The Town in Bloom (18 page)

I had always struck myself as truthful. But when I came to think about it I found that, though I hated deceiving Mrs Crossway, I had not felt conscience-stricken about the lying itself and I still didn’t. It seemed to me just a way of protecting my dear. I said I hoped the end justified the means.

‘Anyway, don’t think I’m judging you,’ said Miss Lester. ‘I haven’t the right to.’

Then one of the programme girls came in for something and I went off to the Throne Room.

I sat at the long table staring at the spoke-like metal work of one of the round windows. I still did not know if he would let me stay. And when he came in he looked almost grimly serious. But he did thank me very kindly. Then he listened while I told him everything I could remember. I finished by saying:

‘She doesn’t want me to leave. And Miss Lester doesn’t. And I don’t want to go. But I will if you still wish it.’

He was silent so long that I felt sure he did wish it. Then he smiled. I don’t know if he changed his mind or if it was due to his fatal kindness, but what he said was: ‘Then that’s
four of us who want you to stay. But will you be good? Will you stop playing Delilah to a poor old shorn Samson?’

I laughed at that but said I would, truly; and then I held out my hand and quoted:

– Not that there were any vows, and the love was all on
my
brow, but you’ll note that my intentions are excellent.’

His expression was relaxing more and more; the old amused look was back in his eyes. He said, ‘If it wasn’t love on my brow, it was something remarkably like it.’

‘Even when we were “ill met by moonlight”?’

‘Most of all then – wrong though that was. If only I could make you understand how genuinely fond of you I am.’

We stood looking at each other and I was suddenly sure that with very little effort, I could be in his arms with everything starting again. And I didn’t make the effort. Was I trying to play fair? Or did I, for once, want to retreat instead of pursue? Even when I thought about it afterwards I could never quite understand myself. But whatever the reason, I broke the moment of intimacy by saying briskly, ‘What have you done with that letter?’

He took it out of his pocket.

I said, ‘Then let’s top the great farewell scene with the great letter-burning scene.’

There were matches beside the large glass ashtray on
the table. I lit the corner of the letter and it promptly went out; but at last I reduced it to ashes. He watched with amusement and when I had finished said, ‘By rights, shouldn’t the great farewell scene have ended with one kiss on the brow?’

Again I retreated. ‘Not on
my
brow — or love might be seen there again.’

He said, ‘Good child. Still, keep just a little love for me, under that nice thick fringe.’

Then he went, quickly – leaving me happier than, only a few minutes earlier, I could have believed possible. And in my mind, I went on with the Michael Drayton sonnet to my great satisfaction. Both the poet and I had been premature in accepting love as being on ‘his bed of death’.

But the word ‘might’st’ expressed an uncertainty I refused to feel.

For the next two weeks I allowed myself to be reasonably happy. I say ‘allowed’ because I only maintained something approach ing peace of mind by constantly telling myself there was nothing I need
do
, no step I ought to key myself up into taking. I felt sure it would be best just to wait, in calm, recuperative confidence.

I was well aware that I needed to recuperate; sudden renewal of hope hadn’t wiped out the strain of the last weeks. I told myself I really was a bit young for such goings on, and treated myself in a kindly, almost motherly way, giving myself small treats such as flowers in my cubicle and chocolates in the bath.

And I took to reading poetry again. One of the few books I had brought to London was
The Oxford Book of English Verse
; and while verifying my memory of Drayton’s ‘The Parting’ I came across the Epigram,
‘Respice Finem
’, by Francis Quarles:

I memorised this and said it to myself again and again. It did not strike me as unreasonable to want my crowning last act to be played while I was still in my ’teens, as the act I had in mind was that my dear should realise how much he loved me and proceed to marry me (no unkindness intended to Mrs Crossway, as she now wanted to be free). As far as I was concerned, that last act could start now and continue for the rest of my life.

I did an immense amount of ‘thinking things out’. This took the form of remembering everything that had happened and then visualising what might happen when things came right. There was no end to the ways in which the coming right could come about. I thought best while walking so I often walked both to the theatre and home to the Club at night. I liked to walk through back streets, often getting lost, which worried me not at all; sooner or later one struck a main thoroughfare. No man ever accosted me however late at night I was out, and I don’t even remember noticing any men; I was too occupied with my thoughts.

Neither Lilian nor I suggested we should go home together and we were seeing less of each other; she had dropped our occasional morning walks in favour of looking at shops with Molly. I could have gone too, but never did; and I sometimes skipped the nightly toast-making sessions in Zelle’s room. One reason for this was that it upset me to hear Lilian talk about life on her side of the curtain. And it really infuriated me that she, as an actress, could call my dear ‘Rex’ while I, as a secretary, couldn’t. (Even in our most intimate moments I never had; I hadn’t called him anything.) I began to let myself at least think of him as
‘Rex’ instead of ‘Mr Crossway’ or ‘my dear’ – or just ‘him’. It was some small compensation.

