John Bingham: A Fragment of Fear

So I watched her slowly pass him, her dress almost brushing his arm, and felt the sweat accumulating in the palms of my hands, because I knew that although her veil was a protection on the way in, on the way out, after the ceremony, her veil would be thrown back.

But I would be walking by her side, I thought feverishly, I would be by her side, and I could interpose my body, and I could do-something. I watched her drawing close, and thought again that I could take some action; at the first sign of a movement from him I could do something, strike, fend off, bash, kick, I could do something.

Then Juliet reached me.

She was not smiling.

She was very pale, and under the veil her large dark eyes held the bar of fear I had seen before.

She came and stood by my side, and I could see the soft cloud of her dark hair caught into unaccustomed stiffness by a knot of stephanotis. She wore a stiff silk dress, and I could hear it rustle when she moved. Her bouquet of stephanotis trembled in her hands. I smelt the strong scent of the flowers.

The priest walked down the altar steps. He was a short, red-faced man, and the lace-trimmed alb over his cassock looked odd on him.

I glanced again at Juliet, but still she didn’t smile. Her lips were touched with a little colour, but otherwise her skin was as colourless as her dress. I took her hand. It was like touching a flower in the snow.

One might have thought that she knew she had just brushed past terror in the aisle, and that it was still there, behind us, as we knelt at the altar.

As with all Catholic-Protestant weddings, the service was short and simple, because a Nuptial Mass is not allowed.

Gerald Bailey handed me the ring and at the appropriate moment I said the words, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen,” touching each of her fingers, and with the word Amen I placed the ring on her finger, but all the time I was thinking of the walk back, down the aisle, with her veil thrown back and the man with a bottle of acid in his overcoat pocket, and I was thinking, “I’ll be able to do something, something I’ll be able to do, because I know him, and I know what he plans, and forewarned is forearmed. So it’ll be all right. Ah, God, please let it be all right.”

After the civil ceremony in the vestry, and the signing of the Register, and the kissing and smiling, I thought again as we set out down the aisle, “Oh God, please let it be all right. Please let me be able to stop it.”

So we set off down the aisle, and I held her very slightly back, so that I was a fraction of a pace before her, but I needn’t have bothered, because he had gone from his seat.

I was tense and rigid and keyed up, because I thought he might merely have changed his seat, or hidden himself elsewhere in the church. But he hadn’t.

He was nowhere in the church.

He was outside the church.

Even then he allowed the photographers to line us up. I saw him saunter from behind a police constable of all people, a little to the left. I had been looking at the cameramen, but I saw him all the same. I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he suddenly quickened his step and drew nearer, and I saw him take the bottle out of his overcoat pocket and remove the stopper.

I remember I shouted “Look out!” and flung Juliet back with my right arm, and leaped down the three short church steps at him, and because I had this impetus I bore him easily to the ground and had my left hand on his right wrist, because his right hand was holding the bottle, and with my right hand I held him on the ground, by the throat, and looked down at him, and saw the brown, bovine eyes looking up at me as they had looked at me when he had called and pretended to report the fictitious complaint by poor Bunface.

I remember I gasped, “Now, you bastard!” and half choked him.

Then I felt myself being dragged off by the policeman and Gerald Bailey.

When questioned, he said his name was Arthur Robinson of Clapham, and he had paused to watch the wedding out of curiosity.

He suffered a good deal from asthma and had been about to take a sniff of the remedy he always carried with him when I jumped at him. He showed the bottle and allowed the officer to sniff the contents.

No, he had suffered no injury from the assault, though the shock might induce an asthma attack later. No, he certainly did not wish to bring a charge against me and spoil a happy occasion. He gladly agreed that it must be a case of mistaken identity.

So he went his way, respected by all for his magnanimity.

Everybody did their best to laugh it off, at the reception. I myself could only make the lame excuse that he resembled a man who had a grudge against me and apologise to all and sundry for causing such a stupid rumpus.

But I didn’t need to apologise to Juliet, and for a while the bar of fear had gone from her eyes.

We were undisturbed on our honeymoon, largely, perhaps, because we were continually on the move in the South of France. There was no threatening letter on our return.

I would have been glad to believe that we were to be left in peace, but I didn’t believe it. One letter, therefore, among the pile of bills, circulars and other communications which awaited us gave me a thrill of pleasure, mixed with excitement and relief.

It was from Stanley Bristow.

He had written it a week after we left, and a day before he and Elaine had themselves gone off for a tour in northern Europe and Scandinavia. It read:

My dear James,

I have a feeling I owe you an apology and when you have read further you will understand why. The fact is, old boy, I got in touch with that Harley Street chap I mentioned to you, and told him about your car accident and what I assumed to be certain after-effects. Well, to cut a long story short, he thought I was wrong, and if the police were not interested then certain other people might be, and he would see what he could do.

I will say no more, old boy, except to add that a certain Major Ricketts, who is a government official (so to speak), will be telephoning you, as he is most interested. He will be able to advise you, and, incidentally, make sure that the police give you proper protection in future.

Our love to Juliet and yourself, old boy,

STANLEY

Ricketts, in the event, did not telephone till we had been back a week; until, in fact, the morning of the day when Stanley and Elaine Bristow were due back.

It was one of the longest weeks of my life. Just as, on holiday, the first days pass slowly, so that after three days it seems as though one had been away a week, so now, after our return, the days seemed to drag interminably.

On the one hand, I was watching the letter box and listening for a threatening voice on the telephone; on the other, I was waiting impatiently for Major Ricketts to get in touch with me.

Then, quite suddenly, he was on the ’phone, and arranging to meet me that same evening in the downstairs bar of the Ritz Hotel.

He was a tall, grey-haired man of about fifty, slim, with a good complexion, a straight nose, and a youthful smile. He wore a light tweed suit, a cream-coloured shirt, and a Gunners tie, and from time to time, as we talked, he made quick notes on the back of an envelope with an old-fashioned gold propelling pencil.

It is hard to describe the surge of relief I felt at being able to talk to somebody who took the matter seriously.

He began by saying that he had heard the rough outlines of my story, “indirectly from Mr. Bristow,” as he put it, and asked me to repeat it very briefly. He listened attentively, and when I had given him a condensed version, he nodded his head enthusiastically.

“You know, of course, that some foreign governments go in for blackmail for espionage purposes?”