A Desirable Husband (23 page)

‘Yes, they are nice,’ said Finola. ‘We put them in two years ago. Constance
hates
them, or she used to.’ She would not mind making such conversation for hours, when none of it mattered, and she had everyone’s approval without asking for it.

Gerard smiled down at her for a moment, and then turned away. He had been thinking for some time about how much he would like to be in bed with her. Finola was looking very pretty in the first tight dress she had worn for months, with diamond clips and a belt. It was of course a long time since he had been allowed to sleep with her, and when he next did, soon, it would be different. Gerard saw Nanny coming back with a quiet Isabella, and because he could not caress Finola, he went boldy over and took the child away from Nanny. Those who noticed this at once complimented him on his ability to handle her, but he thought this was unnecessary. It seemed to him that if the vicar could hold his child in public without embarrassment and without upsetting her, then so could he. Finola, who saw what was going on, did not tell him to watch out.

‘I think it’s wrong to hand them completely over to nannies,’ she said to William suddenly, ‘and of course it is going out now, though I do know some people who’re very
old-fashioned still. Gerard and I mean to do quite a lot – I don’t see why men shouldn’t know about children. ‘My father even used to change nappies,’ she said.

Gerard, surrounded by an admiring semi-circle, was now venturing to rock the baby in his arms.

‘My dear, I’m sure you’re absolutely right,’ said William, blinking. He looked at Gerard, and coughed, imagining the scene.

*

Dr Dovey said it was a cot-death, and nothing could have prevented it. It was nobody’s fault, there were several known cases of small babies giving up life for no apparent reason. Finola did not believe him, because she knew it was her fault.

She had fed Isabella at midnight, and had put her to bed, and had succeeded in sleeping undisturbed till eight o’clock; at which time she had gone back to the night nursery to feed the child again. She had found her dead, with her face half-turned to the mattress.

Her right hand, fingers curled, had lain just by her cheek, and it was the arm and hand Finola remembered, rather than her face. She had taken hold of Isabella’s wrist, intending teasingly to rouse her, and had had no reply. She could still see the fat bracelets on the baby wrist, and the rubbery palm with its cool film of sweat.

Finola could not remember exactly what had happened next, just after she had begun to think it was inconceivable that the child was dead. Gerard had been silent from shock for minutes together when Nanny first told him, that she did remember. She had been shocked, too.

She knew that at one point she herself had screamed with rage at being deprived in this way, at being so insulted, so indifferently tortured. That was the form her first grief had taken. The death of Isabella was not like a death in wartime, or a car accident, or the result of a sorrowful illness. It resembled the sort of maddening, causeless disaster which could happen to boilers and motor-cars but not to people, to babies.

The knowledge that she was guilty came to Finola a little while later, and that knowledge intensified when she remembered her rebellious fury. It could only be her fault, because she was the child’s mother – and good mothers, nowadays, simply did not lose their children. She hated those who told her that her sense of guilt was irrational.

Gerard, too, knew that he was guilty, because he had not loved Isabella enough. His anger at her death was more despairing and less violent than Finola’s, and it came later than hers, but it was quite as real. It was worse than hers, because it was openly directed against God. More punishment, he supposed, would come to him: to him, Isabella had meant above all that his marriage was a great success.

He had not loved the baby for herself, but for what she was to his Finola and for what he hoped she would become. He had been unable to do more than think such a tiny thing was really very sweet, and deserving of tenderness, when she was being good. She had always been good, in life. He had not appreciated it because sometimes Finola had had to disturb him in the night in order to suckle her.

‘You mustn’t worry Mummy and Daddy,’ Nanny said to the children. ‘This is a very very difficult time for them.’

‘
I
didn’t want her to die!’ said Richard. There were dreary teas in the nursery now, and Richard’s weekly supper downstairs had been stopped.

‘Well I didn’t
either
!’ said Eleanor. ‘Pig. Beast.’

‘Now stop it the pair of you, or
I’ll
be going, sharpish!’ said Nanny. Eleanor started noisily crying, and Richard banged out of the room.

