by Maggie Ford
Eleven
“What are you doing, darling?”
Geoffrey looked up from the dressing-table. “Writing to Henry,” he said, “at greater length than my telegram telling him of our marriage.”
It felt strange thinking of her old employer in terms of “Henry” rather than “Mr Henry” – now her brother-in-law, and that felt even stranger.
Lying in bed in the hotel he had chosen for the time being, Mary gave a small shiver of delight. “I hope he’ll be pleased,” she murmered lazily. “I hope your mother will too.”
“Don’t lay bets on it,” he said, his voice muffled as he bent his head again to his letter so that she hardly caught what he said.
But it didn’t matter. She stretched slowly and luxuriously to her full length beneath the soft covers, slim arms raised above her head to curl around the top edge of the lacy pillow.
Mrs Geoffrey Lett. A few months ago, who’d have believed it? She’d have liked the whole world to know, but there was no one to tell. Married by special licence in a little registry office, her aunt informed of her condition, having been required to give her consent, her niece being still only twenty. Odd that Aunt Maud, whose faculties were somewhat tenuous, was required to give consent, but there was no other relative.
She thought of her aunt and hoped she was all right. Worried about her at the time of her reluctant trip to that awful house, she’d asked Mrs Trench to keep an eye on her.
Mrs Trench had instantly suggested Mary’s aunt stay with her while Mary was away. “For as long as you like, lovey,” she’d said, her trained nurse’s eye having already noted the condition which so far had escaped the notice of others.
Looking after Aunt Maud was right up Mrs Trench’s street. A lonely though robust sixty-something, she had retired from nursing these last few years. Mrs Trench might have been pretty in her youth but a dry skin that wrinkled quickly and the way in which she scragged back her grey hair in a tight old-fashioned bun made her look more in her seventies even though she had the energy of a woman fifteen years younger. Her husband having died of tuberculosis ten years into their marriage, she had taken an interest in midwifery becoming quite skilled and training at the Nightingale School for Nurses. When the Great War came she’d cared for wounded soldiers but had been retired when the war finished, by then too old for civilian hospitals. “They put you out to grass once they’ve got all they can get out of you,” she took pleasure in lamenting, more than happy to take on her neighbour for as long as Mary wanted.
Geoffrey had paid her generously for her pains, four shillings a day - almost a man’s wages – which had made her eyes gleam while she protested that she would have done it out of pure neighbourliness.
With nothing to worry her, Mary sighed contentedly. It might not have been the wedding she’d have wanted – a simple registry office, she in a cream outfit with a tiny posy of pink flowers, he in just an ordinary suit, the two witnesses they would probably never see again, wishing them well – but at least Geoffrey had made an honest woman of her, as the saying went. Her husband was a man of means and of high social standing, he and his brother owners of a well-known and thriving restaurant business: why quibble about a mere registry office wedding? She was content.
Last night in this little hotel, she and Geoffrey had consummated their marriage, tenderly, he careful of the child inside her, his cautious love-making filling her with far greater desire than at any of their wilder moments. She knew she had done the right thing. Something told her that had she gone through with the horrible business in the clinic, she and Geoffrey would have parted company, he being relieved of that burden. Oddly, though, she felt no sense of recrimination, only joy and amazement that, the baby saved, Geoffrey’s love for her had grown even stronger.
“What have you said in the letter?” she asked.
For an answer he picked it up and read: “Dear Mother, I am sending this letter to you through Henry to whom I sent my telegram as I feel he may be able to soften the blow I expect my news must have dealt you. Her name is Mary and she is the most wonderful person in the whole world…”
He looked up to smile across at her, then went on, “It all happened so quickly. I’ve discovered that there is no one else in the world I would rather be with, so I went ahead and married her. I expect you’ll be disappointed that I didn’t introduce her to you beforehand, but I’ll tell you more about it when I return home. We’re off on a short honeymoon and I am sure Henry will be able to carry on without me for that while. The business doesn’t need the two of us.
