The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [73]
‘I can’t imagine why you should think it necessary to rescue me,’ she managed to say. The single raised eyebrow made her continue defensively, ‘I was enjoying listening to him talk about his family. He’s homesick and unsure of what the future holds. If I had a younger brother his age I’d like to think that someone, somewhere would take the trouble to listen to him—’ She broke off when she saw he was frowning.
‘You’re saying that,’ he told her, ‘but it’s no secret to those of us who have been here for a while that you Brits resent our presence.’
He was looking at her as though he was waiting for her to deny that. Well, she wasn’t going to. Listening to Eddie had brought home to her something she hadn’t recognised before, and it was something that her own innate sense of honesty was compelling her to admit.
‘Yes, in many ways we do,’ she agreed. ‘People talk a lot about how war unites those fighting on the same side, but they don’t often talk about the way in which it separates us. You are our allies, we know we need your support, but at the same time…’ She paused and shook her head. ‘At first when you came over, I admit that listening to you Americans irked me. Your manner seemed boastful and arrogant; you seemed not to know or care about what this war meant to us and had done to us. Where we feel like a…a doomed generation, you all act like…like victory is just going to drop into your hands. But now I realise that I felt like that because I was envious; envious of your confidence your enthusiasm, and your energy. You still have something that we’ve lost,’ she sighed. ‘This war has drained the youth and optimism from us. Whilst all of us were in the same boat it didn’t matter because it wasn’t noticeable, but now that you are here we can see it and it makes us feel—’ Diane broke off, her face suddenly flushing with self-consciousness. She had said far more than she had intended to, but talking with Eddie had brought home to her how very much the war had changed her and her perceptions, and inwardly she was mourning that youthful part of herself that she, along with so many of her peers, had lost.
‘Makes you feel what?’
She had been so lost in her thoughts that the major’s prompt startled her. How on earth had she got involved in a conversation as deep as this with him – a man she barely knew, whom she certainly did not like and who she was pretty sure despised her? She shook her head and would have walked away if he hadn’t reached out and put his hand on her arm. Even through the fabric of her jacket she could feel the strength of his hold. In another life, a life before Kit had broken her heart, she might have interpreted the sensation his touch was causing her as one of interest and approval. But that was impossible. He was a married man and she was a woman with a broken heart.
‘Tell me.’
How commanding he sounded. And yet his voice was so low she had to lean towards him to hear it.
She wanted to refuse but instead she heard herself saying unsteadily, ‘I don’t know. Tired and old; envious of your energy and enthusiasm, resentful of the loss of our own; angry because you think you can do better than we have without knowing what we have done and how much it has cost us. Oh, so many things. In comparison to you we look and feel so tired and old, even though in terms of years we’re still young. It’s as though we’ve lost something. Somehow we’ve become separate from one another, in so many different ways, our men away at war, whilst we are here, those who are engaged in the business of war here at home, and those who aren’t, men and women, children and parents, husband and wives…’
‘Is that why your engagement broke up?’
Her head jerked up her eyes widening. ‘How do you—’
‘I overheard you talking about it earlier in the Dungeon.