After the War Is Over (20 page)

“Oh, goodness. I must go. Will you promise to take care of Lilly for me?”

“I promise. Good-bye, Miss Brown. Good-bye, and good luck.”

           
18 September 1919

           
Dearest Lilly,

                
This is to let you know that your letter and parcel arrived safely and were delivered
by John Pringle yesterday morning. Thank you so much for the copies of Punch. I read
the entirety of “The Essence of Parliament” from an April issue to Edward last night,
after supper, and he found it very amusing.

                
He has made great progress this past week. He is still not sleeping as well as I would
like, for he was very nearly nocturnal when we arrived here and such habits are most
troublesome to correct. There is also the matter of his nightmares, about which you
know already, though they have been diminishing in frequency of late. As per his wishes
I do not intrude when he is in the midst of one, although I do listen attentively
in case he might require my assistance.

                
His appetite is improving in spite of my limited culinary repertoire, and he eats
well and heartily at each meal. He has put on weight and each day looks more and more
like his old self. Mrs. Pringle keeps us
well supplied with soups and stews, and I even prepared a roast chicken the other
day. My skills as a baker have improved out of all expectation, as well, and it has
been several days since I last burned anything. Mother would be so proud!

                
It rained nonstop yesterday and the day before, and both of us are feeling horribly
restless and cooped in. Today, however, the sky promises to remain clear, so we will
go on a walk after lunch. His prosthesis no longer pains him, he says, although he
will not allow me to inspect the stump of his leg for pressure sores. Perhaps he will
allow Robbie to do so the next time we see you.

                
You asked how we spend our time in the evening. For the most part I read to him, for
his eyes are often very sore by the end of the day, and reading taxes them further.
Once I have finished with the copies of Punch, I will return to Barchester Towers,
which he complains about but, I believe, secretly enjoys.

                
I am not sure if he is yet ready for visitors; perhaps in another fortnight? At that
point I will be at the end of my agreed leave with Miss Rathbone and we shall have
to make some decisions about what to do next.

                
You said you were worried for me, but I assure you I am well and perfectly content.
Edward can be ill-humored at times, as is only to be expected given the circumstances,
but for the most part he is excellent company.

                
I can’t think of anything else we need, apart from more letters. We both enjoy your
accounts of life in London and, most particularly, your studies with dear Mr. Pebbles.

                
Please give my fond regards to Robbie,

With love from your devoted friend,

Charlotte

It was just past ten o’clock in the morning, a fine morning, and if the weather did
hold she would insist on their taking a walk. Perhaps they would go as far as the
sheepfold at Malkin’s farm. She’d been up for ages already; never in her life had
she been comfortable with the notion of lying abed all day. Otherwise how were there
enough hours to accomplish everything one wanted done?

She would wake him in five minutes exactly. He would groan and fuss and swear she
was trying to murder him from lack of sleep, but she knew if she stood at the door
of his room long enough he would eventually get up and begin his day. It was simply
a matter of patience.

Each day was a little easier; each day he did a little better. It wasn’t wishful thinking,
moreover, for she had kept a detailed log of every aspect of his convalescence, and
in its pages was the evidence of how far he had come. She tracked how many hours he
slept, when he had nightmares, how much he ate, and the time and duration of his headaches,
together with his estimate of their severity on a scale from one to ten. She recorded
his complaints regarding dizziness, eyestrain, and any other ache or pain that might
be related to his concussion. She made note of how often and for how long he read,
walked, and napped.

In every respect he was improving. The first week had been terribly difficult, of
course, for he was going without alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, all at once, for
the first time since his return from France some nine months earlier. Had his reliance
on drink been of longer standing, she knew, his recovery would have been far more
difficult.

As it was, he spent a good deal of that week nearly prostrate from nausea and crippling
digestive pain, and his headaches abruptly worsened. At one point he had all the symptoms
of
a fever—he was perspiring, he couldn’t stop shaking, and he complained alternately
of being hot and then cold—but his temperature was perfectly normal when she checked.

