The Rich Are Different (37 page)

But then
the lid of the hamper was flung open. I struggled to my feet, looked across the room and saw him.

That was when my miracle happened, and my miracle was not that Mallingham was saved but that I found someone to love at last, and in loving Paul I overcame my deep-rooted fear of men and for the first time in my life was able to enjoy being female.

[3]

He left me. I’d known he would. From the beginning he had been honest, never making promises he had no intention of keeping, but his honesty only made him the more irresistible to me. After my disillusionment with men I saw clearly how my father had always lied to his wives, and after I had realized no man would ever want to marry me I consoled myself by deciding marriage was nothing but a sham. I knew what happened to people who promised to love each other for ever and ever, and I told myself I wanted no part in such romantic twaddle. If Paul had been less than honest with me I could never have trusted him, but his dread of romance with its accompanying delusions not only matched mine but surpassed it. His dread was genuine whereas mine was merely a pose I struck to preserve my self-esteem, yet when romance came it was I who was realistic enough to accept it while he, the self-styled realist, was the one who retreated into fantasy by refusing to believe our lives had been altered.

The first time I noticed his occasional inability to face the facts was when he let me become pregnant. I had made no secret about wanting a baby, and since I was unable to live a conventional existence it must surely have been obvious to him that I had no choice but to have the baby out of wedlock. In the circumstances I would have thought that even the stupidest man would have guessed I wanted part of him to remain behind when he eventually had to leave, but I was wrong. He never guessed. I still thought his shock and anger on learning the news were quite uncalled for, but because by that time I was terrified of him leaving me I made renewed efforts to be the model mistress so that he would have no further cause for complaint.

I could well remember what kind of feminine behaviour my father had found intolerable. He had not liked inquisitive women who had pried into his past, he had detested jealous women who had intruded upon his present, and he had loathed clinging women who had tried to chain themselves to his future. So I never asked Paul too closely about his background, and always tried to convey the impression that he was free to leave whenever he wished.

But he stayed, and as he stayed my expectations changed. Thinking myself to be fundamentally unattractive I had at first expected nothing from him beyond a little affection, yet slowly as his affection increased and I came to realize that in his eyes I was very far from being unattractive, I could not help but wonder if he might be able to love me a little as well. Our long holiday together on the Norfolk Broads that autumn was as
memorable as any honeymoon, and although I still knew he would one day return to America I had become convinced that our separation would only be temporary. That was why, when he finally had to leave, I was able to scrape together the courage to let him go without too many humiliating tears.

He promised to write to me but did not. I was a part of his life yet he tried to pretend to himself I had never existed. I was set aside together with his passion for European civilization and his romantic vision of travelling sideways in time, and in this rejection of his true nature I saw his pride in his honesty was misplaced and his so-called realism was a fraud.

Or so it seemed to me as I waited daily for the letters which never came.

It would be too boring to chronicle the sleepless nights, the endless tears, the black despair, the suicidal inclinations, the impotent rage and the frustrated passion which overwhelmed me at this point. These days do me no credit and I prefer not to dwell on them, but I do remember thinking that there was nothing more demeaning than building one’s life around the daily visit of the postman. I felt as if Paul had given me self-respect only to tear it to shreds afterwards, and as those tortured days passed and the baby stirred more vigorously within me I saw myself as the world saw me, a stupid naïve young woman who had been discarded by an elderly roué, a girl who had ‘got into trouble’ in the best tradition of the Victorian kitchen-maid while Society applauded this just retribution for her sins.

The picture repulsed me, and amidst all my despair I felt the first faint stirrings of defiance.

Early in the new year Paul’s London partner Hal Beecher wrote to say that the American business manager and market research specialist had arrived in London to launch Diana Slade Cosmetics. Did I wish to confer with them? They would be delighted to meet me but naturally they would quite understand if I preferred to remain in seclusion.

Reading between the courteous lines I saw that Mr Beecher was kindly giving me the chance to be no more than the nominal head of my business while Paul’s money allowed me to cower at Mallingham, as anonymous as the most pathetic of discarded mistresses.

