Lettice & Victoria

by Susanna Johnston

  Archie was suddenly beside her. ‘I see that you came to the exhibition to look at one painting only!’

  ‘No. It was a mistake. I didn’t know what to do and fell at the nearest point.’

  ‘I hope you don’t expect me to understand a word of what you are saying. Shall I fetch you a drink?’

  Archie had intended to return but was waylaid by a male member of the group that Victoria had followed in to the party. Now that she saw his face, she recognised it as belonging to a man of fame in the world of art. She was not surprised to see how obviously Archie was enjoying the encounter, nor was she perplexed at being so quickly forgotten.

  She would like to have talked to Harold who was standing, mute, close by but decided not to. They would only look at each other as they had done on that Sunday morning at The Old Keep. His closeness to Archie puzzled and hypnotised her.

  Lettice was near; clasping the hand of one of her daughters, a plain girl of nineteen. She drew her towards a smartly dressed young man.

  ‘I don’t believe you two have ever met.’

  They stood face to face until Lettice’s eyes were fixed elsewhere.

  Archie collected them together. Lettice, Victoria and Harold.

  ‘Lettice. This is a wonderful party. I am delighted to see Victoria again and especially pleased to see her so well. She is such a new acquisition for your family that I fear it would be presumptuous of me to ask if I might be placed next to her at dinner.’

  Harold turned away as Lettice bridled.

  ‘Hasn’t Archie got an uncanny instinct for learning one’s secrets? Victoria, you mustn’t be cross with me. I shall have to tell Archie the reason why you have decided to go straight home to bed after the party.’ Brushing his face with a part of her head gear, Lettice whispered news into Archie’s ear.

  Victoria went to where Harold stood.

  ‘I think I could hate Archie.’

  ‘Yes. Oh dear yes. I understand – but he would never do anything bad enough to make you hate him. I have a great deal of experience to draw on and I know that he would never do anything bad enough for that.’

  She stayed by Harold until the party started to disband.

  Archie suggested that they sit down together for a few minutes on the step of the staircase that led to the upper gallery.

  ‘You ought not to have been angry with me. I was teasing Lettice. It doesn’t do her any harm. I don’t believe she even notices.’

  ‘You were teasing me, too – and Harold.’

  ‘Was I?’

  Guests walked past them and out into the street.

  When eleven people remained, Lettice went to the step.

  ‘Archie. We must make haste to the Ritz.’ She wasn’t sure if he listened to her.

  ‘Did you hear me? We must go to the Ritz. It’s getting late.’

  Archie and Victoria were planning a future meeting.

  ‘You shall come and stay with me in Cambridge. Harold and I will show you the sights.’

  What was to be seen of Lettice’s parchment face from under her floppy, flowered hat, was strained and angry. On the verge of blasphemy, she cried, ‘Archie. You must come to the Ritz now whether you like it or not.’

  Roland and Lettice, Archie and Harold, Alice (the nineteen-year-old daughter), the prosperous young man, the celebrated figure from the world of art and his inebriated wife, a minor poet and a famous composer of quartets walked, one behind the other, into the magnificent dining room at the Ritz Hotel.

  Archie sat between the minor poet and the teenage daughter.

  Lettice warbled, ‘It’s awful how I always seem to know more men than women.’ She explained to the composer of quartets, ‘I’m afraid I find men more interesting. Although I say it, I have never been a one to suffer fools gladly.’

  Then, straining every muscle of her face, she turned to the famous fellow from the world of art who was placed on her right. She had rubbed up on her knowledge of the offerings of cultural London that morning as her hair was being twisted into coils. Her chirpy hairdresser took an interest in art and had given her some tips.

  ‘I gather there’s a new print of Le Jour Célèbre at the Academy.’

  Roland, sharp of hearing, called across, ‘Le Jour Se Lève, Lettice. I imagine that’s what you are talking about.’

