Tame a Proud Heart

by Jeneth Murrey

  When he came back in with her tea, he was already washed, shaved and dressed. Her eyes flickered over him appreciatively as she took the cup and saucer he proffered; he noticed the glance and leaned forward to place a rather restrained kiss on her mouth.

  'And I advise you to go and do the same,' he murmured as he raised his head. 'Shower and dress, I mean. The daily arrives at half-past nine and she'll think I've married a slut if she finds you still in bed.'

  Roz found, over the next two weeks, that the transition from photographer's model to photographer's wife was very painful and that, without the easing-in period which would have come with a conventional honeymoon, there was nothing to cushion the bump. Charles was fussy about time. His appointments were made and he expected them to be kept to the minute. Most of them were, but occasionally a young, wide-eyed girl turned up half an hour late, and without blinking an eyelash blamed it all on the secretary for having booked in the wrong time, producing as proof a scribbled figure in a scrappy diary.

  Roz became cross when this happened. It was a ploy she had used once or twice herself when she had first started, but she had never been allowed to get away with it. Charles didn't blame her—well, not very much. Also he was fussy about the time and duration of his breaks, and Roz, sitting in the lounge and busy with pencil and paper, sketching clothes, was inclined to become engrossed with her own affairs so that he had to make his mid-morning tea himself and his lunches were frequently a disaster, either ready too late or too early for his implacable idea of a timetable.

  The second week in July was a particularly disastrous time. Roz had been to see her editor, who was more than pleased with the photographs of Roz in a country setting and who now wanted an outline of her first article to read and correct for content, after which she wanted the whole thing so that it could be read again, corrected again and proofed before the September edition of the magazine went to print.

  Charles, meanwhile, was busy with three models and a hamper of clothing from a large chain store. They were good, well finished clothes, based on what the chain store's experts thought the autumn and winter look would be. They weren't yet on the market, in fact everybody, including Charles, was treating them as one big secret and Roz thought she ought to be entitled to a preview.

  The girls arrived, one to do the teenage thing, another girl who would portray what the gear would look like on the twenty-five to thirty-five-year-old and a more mature woman for the 'over forties' look. She knew the two older girls and greeted them with pleasure, explaining her presence with a laughing, 'I'm married now and out of the business,' and the teenager turned on the stairs to look down on her.

  'Oh yes, I heard about it from a friend. To Charles, isn't it? You should be so lucky!'

  Roz scored through their names in the appointments book with such force that her ballpoint nearly went through the paper. Lucky! Was that what they really thought? It was a pity they didn't know the truth. That she spent most of the day by herself while Charles was upstairs snapping away merrily and that most of her evenings were nearly as lonely because, although he wasn't upstairs clicking his abominable shutter, he was there, locked in a darkroom, and she was alone downstairs.

  She was beginning to feel very sorry for herself, and when Charles refused to give her copies of the chain store photographs, she felt more than sorry for herself, she felt a definite sense of ill-usage.

  'But it would save so much time,' she protested, getting heated and letting it show.

  'You know better, Roz.' Charles wasn't even taking her seriously. 'The clothes are a secret, the materials used are equally under wraps and they aren't being shown until August when the store is launching a publicity campaign.'

  'But the magazine doesn't come out until September,' she argued. 'I shan't be stealing their thunder.'

  'Then go and ask for permission.' He was brusque, treating her almost as though she was a petulant child.

  'Pig!' she stormed, and went off to bed leaving the dinner dishes unwashed and the kitchen in a dreadful mess. She pretended to be asleep when he came into the bedroom, lying on her side, turned away from where he would be and breathing slowly and deeply; making each breath even and keeping her eyes firmly shut. But he wasn't deceived, he slid into bed and his hands came to turn her over.

  'Stop pretending, Roz. You don't fool me,' and his hands were soothing, caressing and seducing so that she found herself tumbling into his arms with a wanton ferocity, but it wasn't enough, she told herself when, sated, they lay with arms entwined about each other. There should be more to marriage than this driving need; there should be warmth, understanding and companionship, and so far, sadly she went over the score, there had been little of those more enduring qualities.

