Forbidden Places

by Penny Vincenzi

  She paused here, for Muriel had stood up suddenly, her face quite transformed with grief, tender, somehow undone; she looked at Clarissa, then turned and hurried down the aisle, out of the church, her fists clenched in a clear effort to remain quiet, to retain some self-control. There was a brief pause and then, before even Florence could follow her, there was a sudden movement from Grace’s pew, a resonance of footsteps, and Clifford was seen moving with extraordinary speed down the side of the church and out of the door after her. Florence half rose, but Jack put his hand out and pressed her down again; Clarissa resumed.

  ‘There is not a great deal more to be said. But one thing I think is important. Many of you here today did not know Charles at all and are here for Grace, to give her support. I think she will draw great comfort from that and also from the knowledge that she was, in her sadly brief marriage to Charles, a most good and loving wife. He was, I know, so proud of her, and with good reason.’

  Her dark eyes rested on Grace then, smiled at her with such sweetness, such absolute complicity, that some of the guilt and its pain fell away from her; and as John Stokes began to play that most lovely of funeral hymns, ‘God Be in My Head’, and the congregation rose to sing, Grace knelt, weeping tears of relief and thankfulness that Charles had never had any idea at all of her frailty. That much, through no great virtue of her own, he had been granted.

  And when finally she got outside and looked anxiously for Muriel, she saw a wonderful and unexpected sight: she was standing in a corner of the graveyard, clearly still overwhelmed with grief, but the person comforting her, holding her, wiping her eyes most tenderly, was not Florence. It was Clifford.

  Three days later she got a letter from Ben.

  My dear Grace,

  The boys wrote and told me about Charles. I know how very unhappy you must be, and I am truly sorry. I have been thinking of you and hoping so much you are all right. There is nothing I can do, but you know I am here.

  My love.

  Ben

  ‘Thank you for writing to your dad,’ she said. ‘It was very thoughtful.’

  ‘We thought you’d want him to know,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes I did.’

  She wrote back, thanking him for his letter, sending him her love; no more than that. She knew he would understand; and determinedly, carefully, then, as if packing away something for storage through a long winter, she set him into the dark shadows at the back of her mind and her heart, until such time as she was ready to think what to do.

  As she surfaced from her deep and genuine grief over Charles, Florence finally decided to ask Robert for a divorce. She had no idea why she had taken so long to make the decision, or why even going to see the solicitor frightened her so much; and it was not Giles’s loving insistence, nor her desire to start a new life with him, nor even the rather heavier pressure put on her by her father, but Robert’s assault on Grace that had given her the necessary courage. She went to a firm of solicitors in Salisbury, who knew nothing of her or her family, and certainly not of Robert; lawyers, she felt instinctively, were as cohesive a force as doctors, and would join ranks wherever necessary, and she was very much afraid of what Robert, probably in association with his colleagues at the bar, would be able to do with her and a small firm of country solicitors.

  The solicitor’s name was Dodds; he was grey-haired, grey-faced, efficient and brisk, his face politely blank as she furnished him with details.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ she said, firmly, ‘on grounds of adultery.’

  ‘On grounds of your husband’s adultery?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘my own.’

  Mr Dodds passed the first test; he didn’t even blink. ‘I see. So it is in fact your husband who wants the divorce?’

  ‘No,’ said Florence, ‘I do.’

  ‘But he has expressed a willingness to divorce you?’

  Florence hesitated. ‘Well – yes.’

  ‘That is clearly essential, Mrs Grieg.’

  ‘I see. Well, yes, of course he is willing.’

  ‘And you will provide the necessary evidence?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘You have someone prepared to be cited?’

  ‘Yes I do. The father of my child. Actually.’

  Mr Dodds’s face became even more expressionless. ‘Ah. And is there incontrovertible proof of that relationship?’

  ‘Only visual,’ said Florence. ‘I mean he’s not on her birth certificate.’

