by Charles Todd
I hurried up the stairs and found Lydia listening at the door. “I overheard. You’re expected in Somerset,” she said. “And here I am, keeping you from leaving. I’ve trespassed long enough on your kindness.”
“As a matter of fact,” I told her, “Simon has come to take me out to dine. Would you like to go? Somewhere you aren’t known, of course.” I added cheerfully, “It will be all right.”
“No, I couldn’t possibly consider it.”
“Well, it’s rather early, at that,” I said, sweeping aside her refusal. “I believe he has some business to see to first, but he’ll come again at one o’clock. There’s time to reconsider.”
I hurried out the door, as if Simon was waiting for my answer. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, and I asked him to collect me at one o’clock, and he reluctantly agreed.
“I may bring a friend along,” I said, for Lydia’s benefit. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” he answered, and then with a gleam in his eye that told me he was getting his own back, he added, “Is it Diana? I’ve missed her.”
“I think she’s in Alexandria,” I told him, making a face.
Then I set about convincing Lydia that she would be safe with us.
It was an uphill struggle. She wavered between worrying that she had already been away too long, that Roger might believe she wasn’t coming back, and the certainty that all would be well once she could see him face-to-face and tell him she’d been wrong.
Watching that inner battle, I was well aware that it wasn’t wise to pry. But I was beginning to think that knowing who Juliana was might help me understand why Lydia had fled to London. She couldn’t have known how badly her face would be bruised. She must have needed to put distance between her and something—or someone. And where were the other members of her family—or Roger’s—to let her go without making certain she was properly clothed and had the money to support herself for a few days?
I waited for an opening to ask questions, but it was clear that she wasn’t ready to talk to me or anyone else.
In the end I don’t think it was my persuasion that convinced Lydia to let Simon take us to lunch as much as it was her own need to escape from the torment in her head. All the same, she went down the stairs warily, as if she expected this to be a trap. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d suddenly dashed away as soon as she reached the street.
Instead, just as we arrived at the door and were about to open it, she put her hand to her cheek and said, “No. I’d forgot. I can’t go out like this. I can’t face the stares. On the train it was awful, people would look at me and then look away. I was mortified.”
“Natural curiosity,” I said bracingly. “Here in London they’re more likely to assume you were in an accident of some sort. Or fell.”
But she refused to go. And then Simon was there, at his most charming, and the next thing I knew we were walking toward the motorcar and she was listening to him, her face turned toward his.
Even then I would have given much to ask him what his impression of Lydia was, but of course that was impossible. Still, I’d caught the fleeting glance he’d given me as he closed her door and turned to hold mine for me. He was not happy that I’d been unable to find out the information he’d asked for.
The restaurant was not one where Lydia or her husband were likely to meet anyone they knew. For one thing, it was well outside of London, on a narrow turning from the main road. For another, it was a country inn, more comfortable than elegant, the paneling old and the wide hearth decorated with horse brasses and coaching horns. But the food was very good, consisting of vegetables from the owner’s own cold cellar, and meat from his farm, and the service was impeccable. We sat at a table where the bruised side of her face was turned away from the other guests, although from time to time she raised a hand to shield it, so conscious of it was she. Still, before very long, she was telling Simon about growing up in Suffolk.
He said, “Were you sad to leave Suffolk when you married?”
To my surprise, she answered him readily. “I’d seen my new home first in high summer. It was winter that I found almost unbearable. Have you ever lived at the edge of a heath? It’s extraordinary, and each season is so different.” She realized then what she was saying and changed the subject almost at once. “My brother inherited the house in Suffolk, but he’s dead now, killed in the war. His widow and two sons live there. I’ve visited sometimes, but it isn’t the same without him.”
Which told me she couldn’t turn to them in her distress.
The meal went well, and I did justice to the slice of ham that I’d ordered, small by comparison to the generous portions we were used to before the war. We had cabbage and steamed apples, and onions stewed in a cheese sauce, with a flan to follow. Lydia ate with an appetite but afterward seemed to be a little pale, as if the food sat heavily in her stomach.
We took our tea in the lounge, and then there was no excuse to linger. Simon went to find the motorcar.
Lydia said, “He’s a very nice man, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is,” I agreed. Turning to look out the windows, I added, “It will be dark before very long. And another cold night, I expect.”
Lydia was silent, and then, pressing her fingers to her swollen face, she said, “Bess, you’ve been so kind. In spite of the fact that you know nothing about me.”
“How could I turn you away?” I asked. “But I wish there was something I could do to make whatever is troubling you easier to face.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
I hadn’t seen the request coming. I was totally unprepared.
“Would you consider going with me to Vixen Hill? I think it would be easier to face Roger and his family if I had moral support. You’re stronger than I am, Bess. I could take my courage from you. Besides, it will be easier to explain to Roger and his family that I had come to London to stay with a friend. What I did would seem less—rash, ill-considered.” She made a deprecating face. “It would only be a small lie. No one would know that it was.”
