Chapter 33 Elise
Elise
Back at Marsh House, with Sam on the phone to his diving friend, Elise was relieved when her own phone rang and it was her gran.
“Gran,” she said, making the decision not to worry her by telling her what had just happened. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. Fine. Though . . . I’m afraid I can’t say the same about Nonna.”
Elise frowned. “Is she ill?”
“Not ill exactly, no. Just in a bit of a state.” She sighed.
“Has something happened?”
“Well, you know I told you how desperate she was to come and visit you? Well, apparently Robbie went to see her, and when she told him she wanted to come to Norfolk, he said he’d be happy to drive her.
She wants to come as soon as possible. And, get this, you know she told me she’d been to Norfolk before?
Well, apparently she was evacuated there during the war. ”
Elise was stunned. “Really? I thought it was only the children who were evacuated.”
“Me, too, but apparently not. Unless it’s all a complete fantasy, but she seems so sure about it.
I know she gets a bit muddled sometimes, but she’s all there, really, isn’t she?
What I don’t understand is why she’s never mentioned it to me before.
You’d think she would have, wouldn’t you?
As far as I knew, she lived in London right through the Blitz. She’s talked about that often enough.”
“She has to me, as well. About sleeping in the underground stations at night.”
“Exactly. And now she’s started talking about it all, she can’t stop. She keeps ringing me up to ask me questions I haven’t got the answers to.”
“D’you want me to speak to her?”
“Would you, darling?”
“Of course. I’ll do it now. Speak later, Gran.”
Elise rang the London care home and was soon listening to Nonna’s quavery voice.
“Hi, Nonna, it’s Elise,” Elise said. “How are you?”
“Proper stirred up, that’s how I am. Been at sixes and sevens ever since I found out you’re in Norfolk. Still, it was time anyway, I expect.”
Elise frowned, confused. “Time for what, Nonna? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Oh, never mind that now. That husband of yours said you’re at Selkey-on-Sea. Is that true?”
“Yes, at a place called Marsh House.”
“That’s what he said, but I couldn’t believe it. I had to hear it from you,” Nonna said, sounding emotional now.
“Nonna, are you all right?” Elise asked, concerned, but her great-grandmother swept on, not answering her.
“And her? Is she still alive?”
“Is who alive, Nonna?”
“Her. Lilias.”
Elise felt the blood rush to her face. “Did you meet Lilias when you were evacuated to Norfolk?”
“Of course, I did. It was Marsh House I was evacuated to. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Goodness.” But even as Elise spoke, she wondered why she was surprised. It made a strange sort of sense, somehow; almost as if Lilias had chosen to communicate her secrets to Elise because of a link to the past.
“That’s an amazing coincidence,” she said, “my getting a job in the very house you came to all those years ago.”
But Nonna made an impatient sound on the other end of the line. “Well? Is she? Alive?”
“No, Nonna, I’m afraid Lilias died in the war. But her sister is. Ruth.”
“Ruth’s still alive?”
“Yes. She lives in a nursing home not far from here. I went to visit her recently, actually, and she showed me lots of photographs of—”
“I need to see her,” Nonna interrupted. “Just as soon as possible. There’s something I have to tell her. Sort it out for me, Elise. Please.”
“Of course, I will,” Elise promised, but Nonna had already gone.
Elise rang her gran back to fill her in on the conversation.
“So, Robbie said he’d drive her up to Norfolk, then?” Gran said. “D’you think he’s got an ulterior motive?”
Elise sighed. “Very possibly, but it won’t do him any good if he has. As far as I’m concerned, we’re finished. But what on earth d’you think Nonna wants to say to Ruth?”
“I have absolutely no idea. But it seems as if we’ll soon find out, doesn’t it? I’ll give Robbie a call to arrange it if you can sort things out your end?”
“Okay, I’ll let know Ruth know Nonna’s coming and check whether it’s okay for us to visit.”
But in fact, Elise found herself going to visit Ruth before Nonna’s visit could be arranged, for within two hours of Sam’s friend’s diving club searching the waters of Selkey Mere, human remains were found.
As he’d promised he would, Sam called the police, and the remains were taken away for forensic examination.
It would take time for a positive identification, even with the information Elise had shared with the police, but Elise didn’t doubt that the remains belonged to Harry. She had to tell Ruth right away.
But when she arrived at Rose Lodge, it was to discover that Ruth was ill.
“I’m not sure whether you know Ruth has heart failure? I’m afraid there’s been a significant deterioration in her condition,” the home manager told Elise sympathetically. “We’re transferring her to Kellingham Lodge hospice in the next few days so she can get the kind of care she needs.”
