‘Why ever not?’ asked Connie, still holding her friend’s embrace.
‘Well,’ said Laura, widening her eyes at the sight of Connie’s uniform, ‘I suppose you’re too busy saving lives and patching up our boys to find time for frivolities.’
Connie gaily repudiated the idea of being too busy for a party, and for the next hour or so the two friends fell into an intimate discussion of old times and present trials – Laura was doing secretarial work at the War Office – which admitted no interruption. Their glasses were continually replenished, so that by the time Marianne emerged from the house to announce that dancing would commence, Connie was aware of being rather tipsy. A pair of officers who had been hovering nearby approached them to ask if they would care to dance, and Laura needed no more encouragement. She grasped Connie’s arm and cried, ‘We’d be most obliged, gents!’
Following a general exodus from the garden, they found a double drawing room with a floor on which drugget had been laid down, and the drum and fife band transformed into a small orchestra. They were playing a jaunty waltz, and one of the men, the cheerful fellow (she now realised) who had lit her cigarette, gestured her forward. She put her hand on his shoulder, and said above the music, ‘I have an awful tendency to lead.’ Was that a slur in her voice?
‘Righto!’ he replied agreeably, and they were off. The floor quickly filled up with swaying couples.
Will, still trapped in the hallway, was experiencing a kind of social purgatory. Talk among his unrelaxing fellow officers had turned to the ‘Somme pictures’, sanitised for consumption by a British public not yet ready to confront the realities of trench warfare. He joined half-heartedly in the mocking condemnation, and wished himself elsewhere. Now he heard the music and the eager voices from the drawing room. Edging out of the khaki circle, he followed its siren call, and saw her, at last, whirling about the room in the arms of some young pup. The waltz ended, and another, slower piece started.
‘D’you mind if I cut in?’ Connie looked up to find Will shouldering away her partner, who, outranked, offered her a little bow. The interruption was not elegantly done, but Will didn’t care: he wanted to feel her in his arms. She lifted her face to his, and he saw that her cheeks were rosily flushed. As they moved in time, he leaned towards her ear and said, ‘You seem to be enjoying this little soirée.’
Connie giggled at the word, and said, ‘Oui, oui – tray bong.’ She was also enjoying the touch of his hand at the small of her back. ‘I met my old friend, Laura. We were at Holloway together.’
Will nodded. Such an admission would have appalled him once; the very idea of a lady being an ex-convict – grotesque. Now it barely registered. It was not her past that concerned him, but her future. Connie seemed to respond to his closeness, for as his hip bone jutted accidentally against her she felt a muted but powerful current flare within, tingling her nerve ends, and by small degrees she pressed herself to him. The music, at once haunting and gay, caught her up in a trance of delight; on and on it purled, and for a while she felt her steps almost floating across the floor, her body fused to Will’s. The warmth of the evening and the whirling motion of the dance stealthily accelerated her intoxication, and it was only after their fourth or fifth dance that she sensed a warning blurriness. She had not been properly drunk in ages.
‘I need to take some air,’ she said, and Will, determined not to leave her side, led her out through the double doors back into the garden. A small wicker bench stood unoccupied, and without ceremony Connie flopped down on it. She could feel the back of her blouse damp with sweat. She blew away a strand of hair that had fallen across her face.
‘I wish I had a cigarette at this moment,’ she said.
Will, with a sly smile, unbuttoned his top pocket and produced a packet of Sullivans. ‘Have one of mine.’
She gave a bleary frown. ‘But you don’t smoke!’ He only shrugged as he nonchalantly lit them one each, and as she stared upon the extraordinary sight – Will, smoking – it became in her mind all of a piece with the magically charmed evening. She blew a thin column of smoke into the purplish dark, and sighed. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had such fun,’ she said with wistful emphasis, turning to Will in hope of a like response.
‘I certainly enjoyed the dancing,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ cried Connie, spurred on by the thought. ‘We must have some more!’ But as she stood up the toll of the wine upset her balance, and she plumped back down awkwardly on the bench.
