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  And then she bought quite a tiny picture, just a picture of a little glimpse through to a canal. The man who had painted it appraised the look of us and she bought it for £6 by English exchange. The funny thing was that I knew quite well that Ellie had just the same longing for that £6 picture that she had for the Cézanne.

  It was the same way one day in Paris. She’d said to me suddenly:

  “What fun it would be—let’s get a really nice crisp French loaf of bread and have that with butter and one of those cheeses wrapped up in leaves.”

  So we did and Ellie I think enjoyed it more than the meal we’d had the night before which had come to about £20 English. At first I couldn’t understand it, then I began to see. The awkward thing was that I could see now that being married to Ellie wasn’t just fun and games. You have to do your homework, you have to learn how to go into a restaurant and the sort of things to order and the right tips, and when for some reason you gave more than usual. You have to memorize what you drink with certain foods. I had to do most of it by observation. I couldn’t ask Ellie because that was one of the things she wouldn’t have understood. She’d have said “But, darling Mike, you can have anything you like. What does it matter if waiters think you ought to have one particular wine with one particular thing?” It wouldn’t have mattered to her because she was born to it but it mattered to me because I couldn’t do just as I liked. I wasn’t simple enough. Clothes too. Ellie was more helpful there, for she could understand better. She just guided me to the right places and told me to let them have their head.

  Of course I didn’t look right and sound right yet. But that didn’t matter much. I’d got the hang of it, enough so that I could pass muster with people like old Lippincott, and shortly, presumably, when Ellie’s stepmother and uncles were around, but actually it wasn’t going to matter in the future at all. When the house was finished and when we’d moved in, we were going to be far away from everybody. It could be our kingdom. I looked at Greta sitting opposite me. I wondered what she’d really thought of our house. Anyway, it was what I wanted. It satisfied me utterly. I wanted to drive down and go through a private path through the trees which led down to a small cove which would be our own beach which nobody could come to on the land side. It would be a thousand times better, I thought, plunging into the sea there. A thousand times better than a lido spread along a beach with hundreds of bodies lying there. I didn’t want all the senseless rich things. I wanted—there were the words again, my own particular words—I want, I want…I could feel all the feeling surging up in me. I wanted a wonderful woman and a wonderful house like nobody else’s house and I wanted my wonderful house to be full of wonderful things. Things that belonged to me. Everything would belong to me.

  “He’s thinking of our house,” said Ellie.

  It seemed that she had twice suggested to me that we should go now into the dining room. I looked at her affectionately.

  Later in the day—it was that evening—when we were dressing to go out to dinner, Ellie said a little tentatively:

  “Mike, you do—you do like Greta, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” I said.

  “I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t like her.”

  “But I do,” I protested. “What makes you think I don’t?”

  “I’m not quite sure. I think it’s the way you hardly look at her even when you’re talking to her.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s because—well, because I feel nervous.”

  “Nervous of Greta?”

  “Yes, she’s a bit awe-inspiring, you know.”

  And I told Ellie how I thought Greta looked rather like a Valkyrie.

  “Not as stout as an operatic one,” said Ellie and laughed. We both laughed. I said:

  “It’s all very well for you because you’ve known her for years. But she is just a bit—well, I mean she’s very efficient and practical and sophisticated.” I struggled with a lot of words which didn’t seem to be quite the right ones. I said suddenly, “I feel—I feel at a disadvantage with her.”

  “Oh Mike!” Ellie was conscience-stricken. “I know we’ve got a lot of things to talk about. Old jokes and old things that happened and all that. I suppose—yes, I suppose it might make you feel rather shy. But you’ll soon get to be friends. She likes you. She likes you very much. She told me so.”

  “Listen, Ellie, she’d probably tell you that anyway.”

  “Oh no she wouldn’t. Greta’s very outspoken. You heard her. Some of the things she said today.”

  It was true that Greta had not minced her words during luncheon. She had said, addressing me rather than Ellie:

  “You must have thought it queer sometimes, the way I was backing Ellie up when I’d not even seen you. But I got so mad—so mad with the life that they were making her lead. All tied up in a cocoon with their money, their traditional ideas. She never had a chance to enjoy herself, go anywhere really by herself and do what she wanted. She wanted to rebel but she didn’t know how. And so—yes, all right, I urged her on. I suggested she should look at properties in England. Then I said when she was twenty-one she could buy one of her own and say good-bye to all that New York lot.”

  “Greta always has wonderful ideas,” said Ellie. “She thinks of things I’d probably never have thought of myself.”

