A Desirable Husband (22 page)

This, Finola realised, was her first piece of pregnancy-hysteria. Gerard knew no details about Miranda’s time at Bramham Gardens, and she wanted to tell him. But if she did so, Miranda could not be godmother to Isabella Caroline as Finola still wanted her to be – for no good reason, though she was sure that Miranda would send splendid presents to her godchild whenever she remembered. Besides, most of her and Gerard’s friends had been used up as godparents by the other two children. She would tell Gerard all about Miranda, one day. She wondered why, in the first years of her marriage, she had told him so little about her childhood feelings, when she had loved him so much, and trusted him. She might be able to say more, when the baby was born.

There was a certain pleasure in crying about the past, when her contentment lately had been so great, and so well-deserved. Finola scribbled at the bottom of the damp letter: ‘I still wish you were able to marry Darcy, even though probably you
wouldn
’
t
be very happy in a permanent
arrangement!’ Darcy and Miranda would never have children, Miranda was too old.

Even though she was about to tear the letter up, Finola refrained from cruelly adding: ‘Gerard and I are really very happy, especially now.’

A month before her confinement, Finola began to think seriously that the child might be a boy. She supposed they ought to call him Hugh, and send him to the same schools as Richard; though the age-gap between Richard and the baby would be almost as long as that between Gerard and Darcy. She was repelled by the idea of another son. Gerard told her that they would love a boy quite as much as Isabella Caroline, after a while, at least. A baby was the thing.

Finola began to imagine that the child would catch poliomyelitis and spend his or her life as a cripple; and she simply refused to believe in the vaccine which was being developed in America. These panics which broke through her happiness were very brief and foolish but, like labour pains, they increased in frequency towards the end.

Finola’s pains began on the tenth of July, seven days before her own thirty-eighth birthday, and three days earlier than the doctor’s confident prediction. She had been trying for a long time to remember exactly what childbirth was like, and at the first squeeze of pain thought: ‘Oh, this! Oh, no!’

Gerard was out with the estate men, doing something. Finola remembered that, last time, he had been at the Athenaeum or the London Library, she could not remember which. It had been a dark afternoon in January when her pains with Eleanor had started, and Finola had thought it was the middle of the night.

‘Nanny!’ Finola called, leaving her sitting-room and walking slowly upstairs. ‘Nanny, I think it’s starting.’

‘Oh, Mrs P! I
thought
you’d be early, thank goodness I thought of sending the children to Mrs Molloy on Saturday! Now come along, there’s a dear, no need to go to bed yet, I’ll just ’phone for the doctor.’

‘Just Sister Johnson, Nanny.’

‘No dear, best give Doctor plenty of warning.’ Nanny had been a student nurse during the war, and when she was pretending to be a nurse again, she called everybody ‘dear’, even Gerard.

‘Ring the estate office,’ Finola added as Nanny left the room.

She was in the blue spare-room, which they had chosen as the lying-in room because it had a bath next door. She would not give birth in her own room, though it was more comfortable, because it would be difficult afterwards to sleep and make love in that bed if she did so. There was no pain at the moment. Finola remembered Katie Van Leyden’s suddenly confiding in her yesterday, telling her how much she disliked men for their feeble arrogance, the burdens they placed on strong women, and their inability to accept the painful, emotional facts of life. Katie had not, of course, expressed herself quite like that. As she heard Nanny’s voice rising and falling on the telephone, Finola tried to remember Katie’s brisk words.

She did remember how delightfully superior she herself had felt yesterday, because she had been correctly brought up by her father to think of men as gentle and useful protectors, always there when they were needed though some might stray a little at other times. When a man does insist that you do something, though he will not insist very often (Anatole had said to Finola when she was ten), he will always be right. Anatole always was right.

Nanny was talking about pain-killers and hot water, and even forceps. Finola decided to say nothing as yet. Katie Van Leyden had told her yesterday about how the hygienic doctors who had supervised her own son’s birth had exposed and poked her body till she screamed with anger as well as pain, and was called a difficult patient. She had said
she thought it indecent and insulting, to have a man present in a delivery-room. It was quite impossible to find a man one could look up to, such men came only in the very best fiction. Men like Henry Tilney in
Northanger
Abbey
, who would not have been drifting about his club when his wife was confined. Finola remembered that Gerard was not in his club this time.

