Stella Bain (12 page)
Phillip nods.
“And it’s really abandoned?”
“Yes.”
“And not been requisitioned?”
“Apparently not.”
“How amazing.”
As they draw closer, Etna studies the gray stone building, magnificent and austere. The windows above the ground floor are narrow and long, the two turrets imposing.
“Years ago, this must have been a fortress,” Phillip says. “Hence the stingy windows. Big enough to see out of, but not big enough to penetrate from the outside. This house might be three hundred years old. Hard to say. My French architecture is a bit rusty.”
Only on the ground floor does the house resemble a grand and welcoming residence. Large square windows with beveled panes flank the massive wooden door.
Phillip parks the truck around the back of the château, though it hardly matters. They cannot be seen from the road. “When I drove in here the first time, I was certain someone would start shooting. If you listen, though, the only thing you can hear is birds.”
Etna steps out. No guns, no screams, no noisy vehicles. The grounds slope away from the château so that it sits on a promontory. All around them are open fields, overgrown gardens, orchards, and, to one side, what looks to be an old tennis court. “That’s it,” she says.
“If you carry the ball and the rackets, I’ll get the picnic.”
“Picnic?”
“I made a trip into the village to see our friend Monsieur Allard. He gave me bread and cheese and a bottle of wine.”
“Wine. We’ll get tipsy,” she says. “You’ll beat me.”
“I’m going to beat you anyway, so you might as well enjoy yourself.”
Phillip leads them down the hill to the court. The net droops to the ground. Irregular holes have been torn in the fencing. When Etna steps onto the clay, she finds that it is spongy in parts. The trick will be to deaden the ball by landing it in one of these spots, or to learn where the dry ground is in order to bounce it past Phillip. At best, the game will be comical.
“I see you’ve got only the one ball,” Etna says as she walks to the serving line.
“Couldn’t find another.”
“Then you’d better not hit it over the fence this time,” she says with a wink.
Phillip laughs. He removes his brown wool tunic to reveal only an undershirt beneath. She takes off her apron. They hang their clothes from openings in the fence. Etna pins her hair back up.
“Anytime,” Phillip says.
She serves the ball, and though she has done so badly, it hits a wet spot and dies before Phillip can even get to it.
Etna laughs. “I’ll try it again.”
“No, that was a proper serve. Point to you.”
“If you give away points like that, you’ll never win.”
“Do I look worried?”
When Phillip serves, the ball hits dry ground and spins away from Etna. A proper point.
He does it again, and then a third time.
“Have you been out here surveying the court?” she asks.
First game to Phillip. Second to Etna when she breaks his serve.
From a not-quite-deadening patch of clay, Phillip’s return hits the top of the net and stays there. The two of them wait for the ball to drop, but the slackening leather has created a perfect pocket. They walk toward the net to examine the situation. “Point to you,” Phillip concedes, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
“No, I couldn’t possibly,” Etna says.
“Let’s take a break. We’ll have some water and then our lunch with a little wine. By the time we’re done, the wind will have knocked it one way or the other.”
Etna welcomes the respite. Despite the physical demands of her job, she is not in good condition for sports.
They both tumble onto the grass of a gentle slope. “Do you mind if I don’t put that wretched tunic back on?” Phillip asks.
“Not at all,” she says, aware of his naked arms and the muscles of his chest under the now nearly transparent undershirt. They pass his canteen back and forth. “Best to leave a bit for later,” he advises. She watches as he opens his rucksack and brings out some cheese wrapped in paper, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine. Allard has opened the wine and recorked it for Phillip. He arranges their repast on the metal plate from his kit. He puts a knife into the cheese. “Ladies first,” he says, gesturing.
The delicate cheese atop a crusty piece of bread seems like a promise from a world she barely knows. They share a tin cup of the wine. The meal feels, in its simplicity and on that hillside, vaguely biblical.
“You’d think we’d never seen food before,” she says when they have devoured almost all the cheese and bread. She flops back onto the grass, arms behind her head. “I’m going to need a few minutes before I get up again.”
