Authors: Barbara Vine
“What do you mean ‘by the way’?”
“I thought you might want to know that vital fact. Children are quite keen on knowing who their fathers are, in case that fact has escaped your notice.”
This time Maud said nothing about Hope’s lack of respect, but Maud seemed to have forgotten the treatment she had received from her own parents in a like situation. “You can’t stay here,” she shouted. “I’ve had enough disgrace, none of it my own fault, and I’m not having you bring more on me. I knew those Imbers would ruin me, I knew it the first day I met that woman.”
Hope had sat down. She had moved from her chair onto the sofa and put her feet up. She was waiting for her mother to tell her that although Maud hated Christian (as an Imber), he would have to marry Hope. If anyone had told her she would one day enjoy getting revenge on her mother, Hope would never have believed it. She wasn’t that sort of person, but perhaps she was. But Maud said nothing of that. She ran upstairs, encountered the openmouthed Enid Biddle plying the carpet sweeper on the landing, and stormed into her bedroom. When Maud came down again, she was wearing the last outfit she had bought before clothes rationing began and a hat Hope had never before seen. She didn’t ask her mother where she was going. Hope knew and knew too that it would be pointless to try to stop her.
It was a warm day, but Maud arrived at the front door of River House in a pale blue tailored suit, a maroon felt hat, and maroon suede shoes with high heels. She was so dressed up that Elspeth,
in answering the door, thought for a moment that one of them had mistaken the date and Maud had come to lunch or even a party. The illusion lasted only seconds, for Maud, marching in, began shouting that Elspeth and Guy—she addressed them as Mr. and Mrs. Harding—had led her daughter astray, corrupted her morals, and contrived that Hope and Christian share a bed in their house. Where else could “the deed” have been done? No doubt, Maud had forgotten the meadows behind the Bristol home of her parents. When Guy appeared and asked what was going on, she called him “a pimp,” a word the Hardings were amazed she even knew.
Her rant continued for some time, growing more and more hysterical, until she had taken herself into the drawing-room and begun picking up small ornaments, books, and cushions and hurling them across the room. Fortunately, all but a rather nice little piece of Royal Copenhagen were unbreakable. When Elspeth made a mild effort to restrain Maud, she struck out, landing a glancing blow on Elspeth’s cheek. Guy stepped in and got Maud onto a sofa, forcing her to sit down. Rage broke into cries and sobs, which subsided when Guy held a small glass of brandy to her lips. It was rather late in the day, a good half hour after all this had begun, that Maud was in a fit state, though tearstained and hiccupping, to understand that neither of the Hardings had the least idea what she had been talking (or, rather, screaming) about.
After she had been given tea and comforted, Guy drove her home. Maud made no apology to him for her abuse. She never did apologise to anyone. Once he had left, her intention was to go to bed, but she had something important to do first. There was no sign of Hope. What had happened was the trigger that would set off a change in Maud’s life. Writing materials were fetched out, a sheet of the headed paper she had scarcely ever used, the fountain pen Elspeth had given her for a birthday present, and an envelope to which she affixed a stamp from a book of stamps Hope must
have bought and left behind. She sat down, first addressed the envelope to
John Greystock, Esq.
—if they called him Jack, he must be John, mustn’t he?—
Windstone Farm, Ottery St. Jude, Devon,
then wrote, taking it slowly and carefully:
Dear Mr. Greystock, After much careful thought, I have decided that I can accept your proposal. Perhaps you would call and we can discuss arrangements for our forthcoming marriage. I would like our nuptials to take place as soon as is convenient. With kindest regards, Yours sincerely, Maud Goodwin.
Reading it, Maud found nothing unusual in this letter. Calling a prospective husband
Mr.
with his surname would have been acceptable in 1847 but hardly a hundred years later. Still, she liked it and wouldn’t have considered changing it. Jack had not renewed his proposal, but this she chose to ignore.
He
had not yet accepted
her
and perhaps would not, but this she hardly considered. As to the banns and the description of her as a spinster, perhaps they could get married in a registry office, where she had an idea no reference to her status or whatever it was called would be made.
