Chapter Text
Tom had been John’s best friend for as long as he could remember. They had grown up on the same street, gone to grade school together, had received their acceptance letters to Eton on the same day. They’d gotten into quite a bit of trouble there — apparently “a loud boy is a good boy” is fine in theory, but in practice it just seemed to land them in the headmaster’s office more often than not. They were inseparable, and everyone back home and at school knew them as Tom-and-John because there was rarely any reason to say one's name without the other.
But as their time at Eton wore on, Tom started growing distant. He was suddenly going home on the weekends with little explanation, and when discussions of holiday breaks came up he was cagey with the details of his plans. And the letters! Suddenly he was writing and receiving letters in alarming quantities. At this rate, it seemed he was going to be singlehandedly keeping the nation’s post offices afloat with the amount of money he was spending on stamps.
Finally, John took it upon himself to confront him. They were best friends, they weren’t supposed to keep secrets like this.
“Come on, who are all these letters for?” he asked, trying to grab for the stack in Tom’s hand. “Diana’s barely past her grammar readers, and we both know your mother doesn’t like you enough to write you.”
Tom scoffed. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” He held the letters out of John’s reach; he’d always been the taller of the two.
“It’s true though. Now what the hell is going on?”
Tom bit the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit he’d kept since childhood. “It’s…oh fine, it’s a girl.”
“A girl!” For a moment John was hurt. They shared everything with each other. How could Tom even think of keeping something like that from him?
“Yes, a girl. Surely you’ve heard of them.”
John punched his arm. “Don’t be an arse. Come on, who is it?”
Tom suddenly became very interested in the potted fern he kept on his desk. He’d always had a green thumb and wanted to study botany at university, which was all well and good except their room was becoming a veritable hothouse with the number of potted plants he kept sneaking in. “Do you remember Hester Leggatt, from the neighborhood?”
John had to think about it for a moment. The name sounded familiar, one he hadn’t heard in years. A faint image came to mind of a lanky girl with a mess of dark hair playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, but that could have been anyone. “Maybe? I’m not sure.”
“Well trust me, she’s wonderful. Gorgeous, funny, whip-smart, a terrific flirt.” Tom’s expression grew more and more soppy as he talked. He twisted one of the fern’s fronds around his finger, much as a lovesick girl might twirl her hair. “She’s really just, I dunno. Magnificent.”
“Magnificent, eh?” John raised an eyebrow. “So have you ever…?”
“Johnny, it’s not like that.” Tom went back to his bed and flopped down, examining the stack of letters in his hand. “I mean we’ve…well, we've really just snuck kisses here and there. But I really think she’s the girl I’m meant to marry.”
John blinked. “I hadn’t pegged you for such a romantic.”
“Neither did I. She’s just that wonderful.”
“So you've said.” John stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, I’m happy for you. Really, that’s great. Just so long as I’m your best man at the wedding.”
“Who else would I pick?” Tom propped himself up on his elbows. “You’ll always be my best mate. And you’re going to love her too, I’m sure of it.”
John nodded. “I’m sure I will.”
He wasn’t lying, he was genuinely happy for his friend. But a part of him couldn’t help but feel a little put out. Not only had Tom been keeping a huge secret from him, but he also seemed to be moving on to a different phase of life. They had always been best friends, just the two of them, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little jealous of the fact that there was now a third person in the mix taking up all of Tom’s time.
But he had been in Tom’s life for over a decade, and he knew there was nothing that could ever truly separate them. So he tried to be a good sport and be happy for his friend, though he did manage to artfully dodge Tom’s attempts to get them to all spend time together. That just seemed a bridge too far, and he wasn’t interested in joining in on their dates (especially since there was usually already a chaperone with them). He managed to avoid being their third wheel until after graduation, just a few weeks before they were to start at Oxford. Hester apparently wanted to sneak out unchaperoned and go to some fashionable little dance hall, and Tom was insistent that John join them.
“Come on, old boy,” Tom had pleaded. “We'll need a fun memory of debauchery to look back upon wistfully when we're up to our ears in reading. Let's live it up, just for tonight.”
