After the War Is Over (16 page)

“I know you aren’t. It’s a bloody mess, that’s what this is.”

“What of your mother?”

“I rang her earlier. Thank God I had a telephone installed at the house last year.
She’ll be fine. The servants are staying with her, and Grassendale is well removed
from the trouble spots.”

“I suppose you ought to get back to the paper.”

“I must.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“Will you promise to stay inside, you and everyone else, and on no account open the
door unless you’re certain who is on the other side of it?”

“I will.”

“Good-bye for now. I ought to have asked before—does anyone on the street have a telephone?”

“I think Mr. and Mrs. Atwater do. They’re next door.”

“If you need me, don’t hesitate to ring. Now bolt the door, and do your best to entertain
the others.”

As soon as he was gone and she’d fastened the dead bolt, she closed her eyes and stood,
shivering a little, in the dark, empty hall. He was such a lovely, kind man. Really
he was. She could
be happy with a man like John Ellis, a good man, a man whose aims in life seemed to
dovetail so perfectly with her own.

But try as she might, she couldn’t marshal even the scarcest wisp of romantic feeling
for him. Couldn’t begin to imagine him in such a context. What was
wrong
with her?

She listened and waited, holding her breath, wishing against hope for a lightning
bolt of truth to descend and reveal the path she ought to take. She never prayed,
hadn’t for years, nor was there anyone to whom she could turn and unburden herself.
Perhaps, if Rosie had been home, she might have tried . . . but they had only known
each other for a matter of months. It would be an impertinence to confide in her.

She was alone in this world, as she would always be, and it was time she accepted
it. Happiness didn’t turn on romance or marriage or motherhood, after all. She was
alone, as she was meant to be, and she would survive.

She went back into the sitting room and, taking her place on the sofa again, picked
up her book, a much-loved copy of
Persuasion,
and opened it to the first page.

“Shall I read to you all? I think I have just the book for the occasion.”

H
as Meg said anything about the shop?” Charlotte asked. She and Rosie were returning
home after a long and delightfully aimless walk through Princes Park, its gardens
a riot of late-summer color. It seemed like months since they’d spent any amount of
time together, for their days off didn’t often coincide.

“Not to me, she hasn’t. I’m worried about her. The repairs seem to be taking forever.”

For five weeks, ever since the riots at the beginning of August, Meg had been living
on half pay, and she was fortunate to receive even that. À La Mode Chapeaux had been
thoroughly vandalized, its stock pilfered and interior fittings destroyed, but Mr.
Timmins had vowed to reopen. Many other shops, especially in the poorer districts
of Toxteth and Everton, had shuttered their doors for good.

“I know. And even if she were having trouble with her rent, she’d never say so. Do
you want to have a quiet word with her? Just to be certain she’s all right?”

“It can’t hurt,” Rosie said. “Though I doubt I’ll get very far.”

It seemed to Charlotte that Meg had warmed to her housemates over the past months,
joining in their conversations
more and more, staying in the sitting room with them after supper, even accompanying
the other women to a musical evening where the Misses Macleod had sung with their
church choir. Small steps, to be sure, and Meg’s smiles were as rare as hen’s teeth,
but it was a start.

They were steps from home, still engrossed in their conversation, when Charlotte belatedly
realized a large motorcar was stopped in the street ahead of them. No one on the street
had a motorcar, not on this block at least. Certainly no one had an immense, gleaming,
purring beast of a motorcar that surely ran on crumpled-up pound notes instead of
petrol.

“Will you look at that? Do you suppose the king is having his tea at Huskisson Street
today?” Rosie said.

“It’s not the king,” Charlotte answered. “It’s Lilly’s brother.” Even from a distance,
she recognized the chauffeur’s livery.

It made no sense. If he had wished to contact her, he might have written, or sent
a telegram, or even telephoned her at work. There was no reason for him to be here.

Rosie caught her arm and chivvied her along. “You and he are friends, aren’t you?
Best not to keep him waiting. Goodness only knows how long he’s been here.”

“I look a fright. We should go in the back way. Just so I can wash my face and brush
my hair—”

“I’m sure he won’t mind. Come on, now.”

No sooner had they opened the front door than Janie, her face flushed and her eyes
suspiciously red, rushed up to them.

“Oh, Miss Charlotte, Miss Rosie! I dunno what to do. There was a knock at the door,
so I come out of the kitchen to answer it, and there was a man stood there in a funny
suit. He asked if you was here and I said no, you’d gone out. And then he went back
to that big motorcar outside and
she
come in.”

“She?” Charlotte asked, though she already knew the answer. It wasn’t Edward, after
all. It was, instead, the last person in the world whom she ever, ever wished to see.

