‘It was—’ he said and then she leaned back in and kissed him, a cool, social kiss, and then slammed the door shut and walked very unsteadily towards the station.
Chapter 34
She had always kept a lot from him – it was an essential part of their relationship. Small, shadowy secrets, as well as bigger, darker ones. If he had known them, any of them, he would have felt sometimes pressured, occasionally irritated and this time, this once-in-a-lifetime, or so she hoped and prayed, heartbroken. If he knew or guessed this, their lives would become immeasurably complicated, dangerous, and changed for ever and so he must not.
She knew exactly when it had happened; firstly, because such occasions were obviously limited, and secondly because it had been so wonderful, so brilliantly, sweetly, astonishingly wonderful that she felt there was something inexorable about its completion. Only, of course, there could be no completion, she thought confusedly, hanging on to common sense determinedly in the hours after they told her that the test had been positive, that she was indeed pregnant, the one thing she had always dreaded so much and that now she was in danger of welcoming.
And it was a danger: for she felt, unbidden within her, growing alongside her baby, a small shoot of joy.
She allowed herself a day or two of that, of savouring the joy and the thought of what might be, and then crushed it, ruthlessly and savagely. For it would not be joy, if she allowed it, it would be hardship and unhappiness and a betrayal of everything she truly believed, everything that justified the relationship, and of Cornelius, who she loved and Athina to whom she owed so much and who she also loved – although who would believe that, she wondered, lying awake through a long, long night, staring out at the dark sky.
No, there could be no baby, no child of this union; and she must deal with the situation in her own formidable, clear-sighted way.
She was forty-two. She had thought it would not happen now, which was why she had begun to be just a little careless, had failed to take her pills – the wonderful pills that modern girls took for granted and her generation regarded as near to magical – and therefore missed taking not just one, but two.
They had been in Paris, of course – where else was the sex so wonderful, where else was Cornelius so very much her own, where else did she feel not only physically but emotionally safe? The nights they spent in English places, beautiful to be sure, in small hidden hotels in the heart of the English countryside – never cities, for there were people who knew them, or rather, knew Cornelius and Athina, in every one of them – were often wonderful, but in Paris they owned the world, could contain themselves safely within it. Cornelius who was, by now, extremely rich, had bought a tiny apartment in Passy, just one bedroom and one salon on the top floor of a beautiful old building. An attic, really, but still most beautiful with its panelled doors and tall windows opening on to a minuscule balcony. There they would meet and talk and walk around Paris and eat and make love; sometimes only a twenty-four-hour visit for Cornelius, a longer one for Florence, for absences could not be allowed to coincide too precisely. That was when they had come to know Paris so well; every district of it explored and dissected and learned as if by heart.
And that was when Cornelius had bought her the occasional – for she would not allow it very often, being proud as well as cautious – beautiful dress or coat or pair of shoes. This was the time when almost every Englishwoman was dressed as a milkmaid, courtesy of Laura Ashley or in the muted Biba-chic of dark skinny jersey dresses or long black coats, coloured suede boots laced to the knee, and wild, long hippy curls. But Parisian women were still classically stylish in slender dresses and cardigan suits.
Athina, at forty-seven, was at the peak of her beauty, her ice-blond hair slicked back from her lovely, sculptured face, and photographed by every famous photographer for Vogue, Queen, The Tatler, dressed mostly by Saint Laurent or the ubiquitous Jean Muir and Ossie Clark, feted, admired, adored.
Cornelius would take her to Paris on shopping trips, albeit brief ones, for Athina would seldom allow them to be away together. Those were the times Florence hated; she could see the necessity, but knowing they were together, staying usually at the George V, in the city she and Cornelius had claimed as their own, made her physically ill with jealousy. Yet she never told Cornelius, never complained – for what right had she – and would work twelve-hour days at the arcade, refusing to go home to her little house until she was so absolutely exhausted that she was fit only for collapsing into bed.
