by Peter Albano
She turned away. “No! I don’t want that,” she said flatly.
“I can’t believe you.”
She turned back to him, the blue of her eyes heightened by moisture. “You’re attractive, Reggie, and I like you. But I told you before, I’m not ready for that.”
“Will you ever be ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you love Geoffry that much?”
“That isn’t it.”
“Then what is it?” he asked in exasperation.
She studied her teacup and her voice was unsteady. “I don’t know, Reginald. Please. . .”
“I’m sorry,” he said huskily. “I’ve been an unfeeling cad.”
“No. No. You’re sweet and I love to talk to you.”
“Then daresay, that’s good enough, Brenda.”
She smiled and nodded.
He continued. “Dinner, an innocent soiree. You promised months ago.”
She laughed and trapped him with her eyes. “Promised? I don’t remember.”
“I do—vividly.” The blue of his eyes bored into hers. “I’ve got duty for a fortnight or so. Ring you up when I return?”
“All right,” she said, not able to break away. “Please be careful.” She touched his rough, hair-stubbled hand and ran her fingers over his knuckles and wrist.
“I’m always careful,” he said, grasping her restless fingers and holding them in his own warm palm.
When Reginald left, Brenda watched the Hillman race out the drive from the Tudor porch, a disturbing primeval craving gnawing deep in her soul. She became angry with herself.
Walter returned just before supper in a vile mood. He railed to the women about how mismanagement by a subordinate had cost him a coveted contract to an American competitor, Langhorne Textiles. “Damned bloody Yanks,” Brenda overheard him mutter as he retired to his library to begin his evening’s drinking. He wanted his solitude. He spent it reading the interminable casualty lists in The Times.
By the time Walter sat at the dinner table, his face was flushed and his speech slurred. Before Dorset and Nicole had finished serving the soup, he glared at Brenda and said, “When are you Yanks going to come in and help? Englishmen are tired of dying for you.” Rebecca looked up. The servants stepped back to the wall and stared in embarrassment.
Rebecca spoke up. “Walter, Brenda does not formulate American foreign policy.”
“Blast it, woman. Don’t tell me about American foreign policy.” He turned to Brenda, a malevolent glow in his eyes.
Brenda studied the scarlet face, puffed mosaic of veins rimming his nose and spoiling his cheeks. He was drunk and spoiling for a fight. She would accept nothing; not for Langhorne Textiles, not for business, not for the Western Front. Nevertheless, her anger drew her in like a victim of quicksand. “Hundreds of Americans serve voluntarily in France. They drive ambulances—fly for the Lafayette Flying Corps—die just as dead as Englishmen,” she fired back.
“Don’t get on my wick, Brenda. You’re using us. Making money off the flower of our youth.”
Brenda felt the hot blade of rage twist deep inside of her and her cheeks warmed suddenly as her anger surfaced. “Do you work for nothing, Walter? Are your contracts nonprofit? You’re just angry because you were underbid, and you’re not going to take it out on me.”
“Go to your room!”
“Walter!” Rebecca cried.
Brenda ignored her mother-in-law. “You told me to go to my room once before. I didn’t accept it then and I won’t accept it now.”
The line of his mouth altered and the rims of his nostrils flared and turned pale as bone china. “Oh, you won’t.”
“No, I won’t.”
“This is my house. You’re a guest here. You’ve got to obey me or. . .”
“Or what, Walter?” Brenda snapped, interrupting him.
“Or get out straight away.”
Horrified, Rebecca said to Walter, “You can’t do this.”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do, woman,” he snapped at his wife.
Brenda came to her feet, eyes flashing cold blue light like the glinting of bayonet tips. “I’ll do better than that,” she retorted. “I’m leaving—going back to the colonies.”
“This is insane. Both of you. . .” Rebecca managed before Walter interrupted her.
“Good. Good,” Walter said, draining his glass and knocking his knuckles against the table with finality.
Rebecca turned her brimming eyes to Brenda. “The submarines, Brenda. You can’t.”
“Submarines be damned,” Brenda hissed, turning toward the door. Then, followed by a white-faced Nicole, she left the room.
