A Little Death (31 page)

Miss Georgina did come back to Hope House the day Miss Jones was packing up her clothes. She kept interfering, pulling things out of boxes and leaving them lying about, saying she didn’t want them, then saying she did, then saying she had to try them on to be quite sure… I was frantic with worry, there was so much to do, but Miss Jones was so patient, it was a miracle. When she’d finally got finished, Miss Georgina made a great play of calling the two of us together and she said to her, ‘Now, there’s something I want you to have, I’ve been saving it for you.’ Then she cast around and saw that everything was packed, so she went to the nearest crate and started pulling things out, and she couldn’t find what she wanted so she went to the next one, and the next… I don’t know how Miss Jones stood it, watching all her work turned upside down like that. Finally, Miss Georgina came up with this old fox fur. It was the mangiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life,
with great big bare patches, and honestly, you wouldn’t have used it to line a cat’s basket—it was only there because she never threw anything away. And she was going to give this to Miss Jones, who had been her maid for nearly seventeen years! I said, ‘You’re not going to give that to Jones, are you, Miss Georgina?’

She said, ‘Why ever not?’ As if I was the one who was mean. She held it out to Miss Jones like it was the crown jewels she was giving her.

Miss Jones said, ‘Thank you, Madam.’ How she managed to keep a straight face I’ll never know, with Miss Georgina looking at her as if she was expecting a curtsey or something.

Well, the minute she’d gone, we
roared.
The room looked as if there’d been an earthquake, Miss Jones had this disgusting old fox thing wound round her neck and the two of us were holding on to each other else we’d have fallen down from laughing. I said to her, ‘I’d better help you pack up again.’

She held out the fox and said, ‘You can start with this. I’d hate Mrs. Gresham to miss it.’ Well, I thought I was going to burst, I laughed so much. Miss Jones did pack that old fur, as well, and Miss Georgina must have seen it in the cupboard when we got to Thurloe Street, but she never said a word. That’s why I was so surprised when Miss Georgina gave me all what she’d worn in court. That’s a tale in itself, mind you. I was sure Miss Georgina would want her best clothes for the court, but she didn’t ask for a single thing. Instead, she asked Miss Louisa to choose for her and Miss Louisa was to ask her own dressmaker to sew the things. I was very surprised, because Miss Georgina was so fussy about her clothes: everything had to come from Paris, right down to the foundation garments, and she was always making nasty remarks about Miss Louisa’s dress
sense. Well, as I said, they weren’t anything like Miss Georgina’s usual outfits, but they were good clothes. I’d be wearing them now if I could fit into them, but Miss Georgina’s always been as slim as a reed. They take up all my wardrobe, much more room than my clothes that I wear every day, but I’ve kept them nice.

You know, they never asked me to go with them to Thurloe Street, they just acted as if they expected it and I suppose I did, too. Apart from the clothes and the odd bit of furniture and carpet, Miss Georgina didn’t take nothing out of Hope House more than she’d brought into it. Of course, none of the pieces fit, they’re far too big for this little house, but what could we do? There wasn’t the money to buy new and anyway it’s all rubbish what you get now, there’s no quality like there used to be. We had a dreadful job cutting down the carpets, too. The one that was in the dining room at Hope House, the middle part of it is in Miss Georgina’s front room now and the outside was cut into strips to go up the stairs. It was a shame to do that to a good carpet, but we didn’t have any choice. It was Mr. Herbert who did that. He’d been given his notice along with all of them, only he said he’d stay and help with the moving for Master Edmund’s sake and he wouldn’t take anything for it. I don’t know what I’d have done without him and Miss Jones, I’d never have managed it on my own. But I hadn’t time to brood over what happened, I had all the moving and then I had enough to keep me occupied. I had to do the cooking again for one thing and find a woman to do the rough. It took me three months to find someone even halfway decent. She’s long gone now, of course, no money to pay her.

Soon after we were settled in, Miss Jones wrote to tell me that she and Mr. Herbert were going to be married. I thought: What a pair of dark horses, because I never
knew they were courting. I suppose I did feel a little bit jealous, if I’m honest. It was funny, I’d always thought of Miss Jones as young, because she wasn’t twenty when I first knew her. But there she was, going on forty and getting married to Mr. Herbert, who was one of the finest men you could ever hope to meet.

When the war broke out, Master Edmund was ever so keen on it. I went off to buy the material for the blackout and he came along with me, and then insisted on clambering all over the furniture and trying to rig it up. When the raids started he used to take the bottles— all the gin and whisky—he used to take them off the table and line them all up along the skirting board. He said that way they’d be safe if the house was hit. But he and Miss Georgina wouldn’t have been safe because they insisted on sleeping upstairs. That was
her
doing, of course. She loved every minute of it. She used to go out looking at the bombed houses and watching them putting out the fires… and she’d bring things home—a tortoiseshell comb, an apostle spoon, a scarf that came up lovely when it was washed… They were little things, like you’d pick up a pebble off a beach. I suppose it was stealing, really, but with the house burst open by a bomb and everything scattered on the ground, it didn’t seem like that. Once she picked up a lovely mirror in a silver frame. I don’t know why it wasn’t smashed, the bomb must have fallen in a funny way is all I can think. But it made her happy, finding those little things like that, and she used to put them in a big cardboard box under her bed. She never had no use for them, she just wanted to have them. Now I come to think of it, they must be still there.

