Chapter 31
Memories are a poison, and new, fresh decisions are the only antidote. Everything in William’s body revolted when Florence the artist suggested speaking with her fiancé. He’d rather gut fish for the rest of his wretched life.
But the notion hasn’t left him alone. Especially when she’d admitted to hearing her fiancé, Lieutenant Carmichael, speaking of the Newlyn artist colony and Rupert Covington years ago.
He cannot stay away. It’s all because of that memory book of Merryn’s.
He’s finished it now. He stares at the final lines of that book, disappointed there isn’t more, but he needs the ending desperately.
He read that last entry before the others, but now, reading it at the end of her story, it nearly strangles him with all it does not say.
Honeysuckle.
They lined a window box in a flat in the city, where I was both happy and miserable.
I hear dishes rattling in the sink. A man whistling as he comes closer, his stubble against the back of my shoulder…
She reclaimed more memories, he is certain. But what did she learn? What did she decide? There are too many broken love stories in the world, but perhaps there’s one he can mend. There’s time yet for Florence and her soldier, and maybe even to save Helen’s home.
What niggles at him is the hope that perhaps a broken man can—and is actually best suited to—bring about healing in someone else.
Which is why he finds himself standing before St. Lawrence’s, the county asylum, with Persephone on his shoulder.
“Lieutenant Sam Carmichael, please,” he says at the front desk, and almost immediately regrets coming.
Why are his legs trembling? He’s not the one held here.
Yet working toward good—healing love, inching closer to Merryn—is irresistible.
After a brief wait, an orderly waves him deeper into the corridor of lost souls, through the echoing halls and out into a courtyard that seems to be a collection of scattered islands.
Men are seated, standing, walking, while nurses sweep around them like tides around lone rocks.
There are sparse rose bushes and a fountain in the middle, and the lawn is dotted with patients.
“Over there under the sycamore tree. That’s him.”
Straight back, blond hair neatly combed, wearing the crisp uniform of a lieutenant of the British Royal Army.
A fine man, worthy of Florence’s affection.
William runs a hand over the wiry hair growing on his neck, the mass of tangled beard hanging off his chin.
Mayhap he won’t do this lad any good at all—he is undoubtedly in a better position to pull William out of his pit than the other way around.
But William crosses the lawn anyway, striding around the bench to face Lieutenant Samuel Carmichael.
The man is immaculate. Oiled mustache, pressed uniform, hat angled just so. William nods. “Good day.”
The man jerks as if a shot’s been fired. “Prepared for action, Captain.” Metal clanks—his ankle, beneath the spotless uniform, is chained to the bench. “At the ready.” His ice-blue eyes flick wildly over the landscape.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” William says gently. Sometimes the broken wear their cracks a bit differently. “I’m Thatcher. Corporal Thatcher. Fifty-second regiment out of Tewkesbury.”
“A small regiment. Small but powerful.”
William winces. “Indeed.” He sits beside him on the bench. Those chains seem a bit overdramatic, especially clamped around such a bony leg. “I’d like to speak with you.”
“I’ve no use for speaking, Corporal.”
“You do wish to leave here, yes? To heal and be out in the real world. Perhaps I can—”
“This is the real world, sir. Prepared for duty, sir.” His salute bounces off his forehead.
His face has slight craters and pockmarks, a youthful narrowness, but otherwise it appears carved from rock. And all the soft, slippery, vulnerable parts of him are barely tucked behind that rock.
“The war has ended, Lieutenant, and the fighting is over.”
“The war never ends, Corporal. I shall not abandon my post. Prepared for action, sir!” His stare is firm…and half wild. Mad eyes, they’d call it. One that might lead to maniacal laughter just as easily as murder. He cannot even see William. Cannot see or grasp the world around him. It’s too much.
It’s heartbreaking.
William is staring into the face of his greatest fear. The cliff he’s teetered on the edge of all this time…but he hasn’t gone over. Yet. Kneeling on the path, William gets in the man’s face. “I know you’re in there, Samuel Carmichael. Be brave and come back out.”
A tic in his left cheek.
“It’s worth it, this world.” He surprises himself with this.
“Parts of it, at least.” He closes his eyes and feels the powerful rush of blue waves, the peace of Dunn Cottage, the rich history carved into this coast. He recalls, when he lets himself, the warmth of Helen’s hand moving up his arm, clutching his hand, dancing over his knee.
Such small things that used to belong to him—can belong to this man, with that artist, if he wishes it.
“I knew of another artist who leaned upon the woman he loved. She was his muse, and I believe she shaped him. He became a well-known artist about these parts, but he couldn’t have done it alone. You needn’t either.”
