Mirror Image, page 42
And the meeting had been top secret. Victoria had had to wait outside with the other drivers. And he said very little to her on the way back.
He seemed to be thinking, and he paid very little attention to the road, it was familiar to both of them. Victoria knew it like the back of her hand, she had been over it a hundred times. And she was in a hurry that night to get back to her baby. As usual, her breasts were dripping with milk for him, and she wanted to get back to the chateau quickly to pick him up and nurse him. The discomfort she felt increased hourly, and made her just a little bit careless.
"What was that? " Edouard glanced at something by the side of the road, when they were more than halfway back, and she smiled at him. He was tired and looked strained. The war was not going well for the Allies.
She wished the Americans would get into it, but President Wilson was still resisting. If only they would come over and see for themselves how badly the French and English needed them, maybe things would be different. She was thinking about that when they hit a small bump in the road, and swerved and almost hit a tree. They were both tired and jumpy.
They were almost back to Chalons-sur-Marne, and had just come through Epernay, when Edouard said he thought he saw something again. He wanted to slow down, and she wanted to go more quickly. They argued about it for a minute, and he pulled rank on her, and was only half joking.
"Slow down, Victoria, I want to see this." He was sure he could see movement in the bushes, and he wanted to warn them in Chateau-Thierry if the Germans were somehow encroaching from the rear, which would be disastrous. But after they stopped for a minute, which Victoria thought was suicide, it turned out to be nothing and they started moving.
She had finally just started to pick up speed, when a dog ran into the road in front of them, and she swerved to avoid it and almost hit a tree, and as she was calming her nerves down again, she heard a strange whizzing sound, and was reminded for no reason in particular of the Lusitania. It was a long low whine, and she glanced at Edouard, her whole body tense, and his eyes were suddenly wide as he shouted at her.
"Duck! Baisse-toi .. ." he shouted, and they both dove as low as they could while she kept moving, but as she turned to look at him, he had an odd expression in his eyes, and she saw suddenly that he was bleeding.
She started to pull over and he shook his head frantically, telling her not to stop, but another shell hit them in a single moment. They had been hit by snipers. She drove as fast and as far as she could, reaching a hand out to him, not sure what to do. He had his field telephone with him, but they were still too far to use it. He was starting to spit blood, and she could see he was losing consciousness.
She was torn between trying to get him to the field hospital, or stopping to care for him there. But there was no decision to make now, he pitched forward onto the floor, and she could see that he was dying.
She had no choice but to pull over.
"Edouard, " she said, pulling him back and laying him against her.
She had seen faces like that a thousand times in the past thirteen months, but never his, or even anyone she knew. This could not be happening, not to him, not today, not now. It wasn't possible .. .
she was shouting his name and shaking him to keep him from becoming unconscious, but she could see then that the whole side of his head had been shot away, and he was almost gone as she held him. She couldn't believe he was still breathing. "Edouard! " she shouted at him, half crying, half sobbing.
"Listen to me .. . listen to me .. ." She was shouting and she wondered if the snipers could hear her. The snipers were still far enough from the camp, to be fairly typical, and not a real danger to their field camp. "Edouard, please .. ." He opened his eyes and looked at her with a smile, squeezing her hand as hard as he could, which was very little.
I'll always be .. . with you .. ." And then he looked at her again, and his eyes opened a little wider, as though he were very surprised, and then suddenly he was staring, and he had stopped breathing. It was all over much too quicky.
"Edouard, " she whispered in the darkness, alone .. . "don't ..
. go .. . please .. . don't leave me .. ." And as she looked at him in horror and disbelief, his blood smeared all over her, she barely felt the bullet that entered her back just below her neck, though she heard the one that whizzed past her helmet. She laid him gently on the seat next to her, and feeling something very cold trickle down her neck, she pressed her foot onto the gas and hurtled down the road at full speed.
She had to get him back to the hospital to see if they could help him.
The doctors would do something .
they would wake him up again .. . he was just sleeping, she told herself. She was in shock. All she knew was that she had to take him back. He was her captain, and she was his driver, and he was her captain .. . and .. . She hit a tree as she crashed into camp, barely missing two nurses on their way to the mess tent. They shouted at her, and one of them said something rude, and then stared at her.
"He's wounded, " Victoria said, staring blankly at them. And the nurses looked at her very strangely, as their faces reeled around her.
"Do something, he's wounded, " she shouted, and they could see without looking twice that Captain de Bonneville was dead. But then they saw the blood dripping down her shirt from her neck, and they understood what had happened.
"So are you, " one of them said gently, and reached into the truck to touch her, just as Victoria slipped slowly into the darkness all around her. They caught her as she fell forward against the steering wheel, and saw that her whole back was covered with blood.
"Get a stretcher! " one of them shouted to anyone behind her, as she held Victoria's chin gently in her hands to support her. "Orderly!
" ..
. she called, and two men came running. One of them recognized Victoria and shook his head when he saw Edouard.
"The captain? " he asked, and the nurse shook her head. It was hopeless.