Phillip lounges on his side, facing Etna.
“This is lovely,” she says. “So perfect. Thank you.”
“I’m rather enjoying this myself.” He is ahead in points, though should the ball drop onto his side, Etna will be in a position to continue the game.
“I think I’m drunk,” Etna says.
“Nonsense. You’re tipsy.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Oh, yes. You’ve probably never encountered a real drunk before. Even if they’re close to death, they don’t get sent on to the hospitals. The men
wishing
they were dead are never treated. They’re just left to suffer.”
“You’ve been drunk?”
“Of course. No proper man hasn’t.”
She stares at the pillow clouds the way she used to as a child. “Phillip, what was it like for you in Thrupp? Do you mind my asking?”
“Here? You can ask me anything you want.”
“Was it hard?”
“Yes. I’d studied for years to attain my position at Yale. My mistake was allowing myself to be seduced by the notion of becoming head of Thrupp.”
“You were cajoled into the post by the board of corporators.”
“Perhaps. But I had ambition, too. The idea of being dean was heady.”
“In such a backwater place?”
“That was the point, you see. I felt I could improve Thrupp, give Dartmouth a run for its money. That was the challenge I couldn’t resist—to be able to steer the school in an enlightened direction. I should have left immediately after the lectures were finished.”
“And you regret it.”
“Yes. Who in his right mind would choose the trenches of France over the Gothic passageways of Yale?”
“And when Nicholas told everyone of your supposed advances toward Clara?”
“At first I laughed it off,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. When I realized the college and the police were taking the charges seriously, I was sick at heart. I was ruined, yes, but it was worse than that. It was being implicated in any way in Professor Van Tassel’s cruelty to the child that sickened me.”
A sound pricks Etna’s ear. She waits a few seconds to determine its origin. When she does, she puts a hand on Phillip’s arm. He looks down at the place where she is touching him, up at her, and then he hears it, too.
He nods. The sound of a motor.
Remaining as low as he can, he stuffs everything into his sack. With that and the rackets, he runs, crouched, to his tunic while Etna retrieves her apron. Phillip signals to her to follow him as he heads straight for the woods not thirty feet from the court. The sound of the motor grows louder until a sleek midnight-blue touring car pulls into the circular drive. A chauffeur stays in the vehicle while a man in civilian clothes gets out and bangs on the front door of the château.
The gentleman, well dressed and wearing a top hat, stands back from the doorway and then peers into each window of the front of the house. He turns the corner to examine the side of the house Etna and Phillip cannot see. The unknown trespasser walks in their direction, giving a quick glance down the side of the hill. With his hands on his hips, he seems to stare straight at them. He remains in this position for what feels like hours. From the way he turns his head back and forth, Etna deduces he is not searching for something or someone but rather examining the property. Does he want to buy the place? She hopes he is not thorough enough to inspect the tennis court. If he does, will he notice their recent footsteps and the ball caught on the net? She imagines the man to be French, too old, perhaps, to have been called up to fight. Or possibly he scouts houses for the French army to use as headquarters. The ambulance parked out back would raise suspicions and might require a broader search.
“You ought to breathe,” Phillip whispers to Etna.
She stays in her crouched position, one hand on the ground steadying herself, the other clutching the white apron in such a way that the red cross does not show.
Abruptly, the man pivots, walks to the touring car, and slides in. The car continues on the circular driveway and then out the way it came.
Etna bows her head.
“That was close,” Phillip says.
“Who do you think he was?”
“He could be anything from an old friend visiting to a German spy getting the lay of the land. I couldn’t determine the make of the motorcar.”
“What do we do now?” Etna whispers.
“Sit here for ten minutes. Go through the woods until we’re behind the house. Make a run for it to the truck and get the hell out of here.”
“We’ll never know which way the ball went,” Etna says, unable to see the court from where they are.
“Just as well. You’re much too competitive.”
“Why are we whispering?”
