Fragile Blossoms

by Dodie Hamilton

  Having got into it Julia didn’t know how to get out without making things worse. ‘Well the day that he is too old or perhaps too unwell to live.’

  ‘You mean like when Papa died?’

  ‘Well... yes.’

  ‘Can I have an egg for my breakfast?’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Can I have toast soldiers with my egg?’

  Such a switch Julia thought he’d misunderstood and later brought the subject round again. ‘Shall we get a puppy? Then when Kaiser does go you won’t miss him so much.’

  ‘I shall miss him but he’ll be with Papa and so I’ll see them both.’

  Matty’s certainty of Mister Wolf being one day in their life is Julia’s best, and worse, reason for leaving Norfolk. He adores the man. It was Luke who gave him Kaiser. He looks to the dog and sees Luke and truth to tell Julia does the same. Right now Kaiser’s on the landing. She can’t hear him but knows he’s there. A quiet dog he makes no sound, only a gentle touch of his nose tells you he’s there. It’s another reason to leave. Many months have passed since Luke set foot in the cottage but like Kaiser he’s always here, the bond between him and Matty strong. Julia knows she can move house and miles between them the bond will remain. She’d sooner not break it. That her son loves and is loved in return can only be good, however such ties blind the eyes to other possibilities. Daniel Masson likes Matty. He would make an excellent father, and California, she has heard, is an exciting State. It is surely a place where one could be happy and a child could grow, and where one could be safe and no swishing of tails and thought of the dead.

  With that in mind Julia thought to try pouring oil on existing troubled waters between herself and a possible future mother-in-law and sent Maggie with a note inviting Callie Masson to tea.

  Callie wouldn’t come to the cottage. She said her cold prevented her.

  Julia went but didn’t plan to stay. She’s heard Joe Carmody is ill and earlier went to enquire but was told he was too ill to see her.

  From one sick person she came to another. Callie looked dreadful. She’s lost a great deal of weight her skin seeming to hang on her bones.

  ‘Does she sleep any better at night?’ Julia asked Dulce.

  ‘She wanders,’ said Dulce, ‘but I’m gonna fix that. I’ve brewed a sleeping draught and plan to give it to her tonight. If she don’t sleep, and me for that matter, anything can happen.’

  ‘Do you not get help from the maids?’

  ‘I don’t ask. I have been with Mizz Callie a long time. It’s too private a thing to share with anyone but family. I wish Mister Daniel were here.’

  ‘He’ll be here soon.’

  ‘I don’t know that he will.’

  ‘It’s Christmas. He wouldn’t leave his mother alone at such a time.’

  Dulce shrugged. ‘The old Daniel never would but I’m not sure of the new.’

  Dulce thinks Daniel has changed, his mother suggests the same.

  ‘He was a nice boy when he was young but he’s not so nice now. The war’s changed him. But then,’ Callie stared into the distance, ‘war changes everyone. It changed Henry. He was fine as Midshipman and then there was some war in a Godforsaken heathen country and he came back as an officer and too big for his boots.’

  ‘I believe you said you were childhood sweethearts.’

  Callie snorted. ‘Children, yes, his parents close to mine, but sweethearts no. I couldn’t stand the boy. He thought too much of himself.’

  ‘Was he handsome?’

  ‘Oh yes, smooth as silk and twice as glossy. A favourite among the Aunts and Uncles he knew the right thing to say. He was a courtier, as quick with a kiss of the hand as I was with a curtsey. Handsome is as handsome does and though smooth on the outside on the inside where it matters he was hard as stone.’

  Callie seems calmer. Reluctant to do or say anything that might change that Julia steered conversation away from the past and toward the forthcoming celebrations and the Nativity Play.

  ‘What is Matty to be?’ asked Callie.

  ‘A shepherd, I think.’

  ‘I should like to see that,’ said Callie wistfully, ‘but can’t manage that cold church. Do you suppose the children would bring the play here?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Would you like me to enquire?’

  ‘I sure would!’ Callie’s face was bright. ‘It would do this old house good to hear children’s voices instead of adult squawk.’

