Hannah thanked Mrs. Gee for the flowers and separated them to put a little of their rich color in among the yellows. She needed to say something more than mere acknowledgment. “I don’t have anything blue,” she said with a smile.
“There’ll be bluebells in the woods next month,” Mrs. Gee reminded her. “But they don’t sit well in a vase. Oi s’pose woild flowers don’t loike to be picked. Oi haven’t been down to the woods in a while.” She did not add any more.
Hannah did not need to ask. The haze of blue over the ground, the sunlight and call of birds made it a place of overpowering emotion. She would not be able to go there in a time of grief herself. Odd how some kinds of beauty did not heal, but hollowed the pain even deeper.
“How’s the chaplain?” Mrs. Gee asked, concern in her voice.
“Much better, thank you.” That was more optimistic than the truth, but Mrs. Gee needed every good word possible.
“Oi’m glad to hear it. Oi don’t know what our boys would do without him. Tell him Oi was asking.”
“Yes, of course I will. Thank you.” Hannah felt a stab of fear again, as if she had deliberately excluded herself from the bond of knowledge other people shared.
Mrs. Gee waited a moment longer, then turned and walked away between rows of seats, her footsteps heavy, her shoulders bowed a little.
Betty Townsend brought some yellow and red early wallflowers. It was a shame to put them in the cool church; in a warmer room in someone’s home the perfume would have been far richer. Hannah thanked her for them, then noticed how pale she looked, as if she had not slept for many nights. She did not need to wonder what caused it. Everybody’s problems were the same—bad news, or none at all when there should have been.
“How is your brother?” Betty asked, her voice a little husky.
Hannah held the wallflowers without beginning to arrange them. “Getting better, thank you,” she answered. “But it will be a while yet. He was lucky to keep his arm. And how are you?”
Betty turned away quickly. “Peter’s been posted missing in action. We heard two days ago.” Her voice trembled. “I don’t know whether to keep up hope he’s alive somewhere, or if that’s just stupid, putting off the truth.”
Hannah wished with all her heart she knew something to say that would help. She stood there holding the flowers in her hand as if they mattered. Her mother would have said the right thing! Why did loss hurt so unbearably? Standing here in this building where people had come in joy and grief for a thousand years, she should have had some sense of the promise of eternity, a resurrection when all this would not matter anymore.
Betty gave a little shrug. “The vicar came round, of course. He was trying to be kind, but I think he made it worse. Mother thanked him, but I just wanted to push him out of the house. He talked about glory and sacrifice as if Peter were somehow not real, a sort of idea rather than a person. I know he meant well, but all I wished to do was hit him. I wanted to shout, ‘don’t tell me about faith and virtue, it’s real and it hurts. It hurts! It’s Peter, who taught me how to climb trees, and not to cry if I skinned my knee, and ate my rice pudding when I hated it, and told me silly jokes. It isn’t just some hero! It’s my brother—the only one I had!’ ”
Hannah jammed the flowers into the vase. Why was Hallam Kerr so useless? If religion wasn’t any help now, what point was there in it? Was it really no more than a nice social habit, a reason for the village to meet and keep up the pretense that everything would be all right one day? Kerr was just as lost as the rest of them, perhaps even more so.
Was Joseph as empty and useless as that, too? She did not think so. It was not just because he was her brother. There was an inner strength to him; a place within him where his faith was real, and strong enough to bear up others. He was needed here at home. He should stay to help people like Betty, Mrs. Gee, and God alone knew how many more before this was finished.
“All we can do is keep going, and help each other,” she said aloud. “The vicar is just another cross to bear.”
Betty sniffed and gave a choking little laugh. “He wouldn’t like to be referred to like that,” she said, searching for a handkerchief to blow her nose.
“I know,” Hannah admitted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”
By the time Betty went, Hannah was almost finished with the flowers she had, and thinking they needed a little greenery to fill them out. Then Lizzie Blaine came in with some catkin branches and budding willow. She was a dark-haired woman with a hot temper and bright blue eyes. Her husband was one of the scientists at the Establishment.
