The Snow Globe Page 11

  As usual, there were to be carols around the tree at seven. This was a long-standing tradition at Eden Hall, and the whole household—including the servants and whoever happened to be staying—was expected to be there, on time and in full voice.

  Once, before the war, the hallway had been flooded, jam-packed and crowded with black-and-white starched uniforms, ostrich feathers, diamonds and pearls. And though this Christmas Eve tradition had survived and Mabel continued to invite their neighbors—and their servants, too; those they still had—it wasn’t the same.

  People seemed to have lost their enthusiasm, Mabel thought, for Christmas, for celebration. Each year fewer and fewer people showed up, and where once their guests would have come with an army of servants trailing in after them, now you’d be lucky to get a single maid in uniform. Last year, Patricia Knight’s housekeeper had come in a cardigan over a housecoat and a woolen hat—which she had kept on her head for the entire duration. And Dosia hadn’t been much better: appearing in the hallway in the same creased tweed skirt and sweater she’d worn all day, her usual laced brogues (leaving a trail of dried mud wherever she went, Mabel remembered) and her hair all this way and that. But it was important, Howard said—and Mabel tended to agree—to keep up these traditions and customs, to dress properly and set an example. And so they continued with their carols and, afterward, mince pies and sherry before Howard said a few words and the family lined up to shake hands with their diminished staff and diminished guests and wish them all a “Happy Christmas.”

  Tonight, Reggie was to return to High Pines—in order to dress for dinner—and then come back to Eden Hall with the Singhs. He was keen for them to be included in all things, to embrace England and English culture. When Reggie stood up and said that he would be back in an hour or so, Mabel said, “Bring an overnight bag. It’s silly—and dangerous, as much as anything else—you traipsing back and forth in this weather. You’re spending the day here tomorrow, so please—bring your overnight bag and I’ll ask Nancy to air a bed for you . . . and of course the Singhs are very welcome to stay too, if they wish.”

  Reggie smiled, but before he could speak, Howard put down his newspaper and rose to his feet, saying, “Really, dear, I’m quite sure Reggie would far rather sleep in his own bed. It’s hardly an epic journey for him, not as though he’s driving to London,” he added, laughing, looking about the room.

  Mabel ignored her husband. “Seriously, Reg, if you’d like to stay over, you’re most welcome—more than welcome. And it’ll simply mean you’re here for tomorrow.”

  “Yes! Do stay, Reggie,” Iris called across the room.

  “Well, you’re all very kind . . . but I’d hate to put you to any trouble, Mabel.”

  Howard moved swiftly. “Not at all, dear boy. You know you’re always welcome, but I completely understand—always better to wake up in one’s own bed, eh?”

  Mabel didn’t look at Howard. She smiled back at Reggie and said quietly, “It’s absolutely no trouble; we have more than enough room . . . and I’ll be much happier knowing you’re here, that we’re all present and correct for Christmas.”

  There then passed a moment—a long moment—when no one spoke, and other than the sound of snoring, everything went quieter than before. Howard stared at Mabel, who stared at Reggie, who sighed. “Well, if you’re quite sure, Mabel . . . thank you, that’d be marvelous. Yes, really. Marvelous.”

  And that was that. Reggie went off to drive the short distance home, get changed for dinner and return—with or without the Singhs but with his overnight bag. The young one by one left the room, and Margot excused herself, saying, oh my, was that the time and that she, too, must freshen up and dress for dinner. Howard stood fixed. Mabel fiddled, snipping at threads with her scissors.

  “Very nice of you and all that to invite the major, but don’t you think you have enough?”

  “Enough?” Mabel repeated without looking up.

  “We do have quite a full house. And . . . well, I’m not sure about him. Not sure at all.”

  Mabel smiled. “You’re beginning to sound like Daisy.”

  “Really? I thought she liked him.”

  Mabel looked up. “Oh yes, she does. She likes him very much.”

  “Look here, Mabel,” Howard began, and then the dressing bell sounded.

