The White Marriage Read online

  Arietta was halfway up the short flight of polished dark oak stairs long before Mary had finished speaking.

  Mary smiled, went back into the dining room and shut the door. There would be so much for the two of them to talk about. Although now she came to think of it, she had heard nothing from Sunny since she had returned at two o’clock in the morning. Mary had heard the door of the car that must have brought her back slammed in such a way, and their own front door opened and shut so quickly that she knew, as mothers do, that Sunny had been only too glad to get out of the car and into the house, which had made her feel a little anxious about who could have brought her home.

  Still, much as she longed to know whether or not Sunny and the remodelled ball gown had been successes, she could not spare the time to go up and ask Sunny all about it. She had to finish altering Mrs FitzWarren’s cocktail dress and matching coat.

  Mrs FitzWarren was giving a reception in honour of the committee organising the funding for the village war memorial. The cocktail party was to be held at the Manor House, Rushington the following weekend. Everyone who was anyone from Rushington and nearby Bexham had been invited. It was a worthy cause, Mrs FitzWarren kept saying, most especially since so many of the fallen had no other memorial, nothing to remind their families, or anyone else, that they had died for their country, just a telegram and a collection of black-and-white photographs in a family album.

  Mary bent once more over her sewing machine, turning away from looking back, looking only to the future, for really there was very little that you could do. She knew that John had taken the covers off the Vauxhall, and that after Sunday lunch the family would probably go for a spin around the lanes, and then up to the Downs. That was something to which she could really look forward, just as she could look forward to cooking the first piece of pork they had been able to obtain since heaven only knew when. And a very fine piece of roast pork it was going to be, with the crispiest crackling, accompanied by a flavoursome apple sauce, and golden roast potatoes, and vegetables from the garden, which would be followed by a floating island pudding. All in all it would be quite a day.

  Upstairs, Sunny was sitting up in bed, her hair tangled, her large eyes staring at Arietta as if she had only just seen her, which in a way she had.

  ‘Oh goodness, Arietta, I can’t believe it, really I can’t. It makes you look so different! What does it feel like? It must feel wonderful, gracious heavens. I mean to say, really, you are a different girl now. How marvellous, how particularly marvellous! I can’t get over how different you look, truly I can’t.’

  They both laughed and Sunny leaned forward and hugged Arietta as if she had just passed a really difficult exam, which in a way perhaps she had.

  ‘I should jolly well hope you can’t get over how different I look,’ Arietta stated. ‘It would make anyone look different, not having all those wires in their mouth. Of course, the good thing is that it has finally worked. My teeth are finally straight now, I think they truly are.’

  She bared her teeth at Sunny, who lay back against her pillows, smiling.

  There was a short silence. Sunny carried on smiling, and Arietta smiled back, although she could not yet understand what there was so very much to smile about. It was just so fine being able to try a large smile, knowing that your teeth were showing and not the brace.

  ‘So.’ She stared at Sunny once she had stopped smiling. ‘So? Are you going to tell me about the Norells’ ball, or are you going to go back to sleep again and leave me dangling on the end of a very long piece of string? Did you dance every dance? Were you the belle of the ball? Did you fall in love with a handsome stranger? Please answer all the questions, leaving a wide margin at the bottom of the paper so I can make footnotes.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sunny said, shaking her head, and she stared past Arietta, seeing something that she couldn’t explain to her. ‘I don’t know – it was just magical, but I don’t know how to explain why it was so magical because it all happened in such a hurry. I mean, I didn’t realise I was going to go to the Norells’ ball, let alone in Lady Finsborough’s dress. I don’t know how to explain how I felt.’

  ‘Well, of course you do,’ Arietta put in impatiently. ‘Oh, tell, please, do, or I shall go home and cry and cry.’

