A Winter's Child

by Brenda Jagger

  She believed she had fallen in love with him.

  ‘Prove it,’ he told her. ‘Words are cheap. I need more than that.’

  ‘Much more?’ She knew what his answer would be and she was dreading it.

  ‘A hell of a lot more, darling. Your brother doesn’t like me. Your mother treats me like a fool. So give me something to prove you’re not making a fool of me as well.’

  ‘Oh Roy – if we were just engaged?’

  ‘Oh, Polly – we won’t be engaged, not ever, unless you do.’

  ‘Why!’ She sounded desperate.

  ‘Because I don’t want to risk waking up one morning married to a cold woman, that’s why.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Prove it, Polly.’

  There had been a supper party at High Meadows, a little treat for Polly, Miriam had called it, to which she might invite all her friends. And although she had scattered invitations like raindrops in the cocktail bar at the Crown it had, nevertheless, surprised Polly how many of those ‘friends’ had turned out to be smart, up-to-the-minute, unfamiliar girls who – although this had not surprised her at all – had hung on Roy Kington’s every word when, with a glass of what she feared to be Benedict’s best brandy in his hand, he had talked rather more than she actually liked about the excitements he had known and clearly missed in wartime France. Where had these girls come from? She couldn’t imagine. Nor, since she was neither particularly observant nor particularly deceitful herself – not bright enough to be devious, thought Miriam – had she noticed how often, on Miriam’s instructions, Roy’s glass had been filled so that now, as they stood face to face in the garden by the dark of the rhododendron hedge he was quite drunk in the manner of trench soldiers – as Euan Ash was often drunk – without showing it, or at least not to a girl with so little real experience as Polly.

  ‘Well, Polly, what’s it to be? Are you going to prove it? Or not? In which case – You know what I mean.’

  She knew. Sally Templeton who was so cheerful and good-natured and would do anything to get a husband. Supposing she did get him – this way. Supposing this was all it took? What a fool Polly would feel then? And if not Sally, then how many of those smart, modern girls who had suddenly invaded High Meadows could be trusted to turn him away?

  ‘Well, Polly?’

  The teasing glow faded from her abdomen as she hung her head.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You’d better mean it. Don’t lead me on.’

  ‘I do. But where?’ He made a sudden lunge at her, taking her like an adversary, seeing no reason, after all these weeks of blowing hot and cold, to waste more time.

  ‘Good Lord, not here – for Heaven’s sake.’ Gasping for air between his kisses she was horrified.

  ‘Come to my car then.’

  ‘Roy! It’s parked on the drive. They’d see us from the windows.’

  ‘Where then? Is that a summer-house down there?’

  ‘Oh – that. It’s filthy.’

  ‘Listen,’ he was out of breath, pugnacious, ‘are you backing out? You said you would. I won’t ask again. I’m a man, Polly – not a kid like brother Rex or a simpleton like Roger.’

  ‘Oh yes I know. And I will – I want to …’

  She had never wanted anything so little in her life.

  ‘That’s my girl – and you’ll be my girl, you know, afterwards. You’ll like it, Polly.’

  She doubted that.

  ‘I’m sure I shall. But we can’t manage it here – can we?’

  ‘Anywhere, Polly.’

  He leaned her back into the rhododendron hedge, the thick, old branches giving way just sufficiently to support her body half reclining, and leaning over her – knowing he had no time to lose – began to uncover her shoulders and slide her skirt up until it was waist high and he had bared her breasts.

  ‘Isn’t this fun, Polly?’

  It was terrible, humiliating, something – a twig she supposed – was sticking into her back. She felt intolerably exposed, ridiculous, horribly upset. And what, at the end of it, if she had a baby?

  ‘Yes. It’s lovely,’ she said.

  ‘Then do something about it, Polly. Answer me.’

  Whatever could he mean? All she really knew of lovemaking, from the mutterings of Eunice and her mother, was that women lay on their backs in bed in the dark and endured it. Like childbirth! Dear God!

  ‘Touch me, Polly.’

