Jenna placed her hand across her stomach. Her baby rippled. Jack Hennessy’s hand was now clenched in a fist. His face was clenched. His eyes were hot and wet. They struck at her. She could see him, striking her. One fist to the womb. A single blow would be enough.
“No, Jack. It’s not his child.” She was proud of her voice again. No wavering. “That was over. Years ago. I’m telling you the truth. It was a soldier. I met him in the park. He took me to a hotel at Charing Cross. I don’t know why I went. I just did. We took a room for an hour. You can do that now. If the man’s in uniform, they make allowances.”
“You had a drink?”
“Yes. I had a drink. He bought it. A glass of … gin. And water. It went right to my head.”
“You wouldn’t have, otherwise—not without the drink?”
“No, Jack.”
“Was it quick?”
“Very quick.”
“I don’t touch women.” He unclenched his fist. “The other men do. Arthur does. They line up for them. They
queue.
I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t touch them. They’re diseased. I told Arthur, but he won’t listen.” He stopped, cleared his throat. “I kept myself for you, Jen. I always did.”
“Jack—”
“We’ll be all right, we will. I had time, see, to think it all out, after you wrote. I couldn’t get it quite straight in my mind, not first off. But I see it now. He’s dead, after all. When the war’s over … it will be all right then. We’ll go back to the village, just the two of us, the way I always planned, and—”
“The three of us, Jack.”
“You know that cottage? The one I always had my eye on, down by the river? They’d let us have that, I reckon. After the war. My father’s getting on. I could be head carpenter a few years from now. We could make that cottage a pretty place. There’s a nice bit of garden there—room for potatoes, runner beans, onions. No one living there in years. I always liked that place. You could be quiet there. I used to go down there and think. About you. You knew that, didn’t you? You always knew you had me right there, in the palm of your hand.”
As he said this, Hennessy took her left hand in his. Upon the third finger of this hand, there was now a wedding ring. It pinched. Jenna looked at the ring. She knew at once which cottage he meant: by the river, isolated—half-ruined, not inhabited for years. It was cold and damp in summer; in winter the road to it flooded. She hated that cottage. It was an unhealthy place. It was no place to bring up a baby.
“My granny’s ring.” Hennessy’s hand closed upon it. His voice had become slightly hoarse. “My gran’s. I kept that for you. I took it off her finger the day she died, and I kept it. Eight years, that is now.”
She had hated his grandmother too. A bent woman, with gaps in her teeth. When she met Jenna, she used to pinch her cheeks.
“That’s settled then?” Hennessy gave a sigh. “I want to get things settled before I go back. Then I can plan. You need something to plan, when you’re out there. In the trenches. Waiting. It keeps you going. So, I’d like to be sure—”
“Sure?”
“My plans. The cottage. The bit of garden.”
Jenna shifted under the weight of his gaze. She had not thought ahead, she said to herself. She had been so methodical and so careful, and she had never once thought where they might live.
“You do like it all right then? That cottage?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, Jack. Except—I don’t remember it so well, but … it’s right by the river, and come winter—”
She stopped. Hennessy’s eyes had changed. It was there, then gone: something hard and triumphant, the gist of some pleasure.
He knew how she hated that place.
He hid it. The next second his eyelids were lowered. He wouldn’t let her see the pleasure again. His face became tight with the effort of concealment. Jenna thought he might laugh, or he might cry again.
She was afraid of the gleam of pleasure. It frightened her more than anything he had said. Her mind swooped and darted; it tried to run away.
Oh, what have I done, what have I done?
she thought. She was terrified he might touch her. He was a handsome man, and he revolted her. His skin revolted her, his hair, his eyes.
“Before I go. Before I leave …”
Jenna thought he would touch her then. He would put a hand on her. He might stroke her. She drew back.
Hennessy did not touch her. He did not even look at her. He looked instead at his own hands, which lay on his khaki thighs: broad, square, capable hands. They were not without beauty.
“Before I go. Tell me again, Jen. It was in London?”
“Yes, Jack.”
“Did you know his name?”
“Only his first name. It was … Henry. I think.”
“He bought you a gin?”
“Yes. Yes. With water.”
“A hotel by Charing Cross?”
“Yes … just … a small place. It was a brown room. You could hear the trains whistling.”
“Was it quick?”
