‘Now what makes you assume that?’ asked Oliver, smiling just a little heavily.
‘Well – they must be. If they’re having babies. I do wonder what she looks like.’
‘She looks just like you,’ said Robert, ‘exactly. Same hair, same eyes—’
‘Oh, dearest. I’m not nearly that beautiful.’
‘Of course you are. And those little hands, look, so graceful and – heavens, Jeanette, she’s just been sick. What should I do, call the doctor, get the nurse, what do you think—’
‘Oh Robert,’ said Jeanette, laughing, ‘babies are sick all the time. It’s called possetting. Give her to me and that muslin napkin. Come along, little one. Oh, Robert I can’t believe it still. After all the trouble I had with the boys.’
She really hadn’t been able to believe it. When the doctor first diagnosed her pregnancy, she had simply laughed. Of course she wasn’t pregnant, she couldn’t be, she was forty-three years old, she always had terrible trouble conceiving, she’d been ill constantly . . .
‘Mrs Lytton,’ the doctor said, ‘Mother Nature’s a clever old lady. Very frequently, women of your age find themselves pregnant. It’s what we call the last-chance baby. There is a sudden surge in fertility. No, there’s no doubt about it, you are pregnant, about five months I would say. I can hear the heartbeat and it’s very strong.’
‘But I feel so well,’ said Jeanette almost plaintively.
‘Good,’ he said patting her hand, ‘be grateful. Now you must tell your husband. I imagine he’ll be delighted.’
Robert was: delighted and immensely proud. He had given up any hope of fatherhood when he married Jeanette; he had not thought it of any great consequence to him in any case. He had never liked children and his experience of Jeanette’s boys had not changed his mind. But the emotions which filled him that day, when she told him that she was not only pregnant, but healthily and happily so, were overwhelming. He sat staring at her, asked her twice if she was quite sure, and found his eyes filling with tears.
Pregnancy, this time around, suited her; she was well, happy, confident. She seemed to ripen, her voluptuous body became proud and full and she was serene, less awkward and proprietorial with him. It was as if their positions had shifted, as if he had in some way assumed some sort of authority over her, rather than the rather uncomfortable reverse he was used to.
The day the baby was born, he suffered agonies of fear: but Maud arrived shortly after Christmas in what the doctor described as an indecently short time,
‘No difficulty of any sort,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and the whole thing was extremely easy for her. Congratulations.’
It was altogether the happiest time Robert could ever remember; his new real estate company, founded two years earlier in partnership with John Brewer, and financed by Lawsons bank at a very competitive rate, was doing well. Several streets on the west side of Manhattan island were being built by Brewer Lytton, and they had just been successful in their bid to build a medium-sized, luxury hotel on the upper East Side. This too had had the effect of stabilising the marriage; of making Robert feel less like some uneasily manipulated puppet with strings pulled this way and that at Jeanette’s whim. In fact the only cloud on his particular sky that summer, a dark, brooding angry one, was Laurence.
‘He won’t even speak to me,’ he said to Jeanette, a week or so after they had broken the news to both the boys. Jamie had been initially pleased, flushed and beaming with excitement; then catching Laurence’s furious, forbidding gaze he had carefuly switched off his smile, stiffened in his mother’s embrace.
Laurence said politely, ‘Congratulations, sir,’ and shook Robert’s hand, as his mother had bidden him; but afterwards, meeting him in the corridor on his way to the garden, Laurence said, ‘If anything happens to my mother, I shall never forgive you. Never.’
It was said with such venom Robert was shaken; later, he told himself he must have exaggerated it, that it was natural for Laurence to be worried. His mother’s obstetric problems were not unknown to him, and he was old enough to recognise the danger of her condition, particularly in view of her age.
‘And dearest,’ Jeanette said, when he told her, ‘you must realise it is difficult for him. He is old enough to understand what has brought this pregnancy about, he has to confront the fact that we are making love with one another. That’s uncomfortable for a boy of his age, who is coming to terms with his own sexuality. We must be understanding; don’t be too hard on him.’
