which was at least the match of any other lady’s there, Aurora prepared herself to enjoy the fete. She looked around (she could not help it) for Lewis Ridgeway, but did not find him. Perhaps he had end-of-term school work to do, or—well, it did not matter.
Avery was cranky and suffering from a surfeit of ice cream. Mabel took him into her arms, needing something to occupy herself. They’d learned that morning that an Indian Head boy had been killed in action: Frank Richmond, a schoolfriend of Aleck Graham’s. Dr. Graham had brought the news to church with him. The doctor and Mabel were carefully not talking together, as if conversation could only tend in one direction, and that a useless one.
The night before, Mabel had shown Aurora part of a letter that a friend of Aleck’s, John Levitt (wounded in action and invalided home) had brought from the Front. She’d handed the page over without a word, and retired to her room once it was back in her hand.
… give me the rifle fire all day, every day instead of one of those hellish coal-boxes packed with nails, screws, anything sharp—no wonder to see men go plumb loony, nutty—
You read of such cases in the papers, how men suffer from breakdown.
Don’t think they are nervous or weak or anything like that. Pity them rather—for the whine and sizzle of the shell in the air, and the awful suspense of waiting for the explosion to come is what does the trick. Enough of this—
Enough, yes. The sun was pale for May.
Aurora stood on Mrs. Gower’s graceful veranda, listening to Mama’s slight, sweet voice singing to Avery as Mabel held him, ‘Whispering Hope, oh how welcome thy voice, making my heart in its sorrow rejoice …’
Hearing an odd groan or gasp, Aurora stepped in through the French doors to see Mrs. Gower standing in the middle of her wood-panelled hall. Dr. Graham and Lewis and the Dean had come in through the front door together, looking grave or unhappy depending on their natures, and the Dean held a telegram.
Mrs. Gower’s mouth opened very sadly, as if she were going to speak, but she did not. One foot pawed at the first of the grand stairs, could not lift to it. Lewis went to help her. She shied away from him too, now saying, ‘No, no,’ in almost her ordinary voice, and tripped, falling heavily onto the stair.
Dr. Graham knelt beside her. Seeing that she had the help she needed, Lewis led Aurora back through the drawing room, out onto the veranda again. ‘Her son has been killed in Belgium,’ he said. But she had already known that.
Mama’s voice had dwindled to a whisper. Behind Avery’s drowsing golden head, Mabel’s eyes were like caves. Aurora took her hand.
Moon Flit
Victor’s leave only worried Clover more. She did not see how he could carry on in that state of distress, in the dreadful conditions which were becoming known. And now so weak in body. He had not talked about the trenches in daylight, only in the half-dream state at four a.m. But she had seen his feet, and the hideous bruises coursing down his back and flanks. Greyer than before, Madame crept through the house and spent more time on scales and meditation at Galichen’s atelier, seeking comfort. Clover wrote lightly to her sisters. To Aurora:
Galichen requires his followers to be tested for purity, purpose and spiritual fitness before they reproduce, so we jumped the gun. But Harriet is such a darling, not even he could carp. While I work she stays with Madame or with Heather Jakes in the atelier kitchen. Work has dried up, and these are my last few weeks for now. I would like to go with that American singer, Elsie Janis, to the Front—but Harriet makes that impossible. I am not complaining. Victor did not want to talk about the war at all when he was home.
That was all Clover could say about that. After Victor’s visit she found it harder to write to him, mired as he was in unimaginable terrors. He had talked of shelling that turned pretty woods into blank prairies, land scarred worse than the mine pit at Butte; he had said (this in fits and starts, in the dark, and she was not sure he was awake) that one night they had camped in a bad smell, and only when a poor boy went off his head, hacking at the ground, did they realize