Women of Courage (11 page)

‘What?’ Charles glanced at her over the top of the screen, as though he had only just remembered she was there. ‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘Charles, when a man and his wife are together in his bedroom . . . you could have told him to leave the telegram outside.’

His voice was cold, distant, as though the matter was already past consideration. ‘It was important, Deborah. A top priority message from UVF High Command. He was right to bring it to me immediately.’

‘It could have waited ten minutes!’

Charles was nearly dressed now; he had a shirt on and his tie was slung loosely round his collar. He came out from behind the screen and stood very straight in front of her, quite hard and stern, like a commanding officer cashiering a subaltern for theft.

It was a manner he had which she had never been able to cope with. His eyes did not meet hers; they glanced at her briefly then gazed away over her head, troubled, clouded. He spoke to her like an adult rebuking a child.

‘Deborah, whatever came over you just now, it must never happen again. Quite apart from Simon Fletcher, this house is full of servants. If any one of them was to find out how you’d behaved we’d have to replace the lot of them at once! You’d never live it down — never!’

He was right, she supposed; according to his code of conduct it probably was unseemly for a married woman to behave as she had done. But in comparison to other things — to the way she had behaved at other times, in other places . . .
Oh God no don’t think about that not now!
She felt at once the cruel, inhuman injustice of it, and a terrible mocking hysteria that would turn the world upside down if she let it. If she once began to laugh it would turn into a scream and she had no idea where that would end.

She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and said: ‘But
why
, Charles? You’re my husband, aren’t you? And I need you!’

‘Not in the afternoon, woman, damn it! If I, as a man, can control my baser feelings, surely you can do the same! When I married you I thought you were at least guaranteed to act like a lady, but it seems I was mistaken. Or is this another of your advanced ideas about how the modern female should behave?’

For a moment she felt a wild urge to spring forward and sink her nails into his neck, but she never did things like that. Anyway, he was far too strong; it would only lead to further humiliation. Deborah burst into tears instead. He was her husband, so of course he was right, but if only he knew! She was trying to
save
their marriage, not destroy it.

But if what she feared was true then perhaps she had done that already.

If she had it was his fault too. It would never have happened if he had been a real husband to her, the one she had wanted and thought she had married, nine long years ago. Or had she expected too much — things that no respectable woman should ever want? Tears of humiliation filled her eyes.

‘But if not in the afternoon then when, Charles? When? You haven’t been a husband to me once since you came home, have you? Why is that? Perhaps you don’t like me but I need you, Charles, sometimes I do! If only to have another child — I can’t do that on my own, can I?’

She hadn’t meant to say that. But then she hadn’t meant to do any of it. She turned and walked out of the room. He was right; she had lost control and now the results would lie like a sword between them for months, perhaps years.

When her child was born he would know it could not possibly be his . . .

When she had gone, Charles Cavendish stood for a moment, rigid, unmoving. He was not a man who liked emotion. He tried to damp it down, and, when he could, ignore it. It had got him into too much trouble in his life already. He walked slowly over to the window, and leant his head on the cool glass, staring out across the park at the trees of his estate.

She is my wife for all that, he thought, the mother of my son. I should respect her, love her if I can. When we were first married . . .

It seemed unimaginably long ago. He remembered how he had walked down the gloomy reverberating aisle of the church in Downpatrick with Deborah on his arm, out into the sudden glare of the sunlight where the honour guard of his regiment waited, with an arch of gleaming sabres raised. He had shivered then, and hesitated, struck by the irrational fear that one of those blades held by his brother officers would fall and strike him dead. But of course it had not. His friends knew nothing, they had only grinned and wished him luck. And as he had stood with that young, slender, happy fair-haired girl on his arm waiting to be photographed and the proud tearful smiles of their families around him, he had thought, with a sense of wonder and guilt and hope: I have done it now, and
no one knows!

I can start a new life. Have a wife and family like other men. No one raised any objection at the wedding. No one knows what I was.

