The Wind Off the Sea Page 24

  She watched them for some time, slowly smoking her cigarette and remembering dancing with Davey. He had been a wonderful dancer, light on his feet, quick, with that ability to always make his partner feel as if she were a better dancer than she really was. Not that Meggie was a bad dancer – far from it. Davey always used to compliment her on her grace and her lightness, saying that when they danced he could barely feel her in his arms. Smiling at the memory, Meggie turned back to the bar just as Waldo appeared to order himself a lemonade to quench his thirst. He was standing less than four feet away, but he steadfastly ignored her, which irritated Meggie since she happened to know that he’d spent a good deal of the evening watching her closely, trying to catch her eye on several occasions, something which she’d steadfastly and deliberately ignored. But now it seemed it was her turn to be ignored and it began to irritate her. Why she couldn’t understand, since up to that moment she’d always found the man himself without merit, so assured was he, so confident of his charm and his persuasion. Yet now she found herself being piqued by his quite wilful lack of interest and that in turn irritated her further. After all, if anyone was to ignore anyone, it should be Miss Meggie Gore-Stewart ignoring Mr Waldo Astley – not vice-versa.

  Then suddenly she saw him turn and stare right at her, catching her eyes with his before she had time to avoid them. After what can only have been a split second of time, Meggie swung her head away, blew out a plume of smoke and pretended to laugh and smile at someone across the room. The next thing she knew was that an extremely tall and more than a little drunk stranger had staggered across the room and asked her to dance. Afraid he was going to topple over right on top of her, Meggie tried to get up off her chair and escape, but she could not. The man was standing with one hand either side of her shoulders gripping the back of her chair, his head not six inches from her face as he repeated his request for a dance.

  And then he was gone, as quickly as he had arrived, except he didn’t depart on his feet. Instead he found himself sliding on his more than ample backside across the dance floor to roars of derisory laughter from friends and strangers alike. When Meggie looked up she saw Waldo standing in front of her, dusting his hands together before adjusting his hallmark bow tie.

  ‘Since you won’t be dancing with him, I guess, Miss Gore-Stewart,’ he said, ‘perhaps you will do me the honour?’

  He gave a little bow and extended a hand. For a moment Meggie hesitated. Then with a small sigh, accompanied by a little raise of her eyes to heaven, she got up and allowed Waldo to lead her by her hand on to the dance floor. He put his right hand in the small of her back, so lightly that she could hardly feel the contact, took her right hand in his left, and proceeded to quickstep Meggie quite beautifully and skilfully around the floor. After only two choruses of ‘Pennies From Heaven’ Meggie discovered to her amusement that they seemed to have the dance floor to themselves. Everyone else had retired to the bar, or to the edges, to watch this display of what must have looked like exhibition dancing, so expert was her partner and fortunately so expert also was she, able to keep right there with him every step, reverse, twist and turn of the way, all the time keeping her gaze straight over her partner’s right shoulder in the traditional manner.

  She barely heard the girl vocalist sing her chorus, being only aware of the thrill of being danced with beautifully for the first time since she had danced with Davey. It was heaven to be in a man’s arms like this again, not thinking of anything except dancing. As the number finished and the onlookers broke into spontaneous applause, Waldo bowed, thanked her, and led her back to her seat where he left her without saying another word. Meggie remained where she was, ignoring the stares of the curious and the admiring, taking a cigarette out of her case and lighting it while trying to compose herself. Most of all she was trying to dissuade herself of a dawning truth: that not even Davey Kinnersley had managed to have quite such an electrifying effect on her as Waldo Astley had just had, so much so that when she held her small gold lighter up to light her fresh cigarette she saw that her hand was shaking quite considerably.

  Calmed and distracted by her smoke, she looked slowly about her to see where her dancing partner had gone. But he was nowhere to be seen. Meggie sat where she was for a moment thinking that he might have hidden from her but still be watching, and reluctant for him to see that she was actually looking round for him. As casually as she could, she got to her feet, wandered along the bar and round the other side of the hall. But it seemed Waldo had altogether vanished.

