The Woman at the Front

by Lecia Cornwall

  “Kindness? You act like I’ve never shown you any.”

  She let that go, waited for an answer.

  “All my life—our life—father expected me to follow in his footsteps, to be a doctor just like him. Not once did he ever ask me what I wanted. It wasn’t a life of tending a bunch of farmers and peasants and their snot-nosed brats and fat wives, pretending to be better than the rest of them. I hated him for pushing me, for insisting. I wanted to go to Cambridge, but he even insisted that it had to be Edinburgh, his alma mater. He held you up to me constantly as a shining example of what I could do if only I put my mind to it, because I was, after all, a boy, and therefore smarter, better, bolder than my sister. He made it a damned competition to shame me.” He looked at her. “I hate the sight of blood. The idea of touching one of these poor ruined bastards makes my skin crawl. I was never meant to be a doctor.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “I tried. He wouldn’t listen to me. He thought I was just tired of being drilled on the hepatic nerves, and the muscles of the throat. He gave me a lecture about the noble sacrifice of the profession, the honor of it. I can’t see any honor in being covered with puke and shit and blood. He insisted that I must go and sit that exam, that I’d feel differently once I was at school.” He looked at her. “I decided I’d ace the bloody exam, score top marks, and then I’d tear up the damned letter of acceptance and throw it in Father’s face, tell him I wasn’t going to medical school. But then I saw you at the end of the exam. What happened, El? You were so confident going in.”

  She sighed. “I wanted it so much. Too much, perhaps. I knew everything on that exam, everything, and yet—I looked around that room, saw men glaring and staring. Even the proctor didn’t want me there, saw my presence as a terrible affront, not only to himself and the men in the room, but to medicine itself. I was writing that exam for Father, too, I think. Perhaps I always knew he didn’t expect me to succeed, didn’t want it, but I wanted him to be proud of me, to see that I could do it. It overwhelmed me in the end.”

  “I didn’t realize how badly you wanted it,” he said. “I thought it was about besting me and showing off for Louis.”

  “Louis? It was never about him.”

  “You had a crush on him. And he—he looked at you as some kind of wonder.”

  She met his eyes, wondered if he was joking, or teasing her, even now, but she saw only cool honesty in his gaze. The distance still remained between them, an impenetrable barrier. “I had no idea,” she murmured. It surprised her, even now that she knew Louis better. “He gave no sign of it.”

  “He gave me a lucky charm to give to you the day of the exam—a gold Louis coin from his father’s collection.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “No, I kept it.” He took out his wallet and opened the pocket. He pulled out the old French coin and showed it to her, and she took it, looked at the engraved face of Louis XVI. A double meaning, then, for this was the king who’d lost his head.

  “Why did you do it, Edward?” she asked again.

  He regarded her for a moment. “It wasn’t kindness, or brotherly affection. It shames me to say it now, of course, but then . . .” He stared at the coin in her hand. “Then it was just so bloody convenient, the perfect solution, better even than acing the exam myself. I pictured Father’s face when you got top marks and I failed. He’d hate it, of course, and you— I never expected he’d allow you to go to university. I thought Mama would find you a decent husband, you’d marry, and that would be the end of it. When you did go to school, I thought you’d run home screaming the first week.”

  “You wagered with Louis that I would.”

  Edward’s brows shot up. “He told you?”

  “Yes. I suppose we became friends of a sort after all,” she said, just to dig at him.

  He sighed. “I believe I’m glad you did.”

  “And what will you do now?” she asked.

  “You mean will I denounce you? No. It turns out you’re not a fraud at all. You would have retaken that exam and passed, I assume. You did the hardest part—stuck it out at university, excelled—and you turned out to be a fine doctor.” He looked around the veranda, taking in the patients and the nurses. He clenched his jaw, and he took a moment before he looked at her again, and longer still before he spoke. “I think you’re far braver than I am, El. And I’m . . . proud of you. It turned out the way it was supposed to in the end.” She could read the pride in his face, the admiration there at long, long last, and tears stung her eyes.

