“It’s not a baby he wants,” Lily said bitterly. “He wants to keep me at home.”
“You can finish the season at least,” Madge said consolingly. “You won’t show for a month or two.”
“If I can keep it secret from Stephen, I can finish the season,” Lily said. “And maybe I can come back to work after it’s born.”
“Yes,” Madge said without much hope. “Maybe.”
Lily looked at her pale heart-shaped face in the dressing room mirror and shook her head. “The chorus girls think I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” she said. “They should try being me for one day. It’s not such a lark then, Madge.”
• • •
Three weeks later, almost to the day, Stephen reached for Lily in the night and moved to lie on top of her. Apart from a small half-silenced gasp of discomfort Lily did not refuse him. Stephen stopped at once. “Are you not unwell?” he asked.
Lily’s face, pale in the shadowy dawn light of the room, looked shocked. “No,” she said.
Stephen smiled. “Then, if I am right, you have not been unwell for two months.”
Lily saw the trap she was in. She swallowed on a dry throat. “I am due in a few days,” she said. “I don’t really like to discuss it, if you don’t mind, Stephen.”
Stephen smiled more broadly. “But Lily,” he said cleverly, “I am your husband. Your health is my concern. I have kept a little diary to assist you in these matters ever since our wedding day. I was concerned at first how often you seemed to have a little visitor so that you were unable to make love. I thought it more gentlemanly if I knew in advance when you would be forced to refuse me, so that I would not press you.”
Lily swallowed again. She felt crushed by Stephen’s body and overwhelmed by his courteous authority.
“I see from my little diary that you were due last month, but you made no mention of it. And that you are due now, but you tell me that you are not unwell. My darling, I think you have some news for me, is it not so?”
Lily shook her head.
Stephen’s hands were hard on her shoulders, his fingers pinched her.
Lily nodded.
“And what is the news?” Stephen asked.
“I think I am pregnant,” Lily said dully.
Stephen eased gently off her. “Well, that is wonderful,” he said. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am, Lily. Wonderful news for me and for the whole family. Mother and Father will be thrilled.”
Lily nodded again.
“You must see the doctor tomorrow,” Stephen said. “He will call here at eleven. I made an appointment yesterday.”
“You knew already?” Lily asked.
Stephen patted her cheek. “Sooner or later, little Lily, you were bound to be pregnant. I know my duty by you, don’t worry. We’re going to be happy now. We’re going to be very very happy.”
• • •
Dr. Mobey examined Lily gently and confirmed that she was two months pregnant.
“I want to go on working,” Lily said blankly. She was lying on her bed. She pulled down her skirt and sat up. “I want to go on working to the end of the season, until October the nineteenth.”
Dr. Mobey sat at his ease in the bedroom chair. “D’you think that’s wise, Mrs. Winters?” he asked pleasantly. “Most young ladies I know would welcome the chance to put their feet up and enjoy a bit of fuss.”
Lily smiled an insincere smile. “I am a singer,” she said. “I love my work. I do very little dancing now. I would like to finish my contract.”
“Well, we’d better see what Stephen thinks about it, hadn’t we? It must be his decision.”
“But there’s no medical reason why I should stop work, is there?” Lily pressed.
Dr. Mobey hesitated. “Let’s see—October you said—you will be three months pregnant by then—there’s no reason why you should stop work. But if you are guided by me you will take things easily, and eat properly.”
Lily gave him her sweetest smile. “Oh please, Dr. Mobey,” she said coquettishly. “Tell Stephen I can work, and I shall send you a complimentary ticket to a box!”
He chuckled. “Well, you’re a persuasive little thing, there’s no arguing with you! I’ll tell Stephen you can finish your little season but then there’s to be absolute rest and no more work.”
Lily nodded earnestly.
“And if there are any signs, any . . .” He hesitated, embarrassed. “Any show of blood or discomfort, you are to stop work at once.”
Lily nodded again. She knew that if she saw the least trace of blood she would dance all night and jump down the stairs until dawn.