  “Righto,” he said, after a moment or two. “I suppose I’d better go up and change.”

  “Yes, you do that,” said Mabel, snip-snip-snipping once more, almost holding her breath.

  As the door closed, she put down her scissors and looked up. The sudden realization that there had been some sort of shift, that it was no longer she watching Howard but he watching her, that she had the power to crush him, to not only ruin his Christmas but also possibly ruin his life, made her gasp, and as she did so she felt a sharp sting and glanced down to see that she had pierced her thumb with her needle.

  Daisy lay on her bed with Iris, sharing a cigarette. She couldn’t decide which dress to wear: the navy blue silk with cream lace collar, or the new green velveteen—a Christmas present from her mother . . . though she had intended on keeping that for tomorrow.

  “Depends,” said Iris. “Whose eye do you want to catch?”

  Daisy giggled and dug her elbow into her sister. “Really!”

  “Seriously, you have three of them to choose from. You need to decide which one.”

  “Three?”

  Iris handed the cigarette back to Daisy, then sat forward and turned to her younger sister. “You know, the name Dodo suits you far better than Daisy.”

  “Mm, really?”

  “Yes, because it’s what you are. A complete and utter dodo!”

  Daisy smiled. “So . . . three?”

  Iris raised her hand: “Mr. Gifford,” she said, pulling down her index finger. “Stee-phen . . . ,” she said, elongating the syllables and pulling down her middle finger. Daisy closed her eyes. “And now . . . now the rather delicious Valentine Vincent,” Iris said, pulling down another finger.

  Daisy tried to blow a smoke ring. “Well, let’s be honest. Stephen doesn’t really count, does he?” she asked, glancing to Iris.

  Iris shrugged. “Can do—if you want him to . . .”

  Stephen. He was one of the very few people—apart from Iris (and her father, up until hours ago)—whom she felt able to talk to openly and about almost anything. She quite loved him, she thought, but not in that way. “And even if I was madly in love with him,” she said, thinking aloud, “nothing could ever come of it.”

  “Oh, darling, don’t be so old-fashioned. Times have changed—and are changing.” Iris paused, took the cigarette from Daisy’s hand. “Look at Susan Knight. She didn’t take any notice of convention—class, whatever you want to call it. She married for love.”

  “But Susan’s parents more or less disowned her. They’ve only just started speaking again—after three years!”

  “So? They’re speaking, they got over it and Susan—clever woman—is now married to the man she wanted to marry and not to that dreadful mustachioed lawyer from the suburbs that her parents wanted her to marry. Do you remember him? God, he was ghastly! She may not have the lifestyle she could have had, but she’s happy—and free. And the two go together: You can’t be happy unless you are free, and you can’t be free until you’re truly happy—which means being true to yourself first and foremost.” She paused again. “If I met and fell in love with someone now—no matter who they were and no matter what anyone said—I’d give myself to them . . . and I’d be with them, whatever it took.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in marriage.”

  Iris laughed. “I didn’t say I’d marry them!”

  “You mean you’d live in sin?”

  “I mean I’d live in love, darling. I couldn’t give a hoot what convention says, really! Who wants to be conventional?” She shuddered. “
And anyway, most of our so-called conventions were invented by men—men like Howard—as a form of control, of course.”

  At that moment Daisy, who had been trying for some time, blew a smoke ring that rose into the air in a perfect circle. “Look at that—I did it!”

  Iris smiled, then continued: “No, to remain free, to be truly free, I believe one must live outside of conventions. I have no desire to be shackled as Mrs. Anyone, and as I don’t intend to have children, there’s little point in my marrying.”

