by Ruth Rendell
She giggled. It was from nervousness and understandable, but it still seemed misplaced. I wished then that I was the sort of woman who could have reached out and touched her hand. Or even put my arms round her. But I no longer liked her, I had ceased to like her long ago, and I was sure she must dislike me, the way we do dislike people we have injured.
Instead of that gentle touch, I spoke to her. ‘You can borrow the diary translations if you want to. There may be something in them that never found its way into print.’
She said, ‘Thanks,’ in a thick slurry voice.
I remembered then that she wasn’t very good with wine and knew I shouldn’t give her any more. Her face was puffed up and curiously shiny. There weren’t enough lights on in Swanny’s drawing room and the warm, golden, intimate atmosphere seemed terribly at odds with us and what we’d talked of. I switched on the central chandelier and set it blazing. Cary blinked and gave a shiver.
‘I’ll take the translations,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll go. I’ll give you the account of the Roper case and one of the trial and some more stuff I’ve unearthed on separate sheets.’ She bent right over to take them out of her briefcase and I could hear – or I could sense—the strumming of the blood in her head. ‘Here.’ The hand she extended to me trembled a very little.
I knew then that what had upset her wasn’t my non-forgiveness or her memories of Daniel Blain or her embarrassment at the subject coming up at all, none of those things. She was upset because I’d said we were too old to have lovers. It wasn’t true, of course, one is probably never too old and we were still in our forties, but I had said it and cut her to the quick. I couldn’t help it then, I felt desperately sorry for her, something I’d thought I’d never feel.
‘Let’s forget it, Cary. We’ll never talk of it again. All over, OK?’
‘Please,’ she said and brightened almost at once, was all smiles, hugging the folders full of translations to her as if they were her lost love letters. She could always astound me with her changes of subject. ‘What do you think she did with the pages she tore out?’
‘What?’
‘Your aunt. We’re saying she tore them out because there were things in them she didn’t want people to see after she was dead.’
I supposed we were. It just didn’t sound like Swanny, the way I remembered her. ‘So?’
‘Would she have thrown them away? I wouldn’t think so. She’d have hidden them somewhere.’
I could imagine being there all night while Cary and I searched Swanny’s house for this kind of treasure trove. Or, rather, I couldn’t imagine it. She and I weren’t talking about the same people. But after she had gone, uttering promises to see me soon, after we had found a taxi for her, and I had retreated into the warm, shiny, empty house, I sat down with the last of the champagne and thought about what she’d said. No doubt I thought about it to stop thinking of Daniel Blain whom I used to describe to myself in a dramatic inner voice as the only man I’d ever loved.
Did I want to know who Swanny really was? Did I care? Not as she had done, of course, but, yes, I was curious. And by now there were more questions to be answered. Not only who was Swanny, but did she find out who she was before she died? Was it in those missing five pages for July and August 1905 and was there also included some vital fact relevant to the Roper case?
Too late I realized Cary hadn’t told me if Roper was hanged or acquitted and I hadn’t asked.
11
November 7th, 1913
IGAAR FLYTTEDE VI ind i vores nye Hus, Rasmus og jeg, Mogens, Knud, Swanny og Marie, Hansine og Emily. Aah ja, og selvfølgelig Bjørn. Der er nok Soveværelser til Børnene, saa de kan have hver sit, og Hansine og Emily oppe i Loftet, saa de behøver ikke mere at dele Værelse. Men Hansine er slet ikke tilfreds med det. Hun er bekymret for, at hendes Cropper ikke vil tage hele Turen fra Homerton, eller hvor det nu er, at han bor.
Yesterday we moved into our new house, Rasmus and I, Mogens, Knud, Swanny and Marie, Hansine and Emily. Oh, and Bjørn, of course. There are enough bedrooms for the children to have one each and Hansine and Emily, up in the attics, don’t have to share any more. Not that Hansine is at all pleased. She’s worried that her Cropper won’t want to make the journey all the way from Homerton, or wherever it is he lives.