  Dauncy was still there, dancing slowly with his delightfully pretty partner. Meggie waited until the number was finished then quietly asked Dauncy if he knew where his companion might have gone.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he replied with his brilliant smile. ‘He’s gone home.’

  ‘But you can sail!’ Dauncy exclaimed, laughing as Waldo swung Dingy to perfectly, heading her back into the wind. ‘You can sail very well!’

  ‘Not quite well enough!’ Waldo called back over the wind. ‘And I never said I couldn’t sail, young man! I just said I wanted you to teach me to sail as well as you!’

  ‘I can’t do that in an afternoon, Mr Astley! That might take a good few months!’

  ‘I don’t expect to learn what you have learned over the years! I just want to learn more of the theory so that I can practise!’

  ‘You’ll need a boat!’

  ‘Then I shall find one! Or you will find me one?’

  After an entire afternoon spent sailing in waters becoming increasingly troublesome as the first of the autumn winds started to blow in off the sea, an exhausted Waldo and a still relatively fresh Dauncy repaired to the Three Tuns where the latter insisted Waldo should at least try to acquire a taste for draught English ale. Waldo tried his best with half a pint but got no further than a couple of distasteful mouthfuls.

  ‘It is a taste you have to get used to,’ Dauncy laughed, ordering a whisky from Richards to help restore his companion’s good nature.

  ‘I think I would rather drink bathwater, Dauncy, I mean it. And please – do call me Waldo, since I have already taken the liberty of first-naming you. You shouldn’t have any difficulty with that, seeing that you have just spent a considerable time in the land of apparent social intimacy.’

  ‘I like America,’ Dauncy protested. ‘I won’t hear a word against it.’

  ‘Good man,’ Waldo said. ‘I do too. Love it. Love England too. Your good health, Dauncy.’

  ‘Yours too, Waldo.’

  ‘Dauncy is a none too common name, I would guess,’ Waldo observed after they had finished their mutual toast.

  ‘Not at all. We’re all named after my mother’s family firm, John Walter Dauncy. John, Walter and Dauncy. And you? I’d say Waldo was a none too common name either.’

  ‘It’s short for Waldophanophosteropous,’ Waldo replied with a sigh. ‘Which means Wisest Son Of An Extremely Stupid Tribe.’

  ‘The Astley tribe?’

  ‘The AS in our name should be spelled A double S,’ Waldo growled, drinking some more whisky, and then selecting a cigar from his case.

  ‘Your family is what? Your family isn’t a success, you mean?’

  ‘My family – young sir – is the greatest of successes, if you quantify success by the amount of money banked.’

  ‘I see.’

  Dauncy, a little intimidated by this information, took a sup of his ale and lapsed into silence, uncertain how to pursue this tack. Waldo looked sideways at him and grinned.

  ‘It’s OK – this sort of thing doesn’t embarrass me. I guess the English don’t wash their family laundry in public that often, at least not the well bred English – but Americans are different. We tell it all, much to the amazement of our European friends. My family and I don’t hit it off – simple as that really. It was finally suggested by my uncle that I should take a trip to Europe ostensibly to pick up a bit more refinement, but really to get out of his hair – and so since nothing could please me more, here I am.
Or rather here I still am. I began my travels before the war, and now the war is over I picked up where I left off.’

  ‘Bexham was on your itinerary?’ Dauncy wondered in some amusement. ‘I can’t imagine what attracted you here – and then to stay here. And to buy a house.’

  ‘No,’ Waldo said, suddenly surprisingly serious. ‘No, Dauncy, I don’t suppose you can imagine what attracted me here. But as to why I should choose to buy a seaside house here, I don’t think that would take a lot of imagining.’

  ‘You can’t find this more charming than say Nantucket, or Martha’s Vineyard, or – say – Long Island?’

  ‘Let’s say it’s different,’ Waldo replied. ‘And then let’s leave it at that. As the man says – there’s no accounting for taste. Now let me get you a decent drink – or are you still too young for spirits?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Dauncy replied. ‘I’m due for my call-up papers any day.’

