Shoulder the Sky wwi-2 Read online

  The facts were there, at least some of them, but it was the words that fascinated her, the talk of courage, honor, and sacrifice, soldiers fighting for the right. And of course implicit all through was the conviction of ultimate victory. Casualties were given—they had to be—but it was nothing like the reality she knew. No one wrote of terror and dirt and pain. It was as if they had gone smiling into the night, clean and dignified.

  It was probably necessary. Too much truth and one would scream oneself into paralysis and be no use to anyone. The only way to go on was to think whatever you had to, believe whatever you could, and take it five minutes at a time, then the next, and the next, help what you could reach.

  She did not go immediately to the Prentice house. First she needed to find a hotel and take a bath, a luxury she had not enjoyed for a long time. She filled the tub as high as she dared, then climbed in and sank up to her chin in the steaming water. She let her mind become totally empty, thinking of nothing at all but the smooth, rippling heat over her skin. She put in soap bubbles and let them seep through her fingers and fall in dollops on her body, stretching her legs up, then down again. It was a big tub, an expensive bathroom, and she drowned her senses in every exquisite moment of it.

  When the water was cooling she stepped out, wrapped herself in the big towel, and lay on the bed. She intended to dry off, then put on clean underwear and go to sleep. However, she drifted into a delicious haze, and woke with a start to find two hours had elapsed, and it was midafternoon. She was ravenously hungry.

  She had already unpacked her dress and hung it up for the steam to get rid of some of the creases. She had bought it last leave. Like everything else in fashion, it was somber blues—no one wore bright colors—but it was very well cut, and had the full skirt to midcalf, then the slender skirt beneath to the ankle. The jacket was short, nipped to the waist, high at the neck, and had buttons all the way down the front. She looked at herself in the glass, and thought it was really very flattering.

  Consequently, it was nearly five o’clock when the taxi dropped her in Hampstead and she walked up the path to the quiet house with the blinds drawn in the now familiar sign of mourning. She felt self-conscious, intrusive, guilty for being here at all when she had not liked Prentice. If she had not had General Cullingford’s letter in her hand, which she had promised him she would deliver, she would have turned and gone back to the hotel. The only thing harder would be to tell him that she had failed. He might not blame her, he might even understand, but it would destroy a trust between them that she would not willingly live without.

  She knocked on the door.

  After several minutes it was opened by a girl of about sixteen in a long, black dress and a plain apron and cap. Her face was pale and her eyes pink-rimmed. “Yes, miss?” she said without interest.

  “I am sorry to intrude,” Judith said, “but I have a letter for Mrs. Prentice. My name is Judith Reavley, and I am General Cullingford’s driver in Belgium. Would you ask Mrs. Prentice if I may see her, please?”

  The girl hesitated. The message obviously confused her.

  “Please?” Judith repeated. “I promised the general that I would deliver it in person.”

  “Yes, miss. If you come in, I’ll go an’ ask ’er.” She pulled the door wide and led Judith across the hall into a sparse morning room. The mirrors were turned to the wall, the blinds drawn down even though it was still daylight, and there was black crepe on the mantelshelf. She left Judith there and went to find Mrs. Prentice.

  Judith looked around, trying to imagine Eldon Prentice here. But this was not a room for the family; it was the formal place guests waited, or people came to write letters, or perhaps receive business callers. There was nothing personal.

  She wondered what Cullingford’s home was like. Was it comfortable, full of the physical things that spoke of his life: books, paintings, perhaps ornaments, pieces that had memories? Were there gardening gloves, or fishing rods, boots, binoculars for watching birds, a stick for long walks, hats for different occasions? Had he a dog, like Henry, that her father had loved so much?

  The door opened and Mrs. Prentice stood in the entrance. Judith knew it was she because there was a likeness to Cullingford. It was not in her features; hers were less defined by experience, gentler and without the underlying fervor. It was the way her hair grew off her brow that was the same, a certain stillness about her, and something in her eyes. Now she was tired and the pain in her was desperately clear to see.