Which is how John found himself standing outside of a seedy building later that evening wearing his snappiest suit. He tapped his foot on the curb impatiently; it was unusual for Tom to be late, and he wouldn’t dare set foot in the dance hall by himself.
“Johnny boy!”
Tom suddenly appeared, sauntering down the lane arm-in-arm with Hester.
Tom was right, she was gorgeous. Far from the knock-kneed girl John could barely remember – she was tall, taller than John himself, with a mass of dark curls loosely pulled back away from her face. She wore a flowing skirt with a terribly modern-looking silk blouse, which skimmed gently over the curve of what he couldn't help but notice was a rather ample chest. But what were most captivating were her eyes, deep blue and twinkling in the light of the streetlamps. John felt the faint tingling of gooseflesh when she looked at him. It was clear she didn’t miss a trick, and he suddenly felt very, very vulnerable beneath her gaze.
She gave a wave and smiled brightly. “Oh, it’s so good to finally meet you,” she gushed. “Tom has told me so much about you. He didn’t tell me how handsome you were though.”
She laughed lightly, but it still came off as a genuine compliment. John was momentarily shocked by her boldness, her casual disregard for propriety.
Tom seemed unfazed by this comment, as if she said things like that all the time. “Oh of course I must have done, I never stop talking about how handsome our John is,” he teased, sauntering towards the door of the hall. “Now, shall we get this night started?”
Once inside they were able to find a corner table fairly easily, though the room was rapidly filling up with other rowdy young people, many of whom were dripping with the latest styles and accessories. John tugged at the collar of his suit, suddenly feeling very out-of-place.
“Do you come here often?” he asked, taking a seat.
“Never,” Hester said, beaming. “But I’ve decided that when Tom comes back we’re going to be regulars, real high-society types. You too, John.”
“I’m not sure if that’s really me,” he said. Her eyes were even more dazzling in the low light, and after a moment he had to look away.
Idiot, he thought. That’s the girl Tom’s going to marry. Pull yourself together.
“Alright, tonight the drinks are on me,” Tom declared. He clapped John on the back. “What’ll it be?”
“Old-fashioned,” John said quickly. It was the only cocktail he could think of off the top of his head – most of his drinking thus far had been limited to the pilfered bottles of gin he and Tom had quaffed back in their rooms at school.
“And for you, my darling?” Tom asked, stroking Hester’s shoulder.
She squinted at the menu on the table for several seconds, then sighed and waved a hand. “Oh, just get me whatever you're having.” She smiled guiltily at John. “They've been telling me I need glasses for ages, but I refuse to do it. I think I'd look horrid in them. Don't you, Tom?”
Tom pretended to think about it. “I don't know, I've always had a thing for the sexy librarian types.”
Hester gave him a mock-shove. “Just for that, you owe me a double!”
Tom sauntered over to the bar, still laughing at his own joke.
Hester kept her eyes on him and chuckled fondly. “Has he always been like this?”
“If anything he's usually worse,” John replied. “He's on his best behavior for you.”
"Oh, lord.” She opened a silver cigarette case and held it out to him.
“Oh no thank you,” he said automatically. “I don’t smoke.”
“That’s good.” She placed one between her painted lips and fumbled for her matches. “Filthy habit,” she mumbled around the cigarette. The match in her hands sprung to life, and she raised the delicate flame to the end of the cigarette. It caught, and she waved the match out with a well-practiced flick of her hand. "My mother is thrilled I'm going to marry Tom. She says he's going to keep me out of trouble, make me give up smoking and the like."
"If Tom possesses the ability to keep others out of trouble, I'm afraid he's never chosen to share it with me."
Hester laughed out loud at that. God, she even had a beautiful laugh. Tom had somehow struck gold with the first girl he had so much as talked to, and John couldn't help but be jealous.
He cleared his throat. "He's officially asked you, then?"
"Yes, but it's not official official. He wants to give me his grandmother's ring, but his mother doesn't think very highly of me so it's a struggle." She took a puff from her cigarette and politely blew it to the side, away from John. "But it doesn't matter if he gives me a ring made of twine. We're going to get married the second he graduates Oxford, then get a house in the country far away from his mother and fill it with a small flock of children that we spoil rotten. What about you?"
