Dubious Legacy (13 page)

Hector said, ‘Darling, I love you,’ laughing.

His wife, who never admitted to personal experience of this emotion, said, ‘So you do,’ and squeezed his arm.

Hector, speaking half to himself, remarked, ‘Henry is flawed, which may be his salvation.’

‘In what way?’

‘He won’t necessarily hold back,’ said Hector.

‘D’you mean he will murder Margaret?’

‘Don’t be silly. I mean he won’t be over-scrupulous; he will take risks. He will get fun out of life, in spite of Margaret.’

Calypso said, ‘I hope you are right. Clever of you to spot it. Should we not go back and meet our fellow guests and brace ourselves against the possibility of Margaret?’

As they sauntered back towards the house she thought that if Henry had been as he was now in her wild and frisky days, she would have nipped him into bed in a trice, and chuckled. And Hector, cognizant of his wife, smiled too.

The long table was now crowded. Three stately salmon lay on grand platters. In death they nestled on beds of glistening watercress. In each fish’s mouth Pilar had placed a red rose, but above the roses the great creatures’ eyes were blank.

There were sauce boats of mayonnaise, butter-pats sweating in silver dishes, French bread, mountains of asparagus, finger-bowls afloat with flower petals, damask napkins intricately folded, and soup plates expectant of gazpacho.

On the side table, under Antonia’s lily arrangements, stood bowls of strawberries and raspberries, jugs of cream and bowls of sugar.

Hector said, ‘Yum, yum.’

Antonia and Barbara came out of the house in a rush, Antonia in palest pink, Barbara in enigmatic, smoky blue. Their hair was freshly washed, their faces unblemished by time. Behind them came Matthew and James, looking pleased with their girls and relatively content with their dinner jackets.

As Henry began introductions, Peter and Maisie Bullivant and the Jonathans arrived in a chattering group. Jonathan called out, ‘Here we come mopping and mowing. Are we on time, Henry, or smartly late? Quite a shock to be greeted at the front door by Trask in disguise; for a moment we thought your party was fancy dress, but he reassured us. Mind you, we would have rushed home and dressed in our Pierrot costumes had it been necessary. Dear me, Calypso, how d’you do it? Beautiful as ever. Seeing you one is a teeny bit tempted to do what my old Nanny always said the Good Lord made me for. May I kiss you?’

‘Old nannies’ hopes are not always fulfilled.’ Calypso extended her cheek as Jonathan, brushing back a lock of prematurely white hair, bent to kiss it.

Antonia, who had heard that he was homosexual, was surprised to see that he wore a wedding-ring.

‘Darlings, look at that,’ he exclaimed, gazing at the dinner table. ‘What a feast!’

‘All Pilar’s work, I bet,’ said John. ‘Oh, my
dears,
don’t those poor fish look dissipated. It will be a shame to eat them, they are so pretty. Is Margaret to play skeleton at the feast, or shall I stand in for her? We are dying to know,’ he said, taking Henry’s hand between both of his and squeezing it.

‘I shall show no pity to the fish,’ exclaimed Jonathan, thinking that his lover’s mention of Henry’s wife was ill-timed if not precisely tactless. ‘I am Jonathan the strong,’ he said, introducing himself to Barbara. ‘He is John the weak. Oh, thank you,’ he said, accepting a glass of champagne from Henry. ‘Delicious.’

John the weak said, ‘What joy, what pleasure,’ as he, too, was given a drink. Barbara watched, surprised, as he strained the wine through his luxuriant moustache and thought how disapproving her parents would be to see her in such company. They will shortly have to lump it, she told herself, smiling past them at James. I shall be married and beyond their jurisdiction. ‘James and I have just got engaged,’ she said, drawing James close by his sleeve. ‘He proposed in a hayfield.’

‘Romantic if you are not allergic,’ said John and souped another gulp of champagne, adding, ‘as I am.’

‘The poor love is a martyr,’ said Jonathan. ‘One puff of pollen and it’s sneeze all night. Did I hear right, you are engaged?’

Barbara said, ‘Yes, and so is Antonia.’

‘Your great friend?’

‘Yes, greatest.’

‘And you do everything together?’

‘Well—’

‘So nice. You must let us advise you all on beds,’ exclaimed Jonathan. ‘Many a marriage has foundered on springs. We happen to have done a lot of research and at last we found the most—gorgeous—bed! You see, if you are of different weights well, look at your fiancé, a great burly fellow, and you, you can’t weigh more than eight stone—with the normally springy mattress the smallest and lightest keeps rolling downhill as poor darling here used to do and it wasn’t always, though sometimes it was, delightful. To cut a long story, we rootled round the shops and found this marvel, no, not Heal’s, I’ll write the address for you. It’s two friends of ours who have started the business and funny thing, our hostess, I suppose she is our hostess, has one of the early models. Henry of all people discovered them. She is crazy about it, perhaps that’s why she—’

‘Never gets out of it.’ James, not pleased at having such intimate advice thrust on his fiancée, supplied the end of the sentence.

