A Bitter Truth

Chapter Twelve

What was Roger Ellis doing in Rouen? Was he this close to finding little Sophie too?

His reflexes were faster than mine. He spun the wheel, and before I could grasp what he was intending, he’d turned his motorcar across the path of mine, and it was all I could do to grip the brake hard enough to prevent the Major’s motorcar from crashing into his.

He was already out of his vehicle, and before I could reverse, he had opened the near passenger-side door and slid into the seat beside me.

“Are you following me?” he demanded, flushed with anger.

Quickly rethinking the situation, I said, “No. I’m on leave. What are you doing here?”

“Whose motorcar is this?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Pull over.”

“No. Why?”

“Because the middle of the road is nowhere to talk.”

My first reaction was to tell him I would do nothing of the sort, and then I thought about Sophie, and I decided that agreeing with him might make more sense than refusing and driving away, leaving him to do as he pleased after I was gone.

“All right.”

He was instantly suspicious. “I’ll stay here until you do.”

I reversed, found a place to leave the motorcar, then got out and walked with the Captain to his, waiting while he pulled it out of the middle of the road and brought it around behind the Major’s vehicle.

Then, taking my arm, he guided me to a small bistro that was still open just down the street. It was narrow, grimy, and filled with the smoke of those French cigarettes that caught at the back of the throat. I coughed as he led me to a small table. The top was ringed with circles from the glasses of previous occupants, and I felt like taking out a handkerchief and wiping it clean. The proprietor came over, nodding, and swiped at the circles with a cloth that might once have been white.

I had expected to be the only woman present, but while I was the only one in uniform, there were a number of others, mostly middle-aged and in black. In the provinces, French women wore black as a rule, but I had a feeling from their long, joyless faces that this was mourning, not fashion. There were no young men present, only those past the age of military service, or even elderly. There was very little conversation, as if everyone was sunk in his or her own thoughts.

Roger Ellis ordered wine and asked if I preferred a coffee. I nodded, wanting to keep a clear head.

“Why are you in Rouen?” he asked a second time.

“I told you, I’m on leave.”

“Sister Crawford. You are driving a motorcar that isn’t your own, and you’d hardly take an excursion to Rouen, which is crowded with refugees and new recruits, just to have a look at the cathedral. Where are you staying?”

“I’m not. As you say, I came to see the cathedral. I was driving back to Calais when you saw me.”

“You’re here to find that child.”

I was tempted to tell him her name was Sophie, and she’d just been diagnosed with chicken pox, to see if he cared at all.

Instead I said, “Why are you so certain that I have any interest in your child?”

“She’s not my child.”

“Lieutenant Hughes told you that night in the drawing room that she was the image of Juliana.”

“He was drunk and confused.”

The waiter came with a glass of wine and a cup of coffee on a tray, setting them down before us.

“Where were you then, when you told your men you’d been in Paris?”

That shocked him.

“Who told you about that?”

“I don’t precisely remember. Perhaps it was an Australian Sergeant with shrapnel in his shoulder.”

Anger flared in his face. “Don’t deliberately annoy me.”

“I’m not. I’m simply treating you with the same courtesy you’ve shown to me.”

The flush faded, and he grinned in spite of himself. “Yes, I’m sorry. But you see, you’re a friend of Lydia’s, not mine. And I wouldn’t put it past her to take it into her head to want this child, whether it’s mine or not. Which I must say surprises me, because she gave the impression once or twice that she was jealous of Juliana.”

“I don’t think either of you really knows the other. Three years of war can be a very long time in a marriage. Whether they want to or not, people change, and especially with the strain of war. She’d hardly got to know you when you went off to France. And when you did come home, you didn’t appear to be overjoyed to see her. And you were violent.”

“Yes, all right, I deserved that. I didn’t intend to hit her. It was just that-well, never mind, you weren’t there. I needn’t bore you with my worries.”

“It might help me to understand why you are so adamant that this child isn’t yours, and yet here you are in Rouen for the same reason you claim I’ve come here. That’s why you were so displeased when you saw me. To put it mildly. You almost wrecked my motorcar.”

Roger Ellis took a deep breath. His wine remained untouched, while the one sip I’d taken of my coffee made me wonder what had been substituted for coffee beans.

“May I call you Bess?” he asked, catching me off guard. “It seems ridiculous to stand on social ceremony at this stage.”

“Please do.”

