No Angel

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘The midwife!’

  ‘Yeah,’

  ‘But Mum never had midwives, I thought Mrs Scott always helped her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. But there was a midwife, I know that. Anyway, what does it matter?’

  ‘Oh – it doesn’t really, I suppose. But the night before she – died, Mum was very ill, rambling and she kept talking about it. About the baby. She thought she was having it. Oh dear.’

  Her lip quivered at the memory. Billy put his arm round her.

  ‘It was so awful, Billy. She was in such pain. And Doctor Perring said she should go to hospital and I—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I said she was frightened of hosptials, and did she have to go? And maybe if she had – then – oh Bill—’

  ‘No,’ he said, gently, ‘it wouldn’t have made no difference. There was nothing they could do. The doctor told me.’

  ‘Yes, I know then. But the day before – maybe—’

  ‘You could ask the doctor. Set your mind at rest.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Course. He seems a nice chap. Why’s he here all the time, anyway?’

  ‘Aunt Celia isn’t very well. He comes every day to see her at the moment.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s got a bad cough. Billy, this baby that died – was there anything wrong with it?’

  ‘Barty, do give over about the baby. I don’t know. If you want to know more about it, why don’t you ask Mrs Scott. She might be able to help.’

  ‘Oh God. Dear, dear God.’

  ‘What Oliver? What is it?’

  ‘Look at this.’ He held a piece of paper out to LM with a shaking hand.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s an injunction.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Yes. It just arrived. By special messenger who insisted on handing this to me personally. It says – let me see – yes, the judge has heard an application for an affidavit submitted by Messrs Collins, Collins and Shaw and the injunction on the publication of the work known as The Buchanan Saga is – is hereby granted and served. So that’s it. Oh, LM. How did this happen?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said LM. ‘How could it have happened? We didn’t know about any hearing, we weren’t told, we haven’t been able to put our case—’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Oliver. He rubbed his hands across his eyes; he looked absolutely exhausted. ‘Well, whatever the reason, we’re done for now. This is the end of Lyttons.’

  ‘Are we? Are we really? It seems so unfair. Can’t we contest it at least, demand the judge hears our side of the story? Can’t we find out how this happened, there must be some mistake, surely—’

  ‘I’ll get on to Briscoe at once. See what he says. But – I don’t have a lot of hope, I must say.’

  ‘Yes, this is Susannah Bartlett. Good morning, Mr Worsley. Yes, I feel much better, thank you. No, I’m still happy to talk to you tomorrow. If that’s soon enough. Apart from everything else, I have an urgent translation to do today. That’s what I do for a living, you see.’

  She had a pretty voice, Guy thought. She sounded nice. Very nice. ‘I’m not sure quite how much I can help – if you tell me the sort of thing you want to know, I can be thinking about it. Just university life in general, or what it was like for a woman or—’

  ‘Yes,’ said Guy, seizing on the latter as being both true and sounding quite likely. ‘Yes, that, certainly.’

  ‘Right. Well, it was quite – interesting. As you can probably imagine. There weren’t many of us. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Here, at eleven. There’s a train that comes to Ealing Broadway station, then you just walk across the green, anyone will help you.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, thank you very much indeed.’

  ‘Well,’ said Susannah Bartlett, putting down the phone, ‘I wonder what you really want, young man. And why. And what on earth it’s got to do with Jasper Lothian.’

  Wednesday: Wednesday already. Only two days left to decide. She had retreated into limbo again, Sylvia’s death, the arrangements for Sylvia’s funeral absorbing her. It was very frightening, this deadline. When the time for decision was infinite, or when at least there had been no stop on it, it had seemed quite easy. One day, she had told herself then, she would decide. One days things would be decided for her. Something would happen and then she would know. But – in forty-eight hours? Less than forty-eight hours now. What could possibly settle it for her now? And if she decided to stay, the decision was irrevocable. There would be no changing, no going back. Or rather going. No saying to Sebastian, I’ve made a mistake, I’d like to come to you after all. He’d be gone, sailing to America for months.

