by Phillip Rock
She gave his hand a quick squeeze. He was about the same age as her husband, and yet he looked years younger. A fine-boned, delicate face that would have been pretty had it not been for the sardonic twist to the mouth and the vulpine eyes. “You always look out for him.”
He turned to her and kissed her softly on the cheek. “And you, Winnie.”
THEY BURIED John Harum Coatsworth on Saturday morning, a cloudless day, the High Street thronged with shoppers. It was a simple ceremony—as Coatsworth would have wished—and Charles’s eulogy was brief, if heartfelt. The vicar, mindful of the fact that many of those in attendance were servants from the Pryory, wished to read the passage from Matthew that began with … “Well done, thou good and faithful servant …” but Hanna dissuaded him and he chose a selection from Isaiah instead. The last of Coatsworth’s three favorite hymns was sung and then the casket was carried into the churchyard.
Massive oaks shaded lush, damp grass and old gravestones. The vicar intoned a prayer.
“In the midst of life we are in death …”
The younger parlormaids, dressed in their best frocks, fidgeted at the back of the crowd, casting anxious glances toward the bustle of the High Street. They had been given a holiday until five that afternoon and they yearned to make the most of it.
“… of the Resurrection unto eternal life. Amen.”
The mourners dispersed, the servants hurrying—without appearing too eager—toward the excitements of the town: the F. W. Woolworth’s, the tea shops, and the pubs.
Winifred, holding a fidgeting Kate firmly by the hand, and trailed by the twins, both wearing expressions of almost theatrical somberness, walked over to where her husband stood talking with Martin and Charles and William Greville. The Hon. William, seven years younger than his brother, was a giant of a man who could easily have shouldered the casket to the grave without the aid of his fellow pallbearers—could have, that is, if his right knee, shattered by a bullet in 1917, had been up to the strain.
“We’re all expected at the vicarage for sherry,” Winifred said.
Charles shook his head. “Tea. Glynis Masefield made cress sandwiches and a Madeira cake.”
William, his knee aching from kneeling at prayers, rubbed it vigorously and scowled. “Oh, bugger that. I’m for a pint or two at the Rose and Crown.”
“So am I,” Charles said, “but I’d best attend. It would embarrass Mother and disappoint Glynis terribly. You chaps sneak away. You won’t be missed.”
The three men took him at his word and trailed the crowd moving along the gravel path toward the street. William cast a final glance over his shoulder at the grave.
“Poor old codger. I was the bane of his life. God, how he dreaded my coming down from Eton on hols, usually with two or three of my friends—rowdies all. We were always trying to find some way of breaking into the wine cellar. He managed to foil all our schemes, but it left him a nervous wreck. Oh, well, de mortuis and all that. He was a decent old soul.”
“Your father will miss him,” Fenton said.
“Lord, yes. That was all he talked of when I telephoned him from Dublin yesterday—that and the uncivilized food. Poor Father. Never been ill a day in his life. He finds the whole hospital routine quite beyond his understanding. Dulcie just left one in Leicester. She called him to sympathize and promised to send a Yorkshire ham.”
“Dulcie ill?” Fenton asked.
“Had the tubes tied—thank God and about time, too. That last miscarriage nearly did her in. No heirs from us and that’s certain.”
“Who is Glynis, by the way?” Martin asked.
William laughed. “The vicar’s niece. A pallid, mousy little thing. Mother finds her attractive only because she’s remained unmarried, and impregnably virgin I daresay, to the age of thirty. Any unattached female of acceptable social background is fair game for Mother’s artful nets.”
“I have the impression Charles isn’t interested in women at the moment.”
“Quite so. He wants only to be left alone in the sanctuary of Burgate House School. Wouldn’t you agree, Fenton?”
“I’m afraid so, yes.”
William shook his leonine head. “Christ! Talk about a lost generation. If all the people ruined by the war had their names carved on stone shafts there wouldn’t be quarries enough to mine them!”
