The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  “I’m sorry about your parents’ not being able to be there tomorrow.”

  “Yes. I know. But Papa caught flu, and then he didn’t go to bed and he started wheezing. The doctor’s put him to bed for a week.”

  “Is there nobody else who could look after him?”

  “Except Sophie, you mean?”

  “Sophie?”

  “My mother. I call her Sophie.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes. Is there nobody else who could take care of your father?”

  “Only Doris, our evacuee. And she’s got her own two boys to keep an eye on. Besides, Papa’s a rotten patient; Doris wouldn’t stand a chance with him.”

  Dolly made a little gesture with her hands.

  “I suppose, like the rest of us, you’re servantless now.”

  “We always have been,” Penelope told her. “Oh, thank you, Ambrose, that’s perfect.” She took the glass from his hand, drank half of it in what looked like a single mouthful, and then set it down on the table.

  “You always have been? Have you never had any help in the house?”

  “No. Not servants. People staying who lent a hand, but never servants.”

  “But who does the cooking?”

  “Sophie. She loves it. She’s French. She’s a marvellous cook.”

  “And the housework?”

  Penelope looked slightly nonplussed, as though she had never considered housework. “I don’t know. It seems to get done. Sooner or later.”

  “Well.” Dolly allowed herself a little laugh, worldly and mondaine. “It all sounds very charming. And Bohemian. And very soon, I hope, I shall have the pleasure of meeting your parents. Now, let’s talk about tomorrow. What are you going to wear for your wedding?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I haven’t thought about it. Something, I suppose.”

  “But you must go shopping!”

  “Oh, heavens no, I won’t go shopping. There are masses of things at Oakley Street. I’ll find something.”

  “You’ll find something.…”

  Penelope laughed. “I’m afraid I’m not a clothes person. We none of us are. And we none of us ever throw anything away. Sophie’s got some pretty things stashed away at Oakley Street. This afternoon Elizabeth Clifford and I are going to have a good old rootle-round.” She looked at Ambrose. “Don’t look so worried, Ambrose, I won’t let you down.”

  He smiled bleakly. Dolly told herself that she felt heart-sorry for the poor boy. Not a loving glance, not a tender touch, not a quick kiss had passed between him and this extraordinary girl he had found and decided to marry. Were they in love? Could they possibly be in love and continue to behave in such a careless fashion? Why was he marrying her if he was not besotted by her? Why was he marrying…?

  Her thoughts, probing, came upon a possibility so appalling that they did a swift about turn and scuttled for home.

  And then, timidly, emerged again.

  “On Sunday you’re going home, Ambrose tells me.”

  “Yes.”

  “On leave.”

  Ambrose was staring at Penelope, trying to catch her eye. Dolly was aware of this, but Penelope, apparently, was not. She simply sat there, continuing to look calm and unruffled.

  “Yes. For a month.”

  “Will you stay at Whale Island?”

  Ambrose started waving his hand about, and finally, as though he could think of nothing else to do with it, clamped it over his mouth.

  “No, I’m being discharged.”

  Ambrose let out a great noisy sigh.

  “For good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that usual?” She felt proud of herself, still smiling, but icy-voiced.

  Penelope, too, smiled. “No,” she told Dolly.

  Ambrose, perhaps deciding that the situation could get no worse, now sprang to his feet. “Let’s go and get something to eat. I’m starving.”

  Composedly, slowly, Dolly collected herself, her handbag, her white gloves. Standing, she looked down at Ambrose’s future wife, with her dark eyes and her tassel of hair, and her careless grace. She said, “I am not sure whether they will allow Penelope into the restaurant. She doesn’t seem to be wearing any stockings.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake … they wont even notice.” He sounded angry and impatient, but Dolly smiled to herself, because she knew that his anger was directed, not at herself, but Penelope, because she had let the cat out of the bag.

  She is pregnant, she told herself, leading the way across the lounge towards the dining room. She has trapped him, caught him. He does not love her. She is forcing him to marry her.