"They were shelled .. . take her to surgery. See if Chouinard is there .. . or Dorsay .. . anyone .. ." If it had touched her spine, anything could happen. If nothing else, the infection could kill her.
The orderlies ran with her to the surgery, and then came back more slowly for Edouard. Two soldiers carried his body to the morgue, as another drove the truck away, and went to report to headquarters about Captain de Bonneville.
There was nothing more they could do for her, except operate to remove the bullet. She might never walk again if she survived it, which was less than likely. The damage the sniper's bullet had done had been tremendous, as it ricocheted through her body. And later that night, the nurses and orderlies she had worked with were talking about her and Edouard. Sergeant Morrison came to look for her papers. They knew her as Olivia Henderson, American, from New York, and Morrison had long since recorded the home address and next of kin. It was a woman called Victoria Dawson. Morrison wrote the telegram herself, and there were tears in her eyes when she did it.
Chapter 32.
The carriage Olivia had to use for the twins was the most unwieldy antiquated thing she had ever seen, but Bertie had insisted on bringing it from Croton. She'd had Donovan drive it down specially, and it was huge, and had been hers and Victoria's, but despite their mother's complaints, the twins looked very happy in it. The house had become too small for them overnight too. The twins were sharing a room with Bertie, and she and Charles had talked more than once about moving into her father's home on lower Fifth Avenue. As far as Charles knew, it was hers now. But Olivia knew it was her sister's, and didn't feel right moving into it until she discussed it with Victoria when she got back from Europe. The house she had inherited was in Croton, which was magnificent, but far less useful. So for the moment, they were staying where they were, and living in very tight quarters. She and Charles could hear the babies cry at night, and Geoff was on top of them constantly, usually with Chip, or even one of the neighbors' children.
It was beginning to drive Charles crazy.
And lately Olivia was having trouble sleeping and was very tired and seemed to ache all over and she hoped she wasn't getting sick.
And as Olivia struggled with the huge pram on the front steps, she was beginning to think Charles was right and they should move, and she'd explain it to Victoria later.
"Can I help you with that? " a man in uniform said, and as she thanked him and glanced up at him, she realized that he was holding a telegram with her name on it, and she suddenly felt her heart stop.
She had had an odd feeling for days, and had finally convinced herself she was just nervous from lack of sleep, trying to take care of two babies.
"Is that for me? " she asked hoarsely.
"Victoria Dawson? " he asked pleasantly, and she nodded. "Yes it is.
" He handed it to her and had her sign for it, and then helped her get the pram into the house, as her hands shook. She pushed the pram into the front hall, with the babies still asleep in it, and ripped the telegram open without waiting another minute, and she felt her heart seize as though a steel vise had clamped around it. The words blurred the moment she saw them. It was an official notice from a Sergeant Morrison in France, attached to the Allied Forces. "Regret to inform you, your sister, Olivia Henderson, has been injured in the line of duty.
Stop.
Cannot be transferred. Stop. Gravely ill. Stop. Will advise you further developments. Stop." And it was signed by a Sergeant Penelope Morrison of the French Fourth Army, in charge of volunteers.
Victoria had never mentioned her before, but that was beside the point now. She had been injured. Olivia stood crying in the front hall, holding the telegram, unable to believe it. And yet she had sensed it.
The malaise she had felt had been far too easily explained by fatigue from the babies.
But now she suddenly understood what she'd been feeling. Victoria had been ill or injured.
Olivia was looking around her frantically, as Bertie came into the hall from the kitchen, and knew instantly that something terrible had happened.
"What is it? " She rushed toward the pram immediately, thinking it was one of the babies.
"It's Victoria .. . she's hurt .. ."
"Oh my God .. . what'll you tell Charles? " She dared to use his first name in his absence, although she never would have in his presence.
"I don't know, " Olivia said frantically, as they both took the sleeping babies upstairs and laid them down in their cribs without waking them, as Geoff came rushing up the stairs to do his home work.
But Olivia didn't say anything to him. She had to tell his father first, and she had no idea where to begin, whether to tell him the whole truth, or only half of it. But whatever she did, she had to do something. She was going to go to her immediately, and whether or not he joined her was up to him. But she was going. Nothing on this earth would have kept her from it.
She was waiting for him in the living room when he came home late that afternoon. She had been pacing there for more than two hours, and she was beside herself with fear and worry.
He knew the moment he saw her face that something terrible had happened that afternoon. She was deathly pale, and her hands were shaking as she folded the dreaded telegram again and again, but like Bertie, he thought it was one of his babies.
"Victoria, what is it? " She took a quick breath, and decided to only tell him some of it.
She had been agonizing all afternoon about the decision. "It's my . , , sister.
"Olivia? Where is she? What happened? " He didn't understand what his wife was saying.
"She's in Europe. And she's injured." It was actually easier than she thought, now that she had started. But the whole truth never would be.
There would be no way to dress that one up in clean linens, and her worst fear was that he'd divorce her. He didn't even have to. All he had to do was throw her out. She wasn't even sure that, under the circumstances, he'd have to give her the babies, or even let her visit them. But this was not about them right now, not yet, this was about her sister.