  What were those words Mr. Lippincott had said to me? “She has too much influence over Ellie.” I wondered if it was true. Queerly enough I didn’t really think so. I felt that there was a core somewhere in Ellie that Greta, for all that she knew her so well, had never quite appreciated. Ellie, I was sure, would always accept any ideas that matched with the ideas she wanted to have herself. Greta had preached rebellion to Ellie but Ellie herself wanted to rebel, only she was not sure how to do so. But I felt that Ellie, now that I was coming to know her better, was one of those very simple people who have unexpected reserves. I thought Ellie would be quite capable of taking a stand of her own if she wished to. The point was that she wouldn’t very often wish to and I thought then how difficult everyone was to understand. Even Ellie. Even Greta. Even perhaps my own mother…The way she looked at me with fear in her eyes.

  I wondered about Mr. Lippincott. I said, as we were peeling some outsize peaches:

  “Mr. Lippincott seems to have taken our marriage very well really. I was surprised.”

  “Mr. Lippincott,” said Greta, “is an old fox.”

  “You always say so, Greta,” said Ellie, “but I think he’s rather a dear. Very strict and proper and all that.”

  “Well, go on thinking so if you like,” said Greta. “Myself, I wouldn’t trust him an inch.”

  “Not trust him!” said Ellie.

  Greta shook her head. “I know. He’s a pillar of respectability and trustworthiness. He’s everything a trustee and a lawyer should be.”

  Ellie laughed and said, “Do you mean he’s embezzled my fortune? Don’t be silly, Greta. There are thousands of auditors and banks and check-ups and all that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, I expect he’s all right really,” said Greta. “All the same, those are the people that do embezzle. The trustworthy ones. And then everyone says afterwards, ‘I’d never have believed it of Mr. A. or Mr. B. The last man in the world.’ Yes, that’s what they say. ‘The last man in the world.’”

  Ellie said thoughtfully that her Uncle Frank, she thought, was much more likely to go in for dishonest practices. She did not seem unduly worried or surprised by the idea.

  “Oh well he looks like a crook,” said Greta. “That handicaps him to start with. All that geniality and bonhomie. But he’ll never be in a position to be a crook in a big way.”

  “Is he your mother’s brother?” I asked. I always got confused over Ellie’s relations.

  “He’s my father’s sister’s husband,” said Ellie. “She left him and married someone else and died about six or seven years ago. Uncle Frank has more or less stuck on with the family.”

  “There are three of them,�
� said Greta kindly and helpfully. “Three leeches hanging round, as you might say. Ellie’s actual uncles were killed, one in Korea and one in a car accident, so what she’s got is a much-damaged stepmother, an Uncle Frank, an amiable hanger-on in the family home, and her cousin Reuben whom she calls Uncle but he’s only a cousin and Andrew Lippincott, and Stanford Lloyd.”

  “Who is Stanford Lloyd?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Oh another sort of trustee, isn’t he, Ellie? At any rate he manages your investments and things like that. Which can’t really be very difficult because when you’ve got as much money as Ellie has, it sort of makes more money all the time without anyone having to do much about it. Those are the main surrounding group,” Greta added, “and I have no doubt that you will be meeting them fairly soon. They’ll be over here to have a look at you.”

  I groaned, and looked at Ellie. Ellie said very gently and sweetly:

  “Never mind, Mike, they’ll go away again.”

  Twelve

  They did come over. None of them stayed very long. Not that time, not on a first visit. They came over to have a look at me. I found them difficult to understand because of course they were all Americans. They were types with which I was not well acquainted. Some of them were pleasant enough. Uncle Frank, for instance. I agreed with Greta about him. I wouldn’t have trusted him a yard. I had come across the same type in England. He was a big man with a bit of a paunch and pouches under his eyes that gave him a dissipated look which was not far from the truth, I imagine. He had an eye for women, I thought, and even more of an eye for the main chance. He borrowed money from me once or twice, quite small amounts, just, as it were, something to tide him over for a day or two. I thought it was not so much that he needed the money but he wanted to test me out, to see if I lent money easily. It was rather worrying because I wasn’t sure which was the best way to take it. Would it have been better to refuse point blank and let him know I was a skinflint or was it better to assume an appearance of careless generosity, which I was very far from feeling? To hell with Uncle Frank, I thought.

  Cora, Ellie’s stepmother, was the one that interested me most. She was a woman of about forty, well turned out with tinted hair and a rather gushing manner. She was all sweetness to Ellie.

  “You mustn’t mind those letters I wrote you, Ellie,” she said. “You must admit that it came as a terrible shock, your marrying like that. So secretly. But of course I know it was Greta who put you up to it, doing it that way.”

  “You mustn’t blame Greta,” said Ellie. “I didn’t mean to upset you all so much. I just thought that—well, the less fuss—”

  “Well, of course, Ellie dear, you have something there. All the men of business were simply livid. Stanford Lloyd and Andrew Lippincott. I suppose they thought everyone would blame them for not looking after you better. And of course they’d no idea what Mike would be like. They didn’t realize how charming he was going to be. I didn’t myself.”

