by Maggie Ford
What angered her was that he’d not spoken one word about it to her, still believing she was in the dark, for she’d been careful to keep what she knew to herself. Having him know what she’d found out would do her no good: he’d thwart her the moment she showed her hand. What a shock he was in for.
How she had managed to keep silent when he’d given Jay their own daughter’s old bedroom had been beyond her, but her silence alone had spoken volumes and since that time they had hardly exchanged words unless there was need to. He didn’t seem much put out by these long silences. He might, she felt, even be glad of them, as helping him to avoid occasional lies.
Since the death of their daughter they had more or less led separate lives anyway, meeting only occasionally at meal times, or when entertaining guests called for it. They went out together only when absolutely necessary – to a function or to dinner with a friend, maybe one of his medical colleagues. She had no real friends, had never been good at mixing. He’d thought otherwise when he had asked her to marry him but soon realized how wrong he’d been. Millicent had brought them closer, but now she was gone there seemed little point in it. Her only contact was her sister, but since having gone to live with her, if only for that short time, relations had grown strained. She blamed Bertram utterly for having driven her to leave home – he and his weird obsession for a child in whom he professed loudly to see such a striking likeness to his own dead child. Yes, loudly.
Mary couldn’t help smirking as she lay on her side in bed with the covers drawn up over her ears. There were times when she wondered if this obsession with the girl was quite as fatherly as he made out. It didn’t matter, for she was going to put an end to it. On this thought Mary Lowe drifted off to asleep.
* * *
She knew where her husband was this evening: in his club with Michael Deel’s father. She had learned to be devious and earlier on had asked him innocently where he was off to.
‘I’ve hardly set eyes on you all day, dear,’ she pouted, having made sure to come down to dinner.
He looked up from his first course of salmon mousse. ‘I can’t exactly say that is my fault, my dear. My surgery is full to overflowing this time of year with autumn coughs and colds, lumbago and rheumatism, not to mention visiting time. This is the time of year when so many begin to take to their beds with pneumonia and pleurisy or are seen off with heart failure. My time is well taken up, leaving little time to myself.’
‘Or for me, dear,’ she cut through the rambling.
He regarded her with a puzzled frown. ‘I thought you cared little for my company, my dear.’
‘Because you are always so busy. I am loath to intervene.’
‘You have Dora.’ His tone had grown sharp. ‘You seem quite content with her.’
‘I would not be if I had more of your time. And where are you off to tonight, dear?’ She hoped she was leading their conversation round expertly to its destination as he shrugged lightly.
‘My club,’ he said, resuming eating.
Her own food remained untouched. ‘I do sometimes wish there were clubs for ladies. I might make friends there.’
‘There are such places,’ he answered, delicately cutting into the last few pieces of his salmon mousse. ‘If you did but put yourself out a little more, Mary, my dear, you could find plenty of diversion rather than spending your time in your room with a paid companion.’
‘We go out occasionally, shopping.’
She heard his brief, derisive laugh and his mumbled, ‘Most exciting,’ and felt she was losing track of her objective.
‘I shouldn’t think any clubs for women in this area would be to my taste,’ she went on. ‘Of course, yours being in the better part of London, those you meet are of your class – medical men, I suppose. Do I know some of them, their wives, whom we may have invited here for dinner at one time or another?’
‘I expect so, my dear.’ He leaned back while Chambers removed his empty plate ready for the next course.
She waved her uneaten mousse away as Chambers hesitated before swiftly removing it. ‘And would I have met the wives of any of those you’ll be seeing this evening at your club?’ she asked innocently.
Again he shrugged, his gaze idly following the grilled lamb cutlets and assorted vegetables that Chambers was carefully transferring from a silver platter to the warm, gleaming plate she had put before him.
‘Would I?’ Mary prompted cautiously. ‘If you named any you might be meeting there this evening to remind me?’
