A Marriage of Convenience (18 page)

Deacon’s Place was a neglected cul-de-sac of eighteenth century cottages leading off a mews, dwarfed and overlooked by the unadorned backs of a stately crescent. A few such fossilized survivals of an earlier rural period remained hidden away behind the broad formal streets of Belgravia, hemmed in by livery stables, garden walls and tradesmen’s entrances. Now, apart from the grass growing between the paving stones, there was little rustic about Deacon’s Place; the neighbouring mews resounded day and night to the clash of hoofs and the grating carriage wheels, and the Two Chairmen on the corner was a public house much frequented by the younger servants from the surrounding mansions. The residents of the cul-de-sac, though living in such close proximity to the titled and rich, were less exalted—a retired butler, an engraver and his family, a lawyer’s clerk, and Major Simmonds, widower, late of the Bombay Rifles, later still auctioneer, theatre manager and bankrupt, at present living on a small annuity.

Arthur Simmonds was a gentleman by birth, and though for years he had lacked the means to live like one, even at the age of sixty-one he could not resign himself to the indignity of his situation. He pretended to be indifferent to the opinion of others, but was in fact extremely sensitive to it. When he went out, he did not go to his old club or call at the houses where he might expect to meet associates from his more prosperous days. Instead he frequented chop houses and oyster bars where he still felt superior to the average clientele. In such places he sometimes behaved with embarrassing rudeness, but, just as often, he treated those he met with exaggerated civility; by these extremes proving, to himself at least, that he naturally belonged to a different and more exclusive milieu.

With fellow unfortunates he was usually indulgent, enjoying comparing past misfortunes and sharing wishful dreams of what might have been. Being well aware of his own shortcomings, he could be exceptionally tolerant of weaknesses in others. But, like many men who felt that fate had treated them unfairly, he also had periods of prolonged ill-humour, taking the form of obstinate pride
or ironic buffoonery; in both conditions he would deliberately make the worst of everything, as though to revenge himself for the humiliations of a life that had thwarted his ambitions.

Like so much else in his life, his relationship with his only daughter was bedevilled by disappointed expectations. Though he loved Theresa with a demonstrative fondness unusual in most fathers for their grown-up children, her mode of existence made him cruelly aware of his personal failure. His time as theatre lessee and manager had been the happiest in his life; the isolation of the stage from other walks of life and its air of illusion had been a welcome escape from the scant social rewards of colonial soldiering and the later stigma of trade. But never had he thought to involve his daughter in that particular world. His one ambition for Theresa had been a splendid marriage; her beauty and accomplishment deserved no less. In no other way could she enjoy the rightful privileges of her sex and know the indispensable comforts and many satisfactions of living as a lady.

His wife’s death when Theresa had been twenty had been a grave setback to the major’s matrimonial plans for his daughter, since the mother’s natural match-making role would have to be discharged by him; and hard though he had tried, not one of the young gentleman he unearthed had impressed Theresa. Instead she had promptly fallen in love with an actor in the company and after many months of bitter arguments had forced her father to consent to her marrying him. Having already shown some dramatic talent on the few occasions when she had managed to bludgeon her father into allowing her minor roles, her choice of marriage partner had made her future career inevitable; even had she wished to discontinue it, the birth of Louise, and her husband’s early death, had made such a course impossible, especially since these events had coincided with her father’s professional decline. At the time when Theresa had most needed help, Major Simmonds had been least able to provide it. Alternately blaming her for having brought about her own hardships, and torturing himself for being unable to alleviate them, he had later been incapable of enjoying any successes she achieved.

The arrival of Esmond Danvers in both their lives had seemed to the major the final fulfilment of an impossible dream; and though his mind had later turned to possible advantages for himself, at first his delight and relief had been for Theresa alone. That she should have turned down a marriage proposal was incomprehensible to him. Only an actress could have behaved with such malign perversity. Esmond’s wealth had tantalized Simmonds. Eventually most
financiers
could be relied upon to buy a country place, and the major had passed many idle hours contemplating his own residence in a
comfortable dower house on the estate. He would fish and shoot, and, for the first time since his Indian Army days, lead something approaching the life of an English gentleman. No longer burdened by fears for his daughter and granddaughter, he had imagined his last decade passing in perfect peace of mind.

While Theresa had stayed on with Esmond, the major had continued to nurse his hopes. In fact he had seen their trip to Ireland as a distinctly hopeful sign. His daughter’s sudden return therefore struck him with the force of all unexpected disasters. Only her undisguised misery had enabled him to hold back the full tide of his resentment. But at times during her first week as his reluctant guest, he could not contain his anger. If her decision had brought her contentment, he might have been able to reconcile himself to what she had done, but her unhappiness only underlined for him the madness of her proceedings.

