Fragile Wings

by Rebecca S. Buck

  *

  Breakfast in the Grainger household was an informal affair, eaten in the kitchen rather than the dining room. Grace had set out the breakfast things but she did not wait at the table. Her involvement stretched to nothing further than setting the kettle on the range to boil. She then left the room, ostensibly to clean the sitting room and set a fire in the hearth, but Evelyn was fairly sure she heard the servant make her way upstairs.

  The kitchen, where she’d found James and Lilian when she ventured downstairs just before eight o’clock, was at the back of the house. A high-ceilinged room with white walls and a very large range at one end, it had tall windows to let in the daylight. The table was large and solid, a rectangle around which at least eight people could dine. There was no cloth, but lace-edged mats beneath each setting. It was a functional, comfortable room and Evelyn instantly felt at home there.

  “I hope you don’t mind, darling,” Lilian said, after wishing Evelyn good morning. Lilian was once again in her colourful housecoat, her hair brushed but still a little dishevelled from sleep. “We don’t like to be formal in the dining room—it feels so unnecessary for breakfast and it’s so much extra work for Grace. Mater says we eat like servants, but I don’t really see why there’s a problem.”

  “Oh no, it’s not a problem at all.” Evelyn smiled, as James stood to pull out a chair from the table for her. He was already dressed in dark trousers and a crimson bow tie for work, though still in shirtsleeves. “Thank you.” She settled herself in the chair. “Even this is awfully different to what I’m used to at home, you see. We always eat our breakfast around the kitchen table.” Her mind flew to West Coombe, the family beginning a second day without her.

  Lilian showed no sign of having noticed the shadow of sadness across Evelyn’s face. “I realise we still haven’t properly talked, Evie. I mean, about where you’re from and what your life was like, and what you’re going to do here in London.” Lilian sounded full of curiosity. “And, as luck would have it, I don’t have anywhere to go today at all. So, what say we cosy up in the sitting room with tea and biccies and have a good chinwag?”

  Evelyn, who had been rather hoping to see a little of London, was at once flattered by Lilian’s interest and disappointed. However, she could hardly deny Lilian, upon whose hospitality she was dependent. “Well, I don’t exactly have other plans.” She shrugged and looked at the breakfast on offer.

  “Do help yourself to breakfast, you’ll starve if you wait for Lilian to invite you.” James gestured at the table. “We tend to keep it simple. There’s porridge on the range and bread for toast, butter and marmalade. Oh, and the remnants of a jar of damson jam I brought from Cook when I last visited home. She makes the best jam, takes me back to my boyhood in an instant!” James grinned. Evelyn reflected how he seemed much more at ease and confident in his home, in this simple kitchen, than he had in the Yellow Orchid. She found this warmed her to him a little more.

  “I’m happy with just bread and jam actually, thank you. If I might try the damson?”

  “Of course. Here.” James passed a small bowl of jam. She reached for a slice of bread from the board in the centre of the table. Lilian had just done the same herself, although she had opened the range and was holding the bread close to the flames on a toasting fork. Evelyn buttered her bread. “And another thing, Evelyn, don’t let my dear sister bully you. If you want to go out and do some sightseeing today rather than satisfying her endless curiosity, then it’s your choice. You don’t have to do what we want, just because you’re staying here.”

  “Oh, James, how dare you? I’m no bully! It’s Evie’s first day here. She needs time to settle before we start gallivanting, surely.” Lilian looked at Evelyn with raised eyebrows.

  “Well…I do want to see London, of course.” Evelyn looked away from Lilian’s expectant gaze. “But I want to get to know you too, and it’s lovely that you’re so interested in me.”

  “There, you see, James!” Lilian turned back to the table with her toast, triumphant.

  “I see nothing, Lilian. The girl just said she’d like to see London.”

  “And spend time with me.” Lilian buttered her toast with energy.

