‘It could have been love.’
‘Yes, and the two are not necessarily distinct. Shall we go? We can talk more about this tomorrow, but not tonight. Tonight I want us to enjoy ourselves.’ And suddenly he changed, casting aside his domineering manner, smiling fondly, once again the affectionate brother she had always loved.
35
Sophia and David met as often as they could. Lady Benson did not try to prevent them. As she said to her husband, he came from such a good family and had won a DSO and was going back to France, one must be as kind as possible. Sophia wouldn’t come to any harm.
After the first day, Sophia liked David a good deal. After the second day, she knew she was in love. ‘So this is what it’s like. Whizz bang – like being hit by a howitzer.’
Laura said, ‘Darling, I’m so pleased, he’s a heavenly chap. I’ve known him for years. . . Only don’t fall too much in love, it’s so dangerous these days.’
Her advice was useless, they both knew that. When she and David were apart, she thought about him without stopping. Being with him almost hurt, she was so happy. Five days. Four days. Three days. She would count out all the things they were planning together, because that made the remaining time seem longer. They saw Chu Chin Chow (his choice, they agreed it was idiotic), and heard George Robey and Violet Lorraine singing ‘If you were the only girl in the world’, until they decided not to do anything that would stop them talking to each other, there was so much to learn. He cancelled everything else. He took her for lunch at the Berkeley Grill and to dinner at the Ritz, where he knew half the diners and the restaurant gaped admiringly at Sophia. Though one was only allowed three courses at dinner in restaurants, the head waiter knew him well and little extra courses kept arriving. (‘It’s cheese,’ said David, ‘that doesn’t count as a course.’) They had delicious wine, though as David said ‘Darling, decidedly not too much, that jacket of mine may never recover.’
Afterwards they went into the dark fogginess of Piccadilly. ‘Did you know, the Germans almost hit the Ritz that night – there’s a huge shell hole in Green Park. If it had hit us, it would have wiped out a whole slice of young London society, though mind you. . . Shall we have a drink at Rupert’s house?’ That was the house where the party had been. ‘I think he has some cocoa, nurses like cocoa don’t they?’ They went through Berkeley Square in the fog, all sound around them muffled, walking as slowly as possible to prolong the intimacy, past the great trees dripping with moisture and the shuttered noble houses. He surprised her by suddenly stopping, and saying, ‘Do you know this song?’ And he sang, in rather a fine baritone, his breath ballooning out:
Roses are shining in Picardy,
In the hush of the silvery dew,
Roses are flow’ring in Picardy,
But there’s never a rose like you. . .
She couldn’t speak for happiness.
As they left the square, he stopped her and said, ‘Shall we get married, as soon as the war is over? They’re sure the Germans can’t hold out much longer. Would you like to be the Hon. Mrs Fraser, my darling?’
‘Oh yes, yes, David, I would.’
‘Wish you could meet my people, but they never move out of Scotland these days. Well, when this damn show is over. . .’
When they reached the house, it seemed years since she’d arrived there for that party. ‘You do have your latchkey, to your own house, I mean?’ he asked. It seemed an odd question.
Inside it was dark and cold. She could not see anything at first, she could only smell lavender, old polished wood, marble. He did not put on any lights. He stood a little away from her. She wondered what was going to happen.
Then he moved close to her, a tall presence. Only his breathing told her where he was, then the nearness of his body, not quite touching her.
‘Darling, since we’re going to be married. . .’ he said.
She arrived home at six, having by some miracle found a cab. She slept for an hour or two, changed out of her blue-green dress (he loved it, it seemed not to matter how often she wore it), dashed into the dining room to greet her parents (nothing was said about not having been back that night, she supposed they didn’t know), and rushed out for breakfast at Claridge’s. They drank champagne, the head waiter smiling and shaking his head. ‘The war’s not over yet, Mr Fraser.’
36
The house was empty at last. Thomas had set off with Dodo through the snow to visit the Lützows. Gretchen had gone to her parents for the night. Irene was alone. Thomas had begged her to go with them but no, she had a headache, she needed to rest, then they would enjoy their evening together. She did look strained, Thomas had agreed, stroking her hair as he often did. It was easier for her to be warm and affectionate with Dodo, to wrap her in the coat Tante Sibylle had given her, so Thomas could carry her on his back across the snow. Don’t hurry back, she’d said, they love your visits. . . She watched him walk down the garden path they’d planned together. At the gate he turned and waved, and she waved back before they disappeared in the swirling snow.
She stood by the door for a while, just in case they came back. She knew where his briefcase was, in the room she used as a studio, where he worked sometimes. She had done with scruples, all she wanted was to carry out this job efficiently.
She locked and bolted the front door and the back door, just in case they returned unexpectedly. The day before, she had told him, in passing, that if she was ever alone in the house she locked the doors, it made her feel safer. This was quite untrue.
She had gloves ready. She grimaced, asked herself, would I be a good spy? Perhaps it ran in the family. She was sure Mark sometimes engaged in espionage.
The briefcase was locked. This, she expected. Thomas had taken his keys with him, but he kept a spare set in a drawer in their room. She had checked the day before, when he was playing with Dodo.
