Long Acre

by Claire Rayner

  Felix opened his mouth to demur, but at once Amy said eagerly, ‘Indeed, it would be pleasant to talk, would it not, Felix? And I must say I am very puzzled that Mr Wyndham should have seen Fenton as he says he did — I had no idea he was — well — let us sit down, shall we?’

  Felix, philosophically accepting the inevitable, led the way to the table he had reserved and beckoned the waiter to set another chair, and Wyndham settled himself with a pleasant if rather theatrical flurry, chattering busily meanwhile.

  ‘I do trust, Miss Lucas, that I have not set any cats among any pigeons! I would not for the world reveal any secrets a young man may have to his sister, however charming that sister may be. But it did not occur to me at all that there could be any wrong in speaking of such an observation. Miss Henriques is, of course, a most charming young lady — charming — and most respectable, is that not so, Felix? A cousin of yours after all —’

  ‘Yes,’ Felix said repressively. ‘Amy — Miss Lucas — I think we had best order our dinner, or we will, I fear, be late at the theatre. I imagine you will take a chop with us, Wyndham?’

  ‘You are very kind,’ Wyndham said with alacrity and pulled his chair closer to the table. ‘I insist that I should order the wine, however —’

  ‘Not at all,’ Felix said crisply. ‘This is my table, I believe. You must allow me to play host — waiter — the table d’hôte, if you please, and fast about it. We go to to the theatre —’

  With careful talk of the play they were to see that evening and some firmness from Felix, the conversation was led away from Wyndham’s sighting of Fenton squiring Isabel Henriques, but both Amy and Felix pondered over the matter as the chatter flowed over them. Amy wondered why Fenton should have been secretive with her on such a matter. He had never been one to hide his doings from her, unless they were in some way nefarious, and there could be nothing nefarious in any dealings he had with the very proper and rich Miss Henriques. Could it be, she wondered, much struck by the idea, that Fenton was serious in his feelings for a girl? A strange idea indeed, and one that would need much cogitation. She decided to talk to Fenton about it all that very evening, when he returned from the Supper Rooms, and now turned her attention back to Wyndham and his fascinating theatrical gossip. He seemed to know everybody and everything that was happening on or around the stages of London and she plunged into it all with great relish.

  Felix, meanwhile, was uneasy. Fenton and Isabel? He thought of his cousins Abby and Gideon, and tried to imagine them reacting with any pleasure at the news that their precious older daughter was involved with a penniless actor; and could not. They were both so very proper, so very aware of their station in life and of their riches; he knew quite well that they had ambitious plans for the lovely Isabel and that such plans could in no way ever encompass a Fenton Lucas.

  He sighed softly. There could be trouble brewing there, he felt. Perhaps he should speak to Fenton, and try to warn him in some way, before his affections were completely engaged. At which thought he stole a glance at Amy, her face alight with laughter as she listened to Wyndham telling some droll story of a recent attempt to audition for a part in a play at the Haymarket Theatre, and sighed again. How would he feel if someone came to him and told him he must not squire Amy about? Very angry indeed, he thought. Exceedingly so. It would not be easy to deal with Fenton if he was as captured by Felix’s cousin as Felix was captured by Fenton’s sister …

  ‘Oh, we have been searching, you know!’ Amy was saying, as Felix wrenched his thoughts back to the conversation. ‘I recollect I told you of my Papa? And that he was English? Well, Dr Laurence has been so kind and helpful, and we are seeking out theatres, you know, in the hope that at one of them we may see an actor — or actress of course! — who is like enough to Fenton or to me to make it seem possible that we are connections —’

  ‘It seems a rather — well, not a very thorough way to search,’ Wyndham said carefully, and looked at Felix. Perhaps Laurence had his own reasons for making such a desultory attempt to help Miss Lucas? But Felix’s face seemed smooth enough, and Wyndham went on, ‘You would do much better to talk to the stage-door keepers, you know. In London it is quite customary for such servants of the theatre to remain at the same post for many many years — quite unlike America, dear Miss Lucas, where they all change their employment with quite bewildering regularity! Have you spoken to any of them?’