At the words, Elise experienced a huge sense of loss, almost as if Ruth had already passed. They’d only just met, but somehow Elise had felt an immediate connection with her. Would there still be time for Nonna to meet up with her? Or was it already too late?
“Please,” she said, “can you just let Ruth know I’m here? I have some news I’m sure she’ll want to hear. I don’t mind waiting, if she’s asleep.”
The manager looked doubtful but finally nodded. “Okay, I’ll go and pop my head around the door, but I can’t promise anything.”
But, in fact, she was back within two minutes. “Ruth was awake and very keen to see you, as it happens. But you mustn’t stay long; she really isn’t up to it.”
“I won’t.”
Ruth was lying in bed with her face turned towards the door. She looked gaunt and pale; her body so slight it barely registered beneath the covers.
“You just caught me,” she said to Elise in lieu of a greeting. “They’re sending me away somewhere to die tomorrow.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
There was a drinking cup on the bedside table. Trying not to think of all the times she’d helped Charlie to take a drink in hospital, Elise reached for it, turning the spout in Ruth’s direction. “Do you want something to drink?”
“No, and don’t worry; I don’t mind about dying. It’s time I went. But you’ve learned something, haven’t you? I can see it in your face.”
“Yes.” Elise put the drinking cup down, pulled a chair up to Ruth’s bedside and told her everything.
“The police haven’t identified the body yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s Harry. I mean, I know what I saw down there sounds crazy, but it was so vivid, Ruth, it really was.”
Ruth’s eyes were wide and dark in her hollow face. She reached out to pat Elise’s hand.
“All this time we never knew whether Harry was a deserter or if he’d been murdered by Percy Cook, and he just bloody drowned trying to save my sister’s fool of a dog. Oh, Harry.”
Tears began to slide down her weathered cheeks.
“Are you all right?” Elise asked, concerned. “Shall I fetch someone?”
“Who would you fetch? My mother to comfort me? Lilias, who took my mother’s place after she died?
Nobody can turn back the clock. Keep that wretched dog in the house out of harm’s way.
” She sighed. “Lilias always adored Compass, and Harry knew it, the silly fool. And it was all for nothing because the damned dog must have managed to get out of the lake himself. Though goodness knows where he got to for all those months before he turned up again.”
There was a box of tissues on the dressing table. Elise took one and brought it back, gently wiping Ruth’s face, and tried once again to help her to drink from the spouted cup.
“Here, please; take a little water.”
Ruth sucked weakly a couple of times. Then she said, “In the bottom drawer where you found the tin of photographs. There’s a jewellery box. Bring it to me, would you?”
Elise put down the drinking cup and went to open the drawer, rummaging once again beneath Ruth’s neatly folded clothes until she found a longish slender box. “Is this what you mean?” she asked, holding it up.
“Yes. Bring it over here and open it up, would you, please?”
Carefully Elise lifted the lid from the box and parted the tissue paper. Beneath it lay a medal on a thick blue ribbon. Even before Ruth spoke, Elise knew what it was.
“It’s Lilias’s George Cross. She was awarded it posthumously.”
Elise stroked the image of Saint George slaying a dragon on the medal, her finger tracing the words For Gallantry that ran around it. “It’s such a lovely thing.”
Despite her frailty, Ruth’s voice was strong. “I want you to have it.”
She looked up. “Oh, but I can’t take this. It belongs in your family.”
“I haven’t got any family, though, have I?
Anyone I’ve ever loved has died. Oh, there’s no need to look so sorry for me.
It’s not as if I haven’t known love in my life.
But I’m so very old now, and everyone’s gone.
Take it, please. It’s a part of Lilias, and for some reason, Lilias chose you to discover the truth about Harry. She’d want you to have it.”
Elise looked down at the medal, an emotional lump in her throat. “Well, then . . . Thank you.”
Ruth sighed. “You can’t imagine how very much I wish the wretched thing didn’t exist, that Lilias hadn’t chosen to go to France. She’d never have gone if she hadn’t lost Harry and David. If Compass had only come back earlier, perhaps he would have been enough to keep her here.”
Ruth’s eyes were closed now. “Take the medal, dear. Lilias won it for saving almost fifty men, some of whom probably went on to fight again. Who no doubt had families after the war. She would have thought that well worth her sacrifice.”
Clasping the medal box, Elise bent to kiss Ruth’s papery cheek, aware that it was unlikely now, with Ruth so ill, that she would be able to fulfil her promise to Nonna.
It certainly didn’t seem the right time to mention it, anyway.
“Thank you, Ruth. I shall treasure it. I’ll come and visit you again. ”
Ruth opened her eyes wearily. “You don’t want to do that, my dear. I’m sure my death will be very tiresome, though hopefully very quick. And thank you, for bringing my sister back to me. You’ve brought us both peace.”