Edward sat like a statue, still and grave and stiff and cold.
The tea was finished, the biscuits eaten, and a short silence fell. Lily prepared to take her leave, but Mr. Prewitt reached out suddenly and placed a hand on Edward’s knee. Edward jumped as if stung.
“That letter you wrote us.”
Edward swallowed convulsively and met Mr. Prewitt’s gaze. “Yes?” he croaked.
“It was such a comfort, knowing you were with our boy when he died.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “And to know that he died bravely—a hero, you said—”
“And that he didn’t suffer,” Mrs. Prewitt added.
A quiver passed across Edward’s face. His jaw tightened. He didn’t speak.
Wiping tears away with the corner of her apron, Mrs. Prewitt rose and handed her husband a carved box. “Read it, Prewitt. Mrs. Galbraith should learn the kind of man her husband is.”
Mr. Prewitt unfolded the letter. It was paper thin, worn and faded from many rereadings. As Mr. Prewitt began to read, Lily glanced at her husband. His face was stark and he stared at the floor. A nerve twitched in his jaw, almost the only evidence that he was alive.
The letter described how Luke had been killed, shot through the heart saving a fellow soldier. He died a hero. The whole regiment had mourned him, and when they buried him the buglers had played a tribute as the sun had set over his grave. And Ned had lost the best friend he ever had.
The letter was warm and deeply personal and gave comfort, even as it broke unimaginably painful news. By the time Mr. Prewitt finished, they were all damp-eyed, except for the author of the letter, Lily’s husband, who sat grave and silent, dry-eyed and stiff.
Afterward there was a long silence. Then he stood abruptly. “I have to go.” He stalked from the cottage, leaving Lily to say the good-byes.
“Don’t fret, my dear,” Mrs. Prewitt said comfortably. “Took it hard, he did. Always has. Expects more of himself than is humanly possible.”
Lily nodded. She was starting to see that. “Thank you.”
The Prewitts showed her out. Edward was sitting like a ghost in the gig. “You have a good man there, missus.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Prewitt pressed a wrapped bundle of Edward’s favorite biscuits into her hands. “Take good care of him.”
Lily gave her a misty smile. “I will.”
• • •
“Iles next, is it?” he said after a few moments. His voice was shaking.
Lily had a thousand questions, but she could see that her husband was in no state to answer them. He was hanging on by a thread.
Mr. Iles came hurrying out of his cottage before the gig had even stopped. His face worked wordlessly as he wrung Edward’s hand and drew him inside. His daughter had clearly been primed; the kettle was already singing on the hob and slices of fruitcake and some little tarts set out on the table.
“Never thought I’d see you again, my boy,” the old man said in a strangled voice. “Waited and waited for you to come home, I did . . . Your granfer too, I’ll be bound.” His eyes devoured Edward. “Silly to say you’ve growed—course you have—but it’s our Seth I’m thinkin’ of now. He’d be just under your height, I reckon, but a bit broader in the shoulders—well, we Ileses have always had strong backs. Woodchoppers, we are, Mrs. Galbraith,” he added to Lily. “Always have been, always will be.”
He gazed again at Edward, his eyes blurry with unshed tears. “He was a fine boy, wasn’t he, our Seth?”
“The finest,” Edward croaked. Tea arrived and he buried his nose in the cup.
Lily took charge of the conversation, encouraging Mr. Iles to talk about his son, all the mischief he and young Ned and the Prewitt lad and the rest had wrought on the people of the estate. “Proper young divils they were, and your lad the leader.” The old man chuckled.
Lily felt rather than saw Edward wince.
“Never minded nobody. Ah, but they were fine lads all the same. I miss him, you know, more than you’d think.”
Edward swallowed.
“That letter of yourn,” Mr. Iles continued. “Grand letter, it was. I get ’un to read it to me whenever I feel a bit low.” He jerked his head at his daughter, who sat at the edge of the room saying nothing. “Can’t read, me,” he explained to Lily. “Never went to school.”
She nodded.
“Read ’em a bit, Sukey,” Mr. Iles said, and his daughter went to the mantelpiece and took down a battered piece of paper.
Edward made a strangled sound in his throat. Lily slipped her hand into his. He clung to it tightly, but his face didn’t move.
Sukey read the letter. Mr. Iles moved his lips silently as she read; he knew Edward’s letter by heart. Lily held on to her husband’s hand, and tried not to cry as she heard how Seth had been killed, defending a widow and three little girls from a vicious pack of deserters. They’d buried him near their cottage. The little girls planted flowers on his grave.
When it was finished, Mr. Iles wiped his eyes. “Brings me a deal of comfort, that, knowing he died saving that woman and her girls. I wonder, sometimes, about the flowers those little girls planted over him. Do you remember what they—”
“Poppies,” Edward said. “Poppies. Red poppies.”
“Ah, that’s grand, then. Seth always did like a bit of color. Sukey, what say we plant a few poppies out the front there? For our Seth.”
“Whatever you say, Dad.”
Lily gave Mr. Iles the cheese and pickled onions, with the compliments of Shields, and they took their leave. They turned the gig around and were heading to the abbey—Lily was glad now she’d put a bottle of wine in the picnic basket—when Edward groaned.
A couple was standing at the divide in the road, obviously waiting. Edward pulled the horse to a halt and got down. “Mr. and Mrs. Bryant.” He shook hands with Mr. Bryant and suffered himself to be hugged
