‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark!’ was the name of a jigsaw puzzle Fanny had been given. It was a map of Europe, with dogs fighting all over it. They did it three times while listening to the gramophone. Fanny told Edwina that in the raid a pig had its back sliced off by a piece of shrapnel, and had to be destroyed. ‘I wonder if they made it into German sausage?’ One afternoon they went up to see the damage done to the western arch of the Abbey. Edwina said: ‘Aren’t you going to Bay this holidays?’
‘But I’ve been,’
Why had she waited so long to ask? ‘Did you see – anybody?’
The same old faces. And the same old questions. “How are you going on at school?” I’d love to tell them: “I’m going to be a nun.”’ She thrust her hands in her pockets. The raid – they wanted to hear all about that. The boats were out at the time, you know. Only they were outside the ships – the ships had come so far in – and in the mist they just thought they were ours. Can you imagine? Ben was asking after you, by the way.’
‘After me?’ Her legs trembled.
‘Yes, I think he has swoony feelings about you which could be jolly embarrassing. What a family I have…’
That night in bed she counted, laboriously, how many days since Ben had kissed her, since she had kissed Ben. The next day she went to Scarborough with Fanny and Herbert, to pay Franz and Cristina a surprise visit.
She could not believe it. On the upstairs windows of their house there were boards. Downstairs the outside shutters were closed. The small lawn in front was partly dug up: there were two big holes full of ice-filmed water. Red paint was daubed over the railings outside.
‘All is past,’ Franz said, ‘we try to forget.’ It had happened within a few days of the raid, but exactly who had stoned the house, defaced it, written slogans, wasn’t certain. ‘It was of course not our friends. We think it was from outside perhaps. Cristina has been very shocked.’ He too looked shocked, as if more than the house had been attacked.
Edwina played some Mozart. ‘You must sing for your supper, I think the saying is.’ After tea they played a duet. Herbert asked for an encore: he seemed relaxed in the company. Yesterday he’d had a white feather given to him for the third time, even though his eyesight was such that he could not possibly have enlisted.
There was only a week left of holiday when she returned. Denis was still there but in bed with influenza. There had been a letter from Philip, behind the lines now in a rest camp.
She wanted to get back to school. The convent was more real; it was home. And it was near – as near as she could get – to Ben.
Reverend Mother may perhaps have regretted her decision, since only half of the pupils returned. But for the girls – except that there seemed too many nuns in charge – there was at first an atmosphere of daring and excitement.
Gradually though a routine became established and all was as before. A cold dark term with nothing to look forward to but Lent. Edwina heard from Meresia, who was engaged to be married. ‘I’m nursing now. I came back in September and am at a big hospital in London. Devonshire House. What a long time ago that lovely picnic seems…’ Clare, who spent nearly half of that term in the infirmary, told them that Cynthia-Scholastica was doing some sort of war work.
News dribbled in week by week. From Italy: Aunt Adelina was not well. The doctors took a serious view. Fanny heard from her uncle, Uncle Clive: ‘I wish I were a bit younger, I’d come home immediately – How I would like to get into khaki. I think I could still teach the Hun a lesson…’
‘How old is he?’ Edwina asked.
‘I never thought. He’s younger than Marmee. About forty-something, I suppose.’
Easter 1915 Fanny came to stay with her, and was allowed to help Mother with some of the Red Gross work; Edwina went too. Fanny was on her best behaviour. Mother was particularly impressed.
Ned turned up to see them. It was a fine day and they all walked in the garden. He was in uniform: he had joined the artillery. ‘I had to play around with my age a little, but when they found out they didn’t do anything. I’m an awful genius at that sort of thing. I can’t go out to France though, worse luck, till I’m nineteen.’ Mother joined them for tea. She was very animated and talked a lot. Ned said: ‘She’s still very attractive. Why do you dislike her so?’ They had gone out alone together to see the songbirds. ‘I don’t dislike her,’ Edwina said.
‘Remember in the cupboard?’ he said, ‘it was fun, wasn’t it? Will you write to me? I’ll write, from the camp. Or are you writing to a lot of chaps already?’
