Pamela has evidently conferred with Roland on the subject of the party I am to hold for Frances, and has decided that on the whole they think they will probably attend. Not that Pamela herself quite sees the point of it, mind! She says - or rather Roland does - that it will turn out be just another in a long line of carefully constructed prevarications.
“It will be just one deferral after another, don’t you see?” is the way Pamela sees it. “Oh, he is nothing if not ingenious with his reasons, I’ll give him that! He’s had years of practice in prevaricating from the pulpit for a start – and what better preparation for an indefinitely prolonged engagement could there possibly be than that? But Roland says – and I’m inclined to agree with him – that when it comes to actually marrying Frances, there’ll always be just one more important thing to be accomplished first.”
These remarks came as something of a shock to me, I have to admit it. It seems to me that Pamela must be nursing a bruised spirit indeed, when she can talk about clergymen prevaricating from the pulpit! There was a time, and not so very far distant at that, when no such anti-clerical aspersion would have passed her lips. Nor do I give any credence to the idea that Roland could have soared to such conversational flights as the ones she attributes to him: it’s very much more likely that Pamela herself has sat down to prepare them for my benefit in advance.
No, I think that what Pamela actually sees in the party is a genuine hat opportunity. A sunny afternoon in a garden after all – and in my garden at that, where no dress code prevails, and there are no unwritten rules. What better opportunity could there possibly be for her to sally forth in her largest and best? And who would I be to deny her the joy of it, after her humiliation at the hands of the Macauleys? She does just wonder if Lady and Miss Macauley will be attending the pre-engagement party though? But on that score I have had to disappoint her; the old lady and Belle having all inconveniently gone away to their place in the country for two weeks.
My own little garden is meanwhile in process of being transformed into something resembling the Vauxhall Gardens – or a stage set for the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Frances’s grandmother’s tables and chairs arrived yesterday; and very pretty indeed in the Edwardian style they look, arranged at intervals all the way down the lawn. An arbour of roses is just about to be constructed, too. Some men arrived with a lorry-load of trellis panels early yesterday – I awoke to hear Bill in altercation with them at the gate. ”Over his dead body”, I heard him bellow, was any such contrivance going up in either of our gardens! And where was their written authority anyway, for delivering trellises at such an ungodly hour?
Going up they are, nonetheless. Frances herself arrived all pink and apologetic hot on the heels of the delivery men, and somehow managed, if not entirely to silence, then at least to mollify Bill’s loud explosion of wrath. The idea had been all her own, she hurriedly explained. She had hoped to be able to warn us before the delivery men arrived; and in her failure to do so hardly knew how to apologise enough! But she had had this little idea, you see - or rather, David had had it: he was so original when it came to matters of this sort… Between them, at any rate, they had come up with the idea of making the garden look like the old Orchard at Grantchester - where David had been so fond of sitting to meditate, in his Cambridge undergraduate days.
She was sure Bill would be glad when he saw how entirely charming it would look when completed. They had had this vision of the garden as a series of extended vistas, culminating in a rose arbour, didn’t he see? So pleasant for people to wander about in, they’d thought - taking their refuge beneath the roses in the arbour when they would. And of course Bill could always have it pulled down afterwards if he wished. Frances would undertake its demolition herself indeed: he would have nothing whatever to worry about on that score.
I could see only too clearly what Bill thought of the idea of David Porteous’s taking it upon himself to recreate the Old Orchard at Grantchester in my garden. Further even than that, I could see that the unpleasant suspicion must have arisen in his mind that he and David Porteous had probably been undergraduates at Cambridge at roughly the same time – so that he might actually be expected to sit down and engage in reminiscence with the man! But Bill’s rages tend to be short-lived, and in any case he has never been able to refuse Frances anything. She asks for so very little after all; and so he finally gave way gracefully enough. He only turned to mutter, as he went off to collect Monty for his walk, that we could what we would with the garden (I noted that I had become complicit in its transformation now.) We could erect a full-blown fantastic Victorian conservatory plumb in the middle of it if that was what we wished. Just so long as we didn’t ask him to stand round to watch it going up!
I went off with Frances to the manor house after that; she wanted me to see all the 'little improvements’ that David has instituted there. David himself was absent at the time; having gone up to London to visit his elder daughter Julia, who has moved into what her father considers a thoroughly unsuitable flat. “She’s a rather wayward girl apparently” Frances explained as we went. “Inclined to be confrontational you know. So different from gentle Anne, who has never given him a moment’s trouble in her life. But poor David finds Julia quite a trial. And the flat, you know – above a shop in Baker Street; what could possibly be noisier, or more impractical than that?”
I rejoiced, I confess it, at the idea that there was a confrontational daughter who would now and then stand up to Mr Porteous; there seemed a kind of justice in the idea that he had produced a sprig quite as high-handed as himself. But my joy was short-lived; it quite evaporated indeed, when I saw the range and scale of Mr Porteous’s ‘little improvements’ at the manor house. It had possessed an endearing shabbiness before, but it shone now with the kind of magnificence that suggested many expert hands had been at work. “How has all this been achieved in so short a space of time?” I wondered aloud. And was not surprised when Frances told me that they had more or less dispensed with the services of Mrs Meade; who had not been dismissed, so much as gently pensioned off…
“We have a team who come in once a week now” Frances explained. “They undertake everything, French polishing and all – and of course it’s so much pleasanter for David, not having to encounter Mrs Meade in corridors, when he’s coming from the bathroom and that sort of thing..”
I wondered where Mrs Meade had actually gone; and was reassured to hear that she had not quite been cast alone into a hostile world, but set up with a nice little flat in Brighton, and what Frances described as “quite enough to live on, for the rest of her life.” The transformation seems to be complete therefore; and Mr Porteous has established himself on a footing at the manor house that can’t conceivably be undone.
The real surprise came for me right at the end of the visit however, when Frances remarked that of course she quite saw why everyone thought she had acted rather precipitately in all this.
“They think it won’t last, I know that.” she all unaccountably confided. “ But after all I don’t see why not. It’s not as if I expected his undying passion, you know. I think we’re both too old for that. But so long as he’s happy to stay with me - well it will be enough.”
I can’t quite explain why it was that I drew comfort from this little chance remark. There was sadness in it, as well as resignation. But there was a kind of wisdom too, that I hadn’t looked for in Frances. She seemed to have accepted her lot, yet kept her girlish dream intact. And one thing I knew for certain, that whatever else Mr Porteous might or might not be, for Frances he was neither quite Sir Lancelot nor the King.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Sunday, 3 June 2007
To hear a nightingale
I was wakened at first light yesterday by a bird call of such piercing sweetness – such a joyful crescendo of rising and falling notes - that I rose at once and rushed out into the garden to see what bird it was that made it. It came from high in the banches of a tall conifer where squirrels nest, so I thought it must be a large bird indeed that would dare to linger there. Its song was loud too – louder by far, than any average garden bird could make. I stood perfectly still to hear it as on it sang, a full five minutes of matchless sound. Before a pair of magpies landed with a squawk nearby, and drove it off.
And did I catch a glimpse of it before it flew away? No I did not. Since even with my glasses on, I’m unable to identify disappearing birds at such a distance. And could it have been a nightingale? I like to think it could, though I’ve never heard one, and can’t say for sure. Nightingales sound rather like blackbirds, people say: the difference is, they sing at night, when other birds are silent. This nameless bird of mine was like no blackbird I have ever heard though, nor any thrush. So I have told myself it must have been a nightingale - having long dreamt that I might hear one before I die.
I’m feeling the need for a little solitude just at present. And had been enjoying several days of it, until Frances came yesterday with her rather extraordinary request. Before that, Bill and I had been staying quietly at home, unwilling for the moment to be involved in neighbourhood activities. Flawless summer days have returned, and we have been spending them in our gardens; finding respite there perhaps, from Rose’s conversations, and Lady Macauley’s secrets - and the nagging little anxieties about Frances herself. Our two little gardens are long and narrow; each more or less a replica of the other, and straggling, low-hedged, for fifty yards or so on either side of the little public path.
Bill’s has been given over mostly to his vegetable plot, where everything flourishes so admirably now that he has lately been able to turn his attention to mine. Here, there are neglected borders to be cleared and re-planted; and the remains of an ancient pergola have given Bill the idea of constructing a flowering, fragrant walk. It was there, beneath the half-constructed pergola, that Frances came upon us unexpectedly at three o'clock yesterday. Bill was tying rustic poles together with willow for the framework, and I struggling with the tangled lengths of rose and jasmine that are to climb its poles and make a flowering canopy above.
“How very industrious you look!” Frances gaily cried. But her demeanour somehow belied her words. There was very little of gaiety about her; she looked vaguely troubled, if anything, and this despite the fact that her hair was arranged in a new and rather becoming way, and that she wore a crisp linen dress and a neat little pair of matching shoes. Frances’s shoes had tended to be rather boatlike in the past, making a kind of flapping sound when she walked. I remembered it now as a friendly sound, and wished that it hadn't gone away.
She seemed happy to linger a while with us in the garden, admiring our efforts. She thought the pergola an enchanting idea - and would have Mr Jessop look out for sturdy climbers of theirs that would assist us in our enterprise. She had clearly come here with a definite idea of some sort however; she fairly seemed to quiver with it, and so I soon found reason to suggest she come up with me to the house, while I prepared a jug of iced lemonade for us all.
