‘I – I’m not frightened.’ Battening down her terror and trying to stop shaking, Rose looked up at him, into his eyes. ‘I want to go to bed.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Why else do you think I came here?’ she demanded, in a high-pitched voice unlike her own.
‘Rose, you mustn’t think I want–’
‘You mean you’ve changed your mind?’
‘That’s your privilege.’ Alex let his hands slide down her shoulders, electrifying her and making her feel weak with longing. He took her hands in his. ‘All right, we’ll go to bed.’
The huge, sagging bed had musty curtains, and when Alex drew them it was like being in a scarlet cave. There was no other world outside. Alex had no wife, Rose wasn’t playing truant and wasn’t about to give herself to a man she knew she couldn’t marry. There was no war, no duty and no time.
She hadn’t thought about the actual process, about the loss of her virginity. She only knew she wanted Alex. She wanted to be naked next to him, as she’d wanted that day in the bath house, when the dappled light had filtered through the net-screened doorway and made him looked so beautiful that she had almost wept, when the sun had stroked his smooth brown nutmeg-scented skin.
He was very careful, caressing and reassuring her as if she were a nervous mare whom he was too considerate to frighten. ‘I promise I’ll be gentle,’ he said softly, as he took off her clothes, as he kissed her face, her neck, her hair, and as he found the tender, sensitive places she hadn’t known were there before today.
As he kissed her, the material of his jacket grazed her skin, and made her shudder. ‘At least take off your coat,’ she whispered, suddenly embarrassed and ashamed.
‘You do it for me.’
When they were both naked, Alex traced a line from Rose’s throat down to her navel, then he slid one hand between her legs. She gasped and trembled, but she let him part her thighs, then find a place she hadn’t known existed until this afternoon.
‘Rose, try to relax,’ he whispered, as he kissed behind her ear and made her shiver with delicious pleasure. ‘I promise I won’t hurt you. There’s no need to be afraid.’
But Rose found she wanted pain, and when Alex finally came inside her and it hurt like hell, she sighed with satisfaction.
‘Did I hurt you?’ Alex asked, as he let his weight down on her body, as he took her in his arms and planted rows of kisses in her hair.
‘Yes, you hurt me.’
‘I didn’t mean to be so rough. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re not to be sorry, because I was in heaven.’
‘So was I.’ Alex rolled over on his back and then pulled Rose on top of him, so her hair came tumbling round her face. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen it loose,’ he said, as he played with a long, curling strand.
‘It might well be the last. I hate my hair, it’s so unruly, I think it makes me look like some old witch.’ Rose grasped two great handfuls, pushing it behind her ears then starting on a plait.
‘Leave it.’ Alex pulled her hands away. ‘Your hair is beautiful, and so are you. Rose, are you hungry?’
‘I suppose I must be. I didn’t get a chance to eat this morning.’
‘Let’s go and feed you, then.’
They dressed, then went to eat at an estaminet in the town. Alex asked for brandy and told the waiter he could leave the bottle on the table.
They sat in silence until the food arrived. Then Rose made her confession. ‘I told them I was visiting my cousin who’s in hospital in Tournonville.’ She looked up from her plate. ‘You must think that’s awful, when there are so many people actually getting hurt.’
‘It’s not awful, Rose,’ said Alex, gravely. ‘But I’m amazed to find that you are such an accomplished liar nowadays.’
‘It frightens me,’ admitted Rose. ‘I never used to think I could be wicked, but I suppose I must be. Alex, I thought the French were meant to be accomplished cooks. This ragout is disgusting.’
‘It does look rather ghastly.’ Alex hadn’t eaten anything, and now he drained his brandy. ‘Let’s go back to bed.’
‘That night you wouldn’t dance with me,’ said Alex, winding a skein of Rose’s hair around his index finger, then letting go and watching it spring back into a curl. ‘I’ve never been so hurt in all my life.’
‘Did you ask me to dance?’ teased Rose. She kissed him. ‘I don’t remember that.’
‘You must – I asked you twice!’
‘But when you asked me first, you didn’t really think I would. “Miss Courtenay, if you mean to dance?” What sort of invitation’s that?’
