The Girl from Cobb Street (9 page)

Mortified, she found she could no longer make conversation, no longer mouth the trivialities that seemed necessary to the evening. But rescue was close. Colonel Forester announced that he and Edith were about to leave and, as their departure was a signal for the rest of the company to make their way home, it was only minutes before Daisy was able to hide her burning face in the darkness of the night.

Rajiv had primed a solitary kerosene lamp to light the bungalow and she undressed by its shadows. Her heart was so full she could hardly get the breath to her lungs and tears were constantly pricking at her eyes. It had all gone so horribly wrong. She’d been highly nervous, terrified of making a mistake, but she had been managing the evening well. She’d smiled, she’d listened, spoken a little and swallowed food that made her feel ill. She had made a good impression or so she’d thought, and Gerald had been pleased with her. This would have been the time to tell him what she needed him to know. But then that one devastating remark and everything had been thrown into the air.

She unclasped the necklace she had been wearing and packed it carefully away among her clean underwear. Her only necklace, the string of pearls Miss Maddox had given her when she’d won the job at Bridges. How far away that seemed now. Then she hung the silk dress back into the wardrobe, feeling she never wanted to see it again. Despite all the hopes she’d invested in the garment, it had not brought her luck. Lifting her hairbrush, she began half-heartedly to pull it through waves that, as always, had grown limp from the sultry air. In the mirror she glimpsed Gerald framed in the doorway. He was fresh from the bathroom but his pyjamas were already damp with sweat.

‘Just come to say goodnight,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’s hotter than ever, don’t you think? Best I give you a bit of space, my dear.’ And he turned to head towards the spare room.

‘Gerald!’

He looked back at her, a frown carved into his forehead. It was clear he didn’t want to stay and she felt too broken to try and detain him. But there was one thing she had to say before they parted.

‘I’m not going to Simla, Gerald.’

The frown deepened. ‘What do you mean, you’re not going?’

‘Just that. I can’t bear to be with those women.’

‘This is nonsense. What’s got into you?’ He leaned heavily on the doorframe and she remembered he had drunk lavishly.

‘I don’t want to spend the next few months hundreds of miles away from you and with no other company than people who hate me.’

‘No one hates you. If this is about that stupid remark, you should forget it. Margot Dukes is a bitch and well known for her unpleasantness. Nobody will take the least notice of her.’

‘It’s not just her. It’s all of them.’

And it was, she realised. Only a few of the women tonight had been unfriendly, several in fact had been amiable, but to be constrained to spend her days in such shallow, wearisome company was wretched. It would be weeks of trivia, of gossip, then if her knowledge of women living on top of each other was anything to go by, the inevitable fault finding, the backbiting. She would be the target, she was sure. And she was not strong enough to take it; she would buckle for certain. She tried telling herself that she was as good as anyone she’d met in Jasirapur; tried convincing herself that she should be proud of what she’d achieved against all the odds. But deep inside she knew that she didn’t really believe it.

Gerald started to walk towards her. She caught a glimpse of his figure reflected in the mirror and it was taut with tension. His voice, too, was tight and hard. ‘That’s ridiculous. I saw you talking quite happily with any number of the wives. You’ll go, and you’ll enjoy yourself.’

She shook her head and was near to tears again, but she was determined not to capitulate. As he drew closer, she rose to meet him. ‘If I go, Gerald, it won’t be willingly. You’ll have to bind and gag me to get me on that train.’

‘There’s no need for these dramatics.’ He shrugged his shoulders in a dismissive gesture. ‘I know this country far better than you, which is something you seem to forget. And if I tell you it’s for your own good that you go, you have to believe me.’

When she said nothing, his exasperation seemed to build in the silence and then spill over. ‘I’m your husband, Daisy, which means you’ll do as I wish.’

‘Why is it so important to you that I go?’

The question had come to her out of the blue but it left him looking discomfited. She could see he was struggling with the situation and wondered why. He moved even closer and took the hairbrush from her grasp, then captured both her hands in his. His voice had a note of tenderness she hadn’t heard before.

