Summertime Read online

  Happily, shortly after he had at last confessed to Trilby that he had high hopes of becoming a father, Lewis went away on business, leaving Trilby yet again on her own. Since Berry was not yet back from Northumberland and she had no desire to work or even to draw, she started instead to plan a way out of her present . . . existence. No-one could call it a life. She knew that the escape she planned had to be foolproof. That it had to be impressive. She also knew that she would not be able to return to Glebe Street.

  It was raining, and downstairs there would be the servants and outside the car and the chauffeur, all in their own way prison guards of a sort. All of them, certainly, in Lewis’s pay.

  She did not want to commit suicide. Just the thought, for some reason she did not understand, made her want to laugh. Probably because she could hear Berry’s voice: ‘Really, Trilb, not at your age, so awfully depressing for everyone. And I mean to say, what hope for the rest of us if you feel so dank?’

  Berry was now the one bright spark in her life. He was not old as were most of Lewis’s friends. And he was not part of any society. Lewis could not destroy Berry because in Lewis’s terms there was so little to destroy. It would be like suing a poor man. Trilby reached into her handbag to reread Berry’s card to her, because just seeing Berry’s beautiful, artistic handwriting made her feel more cheerful.

  ‘Mrs Woo? Have you seen the card that I received from Northumberland a few days ago? I was sure that I put it into my handbag.’

  ‘No, madame. No card. Mrs Woo saw no card.’ The maid’s dark eyes registered no emotion whatsoever.

  Trilby nodded, knowing that the maid was the only person who could have taken it. It would be ridiculous to make a fuss about a postcard, but nevertheless, she turned away biting her lip. If only Berry would come back from the north and come and see her, they could make a plan. She felt sure that he would think of something to get her out of this prison into which she had so willingly consigned herself when she married Lewis.

  The worst of it was that she knew that what she was fighting now was not her initial misery, but her ever-present inertia. No-one had ever told her that despair makes you inert, that you no longer care about anything. For the truth was that, inexorably, day by day, since the wretched interview with Micklethwaite, since she no longer drew or thought about drawing, she had grown dulled by the luxury in which she was now incarcerated.

  Being dressed, going downstairs to breakfast, smiling at the servants, smiling at Lewis, eating some toast, drinking coffee, going to the library, reading a book, taking the Rolls to the park on sunny days. Coming home, having lunch with Lewis, and then – and this had become the worst part of her day – allowing him to make love to her, was all now so unendingly grey.

  Happily after lunch he sometimes had to leave her to go back to the office on business, and then Trilby would rest before going for yet another walk, or staying in and reading yet another magazine before allowing Mrs Woo to dress her again, this time for dinner. So much had this become a routine that Trilby sometimes imagined to herself that she was a cut-out doll, and Mrs Woo merely pinning on paper dresses of different kinds.

  Tonight Lewis would be back from Manchester. They would have dinner, and because he had missed lunch with her he would probably make love to her afterwards, but only after telling her, in some detail, all about his tedious day, about which Trilby would have to feign interest.

  Trilby stared at herself in the mirror and allowed herself to entertain a truly shocking thought. She had never before imagined that being made love to by someone could be dull, something to ignore, something you let happen to you, as if it was happening to someone else.

  She stared into her own dark eyes, getting closer and closer to the mirror. The bathroom door was locked so that not even Lewis’s spy, Mrs Woo, could see her.

  Alone at these eerie moments Trilby had started to address herself in the mirror in the second person. Now she whispered to her reflection, ‘Tonight, Trilby, tonight Bluebeard will be here and he will not just be here in the house, he will be up here in your room, and he will be doing that thing he does to you. What are you going to do to stop it, Trilby?’

  Her eyes were so close to her own image now that she could not focus on her face. Trilby started to slip down to the floor, sliding against the mirror. There was no-one to whom she could turn, no-one even in Glebe Street, now that Berry had gone away, in whom she could confide. If she called on them and told them of her misery they would think that she was spoilt, they would not be sympathetic to how she felt about Lewis. Lewis, after all, in their eyes, had given her everything, and seeing as they had suffered so much during the war, and come through it, they would merely think that Trilby was lacking in gumption, that necessary quality to get you through the lumps and bumps of life. She stared at herself, pretending that she was her own best friend. She had to do something, now, something that would get her out of what was going to happen after dinner. But as it happened, it was not necessary. Something had already happened, and it would get her out of everything.

