In a Field of Blue

by Liviero, Gemma

  She shook her head. “Samuel is the son of Edgar and my sister, Helene. I lied to you.”

  I took a moment to digest the words, but my head was filled with too many questions yet to fit this into any context of recent events. And her words still had not answered my question.

  “Why the secrets?”

  “It is complicated. Edgar did not come back from the war a well man,” she said.

  “Do you love him?”

  “Yes, but it is not like you think.”

  “What should I think?”

  “My plan was always to return here to Edgar, though it grew harder the longer I stayed at Lakeland. I was to leave a lot sooner, but then I fell sick. I was torn between you and a promise to Helene to watch over Edgar. And then Laurence took the decision out of my hands.”

  “Did you take Mother’s jewels?”

  She looked shocked. “Of course not! I would not steal from you, Rudy.”

  She told me then about the events that happened on the night of the egg hunt and in the following days and the threats that were made. None of it shocked me. Laurence had grown more unpredictable and even more distant from all of us since he had returned from war.

  “I believed that Laurence was capable of harming everyone in some way if I didn’t leave. The plan originally was to humor Laurence, leave with Samuel, then return when your brother eventually left the manor. But the situation became sinister when he suggested it was only me that he wanted gone, and everything seemed out of my control. I ran and hid and watched you all that night. When I saw you with Samuel through the glass doors, the way you looked at him, I knew that you loved him, that you would not let any harm befall him. If I stayed, I believe that Laurence would have carried out his threat to spread whispers of desertion. I thought, as Edgar wished, that it would be better if you all remembered him as the hero he truly was. With me gone, there was a chance at least for Samuel with Edgar’s will.”

  “Why did you think that I would continue to believe you?”

  “Because I saw the way you looked when you read the will. Because I saw your heart.”

  I paused for a moment to read anything else from those words.

  “Without you there, we have no witness,” I said. “It will be harder to prove the case for Samuel. It will be near impossible to win. You should have come to me. I would have fought Laurence. I would have been on your side. I still am.”

  “It is better this way, returning to Edgar to look after him, and Samuel to be safely with you where he belongs, and Abigail there as his guardian. You might perhaps get a better outcome that you would not have otherwise had. You have a better chance to remain at Lakeland.”

  “It could be better still. You and Edgar could be there. And I have every intention of presenting the will and the case for Samuel. But it means that Laurence may still announce to the world about Edgar’s illness and his suspicion about the desertion.”

  “With me not there, I do not think so. It is only the will he needs to fight now with his plan to inherit the estate. And the boy will say his father is dead.”

  “Which means you and Edgar have been planning this for years.”

  “When we arrived here and I learned how deep his illness went, Edgar realized, too, that he could not be the father he wanted to be, and Samuel’s health was not good here. It was a difficult but necessary decision to let Samuel think his father had died.”

  “Edgar must not have been expecting you to return here. He made you the custodian for the estate.”

  “Yes, he did, and I objected. All you need to know is that the wilderness is the only place for Edgar, but is no place for Samuel.”

  “The wilderness is no place for you, either.”

  She turned her head away from me so I could not read her.

  “I promised my sister that I would watch over him and her child.”

  “But Samuel is no longer here. You are not looking after the child at all now, it seems. You are here with my brother only.”

  She touched her throat. It was not my intent to hurt her but merely to reach inside her mind and draw more out. To understand what it was that truly kept her here.

  “Separating them hadn’t been an option when I made that promise. You must know that my sister and I owe Edgar a great deal. Despite everything you have heard, he was very brave like all the men who served to protect us. The promise between my sister and me is not something I expect anyone to understand.”

  And I certainly didn’t at that point.

  “Your plan would not have worked,” I said. “You must have imagined that the boy would give ‘Fabien’ away eventually when he recognized him from the photographs on the wall.”

  “As you can see Edgar is not just changed mentally. I did not think his young photographs would be so easily recognizable as the man he is today. But no, you are correct. I didn’t think of everything. I underestimated how much a child can see. But I imagine with his age, it will be easy to explain that he might be confused.”

  “Edgar should be home in England,” I said. “I struggle to make sense of that. You could be there looking out for both of them.”

  “He will be arrested. His service no longer honorable, but in tatters. And I can tell you he will not fit back in society, regardless of his reputation. His life will be prison and psychiatric wards.”

  “There could be other treatments. I can take care of him.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think. He can’t go back, Rudy!”

  The way she said my name, I realized I missed it, and I moved closer to hold her.

  “Don’t!” she said, widening the space between us.

  “My brother let us believe he was dead, and then for you to disappear . . . It broke Mother, and it almost broke me, too.”

  “You are not the only ones broken.”

  I was thinking purely selfishly and was reminded that Mariette had lost much.

  “In your civilized world, Edgar would no longer fit," she continued. “He carries so much rage. Memories darken his mood. Here especially, he is surrounded by space, not people who judge him. I wasn’t sure at first whether to give you the diary. I thought it would only confuse you, make it harder, make you worry more. Maybe even give his condition away. But I had to leave something more of Edgar.”

