He sat with them. More tea was ordered. Yes, he would love some gâteau and had an enormous appetite. This coincidence was delightful and he hoped, really hoped, that since he was here for several weeks they would perhaps allow him to take them about? Did they know Mentone?
He was the same, yet not—heavier perhaps. She tried not to stare, to meet his eyes. How to keep up her acting? Oh the theatricality of it all.
“Your English is so good,” she said. “Really quite remarkable—”
“I was one year at Oxford. Christ Church.” He turned on Alice his beautiful smile. “Miss Firth, do you know Oxford at all?”
She could not wait for the night. She thought that Alice, who was plainly enjoying Valentin’s company, would never leave. She could not send her up before ten. And it would be best, would it not, if they all three said their good nights downstairs?
But it was worth it, the wait. She cried, before he came to her room at midnight (Alice safely asleep two floors up). Cried when they made love.
“Oh but my darling Lily, it’s not sad, not sad, it’s so happy. Valentin has been so clever and we have three weeks, four weeks.”
“But I am happy, that’s why I cry—because I’m so happy and have been so unhappy—and because it will all end, it has to end all over again.”
“Hush now, hush now.”
“Ah no, but it does.”
“Stop this at once, I stop you like this—and this—and this—you see I’ve not forgotten what you love best of all…. And now this, and this, yes? … Then we lie quiet for just a little while, and you tell me how clever I’ve been, how very very clever—that I arrange our meeting so perfectly.”
And so the happy days began. She promised him, herself too, that she would use them one by one. “Each one preciouser,” he said. But it worried her that she deceived Alice. Even more, that Alice might take seriously the compliments, the attentions shown her by Valentin. He spoke of this to Lily. “I want so much to be natural, not to show for you anything special at all. Perhaps I do it wrong?”
But although Alice showed pleasure in his company, she often appeared removed from it all. She said once when asked playfully for her thoughts, “I am arranging a series of photographs I shall take. When I am home again …” Her appetite alas, was no better. She toyed with médaillons de boeuf, cutting a little off the edge and making it last the course through, ordered profiteroles and left them after just a bite of choux pastry.
“She’s a sad little girl,” Valentin told Lily. “Even for me, she won’t eat.”
Never alone together in the daytime, it was at night, after lovemaking, that they would talk and talk.
“One delicious piece of gossip—Ana—Ana Xenescu, she has had another child, and at almost forty-two! The talk is wild as to who is the father (no it’s not me, not at all, and no not even in teasing must you say that), since it is absolutely known it cannot be the colonel.”
Gossip. Their love, news from Sinaia, Bucharest, their love again, and, of course, their daughter.
“You’re wicked that you don’t bring her here now, to see me—”
“What—and with her nurse, and all other manner of unlikelihoods? We’d be discovered in a trice.”
“My face. Expression of pride that she’s so spiffing—that would give me away. And also you know, Lily, we are so fortunate that no one of ours, Romanians, that they don’t visit here. If I have that fence to jump …”
“You may think yourself a great actor, but shouldn’t you congratulate me too? I think I shall go back on the stage after all.”
“But you’ve other greater gifts, yes? Lily of the Valley. Let me admire, ah come now, let me talk to the smallest trou in France, in all the world— hold my head—no better still, love me as I talk to it. To think our child has come from there.”
Then one evening, her despair again, washing over her. I should be braver. I have been brave before. But this time it is worse, worse.
“Listen, Val, I’m sick, I tremble, I shall never go back to England, never, I shall send for the baby and for Hal and we can … we could … it might be … people have done these wicked things and prospered, have they not? Tell me they have. Tell me we could. “
Alice thought, I am almost happy. The feeling had grown slowly through the sun-filled spring days. She felt at home in Beaulieu, perhaps because it was smaller than nearby Nice. She loved to sit on her balcony and gaze at the snow peaks, a romantic distant world—then to look down onto the hotel gardens: mimosa, orange trees, stone seats set among the flowering bushes. Often when the light seemed to her right, she went down and took photographs.
