Two Women Went to War

by L E Pembroke

  So the days passed, and the atmosphere on the ship began to change. We discussed the change more than once. I recall one morning when we were sitting side by side on sun lounges drinking our mid-morning beef tea while the ship glided silently through the smooth, sapphire waters of the Indian Ocean.

  Genevieve remarked on the difference in the soldiers; how, the closer we got to Australia, the quieter most of them became. She said she thought they were worrying about the future. They were probably terrified that their feelings for their wives and girlfriends would have changed. She mused. ‘Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder, does it? Maybe their wives met someone else. Their children won’t recognise them, and may consider them an unwelcome stranger in their own homes.’

  She continued to ponder about the possibility of troops meeting a special girl in England or France, someone they couldn’t get out of their minds; a girl they fell in love with who would always intrude on their marriage. She surmised that a chap would feel more and more miserable as the ship got closer and closer to home and further away from the woman with whom he had fallen in love and would never see again. And she reflected on the change that would have come over many fellows, not because they had an affair but because they had learnt so much more about life and death than their wives would ever know. Those wives would have difficulty relating to their husband’s moods, his silences, his spurts of temper, perhaps his drinking. Often wives, unable to comprehend their husband’s experiences, would be impatient of his moods and unable to comfort him. Inevitably they would drift apart.

  I disagreed, and said that she was being carried away by romantic imagination. I believed most chaps would have remained loyal to their wives. Their biggest worry would be about their jobs. Would the boss have kept an opening for them? Would they settle back happily into former routines?

  I remember it was only a day or two later that Genevieve received a cable from Tom that told of the sudden death of their mother. ‘Totally unexpected,’ Tom wrote. ‘A stroke. She never regained consciousness.’

  Genevieve’s reaction was ambivalent and, knowing something of her previous life, I understood why. The next time we met, she said how much she was looking forward to going home, something she could never have done if her mother were still alive. ‘I’ll go home and give Tom a hand; that’s what I want to do.’

  That wasn’t at all what I wanted to hear. I’d been giving serious thought to proposing marriage to Genevieve. My brief marriage had been a period of passion; I didn’t expect it could ever be the same with Genevieve, but we were the closest of friends, and sometimes friendships develop into love.

  I said that I couldn’t understand why she was thinking of going home because she had told me that her brother was likely to marry soon, and there would really be no place for her with a new wife moving in.

  Genevieve said she realised that, and that she was not talking about living there forever. ‘If Tom marries Madeleine it won’t be until next year; she won’t arrive much before Christmas, and I’m not sure they will marry. Those two are as different as chalk from cheese. If they do marry I’ll move on, but at least I’ve resolved the problem of what I’ll do for the next few months.’

  The night before disembarkation I decided to propose marriage. I hadn’t planned to do so; it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I was in fact slightly pickled. It wasn’t during a romantic dinner for two because that night was the farewell dinner at which passengers sat in large groups with their special friends. We exchanged addresses and promised to stay in touch.

  After dinner, during that final stroll along the deck, I stopped and turned so that we were face to face. I said, ‘I’d like to marry you, Genevieve. What do you think?’

  She looked startled. ‘What? But we’re such friends.’

  ‘Friendship and marriage are not always mutually exclusive, Genevieve.’

  ‘Of course not.’ I could see she was embarrassed. She said the sort of words that so many men have heard when their proposal is turned down. ‘Alistair, I think I am fonder of you than anybody else I know. But the truth is I’ve always thought of you as a loving friend and never as a husband. The thing is, Alistair, I don’t seem to feel passion any more. Maybe passion subsides when you reach your later twenties.’

  ‘Passion is not confined to the young, Genevieve, although they think it is,’ I replied. ‘I feel passion towards you, darling. Does that disturb you?’ I drew her closer and kissed her lips softly. ‘Do you think you could feel passion for me, Genevieve?’

  She was silent for so long that I was certain she would say, ‘No, you’re like an older brother, Alistair.’ She ducked the question and said that all she knew was she’d hate to have me walk out of her life; that’s one thing she was sure of.

  ‘Well, that’s a start, darling.’ I moved to kiss her again. She gently pushed me away. Maybe she could be passionate with me one day – but definitely not yet.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘once more around the deck.’

  Arms wrapped around one another, we walked on. It’s going to work out, I thought, a new life with Genevieve in a new world without war. We’ll make it work. I was sure I loved her and certain she would grow to love me. Eleanor had become just a sweet memory. I no longer looked back. I thought only of my future with Genevieve.

  *

  The ship docked. The gangways were lowered. The decks were crowded with long shuffling queues of soldiers with canvas kit bags slung over their shoulders. They craned their heads towards the wharf below, attempting the almost impossible task of locating loved ones among the mass of expectant faces looking upwards.

  Genevieve and I stood together. Members of my family were down there somewhere, but I was loath to leave her. She was in no hurry. There were no welcoming faces waiting in Sydney for her. She planned to spend the following two days going through the business of leaving the nursing corps. After that, she intended taking the train home.

  ‘Write to me regularly, won’t you, darling?’

  ‘Of course I will, and I will be looking out for your letters, Alistair.’