Robert said it was Laurence who was being hard on him, not the other way round; but Jeanette said that was absurd, and that they were two mature and very happy people and must make every allowance for an immature and anxious boy.
‘And Jamie is delighted, he came and whispered to me last night, as he went up to bed, and so that is wonderful, don’t you think? Laurence will come round, my dearest, you mustn’t doubt it. We just have to be patient.’
But so far he hadn’t done anything of the sort; he came in dutifully to his mother’s room to meet his sister on the day she was born, bent over her cradle solemnly and looked at her, then kissed his mother and again, shook Robert’s hand. But he refused the offer to hold her, to give her his finger to grip, to comment on her appearance, or even to take any part in choosing a name. Jamie, initially excited, begging to hold the baby, covering her small face with kisses, eventually took his lead from his big brother and visited the nursery less and less, except when Laurence was out; Jeanette, amused by this, used it as an illustration to Robert of how Laurence, too, would grow accustomed to his small sister’s presence.
‘We mustn’t rush them, dearest. There’s plenty of time.’
Robert doubted it greatly; but he didn’t say so. Laurence was sacred territory for Jeanette: beyond criticism, beyond doubt even.
‘Mum, Mum, oh Mum—’
Barty hurtled down the steps, into Sylvia’s arms. Sylvia held her absolutely tight, partly because she was so pleased to see her, partly because she didn’t want Barty to see she was crying. She missed her so much; more and more. Every visit – and Celia had kept her word, Barty was sent in the car every two weeks to Line Street – was more painful than the last. Sometimes Celia came too, sometimes she did not. The visits were for the most part agony; at first Barty screamed when it was time to go back to Cheyne Walk, clung to her mother, had to be prised off. That made Celia angry, Sylvia could tell, although she struggled not to show it.
‘Now Barty,’ she would say, stroking the back of her head as she buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, ‘now Barty, you mustn’t behave like this. It’s not fair on your mother. She has so much to do and to worry about, it’s such a help for her, to have you taken care of, and to know you are happy.’
Sylvia knew Barty couldn’t possibly understand this; but she did, and it made her feel bad, ungrateful herself. Of course it was better for Barty, she had only to look at her, putting on weight, her face no longer white but rosy, her hair silky and well-combed, her grubby, threadbare clothes and worn-out boots replaced by lace-trimmed pinafores and fine leather shoes. And nobody was going to hit her at Cheyne Walk, nobody shout at her. She had become one of the privileged few, safe, protected, cocooned by money from the real world; it must be better for her. And if Sylvia missed her, longed to have her back, longed to have her babbling away again, getting up to mischief, fighting for her freedom, struggling to be free of the high chair, of the table leg, giggling at her brothers as they teased her, saying Mum and Dad and Marjie and Billy in her rather deep husky little voice, then that was wrong of her. She mustn’t even think of it. Barty was one of the luckiest children in London, in England, probably in the world. She had escaped the certainty of poverty, the risk of brutality; it would be a crime to force her back into it. Of course one day, she would come back. Of course she would. She kept telling Barty so. When things were better, when her dad was back in regular work – he was doing casual at the moment. When his temper had eased, when the new baby – litt
le Mary, so sweet really, but so demanding and noisy, crying such a lot – was older: then Barty could come home again. But until then, she must stay with the Lyttons. She was lucky to be there. So lucky.
‘Go way.’ Adele’s imperious little voice rang across the day nursery. She pushed Barty: pushed her hard. ‘My dolly. Mine.’
Barty stood her ground; she didn’t want the doll, and anyway, she had dolls of her own. Plenty. Aunt Celia, as Celia had instructed her to call her, often bought her toys: she had dolls, teddies, a dolls’ cot, nearly as much as the twins in fact. But not quite. At Christmas – and she had gone home for her first Christmas day although not the second (her mother had said she wasn’t very well and nor was her dad) the twins and Giles got toys from everyone, from their grandparents, their uncles and aunts, from Nanny even; Barty just got them from Aunt Celia and Wol. She loved Wol; he was so kind and gentle, had more time for her than Aunt Celia, often came to the nursery and played with them all.
