Motherland

by William Nicholson

  ‘Is there something I must do?’ she says.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he says.

  He wants to say, Open yourself to me, welcome me, love me. But he understands how frightening it must be to her, and that he must be patient. At the same time the desire is mounting in him, the simple hunger for satisfaction, and he wants to force himself into her before it’s too late. He pushes more eagerly, and hears her utter a low gasp. Then comes a wave of guilt.

  What right have I to put my own pleasure before hers? We have a whole lifetime ahead of us. I can surely afford to wait one more day.

  He eases himself off her body, and lies on his back beside her.

  ‘Have you done it?’ she says.

  He can’t contain a short laugh.

  ‘No, my darling,’ he says. ‘But it doesn’t matter. We’re both tired. There’ll be other nights.’

  She lies beside him in the darkness, in silence. After a while he thinks perhaps she’s gone to sleep. But when at last she speaks he realises she’s been crying soundlessly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Darling, darling, sweetheart. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I’m so stupid and ignorant,’ she says. ‘But I’ll get better, I promise you. I’ll be a good wife.’

  ‘You are a good wife, my darling. The best in the world. You’ll see. It’ll all come right soon. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t be in so much of a hurry. But if I am, it’s because I love you and want you so much.’

  ‘And I do love you so much too,’ says Geraldine.

  After that they kiss, and put their night clothes back on, and settle down to sleep. Larry lies awake far into the night. Geraldine lies still and quiet beside him, and he’s not sure if she sleeps or not.

  *

  Late October in Normandy is golden with sunlight. Geraldine, enchantingly pretty, stays close by Larry’s side, smiling for him, touching him, leaning her soft head against his shoulder. The French staff of La Grande Heuze all fall in love with the young couple, and wait on them with tender care. Geraldine does her best with the servants, laughing at her own poor French, thanking them with smiling bobs of her pretty head. ‘Qu’elle est charmante,’ they say to each other. ‘Vraiment bien élevée, cette petite Madame Cornford.’

  At night, progress of a sort is made. Geraldine now understands fully what is required of her, and professes herself willing to do all that her husband wants; but her body is not under the command of her will. By the third night it seems to Larry that he is being too cautious, and that what is needed is a more powerful attack. He explains this to Geraldine and she accepts his analysis, saying as ever, ‘If that’s what you think is for the best.’ However, when the theory is put into practice she suffers a violent reaction. She starts breathing in short rapid jerks, and almost faints. Alarmed, full of self-reproach, Larry abandons his attack at once, and spends the rest of the night cradling her in his arms. When they are found to be sleeping in late the following morning the servants smile at each other and whisper, ‘Qu’il est doux, l’amour des jeunes.’

  For the remaining days of their honeymoon Larry treats his young bride with great gentleness, and she shows him even more physical affection than before. They speak about the matter openly only once.

  ‘It will be all right, won’t it, darling?’ she says.

  ‘Of course it will,’ he replies. ‘It’s just a matter of giving it time.’

  ‘You aren’t too horribly disappointed in me?’

  ‘How could I be?’

  He reaches his hand across the breakfast table and she takes it in hers. They smile into each other’s eyes.

  ‘I do love you so much, darling,’ she says. ‘I’m so proud and happy to be married to you. I promise you I’ll make you happy too.’

  ‘You make me happy already,’ he says.

  In so many ways she’s so perfect. And of course, she’s still young, only twenty-two. Easy to forget in view of the formidable efficiency with which she manages herself and those around her. If her body is young and fearful, that should be no surprise. All will come right in time.

  32

  Kitty’s new baby is a good baby right from the start. She feeds well and sleeps well, and seems to be happy wherever she’s put. Her name is Elizabeth. Her arrival changes everything for Kitty. Her life is now filled from morning to night with tending to the baby’s simple and immediate needs. All other concerns withdraw to that shadowy space on the edge of consciousness. At the centre, pink-cheeked, smelling of warm milk, chirruping with contentment, lies little Elizabeth.

  Pamela is less delighted.

  ‘She looks like a monkey,’ she says.

