Angels in the Gloom (24 page)

“Theo was the most original thinker. He would come up with something that seemed crazy at first, completely unrelated, then after a moment or two you could see that it was just sideways, not the way you’d been thinking. He could turn things inside out and show you a new sense to them.”

Joseph was surprised. “He talked about his work to you?” He tried not to sound incredulous.

“No, but I knew him pretty well. Or at least part of him,” she corrected herself and then paused in reflection. “You should have seen him play charades. It sounds ridiculous now. He used to invent the wildest clues, but once you caught on to what they were, they made perfect sense. He loved the Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs. And Edward Lear’s nonsense verses. He could recite Lewis Carroll’s ‘Hunting of the Snark,” from beginning to end. Carroll was a mathematician, too, or I suppose I should say Charles Dodgson was. Theo loved mathematics. He got excited about it, the way I would about really beautiful poetry.“ She stopped abruptly.

Joseph was aware with pain how very much she had loved him. Perhaps she was realizing it, too, in spite of all the effort to pretend otherwise. She was staring ahead of her, blinking hard, leaning forward a little as if the moonlight on the road dazzled her.

Of course she would never replace him, no matter what she said. He left an abyss that would remain unfilled. Would he leave such an emptiness for Corcoran, too, professionally? That was the fear that gnawed inside Joseph’s mind like an ache in the bone. Was it nothing to do with anybody’s love affair, loyalty, or betrayal, but a simple matter of an enemy somewhere in their midst? Was there someone, unsuspected, clever enough to have killed the one man capable of inventing a machine that would change the war? What was one woman’s widowhood compared with that? A small, terrible fraction of a whole that stretched on unimaginably.

He must think about it more. He knew the village and its people in a way Perth never would. He would not only hear the whispers but he would understand them. Passive goodwill was not enough.

They arrived back in St. Giles and as they drew up Joseph recognized Hallam Kerr’s Ford parked outside the house. The lights were on in the hall and sitting room in spite of the hour.

Joseph glanced at Lizzie. She was looking at him, understanding the sudden leap of anxiety in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said with more sincerity than his haste suggested. He did not even know what he was afraid of, but Kerr would not be here, or Hannah still up, unless there was something deeply wrong. He leaned over and opened the door with his good hand.

“Good night,” she answered as his feet crunched on the gravel.

Hannah and Kerr were in the sitting room and both whirled around where they stood, their faces white, eyes hollow and wide, as if they did not know how to blink.

“What is it?” Joseph demanded, his heart pounding, breath choking him. “What’s happened?” He was terrified it was Archie.

Hannah came to him quickly, and something in the very fact that she moved dispelled a little of his fear. “What’s happened?” he demanded again, his voice rising.

“Joseph, a ship went down today. Gwen Neave’s sons were on it—both of them. She’s lost everyone she has!”

Joseph touched Hannah’s arm with his good hand, and looked beyond her to Kerr. “Have you been to see her?” he asked with compassion.

“I can’t! For God’s sake, what can I say to her?” Kerr’s voice strangled in his throat. “Tell her there’s a God who’s in charge of this… this”—he swung his arm around in a gesture of despair—“parody of life?” He was out of control, teetering on the edge of hysteria. There was a desperation in his eyes as if he were seeking an escape he could not find.

Joseph turned to Hannah. “I know it’s late, but would you get a cup of tea, please.” He did not want the tea so much as an excuse for asking her to leave. He closed the door behind her when she did, then turned to Kerr.

“I can’t!” Kerr said again, his voice rising thin and sharp. “What use am I to her? Do you want me to go into her home, in her time of terrible grief, and offer her hollow platitudes?” Now he was angry, lashing out at Joseph. “What do you suggest I say, Captain? That they’ll all meet up again in the Resurrection? Have faith, God loves you, perhaps? Does he?” he accused. “Look me in the face, Captain Reavley, and tell me you believe in God!”

He waved his hands again. “If you can do that, then tell me what He’s like, where He is, and why the hell He allows this to happen. We’re all facing inconceivable loss, and the world’s gone mad! It’s the destruction of everything. It’s an insult to the reality of other people’s pain to mouth meaningless words at them. They need hope, and I haven’t any to give them.”

