Great Historical Novels (125 page)

‘A good little cleaner’, he said. ‘Pity. Now she’ll have to spend a lifetime sewing instead of fucking,’ and was roundly condemned by Mr Neville for use of language, and for days Cook banged his plate down in front of him so that the contents spilled, and Lily jumped with fright.

The Trip to Dilberne Court

8.30 A.M. SUNDAY, 3RD DECEMBER 1899

It was as beautiful as a December day could be when Arthur and Minnie set off, crossing Putney Bridge and taking the Portsmouth Road for Dilberne Court. A blue sky only mildly misted over: most trees bare of leaves and starkly handsome, a very few still riotous in shades of red, yellow and bronze, as nature properly settled in for the long hard run to spring. The weather, Minnie observed to Arthur, seemed to want to make up for the fog that had laid London low. She had often noticed that after some dire and dramatic natural event the climate seemed to want to make up for its unkindness by showing itself at its most beautiful and benign.

Yes, Arthur agreed, the weather wasn’t too bad. Englishmen were not given to enthusiasm, Minnie had come to realize, but that did not mean they did not feel it. If they practiced an insouciance, a cynicism, a superiority, it was as a protective shield against damage to their emotions. It was not surprising that they needed protection. It was the custom here to send the boys away from home at the age of seven, for their mothers to keep vaguely in touch after the initial tears at the wrenching away, but not have them back until they were eighteen, and then send them as young adults straight to universities. The boys spent their lives amongst other men, as happened in savage tribes when boys were sent off
very young to the men’s huts; girls, only as they reached puberty, to the women’s huts.

She had read about Professor Haddon’s fascinating anthropological expedition to the Torres Straits in the
Oceanic
’s gloomy library, and discovered academic disciplines she had never heard of, in which it seemed members of the team of students who accompanied him specialized – who’d ever heard of ‘ethnomusicology’ or ‘anthropogeography’? Haddon had even been to Borneo, and brought back photographs of the oddest primitive societies and their customs, but surely none were stranger than the way the upper classes of the British wealthy bought up their children, or rather failed to and delegated the task. She could see it suited the men. The mothers, deprived of their children, would have nothing better to do than concentrate on their husbands’ welfare. All, men and women, were terrified that if they cosseted their sons they would turn out to be little Oscar Wildes.

Rosina, the daughter, instead of being glad to be spared, was actually envious of her brother because he had the benefit of this strange, unnatural and harrowing upbringing. Nor did she seem to love her mother as her brother did: on the contrary. Minnie could see that the less they saw of their mothers, the more sons would idealize them. The girls, on the other hand, seemed almost proud of the way they disliked their mothers.

Arthur had brought the Arnold Jehu round to Brown’s in Dover Street to collect Minnie at eight in the morning. The automobile made a splendid sight, and staff had gathered on the steps to admire her as she glittered in the early sun on this brisk and beautiful day. Reginald had constructed a glass windscreen especially for the trip. The vehicle had been washed and polished for the occasion, red velvet seats soft and glowing, brass rails shiny, red wheels freshly painted, gently
puffing and hissing steam, urging gently forward and back, anxious to be off. Grace was there to see her off; Tessa was still not out of bed. The latter had discovered Scottish oats for breakfast, to be eaten not with salt as at home, but with thick cream and sugar. Or perhaps she was being tactful, having realized the less she put in an appearance, the better were Minnie’s chances of becoming wife to an English viscount.

Arthur was explaining the superiority of steam and the external combustion engine to the Brown’s concierge, Mr Eddie.

‘She’s beautiful,’ Minnie said to Arthur and meant it. Minnie had seen the Jehu already, but in the oily, cramped garage, and in bits. Arthur was, he said, designing and installing a condenser so as to reuse the water and reduce the amount, and so weight, that had to be carried. Now she could see the full wonder of the vehicle.

