by Emma Jameson
Feeling around in her bag, Penny located her compact mirror, opened it to check her hair, repositioned a few curls, and snapped it shut. “I look a fright. A drink and a fag wouldn’t go amiss. That building over there….” She gestured. “Does it say Daley’s?”
“I can’t tell.”
“If this is Birdswing, that should be Daley’s Co-op, and that”—she pointed at a shape almost indistinguishable from the tall trees in front of it—“should be the Sheared Sheep. Our destination for the evening, and très chic.”
“I’ll bet.” He squinted against the deepening dark. A few stars were appearing overhead, but not enough. The blackout, as the government called it, had only just gone into effect, but like most of the country, this community had long been compliant. As a result, the windows of both buildings were painted black, or else covered with opaque fabric and paper. Entryway lamps were doused, and streetlights were dark. The goal was to make even the most dense segments of England look uninhabited, to appear as strategically meaningless as cow pastures to enemy bombers.
“I see a sign hanging out front,” Ben continued, indicating the shape Penny had called Daley’s Co-op. “Are you sure that isn’t the boarding house? Perhaps you have them reversed.”
“Anything’s possible. Even when I come back, I stick to Plymouth.” Exiting the car, Penny yawned and stretched. “Still, if memory serves, the Sheared Sheep is behind those trees. And ‘boarding house’ is too metropolitan a term. It’s a pub with a room to let. Here, wave your torch that way. The Fuhrer’s watching.”
“Very funny.” Feeling a twinge of guilt for using it past twilight, Ben switched off the device, tossing it and his map inside the Austin Ten-Four. For the blackout to succeed, it was supposed to be absolute. That meant more than dark houses and businesses. It meant no lamps on cars or bicycles, much less a hand-held torch. Blackness helped Britain; so much as a lit fag-end aided Hitler. Back in London, Ben had assumed he’d grow accustomed to the necessity. But here, in the heart of the country, the darkness was dense and unnerving.
“Perhaps I should go check. We’ll leave the car here overnight,” Ben said. Its tires were scarcely off the road, but there wasn’t much grass to park on, only a steep drop-off between the thoroughfare and an unplowed field.
“I hope no one careens into it.” Putting on her coat, Penny buttoned it up to her chin as the wind kicked up. The light was fading so fast, the navy wool looked black, and her blonde hair, silver. “Folks drive rather recklessly in the long stretches between villages.”
“Can’t imagine they’ll be driving now. I really think that building must be the Sheared Sheep.” As he squinted at the sign, which appeared to be wound with rags to obscure the name, something glinted on the roof. For a moment, he imagined a human form, but then a crow cawed, flapping away.
“I promise you, it’s behind those trees.” Penny started toward the dark, swaying shapes, her pace elegant and unhurried, heels clicking as she walked. “Go on, try and prove me wrong. I can practically hear a pint of cider calling my name.”
He let her go, taking long strides toward the building with the hidden sign. Surely the entryway of a village co-op would look more inviting, with… well… what? Sacks of flour? Bits of farm machinery? Rolls of chicken wire? It occurred to Ben as he closed the distance that he had no idea whatsoever what a provincial co-op should look like. And it was those moments as he lingered near the door, not quite resolved to knock, that saved his life, though he wouldn’t realize it for some time.
“Who’s there?” a heavily accented voice, female, called from inside. “I hear your footsteps.” She sounded frightened.
“Is this the Sheared Sheep?”
“Across the road. Behind the trees!”
Smiling at his own pigheadedness, Ben turned to find himself in near-complete darkness. As he crossed the thoroughfare, he didn’t look either way—there was nothing to see, and so deeply ingrained was his expectation of headlamps at night, the darkness seemed to guarantee his safety. He’d only just reached Penny when he heard it, something huge and fast rumbling toward them. Too startled to cry out, he tried to pull her behind him, and then….
SMACK
Then….
Falling, falling, and a crack like the earth had punched him in the back of the head. He smelled rubber and petrol, tasted blood, and heard another slow, wet creak as flesh and bone was pulverized. Half of him thought this was a nightmare, that it couldn’t be happening. The other side—the physician side—realized that sound must be tires rolling over a human being. Then shock turned into pain, and pain transmuted into a deeper darkness, spiraling into the unknown.