  I planned to write letters to Genevieve that would stir her latent feelings and bring her back to Sydney and into my arms.

  CHAPTER 21

  GENEVIEVE

  I arrived back in Orange on a bitter, late-winter morning. I looked along the platform for Tom. Instead, I saw Rose McCann running towards me, dragging her young son along beside her. I dropped my two cases and opened my arms in greeting. I smiled at the boy hiding behind his mother’s skirt. ‘Hello, Freddy. My, what a big, handsome boy you are.’

  Rose was bubbling over with excitement. She said that she would be driving me home to Bellara and that Tom had taught her to drive, although I would soon see that she wasn’t very good at it yet. Tom teaching Rose to drive – wonder of wonders! Tom had never been keen on Rose.

  I asked where Tom was, and she replied that he’d never leave the place while the shearers were there. She then said she was preparing a special welcome home dinner for tonight and that Tom said she could stay overnight at Bellara so that we could have it together.

  I was confused. What was Rose doing at Bellara, and what about Madeleine?

  ‘Come on,’ Rose said, ‘I’ve got Tom’s Austin over here. Very few ladies drive in our town. Do you drive, Genevieve?’

  ‘No, I haven’t had the opportunity to learn, although quite a few volunteer nurses drove ambulances in the war. I’d love to drive, I hope Tom will find the time to teach me’.

  Rose said that life had completely changed for her recently, now that she spent most of her time at Bellara. ‘I know your mother would have had a fit to think of me looking after her house. I’m sorry, Genevieve, I forgot to say I’m sorry about your mother’s death.’

  ‘I can’t be hypocritical about Mum’s death. We both know that Tom was probably the only person who mourned my mother’s passing. In fact, Rose, I was fonder of your mother than I ever was of my own.’

 
; I fastened my cases on to the rack at the back of the car, climbed into the front passenger seat and nursed Freddie while Rose eventually managed to back the car away from the kerb. On the way home Rose explained that she had become Tom’s housekeeper. After our mother died Tom needed help, so he came looking for her. She had been working part-time on the property ever since. She said she loved the work, Freddy loved the farm and Tom had been giving him riding lessons.

  ‘I’ve had a wonderful time looking after Tom, Genevieve; he’s quite friendly these days. There was a time when he hardly ever spoke to me – even on my wedding day, when he was Douglas’s best man. Tom used to look down on me, I could feel it.’

  ‘He didn’t look down on you, Rose, he looked down on our father. Tom never understood about our father and your mother. He blamed them for loving one another. He couldn’t see that our mother drove poor Father away.’

  Rose said that in case I was getting the wrong idea, there was nothing between her and Tom and that she and Fred get a lift out there with the postie three days a week and that Tom always drove them home. She told me about her boarder, a nice little widow who used to live on an orchard until her husband died, so with that and her part-time work, she reckoned she was better off than she’d ever been.

  ‘I will tell you this, Genevieve, in strict confidence, I am really desperate to remarry, and I intend chasing after the first nice man who comes along. You probably wouldn’t understand, but once you’ve been married it’s just terrible to live a single life. I yearn for a man to hold me in his arms and carry me into his bed. I badly need a husband, Genevieve.’

  We didn’t talk much more on the trip home. I was thinking that it was such a pity I didn’t fancy Alistair carrying me into his bed. Then I began eagerly looking and exclaiming at the familiar countryside. The weather cold as I’d expected, the wattle in full bloom, the sky a clear blue. Everything was exactly as I remembered. It was with such a feeling of poignancy that I returned to Bellara. At first glance the place looked the same, yet somehow everything was different, or was it because I was different?

  ‘The house looks shabbier than I remember.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Tom said. He wants your advice about rejuvenating it before his fiancée arrives.’

  I thought Madeleine would like to do her own renovations, and I remembered, with some trepidation for Tom, the luxurious life Madeleine was leaving behind.

  I went to my old room and changed before going down to the shearing shed. When I arrived there, Tom was totally absorbed watching for unnecessary nicks when the animals, skinny now and shivering with fear or cold, were pushed down the chute to rejoin their equally cold and depleted companions.

  He looked up casually. ‘Oh, hello, Genevieve. Ask Rose to put the tea on. I’ll be up soon.’ No mention of the past four years, no welcome home. Strange chap, my brother, never given to revealing any sort of emotion.

  I didn’t think it was appropriate on my first evening home to mention our mother’s will or ask Tom his future plans for Bellara. So it was the following evening before we went into what had been our mother’s study. Tom, without comment, handed me the will. It was a concise, short document that said: ‘I hereby bequeath to my son Thomas Albert Howard the property named Bellara in its entirety – the house and contents, the livestock and all machinery and farm equipment. Clothing and items of jewellery are to be donated to the church and distributed or sold for the benefit of the needy.’ It was dated, signed and witnessed on 15 November 1918. Our mother had waited until the war ended before putting together this petty and unfair document.

  ‘I am disgusted,’ Tom said. ‘The only excuse I can think of is that she wasn’t thinking straight towards the end. Who knows? She might have been affected by an earlier stroke that we didn’t know about.’