  ‘I’ll speak to the Rector and see what he says.’

  ‘Tell him it’s a tradition! Say that St Bedes were singing carols Christmas morn here in the Hall long before he was born. Tell him I’m a wealthy woman and that it won’t hurt him, or his parish, to keep that tradition.’

  It wasn’t long before Callie returned to the past. She spoke of ‘glossy’ Captain Henry Lansdowne and his passion for Justine and how things were not as anyone had imagined. ‘He wouldn’t leave her alone. He’d call all hours of the day and night. He once put a ladder to her window and climbed up. She was offended. She said his behaviour was not of a gentleman and it wouldn’t have happened were she other than a paid employee.’

  ‘So it was he who caused the split.’

  ‘It was.’ Callie nodded. ‘I learned that a little too late. I’d always assumed it was her, that she’d led him on. I was angry and I wasn’t thinking right. I went to Aunt Maynard, who was the big gun around here. I accused Justine of leading him astray, but knowing Henry was already very much astray I didn’t stop there.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I said she made improper advances to me.’

  ‘Oh Callie!’

  ‘I know.’ Callie buried her head in her hands. ‘I was a child, a jealous, foolish child. It was that damned spy-glass. It’s like life; you only get a bit of the picture and usually the one you want to see. I spied on them and thought the worst. I was wrong about that and in the end I was wrong about Henry. He wasn’t the oaf I pictured him to be. They tried to throw her out, to beat her and her sister out of town but couldn’t. He’d left her the gate-house.’

  ‘And she stayed. My word, that can’t have been easy.’

  ‘Her sister Clarissa wasn’t well. As a child she’d suffered a bone disease that made her awkward, hands like shovels and shoulders like a man. It’s likely Justine stayed for Clarissa but then again maybe she have dug in her heels. She knew she hadn’t done wrong and wouldn’t be pushed. And they did push! Though not able to throw her out the Aunts, the Maynards and the Grevilles, made her life difficult. They cut her from society, made her a pariah and ruined her name and her beautiful gardens.’

  ‘Ah, that’s why she built the wall!’

  ‘Yes. It was Easter time. She was in Japan hunting plants. The Aunts hired a gang of bully-boys from Ipswich. They cut down trees and bushes, smashed her greenhouse and everything in it. They didn’t go so far as to set fire to the house but they did everything else. They killed the birds on her pond and the pigeons in her loft, and not knowing the truth I helped them.’

  Julia could only shake her head.

  ‘Horrible,’ whispered Callie. ‘In the morning when I saw what we’d done I felt sick. She came home and built the wall. I never spoke to her again until the day I left for America when being the fool that I was I must have the last word. I went to see her. That’s when she said he was the pursuer not her.’

  ‘And what about Henry when he saw the destruction?’

  ‘He never got to see it, at least not this side of the grave. He was dead, drowned when those ships collided. I was thankful and sorry for that, sorry he never got to witness the destruction he caused and glad he was dead.’

  ‘You don’t mean that, Callie! You can’t be glad he died.’

  ‘I was glad. I was delighted. I felt it was God’s Hand that thrust him under the waves. He ruined my life. But for him
I never would’ve left Norfolk and gone to Philadelphia where for the next forty years I was tied to another selfish man.’

  ‘Good things came from those forty years. You have Daniel.’

  ‘True, I have Daniel.’

  ‘And he is a good son!’

  ‘He is a good son. He is my pride and joy, but also, though he’s the last to see it, he is his father’s son and therefore his future happiness in doubt.’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘Samuel Masson was a gambler. Bankrolled by me he invested in Comstock and did well because he knew when to bet and when not. Daniel doesn’t study mining or money markets but gambles just the same and the stakes even higher. He loves danger. He says not, to hear him talk covering those Chinese rebellions and the Boer War is a grind. Don’t be fooled, he loves being in the thick of it.’

  ‘And yet he seems a quiet man and steady. Matty really likes him.’

