Henry Fitzwilliam's War

by Don Jacobson

She could sense his body in every way. The ripples of his muscular torso rubbed her arm as the couple moved along the boardwalk. His thigh and hip brushed hers as they leaned together. From time-to-time, his hand, nestled in the crook of her arm as she guided him, touched the side of her breast. Even through layers of clothing, this sent a surge flying down the core of her being. His natural musk, cinnamon and cloves, drowned her in a desire she had not felt in a year.

  We still fit together like the last two pieces in a puzzle.

  

  This passage into town as with all the others before ended at patisserie Villet where café or cocoa would warm them. Henry mused that the aroma of baked goods was probably deeply ingrained in the wainscoting and wallpaper that may have been new when he was first here forty years ago.

  Rarely did they converse. They had settled into a natural closeness where she would softly settle into her seat, the rustling of her dress rubbing across his ears while he would circle the table, fingers brushing along its timeworn rim until he touched his seat. Pulling it back about two feet allowed him to lower his lanky frame onto the creaking wicker.

  The two of them were usually the only customers. There were no vacations in wartime France, no romantic getaways for loving couples because the levees had swept up nearly every fit male between the ages of 18 and 35. The young had other diversions before one was torn from the other. The old dreaded the awful slow wait for news of their son, nephew or grandson, news that often never came.

  Working class regulars like Jacques made their appearance shortly after dawn for their café au lait and a fresh baguette, still steaming from the ovens out back. Then they would amble in again somewhere around two in the afternoon for a glass of some of Villet’s cheap but potent home brew kept in a bottle under the counter. Villet’s was no l'assommoir,[xviii] but, given the national sense of misery brought on by the black-bordered posters outside the post office, it served a salutary purpose.

  The elderly widow who owned the shop, probably Madame Villet herself, would shuffle across the floor to the English couple, her ill fitting clogs clattering on the uneven boards as she hobbled to their table. Henry could imagine arthritic, blue veined hands clutching a battered tray holding two cups and a small plate of petit fours. He wondered at her ability to deliver full measures given that her gait sounded like a horse with a stone caught in its hoof. Yet, the first time he lifted his daily café, the cup was filled to the brim with the bitter and heavily sweetened potion.

  There was a ceremonial atmosphere surrounding their time at the patisserie. Both seemed to sense that the ritual must be completed precisely as ordained lest the bubble in which they existed be burst. She had been the one to place their first order. She had decided that his café must have trois sucre. But, she never told l’ancienne which petit fours to bring. There were always two éclairs or tartlets and four macarons or puffs depending on what had been the baker’s fancy that morning. She would then eat one of the glacé and one of the sec and leave all the others for him.

  Today, after about fifteen minutes, Henry rested back into his chair, his ears sensitive to the sound of wind-blown sand against the clapboards. Even surrounded by the heady bouquet of yeast, cooked butter and roasted flour, the air was redolent with salt and seaweed.

  My back is to the beach because I am getting a draft on my neck. Sad that there is no Monsieur Villet anymore to refresh the putty around the panes. Wonder when he passed away? He was so proud of this shop! He’d paint the building every spring, yellow walls, blue trim. Probably faded and peeling now.

  I wonder if She knows my father loaned M. Villet the money to get started all those years ago? It was all because of Mama’s complaints that she could not find a decent bakeshop in Deauville. So Papa raided the kitchen at Ladurée[xix] in Paris. He convinced a sous pâtissier that his future rested in serving Paris’ (and London’s) elites where they summered.

  The baker paid back every franc Papa had loaned him, and he never charged Mama for her daily treats, letting her believe that he sent his bill to the House to be settled by Papa.

  Wind suddenly swirled through the shop as the bell jangled when the door opened. The door clattered shut, and heavy steps crossed the room to stop next to their table. A scent of lye soap, camphor and sweat washed over them. Only one person had this combination of size and smell. Campbell.

