The White Marriage Read online

  Unsurprisingly the idea of running away or falling ill came to her regularly every Monday morning, as she faced yet another tedious week, but then as Friday approached and she realised that an invitation to Maydown might be imminent, she always found she was grateful that she had rejected the temptation.

  ‘Going to lunch with Mrs Fortescue?’

  Mary looked her daughter up and down. It was really rather obvious from the way that Sunny was got up that she certainly wasn’t preparing to help her father in the garage.

  ‘Yes, Ma, you know I am.’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. Shall we expect you back for dinner?’

  ‘I will telephone you if I am invited to stay for dinner at Maydown, Ma,’ Sunny stated, purposefully using the same kind of formal language that she had heard Leandra and Gray use.

  Mary nodded and sighed, and then made her way with slow and deliberate tread to the dining-room door wherein lay her beloved Singer sewing machine. Once in the room, the door closed, she nodded at nothing in particular, and sighed again.

  It was no good pointing out to her daughter that going to lunch at Maydown with Leandra Fortescue was turning Sunny’s head, that she was becoming oversophisticated, overconfident and, in her mother’s opinion, a proper little pill as a result. Telling Sunny anything at that moment was about as much use as begging John to stop ignoring his daughter and start treating her as a normal young girl, not someone who had been caught out on the tiles, or become pregnant out of marriage.

  The day that Bentley broke down outside this cottage was a bad, bad day.

  It seemed to Mary that her emotions were so sudden and so strong, as if she had sworn that she might actually be hearing her thought played out aloud. But then, as always, as she saw the work waiting for her, pins to be placed or removed, patterns to be cut out, her mood instantly lightened.

  As long as there was something to be done, something busy to keep her mind off everything out there, beyond the door of her little kingdom where the two people she loved might be going about in silent resentment of each other, then here, with Mary Chantry, would be found only smiles of appreciation and often happy laughter, as her customers came and went with what was now increasing regularity. Here she knew she was needed and, what was more, could do good. Out there she was powerless to do anything except stand by and watch the two people she loved hurt each other.

  At Maydown Leandra was inspecting the newly arrived Sunny with open appreciation.

  ‘My dear, that dress is most becoming. Your mother is something of a genius with her needle, is she not? I should never have thought that such a long point on an organdie blouse could look so elegant, and the fullness of that skirt with the bands of ribbon echoed in the hat, that is most becoming.’

  It would be ridiculous not to compliment Sunny on her appearance. She was looking as beautiful as she surely had ever done, but so youthful that Leandra felt a dart of pain as she remembered that, as she stood in front of her mirror that morning, the early morning light had seemed just a little harsh.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Fortescue,’ Sunny smiled.

  It never occurred to her to compliment Leandra on her appearance, because she always looked beautiful, but now, for some reason, she realised that something might be needed, otherwise it was really rather one-way traffic.

  ‘I only want to live up to you, Mrs Fortescue,’ she admitted, her eyes shining with admiration. ‘You are my heroine, Mrs Fortescue, truly, you are. Every time I leave you I go away wondering how best I can look to live up to how you are, because you are everything I would like to be.’

  Leandra smiled and indicated a sofa.

  ‘How very dear of you, Miss Chantry,’ she murmured, but even as she repeated the last part of the sentence and sat down, she could not get rid of the feeling that she was ageing. Perhaps it was Sunny’s manner of addressing her really rather too frequently as ‘Mrs Fortescue’, or perhaps it was just that, the day being hot, she felt a little tired, but she was vaguely irritated by it. Goodness knows, no one appreciated conventions more than herself, but somehow being addressed so formally, together with Sunny’s constant use of her name, was distancing, and, it had to be admitted, ageing.

  ‘I know I can learn from you, and I know that everything that I do learn from you will please Gray all the more, and I want to please him very much.’

  As far as Leandra was concerned, Sunny had been pleasing Gray all too much. She had not only pleased Gray on their weekend visit to Chelston, it seemed she had even managed to please old Jocelyn Wyndham too. Gray had returned full of the success of the visit.

