Sweet Poison

by David Roberts

  Lady Weaver paused for a moment and looked at her daughter queerly. ‘Sound advice I’d say, darling. I like the man already.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, don’t be a bore. You would say that. You’re so predictable,’ and she flounced out of the room.

  In the mirror the mother had caught sight of her child’s face and she had noticed for the first time that her daughter was in danger of turning into a shrew. She was almost twenty-three but when she scowled, as she was scowling now, she looked older. Why was she so often nervy and irritable? Surely she understood that there were younger, prettier girls being presented at court every year. If she was to marry she would have to make an effort to please. She would have to talk to her about it but this wasn’t the moment. Hermione wasn’t a fool. She was just like so many of the younger generation: rootless, pleasure-seeking but essentially unhappy. Spoiled little rich girl, the mother thought ruefully. She needed to find her a good man but where were they? So many had been killed in the war and the new young men – well, they seemed shallow, selfish to her. They liked to assume a ‘know-it-all’ attitude which she found wearisome. If Hermione was to find a suitable husband – someone a little older, more mature – like Edward Corinth perhaps – she had to learn some winning ways. No wonder the Lomax boy had cancelled. She had seen them together when he had come to collect her from Eaton Place before going on to some dance in Belgrave Square and Hermione had been all over him. She had noticed then, though Hermione did not seem to, that it had embarrassed him. Hermione made it quite plain when she did not like a young man and her snubs were legendary but when she did find a boy wild enough to attract her she couldn’t hide her adoration from the poor man, so he usually ran as far and as fast as he could. If only she didn’t feel she had to choose men of whom her stepfather would be sure to disapprove. Her mother sighed. She supposed it must be her fault. Wasn’t it always a parent’s fault if their children turned out – no, she would not say ‘bad’ – ‘difficult’, that was the word. She had so hoped her daughter would get on with her new father but they had always been like oil and water. Joe had tried. It wasn’t his fault. It was the only shadow on her life, which was now so good in so many ways.

  She thought with simple pleasure of Joe, Lord Weaver, now closeted with the Duke in the gunroom smoking a cigar, without which he was rarely to be seen, and drinking Scotch whisky, which gave him indigestion. Her husband was what was now being called a press baron. He was immensely wealthy and the owner of two national newspapers, a London evening paper and a large number of North American regional news-sheets much more profitable if less influential than his London stable. Lord Weaver – he had been ennobled by Lloyd George after making a very generous contribution to party funds – had been born and brought up in Newfoundland, in Corner Brook – a one-horse town which he had told her he had got out of as soon as he could. He had not cut his ties with it altogether and when he had made his first money, in New Brunswick, he had financed a paper mill just outside Corner Brook. This had proved a shrewd investment and the town had become almost entirely dependent on woodpulp which was transformed into paper to feed the ever increasing North American newspaper industry. Joe Weaver was now the town’s most famous son. He had returned only once, some years before, and endowed a concert hall, a picture gallery and a hospital. He intended to be buried in Corner Brook, so it was important he was remembered in the town as a generous benefactor and a role model for other young men. Until that day, when he returned in his coffin, he had determined he would never go back.

  In England, his adopted country, not much was known about how Joe Weaver came to be a millionaire but this did not stop people gossiping. Among the envious and the cynical there were plenty of malicious stories circulating, but no one had ever found any evidence that in his many business dealings as a young man – first in Corner Brook and then in New Brunswick – he had ever been involved in anything illegal. He had taken chances – he admitted as much – done some favours for some fairly undesirable gentlemen, and had, on one occasion at least, almost gone bankrupt but, as he said, no man ever made money without a little luck, a streak of ruthlessness and nerves of steel. It was also said that he had gone through some sort of marriage ceremony in New Brunswick with a woman who had – conveniently perhaps – died in childbirth. Certainly, when he had come to England in 1917 he was a free spirit – rich, unattached, ready to be useful; he had, in short, reinvented himself. In any case, in wartime there weren’t the same standards operating in London society which would have kept him out of the houses of the aristocracy before the war.

