Nameless (15 page)

‘It’s a big dog. There’ll be a bit of damage, maybe. And blood? Who knows?’

His superior officer looked sceptical.

‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘Won’t we?’

38

On Friday, Cornelius went to work in the War Office as usual, then went to Waterloo to take the train back down to Brayfield for the weekend. His taxi pulled up outside the station. He’d no sooner paid the driver than someone as big as himself came charging out of the shadows and yanked him off his feet and crashed him into a wall.

‘What the
hell?
’ he gasped.

All sorts of scum around these days, looking to rob innocent people of their valuables. Deserters and the like. The taxi driver took no notice, he just drove away. He wasn’t about to get involved.

‘Cornelius Bray?’ snarled the man, staring straight into his eyes.

Cornelius stiffened. This wasn’t anything as simple or straightforward as a robbery. The man knew him.

‘Who wants to know?’ asked Cornelius. His attacker wasn’t familiar to him. He was tall, hard-muscled, dark-haired, and his grey-blue eyes were both icy and manic.

‘Charlie Darke,’ said the man, clutching harder at the front of Cornelius’s camel-hair coat. ‘You bastard, you got my sister up the gut.’

‘
What?
’

‘My sister. Ruby. She’s pregnant. And it’s yours.’

Cornelius’s head spun with the force of this assault and these words. He tried to assimilate the information he’d just been given, but all he could think was that this man looked crazy – mad enough to kill him.

‘I didn’t . . .’ he started.

Charlie yanked him away, pulling him off balance, further back into the shadows where no one could see them. Cornelius staggered against the wall, feeling skin scrape off his hand, feeling the sting of it. His briefcase fell to the ground.

‘
Don’t
lie to me, arsehole. You got her pregnant.’

‘Not me.’ Now Cornelius was shaking his head. He’d been so careful. He hadn’t wanted complications. He’d used French letters each and every time they’d had sex.

But remember that time when the condom split?
asked a tiny voice in his brain. He stiffened, thinking fast. It
had
split, just once. And once was enough. But denial was his only option. He was married, his
wife
was pregnant. He couldn’t complicate things any further, they were bad enough already.

‘It wasn’t me,’ he said.

‘Yeah, it was,’ said Charlie, thumping Cornelius’s head back against the wall to emphasize his point. ‘You got her pregnant . . .’

‘Well
someone
did,’ said Cornelius, and his weak grin of denial enraged Charlie all the more.

He gave the posh bastard’s head another whack against the wall. ‘You sayin’ my sister’s a slut? She ain’t. The poor silly cow thinks she’s in love with you, says you’ve told her how much you love her too. So now you’re going to do the right thing by her.’

‘Did she tell you I’m married?’

Charlie froze. ‘You’re
what?
’

‘Married. So you can pound me black and blue, but I can’t “do the right thing”, can I?’

‘You
fucker
,’ hissed Charlie. ‘You been turkin’ my sister and you’re a married man?’

‘Look,’ said Cornelius, ‘I can pay to get rid of it. Whatever she wants, I’ll pay. It’s not a problem.’

‘What? My sister, go to one of those back-street abortionists with a length of wire and a packet of Omo to scour her out with? You’re joking, mate. You’ll pay all right. I’ll be in touch to let you have the bill for your little pleasures, all right? You pay up for our girl, or I’ll fucking kill you.’

39

The journey home was fraught and fearful after that. On the train, Cornelius was transfixed by the idea that Ruby’s thuggish family might somehow contact Vanessa, and tell her about Ruby’s condition. Vanessa’s nerves were always taut as a bowstring; she was delicate at the best of times. Now, with the baby coming, she would be more than ever in need of peace and stability.

What if Charlie Darke got in touch with her and told her about Ruby and the baby she was carrying –
his
baby? Oh, it was his. For all his bold words when he’d been talking to Charlie, he didn’t doubt that. Ruby had been a virgin when they met, and she was in love with him; he knew that. She wouldn’t want any other man, she loved
him.

He picked up his car at the station and sat in it for long moments, staring at the rain on the windscreen. Sighing, he started the engine and slipped the car into gear. He was in a mess, but it wasn’t unsalvageable. Vanessa hardly ever came up to town. She loved the country and never wanted to leave it. Ruby was an East Ender, a London girl through and through; the two would never cross paths.