  He had shrugged off his jacket and his shirt and although she would really have preferred to use her hands to cover her eyes she put them hesitantly on his bare skin, palms flat down and then stroking a little.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘You do love me, Roy, don’t you.’

  ‘Yes – I’m just going to show you, aren’t I.’

  Suddenly she felt something strange against her leg – oh God, she knew what it was and at the same time could not imagine it, was just thankful, unutterably thankful, that she couldn’t see it, couldn’t be expected to look.

  ‘Roy –’ And she was pleading, imploring him.

  ‘You’ll be all right, old girl. Won’t hurt a bit – not much at any rate – so they say –’

  ‘No – please don’t.’

  ‘They say that too.’

  Sliding a hard, cold hand between her knees he began to force them apart. That had happened before, with him, with others, but only her body had been uncovered, never his, never theirs; there had been no raw and crude exposure to this implement of procreation, this – the only name she knew for it had been learned in the nursery. And she had been too young to share that nursery with her brothers.

  Now she was sick with terror, trembling from head to foot, caught in a double trap since she could neither go through with this nor bear to lose him.

  ‘Darling.’ She flung her arms around his neck, kissing him wildly and talking very fast. ‘Not here, not here, no, it’s too special to waste like this. Let’s do it properly the first time …’

  He swore at her viciously but she ignored it – she had not understood the words in any case – and rushed on. ‘I know what we can do – yes, yes I know. Tomorrow, at my mother’s birthday party, when the house will be full to bursting, we can get into my bedroom – yes we can – easily – and nobody will know. Oh darling – just think of it …’

  He swore at her again and still she went on talking, kissing him.

  ‘But I want to give myself to you properly, Roy, don’t you see that – in my cosy bed, absolutely without anything on – the two of us – and the door locked and the bottle of champagne hidden in my wardrobe for afterwards …’

  ‘Now,’ he said.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she told him, meaning it desperately, sincerely, genuinely believing that tomorrow it would be all right. He could do anything he liked with her tomorrow. Anything. She told him so. He told her graphically – his temper rising partly from natural peevishness, partly from a physical distress she did not understand – exactly what he intended to do with her now. She panicked; pushed him away.

  ‘That’s the end of it,’ he told her.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘tomorrow. I promise. Cross my heart I do.’

  ‘All right. I’ll come to your mother’s party for that and if I don’t get it you’ll never see me again.’ She was in a fever the next morning.

  ‘A great day for it,’ said Miriam archly. ‘Who knows what it might bring?’

  It brought Claire, coming early, in a garden party dress of black georgette patterned with pink tea roses, bringing her small travelling bag since she was to stay the night.

  ‘Give me a kiss, dear,’ said Miriam. ‘Your dear little blue room is ready. It pleases me so much to think of you making your nest – if only a weekend nest – there, especially now that I have a feeling Polly is about to fly away.’

  It brought Eunice in last year’s blue silk dress and old cream straw hat and a new blue ribbon, her boys each one in a brand-new bespoke suit, hand-made shoes, spotless linen
, carrying their beautifully wrapped ‘presents for Grandmamma’. It brought Edward Lyall, still suffering on this bright May afternoon from his winter cold, and Dorothy suffering with him, his medicines and nasal sprays and handkerchiefs taking so much space in her handbag that she had had to leave her own ‘essentials‘ behind. It brought Benedict for perhaps ten minutes and then, after an hour or so, for a brief appearance often more. It did not – although no one appeared to notice it – bring Nola. It brought Redfearns and Greenwoods, Templetons, that whole bevy of girls from the Crown – ‘My goodness, Polly, you said they were your friends!’ – the Swanfield doctors and lawyers and bankers, Edith and Roger Timms. It brought Roy Kington and, on his arm, a sultry, willowy brunette Polly had never seen before but whom she recognized instantly as ‘a tart’.

  ‘Hello, Pol – this is Natasha. I’d say we met in Russia at the Bolshoi Ballet if I thought you’d believe me but, failing that, I suppose the City Varieties will do.’

  How could he bring a girl of this type to her mother’s house? How could he hurt her so deliberately?

  ‘It’s no worse than what you did to me last night,’ he hissed in her ear as Natasha, for just a moment, was called away. ‘You castrated me. Now I’m doing the same to you.’

