‘Do you still think that?’
‘I don’t know, Zoe. I know what you’re thinking, though – that it was my father and his brother she saw.’
‘Robin and Liam – yes.’
‘Well, you may be right. She died sometime that night, while I was on my way back to camp in Dorset. Just slipped away in her sleep. I never got to go to the funeral, and I don’t know if Tisha came. I imagine there were just a few neighbours and a friend of Granny’s, somebody she used to have tea with once a week.’ Joan smiled. ‘When she came to us, you’d hear the pair of them in the front room, laughing away like girls.’ With a shake of her head, Joan laughed again. ‘I don’t know what they talked about.’
‘The past, probably. When they were young.’ It was a thought that made Zoe smile, two old ladies reliving the years of their youth, before the turn of the century, when the world must have seemed a different place.
They came to Edward and Louisa’s grave, marked by a modest memorial of an open book set back from the main path. Edward’s name and dates were inscribed on one page, and on the other were Louisa’s, giving her age as 77 years, and the fact that she had been Edward’s widow.
As Zoe arranged her flowers before their names, she offered up thanks for Louisa, that warm, generous woman who had loved her family and friends so much that she could not bear to part with her memories, nor the evidence of their affection. They had loved her, that much was obvious from their letters; and if love survived – which Zoe was beginning to think it did – then why should it not be that her sons returned to comfort her in those last, anxious days?
She was with them now, and at peace, of that Zoe was certain. Only her correspondence remained, revealing insights into a life that had contained more than its fair share of anguish and upheaval.
But despite the grief and the hardships, Louisa had found the strength to carry on. Zoe found that heartening.
She gazed at the headstone, remembering the mass of correspondence relating to Edward’s death. Well-known and obviously well-liked, Edward Elliott had come to his last resting-place accompanied by the respect and affection of many people.
However devastated Louisa had been at that time, Zoe hoped she was comforted by that show of affection, and most particularly by the presence of her sons. Amidst the dreadful abnormality of war, fortune had decreed that both of them should be there.
Twenty-nine
They stood either side of her, Robin in hospital blues, resting heavily on a walking-stick, Liam in Australian khaki, tunic pressed, puttees wound tightly above polished brown boots, his hat held respectfully against his chest.
The weight he had gained latterly while convalescent, had, Georgina thought, been refined during the last month’s training in Lincolnshire. He looked fit, if pale, the last vestiges of French and Egyptian sun having disappeared long ago. His hair was darker, too, cropped by a succession of barbers and quelled, today, by the rain. She watched a wayward lock of hair fall forward, as it inevitably did when he lowered his head, and almost smiled, expecting him to brush it back. But he seemed unaware of it, his thoughts reflected in strain around his mouth and jaw, and in shadows beneath his eyes.
Sadness touched her own heart, but it was for them, that little group by the open grave rather than for Edward or herself. She had seen so much of tragedy that it was hard to grieve for a man who had died peacefully, by his own fireside. He had known the joy of reunion with Liam, the relief of knowing that Robin’s war was over, and he had Tisha’s news of another generation about to be born; for Edward there was no sadness, only contentment and peace.
Although she hoped Louisa felt something of that, Georgina suspected not; such comfort would come with time, whereas now she was simply bereft, cast adrift without the husband who had always loved and supported her. The future, for her, must seem bleak indeed.
It was not a prospect Georgina wished to pursue. If she thought about the future at all, she knew she would weep. For the moment it was enough to gaze at Liam, to feast her eyes on the sight of him after five long weeks of separation. A short February leave, spent with him in Bournemouth, had created its own particular hell, but she could not regret it. Now that the worst anxiety was past, she was glad things had happened as they did. If it had to be the last time...
She shivered, and with an apprehensive glance at her father, tried to discipline her thoughts. Desire, as she had so often said to Liam, showed in the eyes, and her own were liable to give her away. But it was so hard not to look at him; knowing she should not devour him so, Georgina blessed the rain, the essential umbrella that shielded her eyes from all those immediately facing. They were behaving correctly, studying the crushed grass and the mud, and no doubt the state of their boots, while a surpliced parson intoned the prayers for the dead.
