An Impossible Marriage

by Pamela Hansford Johnson

  I came back to the dining-room. Ned followed me. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘No one of any interest. A girl I used to know.’ I was really frightened.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Betty,’ I improvised. ‘Betty Hughes.’ I began to chatter. This girl, I said, was a friend of Caroline’s. I had never liked her much, she was rather a bore. She lived in Dublin. She had come back to London for a job. She was a dressmaker. Rather a good dressmaker; even at school she had made her own clothes.

  ‘Shut up.’

  I looked at him. His eyes had a propped and staring look. His face had a high, irregular flush. I made some feeble protest.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ said Ned. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I told you. Some girl’

  ‘Liar. Liar.’

  He took my shoulders gently, and as if he were turning me for blind-man’s buff directed me towards a chair. He sat down in it, pushed me on to my knees before him.

  ‘Who was it? Do you think I couldn’t hear it was a man’s voice? Was it that Dicky lout?’

  I told him he was upsetting me, that I could not answer him while he looked like that.

  ‘Damn what I look like. Was it Dicky?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who was it? ’

  I told him the truth. ‘But I haven’t seen him for years! I haven’t even heard from him!’

  ‘Why did you lie?’

  Because you get so angry.’ I tried to put my head down on his knees, hoping he would pity me. I burst into tears. ‘I’m always angry with liars. I hate lying.’

  Oh stop it,’ I said; I’m sorry.’

  ‘What’s the good of being sorry? Look at me. Go on, look at me.’ He jerked my head up. No use crying. The harm’s done.’

  I was swept by desolation. I should lose Ned. We should never marry. I should have to tell everyone about it. Nobody would ever want me again. Frantically I assured him I was sorry, begged him to forgive me, promised never to do such a thing again.

  At the moment,’ said Ned, I could hit you.’

  I held his arms so that he might not; I almost believed that he meant what he said.

  ‘You should trust me!’ he shouted out, I thought unreasonably. The inward critic, though having no power to help me, informed me that he was unreasonable.

  I do,’ I wept, as ludicrously. I tried to stare straight at him, to show him how profound my trust was; and I caught the glimmer of a smile. It was no more than the suggestion of light, flashed off again as soon as perceived, so that reason doubts it; but it gave me hope. I flung myself on him, laughing and crying, telling him archly that I would be good now, that I would never fib again.

  ‘Never lie again,’ said Ned; ‘let’s use the right word. You’re a liar, and that’s that.’ His face was like stone.

  At this moment Aunt Emilie came in with a tray of tea.

  ‘Well, children,’ she said with her air of sad merriment, ‘the cup that cheers.’ She put the tray down. Then she looked at us appalled. ‘Oh, Ned, what’s the matter? Have you been upsetting Christine?’

  ‘It’s a pity Chris wasn’t brought up to tell the truth. I suggest you start training her, even if it’s late.’

  I burst into ungovernably absorbing sobs. They were a luxury; they were so interesting in their reflex violence that they made a refuge for me.

  ‘Ned,’ said Emilie, blushing and trembling, ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but you should be ashamed!’ ‘Ask her to tell you. I’m going.’

  He got up so abruptly that I stumbled backwards and almost fell. He took my arm and pulled me up. ‘Can’t you stand on your own damned feet?’

  ‘I must know the meaning of this,’ Emilie cried feebly. She’s upset; she’s only a child.’

  He had left us. I heard him snatch his raincoat from the peg, open the door, run up the steps to the road. I called after him.

  Oh, what is it?’ Emilie demanded. ‘You must tell me!’

  I went out. Ned was not there, not in the car. I looked left and right, saw him walking slowly across the road to the Common. Far away behind the trees the faint silent lightning flickered. The eye of the sky flashed open and closed again.

  I raced after him; I caught him by the waist; I said his name.

  He turned and pulled me into his arms.

  ‘It’s you,’ he said; ‘you don’t know how I feel. You never did. I get scared.’

  I didn’t mean to lie. I was scared of you.’

