Page 65 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Vivian raised a glass. ‘To Porpoise Books! May the first nine vessels we have launched on a choppy sea bring their cargoes of enlightenment safely to harbour and enrich the minds of the readers.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Molly said. They drank the toast, and she added, ‘And they might as well enrich our pockets while they’re at it. It was a leap of faith on our part to sink so much money and time into them.’
‘But the first month’s sales have been good,’ Charlotte said. ‘And they’ve been awfully well received by the trade?’
‘Yes, I fancy one or two other publishers are kicking themselves that they didn’t think of it first,’ Vivian said. He seemed in buoyant mood.
Porpoise had been launched at the beginning of June with nine titles from eminent thinkers and established literary figures who were sympathetic to the scheme.
The books were Practical Economics ; A Short History of the World ; Collected Essays in Popular Science ; A Guide to Communism and Fascism ; An Introduction to Modern Architecture ; Nineteenth Century Art – an Introduction ; Childhood and Society ; Beasts and Maidens – A Modern Guide to Greek Mythology ; and The Open Door – Social Anthropology Explained .
Already prominent people had expressed approval of the list and an interest in contributing, including H. G. Wells, J. B. Priestley, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell and Winston Churchill.
‘It’s just the right time for something like this,’ Molly went on. ‘There’s such a desire for self-improvement and self-education among the striving classes these days. The war broke down many barriers to advancement. There’s a hunger for knowledge and for culture.’
Vivian picked up the copy of the Spectator he had been reading aloud from before. ‘“If there is any sense in saying that the culture of the world should be accessible to all without distinctions of wealth, such publications are helping to make it true.”’
‘That’s an accolade worth having,’ Molly said.
‘Further down the line,’ Vivian said, ‘I think there might be a strong argument for an imprint for the classics. Including poetry.’
‘How far back do you have to go before something’s a classic?’ Charlotte asked. ‘The nineteenth century? Obviously Blake, Shelley and Byron are, but Tennyson and Hopkins only died – what? – around forty years ago.’
‘I think he means epic poetry,’ Molly said. ‘Virgil and Horace. Not my pink-cheeked boys.’
‘I think modern poetry belongs in the Porpoise catalogue,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s self-improvement, surely. Something to do you good, rather than enjoy?’
‘Oh, you wicked girl!’ Molly laughed.
And Vivian said, ‘I’m ashamed to say I half agree with you. You can’t call yourself an educated person without having read the great poets, but to sit down by the fire after dinner with a volume of it? I’d sooner have one of Molly’s novels.’
‘Blatant flattery!’ Molly said.
Vivian turned to Charlotte. ‘I’ve forgotten – why wasn’t Milo able to come this evening?’
Charlotte was caught out by the change of subject. ‘Um – he had a business meeting. He sent his congratulations, of course, with his regrets.’
They didn’t divide after dinner, but Vivian went off to his wine cellar to find a particular cordial, which he had been talking about, to go with their coffee, and Molly took the opportunity to say to Charlotte, ‘You’re looking thinner since I last saw you.
And a trifle less blooming, if one might say so. Are you quite well?’
‘Oh, quite,’ Charlotte said, avoiding her eyes.
‘Are you increasing?’ Molly asked bluntly. Then, ‘No, you’d have told me straight away if you were, I’m sure. Is something bothering you? You know you can confide in me.’
Charlotte shook her head. After a bit, she said, ‘I wish Basil was here. He ought to have been raising a glass with us – he seemed to be so much a part of it all, in the early days.’
‘I suppose you haven’t heard from him? No, I imagine there isn’t much of a postal service from Spain, in the circumstances. I couldn’t be more surprised that he went, could you?’
‘I don’t know. He used to talk about having adventures.’
‘Hmm. But he always seemed to me to be wedded to his comfort. I can imagine Basil in a silk shirt sipping a cocktail, but in khaki and biting a cartridge?’ No response. ‘Do they still bite cartridges? I don’t really know much about firearms.’ No response. ‘Charlotte, dear, what’s wrong?’
She looked up at last. ‘It’s seeing you and Vivian together. That’s what I thought marriage would be like. And we used to talk so much before we were married. Or, at least …’
‘Yes?’ Molly encouraged, after a pause.
