The Trials of Radclyffe Hall by Diana Souhami (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📗

bought presents for her, filled the place with decorations and food: smoked salmon, anchovies, artichokes, turkey, mince pies, plum pudding, cake, marrons glacés, oranges, tangerines, bananas, grapes. ‘I do not think that even Evguenia will manage to consume it all’, Una wrote. ‘John urges me to get more and more.’

Evguenia was to arrive on Christmas Eve. At ten thirty in the morning she phoned from Torrino to say that snow in the mountains had delayed the train and she would not get to Florence until five thirty. Una had a heavy cold. She and John went to the station to check out this information. They were told no train would arrive until six forty-five. John would not believe this and insisted they go back to the station at five-thirty. She sat in a warm anteroom drinking rum grogs while Una ‘paced up and down the platform in the blast’. A train arrived at six, but Evguenia was not on it.

They returned home to find she had rung from Pisa to say she would reach Florence at eight. They went again to the station. The train arrived at eight-thirty. Evguenia was wearing a fur coat and a hat that Una described as ‘a brown saucer crowned by two felt asses ears. She was not at all tired after 26 hours’ travel. She was laden with smuggled caviare, black bread, cigarettes and cucumbers. John was tenderly pleased that even as “only a friend” she had wanted to come to her.’

35

The rain pours down, the icy wind howls

The holiday was not a success. Una described their life as like the classical view of hell: Sisyphus eternally pushing a rock up a hill, the Naiads pouring water into bottomless vessels, Tantalus reaching for elusive food. She made no mention of Cerberus, the monstrous dog, guarding the entrance to the lower world. Evguenia remarked that Una always echoed John’s views. Una told her to shut up. ‘The fat was in the fire. Torrents of abuse and accusations poured forth. She spat venom in John’s face. She ranted like a streetwalker.’ Una told Evguenia if she went on tormenting John she would write to Dr Fuller and queer her pitch at the American Hospital. On New Year’s Eve she counted the alcoholic drinks Evguenia had.

John got laryngitis and lay on a daybed in her study. Una and Evguenia ate together at a table by her open door. In a curious scene, Evguenia whispered about Una in the third person: ‘Una won’t do it just because I suggested it. It’s enough for me to say anything for Una to contradict it. Una’s mean mean mean.’

Evguenia, desperate to get back to Paris, said the visit had been a mistake. As she left she said, ‘Johnnie would you like me to stay?’ John replied, ‘Yes of course, but only if you really want to.’ Evguenia ranted again. Of course she did not want to stay, she wanted to go, to be free, free. Una made her life hell. She read her letters, pried into her financial affairs. As Evguenia slammed the front door Una wished her a comfortable journey. John puzzled about the outburst and thought it because of Evguenia’s limited command of English.

Una wanted a break. John went with her to Viareggio and Lucca. Driven there by Tito their chauffeur they travelled with Fido the poodle, three birds and Maria the maid. John was thin, coughed a lot, had infected gums and ingrowing eyelashes. At the Hotel Astor their lavatory smelled and the radiators were lukewarm. John ate no food, sat looking into space and talked and talked of Evguenia. ‘You have held in your white hands the body and mind and soul of me’, she wrote to her. ‘You have been my desire, you have been all my thoughts, you have been in every prayer that I have prayed, for you I have bombarded the gates of heaven.’

On the day they went to Lucca she was in despair. ‘The church was cold but not such as to explain her deadly coldness.’ She thought only of the time when she had been there with Evguenia. It was intolerable to return there with Una. They lunched at the same hotel. ‘Something very intimate has gone from my life – how can I explain? It is childish perhaps but many very little things have gone together with the one great, big thing. I feel bereaved.’

Evguenia reminded John that from the first she had wanted ‘just to be friends’. She was herself lonely and felt anxious if she did not get a letter from John every day. But even if it meant foregoing her allowance she could not live à trois again. Una brought out the worst in her and she only felt normal in Paris. She moved to a pension in rue d’Armaille in the seventeenth arrondissement. Dr Fuller said she was well and could winter where she chose.

John retracted the threat to make Evguenia’s allowance dependent on her wintering in Florence. She told her she wanted her to be secure, gave her stocks, shares, a War Loan and topped up her deposit account with 4,400 francs. She said she had made ample provision in her will and Evguenia would inherit a substantial income ‘unless you do something entirely outrageous which you will not, will you my darling?’ With Una, John would not commit herself to living anywhere unless Evguenia came too. She talked of a villa in Fiesole, a flat in Paris, a house in England though not in Rye.

She urged Evguenia to get a British visa in case of war. ‘In war we aught to have the same country.’ More immediately she urged her to visit Florence for Easter. Evguenia agreed but only if she came with her friend Lysa.

Pope Pius XI died and was succeeded by Eugenio Pacelli. John and Una thought him an accomplished statesman, a good fascist and on excellent terms with the Duce. They went to mass for his coronation