“I’m nineteen,” Pru said. “And I’m very independent.”
“I’m sure you are.” The woman sniffed. “But don’t you have better prospects? By which I mean any other prospects at all?”
“I’m college-educated,” she said. A stretch, to be sure, but not a lie. “And I was engaged to be married.”
“You were engaged?” the woman said with a wheezing giggle. “A broken engagement. Well, well, well, you’d fit in with my aunt quite well.”
“Not broken,” Pru said. “He died.”
The words stunned even her. Pru usually didn’t have to say them herself. There was always someone else around to relay the ghastly tale.
“He died?” the woman gasped.
“He died,” she returned with a nod.
He died, he died, he died.
Pru repeated the words in her head. Even now they didn’t feel right though she’d been there when Charlie’s remains returned home. She’d watched as they installed the box of him into the family mausoleum.
“So the answer is no,” Pru said. “I have not a single prospect.”
She shivered and wrapped a shawl tight around her shoulders. Pru was slight, a slip of a girl. On top of that the grand Newport home was cavernous and cold. The windows were open, baroque curtains drooping around them like heavy eyelids.
“Oh my. He passed? Was it in Vietnam?” The woman made a face as Pru nodded. “He died in Vietnam. Lord have mercy. He’s one of those.”
“One of what?” she asked. “A soldier? A brave man?”
Pru feigned ignorance but understood what this woman saw, what most of the nation believed.
The war had long since worn out its welcome. Citizens were dying at an alarming clip. Those who survived were judged as baby-killers or nancy boys. What the bloody hell had they been up to anyhow? They should’ve won the blessed thing by now. The lads were nothing like their fathers, who had previously saved the world.
In Pru’s mind, Charlie was a hero. But he was also an idiot. His parents expended tremendous effort to backdate a fictitious sporting injury and Charlie declined to accept it. It did not sit well with him, the lying. But the lie would’ve saved his life.
“Bloodthirsty heathens,” the woman muttered under her breath.
“He died in April,” Pru said, eyes watering. “During the Easter Offensive. They found his body somewhere near Kon Tum. His name was Charlie.”
“Isn’t that the nickname for the Viet Cong?”
“It is.”
“Ha! The irony.”
Pru sucked back a thick swallow of tears.
“A damned shame,” the woman said. “All of it.”
“I agree entirely.”
“And now you need a job. A way to support yourself.”
Pru nodded again, tears shimmering on her lashes. She’d stupidly hoped Charlie’s family might help, perhaps provide a job at their dry-goods conglomerate. Pru could type memos. She could warm someone else’s coffee.
Alas, she reminded them of Charlie, which reminded them that he chose his death. They couldn’t forgive him. And they couldn’t forgive her for not convincing him to stay.
So, yes, she needed to support herself. But more than that, she had to recover from all she’d lost.
“Why not return to school?” the woman asked. “Finish your studies?”
“My family no longer has the means,” she said simply.
Her parents died when she was young, the money for her studies frittered away by the relatives who raised her. Pru received a scholarship, but when she left because of Charlie the administration made it clear: she was giving it up for good.
“No longer has the means,” the woman echoed with a remote chuckle. “Well, isn’t that how most good stories begin?”
And so she hired Pru on the spot.
The woman didn’t ask for references, or for her to verify the “love of literature and the English countryside.” Pru chalked it up to her appearance, to those clear green eyes and wide-moon face. Charlie used to say she was heavenly, ethereal. It was a touch flowery, but Pru knew her daintiness and quiet demeanor were often confused for a certain grace.
After the proper documents were secured, an attaché escorted her overseas. He was a butler of some sort and seemed equal parts annoyed and tickled by the adventure. All throughout the plane ride and in the hired hack to Banbury, Pru deliberated his purpose. It was 1972 and young women traveled unattended. As far as she could tell, his only business in England was to deposit her on the doorstep of an estate called the Grange.
“You didn’t have to come with me,” Pru said as they made the final leg of their journey. “I realize it’s a bit late to say so, but I could’ve traveled on my own.”
“This is for your own safety. The mistress of the manor is quite a force.”
“So chivalrous,” she mumbled. “And I don’t find sweet old ladies particularly intimidating.”
Suddenly the car sputtered to a stop in front of a stone house.