Amenable Women Read online

  mavis cheek

  Amenable Women

  First published in 2008

  by Faber and Faber Limited

  by the same author

  pause between acts

  parlour games

  dog days

  janice gentle gets sexy

  aunt margaret’s lover sleeping beauties

  getting back brahms

  three men on a plane

  mrs fytton’s country life

  the sex life of my aunt patrick parker’s progress

  yesterday’s houses

  Truth to Tell

  The Lovers of Pound Hill

  Everybody praises the lady’s beauty, both of face and body. One said she excelled the Duchess as the golden sun did the silver moon . . .

  Christopher Mount, English envoy to Cleves, 1539, describing Anne of Cleves

  King Henry has sent a painter, who is very excellent in his art, to Germany, to take a portrait to the life, of the sister of the duke of Cleves . . . Today it arrived . . . The face of the young lady appeared sufficiently lovely to decide Henry on accepting her . . .

  Charles de Marillac, French Ambassador to the Court of Henry VIII, 1539

  My Lord, if it were not to satisfy the world, and my realm, I would not do that which I must do this day for none earthly thing.

  Henry VIII on the morning of his wedding to Anne of Cleves, 6 January 1540

  Her frame was large bony and masculine and her large, low-German features, deeply pitted with the ravages of smallpox were the very opposite of the type of beauty which would be likely to stimulate a gross, unwholesome voluptuary of nearly fifty . . .

  M. Hume, The Wives of Henry VIII, 1905

  part one

  If you’re married your husband bosses you and if you aren’t married people call you an Old Maid. Oh! To be a widow . . .

  Lucy M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915

  1

  Death Duties

  At Edward Chapman’s funeral Flora thought that she might, after all, be made mad by the death of her husband. She did not feel mad. Indeed, she felt quite normal, quite sane, quite calm – and even a little hungry. All of which were quite wrong and could justifiably be considered unbalanced. She had not expected widowhood (if she had thought at all about it) to contain this sense of setting out on a new adventure. Clearly these were not appropriate thoughts for a new-made widow of some considerable marital longevity. But yet – there she stood at the graveside – monstrous ice-queen – and found herself speculating – not about her husband so soon to lie there and her loss of him – but about the other ancient one-time occupant of the grave (for graveyard space was at a premium nowadays) – and even more inappropriately having a very terrible desire to laugh at the thought that it might be a bygone woman upon whom her husband was soon to be laid.

  History always intrigued her but Edward claimed it as his show and in a way he was right. Once married she did nothing with her interest. Lazily, maybe obstinately, she let Edward tinker around with the mysteries of the past and tinker he did. But now she was free to speculate – to herself if not out loud – and know that whatever she thought, whatever she suggested, would not be scooped up and taken over by one who considered himself something between the new Gibbon and that lovely young man on the television who knew his history, brought the sparkle of imagination to his history, and wore extremely tight blue jeans.

  Edward was many things but – quite frankly – and she could be frank even at his graveside – he was not imaginative – except where his own existence was concerned. Why, were he alive now and at her side and she were to turn to him and say, ‘Edward, I wonder who was in the grave before you?’ he would say, ‘Hmm. I’ll have a think about that. Leave it with me.’ Some weeks later, if his research were successful, he would tell her the name, rank, number. If it was not it would go no further. She preferred to speculate. Without Edward to complain about her meanderings she freely indulged them.

  A graceless world it was now. After the Thatcher years of eighties greed, the sleazy nineties, now in the ‘noughties’ it was the turn of expediency over sensitivity. Graves being doubled up. Who would have thought it? New bones laid on old. It was the modern, ecologically sound way, so the local newspaper said. In villages and towns all over the country, old bones were making space for new bones in the dearth of new space for graves, memorial stones cast aside, and people who were once loved and cherished were forgotten. To be forgotten must be the saddest of things, she thought. Edward never would be, that was one certainty. It would be his headstone that took precedence now and whoever shared the plot would be relegated. Edward’s way. She wondered, yet again, what on earth she should write on the headstone when she ordered it – very unlike him to overlook any instructions. About the only thing in this whole funeral that he’d overlooked. Flora smiled at the possibility of choosing something that was a little – well double-edged. Mad indeed, but an amusing thought.

