by Amy Myers
‘You must stay here tonight, Agnes, unless you want to go back to your mother.’ Elizabeth sank into a chair. It had been a busy morning, telephoning Laurence, speaking to the solicitor, sitting in while the East Grinstead police talked to Agnes and conferring with Dr Marden about the baby.
‘No, Mrs Lilley. I’d like to stay here if I may.’ She was calmer now. Dr Marden said the baby was all right, and wouldn’t accept any money for what he did. But she wasn’t up to facing her mother, nor them Thorns. They’d say it was her fault. Oh, how they’d gloat. No, she wanted to stay here while she had a think about where to go. If only Jamie was here. But he was in a trench somewhere far away.
Mrs Dibble coughed. ‘Begging your pardon, Mrs Lilley.’
Elizabeth misinterpreted the severe look on her face. ‘I’m sure we can manage for a few days, Mrs Dibble.’
‘I was going to say, seeing as how Agnes can’t go back to that place, and seeing as how we have a vacancy—’
‘How foolish of me,’ Elizabeth exclaimed. They both looked at Agnes. ‘I realise you might want to think it over, but how would you like to come back to the Rectory as parlourmaid?’
Frank Eliot strolled round the hopgarden, inspecting the hops, which were beginning to ripen. They’d be ready for picking in a week or so, in row upon row of leafy green tunnels strung over the avenues. He’d only had three seasons in Ashden, and it looked as if this would be his last. The hopgarden would be sold, or turned over to wheat. He’d signed up on Registration Sunday stating he’d be willing to serve, though at thirty-seven he was growing old by military standards. He doubted if even the trenches would have room for the likes of him.
As he straightened up from inspecting a bine, he saw a woman coming towards him: someone he’d seen before but couldn’t quite place. She was in her twenties and simply dressed, a land-worker perhaps—her face had had the sun and rain and wind upon it.
‘I heard you was looking for volunteers for hop-picking,’ she said gruffly.
‘That’s right,’ he replied. ‘Mrs Lilley has the lists. Have you seen her yet?’ Isabel, he had learned, had passed the job back to her mother.
‘No. I will though. I’m Lizzie Dibble.’ She stumbled a little on the last name.
‘Aren’t you—?’
‘That’s right.’ She nodded bitterly. ‘I’m the Hunwife. It makes me as bad as the enemy.’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right. I’m used to it.’ She grinned.
He looked at her more closely and liked what he saw.
‘My mother, she’s housekeeper at the Rectory, wanted me to go there as parlourmaid, but I wouldn’t. Go into service under my own mother? Anyway, I like the open air.’
‘There’s plenty of work here too before the picking, if you want some.’
‘Is there?’ Her eyes lit up. ‘I’m mucking out stables at Ashden Manor at present. They’ve only got one horse left after requisitioning, so they’ll be grateful if I leave. Her ladyship can do the mucking out herself.’
She laughed, and he with her.
At last! A letter from Reggie. She had heard nothing for nearly five weeks. Full of relief, she drew the paper from its envelope. Immediately she knew something was wrong—it consisted of a couple of short paragraphs only. Her mouth dry, she forced herself to read it.
Darling Caroline, I am coming home on leave—a short one, next weekend, 21st August. This time I must go to Ashden. I hope you will have time to come.
Then followed a few sentences answering questions in her letter, and that was all. Surely this wasn’t the Reggie she knew? Was he wounded? Ill? Hoped she’d have time to come. Of course she would. The war effort could wait. She’d stay until his leave was over. Why, Reggie was her war effort! She dashed off a letter in the hope it would reach him, assuring him she would be at the Rectory by the Friday evening.
The days dragged by until Friday finally arrived. Never had the Rectory seemed so welcoming. She arrived in time to join the family—including Isabel, who had lost no time in moving back home—for dinner. In such familiar surroundings she began to feel reassured. Of course nothing was wrong. But her father, perceptive as ever where she was concerned, questioned her after dinner and she realised her worry hadn’t gone away after all.
