A stranger to herself, p.22
A Stranger to Herself, page 22
‘When do you plan to start?’ Claude Lloyd-Fison asked her, smiling. He was a large, middle-aged man, who spent his winters hunting and his summers in the garden.
‘I already have started,’ declared Violet, ‘this afternoon.’
‘And your subject?’ asked his wife, who was a determined, eagle-eyed cottage visitor, dreaded by the poor. She was wearing a black lace dress, in mourning for her father, and a large diamond necklace in an old-fashioned setting.
‘It’s about a girl who runs away from home,’ Violet said, staring at Sophie. The remains of a large joint of beef were being cleared from the sideboard. It was very hot to eat fish, roast meat, then a pudding at the long polished table, while outside it was still light. They could still have swum, sat on the banks of the river or walked in the woods.
It seemed a waste to Violet. The one thing she’d never guessed when, behind her counter, she’d imagined leading the life of a lady, was exactly how much time the gentry had on their hands. It was all very well, when your feet ached, and you had petticoats and stockings to mend, a hat to trim in the evening and only half an hour to eat your dinner at midday, to imagine what it would be like having people waiting on you hand and foot, and a wardrobe full of expensive clothes laundered and mended by someone else. The question you never asked was what these lucky people found to do with all that spare time. It seemed to be a matter of entertaining, talking about other people, someone’s visits to foreign countries, or plays they had been to.
During the soup the Lloyd-Fisons had discussed the harvest, over the fish Tommy Brereton’s broken engagement and fresh engagement to someone else. Caroline, who could normally be relied on to keep the conversation going, had been unnaturally silent on this subject, although she had been almost brought up with the Breretons. The roast saw the topic of the wheat crop back. Next would have come someone’s ball, or the increasing horrors of ugly modern art and tuneless modern music, or a neighbour cutting down a copse full of foxes. However, Violet now saw that her book would last the party through the iced pudding and perhaps the fruit and cheese, might sustain the ladies through the coffee in the drawing-room, where the subject would make a change from the normal discussion of children and domestic matters. At this season preserving fruit was on all good countrywomen’s minds.
Violet thought she’d leave them to it, so, she said rudely, standing up, ‘I hope you’ll excuse me – I’m very keen to start chapter two.’
An hour later Leopold Levine came into the library. Violet was sitting outside the windows on the terrace in the dusk with a book, having moved the lamp from inside and put it on the paving stones. ‘Gathering inspiration?’ he said, looking down at the figure in a white dress, sitting on the ground.
Violet smiled up at him, ‘That’s right,’ she agreed.
‘Are you really writing a book?’ he asked.’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Why not? I may not be very well educated but I read a lot. Anyway, I need some extra money.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘And you feel in need of cash?’
‘Most do,’ she answered, ‘whoever they are.’
‘Don’t forget I’m leaving you my library,’ he told her.
Violet looked at him, not sure that she wanted his books.
He added, ‘If you decide to sell any books get a decent dealer.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Good night, Violet,’ he said. ‘Good luck with your book. It’s pleasant to think of a lady with a more original occupation than gossip and fashion.’
‘Or jamming plums,’ said Violet gloomily.
There was the sound of laughter and raised voices. ‘Caroline’s brother, and some friends, I believe,’ said Leopold. His illness made them hard to bear, but Sophie Levine was too much in thrall to her favourite son’s wife to forbid the visits. He made his way across the hall, greeting the visitors, three young men in light suits and panama hats, whose game of spinning them across to see who could land theirs on the hall table was interrupted at his appearance.
Violet went on reading, as dark came down. Then she heard the clink of a stopper being lifted from a decanter. Picking up her lamp she went inside. ‘Ho!’ said a voice. ‘Thought you were a ghost.’
‘No,’ said Violet, putting down the lamp. ‘I’m Violet Levine, Frederick’s wife. Who are you?’
‘Tom Brereton,’ he said. ‘So you’re Violet. I’ve heard about you.’
‘I expect you have,’ she replied. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, too.’
