Dinah's Husband: A heartfelt story of love and marriage in the 1930s

by Ursula Bloom

  She presumed that the Captain and his wife had come to the conclusion that she had left for Rhodes, because they did not ask her again. Mrs. James occasionally met her and they had coffee and tea together at Brackley’s, otherwise there was no entertainment. She read nearly all the books in Chritien’s, and saw all the sights of the city, doing the churches one after another, going studiously through them with a handbook.

  Piers went to Gibraltar and Barcelona, and the Balearic islands, so that no change at all proffered itself to her. She wished that she could hibernate for the whole time. She put down the number of days on a piece of paper and crossed them off one after another. She had not believed that she could be so appallingly dull.

  Just before the ship returned for Easter, which was to be a great festival in the island, she gathered from Giuseppe, Mrs. James asked her to tea. Because she was so lonely, she went. Mrs. James had a flat in Sliema, spacious, with Maltese cloth curtains, and a great deal of very thin china bought in the Indian shops. Mrs. James was in one of those come-hither-and-confide-in-me moods which very often affect the wives of the clergy. There was something menacing in Mrs. James’s eye as she settled on the wicker work sofa, long extinct in England but recently arrived in Malta and marked ‘Latest word’ in the shops.

  ‘Surely,’ said Mrs. James, over currant cake, ‘you are making a very long stay in the island, isn’t your husband getting a bit lonely?’

  Dinah realised that the ground beneath her feet might be treacherous. She said with caution, ‘Max is a great deal older than I am, and he has his own interests. He doesn’t get lonely.’

  ‘Quite, only is it wise? I mean if he is so old, his health must need attention. You yourself are better now and I was wondering if you were staying much longer.’

  ‘Doesn’t that happen to be my own business?’ asked Dinah. She did not know why she flared up; it was idiotic to take offence and show that she resented it, but this was the culminating moment after weeks of sordid dullness.

  Mrs. James flushed a shade of boiled beetroot which contrasted sadly with her mottled skin. Dinah could not believe that anyone could go so red. The snub had been deserved, but she knew that it had been a mistake to give it, because Mrs. James had antagonism in her eye; it was the look of the hen who believes that someone has diverted one of her chickens and is prepared to do battle for it. ‘I just thought that it was a little extraordinary, and you are not used to Malta and the ways here, but people do talk so dreadfully. I thought probably you did not realise what they were saying,’ said Mrs. James.

  ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘That is my business,’ said Mrs. James, grabbing at a straw.

  ‘Not at all! My business is being tittle-tattled, yet it is still my business,’ said Dinah tartly. ‘You will kindly tell me what people are saying?’

  ‘I’ve warned you that you won’t like it.’

  ‘I gathered that from the first.’

  ‘They say that you are waiting till your decree is made absolute for your divorce,’ said Mrs. James, and she spoke of divorce as though it were an evil word which would contaminate her mouth. ‘They say that you intend to marry Mr. Grant.’

  ‘What an extraordinary story!’ said Dinah.

  ‘Well, naturally they are interested.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘People don’t come and stay in the island for months unless there is a reason.’

  ‘I told you I came for my health. I don’t see why people should be so interested in me. If you don’t believe me, why not write to your mother at Leighton Buzzard and find out if I am waiting for a decree, or not?’

  ‘I heard from her the other day,’ said Mrs. James. Dinah knew instantly what had happened. Malta is not the only place in the world that talks, Bedfordshire talks too.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that your curiosity is very extraordinary. I am not prepared to appease it.’

  They went on with the tea in silence. It was a mercy that a Commander’s wife called to return a book which she had borrowed, because in her presence they could chatter. Dinah left before she did, knowing that in doing so she resigned the tattered remnants of her character to their mercies. All the way back her heart was making a noise; she was anxious as to what Piers would say; this was something which might complicate matters very much. She wrote to him that night.

  ‘This beastly little island has got hold of the story, and I gather that it is spreading like a disease. Mrs. James told me. I did not deny or agree, but let it pass, so that she knows nothing from me, but I do think that things are likely to become more difficult. What do we do?’

