by Maggie Ford
With that in mind she had steeled herself to endure his embraces but she need not have worried. He’d been a perfect gentleman the whole evening.
Waited upon by Merton his elderly butler and a rather plain-faced maid called Beattie, they’d sat at either end of a small, rectangular table, his cook Mrs Cole having supper already prepared almost as if he’d expected his proposal would be accepted. That too had raised the question of his proposal being anticipated, one she’d soon shrugged off as she put her mind to considering all the benefits this union could bring.
She’d intended to tell Dolly all about it. Now she was glad she hadn’t. Dolly, in her present jealous mood, would have shrugged, maybe said something nasty. It didn’t matter any more. She had a future now.
James had found her a nice little furnished two-roomed apartment not far from where he lived. ‘I shall be able to see you more often,’ he’d said cheerfully, but for her leaving this hole of a place felt far more important.
She could hardly wait for Thursday, to see the back of this place, and Dolly, and that common, rough-tongued landlady who was always yelling up the stairs to any tenant who had a caller. The next five days would seem endless. Of a sudden she felt desperately cooped up in this room, verging on claustrophobia. She needed to get out, find some fresh air even though the day was deeply overcast.
For much of May the weather had been wonderful but today hardly conducive to cheering her up after her encounter with Dolly. Little to cheer anyone up these days: the war expected to be over by last Christmas still dragging on, the fighting in France seeming to be going nowhere, the Huns now using a terrible weapon, gas. The outrage at the sinking of the Cunard finer Lusitania by torpedoes within sight of British shores with the loss of well over a thousand fives, not even military, but civilian men, women and children, had angry crowds descending on shops owned by Germans, people stoning their owners or covering them in paint, no matter that they’d been in this country half their fives. Madeleine had heard the ruckus only a few days ago, windows being broken in a nearby parade, shouts and screams, police called, trying to quell their fury. She had shut her window to keep out the sounds and prayed to soon leave this awful area.
Now her wish had been granted. By the end of the week she would be gazing around at a bright and beautiful little apartment. The thought of her coming marriage suddenly excited her as she snatched up her hat and coat and hurried down the stairs as quickly as her out of date hobble skirt allowed, knowing that soon all her clothes would be the latest of fashion.
On a whim she turned in the direction of the nearby post office. There she bought herself some notepaper and envelopes and a couple of penny stamps. Armed with these she turned back to where she lived, almost at a run, all thought of enjoying some fresh air swept from her mind.
Seated at her table she began to write the letter, having to resort to pencil, all she had to hand, ink and a pen a luxury she’d so far had no need to afford until now. But suddenly this letter was important and pencil would have to do. Maybe the letter was somewhat premature yet she wrote as if there was no time at all to spare, her usually cultured, careful handwriting becoming a scrawl in her haste, hardly allowing herself time to think lest an attack of misgiving made her change her mind.
* * *
In the over-furnished drawing room that still reflected the old Edwardian days of over a dozen years ago, Aldous Wyndham had left the cheap-looking envelope to the very last in his usual pile of morning post. Most probably from someone begging monetary help of some sort, of which he received quite a few, being a man of some standing on a board of directors of a well-known, well-sought after Buckinghamshire grammar school.
Sighing at the likelihood of declining whatever the sender was begging from him, he slit open the envelope to scan the single sheet of thin notepaper prior to screwing it into a ball and throwing it into the wicker waste paper basket at his feet. But the moment he began to read, he froze.
Leaping to his feet, almost knocking over the waste paper basket, he hurried to the door, tore it open to bellow at the girl who was dusting the hall stand just a few feet away, ‘Where is my wife?’
The maid started as if struck, collecting herself to mumble, ‘I don’t know, sir,’ her head respectfully lowered.
‘Then find her,’ he commanded, at which the girl scuttled off, duster still in hand.
He was seated at his bureau when Dorothy finally came in, a little diffidently. Their maid had appeared harassed, leaving her to feel something must be terribly amiss, something she must have done was probably annoying him.
‘Where were you?’ he demanded, glancing up at her. The tone of his question made her catch her lower lip between her teeth.
‘I was in the kitchen with Mrs Plumley, planning today’s menu,’ she offered. ‘What was it you wanted, dear?’
‘Look at this!’ He held out the sheet of notepaper to her, his face now turned away from her, compelling her to come forward to receive it.
‘Read it!’ he snapped.
Quickly she began to read but only got as far as the first sentence. ‘It’s from Madeleine,’ she gasped.
‘I do not recognize the name,’ he growled, still with his gaze on the surface of his bureau. ‘Just read what it says… to yourself,’ he added as she started to read aloud.
As bidden she took in the words in silence, reading quickly and as briefly as she could. Finally she looked up. He was staring out of the window from where he sat. ‘It says she is getting married in August. She has asked us to be present.’
‘Never!’ he exploded, leaping up to go over to the window to gaze out.
‘She asks if you would give her away,’ Dorothy ventured timidly.
