A Winter's Child

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘Now then, Mrs Swanfield, this is Patsy who is terribly lonely. Could you keep her company – shall we say once a week, for an hour or two?’

  Patsy was pale, depressive, ready to talk all day and all night in a toneless whisper about disaster, misery, suicide, about how no one, anywhere, had ever cared for her or understood her, or given her a chance. She believed it. Nola believed it.

  ‘I need you,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Any hour of the day or night,’ said Nola, writing down her telephone number and her address so that one never knew, at High Meadows, after that, just when the telephone might shrill out in the middle of the night to release the hysterical babble which was Patsy’s cry for help – instant and immediate, ‘Come at once’ – to Nola: or when Patsy herself might be discovered in the early morning, curled up against the kitchen doorstep, wraith-like and scantily clad, having waited there, with the eerie patience of a cat, all night.

  ‘This is Ginny, Mrs Swanfield – a likeable soul, except that please don’t give her money – ever. Our aim is to help our clients to stand on their own feet, not ours. So no money. Please.’

  Ginny was small, quick-witted, apparently fertile although the children who hung about her were not always her own. She was also prone to pains in her hands, a condition caused by the cold, and considerably aggravated by the fact that she had no gloves. Nola at once took off her own – expensive, hand-stitched doeskin – and would have been saddened and surprised to know, although Miss Pickles and Miss Drew would not, that they fetched five shillings that same evening in Faxby Market Place.

  ‘God love you, Mrs Swanfield,’ said Ginny, trundling to market week after week with the blankets her ‘bairns’ – neighbours’children hired for the day every one – had needed to get through the winter, the boots in assorted sizes without which they could not go to school, the pots and pans to ‘help put a morsel or two in their little bellies’, the cradle for the ‘next poor little bastard’she alleged to be on his way.

  ‘I feel,’ said Miriam, looking seriously upset about it, ‘that I am under siege.’

  ‘Don’t ever borrow her car or let her give you a lift,’ warned Polly who, having encountered something she recognized instantly as a louse, although she had never met one before, on Nola’s passenger seat had just consigned to the kitchen fire a nearly-new silk foulard dress.

  ‘I have caught scabies from somebody,’ announced Nola as if she expected congratulations. ‘Look – in the joints of my hands.’

  ‘Don’t come near me,’ shrieked Polly.

  ‘Don’t go near Justin or Simon or my little boys,’ said Eunice.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Miriam, suddenly sitting down. ‘Oh my goodness – Not a word – absolutely not a word of this to anyone.’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ Toby told Claire, entirely without malice, ‘before she falls in love with a housebreaker. And what are the Greenwoods and the Redfearns going to make of it if they happen to be on the bench the day she marches into court and asks for him to be released into her custody, swag-bag and all, because she’s the only one who understands him?’

  What would Miss Pickles make of it – and Miss Drew? What would Benedict make of it?

  Claire preferred not even to wonder, going about her business at the Crown as untroubled by the memory of him, as could be expected, until the night when Elvira Redfearn’s penetrating voice reached her across the restaurant, its ‘I declare this meeting open!’ quality rising far above the discreet murmurings of the other diners as she informed her companion, a woman as overbearing as herself, ‘My dear, if you are thinking of a little place in the country, then I believe I can point you in the right direction. Benedict Swanfield has just put up for sale an absolutely delightful Dales farmhouse – presumably someone left it to him since the contents are up for auction too – next Saturday, I believe. Yes indeed, I shall be attending the sale. Perhaps we could go together. Lovely pieces of art glass.’

  Claire went to the powder room and leaning hard against the washbasin stood for a while, her eyes tight shut, her forehead pressed against the mirror, her body alternating for long, sickening moments between flushes of damp heat and the freezing chill.

