The Granville Sisters

by Una-Mary Parker

  The terrible solemnity of the vows was hitting her like hammer blows. They were even more profound than she’d realized. Making promises to God she wasn’t sure she could keep.

  ‘… to love, cherish and obey, till death us do part …’

  The thought of that little case helped Rosie keep her composure as the marriage service continued. She was promising her life away to this young man, who, in the excitement of arriving at the church, the centre of attention and in a whirl of cheering and photographer’s flashes, she’d forgotten would be there.

  Her surprise at seeing him, waiting for her by the chancel steps, was like bumping into an old friend at a cocktail party, safe in the knowledge she could move on to talk to someone else after a few minutes.

  And now these life-binding vows …! How could she possibly promise to love, cherish, for richer for poorer …! Oh, God, what have I done, she thought in panic.

  Then it was her turn. ‘I, Rosemary Helen …’ The rest was a blurr. All that mattered was the thought that if the worst came to the worst she could run back to Granny at Hartley at any time.

  The reception passed in a jolly haze of shaking hands and cutting the cake, listening to the speeches, whilst vaguely aware that, even though this was her day, people were saying how beautiful Juliet looked.

  At last it was over. In a flurry of goodbyes, showers of rose petals and Henry saying to Charles, with an intimate man-to-man look, ‘I’ve popped a couple of bottles of champagne into your luggage, old chap,’ as they drove off and the guests piled into Bruton Street to wave and cheer.

  They were to spend the first night of their honeymoon at the Ritz, before setting off the next day for a three-week driving excursion through France, Italy and Switzerland.

  ‘How nice of Daddy to give us that champagne,’ Rosie remarked, cheering up, as the car edged neared the hotel.

  Charles nodded, looking serious. ‘Yes, but we should keep it for a special occasion, don’t you think?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to take off that silly hat?’

  They’d been shown to their suite. Still in her sapphire blue dress and coat, with a hat trimmed with matching feathers, she was relaxing on a sofa, admiring the welcoming flowers her mother had ordered to be put in their sitting room.

  She flushed, startled by the rebuke, and looked hurt.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I hate feathers.’ Charles sounded sulky, as he unpacked his overnight case. Ignoring her, and remaining silent, he pottered around in an aimless sort of way.

  A block of ice seemed to form itself in Rosie’s stomach and she started trembling. It seemed as if she’d married a complete stranger, with whom she had absolutely nothing in common. Who was this truculent young man, fidding with his wash bag? Wandering, looking bored, from their bedroom into the sitting room, and then back to the bedroom again?

  For the first time in her life, Rosie had no idea what to say. Well, here we are, married at last! sounded too hearty. Darling … at last we’re alone sounded rather forward to someone who’d suddenly become a stranger. On the other hand, What’s the matter with you, Charles? were the words of a nagging wife.

  She removed her beautiful hat very slowly, and laid it on the table. She felt cold and miserable and homesick. She wanted to run back to Mummy and sit with her in her cosy sitting room, so they could gossip about the wedding and who’d been there. She wanted Daddy to tell her everything would be all right, and then she wanted to slip up to the nursery, to see if Nanny had any aspirins.

  But instead she sat in numb silence, experiencing the terrible feeling that, now Charles had secured her as his wife, he no longer intended to show her he cared for her, or to reassure her they were going to be happy together.

  ‘Shall I order room service, or do you want to go down to the restaurant for dinner?’ was all he asked, breaking into her bleak thoughts.

  ‘Dinner in the restaurant would be nice,’ she replied, in a small voice. Whether Charles liked her or not, she’d order champagne, and in front of a lot of people he wouldn’t be able to stop her. Getting tipsy might be the only way she was going to get through the rest of the evening. And the night ahead.

  The pain was excruciating. She felt as if an iron spear was being thrust inside her. Charles was trying to be gentle, she was sure of that, but nevertheless, why hadn’t her mother told her the first time would be so painful? There was absolutely none of that ‘pleasure in pain’ that people talked about, either.

  ‘Oh-h-h!’ she gasped again and again, shrinking back from the steely probing. ‘Wait … please.’

  But Charles did not intend to wait indefinitely. With a final impatient thrust he completed the act, and then lay, spent, on top of her, panting. Without having said a word.

