‘Dear Kit,’ she murmured, stroking his head.
‘Darling Eva,’ came the muffled response.
They lay there a while. Supine, she opened her eyes. Directly above her the chalk jutted out, the cliff spars the only interruptions to her view of a slightly cloudy sky. She heard nothing but seagulls.
Nobody came here. Of course, Christopher would have known that; that was why he chose the place to begin with. He had planned everything. Well, almost everything. Eva looked at him lying there, his hair a spiky fan, his mouth half open – and laughed softly to herself. Poor boy! He was fast asleep. She ran her fingers across his cheek, but he did not respond or open his eyes. Against her breastbone, his breathing was shallow and regular.
After a few moments, the air grew colder, and goose pimples began to gather on Eva’s breasts and arms. She sat up, letting Christopher’s head rest in her lap, then put on his shirt, buttoning it around her breasts and leaving it loose at the belly and the collar. Donning her own underthings was more than she could manage without waking him up; besides, his shirt smelt of him. She pulled his coat over his body. He snorted a little, murmured something, then turned over so that he was facing away from her, bending his head towards his elbow, his hands bunched into fists in front of him.
Imelda used to sleep that way too.
Eva sang a little – probably as badly as he did – and continued to stroke his hair. The sun came out, went in, came out again, then faded behind a bigger cloud that seemed to overshadow everything. Eva shivered, but even though Christopher only had a light covering over his naked body, he had gone deep into a place where he was oblivious to the changing weather. One of Eva’s feet went to sleep, and, even though it was agony, she stayed still, until Christopher opened his eyes once more.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘Was I asleep?’ He rolled back onto his hunkers so that they were eye to eye.
‘Out for the count.’
‘But I just lay down for a second. And then—’ He hit his forehead. ‘I never even—’ He went pink. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? What for?’
‘You know what for.’ He was mortified.
‘You don’t have to apologise for that!’ Eva said. Then she added, in a gentler voice, ‘I enjoyed you. Very much.’
‘And I you, dear girl. Obviously too much.’ Christopher looked down at his hands. ‘It won’t always be like that, I promise you. I won’t leave you unsatisfied.’ He took her hand in his and played with her fingers. ‘Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? A year ago I swore to myself if I saw you in the street I would look the other way. And now here I am, falling asleep in your arms like an infant.’
‘I hope it will always be like that,’ Eva said. ‘You looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘I was peaceful. The first time in … months, years. It was as if someone had wiped my mind clean with a cool, damp cloth. I haven’t felt this way for … what, two years? You know, Eva, there’s been no one, not since I walked away from you that day.’
‘Apart from the girl in Amiens,’ she corrected him.
‘Apart from the girl in Amiens, yes. But that was physical. With you, it was – oh, what can I say? You know how it is for me, Eva.’
Eva dipped her head. ‘Me too. I love you. Still. But you already know that, having been informed by the hospital staff.’ They both laughed.
Then Christopher looked out towards the sea. ‘I need to ask you a question.’
She covered herself with his coat. Poor man, she was now wearing nearly all his clothes, and he hadn’t even noticed. ‘What is it?’ she said, after he was silent for a moment.
‘You still carry that man’s name. Cronin. Never mind what else you carried of his.’
‘I never use it. It means nothing to me.’
He curled his fingers around one of hers. ‘Wait, wrong finger.’ Picking up the third finger of her left hand, he did the same thing. ‘I know I’m not in the best of shape to be asking you this, but … I want you to have my name. Not his, not your father’s, mine.’
‘Is this … Christopher, are you proposing to me? Already?’
‘What, you think this irregular?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘We were as good as engaged before everything went to blazes, and if you think, after everything we’ve been through, I’m going to get down on my knees for you, you have another think coming.’
‘You are on your knees already,’ Eva pointed out.
‘Ha! You can say that again.’ He laughed without bitterness. ‘Look, Eva, I’m not going to put you on some pedestal after everything that’s happened. You asked me if I could forgive you. I don’t know, to tell you the truth, but I can’t imagine living without you. That’s all there is to it. Oh, sweetheart—’ He pushed a loose strand of Eva’s hair behind her ear. ‘God willing, once this war is over or when they discharge me on health grounds, whichever comes first, I will find work again, and you’ll study and become a right little bluestocking and drive me quite crazy, I don’t doubt. So … will you, Eva?’
Eva put her face against his shoulder and murmured something.
‘I’m guessing that’s a yes?’ he said, rather anxiously. ‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying, and I want my shirt back.’
Eva straightened up. ‘Yes!’
‘Yes, you’ll marry me?’
‘Yes, you can have your shirt back.’ She took it off and handed it to him.
‘Well, that’s not much use,’ he said, grinning while putting his arms in the sleeves, ‘that just makes me a single man in a shirt.’ He glanced at her breasts. ‘Would it be brutish of me to say those are sweeter and fuller than anything in Maupassant?’
