Laurence probed about in a velvet-padded box.
‘I wish I could give you twenty-four of these,’ he said, presenting a brooch; a shimmering stone once worn by his wife.
There were no more jokes about rash engagements.
Victoria meditated on her future and on Lettice’s letter. The one telling of Edgar’s very existence. It made her shudder. Her future husband, it seemed, took his mother seriously; a symbol of culture and polish. But a loving son was a good thing to be. Anyway, Lettice might not be as bad in the flesh as she was on paper. There might be a good heart beneath the furbelows.
Victoria sifted through a heap of letters in answer to various leads she had followed whilst searching for her replacement. A letter of recommendation came from the editor of a literary magazine. His name carried weight with Laurence.
‘I write to introduce you to a young cousin of my wife’s. Mungo Craddock. He is just down from Oxford and aspires to write. I think you would take to him. He is sensitive and a Roman Catholic convert. Some priest in Oxford got hold of him during his second year. He is a serious boy and a member of a large family. I think he would fit in. I urge you to give him a try.’
Laurence waved his much-waved hand.
‘Roman Catholic convert! No. No. That wouldn’t do at all.’
In other ways Mungo sounded suitable.
Although she was in no real hurry to leave, she knew that she must get on with plans and wrote to the young man – Roman Catholic convert or not.
Life there was, in many ways, ideal but it stood still as it waited for Laurence to die. His stepdaughter was, anyway, unlikely to have need of her there.
Mungo Craddock’s well-mannered reply whistled back.
It was late October when Mungo Craddock arrived. Victoria had promised Laurence that she would overlap with him for a week to show him the ropes.
Taking up a vigil at her window overlooking the porch, Victoria dug her elbows hard down into the crumble of stonework on the sill. She covered her face with both hands and squinted between cracks. Playing for time and willing it to pass, she clasped her fingers together and then quickly parted them again. Fleeting glances between bars brought a painful reflex. It reminded her of Edgar’s arrival, not long before, at the same spot. The two events became interchangeable. Perhaps this new one would have done just as well.
Mungo Craddock arrived in Laurence’s car, having been met by Alfredo at the station. Victoria widened gaps between fingers as he came into view. She whistled with relief. She had, after all, chosen the better favoured of the two. Edgar was, at least, presentable. It surely proved that she was not entirely omnivorous. A short young man, bespectacled, made himself known to Elena who waited by the lemon tub.
A beard tangled up in a watch chain reached his waist. Beard, tweed and watch chain. No nonsense about a language barrier. He had been up all night with a phrase book. Grin fixed, he advanced on Elena.
‘Buon giorno. Sono molto contento.’
Victoria darted to her bedroom and heard them pass – wondering how on earth she was going to swing it with Laurence.
Victoria stole in behind them thanking her stars that, as with Mr Hobson’s Miss Lewes, Laurence couldn’t see him.
Mungo advanced upon his puffy future patron, Victoria and Elena waiting in the wings as Laurence sat – a pint of milk in the armchair – pale and sloppy, washed-out eyes shielded by spectacles.
‘Mr Bland. This is a tremendous honour. I cannot tell you with what excitement one has anticipated this meeting.’
‘Laurence. Please. I prefer to be called Laurence.’
‘I say. That’s frightfully good of you. What a delightful room.’
Mungo looked about jerkily but didn’t spot the spies.
‘What an enchanting landscape.’ He pointed at a picture propped on a table. It was one that Victoria had painted and mounted herself. A pointless present for a blind man.
Inwardly shrinking with anxiety, she made her presence noticeable and introduced the pair to each other.
As Laurence sipped, Mungo buttonholed her.
‘Could you kindly put one in the picture concerning form here. One gathers that you know the ropes. One does want to strike the right note with the old dear. And by the way, about the maid. Is there something the matter with her eyes? Something one should know about?’
Elena whirled him away to see his quarters. Laurence had suggested that he might like to wash after his journey. Shave perhaps? Little did he know.
Victoria waited for a verdict but none came.
