Damn Polly. Damn Nola. Damn them both, one for a giddy fool who ought, at nineteen, to know better and the other for – what was she? A lunatic, surely, to take such risks, to put herself and others in this atrocious position.
‘Manchester,’ murmured Nola smoothly, propping her pointed chin on her hand, her eyes barely open, ‘is for grownups, Polly. And since we missed the last train home, what a disaster, my child, if you had been with us. Don’t you think so, Claire?’
But the thought uppermost in Claire’s mind was how exquisitely satisfying it would be to strangle Nola. Or, failing that, to find the courage – the cruelty – to lean forward and state crisply and clearly, ‘Don’t implicate me in your shabby love affairs.’
‘Oh yes, absolutely,’ she said.
‘I don’t see why,’ persisted Polly. ‘The Croziers would have been perfectly happy to put me up too wouldn’t they? They must have at least a dozen spare bedrooms and heaps of interesting friends. It would have been fun.’
It had not occurred to Polly that Nola had lied. And indeed, even Claire was not sure where the lie began or ended. Perhaps she really had missed the last train. Claire thought it likely, for otherwise she would have had her alibi more carefully prepared. But why? For God’s sake, why had she not warned Claire in advance? A whispered word before dinner would have been alarming, annoying, but possible, advisable, sane.
Claire was not, by nature, deceitful. But she had told lies regularly and fluently throughout most of her girlhood, from necessity, her life with Edward and Dorothy having thoroughly schooled her in the servile arts of falsehood, how to smile sweetly as her pulses raced with panic, how to speak smooth words – like Nola’s – as her mouth turned dry, how to test the ground beneath her feet for the hidden pitfall, the sudden quagmire, the trap. She was, therefore, an experienced if unwilling ally who knew that in order to defend herself she must discover first and foremost and very fast who, if anyone, suspected her.
Miriam, her round blue eyes intent, it seemed, on the pattern of her plate, continued placidly to eat her carrot purée and her green peas. Polly had not and would not see beyond the purchases she had wished to make in Manchester, the wicked young man who might have been waiting for her at the Bernard Croziers. Eunice – seemed puzzled but not suspicious. Toby, who so often had occasion to cover his own tracks, became suddenly very busy with the sauceboat. Benedict? She could not look at Benedict. Must not. Yet, sickeningly, she could look at no one else, her eyes drawn to his dark, distant face by some compulsion, whether of her guilt or his will she was uncertain. And although his expression had nothing in it that she could name, she felt the whole of her skin turn cold, the whole of her mind fill with the nightmare conviction that he could see right inside her head.
‘Did you enjoy the play, at least?’ he asked her.
What could she answer?
‘Yes,’ she said brusquely, almost throwing the word at him, knowing it was not enough. What play? Which one had Nola seen, or said she’d seen? And why, in what seemed to Claire a thick, unnatural silence, could not Nola – who must surely know the answer – make some move in her own defence? Nola – for Heavens sake! But she remained motionless, hardly breathing, a listening, waiting figure, her chin still on her hand, an odd light in her eyes, her lips curved in a remote, peculiar smile which Claire had seen before, many times in France; the strange, almost sensual pleasure of those who have become addicted to danger. Damnable, treacherous woman! Was she worth this agony? Were any of them? No. Absolutely not. Yet-just the same – what play?
Abruptly her mind emptied and then, as suddenly, filled up again with a jumble of half-remembered conversations which-because she had to say something – forced her to take what could only be a chance.
‘I have always been enormously impressed,’ she announced primly, ‘by the work of George Bernard Shaw.’
Would it suffice? Was Pygmalion playing in Manchester, or was it next week, last week, had she only imagined it? Or had Nola been talking about the Russian dramatist Chekhov, the other day, and comparing his work with Shaw? Was it The Cherry Orchard then that Nola had pretended to see?
‘Yes,’ said Benedict, his face telling her nothing, ‘I rather thought you might.’