If only Gib—it was his absence made it not quite perfect. About that, Belle Maman had been strangely thoughtful, even suggesting that it might have been nicer for Alice had he been invited too. But since this Valentin had arrived (already, at Belle Maman’s direction, she was calling him “Valentin”), it would have been difficult to be bored or unhappy. Their days were so full now: mornings out driving, the three of them. Excursions or walks by the sea. Then in the afternoon, for Alice the prescribed rest, which Belle Maman took also. Tea together, perhaps another outing. Then some evenings to the Casino here or at Nice.
She thought sometimes that she had never seen anyone so beautiful as Valentin. Not handsome, but beautiful. She would say the word over to herself often as she rested in the afternoon. Beautiful She would have liked just to gaze at him if that had been possible and not rude. Also, he was fun— making her laugh, including her in every remark, even on two occasions telling her lightly that she was beautiful (which I am not, but it is oh so wonderful to be thought so), and soon would be élégante too. There must be a dress-buying expedition, he said.
Belle Maman liked him also—that was evident. Hadn’t she said to Alice at least twice, “Wasn’t it the most wonderful chance that someone so delightful should turn up? If you had had only me to amuse you …”
Yes, it was almost happiness. Or—perhaps it was what people called contentment? For she slept well and took exercise and enjoyed herself. She even had some appetite for the delicious meals. She surprised herself by the way she’d been able, for almost a week now, to eat all of what was set before her.
Yet it was not just contentment—or why that little frisson of excitement every morning when Belle Maman cried, “Why, here comes our knight, Alice!” And Valentin, kissing their hands, saying, “Another lovely day—how are we to spend it—the three of us?”
“Another lovely day,” Belle Maman said, that Friday morning. “I wonder how we are to spend it without Valentin? We’ve grown so accustomed … I’ve written him already a little note about the theater tonight.”
It was their third week. A few days earlier some friends of Valentin’s staying at Cagnes had been in touch with him. Yesterday afternoon he had left to see them. They expected him back next day.
How then to pass the morning?
“It is not the same without him—our friend, “ Alice said. And Belle Maman, understanding perfectly (perhaps she had the same feeling of dullness?), said that they might take an expedition to buy Alice a hat? There were some lovely new models in the windows of Mireille’s. And then some hot chocolate, perhaps, at their favorite cafe?
Yes, yes. That would do well enough. They were standing in the foyer about to call a cab when Belle Maman, looking in her reticule, found that she had left her notebook upstairs.
“I don’t care to be without it. It’s always then one is certain to need it—a nuisance.”
“I can hurry and fetch it.” She offered willingly. More and more she found herself having kind, good thoughts.
Upstairs in Belle Maman’s sitting room she found it exactly where she had been told: little ivory pad with its worked-gold pencil. She glanced around. A blue silk peignoir in Japanese style, patterned with iris, flung on the sofa. With her free hand, she stroked the silk. The whole room and probably the bedroom next door had taken on a look of Belle Maman. She thought that it
might be interesting to photograph it.
She rearranged the peignoir, so that it looked more careless. The desk was not quite tidy—a letter in Papa’s handwriting lay open on the blotter. She read the first few sentences but found in them only the news that she too had received. Looking then at the blotter, its white paper scored with blue, here and there a blob, she wondered idly what Belle Maman had written.
I shouldn’t, she thought, hurriedly holding it up to the glass. And then—oh and then, as word after word yielded its mirror image—she said out loud, “Ah, no …”
What was all this? This talk of love, and Valentin? Her hand holding up the blotter trembled. It could not be—Belle Maman could not have fallen in love. So soon—it wasn’t possible, and also wrong, and horrible, horrible, because she was married to Papa.
