Elizabeth Speller - The Return of Captain John Emmett

'Laurie?' asked the woman beside him, smiling tentatively.

He realised in an instant that he would have changed much more than her and felt a surge of warmth at her courage.

'Oh Milie,' he said, holding the sister he recognised instantly—smaler, rounder, but just as he now remembered her—first at arm's length and then pressed to him, so swiftly that her hat was knocked sideways and she had to extricate a hand to hold it on to her head. Her thick hair—pinned up in rather an old-fashioned way and much as his mother had styled hers—escaped in curls. She stil had such a pretty smile.

He was suddenly aware of the boy standing next to her. Taler than his mother, indeed nearly as tal as Laurence, dark-eyed in a way that instantly reminded Laurence of his father. He smiled nervously and shot out his hand. Laurence took it and held it with his other one.

'Helo—Uncle Laurie,' said the boy. He had nearly said sir.

'Helo, Wil.' He was suddenly and simply a man with a family, getting ready for Christmas.

'It realy is so very good to see you, Milie.'

Their eyes finaly met. Impulsively, he flung his arms round her again, then puled back slightly and looked down at her. Her eyes were brimming with tears; she fumbled in her bag. He felt in his pocket and gave her his handkerchief, grateful that he had ironed it.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'About everything,' she added, in a muffled voice, as she wiped her nose.

Laurence imagined the scene through her eyes. At twenty-six she had left England, her home, friends, parents and brother, for the furthest shores of the empire.

He suspected that by then she had begun to think she would become an old maid and was glad to be married even to a man nearly twenty years her senior. However, she could never have guessed how completely her world would crumble behind her. During her long sojourn in India, she had lost not just both parents but a way of life they had al shared. The family home was long gone; friends had gone; the brother she had left as a schoolboy was a widower, not far off middle age.

'And how old are you now?' said Laurence and before his nephew could tel him fourteen, which he knew perfectly wel, he laughed. 'I'm afraid I'm being a complete ass at this—you must be thinking I'm the most pompous uncle you could imagine.'

'No,' said the boy, a smile hovering, 'definitely not.'

'You must remember Henry's brother Norton? Wil's other uncle?' Milie said. 'It's hardly a fair competition.'

Now she had linked her arm through his, yet stil grasping his hand. Hers, gloveless now, was warm and dry. A porter hovered with a trunk and two cases, leading the way as they began to push a path through the crowds.

They were level with the station band when Laurence saw a face he recognised. Standing, listening to the carols, was Leonard Byers. Byers hadn't seen Laurence, who paused, just for a second, taking in the hatless young woman with bobbed hair, clinging to Byers' arm. As the porter parted the crowds, Laurence saw her in profile. She was very pregnant. She said something in Byers' ear, he grinned down at her and she laid her head against his arm.

One minute Laurence, Milie and Wilfred were having to muscle their way through the mass of people and the next, having come through the great arches, they were free, standing on the edge of the shining black street, where streams of cabs and dark cars moved swiftly in both directions. His sister looked from her brother to her bags and back to him again, as if she couldn't bear to raise her eyes and encompass the vastness of the new life around her. The boy looked in every direction: at the entrance to the underground station, the advertisement hoardings, the chestnut-seler, the clerks and shop girls getting off the bus, the passers-by slightly bowed under black umbrelas. His face was alert and excited.

In a way Laurence was glad that proper conversation was stil impossible; the carols had died away behind them but now there was a constant hiss from the wheels of the traffic and a paper boy stil shouting out the late headlines. They found their cab, loaded the bags, he tipped the porter and they were away, sucked into the city and the winter's night, with the bright shop windows and the slanting rain moving faster and faster behind them.

Epilogue

WEDNESDAY, 28 DECEMBER 1920

They were about twelve miles from Fairford now, approaching Faringdon. He could tell by the sinking sun that the road was heading almost due west. On the left, stunted willows marked what must be the distant course of the Thames or one of its small tributaries. This was countryside he had once known well.

To the south there was a gentle sweep of open land and a wide view through leafless trees rising to hills on the horizon. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in the last twenty-four hours and there was a dusting of snow on ploughed fields tinged faintly pink by the sun. To his right, John could see a small mound, almost artificially neat, with a cluster of dark trees on its summit. Somers looked straight ahead as the road curved in front of them. From the trees rose an extraordinary tower. It seemed to stand alone, its castellated battlements clear against the sky.

' What's that?' John asked. 'Is it a castle?'

He remembered from his Oxford days that there had been skirmishes fought around here in the Civil War, although this looked more like a building from a fairy tale.

The general turned his head briefly. 'It's a folly. Faringdon Folly. Just a tower. Decorative but useless. Four empty rooms stacked one upon another, Gothic windows and a marvellous view from the top. When I was young you could see into three counties from up there, though it scared us all to pass by it at night. The boys too in their turn. It's all locked up now, I believe.'

John recalled there having been a folly here long ago when he was a schoolboy. Was this it? It was summer then and everything had looked different.

'Could we go closer?'

'I'll drive as near to it as I can.'

He was grateful that the general asked for no explanation but simply added, 'I think the last stretch is just a bridle path'

They bumped their way up a rutted lane. It was only a few minutes before the car stopped.

'I'd like to get out here,' John said. 'I'll walk the rest of the way.'

The general looked mildly surprised. 'I'll come with you.'

'No. All the way back to Holmwood, I mean. I'd like a chance to think.'

'Good God, man, it's ten miles or more to Fairford. It'll be dark in two hours and bitterly cold by the look of it.'

'Don't worry' John said, evenly. He opened the car door. 'I've walked all my life in all kinds of weathers. Like this'—he indicated his greatcoat and borrowed boots—'I'll be fine. It's a good road. If I reach Lechlade and it's too cold, I'll put up at the New Inn. Might even get Chilvers on the telephone and make his son fetch me.' He almost smiled. 'I'd like to walk, to be honest. After this, I'll have precious little freedom.' He ran a hand through his hair. No solitary excursions for me for a while, I imagine. I'll see the Folly while it's light and then follow the road back. I feel better than I have for an age. Free.'

The general looked at him. John was very pale, but calm: a man who had finally relieved them both of an intolerable burden.

'Take this' he said, handing him a hip flask, from under his seat. I keep it in case of the car stranding me somewhere inhospitable. Oh, and this'—he unwrapped the striped woollen scarf from around his neck. 'It was Miles's scarf. House colours. Still serviceable, you'll find. You'll need it.'