Dorothy Eden (42 page)

Except her marriage?

But surely her constant desolation since William’s death meant success of a kind.

At least she was feeling physically stronger, and able to oppose with her customary vigour Florence’s latest plans for Bonnington’s.

The lease Papa had bought so many years ago, at a reasonable rent, was due to expire. Property in the Edgware Road had increased twenty times in value. After all, sixty years ago this had been a muddy road at the end of a straggling Oxford Street, and not considered desirable for business purposes.

Now the picture was changed out of all recognition. New commercial buildings were springing up everywhere, and the site of Bonnington’s, an extravagantly sprawling shop, was quite uneconomic unless drastic increases were made in turn-over.

Florence, aided by her crony James Brush, had plenty of ideas about this. Complete modernisation, she said. This was to be carried out in spite of the fact that a new lease would cost a price that made Beatrice wince, and also that the anticipated depression, beginning dramatically in Wall Street a little while ago, had now spread like a creeping plague to England and Europe.

In addition to these problems, Florence pointed out bitterly, Bonnington’s had also had to bear the burden of Papa’s death duties. It was completely disloyal of Mamma to refuse to sell any of the treasures of Overton House (the porcelain collection alone would fetch thousands), to cover this cost. Papa had always drained the business, and due to his wife’s weakness and sentimentality, seemed determined to go on doing so, even in death.

“That was why he married me,” Beatrice said calmly. “We made a bargain and I kept it faithfully. I shall go on keeping it.”

Then didn’t Mamma care about the business she had nursed and cherished for so long? Florence demanded. She had thoroughly enjoyed being called Queen Bea once. If she no longer cared about that, then it was time she abdicated. And certainly time that archaic cash system was got rid of, as it would be when modernisation was begun. The mourning department would go, also, it was hopelessly Victorian. And that out-of-date tropical department, now that brides no longer set out for India and other parts of the British Empire with a dozen of everything in their trunks. Travellers in the future would not want huge trousseaux of clothes, they would travel lightly because a great many of them would go by air. And Mamma could forget her snobbishness about titled customers. Hadn’t she discovered that they were the most dilatory of payers? One could send them the same bill for several years! The customer of the future was going to be the one with cash in her handbag, not the one who employed a maid to carry her handbag for her.

Florence was becoming a bully in her clever brittle way. Beatrice agreed that there was wisdom in many of her ideas, but as long as she was physically able to she would mount the steps into the cash desk, and sit there surveying her kingdom. She had always prided herself on the personal touch in business. Didn’t Florence realise that there were many customers who still liked to see Miss Beatrice, even though she often had difficulty in remembering their names. Some of them had similar trouble with unreliable memories. Old Lady Elkins persistently asked for Miss Brown, saying no one else understood how to dress her. One very ancient colonel even occasionally enquired after the health of old Joshua Bonnington.

Which was what came from living in the past, Florence said impatiently. One must live in tomorrow in business.

“And how many tomorrows do you imagine you have?” Beatrice asked sourly.

“Enough. James and I can put Bonnington’s back on its feet. But we
must
get rid of the old-fashioned atmosphere. And those death duties will have to be paid back. We need the cash. The depression is far worse than you seem to realise. Don’t you know that we could go bankrupt?”

Bonnington’s bankrupt! Beatrice glared at Florence for daring to utter such a heresy. Florence stared back and said in her cruelly sensible voice, “You must face it, Mamma. No business with a dead hand on it survives.”

Beatrice’s lips quivered suddenly. She hoped Florence hadn’t noticed that weakness.

“My hand is still very much alive, thank you.” She was longing, with an unbearable sense of desolation, for William. Had life dwindled away to nothing but these sordid fights with Florence?

“Then use it to sign a mortgage on Overton House,” Florence said crisply.

“Never!” she exclaimed. “That house is not to be touched, nor anything in it. It’s Overton property.

“Mamma, who are you keeping it for? Edwin?”

The pain struck more deeply. Her poor flawed Edwin in that lovely house, letting it moulder around him?

“You know these old houses cost far too much in upkeep nowadays,” Florence went on. “We ought to sell it and get a smaller place. We’d need fewer servants. There wouldn’t be all those rates and taxes. After all, let’s be honest, you and I are shopkeepers, not ladies living at leisure in a stately home.”