  I didn’t agree. I was hurt but not altogether surprised. ‘She never forgave me for being so like Father and, of course, disobeying her.’

  Tom was clearly embarrassed. He told me that I would always have a home at Bellara and that he was aware of his duty to see to my welfare.

  He had decided I needed a car of my own and said he would teach me to drive because I needed independence. ‘I intend buying you a small and reliable car, I think a two-seater with a dicky seat. I have my eye on a Castle 3. Do you think that would suit you? After all, you’re almost twenty-seven and you certainly deserve some financial benefit from the will. It would cost about two hundred pounds – good value, I think.’

  I said that a car would be nice if I was to be a lonely old spinster, but all I really wanted was to stay at Bellara for a few months to help him out. I said that if Madeleine agreed to marry him, I’d leave straightaway and that I also might marry.

  ‘Have you met someone, Genevieve?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not sure of my feelings.’

  ‘My advice, old girl, is to grab the opportunity – it’s the only practical thing to do. You don’t want to miss the boat, do you?’

  I assured him I wouldn’t marry anyone just for convenience.

  ‘You sound just like Madeleine; you’re both idealists. “Seize the day” – that’s what I believe, and everything will work out in the end.’

  I then broached my other idea, which was that if I didn’t marry Alistair, I could live in the McCann house on the property so that I wouldn’t be in the way and I could help him run the place. That idea came to me before I knew about the will. Somehow it never occurred to me that Mother would leave everything to Tom.

  He wouldn’t hear of it, saying that it was a silly idea and that he had plans for that little house. He wanted to get a full-time manager, and that’s where he would live. Tom said he was determined to improve Bellara so it became the best place in the district. He was aware that it wouldn’t be easy to find a manager whom he could trust implicitly, but he needed a man because the work was far too heavy for a woman.’

  ‘So there’s no place for me at Bellara?’

  ‘I told you, you’ll always be a welcome guest when I’m married, and I really would appreciate your help on the place until then. Naturally I’ve been limited by the loss of my arm.’

  ‘Do you want me to take Rose’s place?’

  ‘Of course not. Rose will remain our part-time housekeeper while I hope you will help out with the lighter farm work, just like in the old days. Also, Genevieve, I would appreciate some advice as to how we can get the house just right for Madeleine.’

  Hoping he wasn’t heading for the biggest disappointment of his life, I pointed out that his marriage wasn’t a foregone conclusion and that the last I heard was Madeleine hadn’t made up her mind. I thought we should wait until we know her decision. I added that women liked to plan their own homes and I expected she would get rid of all the old furniture for a start. ‘Nevertheless, I suppose we could do a bit in the garden.’

  ‘Madeleine and I will be married by Christmas, Genevieve. I’m quite determined about that.

  My warning had fallen on deaf ears. Clearly there was nothing I could say to persuade Tom that Madeleine might turn around and go back to England. Oh, well, I had my own problems. I would write to Alistair tonight. He would want to hear about my present circumstances, and I would tell him how much I missed him already.

  Perhaps my alternative idea of living in the cottage was silly; twenty-seven was too young to turn one’s back on society and live a hermit-like existence miles out of town.

  CHAPTER 22

  ANDREW

  In September 1919, when Madeleine came aboard at Tilbury she created a stir. Ship’s officers and male passengers – including me and some of the last members of the AIF to be repatriated – stared in admiration. Madeleine strolled nonchalantly up the gangway wearing an electric-blue wrap-over coat and matching cloche hat. She was followed by the family chauffeur bearing four or five boxes with couturier labels. In her left arm she carried a large bouquet of roses; in her right hand, a rather long ebony cigarette holder, with which she waved intermittently to f
riends standing below, after having inhaled deeply from her black Sobranie.

  I thought she looked like an actress, a singer or a ballet dancer en route to a tour of the colonies. Probably wouldn’t be in the least interested in spending time with me – more’s the pity. That didn’t really worry me. I had a lot of catching up to do on the social side, but I wasn’t in a hurry as I also had considerable catching up to achieve in the health department. I wasn’t ill, just run-down with not too much energy and had a lingering cough. My once thick dark hair was definitely thinner and also greying at the temples, and I was skinny, still under-weight, despite my present healthy appetite.

  I leant on the deck rail and watched fascinated by the interest she was creating. I chuckled to myself as I saw officers and stewards hasten forward to greet and assist her. Although one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, I didn’t find her altogether appealing; too hubristic for my taste.

  *

  I met Madeleine at the captain’s first cocktail party, to which a dozen or so passengers were invited. It was a day or two after leaving England.

  ‘Talk about bees around a honey-pot,’ Henry, my companion, commented quietly as we watched the flurry when Madeleine entered the room. Henry wasn’t in the least tempted by Madeleine’s looks; he was counting the days until reunited with his young bride. He’d married only a matter of days before he embarked for Gallipoli, and there was a four-year-old daughter he’d never seen.

  ‘Nice enough woman,’ he went on. ‘I met her at tea this afternoon; charming, too. Says her mother was Australian. She’s got a really Pommy voice; wouldn’t have dreamt she was partly Australian!’