I sat down on the couch, leant my elbow on the head of it, and rested my head in my hand. All these years, supposedly visiting his boss, Mr Hempies. All the money he had got out of me, all to keep another home going and the woman and children…Were they his?
‘What are you going to do, lass?’
I lifted my head from my hands and it rocked on my shoulders; it seemed, at this moment, too big for my body. It was expanding, my mind was pushing it in all directions, because I was being filled with a blind anger. Gullible? That name didn’t fit me; I was mental. Yes, that’s what I was, and had been for years, mental. Why hadn’t I gone to the shop? Why hadn’t I insisted on being recognised as the wife of Mr Hempies’ manager, just for once, just once? Why hadn’t I asserted myself in some way, instead of staying in my prison, my privately owned prison, because that’s what I had made my house into, a privately owned prison, with a gaoler who was determined to see me die in order to get it…and bring his woman there…and his children.
My God! I was standing on my feet now and I knew Gran had hold of me by the shoulders, and I was repeating aloud, ‘Twelve years. Twelve years. I’m insane, Gran. I’m insane. I should have known that no boss, however good, would invite his manager week after week after week, year after year. I’m insane…’
‘Stop it, lass. Stop it. Now look, listen. Listen to me. You’ve got a way out. Go and have a look, see for yourself, then go to your solicitor. Now calm yourself. Come on, calm yourself. Sit yourself down again and I’ll make a cup of tea and put a drop whisky in it.’
‘Saturday, Sunday. He won’t be there till then, and I’ve got to go to London on Friday.’
‘Well, go to London on Friday; there’s nothin’ to stop you. In the meantime, I’ll see Sarah and get her to ask their Maggie to see if their Bob will run you out from Durham next Sunday. Maggie’ll fix it, I know, because she can’t stand the sight of Stickle.’
A minute or so later, when she brought me up a cup of tea that smelt strongly of whisky, I gulped at it; then I said, ‘I don’t think I can go to London on Friday. I wouldn’t be able to keep my mind on things.’
‘You’re going to London on Friday. Strikes me things are moving in all directions and you’re not going to miss any more chances in life. You’re going to London on Friday.’
I went to London on Friday, and Mr Houseman told me the good news: not only was a magazine considering the book for serialisation, but a paperback company wanted to do it, too. Wasn’t that wonderful, he said.
Indeed, yes, yes, it was wonderful, I said.
There followed more small talk. And then I spent an hour with Mr Leviston in his office going over the alterations he had made on my manuscript.
I was again to be taken out to lunch and Mr Leviston told me that he had chosen a place that specialised in fish dishes. Did I like fish?
Yes, I said, I was very fond of fish.
It wasn’t until sometime later, when we were sitting in the fish restaurant, that he suddenly stopped joking about what wine I should drink on this occasion, and, looking intently at me, he said, ‘Excuse my remarking on this, Miss Carter, but is there anything wrong?’
‘No, no.’
‘You’re quite happy with the arrangements Mr Houseman has made?’
‘Oh, yes, yes. That’s like a fairy tale; I just cannot believe any part of it. And…and you’re all so kind, it’s bewildering. No, it isn’t anything to do with the book or…’
‘But there is something?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, well’—he sat back in his chair—‘as long as you’re satisfied with the business arrangements. I’m sorry if it appears that I’m probing, but your spontaneous gaiety seems lacking today.’
My spontaneous gaiety. I never knew I had any gaiety in me. I saw the funny side of things, but…spontaneous gaiety. That was putting a fancy name to it. He was very kind, Mr Leviston. Of a sudden, I felt myself choking and I reached out and, picking up the wine glass, gulped at the wine.
From then on Mr Leviston seemed to do all the talking. Would I like to go to the National Gallery, or Madame Tussaud’s? Or what about the Tower of London? The whole afternoon stretched before us.
I managed to say, ‘You’re very kind, but I mustn’t take up all your time. I really don’t expect it, and I can go on my own now.’
He put his head on one side and said in what I took to be mock sadness, ‘You don’t want my company?’
‘Oh, Mr Leviston.’ I bowed my head and shook it from side to side, and at this he said, ‘All right, it’s the British Museum.’