  Daisy didn’t say anything. She was confused. Iris seemed to believe in love—but a particular kind of love, one that required no commitment. But if she didn’t wish to marry, to have a family of her own, what sort of life was she planning for herself? Even with a flat in London, even with her shop and all those clothes and all that dancing, was spinsterhood really freedom? And what would happen, what would she do when she was too old to dance or sell clothes? Sit about in her trousers and read novels for the rest of her life? No old ladies wore trousers; she’d have to go back to dresses then. And as for having lovers, which Daisy presumed was what her sister had meant when she had said that she’d “give herself,” it seemed a little casual . . . and cheap. Surely she was worth more than that?

  Daisy wanted to ask Iris about the sex side of things, how that would work, how she would be able to not have children—a baby—if she had a lover. Iris appeared not to have thought this through properly, and it concerned Daisy, because living in sin was one thing, but a baby out of wedlock was quite another. She pictured a rotund Iris trundling down the road toward Birch Grove, the nearby home for unmarried mothers, her small suitcase in one hand, her cigarette holder and a Turkish blend in the other.

  “I don’t believe in sex outside of marriage,” said Daisy, staring straight ahead, toward the window. “It’s not fair on the children.”

  Iris turned to her. “What are you on about now?”

  Daisy looked back at her sister, wide-eyed. “The children, Iris, the babies . . . the babies born from sex outside of marriage who then have to be put into homes . . . And don’t laugh! It’s wrong to start making babies when you’re not married and can’t give them a proper home.”

  Iris had not laughed, but she had put her hand to her mouth to cover her smile. “Oh, darling,” she said, still smiling, unable not to, and taking hold of Daisy’s hand. “I forget, I forget that there’s still so much you don’t know.”

  Daisy got up off the bed. Iris could be so patronizing sometimes. She went over to the window, opened it and threw out the cigarette. It was dark outside, but the tall lamps lining the driveway and along the front terrace were already lit, ready for their guests and further illuminating the unusually bright snow-covered garden. A hard frost had formed over the top of the snow, making it sparkle like diamonds under the lights. Christmas Eve: It all looked magical, Daisy thought, only half listening to Iris, who was saying something about them having to have a little chat if she came up to live with her in London.

  “Oh, really,” said Daisy absently. “About what?”

  “Something called a Dutch cap, darling. You need to know.”

  “Dutch what?” said Daisy.

  “Contraception. How to avoid getting pregnant . . . There’s a fabulous woman called Dr. Stopes who’s set up clinics to teach women like you—like us,” she quickly added, “how to avoid all of that.”

  “Oh yes,” said Daisy, “I think I may have read about her in Modern Woman.”

  “I say, does Mummy know you read that magazine? I’m not sure she’d approve.”

  Daisy turned to her sister. “Mummy buys it for me.”

  “Gulp,” said Iris. “Things have certainly moved on here.

  “So, Valentine Vincent . . . ,” Iris began again after a moment. “What do you make of him? I rather think he has potential.”

  Daisy sat down on the chair by her desk. “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “Why not sure? He’s quite a dish . . .”

  “A, he has a rather silly name, and B, he’s Daddy’s tart’s son.”

  “She’s not a tart,” Iris responded quickly.

  “Yes, she is. She’s having an affair with a married man . . . She’s a tart.”

  Iris climbed off the bed. She was wearing her dark gray wide-legged trousers—the ones their mother had gasped at—with a green silk shirt and striped tie. She wore a bandanna around her dark hair, cut and shingled by someone terrifically expensive called Marcel at Harrods, and bright pink lipstick and matching nails. She looked completely marvelous to Daisy: so modern and defiant, and so very London, Daisy thought.

  Lily claimed Iris dressed that way simply to annoy Howard, who abhorred women in trousers, and perhaps it was true, because when Iris had appeared in her trousers, shirt and tie at breakfast that day Howard had simply stared at the tie with a very thin mouth, in a sort of silent apoplectic rage. The tie, Daisy thought, had been a step too far for him, and a wonderfully brave step on the part of Iris, who had no time for nonchalance. She despised passivity, adored intensity in all things and had once told Daisy that she intended to have a full and reckless life. She seemed to have no concern for danger or, sometimes, for others.

