by Amy Myers
Ashden station had never been busier; true, there had been as many people when the old King had passed through, but they had been patiently waiting, not jostling about, fussing over luggage for want of words to express their feelings during the interminable wait for the steam train. It was hard to believe all this activity stemmed from Ashden. It was as if the village were taking a brief holiday from itself, and tomorrow or the next day it would step back to resume its normal pace. Caroline tried to tell herself that this was only like another of the Hunney trips, another episode of derring-do; in the old days she had walked back to the Rectory to wait for a postcard, or maybe two or three, depending on how many thoughts Reggie spared on her. Those days were past; now she did not doubt that he would spare thought for her, but how could she bear the waiting? There was only one way, she decided. She must do something positive to help win the war. The next time she saw Reggie he would be in uniform; would he get leave, or would she have to wait till Christmas when the war was over to see him? The clock of life had gone berserk, first rushing round frantically, kaleidoscoping years of emotions into a few days, and now holding out the dismal prospect of slowing down to suit the slowest tortoise.
On the station window was pasted the new poster: ‘Your King and Country Need You’. The recruiting offices in Tunbridge Wells and East Grinstead were said to be overwhelmed by the response to the call for a hundred thousand men for a new army, and many of the men on the platform here without baggage, she supposed, might be on their way to offer their services.
And now the tempo speeded up again. The signal was down, and almost immediately it seemed, with a belch of triumph at its prowess, the train puffed in alongside the platform. For one glorious moment Reggie’s lips were on hers, and then he was gone, he and Daniel, swallowed up by the demands of the outer world. Some other Caroline smiled, some other Caroline waved, and then the train bore the Hunneys away, leaving herself and Felicia on the platform.
‘I’ll be back down the chimney at Christmas, Caroline, just like Santa Claus.’
Reggie’s last words rang in her ears, just as a voice grunted beside her. It was Freddie Bertram’s, the sacristan’s son, an ox of a young man. ‘Kitchener wants a new army.’ He wasn’t talking to her, but to one of the Mutters.
‘You’re talking dinlow, Freddie. Who’s going to cut the corn? Kitchener coming to do it, is he?’ There was a roar of laughter from the Mutter clan, but Bertram proved obstinate.
‘You say what you like. I be off to fight the Belgians.’
The laughter grew. ‘’Tis the Germans we be fighting, the Kaiser.’
Freddie grew red and more obstinate still. ‘Beating the Kaiser is important.’
‘Who’s to bring in the harvest if Kitchener has his way?’ The banter gave way to something more serious in the atmosphere, not only because Freddie had had a score to settle with Norman Mutter for a long time. ‘Women could do it, I reckon. Don’t need a man, do it?’
‘Women could do most of the jobs men can do,’ Felicia observed quietly to her sister, as they decided it was time to leave. The argument bode fair to become heated.
‘They could,’ Caroline agreed, ‘but if men would let us.’
‘If they won’t then we must do it anyway.’
Caroline was surprised at the decision in her sister’s voice. It struck her that perhaps not for the first time she had underestimated Felicia. Perhaps she too had plans for enduring Daniel’s absence. But this was not the time to press her. Caroline felt so full of uncertainty and emotion herself that for the moment she had none to spare.
Last night she had been to visit Nanny, and returning when dusk had fallen had been an eerie experience. Where she was accustomed to see the dim comforting glow of Ashden’s two street lamps had been only the darkness of night. She had returned to the cottage to borrow a torch from Nanny, who told her Alfred had gone to the wars.
‘But he’s old.’
‘He’s what they call a Reservist.’
Caroline hadn’t even known his name. He was just the lamplighter, and he travelled all the villages round here each morning and evening, always talking hopefully of the day soon when ‘the gas would come’. Now the war had come instead. She was so used to the familiar sight of his carefully trimming and lighting the lamps that it seemed, as with the travelling clock winder, that he was part of the fabric of the village. For many a late-night drinker at the Norville Arms the lamps had been a polar star to guide them safely home, and now the lamps were out.
Now she felt her eyes fill with tears for Alfred, for Reggie, for them all; for the pain of separation and the darkness of waiting.