‘Concerning my caddishness in all probability,’ he said. ‘The world can be very harsh.’
‘It can, to cads,’ responded Violet.
He laughed. ‘It’s quite fun in here, so dark, but why do you sit alone on the terrace, away from all society?’
‘What fun?’ asked Violet.
‘The japes, games, jokes—’
‘Will there be some dancing?’ Violet asked, gaining interest.
‘If you say so. Come on,’ he said, and, grasping her round the waist, he began to fox-trot her round the room singing, ‘Everybody’s doing it, doing it, doing it.’ Violet giggled as she danced. He stopped, grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a kiss. ‘Hm,’ he said, then started to dance her round the rug again.
Caroline opened the door. ‘Tommy,’ she called, then saw what was going on, ‘Tommy, you reprobate. Do leave Violet alone or I shall have to send telegrams to everybody saying how you’ve ditched Octavia in order to make up to a married woman. You’ll be crossed off everybody’s list. Honestly, Violet, you should never allow yourself to be alone in a room with this man. He’s deplorable.’
But you’ve been alone in a room with him before, thought Violet, hearing the edge in Caroline’s voice. And what happened? They left the room, to play charades, billiards, to sing round the piano, and ended up hunting the kitchen cat, with bugles, and Sandy Despencer’s dog Roger, which he had brought down in the train. They hunted all over the house, out into the garden and down to the river.
Tommy Brereton kissed her by moonlight as they stood by the reeds. ‘I adore you,’ he whispered. ‘Do you lock your bedroom door at night?’
‘Always,’ Violet told him.
‘What a pity,’ said Tommy.
He took her hand as she walked up the slight incline of the lawn in a dress with a soaked hem, her shoes in her hand. She glanced up to see Caroline watching from the terrace. ‘This lawn is quite mad,’ she said irritably as they arrived. ‘Why don’t they have it levelled?’ Violet was in a dream on the flagstones among the vast tubs of scented flowers. She half heard Tommy Brereton reply, ‘Your turn will come, Caroline.’
Next day when she came down the breakfast-room was deserted, although evidently people had been there. Then she noticed Caroline and Tommy Brereton were sitting on the window ledge, smoking, a habit which Sophie Levine disliked and had forbidden in the dining-room or breakfast-room and barely tolerated in the drawing-room and bedrooms. Violet poured herself a cup of tea, helped herself to bacon and eggs and sat down with The Times. Caroline and Tommy, backs to the room, were muttering to each other. Caroline’s voice struck her. ‘When’s Frederick due, Violet?’
‘About eleven,’ she said. ‘He said he’d catch the first train.’
‘Ma-in-law’s furious with him,’ said Caroline. ‘Know why?’
Violet shook her head.
‘You must know,’ Caroline went on, in her schoolgirl bully voice.
‘Well, I don’t, Caroline,’ responded Violet. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Row at the crack of dawn,’ Caroline told her.
‘Leopold, Laurence and Sophie L are now locked in the library shouting at each other in whispers,’ reported Tommy.
‘I thought I heard Sophie follow the morning tea in to Leopold’s room,’ Caroline said.
‘Lying awake all night, thinking long, hard thoughts,’ said Tommy in an experienced tone. ‘At dawn she decides on immediate action. You can only pity Leopold.’
‘What can it concern?’ demanded Caroline.
Tommy, stubbing out his cigarette told her, ‘Love or money, those are the only issues which keep an individual’s head off the pillow at night and cause some persons to conduct dawn attacks on others.’
‘Or teething babies,’ Violet remarked.
Tommy grinned in her direction.
Caroline, piqued, said, ‘Oh, well. There’s no profit in sitting here wondering. You said you’d row me to the island if it was fine, Tom.’
‘Then I will. But later, when I’ve gone for a stroll and checked the boat.’ He dropped off the window ledge to the ground, turning to kiss his hand to her as he walked down the sunny lawn.
‘Are you sure you don’t know what’s the matter?’ Caroline asked Violet.
‘Germany’s declared war on Russia,’ said Violet, still reading.
