I stayed silent in shock.
“I tell him no,” the man in my lap went on, a quiet confession. “Always no. But it’s wor—it’s worse and last—last night, I don’t know—it was—”
“Hush,” I said softly. “I understand. I do.”
“I’m sorry,” he managed a long moment later.
“No.” I put my hand on his back, between his narrow shoulder blades, a back that looked as diminished as a boy’s beneath his infirmary shirt. My cheeks were wet, too, now, but I did not sob. “It’s me that’s sorry,” I said through the thickness in my throat. “It’s me that’s bloody well sorry.”
We sat there for a long time, I on top of the covers, my boots on the bed. I, who had stayed away from men for four years. I sat there in bed with a strange man, his arm around me, his head in my lap. It was against every regulation in the world. I couldn’t seem to stop breaking rules, even when I tried.
Finally, he fell asleep. The soup was cold by then, but I didn’t have the heart to take it away. He’d need to eat something when he woke, even something cold. He was too thin as it was.
I slid out of bed and left him, closing the door behind me.
? ? ?
It was time for the men’s leisure hour after supper, and they had assembled in the common room, but as I approached I saw they had all stopped what they were doing. The chess players had turned away from their game; the readers had put the books and magazines down in their laps. Even the men who only stared absently out the window had turned, their gazes alert.
Matron stood in the center of the room. In the soft light of a summer evening she looked the same, her face set in its familiar hard lines under her mannish hair. The electricity was still on—it would not switch off until after curfew—and the lights cast pools of yellow that were slowly losing out to the dusky blue-gray of the long summer twilight out the tall windows and the terrace doors.
I stood in the doorway and registered, with the sudden clarity that sometimes floods the brain, the scene before me as a still tableau: Matron, the men turned to face her, their expressions expectant, the dwindling of a soft, decadent day in the windows. I took in the long shadows of the men playing across the high, bare walls, the cheap sparseness of the furniture arranged on the expensive floors, the smell of polish and men’s sweat and the faint smell of vinegar we used for cleaning. Every detail was as clear to me as a photograph.
Matron held up a sheaf of letters. “The mail has arrived.”
A murmur of excitement went up. We’d had a delivery that morning, hours before. But, of course, there had to be time for every letter to be opened, read, and vetted.
“Mr. Creeton,” Matron called. “Mr. Mabry.” One at a time, each man went forward to retrieve his letter. Those who weren’t called turned back to the window or picked up their book again, their faces carefully blank. I caught a glimpse of movement in the doorway behind me and saw the large bulk of Paulus Vries leaning in the corridor, his arms crossed and his gaze watchful. I wondered what scenes had taken place during previous distributions of mail.
“Nurse Weekes.”
Matron held out a letter to me, a thick, creamy, clean envelope. I stepped forward and took it from her. I turned it over, apprehension pinching my spine. It did not look official, and my father could not write.
The letter was from Maisey Ravell, a reply to the letter I’d written about her belongings. She wrote in a perfect, looping hand that matched her beautiful stationery, the ink utterly free of blots. It could have been a young lady’s polite letter to a friend, inquiring as to the health of her mother and asking her to tea.
Dear Kitty:
Meet me on Sunday just past the stand of trees by the west wing. There’s a clearing. You’ll see it when you enter the trees past the rise. I need to speak to you, and not just about my locket, though I will take it back if you have it. I will be there at two o’clock. Tell Matron you require an hour’s walk. The men will be at tea. She’s supposed to give you a half day off, but she never does, so make her grant this instead.
Perhaps you won’t come. You don’t even know me. But I’ve had time to think now, and you can help me. You must come. Don’t tell anyone. You must come.
Maisey Ravell
P.S. Thank you kindly for your letter.
Quickly, casually, I folded the letter and stuffed it deep in the pocket of my apron. The envelope had still been sealed; apparently the nurses were not subject to Matron’s review of their correspondence, something Maisey must have known.
What did it mean, that I could help her? I was in no position to help anyone, but maybe she could help me. I’d have to find out.
There had been a wave of murmured excitement when the letters were distributed, which quieted down. And then, as I was thinking about making an escape, utter silence circled the room in a ripple. Every man fell still, looking at the door behind my shoulder, and I felt the heat of awareness on the back of my neck.
I turned and saw Jack Yates in the doorway. He wore the sleeves of his hospital-issue shirt rolled up to his elbows. He paused, and the merest flicker of uncertainty crossed his features; then he continued into the room, walking into the light with the easy saunter that was his natural gait, crossing the open space in front of Matron—who stared at him, her eyebrows nearly shot up to her hairline—as if he had not been in seclusion for six months.
