A Desirable Husband (18 page)

‘A pity I can’t do anything about it, now.’ He meant that he was now withdrawing her option of becoming his mistress, and Finola shook her head. That made him raise his eyebrows.

Winston watched her hurry down the sloping path to the Zoo, ten paces ahead of him now instead of her usual two. He was thinking about how he would evade the subject of Finola, when he next met Alice and Anatole. He had enjoyed talking so coolly after his rejection and he thought that, very likely, if he cared to take the trouble, he could do Finola some disservice in the future. He could not believe that it was his body which had repelled Finola; he believed that principle was not important to discontented people, and so he could not think why she had behaved as she had.
He had done far too well in his life, and rather too well with her, to consider that he would have been more successful if he had been born into a family like the Parnells of Combe Chalcot. The Parnells were not very grand, after all.

Winston flustered and annoyed Finola by imperiously hailing an empty cab in Prince Albert Road, putting her into it, and telling the driver to take her back to Thurloe Square. With one hand in his pocket, he watched the cab drive off and then he turned round and put on his trilby which, for the sake of dignity, he had removed some five minutes before embracing Finola.

*

The second-floor flat in Thurloe Square had a good-sized sitting-room and a pretty view, but it was a gloomy place to anyone there alone. The Parnells had bought it in a hurry, feeling the need for a foothold in London, and they had chosen it because it was cheap and convenient and just big enough for entertaining; but they had only once been there together. They went up to London at different times.

Finola went in. The flat was stuffy, and the two little bedrooms were full of afternoon sunlight, but the sitting-room was grey. She sat down opposite the window, and listened to the humming and gurgling noises made by the fridge in the kitchen, and the hot-water pipes. The first thing to do, she told herself, was to go back to Combe Chalcot, for she was free to do that, but she would have to ring Gerard before setting out.

At the front of her mind was a horror at the thought of having told Winston that she had never enjoyed making love. She thought she would have to write to him and explain that she had told a lie in a panic, attempting to soothe his vanity, for which she really cared nothing at all. She supposed she might go further, she might tell him that he had made her realise how very good Gerard was. That was true in its way.

Finola did not cry. She felt too young and frightened, like a child going away to school for the first time, unable in bewilderment to realise properly what was happening, and
knowing only that it was essential to be good. She thought of leaving Gerard and going to live alone somewhere, but even that did not make her cry. She knew Gerard would not allow her to do such a thing without a struggle, even though he no longer loved her. He said he believed in marriage. ‘You must have somebody or you’ll die, and you can’t have him, you’ve lost everything, you
stupid
little
bitch
,’ she whispered aloud. ‘Use your common sense.’ That told her only that nobody would appear, if she did leave Gerard.

Finola searched anxiously for cigarettes in her bag, praying with violent resentment that she had not lost or forgotten them. She thanked God when she found three old Turkish cigarettes, which usually she hated, in the box on the table.

She lit one, and puffed. Finola wished she could go back to being a single woman, and yet she dreaded that life of all things. It would be a suitable punishment for folly and ingratitude. ‘But he started it,’ she mumbled, thinking of Gerard, then Winston. ‘He did.’

She made herself remember the dreary shame of life as a spinster, living in two rooms of her parents’ house. They had built a tiny kitchenette for her so that, at seventeen, she might feel more independent. The number of friends who had moved in and out of Bramham Gardens in the twenties had grown fewer in the years just before the war, and often Finola, Alice and Anatole had had the whole shabby house to themselves. Finola had thought every week of finding a place of her own, but she had been too nervous and too lazy to seek one.

She reminded herself that she had not always been unhappy, because it was her duty to do that. She had had her father (the strongest and best man in the world, far far better than Gerard) and her work. Alice had always wondered why Finola did not design jewellery, instead of cutting stones in a Hatton Garden shop, but Finola did not love design, she loved perfect jewels worth great sums of money, which came from lumpish rock. A lust for gems was the closest she had come to deliberate wickedness: if she
were ever a rich man’s mistress, she would have many. Finola still privately labelled people either diamond, sapphire, emerald or ruby. Alice was ruby, Anatole sapphire, Gerard unmitigated diamond, Miranda Pagett emerald, Winston emerald-ruby: she herself was different, an opal or a topaz, she could not quite think which.

