Free The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys

him in his officer’s battledress. Rose has been given the tour of these artifacts so often that she knows their history as well as Mrs. Stuart does. But the one item she returns to voluntarily is the photograph of the Stuarts on their wedding day. In the photograph they are emerging from the arch of the church door into sunlight. Mrs. Stuart wears a white satin dress with a veil and a train; the veil is lifted back over her dark hair. Mr. Stuart is in his uniform. They walk through a corridor of swords raised by Mr. Stuart’s fellow soldiers.
    Rose likes to look at this photograph because the expression on Mrs. Stuart’s face is one of such happiness that it always makes Rose happy to see it. But she can’t seem to match the expression in the photograph with Mrs. Stuart’s face now, although she tries every time she is at the house.
    Harris saunters into the sitting room and comes over to Rose. She has gravy on her whiskers and her breath smells of rubbish.
    “Mrs. Thomas, the one whose son was shot down over the Channel last month,” says Mrs. Stuart. “She’s had word this morning that he’s been captured.” She sips at her tea delicately, clearly intending to make her cup last for at least an hour. “Perhaps he’ll be taken to the same camp as James. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
    “I suppose so.” Rose drains her tea in one gulp and burns the back of her throat.
    “How is James? Have you had a letter?”
    Rose thinks of the unopened letter on the table by her armchair and immediately feels guilty. She stands up, walks over to the sitting-room window, and decisively draws the curtains.
    “I really have to be going, Mrs. Stuart. I still have two streets to cover, and I want to finish before midnight. It doesn’t seem fair to wake people from their beds for the blackout.”
    “No, no. Of course not.” Mrs. Stuart reluctantly puts her cup of tea aside. Before they’re out of the sitting room, Harris has walked over and lapped up the rest of it.
    “You’re horrible,” says Rose when they’re outdoors. But she reaches down and rubs the top of the dog’s head anyway.
     
    T HE NEXT morning Rose wakes up to the barking of a dog. At first she’s confused because Harris lies sprawled across the end of her bed. But the barking continues, and when Harris, also waking to the sound, suddenly lifts her head and leaps off the eiderdown, Rose knows what’s happening.
    Clementine is sitting by the front door when Rose opens it. She bounds into the cottage, and she and Harris start wrestling in the hallway until Rose pushes them outside. The dogs race around the garden for a few revolutions and then head up onto the forest, running at top speed over the golf course greens and into the bracken beyond.
    When Rose bought Harris, the farmer decided to keep one of the puppies himself. When the dogs were very young, Rose would take Harris over the forest to play with her sister. Now that the dogs are well over a year, they do the visiting on their own. Sometimes Rose will wake up to find Clementine downstairs, and sometimes she will wake up to find Harris gone.
    Rose gets dressed and makes a cup of tea. The dogs return for breakfast, panting and muddy, their coats stuck with burrs.
    Rose takes a slab of horsemeat from the larder and slaps it onto two plates, putting one at one end of the kitchen and one at the other. If the dogs eat too close to each other, they fight over the food. They are best friends outdoors, but sometimes they scrap indoors.
    It’s a damp and misty morning. Rose finishes her tea, makes some toast, and scrapes butter across it from the end of her week’s ration, adding a dollop of marmalade. Then she goes out to the hens to feed them and collect the eggs—eight this morning. She still hasn’t used the seven from yesterday, so she’ll package up a dozen and take them over to her parents today.
    Rose stands at the back door eating another piece of toast and marmalade while the dogs sniff eagerly