by Rhys Bowen
He opened his eyes to see someone standing over him. He sat up with a start, his gloved hand reaching for his service weapon and realising that it was not loaded anyway. He remembered the knife, stowed in the inside of his boot—again completely useless to him. Why hadn’t he thought ahead, prepared to defend himself?
As his eyes focused he reacted with horror. A thin, hooded, faceless figure, garbed in black. The grim reaper. Death come for him. As he attempted to get up, the figure gave a little gasp and stepped back. Then Hugo saw that it was a woman, dressed entirely in black, her head and shoulders covered in a shawl. She was carrying a basket that she now held in front of her, as if to defend herself.
“Are you a German?” she asked in her native Italian, then added, “Deutsch?”
“No. I’m not German. I’m English,” he replied in Italian, grateful that his year studying in Florence had made him reasonably fluent in the language. “My plane just—” He searched for the words “crashed” or “was shot down” and found neither. They weren’t the sort of vocabulary he’d had to use before the war. “My plane went down.” He emphasised this with a gesture of a plane crashing.
The woman nodded. “We heard it,” she said. “The explosion. We didn’t know what it was. We were afraid the Germans were blowing something up again.”
He found her hard to understand. He was afraid that he had forgotten all the Italian he had learned but then realised she was speaking with the strong Tuscan dialect he had heard used among country people. And her hand gestures confirmed what she was saying.
“Are there still Germans in this area?” he asked.
She nodded again, glancing around her as if expecting them to appear at any moment. “Oh yes. They have dug themselves holes in the hills, like rabbits. I do not think it will be easy for your people to drive them out. It is not safe for you to stay here. You must get away to the south. That way.” She pointed. “That is where the Allies are advancing. We hear that they are already close to Lucca.”
“I can’t walk,” he said. “I think I’ve been shot in the leg. I need a place to hide until I can treat the wound and see what needs to be done.”
She glanced up again. “I can’t take you to my village,” she said. “The Germans come through sometimes. They demand lodging and they take our food. You would not be safe. Word would get out, and there are those among us who would willingly sell information for food or cigarettes.”
“I wouldn’t dream of putting you in any danger,” he said. Actually, that was what he’d wanted to say, but he could only produce, “I will not make dangerous for you.”
She spread her hands wide. “If it was just me, I would say yes. I would take this risk. But I have my young son and my husband’s grandmother living with me. I must protect them.”
“Of course. I understand. You must not have danger from me.”
She was frowning at him now. “How is it that you speak my language?”
“I lived in Florence once when I was a young man. I was there for a year to study art.”
“You are an artist?” she asked.
“I wanted to be a painter before the war. Now I’ve been flying planes for five years.”
“This war has robbed us all of what we loved,” she said, and looked away.
He nodded. “If you could just help me up, I’ll be on my way,” he said. “Any moment I could be discovered and you would be in trouble for talking to me.”
“I don’t think anybody would come in this direction now.” She looked around cautiously as she spoke, as if not quite trusting her words. “The olive harvest is over. I myself came to see if any olives still lie among the trees, or maybe there are mushrooms or chestnuts in the forest. We eat what we can find these days. The Germans take what we have.”
The mention of Germans made her face grow pinched and fearful again. She pulled the shawl more tightly around her. “You cannot walk at all?”
“I could try if you would support me. Just as far as the trees up there. Then I would be hidden.”
“The monastery,” she said with sudden emphasis. “I will take you to the monastery. You will be safe there.”
“Monastery?” Hugo reacted with the Protestant’s suspicion of all things Catholic, especially monks. “Are you sure that would be a good idea?”
“It is a ruin,” she said. “Nobody goes there now. But it would be a place to shelter, if you can make it that far.”
“Then let’s try. Maybe you could help me up?”
She put down her basket and lifted him under his armpits. She was remarkably strong for her frail appearance. He stood, sweating with pain as his wounded leg tried to take his weight.
“Come,” she said. “Put your arm around my shoulder. I will support you.”
“Oh no. I couldn’t. It’s not necessary,” he said, seeing his own size compared to hers now that he was standing in front of her.
“Don’t be stupid. You can’t walk without help. Come on. Do it.”
He did as she told him, conscious of her slight, bony shoulders under the shawl and not wanting such a delicate little thing to take his weight.
“That’s right,” she said. “Lean on me.”
He dragged the parachute pack in his other hand as they started forward between the rows of olive trees. The wind buffeted them, unfurling her shawl across their faces. The going was horribly rough—the soil soft and muddy in places, rocky and partly frozen in others. Hugo gritted his teeth and inched forward. At last they made it to the tree line. Some of the trees were now stark and bare, while others still bore leaves—evergreen oaks and among them a few tall, dark pines. Hugo paused and leaned gratefully against a solid tree trunk.
“I need to catch my breath,” he tried to say. Actually, he said, “I need to wait and breathe better.” His Italian had never progressed enough to be idiomatic.