‘We did, before he went away for that long trip abroad.’ She bit her lip, thinking. ‘He changed, you know. When we first met, he was just – a sort of vagabond, devil-may-care, easy-going. He reminded me a bit of Basil, except he’s much more intelligent and better educated.’
‘Oh dear. I shan’t tell Helen you said that. When I think what those two spent on his education! No, go on, dear, I’m sorry.’
‘He didn’t care about money and titles and society and all that sort of thing.
That’s why Mummy disapproved of him at first. At least, Robert disapproved of him – Mummy just wasn’t sure about him.
But he was such fun to be with. After he came back from that trip, he was different.
He seemed the same on the surface, but underneath he was – harder. ’
‘But you still married him,’ Molly said.
‘I loved him,’ she said simply. ‘I love him. But I don’t feel I – quite – know him now. Not as I used to.’
‘Specifics?’ Molly said briskly. Vivian would be back in a moment.
‘His business friends, whom we have to entertain. I don’t feel that they’re like us. And why do we have to entertain them? You don’t do that.’
‘We have authors to dinner.’
‘That’s different. You don’t have to impress them.’
‘You have to impress these – business friends?’
‘Dinner has to be very good, the best wines. I have to have new gowns all the time. And be charming.’
‘It’s the hostess’s job to make her guests feel welcome. Look at your mother.’
Charlotte frowned. ‘I know. But it’s more than that. I can’t explain it. And there’s this business of not wanting me to work.’
‘Ah,’ said Molly. She’d been wondering about that. Since her marriage, Charlotte had been doing some editing and proof-reading at home, part time. ‘So you won’t be coming back to the office?’
‘He says I wouldn’t have time, with running the house and entertaining. But I don’t think it’s that. I think he just doesn’t want me to have a job.’
‘A lot of men don’t like it,’ she said. ‘Probably the majority, if we’re honest. Even Vivian, though he’s the most enlightened of men, sometimes feels a little put out that I’m not his helpless little woman.
He really likes it when I have a day at home writing, and have it all put away in time to greet him when he gets back from work, with my frock changed, my hair brushed and a cocktail mixed ready for him.
Sometimes it’s a nuisance for me to stop when I’m in the throes of inspiration, but I make a point of not letting him catch me still pounding away at the typewriter when he puts his key in the door. Marriage takes compromises, you know.’
Charlotte tilted her head. ‘Isn’t it always the wife that has to compromise? I don’t see with Vivian – and I really like him, honestly I do! – what he’s had to give up.’
‘Ah, well,’ Molly said. ‘That’s the way the two sexes were created. You’d have to ask God to explain that one. The caveman went off to hunt, and when he got back with the mastodon steaks, he expected the cavewoman to have collected the firewood and have the cave warm and tidy.’
‘But—’ Charlotte began, and broke off as Vivian came back in, holding a bottle.
‘It was in completely the wrong bin,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know how things move around on their own when one’s back is turned.’
Molly look amused. ‘My dear chap, if you’re thinking that I, or the servants, go into your wine cellar while you’re at work and play around with the bottles for fun, I can assure you—’
‘Oh, no, of course I don’t think that. I expect I moved it and forgot.
’ He caressed some dust from the bottle and displayed it proudly.
‘Now, this is a Frapin vintage cognac from 1906. It’s something you ought to try once in your life – if you’re lucky enough to be offered it.
’ Belatedly, he looked at them, scenting an atmosphere. ‘Did I interrupt something?’
Charlotte looked away.
Molly said cheerfully, ‘Not at all. Ring the bell, and they’ll bring the coffee. I didn’t want them bringing it in until you were back or it would have got cold.’
When the capitán , a Belgian called Dupont, asked for volunteers to make an attack on the Fascist redoubt, Basil was surprised to see his own hand go up even before Zennor’s.
They had come back from leave to find that the line had been moved about a thousand yards further forward, so it was now only a couple of hundred yards from the Fascists.
The point of the proposed exercise was to draw fire away from the main attack, which was to go in on the other side with the aim of cutting the road that supplied the besieged town.
Williams and Kellerman put up their hands, and grinned exuberantly across at Basil as Dupont outlined the plan, like children promised a treat. Basil’s shadow, Javier, also volunteered, and prodded his skinny younger brother Jorge, who had come out recently to join him, to do the same.
‘Action at last, eh?’ Zennor said to Basil. He seemed as calm as always, but Basil sensed excitement in him. ‘If it doesn’t get cancelled again.’