“Mother will be furious, of course,” he said as he signed the letter with a flourish. “But I don’t think I would have wanted an official church wedding and a huge reception full of people I don’t know and care even less about.”
Mary wasn’t listening. She sat up straight in bed. “Honeymoon?”
“Of course,” he said smoothly. “What about an Atlantic cruise?”
She was aware of her mouth having fallen open. “A… a…You mean on a ship?”
She suddenly felt the weight of her own ignorance as he chuckled, the laugh casual and mature as though cruising the Atlantic was nothing to him. But an eager gleam in his eyes betrayed him. Underneath he was as excited by the idea as she was. Still an immature boy – twenty-one two months ago, a grand coming-of-age party having been thrown in his honour, he’d told her – this would be a great adventure for him as much as for her. It made her feel much better that he didn’t see her as ignorant after all.
Dropping his letter on the dressing-table, he came and sat beside her on the bed with such force that the springs bounced.
“I can book tickets on the Mauretania,” he said. “Fastest thing afloat – crosses the Atlantic in something like six days. We’ll go first class.” Savoir-faire melting completely, he had become like an excited little boy on his first outing. “What d’you say, Mrs Lett, to a cruise to New York and back?”
Mary drew in a gasp that was a mixture of delight at the sheer sound of her new name, disbelief at the honeymoon he was suggesting, and joy that he could love her so much that money was no object.
“Oh… oh, Geoffrey… oh, y-yes,” she stammered, anything else she might have said smothered by his lips, his kiss far from immature.
* * *
Henry hadn’t shown the telegram to his mother. Head of the household now, it was he to whom Atkinson brought the message. Henry thanked providence that his mother hadn’t seen it first as he’d opened it casually only to stand transfixed by what it contained.
Ripping the thing up after reading it, he’d dropped it into the wicker waste-paper basket beside the writing desk that his father had once sat at, already wondering how the hell he was going to break Geoffrey’s news to Mother. So abrupt, so thoughtless. Geoffrey cared only for himself. All right, so the girl was pregnant and Geoffrey was doing the right thing by her, but it should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. This would kill their mother.
But that was being a little over the top. Mother was made of sterner stuff. Even so, how did one break that sort of news to a woman of such high standards?
Henry had spent the rest of the day in turmoil. Perhaps Geoffrey would write at length once he was settled. Perhaps that might soften the blow a little. Henry held fire for another twenty-four hours, and sure enough a letter arrived the following day. Intercepting Atkinson in the hall before Mother could realise the afternoon post had arrived, he agitatedly sifted through the few letters on the salver, plucking up the one he recognised with Geoffrey’s handwriting.
“Is that the post, dear?” His mother came into the hall dressed in an old-fashioned afternoon gown reaching to her ankles. Her face was tired, her movements listless. Even her voice sounded disinterested. She was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder. Since the death of her husband she had taken up the habit. Henry was glad. It calmed her.
Now he stuffed Geoffrey’s letter into his smoking-jacket pocket. “Do you want to look
through them, Mother?”
“Not at the moment, dear.” There was still that air of detachment from things real about her. “You can give me those that are for me later on.”
With that she went back towards the morning-room, her favourite room. The door closed gently and moments later Henry heard her putting on the gramophone and recognised the plaintive strains of his father’s favourite record, the last one he had ever bought. “I found my love in Avalon, beside the bay… I left my love in Avalon… and sailed away… I dream of her and Avalon…”
It had been nearly a year since his father’s death. Anniversaries. This one would be coming round soon to renew his mother’s pain, if indeed it had ever ceased. Henry turned back to the salver Atkinson held before him in white gloved hands, nodding to him to take it into the study. Following at a leisurely pace, for not even Atkinson must realise how agitated he felt, he waited until the butler had gone before taking the envelope from his pocket and opening it.