Before he left he played them ragtime again, at Mother’s request. He sang too in a light voice. She felt a great rush of affection for him, and trust and fear. She wanted desperately to tell him: ‘I love Ben and I don’t know whatever to do about it.’
‘Guess who’s here?’ Babs said.
If Cynthia had been a surprise eighteen months ago, now she was a shock. Smarter than ever, she was accompanied this time by an officer: a portly man with moustaches and a very red face. ‘He’s a colonel at least,’ Vita said. ‘He might even be a brigadier.’
It was the day before Corpus Christi. They were in the garden near the Lourdes grotto, picking blossoms to scatter during the procession. A June sun shone after three days of rain and chill. Cynthia had come out to look for Clare. Seeing her approaching, they tried to look as if they hadn’t been looking. Clare was sitting on a bench resting.
The brigadier’s name was Willie. It appeared that she drove him around. ‘I used to teach these little ones,’ she told him, waving her hand. Willie said with a laugh that they didn’t seem to him so little. ‘But that’s how I see them!’ she cried. Willie asked them what they were picking the flowers for and Fanny explained in her purest voice. Cynthia took out a cigarette with a nervous gesture, snapping open the case. ‘Have you a light, Willie?’
‘Of course, my dear.’ There was enough summer breeze, the little breeze that always came off the sea. It would not light. His fingers cupped, tense with concentration, he bent over her.
‘I’m going to show Willie round the school. Clare, come along with us, pet.’ Clare rose listlessly from the bench. ‘Very soon Willie and I are going to France. Frankly, I can’t wait.’ She looked around her, blowing a circle of smoke. She remarked casually to all of them, ‘And what are you doing to help our boys?’ They all looked blank. ‘Well,’ she said impatiently, ‘aren’t you knitting something? Weren’t you taught to knit?’
Edwina was angry at being made a spectacle of like this. Her mouth was pressed hard, memories of herself caught in the dormitory not practising: ‘I put my piano first,’ she said priggishly.
‘Oh that,’ said Cynthia. Her eyes met Edwina’s. Edwina stared at her and she looked away, blinking. All round her eyes were little fine lines: the eyes themselves, still for a moment, were anxious, almost, she would have said, frightened.
They went off in the direction of the house. Clare, the belt of her summer dress hanging too loosely, tagged behind them. Vita said: ‘I can’t think why she keeps coming back. The nuns can’t like it, can they?’ Marion said that she supposed it was to see Clare: ‘But she could see her at home.’ Fanny said, ‘I think, my dears, that one should make absolutely sure of one’s vocation…’
‘… and after all our plans and hopes for your coming out to Italy,’ Uncle Frederick wrote. ‘Now it is not only you at war. Although here it has not been the same straightforward business. Three different factions with feelings running very high, even to fighting, so that it has been wise to keep indoors after sundown. Adelina has been very distressed by it all. She is no better, and has to spend two days a week in bed. We shall go to the mountains for the summer…’
No letter came from Ned. One morning after the post had been handed out she braved Mother Anselm.
‘Letters were given out ten minutes ago, Edwina.’
‘I was expecting one –’
‘You know the rules. Parents, close relatives – a few family f
riends. In other cases, we make the decision.’ She shook her sleeves. ‘Does that answer your question?’
‘No, Mother.’ But Mother Anselm had already moved on, so that short of running after her, striking her, shaking her, there seemed nothing to be done. I’ll never know if he’s written or not, she thought.
Father was tired. He was an outdoor man. ‘I’m not used to all this writing,’ he said of the desk work that his contribution to the War Effort involved. The whole way of life had changed. Practising in the drawing-room, she could look out where once Prince, thick linen tied loosely over his hooves, had pulled the mower over the wide lawn. Now potatoes grew there. The younger gardeners had all gone. Arthur’s eldest was out in France now.
She made bandages with Aunt Josephine, her mind far away: scheming, worrying how she could get to Bay. To tell Fanny would be simple – but unimaginable. Later in September she would be going over to Whitby but Fanny had announced already that she Svasn’t bothering’ this holidays.
‘Marmee says I must do what I want about it and not feel obliged.’ She came to stay with Edwina at the end of August. Mother made a great fuss of her.
