It wasn’t exactly a love letter. ‘Charles darling,’ it said, in Clarissa’s extravagant, wildly sloping handwriting.
I don’t know what more I can say. Except that we shouldn’t and mustn’t change our minds. I certainly haven’t changed mine. I can’t. Whatever, whatever you say, or say you’ll do. I don’t believe you mean that, anyway, for a moment.
It simply isn’t going to work, and you’ve got to accept it. Just got to. I love you to pieces, but I can’t marry you. Quite apart from anything else, I’m simply not worthy of you. You know that now, and it should make you feel a bit better. You can’t spend the rest of your life shackled to a bad lot like me. So, my darling, no more nonsense. You’ll find some sweet, lovely girl, I know you will, who’ll make you happy. But it isn’t me. Please, Charles, let me go. There really isn’t anyone else, I swear it. Certainly not Monty – purest nonsense that was, please, please believe me. But I know if we did get married, we’d be awfully miserable. In the long run, it would be cruel of me to let us do it.
Best love,
Clarissa.
Grace sat reading and rereading the letter; she felt very confused. Charles had obviously been absolutely beside himself at the ending of his engagement to Clarissa. The carefully presented story that they had simply agreed they weren’t suited didn’t seem to quite make sense. Or to tie up with the rather overbearingly confident Charles she knew. And what about Clarissa being a bad lot? She was always joking about that, saying how naughty she was, but did it mean she had actually been unfaithful to Charles? While they were engaged?
She felt rather upset suddenly by the whole thing: if he had been this desperate over Clarissa, it cast her very much as second choice, understudy to a much-favoured leading lady: the – what was it? – ‘the sweet, lovely girl’ who would make him happy. The sweet, lovely, biddable girl, dazzled, overawed by him. Was that what he had been looking for? Was that what explained his choice of her? Rather than some other confident creature, who might, like Clarissa, turn him down, find him wanting, reject him for someone else?
When Florence came back with the tea, Grace said as casually as she could, ‘Was Charles terribly upset over his broken engagement to Clarissa?’
‘Pretty upset,’ said Florence, ‘yes, he was. But it was very much a mutual decision. They both agreed it wasn’t going to work. Why?’
‘Oh – I just wondered,’ said Grace.
She lay awake for a long time, thinking about Charles, about herself, and about Ben. She realized she felt just slightly less guilty.
Chapter 28
Autumn–Winter 1944
‘Clarissa, the whole point is you don’t know, because you’ve never even met Giles,’ said Florence. Her pale face was flushed with earnestness, her dark eyes brilliant. There were times, Grace thought, when she looked actually beautiful.
‘No,’ said Clarissa, ‘no, I realize that. But—’
‘So don’t try and tell me what he’s feeling or might be feeling, because it’s pointless. I don’t know why everyone thinks they know how I should conduct my personal life so much better than I do.’
‘No,’ said Clarissa again. She sounded quite humble. Very humble for her.
‘I simply can’t put him through all that again. It’s not fair. Anyway, I’m not even sure that I want to,’ she added, sounding cross as she always did when she was upset. ‘Everything is so confused, so awful, I feel so bad about Robert. So guilty and everything. So will you just leave me alone? Both of you.’
‘Yes, all right,’ said Grace and Clarissa meekly and in unison.
They were all sitting in the garden at the Priory; it was a golden September day. Clarissa was on leave and had come to stay for a few days. She was very thin, clearly exhausted, but as lovely, as determinedly sparkling as ever. Grace looked at her with a mixture of resentment and admiration; the gnawing uneasy jealousy Clarissa always inspired in her had been increased by the discovery of her letter to Charles.
‘How’s Jack?’ she asked, anxious to divert the conversation away from Florence and Giles.
‘He’s splendid,’ said Clarissa. ‘Safely back on a rest period, I’m glad to say. I didn’t think lightning was going to strike him twice, but I kept a cotton reel in my pocket the entire time, so I could touch wood whenever I thought of him.’
‘Clarissa, you really are ridiculous,’ said Florence severely.
‘Ridiculous I may be. But it worked,’ said Clarissa.