Since her marriage she had never had to enter a room full of people, and search for the face of a sapphire man who might at least be agreeable to talk to; she had always hoped, of course, that he would be far more than that. For the past nine years, she had been in the restful position of never having to take notice of any man, except perhaps to please Gerard sometimes. Gerard’s protection, in any case, had seemed to make far more men take an interest in her than ever they had when she was unattached. Finola supposed that now she would have to look at men with squeamish hunger once more, either sinfully, if she remained married to a careless husband, or hopelessly, if she separated from him. Nobody would want her if she was openly alone.

‘So you’re back where you started,’ she said. Nine years, confidently wasted in idealising marriage like a schoolgirl.

Finola decided that she hated her husband for only one thing, and that was his refusal to bring up the subject of her dealings with Winston again, once he had made his wishes clear. He had not cared enough to talk properly, he had been glad when his embarrassment had been ended by the appearance of Eleanor. He had merely thought it his duty to mention Constance’s lying letter: it was almost as though he thought it for Finola to re-open the subject, but Finola felt that, had she done that, she would have been humbling herself. It was not her business to humble herself: she was not the Christian of the family.

She would do her duty by writing secretly to Winston, and telling him the mortifying truth.

At half-past ten the following morning, Finola drew up outside a bleak little pub called ‘The Parnell Arms’, which stood on the north side of a hillock outside Chalcot St Joseph. Last night she had dreaded going home for many complicated reasons, to do with whether she could ever live apart from Gerard, away from Combe Chalcot; now she dreaded it only because Carlotta had rung to say that the old labrador Amelia was very ill indeed. Finola did not want to see her, and to be obliged to cope. She had been angry at such a thing’s happening to Amelia at this particular moment.

Finola did not stop for long, for she soon grew restless and foolishly tearful. She took the last six miles of the familiar road at forty miles an hour, though Gerard never went above thirty, and when she reached the house she did not bother to take the car round to the stable yard.

As she had expected, the hall was dark and empty and no sound could be heard. She put her bag down on the long table and went down the gun-room passage, where she heard the chink of teacups and the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. Finola remembered that they would all be there: Carlotta, Sarah, Mrs Locke the charwoman and Mainwaring as well, for it was his day to come up to the house and clean the silver. Finola hesitated, picturing her own worried entrance, and the polite smiles of everyone there who thought her incompetent. Perhaps they would look grave today, because of Amelia: she was only going to the kitchen because she had heard about the dog.

‘Hello,’ she said, entering the kitchen, and seeing that only the women were there, after all. ‘Good morning, Mrs Locke – Sarah. Carlotta, thank you for ringing, is Amelia any better?’

‘Good morning, madam.’

‘Miss Parnell, she is very very poorly. Mr Mainwaring he has telephoned the vet, but he says there is nothing to do.’

‘Nothing to be done,’ remarked Finola, pressing her eyes. She opened them. ‘Oh dear, what will Mr Parnell say! Did you ring him as well last night?’ She had delayed her own return, deliberately, because of the dog, and that was wicked. Finola waited for Carlotta’s reply.

‘No, Miss Parnell, I think you do that.’

She should have rung him, he would have come back from Constance’s, now he would blame her.

‘Yes, of course. I couldn’t –’ Finola realised she could say to Gerard that she had been unable to get through. ‘I couldn’t get through to him last night.’

Carlotta, who had never lived with dogs before she came to Dorsetshire, had grown very fond of both the labradors. She wiped her eyes now. ‘I stay in this place only because of that beautiful dog, God’s truth I do.’ Finola, watching her, realised that nearly all Carlotta said and did was tolerated because she was a foreigner. She was fortunate.

‘Carlotta, where is she now?’

‘She’s laying down in the gun-room, madam,’ said Sarah.

‘She’s not dead yet?’ said Finola. The others looked a little shocked.

‘No, madam. Mainwaring’s been with her this past half-hour, but she won’t look at him.’ Sarah paused. ‘It’s always like that, Mrs Gerard, I remember when old Mr Parnell’s Florence died, before I was married to Mainwaring that was. They won’t look at anyone.’ Her voice was full of sympathy, but Finola realised that she and Mrs Locke did not suppose she could have been especially devoted to Amelia. They were sorry for her having to see Carlotta in tears, and having to do something about it.

‘Carlotta, hadn’t you better go and lie down for a while? Perhaps you could give me a cup of that coffee – I’m going to ring Mr Parnell.’

Carlotta had telephoned about the dog an hour after Finola had rung Gerard at eight o’clock, having first waited for him to ring. Finola had felt she could not ring again with the news about Amelia. I must tell him that, she thought, I can’t lie, I’ll have to.

‘I – I suppose I must see Amelia first,’ she said to Mrs Locke and Sarah. ‘I think I should.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Locke, nodding. The charwoman was slightly eccentric, and always beamed at Finola whatever the circumstances.

