A Winter's Child (76 page)

Here she was. And there was Polly, sunning herself in Cannes the last anybody had heard.

Faxby did not quite know what to make of it. Naturally – as was only to be expected – as Miriam at least had been only too well aware – the events of that fateful night had not passed unnoticed by the servants. And just as naturally they had gossiped to other servants who had wasted no time in spreading the word, so that opinion among the ‘informed'classes of Faxby was divided among those who believed Polly had seduced Toby – the lucky dog!; those who believed it had been the other way round – asking for trouble with those short skirts in any case; those who preferred to think it had all been in
somebody's
sick mind – Eunice's or Toby's according to taste; and a fairly substantial number, female in the main, who thought Eunice a fool either not to have seen it coming or to have got so carried away by it when it did.

But, as all shades of opinion agreed, it was a bad business; Polly winning rather more sympathy than she might have done had not Arnold Crozier, although a noted lecher and a thoroughly dirty old man, also been a millionaire. And there were not a few, therefore, who found it easy to excuse her conduct on the grounds of her broken engagement to Roger Timms.

Not that anyone really knew what to make of that either. Everybody had been invited to the wedding. Most people had already purchased their wedding gifts, putting themselves in a position only slightly less inconvenient than those who had already sent them, since it would be awkward now to return them to Taylor & Timms whence most of them originally came. What to do for the best? Polly, it seemed, had got married abroad, privately, and having sent out no invitations had forfeited her right to gifts. Ought one to hang on to al this linen and china and
bric-ctrbrac,
perhaps, in case Edith Timms finally gave in to her son's insistence on making an honest woman of Miss Adela Adair and consented – as so far she had adamantly and hysterically refused – to attend their wedding?

Or might he too just go off somewhere, like Polly, and come back married? It rather looked like it.

What a tragic, tumbledown world.

It had never occurred to Edith Timms that a day might dawn when she would be unable to control her son. Yet, in the matter of Adela Adair, she knew herself defeated long before she could bring herself to admit it. No one had expected it, least of all Adela Adair herself. She was thirty-two and felt older, a woman of indifferent health, indifferent talents, indifferent looks too although, with a certain amount of touching up, her red hair looked well enough when she sat in candlelight at the piano, and she had become very skilful at powdering over her freckles. She was neither particularly ambitious nor particularly virtuous, accepting her limitations in both these directions and had seen nothing in Roger Timms but an easy source of apple brandy and Turkish cigarettes. Knowing what Polly was up to she had felt sorry for him and had also thought him a fool. And on the night when Polly had finally kept him waiting a little too long and he had offered Adela Adair a lift home, she had been expecting no more than that. Nor, once arrived at her flat, had she expected him to come inside, making an offer of cocoa and biscuits only because it seemed polite and she always liked to do the right thing. But he had settled down very comfortably at her fireside, her flat being shabby but colourful, very warm and clean, and after a while, because she was feeling lonely and because, more often than not, it was the usual outcome of cocoa and biscuits at her flat, she took him to bed.

Roger Timms was twenty-seven, powerfully built, highly-sexed and still virgin because his shyness, his complete lack of confidence in himself, prevented him from being otherwise. He had always been clumsy, ‘ham-fisted' his mother called it, never quick to understand how even relatively simple things should be done, much less this complicated and mysterious act of procreation. His mother had always laughed at his awkwardness. Polly had followed her example and the very extent of his adoration for her had made him even more tongue-tied and inclined to fall over his own feet than ever. That he would make a fool of himself on his wedding night he was painfully certain. The mere thought of it – and it preyed on his mind a great deal – causing him to break out in a cold sweat. He desired it and dreaded it. He was not sure how he would manage to get through it at all. Polly, of course, would laugh at him. Adela Adair, older, kinder, expecting far less from life than Polly, would never have dreamed of such a thing and although he was, indeed, every bit as flustered and inept as he had feared, giving her not the slightest enjoyment, she gave a very adequate imitation of it, taking the view that everybody has to learn sometime and the best way to teach him was by a little encouragement.

