“When did she marry, then?” Charley managed to ask.
“While you were in Germany,” Mr Grant answered, bright. “That’s all the life they had together. In 1943 it was. They had three leaves, then he was gone. And once he was killed it seemed to turn her bitter towards me. Life is like that sometimes.”
A bigamist, Charley thought. Would this awful thing never stop? His jealousy got hold of him again.
“There’s Arthur Middlewitch living right across the landing,” he said, so bitterly there was no mistaking it.
“Middlewitch?” Mr Grant cried out. “Who’s with the C.E.G.S.?”
Charley was beyond an answer.
“How do you know?”
“She told me,” Charley said, with a sort of satisfaction.
“Are you acquainted with Arthur Middlewitch?” Mr Grant enquired, cautiously.
Charley did not reply, which seemed odd to Mr Grant.
“Do you know him, then?” he repeated, sharp.
“He was where they fitted my last leg.”
“And you took him along to her?”
“Me?” Charley brought out, with such disgust that the older man could see he had done no such thing.
“I should hope not and that’s a fact,” Mr Grant agreed. “It’s true I recommended Arthur to your landlady, the same as I done for you. There’s a number of you young fellows I’ve served a good turn when I had the chance. That’s what we’re here for, after all. But not that man for Nance. You’d hold a funny opinion of me to think I’d introduce them. Because you might as well confess up. That’s what you’re supposing, isn’t it?”
“Well …”
“I may have been mistaken in you,” Mr Grant said, as if wondering aloud. “It’s not often I am, but then no one’s infallible, you can’t have all my experience without you learn that. But what sort of a man d’you take me for? The things Ann Frazier told me, after he hadn’t been in her house above three weeks, opened my eyes, I can tell you. To send a chap of his bent along to a decent girl? If I were a younger man, I’d knock you down for it.” He had become truly indignant.
“I didn’t send him,” Charley said, behindhand again.
“And I never thought you did. Maybe I’m a bit inclined to leap to conclusions,” Mr Grant said, in a more amenable sort of voice. “Things aren’t easy,” he went on, “not now particularly. What with Amy, and me not being able to leave her for an instant, I’m liable to dash at things. But she should be warned. She’s only young after all. She hasn’t much experience. Someone should tell her the sort of dirty hound the man is. She’s so sore with me at this moment she’d never listen. But I’ll wager you told her, eh Charley?” Mr Grant was almost pleading with him.
“I didn’t get the chance.”
“That’s bad, Charley, that’s bad, yes. Mind, I’m not blaming. I know. Look, someone must have the job, and it can’t be me, just now, as things are between us.”
“She won’t listen to me, Mr Grant.”
“When you get to learn as much of their ways as I have, my boy, you’ll never say anything so definite about women. There’s no man can tell one way or the other. Not one. But she’s got to be warned.”
Charley was sharp enough to see where this was tending.
“I doubt if she’d see me a third time,” he said.
“What’s that?” Mr Grant enquired, at his most suspicious. “And has she a reason?”
Charley could not answer.
“I may have been wrong about you,” the unconfessed father went on, “but surely not in this way, Charley boy? You never offered her an incivility?”
“I did not.”
“Well, all right. I knew better than to think it. What was it, then?”
“I fainted away,” Charley said, ashamed.
“Oh but you mustn’t let a little thing like that upset you. Good Lord no. Of course I realize it’s awkward at the time. While we’re on this topic I could tell you a thing or two, little mishaps which have come to pass before my very eyes. Lord yes. But you’ll mention it when you get back, eh, Charley boy? You’ll do that for me, surely?”
“It’d come better from you.”
“There you are, don’t you understand?” Mr Grant said, with impatience. “You’re the very man has made it impossible for me to speak. Because, as I keep on telling you, she won’t see me since my confidence was betrayed. It’s a long story, but she’s funny that way.”
“I see,” Charley said.
“I can rely on you, now, can’t I?” Mr Grant asked, wheedling.
The one thing Charley knew was, he did not wish to see the girl he still took to be Rose, ever again. He considered she had dug her knife too deep into him and turned it too often, by being the same in so many ways. And, after all, who was Mr Grant to ask favours on top of having done him this injury, which he would never get over, not if he lived to the end of his life. Because from the moment he had seen her, a painted tart, from the moment this man here sent him, Charley considered he was as dead as if he were six feet down, in Flanders, under the old tin helmet. So he couldn’t help himself, he spoke right out.
“I’d have thought, if anyone should tell her, it would be her own father,” he said.
Mr Grant was flabbergasted. The boy spoke as though near to tears. What had the kid done? Fallen in love? But what was Charley doing, knowing about him and Nance? He began to get as angry as Summers already was.
“Who told you?” he demanded.
Charley stayed silent. It was all he could do, now, not to hit this old man.
“I’ve a right to know, haven’t I?” Mr Grant shouted, quivering with rage, his voice rising high until it was like his wife’s.
“She told me herself,” Charley said, truthfully.
“Good God,” Mr Grant yelled. They stood there, careful not to look at one another.
“Who would you be if you weren’t?” Charley mumbled.
“Who would I be if I wasn’t,” Mr Grant echoed, choking with anger. “What are you insinuating? This is what comes of offering a kindness. And I have to stand here in my own front garden, or nearly, and listen to this? You must be mad, boy. That’s it. What you’ve been through has unhinged you. Mind, I’m denying nothing,” he said, with a lunatic sort of leer. “Why should I? But when you reach my age you’ll realize that some secrets aren’t our own. God bless me and I should think so, too.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Charley said, glaring straight at him as he said it. Was being a tart so secret?
“Have you no delicacy?” Mr Grant demanded. He was actually hopping from one foot to the other.
“Delicacy?” Charley asked, soft with contempt.
“That’s what I said, delicacy,” Mr Grant took him up. “Don’t you know the meaning of the word?” As if in comment, there came again from the house his wife’s voice, calling “Gerald,” twice. “Where we might even be overheard,” Mr Gerald Grant added.
“Don’t make me laugh,” the young man said, and left.
Charley walked off anywhere, so blind with anger he did not know where he was going.
In his good nature, for he was a kind-hearted man, James decided he would look Charley up when next in London. He thought Charley, who had been such a friend of Rose, would be glad to see him for old times’ sake, and besides he was touched that Charley should have come down to find her grave the moment he was back from Germany. Her dying, which he was forgetting, had been the saddest point in his life. Summers was a link between them.