  ‘I’m too old for you, Chris.’

  No, you’re not.’

  ‘I hate you to feel you have to lie.’

  I won’t again.’

  A hot wind shuffled the tree above us like a pack of cards. I felt weak, as after a long illness. He was asking me to forgive him now, but I could not care. I wanted to go to bed and sleep. I was so tired. But I should not be able to go to bed until I had made up some sort of story to satisfy Emilie.

  I am so tired,’ I said.

  He kissed me in a manner peculiarly gentle and benedictory. It was like a laying on of hands, and it filled me with peacefulness. Then go straight up to your room. I’ll talk to your aunt.’

  It seemed to me wonderful beyond words that he should be so understanding.

  Chris, I promise I will try and be a good husband to you. I’ll make up for all this, you’ll see.’ He turned the little green ring on my finger so that only the gold band showed. There! Then we’ll be safe.’

  Safe,’ I repeated. It was comfortable in the hushed and stormy dark. I could have slept then, upright, my head on his shoulder.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I ran into your friend Caroline last night as I was leaving the office,’ Ned said, ‘and bought her a drink. She’s a lively one, isn’t she?’

  He often used these odd terms, which had for me an old-fashioned ring.

  ‘Blackguarding her old man right and left. How long will that last?’

  I said I had no idea. Caroline had always had a singular capacity for endurance—or, rather, for regarding trouble as if it were something over the other side of the road, interesting, but not really any concern of hers. Touched by jealousy, though not strongly, I asked if he found her attractive.

  ‘Not my type,’ said Ned. ‘Too much of the good-time girl.’

  I thought how pleased she would have been to have heard him. It was how she would most wish to be regarded, though she did not have a very good time and her hope of one in the future was slender.

  ‘Good fun,’ he added, ‘but no depths to her. She thinks you’re the wonder of the world. By the by, she wants to know if you’d like an electric-kettle for a wedding-present.’

  It was the beginning of September; it really seemed as though we should marry at the end of the month. We should have followed our earlier intention if Ned had not insisted that he must wait till business looked more stable. I had found a flat for us in Avenue Mansions, upon the north side of the Common. It was a comfort to me to know that I should not be going far away from the world of my youth. Emilie had put our house up for sale, and was crying every morning at breakfast with the sorrow of having done so. Everything going! Nothing left!

  She was not to live with us. This was a worry to me and a nagging guilt. Ned, who had suggested that she should, who had apparently made all our plans as if to include her, had suddenly turned round and told her quite clearly that it was better for couples to begin their married lives alone. He had found her a room with kitchen and bath in the same block of flats. You’ll be able to see Chris every day, Aunt Emilie, so there won’t be any nonsense about loneliness.’ He often put matters in this harsh-sounding way; it was less through callousness than through an inability to shape a sentence softly. Whatever he was, Ned was no hypocrite.

  He
told her this at supper at our house, on a night when Mrs. Skelton and Nelly Ormerod were there. Emilie, taken aback, flushed up to her eyes. She seized her little string of metal links interspersed with turquoises and garnets and twisted it so tightly that it left a red mark on her neck. She said nothing.

  Mrs. Skelton added more lime juice to the small quantity of gin in her glass. It was one of Emilie’s unconquerable obstinacies never to provide more than a quartern bottle for the entertainment of Ned’s relations. Smoking between courses, Mrs. Skelton thoughtfully placed an empty matchbox at her elbow to serve as an ashtray. You’ve got to let them fight it out alone, Mrs. Jackson. There’s nothing else for it.’

  Christine is so young,’ Emilie mumbled. The tears gathered on the rims of her eyes and rolled along the lashes, not falling. I was hot with pity for her.

  You’ve got to lose her some time.’ Mrs. Skelton gave her an opaque glance, half sardonic, half sympathetic. ‘It comes to all of us. We’re not getting any younger.’

  No one in their senses would want to live with Ned,’ said Nelly with a false, comradely bark. ‘We’re all glad to see the back of him.’