  ‘But she’s a dear little monkey, isn’t she?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ says Pamela.

  Somehow this name clings on, and the baby comes to be called the Monkey, which is later shortened to the Monk. Pamela, who has recently passed her fifth birthday, becomes aware that the Monk is often compared favourably to herself as a baby. Apparently she cried a lot, and wouldn’t eat what she was given, and threw her toys out of the pram. The Monk’s placidity is much remarked upon, always in highly approving terms.

  ‘She was born with a good nature,’ they say, gazing fondly on her as she sleeps.

  ‘She might be dead,’ says Pamela.

  She takes to poking the baby surreptitiously, to make her cry.

  Louisa comes calling most days. Her own pregnancy is now well advanced. The early sickness has passed, but she continues to give her doctors cause for concern.

  ‘It’s so unfair,’ she complains to Kitty. ‘I should be dancing for joy, but instead I feel like a cow with a hangover.’

  George fusses round her, and tells her to sit down all the time. To Kitty’s surprise, Louisa shows no irritation at this. She leans on his arm for support, and pats him, like a horse.

  ‘George says if it’s a boy he’s to be William, after his father.’

  ‘I think it will be a boy,’ says George.

  ‘Oh, you don’t want a boy,’ Ed says. ‘Boys are always shouting and fighting.’

  Ed is so much sweeter these days. Kitty knows very well that deep down he’s not happy, but at least he’s making a real effort to be friendly. She even has hopes that he’s overcome his habit of drinking too much. Then one day Mrs Willis finds a stash of empty bottles while cleaning the small parlour. This is the room Ed calls his ‘office’, to which he often retires. The empty bottles were in a cupboard.

  ‘Why hide empty bottles, Ed?’

  ‘I wasn’t hiding them. I was storing them. We reuse glass bottles, you know? Every bottle costs tuppence. That soon adds up.’

  She can tell by the way his voice goes up in pitch that he’s ashamed and defensive, so she lets the matter drop. But from now on, when he seems more silent and sleepy-eyed than usual, she suspects him of having been drinking. She knows she should talk to him about it, but the baby occupies all her time and care, and truth to tell she’s afraid of raising the issue.

  *

  In May, when the hawthorn blossom is white in the hedges and the young leaves are bright on the trees, Larry and Geraldine come down for the weekend. This visit has been long promised, and at last a time has arrived when Ed is home, and Larry’s business can spare him. The Cornfords motor down from London in a new Riley saloon, a shiny dark-red car with cream sides. This is only the first sign of Larry’s new prosperity. He gets out to reveal he’s wearing a tailored tweed suit, and a tie that looks suspiciously like an old school tie.

  Kitty bursts into laughter.

  ‘Larry, what’s happened to you! You’ve turned into landed gentry!’

  ‘That’s Geraldine,’ says Larry. ‘She’s taken me in hand.’

  Geraldine is wearing a tight-fitting red wool coat with a long full skirt of a kind Kitty has never seen before. On Geraldine’s slim and elegant figure the effect is stunning.

  ‘Lord, I feel so dowdy and provincial,’ Kitty exclaims. ‘You mustn’t be to
o disappointed by the way we live.’

  ‘How could we be?’ says Geraldine, looking round with the smile of one who has come determined to be pleased. ‘It’s bliss to be out of London. Just look at all this!’ She means the trees, the Downs, the sky. ‘It makes Kensington Gardens feel very poky, I assure you.’

  Geraldine has perfect manners. She goes into raptures over baby Elizabeth, now almost five months old. She has a present for Pamela, a doll that isn’t a baby at all but a lady, with clothes you can take off and another set of clothes to change her into. Pamela is mute with pleasure.

  ‘Say thank you, Pammy.’

  The little girl looks up at the beautiful lady and can’t speak. Her eyes shine with gratitude.

  ‘That’s so clever of you,’ says Kitty. ‘You couldn’t have got her anything she’d like more.’

  There are presents for Kitty too, or as Geraldine puts it, ‘for the house’. A box of chocolates from Fortnum & Mason and a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

  ‘How in God’s name did you get that?’ says Ed, examining the label.

