The Snow Globe (14 page)

Daisy wanted to ask Iris about the sex side of things, how that would work, how she would be able to
not
have children—a baby—if she had a lover. Iris appeared not to have thought this through properly, and it concerned Daisy, because living in sin was one thing, but a baby out of wedlock was quite another. She pictured a rotund Iris trundling down the road toward Birch Grove, the nearby home for unmarried mothers, her small suitcase in one hand, her cigarette holder and a Turkish blend in the other.

“I don't believe in sex outside of marriage,” said Daisy, staring straight ahead, toward the window. “It's not fair on the children.”

Iris turned to her. “What
are
you on about now?”

Daisy looked back at her sister, wide-eyed. “The
children
, Iris, the babies . . . the babies born from sex outside of marriage who then have to be put into homes . . . And don't laugh! It's wrong to start making babies when you're not married and can't give them a proper home.”

Iris had not laughed, but she had put her hand to her mouth to cover her smile. “Oh, darling,” she said, still smiling, unable not to, and taking hold of Daisy's hand. “I forget, I forget that there's still so much you don't know.”

Daisy got up off the bed. Iris could be so patronizing sometimes. She went over to the window, opened it and threw out the cigarette. It was dark outside, but the tall lamps lining the driveway and along the front terrace were already lit, ready for their guests and further illuminating the unusually bright snow-covered garden. A hard frost had formed over the top of the snow, making it sparkle like diamonds under the lights. Christmas Eve: It all looked
magical, Daisy thought, only half listening to Iris, who was saying something about them having to have a little chat if she came up to live with her in London.

“Oh, really,” said Daisy absently. “About what?”

“Something called a Dutch cap, darling. You need to know.”

“Dutch what?” said Daisy.

“Contraception. How to avoid getting pregnant . . . There's a fabulous woman called Dr. Stopes who's set up clinics to teach women like you—like us,” she quickly added, “how to avoid all of that.”

“Oh yes,” said Daisy, “I think I may have read about her in
Modern Woman
.”

“I say, does Mummy know you read that magazine? I'm not sure she'd approve.”

Daisy turned to her sister. “Mummy buys it for me.”

“Gulp,” said Iris. “Things have certainly moved on
here
.

“So, Valentine Vincent . . . ,” Iris began again after a moment. “What do you make of him? I rather think he has potential.”

Daisy sat down on the chair by her desk. “I'm not sure,” she said.

“Why not sure? He's quite a dish . . .”

“A, he has a rather silly name, and B, he's Daddy's tart's son.”

“She's not a tart,” Iris responded quickly.

“Yes, she is. She's having an affair with a married man . . . She's a tart.”

Iris climbed off the bed. She was wearing her dark gray wide-legged trousers—the ones their mother had gasped at—with a green silk shirt and striped tie. She wore a bandanna around her dark hair, cut and shingled by someone
terrifically expensive
called
Marcel at Harrods, and bright pink lipstick and matching nails. She looked completely marvelous to Daisy: so modern and defiant, and so very London, Daisy thought.

Lily claimed Iris dressed that way simply to annoy Howard, who abhorred women in trousers, and perhaps it was true, because when Iris had appeared in her trousers, shirt
and
tie at breakfast that day Howard had simply stared at the tie with a very thin mouth, in a sort of silent apoplectic rage. The tie, Daisy thought, had been a step too far for him, and a wonderfully brave step on the part of Iris, who had no time for nonchalance. She despised passivity, adored intensity in all things and had once told Daisy that she intended to have a full and reckless life. She seemed to have no concern for danger or, sometimes, for others.

“The thing with you,” Iris said now, “is that you want everything to be neat and tidy. The goodies and the baddies, black and white . . . and it simply doesn't work that way, darling. There are gray areas. There are things you don't yet understand.”

“Like what?”

“Like marriage.”

“What do you mean?

“Well, you probably still think married people love each other.”

“And don't they?”

Iris shook her head. “Most of them simply pretend.”

“But they must like each other, surely. In order to get married in the first place.”

“No, not necessarily.”

“They must at least admire and respect each other . . .”

Iris laughed. “I don't think so.”

“And our parents?”

“Hmm, potentially finished. It could end in divorce.”

Divorce.
The universe rocked once more. Daisy's life flashed before her: She saw herself in a short dress and lipstick handing out bowls of soup to a queue of middle-aged women, including her mother; she saw Howard, unshaven and begging on the streets; she saw Eden Hall with a leaning, cobweb-covered
FOR SALE
sign at the bottom of the driveway. Divorce? It meant only one thing: ruination. Nothing would be the same.

Iris was still speaking, saying something about
it
no longer having quite the same stigma it once had, that
it
was becoming more accepted and had even become quite fashionable in America, or so she'd heard.

Daisy steadied herself. Divorce. She hadn't thought of it. The only person she knew—had heard of—who was divorced was the woman who'd recently moved into a cottage near the crossroads. She didn't even have a name, was simply referred to as the Divorcée. Like a fairground attraction, the Fat Lady in the tent on the promenade at Southsea or the Man with Twelve Toes, the woman was a novelty: both fascinating and to be pitied.

“Don't look so shell-shocked,” said Iris. “I was being a little flippant. But it's good to be prepared.”

“Nothing is certain,” Daisy said shakily.

“Of course. And it's up to Mabel, really, and depends on what she wants to do.”

“Do?”

“Yes, whether she wants to continue here—with her life as it is. It was different when we were young, but we're all grown up, and
you'll leave soon enough; she must know that. She'll be here on her own. I imagine she's pondering on it all and considering her future.”

“What do you think . . . What do you think she'll decide?”

