She wanted to cry, but what was the use of crying if you had no one to be upset that you were upset enough to cry? If Rhona cried she would have the Hungarian to comfort her. There would be some point for her in crying, because it would stimulate the Hungarian to emotion too, and they could have quite a scene together. But you could not make a scene all by yourself.
When Vinson came in at the back door she was still sitting with her hands among the silver, doing nothing.
‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘I look awful.’ Usually, you only said this to a man when you knew that you did not. Christine knew that she looked awful now in a sweater that had shrunk in the wash, with her hair straight because she had been too tired to set it last night; but Vinson was out of her life, and it did not matter.
‘That’s O.K.,’ he said, not denying it. He was in civilian clothes, with a striped tie that no Englishman would have worn unless it was his Old School colours, and he looked more at home in the kitchen than he did when he was in uniform. He sat down opposite her at the table, picked up a spoon and began to polish it carefully, as if that were his only interest in the world.
‘I told you not to come here again,’ Christine murmured, feeling that she ought to say that, although she was glad that he had come.
‘Oh, sure,’ he said, starting on another spoon. ‘I only came to see if you had the monkey-wrench from the car. I can’t find it.’
‘Oh yes. We used it when we were trying to unstop the waste-pipe in the bathroom. Aunt Jo must have put it in our toolbox. I’m sorry. I’ll get it.’ She got up. Nowadays, when she got up from a chair, she had to push herself up with her hands, and he noticed it.
‘Don’t bother now,’ he said. ‘It can wait. Let’s you and me have a drink together first, what do you say?’
‘A drink?’ She looked at the kitchen clock, made like a frying-pan, which she had bought for Aunt Josephine last Christmas. ‘It’s not five o’clock yet.’ ‘So what? You British never raise a thirst before six o’clock because the law says you mustn’t, but an American can raise a thirst any time. Can I go fix one for us?’
‘All right. You know where everything is. My father’s out walking his dog.’ They both knew that Mr Cope would disapprove of the cocktail cupboard being unlatched at this hour.
Vinson took out some ice, and when he had gone through to the drawing-room Christine hastily went to her bag and powdered her nose, put on lipstick and combed her hair. He caught her at the mirror when he came back with two strong whiskies on a tray. He always carried drinks and food as neatly as if he were a trained parlourmaid.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘You’re so pretty, Christine, you mustn’t let yourself go. You’ve got thinner,’ he said, as she came over to the table, where he had cleared aside the silver and put the glasses down.
‘Have I? That’s a good thing then. I was too fat before.’
He did not answer this. He did not seem inclined to talk much. He sat there sipping his drink and smoking, and left it to her to make the conversation. She did not know what she should say.
‘I can’t stay very long,’ she told him. ‘I’ve got to go out and get some food. Daddy has asked a friend for supper.’
‘You’ve got too much to do,’ Vinson said.
It was the first time anyone had said this to her since Aunt Josephine died. She had drunk half her glass of whisky, and it made her unable to resist saying: ‘Oh yes, Vin, I have. It’s awful. I can’t get anyone to help, and I just can’t cope, and Daddy doesn’t want to leave this house and get a flat, and I just don’t know how I’m ever going to get straight. I can’t see it ever getting any better.’
‘You’re pretty unhappy, aren’t you, Christine?’ he said, looking at his glass.
She paused, and then she said on a sigh: ‘Oh, Vin, I am.’ She knew she should not say this to him; but although he was there in the kitchen with her he was out of her life, and so perhaps she could admit it.
‘It’s awful. I miss Aunt Jo so much, and I’m so tired, and it’s so dreary because Daddy and I – well, he never wants to hear about the shop or anything. He doesn’t like it if I go out, and I don’t really want to, but I’ve got nobody to talk to. I’ve got nothing.’
She held herself from making the noises or the facial expressions of crying, but tears began to run down the side of her nose and into her mouth, and she kept her head down as she said: ‘Aunt Jo was always here, and she was my friend. But it’s all so different now. I’ve got nothing.’
