This Cold Country (6 page)

“I should like to draw your head,” James said. “Charcoal—or maybe chalk would do you more justice.”

“I didn't know you were an artist,” Daisy said, regretting her words as soon as they were out of her mouth. “I didn't know you drew” would have sounded less naive. But James didn't seem to notice.

“Before the war I studied at the Slade. When it's over—well, what's the point of thinking about that? Time enough when—” And he raised his wine glass. “Peace.”

“Peace,” Daisy echoed, thinking that “Victory” was the toast she more usually heard, and that “Peace” sounded more thoughtful, more hopeful, less exclusively masculine. “I'd never thought it before, but I haven't made plans for when the war is over. I don't seem to be able to imagine it.”

“Plans will be necessary only if we win,” James said. “Although that's not why I don't make them.”

“I know,” Daisy said. “That's harder still to imagine. Losing.”

“We won't.”

And she believed him.

“One thing's sure,” James said. “Whatever happens, those who survive won't take up where they left off. Everything'll be changed ... forever.”

They were silent for a moment. Daisy thought about what James had said. She was too young to imagine that she would not survive the war. And, unlike James, she was in no danger—less, in fact, than many civilians. The idea that they—she—would emerge into a new, utterly changed peacetime world was an exciting one.

“So—you'll sit for me, when all this is over?”

“Yes,” Daisy said happily.

James got up again, threw another log on the fire, and picked up the tray and put it on a sideboard. He pulled a large book from one of the shelves in the almost unlit part of the library—Daisy thought he must know its place, and that the room must be noticeably colder where he was standing—and came back and sat beside Daisy on the sofa. He set the book on the low table in front of them.

“May I?” he asked. Daisy nodded; she was not sure whether he was asking her permission to sit beside her or to show her the book.

James opened the book. Text and black and white illustrations, the lighter and finer lines suggesting paler or intermediary colors. James turned a few pages and then pointed to a sketch of a seated girl.

“Corot,” he said. “You know, the prolific French nineteenth-century painter—landscapes, small leaves—lovely French countryside light.”

Daisy nodded, not quite honestly. The name was familiar and she hoped that as James continued she would remember a little more. She looked at the reproduction of the sketch.

“Look at the base of the neck and the collarbone.”

Daisy looked at where the collarbone would be and saw it, although it was not drawn; it was, rather, suggested, although she was not sure how.

“I don't know—quite understand—how much is him—I mean actually drawn—and how much is me—my eye—filling in for him.”

“Very good,” James said. He picked up his glass and returned to where he had been sitting before.

“Look at the book, I'll watch you.”

“And answer questions?” Daisy asked, pleased but a little embarrassed.

“Only if you show me your profile. Now.”

Daisy turned obligingly.

“Hold your hair up so I can see your neck.”

Daisy did as he told her, stretching her neck and straightening her spine. She could feel a blush rising, but for once did not feel doubly embarrassed by the evidence of her embarrassment. James's admiration made her feel beautiful. She was grateful, not only that he thought of her as a thing of beauty, but that his admiration was of her as she essentially was, not of an altered and idealized image of womanhood. It reassured her to know the world didn't always work the way Valerie said it did.

Daisy turned the pages. She had seen books as substantial before—in the library at school and the huge, leather-bound Bible with the brass clasp in her father's church—but she had never had one to handle or read for pleasure. The book seemed to be a broad history of drawing and sketching. The beginning sketches were reproductions of a medieval monks' pattern book. Daisy looked at the drawings of birds, animals—both real and fantastical—symbols, and emblems; she was aware of James watching her, but it did not detract either from her concentration or from the pleasure she felt. The drawings touched her in a way she did not quite understand.

“The cats are wonderful,” she said.

“Aren't they? There must have been cats around the monastery or abbey to keep the rats and mice down. And some of the monks were amused by them, and some probably loved them.”

“Sleeping beside the kitchen fires.”

