What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine …
‘What is that you’re reading?’ Sylvie asked suspiciously.
‘Marvell.’
Sylvie took the book from her and scrutinized the verses. ‘It’s rather lush,’ she concluded.
‘“Lush” – how can that be a criticism?’ Ursula laughed and bit into an apple.
‘Try not to be precocious,’ Sylvie sighed. ‘It’s not a pleasant thing in a girl. What are you going to do when you go back to school after the holidays – Latin? Greek? Not English literature? I don’t see the point.’
‘You don’t see the point of English literature?’
‘I don’t see the point of studying it. Surely one just reads it?’ She sighed again. Neither of her daughters bore any resemblance to her. For a moment Sylvie was back in the past, under a bright London sky, and could smell the spring flowers newly refreshed by rain, hear the quiet comforting clink and jingle of Tiffin’s tack.
‘I might do Modern Languages. I don’t know. I’m not sure, I haven’t quite worked out a plan.’
‘A plan?’
They fell into silence. The fox sauntered into the silence, insouciant. Maurice was forever trying to shoot it. Either he was not such a good shot as he liked to think or the vixen was cleverer than he was. Ursula and Sylvie tended towards the latter view. ‘She’s so pretty,’ Sylvie said. ‘And she has such a magnificent brush.’ The fox sat down, a dog waiting for its dinner, her eyes never leaving Sylvie. ‘I haven’t got anything,’ Sylvie said, upturning her empty hands to prove this fact. Ursula bowled her apple core, gently underarm, so as not to alarm the creature and the vixen trotted off after it, picking it up awkwardly in her mouth and then turning tail and disappearing. ‘Eats anything,’ Sylvie said. ‘Like Jimmy.’
Maurice appeared, giving them both a start. He was carrying his new Purdey cocked over his arm and said eagerly, ‘Was that that damned fox?’
‘Language, Maurice,’ Sylvie reprimanded.
He was home after graduation, waiting to start his training in the law and irritatingly bored. He could work at the Hall farm, Sylvie suggested, they were always looking for seasonal workers. ‘Like a peasant in the field?’ Maurice said. ‘Is that why you’ve given me an expensive education?’ (‘Why have we given him an expensive education?’ Hugh said.)
‘Teach me to shoot, then,’ Ursula said, jumping up and brushing off her skirt. ‘Come on, I can use Daddy’s old wildfowler.’
Maurice shrugged and said, ‘May as well, but girls can’t shoot, it’s a well-known fact.’
‘Girls are absolutely useless,’ Ursula agreed. ‘They can’t do anything.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
‘Me?’
‘Pretty good for a novice,’ Maurice said reluctantly. They were shooting bottles off a wall, near the copse, Ursula hitting her target many more times than Maurice. ‘You’re sure you haven’t done this before?’
‘What can I say?’ she said. ‘I pick things up quickly.’
Maurice suddenly swung the barrel of his gun away from the wall and towards the edge of the copse and before Ursula could even see what he was aiming at he had pulled the trigger, blasting something out of existence.
‘Got the damned little blighter at last,’ he said triumphantly.
Ursula set off at a run but long before she reached it she could see the pile of ruddy-brown fur. The white tip of her beautiful brush gave a little flicker but Sylvie’s fox was no more.
She found Sylvie on the terrace, leafing through a magazine. ‘Maurice shot the fox,’ she said. Sylvie rested her head back on the wicker lounger and closed her eyes in resignation. ‘It was always going to happen,’ she said. She opened her eyes. They were glistening with tears. Ursula had never seen her mother cry. ‘I shall disinherit him one day,’ Sylvie said, the idea of cold revenge already drying her tears.
Pamela appeared on the terrace and raised a questioning eyebrow at Ursula, who said, ‘Maurice shot the fox.’
‘I hope you shot him,’ Pamela said. She meant it too.
‘I might go and meet Daddy off the train,’ Ursula said when Pamela had gone back inside.
She wasn’t really going to meet Hugh. Ever since her birthday she had been seeing Benjamin Cole in secret. Ben, he was now to her. In the meadow, in the wood, in the lane. (Anywhere out of doors, it seemed. ‘Good job the weather’s been nice for your canoodling,’ Millie said, with much clown-smirking and raising up and down of eyebrows.)
Ursula discovered what an excellent liar she was. (Didn’t she always know that, though?) Do you want anything from the shop? or I’m just going to pick raspberries in the lane. Would it be so dreadful if people knew? ‘Well, I think your mother would have me killed,’ Ben said. (‘A Jew?’ she imagined Sylvie saying.)
‘And my folks, too,’ he said. ‘We’re too young.’
‘Like Romeo and Juliet,’ Ursula said. ‘Star-crossed lovers and so on.’
‘Except we’re not going to die for love,’ Ben said.
‘Would it be such a bad thing to die for?’ Ursula mused.
‘Yes.’
Things had started to get very ‘hot’ between them, a lot of fumbling fingers and moaning (on his part). He didn’t think he could ‘hold back’ much longer, he said, but she wasn’t sure what he had to hold back from exactly. Didn’t love mean they shouldn’t hold back anything? She expected they would marry. Would she have to convert? Become a ‘Jewess’?
They had made their way to the meadow where they had lain down in each other’s arms. It was very romantic, Ursula thought, apart from the timothy grass that was tickling her and the ox-eye daisies that made her sneeze. Not to mention the way Ben suddenly shifted himself until he was on top of her so that she felt rather as if she were in a coffin filled with earth. He went into a kind of spasm that she thought might be a prelude to death by apoplexy and she stroked his hair as if he were an invalid and said, with concern, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to do that.’ (But what had he done?)
‘I should be getting back,’ Ursula said. They stood up and picked off grass and flowers from each other’s clothing before walking home.
Ursula wondered if she had missed Hugh’s train. Ben looked at his watch and said, ‘Oh, they’ll have been home for ages.’ (Hugh and Mr Cole travelled on the same London train.) They left the meadow and climbed over the stile into the dairy herd’s field that ran alongside the lane. The cows hadn’t returned from milking yet.
He gave her a hand down from the stile and they kissed again. When they broke free of each other they noticed a man making his way across the field, from the other side where it led into the copse. He was heading towards the lane – a shabby creature, a tramp perhaps – hobbling along as fast as he could. He glanced round and when he saw them he hobbled even faster. He stumbled on a tussock of grass but quickly recovered and was up again, loping towards the gate.
‘What a suspicious-looking fellow,’ Ben laughed. ‘I wonder what he’s been up to?’
‘Dinner’s on the table, you’re very late,’ Sylvie said. ‘Where have you been? Mrs Glover has made that awful veal à la Russe thing again.’
‘Maurice shot the fox?’ Teddy said, his face a picture of disappointment.
And so it went on from there, a bad-tempered argument between everyone at the dinner table just because of a dead fox, Hugh thought. They’re vermin, he felt like saying but didn’t want to fuel the furore of emotions that had been unleashed. Instead, he said, ‘Please, let’s not talk about it over dinner, it’s difficult enough trying to digest this stuff.’ But talk about it they would. He tried to ignore them, ploughing his way through the veal cutlets (had Mrs Glover ever tasted them herself, he wondered?). He was relieved that they were interrupted by a knock at the door.