The months that had elapsed since John’s return home had seen momentous events. The war had been declared over in November, and while that caused rejoicing for so many people for so many reasons all over the country, Ella felt sure that she was not the only one to be thankful for one reason alone – that it meant an injured loved one had no need to return to the front line. For while the injury to John’s hand had healed relatively quickly, it had proved more difficult to find an easy cure for his state of mind. He did his best to appear to be the same man who had gone to the Front with high expectations of victory, but whatever he had witnessed there had ‘consumed his wits’, according to Mr Ward. The night terrors of his childhood had returned to haunt him, but this time the shadowy unknown figures of dreams from the past were made real and terrifying by what he had experienced. The same horrors stalked him by day and it seemed he could find no peace. He took to walking out from the house at all hours, although mainly at night so that he could avoid any entanglement with the demons that awaited him once he closed his eyes in sleep.
The family had looked forward to celebrating a peacetime Christmas that, although it would still be austere, should have reflected a sense of optimism about better times ahead. Instead, it was marred by anxiety over John’s increasingly fragile state of mind. The household had been kept awake by his pacing the house and muttering throughout the night of Christmas Eve, and his lack of sleep made him erratic and confused company on Christmas Day. As soon as possible after Christmas, Mr Ward called out the doctor to examine John, and spent a good hour in consultation with him behind the locked door of the library once the examination was over.
The convalescent home that the doctor recommended proved to be less than successful. It was full of young men with worse physical injuries than John, as well as a good many with similar mental disturbances, but this only seemed to serve as a reminder of what he was so desperately trying to escape. He returned after a month with better sleep patterns established, thanks to nightly sedation, but still with the deeply haunted look that appeared likely to become a permanent fixture on his features. Less erratic in his behaviour, he had become withdrawn instead.
Beth was quite beside herself with worry and distress. She had very little opportunity to spend any time with John, and in any few snatched moments together she found him too unsettled to take any pleasure in her company.
‘It’s no good,’ she said despairingly to Ella one evening. ‘Whatever we had is lost. I feel sure that if it were only possible to spend a stretch of time together, I could take away some of the pain and help him to be calmer. But I have no idea how that can ever be possible. I think all connection between us has gone for ever.’ She spoke so sadly that Ella, deeply upset herself by John’s situation, resolved to find a way to help.
In the end, it was Mr and Mrs Ward’s growing impatience with John’s lack of improvement in health that played into her hands. Their delight in John’s safe return had given way to irritation at his inability to recover quickly, something they saw as a sign of weakness. Mr Ward had suggested more than once that John just needed to ‘pull himself together and show a bit of backbone.’
After the failure of the convalescent home to provide a lasting solution, the doctor had suggested that they might like to follow a new line of thinking on recovering from mental exhaustion, which involved a good deal of fresh air and exercise. He was suggesting a period spent in the Alps, with ten-mile walks every day that would, when combined with the fresh air, guarantee a healthy night’s sleep and a subsequent return to normality of the brain. Although Mr Ward had been initially enthusiastic, Stevens had reported that, on reflection, he now felt it wouldn’t be safe to send John to the Alps alone, and he was at a loss as to who might be employed to accompany him.
Ella had pondered the situation for a day, without consulting Beth for fear of raising her hopes, then asked to speak to Mr Ward. She had thought her plan through carefully, trying to ensure that she was prepared for every possible objection that Mr Ward might raise. Then she had proposed to him that John could just as easily benefit from a stay in the peace of the Yorkshire countryside, with a great many miles of moorland to roam at will, yet close enough to York for his parents to be able to visit him regularly to check on his progress. Ella and Beth, who knew the area well, could be his walking companions whilst staying close by in Northwaite with Ella’s mother, and would be on hand should any problems arise.
To Ella’s astonishment, after a short period of deliberation, Mr Ward had agreed. Indeed, he had commended her for her thoughtfulness and set about arranging the trip within the week. It dawned on Ella that he was perhaps glad for the problem to be removed from his sight; whatever the reason, the plan also worked some sort of magic on John. His general demeanour was much improved before they even left York, while Beth was beside herself with excitement and had a hard job hiding it from the others.
‘You are so clever, Ella,’ she exclaimed, on an almost daily basis. ‘However did you get Mr Ward to agree? I just know that we can make John better. Why, already he seems calmer and he has told me how much he is looking forward to discovering the countryside where we were brought up, and to meeting Sarah. Stevens said to me that it’s the first time he has seen John show any enthusiasm for anything in weeks!’