The Doll Part 14

Married life . . . what I could say about it, from within! I don't suppose I remember one night, during the six years we were together, that Kenneth didn't have too much to drink. He got so that he couldn't stand and he couldn't speak. He had to go off on a cure three times, but they never did any good. He would seem quite all right in the Home he tried a different one each time and then, as soon as he got back to me, off he would be on the bottle again. What I suffered!

No, it didn't make much difference to the business of Rosanke, because once Kenneth started drinking Rose dropped him from the partnership and put a paid accountant in his place. She made Kenneth an allowance she had to but it wasn't safe to let him have anything to do with the finances.

I had given up my job, naturally, when I married, but with Kenneth always in and out of nursing homes I had to do something towards expenses, so I kept in touch with my friends in Fleet Street. Nothing official. Just snippets now and again. It helped, being sister-in-law to Rose. You wouldn't believe how much goes on in the fashion world. The buyers hear a lot of backstairs talk, and the model girls too. If customers only realised that every little slip of the tongue gets repeated, they'd cover their lips with sticking plaster every time they went near a fashion house. Anyway, I knew several of the buyers, and most of Rosanke's model girls too. Rose herself wasn't particularly discreet when she was discussing customers inside the family, so I heard a number of stories one way and another that afterwards broke in the press and made headlines. I can't bear gossip, but whispers have a knack of coming true. What's wish fulfilment today is fact to-morrow.

'I think you're a saint,' my friends would say, 'keeping up a home for Kenneth Sawbones, when he's an alcoholic. Why don't you divorce him?'

'He's my husband,' I told them, 'and I love him.'

I believe I could have kept Kenneth off the bottle if only we had had a family. It was not for want of trying, heaven knows. Each time he returned from the Home I would do my best. But it never worked out . . .

Finally, and this was the heartbreak of the whole tragedy, he wrote from the nursing home he had gone to for a fourth cure away up in Yorkshire it was, too far for me to go and see him on a day trip and said he loved one of the nurses there, and she was pregnant already, and would I divorce him?

I went straight away to Rose and his mother with the news, and they said they were not surprised. They had felt something of the sort was bound to happen in the end. They said Kenneth was not responsible for his actions and it was very sad, but the best thing for all concerned was to let him go.

'How am I going to live?' I said. I was nearly out of my mind, as you can imagine. 'Six years I've been a slave to Kenneth, and this is his return for all I've done.'

'We know, Dilly,' said Rose. 'It's been hard on you, but then it's a hard world. Of course, Kenneth will have to pay you an allowance, and I'll look after you too.'

She couldn't afford to quarrel with me, you see. I knew too much about her private affairs and the affairs of Rosanke.

'Very well,' I said, wiping my eyes, 'I'll put a brave face on it, but it comes heavy to get all the kicks in life and none of the sweets.'

There was Rose, rich and famous, fted by everyone, and I was only Dilly Sawbones, who had helped to put her and Kenneth on the map. It was a hard world, as she said, but she seemed to ride on top of it all right. A penthouse in Mayfair, and lovers by the score, that's what came through being the first half of Rosanke. The second half, or what was left of it, had to make do with a few shabby rooms in Victoria.

Naturally I didn't see so much of Rose once my divorce came through, though she kept her word and made me a t.i.tbit of an allowance, enough to redecorate my poor old house. I always got my clothes free, too. After all, everyone knew I'd been married to Kenneth and he had treated me shamefully, and it wouldn't have done the name of Rosanke any good if I'd gone about in rags.

She had a bad streak in her, though, just like Kenneth, and these things always come out in the end. Although I was careful never to say anything against her, she began to lose popularity about that time there were a fair number of digs at her in the press and word got about that the fashion house of Rosanke was not what it had been, that it had had its day.

