Illusions of Happiness (12 page)

He had never attempted to make love to her. The nearest he had ever come to physical affection was a tender kiss on her forehead or taking her arm when out together or to help her in and out his Wolseley limousine before his chauffeur could reach her, even tucking the travelling blanket around her knees which was more the chauffeur’s job.

It was always a loving gesture on his part, this care for her comfort and safety and for that she was grateful, in turn vowing to be faithful to him. But every so often came that secret yearning for a younger man’s touch and many times she had caught herself thinking of the young man who had run lightly down the steps of the registry office; a lively, loquacious young man of twenty-six in the uniform of an army captain, who had introduced himself as her husband’s nephew Anthony. But today there was no such yearning.

The solicitor’s letter had loomed back into her mind, smothering those fleeting thoughts that had come from nowhere, unbidden, making her loathe herself for having allowed them in to interfere with her grief, with her intense anger against her father.

It was taking forever to pull herself together after hearing about her mother in that way and, despite the solicitor having worded the letter as discreetly and as gently as possible in a bid to cushion the shock, her anger grew each time she thought about it.

‘I know how you must feel, my dear,’ James said as kindly as he could, aware of her continuing distress. ‘It was a dreadful business, I know, but you must try to surmount it or you will make yourself ill.’

‘How can you know what I feel?’ she shot at him.

‘I lost my wife,’ he said simply.

She knew instantly exactly what he meant but wasn’t prepared to give way. ‘How can you compare the two?’ she replied with venom. ‘No one kept the news from you until it was too late to go to her funeral. You’ve no idea how that feels. You’ll never know! Nor will anyone who’s not had it happen to them.’

Rushing from the room she failed to notice the expression of pain those thoughtless words brought.

Her anger and resentment growing rather than diminishing, she knew she could never rest until she faced her father. The following Saturday she told James that she had been invited to spend the day with Margaret Dowling, one of the many friends she’d made from social gatherings she’d begun to arrange since their marriage.

Despite James’s preference for discretion, with the war still raging, hardly any ground being lost or gained, lives of thousands of young men still being sacrificed seemingly for nothing, she continued to look for any excuse for a party to liven a life growing ever more dull with the passing of time.

Slowly she was becoming more and more known for them, thus developing a widening circle of friends these past couple of years. Without them life would have become deadly dull for she’d soon discovered that James was no party-giver, much more preferring his privacy. He’d forever be seeking the first chance to leave a social gathering the second it became the least bit noisy, disappearing usually to talk business somewhere else with a few of those who shared his own business interests.

With Margaret’s husband, Colonel Dowling, being away in France helping conduct the war from the safe distance of some administrative desk or other, she missed his presence and like Madeleine looked forward to any diversion that might make the void seem more bearable.

She lived well west of London so the pretence of visiting her would give Madeleine ample time to travel on to Buckinghamshire and back home without there being any suspicion of her having gone to seek out her father.

Wisdom kept telling her that she was being foolish but she strove to ignore it as she sat on the train from Marylebone watching West London’s skyline change slowly to urban sprawl then to green countryside with small villages trundling by, wartime seeming to give trains every excuse to go slow.

A first-class carriage did afford privacy from the noise and turmoil of second-and third-class ones, but the relative peace only helped to accentuate her thoughts on the possible stupidity of her resolve.

Watching the rain driving across the carriage windows at least helped sweep away that thought but brought instead thoughts of what she’d read in the newspapers of present fearful conditions in Flanders. Reports of men being bogged down in a sea of Flanders mud caused by ceaseless rain and remorseless bombardment around Passchendaele, men being sucked down by the quagmire to their deaths should they slip off the duckboards.

The mounting daily toll of men missing suddenly made her think of James’s nephew, Anthony. He too was somewhere in Belgium. She would find herself constantly praying that he still remained safe, though had he been killed or wounded the news would have reached her and James instantly, she was sure.

As his only nephew, he was his favourite relation. In fact on marrying her James had altered his will previously leaving most of his estate to him. It was now only a quarter of that, the rest, James had told her confidentially so as to reassure her, going to herself which amounted to more than she would ever need or want.