Even Alice and Anatole, who came to stay for three days over the funeral, had only a little more time for the children than had their parents. They thought that they were doing all they could for their grandchildren, whom they pitied very much, but there were limits. Gerard and Finola, of course, pitied the children too.

*

Fifteen days after Isabella’s death, Gerard and Finola were driving slowly back from Shaftesbury in silence. It was
half-past three, and they had been to lunch with a horribly sympathetic neighbour, who would have been offended had they not gone. They had not the energy to cause offence to their acquaintance.

As they began to climb up the hill outside Chalcot St Joseph, Finola said gently: ‘Gerard, I’ve been thinking, about Isabella.’

‘Yes?’ he said, concentrating very hard on the gears of the car.

‘I know now what it was a punishment
for
.’ Both had used the word ‘punishment’ before, in frightened, private talks. Finola continued: ‘It never occurred to me till last night, but do you know, I think it was because we don’t love the other children. We thought she’d make up for them. Because we don’t really love them, do we?’ Parents
must
love their offspring, but when Richard and Eleanor were born, she and Gerard had been too much occupied with each other.

Gerard stopped the car and a large van hooted angrily past them. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. His face was exhausted. ‘It never occurred to me, either. She certainly was –’

Finola put a hand on his sleeve as he lowered his head. ‘Yes, I think that must be it, if it’s anything,’ said Gerard. What coarse, repellent children they were. ‘Oh, Finola.’

‘What a pity we don’t love them,’ she said softly. ‘Oh, it’s
terrible
.’

‘We must try,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Finola. Gerard took her hand.

They looked at each other, and were bound by a guilt which was equal and secret. Quickly, calmly, they let go of each other, and Gerard prepared to drive on.

Finola allowed herself to cry, and to watch her face, a rather pretty image of grief, in the side-mirror of the car. Her lips were curved almost in a smile. She was remembering the long, fruitless talks late at night, the despairing cuddles, the daytimes full of commonplaces, the deep sympathy of others which asked for endless reassurance that
the Parnells were coping. She also made herself remember the terrible, terrible quarrel she and Gerard had had a week ago, in which Isabella had been quite forgotten, as soon as Gerard had raised his voice to claim the bulk of the quite imaginary guilt for himself, and call his wife a morbid weepy fool.

They had, in the course of an evening’s shouting, dredged up every cause for resentment which they could remember or imagine; and Finola had screamed that they must divorce, they would always hate each other now. He had agreed with her. She cut out that memory – they had both been merely hysterical.

Gerard had shaken her till her knees gave way, when at last she had brought up the subject of Constance’s removal and his own failure, failure of love. Finola touched her cheek now, and stared at her grey reflection. Of course, they had made it up, after such a dreary display of violence as that. They had made love, very timidly, late that same night: but afterwards they had felt there could be no real bond between them. They had broken it, and one of them must necessarily be more responsible than the other for its breaking. A cause of more dissension. But now, thought Finola, they had a new bond. They had never really loved the children, and Eleanor they almost disliked.

Gerard drove into the stable yard and said, half to himself: ‘Well, back at last.’ He was miserably smiling, like his wife.

Late in April, 1955, the Parnells went up to London. It was their second visit since Isabella’s death: their first, in December, had been grimly practical, and they had hastened back to Combe Chalcot. This time they found that they wanted to stay. It was only the thought of Richard and Eleanor which made them agree to go back on the thirtieth, on the grounds that the children must need them. They did not want to return to the place where Isabella had lived, not yet, when they were in danger of relapsing into the deep grief which was a proper tribute to her.

On the 29th, they went rather sadly to a last party at a house in Lennox Gardens. It was given by a man who had known Gerard in the Navy, a widower with grown-up children; they expected it to be a rather dull crush where they would know few people, and where it would be difficult to forget themselves for a while. They were surprised to find that savage music was blaring from the dining-room, several well-scrubbed young people were present, and the lights were dim. There was very little room to move.

‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ their host Simon Fraser shouted at them. ‘It’s Sally who insisted on all this – she’s just got back from America and this is partly her birthday party as well as – Sally! Remember Mr and Mrs Parnell?’

