The Skeleton in the Grass (2 page)

“How cowardly the young are,” murmured Helen. “You'll come with us, won't you, Elizabeth?”

“If you want me to, Mummy. Sarah and I can go into the garden.”

So it seemed assumed that she would go with them. Oh dear. New people. So many new people at once, and she in that confusing, Jane Eyre-like position of being neither servant nor gentry. Sarah looked at the dappled lawn, the panting dog, the shimmering red-brick house in the distance, and felt conflicting emotions of peace and panic.

The peace was dissipated by a figure running from the house. It was a slim, boyish figure, in white shirt and grey flannels. His family kinship was proclaimed by his flaming hair—brilliant, where his mother's was delicate, almost peach-coloured. It flopped down over one eye, giving him an appearance at once schoolboyish yet vaguely piratical. He was racing across the lawn as if pursued by Furies.

“I've just heard!” he panted. “On the six o'clock news. Franco has raised the standard. There's civil war in Spain.”

The news would have been received in the rectory in Derbyshire with a mild, disinterested curiosity. Perhaps her father would even have approved. Here the news met with strong and instant horror and outrage.

“Is it confirmed?”

“What is the government doing?”

“Has he landed on the mainland?”

“Will all the troops follow him?”

Dennis Hallam stood up.

“I must telephone the League of Nations Union chairman. We must press the government to get a strong motion through at Geneva. And they must follow it up with the threat of sanctions against anyone supporting Franco. I expect Mussolini is behind this. If only we could count on this spineless government of ours to take a determined line. Their instinct will be to stand heroically aside.”

“Sanctions won't do any good,” said Will scornfully. “This is war. This one we have to fight.”

“But of course we're going to fight,” said Dennis. “As I said, we'll press in Geneva—”

“I mean
fight.
I'm going to go there to fight.”

There was a second's silence. It was clear to Sarah that they took him seriously.

“Don't be absurd, old chap,” said Oliver.

“Will, darling, surely we've brought you up to believe—” began Helen Hallam.

“Oh, I know what I've been brought up to believe. Only I don't believe it any more.”

“Will, dear old thing,” said Dennis earnestly, “I know how one reacts at first to things like this: one wants to fight back. It's an almost irresistible urge. But one has to resist it! Fighting back never settled anything.”

“Fighting back stopped the Spanish Armada,” said Will, obviously clutching at the first historical example that came into his head. “What good have all your motions and resolutions done for Abyssinia? Did they stop Herr Hitler from marching into the Rhineland? They're just impotence with a loud voice.”

“That's a very fine phrase, Will,” said Dennis quietly. “But is that really all your mother's and my work means to you?”

Will looked momentarily shamefaced, and Helen said quickly:

“No, Dennis, you shouldn't put it like that. This is not a personal thing. The point is that if the governments of the world put their hearts into economic sanctions they really will work. And they'll work without the terrible, senseless slaughter we went through in the war.”

“If, if, if,” said Will impatiently. “But of course they won't put their heart into sanctions. Half of them will be hoping that Franco wins. Just watch Cousin Mostyn when you go to Cabbot Hall tomorrow. He'll be positively purring at the prospect. And he's in the government.”

“Only at the most junior level,” protested Oliver. “Even Mr. Baldwin would never appoint such a stumblebum to anything of any importance.”

“The point is that there
is
no will to impose sanctions, so the only thing is to help the government of Spain to fight. I'm going to go to London tomorrow. Someone there will be getting things organized.”

“You're not of age, Will,” put in Elizabeth quietly.

“I'm of age to join the British Army. Nobody can stop me going to fight for Spain.”

“It's not a question of trying to
stop
you,” wailed Helen. “It's a question of trying to
convince
you.”

“Will,” said Dennis quietly, “I've told you this many times, and I'll tell you it again. Back in 1913 we got up a Hallam cricket team to play the village lads. Boys from houses around here, men who'd been with me at school and Oxford. After the match we all came back here to tea, stood on the turf you're standing on now. It was one of the happiest days of my life. In a year we were all at war. I was sent to Egypt. I came back with a gammy leg, and you were born. All the rest were sent to France and Flanders. In two years all but one were dead. Can you really say
that giving the Kaiser a bloody nose was worth the decimation of the best of our young men?”