What she wants of us is on the face of it perfectly simple and straightforward – yet it took the breath from me momentarily just the same. She wants us to ask David and her to come to tea here one afternoon, in company with half a dozen other invited guests. She thinks it important they should be seen together in public as a couple at last: it would 'seem to put the formal seal of approval on their union’, didn’t I see? And she can think of no happier way of accomplishing it than through the sort of little informal party that might seem to have happened just by chance. She had thought that my nice little sitting room would provide the perfect backdrop – but now that she had seen Bill’s pergola, she wondered if tea beneath the roses wouldn’t perhaps be better still?
She wouldn’t think of imposing on me to provide anything of course – she would have Mrs Meade make sandwiches and cakes. She had a number of small chairs and tables stored in one of her outhouses, besides; they were remnants from the days when her grandmother had used to hold little musical soirees in the garden, and were rather pretty, in the Edwardian style. She would have Mr Jessop fetch them out of storage; he would spruce them up, as she put it, and see that they were delivered here in plenty of time.
It occurred to me that it had evidently been planned ahead in perfect detail, this apparently spontaneous little party of theirs. I saw the mind and hand of David Porteous at work here; and was angered by it, feeling an almost irresistible impulse to protest. I didn't protest of course. Though I did go so far as to suggest that her own garden (for the life of me I couldn’t also call it his!) might provide a more fitting backdrop for the occasion? But this she waved aside in a manner which was, for her, almost peremptory. That was just it, didn’t I see? They might entertain in their own garden every day of the week - they would certainly do so, would hold a great party, when the moment to announce their engagement finally came. But until somebody else had done it for them first, they wouldn’t be seen formally as an acknowledged couple, nor be able to feel that they had been accepted, and 'arrived'.
There seemed to me a deal of sophistry in this view of the situation, and I knew for sure that Frances hadn’t reasoned it out for herself. I wished that Bill had been with us – I had a feeling that he would have known how to parry and deflect. But in presence of Frances alone – of Frances standing there in mute appeal before me; not quite meeting my eyes, but with every ounce of her rather grotesquely duped good faith somehow shining in her own – I confess that I took the line of least resistance. I said that of course I would arrange her little party for her – it was only a question of our deciding between us when, and with whom, and how.
So there it is. I am to arrange a carefully choreographed yet apparently extemporaneous little party – and set the seal of approval upon a union I more and more dislike. Bill exploded later when I told him about it. He’ll be damned if he’ll be there himself, he said! Though I know that when the moment comes, he will.
I heard my unknown bird singing again in the conifer this morning. But there was a note of sadness in its song this time – and I no longer believe it is a nightingale
And did I catch a glimpse of it before it flew away? No I did not. Since even with my glasses on, I’m unable to identify disappearing birds at such a distance. And could it have been a nightingale? I like to think it could, though I’ve never heard one, and can’t say for sure. Nightingales sound rather like blackbirds, people say: the difference is, they sing at night, when other birds are silent. This nameless bird of mine was like no blackbird I have ever heard though, nor any thrush. So I have told myself it must have been a nightingale - having long dreamt that I might hear one before I die.
I’m feeling the need for a little solitude just at present. And had been enjoying several days of it, until Frances came yesterday with her rather extraordinary request. Before that, Bill and I had been staying quietly at home, unwilling for the moment to be involved in neighbourhood activities. Flawless summer days have returned, and we have been spending them in our gardens; finding respite there perhaps, from Rose’s conversations, and Lady Macauley’s secrets - and the nagging little anxieties about Frances herself. Our two little gardens are long and narrow; each more or less a replica of the other, and straggling, low-hedged, for fifty yards or so on either side of the little public path.
Bill’s has been given over mostly to his vegetable plot, where everything flourishes so admirably now that he has lately been able to turn his attention to mine. Here, there are neglected borders to be cleared and re-planted; and the remains of an ancient pergola have given Bill the idea of constructing a flowering, fragrant walk. It was there, beneath the half-constructed pergola, that Frances came upon us unexpectedly at three o'clock yesterday. Bill was tying rustic poles together with willow for the framework, and I struggling with the tangled lengths of rose and jasmine that are to climb its poles and make a flowering canopy above.
“How very industrious you look!” Frances gaily cried. But her demeanour somehow belied her words. There was very little of gaiety about her; she looked vaguely troubled, if anything, and this despite the fact that her hair was arranged in a new and rather becoming way, and that she wore a crisp linen dress and a neat little pair of matching shoes. Frances’s shoes had tended to be rather boatlike in the past, making a kind of flapping sound when she walked. I remembered it now as a friendly sound, and wished that it hadn't gone away.
She seemed happy to linger a while with us in the garden, admiring our efforts. She thought the pergola an enchanting idea - and would have Mr Jessop look out for sturdy climbers of theirs that would assist us in our enterprise. She had clearly come here with a definite idea of some sort however; she fairly seemed to quiver with it, and so I soon found reason to suggest she come up with me to the house, while I prepared a jug of iced lemonade for us all.
What she wants of us is on the face of it perfectly simple and straightforward – yet it took the breath from me momentarily just the same. She wants us to ask David and her to come to tea here one afternoon, in company with half a dozen other invited guests. She thinks it important they should be seen together in public as a couple at last: it would 'seem to put the formal seal of approval on their union’, didn’t I see? And she can think of no happier way of accomplishing it than through the sort of little informal party that might seem to have happened just by chance. She had thought that my nice little sitting room would provide the perfect backdrop – but now that she had seen Bill’s pergola, she wondered if tea beneath the roses wouldn’t perhaps be better still?
She wouldn’t think of imposing on me to provide anything of course – she would have Mrs Meade make sandwiches and cakes. She had a number of small chairs and tables stored in one of her outhouses, besides; they were remnants from the days when her grandmother had used to hold little musical soirees in the garden, and were rather pretty, in the Edwardian style. She would have Mr Jessop fetch them out of storage; he would spruce them up, as she put it, and see that they were delivered here in plenty of time.
It occurred to me that it had evidently been planned ahead in perfect detail, this apparently spontaneous little party of theirs. I saw the mind and hand of David Porteous at work here; and was angered by it, feeling an almost irresistible impulse to protest. I didn't protest of course. Though I did go so far as to suggest that her own garden (for the life of me I couldn’t also call it his!) might provide a more fitting backdrop for the occasion? But this she waved aside in a manner which was, for her, almost peremptory. That was just it, didn’t I see? They might entertain in their own garden every day of the week - they would certainly do so, would hold a great party, when the moment to announce their engagement finally came. But until somebody else had done it for them first, they wouldn’t be seen formally as an acknowledged couple, nor be able to feel that they had been accepted, and 'arrived'.
There seemed to me a deal of sophistry in this view of the situation, and I knew for sure that Frances hadn’t reasoned it out for herself. I wished that Bill had been with us – I had a feeling that he would have known how to parry and deflect. But in presence of Frances alone – of Frances standing there in mute appeal before me; not quite meeting my eyes, but with every ounce of her rather grotesquely duped good faith somehow shining in her own – I confess that I took the line of least resistance. I said that of course I would arrange her little party for her – it was only a question of our deciding between us when, and with whom, and how.
So there it is. I am to arrange a carefully choreographed yet apparently extemporaneous little party – and set the seal of approval upon a union I more and more dislike. Bill exploded later when I told him about it. He’ll be damned if he’ll be there himself, he said! Though I know that when the moment comes, he will.
I heard my unknown bird singing again in the conifer this morning. But there was a note of sadness in its song this time – and I no longer believe it is a nightingale
Friday, 1 June 2007
A little tale of long ago
Rose Mountjoy called here yesterday; teetering up the garden path on her three-inch heels, perfectly dressed, and coiffed, and made-up as usual. I was reminded of something I’d heard Lady Macauley say about her: that it remains one of life’s mysteries to Belle and her, that feat of transformation by which Rose manages to make sixty look like forty every morning, from the application of something she gets out of jars and bottles. Privately, Lady Macauley is glad there’s no longer a husband in the case - since she fears it must involve some rather startling disclosures at bedtime.
I had time to think of this while I waited for Rose; she having first spotted Bill at work in his vegetable garden, and called blithely across to him to come and join us for coffee in the kitchen. She is a woman quite without any of the ordinary scruples in life, and can make these large assumptions. She was quite oblivious of the look of pure dislike Bill cast in her direction; and nor did it seem to have occurred to her that I might not have wished to be broken in upon unannounced, at ten o’clock in the morning. She wanted to mull the party over with me; which was sufficient grounds for her. So that, having been rather brusquely dismissed by Bill, she simply teetered on up the path to me anyway, settling herself on her favourite kitchen stool, as if for the duration.
Not that she didn’t finally make it worth my while to give up my morning to her, mind you. She has a breezy style of conversation, and is in possession of all the facts. She told me that Pamela is nursing a wounded spirit, having felt herself and Roland rather snubbed at Lady Macauley’s party. Roland doesn’t think they ought to accept, the next time an invitation comes, apparently. “Which is quite a joke of course” Rose observed. “ since they were only ever invited at all at my special invocation, and it’s a feat I’m unlikely to be able to accomplish a second time.” She also told me why it was that Frances and Mr Porteous had not attended the party. “We don’t go everywhere we are invited” was what Frances had said, in answer to Rose’s direct question on the subject. Rose had thought it just a little stiff, for Frances. “She speaks with his voice now, you’ll note” she observed. “She expresses his very sentiments.” It’s Rose’s idea that the invitation had in fact arrived rather late, affronting Mr Porteous’s ideas about what is due to Frances as lady of the manor. “Not to mention those that he thinks are due to himself!” she added; “In whatever capacity it is he now sees himself in occupancy there!”
