Illusions of Happiness (31 page)

No one, not even Anthony, had ever made her feel like this. Inflamed by his energy, she knew she would give him her last sou to have him take possession of her as he was doing now.

He would never know how he had changed her life. No more attending charity committees, attempting to fill her time, counting the hours when she was alone as she had done after leaving Anthony; no more horrible dreams – they disappeared the moment Ronald moved in permanently on her persuasion just two weeks after that first Christmas; no more trying to plan parties all on her own. She still threw her famous dinner parties and evening parties but more often now she attended other people’s, she and he together.

Out almost every evening, afternoons, weekends, it didn’t matter that he’d hardly a penny to his name while his parents lived half way across the world, well and comfortably off, not one thought for him. He’d never explained why and she never asked, feeling it was probably too painful for him to recall much less talk about, though sometimes she felt curiosity eating at her.

When on one occasion she had tried to question him, that gentle character of his seemed suddenly to change, his face becoming set, his lips tight and grim and his lovely brown eyes hard until she felt alarmed and said no more. Moments later he was his sweet, gentle self again. She never tried to probe again. It was best to let sleeping dogs lie as it were.

What did hurt was seeing him so grateful for everything she did for him, for the things she bought him. She continually found herself assuring him that she enjoyed – no, more than that – loved spending money on him and not to worry about it.

‘I adore doing it, buying you things,’ she told him, ‘seeing how happy you look. I get so much pleasure from the pleasure on your face, my darling. So please, my love, don’t deny me that.’

‘I won’t. But it’s not fair.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling, you deserve it for the joy you’ve given me, the happiness I get out of it, knowing how you were treated in your life.’

He would nod soberly and say no more, sometimes falling quiet which would worry her a little.

But he’d soon perk up and become his old self once more. That was another thing. He never sulked for long, seldom stayed in the doldrums for long. And he made her feel young again. She loved it when his youth showed through. Yet it was his very youthful moments that changed her. He made her feel like a girl in her teens, the two of them going here, there and everywhere, running about like kids playing chase, getting up to silly antics, laughing, always laughing.

It was only when they were alone in bed that maturity took over – in the way he made love; in the way he never allowed himself to be so carried away as to overlook taking care of the precautions needed. Though he usually made it light-hearted, getting her to help him with what was needed; it became a procedure which usually ended in the senses of both being heightened almost to breaking point in their need for each other. Life was so wonderful. He was so good for her. With him nothing would ever go wrong. She was a wealthy woman, lucky with her investments and making money enough for them both.

There’d been a time when she had thought her life was over, that she’d never be happy again. That was now a thing of the past. If she ever thought of Anthony, she’d immediately shrug the thought off, thrust aside that brief second of anger and think of her life now. She was happy. Anthony could do whatever he liked, be wherever he liked, go with whoever he liked; it was no longer any of her business.

Then out of the blue . . . ‘I ran into your Anthony the other day.’

It was February. She and Ronnie, as she often called him, had been together over three years and Anthony was no longer
her
Anthony, despite the woman’s remark. So how could his name suddenly turn her mind back, right out of the blue, to prompt this sudden sharp pang of emotion?

She’d been on the way to her hairdresser’s, wondering why she was bothering in such weather, her head bent against a high wind, not so bad as that reported in the newspapers this time last year, when she’d been stopped by a female voice calling her name.

It belonged to a woman she’d not seen since she and Ronnie had taken up with each other. Gertrude Peel and herself together with several other friends would meet a couple of times a week for morning coffee. They’d all known Anthony and had sympathized with her over the break-up, she feeling entirely alone, grateful for a little company to get her through those long hours. These days she no longer had need of company and coffee mornings.

‘I thought it was you, my dear,’ chirped Gertrude as she came up to her through the thin crowd who’d braved the weather to shop. One hand was holding on to her fashionable domed suede cloche hat lest the wind take it, the brim like a downturned sail, the whole thing almost covering her eyes, not a strand of hair visible. The other held a couple of wide paper bags that threatened to break free from her grasp and sail away on the wind.

