After the War Is Over (4 page)

And then it was time for the Cumberland family to process to the front of the church.
A phalanx of Lilly’s relatives swept past, most of them unfamiliar to Charlotte, and
then finally her friend appeared, arm in arm with Robbie. More relatives followed—several
sisters and their families, as well as Lilly’s younger brother, George. Finally Edward,
now the Earl of Cumberland, entered the sanctuary on the arm of his mother, who looked
more or less as she always did: pale, dignified, and utterly composed. He was using
a cane, Charlotte noticed, but didn’t seem to be putting much weight on it.

Although Charlotte’s religious observance and belief had become rather frayed in recent
years, she had grown up in the bosom of the Church of England, and the traditional
funeral service was a balm to her spirits. Everything was exactly as it ought to have
been: “Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer,” Psalm 23, and words of prayer so familiar
she scarcely had to think to summon them to her lips.

The church’s forecourt cleared rapidly after the service, with most of the congregants
making the short journey to Ashford House by motorcar or carriage. It was no trouble
to find Lilly among the thinning crowd, and before she thought better of it, Charlotte
threw open her arms for her friend’s embrace.

“Charlotte! You came.”

“Of course I came. There was never any question of that.”

“You are coming back to the house with us? I know it will be torture—”

“Never mind me. You’re the one who is important today. You need me, and so I’ll be
there.”

Now Robbie came forward, shaking her hand and offering a gentle smile. “Hello, Charlotte.
How was your journey?”

“Very restful, thank you.”

“I know it’s easier to walk back, but I think it will be too far for Edward. Will
you come with us in the carriage?” Lilly asked.

“Thank you. Although if—”

“Hello, Charlotte,” came a voice from behind.

She spun around and, in her haste, nearly bumped into the man who had approached her.

“Lord Cumberland,” she answered. “I am so terribly sorry—”

“Christ, Charlotte. None of that, not today. Please.” He grinned halfheartedly, but
there was no humor behind his smile.

“Edward, then,” she replied, and shook his outstretched hand.

“Will you come in the carriage with us?” Lilly asked her brother.

“I suppose. Would rather walk.”

“I know. But you’ll be on your feet all afternoon, and you know what the doctors said.
You mustn’t overtax yourself.”

“Fine. Where is the bloody thing?”

“Right behind you,” Robbie answered. “So haul your miserable carcass inside and stop
complaining.”

The four of them were soon settled inside, the women facing forward and the men sitting
opposite. Edward immediately closed his eyes, pulled off his hat, and let his head
loll back against the tufted seat back, while Robbie focused his attention on his
gloves. Apparently the women would have to do the heavy lifting, as far as conversation
was concerned, until they arrived at Ashford House.

“How are you feeling, Lilly?” Charlotte asked.

“Well enough. I mean, I know I wasn’t terribly close to Papa, but his death was a
shock all the same.”

“And your mother?”

“Cool. Calm. As remote as always.”

“How has she been treating you?”

“More or less as she always does—which is to say that she ignores me whenever possible,
and tolerates me when she cannot ignore me.”

At this Edward laughed bitterly, but before Charlotte could open her mouth to reply,
she felt the quelling pat of Lilly’s hand upon her forearm. She turned to her friend,
who shook her head minutely, and decided to swallow her retort.

Instead, she tucked Lilly’s arm in hers. “When do you leave for Cumbria?”

“Late tomorrow morning. Papa’s interment will be on Sunday. Needless to say I’m dreading
it.”

“At least we’ll have this evening.”

“We will. And we won’t have to stay so very long, will we, Edward?”

“Not long at all,” her brother confirmed. “I told Mama I will remain for one hour
exactly, and not a minute more. And there’s to be no reception line.”

The carriage drew to a halt. As they waited for the footman to lower the step, Charlotte
peered out the window, curious to see if her memories had played her false. They had
not, for the icily perfect façade of the Belgravia mansion was as unwelcoming as ever.
If buildings had faces, then Ashford House resembled nothing more than a humorless
and rigidly austere Roman statesman.

The carriage door opened. They had arrived.

