The Wedding Group (17 page)

‘And they’re supposed to be better than us,’ Mrs Brindle had said over and over again in the last few days, and said it once more, this morning of the thaw, to Midge.

‘They only supposed it themselves,’ Midge replied.

‘And that chap – what’s his name – I couldn’t ever stand him. He could be her father, and even then too old. A married man, they say, though I never set eyes on any wife.’

Mrs Brindle knew more than Midge, but Midge could hardly ask questions. Mrs Brindle sensed this, and changed the subject, enjoying herself. ‘You’ve had a fox up the drive, I see,’ she said.

‘They must be starving.’

‘Who brought all those logs in? Surely you never carried that lot?’

‘My son came up at the week-end to see if I was all right. And got stuck in the snow for his trouble.’

‘I expect
she’s
put out.’

‘Who?’

‘His wife. About her cousin.’

‘I suppose so. Everybody must be. It’s not a very good start in life for a child – and she has hardly started her own life, poor girl.’

‘And can’t marry the man, it seems. They don’t believe in divorce, you see.’

‘He’s a Roman Catholic, too.’ Midge’s voice did not betray whether this were a statement or a question.

‘Who goes up there who isn’t? Bar me. Not that it would make any difference what he was. I mean, her grandfather wouldn’t stand for her getting married to anyone divorced.’

‘It isn’t her grandfather who made that rule.’

‘Then it’s one of the few he hasn’t.’

Over her elevenses, Mrs Brindle relented. ‘I can’t help wondering,’ she said, ‘whether we’ll be seeing so much of Mr Leofric Welland from now on. And what a name that is to be blessed with. No, I wonder very much. I must say my blood ran cold at one of the conversations I had no means of not over-hearing. The girl was crying – they’re great for floods of tears up there – and she said to him, to her grandfather, “I never want to see him again as long as I live.” This was in the kitchen where they were having a bit of a
tête-à-tête
and taking not a blind bit of notice of me in the scullery. Clattering about with the dishes, I was, and coughing my head off. “But there must have been some love between you,” he said – or words to that effect. “And, in any case,” he said, “Leofric has his work to do here. His life work. That’s important, too.” He’s writing a book, you know, that one. They’re all in it. But his lordship most of all, as you may guess. You’ve never read such twaddle.’

Midge did not have to wonder how Mrs Brindle had.

‘Well, really, it’s no concern of mine,’ she said at last. ‘I’m afraid I’ve rather let the brass go while you’ve been away.’

‘I’ll give it a going-over when I’ve washed up these few
things,’ Mrs Brindle said, making a little bustle of getting up from her chair.

In the afternoon, after Mrs Brindle had gone, David unexpectedly arrived.

‘So good to be warm,’ he said, crouching by the fire.

‘You’ve got a streaming cold,’ Midge said. ‘You shouldn’t have come out.’

‘That’s
why
I came out. Now the kitchen’s half-flooded. It’s coming through the roof, all over the place, and we’ve put down every basin and bucket we possess to catch it. We had to move the bed. There was a nice little trickle into that too. I couldn’t possibly have gone to work and left Cressy to deal with it. I wondered if it would put you out too much if we came here for tonight, until I can get something done about the roof and dry the mattress.’

‘But, of course, it doesn’t put me out. You can come for as long as you like.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t mind.’

‘I am delighted.’

‘Then I’ll go and fetch Cressy. She’ll be delighted, too. She’s a bit under the weather. Yes, literally.’

‘I thought so.’

He made no move to get up.

‘How did the funeral go?’ Midge asked.

‘You can imagine. Simply terrible. I went back with him afterwards to that awful house – hated leaving him there alone. It all seems so damned stupid to me –
both
of you on your own.’

Midge said nothing.

‘If he wanted to – would you have him back?’

‘He wouldn’t want to.’

‘Oh, well, I still think it’s bloody nonsensical. By the way, Cressy tells me you think she’s pregnant.’

‘The girls at Quayne seem to have a certain vagueness in common.’

