Good Behaviour (19 page)

It came from Kenya, and there were at least four pages for me to read. I took a great breath to steady my delight, and I read
… I read a page totalling the heads and horns of the game he had shot, measurements complete. I read that there was quite
a variety of fish in the rivers; that one lights a huge fire at night and fishes for bottle-nose fish, well supplied with
cold beer (the fisher I supposed, not the fish). I read of an old bull elephant who came to drink just opposite to where he
was fishing. Then I read of the hospitality in the nearly stately homes of the settlers, cousins and cousins of cousins, and
friends of old so-and-so’s, who had all been terribly kind. And in all the letter there was not a word to link him with me.
Not a word about Hubert, only this total recall of heads and horns and fish and birds and buffalo and draft foxhounds that
hunted lynx. ‘Yours ever, Richard,’ it ended.

I thrust the clean dogs away from me and moved out of the sun because I was sweating. I was in a rage of disappointment. I
would read the letter again, and slowly. There had to be something I had missed. Between the lines there was some word I could
feed on. Religiously, methodically I again devoured the Wild Life of Africa. As I reread hope flickered and grew. I smelt
out hints towards the past. Why describe night time and rivers and moonlight – all right, bonfire light – if not to convey
that he was alone and that he missed me? And why the catalogue of trophies, if he was not sure of my interest? Was that it?
Yes, that was it. We were so sure of each other, it was needless to put it in words. Perhaps there were no words for it. Then
I felt it dawning on me: now I could write to him. Of course this letter asked for an answer. I would write
easily about the horses (nothing about Hubert’s dreadful Arch Deacon, of course), the dogs, our yearling, hunting, when the
season opened. Later I would match woodcock to buffalo, and never a word of love. He would answer and I would write again
and he would answer.

I was folding up the sheets of the letter when I saw across the back of the last page the very words which I could translate
into glory: ‘I want you to know, Aroon’ (he had written Aroon), ‘the Black Friday yearling is all yours, my share and Hubert’s.
Richard.’ All our names together. My happiness appalled me. For the whole morning I was in a state of energy and delight.
I would not read the letter again. I did not want to know it so well that familiarity could dissolve my assurance. I had breathed
my own truth between the lines – it was the breath of hope, to shelter and harbour and keep secret.

They were very late coming back to luncheon. ‘Did you take the car to the garage?’ I asked Mummie.

Cool, and still hatted and gloved, she stood by the hall table disgustedly turning over the bills. She opened the drawer,
swept the lot inside, and shut it again. ‘No more worries till after luncheon.’ She moved away from me, pulling off her gloves
by the finger-tips. ‘No. That ghastly solicitor kept Papa there for hours, worrying him dreadfully too.’

‘And did you collect the drink?’

‘Was there drink to collect? Perhaps he forgot. Shall we go in to luncheon?’

The dogs followed us. Papa followed the dogs. He didn’t seem to notice that they had had a bath. ‘No post?’ he said to the
maid, who was waiting, rather sullenly, to serve us.

‘I left the letters in the hall as usual, sir.’ Luncheon was appallingly late, Breda’s own dinner would be cold, washing
up would make her late for the garden fête at the rectory, and now she was being found fault with by implication and unfairly.
‘Didn’t you get your letter, Miss Aroon?’ she asked me defensively. I felt a terrible blush begin behind my ears and spread
its way from my hair’s edge to below the cleavage of my shirt.

‘Yes. Actually,’ I said. I felt them all three averting their eyes from me and wondering about my blush.

‘Well, where are mine? That’s all I want to know. That shark Kiely told me there would be some form from some other shark
and he had to have it at once.’

‘Now, listen,’ Mummie sounded inspired, ‘
could
I have swept it into the drawer with a load of other old rubbish? – If I have I
am
sorry.’

Breda went out and returned with a stack of manilla envelopes on a salver.

‘Oh, good girl, Breda. Thank you.’ Papa groaned miserably through the pile.

‘Don’t open it,’ Mummie said as he picked out one envelope and sat staring at it uncertainly, ‘or you won’t eat any luncheon.’