‘You’ve got me,’ Vinson said quietly. It sounded like a line from a play, facile and just right, but when she looked up at him she saw that he meant it.
‘You’ve still got me,’ he said, and a warm flux of comfort began to flow through her as she let herself drift for a while on the tide of all the things he began to say to her in a quickened voice. He leaned across the table, twisting his empty glass round in his narrow hands, and told her that she was the sort of girl he had been looking for all his life and never found, and how his friends would be jealous of him, and how he would make her happy. He told her about America and the home they would have there together, and how wonderful it was, and how she would get to love it more than England… .
‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘I could never do that.’ But she was only speaking theoretically, because she knew she could not go to America with him.
She did not tell him that, because she did not want to abandon just yet the illusion of relief and escape which he was offering her. To be looked after … to have someone who cared about what you felt and did … She shook herself out of the dream and stood up.
‘Don’t go on, Vin,’ she said. ‘I must go out now and get some food before the shops close.’
‘To hell with the shops,’ he said, getting up and coming round the table to her.’ Forget it. I’ll take you out to dinner.’
‘I can’t. There’s Daddy and Mr Wilson –’
‘We’ll take them out too. Give them a bang-up meal. Take them to the club if you like, and buy them a steak. I’ve got to get in right with your father.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m going to marry you.’
She smiled. She thought that he would kiss her then, but he just patted her shoulder and turned to the table to pick up the glasses. ‘I’ll go get us another drink,’ he said.
Telling Roger and Sylvia was the hardest part. Her father had been quite easy. So that he could not make a fuss, Vinson had told him in front of Mr Wilson, who sat at the table in the Air Force club gorged with food, with his eyes popping out. Mr Cope was more concerned at the time with worrying about whether he was going to be able to digest the food he had eaten than with worrying about Christine going away to marry in America; but when he and Christine talked about it alone at home afterwards he realized that she meant it, and he began to say:
‘What will happen to me? And what is going to happen to me?’
‘You knew I might get married some time.’ Christine steeled herself against feeling too sorry for him. ‘You must have thought of that. It happens to nearly all fathers. It’s just because I’ve been at home so long that you … But you’ll be all right,’ she said briskly, determined not to be held back by pity. ‘You’ll be fine. You know that Roger and Sylvia will be glad to have you, and you’ll have a lovely home with them. You know you like Farnborough, and it will be wonderful for Bruce. There’ll be hundreds of places you can take him for walks.’
She was trying to persuade herself as much as him. She still had to persuade Roger and Sylvia.
When Mr Cope’s dog was mentioned they seized on that and made it a point of issue. They could not very well say that they did not want Mr Cope, but they could hint at it by quibbling about his dog. They held up the more important plans by objecting to details, and they were like that all through the talk which Christine had with them when she took a Saturday morning off and drove down to Farnborough to tell them that she was going to marry Vinson.
They did not li
ke it. In common decency, they could not object to the larger aspects of the case. Christine had a right to get married, and her father had a right to expect that his son and daughter-in-law would give him a home. Whatever they were thinking, they could not deny that in so many words, and so they tried to unsettle Christine by cavilling at details.
It was a horrid interview. It ought to be so wonderful to go to your family and say: ‘I’m going to be married’, and to be kissed and wished happiness. Sylvia did kiss her, with her nose cold and wet against Christine’s cheek, but all she could wish her in the way of happiness was: ‘I hope you’re not making a mistake, Christine. No doubt you know what you want.’
It was made more difficult for her because Vinson had been recalled to Washington. If he were there Roger and Sylvia would not have been able to talk as they did, but Christine had seen him off from the airport two days ago, and now she was alone, and the confidence she felt with him was ebbing.
They had lunch, a dull, overcooked lunch served laboriously by a slow maid. When the maid had gone out of the room, Roger began again to try and undermine Christine’s assurance.
