An Inquiry Into Love and Death (29 page)

I found a breath. “Please,” I said, my voice unrecognizable. “I am Toby Leigh’s daughter. He would have helped you if he’d lived. So I’m doing it now. I am Toby Leigh’s daughter. It’s time for you to sleep.”

The boat rocked, but it was just the waves. I thought I heard breathing.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. . . .

And then it was gone.

I let go and fell to my hands and knees in the water. Still I didn’t turn. I closed my eyes.

I had no idea how long I stayed there, waiting. Eventually something hit the side of the boat. It was a gentle thump, wood on wood. My boat creaked in response.

The sound of feet—human feet—hitting the floor of the boat. “Jillian!”

I opened my eyes and pulled myself up. Drew Merriken splashed toward me, wearing a dark sweater and trousers, his hair tangled with salt water. He leaned over me and held out one large, strong arm. “Take my hand,” he said.

I would have smiled, but my lips wouldn’t move. I raised my hands and placed them in his, and he pulled me from my knees.

I
t hurt when they cut the ropes from me. I moaned helplessly when Drew rubbed my hands, the blood slicing back into them like arrows.

“Jesus, Teddy,” I heard Drew’s voice say. “Row faster.”

“Believe me,” came Teddy’s voice, “I’m rowing as fast as I bloody can.”

“She’ll have hypothermia in a second. Jillian, can you hear me? Come here.”

I pushed my face into his neck, my cheek against his soaking-wet sweater. “You shot him.”

He rubbed my shoulders, my upper arms. “I’m sorry.”

I pressed closer; I couldn’t get warm. “Who was shooting from the beach?”

“That was my work, I’m afraid.” Teddy was rowing hard, but he still managed an arrogant edge to his voice. “Gave you a bit of a fright, did it? It’s an old trick, really. Put the enemy off guard, get him looking in the wrong direction. Get him to empty his gun at you, if you can, and distract him from your comrade, who’s sneaking ’round the other way.”

“You could have shot me,” I said.

“I couldn’t have, at that. But I do apologize for scaring you. When you’re up against it, you go with the best plan you have. We assumed he had a gun.”

I closed my eyes as Drew kept rubbing me, his hands big and strong through my sodden clothes. Everything hurt, I was freezing, and I never wanted to move again. “Did you see him?”

Both men were silent for a long minute. I wondered whether they were looking at each other, or if each of them was looking away.

“There was something,” Drew said finally, his reluctant voice rumbling in his chest where I leaned against it. “It was hard to be sure.”

“Yes,” said Teddy. “Definitely something. And you can put that on my gravestone—
definitely something
—because that’s all I’ll ever say. If I have to go to Tahiti, I’m rowing in the other bloody direction as fast as I can.”

“It’s all right,” I heard myself say.
It was just his nature.
“I may have gotten rid of him. I think he’s gone.”

We were silent for a long moment. “Drew,” I said at last. It was becoming harder to speak.

“Yes.”

“The book was in the boat. The codebook.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he said. “Now stop talking.”

•   •   •

I opened my eyes. It was still daylight, so I couldn’t have slept long; I suspected I had just dozed after the doctor had left.

I was in my little bedroom at Barrow House. Every quilt from the closet had been piled atop me, and a cup of cooling tea was placed next to the bed. I pushed the covers aside and sat up, swinging my feet to the floor.

Pain shot everywhere through me—my arms, my knees, my face where William had hit me. But my hands were the worst. My wrists were wrapped in red, angry welts, and I still had trouble moving my fingers. The doctor had said the pain and stiffness would go away in time.

I stood on shaky legs. They were bruised and scraped from knee to ankle from my encounters with the bottom of William’s rowboat. I was wearing one of the nightgowns from my suitcase. I’d been put in a bath as soon as possible, and now, though a chill still moved through me, I was at least a little warm and clean.

I limped to the tiny washstand, where a glass of water and an old pitcher had been set out. I had barely taken two swallows down my ragged throat when the door opened. It was Julia Kates.

It was Julia who had drawn me a bath, Julia who had found my nightgown for me, Julia who had fetched the quilts. I smiled at her now.

“You’re awake,” she said, in her blunt way.

“I am. I’m feeling a little better now.”

