"It sounds as if your life must be so unahppy," Louise said slowly, "and yet you look contented."
"I am. Contented enough to go on with. I have a lot of friends, and my father is good to me, and I like my home, and Windsor's nice, if you keep out of the medical set, and the Guards set, and the Palace set. I fret at times—who doesn't?— but you have to take what you get, and I've got David, with all his failings. I've got used to it. It doesn't matter too much now as far as I am concerned, but it's just when it touches someone like your Eva that it all becomes such a mess."
Mrs. Graham stood up and picked up her gloves and bag. "I think I'd better go now," she said. "I hope I haven't stayed too long. I think I've said everything there is to say. You've been wonderful, to listen to me like this, and to understand."
"But I don't know that I do understand." Louise felt the frown knotting her brows. "What happens now?"
"That's up to you. I just have to wait around to hold David's hand and comfort him when his little affair is over. Forgive me. It's dreadful to talk about it like that when it's your daugh-
ter. But, since it is your daughter, my dear/' she said, taking Louise's hand and looking at her with great compassion, "you have to try and stop her running head first into tragedy/'
'What do you want me to do?" Louise asked in a small voice* Frances Graham pressed her hand, "I want you to try and make Eva understand that David will never marry her," she said. "It will break her heart, I know, but the sooner it's broken the sooner it will mend. She's young and pretty. Shell find another man—a much better one than my husband." They walked to the door together. "I'd like to think I could meet her some day. She sounds a darling."
"She is." Louise was afraid that she was going to cry. "How can I possibly say this to her?"
"You must. It will probably be one of the hardest things you've ever done in your life; but you must/'
Til try," Louise said wretchedly. Til have to try/' "Don't come to the door," Frances Graham said. "I'll find my own way out." She bent suddenly and kissed Louise. She smelled expensively fragrant. "Come and see me one day, won't you? We could talk about nice things."
'Well, who was it?" Miriam came into the drawing room after she heard the front door close and the car drive away. "I didn't come in, because you sounded so earnest through the door."
Louise turned away to hide her face, fighting to collect herself. "You weren't listening, were you?" She caught her breath. Whatever happened, Miriam was not going to know about this, That was the least she could do for Eva.
"Of course not. I never heard a word. Why? Was she blackmailing you? We'll have to get Arthur to prosecute, and you'll be Mrs. X, in a black veil. Who was it, anyway?"
"Oh—nobody," Louise said. "Someone gave her my name. She was trying to sell me some lace."
"She's got a damned good-looking car to do it in/*
"It's the firm's car/' Louise improvised. "It's very expensive lace/'
"Well, thanks for not setting her on to me. I wonder why on earth she came to you?"
"I suppose she thought I was the right person/' Louise said bleakly. "I wish she hadn't"
That evening, Louise said as casually as she could: "By the way, Miriam, I think 111 have to go to London tomorrow, if someone wouldn't mind taking me to the station."
"But you've only just been there. What's the matter—too dull for you here?"
"Of course not, dear. Don't always take me up. It's just that I have some things to attend to. I have to see the bank manager. Something about my money." She had rehearsed this.
"Can I help?" Arthur asked in his dutiful son-in-law voice. "I'm always glad to advise, you know, if there's any difficulty."
"I know you are. You've always been very kind. I don't know what I would have done without you when Dudley died," Louise said, hoping to divert attention from her project.
"Oh, that." Arthur made a face. "That's best forgotten."
"Why is it, Daddy?" asked Ellen, who was there in her dressing gown. "Why is it best forgotten? I don't think we should forget poor Grandpa."
"Don't be smug," Arthur said, "and take off that pious face."
Ellen turned to her grandmother. "Can I come to London with you?"
"Not this time, darling. You wouldn't enjoy it. I'll take you another day."
"I know what it is," Miriam said. "She's off to see that boy friend of hers, who gave her the romantic present/'
Louise had been unable to resist showing Miriam the scent botde, but had wished since that she had not.