She needed Gerard, but she did not want him in the room. He would only feel queasy and guilt-ridden at the sight of her, though he would certainly hold her and mop her brow, and try very hard to remember that it was she who was in pain. She must tell Nanny to make sure that he had a bottle of brandy, although he did not really like drink, and had once said that temperance improved a man’s virility. The pain came back, and Finola moaned.

*

Isabella Caroline lay on the sofa in her christening robe, blowing bubbles at the window. At seven weeks old she was a plump, pretty, Celtic-looking baby, with brown hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones and a very short nose. Her parents enjoyed long discussions about just where her looks had come from, and which of her features were likely to change. Her blue eyes could have come only from her great-grandparents, Michael Molloy and Lady Anne Parnell, but like everyone else in the family, she had recognisable eyebrows. Already they were straight and brown, and made her look older than she was.

‘We ought to be starting,’ said Finola. ‘I think Constance and Darcy have already gone. I’ll go and fetch Peter and Jenny, I wonder where they’ve got to?’ Finola’s half-niece and a friend of Gerard’s were to act as godparents. They were staying in the house.

‘Do you think she’ll be able to last through the ceremony?’ said Gerard. ‘Won’t she need feeding or –’

‘Oh, darling, she doesn’t need attention every five minutes.’ Isabella was a remarkably good baby. ‘I only fed her an hour ago and she’s supposed to go for
four
hours. If she does scream isn’t it supposed to be a good sign? Sweetie,
darling,
much
beautifuller than you, Trumpy,’ she said to the labrador.

‘The Devil only goes out if you scream,’ said Richard, licking his lips. He was not pleased at being made to go to church on a weekday, but he was interested in his little sister, and had wanted to be her godfather. When his parents had shown themselves to be besotted by the child, Richard had realised that the only position he could well take up was that of carelessly helpful grown-up brother.

‘Oh really, Richard,’ said Finola. ‘I don’t know who told you that.’

‘Nanny.’ Richard swallowed his chewing-gum and mumbled the word, as he saw Gerard looking suspiciously at him.

‘Where’s Eleanor?’ said Gerard.

‘Coming with Nanny. Will you give her to me, Mum?’ he said as Finola picked up the baby.

‘Give you Eleanor, or Bella?’ Finola smiled.

‘
Bella
.’

‘The robe’s awfully slippery, you might drop her.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Come on, we haven’t got time to argue about it now,’ said Gerard. ‘Oh, there you are Jenny, have you seen Peter? We ought to be going.’

Harvest Festival was held on the first Sunday in September at Chalcot St Anne, and in the church there were already loaves of bread and bronze chrysanthemums. There were marrows and tomatoes beneath the coloured south window, and the pulpit was decorated with a red-ribboned corn-dolly made by the village schoolmistress, who was interested in all rural customs. When the Parnells and Nanny arrived, they saw that several friends had come before them and were chatting in the aisle. There was to be champagne afterwards at the Cedar House, and all the neighbours whom the Parnells liked had been invited.

The vicar adjusted his cassock, and smiled as he came forward. Finola handed the child over to Jenny, and they walked rather jerkily round to the font. Isabella grumbled,
but decided not to wail just yet, as the hats and strange faces of those who had crowded briefly round her faded from her view. Jenny gave her a glove-finger to bite, and felt ill with jealously of Finola as the baby took it.

The service began. ‘Dearly Beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin; and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the Kingdom of God, except he be regenerate …’ began the vicar. Finola did not like his implying such things about her children, but she smiled mischievously when she realised that she was offended. She glanced at Gerard, and saw that the words of the Prayer Book was lapping peacefully over him: he did not appear to be concentrating. Usually he frowned in church in a way which made her nervous.

Finola turned towards Constance, William and Darcy, Jenny, Peter and the children. She took no notice of the less important guests. They were all waiting for the prayers to be done with, for the naming of the child and for their champagne; but they were pleased with themselves for doing just as they ought in coming, and listening to the whole. Isabella was still behaving beautifully, and as she looked at her daughter, Finola knew the awful feeling that perhaps Gerard’s religion might be true.

She had always refused to share it with him, and he had been very patient about it. She had not wanted to surrender, but if God had given her Isabella, it might be her duty to do so and admit it. She glanced furtively at Gerard and realised that she was afraid. Afraid of some now-clouded high point of understanding and of love which surely could never be found, because she did not know what would follow after if ever she found it, and how she would behave. In bed with him, and out of it. Finola raised her hands to her mouth and murmured into her gloves. She itched with effort and embarrassment as she peered at the floor and said as quickly and quietly as possible: ‘Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.’ Those were the words she had read in a novel.

