“Nonsense.” Acland returned her smile. He lifted his hand and began to count off upon his fingers. “Christened, Church of England. Confirmed, Church of England. Eton and Balliol. Son of a High Tory squire. Grandson of a High Tory squire. The imagination in my family died out years ago. It died out as soon as they acquired money. In a few years’ time, Constance—maybe not quite yet, but it will come—you’ll look in my eyes, and you know what you will see? Complacency. The sang-froid of the Englishman. I shall have it to perfection by then, because it takes at least three generations to acquire—ten, probably, if you want the truly finished article.”
“You’re lying.” Constance’s eyes had remained fixed on his face. “You’re lying, Acland—and you’re also leaving something out. What is it? There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you haven’t told me?”
“I’ve joined up.” He extricated his hands from Constance’s grasp. There was a silence.
“I see,” Constance said at last. “When?”
“Three days ago.”
“Which regiment?”
“The Gloucestershire Rifles.”
“Ego Farrell’s regiment?”
“Yes. Ego is dead.”
“Ah—” Constance drew in her breath. “You mean to replace him then?”
“In a sense. I felt I owed him something—that I owed him that. No one knows yet. I shall tell them tonight. Tomorrow perhaps. I have to train first, in any case. I’ll have to learn to kill. They’ll send me to officer training camp.”
“Draw back the curtains, Acland.”
“You should rest now—”
“In a minute I will. But not yet. Stay five minutes more. It’s raining again, I think. I can hear the rain. Draw back the curtains. Just for a moment. I want to look.”
Acland hesitated; then, as much to placate her as anything, he did as she asked. He returned to the side of the bed.
“Switch off the lamp for a moment. Look …” Constance’s thin face strained toward the window. “Look, there is a moon.”
Acland turned. He looked through the shadows of the room, at a moon almost full and at clouds scudding. They obscured the light one moment; the next it shone forth. Acland looked and, as he gazed, found he saw not just the moon and the clouds, but thoughts, possibilities, and imaginings. They sped formless through his mind, opening up a bright space and then clouding it. A moon, glimpsed; a sick girl, who had been intent on dying.
He remained still, with his face turned to the window, yet the proximity of Constance beat in upon him. He could feel her hand, a few inches from his own, as surely as if he touched it; her hand, her skin, her hair, her eyes. At the same moment they turned to look at each other.
“Acland. Will you hold me? Just for a moment? Will you?”
Constance lifted her arms; Acland bent. It happened, a curious embrace, although he was not conscious of moving, or of taking the decision to move. One moment he still stood by the bed; the next he felt Constance’s thinness strain against him.
He could feel each bone in her rib cage; he could have counted the hard knot of each vertebra. He could feel the heat of her face, which she pressed against his neck. Her hair, made lank by her illness, felt damp, a little greasy against his skin. He lifted a lock of this hair between his fingers, as he had done once before; this time, he pressed it against his lips. Constance was the first to draw back.
Her hands gripped him, so she forced him to look down into her face. When she began to speak, she did so with great intensity.
“No explanations,” she said. “No repercussions or promises. Just this. Just this one time and this one incident. I always knew it was there. You knew it was there, too—the day by the lake, you knew then. Did you know then? No. Don’t answer me.” She pressed one hot thin hand across his lips. “Don’t answer me. I don’t want answers any more than questions. Just this. I need it—to give me strength.”
She broke off. She lifted her hand and touched his hair, then his face, then his eyes. She covered his eyes with her hand. When she removed it, Acland saw she was smiling.
“Later, you’ll tell yourself this was my illness peaking. That’s all right—later. But don’t believe it now. I won’t let you believe it now. I’m not feverish. I was never more calm. You can go in a minute—but not yet. Before you go, you have to promise me something.”
“Promise you what?”
“Promise me not to die.”
“It’s a little difficult—to promise someone that.”