She was quite pleased with what she had written and took it to the pillar box at once. It was still early when she returned home, but she went upstairs, had a long, hot bath, and retired to bed. Nothing unusual in that. When had the hour or the position of the sun affected her bedtime? Not for years.
W
HEN
H
OPE
came back, Christian was with her. Judging from her own experience, Maud had made up her mind that the father of her daughter’s child would never be seen again. Even if he wanted to “stand by her,” his mother would stop him. But here he was, on her doorstep, Hope having rung the doorbell instead of using her key. Maud got up to answer the door.
She had decided she wasn’t going to speak to him, she wouldn’t even look at him.
Hope said, “When I told you this morning, I thought there was one question you were bound to ask me, but you didn’t.”
“Oh, yes, and what was that then?”
Hope and Christian both came in, walked into the living-room.
“If you’re not going to, we’ll tell you,” said Hope. She looked at Christian and he smiled at her.
“Perhaps it’s best if I tell your mother, Hope.”
The words were scarcely out when Maud screamed, “Don’t you dare speak to me. I never asked you in here. You can get out.”
“I was only going to say,” he said, “that we’ve just been to see Mr. Morgan, and he’ll marry us in three weeks’ time.”
Maud was speechless. It never crossed her mind to apologise. She wouldn’t have known how to. She stared at him, she stared at Hope, then threw her arms round her, an unfamiliar embrace from which Hope escaped and retreated a little. For her mother’s
happiness Hope felt only distaste and a touch of dismay at the triumphant and almost virtuous note Christian had put into his announcement. Ever since she knew of her pregnancy and told him, she had wished she had the courage not to get married, but to do the modern thing that some people even in 1947 were doing and live with him “in sin.” She had even told him so, but wistfully, soon yielding to his insistence that they marry. She hadn’t been strong enough to hold out against him and (it would soon follow) his mother and her mother and everybody else they knew.
Good-bye to university, she had thought, and it was no good his saying she could go there later or in two or three years’ time. She knew that would never happen now. Her reputation would be saved and the child would be legitimate. That was all. Without really knowing what being in love was like, she knew she wasn’t in love with Christian.
Her mother brought out a bottle of sherry and three glasses, and if anyone thought alcohol wasn’t good for Hope as an expectant mother, no one said so.
For the first time in her life Maud proposed a toast. “To mother and baby.”
Hope stared. She could hardly believe her eyes and ears.
I
T HAD
been a good and satisfactory day. On the whole. But Maud soon put out of her mind the screaming fits and destruction of other people’s possessions. If she even remembered them at all. Hope was getting married to a wealthy man and would live in comfort a long way away. Nothing to worry about there. She too would have a rich husband, and she pictured the engagement and wedding rings he would give her, the dress she could have made for her wedding. But, no, no church wedding for her where the word
spinster
would be mentioned. Still, she could have a lovely afternoon dress and hat. She might even make things up with
Ethel and renew her affection for Sybil so that they could come. She would have to think about the Hardings, whether she could break her rule and forgive them for leading Hope into immoral behaviour, something she was now sure they had done, in spite of their denials. A long time yet to go before sunset, she fell asleep with the yellow light on her face.
H
OPE AND
Christian were married on a fine Saturday in November at St. Jude’s church. Christian’s mother and stepfather were there and his brother, Julian, and Hope’s mother, Maud. The Hardings came with their children and a large number of Imber and Brown relatives. But no members of the Goodwin family were invited, and if Sybil Goodwin or Ethel Burrows read the wedding notice in the
Western Morning News,
they gave no sign of having done so to Maud or Hope. Rosemary Clifford, now Rosemary Lindsay and on her second marriage, wrote to Maud, sending best wishes to the young couple, passing on her brother Ronnie’s greetings to his daughter and enclosing a cheque from him for twenty pounds. Maud threw letter and cheque into the fire, a rare occasion when an angry gesture of hers was justified.
