Page 22 of Last Letter Home
Harry, a muscular, smiley young man with dark, healthy good looks, seized the blindfolded boy by the shoulders and turned him till he was dizzy. Everyone drew back as the victim staggered free and the girls squealed as he barged about, trying to catch one of them.
Sarah enjoyed the game from the sidelines, feeling too old for this buffoonery, but she couldn’t help laughing when Diane was caught and took her turn, though the girl appeared terrified as Harry tied the scarf over her eyes. Then her heart went out to her sister, for she looked so utterly lost as he released her and she stumbled about until the lad himself took pity and allowed himself to be caught.
‘She’s rather a sport, your sister,’ Ivor remarked, appearing beside her with two glasses of steaming mulled wine.
‘She’s always liked parties.’ It was true. Something about being in a crowd appealed to Diane. Perhaps other people helped take her mind off herself. Sarah remembered with sudden pain how it had been too late to cancel Diane’s party on that awful summer afternoon. The guests arrived only to turn away at the sad news of Colonel Bailey’s illness, but Diane had begged them to stay. Sarah had discovered this about grief, that she kept being reminded of her father at the most unlikely moments.
‘Are you all right?’ Ivor said. His sincere brown eyes examined her anxiously and she was touched by how attentive he was being.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘We’d better not stand here or Harry will get us for sure. Watch out!’
They ducked Harry’s lurching figure and Sarah followed Ivor out through the hall and into the candlelit dining room where a large bony woman with a look of Jennifer and wearing spectacles on a gold chain was ordering the finishing touches to a supper table groaning with dishes and fussing at the terrified maid about the number of chairs around the wall.
‘Ivor, dear, it isn’t ready yet,’ she snapped by way of greeting.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Bulldock. I simply wanted to introduce Sarah Bailey.’
The woman fixed a glare upon Sarah, who felt a little shiver pass through her as though she was being judged and found acceptable. The lines on Mrs Bulldock’s forehead betrayed her as a worrier. ‘So you’re the elder Bailey girl then? Such bad luck about your father. I gather he didn’t leave your mother much to live on? It’s a lesson to us all.’
‘I’m not sure who you’ve heard that from, but Daddy looked after us very well.’ Sarah could hardly manage to be polite, she was so irritated by this stranger who seemed to know so much about them and felt free to comment.
‘How are you finding the cottage? Those tenants you had were a poor sort, I’ll say. The boys ran wild.’
‘They weren’t too bad,’ Ivor put in, eyeing the sausage rolls hungrily. ‘Their father was the artistic sort, that’s all.’
‘With morals to match, I suppose. The wife must have been shy, she always slipped away if one tried to speak to her. Still, Sarah, I hope you’ll be happy here. I’ll pay your mother a visit soon, tell her, I expect she’d be glad of the company. And I need someone sensible on the summer fete committee. Lady Kelling’s our chairman, you know, but she’s in London most of the time so she leaves these things to me. I’m sure your mother will fit the bill. Mary, don’t leave the butter near the candles, you silly child.’
The thought of her mother agreeing to help on a committee was so unlikely that Sarah had to stifle a laugh. Mrs Bailey had always avoided the duties of an officer’s wife as far as she could, apart from the entertaining, for she enjoyed basking in male attention.
Finally everyone was called through for supper. Sarah noticed that Diane was flushed and giggling and her eyes were unnaturally bright. Was it, she wondered, the effect of the high jinks or of the contents of the empty wine glass in her hand? Oh, what did it matter, for the moment her sister appeared happy.
Jennifer, she saw, became anxious in her mother’s presence. Mrs Bulldock criticized the perfectly reasonable-sized portion of Jubilee chicken her daughter was helping herself to, which made Jennifer drop some on the lace cloth as she jerked the spoon back towards the dish.
Ivor, apparently popular and at ease in this company, introduced Sarah to several of his friends, the sons and daughters of gentleman farmers for the most part, with whom he’d grown up and mixed with during holidays from school. The cheerful, handsome lad, Harry, was one of them. Despite his earlier boisterousness he proved perfectly presentable company, easy to talk to and with a good word for everyone. He popped a sausage roll into his mouth and fixed her with an amiable, round-eyed gaze. ‘I say, what do you plan to do with yourselves now you’re here?’
‘We don’t know at the moment,’ she replied, accepting a dish of trifle Ivor brought her and aware of him hovering at her elbow. ‘We’re still settling in.’
‘I hope you don’t find it very remote here. Though I suppose coming from India you’re rather used to remoteness.’
‘Yes, we were out in the sticks there, but the thing is we were always among people.’ Too many people sometimes, though she didn’t tell Harry this. Though the bungalow in Kashmir had been spacious and set in large gardens, she had rarely had the privilege of feeling alone. Lonely, yes. One could feel lonely in a crowd, but the pleasure of one’s own company and the time to pursue one’s own interests, not only was that rare, but it was looked upon with suspicion. To survive as a member of the colonial force in the country, the thing to do was to stick together, to keep up the appearance of being civilized. There was unease with loners or the eccentric.
After supper Jennifer set up the gramophone and there was dancing and much horseplay and laughter. Diane was steered about the floor by Harry, who held her slight frame carefully as they quickstepped, as though she might easily be crushed. Ivor danced with Sarah several times, which she thought gallant of him. There was only a few inches difference in their heights and he was a good dancer, on which she complimented him.
‘Is it one of things new officers learn at Sandhurst?’
He smiled down at her. ‘There is certainly a good social side to be had there.’
She found he was different here, in company, than during that time on Christmas Day when they’d walked together in the snow. He seemed happier, more relaxed, sure of himself. The other Ivor, the one she saw when they’d been alone, she wasn’t sure she’d liked as much, but there was something that made her sorry for him. His father was hard on him; maybe he didn’t mean to be, but he was. Ivor wore the weight of his father’s expectations, perhaps that was what made him highly strung.
Some of the guests were staying overnight, but since it hadn’t snowed again Ivor drove Sarah and Diane home slowly through the wintry darkness. In the porch of Flint Cottage the lamp had been left burning, making the house appear golden and welcoming.
Sarah was lying sleepless in the grey snow light of her room, the laughter and the music still playing in her head when the latch clicked, the door cracked open and Diane’s pale face appeared.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she whispered, slipping into the room. ‘I can’t sleep, is all. Too cold.’
Sarah made room for her shivering body. ‘Oh, your feet,’ she breathed through her teeth, ‘they’re like blocks of ice.’