  ‘From Larry’s cellar,’ says Geraldine. She and Larry have set up house in Campden Grove, along with Larry’s father. ‘It’s a ’37, which I’m told was a very good year. I hope you don’t think I’m bringing coals to Newcastle.’

  Over lunch Larry tells them about the source of his newfound prosperity, which is the family firm.

  ‘The whole thing has been a revelation to me,’ he says. ‘You know how I was so dead set against going into the business, or any business, for that matter. And I’m sure you think the only reason I’m doing it now is for the big car and so forth. But the truth is, I’ve become almost passionate about the job.’

  ‘Passionate about bananas, Larry?’ says Ed, smiling as he watches him.

  ‘Passionate about bananas if you like,’ says Larry. ‘But it’s the firm itself I love. I’m so proud of what my grandfather and my father have built. Do you know we’re just about the only company that provides retirement pensions for our employees? We’ve been doing it since ’22. It’s called the Staff Provident Fund. The company pays an extra ten per cent of salary every year into a special benefit account for each employee. Then they get a lump sum on retirement, and if it’s not enough we top it up.’

  Geraldine reaches out to touch his arm, stopping him in mid-flow.

  ‘But I shouldn’t go on like this about business. We’re not in the office now.’

  ‘No, do go on,’ says Kitty. ‘I love it that you love what you do.’

  ‘The thing is,’ says Larry, catching fire again, ‘our people love the company. No one ever leaves. We have company sports grounds. In New Malden for the London-based staff, and in Avonmouth, and in Liverpool. We have an annual cricket match, Fyffes versus the MCC. Some of our men are county players.’

  ‘I take it all back,’ says Ed. ‘This is more than bananas.’

  ‘Well, of course the banana trade creates the wealth of the company,’ says Larry. ‘But the wealth of the company is spread round all our people, just as if every worker was a member of the family. Though of course’ – he blushes as he realises he has perhaps gone a little too far – ‘my father and I get a greater share of the wealth than most.’

  ‘I’m impressed with wealth in any form,’ says Ed. ‘I know what damned hard work it is getting it.’

  ‘Ed’s doing so well,’ says Kitty. ‘He and Hugo now have crowds of people working for them.’

  ‘If three counts as a crowd,’ says Ed. ‘But once all the restrictions are lifted I think we should make a decent go of it.’

  ‘Don’t talk about restrictions!’ says Geraldine with a light laugh. ‘I’m so tired of restrictions.’

  Kitty wants to like Geraldine and tries to like her, but the truth is she does not like her. She’s ashamed of this, suspecting that it springs from simple jealousy. Larry has always been her special friend, as she puts it to herself, choosing not to investigate further. She should be happy to see him settled at last, but she doesn’t much care for the way he’s changing. She doesn’t like the tweed suit or the big car. She wants her old shabby Larry back, with his friendly puzzled face and his paint-stained fingers. She wants to have him to herself again, to talk about characters in books and how hard it is to make good people interesting.

  Geraldine asks after the neighbours, which turns out after a little confusion to mean George and Louisa.

  ‘Sometimes if it’s not a bore I’d love to see Edenfield Place again,’ she says. ‘It is rather extraordinary.’

  ‘Rather hideous is the word,’ says Ed. ‘It’s the sort of monster that can only be created when money is no object. They say in his day George’s father was the richest man in England.’

  ‘We can walk over after lunch if you like,’ says Kitty.

  ‘I’d love that,’ says Geraldine. ‘Larry has such fond memories of being billeted in the big house.’

  ‘No, darling,’ says Larry. ‘I was billeted here, in the farmhouse. Kitty was billeted in the big house.’

  ‘Then how did you become so pally with Lord Edenfield?’

  ‘Because of Kitty. George had a soft spot for Kitty. Kitty fell for Ed. Ed is my best friend.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Geraldine. ‘I don’t quite follow. But never mind.’

  They walk across the park to the big house, Kitty pushing the Monk in her pram, with Pamela on one side and Geraldine on the other. Geraldine asks her about motherhood and babies. Kitty can’t rid herself of the sensation that Geraldine has no personal interest in the topic, but chooses it out of politeness, supposing it to be Kitty’s current central concern. In this she is correct, but that doesn’t remove the faint polishy smell of good manners.

