Wicked Pleasures (12 page)

It was two weeks before Christmas when she had her first proper conversation with Alexander. She had seen him innumerable times; he spent the middle of the week in London, with Virginia, travelling up on Monday evening and down on Thursday. ‘He doesn’t really like any of this, but he puts up with it. I’ll tell you why one day,’ Virginia said. He steered very clear of the office during the day, and was out a great deal; he was on the boards of several companies, and always seemed busy. But he would come down in the evening, to collect her, and as he put it ‘take her home’; it was a little joke, which he seemed to enjoy more than she did. Angie wasn’t quite sure if she liked him, and he seemed rather tense, fraught a lot of the time. But he was extremely good-looking; the first time she found herself looking up at him, Angie felt literally weak at the knees. She had been working one evening at about six thirty in the small outer room, sorting samples onto a colour board for a new client; she heard footsteps and didn’t even look up, thinking it was the butler, who often brought down a tray of drinks for Virginia.

‘My goodness,’ said a voice, ‘what devotion to duty!’ and she had looked up and found herself gazing into a pair of eyes that were so intensely blue, so amused, so appreciative that even the memory of M. Wetherly’s burning brown ones faded into nothing.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Lord Caterham. I suppose,’ she added, feeling even more foolish every minute.

‘You suppose correctly. And you, I suppose, are Miss Burbank. I have heard so much about you, about how you have transformed my wife’s working day, but I had no idea how decorative you were. It is extremely nice to meet you. How do you do?’

He held out his hand; Angie jumped and took it. It was a very firm, but rather cold hand; she felt an odd desire to take it in both hers and warm it. ‘So is my wife in there? In the holy of holies?’

‘Sorry? Oh, yes, yes she is. Working on something we’re late with. I’m sure she’d be pleased to see you.’

‘I certainly hope so,’ he said, and she felt instantly foolish, cross with herself for saying anything so silly.

‘I’ve just arrived from Hartest,’ he said.

‘Ah yes. The lovely house,’ said Angie.

He looked pleased. ‘You know about Hartest?’

‘A bit. That it’s eighteenth century, built by – um, Adam, and that it’s considered very beautiful indeed.’

‘It is not only considered so, it is very beautiful indeed,’ he said, ‘you must come and see it one day. You would love it.’
Angie wondered how long it might be before a genuine invitation was issued: a very long time, she was sure. ‘Now if you will excuse me I must go and drag my wife away from her important work, we are going to be late for a very tedious dinner if we’re not careful.’

‘Of course. Do go in.’

She felt silly again, as if she was playing at being hostess to him in his own house; she stood up and watched him go into the room, and as he shut the door behind him, she heard him say, ‘Darling! What a funny, sweet little creature out there,’
and felt sillier still. It would be nice, she thought, to feel on a slightly more equal footing with the Earl. Then she shook herself. She had a long way to go before she could expect to do that.

The week before Christmas, he came up on the Wednesday; Virginia and he were attending some charity ball. He was in his dinner jacket, pacing up and down in the drawing room as Angie came through the house to leave; she felt shy suddenly, looking at his tense back, and tried to slip past him. She was in a hurry in any case; M. Wetherly was buying her dinner before departing for New York for Christmas. He had business there, he said, sadly neglected, that he should see to after Christmas; and he had promised Sonia, his young lady in New York, to spend Christmas with her. ‘Although I have to confess, Angela, I would rather be here with you.’ He did not expand on this theme; Angie did not press him. She was very fond of him, but she didn’t want things to get too heavy. The more Sonias and Mariannes (the name of the Paris mistress) there were, the better she liked it.

‘Angie!’ Alexander was bestowing his most gracious smile on her: practising for the tenants for Christmas, thought Angie irreverently.
‘Are you trying to sneak past me? Let me wish you Happy Christmas. Come and share a glass of champagne with me. My wife is clearly going to be quite a while yet.’

Angie smiled at him and went into the drawing room. There was a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the black marble mantelpiece; one was already filled. Alexander handed her the other. ‘I was hoping to have a drink with my wife, but she doesn’t deserve it. And you do, from everything I hear.’ He poured the glass very full, smiled at her. ‘Happy Christmas, my dear.’

Angie felt belittled, more than ever on a par with the tenants by the ‘my dear’, but took the glass, sipped it and smiled up at him. ‘Thank you, Lord Caterham. And to you.’

‘Oh, please call me Alexander. I hate all that, and I know you and Virginia are on best-friend terms.’

