Pegasus: A Novel (33 page)

And the following night they heard them. Hundreds of planes flying over Britain toward
Germany. She, Isabel, and Charles saw them, and they didn’t know how many there were,
but the night sky was full of them, flying relentlessly toward their target, and she
knew instantly that Edmund was with them. She stood smiling at the sky, and whispered
that she loved him. They didn’t know until later that there were a thousand bombers
and they were heading for Cologne.

“No wonder he couldn’t come home,” Isabel said as they went back into the house. They
had heard the massive formation coming, and had gone outside to look. “There must
be hundreds of planes there, even a thousand.” Charles thought that an exaggeration,
but as it turned out, it wasn’t. There were planes in the sky for as far as the eye
could see, and you could still hear them after they had vanished from sight. It was
the same droning sound that filled them with dread at night, when the Germans flew
in to bomb their cities. It was familiar to all now. Marianne could only guess that
the German civilian population were as distressed as they were. Their cities were
in ruins, and England had taken heavy hits—there was rubble
everywhere in the streets of London, although Marianne hadn’t been there to see it,
since she arrived. Isabel wouldn’t let her, nor Edmund once they were married. Marianne
was enjoying country life, where they were safer than in London.

They shared a peaceful dinner in the dining room that night, while Marianne reported
on signs from the baby, and whether or not it might arrive. It distracted all of them
from thinking too much about Edmund. Marianne told herself that this was just another
mission, no different from the others, and he would be home soon. Either tomorrow
or the next day, he hadn’t been sure, and he promised to call as soon as he could.
And late that night, they heard the planes come back. It was too many to be the Germans
and sounded like the same battalion that had left. Marianne lay in bed with a sense
of relief, feeling the usual contractions she had had for weeks. He was almost home.
And she was beginning to think that their baby would be home soon too. The contractions
were stronger than usual that night, but by morning, nothing major had happened, and
she waddled down to breakfast, still pregnant and looking tired.

“Sleep well, darling?” her mother-in-law asked her, with a kiss, as she helped herself
to a piece of toast, and an egg from one of their hens. They hadn’t seen bacon in
a year. Those days were over for the duration of the war. But eggs were plentiful
in their henhouses, and chickens on their table. It was the only meat they got. Isabel
noticed that Marianne looked tired, but she wasn’t surprised. The baby wouldn’t be
long now, she could tell. “I heard the boys come home last night.”

“So did I.” Marianne had been greatly reassured to hear them return. She wanted Edmund
to come soon. He hadn’t called yet, but she assumed he was either sleeping after the
mission, or trying to get permission for his leave before he called to tell her when
he’d be
home. And Isabel took her out to the garden with her again after breakfast, telling
her they had work to do.

“My roses are a mess!” she complained, as Marianne went outside and put on her gardening
boots with bare feet.

They were still busy and Charles was reading the newspaper in his study when William
the butler came to tell him that there was a gentleman to see him. He was a general
of the army who lived in the area, and he and Charles were old friends. Charles looked
instantly pleased.

“Show him in.” He was glad to have some male companionship. Isabel’s constant clucking
about the baby had begun to wear thin. It was all she could think of. And he stood
up as his friend the general walked into the study, and held out a hand in greeting.

“Bernard, dear man. What a pleasure to see you! We’re expecting a grandchild at any
moment, and it’s all the women can talk about. It’s driving me mad. How good to see
you!” His old friend smiled at what he said, but he looked serious as he took a seat
across from Charles’s desk. He got right to the point. He didn’t want to mislead him,
or waste time in idle conversation. His eyes locked into Charles’s, who felt his heart
skip a beat.

“I have bad news for you, Charles,” he said simply. He had wanted to tell him first,
and preferably alone, in deference to their long friendship.

“One of the boys?” Charles said it in barely more than a whisper. It was all he could
get out. The general nodded.

