A Bitter Truth

by Charles Todd

  “Ye’ll niver find one child in the hotch potch of religious houses,” he said earnestly. “Ye ken, there’s likely one on ivery corner.”

  Spoken like a true Scots Covenanter, I thought, scandalized by Catholic France.

  The doctor had come to have a look at his arm, and I prepared to move away.

  “Is it important, Sister?” the Corporal asked. “Yon list.”

  “Very.”

  “Aye, well, I’ll pass the word back,” he told me, and I thanked him.

  It was another week before I could take the few days coming to me and find a lift to Calais. An officer, a Major Fielding, was carrying dispatches to be sent on to London, something to do with ordnance, and as I got down near the harbor, he said, “Do you drive, Sister Crawford?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Then keep the motorcar, will you? I’ll be back from London in three days and I’d like to find it here whole, not commandeered or stripped of parts badly needed elsewhere. It’s my own motorcar, you see.”

  “Thank you, sir! I’ll take good care of it.”

  “See that you do. And meet me here on the dot of noon in three days’ time.”

  I saw him off and gratefully turned the motorcar to go in search of the house where the nuns had taken shelter after leaving their convent on the road to Ypres.

  Easier said than done. When I stopped a French priest and asked him where to look, he shrugged in that Gallic expression of ignorance.

  “What can I say, Sister. There are so many houses dispossessed by this war. But if you go to the church two streets over, the one whose tower is visible from here, they may be able to help you.”

  And so I found myself in the office of the monsignor of St. Catherine’s Church.

  He was a thin man, prematurely aged by war and responsibility, but he took time to listen to me.

  I showed him my list, courtesy of the Australian Sergeant, and he scanned it quickly.

  “You permit?” he asked, pen poised over the sheet of paper. When I nodded, he began to make notes. “This house had only six elderly nuns,” he said, “And this one is now in Rouen, but I don’t know if they have orphans in their care. Their duty before the war was to the sick, much like yourself, and in particular, the care of the elderly and aged, many of whom have nowhere else to go. This next house is also in Rouen, and it may be the one you seek. But I make no promises. This and this and this house are now scattered.” He shrugged again. “Alas, I have no way of knowing where the rest may be. We are endeavoring to keep up with the displacement of religious houses, but there are so many, and I am one man.”

  As I thanked him for his assistance, he asked, “What is your business with this child you seek?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him truthfully. “But it’s a charge I was given, to find her and make certain that she is safe.”

  “Is the child’s mother French?”

  “I was told that she was. Which is why the child is in an orphanage. The father, we believe he is an English officer, didn’t know that the mother of the child died, and by the time he discovered that, she was already in this orphanage or another like it.”

  “And why is he not seeking this child himself?”

  “I have reason to believe that he is. But France is wide, and one child is hard to find.”

  “And you do not know how this child is called?”

  “If I did,” I said, “it would make my task easier. But I do know what she looks like, and if I see her, it’s possible that I will recognize her.”

  He considered me for a moment. “There was someone here also searching for a small child. I was not in Calais, you understand, and my housekeeper told this Englishman, an officer, that we could not help him. She was suspicious, you see. She did not think he was”—he looked for the right word—“ ‘so frantic as a father should be, if his child was missing.’ ”

  “Does she remember when this Englishman came—and what he looked like?”

  “It was three weeks ago. I know, because I was in Lille at the time.”

  Then it wasn’t George Hughes, trying to discover where the nuns at the convent on the Ypres road had gone. It had to be Roger Ellis.

  . . . so frantic as a father should be, if his child was missing.

  “Why then was he searching for the little girl?” I asked, curious.

  “I have no idea.” He smiled. “She is afraid, Madame Buvet, that he would take the child to England and rear her as a heretic.”

  “Is that so terrible, if she is loved and given a proper home?”

  “In the mind of my housekeeper, better an orphan than a heretic.”

  “But you have helped me.”

  “You are a nursing sister. I believe that you are concerned for the welfare of this little girl.”

  “And if the English officer comes again?”

  “I shall judge him for myself. And then I shall decide what is best to do.”

  I thanked him again, and went out to the motorcar. Three private soldiers from a Yorkshire regiment had lifted the bonnet, and when I appeared, they quickly lowered it again. “Sister,” they said, almost in unison, coming smartly to attention. “May we turn the crank for you?” one of them asked.

  I could see then why Major Fielding had feared for the safety of his transport. I was pleased to find that the motor did turn over and nothing appeared to be missing as I drove on.

  It was not far to Rouen, as a French crow might fly. But given the heavy traffic of military vehicles and the condition of the roads, I didn’t arrive in the city until well after midnight. For a mercy the town was quiet. The Base Hospital in the old race course was brightly lit, but the motor ambulance convoys, lorries, and omnibuses bringing in the wounded were thin on the ground with the lull in the fighting. Even the trains that brought in many of the wounded were idle. The raw recruits had already marched up from the River Seine and found their billets for the night. No one had the energy to fill the bistros and the corner wine shops at this hour.