  ‘You know you love me, Nell,’ he said. They exchanged a look unusually intimate, almost affectionate. Emilie rose, with some inaudible excuse, and left the table. ‘It is hard for her !’ I said. She has nothing.’

  Nor have any of us,’ Mrs. Skelton replied. Not now. We’ve had it all, such as it was. She’s had her youth. She must let you have yours.’

  I did not feel I wanted my youth. At that moment I would have given it all to Emilie, had it been any use to her. I felt myself against Ned, against them all.

  Look here, Chris,’ Nelly said sensibly, I know you think we’re a lot of brutes. But look at it like this. There is a difference of age between you and Ned. You’ll have to get used to each other, and the first year’s never easy. My first year with Edgar was frightful, but we fought it out and in the end we were happy.’ Her eyes, behind the thick glasses, were swollen by the memory of joy. I wondered if she had seemed good-looking while her husband was alive, whether she had simply let herself become ugly after his death since she had no more to offer any man. You know that poor old Emilie, fond as we are of her, is pretty well melancholic. She’ll hang around you at all the wrong moments. She’ll want parts of your life that you owe Ned. If you don’t give them to her there’ll be ructions from Auntie.’ Her turn of phrase, like her brother’s, was often crude in its humour. And if you do, there will be ructions from Ned.’

  Unexpectedly she rose, came round the table and put her arm round me.

  ‘You know I like you, don’t you, Chris? You know that what I’m saying’s really for the best?’

  ‘Things that are for the best always mean the worst for somebody,’ I said, and was astonished by my own epigram.

  ‘You should write plays like Lonsdale,’ said Ned.

  Emilie came back. She put in front of Mrs. Skelton a cloisonné ashtray fetched from the drawing-room and shiny with new cleaning. She had cleaned it so thoroughly, I noticed, that she had even managed to remove a brown stain which had been on the rim ever since I remembered it. I thought of Emilie scrubbing and scrubbing away in the kitchen, trying to quieten her sorrowful heart by this manual effort.

  Oh, thara you, Emilie,’ Mrs. Skelton said in her surprised, gracious tone. How kind! You shouldn’t have bothered.’

  Emilie took her place again at the head of the table. She stretched out her hands before her on the cloth, looked at them, locked them. For a moment she seemed to have a chairman’s authority; everyone waited for her to speak.

  She said, I am sure you are right about me. I daresay I shall like having a little place of my own to potter about in.

  That’s the spirit !’ Ned exclaimed, with a touch of that real affection which is born of relief.

  Emilie looked at me. ‘And Christine will come and see me.

  Every day,’ I said, feeling stifled with pity.

  Not every day. You will be too busy with your new home. But quite often.’

  So there it was. My life was ordered. We sold our house for a fair enough price, and Emilie decided what she would want to take (little enough), what I should take (there would be no need for Ned to buy much furniture, which was fortunate, as money seemed rather short again), and what we should put in store. She would sell nothing, not a single white elephant. My father had known them all—had touched them all.

  The wedding was fixed for the last day of the month. Ned’s friend Harris, whom I did not care about, was to be his best man. Apart from Aunt Emilie and the Skeltons there were to be no guests but Dicky, Caroline and Miss Rosoman. I agreed, with a doubtful heart, that it was idiotic to slpash’ (Ned’s word) on a reception money we would need to make our home nice. It was all very sensible.

  A fortnight before the wedding was to take place I went to Kensington to buy my dress, and I took Caroline with me. Her presence made me cheerful and full of hope. She could not have appeared more excited if the marriage were to be her own, to someone with whom she was in love. Damn superstition, Christie! You’re not going to prance around in nasty powder blue. It’s so minnie-ann. You buy green— it suits you.’ I hesitated over the fantastic luxury of green shoes; they would be no use to me afterwards. Darling,’ said Caroline, exuding her sweet breath and her familiar odour of Paris Soir, you’re not going to get a bloody old kettle from me. I’d be sick if I gave you a kettle. I’m going to give you the shoes.’ She added, You’ll get the kettle, of course. Peter’ (her husband) will give it you. He’s got to show willing.’