All this was sufficiently indiscreet - and just sufficiently interesting - to make me feel my morning was not being entirely ill-spent. Though I did experience a certain culpability, in consenting to discuss Frances like that, with Rose. And I was glad Bill was not there to hear it, since I feared he might have felt impelled to pull us both up rather short. I’m not sure how we made the transition from Frances to the Macauleys. But make it we somehow did, and swiftly; so that I was suddenly hearing a rather remarkable little story about the early Jack Macauley, and my attention was engaged at once.
“You know of course that Theodora wasn’t Jack Macauley’s first or greatest love, don’t you….?” was the way that Rose embarked on her story. I hadn't known, but was eager to do so; and what followed was a little tale of such piquancy – such poignancy almost – that I can do no better than try to reproduce it here word for word, just as she told it to me…
“ Oh no, his great love had come much earlier, when he was only a boy. He was a poor boy, a miner’s son – that much all the world knows, so it’s nothing new. But what the world doesn’t generally know is the little love story that probably kicked-off his rise to riches. His father was incapacitated in the mines when Jack was only twelve, you see; and he, as the eldest of six, was obliged to leave school and find work that would support the family. His mother resisted the idea of his going down the mines himself, so he was apprenticed to the local grocer instead. He started as errand boy, in which capacity he had to make up the baskets for delivery each morning, and then cycle about the village on a large bicycle with an oversized basket in front, to dispatch them in the afternoons. He had never owned a bicycle before, so there was a certain glamour about it at first – though he soon came to hate it, for the foolish figure it seemed to make of him..."
"One of his regular deliveries was to the rectory, a big house on the outskirts of the village, where lived the local rector and his wife and daughter. The rector himself was of the old school, and rather grand - quite the Trollopian sort, I believe. But he’d married beneath himself; carried away in a moment of madness, or so the story goes, by the golden ringlets and winning smiles of the prettiest and silliest of little local girls. Little Miss Ringlets carried him off, and in no time acquired all the airs and graces she thought befitted a rector’s wife. So that by the time it came Jack Macauley’s lot to fall in her way, she was quite the finest, proudest, most condescending woman in the village.”
“Nothing that Jack Macauley brought in his basket was ever good enough for the discerning Mrs Rector. She would make him stand holding his bicycle while she peered into boxes and examined eggs and carrots - and as often as not her young daughter peered and examined right along with her, quite as impossible to please as she. The girl’s own look told Jack clearly enough what she thought of him – that he was a great gallumphing ungainly fellow, and probably smelt bad, to boot. She would draw her little skirts about her to avoid contact with him if he came too near. And when she was not busying herself with finding fault with his groceries, she would cast scornful glances at his out-at-the-elbow jacket, and big, scuffed, horribly over-sized boots..."
"The little girl’s name was Milly - though I’ve always somehow seen her as Estella from Great Expectations … it seems she had just that same proud disdainful air … But she also had her mother’s enchantingly light blue eyes, and a head of shining ringlets tied with ribbons; she wore the crispest, prettiest little dresses, and a pair of tiny lace-up boots. And big, shambling, tongue-tied Jack Macauley was smitten from the first moment, worshipping her from afar...”
“He would lie awake at nights, trying to think of ways in which he might appear more manly in Milly’s eyes. He would have a haircut, acquire a better pair of boots….. But somehow there was never money enough left over, and so he must shamble on, ill-shod and despised. This state of affairs lasted for about a year – after which a new errand boy was taken on, and Jack Macauley progressed to slicing bacon, and serving behind the counter of the shop. He seldom saw Milly after that, though he always looked for her, and hoped that one day she would come into the shop … "
"It was an infatuation that was never to leave him. And there are those who say that his later success was founded entirely on that. It can certainly have been no accident that the first articles of his manufacture were boots and shoes – and that only later did he move into the world of department stores. He was always hoping that Milly and her mother might come into one of his stores one day, and find something there that was good enough for them at last…”
Rose had got up from her stool at this point, to pour herself another cup of coffee. But she quickly climbed up again to resume her tale; and I was not disposed to do anything to stop her.
“It sounds an improbable story perhaps – and yet I’ve never thought it so myself. A man could construct an empire on something rather less than the want of a pair of shiny boots, it seems to me – though whether Milly or her mother ever did walk into one of his stores to be impressed, remains unknown. And Jack Macauley himself moved on at speed after that of course. His stores covered five counties in the end - there must have come a day when he thought himself good enough even for proud Milly and her mother!"
"But by then it was too late. Milly had grown up and married, and gone away. Jack Macauley himself was married too, soon after that - to his childhood sweetheart from the same village. But he carried the image of Milly all his life. He was always more or less looking for her – and when, more than thirty years later, a man of vast fortune and considerable substance by then, he caught sight of the young Theodora in somebody’s drawing room one night, it was not her face, but that of his lost, remembered Milly that he saw. That was why he pursued her so, you see. She had the very look, the very eyes, of Milly. So that in the face of no matter what obstacles, he must have her. He was a big enough man to do it now – and he wasn’t going to let fate cheat him of his prize a second time…”
So absorbed had I become in Rose’s story that it came as a jolt to me, when suddenly she broke off from it, turning to me with her own, everyday, rather superior smile. There was just one more thing I had to know though, before I could let her move on to other things.
“Does Lady Macauley herself know all this?” I asked her - conscious as I did so that I had been moved beyond the realms of ordinary speech by her story, and probably sounded all agog and foolish.
Rose though, was well enough acquainted with it all to be able to be quite blase about it by now. “Oh yes, she knows it well enough!” she said. “It has haunted her every day of her married life, and since. She was never able to be absolutely sure you see, whether it was herself or Milly that he loved. A man with a dream is an uncomfortable sort to live with though – and it’s my belief that Theodora never quite knew, even at the moment of his death, if Jack had quite relinquished his.”
There were a great many other questions I would have liked to put to Rose about this rather extraordinary story. But she was suddenly bored with it; had looked at her watch and cried “Heavens where has the morning gone? I ought to have been at Pamela’s half an hour ago!” - had collected her bag, and left.
All this took place yesterday, but I’m still very much pre-occupied with it. I’m not sure that I’m altogether happy to have been acquainted with Lady Macauley’s most intimate secrets. I think she would deeply dislike the idea herself - and it will certainly affect my response to her when next we meet. Rose’s indiscretions know no bounds, it seems to me: I was glad to hear her story, but all the same, she ought to have kept it to herself!
Yet now that I know it, what in the world am I to do with it? And how, come to that, am I to explain it all to Bill?
I had time to think of this while I waited for Rose; she having first spotted Bill at work in his vegetable garden, and called blithely across to him to come and join us for coffee in the kitchen. She is a woman quite without any of the ordinary scruples in life, and can make these large assumptions. She was quite oblivious of the look of pure dislike Bill cast in her direction; and nor did it seem to have occurred to her that I might not have wished to be broken in upon unannounced, at ten o’clock in the morning. She wanted to mull the party over with me; which was sufficient grounds for her. So that, having been rather brusquely dismissed by Bill, she simply teetered on up the path to me anyway, settling herself on her favourite kitchen stool, as if for the duration.
Not that she didn’t finally make it worth my while to give up my morning to her, mind you. She has a breezy style of conversation, and is in possession of all the facts. She told me that Pamela is nursing a wounded spirit, having felt herself and Roland rather snubbed at Lady Macauley’s party. Roland doesn’t think they ought to accept, the next time an invitation comes, apparently. “Which is quite a joke of course” Rose observed. “ since they were only ever invited at all at my special invocation, and it’s a feat I’m unlikely to be able to accomplish a second time.” She also told me why it was that Frances and Mr Porteous had not attended the party. “We don’t go everywhere we are invited” was what Frances had said, in answer to Rose’s direct question on the subject. Rose had thought it just a little stiff, for Frances. “She speaks with his voice now, you’ll note” she observed. “She expresses his very sentiments.” It’s Rose’s idea that the invitation had in fact arrived rather late, affronting Mr Porteous’s ideas about what is due to Frances as lady of the manor. “Not to mention those that he thinks are due to himself!” she added; “In whatever capacity it is he now sees himself in occupancy there!”
All this was sufficiently indiscreet - and just sufficiently interesting - to make me feel my morning was not being entirely ill-spent. Though I did experience a certain culpability, in consenting to discuss Frances like that, with Rose. And I was glad Bill was not there to hear it, since I feared he might have felt impelled to pull us both up rather short. I’m not sure how we made the transition from Frances to the Macauleys. But make it we somehow did, and swiftly; so that I was suddenly hearing a rather remarkable little story about the early Jack Macauley, and my attention was engaged at once.
