The Merciless Ladies (23 page)

Yet his return to his normal social round, his coming back immediately and more fully than ever into the public eye, meant that he had stepped once more into the very centre of the stream.

Unreasonable to expect that he would not be carried along.

Paul called for me at ten on the Sunday and we set off for Newton. As we drove out through the suburbs I said: ‘Have you heard what the costs of the action are going to be?'

‘Freeman thinks about nine hundred pounds.'

‘Diana's done nobody but the legal profession a good turn.'

‘Still, I don't altogether regret it now it's over. I'm thinking of painting a series of famous stooges and hanging Brian Marnsett in the middle of them.'

‘Well, it's an expensive form of pleasure.'

‘You never know how things will turn out', said Paul. ‘ My net loss is going to be negligible. De Vere's, the New York art dealers, approached me yesterday through their London office. They've a client who wants to buy the picture. I thought I'd choke them off and said seven hundred guineas, and to my surprise they cabled an acceptance. The picture's good, but it isn't worth that. But then, it isn't really intrinsic merit which counts in a case like this, it's publicity value.'

‘You'd have got a thousand if you'd asked it. Then the affair would have shown a profit.'

‘It'll show a profit as it is', said Paul. ‘I'm snowed under with commissions. Painting portraits is like rolling a boulder down a hill; the merry devil to get to start, and then when it really gets going you just can't stop it.'

‘What are you going to do?'

He smiled. ‘It's a shame to turn away good money.'

‘Well, I'm glad you no longer feel stale.'

He didn't confirm or deny this. ‘I shall have to engage a private secretary or something for my correspondence. Some tin-pot society has asked me to go and lecture on Van Gogh. As if I knew anything about Van Gogh. I don't even know where he was born. I've a notion of what he was trying to do in paint, but I haven't the gift of the gab to put it in words.'

‘Get Lady Lynn to write it for you', I suggested. ‘You'd be hailed as the revolutionary artist of the age.'

We drove on. It seemed a good time to talk to him about Olive. But what to say? ‘ I slept with your wife last week and she wants you back'? ‘I saw Olive last week and she's willing to try again'? ‘Now that this beastly action is out of the way and we can forget all about Diana Marnsett, why not try to repair your marriage? It would be common sense, it would be good economics, and I'm pretty certain Olive would co-operate'?

Would there be any sincerity in any of this? My encounter with Olive made it harder for me to intervene. The
event
stood between Paul and me, even though only I knew of it. And the
memory
of the event was a deterrent. Although there had been pleasure enough and satisfaction in it, particularly the satisfaction of uncovering the mystery of her appeal, there had been a sour edge to it, the edge of her personality, which left the memory a little ragged and raw. She had warned me that it was not the beginning of an affair between us, and with that, privately, I was in entire agreement.

On any grounds, how could I advise Paul to try again when I felt certain the attempt would only lead to more acrimony and failure? So we drove on unspeaking, and later in the drive I discovered it would have been a useless attempt anyway.

We made good time to Reading, and stopped for petrol there. There had been morning mist with a heavy dew that looked like frost. Now a fitful sun was helping the trees to push through, some already gaunt, others still heavy with the old leaves they were beginning to shrug off. It was good to be away from London noise again.

As we got in the car again Paul said: ‘I want to talk to you about Holly.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes … I – want to marry her.'

He changed up and took his foot off the clutch. The mileage of the speedometer was only 4l76. As I watched, the six changed to a seven. The petrol gauge now registered eight gallons. The oil pressure was forty pounds.

‘How do you mean?'

‘We fell in love', said Paul, ‘ almost as soon as we met. I can't explain. She's just – Holly. She represents something … that I haven't found before.' His voice was unsmooth.

We separated a village; yellow stucco pub, cars outside; square-towered Norman church, people coming out in their best clothes; thatched cottages; a village shop with green blinds drawn.

‘Do we turn here?' he said.

‘No, the next one.'

‘I went wrong last time.'

