The Summer House Party

by Caro Fraser

  ‘Yes.’ Meg couldn’t fight the blush which rose to her cheeks. ‘He and Diana have had the place redecorated. He wanted to show me.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll have one.’ Helen tugged at the bell on the wall. ‘I’ve had such a busy day.’

  ‘Your days are always busy, Mother. I don’t know where you get the energy. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go straight upstairs to unpack, then get to bed.’ She kissed her mother. ‘It’s lovely to be back. Aunt Sonia is a dear, but it’s been somewhat dreary down in Surrey. Enjoy your sherry.’

  On her way out she bumped into Dora, the maid, in the doorway.

  ‘Hello, Dora. Here I am, back, like a bad penny.’

  ‘Nice to see you, I’m sure, miss.’

  ‘A sherry, please, Dora,’ said Helen. ‘Sleep well, darling,’ she called after her daughter.

  When Dora had brought the sherry, Helen sat by the fire, sipping it and mulling over the matter of Meg and Paul. She already knew from Sonia that he had been down to Woodbourne House several times in the past months, and both sisters had surmised that Meg must be the reason. Well, thought Helen, Meg might do a good deal worse. Paul was something of a stuffed shirt, but he was handsome, well bred, and possessed a nice lot of money. All in all, he would do very well.

  *

  Paul’s courtship of Meg was careful and conventional. Two or three times a week he would pick her up from her mother’s house in Cheyne Walk and take her out for the evening. They would go for dinner, perhaps to the theatre or cinema, once for a long, wrapped-up weekend walk in Green Park followed by supper at the flat. His physical approach to her was circumspect, never moving beyond kisses. He didn’t kiss her the way Dan had – that had been impulsive and delicious – but decorously and gently. Meg tested her heart constantly for feelings of love, but because she had never been in love, she didn’t quite know what it was she was looking for. Sometimes, rather than feeling that she and Paul were building something together, she had a sense of simply being absorbed into Paul’s existence, filling in a predetermined place in his life-plan. But the notion did not trouble her often.

  Conviction came one sleety November Sunday, when they had driven to a pub in Kent for lunch. While Meg sat toasting her legs by the warmth of the pub fire, she looked across at Paul standing at the bar. The sight of his tall, broad-shouldered figure, his face in profile as he chatted to the barmaid, brought such a rush of feeling that she was convinced she must love him. All her life she had trusted and looked up to him; now all she had to do was to say the word, and she would have his love and protection for ever. What more could any woman want?

  Diana, of course, was in favour of Paul and Meg’s relationship. She knew there were any number of young women in London who would have given their eye teeth to land a catch like Paul, and had no wish to have some greedy, calculating beauty marry Paul for his money and then make him miserable. She was protective of her older brother, knowing only too well that the instincts that made him honourable and decent – and sometimes a little stuffy – tended to blind him to faults in people. Not that Paul, to the best of her knowledge, had ever had a relationship with any woman. He preferred the company of men. But Meg was sweet and kind, and Diana was convinced that if she loved Paul, then she would make him very happy. Whether or not Meg did truly love him was something Diana could not properly gauge. She knew that Meg had adored Paul since girlhood, seeing him as some kind of paragon, and wondered if this wasn’t simply a continuation of that state of mind. Even if it was, she decided, it was a pretty good basis for love, and she approved of the prospect of having Meg as a sister-in-law.

  One afternoon in early December, after an afternoon spent shopping in Bond Street, Diana and Meg went for tea at Fortnum’s, just around the corner from Paul’s club. Paul had arranged to meet them there. They found a table and sank into the seats in happy exhaustion, setting their purchases on the floor around them.

  ‘Thank goodness to be out of that wind,’ remarked Meg, removing her hat. She took her compact from her handbag and snapped it open, inspected her reflection and rearranged some stray curls.

  Diana signalled to a waitress and ordered tea, then disappeared to the powder room.

  It was as she was putting away her compact that Meg saw, with a pang, Dan’s letter lying crumpled at the bottom of her bag. The bag itself was one she hadn’t used since she had returned from Woodbourne House, so the letter had been there for over a month, she realised, and she had entirely forgotten to reply. She took the envelope out and smoothed it. He would think her horribly rude. She sat, letter in hand, feeling strangely bereft.