“You know of course that Theodora wasn’t Jack Macauley’s first or greatest love, don’t you….?” was the way that Rose embarked on her story. I hadn't known, but was eager to do so; and what followed was a little tale of such piquancy – such poignancy almost – that I can do no better than try to reproduce it here word for word, just as she told it to me…
“ Oh no, his great love had come much earlier, when he was only a boy. He was a poor boy, a miner’s son – that much all the world knows, so it’s nothing new. But what the world doesn’t generally know is the little love story that probably kicked-off his rise to riches. His father was incapacitated in the mines when Jack was only twelve, you see; and he, as the eldest of six, was obliged to leave school and find work that would support the family. His mother resisted the idea of his going down the mines himself, so he was apprenticed to the local grocer instead. He started as errand boy, in which capacity he had to make up the baskets for delivery each morning, and then cycle about the village on a large bicycle with an oversized basket in front, to dispatch them in the afternoons. He had never owned a bicycle before, so there was a certain glamour about it at first – though he soon came to hate it, for the foolish figure it seemed to make of him..."
"One of his regular deliveries was to the rectory, a big house on the outskirts of the village, where lived the local rector and his wife and daughter. The rector himself was of the old school, and rather grand - quite the Trollopian sort, I believe. But he’d married beneath himself; carried away in a moment of madness, or so the story goes, by the golden ringlets and winning smiles of the prettiest and silliest of little local girls. Little Miss Ringlets carried him off, and in no time acquired all the airs and graces she thought befitted a rector’s wife. So that by the time it came Jack Macauley’s lot to fall in her way, she was quite the finest, proudest, most condescending woman in the village.”
“Nothing that Jack Macauley brought in his basket was ever good enough for the discerning Mrs Rector. She would make him stand holding his bicycle while she peered into boxes and examined eggs and carrots - and as often as not her young daughter peered and examined right along with her, quite as impossible to please as she. The girl’s own look told Jack clearly enough what she thought of him – that he was a great gallumphing ungainly fellow, and probably smelt bad, to boot. She would draw her little skirts about her to avoid contact with him if he came too near. And when she was not busying herself with finding fault with his groceries, she would cast scornful glances at his out-at-the-elbow jacket, and big, scuffed, horribly over-sized boots..."
"The little girl’s name was Milly - though I’ve always somehow seen her as Estella from Great Expectations … it seems she had just that same proud disdainful air … But she also had her mother’s enchantingly light blue eyes, and a head of shining ringlets tied with ribbons; she wore the crispest, prettiest little dresses, and a pair of tiny lace-up boots. And big, shambling, tongue-tied Jack Macauley was smitten from the first moment, worshipping her from afar...”
“He would lie awake at nights, trying to think of ways in which he might appear more manly in Milly’s eyes. He would have a haircut, acquire a better pair of boots….. But somehow there was never money enough left over, and so he must shamble on, ill-shod and despised. This state of affairs lasted for about a year – after which a new errand boy was taken on, and Jack Macauley progressed to slicing bacon, and serving behind the counter of the shop. He seldom saw Milly after that, though he always looked for her, and hoped that one day she would come into the shop … "
"It was an infatuation that was never to leave him. And there are those who say that his later success was founded entirely on that. It can certainly have been no accident that the first articles of his manufacture were boots and shoes – and that only later did he move into the world of department stores. He was always hoping that Milly and her mother might come into one of his stores one day, and find something there that was good enough for them at last…”
Rose had got up from her stool at this point, to pour herself another cup of coffee. But she quickly climbed up again to resume her tale; and I was not disposed to do anything to stop her.
“It sounds an improbable story perhaps – and yet I’ve never thought it so myself. A man could construct an empire on something rather less than the want of a pair of shiny boots, it seems to me – though whether Milly or her mother ever did walk into one of his stores to be impressed, remains unknown. And Jack Macauley himself moved on at speed after that of course. His stores covered five counties in the end - there must have come a day when he thought himself good enough even for proud Milly and her mother!"
"But by then it was too late. Milly had grown up and married, and gone away. Jack Macauley himself was married too, soon after that - to his childhood sweetheart from the same village. But he carried the image of Milly all his life. He was always more or less looking for her – and when, more than thirty years later, a man of vast fortune and considerable substance by then, he caught sight of the young Theodora in somebody’s drawing room one night, it was not her face, but that of his lost, remembered Milly that he saw. That was why he pursued her so, you see. She had the very look, the very eyes, of Milly. So that in the face of no matter what obstacles, he must have her. He was a big enough man to do it now – and he wasn’t going to let fate cheat him of his prize a second time…”
So absorbed had I become in Rose’s story that it came as a jolt to me, when suddenly she broke off from it, turning to me with her own, everyday, rather superior smile. There was just one more thing I had to know though, before I could let her move on to other things.
“Does Lady Macauley herself know all this?” I asked her - conscious as I did so that I had been moved beyond the realms of ordinary speech by her story, and probably sounded all agog and foolish.
Rose though, was well enough acquainted with it all to be able to be quite blase about it by now. “Oh yes, she knows it well enough!” she said. “It has haunted her every day of her married life, and since. She was never able to be absolutely sure you see, whether it was herself or Milly that he loved. A man with a dream is an uncomfortable sort to live with though – and it’s my belief that Theodora never quite knew, even at the moment of his death, if Jack had quite relinquished his.”
There were a great many other questions I would have liked to put to Rose about this rather extraordinary story. But she was suddenly bored with it; had looked at her watch and cried “Heavens where has the morning gone? I ought to have been at Pamela’s half an hour ago!” - had collected her bag, and left.
All this took place yesterday, but I’m still very much pre-occupied with it. I’m not sure that I’m altogether happy to have been acquainted with Lady Macauley’s most intimate secrets. I think she would deeply dislike the idea herself - and it will certainly affect my response to her when next we meet. Rose’s indiscretions know no bounds, it seems to me: I was glad to hear her story, but all the same, she ought to have kept it to herself!
Yet now that I know it, what in the world am I to do with it? And how, come to that, am I to explain it all to Bill?
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
It rained tremendously on Lady Macauley's parade
Not even Lady Macauley can command the British bank holiday weather, it seems. But, having failed to still the wind and stop the ceaseless deluge, she turned right round anyway, and commanded her team of caterers and marquee-erectors to perform internal sleights of hand by way of recompense. Into the gloom of the Macauley house came two hundred twinkling candles therefore; came boxloads of fragrant roses, and a host of lilies, five feet tall, to stand on gilded pedestals in every corner. Twenty white-clothed tables and eighty matching chairs arrived; and a small army of smartly uniformed staff to mount guard over them. Garlands of white and yellow roses lit the ancient entrance cloister; spilling over into the hall, where stood Lady Macauley herself, who had been meant to shimmer in the garden in sea-green silk beneath a matching parasol, but had made splendid shift with softest ivory merino, instead.
The sky was dark indeed for all that, when guests began arriving at one o’clock. The heavens opened with a downpour on the hour, so that there was a great deal of scraping of feet and shedding of unceremonious mackintoshes to be got through, before the out-stretched hand of Lady Macauley could be reached. Standing beside her beneath the arch of roses throughout all the little ceremony of greeting stood my own Bill, wearing his broadest smile. So that nobody, admiring him, could have guessed at the string of oaths I’d had to hear an hour earlier, whilst harrying him into his smartest suit. Lady Macauley had asked him to arrive early for that specific purpose. She needed the arm of a big man with a hearty laugh to lean upon if she was to get through it all alive, she said; and he was the nearest equivalent it had been her good fortune to discover, since the day that Jack had left her twenty five years before.
I meanwhile had been left to arrive alone, fifteen minutes later. And I experienced a moment of panic at the door, which had very little to do with the shabby raincoat I wore – or even with the fact that I, too, had been obliged to abandon the little silk tea dress, lately and with stress acquired, in favour of something altogether more unfestive, in well-worn navy-blue wool. I felt seriously under-dressed, it’s true – but then I always do. The source of my anxiety though, lay elsewhere. I was examining Lady Macauley’s head for signs of adornment - having earlier been quite severe with Mrs Baines who, ever optimistic on the hat front, had been out the week before and bought what I can only call a perfect stonker; and who, when I’d ventured to discourage her from that, had wondered if 'a little arrangement of flowers and fernery – like the Queen wore, at Prince Edward’s wedding' might more elegantly fit the bill?
This had seemed to me, if anything, even worse. But I stood my ground and told her that I didn’t believe Lady Macauley went in for flowery arrangements on the head; and that what might have served for an afternoon wedding in Windsor Castle was probably unsuited to lunch in the garden, even at such a fine affair as this. Better, I told her, to err on the side of understatement, and go hatless, as I meant to do myself. I was not absolutely sure of my ground however; and it was not until I actually reached the door, and could confirm that Lady Macauley’s head was free from either flowers or fernery (bore only a gleaming pearl or two), that I was able to feel my caution had been justified, and Pamela could arrive at this, her first Macauley state occasion, without causing any kind of sartorial stir.
Poor Pamela was to find that she created very little stir of any kind in that company, sad to say. Large as she is, and stately; irreproachably chiffoned and with Roland always at her side, she still managed more or less to vanish in the crowd in the first moment, and was not seen again (by me at least), until four o’clock when, having found a liveried minion to collect her rain-cloak, and with Roland firmly gathered, made the stateliest kind of exit that she could. I’m not sure that her first venture into elevated circles can have been entirely to her liking; she looked seriously discountenanced when she left. And I fully expect a phone call from her tomorrow, in which she will tell me that she was rather disappointed with Lady Macauley’s arrangements; that almost everybody there was eighty five at least, that the house was cold and unwelcoming for all the candles, and that Roland’s sorrel soup, when finally he’d got it, was if anything colder still.