‘I’ve read that story,’ Eva said, with cheerful indignation, ‘and I’m not amused, not in the slightest. I’ve never breastfed a passing soldier in my life.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I suppose I have to marry you, don’t I? If only because nobody else in the whole world would have an idea of what you were talking about half the time.’
They embraced again, and this time, with the help of a rather cumbersome ‘rubber’, which Eva had to help Christopher roll on – much to her embarrassment and his wolfish glee – this time, he was able to make love to her. At first, it was not as important to her as it was to him; for him it was important to know that the nervous shock had not rendered him impotent, while she had only bad memories of the act and how it had hurt her.
Towards the end of her marriage, her entire lower body felt frozen in an attempt to repel the intruder. She would have been happy never to have had to do that again. But to her glad surprise, it did not hurt this time. Perhaps it was because of what they’d done to her in that place. Or maybe it was because of that profound soul-longing she had for Christopher. Or maybe it was because he was older and more experienced than she was and was able to make it easy for her. Or maybe it was because it just felt right to have him there. Either way, she reached that delicious, white oblivion again – was beginning to recognise it – and let herself fall back on the rug, her eyes open to the white sky, her heart blown open. When they were both spent, she looked in his eyes. They were all pupil, dark as rock pools.
‘Imelda died, Christopher.’
‘I know.’
‘How?’
‘Because I knew the moment I first saw her that she would. They say someone visited the Brontë sisters and saw death stamped on all three of their faces.’
‘But … that wasn’t how it happened at all.’ Even speaking about it, Eva felt her lips grow heavy and numb. ‘She didn’t die of tuberculosis. She killed herself.’
‘Good God!’ Christopher exclaimed with horror, raising himself on his elbow. ‘How?’
‘She was up in the Swiss Alps. It was a job getting her there, but Italy wasn’t in the war then so it was just about manageable. She was already pretty ill; you had the measure of her all right. They did the operation, the one where they put those little balls in the space between the lungs, but it was a wast
e of time. The consumption had eaten away so much that she could hardly breathe. She couldn’t take it any more. So, one night …’
‘It’s all right, Eva. Take your time.’
‘… one night, when everyone had turned in, she went out into the snow – it was the middle of winter – and walked in her nightgown until she fell down and died of cold. They found her in a drift nearly two miles away. They didn’t bring her back to London. Father wouldn’t pay the fare. She’s somewhere in Switzerland, in a communal grave. I knew nothing about it until I got a letter from him a few months later. I’d written her about five letters that went unanswered. I was in Ireland by then, you see. Father said that everything had been taken care of and that “the family had attended to matters”. I was her family! There was this stamp on the letter with the name of his firm and the date. I remember that: he date-stamped the letter to one daughter telling her the other daughter was dead!’
Here Eva broke off into sobs, and Christopher put his arms around her. Even in the midst of such overwhelming sadness, she felt oddly comforted by their wiry strength and the pattern of soft, dark hairs on the forearms.
She had been unable to talk about it before. The years of worrying, of protecting, knowing, without admitting to herself, that the disease would eventually take Imelda away … It had been enough telling Sybil that she had given Christopher a white feather. To tell her that it had all been for nothing would have been too much. And now: to realise he had known all along! ‘You let me sacrifice you rather than say a word,’ she said.
‘What kind of man would I have been if I had?’
For the rest of the afternoon, they lay entwined, pulling various items of clothing over each other, drifting in and out of slumber, sometimes smoking. Eva ran her hand over Christopher’s shoulder and down his long back. He was warm. Alive, alive, alive. She felt the welted skin where she had scraped him the other day and pressed the spot with her fingers, at which point he grunted in warning and held up his hand. She began to murmur an apology, and he mumbled that she was quite the wild animal, and so on, until he shifted his position again and, falling back into slumber, began to snore lightly.
At last, they put all their clothes on; at last, it was time to wander up the steps to the top of the cliff and take the long walk back to her hotel, Christopher insisting on seeing her all the way rather than leaving her at Osborne House.
They said little to each other now, only holding hands and exchanging the odd glance, then looking away again. The moon was beginning to rise in the east. A lovely calmness had washed over Eva, the rush of blood to her loins having dissipated all over her body. The night was still, the air humming, the moon becoming more solid and bright as the day retreated and the first blush of sunset began to spill into the sky.
When they reached the outskirts of the town, Eva felt as if that world were shrinking, the evidence of other people’s commerce and lives crowding around them. No wonder Christopher was so skittish when they were in company. Why, he was nervous now, eager to leave her, though apologetic, dropping a kiss on her forehead and disappearing into the fast-encroaching night with barely a wave. But Eva didn’t mind, because she now knew how much it cost him to be there, for her sake.
32
Since neither party felt inclined to be discreet about the matter, it did not take long for news of Eva and Christopher’s engagement to spread. Eva wrote to both Sybil and Lucia to tell them. As for her family, let them read it in the papers as far as she was concerned. For his part, Christopher wrote to his mother and, with some trepidation, to Gabriel Hunter. ‘I know his opinion doesn’t matter a straw,’ he confessed, ‘but I am rather worried he’ll be angry with me. If I’m unlucky he might get a whole book of sonnets out of it.’
