He stopped, the brevity of everything concerned with his unknown son suddenly overwhelming him.
He took a couple of deep breaths. 'He did al right at first. Louise was virtualy unconscious by the time he was delivered. She had a massive haemorrhage, though she did see him, or so her mother likes to believe. He just succumbed. No wil to live. A big baby,' he added. 'No real reason for him to die. Not enough oxygen, perhaps, they thought.'
'Oh Laurie,' said Mary, moving to sit on the floor next to him and rubbing his hand. 'You must have been so sad. To lose them both. You must have loved your wife very much.'
'That's the realy awful bit of it. I'm not sure I ever did. Not enough. I married her because I was lonely. That wasn't what I thought at the time but looking back I think that's why. I didn't have a family so I thought I could share hers. She was utterly without malice but she was just a girl, unformed. I couldn't talk to her.' He stopped. 'And she didn't like me, not as a husband. Not in a physical way. She liked me as a friend, as someone to be beside her, to sit in a nice house, to tease her and admire her. But me as a man she found very difficult. She was young. She knew nothing at al realy about the realities of love or marriage. I think part of her couldn't believe I could want to do something so horrible to her. I didn't have time to get to know her before she was pregnant. Then she lost the baby and was devastated. Al she wanted was another baby. When she knew she was pregnant again, that made her happy. Totaly, utterly happy.'
He wondered whether he was entering territory that was far too personal to discuss with a woman he had not known long, however intensely he had felt a connection, but he kept on talking. Mary looked interested but not shocked at his openness.
'Once she was pregnant she didn't want me to share a room with her. Of course she was terrified about losing this baby too but it was more than that. I think it al revolted her. Al the same, I hated myself for being dissatisfied with her, and yet wanting the comfort of her so much. And meanwhile the war had come.
'When I came back on leave the gulf between us was even greater. Al she talked about was the baby or if she discussed the war it was simply how we were winning every battle. She wouldn't hear anything that contradicted that. She wouldn't see what was right in front of her eyes. A couple of times I read reports to her from The Times: al highly watered-down versions of what I'd been part of, but she actualy put her hands over her ears.'
'Perhaps she was frightened to bring a baby into a world where victory wasn't a certainty?'
Mary stood up as she spoke and he thought she was going into the kitchen. For a second he thought his frankness had disappointed her or even repeled her.
However, she leaned over to touch the side of his face. When he didn't pul back she put out her other hand and raised his face to look at her. Then, astonishingly, she bent down and kissed him gently on the lips. 'I'm so sorry,' she whispered.
He looked back at her and her gaze didn't waver. She walked on into the tiny sculery and ran herself a glass of water. He loved watching her take his rooms for granted.
'It was the war,' she said as she came back through the door, 'and it was like nothing else. It complicated things. Not just for soldiers.'
He sensed she was pondering whether to continue.
'I wasn't honest with you,' she said finaly. 'Sins of omission and al that.'
His heart sank. He wasn't sure whether, after al this time, he wanted to know any secrets she'd been holding back.
'There was somebody.'
Laurence felt a terrible sadness, then simultaneously—and, he knew, demeaningly—a hope that the past tense meant just that.
'He was married,' she said, sitting down next to him on the floor, her back against a chair. 'It was a very unhappy marriage. Among other things, his wife found she couldn't have children. Very sad for them both. Although she found someone else, they were Catholic; hers was a very old recusant family so the world turned a blind eye. Richard found himself sort of in limbo. He loved the estate—just two farms and a beautiful Tudor house, though a very dilapidated, very cold house.'
She smiled, apparently in recolection, and Laurence's heart sank again.
'My father was dead. My mother, wel, you've seen her. She seldom thinks of anyone or anything outside the effort of just living her life. So there was nobody to inveigh against my unsuitable relationship.'
She looked straight at Laurence but he found it hard not to avoid her eyes, hoping she didn't mistake jealousy for disapproval.
'Nobody to tel me that my reputation would be besmirched or that I'd never find a decent husband. Of course we didn't know there'd be a war, but if we had, we'd probably just have seized the day.'