Unsuspecting, he formed his lips into a meditative puff as he sliced into his cutlet. ‘Let’s see. Wagstaff – you know his wife, I think: Harriet. He’s always there, part of the fittings. The Pulmingtons, George – you know them. Henry Chauncey – I invited them to dinner last summer. Doctor Henk…’
She saw his eyes flicker towards her as he broke off, but she was pretending to help herself to vegetables and cutlets as if not really taking his words in. ‘I really must make myself go out more,’ she said easily. ‘Wrapped up warm, Dora and I could pay a visit to Dickins & Jones, perhaps have tea at a Lyons tea shop. Or, better still, a Fullers tea shop – a far daintier service and beautiful cakes.’
He’d played completely into her hands. Even the way he had cut the name short had betrayed him. She was satisfied. She knew what was in his mind. He would tackle Doctor Henk Deel about his son and this extremely unpalatable young person. The father would bring the boy to heel, put a stop to the relationship, remove his son from here, never to return, maybe even send him abroad out of harm’s way. Would she be in time? Michael would be here tomorrow evening but, having been alerted, would his father prevent him from coming? She would have to act quickly.
Mary got up from the table, her second course untouched. ‘Oh,’ she groaned, holding her napkin to her lips. ‘Oh, dear…’ Bertram looked up sharply. ‘What is it, my dear?’
‘I feel… so strange…’ She let her voice die away, closing her eyes and swaying a little. To aid her collapse she let out her breath until there was nothing left in her lungs. Her husband was a doctor; he would see by the very colour of her cheeks if she were feigning illness. The loss of air to her lungs helped her legs to collapse easily under her, her cheeks turning pale, her face adopting a strained look, mouth open, eyes closing.
He was up from the table in a second, amazingly fast for a portly man, bending over her, loosening the buttons of the tight collar of the black gown she wore.
She felt her hand taken, her pulse being felt for. He’d know instantly that there was nothing wrong with her. She must not overdo it. She gave a little twitching movement, pulling her hand from his and opening her eyes.
‘I feel so sick,’ she stammered as if surprised by it. Seeming to come round, she made an effort to sit up. Now he was merely the concerned husband, kneeling beside her and helping her to sit, supporting her back. ‘I’ve been off my food all day,’ she sighed. ‘I’m not sure I shall be sick,’ she went on weakly, ‘but I just feel… not well.’
‘We must get you to bed,’ he said firmly and signalled to Chambers, who had been hovering helplessly by. ‘Help me get your mistress to her feet. Can you stand, my dear?’
As Mary gave an uncertain nod, a feeble, trembling hand going to her forehead, she felt herself gently helped to her feet by the two people.
‘Can you walk, my dear?’
Again she nodded. ‘I think so,’ she sighed. Forcing all breath from her lungs had indeed made her feel giddy. ‘I think I need to lie down.’
Allowing herself to be helped up the stairs to her room and laid gently on her bed, she lifted her head to Bertram. ‘You won’t go out tonight, will you?’ she implored faintly. ‘I don’t want to be on my own.’
‘Dora is here.’
At the commotion the girl had hurried from the little anteroom attached to her mistress’s room, where she had been having her supper.
‘What can I do?’ asked the girl in partial panic.
Mary ignored her a
nd held out a beseeching hand to her husband. ‘Don’t leave me, dear. I’m frightened.’ This was true and rang in her voice.
‘There’s nothing to frighten you. You swooned, that’s all. Perhaps you are catching a chill.’ He nodded to Chambers. ‘You can go now. Thank you for your help.’
Turning back, he said, ‘Young Dora can use the telephone in my surgery to contact my club if there is an emergency, which I don’t think there will be.’ She having seemed to recover, he’d become brusque and impatient.
‘She is terrified of that machine,’ Mary gasped.
‘She can tell Mrs Jenkins…’
‘No…’ Mary closed her eyes. ‘I feel so odd. Please, my dear, stay here with me. You can – go to your club – any time.’ She let her breath fail her again and saw him nod.
‘Very well,’ he conceded, and turned to the concerned Dora. ‘You may go to bed, child. I shall stay here with your mistress.’
It was hard not to smile. She’d won. By the time Michael Deel’s father spoke to his son she would already have got to the young lovers.
