Privileged Children

by Frances Vernon

  ‘I think me and Liza ought to get some money,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Count yourselves lucky. You’re paid for doing chores, which none of the rest of us are. When you’re earning you’ll get an equal share. Go and answer the door, Jenny.’

  ‘You are hard on me, Kate. My contribution was hardly less than Anatole’s,’ said Mr Tuskin, looking bleakly at her.

  ‘You’re not holding any back, are you?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Mr Tuskin replied, in a bored voice.

  Jenny went to answer the door, where a large lady in a very high-necked dress and tight-fitting hat was standing. ‘Hello,’ said Jenny. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Mrs Lyndon. I’ve come to see Miss Molloy.’

  ‘Oh, well, come on in. Is she expecting you?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. I arranged an appointment yesterday. Are you her sister, my dear?’

  ‘No, I just live here. It’s a long way upstairs, I’m afraid,’ said Jenny, who was impressed by Mrs Lyndon’s size.

  ‘I’m not so old as all that,’ she laughed, and followed Jenny upstairs.

  Alice’s studio was on the top floor of the house. It consisted of two large rooms which had been knocked into one. Her bed was up there too. With her at the moment was Liza.

  ‘Alice, Mrs Lyndon’s here to see you,’ called Jenny through the door.

  Alice opened it. Mrs Lyndon stepped in rather breathlessly. ‘How do you do, Miss Molloy? Isn’t the weather simply ghastly?’

  ‘Terrible,’ said Alice, and shook hands. ‘Were you interested in anything in particular? I only had one piece at the exhibition.’

  ‘I know, but it was the style that I wanted for my new bedroom. We’re moving into a new house, in Chester Square, you see … oh, aren’t you the girl of the portrait I saw at the exhibition?’ Mrs Lyndon asked delightedly of Liza.

  Liza jumped. ‘Yes,’ she said, twisting her skirt with one hand.

  ‘Miss Molloy, if I hadn’t seen the child I wouldn’t have known quite how clever the picture was. It’s not only that it was a wonderful likeness.’

  Alice was unused to such praise, and asked Mrs Lyndon quickly to have a look round and see what she liked. Mrs Lyndon went over to Alice’s easel.

  Alice had half-finished the oil painting which was there. It depicted a group of newly uniformed volunteers in the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens, in the sunshine of September 1914. Two nurses from St George’s Hospital were passing them. Children were bowling hoops in the Walk, and their nannies sat chatting on a bench. A faintly reddish light pervaded the scene, touching it with unreality. All that was red in the painting was the mass of brilliant dahlias at the soldiers’ side.

  ‘Do you know, Miss Molloy, this painting gives me the feeling that you’re a pacifist,’ said Mrs Lyndon.

  ‘I am, yes,’ said Alice.

  ‘I have a son at the Front,’ said Mrs Lyndon.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice.

  Mrs Lyndon turned to Alice’s table, where there were some illustrations which she had done for a children’s book. ‘Now those are charming,’ said Mrs Lyndon. ‘Really very like how I imagined fairies to be as a child.’

  ‘It’s what the public wants, I’m told.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose your heart’s in it, Miss Molloy, if that’s what you paint for choice,’ smiled Mrs Lyndon, nodding at the easel. ‘I do so wish that the portrait of this little girl hadn’t been sold. It would have been just the thing. My husband suggested prints — flowers or something — but I do want something rather different.’

  ‘I did a portrait of Liza’s sister,’ said Alice, taking it out from a stack of paintings which leant against the wall. ‘It’s a charcoal drawing, though, not a watercolour.’ She handed it to Mrs Lyndon.

  ‘Oh, the child who let me in! Isn’t it extraordinary how unalike sisters can be?’ said Mrs Lyndon, looking at Jenny’s round, dimpled face, sharp hazel eyes and curly brown hair. ‘And aren’t you twins, dear?’ she asked Liza.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Liza, who was sitting on the bed reading Jane Eyre.

  ‘I do believe a stranger could guess her exact colouring although this is charcoal,’ said Mrs Lyndon. ‘What a pert child she must be!’ And she gave a peal of laughter.