Presently we turned.

‘She's just twenty', I said.

‘I'm only twenty-eight.'

It wasn't age that made the obstacles. Holly bowling off-breaks with a straggle of lank hair and thin drumstick legs. The blossoming Holly of Funchal and the
Patience
. But as a sophisticated society woman …

‘What about Olive?'

‘Olive will have to divorce me.'

‘You're not going to bring Holly into …'

‘Good God, no.' He spoke irritably. ‘I can provide the normal phoney evidence.'

It was a narrow road now and winding, and when we had to pass another vehicle the camber made the car tilt sharply.

‘Olive didn't give me the impression she would be willing to divorce you.'

‘When was that?'

‘Last week … We met outside the Law Courts.'

‘She'll have to change her mind.'

‘Supposing she won't?'

‘She will.'

I watched the altering numbers on the speedometer. Were the miles trailing behind us as quickly as it said?

‘I can't see your proposition quite straight', I got out. ‘I've known Holly, of course, all my adult life. And you. Something one of the Grimshawe brothers said suggested that he thought you were – interested in each other. I didn't pay much attention at the time. I confess I didn't notice it. Perhaps you were – didn't show it – when I was there. How does she … Does she feel the same?'

He nodded. ‘She seems to. At least I think so … I knew it would be a surprise to you, Bill. In a way it was a surprise to me – to us both. It isn't the sort of thing one looks for. You're going to have to be patient with us …'

‘If she feels the same …' I said.

‘Does that surprise you?'

‘No … Many women have found you very attractive.'

‘This is not many women. This is Holly.'

‘Paul …'

‘Yes?'

‘Oh, it doesn't matter.'

The muscles of his face moved. ‘Say what you have to say.'

Still I hesitated. ‘We've been good friends a long time. And running our own private lives. The fact that you've had a number of love affairs and one crash marriage is no business of mine – except when you've cared to discuss it with me. But this is different. I've known the Lynns longer even than I've known you.'

‘So you've said.'

‘In dealing with the Lynns – all of them – you're dealing with innocents and children. I've long since taken up a voluntary responsibility for them. To say that I'd be sorry to see Holly's life mucked up for the sake of a passing attraction just isn't making use of the possibilities of the language.'

‘One thing', Paul said. ‘Tell me before we go any further. I hope you haven't got anything else at stake in this affair, Bill?'

‘In what way?'

‘In the only way you could have.'

Olive naked on her oval bed half lit by the street lights outside; Olive brushing her red-gold hair, delicate wrist raised, silver brush glinting; Olive smiling, teeth alive in the semi-dark …

I said: ‘ What I want most is Holly's happiness.'

‘You haven't answered me.'

I stared at the patchworked Berkshire fields.

‘If I felt like you suspect, I should already have put my claim in …'

Paul let out a breath. ‘Thank God for chat. It hadn't occurred to me until … But you were going to say more.'

I was oppressed by the futility of my own life, everything I was and thought and did.

I said sharply: ‘I can't
preach
at you, Paul. But if you value my friendship don't let this be another snarl-up.'

‘I can't predict the future, can I? All I can say is that this is different from anything there's ever been in my life before.'

We were almost there. Fortunately a flock of sheep blocked our way and this gave a breathing space.

He said: ‘ Did Olive say much? How was she?'

‘Well enough in health.'

‘No change in her feelings towards me?'

‘No change.'

Paul shut his mouth tightly. ‘ I can't go on tied to her all my life, Bill. It was an honest mistake. I don't
owe
her anything. What advantage does she get out of clinging to the empty position of being my wife?'

‘Cat in the manger. I can't, you shan't.'

‘Something's got to be done. Can't I divorce her?'

‘If she gives you grounds.'

‘I must go and see her sometime. Horrible thought. But it's got to be done. We have our own separate lives to lead.'