But it did not happen. Lily took baths as hot as she could bear and inspected her knickers every morning, hoping to see a bright spot of red blood. But the baby was strong and healthy despite her. The supply of tepid cinnamon milk was doubled, and Lily was sent to the theatre every day with two rounds of beef sandwiches for her tea, glistening with fat and chewy with gristle. On fine days Lily walked around the Canoe Lake before Coventry picked her up so that she could feed the sandwiches to the swans. When it rained she gave them to the chorus girls. Of the two, Lily much preferred the swans.
Stephen no longer permitted her late nights. Coventry brought her straight home from the theatre, but after he had seen her to bed Stephen sometimes went out again. From sly giggles and odd silences when she came into their dressing room, Lily concluded that Stephen went out to nightclubs with the chorus girls. She could not find any jealousy in her. She could not find any reason to care.
With the show in its two final weeks all the talk backstage was what work was available elsewhere. Two girls had gone for the same audition and would not speak to each other in their dressing room. Madge had work as a fashion model in one of the Southsea shops, she had to walk up and down in the store’s dresses while fat women popped eclairs in their mouths and their husbands ogled her.
“Steady money,” she said determinedly. “And not much else going on.”
There was a season of classical plays coming to the Kings. They would audition actors who could take serious work, but a boisterous vamp like Madge would not be needed until the panto season which would not rehearse until the last week of November. Charlie promised Madge a part.
“What about you, Lil?” he asked. He had come to Lily’s dressing room, between the matinée and the evening show, with a pot of tea and two battered mugs. Lily was sitting in the broken armchair with her feet up on the bentwood chair.
She watched him pour the tea and took her cup. “I’d better tell you something,” she said slowly. “I won’t be auditioning for panto. I won’t be working here again.”
Charlie put down his cup and looked at her. “Stephen,” he said. It was not a question.
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“I’m having a baby.”
Charlie caught his breath and a swift expression contorted his face so dramatically that Lily thought he had trapped his finger in the chair leg, or scalded himself with tea. He looked away for a moment and when he looked back at her his face was set. “Are you pleased?”
Lily shook her head. “I don’t want it,” she said bleakly.
“What a damned mess,” Charlie said softly.
There was a long silence. Lily sipped from her mug of tea and Charlie took up his own cup.
“Does Stephen know?”
“He knew almost as soon as I did. It didn’t happen by accident.”
Charlie nodded, his mouth twisted. “Is he pleased?”
“Like a dog with two tails.”
“When are you due?”
“May.”
Charlie raised his mug to her. “I wish you very well, Lil. I wish you all the best.”
“Thank you.”
The atmosphere in the little room was full of unspoken longings. Charlie walked towards the barred whitewashed window and rested his head against the coolness of the painted glass.
“I wish to God I coul
d have married you and that this baby was mine,” he said simply.
Lily did not move, she did not even extend her hand to him. She nodded grimly and tipped up her cup so she could sip the dregs of undissolved sugar at the bottom. “Me too,” she said shortly.
Charlie turned back. “It’s not too late,” he said.
Lily thought of a lad whistling in the dark trying to pretend he was not afraid. “Not too late for what?” she asked.
“Not too late for you to run,” he said. “Get out of that house and that marriage before the baby’s born. Come to me, Lil. I’ll care for you, and your baby, and when you’re ready to move on you’ll be free to go, I won’t hold you back.”
Lily tipped her head back and rubbed the nape of her neck. “No,” she said slowly. “It wouldn’t work, Charlie. I don’t want your charity. I want to live with you as your wife, nothing less will do. Do you want me to come and live with you as your wife?”
“There’d be a huge scandal . . .” Charlie said. “We’d never work in this town again. Stephen would take us both to court. We’d even have trouble finding work in London.”
Lily nodded. “I’d go through all of that for you. If it’s what you want.”
