Pride Of Place

by Judith Glover

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

From the outside, they look like a perfect couple: beautiful, intelligent and cultured, Vanessa seems an ideal wife for Roland Antrobus, a man fifteen years her senior who runs a small art gallery in Wolverhampton. Yet both have their secrets. And the façade starts to crumble when Vanessa meets the persuasive, charming Larret Fitzgerald, fiancé of her spoilt half-sister Sybil. Vanessa finds she has placed her happiness in jeopardy and started a chain of events which dramatically alters her future... Set against an evocative and nostalgic portrait of the Black Country in the 1920s, Pride of Place is an intriguing, romantic saga from Judith Glover, author of Minerva Lane.

Release date: July 30, 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 344

Sample

Larret Fitzgerald had eyes for only one woman that evening of the party celebrating his engagement. Not Sybil Parrish his fiancée, her cheeks already flushed from drinking too much champagne and her high, little-girl laugh full of edgy excitement; no, not Sybil. It was her half-sister Vanessa whom he watched, and wanted.

Occasionally Vanessa would glance across the smoke-wreathed, crowded room in his direction, and smile that wonderful sweet smile of hers, so innocent, so unconsciously seductive; and then she would look away again as though, after all, she hadn’t really noticed him enough to wonder why their eyes kept meeting.

In this, however, Larret had been wrong. Ever since arriving an hour ago at the Victoria Hotel, where a private suite had been taken for the evening’s celebration, Vanessa Antrobus had been aware of the handsome young architect’s attention, and it embarrassed her. She liked Larret Fitzgerald – what she knew of him – and was genuinely pleased that her half-sister Sybil had made such a catch; but just now she would prefer that he paid more regard to his fiancée, and rather less to herself, even though it was flattering in an awkward sort of way to be stared at with quite such admiration.

Larret had a habit of staring like that, Vanessa had noticed. She secretly thought him a bit of a lady-killer, though her husband Roland Antrobus dismissed him as just a male flirt in love with his own Irish charm. Roland could be quite scathing about people – spiteful, almost – but in this Vanessa was inclined to agree with him, that Larret Fitzgerald was a flirt.

She glanced back over her shoulder. Between the shifting, animated faces of the other guests she could see Larret and Sybil together, arms lovingly entwined, talking to another couple; but even as she watched, his glance moved beyond them to seek her out again, and self-consciously she found herself wondering suddenly what sort of lover he would be.

‘Darling, I really think you should go and be polite to the Parrishes.’ Her husband’s voice, raised above the syncopated rhythm of the jazz trio, brought her back. ‘We can’t ignore them the entire evening, you know.’

‘I suppose not. I’ll go across in just a while.’ She reached up to brush a speck of something from the black satin lapel of Roland’s dinner jacket, the chandelier lights catching the fire of an antique rose-cut diamond on her left hand. Roland had bought her that ring on their own engagement two years ago in 1925; now it was partnered by the plain gold wedding band he’d placed upon her finger twelve months later.

‘In any case, I waved hello to them as we came in,’ she added as excuse. ‘Mother won’t think it rude of me that I didn’t join them straight away. They wouldn’t expect it, not this evening, not when they’ve got Sybil to fuss over.’

As she spoke Vanessa glanced automatically towards a middle-aged couple seated inside the arch of a window alcove. Even from this distance she could see the nervousness in her mother’s face from the strain of trying to humour the bald-headed man beside her, Vanessa’s stepfather, Ernest Parrish, and the peevish sourness of Mr Parrish’s expression fixed in permanent irritation.

‘Actually, I will go and have a word with Mother,’ Vanessa went on suddenly, finishing off the cocktail she’d been drinking. ‘I’ll catch her while she’s unoccupied – will you come?’

‘Not at the moment,’ Roland answered. ‘A little later, perhaps.’

He took his wife’s empty glass and put it down, watching as she made her way between the noisy groups of guests, her small neat head with its shining bobbed helmet of hair held so gracefully erect on the slender stem of her neck. He still found himself astonished that he’d made such an extraordinarily beautiful acquisition when he married her, even though the union had caused raised eyebrows and some snide remarks from those who’d had him marked down at almost forty as a confirmed bachelor. Now they were all too busy telling him what a remarkably lucky beggar he was. If they did but know …

Vanessa saw her mother’s faded, pretty features break into a look of relief as she approached the alcove table.