  Tall, fair, flippant, courageous, full of humour and impenetrable within, having come to terms with her own defeat, she rushed me up and down the great shop, making this an adventure for us both. I loved her. She was no older than I, but so far removed from me in experience that she gave me a feeling of permanence and safety.

  We sat down, exhausted, to a tea of rich cream cakes. ‘You haven’t introduced him to dear Iris again?’ No,’ I replied firmly.

  ‘I don’t think he’d like her. But I shouldn’t take risks, if I were you. Do you know,’ Caroline added, hitching her fur as she had seen smarter, more carefree women do, blowing the smoke out thoughtfully from her broad and rose-coloured lips, that if Iris were defunct, she would be the one Dead of whom I could speak ill without a shred—a shred, darling—of compunction?’

  She added, If she only took what she wanted I could bear it. But she will persist in taking what she doesn’t, and mauling it round in her little hot paws till it’s all messy, and then handing it back to you with a lovely generous smile. Not, mark you, that little So-and-so was worth my tears.’ She never mentioned the name of the young man Iris had spoiled for her.

  ‘I don’t think he was,’ I said.

  I know he wasn’t. But it’s the principle of the thing.’

  The band, behind a fence of golden basket-work, played a Strauss waltz. Most of the women around us were middle-aged or elderly. They wore hats with much trimming. They had flowery, powdery faces which, among the gilt, the glitter, the asparagus fern, the clustering of rosy lights, looked like blots of blossom in a herbaceous border. The atmosphere of tea-time intimacy gave me courage to ask Caroline the question I could have asked nobody else.

  Oh, that.’ She took a moment before replying, anxious to do her best. Well, darling, it varies between person and person, I believe. I’m entirely Pro myself. But don’t expect to have a good time right away—perhaps not for a couple of months, even more. If people would only realise that it would save so much fuss and flap.’ She looked at me, considering, weighing up what she knew of my physiognomy and temperament. I expect you’ll be Pro, darling. In fact, I’m sure you will.’

  I was comforted. I had never known Caroline so eloquent in order to be kind; for her, this had been a long speech. I asked her anxiously h
ow she had found Ned when he took her for a drink.

  ‘Oh, I think he’s a dear old thing,’ she said, not meaning to refer to his age at all but rather to assure me that she could speak of him in the same terms in which she spoke of Dicky and Take Plato. Simply sweet.’ It was the idlest of comments, but well meant. He’s madly in love with you. Only one topic, dear, on and on; it would have been boring if you hadn’t been my co-mate.’ (This was our private word for friendship, ever since, as children, we had been taken to As You Like It.)

  The last jealousy was allayed. I smiled at her as she made up her mouth.

  ‘We won’t lose each other, will we,’ I asked her, ‘after I’m married?’ I told her she was the only close friend I had ever wished to have.

  ‘We don’t get in each other’s way,’ she replied, that’s what it is.’

  It was true. We did not. We had no need to. We did not even have to see each other often; our intimacy would always begin again at the moment where we had left it off, smoothly, without any introductory fencing. I was glad Ned liked her, and that she seemed mildly to like him. This, at least, was left me.

  At the office there was much whispering behind my back. They were planning my wedding-present.

  ‘It’s a roody great basket of a clock,’ Hatton confided in me at lunch-time; ordinary, that’s what I told them. I wanted to give you a picture. I saw a beauty going cheap, down my way, sunset on the snow, whoo! You could imagine you was there.’

  Miss Rosoman seemed more excited than I was. I don’t know how you can keep so calm! I wouldn’t be able to type a line.’

  Mr. Baynard, inexplicably cross as usual, made a point of speculating, with every appearance of delight, upon my successor. I expect we’ll get a real Junior, junior-trained. A nice little girl, fresh from Pitman’s or Gregg’s, that’s the idea, only he will go to these agencies and get ones too big for their boots. I expect the new one will really enjoy our filing-system. You don’t see many like ours.’