‘So are you,’ said Arthur, simply. And Minnie knew that it was true. The cloud that was Stanton was dissolving even as she stepped out into a bright new day and into the care of her new beau. They had had a silly, cynical, very English conversation when they first met. She remembered every line of it. He was to marry her for her money; she him for his title. They would pretend true love to save the feelings of others. But surely now the love was no longer pretence, but real. Had he been from Chicago she would simply straight out and ask him. But he was an Englishman and they thought differently from Americans. You never quite knew whether they would laugh or take offence. And you could only judge what they felt by what they did, not from what they said.

At least she knew that she was looking her best. She had made sure that she was. She was dressed perfectly for the occasion. She and Grace had worked from first principles to
devise the suitable apparel for the lady motorist, there being few fashion plates or magazines to guide them.

Motoring was a dusty business, so she would have a silk coat, silk being a natural barrier to dust and dirt: it would have to be a heavy silk and lined with wool to keep out the November cold when the air raced by, Arthur claimed, at more than thirty miles an hour. She had chosen a rich dark blue corded silk, and a soft greyish blue in a fine wool for the lining, a William Morris pattern: two turtle doves with their heads turned away from each other. The contrast was most effective. She was a little worried about the way the doves were looking in opposite directions but Grace assured her she was being silly and superstitious.

Beneath the duster coat she wore a variant of Rosina’s riding outfit, a close fitting tailored jacket in the same Morris pattern, a plain grey waistcoat, and a gored skirt, also in the Morris fabric, to allow freedom of movement and warmth, and on her head a strong plain straw hat with a wide brim, tied on with the thin, wide scarf – almost a veil – she had chosen with Rosina, the strong blue of the peacock’s tails a softer version of the blue of the duster coat. She looked enchanting and knew it. England suited her. She bloomed in the soft damp air. If she was to be mistress of Dilberne she would be in the country and out of the way of the fog.

There was even a little applause as she and Arthur drove off. She thought she saw the head concierge take hold of Grace’s hand as they left. But perhaps she was being too romantic, seeing love in the air where it was not.

Arthur was looking particularly handsome, she thought, his profile stern and unsmiling as he grappled with the Jehu’s eccentricities, its occasional splutters of steam, and whenever the road went downhill, its unholy spurts of speed; she
remarked on how quiet the engine was. His expression softened whenever he turned to her to explain the route as they bowled merrily along. Once he put his hand on her knee but she could not be sure whether this was by accident or design. She paid no attention to it. She could see that in courtship the problem was the same worldwide, probably even in Borneo, and throughout the ages. Did one assume a man was shy and encourage him, or risk rejection because he was not shy at all, just not interested?

There was very little horse traffic on the road and precious few automobiles. They managed to avoid, sometimes only just, such pedestrians who wandered into their path, unaware, as Arthur put it, that the roads no longer belonged to them. Once they fell into a race with a six-horsepower Daimler, and won easily, up hill and down; only to be mocked by the driver when he caught up, and racketed by in a cloud of smelly fumes, though this was only because they’d had to stop at the Bear Inn at Esher for Arthur to check the water reservoir and top it up. Then he asked her if it wouldn’t be a good idea to have sandwiches and beer in the pub, which they did. Minnie was pleased that Arthur was the kind to stay for refreshments. Men on their travels were too often determined to get to their destinations fast, and begrudged all delay but Arthur seemed perfectly happy to do so. She could see a whole leisurely future stretching ahead, of adventurous outings punctuated by cream teas and the stretching of legs, and admiring of vistas. Her childhood had been dominated by Billy’s impatience with any traffic ahead or behind, his anxiety to get home without delay.

A few miles on, Arthur pointed out a large country house across the fields which he told her looked very much like Dilberne Court.

‘My heavens!’ she said, seeing the scale of the place. She had imagined something cosier and more intimate, black-and-white-beamed, full of nooks and crannies, large, but set in a cottage garden. This house was imposing but without grace and somehow unloved, set in a rather grim landscape of muddy hillsides and bare oaks.

‘Dilberne Court has taller chimneys,’ he said. ‘And is prettier. Dilberne was a wonderful place to grow up in as a child. Mind you, I was mostly at school.’

‘Poor you,’ she said.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘It was my making. Any son of mine will go to Eton. It’s a family tradition.’