  “This relationship that you returned to here . . . ,” I said, looking around the cabin. “This life you choose here—”

  “It is not what you think.”

  “Yes, you’ve said that already. What is it that I am supposed to think?”

  “I can tell just from your tone that you are displeased. I am not the perfect person you wish me to be. I’ve made some harsh decisions. Some that in time I may regret. But I can’t tear myself in two, either. I knew after meeting you that you and Peggy and even your mother would take care of Samuel once I was gone. I knew that night I saw him in your arms that he was safe. I knew also that you would always keep him that way.”

  “But I’m not there, either, am I? Who knows if he is even still at the manor?”

  Her face darkened. It was cruel what I said. But in that moment I didn’t care.

  “It has been hard on everyone,” she said.

  “Do you love me?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I reached for her, my hands gently holding her arms.

  “Why doesn’t it?” I said.

  She looked down through the window.

  “He is coming. You must not ask questions about the past.”

  “You planned to return here without Samuel. Did you change your mind about returning after we were together? Did you have doubts before Laurence gave you no choice? Or was I just something to pass the time until you left?”

  She looked at me, and I found no answers in her expression.

  “Mariette!” I begged for an answer.

  “Yes, I had doubts.”

  It was what I desperately wanted to hear, though it seemed more likely her doubts were about le
aving Samuel.

  She freed herself and walked into the kitchen, and I walked to the front door to watch Edgar ascend the outside stairs.

  “Little Brother,” he said, sweeping through the doorway, his anger forgotten. “If you are feeling better, I can give you a tour of my business, show you what we do here.”

  He was a different person than the one who had left earlier.

  “Yes, of course,” I said, my words sounding uncertain. Though I was eager to learn about him and his new life, I was still a little shaken from his outburst and the conversation with Mariette.

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Then let’s go.”

  Edgar’s manner, firm and gentle and the only side he’d ever shown to me as a boy, took away some of my anxiety about the situation. I was suddenly looking forward to connecting with him and talking privately.

  We stood side by side on the sled, and our dogs yelped exuberantly across the frozen lake until we reached the opposite shore. Then through winding snow-covered hills, with the wind whipping my face and pine needles biting at me as we passed down well-used trails, we reached a thickly wooded valley. When I lost my balance at one sharp bend, Edgar caught me before I toppled. After all these years he was still coming to my aid.

  We stopped at a patch of forest that was partially cleared. He showed me a cable machine he had saved for and purchased to drag the felled logs. His business had proved successful through his hard labor and determination. I marveled at his ability to carve out a life here in a foreign land.

  “I couldn’t do it without the other workers,” he said. “We all look after each other out here.”

  I felt selfishly hurt and excluded. He had left the war, scarred and ill, and we his family had been left to make sense of life without him. I wanted badly to talk about his experiences and Samuel but sensed some distance still between us and heeded Mariette’s warning. It felt as though I were getting to know someone I had once known casually, not someone I had idolized throughout a shared history.

  “I missed you,” I said.

  “And I you,” he said, seeming sincere, as we sat on felled logs, eating bread and strips of venison that Mariette had packed for us, our bodies growing cold but our hearts growing warm as we briefly reminisced about some early childhood moments together.

  “In another life we could have been partners,” he said.

  The relationship between the three of us, Mariette and Edgar and me, was still confusing. I did not yet understand the connection between the two of them and how deep it was. Mariette had made a promise, but what exactly that promise included was still somewhere in the gray. I had seen that her bedroom was upstairs and his bed near the kitchen. But most of the time they were here alone, and I tried desperately not to let the thought consume me and weaken the bond I had begun again with Edgar.

  As I looked across the valley and the dogs and the low sun, even the cold was beautiful that day. I saw what he saw, smelled what he smelled: the sweet scent of sawn timber, the rawness of the land, the chance to begin anew, and a lack of any societal expectations.

  “Or you could just return with me?” I asked to test him.

  He turned, his blue eyes bright against the tanned, scarred, and weathered face and the ice-blue air around us. He was rugged, but underneath was the handsome face I had grown to admire and the boy whom everyone had revered.

  “I will never go back. This is home. This is where I should be.”

  We returned to a crowded cabin. I was introduced to several men and women from neighboring properties who were helping to prepare a feast to celebrate my arrival.

  Outside, the group of men had built a large fire to roast the deer they had caught and killed earlier. I had noticed a central gathering place with logs around a firepit, and we sat outdoors, warmed by the tall flames. Several children chased one another nearby, and conversations ensued about railways, trees, bears, and fishing. The women eventually joined us, carrying dishes to set down on logs while the men cut strips of meat with their hunting knives.

  Edgar sat away from me, and he and the other men were laughing raucously after Edgar roughly threw a log on the fire, which sent sparks in all directions and made the children squeal and flinch. He had always had a sense of fun and adventure, but his actions had always been deliberate. I don’t ever remember seeing him appear so casual and unrestrained.

