‘I don’t think I can begin to convey to you how awful it was,’ she said, and instantly, as she had known that she would, Jessica started upon a flurry of flimsy silver linings. ‘It must be nice to have Teddy home,’ she said.
‘Of course I’m glad he’s back. But I’m worried about him. Edward’ (she pronounced his name with a new, bitter clarity) ‘doesn’t pay him enough. He has the most awful struggle to make ends meet. And Bernadine – I have them to supper once a week – told me that that woman has a housekeeper, a daily woman and someone to look after her child! Something of a contrast to here.’
‘Well, darling, you did choose this house—’
‘When I thought I was going to live in it with my husband!’ There was a short silence, and when she had lit a cigarette, she said, ‘And he’s bought her a new car!’
‘He did give you one, didn’t he? The Vauxhall?’
‘It’s hardly the same, is it? I need one. She has someone to chauffeur her around.’ She smiled then, to show that however awful everything was, she could take it.
Wanting to give her something to smile at, Jessica said, ‘Judy says Lydia is tremendously popular at school. She said she was wonderful as Feste. Such a pretty voice. How pleased Daddy would have been.’
‘Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?’ For a moment they were amiably united by nostalgic affection. ‘But I expect Mummy would have been simply shocked at her playing a member of the opposite sex. Which would knock out Shakespeare completely for any girls’ school.’
‘Oh, it didn’t,’ Jessica said. ‘They simply cut out the rude bits and most of the then wear sort of robes anyway. I don’t think Shakespeare counted when it came to decorum – even with Mummy.’
‘How’s Judy?’
Jessica sighed. ‘Going through a difficult phase. She argues with Raymond, which he doesn’t like at all, and she somehow seems too big for the house. She’s always knocking things over and shouting when one can hear her perfectly well if she simply speaks. I think sixteen is almost the worst age.’
‘And Angela?’
‘Good news. She’s having a baby.’
‘Darling, how nice for you!’
‘If only she wasn’t thousands of miles away, it would be. I want to go over, of course, when it’s born, but Raymond won’t let me go by myself, and he hates the idea of the voyage. I must say I sometimes almost envy you being free to make your own decisions.’ Looking at her sister’s face, she retreated from this notion. ‘Of course I know it’s awful, darling, I really do. But Raymond doesn’t like to let me out of his sight, and honestly I do find it claustrophobic. He doesn’t like parties, or concerts, or any fun, really. All he wants to do is sit in that coach house he’s converting, grumbling about what Nora has done to his house, and bullying the builders.’
There was a silence during which Villy looked at Jessica and thought how astonishingly insensitive she really was. It was all part of what she now had to endure – passing sympathy of the kind one might proffer to someone who had mislaid something, and then reams of stuff about the petty inconveniences of her life.
‘How is Louise? Isn’t it about time—?’
‘She hardly comes near me. I think I told you that she was in cahoots with her father about the whole wretched business behind my back – he talked to her before me – and when I did see her she admitted that she’d met that woman, actually had dinner with them, so it’s quite clear to me which side she’s on.’
‘Have you seen him?’
She sensed sympathy. ‘Not since some time before Christmas. He asked me to lunch because he wanted me to divorce him.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘I don’t know. Why should I? I don’t want a divorce.’
When Jessica didn’t reply, she said, ‘You think I should?’
‘Well, it does sound as though you’re in rather a strong position. I mean, if he wants it and you don’t. You might get him to make rather more generous provision for you in return for agreeing.’
‘I’m not interested in money!’
‘Darling, if you don’t mind me saying so, that’s because you’ve always had enough of it. I haven’t, as you know, and it’s made me realize that being unhappy with not enough money is infinitely worse than being unhappy with more. That’s all I meant.’
She was trying to help. She was wrong, of course, but she meant well. ‘I’ll think about it,’ Villy said, to close the subject. ‘That’s a very pretty suit. Did you get it from Hermione?’
‘Yes. She’s got some very nice tweeds. And it’s bliss not to have to stick any more to the utility thing. I always loathed those frightfully short skirts. You should go and look.’
