“No, sir. I was just curious.” He continued to regard her oddly, making her scramble to come up with a convincing explanation. “You see, while I was in London, I was telling the story about my afternoon filling in with the blood transfusion service, and it got me wondering about the science of it. That’s all.”
He smiled. “Well, not to sound selfish, but I’m glad you’re not planning on leaving us just yet. Now that Kinsale is gone, we’ve few staff with extensive experience.”
“There’s always Sister Murphy, sir.” Anna rose to leave.
He shuddered. “By the way, did you and Lady Boxley ever come to a détente?”
“I think so, sir. For now.”
“I’m happy for you. She’s a hard woman, but in times like these, we must cling to family with both hands. You never know, do you?”
But Anna knew. She knew everything. Now she just had to decide what to do with the information.
Chapter 28
November 1916
“Kitty?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I continued to paint, throwing color on the canvas, shade after shade, layer after layer, until the canvas dripped with thickly spattered gobs of cadmium red and crimson, vermilion, carmine and rose adder. My smock was covered, my face and hair speckled while my hands were sodden up to my wrists.
“Kitty? Please come away. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
I knew Jane and Agnes stood in the doorway. I could feel their concern, could picture them sharing worried glances as they pleaded with me. I slapped a gob of earthy brown sienna that cut across the brighter shades like a bayonet slash, an open wound.
Was this what it felt like to go mad with grief? I’d heard the phrase before; who hadn’t in these last few years of annihilation, but I’d always assumed the women who tore their hair and slashed their wrists in their agony were a weak, overly dramatic bunch given to hysteria simply to gain attention for themselves. Now I began to understand the truth. This had nothing to do with anyone else. This was a storm within that could not be contained no matter the humiliation. One had to simply give in to this howling, wild, insatiable fury. It could not be stopped, merely aimed.
My only release came with sleep, and so I spent hours in my bed, curled beneath the blankets with my face buried in one of Simon’s old shirts. I tried to forget for those long hours, tried to pretend all was as it had been before the war, before I knew the truth.
But solace was not so easy to find, even in oblivion. In my dreams, we lay entwined, his lean strength cushioned between my legs. He would laugh away my sorrows and explain his betrayal. Their marriage had been a loveless contract wrought from duty and convenience, which neither had been sorry to set aside in order to pursue independent lives. He anticipated a life dedicated to his art in London. She happily pursued her charitable works in Lincoln. All was easy until we met and fell in love, then he’d been forced to make a choice: tell the truth or live a lie.
My dream always ended with his tears scalding my breasts as he asked what choice I would have made had the decision been mine. I would wake before I could answer him, cold and cramped and nauseated as our growing child spun within my belly, but with the question ringing in my ears as if he had only just now whispered it.
I grabbed up a handful of bright canary yellow, smearing it in long, thin, snaking streaks like tears. I looked at my paint-covered hands, fisting them so the paint oozed out the sides to fall to the floor in large, ugly, wet plops.
“Kitty! Stop it now!”
The voice froze me in place, still feeling the cold, glutinous colors slick between my fingers. I turned to see Doris, her familiar features haggard now and pale with losses of her own. She took off her hat and coat, as if coming into my flat was a daily occurrence, though we’d not seen each other in years. “Agnes, fix a pot of tea. Jane, run down to the grocers and purchase bread, cheese, and a good thick slice of ham if they have one.”
The two jumped to her bidding as Doris eyed me as a mother might a child she despaired of. “Look at you. You’re an absolute mess. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She guided me to the lavatory at the end of the landing. Plunged my hands under the faucet. The water was icy cold. My fingers ached. The bowl of the sink turned red and pink as Doris scrubbed me clean, the paint swirling toward the drain. I closed my eyes, sickened at the bloody, frothy mess. “I was sorry to hear about your husband.”
She had married a rabble-rousing socialist, a writer for a trade-unionist paper. The marriage had lasted barely six months before he’d been killed; one among thousands pounded into dust along the Somme in July. She waved off my sympathy. “I’m sorry, too, but it won’t bring him back or keep bread on my table, will it?”