  CHAPTER NINE

  By the beginning of the last week in July, Roz had got her new life in order, and although the promised honeymoon had been delayed once more, she was not overmuch sad about it, but the time was hanging heavy on her hands. The transition from a busy, sometimes hectic life to the slower pace at the mews cottage was a bit traumatic, but she enjoyed not having to rush about with a suitcase full of changes and a bulging makeup bag.

  'When's that honeymoon coming off?' she demanded of him. Eve had phoned that she and the children were going off to the States with Stephen and Roz found herself afflicted by a wanderlust.

  'Not this month.' Charles tossed a letter across to her. 'They want photographic Christmas cards and it's the opportunity of a lifetime. You wouldn't have me miss it, would you?'

  She glanced at the signature at the bottom of the piece of heavy paper and shook her head. 'My, my,' she marvelled while she buried her hopes. 'You'll soon be up among the greats, taking your place beside Lichfield, Bailey and Snowdon.'

  Charles looked at her thoughtfully. 'It bothers you, the quiet life?'

  'N-no—' She heard herself sounding not very sure, so she expanded the theme. 'You know very well that I never went in for a mad round of gaiety, it wouldn't have done. You'd have been turning up your nose when you printed a close-up of me. Let me see if I remember your rules.' She gazed up at the kitchen ceiling and pursed her lips. 'Early to bed and early to rise, no smoking and the minimum of alcohol; and then there was the ban on rich food which successfully eliminated all those dinners I was invited to partake of at nightclubs and such. I've got it right, haven't I? I ought to, you told me often enough.'

  'So I did,' he grinned, 'and it was successful, wasn't it? You still look as good as you did five years ago.'

  'But,' she raised her eyebrows, 'I thought you said I was passé, that you would have to fog prints. Wasn't I haggard and haunted…?'

  'You're still haunted, Roz.' His glance became acutely professional. 'It's in your eyes, I think. Can't you bury those memories?' His eyes searched her face and she flushed under his scrutiny. 'No, you can't, can you?' Under his heavy lids, his eyes glittered darkly. 'Damn you, Roz, why can't you forget? It's like living with a ghost between us. Even in bed I can feel the bloody thing there!' He rose and moved catlike to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. 'Get rid of it, Roz!' He was vehement. 'It's all in the past. Write it off as experience.'

  When he had gone, slamming the door behind him, she poured herself another cup of tea and sat quietly drinking it. His behaviour didn't upset her, she had worked with him for too long for that. Any small detail which wasn't quite right was enough to send him into a torrent of caustic comment. What did worry her was the fact that he seemed to know how the memory of his long affair with Margery would keep intruding into her mind. A lot of the time, she hardly thought about it, but occasionally it hit her, making her feel uncertain despite herself.

  She loved him and she had told herself that she could take anything in her stride, but this wasn't anything. A few brief affairs she could ignore, brush them aside with a shrug. What man of thirty-five or so had ever behaved like a Trappist monk except a Trappist monk? She was practical about it, she wouldn't have enjoyed inexperienced fumbling; as
far as lovemaking was concerned, Charles led and she followed, and she preferred to be led by an expert.

  But a man who had lived with the same woman for five years, that was something different again. It was like marrying a widower or a divorcee; there would always be that ghost lurking in the background. He would have memories and in moments of stress he would be comparing life with her to the life he had experienced with another woman. Roz sighed as she imagined Margery trotting about the house, working in the kitchen, making herself comfortable in the lounge and… the bedroom was the worst. Sometimes, not often but sometimes during the night, Roz could even feel the woman lying between them. Hadn't Margery told her that she and Charles had always been close? How much closer could you get than that?

  Once she had been tempted to go and see Margery, assess the opposition, maybe find out a little more, but a few moments' reflection made her realise that such a course of action would be stupid. What could she say? She could hardly walk into a strange woman's house and demand to know intimate details of things which, properly, weren't her concern.