During those two weeks I met him three times, when he came into the office to see Miss Lester. On the first two occasions I just said, ‘Hello,’ cheerfully, and went on with what I was doing. The next time, I went off to the Throne Room where I had press cuttings in hand. I had a faint hope that he might follow me but he didn’t. However, I got my reward when I went back to the office after hearing him leave. Miss Lester said: ‘If you can keep this up you’ll pull off another miracle. He asked me to give you his love and say how grateful he is.’

Since that Saturday when she had opened Mrs Crossway’s letter this was the only reference Eve had made to the matter. (It was around this time that she told me to call her Eve instead of Miss Lester.) She had said I could talk about it or not, as I pleased; and I had chosen not to talk. We had worked together just as we always had, though I had been conscious of a little extra kindness in her manner. She encouraged me to eat enormous good brown dinners at the pub, and her after-dinner brews of coffee became stronger and stronger. By now I was as much a coffee addict as she was.

Brice Marton often joined us at dinner. I had thought him off-hand at our first meeting after the vicarage party, and it had been a week before I saw him again – not surprising, as he had always been in attendance while Lilian was rehearsing. Then, on the Monday after what I now thought of as Black Saturday, he had come to the office just as Eve and I were going out for our meal and asked if he could come with us. Since then I had seen him
frequently and he had always been pleasant, but I had never felt so much at ease with him as on our train journey. He now seemed slightly guarded and I sometimes caught him looking at me in a puzzled, almost resentful way; but as soon as our eyes met he would switch his expression to one of casual kindness.

At the Club my main stand-by was Zelle, with whom I usually spent the mornings, Molly and Lilian so often being out together. There had been a slight change in the relationship of the four of us. Now that Lilian was occupied at the theatre and Molly with Bluff King Hal, Zelle was no longer playing the role of Fairy Godmother, probably because no such character was at present needed. And it seemed to me that Zelle had stopped being the lonely child in need of playmates.

She had become more serious and spent much of her time reading; often we sat together reading rather than talking. I read poetry; she read books on religion suggested by Adrian Crossway. They had exchanged several letters and, towards the end of my second recuperative week, she said he was soon coming to London and would see her about some work she might do.

I did not think her interest in religion and good works was entirely on their own account. And Adrian Crossway’s letters, from what she told me, were long and personal. I felt that she, as well as Molly, had ‘started something’ at the vicarage party.

As regards Molly, we were all anxious to know just
what
she had started. Bluff King Hal was coming to London almost every day to see her. He was taking her out to meals, theatres, night clubs and for drives in the country;
and providing enough ‘roses in the hall’ to stock a shop. Obviously he must be going to propose something but Lilian feared it wasn’t going to be marriage, particularly as Molly had told him she was a byblow.

‘I felt I had to,’ she explained to us. ‘You see, he comes from an old county family. And he used to be in the regular army like my father. If Father didn’t care to marry an actress, Hal certainly might not care to marry an
illegitimate
actress. So it was only fair to warn him. He just laughed – that is, he laughed at me being called Moll Byblow – and it didn’t stop him asking me out again. But no doubt it sank in.’

‘You’re a damned fool,’ said Lilian. ‘I can understand your wanting to be honest but why couldn’t you wait till he’d proposed?’

‘Because then he could hardly back out,’ said Molly.

‘Exactly,’ said Lilian.

‘And the awful thing is that if he asks me just to have an affair with him I know I shall succumb, because I’m so much in love with him. And after all, I am my mother’s daughter.’

‘Your mother was a damned fool too,’ said Lilian. ‘I often wonder if any man would marry any woman if she didn’t make him.’

And then, just under three weeks after Molly and Hal first met, she irrupted into Zelle’s room one night officially engaged and with an appointment to go out next morning to choose the ring.

‘Hal thinks an emerald,’ she said blissfully. ‘And then he’s driving back to discuss the wedding with Adrian Crossway. It should really be in the bride’s parish but I
don’t even know what mine is, and it’ll be lovely having a country wedding. I do wish you could all be bridesmaids but Hal has masses of small nieces panting to trot up the aisle and make me look a giantess.’

‘I don’t see how I can even be there,’ said Lilian, ‘though I might if you don’t choose a matinée day. I wonder if Rex will go? Perhaps he’ll drive me down – and you too, Mouse.’

I was far more envious of that casual ‘Rex’ than of Molly’s happiness.

Two days later, Zelle gave a lunch party to celebrate the engagement. It was Sunday so I did not have to go to the theatre.

No psychic tremor warned me that this was to prove an important occasion but I remember it vividly. I can recall my awe on entering the hotel – much the grandest I had ever been in – and then our gradual relaxing into ease as we were received and waited on as if we were, at least, four young peeresses in our own right; though we never relaxed to the extent of making as much noise as we usually made when all together. It would have been too much like shouting in a cathedral.