  Evelyn looked from Lilian to James, unsure what to say. She was beginning to understand they would bicker about anything and it did not really matter how she responded. “I’m happy to go along with whatever plans either of you makes,” she said in the end. “I do want to discuss the practicalities of my being here though. I have enough to pay you rent for the room.”

  “Nonsense! You’re our guest, Evie.” Lilian was dismissive.

  James looked more thoughtful. “Lilian’s right, of course,” he said. “You are our guest and we don’t need a contribution. I suppose it really depends on how long you’ll be staying. We don’t need anything from you, but if you plan to stay in London, you might want to think about lodgings of your own, or even renting part of this place.”

  Evelyn was grateful for James’s pragmatism but bewildered when she attempted to see a way forward. All she knew was that she wanted to be in London; she wanted to see what this world would offer her. “I’m very grateful for your generosity in letting me stay. I honestly can’t tell you my plans. Perhaps, Lilian, you can help me work them out today.”

  “Of course I can. By the time James is home from work, we’ll have all kinds of things to tell him, I’m sure. And if you want to see London, we can always go out for a stroll, maybe catch a cab somewhere.”

  “That sounds excellent. I do have some letters to post too.” It was important, whatever else there was to distract her, that the letters found their way home.

  “Gosh, darling, you must’ve been up with the lark to write those.”

  “I think it was before the lark, actually.” Evelyn smiled thinly. “I had a bad dream and couldn’t sleep.”

  “Oh, you poor thing! You must tell me about it.”

  “You don’t stop, do you, Lilian?” James shook his head. “I can take your letters with me and post them near my office, Evelyn. That way, you needn’t worry.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.” Evelyn hoped she and Lilian would still be able to leave the house later. It would be rather frustrating to be in London and stay inside all day.

  “No trouble at all. When you go out, you don’t need to add a trip to the post office. Lilian, why don’t you just go for a stroll across the park and show Evelyn the palace. That way, you don’t need a cab and you can take tea at the Park Lane.”

  “What a smashing idea, James. That’s what we’ll do! You’ll love the Park Lane, Evie—it’s quite a new place and so very stylish.”

  Evelyn found she was not particularly interested in where they would take tea and far more interested in the sightseeing James proposed. “The palace?” she asked James.

  “Yes. Buckingham Palace. It’s only about ten minutes’ walk through Green Park from here.” James said.

  “Oh, I’ve wanted to see it so much. A cousin of my mother’s once sent a postcard from London with a photograph of the palace on it. I stared and stared at it and tried to make it come to life. I always knew I wanted to come to London one day, just to see the palace, if nothing else!” Evelyn said. She realised as she concluded that her disclosure had probably revealed something of her naiveté. Yet James and Lilian were both smiling and not apparently sitting in judgement.

  “Then it looks like you’re in for a wonderful day. I must go to work now, girls, so enjoy yourselves.” James drained the last of his tea and left the kitchen. Evelyn sipped her own tea and helped herself to another slice of bread, even though she was suddenly so excited all hunger was gone.

  Chapter Eight

  In what was, apparently, an attempt to cement the intimacy of their growing friendship, Lilian suggested, after breakfast, that she and Evelyn could settle down and get to know each other better in Lilian’s bedroom. Uncomfortable with the notion of sharing such a personal space with someone she barely knew, s
he was pleased to find that Lilian’s bedroom, on the top floor of the house, was actually a very substantial part of the building. At one side was a large bed with a rumpled yellow bedspread and white pillows; along the wall opposite the doorway were several dark wardrobes, a chest of drawers, and a dressing table. Near the window and away from the bed, but under the sloping ceiling which revealed that the room was actually in the roof space of the house, was a small sitting area with two armchairs and a small coffee table.

  When Evelyn followed Lilian into the room, she paused, surprised to find such a large room. She was also rather taken aback to find several shelves of books, for Lilian had not seemed remotely like a woman who would enjoy reading. Perhaps she had misjudged her. She began to think that a few hours getting to know Lilian might actually be quite an interesting experience.

