Dark Harvest

by Amy Myers

  His mind was abruptly brought back to the luncheon table as he heard Grandmother breaking the silence that fell all too often nowadays with a forbidding ‘Mrs Lilley—’

  Caroline had positioned herself, Isabel and George to keep Grandmother and Mother as far apart as possible, but with so few of them this was difficult. Grandmother was looking more like a howitzer than ever, and had obviously now decided to fire. On his birthday too, George thought peevishly.

  ‘Mrs Lilley, I fear you are not aware of what is happening in your kitchen. This pie appears to be composed of rabbit. Do we have the servants’ meal in error?’

  George said the first thing that came into his head. ‘You must find it difficult living here, Grandmother.’

  ‘Difficult?’ The first shell shot out at him. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well.’ George thought quickly. ‘After not seeing us for so long, here you are plunged in the middle of us, and at such a bad time. Phoebe not here, Caroline away a lot of the time, Father ill, and …’ His voice trailed off.

  There was a pause. ‘There is something of your grandfather in you,’ his grandmother commented.

  George thought with horror of the dark oil painting that hung in state in Buckford House, depicting a gloomy-faced, balding and bearded gentleman of venerable years.

  ‘He was a diplomat too,’ the Howitzer continued. ‘Mrs Lilley, I compliment you on your son’s manners.’

  George saw his mother opening her mouth to reply when they were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. She stood up, but before she had a chance to reach the hall, the door opened and her youngest daughter entered hesitantly.

  ‘Phoebe! Oh darling!’ Elizabeth threw her arms around her.

  ‘I can’t help being late,’ Phoebe said when she had disengaged herself. ‘The train just stood and stood outside East Grinstead.’

  ‘We’re not cross, darling.’ Elizabeth half laughed, half cried. Caroline and Isabel leapt up to kiss her too.

  ‘Good to see you back, Phoebe.’ George contented himself with a manly pat on the back, still keeping an eye on the stony face at the table. The Howitzer had obviously decided even rabbit pie was preferable to greeting her granddaughter.

  Phoebe came forward, emboldened by her welcome. ‘I’m pleased to see you, Grandmother.’

  The Howitzer raised her head. ‘You are not yet changed for luncheon.’ Phoebe was still wearing her bright Petticoat Lane skirt with her old Rectory coat slung over it.

  ‘Phoebe can be excused—’ Elizabeth began, but Phoebe forestalled her.

  ‘No, I’ll go immediately.’

  How strange, Caroline thought. The Phoebe she knew of old would have retaliated.

  ‘Where’s Father?’ Phoebe asked anxiously as Caroline went with her to change.

  ‘Still locked away in his prison. He thinks Mother’s thrown away the key.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ They looked up to see Laurence coming down the stairs, clinging to the banister rail for support.

  ‘Don’t come too close!’ Elizabeth cried warningly, hearing the voice and rushing to intervene. ‘Dr Parry said Tuesday at the earliest.’

  ‘Contagious or not, I heard my Phoebe’s voice.’ Laurence came down a little further.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Phoebe stood still, not convinced of her welcome.

  ‘I am glad you have returned, Phoebe,’ Laurence told her.

  Her face lightened. ‘I thought you’d still be upset.’

  ‘Upset that it happened, but of course I’m relieved and happy to have you back. How could you doubt it, my love?’

  Her lips quivered. ‘I’m very glad to be home.’ She began to cry.

  ‘I say.’ George came out to join them. ‘The pie’s getting cold and it’s my birthday.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Laurence announced briskly. ‘Phoebe, take that coat off and we’ll go straight in and have luncheon together, a family luncheon. I shall remain at one end of the table in splendid isolation, while you cower together at the other end.’ He paused. ‘With your grandmother.’