‘What’s wrong, Caroline?’
‘I don’t know,’ she burst out. ‘I only know something is. Do you think he no longer loves me?’
‘I doubt that very much. It’s more likely to do with the war and the terrible scars it causes on the living as well as those it kills. Take heart, my love. Our Lord is with you.’
A little comforted, she went into the garden willing the hours to pass quickly until she could see Reggie again.
And suddenly there he was! He must have come through the side gate, straight from the railway station, for he still had his pack with him. His arrival had been so quick, so quiet, that she doubted her own eyes for a moment. ‘Hello, Caroline,’ he said.
She realised she’d been imagining all sorts of ridiculous things for nothing. She ran to him and the arms that held her tight were as loving and warm as those that had enclosed her in the orchard last summer.
‘Oh, Reggie, I’ve been such a fool,’ she said at last. ‘Even though I know how hard it is for you to write letters, when I didn’t hear for such a long time, I thought you didn’t love me any more.’
He held her close. ‘Never, never think that. I do love you, Caroline. Oh, I love you.’
She thought she heard a note of desperation in his voice, but perhaps that too was her imagination, for the hunger in his eyes for her was undoubted. He loved her still. Nothing could go wrong.
Next day, Caroline set forth into the mouth of Hell. She hadn’t been to the Dower House since her last unfortunate meeting with Lady Hunney. This royal summons to luncheon had hardly been welcome, but as Reggie’s fiancée she could hardly avoid it, especially as Sir John had come down from London for the occasion. To her surprise Eleanor was not present. Nor was Daniel. For a moment she regretted this for she needed allies. Then she realised she was being silly. Why should she need allies with Reggie there?
Lady Hunney was in an unusually gracious mood. Dressed in a blue linen coatee gown, as immaculately steamed of wrinkles as her face, her ladyship welcomed her as though no word of dissension had ever marred their meetings. Reggie seemed subdued but that was natural, Caroline told herself. After lunch was over they could walk together in the grounds and then she could reach his heart.
The luncheon began peaceably enough, the talk so general it would have been difficult to deduce a world war was currently being waged.
‘Do tell us of your work in London, Caroline,’ Sir John said quietly.
Surprised but pleased, she began to describe the WSPU’s successes in opening up new jobs for women, and of her own association with the Board of Agriculture.
‘And your work for the Women’s Social and Political Union, Caroline. Do you propose to continue working for the Pankhursts? I hear from Mrs Swinford-Browne that you took part in the procession yourself,’ Lady Hunney said.
Caroline glanced at Reggie, but he wasn’t looking in her direction.
‘Yes. It was splendid—apart from the rain. The response has been tremendous, and I’m sure the National Register benefited from it.’ She was beginning to feel more confident. After all, Sir John worked for the Army in Whitehall, so he was bound to be interested in the Government-backed procession.
‘And what was splendid about it?’ persisted Lady Hunney.
‘It was inspiring. Fifty thousand women dressed in white, marching for the right to work for the war effort. If only you had seen them—’
‘I am not in the least sorry I did not.’ Her ladyship smiled. ‘I fear, Caroline, I hold to my concern that if women take men’s jobs, who is to perform those of women?’
‘But there will be plenty who cannot work,’ Caroline explained. ‘It’s just that we wan
t more women to work. Lloyd George said that the war cannot be won without us.’ She remembered Swinford-Browne’s reaction when he saw her at the nightclub and wondered uneasily just what he had said to his wife, and she to Lady Hunney, to provoke such an inquisition? She was beginning to feel like Daniel in the lions’ den.
‘Mr Lloyd George is not a person of whose views I approve. He panders to the masses, and great harm is consequently being done to society. Even Ashden is divided on the issue.’
‘Not for much longer,’ Caroline said. ‘Don’t you agree that times are changing, Sir John?’
‘I believe circumstances are changing,’ Sir John replied levelly. ‘Times take a little longer, in my opinion. I suggest, Maud, we adjourn to continue this discussion in the drawing room. We feel we should, Caroline.’