At lunch, refreshed by his wash but having taken no advantage of the shaving offer, Mungo pressed on.
‘Might one be allowed to read one or two of one’s short stories to you, sir?’
‘Laurence, please. Call me Laurence.’
‘Sorry. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to. Laurence, I intended to say. It would be the most tremendous honour.’
‘By all means. Indeed. Sometime.’
‘They are inspired by Thomas Aquinas. By the way, Laurence, is there a Catholic church near here?’
Victoria was at sea. They were, after all, in Italy.
Mungo had asked permission to go to a special mass in the village that morning so Victoria sat alone, gratefully, with Laurence in the shaded room – a small pile of letters to be opened on her lap. One was for her and, unmistakably, came from Lettice. Laurence had not quite finished his first glass of Elba wine and signalled that he was not ready to hear what his post had brought. She opened the one addressed to herself.
‘Ma belle fille to be! I wish we could have lured you down to The Old Keep when you were in London but we knew time was precious for you and fully understood. Edgar has told us all! Your meeting in heavenly Italy – and it’s partly my doing! What luck that I’d met the great man of letters (or are these things luck?). Warmest regards to him from all of us in our bosky retreat. How can you tear yourself away from such a fount of learning? Love conquers all! Families are such wonderful things and, knowing that you – poor darling – are an orphan, how we all long to gather you into the bosom of ours.’
Victoria tapped her foot and sang, loud and clear, an old ditty.
Now my mother-in-law is dead,
She got shut in a folding bed.
‘What’s that?’ Laurence was disconcerted.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I was dreaming. What do you think of Mungo?’
She didn’t give a fig either way at that moment.
‘He’s shy. Awkward. But, do you know? I rather like him.’
She felt a pang of rivalry – was she no longer indispensable?
‘Do you know?’ he said to her later. ‘He read me some of his stories. One or two of them had something. He admires my work. All that was a long time ago.’
He was half asleep and she tiptoed back to her packing. Elena was there hoping to help and in tears. Things were certain to go downhill now with the signorina gone and that clown ‘buffo’ all bewhiskered around the house.
Before she went to sleep she reminded herself of how once, when she had finally and timidly, told Laurence that she had been interested in something he had written in his youth, he had said, half smiling, ‘Oh my dear. In the old days all we writers wanted were copious draughts of unqualified praise.’
The buffo, with his copious draughts, had revived memories.
She spoke to herself. ‘If you’re old and isolated, you like what you get. Perhaps Laurence knows he’s stuck and he’s going to make the best of it. That’s what he did with me. Still,’ she decided, ‘he liked me best. I know it. Even if I wasn’t much good at delivering unqualified praise.’
On her return to London Victoria married Edgar.
Part Two
While Edgar’s father, Roland Holliday, stood, field glasses in one hand, paintbrush in the other, his wife Lettice painted her own imagined picture of the opening of the London exhibition of his recent work that was soon to take place.
Sketches of birds and twi
gs stood propped in the hall.
The list of guests was too confusing a task to tackle during the day and best left for night hours. She snatched a flat flower basket from the garden room and walked down the gravel path to the spot where her husband stood. Her hand touched his arm. Wincing, protective of his brushstroke, he turned towards her.
‘How many have you finished?’ Her bony face was tip-tilted.
‘Not enough. I think I’ll have to put the exhibition off until next year. You can always bully a few friends into buying something from me between now and then.’
It must be that he was trying to torment her.
‘Don’t be absurd. The gallery could sue you. Of course you can do it. I have always said it and I say it again, every creative artist needs to work to a deadline. You must stick to yours.’
Later, in the kitchen garden, she hacked viciously at the stem of a red cabbage.
That evening they ate a bleak meal. The purifying influence of homeliness for which The Old Keep was celebrated, deserted it when there were no witnesses. Casserole dishes and open fires kept for appropriate occasions lay in abeyance, sheltered by dust and ash as Roland submitted to the regular and dramatic changes that were made in their standard of living.
