by Charles Todd
For what?
When the hour was over, I was summoned to the surgical theater again. An abscess required draining. As the patient was being taken away for recovery, Dr. Gaines said to me, “You really ought to be in France, you know. Your skills are wasted here.”
Surprised by his praise, I said, “My family was frightened by my illness. I think they pulled strings to keep me in England.”
He nodded and said nothing more. I realized I’d been too honest, but I didn’t want him to believe that I had run away from the nightmare of nursing there. Pride, I told myself, sometimes had much to answer for.
But then my ancestress, who had sent her husband off to face Napoleon at Waterloo and danced through the night to conceal the fact that experienced officers had been called to duty, would have appreciated my dilemma. She had helped keep the townspeople of Brussels calm and unsuspecting. It was her duty to the cause, even though she knew she might never see her husband alive again. Perhaps I had inherited a little of her strength. I’d like to think so.
The following day we faced a long and very difficult surgery as we fought to clean a suppurating wound and save a man’s leg. It had been a near run thing, and the smell of the infection had filled the tiny surgical theater, nearly sickening us, but when the last stitch had been taken, the wound dressed, Dr. Gaines nodded to me and walked out of the room. I could see how exhausted he was, but I was impressed with his skills and dedication. It would have been much easier simply to amputate the lower part of the leg and be done with it. There was always the shadow of gangrene hanging over such cases. But he had done what he could to leave the patient whole.
I had hoped this morning might bring Simon’s response to my letter, but there was nothing for me in the post. Instead, summoned to Matron’s office as I finished changing into a fresh uniform, I found him waiting for me there.
Matron said, “Your father has sent a message by Sergeant-Major Brandon. I’ll leave you to speak to him in private.”
Simon thanked her, waiting until the door had closed behind her and the sound of her footsteps had faded down the passage, before saying to me in a low voice, “Will you walk in the park with me?”
“Is anything wrong?”
“Not at home,” he said briefly. I nodded, and we left Matron’s office and went out into the park where we couldn’t be overheard even by chance.
“The only Colonel Prescott I could find in the lists is an officer in the Royal Engineers. As you’d expect, he never commanded Major Carson. I can’t say whether or not they ever met, but I doubt it. Carson’s commanding officer was Colonel Travers.”
“Julia must have been mistaken,” I said doubtfully. “But she was impressed by his kindness in his letter, and surely she’d have got his name right when she spoke to me.”
“This tends to support your dream. I’m beginning to believe there was indeed a murder.”
“Have you said anything to my father about this matter?”
“No. He’d order an immediate inquiry, and I don’t think we have sufficient proof to make this public. Besides, it would be cruel to upset Mrs. Carson if none of this turns out to be true. Early days.”
“I should think that letter of condolence to a family giving false information about an officer’s death would be a place to start.”
“To start, yes. I’d like to see this carried to a conclusion.”
“Yes. But, Simon, what about the journal? He read portions of it to Julia. It must exist!”
“There’s no certainty that it has anything to do with his death.”
“I know. One can hope. There must be answers somewhere. I must speak to Private Wilson’s family. Not that I expect to learn anything from them, but if they also find it hard to believe that he killed himself, then it supports my own feeling.”
“I did one other bit of research while I was in London. Remember Sabrina Carson, who married a reprobate? Your mother told me she wasn’t at the memorial service. Whether it’s against his will or not, William Morton is in the Army. Most likely called up and threatened with desertion if he didn’t appear at the proper time.” There was contempt in Simon’s voice. He had no sympathy for a man who refused to serve his country in its hour of need. “His wife is living on a private soldier’s pay. That may explain why she couldn’t afford to travel to the memorial service.”
“Or to dress appropriately,” I added. “That would matter to her.”
“I hadn’t considered that possibility. Nevertheless, Morton was in a Wiltshire regiment that was depleted, and it was combined with ours. It could have caused friction between the two men.”
“But Julia told me he was in the Royal Engineers.”
“Sabrina could have lied to her. Wasn’t he an actor, and not a very good one at that? Attached to a third-rate touring company that barely stayed one step ahead of the bailiffs? I shouldn’t put it past him to tell his wife what she wanted to hear.”
“My mother told me once that he reminded her of the snake charmers in India, luring unsuspecting girls out of their homes the way the snake charmer lured the cobra out of its basket.”
“Depend upon your mother to make an apt comparison.”
“What am I to do now?”
“Nothing. Let me explore several avenues, and see what I can discover. London has sent for me, and I’m on my way there now. Give me a few days to attend to that, and I’ll be back in touch.” We had nearly reached the house in our walk. “I wouldn’t make too much of this yet, Bess,” he warned me. “But Morton might not have passed up a chance to rid himself of his brother-in-law.”
“I’m torn,” I admitted. “I’d rather not have to tell Julia that her husband was murdered.”
“Remember that you’re the only other person to have seen that body,” Simon reminded me. “Take care. At this stage, I’m damned glad you aren’t in France.”
I sighed. “There’s that. All right. Be safe, Simon, whatever it is that London wants. Is my father summoned as well?”