  ‘Not only did she twist the old man round her little finger, she managed to twist my old Aunt Bessie round it too. The child is something of a genius when it comes to charm, Leandra, really she is. You are to be roundly congratulated. No one but no one could have chosen better.’

  Leandra had suppressed her feelings of jealousy at Sunny’s success at Chelston Manor. She had even forced herself to feel pleased at the way Sunny had won over Jocelyn, but what she could not feel pleased about was the way that Sunny, artlessly and without realising it, made her feel suddenly older.

  Leandra stood up before Rule had even come into the room to announce that lunch was ready. She felt hot and impatient, restless and discontented, but at the same time only too happy that Sunny Chantry was having lunch with her. If she were not, Leandra might have worried that she was having lunch with Gray, who would normally have arrived by now.

  Not that he had said anything that she could not believe. His late arrival was, it seemed, because he had to have lunch with an old army friend, someone who’d been in Italy with him.

  ‘But I shall be down with you as soon as I can after that,’ he had told her gaily. ‘Looking forward to seeing the two beautiful girls in my life.’

  Leandra had laughed at that. As why wouldn’t she? She liked to think that she was still a girl, but when she replaced the telephone she had stared ahead of her, silently furious.

  Two beautiful girls?

  Something was going wrong. Gray was not meant to find Sunny Chantry beautiful. He was meant to find her sweet and endearing. Whatever happened, he was not meant to find her anything more than that. He certainly was not meant to bracket Leandra and the Little Puppy, as Leandra had nicknamed Sunny, as equally lovely. Leandra was the beauty; she was the person whom Gray worshipped, not the Little Puppy.

  That perhaps was why Leandra was feeling so restless, so uneasy, so unable to appreciate either the sunshine, or the lunch, or the company.

  ‘I am looking forward to seeing Gray,’ Sunny confided halfway through lunch. ‘I miss him now I’m back home.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Leandra smiled. ‘That is just how it should be,’ she lied.

  ‘He is so handsome, isn’t he?’ Sunny continued. ‘And so brave. No one could have been braver in the war than Gray, and particularly seeing what happened to him, I don’t suppose there is anyone braver.’

  She smiled innocently at Leandra, who went to say something quite quickly as a response, and then stopped, allowing herself to frown. Seconds later Sunny too frowned, remembering the old man telling her to run from Gray rather than stay engaged to him. She still could not understand why, but she imagined that it too was because of the war, everything coming between people’s understanding of each other.

  ‘I don’t think Mr Wyndham realises that Gray is much happier now than when he came back from the war, I truly don’t, but by the end of the weekend he seemed more content. Do you know that ever since that weekend, Mr Wyndham sends me flowers and fruit from his garden every week? Isn’t that so awfully kind of him?’

  Leandra had started to feel vaguely sick. She pushed her plate away from her. When she had laid her plans – and they were good plans, not complicated, but perfectly good and manageable – she had not taken into account that Sunny Chantry might become a success in her own right, perhaps because, like so many socialites, she had a very limited imagination.
She had only seen that Miss Chantry was a peach, round and pink and ripe for the plucking; that she was an innocent; that she came from a background that was less than monied; that she was exactly right for their purposes.

  What she had not ever thought was that little Miss Chantry would become a glorious success, that Gray would start to find the Little Puppy beautiful, that he would speak of her in the same breath as Leandra, and use the same tone of voice about her. It was not a thought that had ever occurred to her, and now that it had more than occurred to her, now that she realised that the bud was starting to become a flower, she also knew with complete certainty that something would have to be done. The bud would have to be snipped, and well before it flowered.

  Arietta had stood her ground and greeted the guests arriving at Mrs Ashcombe’s first-floor drawing room as if she had been doing it all her life. She had no idea from where her courage came, but as guest after guest arrived and was announced by Mr Joseph, and no Mrs Ashcombe appeared, she received them, introduced herself, introduced them to each other when necessary – and thankfully she found it was hardly necessary at all as they all seemed to know each other – and kept on hoping and silently praying that their hostess would make a delayed entrance.

