Dark Harvest

by Amy Myers

  ‘Here?’ Mrs Dibble repeated.

  Agnes’s eyes filled with tears. She and Jamie had no home, she remembered. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Lilley if he can stay here.’

  Mrs Dibble pursed her lips. ‘You ask her, of course, but tell her if she says no, she’ll have me to deal with!’

  Their eyes met, and Agnes laughed in relief.

  ‘That’s it, my girl. A bit of laughter never did the blackleading any harm. Nor the sponge cake neither. Mop your eyes and remember you’re in your black.’

  ‘I’m enjoying it. It’s nice, a wedding.’ Agnes thought a little wistfully of her own hurried affair last Christmas.

  ‘The Rectory needs more of them. There’s more funerals at St Nicholas than marriages, it seems to me, and baptisms are down.’

  ‘They’ll be up next winter, what with compulsory military service coming in.’

  ‘Then the weddings had best be up to the same number,’ Mrs Dibble retorted. ‘Those that can.’ She thought of her Lizzie and the terrible shame of it. ‘Now Agnes,’ she finished briskly. ‘It’s time to stop talking, and get back to work.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Robert flicked idly through the Illustrated London News. Home from Gallipoli, he was convalescing after a nasty bout of dysentery. He still hadn’t told Isabel of his decision, and this weighed on his mind. He would do so this very evening, he vowed. She was being so solicitous and he didn’t want to mar this new happy atmosphere. She was even making an effort in the house, partly he suspected because she didn’t want him to move to The Towers. With Isabel cheerful and busy, home was beginning to feel like a home. Which made what he was about to tell her all the more difficult.

  ‘Isabel,’ he said, as she brought in the tea. ‘I have something to say to you.’

  ‘You’re not going back? You’ve resigned?’ she cried hopefully.

  He smiled. ‘You don’t resign after you’ve taken the King’s shilling. You’re in until the end of hostilities.’

  ‘I suppose the battalion is going somewhere even more dangerous.’

  ‘No,’ Robert replied quietly. ‘The Royal Flying Corps in Ismailia is asking for volunteers. I’ve put my name down.’

  ‘The RFC. Oh, Robert!’ Isabel saw him winging his way through the heavens, dipping his wings in salute, battling it out with enemy aircraft over the Western Front. ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘You’re pleased?’ He was surprised. ‘It might mean officer training, after all, as otherwise you can’t be a pilot.’

  ‘But that’s even more splendid.’

  Did Isabel know that the life expectancy of a pilot in the RFC was measured in weeks? Probably not, and he wasn’t going to tell her.

  ‘At least I’ll be around a little longer. It takes some time to train.’

  ‘Never mind. The war is not over yet,’ she replied.

  ‘You’re right.’ On and on and on, battling against an enemy, getting nowhere; Turks or Germans, it was all the same. Eight feet lost in France, eight feet gained in Gallipoli. A battle lost in Gallipoli, another won in France. Robert burst into bitter song. ‘See saw, Margery Daw/Johnny shall have a new master.’ Johnny would have a new master indeed, the air. He began to laugh.

  Isabel looked at him in consternation. ‘Robert darling, you’re still not well. It’s that horrid germ you caught.’ She paused. ‘Let’s go to bed early, shall we?’

  ‘Caroline!’ For a moment Caroline thought the voice at the other end of the telephone was—no, of course it couldn’t be. ‘It’s me, you chump. Penelope.’

  It was her! ‘Are you ringing from Serbia?’ she asked in disbelief.

  ‘No! From Tunbridge Wells. It’s cheaper.’

  ‘Are you all right? Oh, Penelope, we’ve been so worried about you.

  ‘I’m fine. I survived the trek over the mountains to Albania—just. The whole thing was appalling, what with disease, the cold, and the ambushes by Albanians who didn’t agree with their country’s decision to help the Serbs. And we were all starving—you know how I like my food. Still, I’m here now to fatten up again.’

  Caroline shivered. ‘You’re not going back to Serbia again, are you?’

  ‘No. I thought I’d go somewhere really dangerous!’

  ‘You’ll have to choose, Phoebe.’ Caroline chose her moment carefully, while they were walking to Seb Grendel’s Farm.

  ‘Choose what?’ Phoebe looked mutinous.

  ‘You’ll be eighteen soon. Are you going to work for Mrs Manning in the recreation hut? Or are you going to throw in your lot with me?’