  After luncheon, Dolly excused herself. She was going upstairs for a little lie-down. A silly headache, she explained to Penelope, with just a hint of accusation in her voice. I have to be so careful. The slightest excitement … Penelope looked a little taken aback, because the luncheon had scarcely been exciting, but said that she quite understood; that she would see Dolly at the Registry Office tomorrow; that it had been a delicious lunch, and thank you very much. Dolly got into the archaic lift and rose upwards like a caged bird.

  They watched her go. When he guessed that she was out of earshot, Ambrose turned on Penelope.

  “Why the hell did you have to tell her?”

  “What? That I’m pregnant? I didn’t tell her. She guessed.”

  “She didn’t have to guess.”

  “She’ll know sooner or later. Why not now?”

  “Because … well, that sort of thing upsets her.”

  “Is that why she’s got a headache?”

  “Yes, of course it is.…” They made their way downstairs. “It’s started everything off on the wrong foot.”

  “Then I’m sorry. But I honestly can’t see that it makes any difference. Why should it matter to her? We’re getting married. And what business is it of anybody but ours?”

  He could come up with no reply to this. If she could be so obtuse, then there was no explaining. In silence they emerged into the warm sunshine and walked down the street to where he had parked his car. She laid a hand on his arm. She was smiling. “Oh, Ambrose, you’re not really bothered? She’ll get over it. Water under the bridge, Papa always says. Nine-day wonder. And then it’ll be forgotten. Besides, once the baby arrives, she’ll be delighted. Every woman looks forward to her first grandchild and dotes on it.”

  But Ambrose was not so sure. They drove at some speed down Pavilion Road, down the King’s Road, turning into Oakley Street. When he drew up outside the house, “Are you coming in?” she asked him. “Come and meet Elizabeth. You’ll love her.”

  But he declined. He had other things to do. He would see her tomorrow. “All right.” Penelope was tranquil and did not argue. She gave him a kiss, got out of the car, and slammed the door shut. “I shall now go and dig myself up a wedding dress.”

  He grinned reluctantly. Watched her run up the steps and let herself in through the front door. She waved, and was gone.

  He put the car into gear, did a U-turn and sped back the way they had come. He crossed Knightsbridge and drove through the gates into the park. It was very warm, but cool beneath the trees, and he parked the car and walked a little way, and found a seat and sat upon it. The trees rustled in the breeze and the park was full of pleasant summer sounds … children’s voices and bird-song, with the continuous rumble of London traffic as background music.

  He felt morose and gloomy. It was all very well, Penelope saying that it didn’t matter, and that his mother would get used to the idea of a shotgun marriage—for indeed, what else was it?—but he knew perfectly well that she would never forget and probably never forgive. It was just very unfortunate that the Sterns were not going to be at the wedding tomorrow. They, with their liberal views and Bohemian attitudes, might possibly have been able to swing the balance, and even if Dolly refused to come round to their way of thinking, at least she might be made to realize that there was another point of view. />
  For, according to Penelope, they were not a bit bothered about the forthcoming baby; quite the opposite—they were thrilled, and had made it clear, through their daughter, that Ambrose was in no way expected to make an honest woman of her.

  Being told that he was a prospective father had knocked the ground from beneath his feet as nothing else could possibly do. He was shaken, appalled, and furiously angry—with himself for letting himself be caught in the classic, dreaded trap, and with Penelope for having taken him in. “Are you all right?” he had asked her, and “Oh, yes, all right,” she had replied, and, in the heat of the moment, and with one thing and another, there simply hadn’t been time to double-check.

  And yet, she had been very sweet. “We don’t need to get married, Ambrose,” she had assured him. “Please don’t think you have to.” And she had looked so calm and untroubled about the whole sorry affair that he had found himself doing a swift about-face and considering the possibilities on the other side of the coin.

  Perhaps he was not, after all, in such a fix. Things could be very much worse. She was, in her strange way, beautiful. And well-bred. Not any common little girl, picked up in some Portsmouth pub, but the daughter of well-to-do, if unconventional, parents. Parents, moreover, of property. That enviable house in Oakley Street was not to be sneezed at, and a place in Cornwall was definitely an added bonus. He saw himself sailing in the Helford Passage. And there was always, at the end of the road, the possibility of inheriting a 4½-litre Bentley.