John started. He had been so entranced by her lips as she talked and smoked that he had only been half-listening. "What about me?"
She waved a hand. "What's the grand plan after school?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "Well I'm going to be reading law, so I suppose that. My father is a solicitor, so I'll probably end up doing the same. He works for a bank though, and I'd rather do something that actually helps people."
"That's a lovely idea. You're a good sort, I can see why Tom adores you." She smiled at him, and his stomach fluttered. Good lord. He told himself it was just because he rarely talked to girls, let alone received generous compliments from them. His all-boys education had not set him up for success in this realm, and he worried that his time at Oxford might set him even farther behind.
Fortunately Tom came back with the drinks a few minutes later, and he quickly got Hester up and onto the dance floor. John sipped at his drink and watched the pair dance together to song after song. He hadn't realized that Tom was such an excellent dancer, but he seemed to know all of the new steps and moves as the musicians played through their set. He wondered if Tom had been practicing in their room while John was out, and made a mental note to tease him about it when he got a chance. Eventually they came back to the table and cajoled him into dancing with Hester. She swore she was going to set him up with a friend of hers when he returned, and insisted that he needed to know how to foxtrot if he was going to be seeing her. She gamely took him through a few songs; though he had never danced with a girl before he could tell that she was subtly back-leading, for which he was grateful. She seemed to be having a grand time, and she didn't even seem to mind when he stepped on the toes of her boots.
The night wound down, and eventually they all ended up stumbling back to their respective homes just before dawn. John let himself into his parent's house through the back garden and collapsed in his bed half-dressed and smelling faintly of Hester's cigarette smoke. For the few hours he was able to sleep, he dreamed of deep blue eyes and pale, delicate hands.
Tom and John both ended up in Balliol College rooming together once more. Tom's father was close friends with the college's master and managed to maneuver that one – while Hester's parents believed that Tom would keep her out of trouble, Tom's parents had always believed that John would keep him out of trouble. It was never entirely clear to anyone who was supposed to be keeping John out of trouble.
But as it turned out, no one was going to be getting into much trouble during this time. On one perfectly ordinary day, an archduke and his wife were assassinated a thousand miles away and within the span of a few months the United Kingdom was embroiled in what they called "the war to end wars." Tom and John managed to avoid military service for two years, but once conscription was enacted even Tom's father couldn't keep them from being called up.
Hester accompanied them to the train station on their deployment date. John hadn't seen her since they'd gone to the nightclub, and she was much more subdued this time around. She kept her hand in the crook of Tom's arm the entire walk to the station, and when they stepped onto the crowded platform it seemed as if she were trying to melt into his side. She kept her eyes trained on the ground as she fiddled with the engagement ring Tom had finally procured for her, and it was clear that she was trying not to cry. Tom stopped and put his index finger under her chin, tipping her head up.
"None of that now," he said, in a voice that was already starting to crack. "If you start crying then John will start crying, and I'll be stuck here with two crying girls as stoic as ever because I've never cried once in my life."
John rolled his eyes but didn't protest. Tom could have this moment, there would be plenty of time to hassle him later.
"I'm not crying," Hester said petulantly, though there were tears running down both of her cheeks. "There's no reason to cry, because you'll be back soon. Next month, maybe."
"That's the spirit. Now don't let my mother bully you while I'm away," Tom instructed her. "Tell her she can fuck right off if she goes in on you."
Hester rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm definitely going to be doing that."
"I told Diana the same thing," Tom continued.
John snorted at that. "She's ten. Do you really expect her to tell your mother to fuck off?"
"She will if Tom told her to do it," Hester said, cracking her first smile of the day. "You know how she adores him."
It was true, Diana had spent her entire existence trying to gain her older brother's approval. Not that she'd ever needed to. Tom had doted on her from the very start.
Tom shrugged. "Neither here nor there. Now most importantly, you must take good care of my roses. I left all of my instructions in that note."
"I'm not going to talk to them–"
"Darling, they'll wither away and perish if you don't."
"I refuse." Hester pursed her lips. "You'll have to come back and talk to them yourself. Perhaps in a fortnight. Wars can end in a fortnight, can't they?"
