The Paying Guests(98)
The idea made her panic, and the panic itself dismayed her. For was that all, she thought bleakly, that love ever was? Something that saved one from loneliness? A sort of insurance policy against not counting? How real was the passion she had with Lilian, after all? She remembered how flimsy it had appeared after Edith’s visit. Right there, in the darkness, it seemed suddenly to be founded on nothing. They had never spent a night together. They had never eaten a meal together – only foolish picnics in the park. And they were making all these plans, contemplating all these sacrifices, and forcing sacrifices on to other people, on to her mother, on to Leonard…
She lay sleepless for two or three hours, and rose the next day feeling wretched.
But Lilian, by contrast, looked better than she had looked in weeks. As soon as the two of them were alone she took hold of Frances’s hands; her rings, of course, were back on their finger. She had been thinking, she said, about when they ought to ‘do it’.
‘It has to be soon,’ she whispered. ‘The sooner you do it, the better it works. And if you take the pills around the time you should be falling poorly, then that works best of all. That would be this coming Sunday, for me. Well, that’s no good, because Len’ll be home. Saturday’s the same. But on Friday night he’s going out, straight from work; he’s seeing Charlie. And didn’t you say that your mother’s going out then, too? Round to her friend’s?’
Yes, Frances remembered, there was to be a bridge party that night at Mrs Playfair’s. She herself had been invited, a fortnight before. She had said no – wanting to remain at home, in earshot of Lilian and Leonard. And all the time —
‘You’re not changing your mind?’ Lilian asked her, seeing the shift in her expression.
She answered with a frown. ‘No, I – It’s just all moving so quickly. I still can’t believe in it all. I can’t believe there won’t be some difficulty, some disaster. If my mother should find out —’
‘She won’t.’
‘We can’t be sure.’
‘We can. We must be sure, because being sure will help the pills work. I’m going to get them today.’
‘Today? But can’t we take a little more time? I feel I’ve talked you into something, and —’
‘It isn’t like that.’
‘Well, then, you’ve talked me into something. And I know I’ve let you do it, against my sense of what’s right, because I love you and it’s the way to having you all to myself, and – I don’t know if that’s brave or cowardly, or what it is.’
Lilian laid a hand on her cheek. ‘Oh, Frances. It’s nothing so serious as that.’
‘Are you certain about this? Lilian, are you absolutely certain?’
‘I’ve made up my mind to it. Whether you help me or not, I’m going to do it.’
‘But in another day or two —’
‘No. It has to be today. Now that I’ve decided, I – I just want to be rid of it.’ She moved her hand to her belly, placed it there with a look of distaste. ‘I can’t stand to think of it inside me, getting bigger every minute.’
Frances watched her, uneasily. She said at last, ‘Well, you can’t go alone. I won’t let you go alone. Suppose something should happen to you?’
‘Nothing’s going to happen. Women do this all the time. Married women, I mean, as well as other sorts of women. But I don’t want you to have to go into a horrible chemist’s shop with me. It’ll make you stop loving me. It’ll make you hate me! It’s my problem, and I’m going to fix it.’ She squeezed Frances’s hand again. ‘Please trust me, Frances.’
Reluctantly, Frances returned the pressure of her fingers.
But, still, she wouldn’t let her go off entirely on her own. In a sheepish sort of way, she told her mother that she and Lilian had decided to visit a gallery, and after lunch they took a tram into Town; Lilian said that a tram would be better than a bus, because it would jolt her about more and ‘might help things along’. The thought was a ghastly one to Frances. She made the journey as tensely as if she were carrying a child herself. But Lilian’s spirits seemed high. When they parted at Oxford Circus, Frances stood for a minute watching her make her way westward through the crowd of shoppers, and her step didn’t slow once.
It was half-past two, and they’d arranged to meet again at four, in Cavendish Square. The day was another damp one, but Frances had brought along an umbrella; she raised it and began to walk, taking random turns. With every step, she felt her disquiet mounting by another notch. She oughtn’t to have let Lilian go off alone. They oughtn’t to have come. What on earth were they doing? Everywhere she looked she saw prams, she saw babies with pink, alive faces.
At last, realising how close she was to Clipstone Street, she crossed a road and went the few hundred yards to call on Christina.
But the visit was a mistake – she could tell that at once. It had come too soon after the last one, and Christina was busy; she invited Frances in, but her gaze kept wandering over to the papers on her desk. When Frances began to tell her about Lilian, she listened long enough only to hear that the two of them had reconciled their differences and said, ‘Oh, Frances, I can’t keep pace with you! I thought the whole thing had come to nothing.’