Lavender Morning (34 page)

she was clasping as though it were a safe full of jewels.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it, Miss Harcourt?” he said as he opened the front passenger door for her.

When she opened the back door and got in, David heard the laughter of what sounded like a hundred men,

but he didn’t look up.

It was hard to drive with the long brace on his leg. Pushing a clutch in as he shifted gears caused him pain at

every move. Already, the padding had slipped to one side, and he could feel the steel rubbing his skin raw. If he

had any sense, he’d pull the car to the side of the road and adjust the padding. But he glanced at Miss Harcourt

in the rearview mirror, saw that her beautiful face was set, as though she knew he was about to do something

awful, so he grit his teeth and tried to ignore the pain.

“I was told you know the way,” he said, glancing at her in the mirror.

She gave a brief nod, but that was her only acknowledgment that she heard him.

“Do you think you could share those directions with me?”

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“When necessary, I will.”

In the back of the car, Edi sat straight up. Just this morning she’d again suggested to General Austin that she

go alone to Dr. Jellicoe’s house. She said she could do her usual pretend of being a war widow and she could

make her way around the country by herself. But the general’s answer had been a single word: “No.” He hadn’t

shouted or explained, but there was something in the way he spoke that made her know for sure that there was

more to the assignment than he was telling her. Again, she knew that if he wanted a man with her, then that meant

there was danger involved. The general had casually told her, as though it didn’t matter, that under the backseat

of the old car were half a dozen M1 rifles and enough ammo to hold off most of a battalion.

After that, General Austin handed her
the
magazine. It was a
Time
magazine, May 15, 1944, with Dr.

Alexander Fleming’s portrait on the cover. It was a few weeks old but she hadn’t seen the issue.

“Get it to Jellie,” General Austin said, then handed her a packet of English money and a map. If she was

going to find Dr. Jellicoe, a map was essential. The English roads had been laid out in medieval times by wagons

and animals. If a tree was in the path, or a hill, or someone’s house, the wagon went around it. Property lines

were based on waterways or rock outcroppings or whatever a person could use for identification.

In modern times, those roads were still used, and they rambled about as they twisted and turned around

landmarks that had long ago disappeared. In peacetime, there were signs posted everywhere. If a person came

to a meeting of eight roads, the signs were the only way to know what led where. But in wartime, as a

precautionary measure, most of the signs around England had been removed. Without a map or a knowledgeable

guide, no one could find anything.

Edi tried to study the map—and to keep her mind off Clare’s driving. However, today he seemed to be

more cautious. He wasn’t speeding, wasn’t darting in and out of traffic, and, best of all, he wasn’t smartmouthing about everything.

She spent an hour on the map and twice sketched it from memory. If it were lost, she didn’t want to not

know where to go.

As for the magazine, she was almost afraid to open it. Treating it with the reverence she’d have used if she

were holding a Gutenberg Bible, she went through it page by page, reading that Dr. Fleming’s penicillin was

going to be made available to the public, and that an American, Kathleen Kennedy, had married a man who was

going to become the duke of Devonshire.

What she was most interested in seeing was some mark made in the magazine, something in the text or in

the margins, but as far as she would see, there was nothing.

“Interesting magazine?” he asked, looking at her in the rearview mirror, but Edi was silent.

“It’s going to be a long ride if nobody talks,” Sergeant Clare said from the front seat.

“I see no reason for idle conversation,” Edi said. She could see the side of his face, and he was frowning.

Let him, she thought. Let him frown all he wants. She just needed to get the magazine to Dr. Jellicoe, then on the

ride back, the doctor would be with them. That would put a further barrier between her and the obnoxious David

Clare.

They rode in silence, and at about 1 P.M. it began to sprinkle rain. Sergeant Clare pulled the car off the

road and started down a gravel lane.

“What are you doing?” Edi asked, alarmed. Was something wrong?

He stopped the car in front of a little cottage that had a sign that said HOME COOKED LUNCHES AND

TEAS. David put his arm across the back of the seat and turned to look at her. “Miss Harcourt, you may be so

disciplined that you’ve trained yourself not to eat, but I’m human and I need food.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, but she didn’t meet his eyes. By her reckoning, they should reach Dr. Jellicoe’s

by eight tonight. General Austin said the doctor didn’t know they were coming. “If he knows, he’ll hide,” the

general said. “The element of surprise is important.” Even though she asked, he didn’t tell Edi how she was going

to persuade Dr. Jellicoe to leave with her and Sergeant Clare—but then, wasn’t the magazine supposed to do

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to persu

3/16/2010 ade Dr. Jellicoe to leave with her and Sergeant Clare—but the

Jude Deveraux - Lavender Morning.html n, wasn’t the magazine supposed to do

that?

As they got out of the car, Edi could see that something was wrong with Sergeant Clare, but she wasn’t

about to ask him why he was limping and seemed to be in pain. If he’d been injured in an action, she would have

known about it through the general’s office, so if he was hurt, it was because he’d tripped over something, or,

more likely, banged a vehicle into something.

She held on to her satchel and handbag as they entered the restaurant, which was actually the living room of

a rose-covered cottage that was being used as a tearoom.

“Oh, dearie,” said a plump, pleasant-looking woman as soon as she saw Sergeant Clare limping. “You’ve

been wounded. You just sit down here and let me get whatever you need. Here’s a menu, and I’m Mrs.

Pettigrew, and you two just take your time with whatever you want.” She left the room, leaving Edi and David

sitting at one of the four tables. They were the only customers.

Edi had a moment of feeling guilty. Perhaps the reason General Austin had sent Sergeant Clare with her

was because the young man had been injured.

