“I don’t want to cut you off from—”
“I want to be cut off. My life requires surgery on the grand scale.”
“But what about your father? Supposing he becomes angry and decides not to leave you Oxmoon?”
“Ah,” I said. “It turned out that I wasn’t destined for Oxmoon after all. But I don’t care. Not anymore.”
“You mean—”
“You were right. Love’s the compensation I’ve always needed, and so long as I have you I know I can escape from the past and be free.”
III
“But he’s not free!” said Myfanwy to her sister. She was so stupefied by our news that she spoke in Welsh, forgetting I could understand her.
“He’s going to get divorced.”
“But you can’t possibly marry him!” She was appalled. Her plump friendly little face was white and hostile. “How would you manage? He can’t mean it! He’s just making another of his false promises!”
“Oh no I’m not,” I said.
Her hands flew to her mouth in the classic gesture of dismay “Forgive me, sir; I quite forgot you’d know what I was saying—”
“I promise you I’ll look after Bronwen now.”
“But your wife …” She swung back to face her sister. “You can’t have forgotten what’s being said in the village. Both those American ladies are having babies in the autumn, both of them. How could you think of taking a man away from his pregnant wife? How could you think of building your happiness on someone else’s misery?”
“Well, what about my misery?” screamed Bronwen, losing her temper. “And what about my baby?”
“You’re not his wife, are you! You’re just the girl who’s fool enough to give him what he wants when he wants it!”
“I’m the girl who loves him and I’m the girl he loves and all else is falseness and wrong—for him, for me and for the American lady too! I shan’t feel sorry for her having a deserting husband, indeed I shan’t, no, not one bit, he’ll be doing her a kindness by divorcing her—oh, I know all about the torture of being married to a husband who doesn’t care so how dare you say he should stay chained to a loveless marriage for her sake, how dare you!”
There was a silence while Myfanwy passed the back of her hand across her forehead and leaned for support against the kitchen table, but at last she said unsteadily, “I’m sorry, Mr. Godwin, I mean no disrespect, but I’m just so worried about my sister.”
“I understand. But I swear I’ll put everything right.”
“How can you?” she said in despair. “She’ll never fit into your world—how can you bring her anything but misery?” And sinking down on the nearest chair, she covered her face with her hands and began to weep.
IV
“Well, John,” said Robert, “what can I say? I’ve never before suffered from speechlessness, but this time I confess that the hitherto unimaginable has occurred and I’m at a loss for words. Let me try and collect my shattered thoughts: What should one brother say to another in such a truly catastrophic situation?”
“ ‘Good luck’ would be a useful start.”
“Good luck? My dear John, you’re going to need far more than that to guarantee your survival! You’re going to need the heroism of St. George, the hide of an elephant and the constitution of an ox—oh, and how about your fairy godmother, complete with magic wand? Since we’re dealing with fantasy we may as well admit a little magical support to keep your dreams bowling merrily along, but may I be unbearably prosaic and ask how you’re going to break the news to Papa? That would seem to be your most immediate problem.”
“I was hoping you’d help me.”
“My worst fears are now confirmed. Go on.”
“I’ve been in rather a muddle about Papa for some time, and I’m afraid that if I break the news to him we’ll generate some emotional scene which will only make the muddle worse. But you’re so cool and levelheaded, Robert, and—”
“You want me to reduce Papa to order for you. John, you must surely realize you’re asking the impossible; a raging love affair with a Welsh peasant is not a subject on which we can expect our father to be rational.”
“But if you stress I’m going to marry her—”
“He’ll be appalled, just like everyone else. The only way he could ever accept Mrs. Morgan’s presence in your life would be if you were to keep her tucked discreetly away in Swansea.”
“But if you could explain to him that Bronwen’s good, decent and honest—and utterly different from that bloody villain Bryn-Davies—”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” said Robert, “that we’ve only heard one highly prejudiced version of that story? It’s quite possible that Grandmama too saw her lover as someone who was good, decent and honest.”