She guided me back into the tiny cramped rooms I’d taken in Fitzrovia when I could no longer pay the rent on the more spacious flat in Ralston Street. Pushing aside the pile of letters strewn across my wobbly dining table, she sat me down with a cup of tea and began to rummage efficiently through cupboards for the makings of breakfast.
Soon enough, I was eating a soft-boiled egg with toast and a bowl of porridge. I found myself surprisingly ravenous and ate every morsel, sopping up the last of the yolk with my bread in a manner that would have horrified my mother’s idea of good manners.
“When was the last time you had a proper meal? Or a proper rest?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. When I dreamt it was of Simon. And food had lost its flavor, my stomach constantly uneasy so that anything that went in soon came up again.
Her gaze fell on the letters, the handwriting growing increasingly messy and hard to decipher, as if the writer was losing patience with each unanswered missive.
. . . never know how sorry I am . . .
. . . loved you beyond measure . . .
. . . for God’s sake, please write and say you forgive me . . .
“It’s been three months since you found out about his wife. From the look of this mess, he must have written you every day. Did you ever answer him?”
“What was there to say? Nothing would have changed.” I picked at the edge of the table where the veneer pulled away. Paint remained under my nails and in the creases of each knuckle.
“Yet you kept them, Kitty,” she said quietly, forcing me to meet her gaze. “All of them.”
“I won’t receive any more.” I went to the desk scattered with unpaid bills and returned with a single bloodstained envelope, which I handed to Doris. “This came two days ago.”
She pulled free the nearly ruined pages, bringing with them a thin gold chain and locket that fell onto the tabletop.
“One of Simon’s friends found the letter among his things after he . . . he died in hospital,” I explained, my eyes unable to pull free of the dull glint of cheap metal worn smooth by the dirt and sweat from his chest where it had lain against his heart. “He sent it on to me with a note enclosed. It was a belly wound. It took Simon two days to die. At least he wasn’t alone. It’s little enough comfort, but it’s all I have.”
Doris read the pages slowly before laying them aside. “He loved you very much.”
I couldn’t help but recall our last night together and his almost tearful declarations, the ferocity in which he sought to convince me of his undying passion. Had that been as false as all the rest, or was that the truth amid all the other lies? Was love enough to justify deception?
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Doris. I just want to put it—and him—out of my mind.”
“You can’t just push the last years aside like they didn’t happen.”
“I have to try or I’ll go mad. Simon wasn’t ever mine, not really. No matter how many letters he wrote to me. He belonged to her.”
“Will you give up the baby?”
My hands caressed my stomach where the flutterings of tiny limbs rippled like waves. “No,” I answered, almost daring Doris to argue. “Whatever happens, this baby belongs to me.”
“Right, easy
enough to manage with so many widows these days. None will ever question it.”
My head came up sharply. “I won’t lie.”
“Simon’s gone, Kitty. You have to think of yourself . . . and the baby that’s coming. Do you want the neighbors to whisper? It’s not hurting anyone. Who’s to know?”
“I’ll know.” I pushed my tea away. “Lies started this. I won’t . . . I can’t . . . keep pretending.”
“It’ll be harder.”
I took up the locket, unclasping it to reveal the photos. On the left was the stiff, sour-faced picture of myself taken over a year ago. But on the right had been added a grainy shot of Simon in his uniform. He looked tired but stoic. His hair was shorter and his face thinner, but I smiled through my watering eyes at the familiar slash of dark brows and the long, knifing cheekbones beneath a shadow of beard.
“Perhaps, but not nearly as hard as this.”
I snapped the locket closed, running my thumb over the inscription he’d added before he placed it in the envelope to be sent home to me: Forgive my love.
There was nothing to forgive. And, God help me, but despite it all, I loved him still.
