“I barely knew my father,” said Mrs. Bancroft quietly. “He was only twenty-three when he was killed, you see, and I was only three. My mother and he married young. I don’t have many memories of him, but those that I have are happy ones.”
“These bloody wars have a habit of taking all the men in our family,” remarked Marian from her armchair.
“Marian!” cried Mrs. Bancroft, looking quickly back at me as if I might have taken offence.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “And not just the men, either. My grandmother—my mother’s mother, that is—she was killed in the Transvaal, too.”
I raised an eyebrow, sure that she could not possibly have this right.
“Don’t be so ridiculous, Marian,” said Mrs. Bancroft, putting the picture down again and looking at me with an unsettled expression. “My daughter is liberated, Mr. Sadler, and I’m not sure that’s entirely a good thing. I myself have never had any interest in being liberated.” I was reminded again of Mrs. Wilcox, disgracing herself over a Schlegel lunch.
“All right, she wasn’t killed in the Transvaal exactly,” admitted Marian, relenting a little. “But she didn’t survive my grandfather’s death.”
“Marian, please!” snapped Mrs. Bancroft.
“Well, why shouldn’t he know? We’ve nothing to hide. My grandmother, Tristan, found herself unable to live without my grandfather and took her own life.”
I looked away, certain that I did not want to be included in this confidence.
“It’s not something that we talk about,” said Mrs. Bancroft, her voice losing its anger now and becoming more sorrowful. “She was very young, my mother, when he was killed. And she was only nineteen when I was born. I imagine she simply couldn’t handle the responsibility and the grief. I’ve never blamed her for it, of course. I’ve tried to understand.”
“But there’s no reason why you should blame her, Mrs. Bancroft,” I said. “When these things happen, they’re tragedies. No one does something like that because they want to; they do it because they are ill.”
“Yes, I expect you’re right,” she said, sitting down again. “Only it was a great source of shame for our family at the time, a terrible irony after my father brought us such pride with his actions in the war.”
“Curious, isn’t it, Tristan,” asked Marian, “how we consider the death of a soldier to be a source of pride rather than a source of national shame? It’s not as if we had any business being in the Transvaal in the first place.”
“My father did his duty, that’s all,” said Mrs. Bancroft.
“Yes, and a fat lot of good it did him, too,” remarked Marian, standing up and walking towards the window, staring out at the rows of dahlias and chrysanthemums that her mother, no doubt, had planted in neat rows along the edges.
I sat down again, wishing I had never been brought here. It was as if I had walked onstage into the middle of a dramatic play, where the other characters are already engaged in a battle that has been going on for some years but which only now, upon my arrival, is allowed to reach a climax.
I heard the front door open and close; the dog sat up immediately, alert to a familiar presence, and I had a sense that whoever was standing outside the drawing room was hesitating before opening the door.
“Mr. Sadler,” said Reverend Bancroft, entering the room a moment later, taking my hand in both of his and holding it there before him while looking me directly in the eyes. “We’re so glad you were able to visit us.”
“I can’t stay long, I’m afraid,” I replied, aware how rude this sounded as my first response to him but not caring very much. I felt that I had spent enough time in Norwich by now and was anxious to return to the station and London and the solitude of home.
“Yes, I’m sorry I was delayed,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I had intended to be here before four but I got caught up with a parish matter and time just escaped me. I trust my wife and daughter have been keeping you entertained in the meantime?”
“He wasn’t here for entertainment, Father,” said Marian, standing by the doorway with her arms folded before her. “And I very much doubt whether he has received any.”
“I was just about to ask Mr. Sadler about the letters,” said Mrs. Bancroft, and we all turned to look at her. “My daughter said that you were in possession of some letters,” she added, and I nodded quickly, grateful for the diversion.
“Yes,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “I should have given them to you earlier, Marian. It was the point of my visit, after all.”
I placed the packet on the table before me. Marian stared at it, a collection of envelopes tied up in a red ribbon, her neat handwriting visible on the outside of the uppermost one, but did not step forward yet. Her mother didn’t pick them up, either; she merely sat and stared at them as if they were bombs that might go off if she handled them too roughly.
“Will you excuse me a moment?” said Marian finally, rushing from the room like a whirlwind, keeping her back to me the entire time, Bobby charging after her in pursuit of adventure. Her parents watched her as she left and bore stoic, mournful expressions.
“Our daughter might come across as a little brittle at times, Mr. Sadler,” said Mrs. Bancroft, turning back to look at me with a regretful expression. “Particularly when she’s with me. But she loved her brother very much. They were always very close. His death has damaged her badly.”
“She doesn’t come across as brittle at all,” I replied. “I’ve only known her a few hours, of course. But still, I think I can understand her pain and her grief.”
“It’s been very difficult for her,” she continued. “Of course it’s been difficult for all of us, but we each handle adversity in our own way, don’t we? My daughter has a very forceful way of expressing her grief while I prefer not to allow my emotions to be on display. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s simply the way that I was brought up. My grandfather took me in, you see,” she explained. “After my parents’ deaths. He was a widower, the only relative I had left. But he was not emotional, no one could accuse him of that. And I suppose he brought me up in the same way. My husband, on the other hand, is much more likely to wear his heart on his sleeve. I rather admire him for that, Mr. Sadler. I’ve tried to learn from him over the years but it’s no good. I think perhaps the adults we become are formed in childhood and there’s no way around it. Would you agree?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “Although we can fight against it, can’t we? We can try to change.”
“And what are you fighting against, Mr. Sadler?” asked her husband, removing his spectacles and wiping the lenses with his handkerchief.
I looked away with a sigh. “The truth, sir, is that I am tired of fighting and would prefer never to have to do so again.”
“But you won’t have to,” said Mrs. Bancroft, frowning. “The war is over now at last.”
“There’ll be another one along in a moment, I expect,” I said, smiling at her. “There usually is.”
She made no reply to this, but reached forward and took my hand in hers. “Our son was very keen to enlist,” she told me. “Perhaps it was wrong of me to keep his grandfather’s portrait on display all these years.”