Library
Home / The Warm Hands of Ghosts / Chapter 28: And Lo a Black Horse

Chapter 28: And Lo a Black Horse

CHÂTEAU COUTHOVE, FLANDERS, BELGIUM

March–April 1918

When Mary took Laura out to the field behind Couthove to teach her to ride a motorcycle, Laura was determined to learn faster than any woman in history. The news from the south had only worsened—there was talk of the enemy advancing, of lost positions and hurried retreats. Couthove was unsettled, its people straining after news. Laura was eager to be away. Every hour, her window of time felt narrower. She faced Mary over the bony metal conveyance and waited.

Mary leaned on the handlebars, looking raffish. “First off: Have you made a will?”

“Droll, Mrs. Borden.”

“All right, all right, get on the seat—yes, like that. Do you know which is the left and right?”

The motorcycle was an awkward thing to bestride, especially in skirts. “Mary, your comic stylings are delightful, but for God’s sake…”

“I see my sense of humor is wasted on you, Iven. All right. That’s the speed lever—make sure it’s in neutral, yes, there—unless you want to take off at top speed. Here’s the clutch—no, down there, near the front wheel. Shove it in. Good. All right, look now, you spark it, give it some gas. Then put your foot on the crank and push.”

On Laura’s fifth try, a sound like an explosion rattled from the engine, and the motorcycle sprang forward, bucking. Laura fell off.

“Not the moment for dismounting,” said Mary.

“Mary, you—”

“Now try again. Look, once it’s going, you push the gear out, throw the speed from neutral to low, slowly.”

Mary kept Laura at it until she was soaked in nervous sweat. Finally, Mary shook her head, got on herself, pressed the clutch, gave it gas, and ripped off like she was spurring a horse in a hunt. “You’ll get it in time,” Mary shouted back over her shoulder.

“The sooner the better,” said Laura, watching Mary fling up arcs of cold mud. “How do you stop it?”

“Well,” called Mary, coming back in a wide circle. “A time-proven method is to pick out a stout tree dead ahead.” She laughed at Laura’s expression. “A better one is to turn off the spark, throw out the gear, and apply the brakes. Like this. Come on, get up behind me, Iven; you’ll see how it feels.”

Laura got up, felt the rumble, the nervous tremor of the machine between her knees.

Mary let out the clutch, gave it gas. “Don’t let go.” They shot off.

Laura shouted. She could feel Mary laughing where Laura gripped her round the waist. “Maniac!” bellowed Laura, but her heart was racing with delight. However much the war had cost, it had paid with this freedom: to run a hospital without interference, to ride a motorcycle without judgment. Strictures belonged to the old world too. Mary whipped round, heading toward the front of the château, and Laura was laughing as well by then, leaning forward.

Then she saw that a horse had come in through the gate and was cantering down the drive. Its rider was tall, white-gloved, straight-backed, like a knight-errant who’d taken a wrong turn. Or yet another refugee from a vanished world. His horse halted neatly at the door, arching its neck.

“What now?” muttered Mary, killing the motor. They left the motorcycle standing and approached their visitor. With surprise, Laura recognized Lieutenant Young, from the party in London. His ears still stuck out, but he was graceful in the saddle as he’d not been on the ground.

“Lieutenant,” Mary said, masking any surprise. “What brings you to our door, sir?”

He’d looked a knight on horseback, but he was still awkward once he dismounted. “Mrs. Borden,” he said eagerly. “I’ve news. That concerns this hospital. And, er—” He swallowed. Said, self-consciously, “I’ve come to visit Mrs. Shaw. She wrote me. Said it was urgent. May I speak to her?”

Mary and Laura looked at each other.

“Did she, sir?” said Mary, recovering her wits first. “I believe she is on duty, but I will have her come to you. What do you have to tell me?”

“Well,” said Young, dropping his voice. “There are fears of an attack in the sector.”

