A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘No …,’ she whispered, her nails digging deep into her palms. ‘Oh, no… no… no!’

  He said, as if she had not spoken: ‘Japan is on good terms with both Germany and Italy. She’ll be able to count on support from both of them if she should need it. And she’s an aggressor. Look at the way she’s been pounding China. Stafford says that Japanese troops are pushing south now, a large contingent have landed at Amoy three hundred miles north-east of Hong Kong. If they have, it puts them in a very favourable position to attack Hong Kong if they should choose to.’ His eyes held hers tensely. ‘It’s Stafford’s belief, and mine, too, that if war breaks out in Europe that is exactly what they will do.’

  She had been sitting in one of the deep-cushioned chairs by the side of the fire. Now she rose unsteadily to her feet, the lamplight gleaming on her hair. ‘And you want to be there if she does?’ she asked, her voice low and barely audible, with a strange note in it that he had never heard before.

  He thought her strained reaction was because of his age, and a tide of colour stung his cheeks. ‘Yes,’ he said abruptly, delving in his jacket pocket for his pipe and his tobacco-pouch, furiously stuffing the pipe’s bowl, his eyes avoiding hers. ‘It isn’t half as crazy as it seems, Beth, I’m an army man by nature. I should have realized it years ago and made the Army my career, but in the days when it would have been feasible there was no need for me to think of a career. Besides, I thought I’d had enough after the last shindig. By the time I realized differently, it was too late.’ He lit his pipe and drew on it deeply.

  She leaned against the mantelpiece, her face pale, realizing with sick disbelief that her music and her future professional life were the furthest things from his mind. Even now, it had not occurred to him that her incredulity was anything other than that he was, perhaps, too old to contemplate active service once more. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, instinctively knowing that if she cited her musical studies as a reason for their not going to Hong Kong the battle would be lost before it was begun. He would see it as proof that her music meant more to her than he did. They would be at an impasse, and her earlier sacrifice, in not touring the States, would have been in vain. She said carefully, trying to make him see how impractical his proposal was: ‘You’re forty-eight, Adam. Surely you can’t want to see active service again?’

  She had known, even as she said it, that it was the wrong thing to say. The uncomfortable colour in his cheeks darkened.

  ‘God damn it, Beth! You’re talking like the Army Board! Of course I’m not too old! I’m as fit as any of the runny-nosed youngsters they’re so busy recruiting! And I’m experienced! It’s men like me the Army should be rounding up! Men who have proved themselves on the battlefield and know what they’re about!’

  She had never seen him so furious. Her heart began to slam in thick heavy strokes against her chest. His proposal that they go to Hong Kong wasn’t a whim. It was something he had thought about long and hard. Something about which he had already made up his mind. A wave of panic surged through her, and she controlled it with difficulty, saying with what she hoped was sweet reasonableness: ‘But if you are right, and the Japanese do attack Hong Kong and Singapore, what will happen to the civilian population? Won’t it be terribly dangerous for them?’

  He frowned, as if he didn’t understand what she was saying, and her panic gave way to impatience. She dug her nails deeper into her palms. ‘You want me to go with you, don’t you, Adam.’ It was a statement of fact, not a question.

  He nodded.

  She drew in a deep steadying breath, certain that she had found his Achilles heel. He would not expose her to unnecessary danger. He loved her far too much ever to put her physically at risk. ‘But if I go with you,’ she said quietly, ‘and the Japanese do attack, won’t I be in a very vulnerable position?’

  His frown cleared. ‘Good heavens, no!’ he said, amused. ‘Darling Beth, you didn’t think I would take you anywhere where I thought you would be in the slightest danger, did you? The Japanese may attack Hong Kong and Singapore in order to further their ambitions against the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines, but they will never, in a hundred years, succeed! Any fighting that occurs will be on the mainland, in the New Territories. You’ll be far safer in Hong Kong, my darling, than you will be in London if Hitler’s bombs begin to rain down!’