‘You’re so right. First things first.’ He proceeded to eat an enormous amount of luncheon. After that he was more like himself
and able to ignore the offending letter. But it was not forgotten. ‘Tell you what we must do,’ he said to Breda when she came
in with the coffee. ‘I hear you’re all booked for this jolly at the rectory. Tommy had better drive you there. Go by the village
and post this for me.’ He shuddered as he looked at the letter. ‘I shan’t open it,’ he said to Mummie. ‘I don’t know what
I pay Kiely for. I suppose I must re-address the thing.’ He set off for the library, as no gentleman carried a pen about in
his pocket.

‘Is everybody going to the rectory?’ Mummie asked Breda. ‘Who will bring our tea? Perhaps Rose—?’

‘It’s Rose’s afternoon today, madam.’ Breda looked longingly at the coffee cups before she walked off with the cheese plates.

‘They’re all so Bolshie, these days.’ Mummie sighed.

Through all this, having recovered from my blush, I had floated unheeding in the happiness which I would not tell. Held within
like this it transcended grief or jealousy. I felt as nearly as could be back in the moment when I had run along the wet sand,
when he had touched the inside of my salty arm. Linked with this was the other afternoon when I had first learned to swim,
when the sea water had borne me up and Mrs Brock’s delight in my achievement had shone from her to me, joining us blissfully,
keeping Hubert out. He was out of this too. I denied the thought, lapping it up in proper grief for him.

Papa joined me on the steps where I was brushing the clean dogs. ‘They do look lovely,’ he said. ‘You make a wonderful job
of them, don’t you?’ He didn’t say ‘thank you.’ ‘Shall we go on a rampage? What about the rectory fête?’ He laughed at his
own immoderate joke. ‘Coming for a walk? The dogs are longing.’

‘I was going to have a look at the Black Friday yearling.’

‘All right.’ He started off faster than his leg could carry him, always his pace when annoyed. ‘If we must we must. I suppose
we’ve got to.
I
wanted to go and see the horses in the Fairy Bog. I’ll have to get some of them out. Can’t keep them eating their heads off
all winter.’

‘They won’t eat much in the bog,’ I suggested comfortingly.

‘They can’t stand and stiffen on the bog.’ His face was quite red with annoyance. ‘You ought to know that much. They
have to be fed. Up to its eyes the whole place is. Have you any idea about the wage bill?’

‘No.’ I felt dreamy and inattentive to his irritation, far off, and smoothly optimistic.

‘I don’t suppose you have. I hadn’t, till this morning. That piddling niggler Kiely – he’s upset me terribly.’

We walked out from under the beech-trees into the sunlight. ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ I said, blessed by the sun. He took off his
hat and mopped at his forehead with a dark red silk handkerchief – Papa, who never sweated.

‘I feel hot,’ he said. ‘That damn curry, I expect. God knows what Rose puts in it. Food bills too,’ he said. ‘They’re all
pirates. The butcher – he’s not the worst robber, mind you. I’m quite simply just about in the bankruptcy courts. Kiely says
so. Looked into his office for a moment to see about a little something when he opened up on me. Frightened me to death, dearest.
Rightly in the soup we are, financially. Everything going out. Nothing coming in. Now, take that—’ We had stopped and were
looking over to where the yearling and his donkey stood together, making, for me, a perfect picture in the low brilliant light
across the grass. ‘I don’t even own that fellow, and he’ll have to be done like a king all winter.’

‘He’s come on a lot, hasn’t he?’ A sense of possession filled me warmly.

‘Yes, and there’s a lot of improvement in him,’ Papa admitted grudgingly. ‘Just the same, he’s going. Why should I feed him?
I’m writing to my old friend Wobbly tonight to remove him. That’ll be a start anyway. That’ll show Kiely I’m serious.’

‘Papa, you don’t mean it?’

‘Yes, I do mean it. Things are drastic. We have to cut down somewhere.’

My eyes filled with tears. ‘But he’s
mine
,’ I whined. ‘I own him.’

‘You own the little thief?’

‘He’s not little at all. You can’t call him small. Richard gave him to me. His share and Hubert’s share.’

‘You might have told me, sweetheart,’ Papa said reproachfully, as though I had been keeping a secret from him. I had. I felt
a longing rush through me to share it with him now. ‘I had a letter from Richard today.’ I was blushing cruelly again. This
time Papa didn’t take his eyes off my blush. His eyes were eating into me, eager for more.

‘Richard
gave
him to you?’ All the nervous irritation had left his voice. He leaned towards me without saying any more, waiting, pleading
for some certainty. What should I tell him? How put into words all that only I could trace behind his big-game catalogue of
a letter?