  This English Base Hospital for the wounded was manned by American doctors and nurses, filling in the decimated ranks of English medical men. Indeed, the shortage had become acute. I’d sent patients to them from the advanced dressing stations and knew that they did good work. But I never quite understood why the permanent buildings at the course had been turned into offices and the wounded were housed in tents.

  Ever mindful of the fact that I must return to meet Major Fielding in one more day’s time, I knocked at the door of a house on Rue des Champignons that an elderly gendarme had directed me to in the maze of half-timbered housing in an older quarter near the river.

  The sleepy nun acting as porter opened the small peephole in the door and peered out at me. “What do you want of us at this hour, Mademoiselle?” she asked in French heavily accented by the Breton tongue.

  “I’m an English nursing sister,” I said, for that she could see for herself. “I’ve come to ask if you have children here, orphans. We treated several children some time ago, and I wish to be certain that they are no longer in need of care.”

  “You are from the Base Hospital? But we have no children here, Sister. There is no space for the little ones. We have only the aged and the dying.”

  Disappointed, I asked, “But did you have children at one time? There was a very young nun who brought them to me. I’m sorry I don’t remember her name.”

  “We have no young nuns here. You must be mistaken. But we did have thirteen children at one time.”

  “And where are they now?”

  “Here in Rouen.” And she gave me the direction of another house, this one on the Rue St. Jean.

  I thanked her and drove on. In the dark, it was very difficult to find this particular house. It was south of the cathedral, and as I crossed the Place in front of it, I looked up at the great west front, the lacey stonework and niches so heavily shadowed in the starlight that they were almost sinister, the faces of the saints dark and unreadable. Above my head,
the three great towers were stark against the night sky, the iron tower at the center almost lost in the blackness of the night.

  The house I was looking for was on a back street in a quarter that a century ago had been prosperous, the buildings huddled cheek by jowl with their neighbors, as if for comfort and support. Still, it was large enough to accommodate several nuns and their charges.

  I knocked on the door, but no one answered my summons, and so I sat in the motorcar until a murky dawn began to break. By that time I was so cold and stiff I could hardly get out and walk to the door.

  An elderly nun answered my summons, although she had taken her time about it. And I saw why, when the door swung open, for beneath her woolen robes, one foot was encased in a heavy boot with a thick sole, designed to make the left leg the same length as the right.

  She asked my business, and I again used the ploy that I had come to see if the children that had been treated at the English aid station were in need of further care.

  To my utter relief, she invited me into the foyer. It was a blessed reprieve from the morning cold outside, although still hardly what I would consider warm.

  “We have fifteen orphans here,” she was saying. “None of them to my knowledge treated by the English.”

  She made it sound as if they would have been treated by the devil and his cohorts, but I smiled and asked if I could see the other children, since I was here.

  “Yes, it is hard to find medicines for the little ones. Do you have medicines? Come with me.”

  She led me through a labyrinth of rooms to a large kitchen, where a small fire had been built on a hearth large enough to roast an ox. A kettle of what appeared to be something like porridge was bubbling on the hob, and I could feel my mouth water.

  At a long table sat the children, who fell silent and looked up from their bowls to stare at me with wide dark eyes, wary and uncertain. I was sure that strangers seldom brought good tidings to this house. Another nun, older than the first, was also staring at me, pausing as she stirred the contents of the black iron pot.

  My heart plummeted when I realized that the youngest of the fifteen was nearly five. And I had never seen any of them before.

  “Are there by any chance younger children here?” I asked the nun.

  “Younger?” she asked sharply, straightening up.

  “Yes. In particular a little girl of perhaps two years of age. Very fair, very sweet smile.”

  “There is a little boy upstairs, badly burned from falling into the fire. But no little girl.”

  “Then I will see the little boy, if you like.”

  “He has been treated by the local doctor,” the nun said, returning to her pot. I could see that she didn’t care for my coming here. I wondered what her experience of the war had been, for I could see that she had a long scar, healed but still raw and red, down one side of her face.

  “Then he’s in good hands,” I assured her. “Do you know where I might find this little girl? Is there another orphanage in Rouen?”

  I was prepared to hear that there was not. It was the first nun who answered me, after a quick glance at her companion.

  “Three streets away, in Rue St. Catherine, there is another house, not of our order. But they have some nine children there, I believe. Mostly infants younger than these.”

  “Thank you,” I said, then asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “There’s no money for anything. The church does what it can. But there are so many refugees. It’s very difficult.”

  I thought at first she was asking me for money, for a donation for the children. And then I realized she was saying something else, that the war had disrupted her quiet life in a convent devoted to prayer and contemplation. Instead she was struggling to feed and dress and care for children in a dilapidated house in a town that was within hearing of the guns that had changed all their lives. I had to wonder if her faith had been tested almost beyond her ability to cope.

