The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

“You don’t know where my home is, sir.”

John Paul blinked. Asking it had slipped his mind. She wrote something on a slip of paper and pushed it across the counter. He picked it up as a bell sounded behind him, and he passed a customer as he walked out, his head bowed.

The entire encounter had taken perhaps three minutes, but it had seemed to be an eternity. At the same time had not lasted long enough. The feeling that threatened to burst out of his chest was one he was not altogether familiar with.

For twenty years, he had lived in a foreign land, and now there was word that they would be independent by the turn of the century.

He had commanded a full battalion, and he had charged head-first into battle on several occasions. None of the iron nerve that made him so well-suited to soldiering saved him from the terror of seeing a girl he could have carried in one arm.

She was everything he was not, he thought, and that was what made her so absolutely perfect. Her beauty, her fragility, her air of serenity. All of that separated them by miles, and he wanted nothing more than to cross that distance as best he could.

The afternoon couldn’t go fast enough. The same as the day before; he wanted nothing more than to attend to this Lydia. He rose early, as was his custom, and dressed, and then he sat in his front room, thinking about what was to come, a bundle of nerves and anxiety.

When the clock struck nine, he set off. Derby was only two hours away. He could justify waiting outside for a few minutes, however, more easily than he could fight the desire to leave his parlor.

The time passed slower than he had expected. When he had pulled his horse up in front of the row of flats, it was difficult not to dismount and knock on the door early. But he thought, checking his watch, that it wouldn’t do to go in early. Even after a stroll through town he had fifteen minutes to wait, and wait he would. It wouldn’t do to cast a poor impression on his first visit to the place, after all.

Still, even though he had made his mind up, he found it difficult to fight against the temptation. It wasn’t just one choice, after all, but a series of choices not to go inside. He had little to comfort him but convictions, while a voice in the back of his mind whispered to him that it wouldn’t be any sort of intrusion. John Paul pushed the voice away.

Finally he did take a step in the direction of the flat, he wondered if perhaps he had lost his nerve after all. It was hard to even think, let alone move. It seemed as if he only managed to make the short journey because of the company he would be keeping when he arrived.

He knocked, and Nan answered; he hadn’t known her name, though Lydia had called her ‘Nan.' She smiled, though he guessed it was just for show. So he smiled back at her.

She took him in to a sitting room. He was intensely aware of his posture in a way that he hadn’t been since his training. After so many years of service he did not need to strain to keep his back straight in the chair. Still, he found himself checking at intervals to ensure that he wasn’t making any sort of mistake.

Nan left him for a moment, and when she returned, she had a beautiful young woman in tow. Lydia wore a fine red gown with a flattering fit. John Paul had not made the place for the home of a particularly wealthy family, but he saw that they did not spare expenses on her finery.

He smiled at her, and she at him, and he meant it. She sat down opposite him, with the older woman sitting alongside, pulling a bit of knitting out of a bag beside her. Before she got to knitting, she looked up at him.

“Tea will be here momentarily, Mister Foster.”

“Thank you ma’am,” he said softly.

John Paul’s throat felt parched, and he realized that he did not know what sort of things polite society talked about. It had been twenty years in the army, and he had not much to talk about with a woman who had never left this town.

The only things that immediately came to mind smacked of bragging ab

out himself and his past. He had no desire to brag, and less desire to force the conversation. He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and kept his mouth shut, looking at Lydia’s hands.

They were thin, almost bony, and had an inhuman elegance to them. Her nails were neatly trimmed, and she lacked callouses. He didn’t need to look at his own to know where his callouses were. It seemed as if an eternity passed in that silence, likely only four or five seconds, before he heard Nan clear her throat. At last, Lydia spoke.

“How long have you been in Derby, Mister Foster?”

“Ah,” he said, caught off guard. It took him a moment to think of the answer. “I suppose about two weeks now, Miss Wakefield.”

She nodded, thinking private thoughts, and then spoke again. “And how are you finding it?”

“The people are nice enough, from what I have seen. The shops seem to be quite large. Quite a few restaurants.”

She was silent again, before adding “There are quite large shops, particularly in the square.”

John Paul finally spoke up. “Are there any in particular you enjoy?”

Lydia put a hand up over her mouth, but he could see from her eyes that she was laughing, either at his naivete or some other private thought. “None that would interest you overmuch, Mister Foster. I don’t imagine you would look—”

John Paul watched Nan give her charge a sharp look and Lydia did not finish her thought. He could see the mirth in Lydia’s eyes, though, and he could imagine a few possible endings for her joke. In either case, her smile was infectious. The conversation was awkward and impersonal, and his discomfort and inexperience was obvious. Even still, he found himself enjoying his time with her.

They did not discuss a wide variety of subjects. He asked her about plays she had attended recently, and she told him. She asked him about where he had lived in Australia, and he told her about New South Wales. Yet when he rose to leave after perhaps an hour, he looked forward to nothing so much as seeing her again.