Dark Angel (35 page)

Constance leaned across; she smacked Boy’s hand.

“Francis,” she said, “don’t do that. I’ve told you a thousand times. He will chew the bark. It makes him sick.”

“Sorry.”

Boy seemed to ignore the sharpness of the reprimand.

Constance turned back to Dunbar and continued her attack, which was taking the form of an inquisition.

“Tell me,” she said, laying one small ringed hand on Dunbar’s sleeve, “are you a good soldier? Is Boy? What makes a man a good soldier?”

Dunbar screwed at his monocle. He looked perplexed—such a question seemed not to have occurred to him before. He glanced across toward Gwen and then, judging she was out of earshot, decided to risk a reply.

“Well now.” He cleared his throat. “Courage—of course.”

“Oh, I thought you might say that.” Constance gave a small pout. “But you must be more specific. I’m a woman, and women don’t understand male courage. Our own kind is so very different, you see. What makes a man courageous? Is it daring? Is it stupidity?”

Dunbar looked nonplussed. Acland, who had caught the remark, glanced up and smiled. Boy, seeing that Constance once more had her back to him, threw another, larger stick to her dog.

“No, not stupidity,” Constance ran on. She smiled at Dunbar winningly. “That is
quite
the wrong word. I can’t imagine why I said it. Lack of imagination—that is what I meant. I’ve always thought the greatest heroes must lack imagination. They must refuse to imagine all the terrible things—pain and disaster and death. That is why they are strong—don’t you think?”

As Constance said “strong,” Freddie noticed her place her small hand once again on Dunbar’s sleeve. Dunbar looked confused. He fiddled with his monocle cord; he let out a stertorous sigh. The argument might not have convinced him (it was, in any case, truly aimed at Acland, Freddie thought), but the eyes did. Dunbar made protective noises; he capitulated.

Freddie smiled to himself. He knew quite well that Constance had considerable scorn for Dunbar, whom she called “the tin soldier.” He watched Boy throw one more stick, and Floss caper after it. Then he closed his eyes. He began to drift toward sleep.

Words eddied toward him. “The thing
is
,” his father was saying in an aggrieved tone of voice, “they’re so damnably fussy about where they spawn. You give it the optimum conditions, and what does your salmon do? It goes up Dunbar’s river, that’s what it does….”

“I almost think, Gwen, that I prefer Mr. Worth. I saw the most charming ensemble there last week. Montague would have adored it.”

“It is a perfect book.”

“Can anything be perfect?”

“Books can. While one reads them.”

“Women
are
the weaker sex—I’ve never doubted it,” said Constance, who believed no such thing. “A woman looks up to a man as she would to a father. He must be her protector, after all….”

“Because the thing is—your salmon is a contrary creature. Concentrate on the trout, I sometimes think, and forget the damned salmon altogether….”

“Little pin-tucks. Then, on the skirt, the most cunning embroidery …”

Freddie heaved a comfortable sigh; a muddled vision swam through his consciousness: salmon in ball gowns, rivers flowing with books. He saw himself assembling a new fly and heard himself pronounce, with great authority, that with this fly he would catch them—by the volume. There he was, in his waders, up to his thighs in rushing water, playing the book on his line, and it was a book he had seen Constance reading the previous day (a book borrowed from Acland), a devious brute, a fifteen-pounder at the least, which he reeled in just so far when it started fighting….

“Floss!”

A sudden high cry of distress, so sharp it wakened Freddie at once. He sat up, blinking.

His aunt Maud had jumped to her feet and was flapping her hands in a distressed way; Acland was rising; Constance was running toward the reeds in a blur of blue skirts.

“Boy, that was your fault.” Jane stood. “Constance told you not to do it.”

“It was only a game.” Boy stammered a little on the
g.

“It was a stupid game. Constance, is he all right? What has happened?”

Freddie stood up. Constance had reached the reed bed. He saw her bend and pick up her dog. She cradled Floss in her arms. Floss wriggled; he squirmed. It was some while before Freddie realized that he was choking.

“He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.” Constance’s face was white and waxy; her voice rose in distress. “Francis, I
told
you—you see! There’s something stuck in his throat. Oh, help me someone, help me—quickly….”

