Charles Todd: A Bitter Truth

“How did you come by this?” I asked, letting her hair fall back into place.

“After Roger struck me, I ran up the stairs to our room to find my coat. I tripped in my haste and fell forward, hitting my head against the edge of the newel post. I saw stars, I can tell you,” she added with a smile. “But I was all right after a moment. I got up and went on to our room.” She pointed to her knee. “There’s a bruise here as well. Rather a colorful one.”

“Did you know it was bleeding? Where you fell against the newel post?”

“Not until last night, as I was preparing for bed. I really hadn’t given it much thought until then.” She grimaced. “I just knew that it hurt-my face and all that side of my head.”

I pressed my fingers carefully on either side of the wound, but as far as I could tell there was no indication that the skull had been fractured. Still… “You ought to see a doctor,” I began, but she cut me short.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I don’t like Dr. Tilton. He gossips, and he’ll want to know how I got this bruise.”

“It isn’t the bruise that worries me. There are doctors here in London.”

She wouldn’t hear of it. But I thought, remembering her dizzy spells, and now the headache, that she must have a concussion. “Have you felt sick? Nauseated?”

“Only when I ate too much at the restaurant,” she replied wryly. “I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was.”

I made her a compress for her face, then said, “Will you go with me to Somerset for a few days, Lydia? I think it would do you good to rest before you go home.” And she could see our doctor.

She refused outright. “If I go anywhere, it will be to Vixen Hill,” she told me. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

I wasn’t sure I believed her. And the thought of her wandering about London, alone and with a concussion, was worrying.

“Why won’t you let Simon drive us to Vixen Hill?”

“I don’t believe it would make it easier for me to face Roger,” she said earnestly.

“Lydia. Is that your real name?”

She flushed. “I’m so sorry. Actually it is. And it was also my mother’s name.”

“If I agree to go home with you-tomorrow, let us say, or the day after-and deliver you safely to your family, will you promise to see a doctor? Just as a precaution.”

“You must stay the night,” she told me, trying to keep her hope from showing in her face. “There’s only the one train a day, coming north, and by the time we reach Vixen Hill, you’ll have missed it.”

“Yes, all right. One night. As long as you agree to see that doctor.”

“Bess, you won’t regret it. I promise you. And the sooner the better. I shan’t be able to sleep now, thinking about tomorrow. Are you quite sure?”

It was the only solution that I could see to the problem of what to do about Lydia. It set me free to go on to Somerset, and I could leave her in Sussex, secure in the knowledge that she had returned safely to her family. I was sure Simon wouldn’t approve, but tomorrow morning I could explain to him why I’d made this decision, and arrange to have him meet me in London on my return. After all, Lydia had told him who her husband was, and where she lived. It wasn’t as if I were going off with a complete stranger to an unknown destination.

And if I had any reason to believe that Lydia had made the wrong choice, if her husband refused to take her back, then she could come with me to Somerset until she could decide what she ought to do next.

Her happiness at having the decision to return to Vixen Hill taken out of her hands was obvious. For her sake, I hoped that her faith in Roger Ellis was justified.

I said, “There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, if you don’t mind. Who is Juliana?”

At first I didn’t think she was going to tell me. And then she said, “Juliana? She’s Roger’s sister.”

The next morning, I looked for Simon to return, but as the time sped on, I realized that it was likely I’d miss him. But where was he? What had held him up?

I wrote a hasty note and left it with Mrs. Hennessey, and then there was nothing for it but to find a cab to take us to the railway station. I even looked over my shoulder before we turned the corner, to see if Simon’s motorcar was in sight.

The train was crowded, as usual, and Lydia and I had difficulty finding two seats together. She was embarrassed that I had to pay for her ticket, but she promised to see that I was recompensed as soon as she reached Vixen Hill.

I said as we pulled out of the station into the misting rain, “Won’t it be awkward-a guest arriving without any warning? Perhaps we should have sent a telegram. After all, your family is in mourning.”

“I’d considered that, but I think it will be best just to walk in without fanfare. And Roger will very likely be as grateful as I am for your presence. There’s the awkwardness, you see, of meeting for the first time. I have no idea what to say-or what he’ll do. It’s so difficult to know, isn’t it?”

She’d persuaded herself that my presence would make all well again. But I had my doubts. Quarrels were not always settled so easily-or so amicably. Roger Ellis could see her flight to London as a more serious infraction than his blow. I was beginning to see that Simon was right, this was a more complicated business than I’d foreseen. Mainly because Lydia herself was far more uncertain than I’d realized.

“Are you sure,” I asked, “that this is the right thing to do? Perhaps we should have waited another day until you’re more comfortable with returning. It would be simple enough to get down at the next stop.”

“Oh, no, I want to put it behind me as quickly as possible.”

We talked for some time after that, exchanging information to make it appear more likely that she’d known me for some time.

“Wasn’t it difficult,” she asked at one point, “to work with badly wounded men? I know how distressing it was to care for Alan in his last days. Roger was wounded, you know. In the shoulder. He never told us, and it mustn’t have been severe, because he wasn’t sent back to England.” She bit her lip. “It was George who mentioned it. He’s a friend of the family. He’d run into Roger in France. But I hadn’t seen Roger for three years. Not until he came home because of Alan. And he treated me like a stranger. As if he couldn’t remember those months before the war when we were so happy.”

“War does change people,” I pointed out. “And of course there was his brother.”

“Yes, I know,” she said wistfully. “I shouldn’t have pressed. But I wanted so badly to have a child. Someone to love, if-if the worst happens. That’s what we quarreled about, you see.” She touched her face. “The hurt went deeper than the blow. That’s why I couldn’t stay at Vixen Hill.”

This was the truth, finally.

“We are a house of widows,” she went on. “For all intents and purposes these last three years, I have been one as well. Roger’s mother and his grandmother live with us, and I could see that their children have been their salvation. He may never come back from France, once he leaves. This could be our only chance.”

“Was Alan married? Did he have children?”

“He was married, yes. But he and Eleanor had no children. And neither do Margaret and Henry. She’s Roger’s sister, she lives near Canterbury.”

“And Juliana?”

“No. Of course not.”

She was silent for a time. Then she said, “Sometimes I think they’re cursed. Margaret and Alan and Roger. Mama Ellis told me once that Juliana’s death was devastating. It scarred all of them. Roger’s father couldn’t accept it. He tried, but in the end he went out into the heath and shot himself.”