Eva listened in disbelief. Use my education to procure a man, she marvelled to herself, when the only man I want to procure is the one who educated me in the first place? But if she were honest with herself, she had to admit that it was nice to be walking with Grace, to just be an ordinary part of the family rather than the one who caused problems all the time. It was nice not to be constantly worrying of which transgression she was guilty, to wake up blameless, without that sick feeling in her gut. Though hard to get used to: Grace and Catherine were the first disapprovers she had ever known. In spite of herself, she had always wanted their approval, even craved it.
A treacherous little voice in her head started commenting, Isn’t Christopher rather unkempt? When he was close to you, didn’t you wish he changed his clothes more often? Aren’t his teeth a little yellow? Isn’t he being inconsiderate of you, dragging you into his anti-war crusade? There was something infectious about spending time with Grace; Eva was beginning to see the world through her eyes.
On Sunday, the family, absent Roy, who was delayed in Dublin, attended the eleven o’clock service at St George in the East. It had been a full week since Imelda’s attack, and she was as well as could be expected. Grace enquired if Eva was enjoying the walk and wasn’t the weather pleasant? Eva found it easy to play along, even if this new, kinder Grace still unnerved her a little. Grace enquired after Sybil, and Eva was able to tell her that she was worried about her brother, who was trying to hold the Salient at Hooge. Now that they were on the topic of war, Grace was in her element; she knew exactly where the village of Hooge was. Their talk was almost friendly.
Their walk back from church brought them through Princes Square, past the Swedish church that had gone to ruin in the three years since Emanuel Swedenborg’s body had been taken out of it and brought back to Sweden. Eva always thought it looked sad, with its circular, bricked-in panels, like something you would see on a folly. But today, as they passed it, she thought her heart might stop: Christopher was leaning against the entrance. As she passed, he lifted his head and fixed his eyes on her to the exclusion of all else. They were dark and hungry.
She had to bite on her tongue not to cry with joy. He had not forgotten her. The sight of him made her own doubts evaporate. How could she have thought such things about his teeth, or his shirts? What had planted such ideas in her head? The moment she saw him, she felt a powerful surge of love and longing, and it was all she could do not to break ranks and run after him. I love you, she thought, and it was like a song in the right key, a clear call in the November air.
Grace skidded to a halt. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said …’ Eva did not continue. Had she spoken out loud?
‘You said those words’ – Grace’s mouth screwed up in revulsion – ‘to that man. Just now. I saw him.’ Christopher had by now disappeared. ‘Love.’ Grace spoke the word the way one would utter the filthiest obscenity. She looked as if she were about to spit a gob in the middle of the footpath. ‘You lying bitch. You never meant a word of it, did you?’
‘Grace—’ But Grace cut Eva off. By now Catherine was puffing up, dragging Imelda with her. ‘It’s all right, Mother,’ Grace said, digging her fingers into Eva’s arm, ‘Eva and I are going to settle this ourselves. I’ll see you later.’ Since Grace was the one person she obeyed without question, Catherine fell back and set to restraining Imelda. Grace pulled Eva around the corner, her teeth clenched, jaw set. When Eva tried to pull away, she felt long fingernails press through the fabric of her sleeve.
Their front door had been left ajar, and Grace pushed in, steering Eva into Roy’s empty study and flinging her against the wall. ‘You must think I was born yesterday.’
‘Grace, I didn’t expect to see him there. I thought he was gone for good.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’ She was white and wild, every hissed word jabbing like the point of a spear. ‘How do you think I feel? Was I about to give up half my entitlement – I even considered giving more – to find out the minute the money was gone from my hands you’d be sneaking around with that man again?’
‘Oh, God,’ Eva moaned. ‘What have I done?’
‘You betrayed my trust, that’s what you did. And to think I believed you! Tell me’ – Eva was surprised to hear a note of hurt in Grace’s voice – ‘were you both laughing at me all this time? A snigger at the servant’s daughter? That would be your little touch, wouldn’t it? And he’d back it up with some fancy literary allusion, thinking me too low-bred to understand.’
