One afternoon, a telegram comes for Audrey from the foreign office while Siegfried is out on a call. She walks slowly back into the house, sets it on the table, and sits, staring at it, for half an hour. Susan, the youngest, unsure what her dear Mrs Hall is doing but determined to try to help, climbs into her lap and sits noisily sucking her thumb .
Finally, cradling the child against her, Audrey picks up the damning rectangle of paper again. With a long, slow breath, she opens it.
We regret to inform you... Oh God, our Father...
John. It's about John. Not Edward. Not Tristan or James. She's ashamed of the elation she feels. Silly of her to think of Tristan and James anyway - she wouldn't get a telegram if anything happened to them, she's not kin to them, at least not in the traditional sense. But - John. She goes back and reads the telegram again, more slowly.
WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT JOHN HALL WAS KILLED IN ACTION….
The rest of the telegram blurs before her eyes. Dead. He's dead.
Her first emotion is relief, followed closely by horror and shame. How could she feel anything but grief over the death of any living thing, let alone the man she once loved and married? The man whose wedding band she still wears?
She sits there long after Susan falls asleep, and stays seated when Susan wakes long enough to pad over to the sofa and lie down again. It's late afternoon by the time Audrey is roused from the tumult of shame and blame roiling in her mind by the click of the door opening.
"Good grief, you'd think every farmer left in the Dales had a lame sheep or pig or beast of some kind. That's three calls I've gotten this afternoon alone! If I have to look at one more…" Siegfried turns from hanging his coat and stops short at the sight of Audrey, so uncharacteristically still and wan, staring blankly at the table. "Mrs. Hall! What's the matter?"
She looks up slowly, as if waking from a deep sleep, and silently slides the telegram toward him. He stares at it for a long moment, fighting the horror rising like bile in his throat. No. It can't be. He forces himself to move and crosses the room in several long steps.
There's an extended pause while he processes the words in front of him, cycling through a rapid succession of feelings. He has known and hated this name for years as the source of suffering in one so dear to him, the best and kindest person he knows. He has only heard her speak of him with pain and fear. For an instant, a part of him feels a sick satisfaction, as if just rewards have finally been doled out. But the sensation can't endure; his heart is tied to hers, and her feelings are his, and all he wants is to be there for her.
"Oh, Mrs. Hall. I'm so sorry."
She looks up at him, face drawn.
"That's just it. I'm not. And what does that make me?"
"Human," he exclaims with feeling. He sits down next to her and gently takes her hand. "I know you would never celebrate a living creature's death, but it's natural to feel relief to be freed from such a hold. Both truths can coexist."
She smiles wanly at him. "I know you think the best of me, and I'm thankful for it. I'm just not sure I'm able to at the moment."
He sits in silence, struggling to find the words to reassure her without dismissing her.
"Well then," he says finally, "I'll just have to believe it for both of us until you can again."
