Lettice & Victoria (7 page)

Chapter 5

T
he exhibition was only two weeks away. Roland never returned to the subject of postponing it and spent nearly all his time in the garden. The guest list was taking shape. The problems had become more complicated since Lettice had decided to give a small dinner party for intimate friends at the Ritz Hotel after the show.

She was not sure what to say to Victoria about this.

She rehearsed. ‘Darling, I refuse to let you tire yourself just for a silly dinner. It would be different if Edgar could have been there to look after you.’ Edgar had to be abroad on his printing-ink round. Victoria was certain to smoke between courses. Also, there had been that puzzling moment with Archie Thorne; something conspiratorial that spooked her. A complicity. He was expected to come to the dinner party and she did not wish to hear a repeat of their shared laughter.

A timid neighbour called to her from the window. Belinda, shrinking as she always did from self-assertion, had left her car
on the road outside the garden boundary. She was the pretty daughter of an East Anglian rural dean and had been trained to believe in humility – a training from which she sometimes reared to relieve herself. That afternoon she wanted to take a cutting from one of Lettice’s roses. Lettice, much pleased, said, ‘How lovely for me to picture a bloom from my canary bird in your ravishing little garden. Nowhere could it fall on
happier
ground. To me canary bird is the symbol of summer and sunshine.’

When the cutting had been taken, although neither woman had the faintest idea if the time of year was right, Lettice invited Belinda to come indoors. She needed advice about the London dinner party.

Picking up a preliminary list, roughly written (bold italics kept for best), she waved at an armchair.

‘I really don’t know if I’m coming or going. The whole thing is a complete nightmare. So many people will be hurt. What can one do? I know that you and Jack will understand
perfectly
. We see so much of you down here that there’s hardly any point in meeting in the beastly hurly-burly of London. Are our less sophisticated neighbours going to see it in the same sensible way? You can help me here. If we don’t ask you (and you are known to be our closest country friends) then the
others
will be sure to accept it. What do you think?’

Belinda, aghast at being excluded, was too baffled and
furious
to answer.

Lettice’s words came breathlessly.

‘I can see that you, darling, agree with me entirely. I am
going to give a cosy little dinner party here as soon as we get back from London. You and Jack will be guests of honour and I promise to remember every ridiculous detail of the evening to amuse you all.’

Chapter 6

V
ictoria opened her letters. One was from Laurence. It gave her a turn to see her new name and address written in
squared-off
letters on an envelope with Italian stamps on it and written in Mungo Craddock’s hand. Dictated by Laurence.

‘My dear Victoria. I was overjoyed to hear the news that you are to become a mother. Not something you will do
twenty-four
times, I imagine. You are much missed here but I am very well looked after by Mungo.’

She pictured Mungo sitting, oiling up, prosy and pompous, beard twisted in watch chain.

‘He has promised to stay with me for ever. We would
welcome
a visit from you at any time. Elena has been giving
trouble
by regularly handing in her notice. She cries, poor dear, and nobody can get to the bottom of it. Perhaps you will drop her a line?’

Victoria had never seen Archie Thorne’s writing but had no doubt as to who the second letter came from. Black ink swirled
over a thick envelope. She saved it up – dealing first with
Laurence
’s and writing to Elena.

‘My dear Victoria,’ Archie started, ‘Harold and I are going to Roland’s exhibition. I write to say that I very much hope – and expect – to see you there. Lettice is giving a supper party afterwards at the Ritz – a place you are familiar with, no doubt. This is simply to say how much I hope to be placed next to you there. In great haste. Much love. Archie.’

A third letter was from Lettice.

‘Darling. Oh! How beastly it must be for you. I remember it all so well. Do believe me when I tell you that it doesn’t last for ever. And oh! What a miracle to look forward to! Now.
Prepare
yourself! I am going to be rather bossy! After the
exhibition
Roland and I are giving a tiny duty dinner party at the Ritz Hotel. I am simply determined that you should go home beforehand – especially since dear Edgar has to be abroad. I know he would never forgive me if I allowed you to tire
yourself
just for that. Please don’t argue. I know that we try to please each other. This is why I speak bluntly. No nonsense now! All my love and thoughts go out to you at this exciting moment in your young life. Your devoted mother-in-law. Lettice.’

