The Second-last Woman in England

by Maggie Joel

  He had looked like that, she remembered, the first time she had met him at his office all those years ago, jumping up eagerly from his desk when she had come in to report the loss of her engagement ring. Eager and desperate to please, and yet so very grave—just as though someone had died. And so touchingly dismayed when she had mentioned that the ring was an engagement ring.

  What would life have been like had she remained engaged to John; if she had gone ahead with the marriage?

  ‘It’s a watercolour,’ announced Cecil, unwrapping a flat rectangular parcel and holding up a small and modestly framed painting. ‘Looks like the veldt or the Serengeti or some such … Lord, you don’t think old Godfrey Canbourne painted it himself, do you?’

  John had been a captain in the 1st Royal Dragoons when she had met him in the late autumn of ’36 and he had looked very fine in his blue and red tunic and his shiny helmet—which was exactly the point, of course—and what girl in her early twenties wouldn’t have fallen for him? And it had turned out that a large number of girls in their early twenties—and some a great deal older and one or two somewhat younger—had indeed fallen for him. Naturally, he had neglected to mention any of this on that romantic evening in New York, the culmination of a whirlwind fortnight of carriage rides muffled up against the cold in Central Park; of Broadway shows and vodka martinis at the Algonquin Hotel. By the time the Swane had sailed triumphantly out of New York harbour amid a storm of ticker-tape and streamers, they had been engaged. By the time Southampton was almost in sight, John had made the acquaintance of a young actress from California, on her way over to London to ‘shoot a movie’, and the engagement was off.

  By rights the ring—removed in a furious fit of pique one day out from port—ought to have ended up in the North Atlantic, lost forever. But some part of Harriet (the cautious, practical part … or perhaps simply the part with a bad aim) had dropped it on the deck of the ship instead, where it had rolled immediately out of sight and could not be found. Naturally John had been left in no doubt that she had thrown the ring overboard, as to admit one had merely dropped it on the deck and lost it sounded rather feeble.

  So when the young man from Empire and Colonial Lines had pulled up in a cab outside her father’s flat in Belgravia, a week after she had reported the loss of the ring, to announce with appropriate ceremony that the ring, thought lost at sea, had turned up—and had not only turned up, but had been handed in and was now being miraculously returned to its owner!—it could have proved a trifle awkward. But the eager Mr Wallis from the shipping firm had appeared so genuinely excited by the reappearance of the ring that no explanation had been necessary. And when she had admitted to Mr Wallis that her engagement had, sadly, reached an end, his sympathy, his eagerness, knew no bounds. They had arranged to have lunch in Piccadilly the following day.

  The eager Mr Wallis. She had joked about him with Freddie that evening. And yet she had gone to the lunch. She had gone to a number of lunches, and a lunchtime recital at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields, a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and it had all been very pleasant, very safe, very predictable. Not at all like John. When one had got one’s engagement wrong the first time, one did not make the same mistake twice.

  ‘More quails eggs from the Hendley-Joneses,’ announced Cecil, solemnly studying a cellophane-wrapped package. ‘Does Tom have shares in a quail farm?’

  Cecil had asked this very same question last year.

  ‘Or perhaps he’s of the mistaken belief that we like quails eggs? Have we ever given that impression, do you think? I feel fairly certain I’ve never told a living soul I like quail eggs.’

  ‘Certainly you’ve never told me you liked quail eggs,’ Harriet replied.

  ‘And that’s because I don’t.’

  Perhaps they had had this entire conversation last year?

  At the end of their third month of lunchtime recitals and Saturday evening concerts, Cecil had proposed. And she had said yes. Freddie had been amazed.

  ‘But Harri, he’s so dreadfully dull!’ he had protested tactlessly on hearing the announcement. ‘What about John, old thing? He was much more fun, surely?’

  ‘Darling, take John, if you want him. But I can assure you he’s no more marriage material than you are.’

  ‘I say. That’s a bit strong!’

  ‘No, darling, it’s not. Girls adore you, you know that. But they aren’t going to marry you. You aren’t the marriage type. Cecil is the marriage type, and I know that. It’s a question of suitability, you see. Dependability and suitability. This is probably the most important decision I’ll ever have to make.’