Chapter 29
October 1941
A few days later Tony and Anna sat side by side on the grass in the shadow of the ruins. It was almost nine at night, but double summertime meant light still lingered in the west, throwing a satin sheen across the sea.
“Now that you know the truth, will you seek out your father’s family?”
“Even if they had any idea I existed, do you think his wife would care to make the acquaintance of her husband’s bastard child?”
“What of his parents? He might have brothers and sisters. You could have a whole basket of relations you never knew.”
She plucked a stem of heather, twirling it between her fingers before crushing the small purple petals to release the woodsy aroma. “I don’t know. I’ve spent my whole life never even knowing his name. He was always just a shadowy idea, never real. Not in the sense of family and houses and a place you can go on a train to visit. And now that I know what he did, the hurt he caused”—Anna tossed away the broken stem—“I just don’t know.”
Wind moved over the grass, and she pulled her cardigan onto her shoulders. The temperature had dropped with the setting of the sun, the night growing cool with the changing of the season.
Tony sipped from the beer they shared between them. “Hard to believe it was Hugh that kept you from tossing away the locket.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. He hides more behind that devil-may-care smile than you’d think.”
“I’ve known that for years. Smartest chap in school without cracking a book. We’d have hated him if he wasn’t so damnably pleasant. I just didn’t know he’d finally decided to stop playing the jester. It’s past time.”
“Perhaps events have forced him to sober up.”
“What sort of events?”
Anna shrugged, her gaze drawn to the first glimmer of stars showing through a haze of clouds.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Tony commented. “Penny for your thoughts?”
She let out a breath as she made her decision. “Right. I didn’t know whether to show you, but I need to speak to someone. Maybe you can help me decide what to do.” She pulled the photos from her pocket and handed them to Tony. “I found these in Lady Boxley’s room.”
“This was taken here.” Tony studied the first photo in the fading light. “Who is he? He looks familiar.”
“His name is Eddie. I don’t know his last name.”
“So Lady Boxley holds a tendre for a long-lost love, so what?” He handed Anna back the photos, casting her a doubtful look. “I thought you were here to find out about your past, not Hugh’s.”
“I am, but the longer I’m here, the more things don’t make sense.” Anna sat up, tucking her legs beneath her. For some reason, the space between them seemed to yawn wider than the inches would indicate. “Why was Lady Boxley so afraid of me coming here in the first place? She practically warned me away from Nanreath Hall and Hugh in particular. And then there’s the portrait in the gallery of Lord Boxley.”
“What of it?”
“It doesn’t look a bit like Hugh. He’s auburn-haired, Hugh’s blond.”
“Lady Boxley is blond.”
“So is the mysterious Eddie. And maybe he looks familiar because he looks like Hugh. Then there’s this.” She handed him the folder.
“What am I looking at?” Tony asked.
“It’s Lord Boxley’s wartime medical report. I had Ginny Willits retrieve it at the same time she searched for my father’s.”
“So you already had your suspicions.”
“But this proves them.”
“Does it?”
She felt his sharp response like a slap to the cheek. Not that she hadn’t expected him to play devil’s advocate, but his forcefulness caught her off guard.
“Look,” she hammered, pointing out the bits she’d underlined in black pen. “Lord Boxley was wounded at Neuve Chappelle. He was treated at a battalion aid station and returned to his unit, but while he was there his blood was tested for possible transfusion use. He was Type O.”
“So?”
“Lady Boxley is Type O, as well. But Hugh is Type A. That can’t happen—unless Lord Boxley is not Hugh’s father.”
“I suppose you think this chap Eddie is?”
For some reason, his defense of Hugh felt like an attack on her. She carried on, but her earlier enjoyment of the evening had evaporated, the atmosphere between them now as chill as the weather.
“It all makes sense. Lady Boxley has a fling and finds herself pregnant. Easy enough to pass off the child as her husband’s. Then he’s gassed in the war and dies soon after. She’s a widow with no ties to Nanreath Hall or the title but for Hugh, the supposed heir. It fits. You have to see that.” Her voice rose. She took a breath and tried to relax.
