Camomile Lawn Read Free Page B

retired a general, chairman of the local bench of magistrates, Master of Hounds, rich.
    ‘And I live on my wife’s money and have one leg.’ Richard looked closer at the regimental group of 1913, young men without fear. He wiped a tear from his right eye with a fastidious handkerchief, a perpetual tear due to gassing just before the loss of his leg, an embarrassment and a nuisance. He would get a dog, to hell with Helena. He settled his tweed jacket squarely on his shoulders, tweaked his trouser crease into correct line down his artificial leg and turned to leave the room. As he did so he glanced out of the window and caught sight of his nephews and nieces running from the house across the lawn, carrying towels and bathing suits and accompanied by the parson’s twins.
    ‘Wait for me!’ Sophy’s high-pitched scream halted Oliver, who with Calypso made the tail end of the procession. ‘Wait, wait!’ Irritating child. He watched Oliver pause and noticed with a frown that he and Calypso were holding hands. Oliver had taken off the ridiculous bandage he had worn at breakfast, showing off, of course. Oliver dropped Calypso’s hand and, catching hold of the child, swung her on to his shoulders to sit astride. The child’s gingham dress flew up and Richard saw that she was wearing no knickers, bloody little bastard exposing her bum.
    ‘Helena?’ Richard shouted, limping downstairs. ‘Helena, where are you?’
    ‘Here.’
    ‘Helena, I don’t often interfere in your department, but this time I must insist—’
    ‘What?’ Helena was in the drawing room, putting roses in a bowl he had won at polo before the war. She did not look round.
    ‘That bowl needs cleaning.’
    ‘If we polished the silver according to your directions there wouldn’t be a silver mark left. What is it, Richard?’
    ‘That child Sophy is wearing no knickers.’
    ‘How on earth do you know?’ Anxiety showed in Helena’s eyes.
    ‘I saw Oliver pick her up.’
    ‘Is that all?’
    ‘All?’ He was nonplussed. ‘It’s indecent. I ask you.’
    ‘Richard,’ Helena laughed, ‘she’s only ten, she never wears knickers if it’s hot. What are you fussing about? She’s gone bathing with the others. A little girl of Sophy’s age can’t be indecent.’
    Helena’s laughter infuriated Richard.
    ‘Your friend the General wants you to ring him.’ Helena always referred to the General as ‘your friend’.
    ‘What about, did he say?’
    ‘He’s going to put the hounds down, thought you ought to know as you are on the Hunt committee.’
    ‘Good God!’
    ‘He says if it’s war it’s total. No more hunting.’
    ‘Good God! So he thinks there will be a war?’ Richard was shaken.
    ‘Yes, my dear, he does.’
    ‘Helena—’ he took the hand she held out to him. ‘Helena, I am useless, useless.’
    ‘Nonsense, Richard. There will be masses of things for you to do.’
    ‘Such as what?’
    ‘Organizations, A.R.P., things like that.’
    ‘Answering the telephone? I ask you. I’m not a bloody clerk.’
    ‘Ring the General. Have a talk with him, he will be in the thick of things.’
    ‘I have only one leg.’
    ‘You don’t answer the telephone with your legs,’ Helena said brutally. ‘Now I must get on, if Cook and I are to feed your army of relations.’
    ‘What about Sophy’s knickers?’
    ‘There’s going to be a war. What the hell do Sophy’s knickers matter? If you are interested I don’t wear knickers in very hot weather. Knickers are a Victorian innovation.’ Helena picked up the flower scissors, brushed stalk ends into the wastepaper-basket and left the room. Oh, why must I be so awful to Richard? she asked herself. If Anthony had only lost a leg instead of being lost altogether would I be so beastly to him? Getting no answer to her hypothetical question Helena dismissed her first husband, whose bones lay somewhere in France, from her mind, and went to discuss meals in the kitchen. It was amazing what a lot of food