Angels in the Gloom wwi-3 Read online

  Joseph was simply grateful that his brother was safe. He did not lie awake at night, cold and sick with fear for him, or scan each new casualty list with his stomach churning. He knew that Matthew was responsible specifically for information concerning America, and the likelihood of their joining the Allies, as opposed to their present neutrality. He could imagine his duties might involve the decoding and interpretation of letters, telegrams, and other messages. “How’s Hannah?” he asked.

  “Fine. I expect they’ll let her in to see you this afternoon or tomorrow. Not that there’s been much to see, until now. You’ve been out of it most of the time.” The anxiety returned to Matthew’s eyes.

  “There are others a lot worse,” Joseph said truthfully. “I’ve a cracking headache, but nothing that won’t heal.”

  Matthew’s eyes flickered to Joseph’s arm, which was heavily bandaged, and then the bedclothes carefully placed so as not to weigh on the wound in his leg. “You’ll be home a while,” he observed. His voice was thick. They both knew Joseph was fortunate not to have lost the arm. Perhaps, had Cavan been less skilled, he would have.

  “Any other news?” Joseph asked. He said it quite lightly, but there was still a change in his tone, and Matthew heard it immediately. He knew what the question really meant: Was he any closer to finding the identity of the Peacemaker? That was the name they had given to the man behind the plot their father had discovered, and which had led to his murder and that of their mother.

  It was Joseph who had learned, to his enduring grief, who it was who had physically caused the fatal car crash. He and Matthew together had found the treaty, unsigned as yet by the king, on the day before Britain declared war. But the man with the passion and the intellect behind it still eluded them. Their compulsion to find him was partly born out of a hunger for revenge for the deaths of John and Alys Reavley. Others, too, whom they’d cared for, had died—used, crushed, then thrown away by the Peacemaker in pursuit of his cause. They also needed to stop him before he achieved the devastating ruin he planned.

  Matthew pushed his hands into his pockets, lifting his shoulders in the slightest shrug. “I haven’t found anything helpful,” he answered. “We know it isn’t Chetwin. I followed everything else we had, but in the end it led nowhere.” His lips tightened a fraction, and there was a moment’s defeat in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where else to look. I’ve been pretty busy trying to prevent the sabotage of munitions across the Atlantic. We’re desperate for supplies. The Germans are advancing along the Somme. We’ve over a million men wounded or dead. We lose ships to the U-boats pretty well every week. If it goes on like this another year, we’ll start to know real hunger, not just shortages but actual starvation. God! If we could only get America in on our side, we’d have men, guns, food!” He stopped abruptly, the light going out of his face. “But Wilson’s still dithering around like an old maid being asked to . . .”

  Joseph smiled.

  Matthew shrugged. “I suppose he has to,” he said resignedly. “If he brings them in too fast, he could lose his own election in the autumn, and what use would that be!”

  “I know,” Joseph agreed. “Maybe while I’m at home I’ll have time to think about the Peacemaker a bit. There might be other people we haven’t considered.” He had in mind Aidan Thyer, his old master at St. John’s, and he was startled how the idea hurt. It had to be someone they knew, which made it the ultimate betrayal. It was difficult to keep the hatred out of his voice. Perhaps Matthew would take it for pain. “What else is happening in London?” he asked aloud. “Any new shows worth seeing? What about the moving pictures? What about Chaplin? Has he done anything more?”

  Matthew smiled broadly. “There’s some good Keystone stuff. ‘Fatty and Mabel Adrift,’ with Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand, and a great dog called Luke. Or ‘He Did and He Didn’t,’ or ‘Love and Lobsters,’ if you prefer. They all have alternative titles.” And he proceeded to outline some of the highlights.

  Joseph was still laughing when Gwen Neave returned, clean sheets folded over her arm and a roll of bandages in her other hand. She smiled at Matthew, but there was no denying her authority when she told him it was time for him to leave.

  Matthew bade Joseph goodbye briefly, as if they saw each other every day. Then he walked out with a remnant of his old, slight swagger.