They were in the shadow of the war memorial at the top of the High Street …
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
1914–1918
… chiseled into the pale marble. Martin avoided looking at it. He knew only one of the names carved below the inscription—Ivy Thaxton Rilke of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service—but that one was enough.
“How was Ireland?” he asked as they crossed the street.
“Wet. But successful. I bought a super colt in Kilkenny. A real Derby prospect.”
“For yourself?”
“Yes. The old Biscuit Tin Stables. I’ve stopped training for others, although it was fun while it lasted—especially in the States. Saratoga … Belmont. I’ll miss all that … and the bloody marvelous parties Jock Haynes used to toss at East Hampton. Poor old Jock. I understand he lost everything in the crash.”
They turned off the busy street and down a short, cobblestoned alley that led to the Rose and Crown, Abingdon’s oldest public house. William ducked through the low doorway of a tobacconist to buy a box of cigarettes while Fenton and Martin continued walking slowly toward the pub.
“Hesitate to ask, old boy,” Fenton drawled, “but how did Mistress Wall Street treat you?”
“With a kiss on the brow. I was advised to sell out a few months before the deluge. The only shares I owned were CBC radio. Bought them at twelve dollars and sold at three hundred and five. They’re down to eighteen today. I made a fortune and someone got burned. Feel a bit guilty about it, to tell the truth.”
“No need to feel that. A fundamental economic law. For every winner on the stock exchange there are ten who lose their shirts.”
To step inside the Rose and Crown was to step back in time. It could have been 1913 in the murky, dark oak interior, or 1813 for that matter. No American-style cocktails were served. Beer in oak barrels from the Kentish Weald. Scotch whisky in stone crocks. Good English gin—not blasphemed by French vermouth. The only concession to the times was ice for the gin and tonics—but then only on request and grudgingly, and sparingly, slipped into the glass from a teaspoon. Fenton ordered three pints of bitter. When William entered the crowded bar he was quickly surrounded by a boisterous group of men all sporting cloth caps, checked tweed jackets, and riding boots. He introduced them as friends from the racing circuit and members of the Abingdon Hunt Club. The ensuing conversation regarding steeplechasing as compared to flat racing was too esoteric for Martin and Fenton, who slipped away with their beers and went outside to sit on a bench beside a whitewashed wall.
“Horses!” Fenton muttered in disgust. “Whoever it was who said that England was hell for horses and heaven for women didn’t know what he was talking about. The average Englishman would much prefer to make love to a horse.”
“Difficult.”
“Where there’s a will, and all that.” He took a sip of his beer. “I read your book, by the way. An End to Castles.”
“How did you manage? It’s not out yet.”
“Arnold Calthorpe sent Winnie a galley proof. Thick as thieves, those two. Winnie’s money helps keep his presses churning out pamphlets for No More War International.”
Martin set his glass on the bench and took a leather cigar case from his coat pocket. “A pacifist wife. How does that go down with the brass hats?”
He shrugged and accepted one of Martin’s cigars. “The eccentricities of military wives has been an accepted toleration since Marlborough’s day.” He passed the cigar under his nose. “Perfect. Cuba?”
“Tampa, Florida.”
“Ah, America. The best of all worlds under one roof. I must go there one day. Perhaps when
I retire.”
“Not thinking of doing that, are you?”
“Well, I’m not, but one or two others have suggested it.” He lit his cigar and blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. “I liked your book, Martin … at least parts of it. You were bang on regarding the French fortress line. That defense minister … Maginot … allocating billions of francs for a bloody concrete trench! ‘Verdun with air-conditioning’ … as you so succinctly put it.”
“He was wounded at Verdun and swore that French soldiers would never have to endure that kind of slaughter again.”
“His motive was noble. It’s his tactics that are wrong. Dangerous, in fact. A lulling sense of security that paralyzes the initiative of the army to achieve mechanized mobility—but for God’s sake don’t let me get started on that subject.”
