‘So there you are, Benjamin Patten – do you know you haven’t danced with your only sister yet?’ Hannah claimed him, laughing. Sally sipped her champagne, holding the sparkling, heady liquid upon her tongue, savouring it, savouring that moment, that look she had surprised upon Ben Patten’s face. She had not imagined it. She knew she had not. Her eyes went to where he danced with Hannah. As if drawn he glanced at her, and then quickly away.
She drained the narrow glass.
‘Lordy, Miss Sally,’ an extremely tipsy Crispin bowed before her, ‘what are you doing standing alone? Pray d-do me the honour?’
It was almost midnight when Hannah slipped up to her, leaning to her ear confidentially, ‘Sal, it’s Bron – I don’t think she feels terribly well. I don’t want to embarrass her – she’ll die if I go over there. I’m sorry to ask – but do you think you could get her to bed? A little too much champagne I suspect.’
Sally, her own head swimming a little, looked to where Bron stood by the table, an empty glass in her hand and a slightly bemused expression on her face. She was very pale. The party was breaking up; Doctor Will and Mrs Briggs had long ago departed for their beds, Peter’s friends were wrapped in greatcoats and preparing to brave the winter’s cold.
Sally moved to Bron, slipped an arm about her waist. ‘Time for bed, I think?’
Bron turned startled eyes to her. ‘I feel that queer!’ she whispered. ‘I’m not sure I can move!’
Sally suppressed a grin, took the glass from the girl’s unresisting fingers. ‘Take a couple of deep breaths. That’s right. Now – hold on to me. We’ll go round and say good night to everyone together.’ She steered the girl around the room bidding the remaining guests good night. Hannah and Ralph were collecting the glasses together, Charlotte, her slippers off, curled into one of the big armchairs, was playing a silly word game with Peter. Of Ben there was no sign. Bron tripped over her own feet once or twice but managed, creditably, to remain upright and more or less under her own steam until they left the room. Once through the door, however, she slumped against the wall, moaning.
‘Oh, Sal! I feel that bad! Truly I do!’
‘Come on, my love. Bed’s what you need.’ Encouragingly Sally caught her arm and hauled her upright, guiding her towards the courtyard door. ‘Once you’re lying down you’ll feel right as rain,’ she said with more faith than conviction.
When the cold night air hit the girl, she reeled. ‘It’s no good. I’m going to be sick—’ and she was, very sick indeed. Twice.
Sally waited. It was a clear, cold windy night. Stars as chill as chips of ice studded the dark sky. ‘Feeling better?’ she asked the shivering Bron at last sympathetically. ‘Come on, now. One more effort. Up the stairs, then you can lie down.’
Half-way up the rickety stairs poor Bron began to cry miserably. ‘Such a fool I’ve made of myself!’
‘Oh, rubbish! No one noticed a thing,’ Sally lied cheerfully. ‘Don’t spoil it, now. It’s been such a lovely evening.’ She put a supportive arm about the other girl’s shoulders, her own eyes distant with her own thoughts. It had indeed been a lovely evening. An evening of magic. She would at that moment readily have sacrificed five years of her lifespan to live through those few hours again.
She guided Bron to her room, helped her to undress and loaded her unceremoniously into her bed where, after a couple of heartfelt groans, she fell immediately to snoring. Grinning, Sally tucked her in and tiptoed from the room. If she knew anything at all of such things poor Bron was going to have a head like a haystack in the morning.
She went to her own room, humming. ‘Oh, Danube so blue—’ She turned up the lamp, let down her hair, brushed it with long, lazy strokes in time to the tune she sang softly, beneath her breath. In the mirror her eyes glowed and sparkled. She leaned forward, watching herself intently. What had he seen when he had looked at her that had lit his eyes so? Her eyes gleamed green in the candlelight, bright and soft as the silk of the blouse Hannah had given her. She smiled at the thought. It was a lovely present – quite the prettiest thing she had ever owned. And Hannah was right, it would suit her. She would wear it tomorrow – the thought brought her up short.
So busy had she been getting Bron to bed she had left her present in the parlour.
‘Damn it,’ she said aloud mildly. Could she be bothered? The wind rattled the window. But yes – she really did want to wear the blouse tomorrow. Impulsively she reached for a warm shawl, threw it about her shoulders and sped to the door.
