It was then that Aldegonde Fitzmaurice, for the first time in her life, had impinged seriously upon her mother’s attention. Her piteous confession of failure and unhappiness had sent the Princesse to England, Catiche and Cliffe Montgomery, as usual, faithfully following her hurried progress.
A nightmare suburban existence had been shattered within a month, and the Princesse had swept them all to a furnished house at Noisy-le-Grand. The baby, Cliffe supposed, had been there then — but he remembered nothing of it.
The war had taken him away, and had sent the Princesse back to England, and the shameless Fitzmaurice to Switzerland with a medical exemption, and Alberta to a Red Cross detachment behind the lines. After it was over — when the smoke had cleared away, so to speak — one saw where it had left them all.
The Princesse, as nearly penniless as was compatible with being able to obtain food and shelter, had halted, probably fortuitously, in the Brussels flat. Aldegonde had attracted a Roumanian violinist, Raoul Radow, and was following him from one inferior concert hall to another. It was Cliffe who had persuaded her to remain with her mother, rather than to become Radow’s permanent appendage. She had obeyed fatalistically, but periodically met Radow in Paris.
Fitzmaurice drifted in and out of their lives, cynically detached.
And the child Sophie — Cliffe remembered now — had been sent to school. The expense of her education, such as it was, met by Reggie Fitzmaurice, constituted his solitary justification for existing.
Alberta, restored to balance by hard work and absence from the emotional maelstrom of family life, was heard of from time to time. The last letter had been from New York.
Except for occasional threats from the Princesse of going at once to America, no crisis had threatened until the one precipitated by Mrs. Marley.
It was then that Cliffe realized he had forgotten the child, Sophie Fitzmaurice.
“Fitzmaurice is fond of her,” declared the Princesse. “Give the devil his due. He cares more about her than Aldegonde does. Poor little Aldegonde!”
They looked at one another. Aldegonde, overborne and overshadowed by her mother and sister always, had had one brief flowering, but the blight that had fallen on that belated efflorescence seemed to have paralysed her emotional life thenceforward.
“Perhaps Aldegonde will marry Raoul Radow if she gets rid of Fitzmaurice,” hopefully said the Princesse.
Cliffe perceived that it was now her intention, quite as definitely as it was Clarissa Marley’s, that Aldegonde and her husband should part.
“I suppose,” he hazarded, “that Fitzmaurice will be ready to let her go?”
“Why shouldn’t he? Or do you mean because of the child?”
“Perhaps because of the child — perhaps because — well, one doesn’t know how much he may like the idea of being married to Clarissa Marley.”
“Why should he mind?” inquired the Princesse. “He doesn’t mind about people — only things. He’ll have all the things anybody can want. And Aldegonde can take little Sophie, and I might slip over to New York and see my Alberta. Or do you think she doesn’t want me?” She hurried on lest he should reply. “Cliffy, there’s a way of going to America, by a new line, I believe, that’s very cheap indeed — and perfectly comfortable. I could do that. I’ve never been to the States. One ought to see New York.”
Into her beautiful wild eyes had come a light that he knew and feared. It was wont to presage all her worst inspirations.
“We could find out about it,” he said hurriedly, “but, of course, the divorce will take time. That must be settled first.”
How incredible it would have seemed to him, some twenty years earlier, that he should ever come to discuss a divorce as a possible expedient, rather than as a shameful moral upheaval!
“Look at Carruthers!” said the Princesse, smiling tenderly at the cat.
Perhaps Carruthers would keep her from going to America — not that her affection for him was of so insanely exaggerated a character, but simply because it would be difficult to arrange a home for him in Brussels, and small difficulties could always overcome the Princesse’s determinations, whereas enormous impediments she usually conquered with ease.
“Here’s Aldegonde!”