* * *
“I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street….”
Ben realized he’d been awake for some time. Where was he? He didn’t hurt, precisely, but had the odd certainty that if he moved or spoke, the pain would come and perhaps never leave. As for this scrupulous, upper-crust voice, he knew it; he didn’t like it, but he knew it. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
“… and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany….”
War? Yes, when he was a child, but that was the Great War, the War to End All Wars. Confused, Ben tried to crack open gummy eyelids. His mouth was dry, and his skin felt heavy, as if turned to lead. Morphine? Had someone administered morphine? Eyes half-opened, he registered a lumpy mattress beneath him and the smell of carbolic soap.
“You can imagine,” Chamberlain went on, “what a bitter blow it is to me….”
The pain was gathering itself, threatening to break through. His right leg throbbed. His left… was it even there?
“… but Hitler would not have it….”
Ben tried to sit up, but nothing happened. “My leg,” he mumbled, tongue almost too thick to move.
“Hush now,” a soft female voice said.
“… his actions show convincingly that there is no chance of expecting this man ever giving up his practice of using force to gain his will….”
“My leg? Was it—crushed?”
“We have a clear conscience.” Chamberlain’s voice issued from a wireless on the bureau, Ben saw through filmy vision. “We have done all any country could do….”
“Hush,” the woman said again.
“Penny?”
“Doctor,” the woman whispered urgently. Only as Ben tried to form a reply did he realize she wasn’t speaking to him, but over his head, to someone else. “Doctor, he’s thrashing about.”
“Dr. Bones.” The voice, male and cool, was not unlike Prime Minister Chamberlain’s, politely apologizing for a second world war, though he clearly held himself blameless. “Calm yourself, or you’ll get another injection.”
“Where’s Penny? I heard—heard—” He broke off, remembering the sound of heavy tires pulverizing something—someone—and knew. Beyond all doubt, he knew.
“And now that we have resolved to finish it,” Chamberlain went on inexorably, those plummy tones made tinny by the wireless. “I know you will do your part with courage and calmness.”
“You heard the man. Courage and calmness.” The physician pressed a hypodermic needle against Ben’s upper arm, the prick infinitesimal against an ever-expanding universe of pain. “The world is at war. Count yourself lucky to sleep.”
The Lady of the Manor
10 October, 1939
Ben didn’t need to leave his room over the Sheared Sheep to know it was getting colder; he felt it every time a southeaster blew through, penetrating the late Victorian heap as easily as a torn mack. Downstairs, raucous laughter and pint-fueled rows started in midafternoon and carried straight through till closing. After the issuing of the Call-Up Proclamation, it seemed most of the village’s young men were heading into the pub a little earlier each day, either to drown their fears or enjoy what might be a final pint with friends. Ben often overheard long snatches of conversation, provincial and circular in nature, that did nothing to entice him downstai
rs. And if not for the insistence of his nurse, a curt sister with very definite views on the curative power of sunlight, he would have kept his blackout screens in place night and day. What difference did it make?
The words of the publican, Angus Foss, floated up from the barroom. That is, if the perpetually aggrieved tones of a perpetually aggrieved Scot can ever be said to “float.”
“Aye, I’ll fetch him for ye. Just what my poor spine needs, another wee traipse down the stairs with a full-grown man in my arms. Devil of a way to start the day. And me due to unlock the doors in a quarter hour….”
Ben checked the alarm clock beside his bed. Was it really not yet three o’clock? Dawn was trundling toward dusk even slower than usual.
“… but ye know my temperament. Man o’ the people. Live to serve,” Foss continued morosely. “Still, martyrs and saints have their limits. The Council—meaning your ladyship’s mother, ye ken—had best make restitution for all I’m out in lost rent. That includes meals, housekeeping, and electric current. If I’m not assured payment by tomorrow morning, I’ll put him out, I swear by God I will.”
