Читать книгу Royal Regiment - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 12
Оглавление§ 1
Rusty Rockingham had locked away his drawings, and finished dressing. But that old obsession still haunted his mind.
Three years now—since his affair with Gail. But the loss of her—the puritanical folly of his renunciation—still hurt.
Tonight, again, his nostrils seemed to give him back that heady perfume. Almost he could feel the cling of Gail Vanduser’s lips, and her hands—so white, so tiny, with their blood-red nails and their dimpled knuckles—locked round his neck. Such lovely hands. Such lovely hair—the true auburn, darkling in the night time, radiant in the dawn.
That last dawn! Before she went back to America.
Why the hell had he let her go back to America? Why hadn’t he married her? Only because ...
Her words, too, echoed down the galleries of recollection. She was singing the song of the moment, “What is love—but the kisses we give and take?” She was saying, “I guess that’s true, honey. That’s all there is to it”. But there was so much more to it—from his point of view anyway.
He needed satisfaction for his mind as well as for his body. Mary had given one; Gail the other. But could any woman provide both?
“None that I’ve ever met”, he decided. “So I suppose I’ll have to die a bachelor.”
And on that—equanimity returning—he made his way down the narrow stairs past the door of his mother’s room.
§ 2
The door of Mrs. Rockingham’s bedroom stood ajar. “Come and talk to me, Tom”, she called. “The others won’t be here for half an hour yet. And there’s nothing in the papers. There never is on Saturday.”
She was brushing her stubborn gray bob.
“How did the meeting go off?” asked her eldest son.
“They all blathered too much. Especially the Canon. That man’s too fond of his publicity in my opinion. Give me one of my cigarettes. They’re in that majolica box on the what-not.”
Her bowdlerisation of the indicated bedside equipment amused Rockingham. Perceiving this, his mother grinned, “Fanny doesn’t like me to call it by its right name”.
She pulled the few hairs from her comb, and dropped them into the paper basket by her oak dressing table. He passed her the cigarettes; jerked at his watchchain, extracted the curved gold box which had been his father’s from one waistcoat pocket; struck a match on its worn edge.
“I’ve a message for you”, he said, while she was lighting up. “From Colonel Wethered.”
Told the Hawk’s message, she reflected a moment before pronouncing judgment.
“He’s not the sort of man I’d care to marry myself. I wonder why he left it so long. You say she’s an American. What age?”
“Young, I believe.”
“Sex on his part, one gathers.”
“Really, mother——”
Mrs. Rockingham grinned again.
“You needn’t play the pukka sahib with me”, she continued, blowing a puff of smoke through her thick nostrils. “When a man of Wethered’s age marries a young woman he rarely has any other motive. He’s very well off, of course. Presumably that was her motive. What class of American, do you think? Somebody like your friend, Mrs. Vanduser?”
Her sarcasm, coming directly on top of his memories, stung. This, too, she perceived—from his silence, from the sudden tensing of his jaw muscles.
“Still sensitive”, she told herself. “That was a narrow squeak. I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d made that dancing demirep one of the family.”
Aloud she said, “Talking of marriage, it’s high time you settled down”.
“I haven’t found the right girl yet.”
“They’re much of a muchness after the first year. Plenty of nice ones about. You can afford to pick and choose. Your wife won’t need to have money of her own. Not that I’ve anything against Frances. She suits William perfectly. He never did like women with any intelligence.”
She grinned for the third time; put down her cigarette, which she left to smoulder; clasped the diamonds round her long neck; asked him for her stick; told him to put the lights out, and stumped down to the drawing room, where he found her with her back to the fire.
“Did Geoffrey have anything to say for himself?” she asked.
“Only that it hadn’t been too warm on the East Coast, and that he’d like a bottle of the nineteen-six to warm him. I gathered from Fanny that you’re almost out of it.”
“The hock’s getting low, too. I don’t think I shall order any more hock. The Germans are up to their tricks again. White burgundy’s every bit as good. I’m not at all sure I don’t prefer it.”
“Didn’t Bismarck say patriotism stopped at the palate?”
“I don’t care what he said. In my opinion this man, Hitler, isn’t up to any good. I’m not going to let him have my money. Guns instead of butter indeed. It serves us right for not having occupied Berlin.”
Fanny, entering with decanter and glasses, put an end to the die-hard monologue. Rockingham’s mother settled herself in her favourite chair.
“That fool Lucius”, she said, “has forbidden me to touch sherry. So we’re having madeira. There’s plenty of that still left, thank goodness. Your father always overbought if I wasn’t there to stop him. I wonder whether that’s William or Geoffrey.”
“William”, she decided several moments later. “That wife of his always insists on powdering her nose again before she’ll come upstairs.”
§ 3
The young woman who entered to Mrs. Rockingham’s last words was large and placid, brown of hair and a slightly paler brown of eye. She came across the room, in a not-too-fashionable evening dress whose metallic blue did little justice to her fine skin, without haste, and gave her mother-in-law a cool kiss.
“I’m afraid we’re a little early”, she said. “Are you better?”
