The Black Mountains (42 page)

For a moment he watched it, mesmerized. It looked as if it would overshoot by a mile and come to earth harmlessly somewhere in the wilds of the country behind the line. Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, some instinct of self-preservation took him in its grasp.

With a yell to Wally that was muffled hopelessly by his gas-mask, he leaped for the safety of the slit trench, tumbling on to his hands and knees and rolling over. He never saw the sausage bomb come to earth. He only heard it, and felt the earth tremble and rock as it exploded, showering him with clods of dirt and stones.

Half-stunned, he lay motionless, his face pressed into the mud. “Christ, that was a close one,” he muttered to himself, and at the same moment he thought of Wally, who had been close behind him when he had leaped for safety.

He raised his head a little, turning towards the bay, and saw to his horror that the ground where he had been standing seconds before was now a gaping crater.

Shaking, he scrambled up, holding on to the rough sides of the slit trench and steadying himself with hands that were scratched and bleeding.

A stretcher party from one of the dug-outs pushed past him, almost knocking him over. He opened his mouth to shout Wally's name, but no sound came out. Within moments he was leaning against the wall of the trench, retching. Beside him, one of the younger lads was crying softly from fear and shock.

Someone else was swearing. “ The bastards. The bleeding bastards. You don't know where the sods are going to land.”

Again Ted lurched forward, hitching up the khaki that he felt had been almost torn from his body, then stopped, horrified. Right in front of his eyes, the stretcher party were gently lifting the remains of what had been Wally Gifford from his muddy grave. His face was almost unrecognizable, his features blackened and bloody, and his legs had gone.

Ted took a step towards them. “ Let me … he's my mate…”

But the stretcher party were in command, grimly efficient where shock had left him weak, and they brushed him aside.

“There's nothing you can do. Leave 'im …”

Ted, recognizing the truth, let them go. But sudden anger consumed him.

Senseless, it was, bloody senseless. What had they gained, those sodding Germans? They'd killed one bloke, one good bloke, and they weren't a fuck closer to winning the war. Let him get hold of them—just give him the chance, and he'd kill the bleeders with his bare hands …

“You lucky sod, Hall. How d'you do it, hey? By rights you ought to be on that stretcher an' all!”

The comment, at Ted's elbow, brought him out of his trance, and he felt his flesh crawl.

By Christ, he'd done it again—been so close to death that it had missed him only by a whisker. But missed it he had. Why, now he came to think of it, he was hardly touched.

It was almost as if something, or someone, was looking after him.

One day in the spring of 1916 Rupert Thorne contacted Alfred Church at the Co-operative Society offices.

“I wondered if I might come to see you, Uncle,” he said in the affected drawl he liked to use on the telephone. “Under the present circumstances, I'd like to talk to you about our … arrangement.”

“What present circumstances?” Alfred asked.

“I think it might be easier to discuss it face to face,” Rupert said smoothly.

“I see,” Alfred said, his mind racing.

Since the previous Christmas when he had written to Rupert, outlining his plans for his future with Rebecca, things had slipped effortlessly into gear. First, the two men had met to discuss the settlements Alfred was prepared to make if Rupert married Rebecca, and Rupert had accepted his suggestions more readily than he had dared to hope. Rupert had been so enthusiastic Alfred had realized that, quite apart from the settlement, he found the idea an attractive one.

But now, hearing the guarded note in Rupert's voice, he found himself wondering anxiously if some snag had arisen. And if Rupert, in spite of having taken his money, now wanted to back down.

“When did you want to come?” he asked. “I'm very busy at the moment. But I could spare an hour tomorrow night.”

“Thank you, Uncle. That would suit me very well,” Rupert said, and put the telephone down.

For a moment, Alfred sat frowning at the receiver. As he had told Rupert, he was very busy at present. He had recently bought himself a motor car, so there was no longer any need for him to live within walking distance of the Co-operative offices. Immediately he had mastered the gears and steering, he had begun looking around for a house out of Hillsbridge.

