An Unwilling Accomplice (20 page)

“I wonder if someone does this just to annoy Mrs. Neville,” I asked.

“Very likely. Her views on Agriculture being the salvation of mankind would drive you mad in a very short time. I doubt if she’d brook much in the way of argument.”

We went on to the motorcar and drove back the way we’d come.

This time the door was standing open in Maddie’s cottage, and Simon rapped on the wood rather than walking straight in.

“Who is it?” Maddie called. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Shortly afterward he appeared in the doorway, looking first at us in quickly concealed surprise, and then at the sling that cushioned my wrist.

He said, “What brings you back again, Sister?”

“I was wondering how Mr. Warren had fared. If he recovered or if infection had cost him his arm.”

“He’s quite recovered, although the arm is a little stiff. I’ve shown him how to strengthen it with exercises, and by the time winter sets in, it should be back to normal.” As he spoke, he pulled the door wide and politely invited us in. But I could tell that he was not happy to see us. “I was about to put the kettle on. Would you care for a cup of tea?”

We said yes, equally politely, and as Maddie swung the blackened iron kettle in over the fire in the hearth, Simon asked, “Did you ever discover who had shot the miller?”

“I doubt it matters,” he said carefully. “Warren is happy enough with the arrangements made to see him through his recovery. I doubt he’s interested in pressing charges.”

“All the same, Warren could have been killed,” Simon went on. “Someone going about shooting people is dangerous.”

“It’s an Upper Dysoe matter,” Maddie said after a moment. “I shouldn’t worry about it.” He set out cups for us and I noticed that they were a rather fine china, and the spoons, though old, were silver, tarnished a little from being kept in a drawer in the cupboard. “What brings you back to us? Surely it isn’t only your concern for Mr. Warren’s welfare.”

“Sister Hammond,” I began slowly, “a friend of mine as well as a colleague, received a letter from you recently, asking her to come here as soon as possible. She was very worried, because she thought that someone she knew might be desperately ill. Or desperately in trouble. And as she had no means of reaching Upper Dysoe on her own, she asked me to come here in her place. The odd thing is, we ourselves were here looking for someone not that long ago. It could be that they are the same man. It’s even possible that the Major knows where we can find him.”

Maddie didn’t reply at once. He dealt with the tea quietly and efficiently, and then while the pot was steeping, he looked across at me.

“I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name. Sister Hammond, did you say?”

“She’s serving at a hospital for wounded soldiers, outside Shrewsbury.
Someone
knew how to find her.”

“And did she say why she’d been summoned here?”

“Only that someone had been asking for her. She thought the writer must be a woman, because the letter was signed
Maddie
.” From my pocket I took the letters Mrs. Hennessey had forwarded to me. “Is this your handwriting? Or do you know whose it might be?”

He politely read the letter, folded it again and handed it back to me.

“This isn’t my writing. For that matter, how could I possibly know anyone in a Shrewsbury hospital?”

He was avoiding answering me. He probably didn’t know Sister Hammond. But someone must have known her.

I asked, “Why should someone else use your name? I assure you, the letter is genuine. The question is, who wrote it—and why? And if this man needs help, why won’t you let us take him to Sister Hammond?”

He set the pot on the little table at my elbow, looked again at the sling and my puffy fingers where the swelling hadn’t completely gone down, then poured the steaming tea into the delicate cups himself.

“I expect if someone didn’t want to sign such a letter, the writer might have chosen the name of any number of other people. Madeleine isn’t an uncommon name.” He put honey in his tea, and stirred it with the silver spoon. “Not everything is what it seems.”

It occurred to me that although I’d helped him in a very difficult bit of surgery, Maddie knew very little about me and even less about Simon. We were strangers asking questions that perhaps he didn’t care to answer.

“I can bring Sister Hammond to you,” I said. “If you wish it.” I didn’t know quite how, but I was willing to try.

“You could bring anyone here and call them by whatever name you liked.” He smiled at me. “Have you considered that someone might have played a trick on your friend? Not a very nice one, to be sure. Still, there must be dozens of men in her care. And dozens of others who have left that hospital and moved on, back to France or invalided out of the Army altogether. Who knows what sort of feelings one of them has harbored.”

