To Love a Traitor (11 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The Rectory, when they finally reached it by taxi from the station, was an imposing old building, set in a large garden. It all looked exceedingly well kept up, suggesting the Reverend Connaught was not quite the poor country parson George had been expecting. Any questions as to whether Matthew’s father depended entirely on the Church for his income would, however, have been fearfully impolite, so George could only conjecture.

As so often, Matthew appeared to read his friend’s mind. “Father was the only son, so by rights he shouldn’t have gone into the Church at all. But the old man has a genuine vocation for it, so my grandfather relented in the end. Father’s always encouraged my brothers and me to make our own way in the world and not rely upon any prospective inheritance. He says he intends to live to a ripe old age and keep us all waiting in any case. I hope he does,” Matthew added in a quieter tone, his hand on George’s shoulder. “I should hate to lose him.”

The reverend being occupied with a crib service for the village children, it was the lady of the house who welcomed them. Matthew’s mother was an unusually tall woman, thin as a bean pole and as energetic as a whippet. She greeted her son with a kiss that left him with powder on his shoulder and a faint lipstick mark on his cheek. She then proceeded to bestow the same honour upon George, rather to his discomfort. “Welcome to our home, dear. So glad that Matthew’s found such a good friend in London—a mother does worry so, particularly when—”

“Mother!”

“Sorry, darling. Now, was your journey all right, George? I may call you George, mayn’t I? And you must call me Evelyn, of course.”

“Oh, ah, fine, thank you,” George said, not quite certain which question he was answering.

“Now, Agnes and her husband have got her old room, so I’ve put you two in Jimmy’s room—I hope that’s all right with you, George?—and Jimmy’s sleeping in with Peter.”

“Is Agnes here already, Mother?”

“No, she and Gerald are motoring down and won’t be with us until tea time. Now, why don’t you two boys go hang your things in your room, and I’ll go and chase up some tea.”

They escaped up the stairs. “Sorry about that,” Matthew murmured under his breath. “I forget how overwhelming she can be if you’re not used to her. This way.”

The room he led George to was large, cheerful-looking and very tidy, although with plenty of signs of its usual occupant. The mantelpiece above the small fireplace displayed, as well as a photograph of Matthew looking extraordinarily dashing in uniform, a stuffed bear with the fur worn smooth, and a scale model of a Sopwith Triplane facing down what George guessed, from the Iron Cross adorning it, must be a Fokker.

The bookshelf held well-thumbed copies of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective fiction, and George spotted other names familiar to him, such as Edgar Wallace, Erskine Childers and Austin Freeman.

“I see your brother shares your taste for detective fiction,” George remarked.

“Oh, most of those are mine, actually. I used to share this room with Jimmy before I left home,” Matthew explained. “Really, it should have been he and Peter, I suppose, as they’re the youngest, but we were all quite happy this way. Actually, I had the devil of a time when first I moved out—I missed nodding off to someone else’s snores!”

George nodded sympathetically. “I know what you mean—after sleeping in the dorm all term, I always found it rather eerie to have a room to myself in school holidays.” Having made this rare, unguarded reference to his past, George tensed, sure that Matthew would take the opportunity to enquire as to which school he’d attended.

But Matthew simply smiled at him and said, “Come on, now—let’s get our things sorted out so we can go and have some tea. I’m spitting feathers, as Mrs. Mac would say! Which bed would you prefer?”

The twin beds were to all appearances identical, down to the faded but cosy-looking bedspreads. “I don’t mind. Which used to be yours? Wouldn’t you prefer to have that one again?”

Matthew looked suddenly shy. “I always had the bed nearest the fire. But if it’s really all the same to you, I should actually prefer to take the other one. Nearer the door.” He grimaced, as if feeling an apology to be needed.

“Excellent,” George said firmly. “I’ll sleep in the warm, while you block any draughts. Now, where should I hang my things?”

By the time they returned downstairs, more guests had arrived: a tall, cheerful-looking man with dark hair and moustache who was just divesting himself of a motoring coat, and a very pregnant young lady in a broad-brimmed hat. Matthew greeted them with a fond cry. “Aggie! Gerald, old man! Good Lord, Aggie—look at you! You’re the size of a small house!”

