The Diamond Waterfall (39 page)

Molly was overjoyed at her return (“If you'd seen who they put in this tent after you'd gone. Mother of God.”), but filled with righteous anger at what the powers that be were capable of. “Jesus Mary Joseph. It's never true. And there I was praying and praying. Our Lord must have something very special in store for you, that He makes the two of you suffer so. I'll begin a novena at once. And a decade of the rosary a day—I can manage that on night duty, honest to God, I can. And I'll write home. Matt's prayers— they're really powerful, darling heart.”

Six weeks later Alice spoke to the RC chaplain at the hospital about being received into the Church. She had thought about it, in every free moment, for the last four weeks.

Because of the unusual situation, and the excited promises of Molly to be of great help, the usual quite lengthy course of instruction was waived. In
early December she was received quietly. Molly was her godmother. On December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, they were both free for part of the morning and attended High Mass in Rouen Cathedral.

She would have been happier than she had been for many years—if it had not been for the coruscating worry about Gib's safety. And also the fact that she had not told him of her change of religion—even though Molly had urged her to. She thought she would wait till after Christmas, which seemed sensible. Occasionally she would have the wild idea of breaking her contract again, of seeking him out, of marrying him
in France.

Then came good news—she had to think of it as good. He was wounded. Leg, shoulder. Serious, but curable with time. The news was slow in reaching her; when it did he was already in hospital at the First London General. Now was not the time.

When, rarely enough, she read a newspaper, she would seize avidly on the name of anyone said to be married to a Roman Catholic, to see if their career had prospered. It will be all right, she thought. She prayed that it might be…. Anyway it was unimaginable that anything … What could come between her and Gib?

Icy cold winter of early 1917. Remembering what Marjorie's father's professor friend had said, about the guns. In their tents, the water froze. Her chilblains were the worst ever. Sister was rude about her damaged finger, saying that Alice held it in an affected way. “It would be better to
use
it.”

In the coldest days of February, Molly had a sudden bright idea on one of their afternoons off in Rouen, passing by the Hotel de la Poste: “Jesus Mary Joseph, why not?”

Going in, she arranged for them to rent a room with private bathroom for three hours. “Why don't we forget we're ministering angels, and look after ourselves a little while? Don't we deserve it? I've the money, if you have.”

Sheer luxury, and such a success that they did it every time they had a free afternoon off together. Molly sometimes made jokes about finding a lovely cavalry officer to be naughty with (“I'd only kiss and cuddle of course”). But Alice, lying in the deep bath, steam all about her, clean towels beside her, knowing she would soon step onto heavy pile carpet, soft, in a warm room—perhaps an hour's sleep in the bed—could not help thinking, A honeymoon, one day, Gib and I. When it's all over.

She didn't write to him as often as she should. Perhaps because, as she had not told him something so important about herself, her letters were no longer really truthful. His had become duller. It hurt his shoulder to hold a pen for long. He was in Flaxthorpe now at The Towers—he had been able to choose it as his follow-up hospital. How odd, to think of him there—
as a patient
She hoped his roommates were congenial, that Teddy's well-meaning
ministrations were not too overexuberant—he sounded as if he needed peace —she sensed that he was exhausted not only in body but in spirit.
They cannot send him out again.
Belle Maman wrote that he looked better. When I get leave, she thought, I shall tell him.

In April she learned that Vesey had been killed during the Battle of Arras. Gib grieved.

Molly was away on long leave for a fortnight in May. Alice missed her terribly—though as the carping Sister had been changed for a more sympathetic one, life was a little easier. Gib was soon to go to a camp in the Midlands. She'd hoped to get leave in early June, but had been told it was unlikely before September. News that Hal was now out in Flanders caused fresh worries.

