Tomorrow's ghost

(And who better than Widow Fitzgibbon, the ex-military wife, to dig into that marriage? Ugh!)

'I'd like to speak with the Adjutant, if you please.' Frances heard her most county voice take over, turning the request into an order. 'He is expecting a call from me.'

Haughty sniff. 'An urgent call.'

'Very good, madam.' The Guard Room came smartly to attention at the word of command.

The past flooded back painfully, surging over her and then carrying her forward before she could check it into the might-have-been present. Robbie would have made captain now, and if they'd still been together she'd have been an established regimental wife - even maybe a wife-and-mother, with a son down for Wellington -

If.

No!

Think of Colonel Butler - Major Butler, Captain Butler, Lieutenant Butler, Officer Cadet Butler ... even Private Butler.

Paul had been right: not quite out of the top drawer, our Jack - she ought to have noticed that, if not noted it (what did it matter where he came from?), because her ear was sharper than Paul's (but maybe it did matter now, remembering how Colonel Butler -

Captain Butler at the time, it had been - from the wrong side of the tracks had carried off Madeleine Francoise de Latour d'Auray Boucard, of Chateau Chais d'Auray, which sounded a long way beyond the other side of those tracks).

(Because that had been as out-of-character for the dour Colonel Butler she knew, or thought she knew, as for the Private Butler who had risen from the ranks of his Lancashire regiment, out of the back streets of Blackburn ... somehow inheriting the fortune of General Sir Henry Chesney en route.)

(There was more in Colonel Butler than met the eye, much more and very different.

But how much more, and how different?)

* * *

'Miss Fitzgibbon?'

The Adjutant. Widow Fitzgibbon could tell an adjutant when she heard one.

Wellington and Sandhurst. Or any public school and Sandhurst; Johnnie Kinch, who had danced rather closely with not-yet-Widow Fitzgibbon, had been Eton and Sandhurst and Robbie's adjutant, and that could have been Johnnie Kinch's voice, down to the last inflection.

'Could I speak to Mr Mitchell, please?' said Frances cautiously.

'Ah ... jolly good!' Caution met caution. 'Would you hold the line for a tick?'

For a tick she would hold the line.

* * *

(But it wouldn't have been Private Butler, of course - his had been a rifle regiment, or was it a fusilier one? An Army wife ought to have made that important distinction - it would have been Rifleman Butler, or Fusilier Butler ... Except, the truth was, she had never been a very good Army wife, imbued with the proper attitudes, but just a very young one full of learning and politics out of step with her situation, in which there was also more than had met her eye - more and very different.)

* * *

'Princess?'

That was Paul - no doubt about that.

'Yes?'

'Where are you phoning from?'

'Does it matter?'

'Where-are-you-phoning-from?'

'A pub in the back of beyond.'

'The pay phone?'

'No. The publican's private line. What's your problem?'

'You got my message. Did Control phone you? Or did you phone Control?'

'What's the matter, Paul?'

'For Christ's sake. Princess - answer the question!'

'I phoned him. For Christ's sake - what's the matter?'

Silence. Clever Paul was assessing the chances of putting himself on someone else's record. Clever scared Paul.

'Okay then. Princess. We've got things to talk about.'

'Like what?'

'Like ... how you're going to smear Jack Butler, maybe?'