For a few months it had seemed like that. He was not given to dancing but when he had first courted Deborah it was that which had first attracted him. He had asked her to waltz and foxtrot with him and as they proceeded round the floor he had had the impression of a young woman who was lithe, agile, almost boyish in the way she moved. Quite different from the usual soft, scented, simpering girls he so loathed and avoided. With a girl like that he had thought it might almost be possible. And when they were married and he came to her bed he had found it as he hoped; her body next to his was slim, long-limbed, hard, with little fat anywhere and small breasts which she was shy and ashamed of and which he ignored altogether. And so he was able to do as she expected and give her a son.

But with the baby, her body changed. Her skin bloomed and her breasts swelled and although he understood it was a natural form of female beauty he did not want or dare to touch her any more; and after the baby was born she remained the same. His child-wife had blossomed into a mother, an adult woman with more generous hips, fuller breasts, a softer, looser stomach — and, in the early years, an embarrassing love and admiration for her husband. Despite a most earnest struggle with himself, none of those things, in the end, were what Charles Cavendish wanted.

And so over the years he had taken every opportunity to be away from home, with his soldiering and his polo and his secret. A secret that, until two months ago, he had guarded more carefully than anything else in his life. Even now, he was sure, Deborah had not the slightest suspicion. Despite my neglect, he thought, the poor woman still appears to be attracted to me. And, Lord knows, she’s right in what she said about another child. Of course it’s my duty. It’s not completely impossible, even now. If Simon hadn’t knocked on the door just at that moment, I might well have . . .

As though to mock him, the knock came again. Charles jumped, turned abruptly. ‘Yes? What the devil now?’

Simon Fletcher came in. ‘I’m sorry, sir. The motor’s ready. I thought you said . . . ‘

‘Oh, yes, of course I did.’ Charles waved his hand dismissively in front of his face, as though to brush his emotions away. ‘You saw the signal — meeting in Craigavon by six o’clock. You were right to bring it straight up.’

‘Yes, sir. I thought it looked urgent. It’ll be about the gun-ship, I suppose — the
Clydevalley,
won’t it?’

Charles paused, his tie half-tied, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, you’re not supposed to talk about that, Simon, you know.’ So far as Charles knew, only twelve men in the whole of the UVF High Command knew that the
Fanny
, the ship that was bringing in 20,000 new Mauser and Mannlicher rifles from Germany, had evaded the British Navy and was preparing to transfer her cargo into the coaster
Clydevalley
, which was due to bring them into Larne tomorrow — the 24th of April. The men on the ship knew, of course, but apart from them only the most senior UVF leaders: Sir Edward Carson, Sir James Craig, and a very small, select committee of officers.

Charles was on that committee. Simon Fletcher was most certainly not.

Simon smiled — a peculiarly beautiful, winning smile, which he knew Charles could seldom resist. ‘Yes, sir, I know, of course. Mum’s the word.’ Then, seeing Charles still lost in thought, fumbling with his tie, the young man walked over, took the tie out of Charles’s hands, and fastened the knot for him. ‘There.’

He stepped back, still smiling conspiratorially. ‘I thought you needed rescuing, anyway.’

‘I . . . what the devil do you mean by that?’

Charles’s voice was friendly, like an uncle addressing an indulged nephew, but there was an edge to it, too, which Simon had not expected. The smile stayed on Simon’s face, and he lifted his chin very slightly, in a way that displayed the smooth line of his jaw to better effect.

‘I thought you were being — bothered — that’s all. By your lady wife. I know how you say she fusses.’

Very suddenly, something snapped inside Charles. There was something about the insouciance of the tone, the self-consciousness of the pose, that hurt him deeply even as it appealed to him.
Because
it appealed to him, and Simon knew that and was using it.

He turned away, strode to a chair, picked up his jacket. ‘She is my
wife,
Simon. Don’t speak of her in that way!’

‘But why ever not? I thought you liked
me
too! Isn’t that why you told her women shouldn’t behave like that, wantonly, in the afternoon? After all, men do, don’t we, sometimes?’

