“I do. But now I have to go. As Lizzie would say, ’is lordship awaits ’is carriage. If it was only his lordship, I’d say forget him, I want to be here—with you, Elaine. But it isn’t. It’s a tired old man who has just lost his wife of fifty or more years.”
Elaine finished the smile. “You’re right. But come back.”
“I will.”
Alan pressed his lips to the top of her curly blond head.
***
For the rest of the day the household moved through a Jules Verne underwater world, floating beneath the surface, without focus. Lizzie prepared colossal quantities of sandwiches and gallons of tea for which only Dave seemed to have sufficient appetite. Elaine and Phoebe slept most of the day away, their dreams drenched in cold lake water, viewed through sightless, staring old eyes. Charles returned from the hospital and shut himself in the library. The TV blared at full volume from behind the closed door. After depositing Charles at the front door, into Phoebe’s competent hands, Alan went straight to the woodpile and spent the day chopping more wood than they would need for the rest of the winter. He told no one of what they had said to each other on the trip home.
Early in the evening, while Elaine was sitting at her computer struggling to type up a cheerful e-mail to her brothers, one full of platitudes about the progress she was making on the memoirs and the beauties of a Muskoka autumn, Phoebe hammered on the door.
“Charles wants to talk to us all. The drawing room in fifteen minutes.”
“He won’t want me there. I’m not family.”
“He told me specifically to ask you.”
They were all gathered in the drawing room by the time Elaine arrived. Alan wasn’t wearing his smart black suit with the red cummerbund, only a tired pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. He sat in the brown leather chair in pride of place in front of the fire, next to Moira in her wheelchair. The elderly Miss Madison’s face was drawn with grief; she had aged ten years since the morning. But she forced a smile for Elaine and patted the couch on the other side of her, inviting Elaine to sit.
Ruth, standing behind Moira’s chair, nodded at Elaine, and the edges of her mouth turned up a fraction.
“Please, help yourself, Elaine.” Ever the host, no matter the circumstances, Charles gestured to the line of open bottles on the small table.
She poured a glass of red wine. Not really wanting it, but suspecting that she might shortly be looking for an artificial source of strength.
Alan stood as she approached the offered seat and kissed her lightly on the cheek. They gripped hands, for just a moment. Moira gave them a soft smile, a smile so wise and knowing it brought her aged face back to life.
“Where’s Maeve?” Elaine asked, simply for something to say. Reluctantly, she let go of Alan’s hand and settled into the chair.
“Resting,” Moira said. “We’ve obtained a private nurse for her. She’ll be going home tomorrow.”
Charles cleared his throat. “Not to sound too much like a cliché, but you are probably all wondering why I have gathered you here.” His thin face was tightly drawn, the skin so diaphanous the bones were nearly visible. The strain showed in every line of his face. Seeking some degree of courage in the traditions of his youth, he had dressed to the nines—gray trousers ironed to a knifepoint, crisp white shirt, navy blue blazer, and smart gray tie.
“When I returned from the hospital this afternoon—” he stopped to take a long sip of water— “I spoke to Moira.” He nodded at his sister-in-law. “For a long time. A conversation we should have had many, many years ago. She—we—decided that you all deserve to hear the story.”
“Megan.” His voice broke on the name, but he swallowed heavily and continued. He remained dry-eyed. “Megan was acting only in my interests, as she saw them. However mistaken she might have been, she was determined to protect my reputation until the last.” Again he raised the glass to his mouth. It was empty. Lizzie rushed for a jug of water.
Charles gave her a slight smile as she poured. “I told Moira this afternoon about my great shame, the burden I have lived with my entire life. I’m going to tell it to you now. Megan wanted to protect my story at all costs. If she’d confided in me, I would’ve told her that it no longer matters. Most of my contemporaries are long dead, my life coming to a comfortable end. But the truth will out, as indeed it must.”
“Ironically,” Moira interrupted, “I knew nothing about this. ‘The guilty run where no one pursuith.’ What an apt phrase. All these long years Megan thought I knew Charles’ heavy secret, and she lived in fear that I’d reveal it. When I announced my intention of writing my memoirs, and then hired Donna Smithton to assist me, she feared that the time had come. Had I but known how frightened she was, I would have assured her that I have no interest in dredging up the riddles of the past, and certainly not in spreading muck and gossip. After all, my memoirs are about me. Not the doings of my family.”