‘Oh Lord – that stuff,’ said Toby Hartwell, coming, she fully understood, to her rescue. ‘Too highbrow for me, by half. I’d as soon go over to Leeds and doze through The Merry Widow. How about it Eunice? It’s on at the Grand.’
‘Oh yes,’ breathed Polly, claiming her place on any outing. ‘Do let’s.’
‘Try waiting to be invited,’ snapped Eunice. ‘It happens to be our wedding anniversary next week.’
‘Oh well.’ Polly was unabashed. ‘I was at your wedding, wasn’t I, all done up in my little organdie frills, so don’t be mean with the anniversary. A box, Toby, shall we, since it’s a special occasion, and supper afterwards – you are an angel. And I’m just longing for a ride in that gorgeous new car …’
There was a sharp, nervous clatter as Eunice’s fork struck the edge of her plate.
‘Yes – yes – quite,’ said Toby, his glance flickering uneasily to Benedict.
‘Oh – have you got a new car, dear?’ murmured Miriam.
‘Well – not exactly – I mean …’
‘He means,’ said Nola, making a casual sacrifice of Toby, ‘that it hasn’t been paid for yet.’
‘It means,’ flared Eunice, rising at once to Nola’s bait, ‘that considering the amount of driving Toby does – because Benedict sends him – and the customers he has to chauffeur around all over the place – and the hours it takes in the evenings and at weekends too – that, well … It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that he has to have something decent to drive in. Doesn’t it? I should think we’re entitled to that – aren’t we?’
Benedict, beckoning to the parlourmaid to refill his glass, said not a word.
The next morning, early for her, Nola came to Mannheim Crescent, not particularly to apologize but to explain. She had used Claire’s name on impulse to get herself out of an unforeseen complication. She had even taken the precaution of calling on Claire, the previous morning, to give her fair warning but – Claire might remember – having exchanged a few sharp words with Euan Ash, she had gone off in a huff, why not admit it, and, what with one thing and another, had forgotten all about it until the brat Polly had come close to letting the cat out of the bag. And what a cat! Lowering herself with one supple movement into Claire’s green chintz armchair she seemed only too ready to relive every erotic detail, graphically, greedily, taking her time over it.
‘I don’t want to know,’ Claire told her. ‘And don’t ever put me in that position again.’
‘Oh dear – dear – we are offended?’
‘Furious, Nola.’
‘Whatever for? We got away with it, didn’t we? And you were splendid.’
‘I was terrified.’
She smiled. ‘Yes. I know. So was I, Quite a sensation. Dear child – have I shocked you?’
Claire shook her head. ‘You can do what you like Nola – sleep with anybody you like – but don’t involve me. Not in any circumstances and particularly not with your husband sitting there.’
‘Oh I see – pangs of conscience about Benedict. Well, you can’t judge, Claire, can you, because you don’t know how marriage works. You could hardly call those few days with Jeremy a marriage. Could you, now?’
‘I don’t pretend to.’
‘Exactly. So, on the subject of husbands in general and mine in particular let me put your mind at rest. He’s as bad as I am. He has other women, you know.’
‘I know nothing about it.’
‘But he does. Or at least I hope he does, because he doesn’t have me. Not since Conrad was born he doesn’t, at any rate.’
Claire did not want to know. And yet –! Good Heavens! ‘How old is Conrad?’ she said.
‘Thirteen. It’s been a long time, Claire.’
‘Yes.’
‘No. I don’t believe that.’
‘Good. Then you may not believe that other convenient little myth our mothers teach us either – that marriage is the ultimate, the only, fulfilment for a woman, that all one has to do is get a man to the altar and – hey presto – paradise lies at one’s feet.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Lucky old you. Polly believes it. So did I. And my wedding, my dear, – I can tell you – was the social event of the Bradford season. White satin with a train half an aisle long and my mother in a Worth gown weeping all over the cathedral – from joy, one tends to think. And Benedict, handsome and rich and ever so faintly sinister, which always helps. Yes – I was as big a foot in those days as Polly about wicked young men. We had a Mediterranean honeymoon too. I was rather good at that. In fact I quite understood how to be a fiancee and a bride. It seemed to be leading up to something. Unfortunately, I never managed to find out just what – or just why – or what point there was to it. Have you ever felt like that? No. You weren’t married long enough to have to wonder what to do next. The answer they give you is “Have a baby”. I tried, and as a brood mare I was no one’s idea of a success. I had a bad experience with Christian. Worse with Conrad. And when the doctors advised me not to risk it again – well, what is one’s husband to do in a case like that? Assuming, of course, that he’s a gentleman?’