He caught her eye and smiled. He means what he said in the first place, she thought. He means to marry me but no longer just for my money but because he loves me. Or else he wouldn’t put up with my mother the way he does. He has seen her only once or twice, but he is so charming and courteous to her that already she adores him. I mean to marry him not in order to please my father by becoming the wife of an English earl but because I love him. I must love him or why do I feel so protective of him?

She talked a little then about her own home, a vast Gothic castle of a place, uglier even than the pile they’d just passed, crammed with art and antiquities bought by her mother through Duveen Brothers in New York. A renaissance throne here, a Da Vinci painting there, a bust of Augustus Caesar over there beneath the Gothic window.

‘What about your father?’ asked Arthur. ‘Is he a good sort?’

‘The best,’ she replied.

The Jehu had reached the top of a long hill with a pretty view of a valley called the Devil’s Punchbowl, and was starting the descent. She thought they must have reached fifty miles an
hour before they reached the bottom and the vehicle slowed. The speed was exhilarating and she did not care whether she lived or died, so long as she died with Arthur. She was a sorry case, she thought. They were to stay the night at Dilberne Court. The staff had been notified to meet them, so they would not be alone in the house, but there were always ways and means. She would be perfectly capable of abandoning all common sense and seeking out his bed. Why had she ever taken up with Stanton, who had left her with nothing but a shocking inclination towards sexual adventure?

But of course she would not seek out Arthur’s bed. It would be most imprudent. A sin well in the past might be overlooked, but a bride-to-be should not show herself as predisposed to loose behaviour.

She wondered whether to tell him she was not her father’s daughter but carried the blood of a well-respected member of the English artistic community, but decided against it. He might worry that her inheritance was in danger. He might marry for love and money but it was wishful thinking to suppose he would marry for love alone. Only the poor could afford such luxury.

‘As well our house is so large,’ she said, casually, ‘to fit in all the art. I daresay at Dilberne you have heaps of family paintings?’

‘That’s so,’ he said.

After they had survived the Devil’s Punchbowl she asked him who Flora was. He took his time before replying. She should not have brought the subject up but it was too late now.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You have been talking to Rosina. I thought she might say more than she should have. It is quite true; I have been seeing a girl but not lately. When we are married I will of course give her up altogether.’

When we are married
. She took him at his word, and did not enquire further. He took her gloved hand and held it, then delicately took off the glove so their bare hands met. He was hot-blooded. His hand should have been cold, unprotected as it was in the wind, but it was warm.

He slowed the Jehu down and steered it into an empty space of land beside the road and stopped. Then he kissed her. Stanton did not kiss but went straight to it. Arthur’s speculative lips on hers surprised her and made her feel agreeably virginal, almost spiritual.

She quite hoped he would say he loved her but he didn’t. He was an Englishman, and easily embarrassed. You had to tell what he felt by what he did. What he did say was that there was no real point in delaying the announcement of their engagement. It had been love at first sight. The sooner they were married the better. He would write to her father on their return to London asking for his consent to their marriage.

‘There is something I must tell you,’ she heard herself saying in her elation, even as she begged herself not to. ‘I am a girl with a past. It would not be fair to hide it from you. You had your Flora. I had a man called Stanton, an artist. But it’s all over now. It was not a happy experience.’

He did not reply, but stared fixedly ahead. A drop of rain appeared on the glass windscreen, and another and then another. They both stared fixedly at the runnels. His face, when she finally dared to look, seemed to have hardened. She saw the old man inside the young. She was up against something she did not quite understand. She saw Rosina in him.

‘It’s the kind of thing that happens these days,’ she said, lightly.

‘No. It is not,’ he said. ‘In America, perhaps. Not to me. Not to my family.’
He drove on to Hindhead in silence where he stopped to fill the boiler. They did not stay for a glass of beer and a sandwich. He had turned into the kind of man who never stopped on a journey if he could help it. At Hindhead he turned the car and they took the road back to London. She was not going to see Dilberne Court with its tall chimneys and pretty aspect where he had been happy as a child. She did not deserve to see it. He had set his face against her. She was a bad woman, fun, but not the marrying kind.