Post of Honour (18 page)

The long trailers of mist seemed to bore their way into Claire’s bones and she shivered so convulsively that she could remain still no longer and began to retreat along the wall towards the door, and into the weed-filled garden, moving backward step by step, as though from something terrifying. On reaching the open gate, she turned and ran through the mist to the spot where the grey was tethered; seconds later she was in the saddle and using her heels vigorously so that the horse broke into a trot and then a slow canter, swinging left into the sloping field at the head of the path and finally, still at a canter, down the broad sweep of meadow to where the Shallowford track ran down to the orchard.

It was not until Snowdrop had been stabled and Claire was sitting hunched over a smouldering library fire that she spared a thought for Aubrey Lane-Phelps, still waiting for her in the mist below the battery but it was no more than a fleeting thought. ‘Damn Lane-Phelps!’ she said, aloud, ‘he can go to France, Egypt or Timbuctoo for all I care! I shall squirm every time I think of him and maybe weep as well but not for the reasons he thinks!’ and she snatched up the poker and attacked the fire as though the smouldering logs had been responsible for bringing her within a hairsbreadth of reducing her well-ordered life to chaos.

V

H
e did not come in to tea and when she nerved herself to make an inquiry from Chivers she learned that he had returned home about three-thirty, collected the trap and gone to Whinmouth as scheduled. She knew then that he would not be home again until supper and deciding that she could not face him across the table went up to the bedroom telling Mrs Handcock that she had a headache and was retiring early. She did not attempt to undress but sat in her favourite chair over the coal fire, curtains drawn against the world.

She tried to read and failed and tried to think and failed. In the end she just sat and looked at the shifting coals, awaiting his step in the library below.

About nine Mrs Handcock tapped on the door and said a Mr Lane-Phelps was asking for her on that there telephone. Claire said, shortly, ‘Tell him I’m not available! Tell him that if he wants he can ring later, after Squire returns!’ and her contemplation of Aubrey’s reaction to this message was the one cheerful spot in an interminable evening. Soon after Mrs Handcock had gone she heard Paul come in and after a brief pause the chink of china, as his cold supper was set before him; she thought, ‘Do I go down or do I wait for him to come to bed? If Mrs Handcock has told him I’ve got a headache he’ll creep about for fear of disturbing me. Well, I could hardly be less disturbed and am likely to remain so unless I tell him everything now, before I weaken! I daresay it’s inviting disaster but I’m sick to death of watching us drift the way we’ve been drifting since Ikey came home! He’ll surely fly into a fearful rage and assume I’m going the same way as Grace but I can’t help it if he does for anything’s better than this. We had a good marriage, a wonderful marriage, and if we can’t mend it and put it back on the rails it won’t be for want of trying on my part!’ She decided to wait for him to come up and undressed, putting on a winter nightgown, for this was no time for ribbons. It was whilst rummaging in the cupboard for her nightgown that she saw some of Simon’s discarded riding kit, jodhpurs and jacket that he had outgrown put aside for the next jumble sale. There was a riding switch, a short brown cane that she picked up, recalling the story she had heard of the Bideford Goliath’s use of a stick on the Potter girls every time they tried to make a fool of him. She thought: ‘I wouldn’t blame him if he treated me like Cis and Vi Potter for I’m really no better for all my airs and graces!’ and the reflection made her more depressed than ever, for all her life she had regarded the Potter girls with a contempt not far removed from disgust.

He did not keep her waiting long. Soon she heard him call good night to Mrs Handcock, who usually drowsed by the kitchen fire until nearly midnight and then he came in, looking mildly surprised to find her sitting there and the lamps still burning.

‘I haven’t got a headache, Paul,’ she said at once, ‘but I came up early. I’ve got something important to say.’

He did not seem particularly surprised by this unusual greeting but for a moment looked almost amused and then straightened his face, kissed her lightly on the forehead, and said, ‘Well, you do look a bit off colour. Anything unpleasant happened?’

She said, with a deliberation that surprised her, ‘Yes, Paul, a great deal has happened and it is unpleasant but not nearly so bad as it might have been, or would still be if I made light of it.’

