by Lynn Austin
Eve wanted to forget that her night with Louis had ever happened, but she knew she never would. Because for one night, she had finally felt alive again.
21
Audrey opened her eyes to blinding pain. Her head throbbed. She couldn’t move. Everything around her was white. A hospital? She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, her throat raw. She heard a faint rustle, and then Robert stood over her. “Audrey! I thought I was going to lose you.” His muffled voice sounded far away.
“What happened?” Her throat felt as if she’d swallowed gravel.
Robert offered her a sip of water. “You were injured by a V-1 rocket. You’re in the hospital.”
“I don’t remember. Eve and I were driving . . . I was so tired I couldn’t stay awake . . . then . . . nothing.”
“It happened two days ago. They gave you sedatives to keep you asleep so your brain could heal.”
“Two days? . . . Eve! Where’s Eve?” Panic made it hard to breathe.
“She’s fine. Just cuts and scrapes and a dislocated elbow. She saved your life, Audrey. Your leg was fractured and she stopped the bleeding and drove you here.”
“Where is she? I need to thank her.” Audrey tried to turn her head to look for Eve, then cried out as pain shot through her skull.
“Shh . . . shh . . . Just lie still, my love. . . . Louis took Eve home to Wellingford. She’s supposed to rest for the next few days, too.”
“Hold me, Robert.” He kissed her and lay down on the bed beside her, ignoring the other people in the crowded ward and the scowling nurses. Audrey tried to hug him, but her arms were too weak. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she breathed before everything went dark again.
She awoke to find a doctor bending over her. “Can you hear me, Miss Clarkson?” She nodded. His voice sounded muffled, but she could hear him. “Your recovery is proceeding nicely. I’m very pleased.”
“Where’s Robert? Is Robert here?”
“Lieutenant Barrett is just outside. The nurse will send him in when we’re finished.”
Robert was allowed inside a few minutes later, and the sight of his handsome face was all the medicine she needed.
“Listen, I have good news,” he said after he kissed her. “The paperwork we need in order to get married has gone through. My CO expedited it when he found out what happened to you. We can be married whenever you’re ready.”
His face blurred as Audrey’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s wonderful!”
“But there’s some bad news, too. I’m being deployed to France.”
“Let’s get married before you go, Robert. I don’t want to wait. Life is so short, and it could end for either of us at any moment.”
“Won’t you need time to plan—?”
“No. Let’s ask the vicar to marry us right away. Right here.” She surprised herself. Audrey had always been a planner and a plodder, afraid of change. But her narrow escape from death made her determined to live each day fully from now on. “We’ll ask Louis and Eve to be our witnesses.”
Robert laughed. “Don’t you want a lacy white dress and a flower-filled church? What about notifying your father and your brother?”
“You’re not trying to back out of this wedding, are you?” she asked, smiling.
“God forbid!” He kissed her again. “I just don’t want to rush you.”
“Robert. All I need is you.”
Eve arrived at the hospital later that morning, wearing a worried look and purple bruises and scrapes. “Oh, Audrey,” she said when she saw her. “I was so scared for you. I’m so glad you’re alive!”
“I’m glad too, believe me. They say you saved my life.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
“I owe you, Eve, and I’ll never forget it. Thank you. And now I have a favor to ask. Well, two favors, actually.”
“Anything.”
“Will you contact Rev. Hamlin and ask him to marry Robert and me?” She smiled at the look of surprise on Eve’s face.
“When . . . ? Where . . . ?”
“Right away. Right here in the hospital. . . . And the second question is, will you be my maid of honor?”
Eve envied Audrey’s happiness as she stood at her bedside and watched her become Mrs. Robert Barrett. Not in a church as Audrey might have dreamed, but in a hospital ward. Not wearing a fashionable wedding gown as Lady Rosamunde might have wished, but a hospital gown and a white plaster cast on her leg. And thank goodness it wasn’t to some tedious bore from the gentry, but to a man she loved. Eve wondered if Audrey even remembered the shy, fearful girl she’d once been, bending to everyone’s wishes but her own. Audrey had gone after what she wanted, and Eve was happy for her. Her new husband looked handsome in his uniform, wearing a smile that told the world he was the luckiest man alive. If only his luck would hold when he faced the Nazis.
