The Black Mountains (46 page)

“Harry, go out in the rank and bowl your hoop,” Charlotte said, and led the way through into the kitchen.

Rebecca followed, fighting down a new wave of nausea, but Charlotte did not seem to notice. It was as if she was in a world of her own, and when she spoke, her voice was toneless.

“I never expected to see you here, Rebecca.”

“No, but I had to come. Mrs Hall, have you heard from Ted?”

The tired, hooded eyes were staring into the distance, the drawn mouth twitched slightly, and Rebecca looking at her, knew. The blood left her body in a rush, and weak and trembling she grasped the back of the settle for support.

“Something has happened to him, hasn't it? That's why I haven't heard from him.”

Charlotte crossed to the mantlepiece and took an envelope from behind the clock. “A telegram,” she said. “It came three weeks ago. Ted is posted as missing, believed killed in action.”

Rebecca felt her knees sag and only the settle prevented her from falling. Around her the room darkened, fragmented, came together again in one claustrophobic whole, and she stood with her eyes tight-closed, swaying against the settle like a young willow in a storm.

Charlotte made to go to her, but her own limbs were heavy with a grief too deep to be shared, and the reserve which rebelled against giving way to emotion held her back. She stood looking at the girl Ted had loved, perhaps too much, and knew that her own iron control would break if she so much as touched her. Charlotte wanted no mawkish, sentimental weeping in each other's arms; that would be quite unworthy of Ted. So she kept her distance, watching the spasms pass over the girl's face like the lace-edged waves washing over the beach at high tide, and trying to remain unmoved them.

Suddenly Rebecca opened her eyes. “But he might not be dead at all!” she burst out. “It doesn't actually say he is, does it? Only that he's missing! And if he were dead, I'd know it—I know I'd know it!”

Charlotte bowed her head, wondering why the words had the power to make her feel so old, and wondering too why they had brought her closer to tears than she had been at any time in the dreadful days since the telegram arrived. “It's true, Rebecca,” she said. “You might as well accept it.”

“But why should I? They could be mistaken—they could! Oh, we mustn't give up just because …”

“Rebecca!” Charlotte said sharply. “ There's something else you don't know about. I don't suppose you saw the
News of the World
, did you? Well, last week there was something in it that we recognized—something you'll recognize too.”

She pulled open a drawer in the table, taking out a newspaper that had been folded and re-folded into a small square, and handed it to Rebecca, pointing as she did so. “ Look, here.”

Rebecca looked, her eyes widening in surprise. “It's the photograph I gave Ted—the one he carried in his wallet!”

“Rebecca, you'd better come and sit down,” Charlotte said roughly, worried by the girl's white face.

“No, tell me what it's all about!” Rebecca was trembling all over, but refusing to move or give up her hold on the high back of the settle. “ How did they get my photograph?”

The need for action restored Charlotte's self-control. Firmly she levered Rebecca away from the settle, bringing her round to the deep fireside chair and pushing her down into it by the shoulders.

“It's a column all made up with details of stuff that's been found in the trenches—and photographs too. If you look at what it says, you'll see your photograph was found in the front lines on the Somme. I wrote to the
News of the World
straight away to identify it, and I got a reply with the full details yesterday. The photo was found in a soldier's pocket. But the soldier …” She broke off, unable to go on.

Rebecca's eyes, feverishly bright, bored into hers. “Yes? The soldier?”

Charlotte took a deep breath, determined to speak calmly. “The soldier was dead. Blown to bits. There was nothing else with which to identify him.”

Rebecca sat motionless, her hands twisted tightly together in her lap. It couldn't be true. If Ted were dead, she'd have known. She'd have
known
.

“I know it's hard to accept these things.” Charlotte's voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. “Especially when you're young. But who else would have had your picture in his pocket?”

“No one.” It was a whisper only.

“There you are then. It's a clear proof. Ted's gone, Rebecca. Now, how about a cup of tea?”

