by Betty Burton
‘Dear Victoria, do you carry your soap-box everywhere?’
She smiled, quite unabashed. ‘I have never used a soapbox – much too insubstantial. Bottle-crates are the thing. There, now I have had my say, tell me of the recent life and times of Jack Moth.’
‘Since we last met, I have become a qualified and fully paid-up member of the legal profession.’
‘That is wonderful news. I dare say your father and sister are very proud of you.’
When he had told him, his father had said: ‘Well then, that’s one up for the Moths, the first lawyer this family has ever known.’
He had not congratulated, or complimented. Jack knew that he had done extremely well to have been taken into a practice so soon. Junior though he might be, it was an achievement, and he would have liked his father to have acknowledged it. Jack knew that had he asked: ‘Aren’t you pleased, Father?’ his father would have looked puzzled and said: ‘Pleased? Why do you need to ask? You know that I am pleased, what else should I be?’
‘Oh yes, I believe that he is. But I think that he would have preferred it if I had joined the police force.’
He watched her eating. Her lips were full and red, her white teeth grew slightly forward at the front of her upper jaw and peeped from her mouth, often giving her expression a slightly surprised look. He liked the way she bit honestly into her food. She did not toy or fiddle with what she was eating.
He imagined that this was how she would be with physical love. When she was hungry, she would accept and enjoy fulfilment. How amazingly wonderful if that were true. He heard such tales of failed marriages. Of husbands who were shocked into celibacy to discover that the angelic creatures they imagined they had married had proved to have carnal appetites. And wives who had been trained from girlhood to expect nothing except that men were born to lustfulness and fornication, and had discovered that it was indeed the truth.
Today, beneath a wide hat, she wore her heavy copper-coloured hair piled on the crown of her head. All around her hairline the new hair curled and twisted and gave her head a delightfully opulent look. It suddenly occurred to him that this room – with its exotic columns of white and dark orange, its warm, tan-coloured frieze and floor tiles, the fresh luminescence of its wall panels and the beautiful north light coming in through the bluely decorated figured glass of the arched windows – was, if such a thing was not wildly fanciful, a Victoria Ormorod of a room. Exotic, striking, unforgettable. And as he had been drawn back to the room again and again since he was a young boy, so he felt drawn by this enigmatic woman.
She must know that I am examining her. Any other woman would blush and fuss and be coy. He wondered now, as he had done on other occasions, why he felt a slight tingle of apprehension in her company. He longed for her, was sure that what he felt was love, so why did he have that little niggle of unsuredness? Had she not been the splendid Victoria Ormorod, he would have flirted with her.
‘Victoria. It wasn’t chance that brought me to Hyde Park this morning. I came looking for you.’
‘Well, and so you found me.’
‘Marry me, Victoria.’ He had known that this was what he wanted to say; and now it was said, inelegantly blurted out. ‘I want nothing more in the world than that you be Jack Moth’s wife.’
‘Oh Jack!’ She reached out and laid a hand upon his. Her green eyes looked at him straight on, and then, as their truth-seeking gaze penetrated him, he suddenly realized that those tingles of apprehension she caused him were because she brought to mind a tutor he once had as a young boy. The man had been kindness and understanding itself, and in character so straight that little Jack was never able to hide anything bad on his conscience and had always confessed without pressure.
‘And…’ He took her hand in both of his. ‘And I have to tell you so that you will not think that I have deceived you. I have… Oh, Victoria, I am sorry… no, not sorry, that is the wrong word, but I wish that my conscience did not lead me to do it.’
She seemed to look right into him; when she spoke it was with a wry chuckle deep in her throat. ‘Aren’t consciences the very devil, Jack? Mine leads me to stand up in public and harangue passers-by, and I guess that yours has led you to enlist.’
Again he remembered his boyhood tutor: ‘I say this to you more in sadness than anger, young Moth.’