I
t had been eight years since Charlotte had last entered Ashford House. Although Lilly
was at her side, she hesitated a moment at the doorstep, her heart in her throat,
her hands clammy inside her gloves.

But there were scores of people behind her, flowing out of their plush vehicles like
luxe, bejeweled lemmings, and so there was nothing for it but to take a deep breath
and let herself be swept along by the crowd. Across the grand entrance hall, up the
cold, wide marble staircase, and into the echoing acreage of the blue drawing room.

At first she stood with Lilly and Robbie, but then Lilly went to say hello to a childhood
friend, and Robbie went in search of a cup of tea for him and Charlotte both. So she
stood her ground, feeling increasingly out of place, and prayed that her discomfiture
did not show on her face.

She had made up her mind to approach Lilly, who certainly wouldn’t have minded, when
a
tap, tap, tap
of heels alerted her that someone was approaching. Charlotte turned her head and
realized, to her horror, that it was Lady Cumberland and Lilly’s two sisters. It was
almost comical, the way they walked so
preeningly, so evidently aware of people’s admiration and envy. They were wearing
beautiful gowns, dead black of course, as high mourning had to be, but so gorgeously
fashioned and trimmed that one didn’t even notice the color, or lack of it, after
a moment.

Lilly’s sisters had grown plump, though they kept themselves well corseted, while
Lady Cumberland didn’t appear to have aged at all. She had to be in her fifties at
least, but looked scarcely older than her daughters, and her beauty had not diminished
one whit in the eight years since Charlotte had seen her last.

It was then that she made a critical error: she looked Lady Cumberland in the eye.
Without saying a word, without even glancing at her daughters, the countess wheeled
about and the three of them, arranged in perfect formation, positioned themselves
before Charlotte.

Once she had been expected to curtsy whenever she encountered the countess. She would
not do so now. She stood even taller, lifted her chin a fraction higher, and gritted
her teeth against the sudden, paralyzing fury that surged through her veins. Once
she had vowed she would never expose herself to their disdain again, and to do so,
now, went against her every instinct.

Lady Mary, the middle of the Cumberland sisters, fixed her with a predatory stare.
The three of them, Charlotte decided, resembled nothing so much as grimly assessing
ravens, glittering in their black plumage, their eyes chill and calculating.

“Have we met?” she asked, each word a precise, cutting blow.

Before Charlotte could speak, Lilly’s other sister, Lady Alice, provided the answer.
“Don’t you remember? She was Lilly’s governess—oh, it was ages ago, wasn’t it? Certainly
long before the war.”

“She was? What on earth is she doing
here
?”

“Lady Elizabeth invited me.” That was all the explanation she would give. Not one
word more.

They said nothing else, which was a relief, though Lady Cumberland continued to unnerve
her by looking through Charlotte as if she weren’t even there. She then turned her
back and walked away, back in the direction she had come, leaving her silly, spineless
daughters to trail after her, whispering and giggling into their gloved hands.

It wasn’t quite the cut direct of a hundred years before, for that was reserved for
social equals; rather, it was an acknowledgment of Charlotte’s innate invisibility
and, ultimately, her complete unimportance.

It shouldn’t have hurt her—she had vowed she would never let them hurt her again—but
it did. Oh, God, how it did.

R
OBBIE, PREDICTABLY
,
WAS
horrified when he returned with their tea. “I ought to have known something like
that would happen.”

“I’ll survive. It wasn’t that bad, to be honest.” Her hands were trembling, her mouth
was as dry as dust, but she hadn’t faltered. She had stood her ground. “How do you
stand it? Stand
them
?”

“We hardly ever see them, to be honest. They’ve never quite forgiven Lilly for leaving
home and joining the WAAC. Certainly they’ll never forgive me for having the effrontery
to imagine I’m good enough to marry her.”

“You really ought to elope,” she suggested. “I’m serious.”

“I’ve considered it, believe you me. But it wouldn’t be fair to my mam, nor to our
friends.”

“I suppose you’re right. I’d forgive you, though.”

“See?” he said, smiling down at her. “I knew there was a reason Lilly likes you so
much.”

