Octavia (9 page)

‘I am well, or as well as I can be, and I think of you and Mama fondly and often. Your letters are a great strength to me. I wait for them impatiently. It will not be much longer now. In four more days I can walk across the heath and breathe clean air again. Please reassure Mama and tell her that I am not changed by being labelled criminal and that I love her more than ever.

‘Your ever loving daughter,

‘Tavy.’

She was released ten days before Christmas and her father was waiting for at the prison gate with a cab ready to take her home. He was horrified to see how pale and thin she was.

‘We must build you up again, little one,’ he said, holding her hand as they sat side by side in the cab. ‘You must be fit and well for Christmas.’ He was distressed to see that tears were falling down her cheeks.

It was the most special Christmas he could devise with the richest food, the best wines and the biggest family party they’d ever held. But it was the Christmas cards that pleased Octavia most. Details of her imprisonment had been published in the
suffragette newspaper, along with all the others, and she had cards from all over the country, praising her for her courage and thanking her for what she’d done. And among them, most unexpectedly, was a card from Tommy Meriton.

‘I had to write and tell you how much I admire the stand you are taking,’
he wrote.
‘I take my hat off to you. You are a brave woman.’
And he added a postscript.
‘PS. Perhaps I shall see you at Cyril’s twenty-first.’

Good heavens, she thought. Fancy him writing like that. Maybe there’s some good in him after all.

‘Well, that’s nice,’ her mother said when she read the card. ‘It will be nice to see him at the party. I only wish Maud and Ralph weren’t making such a fuss over it. You’d think nobody had ever come of age before, the way they’re going on. They didn’t fuss like that over Emmeline.’

‘She had a big wedding,’ J-J pointed out.

‘And quite right too,’ Amy said. ‘She was getting married and marriage can be hard work. I’m sure it is in her case. Very hard work. Whereas Cyril never seems to work at all. He just gets sillier every year. And he never visits poor Emmeline and he really should.’

Cyril’s twenty-first birthday was just after his finals and it was a grand occasion, just as Amy had predicted. To be fair to him, he did his best to be blasé about it because he was uncomfortably aware that Emmeline’s twenty-first hadn’t been anywhere near so splendid and because it wasn’t the done thing to show excitement. He was a stickler for doing the done thing, although it was actually quite difficult because the pater had organised a frightfully grand supper with dancing and champagne and everything, and invited all his friends down from Oxford, which was rather sporting of him, so he had to be the man of the hour whether he wanted to or not – and, of course, he
did
want to, very much indeed. But privately, of course.

Tommy Meriton had come of age in January and said it was ‘all a fearful bore, old thing,’ but it had to be done, which steadied him. A real chum, Tommy Meriton. Always knew the right thing to say.

At that moment, the two of them were sitting in the conservatory among palms and ferns, underneath the grape
vine and the frangipani, waiting for the guests to arrive, smoking cheroots like the men of the world they were and lounging in the new rattan chairs with their long legs spread before them. In his three years at Oxford Cyril had developed from a gangly – and often spotty – youth to a self-possessed and really quite handsome young man, sporting a silky moustache and wearing evening dress as to the manor born. Tommy Meriton was as handsome as ever and invariably looked the style in everything he wore, and
he
had a splendid moustache curving over his mouth like two blonde wings. But then he’d always been someone special, rowing blue and president of the union and everybody saying he’d take a double first and all that. A dashed fine chap, Cyril thought, admiring him.

At that moment the two friends were discussing the extraordinary behaviour of Miss Octavia Smith. ‘I never thought she’d actually go and do it,’ Cyril said, flicking the ash from his cheroot with his middle finger in the elegantly correct way. ‘Dash it all, Tommy. I mean to say, a chap could be compromised by something like this. Bad enough all that marching about she would do and carrying banners and everything. But chaining herself to the railings! It’s not done. And now she says she’s going to do it again.’

‘I think it’s top hole,’ Tommy said.

‘You’re not related to her,’ Cyril told him. ‘It’s no joke having a jailbird for a cousin.’

‘You make her sound like a burglar,’ Tommy said, laughing at him. ‘Actually, I sent her a Christmas card.’

‘Really?’ Cyril said, amazed to hear it. ‘You are a goose, Tommy. What d’you want to go and do a thing like that for?’

‘To congratulate her,’ Tommy said. ‘Taking a stand and all that.’

‘Most unwise,’ Cyril said. ‘You’ll give her a swollen head and she’s bad enough without that.’ But he couldn’t say any more, which was just as well, because the door was opening and there was a rustle of silk skirts as Octavia herself came swooshing towards them between the palms and ferns with Emmeline close behind her.

