A Better Man
Chapter Ten
The Cold, Cold Ground
Author's Note: Dedicated to Sash, who is awesome. :)
Colonel Pickering studied the stoic little figure in black, and decided he would sell his own soul if it would bring back the lively little spirit that had once inhabited that lonely, silent shell. Mrs. Higgins had shown Pickering and her son the letter on that terrible day - Eliza had retreated to her room. Even Higgins - whom Pickering suspected was on terrible terms with the young girl once more - had appeared struck by the news. Eliza came downstairs in a daze, and headed to the foyer, a letter clutched in her hand.
"Dearest, wherever are you going?"
Eliza gave a start and turned to the concerned trio, looking very much as though she was just noticing their presence, even though she had wordlessly walked past them only moments ago. There was something terribly lifeless about her eyes, unburdened by tears, and betraying nary a single thought. Colonel Pickering had always enjoyed Eliza's eyes, and the ever-changing expression about them - even if he did have trouble remembering their exact color, he never had the same difficulty discerning the feeling behind them.
"I have to deliver this letter, and I haven't any black gowns." It sounded as though she were commenting on the weather, so casual was her delivery.
"My son will deliver the letter for you, Eliza, and we will just alter one of my own mourning gowns; come now, I will have some tea brought to the parlour." Colonel Pickering had expected Eliza to fight Mrs. Higgins' deft handling of the situation, but she did not. The girl allowed the letter to be taken from her custody, and then be lead away.
Higgins had not been able to tear his eyes away from her the entire time.
That had been a few days ago. Now they were all sitting in a sparsely populated church, for Freddy's memorial. The boy had been buried on the battlefield in Somme, and with the conflict still raging, retrieving him was an impossibility.
Clara Eynsford-Hill sat at the front pew with Eliza, trying desperately to not shatter in a million pieces. Ordinarily the girl was quite free with her emotions, but now she seemed wary of Eliza's condition. Pickering supposed that the girl could scream and tear at her hair, and Eliza would not acknowledge that it was happening. His dear girl had been thoroughly numbed by her grief. If only she could be rocked and soothed like a small child with a scrapped knee - were it only that simple.
Colonel Pickering turned to his friend, who was heedless to everything save for her, silently watching, almost as though he were waiting for something."What on earth are you thinking, Higgins?" He inquired.
"It does not bear repeating." The younger man sighed. "Why does she not break down? She is a female, and no one would think less of her if she did."
"She is in shock, Henry. Eliza is barely twenty-four years old, and now she is a widow with a child on the way. I know it is a hard scenario to imagine yourself in, but please try." Mrs. Higgins intervened.
"That poor, frightened boy," Pickering muttered, thinking back on the last conversation he had with Freddy.
Due to the extremely early hour that the boy had fled, and the lack of flurries in the air, Pickering had been able to identify a set of footprints just outside the Higgins' residence, and decided to follow them. The boy could not had gotten far, and with the chill in the air, he probably had eventually stopped to warm himself.
Interestingly enough, Pickering found the boy in Largelady Park, staring wide-eyed at his old place of residence. The Eynsford-Hill home had been closed up on the occasion of his mother's advantageous match, and she no longer resided there.
"Mr. Hill?" Pickering approached the boy cautiously. At hearing his name, Freddy had turned to the old man, saw who it was, and sighed.
"Have you come to thrash me?" He had asked, in a defeated tone that said he would not argue if that were the case.
"Nothing of the sort, I assure you; I've come to talk to you."
"It's far too chilly out here." Freddy had then strode up to his old home, and deftly broke in the front door. "Make haste before someone sees."
Colonel Pickering shook off his wide-eyed astonishment, and followed the boy into the house. "I'll be dashed."
"You get acquainted with all manner of sundry in the volunteer army," Freddy had explained as they entered the parlour. It appeared to be a room full of ghosts, with the darkness combined with the sheets thrown over the furniture. Freddy pulled the sheets off of two chairs, and offered the bewildered old man a seat.
"Eliza is not angry with you, my boy." Pickering announced, as Freddy settled into his respective chair.
"I am angry with myself; I will not be bothering her again."
"My boy, you are not the only person to have this happen."
Freddy looked to the older man, with a curious expression. "The nightmares? You've had them?"
"We've all had them, Freddy. All of us."
Freddy shook his head, a look of relief on his features. "It's so terrible out there, Colonel. I am glad that you have been spared this. I thought I was going to be fine until-" The boy looked down at his ruined hands. "It was ours, you know? The wind was wrong... it shouldn't have come back like it did. God, those muffled cries-" He hid his face in his hands, and Pickering knew the boy was reliving every agonizing second.
"You are here, Freddy. You are safe and sound in your mother's home, talking to a concerned old friend. It can't touch you here."
"Can't it? Look what I've done to my wife! My god - I could have killed her!" He dropped his hands to his lap and looked down at them. "I worked so hard to keep the death out of our letters, tried so hard to protect her - I brought the war to our home!"
"There are measures to take to ensure it does not happen again, Freddy. You do not have to live in fear of another occurence. Be reasonable, man - Eliza needs you. Would you truly abandon her?"
"I cannot even fathom looking into her eyes again. All I can see is how they looked as I-" Freddy could not finish.
