A Secret History of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  She had anticipated this moment for days as she traveled. Her imagination had served up anxious possibilities. Of course she feared she might visit every hospital on her list without finding him. Or she worried she might find the right place, but find him already discharged to some unknown location. She knew he might have died, but she tried not to let that thought linger in her mind. She was terrified, too, that when she saw him, she might not know him. It had been more than four years. She knew she was greatly changed, perhaps beyond his recognition. He must be even more altered. He had been wounded twice, and if the scrying stone had shown her truly, his face was half-hidden by bandages.

  She excused herself to the two nurses and started slowly down the room, looking into each bed in turn.

  When she found him, her legs began to tremble so that she had to grip the foot of the bed’s iron frame to steady herself.

  If he had been gaunt after Dunkirk, now he was skeletal. The laugh lines around his mouth showed gray against the darkness of his skin, and his eye, the one left unbandaged, was hollow and unfocused. Even his hair was different, shot through with gray and shaved here and there to allow his wounds to be dressed. Only his hands, long, fine fingered, looked as they once had.

  Yet she knew him. She knew him as her heart’s companion. He was the one chosen for her. Sent to her. Saved for her.

  She gazed down at him, her palms pressed together beneath her chin. His eye opened. He gazed at her, unspeaking, for a long moment.

  She said, very softly, “Valéry. Est-ce que tu me connais?”

  For a moment he didn’t answer, but then, as the nurses came up behind Veronica, about to interrupt, the corner of his mouth curled, ever so slightly. His voice was hoarse, but she remembered its deep timbre, and the slow, sweet way he had of speaking. “Bien sûr,” he said. “Bien sûr. Tu es Véronique. La belle dame de Sweetbriar.”

  It was shockingly easy to persuade the Americans to discharge Valéry Chirac into the care of Veronica Paxton. She had no need of magic to accomplish it. She suspected the officer in charge of the hospital was glad to see his burden diminished by at least one.

  The nurses waved good-bye as Veronica and Valéry settled into the taxi that came to take them to the Nancy train station. Valéry, who had leaned heavily on a cane as they walked the short distance from the hospital to the taxi, put his head back and closed his good eye. When Veronica took her seat beside him, she felt the trembling of his body. She wanted to take his hand, to reassure him, but he had already made it clear such gestures were unwelcome.

  “I can manage,” he had said repeatedly, when she tried to help him down the stairs, or pick up his cane when it slipped from his hand, or even carry the small bag of toiletries the nurses had packed for him. Veronica had seized the package of bandages and ointment before Valéry could reach for it, and she settled it on her lap as she gave orders to the taxi driver. As the taxi pulled away, she waved a distracted farewell to the hospital staff.

  She thought Valéry had fallen asleep, but after a few minutes of jouncing down the rutted road, he said, “I hope you won’t regret this, Véronique.”

  “I will not.” She patted his hand where it lay on his knee. His right hand—in fact, all his right side—was relatively unscathed. His injuries afflicted his left side, where the grenade’s explosion had caught him. “How could I regret finding you, Valéry? It seems a miracle.”

  The truth she wouldn’t admit was that doubts did flicker at the edges of her mind, shaking her faith in herself and in the future. She feared he might never fully recover. She worried Honeychurch and Cook and the rest of them at Sweetbriar might not accept him. She didn’t know what might be required to heal a man who would never see again from his left eye, whose left arm and left leg had been torn nearly to shreds, whose heart and mind were so shaken by the horrors he had witnessed that it was a wonder he still had the will to live.

  There were so many things she didn’t know about Valéry Chirac. She didn’t know his family background. She had no idea if he had a girl somewhere. She didn’t know where he had gone to school or if he had any money of his own.

  The taxi chugged through the wounded countryside, where thick hedgerows gave way here and there to fields that had once been green and lush and were now scarred by the passage of tanks and trucks and the marching feet of the Third United States Army. Gay summer sunshine poured its nourishment onto pastureland that would yield no crops this year, or perhaps even the next. This country was as injured as the man sitting next to her.