Joseph thought of the warmth and vitality of Shanley Corcoran, of his will to pick up the pieces of Theo Blaine’s job and work day and night to try to put it together, and complete it as he would have if he had lived. He would keep on through exhaustion, defeat, grief, even fear of failure, and perhaps uglier than that, fear of the same man who had killed Blaine coming after him, too. He never considered the possibility of stopping or giving up.

By contrast, here was sniveling Hallam Kerr.

“Then stop thinking about what you know or believe,” Joseph replied tersely, hearing the anger in his voice like a slap to the face. “Think about what you can say to help Gwen Neave. She’s a widow who has just learned that she’s also lost both her sons. She’s your job, not your fear or doubts. And she needs you now, tonight, not when you think you’re ready to go.”

Kerr’s face was gray, his eyes lifeless. “I can’t go,” he said flatly. “If I try telling her to have faith, lean on God, she’ll know I’m lying.” There was open rage in him now. “I don’t think there is a God, not one I can worship. He may have created the universe—I have no idea and I really don’t care. If He exists, He has no love for us, or else it’s all spun out of control, and He is as incapable of doing anything about it as we are. Perhaps he’s just as lost and frightened as the rest of us, don’t you think, Captain?”

He stared at Joseph as if seeing him clearly for the first time, his eyes wide and hectic. “You told me vividly what it’s like in the trenches—not some propaganda from newspapers and recruiting posters about heroes fighting to save us. That’s what I used to think, but you showed me it’s a lie. The truth is that it’s hunger and cold, filthy food, rats, and at the end of it a slow, hideous death. Perhaps there won’t even be enough of you left to bury.” He gasped in his breath. “Or worse than that, half of you alive, armless and legless, hearing the screaming going on even when you’re asleep, feeling the mud suck you down, and the rats’ feet run over your face.”

He was swaying a little, his skin was white. “You see I’ve been listening to some of the other wounded men in the hospital, as you told me to. Do you still think there’s a God in control of all this, then?” He started to laugh, a jerky, obscene sound on the edge of weeping. “Or did the devil win after all?”

Joseph studied the anguish in Kerr’s eyes, the fury and despair, the knowledge that he was falling into an abyss that had no bottom, and he was helpless to stop it.

“I’ve no idea,” Joseph replied bluntly. “But I know whose side I’m on. And it’s about time you made up your mind. War isn’t a new invention, nor is death, or doubt. Think of the centuries of admirable men and women before us. Do you suppose they had some certainty that stopped them doubting, or kept them from being terrified and thinking they were abandoned?”

“I… I…” Kerr shook his head in confusion.

“For God’s sake!” Joseph’s voice was growing louder. “They were just as lost as we are! The difference is that they didn’t give up! And it’s the only difference!”

Kerr kept on shaking his head and staggered backward, collapsing into the big chair by the fireplace, hands flapping. “I… can’t! I could recite all the things I’m supposed to say, but they’re just words. They mean nothing. I mean nothing, and she’ll know that. I’m a failure, but I refuse to be a hypocrite.”

“Who cares what you are?” Joseph shouted at him. “She’s the one who matters tonight, not you! Just be there!”

But Kerr bent over, his face in his hands, nothing in him moving.

“Then drive me there,” Joseph ordered him. “If that’s what you want, I’ll go.”

“I can’t face her,” Kerr was speaking through his clenched hands, knuckles white. “God didn’t create us, we created Him, out of our own terror of being alone. I can’t say that to her.”

“I just asked you to drive the damn car!” Joseph snarled.

The door opened behind him and Hannah came in. She had not bothered with the tea. “I’ll look after him,” she said quietly. “You’ll have to go and see Mrs. Neave, Joseph. She needs you every bit as much as you needed her when you were frightened and in pain.”

“How do I get there?” he said helplessly. His arm ached and his leg was pounding. He was so tired he was dizzy.

“I went after Lizzie Blaine. She’s waiting for you,” Hannah answered.

