No Angel

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘I have every right, every reason to visit Lyttons, Lady Celia,’ said Sebastian now, ‘I bring you my new oeuvre. Which against considerable odds, largely of your making, I have been able to complete.’

  ‘Sebastian! I don’t take up that much of your time.’

  ‘Possibly not my time. But you consume my attention. That is far more disruptive. Anyway, here it is. Don’t you want to see it?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  He came over to her, kissed her quickly.

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘I am tired,’ she said.

  She did indeed feel it: heavily, achingly tired. The energy, which had been one of her greatest gifts, had deserted her. It was, she knew partly emotional trauma: she was beginning to find herself very unhappy. It shocked her this unhappiness: that something begun so joyfully, as a self-indulgence, a bid for pleasure, should have converted so swiftly into the reverse. All she seemed to feel these days was, at best, a deep longing, a yearning to be with Sebastian all the time, and, at worst, a mixture of discontent and sadness.

  When she was not with him, she thought only of when she would be, counting days, hours, until they were together; the moment they were alone, she felt only distress that it was passing too swiftly, and dread at the inevitable parting. Sebastian teased her about it at first, became irritated with it later.

  ‘We are doing this because we love one another,’ he said, ‘because we want to be happy. What is the point, if all you do is cry?’

  She said she was sorry, she would try to be more positive, to enjoy it, thinking of her mother’s words as well, so like Sebastian’s: ‘Enjoy it, there’s no point in it, if you don’t.’

  But it didn’t quite work. Guilt was added more and more to her emotions: perversely, Oliver seemed changed, more patient with her, less criticial, increasingly loving.

  ‘It isn’t fair,’ she said to Sebastian, ‘it just isn’t fair, I came to you because I felt he didn’t love me any more; that made it all right, somehow, or at least not so bad. Now he seems to love me more than ever.’

  He wanted to make love more often too, these days; that was difficult. ried to welcome him, to respond, to enjoy him even, but it was difficult, however hard she struggled; and there were times when she simply could not go through with it, would plead exhaustion, distraction, feign sleep. She looked back on the early days of their marriage, the days before the war, when lovemaking with Oliver had been a constant delight, when she had welcomed him into her body night after night, had been not merely responsive but creative in bed with him. Now it was all she could do to accept him, pretending pleasure, feigning orgasm; he appeared content with what she offered him, but that troubled her, too. Was she really so faithless, so duplicitous that she could deceive him, so thoroughly?

  ‘I think he knows,’ said Sebastian one day, when she complained to him of Oliver’s new sweetness and tenderness. She stared at him.

  ‘Knows? What do you mean, Sebastian? Surely not, he can’t.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t realise he knows. He’s only aware of a change in you. A distancing. He doesn’t want to examine it, or the causes, but he does know. So he’s fighting back. Poor sod,’ he added lightly.

  ‘Don’t talk about Oliver like that,’ she said, ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just so hard for me too. Have you thought of that? Thinking of you always with him, waking with him, sleeping with him, talking to him, sharing your life with him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said soberly, ‘yes, I have thought of that, Of course. But – he has a right to it, Sebastian. You don’t. He is my husband, the father of my children. You can’t fight that.’

  ‘I could,’ he said, ‘if you would let me.’

  ‘No!’ she said, the word an explosion of fear. ‘No, I won’t. You are not to.’

  But in the sleepless nights, she did think of it; of letting him. Letting him force things through, of making her divorce Oliver. And then would turn her mind away from it, quickly, fearfully. It was too beguiling a vision, too great a temptation, to allow herelf to consider.

  To escape from her unhappiness, she had launched herself into a fever of social activity; went to every party, every dinner, patronised the new nightclubs. Nightclubs were where the new life, the frantic frenetic post-war life was most potently lived. The favourite of that particular hour was the Grafton Galleries which had a negro band and was open until two am; the Prince of Wales was a member – although seldom seen there, I have to admit – Celia said. Anyway, that was where she was going: every night. Or nearly every night. With crowds of friends. Crowds of friends and Jack. And Lily, who very often joined them after her show. Celia liked Lily. She was fun. She was a bit spiky, and very sharp; but she was great fun and seemed genuinely fond of Jack. She had been introduced to Oliver now; he was charmed by her. Most people were; she was very charming.