  Waldo looked round at him again, this time with surprise, before he realised what his friend was saying.

  ‘Oh sure! I was forgetting.’ He nodded. ‘National Service. You’re at the age, of course.’

  ‘Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘You’ll go in the Navy, I guess.’

  ‘I guess.’ Dauncy smiled. ‘Not so bad, really.’

  ‘Then you had better start to learn how to drink rum,’ Waldo announced. ‘Landlord – a whisky, please, and a good tot of your finest rum!’

  Despite the growing intensity of the gossip surrounding Waldo and his ever increasing activities, Loopy watched the friendship between her youngest son and Waldo develop with only the faintest of interest and certainly no concern. Besides, she was far too busy preparing for her show during the weekdays when Hugh was absent in London to pay much attention to the backbiting. Anyway, she had her own problems. She still hadn’t told Hugh about her exhibition, and as yet no good opportunity to do so had occurred, for when Hugh was not sailing, or at the Yacht Club, it seemed to Loopy he was busy trying to stick his oar in where it might not be wanted, most particularly with Dauncy.

  ‘I take it he’s paying you for all these sailing lessons,’ he was now demanding of his youngest son at the family lunch on the last Sunday of September. ‘He’d better be paying you, or really, I’m afraid I don’t see the point of you seeing so much of the fellow. It’s not as though he’s a contemporary of yours. So if he’s not recompensing you in some way, I can’t see the point at all.’

  ‘The point is, Pa, Waldo wants to learn how to sail really well which as it happens he’s already doing – and I happen to enjoy teaching him.’

  ‘I just hope he’s paying you for it, that’s all,’ Hugh insisted, at which Loopy frowned. She really couldn’t quite see what that had to do with anything, just as she couldn’t for the life of her understand this growing antipathy within the bosom of her family to a man in whom she herself could only see good.

  ‘Waldo’s good company, Pa,’ Dauncy was saying. ‘I’m learning a lot from him. And he’s not stuffy.’

  This last remark was made not unkindly but in Dauncy’s usual airy way. Loopy laughed, partly from relief, and partly because it was true. Waldo was certainly not stuffy, not like most of the other men of her acquaintance in Bexham.

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question, young man.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it was a question, Pa,’ Dauncy stated lightly.

  ‘He may be good company, but he’s teaching you a whole lot of bad habits,’ Walter put in, helping himself to more wine.

  ‘Such as?’ Dauncy gave his brother a particularly stern thanks very much for that look.

  ‘Such as drinking rum chasers with your beer.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Bexham is a very small place, little bro.’

  ‘If I’m old enough to be called up for National Service, I’m old enough to drink rum.’

  ‘Mr Astley’s thinking, no doubt,’ John chipped in, eyeing his watch and wondering when he could safely sneak away to meet Mattie.

  ‘Perfectly sound thinking I would say,’ Dauncy replied. ‘Waldo says I’d look an idiot if I get half throttled when the rum ration’s passed around – and I agree with him.’

  ‘And I agree with him too. I think Waldo has a very good point,’ Loopy said, ringing her bell once more in the increasingly faint hope of summoning Gwen from the kitchen. ‘We were all perfectly happy to send Dauncy to America on his own to travel about any old how – and really, compared to that what’s a few tots of rum?’ Loopy threw her husband a good hard look while she continued to ring her little bell.

  ‘Depends who you’re drinking them with,’ John muttered.

  ‘What is it with all of you about Waldo Astley?’ Loopy exclaimed in sudden exasperation. ‘And you in particular, John.’

