A Bitter Truth

Chapter Four

I spoke to my mother, who pretended that she wasn’t disappointed that I wasn’t coming home directly. I explained my situation as best I could-the telephone was in a cranny without a door, and I knew that anyone passing or standing in Reception just around the corner could hear every word-and I asked if she’d forgive me for putting Lydia first.

“Yes, of course I will. But when were you invited? I didn’t quite understand?”

“I ran into someone in London and came down to Sussex with her. A family member died recently, and the stone for his grave is ready to be set in place. The rest of the Ellis family is expected today for a small ceremony. They’d like me to stay.”

“Darling, I didn’t know you were acquainted with anyone in that part of Sussex. Are you quite sure you’ve told me everything, Bess, dear?”

“This telephone is in a very public place. Please, ask Simon. He can explain this far better than I, just now.”

“I don’t know that he’s at the cottage just now. He and your father went off together, and the Colonel Sahib hasn’t returned.”

“I’ll write,” I said. I had half an hour, I could find hotel stationery and send a short note. “Will that do?” Although any letter would reach Somerset after I did.

“Darling, don’t worry about it. You’ll be home in a few more days. We can talk then, shall we? You sound tired and more than a little anxious. A party might be just the thing.”

Depend on my mother to put the best face possible on any situation.

“Thank you,” I replied, utterly sincere. “I’ll still write.”

I rang off.

Finding hotel stationery was simple enough, and I had a pen with me. Finding a quiet corner to sit in was another matter. It was nearly eleven, and people were coming and going as if this were the hub of activity in the town.

I sat down on a window seat overlooking the street and made an attempt to explain how and why I’d found myself in Sussex instead of Somerset. It was not my best effort, but it would have to do. I wrote my parents’ direction on the envelope, and was about to ask Reception where I could find the post office, when I noticed the door of Bluebell Cottage opening and a man stepping out into the street.

He was holding a cane, using it to find his way, as if he had done this a thousand times and knew where he was. Turning to his right, he moved carefully but confidently along the pavement, and people passing him greeted him as if he were fairly well known.

In spite of the hat he wore pulled down to conceal his scars and blind eyes, I could see that he had good bones, a firm chin, and dark brows. Not precisely handsome, but what my mother would call a good face.

In front of the greengrocer’s shop stood another man in a threadbare, ragged coat two sizes too large for his thin frame, and the shoes on his feet were worn almost to the point of the leather cracking open. I thought perhaps he’d been begging, because as I watched, I saw the greengrocer come out his door and angrily tell him to move on. He shuffled along to the ironmonger’s shop and stopped again. Then he looked up, saw the blind man coming his way, and waited until he was close enough to speak to.

I couldn’t hear the conversation of course, but it was obvious the poor man was asking for money. The blind man nodded, reached into his pocket, and took out some coins, dropping them into the grimy, outstretched hand. The beggar touched his cap in gratitude, his thanks following the blind man as he walked on.

Watching this interaction, I’d nearly forgot my letter, and made haste to walk on to speak to the desk clerk. I was halfway there when I all but collided with Roger Ellis coming out of a small parlor just off Reception. I wondered for a fraction of a second if he’d been in a position to overhear my telephone conversation.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, and I knew then that from the parlor window he must also have seen the occupant of Bluebell Cottage walking down the street.

“Yes,” I told him. “I was in a hurry to mail this letter before it was time to meet you.” I held up the envelope, addressed and sealed but without a stamp. “Do you suppose we could stop at the post office?”

I watched him scan the address. “Of course,” he said, and we moved outside again into the chill December. He opened the door of his motorcar for me, and I noticed over his shoulder that the blind man had disappeared from view. But I saw the beggar stopping another man in front of the pub farther along the street.

We paused at the post office, I purchased a stamp, and my letter was dropped into His Majesty’s red post box. We drove back to the main street and headed toward the Forest. We had nearly reached the outskirts of Hartfield when we both saw the occupant of Bluebell Cottage about to cross the street. But Roger Ellis hadn’t slowed his speed, and I thought for a moment he intended to knock the man down. Someone just behind the blind man caught his arm and spoke to him, and then we were past.

“That was cruel,” I snapped. “You could have hurt him.”

“I doubt it. I’ve had a feeling his vision has improved more than he was willing to acknowledge. I’ve watched him walk through the town before this, and he has an uncanny ability to avoid obstacles.”

