Free Glittering Images by Susan Howatch Page B

shelf.’
    ‘True, but one of the cruellest facts of life, Dr Ashworth, is that men prefer pretty women to be under thirty. After that women need to rely more on other resources.’
    I sensed the implication that Mrs Jardine had no other resources on which to rely, but all I said was, ‘So nothing impeded Dr Jardine’s stampede to the altar?’
    ‘On the contrary, the Swedish stepmother then made a scene and said she wouldn’t live in any house where Carrie was mistress. So she retired with the poor plain sister to a flat in Putney – which Jardine had to pay for, of course.’
    ‘But surely wasn’t this a good thing? Isn’t it better for a woman to start married life without a stepmother-in-law breathing down her neck?’
    ‘Of course. Carrie was thrilled. But Jardine was dreadfully upset. He adored this stepmother, although God knows why – she was twenty years older than he was and she weighed sixteen stone and she had very pale eyes and a very thin mouth and she spoke with a very heavy foreign accent – oh, she was
sinister,
she really was! After the row I thought she’d refuse to come to the wedding but she turned up looking wrathful – what a deathshead at the feast! The poor sister was hardly cheerful cither – she wept throughout the service, but at least she was only crying out of sentimentality. I liked the sister. Poor thing, what a wretched life she had! She died of cancer eventually, of course. I say “of course” because she was the sort of person who inevitably dies of something beastly … But I must stop digressing. You’re being wonderfully patient, Dr Ashworth, but I really am getting to the baby now, I promise –’
    ‘Don’t apologize, Lady Starmouth. I’m enrapt by the sinister stepmother.’
    ‘Well, after the wedding she sank into darkest Putney, thank God, and the Jardines floated off on their honeymoon. When they came back Carrie immediately started planning the nursery, so of course we all thought … But nothing happened. However finally the baby started. We were all so relieved, and no one was more relieved than Jardine – apart from Carrie herself, of course. He started talking to Henry about which schools the child should go to and Carrie started adding the finishing touches to the heavenly nursery – oh, what a mistake it is to count one’s chickens before they’re hatched! Eventually the worst happened and the baby – a boy – was born dead.’
    Lady Starmouth paused as if to choose her next words with care. ‘I wonder how I can convey to you how dreadful this was for the Jardines. Of course a dead baby is always a tragedy, but in this case … You see, Carrie was so absolutely sure that her one talent was for motherhood. It’s not easy for any woman to be married to a brilliant man and Carrie thought that motherhood would give her the chance to excel in a way which would command Jardine’s very special respect. And Jardine himself was longing for a family. He wanted to recreate the family life which he could remember existing before his mother died – a life which he’d almost certainly idealized but which represented to him some intensely desirable goal of domestic bliss. So both he and Carrie were united by these very urgent and powerful dreams – and that was why it was so terrible when the stillborn child tore those dreams apart.’
    She paused again and I allowed the silence to lengthen to signal my sympathy before I asked, ‘There were no other children?’
    ‘No, and in a way that was the ghastliest part of all because no doctor could tell her why nothing happened. So she went on hoping and so did he – in fact Alex once told me he went on hoping until … well, until no hope was possible any more. There! I’m calling him Alex – very improper, isn’t it, to call a man by his Christian name when he’s not a member of one’s family, but I’ve known him so long now and we’re such good friends and Henry doesn’t mind if I call Jardine