by P. G. Glynn
“I love her.”
“I believe you do … but that isn’t enough. The love needs to be mutual.”
“It will be. I intend doing everything in my power to make her happy … and I know that in time Marie will grow to love me.”
“You can’t know that,” John told him. “Nobody can. Unless the love is there in the beginning, marriage is far too much of a gamble. No-one knows that better than I do. I’d describe myself as an expert on the subject,” he said bitterly, “and I want far better things for Marie.”
“Starting with an abortion?”
So Otto did know about the baby! “Not necessarily.”
“She didn’t tell you where she was going today?”
“She didn’t need to,” John said, on the defensive, “I guessed. Did she tell you, then?”
“No, I did not,” Marie responded drowsily, through the half-open window. “Otto just popped up like a jack-in-the-box when I needed a quick exit from a house of horror. I wish you two would stop talking about me and leave me to sleep.”
“Bed’s the best place for sleeping,” John told her huskily, relieved that she had re-thought the abortion, “and at four o’clock in the morning bed’s where you should be, especially with a performance this evening. So come along in before I’m arrested for walking the streets in a state of undress … and we’ll talk when you’ve had some rest.”
+++++
Had it not been John’s half-day he would have taken the afternoon off anyway. It was essential that he undid the damage done by Janet and talked some sense into Marie before it was too late. If he knew Otto as he thought he did, there would be no time wasted between the engagement and the wedding and he would never forgive himself if he let that go ahead without spelling out to Marie the likely consequences of such a step. He could not just stand by and watch as she condemned herself to a life like his with Gwen. Oh, she would never be poor with Otto – materially, at least – but neither would she ever be rich in spirit. Better to be poor as a church mouse with the right man than wealthy as Croesus with the wrong one!
“Have you seen the size of that diamond?” Gwen asked him almost before he was through his front door. “My, Marie’s fallen on her feet good and proper, hasn’t she?”
“Trust you to think so, woman! Is she in?”
“I’m jiggered if I know of any other way to think! Yes, she is … and her fiancé will be along in a minute, to take her shopping. Your trouble is that you’re jealous, John. You don’t want another man, whoever he is, butting in on what you see as your province. Well, that’s too bad because … ”
He found Marie titivating in front of her dressing table mirror and, sitting on her bed, told her: “Your aunt has just accused me of jealousy and might have a point there. I love you to bits and, if I’m honest, in one sense don’t want another man within a mile of you in case he hurts you more than you’ve been hurt already or takes you away from me. The prospect of this house without you living in it is not one I’m able to face just at present. But that’s my problem, not yours, and I can put my hand on my heart and swear that it isn’t why I’m against your engagement.”
“You’re against this?” Marie asked him with a tremulous smile, flashing her ring in front of him. “If you are, you’re in a minority. Everybody else, except perhaps Lucy, seems to think it’s the loveliest thing ever seen.”
“It is lovely,” he agreed, the lights from the diamond dazzling him, “but it’s only a thing. You aren’t seriously thinking of selling your soul for this trinket?”
“Hardly,” Marie laughed, “although there are plenty of people who’d sell theirs for less!”
“I’m sure there are … but, as you aren’t among them, I’ve just one question: do you love him?”
“That’s the one Mam didn’t ask.”
“I’ll bet she didn’t … but your Pa would have asked it.”
“Would he … or would he have been too busy assessing the degree of my sins?”
“Darling, you know him better than that, or would if Janet hadn’t had her twopenn’orth. All she cares about is appearances and her ‘good name’ in the village. Her horizons are so narrow that she keeps tripping over them and she knows less than nothing about life as it’s lived beyond Gilchrist Mountain and the Sugar Loaf. If I could honestly say that your mother was a wise woman, then I’d say it, but she isn’t. She’s patently lacking in wisdom or anything approaching it, yet thinks she’s blessed with infinite discernment. Which is dangerous, Marie, because her belief puts her in her mind up there with the Almighty. No doubt she’ll have implied, before Otto’s ring went on your finger, that he was the devil in disguise whereas afterwards he’ll mysteriously have become an acceptable son-in-law.” He smiled at Marie’s expression and said: “Yes, I know my sister all too well. She’s solely concerned with herself and her feelings and when it comes to manipulating people she’s without equal. I’m assuming that she somehow knew about the baby … and that she doesn’t know it’s Charles Brodie’s.”
Marie responded bleakly: “Otto let her think it’s his.”
“As a matter of interest, how did you end up in Gilchrist?”
“That was Otto’s doing. Well, Otto’s and Nell’s. She was worried about me seeing Mrs Purfitt and alerted him to being in Paddington in case I … I couldn’t leave under my own steam. Then, when I screamed, there he was … and suddenly we were off to Monmouthshire.”
“So Otto, too, is a manipulator – and that isn’t a good thing to be, Marie.”
“Surely it’s up to me not to let myself be manipulated … and I don’t think I am being.”
“You don’t?”
She blushed under his scrutiny, saying: “Well, perhaps I am, a bit. But what choice do I have, other than to marry him?”
