Angels in the Gloom wwi-3

by Anne Perry

  Finally the tension cracked within Hannah. She leaned forward across the table, reaching her hand toward Abby’s. “What is it?” she asked. “You can talk about Paul, if you want to. Or anything else. You can carry it alone if you want, but you don’t have to.”

  Abby’s eyes were swimming with tears. She wiped them fiercely, staring at Hannah through the blur, trying to make the decision.

  Hannah did not know whether to speak or not. She waited while the silence settled. A few spatters of rain struck the window and she stood up to pull it closed.

  “Someone from Paul’s regiment came to see me about a week ago,” Abby said suddenly. “He was on leave. He . . . just came.”

  Hannah heard the agony in her voice and turned around slowly. Abby’s face was twisted in pain. Her body was rigid, shuddering with the effort of trying to control herself and knowing she was failing.

  Hannah felt her own stomach clench. What terrible thing had this man told her? Had he described the body of the man she loved blown apart, but perhaps still leaving him conscious to be hideously aware of it? Worse? Cowardice? A memory Abby could scarcely bear to live with? Was that why she looked as if she longed for death herself?

  Hannah went over to her, uncertain whether even to attempt to put her arms around the fragile, stiff body, or if it would seem like an unthinking intrusion. She stopped and simply took Abby’s hands instead, kneeling in front of her awkwardly. The floor was hard.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He told me about Paul,” Abby answered, her eyes desperate. “He told me how much he had liked him. What they did, what they talked about during the long days when they were bored stiff and had lots of time to be frightened, to think of what sort of night it would be, how many would be injured, or killed. He said Paul used to tell jokes, awful ones that went on and on, and sometimes he’d forget the end and have to make it up. Everyone knew he’d lost his place, and they all joined in, getting sillier and sillier.” She gulped. “He said no one else ever made them laugh the way Paul did.”

  Hannah felt the fear slip away from her. It was only pain that tore at her. Abby was missing him all over again, the sharpness renewed. It wasn’t any terrible revelation after all.

  “It’s good his men liked him,” she said aloud. “He was with friends.”

  There was no comfort whatever in Abby’s eyes. “This man—his name was Miles,” she went on. “He told me about one concert party they had, all dressed up like women and singing songs. He wouldn’t tell me the words because he said they were racy, but Paul had a gift for rhymes, and he wrote a lot of them, even though he was an officer. He didn’t take credit for it, but the men knew. All sorts of absurd rhymes, he said.” She tried to smile. “Actually ‘ridiculous’ and ‘meticulous’ was one, and ‘crazy horse,’ ‘pays, of course’ and ‘could be worse,’ only he pronounced it ‘worss.’ It was all incredibly silly, and it made them laugh.” She looked at Hannah wretchedly. “I never heard him do that!”

  Hannah was lost for words. She could see that Abby was hurt almost more than she could bear, but not why. Everything this man had said about Paul was good.

  “He told me Paul was incredibly brave,” Abby went on. “The men were filthy a lot of the time, mud and rats and things, and lice. Can’t get rid of the lice. They shaved every day, but not enough water to wash any more than their faces.” Her voice was rising and getting faster. “Miles told me you can smell the stench of the front line long before you get there. Paul never said that.”

  Hannah waited.

  “Miles said he’d never liked anyone more than he liked Paul.” Abby did not even try to stop her tears now. “His men trusted him, he said. He was hard. He had to be. But he was always fair. He agonized over decisions he made which could have been wrong. Miles told me about once when he had to send almost twenty men over the top, and he knew they had hardly any chance of coming back, but he couldn’t say that to them. It haunted him afterward, that he had to tell them only part of the truth, so it amounted to a lie.”

  She swallowed hard. “They knew that, and they knew what he felt, and why he couldn’t do anything else, but he still had nightmares about it. He’d wake up white-faced, with his body aching. I try to imagine him there alone in a tiny, cramped dugout—thinking about looking men in the eyes and ordering them out to be killed while he stays behind. And they still loved him!”

