No Angel

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘Is that so?’ She was getting angry now; she couldn’t help it. ‘Well, let me tell you those second-rate women worked like slaves here all through the war. Each one doing the work of three. Often with bombs falling around them. Sleeping here, even, when there was a raid on. Doing their own cleaning. LM and I cleaned the lavatories personally, it might amuse you to know—’

  ‘My heart bleeds for you, Celia. How dreadful. Life in the trenches couldn’t possibly compete with that.’

  ‘Oh damn life in the trenches,’ she said savagely. ‘I am sick to death of hearing about it. About the mud and the stench and the rats. Absolutely sick of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, his voice measured and very polite. His face was very white. ‘I got quite sick of it myself, as a matter of fact. But I’ll try not to refer to it again.’

  Celia stared at him; she suddenly felt nauseous. That had been unforgivable. Absolutely unforgivable. She looked at him, went forward, tried to touch him. He shied away from her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Oliver. Very sorry. I should never have said that. Please forgive me.’

  He was silent.

  ‘But – don’t you understand. In my – our own way, we did have a hard time here, too. It was lonely. Worrying. Dangerous even. The responsibilities were huge – the children, the company—’

  ‘You looked after the children very well,’ he said with an emphasis on the word children, and this time his voice was very bitter indeed.

  ‘ Oliver—’

  ‘I have to tell you, Celia, that I think a military list would do something towards restoring Lyttons’ reputation, as a quality house. I am thinking very seriously of agreeing to Jack’s proposition. And if I do, I shall expect your full co-operation.’

  Celia looked at him, and then turned and walked out of the office. She couldn’t take any more.

  His criticism of her was endless: nothing was right for him. The way the house was run, the new staff she had hired at home, the hours she worked, even their social life came under fire.

  ‘You may go if you wish,’ he would say as invitations came in, ‘I would prefer to stay at home. I don’t feel up to any of that sort of nonsense. Simply working is exhausting enough.’

  She did go sometimes: at others she stayed with him, endeavouring to make their evenings together pleasurable. She bought gramophone records of the classical music he so loved, large sets so that he could play an entire symphony, or marked items in the newspapers so that they could discuss them at dinner, items about the things which had always so concerned them both, the growth of the Labour Party, the success of the suffragette movement, the social unrest, the plight of the disabled soldiers home from the war. She briefed Cook to make his rather bland diet as interesting as possible, and often suggested a gentle walk along the Embankment after dinner. Sometimes he seemed pleased, and went along with her plans, more often he did not, claiming a headache or indigestion, and disappeared into his study. Those evenings were almost a relief; at least she could get on with her own work.

  But still he did not make love to her.

  She could scarcely believe they had ever existed now, the wonderful sudden swoops of desire which had seen them hurrying up to their room in the evening, or shaking one another awake early in the morning, the smiling preamble, the verbal teasing, the, ‘Surely not again, Celia?’ the, ‘I suppose I could if you really want me to, Oliver,’ words that belied their on-going need for and delight in one another.

  She struggled for patience, to remember what he had said to her, to understand; but it was hard. Hard in the face of her own desire and frustration, doubly so in the face of his criticism. Had he been loving in other ways, had he talked to her, listened to her, told her he loved her often, kissed her, held her in his arms, she could, she thought, have endured it more easily; but he retired to his study each night after dinner, leaving her alone, and it was very rare that he even came to her room. She could see he was wretched about it, embarrassed, ashamed, but she was trying so hard to understand him, to support him, and she got almost nothing in return.

  But if home was not entirely happy, work was turning into pure misery, every day a call on wells of patience she had no idea she possessed, and when that failed, or her conviction that Oliver was wrong became overwhelming, there were noisy exchanges behind the closed doors of their respective offices, as he tried to reverse her decisions, questioned her judgement, demanded her acquiescence. She felt diminished, not only in the eyes of her staff, but in her very self, something she would never have believed possible. In the worst moments of the war, when she had been beleaguered and frightened, not only by the Germans but by soaring costs, diminished income, and a growing belief that nobody would never buy books again, she had still known precisely what she wanted and was trying to do. That sense had begun to desert her in the face of Oliver’s interminable censure.

