After the War Is Over: A Novel

by Jennifer Robson

“As do you.”

  “Was it you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You traveled all the way to Liverpool to see me, but you left without saying hello?”

  “I’m sorry. I had every intention of coming to see you afterward, but then I saw . . .”

  “Yes?” She sidled a little farther into the room, still clutching her valise and handbag.

  “I saw how you were with Mr. Ellis. You seemed so at ease with one another, and I feared you might have formed an attachment to him.”

  “Edward. If you’d come to say hello, I would have told you that John is my friend. No more than my friend.”

  “Yes, well, I know that now.”

  “What is all of this?” She put down her valise and gestured sweepingly around the room.

  “The clinic?”

  “I mean, I know what it is. I want to know why. How can you afford such an undertaking?”

  “It’s a long story. Won’t you sit down?”

  There were two chairs pulled up on the opposite side of the desk to Edward. She deposited her handbag in one and sat in the other.

  “I tried to do it. I came back to London and I set about finding a wife. I did meet one girl, Edith Hale—”

  “Lilly mentioned her. In a letter.”

  He winced a little. “I assure you it didn’t go very far. Edith is terribly nice, and I’m sure that if I’d never met you I could have married her without a second thought. The same could be said for Helena, too. But there was one thing I couldn’t stand about both of them.”

  Lilly had said Miss Hale was very pleasant, and Charlotte had seen with her own eyes how friendly and inoffensive Lady Helena was. “What do you mean?”

  “They weren’t you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I moped about for a while—has Lilly told you how horrid I was at Christmas?—and then it occurred to me that I could do with some decent advice. I’ve a terrible head for figures, so when the solicitors and estate managers and various officials I spoke to all swore I was on the path to ruin, I assumed they were right. I never questioned them.”

  “Who was it? The person you asked for advice?”

  “Robbie. He went through everything with me, every single document, and together we got to the bottom of it all. It took us weeks to find where all the money had gone, and how much was left.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “I wouldn’t say it was good. But it was far less bad than I’d been led to believe. I owed estate duty of a little less than three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, whereas I’d thought I was on the hook for half a million. That was a relief.”

  “I imagine so.” And yet . . . he still owed a third of a million pounds. The amount was so colossal that she felt faint just imagining it.

  “It was Robbie’s idea to next sort out what I had, and that was very much in excess of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. At that point it became merely a question of selling off what I didn’t need.” Was this Edward before her, or some oddly rational doppelgänger?

  “What did your mother say to all of this?”

  “She was and is very unhappy, largely because I sold Ashford House. I’ve always hated the place, so it was surprisingly easy. I also bid adieu to my father’s dreadful hunting lodge in Aberdeenshire, a house in Brighton none of us had ever visited, and the town house in Bath. Then there were mountains of things in the attics at Ashford House and Cumbermere Hall. Paintings, sculptures, some very valuable pieces of furniture. I let my sisters and brother choose what they liked and then I sent what was left to be auctioned off.” He looked as delighted as a schoolboy who had just figured out a very complicated sum.

  “This is . . .”

  “I know. Overwhelming.”

  “I feel as if I ought to lie down.”

  “Be my guest. Though the floors are very dusty.”

  Only then did she realize he hadn’t answered her initial question. “Why the clinic?”

  “Even after all the bills are paid, and I’ve taken care of allowances for my mother and George, I still have a ridiculous amount of money coming in. It’s so ridiculous I’m ashamed to even say the approximate amount out loud. I mean, I’m happy to tell you if—”

  “No, don’t. Not yet.”

  “Then I won’t. I will say, though, that I certainly don’t need it. So I decided—inspired by you and your work—that I ought to do something useful with it.

  “How I might do so was unclear until one night at the end of January. I was walking through Sloane Square, and there was a man standing by the Underground entrance, dressed in little more than rags, and he was begging. I handed him all the coins in my pocket, and when he looked up to take them, I realized he was a soldier from my own company. He’d been invalided home in 1916. He told me how he’d been denied a pension, no doubt for some utterly indefensible reason, but couldn’t find work as he was partially lame.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I brought him home with me, called Robbie over to see him, and then between us we found him a bed at St. Mary’s in Roehampton. He’s still there, and has made good progress. It made me wonder what had happened to the other soldiers I had known. And then, when I asked Robbie about it, he said the receiving rooms at his hospital are full of veterans. Hundreds of men, and no one is making any concerted, organized effort to help them.”

  “So you decided to help?” she asked, her eyes hot with unshed tears.

  “I did. I’ve plans for other clinics in Manchester, Cardiff, Tyneside, Merseyside, and Glasgow. That’s only to start, mind you—there’s enough money to fund half a dozen more.”

  Edward pushed himself to his feet, came round his desk, and, moving her handbag to the floor, sat in the other chair. “I want you to know that I didn’t do this to prove my worth to you, but to myself. I had to know I was worthy of you before I approached you again.”

  He would certainly make her cry if he persisted in saying such things. “Is that why you came to see me?”