“… even this one night apart … the terrible longing … your body, the velvet touch … but it’s you who are velvet … how am I to live after …”
She pushed it back on the desk. Her lips felt stiff, almost numb. Soon, very soon, the room would be cleaned, the blotting paper replaced, the hateful words removed. But not from her mind. They will never, never go, she thought, hurrying now down the corridor, shaking a little, wishing, wishing, wishing that she could turn back the clock five minutes, three minutes even—to be as I was before. Not to know.
“Why, Alice dear, you’re quite out of breath. Was it difficult to find? Not where I said?”
Such a smile. Charming everyone, seeming kind and nearly, oh so nearly deceiving me. Going out to the carriage now, wearing a costume of creamy white cloth showing off her beautiful (horrible) figure and small waist. The fashionable tricorne hat. Oh, but she is hateful.
And so was that dreadful morning—that was to have been so pleasant, such fun, so easy.
“But, Alice, that is the very hat you admired on Wednesday, when we saw it with Valentin.”
With Valentin, yes. And had he not said (thinking all the while surely of Belle Maman?), “Alice would look quite absolutely spiffing in that one …”
False, all false. In her anger and distress, she slouched before the milliner’s glass, her mouth turned deliberately downward. White straw picture hat with blue chiffon, brim folded one side over a black velvet bandeau. Pinned to it, an inexpensive ornament.
“It’s all a terrible mistake. I look a fright—”
“I could easily lend you, give you, dear, my little sapphire and gold butterfly. That would be quite charming.”
“No.”
She astonished herself by her rudeness. It was like old times again. When she had mourned her own mother and hated the interloper. Now she hated the person, the persons who were deceiving her father. But Belle Maman only said mildly:
“If you’re not in a hat-buying mood …”
But there was still the rest of the morning to get through. And then at luncheon, oh horrid surprise: the return of Valentin.
“And how have my darlings been amusing themselves? For me it’s been so ennuyeux as you can’t imagine—but duty is done now.”
“Alice is a little low-spirited today. Perhaps you’ve been missed …”
Halfway through the meal Alice felt that she could bear no more. “If you’d excuse me? I’m going up to my room. One of my headaches …”
They were both of them at once all tenderness. “A cachet, I’ll fetch you one. We’ll order a tisane to be sent up. You must be well for the ballet. Rest, as long as you can.”
Up in her room she couldn’t sleep or even lie still on the bed. After a while she raised the jalousies, letting in the afternoon sun. She sat on the balcony, in the shade, and tried to read. It was only half-past three. She looked down below, and saw, strolling past the judas trees, Belle Maman and Valentin.
They were deep in conversation, circumspectly walking a little apart. Belle Maman wearing her new lemon ecru lace and silk coat. (How fitting that she walked among the judas trees.)
Now they had stopped, where a garden seat stood against a wealth of bushes. They sat, and Valentin took Belle Maman’s parasol for her and folded it. Watching, Alice thought suddenly, I want to hear them. As they talked, surely they would condemn themselves out of their own mouths? And she, she would surprise them, embarrass them. It would be worse, far worse, than telling Papa. (How could I ever, would I ever?)
She strolled into the garden through the side entrance leading to the tennis courts and croquet pitch. Few people were about. Along the other side of the bushes, she crept stealthily. I am searching for a lost tennis ball, she told herself. And to bear the story out, bent occasionally to look in the undergrowth.
Voices. Belle Maman’s tinkling laugh. Valentin’s deep one. She stood still, holding her breath to hear the better. Ahead, she saw where she might walk around, and then as they spoke their words of love, spring out on them.
“… your affaire … what would you have done if Ana Xenescu—if there’d been a child there? I often ask that because you—”
“But my darling there wasn’t, so … Anyway, she has now this charming little Corina. Not mine of course.”
“Of course.” Belle Maman’s laugh again.
“Didn’t I do enough, fathering an English miss? Even so, it’d have been all right with Ana—she has after all a husband. Society understands. As in England.”
