An Impossible Marriage by Pamela Hansford Johnson

Author:Pamela Hansford Johnson [Johnson, Pamela Hansford]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Bello
Published: 2010-12-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

She never forgave him. To the end of her life she did not. As she looked down the precipice of the past, which did not make her giddy at all, for it seemed to her only a little hill, she would still say, ‘You were a young girl. He should have taken better care of you. He had no right to let you do it.’

I think this was unfair. It was only half a bottle of champagne that I shared with Ned, but after two cocktails it was too much for me. I was a very poor drinker, but I do not see how he could have known this except by observation. Where I think she might have blamed him (she did not) was for losing his head and deserting me. He should have taken the blame, I think, even if he had not deserved it.

The incident, however, had a curious consequence; for Emilie, in her anger at Ned, seemed to decide that he owed her some very practical atonement. From that day forward she began to talk openly of living with us after we were married. She did so with a prim, defiant air, staring us between the eyes as she spoke, as if defying dogs to bite. Hitherto she had not taken Ned’s offer to share a home with her at all seriously. Now the idea never seemed absent from her mind. She no longer tried to impede my marriage; she simply included herself in it.

It was now accepted by everyone that we should marry at the end of the year. Mrs. Skelton was for ever trying to urge us into making the date earlier; but Ned was against it, for no reason he seemed prepared to give, and I had an impulse to cling to my freedom for the period at first appointed. Also, I rather resented his mother’s urgings; I had believed all proper mothers hated to lose their sons, and this unnatural behaviour on her part (or so I considered it) filled me with misgivings. I did not know how the business was going, and Ned did not tell me. He seemed cheerful enough. A month ago there had been the selling of some sizeable warehouse premises in Sutton; I presumed other things had been sold, since, after all, it was for such transactions that property agents existed. As for the amount of time he spent in sport or in driving around the country, I could only imagine that the duller matters were dealt with by subordinates.

In the meantime I had all the excitement of looking for a flat, deciding what I should wear for my wedding and whom I should ask to it. We were to be married in church, but I was not to wear white. ‘It’s so damn silly in this day and age, ‘Ned said, ‘and I should feel a prize ass with a lot of bridesmaids prancing after me. It’s much better style not to fuss.’

I believed I was in cordial agreement with this.

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