“Why should he lie? It’s familiarity that guides him, and remembering the number of steps to this or that place. Besides, however good his vision may be, what right do you have to test it by frightening the man?”

“Yes, all right, I’m sorry,” Ellis said. “I thought when you first came through the hotel door with that letter in your hand that you were taking it across to his cottage. I was angry.”

“I showed it to you. It was to my parents.”

“But you just spoke to them on the telephone, did you not?”

Exasperated, I said, “I did. And I promised my mother I’d write a note as well. Do you know where that telephone is? Hardly the place for a private conversation of any kind. How could I tell her that I was worried about Lydia having a concussion, without also telling the entire village as well?”

“I apologize,” he said again. “It’s my shoulder. It hurts like the devil in this weather and after a while it begins to make me short-tempered.”

I didn’t know if that were true or an excuse for his behavior. I said only, “Where were you wounded?” Lydia had told me it had happened soon after he reached France.

“Near Mons. It’s healed well enough, and I have full use of it again. But it’s an excellent barometer. I’m told there are still several shards of shrapnel they couldn’t reach without doing more damage.”

“Yes, that’s often a problem,” I agreed. “Although I’m told the American Base Hospital in Rouen has an X-ray machine that allows them to locate shrapnel exactly and that makes the surgery far less invasive. I don’t know whether your shoulder will improve with time or not. But you might speak to someone there if it continues to trouble you.” It was a professional assessment, not meant as a personal judgment.

“I’ll manage,” he retorted.

“Yes, I’m sure you will,” I answered, biting my tongue. Lydia was right about the fact that this man was moody and unpredictable. I let the silence between us lengthen.

I was glad to see the turning for Vixen Hill as we came down the muddy track, bouncing and shuddering in the ruts. It couldn’t have helped either Roger Ellis’s shoulder or his disposition.

I went directly to my room, took off my hat and coat, and sat down by the window for a moment. Trying to imagine how the knot garden must look in summer helped to take the edge off my own mood. It seemed to me that Lydia and her husband had lost the happiness that must have marked the beginning of their marriage, and I wasn’t sure they could find their way back to it now. But at least now I could better understand her reluctance to come home on her own. And I pitied both of them. What troubled me was whether my presence aggravated Roger Ellis’s sullenness for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom, or if something else was bothering him.

With a sigh I rose from the window to look in on Lydia. But before I could open my door there was a light tap, and then Lydia stepped in.

“Roger is looking decidedly sheepish. What did you say to him?”

I thought about our conversations, about the occupant of Bluebell Cottage, and Roger Ellis’s suspicious nature. Hardly something I could pass on to Lydia.

Instead I said, “I’d written a brief note to my mother, and when your husband saw it in my hand, he thought I was carrying a message from you to the occupant of Bluebell Cottage. By the time he realized his mistake, I could see that he was more than a little jealous. Have you given him cause to be?”

She threw up her hands in disgust. “That’s Gran’s doing. I volunteered to read to Davis Merrit. In fact, it was Mr. Harris, the rector, who asked if I had the time to come and read to him. And I’ll be honest, I enjoyed it. He’s an interesting man-Lieutenant Merrit-and the books he chooses interest me as well. Gran disapproves, and it was she who put the idea into Roger’s head that there might be more to those weekly afternoons than meets the eye. No, I’m not in love with Davis. Nor he with me. I suppose we’re both lonely, and there’s comfort in companionship. Such as it is.”

But sometimes loneliness led to something more. And pity could change to compassion, and compassion to love. Still, if it was true that Gran had made more of a kindness than was justified by the facts, it would have been wise for Lydia to see less of Merrit for the time being.

I said as much, and she replied, “Yes, I expect you’re right. But it seemed unnecessarily cruel to Davis to punish him just because such things were very different in Gran’s day. After all, we don’t meet in the cottage, we sit in the Rectory or sometimes he arranges for a parlor at The King’s Head. It’s all very proper.”

“I’ve seen him, Lydia. He’s rather attractive. And you’re vulnerable, with Roger away for so many years.”

She glared at me. “If I were intending to have an affair,” she said, the ring of truth in her voice, “I’d look for someone in London. Far away from Ashdown Forest. Davis is the frying pan to Roger’s fire.”

“You knew what the heath was like, didn’t you? When you married Roger?”

