Only Rosie didn’t think she’d ever get over Charles’s death. Every time she looked into the sweet little faces of Sophia and Jonathan, she saw their likeness to Charles. And she felt wrenched with pity that they would have to grow up without a father.
When she pushed open the front gate, she noticed Speedwell Cottage had a closed look, as if there was no one there. Perhaps Freddie had gone out, now he had his false leg and could walk with crutches.
Rosie walked up the narrow path with its over-blown borders of lavender and put her key in the lock. As soon as she stepped into the tiny hall, she knew the house was not only empty, but had the cold air of desertion; Freddie was long gone, she thought, shocked.
Two envelopes addressed to her were on the mantelpiece.
One was a note from the farmer’s wife who came to clean: ‘Not wanting to bother you, My Lady, but I’m owed fifteen shillings for the last two months, for cleaning and laundry… at your convenience…’
The other one was from Freddie. Rosie sat in the bleak little room, scene of her unhappy marriage, and read his note several times, stunned with disbelief.
Darling Rosie,
I’ve done my best to get in touch with you, but you never replied to my letters. I am sorry about Charlie, but you were never happy with him, were you?
To my surprise, a girl I was engaged to, who is in the WRENS, has been unexpectedly sent back to England on leave, from Malta! to cut the proverbial long story short…! – I’ve left for London, where we’re getting married by Special Licence, on Friday! Imagine me? A married man!! Happy days, and take care of yourself.
Love,
Freddie
The bastard…! Rosie thought as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She’d betrayed Charles for an utter rotter, who had, in turn, betrayed her. The insensitivity of the letter stung her to the core. This made what she’d done doubly bad.
She hurried back to Hartley, wondering how she could have been so wicked. And stupid. Once back at home, she rushed to her room to take a large dose of bromide. It was amazing how it softened everything, like a soft-focus photograph, blurring the edges, making the world a warmer, rosier, almost bearable place. She held up the bottle of brown liquid to see how much was left. What ever happened, she must get another prescription from Dr Musgrove.
Five
Louise couldn’t sleep. In her room on the top floor of Hartley Hall, she wriggled around, consumed by thoughts of Jack. It was spring and an owl was hooting eerily in the woods, as if he too wanted something. But what, exactly? Louise felt confused and uncomfortable with her body these days. Her burgeoning sexuality was like a heavy burden, making her ache with a strange longing.
Jack had kissed her a few days ago, a quick kiss, his full-lipped mouth brushing hers, taking her breath away, and making her long for something more. And she was sure there must be something more.
Not having brothers, and being brought up in a home where nothing of an intimate nature was ever talked about, she’d taken to poring over books with pictures of sculptured figures. The trouble was, whatever it was she wanted to look at was mostly covered by a fig leaf. The figures of women bored her, but the figures of men, with muscular shoulders and thighs and flat stomachs sent the strangest sensation shooting through her own stomach… But why?
Juliet was working in London, and she couldn’t in a million years ask her mother or her grandmother. Or Nanny. What about Rosie? On reflection she decided this was not a good idea. It might remind her how much she now missed Charles. It was all too embarrassing, but at the same time, dreadfully urgent.
I wonder if Jack knows? Louise thought in desperation, as she pummelled her pillow into shape, then realized she couldn’t possibly ask him.
The next morning she was up early, pottering around with aimless activity, not knowing what to do with herself. She looked out of her window and saw that the soft buds of tender green hung like a veil over the dark branches of the trees. Spring was on its way, and her heart suddenly felt like bursting with joy. Today was Sunday. Jack had suggested they meet by the bridge, after lunch. Only he hadn’t said ‘lunch’. He’d said, ‘After me dinner.’
Louise smiled indulgently at the memory. He was so honest and sweet, and so anxious to ‘talk proper’. When she’d looked genuinely puzzled and said, ‘But’s that’s awfully late, I’ll never be allowed out then,’ he’d asked her what time she had her dinner?
‘Eight o’clock. We have lunch at one o’clock,’ she giggled.
‘Ta for that,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ll remember next time.’
