Charles Todd - A Bitter Truth

As we got down and walked through the open gate, the first thing that met my eye was a grave in the shadow of the church, bordered by white marble. On the mounded earth inside the border a white marble child knelt, as if about to play with the small white marble kitten standing just in front of her. She wore a pretty frock with a lace collar, a sash at the waist, and on her feet were shoes with a square buckle, just visible at the edge of her skirts. The dress itself was incised with tiny flowers, the folds beautifully arranged. The marble face had almost the look of life, it was so finely carved, a smile just touching the parted lips and reflected in the eyes. I knew, having seen the portrait, that this was where Juliana was buried.

It was moving to see how lovingly she had been remembered. As if to keep her with the living, even if only in cold stone.

I was walking with Mrs. Ellis, and she bent to brush a leaf from her daughter’s marble skirt. “My husband designed the monument,” she said to me. “He couldn’t bear the idea of a stone like all the rest. Not for Juliana. And I keep flowers here most of the year. Pansies in the spring, asters in the autumn.” She paused for a moment by her daughter’s memorial, and then moved on to a newer grave, still raw and ugly. “We wanted to bury her at Vixen Hill, but the rector at the time-Mr. Pembrey-persuaded us that here would be best. But it seems so far away. So lonely. As if we’ve abandoned her here and gone on with our lives. Never mind, I’m just fanciful today.”

Alan Ellis’s stone was plain, with his name, rank, and the dates of his birth and death. But there was a relief chiseled into the curved top of a ship in full sail.

Eleanor touched it gently. “It was what he asked for,” she said to Gran. “And it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

The elder Mrs. Ellis said, “Yes. Alan always had an eye for such things.”

There were a number of other people present. Among others, I saw Dr. Tilton and was introduced to his wife, Mary, and then to the rector, Mr. Smyth and his sister, Janet. When we had all gathered and settled ourselves on the benches set beside the grave, Mr. Smyth conducted a very moving service, recalling Alan Ellis as he’d known him as a boy, the connection between him and the sea, and how courageously he’d faced the knowledge that he was dying.

“His faith was strong. He had made peace with God before he was rescued from the cold and turbulent sea, and he never lost that deep feeling that he was in the hands of his Lord.”

He went on to speak to the family individually, to the widow first, and next to the two Mrs. Ellises, mother and grandmother, then moved on to the surviving brother and sister.

Mr. Smyth was a short, balding man, his tortoiseshell glasses catching the last of the daylight as clouds spread across the weak winter sun. His eloquence surprised me until I learned later that Eleanor had written much of it. She sat there, her face hidden by her heavy black veil, one hand holding tightly to her brother’s, listening to the words and the prayers, seeming not to feel the cold.

I realized it was her farewell to her husband. That the stone on his grave was a final duty that she had taken on herself.

This was not a usual service. I couldn’t recall ever having attended another dedication of a memorial stone by gathering of family and friends. But it was impressive, and I could see that to the family it was offering much needed solace.

Looking around at the faces in the half circle, I could see that Gran, shielded by the silk veil, was staring into space, her mind on the words but her eyes on what must have been her own husband’s marker. Mrs. Ellis, from behind her own veil, was lost in thought, perhaps remembering the little boy who had become a man. Margaret was weeping quietly.

The men had no such defense from the public gaze. Roger, standing closest to the stone, put his hand out to it, then quickly withdrew it, as if reluctant to touch it. George Hughes kept his eyes on Roger’s face, and I was surprised to see speculation in his gaze. Henry, his arm around his wife’s shoulders, looked down at the stone as if envisioning his own. The tic at the corner of his left eye had grown worse.

And then the service ended with a benediction, and we began the slow progress back to the motorcars waiting for us at the side of the churchyard.

I saw George Hughes pause briefly as he passed and put his hand on the cold marble head of Juliana’s memorial. It was a lingering caress, as one might touch the head of a beloved child. Then he was offering his arm to Mrs. Ellis, and I thought that she took it gratefully. Mr. Smyth was helping Gran, while Roger held out a hand to Lydia. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it.

I looked back as the gate was closing behind us and saw the last of the light touch the stone we’d just dedicated. It picked out Alan’s last name for an instant and then was gone.

Janet Smyth took my arm and said, “You’re a friend of Lydia’s. I’m glad. She needs to have friends around her when Roger goes back to France. I hope you’ll be able to stay until Christmas.”

“My own family is expecting me next week,” I said. “And then I must return to France.”

She said, “Oh, you’re a nursing sister, then.”

“Yes.”

“I do admire your courage! When the war began, I considered nursing, but my brother dissuaded me. He felt that I didn’t have the constitution for it.”

She was sturdily built, and I thought to myself that she could have made a very useful nurse, strong enough to deal with delirious men and those too ill to shift for themselves. But perhaps she meant the mental stamina. I knew all too well the cost of that.

We walked on together, arm in arm, and she was saying about the heath, “It’s a dreary place, but I’ve come to love it.”

Surprised, I said, “You weren’t born here?”

“Oh, no, only the Ellises. And of course George Hughes. His family lived not far from Vixen Hill. They moved to London a few years after little Juliana died. Such a tragedy. But you must know all about that.”

As we crossed the grassy dell together, Janet Smyth added, “I’ll see you this evening.”

I nodded and went to accompany Mrs. Ellis on the drive back to Vixen Hill. Mrs. Ellis sighed. “I think Alan would have been pleased.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was a very lovely service.”

“I wasn’t prepared,” she said. “For the end. He seemed to be stronger. I let myself believe. And then he was gone, and there was so much I’d left unsaid. That’s a terrible feeling.”

“Sometimes things don’t actually need to be said,” I suggested.

In the front seat, Margaret said under her breath to her husband, “I don’t see why he had to die.”

Her husband replied, “Frostbite, and then gangrene, my love. The sea is very cold and very cruel in winter.”

I saw her shake her head, but she didn’t say anything more.

For dinner I wore the pale green gown that my father particularly liked, with the rope of pearls that had been given to me when I was twelve by the maharani who was a friend of my mother’s. After weeks in uniforms with stiff collars and starched aprons, I felt rather underdressed.

In the hall, George Hughes sat in the shadows cast by the lamps, his face unreadable. But I thought as I watched that he was drinking more than was wise. Roger cast several glances in his direction but said nothing. Janet Smyth tried to talk to him, but his answers were terse. I heard her quietly telling her brother that he was still grieving for Alan, but somehow I thought not. I saw him look at his knuckles a time or two, as if to reassure himself that what had happened on the road wasn’t merely his imagination.