‘Hello, Mother dear.’ She bent to kiss the air beside the offered cheek, her face just brushing the dry, soft skin. ‘Good evening, Father.’ A polite smile for Ernest Parrish, who returned it with a nod through the blue cloud of his cigarette smoke. ‘How are you both?’

‘Your mother’s complaining of a headache from this dratted music,’ said Mr Parrish tersely.

‘Oh, no, not really, Ernest, I only remarked it seemed a weeny bit loud—’ Mrs Parrish hastened to appease him, looking at him quickly in her timid, fearful way. ‘I’m sure it’s very nice, very modern. It’s what Sybil wanted for her party.’

Mr Parrish drew on his cigarette. ‘And how are things with you these days, my girl?’ he asked Vanessa. ‘A pity you can’t visit your mother more often to let her know how you are. She worries, you know.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s a matter of finding the time.’ Not strictly true, but then it wouldn’t be polite to tell the truth, that she visited the house at Tettenhall Green so seldom because she hated the memories the place contained.

‘Our Sybil’s as bad,’ Mr Parrish went on, his thin mouth tightening under the waxed moustache. ‘We’ve hardly heard a word from her since she took herself off to work at that gown-shop in Birmingham. Too busy swanning around, I suppose, like you.’

Vanessa let the criticism pass. She had long ago trained herself not to respond to her stepfather’s barbs, and since leaving home almost four years ago when she was eighteen, she had matured enough not to let his dislike hurt her as it had all through her childhood. There were some things she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him for – destroying all the evidence of her own father’s existence so that she’d never seen so much as a photograph, for instance – but it was easier to understand now why he had always resented her presence, why he’d always pushed her into the background in favour of his own child, her half-sister Sybil.

‘Sybil’s looking very glamorous this evening, isn’t she,’ she said, and at once Mr Parrish’s expression softened a little. ‘She and Larret are so well-matched.’

‘Yes, they make a handsome young pair.’ His eyes sought out his daughter, now engaged in an energetic Charleston, the boyish figure in its bugle-beaded frock and bandeau claiming everyone’s applauding attention. ‘Marriage will do her good, quieten her down a bit,’ he added, leaning forward to stub out his cigarette.

‘Oh, how nice, here’s Mr Fitzgerald coming to join us—’ Mrs Parrish brightened nervously, touching a hand to her hair as she caught the young man just making his way towards their table.

Vanessa glanced round.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I’d better go back and find Roland again,’ she said rather too quickly, ‘you don’t mind, do you, Mother? Only it’s awkward for him, not knowing anyone here.’

‘I hope your husband will condescend to come and speak to us before the end of the evening,’ said Ernest Parrish as she was turning to move away. ‘You’d best remind him of his manners, I think. He’s an invited guest, after all, and it’s me that’s paying for his entertainment.’

Vanessa felt indignation stain her cheeks. She exchanged a look with her mother. Then, mastering herself, she responded, ‘Of course,’ and left it at that; but her stepfather’s boorishness had stung her. As she went past Larret Fitzgerald she gave the young man no more than the briefest of smiles, leaving him staring after her in disconcertion.

Later, towards eleven o’clock when she and Roland had made their farewells and left the party, Vanessa said suddenly and rather vehemently as she was getting into the car, ‘I wish we didn’t live in Wolverhampton. I wish we lived a hundred miles away.’

Her husband didn’t answer. He had found the whole evening a strain, having to mix with a crowd of young and slightly drunken people, none of whom he knew or wished to know, having to endure their inanely artificial chatter; worse, having to make himself polite to that wretchedly unlikeable little man Ernest Parrish.

He put the Morris Cowley into gear and started away, the acetylene headlamps cutting a wedge of yellow light through the darkness of the sidestreet. In Queen Square there was still a number of people about, coming from the pubs to catch a last trolley-bus home; but once beyond Chapel Ash and into Compton Road the only signs of life were the illuminated windows of houses behind high laurel hedges, and the occasional figure strolling along the pavement with a dog.

Compton Road was one of the better-class areas of Wolverhampton. At its top end was the Grammar School where Roland Antrobus had been educated, and at the other, running into countryside, the handsome private residence of Compton Hall. The Antrobus’s house lay somewhere in between and was a fairly substantial Victorian villa in the Gothic style which had earlier belonged to Roland’s parents, now both deceased. He had been their only child, born late in the marriage, and had inherited not only the house but a substantial income from his father’s prudent investments on the Stock Market.

