The Poppy Wife by Caroline Scott

Author:Caroline Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Five

Harry

Denham Hall Military Hospital, Cheshire, August 1917

HARRY WANTED TO TELL HER TO SIT STILL. HE WANTED TO DRAW HER just as she was in this instant, but his hands were bandaged up and she was walking down the ward saying, “Good afternoon,” to each bedstead that she passed. It struck him that she was completely unaware of how they stared after her. He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t the way to behave. It wasn’t the way it was done. But still he couldn’t help but smile as she walked toward him.

“You look ghastly,” Edie said.

“Thank you.”

Harry tried to remember how long it was since he had last seen her. Almost two years? Her skin was very white and her hair dark red. She was not soft and sensuous, like a redhead in a Rossetti painting, he considered, but she was handsome. She was wearing a knitted green beret over her red hair. There were blue shadows under her eyes.

“Does it hurt?”

“I’m full of medication. Can’t you hear me rattle when I move?”

“The doctor says you’re full of metal.” She took the beret off. Her fingers played with the comb in her hair.

“But only small pieces. I shan’t go around trailing magnets or get rusty if I go out in the rain.”

“That’s a mercy,” she said. “May I?”

“Please.”

She took the chair next to his bed and curled her long limbs around. Did she realize, Harry wondered, that every man in the room was watching her?

“I cut you flowers from the garden. Larkspur. Do you remember?” She held the bunch out for him to smell. “I thought that it might be horrid in here, that it might need cheering up, but it’s like a palace.”

“Isn’t it? Almost worth having a few stitches for, eh?”

She put the flowers on the bedside table. The stems were wrapped in a newspaper headline that pronounced stormy weather in France and Flanders. She picked up the novel at his bedside.

“Tess of the d’Urbervilles?”

“I like a tragic heroine,” he said.

“Dear me. I bought you this as well.” She reached into her bag and handed him a tissue-wrapped parcel.

“A book?”

“Open it, then.”

The marbled-paper cover was the softest blues and browns and hints of pink and looked like the paint had been stirred with a feather. He ran his fingers over the leather spine. “It’s beautiful.”

“It doesn’t contain any tragic heroines, I’m afraid. It’s a sketchbook. A proper one. Francis says that you’re always scrounging around for scraps of paper. Well, there’s plenty to go at there. Full of pristine white paper for you to spoil.”

“Thank you. It must have cost you a lot of money. That’s tremendously kind.”

“Hand it back to me one day full of pictures.”

“I shall. I will put your picture on the first page.”

“If I’d known you’d do that I might not have given it to you.” She stared at his hand on the book. “You’ll be all right, though? You haven’t hurt your hands badly?”

“Only cuts.”

She nodded, smiled briefly, and looked away.

He watched her as she looked around the room, seeing the now-familiar walls anew through Edie’s eyes.

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