The front hallway also looked the same, right down to the forgotten hats adorning the hall stand. Sibyl caught sight of herself in the hall stand mirror, and smiled at the reflection that she found there. Her cheeks were plumper, a healthy, rosy sort of plump, and her black eyes had more light in them than before. She’d been right, when she decided to go away. And just as right to come home.
“Where is he?” she asked the housekeeper, who was bending to address herself to Sibyl’s suitcase.
The woman lifted it with a grunt and said, “Where’d’you think? In there.” She gestured with her chin to indicate that he was in the inner drawing room, doubtless loitering over a newspaper, just where Sibyl had left him.
“Surprised he didn’t go pick you up at the station,” Mrs. Doherty remarked, delicate as always in her reproach. “You’d think he’d of wanted to pick you up with the car, the day you come home.” Sibyl could tell that this oversight weighed heavily on the housekeeper, and wouldn’t soon be forgiven.
“Oh, I asked him not to,” Sibyl said in her father’s defense, drawing off her gloves. “I wanted to come home on my own.”
“Figures. No one ever could tell you a thing,” the housekeeper said with equal parts gruffness and affection. She struggled away with the heavy luggage, dragging it in stages across the floor to the stairs. Sibyl noticed the struggle and realized with surprise that Mrs. Doherty was not, in fact, the ageless monolith that the Allstons had always assumed her to be. She was getting older. She would be getting tired. As her first act back in charge of the Beacon Street house, Sibyl resolved to employ some additional help within the next week, one or two girls whom Mrs. Doherty could pester and harangue to her heart’s content.
Sibyl moved into the front drawing room, breathing deep the familiar smell of home, a specific alchemy of lemon oil soap and woolen carpet and polished wood. The curtains were all drawn back, and the late autumn sun passing through the ivy leaves sprinkled splashes of reddish light in dancing patterns across the Chinese rug. Sibyl looked up at the portrait of Helen, in its place of honor over the fireplace.
“Hello, Mother,” Sibyl said. The painted likeness of Helen, frozen as though about to speak, didn’t respond, of course, but Sibyl was glad to have greeted it, anyway. She strolled through the room, running her hand lightly over a chair back here, a credenza top there, reentering this strange place that was her home.
The sliding doors to the inner parlor were open, as though waiting. Sibyl caught her breath as she stepped into the cloistered drawing room, for she saw that the curtains were drawn back there as well. The inner parlor had always lain shrouded behind wooden shutters beneath a further layer of drapery. In some sense Sibyl had forgotten that the room had windows at all. She paused, surveying the glittering expanse of the Charles River arcing out below the vantage point of the town house. The sun was slipping lower, dappling the waves on the water with the rich reds and oranges of autumn. A small sailboat drifted leisurely along the path of the setting sun, its sail stained red in the evening light. Sibyl sighed with pleasure.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” her father’s voice asked, and she turned to find him standing behind her. With a delighted laugh she cried out, “Papa!” and threw her arms around his shoulders. He laughed as well, returning her embrace.
“It is nice,” she agreed, turning back to the window with its sweeping river view. “I’d almost forgotten you could see the river from here. I don’t know why we didn’t keep the windows open all the time.”
“Habit, I suppose,” her father mused. They stood together, admiring the water, with the city of Cambridge beyond it dropping into the first darkness of evening.
“Well then,” her father said. “You’re home.”
“I am,” she confirmed, moving to take her customary seat across from her father’s armchair.
He sat opposite her, one hand on his knee and the other over his mouth, appraising his daughter. “You look well,” he pronounced after a short time.
“I feel well,” she said with a little smile.
“So you’re glad you went, then?” he asked. Behind the question she heard a flicker of concern. Never mind that they helped “all the best people” there. She knew there was a stigma. But if her father had seen some of the others, she wagered he would have been surprised. Certainly she herself had been. Like being part of Mrs. Dee’s charmed Titanic séance circle, everyone locked together in mutual understanding of their basic human frailty. The stigma didn’t trouble her. She knew with whom she shared it.
