Beggar Bride

by Gillian White

  ‘I mean it. I worry.’

  ‘You have to trust me. You and Jacob mean the whole world to me and you know that.’

  ‘But you’re stepping out into a world that you know nothing about. You could well decide you like it better than this one.’

  ‘Well, if that is the case,’ said Ange, ‘we’ll all go and live in it together. That’s what this is all about, after all. See. Breaking free.’ She started to put on her coat. She asked him, ‘What will you do while I’m gone?’

  Billy grinned. ‘Before or after Jacob wakes up? Well, I thought I’d pop out for a meal at the Ritz, a little flutter at the tables, a nightclub for some good jazz followed by a night of whoring…’

  She banged him on the head with her handbag. Whoops, she could have dislodged a false nail. ‘But you’ll wait up?’

  ‘Of course I’ll wait up.’

  ‘I’m going to wear this old mac until I’m well away from here. I don’t want to be mugged before I even get started. Wish me luck, Billy.’

  She’s arranged to meet that pushy sod Aaron Teale for a drink at the interval. Now, eager to take her place, Ange climbs the stairs and makes for the Cody/Ormerod box. Luckily there’s nobody here yet. But then they don’t need to arrive too early, do they, not with a fucking car delivering them straight to the theatre doors. She takes the fourth chair, she can hardly see the stage from here but she doesn’t want to look too forward and she is, after all, on the receiving end of Sir Fabian’s charity.

  Yuk.

  A bell rings in the distance. Ange is so pent up by now she could be one of the principal singers warming up backstage. Stage fright. Her small hands flutter in her lap, she is feeling nauseous and she is so exposed up here, all those people can see her. She is out of place and ridiculous. A finger will point at her in a moment, a giant finger coming suddenly down from the sky, not the lottery finger but sharp and reproachful like the many punishing fingers of childhood. Has she washed between her toes, behind her ears and inside her navel? Or has she just peed in the bath? What do the royals feel like, knowing that when they take their seats every eye will be turned on them? Sod it, what if she topples over the edge? Oh, she would love to be back in bed with Jacob stirring and stretching out his skinny little arms towards her.

  Hush little baby don’t say a word Mumma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird…

  When they eventually arrive they are rustling figures in the semi-darkness. Just in time, just before the orchestra strikes up and the curtain rises the Ormerod party take their places and there’s only time for a nod of greeting.

  This is her chance. The chance of a lifetime. Wish too hard, too fiercely and fate turns against you, and yet how many chances does anyone get when their whole fate can be determined?

  The first chance is at birth. Well, hell, Ange sodding well missed out on that one.

  She studies Fabian’s features. Craggy. Straight, intelligent nose. A powerful man at the centre of things. Calm, cautious and calculating yet relentless in his pursuit of profit and, if necessary, utterly ruthless. What a catch! The white of his collar and cuffs stand out fluorescently in the dimness. Looks like the profile of the King you find on scuffed old pennies, and what sort of underpants does he wear? White cotton boxer shorts, probably. His companions turn out to be two haughty young women with diamonds on their wrists and ears. The programme is interminable, the art is to sit perfectly still, Billy could never manage this, but it gives Ange time to think and she concentrates all her thoughts upon Jacob.

  Of his birth. So sudden. So frightening.

  Of the love she saw in Billy’s eyes. Of the grave concern in the doctor’s, yet Jacob was alive, he breathed, he was hers! Of the toys and books and games and pretty baby clothes she started to notice in the shops, most recently bathed in the soft glow of Christmas, all bright and shiny and gay and colourful and all way out of reach.

  ‘We don’t need that crap,’ said Billy. ‘We’ll just love him more, that’s all. And who needs books? We’ll make up our own stories.’

  Well, that’s what Ange is doing now. So this is her story.

  ‘Surely you’ll join us for a bite to eat?’

  ‘I shouldn’t. Not really. I arranged to meet with…’

  ‘Ah yes, the people you came with. One too many. Of course…’

  ‘But then again, maybe,’ says Ange. ‘Those sandwiches look so tempting.’

  ‘This is my daughter, Honesty, and her friend, Laura Fallowfield.’

