Sorry for the Dead

by Nicola Upson

  She knew what he meant, but the melancholy that had been playing on her mind all afternoon came from the realization that something precious had been lost that summer, and it had nothing to do with the war. “Yes,” she said, choosing the easy answer. “At the Somme. He died helping a friend, which was a great comfort to me and a constant torment to the friend.”

  Duncan nodded but avoided the usual clichés, and she appreciated his lack of sentiment. “I’d better go,” he said, “but take as long as you like here. It’s been nice to meet you.”

  He switched a lamp on for her as he left, and she began to look quickly through the remaining sketches, conscious that Marta would be waiting for her. There were two more books in the portfolio, smaller than the others and tucked into a side pocket. She opened one, expecting to find more of the same, but stopped in astonishment at the first page. Though similar in tone, these drawings had a very different subject matter to the others. The body she was looking at was Dorothy Norwood’s—not on a battlefield this time, but recognizably where she had died. Josephine flicked through the next few pages, increasingly disturbed by what she saw: a girl’s mutilated corpse, drawn from every angle and in forensic detail, killed in a multitude of ways in scenes that must have come from Peter Whittaker’s imagination, scenes that bore no resemblance to how she had actually died. She forced herself to go on: Dorothy’s contorted face with a strong hand at her throat; her bruised and beaten body hanging from the rafters in the barn; and finally her head held under the water in the pond outside the door.

  Shaken, she turned to the other book. To her relief, it was harmless, consisting mainly of drawings of the girls at work in the gardens or sitting round a campfire on a summer’s evening, all very much alive. She turned the final page, glad to have reached the end, but there was one more surprise waiting for her: the figure on the right was unmistakably her, and the tenderness between the two women in the picture was in such stark contrast to everything else that it took her breath away. She sat down, feeling suddenly faint, and looked at the picture again. They had been so careful, she thought, so discreet. How could he possibly have known? Ashamed of herself, but not ashamed enough to be deterred, she closed the sketchbook and slipped the two slim volumes into her bag.

  She was too shocked for the moment to think logically about what the drawings might mean or what she should do with them. Outside, the Sussex light was working its magic over the pale golden stubble fields, and she used its peace to settle her thoughts. When she was less afraid of what the past might hold, she went to look for Marta.

  SUMMER 1915

  CHAPTER 1

  If Josephine had ever wondered what a London station looked like at five in the morning, she couldn’t have imagined anything quite as miserable as this dim and drafty depository for lost souls. The sense of busyness and purpose that animated travelers during the day was entirely absent here. People lay asleep on the platforms, something that would never have been allowed in peacetime, and soldiers rested on their packs, listlessly turning the pages of a newspaper. One or two of them were drunk, shouting and swaying as they passed the bench where she sat, hoping not to draw attention to herself and struggling to remember a time when the hours had passed more slowly. Only the fresh morning air was a relief after the packed train from Birmingham. She shivered, more at the thought of continuing her journey than from anything the early dawn could throw at her, and stood up to stretch her legs.

  Victoria was obviously the central station for soldiers traveling to and from the front. As the daylight strengthened outside, it brought with it a swarm of uniformed men heading for the early leave train, and the station sprang to life as suddenly as if a film had started halfway through. Relieved to have something to do, Josephine followed the crowd to one of the sidings, where a private train was waiting to take soldiers on the first leg of their journey back to France. It was a train like any other, identical to the one that had brought the men home, and yet somehow everything about it was different. The carriages were dark and somber, as if in deference to a fated journey, and Josephine couldn’t help but feel that black drapes at the windows would have been appropriate; even their luggage—long bolsters rather than cases or trunks—marked these passengers out from ordinary travelers, and the flowers that some of them clutched had an ironic, funereal feel.