  ‘In case you couldn’t catch what Joseph was saying above the din, I’m Randy Beauchamp – how do you do?’

  ‘How do you do?’ Arietta held out her hand to the tall white-haired man.

  ‘Quite well, thank you. And you are?’

  ‘I’m Arietta Staunton. Mrs Ashcombe’s new secretary. I’m sure she will be down in a minute.’

  ‘Well, you are more optimistic than I, my dear. I am quite sure she won’t,’ Randy told her blithely, but in a low tone.

  Arietta stared at him. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be. I always hear the bad news first. I don’t know why – it is just one of those things. I really ought to go about wrapped in black drapes like something in a Greek tragedy. No, my dear, you will not see Alice Ashcombe this evening. None of us will. Mrs Ashcombe is quite, quite ruined.’

  Arietta stared at him, for a moment unable to say anything. ‘I am so sorry?’

  ‘As well you may be, but not as sorry as she will be feeling at this moment. I am afraid the net is not closing in on her, I am very much afraid it has closed in on her.’ His eyes searched the room in nonchalant style. ‘Sad to say but I doubt that she will any longer be able to throw parties such as this. Even as we speak, I understand the bailiffs are calling.’ He cocked his head towards the drawing-room door. ‘Maybe we can even hear them at the front door now? No, perhaps not here, but certainly they will be calling at the Surrey place in the next few days.’

  ‘But how terrible. Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure, my dear. I never speak out of turn. It is one of my greatest virtues, and my worst faults. As the French so rightly remark, often and sometimes endlessly, we all have the faults of our virtues, and the virtues of our faults. Let us face it, without the one we would be as nothing, and without both, completely characterless, which has to be some sort of comfort when one wakes in the night, one must suppose.’ He beckoned Arietta away from the rest of the crowd in the room. ‘Follow me, my dear, and I will tell you all.’

  Feeling very much like a conspirator, or even a lamb to the slaughter, Arietta followed him down the room to a window seat, where he sat down, encouraging her to join him by patting the cushion beside him.

  ‘I have known Alice Ashcombe for years. She is a wonderful woman, generous to a fault, but I am afraid that is the trouble. Her generosity is a fault. She has done nothing but entertain for years and years, come hell or high water, and right through the war. This place alone was home from home to young officers all day and all night, but an end to everything has to come, and tonight I happen to know, on the grapevine – where else? – that a certain person has called on her, mercifully briefly, we hope, and told her that the cupboard is bare. There is to be no more credit, alas, and no more parties, also alas. Alice has never owned her houses, not this house nor in Surrey, but she has always insisted on keeping up this magnificent display of wealth, which was really founded on nothing more than a fantasy of generosity and social climbing. From an early age she wanted only to be part of Society, and Society a part of her and, bless her, she has succeeded in that anyway.’ He paused to light a cigarette before continuing, ‘I expect you are wondering how I know all this?’

  He smiled briefly at Arietta as the smoke from his cigarette curled up between them before disappearing over Arietta’s shoulder into the half-open window behind them, as if the noise from the party was too much for it.

  ‘I will tell you how I know what I know. I am Mrs Ashcombe’s bookseller, and traditionally the bookseller is, and always will be, the last person to be paid – most especially in Norway, where it seems it is the custom to disappear up into the mountains with shoals of books, and then laugh at the poor bookseller who cannot, of course, reach one with his bill until such time that the snows melt.’

  He paused again.

  ‘I have not been paid by Alice for nearly four years. You can imagine how much that is now. What with Christmas and birthdays to her friends – she is very generous on my behalf – and furnishing all the rooms in her houses with ancient vols of the classics. I know now, of course, that I shall never be paid by Alice, although she did pay me once in nineteen forty-five, which was nice; but, bless her, she has always recommended me to her friends, some of whom have obliged by sending in funds. On reflection, knowing what I know now, I may well ask Alice for a few of my books to be returned to me.’ He sipped at his champagne. ‘Vintage. Delicious. I have no idea where she gets it from, but that too I must ask before she is hauled off to the debtors’ prison.’