They
mustn’t.

Finally he turned into the drive and passed the brightly lit gatehouse. His mother – Lady Bray, widow of his late father Sir Hilary – lived there. At other times he would have stopped, told his mother that she mustn’t keep these lights on, and she would say, with all the hauteur of one born to privilege, ‘Why shouldn’t I? We’re miles out in the country, is Hitler going to bomb us out here? I don’t think so, dear.’

It was a conversation they’d had many times. She would be unapologetic, he would smile indulgently. But this time he didn’t stop the car. He drove on up the long, winding driveway to the main house and pulled up outside. The last of the day’s light was going, but he could still see its big outline, solidly comforting, black against the paler sky.

Brayfield had been in his family for four generations. Built of glowing rose-red brick with cream stone quoins at the corners, the Elizabethan manor house was a pink jewel set in acres of green. It had two outer gables and a smaller central one, and a stunning clock tower to one side.

Brayfield was, in every way, a grand house and he adored it. It was in his blood. It should be full of children, bursting at the seams with them. Now – at last – that dream would come true. Vanessa was expecting their first child, hopefully the first of many.

He parked beside the big circular fountain of Neptune that guarded the front entrance, and for the first time saw the other car there, a Riley. Frowning, he turned off the engine, got out, locked the car and went up the steps. The porch light was off because of the blackout. He slipped his key in the door, fumbling slightly, and was stepping inside, laying his briefcase aside, shrugging his coat off, when Mrs Hayter the housekeeper came hurrying along the hall, her stern face pale and anxious.

‘What is it?’ Instantly he was on the alert. ‘Whose car is that?’

‘I called the doctor. Mrs Bray . . .’ Her voice trailed away. Her eyes lifted to the stairs.

His heart suddenly in his throat, Cornelius took the stairs two at a time and crossed the landing to the master bedroom. He threw open the door. The doctor was there, a thin little man wearing half-moon spectacles. His head turned as Cornelius came into the room.

Cornelius stared at his wife, lying there pale and sickly-looking in the bed. She was fully dressed in a white blouse and a beige rucked-up skirt. The front of the skirt had a bloodstain the size of a dinner plate on it. There was a primrose-yellow towel wedged up between his wife’s slim legs, and the yellow was rapidly turning a dull brownish-red.

‘Vanessa!’ He ran forward, sat on the bed, clutched at her hand. ‘My God, what’s happened?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said the doctor. ‘I’m afraid she’s lost the baby.’

Cornelius felt like he must be going mad. ‘No!’ he shouted, springing to his feet.

Vanessa was crying silently. She looked appealingly at Cornelius. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve let you down again.’

‘No! No you haven’t, don’t be silly. It’s just one of those awful things that happen.’

‘Yes. To me. Always to me.’ Vanessa started to sob.

The doctor drew Cornelius to one side. ‘Call the housekeeper up here, Mr Bray. She needs a woman with her, help her get cleaned up. And the baby . . .’ He lowered his voice. ‘It’s in the toilet bowl. It’s dead.’

Cornelius’s stomach clenched hard with horror. He stood up and walked on numb legs to the door out onto the landing. This couldn’t be happening. In one day, he had learned that his mistress was pregnant, which was a nuisance, a liability; and now this. Was it God’s hand at work, punishing him for his sin of ungovernable lust? Because now his wife had lost their longed-for baby, which would have been cherished and adored.

He called the housekeeper up to attend to Vanessa. The doctor beckoned him out onto the landing and, when Mrs Hayter had gone in to help Vanessa, the doctor closed the bedroom door gently.

‘Mr Bray,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m terribly sorry.’

Cornelius looked at him. ‘But these things happen, don’t they? Every day of the week. And then people go on to have healthy babies.’

‘Mr Bray . . .’

‘Obviously she needs to rest more. I’ve told her about bending and stretching in the garden, we have a
gardener
for that sort of thing, I have warned her . . .’

‘Mr Bray.’ The doctor interrupted this feverish flow of words, his tone sharp. ‘Mr Bray, I’m sorry, but I have to tell you that your wife shouldn’t be put through this again.’

‘What?’ Cornelius’s face was blank.