Will paused, in order to reply with becoming gravity.

“I don't say that it was. No, I don't think it was. But I do think there are
some
things one has to fight. I do think that if Herr Hitler invaded Britain I would fight, because there are some governments so disgusting that no one should be forced to live under them. I think Oliver would fight Hitler too, if it came to the pinch. I think Spain is the same sort of issue.”

“Franco is just an old-fashioned martinet, under the thumb of the Church,” protested Dennis.

“People should not have to live under him. And it's a question of defending democracy, defending the rule of law.”

“And what makes you think that you will be any help in the fight?” asked Oliver sardonically. “You, who even refused to join the school cadet corps?”

Will flushed.

“Of course I'd be useless, now. But this isn't a fight that's going to be over in two or three months. I think it will last years. I shall train, and lots of people like me will train, and
then
we won't be useless.”

And to cut off the argument he turned and ran back to the house, very fast. He seemed to do nothing except in extremes. Sarah felt she had never seen anyone so vital, so full of fire and purpose.

The tea-party was over. Dennis's review copy lay unregarded in his deckchair. Helen was dabbing her eyes.

“Don't worry, darling,” said Dennis, putting his arm around her. “We'll stop him.”

“We can't
stop
him. We've always brought our children up to make their own decisions.”

“Probably the revolt will fizzle out in a week or two, or
be crushed. I must telephone the chairman of the League of Nations Union . . .”

And the little party began trailing back towards the house, Dennis moving with his characteristic slight limp.

“Oh dear, Sarah,” said Helen. “What must you think of us? And on your first day!”

A swallow swooped in front of Bounce, but he declined to pursue it. Over the lawn the shadows had lengthened, and nippy breezes came up from the river. Sarah wished she had brought her cardigan.

B
y the next day Sarah found it was assumed among the Hallams that she would be going with them to Cousin Mostyn's. She would have preferred to stay behind, but it would have seemed ungrateful and unadventurous to say so. That Cousin Mostyn lived so close, she gathered, was not due to any family or property reasons, still less to any pull of affection; it was due merely to the fact that he was MP for the Oxfordshire constituency in which they all lived. Mostyn's “place” was called Cabbot Hall, and he had bought it when he had been elected, in 1931. “A dull house,” said Dennis Hallam. He did not add, because he didn't need to: “and eminently suitable.”

Sarah wondered what she was to do with little Chloe. “She can come with us, or stay with Mrs. Munday,” said Helen. At first Sarah thought this a little unfair on Mrs. Munday, who no doubt had her own duties to do, and a dinner to cook, but when she saw the pair together she retracted her opinion: they clearly doted on each other.

Chloe was a sprite of a girl: fair-haired, lithe, active, she radiated glee and physical well-being. Forward for her six years, as was to be expected, she was also independent: she only demanded to “know” things when she had failed to work them out for herself. Standing with Helen, watching her as she played around the stables which were her
great joy, Sarah was only conscious of an aura of gold, of dancing delight, of a joyous relish for life.

“She was an afterthought, of course,” said Helen. “Or rather a lack of forethought.”

Sarah blushed. Such frankness would have been unthinkable at the vicarage.

“But not the less loved for that,” added Helen, seeing her embarrassment. “She is a love of a child.”

Chloe debated long and seriously whether to go to Cabbot Hall or stay with Mrs. Munday. In the end she decided to stay, on the grounds that Bounce would otherwise be lonely. The family's sense of social responsibility clearly had descended to her. Sarah had her own debate, on what to wear, being very unsure what kind of occasion this was to be. By now she was friendly enough with Elizabeth to call her in, and she gave her opinion gravely, though both girls were conscious that Sarah's wardrobe hardly presented an infinity of choice.

