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“What do you mean?”
“You’re not in the classroom every day, so maybe you haven’t caught the undercurrents running through here. Everyone knows the war is drawing to an end. Getting the boys to focus on history or chemistry is getting more difficult. The tension is becoming unbearable.”
“We’ll all feel much better once it’s over.”
“Do you think so?”
Diana was taken aback by the bitterness in his voice as much as by the question. “Of course we will. We must. It’s been four years of hell. The relief of no more war …” She shrugged.
“Just because the fighting stops doesn’t mean we’re free of hell. People think it will all just go back to normal. Tell me true, Diana—did you leave hell behind? Or has it followed you every day since leaving France?”
She wanted to deny it. She wanted to look him in the eye and tell him yes, of course, life was normal again and it soon would be for everyone. But one can’t lie to someone who has walked the same battlefields you have.
“No, life is not what it was and it never will be. We cannot go back. But equally we cannot stand still. The world will make a new normal. We must,” she repeated, as though saying it could make it so.
It was Joshua’s turn to close his eyes and lean against the wall. “That is the most exhausting thing I can imagine. I just want to sleep until all the treaties are signed and all the soldiers have come home. Then maybe I can believe in the future.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DIANA
OCTOBER 1918
Like a weight, Diana carried Josh’s despairing outburst with her throughout the rest of the day. It fit in next to other new weights—like pity for the fatherless Willis family and worry about wandering boys at night—and older ones that she preferred not to look at head on. “One apocalypse at a time” one of her nursing supervisors used to say. Though sometimes that just resulted in lining up your disasters in a seemingly never-ending line. All in all, enough for a pulsating pain at the base of her skull by the time she made it to breakfast.
In any but the most strictly disciplined schools, mealtimes with dozens of boys were always a dull roar of voices and silverware and dropped plates and the scraping of chair legs.
Diana nearly backed out of the dining room, but when she caught sight of Clarissa Somersby, sitting straight and ghastly-pale alone at the head table, she grabbed a bowl of oatmeal and sat next to the headmistress without worrying about whether she was wanted. If Clarissa didn’t want company, she should have stayed in her room.
Anyone would have asked it: “Are you feeling quite well, Miss Somersby?” Even if Diana hadn’t overheard this morning’s ultimatum from Sir Wilfred, she would have guessed that something was wrong with Clarissa. Strands of her glossy hair slipped from crooked pins, and up close her skin had the green tinge of nausea.
Clarissa turned her head, her eyes the only glittering, alive part of her face. She put down her fork and seized Diana’s wrist. “Tell me about the ghost,” she commanded.
“I don’t … what ghost?” Diana would have liked to look around for reinforcements, but she was afraid to break eye contact. Quite why she was afraid, she couldn’t say.
“I heard about the Willis boy, Austin. He was out of bed in the night because the ghost boy was calling to him. You stayed with him, right? Can you tell me exactly what he said? Beth does not want me questioning him. Not yet.”
Not ever, Diana thought, if this wildly intense version of Clarissa were going to stick around. Forget ghosts calling children out of bed—if Clarissa Somersby were to get at Austin Willis right now she’d frighten him much more than any story.
With the decisiveness of a field nurse, Diana pushed her chair back and used Clarissa’s hold of her wrist to get them both standing. “Let’s speak in your office,” she said in a low voice. “Best not to let any whisper of ghosts be heard by the boys. The only thing that flies faster than rumors is fear.”
The walk, or perhaps the reminder of her position, did Clarissa good—she had herself under better control when they reached her office. But instead of taking a seat behind the desk, she gestured Diana to a settee and joined her. So, a conversation between equals, or as near as the two of them could come.
Before Clarissa could ask again, Diana gave her a detailed—and purposefully dry—account of Austin’s nighttime wanderings. The last thing they needed just now was more atmosphere. She ended by saying firmly, “Mrs. Willis is right to keep him calm and resting today. The last thing he should be doing is answering further questions. At least, none that aren’t asked by his mother. I’m sure Mrs. Willis will be forthcoming with any details she learns.”
Clarissa had lost the green tinge to her skin, without gaining any pink. But her eyes had calmed. “You think me mad.”
“I find that term imprecise and insulting. If you mean that I think you are mentally unsound in some way—no, I do not.” Diana hesitated, uncertain how honest to be. When the headmistress continued simply to look at her, she threw caution to the wind and said exactly what she was thinking. “I think you have a very sound mind, and a very sad past. I think that the imminent end of the war is causing a great many of us to experience … to feel things we have tried not to feel for a long time. Obviously you learned once how to cope with great loss. I am certain you will learn how to cope once more.”
“You must think me very pitiable. Poor little rich girl, lost her brother ages ago. How many children die in England each year, do you think? In 1915, it was one hundred and fifty thousand children under the age of five. How many of their sisters have the luxury to sit around and mourn endlessly? And you, well you have seen death in numbers so great as to make individual tragedies seem … trivial.”
“No death is trivial,” Diana said, heat burning her throat with the words. “And you really must stop telling me what I think.”
When Clarissa laughed, it teetered for a moment on the edge of hysteria but only for a moment. It softened into something softer that, despite its melancholy, eased the grip around Diana’s chest. Whatever had possessed Clarissa Somersby had retreated. For now.
“Did you learn plain speaking as a nurse, or did you take it with you to France?”
Diana let out a huff equal parts relief and amusement. “My mother says my first words were telling her she’d burnt the toast. Sometimes an authoritative voice was all I had to get a terrified or enraged soldier under control.”