  She smiled across at me, a very sweet smile and one of the falsest ones I’d ever seen! I thought to myself that if ever a woman hated a man, it was Cora who hated me. I thought her sweetness to Ellie was understandable enough. Andrew Lippincott had gone back to America and had, no doubt, given her a few words of caution. Ellie was selling some of her property in America, since she herself had definitely decided to live in England, but she was going to make a large allowance to Cora so that the latter could live where she chose. Nobody mentioned Cora’s husband much. I gathered he’d already taken himself off to some other part of the world, and had not gone there alone. In all probability, I gathered, another divorce was pending. There wouldn’t be much alimony out of this one. Cora’s last marriage had been to a man a good many years younger than herself with more attractions of a physical kind than cash.

  Cora wanted that allowance. She was a woman of extravagant tastes. No doubt old Andrew Lippincott had hinted clearly enough that it could be discontinued any time if Ellie chose, or if Cora so far forgot herself as to criticize Ellie’s new husband too virulently.

  Cousin Reuben, or Uncle Reuben, did not make the journey. He wrote instead to Ellie a pleasant, noncommittal letter hoping she’d be very happy, but doubted if she would like living in England. “If you don’t, Ellie, you come right back to the States. Don’t think you won’t get a welcome here because you will. Certainly you will from your Uncle Reuben.”

  “He sounds rather nice,” I said to Ellie.

  “Yes,” said Ellie meditatively. She wasn’t, it seemed, quite so sure about it.

  “Are you fond of any of them, Ellie?” I asked, “or oughtn’t I to ask that?”

  “Of course you can ask me anything.” But she didn’t answer for a moment or two all the same. Then she said, with a sort of finality and decision, “No, I don’t think I am. It seems odd, but I suppose it’s because they don’t really belong to me. Only by environment, not by relationship. They none of them are my flesh and blood relations. I loved my father, what I remembered of him. I think he was rather a weak man and I think my grandfather was disappointed in him because he hadn’t got much head for business. He didn’t want to go into the business life. He liked going to Florida and fishing, that sort of thing. And then later he married Cora and I never cared for Cora much—or Cora for me, for that matter. My own mother, of course, I don’t remember. I liked Uncle Henry and Uncle Joe. They were fun. In some ways more fun than my father was. He, I think, was in some ways a quiet and rather sad man. But the uncles enjoyed themselves. Uncle Joe was, I think, a bit wild, the kind that is wild just because they’ve got lots of money. Anyway, he was the one who got smashed up in the car, and the other one was killed fighting in the war. My grandfather was a sick man by that time and it was a terrible blow to him that all his three sons were dead. He didn’t like Cora and he didn’t care much for any of his more distant relatives. Uncle Reuben for instance. He said you could never tell what Reuben was up to. That’s why he made arrangements to put his money in trust. A lot of it went to museums and hospitals. He left Cora well provided for, and his daughter’s husband Uncle Frank.”

  “But most of it to you?”

  “Yes. And I think that worried him a little bit. He did his best to get it looked after for me.”

  “By Uncle Andrew and by Mr. Stanford Lloyd. A lawyer and a banker.”

  “Yes. I suppose he didn’t think I could look after it very well by myself. The odd thing is that he let me come into it at the age of twenty-one. He didn’t keep it in trust till I was twenty-five, as lots of people do. I expect that was because I was a girl.”

  “That’s odd,” I said, “it would seem to me that it ought to be the other way round?”

  Ellie shook her head. “No,” she said, “I think my grandfather thought that young males were always wild and hit things up and that blondes with evil designs got hold of them. I think he thought it would be a good thing if they had plenty of time to sow their wild oats. That’s your English saying, isn’t it? But he said once to me, ‘If a girl is going to have any sense at all, she’ll have it at twenty-one. It won’t make any difference making her wait four years longer. If she’s going to be a fool she’ll be a fool by then just as much.’ He said, too,” Ellie looked at me and smiled, “that he didn’t think I was a fool. He said, ‘You mayn’t know very much about life, but you’ve got good sense, Ellie. Especially about people. I think you always will have.’”

  “I don’t suppose he would have liked me,” I said thoughtfully.

  Ellie has a lot of honesty. She didn’t try and reassure me by saying anything but what was undoubtedly the truth.

  “No,” she said, “I think he’d have been rather horrified. To begin with, that is. He’d have had to get used to you.”

  “Poor Ellie,” I said suddenly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I said it to you once before, do you remember?”

  “Yes. You said poor little rich girl. You were quite right too.”

  “I didn�
�t mean it the same way this time,” I said. “I didn’t mean that you were poor because you were rich. I think I meant—” I hesitated. “You’ve too many people,” I said, “at you. All round you. Too many people who want things from you but who don’t really care about you. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I think Uncle Andrew really cares about me,” said Ellie, a little doubtfully. “He’s always been nice to me, sympathetic. The others—no, you’re quite right. They only want things.”