The Summer Before the War

by Helen Simonson

  “You look so much better, Professor,” said Hugh. “I hope you had a good night’s sleep?”

  “The home of Monsieur Tillingham has provided sanctuary for the body and balm for the soul,” said the Professor. “I was just saying that I feel as if returned to civilization from a long expedition to a darker continent.”

  “You will be shocked at the privations the Professor has endured,” said Mr. Tillingham. “I only wonder if they will be too much for the ladies to bear.”

  “Aunt Agatha and Miss Nash will have words for you if you dare suggest they are too fragile for such stories,” said Daniel, casually removing a slice of bread from the tea table and settling in a chair to munch on it.

  “But perhaps the Professor’s daughter will not like to relive such difficulties?” said Hugh. “How is your daughter, sir?”

  “I have not yet seen her. It was better for her to rest,” said the Professor. “For though I shielded her as much as any father could, my poor child, she has glimpsed des horreurs.”

  “Heroic,” said Mr. Tillingham, stroking his chin. “The learned man stands against the brutish horde. It is an ancient theme.”

  “I visited the hostel today,” said Hugh. “Some of your compatriots report great difficulties sleeping. Dr. Lawton and I had to prescribe sleeping drafts to several.”

  “I’m not surprised they are undone.” The Professor sighed. “To the peasant, the loss of a few possessions, and the eviction from home—I am sure it feels as large to them as it does to persons of real property. Yet even my own not inconsiderable losses must be of no account against the destruction of civilization to which I was witness.”

  “The Germans burned the ancient library at the Professor’s university,” said Mr. Tillingham. “If we needed any further proof that civilization stands in the breach…”

  “I was able to persuade the commanding officer to save some of the rarest volumes,” said the Professor. “But even he, an educated gentleman to whom I could beg for reason, he could not keep his troops from putting the buildings to the flame.” He produced a large handkerchief from his pocket and turned aside his face.

  Hugh felt some doubt as to whether the burning of books should be counted a greater crime than forcing poor families from their homes at bayonet point. And the suffering he had witnessed on the docks had seemed to make no distinction between rich and poor. But he held his tongue. He did not think the present company would welcome a debate on such questions—for he had no doubt that spirited debate was the first casualty of any war.

  —

  For Beatrice the opening of Mr. Tillingham’s front door was the opening of the temple. Stepping in behind Agatha Kent and Celeste, she could already smell the books, even above the waxy note of wood polish and the hint of recently baked cakes from the unseen kitchen. Leather-bound books, old books with yellowed pages, new books with the sharp scent of printer’s ink and the promise of crisp, uncut pages awaiting the paper knife. Pamphlets and chapbooks in boxes, clean paper awaiting the typewriter or pen. She could feel a familiarity; and a tiny, tremulous awakening of a hope that she belonged in this tiled hall, these high-ceilinged parlors. Might Mr. Tillingham indeed invite her to use his library? Might not Mr. Tillingham’s secretary experience a sudden temporary illness and Beatrice be allowed to step in and assist as she had done so often for her father? Might the great man, in his gratitude, not then take an avuncular interest in her writings as he already did for Daniel? For a moment Beatrice allowed her mind to indulge in these happy thoughts and to feel a glow of possibility that she had not felt since losing her father.

  Her reverie was interrupted by Celeste, whose grip upon her arm tightened. The girl trembled violently, and her face was once again pale. Beatrice was reminded sharply that the pleasures of at last reaching Mr. Tillingham’s inner sanctum were purchased on the back of much loss and distress, and that it was foolish of them all to subject the girl to a garden full of strangers.

  “Courage, ma petite,” said Beatrice, patting Celeste’s hand. “We go to see your papa.”

  —

  At tea, the Professor and Mr. Tillingham held forth at length about conditions in Belgium. Beatrice gently refused a second cup of tea and was glad when Agatha whispered that she was welcome to slip away from the table to admire the gardens. She had stopped to peer at a blowsy purple clematis flower which spread its velvet petals against the old brick of the garden wall when Daniel, smoking a foul-smelling cigarillo, and Hugh came strolling along the narrow path.