Eighteen
The moment Michael entered the little attic room where she practised her painting skills, Ellie flew into his arms in the joy of seeing him.
‘Where is he?’ Michael asked as they parted from a lingering kiss.
‘He left to go to his club, just a little while ago. His wife wasn’t well yesterday, so he had to stay with her. He’s gone this evening instead. I think he wanted to meet someone, because as I passed his surgery door earlier, I heard him say he needed to meet whoever it was urgently this evening at his club. So that’s where he’s gone. We have the whole evening to ourselves. We don’t even have to go out.’
She felt a certain excitement creep over her as she spoke. Usually they would have had to creep out of the house so as to be alone together. This time there was little to prevent a kiss from going further.
After for so long having had to embrace in darkened places there was no fear of anyone coming upon them. By the time Doctor Lowe came home Michael would have gone. Mrs Lowe was at home but wouldn’t dream of coming near this room. They were safe here.
For a time they sat quietly together on the two stools the room held. There were long, awkward silences; what small exchange of conversation there was was stilted and Ellie knew instinctively what was going through his mind, as it was going through hers.
* * *
It had been wonderful. No words had been spoken, but she needed none. He had been awkward at first, this obviously being his very first time; but instinct had taken over and on the cold, bare floor, with nowhere else to go, they’d become one in love to finally lie silently in each other’s arms before returning to the world and its mundane practicalities.
They dressed awkwardly, not looking at each other, neither sure what to say. Maybe there was no need. After a while, able at last to turn back to each other, Michael moved closer and took her in his arms, his words low and hesitant. ‘Was it all right? I mean was I… I mean…’
‘Of course,’ she floundered, then grew slightly annoyed. ‘Of course it was all right. We love each other, don’t we?’
‘I mean, it’s the first time, and I didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage of you, that I only wanted to be with you for – for that.’
‘Of course I don’t!’ Catching the sharpness of her words, she repeated them more gently, ‘Of course I don’t. We’re in love with each other.’
‘It’s just that I don’t know where we go from here. I want to marry you, but I shall have to tell my father…’ He hesitated. ‘Ellie, I’m scared to tell him about us. I don’t know how to put this, but my parents…’
He fell quiet, leaving her to wonder what he was trying to say. Before she could ask, he took a deep breath, ran his hand over her hair as if to steel himself for something he was finding difficulty in saying.
‘I hope you don’t find what I’m trying to say offensive, my sweet, and I don’t mean it to be – not for the world. I love you so much, my heart breaks to pieces every time I think of you or say your name or imagine myself with you for ever. But it’s…’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how to say this.’
‘And I don’t know what you’re trying to say,’ she said. A chill began to creep over her. Had he indeed, having at last got what he wanted, felt the need to end it, perhaps even wishing that he hadn’t been so carried away?
‘What I’m trying to say,’ he went on nervously, ‘is that my parents have always planned out my life for me – what public school I should go to, what university, and that I would go into my father’s practice. And they continue to plan for me to the extent that they hope that one day I’ll meet someone whom they consider suitable to be a wife to me. That’s how it’s done, you see. I am introduced in certain social circles – weekend parties, society balls usually with debutantes from nice families, suitable young ladies primed for good marriages. Do you understand what I mean?’
She didn’t reply, beginning to stand back from him as disillusion set in. Her mind was in turmoil. She loved him so very dearly, yet a sense of soured joy had begun to invade her heart. She thought suddenly of her father. This was her father all over again: soft words, cajoling her, in an effort to get her to comply meekly.
Yet this was far more insidious; she had believed she was being loved, truly, for herself, not used. But she had been used, every bit as much as her father had used her – to satisfy his own craving. Suddenly she felt defiled. But she loved him so, and that was the worst part, her whole being torn to pieces between an agonizing pull of love and that of disillusionment. With an effort she held herself together.
‘Then you can go, can’t you?’ she said coldly, moving away from him. ‘Go and obey your darling parents and find someone – suitable, as you call it – to your taste and to theirs. I’m sure I don’t want to stand in your way.’
