Lettice & Victoria (5 page)

Chapter 9

I
t was late October when Mungo Craddock arrived. Victoria had promised Laurence that she would overlap with him for a week to show him the ropes.

Taking up a vigil at her window overlooking the porch,
Victoria
dug her elbows hard down into the crumble of stonework on the sill. She covered her face with both hands and squinted between cracks. Playing for time and willing it to pass, she clasped her fingers together and then quickly parted them again. Fleeting glances between bars brought a painful reflex. It reminded her of Edgar’s arrival, not long before, at the same spot. The two events became interchangeable. Perhaps this new one would have done just as well.

Mungo Craddock arrived in Laurence’s car, having been met by Alfredo at the station. Victoria widened gaps between fingers as he came into view. She whistled with relief. She had, after all, chosen the better favoured of the two. Edgar was, at least, presentable. It surely proved that she was not entirely
omnivorous. A short young man, bespectacled, made himself known to Elena who waited by the lemon tub.

A beard tangled up in a watch chain reached his waist. Beard, tweed and watch chain. No nonsense about a language barrier. He had been up all night with a phrase book. Grin fixed, he advanced on Elena.

‘
Buon giorno. Sono molto contento.
’

Victoria darted to her bedroom and heard them pass –
wondering
how on earth she was going to swing it with Laurence.

Victoria stole in behind them thanking her stars that, as with Mr Hobson’s Miss Lewes, Laurence couldn’t see him.

Mungo advanced upon his puffy future patron, Victoria and Elena waiting in the wings as Laurence sat – a pint of milk in the armchair – pale and sloppy, washed-out eyes shielded by spectacles.

‘Mr Bland. This is a tremendous honour. I cannot tell you with what excitement one has anticipated this meeting.’

‘Laurence. Please. I prefer to be called Laurence.’

‘I say. That’s frightfully good of you. What a delightful room.’

Mungo looked about jerkily but didn’t spot the spies.

‘What an enchanting landscape.’ He pointed at a picture propped on a table. It was one that Victoria had painted and mounted herself. A pointless present for a blind man.

Inwardly shrinking with anxiety, she made her presence noticeable and introduced the pair to each other.

As Laurence sipped, Mungo buttonholed her.

‘Could you kindly put one in the picture concerning form here. One gathers that you know the ropes. One does want to
strike the right note with the old dear. And by the way, about the maid. Is there something the matter with her eyes?
Something
one should know about?’

Elena whirled him away to see his quarters. Laurence had suggested that he might like to wash after his journey. Shave perhaps? Little did he know.

Victoria waited for a verdict but none came.

At lunch, refreshed by his wash but having taken no
advantage
of the shaving offer, Mungo pressed on.

‘Might one be allowed to read one or two of one’s short
stories
to you, sir?’

‘Laurence, please. Call me Laurence.’

‘Sorry. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to. Laurence, I intended to say. It would be the most tremendous honour.’

‘By all means. Indeed. Sometime.’

‘They are inspired by Thomas Aquinas. By the way,
Laurence
, is there a Catholic church near here?’

Victoria was at sea. They were, after all, in Italy.

Chapter 10

M
ungo had asked permission to go to a special mass in the village that morning so Victoria sat alone, gratefully, with
Laurence
in the shaded room – a small pile of letters to be opened on her lap. One was for her and, unmistakably, came from
Lettice
. Laurence had not quite finished his first glass of Elba wine and signalled that he was not ready to hear what his post had brought. She opened the one addressed to herself.

‘Ma
belle fille
to be! I wish we could have lured you down to The Old Keep when you were in London but we knew time was precious for you and fully understood. Edgar has told us all! Your meeting in heavenly Italy – and it’s partly my doing! What luck that I’d met the great man of letters (or are these things luck?). Warmest regards to him from all of us in our bosky retreat. How can you tear yourself away from such a fount of learning? Love conquers all! Families are such
wonderful
things and, knowing that you – poor darling – are an orphan, how we all long to gather you into the bosom of ours.’

Victoria tapped her foot and sang, loud and clear, an old ditty.

‘What’s that?’ Laurence was disconcerted.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I was dreaming. What do you think of Mungo?’

She didn’t give a fig either way at that moment.

‘He’s shy. Awkward. But, do you know? I rather like him.’

She felt a pang of rivalry – was she no longer indispensable?

‘Do you know?’ he said to her later. ‘He read me some of his stories. One or two of them had something. He admires my work. All that was a long time ago.’

He was half asleep and she tiptoed back to her packing. Elena was there hoping to help and in tears. Things were
certain
to go downhill now with the
signorina
gone and that clown ‘
buffo
’ all bewhiskered around the house.

Before she went to sleep she reminded herself of how once, when she had finally and timidly, told Laurence that she had been interested in something he had written in his youth, he had said, half smiling, ‘Oh my dear. In the old days all we
writers
wanted were copious draughts of unqualified praise.’

The
buffo
, with his copious draughts, had revived memories.

She spoke to herself. ‘If you’re old and isolated, you like what you get. Perhaps Laurence knows he’s stuck and he’s going to make the best of it. That’s what he did with me. Still,’
she decided, ‘he liked me best. I know it. Even if I wasn’t much good at delivering unqualified praise.’

On her return to London Victoria married Edgar.

Chapter 1

W
hile Edgar’s father, Roland Holliday, stood, field glasses in one hand, paintbrush in the other, his wife Lettice painted her own imagined picture of the opening of the London
exhibition
of his recent work that was soon to take place.

Sketches of birds and twigs stood propped in the hall.