‘You . . .’ There had never been, until now, a moment when Charles had hated Simon Fletcher. He had met Simon on the ship returning from Egypt and it was only the third time in his entire adult life that he had succumbed to his attraction for young men. He had been virtually celibate for so long; he was still uncertain how he had fallen for this boy. At times he was appalled by the shocking risks they ran, at others enormously grateful. He had felt emotions he had forgotten he had ever known — tenderness, fascination, lust, extreme love. Exasperation, sometimes, even jealousy. But never, until now, anger. It hurt him more than he had thought possible. ‘
You were listening, outside the door?’

Simon saw it had been a mistake. He had only meant to tease, to flirt a little with his power over this man. The smile faded. He tried to look contrite, but succeeded only in looking devious and unrepentant.

‘Only for a moment. You were shouting so loud I could hardly avoid it.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

The two confronted each other, very still, silent. Charles had never said anything like that to Simon before. He felt the house echo round him with the importance of it.

‘You’re shouting now.’ Simon’s voice was sibilant, a whisper. ‘If you’re not careful the servants will hear.’

And that would be the end of everything, Charles knew. Sodomy was not just a social disgrace, but a crime for which they could both be imprisoned. He would be cashiered from the UVF, unable to take up public employment or appear in society again. At school, his son Tom would be mocked, bullied, scorned. His wife could even divorce him.

An affair like theirs was only worth the enormous risk if there was love, complete trust, mutual respect. If that was gone . . .

From somewhere outside himself, Charles heard his own voice speaking again. It sounded like an echo from inside a bell; he had no idea whether it was really a shout or a whisper.

‘Simon, I think if this is the way you behave, it is time for us to end — what we have had. It has been a beautiful, a very good relationship but we always knew it could not last and this is the time to end it. I will give you good references, you will find a good post . . . ‘

‘No!’

‘What do you mean,
no?
’ As an army colonel, Charles was not used to having his orders questioned by anyone, certainly not by a young man scarcely half his age. But then, no one else had ever had such power over him. ‘If I say it will end, young man, that’s what will . . . ‘

‘I am not just a toy, you know, to be picked up and thrown down at your whim! What the hell do you think you’re talking about, Charles? I . . . ‘

‘I’ve told you never to call me that here! If anyone heard . . . ‘

‘I don’t care if anyone hears!’ The whisper was low, but the words were lethal. ‘You think that just because one day you grow tired of me, because that woman flaunts herself at you, you can throw me out in the street? Do you know what would happen if you did that?’

‘You would find another job, as I said. A good one, Simon, I promise. And I suppose, in time . . . ‘

He paused. The vision was too painful. He didn’t even want to think it. Simon was less squeamish.

‘Oh yes, in time, another lover, you suppose.’

Again the silence fell between them, long, terrifying. Had anyone heard them? Charles wondered desperately where Deborah would be at this moment — to say nothing of the butler, the housemaids, his son Tom.
Oh no, please not Tom!

Simon said: ‘It wouldn’t be such a long time as you think, either.’

The smile had quite gone from the young face now. Simon looked as beautiful as ever, but cold, clean, deadly. He was not blushing. Nothing of what he said embarrassed him.

‘There are plenty of other men, you’re right. I met one in Bangor the other night. A journalist, foreign correspondent, can you believe that? Just over from Europe, special assignment, lonely. I could have him any time I wanted. Is that what you want —
Charles?’

Charles flushed. Despite his sense of danger his voice was enormous. ‘You mean you have . . . ?’

‘No, no.’ Simon had his finger on his lips, shushing Charles, almost smiling at the outrage he had provoked. ‘Of course not. I’m not a tart, not unfaithful, don’t think that, old boy. I’m just telling you. I can spot them, where ever I go. It’s not hard. And I need it, you know that. I
like
what we do together.’

Charles’s anger was beginning to cool into a terrible sadness. Of course he had suspected that Simon might think and behave like this, but he had never seen it before. He never wanted to again. And yet, at least Simon had been faithful. And even now, he was so beautiful. I will never find anyone like this again, Charles thought, so how has it come to this?