  ‘And you manage it all without help!’ says Geraldine.

  ‘I do have someone to clean,’ says Kitty. ‘Two or three days a week.’

  ‘Have you had any time at all away from her, since she was born?’

  ‘No, not so far.’

  ‘She doesn’t do anything,’ says Pamela from the far side of the pram. ‘She can’t talk or play or anything.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ says Geraldine with a smile, ‘perhaps we’d better send her back.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I think,’ says Pamela.

  ‘No, you don’t, darling,’ chides Kitty. ‘She’s your little baby sister. You love her.’

  Larry walks ahead with Ed.

  ‘Marriage seems to suit you,’ Ed says to him.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ says Larry.

  ‘I’ve always thought you were husband material. Unlike me.’

  ‘Why aren’t you?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Kitty that. She’s very patient with me, but I can be a bit much, you know? Or maybe I mean not enough.’

  ‘Ed, Kitty adores you.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ He looks away, towards the steep rise of Edenfield Hill beyond the big house. ‘It’s a funny thing you going and getting married when you did. Just as well, I expect.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ says Larry.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Ed. ‘Pay no attention to a word I say.’

  They go into the house by the terrace door, Kitty calling as they enter.

  ‘Louisa! George! It’s only us!’

  They find George on his own. Louisa has gone up to town to be examined yet again by her doctors. George is welcoming, but it’s clear they’ve woken him from an afternoon nap. He keeps taking his spectacles off and rubbing them with an enormous pocket handkerchief, as if this will clear his fuddled thoughts.

  ‘I’m so sorry Louisa’s not here. We’re very quiet when she’s away. So this is your wife, Larry! I must congratulate you.’

  ‘You were at the wedding, George,’ says Kitty.

  ‘Yes, I was. You’re perfectly right.’

  The butler appears, in response to a bell George has rung.

  ‘Lott,’ George says, ‘we have guests. What are we to give them?’

  ‘We don�
��t need anything,’ says Kitty. ‘We’ve only come to let Geraldine have a peep at the house.’

  ‘Our last visit was so rushed,’ says Geraldine. ‘I hardly saw a thing.’

  ‘Maybe Mrs Lott could keep an eye on Elizabeth,’ says Kitty.

  The butler goes in search of his wife. The baby is sleeping contentedly. George becomes more animated at the prospect of showing off the house. He has done this many times, and finds himself on familiar ground. Ed and Larry opt out of the tour, and Pamela, who also knows the house well, runs off to the billiard room to play with the electric scoreboard. This leaves Kitty and Geraldine to follow in George’s wake.

  ‘The short tour please, George,’ says Kitty. ‘We don’t want to bore Geraldine.’

  ‘Oh, you won’t bore me!’ exclaims Geraldine. ‘I adore old houses.’

  ‘We’ll start in the hall,’ says George. ‘You have to look up. The roof is the big thing here. The ridge beam is forty feet above us. All English oak. The architect was John Norton, who was a friend of Pugin. He built Elveden Hall in Suffolk, too. And this portrait here, this is my father, painted by Lorimer. He’s wearing the uniform he served in, in South Africa. I’ve never been in uniform myself. I rather regret that.’

  Meanwhile Ed and Larry settle down in the library.

  ‘You’ve never told me about India,’ Ed says. ‘Was it fun?’

  ‘You obviously don’t know what’s happening over there,’ says Larry. ‘Don’t you read the newspapers?’

  ‘Never,’ says Ed. ‘What’s the point? I don’t need a daily list of horrors to tell me what sort of world we live in.’

  ‘Well, India’s joined the horrors,’ says Larry. ‘God knows how many have died since independence. Hundreds of thousands.’

  ‘Another glorious triumph for Mountbatten, then.’

  ‘Actually I don’t blame Dickie,’ says Larry. ‘It had all gone too far long before he got out there. But my God! The savagery. The hatred. It makes our war look like a gentlemanly scrap.’