The list of guests was too confusing a task to tackle during the day and best left for night hours. She snatched a flat flower basket from the garden room and walked down the gravel path to the spot where her husband stood. Her hand touched his arm. Wincing, protective of his brushstroke, he turned towards her.

‘How many have you finished?’ Her bony face was tip-tilted.

‘Not enough. I think I’ll have to put the exhibition off until next year. You can always bully a few friends into buying
something
from me between now and then.’

It must be that he was trying to torment her.

‘Don’t be absurd. The gallery could sue you. Of course you
can do it. I have always said it and I say it again, every creative artist needs to work to a deadline. You must stick to yours.’

Later, in the kitchen garden, she hacked viciously at the stem of a red cabbage.

That evening they ate a bleak meal. The purifying
influence
of homeliness for which The Old Keep was celebrated, deserted it when there were no witnesses. Casserole dishes and open fires kept for appropriate occasions lay in abeyance,
sheltered
by dust and ash as Roland submitted to the regular and dramatic changes that were made in their standard of living.

Five children had been raised there but now the couple was often alone. Their youngest daughter, Joanna, was still at boarding school but usually mucked about at The Old Keep during the holidays. Roland painted and studied birds as
Lettice
shuffled through her short list of weekend visitors. The one ahead was significant. Edgar and Victoria were to come for the first time since their quiet wedding.

Lettice was put out by Victoria’s not seeming to be
intellectual
. Strange, having had that interesting job with the man of letters. She was already wearing the anxious look of a woman yearning for a child, smoked a great deal and it was rumoured, although opportunities at The Old Keep were too few to
provide
proof, was inclined to get tipsy. Scary bits of tittle-tattle concerning her late mother had filtered in.

It was lucky that she was pretty, for she certainly had no idea of how to dress. It seemed that she was not even
interested
in trying to look elegant, which was a shame – for Edgar’s sake.

A middle-aged scholar, an old friend of the family, and a shy young professor were due to arrive on Saturday on their way to a reading party further west. The two were almost
inseparable
but Lettice believed there to be nothing improper in their relationship. She claimed them both to be ‘brains of Britain – united by the majesty of their thoughts’.

Edgar and Victoria would be there on Friday evening so there was time to drop a tactful hint to Victoria, since Edgar was too dazzled by his bride to think there was need for advice.

Lettice selected books to place at her side of the bed.

‘Darling. Do read that charming book. It’s just down your street and dear Archie Thorne wrote the introduction so it will be fun for you to discuss it with him tomorrow.’

‘Didn’t you love it?’ Victoria was asked in the morning.

‘I don’t think I understood it.’

‘Isn’t she modest, Edgar? Long may she remain so.’

Victoria knitted, lit a cigarette and wriggled as near to the fire as she dared. She had been cold since arriving.

‘I love to see a young girl use her hands. Have you ever thought of embroidery? I think you’d find it more rewarding than knitting.’

‘No. I never have.’

‘Let’s go together to the Women’s Home Industries. I love a trip to London. So many friends to see. We could get those wonderful ladies to draw up an interesting design and I’d lend you the Regency stool from my bedroom to cover.’

Victoria wanted to ask Edgar to get her a drink. It was only eleven o’clock but the day was cold and wet. She made a sign
but Edgar ignored it and wished that he’d been more robust when speaking to Victoria of his mother.

By Saturday afternoon, the flower basket was piled high with sodden roses. Loaves rose and swelled as Lettice decanted home-brewed wine.

Victoria felt sick and, hoping it might be an omen, went to bed before the scholar and his friend arrived.

Dinner was prepared by the time that an old but well-
cared-for
Daimler stopped in front of a mauve clematis that all but covered the entrance to the tower.

Once indoors, both visitors sighed in relief. Archibald Thorne acknowledged, silently and for the thousandth time, that Lettice for all her foolishness was more tolerable to be with than to think about – or, indeed, to correspond with. She flattered and fussed and turned her face up to show reverence.

Harold, the young professor, went to The Old Keep because he liked to be there and was uncritical of his hostess. From the start Archie had insisted on taking him along. She was kind to him, made him welcome and always introduced him,
breathlessly
, as Archie’s ‘colleague’.

It was good to be in a warm room after a quarrelsome journey.

‘Now,’ said Archibald, ‘we want to meet Victoria.’

He was short and stocky.

‘It’s too disappointing. Poor darling isn’t well. She’s gone to bed. She was so hoping to talk to you about something of yours that she had just read.’

Archibald peered over his spectacles – an emphasised act.

‘Some other time. Some other time. Nothing to worry about, I hope.’

‘No. We’re sure not. Overtired poor pet. Young marrieds have such a lot to cope with these days.’

Harold, unnerved by the mention of anything as intimate as female indisposition, stared at the fire and wondered how to speak. Later, next week, he would write to Lettice and tell her how wonderful it had been and how sorry he was not to have met Victoria.

Edgar went upstairs and Lettice said, ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled we both are with Victoria. She’s unsophisticated but highly intelligent. That job she had in Italy says a lot. You would have loved talking to her but I fear we shall have to keep her in bed tomorrow.’

Archie Thorne relaxed. He had not particularly wanted to discuss his own works with a sensitive young lady.

Lettice’s dog, a spaniel called Orpheus, slouched by a card table and Archie, a self-confessed and public loather of
caninity
in any form declared, not for the first time, ‘As you know, I consider Orpheus to be almost as good as no dog at all. Almost, but not quite.’

With that he went upstairs and didn’t come down until
dinnertime
when Lettice gave him a loud ‘cooee’.