скачать книгу бесплатно
SEVEN
Every time she walked up the gangway of an ocean liner, crossing the symbolic boundary between land and sea, Cynthia Harkness felt she could happily spend all her days on board ship. Although in truth, it was the limited number of days that made a voyage so appealing. Five days lay ahead of her, five days when she wasn’t in England or in America, but caught in a floating world that had no existence beyond its railings, a ship that might, it seemed, sail for ever on the surging grey ocean.
‘Perhaps we all have a bit of the Flying Dutchman in us,’ she said to her neighbour at dinner on the first night out.
The man, a stolid American, looked at her in some surprise, and then smiled. ‘I know you English people are renowned for your sense of humour,’ he said. ‘My business would surely fail if I were trapped on a vessel doomed to sail the seas for ever. And I guess the company on board wasn’t any too good, didn’t the guy lead a solitary life? For myself, I prefer company.’
The Aquitania, the Ship Beautiful as she was known, on account of the sumptuousness and extravagance of her fittings, was Cynthia’s favourite ship on the Atlantic run. This trip, she had made the booking herself, which meant that she could travel in a pleasant stateroom instead of in a suite, which would have been far too large for her needs, and which would have drawn the attention of everyone on board, exactly what she didn’t want. Mrs Harkness, with a stateroom on B deck, was an anonymous creature. Whereas if Walter had made the booking, she would be sitting at the Captain’s table, not where she was on the other side of the huge dining room, again quite anonymous, among less favoured passengers at a table hosted by a much more lowly officer. An attractive young man, dark and well groomed, but then the Cunard officers were in general a very creditable lot.
The man sitting beside her introduced himself as one Myron Watson, travelling to England on holiday with his wife, Lois. A woman of about her own age, with a smooth helmet of dark hair, and wearing a pale pink silk frock, smiled at Cynthia across the table
‘I do like the way you make friends on board,’ she said, her voice unexpectedly husky for one who had chosen pink. She wasn’t pretty, nor even handsome, but she had sex appeal, Cynthia decided. There was something about the tilt of her head and her mouth that would interest more men than Myron, her big, bland, genial husband. No doubt a rich man; no doubt one of those who had been lucky enough not to see his business wiped out in the Depression.
A courteous enquiry brought a flood of information about ball bearings. Apparently, the world couldn’t get enough of ball bearings, even in these sadly hard times.
‘There are those, ma’am, I regret to say, who see War on the horizon.’ Mr Watson was the kind of man who spoke in capital letters. ‘And where’s there’s War, or threat of War, or even suspicion that one day there might be War, why, there is Opportunity.’
The dining room on the Aquitania was a glittering sea of mirrors and pillars and white napery and silver and crystal. It was an absurd great room, with its panelling and decor — ated ceiling and Louis-Seize furniture and paintings. The decor of the vessel always made Cynthia smile, the mad medley of English and French architectural styles: Grinling Gibbons carvings here, Palladian pillar there, Louise-Quinze sofas and mirrors, Elizabethan and Jacobean and Georgian features and fittings all represented in the public rooms.
‘It’s all so Olde Englande,’ said Lois with enthusiasm. ‘I just love everything old, and here on board, I feel I get an extra five days’ worth of all the sights I’ll be visiting when we get to London. The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St Paul’s Abbey…’
‘Cathedral,’ Cynthia couldn’t help murmuring.
‘Cathedral? Oh, yes. It’s Westminster Abbey, and St Paul’s Cathedral.’
‘There is a Westminster Cathedral as well,’ Cynthia said.
‘Is that so?’ Lois pursed her vivid lips. ‘That wasn’t on the list the travel bureau gave us.’
‘It isn’t very old. A lot of people think it’s ugly, it’s built of red brick. Victorian, you see, and then there are the smells and bells inside.’
‘Pardon me?’ said Lois, looking affronted.
‘Incense and so on. It’s a Roman Catholic cathedral. The others are Protestant. Anglican.’
‘That’s our Episcopalian, Lois,’ said Myron. ‘We’re Baptists ourselves, Mrs Harkness, but I confess I’m looking forward to seeing some of your great English churches, which people say are most impressive edifices.’
Cynthia was beginning to feel that a little of Lois and Myron Watson would go a long way, but that was the joy of shipboard company; it was only five days, you could endure a lot worse than the Watsons for five days, and then, when you stepped ashore, you need never set eyes on them again.