‘Yes, all right. Maybe Churchill should have kept some cotton reels in his boiler-suit pockets, then the whole thing would have been over a lot quicker. Oh golly, there’s Jeannette with Imogen. I must go and talk to her about tomorrow, I think I might have to work.’
She scrambled up, held out her arms to Imogen who hurtled into them like a small rocket, clasped her mother round the neck and covered her face with rapturous kisses.
‘She’s very sweet, I must say,’ said Clarissa, raising her face to the sun. ‘Although she’s so frightful.’ She yawned. ‘Oh I’m tired. My poor brain feels as if it’s been wrapped in layers and layers of cotton wool, it can hardly work at all.’
‘Why don’t you have a nap?’ said Grace. ‘You’ve earned a bit of idleness. She’s pretty too, isn’t she? Imogen, I mean. She looks a bit like Charles when he was a baby.’
‘Charles!’ said Clarissa, smiling slightly sleepily into the golden air. ‘Not really, surely? Much more like her papa, I’d have said.’
‘You’ve never met her papa, as you call him,’ said Grace, slightly irritated without knowing why.
‘No of course I haven’t,’ said Clarissa. She sounded – what? Grace couldn’t quite work it out, not cross, not irritable even, but somehow a little unsteadied. And suddenly very alert, awake again. ‘But I’ve seen pictures. Haven’t you?’
‘No,’ said Grace. ‘No I haven’t. Ever.’
‘Oh well. Anyway, I suppose it’s reasonable that she should look like Charles, actually. I’d just never thought of it. Now look, I can’t go to sleep or I’ll never wake up again. I’d better go and have a bath or something energetic like that. See you later, darling.’
‘Yes of course,’ said Grace.
She wanted to have a talk with Clarissa: about Charles and about the letter, but this was clearly not the moment. She needed her to be at her most clear-headed.
In HMS Cicala, at Kingswear, across the water from Dartmouth, May Potter was lying on her bunk, reading an article in Woman & Beauty about keeping your elbows smooth, when her friend Leading Wren Sally Bishop came in.
‘Phone for you. Male. Very upper-crust. Sounds drunk,’ she added.
‘Oh Lord,’ said May, ‘that’s all I need. You ever been worried about rough elbows, Sal?’
‘Oh constantly,’ said Sally, ‘wrecked my war, my elbows have.’
May was still laughing when she picked up the phone. ‘Petty Officer Potter,’ she said.
‘May, my darling, it’s me.’
‘Oh yeah. And this is me. You’ll have to do a bit better than that.’
‘May, it’s me, Giles Henry. Clarissa’s friend. You must remember.’ He sounded plaintive.
‘Oh yeah. Course I do. Sorry. You all right, are you?’
‘I’m fine. Thankfully. Back here for a few days, then up to Liverpool. Look, where’s Clarissa?’
‘On leave. Staying with –’ She paused. Clarissa had assured her the affair was ‘one hundred and one per cent over, darling, I swear’ but you never knew. Not with Clarissa anyway. And the rule had been, always: no messages left anywhere, except with her.
‘Staying with her mum,’ she said carefully.
‘Her mother? I thought her mother had died?’
‘Oh I don’t think so,’ said May. Damn, silly mistake that, Potter, you should be able to do better. ‘That’s her mother-in-law. But you never know with Compton Brown anyway, do you? Wouldn’t put it past her, popping up to St Peter, talking him into a brief stopover. Anyway, she’s off for a fortnigh
t.’
‘Oh God. Oh God, no.’ He sounded so desperate that she almost relented. Then she remembered he was a musician. ‘Never trust a theatrical,’ her mother had said, and she never had. ‘But she might ring me,’ she added helpfully. ‘If she does I can give her a message.’
‘Oh May darling, would you? It would transform my whole life if you could.’
God, he was just like Clarissa: a male version of Clarissa.
‘Well, go on, then. Let me transform it. What’s the message?’
‘Tell her I have to talk to her. About Florence. And get a number for her, would you? If you possibly can?’
‘Yeah, OK. Where do I contact you?’
‘Leave a message at the officers’ mess. Till – well, till Thursday. After that I’ll be gone.’
‘OK.’
‘Bless you, May. You’re an angel from heaven.’
