The Paying Guests(94)
She got the envelope open and drew out the paper. She readied herself, unfolded it, and saw the first dark line of ink.
My darling, my darling, my own true love —
Her heart, that had shrivelled, seemed rapidly to inflate. She went to her bed and leaned against the footrail, putting the back of her hand to her face, closing her eyes against her own knuckles. Then she lowered the paper and read on.
My darling, my darling, my own true love —
I am writing this by candle light in the dreariest place, the bathroom, I wonder can you picture it? The tap is running & wont be turned off, the lace at the window is dirty, there is a womans red hair in the basin. I ought to hate it oughtnt I, but I dont mind any of it, I can stand any amount of dreariness my darling while I think of you.
O my dear, my love, I wish you were here to tell me what to do. I feel so awfully trapped & lonely, I feel youre the only person in the world who cares about me even a bit. The others all say theres no fun in me. Last night they went to a show without me & I sat at my window & a man blew kisses at me & I thought of the look you would have given him & it made me laugh out loud, but it was such sad laughter it turned to tears, it just seemed too hard & unfair that there isnt a way for us to be together when any man may blow a kiss at any girl at any window & people will smile at him for a good sport. I keep thinking of how it was when we were skating, wasnt it glorious? I felt I could just fly then, with your arms about me, I felt I didnt need skates to do it.
O why arent you here! I am afraid I will come home & you will have forgotten me, or you will have found some other girl to love. You said something to me once, I have never forgotten it, you said I like to be admired, do you remember? You said I would love anybody who admired me. Dont hate this hard thing I am about to say my darling but sometimes I think its you that would love anybody. Sometimes it seems so astonishing that you should love me that I think you must only want me because you lost so many other things. It isnt just that, is it?
If it isnt then tell me & make me believe it because I feel right now that I am ready to do any desperate thing to be with you Frances – there I have put your name havent I & half of me, the proud half wishes that you know who would see this letter, but the other half, the coward half is afraid. I wish I was brave like you!
I am looking at our caravan, did you know I brought it with me? I am sending you kisses my darling, one thousand kisses by marconi all the way to C. Hill, I wonder can you feel them?
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Never in her life had Frances received such a letter. Never in her life would she have believed that something so artless, so entirely without guile or finish, could have stirred and moved her to such a degree. She read it over again; she read it a third time, and a fourth. Her weariness had disappeared. She held the paper to her lips, and it was exactly as Lilian had promised: she could feel her kisses, she could feel her mouth, alive and urgent against her own.
And the next day Lilian was home, back in her arms, clinging to her on the landing while Leonard was still bringing in the bags. She came again a little later, while he was running himself a bath. And on Monday morning, with the house to themselves, they lay half-dressed on Frances’s bed, she put her face against Frances’s shoulder, and she wept.
‘I hated it, Frances! I hated it so much! I wanted to come home every day. I kept on smiling and playing the fool, but it was like being in a prison. Whenever Len kissed me, I thought of you. That was the only way I could stand it. Whenever he touched me, whenever he looked at me, I thought of you, I thought of you!’
The tears shook her like a storm. Frances held her while she shuddered and moaned, amazed at the passion in her; afterwards she stroked her wet, stained cheeks and swollen eyelids, ran fingers over her lips. ‘How I love you. How I love you.’
But the words made Lilian’s eyes fill again. Frances drew back to look at her properly. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
She shook her head, so that the tears spilled. ‘I just wish,’ she said unevenly, ‘that things were different. I wish it so much.’
‘No, it’s more than that. Did something happen while you were away?’
She wiped her cheeks. ‘I just missed you. I felt so alone.’
‘And what you wrote in your letter, about wanting to be brave – did you mean it?’
‘You know I did.’
Frances took hold of her hands. ‘Then listen. I’ve been thinking, all night long. We can’t go on like this. Look at you! It’s killing you! And I – I can’t do it any longer, not the way we’ve been doing it till now. I can’t share you with Leonard any more. I can’t share you with something that passes itself off as a marriage, but is really habit and pride and… empty embraces, or worse. If I loved you less, I might be able to, but – I can’t. I won’t. I want you to leave him, Lilian. I want you to leave him and live with me.’
She had expected Lilian’s face to close against her. But Lilian looked back at her, damply, gravely. ‘You really mean it,’ she said.
‘I do. Why not? We’ve been talking all this time as if it’s something impossible. But women leave their husbands every day. The papers are full of them.’