Everywhere is a mess, the new carpets haven’t come and our furniture looks very shabby in these fine rooms. I left it all and went out this morning, exploring my new terrain. The air is strong and fresh up here, breathing it is like tossing off a glass of very cold snaps. From our back windows you can look down over the whole of London and see the River Thames sparkling in the sun, but outdoors you really feel in the country with the woods here and the windy hilltops.
I walked through the woods to Muswell Hill and down to Hornsey, I walked for miles. I found Alexandra Palace like an enormous greenhouse and I found the station where the trains run that go up there and down to London. Since I’ve been in this country I haven’t been in trains much but I shall go in them now and I shall walk on to Hampstead Heath.
When I got back Rasmus wanted to know where I’d been and how could I go out enjoying myself when there was so much to be done at home. Well, I’m back now, I said, what shall I do? So we went out in one of the motor cars to buy furniture and then he showed me the big shop he’s taken in the Archway Road to sell his ‘automobiles’.
December 12th, 1913
I have got my fur coat. Rasmus has given it to me for Christmas, two weeks in advance.
When I look back in these diaries, as I sometimes do, and read the things I’ve written I see myself as a thoroughly bad wife, a wife who seems to hate her husband. And I’m often sorry for myself, I’m a real self-pitier. They say—or someone said—that the important thing in life is to know yourself. Well, keeping a diary teaches you to know yourself. But does it teach you to improve? Probably not. One is oneself. People don’t change except when they’re very young. They make stupid New Year Resolutions to be different and keep to them for two days. The truth is they can’t. Even a great tragedy coming into your life doesn’t change you much, though it may make you harder.
When I got the fur coat I was bitterly disappointed. It reminded me of something that happened when I was a child. Someone had given me a paintbox, it may have been Tante Frederikke, and I was quite fond of painting pictures. My father promised to get me a palette and I formed a picture in my mind of what this thing was going to be. I’d seen one in a painting of an artist. The funny thing was that the artist in the painting was a woman, and that must be pretty well unheard-of, a woman being a painter and getting well-known for it. She was French, this one, and called Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun and with red hair like me. In the painting she was holding a brush in one hand and a big oval palette with a hole for her thumb. Paint in all sorts of colours was daubed on it and I imagined myself holding something like it and looking like that. But when Far gave me his present it wasn’t my idea of a palette at all but a little square sheet of metal with a handle sticking out.
I’ve never forgotten that and of course it came back when Rasmus gave me the coat. Dark brown skunk, a long way from that dream of mine of Persian lamb trimmed with white fox, as far removed as that bit of metal was from the beautiful oval palette. My face must have shown him how I felt. I put it on to please him and he said it was a good fit.
‘Don’t you like it?’ he said. ‘I thought you wanted a fur coat.’
I didn’t answer him. Instead I said, ‘Do you think I’ve been very unkind and ungrateful in all our years? Have I been too hard and sharp and critical for you, Rasmus?’
He didn’t think I was sincere. He thought I was getting at him in some way. I could see his crafty look. ‘I don’t try to understand women,’ he said. ‘They’re a mystery. Any man will tell you.’
‘No, you tell me. Have you had enough of me? If you could, would you be rid of me?’
What was I hoping for? What could I hope for? And what on earth did I think he’d say?
; ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.
‘I thought we could talk about it.’
‘We are talking,’ he said, ‘and much good it’ll do us. If all this is because you don’t like the coat I can change it.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘don’t bother. It’ll be fine.’
December 18th, 1913
It’s a strange thing now, when a name comes into your mind and you think about it, that same name keeps coming up throughout the day. I hadn’t thought of Vigée-Lebrun for years until she came back to me when I remembered the affair of the palette. She was there in my head when I took the children to the National Gallery and suddenly I saw her self-portrait on the wall in front of us. There she was with her pale red hair and the dress and hat to match her hair, her thumb hooked through the famous palette, the kind I wanted, and a bunch of brushes in her hand.
Dear little Swanny looked up into my face and said, ‘That lady looks like you, lille Mor.’
