A Bitter Truth (10 page)

She rose, walking to the door. “What’s more,” she said, with an overtone of spite, “before I went to London the first time, you were all but accusing me of having an affair with Davis Merrit. And you made me feel
guilty,
when I had done nothing more than read to the poor man. And all the while, you knew what you yourself were guilty of. I think that’s the most disgusting part of all this.” Her voice finally broke on the last words, and she left, not bothering to shut the door behind her.

“Damn it,” Roger began, but it was too late, she was gone. He turned to me then, and said, “I don’t know how to reach her. It’s impossible.”

“Is it?” I prepared to leave as well. “We all heard what Lieutenant Hughes said. You can pretend he wasn’t speaking to you. He can swear that he was drunk and talking to his dead brother. But neither will satisfy your wife.”

“There is no child!” he exclaimed, angry now.

“Sadly I’m not one of the people you must convince. Good night, Captain Ellis.”

“Wait!”

I stopped but didn’t turn.

“I must ask you,” he went on, as if the words were forced from him, “what Lieutenant Hughes said to Dr. Tilton.”

“He stood by what he’d said before he left the drawing room.”

“And Dr. Tilton? Did he pry?”

There was nothing for it but to tell the truth. “I’m afraid he tried. But I reminded him that we had done our duty and ought to return to the other guests, and he stopped.”

“Yes, damn it, that’s precisely what I was afraid he would do. Even what little he knows will be all over Ashdown Forest before tomorrow is out. That’s why I asked you to go with him. I couldn’t—it would look too much like I was trying to rush George away before he could say more.” He hesitated. “Thank you, Miss Crawford. I appreciate your loyalty.”

I turned then. “It wasn’t so much a matter of loyalty,” I said. “It was disliking the doctor’s taking advantage of Lieutenant Hughes when he was vulnerable. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to know any more. For Lydia’s sake.”

“What was the thrust of Tilton’s questions?”

“Coloring. If the child was fair, like Juliana, then in theory neither George nor his brother could be the father. While you are fair, and very like your dead sister, if we can draw such a conclusion from that painting.”

He took a deep breath. “Yes. I understand. Thank you all the same. Go on to bed. It’s very late.”

It was dismissal, and I was glad to take it.

I couldn’t read Roger Ellis. Either he was a consummate liar, or he was telling the truth. And I was fairly sure he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

I went slowly up the stairs, remembering that Lydia was determined to leave in the morning. I didn’t know what advice to give her—to go, or to stay and get to the bottom of what if anything her husband was hiding. She had been deeply hurt for a second time, and she couldn’t convince herself that this time it was largely her fault. And I couldn’t imagine Lydia taking Gran’s advice to look the other way. In an arranged marriage, that might be possible, but in a love match, it was the destruction of trust.

I opened the door to my room, glad to have the night to consider what to do in the morning.

Instead I found Lydia lying across my bed, crying.

For an instant I hesitated. And then I backed out as quietly as I’d come in. The wind rattled the window just as I was closing the door as gently as possible. I waited for several seconds, but Lydia didn’t call to me. Turning, I walked down the passage.

Where was I to go? All the bedrooms were occupied. And Lydia was safer where she was. With luck, no one would think to look for her in my room.

The hall was too large and empty and uncomfortable. I wasn’t particularly happy with the thought of sleeping in the room above the hall. Those long windows would be drafty and I’d be cold before morning. In the end I went down to the family sitting room and pulled two chairs together. There was a woolen lap rug over the back of another chair, and I pulled that round my shoulders. The fire here had died down to ashes, but there was still enough of a glow from the embers that I didn’t need to light a lamp. I was just as glad, thinking that at least no one would believe anyone was in here, if the room was dark.

I’d been there for well over two hours, unable to sleep, when George Hughes, in his dressing gown, quietly opened the door. He was looking for the brandy, I thought, but found me instead. He fumbled for the lamp and struck a match, the smell of sulfur strong in the air. Just as the light bloomed, I spoke, so that he wouldn’t be startled seeing me there.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. As if the entire household had no reason to lie awake.