Caroline was aware that she had misinterpreted the situation. This was not a casual conversation. It was about her. She looked at Reggie in appeal, longing for some sign that he was with her. But none came. He wanted her to win this battle alone, she realised. Very well, she resolved. She would do it, and with a smile on her lips.
She positioned herself carefully in the drawing room next to Reggie and facing ‘the enemy’, sad though it was to include Sir John under that title.
‘Caroline, my dear,’ Lady Hunney began. ‘I have expressed my views before on the need for a standard of conduct as Reggie’s future wife. The squire’s wife must be above involvement, yet here you are allying yourself with a political party that is very controversial in Ashden. You are even taking an active part to further this policy.’ Her voice was gentle, even regretful. ‘Do you not see how unfortunate this is?’
‘No.’ Caroline tried not to sound belligerent.
‘We have asked you here today to request you give up this so-called work of yours in order to maintain a more dignified life in view of your future role. I’m afraid we feel strongly that it is most irresponsible of you to do otherwise.’
‘Irresponsible?’ Caroline was bewildered. ‘But I’m working for the war effort and with the Government, like you, Sir John.’
‘My wife’s reasons and mine differ somewhat, Caroline, but in essence I too would like you to stop what you’re doing.’
They meant it. They really did. And still Reggie was saying nothing.
‘But when I was here earlier this year, I wasn’t allowed to do anything,’ she pointed out angrily.
‘I agree with my wife that work on the land is highly unsuitable. There is plenty for you to do in other areas. My wife will advise you.’
‘I can’t, Sir John.’ Caroline was appalled. ‘Can I, Reggie? Do you agree with your parents?’
The silence hit her almost physically when he did not answer. At last he replied awkwardly: ‘Partly.’
She felt suddenly sick. She needed fresh air, not this stifling den of unreason. Give up all she was doing when she believed in it? Could they not see the war was changing everything? Outside she might make sense of what was happening, and to blazes with convention. Abruptly she left the room.
As she breathed in the first gulps of garden air she remembered again her conversation with Reggie last year in which he told her that he could not escape being lord of the manor much as he’d like to. Everything had to be subordinated to this duty. And everyone, it now seemed. Even her. But he loved her; he’d told her so only last night.
‘Caroline!’ Reggie had followed her into the garden.
‘Well?’ She faced him, trembling.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘About what, Reggie?’ The words came stiffly.
‘That it has come to this.’
‘To what? I don’t understand.’ She almost shouted at him.
His face was grey. ‘I would like you to return to Ashden. But I don’t want you running around planting potatoes and jollying women into Wellington boots. You’re a VAD. Couldn’t you work in the hospital?’ he pleaded.
‘I can’t believe you mean this.’
‘Mother has a point. As lady of the manor you have to set an example, or the system doesn’t work, and if you’re gallivanting—’
She interrupted furiously. ‘Gallivanting? Is that how you see it, Reggie? I wanted to work abroad at the front, you stopped that. I worked on the land here, you stopped that, and now you want to stop me even having beliefs of my own, and acting in accordance with them. Why?’
‘Women have one role, men another.’ He sounded as though he were trotting out a textbook reply.
‘You’re right. I do have a role. In London. And I won’t give it up.’
‘Won’t you?’ He looked so sad, her heart ached.
‘Would you have any respect for me if I walked out of something I believed in passionately?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care. All that matters is getting through from day to day.’ He was shouting now.
She put her arms round him and rocked him to and fro. ‘Then let me do the deciding for you, and go on being strong,’ she whispered.
He remained still and presently she released him.
‘It can’t go on like this, Caroline. Mother—’
‘She’s not involved in this,’ Caroline interrupted fiercely.
‘But she is. Marriage is a social contract as well as a private one, and in the Hunneys’ case it’s hundreds of years and generation after generation of that society. That’s what we are fighting to retain and here you are beavering away trying to create a new society.’
‘I can’t give it up, Reggie.’ She was close to tears.
