After the War Is Over (26 page)

And now she was home, standing in the front hall of Mrs.
Collins’s boardinghouse, though she had no memory at all of the journey from the hospital.
It had been raining, too, for her coat was spotted and her face was wet. Had it really
been raining?

“I’m not feeling very well,” she told the landlady. “I think I’ll just go up to bed,
if you don’t mind.”

“You poor dear. You do look done in. Oh—I almost forgot. There’s a letter for you.”

Charlotte didn’t look at it, didn’t so much as examine the envelope for clues, until
she was alone in her room and sitting in her chair before the ashes of last night’s
fire.

The letter was from Lilly.

           
51st C.C.S.

           
France

           
11 March 1918

           
My dearest Charlotte,

                
Yesterday I received a letter from home (from Mr. Maxwell, not my parents) with the
terrible news that Edward has gone missing. He was able to provide me with few details,
apart from the information that he was last seen on March 3rd whilst conducting a
raid in no-man’s-land. I know nothing else but I thought I must let you know as quickly
as possible. If and when I learn more I shall certainly write to you immediately.

                
I must go—I am very sorry to tell you so bluntly—I miss you terribly and think of
you often.

With love from

Your devoted friend

Lilly

Charlotte folded the letter back into its envelope and set it on the table. It was
true. His name in
The Times
and Lilly’s letter, together, made it a certainty.

He was gone forever, his body lost in the wasteland, alone and cold, never to be warm
again, never to see the sun again. The last time she had seen him, more than a year
ago, he had promised that her name would be on his lips when he died. Yet she had
pushed him away.

Why hadn’t she embraced him? Why hadn’t she told him the truth?

A scream rose in her throat, impossible to muffle with her hand, or even her handkerchief,
so she ran to her bed and pressed her pillow to her face. She cried and raged until
her eyes were dry and the pillow was sodden, and then she simply lay on the bed and
let the shock and pain overtake her.

Hours later, when the street outside was quiet and still, and the room so cold her
teeth were chattering, Charlotte sat up again. She changed into her nightgown and
wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. She lighted her spirit kettle and made a mug
of Bovril. She drank it, somehow, though her stomach roiled in protest, and then she
returned to bed.

She would never see his face again. She would never hear his voice again. He was gone.

What had she been doing on the third of March? She sifted through her memories but
couldn’t recall anything of significance. It had been an ordinary day at work. A solitary
day at home. Had she spared a single thought for him as he lay dying? She had not.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, and though she had long ago
ceased to believe in any sort of hereafter, she held her breath and waited for his
answer.

None came. She was alone, as she had always been, as she would always be. Alone, as
Edward had been at the end, when he had taken his last breath and whispered her name
and had bid her adieu forever.

Somerset, England

Christmas, 1919

A
ll aboard for Wells. Next station, Wells. All aboard!”

Seeing no latecomers, the station guard waved his arm, and with a screech of its running
gear and an enveloping burst of steam from its chimney, the locomotive rumbled forth
into the night.

Charlotte was almost home. Her journey had begun before dawn, when she’d caught the
train from Liverpool to Birmingham, then down to Bristol and, after one final change
of trains, the branch line to Wells. It had taken her nearly eleven hours, but soon
she would be home.

She hadn’t spent Christmas with her parents since before the war, and though Lilly
and Robbie had been keen for her to stay with them, she had known there was only one
place she belonged this Yuletide. It wouldn’t be a long stay, for she had missed far
too much work over the preceding months, but she would be with them for a few hours
of Christmas Eve, and then all of Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

It had been strange to know she wouldn’t see Lilly this
Christmas, but London was far out of her way. Nor would she see Edward, of course.
Lilly had asked if she might stay with them on her journey home, for the twenty-seventh
was a Saturday. But Charlotte had told her friend, not altogether untruthfully, that
she was terribly behind in her work and badly needed to catch up. It was true, after
a fashion, though it wasn’t the reason she was keeping her distance.

She couldn’t risk seeing him. If she were to stay with Lilly, Edward would surely
come by, wish her a happy Christmas, and ask her how she was. There was no way around
it—Lilly would tell him and he would come. She knew he would, and she knew just as
well that she could not bear it. Not yet, at any rate.

So she had done the right thing and gone straight home to her parents. She would leave
her worries behind and let Mother and Father take care of her for a few days. They
would be happy, and she would be . . . well, almost happy.

Feeling rather irritated with herself—when had fussing and worrying about something
ever made it better?—Charlotte dragged her case from the overhead rack and made her
way to the end of the carriage. She was almost home.

When the train finally rolled to a halt and she stepped onto the platform, she couldn’t
see a thing, for the locomotive had exhaled a dragon’s worth of steam across the platform.
At length she spied an elderly couple several yards away, but though their backs were
turned Charlotte was sure they couldn’t be her parents.

Then they turned, and they were her parents. It had been scarcely more than a year
since she’d seen them last, but in the interim they had suddenly become old. Father
was only seventy-two, and Mother only sixty-five. How could they possibly be
old
?

