Connie’s Courage (24 page)

Despite all her attempts not to do, Connie had
wasted more tears than she could count in the folly of wondering what would have happened if she had responded to Harry's declaration to her. No matter how hardily she had reminded herself that he would not have remained constant, a part of her still daydreamed foolishly of what might have been. It was so hard to make herself sound normal whenever Mavis spoke about him, and not to give away what she was truly thinking.

‘I am so glad you made me see sense, Connie, she could hear Mavis confessing. ‘I could not have endured to let Frank go to war without … When we haven't … Mavis broke off and blushed self-consciously, but Connie knew what Mavis was too uncomfortable to say. She didn't want Frank to go to war before they had been man and wife. Before they had known one another completely and truly as lovers.

Because of course Mavis, being the old-fashioned sort of girl she was, would not have allowed Frank to step over the mark with her. That was the kind of girl Harry's wife Rosa would have been, Connie reflected bitterly, as pain twisted her heart, and she admitted how much she wished she might too, have been that kind of girl – for Harry! How could he really have loved her knowing what he did about her? He couldn't and she was far better off remembering that Connie told herself grimly, than dreaming foolish hurting pointless empty dreams.

‘Connie, I am so afraid for Frank and Harry! Mavis suddenly burst out in anguish. ‘I know that
is cowardly and selfish of me, but seeing what we do here …' She shook her head in despair. ‘Sophie, of course, is desperately proud to have a brother who is a volunteer, and talks of nothing else. She still doesn't realise …' Mavis looked at Connie, and said helplessly, ‘I have not said too much at home about what we see for fear of alarming them. Mother has enough to bear as it is, and Sophie just wouldn't understand, for all that she says she wants to be a nurse.'

Silently they looked at one another. The full horrors of war and what it did to the men who engaged in it were no secret from them.

‘They've given you a forty-eight hour-er? By, but you're a lucky sod, Harry,' Ernie commented without malice.

He had attached himself to Harry after their discovery that they were to be in the same regiment, not one of the new ones being formed, but instead a Lancashire regiment whose men had already seen service, and were held in high regard. An unlikely friendship had developed between the two of them.

‘A damned lucky sod, that's what. And blow me if I don't think that's what we should call you from now on. Not ‘Arry but Lucky!'

Harry smiled good-naturedly, and didn't argue. He suspected that his forty-eight hour leave had more to do with the fact that someone had got
word that his sister was marrying an enlisting man, than anything else. And as for him being lucky in any other way! Unlike Ernie, and some of the others, Harry didn't discuss his personal life with his comrades, but he knew that if he did, lucky was the last thing they were likely to think him.

His decision to enlist had led to a bitter quarrel, followed by Rosa refusing to speak to him for three days, and then announcing challengingly that she intended to go and stay with her cousin, Phyllis.

Harry hadn't felt able to prevent her, even though he considered that the other woman was not the best of companions for someone of Rosa's temperament. It was rare for him to dislike anybody, but he had disliked Phyllis, and he had disliked her brother Gerald even more.

‘Well, I never thought I'd see Rosa married to a teacher, much less a chap with a weak chest! Gerald had smirked as he had spoken to Harry, as though he felt that he had one up on him in some way. ‘You'll have to be careful Rosa doesn't wear you out, he had added, in what Harry had considered to be an overfamiliar manner. And then Rosa herself had come over, flinging herself into Gerald's arms and kissing him, enthusiastically.

‘Cousin's privilege, old chap, Gerald had told Harry, but Harry had seen the triumphant gleam in his eyes, and guessed that he had enjoyed Rosa's attention, and the way she had flirted openly with him.

Rosa though would hear no word against her maternal cousins, championing them at every turn, especially Gerald, who, as she frequently reminded Harry when she was in one of her rages, was everything that Harry himself was not.

Privately Harry thought that Gerald was the worst sort of fellow: the sort who boasted openly whilst in male company about his female conquests, and who, so far as Harry could ascertain, lived the life of a well-to-do young swell without appearing to have any legitimate means of earning a decent living.

