“Charles went off to fight in the Second World War, Dimity. He went off to fight, and was killed near Dunkirk. That’s right, isn’t it? You remember?” Dimity looked at him with a slightly scathing expression, and when she spoke there was a trace of pride, and of defiance.
“He went off to war, but he didn’t die. He came back to me, and he stayed with me for the rest of his life.”
“That’s just not possible,” Zach heard himself say, but even as he did so his eyes were drawn up to Hannah’s, and she nodded.
“It’s true,” she said quietly. “He died six years ago. Here. He died here.”
“You mean…” Zach’s mind whirled, fighting to keep up, to understand the implications of what he was being told. “You mean… you saw him? You met Charles Aubrey?” He almost laughed, it sounded so outlandish to his own ears. But Hannah didn’t laugh.
“I saw him, yes. But we didn’t meet. He was… he was already dead, the only time I saw him.”
“Dead,” Dimity whispered, and her face sank again, her body seeming to fold in on itself, limp and boneless. Zach stared at her and then at Hannah, and then at the little narrow bed with the stained sheets and the head-shaped hollow in the pillow.
“I think… I think I need somebody to explain all this to me slowly and clearly,” he said, shaking his head in amazement.
Dimity sang “Bobby Shaftoe,” over and over. He’ll come back and marry me, bonny Bobby Shaftoe. The song became a chant, a tuneless, repetitive mantra, beating to the rhythm of her questing feet as she walked, and watched, and waited. Valentina heard her, and tried to beat the idea out of her. He’s gone, don’t you get it? He’s not coming back. But Dimity insisted that he would. That Charles would not leave her in Blacknowle. Forgotten about, cast aside. And slowly the words of the song trickled deeper and deeper into her mind and became the truth. He’ll come back and marry me… It became the truth; it became what lay in store for her, because the alternative was unbearable. The alternative was that crushing span of lonely time she had suddenly glimpsed, standing on the cliff top with Celeste. She knew she would not survive it, so she kept on singing, and believing.
But the next person to come looking for her, as the first frosts bit the air and the last apples were packed away in barrels, was not Charles Aubrey. It was a tall, elegant woman with chestnut hair combed into an immaculate twist at the back of her head. She wore a green twill coat and white kidskin gloves; her mouth a slick of scarlet lipstick. A taxi was parked behind her, its engine idling, and she stood on the doorstep of The Watch with a stern, unhappy expression on her face. When Dimity opened the door, she felt gray eyes sweep her from feet to face in quick appraisal.
“You’re Mitzy Hatcher?”
“I am. Who are you?” She studied the woman, and tried to guess. She was perhaps forty years old, not beautiful but handsome. Her face had the smooth, sculpted look of a statue.
“Celia Lucas. I was told in the village to come and talk to you… Delphine Aubrey has run away from school again. She’s been gone a week already, and they’re getting worried. I was told you were most likely to have seen her, if anyone had. If she’d come back this way, that is.” The woman looked around her, from the cliffs to the woods and the cottage, as if she couldn’t understand why anybody would. She spoke with cut-glass vowels.
“I have not seen her,” Dimity replied. She tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs felt like they’d shrunk. She tried again, and her head began to spin. “Where’s Charles? Why didn’t he come to look for her himself?” Celia’s gaze sharpened at once, and she stared into Dimity’s eyes for a moment.
“Don’t tell me you’re another one of his?” Her mouth pursed bitterly. Defiantly, Dimity nodded. “Well, well. They get younger all the time.” She spoke casually, but Dimity saw the way her hands gripped each other, so tightly that they shook. “And to answer your question, Charles didn’t come to look for her because the damn fool of a man has joined the army and gone off to fight in France. What do you make of that?” She arched her eyebrows, and beneath her sangfroid was the panic of a trapped animal. Dimity recognized it; she felt it, too.
“Gone off to fight?” she echoed breathlessly.
“Yes, quite my reaction, too. A lifetime of pacifism and high rhetoric about the evils of war, and at the first sign of a painful situation, off he trots.”
“To the war?” said Dimity. Celia frowned at her, and seemed to wonder how much more to say.
“Yes, dear, to the war. So whatever plans you thought he might have for you, I’m afraid you’re on your own,” she said blandly. “And I, it seems, must chase around the country looking for one of his bastard offspring. Poor child, indeed, but if the mother couldn’t be bothered to look after her, I find it somewhat hard that I should be expected to.” She pulled the lapels of her coat tighter together, her breath steaming damply in the frigid air.
“Are you… Delphine’s teacher?” Dimity asked, after a pause. She was fighting to understand, struggling to make sense of what she’d been told. The woman’s face registered irritation, impatience.
“No, child, I am Charles’s wife. So help me.” She looked out to sea, squinting at the horizon. “For how much longer I shall remain his wife, however, who can say?” Dimity stared at her. Her words were nonsense. The calm inside her head grew so profound that nothing could disturb it. The cut-glass vowels slid away from her like snowmelt. “Look, if you do see Delphine, call me and let me know, would you? Here’s my card. I’ll… I’ll write down Charles’s regiment and company on the back, so you can… look out for news of him. Or write to him, if you like. Odd that he didn’t let you know. But then, Charles is very odd these days. When I last saw him he could hardly string a sentence together.” She pressed her lips crisply, took out a pen, and wrote something on an oblong of card before putting it into Dimity’s limp hand. “Good luck to you. And try to forget about him. Difficult, I know, but for the best.” She turned and walked back to the waiting taxicab.
Later on, a song Dimity had known from childhood burst into her head and went around and around, like a caged thing, echoing in the empty spaces there. I heard a fair maid making loud lamentation, singing Jimmy will be slain in the wars I be feared… Jimmy will be slain in the wars, I be feared. The line rolled over and over, like wavelets breaking ashore. Charles had gone off to war. He was a hero now, a brave soldier, and she the poor wife left at home to worry. Neatly, seamlessly, Dimity wrote herself into this narrative. She was so tired that she took to her bed at four in the afternoon, and could neither sleep nor rise. She lay, and she hummed the words of that old song, and when Valentina came up to find out why there was no dinner, she found the smart, embossed card on the nightstand by the bed. Celia Lucas Aubrey.
“Who’s this then? Where’s this come from?” she demanded, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Dimity ignored her, watching the way the light from the bulb overhead made her fingertips glow. Valentina gave her a shake. “What’s the matter with you? Is this who came to the door earlier? Some relative of his?” She frowned at the card. It bore his name, or at least part of it. “Not… his wife?” she ventured. Dimity stopped singing and glared at her. Something scratched at the back of her eyes, at the back of her mind. Something with sharp little claws, which left stinging scratches. A rat? She sat up abruptly, checked the corners of the room. There were rats on the floor, twisting and writhing and bent backwards in pain. With a loud shriek Dimity clapped her hands over her eyes.
“No!” she shouted, and Valentina tipped back her head to laugh.