  He quickly became a power in the land, an intimate of the Prime Minister and his cronies; with his newspapers and his money – with which he was generous – he became known as someone who could make or break careers. He was a large man, broad in the shoulders and six foot two, by no means conventionally handsome but with the ‘bear’ look which some women find attractive, even taking into account his crumpled face which, some unkind observer had remarked, resembled a tennis ball that had been left several days in the rain. He exuded power all the more potent for being kept on a tight rein. He hid his animal energy and ruthless disregard for anyone’s interests but his own under a veneer of ‘man-of-the-world’ sophistication. He insinuated himself into the Prince of Wales’s somewhat raffish circle and he delighted to surround himself with talented young men wholly dependent on him for their livelihood. He was known to be a terrible enemy to any man who tried to double-cross him. He would be quite prepared to wait months or even years before taking his revenge.

  He needed about him beautiful women, to make love to – he had the strong sexual drive of the ambitious man – but just as importantly to wear on his arm like jewellery. Even when he first arrived in London he had no difficulty in attracting the type of woman he admired: elegant, intelligent and where possible married to a Member of Parliament. Then something happened which no one could have predicted: he fell in love. He had met Blanche, Lady Marston, in 1918. She was twenty-six, still beautiful but with a small daughter whom Weaver had disliked on sight. Blanche had no husband. He had died – heroically, it was said, though not by his wife – in some terrible battle in France.

  It had been with relief that Blanche surrendered to Weaver’s dominating personality. Her dead husband had almost destroyed her. Guy Marston, when Blanche had married him, was charming, well connected but not rich. She was naïve, little more than a girl, without sensible parents to advise her. She had married Marston after the briefest of engagements to the delight of their respective friends and relations, but Blanche knew, she might almost have said ‘at the altar’, that she had made a terrible mistake – how terrible she was to learn that very night. As soon as they were alone in their suite at the Dorchester, where they were to spend the night before crossing the Channel for a month’s leisurely honeymoon among the Swiss and Italian lakes, he had sat her down on the bed and been brutally frank with her. She was totally innocent about sex – had only kissed her husband half a dozen times – so she had no idea what was supposed to happen in the bed on which the two of them were now perched fully clothed. She suddenly wondered what on earth she was doing with this complete stranger in a hotel room – the first hotel bedroom she had ever been in – and she was frightened. What she saw in her husband’s face did nothing to reassure her. Her mother had considered it unwise to alarm her with any account of the pain and suffering men – Englishmen of the upper classes at least – seemed to delight in inflicting on their wives with the full support of society and the law. Her mother’s experience had led her to believe that sex was a cruel joke played on womankind by a God who was unquestionably male, and she pitied her daughter – but not enough to enlighten her as to what fate had in store for her.

  Guy Marston made it clear to her in the most graphic terms that his preference was for the male sex and that he had married her as necessary protection from the law. Blanche had never for one moment been aware that men could be attracted to each other sexua
lly so it took her some time and the scathing sarcasm of her husband to understand what he was saying. He then proceeded to rape her so that she could never claim that the marriage had been unconsummated. The attack left her bruised and bleeding and mentally scarred. If this was sex between men and women, then she could only be glad that her husband was not intending to repeat the act. In public, he continued to be the affectionate husband but in private he never lost an opportunity of humiliating her. On one occasion she returned from a shopping expedition to find him in bed with a hotel waiter and she never forgot the smirk on her husband’s face when he saw her shock and disgust. Thereafter, she insisted on separate bedrooms. Had war not broken out in 1914, when they had been married almost two years, she might have been driven to murder him but merciful fate relieved her of this necessity. Hermione had been the result of Blanche’s sole taste of marital bliss and the baby proved her consolation and joy when so much else made her weep with fear and frustration. Even her husband had been pleased in his own brutish way; to have a wife and a child meant he could scotch any rumours about his sexual preferences. His death on the battlefield renewed her faith in God. Perhaps after all he was not male as she had been led to believe.

