I kissed her. ‘I never wanted an intellectual wife,’ I said, thinking bitterly that one did not have to be an intellectual to appreciate Europe, and afterwards it seemed that in closing her mind against Europe she had closed it too against me.
But I could hardly complain. I had chosen her to be the companion of my hearth, not my soul, and what did it matter if she did not understand me so long as my three households ran smoothly, my social commitments were exquisitely arranged and her name was always absent from any scandal in the popular gossip columns? I had the showpiece wife I had always wanted, and on the whole we got along very well. To want more than that would have been foolish and – worst sin of all – unrealistic. I knew when I was well off, and telling myself for the hundredth time how fortunate I was to have such a wife, I reluctantly opened the third letter she had written to me at Curzon Street and allowed her words to carry me far away from the peace of Mallingham to the sweating, teeming streets of Manhattan.
[2]
She had had another miscarriage. I was so upset that I could not continue reading the letter and had to ask the butler to bring me a glass of brandy. For reasons connected with my health I drink very little, but unfortunately there are always those rare occasions when I feel willing to risk illness for a shot of hard liquor.
Sylvia had had two miscarriages in the first year of our marriage in addition to the three she had suffered while living with her first husband, but I had thought I had finally succeeded in convincing her that I did not want a child. After many years of dealing with women who wanted to present me with a son and heir, I was now word-perfect in my explanation of my aversion to fatherhood, but Sylvia with that intuition women often possess seemed to sense that my explanation was a fraud. No matter what I said she remained convinced that I wanted a child as much as she did, and I had now reached the point where I was at a loss to know what to say to her next.
Yet I knew something would have to be said. I lived in dread that by some miracle she would carry a child for the full nine months and give birth to suffering, disillusionment and tragedy. It would be the end of our marriage. I could remember my first wife Dolly shouting at me when our son had died after three days in the world: ‘You bastard, never telling me such a disgusting thing ran in the family!’ but then she herself had died and I had not had to live with her repulsion.
Finishing my
brandy I sat down and grabbed my pen.
‘My dearest Sylvia, I am more distressed than you can possibly imagine to hear of your brief visit to hospital and while, of course, I am sorry you should have been disappointed again I am even sorrier that you apparently cannot believe all I have said to you on the subject of children. At the risk of boring you by repeating myself, may I once again stress three facts: I detest dynasties; I deplore the intellectual poverty of a man who thinks he needs only to reproduce himself in order to ensure his immortality; and I am not Henry the Eighth.’
I paused to find more ink and realized, as I discovered Sylvia’s letter again, that I had not finished reading it. I sat down and tried to be calm.
‘Elizabeth heard I was in hospital,’ Sylvia had continued, referring to my former mistress, ‘and she sent flowers – so sweet of her. She’s very worried about Bruce at the moment. He’s become just so red, and she hopes you can have a talk with him when you come back.’ This remark was intended to describe not the choleric complexion of Elizabeth’s son, but his political beliefs. Bruce Clayton, who had once been my favourite protégé, was an associate professor of philosophy at Columbia University in New York, and now looked with disapproval on the capitalist practices of Wall Street.
‘I heard from Mildred the other day – she’s hoping to come East this fall with the children, but Wade always finds it so difficult to get away from his work at the hospital. Emily and Cornelius are both well, she said, and Cornelius’ health is really much improved …’
Abandoning the letter again I scribbled on my memo pad: ‘Must do something about Mildred’s boy.’ It was a remark I had been scribbling on memo pads ever since my mother had once reminded me that Cornelius, as my only male heir, deserved a little more from me than absent-minded indifference. In truth I was anxious to do something for Cornelius for I regarded his mother more as a sister than as a niece, but I led a busy life in New York, Cornelius was far away in Ohio, and distance can dampen even the best intentions.
Sylvia continued by replying to points raised by my previous letter and adding that she hoped I would be able to return home very soon.
