Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (23 page)

‘I hope this is all right. I wanted to see her properly.’

‘Of course,’ said Sebastian, ‘put her back when you’ve finished.’ He spoke rather as if the baby were a toy Kit was playing with, or even a tool from the garden shed.

Kit carried Isabella over to his chair, sat her on his knee. ‘She’s so pretty. Everyone’s always saying that, but I couldn’t really see it before. Little babies look quite ugly, I think.’

Sebastian shrugged, picked up the paper.

There was a silence; Kit dangled his tie in front of Isabella’s nose. She grabbed at it, he snatched it away, then tried again. This time she held on. She made the small-baby noise that is halfway between a gurgle and a laugh; Kit laughed too.

‘She’s going to be strong. Look, Sebastian, she’s really hanging on to my tie. Look.’

‘What?’

‘I said look, she’s going to be strong.’

There was a silence while he continued to play with her; then he said, ‘She’s getting hair. I suppose that’s why she looks prettier. It’s going to be like Pandora’s, you can see, same colour.’

Sebastian nodded, scowling at the paper.

‘Her eyes are like Pandora’s too,’ said Kit, ‘exactly. That must be nice for you.’

Sebastian shrugged.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Isn’t it nice? That she looks like Pandora?’

‘Not particularly,’ said Sebastian. He fished into his pocket for a handkerchief, blew his nose.

Kit looked at him very seriously over the baby’s head. ‘I can see how bad you must feel about her,’ he said, ‘that Pandora would be here if she wasn’t.’

‘Kit, can we stop this conversation, please?’

‘Sorry. But—’

‘Kit, I said stop it.’

Kit got up, walked down the garden with Isabella, showing her the apples growing on the tree, pointing out birds singing in the branches; then finally he put her back in her pram and stood looking at Sebastian in silence.

‘I would like to say something about it,’ he said finally.

‘About what?’

‘About Isabella. Henry calls her Izzie, you know. I like that. Better than Bella.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I think I might call her that too. Anyway, like I said, I know she must make you feel bad. But you do have her, don’t you?’

‘I do, yes,’ said Sebastian shortly.

‘Well, I was just thinking that you might not even have her. I mean she might have died too.’

‘Kit, please—’

‘At least you’ve got something of Pandora. Quite a lot really. I think that’s important.’

Sebastian suddenly stood up; his face was white, taut with rage.

‘Shut up,’ he said, and his voice was loud and shaky. ‘Shut up, Kit, will you, at once. I will not have this – this obscene discussion.’

Kit stared at him, half frightened, clearly determined still to stand his ground. ‘It’s not obscene. I was only trying to help. I—’

‘Well you are doing precisely the opposite. It is nothing to do with you and I find it appalling to hear you talking in those crass terms about something you can’t possibly begin to understand. There is nothing of Pandora left to me, absolutely nothing. Certainly not in – in that child.’ He glanced at the pram. ‘Now if you can’t stop this, please leave. And don’t come back until you’ve learned a little sense.’

Kit met his eyes steadily. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry, Sebastian. Very sorry. Of course I don’t understand. I couldn’t. Maybe I should go now. But please let me go on coming to see you. I do love it here. I promise I won’t talk about it any more.’

Sebastian sighed. Then he lowered himself into his chair very slowly and painfully as if he were an old man and said with infinite weariness, ‘Yes, yes, of course you can come. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted at you. Go and ask Cook for another pot of tea, will you?’

‘And some more of that wizard cake?’ said Kit hopefully.

That night the nanny came to knock at the study door as she always did at Isabella’s bedtime.

‘The baby is just going to sleep, Mr Brooke. I wondered if you wanted to say good night to her.’

He looked at her and said nothing at first; then, ‘Nurse, I would be grateful if we could stop this nightly performance. I have no desire to say goodnight to the baby. I hope she sleeps well for your sake.’

She stood there, flushed, visibly shaken; quite unable to find anything within her training or even her own instincts that supplied an appropriate response. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘well, good night Mr Brooke.’

‘It’s just dreadful,’ she said later that night to Mrs Conley, Sebastian’s housekeeper, over a late-night cup of cocoa. ‘I don’t know what to do. I really feel I can’t go on working here in this atmosphere. He appears to literally hate that child. It’s dreadful – wicked, if you ask me.’

‘It is dreadful,’ said Mrs Conley, ‘but if you’d seen him and Mrs Brooke together, seen how he loved her, you’d maybe understand. He simply worshipped her. I’ve never seen a man change as he did when she came into his life. Nothing seemed to matter to him except her; her and his writing of course. Thank God he’s still got that.’