She looked at her watch: too late to ring Clarissa now. The morning would have to do.
She went back to her Woman & Beauty and another article, on home perming. She might just give that a try. The salt played havoc with your hair.
Giles had had a bad war. Well, he supposed that compared with many others he had had a good war, his life apparently charmed; he had not been wounded, had not suffered so much as a bruise himself, but he had seen countless men die, their ships sunk or torpedoed, some enemy, some not; had watched convoys leave, bearing friends and comrades, knowing they were probably never to return, had left himself, expecting never to return also, had stared his own mortality constantly in the face. He had spent three days at sea on a raft in the freezing Atlantic, his ship sunk, heard his shipmates’ groans as they slipped slowly and mercifully into unconciousness and then death from hypothermia; had seen sights on the beaches of Normandy he knew he would never forget, men dying in their hundreds, even before they reached the shore, pulled and dragged by their fellow soldiers, terrified boys new to battle and desperately calling up the blind courage trained into them to go forward, and hardened, battle-scarred men equally, if not more, afraid. He had long ceased to believe in the rightness of what he had been doing, to believe in anything at all, had developed a numbness, a near inability to feel, had simply fixed his mind on the end of it all, a near-incredible but essential dream. And Florence had been part of that dream, almost the whole of it indeed, and now he had lost her, lost her, if she was to be believed, irrevocably, and that was harder to bear than any of it. Her last letter, bleak, hopeless, waiting for him as he sailed joyfully back into Dartmouth, telling him that she knew now she must stay with Robert, that Imogen would be in danger if he even tried to contact her, had nearly broken his heart. And he knew Florence: where Imogen was concerned, she would endure anything, any pain, simply to keep her child safe. This was the one thing he could not fight. A tiger defending its young paled into absolute insignificance beside her. He would not risk phoning her; Robert might be home. But Clarissa, she could, would help. Clarissa could act as their fairy godmother. A beautiful, carnal fairy godmother.
‘I’m terribly sorry to have to do this to you, Clarissa,’ said Florence at breakfast, ‘but I’ve simply got to work for a couple of hours at least this morning. Will you be all right?’
‘Darling, I think so. Just about. I might go down and see Grace, and those heavenly boys of hers. I love little boys.’
‘You just love boys,’ said Florence, ‘of any size. Right then, I’ll be back after lunch. Want anything from Salisbury?’
‘Only about ten yards of red silk velvet, and two pairs of very high-heeled shoes. And a huge bottle of Chanel. Funny how we all used to take such things for granted.’
Clarissa borrowed Muriel’s bicycle to go down to the Mill House; she arrived to see the boys and Clifford setting off with their fishing rods.
‘Grace is inside,’ said Clifford, ‘if you want her. How lovely you look, my darling.’
‘I feel lovely this morning,’ said Clarissa. ‘Lovely and rested. I slept and slept last night.’
‘Good. We’ll try and bring you some trout back for lunch. Make you feel even better.’
She kissed them all and waved them off, and then went to find Grace.
Grace was not entirely pleased to see Clarissa without being quite sure why; she supposed because she knew she ought to have the conversation with her about Charles and breaking off the engagement, and she didn’t really relish it.
She made a pot of coffee and carried it out to the garden; it was quite warm, the best kind of September day. There had been a mist earlier; now the meadow was drenched in golden light. Great spangled cobwebs hung on the fence and the rose bushes; Flossie was trying to eat them, clearly frustrated at their lack of nourishment.
‘Silly creature,’ said Clarissa fondly. ‘How are you, darling?’
‘I’m fine. Thank you.’
‘And lovely, lovely Ben?’
‘He’s fine too,’ said Grace slightly shortly, ‘thank you.’
‘Good. Oh, this is heaven. So exactly what I need. If only Jack were here it would be quite perfect.’ She looked at Grace and laughed. ‘Actually it’s quite perfect without him. He’s still quite hard work. The minute he stops flying he starts fretting about his face again.’
‘Well, I expect he – oh damn, there’s the phone. Excuse me, Clarissa.’
It was a trunk call: from Dartmouth. The caller had a very cockney accent, sounded in a hurry, wanted Clarissa. ‘It’s for you,’ called Grace through the French windows. ‘May someone? Porter?’