Five children had been raised there but now the couple was often alone. Their youngest daughter, Joanna, was still at boarding school but usually mucked about at The Old Keep during the holidays. Roland painted and studied birds as Lettice shuffled through her short list of weekend visitors. The one ahead was significant. Edgar and Victoria were to come for the first time since their quiet wedding.
Lettice was put out by Victoria’s not seeming to be intellectual. Strange, having had that interesting job with the man of letters. She was already wearing the anxious look of a woman yearning for a child, smoked a great deal and it was rumoured, although opportunities at The Old Keep were too few to provide proof, was inclined to get tipsy. Scary bits of tittle-tattle concerning her late mother had filtered in.
It was lucky that she was pretty, for she certainly had no idea of how to dress. It seemed that she was not even interested in trying to look elegant, which was a shame – for Edgar’s sake.
A middle-aged scholar, an old friend of the family, and a shy young professor were due to arrive on Saturday on their way to a reading party further west. The two were almost inseparable but Lettice believed there to be nothing improper in their relationship. She claimed them both to be ‘brains of Britain – united by the majesty of their thoughts’.
Edgar and Victoria would be there on Friday evening so there was time to drop a tactful hint to Victoria, since Edgar was too dazzled by his bride to think there was need for advice.
Lettice selected books to place at her side of the bed.
‘Darling. Do read that charming book. It’s just down your street and dear Archie Thorne wrote the introduction so it will be fun for you to discuss it with him tomorrow.’
‘Didn’t you love it?’ Victoria was asked in the morning.
‘I don’t think I understood it.’
‘Isn’t she modest, Edgar? Long may she remain so.’
Victoria knitted, lit a cigarette and wriggled as near to the fire as she dared. She had been cold since arriving.
‘I love to see a young girl use her hands. Have you ever thought of embroidery? I think you’d find it more rewarding than knitting.’
‘No. I never have.’
‘Let’s go together to the Women’s Home Industries. I love a trip to London. So many friends to see. We could get those wonderful ladies to draw up an interesting design and I’d lend you the Regency stool from my bedroom to cover.’
Victoria wanted to ask Edgar to get her a drink. It was only eleven o’clock but the day was cold and wet. She made a sign but Edgar ignored it and wished that he’d been more robust when speaking to Victoria of his mother.
By Saturday afternoon, the flower basket was piled high with sodden roses. Loaves rose and swelled as Lettice decanted home-brewed wine.
Victoria felt sick and, hoping it might be an omen, went to bed before the scholar and his friend arrived.
Dinner was prepared by the time that an old but well-cared-for Daimler stopped in front of a mauve clematis that all but covered the entrance to the tower.
Once indoors, both visitors sighed in relief. Archibald Thorne acknowledged, silently and for the thousandth time, that Lettice for all her foolishness was more tolerable to be with than to think about – or, indeed, to correspond with. She flattered and fussed and turned her face up to show reverence.
Harold, the young professor, went to The Old Keep because he liked to be there and was uncritical of his hostess. From the start Archie had insisted on taking him along. She was kind to him, made him welcome and always introduced him, breathlessly, as Archie’s ‘colleague’.
It was good to be in a warm room after a quarrelsome journey.
‘Now,’ said Archibald, ‘we want to meet Victoria.’
He was short and stocky.
‘It’s too disappointing. Poor darling isn’t well. She’s gone to bed. She was so hoping to talk to you about something of yours that she had just read.’
Archibald peered over his spectacles – an emphasised act.
‘Some other time. Some other time. Nothing to worry about, I hope.’
‘No. We’re sure not. Overtired poor pet. Young marrieds have such a lot to cope with these days.’
Harold, unnerved by the mention of anything as intimate as female indisposition, stared at the fire and wondered how to speak. Later, next week, he would write to Lettice and tell her how wonderful it had been and how sorry he was not to have met Victoria.
Edgar went upstairs and Lettice said, ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled we both are with Victoria. She’s unsophisticated but highly intelligent. That job she had in Italy says a lot. You would have loved talking to her but I fear we shall have to keep her in bed tomorrow.’