  Ange nods politely and turns towards the sandwiches. The art of seduction. She has never applied it before. Billy doesn’t need seducing, so long as her legs are open in he goes.

  ‘And of course you and I have already had the pleasure of conversing.’

  Conversing? Ange smiles, nibbling timidly, careful to take little bites and to close her mouth when she chews.

  ‘It was so kind of you, Sir Fabian…’

  ‘No, no, not at all. Glad to be of use. Are you often in London, Miss Harper?’ and he works a wisp of cress between his thumb and his little finger.

  ‘Please, I’d much prefer to be called Angela. And yes, I find my work brings me here more and more lately.’ Shit. She mustn’t laugh, she mustn’t spoil it all and laugh.

  ‘What work is that?’ He is only being polite. Trapped with a stranger, when he’d surely far rather be chatting more freely with his daughter and her friend.

  ‘I’m a freelance buyer, you know, mostly Italian lingerie, La Perla.’ Doesn’t she sound ridiculous?

  ‘Oh yes,’ Fabian raises his eyes. Has he heard of that? ‘The sexy kind…’

  ‘All underwear is sexy, Sir Fabian…’

  ‘Even thick winceyette…?’

  ‘Particularly winceyette…’

  They laugh together. He has a lovely, natural laugh, and good teeth too, he has probably spent a fortune on dental cosmetics. A good start. Better than Ange could have hoped for.

  ‘I say… I say… excuse me… I thought…’

  Oh no! Oh God, not him—not now! Ange turns quickly to recognise the flabby-faced Aaron Teale, the prat she met in the foyer earlier, gesticulating from the door.

  ‘Oh Aaron,’ she calls, ‘I’m so sorry. Sir Fabian asked me to join him and I…’

  But Aaron does not balk from invading a private party. ‘I’ve got you a drink in the bar,’ says he, standing behind her to wait, refusing to go away.

  ‘I’ve caused you some embarrassment, my dear.’ Fabian leans to apologise, all six foot two of him.

  ‘Oh no, quite the opposite.’ And she would have loved to accept the glass of champagne he offers. ‘Come on,’ says Aaron, ‘or some bugger’ll nick our drinks.’

  Fabian’s hospitality, taken for granted by his two young companions, is lavish. It’s funny, when you’re properly dressed for the part it is comparatively easy to play it. She turns her back on Aaron, for God’s sake, why can’t he take the hint? GO AWAY. GO AWAY. She couldn’t be ruder if she tried. ‘I am enjoying myself enormously.’

  ‘Someone from your party?’ He expects an introduction but Ange doesn’t bother.

  ‘Yes.’ Caught in her own web, she gives a bitter smile. Billy will probably be opening a tin of beans just now. ‘Actually, I don’t know them all that well but it seems I must…’

  ‘That’s the trouble with these corporate efforts, you never know who else is going to turn up. That’s why I normally like to make up a full party of four, to be on the safe side. It’s like having your own carriage on a train, isn’t it? One becomes so territorial in these enclosed public spaces, one does so resent the barging intruder.’

  Ange laughs. He is easy to laugh with. ‘Oh dear. And I was your barging intruder!’

  She looks so lovely she is almost inhuman. Half his age of course, and with wide, cool eyes. Pity she’s leaving. ‘For once I was quite happy to move my raincoat and share my seat,’ says Fabian, enchanted, watching Angela return the strawberries. But it’s not that kind of brief journey Angela Ha
rper had hoped for. That arrogant buffoon Aaron Teale is prepared to wait no longer, he bears Ange off on his chubby arm making apologies for her. And she had a chance! A real chance! Fabian seemed to like her! She could have done it! She could have made it! Not only the sharing of Fabian’s carriage, but the hijack of the whole damn train.

  8

  FABIAN PAID LITTLE HEED to the second half of Rigoletto, a total waste of good money. He stared, instead, out of the corner of his eye, at the slight figure perched so attentively on the seat to his right. You see pretty women every day, certainly in Fabian’s line of business women seem to be employed for their looks, his own daughter is pretty, as conventional beauty goes. But Angela Harper has something else, top model quality, some allure, a fascination that goes further than skin deep.