Without the obligation to work for a living, Roland Antrobus had been in the happy position of choosing to indulge his interest in the Arts, and after military service during the Great War he had opened a gallery in premises in the town centre, exhibiting works by Midland painters, potters and sculptors. He was a man with an eye for proficiency and promise; he appreciated talent where he saw it. Consequently he had succeeded by the age of thirty-seven in building for himself and his gallery a reputation second to none in the area.

Turning the Morris Cowley into the gravelled drive of ‘Mayville’, Roland brought the car to a stop in front of the coach-house doors and switched off the engine.

‘Thank God to be home!’ he said with some feeling. ‘I’m afraid I found this evening a most thoroughly tiresome experience. I’m sorry.’

‘I have to admit, so did I,’ Vanessa agreed. ‘And there’s Sybil’s wedding still to look forward to – though we do have six months’ respite.’

Roland groaned. Getting out, he walked round to open the passenger door, putting a hand under her elbow to help her from the car. The sound of their arrival had been heard within the house, for one of the maids was already at the front door.

‘Thank you, Iris.’ Vanessa gave her a smile as she went up the porch steps and past the neatly-uniformed girl into the hall. ‘You needn’t wait up any longer – oh, unless you want anything, do you, darling?’ she added quickly, turning to Roland who was following behind.

‘No, no, you can go to bed now, Iris. I’ll see to the locking up myself.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ The housemaid dipped a curtsy, and after taking their outdoor clothes, left them to go into the drawing room where a fire was still burning cheerfully against the dampness of the February night.

‘Can I get you a nightcap?’ Roland went over and poured himself a generous measure of whisky from one of the crystal decanters on a satinwood console-table. ‘A small brandy, or something?’

‘A brandy would be lovely, thank you, darling.’

Vanessa threw herself gratefully down in one of the deep armchairs beside the fire and pushed off her shoes, curling her toes like a child against the warmth of the flames. The pale amber glow of the electric wall-lights gave a sheen to her flawless skin, and gilded the smooth silky fairness of her hair. There could be no doubt why Roland Antrobus had married her. He was a man who enjoyed the possession of beautiful things; and to all who saw her Vanessa was strikingly beautiful, the epitome of the 1920s ideal with her long, slender, graceful limbs, and slim, small-breasted figure which lent itself so perfectly to the tubular curve-less fashions of the day.

‘Thank you, darling,’ she said again, reaching to take the glass her husband handed her.

He went and seated himself opposite.

‘By the way, I forgot to mention – I’ve found a new tenant for the flat,’ he remarked after a moment, referring to the second-floor apartment above the Antrobus Gallery.

‘Anyone I know?’ Vanessa took a sip of brandy. She had particular reason to be interested, since the flat held such romantic memories: for almost eighteen months after packing her bags and leaving her stepfather’s house, she had rented the place from Roland – at that time her landlord – and so began an acquaintance which later had ripened into love and the lifetime’s commitment of marriage.

‘No, I don’t think you’ll know the chap,’ he answered. ‘His name’s Michael Wright. Matter of fact, he’s teaching at the School of Art and Design. Only started there last term. I may be able to sell one or two of the etchings he’s brought in for me to look at – they’re very good, very spare and clean, rather in the style of Charles Meryon.’

Vanessa smothered a small yawn with her hand. ‘I thought Charles Meryon only did architectural subjects.’

‘That’s right. He did. Clever girl for remembering.’ Roland was pleased by his young wife’s intelligent observation. ‘Meryon’s reputation rests on a small number of plates he did of the streets and churches of Paris—’ He launched into a dissertation which, despite her interest, Vanessa felt a little too tired to follow; then concluded, ‘This fellow who’s coming into the flat is doing a series on Wolverhampton architecture – not churches so much, but commercial buildings, the Grand Theatre, the Market Hall, that sort of thing.’

Vanessa yawned again. The brandy combined with the lateness of the hour and the warmth from the fire was starting to make her feel sleepy.

‘What’s your opinion of Larret Fitzgerald?’ she heard herself enquire suddenly. The question startled her. What on earth brought Larret into her mind just then? ‘As an architect, I mean,’ she added awkwardly.

‘I don’t know that I have an opinion.’ Roland looked faintly non-plussed. ‘I’ve never seen any of his work. Why do you ask, darling?’

‘Oh … just mild interest, since we were speaking of architecture.’ She passed the subject off.