“She didn’t say who she was. She went right past me into the sitting room. The misses
had gone to their choir practice and everyone else was out. I didn’t know what to
do, Miss Charlotte.”

“I quite understand.”

“I did go in to ask if she needed anything, a cup of tea or summat, and I was ever
so polite, but she didn’t even look at me. Just told me to get out.”

“Oh, Janie. I’m so very sorry. Let me speak to my, ah, guest, and then we’ll all have
a cup of tea together.”

It was time to beard the dragon.

Without bothering to remove her hat or coat, she opened the door to the sitting room.
There, seated in Miss Margaret’s chair, was Lady Cumberland.

Charlotte sat on the sofa, ensured her back was ramrod straight, and looked the countess
directly in the eye.

“Good afternoon, Lady Cumberland.”

The woman said nothing. She didn’t even blink. She simply stared at Charlotte.

“May I ask why you have installed yourself in my sitting room?”

“
Your
sitting room? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought you were nothing more than a boarder
here.”

“I may be a boarder, but this is my home all the same. So allow me to ask you again:
why are you here?”

For an instant, Charlotte saw the room through Lady Cumberland’s eyes. The worn upholstery
on the misses’ easy chairs. The spots of damp on the ceiling. The furniture that was
just
old enough to look outdated, but not old enough or good enough to be antique.

“You know very well,” the countess answered, her gaze flickering to a point on the
wall behind Charlotte’s left ear.

“No, Lady Cumberland, I do not know. Please enlighten me.”

“Insolent girl. Do you know how much of my time you have wasted already? First at
your place of employment, if one can charitably call it such, where I was informed
you were not at work.”

“Saturday and Sunday are my days off.”

“Two days off? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” the countess sputtered.

“Possibly because you have never worked a day in your life.”

A positively arctic silence descended upon the room. This would never do; if she were
to hear the woman out, and then extract her from the house, Charlotte would have to
adopt a more diplomatic tone.

“I presume that one of my colleagues was kind enough to supply you with my address?”

“Yes, and I have been sitting here for nearly an
hour
.”

“If you had taken the trouble to advise me of your plans, I would have suggested a
mutually convenient time. Now, believe it or not, I am a busy woman and I have things
to do. May I ask you to clarify your purpose in coming here? Otherwise I shall have
to ask you to leave.”

Her hands were trembling, her mouth had gone dry, and there was every chance that
her knees would give way if she tried to stand. But she would not be cowed.

“It’s all your fault,” said Lady Cumberland. Her gaze moved across the room, to a
towering aspidistra next to the piano, and
she began to fuss with her gloves. Could it be that the countess was nervous? Perhaps
even fearful?

“He hasn’t been himself, not since Elizabeth’s wedding. He says it is nothing, but
I know the truth. I know you are to blame.”

“By ‘he,’ do you mean Lord Cumberland?”

“I do.”

“May I ask what you believe to be wrong with him? Beyond the obvious difficulties,
I mean.”

“He was recovering well, I thought. At first he seemed to be improving . . .”

Lady Cumberland now sat perfectly still, as immobile as one of the china figurines
on the misses’ mantelpiece, but the expression on her face was a portrait of torment.
It was impossible not to feel a twinge of sympathy, if fleeting and really quite minimal,
for the woman.

“How is he different, in your estimation?”

“He won’t go out. Not to dinner, nor to any other sort of social engagement. He sleeps
the day through, every day, and at night he roams through his house and drinks himself
senseless and the servants have to carry him upstairs to bed.”

“His house? Is he not living at Ashford House?”

“He said he couldn’t bear it, so he removed himself to Chelsea.”

“Where he lived before the war?”

“Yes.”

“So he is sleeping all day and drinking himself into a stupor each night?”

“Yes.”

Why had Lilly told her nothing of this? Where had Robbie been all this time? “Have
you spoken to him of your concerns? Reminded him of the ruinous effects of drink?”

“Of course I have, but he only laughs at me. He says that if I am very lucky he will
drink himself into the grave so the earldom might pass to George.”

He had not been so poorly when she’d seen him at the wedding. He could not have been,
surely, or she would have known it. “I am very sorry to hear it, Lady Cumberland.
Truly I am. Yet I fail to see how I can be to blame.”

“He broke his engagement because of you.”

“Broke his engagement? When? I had no idea.” Could she have pushed him to it? Could
her words, so horribly caustic in the remembrance, have set him on such a course?

“He came to me last week and told me he had spoken to Helena and broken things off.
I know it was because of you. Don’t deny it.”

“I do deny it.”

“He has some strange sort of attachment to you. He’s always had an affinity for those
who are beneath him. Why else would he have allowed that Glaswegian upstart to presume
upon their friendship for so long?”