“Yes,” said Mary, with a trace of impatience. As though anyone was unaware.

“And there is a German spy loose,” said Young.

That was news.

“He was wounded,” Young added. “Got himself taken into hospital. Quite clever actually, the blackguard. When he got better, he slipped away. Certainly bent on mischief. A man with one arm. Speaks English, it seems. There is some fear that he will reach his countrymen with intelligence regarding our strength and positions, before they launch their assault. We are all to keep a close watch for this man.”

“What is his name?” said Mary. “What does he look like?”

“Well,” said Young, “a fair-haired man, apparently, but so many of them are. They are saying he’s called Winter.”


· · ·Mary didn’t think much of Young’s news regarding the German spy, and Laura tended to agree. What could a single spy do, running ragged around the forbidden zone, certain to be captured? A useful spy would be quietly filing paper in Washington, in Whitehall. The whole story smelled like Young’s excuse to come and see Pim.

“Well,” said Mary judiciously, once she had seen Pim off on a walk round the orchard on the arm of the worshipful Young, “if Pim wants to cultivate that young man and help me keep in good odor with HQ by doing so—Young is Gage’s nephew, you know—then she’s welcome.”

Laura was on fire to know why Pim had written to Young at all. But she had to wait until she could get Pim alone. In the meantime, the hospital, like every place Laura had ever worked, loved a good romance, and rumors were running riot. One of the nurses had crept down quite openly to the orchard to eavesdrop: “I heard him promise to teach her to ride and even shoot a pistol. He told her she’d be the fairest cuirassier in Europe!”

“Who’d want him? Have you ever seen such ears?”

“But rich, they say.”

Laura forgot temporarily that she was a new volunteer, and rounded on the gossips. One look at her hard eye, and they fled. But the whole hospital kept talking.

“Did you write to Young, Pim?” asked Laura at last. It was evening, and she was sitting on her cot, unlacing her boots. She’d come upstairs and found Pim brushing her hair with exaggerated care. Laura didn’t blame her. Soldiers came to the hospital crawling with lice.

“Well, I like him. He’s very nice, actually.”

“Pim.”

“He’s going to help me,” said Pim. She flushed. “He’s— Well, he invited me to dinner. Mary won’t stop me going; she wants to be in well with the staff officers. And—I think Young would take me to Faland’s hotel. In a car. After dinner. If I asked him.”

Pim didn’t look at Laura but kept on brushing determinedly.

The thing was, Pim was absolutely right. Anywhere she wanted to go, all she needed was the help of an aristocratic staff officer, nephew of the man in charge of the sector, wholly besotted. But Laura didn’t know which was a worse idea: Pim hunting determinedly for Faland, or Pim putting herself in debt to Young.

Laura said, “Are you going to end up married to the poor boy for his pains?”

Pim looked indignant—probably at the insinuation that she could not manage a hapless creature like Young, although she was far too kind to say it aloud.

Laura said, “Pim, it’s not a good idea.”

“It will be all right,” said Pim, going back to brush her hair. “Young’s harmless. Means well.”

“And Faland?” said Laura. She’d been rolling up her stockings; she stopped and watched her friend narrowly.

Pim said nothing. She laid aside her brush, began plaiting her long hair for the night.

Laura said, “Pim—doing this won’t…” She hesitated.

Pim turned to face her. “Won’t—?”

“Won’t bring Jimmy back. Faland isn’t going to conjure your son’s ghost for you.”

Pim stiffened, determined dignity in every line of her face. “If the Parkeys could contact Jimmy, then why not Faland?”

“The Parkeys are a trio of old frauds! They are good, they are kind, but there isn’t a veil, there aren’t…Pim, don’t throw yourself on Young’s mercy, all to chase a ghost. Don’t let Faland do this to you, whoever he is.”

