The Painted Lady: A moving story about family loyalty, friendship and first love

by Ursula Bloom

  The third night there was a heavy thunderstorm, and Ethel was frightened to go home for a bit, and finally, borrowing Chester’s office umbrella for it, she slopped out into the rain.

  The evening lightened, it became much cooler and fresher, smelling with the sweetness of damp earth. She sat curled round on Chester’s knee.

  ‘Chester, you do think that the licence will come tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know. Darling, I think we’ve got to talk this out, and you must be patient with me, because I feel most dreadful about it all, only we’ve got to face facts.’

  ‘Yes, dear, of course.’

  He told her then, very tenderly, holding her in his arms, and smoothing her hair with hands that had never been podgy and soiled like Mr. Rozanne’s, or time-worn like Uncle Luigi’s, or calloused like her father’s. He ought to have told her that he had been married before. It had happened that time when he had gone to America with his ship, and they had been to Hollywood. Everybody knew what Hollywood was like, and the British N.O.s were fêted and treated well, and there he had married a girl called Bianca. It was the sheerest folly. She had brass-gold hair, the loveliest face, and (although he had never realised it at the time) the hardest eyes! It certainly wasn’t love, and he couldn’t begin to explain it, for it was one of those things for which he would reproach himself all his life. They had not got on, that was a foregone conclusion, of course. He had come back with his ship, leaving Bianca in a bungalow in Los Angeles, where she did a good deal of racketing about. A few months later she had wanted a divorce; you picked them like gooseberries off a bush, at Reno, and it was only too easy. Honestly Chester had never given the episode another thought, for he understood Bianca had now married a film-star who was earning hundreds of dollars a week, and she must have forgotten her first marriage too. There was as little to it as that! It was only when he had applied for the licence that he had discovered that the papers were not in order, and he had been completely petrified. He’d never forget the way that he had stood before the registrar (leastways, he supposed that it was the registrar, rather a frightful person with pince-nez) and told his story. They had to get through to Reno by cable, and, of course, it couldn’t be done all in a minute; they had not allowed time for it.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me, dear?’ she asked.

  He had thought it best to bluff the whole thing out, and now, when it came to confession, he felt so deadly ashamed of himself that he just didn’t know what to do. His head dropped on to his hands. There was nothing they could do ‒ yet ‒ as she explained. They must just wait till the papers came through; but whatever happened, nothing would make her give him up. She loved him too much for that.

  ‘Oh, you angel kid! I was terrified you’d bolt. After all, I deserved that. You don’t know what I’ve lived through these last few days.’

  ‘You didn’t think that I’d really run away?’

  ‘I didn’t know. Women are so vindictive that I thought perhaps Bianca would cling on; and if she did, what would happen to us then?’

  ‘But Bianca’s married to somebody else?’

  ‘I know, but I don’t suppose the papers being in order worried her much. You know what Hollywood is.’

  ‘But surely that’s bigamy?’

  ‘Don’t be clever, darling. You’re such an angel. I’d hate to think of you as being clever.’

  She kissed him, because there did not seem to be anything else she could do. Nonna believed that she was married, everybody believed that she and Chester had done the right thing; she mustn’t go to Confession again until the papers came through, and, anyway, it couldn’t be so very long. Because she now looked upon Chester as being something of a martyr, she kissed him more fondly, believing that she would fight this battle for his sake.

  But she wished that she had not been so vehement when she had talked to Isobel Joyce.

  SIX

  They never went to Caxton Hall.

  Gradually, Madeline grew to know Chester better, to pity his follies, to condone his offences, and, most unfortunately, to love him increasingly. Chester saw a rosy world, the world he wished to live in, never the one in which he really dwelt. His Foreign Office was a little insurance office off Whitehall; she only found that out by accident, going to meet him one day when he did not expect her, and seeing him come out of the building. The porter there told her.

  ‘Oh, Mr. Thane’s worked here for years,’ said the porter, ‘ever since he left the Navy, he has.’