"Aha!" said Arthur, heavily jocose. He and Miriam were feeling better since they had had a drink or two to counteract
the effect of Sidney's black-market whisky* "An assignation. Mother, you're deep."
"Well, why can't I come," EUen insisted^ "if you're going to see Mr. Disher— alias Lester Drage? He and I are friends."
"Don't keep on," her mother said. "It's time you went to bed. Kiss Granny good night. It may be the last time you can do that. She may be going to elope."
Louise did not enjoy this kind of teasing, and they were making it more difficult for her to ask for the loan of her train fare, which she was going to be forced to do. However, if they thought that she was going to see Gordon Disher, that would at least stop their curiosity and keep them off the track of the truth, which she was determined they should never know.
Louise did not sleep well that night. She lay awake and tried over and over in her mind the things that could be said to Eva, They all sounded stupid, or over-dramatic, or unkind. She began to despair. She was not equipped for this. People had been telling her what to do for so long, and now she had to stand on her own and try to influence a wilful girl, to whom she had not given orders since she was a child.
If Dudley were alive, he would have said: "You'll make a mess of this. Let me handle it." He would have attacked Eva in a blustering and puritanical way that made no allowances for her being in love. He would have been outraged long before this, however, at her association with a married man. You could say one thing for Dudley; he had been faithful to Louise. She had sometimes wondered why, since he seemed so dissatisfied with her; but Dudley's excesses had followed other channels. He liked to look at women's legs and whistle, and could exchange story for story with other men, but it did not mean anything. He had been the kind of man who likes to talk as if he were a mass of sex, but never does anything about it.
Eva opened the door of the flat, looking radiant in a bright yellow housecoat, with her hair done in a new way.
"How nice to see you/' She kissed her mother. "I was so pleased when you called and said you'd come In while you were In town. I hardly got a chance to talk to you yesterday, with all the sociability. What brings you up ? anyway?"
"I had to see the bank manager," Louise said, her resolution to plunge straight into her mission daunted by Eva's affectionate welcome. She could hardly bear to look at her daughter, thinking how cruel It was going to be to blot out the smile and the sparkle.
"What's the matter?" Eva said. "Your eyes look tired. Take off your coat and come on in. IVe got some lunch for you."
"I don't think I want any really."
"You haven't had it, have you? Well then, of course you do. Come into the kitchen, because I'm starving, and the soup's hot. We'll have it right away."
During lunch, Louise kept looking for an opportunity to broach the subject that was tormenting her; but it was impossible, with Eva chattering gaily about the Cobbs* garden party, and telling Louise what Harvey Upjohn had said on the way home, and how he had suddenly turned the car into a side road, and stopped hopefully in a gateway.
"Oh, the devil was in him," Eva said. "He was on fire with claret cup. But anyway, after I finally managed to get him to take me home, without side-tracking into some dreadful little club he belongs to in a mews, David called and said he'd got theatre tickets. We saw that new American musical, which is heavenly, and had supper and danced afterwards/'
Now, thought Lou
ise, now is the time perhaps; but she could not start saying the things that she had come to say over scrambled eggs and spinach; and Eva was so gay, saying: "He brought me orchids—those brown ones I love—and I wore that white dress, and put my hair up like this. It was one of those good evenings—you know—when everything goes right, and you get a taxi the minute you want one, and the headwaiter has a steak hidden somewhere, and the band plays all your
tunes. David's such fun to go out with* You do like him, don't you Mother? I do want you to"
To tell her now would be like slapping down a child who had come running up with laughter for a kiss. Eva had lost the strained, abstracted look she had worn yesterday. She seemed very young and confident. What had David been saying to her? Louise cursed him in her heart. She would have preferred to find Eva in tears.
They took their coffee into the sitting room. Eva roamed about, swishing the yellow housecoat, looking out of the window and humming, turning on the radio and turning it off with a grimace. She seemed too blithe to be able to keep still.