‘Well,’ Papa said at last. He lit a cigarette, his hand was shaking. ‘One for you?’ he asked, and I nodded. He gave me his,
always a gesture of affection with him, and lit another. I knew he was giving me time. At last he helped me: ‘Did he say when
he’d come back to us?’ He put all expression out of his voice. I found his portentous tactfulness, his extreme wish to establish
my happiness, beyond my powers to resist. I felt I must please him in return. I must be the person to raise his temperature,
to excite him.

‘He’s coming back in the spring.’ The lie came jumping out of my mouth. My thumping heart delivered it like a great frog –
a monster to torment me as soon as I was sane again. But for the moment I enjoyed the lie, and I felt a hot importance in
Papa’s thoughts of me. Pleasurable, that was what it actually was, before the doubts could crowd in. So little was
enough to convey so much between us. But I knew he wanted to hear more than this from me. His face was crumpled in anxiety
and shyness as, leaning on the fence and looking away from me on the ground, he muttered: ‘That night, darling girl, before
they left, don’t tell me if you don’t want to … ’

‘Yes,’ I said, looking steadfastly over at the colt and the donkey.

‘The lot?’ Papa said.

‘The lot,’ I answered firmly.

‘Well, thank God,’ Papa said quite loudly. And then, moderately: ‘Thanks, sweetheart … You can’t think how worried I’ve been,
dreadfully unfair of me. Impossible, of course, I realise now, preposterous. Looked ugly though. Looked funny. Didn’t like
it. All clear now. I
am
grateful.’

All this time what had he been thinking? That I might be having a baby? That Richard might have left me for always – so that
a hideous interview was before him with his old friend Wobbly? He had endured Hubert’s death and burial, Mummie’s grief, his
own grief, deadly anxiety about me – and not a word spoken. To crown it all, today’s morning of stress and worry with that
solicitor. No wonder if he was drinking. No wonder if his morning sessions with Rose stood, for a brief moment, between his
own suffering and Mummie’s sad possessiveness. And only now I understood the anxiety eating him for me. Darling Papa. I leaned
sideways against the fence and put my hand for a second over his: ‘I’m all right, Papa. I promise.’

‘Oh yes,’ he came back from far away, ‘yes, bless you, you have been a help. Look –’ he said, absently apologetic, ‘I think
if you don’t mind, I’ll go on by myself. You take the dogs with you. They’ll be kicked to pieces in the bog.’

I stood discarded, watching him bundle off down the drive. When he had gone out of sight the implications in my lie to him
over Richard’s promise to return set me worrying and biting my nails. When spring came round, where should I be? Each day
the post would be quietly observed, and a deadly tactful silence maintained. Of course he would discuss the matter with Mummie,
as he would discuss Hubert’s horse with her, and his progress with the girls. Her cold pity would extend itself further over
me.

In the hall Mummie was standing, planned and prepared for some exercise. Not gardening, I thought, because she carried her
slight hazel walking stick, a gleam of gold about its handle. A doll-size garden trug sat on the side-table among the letters
and whips and hats, and in it a little bunch of cyclamen lay, firmly tied among their spotted leaves. Perhaps she was going
to paint them. Sometimes she painted flowers, the completed pictures looking like ghosts of wire and tin.

‘Back again?’ she said, commenting on another of my little failures. ‘Why aren’t the dogs with Papa?’

‘Because he didn’t want to take them among the young horses in the bog.’

‘Ah,’ she said with satisfaction. She looked suddenly sure of some adventure. Her afternoon was to be far more vivid than
mine. Of course – idiot me – I had told where to go and meet him. She had got it out of me without even a direct question.
As she picked up the little basket of flowers and turned away I saw how languorous was the turning of her felt hat against
her cheek; like everything else she wore, it became her in a way that was her own mystery.

When she had gone, the silence of the house consumed the afternoon. Not even a murmur or sound of servants – all at the rectory
fête. The smell of past hours was in the library: flowers, cigars, polish on wood. Newspapers lay baking in the sun.

Everything was in a trance of the usual. My bedroom waited for me, impassive.

Looking at my bed, I knew I was no unwanted grotesque: a man had lain there with me. I knew what Papa believed, and his belief
encompassed me and made a reality of my hopes and longings. Richard’s letter was an absolute reality.