  “Edward, are you happy?”

  His brows shot up. “Yes, I believe so. I love the law, and I’m going to run for a seat in Commons when this is over. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be prime minister someday.”

  “I’ll be very proud of you, too, Edward.”

  He rose to go, picking up his cap from the table. Even after four years, his uniform still looked freshly tailored, and his boots still shone. “I must get back. You’ve heard about Louis’s medal?”

  “I have. In fact, I was there at the aid post that day. Most heroic.”

  “You were there? Did Louis know? Did you know it was him?”

  She shook her head. “Not a clue. We were both busy.”

  “What will you do next, Eleanor? I suppose you’ll go home.”

  She smiled. I am home, she thought, and she remembered saying those words to Fraser.

  “Not until it’s all over.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  November 1918

  There was a rousing celebration at the convalescent hospital when the armistice was signed and the second hand marked the moment of precisely eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the fourth terrible year of the war.

  David hugged Eleanor, lifted her off her feet, and swung her around. Orderlies kissed nurses and slapped each other on the back. A chorus of “Tipperary” broke out, and everyone joined in. Afterward, a patient with a rich baritone voice sang “There’s a Long, Long Trail,” and everyone cried for all that had been lost.

  It made Eleanor cry, and she sobbed, unable to stop, and David used his handkerchief to wipe her tears away. “I’ll help you look for Fraser.”

  She met his eyes. “There’s a chance, David. There must be, even now. I thought I’d check the CCSs and aid posts, see if anyone remembers him. If he was wounded—”

  He squeezed her hand. “We’ll look everywhere.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Paris

  December 3, 1918

  The harried major listened to Eleanor’s query with barely disguised impatience. He shuffled through one of the stacks of paper on his desk before finally looking up. “Sergeant Fraser James MacLeod was listed missing after the first battle of Arras, on or about March the twenty-ninth. There’s been no word since, and we’ve declared him killed in action.” He stated it crisply and without emotion, looking at David instead of her.

  “But someone saw him carrying wounded men during the battle,” Eleanor pleaded.

  “Well, we’ve all lost someone in this war.” The major picked up a rubber stamp and brought it down on the paper in front of him, a final drumbeat, the closing of a coffin. “My condolences. Best go home if you can get on one of the boat trains. The whole army is trying to cross the Channel now the war’s over.”

  David escorted her away. They walked down a street crowded with soldiers, smiling now, their duty done, flirting with pretty civilians or VADs. Vendors sold wine and cakes and souvenirs. Flags fluttered from every window and lamppost. Everywhere, there was an aura of celebration. The war was over, and life would go on. Eleanor walked on in sober silence, numb. It took an hour to push through the throngs and reach the crowded railway station.

  She remembered the day she’d arrived in France. The platform had been packed with troops going into battle, new and shiny as pai
nted tin soldiers. She remembered the casualties coming off the train and Fraser talking to a wounded private, working magic.

  Now the train station was crowded with refugees, and the tin soldiers were grim-faced, their eyes old, their skin gray, their uniforms and boots worn out. Red Cross volunteers and nurses shepherded shuffling columns of wounded men onto trains.

  Out of habit Eleanor looked for Fraser’s tall figure on the platform, his dark red hair, his ragged greatcoat. She’d visited dozens of hospitals and casualty stations, questioned nurses, doctors, and officials, pushed a blurry photograph Max Chilcott had given her at them, made them look, think, try to remember one man out of thousands. She’d studied the unrecognizable wounded with bandaged faces and looked at their hands instead. “Ye can always tell a bearer by his hands,” he’d told her once. The raw emotion caught her, drove the breath from her lungs.

  He isn’t here. He is dead. The pain bit into her, so sharp it made her stumble. The steel thread of hope that had held her up for so long, that had kept her searching, snapped under the strain of grief.

  David led her to a bench as a train pulled in, loud and dirty. Steam hissed, shrouding the platform.