“Who is the woman standing with Lilly? I know most of her other friends, but she isn’t
at all familiar.”

“The woman . . . ? Ah. That’s Helena, Edward’s fiancée.”

That girl? That young, smiling cipher—she was Edward’s fiancée? It seemed impossible
to credit. She was terribly pretty, of course, with fair hair and large, expressive
eyes.

“What do you think of her?”

If Robbie thought her sudden interest strange, he showed no sign of it. “I scarcely
know her. I’d say she’s a nice enough girl. Seems devoted to him, but . . .” He hesitated,
frowning at his teacup.

“Yes?”

“I’m certain she bores him to tears. I’ve tried to ask him about her—ask about his
intentions. But he always finds a way to wriggle out of the conversation.”

“They haven’t set a date?”

“No, and thank God for that. Is this the first time you’ve set eyes on her?”

“Yes. I saw Edward once during the war, when he was home on leave, but Lady Helena
wasn’t with him. I hadn’t expected her to be so young.”

“She is that. Though she seems to be a bright girl, and can talk quite knowledgeably
on a number of subjects.”

“Would you say she’s attached to Edward?”

“She seems affectionate enough. As far as I can tell, she’s unfazed by his injuries.
Though I doubt she realizes that a missing leg is the least of his problems.”

“How is he?” Charlotte asked. Although she would love to know more about Lady Helena,
she was far more interested in
Robbie’s opinion of Edward’s condition. “Today is the first I’ve seen of him since
the day you returned from France.”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Physically, he’s improving. I strong-armed him
into visiting a prosthetics clinic, so he has a leg that fits him now.”

“He scarcely even limps.”

“They do wonderful work there. Perhaps too good. He seems to think his recovery is
complete.”

“And you . . . ?”

“I think it’s barely begun. A man doesn’t recover from such injuries, from such horrors,
in a few months. He drinks too much, for a start, and I know he doesn’t sleep well.”

“Before the war, he was troubled—”

Robbie shook his head. “No, this is worse. It’s like . . . like a weight he can’t
shed. Dragging at him, pulling him—”

He looked over her shoulder, his attention caught by something on the far side of
the room.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Lilly’s asking for me.”

Charlotte turned to follow his gaze, and saw that Lilly, now trapped in conversation
with a clutch of elderly ladies, was tugging on her earlobe.

“That’s my cue. Will you be fine on your own? I promise not to go far.”

“I’ll be perfectly fine. Lady Cumberland did her worst, and I survived.”

She set down her cup and saucer on a nearby occasional table, not willing to draw
attention to herself by summoning a footman, and retreated to one of the lushly padded
window seats. She would look out the window, though the formal gardens below had little
to recommend them at this time of year,
and when she had fully recovered her composure, she would join Lilly and Robbie.

Not bothering to look at her wristwatch, she couldn’t be certain of how much time
was passing. Only when the sound of approaching footsteps, careful and measured, intruded
on her silent meditation did she turn her attention back to the drawing room.

It was Edward.

When he’d returned from Belgium, from the enemy hospital where he’d been held for
nearly the last year of the war, he’d been achingly thin, with distressingly dark
shadows beneath his eyes. Less than a season later, he was better groomed, with his
fair hair combed neatly off his forehead, and his fine suit expertly tailored to conceal
the full extent of his frailty. But the shadows remained, lingering in his voice,
his manner, and his weary gaze.

It shamed her, but in all that time she hadn’t sent him a single letter. He had been
suffering—she could see it now, as clearly as the lines on his face—but had she even
once bothered to let him know she was glad he’d survived? To let him know she had
missed him? She had asked after him in her letters to Lilly, and once or twice had
asked to be remembered to him; but that wasn’t enough, and she knew it.

Embarrassment had stilled her hand: a pathetic excuse, really, but it was the truth.
The night of his return, she had all but fainted at his feet when he walked through
the door of her and Lilly’s boardinghouse. She’d known that Robbie was expected home,
but the reappearance of Edward, their Lazarus risen from the dead, had been a shock
she couldn’t ever have foreseen.

