The Walnut Tree

by Charles Todd

  Dr. Lorville said, “And you, Mademoiselle? Will you be all right? This has been a great shock.”

  “I was a battlefield nurse for the British Army,” I said. “I have seen death before.”

  “But not,” he said, considering me, “that of someone close to you.”

  “I have seen that too. But thank you for your concern.”

  He wasn’t satisfied, but he nodded, then helped me into the carriage.

  I spoke to Arnaud, and he turned the horses, taking me back to the Villard house.

  I looked away from the seat beside me where Alain’s body had lain, instead staring out the window and concentrating on how best to break such news to my friend. At least I wouldn’t have to tell her Alain was a suicide. Mercifully, Dr. Lorville had seen to that. She would be spared gossip and speculation.

  Between us, Marie and I got Madeleine upstairs and into her bed after she collapsed.

  I went to Alain’s room, thinking to find laudanum, hoping to give Madeleine a drop or two in warm milk, to allow her to sleep until her own doctor arrived.

  There had been no time for me to mourn. But I could hear, over and over again, what the doctor had said, the words running through my mind like a chorus ever since Arnaud had driven me away from the surgery.

  . . . released him . . . a normal life . . .

  Then why had Alain chosen to die?

  I found the laudanum in his dressing room. It wasn’t until I was walking back through his bedroom that I saw the small envelope lying at the base of the gilt carriage clock that stood in the middle of the mantel shelf above the hearth.

  I expected it to be addressed to Madeleine.

  I was so afraid when I lifted it to look at Alain’s elegant writing on the front that it might be addressed to me.

  But it was not. Henri’s name was there in black ink.

  I stood there debating whether I should go ahead and open it. In the end, I left it where it was and took the laudanum back to Madeleine.

  It was late the next afternoon when Henri walked through the door of his house, climbed the stairs without even stopping to remove his cap and greatcoat, and went directly to his wife’s room.

  I was sitting with her at the time, and I don’t think I will ever forget the look on her face as her husband came toward her, his arms outstretched.

  And then she was sobbing on his shoulder as if her heart would break, and I slipped quietly out and into the passage, closing the door gently behind me.

  Henri came to find me later. I was sitting in the small morning room where the fire burned cheerfully on the hearth, but my hands felt as cold as death.

  He had removed his hat and coat, and his uniform showed the rigors of travel, dusty and unpressed.

  “They sent for me straightaway. I thought at first it must be Madeleine . . . or my son. I never dreamed it would be Alain.” He was pacing up and down in front of the fire, unable to settle. “What happened? Do you know? She couldn’t tell me, it was too difficult. Some nonsense about Alain practicing to fire his revolver with his left hand.”

  I gave him an account of finding Alain’s body and taking him to Dr. Lorville’s surgery, then said, “There’s an envelope on the mantel shelf in his room. I saw it when I went to find laudanum for Madeleine. It’s addressed to you.”

  He stopped in midstride. “Is there indeed!”

  And then he was gone, out the door, his boots ringing on the stairs. Ten minutes later, he came back, the letter in his hand.

  “What is it? Please, you must tell me.”

  His voice was husky as he spoke. “He has given me certain information, such as where his will can be found and what he wishes to be done with his body. He asked me to beg Madeleine’s pardon for his lack of courage. And he asked me to tell you that he loved you too much to tie you to half a man. But that he wished for you to keep his ring, in remembrance of him. He hopes you will be happy, think of him kindly, and understand why he had to make the decision to end his life.”

  “Then he knew—he knew, before he kept the appointment with the doctor.”

  “Yes. I imagine it was the only way to leave the house without arousing suspicion.” Henri shook his head. “The fool. The bloody damned fool.”

  And for an instant I thought he would ball up Alain’s letter and hurl it into the fire.

