Chapter 23
We that have seen the strongest
Cry like a beaten child,
The sanest eyes unholy,
The cleanest hands defiled,
We that have known the heart-blood
Less than the lees of wine,
We that have seen men broken,
We know that man is divine.
—W. N. Hodgson
Back To Rest
Summer came, and with it, the official break from classes, so Rook invited Ashley on a trip to the countryside. She tried not to read anything into it. They were going to visit Captain Davies at his family estate just like any two former soldiers might be invited to do.
And yet, she was nervous—not just about seeing the Old Man after so many years, but about the hours alone with Rook aboard a northbound train, with only each other for company and not much besides conversation to pass the time.
She fretted more than usual over what she ought to wear.
Dining at a fine estate called for her finest dresses.
But long tramps through flowery fields meant something else entirely—like the heavy brown skirt and cozy old cardigan she often wore to school.
Her mother may bemoan the state of them, but needs must, and she decided in the end to pack them both.
“That isn’t what you plan to wear sea bathing, is it?” her mum asked, having wandered in with a packed lunch for the train.
Ash had told her and Frau Wintter she was taking a short holiday at the seaside, though from the look on her mother’s face, the lie had not passed muster.
“Course not,” Ash assured her. “I haven’t got anything appropriate for swimming. Perhaps I’ll buy something there.”
“Well you can’t mean to wear that old thing on the train.”
“No, it’s for rambling.”
“On the shore?”
“I don’t know, Mum. I’ve never been to… Brighton.”
“Are you going with friends?”
“I don’t have friends,” she answered automatically, because until recently it had been rather true. She’d lost them all after the war, and besides, she knew her mother meant female friends.
“Perhaps you should make some. The seaside must be crawling with Bright Young Things this time of year.”
Ash laughed. “I’m hardly a candidate for that sobriquet,” she said, glancing self-consciously towards the mirror at her short, greying hair and too-thin cheeks.
“Pah. If you’re not young, what does that make me, hey?”
“As beautiful as ever,” Ash replied, snapping her suitcase shut and kissing her mother’s cheek.
“Be careful, Charley. Come back to me in one piece.”
The innocuous-sounding words hung in the air heavy with meaning. The last time Ash had gone away, she’d returned whole, but still in pieces.
She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I’ll be back in a week.”
Her things were packed and ready much too early to leave for the station.
In a fit of impulse, and to keep from pacing, she dug out an old shaving box from the depths of her wardrobe, a gift from the Red Cross in 1917.
With no need to shave, Ash had traded away the razor and horsehair brush, but kept the box.
Inside were a handful of treasures—artifacts from her time in France: the irreverent note Blake had found in the German bunker, the picture postcard of pre-war Albert, her own identity discs.
She chuckled and her cheeks warmed when she found a single prophylactic, pressed into her hand by the quartermaster when she went on leave.
Once prepared, twice rewarded, he had told her.
She’d never had any use for it, and she wouldn’t now—of course she wouldn’t—but she tucked the little sachet deep into her luggage just in case.
“Once prepared, twice rewarded,” she whispered with a tiny smile.
To ease her nerves, she had made a brief list of conversation topics.
Shakespeare was generally safe. She’d been thinking of trying A Comedy of Errors with the children when classes resumed.
She could also ask his opinion of the journalist who had reached out to interview her because of her article in Picture Post. And Susan. She could tell him about Susan.
When she’d gone to check on the classroom garden that morning, the girl had been there, watering and weeding as though she hadn’t just graduated at the ripe old age of fourteen.
“I didn’t want them to die while the kids were on holidays, Miss,” she’d explained. “And you shouldn’t have to do all the work.”
“Can you keep an eye on it for the next week?” Ashley had asked her. “I’ve a holiday of my own, turns out.”
“Of course, Miss! Are you going to the seaside?”
“No, I’m headed north to the Midlands to visit someone I used to know.”
“Farm country, isn’t it?” Susan asked brightly.
“Wheat and barley, I believe. And probably sheep.”
“Maybe I’ll get to visit the Midlands someday soon. I’m joining the Women’s Land Army.”
“Are you?” Ashley asked, her heart giving a tiny squeeze.