She had recovered her composure before long, and somehow
made it through the strange, rather awkward hour that followed. They had gathered
in Mrs. Collins’s shabby little sitting room and had, all four of them, spoken of
carefully neutral items: the recent weather, the men’s journey home, the peace negotiations
in Paris.

So much had been left unsaid. How had he survived? Why had there been no news of him
for nearly a year? Instead he had bid her good evening, thanked her solemnly for her
good wishes, and had returned to Ashford House, no doubt to give his parents the shock
of their lives when he walked through the door.

Consumed by the details of her coming move to Liverpool, Charlotte had left London
a fortnight later without once seeking him out. She thought of him often, but she
really had been so terribly busy, and of course he was occupied with his family and
the many bureaucratic complications of having been declared dead and without issue.

She had meant to write to him, but the days had crept by, days that turned into weeks,
and the longer she waited the heavier her pen had become.

Yet his eyes now held no trace of reproach.

“I owe you an apology,” he said as he sat beside her. “Robbie has informed me that
once again my mother and other sisters have behaved abominably.”

“Then why are
you
apologizing?”

“I ought to have prevented their being rude to you. I assumed, wrongly, that they
would be civil.”

“Never mind. I’ve a thick skin. They weren’t particularly rude, besides. Simply .
. . disapproving.”

“I am sorry, though. Especially since you took the trouble to come so far.”

“You shouldn’t worry about me, not when you have so many other concerns. How are you
bearing up?”

“Well enough. Despite his faults I was fond of the old fellow. The rest of it I could
do without. The solicitors, the estate managers, the hangers-on . . . most of all
my mother and sisters, Lilly excepted. Moaning and complaining and clinging at me
endlessly. It’s almost enough to make me wish I were back in Belgium.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered. “Don’t ever say that.”

“Why not? It’s true enough.”

“They weren’t unkind to you there, were they?” she asked, and immediately regretted
her presumption. To ask him about such a thing when he was mourning his father, and
when they were surrounded by a roomful of people, was the very height of insensitivity.
Yet he didn’t seem to mind, or even notice.

“Not at all. They cared for me very well indeed.”

“Then why didn’t they repatriate you sooner, or at least send word?”

“Because I refused to tell them my name. I had lost my identity disks and my uniform
had been cut off and discarded. They had no way of knowing who I was.”

It wasn’t . . . how could it be possible that he had done such a thing? For months
she had grieved for him, had agonized over his brutal end, and all the while he had
been alive and perfectly able to relieve her suffering, and that of everyone else
who loved him.

“How
could
you? Have you any idea what it did to Lilly? To all of us?”

He met her gaze steadily, unflinchingly. “I know. But I was certain I would die, sooner
rather than later, and I didn’t want anyone to know the whole of it.”

“She didn’t care. None of us cared about that. We only wanted you back.”

“And here I am,” he said, his mouth twisting into a fine imitation of a smile.

“Edward, I—”

“No more, please. Not today. I haven’t slept for days, and I may just collapse in
a heap if I’m forced to talk about this much more.”

“Will you at least talk to Robbie?” she pressed.

“He’s been grumbling to you, hasn’t he?”

“I think he’s right to be worried.”

He sat up straight and looked down his fine, proud, aristocratic nose at her. “You
think he’s
right
? Whatever can you know of it?”

“I was a nurse. I took care of men like you. I saw how they suffered.”

“Men like
me
? You mean the crackpots, shaking and stammering, covering their ears whenever a door
slams shut? You think I’m like
them
?”

“There’s no shame in it—”

“Of course there is. Everything about it is shameful, beginning with the way people
like you talk about it. As if you know. As if anyone who wasn’t there can possibly
understand.”

“I didn’t say I understand.”

“
Don’t
. Don’t even think it. Your problem, Charlotte Brown, is that you believe you can
fix everything. But you can’t fix me. Nothing can, save oblivion. The same oblivion
I was desperate for, but was denied by well-meaning doctors and nurses like you. So
save me your concern and your pity. They’re wasted on me, and we both know it.”