It was a lovely meal, but somehow I didn’t enjoy it, as I had done on the other occasion, for all the time I was comparing this kind of living with what I had to put up with every day. Yet at the same time, I was wise enough to know that the three gentlemen I had met likely lived an ordinary family life away from the office, and that wining and dining clients was just part of the business. But above all, my thoughts were on that man back in Fellburn in the tailor’s shop, who had for years treated me worse than a slave. Oh yes, much worse than any slave, for if in the old days they had been tortured it had been physically, but that man had almost maimed me mentally, while all the time he was living with another woman and supporting her on the money he had blackmailed out of me. And…a very sore point, those children could be his.
When, later, we were walking along the street, Mr Leviston remained quiet until we came to St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, churchyard again, and here he did not say, ‘Let us sit down,’ but, stopping in front of me, he said, ‘Please don’t consider it presumption on my part, Miss Carter, but I had so much pleasure from our first meeting and this has continued through your letters. You write a remarkably graphic letter, you know. So I feel that I have known you for quite some time; and then, of course, I have been going over your work and knowing it is partly your life story, so it is with genuine concern that I say to you, would you like to talk about what is troubling you?’
I didn’t answer him for perhaps a full minute and then I said, ‘Yes, yes, I would. But I’m afraid, if I did, I…I would start to cry, and make a fool of myself in the open.’ I glanced from side to side at the people passing to and fro.
He also seemed to take some time in speaking. Then of a sudden, he caught me by the arm and turned me round, saying, ‘Come on. Come on.’
He now led me through Covent Garden, past the Opera House, and into a main thoroughfare. There he hailed a taxi and, pressing me into it, he gave the driver an address. Seated now, I looked at him for enlightenment but he said nothing, simply sat looking straight ahead. It was a good fifteen minutes later when the taxi stopped, in a street of tall houses, each with an iron balcony fronting the upper windows.
After paying the taxi he led me up three broad steps, the top one flanked by urns. He inserted a key in the beautifully polished brown door, then took my arm again and led me into a hall and into a lift, and when it stopped he once more took my arm and led me into a grey-panelled hallway. The floor was covered by a dull rose coloured carpet in which my feet seemed to sink. There was a marble hallstand against one wall and he placed his umbrella on it; then coming behind me, he said, ‘Let me have your coat. You’ll find it warm in here.’
Slowly I took off my coat, and as I adjusted the collar of my blouse he said, ‘And your hat.’ He was smiling at me now, so I took off my hat; then going before me, he pushed open a door and called loudly, ‘You there, Janet?’
At the same time he had thrust one arm behind him and caught hold of my hand and so led me into the most beautiful room I’d ever seen. It was large and high, and beyond the big window at the end I could see the iron balcony. I could just take in that the colour of the walls was grey and that the carpet continued from the hallway; but what stood out like sunshine was the drapes at the window and the upholstery of the big couch and easy chairs. The colour was like a citrus yellow and it gave the whole room an air of bright sunshine.
‘There you are, J
anet. And don’t look so surprised to see me. What were you doing, guzzling tea as usual?’
‘Oh, Mr Leonard, there’s some time in this place to guzzle tea, with all the work to be done.’ As the woman spoke she was looking at me; and now Mr Leviston said, in a different tone, ‘This is Janet. And Janet, this is Miss Carter.’ And he pointed to the elderly woman, adding now, ‘Janet keeps me and my house in order, and has done for as long as I can remember.’
Now clapping his hands together and his tone becoming light once more, he said, ‘Well, now introductions are over, what about it, Janet, a cup of your best?’
‘Well, I’ll see what I can do for you.’ Janet turned away smiling, and Mr Leviston took me up the room towards the window, saying, ‘It’s right what I said, she’s been here all my life. You wouldn’t think she was sixty-seven, would you?’
‘No, no.’
‘She’s been in this house fifty years, except during those periods she was giving birth to one or other of her brood. She’s had eight children.’
‘Never!’
‘Yes.’ He nodded at me. ‘She came to work for my mother before I was born and as she will tell you, no doubt, before very long, it was later her daily chore to push me in my pram over there.’ We were now standing at the window, and he pointed to where in the middle of a square was a garden. ‘It wasn’t railed round in those days,’ he said. ‘But now, all the residents who support it have keys to it, although you hardly ever see anyone in there except the gardener. But it’s nice to look upon.’
