John Bingham: A Fragment of Fear

“Somebody rang up again,” I went on. “The usual thing, the usual threat.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said soothingly:

“Don’t worry, old boy, don’t worry at all! Everything’s going to be all right. You mustn’t worry, see? Take it easy. Don’t overdo it, and above all have a good night’s rest. You’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

Later, Juliet had lunch with me. It was our last meeting alone before the wedding. She was quiet, paler than usual and jumpy. I supposed that fool Stanley had said something.

“Looking forward to tomorrow, darling?” I said half-way through the meal. A silly question.

She didn’t look up from her plate when she answered.

“I’m dreading it,” she said. “You’ve asked me, and I’ve told you. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

She saw my dismayed look.

“It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s because I do.”

“What’s Stanley been saying?” I asked angrily.

“Nothing much.”

“Stanley’s always exaggerating.”

“Not always.”

“Nothing’s changed,” I said. “You must believe that. Everything is as it was. See?”

It was a flagrant lie, but I was appalled. The wedding was supposed to be a joyous day, and I saw the fragrance slipping away. Whatever was or was not to happen, I wanted her to go to her wedding with happiness.

“How long is it all to go on?” she asked sadly.

“Not long now, darling. I know that.”

“How long?” she insisted.

I searched my mind for an answer.

“Only till we get back from the honeymoon.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. This sort of thing can’t go on.”

“And if we don’t get back? If one of us doesn’t get back?”

“We’ll get back all right,” I said. “Once we’re off, we’ll get back all right. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about that for one moment.”

My heart ached as I looked at her magnolia skin, wondering if we would, in fact, get off, or whether she would be lying in hospital with her face swathed in bandages.

I am rather a solitary walker, with few intimate friends. I had had to scratch round a bit for a best man for the wedding. In the end, a chap called Gerald Bailey agreed to do the job. We had worked together on a magazine at one period, and had kept up a desultory friendship ever since. I didn’t have the usual stag party the night before, but I had to give Gerald a good dinner. It was the least I could do in exchange for the morning suit he would have to hire for the occasion.

But before I met him I called in at the Bristows’ for a final word with Juliet. I couldn’t delay it any longer, and in due course I said:

“Do me a favour, will you? You know I love you in glasses. Will you wear your glasses tomorrow, darling?”

She looked at me in astonishment.

“Wear my glasses? I don’t need to wear my glasses.”

“I know you don’t need to, I just asked if you would.”

“Why?”

“Because you look pretty in them.”

“I shouldn’t think anybody else thinks so.”

“You’re not marrying anybody else.”

She didn’t take me seriously, of course, and laughed.

“You’ll have plenty of time to see me in them later.”

“Please wear your glasses,” I said. “Do please wear them, sweetheart, just for my sake. Will you?”

She must have noted the urgency in my voice. She looked at me, and I saw a flicker of fear reappear in her eyes.

“Why?” she asked again.

“Just because I love you in them.”

She didn’t ask any more. She guessed that it would be useless. Behind her quiet manner her quick brain could seize an unspoken thought, she sensed subterfuge, and yet she knew when it was useless to press a point.

“I’ll see,” she said, and would promise no more.

But I wondered if she would see, if she wore no glasses. Suddenly I broke, and cast aside my resolution.

“Juliet,” I said. “Juliet, listen to me.”

“What?” she said.

The flicker of fear had become a bar across her beautiful eyes.

“What I’ve done, I’ve done and whether I did right or wrong, doesn’t matter now. For the time being I can’t undo it. I want you to protect yourself in every way.”

She looked at me thoughtfully.

“Including my eyes?”

“Well, yes, including your eyes.”

“Against what?”

I hesitated a moment.

“People might throw things,” I said at last. “You never know they might throw something.”

“Protect my face and my eyes?” she said slowly. “And to some extent my clothes?”

I didn’t say anything.

I saw the flash of naked terror though she tried to hide it, and wished I had kept quiet after all. I didn’t think she would reach exactly the right conclusion so quickly.

I wasn’t big enough to take upon myself the burden of responsibility. She should have at least arrived happy for her wedding.

In the event, she arrived both fearful and unprotected. Doubtless, Elaine Bristow played a part in the matter of the spectacles, but I think it was mostly vanity.

The church we were married in was small and unpretentious. It had been built as a chapel for a Roman Catholic ambassador in penal times, and, from the outside, had the look of a disused factory. This was an intended effect. The facade was a camouflage to hide the church and protect it against eighteenth-century anti-popery riots.

Gerald Bailey drove me to the church. I suppose he attributed my tenseness to the usual nervousness of bridegrooms. He dropped me at the door and drove off to park the car somewhere.

Inside, the church looked warm and welcoming, the gilt and blue of the gallery gleaming in the light of the candles. On the steps of the altar were two huge urns of gold and white chrysanthemums. Elaine Bristow had not been mean about flowers.

Near the Lady Chapel a dozen candles were burning, and an old woman was sitting muttering, and fingering her rosary, oblivious to what was going on around her. The organist began to play a soft wandering tune, like the background music to a film.

I did not want to go up to the altar too soon, and stood in a side aisle in some shadows and watched the church fill up. There were not, in fact, many guests, as weddings go, and most of them were Juliet’s.

Gerald Bailey joined me. Promptly at three-thirty I heard a car draw up outside, and a few seconds later a car door slammed, and I guessed it was Juliet.

Gerald and I made our way to the altar.

When I stood near the altar rails, I turned round and glanced down the church, past the blobs of faces, to the door where Juliet would appear.

In a seat bordering the centre aisle, and on the side occupied by my scanty collection of guests, I caught sight of a face which was not that of a friend or a relation, but was red, benevolent, and vaguely familiar.

I caught a glimpse of somebody fiddling about arranging Juliet’s dress, and Stanley Bristow watching, and in those few seconds I glanced again, puzzled, at the face by the aisle.

By the time I realised it was the man who had called himself Sergeant Matthews, Juliet was already coming through the main door on Stanley Bristow’s arm, and although she wasn’t wearing her glasses, I suddenly knew that her veil, firmly attached to her headdress standing out stiffly from her face, white, symbolic and protective, would be her shield.

I saw the man who called himself Matthews turn his head as she came up the aisle. He made no movement as she passed, and she herself, her eyes fixed ahead to the altar, passed him with no inkling of what he represented.

Quite apart from the chains of social behaviour and custom which kept me motionless, inhibited, reluctant to cause a scene, I do not know to this day what practical measure I could have taken. In law, he had a right to be sitting there, in a church open to the public; intruding perhaps, but at the moment offending nobody.