The Diamond Waterfall (38 page)

“It'd be grand,” she said. “If you wanted to. If it's not a trouble. You could eat with us. Do you still like fat rascals—you remember, the ones I used to make for Mam? You were a greedy one for those.”

Olive.

“I should have stayed at the convent,” the girl said.

Alice, already in bed, watched her as, by the light of a candle, she tried to hang a large, shapeless flowered dress. Her valise, gaping open, was disorderly and crowded.

“Were you a nun?” she asked, mildly curious.

“Jesus Mary Joseph. I never heard such a thing.
Me
a Sister! The Lord knows better than to …” She held up two unmatching shoes. “Now wait while I look for the others. No, no, I meant only—those were the days, weren't they? Everything nice and ordered and the Sisters thinking well of
you. At the hospitals now—
that
sort of Sister—you never know what you've done wrong.”

Alice said, “I suppose then, you're a Roman Catholic?”

“What else now? You never mind, do you?”

Alice had been almost asleep in the tent, which was now home, when the new arrival burst in:

“Aren't I the noisy one, Jesus forgive me—did I wake you? O'Driscoll, Molly O'Driscoll—just off the boat. Did they not tell you about me?”

“Nothing,” said Alice. “They don't …” She felt a headache come on suddenly, a throbbing at the back of her head.

“You're Miss Firth, is that right now? What else do they call you? The girl was sleeping here before, what had she wrong? I heard she was bad—”

“Quinsy,” Alice said, “Miss Penruddock had quinsy—with complications. She's been shipped home.”

“Jesus Mary Joseph, if it isn't enough with whizz-bangs all over without we've to worry about germs.”

Roman Catholic, Alice thought, and remembered Aunt Violet. (When did I last think of her? Terrible Christmas visit all those years ago after the trouble with Uncle Lionel. Never the same again, after she let me down. Forced occasionally to see her, yes, but never of my own accord. Less and less as the years went by. When in the end she moved to live with her daughter's family, I could hardly bring myself to say good-bye.)

Molly held up a pair of silver shoes:

“I never had so much space before—all my finery, my best shoes now, I've got feet so small you'd never believe—just look at the size of me—would you think it?”

She was a big girl, with close-curling unruly hair, unsuccessfully stuffed under her nurse's felt hat. She talked fast in a breathy voice, her wide mouth smiling constantly. Everything about her was large and expansive and, Alice feared, quite irrepressible. A chatterbox too—a chatterwallet as Hal had used to say.

Seeing a silver dress join the shoes, Alice said, “Whenever do you think you'll wear all that stuff?”

“Well now—if I should go dancing with a cavalryman—there're cavalry officers here, aren't there?—then … Look at these now, I wore them last in Dublin.”

“But we're not allowed out with officers. People have had enough trouble even when it's a brother or father—so how you suppose—”

“There might be a change, mightn't there now? Jesus Mary Joseph, they can't go on being so coldhearted. Wicked it is when we work as hard as we do.”

Since Marjorie's departure Alice had had two temporary companions sharing the tent. The last one had smelled so badly (these were very warm
days) she had thought seriously of sleeping outside among the lettuces and flower patches dug around the tents. It was late summer now and it seemed a long time since the first of July and the hectic days after. She and Marjorie had stayed in Le Havre until the end of the month, when they had come to Rouen, to a camp hospital erected on the racecourse. In her free time she had fallen in love with Rouen—although it was as ever almost impossible to explore it without Marjorie's company (I am not as good as I think at hurting people). When Marjorie had had to go home, she hadn't been able to suppress a sigh of relief.

That evening of Molly's arrival, desperate to get some sleep, she wondered if this newcomer might not overwhelm her in a different way. But Molly confounded her almost at once by fastening up her valise, half its contents still muddled up inside, throwing off her coat and hat, splashing herself with cold water in the canvas bowl, undressing, and rolling into bed. “Don't we both need sleep—dear Mother of God I'm tired, I'll say my prayers lying down.”

