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

by Ursula Bloom

  After they had gone home again Chester came back to smoke a last cigarette in the sitting-room, and he said, ‘Mr. Hellgarth oughtn’t to have brought that girl here.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Well, it seems all wrong until we’re married.’

  ‘We’re going to be.’

  ‘Yes, I know but it seems to be taking a devil of a long time. I always thought that the Americans were fast workers, but they seem to be losing their skill over my divorce.’

  ‘Why not cable?’

  He said, ‘My dear kid, what do you think? I’m spending a fortune in cables and getting absolutely nothing for it. I cabled again only yesterday.’ He drew her closer to him, fondling her hair. ‘It’s so awful for you having to wait like this, my poor sweet, but do promise me that you won’t lose faith in me?’

  ‘Never,’ and she meant it.

  ‘Because I love you so much, and want to make you my own for ever. It is all my fault marrying a mean old hag like Bianca in the beginning, but I was a sap! I hadn’t the foggiest idea what I was doing, though I thought myself so damn clever; now I’d give my ears to undo it.’

  ‘It’ll right itself in time, dear.’

  She went on believing in this! One of these days this little shadow would lift. At Caxton Hall they’d get things fixed, and then seek the blessing of her Church; she still went on blinding herself to the insurmountable difficulties.

  She had the confidence of youth, which believes that if only you want a thing badly enough, you get it. If only you treated a man well, then he would not fail you. She knew her Chester, his foolish little weaknesses and his strengths, his love for her, his generous kindness; he was always so very kind. She liked his companionship, their talks. He was the first person who had brought any real joy in her life.

  In September a man came to see them just before Chester was due back from the office. Madeline was toasting crumpets before the electric stove. She had let Ethel go out for an hour, and when she went to answer the door-bell she saw a little oldish man standing there, in a country coat with an old hat, but his homely face reminded her of the Hertfordshire village of her youth. He asked for Chester, and, promising that he would only be a few minutes, Madeline admitted him to wait. He sat down on the extreme edge of the sofa, watching her as she knelt before the fire with the crumpets.

  ‘I’m a very old friend,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ve known Chester all his life. I didn’t know that he had remarried, though; I didn’t even know that Biddy was dead.’

  ‘It was a divorce,’ explained Madeline. ‘She went back to Hollywood; she’s been gone three years now, and we were married in June.’

  The older man looked at her with grey eyes in which the first enthusiasms had long since died. ‘What did Biddy do in Hollywood?’ he asked. ‘I last heard of her in Yorkshire. She had a boarding-house in Scarborough, and was doing well. A proper “do” she was making of it up there! I wouldn’t have thought Hollywood would have suited her one bit.’

  ‘I think she went into pictures. I don’t really know an awful lot about it.’

  ‘And aren’t interested?’

  ‘Oh yes, I am; I’m interested in anything to do with Chester.’ She turned the crumpet meticulously on its fork.

  ‘He’s had a lot of trouble,’ said the old man, ‘but of course he’s able to manage for himself. He’s got his head screwed on the right way, and he’s one of those chaps bound to go up in the world. Coming from what he did, you’d never think it possible to do what he’s done, would you?’

  ‘He came from Kent?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, his father had a little shop there ‒ oil and colours, you know; paying, I grant you, but not his cup of tea. Chester used to go round with the orders.’

  Swallowing that quickly, she said, ‘It was being in the Navy that helped him, I expect.’

  The old man nodded. He was proud of Chester and she could see it. ‘He looked a treat in his uniform, we was all proud of him, but then it is a grand-looking uniform. Nothing like a pair of bell-bottoms, you know. After a bit he went up ‒ a chap like Chester was bound to get promotion; he’d have liked to be an officer, of course, and we all knew that if ever he got the chance he’d take it, but his education was against him.’

  ‘But he was an officer.’ Disloyal as it might be, she couldn’t stop it slipping out. It was just that this man didn’t know, and he must be put right. ‘Chester was a sub when he married, a lieutenant when he was axed.’

  ‘Eh?’ asked the older man. ‘He never was no officer, and he wasn’t in the Navy more’n a couple of years. Then of course he fell in with Charlie Ibsen. Charlie Ibsen helped him no end. He got him that office job of his, and he’s a toff now. I give credit where credit’s due, Chester’s done well; he’s done darned well.’