Victoria forwarded Lettice’s letter to Archie. Then she wrote to Lettice saying that she would not dream of deserting her or Roland on this important occasion and that they could count on her presence at the Ritz.

Before he left for his business trip, she spoke to Edgar of her meeting with Archie in Piccadilly.

‘You are lucky to have known him all your life. I wish he was
my uncle or godfather or something with a label. I will never expect to be anything as exalted as his friend.’

‘Why not? We could ask him here any time. I suppose my mother might be disconcerted.’

Lettice was certainly disconcerted when Victoria’s
letter
arrived. She now thoroughly mistrusted her. Sweeping through the dusty drawing room to a corner where the daffodil telephone lived surrounded by chaotic papers on her desk, she dialled Belinda’s number.

‘I long to know if you’ve heard how the Grants and the Woolies have taken it. I dread hurting their feelings and I’m counting on you and Jack to smooth it all over for me.’

Belinda’s vexation had festered and, encouraged by her
husband
, she had done all in her power to incite the fury of the other slighted neighbours.

‘Another thing, Belinda, and I wouldn’t say this to anyone but you, but I am in the most awful dilemma about Victoria. Being family, she assumes that she is included in the little
dinner
after the opening. I wrote to tell her that she must on no account come. I am worried that she might tire herself. Now she replies that she wouldn’t dream of missing it. What am I to do next?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m being silly but I don’t understand the problem.’

‘I can’t have explained it properly. Everything is so frantic with such a short time to go. The problem is simple. What can I do about preventing Victoria from coming to the dinner?’

‘Why do you want to prevent her?’

‘Apart from her health – which is, of course, the main
reason
, I have to admit (but again to no one but you) that perhaps I am just a tiny bit protective about her in other ways. She is such a pet and I think it would be cruel to throw her in at the deep end quite so soon. I couldn’t bear to see her humiliated beside so many intellectuals – for Edgar’s sake as much as for her own.’

Belinda offered no advice and her voice faded on a less humble note than was usual.

Chapter 7

L
ettice wrote to Victoria again.

‘Darling. I cannot tell you how touched I was by your
adorable
letter. Families are such wonderful things. Nothing will ever replace them and Roland and I are so grateful to learn how strongly you want to become one of ours. I was determined from the start that you should not be overstrained by the
exhibition
and I made up my mind – long before your darling letter came. In fact, so determined was I that I had already made up a party of ten. You know the hatefulness of our financial
position
. Ten is the very maximum we can afford so there must be no more of your sweet selflessness. All my love and gratitude. I can’t wait for this dreadful business to be over so that I can concentrate on your darling babe.’

In his college lodgings, Archie Thorne perused his mail. He put two letters to one side after reading those from the larger pile, sent for his secretary and asked her to deal with them.

Victoria’s letter said, ‘It is now certain that I won’t be sitting
next to you at the Ritz. Lettice is convinced that it would be bad for my health. It seems that it will do me no harm,
however
, to go to the crowded cocktail party beforehand so
perhaps
I’ll see you there? Much love. Victoria.’

Lettice’s letter was short.

‘Dearest Archie. The great day draws near! It is sweet of you and Harold to say that you will come and support us at the Ritz dinner. The table is booked for eight thirty sharp so don’t dally at the party. How I wish it were all over! What one will do for art’s sake! Fondest love. Lettice.’

Archie slid both letters across the mahogany table. Harold read them with an expression of pain.

‘Oh dear. It is certainly unfortunate. But, then, it is hard to put oneself into either position.’

Victoria could not squeeze into anything suitable. A friend arrived with a choice of loose frocks. They picked out a mauve one with a low-cut neckline.

The friend said, ‘Let’s buy mauve stockings and shoes. You’ll look terrific.’

After locking her car, Victoria ran along the street towards the gallery. Her dread of the gathering was great and she was urged forward by nervous courage. Stopping for a while on the pavement, she peeped in through the window. Inside, at the foot of a staircase, there was a table covered by a white cloth. The staircase led to an upper level and a white-coated man stood behind the table handing out glasses as a grim group walked past her and turned into the gallery. One after another they stopped at a small table just inside the door to sign their
names in a visitor’s book. A record of the great event.
Something
for Lettice’s memoirs. Victoria followed them but didn’t add her name.

