Winter Roses (18 page)

Conversation was flowing well, with the help of several bottles of wine provided by Sir John, until in one of those odd silences that fall on the best of convivial tables, George’s voice suddenly rang out clearly: ‘That’s jolly dangerous, isn’t it, Robert?’

‘What is?’ asked Isabel sharply.

Oblivious of the fact that Robert was desperately trying to shut him up, George replied: ‘Balloons. Robert says he’s going into balloons.’

‘I was going to tell you, Isabel—’ Robert began awkwardly.

‘Ball
oons
. What on earth do you mean?’ Isabel was staring at him, open-mouthed.

Caroline inwardly groaned. Trouble was on its way. Why at Christmas, and
why
just before the pudding arrived? she lamented.

There was no stopping it, however, and everyone was listening now. ‘As I still can’t land a kite, I don’t want to be an observer or sit behind a desk, I’ve volunteered for balloons,’ Robert said defiantly.

‘But I don’t understand. What balloons? Like the ones George told us he saw flying at Lydd?’

‘Yes, but these,’ Robert swallowed, ‘are in France.’

‘They are merely used for observation. There is little danger.’ Yves intervened to Caroline’s deep gratitude.

‘Yes there is. The Hun uses them as target practice,’ George shouted indignantly.

‘George!’ Laurence yelled in his most formidable voice.

George went scarlet. ‘Sorry, Isabel. I didn’t mean that. It’s jolly brave work and not dangerous really.’

Isabel was white faced. ‘Balloons,’ she cried. ‘You’re going to fly
balloons
.’ She burst into tears and before her mother, who was nearest, could stop her, she rose from the table and fled from the room.

‘She’s worried for your safety,’ Elizabeth said defensively, as Robert rose to his feet less than enthusiastically to follow her. Caroline was not sure she agreed with her mother, but knew she had to reach Isabel before Robert did, or the hopes for a happy Christmas were over.

‘I’ll go, Robert.’ She forestalled him at the door, and telling Phoebe to ask Mrs Dibble to hold the pudding procession back for five minutes, she dashed upstairs after her sister.

Robert, having made no attempt to dissuade her, was obviously relieved. ‘I should have told her earlier. I was putting it off,’ she heard him say, and Yves’ reply: ‘I think it’s most courageous of you, Lieutenant Swinford-Browne.’

Torn between anger and concern, Caroline found Isabel lying sprawled across her bed, shoulders heaving piteously. She tried to make her voice steady and reassuring, a hard
task with Isabel in a mood. ‘Everything’s dangerous in this war, Isabel.’ She sat on the bed at her sister’s side. ‘Don’t make it worse for Robert than it is already.’

Isabel promptly sat up, glaring furiously at her. ‘I know it must be dangerous. It was such a shock. I thought he wanted to be a fighter pilot like Albert Ball, not play with balloons like a little boy.’

The truth was out, and Caroline could have wrung her sister’s neck. To have Christmas ruined for the sake of Isabel’s pride was too bad! She had thought her so much improved since she took on this cinema job, but here was the same old leopard with the same old spots.

‘Can’t you think of anyone but yourself just for once, Isabel? What do you think Robert feels like, having failed to become a pilot as he wanted, when George will in all likelihood shortly be flying off to France? Robert’s a very brave man, firstly to enlist in the Army as a private when the William Pear was so dead against it, then to endure all the mocking he had there, then to transfer to the RFC where the life expectancy – I’m sorry to say this, Isabel, but it’s time you faced up to war like everyone else – is counted in weeks, not months. Now he’s volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs there is.’

Isabel’s tears stopped abruptly. She began weakly, ‘You don’t understand, Caroline.’

‘I do understand. And I had thought I understood you well enough. We were so pleased when you started at the cinema, doing something for the war at last. You’ve been so much more lively and interesting than you were. Now I see you only took the job so that you could stay here and
have your decisions made for you by Mother, while Robert is away.’

‘You’re wrong, you are, you
are
,’ Isabel yelled.

‘I’m right, and you know it.’

‘I might have begun at the cinema for that reason,’ Isabel conceded, quietening down, ‘but now I enjoy it. I do. I love choosing films.
Captain Scott
, and the film of
The King at the Front
. It’s important, and it’s what I want to do, it really is. But Robert never succeeds at anything.’ She burst into tears, not of anger this time, but real.