“You’re speaking of Robbie? That upstart is the only reason your son was returned
to you. He spent months searching for Edward, or have you managed to forget?”

“Edward would have come to his senses eventually.”

“Given the state he’s in, I doubt it very much. Now, I cannot be certain of why he
ended his engagement with Lady Helena, but I presume it has something to do with it
having been forced on him when he was younger. And I further presume that he has no
wish to ruin her life by trapping her in a loveless marriage.”

At that, Lady Cumberland actually flinched. “You would rather he married a nonentity
like yourself?”

“I would rather that he be happy, just as any friend would wish for him. I promise
I have no call upon his affections.”

Lady Cumberland closed her eyes and bowed her head, her pose so convincingly dejected
that Charlotte very nearly reached out to pat her hand. “Is that why you came here?”
she asked instead. “To warn me off, à la Lady Catherine de Bourgh?”

“De Bourgh? I know no one by that name, I assure you.”

“I was only making reference to—” Charlotte began, but stopped short. Lady Cumberland
had never approved of novels, and particularly not ones written by women. “Never mind.
I was mistaken.”

“We thought him lost. For so long we thought him dead. Vanished, never to have a grave.
We lost . . .”

Lady Cumberland’s voice broke, and Charlotte could only watch, stricken by pity, as
her adversary fought to regain her composure. “When he returned, as if risen from
the dead, after we had all lost hope . . . it seemed miraculous. Yet now I fear we
are going to lose him again.”

“To the drink?” Charlotte asked. “Or to despair?”

“To both, I think.”

It was time to put on her nurse’s hat. “Do you know what I did during the war?”

“Of course not,” replied Lady Cumberland, her nostrils flaring delicately. “Why should
I know such a thing?”

“I was a nurse at the Special Neurological Hospital for Officers in Kensington.”

“Shell shock,” whispered the countess.

“Yes. I haven’t seen much of Lord Cumberland since his return, but it may be possible
that he is suffering from some degree of nervous shock, if you will. Not because he
is lacking
in courage or moral fiber, but because he has been forced to endure the unendurable.”

It was a mark of Lady Cumberland’s desperation that she didn’t immediately reject
Charlotte’s suggestion. “I’ve brought in doctors. He refuses to talk to them. He won’t
even talk to Mr. Fraser.”

“He might talk to me. Not because of any sort of romantic attachment, I assure you.
Edward trusts me to tell him the truth. That is all.”

“I see,” the countess said. “If you were to agree to help him, what fee would you
charge?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re a nurse, aren’t you?”

Of course. Charlotte was the hired help. She would always be a servant in the eyes
of Lady Cumberland. “Not any longer. If I did agree to speak with him, I would be
acting solely as a friend.”

“Will you help him?”

“I shall try.”

“Very well. When will you visit him?”

“I shall have to speak to Miss Rathbone, my employer, and arrange to take a day or
two off. Once I know, I’ll telephone Lilly. Will that do?”

“Yes.” The countess rose to her feet and went to the door of the sitting room. Curiously,
she made no move to open it. Was she waiting for a footman to materialize from the
ether?

“Thank you, Miss Brown.”

“I promise to do my best.”

Lady Cumberland extended a gloved hand, and Charlotte realized, to her astonishment,
that she was meant to shake it. She did so, feeling very glad indeed that she had
not removed
her own gloves, and watched as the countess opened the door and swept from the room.

Charlotte returned to the sofa. It seemed best to get her thoughts in order before
she did anything else.

“What on earth was that?” Rosie asked from the doorway. “I heard her leave just now.
Are you all right?”

“I’m not sure. That was an exceedingly strange conversation.”

“Was that Lilly’s mother?”

“It was. She . . . I can barely make sense of this.” Charlotte stood, feeling steadier
already, and straightened the lapels of her coat. “I need to speak to Lilly. I’ll
tell you everything when I return, but I must get to the post office before they close.”

W
HEN SHE ARRIVED
at the post office on Upper Parliament Street, breathless from having run most of
the way, the telephone kiosks were all occupied. Nearly ten minutes passed before
one became free, time that she used to compose herself, suppress her indignation at
Lilly’s having said nothing, absolutely
nothing
to her, and concoct her request to Miss Rathbone for yet more time off.

It was the first occasion she’d had to telephone Lilly at her and Robbie’s new home
in Chelsea, for they’d only moved in a fortnight earlier. She passed on their number
to the operator and waited for the call to be connected. It was a clear line, for
once, and the answering voice might easily have come from an adjacent kiosk.

“Hello, Fraser residence. Ruth speaking.”

“Oh, hello. May I speak to Lady Elizabeth? This is Miss Brown ringing from Liverpool.”

“Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.”