A Bitter Truth (4 page)

“My parents are waiting for me in Somerset,” I began, and then realized that it was the wrong thing to say. “Lydia. Perhaps if you told me why you quarreled and how it was that your husband struck you—if I understood the circumstances a little better, perhaps I could help you see your way more clearly.”

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s presumptuous of me even to think you could come with me.”

“Lydia—”

But Simon was walking through the restaurant door to fetch us, and we followed him out to the motorcar without speaking.

The drive back to London began in silence. Simon, concentrating on the road as the rain began again in earnest, was taciturn. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that Lydia was anxiously smoothing her gloves, as if regretting broaching the subject of my traveling with her to her home.

Finally, as the rain let up a little, I said to Simon, “Lydia has asked if I’d go with her to Vixen Hill. That’s her home.”

“Where is Vixen Hill?” he asked, raising his voice a little so that she could hear him.

“It’s in Sussex,” she replied after a moment, her voice reluctant in the darkness.

“Tomorrow we’ll drive you there, shall we?” he suggested. “It will be no trouble.”

“No—that’s lovely of you to ask, but I think—I’d rather not take you so far out of your way,” she answered him, trying to refuse him as politely as she could.

“On the contrary,” he said, “Bess would like to see you safely home.”

“I couldn’t consider it,” she told him. “Please. No.”

And that was the end of that.

I could see Simon’s profile in the dim reflection of the headlamps and could almost read what was going through his mind—that her refusal struck him as odd, given the fact that she’d just asked me to accompany her to Sussex. But I thought I understood her. My presence wouldn’t appear especially threatening. Arriving with someone like Simon as well could send a very different message—that she felt the need of protection.

I said, trying to cast a little oil on troubled waters, “There’s no hurry, Lydia. Truly there isn’t.”

“I must mend this quarrel somehow. It can’t go on—Roger is leaving for France on Boxing Day. I don’t know what to do.”

I thought of offering to let her stay in the flat after I left for Somerset, but I had a feeling she would refuse. And even if she accepted, without money, how would she feed herself, or buy warmer clothing to see her through?

Simon asked, “I know a Roger Markham from Sussex. Royal Engineers. Is he by any chance your husband?”

“Oh, no. No. His name is Ellis. Roger Ellis.” She added his rank and regiment.

How simply Simon had discovered that!

“He’s home on compassionate leave,” she went on when Simon said nothing more. “His brother Alan died a fortnight ago. Alan is—was—a Navy man, torpedoed off Ireland. He was severely wounded, but there was hope for a time. And then the doctors could do no more, and we brought him home to Vixen Hill. It was rather awful. I shouldn’t have quarreled with Roger, under the circumstances. It was foolish of me.”

We were coming down the street to Mrs. Hennessey’s house now, and Lydia added wistfully, “We were all so fond of Alan.”

We thanked Simon as he walked with us to Mrs. Hennessey’s door, and Lydia preceded me up the stairs, giving me a moment alone with him.

I could say very little—she was within hearing—but I asked, “You’ll stay over in London tonight?”

“Yes, of course,” he answered. “I’ll come in the morning.”

Just then, Lydia paused on the stairs, and I turned quickly to see her leaning against the banister, her head down.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, seeing my alarm. “I seem to have hurried too much and given myself a headache.” She went on up the stairs more slowly, and I heard the door to the flat open.

“Go ahead, make sure she’s all right,” Simon told me, and then he was gone.

I followed her up the stairs and into the flat. “When did your head begin to ache?” I asked.

“It was a sharp pain, catching me off guard. It isn’t as bad now.”

“Lydia. Sit down and let me have a look.”

Removing her coat and hanging it on the tree, she did as I’d asked. With the light from the lamp trained on her face, I examined the bruising and the swelling around her eye. “Where was the sharp pain?” She pointed to the side of her head just above and a little behind her ear. I carefully ran my fingers over the area, and she winced just as I touched what appeared to be a raised wound. Parting her thick, fair hair, I saw that it was actually an open cut that had bled a little and then clotted.

“How did you come by this?” I asked, letting her hair fall back into place.

“After Roger struck me, I ran up the stairs to our room to find my coat. I tripped in my haste and fell forward, hitting my head against the edge of the newel post. I saw stars, I can tell you,” she added with a smile. “But I was all right after a moment. I got up and went on to our room.” She pointed to her knee. “There’s a bruise here as well. Rather a colorful one.”

“Did you know it was bleeding? Where you fell against the newel post?”

“Not until last night, as I was preparing for bed. I really hadn’t given it much thought until then.” She grimaced. “I just knew that it hurt—my face and all that side of my head.”