  “I’m going to Canada,” David said, scanning the crowds. “I don’t want to go back to England, see it crippled by the war, see broken men, watch women mourn. My brother left me his ranch, and I want those green foothills and the mountains all around me, someplace clean and unscarred by the war. I’ll be a rancher and a country doctor.” He turned to look at her. “Marry me, Eleanor. Come with me.”

  She stared at his hands—surgeon’s hands, clean and white. He was a fine man, a good doctor, and Fraser was dead and she was empty. She suddenly longed for a place to heal, to forget, a green place with mountains. “I want all that.” She did, but the word yes would not come. “But—”

  He was silent, and she glanced up, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the platform behind her, his eyes wide, his expression stunned. Eleanor turned.

  Gaunt, ragged men were climbing down from the train. People made space for them and stared. “Prisoners of war,” someone muttered. “Poor buggers. Look at ’em—half-starved. God knows what the Huns did to them.”

  She saw the familiar armband first, the red cross brassard that was so dirty and threadbare it was barely visible. The greatcoat was even more ragged, filthy. He was turned away from her, and she couldn’t see his face, but still her breath caught in her throat. His height was right, even if his shoulders were hunched, his steps tentative instead of long and sure. Surely it was grief, making her hallucinate. It couldn’t be . . .

  She rose to her feet, willed him to turn around so she could see his face, know for sure. She clenched her fists, and her heart leaped to her throat and lodged there, still hoping, even now. She stood still, a hundred people flowing between them, and saw only him. It was foolish to hope, but she did. She stared at him, swore she’d let go, accept at last that he was dead if this wasn’t Fraser.

  He turned. His face was unshaven, his eyes hidden in the shadow of the battered brim of his cap, but she recognized the shape of his jaw, the size of his nose, the way his head came up, and he scanned the platform like a man looking for someone who needed help, needed him.

  Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them away, looked again. She didn’t take her eyes off of him as she ran forward, couldn’t. She felt the instant when he saw her like a bolt through her chest. She watched his weary, wary gaze turn to disbelief, then hope, then surprise. He opened his arms as she reached him, and she rushed into them. She felt the terrible fragility of Fraser’s body as he enveloped her, laid his chin on her head, breathed her in. “Eleanor,” he said, his voice rough. “God, lass, it’s really you, isn’t it? Are ye real?”

  She pulled back to look at him, and he cupped her face in his shaking hands and stared down at her in wonder. She didn’t realize she was crying until he swiped at her tears with the pads of his thumbs, but there were too many, and he gave up. “I thought I’d never see ye again, and here ye are.” He threw his head back and laughed. “Here ye are. Och, but you’re thin, lass.”

  She laughed. He was the one who was as gaunt as a skeleton, hollow-cheeked and gray. She wanted to touch him all over, to check and make sure he was whole and healthy and real. “I looked for you. I saw Corporal Chilcott, and he—” He put his finger over her mouth. “He said he saw you killed in action.”

  “Not killed. Captured. They needed a medic, and they saw my armband. For a few days I carried wounded German lads off the field for them, helped their bearers. Then they sent me to the rear, to a prisoner of war camp, and I helped where I could. They had no medicine, no bandages. There was typhus, and influenza, and not much to eat. Even the Germans were starving, and we could do nothing but wait for the war to end. They threw open the gates when peace came, pointed the prisoners toward the rail station, and piled us onto trains. It took days.” He stared into the distance as he spoke, his face bitter.

  “Oh, Fraser,” Eleanor said, and his gaze flicked back to her, his expression softening.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. “Not anymore. It’s all over, and somehow, we found each other again.” He looked at the whirling crowds, oblivious to two people among thousands.

  “A whole army couldn’t keep us apart,” she said. “Two armies.”

  He raised one brow in sardonic amusement. “I’m beginning t’think so.”

  He swayed on his feet, and she tightened her hold on him. “You’re ill,” she said.

  “Aye,” he said, his amusement fading. “I’m dirty, and louse-ridden, and tired. I’m not fit to touch ye.”

