“How romantic,” said Laura dryly. She sipped her tea, and tookup her fourth sandwich. Strawberry jam. She ate it in four bites. Pim looked impressed and nudged the plate in her direction. Laura started on another round of curry.
“And your hands?” asked Mary.
“Ten fingers, all present and accounted for,” said Laura, concentrating on her sandwich.
“Have a cake, Mary,” said Pim, with a hint of reproof in her voice.
Mary was undaunted. “It’s all right. Manners are going to be a casualty of this war, along with corsets and long hair. You’re a relic, my beautiful Penelope. Never change. Iven’s a modern creature. She’s not offended. Can you still work?”
“Why should I?” said Laura. “I’m retiring to my estate in the country and growing hellebores. Pim will tell you.”
“Mary,” said Pim. “Manners may not survive the war, but I’ll have them in my parlor, if you please.”
Mary raised her cup in salute, picked up a sandwich. “I was sorry, Iven, when Pim told me they’d sent your brother’s things.”
Laura took an oatcake. She could not quite keep the edge from her voice. “They say you once carried a German cavalry spear into King’s Cross station. A vicious rumor, no doubt?”
“The papers exaggerated,” said Mary, accepting the change of subject. “But yes, I did. In the early days. Caused a sensation.” She smiled to herself. “I drove ambulances at first. Then started my own aid station. Brought the Belgians hot chocolate in the trenches. Lord, the lines were close together. Once Fritz sent a message over—told me to wear a skirt so they wouldn’t snipe me by mistake—I was right in the trenches nearly every day—puttees were better for getting around, you know.” She shook her head. “Eventually I moved, moved again. A Belgian baron had abandoned his château—who could blame him?—so I took his house and grounds at Couthove. Now I’ve nearly got a full hospital. We call it an aid station, so we don’t ruffle feathers, but we’ve got surgical bays, triage, and Madame Curie even donated an X-ray. They tolerate me well enough, at the various HQs, so long as I drum up fundsmyself. Not like they can turn down hospital beds these days. Especially not the French. I do some nursing, but mostly I run the place. I’m better at that sort of thing anyway.”
Pim looked like she was struggling to decide whether to be horrified or impressed. It was a measure of their new world that a woman could talk with equanimity about running a hospital in a war zone.
Laura studied Mary over the rim of her teacup. “But you’re far from your hospital now, Mrs. Borden.”
Mary shrugged. “We run on private donations. With America entering the war, I thought it a good moment to come and pass the hat, as it were. Give some lectures. There’s plenty of money, this side of the Atlantic. America’s got most of Europe’s by now, haven’t they, what with selling them all those things to keep the war going? So I went round to Boston, New York. Chicago. Philadelphia. Set up in churches, talked. Meant to spend a week with Pim, and then take ship for Liverpool. We were friends as girls, you see, before my father moved us to Chicago.” She shook her head. “What a bloody shambles, that explosion.”
A small silence fell.
“These oatcakes are a delight, Pim,” said Laura. “I’d ask for the recipe if I could afford the butter.”
Pim said, “Have another, at least. I’ll send some home with you. Aren’t they nice with the currants? You should have seen me before the war; fat as a squirrel, honestly. I was always cooking. The oatcakes were Nate’s favorite—and—and Jimmy’s.” She hurried on. “He was my husband. Nate. Nathaniel. Mary knew him. He—he died. January of ’16. It was very sudden. His heart…But he did love my cooking.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Laura, biting into another oatcake.
Mary said, “What will you do now, Iven? Since you’ve been discharged.”
“Hellebores,hellebores,I told you, Mrs. Borden.”
Mary was not to be diverted. “Bit of a waste, isn’t it? You held rank, didn’t you?”
Laura said, “We cannot all tour America and pass the hat for money.” The edge was back in her voice.
Mary said, still unruffled, “And you don’t want to go back?”
Back?The word echoed through her brain. For a moment she was back in Flanders, at Brandhoek, right after the first shell came down, her eyes meeting Kate’s before they ran off in different directions, the gas alarm ringing, Laura shouting at her staff to put on their masks, flinging herself on an armless man before he could throw himself off the cot in his panic.
“No,” Laura said. “I don’t want to go back. Pim, do you like gardens? I grew foxgloves in Veith Street, before I went to Flanders, and the Parkeys are mad for climbing roses. They planted all manner of shrubbery to keep the salt from the canes, so you can hardly see the three flowers the poor things manage every year.”
Pim said, “Have they tried globe thistles? They stand the salt well, and I love the dear blue flowers, just the color of the harbor in July.” Pim had clearly taken the measure of Laura’s mood.
Later, Laura walked back to Blackthorn House, picking her way down a blue-iced street. Twilight lay over the city, and it was raw cold. She was glad to retreat to her bedroom and attempt the stretches that would ease the scar tissue on her hands and on her leg. Finally she gave up, and poured herself a drink. Half a bottle later, she managed to go to bed without going through Freddie’s things one more time. Except for the tags, which she put under her pillow. But she couldn’t help but glance at that damned postcard, which lay out on the dressing table, the lonely gray line of its mountain stark against a pale sky.
PASSCHENDAELE RIDGE, FLANDERS, BELGIUM
November 1917
Freddie was trying to crawlout from under a great crushing weight, and he wondered if it was worth the effort. He was strangely warm. Then he heard a squeak. Something skittered over his face.
“Faugh!” he cried, lurching upright, alive, underground, and in a fighting rage. Nothing enraged soldiers more than the sound of rats. The bloody rats had come to eat him. Well, he wasn’t dead yet. He struck out. His hand found the yielding flesh of a dead man, then recoiled off the resilient shoulder of a live one. Freddie heard a hiss of pain and remembered then that he was not entombed alone. Winter muttered a string of German curses as he struggled upright.