It was two days before Brenda left. However, not even her outrage could lead her to risk Rodney and Nathan to the submarines prowling the North Atlantic. A call to Lloyd’s wife, Bernice, and a furnished house in London’s fashionable Belgravia area was leased. Brenda did not explain her reasons for leaving Fenwyck, but she felt Bernice knew—had even anticipated her departure. There was no trouble with money. Geoffry had left a generous trust and Brenda inherited a thirty percent ownership in Carlisle Mills, Limited. Her accounts at The Bank of England amounted to six figures and were approaching seven.
By noon of the second day the Silver Ghost with Caldwell at the wheel wound its way out of the long drive. Brenda, the boys, and a crestfallen Rebecca, who had insisted on coming, were in the back of the limousine. Bridie cuddled Nathan while Rodney explored his jump seat, climbed to his mother’s lap, then to his grandmother’s and back to the jump seat to repeat the circuit again and again. Nicole would follow, accompanied by a lorry for the mountain of children’s toys, clothes, and a few items of furniture.
Despite the somber news from the front and the depression that gripped the nation, Brenda was in a buoyant mood. She was free of Walter and possessed the most valuable currency in the world: her independence. True she had lost her husband, been ravaged by a terrible disease that had killed the new life within her, and the men she cared for were at terrible risk, but for this one day, this one golden moment in a succession of unending tragic moments, she felt a surge of happiness that approached exhilaration. She was determined to enjoy it to the fullest.
Brenda had been to London on numerous occasions. However, she usually made the trips to see her hairdresser on West Cromwell Road or shop at Knightsbridge: she loved the Edwardian charm of the haute couture shops lining Brompton Road, the fashions and fabrics of Sloane Street, the chic shops of Beauchamp Place, Walton Street, and South Kensington. These were her haunts and she had never seen Belgravia and was not prepared for the opulent enclave. While a morose Rebecca remained silent, Brenda questioned Caldwell, who slid back the glass partition and much like a tour guide pointed out landmarks. “Cadogan Square, madame,” he said in his resonant baritone. “Your home is on Grosvenor Crescent, just south of here.” He pointed to a large building surrounded by carefully tended flower beds. “St. George’s Hospital. They have a magnificent flower show in May. Don’t miss it.”
Just like the British, Brenda thought. They would have their flower shows if the devil, himself, invaded the Empire. The area reminded Brenda of the gauche ambience of Fifth Avenue: the streets lined with huge Victorian houses that were ornate and pretentious, as if their builders had wanted everyone to know they had arrived. The architecture was a blending of French, neo-Georgian, and Italian styles with a dash of classical flavor thrown in at random. To Brenda, it seemed the men who had ordered these buildings had told their architects any style would do as long as it looked like money. Fortunately, the harsh lines were softened by hundreds of trees and well-tended grounds. Conspicuous consumption and lavish spending, Brenda thought. More Walters—England was full of them.
“Belgrave Square, madame,” Caldwell announced. “There’s your place, and over there, Buckingham Pa
lace.”
“Suitable neighbors,” Brenda said softly. For the first time in two days, Brenda saw Rebecca smile. Bridie laughed heartily.
Caldwell waved a hand. “There is a saying amongst the fine old families, madame, ‘If God had had his way, this is the way he would have built all of London.’”
Bridie looked up from Nathan, who had fallen sound asleep with his head against her breast. “Sure anna God cauno’ afford it,” she said in her thick Irish burr. Everyone chuckled.
Within two days and with the help of Bernice and Rebecca, Brenda and the boys were completely moved in. The house, a two-story with seventeen rooms, was finished with the usual ponderous beams and dark woods the English loved so passionately. Although Brenda considered the exterior of the house crassly vulgar with a senseless variety of crude and undigested details, a half dozen protruding bay windows, two towers, and porches spanning both front and rear, it had a bright, cheery sitting room comfortably furnished and opening to the south and west to catch the afternoon sun. The furnishings were eclectic: Queen Anne, Georgian, Sheraton, and Regency pieces were to be found in most of the rooms, but Louis XVI was favored. She disliked the stiff, uncomfortable furniture, but she was happy to move into the place. Not a small amount of luck was involved.