The frail, pallid creature came in, seeming to drift rather than move. It was not the heat that had smudged violet stains under her mournful grey eyes: they were there always. Her pallid lips had always drooped mournfully, her soft, straight scanty hair had always fallen into those dispirited loops against her long neck. Tall, flat, and thin, her clothes hung upon her listlessly. They were shabby clothes from the moment that she put them on. The Princesse had once remarked that Aldegonde’s dresses always looked as though they had descended to her from a long, long line of ancestors. Her effete, indefinable air of aristocracy was indeed the most positive thing about her.
“Sit down, darling,” said the Princesse. “Cliffy, tell her what you’ve just told me.” And she immediately herself recapitulated everything that Montgomery had told her, whilst he sat by, thankful to be silent.
He realized, as the Princesse had always utterly refused to realize, that Aldegonde had long ago reached a stage of devitalization in which she would submit unquestioningly to any decree of a will stronger than her own.
II
TEN YEARS BEFORE (Continued)
IT was one of the minor difficulties of Cliffe Montgomery’s almost entirely difficult life that so few people should ever prove to be as punctual as himself. He resented the half-hours that he was compelled to spend in waiting about for those interviews that so continually became necessary.
Before going to Clarissa Marley’s hotel — where she would probably not be ready for him — he must needs wait for Fitzmaurice.
Aldegonde, now, was presumably with Fitzmaurice, telling him that if he filed a petition for divorce she would not defend the case.
Incredible, thought Montgomery — as was everything to do with the Laquerriéres, Clarissa, Fitzmaurice, and himself. He could never altogether cease to feel that he was part of a nightmare, struggling with an irrational, uncoordinated jumble of happenings.
He sat at his little table, at the cafe that always staged his rendezvous with Fitzmaurice, and read the Daily Mail, that seemed to bring nearer to him the comfort and sanity of London as he had once known it and as he greatly feared that he was never destined to know it again.
It was Fitzmaurice, in all probability, who would go to England and spend his time between Mardale, Clarissa’s house in Berkeley Square, and other people’s country-houses. What with motorcars, chefs and prosperity, he would lose his looks and his figure, and perhaps then he would cease to attract women.
A shadow fell across the little painted iron table.
“Bonjour, mon vieux.”
The French accent of Fitzmaurice was atrocious.
Cliffe signed to the waiter, and ordered iced beer for himself and une fine for his companion.
“Well,” said Fitzmaurice, “I suppose you’ve heard. They agree to everything. Mind, they’re right, you know. We couldn’t have gone on like this much longer.”
“Aldegonde’s not going to defend the case?”
“No. She certainly couldn’t, anyway. The trouble is,” he sank his voice, “the trouble is, between ourselves, Cliffe, that I’m not sure I can face being married by Clarissa. So this is what I’m going to do: I’m going to hold out about having the child.”
“What?”
“The child, Sophia. Oh, Aldegonde doesn’t mind. She’s never cared for her much, and anyway, they couldn’t afford to keep her. But, unless I’m very much mistaken, Clarissa won’t agree to having Sophia.”
“But then — ?”
“Exactly,” said Fitzmaurice triumphantly.
“She’ll call the whole thing off, so far as marriage goes.”
The nightmare was becoming grotesque. “What are you going to do, then?”
“Well, aren’t you seeing Clarissa this morn
ing?”
“At twelve.”
“You’d better tell her, old man, that’s the one thing I’m going to stand firm about. If she takes me, she’ll have to take Sophia too.”
“And if she won’t?”
“Then I suppose it’s all off again. Though now I’m worked up to the idea, I’d really much rather cut loose altogether. We’d have done it long ago, if it hadn’t been for the expense. I suppose Aldegonde’s Dago will marry her, unless he has a wife already.”
“Fitzmaurice,” said little Montgomery, “that will do.”
It was an inadequate phrase, but he had never yet been able to find one scathing enough to express his blasting contempt for the caddishness of Fitzmaurice’s outlook. Sometimes he told himself that the phrase had never yet been coined that would penetrate that hard, resilient vulgarity.
“I shall keep Mrs. Marley waiting if I don’t go now. Are you coming with me?”