  The doctor spoke with the authority of a Lord Mayor making an announcement, “Ah, my Lady. Leftenant Williams. Monsieur Jacques suggested that you would be here. I stopped out at the House with news.

  “You, Mr. Williams, have been a model patient. In the two weeks since your injury, you have done your best to heal well. You have taken your exercise and have eaten properly. The powers-that-be at Headquarters have therefore decided that it is time for you to go home. Luckily you traveled light when you left Loos.

  “Your Sergeant Reynolds has been assigned to escort you to the Royal London Hospital where one of their surgeons, a Mr. Hill, will examine your eyes.

  “If he gives you a clean bill of health, you will be mustered out of the army and be free to assist the war effort in any way you choose.

  “So pack your toothbrush and small clothes. Be ready to move out because there are two billets on the Channel packet reserved for you and Reynolds.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Her hand and his collided over the plate of petit four. Too late! There was one macaroon left uneaten.

  Chapter Eight

  The day had ended quickly after that. The spell was broken. Words that needed to be said were left unspoken. Understandings were not reached. Connections were not acknowledged. He could feel her pulling away, building a wall between them that allowed only the most polite of communications. The sense of loss he would know for years began the moment that Campbell had spoken the words changing everything.

  The doctor escorted them out to his automobile leaving their peaceful intimacy behind at the table. The ride back to the House passed in silence as if all three occupants recognized that the world had begun to rotate on its axis once again. Pulling to a halt by the front gate, Campbell said he would return early the next morning to take Henry to the depot.

  She pleaded a migraine, and left Henry to his own devices. Letty and Jacques tended their mistress and her guest knowing that they were each suffering loss in their own manner.

  Jacques decided that Maestro Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique’s five movements would offer ample diversion. He would stand to periodically wind up the gramophone. His gruff observations to Henry made while cranking the machine or changing disks usually only received a polite grunt in response.

  Letty, for her part, said little, but darkened her lady’s room and brought a basin of warm lavender water that flooded the chamber with a calming memory. Her charge’s emotional discomfort was evidenced by occasional requests for a fresh handkerchief.

  The afternoon ground slowly along as clouds began to gather to the West out over the Channel.

  Madame Brouillard must have sensed something was up because she had tracked down the old rooster who had spent his last morning harassing the hens under the back stairs. His carcass was bathed in sauce and herbs and cooked for hours in the casserole atop the Windsor gas stove. The resulting coq au vin accompanied by pommes Anna was served to Henry in the dining parlor. She took a tray in her room.

  

  Darkness had wrapped its arms around the House hours earlier. Rain and sleet slashed across the dunes surrounding the dwelling as wintery squalls rolled in from the Channel one-after-the-other. Thunder rumbled, rattling windows and sending shivers through the House’s frame, vibrations only slightly dampened by sturdy lath and plaster walls.

  Letty had settled her Mistress in a white cotton nightdress, simply braiding her long blonde hair, now shot with grey, into a single plait tied with a light blue ribbon. The maid secured her under an extra quilt against the mid-October chill and then departed for her own rest, leaving a kerosene lamp dimly glim
mering to light the way to the WC if needed.

  Jacques had made sure that Henry was likewise tucked in for the night, but ignored any idea that a nightlight was needed for a man whose eyes remained firmly covered. He descended the back stairs and fought the weather as he crossed the yard to the shed where his bed awaited him in the loft, his station for the last two years.

  The House thus settled itself for another night much as it had for almost a century. Its long porches reached out to embrace the turbulent weather that had disturbed the Families’ homeland just a few hours before. Idiosyncratic creaks and pops echoed through the structure as ancient nails and beams gave up the heat collected from the watery October sun. Yet, while the building and its servants may have surrendered themselves to sleep, the two principals found such relief impossible to attain.

  She could not imagine that he could be pulled away from her again, even though she knew that it was impossible for him to remain in this time. His absence would disrupt every thread, every mote that swirled in the complicated universe governed by the Wardrobe. Only the fact that her husband was in Washington permitted the soldier’s presence next door.