  Diana came back and sat down. She saw Meg’s face, and glanced at the letter, and at the dashing, distinctive handwriting. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Do you happen to have Dan Ranscombe’s telephone number?’

  ‘My dear, what on earth makes you ask that?’

  ‘It’s just that he wrote to me while I was at Woodbourne House, and I never replied. I’ve come across the letter now, in my bag. I feel so awful. He gave me his telephone number, too, but I can’t for the life of me think where I put it. I feel I should at least get in touch with him. We got on so terribly well, and had such fun. I don’t want him to think me rude. Do you happen to have it?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe I do,’ said Diana, as tea arrived. The waitress set out the plates of sandwiches and cakes.

  ‘Perhaps Paul does,’ said Meg. ‘I’ll ask him.’

  Diana gave Meg a glance. ‘Is that wise?’

  Meg met her gaze. ‘I suppose not.’ She put the letter back in her bag.

  ‘Actually,’ went on Diana, ‘I saw Dan a while ago at a cocktail party. He was all on his lonesome, and then two hours later at Quaglino’s he’d acquired some very pretty creature. With Dan it’s a never-ending stream of girls. He doesn’t change. Oh look, here’s Paul.’ She gave a smile and waved to her brother.

  As Paul crossed the tea room, Meg hastily tucked the letter back in her bag.

  At home that evening, she emptied the contents of the handbag on to her bed. She gathered up her lipstick, comb, powder compact and purse and put them on her dressing table. The letter lay on the eiderdown. She picked it up and thrust it back into the bag, which she threw into the bottom of her wardrobe. She needn’t feel bad about it. Evidently Dan had enough to occupy him without being bothered about whether or not she answered his letter. No doubt he had forgotten all about her.

  8

  DAN HAD BEEN confident that Meg would reply to his letter, that they would then see one another in London, and that an extremely satisfying romance would then take its course – completely eclipsing Paul – and he felt quite galled when no reply came. He checked the post every morning and evening, but by the end of November he no longer expected anything. He tried to pretend that he wasn’t in the least concerned – not every woman could be a conquest, after all – but Meg haunted his thoughts in a way that he found disconcerting.

  In the first week of December Mr Hitchcock, Dan’s editor, called him into his office. He held out a couple of theatre tickets.

  ‘These any use to you? They’re for that new hit play, French Without Tears, at the Criterion. Vera and I were going tonight, but our first grandchild has just made her entrance into the world, so we’re obliged to motor to Oxford to pay homage. They’re rather good seats in the stalls. I don’t want any money. I just don’t want to see them go to waste. Here – take them, and enjoy yourself.’

  Dan rang Harry Denholm and offered him the other ticket. Harry would normally have affected to despise light theatrical comedy, but as he had nothing to conceal from Dan and as the prospect of seeing a smash West End hit for free was too tempting, he accepted with alacrity.

  The play was a roaring success, as it had been every night since it opened, and the stalls seats were among the best in the house. At the end of the evening, as he and Harry emerged from the theatre with the rest of the crowd, Dan heard a shrill female voice calling his nam
e. ‘Mr Ranscombe! Dan!’

  Dan turned and saw Elizabeth Cunliffe, swathed in furs, bobbing towards him through the crowd. They shook hands, and Dan introduced Harry, casually dropping in the fact that Harry was the proprietor of Ire. There was always the possibility that forging a connection with a poet as eminent as Gerald Cunliffe might be of some advantage to Harry.

  ‘An arts magazine? How interesting,’ breathed Elizabeth. ‘I must ask my husband if he knows it.’

  ‘Mrs Cunliffe’s husband is the poet, Gerald Cunliffe,’ Dan told Harry, who nodded and murmured appreciatively, though Dan could guess what Harry probably privately thought of Gerald Cunliffe’s school of poetry.

  ‘Have you been to the play?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Yes, and wasn’t it just too wonderful? I do adore Kay Hammond, and that young man Rex Harrison is a perfect revelation! I loved every minute.’

  ‘Is Gerald with you?’