Charlie shook his head. “Not a hope,” he said forlornly. “Not a hope in hell, Lil. I could stand the gossip all right, but I couldn’t stand living as your lover, and not being your lover. It would kill me to live with you like that. I’ll give you every penny of my wages but I can’t live in the same house with you. I’d die every moment of the day with longing.”
“That’s settled, then,” Lily said calmly. “I’ll only live with you as your wife—I don’t care for scandal or for the fact that we can’t make love. And you won’t live with me at all.”
Charlie turned from the window and sat on the little bentwood chair, took Lily’s bare feet in his lap and massaged them gently. “I couldn’t bear to,” he said. “D’you understand? I’d go mad with you being so close. It would be like being wounded every day, every morning.”
Lily nodded. “You’re the only man I’d ever leave Stephen for.”
Charlie smiled his crooked sad smile. “And I’m the only man in the world who wouldn’t have you,” he finished for her. “What a mess we’ve got ourselves into, Lil my little love. What a mess.”
23
THE SHOW CLOSED IN THE FIRST WEEK in October and Stephen agreed that Lily could attend the final party. Everyone cried; two of the chorus girls attached themselves to Stephen’s lapels and cried particularly. Charlie, who was standing behind Lily’s table, leaned forward and said in her ear, “Your husband’s been out and about a bit lately.”
Lily did not turn her head. “I know.”
“He’s been dancing most evenings with those two.”
Lily nodded.
“And he’s been dining on his own with that Marjorie Philmore.”
Lily shrugged. Charlie watched the smooth movement of her shoulders under a pale peach chiffon shawl. “It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “How come you know her?”
Charlie grinned. “Most beautiful women stop and lean on the piano sooner or later,” he said. “Nothing like a piano to lean on to show off your bum.”
Lily choked on her drink and giggled. “This is your recipe for success with women, is it?”
Charlie nodded. “I play ’em soulful music and they come and lean on the piano and tell me their life histories.”
“And what’s her life history?”
Charlie shrugged. “A brother dead in France, a fiancé killed at Gallipoli, a boyfriend wounded and in a wheelchair. Too much money and no sense. No love at all.”
Lily nodded at this harsh précis. “And what’s mine?”
Charlie leaned forward and dropped a kiss on the crown of her fair head. “Hardly started,” he said tenderly. “Hardly begun at all. Lots of life history for you to be made yet. A whole lifetime for you, Lil. Let’s dance.”
He held her close as they danced, trying to feel against his body the firmness of her rounding belly where the baby was growing. The skin of her bare back under his guiding hand was warm, her breasts swelling with pregnancy pressed against the peach bodice of the dress. “You’re a lovely piece, Lil,” he said with affection as well as desire. “A lovely piece.”
He danced her over to where Stephen was sitting at a dance floor table and spun her into a seat. “We must keep her off her feet,” he said pleasantly to Stephen. “You’re going to have real trouble keeping her resting at home.”
“I should say so!” Stephen said.
“She needs a hobby,” Charlie said helpfully. “Something to keep her busy at home. Next year she’ll be busy enough, thank God! But for now she needs something to keep her out of mischief.”
“That’s just what my mother says,” Stephen exclaimed. “But Lily doesn’t sew or knit, or do flowers, or quilling or painting. She won’t learn either, though Mother has offered.”
The two men looked critically at Lily, united in their disapproval. Lily put her chin on her hands and looked back at them without discomfort.
“Singing!” Charlie exclaimed, as if he had just thought of it. “You have to work on the raw material you have to hand, Captain Winters—remember your training! Improvise with what you have to hand!”
Stephen blinked owlishly. He was quite drunk. “That’s damned clever,” he said, impressed. “What have I got to hand?”
“A singer,” Charlie explained. “Get her singing lessons. Get her piano lessons. All perfectly ladylike, musical evenings in the drawing room, your mother would approve. She’s got a good voice, she needn’t sing ‘Burlington Bertie,’ she could learn to sing Schubert, Mozart.”