  At least he was not here to complain about sharing a plot with a stranger. Dashing, still-handsome-at-fifty-six Edward would just have to lump it. All she knew was that the present incumbent was interred at least forty years ago, for that was the Parish’s rule. Given that the world of death was becoming too full for undisturbed rest, sooner or later you got a roommate and Flora felt really sorry for whoever was Edward’s. He or she would enjoy their peace and solitude no longer with Edward lying on top of them, or to the side of them, for the rest of eternity. He’d soon be measuring out the space and making sure that he had his correct portion. Very fair, Edward.

  Flora knew she was smiling. Quite unacceptably. What Flora was thinking, even more guiltily, was that it would make things down there very lively if the other occupant turned out to be a deceased member of the Socialist Workers Party or an Animal Rights activist or any other kind of militant. She hoped whoever it was could give as good as they got. Edward was never one to listen to the other side of an argument and it would do him no harm at all to have to do so for the rest of eternity. He’d planted a salmon-pink rose up against a terracotta-coloured wall against her pleadings, and he had voted for a brick-orange-faced reactionary in the last election on the grounds, she knew, of the unspoken hope he would Keep The Countryside White. ‘Why?’ she wanted to know, to which he only said, ‘But me no buts and pass the cheese. It’s the British way of life that’s at stake here.’ She had quietly remembered shops shutting at midday on Saturdays and the only exotic restaurants available being the Spaghetti Houses – and said nothing. Edward loved a nice curry now and then and never seemed to see the anomaly.

  Flora always butted him no buts and passed the cheese, and silently hoped that when the Dobsons of Duck Cottage went off to Canada for a year and let their home they would let it to a family of Caribbean or Indian or African descent who had – en masse for preference – been to Oxbridge, who rode to hounds and who drove a four-by-four in just as aggressive a way as the rest of the villagers while wearing the latest Barbour, and who liked a pint at the local. That’d liven the place up. She swallowed a laugh at the irony of it all when she remembered thinking that it might liven the place up but that it would probably kill Edward. Now she would never know how he would respond to having his prejudices confronted. His own hubris got him first. She clucked out loud and hoped no one grouped around the graveside had noticed. With a bit of luck they would think it was the rising sob of grief.

  Such thoughts came without warning and they stayed. She tried to pull herself together by telling herself severely that she deserved to fall right down into the hole beside him for the monstrosity of it. She was his widow, for heaven’s sake. She should weep. What she was actually thinking, rather self-pityingly, was that when her time came and they were all grouped aroun
d the hole in the ground, about the only thing they would have to say of her was that she was once that gorgeous Edward Chapman’s wife and she could do lovely sewing, or used to. Talk about damning with faint praise. Her funeral and its orations would be over very quickly. Contemplating that was enough to make her join Edward down in his funeral bunker right now. Stitchery and marriage and retirement from teaching hardly had a sense of dash about it. And whose fault was that but her own? She allowed her face to crumple into a suitably gloomy expression as she contemplated the virtues of featherstitch and French pleats over Edward’s more exciting public pursuits. It was a long time since she had used her dressmaking skills. What was the point if you were background – and plain background at that?

  To be on the safe side in case the urge to hurl herself into the hole became too strong, Flora moved back a little and trod on a mourner’s toes. The mourner squeaked. Flora did not look because she thought she might – oh please no – giggle. Funerals, like no other gatherings, put you right on the edge of madness. Whenever a crowd is gathered together on best behaviour and in solemn contemplation of something or other, the urge to laugh becomes acute. Capricious devils were always in attendance trying to make the solemn skittish. Try as she might, and she tried, and she had tried, she could not concentrate on the proceedings in any mournful way. Thoughts of possibilities came gaily into her mind as she attempted to look up (or down) soulfully and keep her hands clasped in proper bereaved Madonna fashion.