  They also frequented the big London hotels, most notably the Savoy, which had pioneered the latest fad, the dinner dance, and where the non-stop dancing could continue even through dinner, to the horror of the older generation, and where the band was superb, and the cocktails were the finest.

  Celia made Oliver buy a cocktail shaker and, when Brunson’s skills with it were found wanting, despite tuition from Jack, they made Daniels try. Daniels made superb cocktails. Cocktails were the new thing: along with the endless dancing and the new music sensation from America, jazz.

  ‘We must give a cocktail party,’ she said to Oliver, only a day after arriving home from Glasgow, through a haze of sadness.

  ‘Must we really?’ he said.

  ‘We must,’ said Jack, who seemed particularly pleased to see her, and anxious to please; so Oliver agreed, and a hundred people came to Cheyne Walk that Saturday – short notice for invitations was another new thing – to enjoy Atta Boys and Gimlets and Daniels’ finest, a literally heady mix of rye whisky, egg white, lemon juice and absinthe called a Rattlesnake.

  ‘So called because it will either cure a Rattlesnake bite, or kill Rattlesnakes, or make you see them,’ Celia expained to her guests. ‘You’ll adore it.’

  They did adore it and the others too, and afterwards went in a large crowd to another new and wildly smart place, the Cecil Club, better known as the Forty-Three, where they danced until two.

  Oliver went with them that night, as their host, but usually, and certainly during the week, when Celia went out dining or nightclubbing, he would plead weariness and stay at home. The pleas were genuine, but did not help either her state of mind or her marriage. Sometimes, on those nights, Sebastian would join the crowd; it was a painful pleasure, to be with him, and yet need to to be watchful, terribly, dreadfully watchful, to be in his arms, but only dancing, worse, even still to watch others in his arms, and to kiss him goodnight and then wave him gaily off. He had become accepted now as part of their circle, no one questioned his presence, and besides, he was extremely popular, so good-looking, so charming, with the added glamour of fame and success and the slight air of mystery which surrounded his private life.

  ‘He must have a mistress somewhere,’ said one of Celia’s friends, Elspeth Granchester, as they watched Sebastian disporting himself, despite his gammy leg on the dance floor at the Savoy with Lily. His energy and creativity had been fuelled by several Old-Fashioneds, his own favourite cocktail. ‘He’s so desperately attractive, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Celia said, taking a rather large gulp from her own cocktail glass, ‘I mean, yes, he’s very attractive. But I don’t know about the mistress. I don’t think he has the time.’

  ‘Darling, one can always make time for sex,’ said Elspeth Granchester.

  ‘You don’t still think Celia’s cheating on Oliver, do you?’ said Jack, ‘not now you know her. Not now you know them?’

  Lily looked at him; she was regretting her initial outburst. Jack adored Oliver and he loved Celia; the thought of them being less than perfectly happy with one anot
her was infinitely painful for him. Although how he could think they were perfectly happy, when they were living what seemed to Lily almost separate lives, she couldn’t imagine. Still – there was no point in upsetting him. And it was nothing to do with her. Not really.

  ‘No, I think I was was probably wrong,’ she said giving him a quick kiss, ‘sorry.’

  ‘And you do like her?’

  ‘Course I do. I like her a lot.’

  It was true; she did. Liked and admired her. Even if she had got a lover. And she really couldn’t blame her. Oliver was sweet, but he was very quiet. Quiet and dull. Lily knew she’d go mad in five minutes, living with someone like that. On the other hand, she was still mildly shocked, she couldn’t help it. She was very moral in her attitude towards marriage: her parents had been – still were – wonderfully happy, and she had grown up knowing marriage at its best and with a great respect for it.