“You know, Matthew, dear,” the lady said, striding forward and pulling off her gloves to give her brother an awkward hug, “most people just offer congratulations and enquire when the happy event is expected.” Close up, George could see that she had Matthew’s sparkling blue eyes and ready smile.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s some ordinance exempting brothers from all that sort of thing. But when
is
it due? By the look of you, we should be sending for the midwife without delay—and then getting ready to saddle the poor infant with one of those dreadful Christmas names, like Noel or Emmanuel. And by the by, I am extremely cross that you’ve kept this such a secret from me!” He didn’t, of course, look in the least cross—in fact he was as flushed with pleasure as if it were the birth of his own child he were anticipating, and not his sister’s.

“I just couldn’t resist surprising you, I’m afraid,” Agnes admitted with a dimpled smile that made her appear barely old enough to be married, although Matthew had told George she was only three years younger than he. “And anyway, I’m not as far along as all that.” She shot her husband a fond glance. “The doctor is certain it’s twins, and they aren’t due until March. Now, manners—aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?”

“I don’t know—you spring such a thing as my imminently impending uncle-hood upon me, and then expect me to remember the social niceties. Aggie, Gerald, this is George Johnson, who shares digs with me in London. You’ll approve of him as he’s training to be a solicitor, rather than doing anything so frivolous as to write advertisements for women’s underpinnings. George, this is my sister Agnes, and her husband Gerald Dorland. Gerald’s a banker, but he’s not a bad sort really.” Matthew grinned at his brother-in-law, who took the gentle teasing in good part, no doubt used to it.

They shook hands. “In the legal business, eh?” Gerald said gruffly. “Good, solid profession—you can’t go wrong with that.”

George shrugged, a little self-conscious at the way Gerald managed to make it sound as if he were a senior partner in the firm, rather than just being an articled clerk of only a month’s standing. “It’s certainly very interesting. I’ve learned an awful lot since I started.”

“Good, good,” Gerald said vaguely. “Now, best get ourselves settled in—we’ll see you later on.”

“Not that I have a thing fit to wear for dinner,” Agnes lamented. “These days, even my shoes are tight!”

“Poor old thing,” Matthew said with mock sympathy. “You know, I’m sure one of the church choir would lend you a cassock if you asked…”

“Very funny. Don’t expect either of the twins to be named after you, that’s all I can say.” With that, Agnes linked arms with her husband and made her way upstairs, and Matthew and George made for the drawing room and tea.

Getting dressed for dinner in front of Matthew was a heady mix of pain and pleasure. George had to constantly remind himself not to stare, when he’d have liked nothing better than to sit back and watch his friend undress.

As Matthew shed his shirt, George couldn’t help looking at the stump of his right arm. It was the first time he’d seen it unclothed.

“Not pretty, is it?” Matthew said wryly. Actually, it looked a great deal better than George had imagined, with very little scarring.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not really. Well, not how you’d think. Sometimes I get sort of shooting pains, which just come out of nowhere, and sometimes I get the oddest feelings, as if there’s still a hand there. But the stump itself—no, that doesn’t really hurt. I know chaps with artificial legs can get blisters and all sorts—but you really don’t want to know about all that, do you?”

“I wish I could have been as brave as you,” George said without thinking and could have bitten out his tongue.

“Me? Lord, I’m not particularly brave.” Matthew was silent a moment. “What you did, refusing to fight—that must have taken its own kind of courage. Do you mind… Tell me to shut up if you’d like, but I’m awfully curious to know what it was like for you. There were work camps, weren’t there? And I know some C.O.s were even sent out to France.”

“I wasn’t one of them.” George sighed and sat down heavily on his bed. “After the tribunal rejected my claim for exemption, I was sent my call-up papers. When I didn’t go, the police came for me. I spent the night in a cell with a couple of socialists, one of them coughing so hard I feared he might not last out the night. They didn’t think much of me either when I told them my objections to fighting were purely personal.”

Matthew came to sit beside him, still shirtless in despite of the chilly air. Still, George supposed the fire was giving out a fair amount of warmth, and some men’s blood ran hotter than others’. “And after that?”