And then, one day, he had felt a little better, and the next day even better. He had
gone from strength to strength since then.

Charlotte consulted her wristwatch: it was now a quarter past ten. Yesterday she had
woken him at half past the hour; tomorrow she would wake him at ten sharp. In such
a fashion she hoped to restore his hours of sleep to a more reasonable schedule.

She tramped up the stairs, not bothering to lighten her steps, and knocked on his
door.

“Edward? It’s time you were out of bed.”

“Bugger off.”

“I thought we had agreed you would refrain from such puerile insults. Robbie may not
mind, but I do.”

“Please go away and leave me bloody well alone. Is that better?”

“No. I shall stand here and speak to you for another five minutes. If you are not
out of bed and on your feet by that time, I shall come into your room, open your curtains,
and open the window. I shall then remove the bedclothes from your bed and leave you
to freeze.”

“It’s not that cold. I lived through worse in the trenches.”

“I don’t doubt it. But you didn’t have warm scones and café au lait in the front lines,
did you?”

“I thought coffee was forbidden.”

“It was. But Lilly sent some coffee beans, together with a grinder and a strange little
pot. A percolator, I think she called it. She said I was only to allow you a half
cup of it and that it was best mixed with warm milk.”

“I’m sure it will be revolting.”

“It isn’t. I had some already and it was delicious. You have three minutes left, by
the way. Are you up yet?”

He groaned theatrically, and after an endless pause—had the wretched man actually
fallen back asleep?—the bedstead creaked as he sat up and pulled his prosthetic leg
from the chair next to his bed. She could hear him fastening it on, though the exact
manner in which he did so remained a mystery to her; he refused to let her see him
without the leg attached, and even more stoutly denied her requests to examine his
stump.

The door opened. He was dressed in his usual attire: moleskin trousers, very worn
and patched, an old linen shirt, and a woolen jumper that looked to have been knitted
sometime in the last century. His hair, rather charmingly, was standing on end, and
his days-old beard had a thread of lint caught up in the hairs.

“Wait,” she said, catching at it with her fingertips, “you have something caught in
your whiskers.”

He stood stock-still, his eyes wary, as she drew the thread away. “Thank you,” he
said after a moment.

He seemed to enjoy his breakfast, even his woefully milky coffee, and polished off
nearly half a jar of Mrs. Pringle’s blackberry preserves with his scones. When she
suggested they take advantage of the improved weather and go for a walk, he agreed
so readily that she was taken aback. Normally she had to badger him into doing anything
apart from sitting by the fire in his chair. They made it as far as the bluebell wood,
still a quarter mile short of Malkin’s farm, before she noticed a slight hitch in
Edward’s gait and, suspecting that his prosthesis was paining him, asked if they might
turn back.

The rain returned in the afternoon, so he stretched out on
the sofa and read aloud from
Punch
while she fussed with her knitting and tried to recall, with limited success, the
steps involved in turning the heel of a sock. He was a natural mimic, and when he
recited the magazine’s fictitious exchanges between notables—David Lloyd George lambasting
underlings, for example—he perfectly captured the rolling Welsh cadences of the prime
minister’s voice.

There was no electricity in the cottage, only kerosene lanterns, and as the afternoon
light faded he put aside the magazine and shut his eyes, wincing, but he didn’t complain.

“Is it your eyes? Or a headache?”

“Both.”

“Will you let me try something new to help?”

“Is it painful? Embarrassing?”

“Neither. Let me fetch it from the kitchen.”

As well as the coffee and magazines, Lilly had sent a tiny blue bottle, unlabeled,
but instantly recognizable as lavender oil when opened. In the first-aid box in the
kitchen, Charlotte found some olive oil, normally to be used for earache. She poured
off a teaspoon’s worth into a teacup and mixed it with several drops of the lavender
oil. This she carried back to the sitting room.

