Chapter 13

Twelfth Night 1951

As brother to three sisters, Roger thought he was well acquainted with the sheer amount of fuss that could ensue from a house having one bathroom and everyone trying to get ready for a party at the same time. It appeared that he wasn't. He was extremely grateful for the "nice can of hot water" which Mrs Herbert had brought to the spare room, and for the old-fashioned washstand.

"It could be worse," Peter told him as the waited in the drawing room for the others to come down stairs, "Karen and Ann aren't here. Although, they aren't the ones who take the time and hot water as a rule. Silly hound," he continued in a totally different voice to Tessa the afghan hound with a final rub behind her ears, "Why don't you shed on Roger's evening trousers for a change?"

"Because Roger knows all about dogs and their shedding ways." Roger replied, but more to Tessa than Peter. Nevertheless, Roger patted the rug in front of his chair and Tessa, interpreting the invitation correctly, lay luxuriously on her back to have her tummy tickled.

Mrs Marlow was the first of the female Marlows to be ready.

"Peter, you had better shut Tessa in the kitchen. Have you let her on any of the chairs?"

"Of course not!"

Nevertheless, as Peter clicked to Tessa, who followed him willingly enough to the kitchen, Mrs Marlow sat down on an upright chair with an old leather seat, rather than any of the armchairs or the sofa. Given that she was wearing black velvet, it seemed sensible.

Lawrie was next down, scarlet lipstick and crimson finger nails looking somewhat strange with a yellow dress that was probably the one Ann had worn last summer. She was quickly dispatched upstairs again to remove what Mrs Marlow termed "the worst of it". As the bathroom door slammed Roger heard an indignant, "Lawrie, no! That was my turn!" It wasn't Rowan's voice. Ginty or Nick then.

It must have been Nick, because Ginty floated in seconds later, immaculate in sparkling necklace and earrings and the peacock-coloured dress.

"I still think that's one of the best dresses Doris has ever made." Mrs Marlow, murmured presumably to herself, since none of the other Marlows replied. Perhaps that was the thing that Mrs Marlow always said.

"I don't think we've got any nail-varnish remover." Ginty informed her mother.

"Nail polish remover." Her mother replied absentmindedly. "Lawrie can do something about the lipstick anyway."

Rowan came in, beautiful and cheerful in dark blue.

"I hope the twins will be quick." Mrs Marlow said.

"We're still in more danger of being early than late." Rowan said soothingly. "And Nick isn't the sort to hang about."

Roger had been expecting the Marriot Chase to be somewhat grander than Trennels, but the outside didn't prepare him for entering a hall with an array of weapons displayed on the wall – mainly halberds, or possibly pikes.

"I've seen people with pikes on the wall before, but those had scales." Roger murmured to Rowan as they waited to pass through a door under a gallery at one end of the hall, as a stream of small frilly children and accompanying parents passed the other way, clutching a balloon apiece. They were grouped so closely together that no-one could really have been sure who he was addressing.

"Those are halberds; pikes are usually much longer, ten foot or more." Nicola replied. Roger hadn't spoken much to Nicola, who had always seemed to be outdoors somewhere in the holidays except for mealtimes, and who seemed more reserved than her twin.

"Pikes must have had their problems then." Roger remarked.

"I think they did." Nicola said. "I suppose you couldn't risk breaking the original stuff that survived, but it would be reasonably interesting to make copy of some old weapons and boats and things and see if they did work the way historians say they did."

Nicola stopped talking abruptly and went rather pink. Curiously, Peter's ears also appeared to be bright red.

"I'm ignorant about the mediaeval stuff." Roger said. "But I know more about fish, and those sort of pikes can be difficult to handle too."

"I suppose you only find them in lakes and bigger rivers?" Nicola asked, evidently trying to keep the conversation on a safe topic. Roger wondered exactly what the younger Marlows had done. Made their own ballista and fired it on Hampstead Heath? Although, give Nicola's enthusiasm for things mediaeval, perhaps it would be more likely to be a trebuchet. Not that Roger had much real idea what size either would be.

"I thought they would be in stewponds in monasteries?" Lawrie chipped in.

"I think it was mostly carp in those ponds wasn't it?" Roger said. "Pike would be rather aggressive, to keep in a small pond."

"Hello, Karen. Hello Rose." Nicola said. Roger turned to be introduced to a young woman who looked very like Rowan but with straight hair. Rowan's got something that Karen hasn't though. Roger thought as he shook handed and said the usual things. You can tell straight away – and it's nothing to do with looks.

One glance at Rose would tell anyone that she wasn't a Marlow. She was looking very nervous in a white frilly dress that made Roger think of the Amazons in the pony trap with their great aunt. Rose seemed almost surprised to be offered a handshake and gave the most tentative of smiles in response to Roger's friendly grin.

"Edwin's looking after Chas and Fob." Karen explained generally as the stream of outgoing parents and children finished. They passed through the door to the slightly more modern white and gilt cherubed splendour of the ball room and greetings of the Merricks.

There was a bit of polite chatting and Mrs Marlow introduced Roger to various other people, whose names Roger struggled to remember even before they all filed in to dinner. Roger had hoped to find himself next to Rowan, but instead was between Rose and a very upright older lady in a tweed skirt and lace bedecked blouse.