“Edmund. Last night. He was shot down over Cologne. We sent more than eleven hundred
planes over. All but forty-three came back. Edmund didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”
He was desperately sorry for his friend. Charles fought for his composure, stood up
and walked around the room, distraught, as the general came to stand with him
and patted his shoulder. He had lost two sons himself since the beginning of the war.
It wasn’t unfamiliar to him, which was why he had come. Edmund’s squadron leader had
called him, knowing he was in the area and a friend of the young pilot’s father.

“Oh my God, what will I tell his mother?” Charles looked into his friend’s eyes with
panic and despair. This was what they had feared and hoped would never happen, like
every parent in England, and everywhere else. “And it’s his baby that’s due at any
moment, possibly even today.” The general knew just how hard it was. It was a terrible,
unthinkably agonizing moment in any parent’s life, no matter how it happened. At least
this was for a noble cause, they could tell themselves, and not some stupid accident
caused by a drunk behind the wheel of a car. Edmund had been defending England against
its enemies. But that was small consolation now.

“I wish there were something I could do,” the general said kindly, but he knew there
wasn’t. All he could do was deliver the news as compassionately as possible. Others
were notified by the War Office by a phone call, or by a bicycle messenger arriving
at the front gate with a telegram. The general had spared them that. Charles was grateful
for his kindness, and thought of poor Marianne. He felt so sorry for her now, as well
as himself. He couldn’t imagine how they would survive it, but he knew they would.
They had to. They had no other choice.

The general quietly took his leave then. William had an ugly premonition as he closed
the door behind him. Feeling shell-shocked, Charles walked out into the garden to
find the women. The sun was too bright and the birds were too loud, and his legs felt
like rubber under his body. He felt as though the world had come to an end. But he
couldn’t allow it to show until he told them.

“Did you have a visitor?” Isabel asked him, looking cheerful. “Who
was it?” She smiled up at him, but the moment she saw his eyes, she knew, and froze
to the spot. Their eyes met, and he nodded, as she dropped her gardening tools and
her hand went instinctively to her heart, as though she could stop it bleeding immediately,
but she couldn’t. She felt like she’d been shot. “Edmund?” she said instantly. Charles
nodded again and then took two strides and took her in his arms to console her, gathering
Marianne with one arm along the way. She didn’t know yet, she didn’t understand the
shorthand between them that happens after twenty-five years of marriage. Charles and
Isabel had needed few words. Marianne looked confused.

“What about Edmund?” Marianne looked panicked, suddenly sandwiched between her parents-in-law,
with her enormous belly. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe. “Is he all right?”
Her father-in-law looked at her as honestly as the general had at him.

“No, he isn’t,” he said simply. “His plane went down over Cologne last night, on the
mission we saw leaving. A thousand bombers. He didn’t come back.”

“Was he injured? Did they take him prisoner?” she asked frantically, not wanting to
accept what had happened.

“They shot him down. The plane crashed,” he said as gently as possible, so she would
accept it, but she couldn’t.

“Sometimes people survive that. How do they know what happened?” He didn’t want to
tell her what the general had told him before he left, that the plane had exploded,
and it had been quick. There were no survivors.

“They know,” he said quietly with an arm around her shoulders, holding her close to
give her what little comfort he could, as Isabel clung to him with a glazed look and
said nothing. She was worried about Marianne too. It gave them someone to comfort,
other than
themselves. She had lost a husband and the father of her unborn child.

“He promised me he’d never die,” Marianne said angrily, shouting at them. “He said
he’d always come back!” She choked on a sob, and then collapsed into her parents-in-law’s
arms, crying hysterically, as Isabel gently led her into the house, to lie down. “He
said … he promised … it’s not true … they’re lying … he’s coming home today.…” She
tried everything, but nothing would change what had happened. No amount of denying
or begging, no fury and no pain. All she wanted now was him.

