‘Come and sit down, Bertie dear, and tell me everything.’
Albert allows himself to be led into the dining room, and to be manoeuvred into a chair just as Cat comes in with the first plate of eggs and chops, and a basket of bread. Hester takes her seat opposite Albert, helps herself to some bread with what she hopes is not over-eagerness, and begins to spread it with butter.
‘I’m all ears, my dear,’ she says, when Albert does not speak. He looks up at her as she begins to eat, then bursts up from his chair again and paces to the window. Bewildered, Hester chews slowly.
‘I was out walking in the meadows, up by the river, just on one of my usual jaunts. There is a place to the east of here, I don’t know if you have ever seen it, where the river is shallow and shaded from the north bank by willow and elder trees, and the bulrushes are as high as my eyes in places, and the whole of it is sprinkled with wild flowers like a carpet of jewels… The ground forms a hollow there; a wide, shallow hollow where in times of rain a swampy puddle forms, but now in summer it is lush with long meadow grasses and horsetails and buttercups and figwort… The mist seems to linger slightly longer in that hollow. I was watching it clear, watching its slow rising, and the way it glowed where the sun touched it and I saw… I saw…’
‘What, Albert?’ Hester asks, almost alarmed by the way her husband is talking. Albert turns to her, his face breaking into an incredulous smile of joy.
‘Spirits, Hester! Nature spirits! The very elemental beings that God sends to tend the wildlife and the flowers, to drive all the many workings of his natural world! I saw them at play, as clearly as I see you now!’ Albert cries, his voice dense with emotion. Cat pauses in the act of placing a pot of coffee on the table, glancing from Albert to Hester and back again with an incredulous look on her face.
‘Thank you, Cat,’ Hester says, pointedly. ‘Albert, that’s… quite astonishing! Are you sure?’
‘Sure? Of course I’m sure! I saw them with my own eyes, as clear as day! As exquisite as wild orchids… each of them…’
‘But, what did they look like, Albert? What were they doing?’
‘They were the colour of wild rose petals – white, if you did not look closely enough, but touched with gold and pink and pearly silver if you did, and each of them slender like a willow branch, dressed in some kind of robes… I could not clearly make out the fabric, but that it was pale and floated about them as if it weighed less than the very air; and they were dancing, Hetty! Dancing slowly and gracefully, the way the frond of a plant moves under water – easily and with never a sudden change, their arms first rising and then falling… Oh, Hester! I feel as though I have borne witness to a miracle! I feel like I have been favoured by God with this glimpse at what is usually hidden from man!’
‘Albert… this is remarkable. I mean…’ Hester flounders. Albert is beaming at her, clearly intoxicated by his experience. She frowns at the thought, looking at him closely, and finds herself leaning slightly towards him, inhaling as subtly as she can. But there is no hint of brandy or wine, or anything of the sort. Hester smiles uncertainly. ‘Quite… unprecedented,’ she says, lamely. ‘And you truly believe that these creatures-’
‘No, no – do not call them creatures, dear heart! They are not of the same ilk as the rabbits and the birds… these are Godly things, sacred beings much higher than us. Compared to them we are but cloddish clay figures!’ he says, triumphantly. Hester can’t think what else to say. Albert seems so strange and passionate – she hardly knows him at all.
‘But… don’t you understand what this means?’ Albert demands, turning to Hester and seeming suddenly to notice her hesitancy. Hester smiles as best she can, and opens her eyes brightly to show that she is ready to hear what it means, ready to accept what she is told; but this empty anticipation seems to disappoint Albert, and he slumps a little, his face falling. In the steady pause that follows, Hester fingers her cutlery, longing to cut open the chop on her plate but sensing that to do so would spoil the impression of avid attention. ‘I must write at once to Robin Durrant, the theosophist,’ Albert declares, collapsing back into his chair.
Cat goes back to the kitchen and slaps the empty breakfast tray onto the table top.
‘The vicar’s seeing fairies,’ she announces blandly. Mrs Bell’s head comes up from the bread oven, sweaty and red.
‘What’s that now?’ she asks. Cat throws her hands up, at a loss.
2011
Leah went to meet her best friend, Sam, in a café not far from where she worked. She chose a table in a far corner, away from the window, and sat down to wait. It was mid-morning on a grey Tuesday in early March; Leah had been back from Belgium for a week and she still felt shaken, oddly seasick, after the trip; after seeing Ryan, and the body of the dead soldier. Both of them unsettling, compelling, frightening. Leah ordered coffee and sipped it scalding hot when it arrived. It steadied her a little, and moments later Sam burst in through the door, moving with her customary haste, all elbows and knees, and shaking her head in pre-emptive apology when she saw Leah.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late! I couldn’t get away – Abigail is being a prize bitch this week and really putting the boot in… everyone knows the real reason but we can hardly say so. She’s pretending it’s because she’s seen our interim figures for this quarter, and they’re not good enough. Sorry. Sorry!’ she said breathlessly, kissing Leah on the cheek and squeezing her into a quick hug.
‘Stop apologising!’ said Leah. ‘I expect nothing less. And you know I’ve never minded sitting and people-watching.’ She had known Sam since the first year of school, and Sam had never once made it to an appointment on time.
‘So, what’s this big announcement of yours – I’m dying to hear,’ Sam said, tucking a swathe of shiny hair behind her ear and lacing her fingers in front of her. Her expression was open but her eyes darted over Leah’s face, never quite alighting, constantly distracted.
‘Well, I’ve probably over-hyped it now. It’s not much of an announcement, really,’ said Leah, taking a deep breath. The decision had seemed a lot bigger in her mind, when she’d made it. It had just been so long since she’d felt enthusiasm for anything – real enthusiasm, the urge to work and write. Now, speaking it aloud, it sounded feeble. ‘I’m going out of town, for a bit. Just a couple of weeks. I’m chasing down a story.’ She saw this register with some disappointment on Sam’s face, and smiled apologetically. ‘I knew I’d over-hyped it.’
‘No! I just… I thought it might be about something else. I thought maybe you’d met… somebody,’ Sam said, then flapped her hand at Leah’s crestfallen expression. ‘Forget I said it. No, I think it’s great news. Good for you – it’s high time you got your mojo back, God only knows. So, what’s the story?’
‘It’s… ah… the identity of a soldier of the First World War. He’s just been discovered over in Belgium. Only there’s more to it than that. I’m sure of it.’
‘More to him being discovered?’ Sam asked, puzzled.
‘No – more to who he is, to what he was doing in the war. To what he did in his life before it, especially. He had two letters on him which have survived – which is amazing in itself. They’re very odd letters. Perhaps you’d better read them?’ she suggested, fishing the rumpled pages from her bag.
She herself had read and reread them many times since leaving Ryan lying in the dark of his poky room, in bed sheets that smelled of her. There was something so vivid about them – she could almost feel the woman’s fear and desperation, rising like a scent from the elegant lettering; her confusion, and the frustration of being able to change nothing and discover nothing. And the odd tone of them puzzled her – clearly the pair had both been party to something very unusual, something deeply upsetting: this crime, in which the woman felt complicit by her silence. And yet, she wrote to him as if he were almost a formal acquaintance. She did not write as to a close friend or a family member. The imploring way in which she begged for an explanation, for information… Leah had started to feel tremors of sympathetic panic each time she picked the letters up. And why should the soldier have kept these two letters in particular, when it sounded as though there had been many others? She’d tried to find something that the two had in common, but failed – apart from the pleading, of course, the cries for help. But surely any other letters she’d sent would also have included these?