“I ran into someone in London and came down to Sussex with her. A family member died recently, and the stone for his grave is ready to be set in place. The rest of the Ellis family is expected today for a small ceremony. They’d like me to stay.”
“Darling, I didn’t know you were acquainted with anyone in that part of Sussex. Are you quite sure you’ve told me everything, Bess, dear?”
“This telephone is in a very public place. Please, ask Simon. He can explain this far better than I, just now.”
“I don’t know that he’s at the cottage just now. He and your father went off together, and the Colonel Sahib hasn’t returned.”
“I’ll write,” I said. I had half an hour, I could find hotel stationery and send a short note. “Will that do?” Although any letter would reach Somerset after I did.
“Darling, don’t worry about it. You’ll be home in a few more days. We can talk then, shall we? You sound tired and more than a little anxious. A party might be just the thing.”
Depend on my mother to put the best face possible on any situation.
“Thank you,” I replied, utterly sincere. “I’ll still write.”
I rang off.
Finding hotel stationery was simple enough, and I had a pen with me. Finding a quiet corner to sit in was another matter. It was nearly eleven, and people were coming and going as if this were the hub of activity in the town.
I sat down on a window seat overlooking the street and made an attempt to explain how and why I’d found myself in Sussex instead of Somerset. It was not my best effort, but it would have to do. I wrote my parents’ direction on the envelope, and was about to ask Reception where I could find the post office, when I noticed the door of Bluebell Cottage opening and a man stepping out into the street.
He was holding a cane, using it to find his way, as if he had done this a thousand times and knew where he was. Turning to his right, he moved carefully but confidently along the pavement, and people passing him greeted him as if he were fairly well known.
In spite of the hat he wore pulled down to conceal his scars and blind eyes, I could see that he had good bones, a firm chin, and dark brows. Not precisely handsome, but what my mother would call a good face.
In front of the greengrocer’s shop stood another man in a threadbare, ragged coat two sizes too large for his thin frame, and the shoes on his feet were worn almost to the point of the leather cracking open. I thought perhaps he’d been begging, because as I watched, I saw the greengrocer come out his door and angrily tell him to move on. He shuffled along to the ironmonger’s shop and stopped again. Then he looked up, saw the blind man coming his way, and waited until he was close enough to speak to.
I couldn’t hear the conversation of course, but it was obvious the poor man was asking for money. The blind man nodded, reached into his pocket, and took out some coins, dropping them into the grimy, outstretched hand. The beggar touched his cap in gratitude, his thanks following the blind man as he walked on.
Watching this interaction, I’d nearly forgot my letter, and made haste to walk on to speak to the desk clerk. I was halfway there when I all but collided with Roger Ellis coming out of a small parlor just off Reception. I wondered for a fraction of a second if he’d been in a position to overhear my telephone conversation.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, and I knew then that from the parlor window he must also have seen the occupant of Bluebell Cottage walking down the street.
“Yes,” I told him. “I was in a hurry to mail this letter before it was time to meet you.” I held up the envelope, addressed and sealed but without a stamp. “Do you suppose we could stop at the post office?”
I watched him scan the address. “Of course,” he said, and we moved outside again into the chill December. He opened the door of his motorcar for me, and I noticed over his shoulder that the blind man had disappeared from view. But I saw the beggar stopping another man in front of the pub farther along the street.
We paused at the post office, I purchased a stamp, and my letter was dropped into His Majesty’s red post box. We drove back to the main street and headed toward the Forest. We had nearly reached the outskirts of Hartfield when we both saw the occupant of Bluebell Cottage about to cross the street. But Roger Ellis hadn’t slowed his speed, and I thought for a moment he intended to knock the man down. Someone just behind the blind man caught his arm and spoke to him, and then we were past.
“That was cruel,” I snapped. “You could have hurt him.”
“I doubt it. I’ve had a feeling his vision has improved more than he was willing to acknowledge. I’ve watched him walk through the town before this, and he has an uncanny ability to avoid obstacles.”
“Why should he lie? It’s familiarity that guides him, and remembering the number of steps to this or that place. Besides, however good his vision may be, what right do you have to test it by frightening the man?”
“Yes, all right, I’m sorry,” Ellis said. “I thought when you first came through the hotel door with that letter in your hand that you were taking it across to his cottage. I was angry.”
“I showed it to you. It was to my parents.”
“But you just spoke to them on the telephone, did you not?”
Exasperated, I said, “I did. And I promised my mother I’d write a note as well. Do you know where that telephone is? Hardly the place for a private conversation of any kind. How could I tell her that I was worried about Lydia having a concussion, without also telling the entire village as well?”
“I apologize,” he said again. “It’s my shoulder. It hurts like the devil in this weather and after a while it begins to make me short-tempered.”
I didn’t know if that were true or an excuse for his behavior. I said only, “Where were you wounded?” Lydia had told me it had happened soon after he reached France.
“Near Mons. It’s healed well enough, and I have full use of it again. But it’s an excellent barometer. I’m told there are still several shards of shrapnel they couldn’t reach without doing more damage.”
“Yes, that’s often a problem,” I agreed. “Although I’m told the American Base Hospital in Rouen has an X-ray machine that allows them to locate shrapnel exactly and that makes the surgery far less invasive. I don’t know whether your shoulder will improve with time or not. But you might speak to someone there if it continues to trouble you.” It was a professional assessment, not meant as a personal judgment.
“I’ll manage,” he retorted.
“Yes, I’m sure you will,” I answered, biting my tongue. Lydia was right about the fact that this man was moody and unpredictable. I let the silence between us lengthen.
I was glad to see the turning for Vixen Hill as we came down the muddy track, bouncing and shuddering in the ruts. It couldn’t have helped either Roger Ellis’s shoulder or his disposition.
I went directly to my room, took off my hat and coat, and sat down by the window for a moment. Trying to imagine how the knot garden must look in summer helped to take the edge off my own mood. It seemed to me that Lydia and her husband had lost the happiness that must have marked the beginning of their marriage, and I wasn’t sure they could find their way back to it now. But at least now I could better understand her reluctance to come home on her own. And I pitied both of them. What troubled me was whether my presence aggravated Roger Ellis’s sullenness for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom, or if something else was bothering him.
With a sigh I rose from the window to look in on Lydia. But before I could open my door there was a light tap, and then Lydia stepped in.
“Roger is looking decidedly sheepish. What did you say to him?”
I thought about our conversations, about the occupant of Bluebell Cottage, and Roger Ellis’s suspicious nature. Hardly something I could pass on to Lydia.
Instead I said, “I’d written a brief note to my mother, and when your husband saw it in my hand, he thought I was carrying a message from you to the occupant of Bluebell Cottage. By the time he realized his mistake, I could see that he was more than a little jealous. Have you given him cause to be?”
She threw up her hands in disgust. “That’s Gran’s doing. I volunteered to read to Davis Merrit. In fact, it was Mr. Harris, the rector, who asked if I had the time to come and read to him. And I’ll be honest, I enjoyed it. He’s an interesting man-Lieutenant Merrit-and the books he chooses interest me as well. Gran disapproves, and it was she who put the idea into Roger’s head that there might be more to those weekly afternoons than meets the eye. No, I’m not in love with Davis. Nor he with me. I suppose we’re both lonely, and there’s comfort in companionship. Such as it is.”