There was no excuse left, and he did not really want one. He would not sleep anyway. Perhaps being with Gwen Neave would be only marginally harder than staying and trying to pull Hallam Kerr out of the morass he had sunk into. Doubt was not a sin; intelligence demanded it now and again. He had just picked a damned selfish time to let it overtake him.

Lizzie Blaine was sitting in the car waiting for him, the engine running. He got in and thanked her. He was already half ashamed of himself for being so harsh with Kerr. He had seen shell shock in men in the trenches, and pitied it. Perhaps Kerr was suffering a kind of religious shell shock, spirituality stunned by too much challenge to a faith that had been slender at the best of times.

Lizzie did not speak. Perhaps she was too bitterly acquainted with grief to feel any need to make conversation. It was an odd, wordless companionship they shared driving through the lanes. The moon was now hidden by cloud, and the headlamps swept hedges and tree trunks as they careered around corners. Cottages were dark and beasts silent in the fields. Once an owl swooped low and large, gone again almost before its short body and huge wing span identified it.

They pulled up outside Gwen Neave’s house, along the road toward Cambridge. The blinds were drawn here, too, but there was light around the edges.

“I’ll come in and make tea, or something, if you like,” Lizzie offered. “Tidy up, whatever’s needed. I can stay the night with her, if she wants me to. You can’t do that.”

He smiled at her. Whatever madness had made Theo Blaine begin an affair with another woman? Who knew why anyone fell in love? Who knew why one person would betray another, or a belief, a nation?

“Thank you,” he accepted. “She might feel better if you do. We’ll… we’ll see.” It was time to move. There was no point whatever in putting it off. This was always a kind of hell. He undid the door with his good hand and eased himself out before Lizzie could come around and open it for him. He walked up to the front door and knocked.

It was several moments before it was opened, then Gwen Neave stood there like a ghost, a woman from whom life had departed. There was no recognition in her eyes.

“Joseph Reavley,” he said quietly. “Broken arm and shell injury in my leg. You looked after me in the hospital in Cambridge when I first came back from Ypres, about four weeks ago. You were there every time I woke up, always knowing what I needed. I wish I could do as much for you, but if you would like me to stay, to talk a little, or not, I’m here.”

“Oh… yes.” Her voice was hoarse, the words hard to form. “I remember you. A chaplain… weren’t you?” She stepped back a little.

“I still am,” he answered, following her in. “Mrs. Blaine drove me. Can she do anything to help… practical, perhaps? I’m afraid I’m still rather useless.”

She backed farther in toward the sitting room, but with a blank look as if she had not understood him. Lizzie followed, but went toward where she assumed the kitchen must be.

“Chaplain…” Gwen Neave responded. “I’m not sure that I want…” There was fear in her face, as if she thought he would start telling her something unbearable.

“It’s irrelevant,” he said. “Just to help you place me. You must have so many patients.”

“Military Cross.” She stared at him. “For bringing injured men back from no-man’s-land. I remember you.” She sat down, not so much in any kind of ease but simply because she was losing both her balance and her strength to remain standing.

What on earth could he say? This proud woman who had helped so many men in their extremity of physical distress, perhaps even death, did not want platitudes about suffering or resurrection. She must have heard it all. She might not even be a Christian, for all he knew. It would be a presumption of extraordinary insensitivity to start speaking as if she were. No words had helped him in the first shock of Eleanor’s death. There was only a vast, aching hole inside him where there had been light and love just a few hours before. What had he wanted to hear, to say? Nothing comforting, nothing prepared and necessarily impersonal. Other deaths had not mattered to him. Only Eleanor’s was real, eating into his heart. He wanted to talk about her, as if it kept her close and real a little longer.

“Tell me about your sons,” he asked her. “My brother-in-law is at sea, on a destroyer. For all the hardship and the danger, there’s a part of him that wouldn’t do anything else. The sea has a kind of magic for him.”

She blinked. “Eric was like that. He had a toy boat he sailed in the village pond when he was little. He had very fair hair, straight as stair rods. It flopped up and down on his head when he jumped with excitement. His father used to rig his boat for him and put it in the water, and when the wind caught it, it went right to the other side. Terrified the ducks.”