The Town in Bloom (19 page)

‘Yes, but I shall often come here to see you,’ said Zelle.

‘Not the same, not the same at all,’ said Lilian gloomily. ‘Well, we’ll just have to console each other, won’t we, Mouse?’

I agreed but without feeling it was important to me. The companionship of the girls had meant less since I had fallen in love. Now I wanted Lilian to shut up so that I could think my own thoughts. Did I wish we had never gone to the vicarage party?

Somewhere above us a gramophone was playing ‘Japanese Sandman’. I remembered hearing it sung in a seaside concert party on one of my holidays with my aunt. It seemed a suitable song to fall asleep to. I followed the words in my mind until I came to ‘Then you’ll feel a bit older, in the dawn when you wake’, which I at once pressed into my own service.
Had
I felt older? It was one of those questions which could only be answered by ‘Yes and no’. Soon I drifted into sleep.

I slept until a late tea, organised by Lilian, was being brought in. I was sharing a sofa with Zelle, who was still asleep. And as I sat up, I felt my lunchtime suspicions must be wrong; her pale face might have been that of a saint.

‘Wake up, Zelle,’ said Lilian briskly. She seemed to have slept off her gloom.

‘Why not let her sleep?’ said Molly.

‘Because her tea will go cold. Besides, I hate being in a room with sleeping people – unless I’m sleeping myself.’

Zelle unresentfully woke up and had her tea, but she seemed to me quieter than usual.

Lilian began talking about Molly’s trousseau; by now, Molly had received ‘bastard’s pay-off’ so could afford to launch out. Lilian, after commenting on this with satisfaction, remarked:

‘Molly, did it ever strike you that your being a byblow worked out all for the best with Hal and you really were very wise to tell him?’

‘Of course I was,’ said Molly. ‘I couldn’t possibly not have told him.’

‘Oh, I’m not thinking of your conscience,’ said Lilian. ‘I’m thinking of the effect on Hal. If he did have the idea of asking you to have an affair, as we were afraid he would, well, he could hardly have done that after he saw how much you minded about your mother not having been married.’

Molly’s baby face crumpled with worry. ‘Do you mean that, if I hadn’t told him, he wouldn’t have asked me to marry him?’

‘We shall never know that, shall we?’ said Lilian. ‘And anyway, it doesn’t matter. The great thing is, he did ask you.’

‘But of course it matters!’ Molly now looked horrified. ‘I don’t want him to marry me because he feels he ought to. Perhaps he thinks I told him just to force him to propose.’

I said that was nonsense. ‘You told him so soon – long before he proposed.’

‘Perhaps he went on hoping he wouldn’t need to. There was one time, later, when he got very matey – out in the country. But I didn’t, well, rebuff him. It was he who pulled up.’

‘That proves he respects you,’ said Zelle.

‘No, it doesn’t. Perhaps it was knowing what happened to Mother that made him feel he couldn’t take advantage of me.’

‘It would have made some men feel just the opposite,’ said Lilian. ‘They might have thought your mother’s daughter would expect to be taken advantage of.’

‘Not Hal,’ said Molly. ‘He’s the soul of honour. That’s all the more reason I wasn’t sure a byblow was good enough for him.’

‘But you’re being utterly illogical,’ said Lilian. ‘It’s because he’s the soul of honour that he proposed. And everything’s all right.’

‘Not if he
only
proposed because he’s the soul of honour and didn’t really want to. It’s as if I tricked him into proposing.’

‘It is not!’ we all yelled at her, but we didn’t have any effect. And the more we argued, the worse things got, the truth being that there really is no way of deciding if an honourable man is less or more likely to treat a girl honourably because her mother wasn’t treated honourably.

At last I said: ‘Surely an honourable man treats a girl honourably however her mother was treated.’

‘Of course,’ said Lilian. ‘And if hearing about your mother made Hal a bit extra honourable, well and good.
Anyway, it’s now signed and sealed with a whopping emerald, so why worry?’

