by Lisa Bingham
Panicking, she renewed her efforts, damning the ineffectuality of her efforts, wishing that she had more help. Why were she and Edna alone tonight of all nights?
“Rue…Ann!”
She turned to find Edna staggering toward her, a dented pail of water hanging from her good hand.
“Wesh blaksh!”
Throwing the blanket over an unaffected portion of the privet, she threw the water over it, wetting the wool, then handing the pail back to Edna.
“More!”
As Edna limped back toward the house, RueAnn began slapping at the conflagration with renewed fervor. The blanket was heavier now and more awkward to use. But she was rewarded with a hiss.
Just when she feared she would not be able to lift the blanket another time, Edna returned with a fresh pail of water. Grasping the handle, RueAnn threw the contents onto the burning hedge, handing it to Edna again, then renewed her efforts with the blanket.
Again and again they went through the same process—while all around them, the night became a cacophony of noise—the rumble of bombers overhead, the whistling of bombs, the reverberating explosions. And then, the clang of fire trucks.
Filled with renewed energy, RueAnn was finally able to push the flames at bay, back onto the pile of burning timbers, while all around her, the clanging noises became deafening. Shouts. And finally, the hiss of water as hoses were directed onto the shooting flames.
Panting, her lungs screaming in pain from cold and smoke, RueAnn dropped the blanket, leaning forward to brace herself on her knees as she fought for breath. The muscles of her arms and shoulders burned in pain and a cramp settled beneath her ribs. But finally, finally, she was able to calm herself enough to turn saying, “We did it, Edna! We…”
The words died in her throat as she saw the crumpled shape lying near the back door.
“Edna!”
Slipping in the mud and ice, RueAnn ran toward her motherin-law’s frail form. Stark shades of red and gold from the remaining fires flickered over the older woman’s features. But even the garish colors couldn’t disguise the gray pallor to her skin and the dark bruises that had settled in under her eyes. Her arms were bent, as if the muscles had tightened, until they looked like the wings of an injured bird. But it was her eyes that caught and held RueAnn’s attention.
There was such fear there that RueAnn could not bear it. Lifting the older woman, she scooted beneath Edna, resting her motherin-law’s silvery head on her lap.
“I’m here, Edna. I’m here.”
The panic eased as Edna met RueAnn’s gaze. Tears gathered at her lashes. A garbled noise bubbled from her throat.
“Shh,” RueAnn said, stroking her cheek. “Don’t talk. I’ll get you help. I’ll…”
Edna shook her head, her good hand clawing at RueAnn’s clothing until she bent closer.
“Char…lie…”
RueAnn wanted to push Edna’s concerns aside. She wanted to reassure her that she would see Charlie again, that this was just another setback in the road to Edna’s recovery. But looking down, she could see what little color remained in her cheeks was seeping away, leaving her skin waxy and lax.
“Don’t worry, Edna,” she whispered, knowing that if there was nothing else she could do for Edna, she could ease these last few moments. “I’ll take care of Charlie. I love him, you know.”
Edna nodded, her grip still strong. “Love…you…”
RueAnn tried to smile, even as her chest began to ache with unshed tears.
“Yes, I suppose he loves me too.”
Edna shook her head, suddenly desperate. “No…no…” she gulped air into her lungs. “Love…you…”
RueAnn frowned uncomprehendingly.
Edna swallowed, her breathing becoming more labored. “I…love…you…dear…daughter…”
Then, before RueAnn could truly comprehend what was happening, Edna’s hold grew slack and she became still.
And in that instant, as the fire raged around them and the cacophony of battle began to crescendo, RueAnn felt the life drain from Edna’s form. Peacefully. So peacefully. Leaving only the shell of her body behind.
• • •
Lincolnshire, England
Susan stamped her feet as she let herself into Nocton Hall, then swept the wool scarf from her hair and draped it around the collar of her coat.
