June 1925
Selina stood beside Miranda in front of the huge mirror in the salon of Maison D’Or and concentrated hard on not fainting, or being sick. Eau de nil wasn’t her favourite colour at the best of times, but this morning, after a rather lively night, the shade Miranda had chosen for her bridesmaids was regrettably similar to Selina’s complexion.
Outside the day was muggy and overcast, with clouds like bundles of dirty linen heaped in the sky. Inside it was sticky and uncomfortable too, with an atmosphere one could slice with a knife. No one spoke much, which was a blessing in one way (Selina didn’t feel up to making conversation herself) but, on top of a monumental headache, the simmering tension was extremely unpleasant. If there was music to be faced, she’d rather just get it over with.
And of course, there was music to be faced.
Last night had started off as a perfectly ordinary party; rather on the dull side, if anything, which was why they’d spilled out of the house in Queens Gate in the early hours and continued their own revels, complete with stolen booze and a ‘borrowed’ gramophone, in Kensington Gardens. How was she to know that a photographer was lurking when she decided to climb onto the Albert Memorial and watch the sun come up over the city from beneath its arches? The morning papers had carried a photograph of her (unmistakably) reclining on the Prince’s lap and kissing him on the lips, a bottle of champagne dangling from her hand. Miranda and Lady Lennox had taken a very Victorian attitude to this, and were decidedly Not Amused.
‘Yes.’ Lady Lennox broke the silence, her eyes sliding over Selina to linger on Miranda’s far more pleasing reflection in the looking glass. ‘Yes. I believe that’s just right. Good.’
Selina felt a stab of relief. She was going on to the Royal Academy Private View and had told Harry Lonsdale to pick her up here at midday. A little silver carriage clock on the bureau began to announce the hour in a tinkle of musical chimes. Her head throbbed. She opened her mouth to make her excuses, but was beaten by Miranda, who was surveying her own reflection with cool detachment.
‘Too simple, do you think? Dull?’
The dress was a narrow column of white silk – double layered and drop-waisted – ending six inches above Miranda’s elegant ankles. The neckline was simple and square, the perfect showcase for her delicate collarbones and long neck, unadorned by beads or ornaments, because – as everyone would understand – the real jewel was Miranda herself. She twisted around, this way and that, making the skirt swish around her calves. ‘I know everyone wears a higher hemline these days but…’
‘Understated,’ pronounced Lady Lennox.
Understatement, being the opposite of vulgarity, was a quality to be admired and aspired to. Miranda seemed mollified. Selina seized her chance and stepped down from the dais.
‘It’s perfect. Now, if we’re finished, I simply must dash—’
‘We’re not,’ Miranda snapped. ‘What about your dress?’
‘Oh – it’s fine. Don’t worry about me.’
‘I’m not. I’m worrying about me. It’s my wedding and I don’t want to be shamed.’ She turned, fixing Selina with her pointy icicle glare. ‘It looks too tight across the bust – don’t you think, Mama? It was perfectly all right at the last fitting. You must have put on weight. Hardly surprising, given that you’re always gorging on cake and sticky buns at Claridge’s or vast dinners at the Eiffel. I suppose it’s too late to let out the seams, so you’ll just have to exercise some restraint between now and the wedding.’
If it hadn’t been for the nausea swimming in her head Selina wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from responding to this unexpected round of sniper fire. As it was she gritted her teeth and retreated to the dressing room, waving away the offer of assistance from a young modiste.
She slipped her chemise over her head and reluctantly examined her image in the looking glass. When she had come to London for her first season she had realized that the body she had taken for granted – that had served her well for riding and running and climbing trees – was all wrong. Desperate to alter it, she had sent away for a vicious rubber bandeau that promised in the newspaper advertisement to ‘melt away fat and flatten the fullest of figures.’ Dishonestly, as it turned out. The extreme discomfort had not justified the minimal change it made to her figure and Polly, in a rare display of indignation, had thrown it away. ‘You’re perfect as you are,’ she’d protested. ‘Never you mind the pictures in the fashion papers. None of them can hold a candle to you.’
Darling Polly, whose judgement was clouded by loyalty but whose kindness was without equal. She was the only one who knew about Selina’s insecurity and understood her hidden shame. It had been Polly who noticed when not eating pudding had led to missing mealtimes altogether and telling fibs to hide it. It was Polly who had helped her back from the edge, with her combination of common sense, patience and loving persistence. She felt like more of a sister than Miranda had ever been, and there was nothing Selina couldn’t share with her.
Almost nothing.