  Instead he set it carefully on the table, then walked to the cabinet against the wall, took out a glass and a decanter, and poured himself a brandy. Turning, he saw the grief I couldn’t conceal, and said, “My dear, you need one as much as I do. You were to marry him. I would give anything—anything—to have spared you finding his body.” He poured a small measure into another glass and brought it to me.

  I drank it in one swallow, coughed a little, and then set the glass aside as the brandy warmed me a little. “I thought my being here would make a difference. I thought that if I let Alain know that nothing had changed, that I wanted to marry him whatever had happened, he would have a reason for living. But what I have done,” I went on, my voice breaking, “what I have done is make him see all too clearly how bleak his future would be, that he couldn’t go on. If I hadn’t come, Alain would still be alive. He would have had no reason to kill himself, because he could live in this house as long as he liked, and never have to face what had been done to him by the war. He would have been safe, he could have come to terms with his lost arm in time, and found some measure of peace. Don’t you see? It’s all my fault.”

  For the first and only time since I had known Henri Villard, he took me in his arms, held me tightly for a moment, then moving his hands to my shoulders, he shook me.

  “You’re wrong, Elspeth. Wrong, do you hear me? Alain killed himself because he was in despair. He wrote to me soon after he arrived in Paris, after the first surgery. He told me that he wanted nothing more in life than to see you again. He got his wish. And after that, what was there to live for, in his mind?”

  I hadn’t known about that letter. Still, it was hurtful that I had come to Paris to be with him, and still I couldn’t save him. I loved Alain. I had learned over these past weeks that I loved him in the same way I loved my cousin Bruce. Perhaps I had from the start, and confused it with more in the excitement of his going off to war. So long ago, it seemed another lifetime. I loved him enough that I would have given anything to save him. And I couldn’t.

  I don’t think Alain ever guessed what I felt. I was so grateful for that. Even so, my sense of guilt was dreadful.

  It was something I could never confess to Henri.

  Henri let me go with a sigh.

  “I must speak to the undertaker. Madeleine is sleeping at last, and they are expecting my visit.”

  “I don’t know how she will go on,” I replied. “But there is little Henri, he will be her anchor.”

  “Yes, but she will be changed forever. I can already see it. That lightness of heart, that intense feeling for those she loved, that need to have the rest of the world be happy with her. I remember the first time I saw her, she was like a lovely butterfly, touching everyone around her with happiness.”

  “You have changed as well,” I said. “The war—”

  “It has changed all of us. I don’t know when it will end. Or how. But we will never go back to the innocence of our youth. That’s over. A dream that we can barely remember.”

  His voice was so heavy with grief, for himself, for Madeleine, for Alain, that I wanted to cry. But he shrugged off the dark mood, put a comradely hand on my shoulder, and added, “Thank God you were here. That it wasn’t Madeleine who found him. You saved my son, and now you have saved my wife. I will not forget.”

  He walked to the door without looking back and closed it behind him. I listened to his footsteps fading down the passage.

  The funeral, I thought. How am I to get through the funeral, when all I can see is Alain’s
lifeless body in my arms, his fair hair stiff with drying blood, his blue eyes closed forever, and the warmth that was Alain slowly seeping away.

  I would manage in some fashion.

  I was an Earl’s daughter, and I had been taught to conceal my feelings in public. I had already been tested, following behind my father’s coffin.

  Henri had arranged a military funeral, no whisper of suicide, and the cortege wound its way through the streets of Paris toward the columns and tall, mismatched towers of Saint-Sulpice. Alain had attended services there whenever he was in Paris, because of its magnificent organ. Henri had told me that Monsieur Widor himself would be playing for the service, for he had known Alain.

  The coffin—Alain’s coffin—was placed below the high altar, draped with the French flag, and on it lay his dress cap, his sword, and a cushion holding the medals he had been awarded. Sunlight coming through the high windows bathed it in soft light.

  A hero.

  Duty had taken him into the army, and duty had made him brave, and in the end, duty had killed him.

