Eleanor didn’t see Jack for the rest of the fete. She wandered around, chatting to people, smiling and laughing and playing the part, but that’s all it was. A part. She felt as if she’d flown away with the butterfly, was hovering somewhere above the garden, looking down on everyone and marvelling at these people who moved about the grass in their Sunday best, holding teacups aloft and giving tinkling laughs as if it all mattered.
She’d asked Jack what he thought would happen to her and he hadn’t answered, hadn’t been able to answer. And she knew the answer anyway. It would all go on: Katherine and James’s stilted marriage; her own endless days of embroidery and finger sandwiches; her father preaching from the pulpit and her mother teaching the Sunday School. The workers would continue with their strikes and discontent, the veterans would stumble down the street with their organ grinders and trays of matches and bootlaces. Nothing she did, whether it involved a Christmas cracker or a locket or a garden fete, would ever make any difference to anything. And the only difference she had wanted to make, she knew, was to Jack.
By four o’clock people began to trickle away, taking their cakes and jams and raffle prizes; by five o’clock everyone was gone and the garden was littered with bits of paper and straw, as if a circus had set up among the roses.
Tilly had come out to clean up, but Eleanor didn’t see Jack. Was he avoiding her to the point of shirking his duty? She helped Tilly clear the lawn of all the detritus, and brought trays of cups with their dregs of now-cold tea inside the house. She’d just finished with the cups when she heard raised voices coming from the sitting room. It was her father and his visitor, the chaplain friend, Edward Stephens.
“I must say it’s very peculiar,” Andrew said. “But I do think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, dear chap.”
“I’d like to say the same, but I’m quite sure,” Mr Stephens replied firmly. “I never forget a face.”
Eleanor stilled with one hand on the bannister, wondering what on earth they were talking about.
“This is all so unpleasant,” Anne interjected quietly. “If we just went and fetched him, surely it would all be resolved in an instant?”
“He’ll deny it, of course,” Stephens said and Eleanor felt a frisson of fear slide down her spine. Who were they talking about?
“He seems a decent sort to me,” Andrew said. He sounded aggrieved. “I really can’t believe it.”
“Let’s just call him,” Anne implored. “He must be out in the garden, mustn’t he? Cleaning up the chairs and things.”
“Go ahead,” Stephens said. “I’d like to see what he has to say for himself.”
Unable to keep herself from it, Eleanor threw open the door and strode into the room. Everyone turned to stare at her; she realized she must look a sight, her chest heaving, her hair coming undone from its pins. “What are you saying about Jack?” she asked, striving to keep her voice calm, but her agitation must have been obvious, for her father’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline.
“You forget yourself, Eleanor,” he said in a tone she had not heard since she’d been a child with torn stockings and muddy knees.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she forced herself to say. “But I must know—”
“I do not see how this concerns you at all,” her father retorted frostily. Eleanor knew that he did not like being embarrassed in front of his friends. Quickly she turned towards Mr Stephens and his wife, sitting upright in the velveteen armchairs on either side of the fireplace, both of them caught between embarrassment and condemnation.
“How do you do?” she said, bobbing an awkward curtsey. “I’m sorry to have come in like this, but I overheard you speaking about our gardener, Mr Taylor, and I wondered what was going on.”
Mr Stephens simply pressed his lips together, and her father explained tersely, “Mr Stephens says he recognizes Jack Taylor from his regiment.”
“The Prince’s Own—”
“No,” Andrew cut across her. “The Second Northumbrian Division. And he believes Taylor isn’t who he says he is. He’s John Bradford, from Alnwick.”
“What!” Eleanor nearly laughed at this; it was simply too unbelievable, too outrageous. “Well, surely it’s a nonsense.” She turned to smile with what she hoped passed as sympathy at Mr Stephens. “I imagine it’s quite easy to confuse a face, especially among the privates. They were so many…”
“I assure you, I am not confusing a face,” Stephens told her shortly. “I remember Bradford well, because I prayed with him when his father died, right before he was granted leave for the funeral.”
Eleanor swallowed dryly. She knew he must be wrong, but Edward Stephens sounded very certain. “And what happened then?”
“Until today I believed the convoy that was taking Bradford to Le Havre, with several other soldiers, was hit by a shell and destroyed. Everyone died.” He nodded towards the open door, and presumably Jack, wherever he was. “Now I know something else must have happened.”
“But perhaps he just looks like this Bradford,” Eleanor insisted. “That must be it.”
“Let us resolve this unpleasantness quickly,” Anne said. She looked pale and tired. “Send for Taylor, Andrew, please.”
“Very well.”
“I’ll go—” Eleanor offered, and her father gave her a quelling look.