"Of course, they do all the time. Don't they, John?"
John really, really didn't want to be a part of this. "Er, yes. Pretty sure I read that somewhere."
"There you go then. Will you write me?"
"Of course I will, every day you're gone. So seven, maybe eight letters." She turned to John and smiled. "I can write to you too, if you like."
John started. "Oh, you don't have to do that," he said slowly, trying to will his cheeks from warming. The last thing he needed was pity letters to remind him that he didn't have a sweetheart of his own.
Tom grinned. “A brilliant idea. You write such beautiful letters. He'll need something to remind him that there’s some things worth fighting for back home.”
"Not that there will be much fighting, since you'll both be home again tomorrow."
“If not sooner.” With that Tom pulled her in and kissed her deeply. She melted against him, twining her arms around his neck. One of her hands absently stroked against the edge of his collar and teased at the hair on the nape of his neck.
John cleared his throat. “I’ll er, I’ll go find us a compartment then." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the train, but neither seemed to notice him.
He found a seat on the train easily enough, and through the window he could see that Hester and Tom were still on the platform tangled up in one another. He felt a pang deep behind his breastbone. He wished for a moment that their roles were reversed and he was out there with Hester. But no, she and Tom were disgustingly in love and he was happy for them, he really was. But he did hope that there was another girl out there who was as wonderful as Hester – someone beautiful and brilliant who spoke her mind and was good for a laugh. Maybe she had a twin sister she hadn't mentioned. He would have to ask Tom about it, if he ever managed to come up for air.
True to her word Hester wrote both Tom and John immediately. They were the first two in their regiment to receive any mail at all, which raised more than a few eyebrows. Tom tore into his immediately and spent the rest of the day with a soppy, lovesick smile on his face.
John waited until that evening to open his letter. There wasn’t much privacy to be had in the barracks, but he managed to steal a few quiet minutes in his bunk after supper. His hands were shaking slightly as he opened the envelope and withdrew the letter. Unsurprisingly she had exquisite handwriting, lovely but not overly-flourished.
Dear John,
Oh goodness, I’m sorry to have to start out that way. It doesn’t seem particularly auspicious to write an actual ‘Dear John’ letter to a soldier who is about to be deployed, but ‘Private Bevan’ feels less friendly, and I would like for us to be friends. Tom speaks so highly of you, and it’s clear from his stories that you are a kind man and loyal to a fault. Though I’m still rather cross with you for getting on the train without saying a proper goodbye. I will have to tell you off when you come home, which I hope will be soon. No, I know it will be soon. Maybe you'll be home before this letter even arrives. This terrible war can’t possibly go on much longer, not with how bravely you men are fighting.
But we’ll keep the home fires burning for you while you are away. I found out from Tom that our mothers are all apparently in the same neighborhood bridge group, which I had been considering joining. I think I will have to join now, if only to be able to keep up with the news from you all. I’m not looking forward to it if I’m honest, bridge seems to be such a terribly dull game for dull people. But needs must, and it seems like a small sacrifice to make in the face of so many other enormous sacrifices. Not that I need to tell you anything about sacrifices.
I’d like it if you wrote me back, when you get a chance. It’s always nice to have a pen pal, and I’m guessing you’ll be more forthcoming than my dear Tom, who is not the most prolific of writers.
Please take care of him. Take care of each other. Come home to us soon with plenty of stories. Actually no, I hope you don’t have any stories when you come home. I hope you have a perfectly ordinary and boring time overseas, and that you have nothing better to do than sit around in your bunks and play cards. Maybe take up bridge yourselves, something nice and dull to pass the time until you come home.
Your friend,
Hester Leggatt
Tom was right. She did write beautiful letters.
He kept that letter in the breast pocket of his coat for the entirety of his time overseas, along with the handful of other letters she managed to get to him. By the time the war was over they were faded and folded and flecked with mud, but when he returned he still tucked them away in the back of his sock drawer for safekeeping.
Tom was dead by then. He died in the mud in France one wet November day. They had always been so close, and based on other soldiers’ stories he would have assumed that he would have felt something when it happened. A deep, spiritual ache perhaps, the feeling of losing something as close and important as a limb. But he was ashamed to say that he had no idea it had happened until the firefight had ended and their commanding officer had called them to sound-off.