‘I suppose –’
‘What do you suppose? I’ll tell you this much. What you might feel entitled to suppose is that your husband would be upset about the loss of his privileges – his “conjugal rights” don’t they call them? Or that he’d at least go through the motions of being upset – of missing what men are supposed to set such store by. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Nola!’ she said sharply, recoiling with a vehemence that she barely understood from this too personal glimpse of Benedict. ‘It’s really none of my business you know – none at all.’
But Nola, leaning forward, in the grip of something taut and angry which caused her to mock her own actions in the same breath as she sought to justify them, would have none of that.
‘I daresay. But it’s my business and if I choose to make it yours then I have every right.’
‘Why should you want to, Nola?’
‘Oh – dear child – I don’t ask myself these profound questions any more. I just do what I can and what I like at the moment I like it. So if now I want to explain myself to you then you may as well listen. Why not? All right – when the doctors advised me against having more children they may not have meant for ever. And I may not have been so terrified about getting pregnant again as I made out. I may have been exaggerating the danger – for my dear husband’s benefit. Now why did I do that?’
‘Do you expect me to guess?’
She gave her deep-throated chuckle, leaning her head against the chair back, her eyes narrowed. ‘Dear Claire – I’m only guessing myself. I may have wanted to put an end to our sexual relations, of course. My own mother did that after my youngest sister was born and my father managed well enough. But on the other hand, I might – I’m not saying I did but I might – have wanted something quite different. Men desire what they can’t have. We all know that. And how might have I reacted if he’d come tapping on my bedroom door one sleepless night? Men can be driven mad by lust, or so we’re led to believe. Just think of it. He might have turned on me in a fit of violent passion and dragged me upstairs by the hair. What would I have done then, I wonder? But of course he didn’t. He moved out of my bedroom very courteously – very fast. And that, my dear Claire, was thirteen years ago. Don’t imagine I’m casting any slur upon his virility because he has plenty of that. He has a cottage in the Dales I believe – in fact I know he has – with a black marble bath and black satin sheets to match, I shouldn’t wonder, where he entertains his passing fancies. That’s how we live. He’s discreet. So am I.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Nola! Do you even realize the risk you run?’ And since it was a risk which had just occurred to Claire, she looked for a moment, quite badly shaken herself.
‘Oh quite. I told my husband I couldn’t sleep with him for medical reasons. I convinced the doctors that my nerves wouldn’t stand it. Presumably the doctors convinced him. Should he now discover that all this long while I have been sleeping with other men, what would he do? Murder me, do you think?’
It was evident that she expected him to make the attempt and would, in fact, be disappointed if he did not.
‘Why don’t you leave him, Nola?’
‘Why on earth should I wish to do that?’
‘Because you don’t care for him. He evidently doesn’t care for you. So where’s the point to it?’
‘You’re not talking about divorce are you?’
And her supple body stiffening in the depths of the armchair, she sounded hostile, offended, quite – and most uncharacteristically – shocked.
‘What else? I don’t know how easy divorce is nowadays. But at least it’s possible.’
‘Possible? So is bubonic plague, I suppose. Dear child – how many women do you know personally who have been divorced?’
‘One.’
‘And what happened to her?’
But before Claire could dredge from her memory the face and the supposed fortune of a woman she had met three years ago in France, Nola stopped her with an unusually commanding gesture of the hand.