“I’ll go,” he said, brooking no argument, and Eleanor nodded.
Andrew left the room and everyone waited in a tense and unhappy silence. Outside, the sun poured over the rolling lawns like liquid gold, but the air in the sitting room, with the windows closed all day, felt musty and cold. Even on the hottest summer day, the vicarage was cool inside.
Eleanor could hear Tilly bustling about in the hall; she’d come in from the garden and was now laying the table for dinner. If she strained her ears she could hear the clank of copper pots from the kitchen. With two overnight guests in the house, Mrs Stanton would be outdoing herself for the evening meal. James and Katherine were staying to eat as well, although Eleanor hadn’t seen them. She could hardly worry about them now, though; she was too concerned for Jack.
Jack, dear Jack. Of course he wasn’t this John Bradford from Alnwick. Why, the idea was ludicrous, absurd! To think Jack had lied to them all for months now…
And yet suddenly, unwillingly, memories crept coldly into Eleanor’s mind, whispered treacherously in her ear. There’s something I haven’t told you. You don’t know me, not really. You don’t know what I’m capable of…
But not this, surely! Not this grievous deception. He couldn’t have meant something like that.
The sound of the front door opening and closing had everyone straightening in their seats, gazes darting around the room. Then Andrew came into the sitting room.
“I couldn’t find him,” he said heavily. “He’s not in the garden, or in the cottage he shares with our old gardener, Mr Lyman.”
“I think that speaks for itself, then,” Mr Stephens said. He sounded sad rather than satisfied, but it didn’t make Eleanor dislike him any less. “He probably ran off, because he saw me. I thought he had, when I was coming towards that walled garden. A queer look came over his face and he walked off rather quickly. It took me a moment to make sense of it, put a name to a face, but he knew. I’m sure of it.”
Eleanor had seen that look. Jack had gone so pale, and left without a word. But she still couldn’t believe he’d lied the way he had. She wouldn’t.
“He must be somewhere, Father,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. “He wouldn’t just run off like that. Perhaps he’s seeing to the tables and chairs—”
“We’ll know soon enough if he has gone,” Andrew said, and his tone was final, dismissive. “Let us not bother about it until we can be sure either way.” He gave Eleanor a meaningful nod. “Perhaps, my dear, you should ready yourself for dinner.”
Knowing she was dismissed, Eleanor left the sitting room. But she couldn’t go upstairs and put on a fancy frock, not if her life depended on it. She had to find Jack.
Heedless of her parents and their guests in the sitting room and Tilly bustling about, Eleanor turned towards the front door. As quietly as she could, she opened it and slipped outside. The air was starting to grow chilly as she made her way around to the garden. Jack wasn’t there, just as her father had said. The only remnants from the fete now were a few scraps of ribbon dancing on the breeze; they must have come loose from the jam jars they’d been tied around.
The walled garden was empty too, as was the butterfly house. With growing frustration Eleanor closed the door, wondering if she dared go to Mr Lyman’s cottage in the churchyard.
“Eleanor, what are you doing out and about? I’d have thought you would be getting ready for dinner.” Her grandmother Elizabeth stood by the gate to her garden, a wrap drawn over her shoulders. In the evening light she looked older somehow, the lines of her face more deeply drawn, her hair entirely white.
“I was looking for Jack,” Eleanor blurted, and her grandmother’s eyebrows rose.
“Jack? Do you mean the gardener, Taylor?”
“Yes, Jack,” Eleanor stated fiercely. “Father’s guest says he’s not who he says he is. He recognizes him as some John Bradford, but it can’t be true—”
“What are you raving about?” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Come inside and tell me properly.”
“I can’t. I must find him—”
“You will do no such thing,” Elizabeth said sharply. “Have you lost all your sense? We are talking about the gardener, Eleanor—”
“I love him,” Eleanor blurted out. Her grandmother fell silent, her mouth hanging open before she snapped it shut. “I know you’ll disapprove, but I do. We’ve done nothing improper, I promise you. Jack will barely speak to me now, because he doesn’t want to ruin me, and he doesn’t think I can manage as his wife, scrubbing and cleaning—”
“He’s quite right,” Elizabeth said shortly. She still looked a bit dazed, but she’d recovered her voice and her composure. “You could not be the wife of a common day labourer, Eleanor. It is quite impossible.”
“It’s not—”
“I don’t blame you for believing you care about him,” Elizabeth continued, her voice softening. “You are young and romantic, and you have had so much sorrow in your life. Taylor is a handsome young man in his own way. Your head was bound to be turned.”
“My head has not been turned!” Eleanor exclaimed. “My heart—”
“Enough.” Elizabeth held up a hand to stop her, and Eleanor fell silent. “We shall have no more of this. If Taylor has gone missing, it is likely that what your father’s friend has said is true. He must be hiding something.”
