It’s only a word, she said to herself. But suddenly there were Uncle Frederick and Aunt Adelina looking grave, speaking together over the newspapers, going down to the post office. A panic flurry seized her as she tried to sort out the moves and counter moves. Russia, Serbia, Austria, Hungary – why had she not listened?
Uncle Frederick, taking her aside, holding her hands, told her that he thought they should leave, should return to Italy as soon as possible. ‘The news is not at all amusing. I think home is perhaps the best place.’ Telegrams were dispatched. One was sent to Mother holidaying with Cora in Devon: it crossed with another calling Edwina home.
Only one morning left. ‘Ben?’ she asked in a panicky voice standing at the door of his house. ‘That way,’ said his mother, pointing through to the back. She was stooped over a large wash basket. Stretching up, she sighed heavily, pushing back the hair from her forehead. ‘Eh, but I’m fair mafted.’ Edwina too felt the close, stifling air, had felt it all the way hurrying to the house. ‘Can I help? Go up to the drying-ground for you?’ Ben’s mother shook her head. ‘Nay, that’s for Becky. I’m late, and she’s made off I don’t know where.’ She paused, then: ‘Are you teasing him – our Ben?’ She said it casually.
Edwina was taken by surprise. ‘No,’ she said simply.
‘I’d thought mebbe. when I saw you first. But never judge a blade by t’heft they say. Fancy clothes or no – I’ll trust you.’ She stopped as if embarrassed. Then: They let you run free,’ she said, ‘I’ll say that.’
‘I’m going,’ Edwina told Ben. ‘This morning. Because of the War.’
‘Aye.’ He looked miserable. She was standing there awkwardly. He took one chair and she took another alongside, sitting at the table. On the oilcloth stood a mug of water, half full. She fixed her gaze on it.
They talked for a little while, in short half-finished sentences. She’d begin to tell him something but then thinking he wasn’t interested, or that she was saying it badly, she’d break off. Then he’d do the same. Easiness had flown out the door.
‘Where’ll we walk?’
‘I’m only meant to be getting some things at Storm’s. I can’t – ’ She thought his eyes looked shadowed. She asked: ‘Have you been out with the boats?’
‘Aye. Three o’clock.’ He smiled. ‘And I’d three eggs to my second breakfast…’
‘You’re greedy.’
‘I am.’ He took her hand from her lap and clasped it in his. He said in a burst: ‘I’ve felt – I don’t rightly know. Since time on t’cliff –’
She held tight miserably to his hand. ‘Can I sit on your knee?’
She pressed down hard, her head against his shoulder, face buried in his shirt. She smelled sweat and a tarry smell, something from the nets. If someone comes in, she thought. Cheek against his shirt, she felt for where his heart was. when she could feel it beating she wanted to cry.
‘What’s to be done?’ he said roughly. His hand was gripped tight round her waist. She thought he was crying too, and when a moment later their faces touched, she knew that he was. Lips, dry and anxious on cheeks, on forehead, nose banging nose, then their mouths met and opened. He tasted of salt.
Our Lady Star of the Sea, may it never end. May I sit for ever on his knee…
Footsteps outside. Clatter. Voices. A guilty jumping apart.
They made their awkward farewells in public. ‘You never heard me play,’ she said unhappily.
‘Nor I did. But you and Fanny –’
‘Yes of course,’ she said. ‘when I stay with Fanny next. I’ll be over. Of course I will.’ Of course I will of course I will of course I will, went the wheels of the train as it puffed out of the station, climbing up and away, through the tunnel. Of course I will of course I will…
Philip enlisted at once. Mother was preoccupied with this and also with Red Gross work, of which Aunt Josephine was the organizer. There was talk too of taking in Belgian refugees. Father had become very busy. The war might not, indeed probably would not last very long, but meanwhile there was a great deal to be done. No one had very much time for Edwina nor really any suggestions as to what she might usefully do. She began some knitting, because she was good at that.
Back at the convent she and Fanny and all their set had become big girls. They slept in a dormitory with wooden partitions instead of curtains. If you stood on the hot water pipes you could lean out of the windows and talk. You could see too, over to the gardens, and beyond to the sea. Those first golden September days she twice glimpsed the boats out. She needed only wings, and she would be there.
