Spare Brides

by Parks, Adele

  He was deeply and utterly ashamed of the thoughtless, undignified marriage. Ashamed that he’d once been a man who had found Ellie Edwards an attractive enough prospect; that seemed ludicrous now. How could he explain it? The truth was, the war had caused a particular type of panic. Everyone had become greedy and grasping. People latched on to second best because the best might not come along, or it might have been and gone, and time was short. Time was definitely short. Maybe if he’d been married to Lady Anna Renwick or similar, he might have confessed. Lid was married herself, after all. But he hadn’t trusted her enough to see past his youthful mistake. He thought she’d be disgusted by the root of him.

  And he’d been right.

  When she’d found out the truth, she’d slashed him down.

  Edgar shook his head. There was no point in dwelling. He wasn’t that man. He needed just two things now. He needed Ellie to sign the divorce papers so he could return them to his lawyer and then he needed to get on the train that would take him to Plymouth; from there he’d set sail for Australia. A new life.

  ‘Would you like a cuppa? We might as well make it civil like.’

  ‘No, thank you. I have a train to catch.’

  ‘As you say.’

  Ellie slowly, carefully read the papers. She wasn’t a fool and had no intention of signing anything if she hadn’t read and digested it completely. Edgar fought down a mounting sense of frustration. Ellie had seen a number of drafts; there were no surprises in the agreement. He had paid her a lump sum of £800 so she would sign. She would have no further claim on his income or future prospects; £800 was the entire amount Ava Pondson-Callow had handed over in the envelope.

  He had not known what to do with Lid’s money. Giving it back was not an option, since she had banned him from ever contacting her again. If he involved a lawyer, her husband was sure to find out, and that would ruin her. He’d thought he might give it away to charity. He could have used it to buy himself a relatively prestigious foreign commission and in that way fulfil her request for him to leave town, but when it came down to it, he found he could not spend her money on himself. It made him feel dirty.

  For weeks he’d forced himself into the accepted pleasure palaces, the nightclubs he’d haunted with Lid and some of the new ones too. He felt he had to be there because he could be and so many men couldn’t, but even when he was there he was absent, apart. He missed her. He found it difficult to stay in conversations, to remember the name of the fella he was playing cards with, the girl who was spreading her legs for him. In the end he’d decided to use the cash to sever his ties with Ellie. Then he used his private savings to buy a passage to Australia. He didn’t have a commission, but he was still a soldier of the British Empire and he could continue to work his way up as he’d done in the war. He had prospects. He would not accept the limits others tried to impose on him.

  ‘Do you have a pen?’ Ellie asked finally. He did; it was a fountain pen that Lid had bought him. He couldn’t stand the idea of Ellie touching it.

  ‘No, sorry.’

  She borrowed one from the waitress. He blotted the papers. The relief. Freedom. At last. He quickly stood up. Ellie slowly surveyed his impressive physique. ‘I suppose one last tumble for old times’ sake is out of the question.’ She grinned lasciviously.

  ‘Goodbye, Ellie. Good luck.’

  Offended, she snapped, ‘I don’t need your luck. I have plenty of my own. Ta very much.’

  It was too true to refute. Sergeant Major Trent tipped his hat and left the tea house that bore his name. He didn’t look over his shoulder.

  58

  THE TRAIN CLANGED and juddered to a halt. Edgar swiftly disembarked. He’d been standing holding his suitcase for twenty minutes; it had been a long journey and he wasn’t one for sitting still. There wasn’t any real need to hurry – he had four hours before he had to board Themistocles – but he was restless. The chilly air slapped his cheeks and slithered down the back of his neck. He turned up his coat collar and put on his gloves. The gloves that had once warmed her tiny white hands.

  It was possible to catch a horse tramcar from the station to the dock, or even a motor bus, but Edgar chose to walk along the narrow and overcrowded streets, despite the icy temperature. He always preferred to be in charge of his own motion. All around there was evidence of slum clearance. The government were finally cleaning things up, as they’d promised. It had been life and death, survival or extinction, personal and national for too long. Now, all society wanted was indoor lavatories and gas cookers. People were unsettled; they wanted what was due. It didn’t seem much to ask. So whilst it was a time of disruption and commotion, the trouble was sweetened with the sense that it would give birth to progress. The air was blue and sharp but tinged with vitality.