  He was selling the farm, the Tiffany lamps, the cameo glass, the Chinese rugs, the memories. Had he found it impossible to take another woman there? Triumph and despair tore at her both together. Where would he go, then, not for sex which he would always find easily attainable but for peace and rest and his illusion of freedom? The farm had been far more to him than a convenient place to entertain women. It had been his escape from High Meadows, a sanctuary. Her eyes still closed she felt the tranquillity of that low, oak-beamed room wash over her, remembered how, in the midst of Miriam’s gold and scarlet Christmas, she had longed for it. Now she had robbed him of that too.

  Some days later a messenger from Swanfield Mills brought her a parcel on which an imperious hand she recognized had scrawled ‘Fragile. With care.’ She knew it was the lily bowl and, taking it up to her room that night, found that she could not open it. It sat on her table, staring at her through its brown paper wrappings while she drank her bedtime cocoa. It was there, waiting for her, the next morning when she got out of bed. And when she put it away in her wardrobe out of sight, barricaded into a corner behind a heap of sweaters, it still worried her. She could neither give it away nor keep it. She could neither unwrap it nor bear to think of it, never more than a few yards away from her, suffocating beneath its sawdust and somebody’s old cricket sweater. In the end she took it to Dorothy’s spare room in Faxby Park.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just memories, mother.’

  ‘Oh well – let’s close the door on it, shall we, and go down to Feathers’to tea.’

  But, quite often these days, Dorothy could be persuaded to have tea at the Crown, one place at least where she could be sure of not meeting Richmal Lyall, and where, sitting at ease in the baroque lounge, she was able to see Kit Hardie no longer as ‘that man’, as Edward had taught her, but as the Manager of this comfortable establishment, a figure of authority and considerable charm.

  ‘The Major is looking well today.’

  ‘He always looks well.’

  ‘These pastries are delicious.’

  ‘They always are.’

  But was it true that Amandine Keller was showing signs of discontent with both her lover and his fish shop, particularly now that her husband’s restaurant, Chez Aristide was about to open its doors? Kit rather thought so.

  ‘It may be only a bistro,’ he said, ‘but at least she’d be La Patronne. Any idea how to make mille-feuilles, Claire?’

  ‘No thank you. And a bit more than a bistro, don’t you think? A red and gold awning over the door the last time I was passing.’

  ‘Don’t pass next time,’ Kit said. ‘Walk in and see what he’s doing. You could probably get away with it. Drop a hint that you might be looking for a job and see if he jumps – and how much. Get him to show you a menu.’

  ‘You’re not worried are you, Kit?’

  ‘Good Lord.’ He gave her his cordial, professional smile, his eyes twinkling. ‘Worried! What a very peculiar idea. As if my customers could be enticed away.’

  ‘I expect they’ll all come back again.’

  ‘I expect so, I’m not even sure it matters.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘That I might be thinking of moving on.’

  Consternation struck her a hard blow.

  ‘Kit!’ And what she meant was ‘How can you leave me?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, ‘but this was never more than a proving ground, you know. And I’ve proved myself, I reckon.’

  ‘So what next?’

  ‘When I’ve made up my mind I’ll let you know. Strictly between ourselves, of course. I wouldn’t want the Croziers breathing down my neck until it’s all arranged. And I can’t see me giving it much attention until after Christmas at the soonest.’

  ‘
Is that all you can tell me?’

  ‘It won’t be in Faxby. To tell the truth I think Faxby may well have had its day – for a place like this I mean. And a place like Aristide’s. Once trade gets really bad the Redfearns and Swanfields and Greenwoods aren’t going to feel comfortable sitting here eating their Contrefilt and drinking their Moe:/ t & Chandon with the unemployed on the prowl outside. They won’t want to be seen, which means secluded little places well away from tram-stops and railway stations. Converted country houses in the Dales or up in the Lakes, only available to the carriage trade in their new horseless carriages. Fairly easily accessible too, these days, now that the roads are mended and all the village blacksmiths have turned themselves into motor mechanics.’

  ‘Sounds risky.’

  ‘So did the Crown. And you joined me here.’