  The platform had filled up quickly, with no one willing to board the train before the last possible moment. She scanned the faces of those who had come to see their loved ones off: wives who talked too much to hide their fear; fathers standing strict and silent; children for whom a uniform hadn’t lost its glamour. A small boy stood by his brother’s kit, beating it like a drum to a refrain of “Let ’em have it!”; the sentiment sounded shrill and unsettling in the high-pitched voice of a child. As for the men themselves, their faces were set and impassive, and she noticed how few of them dared to look for long at the people they loved.

  The sound of a whistle cut through the air, signaling departure. There was a silence as the final goodbyes were said, and a succession of banging doors brought the scene to a close. The train pulled out of the station—slowly, as if reluctant to play its part in the drama. As the waving khaki-clad arms grew more distant, Josephine was shocked by the loneliness on the faces of the women who turned and drifted away, back to homes which must have seemed so briefly normal again. There were very few tears, but some of them seemed to have aged beyond recognition the minute their men were out of sight.

  Her trunk was where she had left it, and a train now stood at the platform, ready for boarding. There was no porter in sight, so Josephine hauled it across to the luggage van and went to find a third-class carriage. This leg of the journey showed no sign of being as busy as the last, and she settled comfortably into a seat by the window, exchanging pleasantries with the middle-aged woman opposite until it was time to leave. The warmth of the carriage reminded her of how tired she was, and when her companion took a magazine out of her bag and began to read, Josephine allowed herself to doze, encouraged by the gentle motion of the carriage as it left the city behind and moved out into the countryside, heading south. When she woke, the sun had worked its magic, drawing every ounce of color from the fields and wooded hills until it seemed as if the gentle English landscape had been laid out solely for her approval. Perhaps it was the beauty of the morning, perhaps simply the knowledge that each mile took her farther from home than she had been before, but she couldn’t remember ever being quite so entranced or excited by her first impressions of somewhere new.

  The countryside she had pored over on a map for weeks materialized in ways she could never have dreamt of: the kaleidoscopic patterns made by fields among hedgerows; the pretty villages and soft, undulating hills; and then, across the border into Sussex, the county’s defining glory, a vibrant chalk and green escarpment that rolled into the distance like a vast, breaking wave. Suddenly, her college life in Birmingham seemed as unreal as if it had belonged to someone else. The trams that broke down in the dark of an unknown suburb, the smell of the gasworks, the crowds in Steelhouse Lane on a Saturday night—all of it vanished beneath these clean, fresh skies, and the homesickness for the Highlands which had colored every minute of her time in the city was suddenly absent. With no logic or justification that she could think of, she felt a powerful sense of belonging, a certainty that here was somewhere she could call home.

  As the train drew nearer to Eastbourne, her thoughts turned to the job that had brought her south—a summer posting before her second year at college, and a chance to put into practice everything that she had learned so far. She had never once regretted her decision to turn down art college in favor of something more practical. Anstey was one of the finest physical training schools in the country, with professional links to a number of institutions all over England, including the school that had arranged her current placement. Over the last twelve months, she had been drilled in everything from gymnastics, sports, and dance to physiotherapy, nursing, and th
e theory of teaching—but now, as her first real job beckoned, she was painfully aware that “theory” was all it had been. The very thought of standing before a group of young women only a few years her junior, and issuing even the most basic of instructions, made her long to catch the first train home.

  A guard passed down the corridor, announcing the next stop, and Josephine waited eagerly for her first glimpse of the sea. The downs surrounding Eastbourne were dotted with the familiar white tents of army camps that had begun to appear in wide-open spaces, for training and increasingly for convalescence, and she marveled at how quickly such a sight had become a natural part of the landscape. At first glance, the town itself was more modern than she had expected, with handsome new villas eventually giving way to the established civic buildings, but it had a bright, fresh feel to it that seemed to suit the morning sunlight. The station was busy, and Josephine looked anxiously at the clock, conscious that her train was ten minutes late; her confirmation letter had promised someone to collect her and take her to the school for a meeting with the principal, but there was no one waiting at the barrier, and she wondered if her lift had given up and left. With a sigh, she tried to attract the attention of a sweating, overworked porter, then gave up and dragged her trunk out to the front, hoping to find a bus that passed by Moira House. She was just trying to make sense of the timetable when she heard the sound of a car horn, used repeatedly from the road, and someone calling her name. “Josephine? Josephine Tey?”