  ‘I see. Well, certain procedures may need to be followed, if we are to allow that as evidence. Blood tests and so on.’

  ‘I can prove my husband was away at the time of – of her conception.’

  ‘That could be helpful,’ said Mr Dodds.

  ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘I will write to Major Grieg, informing him that you have instructed me and on what basis. We will then await his response. Have you had any contact with the major during the past few months?’

  ‘Not directly,’ said Florence.

  Ten days later she got a letter from Robert.

  My dear Florence,

  I have taken my time in communicating with you on the subject of an extraordinary letter from Mr Kenneth Dodds of Dodds & Partners in Salisbury.

  I have to tell you, I have no intention of divorcing you; I care for you far too much.

  Of course I know our marriage has not been ideal, and I think if we were honest we would have to admit we had both behaved less than perfectly at times, but the whole point of a marriage, it seems to me, is that it is something to be worked at, in partnership with one another. Nobody expects marriage to be easy; and if you did, my dear, then you were very naive. But I think we have the basis still for a happy life together, and I think we should go forward in pursuit of that happiness.

  I would like to assure you that I do regard Imogen as my child; I love her very much and want to bring her up with you in our home together. And I would like, of course, to have more children. This war has put an appalling strain on all relationships, even the happiest; but if our separation has done anything positive for me at all, it has made me realize how much I love you.

  I think we all know that the end is in sight, even if it is still a while off; another year perhaps, and we can be together in our own home again, building a future.

  If you can accept and forgive my shortcomings, Florence, I can certainly accept and forgive yours.

  I am hoping for some leave in the next few weeks, and then we can perhaps discuss all this together and find a way forward.

  Until then I remain your loving,

  Robert.

  ‘Oh dear God,’ whispered Florence, setting down the letter, staring out of the window, feeling the old constricting terror in her throat, ‘dear dear God, what am I going to do?’

  More than anything in the world now Grace wanted to see Ben; but more than ever she felt he was forbidden territory. Guilt still haunted her; guilt and an entirely illogical, superstitious fear that she was somehow to blame for Charles’s death, that it was in some way a judgment on her. She knew also that it would be a very long time indeed before it would be considered decent, acceptable for her to see Ben, that everyone would be shocked, that she would be an outcast if she did; that added to the guilt made her more wretched still. She slept badly, was irritable and miserable during the day, and felt unable to work, not even to give music lessons at the school; boredom consequently added to her other miseries.

  Miss Merton, seeing it as therapy as much as anything else, asked her to consider helping to organize a Maypole dance for the school fair on Whit Sunday; Grace said rather listlessly that she would if she had the time. Elspeth Dunn passed her Grade Two piano exam with distinction, and Grace merely told Miss Merton how pleased she was, made no attempt to see Elspeth herself. The only emotion she’d shown for weeks was when David Lucas had heard he’d got his scholarship to the grammar school; then she had burst into floods of tears and hugged him to her, sa
ying over and over again, ‘Your father will be so pleased, so terribly, terribly pleased.’

  Both David and Daniel asked her constantly when Ben would be coming to see them again; she told them, trying not to sound too short, that she had no idea, that he was far away now in the north of England. She knew she was being unfair on them, that they needed affection as much as ever, but she found herself unable to give it; her resources were depleted.

  Florence, clearly edgy and fractious herself, came to visit, ostensibly to cheer her up, but actually to unburden herself on the subject of her so far abortive attempt to divorce Robert. She told Grace she was looking awful.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Grace briefly.

  ‘And that dress looks terrible, it’s hanging off you. You ought to take it in or something.’

  ‘Florence, when I want your advice about anything, anything at all, including my appearance, I’ll ask you,’ said Grace.

  ‘All right. No need to be like that.’

  ‘There is actually,’ said Grace. ‘It’s time someone told you, Florence, to think before you speak. Rather than just opening your mouth and upsetting people. You’re just like – like your mother.’