  At her mother’s request, Caroline had agreed to return to the Rectory on the Thursday before Christmas in order to spend the whole of Friday, Christmas Eve, helping with the family preparations. Normally, she would have delighted in it, but this year she felt as though she were marching into battle. And there were battles enough at work. The Government had discovered the location of the WSPU’s secret printing press in a Kensington garage, and had seized it and the magazine last Saturday. The press had erroneously reported it as a raid on Lincoln’s Inn House, and the consequent outcry from branches all over the country had kept her so busy all week that she feared she would be unable to get away.

  The familiar walk down Station Road soon cheered her up, however. At least Father was out and about again and almost his usual self. But when she arrived home, there was no sign of her mother.

  ‘She’s at the school house, Miss Caroline,’ Mrs Dibble informed her.

  Caroline’s heart sank. Grandmother would be sitting in the drawing room like a bird of prey waiting for a victim. Well, it wasn’t going to be her. She decided to call on Isabel who was hiding at Hop House to keep out of Grandmother’s way, according to Mother. She would go by the Mill Lane route, longer and muddier though it was, in order to avoid Reggie. She had heard nothing from him; and assumed he must be nearly better since he was to return to France in the New Year. No, she would not think of Reggie, she told herself sternly.

  She arrived at the back entrance of Hop House, and hurried up the path amid the tangle of weeds and undergrowth that had once been its garden. Reaching the tradesmen’s door, she was puzzled to find it ajar. She knocked, and when no one answered took off her muddy boots and went in just as she usually did.

  ‘Isabel,’ she called softly. There was no reply. Don’t say she’s out too, Caroline thought crossly. Where could she be? The Towers? She looked into the drawing room—empty. Then she heard a noise upstairs. Thinking that Isabel must be packing to come to the Rectory for Christmas and could not hear her, she ran up the stairs in her stockinged feet and along to Isabel’s slightly open bedroom door. Simultaneously rapping and calling ‘Isabel!’ she pushed the door wide open and entered.

  And then she saw. Isabel was lying on the bed in her underwear, and a man was lying on top of her, his back to Caroline. It was Robert, home on leave, and she had burst in on them. In her horror at her tactlessness, some kind of noise must have come from her throat, for Isabel looked towards her and the man rolled over.

  Was she going to be sick? Somehow Caroline managed to leave the room, and slam the door behind her. She had to get out of the house. She found herself in the garden, struggling to cram on her boots, hopping on one foot, then the other. She ran along the path and soon she was swallowed up in the anonymity of the hopfields. She drew a gasping breath. She was all right, she told herself, she was completely calm, if a little wobbly. She just needed … needed time.

  The man on the bed had not been Robert at all. It was Reggie.

  She struggled on through the hopfields, half walking, half running, while the horror overwhelmed her. She clung to a hop pole marking the ends of a row of bines, as if it were a life support. Then physical reaction caught up with her in deep choking retches that tore at her chest and her stomach.

  ‘Caroline—Miss Lilley, are you ill?’

  What on earth was Beth Parry doing in the middle of the hopgarden? With a supreme effort Caroline let go of the pole. ‘Go away,’ was all she could manage to say.

  ‘Go away!’ she shouted again, when Beth did not move. ‘I don’t want help, especially from you!’

  Why had she said that? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. In any case, Beth ignored her. A firm arm was placed around her waist, and something was thrust under her nose.

  Caroline gave a shudder, then pushed it away. ‘What’s that? Smelling salts?’

  ‘No. It’s an oil—an old herbal remedy of my grandmother’s. It has
vervain in it, a touch of rue and a couple of other wild flower essences. With so many people in mourning, I find it useful. Just sniff.’

  ‘Please go away.’ Caroline made a last attempt, but Beth would not be shaken off.

  Unable to move, Caroline sniffed, then sniffed again. There was nothing else to do. As she felt her physical pain subside, misery took its place. She tried to pull herself together.

  ‘Thank you. I’m sorry I shouted at you.’

  ‘It’s natural after shock.’

  ‘How do you know I’ve had a shock?’ Caroline felt anger rising again.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of it. Look, I don’t know what’s happened, but you’re distressed and, being a doctor, I should help.’ She still showed no signs of moving.

  ‘Why are you always so bally competent?’