“Not I. Tell her about Sophia, won’t you?”
“I suppose she knows that you have a child?”
“Oh yes, she knows. But make her understand that if she takes me, she’ll have to take Sophia. After all, why not? She can always leave the kid at school, and just let her come for the holidays.”
“You really want her?’
Fitzmaurice shrugged his shoulders.
“I do, rather,” he admitted. “If luck is coming my way at last, it seems a shame the kid shouldn’t get a share of it, and anything would be better for her than being left to her mother and the fiddler fellow.”
“And if Mrs. Marley won’t have her?”
“Then I’ll take her on myself, I swear I will. I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer that — I don’t know. Anyhow, it rests with Clarissa now.”
How like Reggie Fitzmaurice, thought Cliffe, to let it “rest with Clarissa” so complacently. Perhaps, however, he had not many doubts as to the decision that she would take.
Montgomery himself had none at all.
Clarissa Marley, unlike Fitzmaurice, knew exactly what she wanted, and how badly she wanted it.
She said as much, when he went to find her in the hotel salon.
“A cocktail — whisky-and-soda? Nothing? Well, you’re quite right. Sit down.”
She indicated the other end of the uncomfortable gilt-and-satin upright sofa from which she had not risen to greet him.
“I rang up Reggie this morning, of course, so I know it’s all right — just the main facts. She’s not going to defend the case. And it’ll be all right for her, won’t it, if there’s the other man — the violin person — waiting for her. How long do these things take?”
“I don’t know,” said Cliffe, “but some time, I imagine, especially with so many complications of nationality. Aldegonde’s father was French, her mother is Franco-British, and they were married in France.”
“She’s not a Catholic?”
“Technically, yes, but not a practising one. It won’t — stand in the way of anything.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Marley thoughtfully. “I always understood that the Princesse was of Russian extraction.”
“She has Russian blood in her, through her mother, and actually spent her childhood in St. Petersburg.”
“Why?” asked Mrs. Marley, surprised.
The astonishment on her face was reflected for an instant on that of Cliffe Montgomery. He realized that he had been taking it for granted that, because she had married into Marley’s world, she would, like the rest of that world, know that the Princesse de Candi-Laquerriere had been the daughter of a British ambassador. But, of course, she didn’t know these things at all. She hadn’t even, apparently, understood that they must be learnt.
This unsuspected breach in her armour of efficiency made Cliffe dislike her rather less.
He gently explained the connection of the Princesse with a Russian environment.
“She married Candi-Laquerriere when she was eighteen, and is a French subject. When her daughter married—”
“You mean Reggie’s wife?”
“Yes. The other daughter, Alberta, isn’t married. But Aldegonde and Fitzmaurice had to be married before every kind of civil and religious authority, and there was an endless hunting up of documents...”
He sighed, remembering those tedious elaborations of the law through which he had, at the cost of infinite time and trouble to himself, shepherded Aldegonde and the Princesse to an end so disastrous.
“I dare say it’ll be easier to untie them than it was to tie up. When I want a thing done it usually gets done quickly,” said Clarissa arrogantly. “There’s one other point, Cliffy. What about Reggie’s child?”
“He’s been talking to me about her this morning.”
Clarissa drew a long breath.
“Well,” she said, in her smallest, clearest voice. “I’ve thought a lot about it. You see, I’ve got my boy — I must think of him. He’s the chief reason why I couldn’t let Reggie be the one to be divorced. What’s he going to feel about another child sharing his mother, and his home, and his holidays?”
“For the matter of that, what’s he going to feel about Fitzmaurice?” retorted Cliffe.
“He likes him,” she returned quickly. “Lucien’s seen quite a lot of him, and he’s felt that wonderful charm of Reggie’s.”
Good God! Fitzmaurice’s wonderful charm....!
