Illusions of Happiness (17 page)

‘My darling, I didn’t hurt you, did I? If I did . . .’

It was then that she’d broken down, all the years of pent up yearning for that foolish time never to have happened, had wrenched itself painfully out of her

Burying her face against his shoulder she heard herself sobbing, the words pouring from her, erratic. ‘It was a long time ago . . . I was so young, no idea what it was about . . . there was a baby – taken from me . . . I don’t know where she is. I was never told. My parents disowned me – settled her elsewhere – I never found out where or who with. I’m not . . . not a virgin.’

She remembered how quiet he’d become, lost in thought. Despair had washed over her – she’d lost him, knew then just how much she loved him. Silence seemed to draw itself out while she remained with her face hidden, convinced it was over. Then slowly he said in a low voice, ‘It was a long time ago,’ and as if uncertain of her response, added huskily, ‘I shall see you next week, shan’t I?’ as if he dared not hope.

She had turned her face in surprise to his. ‘You still want me?’

‘With all my heart. I love you, Maddie. And you, do you still love me?’

‘Oh, yes, yes,’ she’d breathed, her whole being overwhelmed by relief.

Today she made her way through the few falling flakes of snow. She and Tony would make love, a little less tense these days, would lay in each other’s arms, then after a while make love again. But how long would it be allowed to go on? That was the only thought that troubled her. How much longer could she keep it from James? One day he would become suspicious – a word dropped, a look noticed as it passed between herself and Anthony, alerting him to something very wrong. How she longed to be free of James, yet how could she wish him ill? Yet it was becoming more difficult as time went on, even this short time.

For Tony, meeting her once a week was no difficulty. But for her it was growing more worrying as time went on. Lies, pretence, creeping out of the house with excuses of taking the air. Taking the air? February with its cold flurries of snow and biting winds on her cheeks and she expecting it to be believed that she was
taking the air
?

Mrs Cole, James’s cook for many years, long before he’d lost his first wife but who’d very quickly taken to her employer’s new wife, had expressed surprise the first time she had said she was going out for a breath of fresh air. Today her reaction hadn’t diminished one bit.

‘Surely, madam, you’re not going out
again
! It’s bitter out there. More than bitter – it’s killing cold! You’ll catch your death before long.’

‘I’m well wrapped up, Mrs Cole,’ she told her with an easy smile. The air’s bracing. It will do me good. Every fire lit, the stuffiness indoors is giving me quite a headache.’

‘Perhaps you should have Doctor Williamson look at you, madam, if it goes on. There’s all this Spanish ’flu about – an epidemic it’s becoming, they say. It’s frightening if you ask me. A couple of my nephew’s friends are down with it and they’re really bad. It’s seeing off so many in such a short while. The papers are full of it.’

Madeleine ignored the diatribe on the influenza business – half smiled to herself as she recalled the current sally:
You just watch that girl called Enza because when they opened the window, in flew Enza!’
Yes, it was rife, frightening, getting worse by the day. But she didn’t have it.

‘A short walk in the fresh air will soon clear my head,’ she dismissed. ‘I’ll go to the park. Half an hour or so should do it.’

She hurried out before any further obstacles could be put in the way, albeit well meant. At least it was dry, cold but dry. Soon it would be March, hopefully a little warmer, lessening cook’s over-motherly interest in her well-being. James’s chauffeur too was concerned for her, offering to take her for a drive instead, but she’d evaded his offers saying that with petrol still rationed it shouldn’t be wasted driving her about.

So far James was too occupied with stock market dealings to notice most of her comings and goings. Nevertheless, she’d told Mrs Cole not to bother him with her worries for her well-being, he had too many other things to think about and ought not be bothered with trivialities. But one day it was sure to come out. What would she do when he began asking questions? Lie to him? Break off her meetings with Anthony? No, that was unthinkable.

Quickly she turned her thoughts from that aspect as she hurried the few hundred yards to where she would hail a taxi. It took less than a quarter of an hour to reach the hotel. Tony would already be there waiting and for a wonderful ten minutes or so they would make frantic love, to lie exhausted in each other’s arms, then make love again, more slowly.

