The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

He stepped into the middle of the room and faced Lydia.

“I was wondering if I could accompany you to lunch, whenever you take it.”

Lydia looked to Nan, who gave a barely perceptible nod. “That would be lovely,” she said with a smile.

“When shall I come to get you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

She picked up a card from behind the counter and put on a coat. Nan slipped her knitting into a bag and stood, as well, pulling her own coat from the rack behind them, and then they stepped through the gap and stood beside him.

“Lead on,” Lydia said.

“Of course,” he said, and stepped through the door, holding it for the ladies.

As she walked through, Lydia hung the card from a hook in the middle of the glass. From where he stood, he could read ‘Out to lunch.’

He closed the door behind them, and Lydia produced a key from her handbag, latching the door shut, and then she stood back straight.

“All finished?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Very good, Miss Wakefield,” John Paul said, and started off. He had recalled her making a comment about one particular diner as they’d passed it on one of their walks, and he tried now to remember the name or location of it.

At long last he managed to find something that sounded about right, a place with the name Starr’s written above it, and stepped up to the front counter. They were taken to a table, where the menus sat already out. Lydia pointed out an item from the list and when the waiter came to take their orders, John Paul ordered for himself and his companions after what they’d indicated to him.

The conversation was light, but not disappointing. John Paul found himself enjoying even Lydia’s simple presence. Time seemed to slow down in all the right ways, yet when he bid them good-bye, as Lydia unlocked the front door of the store, their time together seemed all too short.

The next week, it seemed, passed in agonizing slowness as he waited for another chance to call on her. And then he got a card in the post from one C. Wittham, who was writing to inform him that his suits were ready to be picked up.

John Paul smiled when he saw the card. It was time. In the afternoon he would pick up the suit, and in the evening he would call on the Wakefield home once again. Then he would meet Mister Wakefield, and he would ask a question that would set everything in motion.

The suits were nearly perfect when he tried them on the first time, fitting where they should fit and yet never restricting his movements. And what’s more, he found the silhouette to be incredibly appealing.

It made him wonder why he’d never bought something like this before, after all the years in the army. He’d needed to go to plenty of balls in Australia, was forced to go rather, and had so many opportunities to buy nicer clothing, and yet it had always seemed foolish. Ah, well, he thought, you live and learn, I suppose.

He came back home for supper. He could hardly taste the food, though it was probably as good as it had ever been; he had other things on his mind. He hadn’t been so nervous before, that he could recall. Not ever. But it was necessary, and that was the fact that reassured him as he pulled on his coat and set off to fetch his horse from the stables and set off to Derby for a second time that day.

He came up on the Wakefield home an hour and a half later, with the sun having just begun to dip below the horizon. When he knocked on the door, a young man answered.

“I’d like to speak to Mister Wakefield,” John Paul said.

“One moment, please.”

The door closed. John Paul imagined he heard the young man shouting for Mr. Wakefield, but probably he didn’t do it that way. After all, it would be terrible manners. A few moments later, a man answered the door. John Paul knew his face, but hadn’t spoken to him before directly, and he was more intimidating up close.

He had deep-set eyes and a hard brow, with a strong, thick jaw and a disapproving look to him. His face bore wrinkles near the edges, and though he may have been twenty years or more John Paul’s senior, they didn’t make him look overly aged.

“Mister Wakefield? I’m John Paul Foster.”

His face said everything that needed to be said. “Ah, so you’re the man who’s been calling on my daughter,” he said, and didn’t go on.

“Yes, sir.”

“James Wakefield, at your service. Come in, sit down.”

John Paul stepped through the door and into the home. He’d been there before, of course, under different circumstances, plenty of times. But this time it seemed as if he was crossing an entirely different threshold, like it was a different house wearing a mask of familiarity.