by David Lodge
‘How did you seduce him – if I may be so bold?’ he asked.
‘Henning was in England for a while, dithering about whether to marry me, and I let him know I would be staying one weekend at a hotel in Goring-on-Thames with just a nominal chaperone, and he rose to the bait. I lost my virginity to the sound of the river lapping below my window. It was the only romantic element in the experience.’
‘But you went ahead and married him.’
‘I had to. I suppose I thought the physical side of marriage would be bound to improve – but it didn’t. It was a few minutes’ pleasure for him and nine months of pregnancy for me. He kept making me pregnant because he desperately wanted a son. I took up residence in Nassenheide – that’s the estate in the book – to get some respite from perpetual child-bearing, because he didn’t really like the place, and preferred to stay in our Berlin apartment. Then he took a mistress.’
‘And you found consolation in your garden.’
‘More in writing about it. The garden in the book is mostly fantasy, really – people who read about it were very disappointed when they saw the real thing. I had resigned myself to living without knowing real love, and like many another woman before me, I sought fulfilment in literary creation.’
‘But now you are free to find real love,’ he said, smiling, and turning upon her the blue-grey eyes whose gaze he had been told was so hypnotic.
She met it with cool composure, and an enigmatic smile. ‘Yes, I suppose I am,’ she said. ‘If I can find the right man.’
He escorted her to the Hampstead Tube station, and held on to her hand for some time when he took it in his to say goodbye. ‘We must meet again,’ he said.
‘I would like to,’ she said. ‘I’m living with my sister in Haslemere at present, but I’m looking for a flat in London.’
‘Haslemere!’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s a farm near there with a guesthouse where I sometimes go to work. I was thinking of going there again.’ This thought had in fact occurred a fraction of a second before he uttered it.
‘Well, if you do … be sure to let me know.’
‘I will.’ He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Au revoir, then.’
‘Au revoir.’ She smiled, and walked away towards the turnstiles, her neat rounded rear swaying under her tailored coat.
The next morning he scribbled a letter to Jane: ‘Work and the gravity of life much alleviated yesterday by the sudden eruption of the bright little Countess von Arnim at 1 with a cheerful proposal to lunch with me & go for a walk. She talks very well, she knows The New Machiavelli by heart, & I think she’s a nice little friend to have.’ He thought it prudent to add: ‘Her conversation is free but her morals are strict (sad experience has taught her that if she so much as thinks of anything she has a baby).’ After he had posted it he reflected that the afterthought had probably not been at all prudent, and that Jane would immediately guess what was in his mind.
They had not been long in residence at 17 Church Row before he realised that its purchase had been a mistake. The house was too small for their purposes, and he found it a noisy, restless environment for work. The servants went up and down on the stairs all day, and if anyone came into the drawing room, he heard them in his study through the folding partition. There were other disadvantages. The garden was a high-walled yard too small for badminton, and nothing that Jane planted there flourished. The proximity of the picturesque old church and churchyard had seemed an enhancement of the property when they bought it, but on weekdays there were frequently funeral carriages, elaborately decked out with the black trappings of mourning, waiting outside their frontage while services and interments took place, casting an air of melancholy over the street. His main complaint, however, was the lack of a quiet, secluded place to work. He had accordingly taken a small flat in Candover Street, in the nondescript area east of Great Portland Street, with a perfunctory ‘kitchenette’, as the agent called it, which he rarely used, a tiny bathroom, and a living room just big enough to contain a desk, an easy chair and a divan bed. The bed was officially for him to take a nap when he needed, or sleep in if he missed the last Tube train to Hampstead after an evening engagement, but it also served for dalliance with various ladies who solaced him for the loss of Amber. These were old flames to whom he sent signals of distress, or new acquaintances he picked up at parties or cafes and restaurants frequented by literary and artistic folk, and they slept with him out of sympathy, or for old times’ sake, or because they admired his books, or simply in return for a nice lunch. He did not think his treaty with Jane required him to report these casual couplings to her, but she must suspect that his hours at Candover Street were not dedicated exclusively to work, and it disturbed him somewhat that he was not being open with her. In Elizabeth he thought he saw the possibility of a liaison which he would not be embarrassed to own to Jane and she would be happy to accept. He was in little doubt, from their conversation on Hampstead Heath, that Elizabeth herself was looking for a lover, and had fixed her sights on him as a suitable candidate: a mature man whose intellect she admired and whose amorous appetite was legendary, but who would not wish to make her pregnant.