  Freddie had looked startled and not a little dismayed.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’re right, old thing.’

  And she had been right. On both counts.

  Thank God Freddie had not married.

  ‘Surely this is the exact same paperweight we sent to the Marsh-Hamptons last Christmas?’ Cecil held up an oversized and rather ugly glass paperweight that was shot through with vivid lilac and scarlet in a way that drew the eyes and repelled them at the same time.

  I should tell him about Freddie, she thought.

  It was going to come out eventually and better he hear it from her first. He had taken it personally, Freddie’s desertion, the visit from the police. Had forbade mention of Freddie’s name. Had struck Freddie’s very existence from their lives; had lived in fear of someone finding out their shame. His shame.

  But she had refused to submit to Cecil’s shame.

  After the war a postcard had arrived showing a quiet street in a French-speaking part of Canada. There were only three lines, no return address, not even a signature—just an apology in Freddie’s handwriting. She hadn’t shown it to Cecil and it had cost her a lot to destroy the card the day it arrived. The military police had not returned. She and Cecil hadn’t spoken of Freddie since.

  But that was eight years ago and there was talk of an amnesty. She would tell him. He was going to find out anyway and better she tell him than he found out from someone else.

  She set aside the two lists and sat back on her heels.

  ‘Cecil—’

  She was interrupted by a loud thud from outside in the back garden, followed a moment later by a cry of pain.

  At once she was on her feet at the window. Down below, half sticking out of the rose bed, Anne’s new bicycle lay on its side, one wheel spinning. Of Anne there was no sign. Harriet wrenched open the drawing room window and leaned out. And now she could see her youngest child almost directly beneath the window, sitting on her bottom rubbing her knee and gulping back a sob. The nanny appeared and knelt down beside her, producing a white handkerchief with which she dabbed the knee. Just a graze then. No harm done. Yet Harriet found her heart was racing as though she had run up three flights of stairs. She closed the window and turned away.

  She found Cecil had got up too and was standing beside her.

  ‘Do you remember when she fell over that step in the garden when she was two?’ he said. ‘So much blood, we’d thought she’d cracked her skull open, poor little mite.’

  Yes, Harriet did remember.

  ‘We had no petrol for the car because of the war,’ she replied, ‘so you carried her all the way to the hospital and we had to sit on the floor in the corridor till midnight before someone could see us, because there had been a bomb blast.’

  She had wrapped Anne up in a blanket, cradling her in her arms and watching her little face grow paler and paler, convincing herself Anne was going to die. In the end it had been a mild concussion and the hospital had kept her in the next day as a precaution. Anne still had a tiny scar on the left side of her forehead. The accident, Harriet remembered, had happened because she had gone out into the back garden to smoke a cigarette, despite it being a frosty Sunday afternoon in March, and Anne had seen her and had come running headlong out of the dining room door towards her.

  Cecil had turned away and now picked up a small jade pig that someone w
ith whom he had once worked had seen fit to send them. As she watched him, Harriet suddenly remembered that she had gone out into the garden that day, despite it being a frosty Sunday afternoon in March, not just to smoke a cigarette. She had gone out to catch her breath, to calm herself, to try to work out what to do, because that morning two military policemen had come to the house looking for Freddie.

  Was Cecil remembering that day too?

  She left the window, picked up her pen and the two lists and resumed her cataloguing of the presents.

  Christmas lunch was a success, as much as Christmas lunch could ever be. The turkey was dry and tended to stick to the roof of one’s mouth and in the back of one’s throat but that was how turkey was and that was how Mrs Thompson liked to serve it, and no amount of hints about basting and sauces and gravy appeared to have any effect. Crackers were pulled and the nanny jumped as though she had never pulled a cracker before in her life and laughed at the feeble jokes inside as though she found them genuinely amusing. The children regarded her with mild concern. Cecil made a point of placing the pink paper hat on his head, as he did each year. The vast steaming Christmas pudding was brought up from the kitchen and Cecil set fire to it. The nanny shrieked when the brandy caught fire and the blue flame shot upwards, burned brightly for a moment then flickered away into nothing and Anne said, ‘Don’t you have brandy sauce on your Christmas puddings, Nanny?’