Five minutes later, the vicar took the child from Jenny, who muttered her name. ‘Isabella Caroline Finola,’ he said,
‘I baptize thee, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ Gerard had said at the last moment that he wanted the baby to take his wife’s name as well as those they had decided on. Dear God, thought Finola, how
can
it be true. She was still triumphantly happy.

‘
What
a lovely girl then!’ said the amiable woman who ran the riding-stables where Richard had a pony. She finished her champagne and then offered a finger dipped in the dregs to Isabella, who did not care for it. Finola frowned. ‘You’re strange to her, Mrs Pole, I don’t think she – there, Bella!’ Isabella started to cry, and waved her fists at Finola’s bosom.

‘What a pity your parents couldn’t come down,’ said Jack Van Leyden in a loud voice, bending over her. ‘I took quite a fancy to your mother, quite a fancy actually. Funny woman.’

‘Yes, I know, she’s got some sort of tummy-bug and my father said he couldn’t leave her,’ Finola shouted back. ‘I must go and see to Isabella, I won’t be a moment. Oh, Nanny, there you are, I think she needs changing and really I ought –’

‘You sit back and enjoy yourself, Mrs Parnell,’ said Nanny. Everyone beamed as the wailing child was taken out of the drawing-room.

‘It
is
rather a nice baby,’ said Constance. ‘I must say I was worried when I first heard, but really it’s turned out very well in spite of my daughter-in-law’s being so old.’

Finola remained on the sofa, replying politely to everyone who spoke to her, and listening wide-eyed to the scraps of conversation above her head. Other people were standing, a habit she detested.

‘Awfully
subtle
this room now, did they get anyone to redo it, d’you know?’

‘– the other Comptons, you know, they live in Staffordshire –’

– ‘not exactly a winner, but pretty good considering –’ – ‘In the Colonial Service or whatever it’s called now’ –

– ‘More champagne, sir?’

– ‘well, just look at America, that Senator you know –’

‘No, Katie, I promise you, she marched into the house three days after the wedding, got
into
their bed and when they came in she started weeping all over them,
just
like Signora Clementina. Anyway, you can imagine what old Mrs Kerr thought.’ That was Darcy, who was now forty-one and looked it.

‘You’re making it up, Darcy, I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘It’s absolutely true,
promise.
’

Finola rested her eyes on him, and thought about Miranda. She knew that he had broken with her, and now it seemed very odd to think that Miranda Pagett had nearly become part of her own life. They had not been in touch since May, and they never would be again; unless Miranda came down to stay with the Van Leydens. That was a mildly disturbing thought, but it was not very important.

Finola presumed that both Darcy and Miranda were a little upset by the affair’s coming to an end, though they were not deep-feeling people. Darcy’s most intense emotions were derived from literature, and Miranda’s, Finola thought, would be worldly. She believed that Darcy must be incapable of making love to a woman simply because it was she alone he desired at that moment. He was not heartless as were most promiscuous men, but each woman for him (she thought gently, and compared him with Gerard) was important only because she could be slotted for a little while into some ideal. Finola supposed that Miranda had seen this, and been peeved. Darcy would probably suffer all his life, as he chased after women who could never be right, women who were improved versions of his former wife. She wondered how he would spend the next twenty years, and it occurred to her that he might make an excellent spy. She put her chin in her hands and imagined him swooping from Cambridge to Moscow and back, deceiving sinister persons with his chatter. Perhaps he really was a spy, though not, of course, a traitor.

William Warren sat down beside Finola and began to talk politely about Isabella. The Parnells had asked him to stand
as a godfather, and William had been married to Constance for such a short time that he had felt unable to refuse in spite of his age.

‘What a very good party – such very good champagne,’ he said after a pause.

‘I know,’ said Finola, wondering whether he loved Constance and deciding that all things were possible. ‘And the noise isn’t too bad, is it, in this room?’

‘No, indeed, of course it isn’t. I see it’s raining, what a pity – one would rather like to see the garden.’

They looked to the side, past other people’s skirts and trousers out into the garden, where the tobacco plants and frail blue agapanthus were dripping over the lawn. ‘It looks as though you have some very fine red-hot pokers,’ said William.