The White Marriage Read online

  ‘Go on, duck, you must. Slake your thirst no end.’

  Everyone in the train carriage stared as they realised the extent of the woman’s generosity, and Arietta knew she would have to accept.

  ‘You got a good appetite, I expect, but you haven’t eaten in days I warrant, too busy banting to get into that smart suit of yours.’

  Everyone in the carriage nodded and laughed at this, because Arietta’s fashionable look stood out like a sore thumb among the utility clothing around her.

  ‘My friend’s mother is a dressmaker,’ Arietta explained, staring round the train carriage at all the interested faces. ‘She made this for me for a present, because I am going up for a job, and I must look the part, or I will not have a chance.’

  The occupants of the carriage all looked across or around at each other, obviously finding Arietta’s explanation acceptable. The young lady was obviously very young, and equally obviously not a snob, or else why would she be in a third-class carriage? And then too the fact that she had needed a suit in order to go up for a job made her appearance, oversmart as it was, understandable.

  ‘Well, I ’opes you gets it, duckie, really I do.’

  ‘So do I.’ Arietta looked ruefully round at her audience, who were evidently all quite interested in her chances. ‘Because if I don’t, I will surely have to walk home, and that is the truth.’

  ‘You make sure they gives you your journey money, dear,’ one of the knitters said, waving a knitting needle at her. ‘That’s your rights, that is, your journey money.’

  ‘Oh, I think they will,’ Arietta said, but she dropped her eyes. No one had mentioned journey money, not Sunny, nor Mrs Fortescue when she had telephoned her about the interview.

  As the train drew into Victoria Station, and while it was still moving, a man in the party threw open the carriage door and jumped out.

  ‘Ooh, I do wish Bert wouldn’t do that,’ one of the women remarked. ‘Talk about a foot stinger!’

  But Bert merely sprinted on beside the train and as it stopped he promptly stopped, and carefully handed out each of the occupants of his carriage.

  ‘My party piece, that is!’ he said, winking at Arietta. As he stepped back he hastily refastened the top of his mackintosh, covering the lack of a jacket and tie underneath. ‘Good luck with the interview, miss. Hope you get the job.’

  Arietta turned and smiled and waved a newly gloved hand at him. ‘So do I,’ she agreed, before turning back to glance at the station clock.

  She had an hour to find Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber’s house. It should be plenty, even in new shoes.

  The house was a tall one, with a black painted front door. It was the only house in the street whose balcony was festooned. It was while Arietta was standing on the other side of the road, waiting for the hand of her old second-hand childhood watch to reach two o’clock, that she came to appreciate the significance of the floral decorations. They told the world that Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber was a woman of wealth who must have a country estate, because the flowers were obviously rare and beautiful and they bloomed and tumbled in such a glorious manner it was a wonder that a crowd had not gathered beneath them.

  A few seconds after two o’clock Arietta crossed the road and stood in front of the immaculate front door. It sported a large heavy brass knocker, so large and so heavy that Arietta immediately felt defeated by it, and instead of raising it and dropping it, she leaned forward and pressed the brass doorbell with its china centre that announced ‘BELL’.

  A butler opened the door to her. He was tall. He stared at Arietta, who was not tall. Arietta stared right back at him from under her new hat set firmly straight on her head. (‘Never, ever wear a hat on the back of your head, dear, always straight on, or tilted forward,’ Mrs Chantry had instructed her when she had given her the retrimmed hat.)

  ‘You have come for the interview?’ he asked in a kindly tone.

  Arietta stared up at him from under her hat, which meant that she had to hold on to it with one hand.

  ‘Yes, I have come for the interview,’ she agreed in firm tones. She was sure that she must be one of many girls and young women coming up for the job, so she had already determined that she would not allow herself to become nervous, for it would only prove to be a waste of time, most especially since she probably had no chance of being taken on by this Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber.

  ‘If you would like to follow me, miss …?’

