Friday's Girl Page 22

  ‘As you were last night?’

  ‘I had rather you did not talk about last night.’ Edith laughed. ‘I drank too much wine cup, and that is always a shocking thing to do. But . . .’ her eyes wandered over to where Napier and Sheridan were seated talking to each other with unusual intensity, ‘at least Sheridan and Celandine were able to enjoy their evening of celebration.’

  Alfred leaned forward, forcing her to look into his eyes. ‘You should be with me, and you know it,’ he told her. ‘Your husband does not love as I would love you, and that too you must know. Your husband does not love you!’

  ‘My husband most definitely does love me,’ Edith said with satisfaction, and at the memory of the previous night a mischievous look came into her eyes. ‘In fact my husband loves me so much I doubt if there is another woman who has been loved better than I, Mr Talisman.’

  ‘Brave try, Mrs Todd, but I know better.’

  Alfred lit a cigarette, and as he did so he remembered enjoying a previous cigarette in the shelter of the boat the evening before. More important, he remembered hearing the exchange between Edith and Napier, how Edith had protested to Napier that since he did not wish to enjoy her, he should at least allow other men to appreciate her. He smiled almost sleepily.

  ‘I shall have you whether you like it or not, Mrs Todd, and when I do I promise you that you will not have to pretend any more for your husband’s sake,’ he murmured to himself, after Edith had moved away from him. ‘One day, Mrs Todd, you will know what it is like to be really and truly loved. A beautiful girl like you should be loved all the time, every day, and every hour of every day.’

  He was interrupted. Sheridan and Napier were packing up the picnic baskets and standing up, preparatory to leaving the little cove.

  ‘I think we should go and do some sketches of the incoming boats, don’t you, Alfred?’

  Alfred stood up, brushing down his immaculate trousers. He was a stark contrast, Edith thought, to his two friends who were already charmingly dishevelled: their collars loosened, their trousers covered in sand, their shoes dampened by the sea. But she was not concerned with Alfred. All she saw was Napier’s eyes filled with the same look that she had only glimpsed for a few seconds the night before – before they fell into bed, and he, she hoped, at long, long last into proper love with her.

  They strolled back towards the main concourse of the harbour. The sun was still bright and warm, and Sheridan’s thoughts were on Celandine. He knew she would have dreaded the Channel crossing, and hoped the settled weather would ensure an easy journey; found himself hoping against hope that she would be back as quickly as she had gone. He was glad to set up his easel and start sketching the scene before him. The men, the nets, the waiting women – it was a scene full of human emotion, the kind of emotion which nowadays he was always, quite purposefully, striving to capture in his work. Never mind that Napier and painters like him would say the scene was sentimental; Sheridan did not care. Let them paint their vast canvases full of pompous import, let them depict their Biblical subjects; he was only interested in the working lives of the people among whom he now lived.

  Edith made sure to stand a little apart from the rest, not just because she did not like to see the fish jumping and rolling so helplessly, gasping for air, still beautiful, still shining with all the delicate colours that God had given them, which would fade to nothing as they died, but also to witness dear Mary greeting her long lost husband home from the sea.

  There she was, standing with Mrs Harvey and a few others, some of them already walking back arm in arm with their loved ones, some of them, like Mary, still waiting. And all at once one of the reunited couples stopped, and turning to Mrs Harvey took her aside.

  Edith knew. She knew as soon as she saw the way the fishwife’s bonnet bobbed and her arm went out to Mrs Harvey, from the way Mrs Harvey turned to Mary, that Mary’s husband must have died at sea. She knew before she saw the older women trying to reach out and comfort her, and Mary’s head sinking into her hands, oblivious of their sympathy, oblivious of anything except the ultimate price that her young man had paid to bring home the precious catch.

  Edith quickly turned away, not wanting to witness someone else’s grief, but as she did so her eye was caught by Sheridan, like her watching the scene on the quay, except that he was standing in front of his easel, and had already started sketching what they could all see but which Edith thought was none of their business.

  ‘How could he?’