In late July she and Molly saw a wedding party come out of the cathedral—a wartime wedding, but still with some finery. The groom in French cavalry uniform, spurs glittering. She wanted suddenly for herself a wedding in
that
cathedral, which had become so dear to her. If she and Gib could be married like that …

Soon after, she and Molly and several others were transferred to a base hospital at Camiers again. Once more near the sea. When they had been there only a week or two there was a bout of fierce fighting and a heavy convoy of wounded. She was all day in the operating room. When the guns rose to a certain crescendo, the instruments in the steel trays would rattle. She thought of them as teeth chattering with fear.

A letter from Gib. She saw the beloved handwriting, and thought with a sudden surge of love, When I am next free I shall write a truly long letter. (He knows how it is here.) She would have liked to read it immediately. Quickly first, and then again slowly, when she was off duty.

She had time only to push it into the pocket of her long skirt before going to assist in surgery with a man who appeared to have lost most of his chest and the greater part of his jaw. (Oh, let that not be Gib, let that not be Hal.)

It wasn't till late afternoon that she was able to open it. Her head spun with fatigue as she sat alone in the tent, on the edge of the bed, tearing at the flimsy envelope, passed by the censor.

When she read it, she thought for a moment her heart had stopped. She could not believe what she read. Her hand trembled, holding the sheets of paper. “No, no,” she said out loud. “No …”

“I got some news, in this letter—”

“Darling heart,” Molly cried, “who's gone west? Your brother—no, don't—is it
Gib?
You're white as a sheet, darling. Mother of God. Let me
look now for some of the comforts, just wait now—a little drop of brandy…. Sit down, will you now,
sit—”

“Nobody's dead, Molly. Not even wounded. It's—”

“Thank God for that. Jesus be praised—”

“Gib's marrying someone else. That's what's in the letter.”

“Never!
Darling heart, it's never the truth…. Is it
him
says it? These days, there's always women want to upset—”

“He wrote it himself.”

“Oh but that's—Sacred Heart of Jesus, what can I say? Who could do that to you, it's wicked! Wicked when you're out here serving in France, and he's …”

(Oh but this was the indignation Mama showed, when someone thwarted me, reprimanded me.)

“Maybe just now, he's not himself—and he's been
trapped.
Here's the brandy, drink up now, drink up, will you? It'll be a
bad
woman sure as Mary's in heaven—you said his nerves weren't right. He'll never go through with it…. What we'll do when you've drunk that, is sit and write him a letter that'll
show—”

“Molly,” she said, “but Molly, he marries tomorrow.
Today
… I don't know…. But it's too late—”

“We'll send a telegram then—why ever not?”

“Saying what?”

She saw Molly hesitate.

She said, “Whatever could we put? He's a grown man, he may do what he pleases …” She broke down then, head forward at the table, great dry sobs. “It's not true,” she said, “tell me it isn't …”

Molly's arms went around her neck, her voice warm, consoling: “We could ask Our Lady would she make him change his mind … No, that might … Oh, but aren't men wicked, there's no getting away from it at all. You might feel better if you prayed, though I know well enough
I
couldn't.”

The brandy had made her lips numb. First burning, then numb. “I'll try —I can't think, just now. Shock.”

“Is she anyone you know at all? I shouldn't have said those things, about wicked and that—aren't I always speaking without thinking? The one he's marrying, do you know her?”

“Teddy. It's my stepsister. Teddy.”

There wasn't any way of managing the letter. She had read it once—and now could not bear to look at it. The phrases he had used burned in her mind. She tried again and again to blot out the thought:
it is worse than if he had died.

… the most difficult letter I have ever had to write. It would be so much better if I could speak to you. I have made a number of, very
unsuccessful, attempts to explain everything, and have torn them up. Neither explanation nor excuse are possible, and anything at all I can say is completely inadequate. I ask you to believe that your friendship has meant more to me than … I have to ask you formally, to release me from our engagement … No way of making the cold words on paper, warm. And yet I feel … Alice, it was very wrong of me not to write much, much sooner—when first I had doubts…. We are so well suited as
friends
… But perhaps marriage …

How could it all have happened? People did not get married who had not
thought
about it. Yes—three or four months thrown together at The Towers. But had no one noticed? And that Belle Maman should not have tried to stop it. And worse, worst of all, that Gib said
nothing.
Gib, whom I trusted …

The next afternoon, sitting with Molly in the square at Camiers, outside a small cafe, she wrote a letter. Her hand shook.

