by Charles Todd
“It’s very difficult,” I said carefully, “to be killing people one day and the next to be standing in your own doorway, trying to remember what it’s like to be a part of a family again, if only for a short time.”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that light. Yes, I take your point. He brought the war home with him, then, and we none of us recognized it.”
I believed it went deeper than that, but I said nothing. Just then the door opened, and a man stuck his head out, calling for Mrs. Ellis. We got out together. Inside the entrance hall, Dr. Tilton, a balding man with a paunch, led us to his study, a room filled with medical books and—to my surprise—several shelves of biographies of famous men.
Lydia was sitting in a chair by the hearth, looking rather chastened. Nodding to me, Dr. Tilton said to Mrs. Ellis, “I have every reason to believe that your daughter-in-law has suffered a concussion. The wound is still open, but I hesitate to sew it up because that would require some shaving of the head.” He turned to glance at Lydia. “She appears to be under great stress as well. I can’t give her a mild sedative, under the circumstances. But she should rest for several days. Body and mind. Will you see to it? I’ve told her that she should have come to me at once, and to make up for that, she must pay the piper, as it were, and let herself heal.” He turned to me. “If symptoms persist, you’ll send for me immediately.”
“Yes, Doctor,” I replied.
“Have there been periods when she slept and you couldn’t rouse her? She told me she had been with you since the accident.”
So that was why Lydia had gone in alone. She must have left the impression that her fall had occurred in London!
“Not to my knowledge. Headaches, some dizziness. A little nausea.”
“Yes, that’s a good sign, then. Take her home and put her to bed. Miss Crawford, I’d like you to sit with her. In a day or two, if the symptoms disappear, we can assume that Lydia will be all right. If the symptoms persist, then I’ll keep her in my surgery for observation.”
“Rather than impose on a guest, Roger can keep an eye on her,” Mrs. Ellis began, but the doctor shook his head.
“Miss Crawford knows what to look for. I’ve already explained that to Lydia.”
“Thank you, Dr. Tilton,” Mrs. Ellis said. “I’m so sorry to disturb you this late, but Miss Crawford was most insistent.”
“As she should have been.” He helped Lydia put on her coat and saw us to the door. As I turned to allow Lydia to precede me, I noticed a woman at the head of the stairs, and wondered if she’d been listening. I thought perhaps she was the doctor’s wife. She moved out of sight almost at once.
As Mrs. Ellis started the motorcar, Lydia said anxiously over her shoulder to me, “Bess, do you mind? I told him I’d fallen in London. That you’d brought me home. I couldn’t tell him—not when he’s coming to dinner!”
“Yes, I understand,” I replied, trying to keep her calm. “Put it out of your mind tonight.”
“I’m so sorry. But could you stay another day? Just one more?”
It dawned on me then. That I was the excuse why she couldn’t share a room with her husband. If I was to look in on her throughout the night, she must sleep elsewhere. Coming home was one thing. Facing Roger Ellis in the seclusion of their bedroom was another. I couldn’t be sure whether it was because she was still afraid of him—or because she didn’t want to answer his questions.
I had hoped that Lydia would spend a quiet night and that my return to London the next afternoon would still be possible.
Instead at two o’clock in the morning when I looked in on her in the guest room where she was sleeping, she was pacing the floor.
“I can’t sleep,” she told me at once. “I ought to be tired to the bone, and instead every time I shut my eyes, they fly open again.”
Pulling my dressing gown closer about me in the chill of the room—the fire had burned down to ashes—I asked, “What’s worrying you, Lydia? Your husband seemed to be glad to see you. He was very pleasant during dinner. Your sister-in-law, Margaret, was very solicitous. She likes you, that’s obvious even to me.”
Margaret was very like her mother, a tall, slender woman with a very pretty face and a nature to match.