He would have been a master at chess. Nothing in his face gave anything away. But then depending on his past, he might have had many years of experience hiding what he was thinking.

I was feeling hurt and angry. I’d come to his aid when he needed it. And in return, he’d refused to come to mine. I said, “Odd that a former patient serving in France would have thought to use your name and this village in his letter. Unless of course you’re hiding something.” I rose. There was no reason to prolong our stay. “Thank you for the tea.”

A shadow passed over his face. “I’m an old man,” he countered. “I have met many people in my lifetime. If they choose to use my name, I can’t prevent it.”

As we walked to the door, Simon turned. “Perhaps you will carry a message to the man who knew Sister Hammond. Tell him we came to help, and you sent us away.”

We left him standing there, and went out to the motorcar. While Simon saw to the crank, I tried to think what to do next. Call on Sister Hammond? Or find a way to speak to the elusive Major?

In the end we drove on to Shrewsbury, and there we waited for more than an hour until Sister Hammond came off duty.

She greeted us apprehensively. She hadn’t met Simon before, and this tall man in uniform was an unknown quantity.

I tried to set her mind at ease by introducing him as a friend, but her experiences with the Army and the Nursing Service because of Sergeant Wilkins had left their mark.

“Did you receive my letter? I shouldn’t have sent it, but I was worried, you see,” she began anxiously. “I didn’t quite know what I should do about it. I’ve heard nothing more from this woman Maddie. Perhaps it was all a mistake, and I read more into the message than I should have done.”

We hadn’t said anything—yet—to her about stopping in Upper Dysoe. Nor had I told her that Maddie was a man.

The rain had moved on. We were walking on the grounds, enjoying a warm evening and moonlight pointing our way. The gardens had lost their color without the sun. Now the late season pinks and whites and blues were varying shades of gray, deepening to black.

“You thought it was from Sergeant Wilkins. This letter.” Simon hadn’t phrased it as a question.

Sister Hammond turned to him. “I didn’t know what to think. This person Maddie hadn’t given me a name. But who else could it be? I didn’t want any more trouble. Sergeant Wilkins had seemed so trustworthy, so open and honest. And look what happened? I never expected—and so when the letter came, I was frightened I’d be drawn back into his problems. I was even afraid to tell anyone else that it had come.”

She left unsaid the fact that she must have felt something for the sergeant, and possibly still did. In spite of everything. She didn’t want to be the one to turn him in, knowing he would very likely be shot for desertion. If he wasn’t hanged for murder.

“Have you ever had such—er—difficulties with a patient before this?” I asked. “You
assumed
this person was referring to Sergeant Wilkins. But could it have been someone else, someone you’d treated in the past?”

“I’ve thought about that too,” she told me, her voice on the edge of tears. “But there’s no one. The men in this house are from the ranks,” she went on with an uneasy glance at Simon. “We aren’t encouraged to get to know any of them personally. But of course we do. We write letters to their families and read them their letters as well, if they’re too ill. You know as well as I do that when you sit by a man in delirium, you learn things about him that no one else knows.”

Beside me in the moonlight Simon stirred abruptly, but said nothing.

I’d sat by him when he was off his head with delirium. He’d relived old battles, but there may have been other confidences another Sister had heard. In fact, he’d questioned me afterward about what he’d said while feverish.

“And you form attachments, you can’t help it,” Sister Hammond went on. “You’re warned against this in training, but it’s only human to
feel
.” She was trying to justify the reason she’d believed in Sergeant Wilkins.

“But have you heard from any of your other patients after they’ve been released? From Lovering Hall or elsewhere?”

“Only the usual. A note of gratitude from a wife or mother, sometimes from the patient as well. The officers write more often to thank the staff than the ranks do. I expect that’s only natural.”

“You’ve worked in a clinic or hospital that cares for officers?” Simon asked her.

“Well, yes, earlier in the war. Before I was sent here. Shrewsbury is closer to my home in Ludlow than Dorset. I can go there when I’m given leave.”

