Overseas

by Beatriz Williams

  “… but even you won’t be able to withstand what I have in store tonight…”

  “… doesn’t mean I’m not aching for you in the most acute way…”

  “… because I am going to run my tongue over every inch of your body, every delicious inch, until you beg for mercy…”

  I paused for effect, but he had nothing to say. Until, at last, a subdued “Go on.”

  “No,” I said, “on second thought, I’m going to leave the rest to your imagination. So hurry home.” And I hung up.

  THERE WAS REALLY NOTHING like retail therapy for a girl with a train-wrecked career and a near-paralytic case of sexual frustration.

  It occurred to me, as I swung the car into a parking space at a nearby upscale outlet mall, that someone who’d just lost her job really shouldn’t be out spending money like this, but I pushed it aside. I’d made decent coin for the last three years, had saved all my bonuses, and kept my expenses low. Why not tap a bit into my savings for a little well-deserved catharsis? The thought carried me into J. Crew and beyond on a wave of self-righteousness. I bought shorts and tank tops and sundresses and sandals, running clothes and a bikini and a collection of lacy underwear to make Julian’s eyes pop out.

  It was only when I walked back through Julian’s front door, tapped in the alarm code, and stared at all the loot that my mood began to sag.

  I left the bags in the hall and went into the library to sit in front of the computer. The room faced north, probably to protect the books from the sun, and it was cool and dark and serene inside, with a large wood-stacked fireplace suggesting cozy winter evenings. Very much Julian’s room: I could almost feel him in it.

  I clicked the computer into wakefulness. No reply yet from my parents—they checked their e-mail about once a day, if that—but there was a message from Brooke, of all people. the doorman said some guy came looking for u today, he didn’t leave a name. b careful honey cause that could b trouble, take it from 1 who knows. xoxo b.

  I felt a chill at the back of my neck. Would Alicia stop at getting me fired, or would she take it to the SEC now? Oh my God. What if they arrested me? My fingers poised above the keyboard, ready to send Julian a frantic e-mail, but I checked myself. E-mail trails could be followed. What if they investigated Julian, too, knowing the connection between us?

  I sat back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. Maybe Charlie had something for me. Where was his number? My laptop bag, right? I went upstairs to Julian’s bedroom and found the bag next to the chest of drawers. I opened the zipper. There was the Sterling Bates contact list, right at the top, and the Amazon book that had arrived before I left.

  Only it wasn’t from Amazon, I noticed. Same kind of packaging, obviously a book, but no Amazon logo. The Pearl Fisher bookshop in Newport, Rhode Island, it said on the return label. Maybe the book had been listed by a dealer, not Amazon itself. Sometimes I hit the order button without reading too closely.

  I shrugged and opened the packaging.

  It must have been a mistake. I didn’t recognize the book at all. It was used, a bit dated-looking, but in good condition. A history book. I turned it over and read the title.

  And the Lamps Went Out: Julian Ashford and the Lost Generation, 1895–1916, by Richard G. Hollander. Below it, the sepia photograph of a broad-shouldered man in a British army officer’s uniform stared up sternly at me.

  With Julian Laurence’s face.

  His great-uncle, I thought immediately. Or a cousin. Family resemblances could be so strong. He’d probably sent it himself, too modest to tell me face-to-face about his famous relative, but wanting me to know the family history.

  I opened the book with ice-cold fingers, trying to ignore the strange high-pitched ringing in my ears, and read the inside flap.

  Of all the tragic losses of the First World War, none rocked the British nation more deeply than the death of Captain the Hon. Julian Laurence Spencer Ashford, M.C., only son of Liberal cabinet minister and Asquith intimate Viscount Chesterton, during a night patrol along the Western Front in March of 1916. He represented all that was then held dear by the British public: his golden good looks, his stacks of academic prizes at Eton and Cambridge, his celebrated athletic achievements, his acts of heroism on the battlefield had all become legend even before his death was finally confirmed by special dispatch (his body was never actually recovered). Shortly afterward, his poem “Overseas” was published in the Times by his grieving fiancée, the future writer and peace activist Florence Hamilton, and would be committed to memory by generations of British schoolchildren over the ensuing decades.