Pamela’s discomfort aside, it was a splendid occasion. We stood a while for drinks and canapes in the hall, serenaded by a group of musicians installed in the open gallery above, who made none but the sweetest, softest sounds. So that Lady Macauley, firmly attached to a beaming Bill, could circulate just as softly and sweetly, staying no more than a moment or two with each group, but smiling charmingly to every one; before the moment came at which a gong was sounded in some deep recess, and we must all ascend the rose-strewn staircase to the long gallery, where the twenty tables and eighty chairs had been arranged.
Lunch itself was a formal affair of several courses – and I have to say that my own sorrel soup was exquisite, and of a temperature perfectly judged. Not that Pamela hadn’t got a point, mind you, when she said that everyone there was eighty five at least. My own table companions were an elderly diplomat and his wife; he hard of hearing, so that I was required to lean towards him a good deal over my soup; and she, impressive in moth-balled velvet, of a turn of conversation I could only think to describe as statuesque, like herself. There was a fourth person at our table, a solitary lady whose name I didn’t catch; who wore a kind of jewelled bandana on her head, and whose conversation - save that she turned to me at one moment and observed that the band played very sweetly, did it not? - consisted largely of inaudible murmurs about ‘dear Sir Jack and the good old days’. To the end of my life, I daresay, I shall never discover precisely who that lady was, or from whence she sprang.
Lunch over, we were somehow gathered into several smaller groups, to circulate about the other rooms. I lost my diplomat and his velvet lady at this point – and the other, the one with the bandana, had somehow evaporated, never to be seen again. Belle Macauley it was, with Rose, and another nameless elderly couple, who gave us the tour of what she said were largely still the rooms of state, into which she and her mother seldom cared to venture these days. “We live almost entirely downstairs now” Belle explained. “It wasn’t like this in my father’s day of course. Then, the old bedsteads and the old pictures were stowed away in basements - Daddy couldn't abide the bosomy duchesses for a start! And every room was furnished for comfort and everyday living. But somehow, the old things have managed to creep back... Mummy had some sort of idea that we might open these rooms to the public at some point. Though she can’t bear the thought of it now, and says we might as well leave them to the ghosts.”
It seemed to me a melancholy account to give, and I wondered, again, how it was they could manage to eke out their existence in this echoing place - taking shelter, it was true, largely in ground-floor rooms and sunny basements; but with all the canopied bedsteads, all the spectral cabinets and glowering, painted duchesses, looming above them nevertheless. I was glad when at last another gong sounded, and we were summoned to the gallery again, for coffee and liqueurs. Here, brightness returned with the flickering candles, and even Jack Macauley's bosomy duchesses were subdued. And here too, after a suitable interval, and intensely to my astonishment, Bill rose to his full height from his position on the right-hand of Lady Macauley, to make a gracious, and only moderately humorous little speech of appreciation for the occasion.
After which Lady Macauley herself rose, to bid a final farewell, and leaning heavily upon Bill, was conducted away to her own apartments to rest. The party began to disperse then. Slowly, in groups of two or three, the band still playing, and with a good deal of subdued chatter at the door whilst coats were collected, everyone began to drift away. Until there were only Belle, and Rose Mountjoy and I left , standing beneath the dripping roses in the cloister to wave.
I took my own leave soon after that. Without Bill, who had been detained somewhere in impenetrable regions with the old lady (I do believe he’s halfway in love with her already, for all her advanced years!). It was only when I was home again in the gatehouse, that it occurred to me that Frances and Mr Porteous had not been present at the occasion. I was sure they had been invited, and I wondered why it was they had declined to attend …
The sky was dark indeed for all that, when guests began arriving at one o’clock. The heavens opened with a downpour on the hour, so that there was a great deal of scraping of feet and shedding of unceremonious mackintoshes to be got through, before the out-stretched hand of Lady Macauley could be reached. Standing beside her beneath the arch of roses throughout all the little ceremony of greeting stood my own Bill, wearing his broadest smile. So that nobody, admiring him, could have guessed at the string of oaths I’d had to hear an hour earlier, whilst harrying him into his smartest suit. Lady Macauley had asked him to arrive early for that specific purpose. She needed the arm of a big man with a hearty laugh to lean upon if she was to get through it all alive, she said; and he was the nearest equivalent it had been her good fortune to discover, since the day that Jack had left her twenty five years before.
I meanwhile had been left to arrive alone, fifteen minutes later. And I experienced a moment of panic at the door, which had very little to do with the shabby raincoat I wore – or even with the fact that I, too, had been obliged to abandon the little silk tea dress, lately and with stress acquired, in favour of something altogether more unfestive, in well-worn navy-blue wool. I felt seriously under-dressed, it’s true – but then I always do. The source of my anxiety though, lay elsewhere. I was examining Lady Macauley’s head for signs of adornment - having earlier been quite severe with Mrs Baines who, ever optimistic on the hat front, had been out the week before and bought what I can only call a perfect stonker; and who, when I’d ventured to discourage her from that, had wondered if 'a little arrangement of flowers and fernery – like the Queen wore, at Prince Edward’s wedding' might more elegantly fit the bill?
This had seemed to me, if anything, even worse. But I stood my ground and told her that I didn’t believe Lady Macauley went in for flowery arrangements on the head; and that what might have served for an afternoon wedding in Windsor Castle was probably unsuited to lunch in the garden, even at such a fine affair as this. Better, I told her, to err on the side of understatement, and go hatless, as I meant to do myself. I was not absolutely sure of my ground however; and it was not until I actually reached the door, and could confirm that Lady Macauley’s head was free from either flowers or fernery (bore only a gleaming pearl or two), that I was able to feel my caution had been justified, and Pamela could arrive at this, her first Macauley state occasion, without causing any kind of sartorial stir.
Poor Pamela was to find that she created very little stir of any kind in that company, sad to say. Large as she is, and stately; irreproachably chiffoned and with Roland always at her side, she still managed more or less to vanish in the crowd in the first moment, and was not seen again (by me at least), until four o’clock when, having found a liveried minion to collect her rain-cloak, and with Roland firmly gathered, made the stateliest kind of exit that she could. I’m not sure that her first venture into elevated circles can have been entirely to her liking; she looked seriously discountenanced when she left. And I fully expect a phone call from her tomorrow, in which she will tell me that she was rather disappointed with Lady Macauley’s arrangements; that almost everybody there was eighty five at least, that the house was cold and unwelcoming for all the candles, and that Roland’s sorrel soup, when finally he’d got it, was if anything colder still.
Pamela’s discomfort aside, it was a splendid occasion. We stood a while for drinks and canapes in the hall, serenaded by a group of musicians installed in the open gallery above, who made none but the sweetest, softest sounds. So that Lady Macauley, firmly attached to a beaming Bill, could circulate just as softly and sweetly, staying no more than a moment or two with each group, but smiling charmingly to every one; before the moment came at which a gong was sounded in some deep recess, and we must all ascend the rose-strewn staircase to the long gallery, where the twenty tables and eighty chairs had been arranged.
Lunch itself was a formal affair of several courses – and I have to say that my own sorrel soup was exquisite, and of a temperature perfectly judged. Not that Pamela hadn’t got a point, mind you, when she said that everyone there was eighty five at least. My own table companions were an elderly diplomat and his wife; he hard of hearing, so that I was required to lean towards him a good deal over my soup; and she, impressive in moth-balled velvet, of a turn of conversation I could only think to describe as statuesque, like herself. There was a fourth person at our table, a solitary lady whose name I didn’t catch; who wore a kind of jewelled bandana on her head, and whose conversation - save that she turned to me at one moment and observed that the band played very sweetly, did it not? - consisted largely of inaudible murmurs about ‘dear Sir Jack and the good old days’. To the end of my life, I daresay, I shall never discover precisely who that lady was, or from whence she sprang.
Lunch over, we were somehow gathered into several smaller groups, to circulate about the other rooms. I lost my diplomat and his velvet lady at this point – and the other, the one with the bandana, had somehow evaporated, never to be seen again. Belle Macauley it was, with Rose, and another nameless elderly couple, who gave us the tour of what she said were largely still the rooms of state, into which she and her mother seldom cared to venture these days. “We live almost entirely downstairs now” Belle explained. “It wasn’t like this in my father’s day of course. Then, the old bedsteads and the old pictures were stowed away in basements - Daddy couldn't abide the bosomy duchesses for a start! And every room was furnished for comfort and everyday living. But somehow, the old things have managed to creep back... Mummy had some sort of idea that we might open these rooms to the public at some point. Though she can’t bear the thought of it now, and says we might as well leave them to the ghosts.”
It seemed to me a melancholy account to give, and I wondered, again, how it was they could manage to eke out their existence in this echoing place - taking shelter, it was true, largely in ground-floor rooms and sunny basements; but with all the canopied bedsteads, all the spectral cabinets and glowering, painted duchesses, looming above them nevertheless. I was glad when at last another gong sounded, and we were summoned to the gallery again, for coffee and liqueurs. Here, brightness returned with the flickering candles, and even Jack Macauley's bosomy duchesses were subdued. And here too, after a suitable interval, and intensely to my astonishment, Bill rose to his full height from his position on the right-hand of Lady Macauley, to make a gracious, and only moderately humorous little speech of appreciation for the occasion.
