An Unmarked Grave

by Charles Todd

  I sighed. “Since he died in France, it could be that someone at the Front wanted him dead. It’s happened before that scores have been settled there. If it wasn’t in France, then the reason will lie in Somerset, where Major Carson lived.” I remembered Mrs. Campbell and Lieutenant Banner. “Do you know if the Carson marriage was a happy one? He wouldn’t be the first soldier to fall in love with another man’s wife. She wouldn’t be the first woman to fall out of love, after a hasty wartime marriage.”

  “I can’t believe that of either Julia or Vincent.”

  I couldn’t help but think that neither of the Carsons would have told Simon if there was marital trouble. Or my parents, for that matter.

  “I understand, but-”

  “Stay out of it, Bess. The last thing you want to do is cause Julia Carson any more grief. And I’ve told you, there’s no proof that there was anything or anyone in that shed. Or that Private Wilson killed himself. Too much time has passed.”

  “I would never hurt her. But what about Private Wilson’s family? How do they feel about his death?” I took a deep breath. “If I don’t pursue this, who will?” In my pocket was the letter I’d written. I handed it to him. “What shall I do, Simon?”

  “All right. Go to Somerset and learn what you can about Carson. Julia likes you, she’ll talk freely to you. And if you discover anything, come to me. Let me handle it.”

  “That’s fair. If it’s possible to clear Private Wilson’s name of the charge of suicide, I’ll find it. In his own way, he’d been a very brave man.” A thought struck me. “What was the date of his death? Do you know?”

  With reluctance, Simon told me. It was the night after I fell ill.

  “Where did Private Wilson come from? Before the war?” I was ashamed that I didn’t know, had never thought to ask.

  “From Cheddar Gorge. Or just outside it, to be more accurate.”

  And Cheddar Gorge was also in Somerset. It explained, perhaps, why he had chosen to confide in me rather than go directly to Matron. I’d have sworn he didn’t know, hadn’t recognized the dead man. But how fallible was my memory? I hadn’t been watching Private Wilson’s face. What’s more, he’d seen that of the corpse before I had.

  The trouble was, there was so little to go on. Only my belief that Private Wilson wouldn’t have killed himself and the timing of his death.

  Simon waited as I digested that.

  Another thought crossed my mind, and immediately I was ashamed of it. But I had to know.

  I searched his face. Was this a conspiracy to force me to choose Somerset for myself? But Simon had never lied to me. He wouldn’t have lied about Private Wilson’s death or where he lived. Even to convince me that I had every reason to go to Somerset.

  I got up and walked a little way on my own. Simon stayed where he was, on the bench by the parapet. His gaze was on the confection that was the pier, for all the world an exotic place, filled with wonders, but in fact it was only a way for those visiting the seaside to amuse themselves.

  I wanted desperately to go back to France. But setting that aside, could I spend a week or two at the clinic, as everyone seemed to want me to do? It would permit me to learn something about Major Carson and Private Wilson. Going back to France sooner might put me closer to where events had taken place, but I’d be walking blindly into something I knew little about, uncertain where to put my trust. And if murder had been done, I’d be vulnerable.

  It shouldn’t take too long, should it, to learn what I needed to know and then ask to be sent back to France?

  Simon had put my letter into his pocket. I didn’t feel I could ask him to return it. On the other hand, if I’d written it once, I could write it again when the time came. And I wouldn’t be putting Simon squarely in the middle.

  I paced as far as the pier, then turned and walked back again. Simon was standing by the parapet now, his gaze on the hotel. He didn’t want to read in my face what decision I had made. And I realized in that moment how worried he was, how much my return to France concerned him.

  There were very few things that frightened Simon Brandon. It was a measure of how much he cared for me that he couldn’t face me now.

  I said when I’d reached him, “It appears that my decision has been taken out of my hands. The clinic in Somerset it is.”

  His relief was well concealed, but still I saw it.

