That They Might Lovely Be

by David Matthews

  Delia replied by the next post.

  Dear Anstace

  Thank you for your sweet note. There is nothing to trouble you. Please do reassure Dorothy.

  I am to accompany my mother on a visit for an extended period to help her recover her equilibrium. She is still in the throes of a serious emotional collapse. Please do not worry if you hear nothing from me for a time. I shall write when I know where we are to stay. Fret not.

  Your friend,

  Delia

  As she sealed the envelope, she felt a momentary pang of regret. To respond to Anstace’s sincerity with such brittle brevity was cruel and she knew Anstace would feel it keenly. But the times were cruel and she could not be blamed if Anstace were not yet proof against that.

  Saturday, 7 March 1919

  Anstace accepted Delia’s note for what it was: a dismissal and the coup de grace to their friendship. Their friendship now was like a porcelain cup which had grown translucent with age. Its fragility was palpable. Nothing more than a thin, tepid liquid could be poured into it. There was nothing more she could do. Whatever Delia’s motives, there was no mistaking her intention. Anstace would retreat to the edge and wait.

  Geoffrey’s situation, however, was different. Anstace had heard nothing from him. She realised she could not place any reliance on her aunt’s fabrication, constructed as it was from ‘a woman’s intuition’ supported by the evidence ‘heard with my own ears’ of Delia having nightmares when she stayed that Saturday at Joachim Place. If Delia had been upset by whatever occurred at Ipswich, it was likely, Anstace reasoned, that Geoffrey had been too.

  The merest hint, dropped to her aunt, that Geoffrey might need support, galvanized Dorothy Lean.

  ‘Of course I’ll come with you. I’ve struggled with Delia’s story; it doesn’t tally with the man we know.’

  ‘Delia has no story. It’s your story!’

  ‘How could a man, imprisoned for refusing to fight in a war, be capable of perpetrating any sexual subjugation? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘We must not be naïve, aunt. We simply do not know and, without knowing, we don’t know what’s best to do. I want to see him.’

  ‘I’ll drive you! I’ve wanted an excuse to give the new motor a decent run.’

  They set off after an early breakfast. Anstace was quiet; she had no idea what she was stepping into. But she had known Geoffrey during such a crucial period in their lives. The way he had sought to navigate a path, through all the turbulence which had beset him, had been admirable. He had come through the suffering of war and the grieving but what price had been exacted from him? Had he been left with sufficient resources to pay it? The fact that Delia had refused to pass on any information was worrying. She had abandoned him. It reminded Anstace of the way that girls could switch allegiances in the space of a day, dropping one bosom friend for another on the slightest of pretexts often leaving misery in their wake. Could Geoffrey be in misery? The possibility left Anstace apprehensive.

  Dorothy Lean, in contrast, was in ebullient mood.

  ‘I’m so much the modern woman, my dear,’ she had boasted to Anstace as she cranked the car’s engine before setting off. ‘I’m ready for any adventure.’

  The war had allowed Dorothy Lean to exploit her eccentricities. Oddity could be a significant lever when deployed with confidence, during a time of national conformity. People, she found, took to wielding clichés instead of argument to make their point and then discovered, to their dismay, that these buckled under the weight of some subtler opinion coming from a more oblique angle. Dorothy Lean had an aptitude for turning things upside down and exposing the underbelly to scrutiny. As the war wiped away the old order and the country came around to the view that change was inevitable, Dorothy Lean found that she could command respect, and something akin to deference, in a circle wider than her own Quaker society. She became a formidable committee woman and talked of entering national politics riding the wave of women’s suffrage.

  She had kept up a steady monologue, a rehearsal for some imminent hustings, bellowed over the noise of the engine, through much of the journey. Anstace was not required to respond and only half-listened.

  ‘It’s a curious thing, but victory has dealt a body blow to the bullies at home. All that aggressive truculence, from the men who led us to war, has withered in the face of the “victorious” soldiers returning home sick, maimed, haunted by the whole enterprise. It’s time for the meek to inherit the earth and push forward their advantage. Let the campaign commence! Let the down-trodden be lifted high!’