‘Well, I was nervous.’ Alex grinned. ‘I was also trying not to notice that revolting dress.’
‘It was a lovely dress!’
‘Rose, it was hideous. It was a horrid shade of piglet pink, and you looked quite ridiculous, hung with all those awful beads and sequins, like a walking Christmas tree.’
‘I hate you, Alex Denham!’ Rose jumped up. ‘I’m going back to Auchonville this minute.’
‘You’ll have a nice long walk. So wrap up well, it’s going to freeze tonight.’ Alex lay back against the pillows, watching Rose pull on her thick black woollen stockings. ‘Rose, don’t be offended. Most women look much better without clothes.’
‘You should know.’ Rose groped for her chemise. ‘You’ll have seen so many of them naked, after all.’
‘Only ten or twenty – certainly no more.’ Alex yawned and stretched luxuriously. ‘William had his half a dozen favourites, and drew and painted them most of the time.’
‘I was forgetting.’ Rose sat down again and looked at Alex. ‘You know everything about my life, but yours is a mystery to me.’
‘I’d have thought what happened was common knowledge?’
‘Everybody talked, of course,’ said Rose. ‘But they all clammed up and pursed their lips whenever children were about. I knew your mother often went away, and people wondered if she would come back.’
‘Rose, come here.’ Alex pulled her into his embrace and let her lean against him. ‘My mother and William Rayner met when she was seventeen. He had come to paint her sister’s portrait, at their house.
‘A few months later she was pregnant, probably with William’s child, but there’s a possibility she had other lovers, too. William wouldn’t marry her, and so she married Henry. He was very much in love and would have taken her on any terms.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Three or four years later, she saw William at a party. She went away with him. But they didn’t always get on well, her parents had disowned her, so she travelled back and forth to Dorset, dragging me.’
‘You must have been so puzzled and confused?’
‘I don’t remember.’ Alex shrugged. ‘Mrs Sefton called me the encumbrance, and wouldn’t have me in her house. But Henry was always very kind to me.’
‘Poor Mr Denham.’
‘Yes, he should have had a better wife. He certainly deserved one.’
‘It’s strange I don’t remember Mrs Denham. You and Mr Denham used to call at Charton Minster, but your mother never came.’
‘She was not invited. Rose, your family is respectable, and so my mother would have been as welcome as the plague.’
‘Alex, did you love your mother?’
‘I loved her very much. She was the sort of person one couldn’t help but love. While she was dying, William was distraught. I thought he would go mad with grief.’
‘But he’s still alive?’
‘I think so.’ Alex shrugged again. ‘Although he’ll have another mistress now. I don’t suppose he thinks about my mother any more.’
‘What a horrid person he must be.’
‘No, he’s a charming man. I always liked him.’
‘You’re so forgiving, Alex. I don’t think I would be.’ Rose twisted round to look at him. ‘Do you see much of Michael?’
‘Yes, because he’s in my company.’
&nb
sp; ‘Do you get on well?’
‘We rub along.’ Alex didn’t tell her Michael was a liability, whose only talent was shooting those unwary Germans who happened to stick their heads above the parapet. Thanks to Michael, Freddie Lomax and the other officers all knew Alex’s personal history. Michael had made a special pet of odious Corporal Brind, and Brind had spread Lieutenant Easton’s stories all around the men.
But there were compensations. It had been particularly pleasant to hear Sergeant Norris tell the happy poacher to keep his filthy slander to himself, that in the sergeant’s frank opinion it didn’t matter if Mr Denham’s mother was a whore or Queen of Timbuctoo. The captain was no more incompetent than any other useless officer, and Corporal Brind’s own parents must have been a pair of dirty-minded, mad baboons.
Alex wrapped a quilt round Rose’s shoulders. ‘Easton’s been telling everyone he’s going to marry you.’
‘He just wants Daddy’s money. If I were a pauper, Michael wouldn’t look at me.’
‘I think he’s very proud. You nurses are doing splendid work in France.’
‘If he knew what splendid work I’d done this afternoon–’
‘Rose, do you regret it?’
‘No, and I never shall – even if I live to be a hundred.’ Rose rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘Oh Alex, I’m so tired!’
