Lynda Plante - The Talisman

‘Be quite a social time here, Sylvia, my lamb. You’ll like that, and you know something — you’ll be the prettiest woman they’ve seen in these parts for years. Always said you’re the loveliest woman I ever set eyes on.’

She came out, refreshed and repainted, kissed his cheek lovingly. BB turned to leave the room. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, old gel, see you down in the arctic lounge.’

Harriet held her feet up to the fire. In the cracked, stone-flagged floor were little blue-flowered weeds, and she picked them one by one and threaded them through her toes, then held her foot up and laughed. She leaned on her elbow and looked at Edward, who was staring at the wall, a strange, expressionless look on his face.

‘What are you thinking? You’re miles away.’

He moved to her side and touched her hair, hair like gold, just like gold, just like his mother’s, so long that it hung below her waist. He remembered brushing it by the old grate, how Evelyne had loved her hair to be brushed. ‘You remind me of someone.’

Harriet smiled and leaned back against his shoulder, a natural and unprovocative move. The fire was low, there was no more wood in the chapel, and Edward noticed the rain had stopped. But he made no move to go. The quietness, the peace, was nice.

‘Did you love her, this person I remind you of?’

He smiled down at her and nodded his head. He found himself talking freely, unashamedly, and for the first time without any pain inside him. ‘I loved her, loved her very much.’

Harriet touched his face softly, looked into his dark-brown eyes. ‘You’ve got all the girls running after you round here, haven’t you? Is this a girl in Cambridge?’

He laughed and whispered to her that it was his mother, she had red hair too, long, long red hair.

Harriet snuggled into his shoulder, said that she was glad it wasn’t some woman. Edward coiled a strand of her hair round his finger, rolled it and let it drop into a ringlet on her shoulder... She caught his hand, kissed it, and he kissed the top of her head, very, very gently... He shook himself back to sanity. ‘We should go, Harry — come on, it’s stopped raining.’ Standing up, he lifted her to her feet. She was too close, his hands involuntarily tightened around her — he knew he should push her away, but he couldn’t. She looked up into his face. There was a calmness in her, an adultness that took his breath away. Gently, she pulled his head down to hers and kissed his lips. The sweetness, the innocence of the kiss, her lips so soft — no tongue searching, thrusting down his throat — it was a childish kiss, no hands swarmed over his body, or clutched at his trousers to feel him. She was simply there, so warm and so pure that it made him gasp. ‘We’d better go, come on, get your boots on.’

She began to tie her hair back, and got into a mess so he had to do it for her. As he tied the ribbon, he lifted her thick hair and kissed the nape of her neck, then tapped her tight little bum and told her to get a move on... He walked out, hampered by his erection and knowing he had to get away from her before he ripped her skin-tight jodhpurs off.

At seven-thirty, Edward was freezing to death in the bathroom, in a cold bath. The dinner gong, obviously repaired, boomed out, and he hurried to his room to dress. Harriet hurtled into his bedroom in a dreadful pea-green dress. The hooks and eyes were undone at the back, she had only one shoe on and her hair was like a wild hedgerow. ‘Will you do me up, Allard’s not in his room? I hate this dress, it looks dreadful, doesn’t it? Mother says I have to wear one for Uncle and Auntie.’

The dinner gong chimed again. Edward adjusted his immaculate, perfectly tied bow tie and, silently congratulating the late Clarence on his taste and style, hurried down the stairs.

Mrs Simpson was talking loudly to her husband as Edward entered the sitting room.

‘A real stallion hound, darling, is frightfully rare nowadays.’

Sitting astride her chair as though it were a horse, Mrs Simpson gave Edward a cursory smile and kept talking. The Judge rose to his feet as his wife went on at great length about what, in her opinion, a good hound should look like. He poured a sherry and handed it to Edward.

‘Straight, beautiful neck and shoulders, depth of girth, bone and feet. Must have that essential muscle, refinement of skin, back quarters like a horse. Frightfully important that it’s quick of hearing. Get a deaf dawg...’

‘Thought you were describing me for a minute there, Edna.’

BB and his wife, with their son trailing slightly behind, made a grand entrance, and were introduced to Edward. His wife, tiny and demure, fluttered in a chiffon dress that seemed to trail myriad floating panels like scarves. The room reeked of Chanel No. 5, and her shrill, nervous laugh mingled with the clinking of her many bracelets.

BB accepted a whisky from the Judge. He was a lot older than his wife, and wore an immaculate grey suit and stiff white collar, with a blue foulard tie in an old-fashioned dimple knot and a large diamond pin. His complexion was florid, his white hair, though balding, thick at the sides of his red cheeks, and his small round eyes were like flints. He shook Edward’s hand in a grip like iron, and stood nearly as tall as Edward, his wide shoulders tapering to his once-slim waist showing that, although he was too heavy, he had at one time been a very fit, athletic man. He raised his glass high, including everyone in the room in a toast to the family.

His son paled beside him, although he had his father’s colouring and was exceptionally handsome, the similarity ended there. Richard Van der Burge was slim and dandyish, and Edward reckoned him to be around the same age as himself, although far more sophisticated.

Richard laughed up at Harriet who loomed over him as he sat on the sofa, and observed that she was growing faster than he was. Then he got to his feet and gave her a kiss. She pushed him away and wiped her cheek, telling him he was a ponce. The butler nervously approached Mrs Simpson and whispered to her, asking if he should announce dinner. Edward took stock of the guests. They were, it was exceedingly obvious, ‘money’.

Allard swept in, his cheeks flushed with the evening air and slightly out of breath. He apologized to everyone for his lateness and linked arms with his mother. They all drifted into the dining room.

The table was beautifully laid, and a rotund cook peered through a hatch that led into the kitchen. She was handing the dishes to a young local girl who had come in to help out, and to old Fred. Fred, obviously a ‘man of all trades’, was acting butler. Edward couldn’t help but notice that he was even less adept at this than he was at driving. Edward was placed next to BB with Harriet opposite. While the others at the table discussed family outings and previous dinners together, Edward became fascinated with BB.

‘I have not shaved myself in over twenty years. I was in New York, and I realized that it was non-productive and time-consuming. In the time it would take to shave, I could have been reading, say, a company report, and no doubt made a decision that could possibly bring in a million dollars, maybe more. So I detailed a unique tonsorial network between myself, my chauffeur and my barbers. The barbers were briefed to be standing by to attend to me instantly, and they got a good tip for being ready and waiting.’ His shaggy eyebrows and piercing blue eyes roamed the table, demanding attention. He spoke in a strange, guttural manner, clipping the ends of his words. The family, obviously having heard most of his stories before, continued their chatter. Richard paid no attention to his father, but Harriet was avidly interested in her uncle and asked questions Edward was too shy to ask.