3 January 1946
Through the long dark hours of the night, Jean slept not a wink. In truth she did not even try; each time she closed her eyes she saw her husband's face, saw Christopher as he had been on the day he left her, pale-faced but resolute, certain that his choice had been the right one. Jean had harbored no such faith, had begged him to reconsider, but once he'd signed his name on the page his fate had been sealed, and no amount of pleading from his terrified wife would sway him or the Army. Her bed held no comfort for her now, now that she knew Christopher would never join her there again, and so she spent the night sitting on the little bench in front of her dresser, staring into the frosted glass of the old mirror she'd taken from her parents' house when her father died, wondering where on earth she would go from here.
Three years. Christopher had been dead for three years. Three years of prayers, three years of assuring her children that their father would return to them well and whole, three years of watching them pass milestones Christopher would never see, three years of planning, of struggle, of clinging to hope, and all for naught, for all along Christopher had been dead and buried in the soil of a land Jean would never see. If only there was someone she could blame, someone she could rail against, someone whose fault it was that Christopher was taken from her and she was left in ignorance all the while, Jean might have felt a little better, but she could hold no one accountable, could write no sternly worded letters. Lucien had done his best, had brought the news to her as soon as he possibly could, sooner even than the Army, and she knew she ought to be thankful for it but this truth brought her no peace.
Beyond her bedroom window the sun began to rise, and the first light of dawn touched her pale skin, danced across the silver frame that held the only photo of her husband she possessed, a picture taken to commemorate their wedding day. She stared at their faces, twelve years younger and terrified, stared at the bouquet of flowers she held strategically to cover the swell of her belly, stared at Christopher's round, beardless face, at his arm around her shoulder and the smile upon his lips.
You did this to him, she thought as she gazed upon that photograph. Christopher had known that Lily wasn't his from the very start. He had always been fond of Jean, and she of him, though in the beginning he had been no more than a dear friend to her. And then she had foolishly taken up with Lucien Blake, and Lucien had left her without so much as a note to tell her where he'd gone, and then, a few short weeks later, she had discovered to her dismay that she was carrying his child. With no way to contact him, certain that he was never coming back and equally certain that her parents would cast her out the moment they discovered the truth Jean had tearfully confessed her predicament to Christopher.
And it was then, sitting on the workbench in his parents' barn on a fine summer evening, when Christopher had come up with his plan. He'd taken her by the hand, told her that he loved her most ardently, that he always had, and that if she would have him he would keep her secret, would love her child as his own, would gladly build a life with her. Jean had stared at him in wonder, feeling as if she were seeing him for the first time, the blue of his eyes, the dark tumbling curls of his hair, the warmth of his work-callused hands, the sincerity of his spirit. He wasn't as clever or as worldly as Lucien, but he was good, and he was kind, hardworking and steady. What more could Jean want, from the father of her children? His grandfather had died and left behind a little farm, a farm that Christopher's father had promised to give to him the day that he wed.
We could start fresh, Jeannie, Christopher had told her earnestly. We'd have a house, and with a bit of work I could make money out of the farm. You could raise the baby, and we could be a family, the three of us. No one needs to know. Let me take care of you.
At the time Jean had found herself wondering what had possessed him to do such a thing, what sort of man he was, to so willingly accept a child that was not his, a wife who had already given herself to another. She knew the answer to that question now, knew that Christopher had been passionate, and impulsive, and that he had loved her more than anything else in the world. And it was for the sake of that love he had died, she was sure, for if he had never married her, if he had not spent eight long years trying to prove to himself that he was better than the man who'd left her pregnant and alone, if they had never rowed, Christopher might never have gone to war. He might have married a girl whose heart belonged to him and him alone, and lived out his days on the farm, content in his quiet life. But he hadn't; he had chosen her, and he had been damned for that choice.