I can’t take her on. He thought that she was like a client who, in the interest of truth, refuses to plead ‘Not Guilty’, even though that plea is the way the game is played to get a hearing.
‘Yes… Yes, it is true, how did you guess?’ The Gamble Room was now almost full. China and cutlery clattered and people’s voices hummed. Occasionally the musky smell of the gallery wafted in to mingle with the aroma of tea and grilled food. She bent forward slightly so as not to raise her voice above the level of background noise.
‘I can think of nothing else that you would feel it necessary to confess to me.’
‘I am not a poor man, Victoria. I recently inherited a house from an uncle. My sister lives there, but it would be yours if anything were to happen to me.’
‘Jack, Jack. Is this what war does to people? You ask me to marry you in one breath, and in the next you tell me of the arrangement for widowhood. Come, let us go outside.’
They walked out into Exhibition Road, across Kensington Road, through the Alexandra Gate and on towards the Round Pond where they sat and watched small boys guiding model boats with hooks, and small boys watching them.
‘Sundays are changing, Jack. Would you have been allowed to sail a boat on a Sunday?’
‘It was a serious proposal of marriage, Victoria.’
‘I know that, and I do not know what to say to you. I can give you none of the conventional replies.’
‘A simple “Yes” would do.’
‘I am sorry, Jack. I like you very much. I have since the first time I set eyes upon you.’
‘You surely don’t think that the difference in our ages…?’ He thought of Esther and Bindon, Esther being years his junior, and yet their marriage was as solid as could be. They were deeply in love. When they had returned from their honeymoon, he had envied them their evident ecstasy. He longed for the same between himself and Victoria.
‘No, no.’ She squeezed his arm in emphasis. ‘Age is an irrelevance. If you were fifty and I eighteen, it would still be an irrelevance.’
‘And the opposite age difference?’
‘It would still be only a matter for ourselves. I shall not marry, Jack. I made up my mind to that when I chose my own name – I knew that I would never change it. We women have few enough rights as it is, even fewer rights within marriage. In law, a wife has little except the right to be got out of debt by her husband – she has not even the right to her own body.’
‘But these husbands are not me. I adore you, Victoria. And I adore your body so much that I should respect it to the nth degree.’
‘My dearest, Jack, of course you would. I like the kind of man that you are, but I should make you no sort of a wife. In the first place, I have my work in the movement which I shall never give up until men have equality with one another and women have equality with men. But within the law as it now stands…’ She broke off and laughed her free, deep-throated laugh. ‘Goodness! Listen to the Ruby Bice coming out in me. I had quite forgot I was talking to a fully paid-up member of the legal profession.’
He faced her. ‘Marry me. Forget Ruby Bice and become Victoria Moth.’
She touched his cheek affectionately. ‘Would you care to become Jack Ormorod?’
He smiled at the notion. ‘Change my name to yours?’
‘More than that. I mean would you give up entirely who you have been for twenty-odd years? Would you marry me and become Mister Victoria Ormorod, so that you have no status except what is given you by virtue of being married? Would you care not to be Jack Moth any more, but Mrs Victoria Ormorod’s husband?’
He leaned a little away from her, not understanding her expression. ‘A
re you serious?’
Wryly smiling, she shook her head. ‘No, dear Jack. I wouldn’t ask a man to be subjugated to such an extent. Equally, neither shall I. My grandmother taught me the skill of midwifery and left me a little money in order that I should not need to rely on a man to provide for me. I shall never marry.’
‘How can you be so sure? You may well fall so much in love that…’
Unheedful of the Sunday afternoon promenaders in Kensington Gardens, she pulled Jack Moth’s head down to her own level and kissed him on the lips as expressively as she had done when he was a youth.
‘Jack Moth. I quite fell for you when we met at Southsea, but on that last night you were in too much of a state of anguish for me to be able to tell you.’ She held on to his hand tightly. ‘You have no idea of the nervous energy that is required to keep people with my convictions going. We’re harassed by police, we’re lonely and the world is hostile to us. I wouldn’t inflict myself upon you. If you want me, be content to have me as I am, separate and independent.’