  For the last few months, Phoebe had been officially ‘helping’ Caroline with her duties in organising village rotas, but the ‘help’ had been somewhat less than eager. It had seemed to Caroline that Phoebe was avoiding a return to the camp at Crowborough Warren rather than embracing a cause in which she wholeheartedly believed. She was as uncommunicative now as she had been as a sixteen-year-old and that, as Caroline knew, might be storing up trouble. Phoebe had a great deal of vital energy, but there seemed to be nothing in Ashden that inspired her to use it.

  Almost as if reading her thoughts, Phoebe burst out, ‘I know it’s valuable work you’re doing here, Caroline, but you don’t know how much I long to get away—anywhere—like Felicia, or like you when you went to Dover. Then I’d be able to think about something other than Harry.’

  ‘It doesn’t always work that way,’ Caroline replied gently, ‘Sometimes it’s better if you confront the pain. As I’m trying to do each day.’

  Phoebe looked puzzled. ‘But at least Reggie’s alive; there’s still hope for you both.’

  ‘No.’ Caroline cut across her gently. ‘There’s no hope. We weren’t meant for each other after all.’

  ‘I thought you were.’

  ‘We wanted different things, Phoebe, as I think you and Harry might have done after a while. At first I thought it was Lady Hunney’s fault for turning Reggie against me, and that he had allowed himself to be talked into it. Now I see that to some extent at least, he agreed with her, and that our relationship would never have been happy in the long term.’

  ‘But what will you do?’ Phoebe looked genuinely concerned.

  Caroline smiled at her younger sister. ‘Don’t look so stricken. The world is a large place, and the future even larger. It’s you I’m worried about.’

  ‘You really think I should go back to Crowborough if they’ll have me?’

  ‘Yes, though I don’t want to lose you from my team.’

  ‘Janie Marden will take my place.’ Phoebe began to brighten up.

  ‘So you’ll go?’

  ‘Yes.’ For the first time in months, Phoebe sounded enthusiastic. ‘After all I don’t have to stay for ever, do I?’

  Caroline was pleased to see Daniel at the Rectory. He looked well, his new leg was working properly and he continued to use just the one stick for walking.

  ‘Dearest Daniel,’ she placed her hand on her heart, ‘you have but to ask and I am yours to command.’

  He grinned. ‘Good. I need someone to drive me to Ashdown Park in the Lanchester. I can’t quite manage it yet, and I refuse to order the carriage. Or the dog cart.’

  ‘Can the Lanchester risk its reputation being seen with me?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘It’s not that far.’

  She aimed a mock blow at him, and he laughed. She had learned to drive as a VAD, and now drove regularly. She enjoyed the feeling of independence it gave her. The Lanchester was as daunting as Lady Hunney herself, however.

  ‘How about tomorrow?’ Daniel suggested.

  Formerly the home of a captain in the Army, Ashdown Park had been converted into a hospital and convalescent home for Belgian army officers by Lady Brassey who lived nearby. Caroline had visited the estate as a child, and was curious to see it again.

  ‘I met Henri Willaerts at Dover House in the Roehampton hospital, while I was having the leg fitted,’ Daniel explained of the friend he was going to see. ‘Henri was a lieute
nant—a grenadier regiment—and was even more unlucky than me. He was in for two, but one stump became infected so he can’t wear the second leg. He’s been packed off here for a few weeks to recuperate before having another go. Then he’s going to be sent to the re-education institute at Port Villez in France. It only opened last August, and does marvellous work with weights and straps and the right exercises. The patients even play sports. I’d thought of going there too, but my progress has been good enough not to need it. Besides, I’ve got a rather pretty massage nurse here. We have enormous fun in the douche.’ He broke off. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘I’m wearing a mental peaked cap today.’ His words, however, had instantly recalled what Isabel had said about Reggie and another nurse. But the memory no longer hurt. Oh glory be, it no longer hurt.

  As they turned into the road—if it could be dignified by such a name—to Wych Cross, the forest still showed signs of the terrible March storm more than four weeks earlier. Branches torn off in the gales lay starkly over the new spring growth on the ground, and the earth was still muddy from the snow and subsequent heavy rain and sleet. Caroline turned into the driveway up to the house with some relief. It was only five or six miles from Ashden to Ashdown Park, but Lady Lanchester seemed to resent her driving every one of them.

  The nurse on duty at Ashdown Park directed them through what must have been the morning room to a rear door into the garden where they could find Henri. What curious inscriptions were carved into the panelling, Caroline noticed. One above the morning room door showed a porcupine and underneath it: ‘Those who are uncomfortable had better go out’. She could hear the sounds of voices from the communal room beyond: French, English and a more guttural sound she took to be Flemish and, with the porcupine in mind, she thought perhaps she should wait here until Daniel returned.

  ‘Shall I come?’ she asked Daniel uncertainly.

