Most of them had already left at this point in the afternoon, and as lovely as the day had been, he found himself ready for some quiet. On the other hand, he was also loath to leave Lily’s side. So if Major Camden and Miss Denler decided to linger for another hour, he wouldn’t complain.
The poor young woman had deep circles under her eyes, and she looked like a stout wind could knock her down. They’d arrived late, and Camden had just been confessing to Zivon in an undertone that he was more than a little concerned for her.
Lily moved to her friend’s side and touched a hand to her elbow. “You look exhausted. Have you slept at all in the last two days?”
“Maybe. An hour or two.” Miss Denler tried to give her a smile, but it didn’t last long.
“How are the men in quarantine?”
The nurse shook her head. “Three more have come down with it—and not from the same train the original chaps had been on either. Worse still, Nurse Jameson has spoken to the hospital matrons of other facilities, and this doesn’t seem to be limited to Charing Cross. Others are reporting similar cases of fever and flu symptoms.” She leaned closer. “Other hospitals have had men die who weren’t even showing those symptoms a day beforehand. I’m worried, Lily.”
“Of course you are. We all are.” Lily slid a glance to Zivon.
He nodded, as did Camden. How could they not be concerned? There were always isolated examples of people dying of influenza, of course. But more often than not, that happened to the elderly or to small children. Not to men in the prime of life.
The major slipped an arm about his fiancée’s waist. “And you’ll be no good to any of them if you don’t get some sleep, darling. Come on. I’m taking you home.”
“But—”
“Don’t make me call Sarah or my mother. I’ll do it.”
Miss Denler breathed a laugh and reached out a hand to Lily. “Thank you for inviting us, Lily. Sorry we were late.”
“I’m just glad you could make it. Now go home and rest.”
Zivon bade them farewell too and watched them walk away, wishing he had the right to guide Lily through the door with a hand on her back as Camden did his Arabelle. But it took only a glance at the window to Captain Blackwell’s study, through which Zivon could make out her father’s scowling face, to know that would be a bad idea.
The man stood. No doubt he realized that was the last of the guests other than him and Clarke and was about to come out and thank them for coming, thereby saying without saying outright that it was time they took their leave.
Lily, hand on his arm, nudged him toward Clarke and Ivy. Zivon went along. “Thank you again for doing this for me, Lily. You have made bright a day I thought would be nothing but darkness.”
The way she looked up at him, darkness couldn’t long stand against the flame it lit in his spirit anyway. He’d cared for Alyona. She’d long been like family. He would have cherished her, come to love her as a man should his wife had they wed. He knew that.
But it wasn’t like this.
Ivy’s laughter, robust and free, drew both their gazes to where she and Clarke stood by the vegetable garden, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone else had gone. “I can’t believe you did that! To a commander!”
Clarke grinned too. “Well, it wasn’t as though he was a commander then. Field promotion, you know.”
Lily gasped, pulling Zivon to a halt. He frowned down at her. “Are you all right?”
She spun, eyes bright. “That’s it! That’s where I’ve seen that photograph. They weren’t officers in it. That’s what was throwing me.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, and while she might tell him simply from her current excitement, he didn’t want to put her in a bad place if it was something he oughtn’t to know. “Then . . . good?”
She laughed, popped up onto her toes, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Lilian!”
Even her father’s furious bark didn’t dim her expression. She just flew over to him, all but bouncing. “I’ve solved it, Daddy! At least, I think I have. I need to get to the OB, to my archives. Will DID still be there, do you think? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Even if he isn’t, I need to see if I’m right. I can send him a note if I must.”
Her father’s expression had shifted during her rambling speech from irritation to indulgence. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Lily White. But if you need to go to the office, I’ll run you over in the car so you can be back before your mother and I need to leave.”
“That would be lovely.” She spun back to Zivon, eyes wide. “Oh, that was rude of me. What a hostess I’m being.”
He chuckled and waved an arm to catch Clarke’s eye. “You are the kindest of hostesses, Miss Blackwell. I thank you again, and your mother, for going to such lengths to brighten my day. But it is time we were on our way.”
Always a good idea to dismiss oneself before one could be dismissed, to his way of thinking.
As soon as they entered the house again, Mrs. Blackwell was there to see them off and thank them for coming. She took Zivon’s hand as he stepped back outside through the front door. “You are in my prayers, Mr. Marin.”
He hadn’t words enough to express how much that meant to him. Especially today. So he inclined his head in gratitude and hoped she could read in his eyes how deeply her regard touched him.
If, by some miracle, this all turned out well . . . if ever he earned the captain’s respect again so he could call on Lily properly . . . if ever he dared ask her to be his wife . . . then it would be a blessing to know she came with a mother of such faith.
He was quiet on the walk to the tube station and during the ride he shared with Clarke. He’d long since confessed what the date signified, so his friend didn’t push him for conversation, not until they were off the train again and standing at the corner where they would part ways.
“If you need company tonight, old boy—someone to help you eat some of those blinis—but say the word.”
Zivon smiled. “Thank you. Perhaps later this evening? A few hours of solitude first would not be ill-placed, I think.”