  She wished Jack would hurry up and find a place of his own. It wasn’t just that she was beginning to fancy a bit more than she was getting (and it was every bit as nice as she’d thought it would be, even if it was in rather seedy hotels) but it was a bit undignified, living with your brother and his wife at the age of thirty-five. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford a place either; he went on and on about how little he was paid, but he seemed to her to have plenty of money. He had stocks and shares and in Lily’s book, anyone with those had money. She was always offering to help him find somewhere and she had checked out a few places. One dear little mews house in Chelsea was perfect. But he just didn’t seem that keen. She supposed it was all too easy for him: meals on tap, no rent, come and go as he liked. Well, she might have to gee him up a bit. She wasn’t prepared to put up with this indefinitely.

  The one thing Celia couldn’t bear was being alone with Oliver; the guilt and the sadness spiralled up in her until she could stay with him no longer and literally had to leave the room. She knew she was behaving altogether badly; she was drinking too much, eating too little, smoking heavily – she had taken it up recently and had a collection of the new, outrageous long cigarette holders – neglecting her children – she couldn’t remember when she had last written to Giles – and she found a strange solace in buying clothes, on which she lavished an enormous amount of money.

  She had always loved clothes, but the new ones that summer were glorious: the soft, easy knitted jackets and jumpers from Chanel, so simple, so unutterably chic, and for the evening an entirely new glamour, the silhouette slender, dresses which clung to the uncorseted body, with wonderful handkerchief pointed hemlines, swooping, drooping silken drapes. Then there were the long ropes of pearls and of course the bandeaux, sometimes glittering, sometimes silk or velvet, worn low on her forehead, showing off her new, short hair. And the shoes! The pointed, strappy, glitter-trimmed shoes in silk and satin and pastel leather: she could not have enough of them, had more than a dozen pairs she had hardly worn.

  ‘You look very thin these days,’ Sebastian said severely now. ‘You’re not eating properly.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I can’t. Sebastian don’t lecture me, and you really must go away. We’re going down to my mother’s tomorrow night, for four days with the American lot – you’d love Felicity, she’s charming – and I have so much to do before we go.’

  ‘I’m not going to go,’ he said, ‘until you’ve read at least one chapter of Meridian Times Two,’ this was the name they had given the first sequel, after much thought. ‘So don’t try and get rid of me. I shall sit here and watch you working quietly, until you can find a moment for me.’

  ‘Oh – all right then. It had better be now. Otherwise I shan’t be able to concentrate. Sit down there and be quiet, for heaven’s sake.’

  He sat down on one of her sofas and she started to read; after a few pages she looked up at him and smiled.

  ‘I love it so much,’ she said, ‘it’s just as wonderful. How do you do it, Sebastian?’

  ‘Oh – just natural genius,’ he said with a shrug, and then, ‘you look quite different suddenly. What is it?’

  ‘It’s this,’ she said gesturing at the manuscript, ‘it’s reminded me, as if I needed it, of exactly why I love you.’

  That Thursday morning, Jasper Lothian, Master of St Nicholas College, Cambridge, was reading his Spectator when he came across a paragraph in the literary section which caused him a stab of concern. He moved on to other articles, and then set the paper aside, expecting the stab to recede, but found it still troubling him at the end of the day; his wife, Vanessa, finding him rather distracted over dinner, asked him if anything was wrong. Jasper Lothian said there was nothing, but Vanessa knew him rather too well to take this as an answer. Finally, and a little reluctantly, for she was famous for her formidable will and her refusal to accept anything which she did not entirely like, he showed her the Spectator article. Vanessa read it in silence, twice and then looked at him; her eyes were hard.

  ‘I think you should speak to our solicitor,’ she said.

  They arrived at Ashingham at teatime the next day, two cars full; the first was the huge Rolls, driven by Oliver, with Felicity, Celia, Robert and Kyle, and Giles – who they had picked up at Eton. The second was what Oliver called his vintage car, a large Morris Bullnose, driven by Daniels and bearing Barty, the twins, Maud, Nanny and Celia’s maid.

