Lettice & Victoria

by Susanna Johnston

  Victoria knew that, soon, there was to be no alternative but for her to go, indefinitely, to live at The Old Keep for she was short of money.

  Amongst many letters Victoria received concerning her double event, a grizzly one came from Northern Italy.

  Mungo had spotted both items in Laurence’s airmail edition of the Times and wrote to say, ‘Laurence would, most certainly, have bidden one to comment on your news both sad and glad. The poor old dear is slipping away fast. One has been efficacious in persuading him to receive the priest. Elena has proved herself to be the most frightful stumbling block and refused to show him up. As one mentioned before, one’s first instincts were consistent with facts, she is a thorn in everyone’s flesh. One can’t think what’s got into her. After all, peasants are surely of the faith.’

  Poor Elena. How painful for her to witness the agnostic Laurence being got at. The buffo went on to say, ‘It cannot be long now. Have no fear. The old dear is in excellent hands.’

  A packet of sea horses came for Maudie. Elena had wrapped them carefully in a padded envelope and for the first time since widowhood, Victoria wept.

  At The Old Keep Victoria and Maudie slept in a room at the top of the tower. Victoria had specially requested this. The winding stairs were tricky with a baby to carry up and down but it gave privacy. It was rum up there. At one stage there had been six openings in the brickwork, cutting through and randomly punctuating the thick wall. In these gaps doves had rested; billing and cooing. Lettice, never eager to tamper with the picturesque, had glassed them in – or rather glassed them out. Panes, flat against the inside wall, had been slotted into place. Sprig-muslin curtains cuddled round them like peek-a-boo bonnets, pinned permanently open, never destined to be drawn. Each tiny curtained window, air neither entering nor escaping, framed doves – comfortable each night in time-worn resting places.

  Victoria lay awake, alert, as birds landed and left, teased and tumbled as though on six television sets but more enthralling. In one window a plump, ruffled and fluffed pair pecked at each other, beady-eyed.

  In another three were squeezed in side by side, bored and sedentary. Archie and Harold in the first perhaps; then the three Bobbies.

  Above Maudie’s cot a third pair perched. They preened and praised. Lettice and Roland. Above this there was a small resting place where a solitary bird gazed and met her eyes. Antics varied from box to box and at one moment she saw a pale and hazy Edgar drift away without flurry. By morning every bird had flown.

  Most of the neighbours knew that Lettice had her daughter-in-law and baby granddaughter staying with her.

  Belinda was the first to call. Hoping that the tragedy had taken Lettice’s mind off the sale of Roland’s bird sketches, she sidled past the stack of frames propped against the entrance-hall wall – as they had been for many months.

  Victoria pressed her cigarette into the heart of a rose and opened the parcel that Belinda handed to her. Out slid an exquisitely crocheted pink cardigan for Maudie.

  Lettice wafted in and told Belinda that visiting hours were strict and that her time was up.

  In the hall she asked Belinda to take the painting with her. ‘Somehow you always seem to forget it. Don’t bother about the cheque today. Any time will do as long as it’s before those horrid statements come at the end of the month.’

  Later, Lettice sorted through a pile of old photographs – mostly taken by herself. She told Victoria that the likeness between Maudie and Edgar was uncanny and that through Maudie Edgar lived on.

  Early one morning Lettice came into Victoria’s bedroom. ‘Darling. I know this may seem old-fashioned to one of your generation but, when we have Maudie christened, I think you will feel a little something. I wonder who the godparents should be? I think Edgar would have liked us to ask Archie Thorne. I know he’s old but he is a famous figure and it might be fun for Maudie to talk about him in years to come.’

  Victoria put in a plea for Caroline; the friend who had lent her the mauve dress and persuaded her to buy mauve stockings before Roland’s exhibition, but Lettice gave no sign of having heard her. When Lettice had left her alone with her baby, she wrote to Archie. ‘Lettice thinks you should be Maudie’s godfather. I don’t know why. I’d imagined she was bothered by our having made friends in the first place. Please do though. I’d be thrilled.’