She had given him the name: Aunt Celia had told her to call him Uncle Oliver, but of course she couldn’t, and after the first few faltering attempts, had managed Wol. He had liked that, had smiled at her and said it was a very nice name, and in future that was what she was to call him. She couldn’t say Aunt Celia very well either, but she kept trying. You did keep trying when Celia told you to do something. She’d learnt that. Her mother called her Lady Celia; Barty had asked soon after her third birthday, if she could call her that too, But Celia had said good gracious no, of course not, Barty was part of the family and it was much too grand a name.
‘Giles doesn’t call me Lady Celia does he?’
Barty didn’t really understand what being part of the family was, but she knew she was different from Giles and the twins. Nobody treated them the same: certainly not Nanny. Or Lettie, who helped Nanny. Or Cook. Or Truman, who drove the car. They all – except for Nanny – called the twins Miss Adele and Miss Venetia and Giles was called Master Giles. They called her Barty. And not always nicely either. ‘Barty take this up to the twins, Barty, don’t sit there, that’s Master Giles’s place, Barty, don’t shout at Miss Adele like that, Barty, how dare you take Miss Venetia’s bricks.’
She really didn’t think any of them liked her. They certainly didn’t like her being there. Sometimes Lettie, for instance, would make a great show of giving her a cuddle if Aunt Celia was in the nursery and then the minute she’d gone, she would push her away, tell her to go and tidy up the toys or fetch the towels from the laundry room in the cellar so she could bath the twins. Barty didn’t exactly mind, it seemed quite all right, really; everyone at home had to help, but she couldn’t understand why Giles never had to do anything like that. And she didn’t like the way she’d find Nanny and Lettie talking in low voices, but when she came into the room they’d stop suddenly; in fact Nanny would often scold her for trying to listen to things she had no business to hear.
Much worse than any of that was missing her mother and missing her father and missing her brothers and sisters; and worst of all was her brothers and sisters not being so pleased to see her any more. Billy was kind, and let her play with him, but the others were – well, they were rude. Told her she wasn’t one of them any more, when she wanted to be one of them again more than anything. Sometimes as she was leaving she would look at the room, with all of them jammed round the table, eating bread and dripping, talking, shouting, laughing, and pushing each other, and she would think of the nursery, right at the top of the great big house, where there was just the twins, who were so horrid, and Giles who didn’t talk to anyone much, and Nanny and Lettie, telling her to eat up her supper quickly, or to stop talking with her mouth full, and where after tea each day the twins went to bed and Giles went to his own room to do his homework, and she just had to sit quietly so she didn’t disturb the twins, not play with the toys, even, until it was her bedtime, and she couldn’t bear it.
She did have her own room; it was very small, of course, not nearly as big as Giles’s, but it was nice, and she really liked it. She could do what she liked in it: look at books, or do some drawing, or just think quietly to herself without worrying about doing the wrong thing. It was very easy to do the wrong thing: to interrupt the twins if they were saying something – although they could interrupt her and everyone listened – or ask Giles to look at a book with her, or say she felt sick. For some reason, they didn’t like her to be ill. It made them cross.
‘I’ve got enough to do, looking after the other children, without this as well,’ Lettie had complained one night, when she had been coughing so much she had woken her up. And then when they discovered she was hot and had to stay in bed, she heard Nanny, saying to Lettie, ‘It just isn’t fair. Why should we have to wait on her? She’s not one of their children, not properly. Just come off the street really.’
That made Barty cry. But the worst thing of all was being told all the time, over and over again, how grateful she should be and how lucky she was. Everyone said that: not just her mother, who was bound to, of course, but Nanny and Lettie and Truman and every now and again, even Aunt Celia.