“Very,” she said. With a wry smile she held her hands out at shoulder level for him to see. They hung there, in midair, without moving a muscle.
He chuckled, and then sighed. “Impressive,” he said, his sad pale eyes lighting up for a passing moment. “Most impressive. Perhaps I should go, then.”
“Perhaps you should,” she said. In fact, she had planned to broach just that idea with him once she was settled in. Though for him, it would be much more difficult. Sixty-odd years of dependence wasn’t going to be shed easily.
“Mmmmm,” her father said, stroking his chin and looking at her. The sadness lingered behind his eyes, but Sibyl could tell that he was pleased she was home.
She leaned against the back of the armchair, stretching out her feet. “So,” she said, wondering what they should talk about. “Have you had any word from Harley? His last letter to me was two months ago. He sounded in great spirits, though. Ready to tear the Hun apart with his own bare hands. He’s a terribly overwrought letter writer, don’t you find? Who knew he’d have such a taste for propaganda.”
“Indeed,” her father said. “Well, your brother always was on the impressionable side. It can be a virtue, in the proper context.”
“I had one from Ben just a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “But none from Harley. I assume any letters are all at the bottom of the sea now, what with the U-boats. Must be a trick getting any mail and supplies through at all.”
“Hm,” her father said. “U-boats.”
He paused, hazarding a sidelong look at Sibyl, who noticed it, but said nothing. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t had word of him in some time.”
They sat for a while, not speaking, enjoying the silence of the house. In fact, the silence was deeper than Sibyl remembered. At first she couldn’t decide what made it so. Something was missing. But what?
After a time she realized that the missing sound belonged to the mantel clock. She rose from her armchair and inspected it, tinking on the crystal with a fingernail. No ticking emanated from inside the case. The hands were frozen at 2:20.
“Oh,” her father said, noticing her interest. “Yes. I stopped winding it. Too much bother. I always keep a watch with me, anyway, so what’s the point? Just another thing to remember to do.”
She rested her eyes on Lan Allston’s face when he said this and noticed that under his feigned indifference was a sense, albeit subtle, of being freed of something. As if one of the many constricting binds holding him had loosened. The observation pleased her.
“Well,” she said. “When’s supper? I’m starved.”
He stood and took her arm. “The usual time,” he said. “But you’d best dress this evening, my dear. We have a guest.”
“We do?” Sibyl said, her eyebrows rising. “Why, Papa. I specifically said for you not to make a fuss.”
“Far be it from me to disobey a direct order,” said the Captain. “I can assure you, no fuss will be made.”
Sibyl arrived back downstairs early, well before the appointed time for supper. Her dress was outmoded now, she knew, a pistachio satin with a round skirt and high waist, where all the newest fashions in the magazines and Town Topics featured these delicious long Grecian columns, figure skimming and narrow, in liquid patterns, topped with exotic headbands. So she would be frumpy for dinner at home this evening, and whoever their company was would just have to endure her lack of taste. Sibyl paused to regard herself in the hall stand mirror again, tu
rning sideways to examine her profile. Well, the year would be over soon enough. Perhaps she would go to Filene’s tomorrow, just for fun. Perhaps she’d even ride the elevated to get there. Such boldness!
She laughed at herself, for the timid person she knew herself to have briefly been, and then wandered into the front drawing room.
A man was seated there, his back nearly to her, in three-quarters view, with smooth combed hair, dressed in a simple dinner jacket. He was sitting in one of the stiff side chairs, angled toward the fireplace over which Helen presided, and he seemed to be gazing up at Helen’s youthful portrait, lost in thought.
“Oh!” Sibyl exclaimed. “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. I didn’t know that anyone was—”
But she didn’t finish her sentence, because while she spoke the man had gotten to his feet, and she saw that he was Benton Derby.