  He dodged lumbering trucks laden with cargo, and dashing passengers, clasping tickets, who oozed a sense of excitement and anticipation. He was disappointed to discover that he couldn’t share their exhilaration. He’d longed to travel for years, but now that the moment had arrived, he did not feel eager. He felt resigned. He had to go, and go he would, but it was harder than he’d imagined leaving this green and proud land. Leaving her completely.

  When he reached the dock and spotted the hulking monster of a ship, he did at least feel a sense of steady relief. Themistocles was a reliable old girl. She’d made many trips to and from Australia before the war. During, she worked as a troopship and a hospital ship, resuming service to Cape Town, Sydney and Brisbane on 2nd July this year. He felt he could relate to her. Couldn’t every soldier whose pleasure had been interrupted by enforced duty? She’d be his friend. He breathed in the salty, damp sea air and listened to the gulls screech as though they were anguished. He’d always felt they were greedy, needy birds. Still, they reminded him of Middlesbrough and simpler times when he was a boy, working at the shipyard. He caught a whiff of hot battered fish and chips, laced with vinegar; his mouth watered and he wondered whether there was time for a bite. One last taste of England.

  It was not unusual for him to imagine he’d seen her in a crowd. He’d spot her and then, on the double-take, he’d be disappointed. He’d almost trained himself not to raise his hopes. She was up in front of him by about ten feet, leaning over the railings that separated the passengers getting on the ship from the people who had come to wave them off. If he joined the queue to board, he’d file past her. Up close, of course, he’d see it wasn’t her, but just a ghost of her, a less crucial woman, and once again he’d have to manage that jagged spike of disappointment. He glanced away and then back again. Expecting and waiting to note that this woman’s hair was not quite as glossy, that she was a little too tall or that her profile was not as chiselled. He looked once more; she stayed resolute. She remained his Lid. Perhaps more anxious than he’d ever seen her before, and maybe a little bulkier in her enormous fur coat, but it was Lid.

  He pushed through the crowds that suddenly seemed to be surging in a way that forced him further from her. ‘Lid, Lid.’ He knew what she’d asked him to do – if they were ever to find themselves on the same street he must ignore her – but this was no coincidence. Couldn’t be. She was looking for him. ‘Lid!’ he yelled above the noise of the crowds and the relentless crashing of cargo being loaded.

  She bristled. Her head turned a fraction. Like a doe in a forest, hearing someone’s tread snap a twig. He staggered through the throng, unchivalrously shoving people out of his way, and a moment later he was by her side, his hand almost touching hers. He could smell her. The familiar, wonderful scent of her. Sensuous possibility. A muffled, musky perfume that grasped his heart and squeezed. She did not smell of violets or roses or any other manufactured toilet water; she smelt of something that suggested shadows and depth. Passion. Its darkness was at odds with her beautiful delicate features. He became intensely aware of her body beneath her bulky coat. The cold had settled on his skin in a way that made it impossible to reach out to touch her. He was frozen. He longed to be back
in the attic, under the worn sheets and the crocheted patchwork blanket his sister had made and Lid found so quaint. He longed to turn back time. He did not know where to begin.

  ‘I had to come,’ she said. Her confession slipped out as though she was ashamed of it. He nodded eagerly, but then stopped. Why was she here? To forgive him? That was impossible. To yell at him? To take this final opportunity to tell him he was a low cad and he’d ruined her, if not socially then most certainly her peace of mind? He almost didn’t care which it was. He would take a tongue-whipping. He’d bear all her fury. It would be worth it. Here she was! He could rest his eyes on her again. Her glance alone filled his world. It was enough. It was everything.

  She looked about her, seemingly nervous, dazed. ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea, perhaps? Or a cocktail? I understand you don’t sail until—’

  ‘Yes.’

