Darwinia

His paramount thought was of Caroline and Lily. He questioned the refugees politely but could discover no one who had known or seen them. Discouraged and lonely, Guilford reigned his horse and accepted an invitation to join a circle around one of the campfires. He shared his food freely, explained his situation, and asked what exactly had happened to London.

Answers were short and brutal.

The city had been shelled. The city had burned.

Had many died?

Many — but there was no counting, no toll of the dead.

As he approached the city Guilford began to entertain the troubling suspicion that he was being followed.

There was a face he’d seen, a familiar face, and he seemed to see it repeatedly among the increasing number of refugees, or pacing him along the forest road, or peering at him from the fretwork of mosque trees and pagoda ferns. A man’s face, young but careworn. The man was dressed in khaki, a battered uniform without insignia. The man looked remarkably like the picket from Guilford’s dreams. But that was impossible.

Guilford tried to approach him. Twice, on a lonely stretch of road deep in the twilight of the forest, he shouted at the man from his horse. But no one answered, and Guilford was left feeling foolish and frightened.

Probably there was no one there at all. It was a trick of the weary eye, the anxious mind.

But he rode more cautiously now.

His first sight of London was the blackened but intact dome of the new St. Paul’s, brooding over a field of mist and rubble.

A makeshift rope ferry carried him to the north shore of the Thames. Drizzle fell steadily and pocked the turbulent river.

He found an encampment of refugees in the treeless fields west of town, a vast and stinking clutter of tents and trench latrines in the midst of which a few Red Cross flags drooped listlessly in the rain.

Guilford approached one of the medical tents where a nurse in a hairnet was handing out blankets. “Excuse me,” he said.

Heads turned at the sound of his accent. The nurse glanced at him and barely nodded.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “Is there a way to find out — I mean, any kind of list—?”

She shook her head curtly. “I’m sorry. We tried, but too many people simply wandered away after the fire. Have you come from New Dover?”

“By way of there.”

“Then you’ve seen the number of refugees. Still, you might try asking at the food tent. Everyone gathers at the food tent. It’s in the western meadow.” She inclined her head. “That way.”

He looked across several broad acres of human misery, frowning.

The nurse straightened. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice softening. “I don’t mean to sound thoughtless. It’s just that there are… so many.”

Guilford was walking toward the mess tent when he saw the phantom again, passing like his own shadow through the mud and rent canvas and smoky fires.

“Mr. Law? Guilford Law?”

He thought at first the ghost had spoken. But he turned and saw a ragged woman gesturing to him. It took him a moment to recognize her. Mrs. de Koenig, the widow who had lived next door to Jered Pierce.

“Mr. Law — is that really you?”

“Yes, Mrs. de Koenig, it’s me.”

“Dear God, I thought you were dead! We all thought you’d died on the Continent!”

“I’ve come looking for Caroline and Lily.”

“Oh,” Mrs. de Koenig said. “Of course.” But her toothless smile faded. “Of course you have. Tell you what. Let’s have a drink, Mr. Law, you and me, and we’ll talk about that.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dear Caroline,

Probably you will never see this letter. I write it with that expectation, and only a faint hope.

Obviously, I survived the winter in Darwinia. (Of the Finch expedition, the only survivors are myself and Tom Compton — if he is still alive.) If the news is reaching you for the first time I hope it does not come as too great a shock. I know you believed I died on the Continent. I suppose that belief explains your conduct, much of it at least, since the autumn of ’20.

Maybe you think I despise you or that I’m writing to ventilate my anger. Well, the anger is real. I wish you had waited. But that question is moot. I attach no blame. I was in the wilderness and alive; you were in London and thought I had died. Let’s just say we acted accordingly.

I hesitate to write this (and there’s small enough chance of you reading it). But the habit of addressing my thoughts to you is hard to break. And there are matters between us we need to resolve.

And I want to beg a favor.

Since I’m enclosing my notes and letters written to you from the Continent, let me finish the story. Something extraordinary has happened, Caroline, and I need to set it down on paper even if you never see this. (And maybe it’s better for you if you don’t.)

I looked for you in ruined London. Shortly after I arrived I found Mrs. de Koenig, our neighbor on Market Street, who told me you’d left on a mercy ship bound for Australia. You left, she tells me, with Lily and this man (I will not say “this deserter,” though from what I understand he is one), this Colin Watson.