She took a deep breath. “This all came to pass because I simply didn’t know, although I do now. Even as she…confronted me…down on the dock, I thought she was referring to something else. How terribly sad. As Charles has said, who would care, so many years later?”
Charles took a deep breath, and a swallow of brandy, which sat in a beautiful cut-glass snifter on the table beside him, for an ounce of courage. Then he spoke.
It was an incredibly hot day in early September 1944. The Italian campaign was vitally important in keeping German divisions occupied that otherwise would be in France, where the battle towards Germany itself was underway. “The soft underbelly of Europe,” Winston Churchill called Italy. The Canadians were part of Operation Olive, whether after the trees or the woman’s name I never did find out. I remember the dust most of all. It was soft and white, like fresh powdered snow, and could lie three to four inches deep on the ground. Some of the men from the Northern climes would try to fool themselves that it was snow, for a few seconds at any rate. The morale in our sector was high that day; we all hoped that the Italian campaign was almost over. And surely Germany would then fall quickly.
It didn’t work out that way. The Germans fought for every inch of territory and reinforcements were arriving constantly.
I don’t remember the name of the town; you’d think that it would be burned into my brain, but I’ve forgotten, totally. A number of years ago my unit went on a reunion trip to Italy. Do you remember, Moira? The family encouraged me to go. But I had no wish to see it all again. I see it often enough, in my dreams.
It was just a dusty Italian village, one like so many others. Practically destroyed by the time we arrived. You couldn’t walk down the main street without picking your way through piles of rubble—all that remained of people’s homes and lives. The Germans were scarcely out of earshot before the civilians crept back. That was what upset me most of all. Watching those old women in their black shawls, dragging dirty-faced toddlers behind them. The entire population of Italy seemed to consist of nothing but bent old women and eerily quiet children. The women picked through the remains of their homes and businesses, sobbing and crying, and occasionally exploding with joy if they came across some remembered object still reasonably whole.
A few buildings were intact, not many, and a number were still standing despite missing a wall or two, a roof perhaps.
We thought the town was secure, the enemy long gone. We were over-confident and that error will follow me to my grave. And one far worse. Because it was my responsibility, and mine alone. I was in charge of a small platoon. We’d fought bitterly to get to this miserable village, almost certainly no more interesting alive than it was dead. I had lost three men. One dead, another wounded—he’d stepped on a landmine and lost most of his foot—the third assigned to take the wounded fellow back to the Field Surgical Unit we’d passed a few hours previously. Out of the dust and the rubble we saw the reflection of ourselves, another Canadian unit, also short-manned, also parched, frightened, and yet much too cocky.
We met in the town square with a good deal of backslapping and handshakes. The old women didn’t even look up although the children danced around, some trying to speak English, thanking us for saving them from the Germans and begging for candy and cigarettes at the same time.
The first bullet caught Corporal MacGregor right between the eyes. None of us knew what had happened for a few seconds. MacGregor’s face burst into a red fountain and he sort of crumpled to the ground. A German sniper, of course. We couldn’t see him, but another bullet hit the ground right behind Ralph, Lieutenant Madison, Moira’s brother, my friend, and the leader of the platoon we’d met in the ruined palazzo. The women were screaming and the children crying. I remember wanting to yell at them all to shut up. To give me peace and quiet in which to think.
But Ralph shouted that everyone was to go into the big house across the square. He called to the old women and the children and urged them to follow us. He yelled at them in French, which of course they didn’t understand. He grabbed at a little girl and dragged her by one skinny arm. Her grandmother followed. Maybe it was her mother, who could tell, the way the war had aged these women? And her companions followed her.