‘There’s a war closer to home than that,’ Caroline told her crossly. ‘I think I’d better go up and see Jo-Jo.’
Passing the library door as you go, thought Violet, wondering why Caroline wasn’t more interested in the news. Her brother Sandy’s leave had been cancelled. He’d been told not to leave the country in case his regiment needed him. Yet Caroline seemed concerned only with what was happening in the house. Tommy Brereton, only son of rich Lord Passe, whose mother was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Mary, must have unsettled her. Perhaps there’d been an idea, once, that they should marry, but Caroline had been forced to forget it.
Violet stepped along cool corridors to the small drawing-room to continue her writing. She had the pages she had already done in a tapestry bag beside her. She heard the car leave to collect Frederick from the station some hours later and, a little later, the library door open with a bang. There were voices in the hall – Laurence’s, Sophie’s, raised in protest, then Leopold’s low tones. Violet lowered her head and went on writing.
Later she went down the drive and waited for the car containing Frederick. She got in and kissed him. ‘Caroline says there’s an argument between Laurence, your mother and Uncle Leopold. They seem to be waiting for you to arrive. I thought I’d better warn you.’
Frederick looked at her. ‘Oh, yes, I see. Thank you, Violet, for coming.’
‘What is it?’ she asked.
Frederick considered. Then, deciding, said, ‘Why shouldn’t you know? It affects you – and Pamela even more. Stop the car,’ he called to the chauffeur. The car, which had been easing its way up the drive, stopped under an oak. Frederick said in a low voice, so that the chauffeur, behind his pane of glass, could not hear him, ‘I imagine the argument’s probably because Leopold’s finally given in and told my mother about his will. Nearly everything’s settled. The other banks have agreed to the changes he’s suggested, the will’s in here’ – he tapped his briefcase – ‘and Leopold only has to sign it.’ He paused, saying, ‘He’s very ill, facing death. You’d think they’d leave him alone.’
‘What’s he done, left everything to you?’ Violet guessed. She spoke too loudly.
Frederick hushed her. ‘No, no, not at all,’ and then he outlined Leopold’s new arrangements for the bank, and plans for splitting his own shares equally among six members of the family. Violet, preoccupied with her own shortage of funds, realised dimly only the main facts as they concerned her. ‘So who owns the houses?’ she asked.
‘Leopold will leave Farnley to Mother. After that, she’ll make her own plans. And she already owns the house in Cavendish Square, of course, for her lifetime.’
‘So Laurence gets the lot in the end,’ said Violet.
‘He is the elder son,’ pointed out Frederick.
Violet knew by now that her own situation held no promise, just Caroline taking over more of the reins from her mother-in-law, more snubs for her and, as time went on, for her daughter too.
‘Our children will be better provided for than if Leopold had put Laurence in sole charge of the bank,’ Frederick told her.
His assumption that there would be more children chilled her, although she knew it was perfectly realistic. She had been lucky so far, had even wondered if Frederick was unable to father a child, but her luck might not last for ever.
‘Of course,’ he was saying, ‘Leopold’s decision doesn’t reflect on Laurence. It’s merely his way of safeguarding the bank in the event of war, rather the way fathers used to put one son to fight on either side of a civil war, so that whoever was the victor, one would be on the winning side. But if things had been otherwise Laurence would have had the major shareholding in Levine-Schreft, so, understandably, he’s upset.’ He did not mention his mother’s support of Laurence, against him, nor did Violet. She had once raised the subject, knowing that if Sophie had had more respect or affection for her second son, she would be kinder to his wife, but Frederick had flinched, refused to discuss the matter and merely told her, ‘Laurence is the elder son.’ Now he said, ‘It’s getting hot in here. I’ve done my best to explain the situation …’
‘Now to face the music,’ said Violet, tapping on the window. The car started again. They walked across the hot area of gravel into the coolness of the hall. There was complete silence.
Brough, imported for the summer from Cavendish Square, came up saying, ‘Good morning, Mr Frederick. Mrs Levine asked to be told as soon as you arrived.’