Villy offered a drink, and Jessica said one would be lovely, and then she must go. For the rest of her visit, they stuck to safe subjects … Christopher, who had spent Christmas with Nora to help, seemed to have become rather religious, and Father Lancing, who was very High Church, had taken rather a fancy to him, or he to Father Lancing – at any rate, Christopher was always doing things for the parish, running errands and so forth, ‘although I think that was partly to get away from Raymond’, she finished. Roland was having lessons with Miss Milliment, but of course next autumn he would really have to go to school, Villy said, although she was not going to send him away. Miss Milliment, apart from being a little deaf, was much the same, although her sight did seem to be worse. Jessica divulged the fact that Raymond and Richard had got rather drunk together on New Year’s Eve and that Nora had been outraged. ‘But for once I think Raymond was right, and it was good for poor Richard to have a little fun.’ Then she had added that it was rather awful to think that getting drunk with Raymond constituted fun, and they had both laughed.
They had become friends again. She felt quite sorry when Jessica left.
Armed with her own clothes coupons and some that the Duchy had given her at Christmas, she did go and see Hermione. She decided to ring up first to be sure that Hermione would be there. She was, and immediately asked her to lunch. She left lunch for Miss Milliment and the children, and promised to be back in time for tea. Lydia had protested, ‘Honestly, Mummy, it’s terrifically boring having lunch with nobody of my age,’ but she was placated by being allowed to make a cake. ‘Only you’ll have to use dried eggs.’
It was a raw, cold January day; there had been a heavy frost and the sky was dense with what looked like snow; there was ice on the lake in Regent’s Park and the grass was white with rime. People waiting for buses in Baker Street looked pinched with cold; it was even cold in the car, and Villy was glad when she reached the cosy shop in Curzon Street. Hermione, as usual, made her feel both distinguished and welcome. ‘How too, too lovely that you were able to come! And it’s so lucky because my divine chestnut has gone lame so no hunting this week. Miss MacDonald! Look who’s here!’ and Miss MacDonald, wearing the jacket that matched her pinstriped flannel skirt, appeared from the depth of the shop, and smiled and said how nice it was to see her.
‘I’m sure Miss MacDonald could rustle up a cup of coffee – in fact, we’d both like some, if you’d be an angel.’ Miss MacDonald smiled again and disappeared.
‘What’s happened to your neck?’
‘I broke it last week. Rory and I rather misjudged the most enormous hedge that turned out to have a horrid ditch on the other side of it. We both came down, but our respective vets have said the damage is superficial. Rory has to rest and I have to wear this horrid collar. Sit down, darling, and let’s consider what you would like to see.’
Villy sat on the fat little sofa, newly upholstered in grey damask, while Hermione lowered herself stiffly on to a chair. ‘I don’t need party clothes. There aren’t any parties these days.’ She looked up from getting a cigarette out of her bag and met Hermione’s shrewd, cool gaze. ‘I’m not being sorry for myself,’ she said. ‘It’s simply a matter of fact.’
‘I always think the English concept of best clothes that are hardly ever worn is one of the chi
ef reasons why they look so dowdy. One should wear one’s best clothes all the time. I think what you need is a really ravishing tweed suit, and perhaps a cosy woollen dress that will lend itself to some of your beautiful jewellery. But we’ll see.’ They saw for about two hours, at the end of which she had acquired a suit of charcoal and cream tweed with charcoal velvet trimming, a dress in fine facecloth the colour of black currants with long sleeves and a high neck, and a short coat in black doeskin lined with artificial fur. Of course, she had looked at, and tried on, many other things – including, at Hermione’s insistence, a long straight evening skirt of black crêpe with a multi-coloured figured-velvet jacket. ‘It is lovely, but I’d never wear it,’ she said, and realized that for the past two hours she had not, until now, remembered her altered state.