There had been only the briefest note from Liam the other day, to say that he would be here for the funeral, and that while he had expected this, it was still a great shock. It showed in his face, she thought; in a sort of frozen calm. He would be strong while ever it was required of him, she knew that, but still Georgina longed for the chance to offer comfort, to be somewhere private and alone, where they could talk and hold each other, where the world could not intrude. The sheer impossibility of that was painful.
Someone was holding an umbrella over Louisa, high enough to shelter Liam, bending towards her; and another covered Tisha and Robin. They were all standing close, and as Tisha began to weep, Robin transferred his stick to the other hand, slipping an arm around his sister’s shoulders. He looked close to tears himself, and the strain showed so plainly in his expression, Georgina was suddenly anxious. As soon as this trial was over, he would need the wheelchair that had brought him from the chapel.
Louisa seemed composed, and alone of the group held her head up, although her eyes were closed as though in prayer. Someone moved and Georgina caught a glimpse of her hands, locked around Liam’s, her arm entwined with his as though she would never let him go.
The crowd began to move, slowly and discreetly, away from the environs of the grave. The parson went to utter a few words of consolation, reaching out an arm to lead the grieving widow away. She seemed reluctant, and beside her, Georgina was aware of her father shifting uncomfortably. He wanted to go to Louisa just as much as she wanted to go to Liam, and it was very hard not to, hard to pretend no claim, no special love, hard to have to walk away.
But as Robert took her arm, Liam looked up, his glance encompassing them both; with an almost imperceptible nod he seemed to be thanking them for their presence, and acknowledging the arrangement to meet later. Someone brought up the wheelchair, and as Robin was settled, his head bent with obvious pain, Louisa leaned down to embrace him. A moment later she embraced her daughter, but Tisha, stiff with her eight-month pregnancy, accepted rather than returned it. Georgina bit her lip, wishing her half-sister would be kinder; but that attitude seemed to be her defence, and not even their father could penetrate it. She found herself praying that Edwin Fearnley would be granted some leave, and soon; Tisha was in need of comfort, and from him it might be acceptable.
Stealing a final, backward glance at the family group, she saw that Robin’s fiancée, Sarah, had joined them. Tall, like Louisa, she was a fine-featured girl with striking red hair. Although they had met only once before, Georgina had the feeling that she was regarded with a certain suspicion. It was a shame, because she wanted to like the girl for Robin’s sake. He was important to her, and she did not want his future wife to set barriers between them.
But that, Georgina reflected sadly, might have been done already. She was unsure how much had been said about their complex relationships, and if Robin, in love and trust, had revealed the truth of his background, then she suspected Sarah would find it difficult to understand.
The antipathy between Sarah and Tisha was mutual and obvious, but as Liam had been at pains to explain, it was a personal thing and went back a long way. They had known each other as girls, and found n
othing in each other to like. Tisha was younger, but articulate and sure of herself; she could play to the crowd and have them all hanging on her every word, while Sarah would stand apart, looking both regal and disdainful, until a barb from Tisha sent her away.
‘And is she disdainful?’ Georgina had asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ Liam had replied, laughing. ‘In fact, I would say the reverse. As I recall, she was always rather shy. She used to come down to the cottage to buy fruit and vegetables, and sometimes she’d stay a while, talking to Mother. But if Robin arrived, she’d blush scarlet and hurry away. We all knew she had a fancy for him, even then.’
That she loved him now was in no doubt. There was no mistaking the tender solicitude with which she cared for him, and if they married – which they would, eventually, when Robin was discharged from the army – then Georgina was sure that Sarah would protect and support him for the rest of his life. Right now he needed that strength, that sense of security, and probably always would. In that sense, he was lucky; the survivors of this war, however many there were at the end of the day, would need a brave generation of women to take up the load on their behalf, of that, Georgina was convinced.