  Meeting Joe Weaver had been for Blanche the most fortunate of encounters. They had met at a cocktail party – an American invention which the British had taken to with enthusiasm. Neither Blanche nor Weaver normally enjoyed these shouting matches in crowded drawing-rooms but this one, held by a close friend of the Prince of Wales, had seemed unavoidable. Weaver, who was already on good terms with his future King, had felt he had to make an appearance. The friend had placed a beringed hand on his arm and said, ‘Joe darling, I’ve been wanting for months to introduce you to Blanche. I just know you are made for one another. Blanche, this is Joe Weaver. Don’t be put off by how ugly he is. He’s a lovely man but be warned, he can be dangerous.’ She turned to Weaver: ‘Joe, this is Lady Marston – Blanche. She is much better than you. In fact, she is the only sincere woman in this room so do not treat her as you do me.’ Then with a half-smile she left them together.

  The friend had been perspicacious. Though superficially such very different characters from very different backgrounds, they each had something the other desired. From that first moment they were attracted to one another. It was not love, not at the beginning, but mutual need. Blanche had poise, impeccable breeding and a sadness in her eyes which Weaver found intriguing. From their meeting, Blanche saw Weaver in animal terms – half man, half monkey – and he made her laugh. Here was a man who exhibited complete self-confidence. He was not remotely interested in what other men thought of him though he knew they contemptuously used phrases like ‘rough diamond’ and ‘self-made man’ to describe him behind his back. He had grown used to being sneered at by nincompoops who had never done a day’s work in their lives. Blanche was immediately impressed that he made no attempt to ‘show off’ in front of her. She had listened so patiently for so many hours to callow young men telling her how wonderful they were that it was a huge relief to find an older, wiser man who asked her about herself and seemed genuinely interested in her answers. They slipped away from the party and had dinner together at the Savoy, despite each being expected elsewhere. Weaver considered himself, with some justification, a shrewd judge of character. As decisive in his personal life as he was in business, he quickly recognized in this sad, sweet-faced woman the wife he could cherish and who would assist him to find his place in British society and discreetly educate him. He knew how to fight dirty, to buy men and influence, but what he wanted was someone to soften his edges; someone who could host his dinner-parties and bring a certain style and elegance to them. He did not want to pretend he was an English gentleman, a breed for which he had something like contempt, but he did want to have an establishment to which no English gentleman would be embarrassed to bring his wife. In Blanche he felt he had found a woman who would be a true helpmeet.

  Blanche, in her turn, needed money. Her unlamented husband had left her with nothing but debts and a child to support. It was not easy to keep a small house in Chester Square, a maid and two other servants, dress herself and her child, all on nothing a year. London was awash with widows and though she was not a weak woman she felt in need of a man to give her status and a purpose in life. She had almost despaired of finding one. Joe was different from most of the men she knew. In the first place he was not English and she found his Canadian accent irresistible and delighted to use expressions he used. He called her, in the privacy of their bedroom, honey, sugar pie, his little cookie, and it melted her. She realized she had lived a life without affection so now, when it was so generously offered to her, she found it deeply affecting. Both parties were old enough to understand that their marriage was something of a business arrangement – no cherry blossom and kisses in the moonlight – but to their great surprise they fell in love with one another. When haltingly, the day before they got married, Blanche told him something of what her sex life with her first husband had been – or rather had not been – he had been genuinely horrified. With infinite gentleness – quite unexpected in someone who despised what he termed ‘sentimentality’ – he showed her what pleasure sex could bring where two people respected each other. It was a miracle to Blanche and her love for Joe – his ‘monkeyship’ as she called him – became fierce and her loyalty absolute. If only Hermione would marry and leave them to set up her own establishment . . . there was little else necessary to complete their happiness.

  ‘She hates my guts, girlie,’ he said to Blanche once, ‘and there ain’t nothing I can do about it. The sooner she finds a life of her own the happier I shall be, but for your sake, angel, I will stick by her and give her whatever you say she needs. But the day I step up to that altar and the man in the frock says, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” will be the happiest of my life.’ Kissing her forehead he added, ‘With the glorious exception, of course, of the day you consented to be my wife.’

  When she had finished her make-up, Blanche pulled on her robe and went out of her bedroom into the corridor and tapped on the door of her daughter’s room opposite. ‘Darling, may I come in for a moment?’

