Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  ‘I hope so. We’ve had a good crop of daffodils anyway. And a few early tulips — look.’

  He glanced at the basket she was carrying over, her arm. ‘So I see.’ They reached his bedroom door and he turned to go in. ‘You’ll want to be arranging them, I suppose. I’d better get out of these clothes and change for dinner.’

  ‘Of course.’ He was wearing his riding boots and jodhpurs, and she could smell the scent of leather and horse-sweat on him. As he opened the door she said: ‘Charles.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you — mind if I come and talk to you while you change?’

  As soon as she had said it she felt her hand shaking; it was not the sort of thing that happened between them once in a year, even. But then, it was the sort of thing that other married women must say, all the time; and she had a feeling, growing in her, that today was going to be different, lucky. It had to be, if their marriage was not going to fall apart for ever.

  Charles hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Why not? I have a screen, though I don’t use it very often.’

  As she came into her husband’s bedroom she noticed, as she always did, how bare it was, devoid of almost all the things that give a room comfort. There was a faded Persian rug on the floor, but it only covered a quarter, perhaps, of the floor space. There was a desk and a chair by the window, with a selection of framed photographs of his army career on the wall around it, and one or two of him with elephants and a tiger he had shot; but none of her, or his parents, or even of Tom. There were no other pictures at all; just a couple of crossed African assegais over the mantelpiece. Other than that, there was a bookcase, a wash-stand with a jug and ewer, two leather armchairs, and a bed.

  A small dressing room opened off the main bedroom. Charles went in there, hunted around a moment, and then brought out a faded screen, painted with incongruous Chinese scenes, which he erected in front of the ewer and washstand. Deborah put the flower basket down on one of the chairs and sat on its arm.

  ‘Yes, my dear, what is it you want to talk about?’

  Again the smile, briefly, but now from a disembodied head that glanced politely at her from over the top of the screen. Deborah heard the sound of a belt and buttons being undone, and the head moved out of sight for a moment into the dressing room.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Nothing in particular. Just to talk, that’s all.’

  She felt foolish saying it, but there was no rebuff. He grunted, in a way that might have meant amusement, and then there was the sound of water being poured from the ewer into the basin, and splashing.

  ‘Talk away then.’

  Deborah felt nervous, but also determined. There was nothing unusual about such a scene really, she told herself; in some marriages husband and wife must often be together like this. He has been back in Ireland for two months now, training his wretched Ulster Volunteer Force; he must take notice of me sometimes. He has to, if our marriage is to be saved. It’s almost too late already . . .

  She stood up and walked towards the window, suddenly conscious of how her clothes restricted her. She was still wearing hat and gloves, and was encased from neck to toe in a dress with a corset beneath it, whereas Charles, splashing in a basin a few feet away behind the screen, must be stripped — to the waist at least. She wondered what his body looked like. She had not seen it for . . . so long.

  She peeled off the gloves and flung them on the bed.

  ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? I was watching the swallows — do you know they’re back, building a nest in the stables again.’

  ‘Are they?’ Charles grunted, and there was more splashing. ‘I didn’t look.’

  ‘Well, they are.’ Charles’s windows looked out of the back of the house, across the park to the south-west. Here, too, all the oaks, elms, and horse chestnuts were bright with new leaf, and the crisp spring sunlight sent a gleam of hope over all the world. There were fallow deer in the park, and away in the distance, towards the hills, what must be new lambs dancing madly around their mothers.

  She turned back to the bare room, unpinned her hat. A tress of hair fell loosely down the side of her neck. ‘I was thinking of the day we were married.’

  There was no response. The splashing had stopped and there was the sound of brisk towelling. A tousled head glanced over the screen at her briefly. ‘Oh, were you? Why, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Because — it’s a happy memory, or it should be. I always think of it at this time of year. And especially with Tom being here. Here am I sorting out cricket flannels half as big as yours, and it seems only yesterday he was in nappies and little dresses. I’ve still got all those baby clothes, you know.’