After which Lady Macauley herself rose, to bid a final farewell, and leaning heavily upon Bill, was conducted away to her own apartments to rest. The party began to disperse then. Slowly, in groups of two or three, the band still playing, and with a good deal of subdued chatter at the door whilst coats were collected, everyone began to drift away. Until there were only Belle, and Rose Mountjoy and I left , standing beneath the dripping roses in the cloister to wave.
I took my own leave soon after that. Without Bill, who had been detained somewhere in impenetrable regions with the old lady (I do believe he’s halfway in love with her already, for all her advanced years!). It was only when I was home again in the gatehouse, that it occurred to me that Frances and Mr Porteous had not been present at the occasion. I was sure they had been invited, and I wondered why it was they had declined to attend …
Saturday, 26 May 2007
In search of a little silk tea dress (again)
Bill is not a happy man. He returned from his walk this morning thoroughly disgruntled, and on my inquiring why the black looks, exploded in wrath, telling me that “ The damned man has taken to walking the dog with her now! So I’ve had to change my route - and poor old Monty has been quite down in the mouth about missing his usual wild plunge in pursuit of Luca!”
I understood that he was referring to Frances Fanshawe and her wayward dog Luca; and that the ‘damned man’ in question must be David Porteous, who has apparently extended his range of influence at the manor house by taking on the disciplining of the dog as well. This was unwelcome news to me – especially since my own, still rather woebegone dog, Florence, has formed an unaccountable attachment to Luca, and will be bereft at being denied his company on the common. I would prefer to hear that David Porteous was loosening rather than tightening his grip at the manor house besides – though the fact that there has been to date no engagement announcement does give me grounds for hope.
Mrs Baines is not so sanguine about it, and has phoned me several times to express her dismay. She thinks that Frances ought to have waited a little, before plunging in at the deep end like that. “So foolish of her!” she says. “But then you see, she has never had a chance to be a girl, and now she’s behaving just like any love-struck teenager.” Roland takes a very dim view of it all too, apparently. Roland goes still further indeed: expressing the view that not only must they now suspend their party of welcome for Mr Porteous indefinitely, but ought probably to cut themselves off from his society altogether. At least until they see in which direction events now proceed.
Pamela has other, more propitious things on her mind at present, mind you. She has had the extreme happiness of receiving a card of invitation from Lady Macauley to attend her garden party on bank holiday Monday. It's the very first time she has been included in such an event, and she is all of a flutter to know what she ought to wear, and whether it might include a hat? This put me in a very difficult position as a matter of fact – recalling, as I did, something that Lady Macauley herself had said, when the subject of Mrs Baines and Roland happened to come up. It was around the time when Pamela was still proposing to hold a welcome party for Mr Porteous, and Rose had been deputed to try to persuade the Macauleys to attend.
“Do remind me who she is” was Lady Macauley’s response to an appeal by Rose. “I daresay I ought to know that before I turn her down. Is she by chance the large lady with the hats, and the very much smaller husband……?”
Rose replied, I seem to remember, that Pamela was certainly large, and Roland rather small – but she didn’t remember any occasion at which she had worn a hat. Or none, at least, which Lady Macauley herself had also attended.
“Oh well, the hat is an illusion I daresay” Lady Macauley replied. “ There are women with whom one somehow feels its presence, even when the object itself is missing. There was something that Jack used to say - that you should never trust a woman whose hats seem larger than her husband, since she’s likely to be a dominatrix.”
With this recollection lurking in the back of my mind, I scarcely knew how to advise Pamela on the hat question. Though I did promise to approach Lady Macauley myself on the subject, and let her know the answer in plenty of time. To date, the occasion to do so has not arisen. I have had an old friend staying with me at the gatehouse for several days, and my pre-occupations, when they have not been with her, have been in trying to decide what to wear to the Macauley garden party myself.
Bill tells me not to agonise about it so. But then, the only question, for him, is whether he ought to wear a tie or not. And since this is usually simply enough solved by arriving with a tie, and slipping it in one’s pocket if it turns out to be inappropriate, I hardly see how he is in a position to judge. I on the other hand, have been in and out of John Lewis again, looking for little silk tea dresses…….
I understood that he was referring to Frances Fanshawe and her wayward dog Luca; and that the ‘damned man’ in question must be David Porteous, who has apparently extended his range of influence at the manor house by taking on the disciplining of the dog as well. This was unwelcome news to me – especially since my own, still rather woebegone dog, Florence, has formed an unaccountable attachment to Luca, and will be bereft at being denied his company on the common. I would prefer to hear that David Porteous was loosening rather than tightening his grip at the manor house besides – though the fact that there has been to date no engagement announcement does give me grounds for hope.
Mrs Baines is not so sanguine about it, and has phoned me several times to express her dismay. She thinks that Frances ought to have waited a little, before plunging in at the deep end like that. “So foolish of her!” she says. “But then you see, she has never had a chance to be a girl, and now she’s behaving just like any love-struck teenager.” Roland takes a very dim view of it all too, apparently. Roland goes still further indeed: expressing the view that not only must they now suspend their party of welcome for Mr Porteous indefinitely, but ought probably to cut themselves off from his society altogether. At least until they see in which direction events now proceed.
Pamela has other, more propitious things on her mind at present, mind you. She has had the extreme happiness of receiving a card of invitation from Lady Macauley to attend her garden party on bank holiday Monday. It's the very first time she has been included in such an event, and she is all of a flutter to know what she ought to wear, and whether it might include a hat? This put me in a very difficult position as a matter of fact – recalling, as I did, something that Lady Macauley herself had said, when the subject of Mrs Baines and Roland happened to come up. It was around the time when Pamela was still proposing to hold a welcome party for Mr Porteous, and Rose had been deputed to try to persuade the Macauleys to attend.
“Do remind me who she is” was Lady Macauley’s response to an appeal by Rose. “I daresay I ought to know that before I turn her down. Is she by chance the large lady with the hats, and the very much smaller husband……?”
Rose replied, I seem to remember, that Pamela was certainly large, and Roland rather small – but she didn’t remember any occasion at which she had worn a hat. Or none, at least, which Lady Macauley herself had also attended.
“Oh well, the hat is an illusion I daresay” Lady Macauley replied. “ There are women with whom one somehow feels its presence, even when the object itself is missing. There was something that Jack used to say - that you should never trust a woman whose hats seem larger than her husband, since she’s likely to be a dominatrix.”
With this recollection lurking in the back of my mind, I scarcely knew how to advise Pamela on the hat question. Though I did promise to approach Lady Macauley myself on the subject, and let her know the answer in plenty of time. To date, the occasion to do so has not arisen. I have had an old friend staying with me at the gatehouse for several days, and my pre-occupations, when they have not been with her, have been in trying to decide what to wear to the Macauley garden party myself.
Bill tells me not to agonise about it so. But then, the only question, for him, is whether he ought to wear a tie or not. And since this is usually simply enough solved by arriving with a tie, and slipping it in one’s pocket if it turns out to be inappropriate, I hardly see how he is in a position to judge. I on the other hand, have been in and out of John Lewis again, looking for little silk tea dresses…….
Friday, 18 May 2007
More or less drowning in bliss
I went at last to see the lovers for myself yesterday, and I can’t say I was made any happier by what I found. My expectations had been coloured to some extent in advance, mind you; Rose having called on me beforehand to give me the benefit of her own views on the situation. She came on the dot of ten, and cast a sharp glance around her, I thought, as if in hopes of finding Bill. But she settled herself on a stool in my kitchen in his absence just the same, and with the distinct look of one whose intention it was to spend an hour or two in cosy contemplation of the lovers.
She thinks someone ought to tell Frances not to go around talking to people about her ‘lover’, however. “It creates a rather bizarre impression,” she said. “People feel uncomfortable about it. Not everyone understanding, as you and I do, that it’s a word Frances has been longing to use in connection with herself for as long as she can remember!”.
“She has read too many books, that’s the trouble!” was Rose’s next offering. “She gets all her weird ideas from there. I have a lover! she heard someone cry, in some book or other when she was seventeen. It was Anna Karenin I think…. something Russian and dense, at any rate. And Frances has been practising saying it before the mirror ever since. I think she must have thought the opportunity to say it for real would never come, but now here is Mr Porteous at last, and she’s shouting it out all over the place.”
This was not in fact a piece of information to which I had been made privy, myself, so it surprised me to learn that Rose had. I knew a little of Frances’s other imaginary lovers, who had begun with Huck Finn at the age of ten, and progressed through Holden Caulfield and Mr Rochester all the way to Sir Lancelot; from adoration of whom she had seldom deviated since – though it had sometimes occurred to her to wonder if after all she didn’t adore King Arthur even more. I had assumed anyway, that with the advent of Mr Porteous, Frances had been induced to put away childish things - though I did just wonder how well he might have measured up, by comparison with Lancelot and King Arthur?
I was annoyed with Rose, besides. It seemed to me the very worst kind of betrayal to reveal such confidences made in trust. I gave her fairly short shrift therefore: I told her that it wasn’t anyone Russian whom Frances had taken for her model. It was Madame Bovary in fact, who had cried I have a lover! - and she was the creation of Gustave Flaubert, who was French.
But Rose scarcely even flinched at my little put-down. She has a thick skin, and has perfected the art of seeing and hearing only those things which it suits her to see and hear. It’s a considerable art, and one which I would like to be able to master, at least in part, myself. She went on quite unperturbed, telling me that she gives the affair five months at most. She knows the type of Mr Porteous, she says; and she believes he will find it too difficult a pill to swallow in the end.