  ‘No, don’t cry, please. It will spoil the look of your new teeth if you have a red nose. Very well.’ Sunny looked serious as she recalled the best evening of her life so far. ‘To begin at the beginning, of course, I was not the belle of the ball. I couldn’t possibly have been because there were hundreds and hundreds of beautiful women, wearing gowns by Hardy Amies and heaven only knows who, and you have never seen such jewels. But I did dance every dance, and I never had to sit out, not once.’

  ‘Well, then!’ Arietta clasped her hands over her knees and swayed backwards exultantly. ‘How perfectly marvellous, how perfectly perfect. Imagine, your first ball and you never had to sit out once, and you were wearing Lady Finsborough’s dress.’

  ‘You should have seen the jewels that were there. They were so perfect, all matching their gowns. Barbara Goalen was there too, looking stunning, just like in the magazines. She is such a beautiful mannequin.’ Sunny shook her head. ‘Actually, all the women were beyond the beyonds, my deah,’ she said, mimicking the county ladies who called on her mother for dress alterations.

  ‘And what then? Did a handsome stranger fall in love with you? Were you swept off your feet?’

  Sunny looked away, her eyes straying to the view beyond the window. Somewhere out there she imagined that he would be getting up and having breakfast. Perhaps he might already have had breakfast? Perhaps he would have a valet to lay out his clothes? Older men so often did have valets, even now.

  ‘No,’ Sunny stated firmly, sitting up and twisting her hair into a knot on top of her head and fastening it with two Kirbigrips from her bedside table. ‘A handsome stranger did not fall in love with me, but the handsome stranger whose Bentley broke down outside here the other morning, well, he did dance with me quite a bit, and he did say he wants me to have lunch with him quite soon, although I expect he will forget completely.’

  Arietta let go her knees and fell backwards on to the eiderdown on the bed, her arms dramatically outstretched.

  ‘Oh, heavens! You’ll probably be married before the end of the month!’ Arietta announced, staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, nothing like that. No, it was just that we had met before; that was the only reason he asked me to dance the first dance after he arrived. As I just told you, it was because his car broke down outside here, and Mr Arkwright came and mended it, and he is so grateful to me for calling out Mr Arkwright, and all that kind of thing.’

  Sunny lay back against her pillows once more, thinking, for perhaps the fiftieth time, that really, all in all, it was a strange sequence of events that had led to her going to the ball, and dancing with Mr Wyndham.

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it. He has not asked you to lunch about mending his Bentley,’ Arietta asserted, sighing happily, her eyes half closed. ‘He has asked you to lunch because he has fallen in love with you, I know he has. I just know that is why he has asked you to lunch.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘No, I know he has,’ she insisted. ‘I know from the look on your face he has fallen in love with you. You have that look. My cousin had it last year, when she’d had a whirlwind romance, and been swept off her feet, and now she has gone to live in a castle in Spain.’ Arietta paused. ‘Mind you, her mother is furious because she says she will never, ever be let out of Spain again, because apparently Spanish noblemen don’t let their wives even go to the shops; they have to send their maids in their stead. At any rate, looking at you now, I would say that you definitely have the same look as my cousin.’

  Sunny turned away and stared out of the window once more.

  ‘Don’t be silly, I don’t have any look. I would know if I had a look,’ she replied, but Arietta continued to smile u
p at the ceiling.

  ‘I always knew something wonderful would happen to you soon, Sunny. There’s something about you that makes you so different from the rest of us, there really is. And I tell you what – it makes everyone who knows you want something wonderful to happen to you, including me, and I’m horrible, so that is how wonderful you are, Miss Chantry.’

  Sunny lay back against her pillows once more.

  ‘You are dear, Arietta,’ she murmured, but then she quickly changed the subject because she didn’t really believe her. ‘I say, Pa’s taken the Vauxhall off its blocks. Stay to lunch, and help with the car, won’t you?’

  Gray stood up as Sunny reached the restaurant table. It was a long time since he had lunched with someone as young as Miss Chantry, and now she was here it seemed to him that she was even younger – and this despite the fact that she was wearing a white-trimmed straw hat and a pretty floral dress and jacket, and three-quarter-length gloves, and high-heeled shoes and carrying a formal handbag.