“I thought I did. Roger had brought me here before we were married, and of course I was in love and this was his home. I hadn’t seen it in the depths of winter.” She smiled at a memory. “On my first visit, I found a nest of mice under a gorse bush. Tiny things, hardly as big as my thumb. I watched them for a quarter of an hour. It seemed magical. I’d never found mice in Bury St. Edmunds.”

I laughed. “No, I expect not. Shall we go? Mrs. Ellis must be waiting for me to help with the bed in the blue room. I promised we’d see to it as soon as I returned from Hartfield.”

“Yes, and I’ve left the silver teapot half polished.” She sighed. “Alan wouldn’t have cared for all this fuss, but I know how much it means to his mother. And it’s given her something to keep her mind occupied.” She shivered. “You’d have liked Alan, Bess. He could make you laugh at nothing, and he had the loveliest baritone voice. It was a pleasure to listen to him sing.” As we walked toward the stairs, she added, “Before he went to join his ship in 1914, he put all his affairs in order. I wondered if he had a premonition that he might not be coming back.”

The first of the guests were expected in time for tea. It was a little later than that when I heard a motorcar on the drive. By the time I’d looked out, I couldn’t see who had arrived. I smiled to myself, thinking that it was too soon for the Colonel Sahib to appear in full dress uniform and a battalion of Household Cavalry at his back. Or at the very least prepared to deploy the full force of his charm. It could be formidable.

A few moments later, Daisy, flushed with excitement, hurried into the library where I was folding the ironed table linens on the wide desk there to tell me that someone had called to see me.

“To see me?” I repeated. The Colonel Sahib after all.

But it was Simon standing in the hall.

“I should have known. Wild horses couldn’t have kept you away. I’m sorry that you’ve made the journey for nothing. I spoke to my mother this morning. I won’t be coming home until Sunday.”

“I was sent for from Sandhurst,” he said, and I knew not to ask why. “I stopped at Mrs. Hennessey’s when I got back to London, and read your message. Knowing you, I asked her to pack several dresses for you to wear for dinner. According to her, you’d brought only one with you.”

“Did Mother tell you I was staying over?”

He laughed. “She didn’t need to tell me. I had a feeling you’d succumb to pleading. All right, where shall I take your fripperies?”

“You only came to be sure this wasn’t a den of iniquity,” I retorted. But I was inordinately glad to see him.

We carried the valise up the stairs to my room, and as he walked into it he said, “Much more cheerful than the hall.”

“Yes, I thought so as well.” We deposited the valise by the wardrobe.

He glanced at the open door, then crossed the room to close it.

“Are you all right, Bess? You know nothing about these people, after all.”

“Apparently Lydia’s father-in-law had met the Colonel Sahib out in India. That practically makes me one of the family.”

He smiled but wasn’t put off by my humor.

“You can’t manage all this”-his hand swept over the two valises, the one I’d taken with me and the one he’d brought-“on a train. I’ll come for you. Or the Colonel will. Is there a telephone here in the house?”

“No. I put in the call from The King’s Head in Hartfield. Mrs. Ellis has offered to send me home with her son. Or failing that, a family friend, George something, will take me to London.”

I could tell he wasn’t happy about that, but he said nothing. I explained about the concussion, and he nodded. With a final look around the room, he opened the door, and I led him back to the hall. Lydia was there, and Roger.

Simon greeted her like an old friend, although I could tell he was silently taking note of the progression of the bruise on her face. Roger flushed a little as Simon turned to him. Lydia made the introductions and said, “We dined with Mr. Brandon while I was in London.”

It had been a lunch, but I said nothing.

“Indeed,” Roger Ellis replied as the two men shook hands.

“I’ll be off, then,” Simon said. “I’ll tell your mother, shall I, that everything was to your liking?”

We hadn’t opened the valises. He meant the situation. “Yes, please. And give her my love. I’ll see her at the end of the weekend.”

He put a comradely hand on my shoulder, a warning I thought to Roger Ellis not to lay a hand on me if he were in the mood to attack women. Then he bade us farewell and was gone out the door. As I heard the motorcar turn in the drive and head for the track through the forest, I felt alone somehow.

“How long have you known Brandon?” Captain Ellis was asking.

“Simon? All of my life, I expect. I can’t recall a time when he wasn’t there. He was in my father’s regiment.”