‘Do you mind?’ Fanny asked. ‘She does seem to rather like me.’ It didn’t interfere with their relationship. They were now just two people who were often together, for the exchange of gossip, moods, worries, grumbles. How good to have someone to grumble with.
But oh, the moods of Fanny. She was just jealous perhaps of Edwina’s playing. She affected to be bored by the whole subject. ‘My watercolours are very important to me,’ she said suddenly. ‘My sketches.’ It was the first Edwina had heard. Passionately: ‘I just don’t think you’ve any idea of what I’ll be giving up when I enter. I mean, I might be asked to draw a holy card or an ‘In Memoriam’ – but I shan’t be able to do real things. It will be a tremendous sacrifice. Could you give up the piano?’
Two weeks later when they were both in Whitby, Fanny’s aunt sent a message. Could Fanny come over? There’d been bad news. She would like Fanny there. It wasn’t a death.
Edwina went too. She didn’t, thinking about it afterwards, feel quite sure how she’d managed to go along when she wasn’t part of the family. She had just dressed and been ready when it was time to go. Herbert, not Cook, was to take them over.
‘What can it be?’ said Fanny in a rather bored voice, hiding nerves. Edwina, knowing that Ben wasn’t dead, felt sure that it was a maiming. Inside the cottage, Fanny’s aunt said to all of them – Herbert sympathetic, leaning shortsightedly forward: ‘He went off Tuesday. Told us nowt. Right through to Scarboro’ where they’d be sure not to know him. Not fourteen… We were teasing, others were teasing – his voice had cracked like. “You’re a man,” they said. Wicked words. He was wanting to go wi’ t’meri, full time. His dad had let him and all. Why’s he want to make off then?’
But he had done it. Jack, the baby, run away to enlist – and accepted. However did he pass them? He must have given a false name, since at Whitby they knew nothing of him, nor at Scarborough. The truth had come out only when he’d gone missing and his friend, frightened and almost in tears, had told Jack’s father.
‘He can’t go to France,’ Herbert told them. ‘He’ll only have dared pass himself off as the minimum.’ He felt certain, he said, that they’d be able to trace him. Everything possible would be done.
‘This is a grand to-do,’ said Fanny’s grandfather, coming in out of the cold. It had rained with an unexpected chill wind all the afternoon; now it was growing dark unusually early. Indoors they had to light the oil lamp. Grandad told Fanny off for not coming over to see them. She dimpled. He said it was a shame she was too big to sit on his knee now. Then they all began talking again about the business of Jack. Edwina watched the door in a frenzy of worry and dread. Time, hurrying, hurrying.
Fanny’s aunt said: ‘You’ll stay and take a bite? Ben’s coming up, and mebbe the girls –’
He came, five minutes later. Careful with the door, they told him, so the oil lamp doesn’t flare. Mercy, sitting on her grandfather’s knee, wanted to go to him at once. They love him right enow, the lasses,’ Grandad said, putting Mercy down. But she tired of Ben’s knee and wanted to go back. How could she? Edwina thought, wishing only that she could so simply sit there. Throughout the meal Ben watched her – she didn’t dare to look back. What if their eyes should really meet and betray them to everybody? She became tonguetied, slopping her tea when she lifted it to her mouth, beginning sentences she couldn’t finish. Fanny, sitting next to Auntie, had become suddenly very animated. She was showing off, telling them all she meant to do when she left the convent next summer. ‘You see if I shan’t become a clippie…’ Herbert looked on indulgently. Ben, who seemed worried about Jack, asked him if he thought he’d be able to do anything. He asked the three of them: ‘when have you to go?’
‘Soon,’ Herbert said, looking at his watch. Ben got up suddenly: Then I’ve summat to show Edwina. She’ll mind on it, from t’summer.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Fanny’s aunt.
‘Up ours. We’ll not be long.’ It seemed to her impossible that everyone shouldn’t notice something, but even Fanny didn’t look interested. Outside it was chill and blustery, not like summer at all. He seemed happy not to talk but she needed to say something, anything. ‘You never heard me play the piano,’ she said.
‘I never did. But I know how it is –’
‘How?’