  Napier looked startled by Edith’s ferocity. ‘He is a painter, Edith. Painters paint what they see.’

  ‘Yes, but Mary was in – in an extremis of grief. How could he switch off as if she was not a human being? How could he stand in that cold-hearted manner, and paint what was happening? It is so . . . well, there is no other word for it, Napier. It is heartless.’

  ‘To you it seems heartless, to Sheridan it seems the right thing to do. If he paints the scene the way it should be painted he will deepen human sympathy for the plight of the fishermen and their wives. Not to paint it would be cowardly. It would mean that he is careless of what the human heart is all about. More than that, it is what he wants to paint, dearest. If it was a war scene, would you object that much? I doubt it.’

  Napier put a tender arm around Edith’s shoulders and guided her away from the harbour, away from the leaping fish, the heartbroken Mary, back to bed with him, to afternoon love, and delights of a physical kind, well away from the pain of the scene they had just witnessed.

  But afterwards as Edith pushed open their bedroom window and stared out to sea, remembering the excitement on Mary’s face that morning, remembering the longing in her eyes, she knew that it would take more than love-making, however passionate and involving, to wash away the images the day had brought. It would take more than the noise of the sea to drown the sound of Mary’s weeping.

  ‘Now what are you thinking about?’ Napier leaned over and kissed her.

  Edith smiled. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘It is always nothing with you,’ he replied, but he looked more than happy with her reply, as if he would rather not think of her thinking about much at all; and Edith, knowing that she was lying, turned away from the view of the sea beyond the window. For once it gave her little comfort, for it seemed to her that the sea too knew she was lying.

  Chapter Eight

  The funeral passed quickly, as in retrospect funerals always seem to do, and Celandine travelled back to Cornwall with her heart full of sadness, trying to wrestle with the complications that her mother’s death had brought about.

  She struggled to reason with herself, trying hard to put the case for her mother. After all, she had not been an old woman when she was widowed, so why would she not be vulnerable to some handsome young man who flattered her? And she could not have known that she was pregnant when she disowned Celandine. Celandine was so preoccupied with the problem of how to explain the difficult situation in which she found herself that she quite forgot to feel seasick. She knew Sheridan would be waiting anxiously for her, expecting her to arrive as limp as yesterday’s lettuce, shattered by the journey. As it was he ran to take her in his arms, as he always did.

  ‘Oh – of course, you are in mourning, dearest. I am so sorry, I should not have done that.’

  ‘Yes, but you are not in mourning, Sherry.’

  They walked arm in arm up to where the trap was waiting for them and climbed in, sitting down and at once holding hands tightly, as they always delighted in doing, while the lightly sprung vehicle moved smartly through the narrow, hedge-bound lanes.

  ‘How was Paris, dearest? As you can imagine I have been in agonies for you.’

  ‘It was deeply distressing, as it would be to anyone who loved their mother. Most especially since . . .’

  She paused, about to tell Sheridan about the strange and deeply upsetting circumstances surrounding her mother’s death, only to find herself quite unable to do so. There was something so sweet, so gen
uinely honest, in Sheridan’s expression, the loving look in his eyes as he stared into hers, that she found it impossible to confess all, or indeed any, of the circumstances of her mother’s death.

  What was more, as she had to admit to herself afterwards, because Marie had hinted that her mother had been taken advantage of, her daughter felt too ashamed to want to talk about it.

  The truth was that if her mother had been mortified by the drawing that Celandine had done of Sherry, indeed had given every appearance of being repelled by it, Celandine could not deny that she herself felt not a little revulsion at the thought of her mother’s having enjoyed a romantic involvement, struggle as she might.

  Then too there was the knowledge that, in the admittedly hypocritical eyes of Society, her mother had committed the ultimate sin. She had given birth to an illegitimate baby. She had given birth to a child who would grow up under a cloud, a blank by his name where his father’s name should be, doomed to be set apart in school, stigmatised through no fault of his own, always a figure of either pity or fun, and for no better reason than the circumstances of his birth, over which he had, poor creature, no control.