Of course I had to find myself a job. Rose's allowance and the alimony from Kenneth weren't enough to keep me, so I pulled a few strings, and the next thing I knew I was working for the Conservative party before the General Election. I doubt whether the member for South Finchley would ever have got in but for me. You see, I knew a thing or two about his opponent. He used to go about with one of the models from Rosanke, and if there is one thing South Finchley hates, it's promiscuity in a member. I felt it my duty to drop a hint here and there, and our man got in with a slight majority. I'm a great patriot, and I put Queen and country before sentiment or any kind of personal considerations.

Anyway, working hard at the Conservative office helped me to get over losing Kenneth, and it was at one of their meetings that I met Lord Chichester.

'Who's that stiff-looking man with the eyegla.s.s?' I asked someone. I was told at once he was Edward Fairleigh-Gore, whose father had just died, which meant that he had gone to the Lords.

'One of our ablest executives,' said my informant. 'In the running for Prime Minister if the rest of the Cabinet die.'

I managed to get on the fringe of the group surrounding Lord Chichester and was introduced to his wife, a grey-haired woman who looked several years older than he did. It seemed that she was very fond of hunting, never out of the saddle if she could help it, so I asked her what on earth she did about clothes when she came to London, and wasn't it a nightmare wondering if she looked right. Lady Chichester seemed rather surprised, and admitted that the dress she was wearing was two years old.

'You ought to go to Rosanke,' I told her. 'She's my sister-in-law. You need never worry again, once you're in her hands.'

'I don't think I do worry,' said Lady Chichester. 'What about your husband?' I said, and raised my eyebrows. I didn't emphasise the point, and moved out of the group soon afterwards, but what I had said must have made an impression, for I saw Lady Chichester glance in the mirror once or twice, which, without wanting to be unkind, was probably a thing she didn't often do.

The upshot was that I got Rose to send her a card for her next show. The fish were biting that spring, and Lady Chichester went. I was there. I sat beside her and advised her what to order, as she had no sort of taste herself.

I telephoned her every day for a fortnight after that, and finally she invited me to lunch. Lord Chichester came in late, and I only got a word with him when we had coffee afterwards in the drawing-room, but I made myself felt.

'Did you see the bit about you in last night's Courier?' I asked him.

'I can't say I have,' he said. 'I never read gossip.'

'This wasn't gossip,' I told him. 'This was the truth, or, if you prefer it, prophecy. "There's only one man who can make the Conservative party into a Fighting Force, and that's Lord Chichester."'

It's a funny thing, but even the most intelligent men fall for praise. It doesn't matter how thick you lay it on, they revel in it. Lord Chichester smiled and made a sort of brushing gesture with his hand, to pretend it was all nonsense, but I pulled the clipping out of my bag and gave it to him.

That was the start of our affair. It took him over a year to admit that he was lost without me, and when he did he broke down and cried, but then he was not very fit just then and had only recently got over a bad attack of shingles.

'What you need,' I told him, 'is feeding up.'

He was at my house in Victoria at the time. Lady Chichester had broken her leg in a fall out hunting and was laid up in Warwickshire, so Edward we were Edward and Dilly by then was on his own in their London house. I was worried that he wasn't feeding himself properly, and it was the worst possible thing for his digestion, as I told him, not to eat, especially after shingles. So one day I waited for him in a taxi outside the Lords and insisted on taking him home so that I could cook him a decent meal. And that was how he came to spend the first night in my house.

'Now, don't worry,' I told him next morning. 'No one will ever find out what's happened. It's between you and me. Of course, if those sharks in the press should get hold of a story it's all U.P. with your career,' I went on with a laugh. I've never seen a man look so frightened but then, a sense of humour was never his strong suit.

Poor darling Edward . . . Looking back on those years we had together, I realise that I was the great love of his life. I persuaded him that being married to Mary Chichester was no life for a politician; he might as well be married to a horse.

'It's not fair on you,' I said, 'all that stable talk. It won't help you to be Prime Minister.'