Her voice was beginning to tremble. ‘But thank you for your kind friendship. I hope I’ve been of service…’
‘What the hell are you saying!’ he cut in. Before she could escape he had her in his arms, crashing her to him.
‘For God’s sake! I love you! I’m not going to lose you, not for anyone. Ellie, you do love me? You do!’
She could hardly breathe. ‘I do, oh, I really do.’
‘And I shall tell my parents that I love you and that no one will ever part us. I don’t care what they say.’
He was covering her face with kisses, talking fast between each kiss. ‘We must go away together, darling. I want to marry you.’
Delight had returned, yet behind it lay horrible practicalities. ‘Where would we go?’ she asked.
‘Far away where no one will find us.’
‘What about money? We’ll need to live.’
For a moment he said nothing, as if this had never occurred to him.
‘Do you have any money?’ she prompted quickly, hating the subject, but it had to be raised. There was also her long-planned promise to herself – what of that? He would have no wish to follow her on that quest with its subsequent conclusion. It had nothing to do with him. And after this long while she couldn’t let it all slip away from her. She wanted revenge. Revenge was all she had ever cared about.
Michael was shaking his head. ‘I’ve hardly any of my own. I’ve never felt the need to save money. I have only to ask and it’s provided.’
Love him though she did, Ellie was not about to tell him that she had saved, and for an entirely different purpose. How could she use the money to keep both her and him after all she’d gone through? What she had wouldn’t last them all that long, and having flouted his father’s wishes, would he ever find work in his field enough to keep them both? He might regret it and so might she.
‘Then what can we do?’ she asked lamely.
Discovery of whether he had an answer or not was prevented by a quiet tap on the door. As they exchanged alarmed glances, Michael’s lips silently formed the words ‘Doctor Lowe’.
> In a flurry they sat themselves back on the stools, now well apart, Ellie reaching for a small, half-finished canvas with the pretence of being absorbed in working on it.
‘Yes?’ she queried loudly and watched mesmerized as the door slowly opened. It wasn’t Bertram Lowe’s portly figure framed in the doorway but that of his wife.
‘May I come in?’ she asked.
Before Ellie could reply, Michael spoke for her. ‘Of course, Mrs Lowe, do come in.’
‘I’ve never been up here before,’ she began. ‘This is where you study.’
She was being far too polite, far too nice. Already on her guard, Ellie felt the rancour rise within her. She opened her mouth for a retort but felt Michael’s touch on her arm, cautioning her to silence; but Mrs Lowe had seen the gesture and Ellie caught the brief smile on her face, a strange smile.
‘What can we do for you, Mrs Lowe?’ she asked stiffly, trying to make the woman feel like an intruder; but Mary Lowe’s expression didn’t alter.
She began to move around the tiny room, looking at this, glancing at that, fingering a piece of canvas, a brush, the palette – untouched, a drying skin of paint on each tiny pile of colour bearing witness to that fact.
‘It appears very cosy up here. Even cosier, I dare say, my husband being out tonight. At his club.’ She turned her head towards the pair still sitting where they had been when she’d entered. ‘I take it you are aware that your attachment to each other is common knowledge in this house.’
Ellie shrugged.
Michael’s eyes hadn’t left the woman’s face. They now held a challenge.
‘I imagine it is,’ he said slowly. ‘Is this why you’ve chosen to come up here to see us, Mrs Lowe, now, while Doctor Lowe isn’t here? Do you intend doing something about it in his absence?’
Mary Lowe gave a tinkling, almost girlish laugh, at odds with her ample figure. ‘It isn’t up to me, Mr Deel. I rather think that must be left to my husband. But I feel for you both.’
She glanced at Ellie. ‘That may come as a surprise to you, Miss Jay. I am aware of the dissension that exists between us. Nevertheless, I am not a hard person. I have some sympathy for young lovers and the problems they face and I think the problems in your case are particularly difficult.’ She began to study her hands. ‘And who am I to interfere in what Doctor Lowe thinks? He, on the other hand, does not see the matter in the same light as I.’