“It was such an easy promise to make. His love for Dimity enveloped him in a—” Andrew passed a hand through the dust motes dancing in the sun, “a golden haze. I had never seen such happiness before, and I have never seen it since. It was exquisite, the kind of love that admits no envy, no jealousy. I was dazzled and warmed by it and felt sure that Dimity would feel as I did, that it would be worth any sacrifice to keep that golden aura glowing.”
Andrew placed his cane on the floor, opened the bottom drawer of the desk, and withdrew a bundle of papers bound with a pale blue ribbon. Untying the ribbon, he took out a single photograph. He gazed at it for a long time before handing me a picture of a handsome young man in uniform, sitting in the shade of a gnarled oak tree. He nodded at the bundle of papers.
“It was in among Bobby’s personal effects at Biggin Hill,” he explained. “I was mistaken about Dimity, you see. The night before his final mission, Bobby called me from the base, saying that she had broken off their engagement.” With a shaking hand, he raised the papers toward me. “She’d returned his letters, his pictures, his ring, everything that might remind her of their time together. She’d told him that they must stop seeing one another. I was outraged, incensed. I couldn’t understand how she could be so blind, so willfully cruel. But Bobby remained undaunted.
“‘She thinks she’s being practical,’ he told me, without a trace of rancor. ‘She thinks it’s foolish to make plans in such uncertain times.’ He laughed then. ‘She’s wrong,’ he said. ‘This is when you need to make plans, dream dreams. This is when you need to believe that there will be a tomorrow to fly to. I’ll convince her of it, I know I will. She’s returned the ring to my keeping, but she and I both know that it’s hers forever. As I am.’”
Andrew picked up the ribbon and tied it once more around the papers. He gave the bundle to me, then let his hand fall limply to his knee. “It was the last time I ever spoke with my brother. He was shot down the following day.
“I could not comprehend it. I could not accept that his death had been a mere twist of fate, a misfortune of war. My brother had always flown like a falcon. What had tripped him up? The question tormented me night and day, until, finally, I knew the answer.” Andrew’s hand closed into a fist. “I kept my promise to him. I deposited his share of our inheritance in Dimity Westwood’s account. I cannot be accused of betraying that trust.
“But I… I also wrote her a letter. Bobby had told me that, should I ever need to communicate quickly with Dimity, I should write in care of the Flamborough. He said that everyone there knew who Belle was.
“When I got word of his death, I wrote to her, telling her that the money was hers to do with as she pleased, but that if she tried to return it, we would throw it to the winds because my family wanted nothing more to do with her. I told her that Bobby’s mind had been clouded by thoughts of her betrayal, that his reflexes had been dulled, and I… I accused her of being responsible for…” Andrew pressed his fist to his mouth.
A chill went through me. What must Dimity have felt? She must have been half-mad with grief, consumed with guilt, all too willing to believe Andrew’s vicious accusation. The words must have seared into her soul, and she had carried that great and secret sin with her to the grave.
“She never touched the money,” Andrew went on, “not until she began her work with Starling House. She invested it, then, on behalf of the children, as though seeing to their welfare would right the wrong she had done. She was a canny businesswoman and she made a tidy sum, I’ll grant her that. But how I hated her for it.
“I wrote to her once more, a letter I hoped she would never receive. Although the war was over, I sent it to the Flamborough, with no return address, and I used her proper name, hoping no one would recognize it. I knew that I was breaking faith with Bobby, but I did not care. When the years passed and I received no reply, I felt well satisfied.
“That was when the nightmares began.” Andrew bowed his head and touched his fingers to his temples. “They did not come every night, but often enough to make me afraid to sleep. You cannot imagine their vividness, their power. They always begin with the same hellish vision. I am spinning out of the clouds toward an iron-gray sea. I watch as the waves grow closer and closer, but I can do nothing to stop myself. Sometimes the impact awakens me, and I cry out, gasping for breath, terrified. And sometimes the gray waves pull me under, and that—that is the true nightmare, when I am pulled down into the chill, black depths of the sea and left there, alone and wandering, searching for, but never finding, my way home.” A shudder racked Andrew’s body, and when he opened his eyes, his face was haggard.
“I lied when I told you that I sensed my brother’s presence in the chapel. It is in these visions that Bobby comes to me. For years I’ve told myself that he came to keep my rage alive, to remind me of the horrible way he had died. But in the chapel last night, my certainty began to crumble.” He raised his eyes to mine. “The locket you’re wearing—it was Dimity’s, was it not?”