I pressed my fingers carefully on either side of the wound, but as far as I could tell there was no indication that the skull had been fractured. Still . . . “You ought to see a doctor,” I began, but she cut me short.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I don’t like Dr. Tilton. He gossips, and he’ll want to know how I got this bruise.”

“It isn’t the bruise that worries me. There are doctors here in London.”

She wouldn’t hear of it. But I thought, remembering her dizzy spells, and now the headache, that she must have a concussion. “Have you felt sick? Nauseated?”

“Only when I ate too much at the restaurant,” she replied wryly. “I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was.”

I made her a compress for her face, then said, “Will you go with me to Somerset for a few days, Lydia? I think it would do you good to rest before you go home.” And she could see our doctor.

She refused outright. “If I go anywhere, it will be to Vixen Hill,” she told me. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her. And the thought of her wandering about London, alone and with a concussion, was worrying.

“Why won’t you let Simon drive us to Vixen Hill?”

“I don’t believe it would make it easier for me to face Roger,” she said earnestly.

“Lydia. Is that your real name?”

She flushed. “I’m so sorry. Actually it is. And it was also my mother’s name.”

“If I agree to go home with you—tomorrow, let us say, or the day after—and deliver you safely to your family, will you promise to see a doctor? Just as a precaution.”

“You must stay the night,” she told me, trying to keep her hope from showing in her face. “There’s only the one train a day, coming north, and by the time we reach Vixen Hill, you’ll have missed it.”

“Yes, all right. One night. As long as you agree to see that doctor.”

“Bess, you won’t regret it. I promise you. And the sooner the better. I shan’t be able to sleep now, thinking about tomorrow. Are you quite sure?”

It was the only solution that I could see to the problem of what to do about Lydia. It set me free to go on to Somerset, and I could leave her in Sussex, secure in the knowledge that she had returned safely to her family. I was sure Simon wouldn’t approve, but tomorrow morning I could explain to him why I’d made this decision, and arrange to have him meet me in London on my return. After all, Lydia had told him who her husband was, and where she lived. It wasn’t as if I were going off with a complete stranger to an unknown destination.

And if I had any reason to believe that Lydia had made the wrong choice, if her husband refused to take her back, then she could come with me to Somerset until she could decide what she ought to do next.

Her happiness at having the decision to return to Vixen Hill taken out of her hands was obvious. For her sake, I hoped that her faith in Roger Ellis was justified.

I said, “There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind. Who is Juliana?”

At first I didn’t think she was going to tell me. And then she said, “Juliana? She’s Roger’s sister.”

Chapter Two

T
he next morning, I looked for Simon to return, but as the time sped on, I realized that it was likely I’d miss him. But where was he? What had held him up?

I wrote a hasty note and left it with Mrs. Hennessey, and then there was nothing for it but to find a cab to take us to the railway station. I even looked over my shoulder before we turned the corner, to see if Simon’s motorcar was in sight.

The train was crowded, as usual, and Lydia and I had difficulty finding two seats together. She was embarrassed that I had to pay for her ticket, but she promised to see that I was recompensed as soon as she reached Vixen Hill.

I said as we pulled out of the station into the misting rain, “Won’t it be awkward—a guest arriving without any warning? Perhaps we should have sent a telegram. After all, your family is in mourning.”

“I’d considered that, but I think it will be best just to walk in without fanfare. And Roger will very likely be as grateful as I am for your presence. There’s the awkwardness, you see, of meeting for the first time. I have no idea what to say—or what he’ll do. It’s so difficult to know, isn’t it?”

She’d persuaded herself that my presence would make all well again. But I had my doubts. Quarrels were not always settled so easily—or so amicably. Roger Ellis could see her flight to London as a more serious infraction than his blow. I was beginning to see that Simon was right, this was a more complicated business than I’d foreseen. Mainly because Lydia herself was far more uncertain than I’d realized.

“Are you sure,” I asked, “that this is the right thing to do? Perhaps we should have waited another day until you’re more comfortable with returning. It would be simple enough to get down at the next stop.”

“Oh, no, I want to put it behind me as quickly as possible.”

We talked for some time after that, exchanging information to make it appear more likely that she’d known me for some time.

“Wasn’t it difficult,” she asked at one point, “to work with badly wounded men? I know how distressing it was to care for Alan in his last days. Roger was wounded, you know. In the shoulder. He never told us, and it mustn’t have been severe, because he wasn’t sent back to England.” She bit her lip. “It was George who mentioned it. He’s a friend of the family. He’d run into Roger in France. But I hadn’t seen Roger for three years. Not until he came home because of Alan. And he treated me like a stranger. As if he couldn’t remember those months before the war when we were so happy.”

“War does change people,” I pointed out. “And of course there was his brother.”