Although the grin she gave him was partly bravado, he thought, it made her look like a schoolgirl.
'Anyway, Richard was as much a husband as I can imagine any man being. Not at first, not for a long time—I was quite young, of course, and he was dreadfuly anxious about protecting me from scandal, whereas I didn't realy give a fig myself—but, in the end.'
Laurence desperately wanted to swalow but she was looking at him too closely. She seemed to be testing his response despite her apparent certainties.
'Anyway he stayed in the country in Sussex, in the old, cold house overlooking the Downs. He'd been born in that house. His wife, Blanche, lived in their flat in London. He was lonely but he loved the countryside. The cloud shadows over the hils, the foam of hawthorn in spring: he used to say the whole landscape echoed the sea. His house was a bit like an old ship, stranded inland. It was al faded reds and silver wood, overhanging upper storeys, barley-sugar chimneys.
'We met at the house of mutual friends one weekend. I think we each sensed loneliness in the other. We took to meeting just to walk and talk. Over the next months and years we must have explored the whole county in every season and every kind of weather. He liked the crumbling cliffs, the sea mists and the rattle of the sea on the shingle; he tried to go into the navy when he saw the way things were going, but it was quicker'—she grimaced—'and easier to get a commission in the army.
My own favourite place was the Long Man of Wilmington—a huge chalk figure with a stave in each hand—and a little medieval priory or something near by. A place of ancient peace. I often go back there now.'
Laurence felt the tiny satisfaction of incorporating another bit of her life into his understanding of her. This was the scandal Charles had spoken of and also why he had bumped into her in Sussex. He wanted to ask the identity of the man she had met but not introduced him to at the Wigmore Hal, but it stil wasn't the right moment.
'I expect people talked,' she said. 'But it was a long, long time until he asked me if I would consider being his. He was such an extraordinarily decent man. He told me he could never offer me marriage. Never bring me to his house as its chatelaine. Not in his wife's lifetime. That people might despise us and we would have to be terribly careful not to have a child. But he loved me. He loved me and I loved him, so it was an easy decision. And I was never happier.' She stopped. 'Do you think the less of me?' she said almost triumphantly.
'Of course not,' he said. His chest hurt with it.
'Wel, it's different now. Since the war. These times we live in. But it was a bigger thing then. My mother wouldn't speak to me when the penny dropped. Not for about three weeks. Which is ages in her book.' Her lips twitched and a smal dimple showed that she was trying not to smile.
'What happened to him?' asked Laurence. 'Was he lost in the war?'
'Yes.' Her animated face seemed to freeze.
Then, seeming to think this inadequate information, she added, At Vimy Ridge. Just a tiny piece of shrapnel. A lethal sliver of hot metal burning its way through his brain. He wasn't touched otherwise.' She seemed momentarily lost. 'He was very ... beautiful,' she said.
Her head was resting on his shoulder. He stroked her hair with his right hand and absent-mindedly tucked a strand behind her ear. She turned her face towards him just as his arm gave way and they b
oth fel to the floor. He was more or less on his back, rubbing his arm to restore circulation. She pushed herself up to a half-sitting position, leaning over him. For a second she just looked at him. The fire popped. Then she reached out and dragged a cushion off the chair, putting it behind his head. The top of her own was framed by the window and the light of the sinking sun iluminated individual hairs like fine copper wires. He puled her towards him and kissed her. It was clumsy, the adjustment of unfamiliar bodies. Her mouth was little and controled at first and then became softer as he kissed her. His hand curved round the back of her neck and he moved it downwards, feeling the depressions of her colarbone, sliding under the neckline of her dress with his fingertips.
She puled away slightly but stil lay with the top of her body over his. Her eyes were grey and solemn, her eyelashes surprisingly dark. He noticed she had tiny freckles on her nose, so faint he had never seen them before. He watched himself touch her. She had looked so boyish, yet felt al curves and pliancy in his arms. This time she kissed him.