Of course the boys had to spoil it by saying it was I looked like the lady because the lady came first and Marie said Mor didn’t have earrings like pink tears (her words), but I suppose I do look a bit like Mme Vigée.
Then, in the afternoon, I was in the library—I’m determined to read English books as well as my Danish favourites—when what should I see on the shelves but a book about Vigée Lebrun in the Masterpieces in Colour series, this one by a man with the very fancy name of Haldane MacFall. Of course I took it out and I’ve been reading it and looking at the pictures of Marie Antoinette, sad pictures because the poor queen was executed. I was glad to discover that Mme Vigée escaped the guillotine by getting out of France before the worst of it started.
That led to another train of thought. One always thinks of France as being the only country to have a guillotine but this isn’t so. The Swedes had one and have one now, but they’ve only used it once. My cousin Sigrid told me that in the street next to them in Stockholm there lived a man who was condemned to death for murdering a woman. It was a strange story. He was married but he and his wife had no children and they desperately wanted a child. It must have been the wife’s fault because he had a child by his mistress who lived up in Sollentuna. The mistress refused to give up the child, she wanted him to divorce his wife and marry her, but he loved the wife, so he murdered the mistress and took the child for himself and his wife to adopt.
They were going to guillotine him. He would have been the first person the Swedes had ever used their guillotine on, in the old days they used an axe, but somehow he got reprieved and was sent to prison for life instead. I think I’d rather have my head chopped off!
Eventually they used their guillotine, once and once only, just three years ago. Who knows? There may be someone else who will one day get his head sliced off. If a man commits a murder he deserves death, say I.
December 27th, 1913
Our first Christmas in the new house. We had a Christmas tree six feet high and I decorated it all in white and silver, no colours, just the pure brightness of snow and frost. Rasmus has decreed that now we are in our own house that we own and are real ‘Britishers’, we must have an English Christmas which means in fact that we have two: a dinner on Christmas Eve and another one on Christmas Day with presents in the morning.
He’s always hated dressing up as Father Christmas, so Mogens did it for the first time this year and now he always will, he says. ‘You won’t always be here,’ I said, ‘you’ll have a home of your own and children of your own.’ That’s something I can really believe when I see how tall he is and realize he’ll be sixteen next month.
The girls of course wouldn’t go to sleep, they’d eaten all that rich food and they were waiting for Father Christmas. Rasmus would never have had the patience to wait until they were asleep before filling their stockings, but Mogens did. He sat on the top of the stairs in his red coat and hood with cotton wool stuck all over his face and he had to wait for hours. He said it was two o’clock before they closed their eyes and he could creep in with his sack.
I believe he would do anything for his sister Swanny, he loves her so and always has. Marie is just the baby for him and a bit of a nuisance but he adores Swanny. And so do I.
She came downstairs on Christmas morning and said as cool as you please, ‘Why didn’t you do Father Christmas this year, Far?’ That was the first we knew that she didn’t believe in him any more. I forget how old she is, I forget she’s eight and growing up and away from me. She put her arms round Mogens and kissed him and said he was her Brother Christmas.
Another present from Rasmus. Money this time for me to buy clothes. Following dear little Swanny’s example, I went up to him and gave him a kiss. It’s hard to say who was the more surprised, me at getting the money or him at being kissed. I am becoming quite a saint. It must be due to getting all these things I want—or more or less what I want—a nice house and furniture and now this money. Well, whatever they say, happiness makes you better and suffering makes you worse.
I am going to buy a French tricot cardigan I’ve seen and a motoring coat with raglan sleeves and maybe a pagoda-shaped costume that has a tricorne hat to go with it. I like extreme clothes that make people stare.
January 3rd, 1914
All the children made New Year Resolutions—well, Swanny made Marie’s for her. She may suck her thumb but she is never again to suck that bit of blanket she carries about everywhere with her. Poor little Marie kept to that for a whole two hours! Swanny made a resolution not to cry any more, Mogens to work harder at mathematics and Knud not to smoke cigarettes. When I said he didn’t smoke cigarettes anyway, he was too young, he said you never could tell when the craving might start and it was as well to be prepared.