She escaped from them after dinner, with some difficulty, and retreated to the garden lounge. It was deserted, not being a popular spot at this time of day on a winter crossing, with the glass flinging back dark reflections instead of the light that shone through to the trellis work and imitation stone in the daytime to give the illusion of being in a garden.
Cynthia sat in one of the wicker chairs, and an attentive steward appeared to offer more coffee, liqueurs, brandy.
Cynthia asked for another coffee, she was feeling so sleepy that it wouldn’t keep her awake. It had been a busy couple of days, packing, paying farewell visits, writing letters. She had been in the States since the beginning of September, and she found she was looking forward to getting back to England. She hoped the fuss would have died down, it was ridiculous the interest the press and that amorphous thing, the public, took in divorce cases. At least they hadn’t had the pleasure of any sensational details, indeed, her divorce would hardly have been noticed if it hadn’t been bungled so that the first judge had thrown out the evidence from the hotel, knowing the lady in question and the chambermaid far too well. The next time, her husband had managed it better, paying more for a less well-known woman willing to spend the night in a hotel room with him. ‘Playing cards all damn night,’ he had told Cynthia irritably. ‘And hopeless with it. When she suggested a round or two of snap, I nearly lost my temper. However, we came out of it all right, and thank God I wasn’t up in front of that sarky old number of a judge like the one I had first time.’
Then it had been Cynthia who had put the divorce in jeopardy, when an eager press photographer, who had no business being at a private dance, had snapped her dancing very closely with Sir Walter Malreward — a man much in the news for his wealth and influence, a Member of Parliament, a man who didn’t care to have scandal associated with his name. Whispers of collusion were heard.
Sir Walter was annoyed. ‘If it comes to the judge’s ears, there’ll be the devil to pay, and of course those damn reporters are watching your husband like a hawk, he’ll do well to keep away from that woman of his, what’s her name?’
‘Sally Lupin,’ said Cynthia.
‘Otherwise you’ll have to start the whole damn process again. You’ll have to go abroad for a while. We can’t risk it. The decree nisi should be any day now, if you stay away until the decree absolute, they can’t touch us. I suggest America. I shan’t be going over myself until next year, no danger of any prying pressmen getting more illicit shots. And I’ll deal with that bloody photographer, make sure of that, he won’t be taking any more spiteful shots of us or anybody else. I shall miss you, of course, but it can’t be helped.’
Cynthia had wanted to demur at this high-handed arrangement of her affairs, but it was Walter’s way, and her husband accepted the news of her departure with some relief. ‘Best thing. You’re newsworthy, now your name’s been publicly linked with Sir Walter, and it makes me look a bit of a fool, really, I’d be glad if you felt like going.’
Walter set to work, booking the best suite on the next boat to sail, rather to Cynthia’s dismay, and all set to despatch telegrams and letters to his numerous acquaintances and business contacts in America.
‘There’s absolutely no need,’ Cynthia said crossly. ‘As it happens, I have family in America, my first cousin is married to an American and lives in Virginia, I can stay with them as long as I want. And I have a friend from my schooldays who lives in Boston, and friends in New York, I shall do perfectly well, thank you, Walter. Indeed, I don’t suppose I’ll have enough time to see all the people I want. I’ll have some clothes made as well,’ she added. ‘I’ve seen some lovely designs by Mainbocher worn by American women in London, I plan to give him a try.’
‘You could order your wedding dress. Blue, I like you in blue.’
That was going too far. She would choose her own dress for that ceremony, in a colour of her choosing, and it would come from Paris, not from America.
She stirred in her seat at the sound of voices. An English family had ventured into the garden lounge, a father and mother and two young women who must be their daughters. They were laughing and talking, but then one of the girls caught sight of Cynthia. Her clear young voice floated through the air.
‘I say, Mummy, isn’t that Mrs Harkness? The one who…’
Her mother sshed her.
‘Don’t you know them? Isn’t she some kind of relation of Daddy’s?’
The younger girl was staring with unabashed curiosity. ‘I tell you what, she’s Harriet Harkness’s mother. Harriet was in my form at Rhindleys, but she had to leave the school last term, Mrs Youdall made her parents take her away, because of the divorce. They’ve sent her to St Monica’s.’
And then the mother’s voice rang out, with the sharp arrogant edge that marked the self-righteous, indignant Englishwoman of her class who knew she held the moral high ground.