  She spoke in a low voice, not wishing to draw attention to herself and, not knowing whether Hermione had heard her, she opened the door. At first she could not see what her daughter was doing but then, as she took another pace into the room, the girl heard her and half turned towards the door. Blanche gave a little cry and her hand went to her mouth. It was horrible, unbelievable, and yet she recognized she had known it all along. On Hermione’s face there was rage but when she saw her mother’s shocked face she smiled and for Blanche this was the worst thing of all.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Celia, don’t let’s discuss it now.’

  ‘But Peter, you promised. Next weekend we would go with Nanny and the children to the seaside: just us. You haven’t seen William or Gladys for weeks. They hardly recognize you.’

  ‘God, why did we call that child Gladys? It will hang round her neck like a millstone and when she marries she’ll curse us. “I take thee Gladys . . .” I ask you.’

  ‘You know very well why we called her Gladys: so your rich cow of an aunt will leave her all her money.’

  Peter Larmore had achieved what he had set out to do, namely make his wife angry and change the subject. He had promised his mistress to take her to Paris for a few days when he had thought his wife was going to a health farm, safely out of the way, but for some reason she had taken it into her head to suggest accompanying the children to Bognor Regis – to the seaside. Bognor of all places! He swore as he tied his tie. ‘Damn it, Celia, you’ll have to find a new laundry. This shirt is a disgrace and I’ve hardly got a collar I can wear.’

  ‘Oh, what nonsense, Peter. Come over here and let me fix it for you.’

  Reluctantly he left the looking-glass and went over to the bed where his wife was sitting dressed in a slip and nothing else. He found himself th
inking she was still a fine-looking woman. Most men would – probably did – envy him. He had no idea why he went after other women not half as handsome as his own wife and not even as good at . . . at what women were supposed to be good at. He did not know why he found himself so unwilling to say ‘sex’ even in his head. After all, in the club the men used language which made his hair stand on end, talking about women in the same language they used about their horses – their ‘mares’.

  He wished he wasn’t so damn short of money. He couldn’t understand it. He didn’t gamble – didn’t spend half what some of the other men spent. But women were so expensive and educating the children . . . his slender resources were being drained. As a Member of Parliament he was paid a pittance. He needed this job in the cabinet Stanley Baldwin, the new Prime Minister, had all but promised him – not for the salary but for the influence it would give him, the patronage he would be able to dish out and which would bring in money.

  Celia thought she saw what was going through his mind and said, ‘Oh darling, we haven’t got time. The Duke’s a stickler for punctuality.’

  It took Larmore a moment to understand what she meant and suddenly he found he did want his wife – wanted her badly. Without any more words he took her there and then – she in her slip, he in his socks and shirt. While her husband grunted and groaned she clung to him, hiding a tiny smile of relief and satisfaction. She had thought there just might be a woman but surely this proved there was only her . . . only her. The trouble with having a Member of Parliament for a husband was that it gave him any number of reasons for not being with her – and she had just caught a word that silly Jane Garton had said which had upset her. She had gone into Galiere’s to buy a hat – a hat she didn’t need but she had promised herself a little present to cheer herself up – and as she entered the shop she thought she heard Jane Garton saying something to another woman whom she did not know about – well, about seeing Peter lunching with a woman at the Berkeley. Jane Garton’s friend, glancing up and seeing Celia, had poked Jane in the ribs with her elbow and whispered something and both women had smiled and pretended they had not seen her. The cats! They had to have someone to gossip about and Peter was so good-looking, so desirable in every way, it was no surprise they should be gossiping about him. Why should he not be having lunch with a woman friend in the Berkeley? It wasn’t a place one would go to for a secret tryst after all. The only odd thing was that when she had casually asked Peter if he would take her to the Berkeley for dinner one evening he said he would like to because he hadn’t been there for months. She had been too sensible to question him and now, as she stroked his hair which was getting just a little thin, her suspicions – no, that was too strong a word, her twinges of doubt – were assuaged. They had been married nine years and he still loved her. She was quite certain of it now.