  She got a hurried note back just as the ship was leaving Gibraltar. Piers was a bad correspondent, so that it was surprising to hear so promptly, but this time he had hurried himself, and had dashed off a note to catch the post before they sailed.

  ‘Damn those women and that island. I have a frightful piece of news to break to you. We are in for a beano, my pretty, but we’ll come through. Say nothing to nobody till you’ve seen me.

  ‘All my love. Piers.’

  THREE

  1

  ‘We must talk this over,’ said Piers, arrived back from the spring cruise, to the riotry of the Maltese Easter, and escorting Dinah up the stairs of the little hotel. ‘No, it’s no use protesting. I don’t care a couple of damns what Mifsud thinks; we’re going to discuss this in your bedroom, because there we can be quiet.’

  He entered the room with a proprietary air, and sat down on the bed, the mosquito net looped out of the way for the winter, but prepared to descend when the flies came back again for spring. The windows opened on to the balcony, and the depressing-looking furniture looked less dismal by reason of the fact that Dinah had filled the place with flowers.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s the Mater.’

  ‘Your mater?’ Piers had always seemed to be so completely detached that she had never thought of him having any people. He had talked about them only occasionally, but she had gathered that they did not mean much to him. He cared for them, but it was nothing that went very deeply. ‘What has happened to her?’

  ‘She is coming out here, staying at the Great Britain, and arriving next Monday. That’s a bombshell, if you like it!’

  ‘Why is she coming out here?’

  ‘God only knows! All I can think is that some fool has talked and started her off, and now she has rumbled something, and intends giving me a good old-fashioned ticking-off.’

  Dinah stared at him. ‘Wouldn’t it be almost a good idea if I went to Taormina for a bit? It doesn’t seem to be the right moment for me to be here.’

  ‘It isn’t too good, though of course it may provide the opportunity of introducing you to the Mater, having a grand row and getting it over and done with, and ending up with her blessing.’

  ‘I don’t think I want a “grand row”.’

  ‘I dare say not, but it rather looks as if we should damned well have to take what was coming to us.’ She looked at him helplessly.

  ‘Why should we have to put up with a row? I know that she’ll be angry at first, that’s only natural, but at least she might trust your judgement.’

  ‘My pretty, have you ever known a mother trust her son where another woman was concerned? No, we shall have to take the row and swallow it. It’ll be all right as long as the skipper doesn’t get wind of it. That’s my one terror. Mother is different. She has got a soft spot for me somewhere and we’ll find it. Now what about celebrating my homecoming?’

  ‘I don’t know that I feel much like celebrating.’

  ‘Oh, come on, snap out of it! You’ll be all right. We had a marvellous cruise. Gib was fun, save that we had to go off for exercises just when we had got going. A pretty snappy fishing fleet staying at the Rock. The best sets of legs I’ve seen for ages.’

  She said nothing, but put on her hat, a new one, specially bought for this occasion; her dress had been made at London Hou
se, white, with pale pink revers, because once Piers had said that pale pink was his favourite colour. Surely he would notice how nice she looked?

  If he did, he said nothing about it, and they went out to a little restaurant recently opened down the street. It was Bohemian, and quite different from the usual Maltese café. There were wooden candlesticks on the tables, and a sanded floor. The girl who waited on them was young with vivacious dark eyes, and a red poppy stuck jauntily in her hair. She had the spirit of youth and gaiety that somehow contrasted with Dinah’s mood. There were fat bottles of Chianti and the smell of chicken pilaff, everything to tempt them, but Dinah could not eat.

  Piers was eager to tell her about the cruise, which had been the greatest possible fun, so he said; there had been dances, and some very excellent theatricals on board another of the ‘battle wagons’ which had shocked the purser’s wife terribly, and she had gone off at the end of the first act, having to ask for a special boat to take her ashore! There had been no end of a bobbery! Then they had gone to Majorca, amongst the orange groves, and on the most frightening road to Soller. He must take her there some day.