“That’s good.” She hesitated at the door, as if unsure whether she should leave. “Do you want food?”

I hadn’t thought of it, but suddenly it sounded good. “I’d love some. Whatever you can find in the larder.”

“There’s lots. I can do a sandwich, or . . .” She hesitated again.

“Julia.” I set down the glass. “Were you in the woods?”

She looked away. “Yes.” Her face reddened in distress. “I heard voices. When I heard William . . . I didn’t know what to do. I hid in the trees, and I ran. I was almost all the way down the path when I heard you scream.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, and I realized she was deeply ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“I should have
done
something. I ran like a coward.”

I took a step toward her. “Julia, there was nothing you could have done. Besides, when you came out of the woods you found Inspector Merriken, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to,” she argued. “I was running home because I thought I’d tell Mother, and he was banging on the door of Barrow House, calling your name.”

“So you told him what you’d seen and what you’d heard.”

“Yes, I had to, didn’t I?”

“Then you saved my life,” I said gently, “and I thank you for it.”

She shook her head, unappeased. “Mother says there was always something strange about William Moorcock. She says she always knew he’d turn bad someday.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure she does.”

She glanced shyly at me, then away again. “I’ll get a sandwich.”

I heard her steps clatter halfway down the stairs, then stop.

“Is she awake?” came another voice.

“Yes. I’m getting food.”

“Leave it outside the door.”

I stood frozen as that voice rang through me. My nightgown suddenly seemed entirely too small.

He came into the room, closed the door behind him, and waited for me. I turned and looked at him.

He’d changed into clean, pressed trousers and white shirtsleeves, though he wore no jacket or waistcoat. He leaned on the door with one arm, his shoulders impossibly broad, his beautiful face regarding me with an intent expression that contained, I noticed, just a touch of improbable humor.

“I liked the trousers and sweater better,” I said. “You should wear those more often.”

“I,” he said simply, “like that gown.”

Blushing, I realized, was a good way to get heat back into one’s body.

“Why did you come back?” I tried to change the subject. “You were planning to stay away until tonight.”

“I read this.” He pulled Toby’s letter from his pocket and held it up. “I came back to talk to you. Jillian—what you must have been going through. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shook my head. I had a lump in my throat. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to feel.”

He handed the letter back to me. When he brushed his thumb across my cheek, his touch was gentle. “And how do you feel now?”

“I’m still confused.” I bit my lip. “But I think . . . proud. Proud that they were my parents.”

His thumb skimmed my cheek again. “I knew something was wrong the minute I got back here,” he said gently. “This place was empty, and Moorcock’s dog was howling so loud you could hear it down the street. I would have searched until I found you.”

“But you didn’t have to, because Julia came along.”

“Yes.”

“You came back with Teddy?”

He shrugged. “We have one motorcar. Where I go, Teddy goes. Unfortunately. He knew I wasn’t giving him a choice. He’s been onto us from the first.”

Us.
My eyes stung with tears as a sweet, slicing pain twisted through me. I looked up at him, at the man I was so in love with, and I smiled.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “don’t cry.”

“I’m so happy to see you,” I whispered.

He leaned down and kissed me. I rose up on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close. There was so much passion between us—so much that was madly intoxicating and deeply bittersweet. I never wanted to let him go.

He broke the kiss and touched the bruise on my face where William had hit me, then ran his fingers gently over one of my ruined wrists. “I’m glad he’s dead,” he said hoarsely.

“Don’t be,” I said. “It was awful.”

“Are you ever going to tell me?”

“He should have died in the war. It was a soldier’s death.”

“I’m sorry I had to shoot him. I told you killing isn’t much of a talent.” His gaze searched my face. “What did he say to you?”

I thought of telling him all of William’s ravings, his prediction for another war, but I couldn’t bear to think of it, so I shook my head. “Nothing that made any sense. The fever had affected his mind. He was more ill than anyone thought.” I looked him in the eye. “It was all just the talk of a madman.”

“All right,” he said. “They want me back in London, but I can put them off for a few days. Just to make sure you’re all right.”

Tears stung my eyes again, and I took a breath. “No. You won’t.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

I raised my eyes to his as my stomach tied in knots.
Courage, Jillian.
“Drew, you need to go. You need to leave.”

“What are you talking about? Why?”

