Ella's War

by Lynne Francis

  Beth was as enchanted with the retelling as she had been the first time she had heard it.

  ‘And what was I trying to do?’

  Ella played her role in the story, as usual. ‘You were planning to come with me to York. You didn’t realise that the cart was only taking me a couple of miles, to the station. You were only little – you had no idea about distances and the length of journeys.’

  Beth looked thoughtful. ‘I remember how sad I was after you had gone. I cried for what felt like days. It seemed like everyone left me. Alice – my real mother, that is – and then you.’

  Ella looked stricken as Beth paused. ‘But then Albert said I ought to be at school and he was right. It made a big difference. Suddenly I had friends to play with in the village. I still wondered why you preferred John to me, though.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’ Ella protested, as she did every time.

  ‘I know that now,’ laughed Beth. ‘But when you are only seven years old the world is – I don’t know – very black and white. It must have been hard for you, too.’

  After a succession of sunny days, the family held their breath, fearing that the good weather couldn’t last. Luck was on their side, though, and the day of the wedding dawned fine yet again. Beth’s dress was quite beautiful, Ella decided. She’d modelled it on something she had seen in a magazine, creating a simple column of cream satin: full-length, which somehow made her look taller. The neckline at the front was demure, while a ‘V’ at the back was edged with lace and hidden for the most part by her hair, which was drawn back from her face to hang in soft curls down her back. Ella wondered whether Mrs Ward had had a hand in providing the fabric: it looked and felt expensive.

  Sarah had made her a simple bouquet from whatever she had found in flower in the garden. John wore a suit that he had owned since before he went to war. It was painful to see how it hung from his frame, testament to the weight loss caused by his illness.

  Mr and Mrs Ward arrived on the morning of the simple ceremony. ‘We’ve left Grace in charge of the office,’ Mr Ward said, looking both alarmed and surprised that he had done such a thing. Mrs Ward was wearing a lilac costume and a very chic hat, quite outdoing the rest of the wedding party. At first, there was a little awkwardness between them all as they made their way into the church. The Wards seemed determined to put a good face on things though, and to smooth over the social differences between the two families; it was clear that John was very happy and there could be no doubt that everyone wished the couple well.

  The church was simply decorated with flowers, again by Sarah, and the sun streamed through the windows, bathing them all in such a brilliant light that Ella felt almost dizzy.

  Mr Ward visibly winced during the signing of the register, when he saw that in the space for the bride’s father’s name there was but a dash. However, he made no comment and they passed once more out through the great doorway of the church and into the sunshine. A sudden breeze rustled through the dry leaves of the elm trees edging the churchyard with a sound that surprised Ella into thinking there must be running water close by. As the party passed along the church path a small girl stepped forward, propelled by her mother’s hand in the small of her back. She took a handful of rose petals from her basket and threw them. The breeze lifted them, dropping them to swirl around Beth and John. Beth beamed and laughed, throwing her head back to watch the petals float down around her. They caught in her hair and the folds of her dress, splashes of pale pink that were dislodged as she moved and floated to the ground. Crouching beside the little girl, she took a handful of petals from her basket, burying her nose in them to inhale the sweet muskiness. Then she stood up and scattered them in return over the little girl, who clapped her hands in glee. John had been having a few quiet words with the mother, whom Ella recognised. He had been helping her with letters to claim her invalid husband’s war pension.

  ‘I told her that when she gets married here I will come and return the favour and shower her with rose petals,’ Beth said, hugging the little girl. Suddenly solemn, Beth turned to the wedding party. ‘I wonder if we might pay a visit to one person who can’t be with us today, but would have so loved it?’ She bent again, whispering into the girl’s ear, and took another handful of petals.

  Looking a little apprehensive, Mr and Mrs Ward followed Beth and John’s lead and fell into step behind them, leaving Ella and Sarah to offer their thanks and say farewell to Mrs Holmes and her daughter. They caught up with the others at Alice’s grave.

  ‘This is my mother,’ Beth explained to Mr and Mrs Ward, indicating the gravestone. ‘My real mother, although of course I have always regarded Sarah as my mother.’

  She smiled affectionately at Sarah, then bent her head, and the rest of the Bancroft family followed suit, each offering up their own silent prayers. Then Beth flung the rose petals into the air, where the breeze lifted and swirled them back over her and John, much to their delight and surprise. Arm in arm, Beth and John followed Mr and Mrs Ward out of the church gate to head back to Lane End Cottage for the wedding breakfast. They had gone but a few steps along Church Lane, however, when Mr Ward pulled a large key from his pocket, declaring he had a surprise for them. He set the key into a blue-painted front door and opened it with a flourish.

  In bundled the whole party, in great excitement. Ella had a sudden flashback to their move to Luddenden all those years ago, and how thrilled they all had been to have a house with space enough for them all, and a garden. The Church Lane cottage was small but it was quite lovely, Ella decided at once. A great stone fireplace dominated the living room, which opened into a kitchen containing a black-leaded range set into another stone fireplace. The kitchen led in turn into the garden, which was flagged and had flower borders running down each side, still sporting the last bright remnants of summer blooms. A gate at the back opened onto a path leading down towards Tinker’s Wood and the valley beyond. One corner of the garden was shaded by a small rowan tree and, stepping through the door, they startled a flurry of birds that had been feasting on the brilliant-orange early berries that festooned its branches.