She looked at him slightly surprised. Surprised that Virginia would consider her like that, and still more so that he should know about it.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘we do seem to get along very well.’

‘I’m pleased,’ he said, ‘she needs a friend. She doesn’t have very many.’

‘Really?’ said Angie. ‘She – you and she – seem to be always going to parties and things.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, but I don’t mean a social circle. I mean a friend. There is someone in the country she is quite fond of, a neighbour, Mrs Dunbar, but apart from that she hasn’t formed any very close relationships. She has found it very difficult, coming from America, having to settle down here, build a new life, more difficult than I expected.’ He sounded faintly exasperated; Angie looked at him sharply and then at the bottle and realized several glasses had already been drunk.

‘Well,’ she said carefully, ‘it can’t have been easy. Leaving her family and everything behind.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘her family. Yes, well she certainly misses them. Especially her brother. Baby, have you heard about him?
Ridiculous names, these Americans have. Baby! I ask you. He’s six foot four, big as an ox.’

‘Well she seems quite happy now,’ said Angie, floundering slightly, not wishing to enter into any criticism of Virginia, her family or even her nation, ‘and the business is a great success. I’m sure it’s helped.’

She felt very foolish, all of sixteen years old, discussing the emotional stability of her employer with her employer’s husband.

He looked at her and his eyes were suddenly rather sad. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, it has helped. You’re right. It’s done more than I could, more than any of us, even Charlotte. Ah, Virginia, darling, how lovely you look. I’ve been chatting to Angie, and given her your glass, as you were so late down. Can you forgo a drink, do you think, as we’re late?’

‘Oh, no, I’d like a drink,’ said Virginia quickly, ‘you know I need Dutch courage on these occasions, Alexander. Just a tiny glass, it won’t take a moment. Here, give me yours. How was the drive and how’s Charlotte?’

‘The drive was hell, the whole of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Berkshire
was converging on the M4. Charlotte is fine. I told her I was coming to see you. She’s looking forward to spending some time with you.’

There was an edge to his voice. So that’s it, thought Angie; hardly surprising, really.

‘And I with her,’ said Virginia. She seemed suddenly more positive for her drink. ‘Now then, Alexander, let’s go.’ She was looking dazzling, even Angie who was used to her beauty was surprised by her; she was wearing a white crepe dress, off one shoulder, with long drifty sleeves, and a wide pearl choker at her throat; her dark hair was piled high Grecian style, and her great golden eyes were studded with fake lashes. She smiled at Angie. ‘Have a lovely evening, Angie, I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Thank you,’ said Angie. ‘Goodnight. Goodnight, Lord Caterham.’

‘Alexander. I told you. Goodnight, my dear. Happy Christmas, if I don’t see you again. Will you be spending it with your family?’

‘Yes, I expect so.’

‘How nice.’

And how impossible for you even to imagine, thought Angie, what my Christmas would be like; and how the opposite of nice it was going to be.

She did spend Christmas with the family; in an act of pure generosity, she went home to Mr and Mrs Wicks (Johnny and Dee having gone to Marbella with Dee’s dad). Angie bought a Marks and Spencer lambswool sweater for Mrs Wicks, and a nice scarf for Mr Wicks, new slippers for them both, smart plaid ones for him, pink fluffy for her; she also brought two bottles of wine, one of champagne, and a bottle of port for Mrs Wicks, some crystallized fruits, a box of chocolates and a huge bag of mixed nuts all from Fortnum and Mason and a Christmas pudding, complete with its own bag of sixpences, from Harrods Food Hall. It was only when she had finished shopping that she realized she had gone automatically to those places without thinking about it, and felt almost irrationally pleased about it. Her social education, her journey towards being posh, was obviously coming along very nicely.

Mrs Wicks had cooked a capon for the three of them, which Angie kept saying was deliciously moist whenever the conversation ran out, which was fairly often. The pudding was delicious, they all wished over the sixpences and Mrs Wicks drank a great deal of the port. They both exclaimed over the champagne and told Angie she was much too generous, and who would have thought to see such a thing in their house, but neither of them liked it, so Angie finished up drinking the whole bottle over presents. Mrs Wicks asked her how Lord and Lady Caterham were spending Christmas, and said they couldn’t be having a more slap-up time than the three of them, and Angie said, no, they certainly couldn’t. Mrs Wicks gave her a nylon scarf, and Mr Wicks pressed a crumpled dirty fiver into her hand and told her to buy what she liked.