“A military man, is he?” I knew what he was asking: Why wasn’t Simon in uniform? He was young enough to fight.

“Retired,” I said simply. “He serves now at the discretion of the War Office.” Turning to Lydia, I said, “I think we’ve done everything on Mrs. Ellis’s list. Should we go up now and change?”

“Yes, that’s a very good idea. It was nice of Mr. Brandon to bring what you needed. But I would have gladly let you borrow something.”

Mrs. Ellis came in at that moment and said, “There you are, Roger, my dear. Would you mind running over to the Lanyon farm and asking them to deliver more wood, if they have it? Just to be sure we don’t run short. And that reminds me, I need another dozen eggs. I expect I ought to take the other motorcar and beg Janet Smyth for whatever she has to spare.” She turned to me. “Bess, would you and Lydia mind coming back down here and keeping an eye open for George? He should have been here three-quarters of an hour ago.”

“He probably stopped at The King’s Head,” Roger said under his breath, but Mrs. Ellis caught the remark.

“Be a little generous, my dear,” she admonished her son.

By the time we had returned to the hall, I could hear a motorcar coming up the drive.

To everyone’s surprise, it was Henry, grinning from ear to ear. Margaret rushed into his arms with a cry of joy, and then clung to him, as if afraid he’d fly away if she let him go.

Henry, an artillery officer, was dark and slim, a contrast to Margaret’s fairness, but I saw a nervous tic by his left eye. I found myself wondering if he had come by this leave medically, when a doctor took note of the early signs of exhaustion and stress.

Soon afterward Alan’s widow arrived, accompanied by her brother, Thomas Joyner, a quiet man with a Naval beard and little to say for himself. He had lost an arm when his cruiser was torpedoed, and was now posted to the Admiralty. We had several friends in common, and he seemed to relax as we talked.

Finally, George Hughes arrived. From the flush on his face I couldn’t help but think that Roger Ellis was right-he’d stopped in Hartfield for a little Dutch courage. But whatever he’d had to drink there, he was cold sober now. As he turned to greet us, his impeccable uniform was splashed with blood, and across his forehead was a bruised area that was also bleeding, as if he’d struck his head hard against something. The knuckles on one hand were badly scraped. Mrs. Ellis had returned by that time, and he apologized immediately for the delay as she broke off her greeting to stare at his face.

“But George, what on earth happened-?” she asked.

“I’m all right, although the motorcar is a little the worse for wear. That bend in the road-you know it? After that long straightaway? I came around it and there was a dead tree toppled directly in my path.”

“A tree? George, there aren’t any trees just there.”

“I know. All I could think of was that it had fallen from a cart carrying wood. I can tell you I was damn-very lucky. I think Roger and I ought to move it before someone else comes to grief. I tried, but I didn’t have any rope in the motorcar. It would take that to budge it.”

“By all means! He’s just coming down. George, this is Sister Crawford, a friend of Lydia’s here for the weekend. You’ll allow her to look at your forehead, won’t you? And what about your ribs? Did you strike the steering wheel? Did you do any damage there? I’d hate to think-they’ve only just begun to heal .”

He touched his chest with his fist. “So far I can breathe without difficulty. But it was a very near thing, I can tell you. No, don’t trouble, Sister,” he went on as I came forward. “A little soap and water-but Daisy could have a look at my tunic, if she would. Before the blood sets.”

Mrs. Ellis whisked him away to the kitchens, and on the way I heard her calling to her son. Ten minutes later, Roger and George went out to the motorcar, and I heard them drive off.

I had just gone up for a shawl to put around my shoulders when the motorcar returned. As I came into the hall, I could hear George apologizing again, this time to Roger. I caught the last words as they opened the door and came in quickly, shutting out the wind.

“… but it was there, as certain as I am here before you.”

“Yes, all right. We’ll say nothing to Mother, shall we?” Roger was a little ahead of his friend, his face set. He walked on, leaving George to talk to me. I could see that the wound had been cleaned quite efficiently, but he sat down in one of the hall chairs like a man who had been shamed.

I was about to make an effort at conversation, when Henry came into the hall and said, “What’s this I hear about a tree in the road? Good Lord, man, look at your face! I didn’t see anything when I came through, and I couldn’t have been that far ahead of you.”