  ‘I’ve had to be. I’ll stay until you feel better and then you can hit a few more hop poles.’

  Illogically, Caroline felt irritated at this offer. ‘No. I’ll go now,’ she replied. ‘Then you won’t feel any obligation to stay at all.’

  ‘Why don’t we both go?’ Beth suggested. ‘You can come to my cottage if you want somewhere to be alone. I don’t imagine you want to go to the Rectory for a while. If we go the back way to Tillow House, we won’t meet anyone.’

  Caroline clutched at this offer of escape. ‘It’s good of you. But I can’t talk about it,’ she added fiercely.

  They set off in silence. When they reached her cottage in the grounds of Tillow House, Beth made some tea while Caroline hovered uneasily in these new impersonal surroundings. A competent cottage, she thought crossly, and she’d been stupid to come here.

  ‘It’s Mr Hunney, isn’t it, and your sister?’ Beth poured tea as though she were asking about the new captain of the stoolball team.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was a guess. I’ve visited Hop House in the last week or two, and on two occasions I saw your sister out with someone in uniform who’d been wounded. It wasn’t too difficult to guess who it was.’

  ‘They were …’ If she could frame the words, she might make the nightmare go away ‘… on her bed.’ Caroline remembered belatedly that her sister was a married woman. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that,’ she added wearily. ‘You won’t say anything to anyone, will you?’

  ‘I’m very good at not telling anyone anything. Doesn’t your sister love her husband?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know my sister any more.’

  ‘Loneliness can make people do strange things.’

  ‘But I’m lonely tool’ Caroline cried, in sudden self-pity. ‘Reggie can’t love me, and can never have done so. How could he do it? How could she do it?’ She took a steadying sip of tea.

  ‘Being on a bed with her doesn’t mean Reggie loves her, Caroline.’

  ‘Then it’s even more terrible.’ When Beth said nothing, she added, ‘Do you think I’m making a fuss about nothing?’

  ‘No. In your place I felt the same.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why else do you think I’m here in a small village and not in France or in a hospital somewhere?’

  ‘I did think it strange,’ Caroline admitted.

  ‘I was married. I was the luckiest woman on earth, or so I thought. Then my husband volunteered; he was in the Royal Medical Corps, and was killed by a shell at Ypres three months later. I received his effects home even before the telegram arrived—they were not so well organised in those days. Amongst them was a packet of letters from another woman, and an unposted one by him to her. She, too, was the luckiest woman on earth, she claimed. I even forced myself to go to see her. She’d seen his name in the Roll of Honour lists. She was rather nice.’ She paused. ‘We’ll say no more of this, Caroline. You have to steady yourself for Christmas?’

  Caroline shuddered. ‘Don’t. How can I endure seeing her? How do you manage?’

  ‘By pretending I’m someone else.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll pretend I’m Grandmother Buckford.’ Caroline laughed shakily.

  ‘You could try,’ Beth replied. ‘But I doubt if your father could take two of you in the same house.’ She was silent for a moment and then said, ‘Don’t run away too far if you can help it. He needs you there, and he is a very fine man.’

  A little calmer, Caroline walked back to the Rectory. She hoped to reach the refuge of her room unseen, but there was little chance of that. As soon as she entered the house, Mrs Dibble came rushing up to her from the kitchen. ‘Oh, Miss Caroline, such a to-do.’

  Why did she worry, she thought bitterly. No one had time to notice her concerns.

  ‘Just look who’s come,’ Mrs Dibble continued.

  Isabel? Her heart jumped in fear.

  Then Caroline heard familiar, well-loved voices. She rushed into the drawing room and with sudden, unexpected pleasure saw them both, talking to her father. Felicia and Aunt Tilly were home for Christmas.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  For the next hour, Caroline tried to forget about her own concerns, as she exchanged news with Tilly and Felicia. Not that they talked very much about their work; they merely told her they were back in the front in Belgium, and that trench life was relatively quiet—which meant, Caroline knew, only the usual amount of shelling and sniper fire. London’s Victoria Station had been packed with Tommies coming home on Christmas leave, Felicia said, and her father had told them that several Ashden families had been lucky, though not poor Agnes nor even Joe Dibble. Both looked tired and thinner, their faces showing a wiry strength and vitality that had not been there before, and their serviceable clothes were hard-worn. After a while Felicia excused herself to go to her room. Caroline had decided to leave too when Tilly stopped her.