  No. He had done the right thing. Once his mother had got over the little hiccup of discovering that Penelope was pregnant, then things should be all right. Besides, there was a war on. It was going to blow up at any moment and it would last for a long time, and they wouldn’t be able to see much of each other, or even live together, until it was over. Ambrose had no doubt that he would survive. His imagination was not vivid, and he was not troubled by nightmares of engine-room explosions, or being drowned, or freezing to death in the winter seas of the Atlantic. And by the time it was finished, he would probably feel more like settling down and taking on the role of family man than he did at the moment.

  He shifted in his chair, which was hard-backed and hideously uncomfortable. He noticed, for the first time, the lovers who lay only a few yards away, entwined on the bruised grass. Which gave him a splendid idea. He got off the chair and walked back to his car, drove out of the Park, around Marble Arch and into the quiet streets of Bayswater. He was whistling under his breath.

  I get no kick from champagne,

  Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all,

  So tell me, why should it be true …

  Outside a tall, self-respecting house, he parked by the pavement’s edge and made his way down basement steps to a flower-filled area. He rang the bell of the yellow front door. He was taking a chance, of course, but at four o’clock in the afternoon, she was usually around, taking a nap, or pottering in her tiny kitchen, or otherwise unoccupied. The chance paid off. She came to the door with her blonde hair tousled and a lacy negligee held modestly across her rounded, lavish breasts. Angie. Who had, when Ambrose was seventeen, gently relieved him of his virginity, and to whom he had fled, in times of trouble, ever since.

  “Oh.” Her face lit up, filled with delight. “Ambrose!”

  No man could have had a better welcome.

  “Hello, Angie.”

  “It’s ages since I’ve seen you. Thought you must be bobbing about in the ocean by now.” She held out a plump and motherly arm. “Don’t stand there on the doorstep. Come along in.”

  Which he did.

  * * *

  As Penelope opened the front door of Oakley Street, Elizabeth Clifford leaned over the bannister and called her name. Penelope went upstairs.

  “How did it go?”

  “Not very well.” Penelope grinned. “She’s the worst. All hatted and gloved and furious because I wasn’t wearing stockings. She said we wouldn’t be allowed into the restaurant because I wasn’t, but of course we were.”

  “Does she realize you’re having a child?”

  “Yes. I didn’t actually tell her, but the dawning of knowledge suddenly broke. You could tell. Much better, really. Ambrose was furious, but she might just as well know.”

  “I suppose so,” said Elizabeth, but had it in her heart to feel sorry for the poor woman. Young people, even Penelope, could be dreadfully unperceptive and unfeeling. “Do you want a cup of tea, or something?”

  “Later, I’d love one. Look, I’ve got to find something to wear tomorrow. Do help me.”

  “I’ve been nosing around in an old trunk.…” Elizabeth led the way into her bedroom, where a variety of crushed and shredded garments were piled upon the enormous double bed she shared with Peter. “Isn’t this one rather nice? I bought it to go to Hurlingham … I think it was nineteen-twenty-one. When Peter was in his cricket-playing period.” She took a dress from the top of the pile; creamy linen, very fine; long-waisted, shapeless, hem-stitched. “It looks a bit grubby, but I could wash and iron it and have it ready for tomorrow. And look, there are even shoes to match—don’t you adore the diamanté buckles?… and cream silk stockings.”

  Penelope took the dress and went to the mirror, holding it up in front of her, gazing with half-closed eyes, turning her head this way and that to gauge the effect.

  “It’s a lovely colour, Elizabeth. All wheatey. Could I really borrow it?”

  “Of course.”

  “What about a hat? I suppose I ought to wear a hat. Or put my hair up, or something.”

  “And we’ll have to find a petticoat. It’s so fine it’s transparent, and your legs will show.”

  “Can’t have my legs showing. Dolly Keeling would have a fit.…”

  They began to laugh. Laughing, tearing off the red cotton dress, pulling the pale linen over her head, Penelope began to feel quite light-hearted. Dolly Keeling was a pain in the neck, but she was marrying Ambrose, not his mother, so what did it matter what that lady thought of her?

