Unconditional surrender (8 page)

‘No,’ said Guy, ‘I should like to keep everything at Matchet.’

Uncle Peregrine came down the steps.

‘You should go and say goodbye to the Reverend Mother. Time to be moving off. The train leaves in twenty minutes. I wasn’t able to reserve a coach for the return journey.’

On the way to the station Miss Vavasour came to Guy’s side. ‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘will you think it very impertinent to ask, but I should so much like to have a keepsake of your father; any little thing; do you think you could spare something?’

‘Of course, Miss Vavasour. I ought to have thought of it myself. What sort of thing? My father had so few personal possessions, you know.’

‘I was wondering, if no one else wants it, and I don’t know who would, do you think I could have his old tobacco-jar?’

‘Of course. But isn’t there anything more personal? One of his books? A walking stick?’

‘The tobacco-jar is what I should like, if it’s not asking too much. It seems somehow specially personal. You must think me very foolish.’

‘Certainly. Please take it by all means if that is what you would really like.’

‘Oh, thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful. I don’t suppose I shall stay on much longer at Matchet. The Cuthberts have not been considerate. It won’t be the same place without your father and the tobacco-jar will remind me – the smell you know.’

Box-Bender did not return to London. He had an allowance of parliamentary petrol. Angela had used it to come to Broome. He and she and the dog, Felix, drove back to their house in the Cotswolds.

Later that evening he said: ‘Everyone had a great respect for your father.’

‘Yes, that was rather the theme of the day, wasn’t it?’

‘Did you talk to the solicitor?’

‘Yes.’

‘So did I. Had you any idea your father was so well off? Of course it’s your money, Angie, but it will come in very handy. There was something said about some pensions. You’re not obliged to continue them you know.’

‘So I gathered. But Guy and I will do so.’

‘Mind you, one can’t be sure they’re all deserving cases. Worth looking into. After all your father was very credulous. Our expenses get heavier every year. When the girls come back from America, we shall have to meet all kinds of bills. It’s a different matter with Guy. He hasn’t anyone to support except himself. And he had his whack when he went to Kenya you know. He had no right to expect any more.’

‘Guy and I will continue the pensions.’

‘Just as you like, Angie. No business of mine. Just thought I’d mention it. Anyway, they’ll all fall in one day.’

WHEN
Virginia Troy went to visit Dr Puttock for the second time, he received her cordially.

‘Yes, Mrs Troy, I am happy to say that the report is positive.’

‘You mean I
am
going to have a baby?’

‘Without any doubt. These new tests are infallible.’

‘But this is awful.’

‘My dear Mrs Troy, I assure you that there is nothing whatever to worry about. You are thirty-three. Of course, it is generally advisable for a woman to enter her child-bearing period a little younger, but your general condition is excellent. I see no reason to anticipate any kind of trouble. Just carry on with your normal activities and come back to see me in three weeks so that I can see that everything is going along all right.’

‘But it’s all
wrong
. It’s quite impossible for me to have a baby.’

‘Impossible in what sense? I presume you had marital intercourse at the appropriate time.’

‘“Marital?”’ said Virginia. ‘Isn’t that something to do with marriage?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

‘Well, I haven’t seen my husband for four years.’

‘Ah, I see; well. That’s a legal rather than a medical problem, is it not? Or should I say social? One finds a certain amount of this kind of thing nowadays in all classes. Husbands abroad in the army or prisoners of war; that sort of thing. Conventions are not as strict as they used to be – there is not the same stigma attached to bastardy. I presume you know the child’s father.’

‘Oh, I know him all right. He’s just gone to America.’

‘Yes, I see that that is rather inconvenient, but I am sure you will find things turn out well. In spite of everything the maternity services run very smoothly. Some people even think that a disproportionate attention is given to the next generation.’

‘Dr Puttock, you
must
do something about this.’

‘
I?
I don’t think I understand you,’ said Dr Puttock icily, ‘Now I am afraid I must ask you to make way for my other patients. We civilian doctors are run off our feet, you know. Give my kind regards to Lady Kilbannock.’

Virginia was remarkable for the composure with which she bad hitherto accepted the vicissitudes of domesticity. Whatever the disturbances she had caused to others, her own place in her small but richly diverse world had been one of coolness, light, and peace. She had found that place for herself, calmly recoiling from a disorderly childhood and dismissing it from her thoughts. From the day of her marriage to Guy to the day of her desertion of Mr Troy and for a year after, she had achieved a
douceur de vivre
that was alien to her epoch; seeking nothing, accepting what came and enjoying it without compunction. Then, ever since her meeting with Trimmer in fogbound Glasgow, chill shadows had fallen, deepening daily. ‘It’s all the fault of this damned war,’ she reflected, as she went down the steps into Sloane Street. ‘What good do they think they’re doing?’ she asked herself as she surveyed the passing uniforms and gasmasks. ‘What’s it all
for
?’