  ‘Yes but not enough, Julianna! Neither of you like him enough! If you did he wouldn’t be in South Africa messing with guns and things! I’m not blaming you. As I said he takes after his father. Dulce saw it straight away. It took me a while. His father made plenty money but lost as much paying off enraged fathers. When he marries, if he marries, Daniel won’t be unfaithful. You won’t catch him risking reputation for some little dolly. He’s too much of a Greville high-hat. But free, unbound, and rich of blood, he’ll risk the world to be different. Before he came to Norfolk, or rather before he saw you, he was champing at the bit, an explorer in the mould of Cortes.’

  Julia nodded. ‘I heard him once described in that manner.’

  ‘And whoever said it was right! Shake a red rag under his nose and he’ll charge. He needs to settle while he can. Left to his own devices he’ll end up a monk or a martyr. Why do you think I was so keen to get you together?’

  ‘I didn’t think you were.’

  Callie sighed. ‘I was, Anna, at first very keen. But a lot of water has rolled under the bridge of late and most of it poled by your friend, Eve. I told you once before Daniel can be pernickety. He is proud and resents what he considers a lack of proper pride. I am sorry to say, my dear, where my son and his prejudices are concerned Lady Eve Carrington has done you no good.’

  Julia left soon after. Furious, she brooded over Callie’s suggestion. So Daniel disapproves of her association with Eve? She’s not surprised. She remembers Russell Square. He came with John Singer Sargent. John was his usual affable self but Daniel, though polite, was decidedly cool with Evie and made little attempt to hide his scorn of Freddie. Well where friendship with the Carringtons is concerned he can set aside his scruples. Since the night of the séance there’s been no word from either. Whatever they had before, the three of them, whatever was shared, laughter and pain, it is over. Daniel Masson has nothing to resent. It is Julia now who is resentful of him.

  *

  Daniel is sitting in a pew in the Trinity Church, Port Elizabeth, eating a cheese sandwich and chugging on a jug of apple cider. The Pretoria newsman told him of this place. He said they had a willing clergy and a generous congregation, and that he went there whenever he needed a rest. He said ‘if you’re lucky you get a blessing from the Lord, a ham sandwich and a jug of cider.’

  Daniel was lucky. He got cider, a sandwich, and Miss Dobson.

  Miss Dobson is all fired up. It seems she’s acquired transport to deliver aid to the camps. ‘I’ve got railway trucks.’

  ‘How the heck did you do that?’

  ‘I jogged the family elbow back home and got help from Sir Robert Peel.’

  ‘And you got railway trucks?’

  ‘And several tons of supplies which I mean to distribute.’

  ‘You have a useful elbow.’

  Mona smiled her freckles wrinkling. ‘My family is a busy family. My grandfather is Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office, my father an Archdeacon, and my aunt is married to the British High Commissioner.’

  ‘Busy indeed!’

  ‘There are forty or more prison camps here, Mr Masson. We need to be busy. From what I hear the camp at Bloemfontein is as far as we’ll be allowed to travel. It’s not much but it is a start.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather dangerous?’

  ‘Not so very much. We travel under a flag of truce and should be safe.’

  Daniel made no comment, his thought being the guy from Pretoria News probably thought the same thing. ‘How many are you?’

  ‘Do you mean helpers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There are eight of us, my friend Mary Osborne and six other Baptist people.’

  ‘Do you have armed escorts?’

  ‘No and we don’t need them. The supplies are meant for refugees, for farmer’s wives and children, not for the rebels. No one will fire on us. The word has gone out.’

  ‘Let’s hope for your sake the word has been heard. A fellow was shot only couple of days ago. He was a newsman not a mercenary. If the word went out about him the guerrillas sure weren’t listening.’

  Mona regarded him. ‘Mr Masson the word I am referring to is prayer. I promise you that will be heard no matter where we are.’

  Daniel’s stomach contracted. What a woman! Tight riding britches, freckles and an evangelical soul is an alluring combination. ‘So what are your thoughts about hangers on? I mean, how do you feel about me coming with you?’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘A helper?’

  ‘Why would you want to help?’