  “The thing with you,” Iris said now, “is that you want everything to be neat and tidy. The goodies and the baddies, black and white . . . and it simply doesn’t work that way, darling. There are gray areas. There are things you don’t yet understand.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like marriage.”

  “What do you mean?

  “Well, you probably still think married people love each other.”

  “And don’t they?”

  Iris shook her head. “Most of them simply pretend.”

  “But they must like each other, surely. In order to get married in the first place.”

  “No, not necessarily.”

  “They must at least admire and respect each other . . .”

  Iris laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  “And our parents?”

  “Hmm, potentially finished. It could end in divorce.”

  Divorce. The universe rocked once more. Daisy’s life flashed before her: She saw herself in a short dress and lipstick handing out bowls of soup to a queue of middle-aged women, including her mother; she saw Howard, unshaven and begging on the streets; she saw Eden Hall with a leaning, cobweb-covered FOR SALE sign at the bottom of the driveway. Divorce? It meant only one thing: ruination. Nothing would be the same.

  Iris was still speaking, saying something about it no longer having quite the same stigma it once had, that it was becoming more accepted and had even become quite fashionable in America, or so she’d heard.

  Daisy steadied herself. Divorce. She hadn’t thought of it. The only person she knew—had heard of—who was divorced was the woman who’d recently moved into a cottage near the crossroads. She didn’t even have a name, was simply referred to as the Divorcée. Like a fairground attraction, the Fat Lady in the tent on the promenade at Southsea or the Man with Twelve Toes, the woman was a novelty: both fascinating and to be pitied.

  “Don’t look so shell-shocked,” said Iris. “I was being a little flippant. But it’s good to be prepared.”

  “Nothing is certain,” Daisy said shakily.

  “Of course. And it’s up to Mabel, really, and depends on what she wants to do.”

  “Do?”

  “Yes, whether she wants to continue here—with her life as it is. It was different when we were young, but we’re all grown up, and you’ll leave soon enough; she must know that. She’ll be here on her own. I imagine she’s pondering on it all and considering her future.”

  “What do you think . . . What do you think she’ll decide?”

  “I really don’t know. And that’s the truth, darling. But you need to open your eyes. It’s time for you to grow up, to know
and accept that . . . well, that nothing is perfect. Nothing is black and white. Everything is gray . . . Undecided,” she added, smiling tenderly now at Daisy.

  Yes, time to grow up, decisions to be made, Daisy thought; a whole life to be forged, new people to be met . . . Suddenly, it all seemed impossibly exhausting. Iris stared back at her, reached out and took hold of her hand. “Don’t frown so, dear. It’ll give you lines,” she said. “But do try not to be quite so judgmental. And don’t damn women just because men use them. We’re all at their mercy one way or another; we’re all of us tarts when it comes to our fortune with men. And as for Margot,” she went on, quieter, glancing away, “well, she’s hardly a tart, and we don’t really know her, what she’s like, or why she and Howard are—”

  “Fucking?” interrupted Daisy.

  Iris gasped, then laughed. “You are naughty,” she said. She released Daisy’s hand and moved toward the door. “We’d better get a move on.”

  “The bell hasn’t gone yet, has it?”

  “It went ages ago.”

  “But what about Ben? You haven’t said . . . Do you rate him?”

  “As a gofer, yes; as your future husband”—Iris shrugged her shoulders—“not really. But it all depends on what you want, Dodo. See, gray! It’s all gray.”

  “I want to be in love.”

  “Ha, you can’t make that happen just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Or if you do, I can guarantee it’ll be a disaster.”

  “But he’s a decent enough sort, isn’t he? . . . Ben, I mean.”

  “Go with the blue,” Iris said, and left the room.

  Mabel had decided on silver-gray crepe de chine and pearls. Not the Cartier pearl and diamond choker Howard had presented her with on the occasion of their twentieth wedding anniversary, but the Tahitian black pearls Reggie had presented to her earlier that day.