“Mother! Father!” she cried out, and rushed forward to embrace them. “It is so good
to see you.”

“You look so well,” her mother said. “Doesn’t she look well, Laurence?”

“She does indeed,” her father agreed. “Have you only the one case?”

“Yes, Father. Only the one.”

“If only you were staying longer . . .”

“I know, Mother, and I am sorry. I thought I might pop down for another visit in the
spring. Perhaps at Whitsun? What do you think?”

At this, her mother’s expression brightened considerably. “Oh, that would be lovely.”

“We’d best get along to the car,” her father urged.

“Car? Don’t tell me you’ve learned to drive, Father.”

“Goodness, no. The car and its driver belong with the dean. He was kind enough to
offer.”

“But we always walk from the station.”

“Yes, but it’s a cold night and your mother’s knees are bothering her. Come, now.
In you both get.”

How could Mother’s knees be hurting her? Her mother, who regularly walked two or three
miles each afternoon? Why hadn’t she said anything in her letters?

Charlotte was still fretting over the state of her mother’s knees when the car pulled
up at the northern entrance to Vicars’ Close. Their house was at the very end, attached
on one side to the chapel, and was rather larger than its fellows on the street. All
dated to the fourteenth century and had, by some miracle, survived the centuries more
or less in their original state, with only minor alterations made for modern convenience.

Mrs. Drake was waiting for them at the door. She had been with her parents for as
long as Charlotte could remember; surely she must be considering retirement? She looked
well, though, and as unchanged as the house in which they stood.

“Charlotte, my dear! Come in, come in!”

“How are you, Mrs. Drake?”

“Since when am I Mrs. Drake to you?” the housekeeper asked in mock affront.

“Duckie, then,” Charlotte said, and let herself be enfolded in a comforting embrace.

“Mrs. Drake, indeed. Come in, come in, and your Duckie will take your coat and see
you settled. Come on, all of you, through to the kitchen.”

The kitchen, like Duckie, was mercifully unchanged. A huge pot of soup was bubbling
away at the back of the range, loaves of bread had just emerged from the oven, and
trays of Christmas delicacies were stacked on every available surface: mince pies,
buttery shortbread, dark and fragrant loaves of gingerbread, and Duckie’s fruitcake,
the only kind Charlotte had ever liked.

“You won’t have met the new girls, will you?” her mother asked.

“What happened to Annie and Ruth?”

“Well, Annie went off to London—do you remember why, Mrs. Drake?—and Ruth got married.”

“I still miss Ruth,” Father chimed in. “Lovely girl.”

“Here they are now,” said Duckie. “Frances, Betty, this is Miss Charlotte, come down
from Liverpool to spend Christmas at home.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Charlotte,” said one of them.

“Happy Christmas to you, Miss Charlotte,” said the other.

“Home you go to your families, now, and we’ll see you again on Boxing Day. But first
take Miss Charlotte’s case up to her room.”

“Yes, Mrs. Drake. Happy Christmas, Reverend Brown, Mrs. Brown.”

Looking around the kitchen, Charlotte felt the last of her exhaustion melt away. She
sighed happily.

“It looks as if you and Mother have been very busy,” she said to Duckie.

“That we have. Couldn’t have you come home to an empty larder. Mrs. Brown, what are
you wanting to do for your supper? Have it now, or wait awhile?”

“Ah, yes. Supper. It depends on what Charlotte prefers. Did you want to come to midnight
Eucharist with us? If so, I think we ought to eat around nine.”

“I wouldn’t miss it, not for the world.”

“Then I’ll have your supper ready for nine,” said Duckie. “In the meantime, what do
you say to a spot of tea and some mince pie?” Without waiting for a response, she
slid the kettle onto the range and started to assemble a tray of delicacies. “Go on
into the sitting room, all of you. I won’t be a minute.”

One of the maids, or likely both of them working together, had readied the sitting
room fire; the hearth was huge, and burned logs the approximate size of a lamb, so
a proper fire took some effort to build. Father soon had it blazing away, and by its
light the room looked very pretty indeed. Mother had arranged sprigs of holly and
boughs of evergreen on the mantel, and the wooden crèche had been set out in its usual
place on top of the Pembroke table. There even was a little Christmas tree before
the window, its boughs bare of ornaments.

“I’m just going to run upstairs and change,” she said. “Perhaps we could decorate
the tree when I come down?”

Her room was at the very top of the house, up two flights of stairs made almost comically
crooked by age. Nothing had been moved or changed, though it had been fifteen years
since she had left home for university, and looking around she could almost imagine
herself eighteen again, excited and terrified and curious beyond belief at what life
had in store for her.

Her narrow bed was still set against the wall, her old dolls and books were still
on their shelves, and her dollhouse, too, had its place in the corner where ancient
oak beams swept low and converged. The view was as entrancing as ever, looking south
along the Close to the Chapter House and the inescapable mass of the great cathedral
itself. If she opened the window she would be able to hear the music of its organ,
she knew; it had been her lullaby for many childhood bedtimes.

