for his face was hard, his eyes cold, as if he remembered too much and had no way of forgetting.
And then Hartsfield was behind us, and the heath, encroaching on the outskirts, as if lying in wait, quickly surrounded us. I was used to the moors in Devon and Cornwall. But this was dramatically different, low, black twisted branches of stunted heather and gorse filling the horizon now as far as the eye could see.
The land was sour, bare in places, in others dotted with blighted shrubs and what appeared to be the struggling remnants of grasses and other vegetation that had given up long ago.
“This is where you live?” I asked, surprised. I’d been to Sussex before, lovely villages and a countryside that was inviting. This was quite different.
“Ashdown Forest,” Lydia murmured. “I hate it. In winter it sucks the life out of you, leaving you as twisted and dead as it is. Winter bleak, that’s what it is.”
Apparently, from what she was telling me as we held on tightly on the now bumpy ride over winter-rutted tracks that bore little resemblance to roads, Ashdown Forest had been a hunting preserve of kings. A ditch had surrounded it to keep the animals in and the peasant poachers out.
“You can still find bits of the ditch if you know where to look. But the forest has long since disappeared. There are stands of trees here and there, mere remnants of what used to be.”
I could see why she called it winter bleak.
The day was overcast now, and that did little to make the drab brown and black landscape more appealing. In the far distance I glimpsed sheep grazing, which must have meant that this wiry and unappealing growth was nourishing. But there was so little color to this palette. Even the moors in the West Country were greener and more inviting.
I said, “Is it always so dreary?”
“To be fair, in the spring when the gorse blooms, it’s touched with green and gold. And in summer the ling-the heather-flowers. A carpet of lavender, and it comes right to the edge of the lawns. But I know winter is coming when I see the ling blooming, and that’s depressing. Winter seems to last longer than any other season. When my brother was alive, I’d find an excuse to go to Suffolk for a week or so. We were close, he and I, and while I like his wife well enough, sadly we have very little in common. After he was killed, I began to feel like a guest there on sufferance.”
Roger, I thought, sounded rather selfish. And so did her brother’s widow, for that matter.
She fell silent, as if bracing herself for what was to come.
As we moved deeper into Ashdown Forest, the landscape became even more bleak, if that was possible. The occasional sheep or cows, the handful of horses, seemed overwhelmed by the silence. From time to time we moved into the shadow of trees, their bare branches arching over our heads like the high ribbed ceiling of a cathedral nave. Occasionally I saw narrow, overgrown paths leading off into denser growth, mysterious, almost secretive.
I was hard-pressed to tell one featureless track from the other as we made our way across the heath. I found it difficult to imagine that this was once a great forest, with deer and whatever else a king chose to hunt confined here awaiting his pleasure. That was a chilling thought, that the animals were all but penned here, until he and his cronies came again to slaughter them. I was beginning to feel rather vulnerable myself in this strange world, and I compared it to the blighted landscape of France where war had destroyed every vestige of grass and trees and fields. Very different-and yet in some way, very much the same. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the similarity until I realized that no one seemed to live here either. A wasteland of man’s making. No Man’s Land. Just then I saw the distant broken arms of a windmill, but the house attached to it was not visible.
We turned off the track into a lane, bordered by a line of ash trees, that led in turn to a red brick house whose lawns ended abruptly at the edge of the gorse and heather. As if a line had been drawn, and the wildness told not to cross it. Or had the wildness told the grass to encroach no farther?
I wondered if the house had begun life as a hunting lodge, because there was a tall central block that appeared to be older than the wings to either side, the brick a mellow rose. High above the door, an oriel window broke the plainness of the facade, the panes dark and lifeless under the dull sky. Gardens graced the lawns where the lane became a drive looping back on itself. But at this time of year the gardens too were dead, bare beds with no promise of spring, not even a brave bit of green from a tulip or daffodil poking tentatively up.
I thought of the old legends of cursed land. Or Mr. Conan Doyle’s tale of great black hounds haunting the moors. One could believe in them in such a place. I couldn’t help but remember the comfortable drowsiness of Somerset, a soft green countryside where I would be now if I’d gone home with Simon.
“Vixen Hill,” Lydia said. “Home.” There was a hint of melancholy in the words.
As we came out of the looping drive, I could see the pair of holly trees standing guard on either side of the doorway, their tough, glossy leaves like armor in the pale light, the rich red berries bright against the brick. Whoever had planted those hollies, I thought, must have been hungry for even a small bit of color.
The carriage drew to a halt before the massive door, arched and faced with stone, barred with iron. It was either very old or a Victorian replica that had weathered well. I looked up at the long oriel window, and thought I saw a flicker of movement there. But it was only a trick of the light as the clouds scudded overhead.
Lydia gripped my hand like a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline. I could see, glancing at her face, that she was more likely to turn around and leave than get down and walk to the door. “I feel sick,” she whispered.
But it was too late to walk away. She would have to face whatever lay beyond that door. I wondered what role Roger’s mother and grandmother might play in this reunion. I hadn’t thought to ask Lydia about that.
“I’m here,” I said quietly. “Chin up, and take your courage in both hands. You’ve come home of your own free will.”
She smiled, a shaky one at best, but a smile nonetheless. “Is that what you tell your patients when you send them back to their regiments?”
“Of course,” I lied, paying the driver and grateful to be seeing the end of that pipe. What I told my patients was very different.
The horses moved restlessly, steaming in the cold air. Lydia got down and marched to the door like a man walking to the gallows, upheld by pride alone. I followed her. The carriage was on the point of turning in the drive, and as she realized it, she called to the elderly man who had brought us here, “No, wait.”
At that moment, the door swung open, and it was a middle-aged woman in a dark blue uniform who greeted Lydia with relief, staring anywhere except at that bruise as she said, “I thought I heard the carriage. Mrs. Roger? You’re all right then?”
“Hello, Daisy. Is Mr. Ellis at home?”
“I was told by Molly that he’d gone out again to search for you. He’s been that worried.” Her gaze moved from her mistress to me, politely curious.
“I’ve brought a guest with me. Miss Crawford, from London.” Lydia’s voice was steady, but I heard the undercurrent of nervousness. I hoped Daisy didn’t.
Daisy swept me an old-fashioned curtsey and welcomed me to the house, then took my valise and led me inside.
If I’d thought this was once a hunting lodge, I was proved right as I entered the hall. The ceiling was high, there was a massive stone hearth on one side, and displayed on the walls were an array of weapons and the mounted heads of game staring down at me.
Lydia, noticing my appraisal, said, “When the house was rebuilt in the late seventeen hundreds, this room was kept. The rest is more comfortable, I promise you.” Turning to Daisy, she asked, “Where is everyone?”
“Your grandmother is resting. Mrs. Matthew is putting together the menus for the guests she’s expecting. And Miss Margaret has gone out for a walk.”
Lydia said contritely, “Oh, dear, I’d forgot we’re to have guests. It completely slipped my mind. Mama Ellis will be wondering what on earth I was thinking of! Could you put Miss Crawford’s things in the room overlooking the knot garden?” And to me she added, “You’ll like that room. It looks away from the Forest. Nowhere near as gloomy as most of the other rooms. And you won’t mind, will you, Bess, if we speak to my mother-in-law before we go up?”
We crossed the hall, passing the stairs built into the wall on one side, and Lydia opened a door at the far end of the room. Beyond was a passage that branched left and right, leading to the two wings of the house. Lydia turned to her left and opened another door into a very pleasant, very feminine little room. She said tentatively said, “Mama?”