Pim didn’t fire back. Pim was Victorian to her bootheels, Laura thought, and had no notion of how to get into or out of a proper row. “I—I know your advice is well meant, Laura, but I—” Pim’s voice frayed. “I need to see the mirror. I need to ask Faland something.”

“Don’t, Pim,” Laura said. “Let him go.” She didn’t know if she was talking about Faland or Jimmy.

Pim had finished pinning her hair. She didn’t look round when she said, “You’re going out on Mary’s motorcycle. You’re going to look for news of your brother. I’m just looking for—for news in my own way. I’m just like you, Laura. Hoping.”

It’s not the same. I’m not expecting a miracle,Laura wanted to say. But she didn’t. She was a little afraid that she was. And she’d never set herself up as a hypocrite.


· · ·Pim refused to argue again, but Laura could see her mind made up under the softness, stubborn as a stone. So Laura worked and watched and worried and practiced on the motorcycle, until the day came when Mary pronounced her fit to take the machine out into the world.

It was just Laura’s luck that the same day, Pim was leaving the château for her dinner with Young.

Laura hated the thought of letting Pim go out alone, with her hope and her scheming, her courage and relentless innocence, and she hated that she might not be there to see to her when she returned. So, short of other ideas, Laura went looking for Jones.

He wasn’t on duty. He also wasn’t in the wards, or in the sterilization room. Finally Laura slipped out the château’s front door and to her surprise found him sitting outside on the cracked marble step. She rarely saw Jones sitting at all. He was a dynamo in surgery, in the main ward. But now he sat, elbows on knees, his face turned up. The weather had warmed steadily, from dripping March to greening April, and the slanting sun heated the stone on the west-facing façade of the château. The grass-grown drive swept elegantly out toward the teeming road; the old orchard, unpruned, showed green on its boughs, backlit by the sun. The western sky was a startling deep rose.

Jones had his sleeves rolled and a cigarette between two fingers, a little raw from endless scrubbing. His forearms were thin, the wristbones sharp. He looked surprised to see her there. “Iven. To what do I owe the privilege? Aren’t you going out tomorrow? Shouldn’t you be scrounging petrol for Mary’s infernal machine, or—” His eye fell on her face and he stopped. “What?” he said, sharper. “Is it one of the patients?” He was on his feet, the languor gone, the cigarette burning unheeded.

“No,” said Laura, already wondering why she’d gone to him at all. “Not a patient.”

He frowned. “All right.” He fished in his pocket and held out a cigarette case. Rather a nice one. Silver, monogrammed. Laura took a cigarette, accepted his light.

Jones sat back down. After a moment, she sat beside him. “Well?” said Jones, taking a drag on the cigarette. He turned his head, considering her. “Tell me what’s troubling you.”

Laura didn’t know why exactly she’d sought him out. Perhaps because Mary was too ruthless to confide in. Perhaps it was the memory of his face, intent over Trovato’s transfusion, his quick sideways smile. Or an even deeper memory, of waking up to the smell of disinfectant, his irascible voice crisp even through the fog of her fever.

She exhaled smoke. “I’m worried about Pim.”

“If you’re being prudish because she’s going out tomorrow with that boy—”

“I’m not,” said Laura, sharp, and Jones fell silent.

After a moment, he said, “This father confessor business is damned hard work. All right, why are you worried for your friend?” The strong sun reddened his brown hair.

Laura pressed two fingers between her eyes, not sure how to answer. The smell of spring earth mingled with the disinfectant smell of the hospital.

“Iven,” Jones said, “just today, one of the patients was swearing Mrs. Shaw had the face of someone who’d seen the fiddler. Is that it?”

Laura’s hand jerked. Ash dropped from the end of her cigarette. “What does that mean?”

Jones looked taken aback. “How the devil should I know? Puny, I suppose. Like she’s about to shuffle off this mortal coil. Soldiers are a lot of superstitious bastards. I should like to meet this fiddler person; he’s got them all on the jump.”