  So the Navy had been true, that was one thing in which she could believe! Chester had served with the R.N. even though he never produced photographs of that period, and (as she knew him better) she couldn’t help feeling that he was one of those men who would have taken advantage of the offers of Bond Street photographers and have gone along in full regalia for a permanent memento of his Service life.

  She doubted if Bianca had been in Hollywood; she doubted if the divorce had really been started. Then she was ashamed of her doubts, because in so many ways Chester was kind and trustworthy, and he did love her, she could always be sure of that. Never had anyone been sweeter to her. The thing to do was to live to-day for to-day, and enjoy the beauty which had never been in her life before. The moment he could do so Chester promised her that he would put the whole thing right; she must trust him. He had set the cogs in motion, and although, like the mills of God, they ground slowly, they did grind, which was something.

  For the moment Madeline kept away from Mr. Rozanne’s, because she could not meet the penetrating gaze of Isobel Joyce or answer her questions. She did not go to Nonna’s.

  ‘But, dearest, how are they to know?’ asked Chester.

  ‘The trouble is that I know.’

  ‘My sweet, do you think a few silly words and a certain certificate could make any difference to hearts?’

  ‘No, I don’t; but they can make a difference to how I feel inside me. Anyway, I wouldn’t dare go to Mass.’

  ‘I personally think that Mass is rather hula-hula.’

  She looked at him gravely. ‘It’s God!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but what is God? Half of the religious business is because man is so scared of oblivion that he wants some kind of theatrical dope to give him Dutch courage.’

  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t talk that way.’

  Instantly he apologised. ‘I’m a pig! I’m treading on your sentiments, and it’s foul of me. I’ll never do it again, and it’s only because I’m a beastly heretic that I do it now … Dearest, I am so sorry.’

  Of course she forgave him.

  In her own mind she had that buoyant optimism of youth, believing that one of these days she might be able to convert him to her own way of thinking. The optimism was a light to illuminate her path. She told herself that only for the moment did this shadow lie upon her, and she believed that she would pass out from under it. For the moment she kept her peace, but after a time she paid most hurried visits to Nonna; she also visited Mamma twice: once when she was still in Queen Charlotte’s (which seemed quite a safe project because of the publicity of the ward) and once when Mamma had returned to the Venezia, and was languishing in an airless room upstairs, in no mood to ask a lot of questions.

  She asked Chester about Bianca; she did not know why, because she very much doubted if he would tell her much, but she could not stop herself from enquiring.

  ‘Was she horrid to you?’

  ‘No, she was quite nice, a bit haughty, and we knew the marriage was a failure almost before it had begun. I never can think why we rushed into it.’

  ‘A good thing you never had any children.’

  ‘Yes, rather! But there never was anything like that about it.’

  ‘I wonder if we shall have children?’

  ‘Well, we can’t as things are.’

  ‘No, but later on. I’d adore babies. My Church would expect me to have babies.’

  ‘You funny little thing! You believe in all those candles and Confessions. As though it cou
ld make any difference.’

  ‘It can to me.’

  ‘Not really. You think it can, but all the time you’re you, and I’m me; if there is a God, He has a damned thwarted sense of humour, and if there isn’t, we can’t do anything about it. It’s just too bad.’

  ‘Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’ But by now she was getting used to it, and she knew that it did not hurt so much. She talked about his work. ‘Is it fun at the office?’

  ‘It’s nice being in the swim and meeting the right sort of people.’

  He didn’t realise that she knew, and, because she felt that it would hurt him, naturally she wouldn’t tell. ‘But you met the right sort of people in the Navy? I wish I’d seen you.’

  ‘You never will now, thanks to the Geddes axe.’

  ‘Had you got medals?’

  ‘The usual Pip, Squeak and Wilfred.’

  She said ‘Oh’, indifferently.

  One day he took her to a famous beauty firm and bought her make-up. Until that time she had managed with a small pink box of powder, kept away from Nonna’s eagle eye, and a tiny stub of lipstick. Chester liked make-up, and he took her along and paid for a treatment.

  ‘It’ll surprise you,’ he said.

