Mrs Pargeter 01; A Nice Class of Corpse

Not soul-mates, perhaps, but at least no longer in a state of open war.

? A Nice Class of Corpse ?

40

Eulalie Vance was sitting alone in the Seaview Lounge when Mrs Pargeter entered after her interview with Miss Naismith. The former actress was ensconced in one of the armchairs that were usually occupied by Colonel Wicksteed and Mr Dawlish. She was looking out over the mournful sea.

In her hands she held a hard-covered dark blue diary.

“Good morning,” said Mrs Pargeter companionably, settling into the other armchair.

“Good morning,” Eulalie contrived to make the words a long sigh as well as a greeting.

“You don’t look too perky.”

“No.”

“Problems?”

This was met by a little laugh that seemed to suggest that a new word was needed to describe the sort of problems Eulalie had.

“Anything that talking would help?” asked Mrs Pargeter. “I mean, I don’t want to pry, but…you know, a trouble shared and all that…”

“Yes.” Very quickly the actress made the decision that talking would help. “Are you a creature of passion, Melita?”

“I have been,” Mrs Pargeter replied cautiously.

“Then you know what it is like to have done things in a moment of passion, things that you subsequently come to regret?”

“Ye-es.”

“I have always been a slave to my passions,” Eulalie Vance announced with a kind of helpless pride. “As a result, there are many things in my life that I have come to regret.”

“And some, presumably, that you remember fondly?”

“Of course. God, at my age what have I got left but memories? No, there have been moments…moments again of passion, but of a different kind, that I will treasure till my dying day. Which,” she added gloomily, “may, I fear, not be far away.”

“Oh, come on. You’re good for a few years yet.”

This idea raised a desperate little laugh of cynicism. Then Eulalie’s eyes narrowed and she looked hard at her companion. “Do you believe that all is fair in love and war?”

Mrs Pargeter maintained her cautious approach. “I’ve certainly heard it said.”

“Amor vincit omnia,” Eulalie announced despairingly.

“I’ve heard that said, too.”

“Yes. What I mean is that love is so powerful, love so upturns the soul, that anything can be done in the cause of love.”

“You mean that someone in love is above the restrictions of conventional morality?”

“Exactly!” To emphasise her point, Eulalie banged the diary down on her knee. Then she became quiet and abstracted, as if the director had told her that the next scene was to show a marked change of mood. “I believe… firmly believe…that love can justify anything. But when someone is dead, it is hard not to feel the prickings of conscience…”

“When a lover’s dead…?” Mrs Pargeter prompted gently.

“Huh.” Another wild little cry of despair. “Nearly all my lovers, I fear, are dead. That is perhaps the ultimate cruelty of age, for those of us who believe in reality.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean there are two sorts of people. There are those who separate love and life, who compromise, settle down with one person, marry perhaps, and keep love as a cherished fantasy. And then there are those who live the fantasy, those who do not dream of one perfect lover, but take the lover of the moment – and take all the heartbreak that involves…”

“Ye-es.” Mrs Pargeter thought she should qualify this generalisation. After all, it didn’t match her own experience. “There are of course some who combine both, who find their fantasies are matched by reality.”

Eulalie dismissed the existence of such earthbound souls with a toss of her coiled hair. “The disadvantage is, for those who have lived the reality, as their lovers die, they too are left to feed on fantasy.”

“Yes, I suppose they are.” Mrs Pargeter wasn’t sure where all this was leading. “What exactly do you mean? Has one of your lovers died recently?”

“Not one of my lovers, no.”

“Who, then?”

“The wife of one of my lovers,” Eulalie Vance said on one sustained, soft breath.

“So does that mean your lover is now free for you?”

“Oh no.” She elongated the ‘no’ to almost impossible dimensions. “He, I fear, is long dead. No, that is the irony. While we were together, how we longed for his wife’s death. ‘If it weren’t for my wife…’ he would always say. If it hadn’t been for his wife, we could have been together years ago. But no. She lived on, and he felt a duty to her. In spite of the passion he and I shared, he still felt a duty to his wife. And, in time, he went back to her.”

“Ah. Well…That happens quite often, I believe.”

“Oh yes. It’s a cliche. To think that the love between me and Norton Selsby should have been reduced to a cliche!”

“Selsby?” said Mrs Pargeter.

“Yes.”

“Like…Mrs Selsby?”

“Yes.” There was now a wildness in Eulalie Vance’s eyes. “Mrs Selsby. That’s the final bitter irony, isn’t it? I end up by chance living in the same hotel with the faded, pale nonentity to whom duty made my lover return.”

“It must have been difficult for you,” Mrs Pargeter said judiciously. “Was anything said?”

“What could be said? She never knew.”

“Never knew her husband had had an affair with you?”

“No. Never suspected a thing. For six months Norton and I lived the heady perfection of love, drained the cup of passion to its dregs…and his bloodless wife continued her tedious domestic round and didn’t notice a thing.”

“In some ways that was rather fortunate, wasn’t it? I mean, if she had known, it could have made your both living here rather awkward, couldn’t it?”

“Huh. Oh no, it wasn’t difficult for her. Nothing had ever been difficult for her. In spite of her coldness, Norton gave her everything, bowed to her every whim. But…” Some director had once taught Eulalie the effectiveness of a mid-sentence pause. “…how do you think it must have been for me?”

“It can’t have been easy. I can see that,” Mrs Pargeter conceded.

“Not easy? You have a gift for understatement. To be constantly reminded of the past, to have constantly before me the pale, insipid thing for which he gave me up…you cannot conceive the torment.”

“So what did you do about it?”

“I was very good. Dear God, how good I was! I did nothing. I said nothing. I suppressed all the emotions boiling within my breast.” She clasped the diary to the Indian print of her substantial bosom. “I tortured myself, but I could stand it. I could stand it…until a couple of weeks ago…”

“What happened a couple of weeks ago?” asked Mrs Pargeter quietly.

“For some reason the conversation got around to letters…old letters, rereading old letters. Lady Ridgleigh, I think, started it. She said how she had kept every word that Froggie – that was her husband – had ever sent her. And then Mrs Selsby said she had kept all Norton’s letters.”

“And you were worried that there were some from you?”

“Good heavens, no! There were no letters between us. I wanted to write, but Norton said no. He was always worried about the risk of being found out, so he never wrote to me, and he wouldn’t let me write to him.”

“So what was your problem when Mrs Selsby mentioned the letters?”