‘Then go to sleep.’ Alex pulled the quilts and blankets round them, then snuffed out the light.
‘Rose?’ It was nearly dawn and Alex knew he had to leave. Otherwise, he would be on a charge.
‘Let me sleep,’ moaned Rose.
‘Darling, I must go. I have to find the Armagnac, then take that wretched car back to Harfoix.’
‘Go on, leave me then.’ Rose looked at him with drowsy, sated eyes. ‘But how will I get back to Auchonville?’
‘There’s a train to Belancourt at ten, then you can walk.’ He stroked her hip. ‘The exercise will do you good.’
‘You’re such a beast.’
‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘I love you.’
‘Do you honestly?’
‘I love you and I’ll always love you. Rose, I promise you.’
‘A morning promise. One made to be broken before it’s afternoon?’
‘One to be kept until the sun stops rising in the sky.’
‘But I’m supposed to be the liar.’
‘So don’t say you love me.’ Alex kissed her on the mouth. ‘Go back to sleep instead.’
‘It was very quiet last night,’ said Elsie, as Rose pulled off her gloves. ‘In fact, I put my feet up on the stove and went to sleep. But this afternoon it will be bedlam. They’re bringing thirty patients from Harfoix, all of them gassed.’
‘That’s all right,’ smiled Rose. ‘I’ll get them settled. You and Nancy Harris can still go into town.’
‘How is your cousin?’ asked Miss Troy, who’d just walked in.
‘He’s in excellent spirits,’ Rose replied. ‘He was thrilled to see me.’
‘I’m sure he must have been,’ said Elsie, wryly. ‘Rose, your new collar must be rubbing. You have a sore patch on your neck.’
Rose broke all the rules but didn’t care. She worried about being caught, but only because if she were caught she’d be sent back to England.
Nurses were forbidden to go anywhere alone, unless they had permission from their matron and a pass. They were not allowed to go out walking with officers or men. They couldn’t even go for walks themselves unless they went in pairs.
But whenever Alex managed to arrange an errand to the riding school in Belancourt, or to the training camp nearby, whenever he could snatch a couple of hours and get a lift to Auchonville, Rose would beg Miss Troy or Elsie Dennison to cover up for her, sweeten them with cigarettes and chocolate, then slip out on her own.
‘I suppose it’s that peculiar young man we saw in Rouen?’ Elsie said one evening, as Rose came panting in and flung herself down on the camp bed in the spartan wooden hut they shared.
‘He’s not peculiar, he’s lovely!’
‘I hope he’s worth the mess you’ll both be in when Matron or the military police catch up with you.’
‘Matron never notices a thing, and the police are busy chasing soldiers who have cut and run.’ Rose smiled at her friend. ‘Elsie, will you do my Wednesday morning? Then I’ll do both your Friday nights.’
‘Yes, all right.’ Elsie glanced up from the letter she was writing to her fiancé in the Dardanelles. ‘I don’t know where you get the energy.’
But Rose was never tired. She fizzed and buzzed with restless energy, her grey eyes sparkled and her complexion glowed. Although she was forever swapping shifts, trading one night off for two on duty, so that when she wasn’t with Alex she was almost always on the wards, she found she needed hardly any rest.
The hospital was full, but the nurses weren’t rushed off their feet. Apart from men who had been gassed and needed special nursing, most patients at this time of year were sick, not gassed or wounded. A few were injured, but most were getting over colds, croup, frostbite or trench foot.
‘It’s always quiet in winter,’ muttered Alex, when they met for half an hour in Auchonville the following Saturday. ‘The next big push will be in spring or summer. Then you’ll learn what war is all about.’
It wasn’t spring or summer yet. Rose refused to think about the awful implications of a push, as Alex called the great attack everybody knew was coming soon and ought to end the war.
What would happen then? Alex had signed on for twenty years or more, so when this dismal business was all over, where would he go next?
‘God only knows,’ he said, as he and Rose sat in the market square, enjoying the December sunshine on an unusually bright, clear day. ‘Let’s hope it’s India or Burma.’
‘Why?’ asked Rose.
