A Winter's Child

by Brenda Jagger

  ‘You have ruined my life,’ she shrieked at him.

  ‘He has ruined my life,’ she shrieked even louder, running into the drawing room where, standing in the very centre of the floor, she began to sob like a very small girl. ‘Mother – tell him. Father wouldn’t have let him do this to me.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Father would turn over in his grave,’ said Eunice bitterly, for once in full agreement with her sister, ‘if he knew the half of it-’

  ‘Steady on,’ murmured Toby, who, having steeled himself for days to make an appointment with Benedict to discuss his salary, was now most anxious that no one – particularly Eunice – should put him in a bad humour.

  ‘Your father,’ said Miriam hastily, still sweetly, ‘did the best he could for you.’

  Once, a month ago, an age ago, Nola would have lowered her glistening eyelids and murmured, ‘Don’t you mean, dear Miriam, that he did his best for you?’

  Now she got up and went to her room, unnoticed, unquestioned, and lay once again in her armchair where, since it seemed pointless to do otherwise, she spent the night.

  There was to be no retribution, no restrictions, no conditions, it seemed, of any kind. What was there to be? The same as before. He had set no limits around her. No one had. Benedict, she understood now, had never limited her, never controlled her, never attempted to impose his will upon her at all. It had been – like so much else – an illusion. She had assumed herself to be his captive, imagined it, needed it, and now how solitary, how very frightening it was to realize she had always been free. It meant – what? That now she had no one but herself to blame? That she could no longer hide behind that stock figure of comedy, the heavy husband – for what else had her life been but a farce? – and say ‘He made me as I am. I had no choice – no chance.’

  Now the terrible spectre of choice loomed ahead of her – choice and freedom – and she had no equipment to cope with either. Her father had taught her obedience. Her mother had shown her how to get around it by stealth. Marriage had clamped her awkwardly but firmly – or so she had believed – into a mould which at least she understood, setting recognized boundaries to her behaviour, limiting her opportunities, but giving her something tangible, something solid to fight against. But she had imagined that too. She had known how to be a captive and a rebel. Now she could do as she pleased. And she was terrified.’

  ‘I think,’ Claire told Benedict, speaking almost gingerly since it afforded her considerable embarrassment to talk to him about Nola, ‘in fact I know she would like you to punish her – quite violently even.’

  ‘I dare say. Unfortunately it is quite beyond me. You must know that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well – what can I do? If she needs my forgiveness then – good God Claire, there is nothing to forgive. And who am I to judge, in any case. Can you find a way to tell her that?’

  She tried, knowing that if Benedict made the attempt himself, it would sound in no way forgiving but uncaring, harsh, dismissive. ‘Pull yourself together. Don’t trouble me.’

  But Nola was not seeking pardon.

  Nor punishment either – or not precisely. An answer then? Although, in her anguished prowlings around High Meadows, she did not even know what questions to ask. She had been caught in adultery and no one had cast a stone. She had aborted a child and instead of being confined to a prison or packed off in disgrace to whatever might pass these days for a nunnery, she had been taken to a comfortable Eastbourne hotel. And although she knew she had taken the only course she had believed open to her, knew, moreover, with a flash of self-knowledge, that she would do the same again, she felt that she had committed a crime. She had done an evil thing. Why, instead of talking of hat – boxes and civic functions and the poor state of trade in Faxby, would someone not look her in the eye and admit that?

  ‘How well you look, dear,’ Miriam told her absently every morning. She felt – unreal. Who was she? She had never known. Did anyone? She reclaimed her car from Polly, drove into town and spent a disconsolate hour in the lounge bar of the Crown, filling herself with alcohol to combat a sudden delusion that she had become invisible. She was transparent. Hollow. For one, brief moment of panic she believed that she had no real, living substance whatsoever.

  ‘If it isn’t my darling Nola,’ Kit Hardie called out to her through the open doors. Had he really seen her?

  ‘You’re looking blooming, Nola.’ No. He had not.

