Facade (Timeless Classics Collection)

by Ursula Bloom

  ‘Frances?’ He was obviously very surprised. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

  She got into the car without answering, just lifting her hand to stop him starting off again. ‘No, Aubrey, not yet. You and I have got to talk this thing out. You see, I saw what happened.’

  ‘What on earth could I have done? I didn’t want to speak to Alice, as you know, but then I never wanted to promise you that I wouldn’t, seeing how easily this sort of thing can happen.’

  ‘I’ve told you, you cannot have that girl and me also.’

  ‘Damn it all, I don’t want her. The difficulty is that the child is …’

  ‘Why didn’t you marry her if you felt this tremendous urge of paternity?’ She hadn’t meant to speak so sharply, but she felt the position acutely. It numbed something inside her, she couldn’t understand his action.

  ‘If I had married her it would have ruined her life and mine. Don’t be so ridiculous.’

  ‘And now you are only ruining my life, and don’t care. Oh Aubrey, how can you be so cruel to me?’

  ‘When we have children of our own, I suppose it will be very different,’ he said helplessly; at that particular moment it was the only thing that he could think of.

  ‘I shan’t have children. I always thought I wasn’t well, not quite normal, and after my appendix, I knew. If you remember what the doctor said?’

  ‘But he didn’t mean that?’

  ‘Oh yes, he did. Of course he did. I just can’t have them. It sounds crude, but that’s the truth and it’s no good worrying. There we are.’ She spoke about it lightly because she felt so deeply about it. She had meant never to tell him the truth but to hide it, and let the years gradually disclose it to him, but now, when he offered this as the way out, her hand was forced and she had to speak. She felt dreadful. Not to have children was a horrible thing, and because of the inferiority complex in her, she hid her unhappiness behind indifference.

  ‘Good Heavens, Frances, that can’t be true? You don’t really mean it? What are we going to do?’

  She changed, she had got to push the blame on to him, not accept it all for herself. ‘You’re mixed up with such very peculiar people, Aubrey, that frightful Mrs. Benson, that girl Alice ‒’

  ‘That’s nothing to do with it, and Kay isn’t frightful.’

  ‘Oh, so you call her Kay? That all shows, doesn’t it? I tell you you can’t chatter to that Alice girl and have me too, and it looks as if you’ve chosen which one you prefer.’ She waited, hoping against hope that he would say something ‒ surely he must say something? ‘Take me home,’ she said weakly, ‘I’m so unhappy. Oh God, and I was so happy once.’

  He knew that she was working herself up into a big scene, and had no idea what to do. Alice had stopped him to show him the baby, and idiotically he wanted to see the baby! He knew that he was in the wrong, but could do nothing about it. He drove her home in silence, put the car away, taking as long about it as he dared, and loping up to the house with all the feelings of the schoolboy about to visit the master’s study. It would have to be the day that the sweep was doing the chimney in his mother’s morning-room, so that she had lunch with them. He knew she would notice they had quarrelled, women were so clever at such things.

  Because Milly and Ethel were waiting at table, Frances kept up a sustained conversation. In her heart she felt terrible, her throat stung with the taste of tears, but she was determined to show as little as she could. She chattered. She laughed. She’d do anything to prevent that beastly little Milly from realizing that something was wrong.

  Afterwards, she said she had a headache, and went upstairs to lie down. Aubrey glanced at her nervously as she went. Surely, she thought, if he really loved her, he would come up and make the peace with her. She would break her heart if he didn’t. He did not come.

  She stood at the window of her room staring across the little park at the small families of trees. She was feeling utterly wretched that he should have broken his promise to her. It was acutely dishonourable.

  She cared for Aubrey, she knew that he was weak, and very often acted a part to cover his own nervousness, but one could not condemn him for that. He had a brilliant brain, and although she herself thought little of scholastic honours, she was proud of his treatise on Elizabethan poetry which had, only recently, won such favourable comment. They had got to come to some proper arrangement now, and she would have to summon all her courage to bring things to a head.

