Sentimental Journey

by Jill Barnett

  When it served his purpose, Skip used his image as paragon of the skies. This morning it served his purpose. He paid Mallory, who had three fewer kills, to sit in for him with the reporter, and Skip took an unplanned leave home to Keighley.

  To get there, he drove a Riley 9 open tourer that belonged to Hemmings and had one of those stubborn crash gearboxes instead of the synchromesh gears fitted onto later models. After an hour, he had mastered a shift that was so smooth only the rev of the engine gave away a gear change.

  Out in the countryside the air was cool, and the car moved along sportingly. It was somewhat surreal, driving past the barrage balloons in towns and villages and the blackened places where bombs had blown out huge holes in fields near airplane and munitions factories. Before long, he was passing only the occasional hay wagon with a plodding team or a farmer’s tractor. Then it was as if the war were a lifetime away.

  He entered the estate road through stone gates and parked in front of the house, a three-story stone manor that would comfortably billet his entire squadron in classic, English-country-house style. But he didn’t go up the stone stairs and inside the huge front doors. Instead, he walked around the west wing, then stood there with his hands buried in his trouser pockets as he looked out at the lands before him, at rolling green hills with clumps of ancient elm trees, at the woods thick with oak trees and streams that ran clear all year, then off into the distance at the purple haze of hills.

  Time seemed to stand still for him, those past decades of his life spent here. As a lad, he had been too young to understand his ties to Keighley because he seldom left it, and when he did, it was only to go to another family home—the house in Town or his great-uncle’s grand estate in the Cotswolds.

  It had been when he first went away to school that he understood how Keighley had silently seeped into his pores, until it was buried so deeply under his skin it became the meat and bone of him. Before long Greer was just as much a part of home to him, so whenever he came back here with her, he saw this place as his beginning, their beginning.

  Human joy colored what you viewed in blindingly bright rainbows. When he was in love, he had looked out on his lands with a great sense of peace. Greer’s death changed everything. Afterward, he saw it all in shadows, grays and darks that mirrored his broken soul the way the images turn nightmarish in the negative of a photograph, so horrible that you can almost not bear to look at it.

  But those days felt as if they had passed, the days when his anger at her death was fresh and he dared not look to the east. He could look now and see the neighboring estate that belonged to her family, and in between their lands sat the lake, blue and calm. Nearby, a slab of hard, gray stone marked the spot where they had first met.

  Memories were what destroyed those who loved and were left behind. He had learned that the hard way when he once made the mistake of staying in the somewhat repaired townhouse while on an overnight to London. Sitting in the old study, he had glanced up expecting to see her. It shook him to the bone.

  Later he had walked down the stairs and stopped, when he thought he saw a flash of color: a bit of a floral skirt disappearing into another room. In the middle of the night, he awoke to the smell of Ma Griffe. In the morning, he awoke crying and calling her name. Those bleak moments took his breath from him, stopped his heart, and stole a minute or two of his life, before reminding him all over again that he had none.

  But now he could look to the east, yes, he could, in the way a dead man’s eyes look into nothingness after being disembodied from his rising soul. Numb, he moved along the walk, almost forgetting why he’d come, until he caught sight of a figure through one of the long first-floor windows and stopped where he was.

  His mother was sitting in the music room, her silhouette visible through the fine lace curtain that would be covered with blackout cloth in a few hours. She looked china-fragile, the woman with a spine of steel who never shied from anything, especially if it meant a good fight. Audrey Cecile Benton Inskip loved to do battle. She claimed it was in her blood, since her family dated back to Hastings.

  Ah, Mother, the devils we must face.

  His aunt had written to him. Audrey refused to do much of anything now, Aunt Eleanore told him, but sit in the house day in and day out and stare at nothing. She would not let anyone read to her. She would not let anyone assist her with meals. She wanted to bathe and dress herself and be left completely alone. She balked at help of any kind, even from the servants. Imagine . . . this from the woman to whom servants were always as much a necessity of life as daily bread and who had never even run her own bath.

  But last month his mother had tried to pension off all the household help. She refused to pull the call bell. She flooded her bath and dressing room. One day last week, she fell trying to get down the stairs alone. Luck was on her side, and she only managed to badly sprain her ankle as opposed to cracking open her stubborn head.

  It was this final act that had precipitated his aunt’s wire asking him to come home. According to Eleanore, his mother had been difficult enough to handle before the fall, but now, with her ankle the size of a melon, her whole manner had reversed. She was not fighting everyone any longer, but instead slipping into a deep and silent depression.

  He went into the house, quietly closed the doors, and stood in the hall outside the music room, looking inside where sunlight spilled through the curtains. Oddly enough, the finely wrought lace cast almost monstrously distorted shadows on his mother’s ageless face. He was stunned at her pallor and the way she seemed to have shrunk into a tiny creature that was huddled in an overstuffed chair and looked like a porcelain doll from fifty years ago.

  She faced him, sitting up a bit and with a surprising suddenness looking more like herself, except her eyes were flat and opaque. “George?”

  “Do I walk that loudly?”

  She gave a slight laugh that almost sounded like her. “No, dear.”

  “Did someone tell you I was home?”