‘It’s lovely…it’s a lovely view. And this room.’ I turned about. ‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.’
‘It is a nice room, isn’t it? My mother designed it. It was her hobby, interior decorating. There are six other rooms like it, almost as large. As my father used to say, you could drive round the bed in a coach and pair. These were all bedrooms up here at one time when we owned the whole house.’
‘You owned the whole house?’
‘Yes, but what could I do with a huge place like this? So I had it turned into three flats, although you could hardly call them flats. Now’—he motioned with his hand—‘come and sit down. But before you say anything, I want to say my piece, and it’s just this: I’m not in the habit of bringing young ladies—not even when they’re authors—to my home. I may tell you you’re the first author who has ever been here. I’m not’—he laughed now—‘inferring that it’s an honour, only I want you to know I don’t make a habit of pushing young ladies into taxis and landing them in my apartments. In fact, if I told Bernard or Tom…Rington you know, that I had abducted you, they wouldn’t believe me.’
He was talking to put me at ease, and when Janet brought the tea in, he joked with her and she chaffed him back and for a moment I thought, here was another one who sounded like Gran, only more refined.
‘Would you like to pour out? Or shall I?’
‘You do it, please.’
I drank my tea in silence, but my mind was working rapidly. I was bewildered by events and not a little surprised to find myself sitting in this beautiful room drinking tea with this kind man, who was a very surprising individual. Somehow I had imagined him to be married with a family; I never thought of him being a bachelor. Perhaps he was married and was separated from his wife. Perhaps he had been married and she had died. But that wasn’t the point, the point was that he had brought me here so that I could tell him what was troubling me, and cry if I must.
I put my cup down and with my right hand I gripped the upper part of my short arm. I only just in time stopped myself from rocking backwards and forwards, but abruptly I started. ‘I…I got a shock,’ I said, ‘I learned something about my husband and it upset me. Not that it hurt my feelings in the way it might have done if I cared for him. You understand?’
He said nothing, but inclined his head towards me.
‘But, over the years he has—’ I closed my eyes tightly and bowed my head now and my throat filled up; then with my head still bowed I said, ‘Like in the story, my mother left me the house and furniture, but what I didn’t mention in the story was that she also left me over four thousand pounds, and after what he had put me through when we were married I determined he wouldn’t get it and passed it all over in trust to Gran, my step-grandmother. But over the years he got every penny. It was the only way I could save myself from…his physical abuse or keep my dog. The first amount, seven hundred and fifty pounds, supposedly to enter in partnership with the owner of the shop. Anyway—’ I gulped again and found difficulty in going on, but he remained silent, and after a moment I said, ‘And now, I have found out that all the time he must have been living with a woman. And…and there are children, so perhaps they are his. All these years he is supposed to have spent the weekends at his employer’s house.’ I raised my head now and, the tears streaming down my face, I muttered, ‘What…what hurts me is the fact that he has treated me like a brainless idiot, and also that at times I have been so paralysed with fear of him I wanted to fly away. But then I used to ask myself where I could fly to. Only to Gran’s and her two little rooms, you see.’ I dried my eyes now. ‘I loved my house. It’s nothing like this.’ I spread my hand out, my wet handkerchief dangling from it. ‘But it is nice and it’s all I have. In those early days I couldn’t see me ever holding down any kind of a post outside the house. I had this’—I patted my short arm—‘and then, I was so painfully plain, still am…’
His hand came out now and caught my wrist but he still said nothing, and I went on, ‘And recently, he has something else hatching. He told me so. What it is I don’t know. But this is the kind of thing that attacks one’s nerves. Anyway, on Sunday I’m going to see this cottage where I’m told he lives, and I shall take matters from there.’
‘My dear Miss Carter.’ The tone of his voice almost caused the tears to flow again, and then he said, ‘It’s incredible that you should have put up with this for so long, yet I understand your feelings about your home; I feel the same about this.’ He lifted his eyes to the moulded and painted ceiling. ‘I cannot imagine my feelings if someone tried to take it from me…He must be a demon of a man.’
