Tales: Short Stories Featuring Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford by Charles Todd Page A

as you’d recovered?”
    As I watched, a shadow crossed his face. “Yes, well. She died. In the first wave of the Spanish flu. I didn’t get home in time. They were burying her when I arrived.”
    “I am so very sorry, Major.” I meant it. I’d read him letters from his betrothed when he was too ill to read them himself, and written to her as well, to answer for him. Eloise was her name, though he called her Ellie, and I’d come to know her, in a way. I couldn’t think of a finer match for this man. I had so wanted him to survive and come back to her. A small victory for two people amidst the chaos of war.
    “I wouldn’t have had her suffer another hour. But I could have wished she’d lived until I was there to hold her hand.” He looked up at the tall cathedral gates to hide his pain. “But there it is.” Clearing his throat, he said, as he had so many times in the ward, “This too shall pass us by.”
    We walked on in silence, and just beyond the gates he found a tearoom and ordered for both of us.
    For a time we chatted companionably. About mutual friends, about those we’d lost, about the prospects, finally, of peace. I asked about his parents, and he asked after my mother and the Colonel Sahib.
    “What brings you to Canterbury? Are you on leave, or on your way back to France?”
    His fingers toyed with the milk jug for a moment, and then he said, “I’ve had trouble with my hearing. It’s coming back now, but when the tunnel went up nearly beneath our feet, I wouldn’t have heard an artillery barrage. I was luckier than some of the lads. The shock wave killed them. At any rate, I was sent home and told to give it time. I don’t think the doctors in France held out much hope, but I’ve got another week before I meet with the medical board, and I have every reason to think they’ll clear me now. Of course, if they whisper all their questions, I might still be in trouble,” he ended with a smile.
    Laughing, I said, “That’s wonderful news. Still, I’m sure your mother was glad to have you safe with her for a little while.”
    “Look, why not come home with me for an hour or two? My mother will be very happy to see you.”
    “Do you live here in Canterbury now?” I asked.
    “No. But not all that far from here. Not by motorcar. Cranbourne. It’s a small village up on The Swale.”
    “Cranbourne,” I repeated, all at once remembering. “Of course. And it had an abbey in the distant past.”
    “A ruined abbey,” he said, nodding. “Did I tell you about it? I must have done.” Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “I ran in this morning to speak to the police. But Inspector Brothers isn’t in. I was told to come back later.”
    “The police?” I asked, surprised.
    He looked out the tearoom window, not meeting my eyes. “There’s been a spot of trouble. The police seem to be dragging their feet doing anything about it. Nothing to worry you about. But it would cheer my mother to no end to see you again.”
    When the Major—then Captain Ashton—had been so severely wounded, somehow Mrs. Ashton had got permission to come over to France and nurse her son. A small woman with snow-white hair, the same lovely blue eyes as the Major, and a spine of steel, she refused utterly to believe that he would die, and without getting in the way of the nursing staff, she sat beside him and read to him and fed him broth without a single tear shed. Only one evening, I’d discovered her in a room where we stored supplies, her face buried in a towel so that no one would hear her. It was the only time. I never knew where she went to cry after that. Or if there had only been that one moment of weakness.
    “How lovely,” I said, and meant it. “But first I should be sure about my train. There might be news.”
    “We’ll call in at the railway station first.”
    “Then I’d like to go, very much.”
    “Good.” He settled our bill and guided me down the street to where he’d left his