  And then she would not have believed how badly she missed LM. Her calm, rather stern presence had been a support to her ever since she could remember, her sudden robust laugh, her oddly raucous sense of humour, her huge capacity for work, her shrewd judgement. But she was going to have to get used to being without her. She was not coming back. She had moved temporarily into the Dovecot with Jay and was in the process of buying a small house on the edge of Ashingham village. One day, she said to Celia, one day, perhaps, when Jay was away at school – ‘and I am not at all sure I will be sending him away, not sure that Jago would have wanted that’ – she would come back to work. Not before.

  ‘I know I shall find it boring and frustrating and I shall miss Lyttons dreadfully. But Jay is more important. I have learned my lesson.’

  Jay was recovering fast; already regaining his strength, the strange, white, thin face becoming round and rosy again, his leg mending well. He was sublimely happy to be back at Ashingham, and in the absence of Barty and the twins, had latched on to Billy; as soon as he recovered enough to leave the tiny garden of the Dovecot he headed for the stables on his crutches and followed Billy around until he was hauled home again to rest.

  ‘Look at the pair of you,’ Lady Beckenham roared one morning, arriving as Billy set Jay to work sweeping the yard, ‘pair of cripples. It’s like having the convalescent home all over again.’

  She had arranged for Billy to have a more sophisticated artificial leg made; ‘You’ll be able to use it more like a normal leg, I’m told. It’ll have a knee, so to speak. Much better for riding.’

  She had also promised to give Jay riding lessons as soon as his leg was better; the very thought of him in a situation where he might fall off and fracture it again, or even break something else, sent LM into paroxysms of anxiety, but Lady Beckenham talked to her quite severely about it one night when she was close to tears. Jay had gone missing for an hour or more, and was then found in the woods, happily damming a stream, using his crutch to form the main structure.

  ‘You can’t wrap him up in cotton wool, you know. He’s a boy and a damn fine one. I know he’s had a bad experience and so have you, but he’s over it now, and fussing over him like an old hen will simply make him anxious. He has to lead a normal boy’s life, that’s why you’re here. You’ve done the right thing, getting him out of London and now you’ve got to let him benefit from it. He’ll be all right, there’s no danger here. Unless you count falling from the odd hayloft or horse, which all mine did without coming to any harm whatsoever.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said LM meekly. She was not used to being told what to do; it was rather soothing.

  She had written to Gordon Robinson, thanking him for his letter, assuring him that she did not blame him in the least, and that Jay seemed to be making a good recovery; he had written again and asked if he might visit Jay, ‘and perhaps bring some books to amuse him. It isn’t much fun being laid up. I broke my arm as a boy, and can still remember the boredom of one whole school holidays, forbidden to climb trees and unable to play cricket.’

  She had thought how kind and cons
iderate he had sounded, had written back and said that would be extremely kind; but on the appointed day he had telephoned to say that he was not well himself. ‘Only a gastric upset, but not ideal for visting an invalid.’ LM had been almost disappointed, had suggested another day, but they had been unable to settle on one before she moved down to Ashingham.

  ‘Some other time then,’ he said; the next day a large box of books arrived by carrier, rather grown-up for Jay, some of them, but certainly of a standard she approved of, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels.

  ‘I am not sure how old Jay is,’ he wrote, ‘but if these are too old for him, they can be kept. It is never too soon to start building up a library. I believe there is a wonderful new children’s book about to be published, but I was unable to find it. Anyway, I hope he will enjoy these, and I look forward to making his acquaintance some time in the future.’

  He was clearly a most suitable friend and mentor for Jay, even if he had come close to killing him.

