We jumped hard over a rut. Fitzwilliam crashed into me. Straightened, apologized. I said don’t be silly. He smelled of disinfectant and human skin and exhaustion. His beard stood in need of shaving; I had felt it briefly on my cheek, warm and raspy, and I thought, That’s what it feels like, a man’s unshaven jaw, like the rasp of sandpaper.
You know, it’s a cozy roost, the cab of a Model T. And the ambulance cab was cozier than, say, a Ford roadster or a coupe, because you had that wooden box stuffed up behind you, and you were perched on the narrow seat, while your legs crowded into the narrower dash. Put a fully grown male in the passenger seat—a man like Captain Fitzwilliam, long-legged and loose-shouldered, oh yes, fully grown indeed—and there was just enough room for breath and awkwardness, for human sweat and anxiety.
“I don’t know about lucrative,” I said. “We don’t much speak about money at home.”
Fitzwilliam rubbed his jaw. I imagined the soft scratch of bristles, somewhere beneath the engine’s rattle. A pair of headlamps surfaced in the gloaming, and a moment later a supply truck labored heavily past, plastered with mud, the driver’s shattered face visible for an instant in the glow of Hunka Tin’s blinders. Then another one, following close. Headed for the front.
“I suppose that was an impertinent question,” he said.
“Impertinent?”
“About your father’s inventions. Quite out of order. It’s been rather a frightful two days, I’m afraid. Stretchers arriving every few minutes. Scrambles the gray matter.”
“Of course.”
“And then I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like, speaking to a lady.”
“What about your nurses?”
“Oh, the nurses. Have you met any of them? They’re all ancient and exactly like schoolmarms. The RANS does it on purpose, to prevent fraternizing. Amazingly successful. One forgets they’re women at all. Liberates conversation to a shocking degree. Mind you, they’re terribly good at what they—oh, look out!”
Hunka Tin blew her left front tire.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of inhabiting an old French chateau, let me assure you: the reality’s less charming than you’d think.
Oh, they have a way of bewitching you from the outside. A black night had fallen utterly by the time we reached the Chateau de Créouville—not so much as a breath of moonlight behind all that cloud—but the lamps blazed from the windows of the great hall and the bedrooms above, so that you emerged from the surrounding forest to encounter seven cone-topped stone turrets rising dreamlike against the sky, and a lake shimmering with gold. Captain Fitzwilliam straightened in his seat. “By God, is that it? Isn’t there supposed to be a blackout?”
“Mrs. DeForest isn’t one for hiding.”
“Must be damned expensive, however, burning up all those lights.”
“She doesn’t care about expense.”
“Yes, that’s the lovely thing about having blunt, isn’t it? Well, she’s failed one test already. She’s got to observe the blackout. I suppose the Boche reconnaissance haven’t found you yet, but they will. They’ll think you’re the new staff headquarters, and bomb the blazes out of you.” He sat back and folded his arms against the solid khaki bulk of his greatcoat. Our elbows met, and I was surprised by the size and strength of his, by how much more assertive the male elbow could be. How confidential, there inside a humid little enclave, where you couldn’t help tasting his vaporous breath and the flavor of his soap, detecting each movement of his fingers and jaw, while a castle glimmered nearby against a sooty night. He went on, more whispery: “It’s beautiful, however. Good God. Like a fairy story. Is it built on that lake?”
“Yes. The lake forms a kind of moat around it, only much prettier than a real moat.”
“Oh, agreed. Nasty, swampish things, moats. Imagine this in summer, set against a blue sky.”
Well, I already had. I’d imagined the chateau in full, vigorous, fertile summer, five centuries ago: teeming with knights and stags, each stone pink in a rising dawn. I had imagined people inside. I had imagined love affairs and troubadours. Long ago, I had learned that you could imagine anything you wanted, that the space inside your head belonged only to you. Furnished and decorated and inhabited only by you, so that your insides teemed and seethed while your outward aspect remained serene.
“You’ve got some imagination,” I said. “If you look closely enough, it’s falling apart.”
“Of course it is. Everyone’s skint these days, including and perhaps especially the upper classes. Except your Mrs. DeForest, it seems. Or is it just Americans in general?”
“Not all Americans are rich.”
“No, but the ones who are . . .”
We were climbing the drive now, a slight incline, and the tires slipped in the mud. I reached down with my left hand and shifted the Ford into low gear. The windows grew before us; the exuberant decoration took shape. The ripples on the lake made you think of enchantments.
Because everything looks better in lamplight, doesn’t it? Tomorrow, in the harshness of the winter morning, Captain Fitzwilliam would see the crumbling of the old stones, the chunks of fallen fretwork, the brown weeds thrusting from the seams. The sordid state of the gravel, the broken paving stones in the courtyard. How Mrs. DeForest had grumbled! But now, at dusk, in the glow of a hundred lamps, everything was new and luminous. You couldn’t speak for the beauty of it.
And we didn’t. We didn’t say another word, either of us, all the way up the drive and over the stone bridge, beneath the rusting portcullis and into the courtyard. Captain Fitzwilliam leaned forward, and the movement brought his leg into contact with mine. He didn’t seem to notice; the spectacle of the chateau immersed him. One gloved hand reached out to grasp the top edge of the dashboard, and I thought how gamely he had helped me change the flat tire, how he’d knelt in the mud and turned the bolts while I held the rectangular pocket flashlight, turning it off and on at intervals so the battery wouldn’t quit. The cheerful way he’d risen from the half-frozen slop and said, I could just about do with a bottle of brandy, couldn’t you? As if I were a partner of some kind, a person of equal footing, deserving of brandy and respect.
I hadn’t replied. How could I reply to a thing like that?
I brought Hunka Tin to a careful, battered stop just before the main steps and switched off the engine. There was an instant of rare silence, like a prayer. Captain Fitzwilliam turned to me and said, “Miss Fortescue, I—”
The door flew open, and Hazel popped outside in her woolen dressing gown.
“Good grief! We thought you’d been killed!” she said, and then Captain Fitzwilliam unfolded himself onto the gravel, muddy and unshaven, wet and weathered, and she paused. One foot hovering on the next step, one hand covering her mouth. Behind her, the hinges squeaked rustily, and somebody shrilled about the draft.
“Home sweet home,” I muttered, and went around back to release the doors.