“You look very white still, darling heart, should you be having coffee now? It scalds the nerves—”

“I'm writing to my sister.”

“That's a kind thought—I tell you now I'd never be so generous. Jesus Mary Joseph. Strangle her I would, you
should
be angry with her.”

Between mouthfuls of
pain au chocolat,
she went on—indignation, concern, consolation. Alice scarcely listened. She felt, in spite of the sun, a chill that went deep inside. Inside her head too. But she wrote with great fluency. She had composed the letter during the night. It was all so simple. And she must do it while she
wanted
to. Tomorrow might be too late.

This secret she'd carried for fifteen years … the Riviera, Beaulieu, going up to Belle Maman's room—finding
that note.
Valentin, who she'd thought admired her, just a little. Valentin walking in the garden with Belle Maman. The
secret.

She had never wanted to know it, had hated even to think about it. If it shocked me, she thought, what might it not do to
her?
She meant at first just to tell Teddy the facts—as she knew them. A simple statement. “I thought you might like to know …” And let the
truth itself
be the upset. But as she began to write, it was not like that at all.

She could not stop. She was possessed. Underlining words, block printing them. Insults. The curious satisfaction of it all—as once when she had hit Uncle Lionel. It's the right thing, she thought, I must, I must, I must …

Molly got up. “I've to see if they have any soap in that shop—I'll be back in no time. Jesus Mary Joseph, you look inspired. You'll feel better afterwards, surely.”

The sense of satisfaction did not last long. The pain, when it returned, was worse. She could not pray, could scarcely remember the consolation she'd felt two weeks, one week, a few days ago. She was horrified, too, by what she had done. Those vicious words, stabs of the pen, who had she helped, what good had it done her or Teddy? She felt now, added to her pain, great waves of shame.

It was a mistake to have mailed it at once, that same afternoon. If she had waited even one day—until the mood passed. That cold fluent anger. She had committed a sin—a very grave one. That much she knew. It clawed her like some animal, something black tearing at her soul, making even more unbearable the raw pain of losing Gib.

All the while everyday life went on. The too long hours, the heat, the smell, the suffering. Gramophones playing in the ward. Trains rattling by. And always, the guns.

I shall tell Molly, she thought. It would not be the same as telling the priest, was not the sacrament of Confession, but it would help.

She said, “I've done a
terrible
thing.”

“What's that, darling heart?”

“I—I wrote that letter, but …” How to say? She blurted it out somehow. Just a little of what she had put in black and white. The feeling of venom.
Let Teddy suffer,
she had thought as she wrote it. And could not now call it back.

“Sacred Heart of Jesus, what got into you?” Molly said. She shook her head. “Poor darling heart, you
were
upset.” Then: “Write her again,” she said, “tell her it's none of it true. That it was all a fib.”

Alice wailed, “But it isn't. It's
true.”
She hadn't expected to be misunderstood. And anyway, how could a lie sent after help either of them?

“Yes,” Molly said later, “I
suppose
it's a mortal sin. It can't really be a venial one. Though surely now Our Lady will understand.”

I killed my soul. My soul is dead.

The chaplain was busy. He had the seriously wounded, the dying, to help and console. Matters more serious than the peccadilloes of the nursing staff. Confessions were short and to the point.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …”

She murmured, “I'm recently a convert—I'm not very sure …”

“Yes, yes, my child, just make as good a confession as you can. Almighty God understands … these difficult times …”

“I was rude to the supervisor twice, and Sister once, I've been impatient, I wasted some of the rations, I missed my morning prayers, I …” She couldn't, absolutely couldn't, come out with the truth. The list was almost through now. But a mortal sin, because of its gravity, should come first.