“I don’t believe it,” Eleanor cried. She felt seized by an emotion too strong to contain, although whether it was rage or grief or fear she didn’t know. “I won’t believe it,” she declared, and without another word for her grandmother she turned and slipped through the gate that led to the churchyard.
Darkness was falling as she made her way through the churchyard, the headstones like silent soldiers standing to attention all around her. She’d never been to Mr Lyman’s cottage, although she’d seen it from afar. It looked a mean place, no more than two small rooms, the windows’ glass grimy with soot from an open fire. Her hand trembling, she knocked on the door.
She heard movement from inside, or rather the sudden stopping of movement, and then silence, like that of a held breath, of waiting. Feeling more reckless than ever, she turned the handle and the door swung open. Jack stood in the centre of the room, a holdall in one hand, his cap jammed low on his head. His expression was wary and trapped, and when he caught sight of Eleanor he relaxed only a little, his shoulders slumping.
Eleanor took it all in: the bag, the cap, a chair that had no doubt been overturned in haste. Her heart felt as if it had had lead poured over it; suddenly it had become a heavy thing, weighing her down, an impossible anchor.
“You’re going,” she stated flatly, and Jack said nothing. She stared up at his face, and in the dimness of the little cottage she could not read his expression. “Tell me the truth,” she demanded. “All of it.”
“You’ve heard, then.”
“Mr Stephens was chaplain for the Second Northumbrian Division. He says you’re John Bradford, from Alnwick.”
For a second, no more, Eleanor caught her breath and waited, held on to hope. Then Jack gave one brief, terrible nod.
“Yes.”
“Why?” she whispered. “Why did you lie to us about who you were?”
With a sigh Jack took off his cap, ran his fingers through his unruly hair. “Because I had to. Because I can’t be John Bradford any more, not since—”
“Since when? What happened, Jack? Mr Stephens said you were in a convoy that was hit by a shell, and everyone was thought to have died—”
He nodded again. “Yes, I’d been given leave to attend my father’s funeral. We had a smallholding outside of Alnwick. My father and my two brothers and I tended it, but they both died at the Somme, on the same day. I saw my brother William go down, and there was nothing I could do about it.” His mouth tightened, his face closing up, and Eleanor almost reached a hand out to comfort him.
“When I got news my father had died, the war was almost over – it was October, Eleanor, with just weeks to go. Everyone was saying it wouldn’t be long. I couldn’t take the madness of it any more, the futility…” He dropped his head in his hands, and only then did she realize what he was saying. What Edward Stephens had been saying.
“You deserted,” she stated, her voice thin and wavery. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? You deserted.”
He lifted his head from his hands, his gaze bleaker than she’d ever seen it. “I didn’t plan on doing it. I was granted leave, and so I went. When the shell hit the lorry we were on, I was thrown clear. My head split like the very— It hurt,” he amended quickly, “but the other two blokes were dead. I heard the whistling of another shell – that damned whistling – and I ran for it. When I looked back the whole convoy had exploded. There was nothing left.”
“And so what did you do?” Eleanor asked. Her voice sounded hard. Unforgiving.
“I went,” Jack said simply. “I didn’t plan on it, not right away. But then I didn’t report the explosion and I realized why I didn’t. This felt like a chance, providential even—”
“Don’t bring God into this,” Eleanor snapped, and Jack nodded his agreement.
“No,” he said quietly. “No, I shouldn’t do that.”
“And then what happened?”
“I showed my papers, I got on the boat, and I went home. And I… I didn’t go back.”
“You deserted.”
“Yes.” He met her gaze unflinchingly, although she saw the regret etched into every line of his face. “Yes.”
Eleanor drew a shuddering breath. “And then?”
“When I got back to Alnwick I buried my father. Then I left everyone in Alnwick, as if I were heading for the troop train. And then…”
“Then?” She prompted, without pity.
“I thought about going back, even then,” he said. “I did, but I just couldn’t… not when my brothers and father had all been claimed by this bloody war in one way or another. I’d be facing weeks of pointlessness and maybe even dying, and for what? For what?” His voice rose raggedly. “You can’t imagine what it’s like out there.” Eleanor said nothing and he continued quietly, “I knew my CO most likely would have assumed I’d died in the convoy. I was gambling on them not checking that I’d got on the ship. Everything was a shambles then, in the weeks up to the Armistice. No one was checking anything, telegrams were delayed…”
“I know,” Eleanor said quietly. “Walter’s was delayed. We didn’t receive it until after the Armistice.”
For a moment Jack’s face contorted with anguish. “Eleanor—”
“Tell me what happened next.”
