Richard shook his head. “She simply refuses to discuss it.”
Sophie sighed and turned her head to look across the river.
“Sophie. It doesn’t matter. They won’t stop us. Not in the end.”
“No. Of course not.”
They stood in silence for a moment. A small, cold breeze riffled from the water, stirring Sophie’s hair and chilling her skin. She turned to face Richard, leaning against the parapet, tilting her head to look up into his face with clear, direct eyes. “You’re looking forward to it all, aren’t you?” she asked, quietly.
The question took him by surprise. He hesitated. Then, “I suppose I am, yes,” he said, frankly. “In a way, anyway. You see – we’ve been playing at war for such a long time – with all the time the thought of the real thing at the back of our minds. I can’t deny that it’s something of a relief to be on our way at last. To be doing something. I only hope—” He stopped.
“What?” she lifted a soft finger to his flat cheek. “Richard? What do you hope?”
“That I don’t funk it. That I don’t let you all down.” He blurted the words, and laughed self-consciously.
“You won’t.”
“I do think about it sometimes. About what it will be like. About how I’ll react – to being under fire and all that. Sometimes I get into a stew just thinking about it – but then again sometimes it seems that the whole thing will just be a great lark. Like the stories of India and Africa that I used to read when I was young. I always longed to be in them. I thought it must be easy to be a hero, if there were something to be heroic about.”
“I don’t want you to be a hero,” she said sharply. “I want you to be careful.”
“Oh, I shall, never fear.” But he could not quite keep the bright eagerness from eye and voice. “And of course I don’t want to leave you – but you can see, can’t you, that it’s an awfully big adventure?”
Sophie smiled, and said nothing. The night before, the echoes of murderous bombardment across the Channel had filled the night skies of London and, listening, she had wept. “What do you say to a cup of tea before you have to go?” she asked lightly. “There’s quite a nice little tea shop up towards Charing Cross—”
They sat over their steaming tea cups, talked of the war, of their families, of the past and of the future, and finally, ran out of words altogether. Richard looked at his watch, the tenth time he’d done it in as many minutes. “I ought to go. I mustn’t miss my train.”
“Of course not.” She carefully replaced in her saucer the small silver spoon she had been tinkering with and reached for her gloves. She was wearing blue, her favourite colour; a heavy cotton dress with a white, square collar, a small beribboned blue and white hat perched upon her piled hair. He watched her with love clear in his eyes. Stretched out a hand and covered hers.
“You mustn’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. And just think it won’t be nearly as bad as it has been. We can write to each other every day.”
She looked up at that, startled. He grinned happily. “I was saving that till last. Father gave his permission. Actually stood up to mother about it – said they couldn’t treat me like a disobedient schoolboy when I was going off to war. It’s the first step, Sophie. I know it. They’ll give in, in the end. You’ll see.”
They left the shop and walked towards Charing Cross. The streets were thronged with hurrying people, most of them men in uniform, converging upon the station. A bus roared by, belching fumes, upon the open platform a woman in conductor’s uniform – a sight still rare enough in London to draw stares from the passers-by. Outside the station itself a line of ambulances stood, and as Sophie and Richard drew level the first of their passengers, transferring from a recently arrived hospital train, emerged from the station. In wheelchairs and on stretchers they came, the lucky ones walking or struggling with crutches. A pale-faced lad was carried by, covered to the shoulders with a blanket that was flat as a tablecloth where his legs should have been.
“Gawd bless yer, son—” A flower seller, shabby shawl tight about her shoulders, tossed a single rose upon the stretcher. The boy smiled wanly, the mark of death upon his face.
Sophie turned away.
Richard was fishing in his pocket for his ticket, making a great show of it. She waited calmly until he had found it, then lifted her face for his kiss. As his lips brushed hers she expended every atom of willpower she possessed to shut her eyes, her ears and her heart to the noise and bustle around them and to hold him, the essence of him, in the warmth and safety of her love. God would not allow him to be harmed. She knew it: he could not be so cruel. She stepped back from him. “Do you mind if I don’t wait? I’m not very good at prolonged goodbyes.”
“Of course not. I’d rather you didn’t. I’m not too good at handkerchief waving myself.”
