The Soldier's Dark Secret

‘Because you won’t let them!’ Frustrated with herself for making such a hash of things, and with Jack for refusing to listen, Celeste spoke without thinking. ‘You told me right from the start that it was a mistake, digging up Maman’s past. You told me that it would hurt me. I didn’t believe you. I was wrong. It has hurt me so much, but you must have seen, Jack, did I not tell you in Cassis, how much it has helped me too? I am not the person I was, and I’m glad. I’m not the Celeste who built this great big wall around herself and pretended that she was happy there was no one inside her castle with her. Now I laugh and I cry and I love, Jack. I am in love with you and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.’

‘Celeste, I can’t—’

‘Jack, you can. Listen to me,’ she said urgently. ‘Listen. The thing my mother felt most guilty about was being alive, when my father and Arthur Derwent were dead. She didn’t kill them, but she felt responsible. And she paid with her misery. You did not kill that girl, but you act as if you did. You are giving up your own life in payment, Jack, can’t you see that, just as Maman did. You did not kill that girl. She took her own life, Jack, when she could have taken yours. She spared you.’

‘Spared me?’ He stared at her, incredulous.

‘Yes, spared you. You thought it was your last moment. You thought she was going to kill you. You accepted it. You did nothing. If you had, perhaps she would have pulled the trigger on you. Perhaps she was testing you. Perhaps your lack of resistance proved to her that you regretted what had happened, that you accepted her right to kill you. I don’t know.’

‘I will never know.’

‘No, you won’t. Like me, you will never know exactly why. Like me, you will never know if you could have stopped her. But if I can learn to live with that, why cannot you? She spared you, Jack, and you are acting as if you wish she had not.’

He jumped to his feet. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘No, I’m not.’ Celeste grabbed his arm. ‘If our cases were reversed, if I told you I couldn’t let myself love you, that I had to spend the rest of my life atoning by being unhappy, even though you were desperately in love with me, what would you do?’

‘I do love you.’ Jack turned blindly for the door. ‘I do love you. It’s the only thing I’m sure of.’

‘Jack!’ He was out of the apartment before she could catch him. She heard the pounding of his feet on the stairs and ran after him as fast as she could. The door to the courtyard was swinging open. Celeste stepped out into the Paris street in her bare feet, darting uselessly in one direction and then the other, but he had vanished into the night.

* * *

He ran blindly at first, as fast as he could, careless of where his feet took him. Curses followed him as he collided with another man, but he ran on, oblivious, with Celeste’s words pounding in his head.

I love you.

You can’t stop me.

I love you.

I won’t let you do what my mother did to me.

I love you.

If I can learn to live with that, why cannot you?

I love you.

Jack turned a corner too tightly and staggered into a wall. The pain that shot through his injured shoulder brought him to his senses. He was in a dark alleyway strewn with rotting vegetables. A market, he surmised. Looking around at the dark holes of he gaping doorways, he felt that he was being watched. His senses on full alert, he walked casually towards the pinprick of light which he hoped would prove to be a main thoroughfare.

It was a barge passing on the river. The alleyway led directly down to the Seine. Across on the other bank, he could hear singing, but here, all was quiet. He walked, keeping one eye out for trouble, until he reached a well-lit street. And then he walked until he reached an area he recognised. And then he walked on and found himself back at the apartment he had fled from several hours before.

He was sick of running. Celeste loved him. And he loved her. Jack leaned against the courtyard wall, staring up at the starless sky. Celeste loved him, and she was determined to keep loving him, no matter what. She deserved to be happy.

While he deserved only misery? Was he actually wallowing in his guilt, as she had suggested? Was he choosing unhappiness as atonement, as Blythe Marmion had done? No, there was no comparison between them. None.