‘All my love, darling – I miss you very much …’
I crumpled up the letter, smoothed it again, ran my fingers distractedly through my hair and finally found a new bottle of ink. Then I tore up what I had written and wrote pleasantly on a fresh sheet of paper: ‘My dearest Sylvia, I was so very sorry to hear of your disappointment and your stay in hospital. Knowing how much you’ve always wanted a child I’m deeply distressed for your sake that yet another attempt at a successful pregnancy has ended in miscarriage. I must now beg you not only for your own sake but for mine as well to take the advice your doctor gave you long before you married me and make no further effort to have children. I assure you I would rather die childless than die knowing I had brought you further suffering and perhaps even premature death, but I’ll say no more on this painful subject since my views are well-known to you.
‘My business
is progressing satisfactorily at Milk Street, and I now hear by cable from New York that Hal Beecher has agreed to replace me in London. This was my suggestion, and I’m glad it’s finally been adopted. Hal has little European experience but he’s a gentleman and I doubt if the English will find him offensive. Certainly he could hardly do worse than our previous resident partner in London.
‘Because of Hal’s inexperience I shall have to stay an extra month after his arrival to ensure that he knows what he’s doing, so I greatly fear I shall be unable to be in New York for our anniversary. However, at the present rate of progress, I should definitely be home by the end of July.
‘Post-war London continues to depress me and my loathing of post-war feminine fashions has reached new heights. I warn you that if ever you bob your hair I shall divorce you on the spot! Fortunately I managed to get away from London this weekend and had a pleasant three days in Norfolk, not the part where the Wetherton-ffrenches live but further north by the sea above Great Yarmouth. It was beautiful there and very peaceful.
‘Give my love to Elizabeth and tell her I’ll write soon. If she’s afraid I might find Bruce embarrassing tell her not to be so silly. I believe in freedom of speech even if he doesn’t. Incidentally, what happened to that girl he was supposed to be getting engaged to?
‘If Mildred’s husband can’t find the time to come East this fall she should come without him. The man’s a bore and why Mildred married him I can’t think. My favourite theory is that the tough little farmer she married the first time turned out to be rather more than she bargained for and she decided to play safe the second time around. I’m glad Cornelius’ health continues to improve. I must do something about that boy, but what on earth does one do with a silent fourteen-year-old who looks as if the faintest puff of wind would blow him away? My father would no doubt have put a racquet in his hand and hounded him on to the tennis court, so maybe I should follow suit. How history does repeat itself!
‘Take the very best care of yourself, my dear, until we meet again. My love as always, PAUL.’
I read the letter carefully. I knew the first paragraph sounded cold but I knew too there was nothing I could do to amend it. I read on. The entire letter seemed to reek of emotional detachment, as if I had been determined to reflect the exact opposite of my feelings. I nearly tore the letter up again but then, telling myself I was imagining the letter to be worse than it was, I stuffed the pages in an envelope and sealed it. I was still troubled by the inadequacy of my response but I was unable to face writing the letter a third time.
I went to bed and dreamt of playing tennis at Newport with Jason Da Costa.
‘Fifteen-forty,’ he called, and suddenly beyond him I could see the sinister disturbances flickering at the far end of my vision while that nightmare elevator, all the more terrifying because it was hallucinatory, was carrying me up and up and up—
‘Get out, Elizabeth! Get out, get out, GET OUT!’ I was in my office
thirty years later but Elizabeth had disappeared and Jason Da Costa was a grinning skeleton sitting in the client’s chair.
‘All you that do this place pass bye, remember Death for you must dye—’
I was alone in Norwich Cathedral and the Devil was breathing down my neck. I ran up and down the nave but there were no doors. I was walled up alive.
‘Dinah!’ I shouted. ‘DINAH!’
I awoke. It was dawn. I lay awake for a long time watching the room fill with a pale cold light, and then I began to count the days until I could return to Mallingham.
