Page 68 of The Light Between Worlds
We navigate through the mess of the Ministry of Works’construction, and out past the quiet, contemplative galleries, into bright sunshine on the portico. The early spring air is still chilly, but the Gallery’s a drafty old place and I had a sweater on anyhow. Still, we’ve only just made it down the steps when Jack hands me his overcoat.
“Take it if you like,” he says. “I’ve got my jacket and scarf. I’m quite comfortable.”
I shrug into his coat and it smells of the restoration room—of cleaners and solvents and paint. We amble across Trafalgar Square, past Nelson’s Column and the lions that guard its base, past the fountains and the winter grass, and out onto the Mall. Jack’s limping badly, but it gets better as we carry on, and I wonder if it’s sitting for too long that bothers him.
“Do they hurt?” I ask. “Your burns, I mean.”
“Sometimes,” he says. “But I broke bones that didn’t set right, and that’s worse, depending on the weather. I suppose I’m used to it, though. Does whatever’s brought you home from America hurt you?” I glance at him sharply and he gives me a look. “You don’t talk about it, so I assume you came back because of something difficult, is all.”
I slip the stag pendant out and rub at the cool metal, a reminder of all my failings. “My sister’s gone missing. It’s been nearly”—the words threaten to choke me—“a month. She disappeared from school, but she’d been having a hard time coping with a lot of things. So I think Scotland Yard has made up their minds about it, and about her, but I’m still not certain. And honestly at this point I’d rather know one way or the other, because not knowingis worse. Ihatenot being sure what to do with myself—whether I should hurt or hope, because I can’t manage both at once, and I’m caught between the two.”
We step through the entrance to St. James’s Park and the city streets give way to grass and trees, which are faintly green with the promise of spring. It feels like a betrayal, that spring will come whether Ev is here or not, that the trees would dare to bud and the flowers to bloom in her absence.
Jack hasn’t said anything, as if he knows there’s more, and so I go on, because he may as well hear it all.
“We fought, and I left her. I went to America because I thought I couldn’t bear being with Evelyn anymore. And I’m never going to stop regretting that, because if I’d stayed, she’d still be here. I’d pulled her through hard times before, and I could have done it again. But I left instead. Now I have to live with that, and it’s eating me up inside.”
I can’t see straight, and selfish creature that I am, I’m not sure if the tears blurring my vision are for myself or Evelyn.
Jack’s damaged left hand slides into my own and I cling to it.
“Handkerchief’s in the coat pocket,” he says simply.
I take it out and wipe at my face. “I’m so sorry. That’s probably more of an answer than you bargained for, and now I’ve gone and made a mess of myself again.”
“Philippa,” Jack says. “Please stop apologizing to me. If you keep that up, I’m going to want to kiss you, just to prove everything’s alright, and—”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” I repeat, blinking away the last rebellious tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I don’t have time to be breathless before he kisses me, and I’m lost in the mingling smell of paint and my own lavender scent. Around us the trees sway and whisper, promising a spring that will come without Evelyn, and I’ve never been so happy or so terribly low, everything in me aching with loss and longing until I think I’ll fall apart.
49
LONDON’S CAUGHT IN FOG, AND SO AM I. I CAN’T SEE MYway clear of it, and I’m beginning to forget the sound of my sister’s voice, so I decide to beard the lion in its den.
Whitehall’s sidewalks are emptier than they were during the war, when queues for the Army Recruiting Office stretched from one street to the next. But the New Scotland Yard building is as imposing now as it was then—tall and severe, with a blank-faced brick exterior. I pace the walkway for a few minutes, trying to ignore the gnawing pain in my stomach, before sucking in a breath of damp air and pushing my way inside.
Everyone here is busy and impersonal, from the secretaries to the line of telephone operators to the inspectors, who walk about with their heads down as if their busyness is somehow superior to that of ordinary mortals. After inquiring at several desks, I’m directed up a flight of stairs and to a small waiting room that smells of cheap perfume and cigarette smoke. I settle into a chair and leaf absently through a magazine, trying to appear untroubled and uncaring.
I’ve only just managed to snap a facade of serenity into place when Inspector Dawes blusters into the room. Bother. I’d been hoping for Inspector Singh, who seems the more understanding of the pair.
But I get to my feet, and even Dawes is caught for a moment by my glamour, uncertain whether he should shake the hand I offer or bow over it with a kiss. I smile as he shakes it, a slow, enigmatic expression, and the inspector scowls.
“What is it you want, Miss Hapwell?”
“I’ve come for my sister’s letters,” I tell him. “You’ve had them quite long enough to read through. I should like to look at them myself.”
Inspector Dawes’s formidable eyebrows grow even closer together. “You’re taking an interest now, when you couldn’t be troubled to read them before? That seems like too little too late, doesn’t it, Miss?”
I want nothing more than to crumble at his words. Instead, I barely blink.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” I say to the inspector, “but you know nothing about me. I’d ask you not to judge what you have no knowledge of.”
“That’s the trouble with girls like you,” Dawes grouses. “No one knows you, not even yourselves. You’re too caught up in mysteries of your own making.”
He stumps out of the room, presumably to fetch Evelyn’s letters. I drop into a chair and bury my face in my hands till the sound of his footsteps in the corridor brings me once more to my feet.
Ev’s letters have all been torn open, and the envelopes smudged, but I take them from Dawes as if each one of them is worth a pound of gold.