‘Will his anger change your mind?’ Eva said. ‘Because that’s the only thing that’s important.’
He laughed lightly. ‘No. I’m committed now.’
The staff of Osborne House and some patients held a celebration. A long table was set on the small patio at the back of the building, where it would catch the sun. They even put up some bunting, which fluttered in the breeze. Mrs Powys, the Welshwoman who kept the general stores, donated some lemonade, as well as packets of sugar wafers and chocolate-topped buns, which the nurses set out on large dinner plates. Nurse Parvenor, who had warned Eva off Christopher, now took her hand and gaily escorted her to the table as guest of honour.
Small groups of men hung about, chatting and smoking. When Eva was introduced, they broke out into small smiles. They seemed a bit lost, uncomfortable in the presence of a woman who was not a member of staff. Eva was uncomfortable too, but that was because she was about to meet Christopher’s mother for the first time.
‘I can’t put her off any longer,’ he had told her. ‘I’ve told her I’m a wreck but she says she doesn’t care, she’s got her train arranged, and she wants to meet you, and that’s that.’ He had laughed at Eva’s expression. ‘You’ve gone white.’
‘It’s just,’ Eva had hesitated, struggling to find the words, ‘what I did to you. I’d find it hard to look her in the eye.’
‘Eva,’ Christopher had said, dropping his voice, ‘she doesn’t know. I haven’t told her a thing about it.’
‘But why?’
Anger had flashed in his eyes. ‘Why? Why do you think I didn’t tell my mother some girl gave me a white feather?’
She had lowered her eyes. He was right.
‘Look,’ he had said, putting his hand on her arm, his tone more conciliatory, ‘what purpose would it serve to say anything?’
And so they had left it there.
Eva had no knowledge of the woman other than the rather forbidding-looking photograph she had seen on the bookshelf of Christopher’s old room back in Surrey. She took one of the wafers off the plate and started eating it, which was terribly rude, but she didn’t care a straw. She always tended to eat when she was nervous.
Then she saw them, walking across the lawn, he waving at the assembled party, she holding something in both hands. She was as gaunt as him, with the same high cheekbones, but her hair, swept into a bun, was grey-blonde, not dark, and her eyes were blue. They reached the table, and Christopher murmured something to her, gesturing in Eva’s direction.
Mrs Shandlin immediately set down her cake tin, stepped forward and took Eva’s hands, kissing her on the cheek. She wore a shawl embroidered with silver birds, and her expression was mobile and animated, nothing like the photograph. ‘Miss Downey. What a pleasure to meet you at last.’
‘Ma! I told you to call her Eva.’ Christopher came up from behind, looking flustered. ‘I was going to introduce you properly.’
‘But there’s no need,’ his mother said, ‘I’ve just done it.’
He shook his head and muttered something under his breath. Then, to Eva, ‘Hello, dear girl,’ with an attempt at a casual kiss, which lingered too long on her forehead, and a caressing hand across her back. In front of his mother, too, although she did not appear to notice, being engrossed in dividing the cake she had brought. Each section had been wrapped in wax paper so that she would not have to touch it with her fingers.
Mrs Shandlin looked up at Eva. ‘Would you like to try some, dear? I made it myself. Well, Betsy beat the eggs.’ There was no little pride in her voice, and Eva immediately warmed to her.
‘I’d love a piece,’ she said, picking one out and putting it on a paper plate. ‘Thank you.’
‘She presses cake on everyone,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m the only person of her acquaintance who is not as fat as a fool.’
‘In that case,’ Eva replied, half covering her mouth, since she had already taken her first bite, ‘you must have no sense of taste. This is glorious, Mrs Shandlin.’ And indeed it was, soft and moist without being stodgy, tasting of coffee, walnuts and vanilla and a bit of ginger.
At the sight and smell of the cake, the other men began to gather around and pour themselves lemonade. They were so shy, Eva thought, s
o awkward in the company of women. Did they not have their own sweethearts back home? Then she remembered what the nurse had told her. It was too bad. If only their women had a little patience, or saw what their men had to go through, they would surely not run away. Why, there was Christopher, sitting beside his mother, laughing and smiling as if he were all right. It touched her heart to see them so relaxed with each other, to know that they had something she had never had with Angela. Now, one fellow, a well-spoken chap who wore five black ribbons in a fan on his back – it turned out to be his regimental flash – was turning to her, making polite and hesitant conversation, saying that he was glad for Shandlin, he was a decent fellow, and how had they met?
Christopher shot her a look of alarm, but what could she do but tell the truth? She provided as abbreviated an account as she could and was rewarded with a few wolf whistles and ribald comments. Mrs Shandlin listened with amusement.
‘I’m never going to hear the end of it now,’ Christopher muttered, head in hands.
‘Well, it’s not an ideal start,’ Mrs Shandlin said, ‘but it could have been so much worse. You could have ended up with—’
‘Oh, here we go again.’
‘—that dreadful woman—’
White Feathers Page 30