  She hated herself for asking questions. She took no notice of the crumpet which was burning, or of her heart which was making such noises. ‘Where did he meet Biddy?’ she asked.

  ‘Biddy? Why, Biddy was the new cook at the rectory; they kept company for a couple of years, but he got too grand for her, I expect that was the trouble.’ He paused reflectively. ‘What’s more, I don’t know how he’ll take it seeing me now. If I’d ha’ known that he’d remarried I wouldn’t have come here. Somebody told me he was living in this road, and as I have an old uncle in the Royal Hospital here, I thought I might look Chester up.’ There came the sound of a key thrust into the latch, and he added, ‘I haven’t talked too much, I hope? I’m a bit of an old blab.’

  ‘No, you haven’t talked too much.’

  Madeline went out into the hall to meet Chester. ‘There’s someone here,’ she said, and, because she wanted to make it easier for him, she slipped round at the back into the garden to leave them alone together. She sat on the stone seat with its cruel motto ‘Time Passes’, and instead of being angry at having discovered so much, she was limply miserable. Everything the old man had told her was true, even to the point of his being a proper old blab! The truth was something so garish that its light blinded her, but never for a moment did it dim her love for Chester. If he had cheated her she knew that it had been only because he was afraid of losing her; he would put everything right, and she had but to trust him. Biddy had caught him when he was young (he had, of course, worked his way up from the lower deck, and all honour to him), but he had outgrown the environments of his childhood. Everything could be explained if only she trusted him; at all costs she must hold fast to that trust.

  An hour later Chester came into the little garden, blown with the light tan leaves of a beech tree. ‘He’s gone!’ he said.

  ‘Chester, come here.’

  He sat down beside her. ‘Darling, he’s the local churchwarden, and quite ga-ga! You mustn’t take anything that he told you seriously, because, although he thinks it’s all right, it isn’t.’

  ‘Chester, I know about Biddy.’

  ‘Biddy?’

  ‘You called her Bianca, but he called her Biddy. She was cook at the rectory, and is now running a boarding-house in Scarborough, or was.’

  ‘If you’re going to believe that rubbish …’

  ‘It wasn’t rubbish! Charlie Ibsen was the man who started you, and, after all, you yourself have mentioned him to me. Oh, Chester, why didn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you tell me that you weren’t a sub really?’

  For a moment he tried to bluster, then broke down. He laid his head on her breast and wept like a child, and she had never known anything so terrible. She held him, stroking his hair with a tender hand as she listened to his story. Most of it had some figment of truth. He had always been ambitious, wanting so much to be the man he could never be, and in his own mind he had created such a man, he had given birth to a personality, until he had grown to believe that such a personality was himself. Stepping upward on the rungs of a fictitious ladder, Chester had risen in the world with a gigantic bluff. The thing had worked. It had even worked with Madeline until now; but now, because she loved hi
m so much and understood him, she had seen the truth. The details of the divorce were true, and it was going through, he could promise her that one. At the very latest, November would see the end of this miserable business, the decree nisi would be made absolute and they could be married then.

  On his honour this was true!

  ‘But, darling; being a divorce, there is my Church to think about.’ They might as well fight the whole thing out whilst they were at it.

  ‘I know. That’s been worrying me terribly.’

  ‘Why did you ever want to marry me, when I’m so ordinary and a nobody? I should have thought that you’d want somebody really grand?’

  ‘I fell in love with you, dearest. Who wouldn’t? You’re so good to me. You’re so loyal.’

  ‘You’re sure of that, Chester.’

  ‘Quite sure. I know now that I’d die without you.’

  ‘I’d die without you,’ she said very quietly indeed.

  One night they went out to a theatre with Mr. Hellgarth and Hélène. Somebody had given Chester a box, and he thought that this ought to make a good impression on his friends. It was an early winter evening, with a hint of frost, and they dined at La Coquille, and went on to the theatre in a Daimler car that Chester had hired for the evening.

  ‘After all, there’s no point in not doing the thing well whilst we’re at it,’ he said; he liked cutting a dash.

  ‘But, Chester, can we afford it?’ Sometimes it worried Madeline that they were spending too much; she imagined that his salary at the office was not large. It was true that the flat was cheap, and Ethel’s wages small, but they spent a good deal on meals out, week-ends in the country, and entertainments. Chester never worried ahead, but Madeline felt anxious.