“Oh, bloody hell, let’s forget all that, I don’t care about those horrors anymore, I’ve escaped from the past—”
“We never escape from the past,” said Robert. “It’s the biggest jail of all time. Very well, I’ll tell Papa that although you’re behaving like a lunatic, you’re not automatically destined for incarceration in the Home of the Assumption. What else can I possibly say? Ah, here’s Ginette. Come in, my dear, and mix yourself a very large pink gin. What do you think’s happened? No, don’t even try and guess—I’ll tell you. John’s leaving Constance and going to live at Penhale Manor with Mrs. Morgan and their new illegitimate infant. Intriguing, isn’t it? Maybe country life’s not so dull after all! Oh, and by the way, I nearly forgot to tell you—he’s going to marry her once he can get his hands on a divorce.”
Ginevra, who was wearing a tubelike navy dress with a very short skirt, stopped dead to gape at me. Her full feminine figure was so unsuited to the boyish style of her clothes that she was looking not only raffish but bizarre. I remembered the nightmare of her adolescence and tried to make allowances for her, but I was on the defensive by that time, and all my old antipathy towards her was rising to the surface of my mind. I knew she had never liked me. I knew she still privately judged me a prig, and I thought how entertained she would be to see me fall from grace. I pictured her savoring my discomfort behind my back and gossiping about me in amusement with her smart friends in London.
“Robert, you’re joking. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said abruptly before Robert could reply. “I’m fully expecting you to share his view that this is a disaster of the highest order.”
“Disaster?” said Ginevra. Then she laughed and cried, “Rubbish! I think it’s absolutely wonderful and quite the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life!” And she stretched out her hands to me—Ginevra whom I had always distrusted, Ginevra whom I had never liked—and as she kissed me on both cheeks she exclaimed with a sincerity I never forgot, “Darling Johnny, I didn’t know you had it in you! Congratulations—well done—I’m with you all the way!”
V
“You’re insane,” said Constance dry-eyed, and set her mouth in a hard unyielding line.
“I’m sorry. I know this is an appalling shock for you, but I can’t go on with this lie any longer.”
“But you love me—you like me in bed, I know you do!”
“Constance—”
“What does she do that I don’t? Whatever it is I can learn it.”
“Constance, this has nothing to do with sex.”
“What! Nothing to do with sex? Who do you think you’re fooling!”
“Look, I know this is terrible for you. I know it is. And don’t think it isn’t terrible for me too. I feel riddled with guilt just standing here talking to you—guilty that I married you, guilty that I let you get pregnant, guilty, guilty, guilty, but I can’t help it, Constance, I’ve got to leave and I think that once you’ve recovered from the shock you’ll be glad—you’ll realize, once I’m gone, that I could never have made you happy.”
“You could. You have.”
“But I’ve been acting, can’t you see? I’ve been acting all the time—yo
u’ve never known me as I really am! You’re in love with someone who doesn’t exist!”
“Sure you exist. You’re tall, dark and handsome and wonderful in bed.”
“What the devil’s that got to do with what I’m talking about? A man’s soul isn’t located in his genitals!”
“Well, as far as you’re concerned it’s obviously no more than an inch away! Anyway, Freud says—”
“No, don’t let’s start on Freud. Freud’s the biggest piece of intellectual claptrap you’ve ever bored me with, and my God, that’s saying something!”
“Okay, I’ll stick to the point. I love you. I want you to stay with me.”
“Well, I suppose it’s only natural that you should say that now when you’re so shocked, but later the situation is bound to seem different to you. You’ll meet someone else. You’re clever and attractive, and I’m quite sure that in no time at all you’ll have at least half a dozen suitors.”
“I’m not interested in anyone else but you.”
“All right. You’re not interested. Not now. But later, when you’ve got the divorce—”
“What divorce?” said Constance, annihilating me.
VI
“Take it easy, sweetheart,” said Armstrong as Constance finally broke down and wept against his chest. “That’s my brave little girl—no divorce, no surrender. I’m very, very proud of you. Okay, now just you leave this to me. Run along to your room and dry your eyes and I’ll be up to see you shortly.”