  ‘Why, no — ’ Amy was much struck. ‘We have not. But of course, you must be right! I daresay there will be some of the back-stage people who would be old enough to have been in the theatre when my Papa was! Shall we do that, Felix — Dr Laurence?’ She blushed charmingly and tried not to look at Wyndham; to so display their intimacy was rather fast, and she might anger Felix. But Felix seemed unmoved and said merely, ‘Indeed, it sounds an excellent idea. I am afraid my knowledge of theatre ways is sketchy in the extreme. No doubt we should have tried talking to people inside the theatre much sooner than this. I daresay we would have thought of it eventually, however —’

  She smiled at him, and her dimples showed fleetingly in the old manner. ‘Well, we have enjoyed some delightful evenings at the play, so there is no loss,’ she murmured. ‘But after this, we shall indeed talk to stage doormen. Thank you for the idea, Mr Wyndham. And if I find my relations in this manner — why, you shall be the first to be told!’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Abby was eating cucumber sandwiches in a contemplative sort of way, watching Daniel on the far side of the drawing-room showing his small cousin Ambrose a particularly complex form of cat’s-cradle. The room was buzzing agreeably with noise, as was usual on Martha’s Sundays, but it did not feel as comfortable as it usually did, and Abby turned to look for Gideon to discuss the matter with him. He was not too far away but was very occupied with talking to Cecily and James and she watched them fondly, her plump face creasing gently. It seemed so absurd, looking at her elegant spare Gideon, who despite his white hair looked so very young, to think of him as a grandfather, albeit a step-grandfather. It was even more absurd to think of herself as a grandmother; after all, she was only fifty-three — no age. Yet there was Cecily, already at almost eleven showing signs of her incipient womanhood in her tight-bodiced gown, and sturdy James with his red hair, and funny, bouncy little Ambrose.

  She looked at James again and sighed softly, trying for a moment to remember the grandfather after whom he had been named, and who had been so long dead; James, her first husband whom she had loved so dearly and lost so young. So much to have happened in such a short time; after all, fifty-three is no age —

  Gideon looked up and caught her eye and stood up, sending his young listeners off to talk to their Aunt Martha, and came to sit beside her, reaching for a cucumber sandwich from the dish beside her.

  ‘Why is it that the comestibles Martha arranges for tea on Sundays always have a special taste of their own? I find it very strange —’

  ‘No stranger than the fact that you may eat as much as you like, my love, and gain not so much as an inch, and I have but to look at cucumber sandwiches or anything else, come to that, and I am immediately afflicted with even more embonpoint. There is no justice … Gideon, I am puzzled. It is almost five o’clock, and we have been here for at least two hours, and there is no sign of Felix. Now, that is very unusual, is it not? Where do you suppose he is?’

  ‘It is no more unusual than the absence of our own Isabel, my love,’ Gideon said, and his voice was fretful. ‘I am still most put out — she has had a great deal of freedom for one of her age and I do feel she could have bent her will to us a little today. I much prefer her to spend her Sundays with us, as a family. All week, when I am at the counting house, she can gad about with her friends. Why choose my one free afternoon to —’

  ‘Now, Gideon, do not, I pray you, start that again,’ Abby said, trying to be soothing but contriving only to sound tetchy. ‘I told you — this picnic was planned by the Canterburys — oh, months ago. And after all, i
t is rather boring for a young girl to spend a whole afternoon prosing with her relations —’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Gideon said sharply. ‘And the party before that? Last week? I know you tell me it is wrong of me to think so, Abby, but I tell you again — I fear she is deceiving me with some admirer of whom she knows we will not approve —’

  There was a short and rather painful little silence between them. It was not until Isabel had started to grow up that there had been any real rifts between them on the subject of their children, but as Isabel reached maturity and showed herself to be a girl of considerable beauty as well as an heiress Gideon had reverted to type, and become as possessive and anxious as his own father had been. Abby and he had talked about it in depth only once, and it had left much pain behind it, that discussion. Gideon had been driven to tell his wife flatly that it was his dearest wish that his daughter should marry within the faith into which her father had been born.