‘We’ve been sent to find you,’ Emmeline said to her brother. ‘Your guests are starting to arrive. You’re to come into the drawing room and greet them.’ She looked and sounded extremely haughty in her fine new smoke blue dress, even though she was plump with her third pregnancy and secretly feeling rather uncomfortable – which was another reason to make Squirrel mind his manners. He might have come of age but she was a mother of two and soon to be a mother of three and he would always be her annoying little brother, no matter how old he was. Her own twenty-first birthday party had been very small compared to this one, and although a lot of her unmarried school friends had been invited tonight purportedly ‘to keep her company,’ she had a nasty suspicion they were actually here to provide dancing partners for his silly chums. Her mother would keep telling her what an opportunity it was for them. And that sharpened her manner towards him too.

Cyril didn’t move from his seat. ‘Who’s come?’ he asked languidly.

‘Emma Henderson for a start,’ his sister said. Emma was one of her very best friends and should have been greeted properly.

‘Oh, she’s a good sort,’ Cyril said. ‘She won’t mind waiting. Tell the mater I’ll finish my smoke and then I’ll be along.’

‘Oh no, Squirrel,’ his sister said firmly. ‘That won’t do.’

Octavia stood among the foliage and observed, partly because it amused her to watch the antagonism between Emmeline and her brother and partly because it gave her a chance to assess Tommy Meriton. She hadn’t seen him since his clumsy visit to her back in the summer but he
had
sent her that card, which was kind, in a way, and she was interested to see if he’d changed at all. He’s still very handsome, she thought, looking at the curve of his mouth under that luxurious moustache and the long pale fingers holding that cheroot.

There was another swish of silk and Aunt Maud appeared, very stylish in a long swirling gown of grey chiffon over dark blue silk with a great deal of intricate embroidery across the bodice and round the hem. She wore dark blue gloves to her elbows and her usually untidy auburn hair was severely pinned in place, but she moved in her usual precipitous way and looked as though she expected to become dishevelled at any moment. ‘Cyril, my dear,’ she said, almost timidly, ‘your friends are in the hall.’

‘Right ho, Mater,’ Cyril said, making a face at his sister, and he stood up at once, stubbed out his cheroot, brushed invisible dust from the velvet lapels of his jacket, adjusted his bow tie and offered his mother his arm. Within seconds he and Aunt Maud and Emmeline had gone, and Octavia found herself alone in the musty half-light with Tommy Meriton, with the peppery scent of the palms filling her nose and the arriving guests buzzing in the drawing room behind her.

‘You won’t mind if I finish this, will you?’ he asked, holding up the cheroot for her permission. ‘He can manage without me for a minute or two, I daresay.’

His self-assurance made her feel unsettled, so she sat down
in the chair her cousin had been occupying and occupied herself in arranging her dress so that it didn’t crease. It was a pretty rose pink silk, which was a daring colour to wear with her gingery hair, and she was rather afraid the bodice was cut too low. There seemed to be far too much of her neck and bosom exposed to be proper. At the final fitting, two days ago, the dressmaker had assured her that it was cut in the latest style and that she had the perfect figure for it, but that could have been because there wasn’t time to make any alterations. It worried her quite a lot now that she was wearing it, especially as she couldn’t hoist it higher when she was in company.

There was a long pause while she wondered whether she ought to speak first. After all, he was a guest and it was only common politeness to look after your guests. But she couldn’t think of anything to say, apart from wanting to scold him for the way he’d treated her, and she would have to choose her moment to do that. Lounging there in the half-light with all that burgeoning greenery around him, he was making her think of Greek gods again, and dryads and fauns. Eventually he spoke to her. ‘Did you get my card?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, pushing the Greek gods from her mind. And then, since that sounded rather abrupt and she had to be polite, she added, ‘Thank you.’

There was another pause. Then he ventured, ‘Are you well? You look well.’

‘Thank you,’ she said again. What else could she say? She
did
look well. She’d lost her prison pallor within weeks of coming home.

‘Bully for you!’ he said, drawing on his cheroot. And when she looked at him, wondering what she could say in answer to
that, he added, ‘I think you’re extremely plucky, damn if I don’t. I said so to Squirrel. I couldn’t have done the half of it.’

‘I do what has to be done,’ she told him seriously. ‘If a thing is right then you must do it.’

He looked at her quizzically. ‘Always?’

‘I think so.’

‘No matter what the consequences?’

‘No matter what.’

‘My word, you’re a corker,’ he said, and there was no doubt about the admiration on his face. ‘I hope you’re sitting next to me at supper. Bags I the first dance, anyway.’

The conversation was slipping out of her control. She hadn’t been anywhere near cold enough to him. They were talking as if they were still friends. ‘I’m sitting next to Emmeline,’ she said, trying to be discouraging.

He wasn’t discouraged in the least. ‘Bags I the first waltz, then,’ he said.

