Spare Brides (42 page)

‘You’re not?’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

The lie slipped effortlessly off Ava’s tongue. She never had any misgivings about ruthlessly obliterating the truth if expedient. ‘My brother served under Sergeant Major Trent of the Fifth Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. I’m trying to track him down. I have something I want to give him. I was told you might know him.’

This sort of request was commonplace and had been for many years. Women were always tracking down men who had fought with their men. Sometimes there were gifts to give; other times answers were sought. How? Where? Did he suffer? There was an unwritten rule that one ought to cooperate as much as possible, in order to help people find peace and some sort of comfort.

‘I don’t think I know a Sergeant Major Trent.’

‘Oh?’ Ava paused.

‘This thing you have to give him. Is it valuable?’ The waitress couldn’t hide the avaricious glint in her eye.

‘Yes,’ Ava said, calmly luring her in. ‘Very. Do you know him now?’

‘I should say I do.’ Ellie Edwards showed no qualms about completely contradicting herself. She drew her chair up to the table and leaned close to Ava. Ava felt the girl’s warm breath on her face and smelt her perfume, which was sickly-sweet and cheap. ‘You can give whatever it is to me and I’ll see he gets it.’

‘No, I can’t do that. I need to speak to him, deliver it into his hands.’

‘You can trust me.’

‘Without a doubt.’ Not a bit.

‘He’s my husband.’

‘Your wh— I’m sorry. Did you say husband?’

Ellie nodded. ‘I don’t wear a ring at work because the boss is one of the old sorts. He doesn’t like married women working. Thinks we should all be at home. That’s not for me. I’d be bored out my skull, I would. You won’t go saying anything, will you, miss? You don’t want to get me into trouble.’

‘No, I’m not going to cause you any trouble. You are quite sure we’re talking about the same fellow?’

‘Edgar, Edgar Trent? Tall, dark, from Middlesbrough?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s my husband all right. I’m Ellie Trent, I am. So if you have anything to pass on to him, I’m good for it. I’m your girl.’ She giggled, showing a youthful excitement that had been lacking thus far in the conversation. ‘Or should I say, I’m
his
girl. Give me what you have for him and I’ll pass it along.’

‘No. That won’t do. Give me your address and I’ll bring it to him myself.’

‘Well, I’m on Hoxton Lane, number one hundred and nineteen B, off the Marylebone Road, but he doesn’t spend every night with me. There’s another girl who shares and sometimes he stays at the officers’ club.’

‘Will he be with you tonight?’

‘Maybe. For sure tomorrow.’

‘I see.’

‘Are you all right, miss? You look very pale.’ The young woman was being solicitous now that she believed there was something about this encounter that she’d benefit from. It wasn’t a character flaw so much as a consequence of a poverty-stricken upbringing.

‘I’m fine, absolutely fine.’

‘Sometimes these things can be a bit draining, can’t they? Sort of shocking. People say be careful what you wish for nowadays.’

Ava stared at the girl. For a moment she didn’t understand how she knew so much, but then she realised that Ellie was referring to Ava’s fictional hunt for her brother’s friend.

‘Yes, yes, they do. Very careful indeed.’

‘I
’
M SORRY, CECILY,
I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m looking for Sarah.’ Actually, Lydia was not looking for Sarah; she’d been hoping to find empty the small room that the Polwarths rather euphemistically called the library. She imagined Sarah was in the drawing room or the garden, and she was avoiding her. Lydia needed to be alone. She wanted to sit quietly among the two cases that held shelves of dusty but familiar books and think. She was sick of hearing Sarah’s arguments against divorce, she was sick of being at the receiving end of concerned and anxious glances and sighs. It was unnerving. She was resolute that her firm love for Edgar could brave the onslaught of disapproval, but she didn’t enjoy wading through the disgust.

She was in love with Edgar. That was her beginning and end. Nothing else was important or relevant. No one seemed to disagree with that point; the wrangling and conflicts were about what that meant. To Lydia it meant she could no longer live with Lawrence. That she had to give up her life of extreme wealth and privilege and go to Edgar as soon as possible. She could not imagine how else she would continue to exist.

