Chapter Eighteen
Brigid
Her room was pretty, Brigid decided, with a view out to the walled garden and beyond that tennis courts, and then a broad river than ran past the end of the formal gardens.
By leaning far out of the window, sash pulled up as high as it could go, she could see weeping willows drooping gracefully towards the still water and smell the dank, weedy smell of the banks.
She thought how cool and quiet it looked and wished she were there, among the mud and wet rushes, not in this house that suddenly made her think of a baker’s oven, all those red bricks laid one over the other in neat hot rows.
Her head ached, and she flopped down on the bed, admiring the brightly coloured cornflowers on the silk canopy around.
Really, she thought, Chips was almost a girl, he cared so much for things like fabric, cut, colour, design.
But she had to admit, he had a talent for comfort.
If Honor had been responsible for the house, it would be drab and spartan in the extreme.
She never seemed to feel the cold or understand how important little comforts were.
And if Maureen were in charge, they would all be subjected to endless jokes – some jolly, some cruel, many bawdy. Certainly, she was a better guest than a hostess. Although even then, she did only what she wanted.
‘Will you sing for your supper?’ she had asked Brigid earlier, by the pool.
‘I shan’t.’ She had moved by then, from the lounging chair she had been squeezed into with Duff, to a seat beside the table where Brigid was.
Brigid was glad. There had been something …
embarrassing, she thought, about the way they had been so close together, Maureen’s leg, bare under her pretty cream-coloured skirt, pressed so hard against Duff’s, and the way she hadn’t seemed to mind that he was positively sweating through his white shirt, like a horse at the end of a long gallop, patches of dark wet soaking through the crisp white.
‘I suppose I shall have to,’ she had said wearily. ‘All that chatter and groups of people everywhere and never any time alone. How tiring country stays are.’
‘You sound like Oonagh. Really, you are far more like our side of the family. You know I mean that as a compliment?’
‘I suppose you do,’ Brigid had said, keeping her eyes to herself so that Maureen wouldn’t see the laugh in them.
But Maureen must have heard something in her voice – some tremor of mirth that gave her away – because she said snappily, ‘Not that you are in any need of compliments. Already I would say you have received more than enough. What do you intend to do with them?’
‘Not a thing. What should I do?’ She had wished Maureen would stop.
Even her mother was nothing like this bad.
It gave Brigid a hot, stuffy feeling to be quizzed like this, about who she went about with – worse, might marry – when the whole idea seemed so ridiculous.
She could no more imagine being married to one of the pleasant, sometimes foolish, young men who danced with her and asked her to sit out on cool balconies or in darkened gardens than she could imagine going to, say, India or Burma – places Maureen sometimes talked of, where she had been on her honeymoon, and that were as remote as the stars.
‘Good girl. There is nothing to be done yet.’ The way Maureen had stressed the word and looked at Fritzi – trying to throw a stick for Bundi, who showed no interest – had made Brigid feel terribly tired.
It was then, she thought, that her headache had begun.
‘In a little while, you might decide that you do want to.’
‘I won’t.’
‘How do you know you don’t want to marry him? The handsome prince?’ That was Elizabeth, coming to join them. She had sat on the ground, legs long and white stretched out in front of her.
‘Well, how would I know I do? I barely know him.’
‘Why don’t you find out?’ Elizabeth had said lazily.
‘Find what out?’
‘How well you do together? There’s only one way to know. And really, one must know. Otherwise, all that fuss of a wedding, and then’ – she shuddered – ‘the disappointment of the wedding night. Too crushing. No, by far the best thing is slip into his room one night and make sure.’
That was when Brigid had announced the headache and said she would go to her room.
She was shocked by the casual way Elizabeth had said what she did – imagine if Lady Iveagh, or even Honor, had heard?
– but even more than that, she was simply sick of being the focus of everyone’s interest. Was that what it was to be young and a girl?
she wondered. To be the draw for so many eyes, the source of so much speculation, simply because one was not yet married?
She was sick of having to give an account of herself.
Of featuring in other people’s plans, as though they all played a game with rules she didn’t understand.
It was like being a servant, she thought.
Others made plans, and she was somehow required to carry them out.
She sighed and turned her face to a cool patch of the pillow. ‘This bed is simply heavenly,’ she said to Minnie, who came in then with an armful of clothes to put away. ‘And look, short-bread!’ She pointed to a plate of biscuits by the bed. ‘Not just the usual digestives.’
‘I’ve ironed your dress for dinner,’ Minnie said. ‘And you’ve had too much sun.’
‘I know I have. How I wish I could have supper on a tray and go to bed. What a long day it has been already, and the Americans haven’t even arrived yet.’ She sighed.
‘I saw them, pulling up just now in a car as long as a horsebox.’
‘I would get up to look, but my head aches so.’
‘Let me fix you something. It tastes nasty, but will do the trick.’
‘I wish you would. I am glad Mamma lent you to me for the week.’
‘I am not a hat, Lady Brigid. I cannot be lent.’ She put the last of the clothes away and laid a cool hand on Brigid’s forehead.
‘Hat or not, you are jolly kind. And I do wish you would call me Biddy. Doris still does, you know.’ She held a wan hand out and Minnie clasped it quickly.
When Minnie had gone, she pulled the pink silk curtain of the bed over, so it blocked the last rays of sun, and closed her eyes.
The window was open and she listened gratefully to the jaunty sounds of early evening.
A breeze had started up and the trees were set rustling by it.
Birds went about their bedtime rituals, singing out a last sleepy chorus to let the world know it was time to fold itself away.
Below the birds was a steady rhythmic throaty chirp that said there were frogs by the river.
She was almost asleep when another sound joined what was there.
Music. Loud music, something delightful…
delicious … rang out from nearby. It was jarring, injecting a spikey energy where there had been drowsy harmony.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, sitting up, when Minnie returned.
‘The American girl brought a gramophone. Here, drink.’ She handed Brigid a glass half full with cloudy liquid. Brigid sniffed at it.
‘Lemon juice?’
‘With salt. Drink it.’ Brigid screwed up her face, but she did as Minnie told her, throwing back the foul-tasting liquid.
‘Now, drink some water. I’ll draw you a bath and by the time it’s ready, you’ll feel better.’
‘I doubt it,’ Brigid muttered, sinking back onto the bed.
The sound of the gramophone was irritating, she decided.
How dare this American girl clatter in and break the peace of their English country house?
‘Boor,’ she muttered, pulling the pillow over her head.
After a little while, the music stopped and she heard splashes and laughs coming from the swimming pool.
The Americans must be having an evening swim. The idea annoyed her somehow.