“You promise you’ll write?”
“I promise.”
“Oh, Lord – I nearly forgot—” She scrabbled in her small handbag, “I had these taken for you.” She handed him a small, folding leather case, pocket-sized. Framed within it were two photographs, one of herself in the outfit she was wearing now and one of Felicity, smiling her heart-stopping smile, reaching for the camera. “I thought you might like them.”
He said nothing, stood looking down at the photographs for a long, long time. Then, still wordless, he gathered her to him fiercely and held her, still and trembling, against his heart. Then he put her from him, his hands upon her shoulders, turned her gently towards the open street. “Off you go.” She barely heard the husky words through the uproar around them.
She walked away from him on legs that seemed not to belong to her. Just once she turned. He stood where she had left him, watching after her, his tall, slim figure still in the bustle around him. As she looked back he smiled brilliantly and lifted a hand.
Sophie almost ran into the street.
* * *
Two weeks later Subaltern Richard Rose, with his brother Rupert, was at the front waiting with the rest of the British army for the start of the well-telegraphed big push on the Somme that was to relieve the merciless pressure on their French allies at Verdun. On the first of July the word was given at last. The bombardment stilled. In the eery quiet, at seven in the morning of a beautiful summer’s day, the mines that had over the previous weeks been so painstakingly laid by the British Sappers beneath the German emplacements were blown. Then, for an incredible thirty minutes the infantry waited for the order that would send them over the top to follow up the advantage. At last, too late, that order was given. The enemy had been given precious time: to recover, to regroup, to re-man the wrecked positions. The British battalions advanced into a hail of death that beat them down like ripe corn in a summer storm, row upon advancing row. Twenty thousand men died on that first day, the worst single day in the history of the British army – men who had joined their battalions together, had marched from the same street or the same village self-consciously straight-backed under the proud eyes of mothers and girlfriends. Richard Rose, recklessly eager in this, his first engagement, was one of those that were cut to pieces in the first hopeless wave. His twin was beside him when he fell, bloody and almost unrecognizable, and in an almost self-destructive rage the boy stormed on the German trenches with nothing but murder in his heart. Not barbed wire nor bullets could stop Rupert on that day. By evening he was a hero and a clear candidate for honours and advancement.
He spent the night in a shell hole in no-man’s-land, sobbing like a bereft child.
* * *
“There have been mistakes made before. You’re always hearing stories. The papers are full of them. Men who’ve been posted dead sometimes turn up months later.” Sophie settled the child who was squirming to get on to the floor more firmly on her lap. Her voice was firm and utterly unshaken.
Anna regarded her worriedly. “Sophie, no. You mustn’t deceive yourself like this. There can be no doubt. Rupert was with him. He – saw it happen.”
&nb
sp; “He made a mistake,” the girl said, stubbornly reasonable. “It’s perfectly understandable. You can imagine what it must be like – the confusion – the fear – it must be like a kind of madness, mustn’t it? Rupert didn’t stay with Richard – so how could he be sure he was dead? No. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. I would have known if he had died. I know I would.”
“Sophie – Rupert saw him fall. Saw him die.” Anna bit her lip, “Darling – you have to believe it—”
Sophie shook her head, fussed with the baby. “Be still, Flissy. You’ll fall.”
Anna draw a long, shaky breath, then with some reluctance opened the bag that she held. Her hope, she now realized, of finding the right moment to give the bereaved girl the final proof of Richard’s death had always been in vain. There could be no such thing as the right moment. She reached into the bag, drew out a dark-stained, battered leather folder. “Sophie. Darling – I’m sorry. This was sent to Bissetts with Richard’s things. Rupert persuaded his parents to let you have it back.”
Her face stricken to stone Sophie stared at the photographs. “Oh – my – God,” she whispered at last, the slow words both an exclamation of pain and an anguished prayer. Anna flinched. Sophie did not take the folder, yet while convulsively she clutched Felicity to her she could not remove her eyes from the two smiling faces it contained. “No,” she said. “No. No. No! I would have known. Surely I would have known?”