Though in her early forties she was dressed like a young flapper: her loose-fitting, wrap-over coat unnecessarily short, its fur collar and cuffs almost drowning her spare frame, its pockets way below the hips. Madeleine also dressed in the height of fashion but she was some ten years younger and still looked well in young clothes. She still did look young and just as well with Ronnie by her side.

‘Delightful to bump into you, my dear,’ Gertrude was saying, ‘and so unexpected. Simply ages since I saw you last! But what terrible weather,’ she twittered on, seeming ready to start a lengthy conversation. ‘This awful wind – almost as bad as last year after that awful winter we had – all that snow. And that flooding they had then, all those poor people washed out of their homes. Still that was last year. But you, my dear – you look so well, so wonderful. I heard about you and that new young man of yours. I must say, from looking at you, he seems to be doing you a power of good.’

Madeleine nodded, but Gertrude was still rattling on. ‘We must have coffee again some time. I still see several of the old faces – we still meet. But perhaps you’re too busy these days. You would appear so low spirited when we used to meet. But you had reason to be didn’t you, poor thing?’

Hardly pausing for breath, she went on, ‘By the way, I ran into your Anthony the other day. He seems to be getting on well too – with a lovely girl. We had a brief chat. They looked very happy and settled, and so it seems are you, my dear, from what I hear and—’

‘Sorry, but I have to go, Gertrude,’ Madeleine cut in. ‘I’m late for my hairdressers.’ She saw Gertrude beam widely.

‘Hardly worth it this weather. But do let us catch up with each other again, have coffee and a chat. I’ll tell the others I met you. I am still at the same address, dear, so you can always get in touch. See you soon then.’

‘Yes, bye then,’ Madeleine said, hurrying off, Gertrude having leaned towards her to bestow an air kiss just short of her ear.

Pushing through the indifferent shoppers, hardly aware of them or the noise of traffic or the buffeting wind, the hairdresser’s forgotten, she was aware only of this weight on her heart, Anthony’s face, and such a longing to see him again that she was almost on the verge of tears. How could she have walked out on him as she had, let all this time go by until it was too late to ask him to have her back – he was now with someone else; herself forgotten.

By the time she found a taxi to take her home, she’d sternly pulled herself together, set her mind to Ronnie. She had been having a wonderful life these past three years and until Gertrude Peel had spoken to her saw only happiness stretching ahead, everything in the past swept away, all her heartaches behind her, so why was she fretting now?

Even so it was hard not to think of Anthony – he and that young woman whom Gertrude had seen him with. Was marriage on their agenda? Something he had shied away from with her. Did they have their minds on starting a family? Something else that he had made clear he did not exactly look forward to. True, she too had now given up thoughts of children for the time being, having too good a time at the moment, so she could understand how he had felt, enjoying his life too much at the time.

Now the thought crossed her mind that maybe she and Ronnie might move towards a more permanent arrangement. But it couldn’t wait too long. He was twenty-four now but in a couple of months she’d be thirty-three and time was passing. But in broaching the subject, he might back off, saying that he could never afford to get married. To say she’d pay for the wedding would make him feel belittled and what man wouldn’t be? Fine when it was small things like clothes and jewellery and such, but something so very important and showy, she couldn’t see him accepting that.

There was one way out of it. She could arrange for him to come into her stock broker business, or maybe if she invested some money for him. She knew what she was doing here. What they reaped would make him feel easier in his mind, able to put his hand in his wallet for his own money rather than she having to put it there for him in the first place.

A few days later she told him of her plan. Immediately he protested as he usually did whenever she offered to do something for him.

‘All I seem to do is sponge off you,’ he said in that humble tone that always tugged at her heart strings.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she told him. ‘You can’t go anywhere without money in your pocket. And who else can help you on that score – certainly not your parents.’

It was the wrong thing to say, she knew that immediately. ‘I don’t want to talk about them!’ he said sharply, putting an end to it.

