Philip Loraine - In the Blood

Whatever the reason, she had no intention of approaching The Cousins via the enormous front door. This would be opened by their noxious butler, Smart, who would regard her with a disdain which out-cousined The Cousins, making them seem hospitable by comparison. She parked her car in the shade and plunged into a shrubbery to the east of the house, remembered intimately as the scene of countless adventures in Amazonian forests or tiger-haunted Indian jungles, according to the whim of her inventive brother. This way she would approach the garden front, wandering up on to the terrace, and so, unannounced, into their lives. For God’s sake, she’d telephoned and made an appointment , wasn’t that enough?

However, she nearly laughed out loud when she reached the topmost terrace to find The Cousins disposed about the lily-pool as if the curtain had just risen on an old-fashioned West End play. Mark and Helen sat at a white cast-iron table on which reposed a silver coffee-pot with accoutrements, including, she noticed, an extra cup for herself. Her uncle had thickened and coarsened since she’d last seen him, and his fairish hair was receding which made his red, admittedly handsome, face seem larger. Her aunt had not changed at all; her dark hair, which never looked dyed, was still arranged in what Kate always thought of as the ‘haute-county’ style (much in evidence at Hill Manor Hotel): ageless, accentuating an almost ageless neck; and her beautiful face, equally well-preserved, remained youngish, pale, patrician. Both seemed to be designed to decorate the society pages of Country Life , or Queen , or the Tatler— as indeed they frequently had and did. Her beige linen dress was perfection; she invariably wore pearls. All in all, she made her husband, in a brownish kind of safari suit, look lumpen.

It was said that in their youth Mark and Richard had been alike, but Kate felt sure that if her father had lived for another thirteen years he would never have shared the coarsening process which had overtaken his elder brother; he was too neat and slim, and had never been much of a drinker which Mark patently was.

Mother and father seemed to have distanced themselves from the two of their three children who were present. Giles, at twenty, resembled his father and would become as gross; for the moment, his fair, confident good looks gave some indication as to why Mark had always been considered so handsome and attractive. Miranda, the younger daughter, was sixteen, usually an uncertain age and in her case a disastrous one; she was fat and had bad skin, and no one would have guessed she was in any way related to the exquisite woman at the table. Brother and sister both wore tight trousers which, as Giles well knew, emphasized his strong legs and his crotch; whether the girl knew that they merely emphasized her hips and bottom was open to doubt. Lucy, the middle child, now eighteen, had opted out.

This family group was arranged to face away from the house, and Kate was overcome by a wicked certainty that here was a conscious display of backs calculated to greet her with utter indifference. Well she’d certainly scotched that little trick, for now she faced them head-on and reflected in the lily-pool. Father and the two children showed surprise, but Helen, in her usual accents of petrified gentility, said, ‘Why Kate, how nice to see you, and what a most attractive dress!’

Kate suspected that this remark was addressed less to her than to her unattractively-trousered daughter, she was that sort of woman. She and old Lydia together must have made quite a pair!

Mark was meanwhile hrrumphing about, moving chairs and making welcoming noises: ‘Don’t see nearly enough of you,’ and other meaningless pleasantries. Giles, who had at least been expensively educated, stood up and struck an attitude which further enhanced his looks and figure. Miranda waved plump fingers but didn’t otherwise move. If either son or daughter imagined they were going to be privy to the ensuing conversation their mother disabused them by saying, ‘Giles, you might go to the stable and see what that ass, Kimble, is up to. And take Miranda with you.’ Thus do the Helens of this world wave their dainty, razor-sharp wands. Evidently no time was to be wasted in getting down to business.

Telling herself yet again that she was not seeking charity, Kate started by asking whether they’d read in the papers that some Californian doctor appeared to have found a cure for the disease, Raynor’s Syndrome, which was ruining Daniel’s life.

‘Oh,’ replied Helen (pronounced ‘Eu’), ‘we wondered if that’s what he’s got.’ They knew damn well it was, and the pretence gave Kate just that edge of anger needed to liberate eloquence. Yes, she was eloquent, carried away by youth and passionate determination; so that it only dawned on her slowly and painfully that she might just as well have remained mute; have stayed at Woodman’s with Daniel, or driven off with him to Bournemouth in search of Rosemary Howard. (‘A fool must now and then be right, by chance.’ No mistaking the fool in this case: as wrong as could be and without the shadow of a chance.) The Cousins had known from the beginning why she wanted to see them—they were quite used to beggars—and after all it wasn’t a great feat of conjecture for a mind like Helen’s once she’d read the newspaper; they had long ago decided just how to answer her.

Uncle Mark was first to bat for the Establishment. It seemed that the entire roof, including most of the lead coping, required urgent attention: worse when it came to the east wing where the actual timbers would have to be replaced. A financial disaster of the kind which only struck one if one happened to own a Grade One Listed Property. Somehow this led to the fact that he was responsible for the employment of over two hundred people, and for the direct upkeep of a hundred and seventy-six properties, a proportion of them nothing but almshouses for old employees, bringing in little or no rent. (This, no doubt, included Daniel and Woodman’s.) And now, as Kate had probably noticed, the south plantation was dying of some wretched, continental disease, would have to be bulldozed, burnt and replanted …

And, added Helen, perhaps fearing her husband might flag, there was Cortiano. (There was where?) Not an enormous house (pronounced ‘hice’) with some return from olives and vines. But the outlay was considerable, the place had to be leased—no one in Corsica ever sold land—and there were more employees to be paid, taxes … Kate had never realized that they’d held on to the Corsican property, perhaps as a nice retreat for secluded holidays.

Now, continued Mark, having regained his breath, if Kate could believe anything so preposterous, the District Council had suddenly announced that the bridge at Little Layton needed rebuilding, and it was his responsibility, nothing to do with them at all.

And then, chimed in Helen again, there was the whole absolutely fearsome cost of the children’s education, with Giles already at Cambridge and both his sisters proposing to follow in his footsteps. Uncle Mark summed it all up in tones of the deepest despondency: ‘They’ve got us over the barrel, Kate. We’re stretched—damn tight. Of course we’d have leaned over backwards for a family matter like this, but it isn’t feasible, it simply is not feasible.’

The humiliation which rose up in Kate, threatening to choke her, had nothing to do with the selfishness and meanness of spirit which lay behind all this verbiage; it had nothing to do with The Cousins at all. The fault lay within herself; that she had ever been so stupid, so childishly optimistic, as to believe that they really might have helped Daniel. God in heaven, anyone would think she knew nothing whatever about the world and its ways! There had never, ever, been the faintest chance of one poor cripple’s fate even impinging on their armour-plated indifference: and the hated brother’s son at that!