‘The boy already has enough and more,’ he’d told her, ‘left to him by his father, my eldest brother Wilfred, Will, when he passed away. So he is already a wealthy young man in his own right and would want for nothing,’ adding in fond and glowing terms, ‘nor is he at all selfish to begrudge you the major portion of my estate. He is a most likeable young man, I am proud to say. And when this dreadful war is finally over, I sincerely hope to see much more of him. You know, my dear, I do so miss his cheery voice in this house.’

She too found herself hoping to see more of him, suddenly aware of a strange twinge of excitement in her stomach that for a moment managed to smother her feelings of bitterness towards her father.

She should never have come. Alighting from the taxicab that had brought her here from the railway station in Beaconsfield, her first sight of the house she’d once lived in struck her as remote, different to what she remembered, like the momentarily unexpected impression one gets of even a familiar place when returning from long holidaying in distant parts.

Saturday morning, her father would be home. A man of strict habits, he seldom had any engagement on a Saturday until perhaps the afternoon.

In spite of the steady rain, she had the taxi stop well before reaching the house lest in glancing from the sitting-room window he’d see her and bar her way, though he probably wouldn’t recognize her all that quickly under the large black umbrella she held well down over her head.

She intended to be inside the house before he knew it, rather than standing on the doorstep in full view of the road for any passer-by to witness the inevitable confrontation she knew would occur. To this end she entered by the servants’ entrance, alarming Mrs Plumley in the midst of her cooking as she burst in through the door closed against the steady rain. The woman shot upright like someone scalded, to stand staring at her as if petrified.

‘Good God Almighty! Miss Maddie! What in—’

‘Shh!’ Madeleine hissed. But Mrs Plumley was too flabbergasted to heed her.

‘What in God’s holy name are you doing here! Your father’s home . . .’

‘I know,’ Madeleine whispered. ‘I don’t want him to see me until I am standing in front of him. How could he be so wicked as to withhold telling me about my mother, not even how seriously ill she was all that time?’

‘I’m sorry, miss . . . Mrs . . . I mean madam . . .’ Floundering, she lapsed into silence. Madeleine gave her a stiff smile.

‘It’s not your fault, Mrs Plumley. Where is he?’

‘In the library, miss . . . I mean . . .’ Floundering yet again, she gave up but stiffened. ‘Please don’t go antagonizing him, Miss Madeleine. I shall get in awful trouble for not warning him.’

But Madeleine was already through the door and up the few steps to the hall, making her way to the library, her mind saw-edged.

She found him sitting in his upright leather armchair as she burst in. His startled expression, seeing her there, was almost laughable but instantly changed to one of disbelief. ‘What in God’s name . . .’

Leaping up, face now livid with rage, his voice sounded strangled. ‘How dare you walk into my home? I’ll thank you to leave this minute!’

She stood her ground, her own anger dominating her. ‘I’m not leaving until—’

‘I’ve nothing to say to you,’ he cut in, but she in her turn cut him short.

‘But I’ve plenty to say to you. I can’t believe anyone could be so heartless as to prevent their daughter knowing her own mother had passed away. It was evil and you are an evil man and I shall never forgive you. Never!’

‘What you choose to do is no concern of mine,’ he said slowly. Having regained control of himself, he was speaking now in level terms in the face of her rage, but Madeleine was trembling with anger and hatred.

‘I never once imagined it would,’ she raged. ‘Nor do I care if I never set eyes on you again. I just pray you die as my poor mother did and take a long time doing it. And I’ll be happy never to see you again. One thing I want you to know – I don’t care about your loathing of me. I’m happily married now and as far as I’m concerned you can rot away and I for one will as they say, dance on your grave.’

Her father remained calm before the torrent, lips curling in a sneer. ‘Happily married?’ he echoed. ‘An elderly, wealthy man, I hear. Turned gold-digger, eh? No more than I would have expected of such as you.’