“I won’t know until I get there.”
And he was gone, in a hurry to reach London because he had already taken precious time to come and speak to me.
I watched his motorcar out of sight, then turned to find the Yank standing in the doorway behind me.
“The family friend Mr. Brandon, I presume? Why isn’t he at the Front?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “And not for your ears.”
He followed me inside. “Sorry, I was more than a little jealous. You don’t hang on my every word the way you hang on his.”
I turned. “Did you just arrive with news of my family?”
“I did not. I misjudged the visit. Why do I seem always to be apologizing to you?”
“Because you tend not to look before you leap,” I retorted, and left him standing there.
On my next free afternoon, I once more asked Dr. Gaines to allow me to borrow his motorcar.
He didn’t quiz me on my skills as a driver-apparently he’d received a good report from Captain Barclay-but again he insisted that I take an escort with me.
And once more it was the American Captain waiting for me at the door when I came down from changing into a fresh uniform.
“Where to this time?”
I glanced over my shoulder, but no one was within hearing. “We’re going to see one of the wonders of Britain. Cheddar Gorge. It’s a deep natural ravine slashed through stone. Amazing, really. I’ll drive the length of it and show you. But first there’s someone I’d like very much to visit.”
“Another widow of an officer in your father’s old regiment?” There was an undercurrent of suspicion in his voice, as if I found that to be a handy excuse for my assignations.
“The family of a man I served with just before I was taken ill. He’s dead.” I had to smile to myself at the thought of the Captain feeling jealous of Private Wilson.
But he only nodded as we set off down the drive, as if time would tell.
As the crow flew, Cheddar Gorge was n
ot all that far from Longleigh House, but the crow didn’t always fly the way the road makers went. It was a twisting, turning route that led us to where we were going.
The Gorge is some three miles long, narrow at some points, wider at others, with towering limestone ramparts on either side. Quite a spectacular drive, really, through a place where it was said early cave dwellers found sanctuary.
As we approached the Gorge, I could see the small house that sat to one side. If this was not where Private Wilson lived, the occupants could tell me where to look. Old and weathered, the house must have been freshly painted shortly before the war because it appeared to be in better condition than some of its neighbors. Behind it rose a small barn, and I glimpsed several sheds as well. There were black-and-white cows grazing quietly in a meadow on our left.
“This is where Cheddar cheese comes from,” I told the Captain. “It was aged in the coolness of the caves you’ll see in a bit, after we’ve finished here.”
“I thought Cheddar cheese came from New York,” he told me with a grin. “That’s where we buy it, at least.”
“There’s no pub that I can see just here,” I said, ignoring his attempt at humor. “But would you mind terribly waiting for me in the motorcar? Mrs. Wilson will be shy enough finding me on her doorstep. You’ll frighten her.”
“Don’t worry. Go speak to her. I’ll be fine.”
I thanked him, got down, and went up the walk to the front of the house. Marigolds bloomed in clay pots on the steps, and a cat slept on a cushion by the door.
It rose at my approach, stretched and yawned, then waited to be let into the house when Mrs. Wilson answered my knock.
She wasn’t quite what I’d expected. A pretty woman in her late thirties, she said pleasantly, “Are you lost, love? The entrance to the Gorge is just down the road over there.”
“My name is Sister Elizabeth Crawford. I’ve come to see a Mrs. Wilson. I knew her husband in France. I was a nursing sister in the aid station where he served as an orderly.”
“I’m Joyce Wilson,” she said after a moment. “Will you come in?”
“Yes, thank you.” I followed her into a neat parlor where nothing was out of place except a yarn ball that obviously belonged to the cat. It had come with us into the room and jumped into a tall rocker that stood by the cold hearth.
“That was my husband’s favorite chair,” she told me, reaching down to touch the cat’s head. I could hear it purr from where I stood. “Toby remembers and often sits there of an evening. He’s company, he is.” Her Somerset accent was nearly impenetrable.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
“A daughter. I’ve sent Audrey away to live with my sister. I didn’t want her to hear what was being said about her father.”
It was my opening. I had wondered how to bring up such a difficult subject.
“For what it’s worth, Mrs. Wilson, I cannot in good conscience believe that your husband killed himself. I worked with him day in and day out, you see, and I knew how he felt about what he was doing. Yes, it was depressing work, sad work, often heartbreaking work, tending to the dead. But he took pride in doing it well and with respect.”
I hadn’t meant to be so forceful, but as I sat in that tidy parlor with a woman whose husband had been branded a suicide, I couldn’t stop myself.
Her face crumpled at my words. She said after a moment, her voice husky, “I never believed it myself. Not Jerry. He knew he was too old to fight, but he felt he could do something to help stop the Hun. Even as an orderly. When did you see him last?”
“I was nursing our influenza patients as well as the wounded, and then without warning, I myself was stricken with it. I remember a soldier named Benson dying and your husband bringing in the stretcher bearers to carry the-er-him out to the place where we took the dead while they were awaiting the burial detail. He was himself that evening, and I saw nothing in his face or his bearing to warn me that he was distressed in any way or worried about his own health. There were many people-sisters, doctors, orderlies-who worked with the ill and never fell ill themselves. He had no reason to think he might be the next victim.”