She changed out of her travel-tired garments and put on her favorite frock, a dark
blue wool, which was several years old but had the advantage of a rather longer hemline
than her newer dresses. Her father was a forward-thinking man in many ways, but she
didn’t want to alarm him by adhering too closely to current modes.

Their evening passed quietly, just the three of them together, for Duckie had gone
to visit her sister in town and wouldn’t be back until the morning. They decorated
the tree with paper chains and the folded birds and stars that Charlotte had made
when she was little, and then they ate their supper of soup and bread in the kitchen.

As ever, the conversation revolved around Charlotte and her work. Rather to her surprise,
Mother seemed to have taken a keen interest in her column for the
Herald
.

“What sort of a man is this Mr. Ellis?” Mother asked as they were doing the washing
up.

“A very good one,” Charlotte answered. “Resolute in his determination that—”

“Yes, yes, of course. I mean, what is
he
like? Is he married? Does he have any . . . well, personal eccentricities that might,
ah . . .”

“He and I are friends, Mother. That is all. And even if I were interested in him—which
I’m not, I assure you—he and I would never suit. We’re far too alike. Too earnest
about the things we value. We’d suck the air out of every room we inhabited.”

“Leave her be, Davina,” Father ordered. “Now, tell me, my dear, how is Lilly and that
new husband of hers?”

“Very happy. They have a sweet little house in Chelsea, scarcely big enough for the
two of them. Robbie is back at the London Hospital, where he was before the war, and
Lilly is hoping to go to university next year.”

“And what of Lord Cumberland? Has he recovered his health?”

There had been no question of not telling Mother and Father about her month in Cumbria,
though she had only furnished them with the barest of details. As far as they knew
she had been asked to assist in his recuperation from injuries suffered during the
war, and that was that.

“He is quite well. I haven’t seen him since the end of September, but I believe his
convalescence is complete.”

“Thank goodness.” Her mother sighed. “When you think of all that poor man has suffered,
it simply beggars belief.”

“He did suffer,” Charlotte said, her throat suddenly tight, and she wondered if she
would be forced to excuse herself.
Fortunately the clock on the cathedral chose that moment to ring the half hour.

“Half past eleven already?” her father muttered, drawing his watch from his waistcoat
pocket. “Best be on our way.”

After emerging from the Close, they turned to the right and followed the crowds that
were hurrying, like so many ants, toward the immense western front of the cathedral.
They sat in the nave, its scissor arches and rood cross looming high above their heads.
Just beyond were the choir and high altar; tomorrow she and Mother would sit there,
watching Father as he assisted the bishop at Eucharist, but tonight they were ordinary
parishioners, made humble by the soaring heights and ineffable beauty of the building
that embraced them.

The organ sounded the opening bars of “Adeste Fidelis,” the congregation stood, and
nearly a thousand voices rang out in praise, Charlotte’s among them. She ought to
have felt like a fraud, for she hadn’t counted herself as one of the faithful for
years, yet somehow, in this place that felt as familiar as home, she couldn’t bring
herself to doubt.

C
HRISTMAS
D
AY WAS
as it had ever been: presents opened in front of the sitting room fire, a light breakfast
of toast and tea, back to the cathedral for Eucharist, home again to help Duckie with
Christmas lunch—Father remained for Matins—and then roast goose with all the trimmings
at one o’clock.

Charlotte helped with the clearing up, for Duckie was expected back at her sister’s
for three o’clock, and then, feeling rather at loose ends, she went in search of her
parents.

“Would anyone like to go on a walk? To the Bishop’s Garden, perhaps?”

“I’ll come,” said Father. “Do you feel able, Davina?”

“Perhaps tomorrow. Do wear your warmest coats, my dears.”

Charlotte and her father maintained a companionable silence at first, touring around
the east lawn before wandering over to a bench by the reflecting pond, which boasted
a perfect image of the cathedral in its still waters.

Her father looked out over the pond, then he looked at Charlotte, and then, his voice
very soft, he asked her the question she had been dreading.

“What is wrong, my darling? Don’t say, ‘oh, Father,’ and tell me I’m imagining things.
You are unhappy and I should like to know why.”

“I don’t wish you to—”

“Is it Mr. Ellis? Had you perhaps been hoping for something more from him?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not John. I’m afraid I am the disappointment
there. He’s a lovely man, a true friend, but I cannot feel anything for him beyond
the platonic. And I know that’s not enough for marriage.”

“For some it is,” her father said easily, “but not, I think, for you.” He took her
hand in both of his and held it tight. “Who is he, then? The man you love?”

“Please, Father . . . we ought to go back. Mother will fret, you know she will.”

“Charlotte Jocelin Brown,” he said in his churchiest voice, though he softened it
by smiling at her.

“It’s . . . it’s Edward.”