  She had heard of animals in traps, biting their own legs off in order to escape. Otherwise they starved. She felt a bit like that. Either way was agonising. But there were no half-measures: the decision had to be made. The clear, happy certainty of the moment she had almost gone had died: died with Sylvia. She was lost again and worse than before.

  She thanked God for the instruction to stay in bed; it had afforded her a degree of privacy, at least. Dr Perring had actually said she could get up for meals, but she had not told Oliver that. In any case, she couldn’t swallow, and unless a question was put to her directly, neither did she seem able to talk. Not coherently. She couldn’t follow the simplest conversation, the most basic argument. She would manage perhaps one sentence and then, as the reply to it came, her mind raced, unchecked, back to her dilemma and she had no idea what that reply might have been. She pleaded anxiety over Barty, distress over Sylvia; but all that occupied her, in truth, were the scales of injustice, tipping this way and that, in favour first of her husband and family and a duty in which she could see no pleasure and little point, and her lover and her love in which she could see a great deal of both, but immeasurable pain for many people she cared about. And time passed for her and waited, in its inimitable way, no one.

  ‘Daniels?’

  ‘Yes, milady.’

  ‘Daniels, would you take me down to my mother’s – to Line Street. I want to get a few things from the house. Would you mind? I’d be so grateful.’

  ‘It would be a pleasure, Miss Barty. Sorry about your mum. Very sorry. She was a nice lady.’

  ‘Yes, she was a very nice lady,’ said Barty, ‘thank you Daniels.’

  She went down the steps and into the house; there was no one in the two small rooms. The two younger children were with Frank, and Marjorie was with her young man. A pasty, spotty youth who did what Marjorie told him without argument; poor thing, little Mary had said, he must be mad. Barty silently agreed with her.

  She stood there, looking round the room: so small, so dark, so shabby, yet imprinted with her mother’s presence, with the small defiant touches of charm and prettiness which she had brought to it: the stone jug, filled with dried grasses and flowers that she had saved from a visit to Ashingham, the large photograph of all the younger children which Celia had had taken for her one Christmas and framed, two paintings by Barty in papier mâché frames that Barty had also made, the picture of her wedding day, with Sylvia looking up trustingly at Ted, Ted’s medal, pinned to the mirror over the chest of drawers, the brass oil lamp given to her by her own mother, shining as it always did. Barty could never remember a time when that lamp had not been brilliantly polished, a gleam of light in the dim room: her mother must have done it even in those last few days when she had felt so ill.

  And then the sadder things, the shabby coat, hanging on a hook behind the door and Sylvia’s black hat, the worn-out boots, the old cradle, which again, Celia had given her, used now to store clothes in – all neatly folded and clean. The threadbare curtains, the unravelled doormat. Barty thought briefly, angrily of the rooms in Cheyne Wall, refurbished year after year, rugs, curtains, covers, all changed in the name of fashion: it was all so unfair. So dreadfully dreadfully unfair. She blinked hard, brushed away the tears.

  ‘Barty,
hallo dear. What are you doing?

  ‘Oh – Mrs Scott. I just came to get a few things. Things that Mum was specially fond of.’

  ‘Of course. I’m so sorry, dear. Oh, I shall miss her myself. She was the best friend and neighbour anyone could have. Such a shame. If only she’d gone to the doctor earlier. But she was so stubborn. I don’t want you to go thinking it was your fault, she told me you tried lots of times to persuade her, and the lady too. Proud, she was, your mum. So proud. And so brave.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barty, ‘yes, she was brave.’

  ‘You’ll let me know about the funeral won’t you dear?’

  ‘Of course I will. It’s going to be next Monday, I think. We were going away this week, but we’re staying now till it’s over.’

  ‘Billy up here, is he?’

  ‘Yes. He came up to say goodbye, but – well – oh, dear—’

  ‘Come here, my lovely. That’s right. Come and have a cuddle. There we are. That’s right. You come on in to my place, I’ll give you a nice cup of cocoa. And a bit of cake, just baked it is.’