‘If you won’t do this for me, then do it for the baby. Simla is perfect. You must have heard that from everybody. And there couldn’t be a better place while you’re in this condition. You’ll love the gardens. You’ll love the walking. There are dozens of gentle strolls to take. And when you get too tired, you can call a rickshaw. At night—think of it—you’ll be able to sleep soundly in cool air. How can you not want to go? How can you deny our child the very best start in life?’

His tone had grown more coaxing with every word and she felt herself warm against his body. She wanted his arms around her, wanted to hold him so tightly he would never escape. Instead she eased her hands from out of his clasp. This was not the way she’d wanted to tell him, but she had no choice now.

‘There is no child, Gerald. There is no baby.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘
W
hat!’

‘There was an accident …’ Daisy faltered.

His face had turned ugly, contorted. ‘So suddenly there’s no baby. There was a baby when you needed to get married, though, wasn’t there?’ His normally slim figure seemed to grow bulkier, to fill the room with threat. He raised his hands as if to shake her, then let them fall slackly by his side. ‘There never was a baby, was there,’ he said bitterly. ‘It was a tale you spun. A downright lie.’

No understanding then, no sympathy, no kind words. She tried to protest but her voice was weak, drained of conviction in the face of such hurtful injustice. ‘How can you think that?’

He turned abruptly and strode to the door, then turned again and marched back to her. ‘You’ve played me for a fool, that’s how. You thought you’d catch yourself a husband and what better way to do it than pretend a pregnancy. And I thought you naïve! You’re a professional, Daisy, I underestimated you.’

‘Don’t, Gerald, please don’t. You are wrong, very wrong. I was having a baby, I swear it, but there was an incident on the ship. There were prisoners, they were agitators—and they escaped from the ship’s gaol and ran amok. They cannoned into me and I fell down a flight of stairs. The next thing I knew …’

Her voice broke. The whole dreadful scene was there before her. Flailing limbs, the sickening thump as she crunched onto the hard deck, pounding feet, loud voices and then a softer one in her ear—Grayson—and then the wetness between her legs and the dreadful realisation. Her eyes brimmed with tears at the memory.

Gerald was still smouldering but her obvious distress silenced him for a moment. But only for a moment. ‘If you really did have this accident,’ he said roughly, ‘then why not tell me about it in Bombay. Why not tell me before we married?’

‘I planned to. I wanted to, but there was no chance.’

‘What complete rubbish!’ His scorn bit into her. ‘You could have stopped the marriage at any time.’

‘I was going to tell you what had happened when you met me at the port, but you weren’t there. You didn’t come as you promised. You sent Anish instead. And then when I arrived at the church, you were in no condition to talk.’

His face clenched. He did not deny the charge but he seemed so overwhelmed with anger at the turn his life had taken, it was making him deaf to the truth. ‘You could have found a way, if you’d wanted to. And if you hadn’t sent that telegram—’

For a moment this new line of attack fazed her. ‘But that was weeks ago.’

‘It doesn’t matter how long ago it was,’ he said harshly, ‘that did it for me. I was pushed into marrying, and you must have known I would be.’ And when she stood looking blankly at him, he burst out, ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what you did. Sending a telegram to the regiment so every senior officer would read it and pass it to my Colonel. What chance did I have after that? I was summoned to account for myself—can you imagine what that felt like? Told the honour of the regiment depended on my doing the decent thing!’

‘I had no idea that would happen.’

‘Of course you hadn’t. It’s not an idea that would suit you. And it wouldn’t suit you, would it, to know that junior officers need the Colonel’s permission to marry. Though not this time, oh no. The baby saw to that. No questions asked, a wedding essential. Forester wasn’t at all happy. The army pays no marriage allowance until I’m twenty-six and that’s not until next year, but in the circumstances he had to agree.’

So that was what her companion at dinner had meant by a difficult business. She bowed her head, a small part of her appalled at the mayhem she’d set in motion. But the rest of her fought back. There had been a baby and it had been Gerald’s, she insisted to herself, and as much his responsibility as hers.

‘I wrote to you. The letters were addressed to you personally. I’m sorry if they never reached you.’

‘They reached me,’ he said grimly.