“I expect,” George said with an effort at lightness, “I mistook a ewe for a tree. There was a scattering of fleece across the road. But no blood. I think honors go to her.”

“Yes, well, how’s the motorcar?”

They went off discussing the left wing, and I remembered the scraped knuckles on George’s hand. He hadn’t got that from charging into a flock of sheep. It looked more like trying to deal with the tree. Whatever Roger Ellis tried to tell him.

He smiled as he passed me, but it didn’t reach his haunted eyes.

We gathered in the hall for drinks that evening, and I sat beside Gran, who was enjoying having her family around her, her bright eyes taking in what everyone was wearing and all that was said.

She turned to me at one point, saying, “This is a pale shadow of how we entertained in my day. My husband knew so many people. The house was always full, and we had the staff to cope with the guests. There are photographs somewhere. I’m sure we kept them.”

Dinner that night was rather ordinary fare, but no one seemed to mind, and there was a good wine from the cellars.

It wasn’t until we had all gathered again in the hall that George asked the question that everyone else had been too polite to bring up. “Whatever happened to your face, Lydia?”

I thought at first that he’d drunk too much port to remember his manners.

But then he added gently, “We can’t help but see the bruising and the black eye. I think you’ll be more comfortable if we stop trying to pretend we don’t notice.”

She turned beet red, and everyone stared, then looked quickly away.

Roger answered before she could. “Ran into one of the cupboard doors while looking for the wineglasses. The doctor says no harm done.”

Lydia smiled gratefully at him, and I wondered if he’d been prepared for questions, because the response had seemed so natural and unforced.

I’d watched her without seeming to, and I rather thought her condition was improving. There was no sign of either a headache or dizziness, and I had the feeling that she and Roger were trying to make amends for their quarrel. She seemed more comfortable with him, and once I saw her touch his hand while laughing over a story he’d told. It was possible that I could leave with Simon the next afternoon after all.

That buoyed my spirits.

The evening was ending on a pleasant note until there was one disruptive comment from George Hughes.

“I’d have thought the drawing room would be more comfortable on a night like this,” he said when a sudden gust of wind and rain roared down the chimney, sending woodsmoke billowing out of the great expanse of hearth, making us cough. “Besides, I miss the portrait. I always look forward to seeing it again.”

Gran said sharply, “George, you ought to be in your bed. As we all should. It’s growing late.”

He took out his watch, looked at the time, and put it away. “So it is.”

That was the signal for everyone to rise and murmur something about the tiring drive. I stayed in the hall until they had all gone up, and then followed. Roger passed me coming back to see to the fire, and I said good night.

He nodded, and went on his way without speaking.

I went once to the room over the hall to look for Lydia-George had been given the guest room where she’d spent last night-but she wasn’t there. Smiling to myself, I slipped quietly back to my own bed.

The next day went fairly well, the sun coming out in the early morning hours and staying with us most of the afternoon before slipping again behind dark clouds.

We went to St. Mary’s Church in Wych Gate in a convoy of motorcars at two o’clock in the afternoon. The track meandered and turned back on itself, and then followed a line of trees.

I could see the church now, the tower tall as the tallest tree, the red brick vivid amongst the bare branches. There was a high iron gate in the wall that surrounded the churchyard, and no sign of a Rectory. We passed the main entrance and turned into a broad grassy space just beyond. To one side I could see a smaller gate letting into the churchyard, and on the far side, I could hear the sound of water splashing over stone as the motors were cut off. A path, almost lost in the tangled growth under the trees, must lead to a nearby stream, in spate after all the rain.

As we got down and walked through the open gate, the first thing that met my eye was a grave in the shadow of the church, bordered by white marble. On the mounded earth inside the border a white marble child knelt, as if about to play with the small white marble kitten standing just in front of her. She wore a pretty frock with a lace collar, a sash at the waist, and on her feet were shoes with a square buckle, just visible at the edge of her skirts. The dress itself was incised with tiny flowers, the folds beautifully arranged. The marble face had almost the look of life, it was so finely carved, a smile just touching the parted lips and reflected in the eyes. I knew, having seen the portrait, that this was where Juliana was buried.

It was moving to see how lovingly she had been remembered. As if to keep her with the living, even if only in cold stone.