Floss was making a kind of dry retching noise. A shudder passed through the length of his body from nose to tail. He squirmed, opened his mouth as if to yawn; his small tongue threshed; his paws scrabbled. Then he fell still. Constance gave a moan. She crouched down, head bent, clasping her dog more tightly, as if she wanted to hide his struggles from view.

“Hold him still.”

Acland pushed past Freddie. He knelt down beside Constance and grasped the dog’s throat. Floss jerked his head; he struggled so violently that Constance almost dropped him.

“Hold him
still.
”

“I can’t. He’s frightened. Stay, Floss—stay….”

“Damn it, Constance, hold his head. That’s it.”

Acland forced the dog’s throat back; he prised the clenched teeth apart; he hooked his finger into the dog’s mouth. Blood and saliva flecked his hand. A quick movement, then his hand was withdrawn. Acland closed his palm, then opened it. In it lay a fragment of stick, no more than an inch long. As they all looked at it Floss gave another tremor. He shook himself. He seemed to decide he could breathe. He snapped at the air, then licked at his muzzle. He made a heroic leap, and bit Acland.

That done, he recovered rapidly. Hearing the sighs of relief and the endearments, knowing he was the center of attention once more, he vibrated with new energy. He batted Constance with his front paws and nuzzled her hand with his nose; he pranced about the group and raised his smart feather of a tail. It was at this point, when it was clear that the accident had been averted and Floss was saved, that Sir Montague Stern joined the group unseen, from the path behind them.

It took a moment, amid the celebrations, for Stern’s presence to be registered. It took a moment more to understand the expression on his face. Once it was understood, the group wheeled and turned. They pressed upon Stern, pelted him with questions: It was certain, then? How did he know?

War, war, war. The banned word was released, in spite of Gwen. Having been imprisoned and suppressed for so long, it seemed to leap from person to person with new vigor, like a tongue of flame.

All eyes turned upon Stern, except those of Freddie. Freddie remained looking at Constance, and so it was Freddie alone who witnessed the strange thing that happened next.

Despite the appearance of Stern, despite his news, neither Constance nor Acland had moved. They remained kneeling, facing each other, Floss sniffing and panting just to their left. They did not look at Floss but at each other.

Acland said something that Freddie could not catch. Constance replied—again, he could not hear her words. Then Constance reached forward and took Acland’s hand. It was the hand Floss had bitten, and although the bite was neither serious nor deep, it was visible: a red half-moon of teeth marks. It had not broken the skin.

Constance raised Acland’s hand to her face; she bent over it and pressed her mouth against the sickle of the bite; her hair fell forward, obscuring Freddie’s view.

For a moment Acland did not move; then, in a slow way, as if he might at any second draw back, Acland lifted his hand too. He held it a few inches above Constance’s head; he lowered it, and let it rest upon her hair.

They stayed thus, poised as two figures in a
pieta,
apparently deaf, blind, and indifferent to the lake, the sun, the family group, the cries and exclamations. This stillness, in two people Freddie associated with speed and constant movement, astonished Freddie and silenced him. He had been about to interrupt—perhaps to intervene. He did not.

Walking back to the house a few minutes later, Freddie felt confused, a little truculent. There was something sour at the edge of his mind, a malaise as diffused but definite as a hangover. Acland walked ahead, his arm around his mother, who had begun to weep. Freddie brought up the rear of the procession. He glared at the sky.

Constance came skipping after him, Floss bounding at her heels. She caught his arm; she registered the glare.

“We knew it would happen, Freddie,” she said, in a kind voice. “It’s been inevitable for weeks.”

“What has?”

“War, of course.” She quickened her pace; the news seemed, if anything, to raise her spirits. “There are things to look forward to, even so.” She squeezed Freddie’s arm. “Don’t be a grump, Freddie. There’s your present, remember. I shall give it to you later.”

“When?” Freddie asked, with some urgency.

“Oh, after dinner.” Constance released his arm. “I shall give it to you then.”

She tossed back her hair; she quickened her pace to a run. Freddie followed more slowly. His mind felt like a logjam. War and a present; war and Constance.

Then, and later (this confused him), he found it impossible to dissociate the two.

