The Jealous One

by Celia Fremlin

  And for one terrible second, it seemed that Eileen did not. Her blank, stricken face seemed to confirm every fear, fanciful or real, that had been seething in Rosamund’s brain ever since this evening’s revelations. But almost at once, Eileen’s expression changed—or rather, Rosamund recognised it for what it was—simple disappointment.

  ‘Oh! Oh, Rosamund. How nice.’ You could see Eileen adjusting herself to the new, unexciting situation. ‘Do come in, won’t you?’

  Her tone was not enthusiastic, but Rosamund nevertheless accepted the half-hearted invitation; and as soon as she had her visitor inside the front door, Eileen began to seem a little more welcoming. Having recovered from the first shock of disappointment, she was no doubt beginning to feel that Rosamund might be better than nothing as company.

  ‘Come up to my room, will you?’ she urged. ‘I’ve got the gas fire on. It doesn’t seem worth while keeping the sitting room going when … That is…’

  For one ridiculous second Rosamund felt Eileen’s embarrassment as an accusation: as if Eileen was laying at her door the chilly desolation of the sitting room. But she knew really that such a notion was absurd…. She hastened to dispel the uncomfortable atmosphere engendered by Eileen’s evasive phraseology and her own headlong interpretation of it.

  ‘No, of course not. And it’s so cosy, isn’t it, living in a bed-sitting-room, you don’t have to turn out into a cold room to go to bed. Any news?’

  There was no hypocrisy in Rosamund’s eager question, even though she felt that she already knew—and intended to keep to herself—far more than Eileen could possibly have to tell her. Yet somehow she was still eager to hear Eileen’s ‘news’, just as a child may be eager to hear a bedtime story, however nonsensical, to sustain and comfort it through the long dark night.

  ‘No. Not really. But somehow, tonight, I do feel a little bit more hopeful,’ said Eileen surprisingly, settling her visitor in the only armchair in the small bedroom, and turning the gently-hissing gas fire as high as it would go. ‘I found that Auntie Min was away, you see, and so—— Would you like some cocoa, or something?’ she interrupted herself awkwardly, a little ungraciously, as she recollected her duties as hostess—usually so capably taken over by Lindy. You could hear in her voice what a nuisance it would be to have to stop the story before it began, and go down to the kitchen and mess about with saucepans and jugs. Rosamund thought it would be a nuisance too, so she hastily declined, and Eileen, greatly relieved, continued: ‘and anyway, I didn’t really think Auntie Min could know much, we haven’t seen her for ages. But as I came away—as I was waiting for a bus—it suddenly occurred to me that there is one possibility that none of us have mentioned. The more I think about it the more likely I think it is, it cheers me up no end. Though perhaps—I don’t know—perhaps I shouldn’t expect it to cheer you up? Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you—I don’t want you to be upset….’

  She laughed, an embarrassed little sound, and looked at Rosamund enquiringly. Rosamund felt irritated. When people embarked on this sort of apologetic preamble it was never really to save you being hurt: it was just to save them from feeling responsible for it.

  ‘Well—go on. Tell me!’ said Rosamund rather sharply. ‘After all, nothing could be worse than…’ But of course Eileen didn’t know yet what it couldn’t be worse than.

  ‘Yes! Of course! I hoped you’d take it like that!’ exclaimed Eileen in over-hasty relief. ‘It’s just that—well, you know Lindy was—is—very fond of your husband, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, it did cross my mind,’ said Rosamund drily. ‘And so?’

  ‘Oh, not in any bad way,’ Eileen rattled on, flustered. ‘I mean, she wouldn’t dream of breaking up a happy marriage, nothing like that….’

