This Cold Country (15 page)

And it was all right. As far as she could tell. The next hour or so seemed as though observed by her from a distance; she tried to remember as much as she could in order to feel it all more deeply the next time she found herself alone. Which would not be for some time. She had a sense of faces swooping toward her, like parent birds protecting their nest from a predatory cat, then veering away. The faces spoke words that she committed to memory but did not understand at the time she heard them.

Daisy had not, since early childhood, done as she was told by either of her parents without evaluating the validity and wisdom of each instruction. It was not their motives but their worldliness that she mistrusted. Now, on a day when anyone might be out of his depth, she allowed her distracted father and flustered mother to bundle her, a posy of pale garden flowers in her hands, out the door, across the road, and into the little church. She was aware, without glancing up at the sky, that it would probably rain before the afternoon was over, but felt it was for once someone else's responsibility to remember the umbrellas. Joan's, Rosemary's, and Valerie's faces entered her vision and swam out of it. Her grandmother said something that seemed to require a reply but, although she could hear the words, they had no meaning to her.

And then, with no sense of time having passed, she was at the altar, Patrick at her side, repeating words that she seemed to know by heart, and she was married. Patrick gravely and decorously kissed her and they walked together down the aisle. The rain did not begin until they were again in the rectory, her mother making tea and her father reviving the smoldering fire in the sitting room.

She, it seemed, blinked her eyes and found she had a glass of champagne in her hand. She felt as though she were waking from a long sleep during which she had apparently promised to love, honor, and obey, until death did them part, the gentle and handsome stranger who stood beside her. She glanced around the room; the atmosphere was rather more that of the aftermath of a christening or of a family tea party that was going quite well than that of a wedding. Now that she seemed to have woken up, she became once more aware of the possibility—probability—of one or more members of her family doing something shaming, embarrassing, and completely in character. She looked from face to face, without seeing anything untoward. Valerie was sitting beside Rosemary, smiling in a preoccupied manner that suggested she was planning how she should spend the remainder of her leave. Her mother, no longer burdened with the practical arrangements of the wedding, was now free to start worrying that her daughter, married to a man they hardly knew, was going to live in another country with a family they had never met. Her father looked tired. Her grandmother was rearranging plates and glasses on the tea table. Joan was sitting quietly on the sofa, knees together and hands primly resting on her lap. Daisy wondered, for a moment, what magic Rosemary had wrought before she remembered an exchange she had heard but not comprehended just before they had left for the church. Without being able to recall the exact words, she had gained the impression that Joan's commanding officer—not her immediate superior, who was presumably a woman, but the person responsible for the whole operation in which Joan was an insignificant part—had been James's best friend at Eton. Daisy was considering whether this was in fact the case or if it was another convenient fabrication of Rosemary's—she didn't much like the idea of James taking it upon himself to subdue or neutralize the less acceptable elements of her family—when her father opened another bottle of champagne for drinking toasts and cutting the cake.

Daisy stood beside Patrick, his hand on hers; the tip of a not quite sharp enough knife frozen for an instant on the undecorated cake—the ordinance against iced cakes begun a few weeks ago—while James took a photograph.

Champagne. The cake—eight eggs sent home with Daisy from Wales and butter and sugar saved from the family rations. Photographic film. Minor wartime miracles.

The pressure of Patrick's palm on the back of her hand increased as Daisy cut the first slice of cake, and she felt a wave of desire. Although she had spent nearly a year engaged in manual labor, his strength was and always would be much greater than hers; the feeling excited her. There had been a moment, in the hotel in London after the air raid, lying in bed beside Patrick, when she had taken his hand and held it up, palm against palm, to measure it against hers. She had been moved by the broad capable hand, the strong straight fingers, and by simultaneous feelings of helplessness and trust.

The cork of another champagne bottle popped. Daisy and Patrick cut the cake. Photographs were taken. It was as though time were now moving at twice its normal speed. Daisy had just started to wonder what Patrick was feeling and whether he was as bemused and confused as she was at the momentous step and solemn vows they had, less than an hour ago, taken together, when all faces turned toward James.

The best man's speech. James, a glass in his hand, stepped forward half a pace—the size of the rectory sitting room did not allow for dramatic movements—and without any apparent nervousness began to speak. Daisy, after a moment, reminded herself to breathe; her strongest emotion embarrassment—for them all, including, surprisingly, James—rather than fear of what he, with the license implicit in a best man's speech, might say.

But it seemed to be all right. James, easily and amusingly, recounted a harmless anecdote of his and Patrick's childhood; said the conventional things about her family; about how happy his—completely absent—family was to have Daisy as one of their own, and ended, his voice as light as before, but his eyes only for Daisy.

“We both saw Daisy at the same time, but I was too stupid to see what a jewel she is. The better man won, the one she deserves, but I shall always think that if I were a better man than I am that Patrick might have been making this speech and I might have been standing proudly beside her.”

Daisy's fingers on Patrick's arm tightened. She understood that she, with her family, although not necessarily Patrick, was being charmed. But she thought that, in order to be so charming, he must recognize some special quality in her. The thought was flattering until she understood that that was what charm is. Even so, for a moment, she found herself wondering what it would have been like if James, rather than the better man, had won.

D
AISY WOKE WITH
an early morning breeze from the open window playing on her face. She lay, eyes closed, holding on to the feeling of intense pleasure and a sense of well-being. This, she thought, might be what heaven is like.

Patrick lay beside her; they had spent the night in the spare room at Aberneth Farm. Daisy listened to his even breathing and knew him to be asleep. She did not open her eyes, and lay still and relaxed, aware of the texture of the sheet lying lightly over her naked body. Birds were chattering in the gutter above the open window.

I am happy,
she thought.
I am married and I love my husband and I am happy. Remember this moment.