Louise put down her cup. "Eva," she said resolutely, "come and sit down. I have something to tell you."
"Just a sec." The telephone was ringing. Eva talked for several minutes to someone called Norma, who had a grievance.
"Poor old Norma," Eva said, as she hung up. "She should never be in radio. She takes it too seriously. Whatever part they give her, she's always disappointed because she didn't get some other one. This time it's my part she wants, for Saturday night. Damned sauce. She couldn't play an adolescent if she lived to be a hundred."
"Do stop wandering about, Eva, and come and sit down. I want to talk to you."
"Talk away." Eva sat down with a bump, raising her heels in the air and letting them drop. Louise opened hei mouth to speak.
"My goodness, you haven't got any sugar." Eva jupiped up again.
By the time she had fetched the sugar, sat down and jumped up once more for cigarettes and finally settled on the sofa with her shoes off and her feet tucked under her, Louise's mouth was dry, and the tactful opening phrase she had rehearsed stuck in her throat.
'Well, what were you going to tell me?" Eva said, picking up a nail file. "I'm all agog."
Louise said abruptly. "Stop being so bright. Keep quiet and listen to me. Fm going to tell you something that you aren't going to like."
"Tell all," Eva said, shaping her short nails undismayed. "I can stand anything today. I feel very well, in spite of the champagne/'
"I saw David's wife yesterday," Louise said. The words hung undispersed in the silence that followed them.
"Bad luck," Eva said after a moment, her face not showing anything. "That can't have been much fun for you."
"It wasn't. Oh—not that she wasn't nice. She was. But what she came to tell me wasn't nice."
"You mean she actually came down to Miriam's to see you?" Eva put down the file and uncurled her legs. "What frightful nerve. What was she doing? Playing the wronged wife and begging you to persuade your erring daughter to lay off her husband? My God, these women! What will they think of next?" She got up and began to walk about the room again without her shoes.
"Eva, please listen. You're making it very difficult for me. If you'd just stop talking, and let me "
"Let you what. Mother? That woman has upset you. I think it's vile of her, to come and bother you like that. She's not playing the game by the rules."
"No, no. It's not like that at all. It's you who are not sticking to the rules. You're not playing fair, either with her, or with yourself."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Eva jerked her shoulders. "Let's stop talking like the captain of a hockey team. So Frances Graham went to see you. I suppose she towed the poor litde orphan child along, crying for its Daddy. What do you expect me to do? Burst into tears?"
"Eva. Mrs. Graham came out of kindness." Louise dropped lier words slowly, as if she were instructing a child.
Eva snorted, started to say something, and then kept silent,
standing with her hand behind her back and her small, bare feet planted, watching her mother,
"You'll hate what I'm going to say/ 1 Louise said nervously, finding it even harder to talk when Eva was listening silently than when she had been disruptive.
"You've said that before/' Eva said patiently. "Go on, Mother."
"She came because she wanted to help you. No—don't keep snorting and tossing your head like that. She was genuine. She honestly came out of kindness. She thinks—and youVe given us all that impression—that you think that David is going to divorce her and marry you."
"Well, he is/' Eva said defiantly. "I don't suppose you approve of that, but Fm glad that Father wouldn't let me and the others be brought up as Catholics."
"Oh, Eva, don't say that. I'd always hoped "
"Hoped what? That I'd throw in my lot with you and the Pope one day? How could I now? Look what a mess I'd be in. I can see why you don't like it, but you'll get over it. Other people have married divorced men and not been struck down by the Angel Gabriel"
"But David will never marry you, darling. He has no intention of leaving his wife. She came to ask me to tell you that, because she knew you wouldn't listen to her."