  So it wasn't really her ghost, her memories which were causing the slight friction between her and Charles. It was Charles's ghost, a phantom Margery who had known him so long and to whom he always told everything! How did he suppose she could get rid of it? That was for him to do and in the sensible way. All he had to do was to tell her about it, to tell her that it was all over, that he now loved her, Roz, and that Margery meant nothing to him any more. But he never spoke of it, and she was too proud to ask questions.

  The daily woman tramped into the kitchen and Roz escaped as soon as possible, but not before she'd been treated to a lengthy list of complaints which spanned everything from corns and bunions to the price of pork chops. She murmured sympathetically at the price of tinned dog food and details of a visit to the chiropodist as she edged towards the door, and once through it she fled to the hallway to consult the appointments book.

  Charles had two this morning, a girl whom she knew very well who did Scottish knitwear—she was coming at ten o'clock—and there was another girl for a lipstick advertisement at eleven-thirty. She supposed he was quite prepared, he rarely forgot anything to do with his work, but it was safer to take no chances, so she ran lightly up the stairs to the studio to remind him.

  'Knitwear at ten, lipstick at eleven-thirty.' His assistant hadn't arrived yet and Roz watched him assembling a backdrop; a misty blue sky with a bit of a mountain, purple with heather. 'A piper in the background would be effective,' she murmured and skittered back downstairs before he threw something at her.

  The knitwear girl arrived promptly and chatted blithely as she struggled in with a small suitcase and two long cardboard boxes. 'My twice yearly stint for the classic look, and this time there's an addition. The firm's doing a line in sheepskin coats and jackets, they're gorgeous—feel!' She lifted the lid of one of the boxes and directed Roz's fingers among the tissue paper wrappings.

  'Mmm.' Roz fingered the soft skins appreciatively. 'Lovely.'

  'And very good value. Remember the name if you're buying, and don't forget to write to the firm and tell them it was me who recommended them. You'd look dishy in the coat; it's out of this world. Have you finished altogether, Roz? I heard a rumour about you and a magazine—is it true?'

  'Very true, Maggie.' Roz grinned as she checked the name off in the book. 'Remember, you write to my firm and tell them how much help I've been in making a better and more beautiful you!'

  There were no appointments after lunch and Charles was incommunicado, having locked himself away in a darkroom to start developing the negatives from this morning's work, so Roz put on a light mac and went for a walk; she felt she needed the fresh air and exercise. She wouldn't be missed, and she dawdled happily along Cheyne Walk, watching the river traffic, admiring the houses, as she always did, and the ripples of sunlight on the surface of the water. She bought some fresh flowers for the house and arrived back at four o'clock. The telephone was ringing as she crossed the threshold, but by the time she had closed the door and picked up the handset whoever had been trying to get through had stopped trying, and all she heard was the steady 'Brr' of an open line.

  She made a mental note to attack Charles once more on the advisability of having an extension in the studio. Her previous attempts had met with no success because he disliked even the thought of being interrupted—and after making him a pot of tea and delivering it to the door of the darkroom she hurried off to get on with her task of the moment which was the housing of her Minton china.

  Eve had rung during the first week in July, bubbling with enthusiasm. 'We're all off to the States, we're flying, and Freda's over the moon with joy!' Her voice had been lilting with laughter. 'Isn't it fabulous! And Stephen's told me it's all due to you. You assured him that I'd go without thinking twice about it. He's always hesitated about asking me before in case I refused.' Roz had smiled to herself grimly. So that was how her brother-in-law had explained it away! She gave him full marks for subtlety, and then she had listened to the rest of Eve's communication, which was of more importance to her. 'By the way, I've had your wedding presents boxed up and I've been in touch with a firm of carriers, so you should be receiving them next week some time.'

  Roz had groaned aloud. 'Impetuous—I was going to ask you to hang on to them for a while, I've nowhere to put the china. Couldn't you…?' She had changed her mind about asking favours; Eve would be busy getting ready for the trip, she wouldn't want to be bothered altering arrangements. 'No, I suppose you couldn't.'