He sat down on the hard chair across the fireplace and shot out his long legs. He was still wearing his tall boots and breeches and he looked, she thought, a good deal more cheerful and relaxed than he had looked for some time.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘if it’s that important my news can wait,’ and she experienced a wild flutter of alarm and cried out, ‘You haven’t enlisted!’ at which he laughed louder than she had heard him laugh since before the war.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t enlisted, I doubt if they’d have me! It’s just that I’ve saved out timber, at least for the time being.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said, slowly, ‘and I expect you are!’ and then, as though restarting a race after a false start, ‘I’ve let you down rather badly, Paul! In two ways, different ways! I’ve been very unhappy about what’s been happening to us lately and I suppose that’s my only excuse, although it’s a very poor one.’

He still did not seem much concerned although his expression hardened a little. He said, ‘What the devil are you driving at? Come right out with it, it’s easier that way and I’m damned sure it isn’t half as bad as you think it is!
How
have you let me down?’

She said, flushing, ‘I’ve been having a very heavy flirtation with Aubrey Lane-Phelps, up at the camp.
Only
a flirtation on my honour, but . . . well, it might easily have led to something more serious if I hadn’t suddenly come to my senses this afternoon!’

‘Why especially this afternoon?’ he asked, so mildly that she was thrown off balance again and began to stammer, her cheeks flushing as bright as the core of the fire.

‘I . . . well . . . I followed you to Hazel Potter’s—Hazel Palfrey’s cottage! I saw you go in. I was coming down the lane on the grey.’

‘Yes, I know,’ he said, grinning, ‘I saw you and I wondered what you had in mind. Why didn’t you call?’

For a moment she was speechless and then, her colour receding somewhat, ‘You . . . you
saw
me?? You
knew
I was there while you were reading Ikey’s letter to her?’

‘Well no,’ he admitted, looking surprised in his turn, ‘I didn’t know that. I had it in mind you rode off in a huff as soon as you saw me. As a matter of fact that’s why I’ve never told you I always call there and read his letters. She wouldn’t make much of them herself. What induced you to peep in and then creep away?’

She had to plunge now for what had seemed too certain this afternoon now seemed not only grotesquely ridiculous but downright insulting. She went on: ‘Sitting here this evening I made up my mind to admit everything and here it is! I was certain you were calling there for . . . well, for the reason most men call on the Potter girls!’

If she wanted to astonish him she had succeeded at last. His jaw dropped and his heavy brows shot up more than an inch. Then, mercifully for both of them, his unpredictable sense of humour came storming up and he let out a bellow that might have been heard in the stable-yard on the far side of the house. ‘Great God!’ he said, once he had composed himself, ‘you thought
that
!
But you dear silly idiot, how often have I got to tell you that Hazel hasn’t a thing in common with her sisters? Ikey’s wife? And him in the trenches? Why, Great Scott, even if I was so inclined she’d kill anybody who tried to make a fool of Ikey!’ Then, quite suddenly, he became serious again and went on, ‘What the devil is the matter with you, Claire? It can’t be just this nonsense with a cocky young masher like Lane-Phelps. I knew all about that, knew you were very flattered by his attentions anyway, but it didn’t worry me or not seriously! I suppose I was irritated to watch him buzzing round like a wasp over a jam-jar but since everybody is a little crazy these days I didn’t grudge you a bit of fun, so long as it remained fun!’

‘It did, Paul,’ she said, urgently and he ripped out, showing his first flash of impatience, ‘Good God, woman, I
know
it did! Do you imagine I wouldn’t have known after all this time?’

Suddenly she felt both relieved and deflated, as though she was a child with long plaits confessing a fault to an indulgent parent, expecting a slap and getting nothing but amused tolerance. The transition from one extreme to the other was so painful that tears welled in her eyes and she made a helpless gesture with her hands. He must have realised how she felt for amusement and impatience left him at once and he said, quietly, ‘All
right
,
Claire. I’ll listen, if you really want to unburden yourself and I don’t mean that cynically! What exactly did happen between you and that ass? He kissed you once or twice, I suppose?’

‘Yes he did, half-a-dozen times.’