  ‘He’s somewhere trying to find a taxi. Of course, he grumbled all the way here, saying that if James Agate didn’t like the play, he was sure he wouldn’t either. But he roared with laughter all the way through. I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in years.’ Her expression turned grave, and she laid a hand on Dan’s arm. ‘Of course, I haven’t seen you since we were together at Woodbourne House. What a ghastly turn of events. I understand you were absolutely there when it happened?’

  ‘Yes – it was ghastly, as you say.’

  ‘Meg told me all about it. I had a little soirée a few weeks ago, and she came with Paul Latimer. Did you know that they’re very much a couple these days?’

  ‘I’d heard something,’ replied Dan.

  ‘I’m having a cocktail party at Christmas, and they will be there, so you must come, too. And do bring Mr Denholm.’ She flashed Harry a smile. ‘You know,’ she added, ‘after Henry died, dear Sonia was kind enough to send me my portrait, the one Henry painted of me. It was such a thoughtful thing to do, given that she had so many other things to think about. I have it hanging in the library, above the fireplace. You will see it when you come at Christmas. I suppose it must have been the last thing he painted. It makes it even more special, somehow.’

  Inevitably Elizabeth moved on to the topic of the abdication – people had talked of little else for the past few days – until at last Gerald Cunliffe appeared, slightly out of breath, to announce to his wife that a taxi was waiting round the corner. Dan greeted him, and hastily introduced Harry, but it was evident Gerald was anxious to be getting home.

  ‘I’ve invited Dan and his friend to our little Christmas gathering,’ said Elizabeth, gathering her furs around her.

  Gerald nodded. ‘Yes, yes – of course you must come.’

  Elizabeth twinkled her fingers at them. ‘So delightful to see you again! Goodnight!’

  The Cunliffes departed for their taxi, and Dan and Harry headed towards Soho.

  *

  A week later, when Paul and Meg were in a taxi en route to dinner, Paul mentioned that Elizabeth Cunliffe had been in touch, asking for Dan’s address.

  ‘You remember Dan? Fair chap from the house party? She wants to invite him to her Christmas cocktail party.’

  ‘Yes, of course I remember him.’

  ‘I thought at one point you were a bit sweet on him,’ said Paul. ‘I was mightily jealous, I can tell you.’

  ‘What rot. We played tennis a few times, that’s all.’

  ‘Mm. I recall you preferred playing with him to me.’

  ‘That’s because you always let me beat you. Dan at least gave me a proper game. He didn’t patronise me.’

  ‘Ouch!’ laughed Paul. He gave her a tender glance. ‘Come here.’ He drew Meg towards him and kissed her. Meg returned the kiss reluctantly. She really wished Dan’s name hadn’t come up. She felt bad about not having replied to his letter, and the prospect of meeting him at the Cunliffes’ made her uncomfortable.

  *

  The next day Meg went Christmas shopping, and came home in a state of some triumph.

  ‘At last,’ she told her mother, ‘I’ve found the perfect present for Paul.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s a portable gramophone, in the nicest red leather case. I’m having it delivered.’

  ‘Hard to imagine what Paul’s musical tastes run to,’ remarked Helen, who was sitting by the fire opening Christmas cards which had come in the afternoon post. ‘Rather old-fashioned, one imagines. Gilbert and Sullivan and a bit of Elgar, possibly.’

  It occurred to Meg that she didn’t really know what Paul’s taste in music was. Whenever they were out together at dinner, he didn’t pay any attention to the band, and he didn’t really care much for dancing – although he did it to please Meg. She would make a safe selection of popular songs.

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ Helen laid down her letter knife. ‘You simply won’t believe…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a letter from Sonia. That girl who was Avril’s nanny, Madeleine. She’s come back to Woodbourne House. She’s pregnant.’

  ‘No!’

  Helen turned the page and read on. ‘It seems that her grandmother turned her out, and she had nowhere else to go. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.’

  Meg’s thoughts turned instantly to that moment last year at the picnic, when they had found Madeleine and Charles Asher together in the woods. It looked as though Paul had been right. Clearly things had at some point gone further than anyone had guessed.