“Exactly.”

Daisy turned over pages; the central pages were often of the Virgin and Child. She was surprised by the different ways artists had seen or imagined babies and small children. Some were drawn as though a child who Daisy herself might have held had sat for the sketch, some seemed to be miniature adults, some had heads strangely disproportionate to their bodies, others seemed a little too fat to represent the Christ child. Passing the original Corot sketch and some striking and slightly unsettling late-nineteenth-century self-portraits, Daisy found herself looking at an erotic drawing. It took her a moment to grasp the significance of the charcoal lines and to see the intertwining reclining bodies. It was the first time she had ever seen anything like it; she put her hand to the corner of the page to turn it, but hesitated, although she was keenly aware of James watching her.

“Schiele,” he said. “That's his self-portrait on the other page. He was a friend of Klimt's—you saw his work a few pages back. They both died in 1918 in the influenza epidemic.”

Daisy silently turned the page.

“What do you think?”

For a moment, Daisy considered replying, “About what?” But she knew the response would be coy, not quite honest. And that James, too, would know it. And surely the whole point—having been given the opportunities of the war—of escape from her father's rectory, an independent life as a Land Girl, her temporary incarnation as a guest at an upper-class house party, was to make the most of those opportunities, to ensure she would not have to return to the limitations of the world she lived in before the war.

“It's not what I—expected,” Daisy said, waiting for James to ask, “What did you expect?” But he merely nodded, and she was grateful.

Daisy continued to turn pages and James watched her silently.

“Undo your blouse,” he said after a moment or two. “Just a couple of buttons, so I can see your collarbone.”

Daisy was excited by his request. Her limited experience with male admirers had, up to now, been the urgent groping and pleas of overheated youths, far too close to home; their awkwardness and their ignorance inspiring neither desire nor affection, their lack of control so clearly putting her in charge. Even so, Daisy sometimes, for a moment, could imagine how it might be with someone she loved. The assuredness of James's voice, the coolness of his request, was erotic. The distance at which he sat necessitated her keeping only her own actions and emotions in check.

She took a deep breath and started to unbutton her blouse, pausing when the top two buttons were open. She drew back the fabric from her neck and turned her head a little to one side.

“Lovely,” James said. He came no closer to her, but his eyes did not move from hers and the slight smile never left his lips. He said nothing, Daisy said nothing, and the silence continued, not uncomfortably, until the door behind her opened and a male voice said, “So there you are.”

Daisy jumped a little and dropped her hands from the neck of her blouse to her lap. She felt a blush rise to her face, and shame at the blush rather than the act that had precipitated it-—which she still considered innocent—made her awkward.

“We thought everyone had gone to bed,” James said easily.

Daisy turned a little; Patrick was now in the room.

“Hello, Daisy,” he said, his tone pleasant, but without a smile. He made for the fire, turned his back to it, and addressed James. “I was in the billiards room. Driven out by lack of opponents and incipient frostbite.”

“Drink?” James asked, again as casually as though moments before Daisy had not held her blouse open for him to admire the way her neck sat on her shoulders.

Patrick poured himself a glass of brandy and with a silent gesture ascertained that James wanted one, too. Neither offered Daisy another drink and after a moment she rose and said good night.

The bedroom seemed even colder than before; she put on a heavier pullover to unpack and hang up her evening dress. In the bathroom, the chill from the uncovered tiles rose through the soles of her bedroom slippers; she washed her face, brushed her teeth, set her hair for the night and postponed washing and further unpacking until morning. The same pullover on top of her nightdress, her feet tucked up and the fabric wrapped closely around them, Daisy curled up in bed and waited to become warm.

She wondered what else James might have said if Patrick had not come into the room. Patrick had seemed older than she remembered him. Older, tired, and grown-up. Perhaps it was just that he had seemed silently to convey disapproval. He had quite a nerve; her behavior had been completely innocent. But how delicately and skillfully James had handled the awkwardness of the moment. Her fingers, tucked between her arms and her breasts, relaxed although her toes were still cold as she fell asleep.