“I’ve let Lucien see a lot of him, on purpose. It would have been very, very difficult for me if the boy hadn’t liked him — but you see, he does. And I want a man’s influence for him, Cliffy. I’ve tried to be absolutely everything to Lucien, and I know I’ve succeeded. I have his complete confidence, and I’ve made him thoroughly obedient — but at the same time, Lucien is nearly eleven — he’ll be going to a public school.... I don’t want him to be absolutely dependent on me as he gets older. I feel if Reggie’s there, he’ll help me with the boy.”
Well, it wasn’t his job to enlighten her as to the only kind of help that any mother would be likely to get from Fitzmaurice for her boy. Besides, he had a strong suspicion that, in reality, she knew it all nearly as well as he could tell her. She was far too shrewd not to have seen for herself that it wasn’t Fitzmaurice’s metier to be a guide to youth — and anyway, it wasn’t likely that she’d ever allow anyone but herself to acquire any real influence over her son if she could help it. Her talk about needing a man’s help with Lucien was just so much self-justification for the step she intended to take.
“But it was Reggie’s child I wanted to talk about. Little Sophie.” She paused, and he had an idea that she wanted him to notice that she had been sufficiently interested in the little girl to find out her name.
“I suppose her mother will expect to have her part of the time?”
Cliffe hesitated, distressed at the maternal indifference of which a bald negative must needs convict his poor, devitalized Aldegonde, whose emotional force had been drained away before she could spend any of it on her child.
Clarissa Marley, he had already noticed, although she often put her statements into question form, did not really want any reply and often went on talking without waiting for one.
She did so now, to his relief.
“Because, you see, that’s just what I intend to be perfectly clear about. If the child is going to be sent about from pillar to post, first with me, and then with her mother and God knows who, and then back to school again — I won’t have anything to do with her. It’s not fair on either of us. I’m certain you’ll agree with me, Cliffy. If I have the responsibility of her, I’m not going to share it. She’s got to be left absolutely and completely in my hands.”
A qualm passed through the mind of Cliffe Montgomery at the thought of this arbitrary possession by Clarissa Marley. He realized guiltily that he had not hitherto been viewing Sophie Fitzmaurice as a person, but only as a part of his perennial Laquerriére problem. He tried, without success, to remember what the little thing was like. He could only recollect having thought her a good little th
ing who gave no trouble.
“You can see for yourself, of course, that’s the only possible way of doing it,” continued the small, inexorable voice.
He was forced to agree with her, even when she added: “You see, I’ve got to think of my Lucien too.”
“Has Fitzmaurice said anything to you about — about having the child?”
“He hasn’t been terribly definite. How could he, when we only knew yesterday — thanks to you, my dear — that it was going to be all right about the divorce?”
“Not thanks to me,” Cliffe protested firmly. “I only spoke to the Princesse. Aldegonde and Fitzmaurice came to a — an agreement after I had gone. He spoke to me about Sophie — the little girl — this morning.”
“I suppose,” she repeated, “that her mother wants to keep her. And Reggie, like all men, is sentimental, and feels that, whatever she’s done, she’s entitled to the child.”
“On the contrary,” said little Montgomery, with a mildly satirical inflection, “his sentimentality has taken him in the opposite direction. He wants to keep Sophie himself.”
He kept his eyes on her face as he spoke, and watched for any change of expression. It came — a certain hardening at the corners of her mouth, and darkening of her eyes — and passed almost at once into an air of determined responsibility.
“Very well. But from the day I take over, she’s my child. That’s got to be understood. It’s the only fair thing — for me, or Reggie, or for the child herself. Will the mother make any difficulties?”
“No.”
“Extraordinary,” said Clarissa contemptuously. “I’d have fought like a tiger for my Lucien. I should now, for the matter of that. Where is Sophie now?”
“At an English school near London. Fitzmaurice didn’t want her brought up abroad.”
“What sort of school? A cheap one, I suppose. That means she’ll have everything to unlearn — but she’s a mere baby; I can do it. Tell me, Cliffy, do you know her — what’s she like? Is she like Reggie?”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 321