  ‘Did your mother tell you there’s another guest for Christmas at the Rectory?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen her yet. Who?’

  ‘Simon.’

  ‘Does that mean what everyone will think it will mean?’ Caroline asked lightly.

  ‘It means a man who would otherwise be on his own can now share Christmas with friends,’ Tilly replied calmly.

  Caroline hadn’t seen Simon for about two weeks as he had been overseas and then at his house in Tunbridge Wells. She knew he was very concerned about Penelope. German troops had just taken over Skopje and, according to his sources, their occupation was brutal and complete. He had been even more worried to hear a rumour that his daughter was no longer with Lady Paget’s hospital unit but had accompanied some of the wounded Serbian soldiers crossing the mountains in the hope of reaching the safety of Albania.

  ‘And now,’ Tilly asked, ‘tell me about your work. How is the WSPU faring?’

  ‘You must have heard.’ Caroline was grateful for her interest. ‘There’s a tremendous row going on between the Pankhursts and the rest of the leadership.’

  ‘There usually is.’

  ‘Quite a lot of people resent the way they behave like queen bees.’

  ‘They are queen bees, of course.’

  ‘But the funds are for the WSPU, and Mrs Pankhurst and Christabel seem to think they have sole control of them.’

  ‘And whose side are you on?’

  Caroline tried hard to answer her. In truth she was so tired she did not much care. Now, dulled by shock, she found she could say not a word.

  Tilly laid a hand on her arm, concerned. ‘I’m not going to ask you what’s wrong, Caroline. I can see you’re still grieving for Reggie.’

  She made an effort. ‘If I felt I was still working for women’s war effort, the office fighting wouldn’t matter. But I don’t any longer. I feel I’m working for the Pankhursts, and admirable though they are in some ways, that’s not the same thing.’

  ‘You need a fresh vision.’

  Caroline hesitated. ‘I’ve been thinking about going overseas, to help with the driving and organisation of Lena Ashwell’s concert parties, perhaps.’

  Tilly was silent for a moment. ‘Going overseas means you must have your pr
ime commitment to what you are doing there, not use it as an escape from what you can’t have here. You must heal yourself first, or you won’t be able to heal others.’ There was compassion in her voice.

  Caroline wanted to shout at her, to tell her she was wrong. Instead, she found she was close to tears.

  ‘Now the government is seeing sense about women working there will be plenty for you to do here. This war has no end in sight, and the organisation of man and woman power at the front is becoming more formal. Today Felicia and I could not have established ourselves so easily as we did a year ago. And when general male conscription comes in, as it surely must,’ Tilly continued, ‘the door will open even further for women to take up work.’

  ‘We’ll be conscripted too?’

  ‘Some kind of Derby Scheme for women perhaps.’

  ‘We signed the National Register in August and last March, but the government took little notice.’

  ‘I don’t think we will have to wait much longer. I could see even in our short journey home that it was beginning. We had a female bus conductress!’

  Caroline rose to dress for dinner. She gave her aunt a quick kiss of welcome before she left. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

  ‘I doubt if The Towers will rejoice so enthusiastically,’ Tilly said cheerfully, coming to open the door for her.

  Laughing, Caroline turned her head to see Grandmother Buckford, in full evening dress, about to enter the drawing room. The Howitzer looked at Caroline, then her gaze settled on her errant daughter. ‘Matilda!’

  A terrible thought occurred to Caroline: surely Tilly had known Grandmother was staying here? Caroline herself had avoided the subject in her own letters, realising how complete the breach still was between the two, but Mother or Father must have mentioned it.

  Tilly was white-faced. She tried to speak, but could not.