  There was a tap at the door, and turning hopefully, she was hurt to find that it was her mother-in-law. ‘I came to see if there was anything I could do for you, Francie?’

  ‘No, it’s only a headache.’

  Maud came to the big window and stood beside her. ‘What’s the matter? What’s Aubrey done? Oh, you needn’t be afraid that I shall take his part, although he is my son I well know how trying he can be.’

  Frances hadn’t meant to say anything, but the words came bursting out before she could stop herself. ‘It’s that girl.’

  ‘You don’t mean Alice Carter?’

  ‘I saw them together in the lane.’

  ‘Francie, how dreadful!’

  Frances burst into tears, she had not supposed that she could be so weak, but now she could not stop herself, and she wept unrestrainedly on her mother-in-law’s shoulder. Later, she listened to what Maud said.

  ‘You poor child, how well I understand, because my own marriage was a travesty, and I’ve put up with an awful lot from Aubrey one way and another. I know he seems to be a good son, but that scandal was shocking to live down. We’ve got to stop it all, here and now.’

  ‘Yes, but how?’

  ‘You must be very firm and brave with him. You simply mustn’t give way, my dear.’

  ‘I know that, but what do I say?’

  ‘Tell him that he has got to take some action for all our sakes.’

  ‘I’ve told him that, but what action can he possibly take? It’s much too late to send the family away, Canada or somewhere which is what ought to have been done.’

  ‘Make him understand that unless he behaves properly, he forfeits all rights to you.’ Maud glanced significantly at the dressing-room lying beyond, where her own husband had been made to sleep for years, and where now she had a good idea Aubrey would have to go.

  ‘But ‒ but I don’t want to do that.’

  ‘I don’t think for a moment that he’ll let you. Sometimes we have to force people’s hands, say things we don’t really mean, to get a satisfactory result.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Then, Francie, there is nothing more to be done.’ She stood there without stirring for a moment, finally adding, ‘But whatever you decide, my dear, I want you to understand that you are not alone in this and I am on your side. I realize, only too well, how difficult Aubrey can be.’

  Frances couldn’t speak without crying, she groped out and took her mother-in-law’s hand, and beyond the window the cows passed in single file out of the park to the milking yard with the burnish of autumn on their hides, glowing like the horse chestnuts that little boys were collecting so diligently where they had fallen under the trees.

  Aubrey’s things were moved into the dressing-room. Frances knew that Milly would talk and so had gone to elaborate lengths to stress that his restlessness kept her awake, and for a night or two he would be sleeping alone. She looked as if she might have been kept awake, for her eyes were swollen with crying.

  Milly went back to the kitchen when she and Ethel had finished moving the things, and she laughed about it.

  ‘If you ask me they’ve had a dust-up,’ said Milly, ‘a nice thing amongst gentry, I must say! A proper split and no mistake.’

  Mrs. Parkin wasn’t having nonsense of that sort. Round she turned. ‘I won’t have you talking of your betters disrespectful in my kitchen. If you can’t talk proper, then don’t talk at all. It’s disgusting.’

  Milly was getting older. There were moments when she and Mrs. Parkin came t
o loggerheads. She lolled back in the rocking chair, picking the decayed teeth with the corner of a paper-backed novel. ‘Well, whatever you say, Mrs. Parkin, there’s no getting away from the fact that she’s been and gone and pushed him out. I couldn’t believe my ears when she told me. “Get his things into the dressing-room,” says she, all bossy-like! I says “Yes, ma’am”, but you could have knocked me down with a feather, straight you could!’

  ‘It won’t pay you to talk that way, my girl,’ said Mrs. Parkin, who was secretly most disturbed. She thought that Aubrey was weak with his wife, and if he had any nous he’d give her something to be going on with ‒ Mrs. Parkin pulled herself up in time, remembering that gentry did not do that sort of thing; only common people like herself gave husbands and wives what-for!