  ‘You look very pretty,’ he told her appreciatively as the waiter pulled out her chair for her, and she sat down.

  Sunny smiled. She knew she did look quite pretty, but that knowledge did not stop her feeling nervous.

  ‘It was very kind of you to ask me to lunch.’

  Gray looked around the light and spacious dining room, with its heavy white linen tablecloths and matching napkins.

  ‘I doubt that it was kind; I doubt that very much,’ he stated, his eyes observing the other couples lunching, noting that they were all much older than himself. ‘This is really rather too grown up a place for me,’ he observed, ‘so it must be far too grown up a place for you.’

  ‘I think it’s lovely,’ Sunny put in quickly. ‘And it’s only older in here because places like this, places around about, like Napley Hill and Rushington, are full of older people, and they like to have lunch here when they change their library books, and that kind of thing.’ Sunny gave an affectionate look round the restaurant, and lowered her voice as if she was emotionally in charge of the rest of the dining room and therefore protective of them. ‘They’re actually all trying to keep their spirits up, after all that has happened, and I think they’re doing rather well,’ she ended proudly.

  Gray stared at her, and then shook his head as if for some reason he could not quite believe what he had just heard.

  ‘What would you like to drink? Are you allowed a drink at lunch-time?’

  ‘Of course. I would like a—’ Sunny hesitated. ‘I would like a—’

  ‘Dry sherry?’

  ‘A medium dry sherry.’

  ‘As I remember it from when my motor gave up the ghost outside your house, your family are rather fond of sherry, aren’t they?’

  ‘Only for visitors. If there are visitors, of course we offer sherry, but at lunch, at the weekends, they drink beer. Everyone round here does.’

  Gray ordered the drinks and then turned back to Sunny, knowing that it was his duty to find out more about her. They had been together barely more than a few minutes and already a large part of him wished that he had not taken Leandra’s advice and asked Miss Chantry to lunch. He had never had any real intention of carrying through Leandra’s plan, which had seemed to him to be far too outrageous for his taste; but then part of him was glad that he had done as Leandra had suggested, because if Miss Chantry was one thing and one thing alone, she was certainly refreshing.

  ‘What would you be doing normally, if you weren’t having lunch with me?’

  Sunny pulled a little face. ‘Normally? Normally I would be doing something very normal, normally.’

  ‘And what is, er – normal, normally around here?’

  Sunny bit her lip, hesitating. She hated to admit that she was studying to be a secretary, of all things, and yet she hated to lie even more – in fact she couldn’t lie, wouldn’t lie. She finally decided that she would give it to Mr Wyndham between the eyes. He wanted to know how normal or ordinary she was? So be it, she would let him know just how normal and ordinary.

  ‘I would normally be at secretarial college, and you can’t really get more normal than that,’ she told him, after which, to cover her embarrassing admission, she quickly picked up her schooner of sherry and sipped at it.

  Gray stared at her.

  ‘Of course you would. That is – well – that is really quite normal,’ he agreed in a kind voice, while at the same time he couldn’t help hearing Leandra’s voice saying, ‘Anyone suitable not only will not be rich …’ Girls who went to secretarial colleges had to get jobs, and girls who had to get jobs were not rich. They were expected to work in offices and look elegant, or at least neat, and then leave to be married. ‘Will you enjoy being a secretary?’ he finally asked.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Sunny shook her head. ‘Not at all, but Ma says I have to do something. She doesn’t know I am here. I told her I had toothache and was going to the dentist, which was naughty, but she would never have let me come otherwise, and I told the college secretary the same. So here I am, and going a beastly puce from the effects of this sherry.’

  She picked up her water glass and held it first to one cheek and then the other.

  Gray watched her. She was so artless, so honest, so poor – certainly compared to everyone else he knew – and, naturally, so young also compared to everyone else he knew. She couldn’t be more than eighteen, might be only seventeen. Again Leandra’s words came back to him: ‘Anyone suitable … will have to be innocent and well-behaved.’

