Towards Zero

‘Not know what she’s like when I’ve been married to her for over eight years?’

‘You don’t know,’ Kay repeated, ‘what Audrey is like.’

April 30th

‘Preposterous!’ said Lady Tressilian. She drew herself up on her pillow and glared fiercely round the room. ‘Absolutely preposterous! Nevile must be mad.’

‘It does seem rather odd,’ said Mary Aldin.

Lady Tressilian had a striking-looking profile with a slender bridged nose down which, when so inclined, she could look with telling effect. Though now over seventy and in frail health, her native vigour of mind was in no way impaired. She had, it is true, long periods of retreat from life and its emotions when she would lie with half-closed eyes, but from these semi-comas she would emerge with all her faculties sharpened to the uttermost, and with an incisive tongue. Propped up by pillows in a large bed set across one corner of her room, she held her court like some French Queen. Mary Aldin, a distant cousin, lived with her and looked after her. The two women got on together excellently. Mary was thirty-six, but had one of those smooth ageless faces that change little with passing years. She might have been thirty or forty-five. She had a good figure, an air of breeding, and dark hair to which one lock of white across the front gave a touch of individuality. It was at one time a fashion, but Mary’s white lock of hair was natural and she had had it since her girlhood.

She looked down now reflectively at Nevile Strange’s letter which Lady Tressilian had handed to her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It does seem rather odd.’

‘You can’t tell me,’ said Lady Tressilian, ‘that this is Nevile’s own idea! Somebody’s put it into his head. Probably that new wife of his.’

‘Kay. You think it was Kay’s idea?’

‘It would be quite like her. New and vulgar! If husbands and wives have to advertise their difficulties in public and have recourse to divorce, then they might at least part decently. The new wife and the old wife making friends is quite disgusting in my mind. Nobody has any standards nowadays!’

‘I suppose it is just the modern way,’ said Mary.

‘It won’t happen in my house,’ said Lady Tressilian. ‘I consider I’ve done all that could be asked of me having that scarlet-toed creature here at all.’

‘She is Nevile’s wife.’

‘Exactly. Therefore I felt that Matthew would have wished it. He was devoted to the boy and always wanted him to look on this as his home. Since to refuse to receive his wife would have made an open breach, I gave way and asked her here. I do not like her—she’s quite the wrong wife for Nevile—no background, no roots!’

‘She’s quite well born,’ said Mary placatingly.

‘Bad stock!’ said Lady Tressilian. ‘Her father, as I’ve told you, had to resign from all his clubs after that card business. Luckily he died shortly after. And her mother was notorious on the Riviera. What a bringing up for the girl. Nothing but hotel life—and that mother! Then she meets Nevile on the tennis courts, makes a dead set at him and never rests until she gets him to leave his wife—of whom he was extremely fond—and go off with her! I blame her entirely for the whole thing!’

Mary smiled faintly. Lady Tressilian had the old-fashioned characteristic of always blaming the woman and being indulgent towards the man in the case.

‘I suppose, strictly speaking, Nevile was equally to blame,’ she suggested.

‘Nevile was very much to blame,’ agreed Lady Tressilian. ‘He had a charming wife who had always been devoted—perhaps too devoted—to him. Nevertheless, if it hadn’t been for that girl’s persistence, I am convinced he would have come to his senses. But she was determined to marry him! Yes, my sympathies are entirely with Audrey. I am very fond of Audrey.’

Mary sighed. ‘It has all been very difficult,’ she said.

‘Yes, indeed. One is at a loss to know how to act in such difficult circumstances. Matthew was fond of Audrey, and so am I, and one cannot deny that she was a very good wife to Nevile though perhaps it is a pity that she could not have shared his amusements more. She was never an athletic girl. The whole business was very distressing. When I was a girl, these things simply did not happen. Men had their affairs, naturally, but they were not allowed to break up married life.’

‘Well, they happen now,’ said Mary bluntly.

‘Exactly. You have so much common sense, dear. It is of no use recalling bygone days. These things happen, and girls like Kay Mortimer steal other women’s husbands and nobody thinks the worse of them!’

‘Except people like you, Camilla!’

‘I don’t count. That Kay creature doesn’t worry whether I approve of her or not. She’s too busy having a good time. Nevile can bring her here when he comes and I’m even willing to receive her friends—though I do not much care for that very theatrical-looking young man who is always hanging round her—what is his name?’

‘Ted Latimer?’

‘That is it. A friend of her Riviera days—and I should very much like to know how he manages to live as he does.’

‘By his wits,’ suggested Mary.

‘One might pardon that. I rather fancy he lives by his looks. Not a pleasant friend for Nevile’s wife! I disliked the way he came down last summer and stayed at the Easterhead Bay Hotel while they were here.’

Mary looked out of the open window. Lady Tressilian’s house was situated on a steep cliff overlooking the river Tern. On the other side of the river was the newly created summer resort of Easterhead Bay, consisting of a big sandy bathing beach, a cluster of modern bungalows and a large hotel on the headland looking out to sea. Saltcreek itself was a straggling picturesque fishing village set on the side of a hill. It was old-fashioned, conservative and deeply contemptuous of Easterhead Bay and its summer visitors.

The Easterhead Bay Hotel was nearly exactly opposite Lady Tressilian’s house, and Mary looked across the narrow strip of water at it now where it stood in its blatant newness.

‘I am glad,’ said Lady Tressilian, closing her eyes, ‘that Matthew never saw that vulgar building. The coastline was quite unspoilt in his time.’

Sir Matthew and Lady Tressilian had come to Gull’s Point thirty years ago. It was nine years since Sir Matthew, an enthusiastic sailing man, had capsized his dinghy and been drowned almost in front of his wife’s eyes.

Everybody had expected her to sell Gull’s Point and leave Saltcreek, but Lady Tressilian had not done so. She had lived on in the house, and her only visible reaction had been to dispose of all the boats and do away with the boathouse. There were no boats available for guests at Gull’s Point. They had to walk along to the ferry and hire a boat from one of the rival boatmen there.

Mary said, hesitating a little:

‘Shall I write, then, to Nevile and tell him that what he proposes does not fit in with our plans?’

‘I certainly shall not dream of interfering with Audrey’s visit. She has always come to us in September and I shall not ask her to change her plans.’

Mary said, looking down at the letter:

‘You did see that Nevile says Audrey—er—approves of the idea—that she is quite willing to meet Kay?’

‘I simply don’t believe it,’ said Lady Tressilian. ‘Nevile, like all men, believes what he wants to believe!’

Mary persisted:

‘He says he has actually spoken to her about it.’

‘What a very odd thing to do! No—perhaps, after all, it isn’t!’

Mary looked at her inquiringly.

‘Like Henry the Eighth,’ said Lady Tressilian.

Mary looked puzzled.

Lady Tressilian elaborated her last remark.

‘Conscience, you know! Henry was always trying to get Catherine to agree that the divorce was the right thing. Nevile knows that he has behaved badly—he wants to feel comfortable about it all. So he has been trying to bully Audrey into saying everything is all right and that she’ll come and meet Kay and that she doesn’t mind at all.’

‘I wonder,’ said Mary slowly.