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Agnes stood triumphantly before Edward, ready at once to chase after the address on Lefront's letter.
“Do you know where this is?” he asked her.
“Not far,” she said, with a smile.
Edward should have known by now that Agnes's idea of “not far” often stretched the definition of standard measurements. For an hour, they trudged through the early summer mud that testified to the healthy crops in the field.
“Here it is,” she said, as the house came into view.
“Smaller than I expected,” he said.
“Ready?” she said and Edward felt a twinge of déjà vu from the day they had stood on Martin's doorstep. Neither knew what to expect but they were both ready to find out what the house, which was really more on the large side of a cottage than the estate house that Edward had imagined, held. Somehow, because he believed it to be pivotal in his quest, he had decided that the house must be grand. When Agnes spoke of her mother's friend having married well, his mind had filled in the blanks with luxurious excess and riches. He realized now that his own affluent past had colored his assumption and also that everything appears larger when one is small and Agnes had been quite young when she was last here.
He raised his hand to the knocker now, hoping to be met with answers on the other side. The door cracked open.
“Yes?” a voice said, which sounded youthful but had the crackle of age in it.
Agnes looked at Edward and shrugged her shoulders.
“Hello, my name is Agnes. I'm a teacher in Meadowsbrooke and this is my cousin Edward.”
When he did not say anything, she elbowed him to get him to speak.
“Yes, I'm Edward, hello.”
“I don't know you,” the voice, which began to sound more female, said now.
“We were hoping to talk to you about a letter.”
“A letter? What kind of a letter?”
“My mother used to write to a Mrs. Lefront at this address. We were hoping she might live here still,” Agnes said.
“Or that you might know of her at least?” Edward said.
“There's no Lefront here. This here is an English cottage, I tell you.”
“Yes, thank you,” Agnes said, “but, can you tell me if anyone used to live here?”
“I used to live here,” the voice said again.
Edward looked at Agnes, imploring his cousin to call upon some streak of sudden genius.
“Does anyone else live here?” Agnes said.
“Why? Are you trying to rob me?”
“No, no! We're sorry to have bothered you. We must have the wrong address,” Edward said and put his arm around Agnes to guide her away. He knew that if it were up to her, they would have pushed their way in and gotten their answers. Clearly, their politeness was getting them nowhere and so any attempt would be useless.
They had walked a hundred yards from the cottage, before Edward stopped walking so quickly.
“Well!” Agnes said, in disbelief, “Accusing us of robbery! It's a good thing that we didn't mention the painting. She really would have thought we were after her belongings!” An idea began to form in Edward's mind. Perhaps, she did have information about the painting and had taken over the position of guardian of it. He had chased his own cousin away from his home; was it really so strange that someone else would turn away strangers to prevent them from finding out about the painting? On the other hand, she could merely have been skittish.
“We must not have honest faces,” he said, trying to smooth away her unsettled disposition.
“Well, really. It's quite shocking that anyone would treat us like that,” she said, missing his attempt at making her smile.
“Maybe, she's just frightened with the war.”
“Maybe,” she said, softening, though only slightly.
They had stopped walking, as they spoke and now Edward began to lead them on the journey back. Birds sang overhead, keeping rhythmic time with their steps. The flowers were dressed in bright yellow frocks and crimson coated poppies smiled at them from the grassy knolls that lined the dirt strewn path.
“Funny,” he said, not realizing he had spoken his thought aloud.
“Did you say something?” she asked, turning to him now.
“Oh, I just was noticing how nature keeps the season and is steady and dependable, when we have turned the world on edge.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. There is peace in this meadow, despite our destructive ways.”
They continued walking, both in silence for awhile. The breeze rustled softly through the trees, as if dancing around them in celebration.
“Do you think— no, I don't suppose it could be,” Agnes said.
“Hm? Do I think what?” he asked, “and what did you say after that? You said it lower and I couldn't quite hear.”
“Oh, I was just wondering—” she paused to face him now, to ensure that he heard what she said.
“Do you think things will ever be the same again? That they'll go back?” It was an odd sort of question for Edward to hear. The painted lady had made him decidedly contemplative. The trenches had changed everything for Edward but now, as a piece of a much larger story surrounding the painting, he had begun to ponder if normalcy could return. Perhaps, normal was not the word he was looking for. Normal implied ordinary and commonplace and neither one of those adjectives would have been sufficient or remotely descriptive of the adventure he had embarked upon.
“What's that?” Agnes said, stopping abruptly and pointing through the clearing.
“We didn't come this way,” Edward said, suddenly realizing they were walking home on a road different from that they had come on. He had been swept into an all-encompassing whirl of thought and had not noticed they'd turned left instead of right.