  ‘That’s a very pretty dress,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I like pink. Always have.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. And it suits you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

  ‘Would it like to go out to lunch, do you think?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, not today.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m quite sure. I really can’t come out today.’

  She kept saying that; putting it off. She felt she had to: although of course there was no reason why, really. It was only a lunch. A lunch to discuss all sorts of things. Publishing things. The launch of Meridian was timed for December, only a few months away. There really was quite a lot to think about, to arrange. Interviews with the literary papers, readings, meetings with the major bookshops. That was what she kept telling herself. And that self listened dutifully, then turned around and told her the actual truth: which was that lunch with Sebastian would lead not merely to a carefully planned publication of his book, but to an affair with him. There was no way she could avoid it: whichever path she took, whatever diversion she made, it would be there, confronting her. She was afraid of it, she shrank from it indeed; and yet, she felt, against her will, a hastening towards it, a growing impatience now to let it begin.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘if you’ve come about the proofs—’

  ‘I haven’t come about anything,’ he said, ‘as you very well know. Except to see you.’

  ‘Sebastian, I’m very busy. I really can’t go out to lunch with you today.’

  ‘What about tomorrow?’

  ‘No. I won’t be here tomorrow.’

  ‘Where are you going? Lunching with someone else, I suppose. Tell me who it is, so that I can warn him of the dangers.’

  ‘I am lunching with someone else, yes,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow is Saturday. It’s the Fourth of June at Eton. We’re all going.’

  ‘How charming. Even the twins?’

  ‘Of course the twins. They’re wild with excitement. They have new dresses and coats and hats for the occasion.’

  ‘And do you have a new dress and coat and hat?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘I shall just have to contain my impatience. But that particular dress is just made to go for lunch. In the garden.’

  ‘The garden?’

  ‘Yes. Of my house in Primrose Hill. I’m still waiting to show it to you. I hope you haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said, ‘but—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sebastian—’

  ‘Yes, Celia. Ah. Oliver good morning. I just came in to pick up my proofs. I have to leave now. Perhaps we could dine one night, discuss the publication details.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oliver, ‘yes, that would be delightful. Celia, we have to do something about these jackets—’

  ‘He seems to spend a lot of time here,’ said Oliver when Sebastian had gone.

  ‘Does he?’ she said, ‘I really hadn’t noticed.’

  Giles was looking forward with something close to longing to seeing his family the next day. Even the twins. The twins were, in any case, much more bearable now. Not exactly sensible, but not so silly. And very pretty. It was nice to have pretty sisters, even if they were only nine. And it would be lovely to see Barty. She was getting really pretty now too. All that curly brown hair. And he liked her voice, sounding a bit as if she had a sore throat.

  He was actually, and greatly to his surprise and relief, quite happy at Eton. It would have been much nicer to be at home; but compared with the early days at St Christopher’s it was heaven. One of the best things was having his own room, tiny as it was, with a bed that folded up against the wall, and its own small grate, bookcase and writing desk. Even the housemaster had to knock before entering. You couldn’t help feeling grown-up. And then the boys were all addressed as ‘Gentlemen’. As in ‘Gentlemen may wear half change (which meant a tweed jacket) after twelve’, or, ‘Several gentlemen have left their umbrellas in Chapel’. That made him feel really grown-up too. Grown up and important. He didn’t even mind the clothes: he was tall, and knew they suited him. The first time he surveyed himself in the mirror wearing the striped trousers, tail coat and top hat, he felt quite different suddenly.