Jonathan said, ‘You guessed,’ and pushed back his forelock.

Barbara thought, Perhaps James was on inferior springs when he bounced with Valerie, and let off a high-pitched giggle, while Antonia, who was listening, pigeon-holed the snip of information. She had recently been told by her elder brother that Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten shared a bed and refused to believe him.

‘What
is
Maisie doing?’ said John. ‘Do look.’

Maisie Bullivant, clasping her hands together in self-esteem, stood back as they viewed her work. On each fishy eye she had put a nasturtium leaf and tiny blades of grass, making the effect of an eye-patch. ‘Maisie, that is altogether too louche,’ said Jonathan. ‘You will hurt Pilar’s feelings. Take it off,’ he hissed to John, ‘before she sees it.’

While John complied, Peter reproached his wife. ‘You always go too far.’ But his wife was giving the impression that she never went anywhere.

Calypso murmured to Hector, ‘That woman never thinks before she acts,’ then more generously, ‘but I like that dress she’s wearing.’ Perceiving Maisie’s rueful expression as she realized her
faux pas,
she said, ‘That’s a super dress, Maisie, where did you get it?’

‘So we are on our best behaviour,’ said Jonathan to John.

Henry, refilling their glasses, murmured, ‘Keep it up, boys, keep it up.’

Trask signalled from the house and Henry, going up to him, asked, ‘Is Margaret coming down?’

‘Doesn’t say yes nor no,’ said Trask, respectable in a black coat and striped trousers. ‘Pilar says give a shout when you’re ready for the soup. Her’s got her tray,’ he gestured upwards, ‘in case.’

Henry said, ‘You look ridiculous in those clothes.’

Trask replied, ‘Look who’s talking. What about the soup?’

Henry, glancing at his guests, said, ‘They seem fairly happy.’

‘At the rate you’re pouring the drink they’ll be sozzled before they eat,’ said Trask.

Henry said, ‘Rubbish. All right, tell Pilar we are ready.’ Turning back to his guests, he called out, ‘Who is for Pilar’s gazpacho? Will you arrange yourselves?’ He went to help Pilar and Ebro.

Ebro was wearing black trousers and a white shirt. He had slicked back his hair and bound his waist with a red scarf; he appeared on the steps balancing a soup tureen on the upward-turned palm of each hand and stood so poised for the guests’ admiration.

The Jonathans said, ‘Lovely boy,
lovely,’
and, ‘My
dear!
What virility,’ and were rewarded by a flash of Ebro’s enormous teeth.

Pilar was also dressed in black but had stuck a flower behind her ear. As she spooned soup into Hector’s plate, he said, ‘Calypso and I have been looking forward to this all week. Will you sit with us? Move up, Calypso, and make room.’

Henry stood at the head of the table while his guests arranged themselves. The Bullivants sat together, as did also the Jonathans, but Antonia gestured to Matthew to sit opposite her, next to Maisie. He did so with ill grace, while he watched Ebro take the chair which might have been his. Barbara, dropping quickly into a chair next to Henry, almost excluded James, who was only able to sit near her after asking the Jonathans to ‘move down a bit’. With the soup served, Pilar and Ebro sat among the guests and Trask, shedding his coat (‘too tight, too hot’), joined them in his shirt sleeves.

When Henry sat down Barbara murmured, ‘I shall try and console you for the absent skeleton,’ and brushed his thigh with the hand which held her table napkin. ‘Oh, there goes my napkin,’ she exclaimed, dropping it between them. As Henry made no attempt to retrieve it for her, she leaned down to pick it up, balancing herself by a tight grip on Henry’s thigh. He willy-nilly got a waft of scented shampoo from her freshly-washed hair as she leaned with her head almost in his lap. Edging away towards the empty chair she had referred to, Henry stood up. ‘I forgot the candles. Will you help me light them, Ebro?’ Barbara, flushing pink, was left to regain her seat by herself.

His guests watched Henry circle the table, tall and mysterious, lighting the candles in the chandeliers to bring velvety darkness at their backs, while beyond the candle-light Ebro moved quietly on the grass to light lanterns hanging from the branches of flowering trees further down the garden.