‘You’re a very lucky little girl, Barty,’ she said one night, quite sternly, when she had found her crying on the stairs and Barty had told her she wanted her mother, ‘you should be grateful instead of miserable. How do you think your mother would feel if she knew?’
Barty felt quite sure that if her mother did know, she’d take her back in spite of her dad being out of work; but she had been told so often she mustn’t worry her, that she would have found it almost impossible now to get the words out. She just had to be brave and good, and one day she would be allowed to go home again. One day.
‘I’m always surprised you don’t get more mixed up with them,’ said Jago. He was sitting in LM’s drawing room, reading Saturday’s Daily Herald; it carried on its front page a photograph of Mrs Pankhurst and some of her ladies, pressing a petition on some politician who was attempting rather unsuccessfully to ignore them. ‘I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again. There you are, perfect example, a successful working woman, college-educated, and you don’t throw your weight behind them. You ought to.’
‘You have indeed said it before, and as I’ve said before, I don’t have time,’ said LM slightly stiffly.
‘That’s no excuse. Suppose Mrs Pankhurst said that. Where’d you all be then?’
‘We’re still nowhere much yet, anyway.’
‘Meg! I’m surprised at you. You might not have got the vote yet, but everyone’s certainly thinking about it. Look at that demonstration last June, forty thousand women. All demanding the vote.’
‘Yes, and I was one of them.’
‘I know, I know. But that was about the beginning and the end of it, far as you were concerned. I think you should do more for them, I really do.’
‘I’m never quite sure why,’ she said, ‘why you care so much.’
‘It’s what politics is all about,’ he said simply, ‘to me. The underprivileged getting help. Getting their rights, getting what they need. Women are underprivileged, you must see that. Regarded as second class citizens. Paid shockingly. Kept down by men by a kind of divine right. It’s not right.’
‘I know it’s not right,’ said LM, ‘but I don’t feel I can do anything about it, Jago. Not personally. The very fact I am a working woman means I don’t have time to chain myself to railings and smash windows, all that sort of thing. I’m proving myself and my sex in other ways.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘doesn’t speak much for your sense of sisterhood, that’s all I can say. I think I’m going to join them anyway. Go to some meetings and that. Not the suffragettes probably, the suffragists. More peaceful, not so aggressive. Probably because a lot of men belong.’ He grinned.
‘Of course you must do that,’ said LM, ‘if that’s what you want.’
‘It is. And I will. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a while now. Anyway, what about your work? Couldn’t you publish some books ab
out it? That would be something you really could do to help. Half the problem is hardly anyone agrees with women getting the vote. Men say women are incapable of making a political decision, that they’d stop marrying and having children, all that rubbish. You could change all that. Well some of it, anyway.’
‘We run a publishing house, not a newspaper,’ said LM briskly. ‘It’s not our job to publish propaganda. Now are we going for this walk, or not, before it gets dark?’
‘I think we’re not,’ he said.
‘Why not? Because I’m not a good suffragette?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘because I can think of a better thing to do. On this very nasty cold afternoon. Even better than chaining yourself to a railing.’
She looked at him; he had thrown the paper down, was sitting back in his chair, a lazy grin softening his rather fierce features. LM’s senses lurched; she smiled back at him and stood up.
‘Come on then,’ she said, ‘let’s not waste any more time.’
But later, lying happily sated in his arms, his words came drifting back into her head. Perhaps there was something she could do for the suffragettes through Lyttons. Perhaps with Celia’s help . . .
‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ said Celia, ‘really wonderful. Of course we can’t publish propaganda as such. Although we could possibly do a biography of Mrs P. Or the Gore Booth sisters, they’re really interesting. Rich, aristocratic, clever and yet they believe in it all, work terribly hard. People would be fascinated by them, I’m sure. But I actually think the way to push the female cause is through fiction. Too much popular literature supports the notion of the little women at home, taking care of their menfolk. And when I think of women like Sylvia, of what they have to endure and go on enduring for the rest of their lives and their daughters after them – well . . .’
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