  “A more sentimental picture for the artist could hardly be imagined,” said Daniel, nodding his head across the lawn towards the Professor and his daughter. The Professor inhabited his chair like a wicker throne, thought Beatrice, and Celeste, seated on a low wicker stool at his side, her hand on his sleeve, her skirts pooling on the grass, her body twisted slightly to his, and her face tilted up, looked like a supplicating princess. The Professor, rendered perhaps more heroic by her air of adoration, was still lecturing, and Agatha Kent and Mr. Tillingham were settled in attitudes of the closest attention. “Perhaps to be titled ‘Respite from the Storm’? Or ‘The Grateful Guests’?” he added. “She does make a compelling case for an immediate call to arms.”

  “Must you always be so mocking?” asked Hugh, looking grim. “They have lost their home, their country—everything. The desperation we witnessed at the port is beyond anything we have imagined.”

  “At least they have each other,” said Beatrice. “Her father is everything to her.” Her own voice developed an unwanted tremor as she spoke.

  “Somber thoughts for such a lovely afternoon,” said Hugh.

  “I do not make light of their suffering,” said Daniel. “It is just human nature to be more interested in fighting to rescue beautiful young maidens. I am ready to run to the recruiter if only she will drop her handkerchief.”

  “If she dropped a handkerchief, no doubt you would be too lazy to even pick it up,” said Hugh.

  “You are right,” said Daniel, with a sigh. “But I may feel a poem coming on.”

  “Miss Nash, it does you much credit to have taken in the young lady,” said Hugh. “I think they ask too much of you.”

  “Aunt Agatha could take her,” said Daniel. “Then we would see her every day at breakfast, Hugh.”

  “Forgive my cousin,” said Hugh. “He is only playing the fool.”

  “Really?” asked Beatrice. “He is so convincing.”

  “The balloon of my pride is thus pierced by the steel pin of your wit, Miss Nash,” said Daniel. “I shall deflate in a suitable chair.” He set off at a fast clip to make a second assault upon the cake stand.

  “Not many ladies would be so ready to share their home,” said Hugh as they slowly followed Daniel back to the tea table. “You are to be admired.” Beatrice felt a small glow of pleasure at such a compliment from the serious Hugh, but when she turned her smile towards him, she saw he was absorbed in studying Celeste, and frowning at Daniel, who had pulled up a chair to engage her in conversation. Her pleasure died and she crushed her own injured feelings with a sharp response.

  “It was quite selfish on my part,” she said. “Don’t you know that it is deeply fashionable to take in a refugee?”

  “No one could ever suspect you of being fashionable,” said Hugh.

  “Just what a woman wants to hear,” said Beatrice with a sigh.

  Hugh stopped in his tracks to face her, his eyes anxious. “By which I mean only that no one…I mean, I do not mean…oh my goodness, Miss Nash…”

  “I am teasing you, Mr. Grange,” said Beatrice, satisfied to have demanded his full attention but sorry to have succumbed to her own vanity. “I thank you for your faith in my altruism.” She was also painfully aware that she might not have been altogether altruistic in acceding to Mr. Tillingham’s request for help. However, she was now up to her neck in a responsibility both serious and of an indeterminate length, and therefore she was rather a saint whether she liked it or no
t.

  “Hugh, please,” said Hugh.

  “Hugh,” she replied.

  “She seems calm,” said Hugh, looking again at Celeste. “Did she sleep?”

  “Not well,” said Beatrice. “But I assume any nightmares will abate now she is safe?”

  “These people have seen things no civilized person expects to see in their country town,” said Hugh. “I fear neurasthenia in some and ongoing nightmares even in the strongest of them.”

  “What can we do?” asked Beatrice.

  “Just observe her closely,” said Hugh. “Treat her as one might a recent invalid. Plenty of hot, sweet tea or beef broth, fresh air, rest—and call on Dr. Lawton if you need a sleeping draft for her.”