‘You don’t have to,’ she protested, embarrassed. ‘It doesn’t matter in the least.’
‘Does to me,’ he replied.
Jack, she realized, was out to improve himself. He listened to the radio, so he was more up to date than her about current events, and every book she lent him was studied and analysed.
‘Whatcha got there?’ he asked, when she arrived at the bridge, clutching something in a brown paper bag.
Louise had sneaked a leather-bound book out of the library, struck by the likeness between the author, whose photograph formed the frontispiece, and Jack. They had the same blond wavy hair, straight nose, direct eyes and sensitive mouth.
‘Poems!’ he exclaimed doubtfully, when he looked at the spine. ‘Cor! I don’ know about that.’
‘Beautiful poems,’ she said firmly, too shy to tell him he resembled Rupert Brooke. ‘Let’s go some place where we won’t be spotted; Mummy thinks I’ve gone to the village hall to work out the lunch rota for the Easter holidays.’
They walked along a tree-lined avenue, the tall branches meeting overhead, reminding her of being in a cathedral. At the end was a five-barred gate, and the open countryside beyond.
Jack suddenly darted to a mossy bank, where primroses were already showing their pale faces. Plucking a few, he brought them back to her.
‘Somethin’ for your button’ole,’ he said, stopping to thread the delicate green stalks through the opening in the lapel of her jacket.
Louise blushed and grew hot at the nearness of him. She could feel his breath of her neck, and see the golden down on his cheek as he leaned forward, intent on what he was doing.
‘Thanks,’ she said awkwardly.
He helped her over the gate and then they looked for a place to sit.
‘Over there will do, won’ it?’ he asked, pointing to a sheltered spot under a hawthorn tree.
‘It might be a bit damp,’ Louise said, and instantly felt she’d sounded like Nanny. ‘But I suppose…’ she added quickly.
‘We can soon solve that.’ In an instant he’d tugged off his worn jacket and laid it tenderly on the grass. ‘There! That’ll do you, won’ it?’
Louise smiled with sheer happiness, dropping onto the ground and smiling up at him. ‘But what about you?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ He sat down beside her, close to her, and took the book from her hands. ‘Let’s ’ave a look at this, then.’
He opened the volume, with its gilt-edged pages, at random.
‘I like this,’ he said positively, after a few minutes. ‘’Ere, read this one aloud.’
‘You read it.’
‘No. You’ll do it better than me.’
Louise cleared her throat. Her face was flaming when she’d finished, and she didn’t dare raise her eyes from the page.
Jack broke the agonizing silence for her. ‘That’s right, innit? You and me, I mean. How we feels.’ He reached for her hand and held it tightly. She knew he was looking at her, and slowly she raised her head, to meet his piercing gaze.
‘You… you look like Rupert Brooke,’ she said falteringly, not knowing what else to say.
His mouth tipped up at the corners. ‘An’ there was I, thinkin’ I looks like me.’
‘I mean… yes. You do. It was a compliment.’ Her clothes were sticking to her back with sweat, and as much as she longed for something more from him, so was she also filled with fear.
> On the edge of something exquisitely dangerous, she pulled back, not wanting to offend him, but afraid of what might lie ahead.
He looked away then, a hurt and puzzled expression on his face. ‘We can be friends, though, can’t we?’ His voice was diffident.
‘Of course?’ Louise exclaimed, tears of vexation springing to her eyes. There was nothing more in the whole world she wanted than to go on seeing Jack.
‘But you ain’t ready yet?’ His blue gaze was directed on her again, and seeing her tears, he asked, concerned, ‘Wot’s the matter?’
Louise shook her head, giving a watery smile. ‘Nothing’s the matter. Look, let’s go for a walk. It’s getting chilly.’
He rose to his feet in one graceful movement. ‘Can I borrow that book, or is it special?’
For a second she hesitated. It belonged to her father and she should never have taken it in the first place, but it seemed like a stepping stone between her and Jack now. Not at all certain where the steps would take her, she nevertheless knew she had to find out.