  She shook her head and held out her hand. “Come and talk to me. Tell me what you are doing here.”

  “I took a leave to come see you.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned down and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “All too long since I’ve been home, you know.”

  “Eleanore contacted you, didn’t she? The woman is a snitch.”

  “She’s your younger sister and she cares about you.”

  “She was put on this earth to drive me mad. It was horrid enough when we were girls, but now . . . ” She sniffed. “She is intolerably bossy, you know.”

  “I cannot imagine where she gets it.”

  “I am determined, not bossy. There is a difference. I am also older than she is. I should be watching over her, not the other way around.”

  He dared not mention that a blind woman looking after someone might present a bit of a dilemma. And after seeing his mother through the window, when she thought no one was looking, he was most glad to see any emotion, even anger, in her. “If you say so, Mother.”

  “Did you come home merely to patronize me, or are you going to get on with it and scold me like Eleanore?”

  “I heard you took a fall.”

  “No doubt she wired you about it. I was absolutely right. She is a snitch.”

  “Your ankle looks quite bruised.”

  “No more bruised, I suppose, than my pride . . . which, I might add, no one around here appreciates.”

  “I see there is a cane by your chair. Have you been able to use it to take the weight off that ankle?”

  “Yes. They wanted Peters to carry me from room to room. Can you imagine? They treat me like an invalid, George. I cannot abide it one single moment longer.”

  He knelt beside her chair and picked up her hand, then rubbed over it with his own. “I will steal you away for a spin about the gardens. The sun is shining and I would like to have you all to myself for a bit.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Let me help you up.”

&nb
sp; She gripped his hand tightly, and he pulled her up. “Now you understand this. I only let you help me—not, mind you, because I cannot do it by myself—but because it is proper for a son to assist his mother. Good manners and all.”

  “Of course you can stand by yourself. I never doubted it for a moment.”

  “You are a good son.”

  “Here’s the walking stick.” He placed its silver handle against her palm.

  She braced her weight onto it.

  “Take my arm so I don’t outrun you.” He threaded her hand through his arm and turned her slightly so they could move unencumbered to the doorway. “We pilots have acquired the habit of running everywhere. It’s been difficult to separate a call to scramble from merely going to mess. Seems we are always rushing about, everyone of us trying to squeeze into the door at once. You should see us all gather at the train station near to the base, Mother. One minute we’re all slacking about, mooning away time; the next, the train pulls in and it’s a damned race for it.”

  “I can keep up with you.” She shuffled along with his steps, which he slowed. She seemed to be concentrating terribly hard to make each step look effortless.

  “You get along quite well, Mother.”

  “That is exactly what I have been trying to make everyone understand,” she grumbled.

  Peters was in the entry hall already waiting when their shoes tapped across the marble floor. The butler opened the door.

  As they moved slowly towards it, Skip looked down and saw she was doing her damnedest not to hobble. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of green and glanced up at the staircase.

  His aunt was coming downstairs. She spotted them and stopped halfway, quickly holding a finger up to her lips.

  He nodded in agreement and continued on towards the front door as if he hadn’t seen her.

  As they walked through the entrance, his mother said imperiously, “Thank you, Peters.” Then she tugged on Skip’s arm to stop him. “Wait.” She turned and over her shoulder said, “Good afternoon, Eleanore. Please continue down the stairs.”

  So much for that deception.

  Eleanore rolled her eyes at him.

  “I’m blind, not deaf, sister. And I shan’t need you, you know.” She turned, her head regally tilted, and took another step. “I am going for a walk in the gardens with my son.”

  “MY SISTER AND I”

  Skip rested his elbows on his knees and held a glass of scotch between his hands. He stared down at a deep blue, two-hundred-year-old Aubusson rug. When he was seven or eight, his dogs had bounded into the room while he was studying and spilled a pot of ink on that rug. The old black stain was still there; it stared back at him from the center of a wine-colored rose. He covered it with his foot . . . old habit.

  His mother was upstairs in her rooms, resting before dinner. The long walk they took in the gardens completely exhausted her. “She looks bloody horrible, Eleanore.”

  “I thought you should see for yourself.” His aunt sat across from him on one of the two davenports. A fire blazed in the huge Adam fireplace and sucked up the same old draft that slipped through the garden doors and always chilled the edges of the room.

  “My first reaction when I saw her was she looked as if she were disappearing.” He took a long drink. God, that he could do the same. To merely . . . disappear.

  “In the last six months she has sent three private nurses packing. She refuses to learn Braille or take any blind training. She called Reverend Eisings a damned prig. She can’t even be civil to Bromley, who has been with her so long the poor woman’s almost part of the family. You saw your mother’s behavior to Peters. She threatened to pension him off if he tried to ever carry her anywhere again. The poor man was quite baffled.” Eleanore leaned back against the cushions and sipped a Gordon’s and tonic water, then after a minute looked up at him and shook her head. “It rips me apart to see her like this.”

  “I’ll ring up the doctor first thing tomorrow. I tried before I left, but I couldn’t reach him from the base.”

  “I’ve spoken to him.”

  “Does he have any answers?”