How he’d give anything to not be alone—to feel the weight of Helen in his lap on a warm summer afternoon in the garden, the tiny burden of his newborn son, the shock of pruny infant fingers curling around his. “You’ve no idea what might be around the corner, if you’re willing to look.”
The man’s lip quivers, or perhaps William imagines it.
“You’ve a grand future. I’ve met Florence. She’s really something, you know, and—”
He lunges, snarling and flailing, and William stumbles back, rolling out of reach.
“Stay away from Florence, you thieving rotter. You snake.” Like a dog on the chain, Lieutenant Sam Carmichael strains against the shackles.
He will bloody himself. His face is red.
An orderly rushes over. “Here’s a nice cuppa. Warm your insides, Lieutenant Carmichael,” she says.
She dodges as he strains against the chains, but William wonders what the man’d even do if he were free. He doesn’t want to escape the prison he’s built up around himself. He doesn’t have a Dunn Cottage—this is his sanctuary. His stiffness and anger are his shield.
The nurse clamps one hand behind his head and urges him to sip the tea.
He drinks and almost immediately his lids droop.
The fight dims. When he sags against the bench, the orderly turns to William.
“You’d best leave, sir. Visits upset him.
” Then she hurries off to attend the other patients, most of whom are dead fish propped in chairs.
Not this one. He still has fire in him. He hasn’t given up—he’s merely charging in the wrong direction. No, he hasn’t any idea which way to charge, only the primal sense that he must.
William kneels even closer, grabbing the man’s uniformed arm. “See here, Lieutenant. You’re better than this. You’ve marched out in battle, faced terrible things. This is merely a different battle. Surely you must want to leave here. To get back to the real world.”
His voice slurs. “This is the real world. Sir.”
“I mean, outside these gates. To be back with Florence. To paint with her again. She is your muse, not mine. I don’t wish to steal her from you—only to see you go free.”
“Free?” The word is a whisper. He blinks bleary eyes.
There’s no such thing as free anymore, is there? Not for any of them.
“What are they doing to help you heal, Carmichael? Are you doing what they ask of you? Making an effort?”
More shaking. “Stuff it. Shove it away, out of sight.” His voice is faint. Distant and almost childlike. “That’s what they say, but where do they expect me to put it?”
No one understands, unless he possesses such a beast, what it means to conceal an elephant.
A raging mad one. Dread clogs William’s throat.
“Rather impossible, isn’t it?” A delicate thread of shared experience vibrates between them.
He takes a breath and lets his hand fall. “Perhaps two can share the load, eh?”
This makes him look William in the eyes. “You’ve…”
Yes, he has his own elephant. “Perhaps you can help me. I’m not quite certain where to put mine, either.
” He shakes his head slowly. “Perhaps it’s all a crock, after all, this healing business.
” How is a man supposed to heal when his very soul has been shredded?
One cannot stitch such a thing back together.
A long, deep breath, and the shaking subsides.
“Perhaps. But I’ll not do anything more today.
” He yawns, his head lolling a bit. “Jolly good day to rest in the sun.” Samuel has reached his limit.
The delicate balance between sanity and utter madness has been upset.
It will take time to get a handle on it again.
“You’ll let me come back?”
He frowns.
“Think on it. You’re wrapped in your safe little cocoon here, but other people feel your absence.” William shifts under the throb of his own words. “Feel it keenly.” Cocoons are protective, but sometimes what protects also blinds.
“Why should I care?” Samuel’s eyes widen. His knuckles are white as he grips the bench arm. “She wouldn’t have me.”
William looks him in the eyes. “Give her the privilege of deciding that for herself.” The words slap William across the face as they tumble glibly out of his mouth. He stands, glancing at the gate. This was a terrible idea. There’s no pouring from a chipped jar.
“A man cannot love his muse,” he says, his words faint. “They are temperamental creatures. Faithless ones.” His gaze flicks accusingly over William, as if this validates his outburst toward him.
“Rupert Covington married his muse.”
A short laugh, then his head tilts to the side. “Not exactly.”
William’s fists tighten. “What do you mean?”
But Sam Carmichael still stares at the spot William had just stood, his look vacant. The brokenness has splintered his soul so that truth—that of his own life and that of others—is impossible to see clearly.
Certain memories chip away at a man’s confidence.
Sometimes his sanity. For what is a man but the millions of choices he’s made?
And what is his perception of himself but the past choices on which he decides to focus?
So it is that the past possesses the power to deeply skew one’s perception of the present.