  Dinner was a ritual poised on a knife-edge. Milly enjoyed every moment of it, and afterwards when Mrs. Lester went to the morning-room for her coffee, felt sure this was the moment. She wished Mrs. Parkin wasn’t everywhere, for this was the time to listen at the door. But she’d be bound to be caught, no getting away from that.

  Frances knew the big scene was coming.

  She sat by the fire with her coffee, one of those blustering nights, with the wind howling round the chimney pots, and the chestnuts dropping like bullets on the ground. Aubrey lit a cigar. He felt wretched. He knew that he ought to have the thing thrashed out here and now, but could see only one end to it. For the first time it struck him that Frances was very much like his mother, and that she might develop very much along those lines. He did not know how to stop it.

  He said, ‘Frances, this can’t go on, you know.’

  ‘You can end it, Aubrey. After all, you are the one entirely in the wrong.’

  ‘I only wanted to see my son.’ He did not suppose the words conveyed for a moment how deeply he felt about it. When she answered, he knew that Frances had missed the meaning.

  ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed to admit it. I don’t know what’s come over you.’

  ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘I have had your things moved into the dressing-room.’

  ‘Yes, I know, and it was a very rotten thing to do. What do you suppose the servants think? How do you suppose I feel? It was hardly the way to heal the breach.’

  ‘I won’t play second fiddle to that girl.’

  ‘Frances, Frances dear, couldn’t we talk this out sensibly without getting angry and saying such damnably hurtful things?’

  ‘No wife in this world who was worth her salt would stand such a position.’

  ‘Can’t we discuss it?’

  ‘No, we can’t. I’ve told you how I feel. You ought to give that beastly girl up, the family ought to have gone to Canada.’

  ‘Well, they can’t go to Canada.’

  ‘Only because you won’t send them away, and you won’t send them away because you’re half in love with Alice still.’

  ‘That isn’t true, what’s more, you know it isn’t true, only you want to mesmerize yourself into thinking it is. I’ve done enough wrong to the family without turning them out of their home, and I won’t do it.’

  ‘Then you can sleep in the dressing-room,’ and even as she said it, the warmer side of her prayed that he would come striding across the room and take her into his arms, saying all those lovely tender things that she ached to hear. But he didn’t. He was furious.

  ‘All right, I dam’ well will.’

  For a moment she wavered between dignity and imploring him to forgive her, then dignity overcame the weakness. ‘My head aches, and I’m going to bed,’ she said.

  He made no movement to stop her; he knew then, and it was quite final, he did not want her any more. She had cheated him, for she had known she couldn’t have children. A family might have eased the situation. There would be no family.

  From the door of the butler’s pantry set conveniently ajar, Milly nodded her head to Ethel. ‘There she goes! My Gawd, if it isn’t a proper bust-up! Talk about a bit of fun …’

  Maud Lester took Frances’s part.

  Now Frances realized that she had never really understood her husband. All this aestheticism, his love of absurd poetry, the pictures he admired, none of it was in her sphere.

  Aubrey made an effort. He wanted to go back to Switzerland for Christmas, believing that there, away from his mother, he could with a different background put matters right. He made furtive plans, but could not bring himself to tell Frances what he had in mind, until the November night when he had been lecturing in Mainwaring to the Odd Volumes Society to which he belonged. He had spoken brilliantly on Ben Jonson. In the fullness of the afterglow, he felt an unusual confidence. Now, he told himself, I’ll tell her.

  When he got home Frances was sitting up in the mauve and gold drawing-room that he found so irritating. Although it was a ladies’ night she had refused to come to the lecture. She disliked poetry, save Tennyson. Nobody could misinterpret Tennyson, she said, and he was never vulgar.

