“I was adopted as a baby,” he said. “I remember only my adoptive parents. They were forty-five when they took me in; I was the child they’d never been able to have. By the time I went to war . . .” He shrugged. “My mother was already sick when I enlisted. She died a few months later. My father died eight months after she did. Of grief, I think, and the pressure of running the farm alone, and of reading the casualty lists, worrying about me. They were all I had.”
I bit my lip, listening.
“I thought we’d die at La Bassée,” he said. “I was sure of it. I thought my plan had no chance of succeeding, none whatsoever. Everyone else was already dead. I’d been watching men die for two years, men I knew, men I liked. We kept going, and we thought we were in for it, but we didn’t die. And when it was over, we were sent to the back of the line, out of the fighting.”
The memory in full motion now, he dropped his hand from his forehead. I was silent, hanging on every word.
“Most of the men were sent to a casualty clearing station,” he said. “We were exhausted and starving. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had water. All I wanted was to lie down, but I was separated from the others and put in the back of a truck. We drove into the countryside and a motorcar met us, and I was put in that and driven some more. The shells were lighting up the sky; we could hear them like constant thunder. Finally I was taken to a house. The family was long gone, of course, and it was a headquarters now. They took me into this pretty house in the country as the shelling continued and there sat a group of men around a dining table, loaded with food, a roast of beef and bread and cheese and bottles of wine. They were all decorated. They said their names but I didn’t absorb a thing. I sat down and I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours, and they were lighting candles at their table as if everyone wasn’t dying a few miles away. I sat there, stunned.
“A man with a big, white mustache, the one with the highest rank, began talking to me. He told me he’d heard what I’d done at La Bassée, and that I’d done well. I was going to get a Victoria Cross. I was distracted by the man sitting next to him, who wore a plain coat and a civilian hat. He was the only nonenlisted man in the room, and he was writing in a notebook as the other man talked. I realized the white-mustached man was telling me I was going to be sent home, that the newspapers and newsreels would want to hear about this glorious day, and I was being sent home to tell everyone about it.
“As I said, I hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Everything felt to me like a crazy dream. He said I was going home, and the first thing out of my mouth was, ‘But, sir, I haven’t had a chance to die yet.’”
The corner of Jack’s mouth turned up. “My words just hung there. The man’s face was like a waxwork. He’d been raising his glass to drink from it and it just stopped in midair. Then he turned to the civilian and said, ‘Don’t write that down.’
“I knew then. The civilian was a reporter. The entire scene—the supper, the candles, all of it—was for his benefit. The touching scene of the weary soldier being told he’s done well and can go home. It was as real as a stage play. Everything wrong with my life started in that moment.”
The last of the sun had gone and Jack was hard to see now, but it didn’t matter. I’d never thought of it before, that he’d lived a life that had been watched, assessed, recorded. I’d never wondered what it would be like to have my own likeness drawn on the front page of the Times. I’d just followed along with everyone else. I, who prided myself on being difficult to fool.
“What really happened, Jack?” I said now. “What is the truth?”
“The truth,” he answered, “is why I wanted to stop thinking. Why I wanted to stop everything.”
The French door opened, and the moment broke. Matron’s voice said, “Nurse Weekes,” her tone like the rap of gunfire. From behind her two voices were rising in argument over the chessboard, and there was still work to be done before curfew. Jack stepped past me, because the patient must always proceed first, followed by the nurse, who must lock the door behind her. He paused in surprise when I grasped his wrist, still in the dark out of sight of Matron, my hand hot on his skin, and pressed Maisey Ravell’s letter into his palm. But he stopped only for a second, then pulled away and walked obediently back toward the light.
I didn’t know why I had done it. It was the wrong thing, the thing that would not help him get any better.
I’ve either started something, I thought, or I’ve finished it. Then I followed him back through the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
That night, I had changed into my nightgown and was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing my sore feet while Martha brushed out her hair and Nina fastened her stockings for night shift.
