We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [88]
She turned and smiled at him. Despite her dark hair, her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen. What could he say that was comforting and not idiotic, so false as to be a denial of trust?
“I talked with Matthew,” he told her. “He said that Schenckendorff couldn’t be guilty. There’s evidence that makes that certain. He couldn’t tell me exactly what, and I couldn’t repeat it if I knew.”
She turned away quickly, looking hurt, as if she had read in his face something she did not want to see.
“I’m sorry,” he said, puzzled. Who was she afraid for? Was she also terrified that someone she liked, or admired, someone she felt protective of, had killed Sarah? He could not believe it of her. He remembered vividly her clarity of thought during that terrible time when he had been so confused and led by his emotions. There had been anger, bewilderment, grief, but always that honesty, above all with herself.
There was a gulf widening between them now, and he did not understand it. The pain it caused him, the sense of loss, almost took his breath away, as if he were hollow inside. “Lizzie, I can’t repeat things like that. How would anyone trust me if I did? I understand why Matthew has to keep silent—”
“I know,” she said quickly, but she looked at him for only an instant, then away again. “I didn’t ask you, Joseph. No one wants to talk about it, but you keep on asking. I’m…I’m so sorry for Sarah Price I don’t think I could ever find words for how much I…feel for her. But I can’t undo any of it. Nor have I any idea at all who did it.” She was stacking bottles and dishes, and her fingers were clumsy. A dish slipped out of her hands. He lunged forward to catch it, but he was no more skilled than she, and actually knocked it farther away until it crashed on the floor and broke in half.
He felt ridiculous. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
She gasped, then blinked several times rapidly, tears in her eyes. Then she started to laugh. It was a sharp sound growing higher and more desperate until she couldn’t stop.
He kicked the broken dish out of the way with his foot so no one would tread on it, then put both arms around her and held her as her laughter turned to weeping. Her whole body shook, her slender shoulders relaxing against him for several minutes. The softness of her hair touched his cheek. He would never forget the feel of her: the stiff cotton of her gray uniform dress, the smell of antiseptic and blood and soap.
Then she pulled away and sniffed, turning aside with sudden strength so as to keep her face from him. “I’m sorry. This is completely feeble. I won’t do it again.”
“We all need—” he began, not knowing how he was going to finish.
“Don’t make excuses for me, Joseph!” she said huskily, reaching for a handkerchief and blowing her nose fiercely. “Pity doesn’t help anyone. It’s self-indulgent and a complete waste of the time in which we could be doing something useful. These men need nursing, not weeping over. There’ll be plenty of time later…if there’s any point then. I’ve taken twice as long cleaning this up as I should have anyway.” She yanked her apron straight and turned away to continue working.
He had no idea why the distance was widening between them, as if the friendship that was so immeasurably precious had been tarnished by some act he could not remember committing. And it mattered. It was more a part of him than all the turmoil of these last days of war playing themselves out around them: the violence and fear, comradeship, hope of peace and dread of the unknown. They all spoke of going home, and yet all but the most naïve knew that the homes they had left no longer existed as they had known them.
Lizzie had been a friend: candid and funny and gentle, and yet always keeping her own honesty a clean and separate thing, brave enough to stand apart from him and generous enough to remain beside him, sharing the darkness as well as the light.
He knew now, watching her straight back as she walked out of the tent flap, that he had loved Eleanor because he had wanted to, promised to. But he had never liked her as