  What is she doing alone? That dolt she was with could not be a boyfriend. Surely men must flock to her side like bees to a honeypot. Perhaps she is not interested, a lesbian, or determined to be celibate all her life, a growing trend in this over-familiar, uneasy world.

  The meal felt overlong and Fabian wasn’t really hungry. Afterwards, in the car on their way home Honesty is uncharacteristically silent. Sulking almost. Putting a strain on Fabian and her little friend Laura, who feel compelled to fill the silence with talk of the opera as they have nothing else in common.

  ‘Are you well, Honesty?’ Fabian enquires, always annoyed by the illnesses of others, rarely experiencing poor health himself and putting it down to excessive introspection.

  ‘I am fine, Daddy.’

  It is obvious that she is not.

  ‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’

  ‘It was OK.’

  Laura claps her hands and exclaims, ‘It was wonderful, Sir Fabian.’

  He bites his lip and stares out at passing London, not at the social scene, the theatres emptying, groups of merry-makers meandering, youths sprawled, drinking, around Trafalgar Square. No, Fabian is more interested in the stores, their sales promotions, their sites, their window displays… interesting to watch the progress of the jeans shops, Laura Ashley, any signs that might give him an edge on tomorrow’s dealings. Fabian can sniff out failure from a far greater distance than a hundred yards.

  He knows very well that Honesty is resentful of the attention he paid to little Miss Harper.

  How absurd. Five minutes’ conversation, that’s all it was. And how possessive his eldest child has become of late. He allows her to take charge of his social diary, he invites her to selected social occasions when he is short of an escort, he treats her in every way as an adult and what does she do in return? Resort to the sulkings of a petulant child.

  As she did at the time… after Ffiona, when Helena first appeared on the scene.

  That might have been understandable then, after all, she had been the only one and spoilt, naturally, a pretty, feminine, ballet-dancing child adored by them both. Naturally their break up had a detrimental effect upon her. But hell, she is nineteen now, and about to go her own way. How dare she criticise her father’s behaviour? How much better off he was when Ruth Hubbard dealt with everything, when Honesty was at finishing school. He is not prepared to have his freedom curtailed for fear of a scene every time he takes an interest in anyone else, male or female, damn it.

  ‘I didn’t like her,’ says Honesty indignantly, when they get inside the house, having dropped Laura Fallowfield off at hers. She takes off her coat and bites off the ends of her gloves. And that manoeuvre has a waspish sting about it.

  ‘I can see that.’ Fabian repairs to the drawing-room, to the comforting smell of hot coffee. Estelle has left the machine plugged in, surrounded by Fabian’s favourite mints and half a packet of Fortnum’s butter biscuits.

  ‘She was flirting with you, Daddy.’ Honesty, eyes aglitter, gives a brittle laugh that is forced between her bright red lips. ‘Flirting quite shamelessly, and you seemed to fall for it just like a little boy. Really, Daddy, I’ve never seen you do that before.’

  Fabian regards his daughter darkly. ‘What an incredible notion! Since when, Honesty, have I needed your permission to indulge in any kind of behaviour I like? Infantile or senile. It is my prerogative and I am quite surprised and offended, actually, to hear you talk to me like this.’

  ‘I felt as if I wasn’t even there, and as for Laura… it was humiliating.’

  ‘I was a poor host. Is that what you are griping about?’

  ‘Well, you never normally ignore us!’

  ‘We don’t normally have a stranger in our midst to whom we owe some kind of natural courtesy. It would have been nice if you’d come to join us rather than huddling together with Laura, turning your back on our temporary guest.’

  ‘Guest? Oh, sorry, I thought you’d just accommodated her, I thought you’d just given her a ticket.’ Honesty takes a biscuit and wanders round the sumptuous room, fingering the backs of the chairs as she goes. The only thing that doesn’t quite square with the rest of the house are its carpets. Helena insisted on removing the soft, plush wool and replacing it with something woven in the Himalayas, a hairy, uneven texture of colourless, charmless fibres that might well have come from the back of a yak. Hardwearing, she said at the time. If only Daddy would listen to Honesty and replace it. He can be so mean in some ways. If a carpet isn’t worn out he can’t be persuaded of the need for a new one.

