Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [92]
Detta touched his arm. “Some people can’t help it,” she whispered.
“We have to help it!” he exclaimed when they were out of earshot. “Won’t she expect him to love her when she’s older, when she’s put on weight and her bosom sags, or her skin has blemishes? Or does she think she’s always going to be so pretty?”
“She isn’t thinking, Matthew,” Detta answered drily. “She’s just feeling. She loved him as he was. You grow old slowly, this is all in a few days. And maybe he pushed her away? Have you thought of that? When we’re hurt in body and dignity, sometimes we take it out on those closest to us—and they don’t know what to do or how to help. She’s maybe hurting, too.”
He looked at her with surprise and a flood of perception he knew he should have had before. “You’ve seen that.” It was not a question.
She gave a little shrug, swinging her skirt with the elegance of her stride. “Irishmen are no different,” she answered as she walked ahead of him, the sun gleaming on her hair, catching rich, red lights in its darkness. She was slender, and there was the grace of a wild creature in her, moving when and where she would. The elusiveness of her was part of what Matthew loved. She made other women seem tame, too easily caught and held.
In the distance a band was playing, something patriotic and sentimental. Before the war the German bands had played here. Funny that Matthew should equate that music with peace now! What a blessed, lost innocence that was.
Three young men walked by together, in the uniform of the same regiment. They were laughing, teasing each other. They moved with a kind of unity, as if there were an invisible thread that governed them all.
A nursemaid pushed a perambulator. She seemed like a relic from another age.
A man stood in the middle of the grass, looking from side to side as though utterly lost. His face was bleak. Matthew had not seen these symptoms before, but Joseph had described them to him. The man had been so battered and deafened by the guns, seen such horror, that his mind had refused to accept any more. He had no idea where he was; the only reality was inside him, and that was unbearable.
This one looked about thirty years of age. Then as Matthew and Detta drew closer to him, Matthew realized with a twisting pity that he was probably more like nineteen or twenty. His eyes were old, but the skin of his cheek and neck said that he had barely reached maturity.
“Are you lost?” Detta said to the young man. She spoke softly, with a sweet, urgent gentleness.
He did not answer.
She asked again.
He looked at her, then the present returned to his mind. “I suppose so. I’m sorry. You look different. You’ve grown your hair. I thought you said you’d cut it off. Machines, or something. Caught in it—tore it right off. Someone’s scalp, you said.” There was no emotion in his face or his voice. He had seen so many people torn apart that one more made no impact at all.
Detta was startled.
An older woman came across the grass, running as fast as she could with her skirts flapping around her legs.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I just stopped for a moment. Saw someone I knew.” She looked at the youth. “Come on, Peter, this way. We’ll get a cup of tea at the Corner House, then it’s time to go home for supper.”
He went with her uncomplainingly. It probably made little difference to him where he was.
Detta watched them leave, her face tight with misery. “Why do we do this, Matthew?” she said bitterly. “Why do we care what happens to Belgium? Why do we let our young men be crucified for it?”
“I thought you liked fighting!” he retorted before he thought to guard his tongue. “Especially for a piece of land.”
She swung around to face him, her eyes blazing. “That’s different!” she said between her teeth. “We’re fighting for . . .” Then she stopped, a tide of color rushing up her cheeks.
He did not say anything. It was no longer necessary.
They walked a hundred yards or so in silence. A group of young women were laughing, absorbed in their own conversation. A man in striped trousers