  ‘Why not? I’m bound to see things that need seeing.’

  ‘Would you be prepared to help give out supplies?’

  ‘Sure, why not.’

  ‘And what about cooking and washing?’

  ‘Washing? What cooking pots and so on?’

  ‘No bodies, arms and legs and other parts of the anatomy. People that are sick, people with Typhoid and other infections, need washing. They can’t do it themselves. Are you prepared to roll up your sleeves?’

  ‘Washing sickly bodies is hardly my remit.’

  ‘What is your remit?’

  Daniel shrugged. ‘Until today it was to get news from where news it most likely to be got and to get it posted so the world can read it.’

  ‘Then it’s time you did something more worthwhile.’ She walked away. ‘We leave tomorrow at dawn. We could use a strong pair hands but the right hands, hands that don’t mind dealing in dirt. For hands like that we’d have a Great-and-Godly use. Slack hands are no use to us. It’s like life, Mr Masson. You can’t come along for the ride. You have to be part of it to live it.’

  It was warm in the church flies buzzing. Daniel was sick of dirt and heat. He’d seen enough to last a lifetime. Time is getting on. He should do what he came to do, put the letter in the post and book the first available berth back to England. If he catches the next boat he’ll be back in time for Christmas.

  Right now it’s cold in England, snow on the ground, icicles hanging from the trees, and Julianna’s cool beauty never given to ardour. The envelope rustled in his pocket reminding him that once posted there’s no turning back. A ship is due to leave that will take the letter and what it means. When he returns to British soil it will be to an answer ready and waiting. On the other hand if he hesitates he won’t get home in time for Christmas and Callie will be alone.

  Daniel thought of his mother and her endless struggles. He thought of Greenfields, that miserable house with leaky roof and rotten plumbing. Then there’s the holiday programme that like death and taxes inevitably lies ahead, the pre-Christmas Lunch at Sandringham with HRH, the visit to his cousins the Warwicks, the food and the cigars, the heaving tables and port to be passed, the heehawing and the shuffling, the grinning and the interminable waltzes, the bowing and the shaking of hands, and the whole weary business.

  God, how dull it all sounds. He remembered the Pretori
a news-man whose name he thinks may have been Jack. He thought of the way the bullet parted the air, the snap of light and Jack’s body sagging, and those sad fists clutching his shirt. It could have been Daniel, six inches either-way and it would be him trussed up the hold of a steam ship along with sides of lamb.

  He thought of Jack’s little boy who never got to decorate the Christmas Tree. In Norfolk there’s Matty. There’ll be a fir tree in the cottage and in Greenfields which he and Matty might decorate, but then Matty already has a Pa who though not living may as well be. Must Daniel be a substitute father as well as a lover?’

  If he stays here it’ll be hardtack and sleeping in bivouacs. There’ll be guerrillas who want to kill him and refugees with typhoid looking to do the same. It will be hardly the jolliest or most comfortable of holidays.

  Mona Dobson is leaving. She drives her pony cart by the church. That’s some woman. She handles the cart well. She has strong hands, Godly hands as she said, and hands that so inclined would make a man stretch with pleasure.

  She’s not exactly beautiful but she has nice eyes and the thought of riding gunshot on a train about the Transvaal sounds like it could be fun, and as Callie pointed out recently they have don’t have much fun nowadays.

  Heads to stay and tails to go he tossed a coin.

  It flipped up in the air. When it hit the ground he didn’t bother looking. He left it where it was and crumpling the letter to Julianna dropped it under the seat.

  Twenty Four

  Nativity Plays

  Saturday Julia called on the Carmody cottage for news of Joe. She knocked on the door. It opened and Bertha, his wife, peered out. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mrs Dryden,’ she said her tone colder than the snow. ‘You’re up and about early.’

  ‘I hope it’s not inconvenient to call. I wanted news of Joe.’

  ‘He’s no better. I put a poultice on his chest but he’s up there wheezing. It’s his own fault. The silly beggar was up half the night fiddling with the tree.’

  ‘What do the doctors say?’