“And maybe . . . ,” he said, still holding her hand, “maybe we could write to each other after your leave ends and keep this conversation going.”
Audrey felt a moment’s hesitation, remembering Robert’s girlfriend, Linda. But Robert wasn’t asking for love letters.
“I would like that very much,” she said. “Very much.”
Eve found the glade in the woods where she’d first met Audrey and the little island in the stream where they’d had their picnic. They were unchanged, just as she’d hoped, offering comfort in a world that was changing much too quickly. Today the woods were bursting with life, the leaves the deep-emerald color that was her favorite. Ferns and wildflowers had pushed their heads through the ugly brown leaf mulch, declaring that the season of death was over, new life had come. If only the same could be true of the rest of the world, and the season of death and loss were nearing an end. She was tired of death, tired of living nearly every moment of every day with the awareness of war, weary of seeing bloodied reminders of it everywhere she looked.
She leaped from stone to stone to cross the swollen creek and sat down on a rock on the island thinking, This is where I belong. If she closed her eyes, she could be a girl again, believing that the world might cycle through its appointed seasons without ever really changing. She could have the faith of an innocent lamb from her Sunday school lessons, trusting the Good Shepherd to keep her safe and secure. Her eyes shot open as she remembered calling on God in the bomb shelter in the East End—and then emerging into a scene from hell when the all clear sounded. She remembered praying that Mum would be safe as she’d raced to the town house on a yellow bicycle, only to find her prayers in ashes. Eve struggled to breathe as the woods seemed to close in on her. She quickly looked up to see blue sky through the bright-green branches. Her panic slowly subsided.
She breathed deeply again, listening for the peaceful rustling and buzzing of the forest. But even that stillness had been altered by the war. Airplanes droned overhead. Army vehicles shifted gears as they bumped and rattled down the lane to Wellingford Hall. A tractor rumbled to life in the field she’d just crossed, a field that had once been a pleasant meadow. Tears brimmed in Eve’s eyes as she picked up a stick and used it to scrape mud off the soles of her shoes, shoes worn by a girl who had roamed these woods barefoot. Maybe it had been a mistake to come to Wellingford Hall. It was Audrey’s home, not hers. Eve no longer had a home, not even in these woods.
She brushed aside her tears and stood, refusing to give in to sorrow. She followed the trail through the woods to the village, emerging in the cemetery behind the church. After climbing over the fieldstone wall, she wove among the markers and tombstones, stopping at the plots where Mum and Granny Maud lay buried, side by side. Eve would keep fighting this war for their sakes, for the hopes and dreams they’d once had for her future. They’d sacrificed so much for her, hoping she would have a better life than theirs. She wouldn’t disappoint them.
When she’d said her goodbyes at their graves, Eve went out through the church gate and walked up the street toward the village green. She spotted a group of American soldiers coming her way, and her instinct was to turn down another street to escape their leers and comments. But then she recognized the tall one in the middle of the group, the one who laughed the loudest. The one with ginger hair. She halted, waiting to see if Louis would recognize her in civilian clothes. As she’d expected, all of the soldiers ogled her as they drew near, appraising her from head to toe. One of them gave a wolf whistle. Then Louis grinned.
“Eve? What in the world are you doing here?”
“Hello, Louis. It’s good to see you again.” It was the truth. She had enjoyed every minute of their time together and often wished she’d run into him again. The other soldiers teased Louis, asking to be introduced to this “pretty little dish” and reminding him that he was a married man.
“Go ahead without me,” he said, waving them away. “Eve doesn’t want to meet any of you loudmouthed Americans, right, Eve?”
“Right,” she said with a smile. Louis shooed them off, and he and Eve sat on the low stone wall in front of the manse. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said with a grin. “I was just with Audrey at the manor house and we ran into Robert, but he didn’t tell us that you were here, too.”
“You mean, Wellington or Welling-something Hall?”
“Wellingford Hall. Yes.”