“Don’t smile. I mean this. I want you to swear. Lift your hand—press it against mine. Like that. Promise me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know you will live. That you are there. Even if we never meet. However much time passes and we change, I want to know you are there, somewhere. It’s important. Promise.”
“Very well. I promise.”
He moved toward the door. A curious promise; a curious bond. Again, as he had earlier, Acland sensed he crossed some invisible divide: a time out of time; a step through the looking-glass.
He opened the door. Constance’s eyes were now shut, her breathing regular. He wished her goodnight but she did not answer him. He lingered at the door, unsure. A clock ticked.
On the landing outside, he passed the room where the nurse sat, door ajar, asleep in a chair. He walked farther along the landing, reached the stairwell, and looked down. At the bottom of those stairs waited the ordinary world, a family returning from an opera, the explanation that he was going to the war.
He ought to go down and wait for them, but he was reluctant to leave the shadows of the landing. He was not ready yet. He was not yet … depressurized—yes, that was it, like a diver who had been down to the depths of the ocean and had to wait to breathe ordinary air. Full fathom five. He rested his hand on the banister; there remained, in his mind and in his body, something insubstantial and unresolved, a vestigial need. After some while he understood that the need was for a woman.
He turned back. He walked quietly along the corridor. The door of Jenna’s room was also ajar; he looked in. She was seated with her back to him, at a table, writing. Acland leaned against the wall. He closed his eyes. The corridor was full of whispers.
Did you sleep with her, Freddie?
No. She wouldn’t. Everything else, but not that.
Everything?
She liked to touch. And watch. Sometimes—
Sometimes what?
She likes the dark. She likes mirrors. She says words—
What kind of words?
Those words. The words women don’t use. She learned them from the journals—
I don’t understand. Are you making this up?
No. She’ll do anything. And she frightens me.
Acland opened his eyes. He looked through into the lighted room. A pen scratched. The air was full of Constance. She pursued him from the bedroom into the passageway; she led him on, beckoning. A chair, a table, a bed, a woman—Constance was in there waiting; he could sense her detonations. He could smell her hair and her skin. He could put his hand between her thighs. He could stroke her breasts. Her hair brushed his eyes. She took her small jeweled hand, crammed with cheap rings, her child’s hand, and she touched him as a woman would touch. She ran her hand up his thigh; she made his cock rigid. This was what Constance did—to someone else.
He pushed back the door, entered. Jenna started. She turned, gave a low cry, scraped back her chair.
“What’s wrong? Is it the fever again? I’ll come—”
Acland closed the door.
“Constance is asleep. I came to see you.”
Jenna stopped. Her face became rigid.
“I was writing—writing to Jack. I just began. I owe him a letter. Acland, what’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing is wrong.”
“You’re white. You look so white—”
“I’ve been with Constance. Also, I’ve joined up. I wanted to tell you. I think I wanted to tell you
—”
“Shhh.” Jenna took a step forward. “Keep your voice low. The nurse will hear us.”
She came closer. Her lips moved. She was speaking again, and Acland could hear some of her words, but the closer she came the farther away she seemed. She looked small, distant, a figure gesturing on a platform while he rushed away on a steam train, a troop train. Going to the war. The room was small, too—he could see that now; all its details were precise, meaningful and meaningless, as if he viewed them from the wrong end of a telescope. A chair, a table, a bed, and a woman. The woman had begun to touch him. She touched well enough, and he wanted sex; sex was the way through, his depressurization chamber. Constance, sex, war: that was the progression.
“Look at me. Acland, look at me.” She had taken his hand. “I know why you came. We can. If you want, we can.”
She was whispering now, drawing him toward the bed. But something was wrong; there was something lacking. She liked to go to places where we might be caught. Your room, Acland …
Acland turned. He opened the door. He left it three inches ajar. Jenna’s eyes widened. When she began on another whispered protest, Acland rested his fingers on her mouth. The room sighed its assent; it settled.
As he moved toward the bed, and a woman (who might have been crying), Acland thought: Your turn to watch, Constance. I’ll show you—about fucking.