  “It is good to see you, Rudy!” he said. “The only thing missing is a glass of whiskey to celebrate the reunion.”

  I remembered the bottle Sally had given me, which had warmed me several times throughout the trip here, and I revealed this suddenly. Though after the words were released, some inner voice told me to take them back.

  “Then fetch it!” he said.

  Mariette turned in our direction with a look of concern.

  “Perhaps it is best saved for my return,” I said. “I will no doubt need it if this weather keeps up.”

  “Nonsense, Rudy! We’ll leave enough for the journey.”

  “No,” said Mariette.

  Edgar stared at her for a moment, perhaps absorbing some silent message that was passed between them.

  “Just a small one,” he said. “My brother has traveled all the way here. I have not seen him since I left England. There is reason to celebrate.”

  These words reminded me that Edgar had said nothing of his time in France. He had taken great pains to distract me with other things, to steer the conversation to only happy memories and very present ones.

  Mariette returned with the bottle and two glasses, which were filled immediately by Edgar. He gulped his down quickly, and as the minutes passed, this seemed not to make a difference to his current affable temperament. He spoke humorously of me to the others of the quirky, shy boy I was as a child, disappearing into the hills to sketch pictures of animals, and yet made no reference to his inclusion in the household or of other family. It was as if he had destroyed those memories.

  Most of the group got up to leave as the night grew colder and the children had run out of energy. Only a handful of us were left, and while Mariette was distracted discussing something with one of the other women, Edgar poured himself another drink and topped up mine. The liquid warmed me and dispelled any further inner warnings. Edgar seemed buoyed by the drink and food and conversation, and I saw no harm in the second glass at that point. I was feeling much lighter myself.

  There are triggers that force people to do things they didn’t mean to do. I saw something, a look if I can name it, pass between Mariette and Edgar. It seemed not sisterly or brotherly but something old and familiar, from before she found me. And this was what moved me to act the way I did and ultimately cause effects I’d been warned about.

  Mariette went inside, and Edgar was then in deep conversation with the remaining two men. I took the opportunity to go inside and speak to her.

  She saw my intense look, and I saw caution in hers.

  “Mariette, you have not yet said your exact relationship with my brother.” The liquor had done this, given me the confidence to confront her, stupidly, I realized later.

  She turned away, offended.

  “I said I’d take care of him in place of Helene.”

  Something inside me snapped.

  “Has that also included his bed?”

  “Who do you think you are? You are not my keeper! You are acting childish! And you had best now hide the whiskey. He has not had a drink for years. And I am safe to assume that you don’t need any more, either.”

  Her point made, she walked away upstairs, and I fought the urge to follow her, to apologize, upset with myself for the way I had acted. Back at the fireside, the remaining two men were making moves to leave. I saw the whiskey bottle near Edgar’s feet, the level almost to the bottom. He had grown a little quiet, and still drawing confidence from the whiskey, I thought it was the right time to approach him with other questions. I had struggled to make sense of Edgar’s abandonment of me and the years he had left us in the dark at La
keland. I felt I deserved answers. Everything had been kept from me, and I felt punished for simply seeking it. This sense of entitlement was likely in my tone.

  “Was it as bad as everything I’ve heard?” I asked him too casually, words coming out as freely as the insults and questions I’d posed to Mariette.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I saw the destruction, the remains of what happened. You need to talk about it, stop hiding from us, from your family in England. I have some idea—”

  “You have no idea! You are a soft little boy who saw no war, who lived dreamily inside your head. I would not expect you to know it at all.”

  I was dismayed by this sour relationship that had formed between us. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was that I didn’t understand, but he allowed no opportunity then.

  “You think I was brave? I was scared like you are, Rudy, fearful of fighting. Forcing myself to run at the enemy, watching people shot down screaming. I see that every time I close my eyes. I live with the past every day.”

  “You need to see a doctor then.”

  “Doctors? They told me I was different. At first I was ‘malingering,’ and then it was just madness. They did nothing but pump me with morphine to ease my conscience. I am a fugitive, Rudy. A criminal who should be locked up! You think that by coming here you will have all the answers? Well, you are sadly mistaken and should turn around now.”

  Mariette must have heard the raised voices and had come down from the top floor to stand on the porch above us. The two men had also stopped in the middle of their task to listen, perhaps aware of certain signs that I had not yet had the experiences to recognize. I noticed that Edgar had begun sweating and was peeling off his clothes.

  “Mother misses you dreadfully,” I said, thinking that this might soften the conversation and turn it back to something we could both share. “She needs you back there.”

  He stood up and smashed his glass against a log and began to storm back toward the stairs to the porch. Mariette in the meantime had walked to the bottom to meet him.

  Although his reaction startled me, a side of him that I hadn’t seen, I stood up to follow him. I had to understand. I had to bring out what he felt, why he couldn’t write.