Thank Heaven Fasting (23 page)

They went indoors, but except for the absence of the cutting wind it did not seem to be much warmer there. Draughts came in beneath doors, and through window-sashes, and the stairs and bedrooms achieved a degree of iciness that surpassed the sitting-room. It was only possible to keep warm in bed, each with a hot-water bottle, and all their heaviest coats spread over the blankets. Mrs. Ingram, however, was sleeping badly, and very often called Monica from the adjoining room in order that she might listen to an outpouring of despair, ending in a storm of sobs and tears.

By the time she had wept and talked herself into a state of exhaustion, and Monica could leave her, the hot-water bottle in the deserted bed had grown tepid and Monica, chilled and distressed, found it difficult to regain any degree of comfort.

It sometimes seemed to her as though, in the accumulated miseries of the moment, she almost lost her sense of personal sorrow at her father's death.

When she thought of him now, it was of him as he had seemed to her in her baby-days—a beneficent and omnipotent being of herculean proportions—rather than as the remote, conventionally affectionate father, of whose secret disappointment in his only child she had so long been bitterly aware.

Yet it seemed strange and sad, almost impossible indeed, to resume life in the familiar Eaton Square house without him. Mrs. Ingram continually repeated that nothing could ever, ever, be the same again.

It was a bitterly cold day when they travelled back to London, and Monica continually found herself looking forward eagerly to the warmth and comfort of their own house. The anticipation of physical well-being, actually, overpowered any sense of distress in returning to the sight of her father's vacant place.

At Victoria, a hat-box belonging to Mrs. Ingram was found to be missing.

“I'm certain it was put in—absolutely certain,” declared the widow, over and over again. She hurried up and down the platform, her heavy furs held against her face to shield her from the raw, foggy air, compelling the porter to look repeatedly for the missing box in vans that he had already thoroughly searched.

Monica, cold and exasperated, clutching her mother's heavy green leather dressing-bag, followed her on heels that seemed suddenly to have grown too high, so that she leant forward at an insecure angle and tottered slightly in her thin patent-leather shoes.

“We must go to the Lost Luggage place,” said Mrs. Ingram.

“Oh dear, this fog! Monica, can you remember seeing it actually
labelled?”

“I think they labelled everything.”

“Darling, what's the good of saying that? It isn't a question
of having labelled everything. I want to know if the
bat-box
was labelled.”

“I'm afraid I don't remember.”

“I'm perfectly certain it was. I saw to everything myself. I shall have to get accustomed to that now,” said Mrs. Ingram bitterly.

Monica saw that her mother was preparing to cry. Intense nervous irritation clutched her, and she clenched her teeth in the effort to subdue it.

Mrs. Ingram fumbled amongst her belongings—muff, pocket, handbag, and jewel-case—for a handkerchief. She raised her veil and dabbed at her eyes.

“Here you are, lady,” said the porter.

It took Mrs. Ingram more than twenty minutes to say all that she wished to say at the Lost Property Office, and to fill in the necessary form.

At last it was finished.

“Cab, lady?”

“There should be a car waiting.”

“It's there, mother. I saw it,” said Monica.

“Thank Heaven. I was beginning to feel that everything in the world was lost.”

Mrs. Ingram cried all the way home.

She cried again, more violently, when the familiar library was reached and she had sunk into an arm-chair beside the fire.

Monica, kneeling in front of the welcome blaze and allowing the heat to penetrate through and through her, could feel nothing but intense physical relief.

In the train she had wondered wistfully if Carol Anderson would have thought of writing a letter to greet her on arrival. She did not think it likely. Affectionate and charming as he often showed himself towards her, he had but few moments of imaginative insight where anyone but himself was concerned.

The letters were brought in, and Monica looked through hers with a flicker of hope. Carol, however, had not written.

Monica thought: Men aren't like women. They never think of things like that. If I cared about anybody….

There was a kind of stifled scream from Mrs. Ingram.

