Rows and rows of girls, all exactly alike, and Maria would never have found Caroline if Miss Oliver had not pointed her out. Is that my child?
“Yes, she seems very happy. She’s in Three A, you know. They are a cheery little crowd in Three A. Would you care to walk down to the playing field and meet Caroline?”
As a matter of fact, I would rather get into the car again and drive back to London. Because I did not sleep last night, and I have had no lunch. God only knows why I am here at all.
“Thank you, Miss Oliver, I will. Such a lovely day. So wonderful to get into the country, even for half an hour.”
I must do my stuff and smile. I must leave behind me my expected aura of charm. It is not a lovely day either. It is cold. And I am wearing the wrong shoes. They will get stuck in all that idiotic crazy paving. Here comes a panting, overheated little girl in a brief blue skirt. And it is Caroline.
“Hullo, Mummy.”
“Hullo, darling.”
“Is Daddy with you?”
“No. I’ve come alone.”
“Oh.”
And what do I do now? And where do I go? Somewhere along this walk.
“I’m afraid I’ve come on a bad day.”
“Well, actually, any weekday is bad. You see, we’re practicing at the moment for the inter-form trophy at the end of term. We play for the number of points. So our form, which is Three A, has an equal chance of winning the Cup as the Sixth form has. Because although of course they would beat us in actual play, they might be down in the finals, on the number of points.”
“Yes, I see.”
I don’t of course. It’s Greek. It’s meaningless.
“Are you good, darling? Do you play well?”
“Oh heavens, no. I’m ghastly. Do you want to watch?”
“Not frightfully. The thing is…”
“Perhaps you’d rather see the Art Display in Botticelli?”
“The what?”
“The Art Display. Botticelli is the name we give to the Sixth Form studio. It’s behind the chapel. Some people have done very good drawings.”
“What I’d really like to do, darling, is to go somewhere.”
“Oh yes, of course. I’ll take you upstairs.”
Lists on walls. And strange girls scurrying past. Scrubbed stairs, and worn linoleum. Why not put broad arrows on their backs and have done with it? And what a roaring, gushing plug, with the cistern leaking. Somebody ought to be told about it. The matron.
“Is this your bed? It looks very hard.”
“It’s all right.”
Seven beds in rows, all of them the same. With hard, blunt pillows.
“How’s Daddy?”
“Very well.” Now was the moment. I sit down on the bed, and I powder my nose and I am quite casual, I am not bitter at all.
“The fact is, darling—and that is what I came to tell you, you will probably hear from Daddy yourself—he wants a divorce.”
“Oh.”
I don’t know what I expected her to do. Perhaps I thought she might look frightened, or she might cry, or she might put her arms round me, which I would have liked, and it would be the start of something I have never had.
“Yes. We have not quarreled or anything like that. It’s just that he has to be in the country and I have to be in London, and it’s not really fair on either of us. Things would really work out better if we were independent.”
“It won’t make any difference, then?”
“No, no, not really. Except that I shan’t live at Farthings anymore.”
“You are never there much, anyway.”
“No.”
“Shall we come and stay with you in London?”
“Of course. Whenever you want.”
“There’s not much room at the flat, though, is there? I’d much rather go and live with Auntie Celia.”
“Would you?” But why the pain? Why the sudden emptiness?
“The girl who sleeps in that bed has parents who are divorced. And her mother married again. She has a stepfather.”
“Well, as a matter of fact I think you will probably have a stepmother. I believe Daddy may marry again.”
“Carrots, I suppose.”
“What?”
“We always call her Carrots. She taught us to ride, you know. Last summer. She and Daddy are great friends. Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind Carrots. She’s very jolly. Will you marry someone too?”
“No… No, I don’t want to marry anyone.”
“What about the man in your play. He’s rather nice.”
“He’s married… Besides I don’t want to.”
“When will Daddy marry Carrots?”
“I don’t know. It has not been discussed. We’re not divorced yet.”
“No, of course not. Can I tell them here?”
“No. Certainly not. It’s—it’s a private sort of thing.”
I ought to be intensely relieved that Caroline is taking it like this, but I am not. I’m shocked. I’m bewildered. I don’t understand… If Pappy and Mama had been divorced it would have meant the end of the world. And Mama was not my mother. Pappy and Mama…
“Are you going to stay for tea, Mummy?”
“No, I don’t think so. I have to be in the theater, anyway, by six.”
“I shall write to Auntie Celia and ask if I can go to her next holidays.”
“Yes, darling, of course.”
Down the scrubbed stairs, and through the hall full of lists, and out of the front door to the waiting car.
“Good-bye, darling. I’m sorry if I made you miss the game.”
“It’s all right, Mummy. I’ll dash now. There’s still another half hour left.” Caroline waved, and before Maria had turned the car she was running out of sight behind the great brick building.
This is one of those terrible moments when I want to cry. I don’t cry often, I’m not the crying kind. Celia was always crying as a child. But now it would be a relief. Now it is the only thing in the world that I want to do. For someone else to take over this wheel and drive the car, so that I could lie back against the seat and cry. I won’t let myself, though. Because it would show on my face and in my eyes. And I have to be in the theater by six o’clock. So instead of crying I shall sing. Very loudly and completely out of tune. This is why Niall wrote his songs. So that, when I faced my Waterloo, I could sing.
