Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War (21 page)

Chapter 40

S
he was kneeling beside her storage locker, trying to decide what to pack, when they tracked her down.

Constance sat on Lilly’s cot, her face pale with worry. “Going home won’t help your brother. At least wait until you have more news.”

“I’m not going home. I’m going to Paris.”

“Paris? Why Paris?”

“He’s there on leave. Captain Fraser. He and my brother had plans to stay there for a few days.”

“You’re daft! Being absent without leave—”

“I have permission to go. Miss Jeffries was very nice about it.”

The expression on her friends’ faces was quite comical. Even the unshockable Annie and Bridget were dumbfounded.

Annie regarded Lilly with admiration. “She’s letting you go to Paris? To stay with an officer? Bloomin’ ’eck!”

“We didn’t talk about the specifics of where I’m going. She offered me two days’ leave, and I took it.”

“You’re taking an awful risk,” Constance persisted. “What if you’re found out? Ever since the newspapers at home started printing those stories about WAACs being sent home in the family way, the officials here have been on high alert. If anyone sees you with him—”

“That won’t happen,” Lilly said, her voice as firm as she could make it. “I’m only going there to save him from unnecessary worry.”

“It’ll take an age to get there,” Bridget said. “You’ll have to stay overnight.”

“I realize that. I shall find a pension near the station, and take the first train back tomorrow.”

“I still don’t think—” Constance began, but Annie and Bridget shushed her before she could finish.

“Leave off, will you? Let her have her fun. There’s no harm in it, as long as she’s sensible,” said Annie.

“So what are you going to pack?” asked Bridget. “Best to take summat more’n your uniform. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case you end up spending some time with Captain Fraser. Less chance of getting caught out if you’re dressed in mufti.”

But Constance was not giving up without a fight. “Lilly, don’t listen to them. This is madness. If you’re so concerned about Captain Fraser, send him a wire at the hotel. I’m sure Miss Jeffries can arrange it. And then you can go to Saint-Omer and have a few days to yourself.”

“I know you mean well, Constance, but I need to do this. It’s the right thing to do. He and Edward have been friends for so long. No matter our differences, I can’t bear the thought of his learning the news from a telegram or letter, as I did.”

Lilly turned back to the business of packing for her overnight trip. Rummaging through her locker, she extracted the one civilian dress she had with her, together with a plain pair of court shoes. Once she’d spoken to Robbie, she would have the rest of the day to herself, and she was not going to spend it in her heavy, musty uniform. She found a hat, gloves, a change of underclothes, and her nightgown and added them to the carpetbag.

“Are you sure you don’t want to borrow these?” Annie held up a nightgown and matching negligee in a startling hue of emerald green. “They’re made of real artificial silk. I’m sure they’ll fit.”

“You’re very kind, Annie, but my nightgown will be fine for tonight. Thanks all the same.”

“At least take some jewelry. Here, take my string of pearls. Go on, now.”

“That’s quite all right—” Lilly protested, but Annie had already tucked them into her carpetbag.

Lilly checked her wristwatch again. Twenty-five minutes before eleven. If she were to catch the train to Saint-Omer, she had to leave now.

“Do you think one of you could give me a lift to the railhead?”

“I’ll do it,” answered Constance. “It will give me another ten minutes to talk you out of it.”

The four WAACs had only just stepped out of the tent when Bridget clapped her hand to her forehead and exclaimed in dismay, “Sorry, everyone. I won’t be a minute. Go on without me.”

Bridget rejoined them a minute or two later. She looked, Lilly thought, rather like a cat that had been among the proverbial pigeons. What could she be up to?

“Lilly,” Bridget whispered, “I have summat for you.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Not so loud. I don’t want the others knowing. Stop here while I give it to you.” Bridget let Annie and Constance walk on, then passed a rectangular metal tin, about the size of a deck of cards, to Lilly. It was unmarked and curiously light.

“What is this?” she asked, thoroughly mystified.

“It’s summat you might need,” Bridget explained. “Just in case.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s to protect yourself. Don’t worry; Captain Fraser will know what to do.”