She went to her place of business in Ian Kilbannock’s office and telephoned to Kerstie in ‘Ciphers’.

‘I’ve got to see you. How about luncheon?’

‘I was going out with a chap.’

‘You must chuck him, Kerstie. I’m in trouble.’

‘Oh, Virginia, not again.’

‘The first time. Surely you know what people mean when they say “in trouble”?’

‘Not
that
, Virginia?’

‘Just that.’

‘Well, that is something, isn’t it. All right, I’ll chuck. Meet me in the club at one.’

The officer’s club at HOO HQ was gloomier in aspect than the canteens at No. 6 Transit Camp. It had been designed for other purposes. The walls were covered with ceramic portraits of Victorian rationalists, whiskered, hooded and gowned. The wives and daughters of the staff served there under the wife of General Whale, who arranged the duties so that the young and pretty were out of sight in the kitchen and pantry. Mrs Whale controlled, among much else, the tap of a coffee urn. Whenever one of these secluded beauties appeared by the bar, Mrs Whale was able to raise a cloud of steam which completely concealed her. Mrs Whale had resisted the entry of the female staff but had been overborne. She made things as disagreeable for them as she could, often reprimanding them: ‘Now you can’t sit here coffee-housing. You’re keeping the men from the tables and
they
have work to do.’

She said precisely this when Virginia set about expounding her situation to Kerstie.

‘Oh Mrs Whale, we’ve only just arrived.’

‘You’ve had plenty of time to eat. Here’s your bill.’

The nondescript colonel who was liberating Italy was in fact looking for a place. He took Virginia’s warm chair gratefully.

‘I should like to boil that bitch in her own stew,’ said Virginia as they left.

They found a dark corner outside and there she described her visit to Dr Puttock. Eventually Kerstie said: ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll go and talk to him myself. He dotes on me.’

‘Go soon.’

‘This evening on the way home. I’ll tell you what he says.’

Virginia was already at Eaton Terrace when Kerstie returned. She was wearing the clothes she wore all day and was sitting as she had first sat down, doing nothing, waiting.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘how did it go?’

‘We’d better both have a drink.’

‘Bad news?’

‘It was all rather disturbing. Gin?’

‘What did he say, Kerstie? Will he do it?’

‘
He
won’t. He was frightfully pompous. I’ve never known him like it before. Most welcoming at first until I told him what I’d come about. Talked about professional ethics; said I was asking him to commit a grave crime; asked me, would I go to my bank manager and suggest he embezzled money for me. I said, yes, if I thought there was any chance of his doing it. That softened him a little bit. I explained about you and how you were broke. Then he said: “She won’t find it a cheap operation.” That rather gave him away. I said: “Come off it. You know there
are
doctors who do this kind of thing,” and he said: “One has heard of such cases – in the police courts usually.” And I said: “I bet you know one or two who haven’t been caught. It goes on all the time. It just happens Virginia and I have never had to inquire before.” Then I sucked up to him a lot and reminded him how he had always looked after me when I had babies. I suppose it wasn’t strictly
à propos
but it seemed to soften him; so at last he said he did know the name of someone who might help, and as a family friend, not as a doctor, he might give me the name. Well, I mean to say, he’s always been a doctor to me not a family friend. He’s never been in the house except to charge a guinea a time; but I didn’t bring that up. I said: “Well, come on. Write it down,” and then, Virginia, he rather shook me. He said: “No.
You
write it down,” and I put out a hand to take a piece of paper off his desk and he said: “Just a minute,” and he took out a pair of scissors and cut the address off the top. “Now,” he said, “you can write this name and address. I haven’t heard of the man for some time. I don’t know if he’s still practising. If your friend wants an appointment, she had better take a hundred pounds with her in notes. That’s the best I can do. And remember I’m not doing it. I have no knowledge of this matter. I have never seen your friend.” Do you know, he had me so nervous I could hardly write.’

‘But you got the name?’

Kerstie took the slip of paper from her bag and handed it to her.

‘Brook Street?’ said Virginia. ‘I thought it would be someone in Paddington or Soho. No telephone number. Let’s look him up.’

They found the name and respectable address but when they tried to ring him up they were told the number was ‘unobtainable’.

‘I’m going round there now,’ said Virginia. ‘The hundred pounds will have to wait. I must have a look at him. You wouldn’t like to come too?’

‘No.’

‘I wish you would, Kerstie.’

‘No. The whole thing’s given me the creeps.’

So Virginia went alone. There was no taxi in Sloane Square, She took the tube to Bond Street and picked her way through the American soldiers to the once quiet and fashionable street. When she reached the place where the house should have stood, she found a bomb crater flanked on either side with rugged cliffs of brick and plaster. Usually at such places there was a notice stating the new address of the former occupants. Virginia searched with her electric torch and learned that a neighbouring photographer and a hat shop had removed elsewhere. There was no spoor of the abortionist’s passage. Perhaps he lay with his instruments somewhere under the rubble.