Before she secured a drink, Lettice caught sight of her. They kissed. Two figures dressed in mauve.

‘Darling. It’s too extraordinary. It shows what a great affinity we must have. Robert. Come and meet my daughter-in-law.’

The painter beamed. ‘But she’s one of my favourite girls. Jolly good at watercolours, too. Roland must be pleased about that.’

Lettice knew nothing of Victoria and watercolours but
managed
a smile through taut lips.

Robert Stratton had stayed once, and only for a night or two, with Laurence at the villa on his way to Rome. He had encouraged her as she sketched on the terrace.

Happy to find a sympathiser there, Victoria asked him when he had arrived in London.

Lettice, as exotically got up as she had planned to be, silenced her.

‘Now, dearest. I am going to talk to Robert. I haven’t seen him for months and living, as I do, under a curtain of moss and ivy, probably won’t see him for months to come.’

There was a whirl in Victoria’s head. She stepped back and it came to her that she was not only obscuring a picture of a thrush but possibly damaging it as well. She turned round and examined it. It was an unusual example of Roland’s work since it included a human figure. On her first visit to The Keep he had asked her if she would sit for him. She had sat for many
hours under a cedar tree. The thrush had flown away. He had been painted in advance. Now she remembered how
peaceful
it had been and how stirred she had been by the attention. Maybe she only liked old men. The painting did not seem, to her, to be a very good one. The hands were badly drawn and the eyelashes odd; straight rows of twigs.

Archie was suddenly beside her. ‘I see that you came to the exhibition to look at one painting only!’

‘No. It was a mistake. I didn’t know what to do and fell at the nearest point.’

‘I hope you don’t expect me to understand a word of what you are saying. Shall I fetch you a drink?’

Archie had intended to return but was waylaid by a male member of the group that Victoria had followed in to the party. Now that she saw his face, she recognised it as belonging to a man of fame in the world of art. She was not surprised to see how obviously Archie was enjoying the encounter, nor was she perplexed at being so quickly forgotten.

She would like to have talked to Harold who was standing, mute, close by but decided not to. They would only look at each other as they had done on that Sunday morning at The Old Keep. His closeness to Archie puzzled and hypnotised her.

Lettice was near; clasping the hand of one of her daughters, a plain girl of nineteen. She drew her towards a smartly dressed young man.

‘I don’t believe you two have ever met.’

They stood face to face until Lettice’s eyes were fixed elsewhere.

Archie collected them together. Lettice, Victoria and Harold.

‘Lettice. This is a wonderful party. I am delighted to see Victoria again and especially pleased to see her so well. She is such a new acquisition for your family that I fear it would be presumptuous of me to ask if I might be placed next to her at dinner.’

Harold turned away as Lettice bridled.

‘Hasn’t Archie got an uncanny instinct for learning one’s secrets? Victoria, you mustn’t be cross with me. I shall have to tell Archie the reason why you have decided to go straight home to bed after the party.’ Brushing his face with a part of her head gear, Lettice whispered news into Archie’s ear.

Victoria went to where Harold stood.

‘I think I could hate Archie.’

‘Yes. Oh dear yes. I understand – but he would never do anything bad enough to make you hate him. I have a great deal of experience to draw on and I know that he would never do anything bad enough for that.’

She stayed by Harold until the party started to disband.

Archie suggested that they sit down together for a few
minutes
on the step of the staircase that led to the upper gallery.

‘You ought not to have been angry with me. I was teasing Lettice. It doesn’t do her any harm. I don’t believe she even notices.’

‘You were teasing me, too – and Harold.’

‘Was I?’

Guests walked past them and out into the street.

When eleven people remained, Lettice went to the step.

‘Archie. We must make haste to the Ritz.’ She wasn’t sure if he listened to her.

‘Did you hear me? We must go to the Ritz. It’s getting late.’

Archie and Victoria were planning a future meeting.

‘You shall come and stay with me in Cambridge. Harold and I will show you the sights.’

What was to be seen of Lettice’s parchment face from under her floppy, flowered hat, was strained and angry. On the verge of blasphemy, she cried, ‘Archie. You must come to the Ritz now whether you like it or not.’