She felt icily calm. She found the keys, unlocked the case. It was full of papers, more than she could possibly read through. She looked through them at speed by the dim light of the oil lamp in their bedroom, with the curtains drawn – after all, she was supposed to be resting there. From the headings it was easy to see where Thomas was stationed, the work he was engaged in, the plans for new railheads and troop movements. It was the locations, the dates, the numbers that were wanted, rather than technical details. She made her notes on two pieces of paper from an old sketchbook. It took her less than an hour, she had time to spare – she’d told Thomas she needed at least two hours’ rest. She was confident she would be able to sense their approach but, once, she thought she heard the door latch being pressed down, though it was only the wind shaking the branches. And another time, the cuckoo clock made her jump.
She ran again through the papers, replaced them precisely in the right order in the briefcase, locked it and put it away, replaced the keys, took off her gloves, hid her notes. Thomas would never find them, he regarded her work materials as strictly private. She was sure she had found information that would be useful to Mark’s colleagues. Now she avoided the bedroom, knowing that if she lay down she might give way to an ocean of doubts, might even repent. Instead, she prepared supper.
When Thomas came home, with Dodo asleep on his back and gripping a tiny carved pine tree, he found his wife in her studio. She looked, he said, like an artist in a play. She had changed into one of her evening robes and put her hair up, she looked as appealing as anyone looked then in Germany. She embraced him warmly. They had a happy evening. She asked him to sing, and when he said he was out of practice, she declared he need have no fears, she was an easy audience. He did sing, Dodo lying in her mother’s lap listening. They ate their supper by the fire, as contented as could be.
Two days later she went to Berlin and delivered a letter to the Danish Embassy. She was just in time for the next postal delivery to Copenhagen, as planned. It was a sweet letter for her mother, full of news about Dodo and the cows and her painting. The letter, she said, was also intended for Mark, telling
him among other things that she was re-reading the poems of Heinrich Heine – that was the code they’d settled on. Under this letter was another, written in the invisible ink contained in the bottle of scent Mark had given her.
In due course her mother wrote back. Mark had left again for Washington; she hated his leaving. He had asked her to tell Irene how much he’d enjoyed her letter, it was so full of nice news.
Irene wondered, now that she had betrayed Thomas, whether she could ever love him in the same way. She had, she supposed, done her duty. She wondered whether doing her duty meant, in some twisted way, that she had betrayed herself.
37
Two days after their night together, Sophia waved David off at Charing Cross Station. They kissed each other for a long time, under the station clock. It was not a very proper thing to do, since they were not married, but they were engaged, and neither cared much what anybody thought.
She tried to be brave as the train pulled out; only one or two little tears slid out. She knew that was the way he’d want it. Being brave but not boasting about it, putting a good face on things, keeping a grip, those were the qualities he valued.
Once the train had disappeared, she went down to the ladies’ lavatory. He couldn’t see her, she could cry as much as she wanted. The attendant put her on a little chair and said, ‘There, there, dearie, you should see the ladies I’ve had crying in here, I’d need forty mops for all the tears I’ve wiped up. Never mind, the war will be over soon, and he’ll come home.’
But he never did come home. He was shot six days later by a sniper. She got a letter from him, written the day before he was shot, saying the days with her had been the happiest of his life except possibly the day when he’d been in the winning side at Lord’s.
Everyone was very kind. She sat on Laura’s bed for hours and hours, and Laura told her about her own young man, and how she’d felt when he was killed. That was a help, though at least she and Toby had had each other for a whole year.
‘Life is a nightmare,’ Laura said to her. ‘So many people killed, just one after the other, for no reason. I’m so depressed sometimes, I feel almost mad. But we have to keep going. Work helps. Having fun helps too, even if it can be rather sickening.’
38
It had been a tiresome evening. On and on she’d talked, unable as always to grasp that if one had nothing to say, it was best to be quiet; unable to understand how melancholy he felt, how unwilling he was to talk. The war effort, Lady Limerick’s canteen, how young girls were wearing expensive clothes, whether the cook would stay. . . And the way she looked at him nervously. . . He’d retreated to his study.
He sat down at his desk. He pushed away The Times. It was unbearable, reading the list of war deaths. All too often he knew them, the sons of colleagues or his children’s friends or young men who’d worked in his chambers. He thought of his old friend Johnson, who had been the headmaster of a great public school until he had broken down one day. He had stood at the lectern in the school chapel, reading aloud the death toll, and the tears had poured down his cheeks, and that had been no example for boys about to be soldiers, and he had had to retire.
He could not bring himself to look at his legal work. The thought of having to sit in court tomorrow sickened him. His view from the bench of the world’s weakness, cruelty, dishonesty, greed and hypocrisy depressed him every time he sat. Humanity seemed a wretched business, the pursuit of justice a hopeless venture.
His eyes passed over the papers on his desk. There was a letter from the bank about his impressively large overdraft, which did not make cheerful reading. He thrust it into a drawer. Really, it was easier to ignore such things. Another bill from Maggs.