She was warm when she woke. The room was completely dark. Daisy was not disconcerted by the darkness; the blackout was faithfully adhered to at Aberneth Farm, the bombing of the oil tanks fresh in everyone's memory. Nor did she wonder where she was. Daisy woke every morning with a clear sense of where she had gone to sleep and what had happened the day before. She lay still and tried to work out what had awakened her. It was a feeling similar to that she had had after her mother's cat died. The old tortoiseshell had been in the habit of sleeping on Daisy's bed and, for some time after its death, Daisy used to wake up in the night sensing the absence of its inert weight at her feet. Now she was aware of a presence although the room in which she now lay was dark and silent; nothing stirred but somebody or something was close to her. Although James had been charmed by the drawings of the cats that evening, Daisy had seen no signs of a household pet. Without a sense of fear, she considered the possibility of a ghost. But a slight shift of weight at the foot of the bed and a faint smell of whisky suggested the presence was human—and most likely male. The probable maleness of her unseen companion did not add to Daisy's very mild alarm; she had no reason to consider James, or even Patrick, more alarming than a so-far-unmet, night-walking, whisky-drinking female alternative.

“James,” she said tentatively.

“You're awake. I was listening to you sleep.”

“What's the matter?” Daisy sat up.

“I didn't say good night to you properly downstairs.”

And James came closer and took her in his arms. He did not move quickly or aggressively and Daisy allowed him to hold her for a moment while she thought about what she should do. Wryly aware of her famed common sense—she didn't think it the most admirable or romantic attribute for a twenty-year-old girl—she quickly considered the proper reaction to the presence of an attractive young man in her bedroom, sitting on her bed. A slightly drunken young man who was not only her host but her connection to the rest of the household. As a young unmarried woman, a virgin, what was the proper manner in which to deal with this unforeseen complication? Slightly to her surprise, Daisy found that she was also considering her own instinctive feelings, although she was well aware they should have little or no influence on how she now behaved. It seemed she could imagine James making love to her but, if such lovemaking did take place, it would not begin with her relinquishing her virginity in such a casual manner. She felt none of the desire she had experienced earlier, sitting fully clothed, a table between them, in the library. What had then seemed sophisticated and exciting had now become crass and presumptuous. What had then been flattering was now boorish. Before she had been in thrall to James; now she was embarrassed by him.

“James, I don't think you should be here. It's the middle of the night and you shouldn't be in my room.”

James didn't reply. Instead he stroked Daisy's hair.

“How charming. You're wearing a snood.”

That did it, and Daisy pushed him away. Her hair, thanks to one of Valerie's beauty tips, was rolled around a sanitary towel and held in place by a stout hair net.

“Daisy—”

Daisy felt a sudden and deep resentment for all the slightly disgusting procedures to which women were obliged to submit themselves in order to make themselves attractive to men. Daisy filed her fingernails out of earshot of the nearest man, spat guiltily into her mascara box, and rolled her hair up at night secretly and usually uncomfortably. Now it seemed she might be humiliated for choosing a painless alternative to sleeping on lumpy curlers.

James was not deterred by Daisy's rebuff, and his hands on her shoulders were stronger and more urgent.

“No, James, please.” Daisy deliberately raised her voice.

“Shh,” he whispered.

“Please don't!” She spoke a little louder, allowing—contriving—a note of panic in her voice. James let go of her shoulders and rose to his feet.

“Oh, very well. There's no reason to call for help. I'm not going to force myself on you.”

Daisy felt a wish to placate him, but she knew that was what he intended and she remained silent. After a moment she heard him move toward the door, stumbling against some unseen object on the way. Daisy suppressed an impolitic giggle and a moment later saw his silhouette outlined against the dim light of the corridor. Then he closed the door and she was once again in complete darkness.