No Angel

by Penny Vincenzi

  Well that was all right. He was over twenty-one, as he kept telling Lily when she fussed. And laughed at her stories of its dangers. She supposed it was all right, but it worried her a bit, and it was expensive – very expensive. Like most of his habits. And Lily, who was a sensible girl, could see he was spending a great deal more money than he actually had. He talked big, Jack did, about his important job in publishing and his army pension and his inheritance from his father. But Lily knew none of it actually added up to a row of beans. Well certainly not more than two rows.

  She had seen the statement from the bank, last time it came; it had been lying on the table, in his flat. Jack was the reverse of secretive. And he had very little money in the bank indeed. He had long ago left Coutts, saying they were expensive; that wasn’t quite true, but Lily did happen to know that they required a large amount of money be kept on deposit and that Jack didn’t have a large amount of money to keep anywhere.

  He was running up bills everywhere; at his tailors, at his bookmakers, at Berry Bros, the wine merchants, at his clubs. When he had been living at home, with Oliver and Celia, he had just about managed; now he had rent to pay and food to buy, and a servant: nothing grand, just a woman to clean the flat and do his laundry, but still her wages meant money that had to be found. He was drifting into debt with great speed. And it worried Lily a lot. She was ten years younger than Jack, but she felt ten years older. She felt responsible for him. Besides, she was terribly fond of him. It was impossible not to be fond of him, actually; he was kind and funny, insanely generous and incredibly affectionate. In fact, Lily had been heard to say, when she had enough champagne to loosen her tongue, which wasn’t often, because she knew tongues were safer kept tight, she could, given half a chance, find herself in love with Jack.

  She found herself worrying rather a lot these days, and not just about Jack’s fondness for cocaine, but about where it all might lead. She had entered into the relationship because she liked and fancied him, he bought her nice presents and she had a great time with him. She had never expected anything more than that; getting so fond of him had been a bit of a shock. She wasn’t sure how fond he was of her; he had certainly never said anything very serious about it, and she was quite sure he had never considered anything remotely permanent. Or even if it would be a good idea if he did. Of course, times had changed and class wasn’t quite what it had been. Some girls had married into the aristocracy, most famously Gertie Miller who was now the Countess of Dudley and Rosie Boot of the Gaiety was Marchioness of Headfort. But it was still quite rare. And she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea anyway.

  Lily was a realist; she knew that once the first flush was over, there had to be a lot more than sex to make a marriage work. Her parents had a wonderfully happy marriage and she could see quite clearly why it was: they loved each other, of course, but more importantly, they were alike, they had the same background, they shared views on things, had the same ambitions and anxieties, the same hopes and fears. She and Jack could never be like that. Struggling to define the difference between the two of them, she had finally said to Crystal one night that Jack was rather like a racehorse, all flash and show, but only able to get from A to B when he was told exactly how and when, whereas she was like one of the wild ponies she had seen on a day trip to the New Forest, extremely fond of its freedom and good at looking after itself, and sorting out life without any help from anyone, as far as she could see.

  ‘And I don’t see that a wild pony and a racehorse could have much of a future together. Neither of them would really like what the other had to offer.’

  Crystal said she could see what Lily meant, but added, with rare insight, that if push came to shove, the racehorse might be quite grateful for the wild pony, telling it where to go and when.

  Anyway, for the time being, there was no need to think beyond the present. It was all much more satisfactory these days, with the little flat in Sloane Street to go to whenever they wanted. Or rather whenever she wanted; she’d had to be quite firm about that. Jack had clearly expected her virtually to move in with him, and had been outraged when she refused to go back with him on his second night.

  ‘But you said I had to get a place,’ he said plaintively, ‘so we could be together and now you’re leaving me alone in it.’

  ‘I said you had to get a place because it was high time you did,’ Lily said briskly, ‘most men of thirty-five have their own homes, Jack, or where I come from they do. I never implied I was moving into it with you. That was not the arrangement at all, and I can’t believe you were stupid enough to think it was. I like my independence, and if you haven’t grasped that fact yet, then you don’t understand me at all. Now I’m off, it’s been a long day and I’ve got a big rehearsal tomorrow.’

