She threw a quick glance at him now and thought for a moment and then relaxed. It was worth the risk; he was looking much better now than he had, his body becoming less fragile and his face filling out a little as at last he began to put on some weight, and he seemed to be amused by Katy, no more. Right now he was looking at her with a grin and seemed very much like the Peter of the pre-War years.
‘It sounds delicious, but I did sort of tell Lee that I’d see her this afternoon, give her a bit of a progress report - the Committee are wanting more news now we’re getting to about the half-way stage, and I want to know how they’re getting on with the brochure and so forth. I really ought to -’
Letty made up her mind suddenly. Katy was doing more good for Peter now than she might do potential harm, she decided.
‘I’ll see her,’ she said brusquely. ‘I want to talk to her about this wretched paper shortage. They’ve sent out a damned Government circular limiting the amount that can be used for magazines and so forth, and I’m worried about our ration for the brochure. So you go and have lunch - I’ll sort things out with Lee.’
‘There!’ Katy said gaily and reached for Peter’s hands and pulled him to his feet. ‘Noodles were written in your stars for you today, and who are you to fight the stars? We shall go and make absolute pigs of ourselves and to hell with the regulations. He’ll charge us the legal rate for lunch and pounds and pounds for our pots of Chinese tea and we’ll get far more than our share. Lovely and greedy! Do you mind being a black marketeer?’
‘Not too much,’ Peter said, and shrugged on his coat. ‘It’s a very minor form of villainy, after all. I’ve seen worse -’
‘Haven’t we all, darling,’ Katy said, and tucked her hand into his arm and threw a glittering look at Letty. ‘Give my best love to darling Lee,’ she said, and took Peter triumphantly away, and he went happily enough, with more of a spring in his step than Letty had seen before, so that she began to regret her hasty decision to aid and abet Katy. That minx, she thought uneasily as she heard their footsteps receding down the stairs; will she hurt him? He’s doing so well, and it would take so little to shatter him again. But it’s too late now, and she heard the street door far below slam behind them.
In the event it was better for Peter that she had kept him away from Lee, she decided an hour or so later as she sat opposite her in the teashop near the rehearsal rooms. She was as well dressed as she always was, as perfectly turned out, but there was a listlessness about her that made the air between them seem to hang heavily and Letty looked at her bent head as she stirred her tea mechanically for far longer than was necessary to dissolve the saccharin in it, and shook her own head in some irritation.
‘Well, come on Lee, out with it,’ she said. ‘What’s bothering you?’
Lee looked up, almost visibly pulling her mind into the here and now from wherever it had been.
‘I’m sorry, Letty,’ she said. ‘Am I being rather dull? It’s - it’s just that I’m worried about this brochure business. We’re going to need every penny we can get, and it’s worth thousands and thousands to us to get that advertising printed. If we can’t, then, really, the Benefit just won’t be as worthwhile as it should and -’
‘We’ve been through all that. I’ve told you, I’ll fix it. I’ve got contacts. This is me, Letty, remember? I’m family as well as friend. Now, what’s really the matter?’
There was a little silence and then Lee said baldly, ‘I’m going to divorce Harry.’
‘Oh,’ Letty said after a long pause. ‘Are you indeed?’
‘I’ve found a house, and it’s almost ready. I’ll be moving in with the children a fortnight on Friday. It’s quite a nice one. Very convenient for the children’s schools and so on, and Nanny has said she’ll stay with me, thank God. I was afraid she’d go all proper on me and refuse to work in a household where a divorce was happening -’ Her voice trailed away and she returned to the stirring of her tea.
‘What does Harry say about this? Has he agreed to - to give you grounds?’
‘Give me grounds?’ Lee laughed, a singularly mirthless sound. ‘He doesn’t have to give me any grounds. I’ve had them to hand any time this past two years. I shall just serve the papers on him. Or my solicitor will. As for what he’ll say -’ She shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. I’m past caring.’
Letty stared at her blankly. ‘Are you trying to tell me you haven’t talked about this?’