“Lydia is in my room. I think you’d better tell me, Lieutenant. Before this breaks up Lydia’s marriage. I won’t ask you who the father is. Only, where is this child?”

He sighed. “Her mother is dead. She was put into an orphanage. No one seems to know where. That’s all I can tell you.”

“In France?”

“Yes. In France.”

“Do you know her name?”

“No. But I saw her when she was only a year old. And she is so like Juliana it makes one’s heart stop. If I’d known—if I’d had any idea—I’d have claimed her myself. Brought her to England and raised her as my own. To hell with Roger. But that’s water over the dam. I remember Juliana, you see. Roger never really got over her death. Nor did I, if you want the truth. I thought when I saw Lydia for the first time that she must have reminded him of Juliana in a way. But he said not. I don’t know.”

“Did he have an affair?”

“I expect he did. How else do you explain the child? My God.”

“And the mother? Who was she?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“But you said you saw the child?”

“Quite by accident, actually. I was—” He broke off, turning toward the door. “There’s someone outside.”

I got up and went quietly to the door, opening it quickly. But if someone had been there, he or she was gone now. There was no one in the passage outside.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said as I closed the door again. He looked with longing at the brandy decanter, then sighed. “I was sitting there, staring up at Juliana’s portrait, and I couldn’t stop myself. I had to know what happened to that child.” He took a turn about the room, fretful and angry. “I’d waited for Ellis to say something. I’d given him every opportunity. When we were alone in the motorcar. Before dinner. I even mentioned the portrait that first night, to signal that Juliana—and by extension, the child—was on my mind. Instead he avoided the subject. I began to believe there was something he didn’t want to tell me. Had something happened to her? Was she dead? When he sat down near me at the end of the evening tonight, I thought, this was my chance. There might not be another. I intend to leave tomorrow. It will be less embarrassing all round.”

This time he stopped by the drinks table, lifted the brandy decanter, and poured a goodly amount into a glass. But then he set it aside untasted.

“As soon as I’m back in France, I’m going to find her. See if I don’t, by God. I must have been out of my mind to think Roger—” He swore under his breath, picked up the glass, and downed it in one long swallow. “She even smiles the way Juliana did. It was such a shock I stood there unable to say a word. And then they were gone, the nuns hurrying the children away. I caught up with them then, asked what the little girl’s name was. I think they must have believed I had some ulterior motive, that I meant her a harm. The older nun glared at me and told me it was none of my affair. Damn it, I don’t see how he could walk away from his own flesh and blood. But he has.”

“But what if Captain Ellis is telling the truth? You can’t be certain the child is his, just because she reminds you of Juliana. Can you? A fleeting resemblance that touched a chord of memory when you were already tired, under great stress—”

“No, I’m not mad, and I’m not mistaken. Ellis got very drunk one night, talking wildly about someone dying. He’d got a letter, he said, and he’d burned it because he didn’t want to know what was in it. Now he was frantic to read it, and it was gone. I asked him how he knew someone was dying if he hadn’t read the letter, and he told me it was enclosed in another letter. The next morning he was gone. I don’t know how he wangled leave, or even if he did. Three days later he was back, haggard, unshaven, looking as if he hadn’t slept. He asked if I had any money, and I gave him what I had. He left again, and by the time he returned that evening, I’d already lied twice to cover for him. I asked if everything was all right, and he nearly took my head off. A day or so later he told me that if anything happened to him that I was to see that money went regularly to a small convent south of Ypres. He said he was paying for perpetual prayers for someone’s soul.”

He broke off, and for a moment I thought he was going to the decanter again, but he only walked to the door, and as I’d done, opened it quickly and peered out. Satisfied, he closed it again and went on, as if he couldn’t stop himself.

