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

one other occasion he’d taken her – just to please her – admitting that it had been very entertaining. But she had been upset by the accompanying picture; an actor named Carlyle Blackwell had taken her by surprise, to her mind he had borne such a resemblance to Anthony that her heart seemed to collapse. All she could see was him, the thought of him no longer being in this world. She’d felt tears trickling down her cheeks, frightened James might notice, thankful that the film being a poignant one, she could use it as an excuse.

It took weeks for the feeling of heartache to fade, yet whenever she thought of it, the face of the film actor, not that of Anthony, hovered in her mind, the two becoming confused though the ache in her heart hadn’t changed. She realized then that Anthony’s features were beginning to blur but all that did was to intensify her personal grief even more.

This morning came a frantic ringing of the doorbell, the sound of a woman’s cries as their housemaid answered it. Seconds later Mabel burst in through the door to the morning room where Madeleine and James now stood, having leapt up at the sound of her frantic calling.

Seeing her standing there, face streaked with tears, her driver having followed her in and now trying gently to stop her from collapsing altogether, Madeleine knew the worst had happened, fought to stem her own immediate grief, her knees feeling weak.

James hurried forward, drawing his sister-in-law from the chauffeur’s hold, exclaiming, ‘My dear Mabel, what is it?’ although surely he must have guessed, came the silent, bitter reprimand in Madeleine’s head.

‘It’s Anthony! My dear, dear Anthony!’ She was babbling, her words hardly intelligible. ‘He was found… Oh, my God, James, they found him!’

The words struck Madeleine’s half-paralysed mind with a terrifying image. Dead – buried by mud in some shell hole? What sort of state would a body be in after being so long buried in mud?

Mabel was still babbling on, her words disjointed: ‘… wounded they said, taken prisoner… not knowing who he was. His identification thing, missing… his uniform jacket…’

Madeleine’s legs began to give way beneath her. Wounded! How bad? Limbs lost? She sank to her knees as if in prayer but no one noticed. James had his attention on helping his sister-in-law to a chair, Mabel’s driver trying to assist, the maid standing as if paralysed by the door staring at the trio.

James was saying, ‘My dear, wonderful news! I’m so happy for you, so relieved. We all are. Have they told you any more? Are they sending him home? But it’s absolutely wonderful news, Madeleine, don’t you think?’

Already back on her on her feet as he looked towards her for her response, Madeleine realized he had not even noticed her partial collapse. She smiled, her eyes still filled with tears but that was to be expected.

‘Absolutely wonderful,’ she managed to echo.

What she wanted was to run to her bedroom, throw herself on her bed and cry her heart out in gratitude. Instead she just gazed at her sister-in-law still weeping with relief. No one must ever guess how deep was her own relief.

Anthony was home ‘to convalesce’ they were told, pointing to the fact that as soon as he was well enough he’d be sent back; this time maybe never to return. Madeleine wondered which was worse, her earlier fear of his having been killed or that he might yet be. What did they care, so long as even one could be returned to the front line in a bid to defeat the enemy?

He looked thin. He’d always been lean but was now even leaner, withdrawn, remote. She and James went frequently to see him, she for her part needing to see him as often as she could while she could.

‘He needs to see as much of his family as he can while he’s still at home,’ she told him when he expressed the opinion that his nephew might not want them popping in and out so much.

‘He needs to spend his time quietly, with his mother,’ James said. But she’d had a ready reply.

‘Seeing others might help him to stop thinking about what he’s been through,’ she argued, relieved as James conceded that she might be right.

It was hard to talk to him. His old vivacity had gone. He spoke very little of his experience, saying he hadn’t known much about it other than a vague memory of being flung from a truck by an explosion and coming to in a makeshift hospital, his leg in a splint.

Any more than that he wouldn’t say and they tactfully didn’t push him. He did mention being treated well enough in the German field hospital before finding himself suddenly freed, their front line overrun, the Germans falling back and not prepared to take wounded POWs with them. Dumped along with the rest, the Germans taking only their own wounded, they were left to themselves under a few shreds of canvas in pouring rain. Two days later the Americans came and within days he was being sent home to England.

‘So here I am, back safe and sound,’ he ended lightly with a faint trace of his old self, though to Madeleine it sounded slightly forced.

She wanted to go and fold her arms around him, hold him close to her, but of course she couldn’t. As he sat in his chair, his-half healed leg still in plaster stuck out in front of him, one hand on the stick he still needed to use, he hardly ever seemed to look at her. But his gaze was usually trained on the floor anyway as if to avoid having to look directly at anyone.

She just hoped this evasion of eye contact wouldn’t last too long. It wasn’t like him, not as she first recalled him. Nor did it last, although she felt the meeting of eyes was being achieved with an enormous effort.

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