  She went out into the street, feeling nebulous, vaporous, found her car, started the engine, and drove aimlessly for a while, round and round. Where was she going? What a terrible question. Once it would have been to Leeds – quick! No time to lose! – to do all the busy things so vital to the nurturing of artistic genius. Once it would have been to Kit. Before that – how many others? And what she remembered most was how dull or how tawdry, how commonplace each affaire had seemed the moment it was over. Turning abruptly into a side street and coming to a halt not a moment too soon before a high, soot-blackened wall, it came to her, like the tolling of a mourning bell, that she had lost not only her nerve but her taste for lovers. She dare not involve herself with another man. Far worse than that – she did not want to.

  What she sought now was something else – something tremendous. God perhaps? Or perhaps not. Yet no possibility ought to be neglected and Faxby, no matter how sparse in culture or social refinements, abounded in religion, the Church of England in all its aspects, high and low, broad and narrow; Methodism of both the Wesleyan and the Primitive variety; Baptists, Christadelphians, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congre-gationalists, Presbyterians, Quakers, the supple Church of Rome, an ebullient Salvation Army Citadel, a small, discreet, but well attended Synagogue, a Spiritualist. Nola, in the first fortnight after her return to High Meadows, visited each minister in turn, explained her crime and asked forgiveness which, in her view, was far too hastily granted. Go home and sin no more. It was far less simple than that. She did not want to go home. She never had. What astonished her now, was that she did not want to sin either, a problem which caused some embarrassment to the less experienced of the reverend gentlemen when, with alcohol on her breath and nicotine stains on her hands, she tried to explain how deeply this troubled her. She had always been a sinner. It matched the furs and lipstick and the clever remarks. Now that she had nothing to hide, no desperate lies to tell, no tracks to cover, no glorious, ridiculous dreams, what was left of her?

  ‘I do hope,’ said Miriam, ‘that she will manage to cheer herself up in time for my birthday.’

  There seemed little chance of it. She took to staring again, intently, critically, in an excruciating, almost accusing silence at anyone and everyone, alarming Eunice, unnerving Polly who absolutely could not stand it, embarrassing her sons when they came home for the Easter holidays, her eyes unblinking, penetrating sometimes and a little glazed at others, invariably so odd that Miriam felt obliged to whisper to Mrs Timms, in the sure knowledge that she would whisper it to everyone else, that she put it all down to Nola’s ‘time of life’and one had had ample experience in Faxby of the peculiarities of menopausal women.

  But, rather worse than that, she began to speak the truth.

  ‘That young man won’t marry you, Polly. You’d do well to settle for Roger Timms while you can still get him.’

  ‘Why don’t you make a bolt for it, Toby.’

  ‘Miriam, I believe you are getting old.’

  But Miriam who, in her youth, had been very young was now graciously and serenely ready to be old. And, moreover, without any advice from Nola, she had made up her own mind about Roger Timms. Both she and Polly had used him as a convenience long enough. He had done well and now, in her favourite role of Good Fairy, Miriam had fixed upon her birthday as an appropriate time to give him his reward. To tell the absolute truth – and Miriam never told that kind of truth to anyone but herself – she was growing out of patience with Polly, tired by her and tired of her to such an extent
that marriage to amiable, tedious Roger seemed the only answer.

  And so, most adroitly, she began to lay her plans. She made it clear to Mrs Templeton, for instance, over a slice of simnel cake and a cup of Earl Grey tea, that although Polly very likely did have more money than Mrs Templeton’s Sally, it was so regrettably tied up in the business and the whim of her brother Benedict that one might almost say the poor dear child had nothing to call her own but her pin money and a natural – oh yes – a positively frantic extravagance. It was, therefore, rather necessary for Polly to choose a husband with money of his own, unless, of course, she wished to be wildly romantic, love-in-a cottage and all that which – well – one knew only too well that when poverty came in at the cottage door how quickly love tended to fly clean away through the window.