“Let us move a little further into the woods. Here you may still be seen. We never know where the Germans may be lurking.” She urged him forward.
They stumbled between trees, slithering on wet leaves, tripping over roots. Here the air smelled rich and moist and the world was completely still. The woman left him, darting forward to snatch at a dangling branch. “Oh look, chestnuts,” she said. “That is good. Usually all the wild chestnuts have been found by this time of year. And I see some mushrooms growing on that trunk. I will pick them on my way home.”
“And I see a dead branch lying over there,” he said. “If you would pick it up for me, I could try to use it as a crutch.”
“Good idea.” She lifted the heavy branch, shaking off dead leaves. “If we break it about here”—and she did so, the branch giving a loud crack as it snapped—“it should be just right.”
He tucked the thicker end under his armpit. “Yes, I think it might work.”
He gave her a hopeful little grin and she returned his smile. “That is good.” He noticed the way her whole face lit up as she smiled. Hidden beneath that shawl, she could have been any peasant woman of any age. Now he realised she was little more than a girl with a cheeky smile and dark eyes that sparkled.
“Now comes the difficult part,” she said. “I hope it will not be too much for you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
JOANNA
April 1973
Miss Honeywell and I parted company amicably. She even invited me to come and have a glass of sherry with her that evening if I was going to be alone in the lodge. I thanked her courteously but part of me was dying to shout out, “You old hypocrite. Do you not remember how foul you were to me?” I had always suspected she resented the fact that my father had a title and so no matter what else was taken from him she still had to call him Sir Hugo. I’m sure it rankled.
I walked slowly back up the drive, conscious of the sweet scent of the hyacinth and narcissus blooming on either side and the smell of newly cut grass that wafted from where the mower had been working. I hesitated outside the front door of the lodge, suddenly not wanting to go in and see what h
ad become of my father’s life. I had not come home frequently after I’d left school. Father and I found conversation awkward, and things sometimes devolved into arguments or even shouting matches, so we tended to meet for lunch at a pub somewhere. We could both be cheerful for the time it took to eat a good roast and some apple pie.
I fitted the big key into the lock and turned it. The door swung open with the sort of creak you often heard when someone was entering a haunted house on radio plays. I stepped inside, recoiling at the stale odour that hung in the air—rotting food mingled with cigarette smoke and clothes that needed washing. It was clear that he had left right after breakfast. The remains of a boiled egg, toast in the silver toast rack, an empty teacup, and a milk jug stood on the table. This I actually found reassuring. If he had been meaning to kill himself he would certainly not have had a boiled egg for breakfast first. Neither would he have left the milk out to spoil. My father had always been fastidious. The state of the milk made me realise that it was not this very morning that he had died but at least a day ago, after Miss Honeywell had walked her dog yesterday morning. And this was followed by more worrying thoughts: had he simply keeled over and dropped dead? Had he lain in the grass, calling for help? Could he have been saved if someone had heard him?
“Oh, Daddy,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I found myself swallowing back tears. All my life I’d wanted him to love me. I think he did, in his own way, but not like my mum did. I don’t remember him ever hugging me. When I was little he had taken me on his knee and read books to me, but that was the extent of our closeness. I don’t think he knew how to be a loving parent. Like all upper-class boys he was sent off to boarding school at seven and had learned to lock away his feelings.
“Daddy,” I whispered again, as if he could hear me. “I did love you. If only . . .” I let the rest of the sentence hang in the air. Mechanically I picked up the remains of his breakfast, threw the eggshell and toast into the bin, and set about washing up the plate and cup as if keeping busy would hold the feelings at bay. Then I put the toaster away and wiped down the table. When I had finished, the kitchen looked clean and neat, the way it had always been when my mother had been alive. But in those days it had been warm and friendly, with clean curtains fluttering at an open window and always the good smells of her cooking in the air: freshly baked scones and steak and kidney pie and sausage rolls and Victoria sponge . . . my mouth watered now at the thought of them. My mother loved to cook. She adored taking care of my father and me. I blinked back those tears, ashamed of myself and my weakness. After my mother died I had never allowed myself to cry. Whatever mean things those girls did to me at school, however horrible Miss Honeywell was, I had always stared back at them with a look of defiance and contempt. It was only since . . . only recently that I had become so soft and fragile.
The memory of my mother’s cooking made me realise I was hungry. I’d had no lunch, and a couple of nibbles of a custard cream biscuit were not exactly filling. I went to the pantry and was horrified at the lack of supplies. A dried-out piece of cheese, some withered potatoes, a few tins of baked beans and soup. It occurred to me that during term time he had taken his main meals with the rest of the staff at school. During the holidays he was literally starving himself. I cut a slice of bread and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich. As I ate I looked around the kitchen. How bleak it looked. No wonder he had sunk into depression.
