The White Marriage Read online

  At first the young bride had been too naïve to know what a ‘white marriage’ might be, but after he had explained it to her, she had accepted it, as why should she not? Her great love, her poor young husband, Tom, was dead, as dead as Dilke was now, and she was being offered security, friendship, companionship in return for running his houses, and turning a blind eye to his amatory exploits. Of course she had accepted. She had been a poor girl, recently widowed, an only child herself born of a young widow, who had then died. Brought up in one foster home after another, always narrowly escaping the amatory attentions of the man of whatever house she had been in, she had learned to look after herself, and in that she had succeeded.

  No one who had never been really poor knew what it was like, but once married to a man rich beyond anyone’s dreams, Leandra had never forgotten. She had kept the one good white dress that she had owned when she first met her beloved Tom. It was still, to this day, hanging in her wardrobe at Maydown. A simple white dress, always there to remind her from where she had come, and to where she was resolved never, ever to return.

  She walked slowly from the church and straight into Gray’s arms.

  ‘Gray!’

  ‘Rule said you had come to church.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She looked away from him. ‘Not where you might usually find me, but I came to say goodbye to Dilke.’

  Gray looked down at Leandra, surprised. He had not expected to find her grieving, and yet unmistakably, the lines under her eyes were such, it was quite clear that she was grieving.

  He hesitated to put his arm through hers. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem proper, not now that she was a widow. How ridiculous, though, because now it would be perfectly proper.

  They walked along in sombre silence, Gray not wanting to break the silence, not thinking it fitting, and Leandra unable to do so. She had anticipated many things in her life, but not this, not that she would miss Dilke, and with all her heart.

  She watched her feet sliding along in front of her. Of course they weren’t sliding, they just seemed to be sliding because the path from the church was wet, and that being so, she was walking with care. She started to wonder if the pain would ever go. And having wondered that, silently, to herself, she started to wonder why seeing Gray had not been a pleasant surprise as it should have been – as it would have been only a few days before – but an intrusion.

  ‘I didn’t realise how much Dilke meant to me, Gray, not until now.’

  Gray was silent. After all, what could he say to that?

  ‘Actually, I didn’t realise until now that I loved him at all. I always thought I coped with him, that I dealt with him, that I managed him, not that I loved him, but I must have done, or I wouldn’t be feeling as I do now.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Bereft.’

  Gray tried not to look amazed, tried not to look astonished, tried not to look aggrieved, and ended up, he feared, looking all of those things.

  ‘I suppose,’ he murmured, finally, ‘it is only to be expected. After all, you lived together for long enough, and although he was never a husband to you, he was always a friend.’

  ‘Yes, yes, he was, the best friend I ever had.’

  ‘And he certainly loved you. It used to amuse me to see how jealous he became when I was around. He had a way of saying my name which was so despising.’

  ‘Oh I don’t think so …’

  ‘Well, maybe not that, but certainly if Dilke could love any woman, he loved you, Leandra. He loved you for your beauty, for your taste, for your ability, as Randy Beauchamp would say, to rise above it. That is a great quality in any human being. If you can rise above things, you will always be graceful and humane, you will never become a Nazi, or a lost cause, both of which have caused so much trouble in this world.’

  They fell to silence once more, walking along, slowly, back up an all-too-familiar path through the woods, through the grounds back up to the house.

  Gray glanced sideways at her once or twice, the only sound being their footfalls and the recent rain dripping from the trees. The sky was a light grey in contrast to Leandra’s black dress, and Gray’s black mood.

  There were certain places that they were passing that he could not help remembering, as why should he not? Places where they had lain together on hot summer nights. He did not regret them, and yet, knowing himself a little better as he did now, he did deplore them.

  What had he been doing wasting his time with poor Leandra when he could have been with someone young and innocent like Sunny? He could be married by now, with children, and a home, instead of which, for his sins – which he now realised must have been plentiful – he was walking through dripping woods with a grieving widow.