Oh dear, Octavia thought. Now what could she say? That she didn’t want to dance? No, she couldn’t say that. It would be a lie. That she didn’t want to dance with him? No, that wouldn’t be true either. Not if she were honest. She
did
want to dance with him. Oh, for heaven’s sake! What was the good of being able to read people’s expressions if you can’t think what to say to them?

‘That’s settled then,’ he said. ‘Now I’d better join poor old Squirrel. Moral support and all that.’ He stubbed out the remains of the cheroot in the nearest pot plant and stood up, giving her that odd courteous bow of his. ‘After you, Miss Smith.’

Octavia walked ahead of him into the crush in the drawing room, feeling cross. She’d handled that so badly. What was
the use of planning to put him down if she just talked to him as if they were friends? But really he was impossible. She had
tried
to be cold and he should have noticed. He just wasn’t sensitive enough. That was the trouble.

He was also impossibly persistent. She’d no sooner sat down at one of the long supper tables than he was drawing up a chair beside her, in exactly the same way as he’d done at Emmeline’s wedding.

‘Got moved out,’ he explained. ‘Shove up, Cyril. Make room for a littl’un.’

And he
was
good company. Even allowing for the fact that she was mellowed by champagne. They talked and talked, about Oxford and University College, and the theatre, and universal suffrage.

‘Can’t for the life of me see why they don’t just give you the vote and have done with it,’ he said. ‘They’ll have to give in to you sooner or later. Stands to reason.’

‘You should be a politican,’ she told him. ‘We need people in the House with your opinion.’

‘Fat chance of that,’ he said, holding up his glass to a passing waiter for more champagne. ‘And more for the lady, there’s a good chap. No. My career’s mapped out, I’m sorry to say.’

He’d spoken as though he was joking but there was more regret on his face than he knew and that intrigued her. ‘Why are you sorry about it?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it what you want?’

He shrugged his shoulders carelessly, as though it didn’t matter. ‘It’s what the pater wants,’ he said. ‘He’s had it planned since I was in prep school. I’m to follow him into the diplomatic corps. That’s why I’ve been travelling so much. Had to see the territory and all that.’

‘And I thought you were just gadding about.’

‘Oh, I was gadding about too,’ he admitted. ‘All work and no play and that sort of thing. Got to stop now though. He’s arranged my first post.’ And he grimaced.

She admired his honesty. She couldn’t help herself. And she enjoyed the grimace. He doesn’t like having his life arranged for him, she thought, and he doesn’t know how to avoid it. ‘When do you start?’

‘Too soon,’ he said.

Somebody was banging on the table. It was time for the speeches.

They went on interminably but Octavia didn’t listen to them. She was too busy digesting what she’d just been told. Imagine having your life planned out for you, she thought, and not being able to refuse it or do anything about it. I should hate that. It made her see Tommy Meriton in quite a different way. Maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as she’d thought. He certainly had a lot to put up with. And he didn’t complain about it. She admired that in him. He’d been jolly unkind to her, there was no denying that, but maybe he hadn’t meant to. Sitting there beside her he didn’t strike her as someone who would be deliberately unkind. She looked across the table at her father, who gave her one of his lovely smiles, and she smiled back, glad he was allowing her the freedom to choose whatever career she wanted. Then she looked at Tommy again. And he winked at her and pretended to yawn. Oh, why do speeches take such a long time? she thought. There was so much more she wanted to ask him. But she had to sit politely and pretend to listen and then, to her disappointment, as soon as the last speech had been made, the tables were cleared to make way for dancing and the guests stood up and began to mingle and he was gone.

It wasn’t until he came to claim the first waltz, bowing before her and saying, ‘My dance, I think,’ that she got the chance to talk to him again.

‘Haven’t you ever wanted to plan your own life?’ she asked.

‘Waste of time,’ he said lightly. ‘When the pater’s made up his mind to a thing, that’s that. This is a dashed fine party, don’tcher know.’

His face was closing so she knew she had to let him change the subject. They talked theatre again and he told her he’d seen
Arms and the Man
and thought it was dashed good.

After that they danced far more dances than was strictly proper and when they waltzed he held her so closely she was afraid he would feel how stupidly her heart was beating. It’s the champagne, she thought. It probably speeds up the heartbeat. But it was very pleasant just the same, even if she did feel dizzy.

Towards midnight, when more champagne was being served and the dancers had tumbled into sofas and armchairs to rest, he appeared at her side with two flutes filled to the brim and signalled that she was to follow him. By that time, what with the fun of the party and all that good food and so much champagne, she was in the easiest of moods and followed him without demur. They eased past the sprawl of masculine legs and feminine skirts and slipped through the drawn curtains into the darkness of the conservatory.

‘Here’s to the cause, Miss Octavia Smith,’ he said, and he put one of the flutes into her hand and raised the other in salute. ‘May you march to victory.’

‘To the cause,’ she said, and drank, looking up at him across the rim of the glass.