Barry, I am sure, also liked Rene at once. He called her to me “your pretty little sister-in-law.” Now that her appearance was normal again, I could quite see that Rene was indeed a pretty girl, although to me she had, and would always have, one of those slightly indeterminate ‘fluffy’ faces. I was not surprised at Barry taking to her, because I had guessed before they met that she would be just the type to appeal to his chivalry and protective instinct. I was surprised, however, at the way Rene blossomed out in his presence and prattled to him. The fact that she rarely chatted/to me so easily brought me up sharp against the fact (of which I was already uneasily aware) that I myself was failing with her and failing badly.
It was because I was genuinely pleased about the way Barry and Rene got on so well together, that I was furious with Blakey when she chose, suddenly and unexpectedly, to interfere un-pardonably in our private affairs.
It happened that Barry dropped in one evening after supper when I was just on the point of going out. It had not been certain that he was coming, and therefore I apologized briefly but explained that I must, in fact, leave at once. I urged him, however, to stay and have a chat with Rene, who would, I knew, be glad of his company. (Quite apart from liking Barry, Rene hated being alone, a dislike so foreign to my own nature that I could only accept it utterly uncomprehendingly.)
Just as I was going, I felt that perhaps after all I owed Barry some amends for rushing out of the house the moment he entered it, so I asked him formally to tea the next Sunday.
“Come early,” I said, “round about three, if you like, and we can have time to talk to each other properly beforehand. I don’t seem to have had a really good talk with you for ages.”
I flung in this last sentence purely in amends for my hurried departure on that evening. Blakey, who was passing through the hall, must have overheard it. At the time I thought nothing of it.
Rene told me the next morning that she had had “ever such an interesting talk with Mr. Fortescue about his school.”
“Good,” I said in vague approval. “By the way, I asked him to tea next Sunday.”
Rene looked mildly pleased, and I thought no more about it.
Rene, since she had to wake up early for Philip’s first feed, was in the habit of retiring to her room immediately after Philip’s two o’clock feed, and going to sleep, with Philip planted out in his pram, under her window. She would usually appear downstairs again about half-past three.
I thought nothing of it, therefore, when, on the following Sunday Rene did not at once put in an appearance. Barry enquired after her and I told him she was resting, but would be down presently.
Barry looked approving, rather as if the idea of women ‘resting’ appealed to him, as just as it should be. (He has often heard that I am ‘busy working’ or ‘out,’ but never, I think, just ‘resting.’ Even if I was I should have a slight taboo against saying so.)
We talked and I did not notice the time. Presently I heard Blakey and Antonia coming back from their walk. I had given no precise instructions, but I had rather expected that Rene and I and Barry and Antonia would now all have tea together in the dining-room as we usually did.
“Four o’clock! Rene’s having a good sleep to-day, it seems,” I said.
To my surprise the door presently opened and in came, not Rene, but Blakey, bearing a tea-tray with two cups only on it.
“What’s happened to Mrs. Sylvester, Blakey?” I said, swallowing my surprise at this slight departure from custom.
“I’ve taken a tray up to her room, Madam. She hasn’t got up yet, and would like to rest a little longer, if you’ll excuse her.”
My first feeling was one of surprise that Rene should have plucked up sufficient courage to ask Blakey to bring a tray to her room. Ordinarily she was very loath to give her any direct orders at all. (And Blakey, like the born snob she is, despised her for it.)
“Mummy!” said Antonia brightly through the crack in the door.
“Come along, Antonia,” said Blakey, bustling out of the room again. “You and I are going to have tea in the diningroom to-day and, if you like, we’ll have it out of your doll’s tea-service for a treat.”
Well! That disposed firmly of us all. There was nothing to do but pour out the tea for Barry and myself and hope Barry didn’t see anything odd in the situation.
I did. I thought it was all very funny; and, although I had been hours and hours alone with Barry in the past and never thought twice about it, this enforced tête-à-tête atmosphere made me feel rebellious and cross. I expect I was a little distrait in consequence. Barry, anyway, left soon after tea.
