No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (38 page)

She was in absolute denial about the whole thing, of course. Telling herself day after day that none of it was happening. That she was not looking forward intensely to the days when he would be at Lyttons, not becoming the kind of woman she disapproved of, watching herself as she moved and spoke and looked and laughed, concerned that she must be as graceful, as amusing, as desirable as it was possible for her to be. She did find herself thinking about him a great deal, but that was only because of his brilliance and the brilliance of the book he had brought to her. He did have an extraordinarily engaging and original mind, immense charm and exuded a most potent and impatient energy, seemed almost incapable of sitting still for more than a very short while, of keeping silent even, would constantly interrupt whoever was speaking to express a view, propose a new thought. And then of course he was extremely handsome, no one could deny that; neither could she deny his peculiarly intense sexuality. Nobody could. It was very powerful. But it didn’t actually disturb her, it didn’t divert her from whatever she was thinking or saying or doing – she just had to acknowledge that it was there. It would be foolish to do otherwise.

No. He had provided her with a wonderful professional opportunity, and she was enjoying that, along with his admittedly rather agreeable company. Besides, she needed a certain amount of distraction from the rest of her life, just at the moment. She could even argue that she deserved it.

‘That was a very heavy sigh,’ said Sebastian as he pulled on his coat, and she slid the edited manuscript of
Meridian
into her drawer.

‘Oh – was it?’

‘Yes. Anything wrong?’

‘No! No not really. Well—’

‘Want to tell me about it? Over lunch, perhaps.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘Want to tell me about nothing over lunch?’

‘I’m terribly busy.’

‘So am I. But you are my editor, as well as my publisher. There must be many things which we could discuss over a plate of that rather good beef at Simpsons. Come on. You look tired. It’ll do you good.’

She went. He was right; they did have a lot to discuss.

She was editing the book herself; not only because she felt no one else at Lyttons could possibly handle it, or appreciate its subtlety, but because she was afraid that no one else would realise how little editing it actually needed. The grammar was at times quirky, the construction of the plot just a little chaotic, but both suited the slightly anarchic nature of the story. She could not bear the thought of some earnest editor shortening Sebastian’s long, untidy, yet entirely coherent sentences, or hauling one sequence before another, into strict chronological order when the whole charm of the tale was its higgledy-piggledy timespan. Those were the reasons she was doing it. No other.

‘There’s just one thing I thought I might suggest you changed,’ she said to him, when they were settled into a table in the corner of the restaurant, ‘and that’s—’

‘Are you tired?’ he asked.

‘What? Oh, yes. Yes, I am a bit. I think the war made us all tired.’

‘It did. But now it’s over, I feel very good.’

‘Even your leg?’

‘Oh no,’ he said, and smiled at her, ‘my leg is not very good.’ He had been shot in the leg while he was out in France in 1916; some rather brutal surgery had made it worse; he had developed an infection and finally been sent home to several more operations and a permanently damaged and painful knee.

‘What’s your knee?’ he said now.

‘What?’

‘I said what’s your knee? What’s still hurting you?’

She was silent.

‘Your husband?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. Too quickly.

‘Your husband.’ He smiled. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘No.’>

‘Why not?’

Again, silence.

‘Tell me. Is he depressed?’

‘He – not exactly. No. He seems quite cheerful. No, not cheerful. But not miserable either. Just—’

‘Detached?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, that’s exactly it. He doesn’t seem interested in anything. Except himself.’

‘Not even you?’

‘Certainly not me.’

‘Well that sounds perfectly normal,’ said Sebastian. He sat back and looked at her. ‘I did it myself, to a degree. He’s had a hideous time, after all. He’s probably just cut himself off from everything. Retreated into himself. Defence mechanism and all that.’

‘I know. Of course I know. And I have been – tried to be anyway – very patient. But he doesn’t want to talk about anything. Except himself. Not Lyttons, not the children, not the house, which is in a terrible state, needs a lot of work on it, as does the Lyttons building come to that, and most certainly not me. Not even what he’s been through. It’s – well it’s difficult. Because I have to carry on doing everything, making decisions which really he should be sharing now. Very difficult.’

Sebastian looked at her and smiled.

‘Dare I suggest, dear Lady Celia, that you might find it even more difficult when he does start taking an interest in everything again.’

