The Girl From Cobb Street. Merryn Allingham

Gerald, please don’t. You are wrong, very wrong. I was having a baby, I swear it, but there was an incident on the ship. There were prisoners, they were agitators—and they escaped from the ship’s gaol and ran amok. They cannoned into me and I fell down a flight of stairs. The next thing I knew …’

      Her voice broke. The whole dreadful scene was there before her. Flailing limbs, the sickening thump as she crunched onto the hard deck, pounding feet, loud voices and then a softer one in her ear—Grayson—and then the wetness between her legs and the dreadful realisation. Her eyes brimmed with tears at the memory.

      Gerald was still smouldering but her obvious distress silenced him for a moment. But only for a moment. ‘If you really did have this accident,’ he said roughly, ‘then why not tell me about it in Bombay. Why not tell me before we married?’

      ‘I planned to. I wanted to, but there was no chance.’

      ‘What complete rubbish!’ His scorn bit into her. ‘You could have stopped the marriage at any time.’

      ‘I was going to tell you what had happened when you met me at the port, but you weren’t there. You didn’t come as you promised. You sent Anish instead. And then when I arrived at the church, you were in no condition to talk.’

      His face clenched. He did not deny the charge but he seemed so overwhelmed with anger at the turn his life had taken, it was making him deaf to the truth. ‘You could have found a way, if you’d wanted to. And if you hadn’t sent that telegram—’

      For a moment this new line of attack fazed her. ‘But that was weeks ago.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter how long ago it was,’ he said harshly, ‘that did it for me. I was pushed into marrying, and you must have known I would be.’ And when she stood looking blankly at him, he burst out, ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what you did. Sending a telegram to the regiment so every senior officer would read it and pass it to my Colonel. What chance did I have after that? I was summoned to account for myself—can you imagine what that felt like? Told the honour of the regiment depended on my doing the decent thing!’

      ‘I had no idea that would happen.’

      ‘Of course you hadn’t. It’s not an idea that would suit you. And it wouldn’t suit you, would it, to know that junior officers need the Colonel’s permission to marry. Though not this time, oh no. The baby saw to that. No questions asked, a wedding essential. Forester wasn’t at all happy. The army pays no marriage allowance until I’m twenty-six and that’s not until next year, but in the circumstances he had to agree.’

      So that was what her companion at dinner had meant by a difficult business. She bowed her head, a small part of her appalled at the mayhem she’d set in motion. But the rest of her fought back. There had been a baby and it had been Gerald’s, she insisted to herself, and as much his responsibility as hers.

      ‘I wrote to you. The letters were addressed to you personally. I’m sorry if they never reached you.’

      ‘They reached me,’ he said grimly.

      ‘Then why didn’t you answer? It was only out of desperation that I sent the telegram.’

      ‘I was thinking what best to do.’ He looked down at the floor, refusing to look at her. ‘You gave me no time to consider—and then you did this stupid thing.’

      She walked up to him, forcing him to look at her. ‘That’s not true, Gerald. I wrote every week for a month. You know I did.’

      But he was intent on his own injury and it was as though she had not spoken. ‘Everyone on the station thinks I’m too young to be married. Did you know that? But I was forced into it. You forced me into it—and what was it all for? Nothing, absolutely nothing. No, I’m wrong. It’s been for something.’ His face glowered over her. ‘It has been to make me look a complete fool. Word will get around, you can be sure, and when no child appears, I’ll be the regimental patsy. How glorious that will be!’

      In his agitation, he began again to pace up and down the room, his hands harrowing so fiercely through his hair she wondered that whole handfuls didn’t come loose. She sank down onto the bed and her heart did a curious little plummet. Curious because she felt nothing. She should be distraught, weeping, wailing. His brutal words should have shredded her. Instead she was completely numb. The man she had thought her rock in life was nothing more than shifting sand; the man who had sworn to love her for ever was swearing now that he had been misled, manipulated by her, driven to actions he found repugnant. Had