‘Of course you can borrow it,’ she said, with largesse. ‘There’s a lovely poem about the spring, and several about death.’
Jack grunted, pleased. The status quo between them had been regained and they were in comfortable waters once more.
* * *
‘Where on earth have you been?’ Liza demanded, when Louise returned to Hartley in the late afternoon. She was standing in the kitchen, talking to Mrs Dobbs, when Louise slipped into the house through the back door.
‘I told you we were working out the lunch rotas for the holidays,’ Louise replied, avoiding eye contact. ‘Then we all got talking and I lost track of time.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t go off like that. There’s such a lot to do here. We don’t have masses of servants any more, you know. Daddy’s invited Candida for supper tonight, so we’ve all got to pull our weight. We can’t expect poor Mrs Dobbs and Warwick to do everything,’ Liza added irritably.
‘So what are you doing to help?’ Louise snapped rudely.
‘Don’t be impertinent,’ Liza retorted, wishing Nanny wasn’t upstairs helping Rosie put the babies to bed. Both Louise and Amanda were becoming dreadfully insolent, and she simply didn’t know how to control them.
‘One extra person for supper can’t cause that much extra work,’ Louise pointed out. She’d had such a lovely afternoon with Jack, walking through the woods and across the fields, embarrassment at Rupert Brooke’s apt poem temporarily forgotten as they planned to have a picnic, next Sunday, on the banks of the river. Now her mother had spoilt it all, making her feel put-out and cross. She turned pointedly to Mrs Dobbs.
‘What can I do to help you, Mrs Dobbs?’ she asked charmingly, whilst ignoring Liza. ‘Would you like me to prepare the vegetables? Or make a pudding? I can do an Apple Charlotte, if there are any apples left in the larder?’
Mrs Dobbs, who had known Louise since she’d been born, smiled fondly at her. ‘It’s all done, m’dear. Warwick has laid the table, and he’s even brought up the wine from the cellar.’
‘If I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow,’ Louise said earnestly, ‘I’d do the breakfast for everyone, and you could stay in bed and have a bit of a rest, Mrs Dobbs. But I can do it next weekend.’
‘Aren’t you a good little one,’ Mrs Dobbs declared.
Liza stood watching this mutual admiration between the cook and her third daughter with frigid aloofness. Louise was actually being extremely manipulative. She’d have to talk to Henry about her. It was bad enough that Amanda was turning into a rabid socialist, without having Louise being nicer to the servants than she was to her.
Liza stalked out of the kitchen in a huff. She didn’t count in her own house, and it made her feel small and superfluous.
The trouble was Henry should never have let his mother stay on when he got married. Hartley was still Lady Anne’s house, looked after by her servants and gardener, occupied by her son and his children, loved by the whole village, and respected by the county.
Nobody likes me, I don’t count here, Liza reflected, overcome with self-pity, as she stormed upstairs to her bedroom. She felt like an outsider from a different background. And the trouble was the servants knew it.
In the privacy of her room, she wept copiously. Henry was in London during the week. His mother bored her, the children despised her and the servants tolerated her. Life wasn’t fun any more and she missed the gaiety of pre-war days. That evening she didn’t come down for dinner, saying she had a bad headache.
‘Oh, bad show!’ boomed Candida, not sorry in the least. ‘Hope it’s nothing serious?’
‘She’s been over-doing it,’ Henry said loyally.
They gathered in the library before dinner, to save lighting a fire in the drawing room. ‘Sherry, Candida?’ Henry asked.
‘Dear old boy, you know how I detest the stuff; haven’t you a drop of whisky?’
‘For you… of course,’ Henry replied. ‘Water or soda?’
‘Just pass the water jug over the top of the glass, Henry. Listen, I’ve got the most riveting piece of news to tell you.’
He looked at her with raised eyebrows, his expression quizzical. ‘Sounds like a piece of scandalous gossip.’
‘No, no. It’s nothing like that, but this is absolutely confidential. Not a word to a living soul. I mean it.’
‘Go on.’ Henry’s interest quickened. Since Candida had been working as one of Winston Churchill’s secretaries in the War Cabinet Offices, she’d been at the heart of government, privy to everything that was going on.