“Thank you. When I was wounded, I was in great pain and frightened because I overheard the doctors debating whether or not to take my arm. At least I thought they were discussing me. Apparently I was mistaken, because when I woke up, too terrified to look at my right side for fear I’d see an empty sleeve, I lay there with my eyes shut. Very cowardly of me, I realize that. But the thought of going home to Lydia half a man was something I couldn’t contemplate. The nursing sister who tended me was a young woman, much like you, who finally said to me that if I didn’t sit up and eat, they would have to send me to England to recover. That was the only threat that would have worked, because the last thing I could face was that. I hated her with all my heart, but I opened my eyes, and when she handed me the fork, I was so busy being angry that from habit I reached for it-and a pain shot through my shoulder so fierce, I turned to look at the hand. And it was there. I was so weak with relief she took pity on me and fed me, thinking I was about to pass out from lack of food. I never told her what was going through my mind. I was too ashamed. There were other men in the ward with horrendous injuries, and I had been too wrapped up in myself to notice. I made up for it, helping feed some of the patients once they allowed me out of bed.”

I said, “You haven’t been the only man who feared amputation. I’ve had to hold them afterward, when they cried.”

“A doctor asked me if I wished to go to England to recover, and I couldn’t accept when there were so many others in worse shape. So they found me a house in a little village behind the lines. Chalfleur, it was. And the woman in that house was much like Lydia. Her husband was at the Front, she hadn’t heard from him in weeks. While I was there, he came home on a twenty-four-hour pass, which meant he had less than twelve hours with her. And two weeks after he left, she got me drunk one night and slept with me. That was the only time, and I left the next day.”

He drank a little of his wine and made a face. I thought it must be as bad as my coffee.

“At any rate, some months later I received a letter from Claudette, telling me that her husband had been killed, and that she was expecting his child. I was glad for her and wrote to let her know I was. The next message I had was that she had given birth to a little girl, and that she wanted me to know that the child must be mine, not her husband’s. I didn’t want to believe it. For my sins, I didn’t answer the letter, and then word came that she’d died. I sent what money I could scrape together to the convent where she’d been taken, for her burial and to ask the nuns to look after her child. After that I sent money regularly. But then the fighting drove the nuns and their charges south, and by the time I’d learned of it, I was in the middle of the Somme fighting and there was no way to trace them. Afterward I was too tired to try, and I told myself that I’d done all I could. But George got it into his head that I was hiding something and started his own search. And apparently he found the nuns and saw this child.” He shrugged. “You know the rest, I think.”

“He was going to adopt her himself. With Malcolm dead, I think he wanted to believe he had someone at home. A tie to life, as it were.”

“Yes, and I begrudged him even that. Because I knew if the child did look like Juliana, my family would hear of it soon enough. And Lydia would know who the father was. But by law, the child is not mine. Since Claudette’s husband didn’t disown it-in fact died before he knew she’d borne it-it carries his name, and not mine. It is-was-legally his.” He shook his head. “God knows, there are enough orphans in France. Why did George insist on saving that particular one?”

“Because he loved Juliana, just as you did. And he wanted in some fashion to bring her back again. In war, these things seem important. Because life is important.”

“I know. And because George is dead, I realized that I had to shoulder my own responsibility. I’ve looked, when I could. The question is, have you had any better luck? Is she here in Rouen, is that why you’ve come here?”

I didn’t know what to say. Could I trust him? Could I believe anything he’d told me? It had the ring of truth. Watching him, watching his eyes as he spoke, I thought it was probably the truth. But he had changed stripes so many times that I wondered whether to tell him or not.

The thought occurred to me that he could be killed in the next action, and then what would I do about Sophie?

I said, buying a little time, “What will you do if you find the little girl? You’ve talked to me about responsibility, about George and his foolishness over her, about the fact that she doesn’t bear your name. You seem to have no feeling at all for the mother, even though you slept with her.”

“I liked her very well, Bess. She had a very appealing laugh. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she was amused. And she was well read. Don’t mistake me, she wasn’t a loose woman, she was quite respectable. And rather pretty. But I didn’t fall in love with her. It wasn’t even lust. That night when she got into my bed, I’d had enough to drink and the guns were loud in the room, reminding me that I was going back to my regiment very soon, and it happened. Damn it, I oughtn’t to be telling you this.”

“I give you my word I won’t repeat any of this to Lydia or anyone else. You haven’t told me about the child.”

He rubbed his face with both hands. “God knows. She ought to be brought up in a French family that will love her as she ought to be loved. I’ve never seen her. And men don’t have the same feeling for babies that women do. We don’t know what to do with them. Women seem to have a natural knack for that. I’d see that she was well taken care of. I’ve money enough to do well by her, whether she’s mine or not. But I love Lydia, Bess, and I won’t break her heart.”

