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Hartwood House Estate, convalescent hospital, Somerset, England

Eyes closed, just on the verge of waking, echoes of gunfire and screams fading with his dream, Silas held himself still waiting for the pain to appear, for its blistering pokers to push up from his shattered foot into the muscles and bone of his calf.

It was like a sly dog, lying just out of sight, ready to pounce.

He felt tired, older than his twenty-six years, weary from the memories, pain, and the effort of recovery.

To distract himself from his leg and the dregs of the awful dream, he let his mind be pulled into the room by the now familiar sounds: the soft tap of the nurses’ sensible shoes on the parquet floors, the creak of narrow metal beds under the weight of men, some still sleeping, some so broken they made no noise at all.

The pain hadn’t appeared yet, so Silas let his mind travel further into the room, hearing the glide of ancient, well-cared-for wood on ornate hinges as the door opened to admit the breakfast trollies.

They rolled forward on institutional wheels, pushed by women scarcely out of girlhood, made adults by the litany of horrors they tended to each day, by the tears and weeping of grown men, limbs pitted and pocked by shrapnel, or entirely absent in some cases.

Silas opened his eyes, found instead of hot ribbons of pain, only a steady background hum of discomfort, and pushed himself to sit against the headboard.

A nurse, dark-haired and efficient, slid his breakfast onto a tray in front of him, swiped her wrist across his forehead to check for fever, then ducking her head in acknowledgement of his gruff “good morning” moved on to the next patient.

Pulling the bowl of watery oats forward, Silas brought a spoonful to his lips, and despite a lifelong hatred of them, swallowed methodically.

He knew the nurses would fuss if he didn’t eat, which reminded him of his mother, and that all still felt too painful, so he made his way through the plain breakfast, saving the cup of dark, sweet tea to savour last. Sipping it, he let his eyes roam the room.

Tall windows soared the length of the space, offering views over manicured lawns rolling out into boxwood hedging and the severe bones of a winter garden.

From his position in bed, he could see skeletal allium heads, the lacy remnants of hydrangea blooms, and a few curled leaves clinging to the rose bushes lining the brick path.

Inside, the heavily panelled oak walls were relieved from dreariness only by the opulence of the chintz drapes hanging swagged at each window.

The far end of the room was dominated by a massive stone fireplace, and Silas turned his head to examine the portrait hanging in the heavy gilt frame above the mantel.

It was beautifully done, but even from this distance one could sense the coldness of the family grouping.

The light playing over their faces revealed a tall, heavy-set man, seated, with a frail, grim woman standing behind him, hand resting on his shoulder.

A young boy stood at the man’s knee, small dimpled chin lifted above the profusion of lace on his collar.

On the left, an awkward distance from the others, stood a young woman, tall and robust, a tiny smile quirking one corner of her mouth.

Silas looked at the portrait every morning, and every morning his stomach clenched to see the woman’s face looking back at him, dark hair piled high on her head, eyes clear and frank.

She looked so much like Ophelia, and the house was so like Wood Grange that he half expected it to be her looking out at him every morning.

He turned his face away and took the last sip of his tea.

His leg hurt, but he had already decided that today was the day he would make it to the end of the estate grounds, shattered bones be damned.

Pushing the tray back, Silas swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his trousers, draped over the nearby chair.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed up from the bed, and pleasantly surprised that the pain didn’t take his breath away, he slipped first one leg and then the other into his pants.

Shirt loose, jacket and scarf on, he made his way to the thick double doors that shut out the activity in the rest of the house.

Pushing one open, he saw Matron at her desk in the hallway, head down over patient charts, the grey roll of her hair visible beneath her starched nurse’s cap.

“Out for air, are we, Mr. Larke?” she remarked, looking up briefly. “The wind is sharp today, mind you take your hat and gloves. And not too long on that ankle, yes?”

He nodded and turned to the left, making for the exit at the side of the house.

Passing the door to the study, he was reminded of two years ago, before the carnage of France became his to carry, when he faced a man over a desk much like this one.

When he considered what a wreckage his life had become since then, he felt small and angry all over again, the curdle of betrayal souring his gut.

Pulling on his gloves and snugging the collar of his jacket up high around his ears, Silas stepped out into the garden, pushing away the memories.

He would face those some other time. Right now, he needed to strengthen his ankle and be ready when his next assignment came from the War Office.

The morning was cold and clear, the bustle of the great house already fading behind him, replaced with the sharp tsk-ing of a thrush darting in and out of a hedge.

He’d always loved this time of year, the keen nip of the cold, the clarity of the colours in the fields that faded to gauze at the farthest edges of the horizon.

Before he could stop himself, he thought of the farm, so beautiful at the close of the year, everything quiet and still, all the rushing and grasping finished for the season.