  ‘You could say that,’ replied Alice.

  Mrs Lyndon looked at a few other things, but decided on the drawing of Jenny. ‘How much do you want for it, Miss Molloy?’

  ‘How much would you pay for it?’

  ‘Would five pounds be enough?’

  ‘Five pounds?’ said Alice, and closed her mouth again quickly. ‘Quite enough, thank you.’

  ‘I believe it’ll prove to be quite an investment,’ said Mrs Lyndon, handing her a small deposit at Alice’s request and promising to send someone over to collect the picture in the morning.

  ‘How silly she was not to like the painting of the soldiers,’ said Liza, going over to it.

  ‘She was observant about it,’ said Alice, smoothing the five-pound note, ‘but it didn’t suit her politics.’

  ‘How long do you think the war will last?’ Liza asked, turning to her.

  ‘I can’t tell,’ Alice replied. ‘There’s never been such a war. It’s stuck fast, you see. They sit in the trenches and rot, and shoot at each other once in a while. God knows what the generals will do. If the Easterners’ plan works, the war should end quite quickly, but if not, who knows?’

  ‘Suppose the Germans win? Will they conquer us?’

  ‘I don’t see why they’d bother. You’ve been reading the yellow press, Liza.’

  ‘I’ve never read such a good book as this,’ said Liza, looking at Jane Eyre. ‘It makes you cry with anger at what they can do to children.’

  Liza went to put the kettle on and fetched the digestive biscuits. At that moment, Anatole came in. He had just arrived back from giving a music lesson.

  ‘Why, oh why, must the bourgeoisie insist on their fat, tone-deaf little girls learning to play the piano? Tell me, is it still considered ladylike to thump out some dull little air after dinner? Do they really think that it shows their daughters up in the best possible light?’

  ‘Poor Monsieur Anatole,’ said Alice with a smile.

  He threw off the tailcoat which he wore for giving lessons. It was far too big for him, like the rest of his clothes, which were all second-hand. He took Alice’s hands in his and looked up at her, adoringly.

  ‘Liza and I are going to have tea,’ she said.

  ‘That can wait,’ he replied.

  ‘Can it?’

  Liza slipped out of the door and ran downstairs. She knew very well the gleam which she had seen in Alice’s eyes. Once, two years ago this coming summer, she had seen Anatole and Kate making love. They had not been in the bed, but on top of it. She had caught a glimpse of their naked bodies. There were black hairs all over Anatole’s. She had seen his hard, reddish genitals, and run quickly away. Over the last two years, those genitals had grown to an enormous size in her mind. She had never let Anatole touch her since then. She imagined his hands on Alice’s slender body. When Alice tied her hair back with a black ribbon, she looked like a handsome boy in an eighteenth-century portrait, a boy without that ghastly deformity between his legs. Though the thought of the male body made Liza shudder, it made her realise also that however plain she was with her pale hair, thick whitish eyebrows, chapped lips, and round heavy-lidded grey eyes, she was more aesthetically pleasing than any male.

  Anatole laid his head on Alice’s shoulder, and curled up so that his body fitted into the curve of hers. ‘It is with you that I have the greatest sexual pleasure I have ever had,’ he said.

  ‘That’s saying a lot,’ said Alice.

  Anatole paused. ‘Alice,’ he said, ‘have you slept with anyone else since you were with me? As a matter of interest.’

  ‘No. And what’s it to you if I have? We both believe in free love, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Have you wante
d to sleep with anyone else?’

  ‘No I have not. Holy Mary, Anatole, you’re not my confessor, you know. Stop asking me these things.’

  ‘Why are you cross? Is it because you’re not sure?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Listen. I love you and I haven’t really wanted anyone else since I met you. But I think that my feelings are my own business unless I choose to talk about them with you.’

  Anatole stopped stroking Alice’s thigh and rolled over. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I think that as we have been faithful to each other for a year now, we might get married.’

  ‘Well!’ said Alice, ‘what a way to propose, with your back turned towards me.’

  ‘I have my back towards you because I know my proposal will be unwelcome.’

