the cart stopped rocking wildly. I hadn’t even had time to cry out, it had all happened so fast. But for the quickness of the man beside me, I’d have been pitched out on my head. Or worse, perhaps, on my still-healing arm.
I shuddered at the close call, and Robert said, “Beg pardon. I must have dozed off.”
My heart was racing, and I could still feel his fingers in that bruising grip.
I’d have been happy to see a stoat or a fox along the road, any living thing, by the time I could glimpse the lights of another village ahead of us.
Cottages, houses, then a pub, The Bells, its sign swinging in the wind, a cricket pitch on the other side of the road, and then the tall silhouette of a church set on a slight rise behind a low stone wall. To one side was what must have been the rectory, a lovely tall black and white Tudor house, and through the mullioned windows I could see a comfortable parlor done up in blue and cream, with a pair of china dogs set on the windowsill, their backs to the stormy night.
We turned the other way, under the sheltering limbs of two great trees overhanging the wall, and then another turning brought us into a lane with four or five houses in a row. The largest of them was Georgian and backed up to the far side of the churchyard. Gardens that must have been colorful in summer lay in the shadow of an iron fence, and a gate set into it led up the walk to an elegant door.
A single lamp burned above it, and the horse drew to a halt, as if he knew he had come home.
Robert got down and came around to help me, taking the rugs from me. Then he opened the iron gate for me and carried my valise and case up the walk before lifting the knocker.
A maid answered the summons almost at once, opening the door wide and welcoming me inside. Robert set down my bags, then disappeared into the night as the door shut on him.
“Mrs. Graham asked me to show you directly to your room, Miss Crawford. There’s dinner in half an hour. I’ll come for you to show you the way.”
“And you are?”
“Susan, Miss.” She bobbed a curtsey, smiling in welcome.
“Thank you, Susan.” I was glad not to have to present myself to Arthur’s mother travel worn and with muddy hems.
The hall floor was patterned parquet, and on a gateleg table between two doorways stood a vase with dried flowers arranged in it. Above it was a fine oil painting of a black horse, and I wondered if this was Merlin the Wise. As I followed Susan up the lovely curving stairs and down a wide passage, I thought of my mother’s last words of advice.
If you wish to make an impression, my dear, wear the blue gown.
As always, she was right. The blue gown suited this house very well.
There was a fire on the hearth of the room I was taken to, and warm water in the pitcher on the stand. I washed my face and hands, then changed my clothes. I was just tidying my hair when Susan came to collect me.
We went down to a dining room where only one end of the long table had been set. A woman was standing near it, waiting for me. Arthur’s mother.
She was not at all as I’d pictured her in my mind. Somehow the words “I did it for Mother’s sake” had prepared me for someone small and fragile and perhaps more than a little domineering.
Instead she was younger than I’d expected, and tall, with graying dark hair, blue eyes, and a confident carriage that spoke of years of managing her family on her own after her husband’s death. I looked for any resemblance to her son and decided it was in the height, the dark hair, the strong chin.
She greeted me with a warm smile of welcome, but I knew very well she’d been examining me even as I examined her.
“Hello, my dear! Robert tells me you came close to a nasty fall. Are you all right? Should I send for Dr. Philips?”
“No harm done,” I said lightly. “Thank you for asking.”
Her eyes were searching my face. “You knew Arthur well, did you?”
I’d met that look before, from mothers and sisters and wives wanting to know how their dear boy had gone to his death, wanting some crumb of comfort and love to fill the emptiness that lay ahead of them.
“He was very brave,” I said. “When he was wounded, he took it well. I often read to him and a few of the others, when I had time. Or wrote letters for them. I wrote his last one to you. He couldn’t hold a pen, you see, and he wanted desperately to tell you how much he cared.”
“Yes, I’ve cherished that letter. A fine young man. I think in many ways he was my favorite. Though a mother shouldn’t say that, should she?”
“He was a man any mother could be proud of,” I answered with sincerity, though I had said it many times in many letters to women I would never meet.
“Yes. Yes, he was.” Remembering her manners, she said, “Please, sit here by me. Jonathan will be down before long. He’s here on convalescent leave.”
“Arthur told me he had three brothers. Are they all in the Army?”
Her face clouded. “Timothy isn’t serving-he wasn’t allowed to join the army, you know. He was born with a clubfoot, and although he walks very well, he was considered unsuitable. He feels rather cut up about that, with everyone else enlisting or already at the Front.”
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be! To tell you the truth, it’s one less worry for me. I’ve suffered enough with Arthur and Johnnie.”
Before she could tell me about the last son, Jonathan walked in. I knew him at once because of his wound. He was a paler version of Arthur, his hair a lighter brown, his eyes a less vibrant shade of blue.
He had a terrible scar across his face. Shrapnel, at a guess. It was still half covered by bandages, but I could see where the wound began high on his forehead near the hairline, and then the last thin line of it passing down his jaw and back to his chin. His mother made the introductions, and he shook my hand.
“Where were you wounded?” I asked before I thought. But I was used to talking to bandaged men, and more often than not they wanted it known where they had served.
“Mons,” he said shortly, and went to kiss his mother’s cheek. She turned to him with a softness that spoke of her love for him, and I glanced away. It was such a private moment, and touching.
Another man, leaning on his cane, came in at that moment. He was fairer than either of his brothers, with gray-blue eyes.
Again I was introduced, this time to Timothy, and he said at once, “Mother tells me you knew Arthur?”
“I was his nurse for some time, yes.”
He nodded. “We were grateful for your letter afterward. It’s hard to think of him dying so far away. We expect him to walk through the door any day, smiling, calling to one of us.”
They spoke of Arthur with such warmth, almost as if he were still alive.
It occurred to me that under different circumstances, I might have been brought here after the war, Arthur’s arm linked with mine as he presented me to his family. What would they have thought of me, then? Not as Florence Nightingale, who had nursed their brother, but as someone who mattered to him? Arthur had asked me to marry him, before he lost his leg. He’d been in high spirits after the doctor moved him from guarded to satisfactory condition, believing he’d heal now. I’d smiled and lightly given my usual response to impetuous proposals. “You must speak to my father first. He outranks you, you see.”
It hadn’t put him off, as I’d expected. On the contrary, he’d wanted to write to the Colonel directly, but nothing more had been said about that after the amputation.
Susan appeared with the first course as we were sitting down. As she served us, we talked about people we might know in common, about London, about the sinking of
The door opened again, and I thought that the third son must be making his appearance at last, but it was an older man who stepped into the room and nodded to Mrs. Graham. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, a handsome man with thick fair hair that was graying. I realized all at once that this was Robert. I hadn’t seen him clearly in the dark, muffled as he was in scarves, his hat pulled down against the wind.
There was an air of impatience about him, and his manner was very different from that of the man in the cart.