Every day since her arrival at Deacon’s Place, Theresa had been out for hours at a time making the rounds of agents and managers, returning late in the afternoon, tired and dispirited. Her obvious eagerness to get work at once appalled her father. An actress who appeared desperate would end up being offered a smaller salary than if she seemed to be pondering engagements at her leisure. Because the revival of
Masks
and
Faces
had been a success, he knew that Theresa ought to take particular care not to accept anything that might be seen as a downward step. Before his ruinous ventures into extravaganzas at the Lyceum, Arthur Simmonds had been a
successful
manager with very few failures among the long string of adapted French farces he had mounted at the Strand Theatre. He knew he was well qualified to give advice, and so suffered the more for being ignored.

Hurt and perplexed, he consoled himself with Louise, taking the child for walks in Hyde Park to see the carriages and riders in Rotten Row and along the Lady’s Mile. If the weather had been warmer he would have liked to have gone with her to the open-air tea gardens near the Regent’s Canal or taken her on the river by penny steamer to Greenwich. Instead he bought her presents he could not afford: a straw hat with ribbons, a silver bracelet, an inlaid sewing box. He also treated her to performances of his numerous imitations: extraordinarily accurate mimicry of various animals’ cries, the sounds of an orchestra tuning-up, street vendors’ calls. His favourite was a tour de force of railway travel, starting with the approach of a puffing engine, its progress though a tunnel,
accompanied
by whistles, stopping at a station, with the porter calling out the place, and then the final departure of the train with gradually accelerating puffs and hisses. By making his granddaughter laugh, he
felt he was doing something to soften the impact of her altered circumstances.

One morning during Theresa’s second week in Deacon Place, Major Simmonds thought he detected a change in his daughter’s manner. All that day because of Louise’s presence he could not ask anything openly, but after supper when the child was in bed, and he was sitting with Theresa in the small ground floor sitting room, he began to question her. She had said that two London managers had spoken vaguely of an engagement in the near future, had she heard any more? Theresa looked down at the rucked-up tiger skin rug in front of the fire.

‘I’ve accepted an offer.’

‘May I ask where?’ he asked, fingering the eyeglass he always wore on a black ribbon round his neck.

‘York.’

‘York?’ he repeated in amazement. ‘You must refuse. You can’t possibly take anything with a stock company until you’ve waited longer.’

‘I don’t want to wait. I can’t.’

‘You can sell some of the jewellery he gave you … I’ll do what I can.’

‘It isn’t a matter of money,’ she replied quietly.

‘Then what is it a matter of?’

‘I need to work. That’s all.’

He stared past her at the litter of cigar boxes, papers and unwashed glasses on the table.

‘If you must go to the provinces, why not to Manchester or Liverpool? But York … You know those third-rate stock
companies
… the costumes of ladies of fashion straight out of the theatre rag bag, the leading lady decked out in crumpled satin … the dowager in Lady Macbeth’s cast-off velvets. You’ll play
opposite
a jeune premier who’d be more at home behind a muslin counter than on the stage.’

‘And only a harp and one violin in the orchestra?’ she replied with a faint smile. ‘You’re exaggerating as always. It’s only for six weeks and the parts are good.’

‘And Louise?’

‘Can’t she stay here? It isn’t for long. I may be able to find a day school to take her at short notice.’

The major got up and stopped in front of the cracked barometer by the door.

‘I don’t understand,’ he murmured. ‘Can you explain it to me?’

‘Not in any way that would satisfy you.’

Later when she was getting into bed in the cluttered room which
her father usually used as his study, Theresa was disturbed by the memory of his kindly puzzled eyes. She had known that he was right all the time, but, since leaving Clinton, she had found unoccupied days intolerable. At first she had thought everything burned out and finished for her by Esmond’s despair, but time had proved her wrong.

Now, though every emotional part of her revolted against the way in which she had run away, she still could not bring herself to write to Clinton. What happiness could there ever be for them, when so much conspired against it—his family, his debts, his regiment? Her child and her career? Ahead of them, all she could foresee was the pain of separations, of meetings snatched at too eagerly, of broken plans. Her fear seemed a betrayal, but she could not escape its many forms—fear of dependence, of loving more than she was loved, and worst of all, fear that were they to meet again, she would submit regardless, to whatever he might ask. Only work, she believed, could restore to her the woman she had been before knowing him.

For a week after his return to England, Esmond remained at home incapable of attending to business; unable to think of anything outside the confines of his own misery. He had locked Theresa’s boudoir and the bedroom they had once shared, and now slept and spent all his time in his dressing room. For hours he would pace about this small room, disinclined to read a book, just looking at the prints on the wall, or picking up a newspaper, reading at random advertisements for carriages or pianos, requests for a French governess, or pedigree pointer dog—any paragraph his eye fell upon. He glanced at the paper’s date. Yesterday? The day before? A year ago? A strange illusion held him, that he was entirely alone, trapped in a lost pocket of time, like a stick floating in the revolving eddies at a river’s bend, circling, but not progressing with the wider stream. Others were working, loving, going to theatres, living lives that moved; their days in step with the greater world’s. But to him that active world was as distant as a half-remembered dream; the slow merging of his own empty days and nights had become reality.

Unable to sleep at night unless half-drunk, he dozed during the day, amazing his servants by the sudden abandonment of
long-established
routines. The landau stayed all day in the stables; his valet was sent away when he came in the morning with clothes and hot water for shaving.

