A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

would often hate herself for having done so and would find herself thinking, quite irrationally, that had she been married to Anthony, he’d have moved heaven and earth to get the child back.

But it didn’t do to think of him too much. It only brought heartache visualizing him somewhere in the trenches facing enemy fire day after day. Other than the wound he’d referred to so lightly, there’d been no notification that he’d been wounded again, or worse – yet for how much longer? A batch of letters from him in June, coming all at once, brought blessed relief, before ceasing yet again. This time Madeleine compelled herself to stop worrying so much, though it was a miracle any man could live through the relentless slaughter going on over there.

A few weeks later that thought seemed to her to have been the parent of a premonition or even an actual courting of disaster as Mabel, assisted by her maid, collapsed weeping into her brother-in-law’s arms. All Madeleine could do was look on helplessly, hardly able to breathe, as Mabel’s words came tumbling out.

‘They’ve told me my Anthony’s missing. They say they’ve no details. Oh, James, I don’t know what to do. What do I do?’

Gently holding her to him, James eased her into an armchair where she promptly sank back as if she were an empty sack and broke out into a fresh smother of tears, her hands covering her face.

He stood up to look bleakly towards Madeleine who could only turn away to hide her own tears. She heard him address Mabel’s maid.

‘Alice, go down to the kitchen, ask Cook to make some strong tea. And Merton, would you pour us all a stiff whisky for the time being.’

He turned to his sister-in-law, pulling a chair up to sit beside her. ‘Did they tell you anything else?’

‘Nothing,’ was the muffled reply, ‘except their deep regrets in having to convey distressing news… Distressing! That’s all they care! They’ve no idea how a mother feels to… to…’

Sobs engulfed the rest of her words and James having moved back from her to listen, now leaned nearer to her again.

‘They must have given you more details than that. Surely someone must have witnessed something, seen what happened. He couldn’t have been completely alone.’

‘They said he was seen going somewhere in the back of a truck but there was a mustard gas attack and no one saw him again. Anything could have happened. I don’t know what to do, who to ask.’

Once more James gathered her to him as she broke down again in a limp heap, leaning forward almost on the point of falling out of the armchair.

Madeleine stayed where she was, herself in need of someone’s arms about her. She wanted to run to James, have him hold her close, but all she could do was to stand there watching him soothe his sister-in-law as though she was more important to him than his own wife.

If only he would look across to her, call to her, ‘come over here, my dear,’ and as she came, hold her tightly as well. If she had broken down, wailing like Mabel, he might have noticed her. But all she could do was to stand there, feeling empty and alone and crying silently inside.

Thirteen

Over the next few weeks, news of those over there being pushed back and back; Amiens destroyed, Germans taking Soissons, and Rheims threatened, thousands killed by mustard gas leaving countless families weeping for the loss of loved ones. Madeleine was conscious only of her own heartache.

She had no right to be. Anthony wasn’t hers. But even as she prayed for his mother, she prayed for her own relief that somewhere he was alive, even a prisoner of war – anything but dead.

James looked on her sadness as wholesome and purely sympathetic towards his sister-in-law’s distress.

‘She lost her poor husband, my brother. Were she to lose her only child as well…’ He let the rest die away, too dreadful to give voice to.

Madeleine said nothing.

Then in September came tremendously heartening news for the whole nation. Under the combined weight of the Canadians, French, American and British, the enemy was at last beginning to be steadily pushed back. The population suddenly perked up, hungrily scanned the newspapers for ever more heartening news as avidly as a sport enthusiast might follow his favourite cricket or football team. Yet still no news of Anthony.

Useless, telling herself not to fret but sometimes she’d break down and weep silently in the privacy of her little sitting room, delaying coming downstairs too soon in case James noticed her bloodshot eyes and asked awkward questions. He was obviously as worried as she, but in a different way of course. He never spoke about it for which she was grateful. They went about their normal routine: he to his brokering business in the City most days, she to visit friends or attend one or two of the women’s meetings she’d joined over the years. Madeleine and James still went to the theatre or out to dinner with friends, though with the worsening food shortage some meals were served without meat even in the best of restaurants.

These past few weeks James had taken to occasionally attending a Sunday morning church service, no doubt to pray for his nephew’s safe return. Otherwise they seemed to be merely marking time until news – any news – of Anthony came.

On one occasion she persuaded James to take her to a picture palace, a pastime he found no interest in, to see a much lauded, spectacular motion picture, Intolerance which everyone here and in America was raving about. She had been overwhelmed by the grandeur of it but he hadn’t enjoyed it.

‘What pleasure is there,’ he’d said testily when they’d left, ‘in a story being continually interrupted so the audience can read what the actors are saying? And the noise, people constantly talking all round us.’

But he had enjoyed the antics of Charlie Chaplin on the