‘Steady,’ said Will, with a chuckle to hide his alarm. He could not say all that was in his heart if she was too squiffy to listen. Holding his breath he said quietly, ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’
She looked at him, but did not read the meaning in his eyes. ‘D’you know – I think I would.’ Her tone had lost none of its gaiety; she allowed him to take her hand as she stood up, and he said, responsibly, ‘Perhaps we should just slip out. We can always come back.’
Outside, on Sumner Place, the white stucco of the houses glowed against the grainy, crepuscular light. She took his arm as they cut across Old Brompton Road and up the orderly thoroughfare of Queen’s Gate, empty but for an occasional solitary car. She sensed a companionable air between them now, soothed by the musical resonance of his voice in her ear. She had always loved his voice: it was low but demonstrative, and pleasingly at odds with the tone one might have expected from the slightly arrogant turn of his mouth. He was telling her about his recent visit to Beatrice’s house and the sad spectacle of Tam’s worldly possessions boxed into a room.
‘There was a tremendous amount of correspondence in there, too,’ he said, unwilling to probe but unable to help himself. After a moment he added, casually, ‘You wrote to one another, I think?’
Connie nodded. ‘Yes – we wrote quite a few times when I was first in Paris. I think he believed I was rather lonely.’ She gave a little half-laugh at the memory. ‘Perhaps I was … but I really ought to have written to him more often than I did.’ Her tone was thoughtful, even regretful, but Will knew, instinctively, that she had suspected nothing. To her, Tam was a friend – a friend who had moreover helped her out of a desperately tight spot – but he was not a suitor. The aborted letter of declaration was his secret to keep.
They had walked into Kensington Gardens, where a parade of towering horse chestnuts spread plum-dark shadows across the grass. The sun had disappeared, but there came over the horizon pinkish glints of its waning, like a fire dying in the grate. They had been following one of the park’s pathways when Will, glimpsing a lonely bench beneath a tree, steered his companion towards it. There was not another soul in view as they gained this sequestered spot. They sat down together in silence, feeling the night gather around them. Connie slowly turned to him, and some yielding softness in her gaze drew him forward until his face was inches from hers. He leaned in and kissed her, and she let his mouth fit snugly on hers; as his arms encircled her she felt the effects of the wine she had drunk swell within and launch her on a stream of desire. They prolonged this kiss in such a reverent hush that it took a sudden shiver of the leaves overhead to disturb their clinch. Connie pulled back, and wondered if her face was glowing quite as fiercely as she sensed it to be. He was looking at her in a way that stirred a physical ache deep within; this, she intuited, was the moment at which sex should probably happen, and the consciousness of her innocence both amused and saddened her. The strait-laced moral codes of her upbringing had rendered the possibility of a physical relationship with a man as remote to her as the rings of Saturn. What irony, that she who had seen naked male bodies without number during the last two years was still, at twenty-six, a virgin. An involuntary laugh escaped her lips.
‘What is it?’ he asked rather sharply.
‘Nothing – nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m not laughing at you. I’m just –’ Another kiss silenced her, and the next time he broke contact his expression was imploring in its seriousness.
‘Connie …’ he began, and in t
hat moment before he continued she was convinced that he would invite her back to his flat to do whatever he would with her. And she would find such an invitation very hard to resist. ‘… I know this may seem inappropriate, but I want to ask you –’ he swallowed nervously ‘– to do me the honour of becoming my wife.’ These last words, low and quick, caught Connie utterly off guard. For a moment she thought she had misheard, and could offer only a frowning ‘What?’ in reply.
Will, prepared for her surprise, spoke hastily. ‘I made the most terrible mistake of my life in rejecting you. I was an ass, I admit it. When I visited you at Holloway it was just an awful shock – I couldn’t cope with it at all. But I ought to have done, and I’m sorry for it. So I’m asking you – no, begging you – to give me another chance.’