  “Yes, and also to cheer you on. You were magnificent.” He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her forehead. “Can you forgive me for all the ways I have failed you? If I’d been thinking straight I’d have figured this out months ago.”

  “There is nothing to forgive.”

  “I will try to make you happy. God knows you deserve it.”

  “You aren’t concerned by what I said in my speech?”

  “About your having been abandoned? Not in the least. It only makes me all the more proud of you.”

  “I love you.”

  “And I you.”

  “I so wish . . . I wish I hadn’t been so critical of you. I ought to have been a better friend.”

  “But you were. I’d never have had the courage to take this path if not for you.” He took her hands in his. “Will you marry me? Even if it makes you a countess?”

  It was such a comical thing for him to say that she burst out laughing. “There’s no getting around it, is there?”

  “No, there isn’t. So . . . ?”

  “Yes, Edward. Yes, I will marry you.” She leaned forward, set her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him until they were both breathless.

  “Shall we call your parents?” he asked a little while later. “I don’t yet have a telephone here, but the post office is just down the street. Will that do?” He stood up carefully and pulled her into his arms.

  “I can hardly wait to tell them.”

  “After you’re done, we’ll walk over to the hospital so I might ask Robbie if he’ll stand up for me. And then we’ll ask Lilly if she will do the same for you.”

  “Mr. Andrews is waiting outside. He refused to leave.”

  “I know. I recognized the sound of my motorcar as soon as you pulled up.”

  “So you knew I was there all along?” she asked, so giddy with delight that she was glad of his supporting arms.

  “Yes, my darlin
g. All along I knew you were there.”

  An Epilogue

  Oxford, England

  October 1920

  The man at Shepherd & Woodward, the academic outfitters, had explained it all to her. She would wear her commoner’s gown to the first part of the ceremony, then return to Convocation House to change into her graduate’s gown and hood. As for the rest, Somerville’s newly elected dean of degrees would be her guide.

  Charlotte was one of forty women receiving their degrees today, for this was the first graduation ceremony, since the university’s founding in the fourteenth century, in which women would be included. She was nervous, of course, though no more so than she’d been on her wedding day back in June.

  It had been the simplest and nicest of weddings. Neither of them had wanted anything grand, so the ceremony had taken place in the Lady Chapel at Wells Cathedral, her father officiating, with only their immediate family and closest friends in attendance.

  Those receiving degrees, as was tradition, had been asked to wait in the Convocation House that adjoined the Sheldonian Theatre. She and the other women had gathered in one corner, and there they’d set out their graduates’ gowns and hoods, which they would retrieve after the first part of the ceremony.

  It felt odd to be wearing subfusc again, for more than a decade had passed since she’d written the last of her examinations. For luck, she was wearing Rosie’s black suit, together with the white blouse, black tie, and soft woolen cap that the university mandated for women students. The cap looked, to Charlotte’s eyes, as if it belonged in a Holbein portrait, but was no less ridiculous a piece of headgear than the mortarboards worn by the men.

  And then it was time. The men marched out, arranged by precedence according to their degrees, with the women following them across the rain-drenched courtyard, through the great south doors, and into one of Sir Christopher Wren’s most beautiful creations.

  She and the other degree supplicants were seated around and above the officers of the university, which afforded the perfect opportunity to take in the spectacle of the ceremony as a whole. Above were the glorious colors of the Sheldonian’s painted dome, while below gleamed the jewel-bright gowns and hoods of the university’s masters and wardens, deans and provosts, rectors and fellows.

  The theater was ringed by galleries, and that is where she found her family: Edward, her parents, Lilly and Robbie, and Miss Rathbone. She’d so have loved to invite more of her friends, but each graduate was given only so many tickets. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask for more.

  The vice chancellor, who not long ago had opposed the granting of degrees to women, read the traditional Latin introduction, as well as an English translation. Men receiving higher degrees, doctors of divinity, philosophy, medicine, and the like, were admitted first, college by college, followed by those receiving master’s and bachelor’s degrees.

  And then it was the women’s turn. Leaving their seats, Charlotte and the others processed to the floor of the theater, where they stood before the vice chancellor as the junior proctor read out their names. When the deans had voted, by their silence, to admit the women, the senior proctor announced—he had the perfect baritone for such an occasion—that they might receive their degrees.

  The vice chancellor read them the oath, which required them to swear unending obedience and fidelity to the university, and together they replied, “Do fidem.” I swear it. He then read his invocation, which, if Charlotte’s Latin hadn’t deserted her altogether, meant that she and the others had been admitted to their degrees. They curtsied and were led out the east door, back to Convocation House, where their gowns awaited.

  Charlotte had hired her master’s gown, for it had seemed silly to waste money on a garment she would never wear again, but the black silk hood, lined in crimson, was her own. Or, rather, it was her husband’s, for it was the same one Edward had worn at his own degree ceremony more than a decade earlier.

  Then it was time to return to the Sheldonian, this time as graduates of the university. The women stood before the vice chancellor a final time, curtsied again, and then, although the ceremony hadn’t ended and any sort of spontaneous applause or vocal approbation was frowned upon, the entire congregation began to clap and cheer and stamp their feet.