  ‘Of course we can afford it. I’m not such a fool as to live above my means. That’s a mug’s game.’

  ‘Divorces aren’t cheap, I know that. They say that even a poor man’s divorce costs a lot.’

  ‘Biddy has paid for all that. She has got someone else up her sleeve, so, after all, that was fair do’s.’

  Madeline wished that she could believe him, but, having once got into the habit of doubting his integrity, she found it difficult even when he was speaking the truth. Chester had the knack of embroidering every fact; he certainly made life vastly more amusing that way, but he did complicate it.

  They had a pleasant dinner, with Chester in his gayest mood, and being particularly attentive to Hélène, who looked marvellous in dead white, with one yellow rose on her shoulder. It was the sort of dress that never got into Mr. Rozanne’s shop, dead plain, and cut for the effect of her yellow hair and eyes, and for the one rose. Seeing Hélène like this, Madeline knew that her own black lace frock was wrong. Until this moment she had thought it attractive, but now she knew that it was overdone; it was the six-guinea class, whereas Hélène’s was the fifteen-guinea model.

  Mr. Hellgarth was kind, a nice old gentleman who reminded her of a white angora rabbit with his pink skin, and white fluffy hair. His dress collar was too high and old-fashioned, he wore button boots, but he was very charming. She found herself telling him about Nonna and the shop; it was a long time since she had seen any of them now, and it seemed that whenever she visited the place she brought the smell of it away with her.

  ‘But it had a personality,’ asked Mr. Hellgarth, ‘it had character?’

  ‘Oh yes, very much.’ She could almost have said, ‘Too much.’

  ‘Soho is always Soho,’ he said, ‘always real.’

  Too real, she wanted to say.

  The play was romantic. Unused to frequent theatres, it brought sentimental tears to Madeline’s eyes, and she felt almost ashamed of it. But to her it was a lovely story, and when she rose she was sorry that the evening was through. But there she was mistaken, for it wasn’t through.

  They drove the Hellgarths home first to the quiet Kensington house where they lived. It was a countrified house, with a garden approaching it, trees on either side, and a porch in which in old-world lantern swung. Mr. Hellgarth went on ahead and inside, whilst Madeline waited in the car. She saw Chester arming Hélène up the path, and thought how foolish it was; after all, that wasn’t necessary. In the porch they stood for a moment talking, Madeline could see them quite clearly, and they were forgetful of the lantern swinging above them. She saw Chester put his arm round Hélène and kiss her lingeringly, and instantly Madeline knew that he was saying yet a few more pretty words and her whole body had gone suddenly silent. The door shut, and he came down the path to the car again.

  ‘Well, that’s that! A very successful evening, I’ll say! It went off well, didn’t you think?’ and then as they sat together, ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Need you have done that?’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘Kissing Hélène?’

  ‘Oh, that!’ scornfully. ‘Fancy you watching! My dear, don’t be silly, it was the merest lip service; she expected it, and I gave it. What you’d call being the perfect host.’

  She said nothing at all, and a moment later his arm came stealing to her in the twilight of the car. She pushed him away. ‘Please, Chester, don’t.’

  ‘My sweet, you aren’t jealous? Surely you can’t be jealous when I love you so much? There’s nobody but you really, Madeline, nobody at all but you.’

  Because she felt helpless she began to cry, and he comforted her. ‘What a pig I am to have made you so miserable by just a bit of my nonsense! All about nothing, too! We’ll never meet old Hellgarth and that silly Hélène again, if you prefer it that way. My own, do forgive me. Maddy, my sweet, you know you are the only one for me, don’t you? You do know?’

  SEVEN

  Madeline called in on Nonna three days later. She had made a round of visits. First of all Mamma, limp on an upstairs sofa in the Venezia, because she had not yet properly recovered from her confinement. Mario was doing very well, bustling about downstairs, for never had the Venezia flourished better, and he was extremely proud of it, but Mamma was melancholic and deeply depressed. Coming away, Madeline ran into Luca, who was coming up the street. He stopped dead.

  ‘Well, Maddy, how are things?’

  ‘All right. I’ve just been to see Mamma, and was now going along to Nonna’s.’