The owner, Bernice’s brother, Commander Timothy Anderson, was a career officer in the Royal Navy and had been stationed in Sydney, Australia since before the war. His wife Francine, two grown sons, and a sixteen-year-old daughter had moved to Sydney just before the outbreak of war. The house on Grosvenor Crescent had stood empty for over two years. Bernice was the custodian of the property and had been instructed by her brother to lease the property “to people of gentle breeding.”
The grounds were large and well tended by an old veteran of the wars in northern India, Touhy Brockman. Thin as a reed, the old man was as insubstantial as a phantom, the years and Indian diseases leaving only parchmentlike skin, stringy sinew, and brittle bones. Despite his frail appearance, the old veteran was tough and durable, manicuring the grounds and proudly coaxing reluctant daisies, roses, and marguerites into bloom late into the season. Touhy lived by himself in a small cottage tucked into a corner of the property and hidden by trees and shrubs.
The boys loved the house. Suddenly, Nathan discovered he could walk and he stumbled after the racing Rodney through the shrubs and flower beds on unsteady legs, chortling and laughing. By the second day, the women had arranged the lawn furniture near the flower beds where they could watch the children playing. Bridie’s husband, Douglas, was an adequate cook and took command of the kitchen. Servants’ quarters were located behind the kitchen and here Bridie, her husband, and baby lived. Nicole, who always considered herself a “downstairs maid,” was thrilled to receive the unbelievable bounty of an upstairs bedroom across the hall from her mistress’s large sleeping quarters.
Brenda’s bedroom was actually the master bedroom. It was huge with a large four-poster of unclear antecedents, two Venetian commodes with delicate serpentine and cabriole legs, gilt-wood Louis XVI pier mirrors on opposite walls that gave infinite reflections, an exquisite carved rosewood Louis Philippe sofa, and blue Chinese carpets with matching watered silk drapes over French doors overlooking the garden. Paintings by Burne-Jones, Lord Leighton, and Ruskin hung from the walls. The closets were enormous. The American was pleased.
Brenda was able to buy a four-year-old Reo town car with a side entrance and complete with hood, lamps, and full equipment and best English coachwork for seven hundred pounds, twice the cost when new. She was lucky to find it and luckier, still, to hire Wendell McHugh, an old Irishman from Bray, who worked as a combination butler and chauffeur. The old man, a widower, moved from his miserable lodgings in the slums of Shadwell in the East End into a comfortable downstairs room next to the O’Conners. Shadwell was a dreadful sprawl of tumbledown shacks originally peopled seventy years earlier by refugees from the potato famine. Crowding into the tiny, barren shanties, the newcomers added mean and cold rooms of scrap lumber, trash, and driftwood. There was no plumbing. Typical of denizens of Shadwell and its neighboring slum, the Isle of Dogs, McHugh talked in a strange mixture of Irish argot heavily minted with cockney. He was grateful, considered himself lucky, and proved to be conscientious and loyal.
Two weeks after Brenda moved into her new house, Bernice burst through the door early one morning to announce joyfully, “The Coldstreams have been pulled from the line. They’re in a rest camp near Chantilly. Lloyd will be home soon.” She waved a letter.
Brenda led Bernice to the sitting room where they sat side by side while the ecstatic Bernice read and reread the letter, all the while dabbing at her eyes and laughing and crying at the same time. “He’ll be home soon?” she asked herself over and over as if the incredibly good news could not possibly be true.
“But he is coming home, Bernice,” Brenda assured her sister-in-law, trying to share Bernice’s joy, wrap herself in the euphoria wives felt when they knew their men were free of the mortal danger of the front, safe and returning. But it was no good. Geoffry was at the bottom of the North Sea. She would never know what Bernice felt. She had not even viewed his corpse. She thought of her other great loss, her baby, the end of a life yet unlived, the mockery of the gift of life that sprang from her body, and the depression of the early summer began to creep back like a debilitating incurable delirium.
Sensing Brenda’s mood, Bernice sobered quickly. “I’m hurting you, Brenda. It’s thoughtless of me to. . .”
“No. No,” Brenda said, taking the little woman’s hand. “I’m happy for you—you know that. I love Lloyd, too.”