“I was curious, and months later when I found myself within a few miles of the convent, I went there. It was in ruins, and the nuns had moved to a house farther south. Some three months after that, when I was sent to Calais to expedite supplies coming through, I managed to trace the nuns. That’s when I discovered that they actually had an orphanage. I hung about for an hour or more, and the nuns appeared with a crocodile of children. All ages, some of them wounded, others in a state of shock, moving like their own shadows, and a handful of very little ones holding hands. The middle one was a girl in a dress too large for her. Hardly more than a year old, at a guess, and just barely walking well. I noticed her because she kept tripping over her hems, which were dragging on the ground. One of the nuns stopped and hitched the dress up with a ribbon or something. And the child looked up and smiled at me over the nun’s shoulder. I stood there, my mouth literally hanging open. The nuns marched the children several times around the house they were using as their convent, and then led them back inside. I tell you, the likeness was uncanny. Not a faulty memory or wishful thinking. It was real. I went straight to the door before they could shut it to ask about the child, but my French wasn’t all that good, and I think the nuns believed I wanted to take a child away for my own purposes, and they sent me smartly about my business.”

“Did you ask Roger Ellis about her? Did you go back?”

“I said nothing to him then. Well, a man generally doesn’t ask another man if he’s got a bastard child. I stood up with him at his wedding to Lydia, for God’s sake. But I kept an ear open for news of the convent, all the same, and went back a second time. And I saw her again. I hadn’t been mistaken, the likeness was even more pronounced. The third time, I was determined to speak to the nuns, to ask who she was. I’d taken care to work on my French, and I thought I could persuade them that I knew the child’s father. Only this time, the house was empty. I went around the village, frantically asking what had become of them. The old priest told me they’d moved south of Angers. His housekeeper was sure that some of the nuns and a number of the children had been taken in by a convent near Caen. The next time I saw Roger, I asked him what he knew about the house. And he said he’d never heard of them. I reminded him of the perpetual prayers. He told me then that he’d lied to me about them, that it was a gambling debt he was anxious to pay. But that was a lie as well. I’ve never known Roger Ellis to gamble. I went on searching, but France was in chaos, and one small group of orphans was impossible to track down. And then the bottom fell out of my world. Malcolm was killed, I was wounded and sent back to England, unable to learn anything at all. It was enough to turn anyone’s mind.”

Lieutenant Hughes lifted the decanter again, and I said quietly, “Perhaps you’ve had enough for one night.”

He nodded, putting it back where he’d found it. Raising his head to meet my gaze, he said, “I told Ellis outright that I knew why he’d been sending money to the nuns. He told me then that the mother had died after childbirth, and the child’s father had asked him to see that the child was cared for. I called him a liar to his face, and he told me I could believe what I damned well pleased. But I was haunted by what I’d seen, and I wouldn’t let it go. I kept asking, and he refused to answer me, except to say I’d been delirious. And all this while, even from England, I’ve done everything I could to find the nuns. But they might as well have vanished.”

The little ormolu clock on the mantelpiece chimed two, the silvery notes loud in the quiet room.

“Good God, I’ve kept you up all night,” he said contritely.

“Can you rest now?” I asked.

“Yes. For the first time I know what to do. Thank you for listening. You won’t—you won’t share what I’ve said with Lydia, will you? Or anyone else? It would be unkind. And God knows, I’ve done enough damage already.” He shrugged, annoyance mingled with embarrassment. “I must have drunk more than I knew, to confess like this.”

“I see no reason to hurt them. If Roger wishes them to hear the truth, it’s best coming from him, don’t you think?”

“Thank you. Good night, then, Sister.”

After he had gone, I made myself as comfortable as I could, regretting having to sleep in my pale green dress, but there was nothing I could do about it. With a sigh, I pulled a large silk cushion from one of the other chairs and wrapped my arms around it to keep me warm. And after some little time, I was finally able to sleep, although it was a fitful rest at best.