Martin grinned at his old friend. “No shop talk in the mess—as you used to say.”
“I still do, but I don’t mind exchanging a view or two with a chap in civvy street. Your motive is as noble as Monsieur Maginot’s, and just as wrong. For a man who has seen as much war as you have, I can understand your passionate hatred of it. But the solution for peace which you propose in your book rests on a dream.”
“An ideal. A goal worth seeking. No more than that.”
“We share the same goal, dear chap. We have different approaches to the problem. God knows I want peace eternal. If Maginot remembers Verdun, I remember the Somme and Passchendaele. No more massacres of poor bloody infantry for a few yards of stinking, bloody ground … ever! As most professional soldiers, I’m as belligerent as a nun, but I do want England to have the best army in the world. A small cadre of forces second to none … modern, innovative, daringly imaginative … so no nation would risk drawing a sword against her. Peace through power. How does that strike you painted across a banner?”
“I prefer—the power of peace.”
Fenton laughed and leaned back against the wall, tilting his face to the sun. “One might hear that phrase uttered at the League of Nations … in a speech expressing moral indignation at what the Italians are doing in North Africa. Do you think Mussolini gives a damn if some Swedish pastor is morally dismayed? He wants his new Roman empire and he’ll get it if he has to shoot every Arab in Libya. To believe otherwise is naïve, wishful thinking, and you’re hardly a naïve man.”
“No, but I am a hopeful one. Total world disarmament of heavy weapons and bombing planes is the only certain answer. And it’s possible to attain.”
The brigadier scowled and took a reflective puff on his cigar. “Perhaps. But that disarmament commission at the League hasn’t come up with anything positive on the subject in four years.”
“It’s not for lack of trying, and you know it. Whenever they make a recommendation one nation or another raises an objection. They’re meeting again next month. I might go to Geneva and observe the conference. Their problems would make an interesting article, perhaps even a book.”
“There’s only one problem, dear fellow, and that is which nation will have the courage to be the first to toss its guns into the sea and stand naked to its enemies. Do you remember when Jacob came back from the Balkans after that bugger of an archduke got scuppered at Sarajevo?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ve never forgotten what he told us … that there was an awesome amount of hate festering beyond our bucolic horizons. It seems to me there still is.” He drained his beer and stood up. “But there’s nothing we can do about that, is there?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Except have another pint.” He raised his glass as though brandishing a sword. “Come three-quarters of the world in arms and we shall shock them! If God … and the budget … be willing.”
THE DINNER WAS not up to the Countess of Stanmore’s epicurean standards. The half holiday had played havoc with the kitchen staff, the chef and his helpers having raised too many pints to Coatsworth’s memory in the pubs of Abingdon. Still, if the saddle of lamb was a bit overdone and the roast potatoes verged on the raw, no one else appeared to notice or care. Hanna took a sip of wine and looked down the long table at her guests. So many of the people she loved most in the world seated before her. It lacked only the presence of her daughter and grandsons, and Anthony home from the hospital, for her contentment to be complete.
“Did I tell you that Alex is coming over this summer?” she said to Winifred.
“No. How wonderful.”
“And bringing Colin and young John with her. I shall have a nice, noisy house for a change.”
There was a sudden blare of dance music from the direction of the ballroom. Winifred smiled wryly. “You have a noisy house now.”
“The girls tuned in the wireless set, bless them.”
Winifred half rose from her seat. “I’ll tell them to turn down the volume.”
Hanna waved her back. “No, dear. I enjoy music.”
“Jack Hylton’s band by the sound of it,” William said. “‘The Syncopation Hour from Savoy Hill.’”
Hanna reached out and touched Winifred’s hand. “Remember when Alex used to play her gramophone in the ballroom and taught you all the latest steps?”
“Tried to teach me, you mean. The Texas Tommy and the Castle Walk. I was hopeless.”