The next day, or perhaps the next week—the entry was undated—Constance wrote this in her journal:
Three facts:
1) The night Acland came to my room, he told me one lie. A serious lie. Interesting.
2) He went from me to Jenna. That is all right. I like Jenna. She may be my understudy.
3) He is going to the war. When he told Gwen this, she fainted.
Gwen also wept, cajoled, insisted, pleaded. When Acland proved obdurate, his decision irreversible, Gwen gave in; she had never had the stamina for prolonged opposition.
Once he had left for his training camp, Gwen set her mind to ensuring his survival. There were techniques she had already learned from Boy’s absence at this war; now she redoubled them. Gwen believed that the fate of her sons depended upon herself; she could protect them now from wounds as she had once protected them, when children, from illness. It required concentration of mind: If she could remain busy enough, brave enough, if she thought constantly of her sons and willed their safety hourly, then her love would have the power of an amulet. No bullets, mines, or shells could pierce this invisible shield.
She became—more than ever before—superstitious. She banned the color green from her house and her wardrobe. She felt a horror of the number thirteen, even on a passing omnibus. She skirted all ladders. She kept, about her room and her person, many small charms and relics of her boys. Every day she would invoke the powers of these articles; she would pray over them. Scraps of her sons’ hair, cut when they were babies; drawings they had made for her as children; a Saint Christopher medal; a pair of blue satin baby shoes; the letters her sons now sent from the front: Gwen believed in the powers of these inanimate things. She felt it pulse when she touched them.
She was furtive about these prayers and invocations—Denton would have dismissed them angrily. She was also sentimental. She was also lonely.
To be afraid, yet unable to speak of the fear, intensified it. Gwen knew this, but there was, at first, no one to whom she could turn. Maud, whose interest in the war was intermittent, was caught up in a round of parties. Denton slumbered whole days away by the fire. Both Freddie—who had been found a job by Jane Conyngham, driving an ambulance in Hampstead—and Steenie were occupied with their own lives. Steenie would bring his new friends back to the house: Conrad Vickers, a would-be photographer; one Basil Hallam, well connected but an actor; an odd shambling bear of a man, American, always known as Wexton. Gwen did not know what to make of these friends. They seemed worryingly Bohemian. With the possible exception of Wexton they seemed unaware there was a war on. So, Gwen was lonely, but this loneliness did not last. She was to find a new companion, a new confidante—and that was Constance.
At first the process was gradual. Constance was recovering from her mysterious illness, which had ended as abruptly as it began. Gwen took pleasure in her convalescence. The empty weeks were punctuated with small victories: Constance came downstairs for the first time; she took her first walk in the park; she ate dinner with the rest of the family.
This process cemented a new friendship between them. As the weeks passed, Gwen discovered something else: Constance could be excellent company.
There seemed no scars; there was no sign that the illness had left any legacy of lassitude or depression. On the contrary, Constance had a new and avid zest for life. She talked—how she talked! Gwen discovered that Constance had healing powers: Whenever she felt sad or afraid, Constance could console her.
She was amusing, of course—that was part of it. She had zip and drive. She loved to gossip; she listened attentively to all the stories of London society that Gwen received at second hand from Maud. She loved to discuss feminine things: hats, gloves, dresses, the countless fine shadings of fashion. She liked to make shopping expeditions with Gwen—brief ones at first, then more lengthy and adventurous ones. Returning from these expeditions, small parcels dangling from their wrists, pausing in a smart tea shop to take tea, they would discuss these spoils enjoyably.
Gwen had never had a daughter; these harmless delights were new to her. For the first time in her life, she accepted Constance. A residual wariness, always there before, passed away. “Constance,” Gwen would say, “what would I do without you?”
And then, Constance was adaptable. She was not always a fount of gaiety. Her instincts were subtle—she knew when Gwen wanted diverting; she also knew when Gwen needed to be quieter.
