A Voice Like Velvet

Marjorie Bisham knew quite well what it was that Bess wanted to know. Bess had the forgivable curiosity possessed by some spinsters of her age. And if she sometimes felt a small irritation over Bess, she didn’t remember it for long and had developed quite a deep affection for her. She often felt sorry that Bess had never married, and now never would, and she once told Ernest she thought Bess was happier in her present state; Bess made a sort of profession of being a snob. ‘She enjoys the reflected glory you bring her, Ernest! You must never let her down,’ she teased him. But it didn’t matter being a snob if you enjoyed it and were one for a particular reason. She and Ernest both had to be rather snobbish now and then, even if they were only pretending. At times perhaps they did really feel above other people. Then, it was awful to catch yourself at it. Everyone lived in a particular little world—didn’t they?—within the outer world, and they had to live according to those particular standards. The alternative was to get out and live in another one. Mrs Bisham now knew that this particular world was one which she had chosen deliberately—having got out of another which hadn’t fitted her at all. She had confided the details to Bess just before she’d decided to marry Ernest. And perhaps because Ernest, too, had been living in a world which hadn’t suited him at all, the new world he found with Marjorie succeeded instantly—in the outward and practical sense.

In the emotional sense, however, as Bess suspected, it had not succeeded at all. Ernest and Marjorie had married without really being in love with each other at all. It was one of those practical and smiling marriages and there evidently weren’t going to be any children. Marjorie got sad-eyed and went for long walks in a large white mackintosh, returning to have tea by herself in her room. Bess had to have tea with Ernest in the drawing-room, when she would be at leisure to demand what on earth was the matter with him. Sometimes, even, guests would arrive, having been invited by Marjorie herself, but who now genuinely pleaded a headache. The elderly Wintles might come, bringing their brownish son called Jonas, who was said to have already had a tragic life, though not yet twenty-one, and, with his dead brothers, had been amongst the First of the Few. Poor Jonas seemed to admire Ernest, in a distant sort of way, and was always saying he was ‘browned off’ about this or that. He seemed to admire Marjorie, in a poodle-like way, and when she wasn’t on view he would declare to Bess he was ‘utterly browned off to hear it. Can I do anything, Miss Bisham?’ But there seemed to be nothing he could do, or anyone else.

There was one shadowy evening over muffins, when just such a situation caught her once more. Marjorie had pleaded a headache, though refusing a doctor, and the guests this time were a bunch of rather nice people called the de Freeces, three rather tall cousins, or some such relationship, who spent the days nodding their greying heads and saying that the war would first of all be over by the spring, and then by the summer, and then by the coming Christmas. Then they would have to start all over again from scratch. They came on this occasion because Marjorie wanted to go and do some local part-time work in a new factory. And they rang the rusty bell sharp at four, all ready to nod their heads and say it was all arranged about the factory, it was nuts, and it was two shillings an hour if it was Sundays. But of course Mrs Ernest Bisham wouldn’t want to do it for the money, they knew that, dear. Famous announcers must be very rich, and hadn’t Mrs Bisham a little money of her own, didn’t they say? And no doubt he had? Anyhow, they had such a charming house, all wandery and sort of part of the scenery, like a gingerbread cake. They arrived full of everything, and were ‘mortified’ to hear that Mrs Bisham was ‘indisposed’, making her sound like a famous actress who has really had a row with the leading man, except, of course, that in this case the leading man was far too charming. His manners were enchanting and it was such a thrill seeing the actual person who read the news over your wireless. It was fascinating.

But Bess wasn’t at all fascinated; at least, not when the de Freeces had twittered away again.

She said, about Marjorie:

‘I’m beginning to wonder why you married her! It surely wasn’t because I suggested it?’ Though if it had been a glaring success, she would have claimed this at once. ‘Much better if you’d stayed as you were, Ernest. Much better.’ She sat with a leg thrown over a bony knee balancing a Coalport teacup. Her stockings never fitted her thin legs very tightly, and her spoon never fitted the Coalport saucer very well, because of the depth of curve there.

Ernest, looking rather fat in a blue pin-stripe, stood by the high brick mantelpiece, staring with some embarrassment down at the log fire. He told her he wished she’d mind her own business and concentrate on a marriage of her own. He didn’t intend to hurt her; it was just a brotherly remark. She replied quite brightly that he couldn’t hurt her feelings like that; he knew quite well who she would have married if she’d had the chance, but men had never looked at her ‘like that’, least of all him, and so that was that. Then she said she really liked Marjorie, and she declared that Marjorie was not the ‘type’ to shut herself up in her room like this, she was too kindly. It meant that Marjorie was really becoming ill. You could be emotionally ill as well as merely having the measles. ‘But I suppose men can’t be expected to realize that! I like Marjorie much better than I thought I did. She’s all right. And you started off all right—what’s gone wrong? The first gloss has worn off, I suppose! Well, you’re very stupid. I hope you’re not behaving as if either of you is young? She is just right for you if only you give her a chance, Ernest, and handle her properly. It’s your fault if you’re pulling in different ways. Remember, she’s been married before. She knows something about men.’

‘I’ve been married before too,’ he remarked sombrely.

‘I should think the least said about that the better! What I’m trying to say is, if you wanted to play the bachelor, why didn’t you stay one? You’re still much too married to your radio, I suppose that’s it. All this success has gone to your head. You can’t treat Marjorie like that and expect to get away with it. She doesn’t look like a girl, but at heart she is one. Treat her like one.’ She stared across at him.

He was large and he was certainly getting rather plump. His shoulders were extremely large. When he wandered to the piano and played some Chopin his backview looked massive and pompous. But he looked distinguished. His greying hair did.

‘I know you always pretend to think I’m a bore,’ she called through the music. ‘But you do listen to me, even if you pretend you don’t. Why don’t you buy her a dog?’

The music stopped.

His large head turned slowly and he was grinning.

‘Buy her a dog?’ he exclaimed, amused.

She had the strange notion that now he was in profile he looked sleek and slim. The shadows, of course. He would make a magnificent cat burglar!

A quaint litle shudder ran down her spine. Imagine a scandal like that! Their family! And an important man like Ernest!

‘You’re getting inhuman and pompous,’ she heard herself exclaiming. ‘We all are, perhaps. We’re so stuck up in our little world here. There’s danger in it and it’s time we grew out of it. So many important things are happening everywhere.’ She heard herself talking about China and Russia, and the new world after the war, and saying how could it be a better world unless individuals, actual individuals, started to improve themselves, and to rid themselves of their own little weaknesses? She said she was just as guilty as anybody else.

But he was walking up and down with his cup and a piece of ginger cake and roaring with laughter about the idea of buying his wife a dog.

‘I meant a puppy, of course,’ she said crossly.

He suddenly put down his cup and his cake.

‘She knows she can have everything she likes,’ he said a little sharply, and left the room. He didn’t bang the door. He seemed to slide through doors.

His movements were oddly stealthy, weren’t they, for so large a man. Yet, for instance, you heard of huge men who could dance delightfully, whereas little men fell upon you like a ton of bricks. She supposed he had learned it in the studios. He would often talk about how you could leave the studio while somebody else was still on the air. He was often interesting about it at dinner. He would speak about ‘suspended microphones’ instead of ‘table’ ones. It was most interesting.

And then, one Saturday, he did buy Marjorie a puppy.

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