Watching her walk away, Liam took a deep breath, steadying himself against the urge to call her back. He wanted Georgina beside him; yet for the sake of propriety and his mother’s concern for what others might think, Georgina and her father were relegated beyond the pale of family, and must only be seen to pay their last respects amongst a crowd of other acquaintances. Aunts Blanche and Emily, and that crowd of female cousins from Leeds, must come back to the cottage, partake of the funeral tea, murmur their platitudes and be tolerated until boredom finally took them away.
Liam hated it, hated them. Pointed looks from Aunt Blanche told him he must expect a pious lecture on past sins; and even Aunt Emily, whom he had met twice in recent months, would no doubt find reasons to repeat all the unasked-for advice she had given already.
All he wanted was Georgina and a place to be alone with her. So long since her visit to Bournemouth, and since that sybaritic few days of luxury and love, he had suffered three weeks of hell at Wareham, retraining. The machine-gunners’ course at Belton Park in Lincolnshire, which he had just joined, was joy by comparison. But it would not be for long. In a couple of weeks, maybe less, he would be on his way back to France.
He dreaded it, and the possibility of further leave was doubtful. After leaving hospital he had been granted eighteen days of home leave over Christmas, but the pleasure of being with his family had been constantly curbed by so many changes.
York, he found, was a city dressed in mourning, its depressing shabbiness accentuated by the pinched look of people in the streets. Middle-aged women, hardly recognizable as the cheerful mothers he had known, would stop to speak, their initial smiles quickly fading as conversation turned to absent sons and husbands. Many of his old acquaintances were dead; and his good fortune was so often remarked upon that Liam began to feel guilty, began to feel that he should not have come home to flaunt himself. Mentioning it to his mother at Christmas, she had said the same: that people seemed resentful that she should have two sons in uniform, and both of them in one piece. Robin’s injury hardly seemed to count.
Latterly, even the cottage had depressed him. The dankness of the nearby river, a raw wind and a chill in the house that carefully hoarded fuel could not defeat, all conspired to dull his spirits. After years away from it, he had forgotten how bleak a northern winter could be. Warmth and brightness, which was what he remembered most, had been defeated by the war. He was further depressed by knowing that his time – and Edward’s – was slipping away
He and Edward had talked for hours on a multitude of subjects, and Liam was left with the knowledge that his adoptive father had been both kind and shrewd, the possessor of a keen intellect and a generous heart. No businessman, to be sure, but a better father would have been hard to find. It did not take long to conclude that as children they had been fortunate in having Edward to guide them. Liam was thankful that they had been allowed that time together, but his one abiding regret was that their relationship as adults had been far too short.
Another penalty of the war. Everything good had come and gone too quickly, while seeming to possess a concentrated power that lingered in the memory like an afterglow. Happiness, it seemed, must go hand in hand with sorrow and regret. Nothing was unalloyed, but after the slow death of emotion in France, even sorrow was welcome. The words of the funeral service had elicited tears, shed as much for those comrades left behind at Pozières and Gallipoli, as for Edward. With the interment of the coffin, Liam had mentally buried all those friends who would never have a grave.
If those boys had missed the proper obsequies, those who mourned them had also been spared the ghastliness of the funeral tea. In this case, being just after one o’clock, it was more of a luncheon, but it was as bad as Liam had envisaged. Robin was so unwell within the hour that he had to be taken up to bed. Liam’s ire was further aroused by the fawning of his aunts upon Tisha; their whispered advice and secret, womanly nods infuriated him, while his sister seemed to preen beneath their attention, like a cat.
Only with the aunts’ departure did his mother drop the fixed half-smile she had worn all afternoon; slumped in a chair beside the fading fire, she looked worn and tired. There were no tears, however; only once, last night, had she wept, and that was at Liam’s arrival. For several minutes she had clung to him and sobbed, and again it had seemed so strange to be holding and comforting her, instead of his mother comforting him.