It was as he had suspected: full of apologies, explanations, entreaties to be understood. Geoffrey was all for himself, never once paused to find out how others felt. Geoffrey would always fall on his feet. And now Geoffrey had Mary and would have her for himself for the rest of his life. She would want for nothing, he knew that. Geoffrey knew how to treat a woman. And the baby? Geoffrey would be a good father, of that he was sure, for all his other shortcomings. Mary was a lucky girl. If only she had been his…
He turned his mind to his mother. He must go and break the news of Geoffrey’s marriage. She’d be hurt, confused, maybe in that order, lastly furious at his running roughshod over protocol and family values. She would put her hands to her lips in shame and misery at his conduct. Henry could almost hear her saying, “How could he? Your poor dear father dead hardly these twelve months, and this is how he treats his memory, treats us who are still grieving. No word, just… married! Your brother has no concern for any but himself. I can never forgive him.”
But she would forgive him, for he was her flesh and blood and she his mother. Mothers forgive most things. Whether she would accept his wife was another matter. Mary coming from a lower class; it would take time – years – before she’d be accepted, if at all. And Mother would be within her rights; all the love in the world that Geoffrey had for Mary could not make his mother like her. Henry’s heart ached for Mary’s pain when she finally realised her position in this family.
“Avalon” ceased then began again as Henry went out into the hall.
* * *
The honeymoon was nearly over. It had gone by so quickly, like a dream. The start of it seemed so far away now, that in itself no more than a dream now.
At Southampton, blindly following Geoffrey at an urgent pace, their porter trundling their baggage on a small hand truck, she had been surrounded by bustle and noise. As they emerged on to the quayside, her breath had been taken away by the great hull of the Mauretania rearing over her, above that the glaring white superstructure and four red and black funnels. Dwarfed by it, she’d followed behind Geoffrey and their porter up the first-class gangway to be swallowed by the liner like a morsel in the mouth of a great whale.
She couldn’t remember being shown to their cabin, she had been in such a daze. She had imagined some poky little place, maybe slung with two hammocks. But the sight that greeted her she would never forget. A large room, all bright and cheerful, with a bathroom going off it; a double bed with frilled peach floral covers; matching curtains at the portholes; a dressing-table with a long mirror; wardrobes, a fluffy peach carpet, a small round table and two chairs; on the table a vase of flowers, and on a bedside cabinet an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne and a note that said in large letters: “Congratulations and welcome to your Honeymoon Suite”.
“Oh, Geoffrey,” Mary recalled herself gasping. “Oh, it’s lovely!”
They’d gone on deck as the Mauretania glided away from the quayside after what had seemed like hours of waiting before finally moving off. Far below, the oval blobs of faces looking up had called farewell to those they knew. No one was there to see her and Geoffrey off but it hadn’t mattered. Leaning over the rail, she had waved back as frantically as any down there on the quay, joining in the excitement, all the time her bemused mind saying over and over again, This is me – me!, still unable to grasp that it could actually be her on that huge liner.
Soon due to return to the ship, small things were coming back to her: the warm oily smell of the docks mixed with a variety of other smells: stale produce, squashed fruit and rotting vegetables. She remembered the first rumble of the ship’s engines starting up, vibrating through her feet and up to her head, threatening to shake the vessel and her to pieces. She wondered with dismay whether this was to be with her across the whole Atlantic? But of course it had eventually given way to a low throbbing which she had soon got so used to that she forgot it was going on at all.