I went straight up to Rene’s room to investigate. I was not, of course, in the least offended with her for not coming down. I heartily welcomed this first manifestation of independence of action—if it was due to independence of action. That was what I was not sure about. There had been a look on Blakey’s face as she shut the drawing-room door, a smug satisfied look . . .
Rene was sitting a little aimlessly on her bed.
“Hello,” I said casually, “I came to see if you were still asleep.”
“Is Philip all right?” said Rene anxiously.
“All right? I don’t know. Where is he, anyway? He’s not still in his pram in the garden, is he?”
I was more and more mystified. Usually Rene rushed to bring Philip in at the first hint of approaching dusk.
“No, no,” said Rene, shocked at the idea, “Blakey told me she’d take the pram into the kitchen. She said he was still asleep, and he’d be quiet in there.”
“Seems quite a good plan, but why didn’t you come down yourself? I mean—of course, it’s exactly as you like, Rene, but—”
Rene’s strange anxiety over Philip, the fact that she didn’t immediately apologize for oversleeping, reinforced my dawning suspicions.
“Look here, Rene,” I said directly, “did Blakey tell you to have tea upstairs or any nonsense of the sort?”
Rene looked thoroughly uncomfortable.
“Not exactly, Vicky. I mean I do see—honestly and without being offended at all, I do see—that you don’t always want me about the place when you’ve got visitors.”
“Barry isn’t ‘visitors,’” I said firmly. “As a matter of fact, he was quite disappointed not to see you. Not that that matters—you’ve a perfect right to please yourself, Rene—but there’s one thing I won’t have and that is Blakey ordering any of us about. Now what did she say, Rene?”
“Nothing, really. It was just that . . .”
“Yes. What?” I said inexorably.
“Well . . . I was just settling down after Philip’s feed and she brought me a hot-water bottle. I thought it was rather kind of her . . .”
“Part of a deep-laid scheme, evidently,” I said unkindly. “Well?”
“Well, she said I looked sleepy, and I agreed I was. So she said, why not have a real good rest and she’d bring me a cup of tea when she got back from her walk with Antonia. I did think that sounded rather nice, but I didn’t want to be rude—to you, Vicky, I mean—I had forgotten Mr. Fortescue was coming. So I said, ‘Won’t Mrs. Heron think I’m being terribly lazy?’—half in joke, you know—and she said, ‘Mrs. Heron’s got company to tea to-day.’ She didn’t say it exactly nastily, you know, Vicky, but just a little bit as if she meant me to think that—that—”
“—That you weren’t particularly wanted,” I finished for her.
“Well, just a little bit, you know. Not that I minded, Vicky, of course. As a matter of fact, I absolutely understood.”
“My dear Rene, I assure you, you needn’t have. There was nothing to ‘understand.’ ”
“Oh, of course you’d be far too kind to say so, but I do see that you don’t always want me there when—”
“That’s just where you’re wrong, Rene. If, on any special occasion, I did happen to want a private interview with anyone, I would make no bones about telling you so myself.”
Rene, I could see, har
dly believed me.
“I hope you don’t think I put Blakey up to this—this disgusting conduct?” I said fiercely.
“No—oh, no,” said Rene in a scared way.
Once again I had frightened her, and must instantly make amends. The only amends I could think of was to assure her fervently that there was nothing I liked better than her company on absolutely every occasion. (And now, to prove it, I should have to forego my cherished luxury of supper in bed, at least for a week or two. Oh dear!)
“But listen, Rene,” I finished up, “you must not, you simply must not let Blakey bully you. The only way to behave to Blakey is to stand up to her—then she’ll respect you. In many ways she’s got rather a beastly character. For God’s sake don’t remain immured in your room because she tells you to.”
“I didn’t really,” said Rene apologetically, and then immediately gave herself away by adding, “I quite meant to come down when I had had tea, but when Blakey brought my tray she said she’d already wheeled Philip in, so I could go on resting.”
I think it was this final touch that really made me angriest of all. The old devil!