  Anstace was aware, not for the first time, of the military metaphors which now coloured her aunt’s language even when championing the pacifist’s cause. Perhaps that is the difficulty, she mused. There isn’t a vocabulary to describe struggle which is not drawn from physical combat. She suddenly realised that physical combat could be something they would have to face that morning. What if there were resistance to elevating the downtrodden? She explored the idea with detached humor, as they slowed down through the narrower streets of the town.

  They found the boardinghouse easily enough from the directions Dorothy Lean had extracted from the prison authorities.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, as they pulled up outside the place. ‘This is shabbier than I had expected. Is this really where Geoffrey Cordingley has found himself?’

  She did not wait for a response from Anstace but was out of the car and rattling the door-knocker.

  ‘Good morning. My name is Dorothy Lean. I have come to collect Geoffrey Cordingley.’

  She had used her most robust contralto the moment the door was opened. The broad-faced woman in front of them was still wearing a grubby pinafore, as if she had not expected any callers of note to interrupt her morning chores but she had nothing of a servant’s deference about her. When Dorothy Lean made to step across the threshold, she held her ground. Dorothy Lean merely laughed, rolling out mockery, social advantage and moral superiority in one irrepressible wave. Anstace had to admire her.

  ‘Why surely,’ chortled Dorothy, ‘he is not denied visitors? I understood he had been freed from prison.’

  The woman was not quick of speech.

  ‘It’s not for me to say he wants any.’

  ‘This is your … establishment?’

  ‘There’s my brother, Mr. Jessop — ’

  ‘Of course. There is always a Mr. Jessop. I am sure he would have no objection to our waiting inside, whilst you fetch him.’

  ‘Mr. Jessop is not in.’

  ‘Of course. He rarely is. Well, here we are then.’

  Dorothy Lean smiled her steeliest smile and moved forward. The landlady would have had to forcibly prevent her from entering. That would have broken a social taboo too entrenched. As Anstace followed her aunt, she felt the loathing and malevolence, which her aunt had released, directed upon her. Some ratchet of courage clicked in her and, even if she could not assume her aunt’s unassailably aggressive smile, she faced the woman’s glare unflinchingly.

  Now they were in the house, Anstace knew she could not be cowed. She would bring Geoffrey out.

  ‘He’ll not want to see you.’ The landlady had closed the front door and stood like a gaoler before it, arms crossed, smirking nastily.

  ‘That is neither here nor there, you know,’ retorted Dorothy Lean brightly. ‘He is leaving with us. Have you understood me?’ She dropped her voice at this point to an even lower register. But this extra note of implacable determination only provoked an equal obstinacy in the landlady.

  ‘I’m not sure that you can barge your way in with all your airs and graces and tell me what’s what about my own paying guests. I’m not so sure as you’re breaking the law.’

  ‘Perhaps my niece could venture down the road and call for a bobby. I’m sure there’ll be one not so far away. Perhaps…’ she said, buoying all her words on another wave of laughter, ‘perhaps your whole “establishment” is something a policeman would like to investigate. I count a
number of Justices of the Peace as my dearest friends. Now where is Mr. Cordingley? Geoffrey! Geoffrey!’

  It was almost comic. Dorothy Lean began to call up the stairs in her most dramatic tone. A little man, hitching his braces over his shoulders appeared briefly, leaning over the banisters before scuttling back into his room. The landlady started to shout, following Dorothy Lean as she began to climb.

  ‘How dare you! How dare you! You … you whore!’

  ‘Anstace, take note: I am being roundly insulted. If she lifts a hand to me I shall press charges. I shall press charges!’ she repeated at the top of her voice and then proceeded to call, ‘Geoffrey! Geoffrey!’

  A few other doors opened a crack and then slammed. Snippets of conversation and some giggling could be heard behind closed doors as they climbed to the first landing: ‘Is it a raid?’, ‘What’s going on?’, ‘If I’m found here—’, ‘Oh, leave off’, ‘Just lie low, I tell you.’

  ‘Geoffrey! Geoffrey!’