The love-making that had left her with child had been one long, dark weekend in early November when she and Cornelius had scarcely ventured outside, so fog-ridden were the Parisian streets and so cold the air. The apartment was cold in spite of the small real fire and endless electric ones but Cornelius had acquired a very dashing long fur coat, Dr Zhivago style, which he spread across their bed and there they stayed for almost the entire two days.
‘I shall never be able to wear this coat now without thinking of you, Little Flo,’ he said, laying it tenderly over her as she rejoined him after fetching some champagne. ‘I shall see you, and I shall feel you, and above all I shall hear you, those disgracefully loud noises that you make, the sound of love. Oh, Florence, how lovely you are.’
She was ignorant about pregnancy for she had had no occasion to discuss it as married women did throughout their lives, and certainly about anything to do with terminating it. Lurid visions of hot baths and gin and backstreet butchery were the nearest and she had no intention of submitting herself to either. She had an idea that abortion was now legal and she went to the library and looked it up; it seemed that a termination of pregnancy, as defined in the 1967 Abortion Act, could be legally conducted by a doctor in a hospital ‘providing that continuing the pregnancy could be deemed necessary to prevent grave permanent injury’ to her physical or mental health, and that two medical practitioners were required to sanction it. She read this in growing distress, could see there could be considerable barriers to achieving the swift and efficient removal of her baby. Weeks could pass as she saw doctors, attended clinics, waited for beds; weeks of unhappiness and fear and sickliness and indeed, danger, for her condition might manifest itself to others. Athina had the sharpest eyes and might spot an ongoing nausea, or even a thickening waistline and burgeoning bosom, for Florence was bird-thin.
No, it must be done swiftly and discreetly and her best hope, she decided, was a visit to the expensive gynaecologist she saw regularly, a glamorous and worldly woman, who cheerfully issued prescriptions for Florence’s pill and even asked her from time to time how her sex life was and how her affair was going.
Everything went as she had hoped; Jacqueline Wentworth, sitting in her very grand rooms in Harley Street, confirmed her pregnancy, was most generous with her advice, and said she was absolutely sure Florence was doing the right thing.
‘And no silly guilt – apart from all the other people who would be made unhappy by your having that baby, he or she would not have the best of lives.’ Two thousand pounds would see her safely into a clinic in the wilds of rural Kent – ‘It’s really delightful there, lovely grounds and rooms and the most charming staff . . .’ – the possession of the two signed letters, and a painless and extremely safe conclusion to her pregnancy.
Florence’s initial relief was slightly tempered by the fact that she didn’t have two thousand pounds or anything near it.
She wondered if she might mortgage her house, but that, it seemed, would take several weeks, and the largest bank loan she could obtain was five hundred pounds.
She was fretting over where she might turn when she found herself staring at Leonard Trentham’s painting, the one of the Parisian courtyard, given to her, she was sure, by Cornelius – although it was one of his teases that he refused to admit it. She could sell that if it was sufficiently valuable, and she could get it copied, easily, although possibly not quite in time. But Cornelius seldom came to her little house, would never spot a good fake. She took it down f
rom the wall, wrapped it carefully in brown paper, and set off in the morning for an art gallery in St James’s where she often went to exhibitions; the owner, Jasper Stuart, was always welcoming and indeed friendly. She had once told him that she owned a Leonard Trentham and he had said that if she ever wanted to sell it, he would be waiting with his arms open.
‘My dear Miss Hamilton, what an absolutely wonderful opportunity! Of course I will sell it for you, it would be an honour to have it on our modest walls, it’s—’
‘When?’ said Florence, interrupting him. ‘How quickly could you sell it?’
Jasper Stuart rallied from this rather unseemly haste and said he was having an exhibition of English watercolours in the next couple of months. Would that be soon enough for her?
‘Not really,’ said Florence. ‘I need the money most urgently. I shall have to take my picture elsewhere. I really can’t wait two months.’