Mable Thorn thumped the rabbit stew on the table and sat herself down, taking up the ladle like a truncheon. She pursed her lips, feeling her jaw slip into its familiar shape of belligerence. She had no choice as the only woman in a household of thick-headed men.
‘I hear your Bertram is volunteering, then. A credit to his family.’ A long pause. ‘You thinking of going, Len?’ A longer pause, and more ominous: ‘Jamie?’
Len sniggered, relieved the spotlight had shifted so quickly. ‘Might as well. Better than wedding Ruth, isn’t it, Jamie, but less fun than bedding her, eh?’
‘I ain’t got no call to the army,’ Jamie said stolidly, determined not to be riled by Len. He had the strength to stand it now there was Aggie. ‘I got responsibilities.’
‘Yeah. We know. A bastard.’
‘No.’ Jamie gave a simple denial, nonplussing his brother.
‘I heard Rosie Trott give evidence for Ruth.’ His mother sounded non-committal, but Len sniggered all the same.
Jamie had forgotten all about Rosie, in the flush of love for Aggie, and was taken unawares. ‘I ain’t done nothing, as I keep telling you. Don’t any of you believe me, me own family?’
Silence was his answer, and the slap of rabbit stew on the china plate.
‘I got the shop to look after.’ Jamie said aghast, frightened now at the way they were looking at him.
‘Ma can do without your kind of help,’ Len informed him.
Jamie looked at his mother, who stared at the stew on her plate as though it were a crystal ball. ‘You want to be rid of me?’ He couldn’t believe it.
‘Nothing wrong in fighting for your country,’ his mother muttered.
Jamie pushed his chair back and stood up. He saw it now. Whatever he did, whatever he said, only Aggie would ever believe him. No one else. For the rest of his life, to Ashden he would be the father of Ruth’s bastard, and if he married Agnes she’d suffer too. And the worst of it was, they were right in a way. He had intended to bed Ruth; it was only his John let him down. So far as he could see, he’d lost his good name in the village, and any hope of respect from his family. There was only one way to get it back, and that before he married Aggie.
‘You can lay about here all you like, Len. I am going off to fight.’ He kept his voice quiet so they’d know he meant it.
Len gaped at him. He never thought Jamie would be such a fool. ‘Yes, well, like I said, you’ve got a lot to run away from.’
‘I ain’t running away, I’m marching. Because I got something to come back to. And I’ll make you respect me if it’s the last thing I do.’
‘Come with me, Felicia. I’m going to Tunbridge Wells.’ Caroline’s face was full of excitement.
‘Shopping?’ Felicia was amazed.
‘No. I’m going to do something for the war effort. Like Reggie. Apart from being a temporary lamplighter, that is.’
Felicia did not laugh, but she looked sufficiently interested for Caroline to press her further.
‘I’m going to train for a VAD – a Voluntary Aid Detachment. Elementary nursing.’
‘But that’s what I’d decided to do.’ Felicia grew excited. ‘I thought I’d make a good nurse.’
‘I won’t,’ Caroline said ruefully. ‘But I shall do the training all the same, because it could be a passport to something much more useful. I have to
get a first aid certificate first, and they’re doing special three-week courses in the Wells.’
Would Felicia make a good nurse? Perhaps yes, she would. How odd that one thought so little about the people one was closest to. In the Rectory they were held by bonds so tight, united by shared experience and need, that Caroline had never deeply questioned how each of them might function if left to go their own separate ways.
Because of the war, the Rectory was becoming a hub from which each of them might move to be a separate spoke. The thought alternately daunted and exhilarated her, but above all it papered over that numbness within her that Reggie’s sudden departure and the possible danger to Isabel had caused. For the moment that was enough.
‘I’ll come,’ Felicia declared.