The child, frightened by the vice-like grip of her mother’s arms, began to wail. Sophie bowed her face to her daughter’s soft down of hair. Her shoulders were shaking, yet she made no sound.
Anna bent to take the crying child. Sophie relinquished her hold, buried her face in her hands. Her body was rigid, taut as wire. In the silence of the room her breathing rasped. When she lifted her head at last her eyes burned dryly, too deeply shocked for tears, and her mouth was drawn down in bitter pain. “He is dead,” she said, quietly. “Isn’t he?”
“Yes, darling. I’m sorry – but yes, he is. You have to accept it.”
Sophie turned from the comforting hand her aunt reached to. “I’ll never accept it. Never.” The desolate voice was harsh. “Not any of it.”
Anna watched her with growing concern over the days that followed. So far as she could tell the girl had not shed a tear. The brutal misery she suffered showed only in her eyes and in the despairingly unhappy set of her mouth. Meticulously she cared for her child and for herself: but she determinedly avoided company and would not be comforted in her loss. She had, it seemed to Anna, retreated into a prison of grief the doors of which could not be opened except from the inside; and far from trying to open them Sophie seemed set upon keeping them bolted and barred against a world that had betrayed her.
When Alex approached Anna with his diffident, astonishing request Anna was truly appalled and more than half angry.
“Alex – I couldn’t! It isn’t fair on the child. Not yet. You don’t know the state she’s in. She can barely talk to me – let alone Alice, of all people.”
Her brother looked terribly haggard. Although still overweight the florid glow of good living had left him, and he looked older than his years. “Anna, please listen to me. I know how you must feel. I know you don’t care much for Alice—” he ignored the small sound that Anna made “—and I don’t blame you. But – if you could see her – see what Richard’s – death—” his voice faltered painfully on the word “—has done to her, you’d understand at least a little. She adored the boy.”
“As did Sophie.” Anna’s voice, despite herself, was bitter.
“I know. And Alice knows. Can’t you see? That’s the whole point. She wants to see Sophie. To tell her how very sorry she is about what happened.”
Anna was watching him, a perilous anger growing in her eyes. “And—” she said, very soft “—to see Felicity?”
He sustained her regard for a few seconds, then his eyes dropped.
“Oh, Alex, Alex.” Anna’s tone was almost pitying. “Can’t you even be honest about this? To yourself, if to no one else.”
He turned his head jerkily. “Of course we want to see her. Why shouldn’t we? For God’s sake, Anna – the child is Richard’s daughter.”
“That,” Anna said, very precisely, “is not what Alice told me last time we met.”
He had no answer. His shoulders were bowed. Despite her anger, Anna could not deny a certain sympathy. “Be reasonable, Alex,” she said quietly. “At least leave it for a while. Sophie has been devastated by Richard’s death. And Flissy is all she has of him. She does not even bear his name. Thanks to Alice. And to you. Can’t you see how she’d feel if – after all that has gone before – you turned up now, taking an interest in the child? Can you blame her?”
“No.” Alex slumped into a chair, defeat in the lines of his body. “No, of course not.”
Anna watched him in silence.
“Christ, Anna,” he said at last, “I never knew anything could hurt so much.”
She moved to him, rested a hand upon his shoulder. He shook his head, a man bewildered. “It isn’t just Richard, you see. There’s the worry about Rupert. He’s still out there. Every day, every hour, we live with the knowledge that the same thing could – is likely to – happen to him.” There was raw pain in the look he turned upon his sister. “Do you know what I’ve found myself doing? Praying that he’ll be wounded. An arm. A leg. Anything. Just as long as it brings him home. Just as long as he isn’t dead. As Richard is dead. I pray for that. Can you believe it?”
“Yes.” Anna’s voice was not steady.
“Anna – please – won’t you just ask Sophie? Felicity is Richard’s child. God, Anna, Sophie is a mother herself – surely she’ll understand how we feel? If we could just see the child – Richard’s child – that’s all we’re asking. I know what you think; but it isn’t true. I swear we won’t interfere—”
“Can you swear so confidently for Alice?” Despite herself, Anna’s voice was dry.
He made a sharp, fierce gesture with his hand. “I tell you Alice has changed. I promise you. Please say you’ll ask Sophie – just ask her.”