  Veronica put her hand to her breast, and through the cotton of her frock she cupped the medicine bag with her palm. Warmth flowed from it into her hand, and she sighed.

  Valéry said, without moving his head, “Are you wearing an amulet?”

  “What?” Veronica started, and dropped her hand. She had never heard the word he used, amulette, but it was enough of a cognate that she thought—even feared—she understood him. She turned to him, her face flushing uncomfortably. “What is—what do you mean?”

  The side of his mouth that was unencumbered by bandages curled in that old, charming way she remembered. For that moment he was the young officer he had been when she fell in love with him. “Véronique,” he murmured. “I am from Brittany, you know. My people were Romani. Gitans.”

  This word she knew. Gitan was gypsy. She gazed into his good eye and tried to fathom what he was telling her. She didn’t dare ask.

  He closed his eye, as if the effort of talking had wearied him. Fearful for him, fearful for herself, painfully aware of the listening taxi driver, she turned her face back to the window. The hedgerows had given way to the proper road, the one that would take them to the station. They passed a bombed-out house, little more than a chimney and a portion of roof, but with an intact barn a few yards behind it. A stone church appeared behind a low rock wall, and then a village with an assortment of houses in various stages of destruction.

  How long, Veronica wondered, would it take for the country to rebuild? Or for her own country to rebuild? She planned to reconstruct the Home Farm. She envisioned it restored to its former comfort, the haven it had been for Jago and for her and Thomas, but the project would have to wait until building materials were available.

  She shivered suddenly, strongly, chilled by revulsion for war and for those who waged it.

  Beside her Valéry shifted, and his eye opened. “Are you all right, Véronique?”

  “I’m sick to death of all of it,” she said in a bitter undertone, and realized a moment later she had spoken in English.

  “Non, ma chère,” he said. His hand fumbled for hers, and when he found it, he held her fingers with only a slight tremor in his own. “We are alive,” he said in careful English. “We must be glad.”

  She drew a slow breath and returned the pressure of his hand. “Yes. I know.”

  “We will talk more,” he said. He released her hand and lapsed into silence again.

  Veronica turned her head to look at him. She had seen him in the hospital, of course, but she had not been so close. Now, with his face only inches from hers and his eye closed, she searched his features for the man she had known. Would she love him again? Would he love her? She couldn’t predict it.

  They were no longer young lovers, full of idealism. They were youthful enough, but bruised by war and tragedy. Their romance might be beyond their ability to rekindle.

  It wouldn’t change her intentions. She would coax him back to whatever state of health lay in her power. She would make Sweetbriar his home for as long as he wished. If the romantic love she remembered no longer existed, perhaps that was what was meant to be.

  She touched her silken bag once again. She could feel the outline of his ring there, in its nest of herbs and salt and fabric. Perhaps she should return it to him. Perhaps the young man who had given it, and the young woman who had accepted it, no longer existed.

  12

  The journey to England sapped the last of Valéry’s strength. Whe
n they reached Southampton, Veronica took him first to a hospital, where he remained several days until the doctors decided he was strong enough for the train ride to Stamford. She wired ahead to Sweetbriar to explain, and Honeychurch sent the Daimler to carry them home from the station. Between them they assisted Valéry up the staircase to the big bedroom, with its view of the park and the woods beyond. He didn’t leave that room, or speak to anyone but Veronica and Honeychurch and Dr. Mountjoy, for more than a month. He was unable to eat anything more substantial than Cook’s beef tea. It didn’t seem possible he could get any thinner, but he seemed to be disappearing before their eyes.

  Every night of that month, Veronica locked her bedroom door and set the crystal on the table that had become her altar. She took care with her rituals, consulting the grimoire often to choose which herbs to use, raiding the pantry for new candles when Cook wasn’t looking, collecting the purest rainwater she could with a beaker set on her windowsill. Despite all of it, Valéry grew weaker and weaker. Veronica felt helpless. She continued her nightly efforts only because she didn’t know what else to do.

