Twisted Root - Anne Perry [59]
"Your husband? I don’t remember ..." He started to cough, and it became worse so quickly that she abandoned polite-ness, pushed the door open and went in.
The room was small and cluttered with furniture, but it was clean and as tidy as possible when it was occupied all the time and the necessities of life had to be kept available.
She went straight over to the sink and found a cup, filled it with water from the ewer standing on the bench, and took it over to him, holding it to his lips. There was little else she could do for him. His body shuddered as he gasped for breath, and she could hear the rattling of phlegm in his chest, but it was too deep for him to bring up.
After a minute or two the coughing subsided, more rapidly than she had expected, and he took the water from her gratefully, sipping it and letting it slide down his throat. He handed her back the cup.
"Sorry, miss," he said huskily. "Touch o’ the bronchitis. Silly this time o’ the year."
"It can happen any time, if you are subject to it," she answered, smiling at him. "Sometimes in the summer it’s worse. Harder to get rid of."
"You’re surely right," he agreed, nodding slightly. He was still pale and his cheeks were a little flushed. She guessed he probably had a low fever.
"What can I do for you, miss? If you’re looking for my grandson, he isn’t here. He’s a policeman, and he’s at work. Very good he is, too. A sergeant." His pride was obvious, but far more than that, a kind of shining certainty that had nothing to do with the nature of his grandson’s work but everything to do with the nature of the man.
"It was you I came to see," she reminded him. She must find a reason he would accept. "My husband said you were a sailor and had seen some great days—some of the most important battles in England’s history."
He looked at her sideways. "An’ what would a young lady like you want with stories of old battles what was over and won before you were even born?"
"If they were over and lost, I’d be speaking French," she replied, meeting his eyes with a laugh.
"Well ... I s’pose that’s true. Still, you know that without coming all the way here to see me." He was faintly suspicious of her. Young women of educated speech and good manners did not casually call on an old and ill sailor who, from the contents of the room, was having desperate trouble finding sufficient money merely to eat, let alone buy fuel for the winter.
A portion of the truth was the best answer, perhaps not as irrelevant as it first seemed.
"I was an army nurse in the Crimea," she told him. "I know more about war than you may think. I don’t imagine I’ve seen as many battles as you have, but I’ve seen my share, and closer than I’d wish. I’ve certainly been part of what happens afterwards." Suddenly she was speaking with urgency, and the absolute and fiercely relevant truth. "And there is no one I know with whom I can discuss it or bring back the miseries that still come into my dreams. No one expects it in a woman. They think it all better forgotten ... easier. But it isn’t always...."
He stared at her, his eyes wide. They were clear, pale blue. They had probably been darker when he was young.
"Well, now ... did you really? And you such a slip of a thing!" He regarded her rather too slender body and square, thin shoulders, but with admiration, not disapproval. "We found, at sea, sometimes the wiry ones outlasted the great big ones like a side o’ beef. I reckon strength, when it comes to it, is all a matter o’ spirit."
"You’re quite right," she agreed. "Would you like a hot drink now? I can easily make one if you would. It might ease your chest a little." Then, in case he thought she was patronizing him, she added, "I should like very much to talk with you, and I can’t if you are taken with coughing again."
He understood very well what she was doing, but she had softened the request sufficiently. "You’re a canny one." He smiled at her, pointing to the stove. "Kettle’s over there, and tea in the tin.