The Angel in the Corner - Monica Dickens [49]
After the first meeting, with its natural gladness of reunion, she and Virginia quarrelled more than they ever had before she went away. Virginia’s life was a whirlpool which centred round Joe, but she struggled to keep her head above water, and to appear as if she had nothing on her mind. She tried to be pleasant, but Helen was so demanding, so captious, so indifferent to Virginia’s interests – even to her interest in the magazine, now that Helen was no longer at the helm of Lady Beautiful – that scarcely a day went by without a battle.
Spenser, who craved domestic harmony, tried to referee the battles, but to no purpose. His wife jumped on him if he seemed to be taking Virginia’s side; but if he agreed with Helen, she was liable to snub him with: ‘Why do you always echo everything I say? It’s most irritating.’
If Helen was already so difficult after only three months of being a rich man’s wife, what would she be like in America, as she settled egotistically down into her life of idle luxury? There were many servants in the Long Island house, Virginia knew. There would be parties, clothes, jewellery, furs; everything that Helen wanted, including, Virginia began to imagine, as she noted her mother’s frequent failures to appreciate poor Spenser, a possible sycophantic boy-friend or two when Spenser was away on business trips.
‘We sail on the eleventh of next month,’ Helen announced one morning, as she was lying face down on her bed being pummelled by a strong-armed masseuse called Lotta. ‘The Elizabeth, of course. Spenser is seeing to the reservations today. Well, what’s the matter?’ She turned her head sideways, as Virginia said nothing. ‘Why do you stand there with that pudding face? It’s no shock to you. You knew we were going.’
‘But not just yet. I didn’t know it would be just yet. I’m not ready.’
‘Well then, you had better make haste and be ready. Lotta, you’re murdering me. You know I can’t bear to be touched there. If it’s clothes you want, Jinny, Spenser will let you buy anything you want, although you would do much better to wait until we get to the States. There’s not a thing in London I would be seen dead in. If I hadn’t bought things in Paris and Rome, I wouldn’t be able to show myself on the streets.’
‘Turn, please,’ Lotta said. ‘On the side. Thank you, madame.’ She worked on Helen’s thickening flesh with a wooden face, as disinterestedly as a baker kneading dough, her mind far away.
‘Be careful,’ Helen said. ‘This is supposed to be relaxation, not medieval torture. You’ll tell them at the office, of course, Jinny. You had better leave at the end of the month, though I really can’t think why you don’t leave now.’
‘I don’t want to. I like working for the magazine.’
‘Everyone to his taste,’ Helen said, with the air of one who has long outgrown such childish things. ‘I’m going to pack up the flat as soon as possible, whenever I can get those dreadful people at the warehouse to apply themselves to the job. We’ll go to a hotel. The Connaught, probably. It’s the only place nowadays. We should have gone straight there when we came back from Europe. It’s been dreadful living here cramped up like this.’
‘Spenser likes it,’ Virginia said. ‘He’s tired of living in hotels. He likes London, too. I believe he would stay on a bit longer if you encouraged him.’
‘Oh, what nonsense, of course he can’t. He’s finished what he came to do over here, and he has to get back. You seem to forget that he’s a business man, and a very important one, as you’ll find out when we get to the States. So don’t think that you can prolong the agony that way, just because you don’t want to leave this man you’re running to all the time. John, Jack, whatever his name is. I don’t like the sound of him. Have you any daughters, Lotta?