Molly

by Molly (retail) (epub)

  “Yes.” The word was unhesitating. “If that is what you require of me.”

  “At this moment.”

  “Of course. What else is there? Knowing me as you do would you demand a commitment beyond that? Tomorrow is an illusion. It never comes. There is only now.” His shadowed face was unsmiling. “I have never in my life wanted anything as much as I want you at this moment.” The room was very still. It seemed to Molly that her very breath had suspended itself. “In what seems like another life you called me a barbarian. Perhaps I am. Perhaps, my love, we both are. It’s certain, anyway, that we recognized each other the moment we met. And now, here, at this moment, you have me on my knees. Are you going to take advantage of that?” The line of his mouth was hard as ever. She could not take her eyes from it.

  She reached both her hands to his face, felt the warmth and the strength pulsing into her limbs from the simple touch of him. “No,” she said, and as she drew his light weight upon her she closed her eyes, shutting out the world, the war, the demands of the people who could lay claim to her and closing in for the space of a moment the love, the need, the giving that she had denied for so long.

  Far, far away the guns of battle rumbled.

  * * *

  On the 1st of July 1916 the British attack was launched on the Somme. On that first day alone 20,000 British dead littered the battlefields, and 40,000 more filled the hospitals and the casualty clearing stations to overflowing. As news of the losses filtered home, and the magnitude of the disaster was realized, with whole families of men, whole streets and villages being wiped out, the stunned nation mourned the worst day in Britain’s long military history. For ten agonizing days Molly did not hear from Jack. Anxiously she scanned the casualty lists, watched for the postman, the telegraph boy, and forced herself to believe that the lack of news was good news. At last her patience was rewarded, when she received a hastily scribbled note telling her that he was safe and well, a minor flesh wound in his hand, now healed, having been his reason for not writing before. With that she had to be satisfied; the note told her nothing else. In the next post there arrived a letter from Nancy, who was still stationed at Ypres, her usual understated and humorous epistle, though Molly could not help noting that even Nancy’s tough resilience seemed a little frayed at the edges.

  The new influx of wounded strained the home-front hospitals and services to their utmost. Molly launched herself feverishly into yet another storm of fundraising, badgering and cajoling, organizing, demanding. She visited the hospitals to discover their needs and used every ounce of influence that she, Adam, or anyone else possessed to obtain them. She saw Adam alone on a few rare and precious occasions at his apartment, time snatched for both of them out of pressing activity, time out of life that seemed to neither of them to have anything to do with anyone or anything beyond themselves.

  Late in August, Edward came home on leave before being posted at last and was swept into the maelstrom of activity and laughingly declared that he would be glad to get back to the war for a rest. Then, at a hospital tea dance, he met Chantale Lefèvre and a wartime romance blossomed that the whole family watched with amusement and pleasure.

  “Oh, heavens, isn’t it romantic?” Meg asked, pure envy in her voice, “they can’t take their eyes off each other.”

  The family were sitting at the breakfast table. Molly lifted her head as the letter box clicked. Kitty was out of her chair and into the hall before anyone else could move. “It’s a green one! Dad’s writing. Open it, Mum, quick!”

  Molly slit the envelope and ran her eyes swiftly over the few written lines.

  “He’s coming home. Leave at last. Next week.” In the tumult of the girls’ excitement Danny continued to eat stoically.

  * * *

  The week of that leave was one of the worst she had ever lived through. After the first ecstasy of welcome and excitement had worn off it became obvious to the most casual eye that there was something very wrong with Jack. He had been quiet before, now he was almost totally withdrawn. He had lost weight, looked ten years older than his age. He jumped at the slightest noise. His hands shook. And so far as she could tell he slept not at all. Night after night she woke to find him standing at the open window, a shadow in the shadows, looking out into the rustling darkness. She found his tense silences almost unbearable. He answered her questions in monosyllables or not at all. He absolutely refused to discuss the war.

  “Let it be, lass. Talking won’t change anything. Won’t explain anything. Won’t make sense of anything, come to that. Let it be.”

