In Sunshine Or In Shadow Page 33

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Artemis finally resolved, throwing a rolled up ball of newspaper across the room for Brutus to fetch.

  ‘For instance,’ Hugo said, not looking up.

  ‘Good dog,’ said Artemis, as Brutus slithered back across the floor to her feet, bringing half the Persian carpet with him.

  ‘If you want to play games with that dog,’ Ellie sighed, ‘might not the corridor be a better place?’

  ‘For instance?’ Hugo repeated, now looking Artemis in the eye.

  ‘Sorry?’ Artemis said.

  ‘Didn’t you just say something? Something about I don’t know –’ Hugo looked to Ellie.

  Ellie continued signing her cards, explaining that she can’t have been listening. Artemis rolled up another large ball of newspaper. ‘For instance,’ she said. ‘We used to have the choir here. On Christmas Eve. To sing carols.’ Then she threw the ball of newspaper, but this time at Hugo, hitting him on the head. ‘And the Hunt always used to meet here on Boxing Day.’

  ‘How about a pantomime?’ Hugo suggested. ‘There’s always a dip after Boxing Day, before New Year’s Eve, so let’s organize a pantomime.’

  ‘I don’t even know what a pantomime is,’ Ellie complained.

  ‘Oh of course the Yanks don’t have them, do they?’ Artemis asked Hugo. ‘What on earth do they do with their brats at Christmas?’

  ‘They don’t have Christmas, Tom,’ Hugo grinned. ‘They have Yule.’

  ‘And suspenders for braces,’ said Artemis.

  ‘And pants for trousers,’ added Hugo.

  ‘I can learn,’ Ellie shrugged. ‘It can’t be that difficult. If you Limeys can do it, so can us Yanks.’

  ‘We Yanks, Ellie,’ Hugo said, tongue in cheek. ‘Please. Not us.’

  And learn she did, the way Ellie always set about learning anything, diligently and assiduously. She read everything she could about pantomime, its theory, its history and its practice, and she even managed to get hold of some film of a traditional British panto, which Hugo would run for her whenever asked on his film projector. For days before Christmas the house would echo with Ellie rehearsing her lines, and slapping her thighs as she went hither and thither to bedroom and bathroom.

  ‘I say, Puss!’ she would cry, for it had finally been agreed they should perform Dick Whittington, or more correctly Hugo Tanner’s version of it. ‘And now to London!’

  Hugo wrote the whole show in two days flat, including the music, and all the household were roped in; Porter, Cook, the maids and the footmen. Ellie played the title role and played it to the manor born, her beautiful legs shown off in fine hose and leather high boots. Hugo played the cat, and Artemis played Long Jean Silver, Dick Whittington’s pirate girlfriend, an invention of Hugo’s, and a necessary one too, since Artemis had flatly refused to appear onstage at any cost.

  ‘We need someone to play the pirate,’ Hugo said in a moment of inspiration.

  ‘There isn’t a pirate in Dick Whittington,’ Artemis said.

  ‘In pantomime anybody can be in anything,’ Hugo corrected her. ‘And in my Dick Whittington there is this absolutely beautiful pirate girl, and she’s Long John Silver’s daughter, so she has only got one leg.’

  ‘That isn’t logical,’ Artemis argued. ‘Because her father had one leg doesn’t mean his daughter would have one.’

  ‘Yes it does,’ Hugo said. ‘He bequeathed it to her.’

  Artemis couldn’t help laughing, as always with Hugo. And as Ellie knew, once you got Artemis to laugh, she would agree to almost anything. And so against all odds Hugo got her to appear onstage.

  The pantomime, performed initially for the benefit of their guests, and then at Hugo’s instigation also for the entertainment of the estate workers and the villagers, was a huge success, prompting Artemis to remark that they had initiated yet another tradition.

  ‘You know the trouble with traditions,’ Hugo said in reply. ‘You have to uphold them.’

  ‘Not according to The Summing Up which I’ve just finished reading,’ said Artemis. ‘Somerset Maugham says tradition’s a guide, not a jailer.’

  ‘Remove not the ancient landmark which the fathers have set!’ said Hugo, putting on a Biblical voice and waving an admonishing finger in the air.

  ‘And let the dead govern the living?’ Artemis asked. ‘I don’t think so.’

