He knew it was but he could hardly say so.
‘It’s fabulous of you to ask me, but, Wilfred, I don’t love you …’
‘What is love? Affection, friendship, companionship. Do you feel any of these?’
‘Oh, yes, in a way. I have super times with you—’
‘And could have many more. You see the way I live.’
‘But isn’t there – there should be something more to marriage than that.’
‘Do you mean desire?’ He picked up the wine basket but the bottle was empty. ‘That’s quite a different thing. I could hardly expect you to feel that – so soon. In any event I would never press you to feel that. It would be a matter entirely of your own choice.’
She wrinkled her brow and stared out over the river. A creeping mist was lurking among the shadows, like breath from the hot day. She had seen the proposal coming during the last few meetings but had still refused to believe it would really happen. It was like being offered a floor managership at D. H. Evans: flattering, but if you accepted would you ever be able to be yourself again?
‘How do you mean, my own choice?’ she asked.
‘Well, you will know how marriages came to be arranged in the old days. Parents picked one’s husband, one’s wife on grounds of general suitability. One came to marriage often with one’s feelings unawakened. Thereafter often it came about that one fell in love. You’d be surprised how many happy marriages developed from this sort of arrangement.’
‘Do you mean—’
‘Of course this is not so in our case. We have met frequently and we like each other. I believe we are well suited. You can offer me a great deal. I can offer you a great deal. We are complementary to each other. The rest can follow as and when it may.’
‘Do you mean,’ she said, ‘that you love me or that you don’t love me? I mean, I still don’t quite understand.’
Angell was nettled by her youthful directness. She left no room for implications or nuances. It all had to be in words of one syllable.
‘Of course there is – love in this. But I am suggesting to you first and foremost a companionate marriage. A marriage of true interests. Desire may or may not become a part.’
By now the lights were coming on in the restaurant. He thought she looked flushed. Her neck was flushed above the fine white sweater which so clearly showed the outline of her breasts. Angell sipped the last drop of wine from the bottom of his glass. He had known all along that he should have ordered the ’59 instead of the ’63. The ’ 63 was 15/- cheaper, but the difference in quality was much wider than the difference in price.
She said: ‘ I – really don’t know what to say.’ She glanced up hopefully at the waiter who had stopped at their table.
‘A liqueur for madame? Cointreau—’
‘No, no.’ Angell waved him irritably away.
‘ – as a matter of fact,’ Pearl said, ‘I’d simply love a liqueur, Wilfred.’
‘Oh … then, waiter!’
‘Sir?’
‘Miss Friedel will – what would you like?’
‘A crême de menthe, please.’
Angell suppressed a wince of distaste. ‘A crême de menthe and – oh, well, yes, I’ll take a brandy.’
In the silence that followed, Pearl rubbed her wrists which seemed to be suffering from prickly heat. ‘I never thought, I certainly never thought when we met on that aeroplane. I never dreamed … Have you – never been married?’
‘No, I was engaged once – or almost engaged, but—’
‘What happened?’
‘It broke up. It was to the girl who was rather like you.’
‘Yes, I remember you saying.’
Wilfred said: ‘Perhaps this is one subject I should touch on. I have made my life – as I tell you – as a bachelor ever since Anna died. This gives rise naturally to rumours. Today the whole of life is so sex-ridden, such pressure is put on people by the whole ad-mass consortium, such reverence is paid to the words of a morbid Viennese Jew called Freud, that no one is allowed by public opinion to live without sex even if he wants to. Because I have chosen to do so, because I have had menservants to look after my house, people have whispered that perhaps I am a homosexual.’
The waiter came back with the drinks.
Wilfred said: ‘ Personally of course I have cared nothing for such tittle-tattle. It is unimportant; idle gossip. Anyway there is little prejudice against the homosexual today – indeed why should there be? In a world of over-population he can claim to be the best citizen. But I thought it necessary at this stage to mention it to you, and to tell you categorically that I am not.’
