‘Exactly. No chilblains on the milkmaids, no children dead of diphtheria.’
‘Let’s go,’ said Gaskell. ‘Christabel’s been dying to see you. She’s very excited. I’m afraid it’s not like the old days; we don’t have a panoply of servants to line up and greet us at the door any more. There are only three left, and that’s because they refuse to go. Oh, and we have someone to look after my poor old parents. They’re both gaga, I’m afraid.’
‘Comes to us all.’
The Great Hall was an elaborate expression of Victorian Gothic, in red brick that reminded visitors of the architecture of Gilbert Scott. It did have a somewhat dilapidated appearance compared to when Daniel had last seen it, but it was still very grand and dignified, and it gave out the air of a building that ideally should be populated by headless wraiths drifting about in their shrouds. He noticed that there was a small buddleia growing from the mouth of a gargoyle, and that the paving stones had weeds growing in the interstices. The lawns still looked wonderful, though, and the enormous redwood tree in the middle might well have been the tallest outside of California.
‘How nice to be back,’ he exclaimed as Gaskell pulled out the choke to kill the engine. ‘I see you still have a fabulous rookery in the elms.’
‘The biggest rookery for miles,’ said Gaskell. ‘Noisy buggers. The villagers used to come and shoot the young ones for rook pie. No one eats rook pie any more. And the poor old elms end up as seats for Windsor chairs.’
Christabel came to the door, and Daniel saw that she was still the lovely English rose that she had always been, despite her height and angularity. She held out her arms and Daniel ran to embrace her, kissing her on each cheek, and saying, ‘You look as marvellous as ever!’
‘Silver hairs amongst the gold,’ she replied, laughing. ‘And you have a little less thatch than you used to. It suits you. Men are so lucky. They age so much better than we do. My skin is turning to leather. I have to oil it as if I were an old boot in need of dubbin.’
Tea was brought in to the drawing room by the butler, a frail man of seventy with broken veins on his face, and very large and florid ears, whose father had been butler before him. His hands shook so much that he spilled tea from the pot into the saucers as he poured, repeating, ‘I am so sorry, madam. I am so sorry, madam.’
‘Never mind, Dunston, it can’t be helped,’ said Gaskell, taking her cup and pouring the tea into it from the saucer. Daniel and Christabel did the same.
‘Will there be anything else, madam?’
‘You’ve forgotten the crumpets and the walnut cake.’
‘I’m so sorry, madam. I’ll go and fetch them immediately.’
‘You really don’t need to keep saying sorry, Dunston.’
‘I’m so sorry, madam.’
After he had gone, Christabel said, ‘Poor old Dunston. He spends all his time apologising.’
‘Where are your parents?’ asked Daniel.
‘I’ve given them an apartment in the east wing, on the ground floor, so they don’t have to cope with stairs. My mother tries to do embroidery even though she can’t see, and my father is writing his memoirs. He’s written the first page several hundred times, I should think.’
‘Oh, why?’
‘Because he’s forgotten that he’s already done it. They’re both quite happy, and that’s the important thing.’
‘Will I see them at dinner? I was very fond of them.’
‘Oh yes, but they’ll be fast asleep by the main course. With their faces in their plates, like the dormouse.’
‘And when are you going to ask me this question that was too important to be put in writing?’
‘Not now,’ said Christabel. ‘Now is for small talk. We were hoping to broach the subject with you after a bottle or two of burgundy and a glass of Armagnac. After dinner.’
‘When we’re all a little bit mellow,’ said Gaskell. ‘How are Esther and Bertie?’
‘Here beginneth the small talk,’ said Christabel.
‘Can we go and see what’s happening in your studio instead?’ asked Daniel. ‘I want to see what you two have been up to.’
‘Christabel’s done some wonderful contemporary portraits. H. G. Wells, Conan Doyle, Dora Carrington, Augustus John, Bertrand Russell, and so on.’
‘I had a conversation with Bertrand Russell on a train once,’ said Daniel. ‘We talked about relativity, I seem to remember.’