As Ebro regained his place one of the Jonathans said, ‘Instant darkness, how delightful.’

Maisie Bullivant exclaimed, ‘Perfect for footsie-footsie. Who am I sitting next to?’

‘Your husband,’ said her husband.

‘And me,’ said Matthew, shrinking away from this flirtatious approach. ‘Matthew Stephenson.’

Maisie said, ‘Oh, oh, Matthew Stephenson.’

‘Watch out, she is wearing lethal heels,’ said Antonia sitting opposite.

‘The seating arrangements are not very formal, are they?’ said Maisie. ‘It would have been more formal in Henry’s mother’s day. In her day I would not have been stuck next to Peter, would I?’

‘Don’t you like your husband, then?’ asked Antonia pertly.

Matthew frowned. I shan’t let her speak so freely to older women when we are married, he thought.

‘Of course I like him,’ said Maisie. ‘But I like things done right; it’s etiquette.’

‘What a stickler you are, Maisie. Would you like us all to change around?’ asked Jonathan. ‘You might get stuck next to me,’ he said, laughing.

‘Some of us already have changed around.’ Maisie looked pointedly at Barbara. Then, feeling uneasy in the presence of these young and pretty girls, she picked up her spoon and addressed her soup, murmuring, ‘Pilar’s soup, wonderful.’ She swallowed the word as she eyed Antonia and wished that Peter, instead of just sitting there, would say something to restore her social courage, which was inclining towards the wobbly.

Then Antonia, smiling at the older woman, said, ‘When you need to kick Matthew, please take care. He has delicate ankles.’

‘Lucky man,’ said Maisie gratefully, ‘mine are terrible. Thick. I wish—’ I wish, she thought, that I was as young and confident as this girl; she must be thinking me as thick as my ankles. She sighed and ate her soup and wondered what to say next.

Antonia took stock of Maisie. There was something in the woman which reminded her of her mother; she tried to pin-point it. Too much eye shadow? Someone should tell her. Did her husband squash her in private, as her father squashed her mother? No, it was her age, the age when features no longer fitted, noses grew larger and chins doubled. I shan’t allow it to happen to me, she thought; I shall keep my looks as Calypso Grant has kept hers. She smiled across the table at Maisie.

Maisie said, ‘When we were introduced I did not quite catch your name.’ The girl was lovely, there was no need to be scared of her.

‘Antonia,’ said Antonia. ‘Antonia Lowther, and that’s Matthew Stephenson next to you. We are engaged to be married.’

‘Oh!’ cried Maisie, delighted. ‘Oh, how nice. Antonia Lowther, of course. Your father is that MP one is always reading about, the very red one, almost a communist. How interesting.’

‘No!’ said Matthew sharply. ‘No. Antonia’s father is in
steel.’
He stressed the word.

‘A relation, perhaps?’ Unconsciously Maisie belittled Antonia’s parent. ‘An uncle or something?’

‘No relation,’ said Matthew firmly, ‘none at all. He’s Lowther’s Steel.’

Maisie looked discouraged.

Antonia said, ‘Not even a “something”, I’m afraid.’ There was no need for Matthew to snap at the poor woman. ‘I’ve heard,’ she said, ‘that that Lowther makes witty jokes in Parliament. My father’s not in the same league. Matthew is anti-red,’ she said, grinning at Maisie and avoiding her fiancé’s eye.

Failing to catch Antonia’s eye, Matthew realized an implied reproof. She was looking very pretty in the candle-light, more mature than her years; he would forgive her.

Calypso, who had been listening to this exchange, glanced at Hector but made no effort to break a silence which began to spread around the table. Henry had regained his place and was eating his soup. Barbara sat on one side of him; the chair on his left was empty, backed by the dark yews. James, ignored by Barbara, tried to catch her eye; she should, he thought, pay attention to him. He cleared his throat but, unwilling to look a fool, stayed silent and listened to Peter Bullivant who, having finished his soup, was almost shouting past his wife to Henry at the head of the table.

‘I hear,’ Peter said, ‘that your wife’s had her quarters redecorated; it can’t be long since she had it all done.’

Henry said, ‘No.’

‘What is it this time? Somebody told me she’s gone in for gold.’

Henry said, ‘Yes.’

‘Must cost you,’ said Peter. ‘I mean, you don’t get paint and paper and re-upholster furniture for nothing, do you?’

Henry said, ‘No.’

‘And labour,’ said Peter. ‘That costs, these days.’

Henry said, ‘Yes.’

‘It’s vulgar to talk about money, Peter,’ Maisie whispered.

‘Not etiquette, I suppose,’ snapped Peter, ‘not done, bad form.’