‘What’s the point, Letty? We’re miles apart and - what’s there to talk about? He spends all his time flirting with other women, rushing from one to another - if one refuses him then he seems not to care and turns to the nearest that will listen to him. It’s one of the things that makes me feel so sick.’ Lee’s pale face reddened suddenly. ‘He’s so undiscriminating. It’s as though anyone will do. As long as it isn’t me -’ And again she bent her head, unwilling to meet Letty’s direct gaze.
‘Well, I certainly hope you manage to keep the children out of earshot the day you move out,’ Letty said grimly. ‘I imagine he’s unlikely to just sit there quietly and let you pick up your luggage and go.’
‘He won’t be there,’ Lee said drearily. ‘He’ll be away for the weekend. Says he’s got a case in Sussex, near Brighton, to follow up and won’t be back till late on the Sunday.’
She laughed again, that short ugly little sound that was so unlike the Lee that Letty had always known. ‘He’s got no imagination, has he? Brighton! I ask you - he’s probably taking her to the Metropole with all the other seedy little weekenders -’
‘Do you know who she is?’ Letty asked, her voice as sympathetic as she could make it.
‘Could be anyone. One of the nurses, I imagine. He’s bedded most of them, at one time or another. No, don’t look like that, Letty. I’m no fool. Not now, at any rate. I have been, for far too long. He’s been rushing around women like - like some bloody rabbit for all this time and I’ve tried to pretend to myself it hasn’t been happening. Well, I’m not telling myself any more lies. I’ve had enough -’
That Lee should swear, however mildly, was an indication of how distressed she was, Letty thought, and reached out impulsively to hold her hand on the table top. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry. Anything I can do to help -’
‘Thanks,’ Lee said. ‘I - it’s the family I’m worried about. Old Sir Lewis and -’ She swallowed. ‘They were all so proud of you when you got your Damehood, and - and now I’m going to disgrace you all. There’s never been a divorce in the Lackland family, ever, and I’m going to ruin everything. But I just don’t know what else to do - I truly don’t -’ and tears began to splash off the end of her nose onto Letty’s rather gnarled hand on the table. ‘I’m sorry, Letty, so sorry. I hope there won’t be any publicity - I hate the thought of it for myself enough - I hate it even more for you.’
‘Never mind that,’ Letty said bracingly. ‘I doubt any of the papers will care at all. They’re so short of newsprint these days that such matters won’t concern ’em -’
But she knew she was lying. When her name had appeared in the New Year’s honours list there hadn’t been a newspaper of any political colour that hadn’t made much of it. Her photograph had been everywhere, and now taxi drivers greeted her cheekily as Dame Letty when they picked her up, and strangers in the street nodded and becked knowingly at her. Oh, there would be publicity all right over a divorce involving a member of the Lackland family.
‘Well, you know where I am if you need me,’ she said, and signalled at the bored waitress in the corner for her bill. ‘But meanwhile, the best advice I can give you is to talk to Harry as soon as you can. Whatever has happened between you, and however stupid he’s been lately, he’s still Harry. He used to be a good caring sort of chap, and somewhere inside he still is. Talk to him, and you might be able to sort it out -’
But Lee shook her head stubbornly, and despite Letty’s attempts over the next fifteen minutes to persuade her, she was adamant. She was going to walk out of her marriage
with all the dignity she could and that meant without saying anything to Harry.
Which means, Letty told herself grimly as she went stumping back to the rehearsal rooms, I’ll have to talk to him myself. Wretched Harry, she thought furiously, remembering that golden afternoon more than a dozen years ago when she had stood in a Golders Green garden at their wedding, watching the adoration that hung between them as rich and as sensuous as the roses that had clustered on the bushes all round them, wretched Harry to hurt her so! By God, but he’s a fool. And somehow I’ve got to try to get him back to his senses in time. If it isn’t too late already.
16
‘Oh, my God, but I wish Letty were here,’ Peter said beneath his breath and looked rather helplessly from one to the other of them not knowing what to do.