  Helen handed the letter to Meg. ‘Here, I think this last part is meant for you.’

  Meg took the letter and read.

  She will not say a word to me about who the father is. I think she might be more forthcoming with someone closer to her own age, and wondered if Meg might find time to pay a visit before Christmas? It is a great deal to ask, I know, but I am at my wits’ end as to how to deal with this dilemma.

  Meg looked at her mother. ‘She wants me to go to Woodbourne. I will, of course, if she thinks it will help. I’ll go and telephone her now.’

  *

  Two days later Meg took the train to Surrey. When she arrived at Woodbourne House Avril scampered to the door to greet her and announced, ‘Madeleine’s come back!’

  Meg bent to kiss Avril. ‘Has she? Well, how nice.’

  ‘Miss Bissett doesn’t like her.’

  ‘That’s quite enough, Avril,’ said Sonia briskly. ‘Upstairs with you now.’

  When Meg had taken off her coat, she followed Sonia through to the little sitting room, where a cheerful fire burned in the grate and tea was laid out.

  Meg sat down and Sonia poured tea. She handed Meg a cup. ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming. Such a crisis.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘My dear, I haven’t the faintest idea. She only arrived here four days ago, with her pathetic little suitcase, and not even a proper winter coat. She was chilled to the bone, and seemed to me to be running a temperature. So I called Dr Egan, and that’s when I found out. And to think this Cole woman simply sent her packing. It’s perfectly monstrous behaviour. How could she behave so callously? The girl seems more upset by her grandmother’s treatment of her than her own predicament. I suppose the reality hasn’t quite sunk in.’

  ‘How many months?’

  ‘Around four, according to Dr Egan. Give or take.’ Sonia met Meg’s eye. ‘Exactly. It must have happened while she was here during summer, but she absolutely refuses point-blank to say who the father is. It’s impossible to get a word out of her. Not that it was an easy subject to broach in the first place.’

  ‘And you think she might be more willing to confide in someone closer to her own age?’

  ‘That was my hope.’

  ‘I’ll speak to her after tea, if you like.’

  ‘I’d be so grateful, my dear.’

  There was silence for a moment, then Meg asked, ‘Will she have the baby here?’

  ‘I don’t see a choice. Oh, I know there are homes for unmarried mothers,
but I wouldn’t countenance sending her to one of those. Olive was my dear friend, and Madeleine is her daughter.’ Another silence ensued, then Sonia said, ‘But a baby – I simply can’t imagine…’

  Neither could Meg. If Madeleine could be persuaded to admit that Charles Asher was the father, then it would be up to Charles to take responsibility. He was possibly in Spain – at least, that had been his plan a few months ago – but he would have to come back at some point.

  ‘So,’ said Sonia, refreshing their teacups, ‘let’s talk of happier things. Tell me all that’s been happening to you in London.’

  Meg told her aunt all about Paul, and Sonia received the confidence with the satisfaction of one who had predicted the whole affair months before.

  ‘I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. He’ll be lucky to have you as a wife.’

  Meg laughed in surprise. ‘Well, things haven’t got quite that far.’

  ‘Trust me – men like Paul Latimer don’t trifle in such matters. I knew in August he had his eye on you.’

  Meg fell silent. The thought of surrendering her life to Paul, to building a home and a family with him, was both daunting and exciting. As though divining her thoughts, Sonia added, ‘And you would be equally lucky to have him as a husband. You wouldn’t have to face the struggles that so many young couples have when they’re starting out.’

  ‘I won’t pretend I haven’t thought about it. But I always imagined marriage as a partnership of equals, and Paul already has so much. He has a splendid life. If I were to marry him, I would simply be, well, grafting myself on to it. Nothing so romantic as struggling together. There would be none of that. He talks of buying some grand house in Berkshire, and if I were his wife I would be put in charge of it without having the first idea how to run it.’

  ‘No woman has the faintest idea how to run a house until she has one of her own. It’s all trial and error. My dear, when Henry and I set up our first home – oh, the disasters! But I have every confidence in you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think we should be speculating on such things,’ said Meg firmly. ‘There hasn’t been the faintest mention of marriage.’