  John at once dropped his eyes, pretending to brush some crumbs off the table with his napkin to avoid his mother’s stare. She had already accosted him about his relationship with Mattie and had only been prevented from taking the matter up with his father by John’s not altogether convincing protestations that there was nothing between himself and Mattie Eastcott that was really at all serious. Naturally, having witnessed their completely serious embrace on the beach, Loopy had not been at all persuaded and had warned John about the perils of becoming too deeply involved with a young woman who had a reputation for being fast as well as a son born out of wedlock. John was her eldest and much was expected of him, so he could put from his head any idea he might have of marrying the girl. At which John had begged her to agree to a moratorium on the matter until he had sorted himself out emotionally, and above all not to say a word to his father until he had done so.

  Reluctantly Loopy had agreed, her reluctance born out of her belief that the longer the matter remained undebated by his parents the more deeply John was going to become involved with someone Loopy could not help but think of as being entirely unsuitable for him. Yet such was her love for her eldest son, and such was the look in his eyes when he pleaded with her to give him some more time, that Loopy had been persuaded to give him her word.

  But now, the more John made unkind remarks about someone Loopy regarded as the soul of consideration and kindness, the more Loopy wondered at the wisdom of the promise she had made him.

  ‘Be warned, John, because I am serious. I will not have these unkind aspersions cast on someone who has done no harm to you or to anyone sitting at this table. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ John looked as unrepentant as his father looked bored, and Gwen had still not appeared with the pudding.

  ‘I wonder why you should be so keen to leap to this chap’s defence, my love,’ Hugh remarked. Having given up on the pudding’s ever appearing, he tapped a Senior Service cigarette on his silver case before putting it in his mouth.

  ‘Because none of you seem able to find one good word to say about him.’

  ‘Or could it be—’ Hugh said slowly, flicking his cigarette alight with his small gold Ronson and looking down the table at his wife, ‘might it be because he’s got you some sort of exhibition of your paintings in London?’

  Astounded into silence, Loopy stared blankly across the dining table at her husband, who in return just raised his eyebrows, blowing a line of blue smoke out of one corner of his mouth.

  ‘As someone recently remarked, Bexham is a very small place, my dear.’

  ‘You told him?’ Loopy repeated disbelievingly as accompanied by Waldo she walked a distant headland. ‘I just can’t believe it was you who told him!’

  ‘I told him, Loopy,’ Waldo agreed, ‘because I was quite certain that you were not going to. At least not until the very last moment – and then God knows what might have happened.’

  ‘I would not have told him at the last minute.’

  ‘So what do you call this? You have ten days to go till the opening – your pictures have to be in London next week to be hung – and you think Hugh isn’t going to notice anything?’ Wald
o stopped and looked at Loopy quizically. ‘What were you going to tell him? That you had sent them off to be cleaned, or revarnished?’

  ‘You don’t know Hugh well enough to tell him something like this. You don’t. You don’t know him well enough to discuss my personal business with him – to discuss something that could affect my relationship with my husband! I’ve a good mind to call this damned exhibition off.’

  ‘Please yourself,’ Waldo said calmly.

  ‘I simply don’t understand why you think you were in a position to tell my husband something as important as this.’

  ‘That’s simple. He wanted to know what was going on between us.’

  Loopy put a hand to her throat and stared wide-eyed at Waldo. ‘Hugh thought there was something going on between us?’

  ‘You think that an unlikely notion?’ Waldo said, raising his eyebrows as high as he could to make her laugh.

  ‘Be serious, Waldo.’

  ‘OK. I shall be serious. It’s perfectly all right for you to suspect that your husband might be having an affair with Meggie, but not all right for your husband to think that you and I might be having an affair. Isn’t that sort of against all your fair is fair all round principles?’

  ‘You just surprised me, that’s all.’ Loopy looked vaguely unsettled.

  ‘You people,’ Waldo sighed. ‘I don’t know, really I don’t.’

  ‘Which people? Who do you mean by you people?’

  ‘The lot of you sometimes,’ Waldo replied in quiet exasperation. ‘Each and every one of you.’

  ‘Leaving aside what you might think about each and every one of us,’ Loopy said tightly, ‘perhaps you’d just like to explain the circumstances of your revelation to Hugh. Did you come to him – or did he seek you out? I find it hard to understand how you became this intimate when you hardly know each other.’