‘Funny little man,’ said Christabel. ‘He was perfectly miserable. He said he was thinking of writing a book about happiness.’
‘And I’m doing a huge oil painting of that dreadful nightmare you told me about, that you kept having every night.’
‘The procession of the dead?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m calling it. Do you still have it?’
‘Much less often. Perhaps once every three months.’
The old ballroom had been converted into a large and exceedingly chaotic studio, with Christabel’s section at one end, and Gaskell’s at the other. A French window and a clerestory bestowed a generous bounty of natural light.
‘It’s an absolute bloody mess,’ said Gaskell, rolling her eyes theatrically.
It was true. At Christabel’s end was a home-made darkroom, taking up an entire corner, cobbled together out of sheets of plywood, painted black on the insides. Outside it, clipped onto sagging parallel lengths of string, were drying the dozens of photographs that she had developed that day. Daniel had to be careful not to collide with them as he ducked underneath.
At the other end of the ballroom, Gaskell had been clearing her brushes of paint by daubing it on the walls, so that there were now thick, brown-green ridges running diagonally side by side, like maps of ranges of hills in relief. The lower walls had half-finished paintings propped up against them, and half a dozen easels stood with canvases upon them in various states of completion. Gaskell had always done several projects at once, so that sometimes she had no paintings to sell at all, and then suddenly she would have enough for an exhibition.
‘I love the smell in here,’ said Daniel. ‘Oil paints and photographic chemicals.’
‘The smell of busy and contented women of independent means,’ said Gaskell.
‘We don’t have independent means!’ protested Christabel. ‘We work damn hard and earn every penny!’
‘Well, we’ve got the house for nothing,’ replied Gaskell.
‘Where did the family originally get its wealth?’ asked Daniel.
‘Slaves,’ said Gaskell bluntly. ‘It was the good old golden triangle. Trinkets for Africa, exchanged for slaves, exchanged for cotton and tobacco in America, and then back to Liverpool to pick up more trinkets for Africa. My wonderful house and my fabulous estate are all the fruit of untold human misery. One day I’m going to ask the RAF to bomb the house and spray weedkiller on the grounds. Just to wipe out the shame.’
‘Where’s the picture of my nightmare?’
‘Right in front of you.’
‘But it’s just an enormous white canvas!’
‘Well, I always paint the canvas white before I start. I’ll get going after you’ve gone.’
‘I’ll have an excuse to come back.’
‘Darling, you don’t need an excuse.’
‘Let’s call it a reason, then.’
Daniel pointed to a picture which portrayed three people, a woman and two men, hand in hand, and dancing in a circle in the middle of a drawing room. ‘This is very jolly,’ he said; ‘who are they?’
‘Oh,’ said Gaskell, ‘just three friends of ours. It’s Vanessa and Clive Bell and Duncan Grant.’
‘It has a hidden meaning,’ said Christabel.
‘Oh, and what is that?’
‘I couldn’t possibly tell you. The point is to work it out for yourself.’
‘Is it that inside every adult there’s a child that wants to have fun?’
‘No.’
* * *
—
Supper was both convivial and strange, as it is so often in England’s provincial countryside. Gaskell’s aged parents were wheeled in in their wicker bath chairs, and helped to their seats by the two women. Both were bent double with age, and supported by thick walking sticks. The old woman was nearly as bald as her husband, but both of them exuded the kind of radiance that is only possible for a very old person who has survived a hard winter and has understood that the present is all there is left to enjoy.
Sir Herbert stood clutching the back of his chair, and announced that he was going to say grace, drawing a breath, and beginning ‘For what…for what…for what…’
‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful,’ Gaskell supplied.
‘Oh, yes, that’s it, well done, yes, that’s it.’
As they were drinking their soup, the old man asked Daniel, ‘Now tell me, my boy, was it you or your brother who was killed in the war?’
‘Neither of us, I am glad to say,’ replied Daniel. ‘But I had two brothers who died in South Africa.’