‘I find your attitude … distasteful,’ said Molly, choosing the word carefully. During the discussion she had stopped looking like a worried baby and became more and more haughty. ‘One is not a gold-digger or a go-getter – or whatever one calls a woman who forces a proposal from a man.’

‘One just calls her sensible,’ said Lilian.

Molly, ignoring this, rose. ‘Excuse me, please. I shall have a bath before dinner.’

She stalked out looking enormously tall and every inch the daughter of a D.S.O. in the regular army – even if he hadn’t got around to marrying her mother.

We stared after her. Lilian said:

‘What the hell do you make of that? Is she doubtful of Hal or just angry with me? And why be angry? When she first fell in love with him we talked like mad about … well, tactics for getting him to propose. I suppose she’s now joined the ranks of women who’ve landed their men and she wants to forget any landing was needed. Oh, God, I hope she won’t do something silly.’

But we couldn’t see anything she could do, except perhaps have it out with Hal, in which case he was bound to reassure her.

‘Still, I wish I hadn’t put the idea into her head,’ said Lilian. ‘It must have taken the edge off her happiness.’

I said, ‘Not for long, I shouldn’t think. She’s got such a lot to be happy about.’

‘All the same, I’ll try to have another word with her before she goes to her bath. My theory is that when people
have anything to gloat about they should be helped to gloat a hundred per cent.’

The minute Lilian had gone Zelle said, ‘I want to talk to you – not here; someone may come in. Let’s go to my room.’

But when we got to the fourth floor she said, ‘No, not my room in case Lilian comes up. We’ll go to the roof.’

We went up a narrow staircase and stepped out onto a large, flat roof surrounded by a parapet. I had never been here before so I looked around with interest. We walked over a notice chalked in giant letters saying: ‘Do not tap dance here. I am asleep underneath.’ A little further on was another notice: ‘
Nor
here,
I
sleep, too. Follow the arrows.’ The arrows led to a part of the roof that was over bathrooms. Zelle said the tap dancers usually came at dawn when they were full of zest. She herself often came up at night, to look at the stars.

We went over to the parapet. One got no sensation of giddiness, because part of the fourth floor jutted out below so that nowhere was there a sheer drop to the ground. We stood leaning on the parapet, looking towards the western sky where the sunset was just beginning.

For a few minutes we talked casually about the view and the faint smell of hay – I thought it must come from the heat-dried grass in Regent’s Park, though it surprised me that the scent should blow so far. At last I asked Zelle what she wanted to talk about. She was silent for a moment. Then, not looking at me, she said: ‘You saw him today, didn’t you? You knew who it was.’

‘You mean your guardian – your cousin, Bill?’

‘He isn’t really my guardian, or my cousin. Did you guess?’

I said uncomfortably, ‘Well, I did wonder, but only today. It was so odd that you didn’t take any notice of each other.’

‘We couldn’t, with his wife and the boys there. They don’t know I exist. Did Molly and Lilian notice anything?’

I told her I was almost sure they hadn’t.

‘Anyway, they probably know about me – though if so, they’ve been wonderfully tactful and never given me any hint.’

‘Nor have they to me. I handed on everything you said that night at the hotel and they accepted it. I expect they still do. Why didn’t you want us to know the truth?’

‘Well, who would? I thought it might put you all off being friends with me, specially you. Does it?’ She turned her head and looked at me.

‘Of course not – whatever it is; I still don’t quite understand. Was nothing you told me true?’

She was looking away from me again, staring into the sunset. ‘Bits, here and there. Most of the time I was just inventing. You said you were an orphan so I said I was, too. You said you had been brought up by an aunt so I invented a grandfather. It was true that I lived in a Welsh village.’

I asked about the crumbling old house she had described so fully. She said the house was there but it wasn’t crumbling and she hadn’t lived in it. ‘I lived in a wretched cottage, we hadn’t even a bathroom. My father was usually out of work; he drank. My mother did odd jobs when she was well enough; she’s dead now. I went to the
Plas – the old house – to do cleaning, and sometimes I helped to “maid” women who stayed there. I was terribly envious of their clothes. Then I was taken on as nursemaid. I went to picnics if the children did and that was how I met Bill – he often stayed at the Plas. A year ago he brought me to London and set me up in a flat. Well, now you know. You
are
shocked, aren’t you?’