The parlour was deserted and dark apart from one low-burning lamp and the light from the fire. The house was silent. She slipped through the open door, saw the blouse at once, where she had left it on the arm of the sofa. She picked it up and as she turned her eye was caught by the shape of the musical box on the table. She moved to it, running her fingers over the fine inlay that shone in the firelight. Greatly daring she lifted the lid, to peep at the bells and butterflies that glimmered beneath it.
Very close, someone cleared his throat.
She almost jumped from her skin. She dropped the lid of the box with a crash that rang the metal of the bells.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
She laughed shakily. ‘Startle me,’ she said, her husky voice cracking a little, ‘you nearly frightened me to death!’
He laughed with her, softly and apologetically. ‘I came to turn out the lamp.’
She held up the shirt. ‘I came for this. I left it behind.’
Their eyes held for a moment. Then he moved past her to the table.
‘Splendid thing, isn’t it? Trust Peter to outdo us all.’
‘It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen or heard,’ she said with an earnest simplicity that brought the smallest twitch of a smile to his lips.
He lifted the lid, flicked the brass switch with his finger.
‘Oh, Danube so blue—’ the pretty, tinkling notes filled the air about them. Smiling, eyes half closed, she swayed to the music, humming to the music.
He turned to watch her, the smile suddenly gone from his face. She had never been so aware of anything as she was of his eyes upon her. She tilted her head, lifting her face to the soft light. Her long hair hung like a heavy brown curtain down her back, swaying to her movements. ‘La-la, la-la-la—’ She wanted him to touch her. She wanted it with an urgency that she had never experienced in her life before. She wanted it with every pore of her skin, every ounce of her energy. Her breasts tingled and ached at the thought of his hands upon them, the muscles of her belly contracted.
He moved abruptly. Checked himself.
She smiled. Lifted her arms. Danced the few steps to him, swaying gently and gracefully.
He held her as if she had been a butterfly, a fragile flower. As if he were afraid of his own strength, his own towering need. They danced in the half light, drifting in a dream, isolated from the world by the enchantment of the tinkling music.
In perfect contentment she rested her cheek against the roughness of his jacket, closing her eyes, loving the feel of it, loving him, revelling in the strength of the arms that held her, aware of every movement of his body. She hardly noticed the moment when they stopped dancing and stood, still and trembling, close as lovers yet barely, lightly touching each other, suspending the moment, stretching the ecstasy of expectancy that held them both. She lifted her head at the precise time that he bowed his. Their lips brushed gently, brushed again and then, blindly and in a sudden fury of passion her arms had lifted about his neck and his had tightened about her, his hard mouth hurting hers, his strength crushing the breath from her body. She clung to him with hands and lips and thighs. She felt his hand upon her breast, the long, strong fingers manipulating the rigid nipple. She arched her back fiercely. His hand was tangled painfully in her hair, pulling her head back. His lips moved savagely to her throat, her shoulder, her breast. Only his huge strength held her upright, her own was spent in the demented wave of emotion that su
rged through her body at his touch.
His sudden, fierce rejection of her took her so much by surprise that she nearly fell. He released her with such violence that she stumbled against the table. He backed away from her, the back of one hand to his mouth as if he would wipe away the imprint of hers upon it. ‘You little fool! What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Get away from me!’
She flinched as if he had slapped her. ‘Ben!’ It was the first and only time she had called him by name.
He scrubbed harshly at his mouth. ‘Get out!’
She stared at him, her hands clutched at her breast where her shirt gaped open. The musical box played on heartlessly, mockingly gay.
He turned his massive back upon her, stood hands clenched as if in uncontainable anger by his side, his head thrown back.
Dazed and frightened, she backed away from him. At the door she tried one more plea. ‘Ben – please,’ her low voice was an abject whisper. ‘Please!’
He flung around to face her, his expression terrifying.
‘Get out I say!’
Sick with hurt and humiliation, blinded by tears, she fled.
Behind her the sweet, terrible, chiming music stopped abruptly.