  ‘This is just beautiful,’ said Felicity, jumping out of the car, gazing around her at Ashingham, its Palladian splendour, enhanced by the sharp-edged light of an early Spring evening, and at the fields sweeping below its high terrace, ‘so very beautiful. Just as I imagined it, and never quite dared to hope it could be.’

  ‘How kind of you,’ said Lady Beckenham. ‘I suppose that coming from your country, you’re not used to seeing decent houses.’

  It was an odd remark; fortunately, Celia had warned Felicity, about her mother.

  In the event, Lady Beckenham took to Felicity rather strongly. She discovered that she hunted in Virginia and that her grandfather was a general, neither of which she had expected and told Celia in a loud voice over drinks before dinner that Felicity seemed to be quite well-bred for an American. The ultimate seal of approval – an invitation to look through the bloodstock records of Ashingham – came when she discovered that Felicity’s mother collected Staffordshire china and had had Georgian panelling imported from England to adorn the dining-room in the family house.

  ‘I really hadn’t expected to enjoy your visit,’ she said, leading her off to the library after dinner, ‘but I can see it’s going to be rather fun.’

  ‘Good,’ said Felicity, ‘I think so too.’

  She managed, with an enormous effort, not to admire any of the pictures, or the furniture; ‘Terribly bad form in English country houses,’ Celia warned her, but felt it was probably all right to request a visit to the stables. It was.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lady Beckenham, ‘I’d like that very much. We could ride, if you like, in the morning.’

  Felicity said she would like it very much, but she didn’t have any riding clothes and hadn’t Lady Beckenham got a great deal to do?

  ‘Not really. Why should I have?’

  ‘Well ten more people arriving – surely—’

  ‘Oh, not really. I’ve built up a very good staff again, the rooms are done, and Cook is marvellous, I just tell her how many people are coming and she does the rest. I don’t plan the meals or anything like that and, of course, Beckenham and the butler sort out the wine. Biggest headache is changing the placement every night, so people don’t get bored. Dinner was all right, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was delicious,’ said Felicity, ‘the pheasant especially—’

  ‘Yes, well, you see that’s all so easy, with plenty of our own birds. Cook is an awfully good woman, although she’s quite young. She does marvellous shooting picnics, food all in hay boxes, you know. Now then, riding clothes. I’m much smaller than you, so my breeches won’t fit you, or my boots, but some of Celia’s things are still he
re. She might like to come with us.’

  They were the only guests that evening; after dinner they went into the drawing-room and played games. Not the charades so dreaded by Kyle, but card games, consequences, and a start was made on the weekend’s jigsaw.

  Kyle found it all rather odd, to be sitting in this immensely grand room, with everyone in evening dress, playing children’s games, but he felt happier than he had for weeks. He had enjoyed the day before at Lyttons more than he would have believed possible; he had walked in with Celia, into the untidy, dusty, almost shabby offices, so at variance with their rather grand exterior, where the walls were lined from ceiling to floor with books, the desks piled with books, seen the huge cellar filled with truckloads of books, the loft room in which the archives were stored, packed with books, and felt he had come home. He was surprised by the size of the operation, by how many people were working there: about thirty, Oliver said when he was giving him a tour.

  ‘Well we publish upwards of a hundred books a year, they require a lot of people.’

  There were of course the editorial staff, the design office and the accounts department. This was a large room with a glass door, on which the words ‘Counting House’ were embossed in gold letters. Here men, wearing green eye shades, sat at high desks, looking exactly as if they were working in a newspaper office. Then there were what seemed like an army of office boys and clerks and the lookers out, whose job was literally to look out the books from the warehouse to meet that day’s orders. After the guided tour Kyle, looking slightly apologetic, had asked if there was anything he could do. Oliver said would he like to sort out some old manuscripts and proofs that had been in boxes since the war, into date order and re-file them?

  ‘It’s a ghastly job, very tedious, but it has to be done, some of them are very precious. I would be grateful and you could see the sort of thing we used to do. It might interest you.’