  We three sat together, Henri in his dress uniform. Madeleine and I in black, heavy veils shielding our faces and hiding our tears. On my finger I still wore the ruby ring. The stone, usually such a rich deep red, seemed dull today.

  Because of the war, the great church was nearly empty of mourners. There were those who knew the Villards, those who knew Alain, and men who had served with him, their uniforms bright splashes of color amongst the somber black of the civilians. The priest’s voice and the hymns echoed around the stone walls, the notes of the organ soaring above our heads into the intricate ribbed vaulting of the nave. Henri delivered the eulogy, his voice firm, his words that of a soldier and a friend. It was a lovely service, but I heard very little of it, staring at the coffin and thinking of what might have been if there had been no war. I’d have married Alain, possibly in this church or in the chapel at Montigny. We would have lived together into contented old age, our children around us. I would never have met Peter Gilchrist again on the Calais-to-Ypres road . . .

  My fault, for insisting on returning to England.

  I’ve always known my own mind. Sometimes it’s a curse.

  And then the Mass was over, and we filed out of the church.

  Alain was to be buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery because Henri’s leave was too short to allow the funeral cortege to make its way to Montigny in Burgundy.

  I stood there watching the coffin being lowered into the winter-bare earth, added my bouquet of violets, hard to come by at this time of year, to the other flowers strewn gently over it, and then I winced as a company from his regiment fired their rifles over the grave in a final salute.

  Afterward the three of us spoke quietly to everyone who had come, thanking them for their support in our grief. At length the condolences were at an end, and the three of us returned to the motorcar. Michel, the new chauffeur, was driving now, Arnaud having been pensioned off to Villard. When we walked into the house, it seemed to echo our footsteps, emphasizing our loss and the fact that we would never see Alain here again. And yet Alain had lived here only a little while, and even then mostly in his suite of rooms.

  Madeleine and I went up to remove our coats and hats, then walked back down the stairs together to the dining room, where a cold luncheon was served. The remaining staff had asked to attend the service, and so there was no hot meal.

  It didn’t matter, I could barely swallow what was set before me, and Madeleine after a bite or two, put down her fork.

  “You must leave in three days’ time?” she asked her husband, although she already knew the answer.

  “I’m afraid so, my love.”

  She turned to me. “And you, Elspeth? You will leave now for England?”

  “I will stay as long as you like, Madeleine.”

  She surprised me by answering, “I would rather you go. I’d hoped you would be my sister, but that’s at an end. You now remind me too much of what I have lost. Alone, I can pretend, a little.” She broke off, biting her lip. I saw the tears well in her eyes. “Please, Elspeth, do you understand? It will help me heal.”

  I was hurt, but I knew what she was asking and why. France was no longer my home.

  “I shall need a pass to travel back to England,” I said. “Perhaps Henri will be able to arrange one for me.”

  “Consider it done,” he said, but I could tell, seeing the frown between his eyes, that he was unhappy about his wife’s decision. He had hoped, I thought, that I’d stay on at least until the period of mourning was over. Still, it was her choice to make, after all.

  And perhaps I should leave Paris and my own memories here. Perhaps it was for the best . . .

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two days after Henri left Paris to rejoin his regiment, I set out for Rouen, this time with all my belongings carefully packed into a trunk and a valise.

  Henri had obtained my pass, and he kissed me on the cheek when he said good-bye.

  I had the strongest feeling that it would be a very long time before I saw him again, and I thought perhaps he had had the same premonition. Madeleine’s grief went too deep to measure. I wouldn’t be returning to Paris. I wished him well, told him that he must come home safe to Madeleine and his son.

  He smiled, promised, and then was gone.

  Madeleine had come down to see me off. Michel had brought the motorcar around—Henri insisted that I must not travel to Rouen by train. He had fretted that I didn’t have a maid to accompany me. But I had traveled to Calais alone in the midst of the fighting and I felt no fear for my safety.

  All the same I was grateful for his care.