‘Don’t upset yourself, madam,’ said Sarah.

‘No no, it’s all right – oh dear. Where’s Nanny – the children?’ she said suddenly in a rather high voice.

‘She took them into Shaftesbury on the bus, madam, first thing this morning.’

‘Oh good – marvellous.’

Finola left the kitchen, holding a cup of Carlotta’s thick black coffee. In the gun-room, Mainwaring was slowly polishing the glass above the basin, while Amelia lay in a corner under a row of mackintoshes. His face was grim.

‘Good morning, madam.’

‘Mainwaring, Sarah told me you’d sent for the vet. Thank you – it’s too awful, isn’t it? Oh, poor Amelia. Darling.’ The dog was stretched out, and she did not respond, though her black ribcage seemed to be moving very slightly. It was a far sadder sight than Finola had expected, really sadder than Hugh’s deathbed, because Amelia was so good, and there was no unpleasant excitement.

After a pause, Mainwaring said: ‘Yes, madam, I’m afraid he said it was complications with her – her urinary tract, if you’ll excuse – you recall she had an operation, in the late Mr Parnell’s time.’

‘Oh, dear. She – she really is dying, isn’t she?’

They stood next to each other, looking. Mainwaring
twisted his polishing rag, and Finola stepped forward. ‘Oh Amelia – don’t – poor lovely thing – darling, yes – poor old girl.’ She touched her nose, but the dog did not even turn away. Finola saw that all expression was gone from her face: it was not Amelia lying there, just a dead dog, impossible to recognise. She prevented herself from drawing back with a gasp of disgust.

‘I’m afraid she is dead, Mrs Gerard.’ He had not wanted to announce the news while Finola was in the kitchen.

‘Oh, how
could
this happen!’ You can’t go now, thought Finola. She gave the butler a glance of frightened apology, and quickly left the room.

*

Miranda Pagett was coming down to Combe Chalcot. Whenever she remembered this, Finola thought she must speak to Gerard at once. It was most important to have things settled before she came to stay and before she, Finola, arranged to spend a great deal of money on the house. She needed Miranda to see that she was happy in her marriage to Gerard, and was not frightened of him. Finola remembered that there was hope: Gerard had been touched when she cried copiously over Amelia and over her own failure to get in touch with him. He had patted her and refrained from scolding: the trouble was, he had been very fond of the dog. He was still looking gloomy about Amelia even though she, Finola, was in such agony of mind.

Nine days before Miranda was due to arrive, Gerard went early to bed, arranged his pillows, and took down
Revela
tions
of
Divine
Love
and
Alice
in
Wonderland
from the shelf above his bed. He read these books last thing at night when he was unhappy, because to him both were full of comfort; when he was at least tolerably contented, he did not indulge himself, but read
The
Imitation
of
Christ,
and then
The
Screwtape
Letters
for something lighter.

He put on his spectacles, but then Finola came in and he had to remove them. She had rarely come into his dressing-room, even when she and he were sharing a bed.

‘Has something happened?’ Gerard said.

She was still fully dressed, wearing the old long skirt and silk jersey she wore every night for dinner when they were alone. Gerard felt at a slight disadvantage in his pyjamas.

‘I’ve just come to say goodnight.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Finola sat down on the end of his bed and stared at the eiderdown. She then raised her eyes to his face for a moment, and noticed that he was looking at her quite kindly, twisting his spectacles. ‘Gerard, may I come into bed with you?’ she said.

He did not reply for a moment, but started slightly, and put the spectacles down. ‘You have a perfect right to,’ he said.

Finola was not in tears, but her face was red. She stammered: ‘I’d like to, if you’d like it – we can’t go on forever, living in the same house and not –’

Recalling their last, difficult talk on this subject, Gerard said slowly, ‘Do you remember what you said to me last November?’

‘Yes, yes I do.’ She thought it remarkable that he remembered the month.

‘Why have you changed your mind?’

‘Because I have!’ Finola imagined him drawing her into his arms and saying, ‘There, little love – there, it’s all all right now’. ‘I’m sorry for all that – I’m very sorry, honestly. I don’t know what made me say that then.’ She drew breath and stammered: ‘I love you very much and I’ve missed you terribly. It’s true, honestly, Gerard.’ It was true: she clung to that. She had realised it as soon as he came back, and she had seen him in the hall. It was so simple. She believed now that it had been Gerard she wanted all the time, not Winston Lowell. He was so big and handsome, and she must make him love her again – she would do anything, except admit she had been wrong in her treatment of Constance. Anything at all.