  Would Mrs Templeton, surrounded as she was by her four daughters and her two spinster sisters, a woman badly in need of at least one man in the family, repeat the gist of all that to Roy Kington? Miriam, certainly thought so. And to make absolutely certain or, being certain already, perhaps only to see the matter through, Roy Kington was invited to dinner the following Sunday when, quite predictably, Benedict stared coldly through him; Eunice just as predictably, voiced her loud and incautious grievance on the subject of Toby’s salary; while Miriam, at her fragile, fluttery best, leaned rather heavily on the young man’s arm, making him sit beside her in the drawing room and showing him, with appropriate reminiscences, her photograph albums of Polly and Jeremy.

  He was not particularly patient about it but Miriam, telling her happy little tales of life at High Meadows with all its quaint traditions in which everyone was expected to take part, appeared to notice nothing amiss.

  ‘Really?’ said the lithe, whipcord young warrior, bored to distraction and showing it.

  ‘Oh yes. Unity is strength, isn’t that it? My husband always said it was. He did so love us to be united, and he made his little arrangements, of course, to keep us together – afterwards, I mean. So thoughtful.’

  And when Benedict appeared for a moment in the doorway and said ‘Toby – spare me a minute, there’s a good chap’, Miriam gave a start of unconcealed distress and, well aware that Benedict, who was taking Claire home – how kind! – merely wanted Toby to move his car, she put a hand on Roy Kington’s arm and murmured ‘Poor Toby – in disgrace again, I suppose. Oh dear – and coming so soon after that fearful row about his salary. Eunice was so upset. But if I have told her once I have told her a hundred times – when Benedict says “No” then his word – of course – is final. Absolute. Case closed. Oh dear – do forgive me for running on. It must be because you already seem like one of us. Tell me dear boy, what is it that you do? Remind me. Ah yes – you are selling cars at present, are you? What fun. Although I really must implore you not to sell one to Toby. It would make Benedict so cross. I wonder, although it is probably a little too early to tell – how have you been getting on with Benedict?’

  Badly of course. She had known she could rely on that. And with Toby?

  ‘He wanted to be a pilot,’ she said shrewdly, quite wickedly, having picked up the information somewhere or other that flying – along with several other pursuits equally chancy – was one of Roy Kington’s ruling passions, ‘but of course any such dangerous sport must be out of the question. Eunice’s nerves could never stand the strain and Benedict would never sanction the expense. My girls are very much alike – Eunice and Polly – have you ever noticed?’

  She saw, with satisfaction, that he was noticing now. And having thus discouraged Roy Kington the next step must be a téte-a‘/-téte with Roger’s mother, Mrs Timms.

  ‘Clever women like ourselves, Edith my dear, have always managed to arrange things to our liking – haven’t we?’

  Edith Timms was, in fact, a clever woman. Her husband was a clever man. Just how it was that Roger, their-only child, had turned out such a dunce, likeable, of course, and well-meaning, but slow, remained a mystery and a sorrow to them both. Yet it had to be faced. Roger was not clever. Good-natured, certainly, and generous and his mother loved him – although she rather suspected that her husband did not. Yet Mrs Timms had once been Miss Edith Taylor, daughter of the senior partner of Taylor & Timms department store and the thought of everything her father and her husband’s father had worked for being placed in the hands of her son, Roger, often caused her to tremble. The thought of Roger in the hands of some scatterbrained young hussy did not greatly please her either. And she had, therefore, extended only a cool welcome to Polly, being altogether immune – unlike her son and, rather regrettably, her husband – to the girl’s glorious golden looks.

  ‘Old Mrs Timms doesn’t like me,’ sang Polly whenever the subject of her engagement to Roger was mentioned.

  It was a state of affairs Miriam had now set herself to put right, by explaining to a fascinated Mrs Timms in precise, easily assimilated detail not only the full extent of Benedict’s control over Polly but the promise he had made his father to retain that control for as long as was needful: for ever, more than likely, in the case of her pretty, extravagant, lovable Polly. And it did not take Mrs Timms long to realize that in matters of finance and disciplined spending, the handling of investments and allowances, the future good management of Taylor & Timms, one could rely absolutely on Benedict.

  She went home to discuss the matter with her husband who, in – addition to his partiality for long-legged blondes, had the fate of his family business very much at heart and suddenly the cry ‘Old Mrs Timms doesn’t like me’no longer applied. Suddenly, in fact, no day was complete for Mrs Timms unless she had spent part of it pampering and praising her Polly.