‘Yes, but is there such a thing as a glass of lemonade?’ asked Frederick. ‘And will you tell my mother I’ll be down as soon as I’ve changed.’
However, he met Sophie Levine on the stairs as he went up. ‘Frederick, I’d like to speak to you in the drawing-room,’ she said.
‘Yes, Mother. I’d prefer to change first,’ he replied. ‘It’s been a long, hot journey.’
‘Now, Frederick, please,’ she said.
Frederick, in his dark suit, followed her into the drawing-room.
Violet left the house. She was wandering down to the river in hot sunshine when she met Caroline and Tommy Brereton coming up.
‘Is Frederick here yet?’ Caroline asked.
Violet nodded.
‘Where’s Laurence?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Violet.
Caroline hurried on to the house, leaving Tommy Brereton still standing, with Violet, on the lawn. Tommy regarded Caroline retreating in her white dress, the straw hat she carried swinging wildly to and fro on its ribbon.
‘Difficult for a guest to know what to do in these circumstances,’ he remarked.
‘Not easy even when you live here,’ Violet said tartly.
‘And where are you heading at the moment?’ he asked.
‘Just away from the house,’ she told him.
‘Let’s get in my car and have lunch in the town,’ he suggested. ‘They’ll feel better without us at lunch.’
‘Right you are,’ said Violet. ‘We ought to tell Brough. What about Sandy?’
‘He’s fishing down the river with a picnic. I don’t know where. I don’t propose to fight through bushes calling his name. Come on, let’s escape together. Fred won’t mind, will he?’
‘Someone’ll mind, whatever I do,’ Violet said.
Over lunch in the restaurant of an inn in the small town to which they had driven, stopping only to scramble up a small hill to admire the view, where Violet had pretended not to notice Tommy was admiring her instead, she said, ‘I suppose we’ll have to have a war. I wonder what it’ll be like.’
‘It probably won’t last long,’ he told her. ‘We’ll all volunteer. Sweep the foe back where he belongs, come home heroes. It’s high time we gave the Huns a bloody nose and put them back in their places.’
‘Oh,’ said Violet. ‘I don’t know much about wars. There hasn’t been one for a long time.’
‘I don’t think there’s much to know. I’ve learned to fly a plane – aerial combat’s the coming thing, you know.’
‘They seem to be very well armed, the Germans,’ Violet said.
‘A short, sharp shock is what they need,’ Tommy Brereton replied, ‘and me flying overhead showering them with lighted sticks of dynamite.’
Violet looked doubtfully into his handsome face. She imagined him going to Buckingham Palace in uniform in his smart green Benz motor-car, to get a medal.
He grinned. ‘What a subject for a pleasant lunch with a beautiful woman. Tell me something about yourself. At the moment,’ and he fixed her with gallant grey eyes, ‘you look to me as if you think you’re the ugly duckling, but you know what that particular bird became.’
‘You were never an ugly duckling,’ said Violet. ‘You were born a swan. Now you’ve even learned to fly.’
‘There’s a well-known characteristic of swans I seem to lack,’ said Tommy. ‘Namely, their fidelity. I’m getting a shocking reputation for the opposite. I gather Her Majesty’s mentioned me unfavourably to my mama. I shall have to be married, there’s no doubt about it, but, quite honestly, Violet, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stick it. I’ve got such bad habits.’ He smiled. ‘I think only you could make me forget them.’
She smiled at him. ‘I’m afraid I could only be one more bad habit. Perhaps you’d forgotten I’m married.’
Tommy Brereton looked at her quizzically. ‘Pie and custard?’ he asked significantly.
Violet shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, thank you very much,’ she answered.
‘You’re a card, Violet,’ he said. ‘Shall we drive about a bit after lunch?’
‘I think I ought to get back.’
‘I’d like to leave, drive away with you,’ he said.
Later, on the brackeny hill, he took her hand and said, ‘Let’s go away, for a day or two.’
‘How can I?’ she asked.
‘Violet,’ he told her, ‘you will one day – why not with me? In a few weeks’ time, it won’t matter anyway.’