  ‘Are you asking me –?’

  ‘Of course I am. As soon as I can. Just a few minor details to settle first, like raising the money …’

  ‘Ah yes –! Your bank manager has been dining here rather often lately.’

  ‘He has. I hope we’ve impressed him.’

  ‘I’m sure you have.’

  ‘Then let’s make it a good Christmas. I could use the bonus.’

  It was around Christmas time that Polly, with her fiance¥/ once again in tow, returned to the Crown, causing offence both to Roger’s mother and her own; Edith Timms insisting that her son was by no means sufficiently recovered for all this drinking and dancing and ‘gadding about’to keep up with Polly; Miriam offering her tart opinion that if he was well enough to ‘gad about’at all he was well enough to get married.

  But a few small problems had arisen with the house Aaron Swanfield’s money was building. Delivery dates had been postponed and then, in one or two cases, forgotten. Work had not been done. And, in any case, Edith Timms did not think it advisable for Roger, in his weakened condition, to move into a new house in the frozen depths of winter.

  ‘You do see, Polly dear, that it wouldn’t be wise. So much better for both of you when the sun is shining.’

  Polly, who had become very docile since Roger’s illness, very much inclined to sit for hours on end in what Edith called a daydream and Miriam a trance, smiled and nodded her platinum head.

  ‘Yes, whenever you think best.’

  What a dear, sweet girl, thought Edith, an opinion swiftly revised when her son came home with the milk one morning, looking not so much in a state of trance as in shock, having followed Polly from the Crown to no fewer than three different parties where he sat, as he’d always done, talking to Sally Templeton or buying an occasional drink for the restaurant pianist, Adela Adair, watching, waiting, nodding off over his whisky sour while Polly danced.

  She had not danced since the beginning of September. And now she was making up for time lost, time which might hang heavy on her hands next year when she would be Roger’s wife, rushing in frantic haste in every and any direction, piling up memories of folly against the day, not far distant, when Edith Timms, who had seemed to be her friend, would oblige her to be serious: a fragile, frenzied butterfly settling everywhere and nowhere until the day – quite soon – when Edith’s net would force her to be still.

  It did not occur to her to cancel her engagement. Such things, without serious provocation, were simply not done – particularly now when fiancés were not easily replaceable. And Roger had done nothing to provoke her except come down with appendici – tis, for which she could not blame him, and show himself to her – no worse than she ought to have expected – in those crumpled striped pyjamas. She had agreed to marry him – and everybody else, her mother, his mother, her brother Benedict, the authority figures of her life, had taken her very seriously. Money had been spent. Benedict had made certain arrangements, in agreement with bankers and lawyers and Mr Timms, about her trust fund. There was the new house on Lawnswood Hill, filling up with carpets and furniture as if by magic before her eyes. There was her wedding dress. And what of the cupboard on the top landing at High Meadows crammed full of wedding gifts which had already started to pour in before Roger’s illness, and for which she had already written notes of thanks? It was simply not in her to call a halt to all that. And far better, in any case, to be the wife of a rich young man, dull and podgy and balding she’d noticed lately though he may be, than face a lifetime of spinsterhood – resigned like Sally Templeton, embittered like Adela Adair – at High Meadows.

  She was, without really being aware of it, quite desperate, wearing an aura of abandon well suited to the mood of the times. She was a flame in the process of burning out. She was self-destructive, unstable, at the end of her tether. Irresistible.

  ‘What a treasure,’ said Arnold Crozier, gazing at her speculatively across the pale blonde head of the girl he had taken from a station bookstall and was already thinking of putting back again.

  ‘What a waste,’ said Toby, looking sadly at Roger Timms who, once again, had become a feature of the cocktail – bar, sitting placidly among the wallflowers like Sally Templeton until the stroke of whatever hour their mothers had specified called them home, and then, when the jazz band had left too, buying the musical talents of Adela Adair for Polly, plying her with drinks and Turkish cigarettes to keep her at the piano while Polly danced.

