Then had come the first Speech Day. She, Ralph and Hannah had attended, all of them outwardly easy, privately concerned. Nothing had prepared them for the day.
Top first year student: Toby Smith.
Top lower school mathematics student: Toby Smith.
Winner of the Bassett Award for literature: Toby Smith.
And so it had gone on. Established, he had the next year taken the lower school captaincy of the cricket team and played for the school’s under-fourteen rugby fifteen. The old Toby had blossomed again, sheened by success and by a rapidly expanding awareness of the world and its pleasures. He and Sally had grown closer than ever, a small conspiracy, humorous and supportive, in a world they were both coming to know but which would never entirely know them.
And now – he had stopped talking to her.
She cornered him on a hot August evening as he crossed the courtyard heading towards the schoolroom.
‘Toby!’
He stopped. In the past couple of years he had grown at an incredible pace. At eleven, perhaps twelve – his true age had always been a matter for conjecture – he was only an inch or so shorter than she was. The rounded, cherubic lines of his face had hardened and sharpened, but with no loss of beauty. The wide forget-me-not eyes were as lucent and as clear as ever. They gave nothing away.
He waited, saying nothing, his face closed.
‘Tobe – is something wrong?’
He shook his head.
‘Well, you could fool me. Haven’t seen a lot of you lately?’
‘I’ve been busy.’ His clipped and tutored accent matched that of the Patten family and was far from Sally’s own still unconsciously defiant London speech.
‘So have we all, my love.’ She cocked her head, looked him in the eye, daring him to pretend to misunderstand her.
He did not. A sudden painful flush of colour lifted in his young face. He ducked his head.
‘What’s up?’
He struggled for a moment. She waited, refusing to help him.
He lifted his head, oddly calm. ‘You aren’t interested in me any more.’
He might have hit her. She gasped as if he had. ‘That isn’t true!’
He shrugged.
‘Toby – that isn’t true! What ever makes you think—’ She stopped, facing the truth he had shown her. The past weeks had been lived in the strangest fashion; the times when Philippe had been close had been real, the times when he had not she had carried on the business of life as if the blood had run out of it.
What foolishness.
They looked at each other in silence, eye to eye.
‘He’s going home,’ Toby said with breathtaking cruelty. ‘Ralph told me. He’s going home to his stupid Belgium. Next week.’ And he left her, standing alone and hurt, facing a world she had known that one day she must face; a world without Philippe, a world where she would not meet him unexpectedly crossing the yard or playing with the children; a world where she would never again encounter that quick smile, the warmth of his laughter.
He had not told her.
* * *
Despite London’s problems the suffragette marches and meetings went on.
‘Hyde Park,’ Hannah had said to them all, ‘on Sunday. And I want you all there. No excuses!’
Ben took them in the motor car; Ralph, a protesting Charlotte – ‘Truly, Hannah, if my head splits – and it will – I shall blame you’ – Philippe and Sally. The crowds had gathered, Sally wore a white dress with a broad green sash and a bright bunch of velvet violets in her lapel. Her wide-brimmed white hat was trimmed with violet and green ribbons. She had agreed, with Hannah, to sell copies of Votes for Women before the meeting. All went well. The stage was set, the Pankhursts had arrived. Sally, gratifyingly sold out of her penny magazine, rejoined the others.
Philippe, utterly unabashed by onlookers, took her hand. ‘Walk with me.’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly, Philippe. The meeting is about to start. The speeches—’
‘I have a speech of my own.’ He was utterly calm, apparently oblivious of other ears. ‘Please, Sally. Come with me.’
Beneath the astonished gaze of his cousins she allowed him to lead her away from the benches that had been set before the makeshift stage. Firmly he tucked her arm into his, walked her away from the meeting and into the park.
‘Philippe! The meeting!’ Sally tried to pull away. She had not spoken to him since Toby had told her that Philippe intended to return to Bruges.
He shook his head. They walked in silence for a few minutes until they came to an empty bench, quiet beneath a tree. Far in the distance voices could be heard, and the background roar of the city’s traffic. He brushed the bench with his handkerchief, gestured for her to sit. She perched uncomfortably on the edge of the slatted seat. He settled beside her.
‘I want you to marry me.’ The words were softly blunt, there was no trace of humour in his eyes.
She stared at him.
He waited equably, his dark eyes veiled.
‘Are you – have you taken leave of your senses?’ she asked when she had gathered enough breath.
‘No. On the contrary. I’ve never been so sane. You surely aren’t surprised?’
‘I—’ She stopped. ‘Yes. I’m surprised.’
His face softened. Suddenly and terribly she wanted to touch him, to hold him, to tell him, over and over, how very much she loved him. She turned away from him. ‘Philippe – you know it isn’t possible.’
‘But why not?’ His puzzlement was genuine.
She stood up, walked straight-backed a few paces from him. ‘It isn’t possible,’ she repeated.