  She was nervous; but one hour later, when she looked in the mirror, she hardly recognised the beautiful face that stared back at her. They sold her the right cosmetics, and when she came out into the street it was as though she had left a chrysalis behind her, and now glowed like a butterfly. She was reborn. Within her was a sense of power, derived from her own beauty; she was no longer afraid of life! They walked down Bond Street together, and the men looked back at her over their shoulders.

  They paused before an art dealer’s, looking in at the sole picture, which was lit by an electric light cunningly concealed. The picture was of a laburnum tree in early June. The gold dripped down the parasol shape of the tree, like sunshine slipping down a pale-green sunshade.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll ask the price. I used to know the old chap once, Hellgarth was his name, and he had a schoolgirl daughter, rather a pretty kid, blonde.’

  ‘But we could never buy a picture like that.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. No harm in asking,’ and in they went.

  She had as yet to grow accustomed to the fact that Chester did what he thought he would, and never hesitated to assess if he could or couldn’t afford a thing. Inside the shop the old man was looking at a couple of canvases which an artist had just brought in. The artist was attenuated and hyperslender, he had a ginger beard on a young aesthetic face, and green-grey eyes in which tranquillity lay like an unruffled pool. His eyes, the colour of the sea, held the peace of a dew-pond, and there was something about them that fascinated Madeline. He smiled at her, for he also had noticed the beauty which the cosmetic shop had given her. She smiled back.

  Meanwhile Chester had gone across the shop to speak to a young girl sitting on the arm of a sofa.

  ‘Hélène, grown up,’ he said, ‘and you don’t remember me?’

  Hélène was exquisite, a natural blonde, with honey hair and eyes, set in a triangular, small pale face. She looked at Chester. ‘Something about you is familiar?’ she said.

  ‘So it should be, I once gave you a piggy-back.’ He was now in his most perfect mood, all ready to banter. But Madeline barely noticed him, for the artist was talking to her. Frank Greyston was his name. He spoke with a southern accent, and his voice was musical. She had the feeling that he could not do a mean thing, and that they were very old friends; he told her that he had painted the laburnum tree in the window, and had now brought other canvases for Mr. Hellgarth’s approval. One was of a March wood brightened by the first spatter of primroses, a fragile rendering of black lace and amber silk. The other was a garden on which autumn had set a frosty finger, almost indiscernible in blue mist, where of all the summer treasures there only remained the scarlet fire of some clumps of tritoma in a dark border rimmed with silver.

  ‘That’s lovely!’ said Madeline.

  Much later she saw that Chester had undoubtedly been flirting with Hélène. It had not happened since she and he had started living together, and it surprised her that he should do it. Her own loyalty was so strong that on the way back she was foolish enough to reproach him.

  ‘My sweet, there’s nothing in that. You’re too old a married woman to object to a few empty compliments for a kid. I’ve known her since the baby sock stage, and that’s all there is to it. Don’t be so silly!’

  ‘She’s very pretty.’

  ‘And so are you! She’s rich, of course; that old man must have made a packet out of his art shop. As to that laburnum picture, did you hear that he was asking a hundred guineas? Robbery, of course, but undoubtedly he’ll get it.’

  ‘Mr. Greyston painted it.’

  ‘So that’s who that frightful-looking hairpin was! A cross between Uncle Sam and George Gee! Good Heavens! I noticed that you and he got on very well.’

  ‘He was nice.’

  ‘So was Hélène.’

  She said no more, but she felt hurt.

  One day she met Luca.

  She was alone, walking down Piccadilly, when she saw him coming towards her, wearing his waiter’s trousers and an old sports coat that fitted nowhere. Madeline was radiant with her fresh make-up and a white frock in contrast to her darkness, now intensified by carmine lipstick and eyelids that glistened with grease. She stopped at once, pleased to see that his face grew brighter as she did so.

  ‘Madeline, I thought we’d never meet again.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well, hardly after you went off and got married and are living somewhere posh, and turning grand.’