He crossed the room, quickly, and took her with his arms around her waist, clutching her to him. She gasped, and her arms slid up his back, her fingers knotting the material of his dinner jacket, holding on tight, as if to reassure herself that he was truly there.
“Ben,” she breathed, her nose buried in his chest. She took a long breath, inhaling the smell of him, that spicy mixture of French shaving soap and his particular blend of tobacco, purchased from the bins at the tobacconist in Harvard Square.
“Hello,” he whispered into her hair. His hand found the back of her head, then traced along her jaw. Benton tipped her chin up and pressed his mouth to hers. Sibyl felt her eyelids flutter and her knees loosen. His arm around her waist kept a sure grip on her, and she brought her hands to his waist, returning his kiss for a long, delicious minute.
When they finally broke apart Sibyl gazed up into his face, her eyes shining with happiness. But when she looked at him more closely, the smile froze. He had a jagged, angry scar zigzagging over his right eyebrow, down his cheek just under his eye, all the way to his chin. The skin of his cheek was puckered, as though the injury had sliced through the muscle underneath, and it had healed imperfectly. She struggled to conceal the recoil that she felt, but saw immediately that she had failed.
His eyes took on a wounded cast, seeing what she saw. She hurried to allay his fear, saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me? Your letters never let on that anything had happened.”
He looked down, pressing his forehead to hers. “I suppose I didn’t want you to worry,” he said. “It looks ugly, I know, but I was lucky. A few more inches in any direction and I could’ve been blind. I could’ve been dead. A lot of the others with me weren’t so fortunate.”
Sibyl swallowed, bringing a tentative hand up to brush her fingertip along the fresh scar. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m just so glad to see you. I’m so glad you’re home safe.”
“Yes,” he said with uncertainty. He paused, his arms still around her waist. “Sibyl, I . . .” he started, then looked away.
“What is it?” she asked. But as soon as she read the worry behind his gray eyes, she knew what he was preparing to tell her. She let her breath out slowly.
“It’s Harley, isn’t it,” she said. Not asking, as a question, but stating it outright. A fact that she knew to be true.
Benton nodded, his lips pressed together, eyes blinking back whatever he might really feel about the information he had tasked himself with delivering to her.
She shuddered, and he held her more tightly.
“Was it,” she asked slowly. “Was it the way that I—” She couldn’t finish. Her heart seized with the sudden grip of guilt.
He nodded.
She leaned her cheek on his chest, gazing into nothing for a long minute. He held her, waiting.
“Did it hurt? Do you think?” she asked in a small voice.
“Honestly,” he said, and she heard his voice from within his chest, “I think it was too fast for that. I’d be surprised if he felt anything at all.”
She sniffed, blinking her eyes quickly. Still he held her.
“Poor Dovie,” Sibyl said. “She’ll take it so hard. We must tell her.”
“I spoke with her,” Benton said. “This afternoon. I called on her specifically. She took it better than I’d expected. I think, in some respects, she was expecting it.”
“And Papa?” she asked.
Benton paused, and then said, “He knows.”
Sibyl nodded, unsurprised. She pressed her cheek more firmly to his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heart beating deep beneath his jacket. The sound of his blood moving under his skin soothed her.
“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “And then I won’t ask any more.” She pulled her head away and looked up into his eyes.
“One thing,” Benton said.
“Right before,” Sibyl said. “While he was there. In the middle of all of it.”
“Yes?”
“Was he happy?” She searched Benton’s face, probing for the answer that she wanted to find.
Benton’s eyes softened, and a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “You know what? He was. He was in fine form. Healthy. Busy. Engaged. Even in the long hours we spent encamped, I never once saw him gamble. We’d just heard word about the Zimmermann telegram, that Germany’d tried to lure Mexico into the war, with the promise of returning Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to them if Mexico helped their cause. Gracious, but you’ve never seen him so worked up. We all knew the States would enter soon, and everyone was feeling confident. We were stationed in Nord-Pas-de-Calais with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, preparing to retake Vimy Ridge. It was an important maneuver, Sibyl. It would make or break the Arras Offensive, if we could succeed.”
