The Paying Guests(55)

‘That doesn’t make it any better. It makes it worse! Surely a marriage oughtn’t to be so unkind?’

‘We get along all right, really.’

‘You never seem to, to me.’

‘That’s just what husbands and wives are like. You can’t expect love and romance and things like that from a marriage, can you?’

‘Can’t you? What’s the point of it, then? You and Leonard must have loved each other once, didn’t you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Yes, I expect we did.’

‘You don’t sound at all convinced. Why did you marry, if you weren’t sure?’

Lilian was rolling the tip of her cigarette against the rim of the ashtray. She frowned at it. ‘You asked me that once before. Why do you mind so much?’

‘I don’t know. I’m simply trying to understand, I suppose.’

‘Well, it isn’t worth your thinking about. It was just… a mistake. It was all a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’

‘Yes, Len and I made a mistake, when we were young. We did something silly, and now we’re paying for it, that’s all.’ Her tone had grown uneasy. But looking up, seeing the perplexity on Frances’s face, she spoke almost with exasperation. ‘Oh, Frances, for somebody so clever you can be awfully dull sometimes. Don’t you know the sort of mistake I mean? I was going to have a baby. That’s why Len and I married.’ She dropped her gaze again. ‘My baby died when it was born, you see.’

Frances, shocked, said, ‘Lilian. I’m so sorry.’

She had begun biting her lip. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters.’

‘It seems ages ago now.’

‘I had no idea. I wish I’d known.’

‘You won’t tell your mother, will you?’

‘Well, of course I won’t.’

‘And it doesn’t make you think badly of me? That Len and I did that?’

‘Oh, do you really think it could?’

Lilian’s expression cleared. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘But you’re not like other people. Len’s parents, for instance. They said one hard thing after another. That I’d fallen for the baby on purpose, as a way of getting hold of Len – as if he’d had nothing to do with it! That the baby was some other man’s, not his. And then, when my baby died, they said it was a judgement on me. Oh, it was all so horrible, Frances. It made me go a bit mad, I think. It made an evil person of me. I couldn’t look at other women’s babies. I couldn’t even be kind to Maurice, Netta’s little boy. She’s never forgiven me for it. Nobody understood. They said I ought to think of all the men who’d been killed in the War, and the people who’d died of the influenza, and what did one little baby boy matter, against all that… I suppose they were right.’

‘No,’ said Frances, ‘they weren’t. Some things are so frightful that a bit of madness is the only sane response. You know that, don’t you?’

Lilian hesitated, then nodded, and answered in a murmur. ‘Yes.’

‘And have you never thought of – of trying for another child?’

She looked away. ‘Len would like to. But what I always wonder is, what if it were to happen again? It did for my mother. I don’t think I could stand it. And then, it isn’t a nice world to bring babies into. But probably I will, in the end. It’s against nature not to, isn’t it? And if I don’t – well, then it means that Len and I will have married for nothing. It isn’t so bad, after all.’ She spoke as if trying to convince herself. ‘Len’s a good husband, really. Everybody tells me he’s a good husband. It’s just that – well, you saw how he was last night. In the days when we were courting, he pushed and pushed me into saying yes to him. And then I did say yes to him; and it’s as though he’s never forgiven me.’

‘He doesn’t ever… mistreat you?’

That brought the ghost of a smile to her face. ‘No! I’d like to see him try. And he knows my sisters would skin him alive.’

‘And he never – with other women —’ Frances was thinking of that moment, weeks before, in the starlit garden, Leonard’s hand in the small of her back.

But, ‘Oh, no,’ said Lilian. ‘He fancies himself as a bit of a ladies’ man, but he wouldn’t ever do anything about it. He learnt his lesson with me, you see.’

Her features sank as she said this, and she looked almost plain. She looked older, too, with shadows and creases around her eyes. Frances said again, ‘I’m so sorry, Lilian.’

But that made her hang her head as if ashamed.

‘You’ve always been so kind to me, Frances. Right from the start you’ve been kind. And you were honest with me, that time —’ She faltered. ‘You know the time I mean. You didn’t have to be honest with me, but you were; and I wasn’t kind in return. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.’

Frances didn’t answer. From beyond the open window there came again those distant domestic noises: a barking dog, a calling woman, a spoon being tapped against a sink. The curtains rippled in the breeze, shifting on their rings with a scrape of metal, and once they had settled back into place the room seemed dimmer than before.