  ‘She wouldn’t?’ Rosamund simply couldn’t help it. The sarcastic little phrases slipped from her throat as involuntarily as hiccups. Eileen raced on: ‘So I wondered—you see, I’ve known about the way she felt for some time—I couldn’t help it, being so close to her—but I didn’t know if you knew, or even if your husband did. Lindy hides her feelings so very well, doesn’t she? And I wasn’t even sure if she was right about the way she thought he felt—I mean, he’s such a kind man, isn’t he, I thought sometimes that perhaps Lindy was mistaking his kindness for … Well, anyway, that’s why, when he asked me that night if I knew any reason why Lindy should be—worried—I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t like to tell him, in case he didn’t know, but of course she was worried, she must have been, about the way she felt, and about not knowing how he felt…. And then, when he said she’d sounded scared … it quite frightened me when he said it…. I began imagining all sorts of things…’ she glanced at Rosamund quickly and uneasily, then went on: ‘But now I begin to feel that it may all be much simpler than we think. It may be simply that Lindy felt that the situation was getting—well, she may have felt that the only way to prevent it going too far was simply for her to disappear. Just as she has done, without telling anyone, without leaving an address or anything—to give herself a chance to sort out her own feelings? Something like that?’

  Eileen’s eyes looked wide and childlike, full of uncertainty and hope. Confronted by all this youth and naïvety, Rosamund suddenly felt herself very old and powerful; the possessor of all kinds of secret knowledge, whereas Eileen was merely the poor little dupe. For all these reasons she must be very gentle in disillusioning Eileen. Yet even as she opened her mouth to speak, she knew she couldn’t be gentle.

  ‘I think Lindy’s feelings were perfectly sorted out all along,’ she said levelly. ‘She knew exactly what she wanted. And how to get it.’

  Eileen sensed the hostility at last.

  ‘Oh, you’re not being fair to Lindy!’ she cried. ‘No one is! People think she’s just man-mad—a husband snatcher—that sort of thing. But she isn’t. She’s just the opposite really!’

  Rosamund recalled Basil’s hints to this effect the other night. Her bitterness was replaced for a moment by curiosity.

  ‘How do you mean?’ she asked, as she had asked Basil. ‘Do you mean it’s all put on, this femme fatale act?’

  ‘Oh, not put on!’ protested Eileen, bristling up defensively on her sister’s behalf. ‘It’s more that she’s honestly worked on herself over the last few years—tried to make herself more attractive—and what’s wrong with that, anyway?’ She turned on Rosamund belligerently, although Rosamund had said nothing. ‘It’s what all women do, in one way or another!’

  ‘Well, of course,’ agreed Rosamund mildly. ‘Naturally. We all do. It’s just that—with Lindy—she seems to devote herself to it so—so sort of non-stop. And it seems rather surprising that she should need to go to all that trouble. I’d have thought she was attractive enough anyway.’

  ‘Oh—well, yes, of course she is,’ said Eileen hastily. ‘But you see, you never knew her the way she used to be. You’d understand better if you had. You should have known her—seen her—as she was five years ago. Believe it or not, she seemed quite middle-aged then, she really did. Even I noticed it, and so did my school friends, they used to treat her exactly as if she was one of the mothers. She was terribly shy, I realise now, and never went out anywhere, or had any boy friends; she had no idea how to dress—and I never remember seeing her wearing make-up, or with her hair done any fancy way—nothing. But of course, I realise now, it wasn’t her fault; she’d never had a chance. She’d had me to bring up, you see, ever since our parents died … it made her get into the way of acting middle-aged—being a housewife, you know—before she’d ever had the chance to be young! Can’t you understand?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Rosamund was speaking mechanically. Understanding formed no part of her thoughts at this moment. All she could feel was a rising and totally unexpected fury at this new light on Lindy’s character. Just like Lindy! she found herself thinking furiously: she has not only stolen my husband’s affection, but now she has got to be pitied for it as well! I’ve got to feel s
orry, now, for this poor, shy, plain creature who had to struggle so hard to make herself attractive enough to destroy my marriage! I’ve got to admire her pluck—understand the struggle she’s been through! Well, I won’t, I just won’t, I don’t want to understand her, ever; and if I haven’t murdered her already, then I damn well will, the very next time I lay eyes on her! And there’ll be nothing subconscious about it, either: I mean to enjoy it this time!

  Were these the sort of thoughts that would go through the mind of a real murderess? Surely not! All the same, Rosamund was dismayed by the violence of her own emotions—disproportionate, surely, to the immediate provocation? She tried to analyse them as best she could, and discovered that part at least of the motive force behind them consisted of a ridiculous feeling that Lindy had deliberately suffered a frustrated girlhood in order to make it wickeder than ever of Rosamund to have murdered her. The absurdity of this train of feeling—you could hardly call it thought—sobered her; she strove to recover some sort of equanimity. Natural curiosity came to her aid.