  “This doesn’t mean that I won’t go back to France, Simon. You do understand that.”

  “Yes” was all he said.

  As he offered me his arm for the walk back to the hotel, I thought perhaps things had turned out for the best.

  It was difficult to be at odds with those I loved.

  But the time would surely come when I’d have to face making the decision again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHORTLY AFTER MY parents returned from the Major’s memorial service, we set out for the clinic in Somerset. No one mentioned my about-face on serving there. It would have been gloating, and my parents would never do that.

  We spent one night at home, and the following morning it was my father who drove me to my next posting.

  I asked, to pass the time, how he had felt about the memorial service.

  “Difficult at best, of course. But I think it went off rather well, and it gave Julia Carson a little comfort. He’s buried in France, you know. Vincent.”

  “I remember him before he met Julia. He was half in love with Mother for a time.”

  My father chuckled. “So he was. But then a good part of the regiment thought they were in love with her. Your mother has an air about her that binds men to her.”

  “Did you know his family well? I remember Vincent’s father as a rather stern man. On one visit he found me in an upstairs passage, looking for Mother, and he quick-marched me back to the Nursery, ordering Nurse to see that I stayed there.”

  “Did he indeed? He was a barrister, a formidable opponent in a courtroom, but outside of it he had a stiff manner that sometimes put people off. Vincent confided to me that it was a great shock to his father when his only son chose the Army over the Law. He’d assumed that Vincent would be eager to follow in his footsteps, and for a time he blamed me for that decision. His mother, on the other hand, was from Devon, her family connected with the Raleighs in some way, I think. She was known for her good works and her flame-red hair. A beauty in her day. She was very fond of your mother. Do you remember her?”

  “She’d carry me off to the kitchen, where they looked after me until Nurse could fetch me. There were small cakes, iced in different colors. And a cream cake with a rum and sultana sauce for tea.”

  “Rum?” he asked, his brows flying up. “I never heard of that.”

  I laughed. “Yes, well, I was sworn to secrecy. It was quite lovely, actually.”

  Odd that Vincent Carson had married just the opposite woman-pretty, but not a beauty, and a homebody. Her fame, such as it was, lay in her gardens, where she enjoyed spending hours, to the despair of her gardener. She had wanted children, a house full of them. But there hadn’t been any. And wouldn’t be now.

  “The Major had two sisters. They were a little older than I, and treated me with kindness.”

  There had been some gossip about that amongst the women from the garrison in India who called on my mother from time to time. One of Vincent’s sisters had married beneath her, causing a family breach. The other had married well, her husband something to do with banking in Bristol.

  “Do you think-if my duties allowed-that I could call on Julia? Not right away, of course. But I’d like to do that, unless she’s not receiving visitors yet.”

  “I think she’d be delighted to see you.”

  It was clear from what my father was saying that Simon hadn’t told him about my belief that the Major had been murdered. I was grateful.

  Medford Longleigh was a small village in the rolling country that led to the Cotswolds, and high brick walls kept the houses and shops from sliding downhill into the road. They
gave a very secretive air to the village, but in fact it had been the only way the area could be settled. The clinic was in Longleigh House, which was just on the outskirts, where the twisting main road straightened itself out for a quarter of a mile or more, allowing the gates to the park to appear to be even more stately than they were. Tall, capped with stone, then curving down in a graceful sweep to connect to the walls that surrounded the grounds, they promised a grand house ahead.

  And the promise was fulfilled. Three stories high with an elegant roofline, tall chimneys, and a wing set to either side, the house was lovely. Stone faced the windows, and the portico was Grecian, with wide steps leading down to the drive.

  My first thought was that if I’d lived here, I’d have found it hard to give it up to the Army and the hordes of doctors, nursing sisters, orderlies, and patients who inhabited it now. Of course it was the size that had made it ideal for a convalescent clinic. It could accommodate dozens of wounded and the staff to serve them.