If he’d had any inkling of what the problem was when Brin had phoned the rehearsal room and asked him to bring Katy to his flat, he would, frankly, have found a way to duck out of it. He was getting slowly better - there was no comparison between the way he had been before Christmas when Letty had first scooped him up and set him to work and how he felt now - but he was still frail, and he knew it. Over the weeks of rehearsal he had learned the importance of pacing himself both physically and emotionally. Now he regularly walked all round Kensington Gardens in the evenings, whatever the weather, and was eating heartily but he made sure that he lived as peaceful and ordered a life as possible, avoiding any attempts to pull him into social affairs, only going out sometimes to eat a meal in a restaurant with Katy when she could persuade him. To get involved like this with someone else’s distress was more painful; it made him feel shaky, made the old veils of fear seem to come creeping back into his mind and that was something he couldn’t possibly allow to happen.
‘I’ll try to see if I can find her,’ he said now, and began to move towards the door, edging away a little gingerly and ashamed of himself for doing so. ‘She ought to be here.’
‘She told me yesterday she wouldn’t be back at Albany until late tonight,’ Brin said shortly, from the depths of his big armchair. ‘She said she wasn’t going to tell me where she was or who she was with because she wasn’t to be bothered. Important family business, she said -’
‘This is important family business too,’ Katy burst out, sitting upright on the sofa on to which she had thrown herself full length to weep. ‘How much more important could it possibly be?’
She began to cry again, not pretty tears of the sort she could shed on stage at command, but real tears, ugly ones which reddened her nose and distorted her face so that she no longer looked like a girl but very much a woman, and one who was beginning to age rather quickly at that. ‘Oh, God, Brin, how could you not have told me how bad it was! If I’d have realized I’d have gone like a shot -’
‘I told you, damn it!’ Brin shouted. ‘Don’t blame me because you just didn’t want to know. I feel bad enough about not going up myself and not telling Letty either, but how was I to know he was so ill? Sophie always fusses a lot - I thought she was just making dramas - how was I to know?’
‘When did it happen?’ Katy said, and rubbed her face to dry it, but the tears still flowed, roughening her eyelids and making them swell. ‘Would there have been time to get there?’
‘The telegram’s over there,’ Brin said and indicated the table. ‘It doesn’t say much.’
‘Read it to me, Peter,’ Katy said. ‘I can’t see clearly - please read it to me.’
Unwillingly Peter picked up the flimsy piece of paper and smoothed it.
‘Father died six a.m.,’ he read, his voice flat and expressionless. ‘Tried phone you, no answer, call at once. Sophie.’
‘Have you called her?’ Katy said, turning to Brin and he nodded, still sitting slumped in his armchair.
‘I called her,’ he said, and now there were tears in his voice too. ‘She was -’ he stopped, choking a little.
‘I’m not going to the funeral,’ Katy said loudly and sat straight up. ‘I can’t bear funerals. I want to remember Pa the way he was last time I saw him, not in a bloody box and all those damned Haworth people staring and - I shan’t go -’ Her voice rose to a wail. ‘I shan’t go, I shan’t -’
‘She says she doesn’t want us to come up. It’ll - if we’d been there in time to see him it’d be different, she said, but as we couldn’t get there, it’ll be better if there’s just a quiet funeral - and - they’ll all gossip horribly if we turn up now.’
There was a little silence and then Katy said, ‘Oh, Brin, we’ve been awful.’
‘I know. Bastards. But - I just didn’t believe Sophie. She makes such -’
‘No she doesn’t,’ Katy said, and her voice became shrill again. ‘We’re just kidding ourselves. She expects us to behave right and we never do. And when she said Pa was very ill and we ought to go up we should have listened to her.’
‘Well, we didn’t, did we?’ Brin shouted. ‘We chose to stay here, all right? And now she says she doesn’t want us to come to the funeral because we’d be an embarrassment. If the villagers thought we were in London and could have got there before he died, well - it’d make it miserable for her and for George and John. She’s told people we were away at the time Pa got ill and she couldn’t get a message to us and -’ He got to his feet and began to prowl around the room. ‘So there it is. She’s sorting everything out and says we’re not to worry. She sends her love.’
