A Cruel Deception Page 3

  We found the house not far from the Gare, and the woman who owned it took one look at my skirts and hands and said, “Oh, did you fall? Are you hurt?”

  I assured her I wasn’t and took a room for the afternoon, paying off my porter and thanking the young officer for leading me here.

  He told me it was his pleasure to help out, and walked on.

  In the event, I stayed the night, for Madame allowed me to clean and hang up my uniform, then offered to press it for me after breakfast the next morning.

  She even provided my dinner—for a price—and joined me at the table to ask endless questions about nursing and England. I finally got to bed shortly after eleven, and after breakfast, I took the train to Paris. A day late, but I didn’t think it would matter.

  As I was about to put my valise overhead in my carriage, the American flyer put his head around the door and said, “Let me put that up for you, ma’am.”

  I thanked him, then said as courteously as I could, “The proper form of address is ‘Sister.’”

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’am, I do know that. But you don’t look much like my sister, and so I find it hard to remember.” And with that cheeky rejoinder, he disappeared down the corridor. I didn’t see him later as we pulled into Paris and I got down at the Gare du Nord. But then it was possible he’d left the train at Rouen. Nice as he was, I didn’t wish another Captain Barkley following me around offering to help at every turn. At least not until I’d found Matron’s son and learned exactly what I would have to deal with.

  Lieutenant Minton, like many of the people at the conference, had taken a flat in Paris rather than live in an hotel. As I reached the outskirts of the city, my companions in the compartment began to collect their belongings, and the older man across from me offered to lift down my valise when we arrived. He was being kind, I thanked him, and let him help me.

  There were taxis waiting outside the Gare du Nord, and I gave the driver the direction of the flat.

  Paris had changed—and yet was very much the same. The shells of destroyed houses, the depressed air of the average citizen, uniforms everywhere, that was familiar. But the uniforms were more varied—some I couldn’t immediately identify—while men in the dark suits of the Foreign Offices hurried toward meetings, and the streets were crowded with all manner of traffic.

  The address I’d been given was in a quarter of nineteenth-century houses, and as I looked up at the grillwork at the windows and the mansard roof, I thought Lawrence Minton was living rather well for a minor attaché at the Peace Conference.

  I asked my taxi to wait for me, and went up the steps to knock at the black door.

  An older woman wearing a dark dress that looked very much like mourning answered, and I asked for Lieutenant Minton.

  I was told that he was not at home.

  “His mother has sent me to call on him,” I explained. “May I wait for him to return?”

  She considered my uniform and must have concluded that I wouldn’t be put off with excuses. Or else that I looked too respectable to be anything other than a nursing Sister carrying out a task for the Minton family.

  “I am afraid Lieutenant Minton has not been in Paris for some time. The flat is paid for through September, and I have kept it for him. But he has not been in residence.”

  This was unexpected. I had to think fast.

  “His mother, Madame Minton, is not aware of this,” I replied. “She will not be pleased that I couldn’t find her son. Is he not attending the Peace Conference?”

  The woman made a face, a typical French reaction to being put on the spot. “I cannot answer that—I have not been taken into his confidence.”

  “Where is he then? Has he returned to England?”

  She hesitated. “How can I be sure that you are here at the request of Madame his mother?”

  Oh, dear. This had an ominous sound.

  I found the letter of introduction given me by Matron. “Perhaps this will serve? I promise you, I have come to help the Lieutenant if I can. Not to create more problems for him.”

  She read the letter, laboring over translating from the English phraseology. I watched her expression, hoping she would accept the letter as legitimate.

  Looking up from the sheet of paper in her hand, she said, “I am not certain of this information. But you might look in the village of St. Ives. Number twelve Rue des Fleurs. I understand that is where a young woman lives. She had cared for Lieutenant Minton when he was taken ill some weeks ago. Then she arrived one day and took him away with her. I have not seen nor heard from him since.”

  I repeated the address, to be sure of it. Then I asked if I might see his rooms, thinking I might find something there that would help me understand why he’d left Paris—and why he hadn’t informed his mother. He had volunteered to attend the talks, according to Matron. It was good for his career.

  Madame refused, adding that she did not have permission from him to allow anyone in the rooms. “And my other lodgers will not be happy about this.”

  “There are other flats here?” I asked, looking up at the floors above my head.

  “Yes. Since the war began,” she said. Philosophically she added, “One quickly learns to make do.”

  I thanked her and went back to my waiting taxi.

  After conferring with the driver, I learned that my best option was to take the train to St. Ives, some fourteen miles north of Paris. I thanked him, and in due course, I was deposited at the proper station, where I found that there was a train leaving in the next quarter of an hour. I bought a return ticket in the event this was a wild goose chase, then sat down in the busy waiting room to await its arrival.

  I alighted in the village of St. Ives in watery sunshine. The railway station was tiny, and there was no sign of the stationmaster when I looked around. Nor was there a taxi waiting for any local passengers. I resolutely picked up my valise and my kit, and looked toward the church tower, which was surely in the center of the village. Avoiding the rain puddles in the ruts in the road, I made my way toward it.