  ‘My darling! Are you all right? My darling! Do answer!’

  Lewis was hammering on the bathroom door, but Trilby could not answer, she was being far, far too sick. ‘I shall have to fetch someone, darling, have them break down the door. If you don’t answer me now I will have to get Paine to break down the door.’

  ‘It’s all right, Lewis,’ Trilby finally answered, and she unlocked the door. ‘Really there is no need to ask Paine for anything. There is nothing he can do for me. There is nothing anyone can do for me. Not for what is making me sick, at any rate.’

  Lewis stared at her. He had been so hoping that her pallor, the listlessness . . . that it might be what he so wanted it to be.

  ‘Can it be true? Are you perhaps – are you perhaps – are you?’

  Trilby nodded slowly. ‘Yes, yes, yes, I am,’ she acknowledged. ‘I know I am. I must be. I have never felt so ill in my life before, so I must be. I feel sick so often.’

  ‘But this is wonderful news!’ Lewis hugged his young wife to him. ‘You have no idea how much I have longed for this, Tally – Trilby – darling, sweetheart, I am so thrilled.’

  Trilby, still clasped to him, frowned. She was used to Berry calling her every name under the sun, but Lewis was simply not like that. She pulled back from him. ‘What did you nearly call me?’

  Lewis turned away, but not so quickly that Trilby did not notice that his forehead was reddening. He hurried to the door with his dressing gown cord trailing, and he almost wrenched it open before turning to her and saying, ‘This is such good news, Trilby, really it is.’

  ‘Thank you, but there is some way to go yet, you know that, Lewis. We must not celebrate too soon, must we?’

  ‘You must go to the doctor. You must go and see my doctor.’

  Lewis’s doctor was extremely smart, not at all like Agnes’s doctor who had an agreeably large stomach, and nicotine-stained fingers. Lewis’s doctor was tall and gaunt, and he had a Rolls-Royce parked outside his Harley Street premises.

  ‘How many – ahems – have you missed?’ The doctor coughed discreetly.

  ‘One.’

  ‘I see.’

  Trilby smiled.

  ‘Feeling a bit sick?’

  ‘Very sick, and my tummy feels very sore, and I feel faint all the time.’

  ‘You do look quite pale.’

  ‘I have lost weight too, about half a stone, maybe a little more. It’s feeling sick I am afraid, it puts you off your food.’

  ‘What do you not want to eat at the moment?’

  ‘Practically everything. And coffee – I can’t stand coffee. Just the smell of it makes me sick.’

  ‘That is normal. Nothing to worry about there, Mrs James.’ Dr Mellon smiled, and then went on, ‘You know, Mrs James, when a woman tells me she is pregnant, even if she has not missed ahem I always believe her. A woman knows her own body. Nature is pretty marvellous like that, I promise you.’

 
; ‘And another thing, Dr Mellon.’ Trilby looked at him, and leaning forward to make sure that she had his full attention she lowered her voice. ‘I can’t stand it with my husband.’

  The doctor’s expression changed at once, as she had known very well it would. After all, Lewis was one of his richest patients.

  ‘You can’t stand your husband, Mrs James. I do not quite understand what you mean by that?’

  The doctor’s expression was of extreme caution as Trilby sighed sadly. ‘I know. I did so like it with him, you know – It – but now, since all this, it makes me feel – well, even sicker. I don’t like it, not at all, at least not at the moment.’

  ‘That’s only natural, Mrs James,’ said the doctor, relaxing at once and giving her a patronising smile. ‘It is quite natural that you should have more tender feelings about yourself. Your body is going through a great change.’

  ‘Yes, but do you see, my husband is so much older than me. It is very difficult for me to tell him how I feel. I was wondering if you would – well, I don’t suppose you can, but I was wondering if you could, you know, tell him?’

