The Soldier's Dark Secret

‘Celeste, do you not think that makes Henri Marmion’s behaviour more understandable rather than less so? To love, and never to have that love returned, would that not make a man distant? To see the evidence of his wife’s true love in the form of her child—her only child—would that not eventually turn a loving husband into an embittered one?’

Celeste dropped her head on to her hands. ‘Stop it! You are turning everything upside down. I don’t know! Dammit, I am not going to cry again.’

She jumped to her feet, thumping her fist into her open palm, and paced over to the window. ‘You know, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I cried before I came to England. Even before boarding school, I learnt that tears were futile, and at school—well, you learn very quickly that it is better not to show weakness. And now I seem to be weeping constantly. Eight months since my mother died, and only now am I beginning to appreciate that she really is gone. It doesn’t make sense.

‘You can never understand, you with your idyllic childhood here, growing up knowing how much you were loved, you can have no idea what it was like for me. Those miserable days at school, those cold little notes Maman wrote to me there about the weather, and the fishing, and—and nothing about her. Nothing about missing me. She didn’t love me, I have known that for a long time.’

‘I think she did.’

She jerked her head round to look at him. ‘How can you possibly say that?’

‘The locket. Worn round her neck every day of her life. Her only possession treasured enough to leave to you. Containing portraits of you and her, so close they are almost touching when the clasp is closed. A mother and her only daughter. Just because she never demonstrated her love doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. That locket tells me it was very real.’

Celeste dropped her head on to the cool of the window glass. When Jack put his arms around her waist, she resisted the urge to lean back into the comfort of his arms. She did not deserve comfort. This time the urge to confess outweighed the shame of what she must say. ‘I had not seen her for a year before she died. The last time—the last time...’

She kept her eyes on the garden through the window glass which was misting over with her breath. ‘Yesterday, when I said that she didn’t give me a chance, it was a lie. Just after Henri died, Maman came to Paris. She told me that now she had done her duty by Henri, she wanted to heal the rift between us. I—I—I was angry with her. I told her that she had made her choice when she sent me off to boarding school at his behest. She did not protest very much. I presumed that the offer was more of a token than— No, I won’t make excuses.’

Celeste turned around, facing Jack unflinchingly. ‘I sent her packing. I could not forgive her for choosing Henri over me. When I was ten years old, I begged Maman not to send me away, but she chose to do what Henri wanted. Because she owed him our lives, she did as he asked, the letter says. Perhaps if I’d given her a chance that day in Paris, she would have explained it to me, but I did not. We were estranged for a long time but that last year, our estrangement was my fault alone. I feel such guilt. You would not understand such guilt. There is a part of me, you know, that thinks I deserve to suffer now. A part of me that thinks I do not deserve answers. Jack, I don’t want you to be under the misapprehension that I’m an innocent victim.’

‘Celeste, for God’s sake, you had a lifetime’s experience of her not explaining. You can’t be thinking that what she did is your fault.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘No.’ Jack gave her a gentle shake. ‘No. You don’t know if it would have made any difference. You cannot know for certain if she would ever have trusted you enough.’

‘Yes, I have tried to tell myself that. I am not a martyr. I have tried.’ Celeste shook her head wearily. ‘For months, trying, pretending, and until I came here it was working—I thought. But now I can’t pretend.’

‘Celeste, I repeat, it’s not your fault.’

‘Jack, you can’t know that any more than I can. You don’t understand...’

‘I understand a damn sight more than you think.’

‘Those soldiers you told me about, yes, but they were not your family. You were not directly responsible.’ She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. ‘Perhaps this dark secret of Maman’s would have sent her to her grave regardless of what I did. But there is the possibility that she might have confided in me if I had given her one last opportunity. It’s possible that she might still be alive today as a result.’