‘It’s all very well. But a child needs one parent at least. I dread to think what’s going to happen as she grows up.’

‘Maybe he’ll come round,’ said Mrs Conley, without a great deal of conviction in her voice. ‘I don’t know if it’s going to help or hinder things that she’s so like her mother. Extraordinary it is, same eyes, same hair colour, same smile. Anyway, please don’t leave, Nanny. You’re all she’s got at the moment, poor little lamb. You and me of course. And young Kit, he seems to be very devoted to her. Funny in a small boy.’

Nanny said it was unusual but that Kit seemed to her wise beyond his years and of course she would stay as long as she could, but it was very difficult for her. ‘It’s like a household where the parents are quarrelling all the time – only worse.’

She sighed and went back up to the night nursery to check on Isabella. She was asleep on her back with one arm thrown above her head and the other wrapped tenderly round her own neck, her head nestled into her own hand. Sebastian could have told her Pandora had slept in exactly the same position . . .

CHAPTER 11

‘She’s called Helena. Helena Duffield Brown. She’s twenty-five. Her father’s a businessman. They live in Chelsea. Anything else?’ Giles looked at his mother defensively.

‘Darling, there’s no need to sound so touchy. I only wondered who she was. As you seemed so very taken with her the other night.’

‘Mother, I danced with her once or twice.’

‘Five times, actually,’ said Adele, her eyes dancing.

‘Oh, shut up. I’ve got to get to the office, see Edgar about the crime list.’

‘I thought Barty was in charge of the crime list?’

‘The editorial content, yes. The sales projections, no.’

‘And what are the sales projections, Giles?’

‘Mother, I don’t know yet. I have to talk to Edgar. Now please excuse me.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Celia when he’d gone, ‘he is absurdly touchy.’

‘You should leave him alone more,’ said Adele quietly. ‘Trust him to do his job.’

‘Adele, when and if you work at Lyttons instead of running around after that photographer, you will be qualified to comment on how it is run. Until then—’

‘Sorry. Let’s talk about Helena. He’s obviously quite taken with her. It’s nice. First girl it’s ever happened with. Except – well, yes, first girl.’

‘Except who, Adele?’

‘Oh – I was going to say Barty, but of course she doesn’t count.’

‘This extraordinary obsession you girls have that Giles is in love with Barty really does baffle me. And of course she doesn’t count. She’s family – virtually. He couldn’t possibly feel like that about her.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Adele, ‘she’s very pretty. And she’s not family, virtually or otherwise.’

‘Well of course she’s not. And yes, she is pretty. But – well, it’s absurd. A nonsense. Now that girl, Duffield Brown, she seems quite suitable. Pleasant looking, although a little on the large size.’ She was silent, then said suddenly, ‘You don’t suppose her father’s Leslie Duffield Brown?’

‘I have no idea. Venetia probably would. Why?’

‘He’s a dreadful man. Made his money in the war out of scrap metal, still angling for a knighthood. I don’t think we would want him in the family.’

‘Mummy, Giles has only danced with the poor girl. Let’s not worry about her father joining the family yet.’

‘He is Leslie Duffield Brown, yes,’ said Venetia. ‘Dreadful man, really common, as Mummy would say, and a bit lechy by all accounts. She’s even worse, to my mind, a real gorgon, but slightly more socially OK, even managed to get Helena presented at court. Ouch, that hurt, I swear this baby’s got teeth already.’

‘She’s sweet,’ said Adele smiling at Elspeth’s small dark head. ‘Is it nice to have a daughter?’

‘It’s wonderful. I can’t wait to start buying her frocks.’

‘Poor little Izzie,’ said Adele soberly. ‘I wish someone thought it was wonderful to have her. It’s a hideous problem.’

‘Have you been there lately?’

‘Not really. Sebastian is quite – odd about visitors. He doesn’t really like us going to see Izzie, it annoys him, and he’s at our house so often, I don’t have an excuse to go. But Barty often pops in, she’s got the excuse, with proofs and things, and she says Izzie’s so sweet now, running about, chattering nineteen to the dozen and Sebastian hardly speaks to her, never sits with her when she’s having her meals, stays indoors if she’s in the garden. She’s just growing up without anyone to love her.’

‘Pandora would be so—’

‘I know. Absolutely. Oh dear. It’s nearly her birthday, isn’t it, and of course that makes it worse for Sebastian, what sort of a day will she have—’

‘I’ll ask her here,’ said Venetia, ‘the boys like her, well Henry does, I can give her a little birthday tea. I’m sure Sebastian would agree to that.’

‘I hope so. It’s a sweet idea. We can have Kit round too. He adores her. He’s always there, he’s the only normal contact she has. Sebastian seems to allow him to bridge the gap.’

