Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [30]
“How is your brother?” Betty asked, her voice a little husky.
Hannah held the wallflowers without beginning to arrange them. “Getting better, thank you,” she answered. “But it will be a while yet. He was lucky to keep his arm. And how are you?”
Betty turned away quickly. “Peter’s been posted missing in action. We heard two days ago.” Her voice trembled. “I don’t know whether to keep up hope he’s alive somewhere, or if that’s just stupid, putting off the truth.”
Hannah wished with all her heart she knew something to say that would help. She stood there holding the flowers in her hand as if they mattered. Her mother would have said the right thing! Why did loss hurt so unbearably? Standing here in this building where people had come in joy and grief for a thousand years, she should have had some sense of the promise of eternity, a resurrection when all this would not matter anymore.
Betty gave a little shrug. “The vicar came round, of course. He was trying to be kind, but I think he made it worse. Mother thanked him, but I just wanted to push him out of the house. He talked about glory and sacrifice as if Peter were somehow not real, a sort of idea rather than a person. I know he meant well, but all I wished to do was hit him. I wanted to shout, ‘don’t tell me about faith and virtue, it’s real and it hurts. It hurts! It’s Peter, who taught me how to climb trees, and not to cry if I skinned my knee, and ate my rice pudding when I hated it, and told me silly jokes. It isn’t just some hero! It’s my brother—the only one I had!’ ”
Hannah jammed the flowers into the vase. Why was Hallam Kerr so useless? If religion wasn’t any help now, what point was there in it? Was it really no more than a nice social habit, a reason for the village to meet and keep up the pretense that everything would be all right one day? Kerr was just as lost as the rest of them, perhaps even more so.
Was Joseph as empty and useless as that, too? She did not think so. It was not just because he was her brother. There was an inner strength to him; a place within him where his faith was real, and strong enough to bear up others. He was needed here at home. He should stay to help people like Betty, Mrs. Gee, and God alone knew how many more before this was finished.
“All we can do is keep going, and help each other,” she said aloud. “The vicar is just another cross to bear.”
Betty sniffed and gave a choking little laugh. “He wouldn’t like to be referred to like that,” she said, searching for a handkerchief to blow her nose.
“I know,” Hannah admitted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.”
By the time Betty went, Hannah was almost finished with the flowers she had, and thinking they needed a little greenery to fill them out. Then Lizzie Blaine came in with some catkin branches and budding willow. She was a dark-haired woman with a hot temper and bright blue eyes. Her husband was one of the scientists at the Establishment.
“Thank you.” Hannah accepted the additions with satisfaction. They gave bulk and variety to the yellow.
Lizzie smiled. “I’ve always liked branches. They don’t seem to know how to make an ugly shape.”
“You’re right!” Hannah agreed with surprise. “Even the knobbly bits look good.” She glanced at Lizzie again. There seemed to be a hidden excitement in her, as if she knew of something good that would happen, just beyond the sight of the rest of them. Would it be intrusive to ask what it was? “You look well,” she said pleasantly.
“I like Sundays,” Lizzie replied, then gave a little shrug. “Theo doesn’t usually work on Sunday, although he has once or twice lately. They’re doing something critically important at the Establishment. He doesn’t say anything, of course, but I know from the way he walks how alive he feels. It is as if his mind is racing on the brink of solving the final problems and finishing whatever it is. Please God, it will be something