Being with Lawrence was torture now. His voice, his touch, his breath repelled her. It wasn’t his fault, it was hers, but still it was a fact. Despite the constant disapproval and dissuasion Lydia endured here with Sarah, she knew it was preferable to returning home. Simply being alone with him was unthinkable; even though at Clarendale there were more rooms than she’d ever managed to count, she knew she would still feel trapped. A prisoner. When she looked at Lawrence, she was plagued by guilt and shame and disappointment. Guilt and shame were the usual accessories of an adulteress, she imagined. Women like her were expected to bear that much. It was the disappointment that overwhelmed her. Disappointment that she hadn’t managed to stay in love with him. Disappointment that he didn’t deserve her to. She could not imagine eating with him or sitting with him, let alone sleeping with him. The thought of his naked body, which she’d been familiar with for eight years, seemed alien and nauseating.

And Edgar? What she felt for him was the absolute opposite. She was consumed by him. She felt comforted and yet simultaneously excited by him. He was the source of all her eroticism and gave meaning to her womanliness. He charged her up and yet he was her peace and heart’s ease. She had to go to him.

‘I’ll go and see if Sarah is in the garden,’ lied Lydia. ‘I don’t want to disturb you.’

‘It’s not a problem. Come in. I’ll send for some tea,’ said Cecily.

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly. I shouldn’t …’ Lydia wasn’t confident that she was in the frame of mind that would allow her to make polite small talk, and whilst, technically, Seaton Manor was Samuel and Cecily’s home now, Lydia never thought of Cecily as its hostess. Lydia had been visiting this house since she was a child, to play in the nursery with Sarah and Beatrice. Cecily was perfectly lovely; indeed, before Sammy was injured, she’d been bright and buoyant, a welcome addition to their group, but now she was often depressed and difficult. Small talk was impossible because no one knew what to say to her any more.

‘Do,’ Cecily urged.

Lydia noticed that Cecily had something on her lap that she had clearly been involved with before she was interrupted. It was the huge leather family photo album. Lydia abruptly remembered that her problems were not the only ones in the world. During the war, compassion had been rationed; the individuality of loss was buried beneath the obscenely large numbers, and they’d all but forgotten the habit of sympathising. Lydia felt enormous pity for Cecily. A lost half-soul, with a lost half-life and a lost half-husband.

‘Tea would be lovely. If I’m really not disturbing you.’

‘Not at all.’

Lydia carefully closed the door behind her and then chose to sit on the sofa next to Cecily.

‘You’re looking at old photos?’

‘I do, from time to time. In here, on my own. Not too often. I don’t allow myself that.’

‘Let me see.’ Lydia carefully took the heavy album from Cecily and laid it on her lap. She turned the stiff card pages and the wisps of tracing paper flapped in between, wafting like a bride’s veil in the breeze. First there were photographs of Sarah, Samuel and Beatrice as children. There were formal ones that had been taken in a studio; the girls were dressed in white embroidered frocks and enormous ribbons almost the size of their heads, and Samuel wore a sailor suit. In the more informal shots, taken on holidays in the Mumbles in Wales and then later on the beaches in the South of France, the long-ago children wore woollen swimsuits and were building sandcastles. There were photos of Sarah as a debutante, serene and joyful, and Beatrice as a debutante, awkward and lumpy. Then Lydia turned a page and discovered Sarah and Arthur’s wedding photo. A copy of this photo was on the chimneypiece in the drawing room, and Lydia, who had been a bridesmaid, had one of her own, so was familiar with it. It was a group shot of the entire bridal party: a mass of white lace, enormous hats, crêpe georgette and roses. The men wore moustaches, serious expressions and dark suits that seemed a fraction too large even though they were often made to measure. On the next page was Samuel and Cecily’s wedding photo.

‘You looked beautiful.’ Lydia had attended the wedding and had thought she remembered it well, but she gasped now, faced with the evidence of Cecily and Samuel’s youth and vibrancy. It was the fashion and accepted as the correct thing to do, to look at the camera for these momentous shots. Unusually, this bride and groom were staring at one another. Devoted, delighted, expectant, exhilarated. It was 1911; no one had ever heard of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, and most would have struggled to pinpoint the Balkans on a map.

Lydia forced herself to keep turning, but part of her wished she’d never picked up the album. She knew what it was inevitably marching towards. Death and disfigurement. There were so many similar family albums all over the country, all over the world. It was sickening and desperate.