They were climbing the rickety stairs to his room. ‘Like the sea,’ he said. Inside the room they just stood there awkwardly. She looked around, wanting to memorize every detail.
‘This is it, this is t’room,’ he said. The bed had a blue patch cover, light and dark squares. She was sick with longing, with the need to touch him. She said almost sharply, ‘What did you have for me?’
He had his hands in his pockets. ‘Nowt,’ he said, smiling.
He moved towards her. She moved. Once again they bumped, heads, noses. She had forgotten how he was, how he felt.
Their mouths were foreign countries, their tongues the travellers exploring them. She had not thought of doing it like that. Nor had he perhaps because when they stopped he said: ‘That were a nice thing to do…’ They were standing close together. She had her head on his shoulder. She felt very faint. He unbuttoned her coat and then parting it, put his hands over her breasts. ‘Reckon I need bigger hands –’
She was dizzy with happiness. ‘You’ll go right in where my soul is if you press like that. Then it can fly out and join yours –’
‘Have I got a soul then?’ It was his teasing voice.
‘Everybody has. “My soul is like to God because it is a spirit and is immortal, when I say that my soul is immortal I mean that my soul can never die – ” ’
‘Daft.’
‘But it’s true,’ she said.
‘Of course it’s true, it’s just a daft way of talking.’ There was a cleaned sea-urchin on the wash-stand. That’s yours,’ he said. ‘I meant it for you.’
He had tight hold of her hands. He was frowning, brows nearly together.
Oh, do we do right?’ she said. ‘I just think –’
Suddenly, angrily almost: ‘You could’ve wrote,’ he said.
‘You could,’ she said, stung.
‘Where?’ he asked simply. ‘Where would I send it then?’
‘I don’t –’ she tried desperately to think. ‘Home, but then – better not.’
‘I love you,’ he said.
‘Yes, I know.’ She couldn’t say the words. Tears choked.
He said roughly: ‘We’ll have to be away. There’s not a half-hour to the train.’ He was looking at the birthday watch.
They didn’t kiss again. She thought they dare not, for how could they ever stop? On the road going back, head bent against the wind, she heard a whistle go, very loud: pause and then start again.
‘Telegram whistle,’ Ben said. It was to summon the telegraph boy in the village. ‘It’l
l be bad news – there’s little else about.’ He paused. ‘I was thinking – I’d mebbe go in for a sailor.’
‘when?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’d only thought –’ She was grasping the sea-urchin so tight she feared it would splinter.
‘He could’ve fetched that down hisself,’ Fanny’s aunt said when they saw it. ‘Making her walk up –’
‘He had some other things to show me,’ Edwina said.
Three days after she’d gone back to school, Philip was killed, at the Battle of Loos. Reverend Mother sent for her to tell her: another girl had lost a brother also, and one of the younger ones a father. The nuns were very kind. Mother Bede, who thought Edwina looked shocked, insisted that she have breakfast in bed: a luxury, an occasional treat reserved for those who looked overtired, overwrought. Mother Infirmarian brought up toast and honey and told her that the souls of those killed on the battlefield flew straight to Heaven. Washed clean, for them there was no purgatory.
She wrote to her parents, and worried for Mother. For herself she remembered only with shame that she hadn’t really liked him. She felt a hollow sadness, a kind of sick regret – but on behalf of Philip, not herself, for what he would never now know.
Life went on the same. The best was Franz. Waiting always for it to be Wednesday and then when the lesson was over, counting the days again. They talked about her future. Franz said: ‘I think you should apply to go to the Royal College of Music.’ He would write to her parents. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I arrange everything. London, and where you live – everything.’
It was late November now. She wrote excitedly to her parents. They wrote back and didn’t mention it. She thought perhaps that their letters had crossed, and didn’t worry. She was busy practising for a school concert on the feast of St Nicholas: a special thought for the Belgian nuns.
She played Brahms, the Capriccio in B minor, and wished only that Ben were in the audience. She wore a white frock and a large blue bow tying back her hair. She was the age now that Meresia had been when she first knew her. Yet she didn’t feel at all like Meresia, who had seemed so grown-up. She was not grown-up. Just restless.
Men On White Horses Page 20