‘That was marvellous, Roger.' He couldn't believe it. She had made a man of him. And more than that she was kind to him, listened to his jokes and laughed at
them,
not him. He liked it. Very much. He had just never realized that women could be so
pleasant,
such thoroughly nice, ordinary people. And although he was not quick-witted it didn't take him long to understand that he could never experience this ease, this freedom from self-doubt, could never have this kind of fun, with Polly.

Events, thereafter, occurred rapidly enough to confuse sharper wits than Roger's. There was the diamond ring for instance, which Polly, when Kit telephoned her the next morning, declared hysterically she could never bear to touch again. ‘Give it to Roger and tell him to give it to somebody else.' And when Kit obeyed her instructions, Roger chose to believe, because he wanted to believe, that she knew where he had spent the night and had given him his marching orders accordingly. Splendid. Having already decided not to marry her, he had not the least idea how to tell her so and had been much relieved. He went, therefore, to his mother to give her the glad tidings that he had chosen himself another bride.

‘Nonsense, dear. Please don't be tiresome this morning. I have a headache.'

So, more often than not, he thought, did Polly.

‘Roger – really – what
is
all this?'

He was not clever. But he was stubborn and Edith had underestimated him. Moreover, she had never had the least conception of his fears of being sexually despised by Polly, and, therefore, could not gauge the extent of his gratitude to Adela Adair. His reasoning was totally straightforward. Why should he go round searching in other women for what he had already found in her, taking the now unnecessary risk that one of them might laugh at him? He had found his mate. It was as simple as that.

‘Dear God,' said Adela when it occurred to him to put her in the picture, ‘your poor mother. I can't do this to her, you know.'

Taking her firmly by the arm, MacAllister led her to the other end of the bar. ‘Are you off your head?' he whispered. ‘He's Timms of Taylor & Timms. Never mind his mother. Just make the poor bastard happy.'

So it was.

Polly returned to England to have her baby, Mrs Arnold Crozier with an apricot-coloured mink for summer, a blue one for winter, rings of good investment value on most of her fingers, even the diamond studs in her ears bigger than the solitaire she had returned to Roger, her husband's property including several department stores, it seemed, up and down the country, of a comparable size to Taylor & Timms. And she looked very lovely, very elegant, very pregnant, when she stepped out of the Crozier Rolls and into the Crown again, paying a short visit to Faxby with Arnold who had decisions to take about the future of the hotel.

‘Hello, Claire. Here we are again. What fun. I think you're expected to give me tea and keep me happy and cater to all my sudden cravings for terribly expensive, terribly hard to find things, while my husband – what a lark, eh! – and your – what do we call him? –'

‘Employer,' murmured Claire.

‘All right. Be coy. Employer, although I've heard different and don't blame you one bit. But anyway, you're to entertain me while my husband and devastating old Hardie – not that he looks
old
to me any more I can tell you – discuss real, important things. You know – how to make the money we spend. That I spend, at any rate.'

Claire had last seen her as a desperate, terrified child kneeling in the mud by Toby's grave. Now she was brilliant and brittle, all flashing smiles and diamond sparkle, chattering, posing and watching herself pose and chatter, never still, never leaving the stage, never taking her eyes off herself, a rich man's young wife making sure everyone noticed how much she adored his money.

‘Heavens – the dear old place hasn't changed a bit.' But now, after these months of travelling with Arnold, she had grown accustomed to palaces, the grandest suite in every Grand Hotel, champagne in her bathtub if she'd ever had a fancy to bathe in it, which she hadn't. And clothes! Claire must come to stay with her soon – she'd send the Rolls – just to look at her clothes. Hats and coats and shoes mainly, in view of her present little encumbrance, but once she was thin again she knew exactly where she was heading. Paris. And she would have trunks and trunks and trunk loads of dresses to bring back with her. Of course Arnold wouldn't mind. He liked to see her spending money. Or, at least, he liked to see her so dressed up and so fancy that everybody noticed. It seemed to give him quite-a thrill when people turned their heads to look at her. And he was very good about diamonds. Nanette, of course – bossy old Nanette, his brother's wife – seemed to think she should keep them in the bank. Good Lord – what a waste. No point in having them at all. She wore hers for breakfast. She even wore them in bed when she felt like it. Why not? She hadn't heard Arnold complain. And it made up for not having a proper wedding. Oh yes, they were legally married all right. She'd worn her apricot mink and a feathered hat and pinned a few orchids here and there. But – well –!

