long will this war go on? What if he’s killed-or horribly wounded? What if he’s like George, bitter and hurtful, and I can’t bear to have him touch me?”
“Yours isn’t the only family asking these questions tonight,” I replied after a moment. “Love isn’t a certainty, Lydia.”
But she shook her head. “You aren’t married. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone and want to have a part of them for your very own.”
It occurred to me that one of the reasons Lydia was so insistent on children was that she had lived these past three years with two widowed women. She could already see what the future held if Roger was killed. In India some wives preferred to throw themselves on the funeral pyre and be immolated with their husbands. Sometimes it was true grief-sometimes it was knowing what a bleak empty life lay ahead of them, especially if they were dependent on the charity of a family that didn’t want them. Death was sometimes preferable to living. The British had done their best to outlaw suttee, but it hadn’t been completely abolished.
I said gently, “Then I’m the wrong person to ask.”
Sighing, she said, “Well. Roger’s leave will be up soon enough. I have until then to change his mind. Somehow.”
I looked across at her bruised face. If Juliana died of a mastoid tumor, it was no one’s fault. Unlike some tragic accident where guilt couldn’t be avoided. Why had her death affected her brother so deeply? Was it the shock of loss, unacceptable to a child’s mind? Had Margaret and Alan also been haunted by their little sister’s death? They too were childless.
“You said you shouldn’t have mentioned Juliana when you quarreled. Did you blame her for your husband’s refusal to have children?”
“Yes, I told him he was afraid he’d lose a child, the way his family had lost Juliana, and it was time now to let her rest in peace and begin to live in the present.”
We sat there in silence for a time, and then Lydia reluctantly got to her feet. “It’s nearly time for dinner. I’m glad you came, Bess,” she said. “It was terribly kind of you-”
She clutched at the back of her chair, suddenly dizzy. But by the time I reached her, it seemed to have passed.
“Don’t fuss. I’m all right, I assure you.”
But she wasn’t. I was certain of that now.
After dinner, I quietly asked Mrs. Ellis if it would be possible to take Lydia to Dr. Tilton’s surgery at this late hour, explaining my concern.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “About the fall on the stairs. Yes, of course, I’ll drive you myself. I think Roger’s a little tired.”
He didn’t appear to be tired, but I said nothing. She rose and went to speak to Lydia. “Will you come with me, my dear?”
Surprised, Lydia said, “Yes, of course,” and followed her mother-in-law out of the room. I went with them, leaving Roger Ellis and his grandmother to their own devices.
In the passage, Mrs. Ellis said, “Miss Crawford feels you ought to see Dr. Tilton. Shall I fetch your coat? I wish I’d known sooner about the fall, my dear, I would have suggested speaking to him straightaway.”
Lydia was angry with me, as I’d expected. “I’m all right, Mama, I truly am. Bess was wrong to worry you.”
But Mrs. Ellis had the last word. “You must do as I ask, Lydia. Tomorrow will be a very busy day, and I can’t have you ill on my hands.” The unspoken reminder that Lydia had already been away for two days when she could have been helping with preparations precluded any argument. Still, she cast a reproachful glance in my direction as she went to fetch her coat.
I brought down my own from my comfortable, warm room, dreading the thought of traveling in a motorcar through the cold and dark night. Still, it was the right thing to do. Lydia was waiting for me by the door, and Mrs. Ellis was just bringing the motorcar around. We dashed through the rain to climb quickly inside. The little heater hardly made a difference where I sat in the rear, and I was glad of my gloves and a scarf. There was nothing to be done about my cold feet as we followed the looping drive and went down the avenue of ash trees.
Mrs. Ellis was saying, “I hope this weather passes before the service. I’d so counted on everything going well.”
“It will be all right, Mama,” Lydia assured her.
The rest of the drive was made in silence, and I watched the headlamps bounce across the dark landscape, touching first this patch of heather and then a taller, twisted stand of gorse. We passed horses standing head down just off the road, and I saw the bright eyes of a fox or a dog before whatever it was scurried into the safety of the shadows. I could hardly see the next turning, but Mrs. Ellis was familiar with the roads and drove with care.
Dr. Tilton’s surgery was dark when we reached Hartfield, and we pulled up instead in front of the house. It was two storeys, looming above us in the now misting rain.
“Thank goodness, there are lights still on downstairs,” Mrs. Ellis said as she set the brake.
“I’ll go to the door,” Lydia told her, getting down and dashing through the puddles to the house, before we could stop her. The high roof of the porch offered little shelter, and she huddled there for nearly a minute before someone answered her summons. She stepped inside the entrance, and the door was swung shut behind her.
Mrs. Ellis started to call her name, then broke off. “I don’t know what’s troubling her,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know why she and my son are so at odds.”
“You weren’t there when he struck her?” I asked.
“No. But I saw her as she ran out of the room, and I asked Roger what had happened. He answered that she was upset. The next thing I knew, she was gone. I thought perhaps she’d just taken a walk, cold as it was. Later, when I tapped at her door, she didn’t answer, and it wasn’t until Roger went up to dress for dinner that we realized she hadn’t come back. I thought perhaps she’d got into trouble somewhere on the heath. Roger went out to look for her. He came back, his face like a thundercloud and took the motorcar. He was gone for some time, and when he came home again, he told me he couldn’t find her. I stayed up most of the night, thinking she might come back. But she never did. I didn’t know what to think and was all for summoning the police. But Roger was adamant. He believed she’d come home when she was ready. I don’t think any of us dreamed she’d gone to London.” She was silent for a time, watching the doctor’s door. Then she asked, “Did Lydia confide in you, Miss Crawford? Did she tell you why she wouldn’t come home?”
“She was afraid of your son,” I told her. “It was difficult for her to make the decision to return.”
“And when she did, she brought you with her. It was very kind of you to, Bess. May I call you Bess? You are a very strong friend. I just wish I knew what the quarrel was about. Roger wouldn’t tell me anything. I wouldn’t have known he’d struck her if I hadn’t seen her face as she passed me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. But then Roger has been very tense, you know. I expect the war takes a greater toll than we can imagine.”
“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
