A Bitter Truth (8 page)

“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.