'This isn't about Richard,' she said after a long time. 'It isn't even about John. It's certainly not about Louise or the war or either of us feeling sorry for the other one. It's just about you and me.'
She traced his lips with her fingers. She was smiling.
Many hours later he woke in bed feeling cold. It was just light and at some point in the night they'd moved from the floor to his bed. Mary was nestled, fast asleep, between him and the wal, with his arm under her neck and her back curved into him, but the blanket had barely covered them both and his naked shoulders were cold.
He propped himself up awkwardly on one elbow and looked down at her. His fingers hovered over her ear; although he longed to touch her, he didn't want to wake her up. Her curls lay flat against her cheek. He felt a charge of happiness. It was as if the intensity of his gaze reached her because suddenly she gave a sigh, turning over and nearly knocking him out of bed. He held on to her and her eyes opened. She blinked a couple of times.
'Ooh, you're cold. You'd better kiss me.'
'Such self-sacrifice,' he said, puling her towards him.
She smeled warm and musky. His hand folowed the contours of her neck and shoulder. Moving to her breast he was filed with joy as wel as desire when he felt her nipple harden again beneath his fingers.
It was nearly lunchtime when they finaly got up. As she sat on the edge of the bed she picked up his copy of The Jungle Book. He was about to justify it being there when she said, 'I love these stories. I've stil got mine. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was my favourite. That's why I kept a ferret; it was the nearest I could get to a mongoose in Suffolk.'
Once out of bed he felt slightly awkward, although Mary seemed completely at home, both with him and with the acceleration of their relationship. He'd intended to make breakfast but by the time he had washed and shaved she had already puled the bed together, gathered up their discarded clothes off the floor, cooked scrambled eggs on toast and made a pot of tea. She was walking around in his dressing gown. He picked up a piece of hot bacon between his fingers. They had eaten nothing the evening before and he was famished.
'This is a good thing that's come out of al this unhappiness,' she said, her knife and fork clattering on the plate. 'One realy good thing. Us finding each other.'
He looked at her but didn't speak. He was happier than he could remember being in ten years but despite it al he felt an underlying disquiet.
When he returned from seeing her off at the station, the flat seemed quiet without her, yet it stil held echoes of her presence. He felt calm and hopeful. He was able to settle to work for most of the day. For the first time he could see that he might write his book and return to teaching. Al the while he deliberately left the washing-up, the two plates, two teacups, two knives and teaspoons, on the side.
Chapter Thirty-four
Charles's disappointment at finding that Laurence had dealt with Chilvers by himself was palpable. As a result, he insisted on accompanying him around during his next day's errands. Despite Laurence's half-hearted protestations that it would be too cold and too boring for Charles to drive him to the Bolithos', he was glad to have him as a chauffeur. Charles could even take him on to see Mrs Lovel, leave him there and stil have time to see his tailor as he'd apparently planned, while Laurence could go on to Fleet Street by bus. He had woken up determined to catch Brabourne at the paper at the end of the day.
First, however, he wanted to show the photograph to the Bolithos and Mrs Lovel. Even if they didn't recognise Edmund Hart, that would at least clearly exclude him from certain places and events. Tomorrow he intended to show it to Major Calogreedy, although he hoped to avoid Leonard Byers. Dr Chilvers could wait a week or so.
Before Charles started the car, Laurence handed the photograph to his friend without speaking.
'And this is?'
'You don't know?'
'Presumably it's Hart?' He shot a look at Laurence. 'Poor bugger. But no, I didn't know him, I'm glad to say.'
They reached the Bolithos' house at three. As he hadn't warned them he was coming, Laurence went in alone, leaving Charles in the car. For once Eleanor seemed as pleased to see him as Wiliam was. She took him into the sitting room, and there, playing with a toy car, was Nicholas, who looked up curiously as Laurence came in. He stood up, knocking over a line of painted toy soldiers as he did so. One roled under a chair; another was clasped in his smal hand. The boy's sturdy legs emerged from corduroy shorts, his socks had falen down and he wore a blue cardigan that emphasised the colour of his eyes. Laurence bent and picked up the car.