‘She’ll miss him when he goes to school next year. Roo, don’t do that, the baby’s not a doll.’

Her second son, christened William, but named Roo months before his birth due to his kangaroo-like tencencies
in utero
, removed his small hands from his sister’s neck and walked over to the rocking horse and shook it violently.

‘Off, Henry.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘No. Stop it, ow, Mummy, he’s hurting me, tell him to leave me alone.’

‘Boys! Stop it. Adele, shout for Nanny, would you – oh, Nanny, there you are, can you take these boys for their walk? I can’t stand this fighting when I’m trying to settle Elspeth. Thank you. Bye, boys. See you at lunch. Oh Adele! Whatever is it like to be just you, just a person, not a mothering machine?’

‘Lonely,’ said Adele briefly.

‘Really? What—’

‘No, only sometimes.’

‘Nobody, you even—?’

‘Not really.’

‘It’s quite lonely being me sometimes too, you know,’ said Venetia, her large dark eyes heavy.

‘How are things with Boy?’

‘Oh – all right. I just don’t feel – he cares about me any more. He doesn’t realise how tired I am, or – I mean this evening, just for example, he asked me if I’d like to go to the opera. The opera! I ask you. I hate the opera. He ought to know that by now.’

‘Of course he should. Anyway, it goes on for about five hours, if it’s the Wagner. Mummy’s going. Now I’ve got to find some candlesticks. See you this evening. If Boy’s out I’ll stay.’

She dropped a kiss on her sister’s head; when she looked back, Venetia was alternately stroking the small Elspeth’s head and wiping her eyes.

‘I suppose it proves something,’ said Oliver with a sigh.

‘Only how the prize has become denigrated.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what would you say if Guy Worsley had won it?’

‘What, the Nobel prize? For
The Buchanans
? Exactly the same thing. It’s too absurd. When there is so much fine writing. I would have given it to Waugh in preference to Galsworthy.’

‘Celia, I don’t think the Nobel prize goes to satirical writers. But I won’t argue with you. Certainly the Sitwells are more deserving, any one of them. Anyway, one day we’ll win that prize. I did think, though—’

‘I know. It’s such a magnificent book. Never mind, it simply shows the judges up as fools.’

One of Lyttons’ newly acquired authors, Nancy Arthure, a novelist in the Virginia Woolf mould, had written a superb multi-layered book, brilliantly reviewed, about a group of women in the war years entitled
Remember Them
. Oliver had seen Arthure as a serious possibility for the Nobel prize; he was bitterly disappointed.

‘Another year,’ said Celia, kissing him gently. Such gestures were rare for her; it was a measure of her understanding of his professional grief. It was also one of the many things that still bound them together. ‘Now I have to go home and change,’ she said, suddenly brisker, moving away from him.

‘Where are you going, in the middle of the afternoon?’

‘Oh, Oliver, I’m sure I told you! To Covent Garden. It starts at 5.15. It was so very fortunate for me, that Cynthia Arden was indisposed.’

‘Hardly fortunate for poor Cynthia. But yes, of course.
Götterdämmerung
. It should be very fine. I envy you.’

‘Oliver, you slept through
Rheingold
last month. It would be very discourteous to repeat the performance. And no sympathy for Cynthia, she doesn’t really like opera and hates coming up from the country. The slightest cold and she cries off. It’s so hard on poor Bunny.’

It was a superb night at Covent Garden. It was the last night of the 1932 Wagner festival: the house was filled with the most discerning and determined of opera aficionados. Frida Leider was singing Brunhilde, Lauritz Melchior Siegfried, Sir Thomas Beecham was conducting. Everyone who was anyone in society was also there; the audience was not confined to opera aficionados. It was an excuse to see and be seen, to meet and gossip, to entertain and be entertained.

It was a visual delight as well; in a world where increasingly men wore dinner jackets to the theatre, the panorama of white tie and tails, of long dresses, of fine jewellery, even – despite the warm weather – of fur wraps and stoles and jackets – was a pleasure in itself to those who cared about such things. And those comprised much of the audience to whom those were values of the most important sort and by whom standards could be seen to be magnificently upheld.

Of course there was a Depression out there, although it was affecting the poor a great deal more than the rich; and not for nothing had
Vogue
advised, ‘If you haven’t lost money pretend you have.’ Ostentatious wealth in the old sense was somehow unseemly; interiors were sleek and modern, clothes much more simply styled, people bought from the British couturiers and the most surprising people were working, most notably Lady Diana Cooper with her Berkeley Square flower shop.

But tonight, ostentation was the word.