‘No, we never—’
‘Have you any idea how hard I have to work, every day? You were born respectable: I had to make myself so. It doesn’t matter that people don’t know the true story; I know, always, inside.’ She put her hand on her heart. ‘It’s exhausting, having to pretend all the time. Having to work to get people’s attention. Do you think I always enjoy Dr Fellowes’ company or that my heart skips beats for him? Do you think I waste my time with love? I don’t do what I do for pleasure, Eva. I do it for family. I do it to raise myself up from what I was born into.’ Eva saw tears in her stepsister’s eyes.
Grace straightened herself up and cleared her throat. ‘But this isn’t my beau we’re talking about, Eva: it’s yours.’ At Eva’s questioning look, she raised her eyes to heaven. ‘You know what I mean.’
Yes, Eva did know, and the realisation flooded her. Her stomach constricted, and Grace watched her as she doubled up, not bothering to hide her disapproval. ‘Let me make it easy for you. Who do you love more? Him or your sister?’
Eva whimpered. ‘Grace, I can’t—’
‘Answer me!’ Grace shouted. ‘Which one? Him or Imelda?’
Eva felt a tight band around her heart. Grace came nearer, shouting and shouting. The whole world shrank to her mouth, pursed, shouting, flicking saliva. Him or Imelda? Him or Imelda? Him or Imelda?
Eva fought to breathe. Her heart was beating like a drum. She shook her head tearfully.
Grace folded her arms. ‘Eva. I’m sick and tired of this. We all are.’
Still Eva was silent, which only enraged Grace. She let out a barnyard yell, ‘God Almighty, I am losing patience with you!’ The shout rebounded through the house. From the kitchen, a loud cry and the crash of a plate, followed by shouted remonstrations. Eva’s lips were trembling, and the habitual ache in her arm was now a shooting white bulbous arrow. She was almost crying from the pain of it.
‘All right,’ Grace said, ‘I’ll take that as a no. I will instruct my lawyer to withdraw the transaction.’ She turned smartly on her heel. Eva fell to her knees and grabbed at Grace’s skirts, tearful and wild-eyed, begging her please not to do this, please don’t ask her to choose, she could not, she could not. Pleading in an odd, high-pitched wail, asking Grace why wasn’t she good enough, why had she never been good enough, what did she do wrong that Grace was loved and she was not? How could they ask her to do this thing? She could not bear it, no, she could not. Please let her alone, just this once let her alone.
Grace allowed herself a delicate shiver of disgust. ‘Eva. Control yourself.’
The door opened. Catherine had arrived. She said nothing, but her quiet support for Grace emanated out of her tight-waisted, straight-backed body. Grace looked down at the kneeling Eva, a slight tremor in her voice which she struggled to control. ‘Let me put the question differently. Do you choose to save Imelda?’
Eva remembered Imelda begging her not to let her die. And she remembered promising that she wouldn’t.
Grace put a hand on Eva’s shoulder and began to stroke her neck, very softly, with her thumb. Her fingertips slipped under the fabric of Eva’s dress, cool upon her skin. A patient, disinterested touch. Eva rose to her feet, her knees creaking. Shock had made her breathing shallow and rapid. She could not speak. All she could do was nod her head.
‘Good,’ Grace said. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’
They calmed her down with cups of camomile tea laced with quinine, the bitter sti
ng of the latter making her gag, then they drafted the letter together. Eva wrote that there was no need now for subterfuge. Grace and Catherine had thought about it and had decided that maybe they had been unreasonable. While Grace had strong feelings about conscientious objectors, she did not want to obstruct her sister’s happiness. Most of this was dictated by Grace herself, but she nagged Eva to write it in her own style. ‘That man will know if it’s me,’ she said. ‘Make it sound like you.’
After a few drafts, Eva managed it. The letter was affectionate, with splashes of wit, and the last sentence invited Christopher to come to the house at two o’clock on Saturday, 21 November, when her stepmother and stepsister ‘would be glad to receive him’.
Which, in a way, was true.