‘Why not?’ He was behind her, with a hand upon her shoulder had swung her towards him. His young, suddenly vulnerable face was a blaze of emotion. It struck her to silence. ‘Why not?’ he asked more quietly.
She made a small, helpless gesture. ‘Because—’ she stopped.
He frowned. ‘You don’t love me?’ The words were incredulous and under other circumstances would have warranted laughter by their almost childish disbelief.
She closed her eyes.
He caught her by the shoulders. ‘Sally? You don’t love me?’
She stood for a moment longer, containing pain, before she opened her eyes to meet his dark gaze. ‘Love you? You fool. I love you more than I love my life,’ she said simply.
He smiled. ‘And I you. So – we marry—’
‘Philippe, don’t be ridiculous! – We can’t!’ She stared at him in helpless anger, turned from the bafflement in his eyes. ‘Life isn’t that simple.’
‘But yes. It’s simple. I love you. You love me.’ He laughed a little, tentatively. ‘We marry and – as you say in your stories – we live happily ever after—’
‘No!’
His jaw tightened a little. ‘But why not?’
She lifted her head. ‘Because you don’t know me.’ Quiet anguish threaded her voice, ‘Philippe, you don’t know me. You don’t know what I am—’ she swallowed, ‘—what I have been—’
‘Oh, yes. Of course I do.’
She stared at him, the slanting brows drawing together.
‘Hannah has told me, and Ralph, because I asked.’ His mouth drew down a little wryly, ‘And Charlotte also, though I did not ask.’ He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. ‘What difference?’
‘But—’
He stepped to her, caught her by the shoulders, pulled her quickly to him and before she could avoid it kissed her, with lingering and thorough strength. Somewhere in another world a woman’s voice echoed through a loud hailer, and voices lifted in a cheer. She pulled away from him, breathless. He was smiling again, the loved and loving humour back in his eyes. ‘My beautiful Sally – what you were ten years ago – five years ago – the day before yesterday – counts for nothing. It’s what you are today that matters.’
‘And what’s that?’ The husky break in her voice made the words all but inaudible, but he heard them, su
rely.
‘You are the woman who – no matter what the world might say – no matter what my family or my cousins might say—’ he laughed softly, ‘—no matter what you might say – I intend to marry.’
Chapter Twelve
I
‘Sally – please—’ Ben Patten turned at last from the window. He had conducted most of this openly difficult conversation with his back to her, despite which – creditably she felt – Sally had kept a tight rein on tongue and on temper, and said very little. ‘I don’t want you to misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m simply asking you to consider very carefully before you take such a—’ he paused, still not looking at her, ‘such a very serious decision.’
Once he had called her a fool, and she had not forgiven nor forgotten it. She lifted her chin. ‘I’m neither stupid nor a child, Doctor Patten,’ she said very evenly, and her use of the professional title was both deliberate and chill. ‘Of course I’ve considered. Very carefully indeed. For several months, as a matter of fact.’
In a brusque movement that might have been impatience he lifted his head sharply and looked at last directly into her face. ‘But—’
‘Are you sure that you aren’t trying to tell me—’ she interrupted him, her voice very calm and very cool, her eyes direct, ‘—that – because of what you know of me – you don’t consider me good enough to marry your wife’s cousin?’
‘Good God, no!’ The words were shocked from him, the tone angry.
‘What, then, exactly is it that you are trying to say?’
He made a small, oddly awkward gesture with his big hands. ‘I’m simply pointing out to you that you could be putting yourself in a very difficult situation – you hardly know Philippe, for heaven’s sake – you don’t know his family – his country – his language.’
‘I can learn.’
She had waited, resisting her own needs and Philippe’s pleadings, for six months. She had told herself – and Philippe – over and over again, all the things that Ben Patten was trying to tell her now. Why, then, did it anger her so to hear it from him? Patiently and with laughter Philippe had wooed her, had convinced her. She had faced and withstood Dan Dickson’s hurt and anger, Toby’s furious and flaring resentment, his bitter accusations – astonishing, unexpected and horribly hurtful – of selfishness and betrayal. Why then should she give a toss what Ben Patten thought? Why this seething resentment, this temptation to scream at him like a fishwife, to fly at his throat like any street urchin? She took a breath. ‘Doctor Patten, there’s something that I think you misunderstand.’
He lifted his brows a little in question.
‘The truth is – Philippe, who loves me, has shown me – that there is no “difficult situation”. The difficulties – if there ever were difficulties – are solved. Philippe asked me months ago to marry him. I said no. For all the reasons that you can think of.’ She paused, ‘And more, believe me.’ Her distinctive voice was still low and controlled, but in the silence of the winter-darkened room it rang very clear and sure. She kept her eyes very steadily upon him. ‘Philippe never believed in these – difficulties. And I have no doubt now that he has been right all along. My only regret is that I have wasted these past months. Philippe has spoken to his family. He has persuaded me. He has shown me there is no problem. Not for me. And most certainly not for you. In fact, if you’ll forgive me,’ the evenness of her tone quite flatly indicated, as she had intended, that his forgiveness or lack of it was of no moment whatsoever, ‘it’s none of your business. Please understand. I’m not asking for your permission to marry Philippe. I’m telling you. To give you time to get a replacement. I want neither advice nor warnings. You cannot tell me anything that I’ve not already told myself. But I love Philippe. He loves me. We are to be married in May. That’s an end to it.’