There was a pause, and then came the worst words she could ever have imagined. ‘Mother and Father think we should suspend our engagement until the war is over.’
‘You mean break it, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you said you loved me.’ She thought he would come to her, such was the anguish in her voice, but he did not. Instead he seemed almost annoyed.
‘I’m so tired, Caroline, I just can’t think of anything save what’s happening over there. Nothing else seems important. I want you still, but I want you here. I really can’t take any more of those endless letters from Mother. My brain is so muddled I can’t see anything but trenches and mud and blood.’
She watched him, knowing she could not share this experience. Felicia could share it, and so could Aunt Tilly, but not her. Because he had forbidden it and shut her out.
She took the engagement ring off her finger; it was an old one belonging to the Hunney family and she had loved it. ‘You’d better take this now.’ She held out her hand with the ring on its palm.
For a moment she thought he would refuse, and a wild hope flared up inside her. Then, as he reached out and took it, the flame died.
CHAPTER TEN
Caroline walked back to the Rectory, clicking the side gate home by removing the tendrils of ivy that were reaching out from the wall to block its passage. She marched through the kitchen door, greeting Mrs Dibble as she had done thousands of times before. Then she ran upstairs to wash, before joining her parents and George for tea. She asked George when he was leaving for his visit to his school friend; asked Mother if she had gathered enough support to cover the harvesting requirements; asked Father how the baptism of Myrtle’s new baby brother Horatio (after Lord Kitchener) had gone; and agreed how terrible this summer’s strikes had been.
All as if life were normal. But it wasn’t, and never would be again. Once her mother would have noticed that she was upset, but now only Father gave her a curious glance from time to time. Fortunately there was no need for her to contribute more to the conversation; George took care of that. He’d just had another cartoon accepted by Bystander and was full of his own importance. He would soon be as well-known as Bairnsfather and Tom Browne, he boasted.
After tea, she tried to make her escape but her father stopped her as she turned to go up the stairs. Her first thought was that he’d seen something was wrong, but it appeared he had not. ‘Caroline, are you meeting Reggie again?’
‘No.’
‘Then I would be grateful if you would come with me to see Nanny. She is fretting because her lumbago is worse and she isn’t able to collect as many eggs as usual.’
Caroline was appalled. She wanted to shut herself away and nurse the pain that was filling her from top to toe, and then to leave Ashden as soon as she could, and go back to London.
‘I should be grateful,’ her father repeated patiently when she did not reply.
Taking her sun-bonnet from the hat-stand, she went out to join her father in the porch. It was five o’clock but the sun still shone brightly and with warmth. How dare it, on such a day?
‘I take it,’ Laurence said quietly, as he turned out of the drive not for Bankside where Nanny lived but towards Pook’s Way, the track that led to the forest, ‘that Lady Hunney has finally succeeded in driving a wedge between you and Reggie.’
So he had seen something was wrong. And how easy it would be to say yes, and blame everything on her old enemy. Her lips took a long time to frame the words. ‘Reggie’s views are very similar to his mother’s. I had not realised that.’
‘So he has been persuaded to break off your engagement?’
‘No. Because to some extent he agrees with her.’ Her voice sounded normal to her, and she felt quite calm. That was splendid, wasn’t it? No tears, no tantrums, no grieving for a love that was past.
‘And you cannot adapt to his way of thinking?’
Why did Father have to go on chipping away to get the whole story? ‘How can I give up what I am doing for something I don’t think I’m fitted for?’
‘Being Reggie’s wife?’
‘Being the squire’s wife.’
‘It has been an honourable calling for hundreds of years.’
‘Perhaps. But will it continue to be?’
‘Why should it change? The men who have volunteered must have jobs to return to after the war ends. Munitions factories will no longer be required; they will close and girls come back into service again. Guidance from the Manor will be needed all the more, while things settle down. Ashden will resume its old way of life—it will take time but it will happen. As Britain will continue to be the hub of her Empire, so will the Manor be necessary to drive the village.’