Susan shrugged. “I’ve really loved working in our little garden. And it seems like an important job once the war comes. I mean, not as important as fighting, but…”
“It’ll be one of the most important jobs,” Ash assured her.
She hated hearing the girl say once the war comes and not if, but obviously the government thought the same since they were reviving the Land Army.
Stepping into the classroom, she found a less-worn copy of The Life of the Fields buried in her bookshelf and offered it to Susan as a gift. “Take this with you when you go. I know we studied a few of the chapters, but it’s a beautiful text, and I’ve treasured it a long, long time.”
“Thank you, Miss,” Susan breathed before throwing her arms around Ash in a fond goodbye.
“Write and let me know how you’re getting on. And above all, enjoy the adventure!”
“Every day—and twice on Sundays,” Susan had laughed.
Since Rook was the one who’d gifted Ash her first copy of the Richard Jeffries book, which he’d inherited from another soldier at the Front, she thought he might appreciate hearing the story of how the The Life of the Fields legacy lived on.
The northbound train left from Euston Station, so Ash and Rook had agreed to meet there rather than him collecting her at home.
She didn’t know why exactly she was lying to her mother about where she was going.
She told herself it was so the older women wouldn’t get the wrong idea about Rook’s intentions.
Not that he had any.
Nothing was going to happen—of course it wouldn’t.
Nor did she want it to.
Did she?
She wasn’t sure.
Could his preferences have changed so dramatically in the last twenty years? And was it worth the risk to find out, when she finally had her dearest friend back in her life? That, all on its own, was some kind of miracle—so much more than she’d ever dared imagine.
No. The answer was unabashedly, emphatically no.
Nothing was worth risking the easy companionship, not even the slim possibility of more.
Not after knowing twenty years of the colorless void that was life without Alex Rook in it.
Her mother’s suspicions would only complicate matters and weaken her resolve, so she kept her plans a secret, just between her and him and the captain she hadn’t seen since the 1910s.
Upon entering Euston Station, Ash was battered by memories of her younger self in a similar railway station all those years before. In a sea of a million strangers, on the precipice of a whole new life, she had made a brave decision to do the next right thing and follow through.
Now the same fear and excitement which had spurred her on back then froze her in place, as the masses of people coming and going swarmed past like busy bees. How would she ever find Rook amid all this chaos?
She needn’t have worried.
Rook was drawn to her, same as always, eyes dancing brightly like he almost couldn’t believe she’d really come.
He reached out as though by reflex, planning to take her luggage, then realized the awkward proposition considering he already held his own suitcase and cane.
“Lead the way,” Ash suggested, placing her hand on his back so he could navigate her through the close-clung crowd.
They purchased two tickets and found an empty car near the back of the train, and soon they were trundling towards a new adventure.
“Have you seen Captain Davies since the war?” she asked him after exhausting the other topics on her list. (He was in favor of A Comedy of Errors and delighted that a new generation might cherish The Life of the Fields.)
He nodded silently, a long, slow nod as though he began and then got lost somewhere inside. When he finally spoke, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at the ceiling as though holding back unexpected emotion.
“When I returned to England, I was sent to recover on a neighboring estate. It was… a difficult time. Very difficult.”
Ash rubbed his arm gently. She didn’t want him to remember if it was too painful.
“He came to see me—never did say how he knew I was there—and I was in a bad way. Bad enough I reckon it scared him. He hadn’t fully recovered from his own wounds yet, but he had me transferred to Collingwood Park.
Had his housekeeper pouring soup down my throat three times a day.
I suppose the estate wasn’t even his yet, way back then. ”
“I’m glad he took you in,” Ash said, aching at the thought of it all.
“Took me in and kept me.” Rook nodded. “More than that, he helped me remember how to be me, when I only felt about a quarter whole.”
“I wish I’d known.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted you to know. To see me like that? I didn’t want him to, but he’s a stubborn soul, and we had wounds enough between us.”
Ashley smiled, remembering their young captain as he was, barely older than either of them, though they called him the Old Man.
“I was sure life as I knew it was over. Whoever heard of a one-legged organist? But he insisted I play his piano for hours and hours on end. Worse drill master than he’d ever been in France, I can tell you, but it reminded me just how healing music can be.
