Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [145]
“How do you do, Captain Reavley,” Belinda said gravely. “Please don’t feel you need to tell us about it again. Judith already did, the first time she came. We are terribly grateful to you.” She glanced at her mother, as if warning her, then back at Joseph again. “It is our maid’s evening off. We’re lucky still to have her. We expect her to go and work in a munitions factory any day now. May I get you a sherry? Or would you prefer something else? Whisky, maybe? I think we have some.”
He had to accept something. “Sherry would be excellent, thank you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” He made himself smile. “It’s very civilized. We get raw spirits in the trenches—navy rum. This would be far better.”
She smiled back at him, relief far more obvious in her face than she could have realized.
Mrs. Prentice invited him to sit, and they all accepted, but awkwardly, not leaning back in comfort. It was his responsibility to carry the conversation. He was the priest, they were the bereaved, the ones he was here to comfort, to offer some pattern of sense. Except that there was no sense he could share with them. And you never knew how much people wanted to know, what healed, and what only made the wound deeper.
Mrs. Prentice was watching him, her blue-gray eyes desperately hungry for any kind of gentleness at all, any hope of good.
“What would you like to know?” he asked her.
“I . . . I’m not sure,” she said awkwardly, looking down at her hands and then up again quickly. “I so much wanted you to come, and now that you are here, I’m not sure what to say. I know Eldon was . . . abrasive sometimes.” She smiled, and her eyes were full of tears. “He could irritate people, because he had no patience with lies. He didn’t understand that people have to . . . to defend themselves, not only what they say, but what they can find the courage to believe.”
Was she talking about Prentice, or was she also asking him not to tell her a truth that would destroy the illusions she needed in order to survive?
“Of course,” he agreed, keeping the smile in his eyes. “People who tell the truth have never been popular with everyone, regardless of the fact that some truths have to be told, and others can be concealed for a while, or perhaps forever. It’s the judgment that’s so difficult. And the horror of the front line is not an easy place.”
“He would have . . . mellowed.” She gulped the words. “He was slow to learn tact. He was so angry at the loss of life, at the way the men were treated.”
“He believed the whole war was wrong, Mother,” Belinda put in, speaking for the first time since she had been introduced.
“Nobody but a lunatic wants war.” Joseph turned to look at her, seeing the anxiety, the confusion in her face. “It’s just that some alternatives are worse. Whatever the cost, there are some things that are worth fighting for, because life without them is a different kind of death, without hope for the future.”
“I know that, Captain Reavley,” she said with a very slight edge to her voice. She was struggling to defend her brother, as well as her own conviction, and yet not tear her mother’s loyalties apart. “Eldon felt he could change things, make people stop talking and thinking about it as some glorious crusade, and realize how terrible it really is.” Her face tightened with anger. “You should read some of the pieces that are written—words like courage and honor and noble sacrifice. Eldon said it’s nothing like that! It’s mud and rats and body lice, filthy food, stinking latrines . . .” She ignored her mother’s gasp. “And terrified men being slaughtered for no gain at all!”
Joseph thought of the men he knew, men like Sam, Barshey Gee, Wil Sloan, Cullingford himself, and Andy.
“He wasn’t there long enough to see all of it,” he answered her, not avoiding her eyes or offering pity. “All those things are true, and worse. But the best is true also. The courage is there, and it’s real, not fairy tale. It’s going forward to face what turns your bowels into water and makes you sick with fear, knowing the