Hermione took her to the Berkeley, where they had a secluded corner table with the head waiter behaving as though Hermione lunching there had filled his cup. When they had settled for hot consommé and a casserole of grouse, Hermione said, ‘Now we’re out of Miss MacDonald’s earshot, I really want to know how you are and what is going on. Are you knee-deep in lawyers?’
‘No. Edward’s lawyer wrote to me once about money, but that’s all. Why?’
‘Divorces usually have lawyers attached to them. I imagined you were divorcing him.’
‘I don’t know. He wants me to.’
‘That’s not a good reason. I think it should be entirely for your sake.’
‘Why?’
‘Darling, he has behaved abominably. Unless, of course, he has recognized this and wants to change his mind …’
‘Oh, no. He’s set up with her now. They have a household.’ She heard, and disliked, the bitterness in her own voice. ‘Oh, Hermione, I find it so hideous! I can’t stop thinking about it. To know that he’s in London, a few miles away, getting up and making plans with her at breakfast – he must drive almost past the end of my road going back to her in the evenings, and his taking her out, going to his club with her so that all the members can see her – they’ve even been to dinner with people who used to be our friends – and then going back to their house and their bedroom—’ She could not go on: her imagination by no means stopped there, but she was ashamed of the disgusting thoughts that so easily took possession of her, night after night, and so frequently rendered her sleepless until they had run their revolting course. Not here! Not in this restaurant, in broad daylight, with Hermione opposite her. She picked up her glass of water and sipped it while she tried to think of something pretty and harmless. ‘It’s all been such a shock,’ she finished lamely, because she had said this so many times before. Daffodils, she thought, that cliché-ridden poem of Wordsworth’s that Daddy used to love so much. But it was too late. Looking at Hermione’s attentive, carefully expressionless face, she felt exposed.
‘It is vile for you … I can’t help feeling that you need to be entirely shot of him so that you can do something else with your life.’
‘But what could I do? I’m years past dancing, even if I’d been doing it all my life. I gave all that up for Edward.’
‘You might teach – children, perhaps. More and more little girls seem to want to do ballet.’
‘I don’t think anyone would have me. I’m fearfully rusty.’
‘You don’t know that.’
For the rest of lunch it seemed to her that every time she explained – with a practical reason – why she would not be able to do something, Hermione simply presented her with something else, until she felt hedged in by possibilities.
As they got back to the shop to collect her new clothes, she said, ‘I suppose one of the reasons why I don’t want to divorce Edward is that it would mean I was giving in, just doing what he wants and becoming nobody in the process.’
To which Hermione in her light, rather amused drawl, answered, ‘I don’t think you would. I’m divorced, after all – have been for ages when it was far less acceptable, and I am not a nobody. Never have been.’
‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry! Of course you aren’t but I’m not glamorous and entertaining and all the things you are.’
‘Oh, my dear! What an abject refugee! And here is Miss MacDonald with your sackcloth and ashes.’
She drove home full of the conversation at lunch. Of course, it had not changed her mind but it had provided food for thought. She felt uncertain, excited and fearful: the future branched out before her with more prongs to it than she had been envisaging. Perhaps she could start a small ballet class? This had nothing to do with a divorce: she could not see why Hermione had connected the two things. Perhaps she would talk to Sid, who taught at a girls’ school and might have ideas about how one set about getting teaching work.
But when she got home it was to a strong smell of burning cake – and freezing cold, since Lydia had opened all the windows to get the smoke out, she explained. She found Miss Milliment on her knees before the sitting-room fireplace, trying to clear out the grate – the fire had gone out – in order to re-lay and light it. Oh, Lord! she thought. How could I ever think of doing anything? ‘I leave you for a few hours and look what happens!’ she scolded. ‘All those cake materials wasted, and the kitchen looks as though you’ve been cooking for about two days, Lydia! And why did you let the fire go out? You were in here, weren’t you?’ She was helping Miss Milliment to her feet as she spoke.
‘I fear it was my fault,’ Miss Milliment was saying. ‘I fell asleep over the crossword after lunch and did not keep an eye on everybody as I should have.’