'I don't know that I want to be Prime Minister,' he said. 'Sometimes all I feel like is going down to Warwickshire to die.'

'You'll have to take me with you if you do,' I said.

I don't know how it was, but he never seemed to pull his weight in the Conservative party as he should have done. He reminded me at times of Father in the old Eastbourne days. He looked hag-ridden, and when I tried to make him talk about what went on behind the scenes in the House of Lords because, of course, I still kept contact with my friends in the Press and supplied them with news from time to time he would try to change the subject and talk about his wife's horses instead.

'You ought to see Ginger,' he would say. 'She's a wonderful mare. And Mary has the lightest hands of any woman I've ever known.'

'The trouble with you is that you've no ambition,' I told him. I couldn't help being bitter at times. There I was, cooking delicious suppers, putting myself out to look after him, and all he could do was to complain of indigestion and rave about his wife's horses.

I never said a word against his wife. After all, she had the money, and it was only a matter of time before she would break her back out hunting, and then darling Edward would be free. It worried me that he made such a fetish of Warwickshire, neglecting his work in the Lords.

'You ought to get the farmers to build their fences higher,' I would tell him. 'If your wife's horses are as good as you make out, they'd leap a haystack.'

And then I'd try to change the subject, get away from Warwickshire, and put out a feeler or two about his brother peers, or better still the real bigwigs in the Cabinet. It seemed such a waste to have Edward coming round to see me, when it would help him so much to discuss foreign policy and what the Government intended to do about the Middle East, if his brain was going to soften, as it looked like doing. A word or two from me in the right quarter, and the political repercussions might be staggering.

'If you'd only met me ten years ago,' I used to say to him, 'the pair of us wouldn't be sitting here now.'

'You're dead right,' he agreed. 'I'd be in the South Sea Islands.'

He liked to pretend, you see, that all he wanted really was a quiet life.

'No,' I told him, 'you'd be Prime Minister. And I'd be entertaining at Number 10. It makes my blood boil when I see how you let the others pick all the plum positions. You want someone to stick up for you, and the person who ought to do it spends her time gossiping with a lot of grooms.'

I really began to wonder whether the future of the United Kingdom would be safe in his hands after all. There were one or two Labour men who looked as if they had more backbone, and they had more money too. I never had a penny out of Edward not that I'd have taken anything if he had offered it to me but I did get rather tired of the framed photographs of horses which he sent me from Warwickshire every Christmas.

No, love stories don't have a happy ending. Not in real life. Mine finished with a bang, and when I say bang, I mean it.

The crisis came when Parliament dissolved at the end of the summer recess, and I was waiting as usual in a taxi in Parliament Square to pick up Edward and take him home. That was another thing he was getting so absentminded that sometimes he went straight home to his own house unless I caught him first. To my horror, I saw him come out of the Lords and make a dive into a car that was drawn up alongside the pavement. The car shot off before I could take its number or tell the taxi to follow it. There was a woman in the back of the car I could see her through the window.

Here we are, I said to myself. This is it! I went straight back home and put through a call to his wife in Warwickshire. It was only fair to tell her the truth, and that her husband was going out with another woman.

But do you know what happened? The servant who answered the telephone said that Lady Chichester had sold the house in Warwickshire and was up in London, and that she and Lord Chichester were going to Kenya for six months, perhaps a year. In fact, it was very possible that they were going to settle in Africa altogether. Lord Chichester was tired of political life, and he and Lady Chichester both wanted to shoot big game. As far as the servant knew, they were leaving at once, perhaps that very night.

I tried his London house. No reply. I tried every hotel I could think of, without result. I tried the airport and drew a similar blank.

Then it all came out. Lord and Lady Chichester had left for Kenya under a.s.sumed names. I read the whole thing in the morning paper. The reason given was that Lord Chichester had had another attack of shingles and wanted to get away from it all. Poor darling I suppose he was drugged. Handcuffed, even. These things can happen to-day, in a free country. It's a fearful reflection on the Conservative party, and at the next election I'm going to work for Labour. They at least are honest.

