Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave

Had my parents given Simon this onerous task of breaking the news to me, rather than face up to it themselves?

“They must have thought you very brave to take on this charge for them,” I said over my shoulder, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. It was almost as if Simon had betrayed me too.

“The Colonel and his lady had to leave for Somerset, Bess. Julia Carson particularly asked your father to deliver the eulogy.”

“It’s expecting too much,” I said, turning to him. In the sunlight, framed by the rolling green land of the Weald, he looked every inch the soldier. A tall, strong, very attractive man with more courage than most.

“Give it a try, Bess. You can save lives in a clinic, you know.”

“A handful. Compared to what’s happening in France. You’ve been to the Front, you know how they are dying.”

“I’ve seen it,” he said shortly. It was the first time he’d admitted that he’d been sent into the thick of the fighting for reasons he never spoke of.

He took a deep breath.

And I realized that for the first time in all the years he’d been close to my family that I was asking him to divide his loyalties. To go against my parents’ express wishes and help me do what they didn’t want me to do.

I stood there waiting, all the while knowing how cruel it was even to ask.

A choice between the Colonel Sahib and my mother on one side, and me on the other.

I knew I would remember the expression in his eyes for the rest of my life.

“Bess-” he began, and then choosing his words carefully, he gave me a name. “I make no promises that your appeal to this man will succeed. Your father has more authority than I ever will. But it’s worth a try.”

He turned away from me, looking down the sloping churchyard with its row after row of gravestones under shady trees, and on to the rooftops of the village beyond. “My head tells me you should go back to France. No one will ever know the number of men who owe their lives to you and women like you. At the same time my heart-Bess, call me superstitious, if you like. But I don’t wish to find out if the third time you come close to dying, we will lose you.” He moved his gaze to the window high in the Saxon tower, as if looking for answers there. “When I got to France, I was told you were dying. That there was nothing more to be done.”

And with that he turned on his heel and went to pack up the remains of the picnic basket, folding the rugs neatly and stowing the lot in the boot of the motorcar.

I stayed where I was, blindly looking at the church porch, wishing I could take back the words I’d spoken. Wishing I hadn’t had to make him choose.

And then he was calling to me, and I walked slowly across to the motorcar, and he helped me inside.

We drove in silence all the long distance to Eastbourne.

WHEN WE ARRIVED at the Grand Hotel, Simon passed the picnic basket to one of the staff, handed me down from the motorcar, and said as I prepared to go inside, “I’ll see what I can discover about Private Wilson. It may take several days.”

And then with a nod he was gone.

I watched him out of sight, knowing that he had left not for an hour or so but for days. There had been someone with me ever since I had reached England-my mother, my father, Simon. I felt suddenly alone, separated from those I loved. Separated by more than distance.

Turning, I went up to my room and sat down at the little white desk between the windows, intending to write my first letter requesting reinstatement at the Front.

And I found the words wouldn’t come.

Setting the sheets of hotel stationery to one side, I walked out to the balcony and for a while watched the sea, green and blue and, in the distance, almost black. There was a slight haze in the direction of the Seven Sisters, but toward Hastings and France the sky was clear. We were too far away to hear the guns. But I could imagine them. And imagine too the damage they were doing to flesh and bone.

It was difficult to go against my parents’ wishes. We had always been of the same mind about important things. I could understand their feelings. I doubted that they could understand mine. Or was I being selfish and willful, where wiser heads knew better? I told myself that it was the wounded and dying who should be weighed in the balance, not my own wishes.

In the end I put the letter-or what was to be the letter but was now only a blank sheet-in the desk drawer and went down to take my tea in the enclosed veranda. Some hours later I dined alone. I couldn’t have said afterward what I had chosen from the menu or how it had tasted.

There was a woman at the next table. She sat there, staring into space as if her mind were a thousand miles away, picking at her food as if it had no more flavor than mine had had. Fair and rather pretty in an elegant way, she appeared to be older than I was, and I put her age at thirty.

I hadn’t noticed her here before this, whether because she had sat somewhere else or because she’d just arrived.

The headwaiter came over as she pushed her plate aside and asked, “Is everything to your liking, Mrs. Campbell?”

“Yes, it was lovely, I’ve no appetite, I’m afraid.”

“Not bad news, I hope,” he ventured, frowning. “You weren’t yourself last evening either.”

Bad news was more common than good these days. Yet he’d asked as if he knew her from another visit and felt free to inquire.

She laughed, but not convincingly. “No, nothing to worry about. Perhaps the sea air will improve my spirits and my appetite.”

He cajoled her into trying the pudding, although it was clear to me that she wasn’t hungry enough to care. And she ate a little of it stoically, then signaled the waiter again, rose, and left the dining room.

The Grand Hotel had an excellent reputation. It catered to people like my parents, and they had had no qualms about leaving me here to dine alone. I was well looked after, and so it wasn’t surprising to see another woman alone.

I walked through great doors leading out to the veranda and stopped by one of the vases of fern for a few minutes to watch the waves roll in. I could sympathize in a way with Mrs. Campbell. I too needed to make a decision.

I was just on the point of turning to go up to my room when I overheard someone mention her name. There were two women sitting together just by the balustrade. They couldn’t see me for that fern, but I could just glimpse Mrs. Campbell, a shawl over her shoulders, walking down to the drive and moving on to one of the benches set out beneath specimen trees. It was the one where Simon and I’d sat that morning.

“There she is,” one of the women said in a low voice. “I told you I thought it was she.”

“Yes, you’re right. Shocking that she should show her face in such a place as this. Not after all the publicity surrounding the petition for divorce.”

“Unfaithful, he said.”

“Yes. But it couldn’t be proved, could it?”

“Sordid, all of it. I mean to say, he’s at war. You’d think she could put aside her personal feelings and remember that.”

I turned and went indoors. I remembered too vividly Lieutenant Banner at Forward Aid Station No. 3, dying of his wounds and saying in a whisper that held a world of despair because time had run out, “She won’t have to go through the divorce now, will she? She’ll be a widow instead. I’ve made it easy for him, whoever he is. He’ll step into my shoes without a qualm. But if he mistreats her, by God, I’ll come back and haunt him!”

I shivered as I remembered his vehemence, but it had cost him his last breath, and he was gone. I wondered sometimes if Mrs. Banner’s new husband had ever looked over his shoulder and listened for a footstep.