There had been clanging bells, rattling of huge chains, thick hawsers thrown off to splash in the flat water, the great leviathan turning slowly and majestically with foam boiling, all finally settling down as the docks moved further away, then the land going by, the hills of Dorset and Devon moving steadily away, getting smaller and smaller, then England at last sinking into the sea, excitement diminished. The passengers going about their own pursuits, she and Geoffrey had made the most of their honeymoon by drinking up the complimentary champagne and, a little tipsy, recementing their marriage. She remembered the fresh tang of the ocean afterwards, the air like nothing she had ever smelled before. There were snatches of other memories: a soft sough of the ship’s bows cutting through the smooth water – they’d had fine weather all the way, not sunny but calm, the water like oil. The swell had initially made her feel just a little queasy though that went after a while, proving her a good sailor. She remembered the babble of people’s voices, the piano music coming from the restaurant and the lounge, and in the ballroom an orchestra playing, and the smell wafting in now and again of beautifully cooked food mixed with the ever-present sooty odour that sank down from the funnels. She recalled the wind in her face reminding her that they were romping along as fast as a moderate car’s pace, and the wake they left behind them stringing itself out to the empty horizon like a long cloud on the sea. So much of it remembered, but so much of it feeling now as in a dream.
She hoped that she would be able to savour the journey home with more awareness. Her only regret about the outward passage was that the entire journey had been spent in the daze of an ordinary girl who’d not so much as had a seaside holiday before, but for a day trip to Southend. She’d had to pinch herself time and time again to make sure it was all real. That, and the lingering feeling that she still didn’t quite belong, was still not quite accepted as Geoffrey’s wife.
She was still uneasy mingling with people who only a month ago she would have considered to be above her. Overawed by the impressive passenger list, she’d discovered that travelling on that great ship with her had been several titled people as well as two well-known film stars and a celebrated Broadway singer returning home. It all but stifled her seeing such people at tables hardly a stone’s throw from hers and Geoffrey’s in the huge, ornate first-class dining-room so that she could hardly draw breath, much less eat the wonderful food put before her. Geoffrey, however, being well versed in the catering profession, took it all in his stride, as if he were thirty-one and not twenty-one. She’d watched with pride and awe as he surveyed the dishes, inclined his head knowledgeably and reflectively sipped the wine offered for his opinion before gracefully accepting.
By the time they had docked in New York they had made friends with two other couples – not the most celebrated ones, but young like themselves and wealthy enough. Mary had slowly learned to be more at ease, finding herself accepted. One couple came from Devon and, like she and Geoffrey, were newly weds and a little shy about it which in a way helped Mary feel a little more certain of herself. The other couple, married these two years they said,
came from Surrey and were more sure of themselves. Mary leaned towards the more rustic Louise and Bertie, but even Lyndon and Barbara did not sport too much affectation apart from being utterly modem and were fun to be with.
Time here in New York had simply flown. So much to do: theatres, mostly going in a group, in a strange land needing to stick together like castaways on some uncharted island; likewise safe hotel night-clubs – the Plaza’s Persian Room, the Empire Room at the Waldorf. During the day they’d discovered Central Park and all it had to offer despite it being winter – children snowballing, sledding on its snowy slopes, skidding along home-made slides. At Wollman Memorial Rink, Geoffrey had helped her learn to skate with many a shriek from her and laughter from the others. They’d done some sightseeing, this time on their own, each couple with their own idea of what they wanted to see in this vast city of monuments and museums. Such a lot to see, hardly time to see it all, so much left out, but there had been shopping.
She and Geoffrey on their own, going into wonderful shops, she still hardly able to believe it wasn’t all a dream as they went up in elevators and stepped out on to the various floors for her to buy hats, shoes, lingerie; dresses that caused her too to automatically glide as fashionable women did when they moved – as though she had been used to it all her life.
She found out how to pour herself into a diamante-decorated crepe de Chine evening dress by Worth, her still slim figure and small bust just made for today’s fashion, and wore it to her first hotel night-club, glorying in having heads turn and knowing that she was beautiful. Her stomach revealing only the slightest bulge, a flowing gauze scarf hiding that, her condition was such that, as with all expectant women, there was a special glow about her. In her case it was added to by the opulence of her new life, an expensive hair-do, good make-up, and her overwhelming gratitude towards and love for Geoffrey.