Cheshire, October 1921
CAPTAIN ROSE? I’M SORRY, DEAR, HE’S LONG GONE.” THE WOMAN leans in the doorway. Edie’s hand had shaken as she had rung the bell, she had felt light-headed as the door opened, and, as the woman pushes her spectacles up her nose now, Edie knows that she can see her foolishness.
“He died?” she asks.
“Heavens, no. Whatever gave you that notion?” The woman laughs and then apologizes. “I just meant that he’s moved on. Moved to Altrincham. Not moved to the other side.”
“I’m sorry. I really wasn’t sure. Do forgive me for disturbing you.” She turns to go. She has spent the journey framing questions, rehearsing one side of a conversation, working her way through iterations of possibility, but now it all falls away and she finds herself struggling for the next word. “Only, I don’t suppose that he left a forwarding address?”
“Goodness, how pale you look, miss. Yes, they left me an address to pass on the post. He moved in with his sister, you see. I’ll find it for you, if you’ll give me five minutes, but won’t you come in and have a glass of water, dear? You look like you’ve see a ghost.”
THERE ARE PAINTINGS of gloomy Victorian children all over the walls of this sitting room. Red-faced infants shed great glassy tears and milkmaids sob over spilled milk. Edie had braced herself to walk into a house full of polished leather and brass, compasses, binoculars, and military bearing. She is rather thrown by the inconsolable children, the packs of porcelain pug dogs, and all the cushions embroidered with Bible quotes. She moves THOU SHALT BE SAVED aside, and takes the offered place on the sofa.
As she watches the woman working her way through the writing bureau, Edie considers why Harry had chosen to tell her that lie. Why did he need her to think that Captain Rose was dead? Why had he blocked the possibility of her speaking with him before? She can only assume that Harry doesn’t want her to know the parts of the story that were missing from Rose’s letter. But what significance does that have? What more can Rose tell her?
“Do forgive my mess. How embarrassing. I do know that it’s in here somewhere.”
“No, I’m sorry for barging into your house uninvited. It’s very kind of you to make the time.”
While she sips the glass of water, she pictures a series of scenes in which Francis moves from dressing station, to hospital, to recuperation, to—where? She imagines the chain of decisions that have gone through Francis’s head, resulting in his making a choice not to come home. Is he so convinced that she has wronged him? Is he still angry at her? Did he simply decide that there was nothing to salvage? Has he made another life? Found another wife?
“Only my husband rearranges my papers and never thinks to put anything back where he found it. It’s like sport to him, like it must always be hide-and-seek. Is that men in general, do you think?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Edie looks around the sitting room and she imagines a home in which she and Francis are husband and wife again, where possessions are once more shared, and conversations have two halves. Edie finds that it is easy to give their imaginary home a dinner service, and cutlery and upholstery, and to pick out the pattern of the wallpaper, but she doesn’t know what face her husband ought to wear. The two versions of Francis seem so far apart. Must she have the man with the sorrowful eyes when she would really much rather have the boy with the rhymes and the smile? The contemplation of it makes her feel foolish. It makes her feel like a failure, and why would he choose to come back to such a shallow woman? She imagines an alternative reality in which Francis is sharing a home with a different woman. Is this what jealousy feels like? Is this how betrayal smarts?
“I knew I had it.” The woman turns and puts a looking glass to the piece of paper in her hand. Edie sees rounded copperplate letters and, in the magnification, a female name.
“Captain Rose lives with his sister, you said?”
“Yes, a very nice lady. Lovely manners. We met them both when the house turned over. The captain is a gentleman too, of course, and a decorated officer, only the poor man was suffering terribly with his nerves.”
“He told you that?”
The woman shakes her head and plumps a cushion that is cross-stitched with the words DO UNTO OTHERS. “The neighbors. Noises in the night.”
“Oh.” Edie thinks about the sound of Harry’s fear and tears, and then the cold of his cheek against hers. She is not really sure she wants to hear about noises in the night.
“Don’t you think it’s a pity? He was a charming man in the daytime, they tell me, meek as a lamb, but there were some shocking things went on, weren’t there? Alfred says that no amount of medals on your chest makes up for having that in your head. I suppose that’s why his sister wanted to look after him.”
“Naturally so.”
Is it his nerves that make Harry cry in the night? Is it the shocking things that went on? There was a moment when she had wanted nothing more than to look after Harry, but is he really the man she thought he was?
“Anyway, listen to me rattling on. You are still terribly pale, Mrs. Blythe. Would you like a sherry?”
“No, it’s quite all right, I must get on, but thank you. Could I possibly take a copy of the address?”
“Do you mean to get in touch with Captain Rose?” she asks, as she looks up from the writing bureau.
“I’m not sure. I think so. There’s something that I perhaps need to ask him.”
“Do be careful, dear. Won’t you?”
“Of course. But why do you say that?”
“Oh, these men and their memories. It’s really not over for so many of them yet, is it?”