Clarke nodded. “I’ll call around eight. How’s that?”
“Perfect.”
He breathed a sigh of relief when he entered his building and wasn’t immediately swarmed by well-meaning women eager to talk about their daughters. The Smirnovs had done him a service indeed. Surrounded only by quiet, he would perhaps take a bath. Read. Pray. He’d been asking the Lord to help him forgive those who caused him such harm, but it was not a quick process, it seemed.
He turned his key in his lock, let himself in, and froze.
Something was wrong. Out of place.
Many somethings. A strange fragrance lingered in the air—soap, but not his. The tassels on the rug were flipped up, though he was always careful to put them down. The pillow on the chair wasn’t in the right place.
He moved to the doorway of his bedroom, checked the drawer where he stored his petty cash—still there—then walked back out to the living room.
Sunlight from the window lit seams of fire on the photo from Lily. Seams where there shouldn’t have been, in a distinct web pattern. Breath hissing out, he moved closer, until he could see the broken glass, still held in the frame but fractured to the point where the image was distorted behind it.
His gaze dropped to the floor. There was only one other thing he had in his possession that mattered. He couldn’t imagine why anyone else would want it, but even so, he dropped to his knees and pried up the board.
Gone. It was gone. But why? Who could possibly want the picture-less remains of Evgeni’s passport? He sank back on his haunches, board still in his hands. At least he’d taken out the photo of the two of them. It was safe with Lily. That was something. To know that the last existing image of the two of them together hadn’t been taken.
But his hopes for a quiet evening evaporated. It seemed he, too, would have to pay a visit to Admiral Hall.
The empty chair at the breakfast table screamed at Lily the moment she stepped inside. Mama was always the first one up, eager to catch the morning light for her work. She was always in here, enjoying a cup of tea and some toast, when Lily came down. Always. She could count on one hand the times she hadn’t been over the years.
Her gaze flew to her father even as her stomach churned. “Daddy? Where’s Mama?”
Daddy looked up from his newspaper, face only a few shades grimmer than usual. “She’s feeling a bit under the weather today. I’m certain it’s nothing to worry over, Lily White.”
No. She told herself to be calm, that not every upset stomach was a symptom of this nasty flu that seemed to be getting more serious instead of ebbing away. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn to the sideboard. “I’ll go and check on her, shall I?”
“Check on who, me? I’m only a minute later than usual.” Ivy, apparently having just come in the room, elbowed Lily playfully aside and grabbed a plate.
She let herself be elbowed. “Mama. Daddy says she isn’t feeling well.”
Ivy’s hands stilled mid-reach for the eggs. Her gaze, a bit wide, turned to tangle with Lily’s. She didn’t have to speak her fears or reiterate that a shocking number of girls at the school were out sick—and that one of them from another class had died. They’d already whispered their worries and their prayers last night.
Lily fastened on a smile. “Eat. I’ll go and see her now.” She fled the room without waiting for a response from her sister, running up the stairs and into her parents’ bedchamber with only a cursory knock on the door.
Nothing could happen to Mama. It couldn’t, not with things still awkward between them. Not with the step forward that the garden party had provided being largely undone by the hours Lily had then spent at the OB in the last week, searching every single archived photograph for those two German faces.
She’d found them. From the early days of the war, some of the first film she’d processed for Hall. They’d not been officers worth noting at the time, just soldiers who must have shown enough promise to get a promotion to something that led to a bigger promotion, and then another. She didn’t much care how they climbed the ranks, only that she hadn’t been imagining their familiarity.
It had taken far longer than the hour she’d expected, though. And since her regular work didn’t exactly halt, and they’d been shorthanded at the hospital too, it had meant hours away from home, where she’d usually have been trying to continue the patching of her relationship with Mama.
Hours when she should have been here. That was so clear now. Why had she pushed her family into second place—no, third? Why hadn’t she focused on Mama and let everything else slip instead?
The lights were out in her parents’ room, but at least the curtains were open, allowing morning sunshine for the lazy pug to nap in. Drawing the curtains was always Mama’s first move upon rising. Any comfort that gave Lily was eclipsed, however, by the sound of retching coming from the en suite bathroom. “Mama?” The connecting door was open, so she rushed through it.
Mama sat on the floor, one arm bracing herself against the toilet, the other waving Lily away. “I’ll be well, Lily. Must have been that old jar of fruit last night. I knew it didn’t smell quite right.” Her voice was hoarse, though Lily had no way of knowing whether it had been so before or was a result of the vomiting.
But she’d called her Lily—not Lilian.
Ignoring the waving hand, Lily knelt by her mother’s side and pressed a hand to her forehead. Warm, but not sizzling hot as some of the men in hospital were. “How is your breathing?”
Mama huffed out a breath that was reassuringly exasperated. “How does it sound? I’m telling you, it’s nothing to be worried about. I’m just going to take it easy this morning, and I’ll be right as rain by afternoon. You go about your day.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Not as quickly as this flu sometimes moved. There were far too many cases of people who weren’t even sick when they left for work in the morning being dead by teatime. It had all the nurses and aides at Charing Cross thoroughly shaken, never knowing with which patients the real danger lay. She fastened on a smile for Mama. “Are you ready to go back to bed, or not yet?”
