A Winter's Child (9 page)

Perversely and dreadfully, a longing that was entirely physical swept over her for Paul, so fierce and basic a need of her body for his that it gave her actual pain. And how could she – with that pain still lodged inside her – go now and stand, with Jeremy's mother, among the remnants of Jeremy's life, and weep for Paul? Surely it would be indecent. Very likely. But it would also be kind.

Therefore, if it could not be avoided, it would have to be done. And how could she avoid it? She could not simply walk away without a word as Nola had just done, looking as if she needed air, or perhaps a cigarette. Nor could she rely on the speedy return of the gentlemen to the drawing room, thus necessitating Miriam's presence as hostess to serve their-coffee, since she knew Edward would detain Benedict Swanfield, with his cigars and his importance, for as long as he could.

‘Claire.' Polly's light hand touched her arm. ‘Come upstairs and see my clothes.'

Reprieve?

‘Claire?' said Dorothy Lyall, glancing anxiously at Miriam, hoping it would be all right. But Miriam had been caught by Eunice who was muttering urgently, ‘He never
said
he was going away tonight. He never told Toby,' followed by some quite frenzied whispering which, although clearly unwelcome to Miriam, diverted her attention long enough for Claire to make her escape.

Polly's bedroom was everything Dorothy Lyall had always wanted for Claire and probably for herself, an atmosphere of pink rosebuds and white lace, heart-shaped satin cushions and cheerful, if slightly cloying innocence: a room for easy, virginal daydreams, romantic flutterings of the heart, an Edwardian orchid house in which a young girl might bloom and ripen at her mother's leisure.

Yet Polly, of whose virginity there could be no doubt, barely allowed Claire to sit down on a low, padded stool before opening a drawer and offering her a cigarette.

‘You
do
smoke, don't you?'

‘Yes, thank you.' And Claire realized with some amusement how deeply she would have disappointed Polly if she had not.

‘I felt sure you would. It says so much about a person, don't you think?'

‘Does your mother know?'

‘Oh well,' Polly pouted, shrugged. ‘She
knows
of course, because she's always having a good old rummage through my things the very minute I turn my back. But so long as she doesn't
see,
she needn't act. That's the rule isn't it? Silly really.'

And she began to smoke with the self-conscious abandon of the novice, stealing sidelong glances at herself in the mirror, watching herself being wicked, daring, smart, as, with a great scattering of ash, she flung open her wardrobe doors and took out one dress after another, a rainbow of pastel ‘gauzes and satins', brocades threaded with silver and gold, beaded chiffon, silk
mousseline,
the skirts cut not quite so straight as Claire's or Nola's but narrow enough to cause concern to Miriam who did not wish her daughter to acquire the dubious reputation of a ‘flapper', the flat-chested, lean-hipped, painted boy-girl of current fashion.

‘I made them all myself,' said Polly, quite certain that surprise and praise would follow. ‘In fact that's all I
have
done these last two years since I left school. That, and wait for the war to end. What a bore.'

‘Well, at least you kept yourself busy while you were waiting.'

Polly shrugged again, indulged herself with another little peep in her mirror, too intent on her own reflection – looking twenty at least, she thought, with the help of the cigarette – to notice the slightly grim amusement in Claire who, during those same two years had dealt far more with shrouds than evening dresses, maintaining an intimate acquaintance with such things as fear and horror which, whatever else, had
never
bored her.

‘What else was there to do?' Polly said, her voice suddenly quite querulous. ‘Benedict wanted me to stay at school, but even those dreary school-marms told him there was no point to
that.
So I just got out my sewing machine and cut and stitched myself all these dresses so I'd have something to wear when the time came. Because there's been nothing fit to buy in the shops for simply ages, I do assure you. Not that there's been anywhere to go either. It's been dull –
dull
beyond all telling. But now that things are getting back to normal and people are bound to start giving parties again – well, I'm ready. What do you think?' She held up a dazzling garment of emerald satin, rich with crystal beads and gold spangles, her face as vivid and excited as a birthday party child. ‘Come on – what do you think?'

‘Lovely. Where on earth did you get that material?'

Instantly, openly, Polly became effervescent with delight.