“Could you please speak plainly?” Lilly asked, more than a little exasperated. If she missed the morning train to Saint-Omer, it would be hours before she could begin her journey. “I really have no idea what you mean.”

Before answering, Bridget looked one way, then the other, apparently wanting to ensure she would not be overheard.

“Have you ever heard of a French letter?”

Lilly felt the blood rush to her face. She had an idea, a rather vague one admittedly, but it was enough to shock her.

“Listen to me, Lilly. It might happen that you go and tell Captain Fraser about your brother, and he says thank you and you go your separate ways. But it might
also
happen that you don’t leave. And all I’m saying is that it’s best to be prepared.”

“I . . . I really don’t think this is necessary.”

“You may be right. And if you are, then no one ever has to know. But if it turns out as I’m right, I’m thinking you’ll be glad of this little tin.”

F
OR THE FIRST
few hours of her journey, no matter how hard she tried to forget about it, the presence of the tin in her carpetbag unsettled her. What if there were an accident, and it was discovered among her effects? What if, somehow, Robbie were to learn of it? The prospect of that occurring was so horrifying she could hardly bear to think of it.

From Saint-Omer, she took a second train to Amiens. It arrived ahead of schedule, allowing her enough time to visit the lavatory and buy something to eat. It wasn’t much of a lunch, consisting of a single tartine, thickly buttered, of day-old bread, with a cup of bracingly strong black coffee, but it helped to lift her spirits all the same.

The journey from Amiens to Paris took more than two hours, with the train stopping at nearly every crossroads and byway en route. They arrived at the Gare du Nord shortly before four o’clock, and although the sun was getting rather low in the sky, she decided to make the two-mile journey to the Place Vendôme by foot. She didn’t have long in Paris and it would be pleasant to see some of it before sunset; and it would also give her a chance to collect her thoughts before she had to face Robbie.

Intent on asking for help, she approached one of the newsagents in the arrivals hall and saw that he had small, folding maps of the central arrondissements for sale. She’d been to Paris before, but always with her mother, and they’d always been driven from place to place; she would need some help to orient herself. The maps were only fifty centimes each, so she bought one and settled herself on a nearby bench, her bag tucked securely behind her knees. The route was straightforward enough: rue de Mauberge to rue La Fayette, left at rue Halévy, then across the Place de l’Opéra to the rue de la Paix, which led straight to the Place Vendôme.

Signs of the war were everywhere, not especially overt, but there all the same. Most of the shopwindows she passed were empty, or filled with somber displays of mourning apparel. Some contained patriotic posters that were so resolute, stolid, and serious that Lilly had to stifle a smile more than once.

“Économisons le pain en mangeant des pommes de terre,”
one exhorted. “Save on bread by eating potatoes.” Or there was the equally earnest
“Semez du blé—c’est de l’or pour la France.”
She thought it unlikely that Parisians would be sowing any wheat this growing season, in spite of its being as valuable as gold to France. Poster after poster announced that such-and-such a date would be celebrated as a national day in aid of some worthy group: orphans, the army in Africa, those afflicted with tuberculosis, even the ordinary French soldier, or
poilu
.

Even if there had been any wares for sale in the shopwindows, Lilly would not have found it easy to window-shop, since intricately woven grids of paper ribbon were glued to the glass in what she suspected was an effort to protect against flying glass in the event of an air raid. The effect was curiously attractive, rather as if delicate Moorish screens had been affixed to the shop exteriors. Even the huge windows of the Galeries Lafayette, she saw, had been taped over, and she wondered if similar precautions had been taken to protect the great stained glass dome that crowned the building.

Neat placards had been affixed to most of the buildings she passed:
ABRIS à 60 PERSONNES
read the first notice she approached. The need for sixty people to shelter in one building seemed mystifying, until she remembered the zeppelin and Gotha raids that had intermittently plagued both Paris and London. The placards must refer to the number of people who could be sheltered in the building’s cellars.

She’d been nervous that her uniform, shabby as it had become, might elicit a certain amount of disapproval from passersby, but no one seemed to mind. Instead, most people offered her a smile, some a courteous nod, and a few even stopped to shake her hand and thank her for coming to the aid of France and her people.