If there was a race on, a bet to be placed, a risk to be taken, then Gerald, as he liked to tell others, was their man. He had a habit of rubbing the side of his nose and winking, whenever anyone asked him how he always seemed to have money to burn, and Harry suspected that he did not always come by it entirely honestly.

Needless to say Gerald had not enlisted.

‘Because he is a married man and, unlike you Harry, his first concern is for his wife,' Rosa had told him angrily.

Harry had had to bite on his tongue not to retort that, if that was the case, then how did she explain Gerald's numerous ‘lady friends' and the exploits of which he freely boasted when amongst other men.

Gerald and his fiancee had married a few weeks after their own wedding. The bride was a thin, plain, awkward-looking young woman, and Harry
had seen her blush a painful bright red when she had overheard Rosa criticising her to Phyllis.

‘That was unkind of you, Rosa, he had told her quietly later, but Rosa had simply shrugged mutinously, and answered that it was not her fault that Beth was so plain and had no taste.

‘Gerald has only married her for her money. Everyone knows that!

‘If that is true, then you are certainly doing your cousin a disservice by saying so, Harry had answered her sharply, with distaste. ‘It would be kinder of you to show her some compassion, Rosa, for the poor girl certainly needs a friend.

‘Well, she need not look for one in me! She is dull and plain and I much prefer Gerald – who is my cousin after all!

It was no secret in the barracks that they were being trained in preparation for some big offensive against the Germans, and that the Government wanted as many men to enlist as possible. Ypres had inflicted heavy and damaging losses on the British Army in terms of both manpower and pride, and the Government was determined to make the Germans pay for those losses!

No, Rosa had not reacted at all well to the news of his enlistment, throwing all manner of accusations and insults at him.

Harry had not trusted himself to make any response. At that stage, he had still not totally been able to take in himself what he had done, but he had been guiltily aware that his strongest
emotion at the thought of parting from Rosa was one of relief.

And his guilt didn't just extend to Rosa either. Although she had not said so, Harry knew how his mother would worry.

Mavis though had been more outspoken, ‘Harry, what can have possessed you?' she had demanded tearfully, when he had visited the New Brighton house on his last visit home before going into the Army. ‘There was no reason for you to enlist, what with your chest and …'

‘No reason maybe, Mavis,' he had stopped her quietly. ‘But I did have a need!'

And, as he had spoken, suddenly Harry recognised, to his own relief, that what he was saying was the truth. Over and above his unhappiness in his marriage, there was a part of him that not only had felt compelled to volunteer, but that also felt proud of the fact that he had done so.

‘I don't care what you say, Harry, I am not going to your sister's wedding and you can't make me!'

There was a triumphant glitter in Rosa's eyes, as she tossed her head and added, ‘You can plead with me as much as you like, I won't change my mind! You didn't change yours about enlisting, did you, even though I begged and begged you to!'

The triumphant glitter had become a mutinous pout, and Harry's heart started to sink. With hindsight he knew that he should have anticipated
something like this, but naively, perhaps, it had never occurred to him that Rosa would punish him for volunteering by refusing to attend Mavis's wedding.

It wasn't that he particularly wanted her company, he admitted guiltily. But for form's sake she should be there. His mother would certainly wonder why she wasn't.

‘Phyllis said she'd never heard the like of it when I told her that you'd volunteered, and if she and Gerald hadn't been so good and kind to me and comforted me, I don't know what I would have done. Gerald said that you'd never catch
him
leaving a wife as pretty as me to go and join up.'

‘I dare say he did, Harry stopped her grimly.

‘Beth is so lucky to have a husband like Gerald, Rosa told him.

‘I doubt that she thinks so, Harry muttered under his breath.

‘Oh, I might have guessed you would say something like that! You've never liked my cousin Gerald, and I think that's because secretly you are jealous of him.'

To his own shame, Harry was unable to stop himself from saying contemptuously, ‘Well, you could not be more wrong. If you want my opinion, your precious cousin is a sight too slippery for his own good!