I swore I wasn’t. But I was, a little. My aunt’s
broad-minded
ness had extended to women who lived with men who couldn’t marry them (‘George Eliot did’), to
emancipated
women who refused to marry the men they lived with (‘One doesn’t necessarily agree with them but they
are
making a stand about something’), even to prostitutes (‘They are often driven to it’). But she was prejudiced against ‘kept women’ – unless they were great courtesans or in history, when it didn’t count – and she had handed on her prejudice to me. Besides, it distressed me that anyone who looked like Zelle should be kept by an elderly, ugly man. But perhaps she loved him; if so, I should feel better about it.

I said, ‘I expect you’re fond of him.’

It was some seconds before she answered. ‘I ought to be. He’s wonderfully generous – and so considerate; he puts masses into my bank account so that I can pay my own rent and all my bills and never need ask him for money.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Poor Bill, he’s in for a shock when he finds I’m overdrawn and haven’t paid the rent. But he won’t mind. He’ll be glad I’ve had a happy summer. It’s been the happiest time of my life.’

I said it seemed dreadful she’d just spent so much on the lunch party when her bank account was overdrawn.

‘Well, I wanted to have one last fling before I leave the Club. Oh, God, I wish I didn’t have to go. I hope you’re right in thinking the girls haven’t guessed about me. If they have, Molly might tell Hal and he might tell Adrian Crossway. He’s coming to have tea with me on Tuesday, to talk about the work he’s found for me in an East End Settlement.’

It seemed peculiar work for a kept woman but I held my peace about that and said I couldn’t imagine Molly talking to Hal about her. ‘She wouldn’t think it fair and anyway they’ll only be interested in each other.’

‘And the girls might understand, they’ve been around quite a bit. It was you I worried about most. You’re so untouched.’

I wondered if it would help her to know the true facts about me but I was still being discreet. So I just said I was as fond of her as ever. And it was true. I was shocked
for
her, not
at
her; shocked she should have to live a life so unsuitable for her. Thinking of this I said, ‘Zelle, wouldn’t you be happier if you gave Bill up? Couldn’t you, if Adrian Crossway gets you a job?’

‘Oh, it isn’t a paid job. I’ll only be able to do it because Bill’s keeping me. What I hope is that doing worthwhile work will make me feel better about Bill. Let’s forget it all and have dinner somewhere nice. We’ll go down and find the girls.’

We found Lilian in her cubicle. She said Molly had stonewalled all attempts to reassure her about Hal, by saying: ‘The subject is closed.’

Molly was still in her bath so Zelle and I went along and thumped on the door and Zelle asked her out to dinner.
Molly said, ‘Thank you, child, but I intend to have a quiet Club dinner and go early to bed.’ The tone was icy for a girl lying in hot water.

I whispered to Zelle, ‘It sounds as if she’s taken her lorgnette into the bath with her.’

The next night, when I got back from the theatre, I decided to miss the gathering in Zelle’s room and go up on the roof; I had taken a fancy to it and there was a good moon. I went to the place where Zelle and I had stood, and leaned against the parapet.

After a few minutes I heard someone calling my name. It was Lilian’s voice, I thought; I turned and could see her by the staircase door. She saw me then and joined me.

‘Zelle thought I might find you here,’ she said, ‘as you weren’t in your cubicle. The most awful thing’s happened. Molly’s just informed me she’s going to spend a night with Hal. She won’t say when but I gather it’s to be soon. She’s terribly upset but absolutely determined to do it.’

‘But why? Did Hal ask her to?’

‘No, she asked him. She more than asked, she insisted – said she wouldn’t marry him if he didn’t agree. And now she doesn’t think he’ll want to marry her afterwards and neither do I. Could you have believed any girl would have been such a fool?’