Beatrice had overcome her brief spasm of useless and weak emotion. She said thoughtfully,

“You’re right, of course, but you must be very imperceptive if you haven’t realised that Overton House is much more to me than a business transaction. If it came to a choice between Bonnington’s and Overton House, I would choose the house without any hesitation. And I’ll never change my mind about that, so stop badgering me.”

“You never used to be so unrealistic,” Florence cried.

“Perhaps that’s a pity.”

“Mamma, I hate to say it—”

“Is this another unpalatable truth?”

“Your judgment could be getting unreliable.”

“Is that a polite way of saying I am getting senile?” Beatrice said tranquilly. “No, not senile, dear. Just obsessive. As I always have been.”

The Daimler broke down on the way into the West End. Bates opened the bonnet and peered into a vaguely smoking interior while Beatrice fidgeted on the back seat.

“What is it, Bates? I’m late.”

“I’m not sure, madam. She’s old, that’s the trouble. She’s wearing out.”

“Nonsense, Bates! A car of this excellence doesn’t wear out.”

“I don’t want to say you’re wrong, madam, but—”

“Oh, I know. Everything wears out. Me, too. Then if you’re going to take hours over your meditations, you’d better go and find me a cab. I’ll expect you at the front doors at the usual time this afternoon.”

The Daimler was successfully mended, for Bates was waiting for her punctually at four o’clock, the car polished and shining and apparently running sweetly.

It was a different matter when it came to herself. When she fell ill with a nasty cold that developed into fever and pleurisy, young Doctor Lovegrove (old Doctor Lovegrove in his top hat and frock coat had given up his practice some years ago), gave her a severe lecture.

“Mrs Bonnington, you’re an old woman and the time has come to admit it.”

“Nonsense!” she croaked in a hoarse breathless whisper that took the authority out of her voice. She was used to intimidating people who were a nuisance, but this young man didn’t look as if he would be intimidated. “I’ll be as fit as I ever was when I get rid of this cold. It’s only settled on my chest, the way it used to do with my husband. Goodness me, I’ve nursed him through enough fevers to know what this is.”

“There’s also the matter of your hips.”

“Oh, yes, that. A bit of rheumatism. You might give me another kind of liniment. The ones I’ve tried have been useless. Downright swindles.”

“I’ll just take a look at them, if I may. Which one is the worst?”

Beatrice fretfully let Hawkins turn down the bedclothes. She submitted to the doctor’s painful examination—one wretched leg had been almost immovable since she had had to lie in bed—and listened in secret dismay to his diagnosis.

“You’re right about liniment, Mrs Bonnington. It would be a complete waste of time and money. You have a form of arthritis, unfortunately progressive. I can prescribe painkillers.”

“What else?” Beatrice demanded.

“Nothing, I’m afraid. The bone damage is fairly extensive already.”

Beatrice struggled up.

“What are you trying to tell me? Come on, doctor, I’m no coward. I want the truth.”

“I think you must know that already, Mrs Bonnington. You will become less and less mobile.”

“A wheelchair?”

“Not immediately. Although it would be a help after this illness while you’re still weak. There are long passages in this house. Perhaps a room on the ground floor later. Then you would have easy access to the garden. I don’t need to tell you that most people reaching old age face some sort of disabling illness, and they’re not all as fortunately placed as you are.”

“Don’t lecture me!”

The doctor grinned. He was perhaps not as young as she had thought. And he, too, would face a disabling illness one day, if that were any comfort to her. So would Florence. So would Edwin. So would young Anna with her skinny flying legs. One remembered Papa stricken when he was much younger than she was. But fortunately his stroke had blurred the intensity of his resentment.

She remembered, too, how she and Adam Cope had persuaded him, not to come into the shop, or at least to keep out of sight of the customers. Illness cast a gloom. She had been so intense about the atmosphere she wanted, gaiety, light, colour. People whose senses were pleasantly titillated or soothed opened their purses.