He still looked indulgent, even when he said, ‘And let his hands stray a little, I wouldn’t wonder? Well, I hope his private technique is better than his public display for his tactics went out with the crinoline! Dammit woman, chaps like him are ten a penny in every mess or were until we got caught up in a real war! I suppose he told you he was being drafted to France and hadn’t long to live?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘he did, only this morning and I . . . I . . . was on my way to say good-bye when I saw you! He’s going overseas tomorrow.’

‘He’s going tomorrow but not overseas,’ Paul told her, shortly. ‘When I saw him preening himself on his progress I asked the adjutant about him. He’s going on a course to Aldershot, then straight back here and after that he’ll land a staff appointment that’ll keep him out of the firing line! He’ll work it all right, the Lane-Phelps of this world generally do but what was it that made you “come to your senses” as you say?’

‘When I looked in the window and realised why you were there.’

He pondered a moment. ‘And suppose I had been upstairs with the girl? Would that have resulted in Lane-Phelps getting another scalp?’

‘Yes, I think it would.’

‘Well, I dare say you would have been justified, for I suppose it did seem I was lying about going to Whinmouth. I met the postman in the drive and thought I’d pop over and read her letter before I crossed the river. It’s all rather silly, isn’t it? I mean, not just this but the situation we’ve allowed to develop between us, and I daresay it’s partly my fault; I couldn’t have been easy to live with during the last few months.’

She was by no means disposed to grant him his share of the blame. ‘That’s rubbish!’ she said, ‘you’ve been grossly over-worked and because you identify yourself with the Valley you suffer for everybody in it! You always did but now it’s a hundred times more strain and I should have tried to help instead of fooling around with a man like Lane-Phelps. Most men in the Valley would have given their wives a damned good hiding for far less!’

‘Well,’ he said, cheerfully, ‘I haven’t the slightest desire to knock you down and black your eyes but I’ll turn you over and smack your handsome bottom if you insist!’

His facetiousness confused her, so much so that, in a perverse way, she felt cheated.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t laugh it off, Paul. The truth is I’ve never felt so small and mean and wretched in my life!’

‘I’m sorry too,’ he said, more seriously, ‘but I find it difficult to go berserk over a show-off like Lane-Phelps!’

‘But it isn’t Lane-Phelps,’ she argued, ‘I see now that he was just a kind of game I was playing with myself. This afternoon was different. How could I have been so wrong and stupid? And suppose I hadn’t waited and had ridden off to the Battery?’

‘Well you didn’t!’ he said and she replied, biting her lip, ‘I came within an inch of doing so and that makes me unfit to share a bed with a man as honest as you!’

Her contrition, carried to these extravagant lengths, exasperated him. He said, impatiently, ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Let’s forget the whole bloody thing!’ expecting her to shrug and climb resignedly into bed. In all their previous clashes she had remained open to reason and tact on his part, had even managed to half-heal the one serious rupture in their relationship. Tonight, however, it was as if she enjoyed wallowing in guilt and she stood staring at him with a curiously wooden expression that he had never seen on her face all the years he had known her. She said, at length, ‘I don’t seem to be able to convince you do I?’ and he snapped, ‘No, you don’t! I think you’re just being stupid and enlarging a peccadillo into a crisis!’ but because she still regarded him with that odd, woebegone expression he suddenly relented and made one more attempt to laugh her out of it, saying, ‘Look here, if it will soothe your conscience at the expense of your rump wait while I slip down and fetch my riding-crop!’ and he reached out, intending to gather her up and throw her on the bed. To his dismay she stepped back sharply and backed against the cupboard. ‘Whatever happens this is going to take me a very long time to live down,’ she said. ‘Your come-come-now-now approach isn’t likely to help, Paul!’ She turned then, flung open the cupboard and picked up the brown switch, thrusting it at him and throwing up her head with what struck him as a gesture of almost hysterical defiance. Then his astonishment was doused by laughter and he said, taking the cane, ‘Very pretty, but if I took you at your word I daresay I’d never hear the last of it!’

Her head came down again and now, as defiance ebbed, she looked spent and defeated. She said, very quietly, ‘It wasn’t such an empty gesture, Paul. What you can’t understand is that a woman who has behaved as I have would prefer a week with a sore backside to a lifetime with a sick conscience. Very well, leave it at that, but for God’s sake don’t stand there making excuses for me!’