  She had left without so much as kissing him, and it had actually been quite hard not to laugh, looking at him staring up at her from their table in the restaurant, his mouth literally wide open. But her words clearly found their mark, because next day an enormous bunch of red roses arrived at the rehearsal rooms for her, with a card on them saying, ‘Sorry, Jack’, and a lot of kisses. He was very good at that sort of thing, Jack was. The generous gesture. But there it tended to stop. He certainly wasn’t one for flowery phrases, unlike Crystal’s boyfriend, who wrote her poetry and told her the stars shone out of her eyes, and life was empty if she wasn’t beside him. If he had been, Lily thought she would probably giggle, rather than swoon into his arms, which is what Crystal was always saying she did.

  Anyway, tonight she was clearly going to have to take him home. He was in a dangerous state, and she wasn’t going to feel happy about him until he was safely tucked up in bed. With her. That would be fun. That was the other thing about cocaine of course, the thing Jack liked about it, and she liked about it, for that matter, was what it did to your sex life.

  Jack was resistant to the idea of going home: ‘I’m fine,’ he kept saying, ‘we’re having a good time, what do you want to spoil it all for?’

  Lily said she didn’t want to spoil anything, but she was tired and wanted to get an early night; Jack said did that mean with him? And she said it might do, but not if he went on being so bloody stupid dancing on a chair that was clearly going to topple over. An hour later he had calmed down considerably and they were in a taxi on the way to Sloane Street. Everything was all right for a bit; he got some champagne out of the fridge and she said she thought they’d both had enough for now and he got quite grumpy with her, which was unlike him, and said he didn’t like being told what he should and shouldn’t drink, and then he sat down suddenly and stared into the fire, and she said was something the matter and he said no of course not, and she said she could see there was and went over and sat on his knee, and put her arms round him and asked him again what it was.

  That was when he told her that his job at Lyttons wasn’t working out quite how he had hoped and that there had been a big meeting that day with Oliver and Celia and his sister, and he might even have to think about doing something else altogether.

  ‘And I can’t begin to imagine what it might be. Not fit for anything much at all, really,’ he said with a sigh and added gloomily that he was even thinking of going back into the army.

  ‘At least I can do that. Do it well. Oh, come on, Lil,’ he said suddenly, managing a smile as she kissed him, ‘let’s go to bed. That’s a much better idea than all this serious stuff.’

  It was: a much better idea. For hours it seemed to go on, wonderful bright, light, swooping, flying sex; she stopped worrying, stopped thinking of anything, stopped knowing anything but her body and what it needed and Jack’s body and how it met those needs, surely and tenderly. Jack was not always the most sensitive person, but in bed he often became so: responsive, imaginative, careful, the near-to-perfect lover. And at the end of it, he fell asleep in her arms, peacefully happy, but Lily lay awake for a long time, her head full of images of riderless racehorses.

  ‘LM,’ said Celia, ‘you will come t
o dine with us tonight, won’t you?’

  ‘I – can’t do that,’ said LM slightly stiffly, ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ Celia was silent. She didn’t look well, LM thought; the strain no doubt. ‘well – if you change your mind.’

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ said LM. ‘I have a – great deal to do. Up at the house.’ And wondered quite why she was being so secretive; and to Celia of all people.

  Celia had always been so extraordinarily sensitive about LM’s affairs, never pried, never so much as hinted she might want to know more than she was being told. But – well, she just didn’t want to talk about Gordon Robinson. To anyone. Not even say that they were friends. Certainly not that they were going to the cinema this evening. Of course she hadn’t ever wanted to talk about Jago. And that had been an important, a meaningful relationship. Gordon Robinson certainly wasn’t anything of the sort. He was just – well someone she had come across. Whose company very occasionally she shared. There simply was nothing to be said to anyone about him.