In the morning, she hardly spoke. Just shook her head to and fro, trying to wake. Splashing more cold water. Tugging a comb unsuccessfully through the wayward hair.

That evening Alice noticed that she'd fastened to the canvas a piece of stiff paper with at least eight or nine photographs glued on. All snapshots. She saw in one a nun's coif. She asked, “Is that a Sister from your convent?”

“Not at all. That's Sister Columba—Eileen that was. My own sister. And that's Pat there who's married—three he has already. And there's my Uncle Denis and my Uncle Ted, and that there's Matt—he's only a little one, but—say a prayer for him now, we're all hoping he'll be a priest.”

Willing at almost no invitation to talk about her family, she was curious too in a warmhearted way about Alice. A day or two later, when they were comparing nursing experiences, she clapped her hands with delight when she heard Alice hoped to be married in about a month. That she planned to break her contract and go home.

“And you never said it. That you were promised! Tell me about him— what do you call him, where's his picture?” She could not hear enough. “Isn't that romance now? Nearly
five
years! My problem, they're all lovely boys—I daren't pray to get any special one for there won't be three days pass before I fall for another. Oh, but they're
all
lovely.”

She marveled that Alice should continue nursing until so near the marriage, that she did not go now and wait for him at home. She was sad too, to be losing Alice so soon. “Just the friend I needed—someone quiet that keeps me in order. Jesus Mary Joseph …”

After ten days or so Alice felt Molly had always been there. She could not explain to herself what made her so comforting. She seemed on the surface
the very sort of person she would usually try to avoid. But after a little, she realized that in a strange way it was of Mama that Molly reminded her.

“Darling heart,” she called Alice. “Darling heart, did you hear what that Sister called me? I shall never like that woman. Won't I have to say in Confession I wished her at the bottom of the sea—anywhere but Somewhere in France.”

Confession. What was all this? Confession. Yes, Aunt Violet had spoken of it, but in a hushed tone, as if it had been something “not quite nice.” Now, sitting in a cafe near Rouen Cathedral, she asked Molly question after question about Confession. Molly, although glad to tell her, was surprised that something so everyday should fascinate.

“And when I've been naughty,” she told Alice, “like kissing a boy—oh, it's hard to say no, isn't it now, Jesus Mary Joseph, when they want a little cuddle—oh, aren't I glad I can confess it all.”

She explained, “Venial sins, the little ones—you tell the Father those. It's not so bad now if you forget a few. It's the
mortal
sins you mustn't miss out.”

Mortal sins killed the life of the soul. She was fascinated by this world where a soul might be killed—and then brought back to life. Absolution. The priest, who was in God's place. “Even if they're old and cross and haven't listened to a word, when they say, ‘Go in peace and pray for me,' it
works
… you really are washed clean.”

They went into the cathedral together. Molly said, “You see that light burning, the lamp there, that means the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lord's
really
there.”

She emptied her purse of centimes, lighting candles for her whole family. Even with some of them sharing, they nearly filled one of the circular brass stands. “Don't they make a lovely sight—sending prayers up to heaven. Ask Our Lady,” she told Alice, “if you've anything special, but you think Our Lord mightn't want it for you. Ask Her. She won't refuse, or rather her Son won't when She asks. It's absolutely true. If only everybody knew.”

On their next visit to Rouen, Alice too lit candles—one for Hal that he would be kept in England forever, another for Vesey, already in France, one for Saint on the high seas. Lastly for Gib and herself—together. Oh, make us happy soon. May I make
him
happy, always and forever, amen.

“I hope you lit one now for that lovely boy you're to marry.”

What if, she thought, what if one day I were to become part of this lovely warm world—where a mother looks after you, a father is
always right,
and even the most terrible things can be forgiven.
(Where dead souls can be brought back to life.)

But then, she thought, a vicar's son? When Gib is a schoolmaster again, what will they think of a Roman Catholic wife for a housemaster, a
headmaster?
It would not do.