‘It’s a shocking way to behave, and her husband a war hero…’
Cynthia remembered the woman’s name. Gardner, that was it. Rosemary Gardner. Dreadful woman. She turned her head and smiled at the little party. ‘Good evening, Mrs Gardner, isn’t it? Won’t you come and join me?’
Without replying, the woman gave Cynthia a furious look and hustled her girls away, her husband following, after pausing briefly to give Cynthia a wry and apologetic smile.
The cut direct, Cynthia said to herself, as she settled back in her seat. Was that what she could expect when she was back in England? In which case it wouldn’t be pleasant, either for her or for Harriet.
Her mind floated back to thoughts of her wedding dress. How different her wedding to Walter would be from her first one. With Walter it would be the Ritz, no doubt, with lavish refreshments, and guests summoned from his parliamentary colleagues and those who had too much to gain from his acquaintance to snub him on account of his marrying a rather notorious divorcée. The fuss would die down soon enough, Cynthia was old and wise enough in the ways of society to know that. The faint stigma would remain, but as the wife of an immensely rich and successful man she need care little for that.
As she looked out through the glass to the dark seas beyond, her mind took her back to the tiny, cold church, where she and Ronnie had plighted their troth. They had been married by special licence. She had scraped together the money for it from her Post Office savings, and told Ronnie how to set about getting the licence. He had no money at all, there was no question of a reception at the Ritz or Savoy or anywhere else. No guests to cheer the young couple — the very young couple, for they were both only sixteen — on their way to their new life. The witnesses were a friend of Ronnie’s, a tongue-tied lad, a fellow soldier, ill at ease in his boots, who looked horrified at the whole affair, and, since the other witness who had promised to come never turned up, an obliging passer-by, who had consented to act as witness for the princely sum of half a crown.
‘I had to tell such lies to get the licence,’ Ronnie said as they came out of the church, the priest’s unconvinced-sounding blessing ringing in their ears. No church bells, no kisses and congratulations, just a street with indifferent passers-by, never a glance for the newlyweds. Ronnie was in uniform, she had worn a grey woollen frock; she couldn’t risk wearing anything less ordinary or she would have attracted the attention of her mother or her older sister.
They had gone straight back to Ronnie’s digs. An attic room, where they had fallen into bed, hungry again for each other’s bodies, lips, arms, hands legs entwining, desperate to lose themselves in one another.
What had brought all this back to mind? It wasn’t just the thought of the wedding that lay ahead of her, no, there was more to it than that. These were memories that had been locked away in her mind, memories from half her lifetime ago. Why should they surface now?
It was that man going up the gangway. The tourist-class gangway. He was hatless, and halfway up, he had pushed his hair away from his forehead with the back of his hand, a gesture that brought back with extraordinary resonance the young Ronnie, who used to smooth his hair back in exactly that way. This man was rather like Ronnie, come to think of it, very much the same type. What a wonderful body Ronnie had had. Unscarred by the battles he was going off so blithely to face.
‘I wouldn’t have signed up if I’d known I was going to meet you,’ he’d said. He lied about his age at the recruiting office, just as he had lied to obtain the special licence. But by that stage in the war, with a desperate need for men, and with Ronnie being big and tall and looking older than he was, no questions had been asked.
‘If you hadn’t been a soldier, we would never have met.’
Cynthia had been helping Helen, her much older sister, with her voluntary work, making and serving tea to the troops. Cynthia had poured out a mug of hot strong tea, stirred in two spoonfuls of sugar and handed it down to the handsome young soldier who’d told her that he liked his tea strong and very sweet.
Cynthia looked into a pair of the most astonishingly blue eyes, and was transfixed. The whole of her being vibrated with entirely unfamiliar sensations, and then the spell was broken, Helen sharply telling her to stop daydreaming, and another soldier jostling the blue-eyed man aside and demandingly holding out his hand for his mug of tea.
The blue-eyed soldier was waiting for her when she had finished for the day. Helen had wanted her to wait, she was only going to be another half hour or so, seeing everything was put away, and then they could go home together. But Cynthia, who was usually the most obedient of girls, had demurred. ‘I want to get home,’ she said. ‘I’ve things to do. I can go on the Underground by myself, I’ll be perfectly all right.’
A woman came up with news of a malfunctioning tea urn, distracting Helen’s attention, and Cynthia had slipped away.
