by Amy Myers
‘She may be very disturbed.’
‘Which would spur her on, not defeat her. Remember the year the peach trees were so diseased the gardener insisted on burning them down, and she personally sprayed them with soap and water, willing them to survive, and they did?’
‘This is not quite the same as peach trees.’
‘It is her reaction to crisis – relative, of course.’ Elizabeth remembered her own emotions and the terrors that had raced through her mind when Isabel was in Paris, and multiplied them several times. She realised what must have happened to Lady Hunney. ‘If I were she, Laurence, I would go in search of my son.’
‘Even Maud could not storm her way through to the battle front: it is still on the move. She would find herself in German-occupied territory.’
‘Only the advanced dressing stations move with the army, surely.’ Elizabeth was convinced she was right. ‘If he is still alive, he could have been moved. Has Sir John made enquiries at the Foreign Office to see if she has applied for permission to travel to France, and a passport?’
‘I do not know. All that is known is that the Lanchester was found at the Tunbridge railway station, but the chauffeur did not take it there.’
‘Then Maud drove herself, and has taken a railway train.’
‘Times are out of sorts indeed.’ There was no humour in Laurence’s comment; he meant it, and Elizabeth understood him perfectly. Two months ago the idea of Lady Hunney driving herself to take a train would have been ridiculous. Now it seemed quite rational.
‘I will go to see Eleanor immediately.’ Elizabeth ignored the afternoon pile for the post office and went to find her hat.
Mrs Dibble waylaid her on her way out and from the look on her face there was no gainsaying the summons.
‘We’ll have to make do, Mrs Lilley.’ The folded arms and ominous tones meant time had to be found to deal with this problem. ‘Mrs Thorn’s put banister brushes up to one shilling and sixpence. And we’re running low on tea. Costs going up and my budget going down. It’s not right, surely.’
‘It’s the war, Mrs Dibble. Our income’s going down. So many farmers really won’t be able to pay their Michaelmas tithes this time because of hardship. We must be prepared.’
‘If they don’t pay you money, stands to reason they should pay you in kind. We’ll have the corn.’
‘I’m afraid they don’t see it that way any more.’ Indeed the farmers did not. There was already enough resentment over paying tithes, without the extra burdens that war had unexpectedly thrust upon them. Rents, yes, that was considered fair, but tithes were a different matter.
Mrs Dibble paused, awaiting her moment. ‘And there’s poor Mrs Hubble.’
‘What of her?’
‘She’s had one.’
‘One what?’
‘I heard in the post office only an hour ago. The telegram.’
‘What –’ Elizabeth broke off. ‘Not her son?’
‘Killed in action. God rest him.’
‘I shall go to her.’ Eleanor must wait; shared anxiety must give way to present grief. Until war had come, one decided one’s own priorities; war now took command and decided them for you. Tim Hubble had helped Percy out in the Rectory gardens on occasion before he signed on in the Regular Army, they all knew him, and now he was dead.
This afternoon the carrier would be delivering the green window holland she had had to order for blinds for the whole of the Rectory to conform with the Emergency Light orders. She was unsure whether this was to save fuel or in expectation of the enemy in the air. Surely the former, for the idea of the latter was inconceivable. How the Germans would see their dim oil lamps from the sky was a mystery to Elizabeth, and surely no aeroplane or Zeppelin would dare cross to England anyway. But laws were laws. Unfortunately cost was cost. Try as she would, she could not avoid the uncomfortable feeling that Percy was up to no good on the matter of fuel. The coalman had paid a suspicious number of trips to the coal cellar yesterday, after there had been rumours of the price of coal rising steeply. They must burn wood, she decided. It was a pity they were not sufficiently near the Forest to claim the right of estover, in gathering peat for fuel and wood for burning.