Accordingly he booked himself into the guest suite at Crotchet Farm near Haslemere for two weeks, to work ‘without distraction’, as he told Jane, on a new novel. It was another story of a man and a woman each struggling to find personal fulfilment against all the obstacles that a hidebound and materialistic society set in their way, but this time they would not find it necessary to commit adultery in the process because they would get married quite early in the narrative, and find redemption eventually within their marriage.
The novel was indeed to be entitled Marriage, and it was designed in part to persuade the British reading public that he was not hell-bent on destroying that revered institution, and to dissipate the aura of scandal that had attached itself to his name in recent years. In the first part of the story, already written, the heroine Marjorie married the hero, a scientist called Trafford, for love in preference to more eligible suitors, but she would fail to identify with his disinterested pursuit of knowledge. To keep her happy, and satisfy her conventional desires, he would give up research and make a fortune from the manufacture of synthetic rubber, but would eventually feel his life had become meaningless and resolve to go and live like Thoreau in the wastes of Labrador to save his soul, Marjorie to his surprise insisting on accompanying him. There they would have an adventurous near-death experience from which they would emerge strengthened and reunited in spirit, and return to England to collaborate on some kind of progressive intellectual enterprise. He had no personal knowledge of Labrador but then neither would 99.9 per cent of his readers, and he was confident he could mug up enough from books to convince them.
He combined work on this uplifting story in his mornings with the conduct of an affair with Elizabeth von Arnim in the afternoons. He called on her at her sister’s home, which was only a mile or so distant from the farm, he took her out for walks and excursions in the Surrey hills, and as the early winter darkness fell he smuggled her into his bedroom at the farm guesthouse, and demonstrated to her very satisfactorily how much sensual pleasure she had been denied as the spouse of the late Count. ‘I never felt such sensations before,’ she sighed after a gratifying orgasm. ‘And I never realised a man could go on for so long.’ She was frank and very amusing about her late husband’s deficiencies as a lover. ‘He never removed his nightshirt, and he didn’t require me to be naked either – he yanked up my nightdress like a shopkeeper raising the shutters on his premises, pushed my legs apart and got down to business immediately.’
‘Which didn’t last very long.’
‘No, but that was rather a relief, because he didn’t smell quite right.’
‘And do I smell right?’
‘You smell delicious,’ she said. ‘You smell of honey. I’d like to lick you.’
‘Please do,’ he said. ‘Anywhere that takes your fancy.’ And she did.
Although they had spoken on Hampstead Heath of her being free to find ‘real love’ the words were understood by both of them as code for ‘good sex’, so it was not necessary to pretend to be possessed by romantic passion to justify their enjoyment of each other’s bodies, or to make declarations of undying devotion when his fortnight’s residence came to an end. They parted cheerfully, agreeing to meet again when the opportunity arose, but without making any specific plans.
In fact there was a considerable hiatus in this promising relationship. Christmas and its festivities intervened, and then in the New Year he took the whole family, including Fräulein Meyer, to Wergen in the Bernese Oberland for a winter sports holiday. It was the boys’ first experience of skiing and they loved it, until, alas, there was an outbreak of influenza in the hotel which laid them all low, and they spent most of their second week in bed, and more weeks at home recuperating. Meanwhile the Countess had returned to Germany to tie up matters concerning her husband’s estate. So he got on with Marriage in Candover Street, diverted from his labours by occasional female visitors; among them, most unexpectedly, Amber.