I'm so sorry, Jean thought bleakly, her eyes riveted to the blurry lines of his face in that black and white photograph. He had given her everything, had worked his fingers to the bone, had loved Lily as his own, had given her two sons and a roof over her head and if he sometimes still questioned her regard for him, if he looked at her sometimes in a way that seemed to tell her that he knew she did not love him half so deeply as he loved her, it had only made her more determined to make the best of her life with him. She'd spent nearly a decade trying to love him as he'd deserved, and yet she'd never quite managed it. He was good, but she had never matched his passion, the depth of his love for her. And now he was gone.
Outside her window the rooster began to crow; she rose to her feet, crossing the room on trembling legs to pull back the curtains and gaze out upon the rising sun. Tears sparkled diamond bright in her eyes, and her hand shook as she raised it to her mouth, tried to stem the flow of her grief. She would have to be strong today, would have to be as steady, as stable as Christopher himself had been, for there were three small children sleeping in that house who would need her, whose whole world was about to come to an end. She had resolved herself to tell them in the morning, but now that the morning was upon her, she could not seem to find the words. How would she do it? When? She could hardly tell them over breakfast, while they lingered over plates of eggs and sausages and she nursed a cup of weak tea.
And then there would be Lucien to deal with as well, Lucien who was sleeping on the sofa but had promised to be gone at first light. First light was upon them, now, and so Jean knew she would have to go and face him, send him walking down the road to his father's house. Would she ever see him again? She wondered as her tears slowly subsided. Did she want to see him again?
Her feelings as regarded Lucien Blake were a tangled mess she could not decipher. The man had left her, had sworn his love and then abandoned her with no explanation, had been twelve long years away from home without so much as a letter to draw an end to their brief affair. He had left her pregnant and scared, though she supposed she could not fault him for that, as neither of them had known of her condition at the time. The years had changed him, she knew; she could see it in the wildness of his eyes, the softness of his voice, the trembling of his hands. They'd had little enough in common in their younger days, had come from such different backgrounds, with such different experiences of life, and she knew that the time they'd apart would only have served to widen that chasm between them. And whatever she had felt for him back then, the few weeks they'd spent together paled in comparison to the years she'd spent with Christopher. This was Christopher's house, Christopher's bed, Christopher's children sleeping down the hall, and she knew it would be wrong, that she would be damned, for standing in that house and thinking longingly of another man. Lucien needed to go, and Jean needed to let him.
But first she needed to change her clothes and fix her hair, for it would not do for her to be seen wearing yesterday's wrinkled skirt. Whatever the day held in store for her, Jean would face it with her chin held high and not a strand of hair out of place.
The sound of voices greeted Jean the moment she stepped from her room, and she made her way out to the sitting room with a heavy heart. She had so hoped to usher Lucien from the house before the children woke, but for once it would seem that they had sprung out of bed happy and wide awake, rather than requiring the pleading, cajoling, and threats of their mother to send them shuffling off to the kitchen.
To her surprise, however, the sitting room was empty, the blanket Lucien had slept under folded neatly at the end, and no sign of the man himself. Curious now she continued on into the kitchen, where she found Lily and Jack doing their best to make breakfast, which is to say that Jack had more flour behind his ears than in the bowl and Lily was scrambling eggs in a pan.
"What's all this?" Jean asked from the doorway, hands on her hips.
"Breakfast!" Lily answered breezily, turning to smile proudly at her mother. Around her waist Lily wore Jean's favorite floral apron, tied as tight as it would go and still in danger of falling off her. The sight of Lily so hard at work, wearing that apron and standing by the cooktop filled Jean with a welter of conflicting emotions; though she was proud of her daughter, of her spirit, her industriousness, Jean lamented the sudden loss of her childhood, the way Lily had grown up so fast over the last few years. It seemed as if she'd been a baby one moment and a young woman the next, and Jean had no idea how to make it stop.
"I got the eggs," Lily explained. That was nothing unusual, as going out to the henhouse in the morning and collecting eggs had long been one of Lily's designated chores around the house, but her next words stopped Jean in her tracks. "Jack is going to help me make scones, and Lucien and Christopher are milking the cows."
"Lucien and Christopher are...what?"
"You've never done this before have you, Doctor Blake?" young Christopher asked him warily.