  ‘Nonna’s all right. Uncle Giovanni has been home and he has decided to become a monk. You’ll find her hopping mad about it.’

  ‘But he can’t do that?’

  ‘He’s made up his mind, and in lots of ways he’s as obstinate as old Nonna herself.’ Luca paused and glanced closer at her. ‘You’re looking a bit peeky? Anything the matter?’

  ‘No, I’m quite all right.’

  ‘Your husband’s good to you?’

  ‘Of course he’s good to me. He is the loveliest person I’ve ever met, he’s wonderful.’

  ‘When is the divorce being fixed?’

  ‘I’m afraid it may be another two months. It seems a terribly long time to me, having to wait like this, but it couldn’t be helped.’

  ‘You’re quite sure that you’re doing the right thing in marrying him? It seems to me that if he had cared for you, really cared for you, he wouldn’t have let you live this way. I dare say I sound queer, but I wouldn’t put the girl I loved in such a rotten position.’

  ‘Chester couldn’t help himself. I chose to be with him, because I think I would have died if I had had to live away from him.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Luca, and then, after an embarrassing silence, ‘Well, I don’t think I’ll come to Nonna’s with you. The work won’t get done if I just slouch round. I’ll be seeing you some time soon, perhaps?’

  She watched him go down the street, looking more attenuated than ever, his shoulders sloping thinly down, his legs spindly inside the trousers, which flapped like sails round a mast. She hoped that he wasn’t going to be ill. She turned into Old Compton Street, with the wine shop at the corner doing its usual brisk trade, and the dark-skinned waiters from the Indian Restaurant runni
ng messages. Outside the poulterer’s the handcart stood, with live chickens crowded into wicker baskets awaiting death. They stared out at her with bright enquiring eyes; she had always hated to see them waiting there, and even as she looked, one of the men came out and took up a basket, carrying it indoors. She felt sick.

  Nobody was in the shop at home, which was unusual, and in the back room Nonna was sitting in her second best dress (she had just returned from Confession). She was eating a dish of spaghetti, long curling pieces entwining her to her plate. Uncle Luigi wasn’t there, it was opening time.

  ‘Oh, carissima,’ said Nonna, ‘and how is my good girl?’

  ‘I’m very well, Nonna.’

  Nonna accepted that as said and by-passed on to her own difficulties. ‘Life is very hard with me, Madeline, so bad! Your Uncle Giovanni to whom I give so much, look at your Uncle Giovanni! What has he done? He has no care for his poor old mamma, who so work for him, and so love him. He would be a monk.’

  Madeline said nothing; in truth there was little that she could say. After a moment she murmured something banal about it being Uncle Giovanni’s own life.

  ‘Yes, but what of his mamma?’ Nonna’s timbre rose. ‘His mamma who work so for him, toil for him, weep for him. He owe a duty to his mamma, and this is not the way to repay such a duty. No. Never. A monk! Oh, how I have wept for your Uncle Giovanni.’

  Madeline patted her grandmother’s hand, and at that moment, a customer arriving, Nonna gulped down a huge mouthful of spaghetti and her tears as well, and out she went to serve in the shop, all honeyed words. Mercifully a queue began, and Madeline, making the excuse that she was pressed for time, said that she must go. She slipped gratefully into the street again, with a mist lying about it, and the chrysanthemum-scent of dead ashes from the woman selling flowers at the corner. The smell was of autumn; it seemed to lie in Madeline’s nostrils, and she was afraid, because it made her feel very old. Out of sheer nostalgia she turned into Rozanne’s, a crazy move to make, but the chrysanthemum-scent drove her hard. The place was much as usual. Mr. Rozanne was peering out of the far cubicle, picking his teeth with one of Miss Bates’s larger pins. Miss Bates was purring away on a far sewing machine, with intermittent sniffs, because it was one of her catarrhal days. Winnie was being hurriedly instructed by Isobel to ‘nip round to Elfrida’s, and be quick about it, do,’ whilst the customer waited. It was an important customer for fourrure. Fourrure represented a larger profit, and set the shop dithering. Mr. Rozanne expected to be beaten down, of course; that happened every time, although he and his satellites stipulated that they could only do it this once, and not make a habit of it. Habit it was, and always had been. Nobody seemed to be particularly pleased to see Madeline.