There were photos of John as a chubby baby, bouncing on Sarah’s knee, Arthur proudly standing behind. Then another of Molly on Sarah’s knee and toddler John holding his father’s hand; this time Arthur was in uniform. It was the last photo of Arthur in the album. There were similarly composed shots of Cecily and Samuel too. Cecily, round and proud on a chair, a bouncing baby on her lap, her husband standing tall by her side. First the boy’s christening, then the girl’s. The third child, Jimmy, was conceived while Samuel was on leave. There was no photograph of that child’s christening, because by the time the ceremony took place, Samuel had been blown in two and what was left of him lay recuperating in a hospital. Cecily hadn’t the energy or inclination to arrange a photographer to shoot just her and her children. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted the event to be committed to paper. Maybe she couldn’t stand the thought of the film and image being dipped and treated in a series of chemical baths, the fixer making the image permanent and light-resistant, undeniable evidence of how her life was.

The first year of the baby’s life had been so terribly hard. Cecily rarely had the chance to push the perambulator; she had to leave that to the nanny, as her hands were full pushing Samuel’s chair.

Lydia flipped back to a photo of Arthur and Samuel standing in the village, near the bandstand. She knew the village well enough to place the informal shot accurately; it had been taken from the doorway of the post office. Both men were smoking and laughing. They looked relaxed; their uniforms were pristine, unused. Their shoes shone. Unlike their prospects. They were well fed and rosy. Gosh, yes, those public schoolboys had rushed at it. At least, most of them. So desperate to validate their pampered existences. What an invigorating impression of reason and purpose they must have felt, at least until the very moment their heads or limbs were blown off.

Lydia had been there the day the photo was taken; it was one of the recruitment drive days. As officers, Arthur and Samuel had encouraged the village men and boys to sign up for the King’s sovereign. Lydia remembered the strapping men and their sons, who scribbled their names or marked a cross. They wore English apples in their cheeks and carried farm boys’ stockiness. English milk, wheat and meat had fed these boys, made their shoulders wide, and the English sun and wind had tanned their arms. The English generals sent them to their deaths. They laughed and joked, not taking anything too seriously, certainly not themselves, certainly not the war. There had been a brass band and bunting. Clever, ambitious young men stood side by side with the sly and the ninnies. All sorts of men. They accepted their situation with equal poise and equal dedication.

‘We lined the streets and waved flags as they went to their deaths,’ muttered Lydia.

‘What were we supposed to do? Let them go without a cheer?’ Cecily sighed.

‘But we acted as though it was a party.’

‘We didn’t know. We can’t blame ourselves for what we didn’t know.’

Lydia patted Cecily’s hand. ‘You are very brave.’

‘No, I’m neither brave nor cowardly. I’m resigned, which is something much more horrible.’

‘It must be very difficult.’ Lydia hated herself for uttering such an understatement, but she had to say something.

Cecily sighed so forlornly that Lydia thought she might expunge every breath in her body. ‘Sometimes,’ she whispered, ‘I wish it was over.’

‘For him?’

‘Or me.’ Cecily trembled under the weight of her enormous, brutal confession. ‘You see, it’s impossible for anything to be as it was before. He can’t enjoy anything and so I can’t either. He’s in so much pain. Did you hear the thunderstorm last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘We needed it. The rain has washed the fields, and this morning I noticed how sweet and fertile everything smells. For a moment I stared at the sky, blue and firm, a broad and strong backdrop for the puffy clouds to bounce upon, and I felt glad to be alive. Joyful. I wanted to slip outside and run on the wet grass, race so fast that the air would explode in my lungs, but then I thought of Sammy and I hated myself. It’s a betrayal to be glad, for even a moment.’

‘No it isn’t,’ said Lydia gently.

Cecily turned to her looking dissatisfied, as though she was saddened by her friend’s lack of empathy or acknowledgement. It must have cost her to admit something so pitiful.

‘I know about your officer.’

‘Did Sarah tell you?’

‘I heard her and Beatrice talking a week or so ago.’

‘I suppose you condemn me, like everyone else.’

Cecily didn’t answer the question; instead she asked, ‘What’s he like?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, what’s he really like? Why him? I’ve known you for years now, Lydia, and it’s not like you to be inappropriate or reckless. Why now? Why him?’