  Unfortunately – apart from its inappropriateness now – Flora had a smiling kind of face anyway. Looking suitably solemn was well nigh impossible. Her usual jovial countenance had been called imbecilic in the days when schoolteachers could say such things and not be sued. Once, at school, a piece of chalk was thrown at her when the death of Buddy Holly was announced to the class in broken tones by Miss Appleby and seven-year-old Flora appeared to take it rather well. Smilingly well. At that age it was all confusion, anyway, since the Church of England told you all the time that, thanks to Jesus, you need have no fear about dying and you could positively welcome it. But then, when someone called Buddy Holly died, you were supposed to cry. Or get hit with a bit of chalk because Miss Appleby was crying. A real muddle. Even more of a muddle when she saw a picture of this sainted dead person because he wore glasses and strangely shaped jumpers and didn’t look like anything special. And his songs, to Flora’s unaccustomed ear, sounded as if he was coughing.

  But the chalk incident taught her very early that her face was plain, cheerful at best and if she ever needed to be solemn she must work at it. Nevertheless, here, at her own husband’s interment, when the eyes of their world were upon her, she had expected better of herself. It was quite unacceptable. It did not bear thinking about. And it certainly did not bear smiling about. Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate . . . Except she immediately remembered W. C. Fields’s sour statement that you should ‘Start off every day with a smile and get it over with . . .’ Which only made the desire to beam out broadly at the world worse. And why was W. C. Fields of all people roaming around her head? A diverting thought and nothing to do with grief . . .

  Others were behaving correctly. To her side she could feel the shaking of her daughter Hilary’s shoulders as she sobbed properly and dutifully and truthfully into her handkerchief. It was right and seemly that one of them should be seen to grieve. She envied her daughter the simplicity of those tears and wished she could do the same. But Flora was in much too complicated a frame of mind – too full of oddly unconnected thoughts – too little sadness and too much detachment – to cry. Still, Hilary was making up for both of them. In a minute or two she’d be wringing out her handkerchief and making a puddle with it. One of her father’s handkerchiefs, actually, Flora could see the embossed E in the corner. Handkerchiefs . . . That made her mind slip easily into the problem of Edward’s possessions; of course these would have to be disposed of. Hilary had already taken what she wanted, which, despite the sobs and sorrowing, was not a lot – mostly trinkets and things she had bought him over the years (ah – his horn shoe trees, I’ll have those back – and the ivory back scratcher). If only he had been an Anglo-Saxon King Flora could have put all that remained in the grave there with him. What a sensible idea that was. No lingering moments with his favourite jacket or his face flannel. In they could go with good conscience. Of course, this would mean that by now the entire British Isles would be one huge graveyard since even Edward – not a man of huge possessions (quality rather than quantity, Flora) – would, if you included his Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Flora most certainly would include it, have filled a hole the size of a small tank. Her eyes refocused on the hole in the ground. For a moment she was back where she should properly be – with the hole, the coffin and bereavement. Alas, not in the right spirit of the thing and not for long.

  As soon as Giles Baldwin (their local wine merchant – or vintner as he and Edward referred to him – in whose village restaurant Edward had invested a considerable sum, and lost it) began speaking about her husband’s many talents – magnificent friend, wonderful husband, marvellous father, brilliant raconteur (if you hadn’t heard the raconteuring sixty times already), terrific countryman, could sniff a good claret at forty paces, could do the Times crossword in twenty minutes (he could not, he took days sometimes, with the back pages of the paper removed from its main body and tucked under a cushion not to be consulted until the last square was filled – Flora was always rather touched that he never could bring himself to cheat and check the answers), could jive like a teenager (once and once only at the village fete when he went in for a competition, did not win, and lay moaning at home for two days afterwards), could paint like Turner (Edward would have a fit, he was crushingly dismissive of what he called ‘those splodges and misty bits’ and liked to see every leaf on every tree) and was the best chum a man could have (to the tune of all his marital savings) – her mind roved free again. For, in short, her husband was – had been – someone of simple prejudice, self-belief and immense focus, who saw himself as a great man of towering intellect and ineluctable truths – one who rode through life on a charger of princely accoutrement, who was loved by men, adored by women and who, though often wrong, was never in doubt. How could she possibly not grieve for all that? Easily.