‘Are you writing on the ruled paper?’ Catherine interjected, her neck like a stalk as she bent over, her wattled chin with its turkey neck slightly brushing the top of her daughter’s head. ‘I think mostly them things don’t get written on the ruled paper, sure they don’t? ’Tis the fancy notepaper with the flowers and suchlike.’
‘Mother, for God’s sake!’ snapped Grace. ‘It will do. Now.’ She took Eva’s letter and scanned it carefully, her tongue popping out between her lips as it often did when she was concentrating. Then she moved her index finger vertically down the left-hand side of the page, then the right. ‘You think people like me are stupid and don’t know about acrostics,’ she said, then, to Catherine, ‘I don’t trust her not to sneak in a coded message.’ Catherine nodded. She wouldn’t have known an acrostic from the winner of the Epsom Derby.
He won’t be fooled, Eva told herself, as she dampened the gum on the envelope and sealed it. And then a sudden realisation: I need him to be. For Imelda’s sake. And fooled he was. He replied quickly, underlining his enthusiastic consent. Eva hoped that he too was writing in code, that he would insert some sort of acrostic. She read the letter carefully but could find no hidden message in English or in Latin. Her heart sank. For all his intelligence and incisiveness, Christopher was not a man who understood social signals. And he would have a tendency to believe what he wished to be true.
She tried one last appeal to Grace’s better nature, but it was pointless. Her will had been broken in their confrontation the day before, and Grace knew it. She would concede nothing: it was to happen in broad daylight, in public, and she had to be present to witness it done. The only concession she granted was that Imelda would not be told. Eva could not put that much guilt on her sister’s head. All she told her was that seeing Christopher lurking like that had made Grace angry but that they had settled it between them.
In all this, Roy played little part. These days he tended to shut himself in his study, and at mealtimes he sequestered himself behind his Times. He spoke to Eva only once, the day before Christopher was due to arrive at the house.
Since Imelda’s taking badly ill that summer, Eva had moved from their shared room into a small boxroom next door, a windowless closet once used for storing suits. It was on the door of this room that Roy knocked, then entered without waiting. Eva was surprised to see him there, still wearing his outdoor coat. His skin was sallow with tiredness. ‘Mother has told me of your decision to give Mr Shandlin a white feather.’ Well, at least he called a spade a spade. ‘Are you all right with this, Eva?’ Eva said nothing. ‘I am uneasy,’ he continued. ‘It might reflect badly on us, especially if done in public.’
‘You had better tell Grace that.’ Eva’s voice was hoarse.
Roy rubbed his nose. ‘Grace … well, she does tend to absolutism.’
The hand he put on Eva’s shoulder was heavy and ponderous but easily shaken off. His sigh briefly lifted the page of an open book on the small cedarwood box Eva stored her things in. ‘What must be, must be,’ he said, moving to the door again.
‘Father, wait.’
He turned around.
‘Why?’ One word, so weighted that she did not need to say anything more. On the first-floor landing, the cistern flushed, long and loud, its roar and gurgle vibrating all over the house. Eva almost missed his reply.
‘I need to keep the peace.’ Then he started muttering: ‘I committed myself. From the start.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Eva said.
He exhaled, his breath nasal, his profile stiff. ‘Eva, your mother … Angela …’ He didn’t continue, instead sinking his chin into his coat collar: ‘You were right. I shouldn’t have married Catherine. It was ill judged and hasty. But I had no choice – none! And she—’ The half-light from the corridor cast his face in a particular anguish, a demeanour more noble than his true nature. ‘I cannot stop the wheels of fate,’ he said, chafing his palms, not looking at her. Then he put his knuckles to his lips, coughed drily onto them and left the room.
By half past one that Saturday afternoon the steps to No. 35 Wellclose Square were flanked with women, ten in all, some veiled in black, war widows, some in gaudier shades, some in silk-trimmed hats, some of them standing, some leaning on the railings, others sitting – and several of them carrying a handful of feathers.
Grace looked aghast. ‘For God’s sake, Margot,’ she snarled at one of them, ‘I said “a few people”. Just to ensure there were witnesses. You’ve brought a street party.’