  She leaned back against the mantelpiece, her last hope of avoiding a confrontation gone. Her hair fell silkily to her shoulders, and the line of her thigh, as she balanced one foot on the fender, was unknowingly provocative.

  ‘Cheer up, sweetheart,’ he said, his voice thickening as he stepped lovingly towards her, resting his hand on her shoulder. ‘It will be an adventure. Stafford says the climate out there is magnificent, the social life unrivalled. We’ll have a whale of a time.’

  ‘No,’ she said, and though her voice was low and husky, as it always was, there was no trace of apology or weakness in it. ‘No, Adam. I’m not going to Hong Kong. How can I? I have the Mozart recital in a few weeks’time, the Bach recital in April. I have been working for months preparing for the Brussels Competition in June. I’m on the threshold of achieving everything I have always dreamed of. I can’t turn my back on it now. It isn’t possible.’

  If she had struck him, he couldn’t have looked more stunned. His hand dropped abruptly from her shoulder, and he stepped away from her, saying tightly: ‘I’ve explained my reasons for wanting to go. Surely you can understand them?’

  The impasse she had always feared was opening wide at their feet. She did understand, but he did not understand her, and she knew with despair that except on a superficial level he never would. Her music, and her craving for recognition and success, was a closed world to him. Despite his many protestations to the contrary, he had no more understanding of it than her father had had. For him, as for Jerome, her music was an indulgence, something he could take pride in when it suited him to do so, but something that was all too expendable when it came into conflict with his own desires.

  ‘I do understand,’ she said quietly, stepping away from the fireplace and moving towards him. ‘But it isn’t practical, Adam. Even if there is a war in the East, civilians will play no larger part in it than they will do if there is a war in Europe.’

  His jaw clenched, and he said with a savagery that was totally alien to him: ‘Whether civilians will play a major part in the war or not isn’t really what is at issue, is it?’

  In the silence that fell between them she could hear a clock ticking and the hiss and spurt of flame as burning logs settled in the grate behind her.

  ‘No,’ she said, and the firelight danced on the glossy sheen of her hair, and he was struck again, as he had been when she was a child, by the strength in her delicately boned face. Beneath the loving gentleness that he found so attractive was a will as resolute as Jerome’s had been, a toughness that enabled her to impose on herself long gruelling hours of daily practice and study. He turned away from her, filled with impotent frustration at what he saw as his lack of power over her, knowing, though he would never have admitted it, that one of the reasons Hong Kong had so appealed to him was because it would take her away from the Academy and from her studies, In Hong Kong she would have more time for him. His growing resentment at the long hours she spent alone at the piano would cease. He knew, defeatedly, that he couldn’t browbeat her. That he could only plead.

  ‘I have never before asked anything of you, Beth,’ he said, his voice full of sudden weariness. ‘Please don’t let me down, my darling. I couldn’t bear it.’ And without turning to look at her he walked from the room, his shoulders hunched, every line of his body dejectedly middle-aged.

  She knew that he had hoped she would run after him and she did not do so. She turned slowly and faced herself in the large gilt-framed mirror that hung above the fireplace. She had been confronted once before with the same sort of selfishness from someone she had dearly loved. Then she had been a child and she had had n
o option but to fall in with the plans that had been made for her.

  She stared into the mirror, and smoke-green eyes, thickly lashed, stared back at her. She was a child no longer. The decision was hers and it was a simple one. She could refuse to go to Hong Kong and to abandon her career, just when it was on the verge of taking off. Or she could put Adam first in her life and regard their weeks or months in Hong Kong as nothing more than a short sabbatical.

  The fire had begun to die down, hissing and spitting desultorily, and she bent down to the basket beside the hearth, lifting a log from it and tossing it on to the glowing embers. If she did not go to Hong Kong, Adam would go there alone. And their marriage would be over.