So she wasn’t too senile, Florence would be glad to hear, to know that Miss Beatrice being wheeled in an invalid chair down the moss-green carpet would be a spectacle that was out of the question. If she couldn’t walk, Bonnington’s was over for her. The Daimler could be put in its garage and kept as a museum piece, and she, making her halting way on sticks about the house, could be another one. If anyone ever bothered to come and see her. She had never been a person to make intimate friends. William had always been enough for her.

And this sentence, she told herself as she lay in the gloom listening to the fluid crackling in her lungs, was nothing compared to losing William. Really, the world had come to an end, then. The desolation of his loss never left her. So why struggle now? Why not give in? Who was going to care for an old woman in a wheelchair? Who had ever cared, except one or two of the servants, Miss Brown, old Hawkins, dear faithful Adam?

In spite of her brave youthful hopes she had at last to be honest and admit that life had defeated her. The love she had wanted had remained elusive. William had given her friendship, that was true. And, in later years, a possessive devotion. But he had died speaking of the woman she had sent out of the house.

So where was love?

“Grandmother.”

“Eh? Who’s that?” Beatrice struggled out of restless dream-haunted sleep.

“It’s me, Grandmother. Would you like me to read to you?”

“Didn’t they tell me you couldn’t read properly?”

“I can now, Grandmother. I’ve been studying hard.”

“You need Miss Medway to teach you.”

“Who’s Miss Medway?”

“Just a—very good teacher. Florence and Edwin never did as well with anyone else. I don’t believe they ever forgave me—”

“What for, Grandmother?”

“For getting rid of her, of course.”

“Miss Anna! You mustn’t disturb your grandmother.”

Beatrice opened her eyes, and was irritated by Hawkins’ anxious face. Too much loving devotion—one was smothered. Really, what did one want? The child at the foot of the bed with her tentative slant-eyed face? A stranger here. Much more Sergei than Daisy. Perhaps that was why one suddenly felt friendly.

“Go away, Hawkins. Anna is going to read to me. I must hear how she’s getting on.”

“Do you have a favourite book, Grandmother?”

“No, I don’t, but it’s kind of you to ask. Just read what you have in your hand.”

“It’s
David Copperfield
, Grandmother.”

“Splendid. You get more English every day. Miss Brown would have approved. Her mother used to claim she saw Charles Dickens going in and out of his house in Doughty Street. Not such an elevating sight, I should have thought. I was brought up to watch royalty. That was in Queen Victoria’s day.”

“Queen Victoria!”

“It’s not that long ago. Only thirty, forty years. She was a great personality, but a dreary dull person to a child. I always preferred her daughters. Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice used to shop at Bonnington’s. Princess Louise was very elegant, though a little eccentric. Now Florence thinks its the
nouveaux riches
whom we want as our customers. I don’t agree. Do you?”

“No, but perhaps we’re old-fashioned, Grandmother.”

“We!” Beatrice laughed until she had a paroxysm of coughing. Hawkins came hurrying, saying that madam must rest. “I’ll send the child away, madam.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Beatrice gasped. “She’s made me laugh. When did I last laugh, Hawkins?”

“I—I really can’t bring it to mind, madam.”

“Well, you never succeeded in making me. So go away.”

“Once,” came Anna’s composed voice, “when I was very small I can remember Mother taking me to see Tsarsko Selo. That was where—”

“I know where it was. The Tsar and Tsarina lived there. Was it as fine a palace as Windsor?”

“I haven’t been to Windsor, Grandmother. But it was pretty, and the trees were green. We could just see it from the gates. Mother said it was best in the snow, when you went by troika. It was like a fairy tale. But then she cried, and we never went again.”

“Must see that you get to Windsor. When I’m better. By the way, what do you say to having an ancient grandmother in an invalid chair? Will you be ashamed?”

“Ashamed!”

“Anyone could be. A child your age—”

“I might be skinny but I’m strong,” said Anna. “I could easily push your chair. I mean—if you’ll let me.”

Beatrice began to cough again, until her eyes streamed. With mucus, she told herself irascibly. Not tears.

“Hawkins!” she choked.

“Yes, madam. Let me give you a spoonful of the syrup.”

“Get that child out of here! I’m tired.”

The ridiculously narrow back, the little pointed shoulders hunched forward. A sparrow ruffled and hurt.