Dorothy Eden (26 page)

“Florence dear, do you think he might be just homesick, and over-romantic, remembering the night of your ball, and knowing he was leaving England and the things he loved? You told me that he was sailing for India immediately afterwards.”

“Yes, Mamma, he did. And I promised to write to him, and to wait for him—”

“You never told me you had promised to wait for him!”

“To myself I did. I made a vow.”

“Oh,” said Mamma. “That was rather foolish, surely. Rather precipitate.” She reflected for a little while. “If you are determined on this behaviour I think we must find you some occupation. I can’t have you mooning about the house all the time. I don’t approve of idle young women.”

“Flo, Desmond is awfully stupid in some ways,” Cynthia said. “Are you sure you love him?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Lots of girls fall in love with a glamorous uniform, you know. I can tell you, some of those guardsmen are almost invisible out of uniform. And they’re blockheads, too.”

“I’m much too sensible to fall in love with a uniform,” Florence said. “Really, Cynthia.”

“You are a goose. After only one meeting!”

“Two.” Telling nobody, Florence had gone to Waterloo Station to say goodbye when Desmond’s regiment had entrained for Southampton docks. He had been delighted to see her, but hadn’t kissed her again. It was broad daylight and rather too public. But he had held both her hands and looked deeply into her eyes and said it was jolly decent of her to come to say goodbye. And she would keep her promise to write, wouldn’t she, and not get bored with an absent friend. Friend, he had said. Not lover. But it was enough.

“One meeting or two, I think you’re being much too romantic,” Cynthia said briskly. “It was Desmond’s last ball in England, you know, and the men in my family are inclined to sentimentality. It’s a soldier’s privilege, my father says. But that isn’t to be interpreted as meaning a lot, you know.”

“Isn’t it?” Florence said composedly. “I do intend to wait and see.”

It’s damned hot, and it’s getting worse. Even on parade I find my thoughts turning to cool green grass and girls in white dresses, like you that night we met. In my mind now, you seem like an angel…

Florence locked the letters in a drawer of her writing desk, and hid the key. Every one was kept as a precious treasure.

There was a ball in the Mess last night, a lot of army wives and sisters came, some of them very pretty, but this climate ruins their looks in no time. I much prefer you to be in England where your looks will be preserved…

Preserved… A slightly unfortunate word, since she was now twenty-one and officially without a beau. The old Queen had died last year (in the arms of her grandson, the Emperor of Germany, much to Papa’s disgust, who still disliked that braggart young man, as did his royal uncle, now Edward the Seventh of England).

But Florence had luckily had the honour of being presented to the stout, immensely regal, black-clad old lady with a little twinkling tiara balanced on top of her lacy cap, at a royal drawing room the previous summer. She was the daughter of William Overton Esquire, most of whose forbears had been decorated for valour by their monarch. Nothing was said about her mother being a shopkeeper, and one of that new strange race of busy clever women of whom the Queen strongly disapproved.

An elderly aunt of Papa’s had emerged from some old ivy-clad house in the country, like a moth struggling reluctantly out of a dusty chrysalis, and did the presenting. She would do the same for Daisy in a few years, if she lived long enough. Daisy, she commented in her rusty voice, was a jolly gel and would make a bit of splash when she came out. What was the use of Florence with her long nose and her absent beau, even though she did now have this invisible asset of having been presented, of having curtseyed to an elderly monarch shortly to die?

Mamma, who had always taken Florence’s side against Daisy, probably to compensate for Papa spoiling Daisy so much, said that she had never met Aunt Sophie before and hoped she would not have to do so again. One should not think that age gave one the right to be rude. She was as arrogant as Grandmamma Overton had been, and Florence was to pay no attention to her.

All the same, it was a great pity that those letters from India inflicted such a paralysis on her social life.

“But I won’t lecture you, Florence, because I loved your Papa for a long time, too. I know what it is to wait. We’re too much alike, I think.”

“But the waiting was worthwhile, wasn’t it, Mamma?” Florence asked intensely.

“Oh, yes. Yes.” There was no uncertainty in Mamma’s voice. It was clear and strong, and consequently it was strange to hear the murmured qualification, “The trouble is, you find you’re doing it all your life.”