  ‘What made her suddenly change?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, but don’t you see? As soon as I was off her hands, as soon as she didn’t have to feel responsible for me any more—why, then she at last had the chance to be young! But by then she was past thirty, and of course, at that age, being young is something that has to be learnt, it doesn’t just happen any more. It made me so happy to watch her beginning to experiment with her hair; with different sorts of lipstick; learning to be amusing, witty, and to talk about the sort of things that interest men. Oh, I understood just how it was for her—but no one else ever did, not even Basil——Oh!’

  Eileen broke off in mid-sentence, and the look in her eyes as the door swung open made you feel that she was already leaping up; rushing across the room with arms outstretched. It was quite a shock to find that she wasn’t; that she was still sitting on the divan, neat and tense.

  ‘Hullo, Basil,’ she said in a tiny voice, making no move towards him. He, too, made no move; just stood in the doorway, looking at her; and Rosamund wondered if he was aware of his power. She wondered, too, what should be her rôle in the situation. Should she just get up and go straight away, and leave them alone together?

  ‘Nice to find you here, Mrs Fielding!’ said Basil gallantly: and ‘Don’t go, Rosamund, please!’ murmured Eileen, with apparent sincerity. Rosamund hesitated. It occurred to her that perhaps her presence really was a relief to them both; a sort of buffer against the first impact of an encounter which, deliberately sought though it may have been, was bound at first to bring as much embarrassment as pleasure to both of them.

  ‘I’m glad Eileen’s found a bit of company,’ continued Basil, coming properly into the room. ‘Do tell me what you were talking about—it sounded fascinating. Something about me!’ He looked eagerly from one to the other, like a conceited little boy, and Rosamund could hardly help laughing.

  ‘We were saying … Eileen was saying … that we none of us understand Lindy properly, and——’

  ‘I didn’t! We weren’t!’ Eileen seemed so flustered in her denials that Rosamund wondered what she had said amiss. ‘I was only saying’—Eileen painstakingly shifted the emphasis—‘that perhaps we needn’t worry too much about Lindy—about her disappearing, I mean. I was just telling Rosamund that I believe she may have run away because she’s found that she’s in love with Rosamund’s husband——’

  ‘Oh, rubbish!’ All Basil’s embarrassment seemed to have left him, and he settled himself astride a little cane chair, arms folded along its back, apparently highly content to reassume his husbandly prerogative of contradicting everything Eileen said. ‘Lindy’s never been in love with anybody, and never will be; and I’m quite sure Mrs Fielding’s husband isn’t in love with her! You didn’t really think he was, did you?’ He turned towards Rosamund.

  ‘Well—I——’

  ‘I daresay he likes her well enough,’ continued Basil, with an assumption of omniscience which in this case seemed endearing rather than irritating. ‘Most men do. Naturally they like being flattered and made much of—who doesn’t? But she’s not the least bit attractive to them, not really. And she knows it. That’s why she goes in for all this flattery and good-time-ery—it’s a substitute. As I told you before, this gaiety-girl business is all fairly new. It’s not natural to her. She’s one of Nature’s frumps, really. I told you.’

  ‘Oh, Basil, she’s not! It’s just that while she had me to look after, she never had the chance——’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Eileen! There’s no such thing as “not having the chance”! A girl who’d got what it takes wouldn’t have been put off by having a kid sister in tow! Use your sense. Lindy hadn’t got what it takes—still hasn’t, though I must hand it to her that she’s learnt to put up a pretty dazzling façade. But it annoys me, Eileen, that it should take you in. You seem to lose all your sense of humour where Lindy’s concerned, you turn into a horrid little prig! That’s really what I’ve always had against her, you know. I never really minded old Lindy doing her stuff—all those ridiculous parties and candles and whatnot. Good luck to her, I thought, if she wants to play it that way. But when it came to never being allowed to laugh at her, or to say anything at all that might prick holes in her fancy picture of herself … and then having to stand by and listen to her talking as if you were the frumpish one—as she did, Eileen, in the end, you know she did—and you taking it lying down….’