  Searching through the grimoire, as July wore on in a succession of hot, windless days, Veronica came across a recipe for a Lammas ritual. It was one Olive had never mentioned, a ceremony dating back to medieval times. Veronica could see that the page in the grimoire had been written out a very long time ago. A good bit of it had faded to smudges, but she could decipher enough to see that there was something called Lammas bread, which was to be broken into four pieces to set at the cardinal points. After the ritual, those fragments of bread would have special influence, blessed as the first fruits, meant to nourish and strengthen the community for the winter ahead.

  At least, that was what Veronica hoped the page said. It wasn’t specific about the kind of bread, but she supposed anything Cook baked must be satisfactory. She waited until the morning baking was done, on the eve of Lammas, then slipped down to the kitchen to pilfer a small loaf.

  She took the greatest care that night, observing every tradition, every ritual practice she had been taught. With Oona watching, and with the four pieces of bread arranged on her altar, she chanted the simple prayer from the grimoire:

  The work is done,

  The harvest home;

  Blessèd be the weary ones.

  She thought the old rhyme was perfect for Valéry. Surely the work he had done, to which he had given so much, was worthy of blessing. She recited the prayer three times three times, as Olive had always done. When she was done, and the hour of midnight had passed, she crept down the corridor with three pieces of Lammas bread in her hands. Making as little noise as possible, she set one piece in the corridor outside Valéry’s door, and another in the dressing room attached to his bedroom. There was a little sitting room to one side of the bedroom, and she deposited a piece of the blessed bread there. She tucked away the last piece in the hamper with the crystal, first crumbling off a fragment to add to her charm bag.

  The sky was brightening by the time she fell into bed, and Oona jumped up beside her.

  As she drifted off, Veronica touched Oona’s scruffy head. “I’ve done everything I can, I think,” she whispered. “But I wish I could have called on the whole coven.” Oona licked her fingers once, then wriggled close and settled down with a sigh. The two of them fell into a sound sleep, and didn’t wake until the maid came in with morning tea.

  Veronica hurried to dress so she could go down the corridor to Valéry’s room. She was so startled to see him sitting up in bed, tucking into a breakfast of bread and butter, a grilled tomato, and a boiled egg, that she laughed aloud. She was rewarded by seeing a smile ease his weary face. His voice was thin but steady. “J’ai faim!”

  She crossed to his bedside. “You look so much better, Valéry! I can hardly believe it.”

  He scooped the last bit of egg out of the shell, ate it, then settled back against his pillow. “I’ll get up today.”

  “Perhaps. Let’s see how you feel.”

  He smiled again, wider this time. “I feel like getting up!”

  His recovery after that was so swift Veronica worried Dr. Mountjoy would be suspicious. As it turned out, there was no need. The doctor considered the victory to be his own, and she didn’t mind that. Perhaps he needed a win. He removed all bandages except for the one over Valéry’s left eye, and he encouraged his patient to be up and about as much as he liked. First Valéry was allowed to sit on the south terrace to take the summer sunshine. By the middle of August, leaning on a cane, he was walking in the park with Veronica beside him. The two of them took long rambles through the woods, with Oona tagging along, snuffling under leaves, digging beneath tree roots in search of vermin.

  By Samhain, Valéry was working alongside the gardeners, spending long hours digging in the kitchen garden that had flourished since the early days of the war. Veronica said, “You don’t have to do that, Valéry. We were lucky. Our gardeners all came back, and the rest of the staff, too.”

  “I don’t like to be idle,” he said. “It feels good to have my hands in the dirt. I was accustomed to working in my mother’s garden.”

  They were on the terrace, watching the red disk of the harvest sun settle into the west. Veronica said gently, “Do you want to talk about your mother?”