  “Miss Reavley?” she said hesitantly. The intonation in her voice was like Cullingford’s also.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Prentice,” Judith answered, smiling very slightly. She was so used to death it no longer embarrassed her and the words came easily. “I know this is not a time you will wish for visitors, but I have a letter from General Cullingford. He also felt you might like to speak with me, because I knew Mr. Prentice a little. Sometimes it helps, at others it doesn’t. I lost both my parents in July last year, and I don’t always know whether I want to talk about them or not. At times I get angry when people are trying to be tactful, and skirt around it all the time as if they never existed.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Prentice said quietly. “That sounds awful. Both your father and your mother?” Her eyes were full of sympathy, and for an instant her own loss was forgotten.

  “It was a road accident.” There was no need to tell her it was murder, like her son’s. She did not need to know that either. Judith smiled deliberately. “I’m really an ambulance driver, a lot of the time well behind the lines, but when General Cullingford’s driver was injured I happened to be there, and he needed to go urgently to meet with the French, and I’m quite good at languages.”

  “You must be very brave. How is Owen?” The shadow was there in her eyes again, her own pain back, overwhelming her.

  Judith knew she should answer with a good deal of the truth; it would make the other lies easier to believe. “He’s quite well, I think,” she said frankly. “But I can’t imagine that he would complain about anything unless it were very serious.” She saw the fleeting acknowledgment in Mrs. Prentice’s face. “Of course he carries a terrible responsibility. He knows far more of what is really happening than an ordinary soldier would, and has some very hard decisions to make, and then the consequences to live with.” That was more than she had intended to say, but a reserve in the other woman had prompted her to defend him. Had his own family any idea at all of the burden he carried? Did he, like a lot of men, write calm, trivial letters home, telling them what they wanted to hear, protecting them from reality? He had implied as much about his wife, was it true of his sister as well? Was there no one with whom he could trust his inner self, the true, unguarded part?

  “I imagine it is very hard,” Mrs. Prentice replied, but there was no thought in her voice. She was being polite. “Have you come very far? Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “I came from Dunkirk last night,” Judith said. “I got to Dover this morning, and took the train up to London. I’d love a cup of tea, thank you.”

  “But—you must have eaten, surely?” It was a refuge in the practical, something uncomplicated to do.

  “Oh yes, I ate at the hotel, thank you, but tea would be lovely,” Judith accepted. She must give her the chance to ask questions, or simply to remember her son with someone who had known him.

  Mrs. Prentice led the way into the drawing room. It had yellow-flowered wallpaper and windows looking out onto a lawn, and the last tulips in bloom beyond. The scent of lilac drifted in on the breeze. It caught Judith with a sudden ache of absurdity. It was all so normal, so terribly English, clipped lawns, the perfume of flowers, tea in the afternoon, as if life were the same as it always had been. And inside the void of loss was irreparable.

  Mrs. Prentice rang for the maid, and requested tea. Twenty minutes later it came, with cucumber and egg and cress sandwiches and slices of Madeira cake.

  “My daughter Belinda will be terri
bly sorry to have missed you,” Mrs. Prentice said, pouring the tea and passing the cup across. “She and Eldon were closer than they sometimes appeared to be. She has found his . . . his death, very hard.” It was difficult for her to say the words. Judith could see that she was deliberately forcing herself to, as if she had not been able until now.

  “I have brothers,” Judith tried to help her. “We disagree sometimes, but it’s only on the surface.”

  “Yes, of course it is,” Mrs. Prentice responded instantly. “I know what you mean. So often we just don’t get around to saying what matters most. We suppose that people know, and perhaps they don’t.”

  Judith wondered if she was thinking of Prentice and his sister, or of herself and Cullingford. Certainly Cullingford did not know. He wanted to reach out to his sister, and was aware with a sense of loss that she would not welcome it. But it was too delicate to touch now.