  Mrs Thompson departed for the remainder of the day to visit her elderly mother and the family retired to the drawing room to sit quietly and digest and listen to the radio, at which point a fight broke out over a toy whose ownership was in dispute. Anne ran from the room in tears and Julius was sent to his room to consider the true meaning of Christmas.

  It was four o’clock and dark outside. It hadn’t really got light all day, had merely achieved a sort of sinister yellowish glow. Now, with fires being lit and coal beginning to burn in every hearth, the pea-souper outside was thickening by the minute.

  Harriet watched silently as Cecil drew the curtains, turned on the lights and shovelled some more coal into the grate. He had just sat down when the doorbell rang.

  ‘That’ll be Leo and Felicity,’ he announced and paused to smooth down his trousers and adjust his shirt collar before going out to answer the door.

  Leo and Felicity usually popped around for sherry and mince pies sometime on Christmas afternoon. Leo would be drunk. Felicity would be disapproving. Harriet closed her eyes for a moment, not moving. Downstairs the front door opened and a blast of cold air shot up the stairs and into the drawing room causing the curtains to rustle and the fire to flicker.

  Well, there was no getting out of it.

  ‘Anne! Julius! Make yourselves presentable, please. Uncle Leo and Aunt Felicity are here. Nanny! Oh, there you are. Mr and Mrs Mumford are here. Would you mind bringing up the plate of mince pies Mrs Thompson left in the pantry? And see if you can rustle up some sherry glasses.’

  Would the nanny know what a sherry glass looked like? Unlikely. Well, what of it? It was only Leo and Felicity.

  ‘Cecil! How the devil are you, old man?’ came Leo’s voice loudly up the stairs. Presumably Felicity had driven the car. Felicity never drank.

  Harriet smoothed down her hair and cast a glance around the drawing room, adjusted one or two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece and went out into the hallway. Anne and Julius were ahead of her, standing reluctantly and rather resentfully at the bottom of the stairs, and the nanny emerged from the kitchen bearing the plate of mince pies in one hand and a tray of whisky tumblers in the other. Oh dear. Leo appeared at the bottom of the stairs at the same time and almost knocked the nanny clean off her feet.

  ‘Hello there and a merry Christmas to one and all! Whoops! Sorry, m’dear. ‘

  He careered into the banister in an effort to avoid knocking Nanny, the mince pies and the tumblers to the ground, staggered slightly, and came to a stop leaning at an angle on the wall.

  Felicity stepped forward with a tight smile. ‘Harriet. How are you? Happy Christmas,’ and she placed an arm beneath Leo’s elbow and pushed him up the stairs.

  When they had all made it to the safety of the upstairs landing, Harriet kissed her sister-in-law and allowed Leo to come at her with a sherry-tinged embrace.

  ‘Hello, Uncle Leo. Awfully chilly, isn’t it?’ said Julius, solemnly shaking Leo’s hand.

  ‘The roads were ghastly,’ declared Felicity. ‘Visibility down to about ten feet.’

  ‘Did you bring us any presents?’ said Anne.

  ‘We damn near hit a policeman in Mayfair!’ said Leo, with a laugh.

  ‘Who’s for a mince pie?’ said Harriet.

  ‘That’s when we switched drivers,’ explained Felicity, with another of her tight smiles.

  ‘Sherry for me, old girl,’ announced Leo with a wink.

  ‘Did you bring us any presents?’ said Anne again.

  They moved into the drawing room and Leo dropped down onto the armchair. Nanny served the sherry and filled the glasses too full so that the sherry spilled into a little pool on the tray and dripped down the side of the glasses. Harriet slid a coaster beneath Leo’s glass just in time to prevent a drop of sherry splashing onto the René Drouet coffee table. Leo had removed his overcoat to reveal flannels, an extraordinary mustard-yellow jersey and an open-necked shirt, a look that might have passed muster on the golf course but seemed a little gay for Christmas Day. Felicity, in stark contrast, was dressed in her matron’s outfit: a dull olive-green skirt and white blouse, flesh-coloured nylons and horrid sturdy black shoes. She too had removed her coat, but carried it over one arm as though she were expecting to leave straight away.