  ‘I have a lot to do,’ she added, more gently.

  ‘Of course. I understand. Oh dear, LM, are you very cross with us?’

  ‘Not cross,’ said LM briskly, ‘a bit dismayed. Very little of it is your fault, it seems to me. Rising costs affect everyone. This libel case – who could have foreseen that? But allowing Jack’s book to cost so much, against such modest orders – that was foolish of Oliver, I feel.’

  ‘You – you did encourage him to take Jack on,’ said Celia.

  ‘I know I did. But then to give him his head like that. Extremely stupid. He has no experience, no feeling for the business. I would have started him on a modest editing job – surely you could have guided Oliver there—’

  ‘Not really,’ said Celia briefly.

  LM looked at her and sighed. ‘Perhaps not. Oliver can be very stubborn. But Celia – losing Sebastian Brooke now – that is a pity. Surely you could have spoken to him? You seemed such good friends. Perhaps we could talk to him together, I could look at the figures, see if—’

  She was unprepared for what happened next; Celia stood up, took a deep breath and walked over to her sofas, leaned down on one of them, her head bowed. Then she appeared to slump, and half fell on to her knees. LM shot forwards, caught her, and helped her round to the front of the sofa, laid her gently down.

  ‘Celia! My dear, are you all right?’

  She was a ghastly colour; greenish-white. ‘Yes. Yes I’m fine. Just a little – airless in here. It’s so hot at the moment.’

  ‘You look terrible. I’ll get Oliver.’

  ‘No,’ The word blazed out, ‘no, LM, he is not to know.’ And then more gently, ‘He’s got so many worries, he’s such an old fusspot, please don’t. But – well you could help me down to my car. In a minute. I might go home.’

  ‘I shall drive your car,’ said LM, ‘you’re not fit to drive yourself.’

  ‘LM, no.’

  ‘Celia, yes. And I shall tell Oliver we are going to talk through the Brooke problem in peace at home. All right?’

  Celia nodded feebly. ‘Yes, all right. As long as we don’t actually have to. There’s – well, there’s nothing to be done about it. I’m afraid.’

  LM drove her home in silence; she was concerned for her. But she was as unwilling to pry as Celia herself, so she said nothing except to comment on the weather, and to tell her how Jay was not only reading fluently now, but was showing a great interest in English history.

  ‘Extraordinary, I think, for a seven-year-old, don’t you?’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ said Celia, ‘yes, LM, he’s very clever. Very clever indeed’. And managed a half-smile.

  When they reached Cheyne Walk, Celia said, ‘I’ll be fine now, LM. I know you’ve got things to do. Thank you.’

  ‘I shall see you to your room,’ said LM firmly.

  It was very quiet in the house; the children were still at Ashingham. She went up to Celia’s room, with her, helped her to the bed. ‘You lie there quietly for a while. You probably just need some rest. You never get any. Anything you want?’

  ‘I – well, a cup of tea would be nice. With sugar, please.’

  LM went down to the hall; Brunson was waiting, looking anxious. ‘Is everything all right, Miss Lytton?’

  ‘Perfectly, Brunson, yes thank you. But Lady Celia would like a cup of tea. With sugar. She – she didn’t feel very well in the office. So I brought her home. I’ll take it up to her myself.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Lytton.’

  While LM was waiting for Mary to appear with the tray, the telephone rang; Brunson took it. It was Oliver; a long conversation ensued. LM looked at her watch. It was getting late. And she wanted to see Celia again and to have her tea, before she left to meet Gordon Robinson. She decided to go down to the kitchen and get it herself. She went through the servants’ door, started down the stairs.

  And heard Daniels saying, ‘Not well again, eh? What do you reckon, Mary?’

  Mary said she was sure she didn’t know what he meant.

  ‘Course you do. Twice the other day, once today. Terrible, she looked, in my car, green as grass. Only one explanation for that sort of thing, if you ask me. I reckon we’ll be hearing the patter of tiny feet in a few months.’