‘It’s too bad,’ he complained, turning his handkerchief about, trying to find a dry bit to blow his nose into.

‘I hope you haven’t said as much to Cressy.’

‘Well, I did, I’m afraid. I had too much to drink last night with Toby and Alexia, and I was at the end of my tether, this cold coming on. Today, Cressy keeps crying. You know how she does. It gets me down.’

‘It used not to.’

‘Well, at the moment, it just makes me want to clout her.’

‘Then I’m ashamed of you. Go back home and fetch her, and jolly well tell her how pleased you really are. I’m going to put the fire on in your bedroom, and I shall insist you have an early night. What about a supper-tray in bed?’

‘Bliss,’ he said, getting up wearily. ‘Right, I’ll go now. I shan’t be able to get back home fast enough.’

She wondered which house he meant when he said ‘home’. As soon as he had gone, she ran up the stairs, as lightly as a young girl.

Later in the evening, when David was in bed, Midge and Cressy sat by the fire.

‘He can be a bit sulky,’ Midge said. ‘One has to face that. But he confessed he was absolutely stoned last night, and didn’t really know what he was saying.’

‘He wouldn’t speak to me when he came to bed. It was our first quarrel.’

‘I think he was very naughty.’

‘Did you quarrel with
your
husband… well, of course, I suppose so… ending the way it did.’

‘Alas! he was not the quarrelling sort. He seemed to have no emotions. He would never have gone beyond being irritable –
just slightly irritable, that was his prevailing mood, and a little depressed always. I suppose my fault. And he had stomach ulcers. Nothing but invalid food. I expect I was to blame for that, too. But to live with someone who is always on one level, as I did all those years, is deadly. A really maddening thing I remember was hearing him chuckling to himself in his sleep one night – for he hardly ever laughed. What the hell’s he laughing at? I wondered, and I knew I’d never know. He got the better of me there.’

‘It sounds as if you are well rid of him,’ Cressy said, forgetting to play the game as David had instructed.

‘When I remember what she went through,’ David was saying to Nell, in a city pub. ‘Escaping from home, from a complete system, I so much admired her energy and gallantry. She was up against all of her world. And was only a child.’

‘“Gallantry” is
such
a word,’ Nell said, looking about her at all the dark-suited men. She had hauled herself up on to a high stool by the bar, and her skirt was rucked up. David glanced at it, thought of telling her, but could not be bothered.

‘Character is something. I admired that in her, not having much myself,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Nell remarked vaguely. ‘Aren’t these men dreadful?’

‘All congregations of men are absurd,’ David said, ‘except, I suppose, on battlefields.’

‘Gallantry again,’ Nell murmured. ‘But I don’t know much about battlefields.’

‘Nor I. Only domestic ones.’

‘And I dare say all collections of women are ridiculous. We were meant to offset one another. Do you mind!’ she said sharply, to a man on her other side who had jogged her elbow.
She kept her eyes on them, listening to that little party, not to David.

‘It’s himself!’ was said, to the pushing newcomer. ‘What will you be after having, Stan? The Worthington’s off. We’re Doubling the Diamond.’

‘I’ll do this.’

‘No, it’s my shout.’

‘We were going out to dinner with Toby and Alexia,’ David went on, and Nell turned her head, resigning herself to him. She thought he was simply the limit, leading her, all that time, to believe he wanted to marry her, then asking someone else, and now boring her with his complaints.

‘I got home a bit late because of the traffic, and there she was sitting by the fire in her dressing-gown.’

Nell rustled about in her large handbag, and took out a ten-shilling note.

‘I’ll do this,’ David said.

‘No, it’s my shout as
they
say.’ And she did, in fact, lean over the bar and shout to the Irish barman, who had the narrow, pale, girlish face of a Picasso harlequin. He looked alarmed, darted towards the whisky optic, his tongue between his lips, his brows drawn together – newly arrived on English soil, she surmised.

‘Yes, the dressing-gown,’ she prompted David patiently, turning to him again.