  And so they wandered off down one of Brougham’s long corridors, deep in conversation, while Ellie followed slowly on behind, left out for a moment, and finding herself jealous of Hugo and Artemis’s companionship. It wasn’t just their intellectual compatibility, because Ellie had always and readily given Artemis best in that field with no great concern, but more the fact that Artemis could make Hugo laugh, really laugh, out loud, and sometimes uncontrollably. While Ellie didn’t seem to be able to, at least not in the same way.

  No, she argued with herself, ever more glumly as she trailed further and further behind the couple ahead, that wasn’t strictly true. She could make her husband laugh, but only either through deliberate foolishness, like when they were playing games, or in their more intimate moments, as when they were making love. Ellie might captivate Hugo, she might beguile him, delight and enthral him, but she didn’t amuse him, she couldn’t divert and entertain him with her wit and by her observations, not the way Artemis could. Artemis was droll and obtuse, with a fine, dry wit. Artemis made Hugo laugh. And that made Ellie jealous. And when she realized that was what it made her, Ellie was appalled.

  So was Hugo when she told him.

  ‘But I can’t help it,’ Ellie said. ‘Everywhere I look – what do I see? You and Artemis. You and Artemis talking. You and Artemis arguing. You and Artemis teasing each other. And joking. And laughing. Damn it, you spend half the time laughing!’

  ‘You’d rather we were quarrelling?’ Hugo asked, removing his front collar stud. ‘Listen – I was jealous of Artemis when she arrived here out of the blue, and you two did nothing but behave like a couple of giggling little schoolgirls –’

  ‘We did nothing of the sort!’ Ellie followed Hugo through into his dressing room, peeling off her shoes and throwing them behind her. ‘You were the one who acted childishly! You sulked like a spoilt six-year-old!’

  ‘And you gave me a rare old wigging,’ Hugo replied. ‘And quite right, too. And that’s what I should give you now. Because you’ve got absolutely nothing to be jealous about!’

  ‘You mean that you had? Ellie asked, looking deliberately over-astonished.

  ‘Meaning that I love you,’ Hugo said.

  ‘No you don’t,’ Ellie replied, foolishly, senselessly, ridiculously.

  ‘OK I don’t,’ Hugo shrugged, pulling on his pyjamas and walking back barefoot to the bedroom.

  ‘If you did!’ Ellie shouted after him, before following on. ‘If you did, you wouldn’t find her so goddam funny! She only has to raise an eyebrow, or say it’s raining and you fall off your chair laughing!’

  Hugo said nothing, seeming to pay her no attention, as he picked a book up from a table, examined the spine and then got into bed to read.

  ‘Hugo – I’m talking to you, damn it!’

  ‘No you’re not, Ellie. You’re shouting.’ He looked up at her over his glasses. ‘I don’t like being shouted at.’

  ‘And I don’t like being made to look a fool!’

  Hugo gave her another glum look, and then turned on his side, leaning on one elbow as he opened his book.

  Ellie leaned over him, took hold of the book, and threw it away against the wall. ‘I’m talking to you, Hugo Tanner!’

  ‘You know, if you weren’t pregnant, Ellie, do you know what I’d do?’ Hugo asked her, leaving the question unanswered.

  ‘If I wasn’t pregnant, Hugo!’ Ellie suddenly sank to the bed, and put her hands to her face. ‘If I wasn’t pregnant,’ she said, in a muffled voice, ‘I wouldn’t be behaving like this.’ Then she threw her arms around Hugo’s neck and sobbed on his shoulder. Hugo laughed, in relief, and hugged her, and
kissed her, and stroked her hair, and kissed her again, and laughed.

  ‘You know I love you.’

  ‘Yes I know you do,’ she answered. ‘I guess I just didn’t realize what a jealous person I was. Not until now, anyway.’

  ‘I guess,’ Hugo said, lightly mocking her, ‘I guess none of us do. But zen,’ he continued, changing his accent from American to German, ‘where zair is nein jealousy, zair is nein luff.’

  Ellie sat back, and wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, smiled. ‘And do you know the worst thing, Hugo?’ she said. ‘The worst thing in the whole world when you’re jealous is the sound of the people you’re jealous of laughing.’