“Would you mind sitting up? And can you take off your jumper? I don’t want to stain
it.”

“With what?” he asked, sounding more than a little apprehensive, but he pulled the
jumper over his head and tossed it aside.

“Lavender oil. Now, turn to me and close your eyes. I’m going to rub some of it into
the skin at your temples, then some more at your neck and shoulders.”

“You’ll leave me smelling like my grandmother,” he grumbled.

“Very likely. But it should help with your headache.”

She dipped her thumbs in the oil, wiped away the excess on the rim of the teacup,
and began to massage his temples with the lightest possible touch. She moved her thumbs
in circles, arching them low over his cheekbones and then up and over his brow.

“Bend your head toward me,” she told him, and after scenting her fingers anew she
began to rub behind his ears, slowly and soothingly, until his shoulders sagged and
his head dropped forward in relief.

“Turn away from me, now, but keep your head bent,” she said, and began to massage
his shoulders, only so far as she could easily reach through the open collar of his
shirt, as well as the straining tendons and muscles of his neck.

“Christ, Charlotte . . . you’ll put me on my knees.”

“Is it helping with the headache?”

“Yes . . . at least I think it is. May only be that you’re distracting me.”

“Do you think you could rest now? Only for a half hour or so, otherwise you won’t
be able to sleep tonight.”

“Yes, I think so. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Put on your jumper so you don’t catch cold. I’ll wake you in time
for supper.”

He didn’t stir again until the golden glow of dusk had crept past the deep stone windowsills
and into the room, its gentle light softening everything it touched.

“You look so lovely sitting there,” he whispered. “There’s a sort of halo around you,
from the sun. So lovely.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not yet.”

“I should probably—”

“Don’t. Not yet. I . . . I used to dream of you. When I was
in that hospital in Belgium, half out of my mind with fear and pain and shame, I would
call for you. They told me I was calling for you. And you would come to me, in my
dreams, and you looked just as you look now. An angel sweeping low to greet me. An
angel with a halo of gold.”

“Did it comfort you?” she asked, hoping he could not see her reddening nose, or the
tears that threatened to fall.

“Yes. You comforted me.”

“I was thinking of you, too. Praying that you were still alive.”

“Did you mourn me? Weep for me?”

“You know I did.”

“I so longed to die. I was desperate for it.”

“Why? It will never make sense to me.”

“I knew how disappointed you would be, all of you. It seemed easier to simply slip
away.”

“I was never disappointed in you,” she promised.

“Really? I always assumed it was a chronic state where I was concerned.”

“You mistook me. I was dismayed by your behavior. Not you. I knew you were, and are,
a good man. Not without your faults, but a worthy man all the same. I know I told
you differently at Lilly’s wedding, but I was wrong.”

“You weren’t, though. Look at me, Charlotte.
Look
at me.” He sat up, swung his feet to the floor, and folded up his right trouser leg,
revealing the artificial limb beneath. It was made of aluminum, the metal scratched
and dull, and was held in place with the help of canvas and leather strapping.

His fingers trembling, Edward loosened a buckle at the side of his knee, then one
on the other side, and pulled the prosthesis away. His stump was covered by a kind
of knitted sleeve or sock; this, too, he tossed aside.

“I know you’ve been curious. Go ahead. Tell me that it doesn’t look all that bad.
Offer up some well-meaning platitude.”

His leg had been amputated just below the knee, which explained his ability to walk
with such apparent ease. Whoever had done the surgery had been skilled, for the scarring
was minimal and his stump had healed well.

“As a nurse, I’d say it looks very good. It’s healed properly and you’re evidently
comfortable with your prosthetic.”

“Doesn’t it disgust you?”

“No. Not in the slightest.”

“It should,” he insisted. “I can barely look at it myself.”

“It doesn’t,” she insisted, hating the expression of self-loathing on his face.

“Open your eyes, Charlotte. I’m half a man. A failure in everything I do. A stranger
to his family and friends.”