Eve gave the vicar the wedding ring she’d safeguarded and reached for Louis’s hand as Audrey and Robert recited their vows. The warmth of his palm, the gentle pressure of his squeeze, brought tears to her eyes. The happiness they’d found for one night could last a lifetime if he wasn’t married. If only.
She told herself not to be sorry for what she and Louis had done. She had no reason to feel guilty. She hadn’t left the Good Shepherd’s fold—He had abandoned her! He had ignored her prayers and let Mum die instead of watching over His flock as He’d promised. He had left Eve all alone in the world, with nothing and with no one to love. Why should she obey His rules any longer?
Eve stood alone in the corridor after the wedding, waiting to drive back to Wellingford with Louis and Robert. Louis found her there. They hadn’t been alone since their night together, and as Louis groped for words, Eve thought she knew what he was about to say.
“Eve, I hope you don’t think . . . I mean . . . what we did . . . I need you to know that I truly am in love with you. I may have been wrong to take advantage of you when you were so vulnerable, and if so, I’m sorry—”
“I’m not sorry. I needed you that night, and you needed me. We love each other, Louis. If I have any regrets at all, they’re because you’re—”
“I know . . . Listen . . .” He glanced at the door as if worried Robert might overhear. “Will you write to me when I’m in France? I need to know that you’re safe. That you’re okay. And I need to confide in you about . . . about my fears. There’s no one else—”
“Yes, of course.” She could hang on to her love for him awhile longer. “Does Robert know about us?”
Louis shook his head. “Does Audrey?”
“I haven’t told a soul.”
“Eve, I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to see you again before I leave, but—”
It was all they were able to say before Robert emerged from Audrey’s room, looking at his watch. “We need to go. Some way to start a marriage, huh?”
“There will be happier days ahead,” Eve said. She didn’t really believe it.
Two days later, Audrey was discharged to recuperate at Wellingford with her new husband before he was deployed to France. The servants moved Audrey’s belongings into the small sitting room on the first floor and converted it into a bedroom.
Eve spent the remainder of her furlough visiting with Audrey while Robert was at the air base and eating the meals that Tildy prepared from their meager rations. “This is a gourmet meal compared to what we’re used to,” Eve assured the cook.
When the notice of her reassignment arrived in the post, Eve found Audrey alone in her room, hobbling around on crutches to practice walking. “I’m going away tomorrow, Audrey. My leave is over.” She waved the letter from the ATS. “I’ll be a staff driver, taking the brass all over London and waiting endlessly for them to finish their important meetings.”
Audrey limped to the edge of the bed and sat down. From her worried expression, Eve might have been assigned to a war zone. But hadn’t London been a war zone for the past five years? “Oh, Eve! The V-1s are falling on London day and ni
ght,” Audrey said.
“They can strike anywhere, Audrey. You should know that better than anyone. But with any luck, once I’m in London, navigating around all the craters and barricades and closed streets, I’ll be too busy to worry about Alfie.” Or to think about Louis.
“It’s going to be quiet around here. Robert ships out in two days.”
“Is Louis leaving, too?” Eve’s heart plummeted when Audrey nodded. “I guess we won’t be dance partners for a while.” She remembered Louis’s premonition and wondered if she would ever see him again.
“Eve, I’m so terrified for Robert!”
“He’ll come back to you. You’ll see.”
Audrey nodded, but neither of them believed it.
“I need to go pack,” Eve said.
“Wait. Will you help me do something first?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Drive me into the village. I want to go to church and pray for you and Robert and Alfie.”