  ‘Of course, Mrs James. He will be telephoning me the moment you leave here, and I will tell him everything that we have talked about, and of course the good news. Because of course, as you might have realised, you are quite obviously pregnant.’

  On the way back from Harley Street Trilby stopped off to shop for various small items. A bottle of scent, a new hairbrush, some new drawing pens, some drawing pads. She could not believe that she was pregnant. She would not believe that she was pregnant. Her eyes determinedly avoided any of the advertisements for baby milks or rusks, because she did not believe that she was going to have one of those. A baby.

  Returning home that night Lewis fairly bounced into the room.

  ‘My darling, I am so happy, I cannot tell you how happy I am. I spoke to Dr Mellon and he has told me all. You are to put your feet up, you are to do nothing but rest. He said I may take you away at the end of the first three months, but not before, because we must be so very careful of you.’

  Lewis kissed Trilby on the mouth and since he tasted kind and sweet, almost like the old Lewis when she first met him, she smiled up at him. If she had loved him it might have been a touching moment, but as it was she did not love him any more, and so it was not touching at all.

  After the great announcement, Lewis no longer bothered to come home for lunch, which was a great relief, and on doctor’s orders did not visit her for lovemaking. Perhaps because of this, for a couple of weeks Trilby started to feel happier. The sessions in the bathroom stopped, and she no longer found herself making speeches to herself in the mirror. Indeed, all was well until, fatefully, one day Lewis announced that he was coming back for lunch.

  Trilby looked across the breakfast table at him. ‘You will be home for lunch,’ she repeated.

  ‘I just told you, Trilby, I just said I will be home for luncheon.’

  It seemed to Trilby that the whole room froze at his announcement, for all the servants must know why he made such an effort to come home for luncheon. The maids, Paine, everyone must know the significance inherent in Mr James’s coming home for lunch. They must all know that it was a code for coming home for lunch and my rights as a husband. They all must also know that Trilby had not been well, that she was pregnant, that the doctor had banned coming home for luncheon, because if Mrs Woo knew, they would all be sure to know.

  ‘How nice, darling,’ Trilby managed to say. ‘I will make sure that we have one of your favourites – Omelette Arnold Bennett say?’

  Happily, Trilby could not see Lewis’s smile or the expression in his eyes which said, ‘And that is not the only thing that I will be enjoying.’

  ‘Good,’ was all he actually said.

  The omelette might have been delicious if Trilby could have enjoyed anything, but as it was it tasted to her like warm fishy flannels. After cheese and fruit, and at the usual given moment – and how she had not missed these given moments at all! – she left the lunch table and went upstairs for her rest.

  Today Lewis followed her. Trilby turned as she heard the door open and saw him coming in. ‘I don’t think we should, Lewis, really, I don’t. Dr Mellon said not. I don’t feel very well at the moment, and he definitely said not.’

  ‘Nonsense, Dr Mellon said you should be fine by now.’

  ‘Dr Mellon is not a woman . . .’ Trilby sidestepped her husband and darted to the bathroom.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I must just go and brush my hair, put scent on . . .’

  Lewis smiled to himself, indulging in the moment. Trilby was very fastidious. He climbed into her bed and waited for her. He could never understand men who shared bedrooms with their wives, men who enjoyed that kind of intimacy. One’s wife should have her own bedroom where one visited her and then one left her. It was tidier and more aesthetic. He should hate to share a room with a woman, however much he might be in love with her, and there was no doubt that he was still passionately in love with Trilby.

  Inside the bathroom Trilby stared at herself in the mirror. She was glad that she had drunk wine at lunch, because it helped her get over the fact that nowadays he revolted her, but at the same time she was also sorry, because it made it hard to think of how to get rid of him. She felt hot and dizzy. She could hardly ring down for the servants and say ‘Come and remove Mr James from my bedroom’, but having heard Lewis undressing she knew that he was not going to remove himself. She would have to go through with It, and forget all about it afterwards.