“Very quick.”
On and on. He asked the questions, he listened to the replies, and then he asked them again.
At four o’clock Mrs. Tubbs knocked on the door. She made a great business of it. When they emerged she pretended to be coy. She and Jenna stood in the front doorway; they waved; Hennessy and Tubbs walked away at a brisk pace. Their arms swung.
When they were out of sight Mrs. Tubbs shut the door. They went into the back parlor, a dark room. Mrs. Tubbs lit the gaslight. The light made Jenna’s face blue; it stood out in peaks and shadows. Her mouth was slack with fatigue. Mrs. Tubbs gave her a long look. She took her arm. The pretense was over.
“Whatever it is, love,” she said, “I hope you had the sense to keep it to yourself. Don’t tell
him
.” She gave a sharp jerk of the head in the direction of the front door. Mrs. Tubbs loved her son, but generally speaking she did not have a great opinion of men.
She fussed over Jenna. She had Florrie make a cup of tea. She tried to tempt her with trifle, with cake—she was eating for two, she reminded her. She fetched the last orange, divided it in two, offered half to Jenna and half to Florrie.
Jenna shook her head. Her baby stirred, then settled.
“Oh, well. Waste not, want not,” Mrs. Tubbs declared. She spread her handkerchief on her lap and ate the half of the orange herself.
“Bless me!” she cried when the last segment was popped into her mouth.
Jenna had, while Mrs. Tubbs was eating her orange, removed her wedding ring.
In a deliberate and careful way she laid it down upon the hearthstone. She picked up the poker. She hit the ring with the poker. She hit it very hard, sure it would smash, but the ring did no such thing. The blow glanced; the ring sprang up, as if with a life of its own. It spun up in the air and came to rest upon the hearthrug. Florrie and Mrs. Tubbs stared at it.
“I hate that ring. It was his grandmother’s. I hated her too.” Jenna spoke in a reasonable tone of voice.
Mrs. Tubbs rose, retrieved the ring, and put it in her pocket. She looked at Jenna. She winked.
“Eighteen carat. I can tell by the color, see? A guinea, that’s worth, maybe more. A guinea is two bags of coal. Two bags of coal is one fire for a week. Pop it.”
“Pop it?”
“Pawn it, love. You can always get it back—and if you don’t, well, just tell him you lost it.
He’ll
believe you. Most likely.”
Mrs. Tubbs sniffed. She was a direct woman, and so—despite the fact that Jenna was just married—she then touched her forehead.
“Slow,” she said. “Good-looking, I’ll say that. But not too quick on the uptake.”
“You’re wrong,” Jenna replied. She rose, reached into Mrs. Tubbs’s pocket, and extracted the ring.
She put it back again on her finger. She watched it wink.
“Well, Constance. That is interesting. A mystery solved.” Stern paused. He moved to the window. “And when did you discover this?”
“This morning. I visit once a week, every week since her marriage. I am most religious in my concern. Poor Jenna! She looks ill. I took her some beautiful baby clothes. She broke down.”
Constance, who had arrived in Stern’s Albany chambers some fifteen minutes before, withdrew a large and glittering jet pin from her black hat. She tossed the hat upon a chair. One shake of the head, and her hair, only loosely pinned up, at once tumbled about her shoulders. Stern preferred it like this.
She eyed Stern, who had greeted her revelation about Hennessy in his customary dispassionate way. He looked out the window. Constance felt she could hear the filing cards click in his mind. Stern liked to be given information—Constance knew that, but she was careful to ration and to censor the information she gave: this, but not that!
“You see, Jenna once had a lover—this is years ago now—”
“A lover?” Stern looked back. “And who was that?”
“Oh, no one of any consequence—just some man from the village. Killed in the war, I believe, like everyone else. But Hennessy was jealous, it seems. Violently jealous. He knew where they met. So he set the trap for him—”
“And caught the wrong man?” Stern frowned. “It must have distressed you, Constance, to hear this.”
“In a way.” Constance moved off. She began, as she often did on the occasions when she came to Stern’s Albany rooms, to pace about restlessly. She had been coming here for three months.
She paused behind a delicate table.