She walked past the Opéra, its facade obscured by hoardings and sandbags, and turned onto the rue de la Paix. In the distance she could see the great column at the center of Place Vendôme, its statue of Napoleon still glowering from his perch on its top.

Her carpetbag was beginning to feel terribly heavy, and perspiration had dampened her temples and nape. She shifted the bag to her left arm and quickened her pace. Get it over and done with, she told herself. Then you only need to endure whatever is left of this day.

She approached the front doors of the Ritz, acutely conscious of her disheveled state, but the doorman made a convincing pretense of not noticing.

She marched directly to the front desk, her back as straight as she could make it, so straight that even her mother would have approved.

“Bonjour, monsieur. Je m’appelle Elizabeth Neville-Ashford. Mon frère—”

“But of course, Lady Elizabeth. Welcome to the Hôtel le Ritz. The Viscount Ashford has not yet arrived, but Captain Fraser is here already.”

“I wonder if—”

“Allow me to ring for one of our footmen. He will show you to Lord Ashford’s suite.”

“Thank you very much. May I leave my bag here? I won’t be staying.”

If the concierge was surprised at her request, he betrayed no sign of it. “It would be my pleasure to look after your luggage, Lady Elizabeth. If I am not here when you return, you have only to ask any of the hotel staff and they will retrieve it for you.”

With a snap of his fingers, the concierge summoned a waiting footman, who led the way through the sumptuous lobby to the bank of elevators. They made the journey to the fifth floor in silence, a blessing since Lilly wasn’t sure how she would have managed to make small talk. As the lift doors opened, she was seized by a nearly overpowering urge to cower inside and refuse to exit. She could still go back; Robbie would never know.

Somehow, as if her body were operating independently of all rational thought, she found herself following the footman down the hall, yard after perilous yard, until at last they were standing in front of the door to the suite Edward had reserved.

Scrabbling in her reticule, which she had thought to extract from her bag, she found a few coins for a tip and waited for the footman to retreat down the corridor.

She waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps. Then she knocked on the door.

Chapter 41

H
e hadn’t expected anyone to knock at the door. He certainly hadn’t ordered anything, for the ridiculously lavish suite that Edward had reserved was stocked with enough towels, pillows, toiletries, reading materials, wine, and spirits to last a month, let alone three days. Perhaps it was a mistake.

The knock sounded again. It was not the discreet tap of a servant. He cast aside his newspaper, a copy of yesterday’s
Times,
and strode to the door, ready to send whoever it was on their way.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of Lilly, her hand raised in midair, interrupted before she could rap on the door a third time.

“Hello, Robbie.”

He stood there, staring at her, until he finally remembered his manners. “Hello, Lilly. This is . . .”

“A surprise.”

“That it is.” Astonishment gave way to delight, and then delight, just as swiftly, was replaced by anger.

“What are you doing here?”

“I apologize for intruding. I won’t take long. May I come in for a moment?”

“Why are you here?” he repeated.

“It’s Edward. He’s missing.”

It was true. He knew, from the agony etched on her face, that it was true.

“Christ, Lilly. Come in. Forget how I acted just now. Come in and tell me what has happened.”

He directed her to the sofa in the suite’s sitting room and returned to the chair where he’d been reading a few moments before. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I only found out this morning. Here’s the letter from Mr. Maxwell.” She extracted an envelope from her reticule and held it out to him. Her hands were shaking.

“It says that Edward was captured on March third,” he clarified. “And there’s been no news since?”

“As far as I know, nothing.” She looked up, her eyes luminous with unshed tears, and in that instant every trace of logic and reason deserted Robbie. He found himself kneeling at her feet, helpless, as she struggled to contain her emotions.

“For the moment I think we ought to assume he is alive,” he said, desperate to reassure her. “And you and I both know the Germans are not barbarians. They’re known to treat prisoners well, and the Red Cross has access to all of the camps. If Edward has been taken prisoner, your parents will receive news soon enough.”