  ‘We’re going to the Sahara first,’ she reminded him, ‘to gather desert roses, and sleep with the Bedouins.’

  ‘Darling, you have a most immoral mind!’

  ‘No,’ said she, ‘you were the one who suggested that.’

  He raised his glass and tipped hers with a chink. ‘To good times, and better,’ said he, in a gay mood. He seemed to have forgotten that his mother would be here on Monday. For the moment he was in wild spirits, and refused to be discomfited. He was not even perturbed over the tea with Mrs. James and her feelers for further information.

  ‘We won’t worry to-night,’ said he, ‘to-night I feel cheerful over things. Do let me stay cheerful as long as I can.’

  Last thing, when they said good-bye in the moonlight on the step of her hotel, Dinah had to confess her own apprehension.

  ‘I’ll be frightened to death if I have to meet your mother.’

  ‘Not half so frightened as I shall be! No, my pretty, don’t you fret yourself about it. I’ve circumvented worse storms than this, I’m a hell of a fine navigator really, though Dartmouth never discovered that! I’ll manage my mamma, you’ll see.’

  She only hoped that he wasn’t saying this with the sole idea of cheering her up.

  2

  Mrs. Grant was travelling out in what she considered was the greatest discomfort, though it called itself first class. The Italians in the restaurant car had extraordinarily little sympathy with her dislike of Chianti and macaroni, both of which they looked upon as being the natural food and drink of all mankind.

  Mrs. Grant wondered how she could have been such a fool as to attempt this journey, and consoled herself with the reminder that had it not been so drastically necessary, nothing on this earth would have persuaded her to come. She had been obliged to sleep in cubby holes with strange women who wore preposterous underclothing, and seemed never to come to an end of undressing. She had eaten meals which she was convinced were sure to poison her, and now, here she was crossing the sea in a most unseaworthy vessel and seated in a cabin which smelt like the tortoise house at the zoo.

  Thank heaven she was a good sailor! Piers must have inherited that from her.

  She had come at the express wish of her husband. He would have undertaken this journey himself, but important business happened to intervene at this particular moment and he had not been able to get away. It had been Mr. Grant who had discovered all this dreadful scandal about Piers, through a so-called friend in the train which travelled from Woking to Waterloo every morning. The friend said that Piers was figuring in a divorce case, and the friend working in the Temple seemed suspiciously likely to know the truth. Piers’ father was the son of a Baptist minister, and therefore had a rooted dislike of freedom masquerading under the name of divorce; he had gone into the matter closely and unfortunate evidence had been produced. They had discovered that a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy with Piers’ initials (now stationed in Malta) had been cited as co-respondent in a suit brought by Mr. Max Hale.

  The Navy List, a treasured possession of theirs which had been ill-advisedly left by Piers before he went to sea, assured them that there was nobody else in the navy with the same Christian names, and putting two and two together, they were rudely awakened to the fact that his letters (always brief) had been a good deal briefer, and far less communicative, of late. Before there had been long eulogies about polo and golf, and games in general; now his life appeared to be totally lacking in sporting activities, all of which looked most doubtful.

  When business prevented Mr. Grant from going to Malta, there was a hasty debate in the Woking establishment; Piers’ brother who offered to go out to see ‘what was up’ was circumvented by an inconvenient attack of German measles caught from the cook under most innocent, but infectious, circumstances; it was then decided that undoubtedly his mother must go out, because somebody must make this vitally important journey and stop the dear boy from making a fool of himself.

  Mrs. Grant gave Piers as short notice as she could, and undertook the trip as a nun undertakes a penance. She was not a woman who inspired confidence, or attention from wagon-lit attendants and waiters on the journey; they suspected worthy English matrons, of the hen-necked, anaemic, but agile species. They were not impressed by her.