“Yes, I know,” she said wistfully. “I shouldn’t have pressed. But I wanted so badly to have a child. Someone to love, if—if the worst happens. That’s what we quarreled about, you see.” She touched her face. “The hurt went deeper than the blow. That’s why I couldn’t stay at Vixen Hill.”

This was the truth, finally.

“We are a house of widows,” she went on. “For all intents and purposes these last three years, I have been one as well. Roger’s mother and his grandmother live with us, and I could see that their children have been their salvation. He may never come back from France, once he leaves. This could be our only chance.”

“Was Alan married? Did he have children?”

“He was married, yes. But he and Eleanor had no children. And neither do Margaret and Henry. She’s Roger’s sister, she lives near Canterbury.”

“And Juliana?”

“No. Of course not.”

She was silent for a time. Then she said, “Sometimes I think they’re cursed. Margaret and Alan and Roger. Mama Ellis told me once that Juliana’s death was devastating. It scarred all of them. Roger’s father couldn’t accept it. He tried, but in the end he went out into the heath and shot himself.”

I was shocked. “She’s dead?” It was all I could manage to say.

“She died when she was only six years old. Of a mastoid tumor. Roger won’t speak her name. It’s as if she never existed. He was closer to her in age than Margaret and Alan. Alan, when he came of age, turned Vixen Hill over to Roger. He felt he couldn’t live there, and he bought a house in Portsmouth before joining the Navy as a career officer. Margaret married young. I think to escape. Although it turned out well enough. She and Henry have been very happy.”

“Did you—were you told these things before you married Roger Ellis?” I asked.

“I told myself I’d make Roger forget Juliana. But you can’t really change people, can you? We took a house in London for the first six months, and then I could tell that he missed Vixen Hill. Alan could walk away, you see, but Roger couldn’t. And so we returned to Sussex.” Putting a hand to her head, she said, “I wish this pounding would stop.”

I didn’t remind her about her promise.

We pulled into a station at that juncture, and in the flurry of people getting down or settling into seats, conversation was impossible. Lydia closed her eyes, and I thought she slept for a quarter of an hour or so.

We reached the station just outside of Hartfield in the early afternoon. I was glad, for the train was stuffy and so crowded we could hardly hear ourselves think. I said, as Lydia and I stepped down into a small station hardly worthy of the name, “How far is it to Vixen Hill?”

“Not far, as the crow flies,” she said, handing in our tickets. “There’s a carriage we can hire to take us there. I was so fortunate the day I left—a neighbor was on her way to Hartfield to do her marketing, and she was willing to take me to the station. I wouldn’t have wanted to walk—I’d have missed my train for one thing. But I would have walked, you know. I was that desperate to get away.”

We found the carriage without any trouble, and the driver, an elderly man with a foul-smelling pipe, was more than willing to take us to Vixen Hill. We were soon on our way through the village of Hartfield. It was prosperous enough, with cottages and houses leading into a street of shops and an inn. I could see the tower of a church up a side street, and farther along, I glimpsed the doctor’s shingle on a house facing a small shop selling dry goods.

Several people turned to stare, but I thought that had more to do with the fact that I was a stranger than with Lydia’s bruised face and blackened eye. Still, she kept her gloved hand raised, as if to keep her hat from blowing off.

I heard her murmur, “I knew this would be an ordeal.”

“It will be over soon. There’s the end of town in sight already.”

We came to a slight bend in the road just before the outskirts, and I turned to my left, aware of someone watching us. My gaze met that of the village constable standing there.

I was used to the constable who walked past Mrs. Hennessey’s house each evening and paused to pass the time of day with her. And to the constable in Somerset whose children brought us fresh strawberries from his garden every spring. Comfortable figures who kept order and were a part of the fabric of our lives.

This man was cut from a different cloth, and I thought perhaps he’d been in the war, wounded and discharged, for his face was hard, his eyes cold, as if he remembered too much and had no way of forgetting.

And then Hartsfield was behind us, and the heath, encroaching on the outskirts, as if lying in wait, quickly surrounded us. I was used to the moors in Devon and Cornwall. But this was dramatically different, low, black twisted branches of stunted heather and gorse filling the horizon now as far as the eye could see.

The land was sour, bare in places, in others dotted with blighted shrubs and what appeared to be the struggling remnants of grasses and other vegetation that had given up long ago.

“This is where you live?” I asked, surprised. I’d been to Sussex before, lovely villages and a countryside that was inviting. This was quite different.

“Ashdown Forest,” Lydia murmured. “I hate it. In winter it sucks the life out of you, leaving you as twisted and dead as it is. Winter bleak, that’s what it is.”

