Читать книгу The Villa on the Riviera - Elizabeth Edmondson - Страница 10

As a child, and indeed until she left her home in Highgate, Polly had disliked Sundays. Not because the Smiths were tyrannical Sabbath-keepers, but because of the general dreariness of the day. Almost, she wished Dora had been a churchgoer, since friends and neighbours who did attend divine service on Sunday mornings seemed to enjoy their day much more than the Smiths did.

Dora, however, was an agnostic. ‘I’m not saying there is or isn’t a God,’ she told Polly. ‘That’s for everyone to decide for him or herself. On balance, I’d say there’s more to life than what we can see, music is proof of that.’ Dora had a fine contralto voice, and sang with the London Bach Choir; they had just given a performance of the St John Passion, ‘And I defy anyone to listen to Bach and not be touched by a greater spirit. One thing I’m certain of, which is that any God there happens to be isn’t in attendance at St Jude’s on a regular basis at eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings. Nor at any other time. I shouldn’t have any respect for a deity who chose to be in that place in that company.’

So Dora spent Sundays catching up with herself, as she put it. She took in a Sunday paper, which she read in the morning. In the afternoon, she listened to the wireless and did some mending. In the evening, she usually went round to the Mortimers at number 19, to play cards. All of which, to the young Polly, spelled boredom. Sunday was a tedious day, twice as long as any other day of the week, a day when she felt caged and confined. By Sunday evening, she was longing for the day to be over and for Monday to come.

Once she had left Bingley Street, Polly’s Sundays improved. She often spent the day with friends, discussing Life and Art, and, in good weather, going on the river or borrowing a bicycle and going for long rides into the country. On Sunday evenings, there was always a group of convivial souls gathered at one or other of the pubs they patronized.

All that changed once more when she met Roger. In fact, her more cynical friends claimed that it was because of Sundays that she had got engaged to Roger. Roger was at his best on Sundays, more relaxed, warmer, his mind not so engaged with his work. However, he was still a punctual man, Sunday or no Sunday, and Polly cursed when she looked at the clock and saw the time. Twenty-five past ten. That was the penalty for idling in bed, but on a winter morning it took a lot of effort to leave the warm covers and get dressed in a room so cold that the windows were still frosted over halfway through the morning.

Damn, there was a hole in her lisle stockings. Would it show? Yes, it would. She had approximately five minutes before Roger would draw up outside the house and give three short blasts on his horn, expecting the front door to open at once.

Too bad, he’d have to wait. She found her sewing kit, and with the stocking still on her leg, cobbled the edges of the hole together. It didn’t look good, but it was better than a patch of bare leg showing through. Toot, toot, toot. There was Roger. She dragged a comb through her hair; she had slept on a lock which now jutted out at a strange angle, well, it couldn’t be helped. She tucked her hair up into her beret, grabbed her handbag, and hurried down the stairs.

Roger was standing beside his MG, looking at his watch. ‘Really, Polly, I don’t know why you can never be ready on time.’

‘Good morning, Roger,’ she said, giving him a peck on the cheek. He held the car door open for her and she got in. ‘I found a hole in my stockings, I had to mend it, imagine what your mother would think.’

He glanced down at her leg. ‘Those are terrible stockings, anyhow, why don’t you get yourself some decent ones?’

‘I’m broke.’

‘I don’t know what you do with your money, you never have a penny.’

‘I don’t have many pennies to start with.’

‘When we’re married, I’ll give you an allowance, but you’ll have to keep track of where it goes, keep accounts and so on.’

The sun had straggled out after days of greyness, and Polly felt too cheerful to let the thought of keeping accounts daunt her. ‘I expect I’ll manage. And I’ll have my money from the workshop as well, besides what I earn from …’

‘The workshop?’ said Roger, accelerating with a throaty roar of the car engine. ‘Certainly not. I can’t have my wife going out to work, let alone in a place like that.’

Now the sun seemed much less bright. ‘But Roger …’

‘No buts, Polly.’ He turned his head and gave her a warm smile, that particular smile was one of his most likeable features. ‘Come on, Polly, you know it isn’t the thing. Not for a doctor’s wife. Of course you must keep up with your art, do those book jackets and so on, and you said you were hoping to get some illustrations to do, that’ll bring you in a bit of pin money. That’s quite different from going out to work at that place. If you want to fill in your time to some purpose, I’m sure we could find you a suitable position at the hospital, at the welfare section, perhaps.’