Tony looked out on the ocean for a moment, as if pulling his thoughts together before speaking. He made a small dismissive gesture with his shoulders before turning back to her. “All right, say this is all true and Hugh’s illegitimate. There’s nothing anyone can do about it now. Hugh’s been Lord Melcombe since he was thirteen. No going back even if he wanted to hand the whole thing over and become a hermit in Tahiti. He’s stuck with the whole bally lot.”
“That’s just the point. Hugh’s trapped. Trapped by this house, by his mother’s expectations, by history and family. If I tell him . . .”
“If you tell him? You mean you want to show him this? And then what? Have you even thought that far ahead?”
“I’m sorry I asked your advice.”
“You didn’t ask my advice. You sought my approval.”
Stung, Anna got to her feet. The shadow of the ruined tower stairs cut across the grass, and wind purred through the crumbled mortar. She had allowed Tony to bring her to the cliff ruins, but it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t the same. With Russia’s slow capitulation, the war drew dangerously close again. How long before Tony’s luck ran out? Perhaps their quarrel was a sign that she needed to end it before she fell too hard and lost too much.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish, Anna,” Tony said quietly. “I wonder if you do.”
“You can’t possibly understand. You have a big family, women hanging after you, wealth and position.” Questions ate away at her composure. She could feel her voice rising with her temper. “You’ve never felt trapped or alone or wondered where you fit. You’ve never had a care in the world.”
“Is that what you think?” He rose and dusted himself off, his own voice growing tight. “That I’m just some ruddy playboy looking for the next notch in my belt?”
Anna couldn’t face the hurt in his eyes. She turned away. “That’s what happens, isn’t it? War changes everything. It makes us behave as if there’s no repercussions, no tomorrows. We never stop to think how our careless flings will impact tho
se who follow after us.”
“I thought we were talking about Hugh.”
“We are.”
“I don’t think so. I think this all comes back to you and your fear of reliving Lady Katherine’s mistakes.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Your mother followed her heart. So it didn’t work out. That doesn’t mean it won’t for you.” He stepped toward her. Paused when she stepped back. He stood, hands in his pockets, the wind teasing his black hair, his face lost in the ruins’ shadow. “You can’t let fear rule your life, Anna.”
She looked up at the stark tumbled stones jutting against the darkening sky. “You don’t know what I fear, Tony. No one does.”
“I think you’ve spent the past year afraid of everything.” He didn’t say it, but the word rose like a specter in the dark—Dunkirk. “I know what you’re feeling, Anna. I was there.”
Her breath iced in her lungs. She froze, unable to breathe or move. Then ice was replaced by fire, and she felt a rage boiling up from a churning pit in her stomach. Unexpected and uncontrollable. It was no longer about holding Tony at arm’s length. It was about making him hurt as she had been hurt. “Were you? Really? Funny, because I never saw you. I never saw any of the RAF flyboys who were supposed to be protecting our retreat. The only planes I saw belonged to the Jerries as they strafed our ambulance convoys, shot up refugees, and dropped bombs on the boats sent to bring us home.”
By now the memories strangled her thoughts. Even as some small part of her knew she was being irrational, she hurled her fury at him, enjoying the look of wounded confusion in his eyes. “Damn you all, you left us to die.”
She fled the cliffs as she had not been able to flee the disaster at Dunkirk, praying she might leave the horrors behind. She glanced back only once. Tony stood in the graying twilight, a black silhouette against the crumbling tower brooding above him.
He had it all wrong. She didn’t fear she would make her mother’s mistakes.
She feared she already had.
Captain Matthews was right. The wireless and newspapers were full of the worsening news from the Russian front. Every update seemed to bring new casualty numbers and reports of more ground lost to the panzer divisions racing for Moscow—Odessa, Kharkov, Sevastopol. The hospital was alive with speculation over how soon Stalin would capitulate to Hitler and what that might mean for the beleaguered British.
Secrets of Nanreath Hall Page 30