  Two pieces of cake and a cup of cocoa inside her, Barty suddenly said, ‘Mrs Scott can I ask you something?’

  ‘Course you can. What about?’

  ‘Mum had a baby. One that died.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Mrs Scott’s face had changed, become wary. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well – could you tell me about it?’

  ‘Nothing much to tell. Born dead, it was. She was. It was a little girl.’

  ‘Yes. Um – she was definitely born dead was she? She didn’t die – afterwards?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Scott firmly, ‘she was born dead, your mum said.’

  ‘Oh. Because you see she was talking about it the other night, when she was so ill. It all sounded a bit – odd somehow. Aunt Celia was there, it seems when she was – when she was having the baby.’

  ‘Yes, I think I knew that.’

  ‘And she said some very strange things. Like – well like – “don’t tell Ted”, and, “be quick, be quick”, and, “I want to look after this one.” And then she said, “It’s all over now, she’s gone.” I just – well I just couldn’t understand it.’

  ‘No, well nor could you,’ said Mrs Scott, ‘nothing for you to understand, Barty, the baby was not right, and it was as well it didn’t—’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Didn’t live.’

  ‘So it was alive? Was it?’

  ‘Barty, don’t keep on about it. It’s not important.’

  ‘It is to me,’ said Barty and she was very flushed, ‘it’s terribly important to me. I think something happened. I think there was something strange about that baby and what became of it. And why did she have a midwife? She never had a midwife, you always looked after her.’

  ‘Because there was complications,’ said Mrs Scott, ‘no need to go into them now.’

  ‘But I want to, really I do, what sort of complications?’

  ‘Barty,’ said Mrs Scott firmly, ‘there’s no point raking it all over. Really. It was all for the best what happened. Your mum was very upset at the time, but afterwards she said she knew it was for the best.’

  ‘Yes, but what? What was for the best?’

  ‘Well, that it – she – didn’t live. Your poor mum and dad had enough problems, you and five more already. It was before you went to the lady, don’t forget; another one, and crippled too she was and a lump on her back as well, how would they have managed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Barty. She clearly wasn’t going to get any further with this just now. She put down her cup. ‘Anyway, I think I ought to be going now, Mrs Scott. There’s Daniels hooting. Thank you so much for talking to me. And for everything you did for Mum. And of course we’ll let you know about the funeral. And everyone else in the street who’d like to come.’

  ‘That’ll be most of them,’ said Mrs Scott, ‘everyone round here loved your mum. Very special she was. Very special indeed.’

  ‘Yes, I know she was,’ said Barty.

  ‘They are claiming,’ said Peter Briscoe, ‘That we didn’t reply to correspondence, so they were forced to seek a hearing at short notice.’

  ‘But we didn’t know about it.’

  ‘I know that. But they wrote a letter. It did, in fact, arrive this morning. Second post. Asking why we had not come back to them. They were able to show a copy of it to the judge, who was, not too surprisingly, displeased. And they could put their case unhindered by any contradictory evidence.’

  ‘I see,’ said Oliver.

  ‘I have written to the judge, protesting, and applied for a further hearing to be inter partes. Which would take place in ten days’ time. If he grants it. Which I think he will,’ he added.

  ‘By which time our own deadline will be long past,’ said Oliver. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘This is a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. We can’t win now, LM. We really can’t. I had a call from Matthew Brunning today. He has some provisional contracts drawn up for Friday’s meeting.’

  ‘Well he may have them drawn up,’ said LM, ‘but I shall certainly not be signing anything.’

  ‘LM, we don’t have any choice. Whether we completely rewrite or pulp The Buchanans, or go ahead and fight to get the injunction withdrawn, we shall be as good as bankrupt. So it’s Lyttons as an imprint of Brunnings, or no Lyttons at all. Oh God. For the first time, I’m deeply relieved that Father is dead. What would he have said to all this?’