I was walking with Mrs. Ellis, and she bent to brush a leaf from her daughter’s marble skirt. “My husband designed the monument,” she said to me. “He couldn’t bear the idea of a stone like all the rest. Not for Juliana. And I keep flowers here most of the year. Pansies in the spring, asters in the autumn.” She paused for a moment by her daughter’s memorial, and then moved on to a newer grave, still raw and ugly. “We wanted to bury her at Vixen Hill, but the rector at the time-Mr. Pembrey-persuaded us that here would be best. But it seems so far away. So lonely. As if we’ve abandoned her here and gone on with our lives. Never mind, I’m just fanciful today.”

Alan Ellis’s stone was plain, with his name, rank, and the dates of his birth and death. But there was a relief chiseled into the curved top of a ship in full sail.

Eleanor touched it gently. “It was what he asked for,” she said to Gran. “And it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

The elder Mrs. Ellis said, “Yes. Alan always had an eye for such things.”

There were a number of other people present. Among others, I saw Dr. Tilton and was introduced to his wife, Mary, and then to the rector, Mr. Smyth and his sister, Janet. When we had all gathered and settled ourselves on the benches set beside the grave, Mr. Smyth conducted a very moving service, recalling Alan Ellis as he’d known him as a boy, the connection between him and the sea, and how courageously he’d faced the knowledge that he was dying.

“His faith was strong. He had made peace with God before he was rescued from the cold and turbulent sea, and he never lost that deep feeling that he was in the hands of his Lord.”

He went on to speak to the family individually, to the widow first, and next to the two Mrs. Ellises, mother and grandmother, then moved on to the surviving brother and sister.

Mr. Smyth was a short, balding man, his tortoiseshell glasses catching the last of the daylight as clouds spread across the weak winter sun. His eloquence surprised me until I learned later that Eleanor had written much of it. She sat there, her face hidden by her heavy black veil, one hand holding tightly to her brother’s, listening to the words and the prayers, seeming not to feel the cold.

I realized it was her farewell to her husband. That the stone on his grave was a final duty that she had taken on herself.

This was not a usual service. I couldn’t recall ever having attended another dedication of a memorial stone by gathering of family and friends. But it was impressive, and I could see that to the family it was offering much needed solace.

Looking around at the faces in the half circle, I could see that Gran, shielded by the silk veil, was staring into space, her mind on the words but her eyes on what must have been her own husband’s marker. Mrs. Ellis, from behind her own veil, was lost in thought, perhaps remembering the little boy who had become a man. Margaret was weeping quietly.

The men had no such defense from the public gaze. Roger, standing closest to the stone, put his hand out to it, then quickly withdrew it, as if reluctant to touch it. George Hughes kept his eyes on Roger’s face, and I was surprised to see speculation in his gaze. Henry, his arm around his wife’s shoulders, looked down at the stone as if envisioning his own. The tic at the corner of his left eye had grown worse.

And then the service ended with a benediction, and we began the slow progress back to the motorcars waiting for us at the side of the churchyard.

I saw George Hughes pause briefly as he passed and put his hand on the cold marble head of Juliana’s memorial. It was a lingering caress, as one might touch the head of a beloved child. Then he was offering his arm to Mrs. Ellis, and I thought that she took it gratefully. Mr. Smyth was helping Gran, while Roger held out a hand to Lydia. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it.

I looked back as the gate was closing behind us and saw the last of the light touch the stone we’d just dedicated. It picked out Alan’s last name for an instant and then was gone.

Janet Smyth took my arm and said, “You’re a friend of Lydia’s. I’m glad. She needs to have friends around her when Roger goes back to France. I hope you’ll be able to stay until Christmas.”

“My own family is expecting me next week,” I said. “And then I must return to France.”

She said, “Oh, you’re a nursing sister, then.”

“Yes.”

“I do admire your courage! When the war began, I considered nursing, but my brother dissuaded me. He felt that I didn’t have the constitution for it.”

She was sturdily built, and I thought to myself that she could have made a very useful nurse, strong enough to deal with delirious men and those too ill to shift for themselves. But perhaps she meant the mental stamina. I knew all too well the cost of that.

We walked on together, arm in arm, and she was saying about the heath, “It’s a dreary place, but I’ve come to love it.”

Surprised, I said, “You weren’t born here?”

“Oh, no, only the Ellises. And of course George Hughes. His family lived not far from Vixen Hill. They moved to London a few years after little Juliana died. Such a tragedy. But you must know all about that.”