  ‘What a lovely dress. How graceful you are, dear. What natural style. Just come into the Millinery Department and try on the new hats. Oh dear – I thought as much – I think you’d better keep that one. It will never look the same on anyone else.’

  To begin with, accustomed to coldly raised eyebrows and a pinched smile whenever Mrs Timms came across her in the store, Polly was startled, puzzled rather than pleased. But Edith Timms knew very well how to indulge the young – after all, she had always indulged her Roger to what some thought a fond but foolish degree – and her wily expertise, assisted by Polly’s almost puppyish desire for affection, soon won the girl over.

  She was invited to dinner where the entire Timms family, mother, father and son, looked at her, listened to her – a pleasant change from High Meadows – which made her feel witty, sophisticated and smart. And although she was accustomed to feeling clever with Roger, his parents, suave, dapper Mr Timms and Edith Timms with her quiet, sharp-eyed elegance, were another matter. She was invited to stay the night – a considerable step forward in the game of matrimonial noughts and crosses – and positively encouraged to linger as long as she liked in bed, to eat chocolates from large Taylor & Timms’boxes all day if she pleased, to browse at her leisure through catalogues of next season’s furs and evening dresses of which, it was discreetly implied, she had only to make her choice.

  ‘I do believe,’ said Edith, ‘that your fingers are as small as mine. Or perhaps not? I know – let’s see if they can fit my rings.’ And, for a heady afternoon, Polly decked herself in the jewels which had been collected by Edith’s mother and mother-in-law, two of Faxby’s greatest ladies, and by Edith herself, a treasure chest, a glittering enchantment which entirely dazzled Polly’s never particularly clear vision and took her breath away.

  Edith, of course, did not give her even the least valuable of the stones, nor the least considerable of the gold chains and bracelets, of which there was a goodly number. But it was, nevertheless understood that as she had inherited them through the family, so too could they be Polly’s.

  ‘They make you look like a queen, dear.’ Edith Timms was making her feel like a queen and it was that, far more than the promise of chocolates for breakfast and furs and jewels, which inclined Polly to look again at Roger. Not that he was ever very much in evidence during the
afternoons she had begun to spend with his mother.

  ‘Run along, Roger. There’s a good chap.’ And when, in his amiable, shambling fashion he had gone away, Edith would murmur, not with Miriam’s sugary sweetness, but pointedly, woman to woman, ‘So biddable our Roger. Brought up to do as he’s told and positively enjoys it, Polly dear. Pity one can’t say the same for his papa.’

  No one had ever been so kind to Polly. No one had ever approved of her so warmly, nor shown so marked an inclination to treat her not as a feather-brained child but as a woman. No one had ever asked for her opinion before and then actually listened to it. And it seemed wonderful to her that the person who had finally taken her seriously had turned out to be Roger’s mother of whom, until recently, she had been rather afraid. But she was afraid no more. Quite the contrary. She had found – incredible as it still seemed to her – a knowledgeable entertaining friend. How very pleasant life could be here in this cosy, easy-mannered house, with Edith Timms. And she began to forget, or perhaps simply no longer to pay attention, to the part Roger Timms must unavoidably play.

  ‘Do you think your mother could spare you to me for a few days? After her birthday, needless to say. I have rather a fancy to take you to London. Oh yes – just the two of us. We can manage very well without our menfolk in Harrods and Self-ridges and Fortnum and Mason. Would you like it?’

  ‘Oh yes please – yes I would.’

  How perfect, or at least how perfect it might be, could be, if only she could fall in love with Roger. If only he wouldn’t try to kiss her so often. If only he wouldn’t tremble so much and look so red and heavy and awkward. If she married him she ‘d have to come to terms with that, every night. No doubt she’d get used to it. Her mother said so and Edith had hinted at it. She’d learn to put up with it as they had done – as women generally did – which was all very well until she remembered the lean, steel-hard beauty of Roy Kington and the sensations it aroused in an as yet entirely unexplored part of her abdomen.