‘Hallo Marjorie.’

Barty stood in the doorway of the house in Line Street, and smiled rather tentatively. It was Saturday; she was allowed to come on her own now, on the bus. Celia encouraged it, encouraged independence of any kind. Barty and the twins came home on the bus from school together most days, the twins sitting in the front with their friends, giggling, Barty sitting behind them, pretending not to care. It wasn’t exactly easy; she was supposed to be responsible for them, and they would never do what she said.

‘Don’t go on the top of the bus,’ she’d say, ‘it’s raining.’

‘We want to,’ they would say, running up the stairs.

‘This isn’t our stop,’ she’d call, another time, seeing them on the platform, waiting to get off.

‘We want to get off here with Susie. We can walk the rest of the way.’

So she’d have to get off too, and walk behind them, watching their identical heads together, talking, shutting her out. They had got much worse again since they’d all been back in London.

And then Nanny would upbraid them for getting their uniforms wet, or scuffing their boots, but she would upbraid Barty more. ‘You’re supposed to be in charge of them, Barty, you’re older than they are, do try to be more sensible.’

Useless to say anything: quite useless.

They all went to the same school: Helen Wolff’s School for Girls in South Audley Street. It was a good school, and quite famous. Both Violet, Mrs Keppel’s daughter and Vita Sackville West had been pupils there. Celia was less concerned with this than with the excellence of the education. She was determined that her girls should have exactly the same chances scholastically as Giles.

Barty, benefitting from her years with Miss Adams and from her own natural abilities, went straight to the top of her class; the twins stayed comfortably near the bottom of theirs. They were clever, but very lazy, and life was too much fun to be spoiled by reading books and learning mathematical tables. Within days they had become hugely popular, sought after by all their peers; consequently they were over-confident, disobedient, cheeky to Nanny, impertinent with their teachers, and overbearing with Barty; the happy, ordered discipline at Ashingham might never have been.

At first Barty had no trouble with the other girls in her class; they liked her, and she had become more like them, her background converted into something very close to theirs, both by the years with the Lyttons and by her experiences during the war. She was good at games, too; her prowess in the gymnasium and on the netball court helped to make her popular. But then the teachers began to tell the twins that they should be more like her: should work hard, pay attention, do their homework, learn their tables.

‘Your sister sets you such a good example,’ said their form teacher one day, when they, had both done spectacularly badly in a spelling test, ‘why can’t you follow it?’

The twins looked at one another and something passed between them.

‘She’s not our sister,’ said Adele, ‘she just lives with us.’

‘She’s someone our mother brought home when she was little,’ said Venetia.

The word spread fast through the school: that Barty was some kind of foundling, rescued from the street by the bountiful Lady Celia Lytton, forced on her own children, who had to be nice to her, share their toys, give up a bedroom even. It was the sort of story little girls love: romantic with great scope for manipulation. Within days Barty had become an object of curiosity: of admiration to a few kinder girls, of derision to most of them.

‘Is it true,’ one of them said, ‘you slept in a box with three of your brothers?’

‘I slept with them when I was very small, yes,’ said Barty. She was not about to betray her family, ‘but in a bed, not a box.’

‘And you all lived in a cellar?’

‘Not exactly a cellar.’

‘Not exactly? What does that mean?’

‘Our rooms were at the bottom of the house. In – in the basement.’

‘Your rooms? How many did you have?’

‘Two,’ said Barty steadfastly. She opened her desk, pulled out some books. She knew what lay ahead of her now; the game was up.

It wasn’t as bad as before; she did have a few friends, was asked to a few other houses. But most of the time she was either ostracised or tormented. As before, she sought solace in work, in doing well. For the most part it didn’t help her; she was nicknamed Swot, ‘At least it’s better than Snipe,’ she said to Giles. When her name was read out, almost always at the top of the class, or as a prizewinner, the other girls would raise their eyebrows to the ceiling, make faces at one another, whisper behind her back. She pretended not to care: she cared dreadfully.

‘Oh – hallo,’ said Marjorie now, ‘what are you doing here?’

‘I came to see you,’ said Barty, ‘of course. It’s Saturday. And next week we’re all going down to Ashingham for Easter, so I’ll be seeing Billy. I thought you might have some messages for him.’

‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Marjorie, ‘he’s gone posh too, hasn’t he? What’s he want to hee – ar’ she stressed the h, elongated the rest of the word, ‘hee-ar from us for?’

‘Marjorie, that isn’t fair. Of course he wants to hear from you. Don’t be silly. Where’s Mum?’

‘Down the shop. With Mary. Trying to get some bread.’

‘Trying? Why is it difficult?’

‘Because, your ladyship, we ain’t got no money. So she has to get yesterday’s bread. Queue for it.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see. Well, I’ll go and find her then. Thanks. Is Frank about?’

‘No. No he’s gone out. With his girlfriend.’

‘Oh. Oh, well, that’s nice. Do you like her?’

Marjorie shrugged. ‘She’s all right. Bit stuck up. You’d get on with her allright, I s’pose.’

Barty gave up and went to find her mother.

Sylvia was standing in the queue. Mary had disappeared, gone to play with another child. She looked exhausted and very thin. Every so often she coughed.

‘Mum! Hallo. Are you all right?’

‘Oh, hallo, Barty dear. You’ve grown again. What a lovely frock.’

‘Oh – thank you. Yes it’s new.’

She looked down at the frock; she supposed it was pretty. Navy blue wool, with a tucked bodice and a dropped waist, the hem just below her knees. Aunt Celia had taken her and the twins shopping a week or so earlier, ordered dozens of things for the spring and summer for them from Woollands, pressing them to say what they wanted, saying how lovely it was to have some choice again. Barty thought it was awful, just made life more difficult; she never thought about clothes, she had no interest in them. The twins, on the other hand, had spent hours in the various departments, picking out dresses, skirts, blouses, light coats, white socks, ankle-strap shoes, straw bonnets. It had been dreadfully boring. When she grew up, Barty thought, she would be like LM and wear the same clothes every day.

‘Wish I had some new frocks,’ said Sylvia, ‘all mine are worn right through.’

‘I could—’ Barty stopped—‘could ask Aunt Celia,’ she had been going to say. But she knew her mother wouldn’t like it. Wouldn’t take any more what she called charity.

‘It’s enough for me to know you’ve got plenty of everything,’ she was always saying, ‘nice clothes, good food. Something less to worry about.’

Barty supposed she was pleased about that; but she hated hearing it, really. It simply spelled out that she could never, ever return to her family and be an expensive extra worry to them all. That was the worst thing really: knowing that she didn’t belong to the Lyttons, and that the people to whom she did belong didn’t want her.

‘You all right, Mum?’ she said again.

‘Oh – yes. I suppose so. Life’s a bit difficult. But then, when wasn’t it? Nothing new in that.’

She sighed, then suddenly put out a hand on the wall of the shop to steady herself. Barty looked at her, alarmed.

‘Mum! You look awful.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Sylvia, ‘just a bit dizzy.’

‘Look, you go back to the house, I’ll wait here.’

‘Would you, dear? That’s kind. Two loaves if you can get them. Mind they’re yesterday’s, though. Here’s the money.’

Mr Phelps at the baker’s was one of the few people in Line Street who treated Barty as if she was perfectly ordinary, still belonged there. Most of them stared at her as if she were some scientific specimen to be studied.

‘Hallo Barty. My, you’ve grown again. Where’s your mum, then? Could have sworn she was in my queue.’

‘She went home. She didn’t feel very well.’

He sighed. ‘No, she’s not too good. Doesn’t eat properly and that’s a nasty cough she’s got. Not enough money, that’s her problem. Her and all the widows. Pensions are an insult. Shocking. Be surprised if she gets more ’n ten bob. I don’t know how she manages at all. Here, take a couple of these rolls as well. No I don’t want nothing for them. They’re stale, but they’re all right.’

Barty took them back to the house, made her mother some tea, spread some dripping on one of the rolls for her, and sat with her for a while. Later that night, lying between her freshly laundered sheets, in one of her lawn nightdresses, with her new frocks hanging in her cupboard, she worried about her mother buying stale bread because she couldn’t afford fresh, and coughing endlessly, even in her sleep, according to Marjorie. And she thought, too, that it was really no wonder her brothers and sisters all resented her so bitterly.