He brought his mouth down hard on hers. She lifted her arms, held him; the light-muscled shoulders bunched beneath her fingers. Her skirt and petticoat slid over her hips; she felt him smile against her mouth as his long fingers tangled in the ribbon of her corset. He lifted her, naked, to the smooth, cold leather of a deep couch.
“Bed later,” he said, “and later again. And then strawberries. The best you’ve ever tasted, I promise.”
Chapter Thirty
She felt that it must, surely, be written all over her – the happiness, the change. She was astonished to find that she could live her life as if nothing had happened. The world around her was absurdly normal. She lived two lives; as wife, mother, businesswoman she continued as she always had, while another Molly lived for the sight of Adam, the sound of his voice, the touch of his graceful, practised body. The sensible Molly, recognizing infatuation, was aware that a flame so fierce was inevitably dangerous. She suffered pangs of guilt at her deception, moments of near-panic at the thought of discovery. But for the moment that other surprising self was in the ascendancy and happiness more than counterbalanced misgiving. They met, when they could, in Adam’s apartment. It was not easy, and their meetings were infrequent, a fact that only served to sharpen the hunger that each felt for the other.
In September Annie and Charley took the children to Kent, and while there was never any question that Adam should come to The Larches, Molly found herself more frequently able to visit him. The weeks moved on – October loomed. Adam was going away again. She tried not to think about it, found herself dwelling on the thought more and more often. He would forget her. He would decide to stay in America. She would never see him again—. Adam laughed at her fears, but, typically, was not reassuring at the cost of honesty.
“Who knows about tomorrow? Why ask? Haven’t we agreed that it’s now that counts? This very minute?” As he spoke the first gust of autumn rain hit against the bedroom window and slid down the glass like tears.
Strangely enough her relationship with Jack improved during this time, perhaps because, due to a strange combination of happiness and guilt, she herself was kinder, less touchy, more considerate than she had been for some time. She still loved Jack; that was one of her earliest and most surprising discoveries – not in the wild, almost obsessive way in which she loved Adam, if indeed the feeling that she had for Adam could be described as love, but quieter and with roots that went into a shared past that no one else could displace. Jack’s presence, his strength, his support, were things she had taken for granted; the knowledge that she might, through her own actions, forfeit them, frightened her. She found herself trying to please him – small, and not entirely selfish attempts to ease her conscience. Their relationship steadied and regained some of its harmony. Above all she knew that she did not want to hurt him.
But she could not, would not, stop seeing Adam.
* * *
In early October, two weeks after Adam had left for America, the twins started school, joining Danny, and Molly, with some relief, found her days entirely her own and her energies channelled once more into the agency. There was plenty to keep her busy.
She walked into Nancy’s office one day to find her sister-in-law absorbed in a magazine.
Nancy looked up. “Seen this?”
“What is it?”
“First edition of Votes for Women. Good cover, isn’t it?”
Molly considered the front page. The enormous, thoughtful figure of a seated woman, chin in hand, brooded over the dwarfed Houses of Parliament. “Yes, it is.”
“‘The Haunted House’, it’s called. Clever, mm?” Nancy had wandered to the window. “It isn’t raining, is it?”
“No. Why?” Molly looked up sharply. “Oh, Nancy, no. You aren’t going chalking again, are you?”
Nancy looked over her shoulder, shrugged, did not reply.
“Where’s the meeting?”
“East Ham Town Hall. Tomorrow.”
“Well why on earth don’t you hand out bills, or stick up posters or something instead of chalking all over pavements and walls?”
“Cheaper,” Nancy said succinctly.
“Not very dignified.”
“You sound like Jack.”
“Is it legal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t you find out?”
“I expect I will one day, one way or another.” Nancy, at the door, paused and looked back. “Coming to the meeting?”
“Nancy, I haven’t a spare minute tomorrow. You know it.”
“Fair enough. What about next Tuesday?”