“He’ll be seduced for a while” she said. “The grandeur of the manor house itself will see to that. That, and the sheer size of the bank balance it seems to imply! But he’ll finally be unable to stomach any of it. He’ll pull out at some point – oh, he’ll do it beautifully of course, so that she hardly even knows she’s been dropped. He’ll find someone else to impress - and poor Frances will be left with her little love affair lying in tatters at her feet!”
It is Rose’s opinion that we will all be obliged to pick up the pieces when Frances has been abandoned. She left me with that thought; and since I can’t help thinking that there’s probably some truth in her theory, my own heart was filled with trepidation, when at two o’clock that afternoon I presented myself at the gates of the manor house. To my surprise, it was Frances herself who came out to the gate to let me in. She was all of a tremble, but she wanted me to see how entirely composed and happy she was. “Mrs Meade is slow to hear the bell” she explained. “ She lets it ring and ring, and David thinks it creates a bad impression.” She seemed nervous of what she might find my attitude to be, so I hugged her at once, and said how glad I had been to hear of her happy new association.
“Oh, you mean Mr Porteous” she replied; and her relief was visible. “Or David, as I must learn to call him! So foolish of me to be calling him Mr Porteous, now that we are lovers you know. Though David says I oughtn’t to be talking about our being lovers – that creates a bad impression too. It seems as if I’m always creating bad impressions, but with Mr Porteous as my guide, I shall soon be able to overcome all that. We are on the point of becoming an affianced couple, is the way David expresses it – and that should be information enough for anyone, he says. And yes, it has been very remarkable, and I won’t pretend not to be just a little overwhelmed by it all, still. But he is so very good to me, you see – and of course now that he has actually come to live here, there are all sorts of little adjustments that must be made..”
“ … They’re very pleasant ones of course – the adjustments, I mean!” She was quick to add that; she seemed to think it important I should see at once how entirely pleasant everything was. “ And it’s all quite temporary at this stage. David has come here to stay just while Mr Jessop decorates his own house. It will take several weeks – and after that, well we shall have to wait and see how things develop.”
She led me into the drawing room then, where sat David Porteous himself, all at his ease in the largest armchair. He stood to greet me, putting out his hand with his usual perfect urbanity.
“You find me very looking very much at home in my new environment no doubt” he said. “Frances has been good enough to take me in while my own house is being re-decorated. It’s an act of charity on her part, and I hardly know how I’m going to be able to express my thanks.”
It crossed my mind that there was one way in which he might have expressed his thanks – and that would have been to leave the poor little creature alone! But of course one doesn’t say such things: one nods, and smiles, and talks of this and that, until it comes time for tea, and somehow the awkward gap has been bridged. It was a strange hour I spent with them, for all that. I don’t know what I had expected to find in Mr Porteous; but if I had hoped to see signs of embarrassment, or compunction – or any indication of the newly ardent lover - I was to be disappointed on all counts. He calls her ‘my dear’ for a start, which is not what I would call precisely the language of love. He permits her to hover near his chair, anticipating his needs – he even allows her to flutter her hands in his direction now and then. But touch her in return, he does not. For a lover, he is very much in command of himself – it’s only poor little trembling Frances, who seems to be more or less drowning in bliss.
She thinks someone ought to tell Frances not to go around talking to people about her ‘lover’, however. “It creates a rather bizarre impression,” she said. “People feel uncomfortable about it. Not everyone understanding, as you and I do, that it’s a word Frances has been longing to use in connection with herself for as long as she can remember!”.
“She has read too many books, that’s the trouble!” was Rose’s next offering. “She gets all her weird ideas from there. I have a lover! she heard someone cry, in some book or other when she was seventeen. It was Anna Karenin I think…. something Russian and dense, at any rate. And Frances has been practising saying it before the mirror ever since. I think she must have thought the opportunity to say it for real would never come, but now here is Mr Porteous at last, and she’s shouting it out all over the place.”
This was not in fact a piece of information to which I had been made privy, myself, so it surprised me to learn that Rose had. I knew a little of Frances’s other imaginary lovers, who had begun with Huck Finn at the age of ten, and progressed through Holden Caulfield and Mr Rochester all the way to Sir Lancelot; from adoration of whom she had seldom deviated since – though it had sometimes occurred to her to wonder if after all she didn’t adore King Arthur even more. I had assumed anyway, that with the advent of Mr Porteous, Frances had been induced to put away childish things - though I did just wonder how well he might have measured up, by comparison with Lancelot and King Arthur?
I was annoyed with Rose, besides. It seemed to me the very worst kind of betrayal to reveal such confidences made in trust. I gave her fairly short shrift therefore: I told her that it wasn’t anyone Russian whom Frances had taken for her model. It was Madame Bovary in fact, who had cried I have a lover! - and she was the creation of Gustave Flaubert, who was French.
But Rose scarcely even flinched at my little put-down. She has a thick skin, and has perfected the art of seeing and hearing only those things which it suits her to see and hear. It’s a considerable art, and one which I would like to be able to master, at least in part, myself. She went on quite unperturbed, telling me that she gives the affair five months at most. She knows the type of Mr Porteous, she says; and she believes he will find it too difficult a pill to swallow in the end.
“He’ll be seduced for a while” she said. “The grandeur of the manor house itself will see to that. That, and the sheer size of the bank balance it seems to imply! But he’ll finally be unable to stomach any of it. He’ll pull out at some point – oh, he’ll do it beautifully of course, so that she hardly even knows she’s been dropped. He’ll find someone else to impress - and poor Frances will be left with her little love affair lying in tatters at her feet!”
It is Rose’s opinion that we will all be obliged to pick up the pieces when Frances has been abandoned. She left me with that thought; and since I can’t help thinking that there’s probably some truth in her theory, my own heart was filled with trepidation, when at two o’clock that afternoon I presented myself at the gates of the manor house. To my surprise, it was Frances herself who came out to the gate to let me in. She was all of a tremble, but she wanted me to see how entirely composed and happy she was. “Mrs Meade is slow to hear the bell” she explained. “ She lets it ring and ring, and David thinks it creates a bad impression.” She seemed nervous of what she might find my attitude to be, so I hugged her at once, and said how glad I had been to hear of her happy new association.
“Oh, you mean Mr Porteous” she replied; and her relief was visible. “Or David, as I must learn to call him! So foolish of me to be calling him Mr Porteous, now that we are lovers you know. Though David says I oughtn’t to be talking about our being lovers – that creates a bad impression too. It seems as if I’m always creating bad impressions, but with Mr Porteous as my guide, I shall soon be able to overcome all that. We are on the point of becoming an affianced couple, is the way David expresses it – and that should be information enough for anyone, he says. And yes, it has been very remarkable, and I won’t pretend not to be just a little overwhelmed by it all, still. But he is so very good to me, you see – and of course now that he has actually come to live here, there are all sorts of little adjustments that must be made..”
“ … They’re very pleasant ones of course – the adjustments, I mean!” She was quick to add that; she seemed to think it important I should see at once how entirely pleasant everything was. “ And it’s all quite temporary at this stage. David has come here to stay just while Mr Jessop decorates his own house. It will take several weeks – and after that, well we shall have to wait and see how things develop.”
She led me into the drawing room then, where sat David Porteous himself, all at his ease in the largest armchair. He stood to greet me, putting out his hand with his usual perfect urbanity.
“You find me very looking very much at home in my new environment no doubt” he said. “Frances has been good enough to take me in while my own house is being re-decorated. It’s an act of charity on her part, and I hardly know how I’m going to be able to express my thanks.”
It crossed my mind that there was one way in which he might have expressed his thanks – and that would have been to leave the poor little creature alone! But of course one doesn’t say such things: one nods, and smiles, and talks of this and that, until it comes time for tea, and somehow the awkward gap has been bridged. It was a strange hour I spent with them, for all that. I don’t know what I had expected to find in Mr Porteous; but if I had hoped to see signs of embarrassment, or compunction – or any indication of the newly ardent lover - I was to be disappointed on all counts. He calls her ‘my dear’ for a start, which is not what I would call precisely the language of love. He permits her to hover near his chair, anticipating his needs – he even allows her to flutter her hands in his direction now and then. But touch her in return, he does not. For a lover, he is very much in command of himself – it’s only poor little trembling Frances, who seems to be more or less drowning in bliss.
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
Miss Fanshawe's Lover
It is one of Bill’s contentions that nothing in the world is ever quite so bad – or so good – as it seems. He has often voiced this opinion, and I guess he ought to know what he’s talking about, since he has seen about as much of the bad as it’s possible for any one man to do in a lifetime. Of the extent to which he has also seen the good, I’m not so sure. The good has a tendency to become submerged, when it is your brief to go about the world reporting from this troubled spot and the next; and I don’t believe I have ever heard Bill talking through his satellite link about Mother Theresa, or the Good Woman of Baghdad (should such a person exist); or even about the hundreds of good, bewildered, frightened, ordinary people whom I believe he must have also have enountered fairly routinely in his travels.
It is not the good frightened bewildered people who make the news, you see. Any more than it is the brave, or the benevolent, or the hopeful – or those who just doggedly, and in the face of hideous adversity, survive. All those other people must be there in the background all the while of course – since if they were not, the world must surely spin to a screeching halt one day, ground up finally in the mill of its own self-perpetuating wickedness.