It fell to him to talk to Rose first, and his first impression, that she was cripplingly shy, seemed to have been correct. Her voice was almost inaudible over the general babble of county-types catching up with their more distant neighbours. The only thing Rose would admit to enjoying was reading, and she listed a few of her favourite authors with an obvious determination to do her best. Roger found that he had read almost nothing by most of the authors she mentioned, although he recognised a few of the names. He had the vague impression that C.S. Lewis wrote fairly heavy-going science fiction, but Rose mentioned enjoying a new book by him about lions.

Rowan was chatting cheerfully with her neighbour. She might, as she admitted, hanker occasionally for the bustle and variety of city life, but she was completely at home in this setting too. From the snippets Roger overheard, Rowan's neighbours apparently respected her as much as the people who worked for her evidently did.

"I didn't know he wrote about wildlife. Do you like animals?" Roger asked Rose, trying to keep the conversation going.

Rose looked extremely startled at this comment, said "Some of them." in scarcely more than a whisper and promptly retired back into her conversational shell.

By the time they had reached the end of the soup in awkward silence, Roger decided that he had to say something and pitched on the rescue of Sinbad at sea as a suitable anecdote. Rose listened in troubled silence though the fish course, only commenting at the end "I'm glad you all survived."

Roger wondered what had exactly happened to Surfrider. Talk about sailing was out then. Perhaps channel swimming was unsafe. He had absolutely no intension of asking her opinion on events in Korea. As the silence became uncomfortably long, Roger made some remark about the Stone of Scone, but was glad then the time came to relinquish Rose to the conversation of the boy with a stammer on her other side.

The lady in the tweed skirt turned out to be very capable of holding her own conversationally, and Roger felt much happier with the improved ratio of eating to talking. No, he didn't hunt, but he did fish. Not that he had done much recently. His eldest sister lived on the Broads. No, he didn't think she knew that family. She hadn't mentioned them anyway. His sister and brother-in-law sailed at weekends. His brother-in-law was a doctor. Yes, they both had, mainly in the Mediterranean. It was how they had met in fact. No, Roger didn't shoot. Well, his sister-in-law had got a duck with her bow once, but apart from that..

"Moderately impressive." came the response. "Why the bow?"

"No shotgun." Roger replied. This earned him an approving nod. He tried not to grin.

"The problem with Roger", Susan had said, "is that his grin looks cheeky even when he's not actually being cheeky."

"Although that doesn't happen often." John had added.

His conversational partner then talked about aeroplanes, and Roger thought her quite well-informed, until something she said made him realise that she thought the RAF still mainly flew planes with open cockpits.

They had both nearly finished pudding and when she interrupted herself to say, "Miss Marlow's a good sort. A very good sort. Learns quickly and is quite a decent farmer, I hear. She wouldn't be the type to play around behind a chap's back."

"Er, of course not." said Roger. He didn't think Rowan was that type himself, but didn't really see what business it was of Tweedy Woman's.

At that point he felt rather relieved when Mrs Merrick stood up.

He had danced with Rowan, Rose, Rowan, Nicola, Rowan, Mrs Merrick, a girl called Wendy, Rowan and Mrs Marlow. Rowan had just agreed that perhaps they might sit out a dance together and they occupied a sofa recently vacated by Nicola, the lad with the stutter, Peter and a girl in peach-coloured frock.

"I'm afraid that I'll have to leave before lunch tomorrow. I'm likely to be sent aboard for a bit. I'm not sure how long for, until they've run out of things for me to do, I suppose. Anyway, it will more than likely be a couple of months, perhaps three or four. I'd be surprised if it turns out to be more than six at the outside. It's all been rather short notice – I was only told about it yesterday and for once the handy rumour service doesn't seem to have worked. "

"I'll miss you." Rowan said. "I'll miss you a lot. But I hope it's interesting. Maybe not too interesting though."

Roger grinned. "Well so do I." and more seriously, "I'll miss you a great deal too. But it won't be for too long, I hope, and I should be due for a bit of leave when I get back too. And I'll write. It's just that the letters will take rather longer and there won't be phone calls and weekends." He paused. "It sounds even worse than it feels when I say it like that."

"It does rather." Rowan said quietly.

Roger hadn't been planning in the least to ask Rowan if she would marry him at a dance. She would certainly dislike the penny-novelettishness of such timing, and after all he by no means sure that the answer would be yes, nor yet a straightforward no. He rather suspected that the question might be the start of a discussion. However happy Roger would be to support Rowan he knew she wouldn't be happy just being what Nancy called "officers' wives tea-partyish" and from a few things she had said, she wouldn't be too keen on the idea of producing and bringing up a selection of small Walkers either. That was fine with him. Roger suspected he wouldn't admire Rowen quite so much if that had been the total of her ambition, although if at some future point Rowan decided that the world needed more small Walkers in it, he wouldn't mind that either. But supposing Rowan decided that she simply had to stay at Trennels until her father retired? That would be an intolerably long time to wait to get married. If running the farm meant Rowan had to stay at Trennels, then Roger supposed that might have to mean that he would have to spend his leave at Trennels too, unless Rowan would be able to take time off and they could go and stay somewhere together when Roger had leave. Somehow Roger didn't think that would happen quite as often as he would like. Roger suspected that fitting in to Trennels would not be quite so easy for him as fitting in at Beckfoot had seemed to be for John.

It would be rotten to start such a discussion with Rowan and then disappear to the other side of the planet before anything was decided. All the difficult decisions were really hers. Having originally resolved to ask Rowan to marry him on the day after the dance, Roger now found himself equally determined not to propose to Rowan until he came back to England.

He found himself perilously close to asking her anyway, when they said goodnight on the landing at Trennels.