I was face to face with my future, but as I looked out over Mallingham Broad with Hal Beecher’s letter in my shaking hand I knew there could be no turning aside. Either I abandoned all self-respect and sank into ignominious obscurity or else I went out into the world to fight to the last ditch.

On the tenth of January, 1923, when I was nearly seven months pregnant, I packed a suitcase, ordered Mr Oakes to drive me to the station in the pony trap, and caught the train to London.

[4]

Paul did write to me then. He apologized for not having written before, explained that he had been very busy and expressed the hope that I was well. Having disposed of the necessary platitudes he proceeded to inform me in
the smoothest and most ruefully charming of styles that while he hoped we would always maintain a cordial business relationship he was afraid our personal relationship would have to end; he had reached this decision for my sake because he felt he could not offer me what I wanted and therefore felt obliged to set me free to find someone more suitable. There was no need for me to worry about money – or about working myself to the bone in the world of commerce. Hal Beecher would send me all the money I needed to live quietly at Mallingham and enjoy motherhood to the full.

When I had finished reading the lavish compliments and fond farewells in the last paragraph I permitted myself the smallest of cynical smiles and wrote back:

‘My dear Paul, how sweet of you to write such a divine letter! I think you’re absolutely right about ending our personal relationship and it’s wonderful of you to be so sensible and self-sacrificing for my sake. But darling, I’m just the tiniest bit distressed about the logic behind all your chivalrous offers of financial help. Are you really implying that it’s better to be a kept woman than an emancipated one? “O tempora!” as Cicero would have said, “O mores!” Still, at least you weren’t misguided enough to offer me Mallingham as a gift before I’ve had the chance to repay you with interest. Lots of love, darling – I’d write more but I’m too busy working myself to the bone in the world of commerce. DINAH.’

There was no reply to this letter but at least he never said to me as everyone else did: ‘You can’t do this!’ Perhaps he was the only person who knew I was quite capable of launching a business when I was seven months pregnant.

Hofstadt and Baker, the two Americans who were supposed to give me my commercial start in life, quickly decided that I was a dangerous lunatic, and although Hal Beecher did not share these views there was no doubt my behaviour sent him into a flap. To do him credit, he was extremely worried about my status as a fallen woman. He was a respectable American gentleman of fifty-five, and my plight struck all manner of responsive chords in his decent puritan bosom. When he found out I was staying in Chelsea with Harriet, he commented unhappily that Chelsea was too
avant-garde
and offered me a room in his house in Mayfair.

‘I’m sure my wife would be delighted—’

I was sure his wife would be horrified. No woman in her right mind would welcome a girl who had just finished an affair with a man of her husband’s generation. ‘Thank you, Hal, but it’s really not necessary …’ I reassured him by revealing that Harriet was Lady Harriet, the daughter of a marquess. Americans are always impressed by titles.

No sooner had I succeeded in soothing Hal Beecher when both Hursts, father and son, stormed up to London to carry me back to Norfolk, and by the time I had convinced them of the futility of their mission it was a relief to escape to Harriet’s little flat, drink some strong tea and put my feet up. I was an uncomfortable shape by that time and I tired more easily than usual.

Harriet had
been a year ahead of me at Cambridge so she had obtained her degree in history before my father’s death had concluded my Varsity education. Unknown to Hal Beecher she was the rebel of her aristocratic family, and having turned her back on the idiocy of a debutante season she had decided to earn her living. Her family had been shocked but Harriet had had no regrets. She was employed, she had her own home, and independence, as all young men have known for centuries, is very sweet.

Harriet was thin and rangy with a long bony face, dark bobbed hair and tawny eyes which Robin, the pale poet who lived in the flat below, called ‘twilight pools of infinite wisdom’. Robin was a very bad poet and lived on a war pension; he had been invalided home from the front in 1917, suffered a nervous breakdown and escaped from his country home to drown his shell-shock in Chelsea. The friend who lived with him, a tough little cockney and football fanatic, was called Cedric.

