by Posy Lovell
She stood up, barely breathing. “Jim?”
“It’s me.”
In two strides he was across the garden, which was fortunate because Ivy was suddenly so dizzy she thought she might fall over if it wasn’t for Jim’s strong arms around her and his mouth on hers and his hands caressing her swollen stomach. She was crying and he was crying and they were kissing and laughing and sobbing all at once.
“It’s really you.” Ivy wept. “It’s you. My Jim.”
“It’s me. I’m here.”
“I thought you were dead. I thought I’d never see you again. I thought our baby would never know you.”
Jim kissed the tears from her face and pushed the hair back from her forehead and kissed her again and then very gently he bent down and kissed her belly.
“Hello, baby,” he said.
Ivy ran her fingers over his shorn hair and touched the pink scar on his head.
“What happened?” she said. “What happened to you?”
They sat on the bench, Jim’s arm around Ivy and her nestled into his chest, not even minding how scratchy his uniform was.
Jim stared into the distance.
“We went over the top,” he began. His voice sounded odd, like it was full of tears, angry and sad all at once. “Ivy, I have never been so frightened in all my life. Never. It was like being in someone else’s body. My head was screaming at me not to climb that ladder, not to run toward the guns, but my body kept moving. I knew if I stopped, then our officers would shoot me. We had no choice. We had to go when we heard that whistle.”
He paused.
“Whistles are like funeral bells out there. You hear one on the wind and you know that’s it for hundreds of lads, just like that.”
Ivy laced her fingers into his but she didn’t speak. She understood that he had to talk, to get it out. Maybe he’d never speak of this again, but for now, he needed to explain the things he’d seen and what he’d done.
“We were running across no-man’s-land,” Jim went on. “The mud was awful. Sucking, great lakes of it. One lad next to me slipped and he was gone, under the surface, and then there were people running over where he’d been. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t help him up.”
“No, of course not.”
“We were trying to run, and my ears were ringing. I could hear shouts but it was though they were a long way away. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I saw another lad—my mate, George—up ahead of me. He was there and he turned round to shout something at me, and then his head was gone.”
His voice broke.
“He stayed upright, Ivy. For a second, George was still standing there even though his head had been blown off. Then he dropped into the mud and he was gone. I still see it sometimes, when I shut my eyes. His face as he turned to me and how it exploded as the bullet hit him.”
Ivy felt a tear trickle down her cheek. No one should see horrors like that. No one.
“Then suddenly, we’d reached the Germans. One loomed up at me out of the smoke and I had my gun out, and I was thinking, ‘This is it, this is the moment I kill someone.’ I didn’t even mind, you know? Because I’d seen what they’d done to George and I was so angry, I wanted to hurt them like they’d hurt him.
“But then I looked into his eyes—this German—and he looked like me. He was the same. Same age. Same hair. He was just like me, Ivy. And I couldn’t pull the trigger. We just stood there for a second gazing at each other, guns drawn but neither of us shooting. And then a shell exploded.”
Ivy winced. “What happened then?”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything until I woke up in a field hospital. They didn’t know who I was. Apparently me—and the German—had been blown clear and they found us both in the mud a day later. Our uniforms were in tatters, my jacket was so torn that they didn’t even know if I was British at first. I’m lucky it was our boys who found me, Ivy.”
“What happened to the German?”
Jim swallowed. “He died. He got an infection and he died, before I woke up. They didn’t know his name so they couldn’t tell anyone. His parents will be wondering what’s happened to him and they will never find out.”
“How long were you unconscious?”
“A few days, and then in and out for about a week. I couldn’t remember anything, but apparently I was rambling in English so they knew I was a Tommy.”
“Thank God,” Ivy breathed.
“I was in the field hospital for a fortnight, and then I was transferred to another hospital somewhere near the coast, and eventually to a convalescent home in Surrey.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell us?” Ivy said. “Your mum’s been beside herself.”
Jim grimaced. “I got hit on the head.” He traced his scar, self-consciously. “They had to do surgery, to take the shell casing out. When I woke up at first, I didn’t know my name or where I was from.”
Ivy shuddered, thinking of Jim’s head studded with pieces of a weapon.
“Even when I was in Surrey, and healing well, it took a while for my memory to return. For a while I could only remember that my name was Jim—no surname.”
“And then you remembered?”
“Well, that’s where things got a bit strange,” Jim said. “A chap called Walter Boniface came to visit me. He said he was from the War Office and they thought I might be James Dobson.”
“How did he know?”
Jim shrugged. “No idea. But as soon as he said my name, things started coming back to me. I remembered you and my family.”
“When was this?” Ivy was trying to understand what had happened.
“Just last week. I wanted to get the nurses to contact you, but Mr. Boniface said he wanted to check a couple of things first. Then another fella turned up and said he’d arranged for me to be discharged and he’d got a car waiting.”
“A car?” Ivy was astonished. “Who was he?”
“An MP. He was really posh and very important. One of those people who just gets things done, you know the type? One of the nurses said she recognized him from the papers. His name was Marcus Francis-Evans and he said he was doing a favor for a friend.”