“My parents are waiting for me in Somerset,” I began, and then realized that it was the wrong thing to say. “Lydia. Perhaps if you told me why you quarreled and how it was that your husband struck you—if I understood the circumstances a little better, perhaps I could help you see your way more clearly.”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s presumptuous of me even to think you could come with me.”
“Lydia—”
But Simon was walking through the restaurant door to fetch us, and we followed him out to the motorcar without speaking.
The drive back to London began in silence. Simon, concentrating on the road as the rain began again in earnest, was taciturn. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that Lydia was anxiously smoothing her gloves, as if regretting broaching the subject of my traveling with her to her home.
Finally, as the rain let up a little, I said to Simon, “Lydia has asked if I’d go with her to Vixen Hill. That’s her home.”
“Where is Vixen Hill?” he asked, raising his voice a little so that she could hear him.
“It’s in Sussex,” she replied after a moment, her voice reluctant in the darkness.
“Tomorrow we’ll drive you there, shall we?” he suggested. “It will be no trouble.”
“No—that’s lovely of you to ask, but I think—I’d rather not take you so far out of your way,” she answered him, trying to refuse him as politely as she could.
“On the contrary,” he said, “Bess would like to see you safely home.”
“I couldn’t consider it,” she told him. “Please. No.”
And that was the end of that.
I could see Simon’s profile in the dim reflection of the headlamps and could almost read what was going through his mind—that her refusal struck him as odd, given the fact that she’d just asked me to accompany her to Sussex. But I thought I understood her. My presence wouldn�
��t appear especially threatening. Arriving with someone like Simon as well could send a very different message—that she felt the need of protection.
I said, trying to cast a little oil on troubled waters, “There’s no hurry, Lydia. Truly there isn’t.”
“I must mend this quarrel somehow. It can’t go on—Roger is leaving for France on Boxing Day. I don’t know what to do.”
I thought of offering to let her stay in the flat after I left for Somerset, but I had a feeling she would refuse. And even if she accepted, without money, how would she feed herself, or buy warmer clothing to see her through?
Simon asked, “I know a Roger Markham from Sussex. Royal Engineers. Is he by any chance your husband?”
“Oh, no. No. His name is Ellis. Roger Ellis.” She added his rank and regiment.
How simply Simon had discovered that!
“He’s home on compassionate leave,” she went on when Simon said nothing more. “His brother Alan died a fortnight ago. Alan is—was—a Navy man, torpedoed off Ireland. He was severely wounded, but there was hope for a time. And then the doctors could do no more, and we brought him home to Vixen Hill. It was rather awful. I shouldn’t have quarreled with Roger, under the circumstances. It was foolish of me.”
We were coming down the street to Mrs. Hennessey’s house now, and Lydia added wistfully, “We were all so fond of Alan.”
We thanked Simon as he walked with us to Mrs. Hennessey’s door, and Lydia preceded me up the stairs, giving me a moment alone with him.
I could say very little—she was within hearing—but I asked, “You’ll stay over in London tonight?”
“Yes, of course,” he answered. “I’ll come in the morning.”
Just then, Lydia paused on the stairs, and I turned quickly to see her leaning against the banister, her head down.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, seeing my alarm. “I seem to have hurried too much and given myself a headache.” She went on up the stairs more slowly, and I heard the door to the flat open.
“Go ahead, make sure she’s all right,” Simon told me, and then he was gone.
I followed her up the stairs and into the flat. “When did your head begin to ache?” I asked.
“It was a sharp pain, catching me off guard. It isn’t as bad now.”
“Lydia. Sit down and let me have a look.”
Removing her coat and hanging it on the tree, she did as I’d asked. With the light from the lamp trained on her face, I examined the bruising and the swelling around her eye. “Where was the sharp pain?” She pointed to the side of her head just above and a little behind her ear. I carefully ran my fingers over the area, and she winced just as I touched what appeared to be a raised wound. Parting her thick, fair hair, I saw that it was actually an open cut that had bled a little and then clotted.
“How did you come by this?” I asked, letting her hair fall back into place.
“After Roger struck me, I ran up the stairs to our room to find my coat. I tripped in my haste and fell forward, hitting my head against the edge of the newel post. I saw stars, I can tell you,” she added with a smile. “But I was all right after a moment. I got up and went on to our room.” She pointed to her knee. “There’s a bruise here as well. Rather a colorful one.”
“Did you know it was bleeding? Where you fell against the newel post?”
“Not until last night, as I was preparing for bed. I really hadn’t given it much thought until then.” She grimaced. “I just knew that it hurt—my face and all that side of my head.”
I pressed my fingers carefully on either side of the wound, but as far as I could tell there was no indication that the skull had been fractured. Still . . . “You ought to see a doctor,” I began, but she cut me short.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I don’t like Dr. Tilton. He gossips, and he’ll want to know how I got this bruise.”
“It isn’t the bruise that worries me. There are doctors here in London.”
She wouldn’t hear of it. But I thought, remembering her dizzy spells, and now the headache, that she must have a concussion. “Have you felt sick? Nauseated?”