  So Celandine said nothing of the baby whom she had enjoined Marie and Madame Montellier to have christened as soon as possible, deciding instead to delight in Sheridan’s welcome, in his vivid descriptions of how much he had missed her, and much else that is always so flattering to young wives, not to mention the passionate love-making that a return home so often engenders.

  The following morning being sunny, Sheridan was carefully cleaning up his best square-tipped brushes in Mrs Molesworth’s back scullery, ready to set off once more for his favourite place on the harbour, when he heard the landlady call down to him.

  ‘I’m in here, Mrs Mole!’ he called happily back to her, knowing that his spirits had never been higher, possibly because although Celandine was still sleeping after her journey he himself had been up for some hours and was feeling that uncommon sense of self-congratulation and pride which always seems to come to those who have risen before anyone else at an unusually early hour.

  ‘A letter for you, Mr Sherry.’ Mrs Molesworth stared at the hand on the envelope. ‘It looks important. The postman thinks it so important that he brought it to you rather than leave it at the post office until Monday.’

  Sheridan hated letters. They seldom brought anything but bad news of one kind or another, but he took it quickly, afraid that it might have a French stamp, that it might be more news of Celandine’s family, that she might have to return to France once again, something which he actually dreaded.

  What a relief therefore to see that the letter was only from London, from his father’s lawyers, a firm that was always writing him tedious missives about his small trust fund, and then only so that they could charge him for so doing.

  He tore the envelope and read the letter rapidly through. It seemed to be the usual clap-trap – dah dee dah dee dah – until he came to the second paragraph, when it stopped being dah dee dah and quickly became oh God!

  He sat down slowly on the rickety scullery chair where Mrs Molesworth usually peeled potatoes, taking them carefully from one bucket and peeling them into another before placing them with equal reverence in a third. This was grave news. It was worse; it was news of the very gravest. It seemed that the allowance upon which they depended was about to cease for all time.

  ‘What?’ Celandine stared at Sheridan, turning quite pale as she realised the import of what he was saying.

  His wife looked so lovely sitting up in bed, her face un-creased by sleep, her hair tumbling about her shoulders, that for a very brief second Sheridan nearly forgot what he was talking about, ripped off all his clothes, and climbed into bed beside her.

  ‘Yes, dearest. It seems there was a fire, a very bad fire, somewhere up north, and the extent of the damage is such that the insurers are now bankrupted, and since that is where my small annuity comes from I am quite sunk, and alas not just me, my darling, we are both sunk.’

  Celandine jumped out of bed. Plucking at her blue crushed-velvet wrap she dragged it round her and fastened the belt before seating herself beside Sheridan, who handed her the letter. She read it through, bit by bit. The tone was implacable. Worse than that, even though coming from lawyers, its tone was tragic.

  ‘I do not know what we shall do now, dearest. We only have enough to last the month here with Mrs Molesworth. We will have to work every hour of the day and night if we are to live only on our painting, and your tiny allowance.’

  Celandine started to walk about their bedroom, pacing up and down as she had done in Paris, when she was wondering what to do about the baby, whether he should be put up for adoption as Marie had advised, whether she should bring him to England, or send him to America, when he was older and stronger. Now she was pacing up and down wondering what to do about Sheridan. How best they could help each other, and stay solvent; how Sheridan could best earn his living; how they might both do so.

  ‘We will manage, dearest,’ she finally announced. ‘We will manage, because we are both talented. We will do better without the money from your trust. We will do so well that we will realise it has been nothing but a blessing that your annuity has dried up.’

  Sheridan looked doubtful, then a little sullen. He had hoped that Celandine would have some rather more practical advice, or perhaps a more brilliant notion.

  ‘Your mother’s death has not brought you any . . .’ he began uncertainly, trying not to sound eager or avaricious although quite unable to keep from being hopeful.

  ‘My mother’s death has brought me nothing but debts and quandaries,’ Celandine told him, sounding unexpectedly bitter.