‘I will tell you one thing—’ Finishing his whisky, her husband got from his chair. ‘I can’t see him and Sybil making a go of things. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if that engagement weren’t to be called off. Save us having to attend the ghastly wedding, at any rate.’

‘Why should it be called off? Sybil adores him!’

‘Sybil’s an emotional mayfly. An immature emotional mayfly. And Mr Fitzgerald simply happens to be the latest handsome novelty.’

‘Now, darling, that’s not fair—’ Bending to pick up her discarded shoes, Vanessa rose in turn and handed him her glass. ‘They’ve known one another for at least a year. And I don’t think my stepfather would have consented to the engagement if he suspected Larret was just another of Sybil’s pashes.’

‘Sybil can twist your stepfather round one scarlet-painted finger,’ said Roland unpleasantly, going and putting their empty glasses on the decanter tray. ‘If Daddy’s little sweetie wants a thing badly enough, Daddy’s little sweetie has to have it. A frock or a fiancé, what’s the difference. Anyway, why are we discussing Sybil—’

Suddenly irritable, he took up the poker and began prodding at the coals, making the fire safe before adjusting the guard.

Tactfully, Vanessa let the matter drop. ‘Look at the time – I think I’ll be off to bed now. Will you be long?’

‘I might have another whisky before I lock up. Don’t stay awake for me.’ Straightening, Roland kissed her lightly on the forehead. ‘Night, darling. Sleep tight.’

It was a charade they went through at the end of every evening, this ‘will you be long’ and ‘don’t stay awake’ and ‘sleep tight’. Vanessa occasionally wondered why they bothered to keep it up. It would be easier and more honest simply to wish one another good-night and go to separate beds, in separate rooms; except Roland insisted they must share the same double bed for the sake of appearances – no, not appearances, so much as for the sake of pride. As long as he and Vanessa still slept together they could both go on pretending there was nothing amiss with a marriage which after twelve months of loving intimacy had yet to be consummated.

When one was young and very inexperienced in affairs of life, as Vanessa was, twelve months was a long time to spend with one other person. She was growing accustomed now to the rather unusual relationship shared with her husband. She loved him very much, very dearly. These days it no longer troubled her quite so much that he demanded nothing of her in the way of sexual intimacy.

At first, naturally, the fact that she didn’t seem able to arouse him properly had used to upset her, used to make her feel terribly guilty of failing him somehow, even though the failure was his and not her own. Before she’d married Roland, Vanessa had been proud of her virginity; but to be somebody’s wife and still a virgin struck her as being a matter almost for shame, as though she were not a ‘real’ woman.

She could have sought medical advice, but that would have been to admit her own inadequacy. She was very naive about sexual congress. Her only tuition had been the sniggering secrets whispered by more knowledgeable school-chums, and later, the occasional half-embarrassed references made by women friends. She had longed to ask questions, discover the answers, satisfy her aching curiosity; but no one talked much about sex. It simply wasn’t considered the done thing, not by ‘nice’ girls.

And so she continued in ignorance, knowing there must be more to the intimate side of marriage than merely kisses and closeness and sleeping in the same bed together; yet not knowing what, and being too inhibited to ask. It was not the ideal all-consuming passionate relationship of which she used to dream, but it held kindness, and loving affection, and security, and with that Vanessa learned to be content.

The large Art Deco-decorated bedroom felt chilly after the warmth downstairs. She undressed quickly, laying her clothes over the back of a chair for one of the housemaids to hang away in the morning. From choice, she didn’t have a personal maid; young Iris normally saw to her wardrobe.

Once ready for bed, she climbed between the sheets and lay for a while thinking back over this evening, waiting for the blessed unconsciousness of sleep to claim her. Her hand touched her breast under the silk of the pyjamas Roland liked her to wear. She thought about Larret Fitzgerald for a second, then turned onto her side and shut him from her mind.

The Welsh county of Pembrokeshire had always held a particular attraction for the English – so much so that the county was known as ‘little England beyond Wales’. Its Welshness had become diluted. In its dramatic coastal scenery, its patchwork landscape, its sturdy little villages, there was more than a look of Devon or of Cornwall; and even its accent held something of the soft West Country burr.

Pembrokeshire people were an interesting mixture, an amalgam of Norman–French and Norse as well as English and Celt, enriched in centuries past by the hotter blood of Mediterranean mariners. It was a mixture which produced poets and dreamers and lovers.