The house had once belonged to an influential family. The back wall was blown out and the interior stuffed with rubble, but there were still some fine pieces of furniture more or less intact and a couple of nice paintings on the remaining walls. I remember looking at those paintings. They might have been old masters, but what did I know? I was surprised that the Germans had left them behind. They took everything else that wasn’t nailed down. As well as a great deal that was, the bastards. There was an enormous black grand piano in the room, placed against the back wall that was no more. It looked to be in such perfect condition that it could have been placed directly onto the stage at Carnegie Hall or some such place. A light coating of dust, but otherwise the piano wasn’t touched. Not a scratch on it. Sunlight flooded in through the non-existent wall, and threw a beam of light against that damned piano, catching every particle of dust in a golden halo.
My wife loves piano music. I won’t allow one into our house. She begs me to take her to a concert, but I won’t go with her. So she goes with one of her sisters or a friend and they all laugh at what an uncultured boor I am. But I’ve never been able to look at a piano again, after that day.
Once we made it inside, the sniper stopped shooting. No need to waste bullets. We ran though the house to the back. There was a large garden, with a beautiful statue in the center of what had once been a fountain, now full of rubble instead of water. The rest of the garden was nothing but weeds, although I could make out the neatly laid rows of the formal flowerbeds, choked with more rubble. The garden was contained by high wall: a thick stone wall, six feet high or more, running completely around the back yard. Unbelievably, amongst all this destruction, that dammed wall didn’t have a mark on it. Private Turnbull laughed and said that if Hitler could get hold of that wall we would never get to Berlin. He was a good man, Turnbull. He would laugh at anything. He cheered the other men up no end.
Ralph Madison made an attempt to get to the wall. He stepped out into the garden. Nothing. He went a bit further, and then dashed across the ruined garden. A line of bullets followed him and the snipers forced him back into the house. There was more than one of them, and at least one was high up in the tower in the center of the town. The Italians have a name for that type of tower, but I don’t remember it now.
So there we were, two platoons, undermanned by a large margin, two old hags in black rags, moaning and making the sign of the cross over their chests, one younger woman we had at first taken to be older because she was dressed the same as the grandmas, and three filthy, frightened children.
Ralph sent a couple of his men upstairs to see what was there. Nothing, they reported back. Not even a roof.
So there we sat. In a luxurious Italian home that was only missing a roof, a back wall, and furniture to be a proper delight. With six Italian civilians who, judging by the look on their faces, regarded us as the source of all their problems.
Ralph assigned men to the windows, to make sure the Germans didn’t try to sneak up on us. “We’ll be out of here at nightfall,” he said. His voice was full of confidence. It always was. The women didn’t understand what he said, but his tone settled some of their anxiety.
One of the little street urchins in particular seemed to like Ralph. It was a girl, of course, and she climbed onto his lap and fingered his tunic buttons. He patted her dirty dark head and whispered soft words into her ear and after an initial objection her grandmother, if that was who one of the older women was, relaxed.
I’ve promised that I’ll give you an honest account of what happened that hot, dusty day in Italy. And so I will. You may have noticed that I have talked about what Ralph said, and Ralph did, but nothing of myself. And that is, simply, because I did nothing. I did nothing but sit in the corner, with my rifle clutched to my knees. I would let Ralph take care of everything. My men watched me out of the corner of their eyes, but I knew that everything would be all right. Because Ralph Madison was there. The men soon turned to him and started taking their orders from him, even my men, and I was glad to be left alone, in my corner. I found a cushion, soft, the color of fresh cream, and amazingly enough somewhat clean. A cushion that must have sat on a settee at one time, probably graced by the thin bottoms of beautiful Italian noble women. I clutched it to my chest, on top of my rifle, and let Ralph decide what we were to do.
We waited until nightfall. No one said much. One of the old women started to wail until the younger one snapped at her. Ralph let the child with the huge dark eyes play with his buttons and when she tired of that game he turned out his pockets and let her go through what she found there. The other children were two boys, a bit older than the girl. They were getting restless, wanting to explore the house, but held back by the sharp hiss of mother and grandmothers. We’d been told that the Germans left mines behind. Everywhere they’d been.
“Do you like my sister, Stoughton?” Ralph said. It was early dusk, the shadows lengthening outside the (empty) windows. Almost time to go.
“Miss Madison seems like a lovely young lady,” I replied. What else to say?
“She won’t have you, you know. She’s got you pegged for a gold digger. She’s very perceptive that way.”