  The staircase was narrow, as in so many Mayfair houses, but it led to a wide landing, and although the boards creaked and groaned under their feet, the carpet and the rugs were delightfully tasteful, of a delicate pattern, but not pronounced. The butler threw open the door in front of them.

  ‘A young lady come for the interview,’ he announced from the door, and then held it open for Arietta.

  Arietta stepped into a surprisingly large and light room, at the end of which was a large ormolu-mounted writing table at which sat a small woman in a grey light tweed fitted jacket with a flat collar, beneath which lay a discreet strand of pearls. For a few seconds Arietta stood and watched as the butler closed the door, and the woman finished writing something. She finally looked up.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, nodding towards a nearby sofa.

  Arietta sat down carefully and with due consideration to the usual niceties: no crossing of ankles, skirt to be arranged decorously, gloved hands held loosely in the lap.

  The woman went on writing with renewed vigour. Arietta felt grateful for the time to compose herself, and allowed her eyes to wander round the room. It was large and decorated in a purposefully unselfconscious manner. The furniture, like the stairs and landing outside, like the paintings on the walls, was not shabby but delicately worn, nothing looked too new but sat about the room in a confident manner, as if it had been there for some time and was aware of its appropriate beauty, its perfect setting. In contrast to such good taste, Arietta felt all too new, as if her very smartness, her new suit, her new hat, her new shoes and gloves were an affront to the sumptuous ease of the room and its owner.

  ‘Very well.’

  At last the older woman looked up and, having placed her pen in a china holder in front of her blotter, she cleared her throat and put on a pair of spectacles.

  ‘Come here, gel.’

  Arietta stood up and went towards the desk, although from the way the woman had addressed her, it might as well have been an ormolu-mounted throne.

  Arietta stood quite still, looking at Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber firmly in the eyes.

  ‘Turn round, gel.’

  She did as she was told.

  ‘Now go and sit down again, gel.’

  Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber took another piece of writing paper out of the china folder and picked up her pen once again.

  ‘You have come a long way on a train, or in a motor car?’ she asked, as she wrote.

  ‘In a train, Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber.’

  ‘So, you did not have a motor car to bring you?’

  ‘No, I do not have a motor car.’

  A slight pause followed this, although the pen kept travelling across the paper.

  ‘Would you like a motor car?’ Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber asked, not looking up.

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘Good. That is good. It is always good to want things. It means one stirs one’s stumps and does not sit about waiting for an apple to fall on one’s head like Isaac Newton.’

  Arietta frowned slightly. She had never before realised that the defining of the theory of gravitation had been the result of some kind of reprehensible inertia on the part of Isaac Newton.

  ‘So, here we are.’ Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber looked up at last. ‘You and I. You without a motor car, and I without a social secretary, the previous incumbents time and time again having proved so very unsatisfactory. Shall we be suited, you and I, do you think? Will you, unlike they, be able to last more than a few weeks?’

  Arietta stared at Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber, but she knew enough not
to fill the silence that followed. She also knew enough to know that even a few weeks would be good experience, being in Mayfair and working for such a grand lady, even if Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber sacked her after only a short time.

  Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber removed her spectacles and stood up, coming out from behind her desk to reveal the bottom half of her suit, which was a full skirt of a becomingly cartwheel shape that showed off her undoubtedly elegant figure.

  ‘I think we will be suited, really I do. When would you like to start? As soon as possible, as far as I am concerned, since I am utterly without anyone.’

  Arietta cleared her throat. ‘Tomorrow, if you would like?’

  ‘Certainly. I certainly would like. Do you know why I would like you to start so soon?’

  ‘No, Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber.’

  ‘I will therefore tell you. I would like you to start because you are quiet, you do not fidget, and you do not cross your ankles when you sit down.’ She turned back to her desk and, having pressed a button underneath it, quietly examined the contents of a small drawer. ‘How much would you like for your journey money?’

  Arietta stared. She had not even had to mention the cost of the ticket, and now she was being offered a reimbursement.