“I do not need—”
“Humor me.”
Mama huffed again. And then closed her eyes, as if the better to sound out the state of her own stomach. A moment later, she nodded. “Let me rinse my mouth, then I believe I’ll be all right to go and lie down.”
“I’ll fetch you a basin once you’re comfortable again so you needn’t get up next time if you don’t want to.”
“I’m not an invalid.”
No. But if this was the flu that had London in its teeth, she could be in another hour. Please, God, no. Not Mama. Protect her, touch her, heal her. I beg you. She didn’t let herself think of the number of other prayers just like hers that must have been offered up in the last few weeks on behalf of other loved ones.
And of the number of times the Lord must have answered, I’m sorry, my child. But no.
She shadowed Mama on the slow walk to her bed, wanting to be reassured by the fact that she didn’t need help. She made herself smile as she slipped out with the promise to return momentarily. And then she tried to hide the shaking of her hands as she poked her head into the breakfast room.
Ivy hadn’t eaten more than a bite, and she stood the moment Lily appeared. “Well?”
“She says it’s just that canned fruit from last night that smelled a bit questionable.” She had a feeling her smile was unconvincing, though. “I’m going to stay with her. Daddy, will you drop a note by Charing Cross for me on your way in? And let Admiral Hall know?”
“Of course, my dear.”
She hurried out to find paper and a pen, scribbled a note for Ara, and left it on the entryway table for Daddy to grab on his way out. A basin then in hand, she returned to Mama, who had drifted into sleep in the five minutes Lily was away. Good. Rest was always a necessary ingredient of healing. Rest and prayer.
Making herself comfortable in Mama’s chair by the window, Lily picked up the Bible sitting on the side table and flipped to the page her mother had marked. Her eyes refused to focus on the words, but even feeling the weight of the book against her palms brought a measure of comfort. A small one, but a measure nonetheless. A reminder that He had been Lord long before she entered this world, and He would be Lord long after. That history would always march on, humanity living and dying, loving and losing, praising and cursing, but that He was unchanging.
Daddy slipped in a minute later, kissed Mama’s forehead and then Lily’s, and promised to let everyone know she wouldn’t be in today. He’d no sooner left than Ivy came in, a cup of tea and plate of toast in hand. “You still need to eat,” she whispered, sliding both offerings onto the table where the Bible had been.
Lily forced a smile. “Thanks.”
Her sister’s gaze rested on the bed. “I should stay too. I’ll send word to the school—”
“You said last night you were already down two teachers. They need you there.” She reached for Ivy’s hand and squeezed. “Go. I’ll send word if she gets worse, I promise. I know what to watch for.”
“More than I would. Even so.” Ivy let out a blustery breath, but then she pulled away. “All right, I’m going. And I’ll be praying all day.”
“I know.” Lily held her smile until Ivy left, and then she glanced again at the book in her hands. This time, familiar words came into focus for her. Psalm 56:3. A verse she had memorized ages ago. What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
Simply knowing the words couldn’t stop her from fearing just now. But then, the words themselves didn’t say if I am afraid. The psalmist feared too. It was a given. A when. The problem, then, wasn’t in experiencing the feeling. Only in what she chose to do with it.
She could probably pass the whole morning by enumerating every time
she’d been afraid and had chosen something other than trust. But that didn’t seem like it would help her overmuch. Instead, she read through the next several psalms, counting each time the writer feared or cried out or complained, and how many times he turned it all over to the Lord. Though his life was in danger, though his enemies surrounded him, he chose to trust.
That required bravery as well as faith.
Mama woke from her nap after an hour, and Lily helped her sip a bit of tea . . . which sent her running back to the toilet. At least she was still strong enough to want to get up rather than use the basin, though. Upon settling again, she declared herself not tired enough for another nap, so Lily fetched a novel from the library and read aloud to her.
Her fever increased by a degree or two throughout the morning, but the thermometer didn’t read a high enough number that Lily felt the necessity to alert anyone, and her mother’s lungs remained clear. No blue tinge to her lips. That didn’t, of course, mean that it wasn’t the flu or that it might not prove itself serious later. But she didn’t feel too bad for slipping out for a few minutes in the early afternoon to find a bite to eat while Mama dozed again.
Sandwich in hand, she decided to stretch her legs for another minute and wandered toward the entryway to see if the post had come.
It had. She leafed through it, chewing on her sandwich.
“Everything all right, Miss Lily? How is your mother?”
Lily turned to smile at Eaton, who stood with worry lines etched into his face. “She is resting. And her breathing is clear, which I take as a very good sign.”
“Praise God for that. I shall just—”
The doorbell sang through the entryway, cutting him off and making Lily jump. And fight back a surge of irritation. Shouldn’t everyone know that there was someone inside trying to sleep?
Eaton moved the three steps to the door and pulled it open. “Miss Ivy?”
Ivy? Probably stealing a few minutes to check on Mama, but why would she ring the bell? Though Lily had been reaching for her plate, she instead turned to the door.
A Portrait of Loyalty (The Codebreakers Book #3) Page 26