“I wasn’t aware that I’d been ill.”
“But you told William you were sending for the doctor. Hallo, Tom?”
“Hallo, Frances. How are the kids?”
“Little devils.” Her husband answered. “They’re just old enough to begin quarrelling. I had to read James the riot act yesterday.”
He, too, kissed his mother. Then he poured himself a glass of the madeira; holding which he took up his habitual stance with his back to the fire.
“Good stuff, this”, he pronounced, savouring the wine between lips a trifle thinner than Rusty’s; and his eyes, which were of a slightly darker blue, twinkled as he went on, “Well, did you pass in carburetters, old man? Or is the Selection Board about to debag you?”
“I’m hoping they’ll keep me on, sir.” The fact that William’s naval rank of captain entitled him to a salute from his elder brother was one of the family jokes. “And how are all my lords at the Admiralty?”
They chaffed on while their mother compared them, not to her eldest’s advantage. “William still looks a boy”, she thought. “Though there are only a couple of years between them. And he looks taller, though actually they’re the same height. That’s because he holds himself so well. A good figure, my William’s. He takes trouble about his clothes, too. Always did keep his hair tidy.”
William’s hair was almost black, brushed straight away from the forehead without a parting. He had the Rockingham chin, but without the dimple. This he dry-shaved, thoughtfully, with a long masculine hand, to Rusty’s, “Joking apart, I suppose you’re pretty busy these days”.
But before the senior service could make up its mind to answer so direct a question, Wing Commander Geoffrey Rockingham of the Royal Air Force had landed into the room, embraced both the women, and was declaiming, “Fanny gave me a dirty look. She gave me her most dirty look. What have I done this time?”
“You’re nearly three minutes late for one thing”, said his mother. And, almost instantaneously, the “head of the household”, as Geoffrey had nicknamed her, was announcing:
“Dinner is served”.
§ 4
Geoffrey Rockingham’s group captain once said that he walked like a cat. There was something catlike about his head, too—and a hint of the feline in his hazel eyes. Brown-haired, pale-cheeked, moustacheless, shorter and slimmer than either of his brothers, he wore a soft shirt and collar with his double-breasted dinner jacket, a red carnation at its left lapel.
“Did you see the funeral, mother?” he asked, as he gave her an arm down the stairs.
“Yes. William got me a seat.”
“I thought you’d go. You’re always so keen on processions.”
“Really, Geoffrey——”
“I saw it at the local flick. Must have been rather a fine sight. I’m glad I wasn’t on duty, though. Funerals always give me the shivers. We had one of our own this week. Nice young fellow. But if they will pull the wrong string——”
He broke off. They reached the hall. The Honourable Mabelle Rockingham limped through the door of the little panelled dining room to her seat at the oval mahogany, set with just a little too much silver.
“She never will have a flower in the house”, thought William’s Frances. “She’s funny that way. She’s funny in lots of ways. And she thinks I’m a perfect fool.
“Bless her”, added Frances, for it had not been her own mother but her mother-in-law who comforted her through those two long days, those two interminable nights, before James was born, with his father at sea.
“I should have screamed the nursing home down if she hadn’t been there”, continued her thoughts. “Pain makes me sick. It was much easier with Julian, thank goodness. I believe we could afford another. It would be so nice to have a little girl. I must talk to William again. After all, it’s my money.”
Meanwhile Geoffrey was chaffing, “Why so serious? Cheer up. They’ll be sending the captain to sea again next year. Then you’ll be in undisputed command of the nursery”.
“He doesn’t interfere as much as all that”, said Frances; and William twinkled at her, “You wait till those brats are a bit older, young woman. If they don’t behave themselves then I’ll leather the jackets off them.”
“O William, you wouldn’t.”
“The fish”, interpolated Geoffrey, “rose well to that one. I should cast again if I were you.”
William, however, with a quiet, “Only pulling your leg, dear”, desisted; and, considering him and his wife after Fanny had whisked away the plates of the second course, Rusty felt suddenly envious.
“Made for each other”, he realised in a sudden flash of intuition. “Though she is a bit of a fish.”
But then William’s one obsession was his job.
“Always has been”, continued his elder brother’s thoughts. “Happy sort of chap. So’s Geoffrey. Usually that way myself. Wonder if I’ve got a touch of liver.”
His mother’s voice broke in on the reverie.
“I was telling Tom just before dinner that he really ought to get married.”
“As long as you don’t make me take a wife to my bosom”, said Geoffrey; and banter continued until Fanny, carrying it as gingerly as though it were a bomb, brought in the cob-webbed bottle, the damp cloth and the tongs.
“Staying to assist us, mother?” asked William then.
“I shall pay for it tomorrow if I do.”
“We’ll let you off church parade.” Her eldest spoke.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Mrs. Rockingham’s eyes turned to her daughter-in-law. “What do you say, my dear? I feel it’s our duty not to leave them at once. It’ll be so bad for their livers if they consume it all. Besides, I haven’t drunk King Edward’s health yet.”
“And you with one son in each of his fighting services”, laughed Geoffrey, moving to the fire.