  “But, Jack, perhaps if you talked about it, told me about it—?”

  “No!” The word was spat, savagely. “There’d be no ease in that. Don’t think it. I’m tired, lass. Dog tired.” His eyes had a worn, defeated look that wrung her heart. “Let it be.”

  Their lovemaking, as before, was desperate to the point of violence and totally unsatisfactory for either of them. Once, he cried. She held him, bewildered, as the sobs shook him. Later he slept, and woke in the middle of the night with a cry that woke the whole house. In despair she watched him, feeling his pain, helpless to aid him.

  On the Saturday evening two days before he was due to go back, they had an unexpected visitor. Christopher Edmonton turned up on the doorstep of The Larches, elegant in tailored uniform, his cap tucked neatly under his arm, an expression of nervous determination on his face. It was the first time any of them had seen him for years.

  “Oh, please, don’t get up, Mr Benton—” he held up a quick hand as Molly, her face a picture of politely suppressed surprise, led him into the parlour. Jack, who had barely moved, sat back in his chair and eyed the tall, neat figure expressionlessly.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Molly was at a loss as to how to address this unfamiliar young man with his adult’s face and the clipped pleasant voice that showed no sign of the stammer she remembered. To call him Christopher, as she had used to, seemed entirely inappropriate. To call him Captain Edmonton was impossible. “You remember my sister-in-law, Mrs Benton?”

  Annie, who had come to visit Jack, was sitting silently by the window. She nodded, unsmiling.

  “Yes, of course.” If Christopher noticed the desperate change that bereavement had wrought in Annie he gave no sign of it, and Molly warmed towards him. But she was puzzled by him. He seemed entirely self-composed, yet she saw that the long hands that held his cap were clenched so that the bones stood stark against the skin.

  He looked at Jack. “I heard that you were wounded, Mr Benton? On the Somme, wasn’t it?”

  Jack nodded. “A scratch.”

  “Pretty awful business from what I heard. You’re recovered, I trust?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jack said, taking an easy breath, a savage spark in his eyes, “Sir.”

  The young man moved his head sharply. The straight brown hair, shorter than Molly remembered it, fell forward across his forehead and he flicked his head sideways in the familiar gesture to flip it back. His face was afire, yet he held Jack’s eyes steadily with his own. “I apologize for coming in uniform,” he said quietly. “Had I known that you were here I promise I should not have done. I’ve been meaning to come for weeks. Months. I wasn’t sure – wasn’t certain – that I would be welcome.”

  His composure was deserting him. Jack sat, stone-faced, and watched it happening.

  Molly could not bear it. She put an impulsive hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Christopher! Why of course you’re welcome! How could you doubt it? However you’re dressed, and whatever the time!”

  “Thank you.” His smile was grateful.

  “Sit down.” She saw that his eyes were still fixed upon Jack’s still figure. “I’ll light the lamps.”

  “Oh, no, Moll,” Annie protested quickly from the window, “not yet. Don’t pull the blinds yet.” She was watching the wide, still sky.

  Christopher stood stubbornly in the centre of the room. “You were at Loos, weren’t you, Mr Benton? Before the
Somme?”

  “Aye. I was.”

  “Nancy told me. Before she left.” The name was spoken at last. He took courage from it, but not enough to sustain him entirely. His eyes moved from Jack to Molly. “I came to ask after her, Mrs Benton. I don’t have her address. She said she’d write. She promised. But she didn’t.”

  “Aye, well,” Jack said from his chair, “I daresay that our Nancy’s got more to do than push a pen and shuffle forms, lad. Her time’s well taken, any road.” The emphasis, and the insult to the young man in his pristine War Office uniform, was unmistakable.

  “Jack!”

  “It’s all right, Mrs Benton.” Christopher was turning his cap in his hands, over and over, but his voice was perfectly steady. “I know what Mr Benton is saying. And I know that he has every justification.” He smiled, a slight downturn of his sensitive mouth. “Self-deception is not one of my vices. I understand why none of you approve of any association between me and Nancy. And I swear that under any other circumstances I would not dream of enlisting your help in this way. But please—” he turned in earnest appeal to Jack, “—Nancy and I are old friends. I simply want to know – have to know – that she’s all right. That she’s safe still. That she doesn’t regret her decision.”