  They sat in a shabby hotel bar, two overpriced glasses of gin and a tricky history between them. She refused to take off her coat, which unnerved him. It was as though any moment she might bolt for the door, which he didn’t want. No, not at all. A silence engulfed them. He stared at her but she kept her eyes trained on the threadbare ruby-red carpet. An elderly, slightly pernickety man held court with the landlady across the polished wooden bar; his pipe smoke and dogmatic opinions drifted towards them. It reminded Edgar of the long nights in the trenches; when the air was still, the enemy could just about be heard. Before they’d all drowned in weariness and before the eternal monotony of slaughter calcified them, there had been card games and sometimes chatter or even jokes from both lines. Sometimes one side would cease their chatter and listen to the other. Traditionally it was believed that at those moments men searched their souls and realised that differences were minuscule, politics surmountable, but Edgar had always felt otherwise. It was at those moments that he felt most drained and desperate. He found the similarities were more painful than the discrepancies.

  At length Lid muttered, ‘You’re married.’ The words burned the air; they were branded into their story.

  ‘Yes.’ Edgar sat up straight. He was accountable.

  ‘Is she here?’ Lid glanced around the bar as though she expected his wife to jump out from behind a potted palm.

  ‘No. I’m divorcing her.’ Lid let out a breath that clouded the air and yet cleared his vision. She did not hate him. She was relieved there was no wife. He rushed his explanation and bungled it. ‘I’m going to Brisbane.’

  Lid nodded; she looked baffled and exposed. ‘Why did you lie to me?’

  ‘I knew you’d never forgive me.’ His reply was naked and pitiful. He clasped closed his plump lips. Holding life in. He wanted to shut his eyes too. A way of avoiding the tender, crude, undiluted sense of her.

  ‘You know nothing,’ she snapped. She reached for her drink and took a large gulp.

  ‘But I was right. Once you found out, you despised me. You gave me cash to be silent and disappear like a redundant gigolo.’

  Her expression was the most human he’d ever seen. He’d fought in a war for four years. He’d seen hate and terror, abhorrence and mistrust. Her expression caught all of that and yet it was made still more vivid because there was something else. He was almost sure there was love too. ‘It wasn’t my money. I didn’t—’ She broke off. ‘Oh, what the hell. I thought I could fix this but I can’t. I can’t.’ Her eyes blazed with outraged indignation. She stood up and started to walk quickly towards the lobby. Away from him. He pursued her, his eyes trained on the rhythmic sway of her bottom under her fur coat. He was sure he could hear the hint of silk; her dress or her underwear? He thought of her thighs gently touching and parting as she strode. He felt such lust, and a need to hold her. Her coat slipped open and he saw her ripe, swollen belly.

  ‘Lid!’ She was already out on the street. He threw some coins on the table and gave chase. He caught her just a few yards up the road; the street was wet and oily with rainfall and she couldn’t hurry, she couldn’t risk missing her step. He caught hold of her hand and pulled her round so she had to face him. ‘Is it mine?’ he demanded.

  ‘Of course.’

  She was carrying his baby. Growing their child. His future nestled just there, inside her womb.

  ‘Weren’t you going to tell me?’

  ‘How exactly could I have done that? You disappeared.’ Her anger splintered out into the street. Like shards of glass from a window vandalised by a brick.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She nodded. ‘So am I.’ There was something about her tone that seemed final. It was, after all, goodbye.

  ‘So the earl will have his heir,’ Edgar commented. He tried not to let the bitterness shatter his voice. He understood. At last, he understood it all. She was not his. She never had been. How could he ever have imagined she was? He had always shared her, although he had never wanted to. He’d tried to stay away. Tried not to go to her. After that first time in Sir Peter Pondson-Callow’s study, he’d realised she was somehow different to the other women he knew, married or single. He hadn’t called for six weeks. He’d resisted because sharing a woman he cared for was beneath him. However, her pull had been too strong. He’d caved in and sent word. He’d never asked her to leave her husband and his millions. It didn’t make sense. What could he offer? Once, she’d joked that she’d like to stay with him. He’d told her it wouldn’t work, but maybe, just maybe it might have. He’d seen crazier things. It seemed to be the final insult to lose her to a man who hadn’t even fought. But then maybe that was how it had to be. Lawrence was unsullied. Besides, she’d made her own decision in the end. She’d sent the money.