  But who was Julian Ashford, and why should his death, and those of his peers, matter so much today? In this groundbreaking work, drawing from unprecedented access to the papers of both Ashford and Hamilton, Dr. Hollander explores the man’s life and connections, his intimate thoughts, his war record, and the chain of events leading to his death on the battlefield, all in an attempt to understand the meaning of his loss. How would Britain and the world be different today if he had lived? And how might those other lost soldier-poets, the cream of a golden age of British manhood, have altered the dismal course of the twentieth century?

  Dr. Richard G. Hollander, emeritus professor of history at Harvard University, has published numerous books and articles on the subject of the First World War and its far-reaching effects…

  I closed the book and set it down carefully on the bed.

  We lived primarily in London; my father was somewhat active in politics…

  Then I joined the army. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Adventure, excitement…

  No, not Iraq. That was after my time…

  The scar. The man on the sidewalk, calling frantically: Ashford, by God!

  His body was never actually recovered…

  My muscles began to tremble. I got up and walked around the room, trying to think calmly. A logical explanation surely existed. Captain Julian Ashford had died on the Western Front in 1916; I’d already known this. It was one of those minor historical factoids you learned in high school and promptly forgot. Hadn’t “Overseas” been one of the poems on my AP Lit exam? Compare and contrast with “Dulce et Decorum Est”? So of course, of course, I could not have spent last night sleeping in the arms of its composer. That was just ridiculous.

  His great grand-nephew, maybe. But not him.

  I mean, we’d had phone sex this morning. For God’s sake.

  My gaze, traveling randomly through the room, trying to distract itself, landed on the leaf of notepaper lying next to the bed, where I’d tossed it this morning. I could see, from several feet away, the elegant black scribble of Julian’s handwriting. His rather unusual handwriting. Some might call it old-fashioned.

  I walked over, very slowly, and bent down to pick it up. Then I sat on the bed and took Dr. Hollander’s book and flipped through the pages until I came to the photograph section in the middle. I tried not to look at the faces. I didn’t really want to know what this Florence Hamilton woman had looked like. Beautiful, no doubt. There must have been twenty glossy white pages covered with prints: portraits, snapshots, newspaper clippings. All the varied physical detritus of a famous life.

  On the last page, I found what I’d hoped for: a copy of a letter. My eyes dropped to the caption. Note sent to Lady Chesterton by Ashford, March 25, 1916, before going on patrol. Ashford’s last known correspondence.

  My fingers shook. It was difficult to hold the notepaper steady next to the page, but I managed it. I looked back and forth meticulously, between the nimble scrawl of my note and the writing on Lady Chesterton’s letter.

  At first I was relieved. The two looked similar, but not identical; the older script seemed less refined, clumsier, like that of a twelve-year-old.

  But the more I stared, the more uneasy I became. Both sets of writing had the same weight, the same brushstrokes, the same pressure of ink on paper. And both slanted the same way, an odd not-quite-right way.

  As
if the writers were both left-handed.

  And certain letters—the f, the y, the capital I—looked exactly alike.

  As if the writer of my note were a grown-up version of the one in the book. Or, perhaps, someone who had spent some years writing with his left hand, instead of someone still learning to do so after, for example, a serious injury to his right arm.

  I dropped the book and the note and ran to the bathroom, where I vomited thoroughly into the toilet.

  13.

  I was sitting on the stone wall, in the same place I’d occupied yesterday evening, when he returned from New York.

  The weather had turned chillier tonight. I wore one of my new pairs of jeans and Julian’s cashmere sweater, the same one he’d put over my shoulders yesterday. I sat breathing in the scent of him, watching the sunset glow on the horizon, wishing I could turn back the clock twenty-four hours.