“Another meeting?”
“Sort of. A get-together at the Edmontons’. In the evening. She particularly asked me to take you along.”
Molly shrugged. “I should think I could manage that, at least.”
* * *
She was amazed – and amused – on that following Tuesday to find herself, as a woman who had started her own business and was making a success of it, something of a celebrity.
“I think it’s absolutely splendid, my dear,” said Mrs Edmonton, a tall, imposing figure with untidy greying hair that refused to stay neatly in the bun that its owner’s maid had composed for it. “A few more like you and we’d have won the battle long ago.”
“Oh, I hardly think—”
“Nonsense. You’re a pioneer, young woman. Living proof of the stupidity of a society that keeps half its population unproductively in chains. Or tries to. Congratulations. You’ve done wonderfully well. And Irish too,” she added with tactless forthrightness, “my goodness.”
“Oh, Mother!” Christopher squirmed with embarrassment.
“What? What’s the matter, boy?”
Molly, stifling laughter, left them.
* * *
Winter swooped, in gales and rain; Christmas approached.
The children decorated The Larches with paper chains and sprigs of holly. Sarah arrived with considerate and very welcome gifts, the cakes and puddings that she guessed that Molly had not had time to make. Molly hugged and kissed her warmly. “How many more times are you going to save my life, Mam?” She thought for a rare few minutes of Christmases at home, with her own mother’s cakes and puddings, Mass at midnight, the boys and her father sober as judges until the Child was safely born, then off to celebrate and endure thick heads for three days.
On New Year’s Day, as she and Nancy tried to organize themselves for the new year in the slightly hungover atmosphere of the old, the telephone rang.
“Hello?”
“Happy New Year.”
She recognized the voice with a jolt of pleasure that was close to pain. “And to you. How long have you been home?”
“A week or so. I came back for Christmas.” The line hissed and crackled. “Molly?”
“I’m here.”
“Could you make it next Thursday afternoon? I’ve so much to tell you—”
As soon try to prevent a swallow from flying south. Half-formed resolutions crumpled like paper. “Yes.”
And so it began again.
* * *
The dark early months of the year passed quickly. Green buds appeared on the dingy plane trees of Plaistow and in the leafless winter garden of a Kensington square. And in March, with daffodils showing a golden promise in the green and the north-moving sun bringing a temperate early warmth, Nancy Benton was arrested again. She and Christopher had been out chalking notices and had been caught by an unsympathetic policeman. Nancy had stood her ground stoutly, refused to rub out the notice, refused to allow herself to be moved on. The policeman had grown abusive; Nancy had given as good as she got. The scene had drawn a crowd, good-humoured, ready to enjoy a show, and Nancy had given them one, delivering a speech that would have been a credit to one of the Pankhursts. The policeman, at the end of his patience, had tried to arrest her. Nancy, to the crowd’s delight, had resisted tooth and nail and size five boots.
Christopher Edmonton had run away.
It was very like visiting someone in hospital, Molly thought, seated opposite a Nancy almost unrecognizable in rough, dark arrow-marked dress, coarse pinafore and cap. Conversation was awkward, next to impossible. And the smell…
“You and your damned chalk,” Molly said, trying to smile brightly.
“Yes.” After only a few days Nancy’s face was painfully angled, the hollows beneath her eyes were like bruises, yet the strength of her spirit shone through, defying pity. She leaned forward, her face intense. “Molly, we don’t have long. There’s something I want you to do for me. Go and see Christopher. Tell him not to worry. There was nothing he could have done. Nothing. I don’t want him to be unhappy, to think that he let me down.”
Molly did not speak, but her expression was enough.
“Please, Moll. Do it for me. Don’t let him think that I blame him for—” she hesitated.
“For running away,” Molly said bluntly.
“For being sensible and saving himself while he could. You can’t fight a war with all your soldiers in prison, can you?”
“You can’t fight one by running away, either.”