I flushed and cuddled my pillow closer. The rifle was in the way and I pushed it aside. “I certainly don’t know what you mean.” The men were listening and not even pretending not to.
“I have two other sisters. Not as feisty as Moira, by any means. But one of them is somewhat pretty, they tell me. And a good deal more malleable.”
Private Turnbull laughed and nudged the man beside him. He was one of Ralph’s men, so I never did learn his name.
“I like ’em feisty, Lieutenant,” Turnbull said. “How’s about I meet your sister?”
Ralph laughed and the girl on his lap laughed also. She didn’t know what was funny, but if her hero laughed, so would she. “If you can charm her, you can have her, soldier. But she’ll take no nonsense. So you’ll have your work cut out for you.”
The younger woman swore at us in a stream of Italian. What brought that on, I didn’t know. Perhaps she understood a bit of English and didn’t like the way Ralph and the soldiers were talking. She sat down at the piano and fingered the keys. To the surprise of everyone the notes rang pure and clear. Her long, thin fingers danced expertly over a light scale. I closed my eyes and cuddled my pillow. My mother had played the piano. It reminded me so much of home. The sound echoed around the standing walls and flew through the open roof.
The black piano, so perfect it could have played at Carnegie Hall, exploded like the opening of the jaws of hell. Black and white keys flew everywhere, tiny bits of shrapnel in their own right. The woman didn’t move. She looked at her hands. Only they weren’t there.
She screamed, long and loud and piercing. The old women screamed, and the boys ran in circles screaming, and the girl screamed as she was bounced out of Ralph’s lap as he leapt to his feet and rushed to the woman’s side.
Mercifully, she took one look at her bloody stumps and fainted dead away.
As if they’d heard the booby trap going off, the Germans launched an artillery barrage moments after. The town was exploding all around us, and the remains of the back wall of the house burst into flames. Unfortunately there were still remnants of fine curtains handing in shreds over the garden windows. They caught fire in an instant.
Private Turnbull was the first out the door. He was struck down with one shot and collapsed on top of the rubble at the front door, the side of his head missing. He wouldn’t be courting Nursing Sister Moira Madison after all.
I have very little recall of what happened then. Ralph ripped scraps of fabric off a decaying tablecloth and wrapped the woman’s hands, the ones that were there no longer. Men ran for the back garden, but they were cut down quickly. The house was burning; the ancient timber and precious carpets left behind by the Nazis welcomed the greedy fire with enthusiasm.
The old women were still screaming, but trying to hide the children in their voluminous black dresses. Ralph’s little girlfriend clung to his leg, sobbing hysterically as he tried to gently pry her fingers off his pants and tend to the wounded woman at the same time.
That’s the one thing I remember well about that horrible few minutes. How calm Ralph Madison was. He didn’t upset the child any further by yelling at her, or pushing her away. An incredibly perfunctory job of bandaging done, he ran to the window, dragging the sobbing child behind.
He issued orders quickly. Two men took up positions at the window and tried to get the German snipers in their sights. The others were sent to fight the fire, one to continue tending the injured woman and drag her away from the approaching inferno. The back half of the house, as well as the staircase, was in flames. One of the Italian boys grabbed my pillow and used it to beat at the fire. Little fool. Couldn’t he see that we were all doomed?
They were making some progress. The fire was retreating against the combined onslaught of our men and the old women and children. One of the men yelled in victory as he hit a sniper concealed in the remains of an upper floor of the building across the town square at the moment the German settled for a direct shot.
We would have made it. Ralph Madison and the remains of his (and my) platoon, two elderly black-clad Italian women with all the energy and hatred of demons direct from hell, a group of children, and a woman out cold. We would have made it to safety, had the Germans not decided this would be a good time to recapture the town.
One of my men, I don’t remember his name now, pulled me to my feet. “For God’s sake,” he hissed, his eyes as dark and thin as those of a serpent. “Be a man, Lieutenant. Hell’s waiting for us all, but there’s a special level reserved down there for cowards.”
I looked at him. He was a huge, ugly farm boy. Tiny black eyes, nose as long as a carrot, arms and legs that wandered all over the place when he walked. He never could stay in formation on parade.
He spat in my face.