Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Miss Bell, quivering all over, burst into tears. “Indeed, indeed—”

  “Stop that row. My nerves won’t stand it. The last thing Frass-Cunningham — Sir Stephen Frass-Cunningham, the specialist — said to me was that I must avoid any sort of strain. I go on and on, at high pressure, and the people whom I pay to save me from extra worry are the very ones who do least to help me. Now, I’m not going to sack you on the spot without a reference, which is what most people would do. I know perfectly well that my son is probably as much to blame as you are — except that he’s younger. You can stay your month out, and now that I’ve said my say, I shan’t refer to this again.”

  Her hard, contemptuous glance rested on the little secretary, shaking all over with fear and shame.

  “It isn’t everybody who’d be as merciful as I am, let me tell you.”

  “Mrs. Fitzmaurice — I — I can’t—”

  “I don’t want your gratitude. Behave yourself decently for the rest of the month, and do your work thoroughly, please. I’ve often been dissatisfied with it, as you know, and with very good reason. When I pay anyone to work for me, Miss Bell, I expect to get value tor my money. Take down this letter—”

  “Mrs. Fitzmaurice, I can’t stay on. I’d rather go at once.”

  Clarissa stared at her.

  “And leave me in the lurch with nobody to carry on half a dozen important jobs that you’ve left unfinished? Thank you, Miss Bell, but you’re not going to do that. You’ll jolly well stay where you are and work till you drop if I say so, and realize that it’s the very least you can do, what’s more, after your rotten, ungrateful treatment of me. Understand that — you don’t leave my service one minute before your month is up.”

  Miss Bell was beaten. She knew it. She was dependent on the money that she earned, and she had to help her mother. Her next post would probably depend on the reference that Mrs. Fitzmaurice would give her.

  Choking back her sobs she took down her employer’s dictation. A dreary sense of despair invaded her as she felt, rather than saw, that her tears were dripping on to the pad she held on her knee, obliterating her shorthand outlines almost as fast as she made them.

  When Clarissa had dictated a dozen letters, she stopped. “Get these typed and bring them to me to sign when they’re done. I shan’t get up till lunch-time.”

  She paused.

  “Remember, Miss Bell, it’s over. I’ve told you what I think of you, and I shan’t say it again. I’ll give you a fair reference as to your work, and, so far as I’m concerned, the other business won’t go any further. Unless I’m asked a direct question, I shall say nothing about it. I think you’ve learnt your lesson.”

  Miss Bell looked at her out of eyes swollen with crying. She had not been able to do more than dab at her face unsatisfactorily with her handkerchief whilst taking down shorthand notes, and she knew that it was wet and glazed with crying. Her self-respect, never of a robust quality, lay dead at the foot of Clarissa’s beautiful bed.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Fitzmaurice.”

  “Get those letters done at once. And pull yourself together before you come back again. The thing’s over now.”

  Miss Bell, clutching her illegible pad and a basketful of letters, crawled from the room. A month more of this.... Mrs. Fitzmaurice had said that it was over, but it was not over. The recollection of it would be always there every time that her employer spoke to her or looked at her with those contemptuous eyes.

  Clarissa flung herself back against her pillows. Her maid, stepping very quietly, came in from the adjoining bathroom.

  “Your tonic, madam.”

  “That stuff — it’s damned nasty, Foster.”

  “Madam, you really must keep up your strength. Remember what the doctor said. And it’s a month still before we go down to Mardale.”

  “Here — give it to me.” She gulped down the tonic. “There are some fools in the world, Foster. People who don’t know how to hold on to a good job when they’ve got it. I’ve always been absolutely straight with the people I employ, and I’ve a right to expect them to be loyal to me.”

  “Indeed you have, madam.”

  “If they’re not — finish!” She threw out her ringed hands in a gesture of dismissal. “I’ve no use for them. No one can say I’m not generous. The pensions I’m paying out on the Mardale estate at this minute — all of them from my own private purse, Foster. No one realizes the amount of my money that goes on other people.”