  She put her arms around him. “You look fine to me, Fraser MacLeod,” she said, echoing what he’d said to her at the aid post, newly shorn of her hair. “Better than fine. You’re beautiful.”

  He searched her face, and she let him read the truth of that in her eyes, and her love, and the joy that she’d found him again. Against insurmountable odds, she’d found him. It felt like a miracle, a wish granted, and she wondered if this could possibly be true, if she could be so lucky, but he was real. “I’m not letting go of you this time, Fraser,” she told him fiercely, brooking no argument.

  He smiled at her, and he brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I dreamed of this, of you. Without you, I wouldn’t have . . . I love ye, Eleanor Atherton. I wish I’d said it that day, told ye. I thought I’d never have the chance, that I’d regret it every day I had left on this earth. And now, somehow, you’re here. I must be the luckiest bastard who ever drew breath. I intend to spend every minute telling ye so. How did ye know, how did ye chance to be here now, today, this minute?”

  David. She’d forgotten David.

  She turned back to the place she’d left him. But the bench was empty, and David was gone.

  EPILOGUE

  Arras, France

  July 1936

  Eleanor stared out the window of the train, watching the green fields go past behind the reflection of her own face. The undulating, grassy landscape was as peaceful as a rumpled bed now, adorned with new trees, though they were still spindly and tentative, as if they grew in poisoned soil. Perhaps they did—those verdant dimples and hillocks had been open wounds in the earth when she was last here, eighteen years ago, during the war.

  There was another war coming now, some said. She couldn’t bear to think of it happening again.

  She looked at her fifteen-year-old son, Alec, sprawled on the seat across from her, his long legs taking up all the space, his nose buried in a book, as usual. He wanted to be an engineer when he grew up, not a doctor, like her. If there was another war, he’d be caught up in it, and she’d be one of the mothers who fretted and feared this time. Would it be even worse for her, since she knew more than most about the cost of war, the horrors?

  She glanced at Fraser,
sitting next to her, and noted his pensive expression as he, too, watched the countryside fly past. She knew he was remembering the men who’d fought here, who had endured the mud and the guns and the horror, had been wounded, or perished, the ones he still dreamed about, tried to rescue in his sleep.

  She tried to think of the ones who’d survived instead, those who went home to make new lives—there was no going back to the old life one had known before the war. Time healed, perhaps, but it did not allow one to forget. How often had she wished, both for her own sake and for the beloved man seated next to her, that there was a way to forget all the things they’d seen and heard and done? She wondered again if attending this ceremony, the unveiling of the Canadian war memorial on Vimy Ridge, would lay Fraser’s ghosts to rest at last—or would it just bring back terrible memories, sharpen the nightmares? She read the same painful question in the eyes of others on the train, veterans, survivors, and mourners.

  Fraser’s hand lay next to hers on the seat, and she touched his scarred knuckles with the tip of her little finger. He clasped her hand in his but said nothing.

  “Arras!” the conductor called, moving down the train. The outskirts of the town came into view, the yellow stone buildings glowing in the summer heat. There were still bullet holes in the walls, and bullet holes in the memories of the people who lived here, and the ones who’d fought here, suffered, lost loved ones, comrades, and countrymen, and now returned in the name of honor and remembrance.

  She could read the complicated emotions in her husband’s eyes, but only because she knew him and he could not hide them from her the way he did with other people. He shook himself as the train pulled into the station.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, and she forced a smile. Alec was eager, and she let him lead the way along the crowded corridor, his steps long and coltish, half boy and half man. He took after his father, was handsome, clever, kind, and already taller than she was. On the platform she squeezed his shoulder, and he glanced back at her, frowning, not wanting to be held back. She remembered recruits scarcely older than Alec getting off the train in 1918 with the same eagerness, the same longing for adventure and sense of invincibility. But that was the past. Now it was a perfect July day, fragrant with flowers and grass under the sharp grease and smoke smell of the train, and the world was at peace. At least for now.