‘How dare you say that! Gerald is charming and dashing, and … and more of a real man than you will ever be, Harry Lawson. Given the choice I'd
far rather be married to someone like him than a dull, moralising stick of a husband like you! Gerald is a proper man; a proper husband!' Rosa flung at him, wildly. ‘He has been far kinder to me than you ever have, and you are not to insult him!'

Harry had remained stiffly silent during her outburst, but his own strong moral beliefs would not allow him to let Rosa's remarks pass unchecked, even though he knew that to challenge them would result in a further furious tirade from her.

‘Your cousin is a man who cares for no one apart from himself. He lives off his poor wife whilst openly scorning her. He has led more than one naive young man into a life of drink and debt, solely for his own gain. He boasts openly of his ability to avoid any kind of moral responsibility or duty, and before you start to defend him, Rosa, I am merely repeating what he has publicly declared about himself. If you really think I would want to emulate him …'

‘If Gerald lives off Beth, then it is no more than you do yourself. For you most certainly live off me! And more than that! Do you really think that if you hadn't married me you would have been elevated to your present position?' she demanded scornfully. ‘Father told me himself that he had to plead with the Headmaster to make you his assistant, and that the Headmaster thought you neither educated enough, nor strong enough, to fill such a post!

‘I don't know why I should have concerned myself about you enlisting, for I am sure that I

would be better off if the Germans put a bullet in you and made me a widow! she continued bitterly. ‘After all, it is not as though your death would deny me the comfort of a husband, is it, or that I would really be missing anything?' Harry could feel his shame burning him soul deep, but he still could not bring himself to use the same weapons as Rosa and remind her that their marriage had been forced on him by her.

It would be so easy for him to retaliate; to tell Rosa that the reason he preferred to sleep with his back to her, and a cold space between them in their bed, was that he had never wanted her for his wife in the first place. But he could see no point in descending to such a bitter exchange of home truths.

Rosa though had no such qualms. ‘I cannot believe what a cold man you are, Harry, she taunted him. ‘It isn't natural for a man to behave so. I had wondered if it was perhaps on account of you having a weak chest and that normal marital relations might be too much for you. I am sure that if they knew the truth, no one would blame me if I were to take comfort with someone else. Perhaps I should go to the wedding after all, and tell your sister how unhappy your coldness has made me.

‘No! You will do no such thing!

Harry knew that she was deliberately goading him, trying to incite him into exactly the denial he had made, but he still could not stop himself from reacting.

Rosa stared angrily out of her bedroom window. She had been planning to go and visit her cousins, and now Harry had spoiled things by coming home on leave. It had taken Gerald to point out to her that having Harry enlist could be of benefit to them.

‘For I don't mind admitting to you, puss,' he had told her flatteringly. ‘I do miss you.'

‘You should have married me then, and not Beth!' Rosa had answered him angrily, but he had soon sweet-talked her round, and besides, she had missed him as well.

‘Being a married woman will give you the freedom to do as you please,' Gerald had told her, adding meaningfully, when she had frowned, ‘for one thing you could come and visit Phyllis whenever you chose – and if I just happen to be visiting her at the same time, well who's to say anything? We are cousins, after all. And if, occasionally, I was to take you out for the day and we were to have to stay at a nice little hotel overnight on account of not being able to get back …'

And that was exactly what they had done. Several times!

And now Harry had gone and spoiled things for her by coming home the very weekend that she had planned to spend with her cousins. But thinking of the secret intimacies she had shared with Gerald brought something else to the forefront of Rosa's mind. Gerald was always very careful, of course. But it would be foolish not to take such an
opportunity of providing herself with some extra protection. If there were to be a mishap and she got caught out, it would be essential that Harry accepted any child she might bear as his.

It was gone eleven o'clock. Carefully Harry put down the book he had been reading and stood up.

The house was silent, everyone else, including his father-in-law and Rosa, were in their beds. Rosa had refused to speak to him after their argument earlier, apart from insisting that she would not accompany him to Mavis's wedding, and had gone to bed shortly after dinner.