“Look here, Acland, Farrell—what will you do? Wait for conscription, or volunteer?” Dunbar, at dinner the same night, cut into a slice of beef; he surveyed the table with a manly monocled eye. It was clearly a relief to him that after the constraints of the afternoon, he could now speak of war.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Ego Farrell looked away.

“You should volunteer—both of you. Shouldn’t they, Boy? After all, the whole shooting match could be over by Christmas. It may never come to conscription at all.”

“I would counsel patience,” Sir Montague Stern put in. “You might be being a little optimistic, Dunbar. Things might drag on longer, you know.”

“Really, sir? Is that the verdict in the City?”

Dunbar’s voice was one degree short of the overtly rude. By “City,” he clearly meant moneylenders; by moneylenders he implied Jews. The remark was designed, in short, to remind Montague Stern of his place, which—in Dunbar’s opinion—was not at a table such as this. True, certain prominent Jews, Stern among them, moved in London society, occasionally joined house parties such as this. That would not be the case, Dunbar seemed to imply, in Scotland, on his home ground.

“The City?” Stern, who was used to this kind of jibe, appeared unperturbed. “No. Downing Street, actually. Last week.”

It was rare for Stern to allude to his influence or his contacts. It was rarer still for him to put those who were offensive in their place. Silence followed his remark. Steenie, who disliked Dunbar, giggled. Constance, who admired Stern for his composure, gave him an approving glance. Dunbar blushed scarlet. Maud was quick to intervene. She was always sensitive to all slights to her lover. She had also noticed, as Dunbar had not, that his remarks were causing Gwen dismay.

“Monty, my dear,” she said lightly, “you are usually right, but you are a terrible pessimist. Personally, I have immense faith in our Foreign Service, especially now Acland is to join it. In my opinion, the whole matter will be resolved by diplomats. Why, it may never come to battles at all! The Kaiser, I’m sure, is at least a reasonable man. Once he understands what he is taking on—the British Navy; think of the British Navy!—he will back down. These gallant Belgians are all very well—one cannot stand by and see them overrun, I suppose—but really, when you examine it, what is this silly war all about? A great many peculiar countries in the Balkans, which I for one couldn’t
begin
to name—why, I couldn’t even place them on a globe with any degree of certitude. Besides which, I had it on
immensely
good authority—only last week, at dear Lady Cunard’s—that …”

At the far end of the table Gwen scanned the faces of her sons. All but Steenie were of an age to fight. Even Freddie, whom she thought of as a boy still; Freddie, who had only just left school.

Gwen pushed aside her food, untouched. The worst thing was that her present fears must remain unspoken. To voice them would be both cowardly and unpatriotic. She had already disgraced herself by weeping; any further exhibition of her true feelings would make Denton angry and her sons ashamed.

My hostages to fortune, Gwen said to herself; as the conversation continued she began to make silent and panicky plans. Denton would not help—that much was certain. Denton was in favor of war, would be proud for his sons to fight. In any case, Denton was almost seventy and showing his age. Gwen looked down the table, watched her husband’s hands tremble as they conveyed food to his lips. Poor Denton—the fire had gone out of him. His great rages were rarer now, and for the past year, two years, Gwen had found herself again growing fond of him.

In some way she could not understand, the death of Shawcross, that terrible accident, marked a dividing point in her husband’s life. Before then he was, if irascible, still vigorous: after it he became an old man.

The advent of war might have revived him a little, but Gwen knew that would not last. No, Denton would revert in a few days to the quieter way of life he had adopted. Days would be dozed through; Denton would begin again to speak, as he now loved to do, of the distant past. For that period, his childhood, his memory was vivid—yet, increasingly, he forgot events from the previous day. Names escaped him, also dates, and these sudden and unpredictable gaps in his memory, far from enraging him as they might once have done, now made him oddly humble.

More and more, Denton turned for comfort to Gwen.

“Talk to me, Gwennie,” he would say sometimes of an evening, when they were alone. Or: “Sing to me, Gwennie. One of your old songs. You have such a sweet voice.”

Gwen took a sip of her wine. The conversation had now, with Maud’s assistance, been turned to other things. She began to feel a little more courageous. She began to make plans.
Friends,
she said to herself—friends in politics, friends in the armed forces, friends—that was what she needed. Friends who, at her behest, could pull strings.