  ‘Of course. Henri likes ladies. You can leave us alone after a while to enjoy soldier-talk.’

  The rear gardens were even more magnificent than those in front of the house, with superb wooded areas and lawns, and flower gardens which would look splendid when the roses came out. It was obvious, however, that the storm had taken its toll. Trees could be seen lying uprooted by the lake, mighty monsters of oak and elm caught by the gales.

  ‘There he is—in that invalid chair. Henri!’ Daniel waved his stick, and set off towards his friend so fast that he was almost dragging Caroline along. Henri was being wheeled across the grass on the far side of the flower garden by a tall man in what Caroline recognised as Belgian army uniform: dark blue tunic with red piping over blue-grey trousers, and a shako on his head. Presumably he too was visiting Henri, since he showed no signs of injury other than a slight limp.

  ‘Henri, my dear fellow!’ Daniel pumped his hand up and down.

  ‘Content de te voir, Daniel.’ Henri twinkled at Caroline. ‘Et Mademoiselle? Ta femme?’

  ‘Pas sa femme. Je suis une amie,’ Caroline informed him, conscious that her accent was not all that could be desired. She liked the look of Henri, a plump man, already balding and with expressive dark eyes. Daniel began to introduce Henri to her formally, but suddenly his voice seemed to come from far away. She was seeing everything—the trees, the chair, the house, the people—through the wrong end of a telescope. Even the bird song seemed muted. For a moment all that remained in focus was the pair of hands gripping the invalid chair. Surely, surely, she recognised those hands?

  ‘Mademoiselle Lilley, je vous presente mon ami le Capitaine Yves Rosier,’ she heard Henri saying.

  The captain bowed. He was in his thirties, and his face bore a scar and the set and bitter look of those turned out of their homeland. She had seen it so many times on the faces of Belgian refugees.

  Henri waved a lordly hand towards his friend. ‘Yves knew Miss Edith Cavell.’

  The captain frowned, and Caroline could see that he was displeased at Henri’s happy-go-lucky comment.

  ‘She was a very brave woman,’ Caroline said, and quickly changed the subject. ‘I’m sorry to hear about the problems with your leg, Lieutenant Willaerts.’

  Henri was deflected into a breezy account of the sports he would be playing once he was running around like Daniel, only, so far as Caroline gathered from his broken English, he would be better than Daniel as he would have two wooden legs, not one.

  Daniel turned to Captain Rosier again. ‘And what do you do in England?’ he asked. ‘Are you convalescing here?’

  Caroline sensed a tiny pause before he replied, also in English, which he spoke better than Henri, ‘I am a refugee, like many of my compatriots.’ His voice was deep and heavily accented.

  Caroline longed to ask why he wore a uniform, but it was none of her business. Anyway, she must have been mistaken about the hands. They looked quite ordinary now only one was lightly resting on the chair and the other was at his side. For a brief moment, she had fancied them to be those of the man who had assisted her on the night of the Zeppelin bomb.

  ‘I’ll leave you gentlemen to talk.’ Caroline remembered Daniel’s suggestion. ‘I’m so glad to have met you, Lieutenant Willaerts, and you, Capitaine Rosier.’

  The captain gave a little bow. ‘I hope we shall meet again, Miss Lilley.’

  Caroline strolled towards the trees under which the last of the daffodils were trumpeting the way to summer in a yellow splash of bloom. Despite the war, despite the Easter uprising in Dublin, despite the Zeppelin raids, despite all the awfulness that man could do, here in the wood the ferns were unfurling as they had done for thousands of years. Branches were starting to show their greenery, and a few lilies of the valley announced the imminent arrival of May.

  For no reason at all, Caroline gave a little skip and twirled herself by one arm round the trunk of a silver birch.

  There would be storms to damage and destroy, but spring would always follow. Days of clear blue skies, new growth to cover dead bracken. At last the sun was beginning to shine, and might, if it tried hard enough, even spot Caroline Lilley far below it in Ashdown Park. Beneath her feet, all around her, and now within her heart, there was life. There was hope.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  An author has two best friends, her editor and her agent, and I have been exceptionally fortunate in both: to Jane Wood and Dorothy Lumley, my grateful thanks for their support and expertise. I also owe much to Selina Walker of Orion for her perceptive comments and guidance.

  I am also grateful to Norman Franks, Martin Kender, Mary Lewis, Jean Robinson and Carol Tyler for their help and interest, and to Jan Boxshall for her painstaking and constructive copy-editing.

  With thanks, also, to all at Allison & Busby for bringing the Seasons of War quartet to a new generation of readers.

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 1997.

  This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2015.

  Copyright © 1997 by AMY MYERS

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1931–0

  est