Laura took another drag on her cigarette, to steady herself. “I thought you were a man of science, Doctor. Don’t tell me you believe there’s a man out there with a magic violin.” Gooseflesh rose on her arms.

“Don’t science me, Iven. Magic’s just science we don’t understand. What if a man a thousand years ago saw one of the flying contraptions that we have winking about everywhere? He’d think it was magic. And you diverted me—well done. Why are you worried about Mrs. Shaw?”

Laura relented and told him. From the night the lorry was wrecked, to her conversation with Pim upstairs. The only thing she left out was her sight of Freddie in Faland’s hotel.

Jones kept silent while she talked, and smoked another cigarette. When she was done, he gave a low whistle. “Sly, Iven, not saying a word. You really did meet the fiddler.”

“A mesmerist with drugged wine. But Pim wants to be swindled. She wants to believe. She wants to find him again.”

“And so she’s going about with Young so he’ll help her look,” Jones finished for her. “That boy is probably delighted at the chance. If she’s not the prettiest woman in Flanders, she’s damned close.”

Laura jerked a nod.

“However,” Jones added, “I don’t know what you can do. Her choices are her own, so long as she does her duty by the hospital. Lot of letters she’s writing, does the men a world of good.”

“Will you keep an eye on her?” said Laura. “I’ll be gone tomorrow and I won’t be here to—”

“See her off? Welcome her back? So it’s not just a father confessor you wanted? Yes, all right, I’ll look after her if she needs it, but I still don’t know what I or you or anyone can do. Perhaps Young will think she owes him for this, and try to collect, but she knows that. She’s not blind, for all that blinding innocence. You’re a mother hen, Iven.”

Laura was silent, acknowledging.

Jones fixed her with a look. “Not to mention that you’re going off on your own quest, aren’t you, never mind your pneumonia, and all my careful nursing. Shouldn’t you be more worried about what you’re getting into? Setting off on a motorcycle with battle on the horizon?”

“I can take care of myself.”

A muscle ticked once in his jaw. “Mary said that your people died when that ship exploded. That you’re an orphan.”

She tapped ash from the end of her cigarette. “The world is full of orphans, Doctor.”

“No doubt,” said Jones. “Iven, what do you mean to do?”

Could he not leave anything alone? Could he not stop looking at her in that steady way, taking in the marks of stress etched on her face, the stiffened scars on her hands? She said, “I am going to take Mary’s motorcycle and go on leave.”

“No—I mean once you solve your mystery. Are you going to stay at Couthove until your leg gives out? Or go back to Halifax?”

Jones could talk, Laura thought. He’d go home after the war, patent his technique for transfusion, marry a rich girl with perfect hands, and be invited to give lectures. While she…

“You’ve no notion, have you?” said Jones. “Not a one. And yet you’re down on Mrs. Shaw for being reckless.”

Why was she angry? He wasn’t wrong. “Yes.”

To her surprise, he did not make suggestions, or bluster, or tell her she was being defeatist, or hypocritical, or anything else. He just nodded, pulled a flask, drank, handed it to her. Brandy. She took a healthy swallow.

“I’m buying cheaper liquor if you’re going to drink it like that,” he said.

She huffed a laugh and took a more delicate sip, rolling it round her mouth, relishing the burn. “Better?”

“Much.” His eyes still lingered on her face. Then he snatched the flask from her fingers, took the weight. “Christ, Iven, you’re a lush.” He drank again himself.

Laura didn’t say anything. The brandy had been good. She felt, not unpleasantly, as though she were floating.

“Why not go to Borden?” Jones asked abruptly. “If you needed someone to keep an eye on Mrs. Shaw?”

“Because Mary won’t care if Pim is hurt, not really. Her hospital is the only thing she sees.” Laura hesitated. “I thought you might be different.”

His smile was crooked. “Trust me, Iven?” he said.

She found her mouth quirking in answer. “I think I do, God help me. Now pass that brandy.”

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.