‘I’ll try to be brief; if Mother, or anyone else, walks into the room, I’ll have to stop. A secret organization called the Special Operations Executive has been set up, linked to Military Intelligence Research; in fact it’s to do with guerrilla warfare. Code breakers from MI5 will be involved, and trained people will be dropped behind the German lines, to carry out acts of espionage.’
Henry looked stunned. ‘What does the regular Army think about that?’
‘They’re not delighted, but a British Lieutenant-Colonel is to set it up. He’s recruiting people to spy on military bases, munition factories, aerodromes, and they will be given transmitters so they can radio back information to England. They’ll also be blowing up bridges, disrupting transport, demolishing electrical plants; anything, in fact, that will impede the Germans. But I’m warning you; not a word.’
‘You’re not telling me…?’ he asked aghast.
Candida looked at him, and burst out laughing. ‘No, I’m not going, Henry. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m so heavy I’d drop to the earth like a stone, even with a parachute.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘But I’ll tell you who has volunteered, and who is training for his first drop, as we speak.’
‘Who?’ Henry asked blankly.
Candida lowered her voice. ‘Gaston.’
‘Gaston?’
‘Yes. I bumped into him in Baker Street last week. When you think about it, he’s perfect for the job. He’s French, and of course he’ll pretend he never left France. He’s got a perfect alibi for being there. Nevertheless, it’s extremely dangerous.’ She looked grave. ‘He’ll be shot on the spot if the Germans pick him up. That’s what happens to spies. He’s a very brave man.’
‘He certainly is,’ Henry agreed soberly. ‘God, you’ve quite shaken me, Candida.’
She leaned towards him, her voice very low. ‘I’ve invited him to stay next weekend, just for a night, because I’m pretty certain he’ll be off during the following week.’ She looked apologetic. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I feel our old Dad might have been very proud of him, and I’d like him to know that – in case he never comes back.’
‘Is that Gaston you’re talking about?’
Henry and Candida spun round, guiltily. Lady Anne was standing in the doorway.
‘I’m sorry, my dears,’ she continued, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing you talking about Gast
on. He’s staying with you for the weekend, is he?’ she enquired diplomatically, taking in the guilty expressions of her son and daughter.
‘Yes. That’s right, Mother,’ Candida said quickly, looking flustered.
‘Why don’t you bring him over to lunch on Sunday? I think you’re right to keep an eye on him; I’m sure it’s what your father would have wanted.’
Henry and Candida exchanged looks.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?’ Candida asked.
‘Not at all, my dear.’
‘I know he’d be thrilled.’
Lady Anne smiled. ‘Then that’s settled. He is after all Papa’s son and your half-brother, Henry. Don’t look so anxious, my dear. Passions have cooled, mine especially. Common sense prevails. Hopefully Gaston’s mother made Frederick happy for a little while and for that I’m now quite content. We must make Gaston realize how much his father would have thought of him, if he’d been alive today.’
Candida leaned towards Lady Anne and gave her a bear-hug, almost knocking her back against the cushions on the sofa. ‘That’s the stuff, Mother! You’re a real brick! I know it will mean the world to Gaston to be accepted as one of the family.’
* * *
‘What? That bastard’s coming here? To the family seat?’ Liza exclaimed loudly. ‘That’s a bit rich, isn’t it?’
Henry turned on her with a pained expression. He never thought the day would come when he’d be tempted to break his early promise to be loyal to Liza, no matter what.
‘Firstly,’ he said, crusty as a barnacle, ‘Hartley is not a “family seat”. It’s an old house, surrounded by a mere sixteen acres of land, that my great-grandfather bought, for a song, in 1876. Mother has a perfect right to invite anyone she likes to luncheon…’
‘… In our house, then,’ Liza shot back.
‘… Anyone she wants,’ Henry continued, ignoring her protestations, ‘and if she’s generous enough to want to see my father’s son, then it is a noble action on her part, that I, personally, applaud.’
The Granville Affaire Page 15