‘Let's have a drink.'

And gliding into the bar she held out both hands to MacAllister who, not having been asked to join the staff at Wansfell Howe, greeted her, as his employer's wife, with appropriate enthusiasm.

‘What's it to be, Pol – Mrs Crozier?'

‘Polly will do. Gin and bitters. Claire?'

‘I'm on duty.'

‘You're looking after me. Have one of those whisky sours Roger used to sit and glower into.'

She used his name without embarrassment.

‘Has he married that woman?'

‘I think so. She gave in her notice and left last week, at any rate. I suppose they've gone off somewhere quietly.'

‘Out of the way of Old Mother Timms. I don't blame them. At least he'll be happier with her than he'd ever have been with me.'

What other memories haunted her? None it seemed.

‘I have my own car, of course.'

‘Of course.'

‘And accounts absolutely everywhere – Harrods even. How about that?'

‘I'm impressed.'

And then, as MacAllister closed his grille and went off duty and they were about to leave themselves, she stood for a moment, the brittle, brilliant light going out of her, and walking to the end of the counter leaned suddenly and heavily against the last bar stool.

‘This was where he used to sit – Toby, I mean.'

‘Yes. I know.'

‘Night after night. Hoping I'd come, and then watching me when I did. That's what he told me. Do you suppose it was true? Or just one of the things men say –?'

A great wave of silence seemed to rush between them, such a weight of emotion remembered, wasted, misunderstood, that Claire's voice, cutting through it, sounded muffled, her words very slow.

‘If he said it, Polly, then I think there's a good chance it would be true.'

‘Yes.' She swallowed and, smiling, quickly blinked her eyes.

‘So do I. Let's go upstairs shall we to the infamous Tangerine Suite and have tea. Oh – and sandwiches, of course – smoked salmon – and cakes. Do we still have Amandine?'

‘No. We have a little Swiss lady – about four feet nine – who makes perfect éclairs.'

‘Oh good. I'll have a dozen.'

Sitting placidly in what had been the scene of her husband's fairly recent debaucheries, her slightly swollen ankles on a stool, she consumed e¥/clairs and chocolate cake and currant buns with her usual appetite.

‘I'm eating for two, you see.'

‘At the very least.'

‘Twins? Do you think so? How heavenly.'

‘Do you want a baby, Polly?'

‘You wouldn't have thought so, would you?'

Claire shook her head.

‘Neither would I. But one learns a lot about oneself. Being married to Arnold, of course, is an education all its own. I've
aged,
I think.'

‘Don't you mean you've grown up, Polly?'

‘No. I know what I mean. Aged.'

And leaning her head against the high-backed chair, her hair no longer the tousled mop of hoydenish curls but a sophisticated cap of silver, her eyes and her mouth beautifully painted, a fortune in diamonds on her fingers, her body curving softly around a child whose father she could not with any certainty put a name to, she smiled timidly at Claire and told her with many painful hesitations her version of the events through which Toby had died.

‘I just wanted
somebody
to know how I felt, that's all. When I started to think again, which took quite a while, I blamed myself badly for not going away with him. But oh dear – what a life I'd have led him, as I was then. It would have done him no good. That's how I consoled myself. But just the same – did I kill him, Claire?'

‘Polly, you were twenty. He was forty-five. He must have known you couldn't cope with it.'

‘Does that excuse me? And don't tell me he must have been pretty fed-up with Eunice in the first place to lose his head over me. I've thought of that. I suppose she's thought of it too. If all he had to live for was me, then he didn't have much, did he? Life really
had
worn him down, poor old thing.'