Foss’s threat didn’t trouble Ben. He’d overheard it many times during his slow convalescence, though never attached to a twenty-four hour deadline. The insistence of some unseen visitor to have him brought downstairs was what bothered him. Foss found the process inconvenient; Ben found it downright humiliating. As for whatever the visitor wished to discuss, it didn’t matter. Unless the person asking represented the British army, Ben would say what he always said: no.
Easing his Edwardian wheelchair, a ghastly contraption fashioned of blond wood and rattan, out of his room, Ben maneuvered onto the landing. There, near the top of the stairs, he couldn’t see the bar, where Foss and his visitor were standing, but he could hear her voice quite clearly.
“I understand he’s lodged here six weeks. So lost rent is fair enough,” she said in the flowing tones of an educated woman. “But surely you customarily provide meals to your guests? I’ve always pitied those souls unfortunate enough to squat in this hovel, but I refuse to believe even you would bill them separately for electric lights. Or what you call housekeeping, which amounts to Edith Hoovering twice a month and linens changed once per solstice?”
Foss cleared his throat. “Now, that’s verra hard—”
“Nonsense. I was being kind to Edith. If I were the sort of woman who engaged in gossip, and I assure you I am not, I would add that outside Birdswing, ‘Hoovering’ is not the common term for Edith’s primary occupation. I might also remark that you virtually never let that room upstairs, except for the sort of exchange that doesn’t require a hot meal to sizzle.”
“That’s a lie!” Foss thundered. “No immoral congress takes place within these walls.”
“Of course there’s no immoral congress. A physician with two broken legs occupies the requisite space.” As the woman laughed, Ben leaned forward, trying to get a look at her. “Mind you, I make no accusations. I never repeat gossip and would prefer not to hear the rumors about poor Edith and your tawdry little room. No doubt she’s a nearly adequate maid, and it’s a nearly bearable cell. So please believe me, my dear Mr. Foss, when I say I perceive your discontent. My mother perceives your discontent. Far away, nestled amongst the most distant stars, advanced life forms perceive your—”
“Dinna ken what you’re on about,” Foss said peevishly.
“Of course not. Being met with slack jaws and faintly suspicious eyes is both my blessing and my curse. But if you could just sublimate your habitual disgruntlement long enough to fetch down—”
“Blessing?” Foss cut in again. “How the deuce is it a blessing that regular folk can’t make heads nor tails o’ what ye say?”
“It reduces the volume of complaints directed toward my mother.” The visitor sounded cheerful. “She’s not a well woman, you know, and heaven knows my childhood travails contributed to her condition. How fortuitous that as I matured, I acquired sufficient vocabulary to speak my mind without ruining her day. Now. Mr. Foss. I’ve very much enjoyed our little talk, but the time draws nigh for you to ply your unsavory trade, and Edith to ply hers. So will you fetch down Dr. Bones, please?”
“Aye, Lady Juliet.” The cantankerous Scot sounded defeated.
Ben wheeled back into his room. Somewhere in the midst of listening to that acid-tongued woman, he’d lost his resolve to say no, at least without hearing her out. But what could she possibly want? Everyone in Birdswing knew of his injuries. His right leg, broken below the knee, was mostly healed, but his left leg had been shattered. During that titanic smack of impact, the moment his torso struck the lorry’s bonnet, his legs had connected with its iron grille, breaking the tibia and fibula in two places each. Moreover, his femur had snapped, either when the lorry hit him or when he struck the ground. Now Ben knew firsthand the truth of the medical school saying: a broken femur was the worst pain a man could experience. Its corollary, that childbirth was the worst pain a human being could experience, made him devoutly glad to be male.
Hearing the stairs creak under Foss’s heavy tread, Ben gripped the arms of his chair and slowly, carefully, tried to rise. His right leg trembled. It had grown weak during the long recuperation. Two seconds later, his left buckled, dropping him back in the wheelchair with a stab of agony.