  Sheridan stared at her, momentarily surprised by her tone. Thinking that her bitterness must have come from reading the lawyer’s letter, he stood up to take her in his arms, seeking to reassure her.

  ‘You are right, everything will be better. I will work twice as hard as I have been doing. No more of Mrs Molesworth’s splendid picnics on the beach, no more dillydallying with Alfred and Napier and talking a lot of rot; enough of that. On with the toil. I will paint so hard and so fast that, no matter what, I will bring in enough. I will bring in enough to feather not just one nest, but many!’

  ‘Yes, but how, Sherry? How?’

  Sheridan looked at her. ‘Why, with my paintings, dearest. They will start to sell, I am sure. When I am better known.’

  ‘Yes, darling, when you are better known, but just now you are not better known and quite soon Mrs Molesworth will come to the door with her hand out, waiting for the rent and the money for our food, and the laundry, and everything else.’

  Celandine stopped. Remembering some of the paintings that had been supposed to come to her from her mother, which Agnes was now probably either hanging or selling, she could not help feeling another rush of bitterness.

  ‘My paintings will sell. The new reality is going to become popular, Celandine, really it is.’

  ‘Yes,’ Celandine agreed in a kind tone. ‘But not by the end of the month, dearest.’ She stopped pacing up and down, and stood in front of Sheridan. ‘You are going to have to paint portraits, Sherry.’

  Sheridan sprang up. ‘Paint portraits!’ He ran his hands down the sides of his trousers. ‘Paint portraits! Portraits are the last outposts of the desperately inartistic!’

  ‘Either that or we shall be in the street, Sherry,’ Celandine told him flatly.

  Sheridan, more desperate than his wife, thought quickly. ‘We could go and live with Aunt Biddy. She would have us. We could go and live with her.’

  Celandine stared at her young husband as if he had gone quite mad. ‘Sherry,’ she said slowly. ‘I love your Aunt Biddy, I love Gabrielle, and I even love Russo, despite the fact that the last time he changed his clothes was for the Duke of Wellington’s funeral – but I will not burden them with our presence. Can you imagine? The poor creatures, landed with a couple more mouths to feed, having to air and make beds,
do the laundry, peel more vegetables, dust our rooms. They can hardly look after themselves. No, it is to portraits we shall have to turn until such time as the new reality to which you are so devoted becomes fashionable.’

  She did not add ‘if it ever does’, because that was not her way.

  ‘I know for a certainty that, for instance, Captain Black, the old sea dog I danced with at Aunt Biddy’s celebration, is only too keen to have himself portrayed sans stomach, sans wrinkles, in all his naval splendour.’

  She stopped, because Sheridan had flung himself on their bed and buried his face in their pillows. She stared at his momentarily inert body. Really, he was such a child. She sighed inwardly, realising that it was not just Sherry who was a child at heart; they all were really. When it came down to it, very few human beings ever grew up, not really, not deep down, which was probably both a good thing and a bad thing.

  ‘I shall send Mrs Molesworth’s boy to take a message to him, and before too long, you will see, you will have a great big fat commission, Sherry.’

  Sheridan pretended not to hear, because he did not want to hear. He wanted to throw himself in the briny. Just when he felt he had made a breakthrough, just when his new paintings were about to take off, he was going to have to sit flattering a great fat naval oaf who would want his epaulettes picked out in real gold, and doubtless an admiral’s hat somewhere in the background – to signify his boyhood ambitions, or some such conceited nonsense.

  He would not do it! He stood up to face Celandine, but seeing the look in her eyes he realised that his fate was sealed, at any rate for the moment.

  A few days later he returned from sketching the old sea dog, who did indeed want an admiral’s hat, not to mention a skull and cross-bones against the statutory red velvet drape that was a basic requirement for all English oil portraits.

  Sherry flung his sketchbook across the room. ‘Hateful, hateful, hateful,’ he muttered, in childish fury.

  Celandine, who had quite expected such an outburst on his return, picked up the sketchbook with every appearance of calm.