Bernice sighed gratefully. “Yes. Yes. Of course.” She caught her breath and stared at a Zoffany equestrian painting of one of her husband’s long-dead ancestors on the far wall. There was a sudden grimness in the timbre of her voice. “Rebecca told me Randolph was eligible for a leave but won’t take it.”
“Won’t take it?” Brenda repeated incredulously.
Bernice nodded. “Yes. It’s that Hun—that Hun killer. Ah, Bruno. . .”
“Bruno Hollweg.”
“That’s right. Bruno Hollweg. Randolph writes rarely and when he does write, his letters are sick. He won’t come home. He flies constantly looking for that Hun. It’s confirmed that he killed the ace, Max Mueller, but he’s not satisfied—it’s a vendetta, a bloody crusade. It’ll kill him.” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head as if she were trying to free herself of the sudden depression that had seeped into the room, filling every corner, smothering the women like a wave of sticky fluid. She tried to break the mood. “That young destroyer captain, Reginald Hargreaves. Have you heard from him?”
Brenda was surprised by the query. How could Bernice know enough about the handsome commander to ask a question that implied Reginald had more than a passing interest in Brenda? Rebecca must be passing along more information than just news about Randolph. Brenda felt her cheeks warm. “I haven’t heard from him in a fortnight. Must be at sea.”
“Does he ring you often?” Bernice asked with rare boldness.
Brenda managed to shrug casually. “He phones.”
Bernice beamed. “Let’s go shopping. I’ll take you to lunch in Piccadilly.”
The exuberant mood was back. “Love it. “I’ve never been there.” The women came to their feet.
Bernice’s chauffeur, a burly old retired miner named Henry Merda from Newcastle, drove the women through the hustle and bustle of wartime London—a London Brenda had never seen before. They parked in Piccadilly and the women, in a festive mood, decided to walk. With Merda following at a respectable distance, they began to explore Piccadilly, touring the Berkeley and the Burlington Arcade before lunch. Famished by noon, they ate at the Elysée, a charming downstairs restaurant, while Henry enjoyed a “pint” at a nearby pub.
After lunch their mood carried them, energizing legs that should ha
ve been fatigued. In fact, the only thing that slowed them was concern for old Henry, who huffed and puffed and perspired in his black serge uniform and peaked cap. Brenda suspected the old man had had more than one “pint.” They walked back out into the sights, sounds, and smells of Piccadilly: the Academy; Solomon’s; the fruit and flower shops; the Ritz and Spink’s fabulous jewelry; the roar and bustle of streams and taxis, buses, hansom cabs, drays drawn by enormous Clydesdales and Shires; the smell of burning petrol, steaming horseflesh. And every avenue and byway teemed with the tumult and eddy of humanity: swarms of fashionably dressed women; lean, hungry men in khaki and Tommy serge with South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Australia stitched on shoulder patches everywhere, crowding the women like predators, staring at Brenda as if she were a morsel to be snatched from a gourmet buffet. Red-capped, white-gloved, and belted military police walked in twos and threes, watching the current of humanity with hard looks. Brenda felt she was at the headwaters of the Empire, being carried along by a river—the mainstream through Piccadilly fed by tributaries that gorged the stream, all redolent of war; death and easy sex its harvest.
Finally, tired by the long walk and the excitement of the spectacle, Bernice signaled Henry and the trio walked to a side street where Bernice’s Silver Ghost was parked. Brenda had no conception of her weariness until she sagged back in the embrace of the Rolls’s upholstery. It was good to be off her feet. But Bernice was still powered by the news of her husband’s return. “He’ll be home in less than a week,” she kept repeating.
“Yes, Bernice, it will wonderful to see him,” Brenda answered. But the empty, hollow feeling returned, dimmed the festive mood of the morning.
Three days later, Reginald phoned from Portsmouth and Brenda accepted a dinner invitation. It had been nearly seven months since Geoffry’s death and she told herself she had mourned long enough. But deep down she knew being free of Walter and Rebecca’s sad eyes had relieved her of a subtle restraint. “Hypocrite,” she told herself. But the commander was handsome and she needed the company of a man.