This evening they were going to the Savoy to see
The Gondoliers
, he rather liking Gilbert & Sullivan. She’d already bought tickets, good seats, but there’d be drinks to pay for in the interval and supper afterwards. She handed him thirty pounds which as always he took as though it seared his hand, hastily pushing it into his wallet, stuffing the thing into his breast pocket as if it had been stolen.

‘I hate it, having you always giving me money for whatever we do together.’

It was then she made up her mind – she would invest in a few shares for him, just enough so that he wouldn’t have to feel so dependent on her, embarrassed every time she sought to finance him. So long as it didn’t suddenly yield an unexpectedly huge profit as sometimes happens – not often, but possible – suddenly providing him with enough money in his pocket to go off and leave her, maybe for someone else? It could happen. Being left on her own again – she didn’t think she could stand it a second time. . .

She pulled her thoughts up sharp. He wouldn’t do that. Not after all she’d done for him. That night, they made love and she knew her fears were totally unfounded.

Even so, she’d go for small-yielding stock. She knew what she was doing – her eye on one particular small company, its shares modestly on the rise. She had already studied the company, weighed the degree of risk attached very carefully. There was always a certain degree of risk in everything but she herself would stand that, her own portfolio healthy and sound. She’d developed a sort of sixth sense about these things – when to take risks and when not to – and so far she’d always done well, give or take a few minor hiccups.

But where Ronnie was concerned she would be cautious about taking risks, judging carefully when the time was right for him to sell. He must not benefit so much that he’d begin to feel independent of her, start to feel his feet, decide to go off into the blue without her.

She was being silly, of course. He loved her, yet always that fear of once again being left all alone sat on her shoulders. But she was judging him before the act. Her fears were completely unfounded. She only had to see the look in his dark eyes when he gazed at her to know that.

The following day she told him what she aimed to do. His protests allayed her fears even more. ‘I can’t let you do that, Madeleine. Your money . . .’

‘To do with as I like,’ she interrupted. ‘And what I’d like is to see you with a bit of money of your own. Everyone should have money of their own.’

The look of gratitude on his handsome young face made her heart go out to him with all the love in her body.

George Foster, when she told him what she had in mind, was not so happy.

‘I’m virtually your financial adviser as well as your partner,’ he said, ‘and my advice is to think before you do anything. From what you tell me, he seems to take you a little too much for granted for my peace of mind.’

She was shocked by his statement. ‘I thought you liked him. I still remember all the nice things you said about him when you introduced us.’

‘He’s a likeable chap,’ Foster said, sitting at his desk, seeming very much intent on shuffling through papers lying there while she sat on the opposite side of the desk watching the exercise.

‘All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t indulge him so, paying for every little thing,’ he said as he looked up at her.

‘And even after all this time you . . . we . . . don’t know all that much about him. We still don’t know who his parents are or why they never come to see him, though that’s none of my business.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she countered testily.

‘All I wish to do,’ he went on in his quiet voice, ‘is see you OK. I promised James, your late husband and my old partner, that I’d keep an eye on you, make certain you were safe. And it has worked well so far. But this idea of using your own money – not his – to invest in shares in his name and his letting you do it – his reaping the benefit, well, it’s—’

‘This was my idea, not his,’ she cut in.

‘Maybe, my dear, but he’d be better being out there and finding work for himself. Most young men want to stand on their own two feet rather than be beholden to someone else. It does make me wonder.’

‘That’s probably my fault,’ she said huffily.

Having him refer to her as ‘my dear’, the way James used to made her cringe as it had often done when she was with James. But he was still speaking.

‘Millicent and I haven’t seen him since that Christmas we introduced him to you. Then we’d felt sorry for him. We’d befriended him and wanted to help him, a young man little more than a boy, all alone in the world, whose parents appeared to have forsaken him. I expect you felt the same. But now you two seem to be all over each other, you practically keeping him – or so it would look to the world. And now this – it’s too much, my dear.’