“The next day we were handed over to the army. They didn’t do much with us until the day after
that
, so we spent another uncomfortable night trying to sleep on the bare boards of the barracks guard room. When we finally were taken for a medical exam, the doctor took one look at the chap with the cough and gave him his exemption straight away.” George grimaced in memory. “You’d think he’d have been pleased—Lord knows, I should have been—but he started shouting something about how they could stick their damned exemptions, he wanted to be known as an opponent of the war. Luckily, the coughing took over at that point and he had to stop arguing.”

“But they found you fit, I suppose?”

“Yes, I…” George’s voice sounded thick to his own ears, and his throat felt tight. “Isn’t it getting a trifle late? Shouldn’t we get on?”

Matthew glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece and jumped up from the bed. “Lord, yes, curse it. We’d best get a shift on, or Mother will be coming up to look for us.” He pulled on his dress shirt with an awkward-looking manoeuvre that George supposed must be well practised, and changed his trousers with the same efficiency. George hastened to follow suit, marvelling at how well Matthew managed despite his handicap, and trying not to dwell on the glimpses he’d caught of Matthew’s body.

It wasn’t until he stood at the mirror, tying his bow tie, that it occurred to him that this, surely, was something Matthew couldn’t possibly manage alone. And indeed, when he turned, he found Matthew waiting for him, tie loose around his collar. “Sorry to trouble you, but I don’t suppose you could tie this for me? I can manage perfectly well with a normal tie—I just don’t bother to unknot them at the end of the day—but I’m afraid this little beastie is beyond me.”

“I shall be glad to help,” George assured him, stepping closer—and only then realising he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to tie the thing from the front. He wasn’t sure, when he thought about it, that he really knew how a bow tie went—his
hands
knew what to do, but his brain had long since forgotten the intricacies of it all. He stood there with the ends in his hands, wondering what on earth to do with them.

“Maybe it would go better if you stood behind me?” Matthew suggested. “I’ll stand in front of the mirror, and you put your arms round me and just pretend you’re tying your own tie?”

George stared at his friend’s face—but it was as open and free of guile as ever. Mutely, he did as he was bidden. It was more than a little awkward—George’s arms didn’t seem quite long enough, and he was obliged to stand as close to his friend as he dared. He could feel the warmth rising from Matthew’s neck, smell the scent of him, woody and rich. The urge to close the final fraction of an inch between them and press Matthew to him was almost overwhelming, and George’s fingers fumbled with the knot of the tie.

“I am sorry to be such a bother,” Matthew apologised once more, and George could feel the rumble of that light, warm voice in his fingertips. Such a wretchedly complicated business, breathing, when one thought about it. One did it all day, every day, without any problems—and then all of a sudden, it seemed absurdly difficult to control one’s breath, to not pant down one’s friend’s collar in a most unseemly way.

George swallowed and finally managed to force his disobedient hands to finish the knot. It wasn’t, by any means, the neatest bow he’d ever tied, but it would serve. He stepped back. “No bother at all,” he said rather belatedly, and with a painfully obvious hitch in his voice.

Matthew turned slowly. “Thank you. You know, I was right—you do look awfully dashing in evening wear.” His smile was bright and seemed full of promise. George stood paralysed, fearing that if he did anything, said anything, he’d be unable to control himself and would take what was clearly on offer.

A knock on the door broke the spell. “Yes?” Matthew called.

George almost groaned aloud, whether from relief or despair he couldn’t have said. He was light-headed, a feeling halfway between having had too much wine and desperately needing a glass.

Matthew’s mother opened the door slightly and poked her head around it. “I just came up to see if you needed any help with your tie, but I see you’ve managed. Now, come along, you two! Don’t keep everyone waiting.” She disappeared.

“Well,” Matthew said, “I suppose we’d better go down.”

Chapter Fourteen

Dinner at the Rectory managed to achieve the almost impossible feat of being both formal and relaxed. It brought back bittersweet memories of dinners at home, back before the war when Hugh had been alive. When he’d died, all the life had seemed to go out of them all, George thought. His mother in particular—she’d been much less…stern, while her older son was alive.

Realising he was becoming maudlin, and reminding himself firmly that that life was dead to him now, George attacked his lamb chops with renewed vigour.