The family's dilemma was over which car to take. The Wolseley was more comfortable, but the Austin Seven was more loved. Cousin Mostyn would be displeased, Dennis said, to see them arrive in so plebeian a car, especially as it was very dirty, and had had REDS scrawled in its dust by some village lout, presumably in mistaken reference to their politics. When Chloe decided to stay at Hallam, and since Oliver was claiming his desperate need to revise eighteenth-century history, the choice of the Austin Seven became inevitable, in spite of the crush.

All the day's arguing and playfulness cloaked, as Sarah was well aware, the subject that was really preoccupying everybody. Will had gone to London by the first train. Who he would see there, what he would do, nobody quite knew, for he had been busy packing and telephoning the night before. They did not expect to get a postcard from Madrid
or Barcelona in the next few days, but on the other hand they knew Will's fiery nature, knew that he might commit himself impulsively to some course of action, from which he would later find it impossible to back down. Oliver had phoned one or two of his friends in London who he guessed might be involved in any activity going on, but he got the impression that, until the news from Spain became more definite, until they knew that the government could put up a real resistance to the leaders of the revolt, much was being mooted but little was being done. That, at any rate, was comfort. Oliver emphasized to all these friends that his brother was very young, was to go up to Oxford in October, and that any decision he made to go and fight would be very disturbing to his parents. He came back from these talks with a conviction that there was a new, more aggressive spirit abroad among the young, but he did not communicate this to his elders.

The gathering at Cousin Mostyn's, Sarah had discovered, was “drinks.” Just drinks. They would be coming home for dinner. Cousin Mostyn threw these modest parties periodically, according to Dennis to butter up his middle-class constituents. He liked the Hallams to come along, partly because they had both local and national prestige, partly because their presence demonstrated his broad-mindedness. “Which is no doubt why he also invites Major Coffey,” said Dennis dourly. “I at least pay Mostyn the compliment of doubting that he is a Fascist.” So Major Coffey, apparently, was.

They left Hallam at about a quarter to six. Elizabeth and Sarah climbed into the back seat, Sarah being very careful not to crease her dress, and the older Hallams sat in the front, Dennis driving with a nonchalant expertise. Sarah decided it was a delightful little car—which was odd, because they had an Austin Seven at home, and she had never considered it in any other light than a means of
getting from here to there. This car, however, which was called “Bumps,” contained hidden delights: Will's cricket pads on the floor, a Jerusalem newspaper brought back by Oliver and stuffed down the side of the seat, items of make-up scattered by Helen, and at least three books sent to Dennis for review. It was a car, too, that seemed made to cruise through the country lanes, whereas the Wolseley would undoubtedly have seemed over-assertive, a Blenheim Palace among cars. Most of the countrymen they passed were too late realizing who the driver was to tip their caps to him. It was like being an ordinary family, out on a joy-ride.

When Helen pointed out Cabbot Hall in the middle distance Sarah saw what they meant when they described it as a dull house. A fine position, on a gentle rise, but a dull house. The architect had been handed an opportunity, and muffed it. It had been built in the 1790s, and it demonstrated only the tired clichés of the late Georgian style. It was quite modest in size, but then Cousin Mostyn was apparently quite modestly off, and he and his wife had no children.

Sarah was conscious, in making these judgements, that if she had had a friend in Derbyshire who lived in a house like this, she would have thought it quite tremendously grand.

They were by no means the first to arrive at Cabbot Hall, and Bumps was niftily inserted between cars both grander and cleaner. Sarah got out carefully, and was pleased to find her dress had not suffered greatly from the squash, though she was upset to see a woman going up the steps of the house who seemed to have dressed for a Buckingham Palace garden party.

“She's the butcher's wife,” murmured Helen. “So it doesn't seem
too
unkind to talk about mutton dressed up as lamb.”

Inside, in the big, dull entrance hall, Mostyn Hallam and his wife were greeting their guests. Mostyn, Sarah had by now found out, was something very lowly in Mr. Hore Belisha's Ministry of Transport. One of the family jokes was that his nose had inspired the famous Belisha Beacons. It was indeed a very red nose, but it was in a very red face, suggesting high blood pressure, and a delight in the pleasures of the table. He was portly, affable, his voice slightly over-loud as he shook hands all round. The overdressed lady and her beefy but otherwise inconspicuous husband were just ahead of them.