  * * *

  The sun shone. The sky was blue. Dolly Keeling, having breakfasted in bed, rose at eleven. Her headache, though it had not actually disappeared, had subsided. She bathed, dressed her hair, and put on her face. This took a long time, for it was important that she should look both youthful and impeccable, and hopefully put everyone else, including the bride, into the shade. With the final eyelash tweaked into place, she stood up, shed her filmy gown and donned her finery. A lilac silk dress, with a loose, floating coat of the same material. A fine straw halo hat, worn off the face, and bound with lilac grosgrain ribbon. Her totter-heeled, peep-toe shoes, her long white gloves, her white kid handbag. The ultimate reflection in the mirror reassured and bolstered her morale. Ambrose would be proud of her. She took a final couple of aspirin, doused herself in Houbigant, and went downstairs to the lounge.

  Ambrose was waiting for her, looking devastating in his best uniform, and smelling as though he had just come straight from an expensive barber, which he had. There was an empty glass on the table at his side, and when she kissed him she smelt the brandy on his breath, and her heart went out to her dear boy, because he was, after all, only twenty-one, and bound to be nervous.

  They went downstairs and took a taxi to the King’s Road. Driving along, Dolly held Ambrose’s hand, tightly, in her own little white-gloved fingers. They did not talk. It was no good talking. She had been a good mother to him … no woman could have done more. And as for Penelope … well, some things were better left unsaid.

  The cab drew up outside the imposing edifice of the Chelsea Town Hall. They stepped out onto the warm, breezy pavement, and Ambrose paid the driver. While he was doing this, Dolly rearranged herself, smoothed her skirts, touched her hat to make certain that it was safely anchored, and then glanced about her. A few yards away, another person waited. It was a bizarre little figure, even tinier than herself, and with the thinnest black silk legs that Dolly had ever seen. Their eyes met. Dolly, flu
stered, hastily looked away, but it was too late, for already the other woman had moved forward, her face alight with eager anticipation, to pounce upon Dolly, grasping her wrist with a grip like a vice, and proclaiming, “You have to be the Keelings. I knew it. Knew it in my bones the moment I set eyes on you.”

  Dolly gaped, convinced that she was being attacked by a lunatic, and Ambrose, turning from the cab as it drove away, was as taken aback as his mother.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “I’m Ethel Stern. Lawrence Stern’s sister.” She was buttoned into a child-size scarlet jacket with much frogging and embellishment, and wore on her head a vast, billowing black velvet tam-o’-shanter. “Aunt Ethel to you, young man.” She released Dolly’s arm and thrust her hand in Ambrose’s direction. When he did not instantly take it, a dreadful uncertainty crossed Aunt Ethel’s wrinkled features.

  “Don’t say I’ve got the wrong family?”

  “No. No, of course not.” He had reddened slightly, embarrassed by the encounter and her outlandish appearance. “How do you do? I am Ambrose, and this is my mother, Dolly Keeling.”

  “Thought I couldn’t be mistaken. I’ve been waiting for hours,” she went on chattily. Her hair was dyed dark red, and her hectic make-up haphazard, as though she had applied it with her eyes shut. Her blackened eyebrows did not quite match, and the dark lipstick was already beginning to seep up into the wrinkles of skin around her mouth. “I’m usually late for everything, so I made a big effort today, and of course was far too early.” All at once her expression altered to one of deepest tragedy. She was like a little clown; an organ-grinder’s monkey. “My dear, isn’t it absolutely bloody about poor Lawrence? Poor devil, he’ll be so disappointed.”

  “Yes,” said Dolly faintly. “We were so looking forward to meeting him.”

  “Always enjoys a trip to London. Any old excuse will do.…” At this point, she let out a screech, causing Dolly to jump out of her skin, and began waving her arms in the air. Dolly saw the taxi come trundling up from the other direction, and from this emerged Penelope and presumably the Cliffords. They were all laughing, and Penelope looked totally relaxed and not in the least nervous.