The silence was absolute.
‘I see.’
The naked antagonism between them was palpable; it glistened in the air like frost on a winter’s morning, sharp and cold. They watched each other for a long, hostile moment.
‘The children will miss you,’ he said.
‘And I them.’
‘And Toby?’
Was it deliberate, she wondered, the needle probe of that name, the sure touching of the most tender spot? ‘He’s staying here. He’s settled at school – more than settled. It would be too disruptive to take him to Belgium. He’ll come for holidays, of course.’
– ‘Sod your holidays,’ the boy had said shaking, the angel’s face white as death. ‘Who wants your bloody holidays?’ –
Ben nodded, then said, his voice all but expressionless. ‘So – may I wish you both luck?’
She waited for a long moment before, calculated and cruel, in direct retaliation for the mention of Toby, she said, ‘Philippe and I don’t need luck, Doctor Patten. We have each other,’ said it knowing instinctively the emptiness of this man’s dedicated and duty-filled life.
He watched her as she walked, straight-backed and quiet to the door, stood for a long while after it had closed behind her, unmoving, his face disciplined to stillness. Then he moved to the sideboard, picked up the brandy bottle, poured a small quantity into a glass and with a swift, controlled movement tilted his head to drink. He hesitated, splashed some more into the glass, stood staring at it before, suddenly and explosively he slammed it onto the table and threw his head back, jaw clenched. ‘Damn!’ he said, harshly and very quietly. ‘Damn and blast it!’
* * *
The few weeks which followed that provoking interview with Ben and led up to her marriage were far from calm. Within the suffragette movement the split between constitutionalists and militants widened and grew more bitter, coming to a head when the Pankhursts’ followers took to the streets of London’s fashionable West End in an orgy of stone-throwing and window-breaking that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of more than two hundred women. In March, in a vain attempt to suppress the militant side of the movement the Government, which faced both a Home Rule crisis in Ireland that threatened to become civil war and more serious industrial unrest at home, had the active leadership arrested. Only Christabel Pankhurst by accidental good fortune escaped the net and, urged by her followers who did not want to see the militants entirely leaderless, fled to France. Amidst heated discussion both in and out of Parliament as to the right of the imprisoned women to be treated as political prisoners and not as common criminals, the Conciliation Bill, aimed at widening the franchise, came up once again in the House. When it became obvious, to the women’s outrage, that the Bill, despite vague and veiled promises, still did not contain a clause on votes for women, the campaign, the arrests, the hunger strikes escalated. Hannah and Sally, avoiding arrest by the skin of their teeth and the good offices of a sympathetic young constable – of whom there were surprisingly many – continued in those weeks to organize and attend meetings and marches and to sell the now weekly Votes for Women despite the fact that often the magazine was so heavily censored that only the headlines remained to be read for a penny.
Dissatisfaction and worse simmered too on the industrial front. Early in the spring a wave of strikes by workers demanding a minimum national wage brought the machinery of British industry almost to a standstill again. By March the coalfields were crippled, and a month later the docks were out.
Sally, with an obstinate burst of courage that surprised herself, found herself knocking on the once more strike-bound Dicksons’ door on the first day of May, just two weeks before her wedding. With dogged determination she outfaced the cool hostility of her welcome. This was Josie’s family; she could not – would not! – leave with their friendship spoiled after so long. Alone with Dan she came straight to the point. ‘I’ve come to say sorry. Not for loving Philippe. I could never apologize for that, not even to you. But for hurting you. For not being strong enough to make you see long ago that – you and me – it could never have been right. I always said so.’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘That you
did.’
She eyed him, ready, despite her errand and her resolutions, to be defensive. ‘You never listened.’
‘No.’ Dan Dickson was not – could never be – an unreasonable man. The first understandable disappointment and anger had long since eased enough to allow justice and good sense to have their say. But yet he was human enough not to make it too easy for her.
She struggled for a long moment, unable to find words. Then, ‘I’m sorry, Dan,’ she said simply, ‘truly sorry. I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world if I could have avoided it. But – I couldn’t.’
He did not smile, but the broad, good-natured face relaxed a little. ‘I know, girl. I know.’
‘I couldn’t bear to leave bad friends. We – we aren’t, are we?’
He did not answer directly. He watched her for a moment, undisguised affection in his eyes. Then he laid a huge, gentle hand upon her narrow shoulder. ‘Dad’s got the kettle on. Stop for a cuppa before you go?’
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 31