He soon found one, six miles out into the country on the Bristol road, and now he was embroiled in all the problems of buying and selling property and moving his household from one place to another.

But busy as he was, if Rupert wanted to see him, then time must be found for him. The ‘arrangement' was of the utmost importance to both of them. Alfred fervently hoped the request for meeting did not mean. Rupert was getting greedy. If so, he would have to draw his attention, very gently, to the paper he had signed, and point out how awkward it could be for him—and his career—if he should become known as a man who could not be trusted to keep his word.

Rupert arrived the next evening riding a motor cycle combination.

Paid for with my money, I suppose! thought Alfred as he watched the young man come up the path looking like the grounded pilot of a flying machine. But he greeted him with just the right amount of pompous warmth, keeping his suspicions to himself.

“Come in, my boy! Take his jacket, Winnie—and his gloves. And will you have some refreshment after your journey, Rupert?”

“Thank you, Uncle. A small brandy, perhaps.”

“Certainly, certainly. We'll take it into the parlour with us so we can talk.”

When they were alone, he turned to Rupert expectantly.

“Well, my boy? What did you want to see me about? There's nothing wrong, I hope. I should be most disappointed if…”

Rupert gulped at his brandy, the only sign he was nervous.

“I'll come straight to the point, Uncle. I was wondering if you might agree to bring the date of my wedding forward.”

“Forward?”
Alfred was so surprised he almost choked on his drink.

Rupert nodded earnestly. “I know you think Rebecca is very young, and I'm not qualified yet, but … I don't think I can wait, Uncle.”

A slight smile twisted Alfred's mouth. He remembered being young and impatient too well.

“The flesh is weak, Rupert. I understand.”

Rupert looked puzzled. “ The flesh? Oh, I see what you mean. But that's not the reason.”

“It isn't? Then what?”

“You've heard about the Derby Bill? Conscription for men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one? I fall into that category. I think I may be liable for service in France.”

Alfred set his glass down heavily. “ Forgive me, Rupert, I hadn't even thought of that. Conscription. And you don't want to go.”

“It would set my career back no end.”

“Of course, of course.”

“But if I were married, I'd be exempt. For the time being, anyway. It's only single men being pulled in at the moment.”

“So you want to bring the wedding forward. Well, Rupert, I don't know. There would have to be a proper period of betrothal, and Rebecca is away at present.”

“Couldn't you get her home?”

Alfred considered “ Possibly. We shall be moving soon to our new house at High Compton. Rebecca would be well away from … yes, perhaps it could be done.”

“I do hope so, Uncle. It really is very urgent.”

He nodded, and topped up both glasses from the brandy decanter.

“There is just one thing, Rupert,” he said after a moment. “ I have never told Rebecca about our ‘arrangement'. She knows, of course, that I have always hoped you and she would one day marry, but that is all. I thought that any serious approach would be better coming from you—as a young man's natural approach to courtship. I am sure I can rely on your discretion in this matter. You do understand what I am saying, don't you?”

“Of course I do, Uncle.”

“And you will treat her as a young woman should be treated if a man wishes to marry her?”

Rupert raised his glass, and above the rim, his eyes were narrow with anticipation.

“You can be sure I shall do my best to please her, Uncle,” he said smoothly.

REBECCA heard the news that she was to leave Wycherley from her Aunt Amelia.

“I'm to go home? But why? Why?” she asked.

“I really couldn't say, Rebecca,” Aunt Amelia snapped. After taking the trouble to arrange employment for her niece, she was annoyed that Alfred was removing her again so abruptly. “All I can gather is that your father has moved house, and wants you at home.”

“But I can't go!” Rebecca wailed. “I don't want to!”

“
I
don't want you to. Lady Harcourte doesn't want you to. She is most displeased by all the inconvenience it will cause, and I can't say I blame her. But your father is adamant. You're to go home at once, and that's an end of it.”

“Well, I just don't understand it,” Rebecca said miserably. She was happy here, happier than she had ever been anywhere, and the thought of returning to her father's tyranny was almost unbearable. “When have I got to go?”

