A Bitter Truth (11 page)

I awoke the next morning to a hubbub somewhere in the house. Smoothing my hair with my hands, I put the silk cushion and the lap rug back where I’d found them, then went to the door. The shouting seemed to be coming from the hall. I hurried in that direction, not knowing what I would find. But the urgency told me that something was wrong.

Lydia stood in the middle of the room in her traveling dress, the same coat she’d worn when first I’d encountered her in London. Her face was set, and at her feet was a large valise. A smaller one was clutched tightly in her hand.

It was Roger Ellis who was doing the shouting, telling her that he wouldn’t allow her to go away again. His mother was trying to pour oil on troubled waters, and Gran, standing to one side, was saying, “Lower your voices! What will Margaret and Eleanor think?” as if they were all that mattered. But everyone was ignoring her, their eyes on Lydia’s face.

She turned as I came into the hall. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “Where on earth have you been? I’d looked everywhere for you. You haven’t changed from last evening. Hurry and pack, Bess. I’ve already sent Daisy into Hartfield for the station carriage.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, adding, “it will take a few minutes to collect everything,” in the hope that this would give her a little time to change her mind. But I had a feeling she wouldn’t. I glanced at her husband, afraid he might strike Lydia again, if he was angry enough with her. The first blow was always the hardest. And that had been struck already.

“Ask Molly to help you, then. Bess, I beg of you. I can’t stay here, don’t you see?” Her eyes as well as her voice pleaded with me.

There was nothing else I could do. Casting a worried glance at Mrs. Ellis, hoping she could keep her son from losing his temper completely, I hurried away. Just outside the door to my room, I encountered Molly.

“I was just about to send for you.”

But she said, “Miss? Have you seen Lieutenant Hughes? He hasn’t been down for his breakfast, and he’s not in his room.”

“He’s probably gone for a walk. Mrs. Roger has asked me to hurry and pack. Will you help me?”

“I don’t think he even slept in his bed. It’s been turned down.”

“Turned down?” But Dr. Tilton and I had put him to bed, and I’d assumed he’d gone back there after leaving the sitting room. “Show me.”

She opened the door to the Lieutenant’s room, and I could see that she was right. The bed had been tidily made, and then turned back, as if ready for the night. I looked in the wardrobe. It was empty. When had he dressed and taken his luggage down?

“Is his motorcar still in the yard?”

“Yes, Miss, I remember seeing it there. The wing’s all dented.”

“Well, then, I shouldn’t worry.”

“It’s just that I need to be clearing away the dining room, before Mrs. Long begins preparations for the luncheon. And you’ve had no breakfast neither, Miss.”

“I’ve had a little headache,” I said, prevaricating. “Perhaps I’ll have a little tea later.”

She grinned. “I seen that you was sleeping in the sitting room when I come to make up the fires.”

“Mrs. Roger was in my bed,” I replied. We went back to my room, and I changed quickly into my traveling dress, and then between us we repacked my valises and set them by the door. When that was done, I said, “I’ve just looked at the time. It’s after ten. Lieutenant Hughes may be back by now.”

“Yes, Miss, I’ll go and have a look. Thank you, Miss.”

I went down to the hall, where Mrs. Ellis was sitting with Lydia. It was obvious that an uncomfortable silence had fallen between them while Lydia waited for me.

Mrs. Ellis said, “My dear, have you seen George this morning? I’ve been trying to persuade Lydia to talk to him before she leaves. Surely he can explain himself.”

“Molly was just looking for him. He must have gone for a walk.”

“Oh, dear, I expect he’s gone to St. Mary’s. Lydia, please, would you at least go with me to the church and hear what he has to say? There’s more than enough time before the train leaves. For my sake.”

“He’ll only lie. Just as he did last night,” she said, and I thought she was probably right.

Still, I said, “Lydia, I think Mrs. Ellis has a point. This is a major decision, after all. It can do no harm to hear what Lieutenant Hughes has to say. In the cold light of morning, when he’s completely sober.”