‘I see what you mean,’ Pearl murmured, rather lost for what to say. ‘Thank you.’
Neither spoke then for a while. Pearl sipped her sweet green drink and felt it go down burning gently. The restaurant was elegant and expensive, the food and the wine had suited her. She thought: I can do this all my life if I want to now – if I want to. No more travelling up to London on the 7.55, rain or shine, winter and summer, fighting for a seat, tramp, tramp, tramp among the thousands out of Victoria and queueing for the bus, standing in the shop all morning, 3/ 6 canteen lunch, standing all afternoon, getting backache, then coat on, queueing for the bus, tramp, tramp, tramp among the thousands into Victoria, fighting for a seat, bus at Croydon or twenty minutes’ walk, home to the small bedroom or downstairs Rachel and television and Leslie and Gustave arguing or fighting or whistling or doing prep, and Julia cross and being put to bed, and Dad coming home grey-bearded with quiet dignity; and afterwards maybe Hazel and Chris and some young man for me, an electrician or a mechanic or a clerk, with no manners and common tastes. (And pawing hands. Temporarily at least she was very much off pawing hands.) No more two weeks’ holiday a year, scraping for the package deal to Zermatt; no more thinking if I buy that crimson barathea it will have to do for winter as well; no more advising old women who can’t possibly look nice how they can smell nice. If I say yes now, for the rest of my life I am on the other side of the counter. It’s like being elevated to the peerage.
But. She looked at Mr Angell, as she still called him in her thoughts. Enormous. The breadth of his chest, the breadth of his waistcoat. What size would his pyjamas be? What would he look like in a bath? Or in bed? A good head – quite a noble head, if you looked at it right – and not old looking – a strong man, never seemed to feel his weight. Would he be generous? He might be persuaded. Would he lose weight? He might be persuaded. Of course there was no romance; not a vestige, there never could be. Nor could she ever love him, if love meant what it was supposed to mean. But this might even be an advantage, to be free from the unpleasanter obligations of love. And how unpleasant, thanks to Godfrey, these obligations at present seemed.
She knew what her friends would say. Pearl? Well, I always thought she was a bit of a snob, but it never crossed my mind. Just a gold digger. And an old man. Well, middle-aged. And have you seen him? There are some men in their forties who quite send me, but him. Maybe she’s marrying money, but I’ll say she’s earning it! Pearl. Good-looking as well. For crying out loud, she could have done better than that!
So they’d say, but could she? Where was the romance with young engineers and clerks and shopkeepers and schoolteachers? Sex, yes. They all offered her that. In fact they thrust it at her like a hot potato before she was ready. All Little Gods in their own way. Little Gods but inhibited by the laws of the land. She shivered.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No, no, thanks.’ She had quickly lowered her eyes so that he should not see their expression.
‘You’re not twenty-one,’ he said. ‘You’re not twenty-one until next May. That may raise the question of your parents’ consent.’
‘Oh, that. It will only be Dad. I mean he is the one that cares. Perhaps you ought to meet him. That’s if …’
‘Naturally I shall wish to meet him. Could he come to see me on Saturday morning? Or shall I come down to your home?’
‘No … I’ll have to ask him, won’t I? I’ll have to ask him. But first—’
‘Waiter, my bill!’
‘Coming, sir.’
‘But first,’ she went on, ‘I’ve – got to make up my own mind.’
For the first time Angell began to feel a niggling sensation of uncertainty such as he sometimes felt at Christie’s when the last bid was his but the auctioneer had not yet brought down the hammer.
‘You might prefer to think it over for a day or two. If there is—’
‘Yes, I would. I would,’ she said like a child let off an examination. ‘It’s – a big step.’
The waiter brought the bill and Angell took library spectacles out of his breast pocket and scrutinized it. After a moment he beckoned the man back.
‘We had only one coffee. Miss Friedel did not take it.’
‘Oh, sorry, sir.’
The adjustment was made, and Angell reluctantly took out his pocket book.
‘Your father, I imagine, is a sensible man.’