For a while he was silent, then he said, ‘I have only a short time before I must report to my unit. Will you come to Dorset with me?’
‘To Dorset?’
‘Mere, the house that was left to me, it is on the outskirts of Lyme Regis.’
‘I… Yes, all right, I have not had a break from campaigning for months. I am sure the group will agree to my going.’
‘My niece is to be christened, you could meet my family.’
The awful feather that the woman had stuck in his lapel that morning had been there ever since. Now he removed it and was about to throw it in the gutter when she stopped him. ‘No, give it to me as a token.’
He threaded the quill end through a buttonhole of her bodice. ‘A token of what?’
She considered. ‘Of the many kinds of love that people can experience.’
—
Mere Manor, Meldrum, Nr Lyme Regis
Dear Otis,
It was good to hear from you. This is a very beautiful place, but it can be quite lonely. Of course I have Baby and Bindon, but no one to talk with. I do keep bright and smiling for them, but there are moments when I should simply like to ‘let go’ and have a good moan. I am sure that the mothers of ‘your’ children would be disgusted with such a whimperish creature. Truly, I am not, and if you were to come I vow that I should not spend the time close to your ear. I have so wanted to talk with you about things that cannot be said in a letter, and look forward to hearing more about your classroom experiences.
My true purpose in writing this letter is to remind you that you once promised to become one of Baby’s godmothers. The christening is to be at Easter. Jack and a distant cousin of Bindon’s are to be the other godparents. Easter is a good time to come to Lyme, for it is particularly beautiful at this time of year.
Your affectionate friend,
Esther Blood
—
Provided Otis did not appear at Greywell in her sensible working dress and shoes, her mother was not so inclined these days to take up the cause of Otis’s ringless fingers. If she appeared in something stylish and wearing long earrings and a little of the expensive perfume with which Emily kept her daughter amply supplied, then Otis was deemed to be in the marriage market. For a number of reasons, Otis still had most of her mail addressed to Stormont Road. She was pleased to notice Esther’s handwriting on one of the envelopes.
In the conservatory warmed by strong spring sunshine, Emily poured tea for her daughter. ‘You will go of course, Otis. I saw reference to Mere Manor in a magazine recently – just architecture, of course, not the family.’
‘With Jack not there, then there really isn’t a Mere family.’
‘Quite. Have you seen anything of Jack Moth recently?’
‘Mother! Stop Mrs Benneting. Jack Moth is not at all interested in me.’
Emily Hewetson’s wits were at their most sharp when it came to the prospect of coupling her daughter with some eligible male, so she noticed that Otis did not say: Stop it. I am not at all interested in Jack Moth. Well, there was hope still. If only Otis were living at home, then Jack Moth might easily have been invited to dinner at Greywell. As it was, all that Emily could do was to encourage and hope that a long weekend on a lovely estate like Mere might work wonders.
‘You have been looking quite peaked, it would put my mind at ease if you were to accept the Bloods’ invitation and take a few days breathing the clean air of Lyme.’
* * *
Esther looked forward to the weekend. Otis had said that she would be able to get there. Their friendship might have got off to a rickety start after Bognor, but it had endured. Both young women had other friendships, but this one was the one they each valued higher than the rest.
Esther felt that this was not the time for Jack to invite an outsider, but it was Jack’s home and Jack was very dear to her. She knew that he had been interested in the woman since the year that their mother died, but he had seldom mentioned her except in passing or to say that he had heard her speak at some meeting, and now here he was saying that he had invited her to spend Easter.
