A Man of Parts (43 page)

BLANCO WHITE COULD
not immediately carry out his intention of telling Pember Reeves that his daughter was pregnant because the High Commissioner was out of London on official business, so the lovers had a couple of days in which to plan their departure to France. Amber packed a pair of valises and left the Kensington house unobserved to meet him at Victoria station. There she posted a brief letter to her parents saying that she was ‘going abroad’ for a time with her lover, that they need not worry about her and should not try to trace her. Then they took the boat train for the Folkestone– Boulogne crossing, and some hours later arrived at the holiday villa on the outskirts of Le Touquet which he had rented from an agency in London for two months. It looked like a doll’s house that had been blown up to life size, built of white clapboard with red shutters, and had a little veranda sheltered from sea breezes by the grass-covered sand dunes which ran along this part of the Pas de Calais coastline. At low tide the sea was almost out of sight, leaving a vast plain of hard packed sand on which children flew kites and young men sailed sand yachts with nonchalant skill. They went for long walks on the beach, and when the tide was up braved the chilly sea to swim, towelling each other dry before an open fire in the villa, and making love on the hearthrug afterwards. In the evening they strolled into the town to dine in a bistro and sometimes, if the night air was mild, sat on the dunes with his arm round her waist and her head on his shoulder, watching the beams of two lighthouses sweeping across the water and highlighting the crests of the waves.

It was a kind of honeymoon, but like all honeymoons it had to come to an end, and in fact the air of idyllic enchantment they seemed to breathe at first lasted barely a week. They had, after all, come here primarily to make some serious decisions about their future, but the more they talked the less likely it seemed that they could agree on a plan. His idea of a discreet
ménage à trois
on the Bland model was on reflection impracticable – their affair was already too public for that to succeed. He was all for setting up a separate home for her and their child in London, and bravely defying any public disapproval, but Amber said it would not be fair on the child. On the other hand she couldn’t contemplate living alone in France with their infant, visited at intervals by himself, nor would he wish to subject her to such a lonely and restricted life. He was grateful that Amber consistently maintained that she didn’t want him to divorce Jane, because it was a solution he recoiled from, but it would be surprising if the thought did not sometimes occur to her that circumstances might force it upon them. It became more and more obvious to him that the child was the factor which caused all projected plans to fail. Of course there was no certainty that Amber was pregnant, though she continued to be confident that she was, and he had to assume that she would eventually conceive unless he reverted to using sheaths, which would be in effect a hurtful rejection of her grand romantic gesture as well as very likely a futile exercise.

The deadlock in their discussion of this issue exacerbated the minor tensions and irritations which increasingly arose in their day-to-day life together. He was used to having his creature comforts quietly and efficiently managed by Jane. In Spade House meals were always served on time and were always palatable and sustaining; there was an unfailing supply of freshly laundered shirts and underlinen in his chest of drawers; fires were laid and beds were made, shoes were polished and clothes were pressed, by a small team of servants. He was prepared to undertake some of these tasks in the circumstances, but not all of them. Amber however was completely lacking in domestic skills. Maud, she told him, had never cooked a meal in her life, considering that she had more important things to do, and therefore had not instructed her daughters in this skill. Amber couldn’t even boil an egg that wasn’t too hard or too soft for his taste, and although she washed her own linen and underwear she bluntly refused to wash his. She was a stranger to the art of ironing. Her French was excellent for the purpose of food shopping, but she had no idea what to do with the produce once they got it home. Things improved somewhat when they located a laundry in the town that would collect and deliver, and hired a woman who came in daily to clean the house and prepare their midday meal, and there were plenty of decent restaurants in the town for supper, but breakfasts of coffee and rolls without fried eggs and bacon made a cheerless start to the day. So much time was consumed in performing unaccustomed tasks, or making up for the lack of amenities in their domicile, that he was able to do very little serious work, and this made him nervous and irritable.