Constance, who had indeed been very brave, now proved her courage afresh by controlling her tears and walking out of the room with her head held high. By this time I was feeling ill.
“You goddamned bastard,” said Armstrong as soon as the door closed. “I’ll see you goddamned ruined unless you pull yourself together in double-quick time.”
“Go ahead. I don’t give a damn.”
Much shouting and abuse followed. Finally I tried to walk out but he grabbed me by the arm and shouted, “Okay, just you tell me this: how the fucking hell are you going to live with your conscience?”
“How the fucking hell are you going to live with yours? You flogged me into this mess! I accept that I’ve played the major role in the disaster, but don’t try and pretend you haven’t led a full supporting cast!”
He tried to hit me but I sidestepped him. He was just a fat stupid man on the far side of middle age. I walked out of the room but he blundered after me, and as I left the house I heard him shouting at the top of his voice that I was a cheater, a four-flusher and a goddamned son of a bitch.
VII
“Daphne?” I said rapidly to Lion’s widow from the telephone kiosk at my nearest club. “Thank God, I wasn’t sure whether you were in town. Has Ginevra been in touch with you?”
“Rather!” said Daphne, who was by no means as ingenuous as her hearty manner suggested. “My dear, I’m simply reeling! What can I do to help? Ginevra said you were worried stiff about the children.”
I explained that Penhale Manor had been running on a skeleton staff since Edmund’s departure for Kent, and this meant that I was unable to retire there immediately with two children, a nanny and a governess.
“… and so I was wondering if—”
“Say no more. Toss them all over here to Cadogan Place—Elizabeth’ll be thrilled! How soon can they come?”
I felt ready to collapse with relief. “Tomorrow morning?”
“Bring them tonight, if you like.”
“No, that’s very good of you, Daphne, and I can’t thank you enough, but … well, I have to prepare the children for this and I’ll need a little time to explain …”
VIII
“But Papa,” said Marian, “how can you marry someone who’s not a lady? In fact is such a thing even allowed? I seem to remember Nanny saying there’s a law against it.”
“No, there’s no law against it, Marian. Mrs. Morgan’s the woman I love, and love matters more than class.”
“That’s not what Nanny thinks,” said Marian. “Nanny thinks nothing matters more than class, and I’ll tell you this, Papa: Nanny will be most put out if we have to leave London, because how am I ever going to mix with girls of my own class in a provincial place like Wales? Nanny,” said Marian, regarding me with baleful blue eyes, “will say it doesn’t suit.”
Nanny would have to go. A long vista of domestic difficulties stretched in front of me but I kept my face impassive. “I’ll have a word with Nanny, Marian,” I said.
“Yes, I think you’d better. And I warn you, Papa, she’ll be terribly shocked that you and Mrs. Morgan have had a baby without being married, because Nanny believes babies don’t happen unless there’s a wedding first. By the way, will the baby be common like Mrs. Morgan or will he be a gentleman like you?”
Before I could reply to this question, which only a sociologist would have welcomed, Harry looked up from dismantling his best toy train and said sharply, “I don’t think I want a brother, thank you very much.”
“But brothers are fun, Harry! And think what fun it’ll be to live at the Manor again!”
I saw his dark eyes, so like his mother’s, glow with the animation her eyes had always lacked. Forgetting the engine in his hands he gazed enthralled at me. “Is there still a piano in the drawing room?”
“Silly baby,” said Marian, “why should he have sold it since we were last there for a visit? Papa, I’m still worried about this. I realize you and Constance have to get unmarried and I don’t mind that much, but I do wish you didn’t have to marry Mrs. Morgan. Will there be any risk of me growing up common now? Because if there is—”
“The commonest thing you can do, Marian,” I said strongly, “is to continue to talk in this vulgar fashion. Class is something true ladies never discuss.”
