Illusions of Happiness (33 page)

Today her brain was spinning with worry as Ronald came into the sitting room where she was lying full length on the chaise longue, not far from tears at the frustration of it all. She twisted her head to look up at him.

‘Ronnie darling, I hate to ask, but could you settle with your tailor yourself this time?’ She sighed. ‘After all, you’ve some money of your own. I’m so sorry, love. Would you?’

He didn’t reply for a moment but stood frowning at her. Then without warning, he burst out, ‘Why should I?’

Taken by surprise by the challenge, she was momentarily bewildered. ‘Darling, what do you mean? You’re the one with money now. I’m broke. You know that.’

‘Then you should’ve cashed in, like me, when you had the chance. But no, you thought you knew better! Now I’m left paying the bills.’

‘I’ve only asked you to settle your own bills, not mine.’ She was beginning to grow angry. ‘How can you say that when I’ve always made sure you were OK?’

It was perhaps the first time she had ever felt truly angry with him, taken aback by this sudden attitude. But she wasn’t prepared to let him get away with it. It sounded in her tone.

‘You’ve lived off me for long enough, Ronnie. Now it’s time for—’

‘You to live off me?’ he interrupted. ‘Is that it?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well that’s how it sounds to me.’

Anger suddenly got the better of her. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel, Ronnie, you can always go!’ she flared. ‘Clear off!’

For a moment he stared at her, then turned on his heel and went out of the room leaving her gazing after him, still angry. She heard him mount the stairs, two at a time. He would sit up in their bedroom, sulking for a while then finally creep back into the lounge, say he was sorry. She couldn’t help thinking, still angry, that he knew where his bread was buttered. Soon the market would begin looking up again and she would eventually be back on track, making money. Slowly at first, but luck had always been kind to her where money was concerned.

There was no sound from the bedroom and she was damned if she would go up there to try and mollify him. Let him sulk. It might do him good.

Now she could hear him moving about, footsteps above her, the faint sound of drawers being violently opened and shut. She could imagine him giving full vent to his fury. In a while he would come down and tell her he was sorry. She waited. Then after half an hour he reappeared at the door.

‘I have to pop out for a moment,’ he said in a strained tone.

‘What for?’ she asked, but he shook his head.

‘Nothing – it doesn’t matter.’ No apology. He still looked tight-faced.

Madeleine half smiled to herself. He was going to settle his tailor’s bill. When he returned he might continue to sulk for a while, but soon he would come round, understand her point of view. She smiled at him. From now on she’d have no need to indulge him. Instead he might indulge her. That would be nice.

‘Well don’t be too long, darling,’ she crooned lovingly, glancing down at her hands, but when she looked up he had already disappeared.

She heard the front door close, a little hesitantly as if he was having some trouble closing it. Sighing she got up from the chaise longue
and went to glance out of the window, just in time to see him getting into a taxi. It was then she saw the baggage space in the front beside the driver was stacked with two suitcases and a large holdall.

For a moment she stared unable to comprehend what she was seeing as the taxi drew away. Then in a sudden panic of realization, she ran from the window into the hall and upstairs to their bedroom. The place was a mess. His dressing table drawers and the doors of his wardrobe were open and empty, the hangers angling; his shoe rack bare; in the bathroom his toiletry and shaving gear also gone. Gone too was her jewellery, their boxes lying open.

Without knowing what she was doing, Madeleine opened her mouth and let forth a piercing scream, one that went on and on and which she seemed powerless to stop.

Then as her breath gave out, she sank to the floor, sobbing as if her body might dissolve with the effort.

Eight thirty, a weak November sun just starting to peep over the houses on the far side of Holland Park. Unable to sleep this last fortnight since Ronnie had walked out, she realized she had no idea where he was; had prayed he would soon come back saying he was sorry. But there’d been no word.

She had rushed off to his bank to find that he had withdrawn all the money she’d helped him make, using hers to enable him to do so – in other words she was keeping him. He’d closed his account and his bank had no idea – or refused to say – where he was.

