And as she approached the house, she spotted the postman just ahead of her. She arrived at the garden gate as he did; he offered her a letter, and when she took it, and saw her own name, written in Lilian’s curling hand, she felt not grateful, not relieved – she felt unnerved, as if she had called the letter into life by some dark magic. The envelope was almost weightless. She didn’t want to open it. She held it in her fingers, watching the retreating figure of the postman, and had the urge to run after him and stuff it back into his bag.
Instead she folded it into her pocket and went indoors. She found her mother just emerging from her bedroom, her face with a newly powdered look; and since her mother wore powder so rarely, she guessed that she had been weeping. The thought was like a final blow to her spirits. She wanted to sit at the foot of the staircase with her head in her hands. ‘Oh, Mother,’ she wanted to say, ‘our hearts are breaking. What on earth are we to do?’
But she hadn’t spoken candidly like that to her mother in about twenty years. Even after her brothers’ deaths, the two of them had done their crying in private. So, with the points of the folded letter digging into her through her pocket, she stood at the looking-glass to take off her hat. And when she spoke, she made her tone breezy. ‘Well! Edith marrying a jam-jar millionaire! Who ever would have thought it?’ – which allowed her mother to answer, in a gently chiding way, ‘Really, Frances.’
‘Oh, I’m thrilled for her. I just can’t help but feel that Mr Pacey is somehow getting the better half of the bargain. He must be ancient, too. And what a whopper of a ring! Perhaps there was a chip left over at the glass-works, what do you think?’
The little bit of shared snobbery was just sufficient. She caught her mother’s eye in the glass and they exchanged a tremulous smile.
But once her mother had returned to the drawing-room she watched her own smile fade. She turned away from it, climbed the stairs, went into her bedroom, closed the door. The letter looked more insubstantial than ever now that it had got creased from her pocket; more sinister, too. It still seemed to have been conjured into life as an answer to the failings of the day. The trudge around the park had brought it, the loss of confidence. She had finally admitted her own unhappiness, and that had allowed Lilian to admit hers. And between them they had made this thing, this flimsy, horrible thing, that – she knew, knew, knew it – was about to finish what the holiday had started, was going to separate them absolutely, like a contract of law.
With a burst of bravado, she thought: Well, perhaps it’s for the best.
She got the envelope open and drew out the paper. She readied herself, unfolded it, and saw the first dark line of ink.
My darling, my darling, my own true love —
Her heart, that had shrivelled, seemed rapidly to inflate. She went to her bed and leaned against the footrail, putting the back of her hand to her face, closing her eyes against her own knuckles. Then she lowered the paper and read on.
My darling, my darling, my own true love —
I am writing this by candle light in the dreariest place, the bathroom, I wonder can you picture it? The tap is running & wont be turned off, the lace at the window is dirty, there is a womans red hair in the basin. I ought to hate it oughtnt I, but I dont mind any of it, I can stand any amount of dreariness my darling while I think of you.
O my dear, my love, I wish you were here to tell me what to do. I feel so awfully trapped & lonely, I feel youre the only person in the world who cares about me even a bit. The others all say theres no fun in me. Last night they went to a show without me & I sat at my window & a man blew kisses at me & I thought of the look you would have given him & it made me laugh out loud, but it was such sad laughter it turned to tears, it just seemed too hard & unfair that there isnt a way for us to be together when any man may blow a kiss at any girl at any window & people will smile at him for a good sport. I keep thinking of how it was when we were skating, wasnt it glorious? I felt I could just fly then, with your arms about me, I felt I didnt need skates to do it.
O why arent you here! I am afraid I will come home & you will have forgotten me, or you will have found some other girl to love. You said something to me once, I have never forgotten it, you said I like to be admired, do you remember? You said I would love anybody who admired me. Dont hate this hard thing I am about to say my darling but sometimes I think its you that would love anybody. Sometimes it seems so astonishing that you should love me that I think you must only want me because you lost so many other things. It isnt just that, is it?
If it isnt then tell me & make me believe it because I feel right now that I am ready to do any desperate thing to be with you Frances – there I have put your name havent I & half of me, the proud half wishes that you know who would see this letter, but the other half, the coward half is afraid. I wish I was brave like you!
I am looking at our caravan, did you know I brought it with me? I am sending you kisses my darling, one thousand kisses by marconi all the way to C. Hill, I wonder can you feel them?
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Never in her life had Frances received such a letter. Never in her life would she have believed that something so artless, so entirely without guile or finish, could have stirred and moved her to such a degree. She read it over again; she read it a third time, and a fourth. Her weariness had disappeared. She held the paper to her lips, and it was exactly as Lilian had promised: she could feel her kisses, she could feel her mouth, alive and urgent against her own.
And the next day Lilian was home, back in her arms, clinging to her on the landing while Leonard was still bringing in the bags. She came again a little later, while he was running himself a bath. And on Monday morning, with the house to themselves, they lay half-dressed on Frances’s bed, she put her face against Frances’s shoulder, and she wept.