‘I don’t suppose you would think so if you met him, because…he appears to have a certain gentleness of manner. It’s the salesman in him. And the irony of it is, the people in the terrace think he’s quite a gentleman and that I have been more than lucky to have married him; in fact, I know they pitied him for having such a wife.’
‘Oh, Miss Car…No, I’m not going to call you Miss Carter any more, I’m not even going to ask your permission, I’m going to call you Maisie.’
I smiled weakly at him as I said, ‘That’s an awful name too.’
‘Of course, it isn’t. Maisie’—he seemed to roll his tongue around it—‘sort of indicates jollity, and, you know, there’s a lot of jollity in you. Your humour testifies to this.’
Yes—I thought for a moment—I suppose my frolics with Hamilton could be put down to jollity, but at the present moment I felt anything but jolly, for I was beginning to feel foolish in having unburdened myself like this to a man who was…well, almost a stranger…Nonsense! I chided myself, for I don’t think I’ve got to know anybody in my life, with the exception of George and Gran, as much as I have done Mr Leviston.
Now he was repeating his name, saying, ‘And no more Mr Leviston, everybody calls me Nardy. I’m not quite sure if I like that name or not, but I’m stuck with it. It was given to me by a very charming man. You see, James Houseman, Bernard’s brother, started the business, the publishing business, and James was a very charming man. But he had a bad stammer, and when I joined the firm at eighteen—I never made university’—he smiled widely now—‘I never had that kind of brain—James, who was a friend of my father, said, send the lad to us. And so the lad went to them, and I’ve been there ever since. But with regard to my name: James had a booming voice and you can imagine, with the stammer, how it sounded, and as my name was Leonard, he seemed to have some
difficulty with it and he would shout, Le…n…nard…y, so in the end it sounded more like Nardy, and this stuck.’
I was smiling at him now as I said, ‘It’s a friendly name.’
‘Well, do you think you can be friendly and call me by it?’
Oh dear. I wasn’t good at calling people by their Christian name.
‘Try; it won’t be too hard; you get used to it after a time.’ But now his tone changed to a serious note, and he went on, ‘If you confirm your suspicions on Sunday, you must go directly to a solicitor. You have one?’
‘Yes, and he knows a little of the situation. I had to go to him to arrange about the money in the first place.’
‘Good. But about your fear of this man, can’t you have someone in the house as a sort of companion for the present time, a friend?’
It took me a moment to admit that I had no friends to speak of. I said, ‘I know a number of people who go to the Writers’ Circle. They are all acquaintances, but somehow…well, I suppose it’s my fault, I don’t seem to be able to make friends all that easily. I had one very close friend in my young days; she lived down the terrace. You know, I mentioned her in the book; I make her mother the High Church lady who didn’t think I was a suitable companion for her daughter, rather obstructive in the marriage market. And that’s true. I found out, and only in recent years, that that was why Katie’s mother stopped our friendship: I would be a drawback to her meeting the right young men.’
I watched him rise from the chair and walk to the window and stand there looking out; and this he did for a good few minutes before he said, ‘You know, Maisie, I hate to admit it, but there are lots of cruel people in the world. I have such a nature that I want to think everybody is nice, everything is rosy and comfortable. I was brought up in this house in the most happy atmosphere and it didn’t serve me to any good purpose when I went out into the world. When I recognised the meanness, the cruelness, and the vindictiveness in human nature, I was for running back into this nest. But my mother was a very wise woman, she pushed me out. She even wouldn’t let me live here; she made me set up in a flat on my own. Oh, that was an experience.’ He half turned, pulled a little face at me, then turning fully towards me, said, ‘You know, Maisie, I think it’s the petty meanness that hurts one the most, the trickery, the chicanery that one meets in business. Not so much, I’m pleased to say, in our line, although it still goes on. Yet none of it seems to have the impact on me as does the small meannesses. I’m afraid that I allow these to grow out of all proportion in my mind. However, at this moment when I’m comparing my life with yours, I’m really ashamed that I allow such trivialities to worry me. But Maisie—’ he took a step towards me and caught my hand and, bending his face down to mine, he said earnestly, ‘you really have the best years of your life before you, you are still so young.’
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