‘I cannot give away what I do not have,’ he returned, his back still to her.
‘But she is our daughter, dear. We ought at least…’
Swinging round so viciously that he caused her to jump, he blared, ‘Enough! We have no daughter, Dorothy! The author of this letter is nothing to do with us. You would be well advised to remember that fact.’
It sounded as though he were addressing his board of governors. His tone seemed to stab into her heart like a knife wound, so harsh did it sound and quite suddenly his anger made her feel bolder than she could ever remember.
‘You may not like it, Aldous,’ she heard herself say, ‘but she is still my daughter. I bore her, fed her at my breast, tended her and cared for her. She is…’
‘Enough!’ he thundered, moments later drawing an impatient breath as she began to weep. ‘I am not prepared to countenance her nor be present at the wedding of someone I do not know, whoever the man is. Nor will you, Dorothy. I am disappointed in you. I did expect you to be in total agreement, which is why I called you in here. But it seems your answer to everything is to dissolve into tears so there is no point saying any more. As to this letter I shall not even respond to it. And neither will you. Now you may go back to whatever you and Mrs Plumley were doing.’
With that he returned to his writing desk and sat down, continuing to ignore her presence until slowly she turned and went from the room.
Outside the door she stood sniffing back the tears. Finally she slowly straightened her back and lifted her chin, whispered softly, almost defiantly: ‘But she is still my daughter.’
She began to make her way back along the hall, not to the kitchen but to the stairs leading up to her little parlour on the second floor where she would write her own letters to people she knew, one letter which at this moment she needed very much to write.
* * *
After only three months of preparation, neither she nor James hardly needing to lift a finger towards the day, his having arranged it all to be done for them, she had still felt that she was living in a dream world, that nothing was real. From that very evening when James had proposed to her, such as it was, and she had accepted, again such as it was, everything had felt as if it wasn’t happening, the world itself seeming to have receded, as if she w
ere floating through it.
The war too, even now, seemed to pass her by. And yet it held enough stark reality to make her feel otherwise – daily the newspaper headlines, the sight of maimed and blinded men on the streets, Lord knows how many thousands more languishing in hospitals all over the realm, the sight of drawn blinds in almost every other street – to make it all real, so horribly real.
Sometimes she thought of Hamilton Bramwell. She rather felt he still survived, conducting operations from some safe distance, a command post well removed from the front, maybe still safely entrenched in some HQ in England. Other times her thoughts wandered to Freddy Dobson, a common soldier no doubt fighting in the trenches. That was if he was still alive or had he been killed, shot in what they called No Man’s Land or blown to pieces in some trench? If so had he been found or did he lay buried, unknown? Had he married his fiancée never uttering a word about his casual affair and a silly young girl he’d left pregnant with his baby? Did he and his wife have a child of their own, a child borne in wedlock? Another thought, if he’d been killed, his wife would now be a widow. Or maybe he’d been sent home maimed for life or blinded by chlorine gas, which the papers had reported to be like a sickly, greenish-yellow fog that drifted across open ground towards the still mainly unprotected Allied troops. Freddy’s wife would be left to nurse him for the rest of their fives, that once handsome and vigorous young man who had turned her heart, stricken and scarred forever.
Part of Madeleine’s reaction to that speculation was that such an end was exactly what he deserved, moments later to feel chastened and full of remorse at such a wicked thought. But it was no concern of hers any more. She had a new life now and it was wonderful. Whatever had befallen Freddy Dobson was way in the past.
Ten
Amazing how quickly summer had flown. Only two weeks to her wedding. Not that there’d been much for her to do, James having taken charge of almost everything.
It was to be a quiet affair, with few guests invited. ‘Far better that way don’t you think, my dear?’ he’d said, and as she nodded, glad enough for it to be so, continued, ‘Not as though I were marrying for the first time and I assumed you wouldn’t care for anything ostentatious in light of the present situation between yourself and your family.’
Even though it had been said kindly with smiles intended to comfort, his words had bitten deep. But she knew what he meant. There’d been no reply from her parents to his invitation, not even to decline, making her half wish he hadn’t included them at all.
There had been one reply; from her mother’s sister Maud whom she hadn’t seen in years but had hoped might accept but even that had been to decline with the excuse that a recent bout of ill health would prevent her attending. Whether true or not, Madeleine rather suspected she’d more than likely been influenced by her father.
No one on her side would be there so in a way it did come as a relief that it would be a simple wedding. Most were these days; hasty marriages, little to celebrate, young men dragged off to fight almost immediately upon being conscripted; the food shortage dictating meagre wedding breakfasts coupled with a natural reluctance to indulge in anything too showy while perhaps in almost every street more than one woman was grieving the loss of a husband to an enemy bullet or shell. So it was only right that her wedding should be a quiet one.