‘I hated it, Frances! I hated it so much! I wanted to come home every day. I kept on smiling and playing the fool, but it was like being in a prison. Whenever Len kissed me, I thought of you. That was the only way I could stand it. Whenever he touched me, whenever he looked at me, I thought of you, I thought of you!’
The tears shook her like a storm. Frances held her while she shuddered and moaned, amazed at the passion in her; afterwards she stroked her wet, stained cheeks and swollen eyelids, ran fingers over her lips. ‘How I love you. How I love you.’
But the words made Lilian’s eyes fill again. Frances drew back to look at her properly. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
She shook her head, so that the tears spilled. ‘I just wish,’ she said unevenly, ‘that things were different. I wish it so much.’
‘No, it’s more than that. Did something happen while you were away?’
She wiped her cheeks. ‘I just missed you. I felt so alone.’
‘And what you wrote in your letter, about wanting to be brave – did you mean it?’
‘You know I did.’
Frances took hold of her hands. ‘Then listen. I’ve been thinking, all night long. We can’t go on like this. Look at you! It’s killing you! And I – I can’t do it any longer, not the way we’ve been doing it till now. I can’t share you with Leonard any more. I can’t share you with something that passes itself off as a marriage, but is really habit and pride and… empty embraces, or worse. If I loved you less, I might be able to, but – I can’t. I won’t. I want you to leave him, Lilian. I want you to leave him and live with me.’
She had expected Lilian’s face to close against her. But Lilian looked back at her, damply, gravely. ‘You really mean it,’ she said.
‘I do. Why not? We’ve been talking all this time as if it’s something impossible. But women leave their husbands every day. The papers are full of them.’
‘But they’re society women. Things are different for women like that. They can arrange about divorces. And when they leave their husbands, they do it for other men. If it ever came out about you and me – There’s to
o much against it, Frances.’
‘Against a divorce – yes, all right. But a separation? Just walking away? No one minds about that sort of thing since the War. And once you were free, we could do as we liked.’
Lilian was wiping her face again. ‘But we’d have to have money. I’ve no money at all. All my money comes from Len.’
‘We’d find work,’ said Frances. ‘Wouldn’t you like that? Earning your own wages, decently? God, I would. Or, listen to this. I thought of it last night. You could go to an art school. – Don’t look like that.’
Lilian had turned away, disappointed. ‘You’re just romancing, after all.’
‘No, I’m not. I’ve been working it out. I think we could do it, just. I’ve a little money of my own still, that didn’t get swallowed up by my father’s debts. It isn’t much – about thirty pounds. But there are things I can sell, a few bits of furniture in the house that belong to me, some old pieces of jewellery that came to me from my grandmothers —’
‘You can’t go selling your grandmothers’ jewellery, Frances!’
‘Why not? A load of dreary old emeralds and garnets. What use are they to me?’
‘But I couldn’t live on your money.’
‘You live on Leonard’s.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Yes, it is. He pays you to be his cook, his char and his mistress. I should be sharing my money with you until you could earn money of your own. And once I’d found work —’
‘There isn’t any work.’
‘There’s always cleaning, cooking, waitressing. I’m good at those things. I might as well be paid for them. And while I’m doing them, I can enrol on some sort of correspondence course. Book-keeping, or typewriting. Christina did it; why shouldn’t I? And meanwhile, you’ll take your classes. Haven’t you always wanted to? Stevie can help us find you an art school.’
‘But even supposing – Where would we live? I’d be a married girl, separated. People would think the worst of me. We couldn’t stay here with your mother. She wouldn’t want me in the house. You know she wouldn’t.’
‘Then we’d look for rooms right away. My mother could take in more lodgers. I’ve been thinking about that too. She can’t live on dwindling dividends for ever. With more lodgers there’d be an income – enough for a maid, to replace me.’
‘But you couldn’t leave her like that, could you?’
Frances hesitated. Could she? But what was the alternative? Settle ever more neatly, ever more dumbly, ever more dishonestly, into her role?
She caught hold of Lilian’s hands again. ‘I would do it,’ she said, ‘for you.’
The tears came back into Lilian’s eyes. She pulled away. ‘Oh, Frances.’
‘Don’t cry. Why are you crying?’
‘Because it’s all too much. There are too many people in it. I don’t care about Len any more, but he’d hate it. He’d come after me. I know he would.’
‘Would he really, though? Isn’t he as unhappy as you are?’
‘But it isn’t about what he wants. It’s about how the thing would look. It’s always been about that. He’d think of his family, his friends, the Pearl. He wants to get on; it would ruin things for him. And then, what would my family say?’
‘They might say they wanted you to be happy.’
‘Your mother wouldn’t say that. Why should mine? – because she’s from Walworth, and cares less? You know what people would think of us.’
‘Not everyone thinks that way.’