I said: ‘Holly's led a secluded, studious, careless, desperately untidy existence. Are you expecting her to come out of the shade of a small country house and a study at Lady Margaret Hall into the limelight of society with all its business of sophisticated gossip and cocktail parties and entertaining and first nights as the wife of a well-known artist—'

‘I'm only asking her to
marry
me. That's all. D'you think I should want to marry her for what she is and then ask her to change into something else? I could get ten better than her in Mayfair any day! I fell in love with her because she is what she is … careless and intelligent and untidy and shy and charming. That's how I want her …'

‘In a Mayfair drawing-room.'

‘Damn a Mayfair drawing-room! I'm at the top and nobody's going to dictate how I shall live!'

‘Nobody but yourself,' I said. ‘Can a leopard change its spots?'

‘Of course it can't', he said. ‘But I wasn't born with mine.'

Through the moulting trees the shabby square Georgian block of Newton lay ahead. As we turned in at the gate I wondered what else lay ahead. Time only would show, and by then the thing would be done and it would be too late for second thoughts, too late to wish you'd acted otherwise. Fired by his own immutable determination, Paul would drive on towards whatever lay ahead, undeterred by the obstacles in his way.

What was that old problem about the irresistible force and the immovable object? Did Olive constitute the immovable object? And even if she could be moved, what sort of a future could Holly and Paul build together?

The bright October day seemed shadowed with the presentiment of winter as clouds sidled up to cover the sun.

II

All the Lynns were delighted to see me, and we spent what should have been a pleasant day together. Holly went out of her way to make me welcome; she was happy and talkative and apparently carefree. She and Paul were obviously close friends, but this didn't stand out in a company where all were on the best of terms. I didn't even know if the elder Lynns knew of Paul's designs and was doubtful whether their sketchy idea of parental responsibility would prompt them to any action if they did.

Not until it was nearly time for us to leave did Lady Lynn resolve this question by drawing me aside into the abominably littered drawing-room and pouring out all the doubts and fears of an anxious mother.

‘Bill', she said. ‘ Clem told me to ask you something. I wonder what it was?'

‘I hesitate to imagine.'

‘I remember; it was about Paul Stafford. He seems quite personable, don't you think?'

‘My best friend.'

‘Yes. Just so. I like him better than his pictures. Less genteel. He and Holly, you know. They seem to be striking it off. But what's all this about his being married?''

‘It happens, you know.'

‘Hm. Very temptatious, being a portrait painter. All those females.'

‘He was married about three years ago, but they never got on. They've been separated quite a while.'

‘Whose fault was it, d'you think?'

‘I should say largely hers.'

‘I remember my great-aunt marrying a divorced man. Very shocking in those days. And she was rising forty. She died of arteriosclerosis. Often happens with these hot-blooded people.'

‘Paul isn't divorced', I said.

‘No. He says he'll arrange it. Can one arrange adultery?'

‘The courts frown on it as collusion, but it's often done. The question is whether his wife will be willing to free him.'

‘Roman Catholic or something?'

‘No. She just feels vindictive.'

‘Jealous as a Barbary pigeon. I know the type. Well, what's he going to do?'

‘Try and persuade her, I imagine.'

Lady Lynn rubbed her long pink cheek thoughtfully.

‘I shouldn't like Holly to be illegal. So upsetting for everyone. They seem quite to have struck it off.'

‘It will be a big change', I said warily. ‘Paul's life has been very different from hers.'

‘So he told me. He says he wants to live differently.
Mutatis mutandis
, so to speak. Have you any weight with this wife of his?'

‘I wish I had. Paul may succeed. He's an extraordinary fellow for getting his own way.'

‘Puppy, puppy, puppy!' said Lady Lynn. ‘Come here.' She sighed. ‘You know, I always pictured Holly marrying a curate. I rather fancied that. I want lots of grandchildren, and curates are generally fertile.'

‘What about her own work?' I said.

‘Well, she should be able to do some after she's married. Anyway, it's for her to choose. Women do marry, Bill; it's their nature. Most of 'em go all domestic then, but the few that matter carry on.'