  I reached Rouen and discovered that Henri had sent word to the port authorities that I had been in Paris to attend the funeral of my fiancé, a hero of the Marne.

  And so I was treated with every courtesy.

  There was a ship sailing with the next tide. There was no cabin available, but I didn’t care. I could hear the heavy guns in the north, a push on, and there was nothing I could do about the wounded, the dying that would soon be flooding the forward aid stations. Instead I stood by the rail and watched France fade slowly into the distance, remembering my school days in Paris, remembering sharing whispered confidences in the dark with Madeleine when we ought to have been sleeping, remembering watching from the upstairs window for Alain to arrive in the Montigny carriage to collect his sister. All in the past now. I felt an overwhelming sadness. Madeleine and Alain lost to me. My work as a Sister taken from me. Even the chatty artillery Captain, his ear and throat swathed in bandages, who came to stand beside me at the rail couldn’t lighten my mood.

  We had a rough crossing, and as always there was the fear of a German submarine lurking somewhere in the Channel. When the Isle of Wight appeared off the port bow, and then the entrance to the harbor at Portsmouth loomed just ahead, I thought I might feel as if I had come home.

  But where was my home now?

  Portsmouth was busy, crowded. I didn’t want to stay the night there.

  With the help of the stationmaster, I was able to find space on a train going to London, my luggage loaded in the van. I sat by the window, watching the lights of Hampshire villages flash by. Not terribly far from where I was traveling now, over the border into Sussex, was the tiny village of Aldshot. By now Peter would have gone back to St. Albans a second time for further treatment. After that, he should be released to live in his own flat until he was judged well enough to return to France.

  I couldn’t go to him. Not now. Not ever. It would be a betrayal of Alain in my heart. His suicide had made it impossible.

  We pulled into London, and I sent my trunk to Cousin Kenneth’s house to be stored for the time being. Closed for the duration it might be, but a skeleton staff would still be in residence, if only to keep the fires going and the rooms clean.

  I arrived o
n Mrs. Hennessey’s doorstep, tired, unhappy, and uncertain about my future.

  Accustomed to our coming and going at all hours, she welcomed me warmly, clearly curious to know where I had been and if I’d sorted out my problem with the Nursing Service.

  I had not. It would be useless to try. But I told her that a friend in Paris had died, and I had had no time to think about myself.

  “I’m so sorry, my dear,” she said, over the cup of tea she had made for me, late as it was. “I didn’t know. Was that the letter from France that you’d been expecting?”

  “Yes. It was waiting for me in Aldshot. Thank you for forwarding it.”

  “I wondered that it might be bad news,” she said, nodding, “coming all the way from France.” It sounded as if France was as far away as China, and I smiled.

  “That’s better,” she applauded. “You have such a lovely smile, my dear.”

  “Is there any other mail for me?”

  There was, a letter from Cousin Bruce and a parcel with no return address.

  “Go on, open them,” she urged. “I don’t mind, I’ll just take the tea things through to the kitchen.”

  Left alone in Mrs. Hennessey’s small dining room I opened the parcel first, thinking it might have been forwarded from Cornwall.

  Inside was a folded copy of the Times. As I drew it out, a slip of paper fluttered to the carpet, landing at my feet. I retrieved it and read the message.

  We kept your name out of it, but we have in custody a ring of thieves, our receiver of stolen goods, and our murderer—the man you identified. We are very grateful.

  It was signed by Inspector Morgan. I unfolded the newspaper and saw the headlines in bold black letters.

  SCOTLAND YARD: ARREST OF MURDERER AND BAND OF RUTHLESS THIEVES

  That was good news. I was glad I’d taken the time to go to the Yard.

  Setting the newspaper aside to read later, I turned to Bruce’s letter.

  It had been written two weeks before. Bruce was much improved and had been given leave to travel to Scotland. He had graduated to two canes and hoped to need only one before very long. He had wanted to see me, if I was in London when he came through to make his connection. But he expected I would be back in France by that time.