“Only when I ate too much at the restaurant,” she replied wryly. “I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was.”
I made her a compress for her face, then said, “Will you go with me to Somerset for a few days, Lydia? I think it would do you good to rest before you go home.” And she could see our doctor.
She refused outright. “If I go anywhere, it will be to Vixen Hill,” she told me. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her. And the thought of her wandering about London, alone and with a concussion, was worrying.
“Why won’t you let Simon drive us to Vixen Hill?”
“I don’t believe it would make it easier for me to face Roger,” she said earnestly.
“Lydia. Is that your real name?”
She flushed. “I’m so sorry. Actually it is. And it was also my mother’s name.”
“If I agree to go home with you—tomorrow, let us say, or the day after—and deliver you safely to your family, will you promise to see a doctor? Just as a precaution.”
“You must stay the night,” she told me, trying to keep her hope from showing in her face. “There’s only the one train a day, coming north, and by the time we reach Vixen Hill, you’ll have missed it.”
“Yes, all right. One night. As long as you agree to see that doctor.”
“Bess, you won’t regret it. I promise you. And the sooner the better. I shan’t be able to sleep now, thinking about tomorrow. Are you quite sure?”
It was the only solution that I could see to the problem of what to do about Lydia. It set me free to go on to Somerset, and I could leave her in Sussex, secure in the knowledge that she had returned safely to her family. I was sure Simon wouldn’t approve, but tomorrow morning I could explain to him why I’d made this decision, and arrange to have him meet me in London on my return. After all, Lydia had told him who her husband was, and where she lived. It wasn’t as if I were going off with a complete stranger to an unknown destination.
And if I had any reason to believe that Lydia had made the wrong choice, if her husband refused to take her back, then she could come with me to Somerset until she could decide what she ought to do next.
Her happiness at having the decision to return to Vixen Hill taken out of her hands was obvious. For her sake, I hoped that her faith in Roger Ellis was justified.
I said, “There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind. Who is Juliana?”
At first I didn’t think she was going to tell me. And then she said, “Juliana? She’s Roger’s sister.”
Chapter Two
The next morning, I looked for Simon to return, but as the time sped on, I realized that it was likely I’d miss him. But where was he? What had held him up?
I wrote a hasty note and left it with Mrs. Hennessey, and then there was nothing for it but to find a cab to take us to the railway station. I even looked over my shoulder before we turned the corner, to see if Simon’s motorcar was in sight.
The train was crowded, as usual, and Lydia and I had difficulty finding two seats together. She was embarrassed that I had to pay for her ticket, but she promised to see that I was recompensed as soon as she reached Vixen Hill.
I said as we pulled out of the station into the misting rain, “Won’t it be awkward—a guest arriving without any warning? Perhaps we should have sent a telegram. After all, your family is in mourning.”
“I’d considered that, but I think it will be best just to walk in without fanfare. And Roger will very likely be as grateful as I am for your presence. There’s the awkwardness, you see, of meeting for the first time. I have no idea what to say—or what he’ll do. It’s so difficult to know, isn’t it?”
She’d persuaded herself that my presence would make all well again. But I had my doubts. Quarrels were not always settled so easily—or so amicably. Roger Ellis could see her flight to
London as a more serious infraction than his blow. I was beginning to see that Simon was right, this was a more complicated business than I’d foreseen. Mainly because Lydia herself was far more uncertain than I’d realized.
“Are you sure,” I asked, “that this is the right thing to do? Perhaps we should have waited another day until you’re more comfortable with returning. It would be simple enough to get down at the next stop.”
“Oh, no, I want to put it behind me as quickly as possible.”
We talked for some time after that, exchanging information to make it appear more likely that she’d known me for some time.
“Wasn’t it difficult,” she asked at one point, “to work with badly wounded men? I know how distressing it was to care for Alan in his last days. Roger was wounded, you know. In the shoulder. He never told us, and it mustn’t have been severe, because he wasn’t sent back to England.” She bit her lip. “It was George who mentioned it. He’s a friend of the family. He’d run into Roger in France. But I hadn’t seen Roger for three years. Not until he came home because of Alan. And he treated me like a stranger. As if he couldn’t remember those months before the war when we were so happy.”
“War does change people,” I pointed out. “And of course there was his brother.”
“Yes, I know,” she said wistfully. “I shouldn’t have pressed. But I wanted so badly to have a child. Someone to love, if—if the worst happens. That’s what we quarreled about, you see.” She touched her face. “The hurt went deeper than the blow. That’s why I couldn’t stay at Vixen Hill.”
This was the truth, finally.
“We are a house of widows,” she went on. “For all intents and purposes these last three years, I have been one as well. Roger’s mother and his grandmother live with us, and I could see that their children have been their salvation. He may never come back from France, once he leaves. This could be our only chance.”
“Was Alan married? Did he have children?”
“He was married, yes. But he and Eleanor had no children. And neither do Margaret and Henry. She’s Roger’s sister, she lives near Canterbury.”