  Apparently.

  Edward even had the ear of the local aristocracy – from whom – as Edward liked to say – he drew his shilling. And it was scarcely more than that. There, right at the edge of the assembled mourners, stood Foot. Foot was, if asked, a gentleman’s gentleman. He was gentleman’s gentleman to Edward’s boss, Sir Randolph Heron (whom Foot would call his Master) and proud to be so – though Flora enjoyed referring to him as the Odd-Job Man up at the Hall whenever she got the opportunity. Edward always corrected her. What she called obsequiousness he called having a respect for tradition. Personally she thought that the marriage of Edward’s respect and tradition was the union that kept little boys up chimneys and little girls yellow with sulphur but she held her tongue. By then, sadly, Edward had stopped being able to laugh at his pomposities. Handsome men are seldom called to account. Much is forgiven beauty and good looks. As Edward said cheerfully as their daughter grew and blossomed: ‘Thank God her looks came from me . . .’

  It was Edward’s accession to the post of Estate Manager to the Heron family that encouraged his view of himself as Renaissance Man, gave him the opportunity to indulge the idea in many peculiar forms, and changed their marriage forever. Flora shuddered at the graveside even now to recall the moment he used the phrase of himself. When she commented that Sir Randolph Heron did some very odd things in the name of being anciently lineaged (not least attempting a touch of droit de seigneur on Mrs Graves’s daughter, which was neatly hushed up by Foot with a small reduction in their rent and referred to by the village as Sir Randolph’s little enthusiasms), Edward pointed out that for his employer, as for himself, the important thing was to question, to look for new inventions, to assert and eman
cipate the human intellect and to revive the brilliance of the past. ‘In short,’ he said, and he gave her a little bow as if he had, at any rate, revived the courtesies of a bygone age – ‘. . . in short, we must uphold the tenets of Renaissance Man – or in Sir Randolph’s case, the tenets of Renaissance Princes . . .’ At which she had barely stopped herself from curtsying and falling over with laughter, and said nothing.

  Unfortunately Sir Randolph was that item peculiar and highly seductive to the British who prefer to ignore their more sober and wise blue-bloods – a wealthy, well-bred eccentric. He had spotted similar traits of eccentricity in Edward and he encouraged them. The snob in Edward surfaced and within a year of employment Flora’s fairly ordinary husband took flight never to return. Such is the power of feudal ascendancy. Such is the power of tradition and respect. Such is the snob. It did not help that Edward enjoyed saying – or as he put it ‘dined out on’ the fact that Flora was the only woman over eighteen in the village that Sir Randolph had not propositioned. This might be out of respect for his estate manager, of course, but it was most likely to do with something much more prosaic. Flora’s appearance. How very amusing. Flora’s sense of herself grew even duller. She could not even summon enough enthusiasm on the part of an ageing and half-blind nobleman to be goosed. Nor to smack her husband round the face for such cruel audacity. In short – Flora went with the flow. Flora – in short – was – at that point – still in love with him.

  Edward admired Sir Randolph’s experiments with unspeakably silly things and had a go. His first essay into sterling deeds was his attempt to break horses whereupon he nearly killed himself. Looking back now she realised this was good practice for the final outcome of his life. He then went on to attempt the elaborate chasing of expensive silver goblets with a coat of arms he had invented for himself. This comprised two partridges, a sprig of hawthorn and dog to denote his countryside connections. Flora – who was very quietly reading a book on country lore and related matters at the time – for the sheer pleasure of removing herself from the here and now – pointed out that partridges were part of Athena’s rituals, that hawthorn served as the female phallic symbol surrounding the Maypole and that dogs – little innocent-seeming mutts – apart from their connection with goddesses and witches – were the mascot of the Dominican Order. Edward’s view of Catholics was dark and rooted somewhere around 1555 and the Marian purges and Flora was rewarded with a very visual display of inner struggle suffusing his face.