  ‘Take him, damn you. Take him and clear out. I never wanted him in the first place. Gives me the creeps. But you’ll not hear the last. Go on, take him, he’s up there. Take him and be damned. You’ll not hear the last. I’ve rights. Come on you. Get out. Get out.’

  The landlady had pushed past Dorothy Lean and, with surprising agility, had made her way to the upper storey where she threw open the door to Geoffrey’s room.

  And now, Dorothy Lean deferred to Anstace. It was Anstace who stepped into the room, protected by the shield of imperturbable confidence generated by her aunt.

  Would she have recognized him if he had passed her on the street? She thought not. His features were not so changed but his demeanour was another man’s. He must have heard his name. He must have registered the commotion because he had retreated away from the door. He was standing by a washstand, a ewer in his hand as if to hurl it at his attacker.

  She saw immediately that there would be nothing worth packing.

  ‘Do you have a jacket, Geoffrey? An overcoat and hat? We’re taking you to Joachim Place. We’re going now.’

  She did not wait for a reaction but opened the wardrobe and plucked the two or three items hanging there and passed them to her aunt. Linen they could buy. A jacket hung on a hook on the back of the door. She held it out in front of her by the shoulders for him to slip on. There were sounds now from below. Anstace sensed the growing belligerence.

  Perhaps it was the simple courtesy of her gesture, the assumption of civilized living, which broke through to him. She saw quite suddenly the animal terror dissolve. He put down the absurdly floral ewer and shuffled toward her. She noticed that there were no laces in his shoes. His trousers hung loosely on his hips for lack of braces. She could only guess what that meant. Later she would give herself time to deal with the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. For the moment, effecting his escape was essential and she had no way of knowing how much longer her aunt’s bombast could curb his gaoler and their growing audience.

  Anstace made murmuring noises, instinctive sounds of comfort and approval while steering Geoffrey out of the door. He broke free only to snatch up a piece of card from where it lay, face down on the table. Dorothy Lean led the way. Mercifully, the other lodgers stood back and let them pass. Geoffrey had picked up the need for urgency, managing the stairs in his loose shoes with practised agility. Anstace followed but the landlady was at her heels. As her aunt opened the front door, Anstace felt the woman’s grip on her arm. It was like a shock to be touched like that.

  Anstace turned to face her. She felt the woman’s eyes rake her up and down. Anstace became acutely aware of the picture she presented: her own ordered dress, the straight folds of her lavender-grey coat, the double row of buttons, her grey kid gloves, the neat hat and its single, sharp feather, and the cruel incongruity of the broken man on her arm, his gnawed fingers twitching the stuff of her other sleeve. But this woman’s eyes seemed to pierce the superficial. It turned Anstace cold, as if she had been stripped naked there on the doorstep.

  Somewhere, from another dimension, she heard her aunt’s voice breaking through.

  ‘This may not be the end of it, madam. He may have refused to wear a uniform but that is not reason enough for this. He is not your prisoner and if I find that he has been kept here against his will, there will be consequences. Make no mistake.’

  ‘There’s a bill to settle. He stayed here of his own free will. Nowhere else would have him. Look at him. Don’t think I’ve given him bed and board out of charity—’

  ‘Charity has never crossed your threshold—’

  ‘Cut the fancy talk. I don’t need you coming here. Who do you think you are? You and your sort. I’ve got the measure of you. I’ll get Jessop onto you and my son onto you,’ she added, turning sneeringly to Anstace.

  Anstace hurried Geoffrey into the motor and sat next to him. Dorothy Lean had the crankshaft in her hand, ready to turn the engine. She spun round to confront the woman so suddenly that she flinched back.

  ‘Of course you will. And then he shall know whom he is dealing with. Put your affairs in order, madam. Stare long at the blue sky.’ She pointed above her head, risking everything for a melodramatic pose, invoking the gods. ‘It may the last you’ll see of it for many a year.’

  The engine was still warm and did not need more than one turn of the handle to set it purring. They drove away, cocooned by the impossibility of talk against the clatter of the motor.

