The sound of a key in the lock had made her start. Her irregular cleaning lady, Mrs Dempster, pink-cheeked, brilliantly coiffed, generously sober, looked at her with amazement. ‘Not dressed yet?’ she marvelled. ‘I hope you’ve had your bath, at least.’
‘Why?’ asked Edith. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s ten o’clock,’ articulated Mrs Dempster, slowly, as if to a child. ‘Ten o’clock. You’re getting married at twelve, remember? And in case you’re wondering what I’m doing here, well, there’s the little matter of the caterers to supervise. You remember that, I suppose. You’re coming back here for a buffet lunch, in case it slipped your mind, before you sail off into the blue.’
She breathed hard as she donned her spotless overall, as if the very prospect of a marriage unsettled her nerves, which were notoriously unpredictable. Men were her downfall, she had confided, over many a cup of coffee; very little work was done. Edith suspected that Penelope got more out of her, but then, she conceded, Penelope had more to offer in the way of confidences. Penelope and Mrs Dempster, in fact, had something in common; their entire conversation revolved around the subject of men, whom they seemed to like and to dislike in equal measure. So that when Mrs Dempster said, ‘Come on, love. You have your bath and I’ll make you a nice cup of coffee to have while you’re dressing,’ Edith had turned away, tears pricking her eyes. The kindness of people, she thought. Their unexpected kindness.
Lying in the bath, she could hear the house reverberating to Mrs Dempster’s voice commanding a troop of men. Cases of champagne were dumped, rather heavily, somewhere beneath her. The promised cup of coffee had been postponed, in the greater excitement of supervising the arrangements: the little house shuddered with the inroads of florists and of the team of girls who would now turn the kitchen into their own domain as they manufactured the asparagus rolls and the mushroom vol-au-vents and the tiny cheese beignets and the iced fingers of orange cake, and the Nesselrode pudding. ‘Pudding, Edith? You must be mad,’ said Penelope. ‘My mother loved it,’ countered Edith, and thought, privately, that her mother would have considered this a puny alliance. Girls with high but severe voices could be heard demanding more vases, or calling from the back to the front of the house, ‘Sarah! Do get a move on! We’ve got to be out of here by eleven-thirty if we’re going to do Tregunter Road. Oh, coffee! You angel, Mrs Dempster. Sarah! Coffee!’ And there was suddenly a complete cessation of activity, as if they had decided to call the whole thing off. But when Edith went back to her bedroom, she found a cup of coffee on her dressing table and in the saucer a couple of biscuits, which Mrs Dempster must have brought with her, for Edith did not remember buying any.
She dressed in the fine stockings and the beautiful grey satin slip. She had rejected Penelope’s offer to oversee her wedding clothes, and had gone, on a series of unaccustomed buses, to an elderly Polish dressmaker in Ealing with some fine blue-grey material in a mixture of silk and wool. And here she was, dressed in a very creditable Chanel copy, the jacket bound with a dark blue and white silk braid. Mme Wien-awska had also made her a plain round-necked blouse, which she wore with her Aunt Anna’s pearls, her only dowry, the only token of her family’s presence. Her shoes were blue and white, and, she thought, a little too high in the heel, and she carried her white gloves. She had refused to wear a hat, but had twisted her hair up a little higher than usual, and when she looked in the glass she was pleased with herself. She looked elegant, controlled. Grown-up, she thought. At last.
A faint sensation of pleasure, the first she had felt that day, began to suffuse her, and her face wore a welcoming and naive smile as she descended the staircase. Sarah and her friends (Kate? Belinda?) had no time for her, and Mrs Dempster was engaged in meaningful conversation with Penelope at the kitchen table. Penelope, Edith was interested to see, was wearing an obviously expensive dress of printed silk and an enormous red straw hat, the brim of which curved round her head and skimmed down the side of her face nearly to her shoulder. A strong smell of scent emanated from her many pleats and folds, and Mother’s famous diamond earrings were in place, touched from time to time by fingers with long scarlet nails. This outfit had Mrs Dempster’s full approval; it was indeed radiantly nuptial, although it formed a strange contrast to the hefty denimed haunches of the girls intently rolling almond biscuits round the handles of wooden spoons. Whatever Penelope had been discussing with Mrs Dempster was instantly abandoned and Edith found herself the object of their stern and almost disembodied scrutiny. Who would carry the day? she wondered, with almost equally disembodied interest. Penelope, with her emphatic knowledge of what a man really likes, or me, blessed only by the genius of my Polish seamstress? If there were a man here we could re-enact the Judgment of Paris. Except that if that man were Geoffrey (and now it could be no-one else) he would find something acceptably gallant to say to all of us.