‘Oh dear . . .’ Jasper Stuart hesitated. ‘Oh, Miss Hamilton that would be such a pity. I could make some inquiries, and if there was any interest I could advance you a sum which would approximate to the value of the Trentham – minus my commission, of course.’
‘Of course. And – and how much do you think . . .’
‘Oh, I think it would be valued at around . . .’ He paused theatrically, then, ‘At around a thousand pounds, maybe fifteen hundred?’
‘That’s not enough,’ said Florence briskly. ‘My own research indicated that Trenthams were priced much more highly than that.’
‘Well, perhaps the sources of your own research might be persuaded to take the picture on—’
‘Not possible,’ said Florence, and this was the first truthful thing she had said that morning. ‘The person in question is an art critic, writing for one of the glossy magazines.’
‘Which one?’
‘Rural Life, the one with all the beautiful houses. Perhaps you know him? Joseph Saunders?’
She was safe there; Joseph Saunders, her friend, and indeed a highly esteemed art critic, had once described Jasper Stuart to her as a poisonous little poofter who he would not be willing to exchange the time of day with.
‘Well, I know the name of course,’ said Stuart, slightly tetchy now. ‘And what value did he put on your Trentham?’
Joseph Saunders had actually said it was a very nice example of Trentham’s work, that they were out of fashion at the moment, but if she was lucky, she could get up to fifteen hundred for it.
‘Two thousand pounds,’ said Florence, her lovely eyes meeting Jasper Stuart’s slightly watery ones.
‘Less commission, I imagine?’
‘Absolutely. But I’ll take it elsewhere, Mr Stuart, I really don’t want to pressurise you.’
‘No, no, Miss Hamilton, I’ll make some inquiries and get back to you in – what shall we say? Three or four days?’
‘That would be very kind,’ said Florence. ‘And there is something else. I am very fond of that painting and for reasons of sentiment I would like to have it really well copied. Can you recommend anyone?’
Jasper Stuart said he could; he looked after her small figure clutching the painting and on her way to the copyist and wondered what sort of difficulty she might be in; presumably she’d got into debt with one of those new-fangled credit cards. He reached for the phone and dialled the number of one of his clients, a very rich American and they had a deal within ten minutes. The man said that three thousand sounded very fair if it was a genuine Trentham and Jasper Stuart said that of course it was, and a very charming one too.
The night before she had to go into the nursing home, Florence hardly slept. She was suddenly attacked by the thought of what she was keeping from Cornelius. The baby was his as well as hers; was she really right to keep it from him, this tiny, enormously important thing they had created together?
She changed her mind hourly, feeling at one and the same time she would be causing him enormous grief by telling him about it, and sparing him a great deal of angst and guilt if she did not. Days might pass as he wondered what to do, if she told him, and time was crucial.
And then, even as she decided not to tell him, never to tell him, she was assailed by a most painful and difficult grief and remorse of her own: that she was removing most ruthlessly from her body a living, breathing creature, entrusted to her to nurture and protect. Would the baby be alive when it was taken from her? And if so, how long would it take to die? Would it suffer? And what would happen to it then?
She tried to recall the reassurance given her from Jacqueline Wentworth: ‘Do remember, Miss Hamilton, we’re talking something the size of perhaps a quail’s egg. It doesn’t have any feelings (how could she know? How could anyone know?) and if doubts should assail you, and they probably will, think of the sort of life you could give this child, bringing it up alone as an unmarried woman, with very few resources.’
It was her last words that helped Florence to feel she was doing the right thing by terminating the pregnancy. She was above all a pragmatist, and it was hard to contemplate with optimism the long-term future of this child of hers.
And so, as the day dawned and she rose and put the last few things into her case and took a taxi to Charing Cross, she settled into a rather soothing certainty that her decision was the right one, and embarked upon the necessary action with a heart that, if not light, was courageous and positive.