  “My brother,” Joseph said with a sense of pride that startled him. Suddenly he was filled with well-being, as if the pain had lessened, although actually it was just as grave.

  Gwen Neave set down the sheets. “He said he was up from London,” she remarked without meeting his eyes. “We’ll change those dressings first, before I put on the clean sheets.”

  The implicit rebuke in her voice hurt Joseph. He cared what she thought of his brother. He wanted to tell her how important Matthew’s work was so she did not think he was one of those who evaded service, the sort of young man to whom girls on street corners gave white feathers, the mark of the coward. It was the ugliest insult possible.

  She slid her arm around him and put an extra pillow behind his back so she could reach the raw, open wound where the broken ends of the bone had torn through the flesh.

  “He works in London,” he said, gasping as the pain shot through him in waves. He refused to look at the wound. He still needed to tell her about Matthew.

  She was not interested. She dealt with the injured, the fighting men. She worked all day and often most of the night. No call on her care or her patience was too much, no clasp of the hand or silent listening too trivial.

  “He can’t tell us what he does,” he went on. “It’s secret. Not everybody can wear a uniform. . . .” He stopped abruptly, afraid to say too much. The physical pain made him feel sick.

  She gave him a quick smile, understanding what he was trying to do. “He’s obviously very fond of you,” she said. “So is the other gentleman, by all appearances. He was upset you weren’t well enough to see him.”

  He was startled. “Other gentleman?”

  Her lips tightened. “Did they not tell you? I’m sorry. We had an emergency that evening. Rather bad. I dare say they forgot. They wouldn’t do it on purpose. It . . . it was distressing.” Her face was bleak. He did not ask what had happened. It was too easy to guess.

  “Who was he?” he asked instead. “The man who came?”

  “A Mr. Shanley Corcoran,” she replied. “We assured him you were doing well.”

  He smiled, and a little of the tension eased out of him. Corcoran had been his father’s closest friend and all of them had loved him as long as they could remember. Of course Corcoran would come, no matter how busy he was at the Scientific Establishment. Whatever he was working on would have to wait at least an hour or two when one of his own was ill.

  She eased him back as gently as she could. “I see your brother brought you your medal. That’s very fine, Captain, very fine indeed. Your sister’ll be proud of you, too.”

  A young man walked briskly along Marchmont Street in London, crossed behind a taxicab, and stepped up onto the curb at the far side. He had come down from Cambridge for this meeting, as he had done at irregular intervals over the last year, and he was not looking forward to it.

  Full of high ideals, quite certain of what end he was working toward, and believing he knew what the personal cost would be, he had secured his place in the Scientific Establishment in Cambridgeshire. Now it was much more complicated. There were people and emotions involved that he could not have foreseen.

  This meeting would entail a certain degree of deception, at least by omission, and the young man was not looking forward to that. There were changes to his own plans of which he could say nothing at all. It would be intensely dangerous, and he strode along the footpath in the sun without any pleasure at all.

  In the afternoon Hannah was allowed to come to the hospital. Joseph opened his eyes to see her standing at the end of the bed. For a moment he registered only her face with its soft lines, her eyes so li
ke her mother’s, and the thick, fair brown hair. It was as if Alys were standing there. Then the pain in his body returned, and memory. Alys was dead.

  “Joseph?” Hannah sounded uncertain. She was afraid he was too ill to be disturbed, perhaps even still in danger. Her face lit with relief when she saw him smile and she moved toward him. “How are you? Is there anything I can bring you?” She held a big bunch of daffodils from the garden, like cradled sunshine. He could smell them even above the hospital odors of carbolic, blood, washed linen, and the warmth of bodies.

  “They’re beautiful,” he said, clearing his throat. “Thank you.”