  “I think they intended this room as the nursery, you know,” Lilian said. She picked up an indigo scarf from the seat of one of the armchairs and draped it over the chest of drawers. There were scarves and items of jewellery all over the room, so much so that every surface seemed to twinkle. Lilian did not seem to be untidy—she’d not left her dress on the floor or discarded her stockings over the coffee table—rather the sheer amount of decoration, jewellery, and ornament she owned was spilling out of every drawer and wardrobe and taking over the room. It added a mystical, oriental air to the room, Evelyn thought, only made more so by the presence of two large Venetian mirrors, both with modern geometric frames, which reflected the decorative chaos of Lilian’s room and bounced the light from the window onto hidden jewels and strings of pearls.

  “The nursery?” Evelyn refocused on what Lilian was saying.

  “Yes, there’s a small room next door which I’m fairly sure was for Nanny. Lord, when I think of our Nanny O’Neill, I wonder what she would think of me now. She was always so keen for me to grow up to be proper and act like a lady. I think I’d rather enjoy seeing her expression if she were to meet me now. What fun it is to be a glorious disappointment!”

  Evelyn settled herself in one of the armchairs, from which she could see the rooftops outside the window. Lilian slouched in the other and looked thoughtfully at Evelyn. “You know, my parents don’t approve of me in the slightest,” she said. “They’re happier with James, of course. But they don’t really approve of anything modern. They only like James because he’s such a dreadful stick-in-the-mud.”

  Evelyn listened to Lilian speak, unwilling to pass comment on Lilian’s relationship with her parents or give an opinion of James. The potential for offence just seemed too great.

  “They were fine until the war, of course. But then I was very young. And my wanting to help the war effort was patriotic, then. Funny how what a woman could do when we’re at war is so different from what she is expected to do when the war ends, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose,” said Evelyn. “I’ve read about the surplus women, of course. But I’ve never thought about it in quite that way.”

  “You’ve never really thought about your place as a woman?” Lilian looked incredulous.

  “No.” Evelyn felt compelled to adopt a defensive tone. “Why would I?” She thought of her flight from West Coombe and the weight of expectations and admitted to herself that in some small way she had thought about those things, even if she wasn’t ready to say them out loud to Lilian.

  “I don’t know. Because you don’t like being the property of a man? Because you don’t like that even though women can vote now, it’s only some women?”

  “I’ve really never been interested in politics. It always seemed appropriate to me that, since it’s men who make all the big decisions, it should be men who vote for them. I don’t really know any women who are interested in politics.” Evelyn surprised herself by being able to give a considered response, even if it made Lilian frown.

  “That is far from the point, darling. The issue is that we should be equal. Women can be in parliament too, so all women should be able to cast their votes. Why shouldn’t we be?”

  “Well, when it was in the papers about the suffragettes, I remember my mother saying that they should be paying more attention to their homes and children, looking after their husbands better, and that if they did, they’d be happier.”

  Lilian was apparently stunned that any woman would express these thoughts. “But surely you don’t think that too?”

  “Well, no, not really. I don’t think I’d go to prison for the right to vote though, like those women did.”

  “Fair enough. I saw some of the suffragette protests when I was very young. I even saw Emmeline Pankhurst once, as they dragged her away from the Buckingham Palace railings. We’ve always had family and friends in this part of London, you see. I thought it would be the finest thing ever to be a suffragette.”

  “But you never got the chance?” Evelyn’s interest was drawn. Lilian clearly had more depth than had been revealed last night.

  “Well, they stopped for war didn’t they? Then, in ’18, women were allowed to vote, so it all went quiet. I’m still involved in the campaign for women’s rights though. I’ve helped them distribute pamphlets from time to time and listened to some speeches. If you want any books on the topic, I have several.” Lilian gestured to the bookcase behind her.

  “Thank you,” Evelyn said. “I might like to read a little more about it.”