“At the end of the week. He's coming in his new motor car to fetch you,” Amelia told her. “Now, don't look like that. You'll enjoy the ride.”

“I shall not!” Rebecca retorted, and then stopped. Since she'd been away, she'd learned to speak up for herself, but if she had to go home, it would have to be controlled. Alfred would not approve and might even threaten her with the strap if she persisted …

“Oh!” she said, her hands flying to her mouth as the association of ideas made her think of Ted.

“What is it?” Amelia asked, but Rebecca shook her head.

“Nothing.”

She couldn't tell Aunt Amelia what she had just realized, that when she left here, Ted would no longer be able to contact her. He wrote to her here, and she was able to write to him, but at home, under her parents' jurisdiction, it would not be so easy. And besides …

“Where exactly is our new house?” Rebecca asked.

Amelia shrugged. “I don't know. Six miles or so out of Hillsbridge, your father said, but it's not an area I know.”

“But you must have the address!”

“No, I have not. But you don't need it anyway. Your father will be taking you.”

Rebecca turned away, overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness and panic. To be back under her father's thumb would be bad enough, but if she couldn't let Ted know where she was …

Perhaps Miss Rachel will help me, she thought in desperation. Miss Rachel had helped before. And it might appeal to her to play postman.

But when she tried to broach the subject, Miss Rachel, upset at losing her personal maid, was cold and unresponsive.

“I can't think why you want to leave me, Rebecca,” she said haughtily. “I'd always thought of you more as a friend than as my maid.”

“I don't want to go,” Rebecca said.

“Then tell your father so.”

“I can't … he wouldn't take any notice of me.”

“That's just an excuse. I don't believe you want to stay here at all. But it was different when you wanted my drawing room to entertain your men friends, wasn't it?”

The injustice of the remark stung Rebecca hurtfully.

“I'm sorry if you think that, Miss Rachel,” she said, coldly, realizing there would be no more favours she could ask of her mistress.

Three days later, Alfred arrived, chugging importantly down the drive in his silver-grey motor car and coming to rest at the fork in the paths with a crashing of gears.

“I'll run away from him,” Rebecca thought as she watched him arrive. “When I get outside I'll take to my heels and run!”

But she had nowhere to go and no one to help her. Escape was just an impossible dream. And so she greeted him with the politeness born of long habit and climbed dutifully into the car beside him.

“Why are you taking me home?” she asked when they had left the house behind.

Alfred stared imperturbably at the road ahead. “You are my daughter.”

“But you sent me away.”

“The reasons for that no longer exist.”

For a moment she turned cold. Did he know something she did not? But he went smoothly on, “It wasn't proper for you to be in that den of iniquity. Heaven only knows what would have become of you. But things are different now. You'll like the house, I know. Your mother is delighted with it.”

“I liked the other one,” Rebecca said, thinking of the long, overgrown garden with the gooseberry and blackcurrent bushes, and Marjorie just next door.

“There's something else I have to tell you,” Alfred went on after a moment. “ Rupert has been to see me, and asked my permission to come and visit you.”

Rebecca said nothing. Her mouth turned dry, and the dread weighed heavily inside her. Rupert! So that was it! They'd got together, he and her father, and planned … what?

“Naturally I agreed to his suggestion,” Alfred negotiated a bend in the road with difficulty. “As you know, I think most highly of Rupert. And he is very fond of you. In fact I have always hoped …”

He glanced at Rebecca, but her set expression gave nothing away. He sighed deeply, pitying himself for having been burdened with a daughter instead of a son. But Rupert would be a son to him soon.

“He's a fine young man,” he went on.

Rebecca sat staring silently at the road that unfolded before them. Perhaps her father was right and she was wrong. Perhaps he was a fine young man, who would make some girl a good husband, and not a repulsive fat slug as she thought. But, oh, Father, don't try to force him on me, she prayed silently. Because I won't have him whatever you say or do. I just couldn't!