  Josephine glanced round and saw a young woman waving at her from a dusty delivery van parked awkwardly on the pavement. The girl opened the door and jumped out, much to the annoyance of a cyclist passing by on the driver’s side, and made a beeline for Josephine through the bus queue. She was tall, with long auburn hair scraped back into a ponytail, and she wore a striking outfit of tunic, breeches, and mud-caked boots. “I knew you straightaway,” she said, answering Josephine’s puzzled expression. “Not second sight, I’m afraid—just the Anstey uniform. Once worn, never forgotten.” She held out her hand. “I’m Jeanette Sellwood, but most people call me Jeannie. I’ve been dispatched to take you to the madhouse.”

  Josephine smiled. “That’s very kind. My train was delayed, so I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

  “Not at all. It’s been a bloody awful morning, and I’ve only just got here myself.” She looked round in vain for a trolley, then grabbed one end of the trunk and signaled to Josephine to take the other. “Have you got any more luggage to collect?”

  “No, just this.”

  “Good. Let’s get it loaded up, and we can be on our way.” They dragged the trunk over to the van and wrestled it into the back, which was already stacked with empty vegetable crates. “That’s a lovely accent, by the way,” Jeannie said, moving things about to make more room. “Edinburgh?”

  “No, but you’re on the right coast. Inverness. Apparently we speak the King’s English better than he does.”

  “I think even the King might struggle to make himself heard in front of our lot. It’s a bit like a hurricane passing through when those girls get together.” Jeannie brushed some soil and a few carrot tops off the front seat. “Hop in. It’s hardly traveling in style, but at least it’s reliable.”

  “I’m not bothered about style. After all those hours cooped up in a carriage, it’s just nice to have room to breathe.” Josephine climbed aboard, noticing that the vehicle was newer than its bruised and dented bodywork had led her to believe.

  “Don’t get too used to the space. We’ve got to make a detour on the way.” She offered no explanation but threw an admiring glance at Josephine’s white blouse and full-length navy-blue skirt. “I don’t know how you manage to look so fresh after that journey. My recollection of Birmingham is spending the first three weeks of every holiday trying to get the grime from the steelworks out of my skin.”

  “Well, that certainly hasn’t changed,” Josephine said, pleased to have some common ground to break the ice. “When were you at Anstey?”

  “I graduated in 1912 and came back down here straight afterward.”

  “Back?”

  Jeannie nodded. “That’s right. I’m a local girl. My family lives in Firle.”

  “Isn’t that where Charleston Farmhouse is?”

  “Just outside, yes. I was a student at Moira House before I started teaching there. It wasn’t quite what I intended, staying so close to home, but they had a vacancy, and I’d always been happy there, so I thought I’d give it a try while I wait for something more adventurous to come up.” She looked wryly at Josephine. “I suppose that sounds feeble to you, when you’re so far away from your roots. Does your family still live in Scotland?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you miss it?”

  “Very much, but it’s nice to be away for a while—somewhere different, where people take you at face value without any history. And from what the teachers at Anstey tell me, Moira House keeps its staff busy. I imagine there’s very little time to notice if you’re five miles from home or five hundred.”

  Jeannie nodded. “That’s true enough, and it means I can help out in the pub during the holidays, so it keeps my parents happy.” She caught the look of surprise on Josephine’s face. “My father’s the landlord at the Ram Inn. I know pulling pints isn’t quite the thing for a teacher with young ladies in her charge, but as the great and the good of Eastbourne don’t seem to drink there, I’ve got away with it so far. And the countryside around the village is beautiful. I’ll give you the grand tour once you’re settled in.”