  She feels the squirm of fear within her. She doesn’t normally think of Daddy as a sexual being, with urges, like other men. In Honesty’s eyes he is above all that. Since Helena’s death (and Honesty keeps a strict eye open) he has not even looked at another woman although hundreds have looked at him, from a distance. He’s just not the sort. Far more concerned with investments and business connections, a man with a serious reputation to uphold.

  And that girl, that chit of a girl tonight, could have been pleading to get into bed. Thank God she was forced to leave, and that was against her will. There was little subtlety about her, unless you call fawning and preening and fluttering your lashes a subtle way of going about seduction. And Daddy was flattered! How awful! How undermining. Perhaps a man of his age is bound to be flattered by the attentions of a beautiful girl such as Angela Harper. But normally Daddy doesn’t get the chance. Protected on all sides from infiltration, he only gets to meet bold career women as ruthless as himself, or the obedient wives of executives.

  When all’s said and done Honesty has no influence upon him at all.

  If she ever had, he’d never have married Helena. At six years old she had tried every ploy she knew, and had failed.

  But wait a minute. What has got into her? Why is she dwelling on the worst scenario? She must be tired. Overwrought. They’ll probably never meet again, you only have to look in his diary to know that Fabian hasn’t a minute to spare. All she is doing, behaving like this, is making Daddy cross.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Honesty, coming to sit on the arm of his chair. ‘It’s just that I worry about you.’

  Fabian squeezes her hand. ‘These little shows of jealousy aren’t very nice, darling, are they?’

  ‘I know.’ Honesty lets her head droop. Her golden hair shuts like a curtain over her face.

  ‘You spoilt the evening for all of us, darling. And why take such an irrational dislike to the woman?’

  Damn and blast. Why must he go on? She’s apologised, hasn’t she? What else does he want from her? If she’d been a problem all her life, like those blasted twins, she could understand his picky annoyance. But she’s been the perfect daughter hasn’t she? As far as he is concerned, anyway. Pleasing Daddy. Bringing home good reports from school, avoiding the scandalous behaviour of some of the rich young things in London, staying out of the limelight and in return she gets every single thing she wants. Pleasing Daddy suits her. But things could be very different.

  Through the eyes of a child she watched her mother’s fall from grace, her dispatch from court on the grounds of bad behaviour, the subsequent decline in her lifestyle and her final descent to St Jo
hn’s Wood. Honesty swore she would never let the same thing happen to her. But this time, from the look on Fabian’s face, she has overstepped the mark, she has gone too damn far.

  Needless to say, marriage is the last thing on Fabian’s mind as he takes to his bed in the same kind of striped pyjamas Ffiona professed to despise, alone again, this evening. If he would take a moment to be honest with himself, he would see that, in all matters sexual, he is a far cry from the confident, vigorous, successful man his image portrays. He fears his erotic fantasies are probably flawed. Best to keep them under his hat. A product of the English public school system from the tender age of seven—whose aspirations are summed up rather well in the words of the Eton Boating Song—and blighted by the oft-bizarre childhood of the gentry, who can wonder at it?

  He had no need to woo Ffiona. She was just there. Available. Willing.

  And Helena, in her manly way, proposed to him. Adoring her, and her great strength which reminded him of his favourite nanny, Nanny Barber, or Ba-ba for short, he said yes. Not much preamble to that relationship either.

  It was immediately clear to him tonight that Angela Harper admired him. All right, he’s used to admiration from various flunkeys, the obsequious Simon, the efficient and selfless attentions of Ruth and countless others of their ilk, their eyes on the ladder of promotion. The only women of Angela’s age he meets in everyday life are Honesty’s friends, and he views them all as little girls, in the way he still considers Honesty and probably always will.

  From their fleeting conversation Angela gave him the impression that although she lived in London her work took her abroad frequently for long periods of time, that she lived the carefree life of a successful single woman and had no intention of changing her lifestyle.

  Full of such vital energy!

  Hard to tell where she hails from. Angela had no accent, or, more correctly, she had the kind of non-accent preferred by the BBC particularly in wild-life documentaries.

  And who did she say she worked for? Fabian can’t remember. Freelance, wasn’t it, for a whole variety of stores, not just in Britain but throughout the world. Probably multilingual. An independent woman of means, no doubt, with a little red book full of casual boyfriends.