It was entirely her initiative. She wrote asking if they could meet privately somewhere, and although he thought she was taking a fearful risk, he could not deny her. The risk to himself was negligible: if he broke the agreement he had signed there was no sanction Blanco White could invoke except the original threat to sue him for libel over Ann Veronica, and it was now too late for that. But she would be putting her marriage in jeopardy by seeing him, and he wondered if it was already in trouble. This surmise proved to be quite wrong.
She came to Candover Street looking happy and well, spoke eloquently of the joy she had in the baby Anna Jane, and showed him a photograph of their child at its christening. ‘Christening?’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I know,’ she said somewhat sheepishly, ‘but it’s only a social ritual really, and Rivers wanted her christened, so I didn’t argue.’ All her references to Blanco White were positive. ‘He’s a good father,’ she said at one point, ‘and a good husband.’ ‘I’m glad to hear you say so,’ he said, ‘since I was in a sense the matchmaker.’ ‘You were right, Master,’ she said. ‘It was the only solution.’ It gave him a thrill to hear the old term of endearment. But why had she come? She said that she was writing a novel – a new one – and wanted to give him the first few chapters to read for his opinion, but even as he agreed he thought this was more of a pretext than an explanation. He decided that it was simply an internal declaration of independence. A year ago Shaw had written a play called Misalliance, privately performed because it was far too risqué to get past the Lord Chamberlain, a kind of highbrow farce about sexual goings-on among a group of socially variegated people. The heroine, an outspoken and shameless young woman called Hypatia, was reported by several friends who saw the piece to be based on Amber. He had not seen the play, but he had read it. The glib young hussy Hypatia was a very shallow version of Amber, but she had one line that struck an authentic note: ‘I don’t want to be good and I don’t want to be bad: I just don’t want to be bothered about either good or bad: I want to be an active verb.’ Amber wanted, had always wanted, to be an active verb, not a passive one. The agreement she had entered into, to cut off all communication with him for two years, was an infringement of her liberty, and this private act of defiance was necessary to her self-respect.
He had cooled a bottle of Mosel in advance of her visit to cover any initial awkwardness or embarrassment at their first meeting after so long an interval. It proved unnecessary but it encouraged an easy flow of conversation. They spoke of old times, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with tears on her part. They sat with their arms round each other on the divan bed, and after a while it was more comfortable to lie down. They ended up performing the best active verb of all. ‘I didn’t mean to do this when I came here, Master,’ Amber said afterwards, ‘but I’m glad.’ ‘So am I, Amber,’ he said, and kissed her tenderly.
She visited him again a week later, this time with the intention of making love, but also to say it would be for the last time. ‘I didn’t want you to think I regretted what happened last week,’ she said. ‘But if we go on, Rivers is bound to find out, and I don’t want to hurt him.’ He was glad to agree. He discovered that time had healed the wound of their enforced separation. The bitterness he had felt then was a fading memory, as was the passion of their old relationship, and he had no desire to revive either of these disturbing emotions. He was trying to construct a quieter, calmer life.
Not long afterwards Elizabeth von Arnim returned to England and signalled her availability. She had acquired a flat in St James’s Court, Westminster, and wrote to say that she looked forward to entertaining him and Jane there, and perhaps meeting himself alone somewhere else. He invited her to Candover Street, and she arrived one afternoon, smartly dressed as always, but wearing a hat with an opaque veil. ‘I feel very wicked,’ she said, as she removed this piece of apparel, ‘like a character in a French novel.’ ‘Isn’t that part of the fun?’ he said, removing some other items of her clothing. ‘Goodness me!’ she said, helping him with the hooks and eyes on her costume. ‘How impatient you are!’ ‘Well, I’ve missed you,’ he said, ‘I’ve been undressing you in my head for weeks.’ ‘Have you indeed,’ she said. ‘Tut, tut.’ But he could see she was excited by this badinage and soon they were entwined on the bed in vigorous and joyful intercourse.