  ‘Shall we order?’

  He picked up his menu and gave it a cursory glance. Sunny put down her water glass, picked up her own menu, and started to read it in silent, reverential concentration. She felt so hungry.

  ‘We had roast pork for the first time on Sunday,’ she murmured.

  ‘And it was delicious?’

  Sunny nodded, still not taking her eyes from the dishes on offer. ‘Oh, yes. It was just as perfect as Ma and Pa always said it was, before, you know – before the war.’

  It seemed to Gray that the menu was not so extensive that it would take a sophisticated person more than a few seconds to choose from it, but such was not the case with his luncheon companion. Sunny was reading the choices of dishes very, very carefully, hoping, he sensed, not to make a mistake, because what she was about to eat, and presumably be thankful for, mattered that much to her. He thought of the food he had enjoyed at Maydown at the weekend. He thought of the enormous breakfast table laden with kedgeree and meats and fruits of every kind; of the choices of drinks of every kind; of the sophistications on offer to all the guests; and in the presence of this slip of a girl who was so obviously excited by the really very limited menu on offer, he felt oddly guilty, as if he had come on from some kind of bacchanalian orgy.

  ‘And you would like …?’ he prompted.

  ‘Would it be all right to have roast chicken?’

  Chicken was very, very expensive, and always spoken of in hushed tones in Rushington.

  Gray smiled. ‘You may have anything you like, Miss Chantry,’ he said, and he found himself staring at her in such an odd way that he didn’t even look at the waiter as he was ordering, only kept on looking at Sunny, who was once more pressing the water glass against her cheeks.

  ‘I’m afraid it is the sherry,’ she explained apologetically. ‘I do like sherry, but it does make me horridly red. I think it’s because I don’t have it very often – well, only really at Christmas, and then only after church.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, really—’

  ‘Oh, but it does. It’s such a woeful thing to happen. No one wants to go red over lunch, do they? I mean, when you’re sitting at home thinking about going to lunch with someone you don’t know very well, you don’t exactly say to yourself, “I do hope I go reddish purple as soon as I sip my sherry,” do you?’ she finished with sudden indignation.

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘There that’s better.’ She put down the water glass and pushed the sher
ry away from her. ‘I don’t think I will have any more. Just water. You’re lucky, obviously you can drink what you like and it doesn’t make you look like some sort of old publican with a bottle nose and a wife and six children.’

  Gray kept what he hoped was an admirably straight face.

  ‘Do you know many bottle-nosed publicans with six children?’

  Sunny, who was still feeling hopelessly out of her depth and yet at the same time looking increasingly indignant, because a great part of her was blaming Mr Wyndham for suggesting that she drank the sherry, frowned.

  ‘Well, no, I can’t say that I do. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it has got anything to do with anything. I must confess to you, I am actually beginning to feel rather out of my depth,’ he confessed.

  ‘Well, you would do,’ Sunny said, looking suddenly sympathetic. ‘I mean, it’s not often someone like you takes out someone like me, who just doesn’t know how to go on, and what is more,’ she added, starting to look mildly indignant all over again, ‘who can’t even take a sip of a medium dry sherry without going purple.’

  ‘Pink, not purple.’

  ‘Well, say whatever colour you like, but it is most discomforting, and not at all what someone like you is used to,’ Sunny sighed. ‘I did hope I would do better than this,’ she added, lowering her voice, as if Gray was not her host, but someone in whom she was confiding – in other words talking to him about him.

  ‘You are doing beautifully and you are once more a normal colour, I promise you,’ Gray reassured her, as the chicken arrived.

  ‘Masses of bread sauce, and a lovely thick gravy, how heavenly,’ Sunny announced dreamily, her mood changing as her eyes dwelled approvingly on the sauce boats being offered.

  In the pause, as they were being served by the ageing waiters, Gray heard his own voice saying to Leandra, ‘Supposing she is not nice and we discover this far too late?’