  ‘I know that in marrying you as I did, Abby, I seemed to show disregard of the customs of my people,’ he had said earnestly, ‘but that does not mean I do not care about them. It would in a sense give me back my faith were Isabel and Sarah, and of course Daniel, to embrace the synagogue and its laws —’

  ‘I could not, in all honesty, support you in any disagreement on such a matter,’ Abby had said quietly, trying not to let the pain his words had inflicted show on her face. Had she deprived him of his religion in allowing him to marry her, all those years ago? Remembering the way she had fought her own desires, the efforts she had made to prevent their marriage, she knew she had not. His choice had been his own, freely made. Yet now, after all these happy years, still he felt in some way guilt about it. Perhaps because his father had died unreconciled to his son’s marriage; perhaps because his mother too had gone to her death still suffering silent distress about her son’s lapse. Whatever the cause, the guilt was there, and showed itself as this concern that his own children should marry Jews like their father. It was a subject they talked of rarely and then only obliquely, but when they did, it always left, as it did this afternoon, faint traces of distress in the air between them.

  ‘I do not agree,’ she said now a little stiffly and turned to look across the room again, this time catching Martha’s eye. She got to her feet and came to join them, settling herself easily as Abby made space on the sofa beside her, and the moment of unease passed.

  ‘Well, my dear, that is an elegant gown — yet another new one?’ Martha said comfortably. ‘I think that shade of brown is excellent on you. So warm —’

  ‘Martha, where is Felix?’ Abby said, and looked directly at her sister. ‘I cannot remember there ever being a Sunday here when Felix was not with you. We seem to be so thin of company without him —’

  There was a little silence and then Martha said lightly, ‘Oh, he will be here shortly. He is out with Miss Lucas, you know.’

  ‘Oh.’

  There was a brief pause and then Martha said almost defiantly, ‘He is seeing a great deal of her these days. Indeed, there has not been a week in which he has not taken her to some theatre or other since the start of the year.’

  ‘Really? That is — ah —’ Abby hesitated. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Mind? What is there in that for me to mind? He is not my possession, you know, Abby! He is a young man of sense and ability and — indeed, it would be most improper in me to attempt to place any controls upon him! I may have adopted him, but he achieved his majority more than six years ago, you must recall, and —’

  ‘Indeed, I do recall,’ Abby said hastily. ‘And that was a splendid party you gave to mark it, was it not? Well, I am sure he is a sensible boy —’

  ‘Man. A sensible man, Martha said flatly, and again a small silence fell, and Gideon reached for another cucumber sandwich and said nothing.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Abby,’ Martha burst out suddenly, ‘I am not entirely happy in my mind about it all. I look at Oliver and I think — oh, I do not know what to think!’

  Abby too looked at her nephew, sitting on the far side of the room in the window seat ostensibly staring abstractedly out of the window but quite clearly watching with some eagerness for new arrivals.

  ‘He has been so the entire afternoon, waiting for her!’ Martha said. ‘It is so sad! I cannot pretend I do not find her a little tiresome, with her airs and graces and that drawly way she speaks — not that she can help that, I suppose, seeing she is an American, but when you are irritated by a person you tend to be irritated by everthing including things they cannot help and which do not matter — you know how it is! — but I could tolerate all that if only she would be kinder to poor Oliver instead of hanging out after Felix!’

  ‘I think perhaps you are a little unfair, my dear,’ Abby said gently. ‘Do you not agree, Gideon? After all, she gave Oliver no encouragement that I could see. It is indeed sad that the dear boy should wait so long to find a girl he could love and then choose one who is only too patently not interested in him. But you can hardly blame the girl for that —’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Martha said fretfully. ‘I know it is not the girl’s fault — and that Oliver is behaving very silly for a man his age. He is hardly a boy — why, he must be — ’

  ‘Thirty-five,’ Gideon said glumly. ‘And I agree with Martha. It is inelegant in a young lady to behave so — she should be aware of the effect she has on gentlemen — on people, and be retiring —’

  Abby could not forbear to smile at the thought of the ebullient Miss Lucas being retiring and said comfortably to Martha, ‘Well, I daresay you are worrying unnecessarily. I am sure Felix is a sensible young man, and will come to no harm. He has never shown signs of being unduly susceptible, and I am sure will see through any artifice. Fortunately he is not precisely rich, is he? It is not as though she will be dangling after him for his money.’

