Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

“Whom would I get engaged to?”

Opening the bottle of wine she had brought, Hope said that she and Fabian were thinking of getting engaged.

“You always are. You’ve been thinking of it for ten years.”

Hope sat down, looking closely into her glass as if into a crystal ball. “If we got engaged, it would be a sort of signal for us to move in together. And then, maybe, in a year or two, if it works out, we might get married.”

“You really believe in rushing into things, don’t you?”

Ursula arrived, wearing the kind of fur hat that might not have looked good on Hope but suited Ursula. As far as Sarah could tell, she was dressed in new clothes from head to foot. Her hair had been cut once more, and cut a good deal better than they had done it in Barnstaple.

She, too, had brought a bottle of wine, but hers was champagne.

“Have you sold the house or something?” said Hope.

“I’ve had an offer. The agent phoned me this morning.”

“I don’t know what the champagne’s for.” Sarah had kissed her mother. More because, as she told herself afterward, she smelled so wonderfully of Biagiotti’s Roma than for any other reason. “But can we have it in favor of your wine, Hope?”

“If you look at the bottle,” said Hope, “you’ll see you’ve drunk all my wine already.”

Their father had been very good at opening champagne. He had always done so without spills or explosions. Hope managed fairly well, fetching a cloth from the kitchen to mop up the table.

“I want to tell you what I found out about Dad.”

“It’s not horrid, is it?” Her sister, Sarah thought, looked just as she had twenty years ago and more, when a picture anticipated in a book threatened terrors or when one of their father’s stories took a turn around a frightening bend. He had always promised nothing bad, nothing to alarm, and always kept his promise. “It’s not going to upset me?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure not.”

She couldn’t give his guarantees. But she told them the whole of it. Hope’s mobile face registered every emotion. Once she put up a hand to cover her mouth, once put her head in both hands. She made a little sound that might have been distress or might have been protest. But Ursula sat impassive. She hadn’t touched her champagne. Sarah drank hers and had more, aware by then that her voice was thickening.

Hope said, the words bursting out of her, “But why? Why did he?”

“That’s what I don’t know.”

“But you must know.” Hope spoke to her mother as if she were a policeman and Ursula a suspect in an interview room. “You can’t have been married to him for thirty-five years or whatever and he not have told you.”

“No. Yes, I should say, I was. I never suspected he wasn’t who he said he was. Why should I?”

“The thing is,” said Sarah, “shall I tell Robert Postle about it or not?”

“Tell Postle? Why the hell should you?”

“I’m writing a memoir of Dad, remember? He was Dad’s publisher and he’s mine. That’s why. Do I tell him in advance that Dad was really called John Ryan and all the rest of it or do I wait till the memoir’s finished?”

Ursula said nothing. She listened in silence. She picked up her champagne glass and drank a little from it. Reaching for the bottle, Hope said, “If you tell him now, it’ll get out. He’ll be very excited—he’s bound to be—and he’ll drop a word to someone. If only to that wife of his. Or a secretary will see it. Don’t forget Less Is More is due to be published in a few weeks. Somehow, there’ll be a leak—there always is—and it’ll get into one of those diary columns in a newspaper and we’ll all have reporters on the doorstep.”

“I think that’s a bit unfair to Robert, but I see what you mean. Not a word, then, until he gets the manuscript. Is that agreed, Ma?”

“Yes, of course, if that’s what you want. The reporters will turn up when it’s published, though.”

“We’ll all be prepared by then,” said Sarah, without explaining how they would be prepared, without knowing how.

She sighed. She had expected the telling to be a relief, to make her feel better, but it hadn’t. She was aware, suddenly, that her sister and her mother would go away soon, would leave her alone; she would once more be alone, and she had never felt quite like that before. The drink that always helped hadn’t helped. When they were gone and the bottles were empty, she would find what drink she had in the flat. She would put herself out for the night.

Ursula said, “I said I’d got something to tell you, Sarah. You and Hope.”

Had she? Sarah couldn’t remember. She must mean the offer on the house. Was that what the champagne was for?

“Do you remember when you brought me to London that time I told you I’d be seeing a friend?”

“That’s right. I took you to a hotel. Where you are now.”

“No, I’m not there. I’m staying with someone, that friend. You said, ‘Where does she live?’ and I said, ‘It’s not a she; it’s a he.’ Don’t you remember?”

Sarah nodded, because it was easier than arguing.

“I’m staying with him. No, I’m living with him. His name’s Sam Fleming and I’m going to live with him. Perhaps in his place or perhaps we’ll buy somewhere together when the house is sold. I don’t know. But I’m living with him—now.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I often tried to tell you, Sarah, but you didn’t listen. You don’t listen to me. I tried to tell you when you took me to the hotel. And when he phoned me and you answered. So I thought in the end that I’d have to come here and tell you both. Like this. And I have.”

Her mother had grown quite breathless. She was flushed. She said, “I didn’t mean that about you not listening to me. I know you have your own worries and things to think about. Why should you listen? Anyway, I’ve got you both listening now. I want you to meet Sam soon. He wanted to come with me tonight, but I said no, not this time.”

Sarah was so intent on her mother’s flushed face, her mother’s unexpected awkwardness, and, above all, her words, that she didn’t look at Hope. She had, for the moment, forgotten Hope’s existence. So that when Hope yelled, she jumped.

“You can’t! You can’t do that!”

Ursula retreated a little into her chair. Her warding-off hand came up. Sarah thought for the first time how often in the past she had made that particular gesture, but always at something their father had said. Now it was to defend herself from Hope.

“I can’t see how it will affect you much, Hope. You knew I was leaving the house; you were happy about that.”

“I wasn’t happy!”

“You were content with the arrangement. I’m going to live in London with a man I’m very fond of. I shall be near you; we could see each other.…”

“See you? I never want to see you again as long as I live. You were married to Daddy. Have you forgotten that? To Daddy! ”

Ursula’s awkwardness gone, her flutteriness gone, she said in a strong, bitter voice, “You know nothing about it. What do you know about other people’s marriages? No one knows what goes on in a marriage. You know nothing, nothing. ”

“I know I hate you.” The tears streamed down Hope’s face. “You were Daddy’s wife, and now you’re going to live with this man. He must be awful to want you. You should be dead like Daddy. You should be dead instead of Daddy.”

She was eight years old again. Her face had puffed up into childish contours. Sarah was frightened. She was at a loss, but she got up and went to her sister, her arms out. Hope struck out at her.

“You’re not to!” she screamed. “I forbid you to do it. Daddy forbids you.”