“Good evening, mademoiselles,” the man said, in a voice that I remember finding rather sinister at the time: velvet-soft and drawling, and yet so resonant it seemed to rattle the wineglasses. Mary’s eyes goggled. The other nurses shrank in their seats.
He went on without a pause. I had the impression that he was used to that kind of reaction, and that he didn’t give a damn. “Have I the honor of addressing Miss Fortescue?” (He laid a touch of ironic weight on the word honor.)
Someone gasped; I wasn’t sure who. I was taking in the giant size of this man’s hands, which gripped the tiny sherry glass as if it belonged to a dollhouse set.
“I am Miss Fortescue.”
“I’d like a word with you, if I may. Briefly.”
I looked up finally at his face, and the sight of his eyes sent a shock through my nerves. And yet I didn’t recognize him. I knew those eyes, but I didn’t know how I knew them. My brain couldn’t quite connect this giant man, whose hands looked like shovels, with the trim, professional figure of Simon Fitzwilliam.
“Excuse me. Have we been introduced?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Do we still need that kind of thing?”
“I do. I’m in the middle of a private dinner. I’m not about to run off into a corner with any stranger who asks.”
“Oh, I see. In that case.” He set down the glass and placed his fingers along the edge of the table. The action tilted his torso forward, so that he loomed over the salt cellar and the meager jar of yellow chrysanthemums like a large and meaty thundercloud. “My name is Samuel Fitzwilliam. I understand you’re acquainted with my brother, Simon.”
We sat at the corner table, under the furtive surveillance of Mary and the other nurses. The bottle of sherry stood between us. He had pushed aside the chrysanthemums to make room. My nerves were still splintering from shock, and my chest was cold and fearful. I had brought a glass of wine with me—the bottle had arrived just after Major Fitzwilliam—but I didn’t drink. I wasn’t sure I could hold the glass without spilling it.
“Simon said you were killed.”
“Did he? Not quite. I was taken prisoner.”
“Prisoner! For how long?”
“Over three years. I was in the regulars when the war started, you see. The Coldstream Guards, to be precise. Second son joins the army; it’s a kind of tradition with those of us in the landowning classes, when there’s only so much land to go around. It meant I was among the first men to set foot in France with the BEF. Captured by a damned patrol at the end of October and sent to Breslau.”
“How awful.”
“Better than getting killed, I suppose, which is how I’d have ended if the Boche hadn’t got their mitts on me. Every last officer in my regiment—below the rank of major, of course—is now feeding the French soil.”
“But how did you get out? Were you released?”
“Released? You mean for good behavior? No. I escaped.” He poured again, slow and exact, and pointed out that I wasn’t drinking my wine. Was there something wrong?
“No,” I said. “I’ve never been a great drinker.”
“That’s a shame. It’s the only human pleasure worth its price.” He saluted me with his glass. “Cheers. To you and to my splendid brother. I understand you’re well acquainted.”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
“You’ve been carrying on with him for a year or so, if I heard the story right. I’ve been told I don’t always pay close attention to people’s stories. Especially about my brother.”
“Who told you this? Simon?”
“Ha-ha. No, not Simon. A little birdie. Is it true, though? You and Simon?”
“I . . . we . . .” There was no point in lying, was there? Not to Simon’s brother. And—the thought now burst into bloom, the wondrous implications of Major Fitzwilliam’s return from the dead—wouldn’t he greet this news with delight? “We’re in love. We—we’ve had to keep it secret, of course.”
“Oh, of course. But in the meantime . . . ?”
In the meantime. Well, what was I supposed to say? In the meantime, while Simon’s getting his divorce from the woman you love, the mother of your child, we’ve been carrying on a love affair. A love affair, true, in which our meetings had been short and furtive, and our surroundings bleak, and our partings desperate. Letters crammed with passionate longing and plans for the next time, always the next time, a few days in Paris or a night in Amiens, the German offensive throwing everything into chaos last spring, the Allied counterattack reversing our direction yet again. And now, at last, the prospect of hope. The end of the war. The possibility, at last, of something longer and more permanent, a week together, a month together. A cottage by the sea instead of a room in a sordid hotel. The lifting, at last, degree by degree, of the shroud of dread from my shoulders. The new and brilliant dawn at my window.
“In the meantime, we are in love,” I said.
“How marvelous. I expect you’ve been meeting up for dirty weekends and that sort of thing. Knowing my brother.”
“I don’t think—”
“Of course you have. Because the thing about Simon, he always gets what he wants. Since childhood, really. Did you know that we’re twins?”
“I think he mentioned it.”
“Well, it’s true. Shared the same womb and all that, and it seems we made a little trade, while we were swimming around in the primordial bath. I got all the size, and he got all the charm. And if Simon decided he wanted you in his bed, well, he certainly wasn’t going to let a little thing like matrimony get in the way, was he?”
“What a terrible thing to say!”
“Well, now. I suppose it is. But then, we’ve never been close.”
“But why not? You’re brothers, you’re twins!”
He closed one eye and examined the sherry in its glass. “I’m afraid that’s rather a long and knotty tale, Miss Fortescue, strewn with all the usual incidents of brotherly affection and family accord, and—as you’ve kindly made clear to me, in your forthright American way—you haven’t got much time to waste on idle chatter with strange men. So, in the interests of brevity, soul of wit and all that, I’ll just skip right over the trivial details of the family history and—what’s that wonderful phrase I used to hear, when I was in New York once? Cut to the chase, that’s what they told me. Cut to the chase, sonny. I haven’t got all day.”
He finished the sherry and reached for the bottle. It didn’t seem to be having the slightest effect. I guessed that was fair. A puny bottle of sherry wouldn’t stand much chance against that enormous frame. And yet he wasn’t fat. Every ounce of him was carefully rationed, without a dimple of prodigal flesh. He was just bone, and the necessary muscle to cover it, and the bulk of an officer’s uniform over that. I thought he could probably swallow his brother whole and nobody would know the difference. I tried to imagine him confined in a German prison, and failed. But I could imagine what it might have been like. How he would have suffered. The bitterness it must have worked on his mind and spirit.
And then to break free at last, and realize what you had missed.
“At least you’re alive. Your family must be so happy,” I said.
“What’s that?”