Even the men poring over their much anticipated letters had looked up, and every eye followed him across the room.
So much for Dr. Thornton’s rules, I thought.
I looked back at Matron warily, wondering when the thunder would descend, but she had schooled her face back to its usual inscrutable expression. For the merest second I thought I saw a twinkle of pleasure in her eye. Was it possible Matron was amused—even happy—that Jack had done away with an entire set of rules, just by walking through a door? It was progress, wasn’t it? It meant he wanted to get well. But the twinkle disappeared, if it had ever existed. She simply said in her usual voice, “Mr. Yates. It’s kind of you to join us.”
He nodded to her. “Evening, Matron. Is there a newspaper about?”
“There is,” she said, “but I believe Mr. Somersham currently has it in his possession.”
Somersham, sitting at the end of a sofa, held out his blacked-out checkerboard newspaper. “Oh, no, I’m quite finished. You can have it.”
“Are you certain?” asked Jack.
“Yes, sir.”
Jack accepted the paper from him and nodded. And just like that, the fiction that none of these men knew the identity of their fellow patient went up in vapor.
Jack had not looked at me. I took the opportunity to stare at him, since everyone else was already at it. I had seen him so often in the dark, in the gloom of lamplit shadows. I had nearly forgotten the effect of Jack Yates in the light, head to toe. He was hard to look away from.
He read the masthead of the newspaper. “This is from April,” he said.
“You are aware of the hospital’s policy about newspapers,” said Matron.
“All right,” said Jack, “I admit I don’t quite know what day it is, but April seems some time ago.”
“Current events—”
“Are harmful,” he said. He looked her in the eye. “Right. A man just wants the racing news. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I’d bloody love the racing news!” came a voice from the corner.
“Me, too,” said another.
“Don’t worry, old man.” This was Creeton, sitting in one of the chairs, one leg crossed over the other knee and grinning a grin that didn’t reach his angry eyes. “If there’s anything about you in there, we’ll cut it out and save it in a little scrapbook.”
“Shut it, Creeton,” said MacInnes. “The man’s right as far as I’m concerned. I’d like to hear about the latest plays myself.”
Jack folded the ancient newspaper and tossed it easily on a nearby table. “A newspaper would be good,” he said, ignoring Creeton, “but a gramophone would be better.”
There was a murmur of excited agreement at that. Even Tom perked up. “We could play symphonies!” he exclaimed.
In the doorway behind my shoulder, Paulus straightened, as slow as a cat. Matron’s posture had gone poker stiff. “You will not,” she said loudly, “be getting a gramophone.”
“I want a gramophone!” someone said.
“So do I,” said Jack. He pivoted, looked around the room, his gaze passing over me unseeing. My heart pounded in my chest. The energy he produced, just by standing there, was dangerous, so dangerous, like playing with a lit fuse. And it was only a few madmen in the middle of nowhere. But this was it, just the faint breath of it, just the edge of a shadow of Brave Jack. The men had all turned to him. And I knew Brave Jack was in there, just as I’d always suspected.
His gaze stopped on Captain Mabry. “What do you think, Captain?”
Mabry had folded his tall frame onto a sofa, half in shadow, light glinting softly from his glasses. He had not spoken, only looked on in silence. As we watched, his hand moved unconsciously over the letter that rested on his thigh.
He looked at Jack for a long moment, and something passed between the two men. Then Captain Mabry shook his head. “It’s against the rules.”
“Of course it’s against the rules!” Matron blustered. And somehow the moment deflated, punctured like a balloon. Jack shrugged; the men subsided, murmuring. Some of them shook their heads, went back to their books, still discontented. Mabry made no move. Neither did Creeton, in his corner; I could see him sitting stiffly, his face red, his eyes on Jack, swiftly calculating. He had not expected this, and he did not like it. He caught me looking at him, and I turned away.
Jack stepped closer to Matron, lowered his voice. “May I have leave to take a walk?”
She looked bewildered. “Walk?”
“Yes.”
“It’s evening. The time for outdoor exercise is earlier in the day.”
“I seem to have missed it,” he said casually. “I’d like some exercise. Just out to the garden and back. Do you think that would be possible?”
Matron was in a spin. A walk now was against the rules, but to get Jack out of the room, away from the others, would be worth something. “You would have to be supervised.”
“Of course, that’s fine with me.”