Beneath the Dover Sky (32 page)

“I asked Ben, and he said it was the right thing to do.”

He patted her hand again. “Never you mind about Ben. We all have our eyes on him. His leg stumps are healing up nicely, and he gets around very well indeed in his wheelchair. The doldrums have passed, and his spirits are much brighter. If he thinks you should go to New York and be with the Woodhavens, then that is what you should do.”

“He wrote a lovely card about Michael for Mr. and Mrs. Woodhaven.”

“Wonderful. And so have your mother and I. We expressed our condolences by telegram, of course, but a card is so much more personal.”

Libby wiped at one of her eyes with a handkerchief. “You have all been very kind.” She put the cloth to her nose and blew softly. “I don’t know what I’d do without family.”

“Times like this remind us why the Lord gives us one another—not to quarrel with but to be nurtured and defended by.”

“Please keep Jane in your prayers too.”

Lord Preston nodded. “Naturally we do.”

“I fear Mum and you still have a problem with her Chinese background.”

“Nonsense.”

“Michael loved her dearly.” Libby put the handkerchief to her nose again.

“We all do, my dear.”

“Commander Fordyce has been very nice to her since Michael’s death.”

“Indeed.”

“He always has a gift for her.”

Lord Preston was silent.

Her tears came. “I just want Mum and you to see she is as much a Danforth child as Ramsay or Peter or Owen. She so badly needs your love now that her father is gone.”

“She has it, my dear. She has it unreservedly.”

Dear Libby,

Now that you have been in New York several weeks and it is more than two months since Michael’s passing, I pray a good many of your wounds have healed. I do not expect you to be on top of the world, of course. I only hope you see some light at the end of the tunnel.

You know how long your sister Catherine grieved over the loss of her husband, Albert. And Kipp almost threw himself off a cliff when Christelle died. We are still reaping the bitter fruit of his recklessness—a crash landing in the Sahara and enlistment in the French Foreign Legion putting him right back in another war. Terrible. I fret over him every day. Please do not take Catherine’s or your brother’s route in your sorrow.

Grieve, yes, but not as one without hope. I trust that a year from now you shall see your way clear to engagement with a man as fine as Michael. You are still very young and must look to the next fifty or sixty years of your life.

This brings me to the matter of Jane. I know you and Michael felt it was a good deed while you were in America to adopt her. Indeed, it was a gracious act of Christian charity. But now you must forge a new life for yourself. Surely the Woodhavens will take her in and give her a home? It is one thing for Catherine to hang on to Sean. He really is her son and our blood runs through him. But you cannot move ahead and look for a husband of your station with a girl from the Orient calling herself your daughter and a Danforth. For one thing, it simply isn’t so. For another, no Englishman will accept you with Jane at your side. She is a sweetheart, and you have done your best by her. Let the Woodhavens take her in and raise her in remembrance of their son.

You need to begin again with a clean slate. I am certain that within months of it being known your mourning period is over and that you are unattached to Jane, any number of excellent men will be calling at Ashton Park or Dover Sky for you. I am convinced of it.

Forgive me for being forthright. I know you won’t like it, but someone must say these things while you are deciding what you will do and where you will live. Your father will not talk about these matters, so it is left up to me. Spend as much time in New York as you need, and then return to England alone. Believe me, such a course of action is the best way to begin again. It is the best route for you to follow.

All my love, my dear Libby. God bless you.

Mother

October, 1927

London hospital

“I could feel a buzzing or tingling in my legs. When I looked down they were both twisted at impossible angles. There was no pain at all. I
looked over at Michael, and I could tell he was dead. People worked to yank the canopy back and then reached into the cockpit. Some men hauled out Mike. It was Zeltner who cut away my harness and got his hands under my arms. He and his copilot pulled me free. I was in and out of consciousness over the next few days. They used morphine and heart stimulants to keep me going. By the time I was in the clear, they had already shipped Mike’s body to New York City. Once I was strong enough, they started flying me in short hops back to England.”

Jeremy sat in the chair by Ben’s hospital bed. He was dressed in black clothes with a white clerical collar at his throat. Ben didn’t look at him as he spoke, and Jeremy stared at the floor.

“I’ve tried to put up a bold front, but it’s hard, Jeremy. Every day is very hard. They say I won’t walk again, that it’ll always be a wheelchair for me. They’ve scratched flying so there’s not much to look forward to. I keep wondering how Mike would have stood up to this. Lib says he was an absolute bear when he crashed during the war. Maybe he learned from that and would have been more chipper than I am.”

Jeremy cleared his throat without looking up. “You don’t know that. He may have been much worse having gone through this twice.”

Ben, sitting up in the bed with a pillow behind his back, kept on talking as if Jeremy hadn’t spoken. The sun was going down, and the room was darkening but neither moved a hand to turn on the bedside lamp. “Mum and Dad have no idea I’m feeling this way. Neither do Vic and the boys. It’s bad enough losing Michael. They don’t need me moaning and groaning and adding to the gloom. So whenever I see them I play ‘the man.’ ”

“Surely you can be honest with Victoria.”