  “She doesn’t,” Molly said positively, and taking the matter into her own hands she got up and walked to the sideboard, not looking at Jack. “Here. Her latest letter. It came last week.”

  Christopher took the envelope, looked at Jack. “May I?” He paused. “Please?”

  “If I say no?”

  Without a word Christopher extended the letter towards the other man, not even looking at it.

  Jack considered him with hard eyes. “Happen you’re more of a man than I gave you credit for, Captain Edmonton,” he said at last “Go on. Read it. Where’s the harm?”

  Christopher took the letter to the window to gain the last of the light. In the silence the paper crackled. Molly saw that, as he finished reading, his long thumb brushed gently across the carelessly scrawled signature.

  “Thank you,” he said, handing her the letter and retrieving his cap from the table, “that was what I came to find out. You’ve been very kind,” he added stiffly.

  Jack leaned back in his chair. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, lad, sit down,” he said, a tired note in his voice. “Molly, lass, is there a drop of whisky in the bottle?”

  It was much later when the whistle shrieked in the street outside. Oddly, there had been no warning barrage. Annie stiffened. Christopher looked up sharply. “A Zeppelin?”

  Faintly, in the distance, a gun crumped. Jack’s eyes closed for a fraction of a second longer than a blink. Another gun opened up, quite close, rattling the glass in the window. The whisky glass in Jack’s hand jerked. Somewhere above them came the insect buzz of an aeroplane and, distantly, the rattle of a machine gun.

  Molly seated herself on the arm of her husband’s chair, unobtrusively placing herself between him and the other occupants of the room. She could feel the force of his trembling through the frame of the chair.

  The sound of the aeroplane came again, and more machine-gun fire. The airship’s resonant drone beat against the eardrums.

  Nancy’s letter was still lying on the table. Christopher picked it up and looked at it.

  “Keep it,” Molly said.

  He folded it carefully, tucked it neatly into his pocket.

  A strange, reverberating explosion seemed to shake the very air. Sweat sheened Jack’s face. In the street someone shouted loudly, excitedly.

  “Dad! Mum! They’ve got the Zep! It’s burning! Come and look, oh come and look!” Meg burst into the room in her nightgown. Behind her stood Kitty, plaits wild, eyes wide. The room was bright with light. Annie flew to the door, followed closely by the girls.

  Molly hesitated. “Jack—”

  “Go and watch the Zeppelin burn,” Jack said, in the voice of a stranger.

  Outside the street was thronged with people. Except that many were in their nightclothes, it might have been a street festival. Men shouted, women pointed, children danced and shrieked. The sky was a blaze of white light, its centre a holocaust that could have been the sun itself.

  “Holy Mary,” Molly said, her hand to her mouth.

  The great, blazing, cigar-shaped torch drifted slowly across the London sky, illuminating all of the city in its death-glow. Like fire itself, cheering ran through the watching multitudes. Not far from that ball of flame that just a short while before had been an invincible and menacing airship a tiny, black-painted aeroplane looped a wild loop, victorious, and the people below shouted themselves hoarse at the sight. Molly looked at Annie. She was staring, tense as a drawn bow, at the flower of flame that was dipping away to the north. Molly thought of the dreadful, charred load that it must carry and, enemy or not, felt sickness rise. Near them a motor bike revved up. “Let’s follow it! Let’s see the buggers hit the ground. Let’s watch ’em fry!”

  Molly’s stomach turned again.

  “Come on, Annie, let’s get inside.”

  “No.” Annie’s eyes were fixed on the flaming airship as if on a vision of heaven, “Burn!” she said, her voice low and vicious, “burn damn you!”

  Molly turned and left her. Going back through the front door of The Larches she met Christopher coming out. In the deep shadows of the doorway she could not see his face beneath the peak of his cap.

  “Thank you, Mrs Benton,” he said, extending his hand.