Perspiration broke out across his forehead. Sighing, he wiped it away. There was no more morphine for him: since the declaration of war, narcotics and other essential medications were strictly rationed. As a result, he’d been undermedicated, at least by London hospital standards, but that was probably a blessing. Morphine didn’t eliminate pain, it just created detachment, placing the patient on a billowy cloud from which discomfort could be ignored. No other substance came close; not even single malt whiskey could compete with an injectable opioid. And Ben, who during his internship had struggled to comprehend the nature of morphine addiction, understood it now all too well. He’d survived the accident. Penny had not. The chance for them to repair their union, or at least face its dissolution together, had been snuffed out without amends or even goodbyes. When real physical pain was entwined with amorphous demons like heartbreak, guilt, or misery, and a substance existed that artificially detached the sufferer for a few precious hours, who on earth wouldn’t be tempted?
He looked around the little room. The books and magazines his mum and dad had brought were long read; the condolence cards and letters from the extended Bones family were tucked away. His last visitor had been an aunt on holiday who’d dropped by out of morbid curiosity; his last telegram, from Penny’s brother George, asking if Penny had any life insurance money due. A fresh distraction might be worth the price of venturing downstairs.
“Dr. Bones! Are ye decent?” Foss bellowed outside the door.
“Yes.” Only due to the efforts of his nurse, who insisted her patients be fully dressed by breakfast, no lazing about in pajamas or dressing gown. Most days, Ben didn’t see the point, any more than he saw the point of looking out the window at this sad little village he refused to call home. But defying such a grimly resolved sister wasn’t worth the wear and tear on his vocal cords. So not only was he decent, he was properly attired to meet this backwater aristocrat, from his silk necktie to his Oxford dress shoes. “Do come in.”
“Do come in,” Foss mimicked. As usual, his hair was wild, his shirt was stained, and a bit of egg clung to his bushy mustache. “I’ve not come to take tea with ye. Here to break me back again in service to her ladyship.”
“You sound like you don’t fancy the task. Shame. Being carried by you is the highlight of my week.” Ben kept his tone light. “So tomorrow morning I’m out on my ear, is that right?”
Foss had the decency to look abashed. “Ye heard?”
“As my mystery visitor put it, beings on faraway planets heard. Never mind, Foss, think nothing of it. If the government hasn’t paid you yet for my room and board, I don’t blame you for feeling ill-used. Tell me about that woman. Wh
at does she want?”
“Like anyone kens the answer to that. Beat down me door while I was at lunch and prattled on till I gave in. Her and her mother, Lady Victoria, come from people who once owned every acre of Birdswing. Reckon they still do, or near as makes no difference. I told her you’re fit for nowt, but she wouldn’t listen. That’s how she wound up married to a bounder—not listening.”
“Married to a bounder?” The revelation didn’t surprise Ben; Birdswing brimmed with gossip. Everyone, even his nurse, seemed incapable of simple discourse without tossing in a few nuggets of personal information about someone not present to defend themselves.
“Aye, and not just any bounder, the prince o’ the lot. As flamboyant as Valentino and as phony as they come, stuffed with lies and promises. Made off with half the family fortune, from what I hear. Course Lady Juliet and her mum are close-mouthed about it, but care to wager how it ended?” Foss lifted his eyebrows so high, small eyes gleamed within their narrow sockets. “The ‘d’ word.”
Ben knew he was supposed to respond with disapproval and chose to depart from the script. “Good on her.”
“There’s no call for sarcasm.” Foss adopted a tone of virtuous sorrow. “It’s a stain on Birdswing. All the manor staff deny it—high-minded and high-handed, the lot o’ them. But he’s gone, isn’t he, and Lady Juliet only wears her ring on formal occasions. Still, she’s Mrs. Bolivar, not Miss Linton. Remember that.” Taking a deep breath, he bent over the wheelchair. “Ready?”
“Ready.” Ben steeled himself. Foss, stringy but remarkably strong, slid one arm around his shoulders and another beneath his knees, lifting him out of the chair. Bad enough to be held close by another man, particularly one like Foss, but the mere experience of being carried downstairs set Ben’s left knee on fire. His thigh ached, too. By the time Foss deposited him on the pub’s lone sofa, a red velvet affair long past its prime, fresh perspiration stood out on Ben’s forehead and tears stung his eyes. Fortunately, Foss was too occupied with his own resentment to notice.