After Christmas, Virginia and she became very close. It was an odd relationship, but it worked. The business gave them a common base, and conversations that began in a discussion about the stupidity of one client, insisting on silk
curtains in a kitchen, the appalling taste of another, covering exquisite honey-coloured parquet flooring with ankle-deep curly carpet, or the inadvisability of buying fifty yards of Sekers silk for a third, who would inevitably change her mind the minute it arrived at the office, would lead easily and naturally into long philosophical discussions and then revelations about their respective pasts. Virginia was often alone in the evenings; she stayed in town two or three nights a week, and if Alexander did not join her, if he had stayed at Hartest or was away himself on business, she would ask Angie to stay for a drink and a chat upstairs in the house. Virginia always enjoyed what she called the first drink of the day; she watched the clock, telling Angie she never allowed herself anything until after six thirty, but then right on the dot, she would pull the cork on a bottle of white wine and drink at least two of the big goblets that she kept in the office. Angie, who didn’t care if she had a drink or not, would keep her company and noticed that Virginia became very relaxed very quickly as the wine went down.

‘Tell me,’ said Angie carefully one night, having observed the third goblet of wine fairly swiftly emptied, ‘tell me, what does your husband – I mean Lord Caterham – think about you working, doing this? I’d have thought he’d have wanted you to be at Hartest, being a good wife and mother, hostessing and riding to hounds and all that sort of thing?’

‘Oh well,’ said Virginia with a sigh, ‘he doesn’t exactly like it. But he puts up with it. Like I told you.’

‘Did you?’ said Angie carelessly. It wouldn’t do to let Virginia think she was especially interested in the subject; it was obviously very delicate.

‘Yes. He has to, really.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, you see, after I had Charlotte I was very depressed. It was awful. I still have nightmares about it. Postnatal depression it was; Mr Dunwoody, he was my obstetrician, said it was quite natural, especially after a difficult first labour. And it was difficult. Boy, was it difficult. I thought it would go on for ever.’ She hesitated, looked at Angie, smiled slightly shakily. ‘I’ve always been frightened of childbirth. Ever since reading
Gone with the Wind
. They promised me, absolutely promised me, I’d be fine, that I could have this wonderful drug called pethidine, that it was easy these days, that I wouldn’t feel a thing. I believed them and I shouldn’t have. I felt a great deal. Never let anyone offer you pethidine, Angie, all it does is make you feel out of touch with yourself, so the pain is worse. God, it was awful. I didn’t behave very well, I have to tell you.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I kept thinking this was no way for an English countess to behave, yelling and screaming, but I didn’t seem able to stop. Then finally she, Charlotte, was born, and they said it was a girl and I just couldn’t believe it. All that had kept me going through those awful hours, was the thought that soon it would be over and I’d never have to do it again. And then the baby was a girl, and clearly I would have to do it again.’

‘Why?’ said Angie.

‘Well, to give Alexander an heir, of course.’ Virginia sounded oddly cynical, bitter almost. ‘That’s what I was there for. Going through all that. And then, no
heir. No heir to Hartest, to the title. When they said it was a girl, I just felt utter, utter despair; I wouldn’t hold her, wouldn’t do anything. I remember saying to Mr Dunwoody, my husband would be so upset, he wouldn’t even want to know, and he said nonsense, he would be delighted, and when Alexander came in, I said I was sorry, and he said exactly that, he said nonsense, he was delighted, he liked girls, but I knew that even if it was true, he still needed a boy. Anyway, it went on and on, for weeks and weeks, an awful, dull, aching misery, and a sort of anger; Mr Dunwoody said it would pass in a day or two, that I’d be fine, and I wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine ever being fine again. I was still amazingly weak after two months, and I used to cry every day, for hours and hours, at the same time every day, after lunch. I looked forward to the crying, it was a kind of catharsis. I refused to nurse Charlotte after a bit, it was such a shame, it was one thing I could do, I had loads of milk, and she was such a pretty, good baby; Nanny, that is Nanny Barkworth, Alexander’s old nanny, who had always been in the house, she is such a dear, she lives at Hartest, has rooms at the top of the house, near the nurseries, started taking total care of Charlotte, giving her formula. That made me feel worse, even though I’d refused to do it myself. And then Alexander’s mother didn’t come. She never came to meet me after the wedding, I’ve never met her, can you believe that, she’s obviously extremely odd, virtually a recluse, Alexander says, and that upset me and I thought that now at last that I’d had the baby she’d come, but she didn’t. I decided that was because it was a girl, that it was my fault, as well.’