“Monica, Monica—oh, I can't bear it—they've sent—they've sent—
these——”

Her pale ringed hands almost threw the papers at Monica, and then flew up to cover her convulsed face.

“How can I bear it—how
can
I go on living?” wailed Mrs. Ingram, rocking herself backwards and forwards.

Monica saw that in her lap were designs for a headstone. The firm had sent several drawings, as well as a covering letter and estimate of prices.

She looked at them with a queer feeling of unreality, envying her mother's violence of emotion.

“Give them to me,” sobbed Mrs. Ingram.

“Won't you look at them to-morrow morning, mother? You must be very tired.”

“What does it matter if I'm tired? What is there to save myself for now? My life is over—
over,”
said Mrs. Ingram wildly.

For another hour she continued to weep and exclaim, alternately poring over the designs and pushing them violently away from her.

Then a message was brought in to say that there was a visitor downstairs.

Carol?

Monica's heart leapt.

But the card that was handed to Mrs. Ingram was that of old cousin Blanche.

At first, Mrs. Ingram declared that it was impossible to see her. It was too soon. The early days of bereavement should be sacred … then, with the revulsion of feeling characteristic of her unbalanced condition, she altered her mind.

“She's dear, dear father's relation—one of his family. I think he might have wished me to see her. Go down, Monica, and bring cousin Blanche in here to me. You must leave us alone, darling.”

Ashamed of the unspeakable relief that rushed over her at the words, Monica left the room.

Cousin Blanche was grave, but not emotional. She kissed Monica, asked after her mother, and said: “You must be everything in the world to her now,” and then went to Mrs. Ingram.

It was almost the first break in the continual
tête-à-tête
of the last three weeks, and Monica felt sick and weak with the relief of being alone and able to relax the ceaseless tension of day and night.

She went slowly up to her own room, took off her hat and sealskin jacket, and the tight, stiff patent-leather shoes, and dropped upon the bed in utter exhaustion.

Except for the fact that her nights, for the most part, were now her own again, it was the last hour of solitude that she was to know for many months.

Mrs. Ingram could not bear to be by herself.

She wanted to talk incessantly about herself, her loss, the devotion that had existed between herself and her husband, and her complete indifference to life and longing for death.

Everyone, Monica included, took it for granted that it was Monica's part to listen to her with unflagging sympathy, compassion, and reverence, and to remain close beside her always.

After their return to Eaton Square, life became easier, because friends and relations came to visit them, and after a little while it was possible to persuade Mrs. Ingram to return the visits. Once or twice she even proved willing to go and stay away for a few nights. Monica always went with her.

Time slipped away, slowly, monotonously, and irretrievably. One day Monica realized that her mother no longer said: “It was a month ago to-day … two months exactly since——”

Without knowing it, they had ceased to measure time from the day that Vernon Ingram had left them.

Routine established itself.

After the quarter-past-nine breakfast Mrs. Ingram interviewed the cook, and carried out all the duties of housekeeping, none of which she had ever delegated—for she continued to regard Monica as an irresponsible child. Afterwards she read the front page and Court Circular of the morning paper very carefully, commenting on the contents aloud to Monica, glanced at the headlines, said that the Suffragettes ought to be whipped at the cart's tail and that Ireland was more trouble than it was worth, and occasionally pursued some distinguished invalid, whose condition was reported, into the pages of Burke or Debrett.

At eleven o'clock Mrs. Ingram had a small tray brought to her with biscuits and a patent food, and Monica, unwillingly, had to drink a glass of milk. Her mother had decreed that milk was good for the complexion—although Monica's skin, actually, had long since lost all its glow and acquired a permanent clear pallor that made her look older than she was.

Soon afterwards they went out. There was always something to be done—flowers to be ordered from Sylvester's in Sloane Square, or wool from Head's in Sloane Street. Sometimes they went as far as Harrod's Stores, or, on fine mornings, for a turn in the Park.

Luncheon was at half-past one. Occasionally someone was asked to come, but usually they sat alone, waited on by the two men-servants, and with all the heavy silver, glass, and china put on the table just as had always been done.

