Mary Westmacott - Giant's Bread

‘There isn’t much to tell.’ He spoke without interest, abstractedly. ‘I was taken prisoner. How I got to be reported killed, I don’t know. At least I have a sort of vague idea. There was a fellow very like me – one of the Huns. I don’t mean a double – or anything of that sort – but just a general superficial resemblance. My German’s pretty rotten but I heard them commenting on it. They took my kit and my identification disc. I think the idea was to penetrate into our lines as me – we were being relieved by Colonial troops – and they knew it. The fellow would pass muster for a day or so and would gain the information he wanted. That’s only an idea – but it explains why I wasn’t returned in the list of prisoners and I was sent to a camp that was practically all French and Belgians. But none of that matters, does it? I suppose the Hun was killed getting through our lines and was buried as me. I had a pretty bad time in Germany – nearly died with some kind of fever on top of being wounded. Finally I escaped – oh! it’s a long story. I’m not going into all that now. I had the Hell of a time – without food and water sometimes for days at a stretch. It was a sort of miracle that I came through – but I did. I got into Holland. I was exhausted and at the same time all strung up. And I could only think of one thing – getting back to you.’

‘Yes?’

‘And then I saw it – in a beastly illustrated paper. Your marriage. It – it finished me. But I wouldn’t face it. I kept on saying that it couldn’t be true. I went out – I don’t know where I went. Things got all mixed up in my mind.

‘There was a whacking great lorry coming down the road. I saw my chance – end it all – get out of it. I stepped out in front of it.’

‘Oh, Vernon.’ She shuddered.

‘And that was the end. Of me as Vernon Deyre, I mean. When I came to there was just one name in my head – George. That lucky chap, George. George Green.’

‘Why Green?’

‘A sort of fancy of mine when I was a child. And then the Dutch girl at the inn had asked me to look up a pal of hers whose name was Green and I’d written it down in a little book.’

‘And you didn’t remember anything?’

‘No.’

‘Weren’t you very frightened?’

‘No – not at all. I didn’t seem to be worrying about anything.’ He added with lingering regret, ‘I was awfully happy and jolly.’

Then he looked across at her.

‘But that doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters – but you.’

She smiled at him but her smile was flickering and uncertain. He barely noticed it at the moment, but went on.

‘It’s been rather Hell – getting back. Remembering things. All such beastly things. All the things that – really – I didn’t want to face. I seem to have been an awful coward all my life. Always turning away from things I didn’t want to look at. Refusing to admit them …’

He got up suddenly and came across to her, dropping his head upon her knees.

‘Darling Nell – it’s all right. I know I come first. I do, don’t I?’

She said: ‘Of course.’

Why did her voice sound so mechanical in her own ears? He did come first. Just now, with his lips on hers, she had been swept back again to those wonderful days at the beginning of the war. She had never felt about George like that … drowned … carried away …

‘You say that so strangely – as though you didn’t mean it.’

‘Of course I mean it.’

‘I’m sorry for Chetwynd – rotten luck for him. How has he taken it? Very hard?’

‘I haven’t told him.’

‘What?’

She was moved to vindicate herself.

‘He’s away – in Spain – I haven’t got his address.’

‘Oh, I see …’

He paused.

‘It’ll be rather rotten for you, Nell. But it can’t be helped. We’ll have each other.’

‘Yes.’

Vernon looked round.

‘Chetwynd will have this place, anyway. I’m such an ungenerous beggar that I even grudge him that. But, damn it all, it is my home. It’s been in the family five hundred years. Oh, what does it all matter? Jane told me once that I couldn’t get everything. I’ve got you – that’s all that matters. We’ll find some place – even if it’s only a couple of rooms, it will do.’

His arms stole up, closing round her. Why did she feel that cold dismay at those words: ‘A couple of rooms …’

‘Damn these things! They get in my way!’

Impetuously – half laughing – he held up the string of pearls she wore. He switched them off – flung them on the floor. Her lovely pearls! She thought: ‘Anyway, I suppose I’ll have to give them back.’ Another cold feeling. All those lovely jewels that George had given her.

What a brute she was to go on thinking of things like that.

He had seen something at last. He was kneeling upright – looking at her.

‘Nell – is – is anything the matter?’

‘No – of course not.’

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She felt too ashamed.

‘There is something … Tell me.’

She shook her head.

‘It’s nothing …’

She couldn’t be poor again – she couldn’t – she couldn’t …

‘Nell, you must tell me …’

He mustn’t know – he must never know what she was really like. She was so ashamed.

‘Nell – you do love me, don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes!’ The words came eagerly. That at anyrate was true.

‘Then what is it? I know there’s something … Ah!’

He got up. His face had gone white. She looked up at him inquiringly.

‘Is it that?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘It must be. You’re going to have a child …’

She sat as though carved in stone … She had never thought of that. If it were true, it solved everything. Vernon would never know …

‘It is that?’

Again it seemed as though hours passed. Thoughts went whirling round in her brain. It was not herself, but something outside herself that at last made her bow her head ever so slightly …

He moved a little away. He spoke in a hard dry voice.

‘That alters everything … My poor Nell … You can’t – we can’t … Look here, nobody knows – about me, I mean – except the doctor and Sebastian and Jane. They won’t split. I was reported dead – I am dead …’

She made a movement – but he held up a hand to stop her and backed away towards the door.

‘Don’t say anything – for God’s sake, don’t say anything. Words will make it worse. I’m going. I daren’t touch you or kiss you. I – Goodbye …’

She heard the door open – made a movement as if to call out – but no sound came from her throat. The door shut again.

There was still time … The car hadn’t started …

But still she didn’t move …

She had one moment of searing bitterness when she looked into herself and thought: ‘So that’s what I’m really like …’

But she made no sound or movement.

Four years of soft living fettered her will, stifled her voice, and paralysed her body …

‘Miss Harding to see you, madam.’

Nell started. Twenty-four hours had elapsed since her interview with Vernon. She had thought it was finished. And now Jane!

She was afraid of Jane …

She might refuse to see her.

She said: ‘Show her up here.’

It was more private up here in her own sitting-room …

What a long time it was waiting. Had Jane gone away again? No – here she was.

She looked very tall. Nell cowered down on the sofa. Jane had a wicked face – she had always thought so. There was a look on her face now as of an avenging fury.

The butler left the room. Jane stood towering over Nell. Then she flung back her head and laughed.