PART THREE
1911-14
Chapter Ten
I
The first year of which Rachel Patten had any clear recollection was the year of her fourth birthday – the year that handsome, funny Uncle Peter first came home on leave in his officer’s uniform, the year that wonderful Cousin Philippe came to stay. 1911 was, too, the year when she finally got Toby Smith to admit that she was no longer a baby, the year that Mama pestered Papa into buying a motor car. It was a year that built to a long, hot, blazing summer during which she, Mama and Nurse Winterbottom spent three blissful weeks in a small house by the sea, Nurse Winterbottom muttering darkly about something called ‘anarchy’ which was happening in London, whilst Mama – pretty as a picture in her wide hats and drifting pastel dresses – strolled along the front beneath a frilled parasol or took tea on the small verandah with her friends the Westons, and Rachel in her sailor-suit dress built and demolished sand castles, paddled in the sea, collected shells and generally had the best time of her short life. The only cloud on the summer horizon for the child had been the absence of her big, beloved Papa, though to be sure he had explained very carefully to her, for all the world as if she had been grown up, why he had not been able to stay at Brightsea with them. Even Mama, in those three happy weeks, had smiled at her, if rather absently, more often than usual. Oh yes, for little Rachel Patten 1911 was a very good year indeed.
But not so for everyone. In a country where real wages had fallen steadily for three years whilst unemployment had as steadily risen, where a constitutional crisis the year before – brought about by the House of Lords’ arrogant refusal to accept the elected Liberal Government’s so-called People’s Budget – had precipitated two General Elections and reduced the political life of the country to chaos and confrontation, where a king had died sincerely mourned by his people and another had come to the throne amidst seething industrial unrest and discontent, not everyone was going to remember Rachel’s fifth year with such pleasure.
For Hannah it was the year of her fourth term of imprisonment and of her first hunger strike. It was also her first experience of the savage and inhumane practice of forcible feeding. In the preceding three years the women had time and again been promised reform and time and again they had been betrayed. Their leaders had been gaoled, the treatment meted out by police to demonstrators had been markedly more brutal. In November 1910 there had been a confrontation outside the Houses of Parliament between the Pankhursts and their supporters, who had been trying to deliver a petition to the Government and a police force who, under the new Home Secretary Winston Churchill, had been instructed to stop them at all costs, to make as few arrests as possible and to discourage them from ever trying again. The resulting pitched battle had lasted for six hours and, predictably and many said deliberately, very many women had been injured. Hannah had found herself nursing a fractured arm and Sally had received nasty bruises when she had been trampled by a police horse. But such tactics worked no better against the women than they did against the brave and stubborn miners of the Rhondda. Under their WSPU banners of purple, white and green the suffragettes marched, obstinately heckled Cabinet Ministers at public meetings, drew up, signed and tried to deliver petitions. The fight went on.
For Sally Smith, who would ever afterwards remember this as a year that changed her life, it began quietly enough with Dan Dickson’s third proposal of marriage and her own third, still apparently firm, refusal. But she knew, and thought he might suspect, that faced with this endearing, stubborn devotion she was weakening. He was kind, he was strong, he was steady and he loved her: what more might she expect from anyone? They were good friends, and he respected her: what better basis than that for marriage? As she guessed, he sensed her wavering, and though he said nothing as the year moved on to that stifling summer in which the docklands of London were as much a tinderbox of near-revolution as were the mining valleys of Wales and the dark mill towns of the north, he watched her, and patiently he waited.
As did Ralph for a Hannah whose passions were so totally committed elsewhere that she did not notice.
Of passion between Charlotte and Ben Patten there was none. Their physical relationship had all but ceased; Charlotte had moved back into her own room and rare – and for her disagreeable – were the nights he sought her out. On those occasions that he did she would lie rigid beneath him, hatefully overwhelmed by the bulk and the strength of him, untouched and unmoved by the need that brought him to her; terrified of the possibility of pregnancy. Beyond the bedroom, however, the marriage was a fairly civilized affair, not too far removed from many others of the day, of polite and shallow friendship. It could not be said they cared nothing for each other: frivolous, discontented and self-centred she might be, but yet Charlotte in her prettiest mood, like a spoiled but appealing child, could be difficult entirely to resist. And Ben, whilst utterly lacking that handsome, easy and attentive charm that was almost the only quality that Charlotte looked for in a man was – at his best – neither unkind nor ungenerous. Mismatched they undoubtedly were, but each in their way was guardedly ready to make the best of it – Charlotte because now, in honesty, even the possibility that she might do anything but what the world expected of her never entered her head and Ben because his rocklike conception of his duty would not allow him to do anything else.