Meanwhile, here I am on my own again, with a broken heart. I did everything for Edward Chichester, just as I did for Kenneth, and what did I get out of it? Nothing but ingrat.i.tude. I don't suppose I shall ever hear from him again she'll see to that. If I do, it'll be a buffalo's head on a Christmas card, instead of a chestnut mare.

What I want to know is this: where have I gone wrong in life? Why is it that no matter how kind I am to people, how truly generous, it never seems to pay dividends? From start to finish I've put myself last and the happiness of others first. And yet, when I sit alone now, in the evenings, I seem to see faces around me, Father, Mother, Aunt Madge, Kenneth, Edward, even poor Vemon Miles, and their expressions aren't kind at all but somehow hunted. It's as if they want to be rid of me. They can't bear to be shadows. They'd like to get out of my memory and my life. Or is it that I want to be rid of them? I really don't know. It's too much of a muddle.

My doctor says I live on my nerves, and he's given me a bottle of sleeping pills. I keep them by my bed. But, do you know, I have the impression that he's more worn out than I am. Yesterday, when I telephoned for another appointment, the voice at the other end said, 'I'm sorry, Doctor Yardley is on holiday.' But it wasn't true. I recognised his voice. He was disguising it.

Why am I so unlucky and so unhappy?

What is it that I do?.

Acknowledgments.

The estate of Daphne du Maurier would like to thank Ann Willmore for her help in rediscovering some of the stories in this collection.

About the Author.

Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) has been called one of the great shapers of popular culture and the modern imagination. Among her more famous works are The Scapegoat, Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, and the short story The Birds, all of which were subsequently made into films, the latter three directed by Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Note on the Text.

With the exception of 'The Limpet', the stories in this collection were written very early in Daphne du Maurier's career, from 1926-1932, although some weren't published until years later.

'East Wind' was first published in the American edition of The Rebecca Notebook in 1980, but it can be found in du Maurier's 1926 notebook in the archives at Exeter University. It was not included in the UK edition of The Rebecca Notebook.

'The Doll' was first published in The Editor Regrets, a collection of short stories edited by George Joseph, published by Michael Joseph in 1937. Du Maurier refers to the story in her memoir Myself When Young, which dates it as having been written in 1928.

'And Now to G.o.d the Father' was the first story of du Maurier's to be published. It was featured in the Bystander magazine in May 1929, just after her twenty-second birthday. The Bystander also published 'A Difference of Temperament' the following month.

'And His Letters Grew Colder' was first published in the USA in Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan in September 1931.

'The Happy Valley' was first published in the Ill.u.s.trated London News in 1932.

'Frustration', 'Piccadilly', 'Tame Cat', 'Maizie', 'Nothing Hurts for Long' and 'Week-End' are from Early Stories, published in Great Britain by Todd in 1955. The stories in this collection were all first published in journals and magazines between the years of 1927-30.

'The Limpet' appeared in the American edition of The Breaking Point, published by Doubleday and Co. in 1959. It was not included in the UK edition.

Also by Daphne du Maurier and Other Works.

Fiction.

The Loving Spirit.

I'll Never Be Young Again Julius Jamaica Inn.

Rebecca Frenchman's Creek Hungry Hill.

The King's General The Parasites My Cousin Rachel.

The Birds and Other Stories The Scapegoat The Breaking Point: Short Stories.

Castle Dor (with Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) The Flight of the Falcon The House on the Strand.

Don't Look Now Rule Britannia The Rendezvous and Other Stories Nonfiction Gerald: A Portrait.

The Du Mauriers.

Mary Anne The Infernal World of Branwell Bront The Gla.s.s-Blowers.

Vanishing Cornwall Golden Lads: A Story of Anthony Bacon, Francis, and Their Friends The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, His Rise and Fall Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories Enchanted Cornwall.

end.