"She's in Europe? " He looked totally lost as he sat down and stared at her. What's she doing there? "
"She's been driving for the Allied Forces, and she's been wounded, " Olivia said, sitting down across from him, and looking at him with terror. He was beginning to realize that there had been some deception here, and suddenly he knew it.
"Did you know about this? " he asked, searching her eyes, wondering if she had lied to him, and her father, and when he asked her, she nodded.
"How could she do a thing like that? Was she there all this time?
" Olivia nodded again, terrified at what else he would guess, but the rest was so outrageous there was no way he could divine it. It had all gone much too far in the past thirteen months and she knew it. She wondered if Victoria knew it too now, and was sorry about it. Thirteen months was a long time to carry on a deception and switch lives. It far exceeded their bargain. But she had far exceeded hers too, and she knew it. "Why didn't you say anything, Victoria? " Suddenly her sister's name rang in her ears like an accusation, but it was too late to change it, and she answered him without flinching.
"She didn't want anyone to know. She wanted to do this desperately, Charles. I didn't think it was fair to stop her."
"Fair? Do you think it was fair of her to run out on your father like that? For God's sake, it killed him." Olivia's eyes filled with tears when he said it. "That wasn't the only thing, and we don't know that.
He'd had a weak heart for years.
" She tried to defend herself but he looked unimpressed and angry.
"I'm sure that didn't help it, " he said sternly, appalled at "Olivia's" wanton deception.
"Probably not, " the real Olivia said weakly, feeling like a murderess, although her charade had convinced her father he'd seen her at his deathbed, but it was small comfort.
"I could have understood you doing something crazy like that, in the old days, when you were all involved in politics and radical ideas, but Olivia .. . I just can't understand it."
"And if I'd gone? " she asked gently, as he smiled ruefully.
"I'd have killed you. I'd have dragged you back by the hair, and locked you in the attic." Perhaps he should have. But it would have taken that to get her back there. And then he looked at her more seriously.
What are you going to do now? " he asked, expecting her to go to the French Consulate or the Red Cross, and see what could be done to help her.
"Is she badly hurt? "
"I don't know. I'm not sure. The telegram says gravely ill." She looked at him very hard then, and told him the truth this time.
But he couldn't stop her. "Charles, I'm going."
"You're what? " He was outraged. "There's a war in Europe and you have three children to take care of."
"She's my sister, " she said, and to her it spoke volumes, but he was livid.
"No, she's not, she's your twin and I know what that means. It means you drop everything for her every time you have a headache and think she's sending you a message. Well, I'm not putting up with it.
She may be your twin, but I'm forbidding you to go to her, do you hear me?
You're staying right here where you belong and not running halfway around the world to rescue a woman who dumped her entire family a year ago to run off to do God knows what in Europe. You're not going, " he said in a voice she had never heard before, as he stood in their living room and shouted. But she looked at him with eyes he'd never seen before either.
"Nothing you do will stop me, Charles. I am getting on a ship the first day I can this week, and I am going to her, whether you like it or not.
My children will be safe here. I am going to my sister."
"I've lost one wife on the high seas, " he shouted at her as the rest of the household pretended not to hear them, but it was impossible not to, "and goddamn it, Victoria, I'm not going to lose another." There were tears in his eyes and on his cheeks as he shouted at her, both in rage and terror.
"I'm sorry, Charles." Olivia said quietly this time, "I'm going to her.
And if you want to, I'd like you to come with me."
"And what if we both die? What if we both get torpedoed on the way there? Who will take care of our children? We have three of them to think of now.
Have you even thought of that? "
"Then stay here, " she said sadly, "they'll have you." They probably wouldn't have her anyway once he threw her out and wouldn't let her see them. It was all she could imagine now, and as she held them in her arms that night, she ached at the thought of never holding them again, but she knew she had to go to Victoria. Every ounce of her being and intuition said so.
She put Geoff to bed that night, and he had heard the argument and looked very worried. "It's Victoria, isn't it? " he whispered and she nodded. "Does Dad know now? "
"No, " she whispered, "and you mustn't tell him. I have to see her first, and then we'll tell him together.
But I want to talk to her."
"Do you think she'll be mad about the babies? " he asked wistfully and she kissed him again.
"Of course not, she'll love them." She tried to sound calmer than she felt. Inside, she was frantic with terror for her sister.
"But will you stay with us when she comes back? You belong here now, " he said insistently and she smiled at him. She only hoped that Victoria would be coming back, whether to this house or not, no one knew now.
"That's why I have to go to Europe, to talk to her and make sure she's all right, and work all these things out with her."
"Will she die? " He looked suddenly surprised and a little frightened.
"Of course not, " she said, wishing she believed it. Oh God ... please, please don't let her die, she said to herself that night over and over as she lay in bed, next to Charles. For a long time, he said nothing to her, and then he rolled over in their bed and looked at her.
Olivia couldn't read what he was thinking.