  ‘Mr Daniels, that’s quite enough from you,’ said Cook. ‘Mary, take this tray up to Miss Lytton and—’

  LM went swiftly back to the hall, sat on the chair in the corner, pretending to read the paper. When she got to Celia’s room, she said, just as Celia had said to her, all those years ago, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Don’t tell Oliver, LM, please.’ She sat, flushed now, sipping the tea, her eyes brilliant, almost feverish-looking. ‘He doesn’t know yet. He’s so worried about everything, and he does fuss about me so much. Which actually doesn’t help.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said LM, ‘of course I won’t. When – when is the baby due?’

  ‘Oh – I’m not sure. It’s such early days. I mean I might not even be pregnant. Dr Perring is doing a test. Even he couldn’t be sure. But if I am, it would be February, I suppose.’

  LM looked at her. ‘It’s unlike you to be so vague.’

  ‘I – I know, but with all the other worries, somehow—’ her voice tailed off.

  ‘I won’t say I envy you,’ said LM smiling at her, ‘but – well, I’m sure everyone will be pleased. And you like having babies, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Celia, ‘yes, LM, I like having babies. Now off you go, I’ll be fine.’

  But as LM turned from the doorway to smile at her, she saw Celia wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  The film was very good, a comedy with Charlie Chaplin, but it didn’t properly distract LM. She sat, while everyone else – including Gordon Robinson, – laughed uproariously, worrying about Celia. Afterwards he suggested they went out to supper: ‘Just a quick snack, some smoked salmon perhaps. At the Regent Palace.’

  LM thanked him, but said she really ought to get back.

  ‘Then I shall escort you home,’ he said. She smiled at him; he was so nice. So gentle, so unselfish; he was obviously disappointed in the way the evening had gone, yet all he was concerned about was seeing her safely home.

  ‘You mustn’t think of it,’ she said, ‘I always see myself home.’

  ‘Let me hire you a taxi.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, of course not. I shall go on the train.’

  ‘On your own! At this time of night?’

  ‘Mr Robinson—’

  ‘Gordon, please.’

  ‘Gordon. And you must call me LM.’

  ‘An unusual name.’

  ‘I know. The letters stand for something too embarrassing to tell you.’

  ‘Oh dear. Then I shan’t ask. Now come along, my car is near here; I shall drive you home. I have no intention of letting you go on your own, and neither do I want you to go on the train.’

  ‘But—’
/>   ‘No buts. Come along. This way.’

  They drove up to Hampstead in silence; but it was an easy, friendly silence. LM felt very happy suddenly. As they reached Fitzjohns Avenue, she said, ‘Please do drop me off here. It gets complicated, all the little streets.’

  ‘No,’ he said; and then, ‘you walk through these streets on your own? Late at night?’

  ‘I used to,’ she said, ‘but of course now I’m mostly safe and sound in the country.’

  ‘Thank God for that. Which way now?’

  He refused to come in for a nightcap; he was clearly rather shocked that she even asked him. LM fell asleep, feeling less happy now, almost anxious. Their worlds were so far apart; he was so respectable, so very rigid in his vews and she – well she was an unmarried mother. This would never do. She would have to end it quickly. Before it all got any worse.

  In the Westminster laboratory, the young woman bent over her specimen on the dissection bench, adjusted her spectacles, peered into her microscope for a second careful check and then filled in her report sheet very carefully and clearly. Precision was essential, in this work. Absolutely essential. Good news which might be bad: bad news which might be good. You could not afford to make a mistake. Well, this ought to be good news for someone: even if not for the toad.

  CHAPTER 27

  ‘Well, Lady Celia.’ Dr Perring smiled at her.

  She swallowed. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good news.’

  ‘Ah.’ That was it then. Bad news. No room for hope, anywhere.

  ‘You are indeed pregnant. From what you told me, about two and a half months. Perhaps a little more. Congratulations.’