In a huddle outside his door, valet, butler and housekeeper conferred about the advisability of sending for the doctor; fear of dismissal dissuaded them. Instead they patiently tolerated every new and eccentric demand. At four in the morning he might ring for prawns and radishes with a bottle of sauterne, or oysters and iced punch. One evening the first footman was alarmed by smoke on the landing outside his room and came down to find his master, poker in hand, burning a woman’s dress on the fire; beside him was a heap of taffeta, striped satins, muslin and shot silk.

Every day a clerk came from the city with papers for his urgent
attention, but, in spite of the man’s pleas, Esmond never went down to see him and the papers remained unread. He seemed to be in a dazed state of convalescence, utterly remote, yet violently irritated by any intrusion. Sometimes, when he was very tired, he fancied he heard Theresa’s light tread on the stairs as he had done in reality whenever she had come back late from the theatre. Several times he threw open his door, only to find a maid returning to her room after putting out the lights.

But slowly, like a man blundering through mist towards a dim light, he forced himself to think of a future beyond the boundaries of his present misery. In time he would have to find out what he still refused entirely to accept. Just as a bereaved person may need to see the corpse to understand his loss, Esmond sensed that he would have to learn whether Theresa was with Clinton. Again and again he had put off making the discovery which alone could destroy the half-admitted hope, which alternately sustained and tormented him. If Clinton had let her down, as he had other women in the past … one day, probably not soon—perhaps only after many months—might she not come back?

Every day Esmond told himself that he would go to Deacon’s Place the following morning. If she was not there, her father would know where she had gone and why. Yet every time he braced himself to call the coachman, his pulse began to race and he could hardly breathe. The bellpull in his hand seemed as deadly as the trigger of a loaded pistol. Never in his life had he felt such dread in the face of what logic and reason cried out had to be done.

*

On a grey and blustery morning, when the wind shook the window frames and tore the last leaves from the trees in the square, Esmond’s valet knocked and told his master that his chief clerk was in the hall and refused to leave until he had spoken to him. After a long silence Esmond pulled on his brocaded dressing gown and told his servant to show the visitor up.

George Herriot had worked for five years for Esmond with a meticulous attention to detail almost equal to his employer’s. Usually dapper and constrained, today Herriot was agitated and flustered. His thin wispy hair, normally glued to his scalp with macassar oil, was wild and unruly, and instead of his invariable black silk cravat, a miracle of geometric folds, he wore a made-up octagon scarf. When Esmond admitted to his chief clerk that he had read none of the papers sent from Lombard Street, Herriot’s mouth sagged at the corners and he sat down heavily in the wingchair by the fire.

‘The Greek and Oriental’s credit can’t last another week and you haven’t read those papers?’ His voice ended on a faltering gasp. ‘You know how we’re placed if the company suspends
payment
?’

‘Our losses will become public.’

‘Destroying the confidence of the banks,’ cried Heriot, flinging out his arms with the jerky suddenness of a clumsily animated puppet. Suddenly he started to sob; sniffing at first but then without restraint. Esmond waited for him to recover, shocked out of his indifference.

‘Every day I’m asked when you’ll be in; every day more excuses. I can’t go on … I’ve no authority to buy bills over five thousand or to renew … Have some pity, Mr Danvers. The clerks have all got children. I’ve three sons … At present discount rates we can’t absorb the Greek and Oriental’s losses. Martell and Hennessy have given the preference to General Steam in the Charente brandy trade. That’s six steamers idle. We’re being bled to death.’

‘Can’t we cut our rate on the Charente service?’

‘Below twenty shillings a ton with ten per cent primage?’

‘Perhaps not. In six weeks we’ll have the new steamers on the Black Sea service. I’ll call a conference with the line’s major creditors.’

Herriot’s face was instantly transformed.

‘Can I telegraph the Liverpool office?’

Esmond nodded, his mind already calculating possibilities. The thought of the chain of failures that would follow his own had been made real by Herriot’s tears. His life was not in isolation; his fortunes were linked to those of hundreds of others. Even before Herriot left, Esmond found himself considering remedies: using the wine ports merely as a call on outward voyages to Brazil; reducing the Levantine trade. But his mind kept returning to the worst difficulty of all—the problem of immediate credit, and capital to pay for the new steamers. For the first time since returning from Ireland he thought of the trust and remembered what he had intended to do. Esmond clapped his hands.

Next week he would meet the creditors and agree to secure all outstanding liabilities. Then he would go to the trustees and advise them to take up as much stock as possible in the Greek & Oriental while the shares were undervalued. He had given good advice in the past, and they would hardly doubt him now when they knew his highly respectable discount house was financing the company.

If the line failed, Esmond knew that he would be ruined. The prospect seemed less disturbing now that he was confident of
involving Clinton in the same fate. Nevertheless when Herriot left the house Esmond gave no more attention to his brother or the trust. The time had come to pay another call. An hour later Esmond was in his landau on the way to Deacon’s Place.