“Thank you.” Hannah accepted the additions with satisfaction. They gave bulk and variety to the yellow.
Lizzie smiled. “I’ve always liked branches. They don’t seem to know how to make an ugly shape.”
“You’re right!” Hannah agreed with surprise. “Even the knobbly bits look good.” She glanced at Lizzie again. There seemed to be a hidden excitement in her, as if she knew of something good that would happen, just beyond the sight of the rest of them. Would it be intrusive to ask what it was? “You look well,” she said pleasantly.
“I like Sundays,” Lizzie replied, then gave a little shrug. “Theo doesn’t usually work on Sunday, although he has once or twice lately. They’re doing something critically important at the Establishment. He doesn’t say anything, of course, but I know from the way he walks how alive he feels. It is as if his mind is racing on the brink of solving the final problems and finishing whatever it is. Please God, it will be something that will make a real difference to the war. Perhaps it will even be over soon. What do you think?” Her eyes were bright, her cheeks a little flushed. “The men would come home. We could start to rebuild things again. . . .” Her face tightened suddenly; perhaps she was remembering those who would not come back.
Hannah had no idea if Lizzie had other family far less safe than her scientist husband, perhaps brothers or friends. “I can’t think of anything better to pray for,” she said softly. “And it would be right to pray for it, for everyone. We could all start again, making things instead of smashing them. And the Germans could, too, of course.”
Lizzie nodded quickly, afraid to think of such a thing too long, and tempt fortune with words. Then she turned and walked away swiftly and almost soundlessly up the stone aisle and out of the door into the wind and sun.
Hannah finished the last of the vases and put them each in the right place, then went out as well. She almost bumped into Mrs. Nunn coming up along the path through the graves.
“Hello, Mrs. MacAllister,” the older woman said with a smile. “Where’s the chaplain?” She also spoke of Joseph by his occupation, because to her that was who he was. She had sons and nephews in the regiment at Ypres, and they wrote to him of Joseph often. “Tell him Oi was asking after him, will you please?”
“Of course,” Hannah said quickly. “He’s recovering quite well, but it will be a few weeks before he can think about going back.”
A shadow crossed Mrs. Nunn’s face. “But he will, won’t he? Oi mean, he’ll be alroight?” She was echoing Mrs. Gee’s words.
Hannah hesitated. She was overwhelmed by the power of her longing that he should stay. They needed Joseph’s faith here to lean on if they were to survive. Kerr was useless. More loss, loneliness, and pain lay ahead. She thought of Betty Townsend and Mrs. Nunn. They were only two of hundreds. “I don’t know,” she answered. “He’s thirty-seven, and he was pretty badly injured. They may not send him back.”
The color and light vanished from Mrs. Nunn’s expression. “Oh, Oi do hope that’s not true. What will moi boys do without him?” She shook her head a little, her face crumpled. “They don’t tell us much, you know, but it’s awful out there. Some o’ them doi real hard. An’ none o’ them come back loike they went. They need men loike your brother worse’n we need them. We’re safe in our own beds, an’ with food on the table in the morning, an’ clean water to drink.” She looked very hard at Hannah. “Oi’d be out there for moi boys, if Oi could, an’ keep them safe here. What mother wouldn’t? But at least Oi knowed Captain Reavley were there for them. He’d be with ’em in the worst, day or noight, winter or summer aloike.”
She smiled and her gaze was far away. “He were hurt getting moi boy Tucky back out o’ no-man’s-land, you know? Saved his loife, the chaplain did.” She took a deep breath. “God speed him back, Oi pray. Oi’m sorry, Mrs. MacAllister, but the boys come first. They’re foighting for England, an’ we got to do our part.” Sniffing fiercely, she turned and picked her way back through the graves.
Hannah stood still on the path for a few moments longer. Then with her mind in increasing turmoil, she walked slowly toward the lych-gate and out into the street.
She walked more rapidly. She had been sure, listening to Betty Townsend, that Joseph should stay here. He