  “I expect they knew he had no choice,” Hannah spoke at last.

  “That’s the point, Hannah!” Abby cried, her voice almost strangled with emotion. “They knew him! They really knew him—they understood! I didn’t! To me he wasn’t that man at all. I never saw that kind of honor in him, that kind of laughter, or pain. I just knew him as he was at home, and that was so little. And now it’s too late. I never will. . . . I can’t even tell Sandy what his father was really like.” She closed her eyes. “It’s all gone, slipped away, and I didn’t grasp it when I could. I was too busy with my own life. I didn’t look.”

  “You couldn’t have known what he was like in France,” Hannah said gently. “None of us at home know what it’s like for them.”

  Abby jerked her head up. “But I didn’t want to!” she hissed. “Don’t you understand? I knew it was terrible out there. I can read the casualty figures. I’ve seen the drawings and the photographs in the newspapers. I didn’t want to hear the details—the sounds and smells, how cold it was or how wet, how filthy, how hungry they were.” She gasped in her breath. “And now some man I never even met before arrives and tells me what Paul was really like. And I listen to him and try to remember every word, because that’s all I’ll ever have.” She leaned forward and bowed her head in her arms across the table and sobbed, racked with a regret for which there was no healing.

  With a fearful clarity Hannah knew exactly what she meant. If Archie never came home, how much would she know about what his life was really like? What would she understand of the joy or the pain he felt, how he weighed his decisions, what guilt kept him up all night? Who was he, inside the carefully painted shell? Why did she not know? What would she tell her children of their father, if he was one of those who died?

  She wanted to say something comforting to Abby, but this was not the time for salvaging tiny pieces. She needed to face the emptiness and recognize it now; then perhaps it would not have to be done again. This time she was quite certain it was right to take Abby in her arms and simply hold her until she had wept out her strength.

  Afterward she took her to the bathroom and left her to wash her face and straighten her clothes. She made no mention of what either of them had said, as if they had quietly agreed that it had not really happened.

  “Thank you,” Abby said, almost under her breath, as she stood by the front door to leave. “The apple pie was lovely. You . . . I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you are very like your mother.” And with that ultimate compliment, she walked out into the darkness, leaving Hannah with a tumult of emotions.

  She went back inside and found Tom in his pajamas on the stairs. He looked worried. “You all right, Mum?” he said anxiously.

  “A friend came by and she was upset,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked, coming down the last few steps. “Has someone she loved been killed?”

  “Yes. A little while ago now, but she just needed to talk about it a bit. Not everyone wants to listen.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you did that for her.” He turned to go back up again, then stopped. “Uncle Joseph’s still awake, Mum. I’ve seen his light go on and off a few times. I think maybe he can’t sleep either.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take him a cup of cocoa, or something. Good night.”

  “Good night, Mum.”

  Hannah did not tell Joseph about Abby Compton’s visit other than simply that she had called. But she could not extinguish Abby’s words from her mind.

  She could just as easily have been the one to realize in a single dreadful hour that she had turned her back
on the chance to share the reality of all that love might be. It could still become her, if she did not confront Archie soon and face the things she did not want to know, and it seemed he did not want to tell her. But if she stayed shut out where it was safe, when she was ready to come in it might be too late. She would be excluded forever, as Abby was.

  She was frightened that she would not have the courage to press him against his will. It would be so much easier to accept denial. She did not know what to ask, when to insist and when to keep silent. If she said something stupid, insensitive, or without understanding, she would never be able to take it back and pretend it hadn’t happened. Perhaps it was already too late?

  Why couldn’t life have remained as it used to be? She had understood the problems then: love affairs that went wrong, childbirth and sometimes loss, quarrels, disloyalties, sickness, fractious children, long nights up watching the ill. Perhaps there had always been loneliness, but the long, quiet grayness of separation, not the searing scarlet of grief. But it had all been on a smaller scale, in homes and schools, churches and village greens; not on battlefields and in warships. It did not contain enough horror to drive people mad and divide men from women by gulfs they did not know how to cross. But there was no point in thinking further about it now.