  As she lay there, counting the hours until dawn, she gazed around her son’s room that was sporadically illuminated as Zeus threw another bolt. The furnishings were so distinctly male, yet still revealing Tom’s sensitive nature. On the one hand, his polo mallets were resting in hooks on the wall facing the window; two cricket bats were also propped in the corner. On the other, one of her favorite canvases, his oil of Roses on Fieldstone, Deauville looked down upon the foot of the bed. How she prayed for his safety. What would he have made of the young man resting in his parent’s bed?

  That young man tossed one way and then the other. Each crash of thunder returned him to that night, back to Loos, to the moment when he could still count sight as one of his senses. But, artillery was only thunderous at the moment of impact. The low grumble beyond the horizon, sometimes punctuated by flashes of grim lightening, was the first sign that a lethal load was on its way. If the shell had your number, your fate was foretold by a whistle that increased in pitch and volume. If not, the sound deepened and the moaning faded as the charge found another unfortunate target.

  Then there was the wind; its gusts shook the House like a terrier would a captured rat. Again he was thrown back to the Front where the ground quivered pudding-like under the pounding of Hun cannons. Sudden drafts chilled his cheeks and chin as the pervasive blasts overwhelmed well-mitered windows.

  How foolish we were, to allow phony “national pride,” the ultimate manifestation of masculinity, to destroy the system that had kept the peace for a hundred years. Now the blood price that will have to be paid to erase this, man’s original sin—pride—will be steep indeed.

  He knew that the coming parting was utterly necessary. He had to return to his own time lest he become another Kitty Bennet, now lost in the Wardrobe for 70 years. He could see Gran’s sadness when she spoke of her next elder sister. He could not subject his family to that sort of grief.

  

  There was a point around midnight when she found herself sitting on the edge of her bed. Had she dozed? Then, responding to a dream, had she risen in pursuit of…she knew not what? The pulling she had felt for twenty-plus years was roiling her insides. The demand was too intense.

  Her bare feet touched down on the bedside throw rug. Gathering the extra quilt around her shoulders, she glided across the mahogany stained floorboards to open her door. Just four steps down the hallway to his. She rested her forehead against the panel, trying to control her breathing—but with little success.

  Stop…do not proceed. You will break your heart…and his!

  In his darkness, he first perceived her scent, roses rushing over cut grass to his nose. He must have lost the sound of the door opening beneath one of the crashes of the storm. Somewhere, feet or inches away, She stood, silently. The weight of her eyes in the nighttime darkness bore on him. Her gaze played up and down his body and pushed his aura like a hand gently stroking a cat’s silky coat. He could hear her shallow quick breaths signaling intense conflict. But, she did not move to close the gap.

  The storm flashed its fury through the uncovered window. His form was cast in stark relief; dark shadows pooling around him, accentuating the position of his legs, hips and torso. He was resting on his left side, knees slightly bent, his upper arm draped across the coverlet, hand over the bedside. Two pillows lifted his head and shoulders above the plane of the bed.

  As if she were a traveler lost in the Empty Quarter, he seemed to her to be an oasis of cool, clear water; only, in this case, that divine liquor was his life force. He was her center. Even now, even before he knew her, that fact had been the case. He was the reason the Wardrobe had sent her ahead. And she was the reason he was here. He did not, though, move a muscle to betray his awareness of her presence by his bedside.

  His mind substituted what his eyes could not perceive.

  Like Phrynê when immortalized by Praxiteles[xx], she stands between divine women…Eros and Aphrodite—one represents sensuality, the other eternity. She holds herself with such confidence, one leg slightly ahead of the other, her thigh shaping the thin cotton nightdress with promise. The hips of Eve, so innocently draped in white, are revealed beneath the dome of her firm abdomen, arching toward me, calling out. Her chest rises bewitchingly with each intake of breath between parted lips. Cheeks…her cheeks are stained with rose petals. She is no child, but rather a mature woman in full cry. Her desire is her need.