  ‘I will leave you here, Leandra,’ he said when they finally reached the house. ‘I know you must wish to be alone.’

  ‘Yes, I do wish to be alone. I am in pain. There is no other word for it. It’s not that I want Dilke back again, Gray. It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just that I wish it had all been so different.’

  ‘As do I.’

  At that, Leandra looked up at him, astonished. ‘Do you, Gray? Do you really?’

  ‘Of course. Who wouldn’t want everything to be different? No war, no older brother dying, no friends lost, no girlfriends killed in the bombing – who wouldn’t want that to be different? Who wouldn’t want Dilke to have loved you, as you deserved? Who would not want you to have been able to love Dilke as you wanted? Of course we all want it to be different, but all we have is the present, and at the moment –’ he turned to leave her, and then turned back to her – ‘just at the moment – well, just at the moment it has at least stopped raining.’

  He walked off into the evening, and Leandra watched him for a few seconds, before ascending the steps into her house, because that was what it was now, her house. Beautiful, perfect Maydown, with its perfect choices of paintings and furniture, carefully supplied to her by dear Mr Abel, and yet now, its very perfection acted on her as a reproach, as if she had spent too much time worrying about all the things that did not matter, and too little thinking about the things that did matter.

  ‘But what could I do? What could I do?’ she muttered out loud to herself, as the old and lonely are always meant to do.

  Rule heard her, and moved silently from his doorway to her side.

  ‘You know, Mrs Fortescue, what Mr Fortescue always used to say when he felt a trifle down?’ Mrs Fortescue’s eyes were full of unshed tears, and Rule knew it and so did not wait for her to answer him. ‘He used to say, “A little touch of champagne, I think, don’t you, Rule?” And that is what we shall have, Mrs Fortescue. In the Yellow Drawing Room, a little touch of champagne, the way Mr Fortescue liked it, in the old glasses.’

  He preceded her through the house, Leandra following. Rule had had the maid light a fire in Mrs Fortescue’s favourite room, the Yellow Drawing Room, and an array of her favourite flowers newly arranged on the Italian marble tables.

  As Rule went to fetch the champagne, Leandra looked around her, and heard Gray’s words echoing in her head as she did so. Who would not want it to be different? Who would not want that? Oh, for it to have been different!

  And yet, as he had said, it had at least stopped raining.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Audrey was in fine form. They were once more in the dining room, and Uncle Bob, his signature one hair standing up at the back of his head, was looking as always when a family conference had been called – owl-eyed and solemn.

  ‘How can she possibly marry a painter, Bob? I mean, look at her!’

  Uncle Bob was looking at Arietta anyway so there was really no need for this gun dog-type command. He removed his pipe and smiled at his niece.

  ‘She looks very nice to me, Audrey.’

  ‘She has no money, and he will have no money. No one can live off their earnings as a painter.’

  Uncle Bob knocked the side of his pipe against the large glass ashtray alway
s placed for his use in the middle of the oak table.

  ‘I don’t know that that is always the case, Audrey, I don’t really,’ he stated eventually, having made an elaborate ceremony out of cleaning out his pipe and restocking it, watched by the two women with varying interest. ‘If we look at history, good painters have always made their way, via portraiture and so on.’

  ‘Apparently he has painted Arietta.’ Audrey made an unladylike snorting noise. ‘He must be desperate if he’s painted Arietta.’

  Uncle Bob restocked his pipe with his favourite tobacco and, having pushed it down, relit it, pulling on it slowly and evenly until he had made the whole dining room smell of Fox’s Best.

  ‘What we have here, Audrey, is a love affair,’ he told her, after several pulls, ‘and that being so, what the painter sees is not what you see, Audrey, but what he sees. He sees the girl that he loves, so obviously your view and his view of Arietta is going to be quite different, and, frankly my view too. And my view is that Arietta is a very pretty girl, made even prettier now, by love.’

  He turned and stared at Audrey, his expression almost grim. Audrey looked away. It was not like her brother-in-law to talk to her like that.