Vanessa’s father, Owen James, had been a Pembroke man. His home was the small fishing village of Amroth, along the coast from Tenby, where the Jameses had been settled for generations. In the 1890s Vanessa’s grandmother had opened a boarding-house, and among the families who came each year to spend their fortnight’s holiday was one from Wolverhampton, with a young unmarried daughter named Florence.

Owen James and Florence fell in love. For three idyllic summers the good-looking Welshman courted the lovely fair-haired English girl, stealing her away for rides through the high-hedged lanes, or walking with her on the sands at sunset. When the holidays were over and Florence had returned to Wolverhampton, her lover kept alive their tender romance with his poetry – not clumsy bumpkin doggerel, but lyrics of disturbing mystic imagery. Young Owen James had talent. Though a fisherman by occupation, at the age of twenty-three he’d already published a volume of his verse, and on the strength of that single collection, promised to be one of the most gifted poets of his generation.

Alas, Florence’s father was opposed to their betrothal. She was already ‘intended’ by the family for another man, her second cousin Ernest Parrish. Ernest was a solicitor, very respectable. Ernest was sound and solid, no nonsense there. Ernest had his own house, a nice neat property at Tettenhall Green, just waiting for a little wife to make it home.

Florence didn’t want her cousin Ernest Parrish. He was as dull as ditchwater, and small-minded with it. She wanted Owen James, Owen’s passion and romance and laughter, and she didn’t care a hoot where they lived, palace or pigsty, as long as they could be together. Let Ernest keep his nice neat property and his solid, respectable life. Florence’s heart had been stolen away by a poet, a handsome young man with the sea in his eyes and the wind in his hair; she had fallen in love with the sound of his voice, with his gift to change words into music so glorious it conjured the stars from the sky.

Compared to all this, cousin Ernest had nothing to offer.

In the spring of 1904, Florence and Owen eloped. They were married by special licence, and set up home in a harbourside cottage at Tenby, where their life together was one of blissfully contented domesticity. In September the following year, their daughter Vanessa was born, and in an effort at reconciliation with her parents Florence took the baby back to Wolverhampton.

Had she been an unmarried mother bringing home her bastard child, the reception could hardly have been frostier. Only Ernest Parrish, surprisingly, had a civil word to say to her; though like the rest of the family, he treated her elopement as something only slightly short of kidnap, and her marriage as an act of gross seduction.

She stayed a week, no more, hating their narrowness, their enmity for Owen, and took her baby back to Wales determined she would never again return to Wolverhampton.

Fate, unfortunately, had other plans for Florence.

Her husband – popularised by admiring critics as the Fisher Poet – was working aboard a smack with the Tenby fleet. On a freezing, squally, winter’s day in the New Year of 1906, the boats encountered foul weather in the open seas beyond Carmarthen Bay, and with their decks awash and a force nine gale battering them about, they’d turned and made a run of it for home. Conditions were atrocious. Caught broadside on by icy waves that thundered down in wind-whipped sheets of water, one of the smacks capsized. Despite the efforts of their mates, not a single member of the crew survived.

It was days before the sea gave up its drowned, young men to be mourned for the waste of their lives and their talent; and none more than the Fisher Poet.

Florence always said in later years that her own life ended there in the sand and weed and seawrack – the life of the girl who’d been Owen James’s wife, who had lain in his strong safe arms and shared the precious gift of his golden love. When he had died, Florence’s heart died too, and all there was left was an empty, hollow shell.

Yet she still had Owen’s legacy, his child; and although she could perhaps have stayed in Tenby, in the end she’d swallowed her bitterness and for Vanessa’s sake went home to Wolverhampton. It was a decision Florence afterwards regretted, but at the time her state of mind was so disturbed, so numbed by the savage agony of grief, that it was a natural reaction to turn to her own family.

Their way of dealing with the situation was to behave as though her marriage to Owen James had never existed. A pity there was a child; but since its presence could not be ignored, it must be tolerated. After a decent interval of time, cousin Ernest asked Florence to become his wife, making it clear that his proposal was an act of charity for which she should be duly grateful. He could have looked elsewhere, he pointed out, but family loyalty constrained him to whitewash over what had gone before, and ignore those errors for which Florence, badly influenced, could not be truly held responsible. She had been foolish; and she’d suffered for it. Ernest was satisfied she would not be so imprudent as to refuse the rehabilitation to decent so. . .