‘I knew you'd ask me that. There's been nothing like it in the shops has there since this whole dreary business started? Just serges and tweeds and miserable cheap linen. Well – I got it all from the attic.'

And she paused, sketching one of her little curtseys, being perfectly prepared to applaud her own ingenuity should Claire be slow to do so.

‘Yes. The attic. All my mother's old ball gowns are up there stored away in dozens. Cut to suit Queen Victoria, of course, or Boadicea, but wonderful, wonderful fabrics. My fingers just ached to start unpicking the minute I saw them, and she said if I'd promise to leave her wedding dress alone I could have what I pleased. So I took – oh – everything. Miles and miles of tulle and chiffon and these divine satins. Scarlet – look – and this absolutely sinful black and orange. When did my dear mamma ever wear that? Mind you she wore so
much
of it, and of everything else, that I could get half a dozen dresses out of one of hers. Why do you suppose girls are so much
thinner
these days?'

‘Playing tennis in schools, perhaps, and riding bicycles.'

Polly looked doubtful as if she had wanted the answer to be far more dramatic than that.

‘Well,
I
never played anything at school except truant. And you wouldn't call me overweight would you?'

Claire shook her head.

‘I thought not. A friend of mine says it's from not eating cream and sugar and butter during the war and running around selling flags for war widows and Belgian refugees. And that makes sense, I suppose, when you think that all out mothers used to do was sit around all day pouring tea and
guzzling
chocolate cake. You don't think my bust is too big do you? Oh good. I sometimes wonder.'

Turning again to the mirror she stood for a moment considering her reflection in silence, concentrating hard on all the lithe, golden-skinned, golden-haired beauty for which, in her private thoughts, she was so grateful, until, frowning slightly, she caught a glimpse of Claire sitting quietly behind her, smaller, finer, not sparkling as Polly wished to sparkle, not setting out to attract as Polly did, yet, nevertheless, attracting, subtle, somehow, and memorable. Smart, thought Polly. Fashionable. And most of all – best of all – unhampered by the petty restrictions of mothers and brothers who wanted to keep her young and insipid and out of trouble when she so positively ached – had been aching for two long years now – to be daring and exciting, to have her rightful share of experiences and a great deal of style.

‘You're so lucky,' she breathed.

‘Am I really?'

‘Well yes – you're exactly the right age you see. Too old to be labelled “the flapper” but young enough to wear all the short skirts and the cloche hats and the feather boas. I can't tell you how I longed for a feather boa. But Benedict – as you might guess – wouldn't hear of it. He said it made me look like a tart, or words to that effect, which was a hoot really, since Nola was wearing one all the time just then. And you've been married too, Claire, which means you can get away with things, can't you? I mean smoking and drinking cocktails and staying out all night. Not like poor old me with my man still to find.
I
have to be careful.'

‘I don't suppose it will take you long, Polly.'

‘To find a man?' It was the greatest compliment Claire could have paid her and she was instantly aglow with it. ‘Oh – lots and lots I hope. I just had a slow start because of the war. All the interesting men went away and I wasn't quite old enough to go with them. So I just had to stay behind with the callow youths and the nervous wrecks and the old fogies – and good old Toby who tries to make out he'd have been a fighter pilot if only Eunice hadn't held on to him so tight and persuaded Benedict to stow him safely away on munitions. Poor Eunice. Everybody calls her that. I wonder why?'

‘I hardly know. She seems – a good sort.'

‘Oh she's
that
all right,' sighed Polly, dropping down on her knees beside Claire, her bright blue skirt swirling and settling around her to reveal long, coltish legs in blue silk stockings, the glimpse of a lace garter embroidered with blue rosebuds. She had been bored almost to the point of physical pain at dinner and had taken far more wine than had been good for her. A decent butler would not have allowed it to happen but Atkins, the head parlourmaid, was always too preoccupied with the correct management of decanters and bottles and ice buckets to notice whose glass she filled, so that now Polly's head and her tongue were light and incautious, perfectly ready to join with Claire – a Swanfield herself after all – in the delightful pursuit of picking the whole family, and its skeletons, to pieces.

‘Eunice means well,' she said, clearly quoting her mother. ‘But Toby is the most hopeless creature imaginable. He's very sweet and all that, and quite witty and clever and he probably
would
have got to be a fighter pilot if Eunice had let him. But apart from cricket and rowing and driving fast cars-there's absolutely nothing he's good at. Poor Toby. I quite like him really. I don't know why.'