The children had found him well before sunrise, had come slipping out of their rooms on silent feet, delighted to discover that he was still there. Apparently they had discussed it between them the night before, whether their mummy's strange friend would stay the night, and upon discovering him they had pressed him with a million questions. Lucien had deflected their curiosity in much the same way as he had done the night before, suggesting they accomplish their chores as quickly as possible so that they might have breakfast made by the time their mother woke up. He had promised Jean that he would leave at first light, but he imagined that she likely had not slept very well, and he wanted to do whatever he could to make the morning as easy as possible as for her. Lily had explained that in the mornings she gathered the eggs and helped her mother cook while the boys milked the cows, and when Jack had grumbled about how much he hated his assigned duty Lucien had selflessly volunteered to take over the chore and allow Jack to remain in his sister's capable hands.
The problem, of course, was that Lucien had never come within ten feet of a cow, and young Christopher was quite right in his estimation of Doctor Blake's abilities when it came to all things agrarian. Lucien had grown up in a fine house in town and then been shipped off to an even finer boarding school, had spent his youth in the grand cities of Europe before settling down in Singapore, and he did not know the first thing about milking a cow. But he was determined to help, and it seemed that while young Christopher found him a bit hapless, the lad was willing to help him along.
While they had been speaking in the sitting room it was Christopher who had asked him what he did for a living, and Lucien, unable to speak the word soldier, had confessed that he was in fact a doctor. While Lily and Jack were content to continue to call him by his given name, young Christopher it seemed had taken more of his mother's lessons on civility to heart, for he was now insisting on referring to Lucien as Doctor Blake.
"Well, Chris," he said as he settled himself more firmly upon the little stool young Christopher had provided, calling him Chris for he felt that Christopher was a name much too big for a boy so small, felt that the lad standing beside him with that look of trepidation on his face was far too serious for a boy only nine years old, "I can't say that I have. But there's a first time for everything, isn't there?"
The cow made a soft sound of distress, turning her head to gaze back at Lucien with one huge, troubled brown eye.
"There, there, Bessie," Lucien said, reaching out to stroke the cow's flank with rather more confidence than he actually felt. "It'll be all right."
By the time Lucien and young Christopher came waltzing back into the kitchen, each of them swinging a pail of milk with dirt upon their trousers and smiles upon their faces, Jean and her children had finished plating up their breakfast. At the sound of footsteps she turned on her heel, and felt her breath catch in her throat at the sight of Lucien and her son standing side-by-side, each of them looking so proud at having accomplished their task.
He was handsome, still, though some of his confidence had left him, though he was thinner than she'd ever seen him before. The thought flitted through her mind, insidious and terrible, and she tried to will it away. Her husband was dead, and she had to face the onerous task of telling her children. She could not spare a moment to think about Lucien Blake, or the breadth of his shoulders or the remembered warmth of his gentle hands.
"Thank you, Christopher," Jean said warmly, reaching out to relieve her son of his burden and taking Lucien's while she was at it. "Go and wash your hands, and then come get something to eat."
Christopher followed her instructions silently, without a word of complaint, as he always did, and, as it always did, her son's somber nature worried her, just a little. Jack at least was argumentative and headstrong, possessed of all of his father's passion if lacking in his selflessness. Young Christopher was a world unto himself, and sometimes seemed too far away for Jean to reach. Her heart was already heavy, but the sight of his little feet carrying him away from her did nothing to soothe the ache in her chest.
"I suppose I ought to be getting on," Lucien said, smoothing his hand absentmindedly over the back of his hair. His stance was awkward and uncertain, and for some reason the sight of him so ill at ease helped Jean to relax, to find her breath once more. Yes, Lucien had told her that he would leave at first light, but he had been kind to her children, and he had milked a cow - a feat which Jean was certain he had never before attempted - and he had not spoken to his father in twelve years, and it was a long walk back to town, and he was far too skinny for Jean's liking.
"Go and wash your hands, Lucien," she told him softly. "And then have a bite to eat before you go."
His answering smile was brighter than the sun outside her kitchen window, and Jean turned away from him at once, not wanting him to see how much his joy pleased her.