‘I’m never going to finish my book,’ he said aloud. It was the first time he’d consciously admitted this, it was almost a relief. He looked at his shelves, with their neatly arranged tomes and files on the theme of the Dance, and at the cabinet that held his engravings. He opened a drawer and read a letter from his old college, and nodded with satisfaction. This was surely the right thing to do, this would ensure that all his efforts would not be forgotten, that the hours and days and weeks – not to speak of the thousands of pounds – he had spent on chasing up ancient texts and engravings would not be wasted.
39
‘I’m going to visit Great-Aunt Sophia in New York, I’ve made up my mind.’
It is a fine spring evening, they are outside in the garden.
‘Have you indeed? And how will you pay for that?’
‘Irene left me a legacy, you may remember.’
‘Aha. Why do you so much want to see Aunt Sophia, I wonder?’
‘It’s natural, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m curious about her. About the way she disappeared.’
‘I can see that.’ Dorothea pulls out a tiny weed, though the garden is immaculate. ‘It was odd, when I was a child she came once to stay in Berlin, and Uncle Mark was there, and everyone had a lovely time, she was such fun, and then after she’d left I sensed something had happened to her but I didn’t know what. I’d ask questions, and they were never answered. Then they said, she’s gone to America.’
‘It’s odd she never wanted to come back to England.’
‘She almost came back for Granny’s funeral, but in the end she said she’d mark the occasion at home.’
‘Perhaps she couldn’t afford to.’
‘Oh, her husband had plenty of money. . . Don’t you think the violets are heavenly? Look, sheltering under those bushes. She might not be pleased to see you, of course.’
‘She’s asked me to stay.’
‘Oh.’ Dorothea scrutinises her borders. ‘How did you get her address?’
‘You showed me some of her letters – 118 Riverside Drive, it’s easy to remember. I’m going at the end of June. I’m excited.’
Silently they go inside. Dorothea locks the door to the garden. They go into the sitting room. It is rather cold. They remark that sometimes in spring the light makes one feel the temperature has risen, when actually it hasn’t.
40
Sophia went to one or two parties with her new friends, but they reminded her of David and she did not want to talk to other men and left almost at once. Living at home became less easy. Her mother began to depend on her to keep the servants happy and fetch library books and mix her medicines. Her father was quieter than ever.
She decided to return to nursing. The people in the Red Cross office questioned her at some length. Finally they asked if she was engaged, and she burst into tears, furious with herself. They gave her a cup of tea, though as she admitted to herself (but not to them), what she would have liked was a strong drink.
In March 1918 she was back in France, in time for the great German assault. She was kept busy. Amid so much suffering, her own sadness seemed less important.
41
‘There are some letters from Mark here. Irene was always very fond of him. Though when he was middle-aged he became one of those grandees who prefer the company of other grandees.’
‘He was nice to me. I went to stay with them when they lived in Paris, d’you remember? He was pretty old, of course, and rather cool, one felt one was being examined. But one Saturday afternoon he said to me – I don’t know why – “Pandora, come and see a bit of old Paris with me, a few special things.” And off we went, just him and me. I was seventeen, I suppose, just a schoolgirl, but he was so kind and enthusiastic, and we walked for miles and stopped in little cafés and he showed me the Left Bank and the Marais, it was all fascinating, and I felt quite at ease with him. It was as though he’d taken off an uncomfortable mask and was feeling much better. And then that evening there was a dinner party and the mask was on again. But he was always nice to me after that.’
‘Funny old Mark.’
‘Do you think he was happy, Mark? When he was old, I mean?’
‘Happy? Oh, I don’t know about that. What does it mean, to be happy?’
42
‘Margaret, I h
ave to tell you something.’
‘Oh, but I know what it is.’
‘How can you know?’
‘You’re leaving, aren’t you? Where are you being sent?’
It was a delicious spring afternoon. They were leaning against the fence, gazing over the soft green meadows of Atholl. She was looking as charming as he’d ever seen her.
‘Well, yes. Back to London for a while, the Service is in flux, now that it seems the war is ending. But not for two or three months. I’m due some leave.’
‘Oh, where are you taking it?’
‘I thought I’d travel in the States, perhaps go to Nevada, that kind of place.’
‘Nevada, it’s so big and wild, is that really a good idea, Mark dear?’
‘I thought we might go there together.’
‘What, just the two of us? That’s very radical. I mean, I know we’re witnessing the break-up of civilisation, but that does seem extreme. . .’
‘With some married friends, I mean. I thought the Grays from the embassy – they’re planning to go. . .’
‘Yes, but they’re married! And we’re just friends.’
‘More than friends, I hope.’
‘Is that so? More than friends? You’ve never even kissed me properly.’
‘I thought perhaps if we were engaged. . .’
She turned away from her inspection of the fields. ‘What are you saying, Mark? Is this a proposal? Really, you English. . .’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘You suppose it is, do you? You should make up your mind, it’s important. As you might say, a chap should have a clear view of such an issue.’ She laughed that laugh of hers, but she was not altogether amused. ‘I think we should walk out of the sun, it’s a little too hot, especially in the midst of such passion.’
The Iron Necklace Page 21