A sudden memory of damp earth and dark eyes jarred in her head. The soft, secret sound of shared breathing, the knowledge of nearness and the intoxicating mix of intimacy and unfamiliarity. She hadn’t told Polly about that, knowing it would alarm her. The recklessness of going into the shabby house of a stranger, the danger of following him into the darkness. (Anything might have happened!) She couldn’t reassure Polly that she wouldn’t do it again because she would, in a heartbeat. If only she had the chance.
As she emerged from the dressing room she heard the trumpet of a motor horn in the street below. Miranda, being helped down from the dais, gave a disdainful sniff.
‘Your barbarian friends appear to have arrived. I can’t think why you’re going to the Royal Academy since none of you are remotely interested in art.’
Selina went across to the window. ‘It was Theo’s idea. We’re looking for inspiration for the Napiers’ party – you know, Come as a Work of Art.’
It was almost the truth. That had been Theo’s grudging reason for acquiescence when Selina herself had suggested going to the Private View. None of them usually bothered since it was one of the season’s more staid events, but it was her one tenuous connection with her artist; her best and only hope of bumping into him again, short of turning up on the doorstep of the house in Marchmont Street. Which she had actually considered, during the wakeful hours of the night when desperation got the better of discretion … Thankfully her daytime self had a little more self-control.
So far.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Harry’s motor (or his father’s) had pulled up in the street below, with Theo and Flick slumped together on the back seat. They both wore dark glasses, suggesting that they too were suffering the after effects of the previous evening. As she watched, Harry squeezed the horn again, causing a pair of pigeons pecking in the gutter to take off in a flurry of feathers.
‘I must go. Sorry, Mama.’
Her mother’s cheek was as cool as marble as she bent to kiss it.
‘Be careful, Selina.’
‘Of what, Mama?’
Lady Lennox touched her fingers to her temple, frowning faintly. ‘I hardly need to remind you. The war has narrowed the field of eligible men. You’d be very foolish indeed to miss your chance when one shows an interest in you. Especially one like Rupert Carew.’
Selina felt the quick beat of blood in her wrists and saw colours flash behind her eyes. A bubble of wholly inappropriate laughter rose in her throat – a ridiculous reaction to the pain. She wanted, so badly, to say that she couldn’t give a tinker’s toss what Rupert Carew thought of her, and what the war had done to her marriage prospects was nothing – nothing – compared to what it had done to her brother. But she didn’t. The loss that had scored those lines around her mother’s mouth and taken the light from her eyes must never be mentioned. Howard’s name must never be spoken. The subject of his death was forbidden.
‘He’s hardly shown an interest, Mama; it’s just because he’s an old friend of the family. That doesn’t mean—’
Her mother cut her off with an impatient sound. ‘It’s time to grow up, Selina.’ Her lips were tight, as if moving them was an effort. ‘It’s been three years since your Season. Your father and I have been patient and made allowances, but this behaviour – this cavorting – cannot continue. Your reputation, once lost, cannot be regained. Rupert understands … how things are, but his understanding is not without limit.’ She paused, one finger circling on her temple. ‘Look on it as one of your treasure hunts. Don’t get so caught up in the exhilaration of chasing around with your friends that you take your eyes off the prize. Because if you do … someone cleverer will get there before you, and you’ll regret your foolishness when you have to take what’s left. Remember that.’
Desperate for air, Selina clattered down the narrow staircase, ignoring the receptionist’s polite goodbye. A muted cheer rose from the occupants of the motorcar as she emerged onto the street. Flick moved over to make space as she climbed into the back, curling into her side like a kitten.
‘We’re never drinking again,’ she whimpered.
‘Not until at least lunchtime anyway,’ Theo added.
They all lapsed into silence as Harry swung the motor through the midday traffic. Behind his dark glasses Theo’s face was the same ash grey as the clouds. The pain in Selina’s head settled to a steady pulse as her mother’s words richocheted around it like a bagatelle ball. She stroked Flick’s hair, breathing deeply in rhythm with the strokes in an attempt to calm her anger, gazing out at the people walking along the pavements. The car slowed as they drew alongside an ex-serviceman sitting against the railings outside Burlington House selling matches, and for a moment her eyes met his. He tipped his hat, and they began to move again.
Seven years on from the armistice and the scars of the war were still visible everywhere. One got adept at looking past them, or through them, or pretending they weren’t there at all. One got on with things in the best way one could; there was always someone worse off, like the man selling matches, or Lady Renshaw, who had lost all three of her boys, or Harry’s cousin Roland who had lost his left hand and his entire right arm. One could never complain about one’s own loss. Selina understood why her mother had buried hers in the deepest recesses of her heart and hardened her face against the world. It was her way of coping, of Getting On. But it was a sad legacy for a boy whose smile could light up a room.