  She laughed and then she began to cry again, at one and the same time.

  Artemis was jealous as well. Not of Ellie, at least not of Ellie with Hugo, but of Ellie and her unborn baby. Before Ellie had become pregnant it seemed to Artemis that life had returned to how it had always been between the three of them, carefree and casual, the threat of war serving only to heighten their fellowship rather than threaten it. If there was such a thing as a perfect triangular relationship, then the three of them most surely enjoyed it, remaining, it seemed to Artemis, even-sided and absolutely balanced. Never once was she aware that her association with Hugo could be construed as being anything other than utterly platonic, and had she entertained even the slightest of suspicions that she might be making Ellie feel jealous, she would have decamped from Brougham immediately. Subterfuge and flirtation had no part in Artemis’s armoury, and she would quite literally rather have died than be the cause of Ellie’s jealous misery.

  Such noble sentiments, however, could not prevent Artemis herself from becoming almost obsessively jealous of Ellie and her recent conception. It was not that Artemis wished that she herself could be pregnant, far from it. Artemis was appalled by the state of gestation and not even particularly attracted by the idea of babies. Children she tolerated because at least she could relate to children, but infants frightened and appalled her. What she resented wasn’t Ellie’s pregnancy itself, but the fact that the conception of a child must inevitably alter the nature of their three-cornered friendship. Artemis could only guess at the wonder of maternity, although her dead mother’s letter had given her an indication of its strengths and determinations, but instinctively she knew enough to realize that as the child grew in Ellie’s womb and its time came to be born, and when Ellie actually did give birth, Ellie’s love would be for her child, and for her husband, and Artemis would become a friend like any other, no longer an intimate.

  There would be no more rows and arguments, no more mad games and crazy capers, midnight swims in the lake, or fancy dress dinners with Hugo one end of the great table dressed as Boadicea, and Brutus the other end dressed in a child’s sailor suit, and Ellie and Artemis blacked up as minstrels, while Porter and the footmen served them their food without any of them once cracking a smile. No more soapbox car racing along the subterranean passageways, with Hugo and Ellie taking on half the county, no more late-night sessions of Hugo’s patented card game, Non-Strip Poker, whereby the losers instead of disrobing had to put on more clothes, and everyone ended up looking like dirigibles. No more youthful follies, no more elaborate practical jokes, no more uncluttered fun. Hugo would become a father, and Ellie a mother, and Artemis would become as she had already been invited to become a godmother, and fathers and mothers and godmothers were not expected to go on cutting capers.

  So although Christmas had been, as agreed by all, great fun, when the bell of Brougham rang out the last minutes of 1938, Artemis wanted time to stop exactly where it was, on the last chime of midnight, and the New Year never to be rung in. There was a dread feeling in her heart, a sense of inexplicable regret, and it wasn’t due to just the possibility of a war. As the great bell in the tower rang out the last of the dying year, Artemis knew that if she was being honest, her feeling of doom and despondency was entirely due to the conception of Ellie’s child. For with the promise of young life they themselves were no longer really young. Hugo and Ellie and Artemis had finally spent the last of their youth.

  Artemis found herself dancing in Charles Hunter’s arms. They had often danced and Charles, either due to Hugo’s private tuition, or from a gentlemanly instinct, had understood at once how best to manage her. And Artemis had been grateful, as grateful as she was for his attentions and his friendship. They had hit it off from the moment they had sat down next to each other at dinner the night they first met, and besides proving to be good company, and a good dancer, Charles Hunter was also a fine horseman. He and Artemis hunted together regularly, so much so that friends and acquaintances it seemed had already earmarked them as a couple.

  Artemis was perfectly well aware that the dashing soldier was in love with her, but did nothing either to discourage or encourage him. He was attractive, light-hearted, caring and courageous, and therefore the ideal escort. He was also in the Army which meant that he was not always around, so Artemis could spend as much time as she was allowed with Ellie and Hugo without it ever appearing scandalous, which it most certainly was not, indiscreet, which it most definitely was not, nor an imposition, which it hopefully was not. And then when Charles was on leave in the country they would go hunting, or if Artemis was in town they would go out dining and dancing. Ellie thoroughly approved, but Hugo said nothing. Neither did Artemis.