  ‘Well,’ she said, patting the back of her tightly permed hair and pulling it into place, ‘what do you suggest that we do, Bob? What is your plan? If any?’

  ‘I suggest that we let true love have its way, Audrey, as we all must.’

  ‘How do we know that it is true love?’

  ‘How do we ever know anything? Only when everything is over do we learn anything at all, and then it is always too late.’

  Bob smiled at Audrey, but it was not a pleasant smile, as it was not meant to be. It was a putting-you-in-your-place sort of smile, but since Audrey never knew her place, and never would, the smile had very little effect. She therefore changed tack.

  ‘I have no money for the wedding, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘No, of course you have no money for the wedding, Audrey. You never have any money. I shall pay for Arietta’s wedding. I set up a fund for just that eventuality years ago. It is quite a tidy sum now, I’m happy to tell you. Not just tidy, it has proved a most profitable investment fund, which will be quite enough for not just a wedding, but a honeymoon and a house too, perhaps.’

  Audrey was furious. They could both see that. The last thing she wanted was for Uncle Bob to side with Arietta, and the fact that he had, secretly – for she would be sure to see the investment for Arietta as a dreadful deceit – saved up to help Arietta rather than Audrey, would be a source of fury to her. It would turn in on her in a bitter way, eating at her insides until she would want to scream.

  ‘You never told me about this!’

  The words shot out of Audrey, making a sound that reminded Arietta of a sheet being torn down the middle.

  ‘No, I didn’t tell you about this, Audrey,’ Uncle Bob agreed calmly, ‘for the simple reason it was between me and my bank manager, and no one else. But every sensible father, or in my case uncle, of a daughter or niece always makes provision for a daughter or niece. Always.’ He put his pipe back in his mouth, and then, having had a fresh thought, in his usual unhurried manner, he took it out again, and said, ‘So when is the happy day to be?’

  Arietta shook her head. She had no idea. She just knew that Uncle Bob and herself were smiling at each other in a way that they had never smiled at each other before, and that her mother had left the room, the door slamming behind her.

  Uncle Bob leaned forward. ‘Ha, ha to her!’

  They both started to laugh.

  Hart had been to work, come back from work, been to work again, and come back again, and he was still so low that just the sight of him brought Sam down.

  ‘Can’t we cheer him up, Phillip?’

  Phillip looked round from his piano. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, mate,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He’s got it bad, and when someone’s got it bad, nothing’s to be done.’

  Sam looked morose. He couldn’t help feeling furious with Hart for being so depressed, most particularly because it affected him. How could he celebrate his engagement, talk about his future wedding, and generally go around feeling as if he was six feet above the ground, positively floating through the days and nights when, damn it, Hart was about as much fun as his mother’s fish soufflé, and looked about as grey round the gills as that same soufflé.

  It was boring, it was tedious, and he wanted it to stop.

  ‘Surely we can ring Sunny up and ask her what the hell is happening?’ he was now moaning to Arietta, but Arietta, taking her tone and her attitude from Mr Beauchamp, shook her head.

  ‘We can do nothing, Sam. It is not our business to do anything about anything, and we can’t make it our business, we just have to cross our fingers and hope that Sunny comes to her senses.’

  ‘I can’t believe she has gone back to Rushington! I can’t tell Harty. If he knows that, I don’t know what he would do.’

  ‘It may not be to be near the fiancé.’ Sam and Arietta always referred to Gray now as ‘the fiancé’ because it made him and the situation seem less real. ‘I think she may have gone home not to be near the fiancé, but to tell him that she can’t go through with the marriage.’

  Sam looked hopeful. ‘Do you really think so? Really, really?’

  ‘I do think so. I think that she went home because she knew that he would be going to Maydown, the widow’s house, because she knew that the fiancé would be sure to go to see the widow to comfort her.’

  ‘If only he would drop Sunny and marry the Fortescue lady, that would be a comfort.’