Caroline sat with her quietly and let her cry for a few minutes, then asked: ‘Do you love him at all, Isabel?’

Her sister hesitated. ‘I think so,’ she snuffled.

‘Then why don’t you wipe your face, and come back to the table, and make him believe you do?’

‘I can’t bear it. Father will never forgive me.’

‘Father will, and anyway, Robert is more important.’

‘Lady Hunney—’ Isabel began.

‘Least of all does it matter what our Maud thinks.’

Isabel giggled, sat up, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. ‘All right, but you must come with me.’ A pause. ‘Caroline, I’m not really as nasty as you said, am I?’

‘No.’ Caroline sighed. That was the problem.

Margaret’s moment had almost come. To him that hath, shall be given. Through her own efforts she’d managed to wangle two geese for the Rectory; she had followed her conscience and let Mrs Lilley have them both. Then Miss Caroline brought another one, so the Lord had clearly intended the Dibbles should have their goose. Then just
before luncheon the Hunneys’ kitchen had sent down two more, already cooked, at Sir John’s request. They were rolling in geese; if these were the Middle Ages when folks greased themselves up and sewed themselves into their clothes for the winter, there’d be enough fat to keep a nice cosy blanket round her and Percy.

Now it was time for the pudding and then her own goose would be done. Lucky they still had the old range as well as the gas oven. Some families sang a carol when the goose or turkey came in, like the ‘Boar’s Head Carol’, but in the Rectory the pudding always called for a song too. Afterwards she could relax, and they would have their own Christmas, even though Peck and Miss Lewis would be with them. Anyway, they were almost the family now, even old Peeper.

Mrs Lilley had come out to the kitchen while Percy was flaming the pudding (the real pudding). Christmas was an exception to Margaret’s rules about drink since Miss Caroline had always said that pouring over brandy and setting it alight had religious significance. Nevertheless she liked Mrs Lilley to be at hand, just in case the Lord frowned at seeing Margaret Dibble alone with a bottle, thinking she had forgotten her solemn promise to abstain from alcohol (apart from emergencies like that terrible film).

She emerged bearing the pudding engulfed in blue flames, and Mrs Lilley bore the next so-called pudding. She could see Miss Caroline and Mrs Isabel were back inside the dining room, and wondered what that trouble Miss Phoebe mentioned had been. Then she forgot about it in the anxiety of whether the flame would go out before she
reached the darkened room. Miss Caroline dashed out to join in the procession and sing in a deeply pontifical voice:

Then her voice was drowned by Master George yelling out: ‘Here it comes!’

The pudding was still flaming blue as she entered, and as Miss Caroline sat down, Margaret saw Mrs Isabel plant a kiss on her husband’s cheek.

‘Darling, I’m sorry,’ she said loudly. ‘You’re so brave. I was just upset because you’re going to do something so dangerous.’

Margaret thought what a sweet lady Mrs Isabel was turning into after all.

Caroline saw from the satisfied look on Father’s face when he entered the drawing room in his narrator’s costume complete with jester’s hat and bells that inspiration had at last come to him. It was just as well, for he had a large audience, including Grandmother who was clearly determined to stay close to Lady Hunney’s side, no matter how tired she was.

‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen,’ Father began, having swept his usual deep bow to the company. ‘I announce the Family Coach. This year the coach is involved in a most serious investigation, and I must ask
you all to do your utmost to take part in it. A fiercesome creature known as the Snark is our quarry, and it is feared that the Snark we seek is a Boojum, leading to the most dire consequences for the finder, who may softly and suddenly vanish away. Nevertheless, it is our mission to find the Snark, with the help, naturally, of the Family Coach.’

Oh, clever Father, Caroline thought admiringly, remembering her reference to Lewis Carroll’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee yesterday, and wondering if her comment had played any part in Father’s choice of his ‘Hunting of the Snark’.

‘For the purposes of the hunt, it is not necessary to be acquainted with the story, however, merely to understand one’s own part,’ Father explained

‘I’m playing the wheels,’ shouted George.

‘I’m the little dog,’ cried Phoebe.

‘There isn’t a little dog in
The Snark
,’ Caroline pointed out.

‘There is now,’ Phoebe said. ‘There’s always a little dog in the coach isn’t there, Father?’

