“You mean … ?”
“Let me explain. I told you about Marianne … I mean, the sort of woman she was. She had loved her husband dearly, but I doubt whether she had been entirely faithful to him. There was something earthy about her. She was motherly and deeply sensuous. I think Lisette will be the same. Marianne had a deep tenderness for men. She regarded them as little boys. I think the soldiers whom she had helped had comforted her in more ways than one. There was one night when my arm was particularly painful. I vaguely remember her dressing it for me; she settled me into bed, murmuring tender sympathy … and there she was, beside me, her arms around me, holding me tightly and kissing me to make the pain better … just as you hear mothers with their children. It was a disturbed night. I was not sure whether I was dreaming. I kept thinking of you. I thought I was with you. I was only half aware. I thought I was with you … that you were there beside me. I must have been delirious. Someone was there. I believed it was you … what happened during that night, I could not say. It may be that I was unfaithful to you … I was in that farmhouse … and there was this woman and, Violetta, I do not know …”
“Strange things can happen during wartime,” I heard myself say uncertainly.
“I cannot say,” he went on. “I fancied she regarded me differently after that. I was never very sure about those nights of delirium. So often I thought you were there with me, and I remember the bitter disappointment when I awoke and found you were not. The longing was almost unbearable.” We were both silent. It was difficult to find words. All I knew was that we must not look back. The war was going to be over. We would be happy. We were determined on that.
The Visitor from France
WE WERE MAKING ARRANGEMENTS for our wedding. I had never seen Mrs. Jermyn so pleased with life. She had seemed so much younger when she started the convalescent home and now, of course, her happiness was unbounded. Jowan was back and her dreams were coming true. I knew she was visualizing a wonderful life ahead with her grandchildren running round. She told me that, if she could have chosen a wife for her beloved grandson, I would have been that one.
We were a little emotional, still very much aware of our good fortune, and one day she said: “I do believe that, if it had not been for this terrible war, I could not have been so happy as I am now, for it has all been brought home to me how precious life is, now that I realize how near I came to losing what I most cared for.”
Jowan’s arm was getting better under treatment. There was still some way to go before it was completely well, but we were not going to delay our wedding for that.
Those were wonderful days. Each morning I awoke with a thrill of excitement. I was staying at Tregarland’s in my old room, but I would be at the Priory every day. We still had a number of soldiers whom we were looking after, but there was an air of rejoicing everywhere, for the Germans were in retreat and the end could not be far off. The future looked dazzlingly bright to me.
It was late one afternoon. Jowan and I were in the solarium with Mrs. Jermyn. She liked a cup of tea at this hour and for us to have it with her if possible. We were, of course, discussing the coming wedding, when the maid came in to tell us that we had visitors.
“Who is it, Morwenna?” asked Mrs. Jermyn.
“Well, ma’am, it’s a Mr. and Mrs. Greenley seemingly. I’ve never seen ’em before. They’s got a young girl with them. They do want to see Mr. Jowan Jermyn, they said.”
“Well, you’d better bring them up. I don’t know a Mr. and Mrs. Greenley, do you, Jowan?”
“Like Morwenna, I’ve never heard of them,” said Jowan.
“Well, let’s see.”
When the trio were brought in, there was a cry of astonishment from Jowan.
He stood up and went towards them.
“Why … Lisette. What are you doing here?”
Lisette, her dark sloe-like eyes wide with pleasure and her thick black hair falling about her shoulders, cried: “Jowan … darleeng, I am here. I have come because …”
She hunched her shoulders and raised her eyes to the ceiling.
“And Mr. and Mrs. Greenley,” began Jowan.
“We’ve been living in France,” explained Mrs. Greenley, “since ten years or so before the war started. We couldn’t get out until now. Lisette had to come, so we took her under our charge and promised her mother to bring her here.”
“And Lisette, why …” said Jowan. “You … your mother … ?”
“She think it good I come. And Monsieur and Madame Greenley … they say we take. They are good …”
Jowan was clearly bewildered, and Mrs. Jermyn said: “You’d better sit down. Violetta, will you ring for more cups and perhaps some fresh tea?”
The Greenleys said they would not stay. They really had to get on.
“In the circumstances … we thought we should bring Lisette,” they said.
I had by this time noticed something about the girl. She was very young and there was that slight thickening of the figure. Could it really be that she was pregnant? If so, why had she come here? Perhaps her mother had thought it would not be good to have a child in present-day France, but why … ?
Lisette was explaining in her broken English. “I am going to have a little baby.” She smiled dazzlingly at Jowan. “Yours … and mine.”
There was silence in the room. Jowan was stricken with amazement. Mrs. Jermyn had turned pale.
Then Mr. Greenley said: “Well, if you will excuse us, we’ll be off. We promised Lisette’s mother to bring her here and we have done so. Goodbye.”
I roused myself and said: “I will show you down.”
Mrs. Greenley turned to me when we had left the room and said: “I think this is rather a shock to you. But, of course, the poor girl needs to be looked after, and it seems only right.”
“I think there must have been some mistake …”
“These things happen. Apparently the young man stayed at the farm. Marianne had been good to our men all through the war. She saved many of them from capture and imprisonment … death most likely. It is a poor reward to seduce the daughter. The girl is only sixteen. So it’s only right that something should be done about it. Marianne was really distressed and, when Lisette said who was responsible, we thought the young man should be aware of it. So we promised to bring her with us … and so, here she is.”
“This can’t be true,” I insisted. “It must be someone else.”
“She knew his name and where he lived. It seems it was so.”
I was glad when they had gone.
I went back to the solarium.
Jowan was saying: “It’s impossible, Lisette. You know it is. You know there was nothing …”
“Oh, but yes,” she insisted. “You were ill and I come to comfort. And then I am in bed with you … all through the night. I am there … not one night only, I make you very ’appy. I did not think this would be … but it is …”
“It was you,” murmured Jowan disbelievingly.
“Yes … and we have the little baby. I say to my mother, ‘Jowan, ’e is rich man … good man. ’E will look after little baby.’ My mother say it not good to have a baby in France now. Not enough to eat … not good. There must be father for baby.”
Jowan was stricken, as we all were. Only a short while before we were thinking how happy we were. I could not believe it. And the girl was only sixteen. Yet he had been there. He had told me of that incident with the mother. It seemed it had not been the mother but the daughter.
And this was the result.