  My father said gently as we drove up the winding drive through the park, “I’m pleased that you made this choice. Very sensible of you, my dear.” Beneath the words lay the hope that there had been no lasting harm done to our relationship

  Smiling in return, I assured him that I was satisfied with this decision.

  And then we were pulling up in front of the house.

  He came around to my side of the motorcar and handed me out while an orderly bounded down the shallow steps to fetch my valise from the boot.

  Colonel Crawford was welcomed by Matron herself, as a courtesy due his rank, and we had tea in her small office. Then he was given a tour of the clinic while a young woman, Sister Harrison, took me to my quarters and settled me in.

  We had been assigned to what in better times had been the servants’ bedrooms, made more habitable now with odd bits from the more fashionable rooms downstairs.

  “We don’t have much time to ourselves,” Sister Harrison was saying as she looked around my quarters. “But the bed is quite comfortable, and you’ll be glad of that.”

  “Matron told me that the majority of your patients are orthopedic cases, with a few surgical cases as well.”

  “Yes, all officers, of course.” Officers and men of other ranks were not mixed in clinics. “It isn’t arduous work, there are enough of us to share it out. Some of the patients are difficult, others meek as lambs. But I must warn you about the Yank. He can be quite a handful.” Her smile told me that she liked the man in spite of that.

  “An American?” I asked, surprised.

  “He joined the Canadian Army when war broke out. Didn’t want to miss it, he said, while waiting for his own country to come into it. He’s quite popular with the men. Someone told me he had a pocket full of medals and should have been put in for a VC. But then he’s American, you see.”

  Victoria Crosses were not handed out lightly.

  She helped me unpack my uniforms, and as I went down to report for duty, my father was just leaving. I wondered if he’d been at his most charming in order to smooth my path here. That would be like him and explained why he chose to bring me to Longleigh House rather than send me off with Simon. Not that Simon couldn’t have smoothed my path as well, but rank had its privileges, and that was pointed out as Matron said, watching his motorcar disappear down the drive, “A fine man, your father.”

  I took up my duties just after luncheon had been served, my first assignment reading to the men. It was difficult to keep them amused, anxious as they were to return to duty if they could. Broken legs, cracked ribs, shoulder injuries, back wounds, all of them the sort of thing that took time to heal, like it or not. And Sister Harrison was blunt about it.

  “A new pretty face is just the thing,” she told me, handing me a Conan Doyle mystery. “And light fare. Nothing heavy-going, sad, or reminding them of the war.”

  When I walked into what had once been the drawing room of the house, I found some forty patients there waiting for me. Their expectant faces told me that word had already made the rounds regarding a new Sister being assigned to the clinic.

  A tall, fair man with a welcoming smile stepped forward, limping, to hold my chair for me, and as I sat down, I wondered if he was the American. He lacked the reserve I was accustomed to in British officers, his manner open and rather cheeky, I thought.

  I read the story, and for the most part my audience was attentive. I saw two or three men gingerly stirring in their chairs as if in pain, and made a note of it. One fell asleep almost on the first page, which I took to mean he had been given medication before the midday meal. His face was slack, as if the relief from suffering was a blessing. The others applauded Mr. Holmes’s acumen in solving the case, and then it was time for exercises. Patients were divided into groups where the affected limb was strengthened.

  I assisted the doctor in charge of one such group, helping men work on the muscles in damaged arms, clenching and unclenching their fists, gently encouraging their bodies to remember how to respond to lifting and carrying without dropping things, and to learn anew the skills to compensate for weakness and the pain they were still experiencing.

  Next I made the rounds with the sister in charge of giving medicines. After that I walked with three men recovering from broken limbs, their canes tapping across the drive as we headed toward the park. We moved slowly, chatting as we went, and I learned that one had been wounded by shrapnel, another had had a bullet through his knee, and the third had broken his tibia in a fall down a shell hole, catching his boot in the loose earth, and bending his leg back in such a way that the bone snapped.