  Though the village had been spared the worst of the war, it was shabby, and I saw two houses that looked as if a shell had missed its target and fallen on them instead. Pigeons flew up from the ruins as I passed.

  The house I was looking for at 12 Rue des Fleurs turned out to be a short side street beyond the small church. It too was rather shabby. North of Paris, where the Germans had charged down the Marne Valley in the first days of the war, the damage had been horrific. They had been stopped well short of St. Ives, but many of the residents here and in nearby villages had prudently fled. Only in the last few months had some of them returned—as I walked, I could see small signs, like a newly painted door or smoke from the chimneys, even though the rest of the house still hadn’t been kept up.

  A few trees were striving to produce blossoms, but the typically French window boxes were still straggly and winter brown. It had been unusually chilly of late, but I thought perhaps no one had had the heart to plant geraniums in the spring for a good four years.

  I went up the two steps by the door and lifted the knocker, letting it fall.

  No one answered the summons, and I knocked again.

  Finally the door opened barely a crack, and a young woman’s face appeared in the narrow space. She was quite pretty, with dark hair and eyes, and a pert nose. And younger than I was, by two or three years. I hadn’t quite expected that, from the description Madame had given me in Paris.

  I was beginning to wonder if she had given me the wrong address. On purpose, or because she too had been given it?

  “Oui?” The young woman stared at my uniform, then at my face.

  “Good afternoon,” I said briskly in English. “My name is Sister Crawford. I’ve come to call on Lawrence Minton.” Shaking her head, she began to shut the door in my face, and I added quickly, “No, please, I’m here at the request of his mother.”

  She hadn’t expected that. Stammering in French, she seemed to be tellin
g me that he was ill and not receiving visitors, speaking too quickly for me to follow her.

  This was, apparently, the correct address.

  “I’m very sorry to hear it,” I answered in French. “But I am a nurse, you see. May I come in?”

  She wasn’t prepared for that either.

  “No—I tell you he is not well.”

  “Yes, yes. That’s why I am here.”

  That seemed to worry her even more. But before she could answer me, I heard a male voice from inside the house. “Who is it, Marina?” He spoke in French, but he was definitely English.

  “Votre mère—” she began, and I heard him swear roundly.

  “Mon dieu—” He must have thought it was indeed his mother at the door, because I heard a flurry of movement now, as if he was hastily making himself presentable.

  I put the flat of my hand on the door, and before Marina could stop me, I pushed it wide, and she gave way before me.

  The entrance hall was as shabby as the exterior. There was a small table with a lamp on it, and nothing else besides the stairway to the upper floors. To my right was an open door, and with Marina at my heels begging me to stop, I marched straight in there.

  I didn’t need the proof of my eyes. My nose had already told me what Lawrence Minton was ill from.

  The miasma was a blend of stale sweat, unbathed body, and the sickening sweet odor of opium. Minton was standing in the middle of the room, staring at me, jaw dropping as he realized I wasn’t Matron.

  I could see at once that he was his mother’s son—he had her blue eyes fringed by dark lashes and brown hair with streaks of lighter shades, like caramel. The resemblance ended there, for while the shape of their faces was similar, his was thin and haggard.

  He was still staring blearily at me, frowning now.

  “Who are you?” he demanded in French.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Minton,” I said cheerfully in English, setting my valise on the floor. “Your mother has been worried about you. I’ve come to see why you haven’t responded to her messages.”

  This wasn’t the way I’d expected to begin my task, but I really didn’t have a choice. And so I had adopted a Matron’s direct, no-nonsense approach. It usually worked, even on the most recalcitrant patient.

  He looked up at me, confused. “You aren’t my mother,” he said after a moment.

  “I am her emissary,” I told him bluntly. “She has given me instructions to find you and report to her.”

  “I don’t need a nursemaid,” he retorted, batting at the air with one thin hand, as if bothered by a fly. “Tell her I’m fine.”

  “No, you aren’t,” I said firmly. Turning to the young woman, I asked, “This is a large house. Is there a room I could use while I am here?”

  “You will stay?” she asked, taken aback. “You have seen him, you can now report to his mother.”

  “He isn’t ill,” I told her unequivocally. “Lieutenant Minton is an addict. I have instructions from Mrs. Minton to report to her, but my first duty is to take care of him.”

  “It’s hopeless,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I have tried, but he refuses to let me do anything.”

  “He won’t refuse me,” I told her, knowing even as I said the words that I was very likely going to find the Lieutenant as difficult as she had. But it was important to give the impression that I intended to be successful, and that was that. I also knew the Lieutenant was listening to the exchange. “Can you show me to this room? I should like to freshen up, if you please.”

  Marina cast an anxious glance at Minton, but he had shut his eyes, ignoring me.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” I said, in an effort to distract her.

  “Marina Angeline duBois Lascelles,” she told me, still watching Minton.

  “Thank you, Mademoiselle. Now, my room, if you please?”

  With no help forthcoming from Minton, she looked at me, uncertain, and then she said, “This way,” and turned toward the staircase.