  Downstairs and using a relief nib, Lettice wrote to Archie. ‘Such a favour to ask! Would you be an angel and take on another godchild? I know you have dozens (including my Alice), but Victoria hasn’t any idea as to how to go about things and, if we aren’t firm, might neglect to have the mite “done” at all. Bless you. A bientôt. Lettice.’

  Then she rang Belinda. ‘Darling. A thousand thanks for the cheque. It is miserable that we couldn’t make a special price for you but, with these poor bereft darlings to feed, the pinch is worse than ever. Thank God Victoria has seen sense and has bidden me ask Archie Thorne to be Maudie’s godfather. Darling Archie is such a pet. I know he won’t refuse and, being a bachelor… Did I tell you that he went to see them in hospital for me?’

  Archie wrote, ‘Dearest Victoria. Of course. Delighted to make vows for Maudie. Will I be able to keep them? Naturally, if she ever misbehaves I shall simply box her ears. Could you ask Harold to be a godfather as well? He needs to be included. Don’t forget. He is a plant that has to be watered every day. Who can do this better than you?’

  Then he wrote to Lettice. ‘I am delighted to take on another godchild. All of mine are grown up. Isn’t your daughter-in-law wonderful? In haste.’

  Maudie was christened in July. Both godfathers presented her with signed editions of their own published works. Archie’s was on the life of some obscure scholar and Harold’s on pure mathematics.

  Lettice enthused, ‘Fascinating for when she’s older. I believe Archie gave the same one to Alice at her christening.’

  Belinda and Jack walked back to their car after the tea party following the baptism and Jack said, ‘It depends on what sort of thing little Maudie is going to find fascinating.’

  Victoria ran after them and put in a plea.

  ‘I wish I could come over to see you. Is there a bus?’

  Belinda assured her that they were only a ten-minute walk away and promised to arrange something. ‘When the godfathers are out of the way.’

  Later she telephoned Lettice. ‘You must be longing for a rest. Let me have Victoria and Maudie for a few nights. Jack cooks and hoovers all day and makes me feel redundant. I’d love to be of use.’

  Lettice was exhausted from trying to keep up the delicate country house atmosphere for days on end and drove them to Belinda’s as soon as decency allowed.

  When she arrived at Jack and Belinda’s cosy-looking farmhouse Victoria steeled herself to face several facts. She had become attached to many new people and she had met them all through Lettice. She wouldn’t have had Maudie if it hadn’t been for Edgar and he, of course, had come through Lettice in a manner of speaking.

  Jack and Belinda had one son. He had been born, unexpectedly, after years of yearning. He was nine years old and coming to the end of his first year at boarding school. Belinda schemed endlessly for excuses to justify going to look at him. Regulated visiting hours set out by the school were worse than inadequate. He received more parcels than ever recorded in the institution’s history – or at any rate in the memory of Miss Dancy, the neurotically fat matron who despised over-indulgent mothers and challenged neglectful ones. Belinda used to wait impatiently for Arthur’s demanding letters. Whilst Jack cooked and hoovered she would crouch on the floor making up neat packets of new pencils, chocolates and stamps as Lettice, at The Old Keep, repeatedly insisted to Roland, ‘Poor Arthur. It’s a crime to have only one child.’

  Victoria adored staying with Belinda. Maudie slept in the garden in a pram once lain in by Arthur, for hours at a time, as Victoria sat by the fire on the stained and splitting leather of a club fender, smoking and knitting as she watched Belinda,
another knitter, turn the heel of a sock for Arthur or, with a mouthful of pins, stitch at a curtain for his bedroom window.

  Finding it as hard to remember Edgar as many find it hard to forget a figure whose death has altered the course of life, Victoria was unable to concentrate on the query of her future.

  That it was not to be as it might have been was a realisation vast enough.

  Belinda said, ‘I’d like to keep you here for ever.’

  Victoria pictured the trouble that Lettice would have in accepting or even allowing such a situation to exist at the same time as hailing it. A way might be found.

  ‘Obviously not for ever. Simply for the period necessary for the finding of a solution.’

  Victoria was untroubled by thoughts that she and Maudie could be burdens on Belinda or Jack, who had developed a tenderness towards Maudie. His capacity for tenderness had lain untapped since Arthur had slumbered in the same pram.