Because I’m in love with you. Because if you ask me to go to bed with you again, I’ll say yes. Because I can’t bear to look at you and know you’ll never be mine.

“Because I want . . . more,” I said. The tears were on my cheeks now, and I didn’t stop them. “I want a connection.”

Understanding dawned in his expression, and a strange, tired panic. “Jillian, we’ve had this conversation. You know how I am. You know why.”

“I do. And in a way I even understand it. But I want
more
, Drew. I can’t live half a life, watching and waiting for you. It isn’t . . . it isn’t just that I can’t. It’s that I shouldn’t. And I won’t.”

He touched my hair. “You deserve better.” His jaw was set, and his expression grew hard. “I won’t argue with that. You deserve better than me.”

I made a sound that was almost a sob. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

“Jillian, if you think this is going to change me—if you think this is going to change my mind . . .” He shook his head. “I went through a war. Even after they tell you it’s over, it doesn’t end just like that.”

“No. But you didn’t die, Drew. And neither did I. I don’t know how it would work, with you in London and me at school. But I know I want to try to find a way—and you don’t.”

He took a step back. He took a long look at me, but the shutters had closed on his expression, and his thoughts were buried, far from where anyone could see them. Without another word, he turned and left the room.

I waited until I heard his footsteps retreat. Then I made my way to the bed. I lay down, pulled my knees to my chest, and let my tears fall to the pillow.

T
he doctor suggested I rest for several weeks before going back to school, but in this I disobeyed. I prepared to store Toby’s things and return to Oxford. I was far enough behind in my studies as it was.

It took me two days before my motorcar was fully packed, my good-byes given to Rachel and Edward. Aubrey Thorne had been taken away by two police constables; Edward had witnessed it on his rounds and offered to describe it to me, though he knew I’d refuse him. I didn’t like to think of the church unattended, the greenhouse empty, the happy confidence gone from the vicar’s wife. I’d wanted no charges laid in the setting of the fire that had nearly killed me, but even in this Aubrey left me no choice, for he confessed to it, claiming he could not live with the guilt of having attempted murder as a man of God.

Drew and Teddy went to London to put the case together and make a report to their superiors. I wondered what the repercussions would be in the Home Office as to the loss of the Mercury codebook and the attempt of the Germans to seize it. The book had never been recovered from William’s rowboat, which had been lost out to sea.

I’d never know, of course; the government didn’t keep university students informed of such developments. Still, I wondered what conversations were even now taking place in the hushed halls of Parliament.

I took down the window cover in Toby’s old room and the one in my own as well. I took my courage in both hands and moved my bed back to its former spot under the window. I slept like a child both nights and heard not a single sound. Rothewell was as quiet as any other English town. I wondered, though, whether the ghostly man still whistled for his dog.

Mrs. Kates was unhappy about the torn shingles, the damaged fence, and the overturned bush, but as I’d nearly been killed, even she couldn’t bring herself to say much about them. She compressed her lips and made a few comments, none of them about ghosts. I let her fume; it didn’t seem that she’d have this problem again.

She did cheer up just as she left me the last time, when she spotted something in the middle of the kitchen table and picked it up. “My key!” she exclaimed. “This is the one I lost weeks ago. Where did you find it?”

“I didn’t,” I said. The key had appeared in the same spot as the pocket watch had.

“Well, you must have found it somewhere—it’s right here!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps I did, and I’ve forgotten.”

“How foolish of you,” she said in that way that somehow never seemed an insult. “You’re just as bad as Julia right now. She’s as absentminded as can be, and her chores are suffering awfully. I swear, I don’t know what to do with that girl.”

“If I may suggest,” I said, “you should send her to school.”

“School! My goodness—she’ll never marry there. Only old maids come out of school. Present company excluded, I’m sure. No, Julia needs to stay home. I saw her looking at that Scotland Yard inspector, the blond one—and I didn’t like that look at all. The last thing Julia needs is an awful fellow like that. At least we’re proper here. I’ll just tell her what’s what, that’s all.”

Don’t listen, Julia
, I thought.
Don’t.

