Angels in the Gloom

by Anne Perry

  Her temper snapped. All the loneliness, tension, and fear, the sense of exclusion tumbled out of the tight repression in which she had kept it.

  “No, you don’t!” she said savagely. “You don’t understand the waiting, the being shut out. You don’t understand having to pretend it doesn’t hurt all the time so you protect your children. You don’t understand being a family for a few days, and then being on your own, then having a family again, and then wondering if it’s for the last time. When it goes one way or the other, you can begin to recover from it, but this never lets you get used to anything!” She drew in a shivering breath, still glaring at him. “I hate all the changes! I don’t want women bank managers, women police, women taxi drivers, and I don’t want to be able to vote for members of Parliament. I want to do what women have always done, be a wife to my husband and a mother to my children! I hate uncertainty, anger, fighting, destroying everything we used to value.”

  “I know.” His face was bleak and very pale. “I don’t like it much myself. I think a lot of people who make the best of it do so because they have no choice. You can be dragged into the future, kicking like a child, or you can walk in upright and with some dignity. That’s almost all the choice you’ve got.”

  “You sound pompous, Joseph. This is just about Ben Morven being a little in love with me,” she responded. She knew Joseph despised pomposity. She ached for the warmth and the brightness of being cared for, that softness in Ben Morven’s eyes when he looked at her. It gave her hope that even if Archie were killed, there was still someone who could love her. She had put words to it at last—if Archie were killed. It was like a miniature death just to think it.

  Joseph leaned back a little against the kitchen table, easing the weight from his damaged leg. “Is that how you would explain it to Tom?” he asked.

  “That is horribly unfair! Tom is fourteen!” she protested. “He has no idea. . . .” She stopped. Joseph was standing there with his eyes wide, his dark eyebrows raised a little. She felt her face burn.

  “Really?” he asked with surprise.

  She turned around and marched out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

  Jenny was standing in the hall, her face solemn. “Are you cross with Uncle Joseph?” she asked seriously. “Because he has to go back to the war again and leave us?”

  Hannah was taken aback. “No. No of course not. . . .”

  “We’ll look after you, Mummy. I’ll help more. I won’t make a mess in my room. And I’ll make my bed.”

  Hannah wanted to weep, and hug Jenny so hard she might even hurt her. The passion inside her was too much, but she must control herself, or she could frighten Jenny. She was a child. She would not be afraid so long as Hannah herself was not. It all depended upon her. That was the trouble, it was always the trouble, and Joseph did not understand.

  “You help a lot already,” she said, making herself smile. “I was just upset because of something that happened in the village. Uncle Joseph was telling me I did the wrong thing, and I was cross with him because I don’t like to be told I’m wrong, especially when I am. And Uncle Joseph isn’t going back to the war for a long time yet, maybe not at all. He isn’t well enough.”

  “Is he going to get well? Margaret’s daddy isn’t going to get well. She says he was gassed, and he’ll always be sick.”

  She touched Jenny’s hair, pushing it out of her eyes automatically. It was too soft to stay in grips.

  “That’s terrible. But it isn’t what happened to Uncle Joseph. He will get well, just not for a while yet. Perhaps you could help out by making him a cup of tea. Let him put the kettle on, and you get out the pot for him. I need to go out quickly, just for a little while.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  “Yes, of course I am! Tell Uncle Joseph I’ve gone to put it right.”

  “What right?”

  “He’ll know.”

  It was an extraordinarily difficult thing to do because she knew she had been guilty of deceit, both of Ben and of herself. Several times she hesitated, actually stopping on the footpath, wondering if she was ridiculous to seek him out at the tearoom where she knew he would be having an early lunch, perhaps not even alone. Was she making more out of a glance than he had ever meant? Would she end up embarrassing herself even more? It would be far easier simply to let it go until the next time they happened to meet.

  That would probably be at church tomorrow, and that was the last place to have the sort of conversation she needed to. How could she be brief, honest, and retain some dignity for both of them? She should leave it until the opportunity arose by itself. Which could be a week from now!

  She reached the tearoom and stopped outside. The sun was winking on mullioned windows and there was a black and white cat basking on the sill inside. She could go in and buy something for Joseph, and still change her mind. A chocolate cake to have with dinner?

  She pushed the door open. It was noisy, cheerful. Half a dozen couples were there already eating sandwiches and talking. She saw Ben at a table with another man, a few years older, perhaps in his middle thirties. That was the perfect excuse to avoid the whole issue. She could not possibly raise the issue in front of his friend.

  She walked to the counter and smiled at Mrs. Bateman. She had known her for as long as she could remember.

  “Afternoon, Miss Hannah,” she said cheerfully. “Chocolate cake, is it, for Mr. Joseph?” Without waiting for a reply she disappeared to go to the kitchen, leaving Hannah alone at the counter.

  The next moment Ben was behind her. “Are you all right?” he said gently. “You look . . .” He could not find a tactful word.

  “Flustered,” she supplied for him, meeting his eyes, then wishing she had not. The warmth was still there, all the possibilities she was willing and afraid to see. Now was the moment. “I am,” she answered. “I realized that I behaved rather badly an hour ago when poor Mrs. Oundle lost her chops.”