“I really don't know. And that's the truth, darling. But you need to open your eyes. It's time for you to grow up, to know and accept that . . . well, that nothing is perfect. Nothing is black and white. Everything is gray . . . Undecided,” she added, smiling tenderly now at Daisy.

Yes, time to grow up, decisions to be made, Daisy thought; a whole life to be forged, new people to be met . . . Suddenly, it all seemed impossibly exhausting. Iris stared back at her, reached out and took hold of her hand. “Don't frown so, dear. It'll give you lines,” she said. “But do try not to be quite so judgmental. And don't damn women just because men use them. We're all at their mercy one way or another; we're all of us tarts when it comes to our fortune with men. And as for Margot,” she went on, quieter, glancing away, “well, she's hardly a tart, and we don't really know her, what she's like, or why she and Howard are—”

“Fucking?” interrupted Daisy.

Iris gasped, then laughed. “You are naughty,” she said. She released Daisy's hand and moved toward the door. “We'd better get a move on.”

“The bell hasn't gone yet, has it?”

“It went ages ago.”

“But what about Ben? You haven't said . . . Do you rate him?”

“As a
gofer
, yes; as your future husband”—Iris shrugged her shoulders—“not really. But it all depends on what you want, Dodo. See,
gray
! It's all gray.”

“I want to be in love.”

“Ha, you can't make
that
happen just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Or if you do, I can guarantee it'll be a disaster.”

“But he's a decent enough sort, isn't he? . . . Ben, I mean.”

“Go with the blue,” Iris said, and left the room.

Mabel had decided on silver-gray crepe de chine and pearls. Not the Cartier pearl and diamond choker Howard had presented her with on the occasion of their twentieth wedding anniversary, but the Tahitian black pearls Reggie had presented to her earlier that day.

Now, standing in front of the long mirror in her dressing room, with Nancy—once
her
maid, now her housekeeper—looking on, she allowed herself to smile back at her reflection. She reached up to the strands of pearls Nancy had fastened at her neck and then fussed over and arranged about her bosom.

“They are rather lovely, aren't they?” said Mabel, feeling the perfect imperfection of the pearls beneath her fingers.

“Oh yes, and I have to say, ma'am, I don't think I've ever seen you looking lovelier.”

Nancy was being kind, Mabel thought, because years ago she had surely been lovelier. And she wished for a moment that Reg had known her
then
, in that time of youthful loveliness, so that he had a memory of it, of her. Instead, Howard had all the memories, and they were quite wasted on him. And yet it pleased her and made her feel better about herself as she was now that Reg held her in such high esteem, that he listened to her, clearly valued her opinions and looked at her with such . . . What was it? she wondered. A
sort of intensity that made her feel as though she were naked in front of him, completely and utterly exposed; as though he could see into her mind and read her thoughts.

She had forgotten this, was relearning it now and in so doing realized that she had known it before, many years ago. The closer she and Reg became, the more vulnerable she felt in his presence, and it was the intensity of his attention, his determined, resolutely steady focus—undiluted by the distractions of spouse or family—that seemed to draw her in and seemed increasingly hypnotic. She wondered if others were able to see it, too. Not that Reg would or could necessarily mesmerize
them
, but that they would somehow be able to see his effect upon
her
.

It had been like that today. She could not recall the last time she had felt so at ease in another's presence. Any silences in their conversation had simply been a blissful pause in which to languish. On the way to the cemetery they had talked about Daisy, in the main, her behavior of late. Reg said that she was simply growing up, that she had reached that place of— What did he call it? Disenchantment? Disillusionment? Something like that. “She's watching us all, figuring us and everything else out,” he said. And then he'd told her that Daisy was the one most like
her
and that he had no doubt at all that she would “get there.”

Later, back at the house, at lunch and afterward, Mabel had felt the thrill of a new intimacy between them, and each time she'd caught his eye she had felt her heart palpitate. The thought of seeing him again this evening, and in minutes, made her heart do a little flip.

“Your cuff, ma'am?” Nancy said, interrupting her thoughts and
holding out the diamonds, the ones Howard had given her two years ago, on her fortieth birthday.

Mabel stared at the diamond cuff and then at the dazzling array glinting from the open jewelry case. Howard had always been very generous. Each year and for so many years, he had presented her with expensive jewels, when the only thing she'd wanted was a little of his time, the reassurance of his love and affection. Instead, as she and their marriage withered, she had been given tokens, costly tokens, things Howard liked to see her wearing, so that he could admire them, feel proud of them—
his
gifts to her. And she had capitulated. She had worn his diamonds, his pearls, his rubies and sapphires, and then felt grateful when he admired them.

“No. I think not. Only these tonight,” Mabel said, lifting her fingers once more to the black pearls. And she watched Nancy carefully place the cuff back on the tray and close the case.

Nancy had been with her at Eden Hall from the start. She had seen it all: each announcement and celebration, each and every loss or gain. She had been the one to pick Mabel up from the blood-soaked bathroom floor one windswept stormy night, tenderly bathing her, wiping away her tears, drying her and then helping her into her bed, saying, “There'll be another, ma'am. There'll be another.” She had been the one to move Howard's personal possessions from their bedroom to his dressing room and explain to him what the doctor had said, that there could be no more babies for Mabel.

For all of these reasons and more, Mabel trusted Nancy, and right at that moment she'd have liked to be able to confide in her and tell her of her plans, but there was a line one never crossed with servants. And so instead Mabel moved over to the jewelry case,
opened it, pondered for only a moment, and then—stretching out her hand—she said, “This is a Christmas present, and a thank-you, Nancy . . . for everything.”