That was before my sister Winnie died, when I still had contact with my family. Winnie got bombed out and her second daughter, Edna, she was evacuated with
her three. The youngest can’t have been more than six months. Edna said it was dreadful, this long train journey with nothing to eat, and no one had the first clue what to do with them when they got there. Edna was always my favourite, but I’ve lost touch with her since Winnie’s death. I can’t ask them here. It’s no place for young people, this house. But it’s a shame, really, because when you’re my age, you want to see the young ones and Edna’s are all I’ve got. Otherwise, what have I got to look back on, except all what I’ve said? I suppose you could say it was exciting with the newspapers and all that, not many people have had the life I’ve had, but it’s hardly the same as a husband and children, is it? Grandchildren, too, I’d have had by this time, if I’d married. I could have been a help there, looking after them. That’s what I should be doing at my age, enjoying my grandchildren and instead I’m stuck down here with nothing. I might as well have been born a dog, the way Miss Georgina’s got me at her beck and call. ‘Fetch, Ada!’ Yes, that’s what I’m like, a dog. It’s not the work, I’ve never minded that. I’d have worked my fingers to the bone for my family, but I didn’t get the chance.

I never thought I deserved more than the next person, but I did want a family, just what it’s normal for a woman to want, natural, and there was William, he was asking me to marry him, but Miss Georgina would never have let me—not that she ever thought anyone would want to marry me. People like Miss Georgina think the whole world’s their servant, they can do just as they please and not spare a thought for anyone else. But I stopped her little game once before, didn’t I, when I told Mr. James about Mr. Booth, and she knows it was me who did that all right. I stopped her before and I’d do it again, too. Believe you me, if it comes to that, I
will
do it again—and it might. Because I’ve been thinking
about a lot of things in the past few weeks—I may be old, but my brain still works well enough… and I’ve been making a little plan.

It’s queer how you go through your life with certain things fixed in your mind: you should do this, you shouldn’t do that. Well, it’s almost like a belief, really, a way of thinking you get yourself into. Then one day you find you don’t believe it at all, but it’s just like a habit you’ve got of thinking that’s how you should behave. Of course, there’s good habits and bad, I wouldn’t deny that, and normally I’d be the first to say let sleeping dogs lie, but I’m damned if I won’t give this one a poke and see if he barks. After all, I’m an old woman now and I’ll be dead for long enough, that’s for certain. It comes down to what my friend Ellen said all those years ago, about having a choice. Because I never had a choice, Miss Georgina never let me have one. And when all’s said and done, I’m a human being too, just as much as she is, and now I say that’s what I should have. A choice.

PART TWO
83 Thurloe Street, SW August 1955

I’ll pour my own drink tonight. Edmund usually pours my drink, but tonight I’ll do it myself. One for Edmund as well. With my cocktail, wearing my most beautiful evening dress, sitting in my favourite chair, I’m quite ready. This always was my better profile. Photographs, paintings, everything, always this profile. Portrait of a lady. Portrait of a murderess. Portrait of an old woman drinking gin.

How extraordinary that it should all have begun with Roland. Stupid, handsome Roland. I wonder if he knew that Edmund was in love with him? I suppose Roland might have been a pansy, because he was certainly far too handsome to be anybody’s husband. Perhaps he and Edmund did buggery to each other, because that’s what they do, isn’t it, pansies? But then things always get so confused in wartime, nobody knows where they are.

When you love someone you want to know everything, don’t you? Everything about them. And now I do. I suppose I should be grateful to Louisa, really. The subject came up quite by chance when she was here yesterday. She’d come to make sheep’s eyes at Edmund, as usual. I must say that quite the funniest thing about the whole episode was the way Louisa thought that
I
was the one who’d sent that wretched handkerchief to Roland. I confess I was puzzled for a moment when she
mentioned finding it in Roland’s things when they came back from France, but as soon as she said it was a handkerchief with writing on it, I knew exactly what she meant. ‘To My True Knight’. Poor old Louisa. I almost laughed when I saw the mixture of sympathy and eagerness on her face—the furrowed brow, the speaking eyes—like a dog that wants to lick your hand. So pathetically easy to imagine what a ridiculous fairytale she’d made up all those years ago… that I was in love with Roland… that I’d married Jimmy because Roland didn’t want me… how I’d had to hide my grief when he was killed… I almost started laughing, but then I realised what must have really— what really happened: Edmund and Roland. Together.

I had to tell Louisa everything. If the circumstances were different, I might have kept silent, but she wanted to take Edmund away from me and I couldn’t allow that. Besides, I’ve been sparing her feelings for long enough, and why should I? She’s been biding her time ever since Davy died last year.
Let no man put asunder.
Except that women are the ones you have to watch, not men. But I’m far too clever for her. Besides, I haven’t come this far to give up Edmund to a woman who looks like a failed attempt at a French poodle.

Well, she’s gone now and I don’t suppose she’ll be coming back. Women like Louisa make a fetish out of understanding people, but they know absolutely nothing. The silent sympathy, wanting to please, to be liked, to be loved—but with all that love and sympathy she couldn’t understand Edmund and Roland, could she? But I can. Because Edmund and I are the same. How could we ever be parted? I can forgive him for Roland because I understand him. Forgiving him is the easiest thing in the world.

Another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm, as they
say. I don’t want us to lie in a grave and rot like poor little Freddie. Scatter our ashes to the wind and that’ll be that.