“Ask me what?” The words came from the open doorway. Brother’s and sister’s heads turned to the young figure who stood there. Composedly Sophie walked across the room and offered a steady hand to Alex. “Good afternoon, Mr Rose.”
Alex scrambled to his feet in ungainly haste, took the proffered hand. “Sophie, my dear.”
The faintest expression of cool distaste flickered across the girl’s face and was gone.
“How are you?”
“I’m very well, thank you.” Her voice was politely expressionless. She had not smiled. “You wanted to ask me something?”
Alex glanced from Sophie to Anna, his eyes uncertain. Anna said nothing. Sophie was owed this moment at least, however arid the triumph. “We wondered,” Alex began, “that is – Alice and I – wondered if we might visit you. You and Felicity. Under the circumstances the – misunderstandings that have occurred seem—” his voice trailed off. Sophie regarded him for a long, cool moment. Alex’s face showed clearly that he thought he had lost. But Anna, watching the girl, was not so sure: she wondered, suddenly, how long Sophie had been standing by the open door, how much of her conversation with Alex she had overheard.
“Of course,” Sophie said. Then, “If you’d like.” There was no trace of warmth or even of interest in her voice. She might have been commenting on the weather.
Alex stared at her, dawning happiness in his face.
Before he could open his mouth to thank her Sophie had turned and left the room.
* * *
They came to Bayswater two weeks later, on the September morning after London’s night had been turned to day by the terrible torch of the first Zeppelin to be destroyed in the skies of Britain. A jubilant population had cheered in the streets as the flaring ball of fire slid northwards over the city, a falling star that signalled at last a breakthrough in the ba
ttle against these terrifying and so-far invincible raiders. At least now as Londoners endured the tensions of a ‘Zepp Night’ and watched for the sky-borne monsters to nose from the clouds with their threat of fire and death, there would be some hope of retaliation, some return, threat for threat, terror for terror. Sophie had watched the window, her child in her arms, her eyes remote with pain and hatred as they followed the fireball that hung in the sky, her expression conveying no feeling for the men, enemies notwithstanding, who were being incinerated with their craft.
She faced Alice the next day with the same detached lack of warmth or emotion. To her credit, in a very difficult situation, Alice’s behaviour and self-control were impeccable. Thin-faced to gauntness, her eyes haunted, she conducted polite small talk with Anna – about the great events of the night before, Josef’s health, Michael’s progress – as if such things were the very centre of her thoughts. As Sophie entered the room, carrying Felicity, only the slightest catching of her breath, the paling of her already white skin betrayed her. Sophie stood in the centre of the room, unsmiling, waiting. Anna could not blame her for that; not even Sophie’s worst enemy could ever have described her as a hypocrite.
Very composedly, Alice stood and approached the girl. With an effort she dragged her eyes from the child and regarded the mother. “Sophie. It was most kind of you to allow us to visit you.”
Sophie inclined her head, stone-faced.
“I realize how very difficult you must have found it.”
Felicity reached a small, plump hand to the enticing glitter of a diamond brooch upon Alice’s lapel. The woman’s eyes were hungry. Flissy’s eyes were Richard’s, hazel and gold-shot as summer woodlands, her smile, as his had been, sunlit and beguiling. With no word, Sophie held the child towards her grandmother. Anna had never admired her difficult, wayward niece as she did in that moment. Flissy crowed with delight, grabbed at the brooch with a small, determinedly acquisitive hand. Much as she still disliked her sister-in-law Anna could not find it in her to remain unmoved by the tears that stood, proudly unshed, in the other woman’s eyes. Not so Sophie. No sign of emotion moved in her still face. It was, Anna thought worriedly, as if the warmly impulsive, headstrong girl she had once been had withdrawn from the world that had dealt her such pain and left behind an image of stone. Only Flissy had brought a faint smile to her face over these past difficult weeks, and that rarely. And yet – she had agreed to let Alex and Alice see the child; that surely must show that somewhere within her warmth and generosity still lived? Anna could only hope so. Certainly there was no sign of either in the cool eyes she turned upon Alice.
The Rose Stone Page 43