After coffee in the library, Mrs. Ingram, by her doctor's orders, rested on the sofa. She was persuaded that she was a very bad sleeper, and would not admit that she ever dozed in the day-time, so that she liked Monica to remain in the library with her, in order that they might exchange occasional remarks.

Sometimes they went out driving in the afternoon, or to pay a call. Sometimes Mrs. Ingram wrote letters at the drawing-room writing-table, murmuring half to herself and half to Monica all the time.

“Army and Navy Stores—Army and Navy
Co-operative
Stores, I believe they call themselves—Victoria Street, S.W. Really, I wish I knew how the servants get through so much tea. I'm sure it's very bad for the maids, and I shall tell Mrs. Horben so. Army and Navy Co-operative … Dear me, that's the last envelope. … I hope I haven't run out of envelopes. Monica, just look in the bottom drawer of the lacquer cabinet, darling…. No, dear, mother said the
bottom
drawer. Don't you ever pay attention to what you're told? Well, then, look in the middle drawer. Or the top one, perhaps. I thought so. I knew there were some somewhere. But that's the last box. I'd better order some more.”

“Shall I telephone?”

“No, darling, I'd better write. I never think the telephone is really safe; it's so easy for the shop to make a mistake, and then say they didn't hear what one said. No, I shall have to write. Messrs. Truslove & Hanson—Dear Sirs, Kindly send me——How many do you think I'd better order, Monica?”

Mrs. Ingram frequently asked some such rhetorical question, but Monica knew very well that she did not really want her daughter's advice. Whatever reply she made her mother invariably received it with a shake of the head.

“Nonsense, darling. That wouldn't do. No, I'd better tell them. …”

Tea was brought to the drawing-room.

Quite often Carol Anderson came to see Monica, Mr. Pelham called and remained in solemn conversation for an hour, or old friends looked in and exchanged small items of news concerning acquaintances and relations.

These interruptions formed the most exciting events of Monica's life.

The evenings were usually trying. Monica could not fall back on her old resource of strumming on the piano, for if she did, Mrs. Ingram said that “music upset her” and began to cry.

She and her mother glanced desultorily through the new novels sent from Mudie's, or sometimes played patience
together. From half-past nine onwards, Mrs. Ingram glanced continually at the clock and wondered aloud if it was too early to go to bed.

At ten o'clock she went.

Monica had fallen into the habit of coming in to her to say good-night, and often remained talking of trivialities in Mrs. Ingram's room until midnight or later.

Then she would crawl upstairs, listless and yet exhausted, and fall asleep as soon as she got into bed.

It was Sunday afternoon, and Mr. Pelham, as usual, was paying a lengthy call on Mrs. and Miss Ingram.

His conversation, for once, was absorbing their entire attention, for he had just returned from a visit to Yorkshire and had astonishing news of the Marlowes.

“I was with the Duncombes, you understand, not staying with Lady Marlowe—but they're fairly near neighbours, and you know what an interest these good people who live in the country take in one another's business,” said Mr. Pelham in a faintly admonitory tone that precluded any assumption that he might himself take any undue interest in his neighbour's affairs.

“Well, Cecily Marlowe has acquired a—a suitor.”

“Is she engaged?” cried Monica. A frightful pang went through her.

“It must be somebody very unsuitable,” said Mrs. Ingram shrewdly, “or her mother would have rushed them to the nearest church long ago.”

“It
is
unsuitable,” Mr. Pelham admitted, with a slight smile, “but not utterly impossible. I think you know the young man—a Dr. Corderey.”

“Do you mean to say that he's had the impertinence to propose to Cecily Marlowe?”

“So I believe.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Ingram, recovering herself, “if she has any sense, she'd better take him. As I always say, any
husband is better than none at all, and those girls have been hanging about for years, and no one has ever looked at either of them. If I were her mother, I should let her marry him on the spot.”

“Has she accepted him?” Monica asked.