“You were wounded?” she asked from behind her menu.

“Yeah, by your damned general!” David muttered. “Think the potatoes are any good here?”

Since the menu was mostly dishes made with potatoes, Edi didn’t bother answering him. She looked for the

woman to take their orders but she was nowhere to be seen. “I think I’ll…” Edi broke off, not wanting to say

that she was going to the restroom.

“Go on, I’ll order for you,” he said in a way that was nearly a growl. “Unless you want something other

than potatoes.”

Edi had been around General Austin enough to know when a man was looking for a rousing good

argument, and if Sergeant Clare didn’t stop speaking to her in that tone, she was going to give it to him. It was

enough that she was in charge of seeing that they got to their destination and that the magazine was delivered; she

didn’t need to put up with a surly man. From her observation, if Sergeant Clare wasn’t dangerously cocky, he

was angry. When she got back to General Austin, she planned to tell him in detail what she thought of this man

he’d sent with her.

Edi got up from her chair, picked up her handbag, and started to reach for her satchel, but thought that

carrying it to the restroom would draw too much attention to it. She didn’t think that Sergeant Clare had been

told anything and she wanted it to stay that way.

She took a while in the restroom. It was a home bathroom, with rose-printed curtains and pretty little soaps

in a glass jar. This room, so very lovely, was why she got away from London and the soldiers and everything that

reminded her of war as often as she could. She took her time washing her face, applying fresh lipstick, then

taking her hair down, recombing it, and pulling it back again.

When she got back to the table, the food was there, and it was delicious. There were huge, fluffy potatoes

slathered in homemade butter, some beef that had been cooked for hours so it was tender, and some green

beans that had probably been taken from the garden that morning.

Neither she nor the sergeant spoke much, just a couple of comments on the rain, which seemed to be about

to stop.

After lunch, as Sergeant Clare limped back to the car and again held open the front passenger door for her,

he said, “It would be nice if you sat in front so you could give me directions.” Again she ignored him as she

opened the back door and got in. “One thing I can say about you is that you don’t give in easily, do you?” he

said as he got into the car, again struggling with his left leg, which seemed to be stiff.

“Would you please get back on the road? We need to make a turn in about three miles.”

“Are you ready to tell me where we’re going and what we’re doing?”

“General Austin wants me to offer my condolences to the widow of a friend of his.”

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“Yeah, I heard all that,” he said. Just then, the sky seemed to open up and the rain started coming down

hard. David turned on the windshield wipers, but they didn’t work very well. The rain was so loud that he had to

shout to be heard. “Do you know this road where we’re supposed to turn?”

She started to say that she didn’t, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I have a map and it—”

“So you know nothing,” he said loudly as he used his shirtsleeve to wipe the fog off the inside of the

window. “Maybe we should pull over and wait this out. This car isn’t the best for these roads.”

“No,” Edi said from the backseat. “We need to get to—” She almost said “Dr. Jellicoe’s” but caught

herself. The car lurched as it hit a pothole, then slipped a few feet.

“I really think we should pull over,” David said. “I can’t see where I’m going.”

“Then we’ll walk if we have to,” Edi snapped. What was wrong with the man if he let a little rain bother

him? She picked up her leather satchel off the seat and opened it to reassure herself about the magazine. If

anything happened, she didn’t want it to get wet. Whatever was inside it had to be preserved at all costs.

But when she opened the case, there was nothing in it but her notebook, two pencils, a pen, and the folded

map. In disbelief, she pulled everything out onto her lap. There was no magazine. She put the contents back, then

started searching the seat. Did the magazine fall out? She got down on her hands and knees and looked under

the front seat, on the floor, in the rack in the back.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sergeant Clare yelled over the sound of the rain.

She leaned forward, her mouth close to his ear. “Where is the magazine?”

“What magazine?”

“The
Time
magazine!” she shouted at him. “Where is it?”

“What’s wrong with you?” he yelled back, his hand over his ear. “I don’t know what happened to your

magazine. You took so long in the bathroom I got bored, so I started reading it. Maybe I left it on the chair, I

don’t know. I’ll buy you a new one.”

In all her life, Edi had never panicked, but now she did. “We have to go back!” she screamed. “Now! This

minute. Turn this car around and go back. We have to get that magazine!”

“Calm down—” David began, but then he saw her face and muttered an obscenity under his breath. “Why

the hell didn’t you tell me it was important?”

“It’s not your job to know anything!” she screamed at him. If he weren’t driving the car, she would have

put her hands around his neck and squeezed. “I knew you were incompetent. I begged the general to give me

someone else, but, no, he had to send me with
you.
So help me, when we get out of this—if we do—I’m going

to recommend that you be court-martialed.”

“You want to sit back and hold on?” David said in a voice that let her know he was as angry as she was. In

the next minute he slammed the car around in a circle that sent them skidding on the muddy, slick road. The old

car almost conked out, but it gave a couple of coughs, then kept moving. David gunned it and it slid from one

side of the road to the next, but he kept it under control and finally straightened it out.

In the back, Edi was slammed against one side of the car, then the other. She tried to grab on to the

armrests, but when she’d get near one, the car would turn the other way and she’d miss it. Her head hit the door

twice, and half the bobby pins in her hair came out then flew about the car, one of them just missing her eye.

In a tidal wave of gravel, David stopped the car in front of the little cottage where they’d eaten lunch. “Wait

here and I’ll—”

“Go to hell!” she said as she got out of the car into the driving rain.

There was a CLOSED sign on the window and the door was locked, but Edi started pounding and yelling