Moonshine. Victoria Clayton
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take no notice. I’m being unreasonable again.’ She brushed away a tear and made an effort to smile. ‘Be careful, I might put a spell on you.’
She really was a strange girl. I guessed part of the trouble was that she had put a spell on poor Dickie. His adoration was patent. But unless you are extraordinarily vain (and Fleur, I thought, was unusually without vanity for such a good-looking girl) being adored quickly becomes irritating and guilt-inducing.
‘Let’s go into the garden straight after coffee and look at the Temple to Hygeia,’ he suggested as though the conversation had not taken place.
‘We’ll go now,’ Fleur stood up. ‘We can take our coffee cups with us.’
‘You’d better let me bring the tray, madam.’ Mrs Harris, who had waited at table with admirable discretion, slid round the door with such alacrity I wondered if she had been listening. ‘The pattern’s been discontinued and it’d be a pity to spoil the set.’
‘Ha, ha! Come now, Mrs Harris.’ Dickie crinkled his face in pacifying smiles, his pale eyes kind and serene. ‘What does a little broken china matter?’
‘I haven’t actually broken it yet.’ Fleur’s face was cold. ‘But if I did that would be my business and no one else’s.’ She picked up the cat and left the room.
‘Never mind, Mrs Harris.’ Dickie began to get up, leaning heavily on the arms of his chair. ‘Least said, soonest mended, eh?’
‘Why don’t I carry the tray?’ I suggested.
‘I’d best bring it myself, to be on the safe side,’ she replied with a stiffening of her jaw. ‘The path’s quite uneven in places.’
I saw that she was jealous of her office so I did not press the point.
‘Your stick, sir.’ Mrs Harris handed it to him. ‘What about leaving your coat, sir?’ She brushed a crumb from the sleeve of his tweed jacket in a manner that was almost maternal. ‘It’s getting quite warm. You don’t want to overheat.’
‘Thank you, I shall be all right as I am.’
I could see from Mrs Harris’s expression that she thought he was very much all right as he was. And, looking at him through her eyes, I saw that his affability, his presumption of power in his own kingdom and his courtliness in exercising that power was attractive. But to a girl like Fleur probably these things did not count.
‘You’ll beware, sir, where Billy’s put that wet cement? We don’t want you having a nasty accident.’
‘I’ll take care not to fall.’ There might have been a little resentment in his tone and he seemed to stand up straighter as though encumbered by so much solicitude. ‘Thank you, Mrs Harris,’ he added in a softened tone. ‘Where would we all be without you to take care of us, eh?’
A wave of colour ran over Mrs Harris’s face. ‘It’s my pleasure, sir.’ She began to clear the table, an expression of satisfaction curving her lips.
‘A good woman,’ muttered Dickie as we crossed the hall to the garden door. ‘None better. But not always tactful. Damn! I wonder where Fleur’s got to? I’m always afraid that when she flies into a pet she’ll do something stupid on Stargazer. He’s a wonderful animal but he gets a look in his eye …’
Dickie set the pace to the Temple, or the China House, which was how I thought of it. By daylight the garden had lost its mystery but was still lovely.
‘What a fabulous rose!’ I stopped to sniff at its tumbled raspberry petals revealing a glimpse of gold stamens. ‘Oh, the scent! I wonder what it’s called?’
‘Souvenir du Docteur Jamain,’ said Dickie, without stopping. ‘French hybrid perpetual.’
‘And this?’ I cupped my hands round an exquisite quartered bloom of blush pink.
Dickie threw a glance over his shoulder. ‘Queen of Denmark. An alba rose, probable parentage Maiden’s Blush.’
I longed for information about the other roses that dropped showers of pink, yellow, white and crimson petals on the path as Dickie brushed hastily past but his anxiety was so manifest that it seemed cruel to detain him for a second. We came rushing through the gap in the hedge which surrounded the China House to find Fleur sitting on its front step, talking to a young man. When he saw us he stooped in a leisurely way to pick up a trowel and began to slap cement from a bucket on to a piece of ground marked out with string. This, obviously, was Billy. He had short hair, tipped blond, and a craggy sort of face, good-looking in an aggressively masculine way. He was shirtless, his back burnished by the sun. His legs revealed by cut-off jeans were muscular and his wrists were bound with leather straps. He cast me a look of interest that hardened into something more like approval.
‘Arternoon, guv,’ he said, in a high nasal voice that spoiled the tough, lion-tamer image.
Dickie was scarlet in the face. Beads of sweat sat on his forehead and his voice was not quite under his command for he was panting.
‘Hello, Billy.’ He looked at Fleur. ‘There you are, darling. I wondered what had happened to you.’
‘You look as if you’re going to pass out.’ Fleur sounded unsympathetic. ‘Why don’t you take off your coat? For heaven’s sake, it’s high summer and you’re wearing a tie! I’m boiling!’
She pulled up her cotton jersey and hauled it over her head.
‘Well, girls, if you don’t mind, I think I will.’
Dickie leaned his stick against the steps and began to unknot his tie. I saw Billy looking at Fleur’s breasts. Her nipples were prominent beneath her thin, not altogether clean T-shirt. Her armpits had tufts of dark hair. The gypsy look is not one I normally care for but on Fleur it seemed fine, even attractive in an earthy way. Billy’s eyes narrowed and he licked his upper lip. I glanced at Dickie but he was still fighting his way out of his coat. Perspiration was damp on the back of my neck but I was disinclined to remove my jersey beneath Billy’s lascivious gaze. Mrs Harris appeared with the coffee. I saw her eyes take in everything.
She put the tray on a table that stood outside the China House. ‘I’ll take that coat, sir, then you won’t have to carry it back. You’d better put your shirt on, Billy,’ she added sharply. ‘It isn’t decent in front of ladies.’
Billy looked at Dickie.
‘Mrs Harris is always right.’ Dickie smiled. ‘We must do as we’re bid.’
Billy showed by the contemptuous drooping of his eyelids precisely what he thought of the housekeeper. He put on his T-shirt and bent and stretched languidly over his task, pausing now and then to look at Fleur and sometimes at me. Once when I caught his eye he turned his back to the others and rested his free hand casually on his groin. I stared with cold dignity at a clump of delphiniums.
‘Now, Roberta.’ Dickie sank into a deckchair. ‘Tell me honestly what you think.’ He waved his hand at the China House.
‘So far, excellent,’ I said. I noticed that Fleur was amusing herself by chucking little stones into Billy’s cement and that he was fishing them out and waving his trowel at her in mock anger.
‘I’ve consulted pre-war photographs, though it was nearly a ruin then,’ said Dickie. ‘But outside, at least, it’s as near as dammit to the original.’
‘It’s lovely. Did you know it was traditional to hang bells from the eaves, beneath the curled-up corners of the roof? So you get a tinkling sound whenever the wind blows. You could have a whingding at the apex. That’s a sort of pinnacle. Something fanciful. Perhaps a crouching dragon with a long tail spiralling upwards?’
Dickie was thrilled by these suggestions and began to make notes on the back of an envelope. Fleur lobbed a stone that bounced on a bucket and struck Billy’s thigh. He mimed a parody of spanking and she giggled. I heard him give a low growl. The little square of garden seemed