‘So sorry to hear it. I imagine they’ve been buried already?’
‘Very much so. I’ve never even seen their graves. I have a picture of them, that’s all.’
Lady Charlotte said, ‘Gaskell is going to make the house into an artistic colony. It’ll be such fun. Just imagine, sculptures everywhere! And young people! Gaskell was my only child, you know.’
‘Really?’ said Daniel, raising an eyebrow and looking at Gaskell.
‘Oh yes, we’re thinking of it. It’s such a shame to have an enormous establishment like this with nothing very much happening in it. Of course, such communities always turn into a nightmare, I hear, but it seems worth a try, just for a while perhaps.’
‘All those bohemian types with turbans on their heads, talking about free love, and accidentally committing suicide.’
‘Just the ticket,’ said Gaskell.
‘It gets very much worse,’ said Christabel; ‘Gaskell’s thinking of ordering a lion from Harrods.’
‘What? A lion?’
‘Only a little one. The cubs are so delightful, like a kitten multiplied by twenty.’
‘But it’ll grow up!’
‘Well, the estate is terribly big, and we have a simply enormous number of deer. They got out of hand during the war, and nobody seems interested in poaching any more. It’s apparently become passé amongst the rural larcenous classes. Nowadays they steal motor vehicles and dismantle them to sell the parts.’
‘Gaskell, you can’t be serious, you’d have to fence in the whole estate! And have warning signs everywhere.’
Gaskell shrugged. ‘Fun though.’
‘You know they behave exactly the same as domestic cats? But when a cat goes barmy and climbs up the curtains, it doesn’t matter very much. When a lion does it, it’s goodbye curtains. And imagine what they do to the furniture…they don’t just pull out annoying little loops in the upholstery.’
‘We’ve thought of that. We’re going to give him a scratching tree.’
‘Him? Have you seen how enormous they are? What if it wants to curl up in your lap?’
‘Oh, Daniel,’ said Christabel, ‘how unlike you to be so negative!’
‘If it all goes wrong, you’d probably have to shoot it,’ said Daniel.
‘Apparently lions can’t purr,’ said Lady Charlotte distractedly. ‘You know it was most awfully galling to be called Charlotte when I was young. Because of what it rhymes with. None of my friends tease me about it at all any more. I wonder why.’
‘All your friends are dead, dear Mother,’ said Gaskell drily.
‘Are they? How very disappointing. Of course, I am grateful for getting old, but it does leave one terribly left behind.’
Sir Herbert put down his spoon, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and said, ‘Awfully sorry, can’t stay awake a moment longer. Very tired. This damned palsy makes eating such a trial. Throwing soup all over myself, as usual. Had to give up shooting.’
‘Don’t worry, Daddy, we’ll get you to bed,’ said Gaskell. Turning to Daniel, she said, ‘Perhaps you could give him your arm. Christabel and I will get them all tucked up, and then come back for the main course. It should be about half an hour.’
During supper they drank three bottles of burgundy between them, followed by port, and a tot of Armagnac each. Outside, the hot August night settled down into its own embrace, and a nightingale struck up in the redwood tree. As they relaxed into their armchairs, Daniel swilled his his drink in the brandy glass, sniffed at it deeply, and said, ‘This is absolute bloody bliss.’
‘It’s just so lovely to have you here again,’ said Christabel. ‘I wish you could be here all the time.’
‘Christabel’s always had a passion for you,’ said Gaskell.
‘I believe you.’
‘Can we have our say, now?’ asked Christabel.
‘Fire away.’
‘Well, this isn’t going to be at all easy, or…or…conventional.’
‘I am all ears, and ready to be agog. I have faced Spandaus in my time. And flaming onions.’
‘Well,’ said Christabel, ‘Gaskell has had deep friendships before, and they’ve always come to an end because the women concerned wanted babies.’
‘And for that they had to get married,’ said Gaskell.