‘I think so.’
‘So he will wish for his daughter’s advancement and happiness.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Does the question of my age deter you?’ he asked suddenly, taking off his spectacles. His eyes were quite stern.
‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t say—’
‘Because there are hundreds of cases every year of men in their forties marrying younger women. Statistics show that on the whole such marriages prove more lasting than where the parties are the same age.’
‘Oh, I know it does happen. A girl I knew—’
‘I believe we should get on very well. D’you know.’ He suddenly smiled, and that lit up his face. ‘I have watched you very carefully – not merely for my sake but your own – and I have seen you enjoying the things I enjoy. I believe it would be a companionate marriage. I’m a very busy man, and you would have a good deal of freedom. But when we were together I think we should be very much in accord.’
‘Yes … Yes …’
‘But talk it over with your father, please. And let us arrange a meeting. I would like a private word with him. Can you see him tonight?’
‘He’ll be in bed before I’m home.’
‘Ring me tomorrow at my office. You have my number, of course. I’d very much like to talk to him.’
He put some notes and some silver on the table, counted out the silver a second time and took two shillings back. Then he waited restively for her to collect her things and rise.
Not much more was said. They drove home in a not quite comfortable silence. He was slightly irritated with himself now that he could find no warmer or more affectionate things to say. But he had exhausted his vocabulary and his tongue would not frame words that might commit him too far or make him sound ridiculous. But in the back of the car he did take her hand and hold it all the way home. He felt this was expected of him and might make do in place of the whispered affections. She did not withdraw her hand or move it away.
Angell’s meeting with Mr Friedel was a very distressing one.
His first impression on seeing Mr Friedel and shaking him by the hand was that Pearl’s father was good-looking, dignified and better bred than the report had suggested. After five minutes’ talk, with the sharp assessing eye of a lawyer, he still allowed Friedel his good looks but he had already seen through the dignity of a rather timid man who had sheltered all his life behind this wall of reserved impressive elegance, away from the harsh stress and judgment of the world. When he tried to be impressive he was pompous, and his rather careful accent broke down in stress words in which there were echoes either of south London or Leopoldstadt. When you met him you felt he was born to command; after a while you discovered that he was born to be commanded.
This woke the bully in Angell, who in certain spheres knew all there was to know about timidity but was better skilled in hiding it. Mr Friedel, he felt, had come to inspect and possibly even disapprove of this wealthy but otherwise unsuitable husband for his little girl. In fifteen minutes Angell, spreading his hands and his waist, had disposed of all the objections Mr Friedel could possibly raise.
He was playing on his own ground, which too was an advantage, but to his surprise, having gained the major point, he came up against an utter and very distressing obstinacy in Mr Friedel’s character, which might well be the obstinacy of a weak man but was no more removable for that. Like a swimmer on the point of drowning and clinging with despairing fingers to a tidal rock, Mr Friedel was not swept away. The condition to which he clung was that if Pearl married she must have a marriage settlement before the wedding. He wanted nothing for himself, he kept repeating ad nauseam, as if anyone in their right mind supposed he could possibly expect anything, but there must be some ‘provision for Pearl’.
There was a considerable and devious discussion in which a number of irrelevant subjects were mentioned before Angell said in a cold and despondent voice that, sooner than allow any dissatisfaction to arise in Mr Friedel’s mind, he would be prepared to make his wife a gift of a thousands pounds, though he was sure that Pearl would reject the idea outright and indeed be very offended at the thought. Mr Friedel said it was not really for Pearl to decide this, and that he considered a figure of ten thousand would be more appropriate. Bargaining, Angell said in a court-room voice, was sordid and distasteful in such a matter, indeed offensive, Mr Friedel agreed.
‘Mr Angell, I have to tell you that I am still puzzled by all this. Pearl – I never thought Pearl was all that unhappy at home.’
‘And her being willing to marry me proves she is?’
‘Oh, please, I hardly meant to say that. There are—’
‘But it does imply that, doesn’t it. You underrate the advantages she will have.’