  Later, while he slept heavily beside her, she lay awake, gazing into the darkness.

  She’d always been jealous of Juliet, but never more so than at this moment. To be home, and safe, and feel loved was all she wanted, she thought, as hot tears scalded her cheeks and dampened her pillow.

  ‘It’s such an amusing little doll’s house,’ Juliet mocked, when Rosie invited her to cocktails in her new home, after she’d returned from honeymoon. ‘I suppose it’s all Charlie could afford.’

  ‘Charles,’ Rosie corrected automatically, ‘and we’ll be moving somewhere bigger in due course, but we just wanted a tiny place to begin with, where we could be on our own.’

  ‘How cosy.’ Juliet sounded unconvinced.

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Rosie patted the new two-seater sofa, and then went over to a side table, where there was a small selection of drinks on a tray with a hunting scene, which they’d been given as a wedding present. ‘Sherry?’

  ‘Sherry?’ Juliet repeated. ‘Haven’t you any gin?’

  Rosie nodded. She did not look happy. ‘I’ve only got lime juice to go with it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘The tart’s drink,’ Juliet remarked, amused. ‘That’ll do, but go easy on the lime.’

  Sitting in uncomfortable silence, the sisters looked at each other. Juliet was amazed by how different everything was, now that Rosie was married. She seemed to have taken a great leap into another world, to which Juliet did not belong, and it was a strange feeling.

  ‘So tell me, Lady Padmore, how was the honeymoon?’ she asked in desperation, trying to sound flippant and jokey. ‘Did you see Nice and Die? Did you break the bank at Monte Carlo? Was the Tower of Piza really leaning?

  Rosie tried to laugh, but then her face crumpled and she burst into tears.

  Juliet looked at her in astonishment. ‘Rosie? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I … I don’t think I like being m-married,’ her sister sobbed.

  ‘You mean you’re not enjoying sex?’ Juliet asked bluntly.

  Rosie turned red with embarrassment, and blew her nose on a tiny handkerchief.

  ‘Go on. You can tell me, for God’s sake!’

  ‘It’s just that …’ she began tentatively, ‘I should warn you, because no one warned me, that it’s … difficult. Terribly painful at first. And then …’ Rosie’s voice drifted away, and she dabbed her eyes.

  ‘And then … what?’

  ‘Then … nothing,’ she said lamely.

  ‘How do you mean … nothing?’

  Rosie shrugged her thin shoulders. She’d lost a lot of weight in the three weeks she’d been away, and her pretty red and white summer dress hung limply on her.

  Juliet leaned forward. ‘Do you really mean you don’t enjoy it?’ She could hardly keep the amazement out of her voice.

  Rosie nodded slowly. ‘It’s very nice to be loved, of course,’ she added awkwardly. She and Juliet had never indulged in intimate talk, and making love with Charles was a very private matter, something she’d be reluctant to discuss even with a doctor.

  ‘If you don’t enjoy it, it’s because you’ve never been properly aroused,’ Juliet said knowledgeably. ‘And if you had been, it wouldn’t really have hurt, even the
first time. At least, only a tiny bit … and in a very exciting way.’

  Rosie’s mouth fell open. ‘How do you …? You haven’t, have you?’ she asked, shocked.

  Juliet suddenly smiled, a really warm, happy smile that lit up her eyes and made her face glow. No matter that Daniel Lawrence had turned out to be an adulterous rogue, she’d never forget how happy he’d made her during that weekend in Paris.

  ‘Yes. I have,’ she admitted, proudly. ‘It was the most marvellous experience. Sex is so important, Rosie. It’s so fulfilling … and wonderful for the skin.’

  ‘But … who? When …? Are you going to get married?’

  There was an immediate edge of jealousy in Rosie’s voice, and frustrated longing in her eyes. Trust everything to be ‘wonderful’ and ‘marvellous’ for Juliet, she thought.

  Juliet took out a cigarette and fitted it into a long green holder. ‘He’s already married and an utter rotter,’ she said, matter-of-factly, as she lit up. ‘I’ll never see him again, nor have anything to do with him, but I’ll be for ever grateful. He showed me how it should be done … I’ll probably never have such a wonderful lover again,’ she added, laughing wrily, ‘but it was worth it.’