But perhaps it would be better if I went into a church and prayed. I might be converted. I might leave the stage altogether and go about the world doing good. Strength through Prayer. Strength through Joy. No, that was Hitler. Well, strength through something. There is a church at the corner. Perhaps it is a symbol, like looking in the Bible before a first night. Shall I park the car, and go into the church and pray? I will.
The church was dark and gloomy. It could not have been built very long. No atmosphere at all. Maria sat down in a pew and waited. Perhaps if she waited long enough something would happen. A dove come from the air. A feeling of peace descend upon her. And she would be able to walk out of the church consoled, refreshed, ready to face the future. Perhaps a priest would come, a dear, kind old priest with white hair and calm, gray eyes. It would help, surely, to talk to some kind old priest? They had so much experience of the world, of suffering, of lost, unhappy people. Maria waited, but there was not any dove. She could hear the sound of schoolboys in the distance playing football, laughing. Presently the door behind her opened. She looked over her shoulder, and yes, it must be the Vicar of the church. But he was not old. He was youthful, he wore glasses. He walked briskly up the aisle towards the vestry, looking neither to right nor to left. And his shoes squeaked…
It was no good. He would never convert anyone. Nor would the church. The whole thing was just a waste of time. Back to the car…
Well, I can always have my hair done. Lucien will give me a cup of tea and some biscuits. A cup of tea is really what I need. I can sit in that cubicle, pretending to look at an old Tatler, and Lucien will
burble on, I don’t have to listen. I can close my eyes and think of nothing. Or try to think of nothing. Lucien is the answer. The burbling patter of Lucien is more refreshing than the patter of a priest. They are probably the same, at heart. Niall would say there is no difference.
“Good afternoon, madame. What a pleasant surprise.”
“I’m exhausted, Lucien. I have had a terrible day.”
Hairdressers were like doctors, they had the same smooth manner. And they asked no questions. They smiled. They understood.
Lucien waved Maria to her usual chair, in her usual cubicle, and there was even a new bottle of bath essence sitting before the mirror, wrapped in cellophane, the bottle itself a shining, glittering green. The name upon it, Venetian Balm, temptation in itself. Like the sweets when I was a child, thought Maria, sweets wrapped in gilded paper; they always made me better if I was angry, if I was tired.
“Lucien, if I told you I was on the verge of suicide, that I was contemplating throwing myself under a tram, that the whole world had turned sour upon me, and the people that I love don’t love me anymore—what would you suggest as panacea?”
Lucien looked at her with narrowed eyes, his head a little on one side.
“How about a facial, madame?” he said.
It was a minute to six when Maria pushed through the stage-door.
“Good evening, Bob.”
“Good evening, Miss Delaney.”
The stage-door-keeper half rose from the chair in his cubbyhole.
“A telephone call for you a few minutes ago, miss. Mr. Wyndham, from the country.”
“Did he leave any message?”
“He asked if you would ring him as soon as you got in.”
“Switch the extension plug through to my room, Bob, please.”
“Yes, Miss Delaney.”
Maria ran down the stairs to her dressing room. Charles had telephoned. That meant everything was all right, that he had been thinking things over, and he realized now that the whole business of divorce was out of the question. Charles was ringing up to apologize. Perhaps he had suffered today as much as she had. In which case there must be no reproaches, no post-mortems. Start afresh. Begin again.
She went into her room and threw her coat onto the divan.
“I’ll call you when I’m ready,” she told her dresser. She seized the telephone on the corner table and asked for trunks. They were slow to answer. After a moment or two the operator said, “The lines are engaged to trunks. We’ll call you later.” Maria put on her dressing gown, and tied her hair up with a handkerchief. She began to cream her face.
I wonder if Charles will want to come up to London tomorrow, for the reconciliation. It was a bad day, a matinée, but if he comes early to the flat we could lunch; and possibly he would find something to do during the day, and he could then stay the night. It would be quite a good idea if he stayed the night. I won’t go down to Farthings, though, for the weekend if that red-haired woman is in the neighborhood. He will have to get rid of her. I really can’t swallow her. It would be too much.
Her face wiped clean of all powder and foundation, smooth and fresh like a little girl before a bath, Maria knelt once more beside the telephone.
“Can’t you get trunks? It’s very urgent.”
At last the answering response, “Trunk number, please,” and then the rather high-pitched ring of the Farthings’ call.
But it was not Charles who answered, it was Polly.
“I want Mr. Wyndham.”
“He left about five minutes ago. He couldn’t wait any longer. Oh dear, such a day, Mummy.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“A message from the Dower House soon after lunch. Would Daddy go over right away. Lord Wyndham had had a heart attack. I was to have taken the children to tea in the afternoon, but of course that was out of the question. Daddy came back here at five, and he has sent for the specialist from London, who is on his way now, that’s why Daddy had to go back again, and couldn’t wait for your call, but he told me, of course not in front of the children, that he didn’t think there was much hope, and that Lord Wyndham would probably die during the night. Isn’t it awful? Poor granny.”