Eve battled to control her temper. She wanted to ask Audrey where God had been for the past five years and why she thought He would start answering her prayers now. Instead, she tried to make light of it to hide her irritation. “I’m pretty sure God can hear your prayers right here, Audrey.” If He’s even listening.
“I feel closer to Him in that little church.”
Eve lost the battle as her anger exploded. “And the people in Guards’ Chapel probably felt very close to Him before the V-1 fell through the roof and killed them all!”
Audrey appeared startled, as though Eve had slapped her. Then she looked down at her lap. “Never mind. I’ll find another ride.”
“I’m sorry,” Eve mumbled. “I’ll drive you. I don’t want to leave here with hard feelings between us. . . . But please don’t expect me to go inside with you.”
Audrey looked up at her again. “I don’t understand. I always envied your faith. You went to church with your grandmother when you were growing up. You used to talk about the Good Shepherd and how He would always take care of you. What happened to your faith, Eve?”
“What happened? It got buried in the rubble of the town house along with our mothers! My faith was stolen from me by the Nazis—along with Alfie and my youth and all of my hopes and dreams! The bombs blasted it away when they took my friend Iris and her grandmother and thousands of other innocent people! The same bombs that nearly took you!” She clenched her fists, breathing hard as the bitter words spewed out. “God demolished my faith when war took my mum just like it took my daddy. He blasted a huge gulf between us when He abandoned me and left me alone, without even a place to call home!” And now she had widened the gulf when she’d slept with a married man.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say . . .”
“I’m glad you still have faith, Audrey. And I’m glad that you and Robert found each other. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful life together in America when the war ends, far away from the ruins of England and all the reminders of what we’ve lost.”
“Eve . . . please . . .” Audrey groped for her crutches and struggled to stand. Eve knew she would try to embrace her, but pity was the last thing Eve wanted.
She turned toward the door. “I’ll bring the car around front and meet you outside.” Eve would visit the cemetery while Audrey prayed. Take a walk in the woods. Have a pint at the pub. She would not go inside the church.
Eve was still fuming over Audrey’s naive faith as she lay in bed that night, staring into the darkness. It was useless to try to sleep. She rose and parted the blackout curtains, hoping there would be a moon and stars so she could see the distant woods. But the sky was overcast, the woods buried beneath a mist of fog. She let the curtains fall back into place. It seemed appropriate that from the very beginning of the war, every home and building in the nation had been shrouded in black as if prepared for mourning. Eve couldn’t think of a single person she knew who hadn’t lost someone in this endless war.
She was about to climb back into bed when there was a knock on her door. Her heart sank, fearing it was Audrey. She didn’t want to see her, unable to bear a prolonged goodbye with her friend. Eve held her breath, hoping Audrey would think she was asleep and go away. The knock came a second time, louder. Then a man’s voice. “Eve . . . ?”
Louis.
She opened the door. Louis stood in the narrow hallway, nervously shifting his feet. His face looked ashen. His expression sent a jolt of fear through her. She pulled him into the room. “Louis, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Audrey wanted to be the one to tell you but I told her I would do it.”
“Tell me what? What happened?”
“A telegram arrived—”
“What? Is it Alfie? Not Alfie!” Her heart nearly burst with fear. She couldn’t bear another loss. Eve grabbed the front of Louis’s uniform to shake the news out of him. “Don’t take so long to say it, Louis. Just tell me! Tell me!”
“Alfie is missing in action. There was a battle, and the Nazis took prisoners. Right now, he’s believed to be among them.”
“So he isn’t dead?”
“He wasn’t identified among the dead or the wounded. The Red Cross requested a list of prisoners. We’ll pray that Alfie is on it.” She released her hold on his shirt and stepped back, then swayed as a wave of vertigo washed over her. Louis grabbed her and walked her backward to sit on the edge of the bed. “Are you all right?”