  ‘It’s very kind of you but—’

  ‘Don’t be silly, gel. There’s no kindness in me, ask anyone.’ She placed a five-pound note in Arietta’s gloved hand. ‘That is for your luncheon and tea on the train, and make sure that you never ever travel third class again.’

  Arietta missed any inference that might or might not have been intended. She was far too fascinated by the, to her, quite extraordinary sight of the five-pound note. It was unimaginable money.

  ‘Thank you very much indeed,’ she said slowly. ‘Thank you, but I don’t think you need to—’

  ‘No, my dear Miss Staunton, it is for me to thank you, and of course I need to reimburse you, and of course I know it is far too much, but if you knew how many fast-and-loose types have sat where you have been sitting, you would know what I mean. It’s the war, of course. I keep saying that to Joseph and Mrs Joseph. The war has played fast and loose with the morals of young women, but we must not dwell on that now we have found you. You will have a room at the top of the house, and the run of the place when we are in London, and when we are in the country, the same applies. You will have Saturday afternoon and the whole of Sunday off in town, and Sundays only if we are in the country. You will have a certain amount of your wardrobe paid for, and a certain amount you will pay for yourself. Your starting salary is to be arranged between you and my Mr Balcombe, who adds up little things in columns for me. We will not dwell on vulgarities, but I do assure you it will be fully enough to compensate you for leaving hearth and home and taking up residence here with me. You will, I can also promise you, earn your salary. What you will not be, however, is bored. That I can absolutely guarantee. I have a very active social life, and am known as a great hostess, so you will, of course, meet all sorts of exciting people, but discretion will be your guide. Remember, in Society it is always better to be known as a person of few words rather than too many. And – and this you must never forget – loyalty is everything. If you remain loyal to me, I will remain loyal to you, and I think we will have a happy time of it. So now, nothing better to be done than wish you a safe journey, and we will expect you tomorrow afternoon after lunch, and before tea.’

  She nodded her dismissal.

  Arietta hurried off down the windy London street, clutching her handbag with the large white five-pound note now hidden in its depths. She hurried along, trying to come to terms with the realisation that she would actually be able to take a taxi back to the station. After which two questions arose in her mind. First of all, what on earth would her mother say when she told her she was going to start a new job, in London, on the following day?

  And next, and most puzzling of all, why would such a person as Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber choose Arietta, of all people, to be her social secretary?

  ‘Taxi!’

  Seated once more at her ormolu-mounted writing desk, Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber raised her white telephone to her carefully coiffed head, with its swept-back dark hair beautifully arranged in a chignon, and started to dial Leandra Fortescue’s number. She must thank her for the recommendation. The young gel could not be more suitable. She was quietly spoken. She was pretty without being a beauty. She wanted to please. She was afraid to upset. The fact that she smelled vaguely of citrus fruit showed that she was not extravagant, that she had preferred to travel up third class with poor people who ate oranges rather than charge a potential employer too much money for her journey. All in all, she could not be a better choice. And by the time Alice Ashcombe-Stogumber had finished with her, she would not know herself, and that was the truth.

  For the journey home Arietta did as Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber had advised and treated herself not just to a first-class ticket, but to tea on the train, served by waiters who seemed quite able to stand swaying wildly over the crockery while pouring tea without spilling a drop.

  As she revelled in the tea, the sandwiches, and the cake and biscuits, Arietta could not help staring at her own reflection in the window of the carriage. There she was, Arietta Staunton, seated in a first-class carriage, eating toast and drinking tea, just like someone she might read about in one of her mother’s library books and, what was more and what was better, on the following day she would be coming back along the same track. The wheels of the train going along the track might sound like clickerty clack, clickerty clack to the other passengers, but to Arietta they seemed to be saying, ‘You’re going back, you’re going back.’

  ‘I know before you say anything, I know just what you are going to say.’

  Arietta stared at Audrey. She was standing in the hall as if she had been waiting for her return all afternoon, which couldn’t be true, surely?

  ‘You have spent all your money on the ticket, and want a loan to go after another job. Well, before you say a thing, the answer is no.’