The silence was broken by one of the girls who were turning out her wedding breakfast with surprising speed. ‘Oh, jolly nice,’ she said. ‘Look, would you mind moving, only we want to be out of here pretty sharpish and we’d like to clear up. Good luck and all that,’ she added.
So Edith had been reduced to walking round the garden, while Penelope and Mrs Dempster continued to oversee the girls in the kitchen and to hope that Edith realized how lucky she was, working on the mutual understanding that, in her case, such luck was not to be taken for granted and was not even all that deserved. ‘In a dream, half the time,’ observed Mrs Dempster, ‘making up those stories of hers. I sometimes wonder if she knows what it’s all about.’ Penelope laughed, and Edith, seeing this through the open kitchen door, wondered if she might be allowed in to share the joke. ‘My dear, I’m the one with all the stories,’ she was in time to hear Penelope say. ‘I wonder she doesn’t put me in a book.’
I have, thought Edith. You did not recognize yourself.
But she was tired and chilled and even rather hungry. She felt as if she were emerging slowly from some debilitating illness and might at any moment be prone to headaches and fits of tears. It seemed to her that she should be wearing something warm and shabby – a dressing gown would be ideal – and sipping a nourishing milky drink. She felt acutely alone, and thought that perhaps many brides felt the same. But surely few brides were left to sit in the drawing room, on their best behaviour, occasionally getting up to look out of the window to see if the cars were arriving. And when the first huge gleaming car did arrive, was it the duty of the bride to walk back to the kitchen, now hot and friendly, and announce, ‘Penelope, your car is here’? For it had been decided, Edith could not now remember by whom, that Penelope, as matron of honour, should be the first to arrive at the Registry Office and should there join forces with Geoffrey and his best man, who was a larger but sleepier version of Geoffrey himself. And that they would thus be ready to welcome Edith, who would arrive fifteen minutes later, in the second car, alone. Mrs Dempster, at her own request, would stay behind, using Edith’s bedroom in order to change into her own highly distinctive wedding outfit and would be there to welcome them home and do the honours of the buffet.
After Penelope had been persuaded to depart, and had taken her time over it, enjoying the impassive gazes of a small group of crisp-eating children waiting outside the house, there was a moment of calm. The girls trooped out, already intent on the time and calculating the distance to Tregunter Road. Mrs Dempster could be heard upstairs, running water for a bath. Edith stood by the window. And then, all too soon, it was her turn.
As her own car drew slowly away, Edith fell into a somewhat regressive state of mind. Details of her little house front struck her as if she were seeing them for the first time. It should have been painted, she thought, and then, I really ought to have it done. And then she noticed the extraordinary charm of the shops which she passed unseeingly every day: the funeral parlour, the chemist, the newsagent, with his discreet display of adult magazines, most of which had covers which showed girls bending over and winking through thei
r legs, the betting shop with its mass of torn paper tickets littering the pavement outside. As the car rolled her on towards her destiny, she noted, with deep nostalgia, the Cypriot greengrocer emerging from the depths of his shop with a bucket of water; this was flung in a wide arc over the pavement, causing Edith to feel a shock of pleasure. She saw the hospital and the young men in white coats charging up the steps, and the adventure playground, and the day nursery, and the place that sold plants, and one or two pubs, and a rather nice dress shop. And then she saw the Registry Office and a small crowd chatting on the pavement in front of the entrance. Like a visitor from another planet, she saw her publisher and her agent and her poor father’s crazy vegetarian cousin and several of her friends and quite a few neighbours. And she saw Penelope, animated, her red hat attracting the attention of one or two of the photographers, conversing with the best man and with Geoffrey. And then she saw Geoffrey. And then she saw, in a flash, but for all time, the totality of his mouse-like seemliness.
