Will felt an incriminating blush rise through his face, like mercury in a thermometer. Shame had prevented him from returning to the gallery to retrieve the lost package. He wondered how much Brigstock had enjoyed telling her about his behaviour that afternoon, though what Connie said next gave him hope that she hadn’t been apprised of every detail.
‘Those spots on the package look a little like blood,’ she said, in a tone of innocent curiosity.
‘Oh, just a nosebleed I had.’ She nodded, quite satisfied by the explanation, and Will felt an inward surge of gratitude to the painter. What discretion. Then he lifted his eyes from his recovered purchase. ‘Did you really come all the way down here just to return this?’ Now it was Connie’s turn to look awkward. She felt suddenly aware of the people around them.
‘I was wondering – if you might have time … to go for a walk?’
He paused, and gestured at his feet. ‘Would you mind waiting while I put my boots on?’
They left the Priory by the players’ entrance and headed towards the esplanade. The vestiges of their estrangement were sufficiently present to keep their conversation quite formal, though as they reached the Parade Will lightly, instinctively, held her arm as they crossed. Walking along the seafront, they became heedless of everything – the grind and clang of trams, the passing nursemaids and children, the caressing advance of the tide below – everything but each other. It was only when he mentioned his chance encounter with her family at Lord’s that she heard a tenderness in his tone, and the distance between them seemed to shrink. He confessed to being charmed by Molly.
‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘isn’t she the loveliest girl? I sometimes wonder how Fred managed to catch her.’
Will took a deep breath before he next spoke. ‘I suppose certain people just belong together. They’re sort of – meant to be.’ He paused. ‘I once thought I had been lucky enough to …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. A silence lingered between them, and he felt himself trying to stifle his panic as he waited. It seemed an eternity passed before she did speak again.
‘Mr Brigstock also told me about your eagerness to buy a certain painting of his. I think you know the one. He said that you offered any amount of money for it. Is that true?’
He did look at her now. ‘Yes. I wanted it because – it would remind me of a time, the only time in my life, when I felt truly happy. I thought I’d never see her – you – again, so … I had to have that instead.’
Connie had stopped, her heart racked with pity, and something else, which felt like love. She read a profound sorrow in his face, in the very hang of his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Will. I’m so sorry I …’ She didn’t exactly know why she was sorry, for she realised that her behaviour those years ago had sprung from her deepest convictions – there had been something to fight for. ‘… I hurt a person I loved very much.’
‘Is that what you came here to tell me?’
She paused, and looked towards the Pier, its windows glinting in the late-afternoon sun. ‘I suppose it is. It’s been on my mind these past years. When Molly told me about meeting you, I started thinking again about what happened between us, and – much as I suffered from it – I know I couldn’t have acted in any other way. If I had given myself to you instead of obeying my … instincts, I should have suffered more in the end, because I would have been tormented in my conscience. And I couldn’t dismiss the suspicion –’ At this she broke off, and gave him a searching look.
‘A suspicion –?’
‘– that you were motivated more by a dream of marriage than by love of a woman – of me. Please understand, I didn’t set myself above Miss Brink – but we seemed so very different from one another that I could only doubt the man whose expectations and affections could be satisfied so readily.’
He took this in, before saying, ‘It seems that Miss Brink has had a narrow escape.’
She smiled at the self-deprecation, and took his hand in hers. ‘That’s not what I meant –’
‘No, it’s true. I should not have asked her to marry me, not when … That was my mistake – to think I could somehow replace you.’ He found his gaze drifting to the Pier, its stilted legs lapped by the unsteady green swell. Was it really nine years since they had first met down here? He still recalled that prickly exchange he’d had with her about his batting … Perhaps he should have known then that it was never likely to be. Well, she had made her apology; they could part as friends.
Connie felt the furious squall of nerves in her stomach like birds trapped in a cage. Brigstock had said that she didn’t need anyone, but he was wrong. She had only to think of Will to know that was wrong. This would be the moment, if she was going to say it. ‘Will – pardon my presumption – but there’s a favour I wanted to ask. A dear friend of mine – Lily – is to be married next weekend. I had intended to go to the wedding alone, but then I wondered, that is – I hoped you might – consent to accompany me.’
Will heard the tremble in her voice. ‘A wedding … why would you ask me?’
‘Because …’ she began, and faltered. She couldn’t keep running away from him. ‘… because we’d be able to see how it’s done.’
He looked at her more closely, and a slow smile began to crease the edges of his mouth. They were standing by a stairwell that dropped down to the beach; with decisive calm he tugged at her hand, and they descended the stone steps together. She felt the pebbles sharply through the thin soles of her shoes, but she didn’t let go of his hand as he paced across the narrow shingled ridge towards the sea. People passing along the esplanade might have wondered at what was preoccupying the couple on the shore. The fellow in his whites, hands on hips, was nodding interestedly at the woman in the hat, who seemed to be mimicking the swish of a cricket bat. An occasional peal of laughter broke from them. It seemed they might be there for some time yet.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My heartfelt thanks to Dan Franklin, Suzanne Dean and all the team at Jonathan Cape; likewise to Rachel Cugnoni and all at Vintage, Peter Straus and his colleagues at RCW. I am especially grateful to Professor Hermione Lee, who read an early draft of the book and offered many incisive pointers; also to my sister, Dr Sarah Quinn, who patiently talked me through the symptoms and treatment of tension pneumothorax.
I could not have written this book as I intended without the help of David Frith’s magnificent and haunting study Silence of The Heart: Cricket Suicides (2001). I must also salute Martin Middlebrook’s The First Day on the Somme (1971), and in particular the story of Captain D. L. Martin of the 9th Devons. My thanks also to Dr Simon Robbins of the Imperial War Museum.
The books I read on the history of women’s suffrage are too numerous to list here, but I would like to mention the prison diary of Katie Gliddon, composed under great stress in Holloway, March–April 1912. To read this narrative, pencil-written in the margins of her copy of Shelley’s Poetical Works, was a genuine inspiration. My thanks to the staff of The Women’s Library, where this diary is kept, and to the Wellcome Collection.
I am indebted to the love and encouragement of my wife, Rachel Cooke. Even had she not insisted upon it, this book would always have been dedicated to her.
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