Finola blinked at the very young, dark girl behind him, who murmured and smiled as she shook hands, then turned away to greet some man with a shriek of recognition. Looking round, Finola saw Darcy coming towards them,
with a young woman on his arm. The young woman, she noticed, looked very like a poised, calm version of the rude and pony-tailed Sally. She must be her elder sister.

‘That’s Joan!’ Fraser told them. ‘Your brother asked me if he could
marry
her, Parnell, today! Damn, damn the noise in this place –’

To the Parnells there seemed to be stillness for a moment. Darcy was to marry a pure young girl: they did not doubt that Fraser’s consent had been granted. Finola moved her lips and looked at Gerard. He was staring at Darcy, of course, and smiling: which she had not expected. He turned to her, and the expression on his ill-lit face was one she had seen sometimes during the war. He seemed to be powerfully excited, and she felt herself ready to laugh.

‘Fraser, what did you say?’ Gerard said, rounding suddenly on their host. ‘You don’t mean it?’

‘Of course I do! Dear lady! Yes, isn’t it?’ he said to someone else.

Darcy came up and made his announcement. ‘Brother, let me present you to my betrothed. This is Miss Joan Fraser. Jennet, this is my brother Gerard, and Finola my sister-in-law!’ He bowed towards them both, teasing as usual. Darcy had been far more upset than they had expected, six months ago, over Isabella’s death.

‘We’ve just been told!’ said Finola. Darcy looked shocked. ‘Darcy, fancy going to ask Joan’s father’s consent!’

‘We do know Joan, actually, Darcy,’ said Gerard. His face was still wonderfully lit with amusement. ‘It’s quite a surprise, Joan. But I’m very pleased, Darcy needs someone.’ He had last seen the girl when she was seventeen. ‘Yes, I think you’ll be very happy.’ He had no reason for this belief, he knew.

‘
Well
!’ said Darcy, looking at them both.

Joan, who was pretty, smiled remotely. ‘So am I p-pleased,’ she said to Gerard. ‘I’m only j-just twenty-two, so D-Darcy thought perhaps it would be w-well,
allowable,
to ask Daddy’s c-consent.’ The stammer surprised Finola and Gerard.

Joan was still at Girton, still Darcy’s pupil, and she was awed by her good fortune. The engagement would not be announced until July; it was an official secret at Cambridge.

‘Oh, Darcy,’ said Finola, looking at Gerard. Just then, she noticed a dark stocky man beside her, and recognised Winston Lowell. There was a second’s pause. She thought he was tipsy, and quite horribly, interestingly unattractive. It was amazing, she thought, that they had not met him before now.

‘Hello, Parnell – hello, Finola – and so has Darcy told you?’

‘Yes, he has,’ said Gerard, putting his arm through Finola’s. Finola giggled, thinking of some wartime party where something similar had happened. ‘How are you, Lowell?’

‘I am well. Do you
dance,
Mrs Parnell?’ said Winston.

‘Only the usual sort of Four Hundred shuffle,’ said Finola seriously. ‘And I don’t think one could do that to this music, do you?’ Gerard thought she was shy, and he liked her to be shy.

‘Then perhaps Joan will give me the pleasure,’ said Winston, turning away. ‘Come on Joan, for old times’ sake – do remember I took you to –
Salad
Days,
wasn’t it, only last year!’

‘All right,’ said Joan, glancing at Darcy, who protested at Winston’s presumption, but did not mean a word of it.

‘She
must
like older men,’ said Finola, as Winston and Joan pushed their way through the crowd. ‘Gerard, do you think we should actually try to dance?’ Isabella, she thought.

*

The Parnells walked back to Thurloe Square at midnight, having spent two hours at the party. It was a warm night, and they were full of nervous energy which might, they both knew, collapse at any moment.

‘So what were you up to in the garden?’ said Finola.

‘Oh, there was a rather gloomy conversation about the hydrogen bomb,’ said Gerard. ‘Very gloomy in fact.
Otherwise we were just talking about this and that, swapping war-memories, you know.’ He had spent a part of the evening with his male contemporaries, some of whom had served with him in the Navy, like Fraser. ‘It was very dull really.’

‘Do you remember that very chaotic party we went to in Portsmouth, the first one you ever took me to, I think, just before your leave ended?’ said Finola then. ‘Didn’t you think it was rather like that tonight?’