How wonderful it would have been to lie in his arms for the rest of the morning. She would dress, hating having to leave him, and go. He would leave soon after, needing to get back to his bank, having started back there two weeks ago. In his capacity he had no one to answer to although he worried about being away for too long, which was understandable. But she had Mrs Cole, the woman quick to badger her should her return seem more delayed than she thought. What if one day it all came out, a chance remark perhaps, the mind immediately making something out of it?

Alighting from her taxi, she took her time walking that hundred yards home, hoping the cold would set her cheeks glowing as if from a surfeit of fresh air, even pinched her nose hard to make it look red. But her outings were becoming longer, dangerously so. Last week Mrs Cole had taken her to task as if she were the mistress and Madeleine the servant.

‘Madam, I thought you’d got yourself lost, you’ve taken so long getting back. You really oughtn’t to have been out so long. You could catch your death.’

‘It’s good for the constitution,’ she told her a little testily.

‘But what would the master say if he knew?’

‘Please don’t tell him.’ She’d begged, feeling like a child in danger of having a treasured toy taken from her. ‘He would worry. I’ve taken to popping into a little tea room for a nice pot of hot tea and a cake; that’s the reason I was a little longer than usual. I so enjoy it, Mrs Cole. I can’t bear being cooped up here day after day.’

‘But you’re not, madam. You have so many friends, appointments, engagements. You’re hardly ever at home, what with one thing and another.’

It was true. Always something going on, always busy organizing this and that party or function, she had become well known for it, her social events now famous. With the war, the Great War as it was becoming known, behind them, people were discovering a new freedom, making sure they were going to enjoy it to the full: dances, charity balls, the joy of loose-fitting garments after the restrictions of only a decade ago. Women had found freedom at last to do as they pleased, at least those with money to do so, and she made sure she was part of it.

‘I look forward to enjoying a walk entirely on my own,’ she told Mrs Cole, ‘and I don’t want others to spoil it for me. You do understand.’

‘I suppose so,’ was the grudging reply, leaving her free to go up to her room to dream over her wonderful moments with Anthony.

But it couldn’t continue this way forever, she left brooding on what would come later. How many years could it continue like this? Thoughts of the future frightened and depressed her.

There was of course a lot that helped take her mind off such dreary thoughts: the grand Christmas party she’d given, money no object, everyone in high spirits, enjoying to the full the pleasures the peace had brought. The New Year’s Eve Party had been another grand event; a prelude to what by next year would be a new decade utterly different from the previous one, lots of jollity, making up for the years of stalemate, all cares flung to the wind. Yes, there was still the struggling poor, but if you had money, life was sweet.

There were parties still to be arranged: Valentine’s Day, April Fool’s Day with a great fancy dress party planned, Easter with a big garden party, weather permitting, otherwise it would have to be held inside, not quite the same. Then there was the London season, visiting the country and other people’s parties: swimming parties, tennis parties, the list went on and on. Yet always in the background was Anthony. She lived only to see him. All the rest could go hang if only she and he were together, permanently.

Maybe one day. Please God let it be soon. She wished James no ill but if only there was a way, any way, out.

Why was it that in the midst of overwhelming happiness the Devil always seemed to raise his ugly head to spoil it all? It was wicked and selfish to be thinking such things at a time like this but that was how it seemed to her.

She and Anthony had been so happy. It was the end of April. They’d been meeting once a week with only one break, when he’d gone up to the Midlands; some business to do with his bank, he’d said. She’d missed him dreadfully and he must have felt the same for their reunion had been passionate to the point of exhaustion.

‘Promise me you’ll never go away again,’ she’d begged as she lay in his arms. ‘Promise me you’ll send someone else in your stead.’

‘I promise,’ he’d said.

But life has a way of tearing down the strongest promise. A week later, the day before they would meet, he phoned while James was away at his office, telling her his mother had gone down with the Spanish ’flu.

‘It struck almost overnight,’ he said. His voice, thin and distant over the wires, was shaky, tinged with panic, his words practically falling over themselves.