Rebecca jerked upright. “How can you talk like that? As if this was a social visit and we were discussing the weather? Don't you realize what you're saying? That we shall never see Ted again! Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

Charlotte sighed deeply. “Is that how it seems to you? I suppose it must. I've learned to hide my feelings over the years. But it doesn't mean I don't have any.”

“I don't believe you! You don't care a bit. If you did, you couldn't be this way!” The first tears had begun, thickening her throat so that her voice was loud and vehement “ It's different for you,” she cried. “To you, Ted's just one of a lot. To me, he's special. There isn't anyone else.”

Charlotte stopped in the doorway, her hand going to her throat. Her back was turned from Rebecca, so the girl could not see the agony of her expression, the pain, the grief, the unbearable ache that came from losing not only a son, but a part of her life, her hopes, her past and her future.

“Becky,” she said quietly, “ my children are all irreplaceable. That's the way it is with a mother. You'll find that out for yourself one day. Oh yes, you will. You might not think so now, but you're young. There'll be someone else for you. And when that day comes, you'll know I was right.”

Rebecca stood up.

“No, never. There won't be anyone but Ted for me. If you think there could be, you don't know me, and you don't know the way it was with us, either. Now, I think I'd better be going.”

“Oh, Becky, Becky!” Charlotte turned, distressed. “ I don't know what to say. Let's have that cup of tea now, shall we?”

Rebecca shook her head. Somewhere in the emptiness inside her, she could feel a tiny ticking, like an irregular pulse. Could it be the baby? She didn't know, nor did she care. Everything had retreated into the distance. Nothing really mattered any more. Ted was dead, and she hadn't known. That hurt more than anything else.

“Well, Becky, you know where we are if you want us.” Charlotte showed her to the door. “ If there's anything I can do, you know I will.”

“No, there's nothing.”

High in her waist the pulse ticked again, but she knew there was no point in telling Charlotte now. How had she ever thought she could?

There was a darkness about the evening now, and for a moment Rebecca wondered if thunder was brewing up. But there were no storm clouds. The darkness was inside her head.

She walked along the rank almost as briskly as she had come, past Harry, whose hoop clattered noisily to the ground as he watched her go, past two women standing on their doorsteps gossiping, past a slight, dark-haired girl who stared at her with such hate in her eyes that even in her state of stunned shock, Rebecca could not help but notice. She turned into the steep decline of the hill in a dream, and she did not even notice the roar of the approaching motor cycle until it turned around in the road and came to a shuddering stop beside her. Then she turned indignantly. Rupert!

“You were supposed to wait for me outside the George!” she said, but while he had been waiting, Rupert had been thinking, and this time he was determined not to be bullied.

“Where have you been, Becky?” he asked.

Startled, she lifted her chin. “That's none of your business.”

“I think it is. After all, I am going to be your husband. Now, get into this side-car. I'm taking you home.”

“Don't think you can tell me what to do, Rupert Thorne! Remember, my father wouldn't like…”

“Two can play at that game,” he interrupted. “You won't tell him. You'd be too afraid of what he'd do to you.”

She crumpled suddenly, her face distorting into something midway between tears and laughter. There, in the road, she stood, her arms folded about herself as if awareness of a hundred truths had hit her all at once.

“Oh, Rupert, you don't know how funny that is.”

“Funny? Why?” He sounded alarmed.

“Funny, because he's going to have to know anyway.”

“Why? It's our secret, yours and mine.”

“But how can you keep a baby a secret?” The words came out on a small, strangled sob. “ Oh, don't look like that, Rupert. Don't tell me you didn't know what you were doing. I'm going to have your baby.”

For a moment Rupert said nothing. He stood speechless, his jaw dropped, his eyes glazed. Then he raised one hand to mop his forehead.

“I don't believe it. You're just trying to put the wind up me. It was the first time, wasn't it, and everyone knows…”

She said nothing, but the expression on her face told him more than mere words could have done. He broke off, sweating, to chew at his lower lip.