She shook her head. This was all her fault for betraying Alfie. She had slept with Louis after refusing to sleep with Alfie. If he was dead, if he could look down on her from heaven, he would know that she hadn’t really loved him. That she loved Louis more. But then Alfie had loved his father’s money more than her. She looked up at Louis, and the shock of her love for him, the power of it, overwhelmed her. But Louis wasn’t hers to love.
She tried to stand. “I should go to Audrey. She’ll need me.”
Louis made her stay seated. He sat down on the bed beside her, pulling her into his arms. “Bob is with her. She’s hanging on to him—and to hope. You can’t lose hope, Eve.”
She closed her eyes. Why hope for something she could never have? Whether Alfie lived or died, he would never be hers. And neither would Louis. “I loved Alfie . . . ,” she said as her tears came. She pulled away and looked into Louis’s eyes. “But I’m in love with you. And you’re going into battle. You’ll be in danger and . . . and I can’t bear to lose you, too!”
Neither of them said a word as they yielded to each other’s arms.
22
LONDON, MAY 1945
The commotion in the streets below Audrey’s window grew louder and more joyous by the minute, but she sat by the radio in her tiny flat, afraid of missing the latest news. Especially if it concerned places where Robert and Alfie were. Victory in Europe would be officially proclaimed today—May 8. VE Day. Victory in Europe. The Nazis were defeated. Thousands of Londoners had started celebrating last night in anticipation. Today, the revelry exploded.
Ever since Robert left last fall, Audrey had remained glued to the radio whenever she wasn’t working, anxious for news of the war. The Allies achieved stunning victories and suffered bitter defeats throughout the long winter, keeping her permanently on edge. After the plaster cast came off her leg, Audrey returned to work as a dispatcher in London to be near Eve. “Why didn’t you apply for an easier posting?” Eve had asked. “The Nazis are firing V-2 rockets on London now, and they’re even deadlier than the V-1 that nearly killed you.”
“We’ve been in this together from the start,” Audrey replied, “and we’ll finish together, too.” Besides, she would hear news from the battlefront sooner in London. The Red Cross still hadn’t found Alfie. He wasn’t on the prisoner of war list with his mates and was officially missing in action. Surely they would find him now that the fighting had ended.
As the Allies had pushed toward Berlin and news of Nazi atrocities surfaced, Audrey’s fear for Robert nearly consumed her. “If anything happe
ns to me,” Robert had said before leaving, “I’ll be waiting in heaven for you.” Audrey prayed ceaselessly for the people she loved, including Eve, who had lost her faith.
Audrey was adjusting the tuning to clear out the static and better hear the broadcast when Eve strode over and switched off the set. “What are you doing?” Audrey asked.
“Come on. We’re getting out of this flat. We’ve waited nearly six years for this day—six long years of our lives! We need to celebrate.”
“You’re right,” Audrey said after a moment. “I’ll grab my jacket.”
“No, put on your uniform. We played a part in this victory.” Audrey dutifully changed into her uniform and cap, then followed Eve down the steps and out into the street. “We’ll take the Underground to Trafalgar Square,” Eve said, pulling her along. “They’re going to broadcast the king’s speech from loudspeakers.”
People jammed the Underground, all heading to Trafalgar Square. They got off at Charing Cross and made their way through the joyous crowds to the square. Thousands of people filled the streets, cheering and waving flags—Audrey had never seen so many flags! People climbed onto the statues and flower-strewn monuments, rejoicing. Men and women in uniform were everywhere, representing the many roles that citizens had played in this fight, and Audrey was glad Eve had insisted she wear her ATS uniform. She smiled, remembering how she’d hated the ill-fitting uniform when it first was issued to her. She thought of all the bloodstains it had absorbed, including her own, and wore it proudly.
Someone shoved miniature flags into their hands and they joined the waving and cheering. Children rode on their parents’ shoulders, little ones who had never experienced peacetime. She saw smiles on people’s faces but also tears. Everyone had lost someone. At least no more people had to die. Audrey nudged Eve to get her attention, raising her voice to be heard above the tumult. “This doesn’t seem real!”