  The towelling had stopped. Charles turned round and leaned over the top of the screen, looking at her. He must still be naked, at least above the waist; she could see his arm and shoulder muscles flexing under the pale smooth skin.

  He frowned and shook his head. His mouth twisted, as though he might smile again. ‘You’re in a funny mood today, Mrs Cavendish.’

  She met his eyes, and hope fluttered inside her. ‘Oh yes, I suppose I am, Charles,’ she said. She took two steps towards him, and put up her own hand, timidly, to touch the hard smooth muscle of his upper arm. For a moment they stood there, either side of the faded Chinese screen. She looked into his eyes and they did not turn away. Something dark fluttered behind them.

  The screen was still between them. With her left hand, she tried to push it aside.

  ‘Charles,’ she said. ‘Let me come in.’

  It was difficult to move the screen. There was a hinge in front of her, and as she tried to drag the screen aside it bent between them, pushing them apart. Then, as she stepped behind it, it tottered and collapsed on the floor.

  She put her arms on his shoulders. He had not begun to dress, he was quite naked. His shoulders felt hard and smooth beneath her hands. She wanted to look at his body but she was too embarrassed, nervous. She was shaking all over with excitement and fear and she did not know what to do next, not at all. They had not made love for over a year and never in his room, certainly never like this in the afternoon. But you must, a voice inside her cried. We have been married for nine years and I need him. If I have another child it has to be his! I want us to stay a family.

  She slid her arms around his neck and put her mouth up to be kissed, and when his lips did not move towards hers she found them with her own and then — thank God! — his arms went around her waist and pulled her hesitantly towards him. The kiss was clumsy, hesitant too, but it was a kiss for all that, and the shaking in her faded and was replaced by a soft, melting sensation throughout all her body and in her loins especially. She pressed her loins against his and there was a slight answering pressure but nothing hard there, not yet, oh but there will be Charles, there must be soon my lover, my husband. She slid one of her hands down his spine, over the firm, smooth muscles of his lower back, down to the rise of his buttocks, and then . . .

  There was a knock at the door.

  Charles jerked away from her as though her dress were full of needles. She stared at him, her face flushing. Don’t answer it, Charles, she thought, please! Just this once, tell whoever it is to go away. Her eyes met his. She saw the doubt in them, and shook her head, ever so slightly. Please.

  The knock came again, discreet, insistent, intrusive.

  Charles hesitated for another long moment, watching her. She saw something fade in his eyes. He picked up a towel, wrapped it round himself, and turned away.

  ‘Yes,’ he called. ‘What is it?’

  A man’s voice answered from outside the door; Charles’ ADC, Simon Fletcher. ‘Telegram for you, sir. It looks as though it’s from UVF HQ. I thought I’d bring it up straight away, in case it’s urgent.’

  ‘Bring it in for me, Simon, would you? I’m just getting dressed.’

  ‘As you like, sir.’ The door opened and a tall, fair-haired young man came in. He wore well-tailored khaki battledress and had a cap under his arm. He c
ame into the room without hesitation, as though he knew it well, and walked straight towards the screen in the corner. Then he saw it lying on the floor, and at the same moment realised Deborah was there. He stopped, and blushed.

  ‘Oh, excuse me, Mrs Cavendish. I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘Never mind her, Simon,’ Charles said irritably. ‘Give me the telegram now.’

  Simon Fletcher held the envelope out and Charles ripped it open. While he was reading, Deborah stood quite still, shattered, staring at Simon. For the moment she could not bear to look at Charles. Simon Fletcher was an unusually fair-skinned young man, whom she had first met two months ago when Charles had returned to Ireland and taken command of the local UVF unit. Simon was unfailingly polite to her, and seemed devoted to her husband. But somehow she had never liked him. He always seemed cold to her, self-centred, like a walking statue conscious of his own beauty. But it was gracious of him to blush, at least, when he walked in on the scene of her humiliation.