Christian bought a little house in a pretty street in Chelsea, and there in a nursing home in Sloane Avenue, Hope’s son was born the following June. But long before that, another wedding had taken place in Ottery St. Jude. Jack Greystock had finally given up proposing to Maud when her letter came, had given up months before, and received the letter with a kind of wonder. It made him smile but he also greatly admired it. A poorly educated man himself, though not illiterate, he marvelled at the expressions she used.
Nuptials,
for instance, was a word he had never heard before. He thought long and hard about the letter, considered showing it to his mother, but decided against it. It was
Maud herself that he thought about, not best pleased that she had taken it upon herself to propose to him without waiting for him to come again to her, but on the whole this scarcely bothered him.
Maud was undeniably good-looking, lovely figure, good legs. She looked healthy. She had money, a private income, and he knew that rather than renting it, she owned The Larches. The daughter, who might have been a nuisance hanging about the place, was about to get married herself and apparently intended to live in London. Her existence showed him that Maud was a fertile woman who would bear him children. He would accept her proposal, but keep her waiting a few days. During those few days, which stretched into a week, Maud suffered the agonies that would have been hers had she truly been in love with Jack Greystock. He would never reply, her money would run out, his mother would forbid the marriage, one by one everyone she knew would desert her. Her daughter was soon going, her only friends would be sure to abandon her once Hope had left. The illness she was convincing herself she had when she’d told Hope she was a “semi-invalid” was taking the form of recurrent headaches, a pain in her back, a temperature that came on in the evenings.
All these symptoms, or whatever they were, went away when Jack Greystock arrived on her doorstep. He walked in, put his arms round her, and kissed her. Maud submitted, she thought she had better. After all, there would be plenty more of it if they were to be husband and wife, and she must get used to it. Ronnie Clifford and the springtime meadows were a world away.
Genial and cheerful when everything was going his way, Jack told her without being asked that he had never believed a word of that village gossip, but he was adamant on the subject of a registrar’s office wedding. Of course they would be married in church, no question about it.
“Don’t let me hear any more nonsense like that,” said Jack, no longer genial but taking a hectoring tone.
Maud whimpered but let him hear no more nonsense like that. The vicar, an innocent, unsuspicious man, took it for granted she was a widow, and that was how she was referred to in the banns: “Maud Jean Goodwin, widow of this parish.” She could hardly believe her luck and was cheerful for the rest of the day. But in the years to come she sometimes wondered if that single word, the wrong word in the right place, would make her marriage illegal; if perhaps the time came when Jack wanted to escape matrimony or, come to that, she did, they could get out of it by telling the vicar she had really been a spinster.
The wedding was quiet, attended only by Jack’s mother and some village people, his friends, not Maud’s. But the Hardings came and Mr. and Mrs. Christian Imber came. Jack took Maud on honeymoon for a long weekend to Sidmouth, where she began sharing a bed with a man, something that had never happened to her before, and something else that had only happened twice, sexual intercourse. She remembered something she had forgotten for years, the teacher telling her and the other girls that sex between husband and wife was a “special kind of loving embrace.” She had no intention of passing that one on to Jack. He never said much, but told her again and again that he was crazy about her. It became a kind of mantra, accompanying every sexual advance. He never used contraception as he hoped for several children, and she didn’t know how to.
If Hope’s marriage, entered into so young, seemed happy enough, with four children arriving in twelve years—they jogged along, as Christian put it, pointing out that few people divorced in the 1950s—Maud’s was something of an ordeal. While Jack kept her in a higher level of comfort than she had been used to, he behaved as if the Married Women’s Property Act, now more than seventy years old, had never been passed. Taking it for granted that everything she possessed should be transferred to him, he nevertheless refused her a joint account on the grounds that
women knew nothing about handling money. Jack was a sadist in a small way. It amused him to make Maud afraid of him, justifying his intimidating behaviour by reminding himself that his wife hadn’t been a pillar of virtue when he married her. There was the illegitimate child for one thing, then the funny business of pretending her brother was her husband, not to mention that murderer who had lived in her house. A spot of bullying was only what she deserved.