During John’s absence, Jacqueline often came to take us out—sometimes
Ursula, Mickey, and me together, sometimes one or the other of us alone.
Mickey was with us a good deal in those days, as her husband had
suddenly been sent off on a secret mission. She had no news of him. She
continued to live in their little apartment, coming to the barracks only
on payday and when it was absolutely necessary to appear at drill.
She had set her heart on the idea that her husband would be back for
Christmas. There was a sort of childish hope in her that just because it
was Christmas, Peter had to appear.
But Christmas passed, as did New Year’s Day of 1944. Peter didn’t come
back. But one evening a tall blond young man came knocking on Mickey’s
door, and told her that her husband was in good health, and sent her a
kiss. He said nothing else, and disappeared.
Michel went out often with our little band of women, and sometimes Ann
came along, too. It was strange that after our four years of life
together, it was Michel who finally became a sort of core around which
the little group formed. Before Michel’s advent, we had passed entire
years together, and yet each of us always felt isolated in loneliness.
Now we became a group of close comrades revolving around Michel. Each of
us was extremely fond of him, even Ann. None of us—not even Ursula, as
yet—was in love with him, and yet each of us loved him. Ann loved him as
a wonderfully understanding friend. For Jacqueline he was a revelation—a
restful friendship. Mickey loved him as she loved everybody, except that
for Michel she had a kind of respect that she rarely had for anyone
else, even though she sometimes laughed at what she called his Utopian
ideas. I loved him as one of the few truly good people I had ever known
in my life—good in the sense that he could do no harm to anyone. As for
Ursula, she loved Michel as her salvation. It seemed to her that he had
come back into her life to save her, and that without him she was lost.
Michel was good-humored, even gay, and yet he still retained the
calmness and timidity that had been his chief characteristic three years
before. He went to a great deal of trouble to give us pleasure, hunting
out books that I wanted, finding works on music for Jacqueline, taking
Ursula to the movies, reassuring Mickey about her husband. He navigated
in Ann’s Lesbian circles with composure and naturalness, and he had
become acquainted with Claude, who adored him, kissing him on the cheeks
and calling him her little boy.
He spoke as little as always, but never was mistaken in his judgment of
people. He never permitted himself to be overwhelmed by a personality,
and never let anyone throw sand in his eyes. If Claude began to tell
some extravagant tale that she herself had ended in believing, Michel
simply looked at her with his large astonished eyes, without saying a
word, and suddenly Claude would stop her recitation.
I sometimes watched him leaving Down Street with Mickey, Jacqueline, and
Ursula. He had the air of being equally fond of all three of them. This
was probably the secret of his ability to keep us all together, for he
never flirted. For some of us this was a surprise; for all of us it was
pleasing, since it was a change from the wartime compulsion that seemed
to possess every other man around us. I think that Jacqueline felt a
little vexed at the beginning, used as she was to the immediate and
complete worship of every man she met. But afterward she found that it
was, on the contrary, rather restful to go out with Michel. With him,
one could be natural; there was no part to play.
* * * * *
On the eve of John Wright’s return, Jacqueline took a train to meet him,
for the airfield where he was to arrive was some distance from London.
She had had a new dress made. It was of black silk, cut in a low circle
around her shoulders, and it brought out the fresh tones of her delicate
skin and set off her shining hair. She was breath-takingly lovely. A
young officer in the train began to talk to her, devouring her with his
eyes.
Jacqueline was so happy over John’s return that she even told the
stranger whom she was going to meet, and that she was his fiancée. She
wanted to shout from the rooftops, “John is coming!”
The young officer asked her if she could get him an autographed photo of
John Wright, and Jacqueline promised to send him one as soon as they had
returned to London.
Each of these details she remembered later, for each detail became
invested with a final significance.
She daydreamed of John, of his handsome lined face, of that savage
quality that always seemed to hover about him. Now their life together
was really going to begin. It was impossible that John should not marry
her. She was certain that he loved her, and now her little girl would
have a father in him, a father as fine as De Prade himself.
Before John’s departure, he had left a letter for her, “My dearest,” he
wrote, “if you only knew how much I love you! You have given me back the
joy of life. I want you to be happy always. You shall never again want
for anything. I shall watch over you, my love, as long as I live. You
are my joy.” In the train, Jacqueline reread all these wonderful words.
His plane was to arrive the following morning. She spent the night in a
hotel, and took a taxi to the airfield in the morning.
Everyone smiled at her. Everyone knew that this beautiful young woman
was waiting for the great orchestra conductor John Wright.
Beyond that, Jacqueline remembered nothing.
* * * * *
She saw herself again, waiting in the comfortable little room from which
one could see the planes landing.
And then she had found herself in a bed in a hospital. Her head ached,
and she could no longer remember anything. But little by little a
certainty arose from the depths of her body, a certainty that all was
finished, that John was dead.
A doctor came to see her for a hurried moment; he told her that she was
young, that she would get over her shock. Jacqueline asked for the
newspapers. Perhaps there was still hope. But the debris of the plane
had been found at sea, near the shore, and the bodies were scattered and
unidentifiable.
Jacqueline returned to London. She didn’t go to the house in Surrey, but
cut her wrists in the ladies’ room of a large department store.
* * * * *
Once more we found her in a hospital. Ursula, Mickey, and I went
together to see her. Our presence seemed to help her. We tried to remind
her that she still had her little girl, but even as we said it we knew
that for Jacqueline it was not enough.
I wondered at the strange fate that seemed to hover over her, bringing
repeated disaster, as though some monstrous doom insisted that she pay
for her beauty, her charm, her aristocratic background. I felt ashamed
that I had sometimes been irritated by her ingrained attitude of
superiority. It was only the effect of breeding; she had suffered as
much as we had, perhaps more than any of us.
The little house in Surrey was sold by John’s wife, and Jacqueline found
a job in an office. Once more she placed her little daughter with a
family. Jacqueline began to do her own cooking again, and to sew her own
clothes, and to get up early in the morning. She went out almost every
evening. John was dead, and again she needed a father for her little
girl. She would find one, for she was still the ravishing Jacqueline.