  ‘Surely she will not have to go to prison?’

  ‘No, no, of course not, but she might have to go to somewhere almost as bad.’ As Arietta stared at him, Randy leaned forward and whispered, ‘She might be banished to Surbiton, where she will be put into the care of an ex-governess on a lowly wage. How long have you worked here, you poor soul? You will never be paid – of course you know that. I am quite sure that Joseph and his wife haven’t been paid for months, if not years.’

  ‘I have only been here two days.’

  Randy laughed. ‘Well, not too bad then. You will have to get a new position, of course.’

  Arietta nodded, dumbstruck. She had imagined that she might be sacked, that she might make a mess of things, but never that poor Mrs Ashcombe would go bankrupt.

  ‘If it is any comfort, none of the previous incumbents ever got paid either. That is why they were in and out of here like cats through a kitchen door.’

  Almost at once Arietta remembered Mrs Ashcombe’s speech when she had been interviewed: how the older woman had deplored all her previous social secretaries. The brevity of their employment now made perfect sense.

  ‘But never mind, my dear. You look just what I need.’ Randy leaned back a little from Arietta. ‘My assistant has run off with a sailor, silly trollop. You are here, as by design, beautifully dressed, and coiffed to a T too. Would you like to come and work in my bookshop? It is very fashionable, and you will have to learn a great deal about folios and such like, but I can see you have an intelligent eye, and the fact that Alice took you on is reference enough for me, quite apart from the fact that, having been left high and dry, I am, to be honest, actually desperate.’

  Arietta knew that she had to be honest too, if only because Mr Beauchamp was being so.

  ‘I am afraid I am like Cinderella, Mr Beauchamp. These are not my clothes, and although this is my own hair, it was styled courtesy of Mrs Ashcombe. Everything will have to go back. Well, not my hair, but everything else.’

  Randy looked at Arietta with sudden intimate affection as if he had known her for years.

  ‘Never mind the clothes, my dear. I will buy them off old Mrs Pomeroy for you. That will be where they were purchased, I would guess? Old Jeanne Pome
roy has done a brisk trade in second-hand for years now. And as for all the rest, never mind that either. It can all be sorted out, I am sure.’

  They continued to talk, Randy making suggestions as to how they should go about their new, what he termed, ‘unholy alliance’, while observing that no one seemed to mind or notice that their hostess was not present. After a while the fashionable crowd hurried off in small chattering groups, all of them intent on going on to yet another cocktail party, finally leaving Randy and Arietta and Mr Joseph as sole occupants of the drawing room.

  ‘Well, Joseph?’ asked Randy. ‘And how is Mrs Ashcombe?’

  ‘After the earlier visit of a certain gentleman, Mrs Ashcombe has taken a sleeping draught and is lying down.’

  ‘Ah, yes, just as well, perhaps.’

  From the expression on his face Arietta quickly understood that Mr Beauchamp must know the old butler really very well.

  ‘Yes, Mr Beauchamp.’

  The butler indicated the bookshelves. ‘I should take what is yours, sir, while the going is good.’

  ‘Very sound advice, Joseph.’

  Randy took a pair of spectacles from the top pocket of his suit and nodded at Arietta, before threading the delicate gold-rimmed affair past his ears, and pushing them gently up his nose.

  ‘Stay with me, my dear, and I will start to attempt to teach you how to sort books, handle them, and stack them. It is an art, believe you me.’ He frowned at the spines of the leather-covered books in front of him. ‘Alas, we will have our work cut out this evening, for I do believe the books are catalogued in subject rather than alphabetical order … Ah me. Never mind. Into the fray we go!’

  Arietta followed Mr Beauchamp up to the shelves. It seemed that her life had taken on yet another sudden and very strange turning but, as with everything, she knew that she must, whatever happened, follow the immediate path until it either ended in a cul-de-sac or led on to another path. It took only a few seconds for her to realise that there was, after all, very little else that she could do. What she could not do, would not do, was to return to Rushington and Audrey’s mockery. She would prefer to walk naked down Piccadilly rather than do that.