I could see that she wanted no part of anything that could weaken her resolve. But she said finally, “If we hurry. If it doesn’t hold us up.”

The first time she’d fled to London had been ill-considered. This time, she needed to be sure.

Mrs. Ellis said, “You won’t regret this, Lydia. And if it takes longer than it should, I’ll drive you to the railway station myself.”

“I’d rather go in the carriage,” Lydia said. “Thank you, but it’s better if I do. And that way, Roger can’t blame anyone else for my leaving.”

We brought down my valises, and just then I heard the carriage wheels on the drive.

Mrs. Ellis fetched her coat, and by that time we had taken our luggage out to the carriage and stowed it.

Daisy had just finished helping us, and Mrs. Ellis said to her as she turned toward the house, “Did you by any chance see Lieutenant Hughes in Hartfield?”

“Lieutenant Hughes? No, Ma’am. Should I have been looking for him?”

“No, not at all.” She turned to us. “Then it’s certain that he’s at St. Mary’s,” she said, joining us in the carriage. “Thank you, Daisy.”

Lydia said to the elderly driver, “We’d like to go to Wych Gate Church first.”

The carriage turned and set out for the track through the forest.

Mrs. Ellis said anxiously, “He could have walked over to his grandfather’s house. I hadn’t thought about that.”

“If he isn’t at the church, I’ll speak to him in London,” Lydia replied, fighting down her impatience.

I sat there, listening with only half an ear. I had a feeling that something was wrong. The way the bed had been made. The fact that the man’s belongings were already taken down, the room looking as if he’d never been there. I was remembering too what Roger Ellis had said, that he was surprised, given George’s moodiness, that he hadn’t taken his own life. I’d thought, listening to him in the night, that he had every reason to live—to find the child he’d seen. But in the cold light of day, given the uproar over his remarks in the drawing room, George Hughes might well have decided that the search in France was hopeless. And in a flush of self-pity, he could very well have walked away from Vixen Hill and killed himself.

Pray God, not on the memorial to Juliana!

It was cold that morning, although the sun was out, colder than it had been before the storm, as often happened. In the open carriage, we felt it. We rode on in silence, listening to the jingle of the harness and the clip-clop pace of the horses over the hard ground. Finally I could see the church tower above the trees that enclosed it.

Mrs. Ellis got down as soon as the carriage had stopped. “I’ll find him and bring him to you.” I had expected Lydia to get down with her instead. I wouldn’t have let my own mother walk into that churchyard alone. But Lydia was wrapped up in her own misery and had no room for anyone else’s.

“You will hurry, won’t you?” was all she said.

I quickly stepped down from the seat beside Lydia and said, “I’ll go with you, shall I? In the event he’s taken ill—”

Mrs. Ellis turned to wait for me, and together we approached the side gate. Mrs. Ellis was saying, keeping her voice low, “She’s being so foolish, Bess. See if you can talk any sense into her before this goes too far.”

“I’ll try,” I replied, my gaze on the wrought iron bars of the gate, almost feeling as if I ought to hold my breath. “But it will take some time before she can forgive the Captain.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she answered. We were in sight now of her daughter’s grave, and relief washed over me.

George wasn’t lying there, his service revolver in his dead hand. I’d been able to picture it so clearly that for a moment I lost track of what my companion was saying.

“Roger told me himself this has become something of an obsession of George’s. The doctors haven’t diagnosed it, but Roger thinks it must have something to do with shell shock.” She swung the gate open, and we walked into the churchyard. I could see frost in the shadows where the sun hadn’t reached. “It apparently started with Malcolm’s death. George has convinced himself that this refugee child exists. And that’s something to cling to while everyone around him seems to be dying. To tell you the truth, I don’t think George always remembers that Juliana wasn’t his little sister too. He wants to find and save her. This imaginary child. For all we know, he may well have seen a child who reminded him of Juliana. That may be how it began.”