Connie leaned away from him, trying to order her thoughts. The kindled mood of romantic ardour had been doused, like slack poured on a promising fire. She sensed his earnest gaze upon her. ‘I – I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps I should remind you that you are already engaged to be married.’
Will gave an exasperated sigh, and briefly rubbed his palms over his eyes. ‘I should never have allowed it to come to this. Ada is a dear, sweet girl, but we are no more suited to one another than a dove to a jackdaw. It would be wrong, very wrong, for us even to try to make a life together.’
‘You are under an obligation to her nevertheless.’
At this Will seized her hand and said, ‘That means nothing, compared with what I feel for you. Connie, please understand – you’re the only woman in the world I’ve ever wanted. I love you, sincerely and devotedly. I have never stopped loving you. And, forgive my presumption, but I believe that you love me.’
She did love him, it was true, but that did not help resolve the doubts which his proposal had entrained. His present engagement might mean ‘nothing’ to him, but she felt certain that it meant a very great deal to Miss Brink. And if he were capable of sloughing off a serious obligation once, might he not do the same again? But this in itself was begging the question.
‘Whether I do or not, it doesn’t follow that I should welcome an offer of marriage.’
‘Why not? Do you doubt my fitness as a husband?’
‘No, not quite. But I doubt my fitness as a wife.’
‘I don’t understand. Why would you say such a thing?’
Connie fell silent, pondering what marriage to Will would entail. Once the first bloom of excitement and romance had faded, there would be the question of work to consider. She was not prepared to give up her ambition to be a surgeon, however long it might take. But somehow she could not imagine Will, once they were married, being sympathetic to such a course; indeed, she doubted whether he would be very keen on her working at all. Remorseful as he was now, he took a conventional view of things, and she suspected the limit of his requirements for her would be to learn the drill on housekeeping, clean shirts, and the rest. That, and children, of course; it was reasonable to suppose he would want to be a father. Reluctant to raise such a momentous subject, she cast about for a more practical line of argument.
‘How can we talk of marriage while there’s a war going on? We both have as much on our plates as we can stand.’
Will shook his head. ‘That’s no argument. Our being married would not interfere with our duties. On the contrary, the thought of you as my wife would support me through any trial.’
It was boldly spoken, and she acknowledged the compliment with a pained smile. But still she doubted. ‘Why must it be marriage? Can we not trust one another without legal bonds?’
He squinted uncertainly. ‘You mean – a free union?’
‘To begin with, perhaps. Instead of making an immediate decision, we could accustom ourselves to the prospect of marriage little by little.’
‘Such an arrangement would only expose us to malicious gossip, and it would go rather worse for you than for me. Why should you wish to exclude yourself from society in that way?’
‘A society that would snub me on those grounds is not one I would care to be part of. Besides, I have friends who would be steadfast no matter what circumstances we lived in.’
Will could not quite believe the struggle she was putting up. He had anticipated resistance from her, but he imagined that once the awkwardness over Ada was out of the way Connie would gladly, gratefully, acknowledge his perseverance and yield to him. He thought again of his first proposal to her four years ago, when simple bad timing had undone him. Now, it seemed that her hospital experience had transformed wilfulness into a steely self-confidence, and he wondered if it was really in his power to win her after all. The night shadows had thickened, but she was close enough to see how intently he looked at her.
‘I cannot be sure how determined you are to put objections in our way. Is the thought of marrying really so repulsive to you?’
Connie shook her head. ‘I never said that it was.’
‘Well, then. If you love me, you’ll put aside your doubts and accept my proposal.’
‘But why should you not accept my proposal – that we bide our time and find out whether companionship might be the wiser – better – course?’
Will looked away, shaking his head. ‘Connie, please. That kind of semidetached arrangement won’t work – it’s folly to imagine it. I want you to be my wife, not some … companion.’ He tightened his hands upon hers. ‘I must repeat the question, and I beg you to consider it carefully – because I will never ask it again. Will you marry me?’