She was near Claridge’s Hotel and from old habits sought refuge there in her despair. Lieutenant Padfield was standing by the fireplace straight before her. She turned away, seeming not to see him, and wearily walked down the corridor to Davies Street; then thought: ‘What the hell? I can’t start cutting people,’ turned again and smiled.

‘Loot, I didn’t recognize you. One’s like a pit-pony coming in from the blackout. Will you buy a girl a drink?’

‘Just what I was about to suggest. I have to go out in a minute – to Ruby at the Dorchester.’

‘Is that where she lives now? I used to go to her parties in Belgrave Square.’

‘You should go see her. People don’t go to see her as much as they used. She’s a very significant and lovely person. Her memory is fantastic. Yesterday she was telling me all about Lord Curzon and Elinor Glyn.’

‘I won’t keep you, but I feel I need a drink.’

‘It seems they were both interested in the occult.’

‘Yes, Loot, yes. Just give me a drink.’

‘It’s not a thing that has ever greatly interested me, the occult. I’m interested in live people mostly. I mean, I’m interested in Ruby remembering, more than in what she remembers. Now some days back I was at a Catholic Requiem in Somerset county. It was the live people there I found significant. There were a lot of them. It was Mr Gervase Crouchback’s funeral at Broome.’

‘I saw he had died,’ said Virginia. ‘It’s years since we met. I was fond of him once.’

‘A lovely person,’ said the Lieutenant.

‘Surely you never knew him, Loot?’

‘Not personally, only by repute. He was reputed as very fine indeed. I was glad to learn that he was so well off.’

‘Not Mr Crouchback, Loot; you’ve got that wrong. He was ruined long ago.’

‘There were people like that in the States twelve years ago. Wiped out in the crash. But they got it all back again.’

‘Mr Crouchback wasn’t like that, I assure you.’

‘From what I hear he wasn’t ever “ruined”. It was just that the way things were over here after the first war, real estate didn’t produce any income. Not only it didn’t pay – it was a regular loss. When Mr Crouchback sold up, he not only got a price for the land; he saved himself all he had been paying out every year to keep things going. He wouldn’t let the place run down. Sooner than that he’d clear out altogether. That was how he reckoned it. There were some valuable things, too, he sold out of the house. So he ended up a very substantial person.’

‘What a lot you know about everyone, Loot.’

‘Well, yes. I’ve been told before now I’m funny that way.’

Virginia was not a woman who left things unsaid.

‘I know all about you and my divorce.’

‘Mr Troy is an old and valued client of my firm,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘There was nothing personal about it. Business before friendship.’

‘You still look on me as a friend?’

‘Surely.’

‘Then go and find a taxi.’

That aptitude never failed the Lieutenant. As Virginia drove back to Eaton Terrace, men and women emerged into the dim headlights signalling vigorously to the cab, waving bank-notes. She had a brief sense of triumph that she was sitting secure in the darkness; then the full weight of her failure bowed her, literally, so that she was crouched with her head near her knees when they drew up at the house where she lodged. Kerstie was on the door-step.

‘What luck. Keep the taxi,’ and then: ‘Everything all right?’

‘No, nothing. I saw the Loot.’

‘At the doctor’s? I should have thought that’s one place he wouldn’t be.’

‘At Claridge’s. He came clean.’

‘But how about the doctor?’

‘Oh, he was no good. Blitzed.’

‘Oh dear. I tell you what; I’ll ask Mrs Bristow in the morning. She knows everything.’ (Mrs Bristow was the charwoman.) ‘Must go now. I’m going to poor old Ruby.’

‘You’ll find the Loot.’

‘I’ll give him socks.’

‘He says we’re friends. I expect I’ll be in bed when you get back.’

‘Good night.’

‘Good night.’

Virginia went alone into the empty house. Ian Kilbannock was away for some nights conducting a party of journalists round an assault course in Scotland. The dining-room table was not laid. Virginia went down into the larder, found half a loaf of greyish bread, some margarine, a segment of imitation cheese and ate them at the kitchen table.

She was not a woman to repine. She accepted change, though she did not so express it to herself, as the evidence of life. A mile of darkness away, in her hotel sitting-room, Ruby repined. Her brow and the skin round her old eyes were taut with ‘lifting’. She looked at the four unimportant people who sat round her little dinner-table and thought of the glittering guests in Belgrave Square; thirty years of them, night after night, the powerful, the famous, the promising, the beautiful: thirty years’ work to establish and impose herself ending now with – what where their names? what did they do? – these people sitting with electric fires behind their chairs talking of what? ‘Ruby, tell us about Boni de Castellane.’ ‘Tell us about the Marchesa Casati.’ ‘Tell us about Pavlova.’ Virginia had never sought to impose herself. She had given parties, too; highly successful ones, all over Europe and in certain select parts of America. She could not remember the names of her guests; many she had not known at the time. As she ate her greasy bread in the kitchen she did not contrast her present lot with her past. Now, as it had been for the past month, she was aghast at the future.