  A few pieces of furniture had been placed in the cottage: upstairs a metal-framed bed and side tables; a table and chairs for the kitchen; a couple of easy chairs by the fire in the parlour and various ornaments and pictures, all gifts provided by the Wards.

  Beth and John turned and hugged each other, then Beth turned to Mr Ward.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I never thought it possible I could be this happy.’

  It was Mrs Ward who spoke up. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘we can never thank you enough for helping to restore John to health. We couldn’t have imagined that we would ever see him so well.’ Seeing tears well in Beth’s eyes she turned hastily to Sarah and Ella. ‘And our thanks to both of you, too. You have all played an important part.’

  Mr Ward had slipped away into the kitchen and returned bearing glasses and a bottle of champagne, which had been hidden away in a kitchen cupboard while it cooled in a bucket of cold water. The group finally relaxed in each other’s company, the mood aided by the effervescence of the alcohol. Ella reflected that Mr and Mrs Ward also deserved to be commended for the efforts they were making. It couldn’t be easy for them to see their son living in what they must perceive as much-reduced circumstances. Everywhere they looked, at the house, at the village, at Sarah’s cottage, they must have seen a lifestyle very far removed from the one with which they were familiar. Yet, they had managed to look beyond this and see that it was the right thing for John. Perhaps Mr Ward, who had always prided himself on being a forward-thinking man, could foresee that this was just the start of great changes that were on their way; changes that would affect the way people worked and lived and their relationships with each other as the country strove to heal the scars left by the war.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Mr Ward had originally wanted them all to dine in Nortonstall, but John had been so horrified when this was suggested that
it was quickly vetoed. Instead, an informal gathering at Lane End Cottage had been agreed upon. After they had all walked back from Church Lane, Sarah and Ella set up a table in the shade of the apple tree and laid out the wedding breakfast. Ella was glad that the weather was so perfect. If it had rained, they would all have had to remain in the parlour and she feared it would have dampened the mood. Out in the garden, everything felt much easier and freer. Ella found herself having what was probably her first proper conversation with Mrs Ward since John had returned from the war, and Mr Ward seemed to enjoy Sarah’s company just as much as his son did. Ella, taking plates back to the kitchen, came across them deep in conversation about the benefits of herbal remedies.

  The mood was very relaxed when the time came for Mr and Mrs Ward to take their leave.

  ‘John, now we can see what drew you to Northwaite.’ Mr Ward swept his arm in an arc, taking in the garden and encompassing the countryside visible across the fields as he did so. ‘We wish you and Beth every happiness here.’ Mr Ward turned to address Sarah. ‘And it has been a delight and a privilege to spend time with you, Mrs Bancroft. Words cannot express our thanks for the way you have helped John in his recovery. Ella, we look forward to seeing you back in York at the end of your stay, with more news of the happy couple.’

  With a flurry of kisses and handshakes, John’s parents were on their way. After they had left, John subsided with a sigh onto the blanket spread out on the grass.

  Beth, conscious of the dark smudges beneath his eyes, said, ‘An afternoon nap for you, I think,’ and tried to pull him to his feet. He retaliated by pulling her towards him, catching her off balance so that she flopped down beside him with a shriek. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close so that they lay together on the blanket, his nose nuzzling into her neck. Within a minute or two, and with a deep sigh, he was asleep.

  Ella, a little light-headed from the champagne, helped Sarah to clear the glasses and plates into the kitchen. They washed up in silence, glancing every now and then through the window to where Beth and John dozed, looking for all the world as though they had fallen to earth from the sky.

  Ella searched her consciousness for any shadow of doubt or concern, but could find none. It had been a wonderful, happy day and she had no doubt that a truly happy future was in store for this pair. She experienced a pang of sadness: this was surely something she would never have herself. As if sensing her subtle change in mood, Sarah laid down the drying-up cloth. ‘I’m going to make some tea. And then it will be time to wake up those two lovebirds and walk them back so they can spend the first night in their new home.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  A few days after the wedding, Ella returned once more to Grange House. She felt bereft, as though her whole world was fragmenting, a feeling that was exacerbated by on-going changes in the York household.

  Mrs S had elected to remain in the country, saying that her elderly mother was still too ill to be on her own, which left Stevens, Elsie and Ella running the house. They had worked together for so long that it was very much second nature to them, and they had long since relaxed into relative informality around each other. Ella missed Beth and John terribly, although she took comfort from the fact that they would be company for Sarah. She found herself longing for the countryside and the fresh air too, now that the household duties stretched her to such an extent that she rarely found time to even step outside. In contrast, Stevens seemed to be finding his duties much reduced and he was restless.

  ‘They really have no need of a butler,’ he declared one evening as the three of them sat in the kitchen. ‘And I would say they have no need of this house now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to leave it.’

  ‘What would they do? Where would they go?’ Ella felt a dawning sense of anxiety. If Stevens’s words were prophetic, she could face the prospect of having to look for a new job very soon.