‘I’ll tell you what happened to her. She broke her mother’s heart and her father struck her name from the family Bible and – rather more to the point – cut her out of his will. Her brothers’wives were too shocked to speak to her and her brothers too embarrassed. Her friends stopped inviting her because they thought she might pinch their husbands. Her children were taken away from her if they were small, and if they were older they blamed her for causing them so much inconvenience. She lost her home, her income, her position in society. And every man she met thought she was fair game and ought to be grateful. Isn’t that what happened?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I’m sure of it. And your friend’s husband probably did the decent thing and took the blame – hired himself a chorus girl for the weekend and went to Brighton so that his wife could divorce him. Benedict wouldn’t do that. Oh, no. He’d make sure I emerged as the guilty party with nothing but a pittance to Live on. And I have not the faintest notion of how one sets about living on pittances, dear child, nor the least desire to learn.’
‘It can be fun.’
‘Yes – at your age with family money sitting in trust for you, perhaps it can. But if you had nothing of your own – as I have nothing …’
‘Surely, Nola –?’
‘What? The Crozier money? You don’t know my father. He brought up his daughters to be rich and to be married. And all his financial settlements veer strongly in that direction. He will pay out whatever it costs to avoid a scandal. But if scandal should ever break out, then he would let whichever one of us caused it starve. We all know that. And whatever Benedict may be, he never questions my spending. No – no – I may not like High Meadows – but I have nowhere else to go, my dear. No one ever taught me anything else but how to be a rich man’s wife. And how could I support myself now? Giving piano lessons at a shilling an hour like that poor old soul upstairs? Or German lessons? I wouldn’t care to gamble on what would kill me first, boredom or starvation. Oh no, dear – the only hope of independence I shall ever have is to be a rich widow – like you. Except, of course, that Benedict, being a machine, will live for ever.’
But Claire was in no mood, just then, to dwell on the deceits practised by faithless women on faithless men. If Nola and Benedict enjoyed their adultery, and since they took so much trouble over it one must hope they did, then – for all she cared – they could get on with it undistu
rbed. Her aim was not to worry about the Swanfields but to avoid them, a policy she pursued with success until, returning home very late a week or so later she found the Swanfields’ Bentley, Miriam’s car, parked somewhat erratically outside her gate. Damnation. But Miriam, surely, had gone to Leeds, to see The Meny Widow with Eunice and Toby. Who then? Had Parker, the Swanfield chauffeur, a friend in Mannheim Terrace? Nothing to do with her, of course. Not even when she heard the bursts of tipsy laughter coming from Euan’s side of the passage and recognized Polly’s high, excited giggle among them.
She went into her own room, put on her disreputable kimono and sat down with a book, barefoot and naked under the scarlet silk. So Euan was having a party. Good. Since recovering from what he now termed his ‘attack of sincerity’he had been having a great many of those; rowdy, haphazard, spur of the moment gatherings of stray young girls and boisterous men who got drunk and used ‘language’as the dancing teacher put it, and often had to be stepped over the next morning, sleeping like logs on the hall carpet or the stairs. And Polly – she reminded herself – was simply not her responsibility. Yet, just the same, what was she doing with Euan? Rather more to the point what might he be doing with her? Was she safe with him? Of course not. But it had been Polly’s ambition for so long to meet a wild and wicked man and that being so, ought she not to be allowed simply to get on with it? To make her own mistakes, find her own solutions, grow in her own way? But then – what of the car, which somebody – not Polly – would have to drive back to High Meadows? Let Euan drive it. But Euan would be even more dangerous by now at the wheel of a car than Polly. Should she telephone High Meadows? What if Benedict answered? Probably – since Polly was on the loose – he was not there. Very likely he was in London. In fact she remembered Nola saying so. But could one take Nola’s word for anything? Leave it. Polly would get into trouble sooner or later. It might as well be now. But – nevertheless – oh damnation! And having read the same paragraph twice over without understanding a word, it was a relief to have her third attempt interrupted by Euan’s sharp tap on the door.
A Winter's Child Page 17