Touching her bruises, Lydia said, “They’ll be here this afternoon. Everyone. George, Eleanor, even Henry, if his leave comes through. And then there’s Dr. Tilton and his wife. The rector and his sister. It’s one thing to tell Dr. Tilton that I fell in London. I can’t lie to everyone else. Roger will be angry with me. But I can hardly tell them the truth, can I?”
“Just say that you had an accident. You needn’t go into details.”
“Roger told me he was sorry, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it.”
“You’ve hardly given him a chance to speak to you alone. Have you thought about that?”
She walked to the window, then turned and came back again. “I’m afraid.”
“Don’t you trust him?”
“I don’t trust myself, Bess. I’ll start to cry. Besides, he hasn’t shown any softness toward me. He was just as pleasant to you, if you think about it.”
I disagreed. But it was clear that Lydia was still uncertain of her welcome.
“Lydia, I must go to Somerset. I’ve been looking forward to seeing my family.”
“Another day. Two. They’ll arrive tomorrow, and the service will be the next day. Friday. Sunday they’ll leave. George can drive you back to London. He won’t mind at all. I know what Roger said, but George lost his brother and then Alan, after being wounded himself. It hasn’t been easy.”
“Lydia, I’ve promised. My family—I—”
“I know. Dear God, I know.” She put her hands to her head, one on either side. “I can’t think for it hurting. Could I have something for it?”
“No, it isn’t wise to take a sedative when concussion is suspected.”
With a sigh she nodded. “All right. I’ll try to sleep again.”
I left her then, and went back to my own bed. When I came again at four, she was sleeping, but restlessly, without dreaming. I stood in the doorway, watching her toss and turn, then went again to my own room.
The next morning Lydia came down to breakfast looking pale and anxious. Mrs. Ellis hovered, asking me if all was well. Roger, watching his wife, made no comment. I thought perhaps Mrs. Ellis had told him the doctor’s diagnosis, and I wondered if he’d taken it with a grain of salt. But Gran had something to say.
“This is ridiculous, Lydia. Brace up, and let’s get on with the work that needs to be done before anyone sets foot through our door. You can feel sorry for yourself when they’ve all gone again.”
“Gran—Dr. Tilton was worried about her.”
“Yes, Amelia, no doubt he was. But what are we to do? It’s Lydia’s fault, after all, that we’re behind as we are.”
Roger said, “Gran—”
But she interrupted him. “Roger, dear, you have enough to do. We’ll manage, somehow.”
“I’ll help,” I volunteered. After all, it was several hours until my train left. And so I found myself swept up in the last-minute preparations.
There were linens still in need of airing, and beds needing to be made up. Margaret and I worked together, and she told me how she was counting on Henry receiving leave.
“I tell myself not to hope, but I can’t help it. He and Alan were close, you know. It would mean so much to him to be here.”
The weather had cleared marginally, but fires had to be built in all the guest rooms. While Lydia was given the task of polishing the silver, I set the table in the dining room. Mrs. Ellis, looking in on me, apologized again for putting a guest to work, but I was reminded by the strain in her eyes that her son’s death was still fresh, and I said only, “It’s all right, truly it is.”
“I know you’re looking forward to Christmas with your family. But could I prevail upon you to stay until Sunday? You’ve been so good to Lydia, I hesitate to ask more of you, but I’ll feel so
much better if you’re here to keep an eye on her. I’ll have my hands full, and I’m not sure she’ll take proper care of herself. I’ll ask Roger to drive you directly to Somerset. He’ll be glad to do it.”
I didn’t think he would.
And where was Simon? Had he got my message? I’d thought he might come to fetch me, rather than leave me to take today’s train.
“Could you at least speak to your mother, and ask her to let us keep you a little longer?”
What could I say to that plea?
“If someone could drive me into Hartfield, to find a telephone?” I said.
“Of course! Roger has a list of things Mrs. Long requires for the kitchen. There’s a telephone at the The King’s Head,” Then she asked, frowning, “Will she mind terribly? Your mother?”
I thought very likely my mother would. But she would not make a fuss.