“However, it was a long time ago. The circumstances do not matter very much, when their effect is the same. It is too late now to do anything—I reassured Jenna of that. Let the matter rest. I had my suspicions before, in any case. Years ago … certain things Cattermole said. Anyway, I am not vengeful toward Hennessy. There was no time to think of myself. I was concerned, for Jenna—and her child. There is no one else she can turn to, now Jane leaves to nurse in France—and she looked so very drawn and thin. I was afraid for the baby—”
“You surprise me, Constance. I would not have suspected you of charitable intent.”
“Oh, thank you, sir, for that estimate of my character.” Constance gave Stern a pert look. “I have a heart somewhere, you know. It is a little hard, but it beats. But there—I would not expect a man to understand the closeness between mistress and maid. And you, of course, being unsentimental by nature, would have no concern for babies.”
Stern gave her a cool glance. Constance moved away another pace. She took up her position behind a chair. She picked up from a table a small figure of jade, an exquisite thing.
“Besides,” she went on in a thoughtful manner, “I discovered something interesting today about myself—that is why I tell you this story. Do you know why I forgive Hennessy so generously, Montague? It is because I understand jealousy. Oh, yes! It has crept up upon me, I think—yes, even upon me. Which is something I never expected.”
She waited. Stern did not prompt her. Constance gave a small frown of irritation. He had kissed her hand when she entered this room; apart from that formal greeting, he had not yet touched her. He made her wait. Such a contained man! Constance turned the jade figure in her fingers.
“Tell me, Montague,” she began again. “A jealous question now. Am I the first young woman to visit you here, or is this an established practice of yours?”
“Am I unfaithful to Maud? Is that what you’re asking?” Stern folded his arms.
“I know you are not strictly faithful to Maud,” Constance replied, with a dark look. “I have learned that these past months. But I wondered … if I was following a precedent. I find I might mind, if I were.”
Stern gave a sigh. It sounded impatient.
“Constance, I have been faithful to Maud, as you put it, for some five or six years—with only a very few minor excursions. I am not a philanderer. I rather despise philanderers. I have not made it my practice to deceive Maud, nor do I like to deceive her now—”
“But you do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And I—am I just a minor excursion too?” Constance gave Stern her waif look.
“You, my dear, are more of a Grand Tour, as I’m sure you must know—”
“Oh, you are not just playing with me then?” Constance sighed. “You could be. Sometimes I feel that you are. I come here—I am so very careful about my alibis, no one suspects a thing. My heart beats so fast as I run up the street. And yet maybe I am no more to you than a game. I think that sometimes. I see you as a cat, Montague—a cat with very sharp claws—and myself as a little mouse. A pet for you. A plaything. You toy with me, but you wait to pounce—”
“What an unconvincing description.” Stern smiled, but it was a fugitive smile. “I do not think of you in that way at all—as I am sure you must know….”
“Ah, you say that, but is it true? How can I tell? I look at you and I see nothing at all, not a glimpse in the eyes of the slightest affection. You stand there with your arms folded so; you watch me, and you wait. I never know what you are thinking at all—”
“Am I so undemonstrative?” Stern said in a dry voice. “You surprise me, Constance. I thought I had given you the occasional indication—”
“Lust is something no man can disguise, Montague—not even you. In an embrace, its effects are obvious enough. So, I provoke that in you. It is not so very much—”
“On the contrary. It is not to be despised. Many women, of obvious charms, leave me entirely cold—”
“Oh, I see.” Constance tossed her head. “In that case—”
“Whereas you—no, don’t turn away, Constance—whereas you do provoke me, as you say. In many ways. Not all of them physical.”
“Is that true?” Constance, who had made a pretty flounce toward the door, stopped. She looked back.
“But of course. My dear Constance, I have the very greatest respect for your intelligence, and for your willpower. I admire the deviousness of your approach. And I particularly admire the way in which you flirt. I find it charming and ingenious—”
“I hate you, Montague.”
“I also find, just occasionally, that you protract it too long—which could make it tedious. Now, won’t you stop this, and come here?”
Constance hesitated. There was a tension in the room, as there always was when they met, a tension partly sexual and partly combative. It drew her toward Stern with a force whose intensity she sometimes found alarming. She did not care for Stern to see how strong that pull was—and so, as he said, she would flirt and evade. Resistance! Constance loved these moments when they both delayed. They made her shiver with sexual expectation, as if she felt already on her skin the touch of Stern’s cool and expert hands.