Grave Mistake

II

Gideon Markos and Prunella Foster lay on a magnificent hammock under a striped canopy beside the brand-new swimming pool at Mardling Manor. They were brown, wet and almost nude. Her white-gold hair fanned across his chest. He held her lightly as if some photographer had posed them for a glossy advertisement.

‘Because,’ Prunella whispered, ‘I don’t want to.’

‘I don’t believe you. You do. Clearly, you want me. Why pretend?’

‘All right, then. I do. But I’m not going to. I don’t choose to.’

‘But why, for God’s sake? Oh,’ said Gideon with a change of voice, ‘I suppose I know. I suppose, in a way, I understand. It’s the “Too rash, too ill-advised, too sudden” bit. Is that it? What?’ he asked, bending his head to hers. ‘What did you say? Speak up.’

‘I like you too much.’

‘Darling Prue, it’s extremely nice of you to like me too much but it doesn’t get us anywhere, now does it?’

‘It’s not meant to.’

Gideon put his foot to the ground and swung the hammock violently. Prunella’s hair blew across his mouth.

‘Don’t,’ she said and giggled. ‘We’ll capsize. Stop.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll fall off. I’ll be sick.’

‘Say you’ll reconsider the matter.’

‘Gideon, please.’

‘Say it.’

‘I’ll reconsider the matter, damn you.’

He checked the hammock but did not release her.

‘But I’ll come to the same conclusion,’ said Prunella. ‘No, darling. Not again! Don’t. Honestly, I’ll be sick. I promise you I’ll be sick.’

‘You do the most dreadful things to me,’ Gideon muttered after an interval. ‘You beastly girl.’

‘I’m going in again before the sun’s off the pool.’

‘Prunella, are you really fond of me? Do you think about me when we’re not together?’

‘Quite often.’

‘Very well, then, would you like – would you care to entertain the idea – I mean, couldn’t we try it out? To see if we suit?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well – in my flat? Together. You like my flat, don’t you? Give it, say, a month and then consider?’

She shook her head.

‘I could beat you like a gong,’ said Gideon. ‘Oh, come on, Prunella, for Christ’s sake. Give me a straight answer to a straight question. Are you fond of me?’

‘I think you’re fantastic. You know I do. Like I said, I’m too fond of you for a jolly affair. Too fond to face it all turning out to be a dead failure and us going back to square one and wishing we hadn’t tried. We’ve seen it happen among our friends, haven’t we? Everything super to begin with. And then the not-so-hot situation develops.’

‘Fair enough. One finds out and no bones broken, which is a damn sight better than having to plough through the divorce court. Well, isn’t it?’

‘It’s logical and civilized and liberated but it’s just not on for me. No way. I must be a throwback or simply plain chicken. I’m sorry. Darling Gideon,’ said Prunella, suddenly kissing him. ‘Like the song said, “I do, I do, I do, I do”.’

‘What?’

‘Love you,’ she mumbled in a hurry. ‘There. I’ve said it.’

‘God!’ said Gideon with some violence. ‘It’s not fair. Look here, Prue. Let’s be engaged. Just nicely and chastely and frustratingly engaged to be married and you can break it off whenever you want to. And I’ll swear, if you like, not to pester you with my ungentlemanly attentions. No. Don’t answer. Think it over and in the meantime, like Donne says, “for God’s sake hold your tongue and let me love”.’

‘He didn’t say it to the lady. He said it to some irritating acquaintance.’

‘Come here.’

The sun-baked landscape moved into late afternoon. Over at Quintern Place, Bruce having dug a further and deeper asparagus bed, caused the wee lad, whose name was Daft Artie, to fill it up with compost, fertilizer and soil while he himself set to work again with his long-handled shovel. Comprehensive drainage and nutrition was needed if his and his employer’s plans were to be realized.

Twenty miles away at Greengages in the Weald of Kent, Dr Basil Schramm completed yet another examination of Sybil Foster. She had introduced into her room a sort of overflow of her own surplus femininity – beribboned pillows, cushions, a negligée and a bedcover both rose-coloured. Photographs. Slippers trimmed with marabou, a large box of petit-fours au massepain from the ‘Marquise de Sévigné’ in Paris, which she had made but a feeble attempt to hide from the dietetic notice of her doctor. Above all, there was the pervasive scent of oil enclosed in a thin glass container that fitted over the light bulb of her table-lamp. Altogether the room, like Sybil herself, went much too far but, again like Sybil, contrived to get away with it.

‘Splendid,’ said Dr Schramm, withdrawing his stethoscope. He turned away and gazed out of the window with professional tact while she rearranged herself.

‘There!’ she said presently.

He returned and gazed down at her with the bossy, possessive air that she found so satisfactory.

‘I begin to be pleased with you,’ he said.

‘Truly?’

‘Truly. You’ve quite a long way to go, of course, but your general condition is improved. You’re responding.’

‘I feel better.’

‘Because you’re not allowed to take it out of yourself. You’re a highly strung instrument, you know, and mustn’t be at the beck and call of people who impose upon you.’

Sybil gave a deep sigh of concealed satisfaction.

‘You do so understand,’ she said.

‘Of course I do. It’s what I’m here for. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Sybil, luxuriating in it. ‘Yes, indeed.’