  He grinned broadly. “So did I! I haven’t seen anything so funny in months, and I needed to laugh. Do you think we should apologize to her? Or would that only make it worse? There are some things you need to pretend didn’t happen, or at least that you didn’t see.”

  “Since we doubled up and howled with laughter, I don’t think that’s going to work,” she answered. “But actually that wasn’t what I meant.”

  He looked puzzled.

  She hurried on before he could say something that would make it impossible for her. How on earth could she do this without sounding awkward, humorless, and incredibly arrogant? The only recourse was to be honest. She looked at him steadily, seeing in his face both the intelligence and the capacity for pain. “I’ve been behaving as if I were not married, and I am,” she said quietly. “I’m very married, and I love my husband. I just miss him a great deal when he’s away, and I’ve forgotten how to behave properly. I owe you an apology for that, and I am sorry.”

  The color bleached from his skin, leaving the freckles standing out. “I see.” His voice was husky. “Yes, of course you are . . . married, I mean.”

  She knew she had hurt him, and despised herself for it. How incredibly, contemptibly selfish. Whatever Ben felt for her, it was mild compared with the disgust she felt for herself.

  Mrs. Bateman returned with the large chocolate cake. “There y’are, Miss Hannah. You tell Mr. Joseph it’s the best Oi’ve got, an’ it’s on the house.”

  “I can’t do that!” she protested. “I’ll . . .”

  “You’ll take it,” Mrs. Bateman said with a satisfied smile. “If Mr. Joseph won’t accept it from me, then let ’im bring it back an’ say so to me face. He’ll not do it, Oi’ll wager. Whole village thinks the world of ’im, Miss Hannah. You tell him that. Now, Mr. Morven, what can Oi get for you, sir?”

  Joseph accepted the cake. He knew Mrs. Bateman had an excellent kitchen, and it was her pleasure to give away the best now and then. It was her way of marking her respect for certain favorites. It would hurt her to
have refused.

  It was a warm, comfortable evening. Hannah said nothing, but he knew from the direct gaze she gave him, and the very slight, rueful smile that she had faced her problem, and dealt with it.

  But later, alone in his room, he lay awake, conscious of how abrupt he had been with her, and how sure of himself when he had not even considered what might lie ahead for her. What if Archie were one of the thousands who would not come back from the sea?

  She had accused him of being pompous. Was she simply lashing out with the charge she knew would hurt him most? Or was she right? Was he a hollow man, criticizing where he had not walked? How much life and love was there inside him? Was he judging a passion he had forgotten how to feel, a warmth and a hunger he had lost?

  He had been so busy trying to answer other people’s needs that he had stifled his own. And without that ache of life, the vulnerability to hurt, what understanding did he have of any of it? Or of anybody who had the courage to be all they could, to be hollowed out by joy and pain into a vessel big enough to hold all of life?

  Coward was a terrible word, the ugliest known to a soldier—and perhaps if they were honest, anyone at all. He was accustomed to the reality of courage in the trenches, what it cost a man to face misery daily, to see his friends blown apart and so much torn flesh they were barely recognizable as having once been men. And he had seen them do it with dignity and quiet, self-effacing humor.

  What courage had he? The courage to face other people’s wounds, but not to risk sustaining them himself?

  No, that was unfair. He was hurt by their pain. He realized with shock just how much he dreaded going back to Flanders. For over a week now he had avoided even thinking about it. His mind had been filled with the need for him here, among his own people, in the village where he was born, and the incumbent priest was useless.

  He fell asleep still troubled, not liking himself much.

  On Saturday Joseph was invited to dinner with Shanley and Orla Corcoran. Hannah had been invited also, but more as a courtesy than with the belief that she would come. She had a previous commitment to take the children to a party in the village.

  “I have no way to get to you,” Joseph protested.

  “Lizzie Blaine will come for you,” Corcoran replied. “She has a friend to visit a mile or so away from us, and will be happy to do it.”

  So Joseph accepted. He wrapped the pewter goblet carefully, making it as tidy and elegant as he could, and took it with him. He was excited at the thought of Corcoran’s pleasure when he saw it.

  Lizzie arrived at exactly the time she had said, and he got into the car. It was a utilitarian Model T Ford that reminded him sharply of the one Judith had driven with such reckless pleasure before the war. He mentioned it to her as they set off.

  “Your sister?” she said with interest. “Is she the one who drives an ambulance in Flanders now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve thought of that. I should try to do something really useful. Take my mind off myself for a while.” She said it with a small, rueful gesture. “What sort of qualifications would I need?”

  “Are you sure it’s what you want?” he asked, looking sideways at her face, as she stared through the windscreen intent on the road ahead. She was not a pretty woman but there was a kind of individuality and intelligence in her that he liked. Her nose was a little crooked and too long for beauty. Her eyes were very clear blue, in spite of her dark hair. She looked less numb than she had when he first met her, the day of her husband’s death, but she must still be suffering a bitter bereavement. It was simply that the pain had settled deeper and she had managed some fragile mask to hide the surface.