“She hasn’t bothered to fetch your tray away, I see!” I said, and marched out of the room with it.
This time, I was determined, Blakey was not going to get off unreproved.
The fact that, Rene had told me what had happened must, however, if possible, be concealed, for Rene’s sake. Blakey must not know Rene and I had talked her over together, or she would take it out of Rene, in various subtle ways. Again, I did not want Rene to know I was tackling Blakey on the subject, or she would be nervous and distressed.
I may here remark that I genuinely dislike (and even despise) intrigue.
I decided to open fire on Blakey that evening when Antonia was safely in bed and Rene busy giving Philip his ten o’clock feed upstairs.
All through supper I silently rehearsed suitable openings, and finally decided on: “Blakey, I couldn’t possibly say anything in front of Mr. Fortescue, but never do a thing like that again. It was most embarrassing, forcing us to have tea alone together like that. If Mrs. Sylvester prefers to have tea in her room on ordinary days that’s perfectly all right, but I should have thought you might easily have explained to her that on this occasion she was expected downstairs.”
That let Rene out rather nicely, I thought. I rather enjoyed the assumption that Rene would, as a matter of course, order Blakey to bring her a tray if she wanted to!
I primed myself up with a drink just beforehand, and then opened the assault according to plan. Like a good general, I had a scheme for the future development of the battle, but was not going to stick to it too rigidly if other tactics suggested themselves to me.
As a matter of fact, Blakey proved an extraordinary difficult assailant to come to grips with.
“It’s hardly my place, Madam, to tell Mrs. Sylvester she ought to come downstairs.”
The old hypocrite! And yet, for Rene’s sake, I could not unmask her.
“Did you even remind her, Blakey, that Mr. Fortescue was coming?” (I enjoyed saying that.)
A mumble.
“What, Blakey?”
She would not say, but I think it was something to the effect that Mrs. Sylvester had seen plenty of Mr. Fortescue the other evening when I was out.
I knew what was at the back, of her mind, of course. The maddeningly loyal old woman thought Barry was my property and that Rene was preventing a happy little romance from developing between us. I have always known that she would like me to marry again.
“Well, Blakey, I’m surprised at you. I should have thought you’d have had the sense—the social sense—not to force me into an embarrassing situation.” (There! That ought to touch her up!) “Leaving aside the question of Mrs. Sylvester, why shouldn’t Antonia have had tea with us as she generally does? Mr. Fortescue felt quite embarrassed about the whole situation, I could see that.”
I do not really blame Blakey for murmuring something to the effect that she had never known before that I felt embarrassed at being alone with Mr. Fortescue.
“Of course not—if it happens in the normal course of events,” I said grandly. “But I do object—most strongly object—to having anybody manœuvre me into a situation of the sort.” (Dangerously near the truth that, perhaps, but recklessly, my blood now being up, I swept on.) “And Blakey—you must remember this, that Mrs. Sylvester is a member of my family now and that we ought—all of us—to make the greatest efforts to—to draw her into the family circle.”
Curiously enough, perhaps, I was not conscious of any hypocrisy, as I spoke. Blake’s antagonism to Rene did arouse a certain family instinct in me. The fact that I could feel no real fondness for Rene myself was gradually making me all the more anxious to do my duty by her.
It was then that Blakey said the one impermissible thing she had said that evening. (All her other rudenesses had been in fair fight and no offence taken, so to speak.)
I am not, to this day, absolutely certain that I heard aright. But I am pretty sure that, as she turned away and slammed a drawer shut, she muttered, “And what sort of a family does she come from, I should like to know?”
I think I realized then that, some day or other, I should have to sack Blakey for Rene’s sake; and the prospect absolutely appalled me.
Chapter 6
*
It was a week or two after this that I got a letter from Betty Attenborough.