In the flat above us lived Dulcie, an unmarried mother who had a ninemonth-old daughter; Joan, who worked as a cigarette girl in a night-club; and Joan’s lover, a ragtime musician called Eddie. Dulcie had an allowance, and although she would never divulge its source we suspected a certain MP was responsible. Joan and Eddie had taken her in after they had found her crying on a bench in Kensington Gardens, and soon she was looking after their flat and cooking their meals for them. I thought they were a splendid advertisement for a
ménage à trois
, but Cedric prophesied darkly that it would never last.

I liked Cedric. He took me to the flicks once or twice, a move which made Robin cross but since he despised the cinema he had no excuse to be annoyed. I was also interested in Cedric because he was a salesman for a cosmetics company called Persepolis.

He lost his job just before Alan was born. Returning home one afternoon from Hal’s office in Milk Street I had just stepped into the hall of the house when Cedric flung open the door of his flat, grabbed me by the arm and marched me straight into his sitting-room.

‘Oh Gawd, Dinah, I’m desperate – Persepolis is on the skids, they’re guillotining all the staff and my head’s just rolled into the ruddy basket! Christ, what am I going to do? Nobody can get a job nowadays, men with large families can’t even get a job, and I’ve got no real education and oh Christ, we’ll never be able to live on that ruddy Robin’s pension, not with him drinking like a fish the way he does. Dinah, can you—’

‘I can,’ I said. ‘Be my sales director. The Americans are looking for one but I’d thought of offering you the job for some time.’

‘Oh my Gawd!’ He tried to hug me but my stomach got in the way. Finally he compromised by shaking my hand and demanding: ‘Who says women shouldn’t be in business?’

‘Hofstadt and Baker will when they hear I’ve appointed a sales director without consulting them.’

I was right. The Americans said I was ignorant, that the important post
should be filled by someone well-educated, that they would cable New York to arrange for my removal from power.

‘Go ahead,’ I said, guessing correctly that Paul would refer the matter back to Hal.

There were further heated scenes. By this time my employment of Cedric was only one of the long list of mistakes the Americans attributed to me, and at last they announced outraged that if I persisted in ignoring their advice I would be bankrupt within a year.

‘That won’t concern you,’ I said politely, ‘since you won’t be working for me. I’ll arrange for Mr Beecher to give you the necessary severance pay and you can leave for America at your earliest convenience.’

They asked incredulously if I were giving them notice. I confirmed that I was.

‘But you can’t do that!’ they chorused in horror.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I said, ‘but I rather think I can.’

As soon as they had roared out of the room on their way to Milk Street I telephoned Hal.

‘They’ve got to go,’ I said to him. ‘They’re useless. London isn’t New York and England isn’t America yet they persist in applying the wrong set of rules to the wrong set of circumstances. Hal, I’ve never asked you for anything before, but I’m asking you now. Back me up. I know I’m right. Trust me. Please.’

He trusted me. The salaries were terminated, the Americans departed in fury, and before I had had the chance to recover from my first boardroom battle, Alan entered the world.

[5]

Harriet and Cedric came with me to the hospital but after that I was on my own. I was nervous yet immensely excited, and suddenly as all my business struggles faded into insignificance I could think only of Paul three thousand miles away in New York. During the hours of labour I said his name aloud as if he could hear me, and when the word fell emptily into the silence the tears streamed down my cheeks. All my bitterness towards him dissolved. I no longer cared how badly he had treated me, and as the pain of labour deepened I drew strength from my memories of that splendid summer until I knew not only that I still loved him but that I was going to move heaven and earth to get him back.

That was when I recovered from the overwhelming blow of his rejection. That was when I realized that although he himself had made the mistake of thinking our affair was over I did not have to compound his error by accepting it. It no longer mattered what Paul thought. That was irrelevant. I knew he belonged with me at Mallingham, and when Alan was placed in my arms all my hatred of losing surged through me and I vowed to pour my whole soul into winning what I wanted most.