‘Then why didn’t you answer? It was only out of desperation that I sent the telegram.’

‘I was thinking what best to do.’ He looked down at the floor, refusing to look at her. ‘You gave me no time to consider—and then you did this stupid thing.’

She walked up to him, forcing him to look at her. ‘That’s not true, Gerald. I wrote every week for a month. You know I did.’

But he was intent on his own injury and it was as though she had not spoken. ‘Everyone on the station thinks I’m too young to be married. Did you know that? But I was forced into it. You forced me into it—and what was it all for? Nothing, absolutely nothing. No, I’m wrong. It’s been for something.’ His face glowered over her. ‘It has been to make me look a complete fool. Word will get around, you can be sure, and when no child appears, I’ll be the regimental patsy. How glorious that will be!’

In his agitation, he began again to pace up and down the room, his hands harrowing so fiercely through his hair she wondered that whole handfuls didn’t come loose. She sank down onto the bed and her heart did a curious little plummet. Curious because she felt nothing. She should be distraught, weeping, wailing. His brutal words should have shredded her. Instead she was completely numb. The man she had thought her rock in life was nothing more than shifting sand; the man who had sworn to love her for ever was swearing now that he had been misled, manipulated by her, driven to actions he found repugnant.
Had
she pushed for marriage when it was something he hadn’t wanted? No, he’d made the promise freely when there was no other reason to do so but love for her. She hadn’t pushed him, he’d been the one doing the pushing. He’d been urgent in his wooing, drowning her in sweet words and sweet deeds.

She wanted nothing more than to hide away, pull the bedsheet over her face and forget the world existed. It was a struggle to speak but she had to know for sure.

‘Does that mean that you never loved me? That without your Colonel’s order, you would never have married?’

Her voice was barely above a whisper and for the first time Gerald’s face showed a fleeting guilt. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ His voice dropped to a mumble. ‘It’s too soon. This was the last thing I needed.’

‘But our time in London?’

‘That was fun, Daisy, fun. That’s all.’

He had come to a halt just feet away and she looked at him, a long and careful look. His face was mottled scarlet and the palest of whites.

‘Was it fun to persuade me into giving myself to you, fun to promise marriage and not mean it?’

He had no answer and said sulkily, ‘I had other plans.’

‘What other plans?’

‘It doesn’t matter. They’re dead in the water, destroyed, and all for nothing.’ His anger was spent and he slumped wearily down on the fraying wicker chair. ‘Do you know I came top of my class at Hanbury, top of my class at Sandhurst,’ he said in a tight, high voice. ‘That’s how I got here against all the competition. I was going places and now I’m not.’ Then as an afterthought, he muttered, ‘Every sacrifice made worthless.’

What was he talking about? Who had made sacrifices? Not his family surely, if he’d told her their true story. But if he hadn’t … the letter from Spitalfields swam clearly into sight. To find the money for a boy to attend a top public school would be hard for an East End tailor, she thought, and then to equip that boy to become a cavalry officer in the Indian Army, even more so. Is that what had happened? Was that the sacrifice? Had Spitalfields not Somerset been Gerald’s childhood playground and the Indian Army as far away from it as he could get? It seemed more than ever likely that he had lied to her about his past, just as he’d fed her fantasies during their weeks together in London.

If her suspicions were right, he had deceived her absolutely, yet a minute ago he’d dared to accuse
her
of deception. Her fault had been unintended but his was squalid. He’d lied and then seduced her for ‘fun’. She had been raised under a strict moral code and with her mother’s dishonour ringing in her ears. So many times she had burned with shame when Lily Driscoll had been held up as a dreadful warning. The orphanage had made her pay for her mother’s mistake. And she’d vowed that she would never repeat it. But when she’d drunk alcohol for the first time that night, it had had all the effect Gerald could have wished. She’d known what was happening to her in that small room in Paddington but she’d pushed away the knowledge, wanting so much to please him, wanting to show him the depth of her love. Like a simpleton, she’d accepted what he told her—that they were simply anticipating the event, that they would marry very soon—and that was because they were words she’d wanted to hear.