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.”I thanked him, and then asked if he knew where my father had gone.“Something came up.He’s on his way to Portsmouth to meet someone.That’s how I was dragooned into a game of tennis, in his place.”I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.Portsmouth—and London afterward?And then I did, when Simon said, “You’ll stay close to home while we’re away? I don’t like the idea of shots flying about in gardens.Besides, your mother wouldn’t mention it, but I think she’d like a little time with you.”I’d have liked to go to Little Sefton and ask Michael Hart about the shots fired at him.But I could hardly knock at the Harts’ door and boldly ask about an event that had occurred hours after I left.I persuaded myself that if Simon was successful in identifying the man, I could return the photograph to Alicia as promised.And she was sure to tell me what had happened, and it would seem very natural to speak to Michael then.Besides, Simon was right about my mother.“I promise,” I told him, and with a nod he was gone.CHAPTER TWELVEI WAS JUST coming up the avenue of lime trees later that day when I heard Simon’s motorcar pulling in behind me.“Were you able to put a name to that face?” I asked, hope rising.“Unfortunately, no.”My spirits plummeted.“Oh” was all I could manage to say.Simon smiled.“I can’t work miracles, Bess.He’s in a territorial regiment.They come and go, those charged with their training barely getting to know them before they’re shipped to the Front.Besides, it’s not a very clear likeness.And at the moment, I must go up to London.”To my eyes it was.Or had I wanted it to be the right man? With his cap on, shading his face—but that’s how I’d seen him at Waterloo Station.“Let me go with you.” I put on my most innocent face.He was instantly suspicious.“Why?”“I have some shopping I’d like to do.”He nodded.“All right.After breakfast, then.”I was ready the next morning when he came knocking at the door a little after seven.My mother had given me a long list of things she needed and couldn’t find locally.We drove in silence for a time, and then he said, “Look, Bess.This is all well and good.But you need to spend more time with your family.”“I feel guilty enough,” I told him.“But I also feel responsible.Day after day, I watched Lieutenant Evanson cling to that photograph of his wife, and on the long journey home, I helped him count the hours until he saw her again.He was stoic, never complaining.Only, I was the one who saw her—he never did.He wasn’t even well enough to attend her funeral.Then he killed himself, slowly, patiently, until he’d succeeded.He was one of mine, Simon.He should have lived.”He reached over and took my hand.His was warm and safe and comforting.“You can’t save all of them, Bess,” he said gently.“That’s the trouble with war.Men die.Your father and I close our eyes and see a thousand ghosts.We know they’re there, but we can’t stare too long at their faces.We have to move on.Put the living first.There are already enough monuments to the dead.” His voice was bitter as he finished.I said nothing, too close to tears, and I knew how he disliked tears.After a while he released my hand, and then he changed the subject.Simon hadn’t particularly cared to see me go into nursing, but when the war came, it was what I wanted to do.If I couldn’t fight with my father’s regiment, as a son would have done, I could at least keep men alive to fight again another day.Simon had decided that the rigors of learning my trade would discourage me.But mopping floors, changing dressings and bed-pans, sitting with the dying, and standing by without flinching when horribly wounded men came through the tent flap had toughened me in ways I hadn’t expected.If my father’s son could face death on a battlefield, my father’s daughter could certainly face the bloody ruins of brave men.India and the other places where my father had been sent in the course of his career had also helped me cope with the ugliness of what I had chosen to do.Death and disease, poverty and despair were just outside the compound gates in Agra and other places.I had only to ride a mile in my mother’s carriage to see maimed lepers and begging children, ash-covered holy men lying on a bed of hot coals or a starving family covered with sores.I knew early on that life for some was very hard and for others much more comfortable.“A penny,” my companion said as we drove through the next small village.“I was thinking about India.”“I dream of it sometimes.Do you?”“Yes—oh, Simon, stop, please!” I reached out, my hand on his arm.He did as I’d asked, pulling in behind a baker’s cart.I was out of the motorcar almost as soon as it came to a halt.“Captain Truscott!” I called to the Army officer just walking into a bookshop.He turned and recognized me at once.“Miss Crawford! How good to see you.What brings you to Maplethorpe?”“I was passing through, on my way to London.”“I’m leaving for London myself in half an hour.Have dinner with me tonight.”“The Marlborough?”“Yes, indeed.Shall I come for you?”I told him where to find me and that Mrs.Hennessey was the guardian at the gate.“Let her see that you are the most responsible officer in the entire Army, and she’ll come upstairs for me.”He laughed.“Seven, then?”“Seven.”And I was back in the motorcar before the baker had finished his delivery at the tea shop next to the bookstore.“You’ve thrown over the dashing young lieutenant for a captain, I see.”“He was at the Meltons’ house party.He knew Marjorie Evanson and her husband.”“Which explains why you leapt out of a moving motorcar to chase that man into a bookstore and beg him to take you to dinner tonight [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]