“No, I wanted to come this way past that grand house. I wasn't sure if you'd seen it before. Had you?”
Through the clearing, Edward spied the very large house that he had admired once before.
“I have, yes. I was here with Martin before.”
And then, realizing what Agnes was pointing at, he said,
“Is that— is it what I think it is?”
“Appears so.”
“Well, is it the son, perhaps? Was he away?”
“Oh, no. There is a son but he's very young. His father, the Lord, is at war. Well, maybe something has happened to him, but it seems we'd have heard something. I'm really not sure.”
Edward probably would have continued walking, thinking nothing of the June burial if he hadn't suddenly recognized the undertaker. A man who appeared about his age and with dark features was digging a hole, piling the dirt high against the emerald grass.
“Pack it in good, Edward. Pack it in,” he heard James say now, as he was transported to those first days when tools had rested firmly in his hand as he also sculpted the land with shovel and pick. Edward had felt like a mole immersed in a world of mud floors and dirt ceilings. But for all the aches that racked his body from a greater quantity of manual labor than he had ever done before, he soon found himself longing for the days of a builder when bullets transformed him into a soldier.
Through the gates the man came into view more clearly now. Yes, he was definitely the man whom he had seen speaking to the girl the day that he had passed this house with Martin.
“I know him,” he said to Agnes.
“You do?” she said, surprise clustering around her eyes.
“Well, I mean I've seen him before. Martin and I walked this way once to observe their garden.”
“Pardon me,” Agnes said, clearly louder than for just Edward to hear. The man paused in his digging, surprised by the voice, not having realized someone was watching him.
“Yes?” he said, across the expanse.
“Might we speak with you for a moment?” Agnes said.
“Oh Agnes, what have you done now? We already made ourselves unwanted to one stranger today,” Edward said, softly.
“I just want to find out what's happened. Besides, he seems more cooperative.”
Edward looked up and the man was nearing them.
“We were wondering what misfortune had befallen the house. Is it bad news from the front of Lord Pemblebrooke?”
“I understand there has been no news from the front,” he said, leaning heavily on the shovel as he spoke.
“No, I don't suppose you would be digging a grave if the news were from the trenches,” Agnes mused, trying to pry him for information. So many families received the terrible news of their loved one's death, but had no body to bury. What would have seemed impossible to accept became all the more incomprehensible, with no means of closure provided. The man had not yet replied to Agnes.
“Or, perhaps, you're digging for something else? A new well, maybe?”
Agnes, as a teacher, knew all the backgrounds of her students and her intellect predisposed her toward natural curiosity. Edward often felt she would seem nosy to someone who did not understand her good intentions and feared the man before them would consider her intrusive. Those fears were quelled, though, and his own interest was piqued as he said,
“No well, I'm afraid. It's graves I'm digging.”
“Graves?” Edward said, speaking for the first time.
“Three of them, I'm afraid,” he said.
“Oh my, oh my,” Agnes said, reaching out and holding Edward's arm to steady herself against the sudden dizziness that whirled around her. A shiver of dread pulsated across Edward. His nightmares were coming to life. This was too close to him. Graves were dug in France, not England. He had left all that behind. Death's dark dominion was constrained to across the sea— to the Somme, to Flanders, to Verdun. Wasn't it? Wasn't it? He swallowed hard, to suppress the rising tide of tumultuous waves. And then, suppressing his fear enough to see reality at least for a moment, an equally frightening thought gripped him.
“Who?”
“Pardon?”
“I think my cousin is wondering to whom these unfortunate circumstances have happened?”
“Oh, do you know the family then? I didn't recognize you and so I thought you did not.”
“No, no, I don't know them. I just admired their garden. I too have a plot of vegetables,” Edward said.
And the girl who stood beside you in the sunlight.
He did not even know her name, but the thought of misfortune touching her seemed suddenly unbearable.
“Well, it was the lady of the house and her two children, I'm afraid,” the man said.
“Oh goodness!” Agnes said, her face taking on an ashen pallor.
“Then the girl who works here, who is similar in age to all of us, she is all right?” He studied Edward, challenging him for knowing so much about the people he claimed to not know, but maintaining a politeness as he did.
“Clara you mean. She needs our help.”
“Oh? Is it sickness? Is she also ill?” Agnes asked, now wondering if they should have not engaged in conversation lest they should become ill themselves.
“Not illness, no.”
“Then, I don't understand—” Edward realized he did not know the man's name and paused to introduce himself.
“Sorry, I am Edward and this is my cousin Agnes and you are?”
“Frederick. The answer about Clara is that she has been detained.”
“Detained?” Agnes said.
“She's...” he paused, visibly shaken by what he said next, “She's being held for their murder.”