After they had slept briefly she showered while he made them a pot of tea, and when he came out of the kitchenette with the tray he found her demurely dressed again, every button and hook secured in its proper place. Perhaps she had found a long hair in the bathroom, or spied a hair-clip under the bed, for she said thoughtfully, as she stirred her cup, ‘Do you have other women here?’ He did not deny it. ‘If you and I are to continue as lovers that must cease,’ she said. ‘Very well,’ he said, smiling. ‘Let us make a treaty. I will give up other ladies, but you must accept that I will never give up Jane.’ ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I have no wish to come between you and your family. We must take care that she doesn’t find out.’ ‘Oh, Jane won’t mind,’ he said, and saw that this reply was a surprise, even a slight shock, to her. ‘In fact I’m sure she will approve,’ he added. ‘I see,’ she said, though he was not sure she did.
But he was right, of course. Having long accepted that she could not respond to his sexual needs, and that he would find satisfaction elsewhere, Jane preferred that it was with one person rather than several, someone she knew and respected, who could be relied upon to be responsible and discreet. The Countess von Arnim, or ‘little E’ as he now began to call her, was eminently eligible for this role, all the more because she declared her intention, while keeping her London base, of residing mainly in Switzerland, where he would be able to visit her without any embarrassing publicity. She had made a good deal of money from her play, and from the sale of the Count’s properties, to add to the royalties from her books, and she intended to use this small fortune to build herself a chalet on some mountainside in Switzerland, a country which she associated with happy times in her girlhood. He shared her enthusiasm for Switzerland, and also for house-building, and joined enthusiastically in her search for a site in the Jura, hiking by day and staying overnight in mountain chalet-inns. Fräulein Teppi Backe, who had been governess to her children and was now her companion, accompanied them for appearance’s sake, though Teppi was well aware that he found his way to E’s room most nights. On two occasions they managed to break her bed, and it amused him to observe next morning the dainty, diminutive Countess, who looked as if she weighed about six and a half stone, coolly reporting the collapse of this item of furniture to an incredulous innkeeper in her fluent but formal German. She couldn’t find a site that satisfied her exacting criteria in the Jura, so they transferred their search to the Valais area, and there discovered the ideal situation near Randogne-sur-Sierre, in the foothills below the winter sports resort of Montana, said to be t
he sunniest in the Alps, with a stunning view over the Rhône valley that opened out to include the Pennine Alps, the Mont Blanc range and the Simplon. An architect was commissioned, and designed to Elizabeth’s specifications an enormous building that was more like a chateau than a chalet, with sixteen bedrooms, four bathrooms and seven lavatories. She explained that she intended to entertain her friends there and to make it a holiday place for her children, and for their families in due course. The building work was contracted and completion promised for the autumn of the following year. It was already named by its owner, Chalet Soleil.
Meanwhile he and Jane had agreed that they wanted to get out of Hampstead and find a place somewhere in the country not too far from London where they could recreate the kind of life they had enjoyed in Spade House, perhaps on a slightly grander scale. Visiting his friend Ralph Blumenfeld, the editor of the Daily Express, who had a house at Great Easton near Dunmow in Essex, he was much taken with the area – pretty, unspoiled farming country only forty miles from London. Most of the property there was owned by Lady Frances Warwick, who occupied the stately mansion Easton Lodge, and having been introduced to him by Blumenfeld, she agreed to let him have the Old Rectory at Little Easton on a short lease. Landowner and tenant were equally delighted with the transaction. Lady Warwick, reputed to have been a mistress of the late King Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, was an unusual kind of aristocrat, having been converted to socialism after her marriage, and while continuing to live in patrician style herself was patron and hostess to a large circle of progressive writers and politicians, to which he would be a most welcome addition. To him the handsome red-brick Georgian Rectory, though in need of some modernisation and refurbishment, appeared immediately as an ideal dwelling place. Spacious reception rooms opened off a wood-panelled, stone-flagged square hall, from which rose a broad staircase leading to the upper floors and numerous bedrooms. The house looked across its lawns and over cornfields towards the village, and possessed a large barn in which he immediately saw himself organising games and theatricals. And, vitally, this idyllic place had an excellent railway connection to London via Bishop’s Stortford, the trains stopping by request at the Easton Estate’s private halt only a mile away.