Jane forwarded mail to him every day, with its reminders of the complex social and professional life he had abandoned, and seductive invitations he was forced reluctantly to decline. One engagement made before they fled to Le Touquet was a lunch in London in mid-April in honour of Anatole France organised by a group of his English admirers to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday, and he insisted on attending it. His plan was to cross the Channel to Folkestone the previous afternoon and stay the night at Spade House, in order to dress and groom himself appropriately next morning for the lunch, and to return directly to Le Touquet from London. Going home was a queer experience – intensely enjoyable in some ways, disturbing in others. It was very pleasant to enjoy home comforts again, including a full English breakfast before he set off for London, but his sons’ joy at his return and their disappointment when they learned of the brevity of his stay made him feel guilty. It was his custom when bidding them goodnight, perched on the edge of their beds, to sketch little humorous ‘picshuas’ with his fountain pen, which referred to incidents in the course of the day, or were variations on a repertoire of favourite themes, like ‘How to Avoid Being Eaten by a Crocodile’ or ‘The Good Dadda and the Bad Dadda’, the one which Gip requested for that evening. He had brought each of them a toy sand yacht from Le Touquet, and depicted the Good Dadda as a man weighed down like Santa Claus with presents for his children, while the Bad Dadda turned his back on his two sons and wouldn’t let them play with their own toy soldiers. They put on a show of being amused, but he could tell they both thought a Good Dadda was one who stayed at home and a Bad Dadda was one who was always going away.

The lunch for Anatole France, held in a private room at the Savoy overlooking the Thames, went off well. He deliberately arrived a little late, just before they sat down, to avoid any inquisitive personal questions from guests who might have picked up rumours of an elopement. But no one looked surprised to see him, so he assumed that he was not, for the time being, the object of gossip. Arnold Bennett was there, and he managed, in the gentlemen’s cloakroom, to have a confidential word with him about Amber. ‘You do believe in living dangerously, don’t you, H.G.?’ Arnold said in a tone which implied, ‘
Rather you than me
.’ ‘I believe in living,’ he said, rather more jauntily than he felt.

Afterwards he decided to return to Sandgate to change from his best suit, which would be no use to him in Le Touquet, into more casual clothes, and to stay another night. He wired Amber to say he would be returning the next morning, but after breakfast (eggs, bacon, kidney, tomato, mushrooms … ) the boys clamoured for a holiday from lessons and a war game on the schoolroom floor, and he indulged them. The game, which lasted into the afternoon, was a way of extending his enjoyment of the comforts of home while avoiding too much private talk with Jane. She was naturally curious about how things were going in France, but had the tact not to press him. He told her something in vague general terms, making light of the problems and inconveniences of his domestic life with Amber, and concealing their failure so far to arrive at any satisfactory plan for the future. He suspected however that she was not deceived on either count.

He got back to Le Touquet in the evening to find Amber in a sulky and resentful mood at being deserted for much longer than she had expected, and when, a few days later, he hankered after accepting an invitation to one of Lady Desborough’s weekend house parties she turned on him.

‘You prefer Lady Desborough’s company to mine, then?’ she said.

‘Not at all, Dusa,’ he said. ‘I want to go because she hinted that both Asquith and Balfour are going to be there – the Prime Minister and the ex-Prime Minister. It will be a fascinating conjunction, especially with Lloyd George’s budget plans in the air. It’s an opportunity to eavesdrop on history. I wish I could take you with me.’

‘Why can’t you?’

‘You know very well why, Dusa. Don’t be silly. The invitation is to me and Jane. If I turned up with you on my arm it would cause huge scandal, and embarrass Lady Desborough.’

‘Are you proposing to take Jane, then?’

‘She wouldn’t want to go,’ he said, though in fact his mind had been playing with just that possibility. ‘She finds these grand country house parties rather intimidating.’

‘And what am I supposed to do with myself while you’re enjoying yourself among the aristocracy?’

‘Well, you could do some work on your thesis,’ he said – unwisely, for it inflamed Amber’s temper all the more to be reminded of her lack of progress on that project.

‘My thesis? My
thesis
?’ she almost screamed. ‘How am I to work on my thesis in a French seaside resort, without books or a decent library?’