  She put them on the small table near him. “Do you want to sit up a little?” she asked, seeing him struggle to be more comfortable. In answer to her own question she helped him forward and plumped up the pillows, leaving him more upright. She was wearing a blouse and a blue linen skirt that ended only halfway down her calf, as the fashion was now. He did not like it as much as the longer, fuller, ground-sweeping skirts of recent years, but he could see that it was more practical. War changed a lot of things. She looked pretty, and she smelled of something warm and delicate, but he could also see the weariness in her face and around her eyes.

  “How are the children?” he asked.

  “They’re well.” Her words were simple and said with assurance, probably the answer she gave everyone, but the truth in her eyes was far more complex.

  “Tell me about them,” he pressed. “How is Tom doing at school? What is his ambition?”

  A shadow crossed her face. She tried to make light of it. “At the moment, like most fourteen-year-old boys, he wants to join the war. He’s always following soldiers around when there’s anyone on leave in the village.” She gave a tiny laugh, barely a sound at all. “He’s afraid it will be over before he has a chance. Of course he has no real idea what it’s like.”

  He wondered how much she knew. Her husband, Archie, was a commander in the Royal Navy. Such a life was probably beyond the imagination of anyone who lived on the land. He had only the dimmest idea himself. But he knew the life of a soldier intimately. “He’s too young,” he said aloud, knowing as he did so that there were boys, even on the front lines, who were not much older. He had seen the bodies of one or two. But there was no need for Hannah to know that.

  “Do you think it will be over by next year?” she asked.

  “Or the one after,” he answered, with no idea if that were true.

  She relaxed. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can bring you? Are they feeding you properly? It’s still quite easy to get most things, although that might change if the U-boats get any worse. There’s nothing much in the garden yet, it’s too early. And of course Albert’s not with us anymore, so it’s gone a bit wild.”

  He heard a wealth of loss in her voice. At the front they tended to think everything at home was caught in a motionless amber just as they remembered it. Sometimes it was only the thread of memory linking that order of life to the madness of war that gave the fighting any purpose. Perhaps on the front they were as blind to life at home as the people at home were to the reality in the trenches? He had not really thought of that before.

  He looked at his sister’s anxious face. “The food’s not bad at all,” he said at last. “Maybe they’re giving us the best. But when I heal a bit more, I’ll be home anyway.”

  She smiled suddenly, alight with pleasure. “That’ll be wonderful. It’ll be quite a while before you can go back, I should think.” She was sorry for his wounds, but they kept him in England, safe and alive. She did not know where Archie was, nor Judith. No matter how busy she was during the day, there was still too much time alone when fear crowded in, and helplessness. She could only imagine, and wait.

  Seeing her loneliness far more than she realized, he felt an intense tenderness for her. “Thank you,” he said with a depth that surprised him.

  It happened sooner than he expected. More wounded arrived. His bed was needed and he was past immediate danger. Gwen Neave helped him to dress in trousers, with a shirt and jacket over one shoulder and around his bandaged arm. He was taken to the door in a wheelchair and, feeling unsteady, helped into the ambulance to be driven home to Selborne St. Giles. He was startled to find that he was exhausted by the time the doors were opened again. He was assisted out onto the gravel driveway where Hannah was waiting for him.

  She held his arm as he negotiated the steps, leaning heavily on his crutch, the ambulance driver on his other side. He hardly had time to notice that the front garden was overgrown. The daffodils were bright; leaves were bursting open everywhere; the yellow forsythia was in bloom, uncut since last year; and there were clumps of primroses that should have been divided and spread.

  The door opened and he saw Tom was kneeling on the floor in the hall, holding the dog by his collar as he wriggled and barked with excitement. Henry was a golden retriever, eternally enthusiastic, and his exuberance would have knocked Joseph off his feet.

  Tom grinned a little uncertainly. “Hello, Uncle Joseph. I daren’t let him go, but he’s pleased to see you. How are you?”

  “Getting better very quickly, thank you,” Joseph replied. He did not feel that was true, but he wanted it to be. He was light-headed and so weak it frightened him. It was an effort to stand, even with help.

  Tom looked relieved, but he still hung on to Henry, who was lunging forward in eagerness to welcome Joseph.