Sometimes she glanced with some amusement at the ‘What women may do’ column daily in The Times. There seemed to be so many vital tasks for women that she wondered how the country had managed to fare without these helpful hints before. Very few of them had any relevance to her. Or perhaps ‘Keep calm and hopeful’ was aimed at Elizabeth Lilley. Or sewing nightingales as inspired by Florence for the wounded in the Crimea. Or making comforting puddings. No, there were no rules. The Times had no guidelines for the vast majority of women, merely eager ideas, and those spouted out in profusion all around her and all over the country. It was becoming patriotic not to indulge in luxuries, and as a result the luxury food market was collapsing bringing hardship to many thousands who worked within it; it was becoming patriotic not to clothe oneself extravagantly, and already Mrs Hazel was complaining of the slackening trade as women decided not to order dresses for the new season. Once there was a river of life in the Rectory which flowed swiftly but safely with herself at the helm. Now there were two, no, three rivers of daily life in which the currents were dangerously unpredictable: their private family life, which had suddenly split asunder; the life of Ashden; and what was going on in the catastrophe that had embroiled Europe. It was a situation that needed a greater navigator than herself.
It was five o’clock on Friday 18th September when Caroline and Felicia arrived home unannounced after a tedious train journey with two changes. The railway trains were crowded, and their arrival bore little relation to timetables. Felicia bore it calmly. Caroline did not, and was hot, cross, and not the least excited about their coming departure from England. By the time they arrived at the Rectory, her spirits and enthusiasm had somewhat recovered.
‘Antwerp? Tomorrow?’ Elizabeth cried. No sooner was she over the shock and delight of seeing her daughters back than this terrible news was broken. ‘But that’s in Belgium.’
‘Of course, Mother. That’s where the war is.’ Caroline laughed. ‘It’s no use going to a nice safe hospital in Boulogne – it’s at the front that we are needed.’
‘But you are both so young and inexperienced.’
‘And both so strong and willing,’ Caroline countered firmly. ‘There’s no danger. It’s a port, so we can be taken off by ship at a moment’s notice.’ It sounded good but she didn’t have the faintest idea whether it was true or not.
‘But darlings, men will be wounded.’ Elizabeth felt helpless. How could she point out once more that the men would have to be washed and administered to in intimate detail, and not in a clean scrubbed hospital, perhaps, but straight from a battlefield into a tent? Her imagination ran riot. She had been so careful to shield her daughters’ modesty, and George’s too. ‘Who is in charge? The Red Cross?’
‘The Belgian Red Cross.’
‘Then Sir John might be able –’
‘No, Mother, we’re just two very ordinary as yet untrained orderlies going over to help. We don’t need help ourselves. Mrs St Clair Stobart is a superb woman. She refused to be presented at court – just like me, you see. She’s worked in the Transvaal, running a shop, she launched the Women’s Convoy Corps several years ago, where she drilled and trained women just like us. She went to the Balkan Wars two years ago, and set up a hospital. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and now she’s started the Women’s National Service League. Eleanor wants to apply too, she’s passed her exam.’
‘Lady Hunney has vanished. Eleanor may not be able to come.’
‘Vanished?’ Caroline giggled, taken by surprise.
‘The family is very worried,’ Elizabeth said reprovingly.
‘I hope she returns – Eleanor will be so upset not to come.’ Caroline was horrified.
So was Elizabeth. ‘Hope? Really, Caroline, have you young people any idea of the agony mothers go through, or do you thin
k it irrelevant? Poor Lady Hunney has gone on a no doubt fruitless mission to find her missing son. She will not find him –’ a small exclamation from Felicia – ‘and what kind of a homecoming to find the daughter she relies on for support gone to Antwerp, possibly to be in danger herself?’
Caroline was ashamed. ‘I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t put that well. But I’m afraid I think Eleanor’s right to go, despite all you say. Women, and that’s what we are, not just daughters, have a right to follow our duty just like men. Surely you can’t think that a woman’s duty is to be subservient to what her family wants?’
‘Like me?’ Elizabeth was still angry.
‘No!’ Caroline was truly contrite now, and put her arm round her mother. ‘Of course I didn’t mean you. Oh, how can I explain? You stay here, we depend on you, because you have chosen that. We want choice, too. What choice has Eleanor if she must subordinate her will to her mother’s?’
‘The choice of choosing love, perhaps.’
‘That love will be stifled if given no air.’
‘Do I,’ Elizabeth asked stiffly, ‘give you air?’