‘Well, you should have brought some books with you,’ he said. And the row degenerated into a petty argument about what it was or was not feasible to pack into two valises at short notice for an excursion abroad of indeterminate duration, ending with Amber in tears and himself apologising for being a beast and promising to decline the invitation. They sealed their reconciliation by going to bed early to make love.

The next day, when he was reading on the veranda, she came out and told him that her monthly period was a week overdue and she was sure she was pregnant. ‘Can you be certain so soon?’ he said, looking up from his book. ‘I’m usually as regular as clockwork,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’ ‘Of course I’m pleased, Dusa,’ he said. ‘Well you don’t look very pleased,’ she said sulkily, all the tenderness of the night before apparently forgotten. ‘I’m delighted if it’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s just that Jane never said anything to me until she was at a rather more advanced stage.’ ‘Oh that’s just like Jane,’ Amber said. ‘Always so considerate. She probably didn’t want to disturb you. I’m sorry I interrupted your reading for such a trivial reason.’ And she flounced back into the house. He was filled with misgivings about the future: they had only been living together for three weeks and already they were squabbling serially. And for the first time Amber had shown a little spasm of jealousy towards Jane – that was a very worrying sign. But how could he extricate himself from this relationship with honour and with no injury to Amber? He went for a long solitary walk on the beach to consider the question. There was only one possible solution as far as he could see.

At the beginning of May he announced that he had to go back to England again to attend to urgent business matters with Jane and to reassure the boys. Amber agreed reluctantly and accompanied him on the electric tram that connected Le Touquet to Boulogne harbour to see him off, waving forlornly from the quay as the packet boat drew away. He didn’t go immediately to Sandgate, but to London, and took a cab from Victoria station to Lincoln’s Inn, where Blanco White’s chambers were situated. He was told Mr Blanco White was in court, but should be back in an hour or so. He said he would wait, and did so for an hour and a half, the object of occasional curious glances from the clerks, who evidently recognised his name and perhaps knew something of the scandal associated with it. Blanco White gave a start when he came into the outer office, with a bulging briefcase in one hand and more papers under his arm, and saw him rise to his feet. ‘May I see you for a few minutes – privately?’ he said. Blanco White nodded. ‘Please follow me,’ he said curtly, and led him up a narrow staircase of worn bare boards to a tiny office where there was scarcely room for the desk and two chairs that faced each other across it. Blanco White removed a pile of briefs from one of the chairs and bade him sit down, then seated himself on the other side of the desk. He was a pale-faced young man of unexceptional looks, neither handsome nor ugly, with dark hair symmetrically centre-parted and flattened down with Macassar oil, and a longish chin that gave his countenance a look of determination. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Wells?’ he said.

‘I suppose you hate me,’ he began. ‘I wouldn’t blame you – in your position I’d feel the same.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ Blanco White replied evenly. ‘I disapprove of you. I think your conduct towards Amber has been disgraceful. But I don’t hate you. Lawyers shouldn’t hate – it warps one’s judgment.’

‘Well, I will try to emulate your dispassion,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind admitting that I have harboured some uncharitable feelings towards you in recent months. If you hadn’t gone to Mr Reeves and told him all about me and Amber, contrary to your promise to respect her confidence—’

‘I did what I considered to be my duty,’ Blanco White said.

‘Quite so. Anyway, I didn’t come here to reproach you. What’s done is done, and what matters is the future.’

He had had plenty of time to prepare his speech. Hard as Blanco White might find it to believe, he hadn’t seduced Amber in the usual melodramatic sense of the word, an older man exploiting a young girl’s innocence. He had fallen genuinely in love with her and she with him. His wife knew about the relationship and all three of them were true friends. It had been Amber’s idea – a bad idea, he realised too late – to seal their attachment, when it seemed under threat, by conceiving a child. It was not absolutely certain that she was pregnant but it seemed very probable. They had gone away to France to think over the situation in peace and quiet, and to formulate a plan for the future. He had to admit that they had failed. He had come to the conclusion that English society was simply not ready to tolerate an experiment in human relations such as they – himself, Jane and Amber – had attempted. The only secure future for Amber and her child was marriage, and he couldn’t marry her because he was already married with a wife and children he couldn’t bear to be separated from.