Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [143]
“I’m not sure that anything we say touches people in those times.” He corrected himself: “These times. It’s worse when the shock wears off and feeling comes back. But I’ll be here. I won’t leave . . . or let you leave me.”
She turned away from him quickly. “Go to bed,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m not ready to weep yet. If I do I won’t be able to stop, and I have to think how to tell the children, especially Tom. Please!”
He obeyed silently, closing the door behind him.
He slept fitfully. He heard Hannah up and down the stairs, he lost count how many times. At five o’clock he got up as well and went down to the kitchen, knowing he would find her there.
She was dressed, scrubbing out the pantry. The whole large cupboardlike room was empty, nothing left on the shelves. It was all piled on the kitchen table and on the bench above the flour and vegetable bins and the cutlery drawers. There were boxes, bags, tins, and barrels everywhere. She had her sleeves up to her elbows and an apron on over an old dress. She had not bothered to put her hair up, but it was in a loose braid, like a schoolgirl’s.
“Can I help?” he offered.
“Not really,” she replied, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m doing it, it’s just better than lying in bed.”
“Do you want a cup of tea?”
“If you can find the kettle and the tea, yes.”
Half an hour later all the shelves were scrubbed but still wet, and Joseph had made some sort of order out of the piles of groceries. They were both sitting at the kitchen table and it was broad daylight, the sun shining in through the window as if it were any other day.
The telephone rang.
Hannah gripped her cup so tightly she slopped tea over onto her dress and arm. The sight of the mess upset her, tears gleaming in her eyes, simply because it was a hair crack in the façade and cost all her strength to keep from letting go.
Joseph went into the hall and picked up the receiver. “Joseph Reavley,” he said quietly.
“Good morning, Captain Reavley,” a voice said on the other end, sounding tinny and far away. “This is Calder Shearing.”
Joseph did not want to speak to this man. He could not cope with talking of Matthew’s death, not yet.
“Mr. Shearing . . .” he began.
“I have news you will want to hear,” Shearing cut across him. “There were quite a number of survivors from the Cormorant. Captain Reavley and Commander MacAllister are among them. Their injuries are trivial. They spent some time in the water, but they will be perfectly all right.”
Joseph found his voice was gone, stuck in his throat, his mouth dry.
“Captain Reavley?”
He coughed. “Yes . . . are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure,” Shearing said testily, as if some emotion had drained him as well. “Do you imagine I would have called you if I were not? The battle was appalling. We estimate casualties of over six thousand men, and at least fourteen ships. Your brother and brother-in-law will be home within two or three days.”
“Thank you . . . yes . . .” Joseph gulped. “Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and walked back to the kitchen, bumping into the jamb of the door and numbing his elbow. It should have been painful, but he was unaware of it.
Hannah stared at him. There was no fear in her face, there was nothing else left to hurt her, the worst had already happened.
“It was Shearing. . . .” he began.
She frowned. “Who is Shearing?”
“Intelligence service. Hannah, they’re alive! They saved a lot of the crew, and Archie and Matthew are among them! He’s sure! It’s no mistake, he’s absolutely certain.”
She looked at him, eyes wide. Now she was afraid again, afraid to believe, to grasp the pain of hoping, going through all the torture of love and fear and waiting and dreading. “Is he?”
“Yes! Yes he is! Absolutely!” He strode around the table and pulled her to her feet and put his arms around her, clinging onto her and feeling her cry, great gasping