“There’s one that I’m amazed you haven’t acted on. Charles, to my mind, has a right to know that you’re carrying his child.”
“You haven’t seen how he is with me. To say that he’s an iceberg would be putting it mildly. Besides, if he knew, what could he do?”
“That’s for him to decide, not for you. He might think of a solution. Give him that chance, Marie. He deserves it, doesn’t he?”
“I doubt ‘deserve’ is the right word,” she said slowly.
“I share your doubts, but am trying to look at the situation from your point of view. It’s solely because of you that I’ve resisted a strong urge to go to the Tavistock and duff Charles Brodie up for all he has put you through. My reason for resisting is the belief that despite everything you still love him. Do you?”
“He’s part of me,” said Marie, “and always will be, whatever happens in the future.”
“Yet you’d let your mother tie you for life to Otto?”
“Mam isn’t tying me to him against my will.”
“She isn’t? Think, Marie! If you won’t think of yourself, think of your Pa and all he stood for. He was a man of such integrity that he would never have expected his daughter to marry for the reasons you’d be marrying Otto Berger. He’d have asked you the questions I’m asking … and I can promise that he’d have put love at the top of the list when choosing a marriage partner.”
“So he must have loved Mam.”
“He did, God bless him! There’s no accounting for it, but I actually believe he did.”
Marie smiled. Then she asked him: “So did you love Aunt Gwen, back in the beginning?”
John frowned. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why did you marry her, then? You don’t mind my asking?”
“I’d have no right, would I, considering the questions I’m asking you?” He managed a rueful grin. “Stupidly, I’d … used your aunt and thought it would therefore be wrong … not to make an honest woman of her. It would have been, in the sense that one should never use people, but it was even more wrong for me to marry feeling so … so empty. And the emptiness increases, Marie: it doesn’t decrease, believe me!”
She did believe him and was
shocked. He had saddled himself with Aunt Gwen just because he had wanted to do the right thing. A lesser man would have moved on without a backward glance but Uncle John’s conscience wouldn’t let him. “That’s terrible,” she commented, thinking that she was set on using Otto, too, the difference being that Otto wanted to be used. “I can’t bear your torment.”
“I can – just – as long as it stops you making the same mistake. Then it will at least have served a purpose. Other than that it’s a trap from which there seems to be no escape. You’ve seen for yourself how things are with your aunt and me. We’re anathema to each other and I think she hates me almost more than I hate her. That’s how it is when one has to live day in, day out, with the wrong partner. Did you catch that ‘has to’? It’s the having to against one’s will and every inclination that’s the killer. It kills from within, gnawing, festering … and it’s a slow death because every second spent together seems an eternity. I’m only telling you this, darling, to lend emphasis. The last thing I want is for you to worry or, heaven forbid, pity me. All I want in the world is your happiness … and you won’t find that unless you’re true to yourself. Outsiders can talk as much as they like, but it’s how we feel inside that must be the decider.”
Appalled by the awfulness of her uncle’s life, Marie asked: “What if Charles has no answers?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when – if – we come to it. The important thing is for you to put him in the picture. Once he knows the true state of things and sees how close he is to losing you permanently, perhaps he’ll come up trumps and prove himself worthy of your love.”
“To start with,” Marie said with a sudden grin, “some melting wouldn’t come amiss. I’ll go to him this evening and see if I can melt the iceberg.”
“I’ll be surprised if you can’t. One glance at you should in my view melt the hardest heart.”
20
Otto was cock-a-hoop. The tide had turned at last and he had virtually won Marie. He would not have won her finally until she wore a second ring on her marriage finger but he was seeing to it that it was not long before she did. There was no time to waste, which was why he had spoken to the Registrar at Caxton Hall first thing. Then, with the wedding arranged, he had booked their honeymoon in the names of Mr and Mrs Berger.
To think of Marie as his wife was to know Paradise. How could he ever have thought he loved Lenka, when his love for Marie eclipsed all feeling that had preceded it? Marie was in a league of her own and tied him in knots with her quicksilver moods, her laughter, her glares, her talent as an actress both onstage and off … her seeming nonchalance toward him. She could not possibly be as nonchalant as she seemed. That must be one of the acts she put on – perhaps expressly to tie him in knots. With a woman’s wiles one never knew where one was, but wasn’t this half the fun of it all?
And Otto needed no reminders of the fact that the closest he had come so far to Marie, physically, was a chaste kiss on the cheek. How he had held back from coming closer he had no idea, even allowing for Marie’s discouraging demeanour. He had done so somehow, knowing from the first that restraint was essential for the winning of her. Once she was won, however, and as her husband he was able to touch and make love to her, he would have the joy of watching her half-heartedness turn to another emotion altogether. It must turn, because nothing would make sense if feelings such as his were not sooner or later reciprocated. In Marie’s case it was a question of later but then it would be, with her. She was as contrary as British weather and, because of Charles, immune to Otto’s charms.
Which would all change, of course, once Charles was firmly in the past – as he would be, when Otto and Marie were married. Englishmen were not known for their passion, nor their prowess in bed, so under Otto’s skilful handling Marie would soon forget that another man had preceded him in her affections. And beneath her cool exterior he believed he would unearth a woman without reserve, one who could lift him to heights as yet undreamed of. So many women promised much but delivered little; Marie promised nothing, which spoke volumes to him.