The weather had been mild enough for walking when she’d left the Two Horseman, but a wind had begun to blow, warning of a storm to follow. There would be more snow in the forecast for tonight, she would wager.
“Hello, Mildred,” she said to the volunteer perched behind the marble topped table with its recipe box full of records.
“Good morning, Miss Blunt. Lt. Overdone is in the library. He told me to have you meet him there.”
“Thank you,” Susan said as she altered her course.
In the dozen or so times she’d visited, Susan had learned the names of most of the staff, and they’d grown accustomed to her visits. Susan arrived punctually when visiting hours began, and didn’t leave until the precise second they were over. If Paul happened to be in treatment or asleep, she visited the men in the recreation room. She would help them write letters or push their wheelchairs around the grounds or the halls to give them a change of scenery.
Paul’s improvement had been slow but measureable in the two weeks since she’d arrived, but he was still prone to frustration and bouts of anger. More than anything, he wanted to be back with his comrades, back in his Spit. But with his legs and hands still weak from burns only now beginning the painful healing process, it was difficult to know whether or not such a thing would ever become possible.
Susan had seen firsthand how tenuous progress could be among the burned pilots. The greatest fear was infection. A patient who appeared right enough one day, may be facing amputation the next if gangrene set in.
But Paul couldn’t accept “wait and see” as any form of prognostication. And Susan had seen him grow more despondent and short-tempered with each day that passed.
Susan had tried her best to divert him—bringing books and magazines, playing cards and board games. But nothing had helped. So she was hoping to cheer him up with the news that they would be showing a motion picture in the dining hall on Saturday. Laurel and Hardy. Just the ticket for recovering servicemen.
Stepping into the library, she scanned the long, narrow room, automatically unbuttoning her coat. Here in the East Wing, the radiators pumped out enough heat for Lucifer himself, while on the opposite end of the manor, the rooms could become quite nippy.
Finally locating Paul at the far end, she moved toward him, not calling out yet. These first few moments before he realized she had arrived allowed her a chance to study him freely without worrying how he might react. It was the only time he was completely unguarded and honest in regards to his condition. In the few seconds it took to walk up behind him, she was able to see from the tense set of his shoulders that he was in pain but not quite as restless as yesterday.
Touching him lightly on the shoulders, she bent to brush a quick kiss to the top of his head, then rounded his chair to sit on the settee opposite.
“How are you this morning?” she asked, tugging her gloves from her fingers.
Paul didn’t immediately answer. When she glanced up, he was staring out the window. A muscle pulsed at the base of his jaw.
“Is something wrong?”
She placed her gloves in her lap and set her purse on the cushion beside her.
He didn’t answer her immediately. When he finally spoke, he said flatly, “I want you to go home.”
Susan frowned. “Aren’t you feeling well today? Have you told the doctor you need something for the p—”
“I want you to go home to London, not the Inn.”
He looked at her then, his eyes lifeless and dull.
“But—”
“I want you to go home to London and I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Her stomach plumme
ted as if she’d been dropped off a precipice into a freezing pool.
“Wha—”
He reached into the pocket of his robe and withdrew a card, throwing it onto her lap.
Her fingers were trembling so terribly, she fumbled in trying to open it. Finally, she managed to spread it wide, the looping handwriting inside jumping out at her.
Just heard about your difficulties from Phillip. Bernard and I wish you a speedy recovery and all our best wishes for your future.
Sara Blunt-Biddiwell
A giant hand gripped her chest, making it impossible to breathe.
“What kind of game have you been playing, Susan?” he asked, his voice hard.
“I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me! The handwriting,” he said, pointing to the card. “It doesn’t match the script on the letters I’ve been receiving—passionate, loving letters from a woman whom, apparently, I don’t even know!” He dug into his pocket again, pulling out a crumpled envelope. “So I checked it against the inscription of the book you brought me, and guess what? It matches. What the bloody hell did you think? That I was some charity case in need of a fictional romance to keep me going?”