It was in early June with the London docks in seething unrest that threatened, like fire or fever, to spread uncontrolled through the other service industries of the capital, and with the distant rumblings of yet another war scare beginning to make themselves heard above the domestic din that Charlotte was more than happy to climb with Rachel, an openly nervous Nurse Winterbottom and enough luggage to accompany a royal progress to India into the new motor car and to be driven by Ben to the small house that he had after much persuasion rented for them on the Sussex coast.
‘I declare I intend not to read a single newspaper!’ she announced lightly. ‘Not one. If the tiresome Germans come, then they come – though it all sounds a most unlikely storm in a teacup to me. Why should we be concerned with a silly place in Africa? And as for unions, strikes and – picket-lines or whatever you call them – I’m tired to death of all of them. Why they can’t just take their wages and give a good day’s work as they used to do is completely beyond me. I intend to read, to stroll a little by the sea, to take tea in that darling little tea shop. I expect I shall make a friend or two. Rachel, pull your bonnet forward, for goodness’ sake. The sun’s in your face. You’ll end up looking like a little gipsy if you aren’t careful.’
Ben eyed her with some amusement. She looked undeniably fetching in her neat motoring outfit, a froth of pale silk at neck and wrist, her huge, veiled, flower-decked hat tied becomingly beneath her chin with a gauzy scarf.<
br />
‘I want to be back by the twenty-first, of course. I wouldn’t miss the Coronation for anything.’ She sounded for all the world as if she had been invited by King George in person to occupy the front pew at the Abbey.
‘Either Ralph or I will be down to fetch you on the eighteenth or nineteenth.’
She slanted a glance at him from beneath her veil. Really, sometimes he could look quite presentable. In his brown tweed motoring suit and cap he cut so much more of a dash than in his usual, rusty doctor’s black— ‘Is there any chance you’ll come to join us, for a day or so perhaps? A weekend?’
Rachel cocked sharp ears, fixed her father’s back with a fierce and longing eye.
‘Possibly. I’ll have to see what happens.’
‘You mean you’ll have to see if those stupid dockers cause trouble they can’t handle and need you to mend their heads,’ she said with unusual asperity and even more unusual perception.
He smiled.
The car bumped along the uneven road, clouds of dust billowing behind it. In the villages children ran beside them, shouting. Charlotte smiled graciously and waved at them. Rachel, a wary weather eye upon her mother’s back, poked her tongue out. Nurse Winterbottom was at that moment too openly terrified of the unnatural speed at which they were travelling to pose any kind of threat.
‘Really,’ Charlotte said lightly, obviously pleased, ‘one would think they had never seen a motor car before.’
Ben negotiated a bend designed – if that were the word – for nothing faster than a pony and trap. ‘That won’t take long to change. In America a chap named Ford’s building them quicker than he can sell them. Cars for everyone. Built cheap and fast on what they call an assembly line.’
‘Oh?’
Rachel hid a smile at the faintly offended tone of her mother’s voice. She shifted in her seat a little and lifted her teddy bear so that he too could see the green countryside as it swooped past them. She liked riding in the motor car. One day she would drive, like Aunt Hannah; but she would have a motor of her very own. She watched as her mother with a dainty gesture adjusted her hat against the wind. She could not imagine her mother ever taking the wheel of the car. The only thing, it seemed to Rachel, that Mama knew about this marvellous machine was that it was a lowly Rover and not the Lanchester she had wanted. About that for a short while she had talked endlessly. The child’s mind wandered pleasantly. When Uncle Peter had come home a few weeks before – wearing a most smart and splendid uniform of khaki and shining brown leather that Rachel had thought far more striking and handsome than the scarlet and gold of Toby’s silly toys, for all Mama’s disappointed complaints – he had talked to her about aeroplanes. Uncle Peter – wonderful, lucky Uncle Peter – had been in one, and had told her about it, spreading his arms like wings and zooming around the room until she had got hiccoughs from excitement and laughter.
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 27