  ‘Am I really?’ said Florence. She sounded astonished, rather than upset.

  ‘Sometimes, yes, you are.’

  ‘How absolutely appalling,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Even dear Mrs Babbage, still insistent on coming in to clean the Mill House, endeavouring to cheer Grace up with her observations that the end was in sight, irritated her almost beyond endurance.

  ‘Got them on the run now,’ she would say, or ‘We’ll see the whites of their eyes soon’ as she scrubbed the kitchen floor, polished the dining-room table fiercely, ‘although there’s the invasion to be got through yet, of course, have to brace ourselves for that.’ She would then move on to comment on what they had all been through, as if the Thorpes had been bombarded nightly along with London and the other great cities of England, concluding with her climactic judgment that the British had always been able to take it. In the end Grace told her, not quite gently enough, that she really thought she could manage in future, much as she appreciated what Mrs Babbage had done for her; she then spent the next hour in tears of remorse at the memory of Mrs Babbage’s hurt face as she packed her apron and dusters into her bag and told her she was glad she was feeling better.

  But it was David who pulled her up finally, made her realize how mean she was being. Clifford had asked her to a concert at the cathedral one Saturday; Grace told him she was sorry, she really didn’t feel like going out, to take David instead.

  David came to find her later. ‘That was mean,’ she said. ‘Sir Clifford had got tickets specially. Asked Florence to get them, as a surprise for you.’

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t have done it without asking me,’ said Grace.

  David looked at her. ‘You’re not a bit like you used to be,’ he said.

  That afternoon she went for a long walk and thought extremely hard about herself and indeed everything else. She thought about Charles and told herself for the hundredth, the thousandth time that at least he had never known she had failed him. She thought about Ben, and how sure she was still that she loved him. And she thought about the night after Robert had attacked her, and how she had decided that she was going to take charge of her life in the future, to be less passive, more positive. The alternative, being negative, being unpleasant to everyone, was doing neither herself nor the memory of Charles any good. She stood on the hill where Ben had stroked her arm, that hot afternoon so long ago, and looked down at the house, and the happiness she had managed to find there; and resolved to take it back again.

  When she got home, she sat down and wrote two letters; a brief apologetic note to Mrs Babbage and a rather faltering letter to Ben.

  It wasn’t a long letter, but it took her a long time to write. The desk and wastepaper basket were filled with drafts before she had finished. The words wouldn’t flow: she felt odd, guilty, as if Charles were watching her. And thoughts of Ben troubled her too. Was it arrogant to assume that he had been waiting, frantic with impatience, for her summons, that he would drop everything and come running to her the moment it came? Would he consider her contacting him hasty, distasteful, callous? And might he perhaps have wearied of waiting, anyway, regretted at least some of what he had said and done?

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake,’ said Grace aloud, reaching for another sheet of paper, ‘pull yourself together.’

  In the end she simply told him that she missed him, that she thought about him all the time, that when he had some leave and if he would like it, she would love him to come to the Mill House ‘and see us all’. She signed it ‘With my love to you, Grace’.

  The moment she had posted it she felt better.

  Florence was awoken one sunny April morning at six by her phone ringing: it was Joan Haverford.

  ‘Florence, we need to meet some poor wretches off the train in an hour. Big block of flats hit in South London last night, latest in this new spate of bombs. I’ve been asked if we can meet the train, help with placing a few. Can you get over to Salisbury by nine, say?’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Florence.

  The dozen women coming off the train, children trailing behind them, were, as so often, shocked, sullen, resentful.

  ‘They must be so grateful to you,’ people said to Florence and found it hard to believe that often they were nothing of the sort, seemed indeed to blame her, in the absence of anyone else, for their misfortune.

  They took them into the waiting room which had been commandeered, gave them hot drinks, warm clothes, clean nappies and milk for the babies.