  The two younger children were at the top of the stairs, standing close together. Jenny was ten, fair, with brown eyes like her mother. Luke, seven, was as dark as Archie. They stared at Joseph almost without blinking. He wasn’t really Uncle Joseph anymore; he was a soldier, a real one. More than that, he was a hero. Both their mother and Mrs. Appleton had said so.

  Joseph climbed the stairs, hesitating on every step, assisted by the driver. He spoke to Luke and Jenny as he passed, but briefly. He was longing to get back to bed again and lie down, so the familiar hall and stairs would stop swaying and he would not make a spectacle of himself by collapsing in front of everyone. It would be so embarrassing trying to get up again, and needing to be lifted.

  Hannah helped him to undress, anxious and repeatedly fussing over him. She helped him into the bed, propped the crutch where he could reach it, then left. She returned a few minutes later with a cup of tea. He found it shook in his hand when he took it, and she had to hold it for him.

  He thanked her and was glad when she left him alone. It was strange to be at home again in his own room with his books, pictures, and other belongings that reminded him so sharply and intrusively of the past. There were photographs of himself and Harry Beecher hiking in Northumberland. The memory and the loss of his late friend still hurt Joseph. There were also books and papers from his time as a professor of Bible studies at St. John’s, even of his youth before his marriage, when this house had been the center of life for all of them.

  His parents were no longer here, but when he lay awake in the night with the light on to read, he heard Hannah’s footsteps on the landing. For an instant it was his mother’s face he expected around the door to check if he was all right.

  “Sorry,” he apologized before she could ask. “My days and nights are a bit muddled.” It was pain that was keeping him awake, but there was nothing she could do to help it, so there was no purpose in telling her. She looked tired, and, with her hair loose, younger than she did in the daytime. She was far more like her mother than Judith was, not only in appearance but in nature. All he could ever remember her wanting was to marry and have children, care for them, and be as good a part of the village as Alys had been—trusted, admired, and above all liked.

  But everything was changing, moving much too quickly, as if a seventh wave had accumulated and drowned the shore.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” she said anxiously. “Or cocoa? I’ve got milk. It might help you sleep.”

  “Yes, please,” he said, as much for her as for himself. “Cocoa.”
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  She returned ten minutes later with two cups on a tray, and sat in the chair beside the bed sipping her own, having assured herself that he could manage his.

  He started speaking to fill the silence. “How is Mr. Arnold?”

  Her face pinched a little. “He took Plugger’s death pretty hard.” He was a widower, but she knew Joseph would not have forgotten that. “He spends most of his time down at the forge doing odd jobs, cleaning up, taking people’s horses back and forth. Mostly for the army, and to keep busy, I think.”

  “And Mrs. Gee?” Memory of Charlie Gee’s death still twisted inside him. When he was well enough, he planned to go see these neighbors and friends. He knew how much it mattered to them to hear firsthand news. They wanted to ask questions, even if they were afraid of the answers. Mrs. Gee’s other son, Barshey, was still at the front, and most of the other young men she knew as well. Everyone had friends or relations in the trenches; most had lost people they loved, dead, injured, or simply missing. In some cases they would never know what had happened to them.

  “Mrs. Gee is all right,” she answered him. “Well, as all right as anyone can be. She always has to make up her mind whether to go and look at the casualty lists or not. And she always does. Like the rest of us, I suppose. You go with your heart in your mouth, then when your family’s names are not there you feel almost sick with relief.”

  She bit her lip, her cocoa forgotten. Her eyes searched his to see if he understood the depth of the fear, the moment of crippling aloneness. “And then you realize that other women next to you have lost someone, and you feel guilty. You see their faces white, eyes with all the light gone as if something inside them was dead, too. You know it could be your turn next time. You try to think of something to say, all the while knowing there isn’t anything. There’s a gulf between you that nothing can cross. You still have hope. They don’t. And you end up saying nothing at all. You just go home, until the next list.”