  ‘Now why are you sounding so self-pitying? You’ve got me to live with, and I love you, and what more could you want from marriage? I should be the one wanting marriage. I’m supposed to be a Catholic … I’ve never known a happy marriage,’ she continued, ‘except the Woods’. And my parents, but they were only married two years. Oh, Anatole, stop sulking and face me. I don’t know why you’re sulking; I’m only disagreeing with you. That’s not a crime.’

  She paused.

  ‘Perhaps that’s it,’ she said, ‘I’ve never disagreed with you at all before, have I, although I do call myself an independent woman. Why do you want to marry me, Anatole? You’ve had one disastrous marriage, and why did you marry Charlotte anyway? Can I ask some difficult questions now?’ she teased, and he responded. He turned back to face her.

  ‘I married her,’ he said, ‘because I’d made a little money at that time, and I’d spent all my life either making love for money, or having brief, stormy affairs, or sleeping the odd night with various easy-going ladies. I wanted a pretty, sweet girl like Charlotte to care for and make happy. And I wanted her to do the same for me. Perhaps it would have worked if I hadn’t lost my little fortune in a bad speculation. One needs money above all things to support that kind of marriage.’

  ‘A thoroughly Victorian ideal,’ said Alice.

  ‘Yes, I admit it.’

  ‘It’s a pretty ideal, I know, but you can’t think you’d ever have that with me?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t. I don’t know what I want with you exactly. I only want you to — to belong to me. Metaphorically speaking.’

  ‘Well, so do I want to belong to you — and let me add that I want you to belong to me! That’s a slightly different thing, you know. But I don’t want to make you my lord and master in law. I’m sure I’m married in the sight of God so long as you and I regard each other — as — as spouses.’

  ‘That sounds like a rather Protestant notion to me.’

  They both laughed and then were silent and soon they made love again. Afterwards Alice pulled herself out of bed and went to close the curtains. Stumbling through the cold blue dusk to the other side of the studio, she went to light the oil lamp, and then hurried back to bed.

  ‘Welcome back,’ said Anatole. They both watched the yellow glare of the lamp on the far side of the studio.

  ‘After the war,’ said Anatole, ‘we must have the top two floors electrified. It’s quite a deprivation nowadays to be without electric light.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘it doesn’t seem worth doing that sort of thing when the house may be blown to smithereens any day of the week. I like my oil lamp, though. There was no gaslight in my room at home. Mamma always liked oil lamps … though we did put electric light in the big rooms,’ she mused. ‘It made us look more prosperous.’

  ‘My love,’ said Anatole, ‘wouldn’t you like to have a baby, now that we do seem to be attached to each other?’

  ‘You sound as though you’re afraid to use the word “love” to me,’ said Alice.

  ‘Of course I love you.’

  ‘Good.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Now, I’ve told you, darling, that if I do get pregnant in spite of being careful I won’t do anything silly and dangerous and in time I will get pregnant, I’m sure. You can never be certain about these so-called contraceptives.’

  ‘You’ve been very successful with the wretched things you use so far.’

  ‘I’ve just been lucky. Oh, darling, for God’s sake don’t let’s spoil this by talking about it. We’ve talked about it all before.’

  Very soon they got up and dressed. Alice went down to Liza’s small, bare, tidy room, which was hung with cheap reproductions of Pre-Raphaelite pictures.

  ‘Let’s have some tea now,’ said Alice.

  ‘No,’ said Liza, ‘I’m not going to have tea with you. You smell of Anatole.’

  ‘That’s an odd thing to say,’ said Alice.

  ‘I hate bodies,’ said Liza.

  ‘And you like books,’ said Alice.

  ‘Yes,’ said Liza.

  ‘Even books that are about bodies.’

  ‘What?’ said Liza.

  ‘Well, Jane Eyre’s a love story, and love stories are really about bodies. Sex.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not the same as you and Anatole messing about upstairs making my ceiling creak.’

  Alice began to laugh and then she saw that Liza looked almost angry.

  ‘In a book,’ continued Liza, ‘things are as you want them to be. If you don’t want to read about money and dirt and quarrels, you don’t have to.’

  ‘Day-dreamer,’ said Alice. ‘You sound as though life’s treated you very badly.’