“Darrow?” The man had called, only to be met with empty air. “Lance Corporal Thomas Darrow?”
Silence. Nothing but deep, oppressive silence.
That was the moment the bottom dropped out from John’s entire world.
When John returned home, it took him several weeks to muster the courage to visit Hester. He hadn’t necessarily intended on seeing her ever again — he wasn’t even sure she would be welcome to it. But in his neighborhood he had received far too many pathetic, pitying looks from people when they realized that the notorious duo of Tom-and-John was now just down to John. If anyone would understand, it would be the Hester who had once been half of Tom-and-Hester.
The return address on her letters wasn't far from John’s own home, just a short walk down the main road. It was an ordinary brick rowhouse, small and outdated but quite tidy-looking. The one blight on it was the wooden planter box next to the front door — whatever had been growing there had been allowed to die a miserable death and now lay in a tangle of brown and twisted stalks.
He tried not to hesitate before knocking on the door. He wasn't even sure she lived there anymore. It had been over a year since he had last received a letter from her, and she very well could have moved by now. But the woman who opened the door was unquestionably Hester’s mother – tall and blue-eyed, with dark brown hair that was just starting to go salt-and-pepper at the temples.
“Yes?” she asked, warily eyeing his service uniform. It was probably a mistake for him to have worn it, but he hadn't wanted to go home after to change into it for his appointment at the War Office.
“Good afternoon, ma-am,” he said, a little stiffly. “Is Hester by any chance at home?”
She nodded and stepped back into the hallway. “Hester, there's someone here for you,” she called up the stairs, then walked away.
John supposed she’d had a few visits from other military members by now, wanting to discuss the details of Tom’s belongings and such. His appearance was unremarkable in that way. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and fiddled with the brim of his hat. Suddenly this felt like a very, very stupid idea. No doubt she would refuse him, turn him away immediately. He was here and Tom wasn’t, and it almost felt cruel to draw attention to that fact. If there was any fairness in the universe it would have been him back in a nameless grave in France, and Tom here ready to greet his love with open arms. He started to move away, filled with every intention of turning tail and heading back down the street, when suddenly she appeared in the doorway.
Or rather, a version of her appeared in the doorway. If John hadn’t been standing on the threshold of what he knew was her house, he might not have recognized her at all. The lively, rosy-cheeked girl he had foxtrotted with at the dance hall was gone. Now she was thinner, with sallow cheeks and pale skin. Her hair hung messily around her shoulders, and the shift dress she wore seemed two sizes too big for her. Her eyes were still unmistakable, though even their shine had been dulled.
They stared at each other for several long seconds, looking over the ravages that the past three years had taken on them. He wondered what she thought of his appearance now, if she also saw him as a shell of his former self. He certainly felt like it.
“Oh, John.” A broken sound suddenly bubbled up from somewhere deep in her throat and she rushed forward, throwing her arms around him. He caught her easily and held her tight as she sobbed into his shoulder. She felt fragile, as if she might turn to dust in his arms, but still he held onto her. Since the moment he had set foot back on home soil, this was the most real he had felt. The woman in his arms was the only sure, solid thing in this world, and the enormity of their shared loss was like gravity pulling him back down to earth. Even with her fragile arms squeezing his chest he felt like he could breathe a little easier now, stand a little straighter.
Eventually they managed to disentangle from each other, and after roughly wiping the tears from her cheeks she invited him in. He immediately missed her warmth, the gentle and solid weight of her body against his, even as he followed her into the house.
“Coffee?” she asked, already walking back towards the kitchen.
“I shouldn’t,” he said, following after her. "I had an ulcer over there, doctor says caffeine is bad for that sort of thing.”
“Tea then,” she said. A statement, not a question. She rummaged through the nearest cabinet and pulled out a box of tea. She squinted hard at the label, then nodded and set about filling two cups from the copper kettle on the stove.
“Never did end up getting those glasses then?”