“But … but how can you be sure?” he asked presently, all bravado gone. “You couldn't know, could you?”

She shrugged. “ There are some things a woman's body tells her.”

“But you're as slender as ever … your waist…”

“I won't be for much longer.” At the thought, her cool mask slipped a little, and she almost sobbed. “ Oh, what am I going to do?”

“We'll get married, Becky, right away. Nobody will think anything of it, with the war and everything …”

She stamped her foot, impatient again. “Oh, Rupert, how many times do I have to tell you I'm not going to marry you. Not even now. Especially not now.”

Helplessly he slapped at the pockets of his motor cycling jacket “But you'll have to!”

“I won't, I tell you. I'll kill myself first.”

“For God's sake, don't talk so stupid, Becky!”

“It's not stupid. I don't care if I live or die now. I wish I
could
die, I do …”

The tears began as she spoke, streaming down her cheeks while her body shook. Rupert, embarrassed as well as shocked, opened up the side-car and bundled her in.

As he drove, his thoughts churned, his concentration was gone, and he found himself approaching bends so fast that he had to brake violently, making the side-car sway from side to side. With an effort, he slowed down, as he realized that if Rebecca was still in a state when he got her home, there would be questions asked. And at present he had no answers to give.

He turned the machine into the lanes. On either side, the hedges were high and sweet, and above them the sky was a perfect violet, but Rupert saw only a vision of Alfred. How would he react when he learned the truth? This wasn't like getting some whore in the family way—there were bound to be serious repercussions. One way or another, an answer had to be found, and quickly.

It came to him in a flash, and he stopped the machine in a gateway, dismounted and went around to the side-car.

Rebecca sat clutching the casing. She was deathly pale and Rupert glared at her quizzically. If she wasn't all right, then so much the better. There would be no need to put his plan into action.

“You'll have to take something to get rid of the baby,” he said, suddenly.

“What do you mean?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Oh, for God's sake!” he said impatiently. “ Do you want this baby?”

“No, of course I don't! I don't want any part of you!”

He ignored the insult. “ Then I'll get something for you. All you need do is take it, like medicine.”

“But what will it do?”

“I don't know. Stop the baby, somehow. This isn't exactly an everyday occurrence with me, whatever you might think. But I know a chap who … well, just leave it to me.”

“Oh, Rupert, I don't know …”

“Well I do. If you do as I say, no one need ever know about it. I'm going to take you home now, but I'll be back just as soon as I can with the stuff. And in the meantime, don't you say a word to a soul. Do you hear now?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I hear.”
“Right Let's go home then. I need a good stiff drink.”
He turned, mounted the motor cycle and started the engine.
In the side-car, Rebecca sat too dazed by the evening's events to

be able to string two thoughts together coherently.
Stop the baby? What did he mean? Right or wrong, it hardly

seemed to matter. If Ted was dead, nothing really mattered any

more.
As the side-car began to jolt and sway once more, Rebecca

pressed her fist tight against her mouth and closed her eyes. All

she wanted in the world at that moment was to be left alone.

RUPERT brought her the potion a week later, an evil smelling concoction in an old medicine bottle.

“Now look, Becky, all you have to do is take this before you go to bed. Two or three spoonfuls should be enough, but you'd better keep the rest just in case it doesn't work. Otherwise I shall have to take you to see this chap, and that wouldn't be much fun I can tell you.”

“But what will happen?” In her small, pale face, Rebecca's eyes were huge and haunted, the legacy of a week of secret weeping and little sleep.

“It'll stop the baby. I told you.”

“But how?”

“Oh, Becky, for God's sake, do I have to spell it all out for you?” he blustered, unwilling to admit to his own ignorance. “ One thing, though, it'll probably be a bit painful, so be prepared. There's no point in frightening yourself when it happens. Have you got some old towels, and brown paper? You'll need both, this chap said. And some water to clean up.”

She nodded, not understanding, but not caring much either.