George Moth looked forward to the weekend. Quite apart from his desire to see Esther and Kitt, he had the notion that if he saw Otis and Esther with their girlish heads together as they used to do before Esther married and Otis went to college, then he might be able to get her in a more acceptable perspective. Whenever he pushed a ring of cigar smoke from his mouth with his tongue, his mind went to her with her hair swathed in satin and wearing that clinging rose-coloured gown and glittering ear-rings. There were times when he felt perturbed at his desire for a girl of his daughter’s age, and there were times, when he was in Effee Tessalow’s paid arms, that it seemed most natural for a virile man to want a youthful woman. And there were times when he realized that he was a grandfather, and that he must be an old fool. The truth was that he found her self-possession stimulating and she fascinated him.
Jack was glad to be going to Mere, because he wanted Victoria to be with Ess and Bindon, Kitt and his father, to enjoy Mere in the hope that she would be won over by the idea of becoming part of the Moth family.
Victoria wondered how she had ever been tempted to accept Jack Moth’s invitation. Easter was always a time when crowds gathered in London parks, and Ruby Red would be expected to be there, persuading the crowds, instead of spending time with an army volunteer. There was so much to do and so few people to do it that there was no room in her life for any more disastrous romantic interludes. After Tankredi… I promised myself, no involvement. Why am I never attracted to an easy man? Always such unsuitable liaisons.
Otis, even when her bags were packed and she was ready to leave for the station, was still not sure that it would not have been best for her to have made her excuses. Lately her rest had been disturbed by erotic dreams. She could deal with the eroticism but not with the upheaval she caused herself when she tried to analyse her own emotions. Often she longed for her old college coterie of modern young women who would soon discover the meaning of her dreams.
Helene would say, exaggerating her lisping French accent: La, theece eez easy, all that you need eez the tor… so? eh? of a young man.
Zena would say, ‘Or of a young woman.’ Linking her arms about Otis as she would do any of the coterie when she was in one of her half-playful seductive moods.
How simple it had all been then, talking up their emotions, their fantasies, their encounters and affairs. In their earnest discussion, usually about themselves, they would often account for their moods by blaming lack of physical fulfilment. Pleased with themselves that they had escaped their mamas and were modern enough young women to discuss such problems with dignity.
Well then, Helene would say to wind up their discussion, shall we all go away from Stockwell and find ourselves a beau wiz a diamond reeng? And then they would laugh at the very idea.
But, as Otis admitted to herself now, the problem of single women who did not have Zena�
�s inclination to love women, was not an easy one to solve. When taking a vacation in beautiful surroundings in the company of tall, broad men, the Good Teacher will always be on her guard.
And on her guard she was when she followed her porter the length of the platform to look for a suitable seat on the Exeter train on which two tall, broad men were known to be travelling.
The compartments were already filling. Jack Moth, who had secured a compartment, greeted her warmly. She had not foreseen the presence of another woman. Clearly she was with Jack.
George Moth fetched magazines and saw to their bags with his usual charm and courtesy. Once they were settled into the journey, Otis and the Moths inevitably talked of Esther, and for a while Victoria was outside of their circle, though it appeared to Otis that she did not in the least mind but listened to their conversation with interest. Otis was preoccupied trying to place her. She did not recognize the woman’s name, but was sure that she remembered having seen her before today.
‘What is the baby to be named, Jack?’ Victoria asked.
‘Lord!’ he answered, ‘Ess never calls it anything except “Baby”, do you know, Otis?’
‘No, I don’t know either. Perhaps she is to be christened “Baby”.’
‘“Baby Blood”! Strewth, poor little tadpole. Here’s Father back from the smoker.’ George Moth took his seat in the corner opposite Otis. ‘Father, what is this baby to be called?’
‘You will be ashamed of us, Inspector Moth,’ Otis exclaimed. ‘Three godparents on their way to a christening and none of us knows the baby’s name.’
‘Stephanie Anne, as far as I know,’ said George Moth.
Victoria Ormorod, in a low, quiet voice, said, ‘I am sorry, you are mistaken, I am not a godparent.’
‘Ah… I am afraid I assumed… I am sure that your face is familiar to me, I thought that you were Bindon’s… Perhaps we met at Esther’s wedding?’