‘Oh, advantages, yes.’ Friedel’s eyes travelled over Angell’s bulk. ‘But we are much of an age, Mr Angell—’
‘I doubt it—’
‘Well, within a few years. And we both know that girls, that young girls are romantic. They feed on the idea of meeting some handsome young man—’
‘Romance does not last long in a two-roomed flat in Notting Hill or a shared semi in Streatham.’
Mr Friedel stroked his beard to give him confidence and support.
‘The money you are trying to persuade me to put in her name, that is unimportant,’ said Angell. ‘What is important is the automatic advantages she will have as my wife. She will become a lady—’
‘I have always done my best to make her one.’
‘She has far more chance with me of becoming what you have tried to make her than with some scruffy young man earning £25 a week.’
Mr Friedel picked up his greasy mackintosh which he had hung over the gilded beech back of a Cressent chair. He folded it twice and put it on the seat of the chair, since he had no intention of leaving yet.
‘She will have to give a lot up, Mr Angell. I have been awake half the night thinking of this. It means leaving all her friends, all her young friends. She might not be happy with you. You might not be happy with her.’
‘It’s a risk in every marriage.’
‘Her mother was killed when Pearl was still a child. It was a great shock. On the Clapham Line – quite a minor accident – she was the only one killed. I remember coming home after – after identifying her and thinking now I shall have to be everything to my little girl. Father and mother too. I have tried to be that. That is why I feel I have a special responsibility.’
‘Very commendable of you,’ Angell said, ‘I understand exactly how you must have felt. But because I am older than she is, I too feel a special responsibility.’
‘As for the settlement …’ said Mr Friedel.
In the end they agreed on five thousand pounds. Somehow in the atmosphere of bargaining, which they both admitted they so much disliked, Pearl’s assent to the marriage, which she had not yet actually given, was taken for granted.
Caxton Register Office, with only the necessary wit
nesses, a small reception the following day at 26 Cadogan Mews, to which Angell made a point of inviting Lady Vosper. (She still looked exactly the same, which perhaps was as well so long as Vosper refused his signature.) A honeymoon in Paris. Well not quite a honeymoon. Angell had put forward his views to Pearl both before and after the wedding, and she had agreed to them with a willingness that he found slightly unpleasing. They stayed at a quiet hotel off the Rond Point and had separate rooms with connecting doors. They joined forces for breakfast on the balcony, he in a monumental black silk dressing gown, but apart from this they stayed in their separate territory.
She had never been to Paris before and seemed content to sightsee, usually without Wilfred, go to a few concerts, usually with him, and window-shop. She spent some money, but Wilfred took care not to let her near the Faubourg St Honoré district, so most of the purchases were fairly inexpensive. When he was on his own he browsed in the art galleries and showrooms and spent far more than the cost of the holiday on a painter called Bonel who was at present quite cheap and looked a good investment.
They got on surprisingly well. In numerous ways they did think much alike. Their honeymoon was companionate in the way he had thought of it being. There wasn’t a solitary major disagreement; and although most often she fell in with his plans, he sometimes found an unexpected pleasure in pandering to her wishes.
There were also times, he reluctantly admitted to himself, when, catching sight of her through the connecting door accidentally left open, her long beautiful legs meant more to him than the Louis XIV acanthus leaves with which he had equated them on the aeroplane in March. There were times when the white swell of her skin around the shoulders and breasts, made his mouth a little drier than it normally was. But the whole purpose of this marriage was that it should be a civilized and intelligent contract. An eventual sexual relationship had not been altogether ruled out in the sub-clauses, but privately he had always determined that nothing of this nature should ever occur. Once such a relationship intruded, it could alter and distort the whole pattern. Their future together would then become unpredictable. At present it was almost wholly predictable. His life was pleasanter than it had been before and yet its ordinary rhythm had hardly been disturbed. Once let the act of sex occur and he would be down in the arena with the other poor fools.
Angell, Pearl and Little God Page 12