  Her daughter, talking to Archie, asked, ‘Are you interested in psychoanalysis? I think it’s fascinating. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many problems stem from having been misunderstood as a child.’

  Roland, on her other side, said, ‘I hope none of you are going to start believing that you were misunderstood.’

  Months of Lettice’s plotting had led to this occasion.

  Alice went on. ‘Freud was fantastic. Did you know that it was him who said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes”. Don’t you think that’s fantastic?’

  Archie was wondering if Victoria was safely back at home. He planned to ring her after dinner.

  Harold’s energy had dribbled away and he could barely lift his food to his mouth. When dinner was over he thanked Lettice, congratulated Roland and ran away.

  Archie saw his lanky figure as he scrambled into a taxi. Dismissing the idea of trying to follow him, he decided that he would definitely ring Victoria. After all he would see Harold the next day when they dined in college hall.

  Back at the flat, Victoria’s mood was unsatisfactory. Her dislike of Lettice was uncomfortable. She wished that she missed Edgar. She had fallen asleep and had been dreaming again. Her baby, a boy, had blue eyes and grey curls. The telephone rang.

  ‘I wanted to be sure that you got home all right.’

  ‘How was dinner at the Ritz?’

  ‘Very nice. It would have been a great deal nicer if you had been present.’

  ‘Who did you sit next to?’

  ‘Your sister-in-law. Very sweet. She talks about Freud and Jung.’

  ‘Come and tell me about it.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He appeared on her doorstep almost instantly. He drank whisky and talked entertainingly of his rage at the abolition of capital punishment, dislike of facial hair, terror of men who wore earrings and his loathing of dogs which, he declared, ought to be muzzled at both ends. But he was tired and didn’t stay as long as Victoria would have wished. His lunatic attitude was compelling and spellbinding. His jokes and his rages; his bigoted views and flirtatious manners lifted Victoria’s spirits. She had never heard anything like it and compared him, neither favourably nor the opposite, with Laurence and his gentle liberal ways.

  In days to follow she was uneasy. She was fearful of having been impertinent, notwithstanding the fact that he had telephoned her, in asking Archie to visit her after the Ritz dinner party. She wished that he didn’t occupy such a distinguished position. Perhaps, when he retired, she would be allowed to visit him once a week.

  Another Italian stamp and Mungo’s exasperating handwriting on the hall floor at breakfast time. She was pleased though to hear from Laurence.

  Less so when she discovered that the letter had not been dictated but came from Mungo Craddock himself.

  ‘Dear Victoria. One writes to put you in the picture. Laurence is fading fast, poor old dear. He doesn’t leave his bedroom and Aldo (do you recall the male nurse?) is on permanent standby.’

  Did she recall the male nurse? Barely – and Laurence’s routine had constituted her life for a while.

  ‘Fear not! He wants for nothing. One reads aloud to him during his periods of consciousness; mostly from one’s own works. One’s style delights him. One has moved into the sitting room which, you may remember, is next to his bedroom. This way one can be on tap around the clock. Don’t put yourself to the inconvenience of writing. He remembers nothing. Elena has let him down badly. One never took to her, truth be told. Her eyes are odd. One noticed them on one’s first arrival at the villa. Do you recollect the occasion?’

  A pitiful note came from Elena by t
he same post. It was not easy to decipher but told that she was powerless. The buffo had taken over. He flattered the cook and shunned her, Elena, mocking poor Dante and his gifts for the padrone; treasures from the shore. Sea horses and shells.

  Bernadini had been summoned and it was rumoured that the buffo was involved with the redrafting of a will. She, Elena, had never expected anything but what did the signorina imagine? Perhaps the right to live with Dante in one of the outlying buildings. She had worked there since she was thirteen – and now she was thirty and ready to settle. Another thing. The padrone had been calling out for the signorina. Had the buffo told her this?

  Unsold paintings stacked in the hall reminded Lettice of her promise to Belinda. It was a week since the exhibition and Roland was out of humour.

