Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [6]
A young man walked briskly along Marchmont Street in London, crossed behind a taxicab, and stepped up onto the curb at the far side. He had come down from Cambridge for this meeting, as he had done at irregular intervals over the last year, and he was not looking forward to it.
Full of high ideals, quite certain of what end he was working toward, and believing he knew what the personal cost would be, he had secured his place in the Scientific Establishment in Cambridgeshire. Now it was much more complicated. There were people and emotions involved that he could not have foreseen.
This meeting would entail a certain degree of deception, at least by omission, and the young man was not looking forward to that. There were changes to his own plans of which he could say nothing at all. It would be intensely dangerous, and he strode along the footpath in the sun without any pleasure at all.
In the afternoon Hannah was allowed to come to the hospital. Joseph opened his eyes to see her standing at the end of the bed. For a moment he registered only her face with its soft lines, her eyes so like her mother’s, and the thick, fair brown hair. It was as if Alys were standing there. Then the pain in his body returned, and memory. Alys was dead.
“Joseph?” Hannah sounded uncertain. She was afraid he was too ill to be disturbed, perhaps even still in danger. Her face lit with relief when she saw him smile and she moved toward him. “How are you? Is there anything I can bring you?” She held a big bunch of daffodils from the garden, like cradled sunshine. He could smell them even above the hospital odors of carbolic, blood, washed linen, and the warmth of bodies.
“They’re beautiful,” he said, clearing his throat. “Thank you.”
She put them on the small table near him. “Do you want to sit up a little?” she asked, seeing him struggle to be more comfortable. In answer to her own question she helped him forward and plumped up the pillows, leaving him more upright. She was wearing a blouse and a blue linen skirt that ended only halfway down her calf, as the fashion was now. He did not like it as much as the longer, fuller, ground-sweeping skirts of recent years, but he could see that it was more practical. War changed a lot of things. She looked pretty, and she smelled of something warm and delicate, but he could also see the weariness in her face and around her eyes.
“How are the children?” he asked.
“They’re well.” Her words were simple and said with assurance, probably the answer she gave everyone, but the truth in her eyes was far more complex.
“Tell me about them,” he pressed. “How is Tom doing at school? What is his ambition?”
A shadow crossed her face. She tried to make light of it. “At the moment, like most fourteen-year-old boys, he wants to join the war. He’s always following soldiers around when there’s anyone on leave in the village.” She gave a tiny laugh, barely a sound at all. “He’s afraid it will be over before he has a chance. Of course he has no real idea what it’s like.”
He wondered how much she knew. Her husband, Archie, was a commander in the Royal Navy. Such a life was probably beyond the imagination of anyone who lived on the land. He had only the dimmest idea himself. But he knew the life of a soldier intimately. “He’s too young,” he said aloud, knowing as he did so that there were boys, even on the front lines, who were not much older. He had seen the bodies of one or two. But there was no need for Hannah to know that.
“Do you think it will be over by next year?” she asked.
“Or the one after,” he answered, with no idea if that were true.
She relaxed. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can bring you? Are they feeding you properly? It’s still quite easy to get most things, although that might change if the U-boats get any worse. There’s nothing much in the garden yet, it’s too early. And of course Albert’s not with us anymore, so it’s gone a bit wild.”
He heard a wealth of loss in her voice. At the front they tended to think everything at home was caught in a motionless