She almost smiled at that. “No, I didn’t. Although I suppose I should now. No point in vanity, I’m not trying to impress anyone.” Her face hardened again and she applied more focus than necessary to preparing the tea.
“I think you’d look nice in glasses,” John said. “You know, clever. Not that you don’t look clever now,” he added quickly.
The ghost of a smile reappeared. “I think there was a compliment in there somewhere,” she said. “Sugar?”
“Ah, yes.” He hated tea, but sugar made it marginally more tolerable. He glanced out into the hallway, surprised to see that her mother seemed to have so thoroughly vacated the premises. “Your parents don’t mind you having er, gentleman callers?”
He was ready to kick himself for the ridiculous wording, but then Hester cracked her most genuine smile yet as she handed him the cup.
“Oh yes, the hordes of gentleman callers who are beating down my door.” She laughed, just a little. “If anything they’re probably thrilled, they speak so poorly of the other widow-ish girls in the neighborhood. Some of them are even getting jobs if you can believe it.”
John smiled. “How horrible.The nerve, wanting to make a salary.”
“It’s bad enough they want the right to vote,” Hester raised a hand to clutch her nonexistent pearls. “But money? That involves math, John. However will our fragile brains handle it?”
John’s smile widened. “I’m afraid their generation doesn’t see that times are changing. And that you could certainly do anything you set your mind to.”
“So long as ‘anything’ involves being a secretary or a nurse.”
“You’re forgetting schoolmarm. Plenty of money to be made there.”
Hester snickered. The lines on her face had softened, and she was beginning to look more like the girl he had met three years before. She took a sip of her tea and considered it. “I think I’d prefer to be a secretary, if anything. Maybe even for the government, they get to know all of the state secrets.”
“You do have beautiful penmanship.”
They stood in the kitchen and chatted idly for a few more minutes, discussing gossip from the neighborhood and Hester's rabble-rousing in the bridge group (apparently they hadn't taken too kindly to her bringing leaflets about suffrage to their most recent meeting). Neither of them mentioned Tom at all, though his absence was palpable, an empty hole in the room where a cheeky twenty-two year old man should have stood. Twenty-three, actually. His twenty-third birthday had just passed, though he hadn't been around to see it.
Eventually John glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner and blanched. “I should be going. I was asked to come into the War Office for an interview. Some tedious desk job, I’m assuming.”
Hester nodded and smoothed her skirt. “Thank you for popping by. I needed this, I think. Everyone acts so strangely around me now. I just want to feel normal.”
“Of course. I feel the same way." He fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket. "Everyone keeps acting like I’m some great war hero, but they don’t know anything about it. I'm not a hero. I just…” He trailed off.
Despite the incomplete thought, Hester nodded in understanding. It made sense really, she was probably the only person who could understand him these days. “Maybe you could stop by again sometime? I could use the company.”
“I’d like that.”
In the coming months he kept his word, and eventually it became a standing ritual for him to visit her on Saturday afternoons. Hester had been right about her parents — they always seemed to make themselves scarce when he came around, probably hoping that he was going to propose to her any day. They were furious with her for getting a job in the city (something secretarial, though she always avoided discussing the specifics), and they wanted nothing more than for her to stop that nonsense and settle down.
The job was good for her, John thought. She held herself a little straighter now, and some of the color had returned to her cheeks. She started pinning her hair back more tightly because she hated the way it fell in her face while she was typing. For as much as John missed the soft curls that had once fallen around her shoulders he did admit that it suited her, made her look older and more sophisticated. She’d even quit smoking because she needed to keep her mind sharp and nimble for more efficient typing.
They were growing closer, and at times during the week John started making notes of the things he needed to tell her when he saw her. Anecdotes from work, silly things in the newspaper, all the new ways his mother was nagging him. The nightmares he was still having, the ones where Tom bled out in his arms. He wanted to share everything with her, and every day that wasn’t Saturday felt like it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t completely oblivious. He knew very well that he was falling in love with her. She was whip-smart with a remarkably dry sense of humor, and she was good with words in a way that he could never hope to match. She was dependable and kind, and she took her work very seriously (though she still wouldn't tell John exactly where it was that she worked). She also made John feel normal. Everyone else in his life seemed to just pity him, and his mother still had bouts of crying now and again when she thought about how close she had come to losing him. But Hester knew what it was like to be the object of abject pity, and she refused to take part in it. She didn't coddle him or treat him like a legendary hero. She simply talked to him.