Constance, sensing this need, would draw her out. She would encourage Gwen down the gentler pathways of nostalgia. Sitting by the fireside on these restful afternoons as autumn turned to winter, Gwen opened her heart to Constance. She described her own childhood in Washington, D.C.; she described her parents, her sisters and brothers. All kinds of details would come back to Gwen as she spoke—details that, until then, she had forgotten. The brougham her father kept up; the rides they used to take, across the river to visit cousins in Virginia; the dresses her mother had worn; the readings her father gave each Sunday morning, from the Bible.
None of Gwen’s family had ever shown great interest in these stories, but Constance did. She would sit, concentrated and still, apparently rapt. “Oh, America,” she said on one occasion. “America. I should love to go there. A new world. How lucky you are, Gwen, to have traveled.”
Encouraged by this, Gwen moved on. She told the story of her meeting with Denton, and their engagement. Winterscombe, and the birth of her children. Gwen passed over the Shawcross years—and on that period, Constance never prompted her.
From the immediate family to Denton’s. Gwen filled in some of Maud’s background. She described the Italian princeling, Maud’s Monte Carlo life. She approached the advent of Sir Montague Stern, said perhaps too much, and halted. This was not, she realized, a topic to discuss with a girl. Constance smiled.
“Oh, you need not be delicate. I am not a child now. I know Stern is Aunt Maud’s lover. Why shouldn’t he be? He is younger than Maud, of course, but such a clever and generous man….”
Gwen was shocked at first. The word lover was unexpected. She might have preferred some more decorous term—protector, perhaps. But Gwen was not staid; she had a sense of humor, and Constance was now looking at her in such a way, amused, slightly conspiratorial…. Times were changing. Gwen was tempted to go on.
“Well, of course, he is a Jew. I am not too prejudiced, I think, on that score. But some people are. Most people are. It makes it hard for Maud, I often think. Even Denton, you know …”
“Denton? But he invites him so often!”
“I know. I sometimes find it curious. But there you are—one cannot al
ways account for Denton’s actions. And of course, Stern does have the most powerful connections….”
The moment of resistance was over; Gwen was launched. She and Constance had a most interesting talk on the subject of Maud, Stern, the rumors about Stern, the lack of positive information, his discretion, his generosity, and his riches. It was at the end of this conversation, which both enjoyed very much, that Constance sighed. She reached across and pressed Gwen’s hand.
“You know,” she said, “you should go out more. It makes me feel guilty—I shouldn’t like to think you stayed here on account of me. I am quite strong again now. We could go out more, you know. We could go together….”
Gwen was touched by this.
“I suppose that we could now …” she began, somewhat wistfully.
“But of course we could! It would do us both good!” Constance sprang to her feet. “Let’s! We could begin tomorrow.”
In this way, Constance’s entry into society began. It began at a tea party of Maud’s, the next day.
There followed a most hectic and enjoyable period, which was to last some nine months. It began in the autumn of 1915, when Acland was still at his officer training camp; it continued even after Acland left for France.
Gwen had made brief forays before into the glittering world in which Maud held court, but she had always held back, fearing she was not brilliant enough to be accepted by such a world. Now, encouraged by Constance, Gwen ventured. She discovered acceptance was much easier than she had imagined.
Many of the other women who sat on the pinnacles of this society were American, too, among them Maud’s great crony and sometime rival, Lady Cunard. These women took to Gwen, and to Constance, whom Gwen or Maud would chaperone. They were blessed with a powerful energy; Gwen and Constance were quickly swept up in an unceasing whirl of activity. There were the luncheon parties, the tea parties, the soirees, the “crushes,” the suppers, the balls; there were the committees—an endless number of them, raising money for soldiers’ wives, raising money for the select private nursing units, which sent titled women, women of good family, to nurse in France. Gwen’s presence on these committees was sought after, she found, and so were the checks she persuaded a reluctant Denton to write on the charities’ behalf.