‘She isn’t physically or even mentally strong enough to bear children, Mr Bray. That’s what nature’s trying to tell us, and that’s what I’m telling you now. She’s fragile.’

‘What? But surely . . .’

‘Mr Bray.’ Now the doctor’s face was hard. ‘Listen to what I’m telling you, for the love of God. One more miscarriage like this could kill her. I’m warning you.’

Cornelius turned away from the words that were hurting him too much. Of all the horrible, twisted jokes to be played on a man, this had to be the worst. His mistress was giving birth to a child he didn’t want – and his wife had just lost the child he did want.

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Bray,’ said the doctor to his back.

Cornelius turned and looked at the little man. ‘Get out of my house,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m sorry . . .’

‘
Get out of my house you bastard!
’ he roared.

The doctor gave him one last startled look and then hurried off down the stairs. He crossed the hall, and went quickly out of the door. It closed behind him. Into the silence came the sounds of Vanessa sobbing, and the muffled, soothing tones of Mrs Hayter as she tried to comfort her.

40

When he was sure that Vanessa was asleep and that Mrs Hayter was sitting with her, he walked out into the star-studded night and trudged down the long drive to the gatehouse, lit up like a ship at sea in an ocean of darkness. He knocked on the door, then put his key in the lock and entered.

‘Is that you, dear?’ came Lady Bray’s voice, from the sitting room.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ he called back, and went in.

The fire was blazing away in the hearth and his mother was sitting in the same chair where she always sat, her elegant silver chignon glinting in the firelight, her chin sharply pointed, her blue eyes intense. She was working on a piece of bright floral tapestry on a frame, with her glasses slipping down her nose. She peered up at him over the top of them and said: ‘What’s the matter?’ when she saw his face.

Cornelius slumped down on the sofa, dropped his head into his hands. He sat like that for long moments. Finally he let his hands fall between his knees and stared at her.

‘She’s lost the baby,’ he said starkly.

‘What?When?Why didn’t that stupid Hayter woman come and get me . . . ?’

‘This afternoon. I got back from the city to find the doctor there.’

‘But Hayter should have told me.’

‘I don’t think there was time. When I got home, it was all over.’

‘How ghastly for you,’ said his mother, with sympathy. ‘And poor Vanessa.’

Cornelius looked at his mother. She had never really liked Vanessa, had said before their marriage took place that Vanessa was not good stock: too skinny and nervy.

‘Look at those hips,’ she had said to him. ‘Those are
not
good child-bearing hips.’

‘She’s heartbroken,’ he said.

But he had once fallen in love with Vanessa’s delicacy, her frailty. He felt big and strong with her. Only after the marriage did he discover that they were badly matched physically. He’d had to take his pleasures elsewhere – so what? Many other men did the same.

‘Well, of course she is, the poor girl.’ But he could see in his mother’s steely eyes the thought that Vanessa’s inability to give birth was reprehensible. She had warned him about just this outcome.

Cornelius was aware that there was a weight of responsibility upon him. For four generations, Brays had bred to continue the line, producing the requisite number of children to be sure the family name would live on.

But now, this. If what the doctor had said was true and Vanessa couldn’t bear children at all, then what would become of the Bray line? Julianna, his sister, was married to Terence Wyatt, co-owner of a small merchant bank. But as yet there were no children. Perhaps there wouldn’t be. It was a bad situation.

‘And there’s something else, something unfortunate . . .’

‘Yes? Go on, dear.’ His mother’s head dipped as she applied herself to the tapestry. It was a ploy she often employed with her son: if he had to confess something, he found it easier if her eyes were focused elsewhere.

‘There’s a girl. She works at the Windmill Theatre, in town.’

‘A girl?’ She kept her head down. She knew her son had an excessively sexual nature: his father had been just the same.

‘It’s a bloody mess, I’m afraid. She’s pregnant.’

Now the eyes came up and fixed sharply on his face. ‘And it’s yours?’

He nodded. Much as he might bluster about this, he knew that Ruby would sleep with no one else. The silly girl actually loved him. And he cared for her, of course he did, but she was from a different class. She was just for fun, like all the other beautiful young girls and exquisite young boys he sometimes enjoyed. He was
married
, for God’s sake.