  “You really should. It’s a battle that’s far from over, you know.”

  “Of course.” Evelyn really had little more to add on the subject. Instead she decided to move the conversation on. “You really do have a lot of books,” she said.

  “You’re welcome to borrow any. I’ve gone through most of them. Have a look.”

  Evelyn rose from the low seat of the armchair and bent to examine the closest bookshelf to where they were sitting. There were a few copies of Vogue with garish cover plates showing the latest styles lying on the shelf. But next to them she found a group of novels and poetry collections, with many colours of binding, some with dustcovers and some with gold-embossed titles and author names. She read some of the titles: The Rainbow, Sonnets to Orpheus, The Great Gatsby. Evelyn had heard of none of them. A little further on she found Mrs. Dalloway, The House of Mirth, and a thick work called Ulysses. Not wanting to appear ignorant, she passed over these, seeking a title she recognised or something she could pass intelligent comment on. There were some books with French titles Evelyn could not read, and then she found a pamphlet, “The Morality of Birth Control,” and Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique. At these, she frowned.

  Lilian, watching her, noticed. “What’s that you’re looking at?” She leaned over Evelyn’s shoulder to peer at the spines of the books. “Oh, I see! I’m not sure I can let you borrow Ideal Marriage, darling. It’d be awfully corrupt of me, you being innocent as you are.”

  Evelyn flushed. “I don’t think I understand.”

  Lilian’s smile turned into intrigue. “You don’t understand?”

  “What’s the book about?” Evelyn wished Lilian would just answer her.

  “Gosh, Evie, just how innocent are you? I thought everyone knew about that book. It’s about sex, and how to do it well.”

  Evelyn stared at Lilian, unsure what to say. “Sex?” she finally said, weakly.

  “Yes.” Lilian’s eyes narrowed. “You do know what sex is, don’t you?”

  Evelyn drew a deep breath. “I know what a man and woman do when they’re married. I mean, as much as I can know, without being married myself.”

  “Without being married yourself? Don’t you think it’s good to know about how it all works before you get married? It’s all very well understanding what goes in where, so to speak, but do you know how to enjoy it?”

  Evelyn stared at Lilian, lost for words, wishing she’d never accepted the offer to look at Lilian’s books. “I didn’t know I was supposed to enjoy it,” she ventured, in the end.

  Her mind went back to the evening before her sister’s wedding, the fina
l night on which they’d shared a room together. Never especially close, Annie had still confided in Evelyn on occasions through the years. That night, Annie had been nervous about performing what she called her wifely duty. Evelyn had dearly wished she had more worldly experience with which to comfort and inform her sister. Their mother did not consider it a decent topic of conversation and there were really few other places to glean information. She’d felt dreadfully uninformed, and had done since. Now Lilian was looking at her incredulously, and Evelyn sensed she was on the verge of learning those secrets, whether she wanted to or not.

  “Oh Lord! But there’s so much to enjoy, darling.” Lilian spoke with the tone of a woman who knew from experience.

  Evelyn contemplated this. She did not want to reply in a way that sounded naive or judgemental, but Lilian was not married and Evelyn really did not understand. “You’re not married, so how do you know?”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re that wet behind the ears, darling? You know it’s possible to do it even before you’re married, don’t you?”

  “I thought only the worst kind of women did that.” Evelyn repeated what her mother had always told her.

  “Then perhaps I’m the worst kind of woman.” Lilian did not look at all concerned. “But I’m not the only one, I can tell you. Why, nearly every woman I know must be on a one-way journey to hell.”

  Evelyn listened to Lilian and wondered just which man, or men, Lilian had done such things with. The waiter from the Yellow Orchid? Despite the disapproval she could not help, she was intrigued by what Lilian had said. The relations between a man and a woman could be something to enjoy. Something that did not depend on marriage. Apparently, it need not be as mysterious and frightening as it had always seemed. There was something of a relief in that, and it prompted her next question.