Boy’s room?”