Evening Chorus (9780544352971) by Humphreys Helen

Author:Humphreys, Helen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

“SHE’S NO different from you, then,” says Toby, when Rose tells him the story of Enid and her married lover.

“You’re not married.”

“But you are.” Toby props himself up on his elbow. “Rose, what are we going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.”

They’re lying on the floor of the sitting room in Rose’s cottage. Enid has gone out for the day. She’s taken a packed lunch and has said she won’t be back until dark. The moment she left, Rose ran down to the Three Bells to fetch Toby. They’ve spent the morning in bed, and now they’re downstairs, on the pretext of eating, but they haven’t made it as far as the kitchen yet.

“What are you going to do about James?”

“Can’t we just go on like this?” Rose asks. “It’s not as though he’s coming home any time soon.”

“Yes, but I’ll be going. And I want to go into the war with some reassurance that you’re mine.”

“I am yours.”

“Not as long as you’re married to another man.”

It seems to Rose that this is how she was persuaded to marry James—the threat of his disappearance into the war. But the truth is that she feels more certain about her feelings for Toby than she did her feelings for James. And in this moment, it seems an easy thing to give Toby Halliday what he wants.

“I’ll write to him,” she says, “and ask for a divorce.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’ll never love anyone the way I love you, Rose. I want to marry you. I want to travel the world with you.”

Toby is set to take over his father’s tea-importing business when the war is over. He will work in a small office in London, and it is unlikely that they will be able to travel the world, but Rose doesn’t say anything to dissuade him. She likes his passion for her, and she likes how that passion expands to include everything around him. They are evenly matched—the same age, the same excited feelings for each other. If Toby is willing to believe that they will have a life of adventure together, then Rose is willing to believe it too. She will go where he goes because she wants only to be with him, and it doesn’t matter to her where they live.

They make love again. Then Rose goes into the kitchen to get Toby a cup of tea before he has to leave for the pub. The dogs, gone since breakfast, are at the back door when she puts the kettle on the hob. She lets them in and they bound into the cottage to greet Toby. When Rose comes back with the tea, he’s wrestling with both dogs on the sitting room floor.

“Careful,” she says. “They’re demanding when they love you.”

Toby has Harris in a headlock. She squirms free and he grabs her again. “I like dogs,” he says. His face is red from the exertion of wrestling. He grins at Rose. He looks happy, she thinks, setting the tea tray down on the coal box.

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