“Did Mr. Wyndham leave any sort of message for me?”
“No. Just that I was to tell you what had happened, and to warn you that he feared it was the end.”
“Yes. It sounds like the end.”
“Do you want to speak to the children?”
“No, Polly. Not now. Good-bye.”
It was the end all right. When a poor old man was over eighty, he did not survive a major heart attack. The clock, that had been running down for the last ten years, would stop at last.
Charles would be Lord Wyndham in the morning. And the red-haired woman, whom Caroline called Carrots, would be Lady Wyndham in a few months’ time. And God, thought Maria, must be having a pretty good field day over my affairs today. He must be fairly splitting His sides over the joke. “Let’s think of something else to shake Maria. Come on, St. Peter, and the rest of you boys, what can we do next? What about a rotten egg from the back of the pit tonight? Slap between the eyes. That will learn her.”
All right, all right, said Maria. Two can play at that game, my friends. And what was it that Pappy said to me all those years ago, before my very first big part in London? Nothing is worthwhile if you don’t fight back. Other things too he used to say, which I did not listen to at the time, but if I think about them now they will come back.
“Never truckle under, my darling. Never pull a poor mouth. The duds truckle under. The duds pull poor mouths. Stick your chin out. And when everything else fails there’s always your work. Not work with a capital W, my darling. Not art with a big A. Leave art to the highbrows; believe me, it’s their only consolation, and if they put the letter F before it, they’d be dead on the nail every time. No, do the work you feel in your bones you have to do, because it’s the only damn thing you can do, the only thing you understand. Sometimes you will be happy. Sometimes you will know despair. But don’t ever whine. Delaneys don’t whine. Just go ahead and do your tricks…”
All right, Pappy. You were always closer to Celia than you were to me, because I was generally thinking about something else; but now, at this moment, I feel as if you were beside me in the room. I can see your funny blue eyes, like mine, looking down at me from the photograph on the wall; and your nose is a bit cockeyed too, as mine is, and your hair stands up from your head in the same way, but what Niall always calls my mobile mouth must have come from that mother in Vienna whom I never saw, who beguiled you, Pappy, when you ought to have known better. All I hope is that she does not start to let me down. Not at this particular moment in my existence. She has been on my side up till now.
“Come in.”
“There’s a gentleman to see you, Miss Delaney,” said the dresser. “A French gentleman. A Mr. Laforge.”
“A Mr. what? Tell him to go away. You know I never see anyone before a performance.”
“He’s very persistent. He has a play for you to read. He says you used to know his father.”
“That’s a very old one. Tell him I’ve heard that one before.”
“He flew over from Paris this afternoon. He says his play is coming on in Paris very shortly, and he has done the translation himself, and he wants to do a London production over here at the same time.”
“I bet he does. Why pick on me?”
“Because you used to know his father.”
Well, for heaven’s sake. On with the make-up.
“What does he look like?”
“Rather nice. Fair. Looks as if he had been sun-bathing somewhere.”
“Draw the curtains and I’ll shout through them. Tell him he can only stay two minutes.”
The thing is, that if I am going to spend the rest of my life reading plays by unknown Frenchmen it’s a pretty poor outlook.
“How-do-you-do. Who’s your father?”
Sounds like Harry
Tate. Perhaps that’s my ultimate answer. Vaudeville.
“How do you do, Miss Delaney. My father sends you his very best respects. His name is Michel Laforge, and he knew you years and years ago in Brittany.”
Michel… Brittany… What an extraordinary coincidence. Because wasn’t I thinking about Brittany on Sunday afternoon at Farthings?
“Why, of course. I remember your father very well. How is your father?”
“The same as ever, Miss Delaney. He hasn’t aged at all.”
He must be a rollicking fifty-five if he’s a day. I wonder if he still lies about on rocks, looking for starfish and seducing little girls?
“What is this play you want me to read?”
“A play of the dix-neuvième siècle, Miss Delaney. Lovely music, lovely décor, and only you could play the part of the Duchess.”
“A Duchess? I have to be a Duchess, do I?”
“Yes, Miss Delaney. A very lovely, very wicked Duchess.”
Well, I suppose I can always be a Duchess. I have never been a Duchess yet. And a wicked Duchess would be more amusing than a good one.
“What does your Duchess do?”
“She has five men at her feet.”
“Why only five?”
“I could always add a sixth, if you desire it.”
Where’s my other dressing gown, the blue one? Somebody else now knocking at the door. People treat my room like a public bar.
“Who is it?”
The stage-door man’s voice. “A telegram. Miss Delaney.”
“All right. Put it on the table.”
Lucien has mucked up my hair. Why that curl over the right ear? Always so much better when I do the thing myself. Draw back the curtains.
“How do you do again, Mr. Laforge.”
Not bad-looking after all. Better than Michel, as I remember him. But rather young. Hardly out of the egg.
“So you want me to be a Duchess?”
“Wouldn’t you like to be a Duchess?”
Yes, I would. I would not mind at all. I’ll be the Queen of Sheba or the bad girl in a brothel, if the play is any good and it amuses me.