  “It’s often said in the hall, madam, that you’re only too generous,” murmured Foster respectfully.

  “You see, I look on money as something to be used to make the world a better place,” said Mrs. Fitzmaurice. “To me it’s a responsibility. Here” — she held out the empty glass— “you can send Miss Sophie to me now. Have my bath ready at half-past twelve, and for God’s sake take away those new bath-salts. They’re foul. Put out a bottle of heliotrope.”

  “Very good, madam.”

  Foster softly went away. She took the crystal jar, that was still practically full, out of the bathroom. It would be very easy to dispose of it. She passed on Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s summons to Sophie’s maid, and then went downstairs and told the chef that Miss Bell had lost her job and hadn’t half been getting hell from madam.

  Sophie entered her stepmother’s room, moving lightly, and with a face as softly blooming as though she had been sleeping, instead of dancing, all night long.

  She very carefully touched Clarissa’s face with her own as she wished her good morning.

  “Good morning. I want to talk to you, my child,” said Clarissa briskly. “Stand! Don’t sit! It’s fattening.”

  Sophie stood up near the bed. She knew at once, from her stepmother’s tone, that she was not in favour.

  Clarissa looked her up and down.

  “The frock’s all right,” she observed parenthetically, “but the belt’s entirely wrong. Take it off before lunch, and put on — let me see — put on the one with the enamel buckle. Patent-leather looks ridiculous over that blue check.”

  Sophie hesitated for an instant. Then she decided that to tell the truth would be productive of less trouble than to withhold it, since it would in any case have to come to light eventually.

  “The belt with the buckle is rather tight,” she observed smiling.

  “Are you putting on weight again? You little idiot! Now, Sophie, listen to me! You simply can’t afford to put on even an ounce. Look at your father! If once you put on weight you don’t know that you’ll ever be able to take it off again. You can knock off sweets from to-day, and I forbid you to touch cream. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, mummie,” said Sophie with a little sigh.

  “I don’t take endless trouble over your clothes and spend my money on them just to see you play the fool and lose your figure.”

  “I know, mummie.”

  “Don’t forget it, then. Now there’s another thing, Sophie, Dorothy Sampford rang me up this morning. Why didn’t you tell me last night that you’d met Cliffe Montgomery and that Laquerriére woman?”

  “I thought it was too late,” murmured Sophie. “Rubbish! What did Montgomery say to you?”

  “That he knew daddy.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He asked if I remembered him, or — her.”

  “Which, of course, you didn’t. Well, Sophie, I’ve always been perfectly straight with you, as you know. When I took you over it was as my own child — absolutely — and you’ve been my own child ever since. I intend you to go on being my own child. Did you speak to the Laquerriére?”

  “No, mummie.”

  “Dorothy Sampford knew the family abroad or something. Of course, they’ve entirely dropped out of everything — if they were ever in things, which probably they weren’t. They haven’t a penny,” said Clarissa contemptuously. “You’re not in the least likely to meet her again. But you may meet Cliffe Montgomery. At one time he knew everybody.”

  “He said somet
hing about calling on you.” Clarissa, frowning thoughtfully, gave the question the intent consideration that she afforded to all social issues, great or small.

  “Yes, he can do that,” she said at last. “I may even ask him down to Mardale. A man of that age is often useful to fill in a gap, and he’s the sort that’s related to all the old county fogies. (You see, Sophie, how one has to look ahead, and think of everything.) Remember, you owe me absolute loyalty. I don’t want to remind you that I’ve had you taught every single thing you know, I’ve given you everything you’ve got, taught you to make the most of your chances, and let you know all the right people and none of the wrong ones. It’s up to you, now, to show that you appreciate it.”

  “Yes, mummie.”

  “Then, that’s all. Don’t forget. There’s one other thing: when I send you to a dance with your brother, it isn’t so that you should dance with him all the evening. Dorothy Sampford said you were together the whole time.”

  Sophie kept silent. If she had said that they had arrived late at the dance, it would make more trouble, and Lucien would be involved in it.