‘Because he looks lost and sad, I suppose. A lot of women are attracted by that.'

Polly considered, her head on one side, flinging one long blue silk leg across the other, stretching herself, almost purring with sheer joy in her own assuredly peaches and cream future, and the fact that Claire had just called her a woman.

‘Well, yes – I do see that. But imagine being married to a man who just never comes out on top – never, ever. I'd hate that. I'm looking for someone enormously strong and sure, who'd just sweep me along – you know – and never take no for an answer …'

‘Like your brother Benedict, perhaps.'

For a moment Polly, who had been thinking of some black-eyed desert sheik, some aristocratic brigand of the high seas with gold earrings and a leopard skin rug in his cabin, looked comically but totally aghast.

‘Benedict!'

And it was plain to Claire that she had never, for one moment, thought of Benedict as a man of appetite or emotion, but as a stark symbol of authority, the obstacle to most of the things she had wished to do with her youth and her vitality since her father died.

‘Lord, no. Not Benedict. How could you ever think of that?'

‘Because he's an autocrat I suppose. And that's what you said you were looking for.'

‘You don't know him.'

‘No. Not really.'

‘Then you'd better watch out. People say he's like my father and he does look like him a bit. But that's as far as it goes. Father was strong all right and nobody would have ever dared to contradict him. But he never made me afraid. I always felt absolutely safe with him because if he said it was going to be all right then it certainly was – one
knew
that. But he liked to see me happy. He just adored giving me things. All Benedict thinks about is how much piano practice I've done, and how many French verbs I've learned, and not letting me go into town alone and then only ever to Feathers'Teashop, never to the Crown Hotel or anywhere else where there's music and
people.
And it's not because he cares about me, don't think that. He just doesn't want the trouble of putting me right if I go wrong, that's all. Benedict doesn't care about anybody. If she wasn't such a bitch I could even feel sorry for Nola.'

‘Does she feel sorry for herself?'

Polly shrugged, ungraciously like a child. ‘I don't know what she does. Nobody knows. But what I do know is that she never stands up to him – not really. Well, I can't blame her because neither do I. Neither did Jeremy. And even mother treads carefully with Benedict. He never listens to excuses you see. He just says “Do this, do that” and walks away.'

She tossed her head and blinked hard, another coltish movement but this time of distress, the wine swinging her abruptly from elation to a painful reminder of how much she missed the sure rock, the certain comfort, the fond audience that had been her father.

‘Honestly, Claire it's been
awful.
I didn't think it could get worse after Jeremy was killed but it did. Because it went on and on you see. Absolutely on and on, day after day, with nothing to do but sit around waiting for something to happen – for life to get started I mean – and worrying that one would be just too old when it finally did. I don't know how to put this without sounding unfeeling – and I'm certainly not
that
– but there were times when I even envied the girls like you, who'd lost their husbands and fiances. Wicked, isn't it! But at least they'd done something,
had
something – don't you see?'

‘I see.' Heartbreak. Disillusion. And now, in its aftermath, the disorientation, the bitter suspicion that one could feel more at home in the Flanders mud with one's own kind than here among the familiar gods – all false, she now believed – of tradition, society, the family.

But Polly, who had no thought of harming anyone, was smiling again, radiant and eager, possessed simply by the need to make up for lost time, to claim her season of youth and frolic while she still could. She wanted to flirt, to dance, to meet a wild young man or, better still, half a dozen, and then, when the fun had lasted long enough – a year or two she imagined – she would get married, have children, stay in bed all morning like Nola, give orders to her cook and her chauffeur and her gardener, like her mother. She had no desire to do anything in the least spectacular in the world, simply to fulfil the normal inclinations – as she understood them – of any ordinary, unacademic, healthy girl. But the war, by imprisoning her at High Meadows, had kept her a child too long, frustrating her abundantly natural instincts so that, of late, she had begun to experience strange sensations in the presence of elderly clergymen and ‘dugout' schoolmasters, to compete even for the attention of her sister's wistful husband, Toby Hartwell, and the irritable, asthmatic doctor who attended Miriam.