  As it happened, Arietta could not have been more wrong. Sunny had gone home because she knew of nowhere else to go, and because she realised that she had made such a mess of things, there was nowhere else she could go, and because she wanted not to think, and when all was said and done, there was comfort in the familiar routines and small domestic disasters that she had once considered so dull and confining.

  The Vauxhall still breaking down was comforting. Clem Arkwright calling to get her going was suddenly like Father Christmas being real and appearing down the fireplace.

  Her mother’s customers, Lady Finsborough in particular, coming for fittings, which required Sunny once again to model the gowns in question – that too was heart-warming in every way, as if nothing had really happened, as if time had not passed at all.

  ‘You have filled out in a most elegant manner, Miss Chantry,’ Lady Finsborough commented in admiring tones. ‘You always were a beauty. Now turn, child, turn. Yes, yes, I see what your mother is trying to show me, the kick pleat is very much needed, whereas I would have found it a trifle too showy, but with the severity of the cut in the skirt, no, it is just what will be needed. Now, if you wouldn’t mind modelling the coat and skirt for tomorrow’s funeral, I have doubts about the belt at the back of the jacket.’ She turned to Mary Chantry. ‘What a shock for poor dear Leandra Fortescue that Dilke was killed like that.’

  Sunny stared at the two women.

  ‘Mrs Fortescue’s husband has been killed?’

  ‘Did you not know, my dear? Yes, he was killed driving that sports car of his too fast. It and he, I am afraid, were always an accident waiting to happen. But there we are. Nothing to be done now, and happily he has left her very well off, I believe.’ Lady Finsborough nodded briskly. ‘Now, as I said, if you wouldn’t mind modelling the coat and skirt for me, my dear, I shall be most grateful.’

  As Sunny went to change, Lady Finsborough smiled at Mary. ‘What a good idea it was that I used my poor mother’s illness as an excuse to get out of going to the Norells’ ball that time. It will, I am sure, prove to have been dear Sunny’s making, as things sometimes do.’

  She smiled complacently at Mary, who, finding herself unable to tell the poor woman the truth, turned away, pretending to search for a pattern.

  After Sunny had modelled the coat and skirt for Lady Finsborough and the lady had left, Sunny turned to
her mother.

  ‘Did you know that Mr Fortescue had been killed, Ma?’

  ‘No, Sunny, I did not. I have far too much to do to keep looking through the arrivals and departures, matches and despatches in the Daily Telegraph, I am afraid. I only take it to do the crossword in bed at night, and you know your father, he only takes it to line his galoshes.’

  Sunny stared out of the window, lost in thought.

  ‘I will have to go and see Mrs Fortescue,’ she said quietly and finally.

  Once again Mary found herself turning away. She did not think it at all a good idea for Sunny to go to visit that awful Mrs Fortescue, although she had no idea why she didn’t think it a good idea. It was just a feeling.

  ‘Very well, Sunny, if you think it is a good idea …’

  Mary allowed just a little, just a tincture of doubt to creep into her voice before turning back to the tiny alterations that the perfectionist Lady Finsborough wanted done to the pile of clothes she had brought in for Mary’s attentions.

  ‘It is not that it’s a good idea, Ma. It probably isn’t a good idea, but what it is, is something that has to be done.’

  ‘In that case you had better keep on the black coat and skirt. I don’t suppose Lady Finsborough will mind, and it is more in keeping than anything you have yourself.’

  Sunny looked at herself in her mother’s dressing mirror. It had all started like this, her modelling for Lady Finsborough, the yellow ball gown, Lady Finsborough not able to go, and now, in a way, it was all ending like it too, except she was now in black, not yellow.

  Rule had answered the telephone, and he now walked quietly up to Leandra, who was staring into the fire, a position that it seemed to Rule that she had held for the past few days, with very few breaks.

  ‘There’s Miss Chantry on the telephone, Mrs Fortescue. She wonders if she might call on you this afternoon?’