‘You allow it,’ Caroline said seriously. ‘It is almost the same.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Elizabeth observed, mollified, ‘the blinds will be installed over the Rectory windows. Mrs Dibble and I are to finish sewing them tonight. Perhaps they will stifle us here in the Rectory.’
‘Not while the door is open for all in need to enter and for all who must to go out.’ Caroline hugged her mother.
‘Where’s Phoebe?’ Caroline looked round the dinner table, disappointed that on this, their one night at home, there was no sign of her sister. She had been here earlier, so why go out now?
‘War work,’ George pronounced grandly, eyeing the roast chicken hurriedly cooked in honour of the unexpected guests. The stewpots of the hoppers had smelled tantalisingly good in the fields, and made him run back to the Rectory at the double for dinner.
‘She’s joined the Foreign Legion and gone to the Sahara?’ Felicia enquired, straight-faced.
‘No. She’s gone to Ashden station, dishing out lemonade. There’s a late troop train coming through. It was her idea,’ George informed her, generous when credit was due. ‘I give her a hand now and then.’
Phoebe? How things were changing, Caroline realised. Such a short time, and already the Rectory seemed different. Or rather, not the Rectory, but its inhabitants. Thank goodness, for the Rectory itself should be immutable. Ashden had shown tangible signs of change, however. Not only was Mrs Lake sitting on the tractor in place of her husband but right in the middle of the village, two cottages she’d known all her life had vanished, and the foundations of the cinema were laid. ‘The Tower of Babel,’ her father had grunted when she asked him about it. ‘William Swinford-Browne’s contribution to the war effort, or so he claims, though the village seems to think it’s going to be a valiant thing.’
‘Chicken,’ cried Caroline delightedly, as her father flourished the carving knife and fork. It was obviously time to change the subject.
‘They’re falling in price now nobody entertains any more,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It may be grouse when you come home next.’ Hovering in the air was an unanswerable ‘when will that be?’
Laurence was inexpertly carving off a leg when the door flew open and Phoebe rushed in, still with her hat on, and stumbling over the mat as if to match her incoherent speech. ‘They’re back.’
‘Who?’ Laurence enquired, thrown off his stroke.
‘Lady Hunney and Daniel.’
‘Oh.’ Felicia rushed to her in delight, so overwhelmed with relief she did not notice Phoebe’s slight withdrawal.
‘Where was he? Where did she –?’
‘I don’t know,’ Phoebe cried impatiently. ‘She wouldn’t talk to me. They simply put the stretcher into the ambulance, and off they went. I just came to tell you.’ Her voice tailed off as she saw their faces and realised what she’d said.
‘Stretcher?’ Laurence voiced their fears.
‘Yes, he’s wounded.’ Phoebe looked round uncertainly.
‘How badly?’ Felicia demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ Phoebe wailed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased they were back.’
‘We are; Felicia said quietly. ‘No matter how bad the news, he is alive.’
A sudden arrow of agony struck Caroline unawares with that one word, and plunged her back into doubt. How could she know if Reggie were alive or not? His last letter had been cheerful enough, but there was a long time and many bullets between the writing of a letter and its arrival. Suppose she were away when he came home on leave? He would understand, wouldn’t he, that she was doing it for him? It was not going to be easy either for herself or Felicia to leave Ashden and go so far afield. Penelope, who had left so confidently for Serbia, was used to living independently, whereas, though Caroline had always longed for the opportunity to ramble through the larger world, now that the opportunity had come she found it daunting, and was glad that Felicia would be with her.
On the following morning, the day they were to leave Ashden, Felicia was nowhere to be found – in the Rectory, at least. It was obvious to Caroline where she had gone, and her anxiety grew. What would Felicia find at the Manor, and how would it affect her – and their plans? At ten, while she was packing, with Mother’s help and Harriet at hand to be despatched to the village for last-minute requirements, Eleanor arrived. Caroline’s heart sank. It was not hard to guess the reason.
‘I can’t come, Caroline,’ she burst out as soon as they were alone in the garden. She had been planning to apply to the Red Cross and hoped to follow them out shortly. ‘You understand, don’t you? Is Felicia still going? She’s very keen on Daniel, isn’t she?’