  “Thank you,” said Beatrice. “And will you come and check on us?” He looked at her for a moment, and she could not read his face. “Was there some mention of cream tea?” she added, smiling.

  “I haven’t told my aunt and cousin yet, but I may not be in Sussex for much longer,” said Hugh. He hesitated and then, lowering his voice, he added, “I am going to London tomorrow to enlist.”

  “You can’t mean it?” Beatrice sat down abruptly on a small rustic bench under the garden wall. “I mean…I thought soldiering was for the Harry Wheatons of the world. You have so much important work to do.”

  “I’ll be furthering that work,” said Hugh. “Just under the auspices of the Royal Army Medical Corps.”

  “But what about your surgeon?” she asked. “Does he not count on you?”

  “He is leading the charge,” said Hugh. “He offered me more patients and more experience to be had on the battlefield, and the chance to do my duty while furthering my own career.” His lip twisted in apparent distaste.

  “An irresistible combination, I should think,” said Beatrice slowly.

  “And yet every sense revolted against the idea of it,” said Hugh. He sat beside her. “To go to war for the advancement of one’s career seemed wrong somehow.”

  “And your surgeon’s daughter?” she asked. “Surely she must have suffered at the idea?” To her surprise, she felt a bitter sorrow that he would be in harm’s way, and she chided herself for being such a poor patriot as to wish her own acquaintances exempt from service.

  “Miss Lucy has such enthusiasm for recruiting that Lord Kitchener should put her entreating eyes on a poster,” said Hugh. “Out of loyalty and affection, I suppose I must allow her to claim me as her recruit.” He gazed across the lawn at the Professor and Celeste. “But in truth, it was going to the docks yesterday that changed my mind; the dozens of refugees, the wounded, the chaos…” His voice trailed away, and she could see in his eyes that he was replaying pictures of the scene.

  “I imagine it was very difficult,” said Beatrice. But as she spoke, she knew she could not imagine. The exhaustion, dirty clothes, and pungent smell of the few refugees crowded into the Town Hall had been overwhelming enough.

  “Grandmothers with bleeding feet from walking for days in wooden clogs,” he said, his voice brimming with emotion. “Babies thrust into the arms of complete strangers just to get them to safety, women desperate for news of detained husbands pinning their information to every fence.” He paused and then shook his head as if to clear the images from his mind. “All other considerations melted away and I knew I had to go where I can be at least useful.”

  “No one who knows you would doubt that duty is uppermost in your mind,” said Beatrice. “They will all be proud of you.”

  “Thank you for your kindness,” he said. He held out his hand, and she gave him hers to clasp. “I know you always speak your mind, Miss Nash, and therefore I value your kind words all the more. I hope I have not offended you with my descriptions?”

  “I appreciate your frankness,” she said. She looked over to the tea table, where Agatha was laughing at some remark of Daniel’s. She knew the pain Hugh’s news would bring. “When will you tell your aunt?” she asked.

  “No sooner than I have to,” he said.

  Two letters arrived on Beatrice’s breakfast tray, one from Lady Marbely’s solicitors and one from her father’s publisher, Mr. Caraway. She set them aside on the small table while she ate in order to prolong the pleasing sense of anticipation that all her worries, both financial and aspirational, might be laid to rest. A week or so after Celeste’s arrival, she had written to Aunt Marbely with a polite request that she be allowed to draw a slightly larger monthly allowance from her trust now that she was participating, in a modest way, in the war relief efforts of the town. With much chewing of her pen over the need to combine modesty with selflessness, she had described the recent taking in of her young refugee, and all the patriotic teas, committees, and events which they would be expected to attend, at some considerable increase in her personal expenses. She enlarged shamelessly upon the famous Mr. Tillingham’s gratitude, embroidered upon Lady Emily’s continuing patronage, and made sure to mention in passing that Agatha Kent’s husband was intimately connected to the highest echelons of government. Describing a life of almost missionary simplicity, yet one in which an increase in dress allowance was vital to maintaining a suitable reputation, the finished document was so satisfyingly manipulative that she was forced to bargain with her pricking conscience, promising to make up for such amorality at a later date.