  ‘I’ve never turned grand; I haven’t got anything to be grand about.’ She was surprised at her feeling of delight over meeting him again. ‘Can’t we go somewhere and talk?’

  ‘Where can we go? I’ve only got an hour.’

  ‘There’s the Green Park. It’s a bit dusty, but not too bad.’

  ‘Right-ho!’

  They sat on the grass under one of the small hawthorn trees, which lent them a shadow from the too vigorous sunshine of the day. Luca had a lot to tell her. He had been given a better job, that of head waiter, and he was saving money against the day when he could start his own restaurant. He was still set on that dream. Since the birth of the stillborn bambino his father had been kinder to him, probably because he sensed failure, for Mamma was irritable, and Mario felt that the move that he had made had not been so clever as once he had supposed. He turned to his son, suggesting that if Luca wanted to start a restaurant, perhaps he could help, and there had been a very pleasant reconciliation.

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Madeline.

  ‘And you’re happy?’

  ‘Luca, I never realised that anybody could be so happy.’

  He said, ‘Why did you do it all so quietly? We all wanted a wedding, with a cake. I’ve never seen Nonna so upset about anything, she just sat and cried, poor old thing! Nonna loves a festa.’

  Madeline did not know why she said it, but it came almost before she had expected it. ‘It wasn’t a festa,’ she told him.

  ‘But any wedding is a festa.’

  ‘Luca, you’ll have to keep this a secret, because I haven’t told a soul about it, but somehow you’re different. Chester has a wife; he didn’t like to tell me about it before, but when we got to the Caxton Hall something had gone wrong with the divorce papers, the licence wasn’t through properly.’

  ‘You mean you’re not married?’ He looked at her with sympathetic eyes out of his thin, peeky face.

  ‘Not yet. We’re going to be, the moment everything comes through, but there has been some mistake. Bianca is in Hollywood.’ As she said it she had a horrible misgiving that the story might not be really true. Not that she blamed Chester, he could not help embroidering his life, she understood that, but it worried her. ‘You see, it was a
Reno divorce, and it wasn’t in order.’

  ‘Then?’

  She said, ‘Yes, Luca,’ very quietly. ‘I know, but it all sounds to be so much worse than it really is. I can’t help it. The whole thing had happened before I realised it, and now it is just a case of waiting until we can be married.’

  She hoped he wouldn’t make the obvious remark; but he did. ‘If it is a divorce, how can you be married? Whatever are you thinking of, Maddy?’

  The curious part was that all along she had deliberately blinded herself to this. She had purposely drawn a veil over the supreme difficulty, and now she lied. She lied for self-protection, just as Chester lied, and as she did it she could see the similarity between them and felt elated that it drew them closer. ‘When I call it a divorce, it isn’t really. It’s a nullity suit.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ But she wasn’t sure that he believed it. ‘You love him very much?’

  ‘Terribly. It would kill me now to give him up.’

  ‘Well, I think he has behaved in a beastly way. I think he ought to have admitted it, and then waited till the suit was through properly, not let you in for all this. What he has done is just a common seduction.’

  Madeline did not know what came over her. It was the same burning passion that she had seen so often in Nonna, in her mother, the tide that raced through the little Italian shop and sometimes, submerged it in its fury. Words did not matter, for they came in such a spate. She said everything she could think of in her indignation, and when she became aware of what was happening again, she was walking alone with the feeling of blood tingling in her veins, her head swelling, her eyes smarting, and the pulse in her throat pricking furiously. Chester hadn’t seduced her; it was just that Luca did not understand, and now she realised that she had been a fool to tell him about it.

  Madeline turned entirely to Chester, showering her affection upon him, feeling that she could not give him enough of herself. She basked in the beauty of the little flat and the garden behind it: with the vivid geraniums, and the clematis which had long since ceased flowering. Sometimes friends came to see them, his men friends, and one night Mr. Hellgarth came with Hélène. Chester paid particular attention to Hélène, admiring her long slinky legs and body which always reminded Madeline of Mrs. Rozanne’s borzoi. Hélène was lovely in a cultured way that Madeline envied.