Running to Paradise by Virginia Budd

Court, Kensington — 10th November 1912
    Dick to see me. He arrived unexpectedly, straight from the office. Nothing suitable to eat, of course. Roo at her people’s and I had told Cook just a tray for me would do. So he took me out to dine — quite like old times! We laughed a lot during dinner (at that new Hungarian place, violins sawing away like billy-o and everybody there, such fun. I felt quite gay and giggly). It was splendid to hear dear Dick laugh again. Poor old boy, I’ve not heard him do so since darling Rosie’s death and that is over a year ago now. Although I never cease to think of our poor little one and her happy ways, it is good to forget sometimes — life must go on.
    After dinner, we walked along the Embankment, arm in arm: brilliant stars and moonlight. The river looked so beautiful, but the air so cold the pavement was white with frost.
    ‘ I’m in trouble, Beth dear,’ Dick said. ‘Things are so damned difficult I don’t seem able to see a way out.’ I asked him what he meant. I had thought matters between him and Con were better again after the trouble last April. ‘It’s not just that,’ he burst out, ‘though God knows that’s bad enough. It’s the business. I made a few unwise speculations — a chap I met at the club, seemed to know what’s what, old Etonian, member of the MCC, said it was a cert, couldn’t lose. He went down for thousands, but I lost enough.’ What to say? I was flummoxed. Dick was never good over money, but Con took over the purse strings when they married. As Papa said: ‘Filly’s got a damned good head for business on her shoulders. Should have been a man. She’s a damned sight more of one than all those brothers of hers.’
    ‘ You must tell Con,’ I said. ‘She will know what to do for the best.’
    ‘ You too?’ he said, oh so bitterly. ‘You agree with everyone else: I’m incapable of providing properly for my own family, my wife must do it for me.’ I tried to calm him down and made him tell me everything. Renton won’t have to go — yet —but they must cut down, because the business has to come first. I offered to help. My portion from Mama is untouched: Roo and I are quite able to live as we wish on our incomes.
    ‘ You’re a Trojan, Beth,’ he said and hugged me, ‘you always were.’ He promised he would tell Con the whole, but will he stick to his promise? He’s such a dear, but has he told me all? Only the other day Polly Bigland saw him outside the Ritz in Paris with a woman of a certain class ‘simply covered in fox and smelling of cheap scent,’ Polly said. Con thought he was shooting with the Ainsleys in Gloucestershire. What can one say at such times? We walked as far as Chelsea Old Church, where he put me in a hansom for home. He would walk to his rooms, he said. So strange, he hasn’t bared his soul in that way for years; not since his last half at Harrow when there was all that trouble.
    Roo returns tomorrow. I’m glad. Tiresome though she is at times, the flat is empty without her.
    Garden Court, Kensington — 10th December 1912
    Con to stay for shopping. Such fun! The flat is full of parcels and pretty Christmas paper. Con told me about the money. I’d promised Dick to pretend I knew nothing of it so showed (I hope) surprise when she broached the matter.
    ‘ He’s such a fool,’ she said, ‘to take such people seriously just because they were at school at Eton and a member of the MCC! If Father had used such criteria for doing business, we would still be selling clothes pegs in Shropshire.’ Dear Con, she does exaggerate, but, of course (as usual), she’s right. It was foolish of Dick to take the advice of such a man. They’ve been forced to cut down at Renton. Con has sold one of her hunters. ‘I’m rarely fit to ride now,’ she said. No great sacrifice, then, I thought. Dick to give up his rooms in town for the time being; Con wants him under her eye!
    ‘ I have been down to the office,’ she