Then the weather changed, and she could see nothing for a sea fret. Other people grumbled of the cold, so she kept her window closed. War or no war, school life seemed much the same. Next year, she was told, she could be a prefect. On Sundays now she wore her Child of Mary ribbon, just as Meresia had done.
A group of Belgian nuns arrived. They wore enormous white head coifs so that their faces could hardly be seen, and walked around always several together. One of them taught dressmaking. She showed Edwina how to keep her sewing needle rustfree by rubbing it in her hair. To begin with everyone was sorry for them. This lasted about three weeks until one of them, a Soeur Clothilde, reported Babs to Mother Anselm because Babs had not moved out of her way as she passed. ‘Your girls are mal élevées, ma Mere…’ Everyone thought this was a terrible thing to do since Babs’s brother was fighting in Flanders.
It was the day after this incident that they first heard the rumour about a big ship. All night there’d been a violent gale from the south-east. Vita, coming in late for breakfast, said: ‘I think there’s been a wreck – ‘ It was a Friday and the first class was RI. Reverend Mother interrupted a recitation of the Cardinal Virtues.
There was indeed a wreck. About a mile south of Whitby the Rohilla, a hospital ship, on her way to collect wounded from Dunkirk, had struck a mass of rocks near the treacherous Saltwick Nab. She was breaking up fast, her boats nearly all carried away by the rough seas: attempts to get a line across by rockets had failed. The Whitby lifeboat, which because of bad weather couldn’t reach the wreck by sea, had been daringly and courageously brought on to the Scaur.
They prayed then, and again in chapel after eleven o’clock break. ‘O Blessed Virgin Mary, never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection implored thy help or sought thy intercession…’ They heard that the lifeboat had rescued thirty-five before having to be abandoned. Fanny, going home for the weekend, was allowed to leave on an earlier train. Outside the classrooms the wind howled and moaned. The nuns had formed a rota of perpetual prayer. Many of the girls, Edwina amongst them, joined the vigil that night. Our Lady Star of the Sea, Respice Stellam, Porta Naufragorum…’
The next day the Scarborough lifeboat had no success. Nor did two others. Even in her dreams Edwina prayed. Then on the Sunday while they heard a special Mass for those already drowned, a nun came up to the priest during the sermon. It was all over. The Tynemouth motor-boat, after spreading oil on the troubled waters, had brought off the fifty survivors. Eighty-five had died (including the Catholic priest who’d been tending the one patient aboard).
Fanny was late back. She had stayed to help Marmee with two survivors they’d taken in. ‘I went and stood on the cliffs on the Saturday morning. Herbert sent for me to come home but I wouldn’t. It was terrible. You could see the people on the bridge – lots of them in pyjamas – but the worst was the ones all hanging on to the stern, there must have been about thirty, and oh God they just kept falling off. Then there came this absolutely giant enormous wave, it went right over them and – honestly I screamed, I couldn’t help it – there was nothing there when it cleared. All gone. I just – you can’t any of you imagine – all sitting in the library reading The Scarlet Pimpernel…’ She was very white and shaken, and had to keep on telling the story over and over. Edwina thought perhaps it was because she had been thinking about her own father. ‘Lost at sea.’
But gradually
she became the old Fanny again. That November her indulgences gained for the souls in Purgatory impressed even Clare. But her moods see-sawed, taxing Edwina’s friendship. She would keep asking her if she hadn’t heard from Uncle Frederick? ‘Perhaps his letters aren’t getting through? If you only knew what I felt about him –’
At daily Mass it was the rule that if you were going to Communion you wore a white veil, so that the number of hosts needed could be calculated. Several days running, on the way to Mass, Fanny took a black veil. ‘I dare Mother Anselm to remark about it,’ she told Edwina. ‘Anyway I’m going to ask for a special confession.’ She said importantly: ‘I think I have the screws…’
This dread disease, where the victim was no sooner out of the confessional than she needed to go back, had always been the prerogative of the big girls. Now they were old enough to have them too. Edwina was fearfully impressed.
