But that the Hobdays had plenty to spare pleased her. It had nothing to do with her, but it pleased her. That Emma Hobday might be made of five-pound notes, that the marriage might be an elaborate way of obtaining ‘loot’, pleased or, rather, consoled her. It was all the other things it might entail that — even as Mr Niven explained about the ‘roping in’—gnawed at her.
And would Mister Paul and Miss Hobday be joining the party themselves? She couldn’t really ask it directly, vital as it was to her to know. And Mr Niven didn’t volunteer the information.
‘Would you mention these arrangements to Milly? None of it of course need affect — your own arrangements.’
It was not often that he had the occasion to say such a thing.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘A jamboree in Henley, Jane. A meeting of the tribes. Let’s hope we have the weather for it.’
She wasn’t quite sure what ‘jamboree’ meant, though she felt she had read the word somewhere. But ‘jam’ suggested something jolly.
‘I hope so too, sir.’
And now they clearly had the weather for it, and Mr Niven, whatever his earlier misgivings, was indeed getting rather jolly. He was going to be driving himself. He had already announced that they might as well set off soon, so they could ‘pootle around’ and take advantage of such a lovely morning. He wouldn’t, apparently, be calling on Alf at the garage, who — for the right sum — could become a convincing chauffeur. In any case, as she’d observed over recent years, Mr Niven liked driving. He even preferred the pleasure of driving to the dignity of being driven. It gave him a boyish zest. And as he was always saying, with a whole variety of intonations, ranging from bluster to lament, times were changing.
Once upon a time, after all, the Nivens would have met the Sheringhams at Sunday service.
‘Tribes’ had suggested something hot and outdoors. She knew it was to be the George Hotel in Henley. It was not to be a picnic. And it might well have been a day, since it was still March, of evil gales, even snow. But it was a morning like a morning in summer. And Mrs Niven left the table to go up to get herself ready.
She couldn’t ask, even now with Mr Niven conveniently alone, ‘Would Miss Hobday and. .?’ Even if it sounded like just a maid’s idle curiosity. Wasn’t the coming wedding the only current talking-point? And she certainly couldn’t ask, ‘If not, then what other separate arrangements might the two of them have in mind?’
She didn’t think that if she were one half of a betrothed couple — or at least Paul Sheringham’s half — she would want, two weeks before their wedding, to attend a jamboree in Henley to be fussed over by the older generation (by what he might have called — she could see him speaking with a cigarette in his mouth and wincingly screwing up his eyes—‘three bloody showers together’).
But in any case, if she got no further information, it still left the problem that was peculiarly hers on this day, as Mr Niven knew, of what to do with it. Today it was painfully peculiar. The gorgeous weather didn’t necessarily help at all. It only seemed — with two weeks to go — to deepen a shadow.
She was going to say to Mr Niven, when the moment came, that if he — if he and Mrs Niven — didn’t mind, she might not ‘go’ anywhere. She might just stay here at Beechwood and read a book if that was all right—‘her book’ as she might put it, though it belonged to Mr Niven. She might just sit somewhere in the sunshine in the garden.
She knew that Mr Niven could only approve of such a harmless suggestion. He might even think it was a rather appealing image. And of course it would mean she’d be ready to resume her duties at once, whenever they returned. She could find something to eat in the kitchen. Milly, before she left, might even make her a sandwich. She could have her own ‘picnic’.
And it might even have happened just like that. The bench in the nook by the sundial. Bumblebees tricked by the weather. The magnolia tree already loaded with blossom. Her book on her lap. She knew which book it would be.
So — she would put the idea to Mr Niven.
But then the telephone had rung and — it being one of her numberless duties — she’d hastened to answer it. And her heart had soared. That was a phrase you read in books, but it was sometimes actually true of what happened to people. It was true then of herself. Her heart had soared, like some stranded heroine’s in a story. Like the larks she would hear in a little while, trilling and soaring high in the blue sky, as she pedalled her way to Upleigh.
But she’d been careful to say, quite loudly, into the receiver and with her best answering-the-telephone voice that was both maid-like and somewhat queenly, ‘Yes, madam.’
Church bells throbbed beneath the birdsong. Warm air wafted through the open window. He had not drawn the curtains, not even out of token delicacy to her. Delicacy to her? But it wasn’t necessary. The room looked out over trees and grass and gravel. The sunshine only applauded their nakedness, dismissing all secrecy from what they were doing, though it was utterly secret.
And they had never been, in all their years of — what to call it? Intimacy? Freedom with each other? — as naked as this.
Feast your eyes, she’d dared to think, like some smuggled-in beauty. Was she a beauty? She had the red knuckles and worn-down nails of her kind. Her hair must have been all over the place. It was stuck to her forehead. Yet she’d even felt something of his imperious immodesty — as if he were the servant bringing her a cigarette.
And barely two hours ago she had called him ‘madam’! Since it was his voice down the telephone and, for all her sudden servant-girl giddiness, she had needed to keep her presence of mind. The door to the breakfast room was open. Mr Niven was still occupied with toast and marmalade. Down the telephone had come quick, terse, undisobeyable instructions, while she’d said, ‘Yes, madam. . No, madam. . That’s quite all right, madam.’
Her heart had soared. Feast your eyes. A story was beginning.
And less than an hour later, after she’d stepped off her bicycle and he’d opened the front door for her — the front door no less, as if she were a real visitor and he were a head footman — they’d laughed at her calling him ‘madam’. They’d laughed as she’d said it again as he ushered her in. ‘Thank you, madam.’ And he’d said, ‘You’re clever, Jay. Do you know that? You’re clever.’ That was the way he paid compliments, as if revealing to her something she might never have imagined.
But yes, she was clever. Clever enough to know she was cleverer than him. She had always, especially in the early days, out-clevered him. It was what he wanted, she knew it, to be out-clevered, even in some strange way commanded. Though it could never be said of course, or even suggested. She would never quite erase, even when she was ninety, her inner curtsey. There was always the given of his princely authority. He ruled the roost, didn’t he? He’d ruled it now for nearly eight years. He had the run. He had the run of her. Oh yes, he was princely. She’d helped him form the habit.
But he’d called her clever, as they stood together in the vestibule, almost with confessing humility, as if he were the evident fool, the hopeless case. Outside, bordering the gravel, were ribbons of brilliant daffodils and inside, across the hall, rising from a large bowl, were twists of almost luminous white flowers. Then the door had shut behind her, and she was alone with him inside Upleigh House at eleven on a Sunday morning. Something she’d never been before.