  ‘Please, do sit down, Felicity,’ Harriet suggested, indicating an empty chair. For heaven’s sake, she thought irritably, why did one always feel so damned formal with her? They had been sisters-in-law for fifteen years. Lord knew, she didn’t wish to have an intimate chat with the woman, but for heaven’s sake, a bit of warmth, a sign of friendship wouldn’t go amiss.

  ‘Thank you, Harriet. But I’d prefer to stand,’ was the reply.

  ‘And how’s your Christmas day been, kids?’ said Leo, who always seemed to need to over-compensate for his wife’s formality. ‘Lots of lovely goodies from Father C?’

  ‘Not a bad haul, thanks, Uncle Leo,’ replied Julius. ‘And you?’

  One never knew if Julius was being facetious or not. It was probably safe to assume he was.

  ‘Felicity, a mince pie?’

  ‘Thank you, but I can’t abide them. It’s the orange peel …’

  Felicity did not go on to explain what it was about the orange peel that particularly offended her.

  ‘Show us what you’ve got there, Anne,’ said Cecil in his indulgent-parent voice.

  Anne was busily unwrapping a large present that Leo had just handed her. She placed it now on the armchair and knelt down on the carpet, all her attention focused on the gaudy red and green wrapping paper and the gold ribbon tied around it. She unpeeled the sticking tape at one end carefully, so as not to tear the paper. It tore at one corner and she winced. But now the paper was unwrapped and Anne reached inside—

  ‘Oh …’ The word was little more than a breath, but the disappointment it contained was evident—to her mother at least. The present was a doll-sized gold ball gown, a vague copy of a Dior dress that had been fashionable a couple of seasons ago. It was exactly the same dress she and Cecil had purchased and given to her earlier in the day.

  There was a silence as Anne held up the dress and looked at it. Someone needed to say something.

  ‘How beautiful!’ Cecil observed, as though ball gowns—and miniature Dior ball gowns in particular—were of particular interest to him. ‘What do you say, Anne?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anne dutifully, the dress already laid down on its wrapping paper.

  ‘But Pops, she’s already—’ began Julius.

  ‘Nanny, do be a sweetie and top up the glasses.’
>
  ‘Saw it in Hamleys,’ said Leo, obviously pleased with himself. ‘Remembered last year you were talking about it, Annie.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anne quietly.

  ‘The bottle’s empty, Mrs Wallis,’ said the nanny in a loud whisper, leaning over and catching Harriet’s eye in some dismay.

  ‘Not to worry, Harriet, old girl—there’s more where that came from!’ and Leo produced a bottle-shaped present wrapped in the same gaudy paper. ‘Didn’t think we’d forget, did you?’

  No, Harriet hadn’t thought for one moment that Leo would forget to bring his customary bottle of Christmas sherry. He had brought one every Christmas for the past ten years. Neither she nor Cecil had ever mentioned that they did not, in fact, drink sherry, and the only time a bottle was opened was when Leo and Felicity came around. Some they had managed to pass on as gifts, but in the main the bottles collected dust on a shelf in the pantry.

  ‘Thank you, Leo. How kind,’ and she took the bottle and passed it to the nanny.

  The girl took the bottle and held it gingerly as though it were a stick of dynamite.

  ‘There’s a corkscrew in the kitchen, Nanny.’

  The girl gave her a panic-stricken look and Harriet, exasperated, thought, good Lord, hasn’t the girl ever opened a bottle of sherry before? She smiled pleasantly.

  ‘Give it to me, I’ll do it. Do excuse me a moment,’ and she took the bottle outside.

  ‘Harriet, I—do you mind if I join you?’

  Harriet turned in surprise as Felicity came out behind her and gave a rather wild smile.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said and led the way downstairs to the kitchen.

  Well! What did this mean? Had something happened? Was Leo—had Leo done something? Were Felicity and Leo having problems? Dear God, surely not a divorce!

  Harriet turned on the kitchen light and began sorting through the drawers to see where Mrs Thompson kept the corkscrew. Felicity had paused in the kitchen doorway and appeared to be waiting for something.

  ‘Ah, here it is. Now, let’s see if we can get this out.’ Harriet unpeeled the foil and stabbed the point of the corkscrew into the cork. The silence drew out uncomfortably as Harriet twisted the corkscrew then slowly began to ease the cork out. It came out with a satisfying pop and a warm, sickly-sweet aroma seeped out.