  ‘Oh God!’ she said, with a venom that would have startled Adam. ‘Oh shit! Oh hell!’ And leaning with one hand on the mantelpiece she stared down into the flames, knowing that if she was to be able to live with herself, then she could not allow Adam to travel obstinately east alone. All through her life he had been there when she had needed him. Now he needed her. Her decision was made, but she did not follow him upstairs to their bedroom. She loved him too much to want to hurt him with her bitterness and resentment. She did what she always did when seeking peace of mind. She turned to her piano. When Adam woke, hours later, it was to the taut, savage notes of a Prokofiev concerto.

  ‘My God! Is he serious?’ Princess Luisa Isabel asked her as they sat over tea and cakes in Fortnum & Mason’s elegant tearoom.

  Elizabeth nodded. She didn’t want to discuss Adam’s decision to travel east, or hers to accompany him, only to appraise Luisa of it. They had been shopping, and lavishly wrapped parcels bearing the labels of Harrods, Hatchards, Swaine, Adeney, Brigg and Fortnum & Mason’s were piled high around their feet as she said briefly: ‘He says that, as he is forty-eight, if war does break out, the Army will take no notice of him at all. That the most he will be able to hope for is a desk job.’

  Beneath the lavish veiling of her saucily tilted hat, Princess Luisa Isabel’s eyes rose expressively heavenwards. ‘But, goodness gracious, if there is a war – and your Chamberlain is quite adamant that there isn’t going to be one, – why should Adam wish to be involved? He fought in the 1914 war, did he not? Wasn’t he awarded the Military Cross for outstanding bravery? Why on earth should he wish to be physically involved again?’

  Elizabeth sighed, knowing that she had been overly optimistic in thinking that Luisa would be satisfied by her cursory explanation. ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. ‘But he does. And he thinks his chances of involvement are much higher in the East than they are in Europe.’

  Princess Luisa Isabel regarded her with concern, a lush pelt of double red fox furs draped around her shoulders, the heads dipping forward over the bodice of her Worth suit, the tails swinging flamboyantly down her back. ‘But what about your music?’ she asked forthrightly. ‘What about your career? He doesn’t, surely, expect you to go with him?’

  Elizabeth flinched and remained silent. The princess rarely lapsed into her mother tongue and very rarely swore. Now she did both. ‘Mae de Deus!’ she said explosively. ‘How can he be so crazy? So blind? Naturally, you will not go?’

  Elizabeth poured herself a second cup of tea, her face white, ‘Adam has always been very kind to me, Luisa. I can’t refuse him this, not as it is so important to him. Please try to understand.’

  The Princess opened her mouth to say that she understood perfectly, and then closed it again. What she understood was something that Elizabeth would not want to hear.

  For seven years she had observed the Harland marriage closely. There had never been one hint of unhappiness or discord. She had even begun to wonder if she had been wrong in believing that Elizabeth had married Adam because he so ably replaced her father in her life and not because she was as deeply in love with him as he was with her. Now, trusting her sixth sense, she wondered no longer. If Elizabeth was prepared to accompany him to Hong Kong, just when she was beginning to make a name for herself on the London concert platform, then it was not because of love. It was because of guilt.

  She wondered when Elizabeth had realized the truth. Or even if she realized it at all. Looking across at her, she knew that she could not ask. Despite the twenty-year age-gap between them, Elizabeth had never treated her as a mother figure. It was too late now for her to try to behave as one. She said abruptly, feeling grossly incompetent: ‘My God, but I miss Jerome!’

  Elizabeth ground out her cigarette in a glass ashtray. ‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘Me, too, Luisa. Me, too.’

  ‘There’s a sailing on the seventeenth of next month,’ Adam said to her. They were in the bedroom of their Kensington house. She was undressed and brushing her hair at the dressing-table; he was in bed, a notebook and pencil and half a dozen sailing schedules scattered around him. She put down her hairbrush slowly. ‘The seventeenth is three days before the Mozart concert,’ she, said, her eyes meeting his through the mirror.

  ‘I know,’ There was a defiance in his voice she had never confronted before.

  She turned round on the dressing-table stool to face him, overcome by a feeling of déjá vu, once more in the River Room Restaurant at the Savoy, hearing her father say: ‘There’ll be other concerts for you later. Lots of them. At the moment what’s important is that you and I are together.’