Ivy shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Jim grinned, his familiar wonky grin that she’d not seen for so long. “I know. But I don’t care, because I’m here and I’m with you and you’re having a baby.”
He put his hand on her stomach and Ivy had a sudden thought.
“Did you know? About the baby? Did you get the baby’s breath I sent?”
“No,” he said sadly. “That was clever. No, Mr. Francis-Evans told me.”
“What?” Ivy was even more bewildered. “How on earth did he know?”
Jim clearly didn’t care. He kissed her again.
“Show me the garden,” he said. “Show me what you grew with the seeds I sent.”
Hand in hand, they wandered around the little patch of earth that Ivy had transformed with his letters.
“I was hoping those hyacinths would be blue,” he said, delighted as they looked at them. “And I can’t believe those poppies have bloomed already.”
“So early,” Ivy agreed. “Maybe they knew you were coming home.”
She told him that she’d given some of his poppy seeds to Win as a way of easing the pain of Archie’s death and he smiled.
“She sounds like a real character.”
“Oh, she is.” A thought occurred to Ivy. “I wonder if she had anything to do with those posh chaps who tracked you down? She knows all sorts of people.”
“Maybe,” Jim said. “She’s never even met me, though.”
“We’ll ask her. She’s been so good to me, Jim. Her and Louisa.”
She showed him the patch of ground where Louisa was going to plant her lilies in memory of her lost baby, a
nd he smiled.
“You’re a good woman, Ivy Adams.”
“I’ve learned from the good women I’ve got around me,” she said.
She looped her arm through Jim’s and he leaned on her. He’d broken his leg in the blast and though it was mended, it still ached after a while.
“I’m going to miss them, though,” she said. “The seeds. I’ve got nothing else to plant.”
“Ahh, perhaps not.” Jim limped across to the bench where he’d left his bag and dug around inside for a while.
“Got it,” he said, triumphantly holding something between his fingertips.
Ivy squinted at it. “What’s that?”
“It’s an acorn. I found it on the battlefield and I was going to send it to you. It was in my boot, for safekeeping, and somehow it survived the blast better than my uniform. Do you want to plant it? I thought it could grow here at Kew, strong and tall, and be a fitting memorial to all the men that we’ve lost.”
“Yes,” said Ivy, a wonderful idea coming to her all at once. “Let’s plant it. But not here.”
“Where?”
“Follow me.”
Taking his hand, she led him out of her letter garden and across the lawns to where a pile of darkened ashes marked the spot where the tea pavilion once stood.
“Here,” she said.
“Why here?”
“Ashes are a good fertilizer.” She took a breath. “And I’m making amends.”
Jim frowned. “What for?”
Ivy didn’t answer. “I can’t bend down,” she said, gesturing to her stomach. “Can you do it?”
Jim crouched on the ground, brushed away the frozen ashes with his hand, and dug a small hole. Then he dropped the acorn into it and covered it up again.
“There you go,” he said.
Ivy offered him her arm. “I think we should go and see Mac,” she said. “He’s going to be thrilled to see you. And as we walk, I’ll tell you why I wanted to plant the tree right here.”
She held out her arm. Jim took it and they started to walk—slowly because Ivy was heavy and her belly was cumbersome, and Jim’s leg was hurting—toward the main building.
“In 1913, things were really bad at home . . .” Ivy began.
Chapter 32
One week later
I suppose,” said Jim, “we should get married.”
They were in the lounge at Win’s flat, having just devoured the most delicious Sunday roast thanks to Bernie. He had arrived at Kew unexpectedly just a few days before, weighed down with a chicken sent by Matthew, a bag of potatoes, a cauliflower, a cabbage and six bottles of beer made with Matthew’s hops.
He’d burst into the break room, a couple of days after Jim had arrived, startling Louisa and Mac, who were in there, heads bowed over an order form for fruit bushes, and Ivy, who wasn’t doing anything useful but just liked to come to work anyway.
“Is he back?” he’d said. “Is Jim back?”
Ivy had struggled to her feet. “He’s back.”
“Where is he?”
“At his mum and dad’s.”
“And is he all right? Is he hurt?”
“Bit battered and he’s got a cracking scar, but yes, he’s fine.”
Bernie breathed out in relief and dropped his bags so he could hug Ivy. “I’m so glad.”
She hugged him back and then released him, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “How did you know?”
“What?”
“That he was back? Louisa has written to you, but she only posted the letter yesterday.”
Bernie shrugged. “Lucky guess?” he ventured.
“Bernie, did you do this? Did you get those men to find him and bring him home?”
A flush rose up Bernie’s neck. “I did write to a few old friends, just to see if they could help.”
“I thought it was Win, but when I asked her, she knew nothing.” Ivy was delighted. “It was you.”
Louisa looked interested. “Who did you write to?”
“A chap I knew at school called Wally.”
“Walter Boniface,” Ivy said. “He found out Jim was in hospital and couldn’t remember his name and went to visit him.”
Bernie grinned. “He always loved a puzzle, old Wally did. Good at crosswords, too.”