‘Oh, the whole world does. You know it does. Everybody’s so narrow and mean and —’
‘No. Only a few people are. But the rest of us – don’t you see? The rest of us become narrow and mean when we live falsely. I’m sick to death of living falsely. I’ve been doing it for years. I had that chance with Christina to give myself over to someone I loved; I let it go by. It seemed at the time like a brave thing to do. But it wasn’t bravery. I was a coward. I won’t be a coward with you. I won’t let you be a coward, either. But you’re braver than you think. If you weren’t, you would never have crossed the kitchen and kissed me, after Netta’s party. You would never have said, “Take me home.” You would never have pulled the stake from my heart. You remember that moment?’
Lilian looked at her, but didn’t answer.
‘You remember?’ Frances persisted. ‘You drew out that stake, and everything changed. You’ve been acting since then as though you can somehow tuck that change into your ordinary life. Lilian, you can’t. It’s too big a thing.’
‘You keep saying that,’ said Lilian. ‘But don’t you understand? It’s because it’s so big. It’s everything I’ve ever known. What you want me to do, it’s everything I’ve ever thought, and everything everyone else thinks about me – it’s all of it, changing.’
‘I know it is. But isn’t it marvellous, to think of changing like that? And what’s the use of anything, otherwise? What’s the good of having gone through the War, all that, if two people who love each other the way we do can’t be together? But you have to promise me, about Leonard. You must say no to him from now on.’
Lilian turned away. ‘Oh, it’s all so stupid! It’s all such a mess! I don’t even want Len! I wish he’d just – just die! I wish it more than ever!’
‘Then it’ll be easy,’ said Frances. ‘Won’t it? Look, here’s how easy it will be.’ And she reached for Lilian’s left hand, took hold of her wedding and engagement rings, and, gently but firmly, began to draw them from their finger. Lilian gave the slightest of automatic twitches as the rings started to move, but after that she made no resistance, instead looking on in unhappy fascination as they caught on her knuckle and then came free.
‘You see how simple it is?’ said Frances, when she had tucked the rings out of sight and was running her thumb over the smooth white band of flesh exposed by their removal. ‘Your hand in mine, with nothing in between. It’s the simplest thing in the world. Isn’t it?’
Lilian didn’t answer for a moment. Instead she sank back against the pillow, closing her eyes. And when she spoke, she spoke flatly, as if surrendering at last.
But what she said was: ‘It isn’t simple at all.’
Frances stared at her shut, tired face. ‘What do you mean?’
She opened her eyes. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Frances.’
‘You’re – You’re choosing him?’
‘No, it isn’t that.’
‘What, then?’
She grew oddly guilty-looking. ‘I don’t know how to tell you. Something’s happened. It needn’t make a difference, if everything you’ve said is true. It just makes things harder, that’s all.’
‘But what are you talking about? What is it?’
‘Please don’t blame me. It wasn’t my fault. But, oh, Frances, I think – I’m almost sure – that I’ve started a baby.’
10
The words were so unlike any of the ones that Frances had been expecting to hear that for a moment she could hardly make sense of them. Outside, the day had darkened. She was aware of rain, in a sudden shower, producing a sound like rapid drumming on the flat lead scullery roof below her window. As the shower eased, and the drumming slowed, she put a hand across her eyes.
Lilian said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘How sure are you?’
‘I’m sure, Frances. It’s nearly a month over its time.’
‘You couldn’t simply be late?’
‘I’m never late. You know I’m not. And I feel… different.’
‘Different, how?’
‘I don’t know. Tired. Just different.’
Frances lowered her hand and gazed into Lilian’s face. She did look different, she realised. She had looked different ever since she had returned from her holiday; perhaps even since before that. She was changed, in some indefinable physical way…
‘Oh, God. I can’t believe it!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lilian again.
‘When did it happen? Ho
w did it happen? I’ve always supposed that you and Leonard —’ She had never wanted to know the details. ‘I’ve always imagined that you have some way of – of —’
‘We do. We did. But there was a night – He forgot to be careful.’
‘Careful?’
‘You know what I mean. He always… comes out before he’s finished, and I finish him off. We’ve always done it like that, and it’s always worked, more or less. But this time he stayed inside me. He said it was an accident. I don’t know if it was or not. But I knew. I knew that night. That I had caught, I mean. That it had taken. I just knew.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
Lilian looked utterly miserable. ‘I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to worry you for nothing. I’ve been hoping it would fix itself. It’s done that sometimes, in the past. And then, a part of me didn’t want to think about it at all… Are you angry with me?’
Frances covered her eyes again. ‘I’m not angry. I can’t think how I feel.’
‘I’ve been worried to death.’
‘I just wish I’d known.’
‘It doesn’t make you want to take back all those things you said?’
‘Take them back? Of course it doesn’t. But what’s the use of them now?’ She was working it out as she spoke. The disappointment of it was dreadful. ‘It’s no good our planning anything, is it? This keeps you stuck with him for ever.’