Archie Thorne relaxed. He had not particularly wanted to discuss his own works with a sensitive young lady.
Lettice’s dog, a spaniel called Orpheus, slouched by a card table and Archie, a self-confessed and public loather of caninity in any form declared, not for the first time, ‘As you know, I consider Orpheus to be almost as good as no dog at all. Almost, but not quite.’
With that he went upstairs and didn’t come down until dinnertime when Lettice gave him a loud ‘cooee’.
They ate dinner in the rustic kitchen – all that remained of an ancient bake-house, adorned with ornamental gourds and specimen thistles.
‘Archie, you have got to encourage Roland. He’s got nerves about the exhibition. He even tells me that he won’t have enough work finished in time. Have a little more poison maison.’
Archie had drained his glass and held it up in a manicured hand.
‘Put it off. Put it off. Never work to a deadline. It destroys everything worth striving for. Your work is brilliant because of its precision, not because of dash and frenzy. Put it off.’
Harold looked down. Lettice had appealed to Archie and he had knowingly escaped her.
There had been deliberate cruelty in his advice and he went on in the same vein, speaking to Roland.
‘What possible point can there be in your having a London exhibition? It has never come to my ears that you have difficulty selling your work. I only say this because I recognise your talent.’
Harold drew up his gangling legs and lodged his feet on the rung of a bentwood chair. He didn’t understand why Archie was talking so wildly and upsetting Lettice, when he had been offered so little of the horrible wine. He realised that Archie found Roland and Lettice depressing since he was always contentious before going there and often silent on the way home.
Harold stayed there because of his involvement with Archie and wondered if he had ever known how Archie had become established as a regular guest – or even if Archie knew himself. He decided to ask him when they were in Wales.
Lettice gave news of her other children.
Bobby and Bobby had a daughter, also called Bobby. They were living in an artistic community somewhere in France. Lettice said that she thought the extended family was probably the best solution for nowadays.
Archie exploded. ‘Commune! How can you allow it? Do you really mean to tell me that your son and daughter-in-law have joined a group personified by types with straggling locks, bushy beards and bare feet? Do they believe that they stand for the primitive man and the early Christian – Robinson Crusoe and Jesus Christ – the noble savage, wild men of the woods and the prophet whose kingdom is not of this world? Really Lettice. I’m ashamed of you both.’ His words were pistol shots blasting sacred air. Lettice, straining to smile, cried, ‘Archie. I’ve always maintained that you were an enfant terrible.’
Harold thought about it at length before he went to sleep.
In the morning, Archie was strutting round Harold’s bedroom.
‘Do you think that Victoria is being deliberately suppressed?’
Black spirals of hair fell over Harold’s thin face. Brushing them back with a bony hand, he considered the question.
‘No. Oh no. I’m sure not. What an idea. Why should they? She sounds rather wonderful.’
‘Voices came from their room just now. I simply wondered. But no. Of course. You are right. It was perfectly frightful of me.’
Harold was alert. ‘Archie. Don’t be bad. It makes me desperate.’
At breakfast they were pressed to honey from the comb, as Lettice, got up to the nines for church, told them, ‘Victoria is a little better. I have tried to persuade her to stay in bed but she insists on coming down for luncheon. Do remember, both of you, not to expect to see her at her best. If she talks too much it’s just shyness and if she doesn’t talk at all then it’s shyness, too. Please be kind.’
Everybody went to church except Harold who wanted to walk in the woods and Victoria who had not left her room.
Before the church party returned, Harold, waxy-faced and slightly toothy, went into the sitting room – a bow-windowed extension to the tower added at a later date. He sat silently in a rank dark suit and watched Victoria closely as she huddled by the fireplace obscured by green knitting and cigarette smoke. She had tried harder than usual with her appearance and the effort had made her uneasy. Her brown hair was curly and prettily brushed but despite her tidiness it seemed that a small disturbance might blow the whole thing into confusion.
Lettice & Victoria Page 4