‘Of course, Eleanor. I don’t know whether she’s coming or not. I haven’t seen her this morning, and she said nothing yesterday evening.’
‘You wouldn’t go if it were Reggie, would you?’
‘No.’ Caroline did not even have to consider the question. Then her place would be here. The closest she had come to the deep grief of bereavement was when Grandma Overton had died, and then she had been supported by sharing it with her family. If it were Reggie she lost, others would sympathise, but they could not truly understand.
‘Mother simply said no when she discovered about Antwerp,’ Eleanor continued. ‘I had to tell her.’
‘You let her persuade you?’
‘No.’ Eleanor was definite about this. ‘I would have gone. It is for Daniel I want to stay. Not that he asked me to, for he is hardly capable of it. It was seeing him, and realising that war is here, as well as in Antwerp. How could I go, Caroline?’
‘You had no choice.’
‘I’ll do my best to be assigned to the Manor in due course. Mother will hate it, but I don’t care. I’m sure the Red Cross will be sympathetic. I’m not much good at nursing, but I can fetch and carry like anyone else, and normally I’m good at being placid.’ Her voice broke.
‘How is he?’ Caroline asked gently.
‘Oh, Caroline, he’s paralysed below the waist, and a wound in the lower leg is simply oozing pus. It may have to come off.’
It was like a bowl of cold water thrown into her face. Never had Caroline imagined anything so terrible. A broken leg, a broken arm would mend. But this? And to Daniel, the good-looking daredevil who had planned to travel so far and do so much.
‘He wasn’t wounded in the big disaster that overtook the King’s Own near Le Cateau, so naturally he wasn’t on that casualty list. He was hit later in the day as they were involved in sporadic fighting, and then immediately the retreat began. He was taken to a dressing station, and in the confusion names got muddled and he ended up in one of the three Paris military hospitals – oh, what does it matter? He’s terribly, terribly wounded.’
Yellow telegrams to break the hearts of those at home, and stretchers. At the Marne the Lancers had galloped into battle; on the Aisne the army had been met by the new Kru
pp howitzers, she’d read. What use were gallant cavalry charges when met by shrapnel, and shells, and bullets that tore and mangled flesh without the enemy even showing its face? Anger filled Caroline at the futility of it all, and made her all the more determined to strike her own blow. The sudden doubts she had had at the realisation she might lose both Eleanor and Felicia’s companionship vanished. If it had been right for her to go with them, it was right to go alone, no matter what collywobbles fluttered within her.
‘Mother had quite a time of it in France.’ Eleanor tried to be light-hearted, ‘I gather she found she had no right to be on the military trains, could not bluff her way through, and had no money that the French would accept; so she sold her pocket watch and ring, and with the proceeds hired a horse, cart and driver and was driven to the front.’
‘To the front? Didn’t anyone stop her?’
‘They most certainly would have done so if they’d caught her before it was too late. It’s lucky she didn’t get shot. It seems she came up behind the reserve lines and demanded to see the colonel of the 1st King’s Own, who had apoplexy on the spot. He confirmed Daniel was missing, and good old Mother, who never takes no for an answer, then went on a tour of all the hospitals from field tents to fully equipped outfits, and eventually found Daniel down in Paris. Mother simply ignored all protests and stayed. Daniel must have been delirious, because he apparently thought he was back at Ashden with her here.’ Eleanor failed to keep up her brave effort and broke down.
‘Your mother is a very brave woman,’ Caroline comforted her.
‘I know.’ Eleanor managed to grin. ‘I’d so love to be able to hate her. But I don’t.’
‘I shall not be able to go to Antwerp, of course.’ Felicia looked anxiously at her sister. ‘I don’t know what the Red Cross will say, but I doubt if they’d want unwilling candidates. I’ll speak to them immediately. The Matron at Ashden says she can do with even untrained help at the moment, so they may not mind too much.’
‘No, I’m sure they’ll help.’ Caroline tried to be reassuring, but Felicia eyed her doubtfully. ‘Are you sure it’s wise for you to stay here, Felicia?’ she continued gently. ‘Perhaps it would hurt him even to see you?’