  Was she also feeling passionately betrayed? Was that why she wanted now to go to France and lose herself in the war? That was not a good reason to go. Injured men needed someone who wanted to live, whose mind was free to give wholly to the job of getting them back to hospitals, and help.

  They turned off the village street onto the road toward Madingley. The fields were hazed with green and an old man, shoulders bent, led weary horses along the lane to the Nunns’ farm.

  “You should think about it a little longer,” Joseph advised. “Wait at least until you have had a chance to heal a little from your loss. You are still shocked now.”

  “You think it will get better?” Lizzie said wryly, glancing at him for an instant, then back at the road. “Are all the ambulance drivers in France calm and comfortable inside? None of those girls have lost husbands, brothers, or fiancés?” She swerved around a pothole in the road. “Haven’t you lost people you cared about? Did they send you home?”

  Of course it was preposterous. You cared about the men you were with. No one who had not been there could understand the friendships in the trenches, the sharing of everything: food, body warmth, dreams, letters from home, jokes, terror, secrets you would have told no one else, perhaps even life’s blood. The bond was unique, fierce, and lifelong. There were ways in which no one else would ever be so close, memories that locked you together beyond words.

  He thought of Sam Wetherall, and for a moment a pain of loss engulfed him like a fire burning out everything else. It was as if it had been only yesterday that they had sat in the dugout together and talked about Eldon Prentice, and shared the last of Sam’s chocolate biscuits. He could still smell the Flanders earth, slick, wet clay, and the latrines, and the odor of death that got into everything.

  “No, they don’t send us home,” he answered her. “And sometimes when we’ve lost someone particularly close, or made mistakes, got too tired to think, someone else pays for it. But we don’t deliberately start out too bruised to care.”

  She smiled faintly. “You’re very blunt.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I prefer it that way. That policeman doesn’t seem to have any idea yet who killed Theo, you know.”

  “He will, but it could take time.”

  A weasel ran across the road, sleek and bright. She braked a little, then accelerated again. “You knew him before, didn’t you.” That was more of a statement than a question.

  He was surprised. “Yes. A friend of mine was murdered, just before the war.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

  “Yes, it was. But Perth’s a good man.”

  She was driving with unconscious skill, as if she loved the feel of the control and the power. It sat easily with her; there was no rushing, no arrogance. Her hands were relaxed on the wheel. She would be a good ambulance driver, if she was not too angry and too hurt to give herself to it.

  “I knew he was having an affair with Penny Lucas,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure how. I’m not even sure if it was partly my fault.”

  His mind wheeled around thoughts of Hannah, and Judith, and then other people he had known; love, envy, loneliness, the need to know beyond question that you mattered to someone. Relationships were complicated, full of hungers so intense they overrode all wisdom and understanding of morality and loss.

  He should have been gentler with Hannah. What had crippled his imagination so badly that he had allowed himself to be angry with her? “How could it be your fault?” he asked.

  Lizzie kept her eyes on the road. “I don’t know. Sometimes I wish life could be as it used to, but part of me is excited by the changes, the new possibilities opening up. I’ve always just waited on Theo.” Her face was motionless in the evening sunlight. “He was truly brilliant, you know, perhaps one of the best scientists we’ve ever had. It’s not just me who’s lost him, it’s Britain, maybe the whole world. But in a way now I can be me.” A wobbly smile touched her lips. “I’ve got to. I no longer have him to look after anymore.” She blinked back sudden tears. “What I mean is, perhaps I wasn’t doing it so well anyway.”

  He believed her. She was filled with regret, and her determination was a balance between fear and hope, and a mask for the pain too deep to face.

  Had she loved Theo enough to be p
assionately jealous? He did not want to consider even the possibility. But he had been wrong before. Other people he had cared about, loved, and known far better than he knew her, had had the courage, the violence, and the moment’s unreasoning fire inside them to be blinded to the values of eternity and see only the need of the moment—and kill.

  There was death and bereavement all around them. Casualty lists were posted every day. How easy was it to think of France, only twenty miles across the Channel, and keep sanity untainted here?

  “Wait until Perth has solved it and you’ve had a little time to get your strength and make a firm decision,” he said to her.

  She smiled and took a deep breath, reaching for a handkerchief in her pocket. She was too busy trying to master herself to repeat her thanks.

  They were almost at the Corcorans’ house and they did not speak again until arranging what time she should return to take him home.

  The visit was just what Joseph needed: the warmth of welcome, the familiar rooms with their memories of the past, old pictures, old books, chairs that were long worn into the shape that held his body. The French doors were open to birdsong in the garden, even though the air was growing cooler. There was a comfort about it all that put mistakes in perspective.

  Corcoran was delighted with the goblet. He held it up to let the light play on its satin surface. The beauty of the gift captivated him, but far more than that was the fact that Joseph had chosen it and given it to him. He set it in the middle of the dinner table and his eyes kept going toward it.

  Over dinner with Corcoran’s wife, Orla, they talked of matters other than war and tragedy: timeless ideas and the beauty of poetry, music, and fine art that outlasted the storms of history.

  Afterward, Orla excused herself, and Joseph and Corcoran sat alone in the twilight. At last they turned to the matters of the present.