We were given a table at one of the tall windows and I was so placed that, by turning to my right, I could look out on the park in the bright September sunlight; and, by turning to my left, see the beautiful, very formal restaurant. Everyone there was behaving as decorously as we were – we remained decorous even when we toasted Molly in champagne, for which she thanked us with dignity. All her pre-byblow confidence had returned. The backwards tilt of her head, when she looked serenely round through her
lorgnette, was superb and she several times addressed me as ‘child’.

I was feeling far from child-like but I was surprisingly happy. The sunlit park, the gracious restaurant, perhaps the radiation of Molly’s happiness, and certainly the champagne all combined to lull me into a mood of ‘wait and watch the world go by; all will yet be well’. Lilian must have been similarly conscious of the atmosphere because, towards the end of the meal, she said: ‘I do love this place. I know I shall remember this party as long as I live.’

Molly, Zelle and I said we would, too.

‘In a way, it’s a sad occasion as well as a celebration,’ said Lilian. ‘I shall miss you terribly, Molly. Nothing will ever be the same as it has been this summer. But we will all keep in touch, won’t we? Let’s make a vow to meet here this day next year. My party then – if only I’ve enough money.’

‘No, mine,’ said Molly, who obviously had no doubt she would have enough money.

Judging by the prices on the menu the meal was going to cost Zelle more than I earned in a month so I did not enter the competition to play hostess; nor did I take Lilian very seriously. But she was certainly taking herself seriously, because she got a pocket diary out of her
handbag
and made a note. Then she said:

‘No, next year’s too early – and we’ll probably meet lots of times in the near future. What we’ve to guard against is slipping away from each other as the years roll by. We’ll lunch here every five years, on and on through our lives—’

‘Till it’s forty years on,’ Molly broke in cheerfully. ‘Can’t you see us all doddering in on sticks or in Bath-chairs?’

‘Don’t!’ said Lilian, shuddering. ‘Though it might be rather beautiful, four exquisite old ladies looking back on their youth. And do you know what? If we lose sight of each other I shall put an advertisement in
The Times
Personal column – just “Four Friends Reunion” and the date. And then you must all come or at least send a telegram.’

‘But I never read
The Times
Personal column,’ said Molly.

I said I didn’t, either.

‘Then you must start tomorrow and read it every day of your lives,’ said Lilian.

Both Molly and I expressed our doubts about that.

‘I’ll read it for you, Lilian,’ said Zelle kindly.

Lilian, already emotional, now became indignant. ‘You won’t! Nobody will help me! Nobody wants us to go on being friends.’ Then she began to giggle. ‘Oh, dear, I’ve had far too much champagne. Now you must all talk of something serious, like politics, while I calm myself into a state suitable for my surroundings.’ She took a long drink of champagne to help her.

Soon after that something occurred which made far more impression on me than anything Lilian had said. Not long after we came in I had happened to notice four people at a table some distance from us: a man, a woman and two schoolboys. The man had his back to us but I had a good view of the woman, and I looked at her several times because her face seemed familiar. As I could not place her I decided she must just be someone I had seen in the foyer of the theatre. These four people were now getting up to go and, as the man turned towards the door, I saw his face.

Instantly I knew why the woman’s face had seemed familiar. The two of them were the original of the large oil painting we had seen in the house where we first met Zelle.

I turned to point them out to her but as I opened my mouth I saw that she had flushed deeply and was gazing at the man with dismay. I looked towards him again, at the exact instant when he saw Zelle. He, too, seemed dismayed. Then his expression went blank and he continued on his way out. For a second, Zelle’s eyes met mine. Then she looked down and opened her handbag.

Molly and Lilian were not in a position to see the man. And as they were talking, I did not think they had noticed Zelle’s flush. She took a handkerchief from her bag and pretended to blow her nose, not very convincingly. By the time she had finished, the flush had receded.

My first guess was that she and her guardian had cut each other because Zelle did not get on with his wife and would not want to meet her. My second guess so startled me that I pushed it aside for later consideration.

Coffee arrived then and when we had drunk it Zelle paid with an impressive number of pound notes and we left the hotel.

Back at the Club, we went to the Green Room; being a Members Only room we usually had it to ourselves on Sunday afternoons, when most girls either went out or entertained friends in the lounge. There were two vast sofas, long enough for two people to lie full length on each of them, provided legs were tactfully disposed. I have particularly pleasant memories of Sunday afternoon naps in the Green Room – I almost always seemed to be short of sleep.

When we had settled down Lilian said, ‘Not many more afternoons like this for you, Molly. Sometimes I wish we’d never gone to that vicarage party – I mean, from a selfish point of view.’

‘But you got your lovely job there,’ said Molly. ‘Aren’t you happy about that?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Lilian. ‘It’s just that I’ve a sort of end of summer feeling. You’ll soon be going too, won’t you, Zelle? Back to your flat.’