Howard had been twenty when he died; a year younger than she was now. She remembered him, coming into the nursery at Blackwood Park in his uniform, his Sam Browne belt creaking as he scooped her up to hug her goodbye. He had seemed so old to her eleven-year-old self – though he must only have been eighteen then – and when he came back at Christmas he seemed older still, and Mama had issued strict instructions that she must be quiet around him, and not silly. It had only taken him a day to notice and to seek her out to ask if she was all right. He had sighed when she’d told him what Mama had said, and the new lines around his eyes had softened a little. Oh Selina … don’t ever stop having fun or finding the joy in life. Please, promise me. I actually don’t think I can bear it if that’s lost, on top of everything else.
She had promised.
Mama and Miranda were shiveringly censorious about the way she lived, as if it was all an elaborate and extended act of disrespect to Howard and the brave young men who’d died alongside him. She saw it differently. She was living for both of them; breathing the air he couldn’t breathe, drinking the champagne he couldn’t taste, cramming her days and nights with all the exhilarating experiences that had been stolen from him by the same old men who puffed out their moustaches in disapproval at the newspaper reports in which her name appeared.
She closed her eyes briefly and tried to usher the thoughts from her mind. The anger lay just beneath the surface, like a constant itch under her skin and the only way to deal with it was not to think about it. Not to think about anything much at all. Miranda sneered at her for being silly and superficial, but it was all part of the strategy. Think about today, not tomorrow. Dance over the cracks so you don’t fall into them. Drink champagne in the afternoons and invent ridiculous cocktails to make the ruined world glitter again. Keep going, one foot in front of the other. Don’t look down.
Flick raised her head and groaned as Harry swung around a motorbus outside The Ritz. Her lips were white.
‘I feel most awfully peaky…’
Harry glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
‘For God’s sake, don’t you dare be sick. We’re nearly there.’
‘Jesus Christ, Weston, you pick your moments. One small favour, what – four years ago? – and you reappear now to demand repayment. God – hurry up, would you. If we get caught down here, we’ll both be thrown out, only I’ll lose my job as well.’
Lawrence, who had slowed down to look at a dust-furred bronze cast of an outstretched hand, picked up his pace again, following his erstwhile friend through the vaults beneath the Royal Academy. George Holdsworth had been a fellow student at the Slade; a talented enough painter, but one whose commitment had been sorely tested by the hours of rigorous anatomical study the course demanded, and who had opted to spend more of his time in the Sir John Russell than the Life Room. After two grinding years he’d only been allowed to graduate onto a third because Lawrence had given him a sheaf of his own (plentiful) studies to submit.
‘Small favour?’ he said dryly.
Holdsworth had the grace not to argue. ‘Yes well, fat lot of good it did me. Here I am, in the Royal Academy – as a sodding porter.’ Pushing through a set of swing doors he threw a glance at Lawrence over his shoulder. ‘Don’t know what your excuse is though. You want an invitation to these swanky parties, you should submit your bloody work.’
Lawrence thought of the canvas he’d left on his easel in the studio. It was the early stages of another quiet, conventional portrait, of Captain John Markham, Royal Highland Fusiliers, who had died at Messines Ridge in 1917. It certainly didn’t push any artistic boundaries or subvert any rules, but then Captain Markham’s parents weren’t asking for Lawrence’s vision and they didn’t want to be challenged or shocked. They wanted their boy, safe and recognizable.
Lawrence simply needed to be paid. Artistic integrity was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
‘When the Royal Academy start accepting photography, maybe I’ll start submitting,’ he said, following Holdsworth up an echoing staircase.
Holdsworth’s laughter bounced off the tiled walls. ‘Still messing around with that camera, then? Well, I hope you’re prepared for a long wait – not really art, is it?’ Reaching the top of the staircase he paused outside a set of giant double doors and lowered his voice. ‘Right – in here.’ For the first time since he’d met Lawrence at a side door and ushered him into the service corridors, Holdsworth looked at him properly. ‘Christ, Weston, you might have smartened yourself up a bit. You do know what these people are like, don’t you? You’re going to stick out like a sore bloody thumb.’