“What dress will you wear?” Martha asked Nina. “For the wedding?”
Nina clasped a garter to a stocking and shrugged. “My mother’s, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, she’ll have to dig it up, won’t she? It’s in the attic somewhere. The moths may have eaten it to pieces.”
“What color is it?”
“Lavender.”
“Oh, that will look well on you.” I could not imagine lavender looking well on Nina, but I rubbed my feet and said nothing. Martha went on. “What does it look like?”
Nina threw the hems of her skirts down over her substantial legs. “Like a dress, I suppose.”
“Nina, you are the worst! What of the sleeves, the hem? Does it have lace?”
“There’s lace at the throat, I suppose. I’ve only ever seen it in my mother’s photograph, so what do I know about the hem? Who cares about hems, anyway?”
“I do! You know it’s how I live, through picturing your wedding. I don’t think I’ll ever have one of my own. I’ll be at Portis House forever.”
She said this with such infallible good cheer, the same cheer with which she scrubbed bedsteads and mopped tiles, that I couldn’t help but look at her curiously. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Doesn’t what bother me?”
“Being stuck here. So far from home. From anywhere. In this place.”
She had finished brushing her hair, and she set the brush on her nightstand. In the light of the bedside lamp, the marks of tiredness and hard work faded from her face. Her dark blond hair had been carelessly tossed over one shoulder. “It isn’t so bad here,” she said, “especially in summer. This is a good job.”
Don’t you see the ghosts? I wanted to ask. Don’t you hear the nightmares? But Jack had said the nurses and the orderlies never saw or heard things. Only the men, who were mad in the first place. To try to convince these two of what I had seen seemed pointless—an attempt to make them as frightened as I was.
“Besides,” said Martha, “you said yourself that you don’t have a beau.”
“No. I most definitely don’t.”
“Well, some of us are just destined to be lifelong nurses, that’s all. It isn’t easy to be a married nurse, you know.” She lifted her chin. “We’re dedicated to our calling. Like Boney.”
“Or Matron,” Nina said.
“No,” Martha replied. “Matron was married.”
“What?” I shot back up in bed.
Martha’s eyes widened as she saw our expressions. “Boney told me. She really isn’t so bad, you know, if you give her a chance. Anyway, Boney said Matron used to be married, and she even had a son. But he died—Boney wouldn’t say what happened, but I think it was very sad—and her husband either went away or died. I don’t know which.”
We all digested this for a long moment. Matron, mannish Matron, had had a son?
“Well.” Nina’s voice was gruff. “She’s a career nurse now—that’s for certain.”
“Like us,” said Martha.
I sighed and swung my legs up on the bed, lying down. “That’s very flattering, Ma
rtha, but I’m sorry to say I’m not going to be a lifelong nurse.” And I was sorry, now that the words came out. It was nice to have at least one person’s good opinion. “I already have incident reports against me, and the chances are Mr. Deighton is going to sack me when he reads them.”
Martha gasped, and even Nina stopped and stared at me. “I’ve never had an incident report,” Martha said.
“You’ll get us all in trouble,” complained Nina.
“You won’t have to worry about it after I’m gone.” I lay back down and put my arms behind my head, pretending that raw, naked fear wasn’t eating at me as I said it. “Perhaps as my last act at Portis House I’ll ask Boney how she gets her hair so yellow.”
Martha giggled guiltily, but Nina said, “It’s natural.”
“It never is!” said Martha.
“If that color’s natural,” I said, “I’ll eat my cap.”
“It’s true,” said Nina as Martha got into bed and turned her lamp down. “Where would she get hair dye in a place like this? Besides, her mother came to visit once and her hair was exactly the same.”
Martha was laughing through her nose. “Kitty, you have to eat your cap.”
“Shut up,” I said, throwing my hairbrush at her, though she parried it easily. “You eat yours if you’re so convinced.”
“Don’t leave like the others,” said Martha. “I like you.”