  Charles held out the telegram. ‘You were right, Simon, it is urgent. Here, read it yourself.’

  Simon Fletcher took the telegram and pursed his lips in a slow, elegant whistle. It seemed to Deborah an odd, strangely familiar thing for a young man to do in front of his commanding officer. Especially when the commanding officer was dressed only in a towel.

  ‘Yes, sir, I see. Will it be a big operation, do you think?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out. Go down and order the motor, will you. Then come back up — I may. need to send a reply.’

  Even when Simon Fletcher was gone Charles did not look at his wife. Instead, he picked up the screen and began to get dressed behind it.

  She heard the hurried movement of trousers being pulled on, and asked: ‘Why did you let him come in?’

  ‘What?’ Charles glanced at her over the top of the screen, as though he had only just remembered she was there. ‘What the devil do you mean?’

  ‘Charles, when a man and his wife are together in his bedroom . . . you could have told him to leave the telegram outside.’

  His voice was cold, distant, as though the matter was already past consideration. ‘It was important, Deborah. A top priority message from UVF High Command. He was right to bring it to me immediately.’

  ‘It could have waited ten minutes!’

  Charles was nearly dressed now; he had a shirt on and his tie was slung loosely round his collar. He came out from behind the screen and stood very straight in front of her, quite hard and stern, like a commanding officer cashiering a subaltern for theft.

  It was a manner he had which she had never been able to cope with. His eyes did not meet hers; they glanced at her briefly then gazed away over her head, troubled, clouded. He spoke to her like an adult rebuking a child.

  ‘Deborah, whatever came over you just now, it must never happen again. Quite apart from Simon Fletcher, this house is full of servants. If any one of them was to find out how you’d behaved we’d have to replace the lot of them at once! You’d never live it down — never!’

  He was right, she supposed; according to his code of conduct it probably was unseemly for a married woman to behave as she had done. But in comparison to other things — to the way she had behaved at other times, in other places . . . Oh God no don’t think about that not now! She felt at once the cruel, inhuman injustice of it, and a terrible mocking hysteria that would turn the world upside down if she let it. If she once began to laugh it would turn into a scream and she had no idea where that would end.

  She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and said: ‘But why, Charles? You’re my husband, aren’t you? And I need you!’

  ‘Not in the afternoon, woman, damn it! If I, as a man, can control my baser feelings, surely you can do the same! When I married you I thought you were at least guaranteed to act like a lady, but it seems I was mistaken. Or is this another of your advanced ideas about how the modern female should behave?’

  For a moment she felt a wild urge to spring forward and sink her nails into his neck, but she never did things like that. Anyway, he was far too strong; it would only lead to further humiliation. Deborah burst into tears instead. He was her husband, so of course he was right, but if only he knew! She was trying to save their marriage, not destroy it.

  But if what she feared was true then perhaps she had done that already.

  If she had it was his fault too. It would never have happened if he had been a real husband to her, the one she had wanted and thought she had married, nine long years ago. Or had she expected too much — things that no respectable woman should ever want? Tears of humiliation filled her eyes.

  ‘But if not in the afternoon then when, Charles? When? You haven’t been a husband to me once since you came home, have you? Why is that? Perhaps you don’t like me but I need you, Charles, sometimes I do! If only to have another child — I can’t do that on my own, can I?’

  She hadn’t meant to say that. But then she hadn’t meant to do any of it. She turned and walked out of the room. He was right; she had lost control and now the results would lie like a sword between them for months, perhaps years.

  When her child was born he would know it could not possibly be his . . .

  When she had gone, Charles Cavendish stood for a moment, rigid, unmoving. He was not a man who liked emotion. He tried to damp it down, and, when he could, ignore it. It had got him into too much trouble in his life already. He walked slowly over to the window, and leant his head on the cool glass, staring out across the park at the trees of his estate.