  After dinner, where I fed several patients who hadn’t yet recovered their dexterity with fork and knife, I was asked to help change bandages for the night. For the most part, the wounds were healing well, although I could see Dr. Gaines’s concern over one patient whose wound was still draining.

  “I don’t want to operate again,” he muttered to himself. “No, that wouldn’t be at all wise. Still…”

  By the time I got to bed that first night, I was very tired and all too aware of the fact that I was not yet healed enough myself to keep up the pace. I wondered how I would have managed in France, where we were chronically short of staff and sometimes worked four-and-twenty hours without relief.

  Still, I settled into my routine easily and soon discovered what Sister Harrison meant about the American.

  He was polite, always there to open doors or carry heavy burdens, though his limp grew more pronounced when he did, and I scolded him for not taking proper care of his injury.

  He smiled. “I’m bored to tears, Sister. And you shouldn’t be hauling those baskets of linens down to the laundry. There are orderlies to handle the heavy work.”

  It was true, of course, but the orderlies were busy enough that I sometimes preferred not to wait for them.

  “And I shall be blamed if you inflame that wound while being chivalrous.”

  He grinned. “My mother,” he said, “taught me to treat the fairer sex with deference and courtesy. Whatever the cost.”

  “Yes, well, she wouldn’t be best pleased with me, Captain, if your leg has to be amputated because you were being silly.”

  But there was no discouraging him. “My leg,” he said loftily, “is healing better than expected. I’ll be back in France before the summer.”

  His name, I soon learned, was Thomas Barclay. His father had made a fortune in railroads, especially running lines north through the state of Michigan, and then he had had the foresight to realize that a ferry could carry the new flood of holidaymakers across to Mackinac (pronounced, I was informed, Mackinaw) Island to the famous hotel there, or to the Upper Peninsula, which abutted on Canada. Railroads, shipping, even a monopoly on the horses used in lieu of lorries and even motorcars on the island had been quite lucrative, and a yearly regatta (which he claimed he’d won more than once) brought even more guests to the north. This explained to some extent his decision to join the Canadian forces, as did the fact
that he and his father had often gone north across the border to hunt with friends living there.

  Sister Harrison said one morning as she settled her cap over her sleekly brushed auburn hair, “You have made a conquest. The Yank follows you about like a forlorn puppy.”

  “Have you looked at his leg? He refuses to let me see it. I’m rather worried about him.”

  “Don’t be. Dr. Gaines gives him a tongue-lashing when he doesn’t take care of it properly. I think he rather likes making you fret over him. One way to be certain of your attention,” she added with a grin.

  The next day was my free afternoon, and I had given some thought to my plans. It was not more than twenty miles to where Julia Carson lived in a village called Nether Thornton. Twenty miles was farther than even I could manage on a bicycle.

  Dr. Gaines owned a motorcar, which he kept in an outbuilding on the grounds. I had been told this in passing by one of the officers, and I had seen it as well when he drove to London with a patient to consult a specialist.

  I went to his office and asked respectfully if I could borrow the motorcar for a few hours, explaining that an officer in my father’s old regiment had been killed recently and that I should like to offer my condolences to his widow, having been unable to attend the memorial service.

  He peered at me over the rims of his glasses. “Ah. You had the Spanish Influenza,” he said, as if that was how he remembered who I was.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you drive a motorcar, Sister? I shouldn’t like to lose mine at the hands of a well-meaning novice.”

  “I understand, sir. I’ve driven motorcars, ambulances, and even lorries.”

  “Yes, that’s in France, I think, where roads are rather poorly defined, and there’s room for error. This is Somerset, where brick walls and hedgerows tend to hem one in.”

  I smiled. “I have driven in England, where the roads are often nearly as narrow, twisting, and ill made as in France.”

  “So they are. Well. I shall allow you to borrow it this time. On the condition that you take someone with you.”