Thirty miles or so compared to around one hundred and fifty. It made sense.

“Were there any officers who would think of you in a time of distress?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Sister Hammond replied. “The hospital in Dorset dealt with severe head injuries. There were men who couldn’t remember anything about their lives before the war. They woke up in hospital and couldn’t even tell you how they’d been wounded, much less their names or where they came from.” She started to cry. “It’s too much. I’d just been kind, I’d just tried to help. And it nearly got me relieved of my duties. Matron is still watching everything I do, looking for a reason to pounce. I’m just so very
tired
.”

We walked down to the small lake at the bottom of the garden. The moon silvered the surface, and as we moved around to the far side, the lights of the house were reflected like so many candles floating on the pewter face of the water.

Simon touched my shoulder briefly as we stood there, looking back at the tall windows that gave on to the terrace and the gardens below it. A lovely scene,

And then someone screamed, shattering the quiet.

Sister Hammond said, “That’s Bobby Taylor. He has nightmares sometimes. We’re used to it now. Some of the officers had nightmares too. Fragments of memory that tormented them in their sleep. They couldn’t recall them afterward, no matter how hard they tried.”

Or wouldn’t,
I thought, having had experience with such cases myself.

“And you did your best for them. Perhaps there’s someone whose memories are coming back now, and he needs help coping with them.”

“Do you think Maddie could be his wife?” she asked eagerly. “That would explain everything. I can’t go to him, of course, I’m needed here. But I could write and make suggestions, couldn’t I? I know there are clinics and hospitals—even doctors—who can help.”

It was a way out for her. But I had to discourage her.

“Until you know, I wouldn’t do that,” I told her. “Write, I mean. Unless she gives you more information, a name, something you can take to Matron for advice. You don’t want to find yourself in trouble again because you jumped to conclusions.”

“No, that’s true. But I feel better already.” In the moonlight I could see her tentative smile. “I’ll wait.”

“Was there any officer in particular who might turn to you in dire distress?”

“I can’t think of anyone.” But she’d answered too quickly.

I waited until we were halfway to the house before asking, “Are you sure there’s no one? Simon, here, has friends he can call on to find out what’s being done for this man. It would take some of the burden from your shoulders.”

She was silent for a time. We’d nearly reached the path that led to the drive when she said, “Of course there’s Harry. Captain Cartwright, that is. We were all so fond of him, and we were overjoyed when we discovered his identity. And quite by chance, you know. Another officer, a new patient, recognized him at once, in spite of his bandages. He couldn’t be sent back to France, but when he was to be released, we found a cousin to care for him. I’d hate to think he was having recurring problems. Or perhaps his memory is beginning to come back, and I’m sure that’s frightening at first.” I could see her sudden frown in the light spilling out of the lower windows. “I don’t think his cousin’s name was Maddie. She lives in Bakewell. Derbyshire. I don’t suppose—do you think he might have wandered off and found his way to this woman Maddie, and she’s writing for him?”

Sister Hammond was a hopeless romantic.

“I think it’s better for Simon to find out, don’t you? It could be a trick by Sergeant Wilkins to lure you somewhere and force you to help him escape. After all, the Army will be checking all the ports. And he has to do something to save himself.”

That brought her back to reality. “I hadn’t considered that. Now I’m even more confused than ever.”

“You mustn’t be. Leave this with us, Sister. We can get to the bottom of it quickly enough by looking to see whether Captain Cartwright is still with his cousin. For all we know, he’s been returned to hospital in Dorset or somewhere else.”

“Of course, you’re right. I’m being stupid again. It’s just that I like helping people, I can’t hold my tongue when a word or a kindness might lift someone’s spirits or make the difference between recovering and being an invalid. Matron tells me to be more objective, but I went into nursing because I
care
.”

“The best of reasons,” I agreed. “But if you hear again from Maddie—or you decide the letter might be from someone else entirely—let me know. Or speak to Matron if you can’t reach me. Please. Two heads are better than one.”

It was an old cliché, but it was the right thing to say to Sister Hammond.