They walked to the Underground together, and he got on the train and sat beside her. They didn’t speak much, but laughed together as a child in the seat opposite, cuddling a shabby toy rabbit, pulled faces at them.
Cynthia knew the minute he opened his mouth that Ronnie came from quite another world to hers. His was a London accent. ‘Cockney, born and bred,’ he told her. Common, her mother would have said, with infinite, dismissive scorn, but Cynthia liked it. Just as she liked everything about Ronnie.
She sat back in the wicker chair and lit a cigarette. The smoke drifted into the air. His young body. When they first went to bed together, she had been amazed by his lithe beauty. He was pale and smooth, with long limbs; she loved the small of his back, just above his muscular buttocks, and those, too, once she had got over her initial astonishment at seeing a man naked, she loved, holding them tightly to her after they had made love, lying her hands on them, soft and drowsy with pleasure. The weight and hardness of his penis had filled her with a kind of awe, such an astonishing thing, a man’s penis, she had no idea, she said, brushing it with her lips. No idea at all.
She hadn’t been Ronnie’s first girl. He told her that, and she felt a stab of jealousy; who was this Ruby to roll under the hedge with Ronnie, the times he was staying on a Shropshire farm with his auntie’s family?
He felt nothing for Ruby, it had been lust and curiosity, he told her, raising himself on one elbow so that he could kiss her.
He had run away from home two years earlier, scraping a living for himself in a hostile city. He signed up because he wanted to do his bit, and because you got three meals a day, he told her. His mother sounded, to Cynthia’s innocent ears, a terrible woman, but Ronnie seemed to take the clouts and blows she and his less forceful father dealt out to him as just part of life.
‘When I come back from the war, I’m going to make something of myself,’ he had told her. ‘You’ll see. And we’re going to have four kids at least, and be the happiest married couple in England.’
The steward was back, all attention. ‘Are you warm enough, madam? Would you like me to bring you a rug?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Cynthia. ‘I shall be going in shortly.’
He went away on light, silent feet. Cynthia slid back the door that led on to the open deck, and the bitter cold of a winter’s night in the Atlantic hit her in the face. She tossed her cigarette over the side, the glowing tip almost immediately extinguished by the wind and rain. Then, shivering, she retreated back inside to the never-never land of soft lights and thick carpets and columns and gay chatter, shutting out the stormy weather.
She didn’t feel inclined to play cards or gamble or dance or drink. She was too wrapped in her own thoughts to want company. So she made her way down the wide stairs to B deck, her reflection gleaming back at her from the mirrors, and went to her stateroom. The stewardess was surprised to see her, was she feeling seasick, could she bring her anything?
‘No, thank you,’ Cynthia said. ‘I’ll have breakfast at half past eight. Orange juice and a poached egg on toast. Coffee, and Cooper’s marmalade, please, not jam.’ She had grown to like the American habit of having orange juice at breakfast.
‘You aren’t travelling with your maid?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll be back in a little while to collect your things.’
Cynthia’s maid, Rose, was glad to be left behind. Not that she wouldn’t have liked to see America, where the film stars came from, she told Cynthia, ‘But I couldn’t do with all those days at sea, madam, I really couldn’t. Crossing to France is bad enough. I’m afraid if you’d asked it of me, I’d have to give in my notice.’
So Cynthia had lent her to an American friend who was spending a couple of months in London, and found that she rather liked doing without a maid; it gave her a sense of independence and a kind of freedom.
There was nothing of the ship’s cabin about her stateroom, no narrow berth beneath a porthole and space-saving cupboards. It had a wide, comfortable bed with an ornate headboard, and elegant furniture of the velvet and boudoir kind. Ordinary, curtained sash windows looked out on to the deck, only used by the passengers in those staterooms. There was a marble basin, and a dressing table with three mirrors.
The stewardess had laid out a satin nightie and negligée, matching satin slippers tucked beside the bed. Cynthia undressed slowly, laying her dress over a chair and dropping her underwear into the linen basket. She put on the nightie and, sitting at the dressing table, began to cream her face, not looking at her reflection, but still thinking about her life. Her life then, when she had been no more than a girl and yet a wife, and her life now, an utterly adult woman, mother of a nearly grown-up daughter, divorced wife, fiancée — dreadful word — of a man who —
Who what? Compelled her admiration, suited her sexually, was more than her intellectual equal.
