Authors: Phillip Rock
Martin watched him carry the glasses toward the house. The smell of the roses and the earl's mention of the Pryory sent his thoughts reeling backward. Abingdon in the summer of 1914, the kindness of his aunt as she told him there would always be a room for him at the house. He had come to stay for a few days, part of his vacation plans. A week in England, three weeks in Germany and Italy, and then home to Chicago and his job on the
Express.
A visiting relative. The son of Hanna's favorite, and long dead, brother William. Something of a curiosity to Charles and Alexandra. Their American cousin, and the only Rilke they had ever heard of without money. Something of a mystery, too. The scent of a skeleton in the Rilke closet. Half-remembered stories of how William Rilke had been disinherited long, long ago. Of how he had run off to become an artist and had eventually cut his wrists to the bone in a Paris atelier. A penniless failure.
Ivy had known nothing of that. She had thought Martin a millionaire, or the son of oneâbecause all Americans were millionaires, that was a common fact. Coming shyly into his room that first day, neat as a pin in her starched uniform, bearing freshly cut roses in a vase. She had placed the roses carefully on a table by the open window and some petals had fallen softly to the polished surface of the wood....
“Hello, Martin.”
Alexandra was coming toward him along the path, blond and voluptuous in a light silk dress. They embraced for a moment in silence, his arms holding her tightly.
“Hello, beauty,” he said. “As we used to say in Chicago, you're a sight for sore eyes.”
“You're more than that,” she said, kissing his cheek. “You're a tonic.” She stepped back. “Let me look at you. The same dear man.”
“A bit more of the dear man.” He let go of her hands and patted his abdomen. “About all I do these days is sit at a desk.”
“And do it brilliantly. I follow your career.”
“You could follow it more closely by coming to see me. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I've been a bit of a recluse the past few months. Haven't been up to seeing anyone. I'm coming out of it now.”
“I know the feeling. It takes time.”
The earl came out of the house carrying the refilled glasses. He hesitated a moment when he saw his daughter, then walked up to them and handed a glass to Martin.
“We're having a gin concoction, Alex. Would you care for one?”
“No, thank you, Papa.” She seemed to gaze past him. “It's rather too hot for alcohol.”
“One of the great myths,” the earl said. “Ask any old India hand about
that.
The sundown peg or two is what kept them going. It helps sweat the fever through the pores.”
The conversation turned idle, and then Hanna emerged from the house and the servants began to bustle about the damask-clad table set up under an awning on the terrace.
The icy vichyssoise was being served when William arrived at the table, looking drawn and pale and muttering apologies for being late.
“You might check your watch from time to time,” the earl remarked coldly. “Do you remember your cousin Martin?”
“Yes, I do indeed,” William said, bending across the table to shake Martin's hand before taking his seat. “I was still in school when we met. The Harrow match at Lord's, if I'm not mistaken. You came with Fenton.”
“That's right,” Martin said with a laugh. “I never understood cricket then and I don't now.”
“It's a jolly game,” William said without much enthusiasm. He eyed his soup balefully.
“Don't you feel well?” Hanna asked him.
“No ⦠not exactly. A bit squeamish. Must be something I ate.”
“Or drank,” the earl muttered.
“It's those clubs you go to,” Hanna said. “I'm sure they serve vile food.”
William toyed with his soup. “They don't serve food, actually.”
“The music alone would make one bilious,” the earl growled. “More than enough to turn one's stomach inside out.”
“What music is that?” Martin asked.
William looked at him defensively. “Jazz.”
Martin nodded. “King Oliver, Early Wiley, Kid Ory ⦠I was always going down to the South Side to hear the latest band up from Memphis or New Orleans. The Rhythm Kings were my favorite, and then there was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band at the Dreamland Cafe.”
“Oh, I say ⦔ William was staring at him in awe. “King Oliver. Oh, I say ⦠I have several of his records.”
Lord Stanmore put on an expression of mock surprise. “You mean to tell me that the perpetrators of all that caterwauling have names? Difficult to believe.”
“Do you go to any of the clubs here?” William, eyes fixed on his cousin, swallowed a spoonful of soup, gagged slightly, and sat back in his chair. A fine haze of sweat broke out on his face. “Iâlike theâMardi Gras in Dean Street.” He dabbed at his brow with his napkin and glanced despairingly around the table. “May I be excused? IâI don't feel at all well.”
“You look positively ghastly,” his father said. “By all means go.”
William pushed back his chair and hurried into the house through open French doors. The suppressed retching sounds he made were ignored.
“You must have a chat with him,” Hanna said evenly. “He stays out much too late. It can't be good for him.”
The earl stared fixedly at his soup. “No, I don't imagine it is.”
“It's only a hangover,” Alexandra said. “I'll go up later and see what I can do for him.”
The earl said nothing, and Hanna shifted the talk to the heat wave and to a new play with Aubrey Smith opening at the Royalty.
A breeze stirred at twilight and caused the candles on the table to flicker. A footman served coffee while Coatsworth shuffled onto the terrace with a bottle of 1910 Cognac from the wine cellar. The informality of the setting, the cobalt sky, and the last tracery of sun on a motionless cloud imparted a picnic atmosphere and precluded the ritual of the ladies leaving the table while the men had their cigars. After pouring the Cognac into small bell-shaped glasses, Coatsworth brought a rosewood humidor.
It was time, Martin was thinking as he turned the excellent Canary Island cigar between his fingers.
“I saw Charles today.”
“I beg your pardon,” the earl said after a moment of utter silence. “What did you say?”