  ‘Actually, Mummy, my answer is no.’

  Audrey continued as if Arietta had not said anything, ‘You may have finished your course, but as I said to Mary Chantry just now, I know how this is going to turn out. It’s going to turn out that you cost me more than when you were at school. You’ll have to get a job doing housework or some such, until such time that you can land a job as some secretary to some poor benighted person of low intellect.’

  Arietta stared at her mother, but before she could say anything in reply, Audrey had turned her back on her and was heading for the kitchen.

  ‘I am going out to dinner. The Tredegars have invited me at the last minute – someone must have dropped out – so you will have to make yourself something. There’s some soup somewhere, I think; some soup in a jug under the meat safe, and there’s a roll in the bread bin. That will do you, won’t it?’

  Arietta’s look had now turned into an expression that would have shocked even Audrey, but instead of following her mother into the kitchen, she turned and went upstairs. She would start packing straight away. The sooner she left Rushington for Mrs Ashcombe-Stogumber’s house, the better.

  Eventually her mother called up to her, ‘Don’t expect me back until late.’

  Arietta waited until she heard the front door shut, after which she mouthed silently to her reflection in her small dressing-table mirror, ‘Oh, good.’

  And then she continued to pack the suitcase that had long ago been assigned to her, but which she had only had cause to use when going to spend the night with Sunny at the Chantrys’ cottage.

  The following morning she woke up early, too excited to stay in bed. She crept downstairs to iron one of her two blouses. She was busily making them look as good as she could when she heard a car arriving back. She went to the window and stared out. It was Audrey, and she was waving someone goodbye. Arietta looked round the kitchen. She had to get out. She switched off the iron, snatched up her ironing, and fled
back upstairs.

  Once again in her room she stared around it as if it was somewhere she had never been before. What was her mother doing coming back, still in her cocktail dress, all black lace and matching cape, and high-heeled shoes, at six o’clock in the morning? Why had she not come home before?

  She started to dress in a panic-stricken manner. She knew that Audrey would have walked to the Tredegars’ house, which was just across the village green and then down a quiet road, hardly a walk at all; so why, in heaven’s name, however late the dinner party had been, would her mother come back in a car, and not just a car, someone else’s car?

  Arietta heard Audrey’s bedroom door close quietly, and then for no reason at all, since she had already been up and had intended to stay up, and was almost fully dressed, she slid under the eiderdown of her own bed and stared up at the ceiling as the increasing sound of the dawn chorus floated through the half-open window.

  Later Audrey opened Arietta’s bedroom door and stared in.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked in a flat, bored, tired voice.

  ‘I am packing, Mummy.’

  ‘You’re packing, Mummy, are you?’ Audrey imitated Arietta’s voice, a habit of hers for some years. ‘Been invited to go to the Chantrys yet again, have you?’

  Audrey stood pale-faced in the doorway, the vivid colour of her Chinese dressing gown with its mandarin collar making her look even paler as she snatched at a glass of water from Arietta’s bedside table and, taking the two aspirins that she had been carrying, she swallowed them down with the water.

  Arietta waited until her mother had drained the glass and replaced it on the pale blue table, with its faded design of teddies and trains, making such a sharp smacking sound that Arietta blinked in surprise, before going on, ‘No, no, I haven’t been asked to the Chantrys yet again. Sunny is away with Mr Wyndham, her fiancé-to-be.’

  ‘Fiancé-to-be! Really, you young girls – your ideas … really, you are so extraordinary. Do you honestly think that John Chantry will even countenance Sunny getting married to that man? Of course he won’t. The whole idea is ridiculous. Mind you, I will say one thing for Sunny Chantry, she is busy keeping the whole village on tenterhooks with all this talk of her engagement. No one could talk about anything else at the Tredegars’ dinner party last night. Gerry is even running a book on it. I had a little flutter.’ She laughed suddenly, remembering. ‘Just a little flutter – seemed such a pity not to.’