  I heard the Maserati pull up the driveway, heard the last little rev of its athletic engine before he switched it off. Heard the car door slam, and his footsteps crunching in the gravel to the front door. It was a clear night, and the sound traveled perfectly well through the empty country air.

  He must have gone through the house for a minute or two, looking for me. I just sat there, imagining him walking from room to room, floorboards creaking under his polished shoes, calling my name in his plummy voice, with its odd nostalgic accent. Its aristocratic accent.

  Eventually I heard the French door open, a hundred or so feet behind me, and I closed my eyes, feeling the stir in the stillness as he approached me.

  “There you are.” His arms went around me from behind; I felt his chin rest lightly on my head. “Sorry about the time. I drove as quickly as I could. The traffic through Fairfield County was atrocious.”

  “Mmm.” I tried to say more, but my voice wouldn’t work.

  “I missed you terribly,” he said, pressing a kiss against my temple, the way I loved. “Shall we go inside and have some dinner?”

  Still I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. I only absorbed him, all the sensations of him: his arms, his breath, his lips, his warmth, the sound of his voice, the smell of his skin.

  “Oh, darling,” he said, “are you cross with me? I was only joking about the snoring, you know. You’d have rolled those lovely eyes of yours, if I’d told you what I really did. How long I lay there, listening to the sound of your breathing, wishing I’d the courage to wake you.”

  I turned my head, just an inch or two, so he could hear me. “I wish you had,” I said hoarsely.

  He groaned, tightening his arms around me. “Darling, I couldn’t… we can’t…”

  I interrupted him. “Tell me,” I said, and cleared my voice of the strange obstruction there, “tell me about Florence Hamilton.”

  He went still.

  A bird sang out from the nearby trees, full-throated and eloquent.

  “Ah.” He said it flatly, everything contained in that one brief sound.

  I let the silence spin. I didn’t want to rush him.

  “Where did you hear that name?” he asked finally, almost casually.

  “A package arrived at my apartment just before I left,” I said, and I pulled the book from my lap and put it into the hands in front of me.

  “Ah,” he said again.

  “I kept thinking it must be a strange coincidence, that this must be an ancestor of yours. But then I saw your note, and the handwriting looked… not exactly the same, but obviously…” I heard my voice break.

  “That’s my clever girl,” he said. His arms still encircled me, warm and tender; I could smell the faint musky hint of leather clinging to him from the long car ride. His thumbs brushed against the cover of the book. “How much did you read?”

  “Just the inside flaps. I couldn’t bear to read more.”

  He set the book, with exquisite care, on the stone wall, and then he climbed over it and knelt in the grass before me. “Only tell me one thing,” he whispered, taking my shaking hands. “Does it matter?”

  The tears leaked out. “Matter? Of course it matters! It’s who you are, Julian! You’re… I read about you in high school, I wrote an essay on that poem… I can’t even begin to understand this! Swallow me whole? My God! You were just a mere colossus before, a billionaire hedgie, nothing at all. Now you’re Julian Ashford! I mean, how can Julian Ashford be here? Be in love with me? It’s just impossible!”

  “It’s not impossible.” His eyes burned earnestly at mine. “It’s the most essential truth of my life.”

  “No. Don’t. You were engaged, Julian. How can I possibly compare with Florence Hamilton? I’ve read about her. She’s an icon. The Times ran an article, just a few weeks ago…”

  “We’ll speak of her later, if you like,” he said, “but you should know she was never my fiancée. Except, perhaps, in her own mind.”

  “Whatever,” I said despairingly. I tried to rise, but the snug grip of his hands held me in place.

  “Is that all you’re worried about? My feelings for you?”

  “Of course not. That’s nothing, compared to… to the rest of it. How and why. What you’ve endured. This new Julian I don’t even know.”

  “But you do know me. I haven’t changed.” His thumbs rubbed urgently against the bones of my hands. “Look at me, sweetheart. It’s just me. I’m exactly the same man; you know me.”