Mrs Dibble looked grimly round her empire. War had come and it was under threat. It was as if the Kaiser had galloped out on a personal offensive against Margaret Dibble, putting prices up, removing food from the shops, cutting off imports – well, he wasn’t going to get the better of her. He’d snatched Joe, and he’d taken Lizzie’s Rudolf – not that he was much loss – but her own enclave was standing firm. If the Kaiser was fighting with flour, the Rectory would turn to potatoes; if he was after their bacon, the Rectory would cure its own; if he stopped oranges getting to them, they’d eat more apples. Anyway, now dear old Lord Kitchener was back at the War Office, the Kaiser would be trembling in his boots. She’d not been herself after she got the news about Joe, but hearing of Kitchener and going into the general stores and finding out Joe was regarded as a hero doing his duty and fighting for England had cheered her up. Now she too was armed for the battle.
Carefully she propped in the kitchen window nearest the tradesmen’s entrance one of the cards Mrs Lettice was handing out for people: ‘This house has sent a son to fight for right.’
As the days passed, the face of Ashden was changing. Many young and not so young men slipped away, mothers and wives appeared behind shop counters, the Rector performed hasty baptisms, and two hasty marriages by special licence. It was like a chessboard, Caroline decided. Every time you opened your eyes, someone had jumped into someone else’s place, and the numbers on the board were slightly fewer.
More women and schoolchildren were working in the fields, and somehow the wheels of the village still spun. The haywagons trundled up Silly Lane to the rickyard, marrows, beans and tomatoes appeared in the shops as usual. And overseas, somewhere, some unknown somewhere, was Reggie. Caroline clung to that as she travelled daily to the first aid course, at which predictably Felicia’s nimble fingers and steady hands were faring better than Caroline’s enthusiastic but definitely less agile ones. Nevertheless, the alternative was far more daunting. Edith Swinford-Browne had flung herself into committee work, exhorting Caroline to knit, so far as she could gather, babies’ socks for sailors’ wives. Edith had constantly pleaded with Mother to start an Ashden knitting circle and, when she refused, started one herself. It took her mind off Robert, she explained bravely. The couple had been gone nine days and there was still no word. Even Mother was silent about it now, while Caroline clung to the belief that Isabel’s sense of self-survival would not let her down now, when she most needed it.
‘I could not love thee dear so much, Loved I not honour more,’ Aggie read out from the back of the locket. ‘That’s beautiful, Jamie.’
‘I wrote it for you.’
‘Wrote it?’
‘Down, I mean. I found it in a book.’ Jamie hastily defended himself against misunderstanding.
‘Why?’ But in her heart she already knew, and dreaded hearing confirmation.
‘Because old Kitchener will only need 999,999 men now that he’s got one signed up in me.’
There was pride in his voice, a pride she had not heard these last six months. She forced herself to voice enthusiasm. ‘A King’s man, are you now, then? I’ve got a soldier for a sweetheart.’
‘I’ll be back just as soon as I’ve a medal to show you all.’
She stared at him unbelievingly. He hadn’t said a word about whether she minded or whether she’d be all right, or when he expected to get this medal. He was going away, going away and leaving her. Inside she wailed, but all she said was: ‘We’ll all be proud of you, Jamie.’
He was a little disappointed. Didn’t sweethearts cry, and weep on your shoulder? ‘They said the Royal Sussex might be needing men for a new battalion.’ He was determined to impress her. ‘That would be a valiant thing, surely.’
‘Valiant,’ she repeated hollowly. The Royal Sussex is going away …
Laurence laid down The Times. It was already mid-afternoon and this was his first opportunity to look at it. ‘McKenna has come to his senses. He’s releasing all the suffragettes remaining in prison. Tilly will be free.’
Elizabeth considered this mixed blessing, with so much else to worry about. ‘Will she return here?’
‘Will there be a welcome here if she so chooses?’
‘Of course.’ Elizabeth’s voice was less than enthusiastic. She was tired, so tired, of trying to adapt to the new situation. She had tried to push Isabel to the back of her mind, while she grappled daily with the demands of the household – at least the Government had stabilised food prices for a few days, though their deadline was today, the 10th, and what would happen now? – and the demands of the help she was giving Laurence in Rector’s Hour. It was more like two hours at present, with calming distraught women whose reservist husbands had suddenly disappeared without any assurances from the Government about separation allowances, girls whose sweethearts had vanished without a word, farmers whose hands had followed Kitchener’s dictates with the harvest left undone. Much of the work was the result of the necessary cessation of Squire’s Days, for there was no squire with Reggie and Daniel away to the war and Sir John in London most of the time. Laurence was doing his best on the practical side of temporary parish relief for the poor hit most by rising prices of food, galvanising reluctant officials like Horace Trimble into working with an unaccustomed speed, making constant telephone calls to London to do what he could, difficult enough in itself with telephone operators so busy.