'Aha, an Alvis. Now, if you look out of the window you'l see a big one.'
Nicholas ran to the window. Eleanor lifted him on to a chair where he could gaze out at Charles's car parked in the street. Laurence watched him for a few seconds. He had the shape of John's brow and chin, yet his eyes were unquestionably Eleanor's. But above al, Nicholas Bolitho was simply himself, pointing and chattering away excitedly.
While Eleanor held Nicholas up to see the Alvis, Laurence spoke to Wiliam.
'I'm sorry to rush in and out,' he said, 'but I simply wanted to see if you recognised a photograph. A man caled Edmund Hart.'
He saw that Eleanor had her eyes on them, even as she was responding to her son. Wiliam nodded, took the picture, looked at it in silence and finaly shook his head.
'I don't think so. I'm pretty certain not, but of course there were so many faces. And because of the blanket you can't see what regiment he is in here.'
'He wasn't there when the trench colapsed?'
'No. Not that I saw.'
Eleanor came over, leaving Nicholas with his face pressed to the windowpane. Laurence scanned her face closely as she took the picture from her husband, but she gave no indication that she recognised the man in the photograph, though she took longer than Wiliam to shake her head.
'I was wondering if I'd nursed him,' she said. 'For a minute I thought it was a boy I'd cared for in France. But there were so many who looked like this.
Schoolboys.' She tipped it to the light. 'Sorry. No. Anyway, I would have remembered the name—when I was at Cambridge just before the war I toiled for hours over King Lear. I'd remember an Edmund.' She looked up at Laurence. 'Is he the one?'
'I'm afraid so.'
Eleanor's first reaction was to look over at her son, stil kneeling on a chair, staring into the street, one smal hand stil clutching a solitary red guardsman. When she turned back she had tears in her eyes.
He felt embarrassed at marching in and then leaving so abruptly, and he would have liked a chance to see more of Nicholas, but he didn't want to arrive at Gwen Lovel's house too late or miss Brabourne at his office. He wished he'd taken Brabourne's home address.
When he left, Eleanor brought Nicholas down to see Charles's car. Charles shook her hand in greeting and then swung the little boy into the passenger seat.
Although Nicholas's lower lip wobbled for a moment, he was smiling within seconds as
Charles flicked switches on and off. Eleanor looked chily; she wrapped her arms around herself and took her eyes off her son only briefly.
'Laurie,' she said, in a low voice, leaning towards him. 'It was one thing to tel you a secret of my own after I'd judged you could keep it but there's something else I ought to tel you if you want to understand John. Because it's someone else's secret, I hope you can give me your word, even though it involves someone you know, that it wil go no further?'
Laurence could only nod agreement to her solemn entreaty. Her glance flickered to her son and Charles, tactfuly engrossed in the dashboard.
'John loved his father very much—you may have gathered. But when he was stil a boy—thirteen or fourteen—he discovered a letter from his grandfather to his mother in his father's gunroom, of al places. It was hidden; he was young and curious. I don't know the exact contents but it made it clear that Mrs Emmett had had an affair in which she conceived her daughter. The father of Mrs Emmett's child was John's grandfather, Mr Emmett Senior.'
Laurence was stunned for a minute. 'But I gathered the older Emmetts were against the marriage?' he said.
'Wel, unsurprisingly, if Emmett Senior was in love with his prospective daughter-in-law he didn't want his son marrying her. But there was no living grandmother. John's mother had been a housekeeper to his widowed grandfather and probably rather more.'
'Good God.'
'She married, impulsively, her family thought, then had a child who died in infancy. Born prematurely, John said, but it makes you wonder who its father was.
Then she had John, unequivocaly his father's son, the letter confirmed...'
Laurence was glad of that, remembering the bond between the two.
'And then at some point soon after that the marriage evidently cooled and the relationship with John's grandfather resumed. She bore him a daughter—Mary.
John's father was not Mary's father.'
'How dreadful for John finding out, though. Did he tel his father he knew?'
The Return of Captain John Emmett Page 31