  Sunday, 29 March 1919

  Muriel Simmonds and Delia had been settled in at the boardinghouse in Weston-super-Mare about a week when, one morning, their landlady asked to speak to Delia privately in the back parlour. Until that point, Delia had never suspected that the cause of her mother’s condition could be anything other than a debilitating grief following the death of her only son.

  ‘Beg pardon, Miss Simmonds,’ Mrs. Hoskins had said, ‘but Dr. Spode asked me to ask you if you could throw any light on Mrs. Simmonds’ state of mind. She is, he says (and I’m sure I’ve felt the same), growing more morbid and angry about her confinement and yet—’

  ‘I have tried to get her to come for walks with me but she really will not leave her room.’

  ‘No, Miss Simmonds,’ Mrs. Hoskins permitted herself a little chuckle, ‘I didn’t mean she’s cooped up … I meant her confinement, when her time is due.’

  Delia stared at Mrs. Hoskins, completely bemused by what she was suddenly coming to understand. She began to shake uncontrollably and sat down heavily. She had known that in advance of arranging for them to take rooms in this quietly genteel seaside town, her father had also contacted a local doctor to attend to her mother. Delia had thought the attention a little out of character for a man who never had any time for sickness, in himself or others. That the cause of this attention should have been shared, presumably with her father’s agreement, with Mrs. Hoskins before she herself was told was extraordinary. Was this humiliation another punishment?

  Her shocked response had thrown the landlady momentarily into confusion. She was genuinely apologetic.

  ‘Oh, goodness gracious! Oh, my dear, you didn’t know. Have they still not told you? I am sorry. I had no idea … I thought she would have told you now a decision has been took … Well I never did … There now. Let me pour you another cup.’

  ‘You mean my mother is expecting a baby.’

  ‘Why yes, my dear. So Dr. Spode has informed me. You see there was a question, I’ve been told … one reason why she wanted a bit of peace and quiet away from home, I expect … that keeping it might not be the thing. And Dr. Spode is known for his discretion. But now she has made up her mind to keep it. And that’s about the size of it.’

  As much to give herself time to digest what she was hearing, Delia muttered, ‘Why didn’t they tell me? I thought it was the shock of losing my brother.’

  She felt as bemused as when, at barely five years of age, she had been pushed into the schoolyard on her first morning and told to ‘play’. The w
alls of home which had always been a barrier between her and the village children, who came each day to school, had been dismantled. And yet no one had told her what rules and conventions operated in this wild environment. She had always understood the discipline of the classroom was not so dissimilar to that of home life but, in the playground, the noise, the rampaging, the tangle of games, ropes and hoops, marbles and jacks, the frenzied speed with which children hurtled about were alien and overwhelming. Her parents had thrown her into this apparent anarchy and turned their backs.

  In fact, it had not taken her long to surface. She had realised that, even here in this frenzied space, one could make terms, that this interval of mayhem could be shaped. All it took was resolve. To give herself time, Delia repeated her statement.

  ‘I thought it was the shock of losing my brother.’

  ‘Well the shock may have been part of it, is my belief. It can cause a Fall in women who think they’re past conceiving. Dr. Spode says that’s just an old wives’ tale. He says the Change can take much longer to complete than many women think. Either way, they’re caught out.’

  ‘I really … I really don’t understand.’

  Mrs. Hoskins voice dropped in register.

  ‘Don’t you really, my dear?’ The change in tone was unmistakable; it was stern but not without sympathy. ‘You can’t be sick every morning without it being noticed. And there’s a bloom which you can’t disguise, however you might be feeling.’

  She knows, thought Delia. She knows. She knows. She knows.

  She had been living in a sort of fearful suspension, suspecting but not believing, dreading yet still hoping, ignorant and completely at a loss to know what to do if the worst was indeed the case. Now, within the space of minutes, every perspective had shifted. Certainties and possibilities had swapped places. Taboos had become exposed. She felt herself go rigid with apprehension. But then, after a moment, the world again began to turn and she found herself being patted and stroked, soothed by a voice which had relaxed its refined vowels and grown furry with a West Country lilt.