There was no inquest into William Moorcock’s death, as two Scotland Yard inspectors had seen him drown. The coroner declared that no one could be certain any shot had in fact hit William, and thus the entire affair was put to rest. His body was never found; I heard much later that Annie erected a gravestone for him in the Rothewell churchyard, alongside the graves of their parents. The headstone for their lost younger brother, Raymond, lay a few yards away on the plot Rachel had bought for him. And so Annie had only two empty graves where her brothers should have been.

I saw Raymond’s headstone on my own visit to the Rothewell churchyard. I passed it as I walked the tidy rows of graves on a cold, sunny afternoon with the wind coming salty off the sea. I didn’t look up at the church that now had no vicar, or over at the burned ruins of the old vicarage. I looked only at the graves, reading them one by one until I found the one I sought.

Elizabeth Price

Beloved wife and mother

1885–1908

And next to it, a small square with no markings, indicating the baby who had died with her.

I knelt and traced the letters with my fingertips. What would have happened if my mother had chosen differently? What if she had married Toby, and kept me? Would she be alive? Would Toby? Would we have been happy? Would I have turned out the same way I was now? Or worse? Or better?

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her softly, still touching the stone. “You chose. You thought it was best, and you chose.” I laid my palm flat, warming the stone. “Thank you.”

There was no sound as I left but that of the wind rushing through the grass. A restful, somnolent sound. I left the churchyard sleeping behind me.

Eventually I did make it back to Somerville. The incident had only briefly made the newspapers, and my name had never been mentioned, so I simply told the concerned girls in my boardinghouse that I’d foolishly gone boating and gotten myself in an accident. That explained the bruise on my face and the colorful injuries on my legs and knees. As for my wrists, which still pained me, the weather was cold, so I wore long sleeves, even to bed. I looked at them only when alone in the bath, where I stared at the ugly red welts, so slow to heal, and flexed my fingers over and over. When I thought too much of how it had felt to be tied to the oarlock in the heaving water, waiting for my death, I drained the bath and got out again.

I put Toby’s belongings in rented storage, including the ghost-hunting equipment. I had become very fond of the equipment, even the galvanoscope, and I couldn’t bear to part with it. They had been Toby’s possessions—his cherished, beautiful possessions—and now they were mine. I kept his pocket watch in the drawer next to my bed, and carried it with me sometimes. The book, too—
A History of Incurable Visitations
—I kept with me, with Toby’s letter and the two photographs tucked in the back, one of Toby and Elizabeth, and the photograph of Elizabeth alone. Sometimes, at night when the other girls were asleep, I read the book’s strange pages by lamplight.

I brought Sultana back to Oxford with me, unwilling even to consider life without her. Caroline, my flatmate, took to her instantly and became Sultana’s most adoring fan, a fact that the cat took in her stride. Our landlady was upset at first, and threatened to turn me out, but the combined campaign of both Caroline and myself, as well as the natural and obvious perfection of Sultana, eventually won her over. Sultana was soon the pet of the entire house, though it was only my bed she slept on at night, and only I was ever allowed to brush her tail.

Some weeks after my return to university, I wrote Charles and Nora a letter. I told them what had happened, though briefly, leaving much out, and under the strict caveat that I was in fact completely fine, and they were not to worry. I told them that I did, in some ways, understand the choices they’d made, and that they had acted with the best intentions. I told them I loved them and that someday I would very likely forgive them, but I needed time. I asked them not to visit for a little while and said that I wouldn’t be coming home to visit them. But they could write me if they wanted, and I’d always read their letters and reply.

I got at least one letter every day after that. Many were in Nora’s dramatic scrawl, but some were from Charles, short little missives in which he described the weather over and over, as if unable to bring himself to speak of anything else. My landlady remarked on the frequency of the letters I was getting; I merely thanked her, took my daily missive, and, once I read it, added each to the stack in my drawer. It wasn’t a reconciliation, but it was something.

After I had written Charles and Nora, I wrote Mrs. Trowbridge in Rothewell. I told her that, as she might possibly have guessed, I was Elizabeth Price’s daughter. I told her that I was not quite ready to hear everything about my mother yet, but that I would be soon—and when I was ready, would she share her memories with me? She wrote me back kindly, offering to come to Oxford anytime I wished.
What a lovely girl you turned out to be,
she said.
Elizabeth would be so happy if she knew.