“What do you mean, Mamma? You and Papa have each other. What are you waiting for now?”

“Waiting? It becomes a habit, I suppose.” Then Mamma said in her warm strong voice, “Yes, I have your dear Papa. And if Desmond is half as good a man, then he is worth waiting for. But I think you’d better come into the shop, Florence, and learn a bit of Miss Brown’s work. She could do with some help. She’s getting old.”

“But, Mamma, I wouldn’t be any good, since my only ambition is to be married.”

“We’ll see,” said Mamma kindly.

W
HEN, AS HAD BEEN
feared, war broke out in South Africa between the Boers and the British, Beatrice said with her habitual commonsense, “We can’t help our soldiers by crying, so let’s show plenty of flags. We’ll keep them flying every day until the war is over.”

If a few unkind critics said that Bonnington’s was now pretending to be an outpost of the British Empire, on the whole the patriotism was applauded. The triumphal array had to be taken down once, however, when Queen Victoria died. For a week, then, Bonnington’s plunged into its biggest mourning display. The windows were hung with black and purple crêpe, every employee wore a black armband, and at intervals funeral music was played on a phonograph placed discreetly behind the banked white flowers in the front hall. Young Mr Jones from Gentlemen’s Wear was stationed beside it to wind it up regularly, otherwise it wheezed to a melancholy halt. It was as if Her Majesty were being buried from Bonnington’s, Mr Jones said privately. You almost expected to find her coffin among all those sickly white flowers.

Was it good for business? he asked, more boldly.

Prestige, Beatrice answered. That amounted to the same thing. She liked the younger employees to express opinions. She remembered the ones who asked intelligent questions. Youth must be encouraged. Miss Brown would soon have to retire. The poor old thing was creaking in every bone. And Adam was looking grey at the temples. She herself wouldn’t be there forever, incredible as that seemed. She had hoped that Edwin might change his mind and become interested in the shop, but he showed no sign of doing so. Indeed, he made no secret of despising shopkeeping. He was afraid of what his friends might think, perhaps. Although he didn’t seem to have many friends.

Edwin was causing Beatrice some private uneasiness, although he was working hard enough at Oxford, and was still destined for the Foreign Office, if that austere establishment would have him. He said he liked the idea of living abroad.

But it was obvious he would never live abroad on his salary. His expensive tastes persisted, and bills from his tailor, his shoemaker, his gunsmith, and his clubs (he already belonged to two, which was one more than necessary, Beatrice thought) kept coming in.

So far Beatrice had paid them without too much demur. She felt guilty about Edwin. The bad news about his eyesight had come when she had been entirely absorbed in the trouble that wretched Miss Medway had caused. She had been able to think of nothing but saving William from his folly, and preserving their marriage. She had sympathised with Edwin, of course, but he was young and would adjust to his disability and his disappointment about an army career. Life had many alternatives for him. It held none for her if she lost her husband.

Looking back now, she realised that this was when Edwin had withdrawn from her. It was a sad fact, but he would understand when he was older and he, too, experienced an overwhelming love that shut out all else.

Besides, it was foolish to think that the boy had been damaged. He had only grown uncommunicative and secretive, but didn’t all boys get like that after they had gone to school, and felt that they had outgrown their parents and their childhood?

It was not only Edwin who was disappointing her. Florence was still in her everlasting daydream about that shadowy young man in India, although she had consented to go into Miss Brown’s Mantle department and try her hand at fashion since she couldn’t go on being a wallflower at yet another season’s balls. She might have a flair for fashion, Miss Brown had said. She certainly had the right sort of figure, tall and willowy, to show off the new models, and her society background would bring in some new custom. The trouble was, she wasn’t interested, except in spasms, when some colour or quality of material excited her. She hoped to have eight children, Miss Brown told Beatrice helplessly.