“I’m grateful to you for coming so far to tell me this, Sister. It was very kind of you. I shall take comfort from it. I’ve had precious little of that since Jerry died, I can tell you. But why would anyone report my husband hanged himself, when neither you nor I believe he would or even could?”
“I don’t know. There must be times when there are so many dead and dying that the rolls are confused. It’s all I can offer you as a reason.” It wasn’t true, but I wasn’t prepared to add to her burden the possibility that Private Wilson was murdered.
“Yes, but he hasn’t written to me, so he must be dead. How did he die then?”
“From overwork-exhaustion. We weren’t sleeping at all, and we ate only when we remembered and there was time. It took a toll on all of us. And Private Wilson was nearing forty, wasn’t he?”
“He was forty-one his last birthday.”
“That could explain it.”
“I still don’t see how a mistake could have been made,” she insisted.
“I don’t know myself. But I’m going back to France as soon as possible, and I’ll find out what I can. You may not hear immediately. But I shall write after I’ve spoken to Matron and some of the others he and I served with.”
“I’ll be forever in your debt, Sister, if you could do that for me. For him. It isn’t fair for him to be treated like a leper if he did nothing wrong. Or for Audrey to be singled out as the daughter of a suicide.”
“There was nothing at home-you or your child-to worry him?”
“Nothing at all. We’ve done better than most, having only a small farm, too small to have our crops taken from us. We eat what we grow, and we manage very well. There’s hardly anything to buy, is there, with shortages everywhere one turns. And so his pay was enough for us. I don’t know as I get a pension, under the circumstances. What worries me now is finding someone to help with the cows and the milking and general handiwork, what Jerry always did. I can’t pay now, you see. And there’s other farms that do.”
All the more reason to get to the bottom of what happened to Private Wilson.
Aloud, I said, “Did he write often, your husband?”
“His last letter came barely a week after he died. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He sounded like himself, though tired, as you’d expect, and he gave me advice about matters here on the farm, as he always did, remembering what time of the year it was. I was that shocked when the word came. I sat here until three o’clock in the morning, trying to take it in. Except for Toby, I told no one. And cats don’t talk, do they? But soon enough word got round. I don’t know how they found out, but people did. And so I sent my daughter out of harm’s way. That left just Toby and me to do all that needs to be done. But we’ll survive somehow. Our kind always does.”
It was a sad commentary on the future.
We talked a little longer, and at one point she said, “I’d give anything to have my man back again. And then that woman in London behaves so badly she’s divorced. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Why couldn’t her husband have died, if she was so eager to be free? Not wishing him harm, you understand, but let me keep mine.”
I did understand. I rose to leave soon after, and she went with me to the door, thanking me again for coming to tell her what I believed.
I walked to the motorcar with a heavy heart.
Whoever had killed Private Wilson had much to answer for.
As promised I drove the rough track that passed for a road running through Cheddar Gorge. The limestone walls, often sheer, rose over four hundred feet high and in places were honeycombed with shallow crevices or deep caves. The entrance was half hidden by cheese shops, tea shops, and souvenir stalls, most of them closed for the duration, but beyond we could crane our necks and see the tops of the ramparts. I’d always found it an impressive sight, even though I’d viewe
d the great peaks of the Himalayas. The deeper into the Gorge we went, the more wild and mysterious it seemed to be, only the sounds of our motorcar breaking the silence and the calls of a crow that resented it. Even as we drove out into lower but still hilly countryside, I felt as I always did, that people had lived here for a long time. It would have offered sanctuary in a time of uncertainty.
Beside me Captain Barclay stared about with interest, and I thought for once he had been struck speechless, this American who had an answer for everything.
When finally we reached the far side of the Gorge where the land evened out, I turned to him and said, “Isn’t it a marvelous sight?”
He agreed, although his praise was rather subdued. I was pleased I’d brought him here.
On the way back to Longleigh House, he cleared his throat and said, “Sister, if you want the truth, there’s really nothing like this in Michigan, although there’s a small ravine on Mackinac Island. But I’ve been to the Grand Canyon, you see, and it’s stunning. Your Gorge, for all it’s fine enough, can’t hold a candle to the one in Arizona. I just didn’t want to belittle yours by comparing them.”
Put out with him all the same, I said nothing. He grinned. “You have to remember,” he said, “that England’s a little country.”
Later, before taking up my evening duties, I wrote to Simon, telling him what I’d learned talking with Joyce Wilson, and reminding him that it wasn’t just Major Carson whose fate needed to be clarified.
I expected to hear from him any day now, hoping that he’d been able to find out more information somehow, something that would lead us to the next step. But there was no news.
When it came, the letter I did receive shocked me.
It was from the headquarters of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.
And inside were my orders to return immediately to France.
CHAPTER SIX
I REALLY DIDN’T know how to respond to the news. It was what I had wanted from the moment in Eastbourne when I felt well enough to consider my future.
Had Simon pulled strings to make this possible?