  Christmas passed in a sleepless haze. January and February, cold and grey for everyone else, were cold and hard but golden for Polly. And it was in this mood that she met Roy Kington again.

  She had not forgotten him. She had simply been too proud to talk about him and had made a point of not enquiring his whereabouts from his brother, Rex. Although, since Sally Templeton – showing what Polly considered a notable lack of self-respect – had taken pains to find out he had been staying in Cheltenham with his former company commander, naturally Polly knew it too. He had hurt her. He deserved her hatred and she desired that he should have it. Yet when he appeared in the cocktail bar doorway one February night and paused there, lean and hard and arrogant, surveying the scene, she had felt his presence nevertheless like a blow that had reopened both old wounds and deep-rooted, far-better-forgotten delights.

  She had not forgotten. She had not forgotten the shame either, the rough handling and the final degradation to which he had subjected her. But what mattered – instantly – was that he should pay attention now to her, not to Sally nor hopeful, greedy Adela Adair, nor to anyone in that line of wallflowers he had set so badly a-quiver.

  And, to that end, while Sally enthused her joy at seeing him again and Adela Adair dipped her red head and her bare freckled shoulders into the lamplight for his perusal, Polly ignored him.

  She danced.

  He stood, leaning against a pillar, allowing Sally and Adela to watch him: watching her.

  He went away and, although she was very sweet to Roger on the way home, she managed to excuse herself from permitting him what had become the usual, clumsy liberties.

  ‘I’m so tired Roger – and I have a headache.’

  Fortunately, or perhaps not, Roger Timms was somewhat in awe of headaches, his mother having suffered from them at every crisis point of his life and her own, and believed – as Edith had taught him – that at such times a man must tread very warily.

  ‘Beastly old headache again,’ she told him the following evening at the Crown. ‘It’s so smoky in here. I’ll just step outside for a breath of air. No. Don’t come with me. I want to be quiet.’

  ‘All right, Polly.’ He smiled, resumed his seat again, having heard his mother use the same words a hundred times and when Edith did not wish to be disturbed one did not disturb her. All women, it seemed, were the same.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ asked Sally Templeton sharply.

  ‘For a breath of air.’ He believed it. And although Sally Templeton probably knew she had gone out to meet Roy Kington, she was a ‘lady’and did not know the words to say so.

  She met him in the alley behind the hotel, coming to deliver a message of contempt for him, to pr
onounce a final, scornful goodbye to which he replied, ‘I couldn’t forget you, Polly.’

  She had not expected that.

  ‘I left Faxby because of you. I couldn’t stay once you’d got engaged to that chap. I’ve just come back to see my mother and then – well – no use in hanging around now, is there?’

  He had, in fact, left Faxby because he had been promised a job in Cheltenham and would not have returned had it materialized. He had remembered Polly as a flighty bitch who had led him on, had tried to make a fool of him, and upon whom the tables had been turned. Seeing her again, sensing the desire she was arousing in other men, he had made up his mind to have another crack at getting her himself.

  It meant no more to him than that.

  ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Polly.’

  He had, in fact, met a woman in Cheltenham, older and wiser than himself who had taught him a certain amount of amorous expertise, explaining to him that the female of the species can more easily, and sometimes only, be aroused by affection, by making her promises not of orgasm but of love.

  ‘I – I’ve missed you, Polly.’

  The effect on her was everything and more than he desired.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ But, because believing him was what she wanted most that moment in the whole world, it would only take another word or two to convince her.

  ‘Why did you bring that dreadful girl to my mother’s party?’

  A natural soldier he moved at once to the attack in order to defend himself. Revenge, he told her. Madness of course but then, who was to blame for that but Polly herself who had hurt him driven him half-crazy? He’d been ready to kill her. He’d thought he probably might, and if it were true what the poet said and each man kills the thing he loves, well then, he’d leave her to draw her own conclusions.