  “He suggested that she might need companionship. Someone who isn’t family.”

  He crossed a leg across his knee and gripped his ankle. “From your tone, I’d say you don’t agree.”

  “I can’t see her being receptive or cordial to anyone who comes to try to help her.”

  “Based on what I saw today, I suppose you’re right. Do you have any ideas?”

  “You mean other than cutting out her tongue?”

  Skip laughed out loud. “I’m sorry for laughing, Eleanore. I know she’s a handful. We could run through a list of her friends, see if anyone could bring her spirits up a bit.”

  “I already have. I’ve racked my head for the right person, but there’s no one I dislike enough to call.” She took a sip of her drink.

  “Eleanore,” he said quietly.

  She glanced back up at him.

  “You’ve been here for over a year. Certainly long enough, I’d say. I’ll try to make other arrangements.”

  She raised her hand. “No, no, don’t.” She took a deep breath and sagged back against the pillows again. “I’m merely frustrated. I know it must be terrible for her. I can barely imagine what it must be like to find yourself suddenly living in a world that’s only darkness.” She looked into her glass. “She’s my only sister, George. I want to be here. Your Uncle Gerald’s duties with the War Office keep him gone for months at a time. Helen has been assigned as a driver for some American military advisor, and Richard is off studying in the States. Neither will be home until Christmas, if then. I’d rather be here with Audrey than rattling around those drafty old rooms at Brookstead.”

  “You have been a saint to stay as long as you have.”

  “I know. Bucking for sainthood would bother the stuffing out of her.” She handed him her empty glass. “Don’t mind me. Humor is my only defense, dear. It keeps everything in perspective when I want to give her a smack.”

  The ormolu clock on the mantel chimed Beethoven. Eleanore stood and walked over to the windows, systematically pulling down the blackout cloths.

  He stood and followed her.

  “I have it,” she said over a shoulder. “Such a nuisance, those horrid Huns.”

  He laughed and drew one of the shades down anyway.

  She pulled down the last cloth and faced him. “Seriously, George. Thank you for coming. Perhaps a visit from you was all she needed for now. She has livened up a bit.”

  He felt a jab of guilt for not coming home. He started to speak.

  She held up a hand. “Don’t say anything. You have your hands full—single-handedly saving the country and all. It’s quite difficult to believe our top ace is the same lad in short pants who crawled around under the dining table pretending to be Haversham’s favorite hunting spaniel. Your mother was quite horrified at your sniffing his lordship’s boots.”

  “Ah, well, I was preparing myself for a career in military service.”

  Now she was laughing. She patted his cheek. “You’re a good lad. Although I suppose you aren’t much of a lad anymore. Look at this. My nose is scarcely level with your lapel.” She threaded her arm through his. “Coming home now, for even this short time, is enough, George. You needn’t feel torn between your duty and your mother’s needs. Your mother understands your duty. And that is why I’m here. You should know we all are extremely proud of you. Now, that being said, come along; dinner will be ready soon. I should go up to check on Audrey.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’ll go with you.” He pulled away and set his glass down on a bar tray, then walked with her towards the doors.

  They made it as far as the hall when there was an enormous crash from the upper floors.

  “Good God . . . Audrey!” His aunt stopped.

  He raced ahead, taking the stairs two at a time.

  “Hurry, George. Dear G
od, hurry.” Eleanore was coming up behind.

  He ran down the hallway and jerked open the doors to his mother’s rooms. “Mother!” He went inside. “Mother?”

  Crying, soft, muted and pitiable, came from the next rooms. He ran to her dressing room, then on through to the WC.

  She lay on the hard, black-and-white marble floor in a sea of shattered perfume bottles, glass cosmetic jars, and the remnants of her dressing table mirror. The table was overturned, its chintz skirt up and the thin spindled legs showing. The small upholstered chair was lying on top of his mother’s hips and legs. It wasn’t pinning her down, but he could see from her position she hadn’t moved much at all.

  Her black hair covered her face as she lay there, sobbing into her arms. The palm of one hand was open and bleeding. He could see bloody handprints on the floor from glass cuts when she had tried to push herself upright.

  “Mother.” He crossed over to her, his shoes crunching on the glass. He pulled the chair off of her and knelt down, then placed a hand gently on her shoulder. From behind him he heard the tap of running feet, heard his aunt tell Bromley, his mother’s maid, to stay back and let him take care of her.

  His mother’s crying slowed and then stopped, but she still lay there, face in her bent arm, spots of blood speckling the floor.

  “Mother, please. Let me help you.”

  Slowly, she lifted her head and looked up at them. Her face was wet and strained, her expression so bitter it hurt to look at it. Fresh lipstick was smeared across her mouth in the way of some kind of grotesque clown.

  The silence became noticeable, almost as if another person— someone entirely inappropriate—had entered the room. His mother’s embarrassment was almost palpable; her pride had to be as shattered as all that glass.

  She had closed her eyes—a reflex of shame or terror. He watched the tears drip down her high, pale cheekbones, down to her jaw, onto her arm. She took a long wavering breath and turned, then stared blankly up at all of them. “One of the best things about being blind, you know, is that I can’t see the pity on your faces.”