The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [298]
“I think you are past the early stage when women often miscarry. I think there is no doubt about this. I think you should tell Geraint.”
“It wasn’t Geraint. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Griselda and Dorothy looked at each other across the recumbent Florence. They were both thinking that Geraint, nevertheless—who loved Florence … They felt queasy. Florence rearranged her clothes and sat up. She said grimly
“I shall have to go away from here. Immediately, I think. You are saying—there isn’t any way of—of losing this.”
Dorothy hesitated. She said, half-way between agitated friend and calm doctor, “There’s nothing you could do that wouldn’t be horribly dangerous. I think you should go through with it. And then decide what to do…”
“I shall have to go and see Papa. I am horribly afraid of what will happen then. I had better start packing, now.”
Griselda said “No, don’t do that, don’t. I can pack, with the bedders, later, when you know where … I can happily do that. I’ll make us all some cocoa. Settle your stomach with pasteurised milk and sugar.”
They sat, companionably, and put more coal, and some wood Florence had collected, on the fire.
“I was always in two minds about this place,” said Florence. “I thought it was a fortress of irredeemable innocence—and experience was outside, and was all shiny and tempting. Now I’d give anything to be able to stay here, and learn to think clearly. Which I obviously don’t. I followed my feelings and they were bad, and worse, they were silly. So the angel will close the gates and wave me goodbye with her sword. I think it’s a female angel, in a women’s college.
“Griselda, I have a huge favour to ask of you.”
“Ask,” said Griselda.
“Will you come with me to face Papa? I am afraid of someone—Papa, me—saying something unforgivable, or doing something silly … mad…”
“Are you sure?” said Griselda.
“I think so. Would you anyway come to London, and see how I feel there?”
The two young women stood in Prosper Cain’s study, amongst the fake Palissys and under a fake Lorenzo Lotto Annunciation. Prosper sat behind his desk and said it was a pleasant surprise to see them. He could see that whatever it was was not pleasant. He thought Florence must be in money trouble. He asked them to sit down. The room was small—he had to stay behind his desk, like a judge.
Florence said “I asked Griselda to come because I need—I need this talk to stay—to stay formal—I need you to think.”
“It sounds very dreadful,” said Prosper, lightly.
“It is,” said Florence. “I’m afraid I’m pregnant.” Prosper’s face tightened into a mask. Florence had never seen it like this, though his soldiers had, once or twice. He said “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Not exactly. I dared not. I asked Dorothy. She’s passed all her exams … in that area…”
“Well,” said Prosper Cain. “He must marry you. Now, immediately. If he’s worried about money, I must help.”
“It’s not Geraint,” said Florence. She added, miserably, “I must send his ring back. I should have done that already. I feel—I feel—”
“In that case,” said Prosper, “who?”
He was a soldier. He knew how to kill people, and he wanted to kill. Florence saw yet another face she had never seen. Her own face tightened into a mask, not unlike his.
“I don’t want you to know. It was only once. I don’t want… the person … to know. I was very silly.” She flinched. Her father, who had never done so, looked as though he was about to hit her. She watched him decide not to. Griselda, watching both of them, thought their hard faces were like masks in a Greek tragedy. Prosper gave a kind of gasp.
“I need to think. Let me think.”
Things raced through his mind like hunted animals in a dark wood. He would stand by Florence. For most of his life she was the creature he had most loved and delighted in. This caused him to think of Imogen, and the expected child. He knew, without