  ‘How do you mean? There is only one way it can be done,’ Rosie said irritably. ‘What was so special about it?’

  Juliet looked thoughtful, and drew deeply on her cigarette. ‘He was older than me, and very experienced. I think one’s first lover should always be experienced. These boys we meet at parties are fumbling amateurs by comparison. They’re only out for their own pleasure, and to hell with what the woman wants. It’s very important for a lover to have good bedroom manners too.’

  ‘You mean like saying thank you afterwards?’ Rosie looked bewildered and dazed. That her younger sister seemed to know such a lot about what had always been a taboo subject in the Granville household shocked her.

  Juliet burst out laughing. ‘He’s not holding a door open for you, or offering you a seat on a train, Rosie.’ She held out her glass. ‘I say, could you top up this drink, with more gin?’

  Rosie got to her feet, as if in a dream. ‘Yes. I think I’ll have another one, too.’ She tottered over to the drinks tray, suddenly feeling deeply envious. That her younger sister should have had an obviously marvellous time in bed with an experienced man, while she’d been struggling to enjoy herself with Charles, filled her with chagrin.

  Charles had recently suggested that in future they should only make love on Tuesdays and Thursdays … what had happened to staying in bed, consumed by lust night and day, whilst drinking champagne? It felt as if her sex life had been committed to a calendar.

  ‘If I were you, Rosie,’ Juliet observed, tapping the ash of her cigarette into a hideous ashtray, obviously another wedding present, ‘I’d be a good little wifey until after you’ve had your children, and then I’d get a divine lover, and meet him in the afternoon, when Charlie is at Lloyd’s. That’s what they do in France.’

  Rosie looked stunned. ‘But I’m not French,’ she bleated.

  ‘Then your only other option, if the whole thing gets too ghastly, sweetie, is to leave him.’

  ‘I missed you all so much,’ Rosie exclaimed, hugging her little sisters and kissing their soft plump cheeks. ‘But I’ve brought each of you a present from France.’

  She’d bought presents for Nanny and Ruby, too, and as she joined them all for tea round the nursery table, she could have wept with joy at being home in her old nursery again.

  ‘Are you Lady Padmore, now?’ Charlotte asked. ‘And did God put a baby in your tummy in the church?’

  Rosie blushed. ‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ she said hastily, avoiding Nanny’s eye.

  ‘Tell us about the places you visited,’ Louise begged. ‘I’m longing to go to Italy to see the ruins of the Coliseum, where they threw the Christians to the lions.’

  Charlotte’s eyes widened. ‘Real lions?’

  Louise nodded, importantly. ‘They ripped the people to pieces with their teeth. We’re learning all about it at school.’

  ‘Cor blimey!’ muttered Ruby into her cup of sweet tea. Nanny shot her a look of disapproval. Cockney slang wasn’t allowed in the nursery.

  ‘Did you go up the Eiffel Tower?’ Amanda asked. She needed glasses more than ever now, but in spite of Nanny’s protestations, Liza wouldn’t hear of it. Who looked at girls in glasses? It would ruin her appearance, she declared.

  ‘Yes, we went up the Eiffel Tower. It rattled and shook in the wind, so I didn’t like it much.’ Rosie helped herself to one of Mrs Fowler’s fairy cakes, and then remembered she’d bought nothing for dinner tonight. Their daily cleaner didn’t cook, so this was another daily horror she had to face, having no idea how to even boil an egg.

  Rosie glanced at her diamond-studded wristwatch, a wedding present from her grandmother. ‘Oh! I’m going to have to go,’ she said sadly. ‘I haven’t bought tonight’s dinner yet.’

  ‘You haven’t bought it yet?’ Nanny echoed, disapprovingly. ‘Well, I expect Mrs Fowler could rustle up something for you to take home. Why don’t you pop down to the kitchen after tea, and ask her?’

  A wonderful smell of cooking greeted Rosie when she sailed into the kitchen, making her wish, even more fervently, that she still lived at home.

  ‘My, you look thin, m’lady,’ Mrs Fowler exclaimed in a shocked voice, ‘if you’ll pardon me for saying so,’ she added hastily. She’d known Rosie since she’d been born, but you didn’t take liberties with a titled married lady.