Feeling a little better with food inside me, I got up and inspected the rest of the house. Apart from the kitchen there was a living room downstairs and a tiny study that was strictly my father’s private domain. Upstairs were two little bedrooms and a bathroom. As I walked around, it occurred to me that these things were presumably mine now. I was the only child. I doubted that he had left a will—after all, he had nothing to leave but these few possessions. The title would die with him, unless a third or fourth cousin was lurking somewhere. Not that anyone would want to inherit a title that came with no property, no land, and no money.
It didn’t take me long to walk through the rooms. The one thing that struck me more than any other was that there was nothing personal in any of them. If you’d been brought to this house you’d never have been able to guess what kind of person lived there. In my mother’s day there had been cut flowers and women’s magazines and open recipe books lying on tables. There were photos of me as a baby. A sweater she was knitting lying on the sofa. But now there was not a single photograph or invitation or card. The place might as well have been inhabited by a ghost.
I went through into what had been my bedroom. Again, nothing of me remained. I had taken my few possessions when I moved out. I sank on to the bed, feeling suddenly weary. This room had been my sanctuary. Before my mother died she used to tuck me in every night. After she died I would curl up into a tight ball in this bed with the covers over my head, shutting out the world and the mean girls and the lack of love and the knowledge that nobody would ever tuck me in again.
I looked around the room. Was there anything here I wanted? I didn’t think so. And in the rest of the house? I did another quick tour. I could see that my father had rescued a couple of good pieces from Langley Hall: the satinwood bureau in his study with the inlaid marquetry and tiny drawers with their carved bone handles. I’d always admired that. And the grandfather clock that was supposedly over three hundred years old. Certainly not the sagging sofa or well-worn leather armchair he always sat in to watch television. Upstairs there was an elegant bow-fronted chest of drawers in the main bedroom and a gentleman’s armoire with drawers down one side and racks for hanging shirts and trousers on the other. It was a fine mahogany piece, but again I was struck by the contrast of the elegant furniture and the pitifully few garments hanging in it. Apart from that, a couple of paintings on the walls: a hunting scene and a framed print of Langley Hall in the eighteenth century with elegant Jane Austen figures strolling in the grounds. If I’d been born in another century, I might have been making a good match with Mr. Bingley, I thought, and had to smile.
I supposed that some of these might fetch some money at auction. I certainly had nowhere to put any furniture, and I didn’t particularly like the paintings. I’d have to find out when they would become legally mine. I knew a little bit about probate through my own work. If the person left no property or shares or other tangible assets, then probate was not necessary. But I’d need to obtain a death certificate and would have to wait until the coroner released the body. I wondered if he had a solicitor who could direct me. Presumably some law firm had been in charge of the sale of Langley Hall and the payment of death duties. I should go through his desk or, failing that, see if he had a safe-deposit box at the bank—which they wouldn’t let me open until I had the death certificate. It all seemed overwhelming and complicated, and I don’t think I had ever felt more alone. To realise that one has nobody in the world—that is a sobering thought. I knew that my mother had been an orphan, my father the only son of an only son. I might have had distant cousins somewhere, but I had certainly never met them.
“No good comes from moping around,” I told myself. Since I was not yet at liberty to start packing up his things I’d go into the village and see the vicar about a funeral. Maybe he could telephone the coroner and find out when the body would be released.
Having something positive to do, I gave myself a wash and brush-up and walked into the village. As happens so often in April, the sunny day had now clouded over with the promise of rain any moment. A cold wind had sprung up from the west, and I realised my folly of going out without an umbrella. I’d be soaked by the time I reached the village. The mile walk seemed to go on forever. I pressed myself against the hedgerow until suddenly I heard the hum of an approaching motor and almost considered holding out my thumb for a lift. As it happened, I didn’t have to. It was a delivery van and it came to a halt beside me. The driver leaned over and opened the passenger door.
“It’s never Jo, is it?” he called. “Do you w
ant a lift?”
I took in the big man with his florid face, trying to picture who he might be. When I hesitated, he added, “It’s me, Billy. Billy Overton.”
I saw then the writing on the side of the van. “Overton’s Bakery. Fine Bread and Pastries.” I gave him a grateful smile and climbed up beside him.
“Billy Overton,” I said. “I didn’t recognise you.”
He grinned. “Well, I have to admit I’ve put on a few pounds recently. I was a skinny little kid when we sat next to each other in school, wasn’t I?”
“You were. And so shy that you hardly said a word.”
He burst out laughing at this. “You’re right. I’ve come out of my shell these days. Had to, really, since I deal with the public all the time.”
“You’re working for your dad now, then?” I asked as he let out the clutch and we drove on.
“That’s right. Went straight into the business after school. We’ve opened a couple more shops now—one in Whitley, one in Hambledon—doing really nicely since they put in that big housing estate. Now Dad concentrates on the baking and I make sure the retail side is going smoothly.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“How about you?” he asked. “What are you doing with yourself?”