Nevertheless, as the anaesthetist’s smiling, rather smug face came into her room to give her her pre-meds, she felt a hostility and a misery she would not have believed, and when she came round from the operation, to a smiling nurse assuring her that all was well, she felt not relief and happiness, but guilt and sorrow and a dreadful remorse that she had flown in the face of nature and not done for her baby what every instinct told her she should have done, that ripping it out of her body had been a wicked thing to do, and that she had deprived herself of perhaps some of the greatest joys, as well as difficulties, that she would ever be likely to know.
She felt better in the morning, having set her tough, determined mind to work, and telling herself that what was done was done, and that there was little point in doing it if she was now to waste emotion on grieving over it.
She returned to work after a week – she had pleaded flu – her charming, confident self, full of plans for the Christmas she was to spend with Duncan’s family who adored her. But the first time she saw Cornelius after the termination, she had the strongest urge to attack him physically, to bite him, scratch him, generally inflict upon him any pain she could; no one would ever know, she thought, the cost of the sweet, fleeting smile she gave him as he walked into the shop with Athina and wished her Happy Christmas; and when she attended the Christmas crib service she broke down in spite of all her intentions and wept quietly into her handkerchief as the shepherds and the kings knelt before the Baby Jesus and offered him their gifts and their love.
He had called, after two long, hopeful, hopeless days, when she had known he wouldn’t, of course he wouldn’t, while thinking he might, just might, if only to say – don’t be ridiculous Susie, what can he say? He’s spoken for, taken, by a woman of unarguable achievement and considerable beauty. Just grow up and regard it as what it was, a fun evening, a little bit of happiness and get on with your life. And stop checking your phone, every five minutes . . .
And then it rang; or rather rippled. With a text. Which she had so determinedly assumed must be from Henk that she refused to look at it for at least thirty – well, all right, maybe twenty seconds, since she was really so extremely busy in writing her speech for the conference and absolutely wasn’t going to interrupt her train of thought.
Only, it might be from Bianca; or dear old Bertie who had asked her for a kind of bio of herself, for his speech at the conference, and she hadn’t done it yet; so she picked it up from where it lay face downward on her desk, and she was so sure it was from one of those people that she had to read it several times over. Because the name on it was Jonjo Bartlett.
And feeling extremely light-headed she went to the loo, taking her phone with her and sat staring at it for quite a long time. And after a bit she went for a walk down the corridor and bumped into Bertie, who said, ‘Hello, Susie, I wondered if you’d got a minute?’ And she said, ‘Bertie, any number of minutes for you.’ Because really, looking at his no doubt incredibly pedestrian speech would be pure, sheer joy at this moment, and he said, ‘Maybe in thirty, then?’ And then she passed Lara’s office, and Lara saw her and called out that she would really love to discuss the running order of the conference again, if Susie had a minute, and Susie said, ‘Whenever you like, Lara.’ Because that too would be so, so wonderful, debating at great length whether Lara should come on before Jonathan Tucker or after, which was her current preoccupation, and Lara said, ‘Maybe in fifteen, then.’ And Susie said fine, but she was seeing Bertie in half an hour, so possibly after that might be better, and Lara said OK, and then she went and sat at her desk and felt another and even stronger great rush of happiness, and thought that perhaps a decent interval had now passed in between receiving the text and replying and settled down to the hugely important task.
She had reeled home that first evening, filled with the sense of him, thinking that it had been a lovely evening, a lovely happening in her life, a life rather drained of lovely happenings recently, and that he would now go back to Guinevere who had him so clearly and absolutely possessed.
And she must go back to Henk, who had abased himself, telling her how much he loved her, how desperately he missed her, how he was going to see a shrink, how he was determined to prove to her that he had changed, that he would not expect her to believe him without that proof, but if she would only give him the chance, he would. And struggled to tell herself that the heaviness in her heart, the doubt in her head, was merely the natural result of so much disappointment and disillusion and even fear. If only she had waited just a little bit longer . . .
A Perfect Heritage Page 37