Roger Ellis came to collect me shortly before eleven and drove me into Hartfield.
He was, he said, glad to escape the madhouse that Vixen Hill had become. But I thought he actually wanted to ask me some questions.
I was right.
The clouds were heavy with moisture, dark and threatening, but no rain had fallen. As we reached the track that carried us through this part of Ashdown Forest, Roger swore under his breath as a small herd of some twenty sheep blocked our way. Their thick coats seemed to be impervious to the rain, just as they were impervious to the motorcar’s horn. Finally, managing to drive around them without peril to man nor beast, Roger said to me, “How did you meet Lydia?”
I considered what to answer, then said, “In London. I think she told you as much.” Did it really matter to him? Because if it did, if this wasn’t simply a polite opening to a pleasant conversation, I needed to be on my guard. I didn’t think he would strike me, but there was still that well of anger in him I’d sensed the instant he’d come into the sitting room shortly after I’d arrived yesterday. It had been most noticeable when he’d argued with his mother over George’s presence. I had no idea what might set it off again in an explosion of violence.
“I’d like to know the details,” he told me, his voice tight.
It suddenly occurred to me what he was asking. “Did you think she went to hospital with that bruise on her face? I’d have advised it, if I’d seen her just after you struck her. The bones around the eye socket are thin. The truth is, I’ve just come home from France. She was waiting for me on my doorstep. Quite literally.”
That stopped him. He turned to look at me and nearly ran the motorcar into a ditch.
“You’re blunt.”
“Yes, I am. You doubt me, you have from the moment you met me, without even waiting to find out if you were justified. I’m a guest in your house, Mr. Ellis, and I do understand that you’ve recently lost your only brother. It’s a time of mourning, and I’m not a member of the family. I don’t wish to be rude, but I think it would be better for Lydia and your mother if we could at least find a way to be civil to each other.”
“I’d like to tell you my side of the story,” he said after a moment. “Will you listen?”
“Of course.” I took a deep breath. “But I must ask you something first. Do you trust your wife, Mr. Ellis? Or is there someone you think she might have gone to, hurt and afraid as she was, and in need of comfort?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.
“Yet you stayed here in Sussex, didn’t you? She was terrified that you’d followed her to London. She even thought you’d asked the police to hunt her down. She was terrified that you’d be on our doorstep before she could face you again. And she wasn’t at all sure how that meeting would be, or even how you’d receive her. Instead you never really searched for her, did you? Even when you knew she must be somewhere in this wilderness, alone and cold and hurt—physically and emotionally. I wonder why.”
“All right,” he said, goaded. “There was a man she met while I was in France. He lives not far from here. I found out about him quite by accident. He’s blind, you see, shrapnel fragments that scarred his face and took his sight. She went often to read to him. So I was told. It occurred to me that he was here, I was in France, and she was lonely.”
I could have laughed. I hadn’t anticipated jealousy. “Have you met this man?”
“Has she told you about him?” he countered.
“No. Why should she? She came to London because she was afraid. Of you. Of the future. If there had been something between your wife and this man, she would have turned to him. Instead she came to me.”
He digested that for a moment, his eyes on the road. “I shouldn’t have doubted her,” he said finally.
“Did you think that the reason she wanted a child was to hide the fact that she was already pregnant?”
“Yes. All right. It was the first thing that crossed my mind.” His voice was cold, harsh.
“Then you don’t know your wife very well, do you? Or you’d recognize her need for what it is, her love for you.”
“I don’t want children. Now or ever. I don’t want to watch them suffer and die. There’s no more helpless feeling, I can tell you. I watched as my own father walked out into the heath and killed himself because the child he loved best was dead. I don’t want to see my wife grieve for one dead child when she has three living children, as my mother did for many years. I see no reason to put myself or Lydia through that nightmare. I won’t.”