  ‘I’m fine, Mrs Fowler,’ Rosie replied, trying to sound breezy. ‘I wondered if there was any cold meat you could spare? I’ve completely forgotten to buy anything for dinner tonight, and I’m afraid Fortnums will be closed by the time I get there.’

  ‘Very expensive they are too,’ Mrs Fowler observed. ‘Wicked what they charge for a cooked chicken, and as for a piece of salmon …’ For once words failed her as she thought of the extravagance of shopping at Fortnum & Mason. She pressed her thin lips together. ‘Let me see what’s in the larder, m’lady.’

  She returned a few moments later with a steak and kidney pudding, the bowl covered with a piece of white cloth tied around the rim with string. ‘You just stand this in a big pan of boiling water for thirty minutes, and it will hot up nicely,’ she explained.

  ‘How shall I know when the water’s boiling?’ Rosie asked, mystified. She’d been buying ready-cooked food for dinner, with biscuits, cheese and fruit to follow.

  ‘When it bubbles,’ Mrs Fowler replied hollowly, after a deadly, shocked silence. ‘Have you got some veg?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then I’ll put a few spuds and some runner beans in a bag. You have to peel the potatoes, and chop up the beans, and boil them in separate pans,’ she enunciated slowly. Cor blimey! It was like talking to a child of six, she thought. ‘Would you like a summer pudding for dessert? I made an extra one this morning, and I can give you some cream to go with it.’

  Mrs Fowler’s summer puddings were legendary. The proportions she used of strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and blackberries were sweet yet sharp, gentle on the palate, yet pungent. Once again Rosie was transported back to her childhood, and she was engulfed in a fresh wave of acute homesickness.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Fowler,’ she said, blinking away her tears. ‘That would be wonderful.’

  ‘Doing the cooking yourself, are you?’ she remarked in a voice charged with pity. It really was a shame that Miss Rosie had married someone who couldn’t even provide her with a cook.

  ‘Yes, for the time being. Of course, I’ll have someone to help me when we move to a bigger house.’

  ‘She’s not eating,’ Mrs Fowler informed Parsons, as they sat drinking tea in the servants’ hall that night. ‘Looks like the scrag end of a piece of mutton, she does. Gone right down, in my opinion. Trouble is, them girls have never been taught how to do anything.’

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Fowler. They
were brought up as proper young ladies.’

  ‘If you ask me, I don’t think Lord Padmore has got tuppence to rub together. Imagine, they’ve only got someone who comes in to clean in the mornings! That’s not what Mrs Granville wanted for Miss Rosie, now, is it?’

  Parsons nodded gravely. ‘I’d say,’ he replied heavily, ‘that she’s never got over the death of the young marquess.’

  ‘But he had no money either.’ Mrs Fowler sounded scandalized. ‘They attract fortune-hunters, that’s the problem with them young ladies. I wouldn’t wonder if Lord Padmore wasn’t after her money. Probably hoped Mr Granville would give Miss Rosie a big dowry when they got married.’

  ‘Mr Granville would have expected her husband to keep her in style,’ Parsons opined.

  ‘She’ll be lucky,’ Mrs Fowler joked, baring her teeth like a grinning greyhound.

  The long hot days of August, filled with the sound of children’s laughter, the pluck-pluck of tennis matches, the whirr of the lawn-mower, and the song thrush in the old oak tree near the house, gave way to the golden month of September, and the warm days waned in a flurry of falling leaves and cooler nights.

  After the rest of the family returned to London for the little season, Juliet finally began to recover her spirits, after the shock of finding Daniel was married. Like a fern, with its tightly rolled new leaves slowly unfurling and stretching towards the light, so did she regain a sense of purpose, energy, and a feeling of rebellion. She was no longer going to be pushed into going to parties, to see and be seen. Nor was she going to be made to feel guilty for going her own way.

  ‘It’s all thanks to you, Granny,’ she said when she announced she was returning to London at the end of the month. They were strolling through the garden with the dogs one balmy evening, and the setting sun glowed red in the west.

  ‘Darling, I haven’t done anything,’ Lady Anne laughed. She stopped to dead-head one of the last roses of summer. ‘Hartley is a healing place. I felt it the first time your grandfather brought me here.’