  She arrived in the island very late at night, or early in the morning, she did not know which, and had long ceased to care. She disliked the bastions and the enclosed harbour, and thought that the smell coming from the fish market was most unhealthy, and the driving of the cars highly dangerous. She had chosen the Great Britain Hotel because she learnt that it was the only hotel under English management in the island, and she thought that the Maltese were a pack of heathens who might murder her. Arriving, she liked the spacious bedroom, but thought that the lounge was unpleasant, possibly because the wine waiter was innocently mixing a gin and lime in a corner of it. She had very emphatic ideas as to drinking. She slept ill, but lay late, and arising saw that the sun was very high. She put on a woollen frock, buttoned to the neck, and with ample enveloping sleeves, quite regardless of the climatic conditions. That was when she heard that Piers had arrived.

  Piers had come as early as he could, and finding her upstairs had ordered a strong brandy to give him sustenance. He had an idea that he would probably need a butt of brandy before he had finished this conversation, and was even surer of it when he saw his mother sailing down the stairs, with the majesty of a queen and the frown of a Medusa.

  ‘Hello, Mater!’ said he, with a joviality that he certainly did not feel.

  ‘Well, my boy?’

  She ordered coffee in a corner, and at first refused to be drawn, but talked fatuously of the spaniels at home, of the business, of how hard poor Father was working, and how unfortunate it was that his brother had caught measles. Piers said that he could not imagine what Cedric had been doing with the cook, he had always been a good boy until now, it was very surprising.

  That drew her.

  ‘And,’ said she, haughtily, ‘it is about you that I really came out to this beastly little island.’

  Now for it! thought Piers. He said, ‘I know what you are going to say. I’m a fool! Well, the world has gone on, and nowadays it is considered to be wiser to admit a mistake than to attempt to abide by it. I intend marrying Dinah the moment that she is free.’

  Mrs. Grant had not expected to be attacked quite so boldly. ‘Is Dinah out here?’ she asked.

  ‘Certainly she is,’ said Piers, ‘you shall see her if you like.’

  ‘Later,’ said Mrs. Grant, ‘and before that I must talk to you. I don’t think you can realise what you are doing and how very upset we are. You should have seen your poor father’s face. I have never seen a man so shocked. So shocked, dear, that is the right word. You don’t seem to realise that this is a very wicked course to pursue. What does your Captain say about it
?’

  ‘He doesn’t know of it, thank God,’ said Piers with heartfelt piety. ‘If he knew, I’d be buzzed off to Timbuctoo. Captains aren’t human, they’re just ossified naval officers.’

  ‘He sounds to me to be a very right and proper person to have control of you. I am more grieved than I can say that this disgraceful thing should happen. I think it may kill your father if you go on with it. You have no idea how we feel, and we had set such store by you, and done everything that we could for you, and this is the way you reward us.’

  ‘I fell in love,’ said Piers.

  ‘That’s bosh,’ said his mother, ‘pure and utter bosh! How many times have you fallen in love and out again? You are not the faithful kind. If this woman had not followed you here, I am perfectly convinced that you’d be off with somebody else by now, because that is what you have always done.’

  ‘Never on your life!’

  ‘Now, you listen to me. There was that Violet Moss from Plymouth, that dreadfully painted creature, whom you dragged up to stay with us; then there was that cousin of Lady Rose’s whom you met at Gib, and went crazy over; and look how you lost your head over that silly little Joyce Higgins! We’ve been through a lot with you and your girls and we have had quite enough of it! You have always been weak with women, Piers, and you ought to know it by this time. It’s abominable that you should go and get yourself mixed up in a divorce case, you don’t know what your father said.’

  ‘I’ve a damned good idea,’ remarked Piers glumly, ‘only how in the world did you find out about it?’

  ‘Mr. Waters knew; he works in the Temple and he told your father on the morning train. I’ve never seen him more upset, not even that time when Cedric scalded himself. He was absolutely horrified, and so was I. I tell you, Piers, this has been the greatest blow of our lives.’

  ‘Wait till you see her, Mother. She’s lovely. She isn’t a bit like you think. She married a very old man when she was very young, and just threw herself away.’