  The food was horrible; but then it had been at St Christopher’s. That was part of school life, although it was rumoured that when a boy had committed suicide recently at Eton, and when the housemaster had asked if anyone could throw any light on it, someone had said, ‘Please sir, could it be anything to do with the food?’ Tea was the best meal; you could cook it yourself, fried eggs, sausages, bacon, and, of course, toast, made at your own fire. The richer boys – Giles was not among them – ordered things like grouse and pheasant from Rowlands, the official café in the town. Of course you also had to cook for your fag-master, who came from the elite Library body, a group of senior boys; this could be arduous, but Giles was lucky again, as he had certainly not been at St Christopher’s and had a pretty nice fag-master. His best friend, Willoughby, who had been at St. Christopher’s with him, had a ghastly one; he was beaten constantly, usually in the presence of the head of house. There was nothing to be done about it, they both knew that; it was simply what happened.

  The other thing which simply happened was harder to bear than the beating. Something that Giles had been warned about in the most veiled and peculiar terms when he had been about to leave St Christopher’s, something that many fathers (although most assuredly not Oliver) had also hinted at, something that Willoughby suffered a great deal, and that Giles had so far escaped. Willoughby was small and blond and slightly girly-looking. After a very few days his fag-master, who was also a member of Pop – the society composed of the most exceptional and outrageous boys in the school – called him to his study, locked the door, and told him to pull his trousers down. Fearing yet another beating, Willoughby did so resignedly; what followed was far worse. Giles listened to the details, whispered to him behind his own locked door, with sympathetic distress.

  ‘But why?’ he kept saying, ‘why should they want to do that?’ Willoughby said he didn’t quite know, but they seemed to get a lot of pleasure from it. ‘It hurts,’ he said to Giles, ‘it really hurts,’ and started to cry.

  Giles was deeply distressed, but knew there was nothing to be done about it, no one to complain to; he had already learned from his fag-master amongst others – that such things were part of the ethos of the school, and masters as well as boys were involved in it.

  So far Giles had escaped, although he knew he was in the minority; the only encounter of a sexual nature he had had was with his housemaster, who insisted on the whole house being regularly inspected, naked.

  ‘We have to make sure you don’t have venereal disease,’ he said; ‘come on, boy, let’s have a look at you.’ Giles, who had no clear idea what venereal disease was, but could only suppose it
was something extremely dangerous, submitted to some minor intimacies without complaint, and was grateful it wasn’t any worse.

  His prowess on the athletics field was of no immediate use to him, but he was very strong, and much better co-ordinated than he had been. He was developing a modestly good bowling technique, and running fast was an indubitable advantage on the cricket pitch. He knew he would probably never be in the first eleven, but he played for his house junior team and enjoyed it; and he was enjoying, too, the academic facilities at Eton, its superb classical traditions, and the extravagances and eccentricities of the various beaks or masters. The standard was set by the headmaster, Dr Allington, who stalked about the school, wearing an overcoat made of polar bear skin, and preached such superb sermons that people actually looked forward to going to chapel. Then there was CO Beaven, who drank a thimbleful of iodine before Early School, the lesson which took place before breakfast; John Christie who taught theoretical science, without appearing to know a great deal about it, and took Early School in his dressing-gown. Giles particularly admired Jack Upcott, who taught Elizabethan history, and who was famous for saying that he would forgive any boy anything if he could make him laugh. Giles had no talent at all in that direction, but he found echoes of both his mother and his grandmother in Dr Upcott, something to do with a regard for any kind of excellence, and the view that it excused all manner of other things.

  They all arrived at noon at Agar’s Plough, in the new Rolls; the twins, in pale blue coats and shoes and flower-trimmed straw bonnets, fell out and rushed at him, Barty followed more slowly, smiling shyly. Then came his Uncle Jack, who said he’d been unable to resist and hoped Giles wouldn’t mind his being there – which of course he didn’t; he liked Jack a lot, he was always good fun, and full of stories about his own schooldays at Wellington and the terrible scrapes he had got into. And then his mother, looking staggeringly beautiful in a straight, dark blue dress in sort of shiny material, with a loose tie round the neck, and her dark hair cut much shorter, half hidden by a white hat with an enormous drooping brim and wide ribbon. Barty whispered to him that it was from somewhere called Chanel.