Lawrence dragged a hand through his hair. There was probably no point in saying that he had smartened himself up. Holdsworth opened the door a crack, admitting a wave of noise, peering through for a moment before turning back to Lawrence. ‘Right. You’re on your own. If anyone says anything, I don’t know you, that clear?’ He opened the door wider, muttering ‘I hope you know what you’re bloody doing…’
Lawrence wasn’t sure that he did. In truth, he hadn’t really thought it through. He and Edith, who owned the studio he shared in Gower Street, sometimes came to the Summer Exhibition to see what the selection committee had chosen that year, what they had hung in the best positions and who had been relegated to the rafters, but that was usually in the dog days of August, just before it was dismantled. He’d never felt the need to go in the opening week, never mind try to get in to the Private View, for God’s sake. This was the preserve of the wealthy and the well-connected; a high profile opportunity for them to congregate and buy paintings they barely glanced at for houses they scarcely lived in. It certainly wasn’t about art, but it was just about the closest the orbit of his world was ever likely to come to that of Selina Lennox.
And he wanted to see her again.
The noise level in the room was incredible. Posh people, it seemed, had voices that could carry over grouse moors and down twenty-foot dining tables, and no facility to moderate the volume. As he moved around the room he caught snatches of different conversations. ‘I’ve bought that Munnings. Same as all the other damn horse daubs we’ve got, but I daresay we’ll find a space for it somewhere …’ ‘I’m not inviting her again this summer. Last year she ruined the pillowcases with panstick and propositioned one of the footmen. Genuinely. Mummy was livid.’ He sifted the sound, trying to pick out the husky note of her voice. Not finding it, he kept moving.
It was warm. The great glass lantern roof of the main gallery showed a murky sky, but the room had a hothouse humidity, heavy with expensive scent and hair oil. Paintings in heavy gilt frames crowded the high walls, from skirting to cornice, but no one was paying much attention to them. Lawrence wasn’t surprised, it was derivative, conservative, predictable stuff, for the most part – Captain Markham would have been quite at home here. The one notable exception was a large and startlingly modern female nude, prominently hung in the first gallery. The artist had used blocks of vivid colour: a glaring egg yolk yellow for her hair, undulating swirls of purple and green shadowing the stylized features of her face and the contours of her body. Lawrence paused in front of it, drinking it in. ‘Bally hideous,’ a braying voice behind him scoffed. ‘Damned cheek to call it art.’
He ran his finger around the collar of his shirt. His fingers twitched with the urge to light a cigarette but he knew that in here the smell of cheap tobacco would draw attention to him like a distress flare on a dark ocean. He moved on.
There were three galleries. He circulated around each of them twice, his eyes sliding over the canvases on the walls and combing the faces in the room instead, his hope of finding hers amongst them dwindling as his sense of foolishness grew.
What was he doing here?
What was he doing?
It had been a long shot. A ridiculous, romantic notion. A test of fate, almost, and of the irrational feeling he’d had since the night that he’d let her into his hallway that there was meant to be more. That it wasn’t the end.
Well, fate had answered.
He shouldered his way past bespoke-tailored backs, heading for the door. There was no need to leave via the same furtive route by which he’d entered, but he noticed the doorman’s frown as he passed, and felt his suspicious eyes on his back as he went out into the courtyard.
The zoo-like squawk of voices faded, overlaid by the everyday noise of the city. He tugged at his tie, pulling it loose. As he went through the archway out onto Piccadilly a motorcar swung past him in a screech of tyres, so close that he had to step back against the wall to avoid being hit.
He swore under his breath, staring after it as it came to a haphazard halt in the courtyard. The doors opened and its passengers spilled out, their voices carrying across the elegant square.
In the shadow of the archway Lawrence groaned and swore again. He hesitated for a moment, his hands balled into impotent fists, then forced himself to turn away and walk on.
It was too late.
‘Your driving is worse than going on a ferris wheel,’ Theo complained, helping Flick out of the car. ‘It would serve you right if we were sick all over your splendid upholstery. Are you all right, Selina darling?’
She had got to her feet and was standing in the back of the car looking towards the archway. Her chest was tight, her heart kicking hard against it.
‘Selina?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Are you feeling perfectly gruesome? I say, you’re not going to faint, are you? You’re awfully pale…’
‘No. No, I’m fine. Perfectly well.’
‘Of course she is,’ Harry said briskly, slamming the car door. ‘Now do stop beefing or I shall make you all get a taxi home. Come along, boys and girls – Lord knows why I brought you, since none of you know a Picasso from a Pisarro – but we’re here now, so we may as well go in.’
‘How rude,’ Theo scolded, rearranging his trailing silk scarf and taking Flick’s arm. ‘I’ll have you know I have an exceptionally good eye for pretty pictures, though today we’re hunting for inspiration, remember? Come as a work of Art …’
He tucked Flick’s arm through his and began to walk towards the entrance to Burlington House. Selina hung back, smoothing her ruffled hair away from her face with a shaking hand. In the two weeks since the treasure hunt she had seen Lawrence Weston a dozen times in the most unlikely places – on the pavement in the Strand, in the stalls below their box at the theatre, dancing in the Blue Lantern, disappearing just ahead of her through the revolving doors at Claridge’s – and when she looked again, heart racing, she always found that she had been mistaken and it had been another dark head; neater than his, more ordinary. This was just another of those times, she told herself wearily, trailing across the courtyard after Theo and Flick. Wishful thinking, that was all.