Leaning forward, in a condition of extreme calm, she said to the driver, ‘Would you take me on a little further, please? I’ve changed my mind.’
‘Certainly, Madam,’ he replied, thinking, from her modest demeanour, that she was one of the guests. ‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Perhaps round the park?’ she suggested.
As the car proceeded smoothly past the Registry Office, Edith saw, as if in a still photograph, Penelope and Geoffrey, staring, their mouths open in horror. Then the scene became slightly more animated, as the crowd began to straggle down the steps, reminding her of a sequence in some early masterpiece of the cinema, now preserved as archive material. She felt like a spectator at some epic occurrence, was prepared for shots to ring out, fatalities to occur. But soon, amazingly soon, she had left them all behind, and as if to signal her escape the sun came out and blazed hectically, and with the full heat of a late false summer behind it, over Sloane Square. And then they were proceeding at a steady and stately pace through the park; Edith opened the window and breathed with ecstasy the fresher air, giving delighted attention to the little boys playing football, and the heavy girls thumping up and down on horseback, and the tourists peering at their maps and, presumably, asking the way to Harrods.
‘Once more,’ she begged. But now her exaltation was beginning to fade as the thought of the consequences waiting to be faced confronted her. By now everybody would be back at the house, Geoffrey seated in the drawing room, possibly with his head in his hands, Mrs Dempster grimly demanding what she was to do about the food, Penelope master-minding the entire proceedings. This time she noted that the leaves were turning, and the sky becoming overcast again, and that she felt very cold. And, regrettably, still hungry.
After that, it had all been terrible. She found her little house vibrant with indignation, although she was glad to see her publisher and one or two of her older friends sipping champagne in the garden. She crept upstairs to her bedroom but found it littered with Mrs Dempster’s clothes and smelling of Mrs Dempster’s scent. Downstairs she could hear Penelope saying, ‘Do help yourselves to everything. At least we can offer you some food. I cannot think where Edith has got to; she must have been taken ill.’ At which Edith had sighed and made her way timidly down the stairs, very much aware of the indelicacy of her appearing at all.
She made her way straight to the drawing room and put her hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder. ‘Geoffrey,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked up, and with momentous dignity removed her hand. ‘I have nothing more to say to you, Edith,’ he pronounced. ‘You have made me look a laughing stock.’
‘I think, Geoffrey, that you will find that it is I who am the laughing stock.’
This he ignored. ‘I am only grateful that my poor Mother did not live to see this day.’
They both looked at the opal ring, which Edith removed and handed to him. Then she said, ‘Goodbye, Geoffrey,’ and left the room.
‘I shall be in the garden, Penelope,’ she announced, thus provoking a renewed wave of scandalized excitement. ‘I just want to have a word with Harold and Mary.’ And, taking a glass of champagne, she moved into the garden, exhanged a few pleasant words, but no explanation, with her agent, and sat there until she was sure that everyone had left.
She was condemned out of hand, of course. For what seemed like hours she listened to Penelope and Mrs Dempster discoursing on her moral turpitude, her childishness, her lack of dignity, trust, loyalty, and decent feminine sensibility. She then heard them tell her that she had had her last chance. That there was no future for her in that line, whatever she may think. That they wondered how she could hold up her head. That the best thing she could do would be to go away until she had come to her senses and could make decent reparation to society for the outrage she had committed. She had listened to all this in silence, her head bowed, until finally the voices had stopped, and the steps had retreated and the front door banged, and she was alone. She waited for five cautious minutes, then made her way indoors to the telephone and dialled a number.
‘Stanley,’ she said. ‘Is David there?’
‘Doing a sale outside Worcester,’ was the reply. ‘Anyone could have done it. I don’t know why he went.’
‘Could you get in touch with him for me? Could you ask him to come round this evening? As soon as possible? It’s Edith, by the way.’
‘Didn’t you get married then?’ asked Stanley, unsurprised.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I changed my mind.’