‘Look here,’ he said. ‘We don’t know anything about this fellow. He’s obviously a first-class chap – don’t get me wrong -but aren’t you rather rushing into this without knowing anything about his background? We don’t know who his people are, and so on. I mean, you’ve only seen him over here as a naval officer, and you never can tell about Americans, anyway. They all sound the same to me.’
‘You mean you think he’s common.’ Christine stabbed at a brussels sprout with her fork. Sylvia was the sort of housekeeper who aggravated the horrors of having to have brussels sprouts in season by having them out of season as well, when there were other vegetables to choose from. ‘Don’t be a snob, Rodge. Vin isn’t common, though it wouldn’t matter if he was. Our family’s not such great shakes. What about Uncle Willie and the pawnshop? Anyway, nobody’s common in America. The word doesn’t exist.’ She had gathered that from Vinson’s mystification when she had used the word to him in describing someone.
‘Must be what’s wrong with that country then,’ said Roger complacently, slathering mustard on his meat. ‘But honestly, Chris, you’re going to find it awfully different over there. I wonder if you’ll like it? I know I wouldn’t.’
‘I’ll love it,’ said Christine. ‘You’re so beastly insular. I think it’s exciting to be starting out all over again in a new country that has the future of the world in its hands.’
She was quoting Vinson, and Roger said: ‘God help the world, if that’s the case.’
‘Of course you’ll be living in the land of plenty. It will be very different from what we have to manage with over here,’ said Sylvia gently but accusingly.
‘I’ll send you food parcels,’ said Christine, determined not to be confounded by them. ‘And chocolate for the children, and I’ll send you nylons.’
‘I’d have to pay duty on them.’ Sylvia quickly found fault. ‘But you mustn’t worry about us. You’ll have your own life to lead over there, and we’ll manage all right, no doubt, though I must say I wouldn’t have expected you to spring this on us just now, so soon after Aunt Jo –’
‘She liked him!’ cried Christine violently. ‘She liked Vinson, and she wanted me to marry him.’
‘Oh, so you discussed it with her?’ Sylvia raised her thin gingery eyebrows. ‘I must say I think it’s a little funny that we never heard anything about it.’ Funny was another of her favourite words.
‘Why should I tell you when I knew you’d be like this? Aunt Jo was the only one who cared whether I was happy or not. She wanted me to marry Vin. She said so, and I don’t care what you or anyone thinks -’ She paused blindly at the unappetising food on her plate, and Sylvia said in very English French: ’Pas devant la bonne’, as the maid trod heavily back into the room with a plate of blancmange.
The children had been lunching with a neighbour. When they came back Christine told them her news. She thought that they would be pleased and excited, as children were by any new turn of events, whatever its implications. Even death was something new to marvel at; but instead of being excited about Christine they looked at her in dismay and said: ‘What about us? You’re going away to America and we shan’t ever see you again. What will happen to us?’
Jeanette clung to Christine and began to cry, and they both put on a ridiculous act, crying:’ What shall we do without you; oh, whatever shall we do?’ as if they had a cruel mother and father, and she were their only hope in the world.
It was almost as if their parents had put them up to behaving like this. Everyone was conspiring to make Christine feel bad about following her perfectly natural desire to be married and have a life of her own.
When she left, Roger made his final shot. ‘Well, we shan’t be calling you the estimable Miss Cope much longer,’ he said amiably enough, as they went down the path between the neat box hedges, which were one of the reasons why Sylvia did not want to have Mr Cope’s dog,’ but I don’t see how you can face the thought of being called Mrs Gaegler. That’s no kind of a name. My sister, Mrs Gaegler.’ He shook his head and snickered. ‘I can’t see myself saying that with a straight face.’
It was not much better at the shop. Christine’s outside friends were pleased when she told them. Rhona was ecstatic, and began making plans to come to America and stay with her, and Margaret and Laurie were unselfishly delighted, although they would miss her. But in the busy book department, where the estimable Miss Cope was so much needed, the congratulations were shadowed by the unspoken reproach that she was letting them down by going away so suddenly before anyone could be trained to take her place.