Lilian then launched into a description of what Molly said she had said to Hal and what Hal had said to her. It
would have been funny if only we hadn’t felt it would result in disaster.

It seemed that after the idiotic conversation in the Green Room Molly had planned to ask Hal if he really did want to marry her, but she had come to the conclusion (just as Lilian, Zelle and I had) that he could hardly say anything but ‘yes’. So she had decided to convince him he didn’t
have
to marry her, by pretending to be modern and dashing and asking him to take her away on a trial trip.

‘Can you imagine it?’ said Lilian. ‘Molly pretending madly and poor old Hal being horribly shocked; he’s the last man to do anything modern. And then he got touchy and said she didn’t have to marry him if she had any doubts. She thinks his final idea was that she wants to find out if she likes sleeping with him, before she ties herself up. As if anyone could find out in one night! You have to take things on trust and hope for the best. But now, with Molly in this mood and Hal disillusioned about her, things are sure to go wrong and they won’t get a chance to come right.’

I asked if there was any hope of getting Molly to change her mind but Lilian said she didn’t think it would help now. ‘I gather she was weakening a bit by the end of the evening, but by then
he’d
begun to be for it; or rather, he was dead set on her not marrying him unless she was sure she’d stay married. He said his family didn’t go in for divorces. What a mess it all is! And I started it – by what I said in the Green Room.’

‘Well, you didn’t mean to.’

‘God, no! And yet I keep harrowing myself by feeling I may have been sort of unconsciously trying to bitch things for Molly because I envy her so.’

I was astonished to hear Lilian say that as I knew she found Hal extremely dull. Was she merely envying Molly for making a wealthy marriage? (If the poor girl was still going to.) I was trying to puzzle this out when Lilian went on:

‘I’m terribly unhappy. Would you mind if I told you about it? I haven’t said a word to anyone else because he asked me to be discreet. But he certainly isn’t; I bet lots of people at the theatre know. Do you?’

I said, ‘I do now. Go on, Lilian.’

Surprisingly, after the first sharp pang of jealousy, I didn’t mind very much – that is, I didn’t then; I expected to, later, but was determined to defer misery, otherwise I should give myself away to Lilian. And of course I was curious; that helped. I even found some pleasure in listening because everything she told me concerned him.

She said that though she had often joked about her interest in him, it was a joke; and she had started rehearsals with only one idea: to make a success of her part. Never had she planned to attract him and when, during
rehearsals
, he had showed her he was attracted she had been flattered and excited but not in the least in love. Then—

‘Once I’d opened in the part, you can’t imagine what it was like,’ she told me. ‘He’d take me out to lunch and to supper and get me to come to his dressing-room after matinées. It was wildly thrilling – I fell for him instantly though I did try to hold out; I didn’t want to seem easy to get. But I don’t believe women ever do hold out on him and he must have seen how I really felt. Anyway, one afternoon – it’s just a week ago – we went to a secret flat he has. We’ve been there three afternoons since.’

I said, ‘Then why aren’t you happy?’

‘Because he doesn’t really give a damn for me – doesn’t even pretend to. We’re supposed just to be playing a delightful game. If I give him even a hint that I care for him he gives me much more than a hint that he doesn’t want me to. He likes me to be hard; that attracts him. You wouldn’t think a man could make love so devastatingly and yet never show any tenderness. And somehow he always manages to make me feel it won’t last. Oh, God, he can be cruel!’

‘I don’t understand. He’s the kindest man I’ve ever known.’

‘He’s not kind in love,’ said Lilian.

He had been kind to me. He had shown me tenderness. Surely that proved he cared more for me than he did for her?

‘Oh, I know he can be kind-hearted,’ she continued. ‘He still is to me, sometimes, at the theatre; and in a way it means more to me than what happens at that flat. He’s very fond of you, by the way; did you know? He often talks of you.’

‘Really? What does he say?’ I tried not to sound eager.

