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“No.”
I stared at the desk before us. My hands still rested on either side of the sheaf of documents, held at the wrist by Captain Fitzwilliam’s agile, gentle fingers. A surgeon’s fingers, trained at great expense. His thumbs lay upon the backs of my bare hands, like a pair of anchors. The intimate contact seemed at odds with our businesslike communication, but what did I know? No man had ever held my wrists like this before.
And then his hands sprang back, as if only just realizing what they were doing, and settled behind his back. I gathered up the papers to my chest. From beyond the canvas partition came a metallic crash, an angry shout. I thought, Someone’s going to walk in, right this second. Someone’s going to see us like this, standing here without speaking. The desk between us was one of those collapsible designs, made of thin, light wood: a camp desk, bearing only a kerosene lantern, a couple of medical volumes topped by a messy leather notebook, a tin of pens, and a silver-framed photograph of a woman in a white dress.
I said, without moving, “If that’s all, then—”
“Wait! Damn.” He turned, stepped a few paces to the right, and stopped square. Behind his back, his thumbs dug into his palms.
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t call me that. Don’t call me sir, in that voice.”
The lantern was lit, and the glow fell on the silver frame of the photograph. The metal was tarnished from the damp. From this angle, I couldn’t see the subject very well, but she seemed to be smiling. I leaned forward an inch or two and tilted my head for a better look. The photograph, it seemed, was not taken in a studio. The girl sat on a large boulder, both shoes visible beneath the hem of her frothy white dress, and she carried her hat in her hand. Her hair seemed to be escaping its pins. There was an inscription at the bottom. I couldn’t read it.
“That’s a lovely photograph,” I said.
“Photograph?”
“On your desk.”
He turned back. His face was pale, except for a pair of reddish patches on the outer edges of his cheekbones. You might have thought he would look at the photograph, but he didn’t. He looked at me instead, fixing his gaze so intently on my face, I almost turned away. Instead, I said, in a high voice, “She’s lovely. Is she your sister?”
“Yes. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Of course not.”
He reached inside the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled out a gold cigarette case. There were initials engraved on the outside, in plain Roman lettering. My heart beat in such enormous, galloping strokes, I couldn’t breathe. “It must be difficult, being apart from your family like this,” I said.
“Yes. Well. We do what we must.” He lit the cigarette quickly and shook out the match. “I seem to have lost my train of thought. What were we saying?”
“I don’t recall. Something about the unit moving elsewhere.”
“You seem upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“I hope I haven’t made you ill at ease. I never meant—you see, it’s the strangest thing. Since yesterday, I have been struck—I have wanted—I want most intently—most unaccountably—to see you again, to see how you’re getting on—to be a friend, I suppose.” The cigarette twitched between his fingers. “Do you see what I mean?”
“I—not really, no. I’m afraid I don’t. I think it would be better if—”
“Stop!” He held up his hand. “Don’t say it, please. Don’t say some damned prim little thing about prudence and discretion.”
I pressed my lips together.
He turned away and stared at the canvas wall.
“I have been wrestling with this all day, Miss—what is your first name?”
“Virginia.”
He closed his eyes and said Virginia. Like a prayer, like the answer to an ancient mystery. The sound of voices intensified on the other side of the canvas. Someone was getting dressed down, a few yards away. Captain Fitzwilliam sucked on the cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly, in a wide, thin stream. “I suppose you think I’m a bounder.”
“No.”
“Ah, but you hesitated.”
“I—I don’t know. I don’t know you at all.”
“May I write to you, at least? Convince you of my innocent intentions.”
“What are your intentions?”
“To be friends, Virginia. There’s nothing wrong with friendship, is there?”
“I’ve often heard it’s impossible for men and women to be friends.”
“Then let’s prove them wrong, shall we?” He stubbed out the cigarette and turned to me, and he was smiling. A little wildly, I thought, like somebody drunk. “You see, I find I can’t quite bear to cut you off so soon, like the limb of a precious new seedling. If friendship is all we’re given on this earth, why, I’ll be the most steadfast, honorable friend you ever knew. We can discuss poetry and history and botany. Whatever you damned well like. The latest sensational novel. Anything but the state of the war. God knows we’ve got enough of that without talking about it.”
“I’m sure you have enough friends already.”
“Yes. Well. I have had friends. The trouble is, they keep dying. It’s a damned nuisance, but there it is. One’s obliged to hunt further afield these days, when one’s old school chums no longer exist. And now you’ve dropped like a ripe pear before me. A friend. A fascinating, unexpected friend, rich with all kinds of interesting mysteries I look forward to discovering.”
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