“You don’t understand.” She ignored the sardonic movement of Molly’s mouth. “He’ll be terribly upset, I know. Please, go and see him. Tell him what I said. Please, Molly.”
“All right. I’ll tell him.”
Nancy relaxed, sat back in the wooden chair. “Thank you.” She smiled, wryly. “I’m sorry. I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Left you in the lurch. Are you managing?”
“I’m saving my nervous collapse for next week, don’t worry.”
“Is everyone—” Nancy paused, corrected herself with painful honesty. “—Is Jack mad?”
“As a hornet.”
“I thought he might be.”
“No fine-paying this time.”
“I didn’t expect it. I just wish that Jack would try to understand, that’s all.” Nancy made a sudden, exasperated movement; the sombre-looking wardress who stood close by moved a sharp step nearer. “If he’d just come and see. That it isn’t play. Who’d put up with this for nothing? You’d think, of all people, that my pig-headed brother’d see what it’s all about, wouldn’t you?”
“He’ll come round,” Molly said unconvincedly, “eventually.” She was crushed by the oppressive atmosphere, the massive walls, the ugly hostility of the place. “I don’t know how you can do it,” she admitted softly, “I couldn’t…” Then, impulsively, she said, “Nancy, are you sure? I could raise the money. You could be home tomorrow—” She regretted it almost as soon as the words were out, seeing the stubborn pain in Nancy’s eyes.
“No. Absolutely no. A couple of weeks. It isn’t a lifetime. I’ll be all right. Don’t pay it. But Molly—”
“Yes?”
“See Christopher for me. Tell him. Anyone can swing a fist. There are other strengths.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Time’s up.” The wardress’s voice matched her face: closed and sour.
Nancy stood up docilely, flashed a small rebellious smile at Molly and was gone.
A fortnight later she was released, several pounds lighter in weight and totally unreformed. This time Molly was not the only one there to meet her.
“God bless yer, girl,” called one of the women who had gathered by the gate, many of them with rosettes and ribbons of white, purple and green pinned to their lapels or decorating the wide brims of their hats.
“Splendid, my dear, splendid. We’re all so very proud of you.” Mrs Edmonton shook Nancy’s hand fiercely. There was no sign of Christopher.
“I did see him, yes,” Molly, a little uncomfortably, said later in reply to Nancy’s question, “and I told him what you said.”
Nancy, hearing the reservation in Molly’s tone, eyed her sister-in-law reproachfully, but said no more.
She did not see Christopher until nearly a week after her release, when he came, finally, one soft spring evening, to a house that was empty of everyone but Nancy, Molly having taken the children to visit their grandmother and Jack not yet arrived home from work.
Nancy opened the door to him, greeted him with easy friendliness, ignored his stammering awkwardness, preceded him up the stairs. In the little slope-ceilinged room he slumped into a chair, not looking at her, his clasped hands dangling loose between his knees, his shoulders drooping.
“I thought you wouldn’t let me in. Wouldn’t want to see me. I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
She did not answer, but he would not lift his eyes.
“I told you I was a coward.”
“You’ve told me a lot of things.”
“Do you hate me?”
“Christopher Edmonton,” she said, softly exasperated, “will you look at me?”
He kept his head down for one more stubborn moment, then lifted it. Tears glinted, slid down his face. “I’m sorry, Nancy, sorry, sorry—” Shame racked him. “I was afraid. Panic-stricken. I ran away. Left you to—” His voice choked to silence.
Nancy stepped closer to him, put her hand on his head and drew it gently to her, as she might that of a distressed child.
“Chris, dear, don’t. Please don’t. Didn’t Molly tell you what I said?”
“Yes. But I could tell what she really thought.”
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. We know. We know each other, and we know the truth. You’re kind and you’re gentle. That’s better than being brute-brave. You’re afraid of physical pain—” his head moved against her “—you can’t help that. And one day you’ll learn to fight it. That’s what real courage is. Not lack of fear, but learning to accept and then to face it. To do the things you know you should do in spite of fear. You’ll come to it.”
