The Romantic Part 31

(The nuns had left them. Sutton was in one of the wards, helping with an operation.)

"I thought," he said, "that I was going to have peace...."

It seemed to her that they had peace. They had been so much at the mercy of chance moments that this secure hour given to them in the closed garden seemed, in its quietness, immense.

"... But first it's Sutton, then it's you."

"We needn't say anything unless you like. There isn't much to be said."

"Oh, isn't there!"

"Not," she said, "if you're coming back."

"Of course I'm coming back.... Look here, Charlotte. You didn't suppose I was really going to bolt, did you?"

"Were you going to change into your pyjamas at Ostend?"

"My pyjamas? I brought them for Gurney."

"And your sleeping draught was for Gurney?"

"Of course it was."

"And your razors and your toothbrush, too. Oh, John, what's the good of lying? You forgot that I helped Alice Bartrum to pack Gurney's things.

You forget that Billy knows."

"Do I? I shan't forget your going back on me; your betraying me," he said.

And for the first time she realised how alone he was; how horribly alone.

He had n.o.body but her.

"Who have I betrayed you to?"

"To Sutton. To McClane. To everybody you talked to."

"No. No."

"Yes. And you betrayed me in your thoughts. That's worse. People don't always mean what they say. It's what they think."

"What was I to think?"

"Why, that all the d.a.m.nable things you said about me weren't true."

"I didn't say anything."

"You've betrayed me by the things you didn't say."

"Why should I have betrayed you?"

"You know why. When a woman betrays a man it's always for one reason."

He threw his head back to strike at her with his eyes, hard and keen, dark blue like the blade of a new knife ... "Because he hasn't given her what she wants."

"Oh, what I want--I thought we'd settled that long ago."

"You've never settled it. It isn't in you to settle it."

"I can't talk to you about that. You're too horrible. But I didn't betray you."

"You listened to people who betrayed me. If you cared for me in any decent way you'd have stood by me."

"I _have_ stood by you through thick and thin. I've lied your lies. There isn't one of your lies I haven't backed. I've done everything I could think of to keep people from knowing about you."

"Yet you go and tell Sutton that I've bolted. That I'm a deserter."

"Yes, when it was all over. If you'd got away everybody'd have known. As it is, only Billy and I know; and he's safe."

"You insist that I was trying to get away? I own I thought of it. But one doesn't do everything one thinks of.... No.... Don't imagine I was sick of the war, or sick of Belgium. It's you I'm sick of."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You had your warning. I told you what would happen if you let me see you wanted me."

"You think you've seen that?"

"I've seen nothing else."

"Once, perhaps. Twice. Once when you came to me on Barrow Hill. And when we were crossing; once. And each time you never saw it."

"Anybody can see. It's in your face. In your eyes and mouth. You can't hide your l.u.s.t."

"My--'l.u.s.t.' Don't you know I only cared for you because I'd done with that?"

They stopped. The nuns were back again, bringing great cups of hot black coffee, coming quietly, and going quietly away. It was wonderful, all that beauty and gentleness and peace existing in the horror of the war, and through this horror within horror that John had made.

They drank their coffee, slowly, greedily, prolonging this distraction from their torment. Charlotte finished first.

"You say I want you. I own I did once. But I don't now. Why, I care more for the scrubbiest little Belgian with a smashed finger than I do for you."

"I suppose you can satisfy your erotic susceptibilities that way."

"I haven't any, I tell you. I only cared for you because I thought you were clean. I thought your mind was beautiful. And you aren't clean. And your mind's the ugliest thing I know. And the cruelest.... Let's get it right, John. I can forgive your funking. If your nerves are jumpy they're jumpy. I daresay _I_ shall be jumpy if the Germans come into Ghent before I'm out of it. I can forgive everything you've done to _me_. I can forgive your lying. I see there's nothing left for you but to lie.... But I can't forgive your not caring for the wounded. That's cruel.... You didn't care for that boy at Melle--"

John's mouth opened as if he were going to say something. He seemed to gasp.

"--No, you didn't or you wouldn't have left him. Whatever your funk was like, you couldn't have left him if you'd cared, any more than I could have left _you_."

"He was dead when I left him."