“Robert does not. The King, and his set, that’s another matter. There, it doesn’t do to peer too closely into the cradle—certainly not to remark on family resemblances, or lack of them.”
“But my Theodora—”
“She’ll always be all right. I may be fair-haired but Robert is dark enough, and so is Hal, and then—Lionel! He is very dark.”
“What you’ve been saying of him, God forbid anyone should think—”
“No, never! And Robert least of all. It is now all quite safe. It is only that when people—when they say ‘How like … such a Firth!’ I would laugh if I didn’t want to weep.”
“Darling, you mustn’t. Nearly three years now that we have loved each other.”
“I want to cry out and tell everyone, ‘Look, look, she is the daughter of the most beautiful man in Romania!’ “
“Lily, sweet one, it will be always all right. I shall be loving her from far away. And when she grows up—no, don’t cry, darling, or I will too.”
“How can I help it? How? If I count the days …”
“Kiss me. Let me kiss you.”
“Where all the world can see? And Alice from her window!” “Later, later. No, don’t cry. We must go indoors now. Back to the playacting.”
“Yes. Back to our playacting.”
She could do nothing. There was nothing on earth she could do. She had heard things now which she could not ever have wanted to know. What she had learned was so terrible that she would never, never, tell anyone. Horrible, disgusting …
If I could only go back, she thought, not just to this morning, but to before Uncle Lionel in the darkroom. To before Mama died. When she loved and needed me. Before.
I am an alone child. They think I am grown up, and part of me is. Old and sick and sad. It is all a tangle past unraveling. One thing is certain though, after what I’ve seen, I never want to marry. Never. Never.
13
Country Life, March 1903
Our photograph this week is of Lady Firth, wife of Sir Robert Firth of The Towers, Flaxthorpe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Before her marriage Lady Firth was the well-known actress Lily Greene. She returns to the stage this spring playing the lead in Princess Violet, a new musical play by the Irish composer John Plunkett, with book by Ernest Harley.
There was no escaping it now. It had been in the end quite a sudden decision, although the idea had been growing in her mind all through the long, lonely summer of 1902. Her children, on the one hand such a joy and yet … seeming to belong to other people. Nan-Nan, Alice. Even one August afternoon when she had been sitting in the garden, little Teddy running with a bloodied knee into the arms o
f Gib Nicolson.
And Hal: often she felt that for him she was not real at all, a visitor perhaps—who might or might not stay awhile. Yet Sadie’s Jack, how confidently he ran to his mother, to show her this, tell her that—and as confidently ran away again. Sadie with her three beautiful children (and all of them Charlie’s). She is still my greatest, my only friend, Lily thought. It is Vicky again, without the unhappy ending. But just as I never told Vicky about Frank, I’ve told her nothing of Val. Now it is too late. I could not, now. And then, Teddy, the rest of the story …
To become an actress again. Not only the summer of heartbreak, parted it now seemed forever from Valentin, but the despair of the cold dark winter following decided her. A casual remark at a dinner party to the effect that, had she remained on the stage, it might now be her playing opposite Seymour Hicks in The Earl and the Girl. (“It would quite match The Duke and the Shopgirl, do you not think?”)
Robert had surprised her then by saying, lightly, “But she has my permission to return, whenever she wishes.”
A little later, the idea grown in her mind, she broached the subject. He seemed less willing:
“I did not intend—a remark merely, on a social occasion.”
She let it go, but a week later she tried again. This time he was angry. “Your duty is here,” he told her. “As my wife. As mother to my son.”
“Any son or daughter should be proud of a mother on the stage.” She regretted her words immediately.
“Your daughter,” he said, coldly angry. “There is no need to mention daughter.”
Humbly, she said, “I realize you have the last word. That I need your permission. I implore you …”
This servile attitude—that she should have to beg! She could sense his satisfaction, knowing he had the power to allow, or to forbid. And she was afraid too, remembering how he had rained blows on her. Could she ever be sure he would not do it again?
The Diamond Waterfall Page 16