‘I definitely can’t go to Communion and that’s it,’ Fanny said. ‘I’ve had impure thoughts. Like it says in the Examination of Conscience. I’ve had them about him – your uncle. I just can’t help myself. I love him so. Even if I wasn’t going to be a nun it would be wrong,’ Her eyes had narrowed to slits and her skin against the flaming hair looked whiter than ever.
Edwina said robustly, ‘Well, if you can’t help it, God can’t blame you.’
‘How do I know I’m really trying to resist every time? You just don’t understand the screws – Or being in love either. I’m fed up with you. And Vita, and Babs, and Gabrielle –’
That Fanny should love Uncle Frederick seemed to Edwina natural enough. Had she not loved him herself since almost before she could remember? But that she, Edwina, on account of the love between her and Ben should take a black veil – she could make nothing of that. It seemed to her sometimes that she lived in two worlds: this convent perched six hundred feet up, and the village, which was Ben’s home.
Towards the end of November Reverend Mother heard there was a possibility of raids on the East Coast and informed all the parents. Edwina feared that she might be sent for. Fanny and Madge, who would of course have been no safer back in Whitby, stayed on, but Vita and Gabrielle and some twenty others left, protesting.
Short cold dark days. Franz and music were her solace as ever. Going over to Scarborough and between times playing, playing, playing. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms: The three B’s’ as Franz called them: he told her of Brahms in the taverns, sitting the servant girls on his knee. ‘I tell you this only that you see he is human. Then you don’t play him so religiously. We must be serious only about the music, not with it.’ The corners of his mouth turned up, his eyes were laughing.
He had relations in Austria (it had been only his parents who had settled in England) and she knew that he worried about them, that a political accident should have made them into the enemy. ‘The name Hengelmüller – it isn’t a happy one at the moment, you might say? But we don’t change it, Cristina and I. Although we have thought about it…’ He in his turn was worried for Edwina, that ideas for her studying abroad were for the moment ruled out. ‘But I have other plans,’ he said, looking secretive.
Advent, and the jars of grain once more: this year the sacrifices were for the boys in khaki, for the sailors too, in peril on the sea. Edwina had knitted already that term two body-belts, a balaclava and three pairs of mittens. ‘You’ve just got quick hands,’ Fanny said in a dismissive voice.
She was wearing a white veil as she knelt beside Edwina at Mass the next morning. She had sorted out her scruples. Edwina turned the pages of her ‘Welcome’ prayer book. Which Welcome to give the newly-received Christ? She felt the stirrings of hunger. Because it was Wednesday it would be sardines for breakfast – she’d have preferred hot porridge. The chapel felt chill and outside the weather was grey, foggy. Only two more days now till breaking-up.
‘Ite missa est,’ said Father Walsh.
‘Deo gratias.’ they chanted.
She thought at first that the organ or the choir loft had fallen over, the crash was so loud. Fanny clutched at her. She put her own hand out, pulling at the bench. ‘Oh God,’ said Fanny and at that moment there was another crash. But louder. A pane of glass in the window beside them shattered. Fanny screamed.
Mother Anselm appeared in the aisle, hand held up to stop them rushing. There was another crash. ‘In order, march out in order, please.’ Her voice was drowned by another crash. As they grouped in the corridor outside the chapel, Madge started up an hysterical whinnying sound. ‘Oh my God,’ Fanny said again and again, clutching tight hold of Edwina. Another thunderous crash.
Mother Anselm was amongst them: angular, efficient. ‘Everyone,’ she began, ‘everyone –’ Madge’s whinnying rose, high-pitched. Moving forward Mother Anselm slapped her briskly across the face, then as if nothing had happened: ‘Outdoor clothes, please, girls. Gloves not to be forgotten –’
Fanny breathless, rushing into her cubicle and out again, pulling her tammy down. Her hair had fallen either side of her white face. The Germans have landed,’ she said.
Edwina wasn’t frightened. Just curious. It all seemed so unreal that when panic did come to her, five minutes later, halfway down the drive, she felt it as if it were someone else’s.