  “It’s sheer, dam’ laziness, that’s all it is. Lucien has taken up this pose that it bores him to make conversation, and so, of course, he chooses to dance with his own sister instead of with other girls. Well, it won’t do, Sophie. You can just take that in. I don’t so much mind about Lucien, at his age, but you’re simply going to ruin your chances if you’re seen dancing one dance after another with him. People will think you can’t get any other partner. D’you see?”

  “Yes, I see, mummie.”

  Mrs. Fitzmaurice flung herself back, sighing with exhaustion.

  “It’s the limit, the way I’ve got to think for all of you — all of you!”

  There was a knock at the door, immediately followed by the entrance of Sophie’s father.

  Reggie Fitzmaurice, at fifty-two, still looked ten years less than his real age, in spite of increasing weight and the loss of most of his hair. An unconquerable remnant of the charm that had made him irresistible to a number of women lingered in his gay, confident glance, his swaggering carriage, his cynical smile, that still displayed faultless teeth.

  He looked younger, actually, than Clarissa, nearly seven years his junior. But her careful enamelling and elaborate paint, the artificial waving of her artificially brightened hair, and the hard lines round her eyes and mouth destroyed in her utterly any possible effect of youth.

  “Good morning, Reggie. I’ve been reading the Riot Act to Sophie.”

  “What’s Sophia been doing?”

  “Wasting her time and my money,” Clarissa summed it up crisply. “However, she knows better now. Don’t you, darling?”

  “I expect so,” Sophie said smiling.

  “Clear out now. Daddy wants to talk to me.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Fitzmaurice hastily. “I want Sophia to come and look at a Wedgwood fingerplate with me.”

  Fitzmaurice, in sheer despair at his complete lack of an object in life now that he had been married by a rich woman and need no longer avoid his creditors and cadge meals and drinks from acquaintances, had been obliged to develop a hobby.

  He collected porcelain finger-plates, doorhandles and key-flaps, and had them fixed on all the doors in the hunting-box near Leicester that Clarissa permitted him to use as his own. He sometimes wondered what he should do when every door had each received its full complement of decorations.

  “Sophie can go out with you this morning, so long as she’s back for lunch. Are you lunching at home, Reggie?”

  “I think I’ll go to the Club.”

  Clarissa’s mouth tightened a little. That meant, of course, that Lucien was going to be in. How those two hated one another!

  She made a note on her tablets to find out what time Lucien meant to start for Oxford.

  “I shall have to talk to you sometime, Reggie, about plans. God! to think of spending the entire summer at Mardale... I’d better try and get hold of some people, before everyone’s booked up. Make a list, Sophie, of any men who’ll be any good for dancing and tennis and so on, and I’ll go through it and tell you which ones to ask.”

  “Very well, mummie.”

  “Don’t forget you’re supposed to rest at Mardale,” Fitzmaurice suggested.

  For the first time since her waking the strained look of impatience relaxed on Clarissa’s face. Although the glamour had long since gone from their relationship, and she knew him to be worthless, her love for Fitzmaurice persisted. He, alone, could still make her suffer, through his indifference and the infidelities of which she continually suspected him. It was very seldom that he afforded her even the shadow of an excuse for thinking that he still cared for her. Had he, indeed, ever cared at all? Clarissa had faced the question more than once, and answered it in bitterness of spirit.

  She said:

  “I shan’t forget, Reggie. But I’ve got to think of the child too. I can’t let Sophie vegetate at Mardale all the summer with no one to dance or play-tennis with her — or make love to her. Run along now, Sophie, and get ready. It’ll do you good to walk.”

  She gave her hard, small laugh, and Sophie knew that her mood had mysteriously changed.

  “All right, mummie. I shan’t be a minute.”

  Fitzmaurice looked after her with sentimental appraisement.

  “Sophia’s rather sweet nowadays.”