  There hadn’t been other concerts. Not for a long time. Adam had called him a selfish bastard for disrupting her studies, yet now he was doing the exact same thing himself. She wondered if he was aware of it and, as her eyes continued to hold his, knew that he was. And that he was ashamed of it.

  His hair was rumpled, his pyjama jacket open at the neck. ‘I need you, Beth,’ he said with boyish simplicity, as if reading her thoughts.

  She felt a surge of compassion for him. He needed her and loved her and had always treated her with infinite kindness and patience. Now, just once, he needed something for himself. He needed to feel younger than his forty-eight years. He needed to feel that he was contributing something to the defence of England and its outposts. He needed to escape the ignominy of being assigned a desk job while younger, fitter men donned uniforms.

  She walked slowly across the thickly carpeted room towards him, and he slid his hand around her waist, pressing his face against the smooth flatness of her stomach. She cradled his head against her, feeling as if she, not he, were the elder.

  ‘We’ll sail on the seventeenth,’ she said huskily.

  Relief jarred through his shoulders, and then he drew her down on the bed beside him, his voice choked with love and gratitute. ‘I love you … love you … love you, Beth,’ he whispered as his hands slid up beneath the delicate silk of her négligé and he rolled her gently beneath him. ‘I’ll make it up to you, my darling. I promise. Now, let me show you how very much I love you.…’

  When he was asleep, she edged carefully away from him, slipping from the bed and wrapping her discarded négligé around her shoulders. It was only a little after midnight, and the moon was bright, filling the room with silver light. She went downstairs and made herself a cup of tea, sitting with it in the kitchen, hoping fiercely that at last she was pregnant. Knowing that if she was it would mean an early return to England. A return to normality.

  Professor Hurok had been her tutor for the last six years. Russian-born, he was a fierce disciplinarian with an explosive and volatile nature that had, at first, terrified her. Now, as she came to the end of the piece she was playing for him, he nodded his head in approval.

  ‘That is very good,’ he said. ‘The octaves were faster and louder and much more satisfying.’ He gave her one of his rare smiles. ‘And now for the Brahms. I absolutely forbid you to evade him any longer.’

  Elizabeth groaned in mock despair. The Brahms first and second piano concertos had become something of a joke between them. When he had first suggested that she play the B-flat Concerto she had been aghast, protesting that her hands were much too small even to attempt it.

 
‘Nonsense!’ he had said, dismissing her protestations with a wave of his hand. ‘The notion that Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto and the Schumann Concerto are “ladies” concertos, and that the Brahms B-flat is a concerto that can only be played successfully by a man, is ridiculous. Myra Hess has hands that are no bigger than yours. If she can play the Brahms B-flat – and she does so magnificently – then so can you.’

  She had gone away, fired with determination, and for two weeks she had wrestled with a score that was the most difficult she had ever attempted. ‘Look creatively at the text. Distribute things to make it more comfortable,’ Professor Hurok had advised her, and she had done so. When she had not been playing it she had been listening to it, convinced that it was the most beautiful piece of music that she had ever heard.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked, sensing her nervousness. ‘Then, please begin.’

  She knew that he would not correct her, would not even speak to her, until she played the concerto through, without guidance. Summoning up all her fortitude and all her stamina, she lifted her hands and brought her fingers down on the keys. The music was titanic in scale. She became lost in it, obsessed by it. A small trickle of perspiration ran down her temple. She had thought she had played difficult music before, but the architecture of the score she was now playing was something that was outside all her previous experience. It was like a cathedral with no top to it. It reached up for ever, demanding more from her than she had ever thought it possible to give. When at last she finished, she was wet with sweat, shaking with exhaustion.

  ‘You see,’ Professor Hurok said in calm satisfaction. ‘It can be played. You have just done so.’ And as their eyes met across the piano elation surged through her, intoxicating in its intensity. He sat down, taking a cigarette-case and a lighter from his pocket. ‘Tomorrow we will approach it again, from the first three uprising notes of the allegro ma non troppo.’