“You came close enough to that when you were on leave. Did you know I found her huddled in my doorway, chilled to the bone, crying and lost and without enough money to find a decent hotel for the night? If I hadn’t returned from France that evening, I don’t know what would have become of her.”

I thought he would throw the glass of wine across the room. His fingers clenched around it with such force that it was a wonder the glass didn’t crack. And then he said, “Do you know where she is, Bess? If you did would you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” I said, answering the last question rather than the first. “I’ve been given no reason to trust you. And there’s still the matter of George Hughes’s murder. I don’t even know whether they’ve found his murderer.”

“My mother says the police have not located Davis Merrit. Someone in London thought they’d seen him. And there was another report in Wales. Wild goose chases, on both accounts. The police are still looking. Mother says that the frightful-her word-Constable Bates has come back a time or two to interview one or the other of the family. And Inspector Rother has been scouring the Forest. I think he believes Merrit is dead. That he killed himself after killing Hughes.”

“But that’s unlikely,” I replied.

“Did you know the man?” he asked me sharply.

“I saw him in Hartfield at the same time you did,” I replied with some asperity. “It’s just that I can’t find a reason for him to kill Hughes. I don’t think he was in love with Lydia, or she with him, whatever you chose to believe. And I can’t accept that he was trying to save her grief. If he meant to do that, he’d have murdered you.”

Roger Ellis opened his mouth, and then shut it again smartly. Finally he said, “The police may know more than you do.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.

He toyed with the glass. “If I tell you something, will you swear never to reveal it to anyone?”

“If you’re confessing to murder-” I began, for it was a secret I didn’t want to have on my conscience.

“Damn it, no.”

“Then I’ll promise.”

“No. Swear.”

I did, with some trepidation, uncertain what I was getting myself into.

And Roger Ellis surprised me.

Ever after, I knew I would remember that little bistro, the small table between us, and the face of the man across from me, the smoke burning both our eyes, making them red.

“I had a feeling that someone killed my brother. Or I should say, shortened his suffering. I don’t know who it was. I thought for a time that it was either Eleanor, unable to watch him die so slowly, or her brother, because he knew how hard it was for her. I even suspected George, because they were in the room alone for some time, and it was possible that Alan asked him to help him die.”

“Dear God,” I said, and could think of nothing else to add.

“I know. I said nothing. There would have been no point in involving the police. I looked at it as a kindness. Something I myself should have thought to ask my brother. But I loved him and I didn’t want him to die. Selfish of me, but there it is.”

“But you should have said something after George was killed. It could have been important. Instead you let Davis Merrit take the blame because you didn’t like him.”

“No, that’s not true. I was jealous of him. What’s more, I was trying to shield my mother. I couldn’t let her know what I suspected.”

“Be that as it may, we’ve strayed from the subject,” I said, not wanting to take this any farther. “I can’t tell you where to find this child-” I’d nearly slipped up and called her Sophie.

“Can’t-or won’t.”

“I expect we came to Rouen on the same errand,” I said. “There is a house of nuns here with no children in their care, and another on a street not far from here where there are children. I’ve spoken to both of them. I’ve seen the children in their care. She isn’t one of them. You can go there yourself, if you like. Or I’ll take you there.”

“Is this the truth?”

“The absolute truth,” I answered.

He swore. “All right. I believe you. I should have done this a year ago. It’s my fault. And now she’s somewhere in France, and we may never find her.”

“Then all your problems will be solved.”

“No, not all of them,” he said wearily and pulled some coins from his pocket, tossing them on the table. “I’ll see you to your motorcar.”

I rose as well and walked with him to the door. Outside the rain was coming down in earnest, and over its noisy patter I could hear the guns at the Front, and from the river, the sounds of a boat coming up the Seine to the dock, its whistle carrying on the damp air.

Roger Ellis took my arm and led me across to the Major’s motorcar. He turned the crank and then came to my door.

“I didn’t kill George. Either to keep my secret or to avenge Alan.” The rain was cascading off the brim of his cap now.

The shelling to the north of us was getting heavier. In the flashes of light, the Butter Tower was spectral against the sheets of rain falling from the black sky.

“Oddly enough, I think I believe you,” I said.

But even if I did, I still wasn’t sure I trusted Roger Ellis.

I think he must have read the shadow of doubt in my eyes. His hand on the door clenched, and then he said, “All right. Go on.” He gestured to the gun flashes. “They’ll be needing you soon.”

“Yes. Good-bye, Captain Ellis.”

And I drove away, leaving him there, wondering if I’d done the right thing.