It was a very persuasive argument. But Roger Ellis had lied to his mother. I knew that shell shock didn’t work like that. What’s more, George Hughes had told me chapter and verse exactly what he’d discovered about this child. And it hadn’t sounded like an obsession to me. Yes, he might have seen what he wanted to see. We all do that. But if she was Roger Ellis’s child, the resemblance could well have been more than passing.

We stood for a moment at Juliana’s grave. Just beyond it was Alan’s stone, achingly new.

“I thought he’d be here,” Mrs. Ellis said, looking around her as if she’d misplaced the Lieutenant. “He comes here nearly as often as I do. Well. Perhaps we ought to look in the church. It shouldn’t take long. There’s still more than enough time.”

As she led the way to the massive west door, I heard Lydia’s voice, pitched to carry. “Is he there? Mama? We need to hurry.”

The door was slightly ajar. Mrs. Ellis took a deep breath as she put her hands on the thick wooden panels. I helped to push the door wider, and we crossed the threshold side by side.

The interior felt—quite literally—as cold as the grave, and it was quite gloomy as well, despite the early attempts of the sun to break through. The stained glass on either side of the aisle and above the altar had no life, although it must have been quite glorious on a sunny day.

I couldn’t imagine sitting here for any length of time, cold as it was. And at first glance the church appeared to be empty. It
felt
empty as well.

“George?” Mrs. Ellis called, her voice echoing around the walls, so that it sounded rather like “Geo-orge-orge.”

Six slender pillars divided the nave, creating two narrow aisles on either side, memorials lining the walls between the windows. Before the altar was a delicate stone rood screen, setting off the choir. The pulpit was also stone, with worn steps leading up one side.

She called again, but there was no answer.

“I don’t think he’s here,” I said. “But shall I walk as far as the altar, to be certain?”

“Yes, if you would, my dear.” Mrs. Ellis’s voice sounded hollow. Her face seemed pinched, uncertain.

I walked away, listening to my heels echo on the stone paving, glancing right and left as I went. But there was no one here. I reached the rood screen, paused, and then went into the choir. It too was empty, the east window behind the altar rising above me and reminding me of the oriel window above the door at Vixen Hill.

Behind me, I heard Mrs. Ellis say, “I’ll just have a look in the organ loft.” I turned and walked back along the opposite aisle, meeting her as she came down the stairs.

“I was so sure,” she said distractedly, “that we’d find him here. It was almost a premonition.”

“He went for a walk, after all,” I reassured her. “He may have been here and moved on.”

We went through the west door again, letting it swing shut behind us. It made a great booming sound like the gates of hell closing.

Both of us winced.

We walked right around the church, but there was still no sign of George, and I was glad to come back again to the wrought iron gate where we had entered. The empty, quiet, isolated church seemed almost to be glad to be rid of us as we went to leave. I looked again at the lovely little marble statue of the kneeling child, and marveled at how well Juliana’s features and smile had been captured in stone.

Small wonder George Hughes had been captivated by the child with the nuns, and why he wanted so desperately to have her be Roger Ellis’s daughter. But was she?

“Someone’s moved the kitten,” Mrs. Ellis said, and she stopped to set it just within reach of Juliana’s marble fingers. “I expect it was George. There.”

As we walked out of the churchyard and shut the small gate behind us, Lydia said, “He wasn’t there? I could have told you—a wild-goose chase. Mama, if you hurry, there will just be time to take you back to Vixen Hill.”

“I just want to walk a short way down the path. Roger and George used to play here sometimes. You must remember the little stream they were always talking about. I won’t go any farther than that.”

And without waiting for an answer, she started down the overgrown path, almost like a tunnel through the winter dead grasses leading to the unseen stream. I went with her, shutting out Lydia’s protests. In gratitude, Mrs. Ellis turned and smiled at me over her shoulder.

Someone had been here before us. Even I could see that much. A deer, perhaps, if there were any left here in the Forest, or a ewe looking to drink from the stream. There were only a few bent stalks of grass here and there, and it was impossible to tell how recent it might have been.