“Are they Huns?” Stephen demanded, suddenly belligerent.
“Purcell, Tchaikovsky,” Charlie improvised rapidly. “English and Russian. Glorious Allies. No Huns at all.”
Stephen nodded. “We could buy a piano,” he said.
“And Lily could learn to play!” Charlie concluded for him. “Why, I could come round and teach her myself once or twice a week.”
“You’d do that?”
“I would!”
“Well, that’s damned decent of you,” Stephen said. He turned to Lily, who was watching the dancers with her back to them both. “Here, Lily, Charlie here will come and teach you how to play the piano at home. What d’you say to that?”
Lily smiled at Stephen. “That would be fun,” she said. “I’d like that.”
• • •
In the months of Lily’s pregnancy she slid from resignation to pleasure at the thought of her baby. Her body’s changes brought with them a natural weariness but also a new serenity. Stephen no longer reached for her in the night, she was free of his desires. He set up a bank account for her and paid a regular allowance into it. Lily could shop where she wished and she always had the pleasing chink of coins in her purse. She felt well, her fit young body adapting easily to the growth of the baby. Lily found that she was looking forward to the birth, looking forward to having someone to love. The grief, the steady constant grief for her mother which she carried with her always like a shadow, melted and reshaped. She would love her child as her mother had loved her and in that relationship her mother would somehow live again.
The house re-asserted the old rhythms of the days. Breakfast was once more served at eight and Lily was expected to be downstairs and dressed to pour Stephen’s tea and to hand him his hat in the hall as he went off to work. Very often, after he had left, Lily would slide upstairs again and climb back into bed. She had joined the Portsmouth library and she had a steady supply of very trashy novels which she read avidly throughout the day. One of Muriel’s rules was never resting under the bed covers during daylight hours, though a lady could lie down on her bed during the day if she were ill. Another of the rules was never reading a novel before midday. Lily, unaware, broke one rule after another. Muriel tightened her lips and said nothing.
When Browning brought her a
cup of coffee at about eleven, Lily would go downstairs and sit with Rory Winters until lunchtime. Muriel, writing letters in the drawing room, could hear Lily’s bright inconsequential voice going on and on, and Rory’s occasional abrupt grunts of replies. She could never think what Lily could find to talk about. Once she had listened at the door and heard Lily wander from weather, to holidays, to Europe, to French fashions, to food, to Cook, to domestic service, to nursing, to votes for women, before Muriel gave up eavesdropping and tiptoed away from the door, no wiser as to why Lily should enjoy talking to Rory, nor why Rory’s face should light up when Lily came into a room. Rory and Lily had an unlikely rapport. Muriel could not put her finger on it; but she disliked and mistrusted it.
The two women would lunch together in the dining room at one and then some afternoons Lily would take Rory out for a walk, or she would go shopping, or she would accompany Muriel on her social calls. Three times a week, Charlie would come for Lily’s lesson, and he and Lily would sit companionably side by side before the vulgar white baby grand piano which Stephen had bought his bride, and they would play together. Sometimes Charlie would play for Lily to sing and the house would be filled with the haunting sweet sound of Lily’s voice.
Charlie played ragtime but he was true to his promise to teach Lily classical music. He taught her Schubert, easy pieces of Mozart, English and Irish folksongs. With an eye to Muriel’s silent disapproval, he taught her parlour music, the Victorian music that Muriel’s friends would enjoy hearing. Lily, breathing easily from her belly as her pregnancy progressed, found a new power and sweetness to her voice. Even Browning and the tweeny used to pause on the stairs to listen and the clear sweet music percolated upstairs to melt the silence in the room where Muriel sat with Rory.
Muriel disliked Charlie at first because she was unsure of his social status. “How is one supposed to behave?” she demanded of Jane Dent on the telephone. “He is a piano teacher, which makes him a sort of tradesman, but he is Lily’s friend, which makes him drawing room, and he is Stephen’s acquaintance, which makes him a gentleman!”