“What happened?” she asked.
Sibyl had been following the war’s progress in the papers as best she could during her time away, though she’d had to pay one of the kitchen girls at the sanitarium to smuggle the newspapers to her room. Too stirring for the nerves, the doctors had said. Sibyl didn’t care. She no longer minded having her nerves stirred, particularly when it concerned people she loved.
“They were very keen on tactics for this one, because they knew the geography of the ridge would make it damned difficult for the Germans to defend with just a rigid trench line,” Benton said, his eyes shining with excitement as he recalled the complexities of preparing for battle.
“So the Corps officers held some lectures to spread all the tactical knowledge the French had acquired at the Battle of Verdun. Well, I’ll tell you, they had us rehearsing the maneuvers over and over again before the offensive. Harley, he was popular with the Canadian boys. After a while they were just itching to stop rehearsing and get on with it. He kept as cool a head as I’ve ever seen, and helped some of the younger fellows keep their concentration, too. You would’ve been proud of him, Sibyl.”
She nodded, smiling. She tried to imagine Harley a leader of men, a wielder of influence, and found that she could picture it more easily than she expected.
“They split the campaign into four objectives, and the plan was for us to leap-frog our way to the ridge in stages, with enough speed that the Germans wouldn’t have time to react. We were in an infantry group aimed at the third objective, a little town called Thelus in a small stand of woods outside of Vimy. For once we were going to have plenty of artillery, a lot more than the usual Corps allotment. In that part of the country there was an awful lot of fighting in tunnels underground, too, you know. We had to work hard to know not just the trench system, but also the tunnels underneath. Lots to prepare for, lots to get wrong.”
Sibyl’s eyes widened, imagining having to fight to the death in the darkness of a cave, like a mole against a weasel. The idea of such confinement made her panicky and ill.
“Well, in the months leading up to the offensive, we were intensifying our nighttime trench raids on Fritz. It got to be kind of a game, actually.”
“A game?” Sibyl said, aghast.
Benton laughed and said, “Oh, sure. Companies would compete over how m
any prisoners we’d take, and what kinds of intelligence we could beat out of them.” He saw the expression of horror on Sibyl’s face at this casual allusion to violence, and tried to tamp down his enthusiasm to a level more appropriate for a drawing room.
“At any rate, Harlan had been made a company commander in February. Late one night, near the end of March, he led a raid on a German trench not far from Thelus. They put up a real fight, those fellows, and it got ugly. But we managed to take it. Eleven sniveling German kids taken prisoner, and Harlan had just cornered their commander. He’d torn a kind of document case off the man and just passed it to me when we saw the Kraut bastard was holding a grenade.”
Benton paused, the muscle at his jaw twitching at the memory. Sibyl waited, gazing up into his face with its angry pink scar. Already she found she only saw it if she tried.
“Well,” Benton said at length. “There wasn’t any time. No time at all. Without even thinking, Harley threw himself on the German commander. We all hit the ground and then it was over.”
“Ben,” she whispered, brushing her hand over his eyebrow and down his cheek. “Ben.”
He smiled, disengaging from their embrace and leading her over to the bench in the bay window. “Well,” he said, voice somber. “I’ll spare you the details. But there’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?” Sibyl asked, working to push the image of Harlan’s last moments away from her mind.
He smiled out of one side of his mouth. “You don’t know what was in the document case.”
Her eyebrows rose in curiosity. “And what was in the case?” she asked.
“A map,” he said, leaning his chin on his fist and smiling at her. “Of part of the German tunnel system under the trenches. It included a tunnel under the Thelus line. One we didn’t even know about.”
“Well,” she said, a slow smile dawning across her face. “How about that.”