Kneeling beside her chair, Liam placed a hand over hers. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs for an hour? I’ll make a cup of tea and bring it to you.’
A faint smile brightened her eyes. ‘I’d like the tea,’ she said softly, patting his hand, ‘but I think I’ll stay here.’
In the kitchen he found Sarah washing plates and cups; there was no sign of his sister, who had apparently gone up to bed, not feeling well.
Not wanting to spoil her hands, he thought as he returned to the parlour with the tea. His mother poured, but all the while he was bothered by thoughts of her alone in this isolated cottage, with Robin in hospital and incapacitated for months to come. By comparison, his own illness had been trifling. But at least Robin had his Sarah. Liam knew he envied their future happiness, even while he wondered how they would survive financially. Edward had left so little from the sale of the business, there would not be enough to provide for Robin. And Tisha had her own life now; she could hardly be relied upon to give their mother a second thought.
Liam lit a cigarette and tried to put those anxieties into words. The money he had sent home, which Edward had placed in a separate account, was to be used, he said, in whatever way she thought fit. It was no use to him, he could manage very well without it; he just wanted to be sure that his mother had all she needed.
She frowned at him, and in an attempt to be stern, insisted she was adequately provided for. ‘I don’t need that money – you do. You will, anyway, once the war is over. You’ll need it to set yourself up, buy that bit of land you were talking about. That’s what Edward wanted for you. And so do I. I shall be all right – with a bit of careful managing, I’ll be fine. You mustn’t worry about me.’
Her confidence brought a lump to his throat. He forebore to tell her that he had willed the money to her, anyway, and that his own estimate of his chances for survival were not very high. On a surge of emotion he stood up and went to the window to look out over the garden. Apart from a few dejected daffodils in the orchard, all else had been turned over to vegetable production, and was now a bare expanse of rutted soil. After a long winter, it was in need of attention.
‘Will you stay here?’
‘Oh, I imagine so.’ She paused, wearily. ‘But I don’t know... it’s not something I’ve thought about. Why do you ask?’
‘I think you should move into town, get somewhere smaller, more manageable. All this,
’ he said, gesturing towards the muddy, rain-drenched expanse, ‘will be too much for you.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Louisa said with some asperity, ‘I’m only forty-nine, you know – not quite decrepit!’
He smiled then, cheered by her sharpness. ‘I’m sorry, I tend to forget. Dad was so much older, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. Yes, he was. But he never seemed so...’
Glancing back, Liam saw her distress, and blamed himself for a clumsy fool. He went to her and she leaned against him, taking comfort from his strength.
‘I’m so glad you were able to be here,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done, otherwise.’
Her words expressed his thoughts. ‘I know. That’s what worries me. I can’t bear to think of you being here, all alone.’
‘Oh, I shall manage, I expect. People do, you know. I shall get used to it, eventually... No, what I meant was – today – I was glad you and Robin were here with me today. And Tisha, of course,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘I wasn’t sure whether she’d come, whether she’d be able to travel, I mean.’
Liam knew quite well what she meant. Tisha was not predictable, and even Robin had been surprised to see her. But he did not want to talk about his sister. Returning to his main anxiety, he said: ‘What will you do when we’ve gone?’
‘Keep busy,’ she said firmly, drawing away from him, ‘as I’ve always done. You mustn’t worry about me, Liam – I’ve never been a clinging vine, and I don’t intend to start now. And I won’t be entirely alone, you know. There’s Robin to think about, and even when he comes home, it’ll be a while before he’s fit enough to get married. But when he is, I’ll let him go. I won’t interfere.’
That statement, however, did not reassure him. His mother was a proud woman, and might hold off when she needed her family the most. Thinking about his father, he said: ‘And there’s the Colonel. I’m sure he’ll be in York from time to time, to see Robin.’
Liam's Story Page 54