“No! I never—”
“You never,” he interrupted. “Therein is the key word. You never so much as spoke to me those times I spent with your family, and yet, you felt the need to perpetrate this…this charade!”
“No!” she jumped to her feet, wringing her hands. “You don’t understand. It was Sara’s idea to switch places. I knew all along that I shouldn’t have gone with you to the fancy dress party, but I allowed myself to be talked into it!”
His features grew even paler, the darkness of his eyes beginning to burn. “Do you mean to tell me that the two of you schemed together from the beginning to play me for a fool?”
“No! I—it was innocent enough in the beginning. Sara had inadvertently double-booked herself for the evening and she came to me…begging me to help her. To take her place—only for an hour or two,” Susan hastened to add. “But then she didn’t come…” Her words became husky with unshed tears as she realized the lameness of her excuses in the face of what she’d done.
Sinking onto the settee, she reached out to touch his knee. “Don’t you see? I fell in love with you that night…that perfect, beautiful night.”
He didn’t appear at all moved by her words, so she hurriedly continued. “Then the war broke out, and I realized that it wasn’t me you’d courted, but the woman you thought I’d been and—” She sobbed. “It’s all so complicated and yet…so simple.”
He looked away from her, his jaw hard, the muscle clenching and unclenching.
“When you came back a year later and threw pebbles against the window, I didn’t even think things through. I reacted instinctively.” Her voice grew husky. “Selfishly.” Withdrawing her hand from his leg, she knit her fingers together. “The person who talked to you was me. The woman who kissed you and agreed to write to you was me. Yet it wasn’t until you called out my sister’s name as you drove away that I realized you hadn’t been speaking to me. You’d fallen for Sara.”
Emotion lumped in her chest so painfully, she could hardly speak, but she forced herself to continue, needing to purge herself of the deceit which had festered in her for so long. “I swore that would be the end of it—truly I did. Until your letters arrived and I…I hoarded them. Unopened. For so long. Until…” She swallowed, reliving that moment when she had sealed her fate. “I couldn’t ignore them any longer.”
She blinked, tears heavy on her lashes. “Don’t you see? By that time, I’d fallen in love with you. And I dared to believe that if I wrote to you…you might learn to love me too…”
The room pulsed in silence even as her heart churned in a bed of broken glass. With each tick of the distant mantel clock, she waited for her happy ending, for the moment when Paul would turn to her and forgive her of everything—because he loved her too. Loved the woman he’d kissed and held. Loved the woman who had poured her heart out to him with every word that she’d ever penned on paper.
But then, he looked at her, his eyes flat and hard, and said, “Get. Out.”
He could have plunged a knife into her breast and it would not have been as painful. For the longest time, the words hovered in the air around her before slowly, slowly seeping into her brain.
“Paul?” It was the barest whisper of sound, little more than a puff of air. But he heard it. She knew he heard it.
He didn’t respond. He merely turned away from her, staring resolutely out the window.
And in that instant, she knew she’d lost him.
Stiffly rising to her feet, she gathered up her things and took a step past him, two. Three. But then the pain crashed over her in waves and she couldn’t stop herself from turning to face him yet again.
“How…dare…you,” she whispered fiercely. “Yes, I deceived you. Yes, I took my sister’s place. But if you had just once looked at me—really looked at me—you would have seen that I had ever so much more to offer you than my sister Sara. She was never interested in you. You were nothing more than another of her diversions, another stray. I loved you. From the beginning!”
Her voice rose as she became more fervent. “Maybe I am the fool for ever having loved you. Even here, wounded and in a hospital, I come out second best in this horse race. But if you’d truly known my sister, you would have realized that she wouldn’t have come to Nocton in the first place. She would have…sent you a blasted card!” She pointed wildly to the note that had tumbled to the floor. “But I came. The moment I heard you were injured, I abandoned my home, my brother, my responsibilities, and I came. If you’d given me even a hint of kindness, I would have stayed with you for a lifetime. And I would have been the best thing that ever happened to you during your entire, miserable existence!”