Apparently, from what she was telling me as we held on tightly on the now bumpy ride over winter-rutted tracks that bore little resemblance to roads, Ashdown Forest had been a hunting preserve of kings. A ditch had surrounded it to keep the animals in and the peasant poachers out.

“You can still find bits of the ditch if you know where to look. But the forest has long since disappeared. There are stands of trees here and there, mere remnants of what used to be.”

I could see why she called it winter bleak.

The day was overcast now, and that did little to make the drab brown and black landscape more appealing. In the far distance I glimpsed sheep grazing, which must have meant that this wiry and unappealing growth was nourishing. But there was so little color to this palette. Even the moors in the West Country were greener and more inviting.

I said, “Is it always so dreary?”

“To be fair, in the spring when the gorse blooms, it’s touched with green and gold. And in summer the ling—the heather—flowers. A carpet of lavender, and it comes right to the edge of the lawns. But I know winter is coming when I see the ling blooming, and that’s depressing. Winter seems to last longer than any other season. When my brother was alive, I’d find an excuse to go to Suffolk for a week or so. We were close, he and I, and while I like his wife well enough, sadly we have very little in common. After he was killed, I began to feel like a guest there on sufferance.”

Roger, I thought, sounded rather selfish. And so did her brother’s widow, for that matter.

She fell silent, as if bracing herself for what was to come.

As we moved deeper into Ashdown Forest, the landscape became even more bleak, if that was possible. The occasional sheep or cows, the handful of horses, seemed overwhelmed by the silence. From time to time we moved into the shadow of trees, their bare branches arching over our heads like the high ribbed ceiling of a cathedral nave. Occasionally I saw narrow, overgrown paths leading off into denser growth, mysterious, almost secretive.

I was hard-pressed to tell one featureless track from the other as we made our way across the heath. I found it difficult to imagine that this was once a great forest, with deer and whatever else a king chose to hunt confined here awaiting his pleasure. That was a chilling thought, that the animals were all but penned here, until he and his cronies came again to slaughter them. I was beginning to feel rather vulnerable myself in this strange world, and I compared it to the blighted landscape of France where war had destroyed every vestige of grass and trees and fields. Very different—and yet in some way, very much the same. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the similarity until I realized that no one seemed to live here either. A wasteland of man’s making. No Man’s Land. Just then I saw the distant broken arms of a windmill, but the house attached to it was not visible.

We turned off the track into a lane, bordered by a line of ash trees, that led in turn to a red brick house whose lawns ended abruptly at the edge of the gorse and heather. As if a line had been drawn, and the wildness told not to cross it. Or had the wildness told the grass to encroach no farther?

I wondered if the house had begun life as a hunting lodge, because there was a tall central block that appeared to be older than the wings to either side, the brick a mellow rose. High above the door, an oriel window broke the plainness of the facade, the panes dark and lifeless under the dull sky. Gardens graced the lawns where the lane became a drive looping back on itself. But at this time of year the gardens too were dead, bare beds with no promise of spring, not even a brave bit of green from a tulip or daffodil poking tentatively up.

I thought of the old legends of cursed land. Or Mr. Conan Doyle’s tale of great black hounds haunting the moors. One could believe in them in such a place. I couldn’t help but remember the comfortable drowsiness of Somerset, a soft green countryside where I would be now if I’d gone home with Simon.

“Vixen Hill,” Lydia said. “Home.” There was a hint of melancholy in the words.

As we came out of the looping drive, I could see the pair of holly trees standing guard on either side of the doorway, their tough, glossy leaves like armor in the pale light, the rich red berries bright against the brick. Whoever had planted those hollies, I thought, must have been hungry for even a small bit of color.

The carriage drew to a halt before the massive door, arched and faced with stone, barred with iron. It was either very old or a Victorian replica that had weathered well. I looked up at the long oriel window, and thought I saw a flicker of movement there. But it was only a trick of the light as the clouds scudded overhead.

Lydia gripped my hand like a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline. I could see, glancing at her face, that she was more likely to turn around and leave than get down and walk to the door. “I feel sick,” she whispered.

But it was too late to walk away. She would have to face whatever lay beyond that door. I wondered what role Roger’s mother and grandmother might play in this reunion. I hadn’t thought to ask Lydia about that.

“I’m here,” I said quietly. “Chin up, and take your courage in both hands. You’ve come home of your own free will.”

She smiled, a shaky one at best, but a smile nonetheless. “Is that what you tell your patients when you send them back to their regiments?”

“Of course,” I lied, paying the driver and grateful to be seeing the end of that pipe. What I told my patients was very different.
Take care. And God go with you.
Only I never spoke that last aloud. It was a silent prayer that they would survive another week, another month, another year. So many of them didn’t.