And sometimes when they were talking, he caught her looking at him just a half-second too long, or smiling at him in a way that felt more intimate than friendly. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he got the distinct impression that her feelings towards him might be changing as well. But she had been the love of Tom's too-short life, and she had thought he was going to be the love of hers. That wasn't something a person could get over quickly, and if ever anything were to happen between them it would certainly be after some period of mourning. But he loved her, and he told himself that he was content to wait for her as long as she needed.
Months went by, and their visits remained the highlight of his week. They were both becoming more and more focused on their careers, and one afternoon in mid-December she announced to him that she was going to be moving out of her parents' home and into a boarding house.
"It's not particularly nice by any means, but it will be my own space," she said, sipping her tea. Today it was something spicy and cinnamon-y, a very seasonal blend. John hadn't realized that Christmas was such an event in the Leggatt household, but the whole place had been done up with pine boughs and holly, and a fire crackled merrily in the hearth. It was cozy, he thought. Someday he wanted a home that felt like this.
She swallowed and gestured absently with her teacup. "A couple of the girls from work live there too, and they say that the landlady isn't too overbearing. She even lets them have men come visit them, so long as it's not too late at night."
"Am I allowed to come visit you, then?" John asked, half-teasing, although part of him did worry that she might be ready to leave him behind with the remnants of her old life.
She rolled her eyes. "Why do you think I asked about men visitors in the first place? I'd actually be quite cross if you didn't come to see me."
John smiled. "Alright, just checking."
She started to say something, then froze when she saw something behind him. “Oh, my bloody mother!” she cried. She leapt from the sofa and stormed over to the doorway.
John stood and started to ask what the matter was, but then he saw it. He hadn't noticed it amongst the other trimmings, but there was a bright sprig of mistletoe hanging from the center of the doorframe.
"That was not there this morning," Hester growled. She reached up and yanked at the offending greenery, which had been affixed to the doorframe with red ribbon. Her cheeks flushed, seemingly set on matching the ribbon, as she crushed the bough in her hand. “I’m sorry about that. I told her about the boarding house and she threw a fit. I think she thinks she can, I don’t know, trick me into falling in love with you and throwing away my career.”
John's stomach sank down to the tips of his toes. “As if anyone could trick you into anything,” he said, trying to smile but failing miserably.
Her eyebrows flew up. “I didn’t mean–” she came back around the sofa to stand in front of him. “Not that anyone would need to be tricked into falling in love with you.”
“No?” he asked. He reached out and took the mistletoe from her. The waxy leaves were cracked from how tightly she had gripped them, and the ragged edges streaked green across his palm.
“No. No one would ever have to be tricked into anything with you. You’re…” Her eyes softened. “You’re a truly remarkable man, John Bevan.”
She stayed like that for several moments watching him with her clear blue gaze. The light from the fire cast faint shadows across her cheeks, making her lashes seem even longer than usual. John felt faintly, pleasantly dizzy. The room was warm, the air was sweet with the scent of burning cedar, and Hester was still watching him.
For years after, he would try to rewrite that moment in his memory. A part of him knew even then that he should leave, that he should step straight past her into the foyer and disappear into the night. If he had been mature enough to accept things as they were, if he'd just had it in him to leave, things might have ended differently. Or things might not have ended at all.
But he didn’t have it in him to leave. He was too headstrong, too sure of himself, too wrapped up in his own needs. So instead of leaving, he pinched the mistletoe between his index finger and thumb and held it above their heads.
"Would it really be so bad?" he asked quietly.
Hester’s eyes followed his hand, then flicked down to his face. She swallowed, and the pale line of her throat shifted with the effort. Slowly, slowly, her eyes slid closed. This close he could see the faint dusting of rouge across her cheekbone, the place at the corner of her lips where her ruby lipstick had smudged slightly. He wondered if it was the kind that transferred to another person after you’d kissed them, if it would mark your skin for all the world to see.