“No.” He tried to pull away from her.
“Yes! Yes, you will.”
Downstairs a door opened and closed.
“I won’t! I’ll never be able to. I’m a dis-disgusting coward!” He wrenched himself free, flung himself from the chair, away from her.
She caught his arm. “A coward wouldn’t be here now.”
“It isn’t strength that brought me here.” He was trembling violently. “It’s weakness again. I couldn’t stay away. I tried, I knew I should, but I couldn’t. I had to see you, even if you hated me, even if you despised me, as I do myself. Why don’t you? Oh, Nancy, why don’t you?” He was sobbing now, his hand covering his face.
“Christopher,” said Nancy, quietly, helplessly, “how could I despise you? How could I?”
His sobs died. He stayed for a long moment half-turned from her, his face still hidden. Then very slowly he turned to face her.
She looked up at him, steadily, compassion in her eyes. “Silly boy,” she said, teasing gently.
Blood suddenly suffused his face. “Don’t say that! Don’t. I’m not a boy—” Before she could move his arms were around her, clutching her to him; clumsily he kissed her, with a roughness born of desperation and total inexperience. She felt his tears on her face, tasted their salt. When he released her abruptly, appalled at his own action, she stood stock-still.
“God, Nancy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She reached a cool, thin hand to his face. “Don’t be.”
The moment was suspended in space, a drop of time, enclosing them in silence and in love. It was Nancy who lifted her face to him. Unbelievingly he bent to her, uncertain, afraid. His kiss was soft, his mouth unsure. She put her arms about his thin frame, drew him to her, feeling the young body tremble against hers.
He caught her to him, hard. “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy—” he said against her mouth.
“Jesus Christ!” The voice came from the door that neither of them had heard open. Jack’s face was savage. “What in hell’s name’s going on here?”
Christopher, his face a sudden, deathly white, released Nancy so sharply that she staggered. His breath rasped in his throat. He stared at Jack’s massive, angry figure in a terror
that was almost palpable. The tears had not dried on his face.
“You whipper-snapper.” Jack advanced on him, fists bunched by his side, his voice shaking. “You snivelling, sneaking little bastard—”
Nancy stepped between them. “Jack—”
“Shut up and get out of my way. I’ll deal with you later.”
“It wasn’t his fault! Jack, please—”
Her brother was holding his blinding rage by the frailest of threads. “Wasn’t his fault? Whose, then? Yours? I believe it, Nancy, I believe it. Is this what’s been going on up here all this time? In my house – my house!”
“No!”
“Who else have you had up here, eh?” He caught her by the shoulders, shook her roughly. Christopher watched in petrified anguish. “Jake Aster scared you off men, did he? How many other boys—” he laid disgusted emphasis on the word “—have you treated to tea and buns? And what else? Bed?”
Christopher made a small sound and turned away, his shoulders hunched and his eyes tight-closed against the rise of nausea.
Nancy was staring at Jack in angry, desperate pleading. “Jack, don’t. Please don’t. It isn’t what you think.”
He let go of her. “Isn’t it? Tell me what, then. Parlour games? Poetry? What kind of lessons is our well-educated young friend here giving you? Or you him?”
“Mr Benton.” The words were a whisper. Christopher’s eyes were sick. “I swear it isn’t as you think. And it wasn’t Nancy’s fault, it was mine. If anyone’s to be b-blamed, it’s me. I took advantage of her. It – it was a despicable thing to d-do—” He seemed almost to have forgotten in his fear and humiliation how to breathe. The words were gasped.
“Oh, aye, lad. We’re agreed on that at least.” Jack’s voice was held dangerously quiet, hard as stone. The scar stood livid on his cheek. “Nancy, get out. I’ll speak to you later.”
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