  Whilst waiting up, she had taken out of the shelf one of the books on Ben Jonson, and glancing at the pages, wondered how on earth Aubrey could compile a whole lecture on such a very muddled outlook. She hit upon the passage:

  Be exceedingly proud. Stand upon your gentility and scorn every man. Speak nothing humbly …

  Love no man. Trust no man. Speak ill of no man to his face; or well of any man behind his back …

  A very low outlook on life, thought Frances, and this was undoubtedly where Aubrey got his funny ideas from. She knew that he was counterfeit; he loved approval, he had the passionate desire to please and loathed criticism.

  Frances had been nicely brought up along the routine of governess and finishing school, and ultimate home life. She was formed in the rutted roadway of her early training.

  Aubrey came into the room, his face glowing, because it had been a most encouraging evening. ‘It was a good lecture, Francie, you should have been there. It went splendidly.’

  ‘It’s a cold night. I’m quite glad I didn’t come. There are some sandwiches on the side.’

  ‘Thanks,’ but he made no move towards them. ‘All the same I wish you had come.’

  ‘I haven’t the Ben Jonson mind. Frankly, I don’t like him.’

  ‘I daresay he may seem out of date, then perhaps I’m out of date too. Those Elizabethan poets had something we have never managed to re-capture.’ And then, ‘I’ve been thinking lately, Frances, about us. I think it would be a jolly good idea if we went away and had another honeymoon?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I went to Switzerland last Christmas.’

  ‘I know. That was where you got so friendly with that queer little Mrs. Benson.’

  If only she hadn’t said that! ‘Kay was never queer. I loved it out there, and I’d like to go back this year, you and I.’

  She lay down her tapestry work on her knee, smoothing it with elaborate care. ‘Aubrey, you don’t seem to realize that I have every right to be angry with you. That girl ‒’

  ‘Francie, for the love of Mike, don’t start all that again.’

  ‘I suppose it’s still going on?’

  ‘Nothing is going on. It never was going on. It was finished ages ago, and done with.’

  ‘So you say, all the same you broke your word to me, and a man who will do that on one point, will do it on another.’

  ‘Look here, Francie, you’re being horribly biased. It isn’t possible to talk here because everything is so close up against us. There’s Mother …’

  ‘You have the most marvellous mother, Aubrey, and I don’t think you are half grateful enough to her.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you? When we got engaged, we compared notes, and we agreed about mothers. What’s changed you?’

  ‘I’ve got to know her better, you better, too.’

  ‘We can’t go on quarrelling all the time. We’ve got to come to some arrangement.’

  ‘Get rid of the Herricks, and we will. You could easily afford to send them to Canada
.’

  ‘They’ve lived in that cottage since Elizabeth’s time, I believe.’

  ‘Oh, now we’re back with Ben Jonson.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ said he angrily. He had no right to say it, he knew, but he couldn’t stop himself. She went quiet. He thought of the quotation he had used with such skill tonight.

  Deny’t who can,

  Silence in woman is like speech in man.

  He watched her get up, go out of the room, closing the door quietly after her. For a moment, he thought of plunging after her, shaking her hard and making her see reason, then he knew it would be futile.

  She went up to her room, and sat down by the cinder fire, and began to cry. She was desperately unhappy, yet her sense of pride forced her to behave as she did. If only she could go Switzerland with him, and never come back to Thornhill! But she would have to come back.

  Aubrey was bound to Mr. Clement’s office, and he had so many sources of interest in Mainwaring, the Odd Volumes Society, the Historians, all the rest of them which shut her out. She cried pathetically. If only she had someone to whom she could turn!

  ‘I’m desperately unhappy,’ she sobbed to herself.

  PART TWO

  Twelve

  The war came and passed over Fincham rectory. It seemed to be an interminable space of time, when event faded into tragedy, and the whole of life was held in the paralysing grip of anguish. The first autumn and winter, Kay pinned maps on the sewing-room wall, studding them with flags as the armies progressed. Then victory was delayed, it even seemed to be endangered, and the flags had to be set back and back, and the enthusiasm died. The grim routine of living, which undermines all war, had come to them.