“Only charmingly out of step,” Fenton remarked. “I quite fell in love with you. Your interpretation of the Bunny Hug was my undoing.”
The girls were dancing by themselves, whirling across the large room in the spangled light from the chandeliers, dipping and swaying to the throbbing tones emanating from a large super-heterodyne radio receiver on the bandstand. When the adults entered with their coffees and brandies, Jennifer ran to her father and begged him to dance with her while Victoria, unconsciously playing the coquette, led Charles playfully onto the floor as the band swung into a foxtrot.
The girls were sent to bed at nine thirty—despite the protests of the twins that they be allowed to stay up until ten. Hanna and Winifred retired shortly after that and the men sought the billiard room. It was past midnight when Fenton went to his suite in the south wing of the huge house, strolling down the long, dimly lit corridors smoking a cigar and humming softly to himself. He felt mellow with brandy and the triumph of having, finally, beaten Martin at a game of snooker. He was surprised to find Winifred awake, sitting up in bed in the dark, the window drapes open and moonlight flooding the room. He put out his cigar, loosened his tie, and sat on the bed beside her. “Can’t sleep?”
“I haven’t tried. I’ve been letting my thoughts roam.”
He bent to her and kissed her brow. “Over hill and dale?”
“This house. So many undertones.”
“Undertones of what?”
“Sadness. Did you notice Hanna’s expression while Charles was dancing with Vicky?”
“No. I had a galloping colt of a girl to manage.”
“She had such a pensive look on her face.”
“Not surprising. It’s been that sort of a day.”
“It had nothing to do with the funeral if that’s what you mean. When we were going upstairs to bed she insisted I come to her sitting room for a glass of sherry and to look at some photographs.”
“What photographs?”
“Oh, nineteen fourteen … the spring before the war … when mother brought me here practically every weekend … in expectation, as she so bluntly put it.”
He grunted and bent down to unlace his shoes. “You and Charlie posed formally in the rose garden.”
“Yes.”
“The prints suitable for reproduction in the Court Circular … The Marquess and Marchioness of Dexford announce the engagement of their daughter …”
“It was the way she showed them. Such a wistful return to the past … dragging me along with her … knowing I’ve seen the pictures before … also knowing those were not happy times for me.”
“Or Charles, for that matter.”
“He thought of me as a younger sister in those
days. Hanna was certainly aware of his feelings—and mine.”
He stroked the petal softness of her arm. “Don’t let it upset you. She was just being nostalgic. A world that might have been.”
“I suppose you’re right. We have so much, you and I. And Charles has so little.”
He took hold of her and pressed her gently against his chest. “Hanna may wish he had more, but he has what he wants most at the moment … inner contentment and peace. God knows he went through enough hell to achieve it.”
He tightened his arms about her, feeling the warmth of her body through his shirt, the beat of her heart. He was thinking of the High Street and the cold cenotaph. The names of the war dead cut forever into marble. So many other names left uncarved—Charles Greville’s among them. Not enough quarries in the world to mine the stones.
3
MAY BROUGHT A warm wind out of the southwest that set the windows of Burgate House rattling and whipped the great elms into frenzy. Deep banks of dried leaves, dormant since winter, swirled across the grounds in a blizzard of browns and reds.
Charles Greville stood in front of the tall windows in the common room and looked out on the rose garden and the wildly thrashing bushes. A freakish wind, he was thinking, almost tropical in its warmth and intensity. It would dry out the sodden ground, which would be a blessing, but play merry hell with hay ricks and hop poles throughout the Weald.
“The tea’s ready … and there’s hot scones.”
Charles turned his back to the tumult in the garden and smiled at old Mrs. Mahon as she wheeled in the tea urn.
“Lovely. Did you make the scones?”
“No, Mr. Greville. Not this morning. I let Millie try her hand at it. My recipe, of course. Ballyconneely scones right enough.”