Gerard said nothing for a while, and put his hands over his eyes. Finola watched him, with her mouth pinched in anxiety.

‘I’m glad it’s true, Finola. But don’t you want me simply because I’m a very
eligible
husband?’ he said at last, picking up
Alice
in
Wonderland
and fingering the pages. Her words were too romantic, too desirable, really to be true. ‘Isn’t that the truth? Oh, I don’t mind! I know I’m not precisely the world’s most perfect lover.’ He had to test her.

Finola felt a little dizzy. She said: ‘No, of course I don’t want you just because you’re
eligible
! I
love
you – oh please,
must
we –’ Her heart was thumping with shame at these confessions. He might say no.

Gerard put the book down. ‘Tell me this first, before we go any further. Why are you saying this
now
? You must have some particular reason.’ He swallowed. ‘Why do you want us to sleep together now?’

‘No, there’s no other particular reason.’ She raised her eyes: she had sworn she would not implicate Winston Lowell, that would be too much of a risk. ‘Just what I’ve told you.’

‘You know, I can always tell when you
are
telling the truth.’ Gerard thought it was only proper to be rather cold. She had rejected him once, and he could not say immediately ‘Darling, I am so very glad,’ as a part of him wanted to do. ‘I think there is something else, Finola.’ He looked through
Alice
in
Wonderland
and thought he should not be so nervous. She wants to come to bed with me, he thought.

‘I want us to be properly together!’ she said, frantically looking at him. ‘If we don’t
love
each other, if you don’t love me – we can’t stay together.’ Finola pulled at her earrings and tried to speak calmly.

‘Why not?’ said Gerard, though he quite agreed with her. Suddenly he was angry with her. ‘Hundreds of people do just that!’ This was a terrible thought.

‘But I can’t live with you in
coldness
! I just can’t.’

‘So you said last time,’ Gerard reminded her. ‘And as far as I can remember, that was your reason for saying the opposite of what you’re saying now!’ This was all rather mad, but he still wanted her.

‘I was
wrong
then,’ said Finola. ‘Gerard, please –’

‘I see,’ said Gerard. ‘So now we’ve got to make love again, have we? Why, Finola? Just tell me!’ He was insistent, but his anger had quite gone. He realised this. He did not know why, but he supposed it was because to him she was so pretty in her distress.

Finola whispered: ‘All right, I’ll tell you something. Probably it’ll make you want to
divorce
me, the mood you seem to be in now! Oh I’m sorry, but –’ Winston. She would always be longing to tell Gerard that another man had savagely desired her, if she did not tell him now. Perhaps he would be rather flattered by the revelation, and not wanting to divorce her at all.

‘Nonsense, Finola. What is this?’ Gerard slowly took her hand and played with the fingers, very consciously. He was glad that she was frightened of divorce.

‘Winston Lowell – I saw him last week, when I was up in London, you know – we went to the Zoo together.’ Finola watched Gerard’s long slender hand. ‘Afterwards he tried to kiss me, I never thought he would, I’ve seen him quite often, and he’s never – I told you that – I didn’t let him kiss me of course, but all the same, it did make me realise.’ She hurried through this speech too fast for Gerard to be horrified by her first words.

‘Oh, Finola,’ he said at last.

‘Do you understand? Don’t we need each other, really Gerard?’ I must have melted his heart, she thought. It was odd that her own spirits were not immediately raised.

‘What did you tell him, when you – prevented him doing this? What did you say?’

‘I said I
loved
you
,’ said Finola, glaring at him. Her voice was barely audible.

Gerard looked away, but did not let go of her hand. Lowell’s strong, ugly, foreign face was exactly right for a lustful man, the sort women did not tease and dismiss. ‘Were you in love with him, at one time?’

‘No, I was
never
in love with him! How
could
I be, with a man like that?’ She turned red at the thought.

‘I see.’ He believed her. Looking down at his books, he realised now that he should never have agreed to sleep apart from her, ten months before, but he did not intend to admit this. ‘I’m very glad, Finola. Go and get into bed now, and I’ll be with you in a minute,’ he said gently. The decision was taken.

He would, he thought, forgive the unsuccessful Lowell. Gerard felt a little dart of triumph at the thought that Finola really had dismissed the man. But he felt he had to be alone for a little while: then when he was in bed with Finola, he would try to express tenderness.

‘Go on, darling,’ he said.

‘Can’t I spend tonight in this bed, with you?’ she said. ‘I’d rather, I –’