  And now they were dancing once more, as the balloons showered down on them and the streamers unfurled over them, and mock stardust fell and glittered all over them. The last strains of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ had died away and the band was playing a slow foxtrot, which along with the mood and the food and the drink was making Charles Hunter feel even more romantic than ever. So he held Artemis to him ever more closely and buried his face in her hair, muttering things to her which thanks to their proximity to the band Artemis could not hear.

  Artemis wouldn’t have heard anyway, so busy was she watching the couple in the middle of the dancefloor, the beautiful slender brown haired young woman in a white and gold gown who was being kissed gently but extensively by a handsome fair-haired man in glasses. They were standing, almost dancing, but not quite, beneath the revolving mirrored ball Hugo had ordered to be installed for the party, lit by the multi-coloured flicker of the lights playing on it, a beautiful image from a wondrous dream, dappled in splashing colours, blue and red, pinks, bright white, and greens. They kissed oblivious to the world, without heed to anyone, Hugo turning Ellie slowly round and round to the liquid sound of a solo clarinet.

  Artemis looked away, surprised at the sudden white heat in her veins. She looked away from the lovers and back at the man in whose arms she was, who was now looking at her adoringly. Artemis half-opened her lips, to draw a slight breath, to gasp slightly in astonishment at her feelings, but Charles took the shape of her pretty mouth as an invitation to kiss her, which he did, softly and sweetly.

  But all Artemis could see was Hugo. And Hugo and Ellie. And Hugo kissing Ellie. She knew Charles was kissing her, but it was as though her lips were senseless and her senses numb. All the time he kissed her, her eyes were open, watching Hugo, who was close to them now. And then Hugo opened his eyes, quite suddenly, and found himself staring into Artemis’s own bright blue and very wide eyes.

  ‘Which she closed at once, and far too late.

  Charles stopped kissing her, and held her slightly away from him. ‘Artemis,’ he said, out of breath, as if he’d been running. ‘Artemis –’

  ‘It’s a terrible name, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s at all possible to say it romantically, do you?’

  Charles smiled and put a hand up to brush her hair gently from her eye. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Artemis.

  ‘Then will you marry me?’ he asked.

  ‘I think I’d better,’ Artemis replied.

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  The band had started to play again, louder, a q
uickstep. Artemis put her hand back on his shoulder. ‘I said –’ she shouted, ‘I think I’d better!’

  ‘Why?’ the perplexed Charles shouted back, the trumpeter blasting in his ear. ‘Why on earth do you think you’d better?’

  ‘Because –’ Artemis yelled, ‘I think it’s better I marry you than not!’

  She kissed him, sweetly, briefly, and smiled, turning her back on Hugo and Ellie and quite deliberately danced away from them.

  Charles called on Artemis early the following evening.

  ‘You weren’t out today,’ she remarked, pulling off her hunting coat. ‘I shouldn’t worry, you didn’t miss much.’

  ‘I felt a little fragile,’ Charles replied. ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Artemis said. ‘Have some gin.’

  She pushed the decanter towards her visitor, who collapsed in a chair, still holding the decanter and a glass, and then barefooted she stood in front of the fire, staring at him while she shook her blonde hair from its net.

  ‘You looked frightfully bleached,’ she told him. ‘Didn’t you get to bed at all?’

  Charles Hunter sighed and explained that after he had escorted Artemis to the Dower House, he had foolishly returned to Brougham instead of going straight home and got rather involved with Hugo and the diehards in a game of Getting Round The Room Without Touching The Floor.

  ‘Which room?’ Artemis asked. ‘Some are a great deal easier than others.’

  ‘The library.’

  ‘That’s the easiest of them all. It’s just shelves.’

  ‘And two windows,’ Charles said grimly, taking the top off the decanter and pouring himself some gin. ‘You can’t get from the shelves into the bay and on to the window ledge on the first one, and you can’t get from the radiator on the other one on to the ledge likewise.’

  ‘Hugo can.’

  ‘Hugo was the stakeholder. Hugo wasn’t playing. But even if he had been, it still isn’t possible.’

  ‘Yes it is. I’ve done it.’ Artemis padded barefoot over to her drinks cupboard and looked for the squash bottle. ‘Only thing is you need a walking stick,’ she said over her shoulder.