  ‘’ow long we going to be ’ere?’ asked one girl, clutching a small runny-nosed child to her, ‘I got to get back, got me job to do.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Florence patiently, ‘but if you haven’t got anywhere to live, you can’t do your job, can you? Not for a bit, anyway.’

  The girl looked at her, digesting her accent, her tweed suit, so clearly once expensive, and said illogically, ‘Yeah, well, it’s all right for you.’

  ‘What is your job?’ said Florence, ignoring this.

  ‘Work in a factory,’ said the girl.

  ‘And where’s your husband?’

  ‘’aven’t got one.’

  ‘Ah. Well, who – whose –?’ said, Florence, indicating the baby.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ said the girl.

  ‘I need to know, you must see that,’ said Florence briskly. ‘For records and so on. If I’m to find you a billet.’

  ‘You can tell them to stuff their records,’ said the girl. She sniffed hard; she was near to tears. The baby suddenly smiled, reached out for Florence; it was pretty in spite of its disgusting nose, with enormous brown eyes and black silky curls. It was clearly one of the GI ‘khaki babies’, she thought, a growing army of innocent casualties of the American invasion.

  ‘How sweet,’ she said. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Nine months.’

  ‘She’s very pretty. What’s her name?’

  ‘Mamie,’ said the girl, won over immediately by this piece of admiration. ‘After Mrs Eisenhower. ’er dad’s a pilot. We’re getting married after the war,’ she added, with more hope than conviction in her voice. ‘Got a big ’ouse over there ’e ’as, wiv a swimming pool and all.’

  ‘How nice,’ said Florence. She had heard this before: a lot of GI babies had been fathered on this premise. ‘Well now, let me see, you want somewhere temporary, I suppose, just till you can get back to London. Is there anyone up there you can live with? For a while?’

  ‘No, not really,’ said the girl, ‘me dad threw me out, when I – well, when I knew Mamie was on the way, and I was staying with me friend, only she – she copped it last night. And all ’er three kids.’

  She promptly burst into tears; Mamie joined in, the congealed snot on her face blending with fresh. Florence reached for a handkerchief in
her bag, wiped the small face tenderly. ‘You go and sit down over there,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you another cup of tea and see what I can do.’

  At the end of a long morning they had found billets for everybody; everybody that is except a girl with a small khaki baby.

  Florence looked at the girl, and thought hard. Nanny Baines was finding Imogen increasingly hard to cope with; she complained a lot and needed a break. The Priory was dirty and unkempt, Cook had gone into more or less permanent retirement. The baby would amuse Imogen.

  ‘How would you like’, she said, ‘to come and stay with me? Just for a few weeks?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said the girl. ‘What’s the deal? What’s it going to cost?’

  ‘The deal is you help in the house and look after my little girl while I’m doing this job. Five days a week, that is. It won’t cost you anything at all. Only I won’t be able to pay you much either. You can have a nice big room, and we’ve got a very pretty garden – oh, and you’ll have to be nice to my mother. She’s a bit difficult.’

  The girl looked at her and grinned suddenly; she had a very nice grin, wide and full of humour.

  ‘She can’t be worse than mine,’ she said.

  Putting the girl, whose name was Jeannette – ‘with an e, Jeannette Macdonald I was named after’ – into the car with Mamie, Florence was suddenly overcome with panic. It wasn’t like her to act so impulsively, she didn’t know anything about Jeannette, she might have a criminal record for all she knew, Mamie might be a night mare and cry all the time, and Muriel would undoubtedly have a fit. Well, it was too late now, she thought, she had made it very plain that it was only for a few weeks, and it would be nice for Imogen to have some company. And there was a war on after all.

  ‘I’ve just got to go and see my solicitor,’ she said to Jeannette, ‘on the way home. It shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘We can write again,’ said Mr Dodds, ‘reaffirming your intent to request a divorce from him. But you see, you are asking him to divorce you. He may well continue to refuse.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I had understood you to say, Mrs Grieg, that he wished to divorce you.’