Rachel Moorcock wrote me, too. Her father had died peacefully in his sleep. Edward Bruton had helped her, she said, after it finally happened. He’d visited her frequently to make sure she was all right, and he’d assisted with the arrangements. He had also taken in Poseidon, as Annie hadn’t wanted the dog, and was spoiling him rotten. Poseidon now came on Edward’s daily rounds with him, running alongside the donkey, bounding into the bushes after rabbits, and wagging his tail.

In a shy postscript, Rachel wrote me that Edward had proposed, and she had told him she’d consider it.
Take him,
I wrote her back.
Let someone care for you for once. Let yourself be happy.

Mr. Reed wrote, wishing me a healthy recovery and giving me the details of the very small sum of money Toby had left me.

I received exactly one hurriedly written missive from Julia Kates, saying she’d applied to a course in shorthand and typing in London, and if accepted she was going to run away—but I mustn’t tell her mother, and if she was all alone in London, might I write? I mailed her five pounds and told her to buy the train ticket, and of course I would write.

I received no letters from Drew Merriken.

I told myself it was only to be expected. He had made himself clear. As I lay in bed at night, alone but for Sultana, I sometimes tormented myself with doubt. I should have accepted anything he offered. I should have simply said yes.

But when daylight came again and I looked at the spires of the university that still filled me with awe, when I read the letters from everyone who cared about me and I wrote them back, I knew I had made the only choice I could. There were people who could live a life of no attachments. I wasn’t one of them.

I read and studied, sometimes in the library in the early dark, sometimes in the study room at the boardinghouse, wrapped in my men’s sweater with a cup of tea by my side. I worked day and night to catch up on the time I’d missed. I went to lectures and tutorials. I spent laughing evenings with Caroline and the other students, indulging ourselves in smuggled sweets, or listening to the landlady’s wireless radio. At night, I never dreamed of ghosts.

•   •   •

It was December, and the day had turned gray and very cold, the smell in the air promising snow. I had just been out shopping; I’d picked up tea to keep in my room, and yet another pair of stockings to replace all the pairs I’d ruined, and a pretty scarf I thought Nora might like for Christmas. I was just heading to the stairs with my parcels when my landlady stopped me.

“It’s starting to snow!” she exclaimed. “I just saw some of those big flakes come down—you know, the really pretty ones. Here’s your mail, dear.”

I set down my parcels and took the stack. My daily letter from Nora, and one from Charles as well. One in Rachel Moorcock’s handwriting—I hoped she was telling me she’d accepted Edward. And one in handwriting only vaguely familiar.

“This has no postmark,” I said.

She peered over my shoulder. “So it doesn’t. That’s awfully strange. It was in the stack the postman handed me; that’s for certain.”

“But it wasn’t mailed.”

“It must have been, if the postman handed it to me, mustn’t it?”

I stared at the letter again. The writing was a man’s. I tore it open.

Jillian—

You shop beautifully. Women with legs like yours must never become Oxford dons.

Are you wondering how you got this letter? I’m not going to tell you. I think I’ll leave you wondering.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a fool. I haven’t done much since I left you except wish I were wherever you are. It’s terrible to realize that you love someone after you’ve been as big an idiot as I have—to realize there just isn’t much else in life that really matters. The only thing I can do is ask whether you’ll see me, just this once. Then you can tell me anything you like, and at least I can look at you as you say it.

I was going to write properly, but I’ve done one better. I’m currently standing somewhere behind the back garden of your boardinghouse in a well-hidden spot, and though it’s a prediction at this point in time, I believe I’m freezing.

Rid yourself of your well-intentioned landlady and hurry. You needn’t bring anything. I require only your beautiful self.

Did that sound like courting? It was.

One chance, Jillian. Will you give it?

D.M.

“Jillian,” said my landlady after a long moment, “are you quite all right?”

“I’m—” I tried to breathe. “I’m going for a walk.”

“But you just got back!”

“Yes, I did.”

“But your parcels!”

“I’ll bring them up later.”

“Your handbag!”

I stared at her stupidly until I realized I’d dropped it, unheeded, as I’d read the letter. It sat at my feet. If I were really going for a walk, I would bring it.

I smiled at her as joy bubbled up inside me. “I’ll be back for it later.”

“In this weather! Are you sure?” she called after me, but I was already gone, running down the walk as the large flakes of snow began to fall.