As we crossed the grassy dell together, Janet Smyth added, “I’ll see you this evening.”

I nodded and went to accompany Mrs. Ellis on the drive back to Vixen Hill. Mrs. Ellis sighed. “I think Alan would have been pleased.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was a very lovely service.”

“I wasn’t prepared,” she said. “For the end. He seemed to be stronger. I let myself believe. And then he was gone, and there was so much I’d left unsaid. That’s a terrible feeling.”

“Sometimes things don’t actually need to be said,” I suggested.

In the front seat, Margaret said under her breath to her husband, “I don’t see why he had to die.”

Her husband replied, “Frostbite, and then gangrene, my love. The sea is very cold and very cruel in winter.”

I saw her shake her head, but she didn’t say anything more.

For dinner I wore the pale green gown that my father particularly liked, with the rope of pearls that had been given to me when I was twelve by the maharani who was a friend of my mother’s. After weeks in uniforms with stiff collars and starched aprons, I felt rather underdressed.

In the hall, George Hughes sat in the shadows cast by the lamps, his face unreadable. But I thought as I watched that he was drinking more than was wise. Roger cast several glances in his direction but said nothing. Janet Smyth tried to talk to him, but his answers were terse. I heard her quietly telling her brother that he was still grieving for Alan, but somehow I thought not. I saw him look at his knuckles a time or two, as if to reassure himself that what had happened on the road wasn’t merely his imagination.

I wondered if the tree he’d seen was actually just one of the logs that the Lanyon family had been delivering to Vixen Hill. And they’d come back to reclaim it.

After a lovely dinner, we took our tea in the drawing room in front of the fire, gathering under Juliana’s smiling portrait. I thought, George will be pleased .

When the men had finished their port and come to join us, George sat down across from me. His eyes were heavy, and I thought perhaps he was half asleep. Then he turned to me and asked, “You’re a nursing sister?”

“Yes.”

“God bless,” he said fervently. “You have no idea how much good you do.”

Gran looked up at that. “What did your father have to say about your decision to go into nursing?”

I knew she’d been wanting to ask me just that. In her day, women of good families didn’t nurse the ill and dying. Only the poorest of women, and even streetwalkers, were thought fit for such an occupation. Florence Nightingale had changed public opinion during the Crimean War about the role nurses could play in saving lives, but it was still not considered a proper profession until the death tolls in the present war made women of every class come forward to do what they could.

I smiled a little as I remembered my father’s opinion.

“If you wash out, don’t let it fret you. There are other ways to serve. Just remember that.” Whether he expected me to fail to qualify I didn’t know, but he was right, it was harder work than I’d ever expected it to be, and I’d had to face things that it would have been easier not to face, ever. I’d reminded myself every night when I went to bed that soldiers in the field were already enduring unspeakable conditions, and if I were truly my father’s daughter, I would stick to my guns and not retreat. In the end, I qualified, and felt a surge of pride that I hadn’t anticipated. This was my accomplishment. Being the Colonel’s daughter hadn’t smoothed my path, hadn’t made it less disgusting to take away bedpans and trays of bloody cloths or mop up vomit and other bodily fluids from the floor, or clean patients who were riddled with disease or covered in pus from suppurating wounds, hadn’t made the smells less nauseating, hadn’t stopped the sights from invading my dreams, or taught my poor stomach to accept food again after the most harrowing of amputations. It had only steeled my determination. Now I could look back on my training with a better understanding of what it was designed to forge in those of us who survived it. And I could measure just how far I had come.

But I answered her differently. “My father knew how much it meant to me to do my duty. And to his eternal credit, he didn’t stand in my way.”

“Indeed.” It was her only comment and could be interpreted in several ways.

Henry asked where I’d served, and I told him: Britannic, France, the Near East. He said, “You were on Britannic when she went down? Yes? That must have been harrowing.”

I said, “We had a good captain and a good crew. Most of us survived.”

We spoke of other things, and some little time later, I saw George lean over to say something to Roger. It was meant to be private, a quiet aside. Instead it happened to fall into one of those lulls that come at the end of an evening, when conversation is nearly at a standstill and people are about to take their leave and go home. Which meant we all heard him as clearly as if he had shouted the words from the rooftop.

“-daughter is the spitting image of Juliana. Did you realize that? For God’s sake, tell me, has she been found?”