Thursday’s Child. Helen Forrester
I was afraid to pursue the subject further and yet a morbid fascination led me on from one damning consideration to another. Try and be sensible, I told myself. He is dead anyway. Maybe he did admire Angela, loving her like a sister and you like a wife-to-be. But the kiss under the laburnum tree was not a sisterly kiss, said my memory.
I dried my hands. ‘Mother, I think I will lie down for a while before going to work.’
I felt like lying down to die, like the laddie in the Scottish song.
The winter twilight had already closed in, as I lay down on my bed. Why had I never thought of this before? Probably because I had never thought of being in competition with Angela. I was nearer the age of the twin brothers, being three years older than she was – and I had always imagined that her sweethearts would be younger men. Three years’ difference in age is nothing between adults – but it is between children, and I was still carrying on the same childish attitude that I had when she was four and I was seven. She had always been my little sister – too young to really feel what I was feeling. Too young to suffer what I was suffering.
Too young to suffer what I was suffering? My heart leaped with pity for Angela. If she and Barney had been sweethearts, what must she have suffered when he was killed? I remembered her tears on the day the news came and I mentally kicked myself for being so stupid. What must she have felt when he became engaged to me? How did it come about that he proposed to me instead of her? I buried my head in the pillow as if to shut out further thought.
The light was switched on – Angela walked to the clothes cupboard, singing under her breath. She hesitated when she unexpectedly discovered that I was resting on the bed.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Pegs,’ she said. ‘I wanted a dress from the wardrobe.’
‘It is all right,’ I said, ‘I have to go to work soon.’
She took out the dress and came and sat on the bed by me. She was in her petticoat, and I looked at her coldly. She was beautiful, I thought regretfully, in comparison with my English prettiness.
‘At this minute you look just like Father,’ she said, and then broke off. She must have seen my eyes glistening with unshed tears.
‘Don’t cry, Pegs,’ she said, her voice full of sympathy.
My eyes examined her face critically. It was lined quite heavily under her powder, and there was a maturity about it that spoke of acquaintance with pain. Something had taken away her springy youthfulness.
I tried to behave like my normal self, and smiled at her.
‘That’s better,’ she said.
‘Angela, is it true about you and James?’
‘James and me?’
‘Yes, Mother was saying she thought you might be getting married.’
‘Well – er, no – he’s never asked me. We went to the Law Society Ball together – and to a popular lecture on nuclear physics, that’s all.’ She laughed. ‘Mother is romancing.’
‘Would you marry him if he asked you?’
She opened and closed the zip fastener on the back of the dress she was holding, before she answered thoughtfully: ‘I suppose I would – I’d be stupid not to – he’s a good catch.’ She looked at me mischievously. ‘Would you mind if I did?’
‘No, no, I’d be delighted.’ I did not say anything about his proposal to me. I looked at her through my lashes and imagined Barney kissing her shoulder. It hurt.
‘Angela –’ I faltered, and yet I felt if I did not know I should die. ‘Angela, will you tell me something – I won’t be angry, whatever you reply.’
She looked mystified and although she answered ‘certainly’ her voice had a defensive note.
I raised myself on my elbow until I was looking closely into her eyes.
‘Angela, were you in love with Barney?’
A flush crept over her face and neck and perspiration started on her forehead, but she answered me steadily: ‘Yes.’
I took a long breath.
‘Was he in love with you?’
‘Yes.’ She half rose, to leave me, but I restrained her by catching her wrist, and looking at her imploringly.
‘Angela, why in the name of Mercy did he become engaged to me?’
‘It was the best revenge he could think of.’
‘Revenge? On whom?’
‘On me.’ She stood up, and there was anger in her voice as she spoke: ‘Our heroic Barney was nothing but a handsome jealous cat.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, a chill creeping over me, ‘were you his mistress?’
‘We were always lovers – ever since my seventeenth birthday party.’
I shivered. That party was in 1939. I remembered it well – everybody had got a little drunk and Mother had been upset about it – but the first months of the war had upset all of us.
‘Why did you not get married?’
‘At first he was studying and had no money. When he and James took over his father’s practice, he said that before either of them married they must re-establish the firm. Then he volunteered.’ Her voice trembled. ‘When he came home on leave he expected to make love, though he never mentioned getting married. Once I asked him – but he laughed it off – said the end of the war would be time enough. A man never wants to marry his mistress,’ she finished up bitterly.
‘Well, what did you do?’
‘Gaylord came along. He was really sweet to me, so I thought I would marry a man who loved me rather than one whom I loved. After about twelve months, he told me he was going home to his wife – it was the first indication he had given me that he was married.’ She shrugged her shoulders, and continued: ‘I suppose he was no different from most men away from their homes.’
There seemed to be more to come – Angela’s lips were quivering, so I said: ‘Go on.’
‘Barney came home on leave unexpectedly and caught us one night at the gate. He glared at the pair of us as if we were scum, and marched on into the house. He never spoke to me again, except when I was amongst the family. He wanted everything without responsibility, and, when he saw that he was going to lose me to someone else, he tried to punish me – perhaps he thought when he became engaged to you I would crawl at his feet rather than see you marry him.’
‘And how soon after that did he become engaged to me?’
‘During his next leave.’
I felt sick, horribly sick. Barney making love to me to revenge himself on my sister, whose only fault it seemed to me was that she had trusted a lifelong friend too well.
Angela crouched on the bed and hid her face in her hands. I felt a great anger against Barney – such disregard of the damage he had been doing was unforgivable. I sat up and put my arms around Angela.
‘Angela,’ I said softly, ‘he’s dead. One day you will marry a more worthwhile man – perhaps James – he is a good man.’
‘Pegs,’ she wailed, clinging to me, ‘it was awful.’
Now it was my turn to comfort her. I stroked her head and thought how many times she had comforted me.
‘My love,’ I said, ‘why didn’t you tell me? I would have boxed his ears and told him to stop acting like a child. I would have sent him back to you.’
‘I have some pride – and you were so happy.’
‘Of course.’
Dazed with misery, I sat for a while, automatically stroking the blonde head.