Every time the telephone rang she would rush to it and yank it off its cradle, hoping to hear his exuberant young voice apologizing for his actions. But it was always someone else; a friend or close acquaintance looking for a half hour or so of chat.

She would tell them she was on her way out to somewhere urgent, promising to ring them back later. Not once had she done so. To use the phone could cause her to miss that one important call she hoped and prayed would come. But it hadn’t.

Each time the letter box rattled to alert her of a postal delivery, she’d run to the door, sift frantically through bills and demands and replies to her earlier invitation to the huge Christmas Eve party she’d planned to throw when Ronnie had been here and all had been well. But there was never anything from him.

She’d no interest now in giving a party; had no heart for a great crowd of people laughing and chatting and her without him at her side. She would of course have to contact people to say it was cancelled, but even that she’d not been able to bring herself to do, though it must be done soon.

Soon! What did it matter? Christmas was six weeks away – six weeks – two weeks – a hundred weeks! It didn’t matter any more, nor any future thing without Ronnie – her life pointless without him, the coming year empty – and all the years for the rest of her life . . .

Madeleine gulped – refusing to succumb to fresh tears. She’d done too much crying these last two weeks and they’d done no good except to make her feel ill, look hideous, unable to bring herself to venture out and face the world. She’d have to face the world eventually but it was hard.

Now she stood in the centre of this fine reception room of hers where she’d given so many huge parties, dinner parties held in the large dining room across the hall. Her mind wandered back to happier times when she and Anthony had been together and life had been so wonderful. How could she have let all that slip away?

Four days ago, four days closeted between these walls, she’d come to a decision, summoning up the courage to write to Anthony telling him she was broke, her lovely house to be sold to pay her debts and she had nowhere to go – such a humble, demeaning letter, it made her cringe.

Her daily woman who did the cooking and cleaning, Mrs Crossfield, had posted it for her. He hadn’t replied, but what had she expected? She’d not seen him for over three years, her life taken up by new and exciting things with Ronnie; her previous life put behind her. Yet often in the headiness of that lovely life she had thought of him from time to time, wondered vaguely how he was, if he was still with that someone else whom the Peel woman had seen him with, and she’d experience a small pang of regret, soon put aside in her new and wonderful life with Ronnie.

Now he was gone too. All the things she had lavished on him: clothes, money, her love – all her love – and he’d simply walked out without a care for her the moment he saw her virtually destitute. Nor would he come back, she knew that now. Her heart plummeted again weighed down by despair. She was alone once more and this time there would be no one to comfort her.

But she had told him to go, hadn’t she? She only had herself to blame, losing her temper with him like that. Yet he had taken her at her word. How could he have done that?

And there came the answer that had eluded her till now. Ronnie had been a sponger from the start – a sponger with a silver tongue, beguiling her, stupid fool that she’d been.

From somewhere came a spark of her old self, the self that had made its way when she’d first come to London, a girl alone, knowing nothing but her soft, comfortable upbringing, the one who had so innocently fallen for another silver tongue and ended up pregnant, spurned by her family; the old self that had confronted her father all those years ago, had angrily told him his fortune and had never laid eyes on him since, nor ever cared to. She had made her own way in the world no matter that she’d made mistakes, felt things had sometimes got on top of her. But looking back she had fared moderately well, had become stronger if not as strong as she would have liked. But she had confronted obstacles, surmounted them and come out somewhere on top hadn’t she? She had made money by her own brain, maybe with a little help here and there. The fact that she was broke didn’t mean that life was over. And yet . . .

There came a slow awareness of her life stretching ahead of her as she grew older, her face becoming lined, her body bowed, no one to grow old with her, no one to care, her wonderful soirées, marvellous parties not even a memory in people’s minds as they went on with their lives. What had been the point of it all?

As if in a dream Madeleine crossed the room and began dragging a chair to the centre of it. There, beneath the chandelier she stood beside the chair and took off the sash of her dressing gown. There was no other place in this room to do what she intended. She was alone in the house. By the time Mrs Crossland arrived, it would be over.