Bill has another theory though: one that is coupled with, or at any rate closely related to the first. Whatever else there is in the world, he says, there are in the last resort only people. It’s a fairly self-evident fact, but one that is often overlooked. You can go to any place you like, to the best place or the worst. You can go to the most beautiful, or ugly, or awe-inspiring, or simply profoundly dull place - and when you actually get there, what you’ll find are people not so very different from yourself.
Bill has been to what he thinks must have been one of the worst places. He has taken tea with Saddam, in one of his palaces before the fall. He has interviewed the man himself, and found him exuding bonhomie, wearing a Western suit and offering earl grey tea and biscuits, with the cigars.
It was only the glint of madness somewhere behind Saddam’s eyes, Bill says – that, and the little red panic button on the arm of his chair, and the pair of armed ruffians posted outside the door – that reminded him he was in presence here not so much of a man, as a confirmed and unrepentant monster. It was a difficult transition to make at the time, but Bill said he managed to make it. Since if he had not, then all those innocent people must have resisted and fought; must have been imprisoned and tortured and died, entirely in vain.
Bill was reminded of this encounter of his when he saw Ian Paisley sitting down to tea last week with Martin McGuinness. Most things come to tea and handshakes at the end, in Bill's view. T.S Eliot had it just about right, when in The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock he talked about ‘measuring one’s life in coffee spoons’. It was teaspoons with Ian and Martin, and Bill and Saddam, of course – but it might just as well have been coffee spoons. Everything is finally banal and ordinary in the heart of man. It’s just that you sometimes have to travel further, and longer, and more roughly - more bombs must fall, more wholescale meaningless slaughter and suffering occur – before the teacups can come out.
Now you might wonder why I write in this vein this morning? Especially when I write under such a heading as Miss Fanshawe’s Lover. You might think I would have something more momentous to talk about than Bill's experiences with people. But that’s just it, don't you see? Something has happened that has made me see all over again, that when it comes to people, Bill is the wise one, possessing a distinct and natural advantage over me. It required Bill’s presence, for example, to enable me to feel at home with Lady Macauley the other day; and doubtless it will only be because Bill goes with me, that I shall feel comfortable about attending her little luncheon party next week. For I am, I believe, a natural coward – and Bill is precisely the reverse.
There’s more to it even than that, though. What has happened is that Bill has already been out on the common with Monty this morning, and has discovered, in the space of one short walk, all that I have been wanting to know about Frances and Mr Porteous for several weeks, and been too busy, or polite – or just plain timorous – to try to find out! Rose and Pamela were right all along, as it turns out. I thought they exaggerated the situation grotesquely, and accused them in my mind of all manner of unsubstantiated suspicions. But what they darkly feared has come to pass, and Mr Porteous and Frances are lovers.
“She came right out and said it to me” Bill told me – he looked very much affected by it, for Bill. “She looked up at me with all her elderly innocence shining in her face, and told me that Mr Porteous had become her lover. ‘We talked about it a great deal in advance’ she said; ‘And he implored me to consider it very carefully, because of course it was quite a tremendous step to take. But really, I didn’t have to consider it at all, because I already liked and admired him so much. And now it has happened, and he comes in the evenings sometimes as well as the mornings (to work in the library you know). Soon perhaps, he will come to live with me altogether; and though we are not precisely what you would call engaged to be married, we might yet be both those things, and in the meantime we are lovers nevertheless.”
Bill says that he has received many profound shocks in his life, but there was never another that came near to this one. Worse, he said, the whole thing seemed so preposterous, that he was afflicted at once with the almost irresistible impulse to explode in mirth! “She said it all with such a perfect gravity, you see,” he explained. “She stood there talking about Mr Porteous being her lover as if it were the nicest, but after all the most ordinary and natural thing on earth. And all the while I was thinking how absurd it was; hardly knowing whether I most wanted to laugh, and accuse her of playing girlish games with me - or go out and find the wretched man and punch him on the nose!”
All this happened several hours ago now, but I can’t say that I have been able yet to accustom myself to the idea. I shall have to go and see Frances of course – Bill said she particularly asked him to let me hear her news. But what I shall say to her - and how, quite frankly, I shall react if Mr Porteous himself should happen to be with her when I call… Well, these are eventualities about which I haven’t yet been able to think. One thing only remains clear – and that is that if Frances is happy, then I must try to be happy for her too. It won’t be easy though. And the awful thing is that I too, find something almost irresistibly comic about it. I should laugh outright, I fear – if there weren’t something about it that also made me want to weep!
It is not the good frightened bewildered people who make the news, you see. Any more than it is the brave, or the benevolent, or the hopeful – or those who just doggedly, and in the face of hideous adversity, survive. All those other people must be there in the background all the while of course – since if they were not, the world must surely spin to a screeching halt one day, ground up finally in the mill of its own self-perpetuating wickedness.
Bill has another theory though: one that is coupled with, or at any rate closely related to the first. Whatever else there is in the world, he says, there are in the last resort only people. It’s a fairly self-evident fact, but one that is often overlooked. You can go to any place you like, to the best place or the worst. You can go to the most beautiful, or ugly, or awe-inspiring, or simply profoundly dull place - and when you actually get there, what you’ll find are people not so very different from yourself.
Bill has been to what he thinks must have been one of the worst places. He has taken tea with Saddam, in one of his palaces before the fall. He has interviewed the man himself, and found him exuding bonhomie, wearing a Western suit and offering earl grey tea and biscuits, with the cigars.
It was only the glint of madness somewhere behind Saddam’s eyes, Bill says – that, and the little red panic button on the arm of his chair, and the pair of armed ruffians posted outside the door – that reminded him he was in presence here not so much of a man, as a confirmed and unrepentant monster. It was a difficult transition to make at the time, but Bill said he managed to make it. Since if he had not, then all those innocent people must have resisted and fought; must have been imprisoned and tortured and died, entirely in vain.
Bill was reminded of this encounter of his when he saw Ian Paisley sitting down to tea last week with Martin McGuinness. Most things come to tea and handshakes at the end, in Bill's view. T.S Eliot had it just about right, when in The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock he talked about ‘measuring one’s life in coffee spoons’. It was teaspoons with Ian and Martin, and Bill and Saddam, of course – but it might just as well have been coffee spoons. Everything is finally banal and ordinary in the heart of man. It’s just that you sometimes have to travel further, and longer, and more roughly - more bombs must fall, more wholescale meaningless slaughter and suffering occur – before the teacups can come out.
Now you might wonder why I write in this vein this morning? Especially when I write under such a heading as Miss Fanshawe’s Lover. You might think I would have something more momentous to talk about than Bill's experiences with people. But that’s just it, don't you see? Something has happened that has made me see all over again, that when it comes to people, Bill is the wise one, possessing a distinct and natural advantage over me. It required Bill’s presence, for example, to enable me to feel at home with Lady Macauley the other day; and doubtless it will only be because Bill goes with me, that I shall feel comfortable about attending her little luncheon party next week. For I am, I believe, a natural coward – and Bill is precisely the reverse.
There’s more to it even than that, though. What has happened is that Bill has already been out on the common with Monty this morning, and has discovered, in the space of one short walk, all that I have been wanting to know about Frances and Mr Porteous for several weeks, and been too busy, or polite – or just plain timorous – to try to find out! Rose and Pamela were right all along, as it turns out. I thought they exaggerated the situation grotesquely, and accused them in my mind of all manner of unsubstantiated suspicions. But what they darkly feared has come to pass, and Mr Porteous and Frances are lovers.
“She came right out and said it to me” Bill told me – he looked very much affected by it, for Bill. “She looked up at me with all her elderly innocence shining in her face, and told me that Mr Porteous had become her lover. ‘We talked about it a great deal in advance’ she said; ‘And he implored me to consider it very carefully, because of course it was quite a tremendous step to take. But really, I didn’t have to consider it at all, because I already liked and admired him so much. And now it has happened, and he comes in the evenings sometimes as well as the mornings (to work in the library you know). Soon perhaps, he will come to live with me altogether; and though we are not precisely what you would call engaged to be married, we might yet be both those things, and in the meantime we are lovers nevertheless.”
Bill says that he has received many profound shocks in his life, but there was never another that came near to this one. Worse, he said, the whole thing seemed so preposterous, that he was afflicted at once with the almost irresistible impulse to explode in mirth! “She said it all with such a perfect gravity, you see,” he explained. “She stood there talking about Mr Porteous being her lover as if it were the nicest, but after all the most ordinary and natural thing on earth. And all the while I was thinking how absurd it was; hardly knowing whether I most wanted to laugh, and accuse her of playing girlish games with me - or go out and find the wretched man and punch him on the nose!”
All this happened several hours ago now, but I can’t say that I have been able yet to accustom myself to the idea. I shall have to go and see Frances of course – Bill said she particularly asked him to let me hear her news. But what I shall say to her - and how, quite frankly, I shall react if Mr Porteous himself should happen to be with her when I call… Well, these are eventualities about which I haven’t yet been able to think. One thing only remains clear – and that is that if Frances is happy, then I must try to be happy for her too. It won’t be easy though. And the awful thing is that I too, find something almost irresistibly comic about it. I should laugh outright, I fear – if there weren’t something about it that also made me want to weep!
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