  As she ate her porridge and sliced green apple, she tried to concentrate her excitement on the envelope from the publisher, which was too thin to contain a returned manuscript and therefore promised an answer to her literary dreams. But she was distracted by the fat one from the solicitors, which might contain a bank draft. Setting aside literature, she spent a pleasant moment choosing between purchasing a straw hat of Agatha Kent quality and buying a three-volume set of the works of Jane Austen, bound in dark blue morocco and hand-tooled gilt, which she coveted at the local bookshop. She was grinning in rueful self-awareness that the books would always win against personal adornment as she ripped open the heavy envelope.

  The letter and enclosed agreement were thick with legal terms, and yet even as she struggled to decipher the words with accuracy, she understood enough to feel a flush of rage in her cheeks. It appeared that, upon Lady Marbely’s suggestion, the executors felt it necessary to maintain a paternal watch over a woman of such tender years. There was language as to the limited feminine capacity for financial matters and to the loyalty to family honor—the upshot of which seemed to be that, in order to provide an increase in her allowance, they intended to engage a local solicitor to oversee her financial life and that she would be expected to deposit her salary with them as well as submit all accounts and seek advance approval for any expense above usual weekly necessities. To add the last note of humiliation, it seemed that her trust would be responsible for the expenses of maintaining such oversight. The enclosed agreement required her signature—her agreement to pay for her own jailers—and the letter closed with assurance that upon its signing and presentation, the local solicitor would make available an immediate draft of ten pounds.

  The suggestion that she might be bought for ten pounds made her eyes water with humiliation. The small parlor, so recently scrubbed and furnished for her independence, blurred and became insubstantial. She blinked hard and, crumpling the letter in her fist, tried to focus on finding it amusing that a woman who had run her father’s household accounts on several continents should need supervision of all purchases other than ribbons and tea cakes. She bade a silent farewell to the new books as the envelope contained no drafts and the letter indicated that she would have to wait to hear from whatever local solicitor was provisionally engaged.

  Turning to the thin envelope, she now wished she had asked for an advance and wondered whether it would have occurred to Mr. Caraway to offer one of his own volition. Her father had always complained of the man’s tightfisted ways, so she had little cause to expect it. As she opened the letter, she reminded herself that it was more important to the writer to have work than money.

  The le
tter from her father’s publisher was scarcely less disappointing than the missive from her Aunt Marbely’s solicitor. Mr. Caraway was pleased to remember her, and sent warm thoughts and a cheerful anecdote about her father. But on the subject of her volume of her father’s letters, he wrote to tell her that her father’s archive having been left to the family trust, he had been contracted by the family to find a suitable editor and to publish an official volume.

  …I hope you will be pleased to hear that, at the suggestion of your father’s family, we are in negotiations with an illustrious writer of the greatest possible reputation to undertake the editing and the introduction to such a volume. You will agree that your father’s reputation will be immeasurably enhanced by a work of this scholarly nature and that his legacy demands an editor of international renown. As you seem to have some correspondence not in your father’s archive, and your own introduction contains one or two charming insights, we have taken the liberty of forwarding your manuscript as a valuable piece of research. Lady Marbely assures us that the project will meet with your approval and that you will be glad to send us, by return post, any original letters missing from the official archive. I remain yours faithfully…

  Beatrice’s fury buzzed in her temples, and she could feel the vibration of blood in her fingertips. Her work had been her only refuge and consolation during the dark year of mourning, and every fresh insight had been a moment of closeness to her father. The small volume would have been not just a solid first work from which to build a modest reputation as a writer but a direct connection from her father to her own future. Though she could see the undeniable benefit of the larger project to her father’s public memory, the publisher’s casual dismissal of her work as mere research, and his suggestion that she had removed letters from her father’s archive, made her despair. She buried her face in her hands and allowed herself a single hollow groan, for her lost father, and for the impossibility of her own wants.