The Dutch Wife by Eric P. McCormack Read Free Book Online

nobody even understands?” His eyes were burning. “I came to tell you this because I think he might have wanted you to know. He died in a little private war over you, he loved you so much.”
    She refused to accept that. “He would be alive, but for me,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.
    The soldier shook his head. “Maybe and maybe not,” he said. “Nearly everybody in that trench was killed anyway. And those who survived are worse than dead.” He swung his legs out from the table and tapped his right leg, the one with the shiny boot. “Do you know how I got this?” he said bitterly. “They’d order us out into no-man’s land at night to go through the pockets of the enemy dead and look for useful information. All I ever found were their letters from home and family photographs. One night I stepped on a mine.” Again he tapped the leg with the shiny shoe. “When I got home, my girl didn’t want anything to do with me. She loves dancing.”
    Rachel Vanderlinden was silent.
    The soldier now looked at her fiercely. “I hope you’ve been faithful,” he said. “Have you been faithful?”
    That word, like a hangman’s noose, choked her. “Yes, I have,” she managed to say. She believed it was as much for his sake as her own.
    He looked at her so sternly she couldn’t tell whether he believed her or not.
    Just then, a voice called from the doorway of the bar.
    “Rachel!”
    It was Jeremiah Webber. He signalled to her that he’d be with her in a second.
    The plump-faced soldier looked at her with sudden understanding, got to his feet and stumbled away without another word.
    Webber ordered beer at the bar then came and sat down. He saw she was upset and thought it was because of his lateness. He promised to keep her amused for the remainder of the day. She told him she suddenly didn’t feel well and asked him to take her home.
    – 5 –
    THAT FALL, ON AN OVERCAST MORNING, Rachel Vanderlinden had gone to City Hall to pay a bill. She was there for a half hour. As she was leaving through the main entrance, she saw a cluster of people, including a policeman, on the sidewalk outside looking up at the clock tower where a flagpole jutted out. She looked up too. A man was hanging from the pole by his arms, looking down. He must have climbed the stairs inside and squirmed out through one of the apertures.
    Rachel couldn’t bear to watch and hurried away. But she’d only gone twenty yards along the sidewalk when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man let go. He plummeted down and struck an ornamental iron fence-post. Even though its tip was quite blunt, the force of his fall caused it to impale him through his chest.
    In spite of herself, Rachel stopped to look. The policeman, with the help of two of the men watching, tried to detach the body. The jumper had been killed instantly and there was a lot of blood everywhere, so the men weren’t careful. One of his legs seemed to have been broken and flopped around loosely as they lifted him off the post. They laid him on his back on the sidewalk and the policeman tried to straighten the leg out. The entire limb came away in his hand—a wooden contraption with leather straps. Rachel moved a little nearer. Though the head of the dead man was at a strange angle and there was blood from his mouth and nose, she could see it was the soldier who’d told her about the death of the man she loved.
    “Does anyone know him?” the policeman said.
    “I’ve seen him around,” said one of the men who’d helped.
    “Do you know his name?”
    “It was Floyd McGraw,” the man said. “He was crippled in the War. He’s had a rough time since he came back.”
    Rachel walked away quickly. Floyd McGraw. She’d suspected that was who he was ever since he’d spoken to her in the York. She’d thought of trying to find him, telling him he wasn’t to blame either. But she hadn’t, and now he’d died, certain there could be no forgiveness. Yet she wasn’t