Matthew’s father, the rector, had turned out to be an erudite and entertaining man who leavened his obviously deeply held religious beliefs with a strong sense of humour. George was left in no doubt as to whom Matthew had inherited his affinity for fun from, and could easily imagine the reverend being very well loved indeed among his parishioners. He had the gift of making almost any story into an amusing anecdote, even those with more than a pinch of piety. When drawing George into conversation, he did so with tact bordering on genius, managing to avoid the past entirely without once making it obvious he was doing so.

Others, unfortunately, were not so successful. “Your own people not protesting your absence tomorrow, George?” Agnes’s husband, Gerald, asked as he passed the carrots, and George almost dropped them from his suddenly numb fingers.

“George doesn’t have any people, Gerald,” his wife said quickly, and George realised the family had been carefully primed about more than his dislike of speaking of the war. He wondered where they imagined he’d sprung from—most likely they assumed he was the by-blow of some wealthy man who’d done the decent thing by educating George and securing him a job and then washed his hands of his offspring. George could hardly fault them for that—after all, Johnson was a not unlikely surname for a child of such an informal union.

“Ah! Terribly sorry, and all that,” Gerald muttered, looking abashed. “Still, at least one doesn’t have the wrangle of keeping everyone happy, eh?” There was a faint sound, as of a shin being kicked under the table, and Gerald started perceptibly. “More wine, Agnes?” he asked abruptly.

Looking across the table, George caught Matthew’s eye and smiled at him in gratitude.

They retired after dinner to the drawing room, where they listened to gramophone records until Matthew’s brothers pronounced themselves bored and insisted upon a game of charades. Jimmy was a fresh-faced boy of eighteen in his last year of school, Peter a couple of years younger. Both boys, unlike Matthew, seemed to favour their mother in their appearance—they had certainly inherited her height—but George found Matthew’s features more appealing, and appreciated not having to crane his neck to talk to his friend.

When they finally headed off to bed, George felt a curious shyness overtake him. His thoughts kept returning to the moment of intimacy they’d shared before dinner. Had Matthew really been flirting with him? He must have imagined it, he decided. And even if he had not… It could never be.

Determined to stop torturing himself, George changed swiftly into his pyjamas and got into bed without even a glance over at Matthew’s side of the room.

“Lord, I’m tired. Must be all that travelling.” Matthew yawned loudly, stretched and began to take off his clothes painfully slowly. “Still, it’s good to be back. I hope you’re enjoying your stay so far, George?” Pulling off his shirt, he hung it up, then came to sit on George’s bed, bare-chested. “You are enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

“I… Yes, of course!” George’s throat seemed suddenly tight and his blankets far too hot. “Your family have been wonderfully welcoming.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Matthew said. “And I’m sorry if my curiosity before dinner caused you any discomfort. I don’t mean to pry, you know. I just want to understand. What it was like for you, that is. I understand perfectly well you not wanting to kill anyone.”

George kept his gaze fixed firmly on the wall. Matthew was so close, George could simply reach out a hand and touch his bare skin. “Did you kill people?” he asked in a voice that sounded quite unlike himself.

Matthew drew in a sharp breath. “Yes,” he said simply. “It was just one of those things one had to get on and do. Because I do believe the war was right. What kind of a nation would we be if treaties were just empty promises? It was our duty to help Belgium against the Hun.”

This… This couldn’t be the words of a traitor. Matthew’s voice was so sincere, so regretful, even. Surely a man who spoke like this couldn’t have dreamed of betraying his comrades? Of betraying Hugh to his death?

“Do you remember them? The men you killed?”

“Maybe I should. There was one fellow—terribly young, he was. I see his eyes sometimes… But mostly it’s the other chaps in the battalion. After you’ve shared a trench with a man—eaten together, slept together and shared a smoke together—well, he becomes real to you. In a way that a chap in a different uniform doesn’t. Shouldn’t make a difference, of course, but there it is.” Matthew shivered and stood up. “But I’d better put on my pyjamas and get into bed before I catch my death. G’night, George. Sleep tight!”

“Good night,” George echoed, wondering how on earth he was to get to sleep that night.

From the sounds of tossing and turning, he wasn’t the only wakeful one.