  She is my wife for all that, he thought, the mother of my son. I should respect her, love her if I can. When we were first married . . .

  It seemed unimaginably long ago. He remembered how he had walked down the gloomy reverberating aisle of the church in Downpatrick with Deborah on his arm, out into the sudden glare of the sunlight where the honour guard of his regiment waited, with an arch of gleaming sabres raised. He had shivered then, and hesitated, struck by the irrational fear that one of those blades held by his brother officers would fall and strike him dead. But of course it had not. His friends knew nothing, they had only grinned and wished him luck. And as he had stood with that young, slender, happy fair-haired girl on his arm waiting to be photographed and the proud tearful smiles of their families around him, he had thought, with a sense of wonder and guilt and hope: I have done it now, and no one knows!

  I can start a new life. Have a wife and family like other men. No one raised any objection at the wedding. No one knows what I was.

  For a few months it had seemed like that. He was not given to dancing but when he had first courted Deborah it was that which had first attracted him. He had asked her to waltz and foxtrot with him and as they proceeded round the floor he had had the impression of a young woman who was lithe, agile, almost boyish in the way she moved. Quite different from the usual soft, scented, simpering girls he so loathed and avoided. With a girl like that he had thought it might almost be possible. And when they were married and he came to her bed he had found it as he hoped; her body next to his was slim, long-limbed, hard, with little fat anywhere and small breasts which she was shy and ashamed of and which he ignored altogether. And so he was able to do as she expected and give her a son.

  But with the baby, her body changed. Her skin bloomed and her breasts swelled and although he understood it was a natural form of female beauty he did not want or dare to touch her any more; and after the baby was born she remained the same. His child-wife had blossomed into a mother, an adult woman with more generous hips, fuller breasts, a softer, looser stomach — and, in the early years, an embarrassing love and admiration for her husband. Despite a most earnest struggle with himself, none of those things, in the end, were what Charles Cavendish wanted.

  And so over the years he had taken every opportunity to be away from home, with his soldiering and his polo and his secret. A secret that, until two months ago, he had guarded more carefully than anything else in his life. Even now
, he was sure, Deborah had not the slightest suspicion. Despite my neglect, he thought, the poor woman still appears to be attracted to me. And, Lord knows, she’s right in what she said about another child. Of course it’s my duty. It’s not completely impossible, even now. If Simon hadn’t knocked on the door just at that moment, I might well have . . .

  As though to mock him, the knock came again. Charles jumped, turned abruptly. ‘Yes? What the devil now?’

  Simon Fletcher came in. ‘I’m sorry, sir. The motor’s ready. I thought you said . . . ‘

  ‘Oh, yes, of course I did.’ Charles waved his hand dismissively in front of his face, as though to brush his emotions away. ‘You saw the signal — meeting in Craigavon by six o’clock. You were right to bring it straight up.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I thought it looked urgent. It’ll be about the gun-ship, I suppose — the Clydevalley, won’t it?’

  Charles paused, his tie half-tied, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, you’re not supposed to talk about that, Simon, you know.’ So far as Charles knew, only twelve men in the whole of the UVF High Command knew that the Fanny, the ship that was bringing in 20,000 new Mauser and Mannlicher rifles from Germany, had evaded the British Navy and was preparing to transfer her cargo into the coaster Clydevalley, which was due to bring them into Larne tomorrow — the 24th of April. The men on the ship knew, of course, but apart from them only the most senior UVF leaders: Sir Edward Carson, Sir James Craig, and a very small, select committee of officers.

  Charles was on that committee. Simon Fletcher was most certainly not.

  Simon smiled — a peculiarly beautiful, winning smile, which he knew Charles could seldom resist. ‘Yes, sir, I know, of course. Mum’s the word.’ Then, seeing Charles still lost in thought, fumbling with his tie, the young man walked over, took the tie out of Charles’s hands, and fastened the knot for him. ‘There.’