  He gazed into the dusty twilight for several minutes before he spoke. “I’ve been afraid to talk about her, Véronique.”

  She was about to ask why, but she saw him catch his lower lip between his teeth, and she realized he was choosing his words with care, the way someone with a sore foot walks across gravel, cautious of anything that will cause fresh pain. Haltingly, he said, “After I left Sweetbriar, I went to my home. The neighbors told me—” He paused, and in the gloom Veronica saw his eyes glisten.

  Since he had gotten out of his sickbed, she hadn’t touched him except in passing. Now, though not entirely sure it would be welcome, she took his hand between both of hers and held it. The memory of the night before they parted flooded back, and just as he had that night, he turned his hand so their fingers intertwined.

  He said, in a low voice that vibrated with pain, “When I asked if they had heard from my mother, they said no. My aunt was gone, too.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Just women, sweet women who loved to cook and sing and laugh. They would never hurt a soul.”

  Veronica didn’t try to offer words of comfort. What could she have said? The depth of the cruelty and evil visited upon his family, indeed upon the world, could never be plumbed with words. They sat on together, hand in hand, as the night darkened around them. It seemed to Veronica that the years dropped away as the stars pricked the darkness above them, as if the time of their being apart, the time of sacrifice and loneliness and fear, rose like mist into the night sky and dissipated in the warm autumn air.

  She didn’t know if Valéry felt the way she did, and she didn’t find out until after they had eaten their dinner, read for a time beside a small fire in the parlor, then climbed the stairs side by side. Valéry was still using her father’s old room, having stayed on out of convenience. When they reached the landing where they would turn to their respective bedrooms, he caught her hand again and turned her to face him.

  “I told you, Véronique,” he said, “when we said farewell, that I would love you forever.”

  Her lips parted, and a butterfly sensation tickled the base of her throat. She looked up into his eyes. “Valéry, I …” He bent before she could finish, and kissed her, searchingly, for so long she had to pull back for a breath. Gently he pulled her head toward his chest and cradled it there. He smelled wonderfully of sunshine and sweet earth and the port wine he had drunk after dinner. He whispered into her ear, “I meant it then. I still do.”

  She must have answered him, though later she couldn’t remember what she had said. She also couldn’t remember how she found herself in his bedroom, then in his bed. Oona settled herself outside the closed door, where Veronica found her in the cool gray hours
of early morning. She hastened back to her own room, fearful of being seen by the housemaids. Oona padded silently behind her.

  They married in December. The wedding invitations said “Christmastime,” but to Veronica, though she could tell no one, it was Yule. Since the war, weddings tended to be modest affairs, even for the aristocracy, so Veronica was surprised and pleased at how many people in the neighborhood and from London attended. Olive and Rose came, bearing a gift of an embroidered cloth. Veronica pretended it was meant for her table, but she knew its true purpose was to be an altar covering. She sent the queen an invitation, out of courtesy. She didn’t expect Elizabeth to attend, nor did she, but she sent a beautiful silver candleholder, another addition to her altar, with a note of congratulations in her own hand.

  “This is really from Queen Elizabeth?” Valéry asked wonderingly when he saw it.

  “I worked wi—for her. During the war.”

  Valéry raised his eyebrows. “Am I expected to converse with royalty? I fear I will be a disappointment to your lords and ladies.”

  Veronica laughed. “I don’t think you’ll be meeting the queen, Valéry. You would like her, though. And no one could be disappointed in you.” He shook his head, chuckling.

  They devoted themselves, after the wedding, to restoring Sweetbriar’s grounds and farms to their prewar state. They took back any worker who had gone to fight and now wanted his old position back, even two who had been so badly wounded their jobs were all but impossible for them to perform. Veronica spent her days putting the great hall and the parlors to rights, seeing to repairs of scratched and cracked woodwork, broken light fixtures, stained carpets. Valéry worked outside, spending so many hours at the surrounding farms that Veronica teased him she thought he had changed his mind and returned to Brittany.