“And what about Marcus Francis-Evans?”
Louisa blinked. “He’s in the cabinet, isn’t he? Did you go to school with him, too?”
“No, not me. His son went to St. Richard’s, though I didn’t have much to do with him. He was a very musical boy and I didn’t get involved in the choir or orchestra.”
“But he remembered you well enough to do you such a big favor?” Ivy was impressed.
Bernie looked at his feet. “I asked Vivienne to ask him.”
Louisa and Ivy both stared at him in shock. Mac, oblivious to why they were surprised, simply shrugged his shoulders and carried on with his order form.
“You asked Vivienne?”
“I wrote a letter to Francis-Evans and asked him to help, then I enclosed it in a letter to Vivienne.”
“What did you say?” Ivy understood how difficult that must have been for Bernie.
“I just wrote that I bore her no ill will and asked her to help.”
“Did she reply?”
He gave a small smile. “In a very Vivi way. She sent me a postcard from Worthing—that’s the closest town to school—and scrawled on the back that she’d sent my letter on and she hoped I was well.”
Louisa chuckled. “Oh, for an ounce of her self-confidence.”
“I like you much better without it,” Bernie said. “Wally told me he’d found a man he thought could be Jim, and when I told him Francis-Evans knew about it, too, he got him involved. I got a letter yesterday telling me Jim was on his way home.”
Ivy threw her arms round Bernie. “You magical, special, smashing man,” she said. “I can’t believe you did this for us.”
“You looked after me when I needed it,” he said simply. “I was just returning the favor.”
Matthew had given Bernie a few days off from the farm to catch up with Jim and have a break while things were quieter over winter. He was staying with Mac and his family, and now they were all gathered at Win’s having had a celebration meal—cooked by Louisa, of course. Win rarely ventured into her kitchen. “I’m not built for cooking, darlings,” she always said.
“I’m sorry?” Ivy said to Jim now. “What did you say?”
“I said we should get married.”
She looked at him, his cheeks already rounder and with more color, thanks to a week of eating meals made by his mum. His scar still livid across his head and face but his eyes full of love and hope. And she laughed.
“No.” She chuckled. “We can’t get married.”
Jim made a face. “Why not?”
Ivy sat back against the sofa, so her huge pregnant abdomen rose up, and she pointed at her belly button. “Because of this. I doubt any vicar in London would offer to marry me in this state.”
“Darlings, I could ask around,” Win said. “Someone’s bound to know someone who would do the honors. Perhaps for a small fee?”
But Bernie gave a small cough. “I think I may be able to help there, too.”
“With a fee?” Win looked doubtful as she glanced at Bernie’s weather-beaten face, his slightly too-long hair and his battered clothes.
He laughed. “With a vicar.”
Jim sat up straighter. “Really?”
“Really. Remember when I was hiding in St. Anne’s? I got to know Reverend Miller rather well. We often chatted when I was tending the graves. I always suspected he knew I was hiding out in the crypt, but he never said so. That was one of the reasons I wanted to help him out by looking after the churchyard.”
“St. Anne’s?” Ivy gasped. “That would be perfect.”
Mac shook his head. “You’re really something, Bernard Yorke.”
Bernie laughed. “I just believe in helping other people whenever you can.”
“Well, you most definitely do that.”
“What do you say, Ivy?” Jim turned to her. “Do you want to marry me, in St. Anne’s at Kew Green?”
Ivy could hardly believe how quickly despair had turned to happiness. She never wanted to feel as bleak as she had when she thought Jim was dead, ever again. She wanted him close to her, and the baby, forever. She smiled at him.
“I do.”
Jim whooped and Louisa and Mac cheered, and Win started to cry.
“I’m so happy for you, darling,” Win said when Ivy looked at her, concerned. “We’re going to have the most wonderful wedding.”
“You need a dress,” Louisa said, looking excited. “Do you have anything that could do?”
Ivy grimaced. “Nothing that would fit.”
“Would you believe, I’ve still got my old wedding dress,” Lou said. “No idea why I’ve hung on to it for all this time, given how awful my marriage was. I wonder if we could alter it so it fits you?”
“You’d need a lot of extra fabric to fit over this thing,” Ivy said, prodding her belly.
“I’ve got mine, too,” Win said. “Why don’t we put them together somehow? The Suffragettes will help. Henrietta is very clever with a needle.”
Bernie got up.
“I’m going to speak to Reverend Miller right now,” he said. “Shall we say, a week from Friday?”
“I think perhaps we should do it a bit sooner than that,” Ivy said as the baby kicked her hard, taking her breath away. “I think this little one’s in a hurry to arrive.”
“This Friday?”
“Perfect.”
“Hang on,” Mac said, standing up, too. “I’ll come with you. I’m going to go and see what we’ve got in the food stores at the Gardens. See if we can’t come up with a good meal for after the ceremony.”
He and Bernie disappeared out the door.
“Louisa, let’s find my dress and see what we can do with it,” Win said. She and Louisa went into her bedroom and Ivy and Jim were left alone.