  Victoria sent a note to say that she had enjoyed the party and had also heard that the dinner had been a great success.

  Who had she heard it from? It could only be Archie. ‘Touch wood and whistle,’ she told herself.

  Shaken and emboldened by desire to investigate, Lettice decided to ask her to stay for a few days before Edgar returned from peddling ink in Yugoslavia.

  ‘Darling. What a lovely letter! Roland and I both long to have you here and the country air would do you good. What about next week? Monday would suit perfectly. After all the people we had to fit in during our London visit, it is paradise to be alone and to listen to birdsong. The dawn chorus was unimaginable ce matin. I think Roland feels a little flat now it is all over and we rely on you to come and cheer us up. Soignezvous bien. All fondest thoughts. Lettice.’

  Victoria replied that, alas, she had been invited to stay in Cambridge for two nights that week. Archie, in his letter of invitation said, ‘I want to see you very badly. I am not in a very good way generally and need a change. One that your presence would supply. My head and various parts of my body seem to lead separate existences so that I am watching myself and overhearing myself the whole time, and not only my memory but my power of connected thinking seem to be removed from each other; I feel like a department store suffering from a power cut and with alarm bells sounding in all parts of the building (little pricks and tingles in limbs and extremities) which I interpret as signals, not of fire or gas but of closing time. But I am getting morbid and writing to excite pity. It’s not really as bad as that but I do feel low, partly because I want to see you and partly because Harold is rather (but not entirely) withdrawn and I feel somehow at a loss. Please come soon. Love Archie.’

  Victoria, overwhelmed in joy at thus being minimally confided in, had accepted his invitation by return of post.

  ‘Holy mackerel!’ Lettice started to panic and to talk to herself. ‘Cambridge! How had she heard that the dinner party went well? It can’t be Archie and Harold, can it? I don’t see how. What am I to do – buried here among the mossy banks?’

  Victoria drove to Cambridge. She was greeted at the door of the leaden-looking lodgings by a polite college servant who told her that the principal awaited her upstairs in his study. As Victoria, heavily pregnant, walked quietly into the room, Archie Thorne rose from his chair and lowered his spectacles. It was unnerving to see him there. Principal of a college.

  ‘I am terribly pleased to see you.’

  Victoria inspected the room – donnish with piled pieces of paper spilling over each other. She was taken aback to see, among other works of art, so many indifferent portraits of young men – some with ruby lips and many unclad.

  ‘So. You are admiring my paintings, I see. The one that I particularly like is the one on your right.’ The picture on her right showed nothing but gravestones. ‘Rather gloomy,’ she said.

  ‘I like it. It is named Churchyard and the best thing about it is that the artist himself is also called Churchyard. My colleague, Harold, who you know well, will join us at teatime. He is terribly excited to think that he is going to see you again very soon. He was so excited last evening that he brought a tea tray down on my head.’ Archie put his hand to his temple, winced and said, ‘It was frightfully thrilling but fortunate that none of the fellows of the college were about.’

  She joined Archie in the study where a tea tray had appeared. She wondered if it was the one to have been brought down on Archie’s head by Harold in his excited anticipation of seeing her again.

  ‘Ah. Here comes Harold. Harold. I have been telling Victoria how you have been looking forward to her visit.’

  ‘No. No. You mustn’t.’

  ‘Mustn’t what?’

  ‘Say anything.’

  Harold then fell silent and remained so until he left with no warning and looking haunted.

  Victoria asked Archie if everything was in order. ‘Of course. He’s dreadfully sensitive, you know. I think, another time, you would do well to admire his looks. As I often say, he is a plant that needs watering every day.’

  ‘Did I not water enough then? I tried to hug him when he arrived but he shied away.’

  ‘My child. You did nothing wrong whatsoever. He was overcome with pleasure. Now. Tell me how things are. How is your mother-in-law?’