‘Yes, it was rather,’ said Gerard.

‘You quite enjoyed the war in a way, didn’t you?’ She had never suggested such a thing before.

‘Well, I met you!’

Finola smiled a little. ‘I meant – oh, not the horrors you saw, and I know you hated the lack of privacy and all that – didn’t I too! and there was the endlessness of the whole thing and the worry –’ she tried to remember – ‘but – but I always had the feeling in those days that you were – were terribly alive, excited almost.’ Like tonight, she thought. ‘It was different afterwards, wasn’t it?’

Gerard paused. ‘I think the thing is, one felt
useful
for the first time,’ he said. ‘And the prospect of danger – oh, God knows I’m a coward, but when one wasn’t actually on the point of being killed – it became rather like a drug.’ He stared into the headlights of a passing car, remembering a particular ship which he had seen blown into pieces at Cape Matapan. Blackened flames, dyed sea, screams of rending metal. And his own exhaustion. He had not enjoyed the war.

‘Men are very odd,’ Finola said. She thought of how she loathed even the slightest disturbance. Suddenly, she looked back to her childhood: I’ve never been cut out to be dashing, she thought, or
anyone’s
mistress, or an eccentric person. In spite of being a courtesan’s granddaughter. She wanted to tell her husband this.

Gerard laughed, and took her arm. ‘I hated every bit of it after we were married,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t bear the idea of being killed, just when I’d got something to live for.’ He finished solemnly.

‘Gerard,’ said Finola, ‘Gerard, isn’t it
extraordinary
about Darcy?’

‘Oh, darling!’ he said. ‘If you could have seen your own face.’

‘I thought I’d die,’ she said. ‘D’you think there’s any chance of it really being a success, if it actually does come off?’

‘Why not?’ said Gerard. ‘It’s no more extraordinary than our getting married, when one comes to think of it.’

‘Oh no, darling, she’s
twenty
years younger than he is! It’s simply crazy. Funny, I was delighted about it, really, when we heard, but –’ Awful Winston, she thought, taking the girl off like that.

‘You must take Joan in hand and tell her how to deal with a husband, Finola.’

‘Yes,’ said Finola, stepping forward. ‘I’ll enjoy doing that. Oh, even if it isn’t a great success, I
am
pleased about it! It makes one
think
– well, how stupid ordinary quarrels are, when – when really terrible things can happen.’

Gerard rubbed her arm a little. They did not think of it.

‘Back to Combe Chalcot tomorrow,’ said Finola, as they turned round into Pelham Street. She heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘I’ll tell Darcy he must never, ever, quarrel with Joan about anything that isn’t utterly vital and that he must
talk
when he feels cross with her for no reason, and not bottle it up. I suppose talking
would
be quarrelling, actually. It’s
better
to quarrel,’ she told him.

‘Talking can make one feel worse,’ said Gerard. You’ve had too many Martinis, darling, he thought.

‘Yes, yes, but we were terribly stupid, weren’t we, three years ago?’ said Finola unhappily. ‘It was so, so unnecessary.’

‘You still haven’t quite forgiven me, have you,’ he said.

‘Yes, I have now – it seems so unimportant in comparison with – you’re really very kind, Gerard.’ Quite lately, his behaviour over Constance, and his failure to prevent her associating with Winston Lowell (as he could have done if he had only proved that he loved her), had seemed almost
more important than Isabella’s death. Certainly more hateful. She must tell Joan that family quarrels were very unreasonable: one often cried more about scores deep in the past than about the present cause, however great that was.

‘But I am so stiff-necked.’

‘Don’t be cross.’

‘I’m not, I was teasing, can’t you tell?’

‘Well, yes, but I wanted to be
sure.
’ She hugged him in the middle of the street, which was not unsuitable because it was deserted. They were going to make themselves happy, and set an example to Darcy, and be as far as possible what they had been ten years before. Their faces were serious, and they did not look at each other, but they clung tightly together for a moment or two, wondering what all their children would have thought of them, had they been able to see them now. Then, because it was only a few yards to their house in Thurloe Square, Gerard picked Finola up and carried her in.