Her throat felt choked with all that she wanted to say. She was moved, as much by the persistence of his love as by the honesty with which he declared it: she knew in some way they could make a life together. But she also knew the compromises it would entail. Once they were bound in wedlock a gradual whittling away of her independence would be inescapable, his innate decency notwithstanding. Motherhood would seal her domestic enslavement, and she would blame him for it once she realised her hard struggles through the ranks of the medical profession had been for nothing. The stakes were simply too vertiginous.
‘Will, I’m aware of the honour you’ve paid me – truly – and were my heart to rule my head I would pledge myself to you in an instant. But I cannot be the woman you want me to be. I am too afraid of surrendering what ground I have gained. You must marry someone who will give herself to you unconditionally –’
As she spoke Will’s head sank, little by little, and only at this last sentence did he make an audible response: it was a groan, wrenched from deep within, and fraught with despair. He did not look up for some moments, and when he did he saw Connie gazing at him, her eyes glittering. She had never looked more beautiful to him. She started to say something, but he cut her short.
‘What you’ve said –’ he began, his mouth trembling with the effort, ‘I honestly wish you’d never saved me that day in the hospital. Because I’m just as surely a dead man now.’ He stood up, wishing himself away from her, and yet longing to be close to her. The last light had gone. They were now indistinct shapes in the gloaming. He knew he should accompany her out of the park, but he could not prolong the agony another moment.
‘Goodbye,’ he said, and paused a moment, waiting for her response. When she very quietly echoed his farewell, he turned and walked away. Her eyes followed his receding figure until it blurred and disappeared over the rise. Will felt desolation flooding his lungs. Had he really said everything he could have done to persuade her? He hoped, against all reason, that she might hurry after him and beg a second chance – but no footsteps came in his wake. He kept walking, almost blindly, skirting the Serpentine and thence over Park Lane into the hushed narrow streets of Mayfair. His shadow beneath the gaslight rose to meet him, then vanished over his shoulder. He paused at Down Street Tube station, but decided to keep going, preferring the solitary gloom of a night walk. By the time he had reached Devonshire Place, a trench song had lodged in his head, maddeningly.
And you bet we shan’t be long
Before we’re fit and strong;
You’ll hear us say ‘Oui, oui, tray bong’
When we’re far away.
On entering his darkened flat he found a letter on his doormat, and walked over to the front window where he examined it by the dingy illumination of the street gaslight. It was from Brigade HQ, advising him of the date he was expected to return to France.
PART THREE
The Coming of Age
20
THE CHESTNUT-SHADED WALK that cut through Regent’s Park was busier than usual this morning. A cyclist breezed past her; a young woman pushed a wicker perambulator; a couple of truanting schoolboys lounged on a bench, smoking ostentatiously. The temperature was unseasonably mild for March, and a silvery sun was decanting its light through the high rustling latticework of leaves. This was the route Connie took to work, so to follow the same walk now, on a day off, felt oddly pleasing, as though she were truanting herself. She turned off the pathway and directed her steps across the grass, making for the grand terrace of Nash villas that rose above the hedged perimeter. On the other side of a small clump of trees a woman – a mother or nursemaid – was kneeling upon a yellow gingham blanket and handing over drinks to two fair-haired children. A picnic, this early in the year … She hadn’t been at a picnic in a long time, and didn’t miss them, but the innocent air of this little gathering touched her, and as she passed by she smiled at the woman busying herself with sandwiches. But the woman did not respond; perhaps the children had distracted her, or more likely, thought Connie, she was rather short-sighted.
She emerged from the park and crossed over to the long terrace, complacently imperial in its Ionic arches and columns. The front door gleamed like jet. She tapped the heavy brass knocker against the plate, and was admitted by a porter who directed her up a wide balustraded staircase to the first floor. The polished oak handrail and immaculate tiled floor were more suggestive of a foreign embassy than a private residence. Somebody had come up in the world. Her knock was answered after a characteristically languid delay.
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