“I became Jack Taylor. I couldn’t go back to the farm. People might have talked, word would have got back to my regiment. So I travelled around, looking for work, and I’ve been doing that ever since.”
“And the farm?”
“We were tenants only. It’s lost, as everything else is.”
Eleanor sank into one of the rickety wooden chairs; she felt as if her legs could no longer hold her. “Was it worth it?” she asked eventually. “To have your freedom for those few weeks?”
“But I’m not free,” Jack said. “I never have been. For the last eight months, ever since I got on that ship, I’ve wondered when I’ll be found out. What will happen.”
“And what will you do now?” She nodded towards the holdall he’d dropped on the earthen floor. “You’re running away, aren’t you? But now they know you’re alive.”
“Yes. I suppose I’ll keep running. I thought Goswell was safe enough, out of the way as it is. But maybe I’ll never be safe.”
“Safe,” Eleanor repeated. She drew another breath; the simple movement seemed to hurt. “You know my brother Walter died on the fifth of November, don’t you? After you’d deserted. In the taking of the Sambre-Oise canal.”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t a soldier,” she continued, needing to tell him, needing him to hear. “He hated war. He was a poet and a musician, a thinker. He had a pianist’s hands.” Jack waited, his head lowered, accepting everything she said for what it was – a judgment against himself. “He wasn’t like you, a sturdy fellow, used to the land. He wasn’t—” She broke off, shuddering, and then made herself continue. “I think he could hardly bear to hold a gun. But he did, Jack. He did for four years, right to the end, and it killed him. While you – you ran away!” The tears came then, tumbling down her cheeks. She felt too angry, too enraged to brush them away. “How could you do it?” she demanded. “How could you run away to save your own skin, when men like my brother were dying every day?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, his voice so low that Eleanor had to strain to hear it. “I don’t know. It was a matter of a moment, of – of instinct, I suppose. And then it was too late to change it.”
“But you could have gone back and accepted your punishment—”
He looked up, blanching at this. “Eleanor, I would have been shot.”
She blanched too; the idea was so grim, so impossible, and yet… “Not all the deserters were shot.”
“A private who as good as faked his own death? Emotions were running high then. People wanted the war to be over, and they were angry it wasn’t. I’m sure I would have been shot.”
“You still should have done it,” she insisted, although she didn’t think she really meant it. “You should have accepted the consequences, for better or for worse. But now you’ll just keep running away, won’t you? Who will you be next? Because I suppose you can’t be Jack Taylor any more.”
“I don’t know.” He looked wretched, miserable, and yet still she wanted to hurt him.
She stood up, one shaking hand holding on to the table for balance. “I hate you,” she said very clearly. “I thought I loved you. I gave my heart to you, but I’m glad now you’re going, John Bradford. Sneak away to some other village, some other vicarage!” Her voice broke on a trembling note, and with tears still running down her face, she turned and ran out of the cottage.
She could not bear to see anyone when she returned home, and so she sneaked in through the kitchen; Tilly’s and Mrs Stanton’s mouths both dropped at the sight of her, but Eleanor just shook her head and held a finger to her lips.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please, I can’t bear it. I’m going upstairs to bed. Tell Mother I’ve a headache.” And she slipped down the hall and upstairs, locking her door before falling onto her bed and tucking her knees up to her chest.
She must have slept, because she awoke to sunlight trickling through the curtains, and the house stirring all around her. She pushed her hair out of her face and reached for the pitcher of water on her bedside table; her mouth felt terribly dry.
A knock sounded on the door, and after taking a few hasty sips Eleanor rose to unlock it. It was, somewhat to her surprise, Katherine; she’d expected one of her parents.
“You look dreadful,” Katherine said quietly. She came into the room, closing the door behind her.
“I feel dreadful,” Eleanor said as she sank onto her bed. “And I don’t care. What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were going back to Whitehaven.”
“We stayed the night, and it’s just as well, considering the state you’re in.”
“Are Mother and Father terribly angry?” Eleanor asked, although she found she didn’t much care.
“Worried. You’ve been terribly reckless, Eleanor, even for you.”
“I had to know. I spoke to him, you know, at Mr Lyman’s cottage. He told me everything.” She plucked at a loose thread on her coverlet. “But I suppose he’s gone now. He’s run off to some other place—”
Katherine didn’t answer, and Eleanor looked up, her gaze narrowing. “Hasn’t he?” she said, and didn’t know whether it was hope or fear she felt at the thought that he might have stayed.
“No, he hasn’t,” Katherine said quietly. She took Eleanor’s hand in her own, and then Eleanor knew she felt fear, a dreadful lurch. “He’s still here, Eleanor, at least in Goswell. He turned himself in to the police last night.”