Katy began to cry again and after a moment Peter went over and sat down beside her and took her hand and she turned and clung to him, weeping even more bitterly.
‘I feel such a beast, Peter - It’s not that I don’t care - I do - it’s just that I hate illness and death. It was bad enough when Mother died and - I just couldn’t get away fast enough. So I couldn’t bear to go to Haworth when Sophie sent for us. I just couldn’t, so I pretended to myself it was nothing to worry about and just refused to think about it and now I hate myself for it, I hate myself -’
‘No sense in that,’ Peter said, trying to sound as practical as he could, modelling himself on Letty. ‘No sense at all. I made myself ill fretting over what I should have done and didn’t and hating myself for it. Don’t do it. Whatever happened, you can’t unhappen it. Live with it, and promise yourself you’ll be better next time -’
‘There won’t be a next time.’ Katy drew a big shuddering breath. ‘There’s no one else but us, now, us and Sophie. George and John are both married and got children so it’s all right for them. They’ve got other people to think about. But we, we’re just ourselves. And - oh, hell!” And she pulled away from Peter and went to the door. ‘I’m going to wash my face,’ she said and disappeared and Peter looked after her and bit his lip, trying to decide what to do.
‘Thanks for bringing her home,’ Brin said. ‘I suppose I should have just come round and fetched her, but I felt so - oh, hell and damnation!’ And he went over to the window and stood there banging his fist rhythmically on the frame as he stared out into the street below.
That he was deeply distressed there could be no doubt; Peter had found him a rather difficult person to work with, polite and friendly enough but lacking any depth that would have made it possible for him to forge any sort of real friendship, but now there was no shallowness about him. He was grieving and wracked with guilt, and from all Peter could gather, a justifiable one. There was nothing anyone could do to help him cope with that.
‘I’ll try to find Letty,’ he said now, getting to his feet a little awkwardly. ‘You’ll want to be left alone, I imagine. But Letty will want to know and I’ll send her as soon as I can. He was her brother, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Brin said, still staring out of the window. ‘Her brother and my father. They weren’t very close, but still, her brother -’
‘Yes,’ Peter said and went to the door. ‘Tell Katy how sorry I am. I - I’ll see you both when you’re ready to - well, goodbye, Brin. My sympathy -’ And gratefully he escaped into the street.
In spite of
all the death he had seen, all the grief he had shared, he found each episode of bereavement as painful as though it had been the first he had encountered. The only thing to do, he decided, was to go to Albany. If Letty wasn’t there he’d wait for her. Then he could hand over to her the responsibility for the two people sitting there in that little flat and hating themselves and each other, and go back to being quiet and peaceful and dealing with his own pain. I’ve had quite enough of that, he told himself defensively as he began to walk down Shaftesbury Avenue towards Piccadilly Circus; I’m entitled to try to escape other people’s misery as much as I can, surely. But he wasn’t really convinced by his own arguments.
The next few days were, to put it mild’ y, difficult. Once Letty had come back to Albany, rather grim around the mouth, and been told what had happened, he had thought his responsibility to the younger Lacklands had been discharged, and had gone back to work, grateful to be busy and trying not to think about them. But it wasn’t easy, even though he was over-loaded with details to look after in Brin’s absence - whatever else Brin was, he was a hard-working man who had been a genuine assistant - and by the following Friday he was on the verge of exhaustion, both from actual work and from the way many of his own distressing feelings about death seemed to have been remobilized by what had happened to Brin and Katy.
He knew he was getting short-tempered and difficult to deal with; he saw the occasional startled expressions on the actors’ faces when he snapped at them, or seemed slow to understand what was said to him, or explained something badly, and fear began to rise in him. Had his recovery from last year’s awfulness been just a flash in the pan? Was he going to get ill again? For a while he contemplated giving up the job of director and going cap in hand to his brother Max to ask him to take care of him. He had managed to avoid that when he had first returned from Belsen, but now, because an old man who had been full of years and had a good and tranquil life had died peacefully in his bed, in his own home, he was like this. It made no sense.
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