Suddenly that was the most important question in the world. He wanted her lipstick to stain his skin. He wanted her to mark him, to claim him as her own. He swayed forward and moved his face close to hers, closing his eyes just before their lips met.
But they never did. She stopped him with a gentle hand to his chest.
“Wait, John. I'm sorry, I can’t.”
Her breath ghosted over his lips, still faintly spicy from the tea. She stepped back and looked away, wringing her hands tightly.
“I…right.” John stepped back too. The mistletoe fell from his fingers and was quickly crushed beneath the heel of his shoe.
“I'm sorry, it's not that I don't want to,” she said. A faint flush rose to her cheeks as she looked away. It mingled with the rouge and gave her an angelic, apple-cheeked appearance. For a moment she looked as if she belonged on top of the tree in the corner, fixed with a halo and paper wings. "But it wouldn't be fair to Tom."
“Right,” John said again, unsure of what else there was to say.
Her grip on her own hands was white-knuckled now. “I just…it was going to be Tom,” she said. “It was always supposed to be Tom. We had a whole life planned out. I don’t want to just swap someone else in for him. I need time. You’re not interchangeable to me.”
“I would hope not,” John said tightly.
She looked at him. Her expression was pained, and he wanted nothing more than to smooth the furrow from her brow. “I care about you, John. I really do. Your visits are the highlight of my week. But I’m not ready to move on. Not just yet.”
He could have stopped pushing there. He should have stopped pushing, should have quit while he was behind and gone into damage control. But for all of his shell shock and world-weariness, he was still just a young man who was in love with a beautiful young woman. So instead of doing any number of sensible things, he found himself blurting out, “but don’t you think Tom would want you to be happy?”
Hester’s eyes flashed, and he knew he had said precisely the wrong thing. Her expression grew cold, colder than he had ever seen it, and all angelic comparisons fell from his mind. “I don’t know what he would want, John. That’s rather the problem, in case you haven’t noticed.” Her shoulders tensed with a growing rage, and she dropped her hands and balled them into fists. “I can’t just call him up and ask him if he minds me snogging his best friend. I can’t call him up ever again.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that?” John snapped, anger flaring deep in the pit of his stomach. “Don’t you think I miss him too?”
“Then why don’t you act like it?” she cried. “How can you think of moving on, when he can never move on? When they couldn’t even bring his body home, when they can’t even tell me what day he died?”
“November twelfth.”
Hester froze. The room was silent for several seconds, save for the crackling of the fire. Just moments before it had been such a cozy sound, but now it sounded grating, ominous. John had seen and heard too much fire for one lifetime. There had been fire on the battlefield when Tom died, harsh and biting flames where some manner of incendiary device had caught the edge of a wooden fence.
“November twelfth?” she asked, in a voice that was faint and drained of its earlier venom.
“Yes,” John said coldly. “I know because I was there. He was behind me and then he wasn’t, and I don’t even know if I saw his body or not because there were so damn many of them on the field.” His throat felt tight. The air in the room was heavy, too heavy and thick to fit into his lungs properly. “So call me a cad or whatever you’d like, but don’t act like I don’t care and I don’t miss him every day. But I have to pretend that it was all for something. I care about you, Hester, and I think we could have a life together. Maybe it wouldn’t be the life you’d planned, but it wouldn’t be a bad one.”
Hester watched him for several seconds, trying to take in everything he was saying. Maybe she was having a hard time breathing too, the air in the room was just so damned heavy, it was hard to think. Eventually her fists loosened and her shoulders sagged.
“I just can’t do that, John. I can’t give you what you need, not right now. I think we’re just both too broken.”
John swallowed and forced a tiny bit of the too-thick air into his lungs. “Perhaps you’re right.” With great effort, he pushed the air back out through his nose. “I should…I should go.”
Hester folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, I think that’s for the best.”
He nodded and moved to step past her towards the door. He hesitated, then reached out to squeeze her arm. “Take care of yourself, Hester.”
After a moment of hesitation she raised one of her own hands to cover his. It was brief, just a fleeting touch, but for years after he would remember how soft her hand was, how dainty her fingers felt against his. “You too, John.”