There were, Polly realized with a sense of apprehension, a lot of things she and Roger had never talked about. Not because he found it difficult, but because he didn’t think there was anything to discuss. So much for Roger’s vaunted socialism, so much for equality. The Rogers of this world were a great deal more equal than the Pollys, that was the fact of the matter.

Roger took a sharp corner with a screech, and Polly clung on to the door. Behind the wheel of his car, Roger changed from a sensible, almost cautious man into a daredevil; thank goodness on a Sunday morning there wasn’t much traffic about. ‘I don’t want to give up my work.’

‘Polly, be reasonable. You’ll be starting a new life, you’ll be a new person, Mrs Roger Harrington. It wouldn’t be at all suitable for you to carry on — it’s not really the kind of job that — well, it isn’t suitable, that’s all. Besides, we’ll want to have children, a baby will put a stop to all that kind of thing.’

Roger hadn’t been impressed by the workshop on the one occasion he had been there. He’d come to pick up Polly, and Sam, spying him in the yard below, had called to Polly that her young man was here, and shouted to him to come up.

Roger hadn’t taken to Sam — ‘What an extraordinary young man, I’m not sure it’s quite the thing, Polly, you working up there alone with him.’

Sam hadn’t been any more flattering about Roger. ‘Can’t you do better than that, Polly? Look at his mouth, he’s quite handsome now, but that’s going to get more and more rigid as the years go by. I smell a disapproving man, you want to watch out, it’ll be disastrous getting hitched to a man who disapproves.’

‘What rubbish you do talk,’ Polly had said, annoyed, but then, at Roger’s remarks, she had had to swallow her amazed laughter. ‘I’m perfectly safe with Sam, I assure you. And mostly Mr Padgett’s there as well, and other assistants who come and go. Honestly, what do you imagine? Wild lust among the paint tubes and the canvases?’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t say things like that.’

Polly usually found Roger’s prim ways rather endearing, but this time it annoyed her. ‘Oh, Roger, can’t you see at a glance that Sam’s as queer as a square button?’

‘No, I cannot, and I don’t like to think that you could. Do you realize what you’re saying? Do you realize that it’s a criminal offence? Never mind. I put it down to naivety. As a medical man I have some understanding of such people, but it’s wholly inappropriate for you to make such remarks, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She wasn’t going to argue, not now, not this morning, and here they were, in Bryanston Square, and there was Roger’s sister, Alice, waving at them from behind the wrought-iron railings of the first-floor balcony.

Roger screeched to a halt in front of the large terraced house, and went round to open Polly’s door. The front door of the house was already open, and Dr Harrington, Roger’s father, came down the shallow steps, smiling a welcome. ‘Come in, my dear, come in, you must be freezing, driving in that open car of Roger’s, really, it’s high time he bought a saloon.’

And up the stairs to the drawing room, where one of the other Drs Harrington, Roger’s mother, sat in a comfortable chair with her youngest grandchild on her lap, looking pleased, and telling Alice to ring for Foster to bring fresh coffee.

Polly let out a sigh of pure pleasure. The Harrington family were, to her, like something out of a book: read about, dreamed about, but known not to exist outside the pages of a story. But they did exist, here they were, and what was even more wonderful, she was part of the family, or soon would be.

The drawing room was large, with tall sash windows that looked out over the green garden of the square. It had a formal marble fireplace in which a substantial fire was blazing. Everything in the room that could shine, shone: the brass fire surround, the window panes, the large mirror on the wall, the polished surfaces of the tables.

Roger had an older brother, Edward, another Dr Harrington, a rising man in his field of eye surgery, who was married to Celia, herself the daughter of a distinguished consultant. She was a qualified pharmacist, and an asset to her husband. Alice was Roger’s younger sister, still a schoolgirl, she rather frightened Polly with her ferocious personality, and it always surprised her when Alice expressed admiration for her calling as an artist.

‘It’s a vocation, isn’t it? Just like my family think medicine is. I mean, you have to do it, whether you want to or not,’ she had said to Polly the first time Roger had brought her home to meet his family. ‘Writers are the same, they get twitchy if they don’t write. Does Roger understand that, I wonder?’