“I can’t. She said she’s reminded of losing our first baby, and that she feels wretched when she sees me without my legs.
I thank God every day you haven’t lost heart
, she said. So I’ve got to soldier on. I need
your
help for that.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Just what you’re doing. Listening. Giving me a few upbeat words now and then. Saying a few prayers. Since you lost your right arm and
hand while fighting in France back in 1914, I know you understand some of what I’m going through. That helps too, along with the other things.”

“I’ll come over from the church as often as you like, Ben. Once or twice a day if you want.”

“I won’t be here forever. What’s the date today?”

Jeremy looked up. “Wednesday, the twelfth of October.”

Ben glanced at him. “They’ve taken plaster casts of my stumps now that they’ve shrunk down. They’ll start fitting metal legs with cushions and straps in about a week. I’m going to make myself walk, Jeremy.”

“You’ll do it.”

“And once I get the hang of walking, I’m going to fly again.”

Jeremy nodded, his eyes strong and dark behind his glasses. “Right. You will.”

“I need you to put the backbone in me.”

“Believe me, Ben, you’ve got plenty of it.”

“I need more. They’ll adjust the legs until the fit is just right, give me some walking lessons, and then after that I’m on my own. They want me close enough so I can drop in if there’s a problem. I plan to take up residence at Dover Sky.”

“Just you?”

“No. I’ll bring Vic and the boys down. They’ll have Charles and Matthew to play with, not to mention Jane. She can be their big sister.”

Jeremy sat up in the chair and took off his glasses. “That will be fine. Emma and I would love to bring Peter, James, and Billy to Dover Sky once a week. Overnights on a Friday would be best. We’d head back on Saturday afternoons so I can be ready for church on Sunday.” He pushed the right temple and earpiece of his glasses under his wooden hand so the lenses were upright. Then he polished them with a white cloth from his pocket. “Ben, I take it you’re not aware Libby and Jane won’t be returning to Dover Sky? They’ll be wintering in Germany with Albrecht and Catherine.”

“What?”

“They are heading straight there from New York. I gather she’s supposed to be in Tubingen by the end of the month.”

“But why isn’t she returning to England? My Ramsay loves Jane. He finds her quite the tomboy.”

Jeremy smiled. “My lads feel the same way. Though Jane plays the princess well when it strikes her fancy. In any case, Lady Preston wrote a letter to Libby in New York City telling her to have done and leave Jane with the Woodhavens. Something about starting afresh without being encumbered by Jane now that Michael is gone.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m afraid not. You can imagine how well that went over. Libby’s heartbroken. She loves Jane, and Jane is a strong link to the life she had with Michael. Lib dashed off a letter in reply, certainly not the kind Lady Preston wanted to get. Now there’s a great row going on between the pair of them. Catherine invited Libby to Germany, and Lib accepted straight off. Now it appears Jane will be big sister to Catherine’s son, Sean, instead of your boys and mine. She’ll have a friend in Baron von Isenburg’s daughter, Eva, too. The von Isenburg girl is twelve, so they’re close enough in age.”

“I can’t believe what you’re telling me. It never rains but it pours.”

Jeremy finished cleaning his glasses, put them back on his face, and returned the cloth to his pocket. “All the more reason we’d be happy to come to Dover Sky once a week. We’ll work on keeping the family together rather than permitting these squabbles to break us apart. And for you and I to stick together and get you back on your feet and up among the clouds and swallows.”

“I’ll make it, Jeremy—with your help and God’s. What I can’t control is what’s going to happen next. This family gets bad news in bunches. It’d be a deathblow, wouldn’t it, if Kipp came back from Morocco in a pine box or Robbie got a bullet in the back in Palestine?”

“Let’s not believe in deathblows,” Jeremy said.

13

March–June, 1928

Jerusalem

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the L
ORD
.

Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together:

Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the L
ORD
, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the L
ORD
.

For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.

Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.

For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.

Because of the house of the L
ORD
our God I will seek thy good.

“Thank you.” Robbie leaned back, loosened his uniform collar, and closed his eyes. “I need to hear that every day of my life.”

“Shall I read it a second time?” asked Shannon.

“Can’t hurt.”

She read Psalm 122 again from the Bible on her lap.

Robbie and Shannon were sitting together on a terrace that overlooked the Old City of Jerusalem. For miles the green tops of palm trees stirred in the warm breeze. Walls and buildings made of large square stones the color of honey sprawled between the palms. Directly in front of them was the Dome of the Rock, its gold roof flaming in the afternoon sun. Below them men and women in various types of robes crowded the streets. As Shannon read, voice after voice called out in Hebrew or Arabic as donkeys brayed while the harnesses on their necks and shoulders jingled from the attached small silver bells.