"Well, I won't listen to you either." Eva began to pad about the room again. "I think it's horrid of you, Mother; to take her side against mine. She comes down to see you, in that disgustingly chic car—oh, yes, I've seen it. I sneaked down to Windsor once, and took a look at her house. Dinky isn't the word. She conies crawling to you, all sweet and mealy-mouthed and winds you round her little finger so that you believe all the lies she tells you. Wants to help me, indeed! So kind. Kind, my foot! Don't you see that this is only a despairing effort to get David back? She'll pull every trick she knows to try and keep him, although I don't think she wants him. But she doesn't want anyone else to have him. That's the kind she is/'
Louise shook her head. "You must try and understand. I know it's dreadfully hard, and when one is in love, one can't see straight. Tin only trying to save you from being desperately unhappy."
"Thanks," Eva said shortly. "I can look after my own happiness/'
"How can I make you seer" Louise heat her fists gently on her knees. "It sounds so unkind, to criticize David to you, but there are so many things you don't know about him. Frances Graham knows him. She's been married to him for fifteen years. He's talked about leaving her before, apparently, but he's never done it. He needs her, in some way that probably neither you nor I can quite understand. And she will never divorce him because of the child."
"Bitchier and bitchier. Anything else dear Mrs. G. told you about David that I don't know?"
"There are—things. But I don't want to tell you unless I have to."
"All right Now 111 tell you something." Eva stopped walking and stood before her mother, with her head up. "Last night, we talked about our marriage, nearly all the time. Hell get free of that woman if he has to fight her every inch of the way. He loves me, Mother. Don't you understand? He loves me?"
"But you don't know what he's like!" Louise cried in distress. "I didn't want to tell you this, but he's had other women —lots of them, and no doubt he's told some of them the same things he tells you. Eva, this is just another affair with him. Don't let him break your heart. He isn't worth it."
"Be quiet, Mother." Eva was growing angry, "Don't talk about things you don't understand. What if he has had other women? What man of his age hasn't—except that pompous husband of Miriam's, and I wouldn't put it past him, at that. What if David hasn't been a good little boy and kept his nose to his rich wife's heels. I don't blame him with a woman like that."
"But she's nice, I tell you. She's awfully nice. I wish you amid meet her, and then perhaps you might see/'
Td rather die. Let's stop this, Mother. It isn't getting us anywhere. I don't want to talk about it any more. There's no sense in your agonizing over me. I'm all right, do you hear? I just want to be left alone to run my own life without the famil
y butting in all the time. I suppose Arthur and Miriam are in on this, too."
"Of course not. They had no idea who Mrs. Graham was, and I wouldn't dream of telling them. Don't be angry, Eva. I know how I must have upset you, and I know I've been clumsy, and said things all wrong. I hope you'll forgive me. I didn't want to come."
"Why did you, then?"
"I had to. Wouldn't you, if you had a daughter? Please think it over, darling, even if you're too upset to see straight now."
Tm not upset, because I don't believe you," Eva said, a little shakily. She went to stand by the window, lifting the curtain and looking down at the street far below.
'You must believe me. I'll have to tell you one more thing. It's hateful, but it's true. One of the reasons why David will never leave his wife is because of her money. She gives him money. When he buys you champagne and orchids, and takes you out to these grand places, it's her money he's spending."
"That's a lie!" Eva whipped round. "How dare you talk about David like that?" Her voice was thick with angry tears. "Please go, Mother. I'm sorry, but I can't stand any more. I'll ring down to the porter and tell him to get you a taxi."
Louise stood up, exhausted in her defeat. "Don't bother," she said. "I'll get a bus to the station. I've plenty of time." She went into the hall and put on her coat. Eva did not move from the window. Louise came to the door of the room. Eva was standing with her back to her, looking out again.
"Good-bye," Louise said tentatively. "I hope you can be happy, darling."
Eva turned round just as the flat door closed. She stretched out a hand as she heard the clash of the gates and the lift's descending hum.
"Oh, Mother " she whispered, and buried her face in the
curtain, "Oh, Mother, please help me!"
The soldierly porter saluted Louise as she came out of the lift. "Taxi, madam?"
The Winds Of Heaven Page 15