‘Well, I thought she was ready – all but her dress – and I rushed upstairs and washed and tore around for all I was worth.’

‘And then?’

‘When I went downstairs, she was still sitting there, having a drink with my mother.’

‘Was she going out with you – Midge?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, I see.’

David paused, then took a sip from his glass. ‘She hadn’t even begun to get ready, and had had all day to do it.’

‘So you had a good old set-to.’

‘I’m afraid we did.’

‘And what did your mother do about that?’

‘She got up and went into the kitchen.’

‘Ah yes, having no part in it.’

‘What do you mean “ah yes!”?’

‘Having started it, then having, as I say, no part in it. Why, in heaven’s name, didn’t she tell Cressy to get a move on, instead of giving her a drink?’

As David made no reply, she let her attention wander again. ‘They’re talking about the insides of cars now,’ she told him. ‘Nothing bores me more.’

‘They’re not out to entertain
you
.’

The sandwiches they had ordered were now put in front of them, and Nell lifted a corner of one of hers and peered shortsightedly inside – hard-boiled egg, sliced, with dark rings round the yolk, a scattering of cress, black seeds as well.

‘The reason, they say, that women novelists can’t write about men, is because they don’t know what they’re like when they’re alone together, what they talk about and so on. But I can’t think why they don’t know. I seem to hear them booming away all the time. Just listen to this lot, next to me.’

‘Awful bread,’ David said. ‘It feels damp. Cressy used to buy this when we were at home.’

‘Well, I should care,’ Nell said. ‘I get it wherever I go. How long will you be staying under your mother’s roof?’

‘Until our own is mended.’

‘The devil of a time it’s been.’

‘You don’t know what it’s like in the country. They come and go. They’re undertakers as well, so every time there’s a funeral they knock off and get into their mute’s rig-out. And at this
time of the year, people are dying right and left, as you may suppose, after all that weather. Apart from that, every time anything goes wrong with the church, the Vicar has them at his beck and call. Priority. You simply don’t know what a village can be like.’

‘Oh, yes, I do. Would you believe it, they’re talking about Gay Paree now. What they paid for everything, and was it worth it: no, I’ll say it wasn’t. Rooked, fleeced, taken for a ride. Cold plates, raw lamb, sour cream, had to peel their own shrimps.’ Then, altering her tone, turning to cut off the other conversation and give him her whole attention, she said, ‘I seriously think, darling, that you’ll have to get out. Why don’t you bring Cressy up to London for a bit? You can kip down with me. I’ve got a spare bed and a sofa. Make a break for you both.’

‘You’re a dear, generous girl, but I simply couldn’t do it. My mother’s a bundle of nerves when she’s alone at night. I once came in unexpectedly and found her in a terrible state.’

‘She didn’t know you were coming?’

‘No, she didn’t,’ he snapped. ‘It’s bad enough for her being on her own, even when she knows that we’re near by. She sleeps with the telephone on the bed, and all the lights on.’

Nell looked at the ceiling. Then she said, ‘I only thought it might help your marriage. But please yourself.’

‘Cressy and her cravings,’ Midge explained to David, bringing to the table a bread and butter pudding smothered with nutmeg.

David had at first been amused by the cravings, and had himself gone to some trouble in London to buy lychees; but, by now, he was irritated by the number, the variety of the idiosyncrasies – there seemed to be a new one every day. Any stray fancy that came into her head at once became a craving, something she would even walk to the village to buy – liquorice
allsorts, tinned grapefruit, black treacle: nothing very expensive, like strawberries out of season, for she was an unspoilt, undemanding girl – but oddities, and eccentricities. Various smells were the most compelling fancies of all. Entranced, she hovered by a newly-creosoted fence, used eucalyptus-oil instead of scent, merely for the pleasure of having it on her clothes. She even went down to the village and bought herself a quarter of a pound of camphor balls, like a child buying sweets. Now this nutmeg, the latest of the whims. All were smells David could no more abide than the bread and butter pudding.