‘I don’t care what you expect!’ she screamed at him. ‘I came here to confront you for not letting me know how ill my mother was. Then not to tell me of her death . . . you disgust me, you and your righteous attitudes!’

Her raised voice filling the house, she could imagine the staff having no need to strain their ears as she raged and she knew that she was losing the battle; had in fact already lost it and had only been in this house a few minutes.

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ she ended lamely, hating her tone of defeat, ‘You’re not my father any more and to me you’re already dead.’

‘I’m not interested in your concern,’ he replied, his voice low and controlled. ‘Now you have said your piece, I will thank you to leave my home as I have already requested you do. Mrs Plumley will see you out and off the premises.’

With that he turned his back on her and sat back down in his hard leather armchair, taking up a book that lay on the small table beside him, its pages open to where he had been reading before she had burst in, his other hand retrieving the tumbler of whisky that had lain beside that. Ignored now as he bent his head to his book, she found herself dry of words.

All she could do was back out of the room but she managed to slam the library door as loudly as she could, hoping it might make him jump and spill his whisky. Although she would never know, there was some satisfaction in hoping.

Nevertheless she felt diminished, defeated, as she made her way back to the kitchen. How would Mrs Plumley receive her now? Her face turned away from her as she concentrated on her cooking?

Instead the woman was looking at her as she entered. ‘Would you like a quick cup of tea before you go as it’s a long way back to London, miss?’ she asked, apparently having given up on trying to address her as madam, settling on her more familiar ‘miss’. ‘I’m so sorry things have turned out here for you the way they have, miss.’

She seemed so genuinely sympathetic and on her side that Madeleine felt that here was at least one ally, although what good it would ever do her she couldn’t think.

‘Why do you still work for him?’ she asked.

‘He pays me wages,’ was the simple reply. ‘What about that cup of tea, miss? The master won’t be out of his study for ages, not until lunch now.’

‘That’s kind of you, Mrs Plumley, but no thank you.’ Somehow the idea of drinking tea in this house, even hastily, felt abhorrent. ‘I need to be on my way. I need to get home well before dinner.’

‘Very well, miss. But you take care now. Nice to know you’re settled and married . . . I heard it being said. Hope you have a nice life if I don’t ever see you again.’

‘Thank you,’ Madeleine said as she turned towards the outer door.

‘You’re very welcome, miss, I’m sure.’ The kindly words followed her, stayed with her as she made her way to the taxicab whose driver had been paid to await her return, as she knew her stay in that house would be brief. In fact it had been much shorter than she’d anticipated, even less fulfilling.

Rather than her visit being a triumph, the whole escapade, which is what it had turned out to be, had achieved nothing, leaving her wondering why she had even bothered. In the back of the taxi, her disillusionment concealed from the driver by the fashionable broad-brimmed hat she wore, she tried to ignore a heavy sense of defeat deep in her stomach that it hadn’t been she who had triumphed but her father, she being made to feel a fool.

It nagged at her the whole journey back to London, though glad to have a first-class carriage to herself affording her privacy to nurse her dejection without being observed.

Arriving home earlier than she had expected to, she prayed not to meet James as Merton opened the door to her. All she wanted was to hurry on upstairs to the privacy of her room and indulge in a few moments of quiet misery. But it wasn’t to be.

James came out of his study as she entered the hall, saw her, and called out, ‘Ah, there you are! Had a pleasant day with your friend have you, my dear?’

His tone was soft yet to her mind held a note almost of accusation, making her respond far too quickly. ‘Yes, very nice thank you.’

There was a pause. Then he said as Merton went discreetly off down the hall, ‘Strange, my dear, your friend Mrs Margaret Dowling whom you said you were seeing today telephoned three hours after you left – by which time you should have been with her – to invite you there this Wednesday.’

For a second she froze. Next minute she’d thrown herself into his arms, sobbing fit to burst. ‘Oh, James, I’m sorry. I lied to you. I didn’t go to see her. I went to confront my father for withholding the death of my mother from me. I needed so much to have it out with him.’