  Arranging the flowers in church the day before a service was one of the duties her mother had performed, and it would give her a sense of comfort to do it herself, as if at least some things had not changed. Before she left she checked on Joseph.

  “Don’t try to make tea yourself,” she told him, looking at his arm. “Jenny’s around and she can do it, if you stay in the kitchen with her. I won’t be long.”

  He smiled patiently, and she realized she was fussing. “It’s important,” she explained, hugging the daffodils she had picked, stems wrapped so they did not bleed onto her clothes.

  “Of course it is,” he agreed. “Daffodils always seem brave and beautiful, like a promise that things will get better. It doesn’t matter what winter’s like, spring will come, eventually.”

  All kinds of thoughts crowded her mind about those who would not see it, but he knew that better than she, and it was maudlin to say so.

  Was this a time to ask him about some of the things he had experienced, but never spoke of? When, if ever, would it be easier?

  “Joseph . . .”

  He looked up.

  She plunged in. “You never say much about Ypres, what it’s like, how you feel, even the good things. . . .”

  His face tightened, almost indefensibly, but she saw it. “I’d like to understand,” she said quietly.

  “One day,” he replied, looking away from her.

  It was an evasion. She knew from his eyes and the line of his mouth that there would always be a reason why not. She turned quickly and went out of the door.

  She walked along the village street in bright sunshine, but against a surprisingly cold wind. April was a deceitful month, full of brief glory, and promises it did not keep.

  Inside the old Saxon church with its stained-glass windows and silent stones, the wooden pews were dark with age. Under each were hand-stitched hassocks to kneel on, donated by village women down the generations, some as long ago as the Napoleonic Wars. She began to get out the vases and fill them with water from the outside tap and carry them back in one at a time.

  Mrs. Gee came into the vestry, red-eyed and shivering against the cold. She brought some blue irises, just a handful. Every time Hannah saw her she thought of Charlie Gee, who had died in Ypres last year. Mrs. Gee did not know how horribly he had been maimed. Neither did Hannah, but she had seen the shadow of it in Joseph’s face every time his name was mentioned. The anger and the grief still haunted him more than for others dead.

  Hannah thanked Mrs. Gee for the flowers and separated them to put a little of their rich color in among the yellows. She needed to say something more than mere acknowledgment. “I don’t have anything blue,” she said with a smile.

  “There’ll be bluebells in the woods next month,” Mrs. Gee reminded her. “But they don’t sit well in a vase. Oi s’pose woild flowers don’t loike to be picked. Oi haven’t been down to the woods in a while.” She did not add any more.

  Hannah did not need to ask. The haze of blue over the ground, the sunlight and call of birds made it a place of overpowering emotion. She would not be able to go there in a time of grief herself. Odd how some kinds of beauty did not heal, but hollowed the pain even deeper.

  “How’s the chaplain?” Mrs. Gee asked, concern in her voice.

  “Much better, thank you.” That was more optimistic than the truth, but Mrs. Gee needed every good word possible.

  “Oi’m glad to hear it. Oi don’t know what our boys would do without him. Tell him Oi was asking.”

  “Yes, of course I will. Thank you.” Hannah felt a stab of fear again, as if she had deliberately excluded herself from the bond of knowledge other people shared.

  Mrs. Gee waited a moment longer, then turned and walked away between rows of seats, her footsteps heavy, her shoulders bowed a little.

  Betty Townsend brought some yellow and red early wallflowers. It was a shame to put them in the cool church; in a warmer room in someone’s home the perfume would have been far richer. Hannah thanked her for them, then noticed how pale she looked, as if she had not slept for many nights. She did not need to wonder what caused it. Everybody’s problems were the same—bad news, or none at all when there should have been.