  An enticing and seductive evening passed, Archie’s firebrand conversation occasionally interrupted by the wafting in and out of Harold. He never settled or joined them as they ate but was not violent or destructive at any stage. Archie gazed at him with tolerant adoration and some awe as he came and went.

  Victoria was none the wiser and was glad that she had only arranged to stay for one night. The oddity of Harold’s behaviour had been, at times, hard to handle.

  Part Three

  Edgar returned from his ink round feeling unwell. He took to his bed and complained that it was nothing worse than a weakness in the limbs but, within days, he was taken to hospital having moaned and turned a yellowish colour in the middle of one night. Victoria sent him away in an ambulance for she was due to give birth at any time. Before arranging her own transport to the hospital, she rang Lettice.

  ‘You poor pet.’ Her mother-in-law, roused from sleep, managed to sound alive. ‘What an added worry at this traumatic time. It must be the catching type of jaundice, since darling Edgar, as you know, has never been tempted by excess. Grâce à Dieu.’

  At the hospital a nurse said that Edgar was suffering from something called an enlarged heart. Strange, Victoria thought, that he should suffer physically from a complaint never to have affected him in the emotional sense.

  As he died, Victoria was lifted onto a truckle bed and trundled to the delivery room. Edgar drew his last breath as his daughter, Maudie, took her first.

  Victoria had never been as happy.

  Lettice, distraught, ran along the corridor from the cubicle where she had kissed the corpse, to the Maternity Wing where she kissed, with equal fervour, the corpse’s widow and child.

  Edgar’s sister, Alice, peeped in. ‘You poor thing. It’s awful to talk like this but I feel I must explain something. The first day in a baby’s life is by far the most important in its development. They pick up waves of sorrow. It sounds silly to people who haven’t studied my subject but I promise you, and I am in my second year, you must try to forget what is happening down the passage and concentrate like mad on the poor little baby.’

  Victoria beamed and Alice spread the news of her courage.

  She stayed in hospital for a week – missing Edgar’s funeral.

  Lettice photographed the coffin from every angle squinting into the top of a square Rolex camera. At a cold lunch at The Old Keep following the funeral, she told Archie that she had taken to photography by accident; that a darling old friend had left the beloved Rolex behind after staying with her and had died before she had time to return it to him by post. ‘I began at once and modelled myself on that fascinating woman who photographed our very own Alfred, Lord Tennyson on the Isle of Man.’

  ‘Wight,’ Archie said. ‘Quite Wight.’

  Later she compiled an album, which she gave to Victoria for her birthday. It included one picture of the coffin
– close up and smothered in wild flowers and shrivelled ferns. Under it she had written the caption ‘Edgar’s coffin. Our flowers.’

  The artistic son and his wife had hastened back from France for the funeral but were too distracted by their free-range child to concentrate on the purpose of their journey, and the community in France had wired to say that the system was collapsing without the three Bobbies so they departed immediately after the church service. Roland, numb and dumb, suffered noticeably. Lettice, snapping and flashing, looked wretchedly unhappy too, particularly when Archie told her that he intended to visit Victoria and Maudie.

  ‘Archie, you are an angel.’ Thus he felt free to go with a clear conscience.

  Roland visited Victoria in hospital. He kissed the baby and left as soon as he dared.

  Archie wrote, ‘What can I say? I could write a good deal but would prefer to talk to you. Of course I would sooner you had given birth to a son but I will come and see you, if I may. Maudie is a pretty name and I’m sure you are already a wonderful mother. Your news has revived me and I no longer believe myself to be in a department store at closing time. Best love.’

  Victoria answered, ‘Dearest Archie. You are very kind. Please come but don’t put yourself out. Don’t come if you think it might bother Lettice. It is terrible for her. I do hope that you will though. Best love.’

  Archie went to see her the day after the funeral.

  During Archie’s visit he told Victoria, ‘Lettice knew of my coming and approved of my doing so.’

  He did not ask to see the baby. She was in another room with a label on her wrist.