Instinctively, I began to use my left foot on all the pedals, and it gave me hope, as no amount of platitudes ever could have.
He helped me get through the next surgery, helped me get the prosthetic.
Kept me from falling on my face as I learnt to walk again. ”
She was relieved to hear Rook hadn’t been friendless and alone throughout the ordeal. What she would have given to have been there for him too.
“He sheltered me from the world for as long as I needed, and then when he knew I was ready, he dragged me back to town and put me in touch with Cooper and Blake. Helped me get my place back at the University of London. They didn’t want to take me because of the leg.”
He shook his head, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
“I don’t know what the Old Man threatened them with, but in the end, they relented, so there was nothing for it but to learn it all again with just my left foot as I had the piano. At least it was my left,” he laughed. “I can reach the low notes.”
“You did your music course at the University of London?” Ashley rasped, her lip trembling.
Rook nodded, frowning, obviously concerned what he’d said wrong.
“After nursing—after Runnymede”—After you, she didn’t say—“I could hardly get out of bed.”
“The morbs, Davies called it.”
She nodded. “I was using my own name again, and my brother his. He could’ve gone to university off my service, but he couldn’t bear to stay.”
“The white feathers.”
“The feathers. And me. Somehow he transferred the scholarship to my name. I read literature, poetry, whatever I could do to keep my mind occupied. I never imagined… We might’ve crossed paths, if only fate had intervened.
” She frowned so hard it ached but was unable to relax her brow.
“Once, in the library, I stumbled across a picture of you—little you—precious, tiny you. A Temple chorister singing with the university choir.”
Rook’s eyes widened.
“That’s why I was drawn to Temple Church on the Night of the Long Knives.
I wanted to feel closer to you.” A shiver ran through her whole body.
“Were you there at the university’s one hundredth anniversary service?
Only I thought I saw a ghost singing in the choir. But it wasn’t a ghost at all, was it?”
“It wasn’t.”
“It was you.”
“It was me.”
She screwed up her face, blinking rapidly, determined to keep her tears at bay. “So many chances missed,” she spit.
“So many misses, leading up to the one that didn’t,” he amended, absolutely refusing to be anything but grateful for their reunion.
And Ash was grateful too, truly, but she could also be two things at once: angry at herself for not searching him out, angry at the time it had taken, angry at the fear and grief and yearning.
She took a deep, ragged breath. “Captain Davies,” she said, clearing her throat and steering the conversation back to safer waters. “Does he know? About me?”
A cheeky smile spread across Rook’s handsome face. “He knows you’re coming.”
“But he doesn’t know,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“No. I’m sorry, but I’m far too eager to watch him work it out all on his own.”
Her stomach tightened with nerves, but she supposed it wasn’t Rook’s job to unravel her old web. “Well if he dies of shock, on your head be it.”
“No one’s going to die today,” he promised, putting an arm around her shoulders, inviting her to rest her head on his.
“What if he’s angry?” she asked.
“He won’t be angry. He’ll think it’s a lark. Remember how he let us celebrate Christmas just because he knew we needed to?”
“That’s not the same at all.”
“You were always his favorite, Ash. And he’s good for a laugh. It’ll be fine, I promise. Where’s all this gloom and worry coming from?”
Ashley shrugged. “This is who I am. Who I’ve always been.”
“Desiderium,” he remembered.
“Desiderium,” she agreed. “Sorry you invited me?”
“Never,” he said, reaching in his pocket and taking out a heavenly smelling parcel, which he unwrapped to reveal several Butterpl?tzchen. “Be as gloomy as you like,” he added, holding out the biscuits, knowing full well it was impossible to be gloomy with a belly full of those.
When the biscuits were gone, Ashley shared her packed lunch, each taking half a bacon sandwich, and eating berries from the school garden.
“I’m disappointed there’s no cherries,” he teased.
“Shall I plant some just for you?” she asked.
“Would you?”
“I think you know I would,” she whispered, and he turned to gaze out at the bucolic countryside, that tiny smirk pulling at his lips and crinkling his eyes.