  ‘You reduced us to a financial transaction.’ He spat out the words. ‘You were buying me off. You’re just here to see I get on the boat and go across the world, where I can never cause any trouble for you and the earl.’

  Fury engulfed him. She should not have come to the dock. He was just learning how to do without her. He’d at least had the memories. His version of what he thought was true. He’d thought she loved him, at least briefly. Not constantly, not above everything, but in some way. But now it seemed he’d been wrong. He knew he loved her. Constantly and above everything else. If the war had taught him anything, it was that it was only worth being angry with those you loved. Being angry with those you hated was a waste. So he became vicious. ‘I’ve read about women like you.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘Rich society women who want some fun with a common man. Want to know if we do it differently. Want to see if we are dirtier.’

  She looked shocked. ‘How can you think that of me?’

  ‘There was a case in the paper just recently: Lady Henning and her dance teacher. Friend of yours, is she?’

  ‘We’re acquainted,’ she admitted.

  ‘So tell me, is it the fashion? I don’t mind at all. It’s all the same to me,’ he snapped sarcastically. ‘Worked out rather well for you and the earl, didn’t it? The pregnancy was a bonus.’

  ‘Shut up. Shut up. You brute. Don’t you understand anything at all?’

  He understood all too well. He felt he’d been here before. Used. Knee deep in mud and blood. A sense of hopelessness swept over him. He ploughed into his instinct to survive. He turned and walked towards the dock. He had a ship to catch.

  59

  BEATRICE HAD FOUND the drama of the day all too thrilling. They had driven since before dawn to get to the dock in time. It had been Ava’s idea. For reasons that she didn’t quite make clear, she had apparently continued to have Edgar Trent followed. The private detective had discovered that the sergeant major had bought a passage to Australia and was due to set sail today. Ava was the one who had persuaded Lydia that she must travel to Plymouth and at least tell him about the baby, tell him she’d left Lawrence. She maintained that she’d insisted on this line of action because she was fed up to the back teeth with Lydia’s dreadfully long face. ‘We simply can’t leave her to rot in that awful semi in suburbia.’ Bea suspected
it was because she finally recognised that Lydia was deeply, irrevocably, although most certainly inconveniently, in love with Edgar Trent. Ava had admitted, ‘Perhaps one ought to stay out of other people’s love affairs, but …’ She hadn’t finished the sentence. Bea had finished it for her.

  ‘But you thought you were doing the right thing.’

  ‘I did, darling. I really did. Now it appears I was wrong.’

  All the friends had been surprised at the intensity of Lydia’s feelings for the sergeant major and at her commitment to him, even long after he had gone. She’d left Lawrence two months ago; since then, Sarah had become his companion with what could only be described as indecent haste. Lydia had not shown a moment’s resentment, but talked of how lovely it would be if John eventually inherited the estate and the title. Needless to say, this would only be possible if Lawrence could formally adopt Sarah’s children. A swift divorce was in everyone’s interests. Lydia remained dignified. Alone. Beatrice couldn’t help but admire her. Her initial disgust and horror at Lydia’s affair dissolved into something softer; if not understanding then certainly compassion.

  Bea had fully expected that the mad dash along the winding English roads would culminate in a passionate reunion. Ava had also been quite certain that this would be the outcome. She’d bought two first-class tickets for the passage and gifted them to Lydia. ‘Darling, I draw the line at you travelling third. Even in the name of love.’

  Beatrice was becoming practised at enjoying love vicariously. Georgina Vestry had made a marvellous season and had in fact received two proposals. The girl was sensible beyond her years and did not seem in a desperate hurry to accept either one, even though she was terribly fond of the lawyer and no doubt would agree to him in time. Bea thought that the importance and effect of the white kid gloves and brocade shoes that she herself had picked out was not to be underestimated. Other ambitious parents agreed. Behind fans, mothers whispered their belief that Beatrice Polwarth had a surprising knack for chaperoning and, when Georgina did marry, there would be two or three new offers of employment.