  LM was silent. Then she said, ‘Have you talked to Celia yet?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Oliver, you must.’

  He sighed. ‘But whatever she says, or thinks, we have to sign with Brunnings.’

  ‘Well, Celia and I don’t actually know that. And, if you don’t talk to her, I will.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll do it this evening.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said LM.

  ‘Will you be in?’

  ‘No, I have an appointment,’ said LM. She looked rather pink.

  ‘I see.’ Oliver almost smiled. ‘Well I won’t keep you. Have a good evening.’

  The Bartletts were all sitting down to supper when the telephone rang. Roger Bartlett answered it; he was gone quite a long time. He came back into the dining room, looking rather harrassed.

  ‘It’s Professor Lothian,’ he said to Susannah, ‘he wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Roger,’ said Mary, ‘is that a good idea?’

  ‘He seems to think it’s essential.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well – don’t be long dear,’ she called to Susannah.

  ‘I hope he’ll be gentle with her,’ she added, as the door closed behind her.

  ‘He promised he would.’

  Susannah wasn’t gone for long; when she came back she was looking quite calm. ‘I understand much better now,’ she said, ‘what this is all about. I can see why he was so anxious for me not to talk to this young man. Who has been rather – underhand, I must say.’

  ‘Well, dear you don’t have to talk to him.’

  ‘No, of course I don’t.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mary Bartlett, ‘well, why don’t you let me telephone him and tell him not to come. It will be far better, and then everything can get back to normal.’

  ‘Yes. What a good idea. I’ll go and get his telephone number now.’ She left the room.

  Mary Bartlett smiled happily at Roger.

  ‘Thank goodness. What a relief. I really was so worried. I—’

  ‘So stupid,’ said Susannah, coming back into the room. ‘I can’t find his number anywhere, I’ve got an awful feeing I threw his note away. I wish I wasn’t so scatty. Why don’t you intercept him for me, Mother, when he gets here in the morning. I’ll stay up in my room. Or, better still, I’ll go out for a little walk. That might be better.’

  ‘Of course, dear. I think you’ve been very sensible. Now why don’t you go and sit down with your father and have a read, and I’ll bring you some coffe
e. And, if I were you, I’d go to bed early, you look terribly tired.’

  ‘Yes, I think I might,’ said Susannah, ‘it has all been a bit of a strain.’

  ‘You’re going to sell out to Brunnings? Just – sell out?’

  ‘I don’t have any choice, Celia. Really. You have to believe me.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice!’ Her voice was hostile, scornful. ‘It’s not your decision, Oliver alone. As I understand it.’

  ‘Very well, we don’t have a choice. Does that suit you better? Don’t you understand? We are virtually bankrupt. We will be bankrupt, even if we get this injunction lifted. Lothian can still sue for libel. Or, alternatively, we don’t publish. The cost of printing those books, plus the cost of losing Brooke, the loss of—’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’ve said all that before,’ said Celia impatiently, ‘but you must have considered other things. What about a bank loan?’

  ‘It would have to be extremely large. And we’re not exactly a good bet at the moment.’

  ‘Have you tried?’

  ‘I’ve made enquiries, The responses I’ve had were not encouraging.’

  ‘Your brother? He has plenty of money. Couldn’t he help?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking him.’

  ‘Well I would. I will, if I have to. To save Lyttons. He’d want that surely, he’s a Lytton too.’

  ‘Celia, no. I forbid it.’

  She ignored him. Then! ‘Why Brunnings? They’re a miserable house. No style, no vision. If we have to merge with someone, what about one of the others, someone we could live more happily with—’

  ‘But Brunnings have the money. They may be miserable, as you put it, but they’re also very rich. And successful. In their own way. Their offer is the only one worth considering.’

  ‘And why,’ said Celia, her voice very hard suddenly, ‘why have I not been involved in all this? How long has it been going on?’

  ‘A couple of weeks.’

  ‘A couple of weeks! And you’ve kept it from me.’