“More fool you, then,” I told her, blushing in the dark. “Go to sleep.”
• • •
I found the clearing just past the trees, as Maisey had described. At some point, perhaps, the lady of the house had set it up as a pretty garden spot: Two wrought-iron benches were arranged at right angles to each other, looking off toward the marshes and the sea, as if guests would come out here for tea. But the lady and her guests would have had to make their sweaty way over the uneven ground, covered in clumps of grass and overgrown weeds, as no path had ever been built. The place looked disused, abandoned and left to rot.
I arrived only a few minutes past two o’clock, having successfully strong-armed Matron into giving me an hour off as Maisey had suggested. I pulled off my cap and apron as I walked, liking the feeling of shedding them even for a few moments.
A red-haired young woman sat on one of the benches, wearing a smart tweed jacket and matching skirt. Her hair was pinned up in effortless style, her gloved hands in her lap, but the ladylike impression was ruined by the wisps of red hair that escaped to frame her cheeks, the hat that sat crumpled and forgotten on the bench next to her, and the mud-splattered bicycle that had been propped carelessly against a nearby tree. She rubbed a gloved finger nervously up and down the bridge of her nose and jumped to her feet when she saw me coming.
“Oh, hullo,” she said. “You must be Kitty, then.”
I nodded and took her outstretched hand. She froze when I came closer. She stared at the marks on my neck. I nearly flinched, but I held myself still.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s happened to you.”
“I’m fine.” I looked around the clearing, which was overgrown with weeds. “I’ve never been here before,” I said.
“Hideous, isn’t it?” She recovered herself and smiled at me. One of her front teeth was crooked, just enough to make her face look charming and off-kilter. “It was one of Mrs. Gersbach’s projects. She thought she’d have garden parties. But the wind comes in terribly off the marshes, and there’s no view to speak of, so she abandoned the idea.”
I blinked. “You knew the Gersbachs.”
“Oh, yes. I came here scores of times. We’re getting a bit ahead of things, though I do want to tell you all about it. I want to tell you everything.”
She was keyed up, excited. Her fair complexion, so easily aggravated, was flushed. I looked past her shoulder again at the bicycle behind her. “Did you ride that here?”
“Oh, that?” She glanced at it as if she’d forgotten. “Yes, of course. You can ride one over the bridge if it isn’t too windy, though it’s jolly hard on the legs.”
I stared at it. I’d never ridden one. We didn’t have much use for them in London, where you walked, or took the tube when you could afford it, and anyone trying to ride a bicycle through the crowded streets would be taking his life in his hands. “Do you ride it in skirts?”
Maisey shrugged. She really had ridden in skirts, I realized—she must have hiked her hem up over her calves to do it. I looked her over again. She was careless but not slatternly, sporty with her sun-red nose and windblown hair. I would never have ruined such an expensive suit by bicycling across a bridge in it, but her thoughtlessness suggested she had a closet full of even nicer clothes.
We sat on the benches, and I riffled in my pockets before I could forget. “Here,” I said, holding out the locket.
“Right.” She took it from me, rubbed her thumb affectionately over it, and dropped it in her pocket. “Anna Gersbach gave it to me, you know. You can keep the boots.”
I flushed. “I told you in my letter I’d pay you for them out of my salary. And the book is just a loan, until I’m done reading it.”
She shrugged again. “It’s nothing to me. Really. I can’t believe they fit you so well. I never liked them much, which is probably why I left them. They’re better on you.”
I swallowed. The boots had been a godsend; I’d no idea how I would have coped in my flimsy shoes. But I hated to appear a charity case. “I’ll pay you for them.”
“All right, then.” She leaned back on the bench, smiled at me again. “How are things at Portis House? You get along with Boney all right?” At my expression she laughed, an easy sound. “I can just imagine. The fireworks with an uptight girl like her.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You knew the Gersbachs, but you also worked as a nurse here. I don’t understand how the two are connected.”
