Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [70]
She forced herself to smile, impatient with him, frustrated, aching to protect him and thoroughly afraid. “I’m going home tomorrow. I’d like to see Hannah for a day or so.”
“Good idea. Rest for a while, at least. Now eat that before it’s cold. Judith . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t tell Hannah anything about all this—or the journalist getting killed. She doesn’t need to know. She has enough to do looking after three children, and the losses in the village. Trying to help everyone keep up hope, and not be sick every time the postman arrives, dreading the telegram. They feel so helpless. That’s a kind of suffering in itself.”
“I know. I won’t tell her anything I don’t have to,” she promised. “I’ll be quite happy not to talk about it, believe me.”
But it was not as easy as she had expected. She took the train to Cambridge, and then a taxi to St. Giles. The village still looked just as it always had, until she noticed the blinds half drawn in the Nunns’ house, and another house a few doors down. There were no errand boys, no children playing by the pond. An old man walked slowly on the grass, a black band around his arm. She saw Bessie Gee carrying a basket of shopping, and looked away because she could not face her. It was cowardly and she knew it, but she was not prepared to see what she must be feeling, not yet, anyway.
The taxi stopped at her own door. She paid the driver and got out. She had to ring the bell and wait until Hannah came.
“Just for a couple of days,” Judith said with a smile. It was absurd, but she was overcome with emotion to be on the familiar step. It looked smaller, shabbier than she remembered, and impossibly precious. It was peopled with memories of sounds and smells of the past so strong they were the fabric of all life that had formed her, the woven threads of who she was. This is where she had loved, and grieved, where she had been safest, and in most danger.
“Of course!” Hannah said, her face lighting with pleasure so the anxieties of the moment slipped away. “It’s wonderful to see you! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I haven’t got any decent food in!”
Judith hugged her and they clung together fiercely for minutes. “I don’t care!” she said, laughing at the triviality of it. “Anything’s got to be better than army rations!”
“Are they awful?” Hannah said with sudden concern.
Judith remembered her promise to Matthew. “No, not bad,” she claimed quickly. “I don’t look starved, do I?”
Hannah’s children came home from school, pleased to see her and a little shy, now that she was certainly part of the war. The conflict was not real to them, and yet it was the backdrop and the measuring stick of everything that happened.
“Do you think it’ll go on long enough for me to join the navy, Aunt Judith?” Tom asked with a shadow of concern in his soft face. He was thirteen, his voice breaking, but no suggestion of down on his cheek yet. He was frightened in case he missed his chance of all that he thought of that was heroic, and the test and goal of manhood.
For a moment Judith could see nothing but the men she knew who had been blown to pieces, men like Charlie Gee—who had been boys like Tom only a few short years ago.
“I don’t know,” she answered, refusing to look at Hannah. “I don’t think anybody knows at the moment. We just do our best. Take it a day at a time. Your job’s here right now. A good soldier or sailor does the job he’s given. Doesn’t argue with his commander to pick and choose.”
He stared at her solemnly, trying to work out whether she was treating him like a child or a man.
She gave him time, without pushing either way.
“Yes,” he nodded, accepting. “But I will join the Royal Navy when I can.”
“Good,” she said lying in her teeth, and still avoiding Hannah’s gaze. “As an officer, I hope?”
He grinned suddenly. “You mean concentrate on my schoolwork and do all the exams and everything,” he said knowingly.