‘Of course I’m glad for you, my dear,’ Mr Parker said, ‘but if only you could have stayed just a little while longer and helped me to organize the department under a new head saleswoman. I don’t know who they’ll send me. The personnel is so poor these days. Mrs Drew could have taken over, but I doubt she’ll come back now. She seems to have deserted us too.’
‘She’s going to have a baby. Surely she’s allowed to do that.’
‘I know, my dear, I know. I’m not complaining, but to lose the two of you … Miss Burman will never amount to much, poor old soul, Alice is being moved next month, and Helen -well, she’s a worthy enough girl, but she hasn’t your experience. Oh dear, Miss Cope, I just don’t see how I’m going to manage without you. You’ve been indispensable to me, but your young man must come first, I suppose.’
He managed a brave smile, which flickered out of his face almost at once. Christine agreed with him. She did not see how he was going to manage without her. She knew that she had held him together in his uncertain sway over the book department. Even if he got efficient new helpers, they would not cover up for him and look after him as she had done.
She worked like a beaver in her last few days at the shop, to try to make amends for her desertion. She brought the stock list up to date and checked the order book and rearranged untidy sections, but Mr Parker, in his distress at losing her, was already becoming more futile than he had ever been, and she dreaded to think what muddles he would get into when she was gone.
Now that she knew she was leaving the shop she wanted it to happen quickly, but at half past five on her last day she did not want to go. She remembered only the nice things about working at Goldwyn’s, and none of the things she had grumbled about.
Mr Parker, Miss Burman, Alice and Helen, and even the new assistant, who had a fluting voice and cut-away nostrils, had clubbed together to buy her a silver ashtray with her new initials on it: C.M.G. They gave it to her with some embarrassment after the shop closed. Christine wanted to cry. Miss Burman did cry, and Mr Parker shook her hand feebly and shuffled away in his black musician’s hat to the door which the commissionaire was holding for him. It was very distressing.
Just before she left England Margaret told Christine that she had had Miss Burman to tea, and Miss Burman had told her
, with many indrawn breaths, that Mr Parker had resigned his post. ‘Though given the sack,’ Miss Burman said, ‘would be more my way of putting it.’
Then there were the animals. Mr Cope’s dog was going to Farnborough, under Roger’s half-joking threat that he would shoot it if it gave any trouble. Christine had wanted to take her dog Timmy to America with her, but Vinson said that they would be living in an apartment, and dogs were not allowed. Even if they moved away from Washington, he said, they would not want to be trammelled with a dog when they did not know where they might be sent.
When he wrote that to her, Christine almost wrote back to say she would not come to America. Vinson had pretended to like dogs when he first came to ‘Roselawn’, but now that he was safely engaged to her she saw that he did not. If only they could have talked it over, he might have reassured her, but three thousand miles was too far to make contact over things like this. Christine’s letters were warm and impulsive, the sort of letters she would like to get; but Vinson’s letters to her were carefully composed and a little stilted, and did not reveal his feelings. Even his love messages sounded as if they came out of a book. Christine thought that she would mind leaving Timmy more than anyone in England. Margaret was going to take him for her, and two days before her boat sailed she took him over to the Drews’ house. It would have been terrible if he had been sad and pleaded her with his eyes not to go, but it was even more terrible that he settled down quite happily, ate a large meal and was too busy with a bone in the garden to notice when she went away.
The goldfish were given to Sylvia’s children. She struck at having the love-birds, and they were given to a pet shop, whose owner would not pay anything for them, because he said they were too old.
The oldest cat had to be destroyed because Christine could not find anyone who would take it. Two of the others had run away after Aunt Josephine died, and the remaining cat was given as a parting present to Miss Burman, who might not have been so delighted with it if she had realized it was expecting kittens.
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