Elizabeth had become lady clerk to her husband, the comforter of the sad, the field marshal of the household, and organiser of an emergency relief fund for extreme cases of poverty. It was unreal to her; she did it mechanically, but with no heart in it, the unreality prolonged by the return of the hot weather. She had not been pleased when Edith Swinford-Browne almost demanded her presence at her newly formed Knitting and Sewing Circle. Elizabeth’s task, she had informed the Rector’s wife, was to obtain patterns from the Red Cross for men’s pyjamas, bedjackets, skirts and nightingales. A mere one shilling and threepence each. Elizabeth had refused. Not only could she not afford one shilling and threepence, which would have fed the Rectory for two days before the emergency, but she was wise enough to see that nightingales and bedjackets were of less use in war than bandages and, with winter approaching, heavy British army warms and weatherproofs.
‘Laurence,’ she continued now, ‘I had a visit from Maud this morning.’
‘A visit?’ His eyebrows rose, and the corners of his mouth twitched, then he suppressed it, realising that such a unique event must stem from great distress. ‘She is naturally concerned for Daniel and Reggie?’ he probed gently.
‘Perhaps, but she would not unburden herself to me about that. No, it was the Manor. Sir John has offered it to the Government for a hospital for the wounded, and they have accepted.’
‘Many country houses have done so. It is not unexpected.’
‘But to Ashden it is. And to Lady Hunney.’
‘It is only temporary. They have the old Dower House to live in. Surely she is not so unpatriotic as to resent that?’
‘She does, but realises it is inevitable. She is brave within her own limits, Laurence. She has a Roman stoicism.’
‘I had not associated her, I must admit, with a faculty for looking on the bright
side.’
Elizabeth managed to laugh. ‘But she does. Her very last words to me were –’ she mimicked the precise crystal sharp tones – ‘“I do take comfort in the fact that Ashden will be a hospital for officers”.’
CHAPTER NINE
George was in his element. At last there was something decent to do in Ashden, even if it hadn’t yet spawned its cinema. What’s more, he was helping the war effort. Spies were being caught and shoved in stir all over the place, so there was no reason why Ashden shouldn’t secretly be hoarding some. Hundreds had been shot out of hand at barracks all over Britain, the coastline was crawling with traitors semaphoring to U-boats, signal boxes were being taken over by enemy agents intent on wrecking trains, and German governesses were showing themselves in their true colours. Moreover Russian troops were on the move, on the railways, with the snow still on their boots. It was an alarming thought – even if the Russians were supposed to be on our side – and it was small wonder the scouts had been ordered to guard the railways, especially the bridges. George couldn’t, he admitted, quite see how any of the villagers could have turned into spies overnight, and there was no one with a suspicious accent or he’d have heard it long since. Even Lizzie Dibble’s husband at Hartfield had gone back to fight for the Kaiser, and good riddance to him. It was true Rudolf had always seemed a pleasant sort of chap when he came to visit old Ma Dibble and Percy, but that only went to show how cunning these Germans were.
He liked this job; it was an adventure, like in John Buchan’s books or E. Phillips Oppenheim’s. Real. The scouts had been given the task of guarding the highways, as well as railways and bridges, and his patrol route was along Station Road, keeping a careful eye on hedges and ditches, where they had been warned German soldiers might be hiding; then he marched to left and right of the railway line, through Three Oak Farm and the hop farm respectively; then he did a stint on the bridge, especially when railway trains steamed through, in case any Germans disguised as passengers had any ideas about blowing it up – and then down the other side, again to left and right, through open farmland. George was a little concerned about the river a mile or so away. It wasn’t in the patrol area he’d been allotted, but it seemed to him there was scope for enemy activity there. Still, here in Station Road he had a very definite part to play and to his excitement he realised he could play it now!