  But, it is her eyes, so piercing and so blue…yes; they are an amazing shade: almost grey…they pound against my soul, cracking it open.

  Oh…my…god. The love.

  His gasp broke her stalemate.

  Taking quick, sure steps, she flew around the bed, threw back the covers and, after wrapping her blanket around her waist sarong-like, slid in behind him, spooning his hard young body. Throwing one arm over his middle, she snuggled hard against him as she buried their joined forms back under the quilt. He struggled to face her.

  Her swift reply stopped that attempt, “No, my love, you cannot turn. We cannot risk engaging our hearts by fulfilling this love. My husband is away. You will be gone. I could not survive the memory,” she hoarsely whispered.

  “Nor I,” he whispered back.

  Time slowed as the storm outside quieted. The gales of emotion inside enveloped the bed.

  Her trembling body betrayed her craving. His shoulder blades blazed against her hardened nipples, the contact sending jolts to her twice covered but still rising womanhood. Her thighs rubbed urgently together igniting fires that had been quenched against loneliness.

  His hips instinctively matched hers as they moved together. His engorged manhood pushed against his pajamas and lifted into her hand cradling him through the quilt. Her inhaled breaths, so heated on his neck where her nose was nestled, captured his primal spice, pulling him backwards deep inside to be decanted again as she exhaled.

  A long sigh escaped her lips as she began to ride the waves. His musk surged through her being with every surge. Shapeless visions cascaded behind her closed eyelids. Colors showered around her head, swirling and merging, driven by the tension mounting throughout her body. Now blind like him, she caught the sound of the waves beating the beachfront echoing the rhythm of their movements. They carried her higher still.

  We rose from the sea; its silvery waters sheeting down our smooth skin, gentle breezes raising goose bumps. The taste, the feel, the currents are all deep inside of us. Rising to the crest and then diving into the troughs. Making love by the ocean, to its beat, is natural and eternal.

  He was transported outside of self. Looking down from above he watched as their uncoupled forms moved in the oldest dance. Her head thrown back, a light sheen of sweat dampening the fringe of hair pasted to her forehead. Her mouth was open in a crie de coeur. His free hand clutched bed linens as energies built in his bundled muscles. Hi
ps thrust back into hers as her legs writhed, rippling the quilt.

  Muscles deep down in her pelvis began twitching as well-remembered pleasure coruscated throughout her body. His love transported her with invisible, overpowering tenderness. A surge of crimson rose beneath her gown as a love blush suffused her breasts, face and neck.

  His awareness sucked toward his center. Nerves started firing across the top of his legs. Everything tunneled down to that one point.

  Suddenly their back-and-forth rocking stopped as her hips flew forward and his crashed back simultaneously. Their buttocks clenched in unison as they first froze together motionless, clutching what they could. Then they broke apart only to repeat the motion. And once more. They gasped as one.

  As the turbulence settled, she lifted her hand from the quilt and softly stroked his hair above the bandages. With infinite gentleness, he reached up and took her hand in his, pulling it down to his lips where he kissed it. Then he leaned back into her and in this manner they slept.

  Reverie

  December 1883

  The sense of loss paralyzed him. As he sat in Matlock House’s library staring out the window at the winter-dimmed London street scene unrolling in front of him, he despaired over what he had left behind in Deauville thirty-plus years in the future. The worst of it was that his memory of her began to evaporate as soon as Hill at The London had removed his bandages in 1915.

  After that, the bits and pieces that made up her began to fly away as his world spun around. The moment he stepped into the Wardrobe in Eddie Darcy’s sitting room and 1,000 bees buzzed and the pressure built, she began to slip away in earnest.

  The sound of her voice receded from his memory so quickly that there were moments when he could not recall the subtle undertones in that alto stream that revealed her deepest emotions. For days on end, that voice…The Voice…was all he could cling to in his continuing darkness. Now he was losing even that rock of audible security, of unspoken affection.