  “I’ve taken enough trouble with her, Heaven knows. And she’s got no natural instinct for making the best of herself either. It’s all got to be pumped into her. Think of the little fool last night, at Dorothy Sampford’s, dancing half the evening with Lucien, with every young man really worth knowing in London there. She’s too damned lazy to take any trouble, that’s all it is — expects me to do the whole thing for her.”

  Fitzmaurice put his head on one side — unconsciously achieving a resemblance to a rather dilapidated jackdaw — raised his eyebrows and emitted a long whistle.

  Clarissa turned on him.

  “Oh, don’t be a fool! They’re brother and sister. They always have been. I’ve seen to that. The other thing was an obvious danger, and I was determined to checkmate it from the start, and I’ve done it. Don’t make any mistake about that.”

  “I’m not making any mistake about what you’ve done — or thought you’ve done. And I haven’t said anything, Clarissa.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, don’t. These things get into the air. I’ve a good mind to send Lucien abroad this summer. I don’t know, though — he’s got to put in some time at Mardale, I suppose, and there’s his coming of age — No, I’d rather have him under my own eye.”

  “That’s right,” said Fitzmaurice, absently. “Well, I’m off. See you at lunch.”

  She heard him whistling as he went downstairs.

  Clarissa frowned, then determinedly smoothed out the line from her forehead although the look of almost desperate calculation persisted in her eyes. Her ambition ran along a single line, and was almost limitless. She wanted, and always had wanted, social success beyond anything else in the world. Money, personality and tireless determination had secured it for her. She had long ago discarded any standards other than those of the world in which she lived, and she honestly believed that it was only for Sophie’s own sake that she wanted the girl to make a brilliant marriage.

  In regard to Lucien she did not intend him to marry until much later. She felt that he would need a wife cleverer, and probably stronger, than himself, and she meant to see that this was the type of girl he chose. But before there was any question of marriage, Lucien must experience his passing attractions — even infatuations. Clarissa was prepared for that. Although she had been angry with Miss Bell, she was not really angry with Lucien for the indiscretion of the previous day. She thought it entirely natural. The only thing she would not have forgiven him would have been the discovery of something essential to him successfully hidden from herself.

  So long as Clarissa knew, she felt i
nstinctively that her power was safe. Often she experienced a triumphant confidence that her own acute powers of observation, her quickness of wit and her sledgehammer methods of direct questioning made it almost impossible for any of them to conceal anything from her. In this she was correct. She was, however, devoid of any intuitive faculty and her impenetrable egotism in reality deprived her of the insight that she believed herself to possess.

  When she had dressed and gone downstairs, she saw Lucien.

  Clarissa had no intention of saying very much to him upon the subject of Miss Bell. Three brief sentences expressed her scorn, her assurance that Lucien could leave the question of Miss Bell’s future entirely to her, and her relegation of his indiscretion to some obscure region of ill-bred, schoolboy immaturity.

  Lucien listened to her with his air of acquiescent, indifferent civility. She had been accustomed to it from him ever since his twelfth year, and had come to believe that it was representative of his temperamental laziness of mind. Sometimes she remembered with surprise that, as a little boy, Lucien had been both passionate and sensitive. He showed her no signs now of either quality.

  After receiving his too casual apologies, Clarissa closed the subject.

  “I’ve said all I have to say about it, Lucien. I’m not a narrow-minded woman. But there are some things I won’t stand for, and behaving like a cad in your mother’s house, to her paid secretary, is one of them. So now you know. Now then: what time do you start this afternoon? You’re going by car, of course?”

  “Yes. Four o’clock if that’s all right.”

  “Quite all right.”

  She dismissed him. Few conversations ever came to a natural end with Clarissa, for it was her custom to bring them to an arbitrary conclusion as soon as she had said what she wanted to say.

  Clarissa was destined to go through one more interview that day.

  An hour before Lucien was to start for Oxford she received a visit from Cliffe Montgomery.

  She, who never left anything to chance, had already decided to receive him with the unquestioning cordiality due to an old friend of Reggie’s — for it was thus that she characterized the enforced and mutually unwelcome association of her husband and Cliffe Montgomery in the disastrous years of their joint past.