She would tie one end of the silk sash around her neck, climb on the chair and fasten the other end of the sash around one of the gilt arms of the chandelier in the middle of this room where she had held so many of her lovely parties. One leap and it would all be ended. No more worry, no more fretting, no more aching heart, no more loneliness – so simple, so quick.

If she stood on tiptoe on the chair she would just about reach up to the chandelier. Hopefully as she kicked the chair aside, the jerk would break her neck, this feeling of emptiness would be over, this aching knowledge of having been betrayed – over.

For a moment she stood poised.
Betrayed?
No, in her need to have someone love her she’d allowed herself to be deceived. Not so much made a fool of but having been a fool. From somewhere came a spark of fury. Why was she bowing to the actions of some worthless little swine who had run out on her after all she’d done for him? She was better off without him. So, she had been hurt, was that reason enough to be doing what had been in her mind?

She suddenly felt so angry that it shot through her as if touched by a fire. If she did what she had been intending to do, who would have been the winner? Certainly not her. So she’d be facing life alone from now on. Maybe something would come along.

There came a sudden thought: any minute now Mrs Crossland would be letting herself into the house to begin her cleaning. If she found her lying here, dead . . .

Slowly she let the silken sash fall to the ground and as if in a dream placed the chair back in its place by the wall. It was then she heard the front door open and close. Mrs Crossland. But there were voices. Ronnie? He’d come back. Relief sweeping over her, she made for the door.

Mabel Crossland took her key from her purse to open the door of her employer’s lovely home, her mind miles away thinking of her daughter’s birthday, hoping she would be back home in time to greet her coming in from her shift at the switchboard of the big company where she held a job despite all the savage unemployment of late. She already had a lovely birthday spread and a big cake. There would be Dad, her grandparents, who lived with them, her brother Sidney, and her two aunts who lived just down the road.

She was smiling, visualizing the warm fire glowing and her house full of people as she made to put the key in the lock, when a sudden movement from behind startled her. She turned to see a man about to mount the steps in her wake, a taxi at the kerb on the point of drawing away.

Hardly giving her time to gasp, he exclaimed: ‘Is this Mrs Ingleton’s home? Mrs Madeleine Ingleton?’ His tone sounded urgent.

‘And who are you?’ she demanded, standing her ground.

‘I need to see her.’

Mabel Crossland stood rigid, defensive. ‘I don’t know you, sir.’

For an answer, still standing on the bottom step, he hastily fished in his inside breast pocket and drew out an envelope, waving it at her. He was tall, good-looking, well dressed. The blue eyes beneath the trilby were filled with an expression of urgency. ‘She wrote to me some while ago but I have been away. My name’s Ingleton. Maybe she has mentioned me.’

‘Not that I know of,’ Mabel Crossland said tartly, now in control of herself. He could be lying? Though why?

‘I’m a relation,’ he was saying. ‘You can read the letter if you want.’

He held it out to her but she didn’t take it. Instead she drew in a deep breath and, gathering herself together, said as she turned the key in the lock, ‘You’d best come in then,’ stepping aside to allow him to enter first, even now wary of sudden attack.

‘How is she holding up?’ he asked as he moved past her.

‘Not very happy,’ she said, not knowing what else to say and still not prepared to tell this stranger how miserable the poor woman had been, listlessly wandering about the house, never venturing out, pining for the young man who had walked out on her, though it wasn’t her business to discuss her employer’s private life with some man she had never met.

‘If you would care to wait here, I’ll get her for you,’ she added, even now standing her ground, intending to keep her eye on him just in case.

Having taken off his trilby he stood in the hall as the woman called out, ‘Mrs Ingleton, someone here to see you.’

He half expected to hear Madeleine call from somewhere in the house that she didn’t wish to see him; never wished to see him again. If only he’d been home when her letter had arrived, but he was in Scotland, having fled there as he’d done once before, years ago when he’d last sought consolation from an old friend. Not that his friend – a man of property, a huge house and land that had been in his family for generations – would know how it felt to have lost one’s business almost overnight, his bank gone, swallowed up in the sudden remorseless collapse of the world economy following the Wall Street crash back in October.