  “Thank you. I’d like that.” The roads became steeper as they left the town center behind, leafy avenues with majestic houses on either side and, in the distance, the longed-for glimpse of a sparkling sea. “You called the school a madhouse,” Josephine said, wondering how carefully the word had been chosen. “Was that just a figure of speech?”

  “You’ll have to decide for yourself, but I was actually talking about Charleston. We’re heading off there after lunch, as soon as you’ve had your orders from Miss Ingham.” She stopped at a junction for a bus to pass, then continued. “I was so pleased when I heard you’d be joining us. There’s a lot to do, and apart from anything else it’ll be nice to have some ordinary company for a change.”

  Josephine laughed. “I’ll try to live down to that.”

  “Sorry. That didn’t come out quite as I intended.” Jeannie smiled apologetically and considered her next words more carefully. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. It’s a wonderful place, and I’m sure you’ll love it.”

  “But …? You might as well warn me now. My principal couldn’t say enough about Moira House, but she was very vague about the farm post, other than to say that it was ‘pioneering work.’ ”

  “Well, for a start you must never call it a farm,” Jeannie said. “It’s a horticultural college for young ladies. Miss Hartford-Wroe and Miss Barker are very particular about that.”

  “And they run it together?”

  “That’s right. Miss Barker looks after the house and runs the business side of things, and the gardens are very much Miss H’s domain. They bicker like an old married couple at times, but it seems to work.”

  Josephine was intrigued. “Is this the moment to admit that I know nothing whatsoever about gardening?”

  “That doesn’t matter. There’s nothing Miss H likes better than a clean slate to work with. By the time you leave, those fingers will be the brightest of greens.” She smiled at Josephine’s doubtful expression and spoke more seriously. “I mean it. She’s a born teacher—and very ambitious for what the college could become. I’ve learnt as much from her in three weeks as I did in two years at Anstey. She’s got us all eating out of her hand, and the girls can’t do enough to please her. It gets quite competitive at times.”

  “What are the girls like?”

  Jeannie considered her answer. “They have that Jekyll-and-Hyde quality peculiar to all adolescents—charming one moment and
the devil incarnate the next. Mind you, I can’t say that I was any better behaved at their age, and I’m sure you weren’t either.” Josephine thought back to her sixteen-year-old self, trying in vain to find the rebel and the saint that Jeannie obviously imagined. “It doesn’t help that Miss Barker’s cousin is staying with us at the moment,” she added. “He’s very attractive if you like the broken hero type. Back from the war, all angry and vulnerable.” There was a sudden edge to her voice, which surprised Josephine. “Speaking of which, here’s our diversion.” She pointed up ahead and to the left, where the huts and tents of an army convalescent camp were nestled into the downs. “Welcome to Summerdown.”

  “Why are we here?”

  “To round up a couple of strays. I’m sorry to involve you in some subterfuge on your very first day, but it will give us both a quieter life in the long run, I promise.” She stopped the van at the gate and jumped out as the soldier on duty came over to greet them, and Josephine admired her confidence as she showed him some papers and charmed him into waving them through. “You can add lying to the British army to my ever-growing list of misdemeanors,” Jeannie said, as the gates closed behind them.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That we’ve come to teach the patients gardening.” She caught Josephine’s bewilderment and laughed. “It’s actually not as ridiculous as it sounds. Gardening is one of the things they do here alongside the medical treatment—it’s supposed to get the men physically and mentally fit to go back. And look at how I’m dressed. I could hardly convince him that we ran the basket-making workshops.”

  “This surely can’t have been here very long?” Josephine said, amazed by the camp’s size. Rows and rows of round white tents stretched out in straight lines across the hillside, and in a large area of ground on the other side of the makeshift road, the small canvas structures were already being replaced by larger, inauspiciously permanent wooden huts. Very quickly, Summerdown seemed to have become a community in its own right, part of the landscape and peopled by wounded men in badly fitting blue uniforms.