  “This is not happening. This is really not happening.” I looked down at our hands, clasped together. At his hands. Hands that had lobbed a grenade, pulled the trigger of an Enfield rifle, scribbled a canonical poem into an infantry officer’s notebook.

  Julian Ashford’s hands.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, after a moment.

  “I’m better than I was. At three o’clock this afternoon I was throwing up.”

  “I’m sorry, Kate.” He bent his head and kissed my cold fingers. “If you knew how it’s troubled me, tormented me, wondering whether I should tell you. How I should tell you. Knowing what an ass I am, pursuing you at all.”

  “It didn’t take much pursuit, did it?” I raised my eyes back to his. “So don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  “I tried to stay away. I should have stayed away.”

  “I was miserable without you.”

  “And this is any better?”

  “I’ll get used to it. Give me time.” My voice caught on the last word.

  “All the time in the world.”

  “I will get used to it. I have to get used to it,” I went on, squinting my eyes shut. “I don’t have a choice anymore.”

  “Yes, you do. I’d understand.”

  “Oh please. That’s not helping.” I took my hands from his and rubbed my fingers against my temples, hoping it would help my brain to expand, to wrap around this thing.

  “I mean it, Kate,” he said. “You don’t have to stay, if it’s all too much.”

  I opened my eyes again. His face wavered before me, through the unshed tears, his wide forehead creased with earnest lines and his green-blue eyes reflecting the light from the house. “Yes, I do. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I’m long past being able to walk away from you. Whatever and whoever you are.”

  His own eyes closed, and then he rose and turned around to prop himself against the stone wall next to me. His long legs stretched out to the grass, the quadriceps curving with latent strength under the fine dark wool of his suit trousers; I could sense the radiant heat of his arm behind me on the cool wall, not quite touching my back. “I suppose you have questions.”

  “About a million. But I don’t even know what to ask. I don’t even know how to believe it. Even now, feeling you next to me, real and warm and solid and… and real, I keep thinking to myself, it can’t be true, it just can’t be. Because only last night, only this morning, we lay there together…” I couldn’t say it. The memory was too precious.

  “Can we go into the house? Talk it all over, with a bottle of wine?”

  It sounded so pros
aic, but what else was there to do?

  I nodded, and he drew me to my feet and took my hand. We walked silently to the house, everything shifting and recalculating between us, my brain spinning. Somehow, I hadn’t thought he would acknowledge it. Somehow, against all probability, I’d thought he would have some laughing explanation, even if it wasn’t true, and we both knew it wasn’t true; somehow I’d just been hoping it would all go away, and we could be Kate and Julian again.

  He led me to the sofa in the library and made me sit down; he returned a moment later with a decanter of red wine and two glasses. “Lafite, ’82,” he said, pouring me a glass. “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”

  “Like telling your girlfriend you’re a war hero from 1916?”

  He grinned at me. “Ah, your sense of humor’s come back,” he said, setting the bottle on the coffee table and sitting beside me. “A good sign. Though in fact I decanted it this morning before I left.” He let his nose hover over the glass.

  “You were planning on telling me tonight anyway?”

  “No.” His smile turned sheepish. “Only carried away by the sight of you on my pillow at daybreak.” He held his glass forward, and I clinked it.

  “I have no idea what we’re toasting,” I said.

  “To the truth, I suppose. You know, it’s rather a relief for me. Particularly since you seem to be taking it so well.”

  “That’s just because I’m still in shock. I’ll probably go into hysterics later.” I took a long drink of wine. “Oh my God,” I gasped, staring down at the glass. The dense fruit rose up gracefully to envelop my brain.

  “Oh, that is handsome,” he agreed, swirling his glass and taking another sip. “So. First question, please.”

  “How, I guess. I mean, I just stop right there. How? How can you be sitting here next to me? Some weird physics thing? The fountain of eternal youth? Or, like”—I ducked, embarrassed to say the word—“magic?”

  “Actually, I still haven’t figured that part out. I heard a shell screaming overhead, thought my number was up, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a French hospital. A modern French hospital, near Amiens.”