The First of July(34)

I thought two things. One was that the code of Debenhams was a fine thing, but it was different from my own. I could not join up and go and fight in foreign lands just because Mr. Richmond wanted me to. I would look for another position, although I could not hope for the status I had at present owing to my irregular beginnings. I considered briefly going back to Devon. War should mean that business would be brisk, and I might do my duty by my country and my father. But to go home was to go back to being the son of the family, and he would never accept that my return was other than the failure in my present occupation that he half feared, half hoped for.

The second was the day on which my path had crossed with the gentleman who had stolen my gloves, and for a moment I’d had his fate in my hands, and I’d had to make a choice. It was not the choice Mr. Hardy or Mr. Richmond would have made. Now I would choose for myself what to do regarding the war.

I had reached Westminster Bridge and, not for the first or even the hundredth time, I stood looking back at the houses of our great parliament and the glowing new statue of Boadicea, looking fierce on her plinth. How fine the bronze queen and her chariot looked in the golden London sunlight!





CHAPTER ELEVEN


Harry, Europe,

July 1914


THAT LAST NIGHT IN PARIS, Harry had sat on the edge of the bed, perhaps for hours, he had no idea, all the time wondering what to say to Marina.

He stood up, paced across the room, parted the heavy curtains, and opened the shutters as quietly as he could. Soon it would be dawn; there was already a greenish light in the east. He looked over the city spread out in front of him. The great dream of lovers. He could see the illuminated Tour Eiffel, the dome of the Sacré Coeur, and the Seine, only just visible between lime trees. The lights of a river boat flickered in and out of sight. There was the faintest of breezes. And his father was dead. Gone. Suddenly, at the age of only fifty-nine. It was thought his heart had given way, the lawyers had told him. They had been trying to contact Harry for some days. He had felt disbelief, then a brief flare of relief, of freedom, followed by deep shame and a greater pain than he might ever have imagined. He had always thought there would be more time.

He must return home. The lawyers had written—and he thought he detected the very faintest note of condemnation—that they awaited his decisions but that if they did not hear from him, the funeral would be held on August 4. He would understand that any greater delay would be distressing for Lady Sydenham.

He jumped as a hand touched his shoulder. It was Marina. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said, standing beside him, squeezing his arm.

Then she said “What’s the matter?” and her eyes dropped to the letter still in his hand. “Have you had bad news?”

“Let’s go in.”

And so he had sat her down on a chair, sat opposite her, his knees touching hers and holding her hands.

“I’m dreadfully, dreadfully sorry,” he said, and watched her expression change from concern to alarm.

“I’ve done something unforgivable. I want to ask you to forgive me first and to tell me you love me as I do you, but that’s a coward speaking. I am a coward, and I’m not sure you can forgive me.” He was stammering now, and her face showed fear.

“It’s my father,” he said.

“But he’s no longer with us… .” She looked momentarily less worried, but puzzled.

“He is no longer with us. He is dead. Dead now. But he wasn’t dead when I told you he was.”

She drew back very slightly and pulled up her wrap.

“He died a few days ago. Very suddenly. I’m so sorry but, you see, there’d been this misunderstanding. No, this rift. With a woman I thought I loved, with my father—and I was too hurt and downright stubborn to make it up.” She bent over and took his hand.

“And I went to America and too much time passed and I lied to your father and then I met you and I wanted to marry you so much but couldn’t explain to you and—” his voice was hoarse.

“Harry,” she said, eventually, and too calmly, though the silence before she reacted seemed an age, “your father’s just died. It’s a shock. For me too. All of it. Come back to bed. Try to rest. We’re both tired. In the morning we’ll set it straight. You, me, everything. It’s not that it’s all right, but we shall have to live with it.”

“I’ll have to go back,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Of course we will go back.”

Later, next to her, comforted by her warmth and the familiarity of her, he still couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t even told her that she was now Lady Sydenham. Most of all, he had let the bigger lie go untold. By the morning he’d have to provide some better account of the family split and his flight from England, and he already knew that he would contrive some story that would evade the truth. Finally he allowed himself to think of his father, handsome, hot-tempered, loving, impatient, and permitted the realization of what was lost to squeeze his heart.