‘It is rather wonderful. Or at least was.’ She shrugged, struck by the thought that London wasn’t likely to be a particularly marvellous place to be during a war. Where was?

‘I used to play rugby on the green, with your husband.’

‘Did you really?’ Vivian couldn’t decide who she thought was the less likely rugby player, her pale and proper husband or the conchie playwright.

As if reading her mind, ‘Neither of us liked it much.’

‘Aubrey is due some leave. We’re expecting him home at the weekend if everything goes to plan.’ Vivian smiled quickly. Other wives thought about the terrible things that might be happening to their men over there. She did not. She could not imagine. ‘He hasn’t seen Mabel yet.’

‘That will be nice.’

‘Won’t it.’ She kept telling herself so, hoping that it would make it so.

AUGUST 1916

30

AUBREY WAS NOT entirely sure how he felt about going home, and he did not like feeling not entirely sure about things, although he was beginning to realise that uncertainty was all-pervasive; no one knew how to feel about anything much nowadays. Sometimes he could not think he had a home at all. From the moment he was given his leave papers, he became conscious of feeling that he ought to be looking forward to seeing his wife and child, which of course was nowhere near the same thing as actually looking forward to seeing them.

A child?

He couldn’t imagine it. He was still getting used to the extraordinary concept that he had a wife. They had been married two years and had spent just two months together in that time. She was a stranger. It hadn’t worked out as he’d expected between him and Vivian. Theirs was an Edwardian marriage, to all intents and purposes. Practically arranged by their parents. Of course, he hadn’t been forced to ask for her hand. He’d been keen. And she’d had the option of refusal, hadn’t she? They couldn’t blame anyone. Why was he talking of blame? Was there a fault? No, no, of course not. A problem? Well, possibly. He didn’t like admitting as much, even to himself. It was worth remembering that she hadn’t taken that option to refuse; she’d accepted his proposal.

But had she ever accepted him?

He’d thought of her as such a pretty, bright thing. Uncomplicated. A swirl of silks and scents and what have you. He’d attended some parties; not all of them, the way some of the bachelors had, but enough to notice her. He’d been rather smitten for months before her mother started socialising with his and dropping gentle hints that his advances would not be unfavourably looked at. He hadn’t thought she’d noticed him, but then they said she had. More, that she was interested. He’d believed them. He had not questioned whether it was likely or even explicable, even though generally speaking he was the sort of man who usually slipped under one’s notice. The sort that was only discovered when he held open a door or offered up a seat. Young women had often looked at him in surprised gratitude when he retrieved a fan from under the opera chair or offered to hail a cab; invariably they nodded with no sense of recognition the next time they were introduced. He had been too flattered and elated to question the unexpected nature of her notice. He’d simply grabbed the opportunity.