No bridal gown for her. She’d be wearing a simple, two-piece tailor-made tweed costume with a white blouse of hand-embroidered voile, together costing all of six pounds eighteen shillings and sixpence, expensive but which he’d insisted paying for, together with a lovely double row of pearls. All she’d taken with her on leaving home for that place for unmarried mothers had been just a couple of pieces of jewellery, left to forever regret the other fine pieces left behind. Now there was no longer need to fret. James was here now. Provided she wasn’t greedy he’d buy whatever jewellery took her fancy.
What she didn’t fancy were the few days they were to spend at a small hotel at Buxton in Derbyshire after the wedding and the intimate part of it as his wife. She’d grown fond of him of course but their relationship had been purely platonic, he seeming to prefer it that way somewhat to her relief. Now faced with her prospective duty as a wife she was becoming increasingly concerned at the thought, even to wondering what she thought she was doing, getting wed to an older man like James.
Another uneasiness had been her parents’ refusal to see her married, something one would have thought they’d be only too relieved to see happen. She’d hoped, maybe foolishly, to at least have had some reply to the letter she’d sent her mother months ago telling her of James’s proposal, but there had been nothing. She found herself making excuses for her, aware that all post going through her father’s butler who, being answerable to him, would have shown him the letter only to have it taken and torn up.
Now, ten days to the wedding, she had finally made up her mind to turn her back on them and concentrate on the lifestyle she now enjoyed, a nice little apartment, James spending out on her while still as gentlemanly as ever. The one thing that worried her was that he continually sidestepped any mention about her desire to trace the child taken from her.
‘So much to think about just now,’ he’d say. ‘For the time being we should concentrate on the wedding, my dear.’
Said so gently that she could hardly badger him further, especially as just lately the stress of the coming wedding was beginning to show on his face worrying her that by the time the day arrived he might even fall ill, the whole thing then having to be cancelled. At times she even dreamt that he had collapsed and died, all her hopes dashed. It wasn’t wise to push him until after the wedding.
* * *
The day was here. It had been arranged for James’s younger brother Henry and his wife Lydia to be witnesses. Having arrived from Northampton, they were now here with her in her apartment waiting for the car to take all three to the registry office not far away.
Having met them only once before it was like having strangers about her. Her mother should have been here, fussing and fiddling. These two virtual strangers served only to heighten that absence. The thought made her eyes grow moist.
Only a bride would know how emotional this day could be, tears of overwhelming joy, but for her they were tears of longing for her mother and it was all she could do to hold them back.
Lydia was looking at her in mild consternation. ‘I know, dear, it must be a little overwhelming for you but try not to spoil your face. It’ll soon be over. Then you’ll be as happy as any. James has been so lost since losing his first wife and you’ll be a good companion to him. It is what he needs.’
That unfortunate little speech did nothing to help her but at least she managed to dry her eyes enough to smile at the woman as she suppressed the longing to have her mother here beside her.
The limousine had arrived. The chauffeur helped her into the vehicle together with a close friend of James in black morning suit as if going to a funeral who sat down stiffly beside her. It should have been her father giving her away, not this man, this stranger. Hastily she pushed that thought aside as well, relieved when they drew up outside the registry office.
It was then she saw her. The small, thin woman in a long skirted grey suit and a high beaver toque trimmed with tulle that practically hid her face. But Madeleine recognized her immediately.
‘Mummy! Oh, Mummy!’ Hardly believing what she was seeing, Madeleine ran to her, leaving the other two standing. ‘You came!’
She stopped in her tracks as her mother recoiled. Madeleine stood where she had paused, having to speak across the small distance between them. ‘I never dreamt you would come. Where’s my father?’
‘He isn’t coming.’
Madeleine smothered the pang that swept through her. She should have known. ‘You travelled here alone?’ It was hardly believable. Her mother never travelled anywhere without him.
Lydia and Henry were hovering, uncertain whether to go on inside or not. She ignored them. ‘Does
he know? Surely he didn’t let you come all on your own?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say anything other than ‘he’.
‘Your father is in the City. Miles drove me to Beaconsfield Station and helped me buy my rail ticket and I had a taxicab bring me here.’
‘How did you know where to find this place?’
‘Your father’s chauffeur made enquiries for me. Miles has been so very helpful but I cannot say anything to your father about it. He would be livid if he knew I’d come here, and Miles could be in such trouble.’
The words seemed to stress how bitter her father was towards her still. She knew now that for as long as he lived he would never forgive her. Yet the thought seemed to strengthen her. It was also a concern for her. Her mother had defied him. Should he find out, how would her mother fare? He’d never lifted a hand to her, but wouldn’t have to. He was capable of making life hell by words alone which was the reason why, until now, her mother had always been the subservient little woman.
Madeleine experienced a passing thought quite out of keeping with the situation – what had her mother been like when they were first married? Strong-willed? No, maybe not, but feeling loved and returning that love with an easy will. Only with the passing of years would she have diminished to become what she was now. Yet here she was, brave and strong and defiant. Madeleine wanted to cuddle her close but her mother would have shrunk away from the embrace, she was sure.
‘Would you introduce us, Madeleine?’ Lydia’s voice behind her made her jump. She gathered her wits.