The next day she received a letter from him, written in great haste,
telling her his expected embarkation leave had been put forward. “Everything suddenly at sixes and sevens”—could she hurry back
please.
She was breaking her contract, wasn't she, so there should be no problems? If she would wire what date she could arrive by, he would arrange the ceremony for the next day but one—“so that you may have your beauty sleep!”

Molly hugged her, full of romantic excitement. “Isn't it the best thing in the world? You'll be wanting a baby as soon as ever, to keep you company. How terrible that he goes—Jesus Mary Joseph keep him safe. Darling heart, how I'll miss you. I can't believe it's only a month we were together—what will I do now when that terrible Sister pitches into me?”

She arrived at Victoria Station in the pouring rain after a crossing that had taken most of the night. She had first to sign some papers in Central London before going on to Kings Cross. From there she wired home.

I am too tired to get married, she thought, shivering exhaustedly in the railway carriage. The journey north seemed endless. She could think of nothing but how soon she could lay her head on a clean pillow, clean linen sheets covering her. (Had she left enough time—just one day—to rid herself of dirt and lice and all the unmentionables, to be clean and fresh and beautiful for
my wedding day?)

The motorcar came to meet her, Gib with it. She saw at once from his face, even before he greeted her, that something was very wrong. But during the first two or three minutes, he only asked tenderly after her journey.

Then: “Look,” he said suddenly, stammering a little in his distress, “1-look, Alice—there's a piece of bad news. Your wire this afternoon—it wasn't the
only
wire today. You see …”

He told her gently. But oh, it cannot be, she thought,
it is not true. Who can be so cruel?
He didn't have the second wire with him. He said he could not bear for her even to see it. She protested:

“But if they want you tomorrow, if your draft really goes early—why can't you wire back and explain? Explain that you are
getting married
the day after tomorrow.” Then: “Oh, but you're so weak, so stupid,” she cried, frantic with distress and fatigue.

He said sadly, “Alice, Alice.
You
should know—part of the Forces. Life in the Army is not like that—”

“Two more, even
one
more day, they could, they could, couldn't they?” She almost wanted to hit him. As if it were
his
doing.

“And France,” she said over and over again, “it's to France you go. I might never—we might never …”

Out of all this nightmare that was the worst. And then, she thought later that evening, at last tucked up in bed (how wonderful that was to have been),
it is all my fault
She wanted to blame the Kaiser, Field Marshal French, the
King, Gib's commanding officer, Gib himself. (Not God. It was not God's doing.) It is my fault. I should have married him in 1914,
when he urged me.

It was so terrible, they were not really able to discuss it at all. Sick empty fatigue and disappointment, and underlying them—fear, and more fear. She, who had so longed for sleep, could not sleep at all. In the morning when he was ready to leave (she had thought once, wildly, Why can't we be married by his father,
before breakfast?)
she insisted on going with him as far as Northallerton. She would have even liked to go on to London.

On the way they scarcely spoke. And, as if by common consent, they did not discuss any plans for another wedding date. He did ask at one point what she planned to do about the broken contract. “I don't know, I don't know,” she said. Angry with him for even asking.

She had to leave him. The lips that kissed him, the hands that held his, were drier, more despairing, than those which had said good-bye eighteen months ago, before Gallipoli.

Perhaps they were of some use, all those strings that had been so unsuccessfully pulled for Hal? It was difficult usually to go back when a contract had been broken. To return to France, impossible.

Yet within three weeks, she was back with Molly. Three terrible weeks— fending off Teddy's sympathy, which she found irritating (what does
she
know of anything?) and her proprietary remarks about Gib (just because she has spent so much time with the officers). And worrying always. He was in the reserve lines now. But any moment … How could she ever be at peace again?

She had forced herself to take some leave, have a little time at home, while her father telegraphed this high-up, and that high-up. He was successful. So soon had it all happened after her departure that her papers had not been made final yet—a point here and there was stretched. It was in some ways, she thought, almost as
if it had never been.