  With a nod to the Lieutenant, I picked up my valise and my kit and followed her. He made no effort to stop me or to carry my things for me.

  As we climbed the stairs, I asked, “Why is the Lieutenant here, and not in his flat in Paris?”

  “I was afraid,” she said reluctantly. “But his—his illness was beginning to cause talk. I thought it best—I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “He isn’t ill,” I told her, repeating what I’d said downstairs. “He’s addicted to opium. How did that happen?”

  She stopped in front of a closed door. “All was well with him. His wound had healed, he was here to attend the talks, he was the man I remembered, the man who had done so much for my family. And then something happened. He began having nightmares and asked for laudanum to help him sleep. But he told the doctor, as I learned much later, that it was the wound, he had reinjured it playing tennis. And so it was given him. Now he needs it more often than when he sleeps. As you see.”

  Opening the door, she stepped aside.

  The room was large, had two pairs of windows overlooking the street, but it was stale, airless, and smelled a little of damp.

  Apologizing, Marina crossed the room to open a window. “I have had to let the maids go. There is no money, you see. And the cook as well. We do what we can. I am so sorry. If you feel you’d rather leave . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “This will do very well,” I said briskly, as if I were used to such problems, all the while wondering what Matron would make of her son’s circumstances. In London we had both wondered about the possibility of drugs. But surely she had had no idea that he was at this stage in his addiction. It was one thing to suspect—quite another to know.

  Setting down my valise and my kit, I said, “Is that where the money has gone? To buy his laudanum?”

  “No honest doctor will prescribe it in such doses. But there are other ways. He is not attending the conference meetings, and therefore he has not been drawing his pay. The Army believes he has gone to England, you understand, to have his wound attended to. To be sure there is no trouble over this, he had to leave Paris, and I was afraid to leave him to himself. I brought him here, to the house of my parents.”

  “Are they here as well?” I asked, surprised.

  “They haven’t returned. Life is a little better in the south.”

  When I didn’t answer immediately, wondering what her family would think of Marina bringing the Lieutenant here, wondering too just what their relationship might be, Marina asked anxiously, “Can you help him? Without telling his mother what has happened? I can do nothing with him.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll do my best.”

  She shook her head. “The English are always so calm. I wish I could be calm, as well.”

  I turned to look at her. “Forgive me for being intrusive,” I said after a moment. “Are you engaged to the Lieutenant? Do your parents approve of his staying here with you?” I needed to know, if I too intended to stay here.

  She held my gaze, but I could tell that she was actually trying to hide her embarrassment. “It is my family’s house, yes, that is true,” she replied with an effort. “And they are still in Lyons at present. I am living in Paris now, and they have entrusted me with the responsibility for this house. To prepare it for their eventual return. They don’t know that I am living here at the moment. Or that the Lieutenant is also here. I don’t care to lie to them, but my conscience is clear. Lawrence is a friend of my family’s, but I am not his—his mistress, if that’s what you are asking. But I think they would understand what has happened, that I am trying to repay his many kindnesses to my parents during the war.”

  “I’m sorry. I misunderstood.” I smiled. She meant what she was saying, and I believed her. Still, I wondered if she hadn’t yet recognized something more than a family debt. I suddenly felt years older in experience. One grows up quickly in aid stations near the Front or in hospitals where men died even as one struggled to keep
them alive.

  Still, it was probably for the best that I said nothing more about propriety, or made her feel uncomfortable about a situation neither of us could change for now.

  “I must bring you fresh water.” She took the pitcher from the washstand and hurried out of the room.

  Well, I’d discovered why the Lieutenant wasn’t in Paris and hadn’t been attending the meetings he was supposed to be there for. Matron had been right to worry about the rumor she’d heard. But I didn’t think she knew about Marina. If she’d suspected her son had turned to laudanum, she’d have told herself it was because of the old wound. But was it?

  While I believed Marina when she said she wasn’t involved with the Lieutenant, still, there would be talk if she wasn’t careful. A young woman living alone in the same house as an English officer? Especially in a small village like St. Ives, there would be speculation, rumors. How quickly would they reach the ears of Marina’s parents? The repercussions could destroy her reputation and her future.

  It occurred to me, as I waited for Marina to return with my pitcher of water, that Matron had judged her emissary well. Not only would I do what I could to protect the good name of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, but I’d also protect my father’s former regiment. Not because I’d grown up with its traditions and reputation, but because my father would expect me to see that it wasn’t dishonored. Now I had another responsibility—somehow to save the man downstairs from himself. And given my reception here, where I had had to force my way inside, it wasn’t going to be an overnight miracle.

  I hadn’t met the Lieutenant before this, when he must have been a very different man. But I knew what laudanum could do to the strongest men, and I also knew that to help him, I’d have to put away any feelings of pity or sympathy.

  I stood there for some time, considering what to do. I couldn’t walk away. Send for Matron? Let her take on the task ahead? But she had sent me, in her place. At the very least I must try to do something about his addiction, before I reported to her. If only to take the measure of what it would require to help him. I owed her that.