  She didn’t know what he meant. Only that she was losing him and she couldn’t bear it.

  ‘I promised you – today.’

  ‘I don’t trust you.’

  ‘Give me another chance.’

  He hesitated, made her wait. It seemed a long time.

  ‘All right. Only one.’ She told him how to find her bedroom and at what time.

  ‘Be there, Polly.’

  ‘Yes – I will.’ She was feverish again.

  ‘Polly, come and join the treasure hunt.’ Toby’s voice was familiar and kind, so kind, so fond of her – calling her a ‘good girl’, his ‘princess’ – that she swallowed hard and turned away.

  ‘Polly, you’re not eating. Are you ill?’ Claire sounded friendly, amused. Perhaps Claire would understand. But before she could blurt out anything of significance, ask her, tell her, beg advice, Miriam had intervened.

  ‘Polly, do go and talk to those two dear old ladies over there – I forget their names. Nobody has been near them for ages. Claire is to help me with the treasure hunt parcels. Come, dear.’

  ‘Polly.’ What now? ‘Have you seen Roy?’ It was Sally Templeton. Poor girl. How desperate she must be.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Polly.’ It was Edith Timms. ‘I do believe you’re neglecting me.’ She could never wish to do that. But Roger was with his mother, looking good-natured as he always did, and plain: and Edith would be sure to notice the flush in her cheeks.

  ‘I’m just on an errand for mother,’ she called out and ran into the house and across the hall.

  ‘Dear God,’ said Benedict. ‘Is there to be no privacy today?’ Dear God indeed. What was Benedict doing here? But after a moment of pure unease when he might have been making up his mind to question her, he suddenly lost interest and walked away.

  Only the stairs remained, and the bedroom corridor. No one saw her. And then, reaching her door, she halted, stood awkwardly for a moment hanging about the passage like a stranger and then made a dash for the bathroom. But it had to be done. She had made up her mind to it. The only question to be answered was whether or not she loved him. She did. And if he required this kind of proof then yes – it was understandable, natural, modern. He had been a soldier, after all, was still a soldier-of-fortune at heart, and if she wanted to be a soldier’s wife she would have to be more daring, broaden her outlook a little. It was not as if she doubted his intention to marry her afterwards. It had not occurred to her even to question that. It was just – just –? Yes. She would have preferred it to be truly afterwards – after that lavish white satin wedding – rather than before. She wanted to float down the aisle to him like an angel, bringing him the gift of her purity, as her mother had taught her, not already deflowered and damaged – why did she persist in thinking of it like that? – as he wanted. But then – if he wanted it. And she knew full well that her mother was not only old-fashioned but dishonest. How could she trust Miriam’s judgement? She knew, violently, that she could not. Could she even judge her mother’s motives or understand them? No. And only look at what Miriam’s values had done to Eunice and to Nola. Such a fate was not to be hers. She was a ‘new’woman, a modern woman. Like Claire, perhaps. Would Claire do this? Would Sally Templeton? Yes – of Sally at least she was certain – and that settled it.

  She closed the bathroom door behind her and walked slowly down the corridor, going to the man she loved as if to the scaffold. And she was feverish again. Oh Lord – there was her hand turning the door handle. She saw it. In half an hour – did it take so long? – she would be a different person. For better or for worse – but that was the wedding ceremony. What was this? At least nothing would ever be quite the same again.

  She pushed open the door, fixing her smile in case he had arrived before her, and saw him, lean and hard and beautiful, stretched out on her bed with a girl who could have been anyone – her eyes refused to tell her – but was probably the sultry, unknown Natasha. ‘Hello, Polly – where’s the champagne?’

  She ran. She could think of nothing else to do. There was no feeling, no tears. Nothing. Not yet. She ran downstairs, across the hall, outside, her eyes focusing at last on something which turned out to be the amiable, awkward bulk of Roger Timms.

  ‘Polly – I was looking for you. Benedict told me you’d gone upstairs.’

  He looked plain, and safe. She needed that.

  ‘I don’t feel well, Roger.’