“That I saw Charles. I went up to Llandinam this morning.”
“This
morning?
” There was disbelief in his voice. “To north Wales? Surelyâ”
“I flew up. We keep a company plane at Hendon. I left at seven and was back in London by four. I saw him, and we had a very interesting talk.”
Lord Stanmore lit his cigar. His fingers trembled as he held the match. “That's not possible.”
“Please, Tony!” Hanna's words were like a cry.
“I'm sorry, my dear, I know how much it hurts you, but one does not hold interesting talks with Charles.”
“I did,” Martin said. “We found a common ground for discussion.”
The earl drew slowly on his cigar in an effort to calm himself. He fixed his gaze on Martin as though he were the only one present.
“Charles is a badly shell-shocked man. He spends his days seated on a bench watching the woods in the valley. He sits there for hours at a timeâstaringâwaiting for his men to come back, the men of his battalion he ordered over the top in France and who went to their deaths. One can only talk to Charles aboutâthings. The shape of the valley ⦠the contours of the woods ⦠the patterns made by cloud shadows. One could ask till doomsday and Charles would never say what
he
sees out there. Had there been a radical change in his condition, the doctors at Llandinam would have informed me.”
“I didn't say there had been a change, radical or otherwise. Let's just say that I broke through to Charles and we had a normal discussion.”
“About what?” the earl asked, his voice so low that it was difficult to hear.
“Thomas Hardy.”
“God in heaven,” Hanna murmured.
“Lieber Gott.”
“There are no miracles,” the earl said. “I'm certainly not calling you a liar, Martin. I'm sure there is an explanation for thisâ
discussion
you held with my son. However, doctors have assured meâ”
“Doctors can be wrong,” Alexandra said. “There's a good deal of disagreement about shell shockâcauses
and
cures.”
He eyed her stonily. “I'm aware of Colonel Mackendric's views. You've explained them before.”
“And you've listened with a jaundiced ear. Do you find it so impossible to separate the doctor from the man? Robbie may have had his faults, but a lack of dedication to the wounded was not one of them. Their recovery, physical and mental, haunted his every hour and killed him in the end. So when we talk about Colonel Mackendric, let's do it in that light and no other. Is that too much to ask, Papa?”
“No, dash it all, but Colonel Mackendric never examined Charles. Other men have, men I have faith in, and trust.”
“There are times, Papa, when one must only trust the heart.”
The wind picked up, stirring the boxwood and the elms, blowing out the candles on the table.
“Perhaps we should go inside,” Hanna said. “I feel chilled.”
The earl stood up. “By all means.”
He escorted her into the house, Martin and Alexandra lingering on the terrace.
“Did you really talk with Charles and get a rational response?”
“Yes,” Martin said. “They're all wrong about him. Oh, he's a shell-shock casc all right, but he doesn't sit on that hill waiting for his dead troops to come over the rise. There's a glimmer of something lying beneath the surface and it'll never come out if he stays in that place.”
“I know. It's just a storage bin.”
He bit angrily on his unlit cigar and spat the tip into the garden. “Jesus. Fenton called me a diplomat. Some diplomat! I stomped in with two left feet.”
“Perhaps. But you've shaken Papa. I could see the look in his eyes. He wants desperately for Charles to be well againâor at least halfway whole. He just finds it so difficult to believe it's possible.”
“It is, though,” he said fiercely. “I know it is.”
She sought his hand and squeezed it. “Don't give up, then.”
The earl was in the drawing room, pacing slowly, brandy in one hand and cigar in the other. He gave Alexandra an accusing look as she entered the room beside Martin.
“Your mother's come down with an awful headache. You might go up to her and see if she needs an aspirin or something.”
“I don't think she has the type of headache an aspirin will cure, Papa.”
“I suppose there's some deep meaning to that remark. She has a headache because she's upset. Quite frankly, she's upset because the two of you lurched into a subject that forced me to play the devil's advocate. Your mother had become reconciled to Charles's condition. And now ⦠all of this reckless raising hope where there is no bloody hope.”
“I'm sorry, sir,” Martin said. “I have to differ.”
“Do you?” he said icily. “Quite frankly, Martin, I feel I've been tricked. You could have told me earlier that you'd been up to the hospital. It would have saved your aunt a good deal of mental anguish.”
“My intention was to tell all of you at the same time.”
“The journalist's dodge of springing a surprise. Was that it?”
“Something on the order, perhaps. But what I said was true.”
“I can't believe it.”
“Then fly up to Llandinam with me tomorrow. Just the two of us. Judge for yourself.”
Lord Stanmore had never so much as touched an airplane. The idea was sobering. He glanced away from his nephew and fixed his gaze on the portrait of Hanna that Auguste Renoir had done for him in the early spring of 1889. How beautiful she was. All misty gold and ivory. He suddenly felt old, and tired. “Fly, you say?”
“Have you ever been up before?”
“No ⦠not exactly.”
“We own a remarkable plane. A de Havilland Eighteen. Has a range of over four hundred miles at nearly one hundred and thirty miles per hour. And it's strong as a steel bridge. An extremely safe machine.”
“I'm sure it is, butâ”
“And our pilot's first-rate. An ex-squadron leader in the RAF.”
“Where could one possibly land the thing? On the golf links, I suppose.”
“There's a flying club at Glynn Ceiriog with an excellent field. Ten minutes by car from Llandinam.”
He had been tossed a challenge, the glove flung at his feet.
“Oh, very well. If only to lay all this to rest once and for all.”
“Shall I pick you up in the morning, or would you rather meet me at Hendon aerodrome?”