“But what if he wasn’t captured? What if he was killed that night? Don’t tell me it’s not possible. I’ve heard the Tommies talking. A man can just vanish in no-man’s-land. Fall into a shell hole, drown in the mud, be torn to shreds by the machine guns.”

He took her shaking hands and stilled them between his own. “Men do disappear, you’re right, but usually that happens during a big push. In the heat of battle. Edward was taking part in a raid, if the telegram your parents received was correct. That means he would have been with a small group of his men.”

He stood up, not letting go of her hands, and sat next to her on the sofa. “If Edward had been wounded, or even killed, during that raid, his men would never have left him behind.
Never
. So the only logical explanation for his disappearance is that he was taken prisoner.”

“Do you really believe that?”

No, he thought. “Yes,” he insisted. “And in the absence of any other news, I think you should believe it, too.”

He let go of her hands and retreated to the nearby chair. “You must have been traveling for hours, Lilly. And all the while—have you even allowed yourself to cry?”

“No. I had to do this first.”

“Why? I don’t deserve your consideration.”

She laughed, a sharp, almost brittle sound. “Perhaps not, but it’s what Edward would expect of me. To leave you here, wondering where he was, not knowing the truth . . . it seemed wrong.”

“Thank you, then. What will you do now?”

“Return to camp. Get back to work. What else can I do?”

“Stay,” a voice said. His voice.

“But I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.” Anger flashed in her eyes, and not a little humor as well. Evidently she was aware of the irony of this moment.

“I was wrong,” he admitted. “The way I’ve treated you . . . it’s not right. It’s the farthest thing from right.”

She said nothing at first, choosing instead to examine the carved tortoiseshell clasp of her reticule. Long seconds passed.

“I see now how wrong I was, how misguided—”

“Enough. I don’t want your apologies. As you once told me, life is too short.” She stood up. “I must go.”

“Don’t,” he insisted. “There are two bedrooms in this suite, and it’s a long way back to Merville.”

“I wasn’t planning on returning tonight. I’d thought to find a room at a pension near the station.”

“But you haven’t any luggage.”

“I brought my carpetbag. I left it with the concierge.” And then she giggled, the sound cleaving through the grim atmosphere of the room. “I thought you might react poorly if it looked as if I were planning to stay.”

“God knows what I would have said,” he admitted. “But now I want you to stay. This suite is enormous, and there’s more than enough room for the two of us.”

“I don’t know. What will the staff think?”

“I doubt they’ll care. They’re French, after all.” Seeing that she was still wavering, he pointed to a door at the far corner of the sitting room. “At least have a look at your bedroom and bathroom. Then decide.”

She walked to the bedroom door and disappeared inside the chamber. He heard a soft gasp, he hoped of delight.

“You really ought to see the bathroom,” he called to her.

When Lilly returned to the sitting room a minute or two later, he could swear he saw a look of hunger on her face. He’d had the same reaction when he’d entered the bathroom attached to his own bedroom.

“I suppose it would be a shame to waste all this,” she said.

“Absolutely. And Edward paid for it in advance; they told me when I arrived.”

“Then I shall stay,” she agreed. “Would you mind very much if I had a bath now?”

“Not at all. When you’re ready, we can go for a walk and find somewhere for supper. How does that sound?”

“Fine,” she said, but there was little enthusiasm in her voice.

She hadn’t forgiven him, that was clear enough. Nor did he deserve to be forgiven. It had been a mad idea, asking her to stay, for what would it achieve? They’d spend a pleasant evening together, forget their fears for Edward for a few hours, but then they would return to the 51st and be pulled apart, again, by the same intractable problems: her insistence on remaining in harm’s way, despite any number of worthy alternatives, and his conviction that her presence in camp would be his undoing.

It had been foolish of him to ask her to stay, for he could give her nothing. And yet he still wished to comfort her. Protect her, in any way he could. It was so little, what he offered her, that it shamed him.

Tonight he would comfort Lilly; tonight he would try to regain some measure of her regard. The odds of his succeeding were stacked against him; were worse, frankly, than the odds of Edward still being alive. But he would stake his life on them.

What other choice did he have?