‘Oh, that you’re a darling and intelligent and amusing; and brave, too – I suppose he meant that night you went on in my part.’ She smiled and spoke as if being nice to a child. ‘Sometimes I’m quite jealous of the things he says about you.’

‘You needn’t be.’ I meant to say it casually but it came out sounding bitter.

She looked at me quickly. ‘You’re not – you’ve always said you’re not – you’re not just a bit in love with him yourself?’

I reminded myself that I had to be discreet (his word, and he had used it to her too). I had often longed not to be – in a Club where most girls gossiped about their love affairs, to the Club maids, if no one else was handy – but I was proud of resisting the temptation and meant to go on doing so. I intended to say, ‘No, of course not,’ and laugh Lilian’s question off. But this sudden temptation was too much for me. I told her everything.

From the beginning she was far more distressed than I expected her to be. She kept interrupting me to say things like, ‘I can’t believe it. Why didn’t you tell us? We might have helped you, advised you.’ When I told her about the night in the barn she was so horrified it was almost funny. I said:

‘Really, Lilian! You sound like someone’s grandmother. Why are you so shocked on my account when you’re not on your own?’

‘You’re years younger than I am. And I’ve had other affairs.’

‘Have you, Lilian? You never told me.’

‘Well, of course not. You were such an innocent. Molly and I always tried to protect you from – well, knowing too much about things like that. Anyway, I’ve only had two other affairs and one didn’t count; we were engaged.’

‘Has Molly had affairs, too?’

‘No, she hasn’t and that’s why this spending a night with Hal is such a catastrophe. Oh, God, what hell life is – for Molly and me and now you! Well, if it’s any comfort to you, Rex is liable to tire of me any minute.’

I had already been comforted by thinking that. I knew I should be deeply sorry for her when it happened; but that
didn’t stop me from being thankful it
would
happen. Only momentarily had she shattered my hopes. I was now engaged in rebuilding them.

She took me back to my story, wanting to know about the next few days after the vicarage party. I guessed she was trying to fit in the end of my affair with the beginning of hers, so I made it quite clear that they didn’t overlap. She said, ‘If only I’d known about you! Still, I can’t pretend it would have made all that difference – because I’m so terribly in love. I never knew I would feel like that about anyone. Though I could almost hate him on your account.’

I said, ‘Well, don’t. Because
I
think he’s treated me wonder fully. Everything was my fault, yet he wasn’t angry even when I landed him in real trouble.’ I told her about Black Saturday.

When I was in the middle of my visit to Mrs Crossway, Lilian interrupted. ‘No wonder he thinks you’re brave. And how grateful he must have been! He hates her to find out about him, even though she’ll never divorce him.’

‘But she’s longing to.’

After I’d handed on the complete gist of my talk with Mrs Crossway, Lilian said, ‘He must have told me she’d never divorce him just to stop me from entertaining false hopes. Oh, I wish I had your courage.
I’d
go and see her and tell her everything. If I was the co-respondent he’d have to marry me – except that he wouldn’t if he knew I’d told his wife. He’d hate me too much.’

‘Anyway, you wouldn’t want him to marry you against his will, would you?’

‘Wouldn’t I just!’ said Lilian. ‘I’d have some claim on him then, however unfaithful he was. As things are, he can
just turf me out for good. Besides—’ She began to giggle school-girlishly. ‘Once I was married I’d have that lovely house. Why didn’t you tell his wife the truth? Then
you’d
have had the house. And you’d have made the sweetest little co-respondent. Perhaps we could
both
be
corespondents
– and share the house and him. I’d mind less with you than with anyone.’

By now I was laughing too. Everything seemed lighter, easier. I no longer felt jealous; we just seemed companions in misfortune. Lilian controlled herself first and said, ‘Stop or we shall get hysterical. Oh, it’s such a relief to talk to you and it somehow helps to know you’re in love with him too. Though I can’t think why it does, especially as I’m madly envious of you.’

‘You’re
envious of
me
?’

‘Of course. Because he’s fond of you. That’s something you can count on.’