‘And so they had to go.’ Christabel paused. ‘…Gaskell has been through the most terrible pain…more times than anyone ought to. You can only have a broken heart so many times before it stops healing itself.’
‘Yes?’ said Daniel.
‘The point is that we want to have babies. You know, it seems to be built into us, and we’re simply yearning, and we can’t help it. It doesn’t seem to have any effect if you try to fight it off. But we don’t want to get married. We don’t want to be parted. Ever. You know we are very happy together, but this business…this business…’
‘It would seem impossible,’ said Daniel.
‘But it isn’t,’ said Gaskell boldly. ‘It’s perfectly obvious that you and Rosie have a mariage blanc. One only has to be faithful to someone who is faithful in return. And not even always then.’
‘Fidelity isn’t just not going to bed with other people,’ said Christabel. ‘It’s also about going to bed with the one you’re with.’
Daniel hardly knew what to say. It sounded terribly French, exactly like something his own mother would have said.
‘Christabel and I want you to be the father of our children,’ said Gaskell.
‘We both love you so much,’ said Christabel.
‘And I couldn’t bear to think of her in bed with anyone but you. It’s you or it’s nobody.’
‘And we couldn’t bear not to have any children,’ said Christabel.
Daniel looked at Gaskell and asked, ‘It would be Christabel, and not you?’
‘Could any man imagine doing it with a woman like me? Just look at me! I’m un homme manqué. If only I wasn’t. But that’s what I am.’
‘You’re not unlovable. I’ve always loved you, you know, like a sister. And you’re very attractive. Your green eyes have brought entire nations to their knees. And my father-in-law too. And with Christabel, wouldn’t it be incest?’
‘With me?’ said Christabel. ‘It wouldn’t really. We’re not blood relatives, are we?’
‘Isn’t it forbidden in the Bible? Or the Prayer Book, or something?’
‘Look, this is the twentieth century. Who really cares what it says in the Bible? The Bible tells us to kill witches, and thinks it’s meritorious to bang tent pegs through people’s heads, and wipe out entire nations, including their animals.’<
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‘It would still feel like incest,’ said Daniel. ‘Even if it wasn’t. And it’s still infidelity.’
‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ said Gaskell. ‘And doing it the other way round wouldn’t seem right. I really don’t think I could countenance doing…that…with a man…but Christabel is not like me. She really could…And take pleasure in it too. She’s very lucky. Much luckier than me.’
He looked at Gaskell. On the surface of things, she was a preposterous creature, so tall and long-faced, with her Norfolk jacket and men’s plus fours, her tartan tie, her monocle, her drawling, artificially lowered voice, her immensely long cigarette holder with the gold band at the tip. Today she was, in addition, wearing a large dark green tarboosh with a maroon tassel. Androgynous she may have been, but Daniel was very much attracted to her. However much she aspired to manhood, Daniel could not be convinced that she amounted to anything like a man. It would have been easier to lie with her, because she was not his wife’s sister. He suddenly felt impelled to say: ‘I do envy you two.’
‘Oh, why?’ asked Christabel.
‘You’re not accountable to anyone. You don’t have to explain yourselves. You do as you like, you earn enough money from work that you love to do. You have each other. You travel as much as you like, you have a beautiful place to come home to.’
‘We are ladies of independent means,’ said Gaskell.
‘And independent mores,’ added Christabel, raising an eyebrow waggishly.
‘We are looking for a new way to live,’ said Gaskell. ‘There must be a better way of doing things.’
‘You’re a real pair of bohemians, aren’t you?’
‘It isn’t always marvellous, being us,’ said Gaskell, and he saw the melancholy well up in her face. ‘There’s always something missing, isn’t there?’
Daniel had begun to feel a kind of panic rising up in the pit of his diaphragm. He said, ‘I don’t think I want to go along with your idea. I don’t know why, but I’m frightened of it. To be frank, it would be easier with you, Gaskell, just because you’re not my wife’s sister, and I don’t seem to see you as you see yourself. It’s such a huge step. For all of us. And how will you avoid the social embarrassment?’