Susan ran from the room then, her shouts echoing behind her, not pausing even when she heard him call out to her. She burst into the cold, dragging her coat over her shoulders, running most of the way back to the Two Horsemen. There, she threw her belongings into her suitcase, settled her bill, and raced to catch the evening train.
As the locomotive lumbered through the worsening weather, she refused to think of anything—her deceit and its consequences or her parting words. She vowed to herself that she wouldn’t waste another ounce of energy on the man.
She’d been a fool. A complete and utter fool. She should have known that Paul could never truly love her, even after knowing the truth. Love was a reward for beauty, not for sincerity.
It was past midnight when she stumbled home, following the strips of white painted on the lampposts. As she neared the house, she found the way littered with debris and the air hung heavy with the smell of smoke and damp wood. Heart pounding, she tried to peer into the darkness, afraid that she would turn the corner to find that the block had been leveled in her absence. But it was so dark, she could only pick her way through bits of masonry until she finally reached the front gate and could run up to the front stoop and push her key into the frozen lock.
Frantic, she burst inside, pulling the blackout drape into place over the door and flinging on the light. The moment the yellow glow spilled into the corners, her breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Everything was in its place. The blackout was snuggly drawn, the furniture still sat solid and slightly worn, facing the radio as if waiting for her to turn on a program or the news.
She rubbed her hands together as she moved further into the room. Phillip must have let the coals go out because the air was chilly and curiously stale. Her breath hung in the air in little puffs of vapor.
“Phillip?” she called. “Phillip, I’m home!”
There was no answer and she cursed the Home Guard for keeping him out so late on one of those rare nights without an air raid.
Moving to the kitchen, she made sure the blackout drapes were drawn here as well, then flung on the light. A weak glow emitted from the overhead bulb, lapping into th
e corners. Feeling hollow and older than her years, she reached for the kettle and set it on the burner, then sighed. The stove had gone out as well.
Maybe Phillip had gone to live with RueAnn while Susan had been away. Maybe…
Her eyes suddenly landed on a piece of paper folded in half and propped in the middle of the kitchen table. Lifting it up, she held it to the light, attempting to decipher Phillip’s impossibly messy script.
Susan,
Please don’t be mad with me, but I can’t just sit around anymore, pretending that there isn’t something I can do to help with the war. Matthew had it right when he joined the RAF. I’ve tried to do my bit with the Home Guard and all, but it’s just not enough.
When you read this, I’ll be gone. I found a recruitment office that believed me when I said I was eighteen and told them my papers had been burned in a fire. Don’t worry about me. I’ve joined the Expeditionary Forces, and they’re a good lot of blokes. I’ll write as soon as we’ve shipped out and you can’t force them to send me back.
Love,
Phillip
The paper fell from her bloodless fingers and the strength drained from her body like so much sand until she dropped to the floor, sobbing.
She shouldn’t have left him here alone. She shouldn’t have left him. Dear God, why hadn’t she done more to keep Phillip safe?
Charlie,
The first time I was forced to handle a snake, I learned that fear has a taste that lingers on the tongue like the sour smell of old pennies. It’s a putrid flavor that seeps into my mouth each time I think of that day.
There were three of them. Kentucky Rattlers. Not pets, as many people believed, but wild creatures that my father had found up Dyson’s canyon mere days before. Even now, I can picture the way they curled in upon themselves in their makeshift cage—pretty in a macabre way. Like that coveted length of copper iridescent ribbon I’d been eyeing in Mama’s notion box for as long as I could remember. Just like the ribbon, the snakes glowed with a pearlescent sheen, deep chocolaty brown in spots, dappled with gold and copper in others. But unlike the ribbon, the snakes undulated, their bodies seeming to pulsate with a palpable threat.