  ‘Here-steady on.’

  He put his arms around her and she collapsed against his chest, an embrace which looked sufficiently amorous for his mother and hers, both spotting it together, to converge upon them, laughing coyly, a little excitedly as women do at the distant tinkle of wedding bells.

  ‘Roger, dear boy, is this seemly?’ enquired Mrs Timms.

  ‘Polly, dear – such a public show of affection. Or are you simply hiding your blushes?’ cooed Miriam.

  ‘Could it be,’ Roger’s mother wanted to know, ‘that they have something to tell us. I do hope, my son, that your intentions are honourable.’

  ‘Come on, mother,’ muttered Roger, turning a hot scarlet,

  ‘you know I want to marry Polly.’

  ‘And does Polly want to marry you?’

  ‘Of course she does,’ said Miriam. Polly did not deny it.

  ‘Congratulations,’ bawled Eunice who had been told by her mother exactly what to do.

  ‘A wedding – a wedding,’ chanted Sally Templeton’s spinster aunts, having grown accustomed to the fact that it was never Sally’s.

  ‘May I be one of the first to kiss the bride?’ beamed Edward Lyall who had also been warned by Miriam to keep his eyes open.

  ‘Marriage is regarded as a sexual refuge by most men,’ said Nola who had just arrived, very obviously quoting from a book, ‘whereas it irrevocably diminishes most women. I read that somewhere, just the other day.’

  ‘I didn’t think she’d go quite so far as that,’ said Roy Kington who had heard the commotion from Polly’s window.

  ‘Be happy, Polly,’ said Toby who was looking pale and far from happy himself.

  ‘A September wedding,’ called out Miriam clapping her hands as ecstatically as if she were herself to be the bride. ‘How does that suit you, Polly? Can you wait so long?’

  Polly made no reply.

  ‘I won’t stay the night,’ said Claire. ‘In fact I don’t think I’ll stay much longer.’

  ‘No,’ said Benedict. ‘I understand. Shall I take you back now?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The engagement was duly announced through the proper channels, The Faxby Echo, The Yorkshire Post, The Times; a special journey was made to purchase a large diamond ring in Leeds. What the happy couple
needed now was the sanction of an engagement party and Polly’s, somewhat surprisingly, was to be held at the Crown; a concession, Miriam called it, to her daughter’s modern notions although the truth was that she no longer cared – now that they had served her purpose – to fill High Meadows with her daughter’s modern friends.

  Miriam had begun to value not her privacy since she still did not like to be lonely but her tranquillity, the unblemished pile on her probably irreplaceable carpets, the delicacy of her Waterford crystal and her nerves. Therefore, since they thought it smart and modern, Polly’s rowdy friends with their outrageously exposed knees and their terrible haircuts, their negro dances-and their fatal-to-upholstery cigarettes might just as well make their noise and do their damage at the Crown.

  ‘Certainly madam – with the greatest of pleasure,’ Kit Hardie: had told her on the telephone, even putting himself to the trouble – which he would have done for no one else and slightly despised himself for doing now – of going to High Meadows for her instructions. An intimate dinner for twenty-five, no, perhaps to be on the safe side one had better say thirty. And then afterwards dancing for the ‘dear young things’and somewhere just to sit and chat, rather comfortably of course, for those who were merely young at heart. A colourful summer menu, lots of strawberries and pyramids of cream whipped up with white wine – you know, Hardie dear, like we used to do in the old days – or a strawberry trifle perhaps with macaroons and ratafia biscuits and a gorgeously rich custard – rich, Hardie! – flavoured with brandy. Yes, she would rather like that. And as to the rest – oh, something fishy in cream and wine and mushrooms. That seemed straightforward enough. Or a crab páté would do. Both? Why not. Then chicken, she supposed, if one could think of something original to do with it since chicken, although terribly safe – as, alas, it was – could also be terribly boring.

  ‘Leave it to me, madam.’

  ‘Very well, Hardie.’

  A celebration cake, of course. Very large. Very ornamental. Something people would talk about afterwards. ‘You do see what I mean, Hardie – a cake really has to cause conversation, otherwise who remembers?’