“And you’re what I might hope to be, if I could put family before myself. I know I’ve been selfish. I shan’t make any more scenes at the Ritz, but neither can I be Mrs. Henry Hunter-Hall, however much it would help.”
Her mother sighed. “I am sure some middle ground can be found. And I know you will give me your indulgent smile when I say this, but you will find that it is different in any case, once you are married. Our own passions become muted—well, perhaps that isn’t the best word. Our passions become lighter, and seem to weigh on us with less urgency. Do you imagine that I was not idealistic at your age? I was for women’s votes, you know. I chained myself to things.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I suppose you will say I chained myself to your father.”
“You are happy though, aren’t you?”
“Happy? Oh goodness, is that is even a word in wartime?”
“But the war hardly touches you.”
“I expect you think nothing does.”
Her mother took a cigarette from Mary’s pack and lit it with hands that shook a little.
“Mother—”
“I am not to be pitied. I still believe it our duty to leave the world improved. Do you suppose you will marry this Alistair of yours?”
“I don’t know. He is far away and we haven’t spoken of it. But yes, I hope so.”
“You must choose a husband carefully, you see, because his ideals must stand in for yours, and his ideals will become ambitions, and ambitions need allies, and allies require soirées and galas and seating plans.”
“You don’t think it will be different between men and women after this war? You don’t feel we are on the cusp of something?”
“We should make a tapestry of the cusps we have been on.”
Mary smiled. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“You are trying to distract me, I know. What did you come to ask for?”
“It’s Alistair, Mummy. He’s being detained, in Gibraltar.”
“What did he do?”
“I’m not sure. I think there was a problem with paperwork.”
“Then why detain him?”
Mary kept her voice even. “They say he went absent without leave. He is sentenced to twelve months.”
Her mother put her teacup down with a click. “Palmer? Would you bring us a little brandy?”
Back the pewter tray came, with glasses and decanters. Palmer set it down on the occasional table and let a measure of syrup into each of two glasses. He scalped an orange and placed a shaving of peel in each glass. These he compressed with a pestle sufficiently to release their oils but not to macerate them. He added a dash of bitters and a measure of brandy to each glass, finishing with ice.
Mary sipped her drink. Her mother drained her own glass and put it down. “You are quite determined not to make this life agreeable for any of us.”
“I’m sorry. I truly am. However it looks, I hope you know that I do not go out into the world hunting for disgrace to bring home to you.”
“A deserter, though? I might have preferred a nigger after all.”
Mary gathered herself. “Absence is hardly desertion. Father isn’t here from one moon to the next, and yet we keep his books dusted.”
“Don’t.”
“Sorry,’ said Mary.
Her mother was silent for a moment. “So what is the situation?”
“I think France shook him up. It was just before we met. He had saved goodness knows how many of his men’s lives, but he was awfully rattled by it all. I know he did his best in Malta. And I can’t imagine losing an arm, can you?”
Her mother said nothing.
Mary flushed. “But how they can judge a man for the one time he comes up short?”
“What would you have me say? When Abel’s blood cried out to the Lord, one supposes it was to complain of being spilled. Rather than to recall the glad years of fraternity.”
“But Alistair hasn’t murdered anyone. I think perhaps all he did was to leave a little soon.”
“It is a war, not a mixer. One cannot quit if it gets dreary.”
“I know, Mummy, but—”
“Your father did not leave a little soon at Ypres or Pozières. If he had, I should never have married him.”
“But surely he would understand Alistair’s case better than anyone?’
“Your father’s understanding of absence without leave might not extend beyond the range at which the absentee ought to be shot.”
“But we have moved on since those days. Do we still have no mechanism for forgiveness?”
“What would you have me say?”
“Won’t you ask Father to use his influence? A letter to the War Office would carry tremendous weight. He need only state Alistair’s character.”
“This was why you came to see me? To get your man off the hook?”
Mary made herself small and said nothing.
“Do you understand what it would cost me, from my own capital of influence with your father? I have my own causes, which you might have noticed if you were the noticing type. And those in addition to the drain it makes on my stock each time I have to defend you. Do you even guess at how loyally I have pleaded your corner before him? And now you would drive me deeper into his debt, and subordinate my own hopes to yours.”