  She looked up to the gallery, to where the cheers were loudest, and found the people she loved most in the world. They had come here today for her, to cheer her on and applaud her success and show her, by their support, that she was worthy of them.

  The ceremony at an end, its participants and spectators converged on the courtyard outside. Cold rain was pelting down, the sky dark as dusk, and a phalanx of identical black umbrellas stood between Charlotte and her loved ones.

  Without warning, a hand grasped her waist, spinning her back into a pair of waiting and wonderfully warm arms.

  “Is that Charlotte Jocelin Neville-Ashford, M.A.?”

  “It is. What did you think?” she asked, although Edward’s smile was all the answer she needed.

  “Far more impressive than my own degree ceremony. But then, you helped to make history today. Are you ready to celebrate?”

  “Yes, please. Where is everyone else?”

  “I sent them ahead to Somerville. You don’t mind walking up, do you? Just the two of us?”

  “Not at all. It may be our only chance to talk until this evening. Oh, look—the rain is stopping.” Charlotte stepped out from under the umbrella they shared, still holding her husband’s hand, and tilted her face to the sky. “And there’s the sun. Just in time.”

  “If I still believed in such things, I’d say it was a harbinger of days to come.”

  “Such a romantic. You’ll make me swoon,” she teased.

  “Yet it’s true. We survived the storm—I hope you recognize that I’m speaking figuratively, since you are the one with a degree in English literature, and here we are—”

  “Here we are, having our day in the sun. What more could any woman want?”

  “The rest of her family at her side as she celebrates her achievements?”

  “There is that. Shall we?”

  Arm in arm, with Charlotte measuring her steps to match Edward’s pace, they moved forward together. Across the gold-tinged stone of the courtyard, down onto Broad Street, and into the long-awaited sun.

  Acknowledgments

  I offer my sincere thanks to the following for their assistance, with the further observation that I alone am responsible for any remaining omissions, inaccuracies, or errors.

  The Imperial War Museum, the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Museum of Liverpool, the National Archives (U.K.), and the Toronto Reference Library. Their wealth of digitized holdings formed the foundation of my research for this book.

  Dr. Kathryn Ferry, for her extremely helpful advice regarding Blackpool and British seaside culture in the early twentieth century.

  Ms. Sue Light, for her invaluable assistance in regard to Charlotte’s service as a nurse during the war. Ms. Light, herself a trained nurse and midwife, specializes in the history of the military nursing services of the early twentieth century.

  Dr. Ross McKibbin, Emeritus Research Fellow, St. John’s College, Oxford, and Mr. Philip Waller, Emeritus Fellow, Merton College, Oxford. I am most grateful to both of them for graciously agreeing to read and make observations on the manuscript of this book.

  Major Thomas Vincent, the Canadian Scottish Regiment, for his illuminating insights into the life of an infantry officer, and for clarification on a number of details regarding command structure and military routine.

  My father, Professor Stuart Robson, for his advice in regard to everyday life in the front lines, and for his careful reading and critique of the entire manuscript.

  My literary agent, Kevan Lyon, and her colleagues at the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. I am so deeply thankful for their continuing support and guidance.

  My editor, Amanda Bergeron, who is simply the best writing teacher I’ve ever had, and my copy editor,
Martin Karlow, who regularly astonishes me with the precision and elegance of his corrections; and production editor Serena Wang who has a sharp eye for detail. Thank you to Elle Keck for all of her help. I am most grateful to Camille Collins and Lauren Jackson in publicity at HarperCollins U.S., and Miranda Snyder and Sonya Koson, their counterparts at HarperCollins Canada, for their hard work on my behalf, as well as their colleagues in marketing, among them Molly Birckhead, Emma Ingram, Shannon Parsons, Alaina Waagner, and Kaitlyn Vincent. I am also very thankful to the art department at HarperCollins, most notably Emin Mancheril and Mumtaz Mustafa, for creating such beautiful covers and capturing the spirit of my books so perfectly.

  My circle of friends, among them Ana, Clara, Denise, Erin, Irene, the Janes, Jen, Katarina, the Kellys, Libbie, Liz, Mary, Michela, and Rena. Thank you for believing in me, for taking care of my children (and me) whenever I needed a helping hand, and for hand-selling so many copies of my books to your relatives and colleagues!

  My family, all of you, in Canada and abroad. Thank you for your support, encouragement, and praise. Most of all I thank my sister Kate Robson, who is my inspiration in all things, and so smart, hardworking, and courageous that she puts Charlotte to shame.

  My children, Matthew and Daniela, for being so patient and supportive, and whose unconditional love is the light that brightens my days.

  And my husband, who is the dearest, funniest, smartest, and kindest man I have ever met. Claudio—I could turn you into a hero in one of my books, but people would say, “this character is too good to be true.” You are the best.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the author

  * * *

  Meet Jennifer Robson

  A Conversation with Jennifer Robson

  About the book

  * * *

  The Enduring Appeal of Blackpool

  Glossary of Terms Used in After the War Is Over

  Reading Group Guide

  Read on