  “Mr. Prentice was very brave,” she said aloud. “I think we all knew that of him.”

  Mrs. Prentice smiled, blinking hard. “It’s ridiculous now, I suppose, but we never thought being a war correspondent was a dangerous job. I imagined him talking to injured men, perhaps seeing ambulances, doctors, hearing from others what the actual battle was like. I thought Owen would look after him!” Without any warning the anger was there, the lashing out against unmanageable pain.

  “He couldn’t do that!” Judith retorted instantly, remembering passionately, against her will, Cullingford’s anger at Prentice, and Prentice forcing him to write a pass for him to go wherever he wanted. “All our correspondents are ordered not to go to the forward lines, but Mr. Prentice wanted to see what it was like for himself, and he disobeyed.” She heard her own anger harsh in her voice and tried to curb it. She was not the one bereaved. “He . . . he wanted to feel it, not just be told.”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Prentice’s anger was mastered again. “It’s just that I know Owen didn’t really approve of him. They used to be close, when Eldon was younger, but then they grew apart. Eldon didn’t have much respect for the army command, and he wasn’t always tactful how he said so.” She was defending a wound too raw to touch. “But he was very clever, you know? He had a brilliant mind. He would have been a great writer.” Her eyes were challenging, daring Judith to deny it, as if through her she were reaching Cullingford, too, forcing him to acknowledge her son, to give him now what he had withheld before, as if it could matter.

  “That’s one of the worst things about war,” Judith replied, her throat tight with pity, aching inside herself. “It is so often the best who are killed. I’m so sorry.”

  Mrs. Prentice blinked away tears. Outside there was a blackbird singing as the light softened toward evening. “You are very kind to give up part of your precious leave to come here.” Her voice was husky, fighting for control. Now she needed to talk of other things, hold the agony at bay until she could find the strength again.

  “I know how it hurts when someone is gone,” Judith said gently. “And no one will talk to you about them. People are afraid of hurting you, and embarrassed in case you break down.”

  Mrs. Prentice laughed very slightly. “You are right. Would you . . . would you stay to dinner, and meet Belinda? I know it is an imposition, but it would mean a great deal to her, and to me.”

  “Of course. Thank you. I was only going back to the hotel and I would probably have eaten alone.”

  “Don’t you know anyone in London?”

  “My brother Matthew, but he didn’t know I was coming. I expect I’ll see him tomorrow.”

  “You must be relieved he is not in the army.”

  “He is, sort of, but stationed in London.”

  “You said you had two brothers, or did I misunderstand you?”

  “I have. Joseph is at the Front, not far from where I am. He’s a chaplain.”

  “I thought chaplains stayed well to the rear, with the injured, advising people, comforting them and conducting services. Eldon said church attendance was compulsory.”

  “Yes, it is. But Joseph spends most of his time in the trenches.”

  “Eldon would have admired that.” She said it with wistful pleasure.

  Judith thought of how Joseph had despised Prentice, and was compelled by honor, not desire, to find out who had killed him. There were too many people who had wanted to, and in spite of himself he sympathized with them, but she must not say that here. She must walk a subtle, razor line between truth and evasion that concealed it.

  She glanced around the room with its quiet memories, things of good quality, a little shabby with use. There were several photographs, images of a time only a year or two ago, and yet seeming now to be another age. Several were of Prentice, one of an older man. There was one of Cullingford, holding a horse by the head, its long face close to his. He looked happy. To judge by the unlined smoothness of his features it must have been nine or ten years ago.

  Judith looked away quickly. Even in that small black-and-white image there was an intensity of feeling that shook her. This was part of his life she could not touch, except in imagination. He belonged to someone else—with whom he could share nothing of the torment of emotion that tore them apart, blistered with pain, removed them from the ordinary and changed them forever.