Lady Celia Lytton, sweeping the glittering audience with her opera glasses just as the lights went down and Sir Thomas walked towards the rostrum, suddenly saw Boy Warwick slipping late into a box accompanied by a young woman in a white dress. She could see little more than that, and the fact that the girl had dark hair; no doubt Boy had assumed no one would notice them. In which case he was more of a fool than she would have suspected. It was an extremely crass thing to do, to take a woman who was not his wife to Covent Garden on such a night. She felt a swell of violent rage on Venetia’s behalf; discreet adultery was one thing, confronting London society with a mistress was quite another.

It was unlike Boy, in fact; very unlike him. Apart from his frequent absences from the house and Venetia’s own instincts, there had never been any proof whatever that he was not a perfectly faithful husband. She would go and seek him out at the interval, and make her displeasure very firmly felt. The two of them were alone in the box, she could see that; and as the overture swelled, the girl leaned over to see better and a fine, rather strong profile was etched against the lighted stage. It was not a face she recognised, but . . . Celia turned her attention to the stage, settled herself determinedly into the pleasure of the music. Time and the interval would no doubt reveal a great deal.

Boy Warwick was not only a great opera lover, he found the audience extraordinarily interesting as well. As the audience settled into stillness and the first act, he took out his opera glasses to look around . . . What a night: everyone, everyone was here. It had been an act of madness to come. But – well, he had his reasons. And they had come in so late, he had timed it terribly carefully. No one could have seen them.

Suddenly, he saw his mother-in-law in the box almost opposite. Now that was bad luck. He had checked if she was going, for he knew she loved Wagner and she had told him she wasn’t; it was one of the reasons he had dared to risk it. She must have been invited at the last minute. Well – either she had seen him or she hadn’t, there was no going back now. And perhaps she hadn’t, she did appear completely engrossed in the music.

She was not with Oliver; that was not surprising, he did not enjoy the opera. More surprising – and indeed intriguing – was that her companion was Lord Arden, one of the Mosley set, a close friend of Oswald Mosley himself and an enthusiastic follower of his new Fascist party, and its promise of ‘something new, something dangerous’. If Celia were to become engaged with those politics and that set, given the power she had to disseminate information and ideas, it could be very interesting indeed.

The first act ended; Celia made an excuse to Lord Arden and moved round to Boy’s box.

It was empty: and its occupants did not return for the duration of the opera.

Giles was working very hard at being in love with Helena Duffield Brown. It wasn’t entirely difficult. She was very pretty, with curly brown hair and her large brown eyes, and she had a good figure: she might not be as thin and elegant as the twins, or as – well, as lots of young women, but he rather liked her style. She had an unfashionably full bosom and a small waist, and as a consequence, tended to wear slightly more womanly clothes, two-piece suits during the day with belted jackets or slightly waisted jersey dresses; even her evening clothes were shaped to her body, didn’t sort of slither past it as the twins’ dresses did. And then she was very intelligent; she hadn’t been to university, but she had passed her matriculation very well, and did some translating work for her father, whose company sold its aluminium pots and pans all over Europe.

Even more important to Giles was the fact that Helena seemed to find him very intelligent. She was passionately interested in current affairs, read the newspapers carefully, and listened intently to the news on the wireless as well. She would often ask Giles what he thought about all the events of the day, the state of the economy, the problem of the unemployed, the wisdom or otherwise of having a coalition government, the growth of the Fascist movement in Germany, and made it clear to him that his opinions were of immense importance to her.

She was just a little younger than Barty, and he was constantly surprised and relieved that she wasn’t married or even engaged. She was also rather old-fashioned, and the fact that she didn’t have a job meant that she saw a more conventional role for herself than – well, than lots of modern young women. Indeed, she had told him, and rather earnestly, that she considered marriage and motherhood the true career for a woman – ‘this modern way can’t work, in my view. A family needs someone at its heart, with its interests at her heart; anything different causes confusion and has to be unsatisfactory.’ Giles, while being rather taken with this view, trembled to think what his mother might have to say about it.

He wanted to love someone and be loved by them in return more than anything in the world. All his life he had been looking for that and failing to find it; he had been, he knew, a disappointment to his mother from early childhood, nice looking but not beautiful and charming like the twins, not brilliant like Kit, not interesting like Barty. Just good old solid Giles; doing all right now at Lyttons but never showing any originality, a rather doubtful asset at the family dinner table, never amusing and full of gossip like Boy – he knew his mother forgave Boy much for his ability to amuse – certainly not noted for his sporting prowess like young Jay. Outside the family he was less confident still, aware that he did not live up to the Lytton magic, either their social success or their professional brilliance.