  ‘He is not precisely poor, either,’ Martha said tartly. ‘And I agree — he is sensible enough to take care of himself. But for all that, I — well,’ she smiled a little sheepishly, ‘I do think it wise to welcome her here often. So much more sensible, I feel, than setting my face against her. Do you not agree?’

  ‘Oh, indeed I do,’ Abby said and looked at Gideon. ‘It is always wiser to try to go along with one’s young people. To set out to guide them too forcefully — it can lead to so many problems.’

  Freddy had come over to them and was standing with his cup and saucer in his hand looking down at them with a fond grin across his pleasant face.

  ‘I do enjoy watching you two chattering, Mamma, Aunt Martha,’ he said. ‘For all the world like a pair of pussies lapping up the cream and licking their whiskers. I take it you are busily tearing a reputation to shreds?’

  ‘That is most unjust, Freddy,’ Abby said with some dignity. ‘We were speaking of Felix — how could we possibly tear him to shreds? Apologize at once!’

  ‘I apologize!’ Freddy said promptly. ‘Aunt Martha, you are a very dear, good aunt, and we all love you, but I promise you that the next time you present young Ambrose with yet another toy book, I shall insist that he will not accept it. All this giving — it is bad for his character, indeed it is! He will be ruined —’

  ‘I am sure he will not. Not with you and Phoebe as his Papa and Mamma.’

  ‘You do not make it easy — tell her, Mamma.’

  ‘Oh, do not ask me — I spoil Cecily outrageously, as well you know! And Gideon sees to it that young James gets his share — and there are no signs that any one of the three are anything but a credit to you, my dear Freddy — ah! Here he is, at last!’

  There was a little flurry as the door opened and Amy came in, her face flushed with the sharpness of the April air and her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  She stood there untying her exceedingly pretty straw bonnet, her soft yellow gown billowing as she swayed, and almost without their realizing it everyone in the room turned to look at her, so that she became the focal point of the whole party; Oliver standing in h
is window embrasure with his mouth slightly open, and his eyes filled with adoration; Freddy, frankly admiring; the three women, Abby, Martha and Phoebe, watchful and the children, including Sarah, quite bedazzled. Felix, standing behind Amy, looked at them all and felt a surge of mixed emotions. Pride and embarrassment — she was so very noticeable — and deep down a little cold fear. He was filled with a sort of premonition and tried to dismiss it; such a fanciful notion was not like him at all. Yet still it was there.

  ‘Well, so you are here! I had quite given up hope or seeing you this afternoon,’ Martha said smoothly and rustled to her feet. ‘Freddy, my dear, will you just set your hand upon the bell? We need fresh tea for these two travellers, I think —’

  ‘Good afternoon, everybody!’ Amy said, and her voice seemed to bubble with some hidden delight. ‘How agreeable to see you all! Sarah, how well you look — I do like your gown!’

  Thank you!’ Sarah said eagerly, and then, gauchely, ‘Is — is your brother not with you?’

  Amy shot a quick glance from beneath her brows at Abby and then said, as she smoothed the gold-coloured ribbons of her bonnet. ‘Why, no. He — he has another engagement. But I — well, I have such interesting news! You cannot imagine — oh, thank you. No, no cream. Just a little lemon — that is delightful — well, may I tell you my news?’

  ‘I think we would be hard put to it to stop you,’ Freddy said dryly, and went to sit down beside Phoebe, who said not a word. She just watched the sparkling girl, now sitting on the sofa in the middle of the room, with an apparently blank gaze in her grey eyes but still a very watchful one.

  ‘Well, you may recall I mentioned that my Papa was English? And that it was my hope that I should be able to find his relations here? That was one of the reasons we came to England at all — well, do you know, we may be on the track!’