  A group picture caught her eye: Cullingford smiling with a woman beside him. She had a gentle face and curling hair, a little darker than his, perhaps auburn from the soft freckles on her face, but it was impossible to tell. Prentice was beside them, and to his right a tall girl with startling, direct eyes that looked to be unusually light colored. Prentice was holding an oar in his left hand, upright like a spear, and he was wearing a straw boater hat.

  Judith moved her gaze quickly, not wanting to see. It was absurd, but the sight of Cullingford with someone who was almost certainly his wife, reminded her of the reality of life outside the war, life the way it ought to be, and that she had no part in it with him. She belonged to battle, extreme hardship, not the way they longed for life to be again.

  The clock on the mantelpiece struck seven. Beyond the windows a slight breeze stirred the leaves of a silver birch tree. At home in St. Giles there would have been starlings in the sky, swirling up behind the elms and swinging wide out over the fields. But that was in the past. It belonged in dreams, preserved where it was safe and the present could not touch it.

  Twenty minutes later Prentice’s younger sister, Belinda, came home from the volunteer work she had been doing making up parcels to send to soldiers at the Front. She resembled Prentice also, but she was darker, her face had the same intelligence and eagerness, but it was softened by a kind of inner calm he had not possessed.

  When Judith was introduced her weariness vanished. “You’re actually at the Front?” she said with fierce admiration, her eyes alight. “There with our men?”

  Judith felt a mixture of pride and embarrassment. “I’m not actually in the trenches, although I know pretty much what they’re like. We don’t go further forward than the Casualty Clearing Stations where they bring the wounded back for us to collect.”

  Belinda’s shoulders were tight, her face tense with her imagination. She had not yet sat down. “Is it very dreadful? I used to think of it as heroic, but Eldon said it isn’t, it’s filthy and degrading, and lots of the men are blown to bits without ever having a chance. He said that if we here at home had any idea what it was like, no one would join up to go there, because it’s for nothing. It would be quicker to catch a bus to the local abattoir along with the cattle.” She was searching Judith’s face, hungry for an answer. It was easy to imagine the quarrels they had had over it, her dreams, his anger. Now she was left with nothing but confusion, and no one to help her resolve the truths she needed to know for herself, not only to help her grief, but to continue now.

  There might be someone else she loved out there in the trenches; if there was not now, there would be.

  Judith composed her answer carefully. “It can be pretty shocking when you first
get there,” she said to Belinda, avoiding Mrs. Prentice’s anxious eyes. “The smell is awful, he’s right about that. It tears your stomach, even when you get used to it. And there are rats, lice, fleas, all sorts of unpleasant things. Casualties are high, but we save most of the wounded.”

  Belinda sat down slowly, her hands folded in her lap. She did not take her eyes off Judith’s face.

  “But what it seems he didn’t tell you about is the friendship,” Judith went on. “The loyalty, the knowledge that the men beside you will share everything they have with you, food, warmth, shelter, jokes, laughter and pain, their lives if need be. Perhaps as a correspondent he didn’t see that, but it’s there in the front line. And the courage and sacrifice are there. That’s not just propaganda. The difference is that it is real, not words; and no words can tell you what it’s like, however passionate or clever. Maybe one poet will capture a little of it one day. Maybe the cold and the pain and the fierce, brave, kind, funny love of one man for his friends can’t even be told.”

  There were tears on Belinda’s face, and she was not ashamed of them.

  “I wish he could have known that,” she said, swallowing huskily. “I suppose he wasn’t there long enough.” Her words were brave, but her eyes betrayed her fear that it was not time but Prentice’s own character that blinded him. “Are you going back?” she asked.

  Judith had never even considered the possibility of not going.

  “Of course! I . . .” She gave the faintest smile, but she felt it burn through her like heat. “I have to. My job is out there. That’s who I am. And the people I love are there, too.” The truth of that rang in her voice with a conviction that startled her.

  Belinda did not say so, but her admiration was so intense it blazed in her eyes and in her soft, answering smile.