  She took it. “I’ve done nothing. I’m sorry if—” From within the house came the sudden crash of glass. Molly ran past Christopher, through the hall and into the parlour.

  Jack stood, his massive shoulders hunched, leaning against the mantelpiece and staring down at the whisky glass that lay, shattered, in the hearth.

  In the sky outside the bloody, murderous glow was dying at last.

  * * *

  Three days later Jack returned to France. With an odd, fatalistic premonition, Molly waited, but she heard nothing from him. The letter, when it came, was addressed in unfamiliar writing. She stood looking at it for a long time before she opened it.

  “—it is with great regret – killed in action – greatly missed – a true friend and a brave soldier—”

  She laid the letter on the table and walked, blindly, to the window. Outside, it had started to rain again.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  It took Captain Christopher Edmonton almost four months to get himself posted to Flanders. But over the furious and obstructive protests of a mother who, however patriotic she might be, was understandably certain that he had taken leave of his senses, and with the somewhat surprising co-operation of a wife for whom the idea of having a husband on active duty held much appeal, he at last managed it, and, not without misgiving, but feeling as if for almost the first time in his life he had made a decision of his own and stuck to it, arrived in that beleaguered few square miles of quagmire known as the Ypres Salient in the middle of the worst winter that Europe had suffered since 1880.

  “You’ll get used to it,” said a sympathetic and very young-looking fellow officer in the swaying, freezing cold railway carriage that trundled them across the frozen fields of Flanders.

  Christopher smiled unhappily. Ever since the troopship had docked he had been aware of the rumbling shock of the great guns. A small cold fist of fear had clenched in his stomach when first he had heard them, and lay there still like something he had eaten and was unable to digest. Used to it? He very much doubted it. He doubted it from the moment he stepped from the train at Bailleul. He doubted it more when he saw for the first time, with a shock of disbelief, though he had believed himself prepared, what years of brutal bombardment had done to the prosperous and harmless little town of Ypres, when he saw the ravaged land, its quiet fields reconstituted by high explosive into an unrecognizable and untenable sea of fouled mud. No tree stood, nor was any building unscathed. The gentle, wooded countryside had been reduced to a desola
tion of scorched, foot-high stumps and tangled barbed wire. On the slight ridges that ringed the salient – ‘hills’ in military terms in this flat country – the Germans were entrenched, tiered like spectators above the Roman Circus of death below. From their advantageous positions they could direct their fire at will within the blasted area beneath them, bombardment that continued almost without a break day and night. The ghost of Ypres stood in the middle of this desolation, a smudge of the landscape marked only by the shattered remnants of its medieval spires that pointed jagged, accusing fingers at the leaden skies. Within hours of his arrival in the flattened town, Christopher heard the comment that for him, encapsulated vividly the devastation of these flat lowlands.

  “If you stand on a chair, Sir,” said the cheerful cockney corporal who had been assigned to show him to his quarters, “I’ve ’eard it said you can see England.”

  Grimly Christopher set himself to survive. His first experience of the front line did nothing to reassure him. In the scratches in the usually liquid, but at present frozen mud that were the British trenches – in marked contrast to the solidly-built concrete blockhouses on the opposing ridges – men shivered, the blood almost freezing in their veins, cursing the war, the weather, the General Staff, their only hope of relief the uncertain blessing of a “Blighty”, one that might send them, maimed but alive, back home. Christopher learned to keep his head down, to endure sights and sounds that in days past might have driven him to sickness, to stand like a statue in the night of No Man’s Land while the Very lights swung eerily above him and the German gunners, made expert from long practise, laid a creeping barrage across the lit, blasted ground, searching for any remnant of life. He learned to live with fear, to live with the knowledge that he, too, had taken life – an idea that, a few short years ago, would have been unacceptable to the point of absurdity – learned, to his own surprise, to eat, drink, sleep, talk, laugh with others like himself for all the world as if this lunacy were quite normal, while about them howled the bombardment that he sometimes felt, if it did not kill him outright, must surely shatter every nerve and bone in his body by its force.