SHE HAD SLEPT only briefly, she was sure – a few minutes, maybe. How lazy, how feeble, how dangerous. She scrambled from the bed, hauling a blanket from the covers to wrap around herself. It came to just above her knees, and she decided she was just decent enough. From the sheets, Dartmoor physician Dr George Magrath was stirring, too.
‘Is that singing I can hear now?’ he said, his eyes still closed, his mouth sticky with sleep. In a prison where routine meant order, anything unusual meant trouble.
‘What is it, Elizabeth?’
‘New arrivals,’ she said, looking out.
‘And they’re singing?’ He sounded incredulous.
‘They are.’
‘That’s unusual. How many?’
‘About a dozen. In a bad way, too.’
‘But still singing.’
‘“Yankee Doodle”, I think.’
‘You’re wearing a blanket, Mrs Shortland.’
‘You didn’t appear to need it, Dr Magrath,’ she replied, ‘and you wouldn’t want me standing by the window naked, now, would you?’
‘Well, there’s a thought to be considering,’ he said, smiling. ‘Are you quite sure you should be at those curtains at all?’ Elizabeth didn’t reply. Beyond the heavy velvet, her attention had been drawn to one of the new prisoners. Like many who arrived from the prison ships, there wasn’t much to him; he was stooped with exhaustion and leaning on a comrade for support. But there was something about the way he held his head with that tricorn hat perched high, something about the way he conducted with one hand as he sang, that tugged at her heart. She found she was holding her breath as the new prisoners were marched away.
‘At least the poor buggers won’t be staying long,’ said Magrath. ‘They may be our last. Thomas is certain of the peace?’
She nodded, closing the gap in the curtains and dressing swiftly.
‘He’s telling his men now,’ she said. ‘He’ll speak to the prisoners later, but it’s the troops he’s worried about. Peace with America means uncertainty. If there’s no war, there’ll be no need for them to be here.’
‘Or us,’ said Magrath.
‘Another time, George,’ Elizabeth said, repinning her hair with practised ease. ‘Were we asleep long?’ She watched him reach awkwardly for his clothes. Despite their intimacy, Magrath had always made it clear he loathed pity. Lame since childhood, he had learned to cope and to thrive. He wanted no charity.
‘Mere minutes,’ he said, pushing himself up with his black-and-silver cane.
‘Still too long, George. I can’t believe we fell asleep at all. What were we thinking?’
‘You know the answer to that very well, Mrs Shortland.’ He paused. ‘And I’m not sure there was much thinking involved anyway.’
‘You speak for yourself, George,’ she said. By the time he was standing, she was ready to go; from petticoat to top coat, boots to hair, had been two minutes.
‘Damn me, you’re fast!’ he said.
‘I’ll wait for you downstairs.’ She collected her medical bag and stood waiting for him in the hallway. Their affair had made her happier than she had been in years. Magrath had once had to caution her to smile less on leaving his house. ‘Everyone knows you are invaluable to me on the rounds, Elizabeth,’ he had said. ‘It would be best, I think, if they didn’t know how invaluable you were to me … behind closed doors also.’
But the sailor she had spied from his bedroom had triggered a cascade of emotions: regret, longing, irretrievable loss. Elizabeth dug her nails into her palms. ‘Pathetic,’ she muttered to herself.
‘What’s that?’ George shouted after her. He appeared at the top of the landing, buttoning his waistcoat. ‘You said something …’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Talking to myself again.’
Magrath was down the stairs as swiftly as a man with a crippled leg can be. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘When you talk to yourself, it’s never good.’
She offered him a sweet smile. ‘Are all doctors like you?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning,’ she said, as she flattened his tangled, extravagant hair, ‘your warm, wonderful heart seems to beat for mine also.’ She kissed him softly. ‘And the answer to your question is Willoughby.’
Magrath was instantly alert. ‘Willoughby? Why, what’s happened?’ She had spoken often of her only son, a young officer in the Royal Navy. Now, he assumed the worst.
‘Oh, no, George, it’s not that,’ she said quickly, sorry for the alarm she had caused. ‘There was a sailor, one of the new prisoners. I saw him from the window. He …’ She bit her lip hard. ‘He just reminded me of Willoughby, that’s all. I miss him so …’
Magrath reached for her and she folded into him. ‘If he has his mother’s instinct for survival, he’ll be just fine,’ he said.
‘Is that what this is?’ she said, from the folds of his high collar. She felt his smile.
‘Among many other things.’
The extraordinary sound of wild, uninhibited cheering came from the direction of the market square and they broke apart.
‘The peace,’ she said. ‘It must be the peace.’ They moved to the back door. Magrath opened it slightly, the chilled air enveloping them in seconds. They listened to the swirl of shouts, applause and singing. ‘Everything is about to change,’ she whispered.
‘You should go, Elizabeth,’ said Magrath. ‘Who knows what will happen now.’
Elizabeth Shortland pulled her coat tightly around her and slipped unnoticed from the physician’s house. Keeping tight to the wall, she bustled past the prison entrance, locked and boarded, and under the shadow of its enormous arch, glided quietly into the darkness of her own home.