‘Oh, Gracie, don’t be like that. A lot of the girls don’t get out much these days. It’s nice to have a little moment of solidarity.’
‘But what about me?’ Grace was white with alarm. ‘What does this make me look like?’ She marched over to the gaggle of women. ‘Put those feathers away. We only need one.’
Eva was there too, but she couldn’t hear what Grace was saying. They had given her more of that vile-tasting quinine concoction, and her head was spinning. ‘Not so much of that,’ Grace had said when Catherine brought it to her lips. ‘We want her standing up.’
Blurring, sharpening, images moved. Long skirts, clicking boot heels. A convivial gathering, wouldn’t you say? Flasks of tea. Carrot cake, pound cake, Battenberg – no, we don’t call it that any more: sponge, sponge cake. Edie, did your cook make those? She’s jolly good, isn’t she? Yes, I don’t know where I found her. She’s a bit slatternly, but these days you take what you can get. Oh, look, there’s Mason, isn’t he poor Alec Featherstone’s friend? You heard about that, didn’t you? Rather a scandal. Poor Grace. Decent of him to come today, under the circumstances. What’s he now, a second lieutenant? Major? Oh, my. Oh, and who’s the wan-looking creature staring over at us as if she’s got no manners? That’s her. That’s Grace’s sister. Good gracious.
At a quarter to two, they gathered into the small space outside the servants’ quarters in the basement. ‘We don’t want him to see us and think something’s up, do we?’ Margot said. Grace did not reply. She knew she had lost control over proceedings.
It was early enough for the half-hearted daylight to cast a wan, baleful glow onto the street. Advent would begin soon, with its hectic joy and a defiant resolve to make this Christmas like all the others before it. A snatch of music wafted out of a workman’s café around the corner – Don’t ferget yer sod-jer lad! A spade scraped the cobblestones as a worker shovelled horse dung into a cart. Soon he too would be gone; war would shovel him up in just the same way, with about as much respect.
Closing on two now. Then five past, ten past.
Then he was there too, his head held high, a man with nothing to hide or fear. Turn tail. Run away. Oh, God, please. But he didn’t. He kept coming, his arms working in their usual jerky fashion. His lips were moving – perhaps he was singing again. His face was mobile and readable as always. Looking for her, seeing her and dipping his head, his brow creasing into a wordless question.
The women appeared up the basement steps, clapping and cheering mockingly. Eva had been holding on to the pigeon feather, turning it in her fingers. Grace watched her carefully to make sure she didn’t break it or lose it. The feather itself was not much of a thing; it was hardly even white. If it had fallen off a bird i
n flight and drifted down to the street, nobody would have noticed it.
Christopher approached the house. All those women, who were they? Where had they come from? They seemed to have materialised out of nowhere, like urban nymphs. Eva stepped towards him. Still he did not see what was in her hand.
She did it quickly, without looking at him. Her fingers were trembling so hard she had no idea how she secured the thing on his lapel. The wool felt rough against her fingers. His eyes told no story. His face was something folded and put between the pages of a book. Eva felt cold ice ram through her body and up into her throat and heart.
Grace loomed behind, pale and unhappy, not exultant. One woman called out in a rather pleased contralto, ‘Shame on you! Shame!’ and a smattering of applause followed.
Christopher turned away from them all and walked rapidly down the street.
III
Oblivion
18
18 November 1915
From Father Samuel Knapp, ODC, to Prior Albert, Carmelite Monastery, Notting Hill
My dearest brother in Christ,
I cannot tell you how delighted I was to receive your last and know you are in good health. You speak yearningly of Palestine; I myself remember all too well the shade of the laurels, the olive groves, the glory of Haifa and the entire Mediterranean below, shimmering like a vast jewel. But, as in your case, duty has called me elsewhere.
I have served as an army chaplain for the past two years, all over the western front, and am now attached to the 2nd Irish Guards, ever since the fellow before me went down with the lumbago. It has been difficult work at times, though I know that the Lord, even now, looks over all of us with love and forgives us all our sins, in war and in peace.
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