Marian burst into tears and the next moment Nanny herself was bustling into the room to the rescue.
“There, there, my precious, my angel—”
Marian hurtled sobbing into her arms. “Oh Nanny, Papa’s leaving Constance and marrying Mrs. Morgan and they already have a new baby even though they’re not married and I’m so afraid of growing up common and Papa doesn’t understand and he’s being simply horrid to me …”
More terrible vistas opened up into the future. As Nanny became scarlet in the face with startling rapidity, I dredged up the dregs of my strength and once more prepared for battle.
IX
“What beats me,” said Edmund that evening at Brooks’s, “is how you can do this to your children—and I don’t just mean Harry and Marian, although God knows how they’ll turn out if you live openly with your working-class mistress. What about Constance’s child? How are you going to face it in future when you walked out on it before it was born? No, I’m sorry but I think this decision of yours is absolutely disgusting and your behavior makes me sick.”
“Edmund—”
“How could you be such a fool? I mean, I’m a jolly broad-minded chap, and God knows if I had your looks I’d be rolling in the hay with everything in sight, but at least even I’d have the brains to keep that sort of woman in the hay where she belongs. Why the devil can’t you just keep her quietly somewhere and visit her now and then like any other decent civilized fellow?”
“Edmund, I don’t want to quarrel. I know that in the circumstances this couldn’t be more awkward for you, but please try and accept that there’s nothing else I can do.”
“No, I bloody well can’t accept it! Can’t you at least stay with poor Constance until after the baby’s born?”
“It would be pointless. What sort of an atmosphere do you think there’d be if I stayed on now? It would be unendurable for us both, you must see that!”
“Well, don’t expect me to stay on speaking terms with you. I’ve got my own wife to think about, and I don’t want her to be more upset than she is already.”
“I understand. But I hope later you’ll feel differently.”
“Good God, you don’t think Teddy or I would ever re
ceive that woman, do you?”
“I certainly hope that when she’s my wife—”
“She’ll never be your wife, John! I don’t know why you keep behaving as if Constance doesn’t mean what she says about a divorce!”
“She means it at the moment. But she’s bound to change her mind.”
“Don’t you believe it! Hell hath no fury and all that. She’ll hang on. And meanwhile you’ll be in the biggest possible mess. Christ, how can you conceivably explain to those two children that you plan to live in sin with a woman who’s barely fit to be their nursemaid?”
“That needn’t concern you,” I said, and walked out on him without another word.
X
“I told Papa,” said Robert when I telephoned him later.
“What was the reaction?”
“Unmitigated horror. You’d better come down here first thing tomorrow morning, John.”
“I can’t! The children are safe with Daphne but I’ve got appointments with accountants and lawyers and bank managers—”
“They can wait. Papa can’t. I mean that, John. I can’t say any more on the telephone, but get that train tomorrow because I’ve got to talk to you without delay.”
XI
The next morning I caught the earliest train to South Wales, and some hours later I was traveling around the great curve of Swansea Bay. The industrial approaches to the city seemed as grotesque as ever, but a stillness had fallen since the war on that ravaged landscape and the numbness of despair was paralyzing its people. Mining was a depressed industry. Brave buoyant Welsh Swansea, bunched on its hills above the sea, was limp with the dole queues and sodden with the misery of the unemployed.
I stepped off the train in my Savile Row suit, a visitor from a world those unemployed millions would never know, and found my caretaker waiting, his cap respectfully in his hand as if to exacerbate my guilt that I should be privileged. To negate it I reminded myself of the world I was rejecting, and as we drove beyond the outskirts of the city I thought of all the moneyed people I knew, dancing and drinking themselves to distraction to distance themselves from the war and its aftermath—and then it seemed to me that their lives were so far removed from reality that I wondered how I could ever have shared their futile illusions created by the two-faced glamour of affluence. We drove on into Gower, and when I saw the sunlit fields and the secret valleys and the sparkling sea flashing in the distance, I felt as if I were recovering from some illness which had nearly proved fatal.
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