‘Move together in crocodile, please,’ said Mother Anselm. ‘Frances, you are out of line. when I say “scatter”, scatter. when I say “run”, run.’ A second later ‘Run!’ she called, as the loudest sound of all came.
‘If I live I promise to keep my vocation,’ sobbed Fanny. She had on still her indoor shoes. The road outside the convent was muddy in the cold grey mist. In the distance to the left of them they could make out some black smoke. They had eased back to walking. Behind Edwina saw the whole community of nuns, the white coifs of the Belgians to the fore. Their own crocodile was accompanied now by Mothers Bede and Cuthbert and Edward. Mother Anselm in a fruity, vibrating voice began a hymn:
‘Full in the panting heart of Rome,
Beneath the Apostle’s shining Dome…’
The nuns took it up and some of the girls. Louder and louder:
‘God bless our Pope! God bless our Pope!’
An overloaded motor went by, then a chauffeur-driven one. It stopped near the head of the procession. Mother Anselm spoke to the passenger, a large grey-haired man. Three of the elderly nuns were given a lift. In the field alongside a bolting carthorse careered round, galloping in and out of sight through the mist. They were nearing the home farm now. A mother and two daughters came through the gateway as they passed: they had a pram and a small cart loaded with belongings. The mother had just a coat on over her nightgown. The eldest girl said to Fanny: ‘Whitby’s in flames.’
‘Frances!’ called Mother Anselm. ‘Everyone keep moving, please. No conversations –’
Fanny said, in a sobbing voice, They’ve come. The Huns.’
They reached the main road. The mist was breaking now. Soldiers passed going towards Scarborough; army lorries, motor-cycles. Fanny wanted to run out and stop them. ‘I’m going to ask.’ when an officer got down from a lorry and came over to Mother Anselm, Edwina had to hold her back.
The farm girl was alongside again: ‘They’re here right enow. Down on t’beach. That’s why there’re all them troops…’
‘Faith of our fathers, living still,’ they sang,
‘In spite of dungeon, fire and sword…’
Mother Anselm marched up and down, her arm with its flapping black sleeves waving an imaginary baton.
‘Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death…’
They were moving cross-country. The officer had suggested a farmer about a mile on who had a very big barn. While they waited there for the lay sisters to bring in the baskets of provisions, they sang the Lourdes Ave Maria. Fanny had calmed down completely. Edwina felt sick.
There were rations of Marie biscuits and a bar of Fry’s chocolate each and an apple. The nuns had packed them some weeks before. Fanny
said, ‘I’m thirsty.’ She ate Edwina’s apple for her. They played Blind Man’s Buff to keep warm and to pass the time. The nuns kept their gloved hands inside their sleeves; standing about.
Later when they came out to a wintry afternoon sun, she shivered; couldn’t stop shivering. She wondered and worried if the boats had gone out. ‘You might pull yourself together,’ Fanny said. There was a curious flat feeling about the journey back. But it was over. And they were safe.
At home for Christmas, she read all about it in the newspaper. The German ships had come out of the Kiel canal in the night and after shelling Hartlepool, still under cover of the mist, they’d attacked Whitby and Scarborough. An angry sea caused the ships to roll and the shells to go wide.
Aunt Josephine was concerned for Edwina, watching her for signs of shock. Father, in his study, looked as if his mind were on other things: ‘I shall expect to hear any plans for the future from Reverend Mother.’ Mother was preoccupied: she hadn’t heard from Philip, in France since October. Cora, jealous because she’d missed an adventure, affected not to be interested at all. Nurse demanded a detailed account.
The convent was not to be moved to the country, Reverend Mother wrote. Although St Margaret’s School at Scarboro’ had left, and several others, she did not herself feel that such a raid would occur again. Decisions to return next term would have to be made by the individual families.
Edwina stamped her foot and protested that she must go. She was amazed at how violently she felt, how childishly she reacted. But her greatest surprise was the weary manner in which both her parents gave in. ‘I don’t see why not. If Reverend Mother is confident…’
In the New Year she went to stay with Fanny. A few days before she left, Philip’s Oxford friend, Denis, came to spend his fortnight’s leave with them. His parents were dead. He and Mother sat together and talked about Philip.
Men On White Horses Page 19