  Lettice rang Belinda.

  ‘Darling. Are you alone? I hope it isn’t too exhausting for you. I know what it is to have a treasured mite in the house. Drop a hint and I’ll be over to fetch them back.’

  Belinda, in quiet agreement, allowed Lettice to confer favours.

  ‘If it really is a help, and I know how lonely you are, I will admit that I do need a little longer on my own – with Roland and my beloved books – to recover from shock and sadness.’

  It had been arranged and Victoria and Maudie stayed on.

  There was no money – or not enough.

  Edgar had not taken out an insurance policy on his life. There was the furniture, some wedding presents and a small sum left to Victoria by her mother. Her father, it seemed to her, had always been dead.

  Jack and Belinda drew close.

  One of them, it was never known which, thought of the stables. It had always been a possibility that one day they would prop them up; improve the value of the property – an increased legacy for Arthur. They made an inspection. There were damp patches and dry rot but structurally the building was sound. It could be done. Jack and local builders set to work and in less than four months the place was inhabitable.

  Victoria and Maudie moved in and Lettice breathed freely.

  ‘Of course Belinda is a saint. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for me. To have Victoria and the precious baby nearby and yet not close enough to be a daily reminder of the loss of darling Edgar, is all I could have dreamed of. Naturally we would have found a solution but Belinda needs a companion – so few friends – and I’d hate to deprive her.’

  Laurence expired. The news was broken to Victoria in two ways. One by letter from Mungo and another, tear-drenched, from Elena.

  The first, ‘One is proud to tell you that Laurence died serenely having rejoiced in the benefit of last rites. Father Sorbi took it into account that the old dear had never been received into the church. His peace of mind, at the end, was most rewarding. Rewarding and rousing. One hopes soon, when things are sorted out, to be in a position to offer you some little memento, a keepsake in memory of your time here.’

  Elena wrote, ‘Signorina. Tragedy. The padrone is dead. Dead, Signorina.’

  Elena had not been allowed to see him – had not been allowed near him – and had the padrone not always counted on her? She had been his eyes. Her slit ones had seen for him. Did the signorina remember the day when she found the clock? The alarm clock lost in a drawer? She, Elena, had set it ticking in the nick of time.

  Links with Italy were over. Gone. Printer’s ink. Edgar and Puccini. Even Archie seemed to have evaporated. He seemed to neglect or to forget her.

  A longed-for letter came early in December. It was wrapped around a small Battersea box that he sent as a Christmas present for Maudie.

  ‘Dearest Victoria,’ he wrote. ‘Will you please forgive me for (apparent) ingratitude and neglect and lack of affection and good manners and all that makes life worth living? I have been tired and distracted, unable to concentrate on work. Here I have sat, day after day, immersed (almost literally immersed because the college is closed). I am just working and working. Not hard work – just intellectual knitting. You know a lot about knitting. Checking texts, revising punctuation, filling in blanks, confirming proper names, etc. No real thinking. I drop stitches purposely now and again, just to postpone the end and to defer the need for thought or creative writing. I haven’t written a letter for nearly a fortnight. I’ve often said to myself, “I’ll write a letter to Victoria when I’ve finished the next row…” – my metaphor for knitting. That metaphor makes me think of you. Now the vacation has started and I hope to see you. I hear from Lettice of your arrangement with neighbours. I hope that it is all that it should be. Might I come and see for myself? Lettice has invited us both (Harold and me) to spend the New Year at The Keep so, doubtless, we will see you then. What would be even better, however, would be to meet beforehand. Let me know if you are able to think of a plan.

  ‘PS. I hope that Maudie is good and well.’ The word ‘good’ was underlined four times.

  Lettice, hacking in the cabbage patch, counted her disappointments. Edgar was dead. The Bobbies communed in France. Alice was a dear, Roland’s favourite, but would always be plain. Joanna, still a schoolgirl and soon to come home for the Christmas holidays, seemed to be part of another world. It was unlikely that they would ever hear from Maurice again. He had gone to America six years earlier and had become a Mormon – or was it a Jehovah’s Witness? Perhaps a Shaker? Whatever the group he had joined, it precluded him from further communication with his family or with connections to life before his conversion.

