Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [80]
He pushed the door open and went in. The first thing he saw in the hall was Hannah’s daughter Jenny’s blue coat on the hook by the cloakroom door. She was eight, and possibly at school today, but it was too warm for her to have needed it.
The dog came bounding up the hall, wagging his tail, and Matthew bent to pat him. “Hello, Henry! How are you old fellow?” He straightened up and called Hannah.
There was a moment’s silence, then she appeared from the kitchen. Her hair was almost the same color as her mother’s had been, and she had the same wide, brown eyes. It cost him all the strength he had to make himself smile. He must love her for herself, for her griefs and joys, not because she reminded him of someone else. She was probably missing Alys even more than he was. They had been so close, and now she was in so many ways taking her place in the village, trying to pick up in the multitude of small duties, kindnesses, unseen things that Alys had done over the years. And she was living here in this house where the past was like an echo to every word, a reflection gone the moment before one glanced at the mirror.
Her face lit with surprise and pleasure. “Matthew! You didn’t say you were coming! You just missed Judith, but I’m sure you know that!” She came toward him quickly, drying her hands on her long, white apron. She was wearing a plum pink dress with a skirt fashionably close at the ankle, but he knew enough to see that it was last year’s cut.
He put his arms around her and hugged her closely, feeling how quickly she responded. She must miss Archie dreadfully. She probably was not even allowed to know where he was. It was her duty to keep up the façade of confidence for their three children, Tom, Jenny, and Luke, and hide whatever her fears were, her loneliness or the long hours of gnawing uncertainty. And it was not only about Archie, it had to be about Judith and Joseph as well. If she had very little idea what it was actually like in the trenches, of the horror or the daily hardship, so much the better. He hoped Judith had been as discreet as she had promised.
Hannah drew back in surprise. “You’re squashing me!” she said with a smile, but her eyes were searching his, afraid he had come with bad news. The closeness with which he had held her awoke fear.
He smiled back broadly. “Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just good to be home, and to find you here.” She had moved up from Portsmouth a few months ago. Archie seldom had leave, and when he did it was for long enough to come to Cambridgeshire. It was foolish to let the house lie empty and none of them had wanted to lease it to strangers.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“No, but I’d love a cup of tea.”
She led the way to the kitchen. It looked as it always had, blue-and-white china on the Welsh dresser, the brown earthenware jugs with milk and cream on them in white, the half dozen large plates hand painted with wildflowers and grasses on the wall. She had been making pastry and the mixing bowls, white inside, ocher on the outside, were still on the big wooden table.
She piled the coals in the stove then pulled the kettle over to the hob. For a quarter of an hour they talked of the village, and people they both knew.
“Bibby Nunn was killed,” she said, gazing at him over the top of the cup she was holding in both hands, as if she were cold. “They heard yesterday. Mae Teversham was one of the first to go to Sarah. Ridiculous, isn’t it, that it should take a death that could have happened to either of them, to bring that stupid argument to an end. Both Mae’s boys are out there, too, and it could be her turn next. I think everyone feels that.”
He nodded.
“And Jim Bullen from the farm on the Madingley Road lost his leg in France and he’s now invalided