Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [29]
Arranging the flowers in church the day before a service was one of the duties her mother had performed, and it would give her a sense of comfort to do it herself, as if at least some things had not changed. Before she left she checked on Joseph.
“Don’t try to make tea yourself,” she told him, looking at his arm. “Jenny’s around and she can do it, if you stay in the kitchen with her. I won’t be long.”
He smiled patiently, and she realized she was fussing. “It’s important,” she explained, hugging the daffodils she had picked, stems wrapped so they did not bleed onto her clothes.
“Of course it is,” he agreed. “Daffodils always seem brave and beautiful, like a promise that things will get better. It doesn’t matter what winter’s like, spring will come, eventually.”
All kinds of thoughts crowded her mind about those who would not see it, but he knew that better than she, and it was maudlin to say so.
Was this a time to ask him about some of the things he had experienced, but never spoke of? When, if ever, would it be easier?
“Joseph . . .”
He looked up.
She plunged in. “You never say much about Ypres, what it’s like, how you feel, even the good things. . . .”
His face tightened, almost indefensibly, but she saw it. “I’d like to understand,” she said quietly.
“One day,” he replied, looking away from her.
It was an evasion. She knew from his eyes and the line of his mouth that there would always be a reason why not. She turned quickly and went out of the door.
She walked along the village street in bright sunshine, but against a surprisingly cold wind. April was a deceitful month, full of brief glory, and promises it did not keep.
Inside the old Saxon church with its stained-glass windows and silent stones, the wooden pews were dark with age. Under each were hand-stitched hassocks to kneel on, donated by village women down the generations, some as long ago as the Napoleonic Wars. She began to get out the vases and fill them with water from the outside tap and carry them back in one at a time.
Mrs. Gee came into the vestry, red-eyed and shivering against the cold. She brought some blue irises, just a handful. Every time Hannah saw her she thought of Charlie Gee, who had died in Ypres last year. Mrs. Gee did not know how horribly he had been maimed. Neither did Hannah, but she had seen the shadow of it in Joseph’s face every time his name was mentioned. The anger and the grief still haunted him more than for others dead.
Hannah thanked Mrs. Gee for the flowers and separated them to put a little of their rich color in among the yellows. She needed to say something more than mere acknowledgment. “I don’t have anything blue,” she said with a smile.
“There’ll be bluebells in the woods next month,” Mrs. Gee reminded her. “But they don’t sit well in a vase. Oi s’pose woild flowers don’t loike to be picked. Oi haven’t been down to the woods in a while.” She did not add any more.
Hannah did not need to ask. The haze of blue over the ground, the sunlight and call of birds made it a place of overpowering emotion. She would not be able to go there in a time of grief herself. Odd how some kinds of beauty did not heal, but hollowed the pain even deeper.
“How’s the chaplain?” Mrs. Gee asked, concern in her voice.
“Much better, thank you.” That was more optimistic than the truth, but Mrs. Gee needed every good word possible.
“Oi’m glad to hear it. Oi don’t know what our boys would do without him. Tell him Oi was asking.”
“Yes, of course I will. Thank you.” Hannah felt a stab of fear again, as if she had deliberately excluded herself from the bond of knowledge other people shared.
Mrs. Gee waited a moment longer, then turned and walked away between rows of seats, her footsteps heavy, her shoulders bowed a little.
Betty Townsend brought some yellow and red early wallflowers. It was a shame to put them in the cool church; in a warmer room in someone’s home the perfume would have been far richer. Hannah thanked her for them, then noticed how pale