‘Still, you wouldn’t swop what you have for that.’

‘Well, not yet,’ said Lilian, laughing again, ‘but you wait till I’m out on my ear. We’ll help each other now, won’t we? I’ll tell you all the nice things he says about you.’

‘But how can I help you?’

She was silent so long that I wondered if she had heard. At last she said, ‘I think you
have
helped me.’

I asked in what way. Again there was a silence before she answered. Then she spoke quite casually. ‘Oh, by being friendly. Let’s go to bed now.’ She looked around at the moonlit roof. On its grey surface the shadows of the chimney stacks were densely black. ‘Rather nice up here – though it’s probably filthy. Anyway, it’s somewhere one can talk without being overheard.’

As we went down, we wondered if we should go in and talk to Molly about
her
problem. ‘At least she’s off her high horse with me now,’ said Lilian, ‘and she may need company.’ But Molly’s light was out.

‘Though I daresay she’s lying awake worrying,’ Lilian whispered. ‘And we probably shall, too.’

But I didn’t. The guilt I felt at having talked to Lilian was as nothing compared with the relief it had brought. Discretion is too heavy a burden for eighteen-year-olds.

I was due at the theatre the next morning, so that Eve could go to a fitting of one of her admirably cut suits (doomed to be treated like a very old rag). I would willingly have worked on through the afternoon but she sent me off duty immediately after lunch; only in exceptional circumstances would she let me work morning, afternoon and evening. I sat reading in Regent’s Park, on the far side from the Crossway house. I had a horror of meeting Mrs Crossway, and had never ceased to feel unhappy about deceiving her.

About half-past four I went back to the Club for tea and as I entered the lounge I saw that Adrian Crossway was having tea with Zelle. They were so much absorbed in each other that neither of them noticed me, and I was careful to choose a table some way from them. Here I was hidden from Zelle by a pillar but I could still see Adrian Crossway in profile – a very handsome profile. He was wearing a suit of clerical grey flannel and looked to me like a stage clergyman of the disarmingly human type, one who plays a splendid game of cricket. I dimly remembered such a character in a play I had seen done by amateurs; and another character had been a ‘fallen’ woman whom
he had treated with gentle tolerance, telling her in effect to go and sin no more. (My dear aunt had remarked that it was no use telling the woman that, when he didn’t tell her how to earn a living.) What would Adrian do if he learned the truth about Zelle? And could she really let her ‘fallen’ state by night sponsor her good works by day?

I was thinking this might make a much more interesting play than the one I remembered, when Lilian came from the writing-room at the far end of the lounge. She joined me and I offered her a free cup of tea in my slop basin, an economical habit much favoured by Club members and much frowned on by the Club management. As I was pouring it, she noticed Adrian Crossway and turned to me in astonishment. I told her he had come to see Zelle about the good works she was planning to do.

‘How extraordinary!’ Lilian shot another glance at Adrian Crossway. ‘He doesn’t look to
me
as if he’s discussing good works. Heavens, do you think he’s fallen for her?’

I said this was only the second time they’d met.

‘Still—’ She broke off, gulped her tea and said she must go and post a letter. ‘And I won’t be back because I’ve some jobs to do.’ It was Club protocol never to barge in on a girl entertaining a man so I was not surprised that she whisked out of the lounge with her head averted from Adrian Crossway.

Soon he rose to go and Zelle went with him, presumably to see him off. As they crossed the lounge I noticed how vividly pretty she looked, with more colour than usual. When he held the door for her he smiled in a way that
might have been merely due to clerical benevolence but certainly looked more than that.

I hoped to ask her how things had gone but she did not return. And soon it was time for me to go to the theatre.

I did not get home until late, having walked; I had as yet nowhere near finished all the ‘thinking things out’ called for by Lilian’s disclosure of her affair. There was a note from Zelle in my pigeon hole, asking me to come up to her room and saying: ‘Don’t let the girls know as I’ve told them I have a headache.’ Luckily they weren’t around as I went up to the fourth floor.