  ‘It’s just that — just that I don’t like doing things,’ said Liza.

  ‘Well, you day-dream then,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve got to go and be Kate’s kitchenmaid.’

  ‘By the way,’ she added from the doorway, ‘could you model for me again next week, after school? I can’t manage this week, I’m behind with those damned illustrations already.’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘And I’ll have to go up to Bloomsbury to get a new fine sable brush. Jenny ruined my best fine brush by painting patterns on her new boots with it, did I tell you? She managed to ruin the brush and her boots and the floor all in one go. I could have spanked her!’

  ‘Jenny’s always doing things,’ said Liza and she picked up her book again.

  Alice ran downstairs to the kitchen.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ said Kate. ‘You know we’ve got to eat at seven tonight because Harry’s going out. We’ll never be ready in time.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice.

  Kate pushed a chopping board and five large onions over to her. ‘Dice them properly,’ she said. Alice sighed, and started to peel the onions, which made her cry. She watched Kate chopping up meat very briskly, a sight which always made Alice feel slightly sick. Suddenly she realised that she was not crying only because she was chopping onions. Kate looked at her.

  ‘Why, you’re crying,’ she said.

  ‘It’s the onions,’ said Alice, hunching her shoulders.

  ‘No, it’s not, or your mouth wouldn’t be crumpled up like that. Now come on, Alice, either stop it or tell me what’s wrong.’

  Alice stopped crying briefly and shouted: ‘Why do you dislike me?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, I don’t dislike you, what I dislike is the fact that you’re making Anatole unhappy and he’s so in love with you.’

  ‘Oh, I see, you don’t like him being in love with me, although you stopped sleeping together before I even came back to town!’

  ‘How can you deliberately misinterpret what I said, just so that you can have a fight?’ said Kate. ‘I suppose that’s the reason; you quite like quarrels, don’t you? Well, I don’t and I’m not going to quarrel with you.’

  Kate looked at Alice. She saw her young, smooth, long neck, which was lovely even now when there was a lump quavering in it; her adolescent body and strong, dark, angry but unworried eyes. Kate was thirty-one, and her flesh was beginning to sag. Though her hair was still black, lines had appeared on her broad brown face. She had lived with Anatole for eight years and he had never wanted t
o marry her. She had not wanted to marry him either, but this, she thought as she watched Alice, was irrelevant.

  ‘You’re such a blind, selfish child that you don’t even know why you’re making him so miserable, do you? Well, I’ll tell you.’ said Kate. ‘He’s told you, but you haven’t listened. He wants to marry you and have children by you, but you won’t give him either of those things, though you say you love him. I call it wicked. Can’t you ever put yourself out for someone else? For someone you love?’

  ‘No, not if it means having another damned baby!’ shouted Alice. ‘Not yet. I’ve got my own life to lead,’ she added more quietly.

  ‘But you do love Anatole.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘I forget you’re still a child,’ said Kate. ‘I shouldn’t have been so harsh on you.’

  ‘I am not a child. I’m a grown woman. I’ve had a baby already to prove it. But I tell you, I won’t have another one yet, if I can help it.’

  ‘It wasn’t very kind to Michael to have him purely so as to show your uncle and aunt that you weren’t a child, was it?’

  ‘That wasn’t the only reason. Oh, leave me alone and stop making me feel guilty!’

  ‘I wish you just knew what it’s like to be barren,’ hissed Kate. ‘I tried so hard …’

  ‘Be quiet.’

  ‘I’m sorry, that was a dirty thing to say.’

  ‘I dare say I am selfish,’ said Alice after a pause, and Kate said nothing.

  They carried on cutting up vegetables in silence for a while.

  ‘I’m going to France,’ said Kate.

  ‘What, to work, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. I wouldn’t be going to Aix-les-Bains at this time of year, you know.’

  ‘I thought they had army doctors.’

  ‘Oh, they want woman doctors now, right enough. They won’t turn down my services.’

  ‘Enjoy yourself, then.’

  ‘You ought to nurse.’

  ‘Well, I’m just not going to. I’ve got my work and I’d be a terrible nurse, I’m sure. And I couldn’t if I had a baby anyway.’