The laugh faded, and something serious flitted across her expression, something that looked quite a bit like worry. “No, I suppose you don’t. I’ll start at the beginning. It’s what I came for.” But just then her gaze rose to look at something behind me. “Oh,” she said.
I turned. Jack Yates came toward us through the trees.
“Nurse Ravell, is it?” he said. “Good afternoon.”
“Oh,” she said again, speechless with surprise. “Mr. Yates.”
Belatedly, I remembered that she’d never had clearance. She probably recognized him from the newspapers, just as I had. “Maisey, this is Mr. Jack Yates. Patient Sixteen.”
Her mouth opened, closed again. The nonchalance, the easy superiority of a girl with a bit of money, had vanished. “I had heard—that is, there were rumors. But I never met—”
He was shaved and combed again, his sleeves rolled up as was his usual custom. His face was set in serious lines, and he nodded politely at Maisey. “A pleasure.”
I turned to him. “What are you doing here?”
Jack didn’t have what the girls I knew called movie star looks; the men I’d seen in pictures, with big, long-lashed eyes and sensual lips, looked nothing like him. His was a leaner face, as perfectly proportioned as a mathematical equation, the blue eyes striking and smart. A face that had been places, seen things, thought things, lived a life. And, I assumed, attracted a number of girls.
“You invited me,” he replied. “Remember?”
“Yes, but—how did you get away without Matron seeing? Or the orderlies?”
He didn’t take a seat on one of the benches but sat directly in the grass, his knees pulled up. “It’s after luncheon. We’re allowed to take the air. I’m supposed to exercise at the proper time of day.”
An uncomfortable prickle of warning rose on the back of my neck. Taking exercise meant wandering in the gardens or the near grounds, not coming all the way out here past the trees. Didn’t it? If someone saw him coming here unsupervised, wouldn’t the
y follow and bring him back? What if they noticed he was missing? Would an alarm go up?
I remembered Matron’s assurance that no man had ever escaped Portis House, as there was no means to get very far. And then I remembered Maisey’s bicycle.
I tried not to glance over at it. If Jack wanted to, he could get up and take it. He was strong enough. And then he’d be gone, and whose fault would that be?
He will say anything he can to gain your sympathy, and get himself a better chance of escaping Portis House.
Maisey had gone nearly green, likely thinking the same thing. She had less to lose than I did, but being instrumental in the escape of a mental patient, especially a high-profile one like Jack Yates, wouldn’t be good for her, either. As far as Maisey was concerned, she wasn’t even supposed to know he was here. Still, she swallowed gamely and said, “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
“I take it the bruises have healed?” he said.
She shrugged, her eyes shadowed, and glanced at my neck again. “You heard about that, I suppose.”
“I did,” he said, gently. “Archie didn’t mean it, you know.”
“Maisey,” I said, “you can say anything in front of Mr. Yates. You have my word. Please start at the beginning.”
She gave me one last uncertain look, then shrugged. “All right.” She brushed some wisps of red hair from her face, tried hopelessly to tuck them up, and began. “Anna Gersbach—that’s the Gersbach daughter—and I are the same age. My papa is a magistrate in these parts and my uncle is a barrister in London—he met the prime minister at two separate suppers—so it was decided that I was an acceptable companion for Anna. The Gersbachs were so wealthy, but they were, you know, not English. It was hard to find someone equal enough.”
“Go on,” I said.
“It was a bit awkward at first, because Anna’s English wasn’t perfect, but she improved, and after a while we were friends. Wonderful friends. Like sisters, really.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth for a moment, then continued. “She was a sweet girl, and lonely. They’d moved here when she was a child, so she had no one. Her father wanted to live on a big English country estate, so he picked them up and moved them here. I don’t think they had anyone back home, either. They seemed . . . isolated, as if they lived in their own world. It was just Anna, her brother, Mikael, and their parents. I was Anna’s only friend.
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