Charles Todd - A Bitter Truth

Narrowing my eyes against the bite of it, I walked on briskly, listening to the far-off sounds of police whistles. Ahead was Mrs. Hennessey’s house, where friends-also nursing sisters-and I had taken a flat. As I drew nearer, I saw that there were no lights shining from the windows of the ground floor, and I remembered that this must be Mrs. Hennessey’s night for dinner and a cozy gossip with an old friend. Above, on the second storey, the windows of our sitting room were also dark. Tired as I was from two days of traveling, I was just as glad that no one else was in London. I could leave the gifts I’d found for each flatmate with Mrs. Hennessey. She would enjoy playing Father Christmas when next she saw them.

Busy with my own thoughts, I didn’t at first notice the dark figure huddled in the shallow outer doorway, pressed so tightly into that pitiful bit of shelter that only a vague outline was distinguishable in the shadows cast by the streetlamp. When I did, my first thought was that the deserter was hiding here. Would he force his way into the empty house when I reached Mrs. Hennessey’s door?

And in the same instant, I realized that it wasn’t a man, it was a woman.

But what was she doing there? Did she have anything to do with the deserter?

As I slowed, she stirred, murmured, “Sorry!” and moved into the street away from me.

Two things registered as she spoke. Her voice was thick with tears, and she was shivering, as if she’d been out in this wind for a very long time.

I remembered what the man on the omnibus had said, that this was a night not fit for man nor beast.

“No, wait-” I said, putting out a hand to stop her. But she shrugged it off, keeping her face turned away as she made to slip off into the night. It was close on ten o’clock now, and the empty streets were no place for a woman to be walking aimlessly at this hour.

My gloved fingers reached for her sleeve, missed, and then caught in the belt of her coat. “Come inside and warm yourself for a quarter of an hour.” I added quickly, “It will do no harm.”

I could see that she was tempted-but she was also desperate to get away, on the point of pulling free when a gust of wind, stronger than before, buffeted both of us. I realized that her coat-unlike mine, which was meant to keep me warm-was well cut and fashionably thin, not designed for walking on a night like this one. It was intended for stepping out of a cab to enter a restaurant or theater. I wondered, fleetingly, if it was hers or if she had been given it by a mistress or found it in a charity shop. It was even possible that she’d been sacked, with nowhere to stay.

“Thank you, I’ll be all right,” she said, still keeping her face in the shadows. “Let me go. Please .”

I hadn’t been wrong about the tears. And to my surprise her voice matched the coat, well bred and well educated. I had no choice but to release her belt.

“No, you won’t be all right,” I told her bluntly, before she could hurry away. “You’ll make yourself ill. Pneumonia. Pleurisy. I’m a nursing sister, I’ve just returned from France. I know what I’m talking about.” I hesitated. “I won’t ask questions. Or try to stop you when you wish to leave. Warm yourself, have a cup of tea. There’s no one else about. I promise you.”

I had the outer door open now, and there was a lamp burning on the small table under the stairs. It must have seemed a haven in this weather. She hesitated an instant too long, and I touched her sleeve again, urging her inside. I myself was shivering with the cold now, and I knew she must be chilled to the bone. Even for a London December, it was unbearably wretched.

With an anxious glance over her shoulder, she preceded me through the door, then stood there in the small entry as if she couldn’t think what else to do.

“I live up the stairs. This way,” I went on, not looking at her as I started to climb. “There’s no one here but me. My flatmates are all in France.” I prayed it was true as I heard her follow reluctantly in my wake. After all, I realized, no lamplight could mean that someone was there but already asleep.

“Only for a few minutes,” she said as we reached the landing. “I’d be grateful for that tea.” Her voice was still husky with tears, but cultured, polite.

We reached the door of the flat, and I took out my key, unlocking it and fumbling for the lamp just inside. As a rule I could light it in the dark or even with my eyes closed, I’d done it so often, but now my fingers were stiff with cold. Finally brightness bloomed, illuminating the flat, picking out the small area we called our kitchen, our sitting room, and the closed doors to our five bedrooms.

I breathed a sigh of relief. There was no luggage piled in a corner or coats thrown over the tall walnut clothes tree. We were alone.

“Here,” I said, pulling out a chair for her. “Let me take off my coat and in a moment I’ll have that tea for us. I can tell you, I long for a cup myself.”

I’d made a point not to look her in the face, knowing she’d be embarrassed for anyone to see she’d been crying. But now as I came back from my own bedroom and caught her staring around the flat, I could see the mark across her cheek, the swollen eye rimmed with black, and the deep bruising.

Someone had struck her, hard and fairly recently because the redness was only just giving way to a darker blue. I immediately looked away. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been attacked on the street-or in her own home. Was this why the deserter had come to England? To catch his wife in an infidelity? He wouldn’t be the first-nor the last-to suspect that all was not right in his marriage. She was married. I’d seen the handsome rings on her left hand when she pulled off her gloves.

I didn’t hold with men who struck women. I’d never seen my father raise his hand to my mother, and I regarded men who did as despicable.

She hastily put up her hand to hide that side of her face, turning as if she intended to rush out the door and down the stairs before I could ask questions. I had glimpsed the stark alarm in her eyes when she saw me looking.

“I told you I wouldn’t pry,” I said quickly. “But I’m not blind. Let me put the kettle on, and I’ll give you a cool cloth to help bring down the swelling.”

She was a very attractive woman, and I put her age down as midtwenties, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six. Certainly no more than that. And I’d been right, her clothes were stylishly cut, and of good cloth, although from before the war. But then very little was available in the shops these days. I made the tea, ignoring her while I worked, and then while it steeped, I went to find a cloth for her face and wring it out in cold water. She took it gratefully and held it as a shield. When the tea was ready, I set a cup down before her with the bowl of honey. “I’m sorry, there’s no milk. One of my flatmates must have used the last tin.”

“No, this is lovely. Thank you very much.”

I let her drink it in peace, then said as offhandedly as possible, indicating the other doors, “There are five bedrooms here. One of them is mine, and the others are empty just now. Won’t you stay the night, what’s left of it, and wait until the morning to go on your way? I know I’m a stranger to you, and you to me, but there is a lock on the bedroom doors, if you feel the need.”

“I must go-” she began, but I didn’t let her finish.

“Where? If you had a place of your own, you wouldn’t have been sheltered in Mrs. Hennessey’s doorway. I don’t know your reason for being there, that’s your affair. It’s just that I wouldn’t send a dog back out into this weather. And I think you must know that you aren’t dressed for spending the night in the street.”