  Lettice had tried a heart-rending letter when Edgar died but had not had a reply. When making final vows Maurice had been permitted to write once to his mother stating the facts but not giving the reasons for his compulsory farewell.

  Horrible fears formed in her head.

  Had she been unwise in allowing Victoria to escape? Archie Thorne liked her. She had to absorb that fact and abandon hope that the vague but apparent conspiracy sprang from loyalty to herself. Then there had been Robert at Roland’s exhibition. ‘Know her? She’s one of my favourite girls.’

  Watercolour paintings? She had seen no sign of such a talent. A rival to Roland? ‘Holy mackerel.’

  Were the stables, Belinda and Jack’s stables, going to threaten her supremacy? Two loose boxes had become two spare bedrooms. Archie and Harold? Heaven knew who else? Belinda in the centre of it all – fawning but triumphant. Had Belinda seen chances?

  She rang her.

  ‘Dearest. Our sorrow will be with us always but thanks to your kindness in caring for Victoria and Maudie when we were plunged into a wilderness of despair, we are coming to terms with it. It’s forever ahead, I know, but I want to book you in for New Year’s Eve. I’ll be over in a day or two – a little nonsense for Maudie. A tout à l’heure.’

  Victoria answered Archie’s letter.

  ‘Do come and bring Harold. You can both stay with me. Everything is wonderful. If you don’t come and see for yourself (as you suggest you might) but rely on my description, you might simply think I was being brave. Thank you for asking about Maudie and for the ravishing box. I have put it away carefully and will show it to her on Christmas Day. You ask if she is good. She is perfect. Almost too good and doesn’t interrupt nearly often enough. You must see her for yourself for, again, if you relied on my description you would simply think that I was boasting. Please come for a night or two – or more – before Christmas and don’t worry about Lettice. Belinda will find a way round the trickiness.’

  Remembering the plant in need of constant watering, she wrote to Harold as well. She said how much she hoped to see him installed in one of her loose boxes before long.

  Archie and Harold walked slowly along The Parade. They often did this in the early afternoon. Harold leaned towards Archie, bending to catch his words.

  ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t go and stay with Victoria for a few days before Christma
s. After all, we go to Lettice for the New Year.’

  Harold, unwilling to allow that Lettice had failings, did not accept that their decision might affect her. It was a question of whether they wanted to go.

  ‘I think it would be pleasant. Very pleasant indeed.’

  ‘Very well. I shall write to Victoria and propose that we go for two nights next week.’

  ‘Dearest Victoria. So. We come to see for ourselves. We will be with you, short of any serious accident on the road, at teatime next Wednesday. Until then.’

  Belinda tried to be wise. ‘As long as Lettice can persuade herself that they only come to see you for her sake I think you’ll get away with it.’

  Victoria wrote a note.

  ‘Dear Lettice. Archie and Harold have decided to take their godparental duties seriously so they are coming here for two nights next week, Wednesday and Thursday, to pay Maudie a pre-Christmas visit. Please will you and Roland come for supper on Wednesday?’

  Belinda was in the stables helping Victoria to prepare the loose boxes when Jack called her to come back to the house. Lettice wanted an urgent word with her on the telephone.

  ‘I can’t understand. A note has come from Victoria saying that Archie and Harold are going to stay in your stables. What they must think I daren’t imagine. It beggars description. The presumption of inviting them when she hardly knows them, and to such discomfort, exceeds all limits. Poor dears are obviously anxious that it would hurt my feelings were they to refuse. It has put everyone in a terrible position.’

  ‘I don’t think it was meant to be presumptuous. They want to see Maudie – being godfathers.’

  ‘They can do that perfectly well from here. I’m inclined to ring Archie – I know him so well – and suggest that they stay with us in comfort and visit Maudie during the day. Not that he likes babies.’

  ‘You must do what you think best. Perhaps I gave Victoria too much encouragement – at least as far as accommodation in the stables. I remembered you once saying that, being cerebral, Archie Thorne was adaptable to surroundings. I repeated it to her to boost her courage.’