So it was left to Daisy, of the three of them, to enjoy growing up. Beatrice thought it exceedingly unfair that she, the little cuckoo, should be so well equipped for doing so. She had looks, a sunny temperament, vivacity, a quick wit, a talent for music, certainly a talent for dancing for she moved beautifully. She had everything, that child, and she was disgracefully spoiled by her father and most of the servants. Though not her governess, for, since Miss Medway, Beatrice had kept a watchful eye on that sort of thing. Miss Sloane, she knew, was the kind of woman who sensibly never allowed herself to become emotionally involved with her pupils. She struggled perpetually with Daisy’s pranks and high spirits, and hoped she was keeping the wilful little miss in her place.

William had published his second book, once more to considerable critical acclaim. His health was still a matter of concern to Beatrice, but to her pleasure he spent less time abroad. He now quite enjoyed being fussed over by his wife, and if this wasn’t the most satisfying relationship between a husband and wife, she was almost certain that William could now never do without her. She had imposed her own form of imprisonment on him.

Imprisonment? No, that was a cruel term. Domesticity was better. A gentle acceptable form of domesticity, which should be recommended to all husbands as the most comfortable way of living.

He was still a very handsome man, and he still flirted mildly with pretty women. Beatrice was quietly indulgent about that. That was her William, after all. She had never wanted to quench his spirit.

But she wished that vague shadow would leave his eyes. He had once had the sunniest of eyes.

She was glad that he had taken up his interest in butterflies again. He now had the intention of compiling a book of reference on European butterflies and moths. Apart from writing, and working with an artist on sketches of his own famous collection, he liked to take Daisy on long butterfly-hunting expeditions. They went much farther afield than the Heath. They caught trains into Sussex and Surrey and Kent, and came home sunburnt and happy with their trophies. A Camberwell Beauty (
nymphalis antiopa
), a particularly fine Painted Lady (
vanessa cardui
), a fearsome hawk moth.

Daisy, he said, was the best companion he had ever had. She was like a butterfly herself, skimming over the short grass, her cheeks as rosy as the wings of a Monarch
(danaus plexippus).
What was more, she could quote those awkward Latin names as well as her father could. She used to put them in her monthly letter to Captain Fielding (he now had promotion) simply to fill up the page. She grumbled a great deal about this chore, she had long regretted her promise made at Florence’s ball when she was a silly child, but Florence insisted that ladies kept promises.

Then she didn’t want to be a lady, Daisy muttered. It sounded a dull duty-ridden sort of thing.

And the letters Captain Fielding wrote back were full of information about the natives and the villages and the climate, and meant for a schoolgirl. Didn’t he realise that some years had gone by and she was hardly a schoolgirl now? She was fourteen, and she was going to put her hair up any day.

Papa, at least, didn’t think her a child. When they went on one of their excursions into the country, he took a picnic hamper containing such delicacies as
foie gras
and claret. He allowed Daisy to drink a small glass of the claret, and when, one very warm day, she fell asleep afterwards, she awoke to find the summer grass tickling her nose and Papa bending over her with an expression on his face that could only be described as lover-like. Dear Papa. She was glad that he had said she was not to go to a stuffy girls’ boarding school. She was to grow up to be individual, like her mother.

Immediately he had said that he looked as if he regretted it. But it was true, for Mamma, neat and brisk and commanding in her grey white-collared shop dress, was extremely individual. It was not how Daisy imagined herself however. She wanted to wear romantic tea gowns and glide about like a swan. She would end by being exactly like her grandmother Overton, Mamma said impatiently, and did she know what grandfather Overton had called her? A delicious nosegay. But he hadn’t meant it as a compliment. He had indicated that such women were vain, and without depth, and faded quickly.

Who wants
depth
? Daisy demanded. She saw the disapproval in Mamma’s eyes. They always went curiously frosty when they rested on her. They had for as long as she could remember. This perplexed her a great deal, but she no longer shed private tears about it. She simply accepted that for some reason Mamma didn’t like her. Now she was old enough to understand adult things, she thought that perhaps this was because Papa liked her too much. Mamma was simply jealous. And that was very odd, being jealous of one’s own daughter. Daisy never intended such a thing to happen to her. Her husband would adore her to distraction, and seldom pay any attention to the children. Actually, she didn’t think she wanted children. Unless they adored her, too. She could never have enough love. She wanted her life to be overflowing with it, like sunshine, like music, like the scent of a summer garden.