Lost Among the Living(48)

“Frances,” I said, the word taken from my lips on a cold breath of wind.

“What did you say?” Robert demanded.

I tore my gaze from Frances to answer him, to warn him, and I saw the twisted fury and pain in his expression. And then his hand was on me, his fingers digging into the soft flesh below my jaw. There was sick exhaustion in his eyes, disappointment that ate at him like acid. “Don’t you speak her name,” he said to me, his face so close to mine I could feel his breath, the soft and pitiful degenerate gone. “That name does not pass your lips. Do you hear me?”

I jerked back, startled. “I’m—I’m sorry—”

He pushed me, his hand shoving me backward in a single motion that snapped my head back and sent me stumbling. I nearly unbalanced into the camera and tripod, my feet seeking purchase on the uneven path. I righted myself with a wrench and felt a stab of pain through my back and up my side.

“That was a warning,” Robert said darkly. “I’ve half a mind to do more, but I’m too tired this morning. If you say her name again, whatever I do is your fault. Remember that.”

I put a hand to my face and looked past his shoulder, but Frances was gone. I stood shivering on the path, my breath burning in my throat, as he turned and walked away from me, unseeing, striding directly through the place where his daughter had stood not a minute before.

I stood on the path for a long time, the camera forgotten, until the sun was high overhead. When I stopped shaking, I gathered the camera and put it in its case. The leather felt like cold skin under my fingertips; I barely wanted to touch it, and I thought I might never use the camera again.

I folded the tripod and pressed my hands to my eyes. Ghosts, I thought. I am living with ghosts.

Eventually, I picked up the equipment and walked on shaking legs back to the house, getting myself together so that Dottie would not see my fear.





CHAPTER TWENTY



“I hope you haven’t wasted your time,” Colonel Mabry said. “I did warn you that this might be a futile exercise.”

We were in the small sitting room at the inn in Anningley, where a serving girl was laying out a tray of tea. It was early in the afternoon, a week after my encounter with Robert, and the taproom of the inn was deserted. Still, the colonel had taken a private room for us, which was furnished with a table, a few overstuffed chairs, and a mismatched cherry sideboard. Colonel Mabry was dressed in a three-piece suit of formal gray, his white shirt crisp, his tie knotted to perfection, and his distinguished hair brushed back from his temples. It was the immaculate appearance of a career military man.

I glanced at Martin, who had accompanied me. “I’m sure it won’t be a waste,” I said politely. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

Colonel Mabry grunted and gestured for me to sit. “I’ve received a copy of your husband’s file from the War Office,” he said. “It’s very slender, as I suspected it would be. I had them send it to me for you to look at, but I doubt there will be much in it of use.”

I sat on one of the chairs, fighting to keep my legs properly crossed as I sank into the cushions, and pulled off my gloves. “May I see it?”

Martin broke in as he claimed the chair beside mine. “Mrs. Manders is rather impatient, as you can imagine, sir,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve dealt with widows before.”

The colonel looked at Martin, taking in every detail in a glance. He did not see me bite back a retort to Martin’s condescending remark. “You served, Mr. Forsyth.” It was not a question.

“Yes, sir.” Martin wore a suit today, a jacket of checked wool over a stylish waistcoat, but his painful thinness altered the effect of the clothes. He had slicked down his hair and combed it back from his forehead, which made him look disconcertingly adult, like a man instead of a boy just out of his sickroom. Yet his chair nearly swallowed him, and his knobby hands gripped the arms.

“Air, ground, or sea?” the colonel asked.

“Ground, sir,” Martin replied. “Artillery. I spent most of my time on the Marne.”

“Difficult fighting there,” the colonel commented. He picked up a leather briefcase and opened it, taking his time, my female presence completely forgotten in this male exchange. “I traveled through there in May 1916, and again just before the end of the war. It’s still abandoned, or so I hear.” He glanced up briefly. “Did you take an injury?”

“Shrapnel, sir.”

“I see. To the stomach?”

Martin looked surprised. “Yes, sir.”

The colonel shook his head. With what seemed excruciating slowness, he found a particular envelope in his briefcase and began to extract it. “I don’t have second sight, Mr. Forsyth. I’ve just seen the effects of shrapnel wounds to the stomach a number of times. You’re lucky you survived. Most of the men I saw with such an injury lived barely a week, and it was a mercy by the end.”

“Yes, sir.”

I resisted the urge to fidget in my seat. Martin was only doing his part; I had known that military small talk would make the meeting go more smoothly. But still I wished they would get on with it. I looked at the envelope in the colonel’s hand—Alex’s file—as if I could read through the thick, creamy paper.

“How much do you know of Mr. Manders’s death?” the colonel asked Martin.