‘Potter. Fellow Wren. Oh God, I hope it’s nothing urgent down there. Sorry, Grace. Thanks. Where shall I take it?’
‘The study would be quieter,’ said Grace, ‘Mrs Babbage is about to start hoovering.’
She was on her way back through the hall with the coffee cups when she realized the phone was still off the hook; she went over to replace the receiver.
May Potter’s voice was loud: loud and clear. She couldn’t help hearing it. She really, really couldn’t. No one could have. ‘Well, Duchess,’ it was saying, ‘guess who’s turned up? Like a bright golden penny. The commander, that’s who.’
‘Giles!’ said Clarissa. ‘My God, May, when did he arrive?’
‘Yesterday I think.’
Put it down, Grace, put it down.
‘Anyway, he wants to see you. Desperately. Says it will transform his life. Honestly, Duchess, he’s just like you.’
‘The darling,’ said Clarissa absently. ‘Look, May, give him this number, I’ll speak to him here. Any time up to lunchtime, tell him. After that Florence will be here so he mustn’t ring. OK? And give him my love.’
‘Right you are.’
Grace was rinsing out the coffee cups when Clarissa came into the kitchen; she didn’t dare turn round.
‘Sorry, darling,’ said Clarissa, ‘naval business. I’m afraid someone else may ring later, I hope that’s all right. Honestly, I can’t even have a bath these days without being disturbed.’
‘Really?’ said Grace. She went on looking into the sink, scrubbing the cups.
‘Yes. Are you all right, darling? You sound a bit odd.’
‘Yes thank you. Fine. Clarissa, could we go back outside? I want to talk to you.’
‘Yes, of course we can. Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure.’
She led the way out to the garden; she still felt so shocked, so frightened by her discovery she could hardly function at all. She sat down rather heavily on the seat.
‘So what is it you want to talk to me about?’ asked Clarissa. She looked slightly uneasy now, clearly picking up on Grace’s distress.
‘Charles,’ said Grace shortly. She couldn’t face discussing Giles. Not yet.
‘Charles? What about Charles?’
‘Why did you break off your engagement, Clarissa? Really? And why has it always been such a secret?’
‘Grace darling, please, not again. I’ve told you—’
‘No, Clarissa,
you haven’t. I don’t believe you’ve told me at all. I – well, I found a letter. At Florence’s house. From you to him. There seemed to be a bit more to it than just not getting on –’
There was a long silence, then finally Clarissa said, ‘Well, I suppose now it doesn’t matter any more. I always promised him never to tell.’
‘Tell what?’ Grace felt very nervous suddenly, and she wasn’t sure why.
‘Oh, it’s nothing dreadful. Well, a bit dreadful for him at the time, of course, but really nothing serious. It just wasn’t working. That much was true. Not working at all. We weren’t going to be happy. A child of three could have seen that. We’d stopped getting along, stopped enjoying one another. Anyway, I went out to dinner with someone else one night: in London while Charles was down here. Perfectly – well, almost perfectly – innocent. Just an old chum. But – well, you know me, darling, can’t resist an opportunity to flirt. We got a bit drunk, we went back to my flat – and – and Charles arrived.’
‘And you were in bed, I suppose?’ said Grace.
‘In bed! Of course we—’ Clarissa met her eyes, looked away, flushed slightly. ‘Yes, all right, we were. Oh dear. Well, you might as well know the full story.’
‘I might as well, yes,’ said Grace.
‘The thing was, I’d been trying to break it off for weeks. I really had. There were so many things wrong. But he wouldn’t. He kept saying it would be all right, that we were just both under a lot of strain. I was getting a bit frantic actually. Anyway, that night did it. Sort of.’
‘Yes, I would imagine it would.’
‘I said surely now he wouldn’t want to marry me, knowing how awful I was. And he got absolutely desperate, started crashing about, threatening me, saying he’d go and shoot Monty – that was his name, the other chap, shoot himself. It was terrible. In the end he calmed down and then he started to cry. Which was worse. He begged, implored me to marry him, said he didn’t care what I did, that he’d forgive me anything—’
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