Celia came and sat on the sofa opposite Polly. Polly braced herself, for although Celia was always kind and polite, Polly knew quite well that Celia felt it her duty to fill Polly in on various matters of life that would be important for any woman married to a Harrington. ‘You’ve had your hair cut, I see,’ was her opening gambit.

No, strictly speaking that wasn’t true. Polly had cut her own hair. Thick, straight and heavy, she trimmed it into an approximation of a bob, leaving it long enough to pin up if she wanted it out of the way.

‘I can recommend my hairdresser, Miss Lilian, at the Westbury Salon.’

‘Thank you,’ said Polly, hating the sound of Miss Lois, but having to admit to herself that Celia’s sleek cut was a delight.

Lunch was announced, and they went downstairs to the dining room, a handsome panelled room on the ground floor, with portraits of earlier Harringtons looking benignly down from the walls.

Sunday lunch at the Harringtons was always the same. Soup, a joint and a pie.

Always plentiful, always beautifully cooked, always delicious. Today it was a thick leek and potato soup, followed by roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with roast potatoes, buttered parsnips and cabbage.

Edward turned to Polly as she was about to take a mouthful of Yorkshire pudding smothered in rich gravy.

‘Have you and Roger settled the day yet? January’s not far away now. Then off to the Alps, how I envy you.’

Roger wiped his mouth and laid his napkin beside his plate. ‘Slight change of plan, actually,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Polly, I’d meant to tell you before, but I thought I might as well tell everyone at the same time. I only heard on Friday. The fact is, I’ve been offered a chance to go to America — you remember, Father, I told you I might apply for one of the Leadenhall Awards? Well, I’ve got it.’

A minor uproar broke out around the table, with mingled congratulations and questions. A success for any one of the Harringtons was felt by them to reflect well on the whole clan.

‘What does it entail?’ Dr Harrington senior asked.

‘I get six weeks in Boston, all expenses paid, and a chance to work with some of the top men in the field.’

Polly said nothing. Alice too was silent, and she looked directly at Polly. ‘You don’t mind a bit, do you?’ she said in a soft voice.

‘No,’ Polly whispered back.

‘I am sorry, old thing,’ Roger was saying to her. ‘I didn’t tell you I’d even applied, because of course I never expected to get a scholarship, the competition’s fierce.’

‘Why don’t you get married at once and go to America for your honeymoon?’ said Celia brightly.

Polly looked at Roger, alarmed. Of course, she’d love to go to America, but …

‘Impossible, I’m afraid. It’s definitely just me, there’s no provision for wives. You won’t mind, Polly, will you? After all, since we’ve been engaged for more than a year, two or three more months are neither here nor there.’

‘No, of course I don’t mind,’ Polly murmured, trying to hide her relief. For goodness sake, what was the matter with her? She was genuinely fond of Roger, if not exactly passionately in love; he represented stability, security, safety, and when she was married, she would acquire what she’d never had: a family. A brother and a sister, and Dr Harrington the father she didn’t have. If Roger’s mother was a trifle too austere to count as the maternal type, well, she had a mother of her own. Two, in fact. Quite enough for anyone.

That brought her up short. Could it be that Polly Smith, daughter of Ted and Dora Smith, was perfectly ready to marry Roger, but that Polyhymnia Tomkins, daughter of Thomasina Tomkins, would rather marry quite a different sort of person — or not get married at all?

At least this meant that she could postpone the day when she had to come clean to Roger — and to his family, he shared everything with his family — about who she really was. How would they react when she revealed that, instead of being the daughter of respectable people, not on a par with the Harringtons as to background and wealth, of course, but just about acceptable, she was illegitimate? What would they say to a bastard in the family? Dr Harrington liked to think of himself as broad-minded, but Polly had an idea that Roger’s mother might have been happier if Roger had become engaged to another Celia.

Polly had never subscribed to the school of getting unpleasant things over with; she always lived in hope that if you put off what was disagreeable, it might go away, and she had found this was often the case.

‘When do you go?’ Mrs Harrington was asking Roger, and Polly knew she was thinking of suitable clothes and packing. ‘Isn’t Boston terribly cold in the winter? Did you order a new overcoat? Will it be ready in time?’

‘I sail on Saturday. On the United States.’

Should she be wrinkling her brow and worrying about whether Roger would have enough warm socks? Polly asked herself. Bother socks, let him worry about them himself.