  I nodded and made my way back through the warren of rooms that couldn’t be kept warm or made more comfortable. And growing children needed more than just porridge. But there were shortages in England as well. What was happening in Germany? Were they suffering too?

  I drove on to the house the nun had described.

  It too was old and tired, and the smoke coming from its chimneys was thin and discouraging. I lifted the weather-etched iron anchor and let it drop against the iron plate.

  This time the nun who came to the door was frail, her face lined, but her eyes were a vivid blue that was in sharp contrast to the soft, sagging skin of age. “Sister,” she said, “how may we help you?”

  “I’m looking for a child,” I said, giving her the same account that I had used before.

  She smiled. “That would be Sophie. Yes, come in. I’m Sister Marie Joseph.”

  The carpet was threadbare, the furniture in desperate need of polish, the walls in dire need of paint, patches of the ornate ceiling stained by water from a roof that most probably should have been replaced even before the war.

  “Tell me how you knew about Sophie?” she asked, offering me a chair. I could understand that she was reluctant to let me, a stranger, see Sophie, and what I was about to say would determine whether or not I would be allowed beyond this parlor.

  I tried to explain that someone in England had begged me to find her.

  She nodded. “Her mother told me that the father was English.”

  “And she is dead?”

  “Oh, yes, of a raging fever a week after childbirth. We had taken her in, she had nowhere else to go. She had gone to market the day that a shell landed squarely on the kitchen of her house. She came to us, then, already in her fifth month of pregnancy. A lovely young woman, I must tell you. She was an enormous help to us for as long as her health was good. But we lacked the food she needed. Not enough milk or meat, but still, she would have lived but for the fever.”

  “May I see the child?” I asked. “I have come a long way.”

  “She’s asleep, but yes, you may look in on her. You will carry the lamp for me, please.”

  She climbed the stairs with an effort, holding on to the banister and almost pulling herself up the narrow steps.

  In a bedroom on the first floor were two cribs, and in one of them, wrapped in a blue blanket with a ragged fringe was a little girl with golden hair that shimmered in the dark like a halo as the lamplight struck it. She lay asleep with her thumb in her mouth, the edge of a night dress just visible at her throat.

  I moved quietly into the room to see her better. In the next crib was another little girl, perhaps a year or so older, but small framed for her age.

  The elderly nun said softly, “Is she the child?”

  I couldn’t see her eyes or her smile, I couldn’t see her face fully.

  But I had no doubt that this was the little girl George Hughes had seen.

  “Has she always been in your care?” I asked softly.

  The elderly nun said, “Our house was larger and we had more children. But of necessity we have had to separate, some to the Loire, near Angers, and others to Caen. Wherever we could be taken in. The children too have been separated. This house was given to us by a family that was moving to Marseilles, away from the war altogether. They feared another German breakthrough. And we’ve been fearful ourselves. But there is nowhere to go.”

  And the family had been clever, leaving these nuns in charge of their home. It wouldn’t be vandalized or, worse, filled with refugees desperate for a roof over their heads.

  I crossed the room and put a hand on the child’s silky hair.

  And realized that she was feverish.

  I said something to the nun, and she nodded. “It’s been a trial for all of us. She sleeps now, because we have given her a drop of something to help her. But we can find no cause for this fever. The doctor has been called to her. He says she is teething.”

  But teething was not the problem, I was sure of it. “How long has it bee
n going on?”

  “It rose the night before this last.”

  I reached into the bed and unfolded the blanket that had been a barrier against the cold in this room. Then I lifted the little nightdress that was too large by half.

  What I saw made me draw back quickly.

  “She has chicken pox. It has finally erupted. I must wash my hands at once, for I work with wounded men. But I will tell you how to treat her. And you must remove this other child quickly. She and the others may have been exposed already. But if you keep Sophie quarantined, you may escape a general outbreak.”

  “But when I bathed her last evening, there were no spots,” she said, leaning over the crib to examine Sophie’s back.

  “No, possibly not. But warm water would have hastened the eruption. Please cover her again. I dare not touch her.”

  The nun gently drew the nightdress together again and then tucked the blanket around the child.

  Between us we moved the other crib into another room where one of the nuns slept. And then I was shown to a kitchen where I could wash my hands with a scrap of carbolic soap and dried them on a towel that had seen better days.

  “Soap is hard to come by,” the nun said, apologizing.

  “I understand,” I said, wishing I had a cake to give her.

  The problem was, if Sophie was ill, leaving here with her was out of the question. Even if I could persuade Sister Marie Joseph to allow me to take her. For that matter, where could I take her? A dressing station was no place for a child. And I had no more leave coming to me for the foreseeable future. Was Lydia even of the same mind about wanting her? I could try to find Roger Ellis, but was that wise? I hadn’t been able to read his intentions toward this child. Still, she must be his. She couldn’t look so much like Juliana if she weren’t.

  After that one letter from Lydia reporting the inquest, there had been no others. I didn’t know whether they had failed to reach me or she hadn’t written.