  ‘Perhaps they might move into something smaller in York?’ Stevens was musing. ‘Or maybe even move up to Scotland. They’ve grandchildren there that they’ve barely seen over the years. Grace seems to have the business under control. Mr Ward could easily come down by train once a week if he’s needed.’

  Elsie and Ella looked at each other, startled by this unexpected view of the future. Their thoughts began to follow similar anxious paths but, when nothing untoward happened over the next few weeks, they gradually forgot their concerns.

  Stevens’s lack of duties meant that he was frequently to be found in the kitchen during the day. He always leapt to his feet to offer Ella a hand when she came struggling in with the pail of ashes after cleaning the upstairs fireplaces, and he proved just as able as Elsie and Ella at peeling the vegetables. At first, they were perturbed by his involvement.

  ‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ Ella or Elsie would say, attempting to seize the vegetable knife from him, or trying to prevent him dirtying his clothes with the ashes.

  ‘And why not?’ he would ask, carrying on as though nothing had happened. ‘I’ve nothing better to do and I’m perfectly capable, you know.’

  Gradually it came out that he had been the eldest son in a fatherless household headed by a mother too sick to work. Before he was old enough to work himself, he had been responsible for cooking and caring for his younger sisters as well as his mother, for organising the cleaning of the house and obtaining parish relief. When his mother died, he continued to take financial responsibility for the family until he was sure that all the girls were settled.

  Then, at a loss as to what work he could do, he had entered service and over a period of five years found himself rapidly promoted. Suddenly, on a whim and perhaps as an antidote to the overwhelmingly female environment that had been his life up until then, he enlisted and found himself fighting against the Boers in South Africa.

  This last revelation came as they all sat around the kitchen table in the lowering light at the end of the day. Stevens’s interest in the war they had just endured now made more sense to Ella. It was now clear that he had some prior knowledge of the war machine and how it worked; of how battles were won and lost. She noted that he didn’t dwell on his war experiences but moved quickly on and talked instead of how, when he returned and sought work once more, he was extraordinarily lucky to come across Mr Ward. He had known him previously as a visitor to the house where he had been employed prior to the war. Their meeting was fortuitous: Grange House had just been built and Mr Ward was looking for a butler to head his staff.

  ‘So you must have been quite new to the house when I arrived here. Yet you seemed so settled and confident and everything was running so smoothly, it never occurred to me that you hadn’t been with the family for years,’ Ella marvelled.

  Stevens laughed. ‘I’m glad it seemed that way to you. Most of the staff had come from the old house in Micklegate, so I felt very much the new boy for some time. Mrs Sugden and Elsie here were my saviours at the time. I was barely thirty; really very young to be a butler.’

  Ella, who had worked with Stevens for nearly twenty years, was now beginning to wonder whether she actually knew him at all. He had seemed such a remote figure when she first joined Grange House and, although their relationship had shifted onto an easier footing with time, she had never known much about his background. It had taken Beth’s artless curiosity to discover that he had a wife. In fact, she realised that Stevens had left any mention of his wife out of his account.

  ‘When did you marry?’ she found herself asking before she could stop herself.

  Elsie raised her eyebrows, but Stevens smiled. ‘You were right to ask. I seem to have managed to leave that bit out. I married young: much too young, when I was barely eighteen. It wasn’t long after my mother died and I can only think that I was looking for a helpmate, someone who would be a support to me while I took care of my sisters.’

  Stevens paused, then exhaled slowly. ‘I misjudged things rather badly. Clara, my wife, had a very sensitive nature, something that I initially fo
und appealing. With time, I realised she actually had a great many nervous problems and when she fell pregnant these seemed to be exacerbated.’

  Ella was startled. Stevens had never mentioned a child: was there to be another surprising revelation?

  He continued. ‘Alas, when she miscarried, she collapsed mentally as well as physically, blaming herself for being unfit to carry a child, along with all manner of other ravings. Gradually, I was able to unravel something of her history: it seemed that she had been cruelly abused by a family member while barely out of childhood. The strain placed upon her by keeping this quiet for so long had caused her deep-seated distress. She saw the loss of our baby as retribution from God for her wickedness. I was unable to convince her that God would not be so harsh in His judgements and, despite my best efforts and those of some of the medical profession, she was confined to an asylum at the age of just twenty-one. She never left it until the day she died.’

  Stevens paused for so long, deep in thought, that Ella wondered whether their conversation was now over. She couldn’t begin to imagine how devastating this tragedy must have been, nor what it must have cost him to keep it buried. Dusk had long since descended but neither she nor Elsie felt they could break the spell by getting up to light the lamps.

  It was Stevens who rose to his feet eventually and said briskly, ‘Good heavens, why are we all sitting here in the dark?’ In an instant, he’d closed the door on his past and his reflective mood was gone. As soon as the lamps were lit, his memories were banished to the shadows once more.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  As the new decade dawned, Mr and Mrs Ward finally announced that they had decided that Grange House was too big for them now that John and Grace had both left home. Grace had taken a house in town, saying that she wanted to be within walking distance of the office and her friends, despite her mother’s disapproval of an unmarried woman living alone.