‘I’ll be back by the end of January, so we can get married in February. Which reminds me, you’ll need a passport.’

‘I got it,’ said Polly. Oh, God, Polyhymnia Tomkins; surely her duplicity, her new identity must show in her face; go away, Polyhymnia Tomkins, she said inwardly; you aren’t wanted in Bryanston Square.

Roger raised his eyebrows to heaven. ‘I know what you’ve done, you’ve got one in the wrong name.’

‘What?’ Polly said, her voice squeaky, how did he know?

‘You’ve got a passport in your maiden name, haven’t you? Whereas you need one in your married name. What a nuisance, but you can turn it in and I’ll put you on mine. I thought it would be advisable for you to have one for yourself, in case we have to travel separately at any time, but I don’t suppose that will ever arise. Meanwhile, you’d better give it to me, I’ll see to it, and I don’t think that room of yours is a safe place to keep valuables.’

‘I left it at home. In Highgate. With my mother,’ Polly said swiftly and untruthfully, shocked at how easily the lie sprang to her lips. She dug her spoon into the apple pie which had been set in front of her. It was covered in clotted cream sent up from Devon, where the Harrington family came from and had a holiday house, and she rolled the food around in her mouth, barely able to swallow it.

‘A walk in the park?’ Dr Harrington suggested when they had had coffee upstairs in the drawing room. The walk was part of the ritual, and today Polly, sleepy and disturbed, was more than willing to get out of the house and walk herself back into a good humour.

The park in question was Regent’s Park, looking rather forlorn in the fading light of a winter’s day. Polly linked arms with Roger, and Celia walked on her other side, talking across her to Roger about Alice. ‘I’m pleased to see her take her school work seriously. She needs to buckle down to her books and really apply herself if she’s going to get a place to study medicine.’

Roger nodded.

‘Does she want to be a doctor?’ Polly asked.

Celia had a particular laugh which had nothing to do with mirth. She laughed now. ‘Of course she wants to be a doctor. She’s a Harrington. She’s lucky, she’s got the brains for it, and of course the family will help her get a place, only she must get good results in her exams. Women can’t get in on rugger and good humour, they have to be twice as good as the men on the academic side.’

‘What would she do if she weren’t a Harrington?’

‘Don’t be tiresome, Polly,’ said Roger. ‘She is a Harrington, it’s irrelevant.’ And then, with a flash of irritation, ‘I suppose she’s been going on to you about how she wants to be an actress. It’s nonsense, childish fantasy, there’s no question of it. Wanting to go on the stage, I ask you!’

A chill came over Polly that was unconnected with the icy wind that had sprung up and was blowing the last leaves of autumn across the path. A squirrel ran down a tree, and sat upright, looking at them with beady eyes before springing away.

‘Does Alice have no say?’

Roger looked at her in surprise. They were much of a height, for he wasn’t a tall man, and Polly was tall for a woman. ‘A say? Of course she has a say. She has plenty of say, it’s impossible to shut her up.’

‘No, a say about being an actress.’

‘I’ve told you, it’s just a silly idea she has. She’ll grow out of it. She’s got too much sense and too good a brain to go in for anything so foolish.’ Roger put his arm round her waist and gave her a squeeze.

‘If we had a daughter, wouldn’t you let her do what she wanted?’ Polly said, looking at the ground as she walked.

‘Parents know what’s best for their children, and I’d hope that any daughter of ours would be too sensible not to want a decent profession, at least until she married, and medicine, if a woman chooses the right field, general practice or paediatrics, can be combined with marriage and even motherhood. Don’t worry about Alice, Polly. She’ll want to be a dancer or some such rubbish next week, and I dare say a balloon pilot the week after. You know how girls are at that age, all this acting business is just a passing fad.’

Polly remembered how she was at that age, absorbed in her painting and drawing, fascinated by colour and line and perspective, spending all her spare time in galleries or looking at pictures and sculptures in books, intoxicated by the beckoning world of the artist.

Polly had got engaged to Roger on the way home from a Sunday spent with his family. Warm and secure, she had wrapped herself in Roger’s embrace, welcoming the tweedy solidity of his arms, the lingering scent of pipe tobacco. Now she suddenly felt she was looking at him and his family as though through a shattered pane of glass, with the tranquillity and security distorted and broken into a thousand pieces.