  'Couldn't what?' At her sister's query, Roz made her explanation as short as possible.

  'The thing is—I've been hunting for a dresser, one of the old type and not an antique. They're not scarce, I've found several, but the prices they want for them! You'd think they were Georgian, not chuck-outs from Victorian and Edwardian kitchens.'

  'A dresser?' From being excited, Eve became calm and helpful. 'Is that all you want? What about the dresser from here, that is if it hasn't already been chopped up for firewood. Would that do you? I've rearranged the kitchen, had a few new units in along that wall, and the old thing doesn't go with wipe-clean melamine. Do you want it? Because if you do the carrier can bring it up with the other things.'

  Roz had visualised the dresser, not a real antique but definitely better than the ones she had seen. It had been sandpapered down and revarnished, so it was quite presentable, and it would be free!

  'Yes, please,' she took up the offer without further thought. 'Don't let anybody chop it up; it'll be ideal for the china.'

  'And hell to dust and polish,' Eve had gurgled, and then gone back to details of the trip to the States.

  After she had hung up, Roz had gone around the little house looking for some place to put the thing. It wouldn't fit into the lounge and it would be an anachronism in the kitchen among the modern units, but there was the garden room, a subterranean place which overlooked the minute garden which was on a lower level than the pavement at the front of the mews.

  Charles had been using it as a storeroom, she discovered when she went investigating. There were cartons full of plastic jars of chemicals, more cartons containing photographic paper together with a whole pile of discarded junk, and Roz had set to with a sense of purpose; she had only a week to get the place ready.

  The cartons were taken up to the attics, the junk was disposed of—she had paid the council refuse collectors to take most of it away—and then she had cleaned the room thoroughly before painting the ceiling and walls with white emulsion. The floor of the room was terrazzo tiles, chipped here and there, but a few rugs would cover the worst areas and she would buy new curtains for the wide window and the French one which looked out over the pocket handkerchief of a lawn.

  The dresser had come in two pieces, so there was no difficulty in getting it down the narrow stairway at the very back of the hallway, and now, after her walk, she intended unpacking the china and arranging it. She was hopeful tha
t, if she called Charles down when she had finished, the sight of a lonely dresser with its burden of Minton in an otherwise unfurnished room might spur him into furnishing the place properly so that it could be used instead of wasted.

  A glance at her watch assured her that she had at least an hour before she need start preparations for dinner, and armed with a screwdriver she opened the door at the top of the stairs and went down to attack the packing case. It was a stout wooden one; Eve, the complete housewife, believed in doing things properly; the screwdriver wasn't all that effective and Roz broke a fingernail before at last she prised the lid from the box. The wood shavings in which the china was packed made an awful mess, but she comforted herself that it would all sweep up easily from the tiles and she spent a happy hour, head down in the packing case and with wood shavings and sawdust flying in all directions as she burrowed and tenderly removed each plastic-wrapped piece. Finally it was all out, and she gasped at the time it had taken. Over an hour, and she was nowhere near finished yet!

  'You'll have to wait till tomorrow,' she told the pile of plates, and as she passed the box she gave it a hearty kick and tossed the bent screwdriver in among the sawdust; after which she mounted the narrow stairs to let herself into the shadowed dimness of the back of the hallway to look to where Charles was standing with a weeping Margery plastered closely against him, her arms about his shoulders and her small, pale hands grasping and clutching convulsively at the fine silkiness of his black polo-necked sweater. She was sobbing something about it all being a mistake and Charles was comforting her in a very expert way.

  Roz watched him lower his dark head to lay his cheek tenderly against Margery's tear-wet one; she heard his comforting murmur of a promise that everything would be all right, and she stood there in the shadows woodenly while everything inside her turned to ice and her hands clenched until the nails bit into her palms. She gripped her lip between her teeth to stop herself crying out as he led Margery into the lounge with a protective arm about her shoulders, and when the door closed behind them, she came back to some sort of life. She walked steadily down the hall, picked up her mac and her bag and let herself out through the door, closing it quietly behind her.