Patrick shifted slightly, drew in a deep breath as though he were about to wake, expelled it and sank into a deeper sleep. Daisy slipped quietly out of bed, wrapped herself in her dressing gown, shuffled her feet into her slippers, and silently padded to the door. She opened it with exaggerated care; the doors and floorboards at Aberneth Farm tended to creak, and it was her intention to be back in bed, bathed, with clean teeth and brushed hair before Patrick awoke. Closing the door carefully behind her, Daisy became aware of a small, still presence at the end of the corridor.

“Sarah,” she said. “Good morning.”

“Mummy said I wasn't to disturb you,” the child said. “Why are you sleeping in the spare room?”

“Because I am married.” Daisy knew this was explanation enough for Sarah, that the child only wanted to confirm, to her own satisfaction, that Daisy and Patrick now shared a bedroom.

“Is Uncle Patrick going to live here, too?”

“No, he's a soldier; he has to go back to his regiment, and now I am his wife I'll go and live in our house in Ireland.”

Sarah nodded. She had been told all this before, but since she didn't really understand or accept the changes around the small world of Aberneth Farm, she tended to ask the same questions, hoping for a different or, at least, more comprehensible answer. Daisy sympathized with the child and wanted to give her an explanation she could understand; failing that, she was prepared to repeat the information until it was accepted, if not understood.

“Are you coming down to breakfast?”

“No. I'll come when Uncle Patrick wakes up.”

“You have to wait for him because you're married now?”

“Yes,” Daisy said firmly.

“I already had my breakfast. There's a letter for Uncle Patrick.”

“A letter? Did the postman bring it?”

“A man rang the doorbell.”

“I'll come down when I've washed my face,” Daisy said. She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Without even a passing thought of rats—or ferrets.

A telegram. Rosemary's heart must have dropped at the sight of it.

Daisy knotted the cord of her dressing gown more tightly as she left the bathroom; she had never gone downstairs before in her nightclothes. How clear it was sometimes, she thought, as she descended the stairs, how one was meant to behave. To have appeared in the dining room, fully dressed and with lipstick, half an hour later, would have been cold and vain, but to have dashed downstairs with sleep-filled eyes, wild hair, and a full bladder would have been overdramatic, hysterical, impractical, and, well, not English. The appearance of calm and order was next best to order itself, as if knowing what one was expected to do made possible continuing one's life in the chaotic, frightening, and lonely times of the war.

Rosemary was still at the breakfast table. In the same way that Daisy had instinctively washed her face before coming downstairs, Rosemary had remained in the dining room. Ready to welcome Daisy or Patrick and ready to commiserate over the contents of the telegram.

“Good morning,” Rosemary said.

Daisy leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Good morning,” she said. “Sarah told me there's a telegram.”

Rosemary hesitated, a little off balance, her prepared words no longer necessary.

“Have a cup of tea before you take it up,” she said.

Daisy sat down.

“He has to go back?” she asked.

“I imagine that's it,” Rosemary said. “So unfair.”

Daisy shook her head. She knew what Rosemary must have thought when the telegram arrived. Any telegram that didn't notify the recipient that a next of kin was dead or missing had, now, to be counted a mercy.

“Have you ever met any of Patrick's family?” Rosemary asked. Daisy understood she was not referring to James or any of the Westmoreland Nugents.

“Not one of them. Now might be the time to tell me the worst.”

“I only meant—you can stay here as long as you like. If Patrick has to go back, there's no need to go to Ireland on your own.”

“Thank you.” Daisy smiled, and repeated her words to Sarah, “But I'm married now.

 

FISHGUARD TO ROSSLARE
. Daisy caught a train at Crumlin and made a connection to the train originating from Paddington and ending at the dark, cold, damp port. It was raining and windy when she got off the train and dragged her luggage to the boat. An overnight crossing and then a train journey on the other side. Would someone have come to meet them had Patrick been with her, she wondered.

She wasn't alone in the cabin. Two women had come in after Daisy was already in her bunk. She had turned her face away and pretended to be asleep, wanting to avoid the false intimacy of travel.

Daisy felt the gentle swell of the boat leaving harbor become a slower, stronger rhythm; there was no reason to imagine this rougher motion would abate—the contrary far more likely—before they reached the shelter of the Irish coast. She was afraid of being seasick; she was afraid of becoming tearful. Even as a child, Daisy had not wept easily.

Now, as then, she attempted to divert herself. The trouble was that almost anything she thought about increased her feeling of being alone, abandoned, bereft. There was little in the not uneventful past few weeks that did not concern someone not now with her. Primarily, of course, her husband of four days, now with his regiment and, Daisy imagined, on his way overseas. If she could fall asleep it might be possible to wake up the following early morning as the boat docked at Rosslare. She allowed herself to think about Patrick, about the three nights they had spent together. Such thoughts were rationed; she did not know how long they would have to last her, to console her. In her darker moments she knew it was possible it could be forever. But like women all over England, she banished, as best she could, such thoughts from her mind. Patrick's body on hers, the feel of his skin—warm, alive, an intimacy beyond anything she had ever imagined—against hers; his hands, with the same restrained strength as when he had helped her cut the wedding cake, holding her head as he kissed her. The weight of his stomach against hers. The feeling of being not alone, of being part of him, and the pleasure, the newly found and barely explored pleasure, of sexual love. And more even than love or pleasure, there was a feeling of relief.

Daisy knew, but chose not to dwell on it, that this love had developed after Patrick had taken her to bed; that love had followed sexual pleasure, in the opposite order to that prescribed by conventional morality and literature.

Eyes closed, she lay on her bunk in the airless cabin, melting with love and gratitude. Patrick would come back, safe and whole, and in the meantime she would hold the thought of him close to her and try to be brave.