  “How is your brother?” Betty asked, her voice a little husky.

  Hannah held the wallflowers without beginning to arrange them. “Getting better, thank you,” she answered. “But it will be a while yet. He was lucky to keep his arm. And how are you?”

  Betty turned away quickly. “Peter’s been posted missing in action. We heard two days ago.” Her voice trembled. “I don’t know whether to keep up hope he’s alive somewhere, or if that’s just stupid, putting off the truth.”

  Hannah wished with all her heart she knew something to say that would help. She stood there holding the flowers in her hand as if they mattered. Her mother would have said the right thing! Why did loss hurt so unbearably? Standing here in this building where people had come in joy and grief for a thousand years, she should have had some sense of the promise of eternity, a resurrection when all this would not matter anymore.

  Betty gave a little shrug. “The vicar came round, of course. He was trying to be kind, but I think he made it worse. Mother thanked him, but I just wanted to push him out of the house. He talked about glory and sacrifice as if Peter were somehow not real, a sort of idea rather than a person. I know he meant well, but all I wished to do was hit him. I wanted to shout, ‘don’t tell me about faith and virtue, it’s real and it hurts. It hurts! It’s Peter, who taught me how to climb trees, and not to cry if I skinned my knee, and ate my rice pudding when I hated it, and told me silly jokes. It isn’t just some hero! It’s my brother—the only one I had!’ ”

  Hannah jammed the flowers into the vase. Why was Hallam Kerr so useless? If religion wasn’t any help now, what point was there in it? Was it really no more than a nice social habit, a reason for the village to meet and keep up the pretense that everything would be all right one day? Kerr was just as lost as the rest of them, perhaps even more so.

  Was Joseph as empty and useless as that, too? She did not think so. It was not just because he was her brother. There was an inner strength to him; a place within him where his faith was real, and strong enough to bear up others. He was needed here at home. He should stay to help people like Betty, Mrs. Gee, and God alone knew how many more before this was finished.

  “All we can do is keep going, and help each other,” she said aloud. “The vicar is just another cross to bear.”

  Betty sniffed and gave a choking little laugh. “He wouldn’t like to be referred to like that,” she said, searching for a handkerchief to blow her nose.

  “I know,” Hannah admitted. “I’m s
orry. I shouldn’t have said it.”

  By the time Betty went, Hannah was almost finished with the flowers she had, and thinking they needed a little greenery to fill them out. Then Lizzie Blaine came in with some catkin branches and budding willow. She was a dark-haired woman with a hot temper and bright blue eyes. Her husband was one of the scientists at the Establishment.

  “Thank you.” Hannah accepted the additions with satisfaction. They gave bulk and variety to the yellow.

  Lizzie smiled. “I’ve always liked branches. They don’t seem to know how to make an ugly shape.”

  “You’re right!” Hannah agreed with surprise. “Even the knobbly bits look good.” She glanced at Lizzie again. There seemed to be a hidden excitement in her, as if she knew of something good that would happen, just beyond the sight of the rest of them. Would it be intrusive to ask what it was? “You look well,” she said pleasantly.

  “I like Sundays,” Lizzie replied, then gave a little shrug. “Theo doesn’t usually work on Sunday, although he has once or twice lately. They’re doing something critically important at the Establishment. He doesn’t say anything, of course, but I know from the way he walks how alive he feels. It is as if his mind is racing on the brink of solving the final problems and finishing whatever it is. Please God, it will be something that will make a real difference to the war. Perhaps it will even be over soon. What do you think?” Her eyes were bright, her cheeks a little flushed. “The men would come home. We could start to rebuild things again. . . .” Her face tightened suddenly; perhaps she was remembering those who would not come back.

  Hannah had no idea if Lizzie had other family far less safe than her scientist husband, perhaps brothers or friends. “I can’t think of anything better to pray for,” she said softly. “And it would be right to pray for it, for everyone. We could all start again, making things instead of smashing them. And the Germans could, too, of course.”