I had known Betty since I was about eighteen. It was her flat I had so often stayed in during my Oxford vacations, in order to meet Raymond in London. It was her house in Berkshire I had fled to while, waiting for my divorce to come on. She had not—over that business—‘taken sides’ at all. She had simply been kind to me in an utterly unsentimental way, accepting the fact that I had made my decision and was going to stick to it. She had also continued to meet Raymond, in a friendly social manner, from time to time. (The Attenboroughs and ourselves belonged more or less to the same set in London. We were always being invited to the same parties, and, when I dropped out, Raymond still naturally kept on.) I never needed to ask Betty not to try to mediate between me and Raymond, because I knew she would not. She conducted her own life without tolerating interference from anyone, including her husband, and she extended the same right to her friends. Since Betty had no children of her own and professed no love whatsoever for children, I do not think it struck her as particularly sad that our home should be breaking up at such a moment. I told her about the baby shortly after I arrived to stay with her, and, in the same breath, swore her to secrecy, and assured her that it made no difference whatsoever to my determination, and that I would prefer not even to discuss it. All this she accepted quite calmly.
When eventually I did break the news to Raymond about a couple of months before Antonia’s birth—I knew Mother would if I didn’t—Raymond not knowing my whereabouts, for I had purposely not told him, wrote back to me c/o Betty, asking me to meet him. I wrote back instantly, telling him that this was quite unnecessary. My mind was entirely made up, and he need feel under no obligation at all to reopen discussion of any sort. Indeed, I would much prefer it if he did not write again. By the same post I wrote to Betty to tell her that I would really prefer Raymond not to know of my whereabouts, and that, if he applied to her, I would be grateful if she would assure him that I was ‘perfectly all right,’ and he had no need to worry. Fortunately for me, a slight scare about the possibility of Antonia being born prematurely, which occurred just at this time, prevented Mother from trying to persuade me to meet Raymond. (She managed to get out of me that he had suggested it.) The doctor ordered me to stay in bed for a week, and poor Mother had to hold her tongue for fear of agitating me. The scare passed off, but by then there was barely a month to go before Antonia was due and Mother I think decided that she had better give in, since time was so short. Poor Mother! She was torn between her desire to shelter and protect me both for my own sake and the sake of the baby, (Mother is
a great believer in pre-natal influence), and her equally strong desire to stop the divorce going through. Fortunately for me the first consideration won,
I can see distinctly to this day the look of disgust on Mother’s face when she realized that Betty had known almost all along about the baby. It was a bitter pill for her to swallow.
Mother had always heartily disliked Betty. But what proper mother would not dislike her daughter being, from the age of eighteen onwards, intimate friends with an older woman, who was not only very wealthy but very sophisticated, and, in a smart casual way, utterly disillusioned? Betty was ten years my senior. (“Just the wrong age for you!” said Mother darkly once.) At eighteen I did not see her as clearly as I do now—I merely thought her utterly glamorous and entirely admirable. Now that the scales of glamour have fallen from my eyes, I still find a good deal to like in her, although possibly not very much to admire. And yet—I don’t know. Cheap as her own standards fundamentally are, she yet lives up to them, and, moreover, spreads a tapestry of grace and wit and ‘style’ over a poor foundation.
Of course I understand perfectly now what Mother dislikes in her. It is not (as I scornfully thought at eighteen) the outer trappings of sophistication that Mother dislikes—Betty’s own men friends, her husband’s (Hubert’s) girl friends, the way that, living in the same house, they yet give separate parties. An amusing surface possibly this, if, underneath, there was some capacity for deeper feelings. But—and I am pretty sure of this now—in Betty’s case, at any rate, there isn’t. Not only no feeling, but no capacity for it any more, not towards her husband, not towards anyone. Kindness, yes. Tolerance, yes—the infinite all-embracing tolerance that comes from simply not caring. Feeling, deep genuine feeling of any sort whatsoever towards any person, any cause—no, not a shred. Not only is it not there, but I doubt if it could be there now. I think that, like an unused member, it has atrophied quite away, so that what possibly began as a mere surface gesture (‘I must take this well, I mustn’t show I mind, I must hold my head up and laugh’) has gradually bitten in and sunk down and eaten into Betty’s very bones, so that the pretence has become the reality and she has become a person who is surface all through.
Company in the Evening Page 9