‘You shouldn’t have had to. Lydia is quite old enough to have dealt with things.’
‘It was Roland who burnt the cake,’ Lydia said. ‘He turned the gas up to make it cook quicker. I could have told him how stupid that was.’
‘And don’t tell tales. Will you never learn not to do that?’
‘I think at my age it’s too late now for me to learn that kind of thing.’
‘It was my fault, Mummy. I’m really sorry. We were playing Racing Demon and we forgot the cake. And I’m afraid I fused the lights upstairs because I was doing my experiment and there was a bang. Sorry, Mum. I’ll do the fire for you.’ He stumped on to the tiled fireplace and there was a scrunching sound that turned out to be Miss Milliment’s spectacles, which had fallen off when she was being hauled to her feet.
‘Have you got another pair, Miss Milliment?’
‘I believe I have still the ones that I had before I left London. They are in my father’s old case, as they were his frames. Somewhere. I cannot quite recollect where.’
Hours later, Villy had mended the fuse, got the fire going, shut the windows – it had begun to snow – set Lydia to clearing up the kitchen and Roland to help her with the washing-up, spent ages searching through Miss Milliment’s battered and capacious luggage for the spare spectacles, which proved almost useless when they were found, made tea for everyone with toast and potted meat instead of the cake, cleaned the oven and got more wood from the shed in the garden, sent Roland up to have his bath before supper and had another confrontation with Lydia about the state of her bedroom, which resulted in Lydia bursting into tears and then coming to her and saying that she had rung up Polly, who had invited her to supper and she was jolly well going. As this meant one bus down Abbey Road and Baker Street, she allowed it on the understanding that Lydia came back in a taxi for which she gave her money. Lydia went off, white-faced and sulking, and Villy felt miserable about it. As she had been coming downstairs from Roland she had overheard Lydia on the telephone saying, ‘… it’s horrible here’, and the phrase, and her daughter’s voice saying it, kept repeating in her head. After all her efforts it was horrible!
Roland said he didn’t want any supper, and proved to have a temperature. He couldn’t have caught cold already – must have been cooking up some ailment before that. She settled him down with an aspirin and a hot drink, and then began to make supper for herself and Miss Milliment who, it was clear to her, could hardly see at all. ‘I
’ll take you tomorrow morning to the optician,’ she said, ‘and we’ll have two pairs of glasses made.’ She made herself an extremely strong gin before dinner. It meant that she was going to run out of it before the grocer would let her have another bottle, but she was so tired and dispirited, she didn’t care. She gave Miss Milliment her sherry, but the glass got knocked over before she had had more than one sip of it. ‘Oh, my dear Viola, what must you think of me?’
‘It’s quite all right, only I’m afraid there’s only a drop left.’
She went to the kitchen to get it. It would probably take a week for the new glasses to be made and she realized that everything about Miss Milliment’s life would be a hazard until they were. I shall be more pinned to the house than usual, she thought, as she put the potatoes on to boil, scorching her finger with the match. ‘Oh! Damn!’ The sudden pain brought tears to her eyes.
When she had given Miss Milliment what remained of the sherry, she topped up her gin without thinking. ‘The other half’, Edward had always called the statutory second drink. But no sooner had she settled herself upon the sofa than unmistakably she heard Roland crying. ‘I don’t think he’s very well,’ she said, and then, as she was pounding upstairs, realized that Miss Milliment had not heard him and therefore hadn’t understood what she had said.
He was sitting up in bed, crying. When he saw her, he cried, ‘Oh, Mummy! I want you to be with me!’
She sat on his bed and put her arms round him. He was hot and his hair was damp with sweat. ‘Darling! How do you feel?’
‘Crumbly.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I feel like a weak old biscuit. Hot and crumbly.’
‘Biscuits aren’t hot,’ she said, stroking his head. His ears stuck out in spite of Ellen taping them back when he’d been a baby, and with his feverishly bright eyes and the widow’s peak of his hair that grew, like hers, just off centre, he looked like a small monkey. ‘Would you like a drink?’
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 181