The Victory by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

which injured his pride as well as going against his wishes.
    He remembered so clearly the moment he had first seen Lucy, coming into the Keppel's Head, her face pale from her long journey, her hair raggedly cropped, masquerading as a boy in her burning desire to be a doctor. He had been intrigued by her insane courage, her ferocious determination, her straightforward, childlike frankness; but when he had met her again later as Lady Aylesbury and seen those same quali ties struggling for expression through the muffling folds of womanhood, he had loved her as naturally as a bird flies to its nest.
    He understood why people talked of falling in love: it was as sudden, and as irrevocable. It was as if his heart had left him to live in her. His life, his breath, his blood, were in her, and if he went away from her and never saw her again, those things would not return to him: he could not part from her and live. She was his companion, as close to him as his thoughts, and though it would have been so much easier if they had never met, there was nothing to be done about that now.
    Oh, but the child, the child! Not just the one she now nurtured in her belly, but the one she had borne him before without his knowledge. To him, a child of their bodies was something miraculous and precious, the product, the proof, which would live on after they were dust, that once, some where in time, he and she had loved. But she did not see it like that. It was a hard thing to acknowledge, that though she loved him, it was not as he loved. 'I'm not romantic like you,' she would say, dear Lucy, hay-haired, freckle-nosed Lucy, who would brave the entire world for him, and yet could not say 'I love you'.
    She had stopped crying, and he thought she might have fallen asleep, but after a while she sat up, wiped the smears from her face, and contemplated him thoughtfully. Her fears and anxieties in the preceding days had stemmed from uncertainty; but now that the uncertainties were resolved, she was her old practical self again. Now she knew what had to be coped with, she could accept it and get on with it: there was no point in repining. Weston saw all that in her expression. She was not one to fling everything away in a romantic gesture; but she had said to him that she would not want him any different, and God forbid that he should be less generous in his love.
    ‘ I'm all right now,' she said. 'I won't do that again. Now, Weston, we must be practical. There are your trunks to be got ready, the cabin stores to buy, and we have to decide where I'm to spend the summer. That's difficult, until we know where you are bound. But if you are for the Channel Fleet, it had better be Portsmouth or Plymouth, so that I can see you if you come ashore. I don't want to waste a moment we can be together. When will you get your orders?'
    ‘ Oh Lucy!' he said with an unwilling laugh. Her eyes were still pink, and her eyelashes wet and spiky, but she looked ready for anything. Tenderness welled up in him. There were so many painful things that would have to be faced, but he could not think about them yet; not just yet. 'I don't think we need to start packing this instant. Perhaps you'd better take off your gown, so that it doesn't get crumpled.'
    ‘ My gown?' she said in surprise, and then a slow smile curved her lips, and she stood up. 'Yes, of course,' she said, stepping into his arms and leaning her whole body against him. 'At least now it can't possibly do any harm, can it?’

    *
    At the end of the first week of May, Edward made one of his rare visits to London, taking the opportunity of travelling up with his childhood friend John Anstey. They called first at Ryder Street, where they found Lord Aylesbury, in a very splendid Chinese dressing-gown of scarlet silk and a Turkish cap with a tassel, taking a late breakfast of coffee and rolls.
    ‘ What London hours you keep, Chetwyn!' Edward cried by way of greeting. 'Still breakfasting at eleven? John and I were up at