But he must not think yet of pleasures in the offing. Such thinking played havoc with his body’s mechanism. He must focus his attention on ensuring that his wedding went ahead.
+++++
Marie had told Otto that it was too soon to shop for wedding rings and a trousseau but he had taken no notice. Since they became engaged he had taken to behaving almost as if he owned her. Well, he didn’t and never would and she must make this very clear. Shopping at Harrod’s had been hard to resist, though … so she hadn’t resisted and now, after dropping her off at the theatre, he had left for Claridge’s with all their purchases.
Marie had asked to be dropped off at six o’clock and, to give Otto his due, he had not questioned too closely her motive in being there so early. It seemed aeons ago that she had arrived nightly at six for her coaching sessions with Charles and it was aeons in terms of all that had happened since Otto’s advent, but Marie saw the hour as appropriate. She would go to Charles’s office pretending their world had stood still. If her pretence could only encompass him, they could both be as they were in the beginning. They could then forget the interim and their every misunderstanding … and she could tell him of the baby they had made in those halcyon days. After holding her and being held, and hearing all she had to say, Charles would look at her with love again and she would know that nothing had changed … that, together, they would find a way. Yes, this was how it would be … how it must be! In refusing to consider any other outcome she would leave no room for one.
+++++
Charles heard the knock and, expecting Gerald Atkins, called: “Come!”
The door opened. He had been so sure Gerald would enter that it came as a double shock to him when Marie did. Closing the door behind her and slowly approaching his desk, she asked: “How are you, Charles?”
How was he? He was cold: so cold he could barely remember knowing warmth. He felt at times as if he had flicked a switch in himself, shutting off feeling, shutting off memory. It was almost as if he were dead, for he had certainly stopped living. If he was still alive, what he was experiencing was existence, not life. But it was better to exist than to live because now nothing could touch him. He no longer tortured himself with thoughts of Marie in the arms of another man because as far as possible he avoided thinking. Avoiding everything that caused him pain, he was safe and his safety was a precious thing. Even now, with Marie standing in front of him, he felt nothing except perhaps an echo of old feelings. Having once been a man, he had become an automaton, mechanically going through the motions of each day and seldom remembering how he had gone through them, or distinguishing one day from the next.
“Charles?” Marie prompted.
She was as alive and vital as he was dead and virtually buried. And that was thanks to Otto Berger, not to the man who had once come first in her heart. Now, though, from within the cocoon he had wrapped round himself, Charles noticed something: she was trembling. Why? For the first time in weeks he let curiosity in. “Perhaps,” he managed, “I should be asking how you are.”
She had removed her engagement ring before entering and now held out her hand to him in a gesture of entreaty. “Or maybe we should stop this charade of asking after each other’s health and I should say what I came to say.” Marie took a deep breath before risking, in a stage whisper: “I’ve missed you … and love you as much as ever I did!”
There was no sense in it, no logic, but an instant thaw set in. Having been ice he was now flesh and blood again. His features contorted as he hoarsely responded: “Oh, how I’ve missed you … and how I love you, too!”
It was then as if there had never been a desk between them, nor any conflict, for his arms were miraculously around her – and hers around him. In that haven they stayed until Marie felt compelled to say: “What a waste! There’s so much time that we’ve wasted.”
So great was his joy that Charles had no words of his own. After finding he
r lips and again tasting their sweetness, he drew on words of Dombey’s: “‘Live for me and we will love each other as we might have done, and be as happy as we might have been these many years!’”
“Amen,” she sighed, her heart beating against his ribs. “Amen to that and to all the happiness in store for us … and him.”
“Him?” He stiffened.
“Or her.” Marie had blurted her news out before she could stop herself. “It might be a girl. Just because Florence had a son, it doesn’t mean that I’ll have one.”
He could not take this in. It was too much to take in all at once. “You can’t be telling me, my Marie, that you are … ”
“We,” she corrected him, still in his arms but standing farther apart than when first held in them. “We, my darling Charles, made a baby when we … ”
“We did?” he butted in disbelievingly, stepping back and staring at her. “What makes you think it’s mine and not … his?”
It was as if he had hit her. “I don’t think. I know whose it is. Did you really imagine that I’d been to bed with him?”
He had imagined everything. He had seen them, even, in his mind’s eye doing as Marie and he had once done and the sight had crucified him. So he had stopped the torment by pulling the blinds down … and now she was telling him that anything physical between her and Otto Berger had just been in his imaginings. “Yes,” he responded, his arms limp at his sides, “I did. What was I supposed to think, with him omnipresent and you … ?”
“ … acting as if I loved him,” she finished. “I’m an actress, don’t forget, and I was … keeping my promise. The one in which I said I’d make you regret saying … ”
“ … you’d some day be even happier with someone else.”
“So you do remember?”
“I doubt whether I’ve forgotten a single word you ever uttered, though I’ve tried hard enough.”