He limped over to the couch opposite and gently picked up a cushion before sitting down, measuring every movement as to the effect on his leg. He sighed and looked out the window again, over the folds of hills to the bittersweet blue of the sea, Nazi-occupied France only twenty miles across the water, snarling on the horizon like an evil inevitability.

“What brings you to these parts, Mrs. Tilling?” he said, as if reading from an etiquette manual, exasperated by the need to deal with me.

“I have a message from Berkeley.”

His eyes darted straight to mine, his eye contact at once total and gripped. His bottom lip fell open slightly, taking in what I had said. A cascade of thoughts must have flooded his brain.

“What message?” he breathed.

“I was the nurse looking after him at Dover. He made me promise to give you this.” I opened my hand and held out the ring.

Carrington spluttered a cough, although I think he was covering a cry. He didn’t rush to look at the ring; he must have already known the object: seen it, touched it, held it. He sat for a while, then came over and took it, tucking it away in an inside pocket. Then he walked over to the terrace window, looking over the manicured gardens and hills, the parallel lines of classical statues and symmetrical garrisons of topiary bushes.

“It’s mine, you know,” he said quietly, “the ring.” He turned to me. “I gave it to him, four years ago. We were at boarding school together.” He became self-conscious and examined his hands. “What did he say?”

“He told me to tell you he loved you.” I shuddered silently. “He was so terribly weak.” My words faded out, and the brutal memory of Berkeley came back to me, the hopeless fear in his eyes, his young form turning limp and lifeless.

I looked at Carrington. His eyes seemed broken as he struggled to regain his countenance. He looked out the window, away onto the horizon, tears welling uncontrollably. A few dreadful minutes passed. I suddenly wondered if I’d been wrong. Perhaps he didn’t already know that his friend had died. Had I unconsciously broken the worst news he could ever want to hear?

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I thought you knew. I thought, well, I didn’t know what to think.”

“I did know,” he mumbled, clearing his throat. “His mother telephoned. She knew we were friends, although she never knew—” He cut off, frowning inscrutably. “I don’t mind if you hand me in, you know,” he said, a stern pride controlling his tears. “You can do your worst. I don’t care. I have nothing left to hide.” He looked pensively at the drifting clouds and added in a rather dreamy way, “I have nothing left at all.”

“I’m not going to hand you in,” I said as gently as I could. “I made a promise to him.” I paused, thinking this was all far stranger than I had imagined.

He came and sat back down on the sofa opposite me. “Tell me what happened.”

“He kept talking about you—how you’d be lost without each other, that he was the lucky one for dying first—and then he rolled over, his breath slowing until it finally slowed”—my words were fizzling out—“to a stop.”

I know it didn’t happen exactly like that, but this is surely what Berkeley would have wanted me to say. I remember when Harold died, yearning for him to speak my name, or give me a message. But he didn’t, and the best that I can do is to find some kind of peace by giving this gift to someone else.

Carrington put his head down and wept into his large hands. I sat watching for a while, feeling like I was intruding, wondering if I should leave. Then I looked out onto the horizon myself and realized that loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening. How resilient human beings are that we can learn slowly to carry on when we are left all alone, left to fill the void as best we can.

Or disappear into it.

I went over and sat next to him and, after a minute or two, I put my arm around him and he turned and wept silently into my shoulder. I wondered if I was the only person who knew, the only shoulder he had.

The sound of a distant door opening and heavy footsteps in the hall announced the return of the Viscount, and Carrington stood quickly and limped over to the window, promptly composing himself, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

“That’s my father,” he said without looking around. “He wouldn’t understand.”

“No, I imagine he wouldn’t.”

“Thank you for coming,” he added slowly, and I took this to be my cue to leave. He clearly didn’t want his father inquiring after my purpose for calling.

As I stood and straightened myself, he turned and said, “Really, thank you, Mrs., er—”

“Mrs. Tilling.”

He smiled, and I caught a glimpse of a different man, a different world, a handsome youth who might have enjoyed life had he not been wrenched into the center of a bloody war.

“Mrs. Tilling,” he said. “May I visit you sometime? I mean, if I survive this beastly war.”

I shrugged. “Of course you can. I live in Chilbury, Ivy House.” He smiled again, genuine connection in his eyes, and I knew that I would see him again, hopefully on a better day, under happier circumstances. “Things will get easier, you know.”

He opened the door for me, and we went into the magnificent hallway. A dual staircase rolled up on both sides and came together in a type of royal balcony overlooking the expanse of parquet flooring. A clock ticked interminably, and I just wanted to get out, launch myself away from this oppressive place and into the fresh and wild outdoors.