"Then I will stay here with you until you can bring yourself to do so, but you must go back to her. This whole ordeal is killing her."
The two ended up talking for hours, with Freddy finally agreeing that he would go back and face Eliza. Pickering had been aghast at the tales Freddy told, and the old man was no stranger to the battlefields. This was new territory though - the flooded trenches, the twisted metal, the new toxins that floated in the air. Never in Pickering's wildest imaginings could he conjure up such images - and the waste, the unnecessary waste of an entire generation of boys. If they came back at all, they would come back wrong, like Freddy.
A late-comer to the service entered Colonel Pickering's peripheral vision, and he turned to see who it could possibly be. Alarmed, he nudged Higgins, who turned and practically snarled at the sight.
Dressed to the very nines in terms of mourning-wear, with an ancient-yet-dapper man at her side, was Mrs. Pryce, formerly Eynsford-Hill. The pair trudged up the center aisle, with a straight and condescending sort of bearing, before picking their seat at the front, right next to Clara and Eliza. Clara's jaw dropped, and something resembling a spark of outrage passed over Eliza's features before she schooled them back into their blank state. Clara urged Eliza to scoot over so that a divide was presented between Mother and Daughter, the daughter in question presenting her mother with the most blatant I-Am-Snubbing-You face that she could muster. Mrs. Pryce was not paying attention to her daughter, however. Her gaze was obviously fixed on Eliza's midsection, and Pickering vaguely realized that this was the first time Mrs. Pryce was seeing her daughter-in-law in her delicate condition. Eliza had begun to grow considerably.
"What is that old crone staring at?" Henry muttered a little too loudly to be discreet. His mother hushed him as severely as she could, and Eliza turned to him. Strangely, his heartbeat picked up when her eyes met his, and then nearly came to a standstill when she miraculously smiled. It was barely noticeable, practically a mere twitch in one corner of her mouth, but there it was.
After the ceremony, Clara helped Eliza to her feet, and attempted to steer her toward the side aisle, in order to avoid Mrs. Pryce and her husband.
"Clara, please." Eliza's voice was barely above a whisper, and slightly raspy from underuse. Clara gave Eliza a questioning look, but said nothing as she turned to the older woman and approached her calmly. Mrs. Pryce straightened her spine, and pressed her lips into a thin line. The mourners in the chapel were all privy to the details of Freddy's seperation with his mother, knew that Eliza was the cause of the rift. All eyes were on the scene unfolding, and all waited with bated breath.
"Mrs. Pryce - how wonderful to see you. I am so sorry that I missed you when Freddy went to war, and again when he came home last Christmas. I recall informing you on both-"
"How dare you speak to me in such a tone, or even at all? You stole my son away from me, and then you sent him to his death when he could not measure up to what you expected. He wrote to me - countless times- speaking of his disgrace at being a mere errand boy while you ran that store - shamless!"
This was news to Eliza. Freddy had never so much as hinted at the fact that he kept correspondence with his mother. The revelation stung greatly, a jolt to her numbed being.
"He never told me."
"Of course he did not, why on earth would he? I was his sole confessor during that time, and I begged him not to enlist, to come home. Mr. Pryce could have neatly made your sham of a marriage disappear. He stopped writing after I made that suggestion."
"I believe it - that was a cruel suggestion."
"You marrying him was cruel, you stupid girl! You who brought him so low in society - you destroyed him! It would have been a mercy on your part to let him go, and now he is dead, and you have his child." Mrs. Pryce looked over at Henry, who fairly trembled with barely restrained rage, and smiled maliciously. "Of course, one tends to hear gossip every now and again-"
"Mother, get out!" Clara bellowed, heedless of the spectacle.
"Clara, this is a house of God-"
"Oh, do not be absurd, Mother and tell me you care about such things, when you are making those sorts of accusations."
Eliza felt a dizzy spell begin to overtake her, and sat down quite suddenly, causing the bickering mother and daughter to cease their argument, and take note. Clara was immediately at Eliza's side, fanning her face in an attempt to allow her some air. It was almost unbearably stuffy in the church. Clara looked up at her mother, her expression even darker than it had been before.
"Mother, I do not think we will be seeing each other, henceforth. I cannot order you to leave a house of God, as you say, but if you have any pity in your heart you will leave right now. I am afraid if I have to continue looking at your face I will scream. Please."
Mrs. Pryce inhaled sharply, and it looked as though she had more to say. She began to open her mouth, before a sharp voice spoke up from a few rows back.
"If you do not leave this instant, I will drag you out by your hair, and if that dusty bag of bones you are wed to does not like it, he is welcome to call me out!"
Eliza turned wide-eyed to Professor Higgins, wondering for a moment if she had imagined what he had said. She had not. The whole congregation erupted in whispers as Mrs. Pryce fled the church, sputtering angrily, her husband lagging behind with a slightly dazed look about him.
Soon, Eliza was surrounded by well-wishers, some she had never met in her life. Her father and his new wife had attended, and she politely turned down a five pound note that Alfred had contritely tried to gift her. Her eyes were trained past the gathering crowd, to the solitary figure that stood waiting at the entrance to the church, impatiently running a hand through his hair. She wondered why he waited for her, when any number of people would have been happy to escort her home.
Not that she had a home.