‘She didn’t seem too bad yesterday morning, just said she felt a bit achy but by the evening she’d developed a raging headache and she became feverish. During the night I had to send for the doctor, she was tossing and turning so much, almost in delirium. I can’t see you tomorrow, darling. I can’t leave her, I have to be with her, it’s happened so fast and I’m worried.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked when finally she got a word in.

‘Not really. Just tell Uncle James she’s gone down with it. He’d want to know. I’m just praying it doesn’t get worse. So many are . . .’

His voice trailed off but she’d already finished the words for him in her mind:
so many are dying
. . .

‘Your doctor is there with her,’ she said instead. ‘She will be fine, darling. He’s a good man. But I’ll telephone James right now and we’ll be there as quick as we can, and . . .’ But he’d already rung off, her last words addressed to empty air as slowly she replaced the receiver, seeing in her mind his distraught face hovering before her.

She and James had dropped everything to be at Mabel’s side, shocked by how she looked; scarcely heeding them she lay there, face flushed, eyes when she chanced to open them, heavy with pain, all the while her head moving slowly from side to side as if to alleviate the misery she was in.

They sat around her bed feeling utterly useless, murmuring words of encouragement that seemed to go unheard. Occasionally she came to herself enough to look at them and mutter, ‘I’m sorry . . . I’m being such a nuisance to everyone . . .’

‘No, you’re not,’ James told her each time.

‘I don’t know . . . I don’t . . . mean to be . . .’ she would gasp. Then on being told she was not at all a nuisance, she would lapse back into semi-consciousness to sigh and moan and twist her head from side to side.

The doctor was there constantly, a nurse too, who would shoo them out of the bedroom in order to attend the patient. Sadly they would go home after hours spent just gazing down at her when allowed, the next day to return to the same procedure.

All the while, Madeleine found herself looking time and time again at Anthony, feeling helpless at the despair and fear in his eyes when her gaze caught his. It made her cringe with sadness to see the way he’d shake his head in defeat, almost imperceptibly.

During one of their daily visits, unable to stand it any longer she excused herself and hurried away downstairs seeking the silence of the library to regain command of a sudden onslaught of emotion.

To her relief Anthony had followed her. Now he stood by the door, his body taut.

‘It doesn’t look good, does it?’ he questioned from where he stood. ‘I don’t really know what to do.’

Impulsively she came towards him, needing to comfort. ‘Darling . . .’ But as she made to kiss him, he drew away.

‘No . . . not at the moment!’ he exclaimed and turning went out of the room, leaving her standing alone.

It was so abrupt a reaction that it shocked her, leaving her in despair as she stared at the closed door. It was over – their time together, their affair. His mother was dying, he was already grieving, and she had been foolish enough to think he’d respond to her kiss, take her in his arms; maybe go further in their love for each other. She was an utter fool! In one unthinking, selfish move she had terminated their affair.

Gazing at the closed door, unable to bring herself to return upstairs, to face him, she on one side of his mother’s bed, he on the other, never again to be as they had been to each other, would be unbearable.

A little while later James came to get her. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’ he asked. ‘You rushed from the room so quickly I was worried for you.’

‘I didn’t want to cry in front of Mabel and Anthony,’ she lied. ‘He has enough to worry about without me breaking out in a flood of tears.’

‘That was so kind and thoughtful of you, my dear,’ he said tenderly.

‘No, it’s just that I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, the only one crying.’

‘It was still a tender thought, my dear. Anyway it’s time we left. Mabel needs to rest and sleep. And Anthony needs some privacy. Mabel’s sister and her husband are coming later and I think he may need some time to himself first.’

She nodded, now wanting only to be away. Leaving James to say their goodbyes she tried not to feel troubled while at the same time feeling relieved that Anthony hadn’t come down to see them off; having to face him after what had transpired between them would have destroyed her.

His mother died just a week later. It had happened so quickly. They had not been there when it happened. They were notified not by Anthony but one of his mother’s staff arriving to hand them a note from him, the wording almost cold in its content: ‘Mother passed away early hours this morning in her sleep. Anthony.’