‘That is true, Phoebe. Once you all have your role,’ he added for the benefit of the newcomers, ‘you stand up and twirl round whenever you hear your name called; if you forget, you fall out of the game. If the words “Family Coach” are mentioned, you all stand up and twirl round.’ He demonstrated a fine twirl. ‘Mother and Henri, you are excused. You can remain seated and wave your arms.’

Lady Hunney looked smug that she was not deemed incapacitated, to Caroline’s amusement. Before
Grandmother came to live here, she had never taken part in the game; now she appeared only too eager to do so.

‘This year,’ Laurence continued, ‘the coach will be carrying the bellman, the boots, a maker of bonnets and hoods, a barrister, a broker, a billiard-maker, a beaver, a baker, a butcher, a banker—’

‘But no Snark,’ Elizabeth finished for him.

‘A large coach,’ observed Henri.

‘This one carried people on top,’ Caroline explained.

‘I will be the bellman,’ said Yves, ‘and look after the beaver, since Monsieur Fabre does not understand English well.’

So Yves knew the poem of the Snark too. What an interesting man he was, Caroline thought. And kind too, for Monsieur Fabre was looking mystified at first, but as Father’s story unfolded he began to leap up and twist round when prodded by Yves.

If only Father could write his sermons as quickly as he had this story of the Christmas Snark! Caroline had worried that those who did not know the poem would be utterly baffled but Father was managing to dovetail the Snark and the story of the Family Coach splendidly, and bellman, billiard-maker, butchers and bakers – not to mention the wheels, the doors, the hamper, the cushions, the coachman, the horses – all duly leapt up or waved their arms or failed to do so in the requisite time on cue. With so many people playing, the game took much longer than usual, and Caroline was exhausted both with laughing and with the constant jumping around by the time Father concluded:

‘And so the wheels,’ (George leapt up) ‘of the Family Coach’ (cue for everyone to leap up) ‘came to a halt on the ground where the Baker’ (Grandmother waved) ‘had met with the Snark. Alas, the baker’ (Grandmother waved again) ‘had “softly and suddenly vanished away, for the Snark was a Boojum, you see”.’

‘I,’ declared Grandmother, ‘have no intention of vanishing.’ She looked round grimly, and Caroline realised the impossible was happening – Grandmother was making a joke. She quickly burst into a peal of laughter, and a little belatedly was joined by the rest of the gathering, even Lady Hunney. Grandmother looked pleased.

Father slipped into his usual brief prayer. ‘Oh Lord, as we rattle forward into this New Year, may the Snarks, Jub-Jubs and Boojums of war all vanish away with Thy help, so that our quest be at an end and the baker, the bellman, the butcher and their comrades may return in peace to their loved ones. Amen.’

There was a surprise addition to the programme, during what was usually a valiant attempt at a quiet period before the evening game of hide-and-seek began. Yves announced that Monsieur Fabre would like to thank them all for their hospitality with a marionette show. There was polite, if not rapturous, applause. Phoebe and George were, Caroline could see, looking down mental noses at such childish entertainment, though Sir John, surprisingly, looked very interested. The marionettes’ home was in a battered suitcase, but obviously he had brought no portable theatre with him. A substitute was quickly rigged up under Mother’s organisation
from masking sheets and Grandmother Overton’s old table as a stage, and Olivier Fabre began his show.

With memories of Punch and Judy, Caroline wondered which language he would perform in, then inwardly laughed at her own stupidity as he began. It was in a universal language, that of artistry, and that was all the story of Harlequin and Columbine needed.

Quaintly carved and painted puppets played and danced to music played on a small wind-up gramophone. There were only three records with it and Yves had been deputed to play which was most suitable:
Swan Lake
, for Harlequin and Columbine. ‘
Au près de ma blonde
’ for Clown, and ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ for Policeman. She wished she could see the hands of the puppeteer, for they must be moving with a grace hard to imagine in someone who looked so down to earth and unimaginative as Olivier. Columbine and Harlequin, with double-jointed legs and arms, slowly danced out their love story. Caroline was entranced. Who needed words as those lovers embraced and parted? Who needed words as Harlequin sobbed his lonely heart out, on his knees, hands shielding his bowed head? Who needed words for the immortal chase of Clown, with his stolen sausages in hand?