Phillip laughs. “I don’t know. This feels transgressive.”
“It is.”
They wait ten minutes by Phillip’s tin watch. “Follow me,” he says. He plunges ahead, frequently turning to look for Etna. When they reach the back of the house, they move slowly out to the clearing. The slope is steeper in the back than it was at the side of the house.
“You ready?” Phillip asks Etna. “I think we should run. We’re far later than I thought.”
“I’ll try.”
They scramble up the hill, sometimes upright, sometimes crouched, Etna falling behind Phillip. He waits for her to catch up, but she’s breathless. “You go on,” she gasps, pointing to the truck. “Don’t stand here. Go.”
When she finally reaches the truck, the sun is setting, and the chill dries the sweat from her body.
“You strike me as a woman crawling for independence.”
“Not running?”
“I’m not sure the world will allow that right now.”
“Your cheeks are red, and you seem much better,” the ward sister notes when Etna makes her appearance in the hospital tent.
The next morning, on March 11, Etna and her colleagues are woken by a fierce bombardment at dawn. The field hospital braces for an increased number of casualties. Etna moves quickly, making beds, pouring glasses of water, folding bandages, and counting basins. She also numbers the syringes of morphine at the ready.
A convoy of five ambulances drives in sooner than the team expected them. Stretcher bearers scatter throughout the tents with the wounded. The proportion of seriously injured to merely wounded is larger than Etna has ever seen before. The nurses and orderlies immediately begin cutting away uniforms, removing makeshift dressings, and bathing the wounded. In the theaters, surgeons work like butchers. Etna moves along the aisles, glancing from side to side, assessing what each man will need. In doing so, she passes a terrifying human being. The man has no face, the worst of all injuries. Despite her self-discipline, she shudders. She can hardly bear to gaze upon him. She moves on, but a sound like a grunt follows her. Not a word, but a communication.
She turns and walks back to the bed. She bends over.
Always look the wounded in the eye,
she has been taught.
Etna’s head fills with harsh noise. Her torso hollows out.
She knows by the good eye, which follows hers. She knows by the shape of his beautiful head.
She tries to speak, but no words come. No words of endearment or friendship or of comfort. Syllables and sentences can never compensate for the terrible chain of events that has resulted in this ravaged face.
An orderly drapes a sterile cloth over the man’s injuries. “Nurse, you’re needed elsewhere,” he instructs.
“I know this man,” Etna says.
“Worse luck you.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“Poor sod.”
“He can hear you,” she says through clenched teeth.
“It isn’t anything he doesn’t already know,” the orderly says and leaves.
Etna falls to her knees. She puts her mouth near Phillip’s ear. “I am with you,” she says as she clutches his hand. “I am with you.”
The ward sister touches her shoulder. “This one’s tapped for surgery,” she announces.
This one.
“Be careful,” Etna calls. The orderlies walk quickly to an operating theater. She runs with them, trying to keep her hand on the stretcher. She does this until a surgeon demands that she leave.
She stumbles from the tent to a day splendid with sunshine.
She falls, her knees and hands in the dirt. No one notices the aide on all fours.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” she cries.
After a time, she pulls herself upright and begins to walk toward the perimeter. When she reaches the woods, she moves through them, furiously pushing away the scratchy branches. At the stone barn, where she and Phillip used to meet, she runs screaming into an open field.
En route to America
February 20, 1917
My dear Dr. Bridge,
Directly after hearing my true name in the Admiralty, Captain Samuel Asher, whom I once knew, took me to stay with his sister, Elinor, in Minerva Mews. I regret that I wasn’t able to say good-bye to you in person. In the middle of the third night, I was awakened and rushed to Southampton, where I boarded a ship of diplomats headed for America. I could not tolerate the thought of another day passing with you not knowing where I was, and so I gave Samuel two letters to post for me: one to you and one to Lily. In hers, I explained my situation and thanked her for her extraordinary hospitality. I wished her well in her months ahead and told her I hope for a photograph when the baby is christened.