[3]
The visit to Paris was a success. I hired a private car on the train which left Victoria on Friday and when we arrived in Paris the best suite was waiting for us at the Georges Cinq. Visits to the couturier occupied some pleasantly idle hours but very soon we became bored with clothes and set off to the Louvre. Since Dinah had never before been to France, visits to Versailles and Chartres also seemed
de rigueur
, so I borrowed a car and chauffeur from a banking friend of mine whose American firm had a French office, and on the Sunday we motored into the pastoral country beyond the city. I shall always remember the picnic we had on the way to Chartres. In a grassy field we lounged in Roman style before our repast and afterwards Dinah offered my half-finished champagne to a nearby cow.
When we arrived back in London on Monday she stayed the night with me at Curzon Street so that the next day I could take her to Lincoln’s Inn; I intended to instruct my solicitors to form her company, patent her potions and open formal negotiations with Hurst, Rigby and Ashton for the purchase of Mallingham. O’Reilly had received a valuation from a Norwich realtor, and I was thus in a position to bargain for the house on the best possible terms.
In the circumstances it was a surprise when at dinner that evening we had what the English so euphemistically describe as ‘words’.
‘I’ll tell you what I intend to do about Mallingham,’ I said after declining my butler’s offer of port and dismissing the servants. ‘I’m going to loan you the purchase price – and the loan will come out of my private account; it’ll have nothing to do with the bank
per se
– and then we can have the house conveyed to you and not to me. I’ll keep the deeds as security and you can pay me back with three per cent interest over a period of ten years. That won’t be difficult for you because you’re going to make a lot of money. Now about the business—’
‘But I want you to have Mallingham,’ said Dinah. ‘I want it to be yours until I can buy it from you outright.’
I thought for one greedy moment of being the master of Mallingham, but guessing her plans I made myself put all greediness aside. ‘That sounds
extremely unbusinesslike to me,’ I said firmly. ‘Apart from any other consideration I lose my three per cent interest, and anyway what’s to stop me turning around and selling the property to someone else?’
‘Well, naturally we’d have a gentleman’s agreement—’
‘Don’t make a gentleman’s agreement with me, my dear. You’d regret it in no time at all.’
‘But Paul, I want you to have Mallingham for a while—’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and don’t think I can’t guess why. You want a guarantee that I’ll always come back here. You don’t want me to marry you but you want me to marry Mallingham instead. I’m sorry, Dinah, but I don’t like shackles and I detest the idea of Mallingham being used as a ball and chain.’
She went bright red. At first I thought she was furious but a second later I realized she was hurt. Her eyes shone with tears.
‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It’s a matter of pride. I want to give you something and Mallingham is all I have. If you could accept it as a gift – even a temporary gift – I wouldn’t feel so like a kept woman, taking your money and sleeping with you in return. How do you think I felt when we ordered these clothes in Paris?’
‘But—’
‘Oh God, I’m not going to force Mallingham on you if you don’t want it! I wish I’d never made the offer!’
I felt ashamed of myself for being so insensitive. ‘I want it,’ I said abruptly. ‘Make no mistake about that.’ I thought for a moment. At last I said: ‘No unbusinesslike agreements in writing. The only people they ever benefit are the lawyers. We’ll have to have a gentleman’s agreement after all, but I warn you: you’re playing with fire. I’ll do my best to behave like a gentleman, but the trouble with those sort of agreements is that they never allow for any contingencies. Now think carefully. Are you quite sure, absolutely certain, that you want to make me this very generous offer which I’d be only too pleased to accept?’
She smiled at me. ‘I’m certain.’
‘Very well. Then I’ll buy Mallingham for myself, on this private oral understanding with you that you may purchase it at any time at the current market price as established by an independent appraiser. I also undertake not to sell it to anyone else and not to ask for any interest.’
‘But I thought you said—’
‘My dear, either we have a business agreement or we don’t. There are no half-measures. As far as I’m concerned we now merely have an understanding based on mutual affection, and as far as you’re concerned it’s the only such understanding you’ll ever have with me. Diana Slade Cosmetics is going to be run on strictly professional lines. As soon as I get to New York I’ll send out a business manager to give you the best possible start, and perhaps by the new year – is anything wrong?’
This time there was no mistaking her fury. ‘This is
my
business!’ she burst out. ‘I refuse to be a mere puppet with a bunch of American businessmen pulling the strings!’