She went upstairs to her bedroom, now restored to her, but still smelling of scent, opened the window, and changed out of her beautiful suit into a blue cotton dress. She sat on the bed for perhaps half an hour, contemplating her disgrace. Then, moving to the window to close it, for it was now evening and chilly, she was in time to see Geoffrey emerging from Penelope’s house and looking decidedly more cheerful. Gone out to book a table, she supposed.
Two hours later she sat in the dark, waiting for the sound of David’s car. He mind was quite empty, but she was filled with longing, a longing which she now perceived to be fatal. For this misdemeanour could hardly be overlooked, would inevitably cause a whole chain reaction of amusement, caution, withdrawal. Quarrels can be made up; embarrassment can never quite be forgotten. Edith foresaw, sadly, that she would become an embarrassment.
Yet David, when he came, took her in his arms and said nothing. When he released her, he held her at arm’s length and looked at her. She saw strain in his face, and tiredness, and knew that she had caused both. And something else. He looked rueful, wary. The situation was too complicated, too loaded, for the unwritten contract between them to bear. For they were reasonable people, and no one was to be hurt, not even with words. Above all, not with words. And so, with her last ounce of energy, and that was rapidly disappearing, she made a joke of it. An accident of timing, she said. Poor Geoffrey had been a stand-in; what she really needed was a holiday. Clearly she was not cut out to be a married lady. But they might as well finish the champagne. And, in the end, after watching a lugubrious film on television, he was quite relaxed, and they were loving again. But she noticed with sorrow, after waving him goodbye, that he had not touched the plate of little delicacies she had salvaged for him from the wedding breakfast.
She had sat out the next few days, waiting to hear from him, but plans had been made in her name, and when the telephone rang it was Penelope, with the name and address of this excellent hotel, and information about flights, and what to pack. It had seemed to suit everyone that she should disappear, and to make sure that she did so, Penelope monitored her every movement. She was allowed out to have lunch with her agent and to leave him her address, for it was now grimly assumed that henceforth she would have to live on her wits, or at least by her pen. And on that last grey day, summer quite gone, she had found herself, unresisting, in Penelope’s car, on the way to the airport. Mrs Dempster had promised to come in the following day to give the house a final overhaul, and to return the key to
Penelope. She could not see her way clear, she explained, to coming back. She was funny like that. Sensitive. Edith would have to make other arrangements.
But as the car had drawn away, Edith had been comforted to see Terry, paler than ever, making his steady way along the pavement with a box full of bedding plants. He had raised his free hand, with his spare key in it, when he saw her, and she had waved back. At least, she thought, the garden will be cared for.
10
Edith, her head aching with the follies and perils of prolonged reminiscence, had finally made her way to bed at an advanced hour, when the entire hotel was silent and no cars could be heard on the road that ran along the shore of the lake. Sleep had come suddenly, like an anaesthetic: total blackness. When she opened her eyes, it was to the same unvariegated grey that had greeted her on the afternoon of her arrival. She had forgotten to pull the curtains and the daylight was all around her. Alarmed, as if she had been absent from this scene for some time, during which unknown events might have taken place, she sat up and reached for her watch. It was eight o’clock, a reasonable hour at which to awake if one’s day had no structure, but for Edith, who was accustomed to begin her writing very early, sometimes even before the milk or the newspaper had been delivered, guiltily and unconscionably late.
She rang for her breakfast, and bathed and dressed hastily, anxious to remove the traces of the disarray into which the previous night’s thoughts had plunged her. Then she went to the window and stepped out on to the little balcony: the unexpected cold made her shiver. One could hardly say that it was winter, but it seemed as though it were no longer autumn. The trees, rigid in the windless air, were beginning to show the skeletons of their shapes; leaves no longer fell but lay curled, sapless, on the fading grass. The sounds of morning were cautious and intermittent, as if few people were left. Down below, at the entrance, a man in a jersey was polishing his car. Edith recognized it as the car that came regularly to take Mrs Pusey and Jennifer on their day’s outing. One of the chambermaids emerged and exchanged some words, which Edith could not hear, with the driver. Yawning, the woman rubbed her cheek, and then stood irresolutely, looking out over the lake. All the signs were of impending closure, of relaxation. No one would come now. In the grey distance Edith could barely discern the outline of the mountain.
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