But still …
She stopped at the top of the steps and looked back, unwilling to quite relinquish hope or snuff out the flicker of longing that had flared back to life in the pit of her stomach. In the sticky afternoon the courtyard was empty except for a respectable couple getting out of a taxi, and a cluster of debs hurrying out, fanning themselves with exhibition programmes.
Swallowing her disappointment, she went in.
The Strand Hotel
Rangoon
Burma
12th March 1936
Darling Alice,
So, here we are – in Burma at last.
I must admit, it was quite a wrench leaving the ship that has come to feel like home during these past few weeks, and it feels jolly strange to be back on dry land. We docked two days ago but I still have the strangest sensation of the earth moving beneath my feet. How peculiar to feel seasick when one is no longer at sea!
The hotel is wonderfully smart – if it weren’t for the heat and the big ceiling fans that whirr constantly one could easily believe one was in London within its elegant walls. (No Burmese guests are allowed.) Our room is large and airy, with a view over the river – I’m writing this at a little table by the window and looking out over the water now. I’m longing to go and explore the city, but Papa is looking after me terribly carefully and insists that I rest from the journey.
Earlier we had luncheon in the restaurant downstairs and I watched the people coming and going on the street outside. It’s less busy than Bombay, but still fascinating. The women are delicate and beautiful, with shining dark hair, heavy as silk. As we ate, a procession of men filed past, dressed in yellow robes with their heads shaved. Buddhist monks, Papa said, perhaps on their way to the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda that dominates the Rangoon skyline, much like St Paul’s rises above London. (Except the Shwe Dagon is gold and glittering, rather than leaden grey – can you imagine?) I would love to visit the temple and hope to be allowed, though Papa says there are complicated rules and customs that must be observed, and that European people scarcely venture there. I believe that one has to remove one’s shoes before entering, but I shouldn’t mind that at all. I can’t think of anything more lovely than to walk with bare feet on ancient floors where millions have walked before. I do hope it might be possible to go.
It’s very warm. The other colonial wives have beautiful silk parasols, so my first task, when I venture out, will be to buy one. We had coffee with a Scottish couple – a Colonel and Mrs Muir – after luncheon, and the wife informed me that I simply must visit Rowe & Co., which is apparently ‘the Harrods of the East’ and is stuffed with treats and treasures from home, as well as everything one needs for this climate. I can’t help thinking I’d rather make my purchases in the little streets and alleys where the local women shop, but when I mentioned this Mrs Muir nearly spat out her coffee. Poor Papa was mortified. I suppose I shall have to do my shopping in the respectable halls of the Harrods of the East after all.
Oh – I’ve just glanced out of the window and you won’t believe what I can see … ELEPHANTS! Oh Alice – they’re too sweet – I wish you could see them! There are three of them, with men crouched high up on their necks on strange wooden platforms, and they’ve guided them into the river, I think perhaps to cool them down or something. They certainly seem to be enjoying the water (the elephants, not the men, who look rather cross – flapping and kicking their legs). I wish I had a camera, or was as good at drawing as you are. I could share with you how magical and majestic they are.
Tonight we are going across town to have dinner with some more English people, at a place called the Pegu Club. Papa goes there often when he’s here; I believe it’s quite the place to be in Burma, and it apparently has its own famous cocktail. I’m not sure I’m recovered enough from my seasickness to sample one though.
It feels like time is going particularly slowly just now and the days seem very long. I’m finding it quite a struggle to keep smiling and talking to all these new people – friends of Papa’s, important government officials and businessmen and their wives – when I’m feeling off colour and missing you so much. I want to talk about you all the time. Lots of them have children who they send back to school in England. I’m not sure how they bear it. (Papa says I mustn’t ask.)
My darling, I’ll finish now, and lie down for a little while before it’s time to bathe and dress for the evening. Papa says that the time here is hours ahead of England, so as I’m writing in the afternoon, you’re probably still in the schoolroom and working hard at your lessons. Oh, how clearly I can see you there, and how much I wish I could reach out and touch you. In a few days we’ll be making the journey north to where Papa’s mines are, and once we’re there I hope he might conclude his business quickly so we can return home. It can’t be soon enough for me.
Write back, my darling. Your letters bring me such joy.
All my love (and a lipstick kiss)
Mama
Xxxx