Isabel soothed her with cooing sounds as tears ran down her own cheeks. She made Marianne
lie down, and gave her water to drink. Charles came in and out of the room like a
ghost, not knowing what to do for her either, as the three of them cried. Simon called
later that morning, and he was crying too. They had just told him. He’d had an ear
infection and couldn’t leave on the same mission, although he’d been scheduled to.
And Isabel thanked God he hadn’t gone. If she’d lost them both, it would have killed
her, and Charles, who was as distraught as his wife, and had no words to express what
he was feeling. They were all in agony and Marianne sobbed all day, unable to believe
what had happened. She finally fell into a light sleep, and Isabel left the room to
find her husband. He was sitting in his study looking ravaged, and he looked up when
she came into the room.

“I’m so sorry,” he said to the mother of his firstborn and burst into tears again.
And she came to hold him in her arms as she cried too.

“He was such a good boy,” she said miserably, and he nodded. “But so is Simon,” she
said loyally. “We’re lucky to have him,” she reminded Charles, although she’d been
closer to Edmund in recent
years. He was a more expressive person. “What are we going to do for that poor girl?”
she said, as they sat together and she blew her nose on the handkerchief he handed
her. He always had one in his pocket.

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said honestly. “Take care of her and the child. She’ll
stay here with us, of course,” he said, echoing his wife’s thoughts. “She can’t go
home to Germany now anyway. God, I hate those bastards,” he said with feeling, forgetting
that his daughter-in-law was German, as was her father, whom he loved dearly. But
they were exceptions. He had raw hatred now for a country and all its people, and
the man who had started a war on their behalf and killed so many others, and his own,
in the process.

“I hope she doesn’t go home after the war,” Isabel said sadly. “At least we’ll have
his baby. Maybe it will be a little boy who looks just like him.” She was clutching
at straws for comfort.

They had to plan a memorial service, and Simon had said he would come home for it.
But she couldn’t think of that now with the baby about to arrive any minute. It seemed
too cruel to schedule it now, with Marianne still expecting his child. It would be
too much for her to endure. Isabel could hardly think straight, as she went back upstairs
to Marianne’s room, and saw that she was still sleeping. She went to her own room
then, and lay down, and fell asleep. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, none of them
had, and a little while later she heard Charles come upstairs and felt him lie down
next to her. He took her hand in his own, and they lay there, holding hands and saying
nothing. There was nothing left to do or say, except be there together.

The next morning Marianne didn’t come down to breakfast. She was usually up early,
and at ten o’clock Isabel went upstairs to check on her. She knocked on the door and
got no answer, and found her
in her bathroom, on her knees on the floor, retching into the toilet, and the eyes
she raised to her mother-in-law’s looked dead. She felt as though she had died herself
the day before. And suddenly Isabel was grateful she hadn’t given birth the day she
heard the news. It would have been too cruel to have the anniversary of his death
every year on the birthday of their child. But at least she had his baby. Isabel was
wearing somber black, and had instructed William the butler to put a black wreath
on the door, and Charles told him to fly their flag at half-mast. By nightfall all
of their neighbors knew, and handwritten sympathy notes had begun to drift in. Everyone
felt sorry for them, and there were too many other families like them now. At least
her son had died a hero’s death. She tried to tell herself it mattered, but it really
didn’t. Her baby was dead. But Marianne’s was still alive, and she forced herself
to concentrate, and put a damp cool cloth on the girl’s head as she vomited miserably.
She was pale gray, verging on green. The day before had been too much.

“How’s the baby?” Isabel asked her quietly. Marianne had never looked worse.

“Not moving,” Marianne said, and looked as though she didn’t care.

“Any contractions?” Marianne shrugged.

“Not really. My back hurts and I feel sick.” And as she said it, she threw up again.
Isabel flushed the toilet, pulled her hair back, and washed her face with cool water,
as Marianne lay down on the bathroom floor, too sick to move or go back to bed. All
she wanted now was to die. He had lied to her, and didn’t come back this time, after
he’d promised. It was a promise he couldn’t keep, and she hated him for it.

“Let’s get you back into bed,” Isabel said, and helped her get up off the floor, but
as soon as she did, Marianne doubled over, and a
flood of water came from nowhere and covered the bathroom floor. Isabel knew instantly
what it was, and Marianne looked panicked.