The barn filled to the rafters with hay, every shelf and nook of the farmhouse stacked with the spoils of summer.

Even the animals seemed to know it was a time for tending the small dark seeds of the coming year, and set themselves quietly to their fodder.

His stomach began to seethe at the memory, the threat against his family and their land still keen.

Enlisting had been the right choice, he knew.

The only choice, but God it still stung.

And then returning from the front, leg a mangled mess, to recover within a day’s ride from the man who had taken everything from him, well, he snorted bitterly, that was a cosmic joke of the first order.

Chest pumping from the long climb up the south side of the field, Silas found himself looking out over the downward slope.

It twisted slightly to the right and ended at a magnificent willow fed by the winding creek running through the estate.

It reminded him of a place that he and Ophelia had met a few times, talking and laughing beneath the green canopy of a similar willow on her father’s estate.

Exhausted by memories, good and ill, exhausted by the heaviness of regret, he turned around, tucked his head into the wind, and made his way back down the hill, ignoring the blackbirds that rose up, startled from their foraging at his approach.

Walking back toward Hartwood House from this direction reminded him of the approach to Wood Grange, the ancient Somerset estate that contained the land his family had farmed as tenant labourers for as long as he could remember.

His grandfather, and great-grandfather before that, had each carried on the hundred-year lease common among thousands of estates all over Britain.

Slowing to give his ankle a rest, he thought of his family’s farm; situated at the back of the main house, across the rolling flank of the pasture called Low Field, and on the rise of a slight hill, the house had had beautiful views over the valley and the less formal kitchen gardens of Wood Grange.

A well-trod lane had led past its front door and the small front garden, fenced with ancient stones and a worn timber gate, on its way to the dairy, and from there to the nearest village.

The traditional hundred-year lease between landowners and tenant farmers meant that it was the only place he, and his parents for that matter, had known as home.

He remembered discovering a crooked set of initials carved into the lintel over the front door—JL, for his father, James Larke.

Reminding himself to pay attention while walking, Silas skirted the frozen puddles along the hedgerow, noting the expanse of barren field rolling away in rough, dark waves.

Haven’t even sown a winter cover crop; it’s no wonder the country is mad with hunger and yields so poor, he thought.

Everyone with any useful knowledge away dying in the mud or lying in some estate house hospital wishing they were dead.

He stopped to loosen his scarf, his breath puffing out around him in silvery clouds, his ankle beginning to ache from the rough terrain.

He remembered walking the fields around the estate with his father, learning the names of the birds hopping in the hedgerow and dipping through the blue of the sky, the stages of the ripening wheat, and the signs of a heifer about to calve.

His father’s death in 1908, just months after his sixteenth birthday, had been a staggering blow, but he had felt held by the work of running the farm, prepared for the constant balance of sowing and reaping, breeding and butchering, producing and selling.

He had felt sure of his place in the world, could see an outline of a future.

His mother, sister, and brother had been an anchor in the grief.

But it wasn’t until the summer of 1916, when he had met Ophelia, their almost instantaneous friendship a surprise beyond any he could have dreamt, that the loneliness he had come to accept as his permanent state had lifted momentarily, and the light that seemed to surround her filled his whole world.

Climbing awkwardly over the last stile and into the lane, Silas forced himself to turn in the direction of the farmhouse.

It reminded him so much of his childhood home that his chest felt tight.

From the lower side of the property, he could see the line of apple and plum trees the owners had maintained and, folding in on itself in the far corner of the back garden, the rotting boards of the privy.

The house stood, ancient and solid, the grey stone warmed by yellow lichens and the weather of countless years, but it had the air of neglect that always permeated empty houses.

The skeleton arms of a massive rose clambered up the wall and over the doorframe, and a shutter hung lopsided on the front, and the bright red paint was peeling in strips from the front door.

What had it all been for, he wondered. Was it ever real?

This ancient, beautiful England for which he had slogged through mud and horror?

It had all seemed so important, so vital, when he left.

God damn you, Merritt Blackwood, you dishonest arse .

Swiping his hat off his head, he fisted it angrily.

He had always known reaching for Ophelia was like reaching for the stars, hadn’t he?

The dumb luck of being befriended by a woman like her, out of his class in every meaning of the word, had always felt a bit like the last swig of beer before you’re truly drunk or the high side of a swing, hanging weightless for a second before the inevitable plunge.

Being sent to convalesce here at Hartwood House was like a knife in the gut, he thought for the hundredth time, assailed in turn by anger and anguish.

Everything about the great house and the surrounding fields reminded him of what he had lost back at Wood Grange.

The need to get away was becoming overpowering.

He picked up his pace, though his ankle protested, and with a final glance at the farmhouse, turned back onto the lane toward the convalescent home.