Which explained a good deal about Roger Ellis. I wondered if he and Lydia had ever really discussed having children in a quiet and reasonable fashion, or if their feelings were too shut away for them to explain to each other just how they felt.
I also found myself wondering if somewhere, sometime Roger Ellis had strayed, and if this was why he was so ready to believe his wife had been unfaithful.
He answered one of my questions. “We were married in 1913. In the autumn. It was the happiest I’d been for longer than I could remember. Barely a year later the war started, and I enlisted at once. I couldn’t wait to get to France, fool that I was. Lydia begged me to wait and see whether it would last, but I promised her I’d be home again before she knew it. Instead I didn’t see her for three years. We wrote, of course, but it wasn’t the same. And I knew she was angry with me for lying to her. But I hadn’t, I’d really believed that the war would end before I saw any of the fighting. I wouldn’t have blamed her for looking elsewhere.”
A silence fell between us, and then Roger Ellis said, “I never heard her mention your name before yesterday. Why hadn’t she said something to me in a letter about having seen you in London—or asked me if I’d had word of you in France? She asks often enough about our neighbors’ sons and brothers, you’d think she’d have been concerned about you as well. I asked Daisy, but she didn’t recall mail coming for my wife with your return address on it.”
I knew the anxiety of waiting for news. I’d asked about mutual friends whenever I’d run into someone I knew.
“What did you think? That she had made up our friendship, simply because you can’t find a letter from me in her desk? I expect you looked last night, didn’t you?” I said. “If you’re trying to convince yourself that there was a conspiracy of silence involved, then perhaps I should ask you why it is that you are willing to believe the worst of me as well as your wife? If you must know, your father was once friends with mine. Or so your mother has told me.”
He shot a look at me, as if trying to decide if I was telling the truth.
“Ask her,” I said shortly.
And I had a feeling he would not.
We drove on without speaking, and I looked out across the barren world of the heath, at the sheep grazing where kings once hunted, and a line of cows meandering toward a distant meadow, lined up as if in a queue. The weather seemed even grimmer and colder here. It was such a cheerless place to live. Even the deserts of Rajasthan were full of life, and the vast stretches of Egypt’s Western Desert for all its endless sand offered more to the eye than the stunte
d branches of gorse and heather and twisted scrub.
We came into Hartfield, the bustling life of its main street a welcomed sight. I saw the doctor’s gate as we passed. A line of pretty cottages along the high street caught my eye. The rain was finally coming down in a fine mist. Ignoring it, women went about their marketing, pushing prams, pausing to gossip on a corner, while men, black umbrellas shielding their faces, strode purposefully toward their destinations. Roger Ellis gestured toward his right. “There’s The King’s Head. They have a telephone. I’ll leave the motorcar in the yard, shall I, and meet you here in half an hour. Will that do?”
“Yes, thank you.” The inn stood at the far end of town, on the corner of a street that led up to a church. A tall black and white building with small-paned windows, it boasted a large sign with a crowned head that appeared to be Charles I with his narrow face, pointed beard, and long dark locks.
As Roger Ellis brought the vehicle to a stop, I noticed the small house just across from us. It was painted a very pleasing shade of blue. There was a sign hanging on the white gate in front of the tiny garden. A painted border of flowers framed the words BLUEBELL COTTAGE. A ginger cat lay curled up in the window next to the door, asleep on a cushion the same color.
Roger Ellis saw the direction of my gaze. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Yes, very much so,” I replied and was on the point of turning toward the inn.
His voice stopped me. It was flat, without emotion, but I sensed the effort he’d needed to keep it that way.
“Her blind officer lives there. In Bluebell Cottage,” he said, and walked away, leaving me standing in the middle of the inn yard.
Chapter Four
I spoke to my mother, who pretended that she wasn’t disappointed that I wasn’t coming home directly. I explained my situation as best I could—the telephone was in a cranny without a door, and I knew that anyone passing or standing in Reception just around the corner could hear every word—and I asked if she’d forgive me for putting Lydia first.