  Lewis watched his young wife climb into bed beside him, still so slender and young, so pleasing to him in every way, despite her pregnancy. Seconds later, of a sudden, he began to make violent love to her, only to be stopped by a frantic Trilby.

  Downstairs Paine heard a cry which rang out in the silence of the London afternoon. It was followed by a shout and the sound of a door slamming sharply as, upstairs, Trilby staggered to the bathroom.

  The butler sighed and turned away.

  Poor kid! But there you were, in marrying a man like Lewis James she had taken the king’s shilling, and now she was paying for it. But really, why could the wretched man not leave her alone? As if it was not enough that she was pregnant!

  He went through to the kitchen and asked the maids in a dulled voice, ‘Anyone know where Mrs Woo’s gone?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think? Because I think she will be needed upstairs, that’s why!’

  But it was Dr Mellon who was needed. He came round very quickly, and stood in his black coat and pin-striped trousers at the bottom of Trilby’s bed.

  ‘Well, well, Mrs James, never mind now, eh? Soon be quite better. Miscarriages come and go – you know. Come and go. Bit of – ahem – is there? Well, yes, there would be, but don’t worry, all quite normal, especially in a young girl such as you. Hubby a bit passionate, was he? Well, that is only to be expected with someone as lovely as you, wouldn’t you say?’

  Trilby turned her head away. Really, she had no idea whom she found less appealing, her husband or his doctor.

  ‘If you say so, Dr Mellon.’ Having stared out of the window, she turned back and looked at the doctor. ‘I would quite like it if I could be alone.’

  Had he been the kind of man who could feel guilt Lewis might have felt remorseful when he saw how much Trilby suffered, but since he was not that kind of person, he merely thought of the whole incident as bad luck.

  Merely bad luck.

  The doctor said, comfortingly, ‘There was no real reason why your wife should have miscarried. She is well of an age, at nineteen, to have a child. No, you must not feel bad about that, Mr James. She is perfectly capable of having a healthy pregnancy. And take heart, when she has recovered, she will feel much better quite soon, I am sure of it. Probably be a bit depressed for a few weeks. Keep her in bed, humour her a little, you know the kind of thing, and after that, well, you can start again. Shouldn’t t
ake too long next time, didn’t take too long this time, did it?’

  Of course this was just what Lewis wanted to hear so he absorbed every word, and while Trilby lay in her bedroom staring bleakly at the windows, and even more bleakly at the trays of food that Mrs Woo brought to her every day, her husband went to America on business.

  As soon as Lewis was back from America, Trilby made sure that she was up and about to greet him. She also made sure to go out every morning, shopping, shopping and more shopping. She shopped for shoes, and dresses, and underclothes. She shopped for food and drink and magazines and books, she shopped for so much that she could see that not even the chauffeur could keep pace with what she brought back to the limousine. Which was just as well because among the many items that were debited to the account of Mrs Lewis James was a very regular, very plentiful supply of vodka.

  Trilby had never drunk much, hardly at all in fact, but now she made sure to put a plentiful and regular supply of vodka in her bedside cupboard.

  ‘My cocktail cupboard’ she called it to herself, and before luncheon and after luncheon, and during the afternoon and during teatime, and at all sorts of other times Mrs Woo heard that bedside cupboard clicking open and clicking to as Trilby took out her vodka bottle and went to the bathroom, where she locked the door.

  ‘You’re drinking too much, Trilby. And you’re drinking in secret. It’s not good for a woman to drink in private.’

  Lewis was alone with her in the library, but not before he had gone to the library door and checked that Paine was not listening.

  ‘Lewis! I – er – do not know what you mean, really I don’t!’ Trilby smiled a little dazedly at him. ‘I hardly drink at all.’

  ‘You are drinking to comfort yourself for losing the baby, for miscarrying, but really it will do no good, drink will not bring back the baby. You must get well again soon. We must go away together, and then you will get well, and – and we can make another baby.’

  Trilby hiccuped slightly. ‘Don’t be silly, Lewis.’ She leaned forward to touch him on the cheek, but he moved away. ‘I am fine. I jus’ cannot go anywhere with you, really I cannot, not until I am. Better.’