And of whom she was afraid.
The thought popped into her head unbidden, and so startled her that she dropped her hairbrush. How absurd, Walter could be overbearing, he was certainly a commanding man who expected to have his own way, but he was courteous and had never come near to threatening her — why should he?
So why had that unpleasant little idea popped into her mind? She shrugged and resumed brushing her hair with steady even strokes, a hundred a night, as her nanny had taught her.
The stewardess had unpacked for her, and had propped the one photograph in a leather frame that she had with her on the dressing table. Harriet’s eyes looked out at her. She had her father’s eyes. Then the words of the Gardner girl came back to her. It was hard on Harriet, having to leave her school.
‘I do understand, Mummy, but it’s a bit thick. I mean, you went there, you’d think they’d care about that kind of thing, instead of booting me out as though I’d been caught smoking in the lavs.’
‘Darling, I do hope you don’t…’
‘Just a figure of speech,’ said Harriet quickly. Then, seeing the look of distress on Cynthia’s face, she had said. ‘Actually, I don’t mind so much, it isn’t a very good school. It might have been once. It probably was when you were there, but it’s all manners and flowers and things which are rather boring. The modern woman has more to her life than arranging flowers and knowing how to address a duchess or a bishop. I’d like to go to a school where you can learn something, properly. Languages, for example, the French teacher is hopeless, and Frau Passauer, who teaches German can’t keep order, she gets dreadfully ragged, so we end up not learning to speak a word of German.’
‘Why do they employ her if she’s so hopeless?’
‘I’ll tell you why, it’s because she’s the impoverished cousin of some Princess whatsit und thingie, you know. That’s why half the teachers are there, because they’re fearfully well-bred or well-connected. Only most of them can’t teach for toffee.’
‘I had no idea. When I was there, the teachers were dull but competent.’
She had looked forward to the day when she would present Harriet at court, during her first season. Now she wouldn’t ever travel up the Mall with her, dressed in a white dress with feathers, sitting for hours to reach the palace and then, finally, to make her curtsy to the King and Queen.
Divorced women weren’t permitted to present anyone at court. Fuddy duddy, old-fashioned, but it was an absolute rule.
Her sister Helen would have to do it. It had been one of the facts Helen had thrown at her when she was trying to persuade Cynthia not to get a divorce. ‘It may not be the happiest marriage on earth, but there’s more to marriage than happiness.’
‘Like what?’
‘Duty and responsibility and shared interests. You have a daughter, you seem not to care about the effect all this will have on her. Divorce is a social stigma in our world, Cynthia. Humphrey’s not at all happy about it.’
Humphrey, Helen’s husband, was a distinguished lawyer.
‘It affects us all.’
‘Oh, come on, Helen, you aren’t trying to say that Humphrey won’t make the bench because I’m divorced? Good gracious, he was born to be a judge, I dare say he wore a little wig and a robe when he was in his cradle.’
‘People like us…’
‘Oh, bother people like us.’ And then, ‘I am sorry for Harriet, but she understands.’
‘How can she understand? A girl of sixteen, I hope she doesn’t understand. I suppose it’s all about sex, and it would be shocking if a girl of that age knew anything at all about sex. I certainly didn’t.’
No, thought Cynthia, and I bet your wedding night was a horrid shock, imagine knowing nothing about sex and having a naked Humphrey advancing on you.
She finished her strokes, and laid down the brush as the stewardess came back, to gather up her clothes. She smoothed down the wrinkleless sheet, and said that she hoped Cynthia would sleep well. ‘You do look tired, madam,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to bring you a tisane? A warm drink can help you get a proper restful night’s sleep.’
Cynthia accepted the tisane. She lay back on the pillows, sipping the hot drink, a book open on her knees, face down, unread. Harriet would be all right, she told herself. She was a sensible girl, resilient. Thank goodness the child had no idea. She moved restlessly, rustling the sheets. Should she tell Harriet the truth? No, she’d kept that secret all these years, and it would remain a secret.
Was Walter the best stepfather for a sixteen-year-old girl? Would he lay down the law, which would inevitably lead to dreadful rows, Harriet being a young lady with decided opinions of her own?
He had said Harriet should call him Uncle Walter, but she told Cynthia that it was silly. ‘He’s not an uncle. If you marry him, I suppose I’ll have to call him Father or something. Why can’t I just call him Walter?’