  ‘I didn’t! That is, I should hope I did!’ Eileen stumbled momentarily amid her conflicting denials, then went gamely on: ‘I tried to, anyway, because I knew very well that she didn’t really mean it. She was only trying to give herself confidence…. And that’s all she’s doing now, really, in making Geoffrey fall in love with her. That’s why it’s so desperately important to her—the most important thing that’s ever happened in her life. She just wants to know for certain that she can make a man fall in love with her—that she can fall in love herself. She needs to know——’

  ‘Well, how do you like that, Mrs Fielding? Having your husband prescribed for Lindy as if he was a bottle of medicine on the Health Service? But I wouldn’t worry. As I say, I know he isn’t in love with her——’

  ‘And I say he is!’ Eileen defied him. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s well known that men always fall in love with the same sort of women over and over again. And Rosamund and Lindy are terribly alike!’

  ‘Me?’ Rosamund was too much astounded for resentment. ‘How on earth——?’

  ‘Well——’ Eileen studied her with careful honesty. ‘Not in looks so much, perhaps—but—— Well, you’re both terribly proud, for one thing; you’d do anything rather than admit to any sort of weakness. And you both have the same sort of odd, witty, spiteful sort of thoughts that you suddenly come out with—or not, as the case may be—one can never tell what you’re really thinking, either of you. You’re both born schemers: and you’d both rather die than not appear to advantage…. You see, I’m not blind to Lindy’s faults!’—she was talking to Basil now, not to Rosamund, evidently seizing the opportunity for capping a long-standing argument. ‘You see, I don’t always see Lindy through rose-coloured spectacles——!’

  Basil’s face softened. With a quick, unrehearsed gesture, he leaned across the little space between them and took Eileen’s hand.

  ‘Oh, Eileen, why do you have to say that—just when I was beginning to think that it must be your rose-coloured spectacles that I love you for! At least, I would if they were turned on me a little bit more often! And I love you for your loyalty, too, I always have, it’s just that it’s so damned irritating as well….’

  Rosamund judged that now it really was time for her to disappear. All embarrassment between the re-united couple—if re-united they should finally prove to be—had been washed away in disputation—evidently a familiar medium to them both.

  And as Rosamund slowly re-entered her own unnaturally quiet home, she could hardly have said which th
ought was now disturbing her most—the thought that she might prove to be a murderess, or the thought that Eileen was perhaps right, and she really was ‘terribly like Lindy’.

  CHAPTER XXI

  ‘Oh, by the way, Mummy,’ called Peter from the front steps, just as he was leaving for school next morning: ‘They rang up from Ashdene last night. They want you to go down.’

  Rosamund hurried from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. She caught him at the gate.

  ‘What for? When? You might have told me, Peter!’

  ‘Well, I am telling you,’ Peter pointed out, manoeuvring his bicycle through the gate, impatient to be gone.

  ‘Wait, Peter, do tell me a bit more about it. What did Granny say, exactly? Has anything happened?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Peter, one foot on the pedal already. ‘It was Walker answered the phone, not me. From what he says, I don’t think it could have been Granny, it must have been Jessie or someone, but anyway, they want you to come down as soon as you can manage it. They sounded in a bit of a flap, Walker says, but I wouldn’t worry, Mummy, not really. You know how Walker always exaggerates everything.’

  For a moment Rosamund was distracted from the main issue as she made (not for the first time) a dazed sort of effort to relate the Walker she knew to the one that Peter appeared to; but as always, it was useless. Meanwhile Peter and his bicycle, like a single organism, had sailed off into the stream of morning traffic, and she was left to ponder this new development as best she could.

  She must go down to Ashdene, of course, by the earliest train possible, and see what it was all about. Her mind began to seethe, not with anxieties but with trivial plans. The expedition might take all day, so she must leave something ready for Geoffrey’s and Peter’s supper, and a note explaining where she had gone. A note for the laundry man too, and for the window cleaner, and for the man who had failed to come and look at the boiler for the last six weeks, but who would undoubtedly come today. Oh, and she must tell Eileen that she couldn’t after all look in and feed Shang Low, she must find someone else: with luck, Eileen wouldn’t have left for work yet.