Rasmus, half in fun no doubt and to please the children (he says) made his resolution to be a millionaire! I think he’s serious.
June 30th, 1914
Two days ago the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in a place called Sarajevo by a Bosnian Serb. Why is it that important people, royalty and suchlike, get assassinated while other people are just murdered?
It is obvious that the poor man who did it had been driven mad by having his country taken over by Austria-Hungary. My father felt the same about Schleswig and Holstein though he didn’t assassinate anybody, thank God. The fools are those people who say it was all a plot engineered by Servian officials. Why do they want to make trouble?
I’m glad it’s all happening such a long way from here.
I took the girls and Emily for a picnic in Highgate Woods but Marie got bitten by a mosquito, cried and cried and refused to be comforted. I was carrying her and not too happily because she is a big lump and must weigh three stone—Emily had the picnic basket—when who should we meet in the Muswell Hill Road but that Mrs Gibbons who lived next door but two in Lavender Grove.
I don’t think she’d have recognized me if I hadn’t spoken first. She eyed me up and down, taking in all the details of my Bordeaux-red dress with the tricolour motifs and my white hat with red cockade. I’ve worn my wedding ring on my left hand ever since she told me people would think I wasn’t respectable if I didn’t, and now I wear Rasmus’s emerald on top of it. I moved my hand up across Marie’s back to show off the rings and I could see her looking.
‘Did your husband ever come back, Mrs Westerby?’ she said, as if she hadn’t seen him in Lavender Grove scores of times. I suppose it was her way of getting revenge for me being so obviously rich and having a maid with me. She looked pretty badly off herself, poor thing.
I made Marie say hallo to her, though her face was all puffy with crying.
‘Children have been known to die of mosquito bites, you know,’ she said.
I’d been going to invite her back to Padanaram for tea but that stopped me. All the more reason to hurry back, I said, and get some arnica put on it. But it made me think about me and the women I know. Mrs Bisgaard that I met at the Danish church and who lives in Hampstead is quite nice and I hav
e been to tea with her and she to me, but she is so correct and well-mannered, all her talk is small talk and she cares for nothing but children. I wish I had a friend!
July 29th, 1914
Yesterday was Swanny’s birthday. She was nine. We had a birthday party after school and ten of her friends came—well, ten girls from her class. I don’t know if they were really friends. I’m not much of a cook but I wanted to make her birthday cake myself and it turned out quite well, a Victoria sponge with jam in the middle and Royal icing on top and nine candles. She blew them out in one go.
I made her party frock too, saxe blue and emerald shot silk with picot edges to all the flounces. When Hansine saw the material she said, ‘Blue and green should never be seen,’ but I think they can be a beautiful combination. Swanny’s lovely fair hair reaches to her waist. She was quite the prettiest girl at the party. The little Bisgaard girl, Dorte, had the most beautiful dress, real matelasse in a shade of old rose, but nothing can take away the plainness of her face. Rasmus didn’t show himself at what he called the ‘jollification’ but stayed outside in his workshop all the time. When I complained he said, didn’t I want a wrought-iron jardinière for the hall? He thought I did (very sarcastic) and that was why he was labouring out there at all hours.
Much less important than the party was those Austrians declaring war on Servia. Mr Housman and his new wife, his bride really, came in much later in the evening and Mr Housman said it will all be over in a week. He’s a sensible man and I believe what he says. Russia, who thinks of herself as the protector of this small Slav state, will have to sink into the humiliating position of a beaten power. She dare not fight and must watch the Teuton Empire expanding in overwhelming might (his words—I don’t think he intended a rhyme).
Mrs Housman, who is a very big woman but quite good-looking and with hair so red that it must be hennaed, had a very smart dress on. She’s tall so she can carry it off. It was green-and-white check, high-waisted and without a girdle but with huge hip pockets and a great black satin bow on the bosom. She has asked me to tea and to bring the girls.