‘It’s easier to get promoted there.’ Alex lit a cigarette, then let a perfect smoke ring rise high into the sky. ‘I want to be a colonel and make Henry proud of me.’
Rose looked at the smoke ring, floating higher and higher, losing substance, shape and form. Alex had said he loved her, promised he always would, but if he went to India, what would she do then? Tag along behind the baggage wagons with the other riff-raff, in a motley crew of money-lenders, cooks and whores?
‘What are you thinking, Rose?’ asked Alex
‘I – nothing important.’ Rose looked at him and saw he was dishevelled, grimed and filthy. He hadn’t shaved for days. He hadn’t even combed his hair. His boots were clogged and dirty, and his trousers caked with dried-on mud.
Several buttons were missing from his jacket, which was scuffed and torn. He smelled of trenches – of lice-repellent, smoke and dank latrines, of mouldy clothes and slime.
How could he bear to live like that? How could he and millions like him crouch in sordid holes, ever fearful of a gas attack, a bombing raid?
When he did escape, when he snatched an hour of peace and spent it sitting in a village square, smoking cheap French cigarettes and staring at the bright blue cloudless sky, how did he find the courage to go back?
‘Captain Denham, sir?’ A lorry trundled up to them, and a cheerful corporal grinned and waved. ‘You said one o’clock, sir – but I managed to get all this lot loaded up by ten. So we’ve time to drop the parcels off at Nelanville.’
‘Good show, Corporal Ross.’ Alex threw his cigarette away. ‘I have to go,’ he murmured, as Rose realised with a sinking heart they would not be having lunch together.
He wouldn’t even kiss her in front of odious, over-zealous, grinning Corporal Ross.
The nurses held a raffle to decide which two should be off shift on Christmas Day.
‘I’ve won!’ squealed Rose, delighted.
‘So have I,’ said Elsie Dennison.
‘What shall you do, Elsie?’ Rose asked, beaming.
‘Sleep,’ said Elsie, rubbing her red eyes. ‘I’ll come and watch the boys open their presents, then I’ll go back to bed.’
> ‘What about you, Rose?’ enquired Miss Troy.
‘I’ll give a hand with breakfast, help take round the parcels, and then I’ll have a rest,’ Rose answered, glibly. ‘I’ve got a stack of books I haven’t read.’
She wrote to him immediately to tell him the good news. She hardly dared to hope he’d get away. But it seemed he might. ‘It’s my turn,’ he said. ‘I spent last Christmas in this stinking midden. My darling, say your prayers.’
Rose knew there was no need to pray, for nothing could go wrong. Even when Miss Troy came down with raging tonsillitis, she knew she could escape just after two, when Elsie would fill in.
One of the QA nurses at the hospital had happened to remark that when she got some leave, she and another sister liked to go to a hotel a mile or two from Auchonville, and rent a room just for the afternoon. There, they’d have a long, luxurious bath, eat cakes and read the latest novelettes, pretending they were having a quiet Sunday back in England.
‘I’ve booked a room,’ wrote Rose. ‘So if you don’t come, I’ll sit and stuff myself with food, and drink a bottle of brandy. Then cry all on my own.’
But Alex came. ‘My darling, you’re so clever,’ he exclaimed, as he came out of the steamy bathroom, looking like a Roman senator, swathed in snow-white towels.
‘So where’s my Christmas present, then?’ asked Rose.
‘I have got you something.’ Alex grinned. ‘But if you could have anything you liked, what would it be?’
‘Just you,’ said Rose. ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she told him, as she kissed him, as she inhaled the scent of warm, clean skin, as she held Alex tight.
‘The manager knows what’s going on, but doesn’t give a damn.’ Rose shrugged like a Frenchman. ‘These English nurses, just so many prostitutes and harlots, thank God our lovely French girls don’t behave like English whores.’
‘If any Frenchman spoke like that in front of me, I’d knock him down,’ said Alex. ‘God, I hate the French! The British army’s trying to defend their stinking country, but all they do is grumble, charge us ten times what their filthy goods and rotten services are worth, and water down the beer.’
‘So if we’d let the Germans march through Belgium unmolested, the British wouldn’t be in France and the French might actually prefer it?’
The Silver Locket (Choc Lit) Page 14